Argentinean Military's Role in UFO Research;
Air Misses:
AIRMISS IN BARILOCHE, ARGENTINA, 1995:
Argentinean Air Force, pressured indirectly by the media regarding the incident, stepped forth with the tired excuse that "no investigation of the case would take place, since there is no official agency in charge of looking into UFOs..."
The most childish and laughable of all the explanations ventilated on the subject was the one pinning the blame on the Moon as the source of what Captain Polanco and other pilots in Bariloche had seen. This is not the first nor the last time that an attempt to justify a case is made: if it cannot be explained as a weather baloon, there is an infinity of objects that can be used to explain it.
Therefore, we have heard that "Jupiter" wanders below the cloud cover in the skies over Mar del Plata on some occasions. Faced with a case such as Bariloche (qualified witnesses, multiple effects) it was undoubtable that the naysayers should try to "explain" what had happened. When they were unable to resort to their usual "chesnuts": alcoholism or hallucinations among the rural population.
On October 6, 1995, the news was circulated that four members of the Air Gendarmerie had died in an aviation accident. One of the victims was Cmdr. Juan Domingo Gaitán, who alongside Aerolíneas Argentinas pilot Jorge Polanco, had witnessed the Bariloche UFO on July 31. No details were made available as to the reasons behind this tragic accident, although many followers of the South American UFO scene believe that an effort to "silence" the witnesses of the Bariloche UFO had been set in motion.
AUTRES INCIDENTS SIGNIFICATIFS:
August 11, 1964: In Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego) a Beechcraft 5G2 aircraft had just requested permission from the local airport control tower to land at 1700 hrs, when a glowing UFO suddenly followed the small plane for a number of minutes. Captain Raul Salgado (an experienced pilot) decided to direct his aircraft toward the intruder, but the UFO outdistanced him at a prodigious speed.
August 1965: Punta Indio Aeronaval Base. As a result of the large amount of sightings which had taken place, the Argentinean Navy decided to track UFOs with radar and by means of chase planes. The operation was under the command of Captain Omar Pagani and other naval officers. During one event, a strange echo was picked up on the radar screen. A Navy jet was scrambled after the intruder, but the UFO managed to elude its pursuer repeatedly. The pilot reported that the objec t had an "ellipsoid" configuration, being some 12 meters in diameter and as close to his interceptor as 200 meters, at one point.
September 23, 1984: In the vicinity of Reconquista (province of Santa Fé), pilot Carlos Sorini was flying a Piper LV Mee carrying seven passengers. At 2100 hours, both pilot and passenger observed the evolutions of a UFO which interfered with the small plane's instrumentation. The radiocompass oscillated between 0.05 degrees and 270 degrees. The UFO was also detected by Flight 760 of Aerolíneas Argentinas and by Flight 61 of Austral Airlines. The witnesses stated that this odyssey lasted 45 minutes.
August 18, 1985: In the vicinity of Ceres (Santa Fé), 2 UFOs were sighted by a number of journalists aboard a Boeing 737. One of them, Roberto Ruiz, of Buenos Aires' Clarin was able to take a sequence of 36 photographs of the object. The UFO changed colors and performed an array of maneuvers. The event took place at 2100 hrs. that day.
August 20, 1985: Town of Charata, Resistencia (Chaco Province), from 0700 to 1600 hours. A UFO was reported in a number of communities throughout the day. Hugo Weschbilling (Air Traffic Controller at Resistencia) witnessed the object. At 0755 hrs., the captain of an Aerolíneas Argentinas 747 reported the object at 90 degrees to his aircraft, and that it was performing a series of rising and descending maneuvers. The bizarre object was also reported by other aircraft.
July 26, 1995 A similarly impressive event transpired on in San José, Costa Rica: a colossal UFO was detected on the radar screens of the Tobías Bolaños Airport. Pilot Everardo Carmona was conducting a training mission when he sighted the UFO, which he later described as "enormous, ovoidal and brilliant." Tower Controllers Gerardo Giménez and Javier Mayorga confirmed that their instruments suffered magnetic alterations for a few seconds.
A RECENT INCIDENT IN BARILOCHE:
A very large multicolored UFO appeared early on Easter Sunday morning, April 23, 2000, over the city of San Carlos de Bariloche, in the foothills of the Andes about 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of Buenos Aires. The craft, which appeared at 2 a.m., was seen by television newswoman Noemi Molina, who attempted to capture its image on her camcorder. But after five seconds of shooting, her camcorder's battery suddenly lost all of its power.
Clarin Argentina, August 2, 1995 "A strange phenomenon complicated the flight of a plane in Bariloche", the Bariloche Argentina classic case.
San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 1995, page C1. http://www.ufologie.net/press/clarin2aug1995.htm
Teletext on Swiss Romande TV.
TV reports:
"Almorzando con Mirtha Legrand", Canal 9, Buenos Aires, August 4, 1995.
News items, Suisse Romande, August 3, 1995.
"Telenoche", Canal 13, Buenos Aires, August 2, 1995.
"Telefé Noticias", Canal 11, Buenos Aires, August 2, 1995.
"Memoria", Canal 9, Buenos Aires, August 2, 1995.
"Hola Susana", Canal 11, Buenos Aires, August 2, 1995.
The Air Force of Argentina on Dec. 23, 2010 formally announced the formation of a committee to study the UFO phenomenon.
The Argentinean Air Force’s action to form a UFO investigation unit was confirmed by Sylvia Perez Simondini of the CEFORA (Argentinean Republic Committee for UFO Phenomena Studies), "an organization formed by various UFOlogy groups in Argentina. The main purpose is the declassification of all related UFO phenomena in Argentina. It was formed by serious Argentinean UFOlogists in Victoria, Entre Rios during a conference.”
In a public statement, Ms. Perez Simondini says,
"The Argentinean Air Force has just announced the formation of a commission to investigate the UFO phenomenon.
"The Director of Institutional Relations of the Argentinean Air Force confirmed on Telefe Newscast that it has recorded two UFO sightings it cannot account for by normal explanations. The Argentinean Air Force further stated that the mission of the Air Force is to guard the security of Argentinean air space.
"This is a message that all UFO researchers hoped for, filling us with satisfaction to hear that this will occur.
"In our last congress, especially in the Uruguay, which was conducted fairly by the Uruguayan Air Force, at that time, I received greetings from Commodore Robert Muller, Head of the Unit II Air Brigade Paraná, from Colonel Ariel Rios Sanchez, Head of Ricardo Bermúdez CRIDOVNI of CEFAA, the sister republic of Chile, from Ademar Gevaerd Director of the Brazilian UFO Magazine, who is the coordinator of the declassification of UFO phenomenon in Brazil, in order to urge the Air Force of Argentina toward a common goal of UFO disclosure.
"UFOs are real. I myself had an experience of this sort in 1951. It was a yellowish-silver disk with deep red edges, moving at high speed at an altitude of some 500 meters..."
Vicecommodore Oscar Bario. Argentinian Defense.
"At this state of events, and with the evidence available to us, it is hard to deny the existence of flying saucers."
Vicecommodore Dante La Roca. Argentinian Defense.
"I believe in the so-called flying saucer, and it is my understanding that the Air Force will pursue studies on this subject."
Commander Adolfo Alvarez, 1968. Argentinian Defense.
The Seven Official declarations made by the Argentinian Government
Argentinian Military/Government communique:
1962: At 19:20 hrs on May 22, a squadron of fighters in the vicinity of Bahía Blanca's Comandante Espora Naval Base, reports the presence of UFOs along its flight path. The interception lasted 35 minutes. Direct eyewitnesses to this incident were Lt. Rodolfo César Galdós and his student, Roberto Wilkinson. Report No. 02779 causes the first official acknowledgment by an Argentinean government.
1965: Between the months of June and July, a succession of UFO incidents occur in the Antarctic region, some of them producing electromagnetic disturbances, and witnessed by personnel from the British, Chilean and Argentine bases. A phenomenon on July 3rd at the Deception Island Naval Station generates the second official acknowledgment.
1973: On November 2nd, six members of the Comandante Espora Naval Air Base, close to Bahía Blanca, witness the maneuvers of a UFO, immediately producing the third official acknowledgment.
1978: On the evening of February 4 at the La Florida dam in San Luis, six persons report the presence of a UFO and the descent of an occupant from within, leaving ground marks. The Police Precinct of San Luis, through its chief, Lt.Col. Raul Benjamín López, issues a document which constitutes the fourth official acknowledgment.
1978: Toward midnight on July 12, a low-level UFO sighting causes a commotion in the Estación Ramblón region, located between the limits of San Juan and Mendoza. It was witnessed by police officers among many others. The San Juan chief of police, Col. Guillermo Voguel, prepares the fifth official acknowledgment.
1982: In the evening of August 13, a UFO causes a disturbance in the town of Londres, Catamarca, and its flyover produces strong winds and starts a conflagration. A police patrolman attests to the intruder's presence. The provincial police emits the sixth official acknowledgment.
1986: The appearance of a nocturnal UFO and the subsequent discovery of a gigantic indentation on El Pajarillo hill, Córdoba, on January 9th, prompt this city's municipal authorities to issue the seventh and final official acknowledgment
On Thursday, May 13, 2010, Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez opened the bicentennial festivities in the city of Victoria. Researcher Silvia Perez Simondini took advantage of this opportunity to present the first executive with an envelope containing CEFORA documentation regarding UFO declassification efforts in other countries, as well as the list of researchers struggling for the declassification of the UFO archives.The President approached Ms. Simondini, who asked her to please read the contents of the envelope, which she promised to do.
Two days later, during communications with Casa Rosada, it was confirmed that this documentation had been read and a promise of a reply was also confirmed. This is the first formal contact with Argentinean authorities regarding a request for declassification, in the hope that the desired goal can be achieved. Posted by Inexplicata.
In the 1960s, the Argentine Navy was charged with the official investigation of UFO sightings, particularly those reported by its own personnel. A 1965 "Official UFO Report" prepared by Captain Sánchez Moreno from the Naval Air Station Comandante Espora in Bahía Blanca, revealed that:
"Between 1950 and 1965, personnel of Argentina's Navy alone made 22 sightings of unidentified flying objects that were not airplanes, satellites, weather balloons or any type of known (aerial) vehicles. These 22 cases served as precedents for intensifying that investigation of the subject by the Navy. In the past two years, nine incidents have been recorded that are being studied by Captain Pagani and a team of military and civilian scientists and collaborators. Likewise, a meticulous questionnaire was drafted, printed and distributed to different bases.
In a short time, the Service of Naval Intelligence was in possession of a stack of highly significant reports of testimonies. On the basis of this important documentation, it was possible to obtain a coherent overview of the problem." (Captain Sánchez Moreno, Informe Oficial O.V.N.I., Sumario S# A. 02778-DTO. OVNI, Naval Air Station Comandante Espora, in ICUFON Project World Authority for Spatial Affairs (W.A.S.A.), New York, 1979.)
On Thursday May 13th (2010), the President of Argentina Cristina Fernandez, led the Bicentennial event for the city of Victoria in San Martín Plaza. UFO researcher Simondini Silvia Perez waited for hours to take this opportunity to deliver an envelope to President Fernandez with documentation from the UFO organization, CEFORA, on the history of declassified UFO files in other countries along with a list of the researchers in the (CEFORA) organization. They are pushing for the declassification of UFO records in Argentina. This is the first formal contact with Argentinean authorities to request the declassification of UFO files.
After another military man remarked only a few days ago behind closed doors, the official verbal communiqué has been issued.
According to the AFP and Terra news agencies, a spokesperson for the Argentinean Air Force (AAF) has confirmed today (Dec. 29) the decision to create a commission to record and investigate claims of unidentified flying objects in that country’s air space.
“The Commission for the Research of Aerospatial Phenomena is in the process of being formed,” said Captain Mariano Mohaupt, the AAF’s media consultant. The officer disclosed that the Air Force has already recorded the unexplained experiences of some of its pilots, “and now things will be perceived from the formal, professional standpoint, contributing toward our mission, which is to control our air space.”
The team would be multidisciplinary in nature, including meteorologists, flight controllers, pilots and radar specialists, and shall receive reports made by citizens regarding phenomena seen in space. “There are many reports that are later investigated, and they turn out not involve unconventional events,” explained Mohaupt.
Tealdi: The airspace is the responsibility, is under the control of the air force through the available operative means which are the radars installed in different parts of the country.
Hendel: If there was some type of unidentified craft or a UFO, could you tell?
Tealdi: Radars have the capacity of identifying, according to the surface of a celestial phenomenon or object in space there is a bounce in the radar which is identified as an echo; starting from that which appears as an echo the air force has the responsibility of investigating to see what it is, in other words, what are we talking about with regards to that echo.
Hendel: Could we say that they are UFOs?
Tealdi: The air force does not speculate with regards to the existence of manned or craft sent here, that is something that people deal with in a personal way, what the air force does is to try to identify what we are talking about in terms of the security of the air traffic which is our responsibility.
Hendel: What amount of registered echoes are archived?
Tealdi: There are really very few, there about two or three cases but there was not enough time or motive to intercept them [scramble fighters] because they were very brief situations in terms of time.
Hendel: And until now you have not been able to identify an extraterrestrial existence?
Tealdi: Correct.
quote;
"Following this brief exchange, the reporter told the anchorman about the impending announcement of the creation of an official commission “to investigate celestial phenomena.” Capt. Mohaupt’s announcement a few days later officially confirmed her scoop".
The events of Atalanta in 1990 is one of the most important and mysterious appearances of unknown flying boats in Greece worth your present.
On Sunday, September 2, 1990 a series of strange events occurred in Greece and became one of the strangest occurrences alien on this planet. Atalanta is the name of a city located in central Greece, the prefecture of Fthiotida. Initial reports speak of not one, but 12 to 17 flying objects, which first appeared on the mountain Penteli in Athens. The UFO flew south to the Peloponnese and changed course again in central Greece.
In the second pass over central Greece, at about 9:30 pm, one of the UFO, seemed to have glitches and a few minutes later the object crashed outside the small village of Great Tree, a few kilometers from Atalanta. Many local residents reported the strange event to local authorities but the inaccessibility of the area did not allow access evening at the crash.
According to testimony from a family very close area, found at 21:30 the sky thirteen bright objects moving at high speed with lights as possible (they said) eskizan lights the sky, which passed over them and left. After 15 minutes, they heard three consecutive explosions in the sky and a red object appeared much larger than the previous ones, which seemed to have taken fire. While looking at, that fell to the ground in the adjacent hill, who abstained from a mile.
The testimony continues: "After a while they came, flying at high speed, but smaller and surrounded the big one. landed in a circle around the original, highly illuminating the area. It seemed, according to witnesses, have formed a protective wall, which prevent the fire spread to the surrounding reeds, and then trees. From that appeared in the morning, it seems that something had been thrown, because the place was wet and sticking reeds. We stand and watched. My husband feared came to us .
He grabbed his double-barreled and moved towards them to see them better. In front of the burning object seemed to spend some shadows, but could not tell whether people were or anything else. something was in the bright circle they had formed around the large object. remained there from about 10:00 p.m. on Sunday by three in the morning Monday. This morning there was only a little smoke, and the territory where the landing took place and the surrounding undergrowth had been burnt ..
Witnesses who went to the landing area, found some parts facility and a spongy material. Near this were a pine tree, the trunk of the burnt at a low altitude. When the witness tried to catch the pine in his hand appeared small bubbles, like it was burned.
In the area of landing there were also circular holes in the ground, Knoll soil around the opening of each hole. There, the witness identified and turned over to authorities a strange object: a circular piece with two diametrically opposite antennas etched on it a shape reminiscent of lightning. Since it appeared in the morning, something seems to have dropped, because the place was wet and sticking reeds ..
This morning there was only a little smoke, and the territory where the landing took place and the surrounding undergrowth had been burnt. Another witness who went to the landing area, found some parts facility and a spongy material. Near here was a pine tree, the trunk of burnt at low altitude. When the witness tried to catch the pine in his hand appeared small bubbles, like it was burned.
On October 19, 1990 the Centre for Research and Technology of the Greek Air Force, issued a statement on the matter to Atalanta. According to this statement, found on the premises:
Pieces of a female connector with 11 cm diameter, made of copper with Arabic numerals in the center of;
A series of a multipin cable made of copper, connected with the above plug.;
The insulator of these cables was a silky fabric;
A burnt rubber circular cap;
A ring of steel;
Three bars of steel 10 cm each;
The bottom two controllers with the Greek letter P on the basis of
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Makis Podotas is probably one of the best credible UFO researchers in Greece just now, so i thought it fitting to included some info o him in this post;
MAKIS PODOTAS;
UFO RESEARCH - GREECE;
Makis Podotas - UFO and Paranormal Phenomena Researcher - Greece, European Union;
HOME;
Mr. Makis Podotas is the oldest, most active and well known UFO Researcher in Greece.
His 43 years (since 1964) of active research, findings and publicity have helped to create an enormous understanding and interest about the UFO Phenomenon among the Greek public.
The report confirms that the debris found was land-based sources, since there were alphabetical and numerical information. It was old technology, based on the materials used. They are probably pieces of an old satellite. This conclusion was based on measurements of the wiring and construction. The satellite must be from Europe or the former Soviet Union. Regarding the letter F, it is reported that the Soviet Union since that country uses this Greek letter in the Cyrillic alphabet and also has the technology for such a device.
This is a good report. Why after a little stay in the center of research and technology in the Greek airforce, debris transferred to NASA;
quote;
"Evening at about 20.00 hours over twenty random eyewitnesses have seen the ball flying object which was moving parallel to the ground. UFO glowed red, and walked at a speed of about 15 meters per second. But after a few seconds, disaster struck.
The object fell at an angle of 60-70 degrees on limestone mountain, located in the city and known as the " height of 611 ". According to a survey of witnesses, the machine before it crashed into a mountain a few times jerked up and down. After which the UFO silently exploded and burned for an hour.
Five days later, on February 3, arrived in Dalnegorsk field expedition of the Far Eastern Branch of the Research Committee of the anomalous air events at the Academy of Sciences, headed by doctors and well-known seaside UFO Valery Brier. Expeditionary Unit, surveyed the area and found a 2x2 meter area with traces of high impact.
Fragments of rocks on it were covered with black film with traces of discoloration, and she ground - black ash. Found the remains of burnt wood, transformed into porous carbons that are not characteristic for a typical forest fire. Ha wall eave and ash were found metal drops, black glassy particles up to 30 mg, as well as unusual loose scaly particles as a kind of mesh. Riddle became more intriguing ...
The study samples were in the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute and the Leningrad branch of the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation, USSR Academy of Sciences.
Analysis of the pellets showed that the isotopic composition of lead evidence of his earthly origin. Moreover, this composition is identical to specimens from Holodchenskogo deposits of northern Baikal.
Copies of the "iron" bulbs have a very high degree of hardness. They could not be cut with steel tools, but they yielded only to diamond. According to experts, the sample was a drop of alpha-iron. In addition, the composition of beads includes almost the entire periodic table: iron, manganese, nickel, molybdenum, silicon dioxide, cobalt, chromium. And with the vacuum melting, at temperatures above 1300 degrees, the ball turned into a melt rastekshiysya on tantalum substrate. The resulting film, the scientists unexpectedly discovered elements and "mesh" and "marbles."
The most mysterious discovery in the "height of 611 was a fine mesh, examples of which are made of inert metal fibers, a complex alloy. Chemists clutched his head: mesh consisting of amorphous carbon materials with a separate metal atoms. It was composed of carbon, zinc, silver, gold, lanthanum, praseodymium, silicon, sodium, potassium, cobalt, nickel, yttrium, alpha-titanium, and many other items. It's funny that at 2800 degrees Celsius, some elements disappear, but instead there were new.
For example, during vacuum heating of gold, silver and nickel are gone, but nowhere climbs molybdenum sulfide and beryllium. Incidentally, the last five months later still has disappeared.
In one sample, "mesh" found "pieces of very thin, 17 microns, silica fibers, which, in turn, consist of more delicate fibers twisted into braids. Recently found that in these fibers are woven into the same thin ... gold wire. Specialists conclude: this technology is not possible even at the current level of technology. Doctor of Chemical Sciences Vladimir Vysotsky confirmed: "There is no doubt that this is a sign of high technology, rather than a sample of natural or terrestrial origin."
Completely unknown to researchers material proved to be "glass" - translucent yellow beads
Since then, it took many years. But the crash is still having an impact on people. Observed that the "height of 611 adverse effects on the blood - causes a decrease in the level of white blood cells and an increase in bacteria. Besides, the limy raises blood pressure, pulse quickens, there is an inexplicable fear. The accident site also acts on the photos - illuminates the film and photographic paper.
Perhaps the reason for this effect on the soil of ultrahigh temperature (from 4000 to 25000 degrees Celsius) and the radiation of unknown nature. .
And yet another mystery of "UFO Dalnegorsk. Collected on Mount Si samples have magnetism. But magnetize silicon - the same as that magnetize a brick!
Dalnegorsk. November 28, 1987;
Nearly two years after the disaster in the Dalnegorsk noted unusually high activity of unidentified flying objects. Only one day in the five administrative districts of Primorye were recorded 33 sites.
They had different forms - cigar-shaped, cylindrical, spherical - and moved absolutely silently. Forgery in this situation is impossible, because the mass invasion of UFO witnesses were more than 100 people - workers, intellectuals, policemen, military men. Flight of objects accompanied by a powerful 2-minute interference and malfunctions in TVs, on the telegraph lines and other equipment. Clini computers: Keep them in files and programs are hopelessly spoiled. According to experts, the cause of failure was the most powerful electromagnetic field that emerged in the area of UFOs.
13 of 33 UFO flew directly over the Dalnegorsk. Surprisingly, the objects it is interested in the crash - they hang over the hill and covered it with powerful searchlights. And in January 1989 local ufologists and casual observers have recorded a UFO landing just 200 meters from the crash site. Actions mysterious objects suggest that they searched wrecked vehicle or its "investigation" by the incident.
Since then, now thirteen years, and the skeptics and the optimists are making many attempts to explain the "Dalnegorsk UFOs." It was suggested a lot of assumptions - from the frankly stupid to science-based. But no one person could not convincingly prove the terrestrial origin of the object that crashed Jan. 29, 1986 at the "height of 611. And it is doubtful that even the intervention of the Federal Security Service or the FBI will be able to give a concrete answer.
A chemical analysis of the drops showed they were mostly composed of lead, silicon, and iron. Some of the drops contained significant amounts of zinc, bismuth, and rare earth elements. An analysis of the soil, rocks, and burnt wood taken from the landing ground was also performed.
It was noted that the chemical composition was similar to the composition of similar samples taken from the site of the Tunguska event.
The mesh particles were also analyzed.
The material of which the particles were composed did not dissolve in potent acids and organic solvents even when exposed to high temperatures for prolonged periods of time. It was discovered that one of the mesh particles was composed of scandium, gold, lanthanum, sodium, and samarium. A different analysis of another mesh particle showed gold, silver, and nickel, but after that particle was heated in a vacuum, the analysis no longer showed these elements; however, molybdenum and rhenium were detected.
The quantity of gold detected in one of the mesh particles translates to 1,100 g per one metric ton of ore. Normally, gold deposits start getting developed when the quantity reaches 4 per one metric ton. There are no gold mines in Dalnegorsk as none of the ores contain this amount of gold.
In general, the truth still out there somewhere" ...
Cut rhododendron branches from the area.
The death of tissue was caused by some unknown type of radiation.
area sample from crash site;
landing/crash area;
Some plants were buried internally, with no external traces of darkening. The depth of destruction is up to 60-70 per cent, with destruction of cellular structures thta was detected with the microscope: in according to AP Kulikova, of Institute of Chemistry FEB USSR Academy of Sciences, it was determined by ultrahigh temperatures.
Totally, were found scattered across the site a little more than 30 g. of glass-like drops. They ranged from 3 to 6 mm. Weight of up to 80 mgr largest conglomerate, consisting of 4 sintered, weighing 850 mgr.
The whole information below is from the link provided , nothing is added by myself and the whole article , quotes and all are credited to NICAP; This will be covered in several parts;
Fran Ridge:
Originally, the RAND Corporation, a high level research group that had nothing to do with the business-machine firms and one of the most unpublicized yet highly competent contractors to the Air Force, stated in a letter dated June 25, 1969 that they were unable to identify any RAND publication on UFOs "available for external distribution." http://www.nicap.org/docs/rand/rand_690625.htm
Then, in another letter dated August 8th,http://www.nicap.org/docs/rand/rand_690808.htm 1969 RAND stated, "RAND has done very little on the subject of UFOs: therefore, no publications have been written on the subject."
I also have a copy of a letter dated October ?
1969http://www.nicap.org/docs/rand/rand_aikman.htm from the Department of the Air Force, to Mr. William Laub, of Northfield, Illinois. The letter was written by Lt. Col. James H. Aikman, Chief, Civil Branch, Community Relations Division, Office of Information. It states, "The Rand Corporation has never made any reports on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) for the United States Air Force. If any reports were made by this corporation they were made on their own."
RAND finally had to admit the existence of this paper and later stated that it was originally produced as an internal document and not prepared for or delivered to any of RAND's clients. RAND decided to make this paper available to the public if they asked for it.
This document, which crops up for discussion every once in a while, is placed here, with commentary at the end of this page, for the record. In regard to the commentary I have made a request to CUFOS (Nov. 2006) to locate a copy of a letter from George Kocher to Dr. J. Allen Hynek to document the contents mentioned by Jan Aldrich and confirm the date of same.
Below is the text version of the Rand Document;
The RAND Corporation;
RAND DOCUMENT;
UFOs: What to Do?
George Kocher;
27 November 1968;
For RAND Use Only;
DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE IN EXTERNAL RAND PUBLICATIONS OR CORRESPONDENCE;
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INTRODUCTION;
Common sense is the quintessence of the experiences and prejudices of its time. It is a most unreliable advisor when one is confronted with a perfectly new situation. Gustav Naan
UFOs -- unidentified flying objects, or flying saucers as they are often called -- have been on the mind of the public for at least the last 22 years. For a number of reasons, we know little more about them now than we did at the outset. There exists a great amount of misinformation about the phenomenon not only in the minds of the public, but among educated groups such as scientists as well. It is the purpose of this series of essays to describe various aspects of the phenomenon, make clear my prejudices and the reasons for them, and to suggest a means of proceeding on this interesting and potentially very significant problem.
But first, a few words about the term UFO. J. A. Hynek, an astronomer having continuous involvement with UFO study for over 20 years, defines UFOs as "any reported aerial or surface visual sighting or radar return which remains unexplained by conventional means even after examination by competent persons. This definition ... specifies neither flying nor objects." (1) I would agree, but would prefer to replace "or radar return" with "or instrumental observation" and "even after examination by competent persons" to "even after competent examination by qualified persons." This, then, is the definition I have adopted in the five essays that follow.
Those familiar with the UFO literature are aware that reports of sightings did not begin with Arnold's sighting in 1947, but that phenomenology much the same as is reported today can be found in documents going back to the earliest times. Vallee (2) gives a sampling of this; B.L.P. Trench (3) has made a more thorough study and reports on the research of others able to study the original documents.
What was reported? Luminous discs, shields, globes and elongated objects in the sky, sometimes alone, sometimes in large numbers. Occasional descriptions of interactions with the observers are also mentioned, including landings, and seeing and communicating with occupants. The latter events especially were almost always interpreted in a religious context. A recent example is the repeated appearance of a typical UFO phenomenology at Fatima, Portugal on six successive months in 1917.
The October 13 phenomenon was the best reported and was witnessed by a crowd of about 70,000 persons, including a number of scientists, reporters, atheists, and agnostics, as wel as faithful Catholics. One of the scientifically curious was Dr. A Garrett of the University of Coimbra. Rain, which had been falling that day, ceased and the crowd looked up to see the "sun" now visible through the heavy clouds. Professor Garrett wrote, "...I turned toward this (sun) which was attracting all eyes and I could see it like a disk with a clear cut edge, with a vivid rim, luminous and shining, but without hurting one. The comparison I have heard at Fatima with a disk of dull silver, does
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not seem to me exact. It was a clearer, more vivid, richer color and with shifting tints like the luster of a pearl. It was not at all like the moon on a clear transparent night, for one saw and felt it like a living star. Nor was it spherical like the moon, nor did it have the same quality of lighter and less light. It looked like a burnished wheel cut out of mother-of-pearl. Nor could it be confused with the sun seen through a fog -- there was no fog... This disc spun dizzily round. It was not the twinkling of a star: it whirled round upon itself with mad rapidity...
The sun, preserving the celerity of its rotation, detached itself from the firmament and advanced, blood-red, towards the earth, threatening to crush us with the weight of its vast and fiery mass. These moments made a terrifying impression." (4) The relationship of the old phenomenology to religion are discussed by Thomas. (5)
An example of earlier celestial displays of interest is illustrated in Figs 1 and 2. These are broadsheets from Nuremberg (1561) and Basel (1566), respectively. The psychologist, C. G. Jung; provides an analysis of the contents of the woodcuts in his interesting book. (6) Reference 7 has a very interesting reproduction of a fourteenth century fresco in a Yugoslavian church.
The modern period of the phenomenon began with a widely publicized sighting made by Kenneth Arnold in Washington state in 1947. A study by Bloecher of North American reports over the four week period bracketing the Arnold sighting lists 853 events, including 38 sightings made before Arnold's heavily publicized Sighting. (8)
Because the early reports seemed to suggest airborne craft of unusual appearance and kinematics, the problem came to rest with the newly organized U.S. Air Force. Initial fears were that the country was being over flown by advanced foreign aircraft, possibly on intelligence missions. The latter was suggested by the large number of sightings from the White Sands, New Mexico area and from the vicinity of the Hanford, Washington atomic plant.
Serious inquiry proceeded for a few years without any positive results. A number of supposedly knowledgeable people spoke out pointing out the sporadic nature of the sightings, and that since the reported
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Both Broadsheets from the Wickiana Collection, Zurich Central Library;
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kinematics were inconsistent with current physical theory, the UFOs were not likely to be from a foreign power. Further, they argued, no other planets in our solar system were believed to support life -- certainly not intelligent life -- and since even the nearest star was over four light years away, the hypothesis of extraterrestrial origin was simply unacceptable from a scientific point of view. (9)
The Air Force investigative effort worked as follows: (10) Whenever a sighting was made, a report was to be made out and turned in to the Air Force at base level. The report was forwarded to Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio for study. If the report was interesting enough, follow up inquiry was made. By 1952 the number of reports coming in was so large that the CIA was concerned that an actual attack on the country might not be immediately recognized. A panel of scientists was then convened in January 1953 to study the available evidence and see what conclusion could be reached about UFOs. After seven days of hearing evidence and discussing the matter it was concluded that there was only circumstantial evidence of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. The panel recommended a broadened study effort with full disclosure of investigations. In order to unplug the military intelligence channels, however, the CIA recommended that, since the UFOs apparently posed no threat, the Air Force should debunk UFO reports and try generally to discourage public interest in them, in the hope that they would go away. (11)
It was the CIA's recommendation, apparently, that was made policy, for the investigative procedures used since 1953 have been vestigial and the handling of the subject by the authorities tended to make witnesses look ridiculous. In spite of the unfavorable publicity accorded witnesses, reports persisted, and no doubt in response to official behavior several civilian study groups were formed to receive reports and investigate sightings.
The most successful of these groups is the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). NICAP's membership is well dispersed geographically and acts to learn as much as possible from sightings. The large number of scientific and technical personnel in the NICAP membership aids the quality of their evaluations. A summary of characteristics of the UFO phenomenology published by NICAP
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in 1964 (12) contains 575 reports that were extensively checked by NICAP for accuracy.
A series of sightings in 1965 and 1966 received considerable public attention arid after the poor public reception given the official explanations, the Air Force felt compelled to contract for a 15 month (later stretched to l8 months) scientific study to be performed at the University of Colorado under the leadership of E. U. Condon, a highly respected physicist.
The Condon Committee is due to complete investigations at the end of June 1968; its report will be reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences (presumably to validate that the study was indeed the objective pearl of the scientific method that was desired), and is expected to be made public in October 1968. Unfortunately, the dismissal of two members of the Committee in February 1968 resulted in publicity suggesting that the study was not, in fact, objective. It remains, therefore, to see the final report to determine the worth of the study.
In the meantime, the respectability accorded UFOs by the $500,000 study contract permitted a considerable amount of scientific interest to surface. Astronomer Hynek has made a number of public statements on the basis of his long involvement as a consultant to the Air Force; atmospheric physicist James F. McDonald has turned his attention full time to the subject, and a number of scientific and technical journals have printed some dialogue - notably Science, the AIAA Journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences. It is also noteworthy that the University of Toronto has recently formed a UFO study group.
Even the Soviets, who previously refused even to discuss the subject now admit to having a study group with good qualifications. The USSR Academy of Sciences still holds to the orthodox scientific view that UFOs are a nonproblem, however, using the same arguments we heard so long. These arguments are just as invalid in the USSR as in the USA.
It therefore appears that the subject is slowly and finally being regarded as a fit subject of scientific inquiry. It is hoped that enough scientists will acquaint themselves with the subject so that progress can finally be made.
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(Reference 13 is a good account of how the UFO phenomenon was treated in the U.S. and is recommended to those wondering how science came to consciously ignore the subject.)
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PART 2: UFOs -- ASTRONOMICAL ASPECTS;
The astonishing thing would be if they did not exist.
Jean Cocteau;
We saw in Part 1 that the historical aspects suggest an extraterrestrial explanation to UFOs. While it has not been established that the contemporary phenomena are extensions of the historical, there does seem to be a continuity in the descriptions of the phenomena described. We shall therefore look at contemporary astronomical knowledge and theories and ascertain the likelihood of the existence of other highly developed life forms.
To begin with, the observable universe -- that is, the distance to which we can observe luminous objects -- is several billion light years in radius (a light year is the distance light travels in a year at a rate of 186,300 miles per second. The sun is 8 light minutes from the earth. The next-nearest star is 4.2 light years away). Within this vast volume we find hundreds of millions of galaxies. Our own (Milky Way) galaxy is similar to many of those we see at great distances. It is a lens-shaped assemblage of some 100 billion stars having a diameter of about 100,000 light years. The sun is but one of its component stars and lies about 30,000 light years from the center, close to the plane of symmetry.
Now let us just consider the stars in our own galaxy -- specifically excluding those in neighboring or distant galaxies. We would like to estimate the number of stars having planets roughly similar to the Earth. From the statistics of stars within 15 light years of the sun we find that only about one-third are single, the rest binary or multiple.
Since planetary orbits are often unstable in multiple systems (depending on the details of the configuration) we will say that only 30 billion stars in our galaxy now have a dynamical environment that permits planets to exist around them. Will these stars have planets? We cannot state with assurance that they will; however, current knowledge supports the theory that planetary formation is a natural adjunct to formation of the star itself from the interstellar gas cloud.
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We would therefore expect about 30 billion stars to have one or more planets. Now, we can reject certain classes of stars as candidates or habitable planets, because their lifetimes are too short (these are stars of high mass). Others can be rejected because of variability in light output, a characteristic that would make evolutionary development of life much more difficult.
In fact if we select only those stars similar to the sun (whose peak of radiation energy coincides with a region of terrestrial atmospheric transparency) we have only a few percent of the total -- about one in 30. Therefore, we would expect about 1000 million suitable solar type stars exist. Of these, it is estimated by various astronomers that 200-600 million have planets at about the right distance and have been around long enough that life forms as developed as our own could exist. Implicit in further discussion are the assumptions that:
1. Planets and/or life evolves to a mutual compatibility;
2. The life force, whether spontaneous or otherwise, is such that whenever the environment is favorable, life will exist;
3. Our own history of past evolution and development is neither slow nor fast, but average and typical for life forms. (Ours is the only example available and no one has yet demonstrated that the "average" galactic life form should be any different.)
Now let us turn momentarily to time scales. The sun and earth are on the order of 5 billion years old. We might define modern man as being about 5000 years old (Stonehenge is 4000 years old) -- just one millionth of the earth's age. The age of science is certainly not more than 500 years, so our scientific and technical development has thus far occupied only one ten-millionth of the earth's life span. We expect the sun will burn another 5 billion years before significant changes in its brightness occur.
Now the age of the galaxy is between 5 and 10 billion years; therefore among the 200-600 million stars we would expect to have acceptable planets, some would be older than the sun, some younger (for star formation is still continuing, even though at a lesser rate than in the galaxy's early history) and some the same age. It should be clear from assumption (3) and the example of our own;
The example of our own development, that among the populated planets those younger than the sun would be peopled by beings very much behind us technologically, while those on older planets would be extraordinarily advanced (remember our progress of 500 years and note that some planets could be as much as a few billion years older). Indeed, we would be surprised to find someone else at just our stage of technological development.
For the purposes of this paper, we can ignore both the multitude younger than ourselves and those at our point of development. Even so, we are left with the possibility of 100,000,000 planets in the galaxy having life forms very much advanced from us. (This number would be reduced significantly if life forms destroyed themselves soon after reaching our age of development. This is a philosophical point on which I am optimistic -- I believe the majority of races will learn to survive.) If these stars are uniformly distributed in the galactic disk, the average separation will be about 10 light years.
The usual scientist's reaction at this point is, well, even if the assumptions are correct and this number of advanced civilizations does exist, contact is still impossible because of the speed of light limitation of the theory of relativity. An excellent example of this kind of reasoning can be found in Ref. 14. My reply is that such a statement would appear to be shortsighted. For the moment, let us ignore the possibilities of overcoming the long time of travel by suspended animation and the like.
Recall that our own physical theory has been developed in only 500 years. What can we expect in the next 500? Or 1000 or million or even billion years? I suggest that _if_ a way to circumvent the speed of light restriction is possible, it has already been found by someone in our galaxy. (I haven't the faintest idea how this might be done and I fully agree that our own experimental data appear to accurately confirm the existence of this limitation.)
If it has been discovered by one, we certainly would expect it to be used; if no other planet's inhabitants independently discovered the means, it makes little difference for such a thing could be taught by the discoverer. Thus we may conclude that it is very likely that at least one, and probably many of the 100 million advanced planetary populations is capable of interstellar travel.
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The next question is, of course, have any of them been here? That question cannot yet be answered definitively. Without knowing what kind of phenomenology extraterrestrial visitors might exhibit, I will fall back on my scientific, mechanistic attitudes and say it makes sense to look for some kind of vehicle or spaceship. It appears that the class of phenomenology called UFO reports may contain, as a subset, actual observations of such craft. We shall now turn to the reports to see when and where things are seen and by whom and what phenomenology, if any) is revealed by the reports.
(Further information about the astronomical and biological possibilities are in Ref. 15, whose principal defects are (1) the authors uninformed rejection of UFO phenomenology as being relevant to the subject under discussion, and (2) their meek acceptance of the speed-of-light restriction as a universal truth. References 16 and 17 provide more detailed and more technical discussions of some aspects of the problem.)
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PART 3: UFOs -- THE CHARACTER OF REPORTS;
Any collection of reports of unknown aerial sightings by the public will include a large percent of noise - sightings of something explainable. The reports are made because the appearance falls outside the range of the observer's experience, and the observer believes it is sufficiently anomalous to warrant the attention of authorities. Thus, any large collection of reports will include descriptions of aircraft, balloons) spacecraft, astronomical objects, atmospheric effects and the like.
Often the practiced and perceptive analyst can recognize the stimulus, particularly if he has access to records of aircraft, balloon, and satellite movements, meteorological data and astronomical phenomenology. Recognition of stimulus is aided by a high quality report which is as quantitative as possible and which shows the observer to be able to differentiate between observation and interpretation. Of course a number of reports will be so lacking in details that no conclusion can be reached about what was seen.
These are of little use; they may, however, serve as corroborating evidence to another, higher quality, report and should not, therefore be rejected. The really interesting class of reports is that reporting phenomenology which is clearly extraordinary. The observer's qualifications may be such that the report is not only highly credible but is articulate and quantitative as well. It is this subclass of reports, variously estimated at 5 to 20 percent of the total, that offer hope of our learning what is going on.
Hynek considers two parameters of reports) credibility and strangeness, and suggests that the investigator really needs only to be concerned with reports having high strangeness and high credibility. The physical scientist is in a position to evaluate strangeness, the social scientist should be able to provide some measure of credibility.
Hynek also comments on a number of beliefs about UFOs and reports stating, (18) among other things, that most reports are made by people who previously never gave much thought to UFOs; that reports are not always vague; and that well educated, well trained, reliable, stable people also contribute reports. These conclusions have been reached by most people who have taken the trouble to collect and investigate reports first hand.
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To illustrate the character of reports, I will quote several narratives from the literature. (Narratives, of course, are just the beginning of any report. Quantitative information, usually not given in the narrative must be obtained by careful interview of the witness.) The first is taken from a collection of 160 reports by Olsen. (19) It was originally made to NICAP.
Date: 24 April 1962;
Place: Springfield (Delaware County), Pennsylvania
First witness, J. A. Gasslein, Jr. (Lt. Colonel, USAR Ret.) reports: "Time: Approximately 1945 hours, weather: clear, cloudless, medium blue sky, visibility good.
"My wife was driving her mother home following the latter's visit to our home. They had driven around the block to higher ground when my wife's mother looked out the car window and saw a large object. It was moving slowly and silently in an east-to-west direction at not over 50 ft. above street level. (Determined by the proximity to and relationship to the size of the Cape-Cod-type bungalows over which the object was passing.) My wife then plainly saw the object herself.
"Anxious to have me see the object, my wife quickly drove the car back to our house and attracted my attention. I had been working in the basement. I ran out of the house and up the street for a view. by the time I saw it, the object appeared to be about a quarter to a half-mile away, moving in a westerly direction. I saw it as an object smaller at the top than at the base, seemingly suspended in the air at an angle of about 45 degrees from my position, and giving off colored lights. I know that the object was not any kind of conventional aircraft of balloon.
"Having had the advantage of a closer viewing than I, my wife describes the object as follows..
" 'The UFO appeared to be about the size of one of the Cape Cod houses over which it passed, which would make it approximately 30 ft. in diameter and about the same dimension in height. It was circular, surmounted by a dome giving off flashes of green light. The center section rotated a series of square shaped "windows", each giving off a brilliant white light. The base section was somewhat saucer-shaped,
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curved upward. Shafts of white light were directed downward from the base.' Unfortunately, my wife cannot recall if the exterior was metallic in appearance. In any event, the object had a well-defined outline. Again, it moved silently. There was no evidence of occupants of the UFO.
"Approximately 20 to 25 minutes following the first sighting described above, the following sighting occurred: "Returning from taking her mother home, my wife drove the car into our driveway alongside the house, headed westward. In the rear of our home was a wooded park area. My wife walked down the driveway to enter the house. Coming up the driveway was a neighbor friend, a young lady 20 years of age.
In a tone of astonishment, she called my wife's attention to the park area, from which was emerging an object of the same description as outlined above moving easterly at low level -- not over 50 ft. above ground level, as judged by the trees in the area -- the UFO proceeded relatively slowly and without sound. It was approaching the rear of our home and adjacent properties.
"Again, my wife called me from the basement. By the time I got outside, the object had made a 90 degree turn northward and was proceeding parallel to the backs of the houses in the same line as ours. It was perhaps 150 - 200 yards distant. My observation of the characteristics of the UFO tallied with my wife's and the young lady's.
Each of them independently made a pencil sketch within a few minutes after the sighting, and the sketches were substantially alike. "All told, there were at least 15 persons in the vicinity who acknowledged seeing the object at about the same time as the sightings made by my wife and myself."
Another witness, P. T. Scattergood, reports: "Around 8 (p.m.) I stepped out the front door, facing south and saw a brilliantly lighted object low in the southern sky. At first I took it to be a jet taking off from Philadelphia Airport, which is in that general direction. But I could hear no engine noise and it was traveling too slowly to be a plane. Also it did not have the usual blinking lights.
"It appeared to have a row of yellowish lights (which I took for the windows of the "jet") with a clear green light at the top. As I
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watched, the row of lights appeared to be obscured as though a large paddle-wheel were revolving and blotting them out, beginning with the rear lights and proceeding forward. Since the object was moving west, I saw the right hand side of it. The periodic appearance and disappearance of the lights was perfectly regular. The top green light was constantly visible. I stood on the pavement and watched the object sail leisurely to the west until it disappeared behind some trees. The observation probably lasted from 5 to 10 minutes."
This report has the desirable features of the UFO being seen by a number of people (about 15) of which two actually made reports. (Hynek estimates the number of sightings to be about 10 times the number of reports turned in) . Other desirable aspects of this sighting are that it was made during daylight; that it was near enough that some details of its configuration were observable; and, it was visible long enough to allow the observers to consider "explanations" as they watched it.
The second example is reported by James F. McDonald in T. Bloecher's book on an intense period of UFO activity in 1947. The report was made 20 years after the sighting to Prof. McDonald for the reasons given at the end of the quotation.
"Mrs. Olavick was in her kitchen at 2101 East Hawthorne Street, Tucson, while Mrs. Down was out in the back-year patio. Suddenly Mrs. Down called her out excitedly, and both proceeded to observe what had caught Mrs. Down's eye. The time was just after the noon hour; Tucson's skies were completely cloudless. Somewhat north of their zenith lay an unusual, isolated, "steamy-fleecy" cloud at an altitude which Mrs. Olavick found difficult to estimate, though she recalled that it seemed lower than average for that time of year (thus, perhaps at or below 10,000 feet, say.).
No other cloud was to be seen in the sky. In and out of the cloud moved a number of dull-white disc-like objects that rose and fell in an erratic manner, occasionally disappearing into or above the unnatural cloud. She said that these objects were round in planform but were not spherical, for they frequently tipped a bit, exposing a flattened-sphere form. She estimates that they watched these objects cavorting near the cloud for perhaps five or six minutes before the entire group suddenly disappeared within the cloud or perhaps above it.
"After a minute or so, as she now recalls it, a new object, perhaps three of four times as large as the little objects, came out of the cloud on its east side. After it emerged, the small objects began to emerge also, taking up a V-formation pattern behind it. The V comprised a line of four-abreast just to the rear of the large object, then a line of three-abreast behind that, and finally two-abreast in the rear.
Thus the point of the V was to the rear (in the sense of the emergent and subsequent motion). This formation permitted the first accurate count of the small objects, nine in all. No sooner had the last pair emerged than all ten objects shot off to the northeast, climbing out of sight in a time that she thought was probably two to three seconds. She does not recall what happened to the cloud after the ten objects departed.
"I (McDonald) have spoken with Mrs. Olavick several additional times, following her first call. Her account was presented in an unembellished manner, and her descriptions were carefully framed, specifying just which parts had become less distinct in her memory. But the basic vividness of her memory of this observation she stressed repeatedly. I had to explain that it was by no means clear that the objects she saw were identical with those reported by Kenneth Arnold two months later.
When I queried her as to why she had not reported them, she pointed out that she and Mrs. Down were entirely convinced that they had been fortunate enough to witness some new American military vehicles about which the general public had not yet been informed. Later she heard of the "flying saucers," and she and Mrs. Down, when they rejoined their husbands in mid-summer in Iowa, told them about their own observation. The husbands, she recalled, made such a joke of it that they ceased mentioning it.
Again we have a daytime sighting of several minutes duration, with two witnesses. As is often the case when.the phenomenon appears mechanical, it was interpreted as some secret government development. Ridicule of the sighting by family members and friends (if not by authorities) is frequently mentioned as a reason for delayed reporting of sightings.
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A third report is taken from a paper Prof. McDonald presented at the 12 March 1968 Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute Astronautics Symposium, Montreal.
"At about 5:15 am., PDT, on the morning of July 4, 1967, at least five witnesses (and reportedly others not yet locatable) saw an object of unconventional nature moving over Highway 5 on the edge of Corning, California. Hearing of the event from NICAP, I began searching for the witnesses and eventually telephone-interviewed four. Press accounts from the Corning Daily Observer and Oakland Tribune afforded further corroboration.
"Jay Munger, operator of an all-night bowling alley, was drinking coffee with two police officers, James Overton of the Corning force and Frank Rakes of the Orland force, when Munger suddenly spotted the object out the front windows of his bowling alley. In a moment all three were outside observing what they each described as a dark gray oval or disc-shaped object with a bright light shining upwards on its top and a dimmer light shining downward from the underside.
A dark gray or black band encircled the mid-section of the object. When first sighted, it lay almost due west, at a distance that they estimated at a quarter of a mile (later substantiated by independent witnesses viewing it at right angles to the line of sight of the trio at the bowling alley). It was barely moving, and seemed to be only a few hundred feet above terrain. The dawn light illuminated the object, but not so brightly as to obscure the two lights on top and bottom, they stated.
"Munger, thinking to get an independent observation from a different part of Corning, returned almost immediately to telephone his wife; but she never saw it for reasons of tree-obscuration. At my request, Munger re-enacted the telephoning process to form a rough estimate of elapsed time. He obtained a time of 1-1.5 minutes.
This time is of interest because, when he completed the call and rejoined Overton and Rakes, the object had still moved only a short distance south on Highway 5 (about a quarter of a mile: perhaps), but then quickly accelerated and passed off to the south, going out of their sight in only about 10 seconds, far to their south.
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Paul Heideman, of Fremont, California, was driving south on Highway 5 at the time of the above sighting, along with a friend, Robert King. I located Heideman and obtained from him an account of his observation made from a point on the highway north of Corning. He saw the light from the object, and had veered east (a turn not seen from the more restricted viewing point of the bowling-alley parking lot). Heideman said that, when first seen, it lay almost straight down Highway 5, serving to check the estimate of the other observers that the object lay only a few city blocks to their west.
The weather was clear, no haze, no wind, according to the witnesses. Munger's concise comment was "I've never seen anything like it before." He estimated its "diameter" at perhaps 50-100 ft, and its vertical thickness as perhaps 15-20 ft, with some kind of edge (band) perhaps 5-10 ft thick. No sound was ever heard. Overton stated to me that he had no idea what it was, but that "there was no doubt it was a craft of some sort."
The next example is from a report I personally investigated. It occurred in the area where I was reared; the observers are known to my family; I am familiar with the natural phenomenology of the area.
Date: 10 October 1966;
Place: Near Newton, Illinois;
First witnesses: Mrs. A (she prefers not to be publicly identified because of the reaction of friends and neighbors). Time: 5:20 p.m.
"Mrs. A was in her kitchen preparing supper; five of her children were playing outdoors. The children shouted to her to "come out and see the silent plane". She writes "I glanced out the south window and there it was coming into sight just south of our 72 foot silo moving very slowly from east to west. It was about 35 feet high. My first thought was that it was a plane making an emergency landing, but when I saw it in full view, I knew it was no plane, not like anything I have ever seen. I hurried outside to join the children in the yard. It
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continued to move in a straight line to the west. We could see it clearly as it drifted over a 50 by 100 foot machine shed being built at the time [the workers were, however, in the fields this day]. It appeared to be larger than our car, and was more oval. There was a bluish glow around the ends, top, and bottom of it. It (the glow) wasn't bright, since it was daylight yet, but more like a low cloud, haze, or fog; or a mixture of bluish-grey tiny bubbles floating along around it.
The object was seen clearly. It was blue in color and appeared to be made of metal. You could see [longitudinal] seam lines. There was one black window. I thought they (assuming someone was in it) could see out but we could not see them. I kept looking for someone to peep out and wave, but don't recall seeing or feeling anything at the time. There was a brownish-gold design on the lower back half. A raised part was on the top near the back which was noticed by all the children. It moved very quietly, making no sound at all except for a whirling or vibrating sound for 1 or 2 seconds as it drifted on toward the west...
We followed it down the yard and lane, continuing to watch it as it was 300 feet, then 200 feet from the north and south gravel road and the REA electric line which is on the west side of the road. We were talking together, all very excited about what it was, where it came from, if there were people in it, and if it would rise to clear the electric line. It did; it rose so quickly and was out of sight in just a few seconds. Our eyes could not follow it fast enough. This was certainly a fantastic thing."
The questionnaire, a lengthy correspondence, an interview in June 1967 and other checking produced the following details:
The surface appeared to be non-spectacular, like dull aluminum or metal, and blue, the color probably deriving from the self-luminous halo. Longitudinal seams were apparent, but no rivets or such were seen. The black rectangle was assumed to be a window and appeared to be recessed. It was not shiny, but "like the dark of night." The surrounding glow was partly opaque, yet self luminous. It was darker than the sky and extended about 1/4 the object's length in all directions. The halo was particularly opaque at the ends: of the object, obscuring the underlying parts. The design at the lower rear looked like a pattern of crosses and dots.
Mrs. A says the glow obscured the design and in any case her attention was fixed on the "window". The only sound heard occurred when the UFO was nearest the unfinished shed, being constructed of a wooden framework covered with ferrous sheets. It is possible that some sheets were caused to vibrate. No electromagnetic effects were noted (TV was off) and no electrostatic or other effects were noted by Mrs. A or her children. As the UFO disappeared, Mrs. A was just looking along the road for a car; two of the children said the UFO pitched nose-up and as it went up a light or flame of orange color was seen at the rear.
Enough angular data was provided from building and landmark placement and sizes that it is possible to estimate the size of the metallic portion of the UFO at 16 to 20 feet in length, seen at a distance of 150 to 300 feet. Its linear speed was about 4 to 8 miles per hour, based on the above distances and timings obtained by re-enactment. It was visible for 4 minutes. Angular size was 2 3/4" at arms length. In an effort to quantify the colors somewhat, a Nickerson color fan was used by the witnesses to select the colors most nearly like those on the UFO. The color selections were made independently in direct sunlight with the color fan held in front of a white field. The colors given were
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Metallic surface
Mrs. A. 7.5 PB - 7
Child 1 2.5 PB - 8/5
Child 2 7.5 B - 3/5
Glow (The color of "grayness" was not uniform)
Mrs. A. 5 PB - 8/5
2.5 PB - 8/5
Child 1 5 PB - 7/7
Child 2 2.5 PB - 6/8
Orange flare on ascent
Child 1 5 YR - 7/11
Child 2 5 YR - 7/11
Second event: Same day, 6:30 p.m., sky is now dark. Location is in town of Newton, Illinois, about seven miles north west of first event.
Mrs. B was walking down the steps of a friend's house toward her car. "As I started down the steps my eyes were drawn by something in the south eastern sky. I stopped a moment and saw very clearly a luminous bluish object moving quite rapidly from east to west. It seemed to be rather low in the sky, but at night it is difficult to judge distance either as to how high it was or how far away it was.
It did appear larger than a full moon, but instead of being round it had a definite oval shape. I would say an elongated oval. There was no sound that I could detect, and while it appeared to be blue and purple, there was also a whitish glow in it. The outline of the object was very distinct. I watched it until it disappeared behind some trees and a house a little less than a block from me.
Further correspondence and discussion brought forth the following information: The major axis of the oval was horizontal; its path was not perfectly horizontal) but somewhat undulatory. Its color was brightest and whitest at the center, becoming more blue and darker toward the edges. Mrs. B. estimated the colors as shown below (Since the interview was conducted in the evening) the color fan was illuminated by an incandescent lamp).
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In itself, this last report, which describes a sighting of 15 to 20 seconds duration, contains insufficient information to come to any conclusion. However, when put alongside the earlier report there is the possibility of a relationship -- could these be reports of the same thing seen under differing conditions of illumination? We'll never know positively but the suggestion is quite strong.
As far as Mrs. A's sighting is concerned, we have obtained enough data from follow-up inquiry and on-site investigation to rule out known airborne craft, meteorological, and astronomical phenomenon. Yet the observations are sufficiently detailed to give us adequate confidence that some sort of machine was present, behaving in a very extraordinary way. Some parts of the object are similar to other reports (the effervescent glow, the orange color on acceleration, the very black "window" (which sounds like a block-body absorber)).
Other parts are unusual -- the UFO's prolate spheroidal shape and the pattern (although seeing the pattern would require the observer to be quite close). The original correspondence and data sheets on Mrs. A's sighting run to over 40 pages. In correspondence and interviews over a period of 8 months no substantial inconsistencies could be found. The geometric data, particularly, are so intricately related that it is most unlikely that the witness could have fabricated a story so well.
In addition, acquaintances made it clear that Mrs. A. is not prone to story telling and that "she is too busy to dream up such a tale". Mr. A, who returned from the fields that evening found the household still considerably agitated four hours after the event. He said he had no idea what it was his wife and children saw, but he obviously treated the sighting seriously for he went to considerable trouble to comply with a request to measure the sizes and locations of each building and tree on the farm.
It is this kind of sighting - the kind which is clearly inexplicable in contemporary terms, which causes me (and other interested persons) to take the whole subject so seriously. Hynek suggests that it is just this kind of sighting that often goes unreported, because the witness -- especially if his education or training are appropriate -- knows that what he saw was unambiguously extraordinary. And machine-like. A number of such reports were belatedly made after the University of
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Colorado study effort got underway. Apparently the witnesses waited for the respectability the UOC study brought to the subject. It is hoped that the scientific and intellectual climate will change to the point where witnesses, particularly those having the best qualifications, can feel free to report sightings and know that they are being taken seriously.
Not all reports are visual reports only. An example of a photographic observation studied in detail is given in reference 20. Here, a 16mn movie of two objects sighted in the daytime provided the analyst enough information to conclude that no known phenomena could have caused the images. This report is, hopefully, the first in a series of instrumented sightings carefully and adequately studied.
Since I have made a first hand study of only a dozen sightings, the phenomenology described in this section will necessarily be based on descriptions of reports collected by others, particularly NICAP, APRO, UFOIRC, and Vallee. There is, unfortunately, no central file of reports accessible to the interested scientist, although large numbers of reports are in the hands of the organizations mentioned above.
(The extensive Air Force files are of very limited use, from what I can tell, because of the extremely inconsistent quality of investigation.) In an unfortunate number of cases the report consists of little more than a narrative. My experience with the Newton sightings suggests that quantitative information is available if the investigator takes the trouble to personally make an on-site study. True, it may not be the quality of an instrumented sighting, but enough quantitative data are available to permit meaningful study of sighting reports.
NICAP's document "The UFO Evidence" contains a summary of patterns in appearance and behavior as determined from cases they had studied through 1963. Regarding appearance, the most common type is a disc shape, followed by spherical, oval/elliptical, cylindrical, and triangular. The breakdown of NICAP's 575 cases goes as follows
Obviously, there may be some mis-classification within the first three groups because of projective effects. Discs may be coin-shaped or lens shaped (double convex). The domed disk is plano-convex, (sometimes double convex) with a smaller radius bulge atop the convex side. The saturn disk is a sphere or oblate spheroid with a thin ring projecting from the equator. Similar objects are
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seen without the equatorial ring also. Another subset are the hemispheric variety, sometimes with a small protrusion at the apex and usually seen with the flat side down. All the above mentioned objects are generically oblate with the axis of symmetry usually seen oriented vertically. Another group are prolate, having the major axis horizontal, usually. This includes the elliptical (football) variety, the triangular or tear drop variety, and the cylindrical or cigar shaped species.
Reported colors depend strongly on the luminous environment. NICAP finds that of the 253 cases of daytime observations where color is stated, the results are
Silver or metallic 34.8 % 88 cases
White 32.0 % 81 cases
Specular 13.4 % 34 cases
Gray 7.5 % 19 cases
Black 12.3 % 31 cases
It should be noted that a few reports exist suggesting that the brightness of the object first thought by the observer to be reflected sunlight, was in fact self luminosity, as ascertained by the geometry, presence of clouds and the like.
In the dark-sky observations, the outline or shape of the UFO is often not seen. What is seen is a light or series of lights, sometimes extremely bright. Luminous rays are also reported, going up sometimes (particularly from domed discs) downward (from hemispheric types principally, also from discs) and from one UFO to another (spherical types). The luminous column is usually not divergent. Excluding these interesting rays, the reported colors of UFOs seen at night are, for 162 cases
Red 38.3 % 62 cases
Orange 15.4 % 25 cases
Yellow 17.3 % 28 cases
Green 13.0 % 21 cases
Blue 16.0 % 26 cases
Purple 0 0
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Brightness and color changes are also noted, and while the sample is small (82 cases) NICAP found the following: Of the 25 cases showing a change in brightness, 23 of the changes occurred at the moment of a velocity change (a change of either magnitude or direction). Concerning the change of color, 23 cases showed a color change related to acceleration. While the supporting data are not conclusive, it appears that the spectral shift is to the red upon acceleration.
It should also be noted that UFOs reported at night have only a star-like appearance unless very close. Distant UFO's sometimes turn off and on. When closer to the observer, reports often indicate a number of lights, located at the top and around the rim usually. Sometimes the lights flash on and off or change color rhythmically. Several cases have been reported of the UFO flashing its lights in response to the witness flashing hand or vehicular lights. In other cases the lights winked off with the approach of another car or an aircraft, only to turn on again when the vehicle had passed.
While practically any luminous behavior could be produced by someone with sufficient time and money, kinematic behavior at odds with experience or, preferably, at odds with Newtonian behavior are suggestive of non-terrestrial origin.
A common kind of motion is called oscillation by NICAP and is subdivided into "wobble on axis" (frequently described also as fluttering, flipping, and tipping); pendulum motion on slow ascent, hovering and decent (also called "falling leaf motion"); and occasionally a side-to-side oscillation observed as the UFO proceeds horizontally. These motions are most often performed by discs, although examples of similar behavior by other forms also exist.
The last class, that of violent and erratic maneuvers, most clearly lacks an explanation from current physical theory. Using terms like bobbing, erratic, jerky, zigzag, dark, and shot away, witnesses describe motions involving high angular accelerations and velocities. A number of radar observations appear to substantiate this anomalous behavior. Among the 40 cases showing such characteristics, NICAP finds that 28 percent were reported by scientific or other appropriately experienced personnel.
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Variation of Sightings with Time;
It appears that the UFO phenomenology has been with us from the earliest times. In the last twenty-five years, however, there seems to be a drastic increase in the number of sightings. It is practically impossible to estimate the number of world-wide sightings because of the lack of suitable data collection means. In the U.S., the principal depositories are currently the Air Force, NICAP and APRO.
It is estimated that currently these sources together receive about 2000 reports per year. Since only about one sighting in 10 is reported, the number of sightings is about 20,000. But of these, 80 to 95% are not interesting, leaving us with "only" 1000 to 4000 worthwhile sightings per year for North America.
In addition to the background of reports more or less constantly flowing in, occasional periods of intense activity are also noted. One such period was October 1954 over most of France. NICAP lists a number of these "flaps". Sometimes they are very localized, covering only a small portion of a state for a period of a few weeks.
APRO concludes, on the basis of the reports available to them, that the patterns of appearance follow phases - atomic test areas and installations in the late 1940s and early 50s, rivers, reservoirs and bodies of water in the late 50s and early 60s and now electrical distribution systems. Convincing evidence to support this hypothesis has not been published; however, if the hypothesis were true it would certainly raise a lot of question.
McDonald and others suggest that reports of the last few years show more sightings of objects at low altitude (or landed) and more sightings made from urban areas (in the 40s and 50s sightings were generally inversely correlated with population densities).
Interactions with the Environment;
Interactions of UFOs with the environment produce a kind of believability that pure visual observations will never do. Some examples of interaction are cases showing electromagnetic disturbances in practically every kind of device -- radio, TV, auto ignition, aircraft electronics, compass, magnetometer, magnetic automobile speedometer, etc. NICAP lists 106 examples. NICAP also lists 81 cases of radar
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tracking of UFOs, most of which were simultaneous with visual sightings, and a number of which involved use of interceptors. Among the physiological effects noted are burns, temporary paralysis, prickling sensation, and eyes irritated as by ultraviolet light. A number of witnesses claim to have observed landings; depressions in the ground and damaged vegetation usually result. At a landing site in France, only weeds grow in a nine foot circular area where a disc was seen to land two years ago, despite efforts to replant. (21) At another landing site, French railway officials calculated that a weight of 30 tons would be required to make the depressions found in some railroad ties where a UFO was reported to have landed.
While most UFO's are silent, some have made sounds described as hissing, rushing, swishing, humming, whirring, whining, droning, like thunder, like shotgun, and a series of staccato explosions. In the past the absence of sonic booms from supersonic UFO's bothered many scientists; it appears now that that problem might be overcome by surrounding the craft by a corona discharge (which incidentally would be a luminous blue glow around the object). (23)
I will purposely not comment much on occupants, except to say that there are a few (very few) reasonably reliable and carefully investigated reports of UFO occupants. For the time being, I would prefer to concentrate on reports of the objects, however, as the frequency of reliable occupant reports is so low. I have no bias one way or the other along these lines. If UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin, they may or may not be "manned". If manned, one should expect an occasional appearance. Readers more interested in this aspect of UFOs are referred to reference 24.
In summary, we see a wide, almost exasperating range of reported phenomenology. By careful interviews with witnesses and analysis of a large number of reports the significant patterns in phenomenonology should appear. If the UFOs are a new manifestation of nature, they should exhibit some patterns of appearance or behavior which would aid in identifying and predicting them. If of extraterrestrial origin and intelligently guided it may be possible to anticipate appearances. This will be discussed in the next and final essay.
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PART 5: UFOs -- HOW TO PROCEED AND WHY;
We are so far from knowing all the forces of Nature and the various modes of their action that it is not worthy of a philosopher to deny phenomena only because they are inexplicable in the present state of our knowledge. The harder it is to acknowledge the existence of phenomena, the more we are bound to investigate them with increasing care.
Laplace
Laplace's remarks are certainly as true and significant for us today as for his contemporaries. In the preceeding essays I have suggested that there exists a class of phenomena rather widely occuring today (and perhaps since earliest times) that is elusive, puzzling and often at variance with known scientific and technical experience. What are we going to do about it? What should we, what can we do about it?
J. E. MacDonald suggests that the UFO phenomena lie somewhere in the following categories of explanation:
1. Hoaxes, fabrications, and frauds. Report files contain examples of these; investigators believe about 5 percent of all reports made are in this category. Detailed study, however, usually uncovers such reports.
2. Hallucinations, mass hysteria, and rumor phenomena. Present understanding of psychology does not admit many of the significant reports to be explained in this way.
3. Misinterpretations of well known physical phenomena (meteorolo- gical, astronomical, optical, etc.). By far the largest percentage of reports fall in this category. Study by an experienced investigator can usually identify these.
4. Poorly understood physical phenomena (rare electrical or moteorological effects, plasmas). Certainly a distinct possibility in a number of cases, it is a category worthy of careful study. Some of the most interesting cases, however have sufficient observational datail to eliminate this possibility (I am referring to reports of unambiguously machine-like objects).
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5. Advanced technologies (test vehicles, satellites, reentry effects). Again, some reports can be attributed to this cause, but most cannot.
6. Poorly understood psychic phenomena (psychic projections, archetypal images, parapsychological phenomena, etc). It is difficult to comment on this possibility because the current lack of knowledge of parapsychology. While a (small) number of UFO reports do exhibit aspects of parapsychological phenomenology (25) general relationships have yet to be convincingly demonstrated. Reference 6 deals with this explanation.
7. Extraterrestrial probes. A possibility commonly held by the public and commonly rejected by scientists. Prof. McDonald believes a number of sightings are best explained by this hypothesis.
8. Messengers of salvation and occult truth. This explanation is listed because of the nature of certain reports (particularly "contact" reports -- reports involving communication of UFO occupants and the witnesses) and because of the historical aspects of the phenomenology. See reference 5 for elaboration.
Perhaps, to play it safe, an additional category should be listed:
9. Other;
Clearly, the explanation of UFOs will interest someone. Psychologists have an interest in 1, 2, 3 and 6; theologians in category 8, scientists in 4 and 7. Therefore, whatever the explanation, it is a problem of at least average interest. If, by chance, the explanation is 7, or even 8 (and possibly 6) the value to society would be profound and significant. In this sense, an identification of the phenomenon would be a task of highest potential urgency.
How might it be done?
Because of the transient nature of UFO's we cannot expect to have the interested scientist rush to the spot to make his own observations. Reports so far accumulated, however, show that UFO's sometimes appear frequently in certain areas for a short period of time (a so-called "flap"). One characteristic of the flap is a larger percentage of sightings of objects at low levels than one normally obtains. If the reporting and analysis system were responsive enough, men and instruments
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could be dispatched when a flap was recognized with a reasonable hope of making first hand observations. I would therefore suggest the following:
1. Organization of a central report receiving agency, staffed by a permanent group of experienced UFO investigators and having on call specialists in astronomy, physics, optics, atmospheric physics, psychology and the like for application when needed.
2. This agency should be readily and instantly accessible to the public for the purpose of reporting. (Witnesses should be able to turn to someone other than the press to make reports.) Report forms could be made available in Post Offices, for example. More urgent reports could be made by toll-free telephone lines. (Radio amateurs have recently begun cooperating with NICAP to provide an alerting system.)
Because many sightings are made at night when most services are closed, the local police office should be prepared to receive reports of sightings. Experience indicates that witnesses usually turn first to the police, particularly if the UFO was close or if the witness was frightened. Such a local "data center" would be very useful for identifying flaps and could possibly serve to dispatch personnel to an area of interest.
Care must be taken to properly inform the officers involved about the aims of the project and requests for assistance should be made in such a way as to minimize additional police work. An awareness of the problem by a dispatcher or desk sergeant might be sufficient to draw attention to a developing situation. An interested local scientist could then be notified, perhaps in time to make an observation. Hynek also suggests that the police carry cameras in their cars should they become involved as observers. This advice obviously applies to all interested persons.
3. A loose organization of interested scientists should be available to investigate reports in their local areas. A good start toward this has been made by NICAP. It is important that investigations be made rapidly and by properly qualified people.
4. The press should be encouraged to report sightings accurately and in a non-sensational manner. Suitable reporting would encourage other witnesses to come forth.
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5. Existing sensor records could be examined for anomalies, particularly if visual reports are made nearby. Since we don't know what to expect, it is difficult to say what is needed; however records of electric, magnetic and gravitational fields, radioactivity, optical and radio frequency anomalies would be a logical place to start. Radars could also contribute, if they are designed for general purpose use. As it is, most current radar detection and tracking devices are designed to ignore anomalous objects.
After a few years' operation in this mode, it should be possible to study the resulting report statistics to draw generalities about appearance and behavior (such as was done in Part IV) and most importantly to anticipate times and locations of appearances. Only when this is done will it be possible to instrument sightings and therefore obtain the objective data so badly needed If the explanation is #4, some environmental correlations are bound to occur. For #7 it is possible that appearances could be anticipated, if we are clever enough; for #6 and #8 we will likely not be able to anticipate appearances.
Certainly the conclusions drawn by NICAP from reports in their file are startling and, if valid worthy of considerable scientific effort. It would be much more convincing if data could be collected worldwide and if the most interesting reports could be intensively and completely investigated. I believe current reports justify the expanded data collection and analysis effort.
Pages 33 to 40 consist of the basic report form used by the University of Colorado UFO project which have not been included here. A copy of this reporting form is reproduced in "The Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects," Bantam Books, 1968, published in association with Colorado Associated University Press.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY;
1. Christian Science Monitor, May 23, 1967
2. Anatomy of a Phenomenon, J. Vallee, Ace Books, Inc H-17
3. The Sky People, B. LePoer Trench, London, Neville Spearman, 1960.
4. The Meaning of Fatima, C. C. Martindale, S. J., P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York 1950, p. 77.
5. Flying Saucers Through the Ages, Paul Thomas, Neville Spearman, London, 1966.
6. Flying Saucers - A Modern Myth, C. C. Jung, Harcourt, Brace & World New York, 1959
7. Sputnik, January 1967 issue, p. 174
8. Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, Ted Bloecher, 1967; Available from NICAP, 1536 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20036
9. Bloecher, pp. 1-9, 10, 12
10. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, E. J. Ruppelt, Ace Books, Inc. G-537
11. UFO's: Greatest Scientific Problem of Our Times? J. E. McDonald UFORI, Suite 311, 508 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15219
12. The UFO Evidence, NICAP, 6536 Connecticut Avenue, NW., Washington D.C., 20036, 1964
13. Flying Saucers: Hoax or Reality? L. Jerome Stanton, Belmont Books B50-761
14. "The Physics and Metaphysics of Unidentified Flying Objects", William Markowitz, Science, 15 Sept. 1967
15. Intelligent Life in the Universe, J. S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan, Holden-Day, Inc. 1966 (San Francisco)
16. Habitable Planets for Man, S. H. Dole, Blaisdell Publishing Co., New York, 1964
17. Interstellar Communication, Edited by A. C. W. Cameron, Benjamin, New York, 1963
18. Science, 21 October 1966, letter by J. A. Hynek, p. 329
19. The Reference for Outstanding UFO Sighting Reports, T. M. Olsen, UFO Information Retrieval Center, Inc., Box 57, Riderwood, Md. 21139
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20. Observations of an Anomalistic Phenomenon, R. M. L. Baker, Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, January/February, 1968
21. Flying Saucer Review, 14, 1, January/February, 1968, cover and pp. 6-12.
22. Vallee, p. 109
23. Aviation Week and Space Technology, 22 January, 1968, p. 21
24. The Humanoids, special issue of Flying Saucer Review, 49a Kings Grove, Peckham, London, S.E. 15, England (1967)
25. An interesting example appears in the July, 1968 issue of Science & Mechanics, starting on page 30
26. A highly recommended collection of recent views on this subject are contained in the Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Hearings Before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, July 29, 1968
__________________________________________________ __________________________________
Short Commentaries
30 Dec 1966;
Jan Aldrich:
George Kocher worked at RAND. He was interested in the UFOs. He wrote up a short paper for circulation within RAND. It was personal. It was not an official RAND document. Kocher got little or no response to his privately circulated document. One copy of it did make its way to Wright-Patterson. LTC Quintanilla wrote RAND a blazing letter. Once again, Quinanilla's letter was not an official ATIC response, but from Quintanilla's address and his personal opinion.
Kocher's supervisor turned Quintanilla's letter over to Kocher. RAND never responded to Quintanilla. Kocher did not follow up on his paper. The matter went no further. Kocher confirmed all this in a letter to Dr. Hynek which is now at CUFOS with a copy of Quintanilla's letter. CUFOS made copies of Kocher's document available years ago. You can, I believe, still purchase copies from them.
Ruppelt, I believe in his papers, mentioned that the chief of RAND in the early 1950s was hostile towards UFOs. Prior to that RAND had done a "Spaceship" study that COL McCoy requested in 1948. Parts of the study were used in the Project Grudge report.
There were several RAND scientists who, like Kocher, had at one time or another a personal interest in UFOs. NICAP was in contact with one or two. However, over the years contact was lost with these people.
There was one request from a scientist at RAND in 1965 to the Air Force for UFO material. The Air Force forwarded the request to Hynek. Nothing seems to have come of it. Again, it may have just been a personal interest item.
16 Nov 2006;
Dick Hall:
It would be perfectly legitimate and accurate to list this document as an "internal RAND document." It is exactly the same sort of thing as the NSA think piece generated by an employee, which was not an "official" NSA document. These documents are part of the history and are revealing and important in their own right. What people in positions like theirs were thinking and trying to do is significant for historians (of which I are one).
Brad Sparks:
The hostile RAND official mentioned by Ruppelt in his papers was NOT the President and founder of RAND, Franklin Collbohm, it was James Lipp, chief of the Missile Division of RAND. Ruppelt also mentioned that RAND astronomer James Thompson was pro-UFO and used to visit him at BB.
The RAND "spaceship" UFO study was done by Lipp in Dec 1948 and included as an appendix to the Sign Report, not the Grudge Report.,
What is Jan's source for what Kocher said or did? Is it solely Kocher's letter to Hynek? Why is there no date or copy of it?
Kocher's RAND report seems to have more status as a RAND document than the NSA paper, given that it has RAND letterhead and the NSA paper has no NSA letterhead or routing.
17 Nov 2006
Jan Aldrich:
There were some UFO fans at RAND. Mary Rorig comes to mind. However, this paper is about as significant as some NICAP member writing a paper supporting contactees. It should be made clear that this was an individual effort within an organization which took no action, and had no discussion on the matter as the result of his effort other than to file it.
Dick Hall:
The agencies represented are not private, pro-UFO citizen groups. They are major Government agencies. So what they did and tried to do even on an in-house basis and the results (or non-results) is very significant for the purposes of historical analysis. The people mentioned all were highly qualified, reasonably high-level or respected employees. To simply label them as "fans" (sounds like "UFO buffs") and compare what they did to an internal NICAP paper is not a reasonable comparison. History has more to do with only what "officially" is said and done. A more apt comparison would be what Ruppelt or Fournet did and tried to do on the subject, and what had success and what didn't.
Thought i would add this here as it covers the main possibilities of the THEORIES OF UFO ORIGIN AND INTENTIONALITY;ALL the below text is from an external source;
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THEORIES OF UFO ORIGIN AND INTENTIONALITY;
Quote;
"There are several basic theories of UFO origin. These theories are as follows":
NULL HYPOTHESIS;
quote;
"This is the theory advocated by Phil Klass, Paul Kurtz, and other so-called "skeptics." Essentially, it is the belief that UFOs are all misidentified IFOs (they could be identified if seen by 'experts,' of course) - stars, planets, manmade aircraft, or 'swamp gas' - or they are hallucinations produced by insanity or intoxication. Alternatively, those claiming to see UFOs may be hoaxers, liars, or fame seekers out for a buck".
Pros: saves any need for further investigation. You can spend money on more productive research, such as the mating practices of guinea pigs, etc.
Cons: Why are you in ufology if you accept this?
SUBJECTIVE/PSYCHOLOGICAL;
Subjective theories posit that UFO experiences may represent psychological abnormalities resulting from Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, Fantasy-Prone Personality Syndrome, or other conditions. According to these theories, the experience should be as "real" in the mind of the percipient as any other memory, because it is an induced brain event. Persinger feels intense geomagnetic activity might stimulate the temporal lobe and have just such an effect on the brain.
While most of the theories of this kind involve neurological and biochemical explanations, some focus more on the 'psychoanalytic,' looking at the traumas and stresses within the person's life and the personality types likely to have UFO experiences.
Pros: Might explain single-witness cases where only one person in a group sees UFO.
Cons: Has trouble explaining multiple-witness UFO cases, unless one posits mechanisms of 'shared delusion.'
SUBJECTIVE PROJECTIONS;
These theories suggest that UFOs may be unreal illusionary projections of some sort of intelligence - the collective unconscious of mankind, "Gaia," or a Cosmic Coincidence Control Center, for example. Any physical effects associated with UFOs are produce psychokinetically by the percipients or by this intelligence. (Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman offered a version of this theory in their book The Unidentified.) This theory points toward the well-known observation that the UFO "reflectively" changes its form to meet the expectations of the percipient, as noted by Keel in his books. Some feel in this vein that the UFOs may be akin to the Tibetan tulpas or materialized thought forms.
Pros: Explains possible continuity between modern UFOs and earlier sightings such as the Great Airship Wave of 1897 or the flying ships of the 800s.
Cons: Difficulty explaining all cases where a clear physical object is touched and/or material traces are left behind - can all such be produced by psychokinesis alone?
PSYCHOSOCIAL/FOLKLORE;
Bertrand Meheust and other Europeans have pointed to the links between science fiction and the saucer phenomenon, especially how key elements of it were prefigured in sci-fi stories of the 30s and early 40s. Such researchers are fascinated by H.G. Wells' famous War of the Worlds broadcast and the reactions it produced in 1938 - on the eve of World War II. Thomas Bearden and others in this school see UFOs as psychosocial manifestations of the anxieties of the Cold War and possible global catastrophe.
Others, like Vallee, have noted the 'Magonia' connection, and the link between UFO behavior and the lore surrounding dragons, elementals, faeries, and other beings of folktales and myth. The belief of such researchers is that folk culture throughout history has played an extensive amount in how the phenomenon is understood, which is why in our modern scifi/Space Age we see spacesuited astronauts instead of faeries.
Pros: Explains close similarities between certain UFO phenomena and elements of earlier scifi stories. For example, the first "stopped car" story occurs in a 1944 fictional tale, followed by the first UFO account of it in "real life" in 1948. Puts UFO sightings within a sociocultural framework.
Cons: Cannot explain cases that are markedly different from science fiction or other folkloric episodes in human history - i.e. the especially absurd ones.
NATURAL/FORTEAN PHENOMENON;
UFOs may be "Earthlights," or an unusual form of ball lightning. In cases were a structured form has been observed, proponents of this thoery suggest that this is a result of either psychokinetic structuring or spontaneous hallucinations produced by EM emissions from such "energy formations," which some people feel may even be 'electro-animals,' a kind of organism in themselves, perhaps hailing from the 'Superspectrum.'
'Earth Mysteries' investigators like Paul Devereux and John Michell (who note links between UFOs and crop circles, ley lines, megaliths, and special earth zones) tend to lean toward this hypothesis as a likely possibility.
Pros: Explains proximity of UFOs to the lines of the 'World Grid' and sites of geomagnetic activity, and the ability of dowsing/biolocation to discover them.
Cons: Does not seem to explain intelligent behavior on the part of these lights, i.e. avoiding jets, etc., or some of their abilities which seem to defy the laws of physics.
All of the above theories have problems explaining UFO landings, occupants, 'close' encounters, and abductions, especially vis. the physical side-effects of such - "eyeburn," etc. If the UFOs are real objects, then it is a question of origin.
HUMAN ORIGIN;
Some unknown human civilization - Nazis hiding in Brazil, Deros or Vrillians living within the Hollow Earth, Atlanteans or Lemurians from under the sea or Mount Shasta, or a Hermetic/Rosicrucian secret society - is building and piloting the 'saucers.' Either that, or a known civilization (us, the Russians, the Chinese, etc.) possesses advanced technologies which it is not revealing to the public.
This theory would suggest that nonhumans (such as the "Grays") seen aboard the UFOs might be genetically-created lifeforms or robots or androids. Alternatively, some suggest that the Grays may be time travellers from the future, and that they represent the future evolution of humanity - bigger brains and atrophied bodies.
Pros: Explains 'aryans' and other humans seen aboard the saucers.
Cons: How well could such a civilization really conceal itself from modern technology (sattelites, geologic monitoring equipment, remote sensing, etc.)?
EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGIN;
The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) was pioneered by Major Donald Keyhoe, who felt the UFOs could not be of human origin. Early ETH proponents supposed that the UFOs came from Mars, Venus, or other planets in the solar system. Since these planets now appear to be uninhabitable, ETH proponents have taken to suggesting other solar systems - Zeta Reticuli, Barnard's Star, Sirius, etc.
The UFOs are then "somebody else's spacecraft," sent here for some unknown mission. Most ETH advocates feel that the UFOnauts mission may be genetic hybridization, colonization of the planet, or assistance to the human race. (The first might be considered benign, the second malevolent, the third benevolent in intention.) Others think they are on a purely exploratory or expeditionary mission, and often argue as to whether bases are maintained on the Moon, on other planets, or here on Earth.
Pros: This hypothesis seems, at first, to be the most possible to confirm (or disprove) according to the Popperian ideal of science. If true, it could save us many SETI dollars.
Cons: There are more to the ETH than are generally acknowledged.
The ETH is problematic for multiple reasons. Vallee overs five, based purely on observational evidence. 1) The unlikely similarity of many of the 'aliens' to humans. There does not seem to be anything in nature favoring a bipedal form. Why are the aliens, then, so humanoid ?
2) The frequency of sightings: too many for an expeditionary force, for sure. If they wish to be clandestine, they are doing a poor job. On the other hand, they haven't asked to see our leader yet.
3) The long history of UFO sightings before 1947.
4) The sheer diversity of reports regarding the shape and size of the craft. How many different kind of alien races could be visiting us all at once?
5) The evidence against an 'advanced' technological civilization - why kidnap humans for genetic material when robbing a sperm bank would do? Why mutilate cattle when you could just scrape off a few cells? The absurd, metalogical, and metaphysical events surrounding the UFO encounter mitigate against "nuts and bolts" explanations.
Further, we know of no means for the UFOs to beat the laws of physics (i.e. relativity) and cross the vast distances of interstellar space, unless they can somehow bend space and time as has been suggested. We also, honestly, have no other confirming evidence of the existence of inhabitable planets out in space or any type or evidence, such as radio contact from the Ozma Project, of extraterrestrial civilizations.
ULTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGIN;
Maybe UFOs are "as much a feature of life on this planet as the weather." (Keel) They don't need to come from somewhere else. Besides the possibility of coming from under the sea (Sanderson) or from under the earth(Bernard), UFOs might come from some "Supersargasso in the Sky." (Fort) UFOs may go undetected because they can become invisible, or perhaps they are only visible to those who are slightly clairvoyant.
Keel feels they may be emanations of the "Superspectrum," or that they come from other dimensions of existence. Meade Layne of Broderland Sciences felt that they were 'Etherians' coming from a plane of existence normally outside our conscious awareness, and that they can come and go as they please through a process of 'materialization' similar to what psychic mediums do with spiritual "ectoplasm." Students of parapsychology and/or the 'paranormal' lean toward this explanation.
Pros: Explains 'high weirdness' and other aspects of UFO sightings that seem to defy physical law and/or have a 'paranormal' basis.
Cons: Does not explain cases where UFOnauts express extraterrestrial origin and/or provide 'abductees' with evidence for that position.
DECEPTION;
Some of the most critical evidence pertaining to "nuts and bolts"/ETH Ufology - the possession of crashed saucers, alien cadavers, alien bases on Earth, secret alien-government treaties, etc. - is based on testimony that emerges from individuals from government and military/intelligence backgrounds. People from such backgrounds can and do operate under a rubric of 'plausible denial' - they will lie when they feel it befits the 'national security' of the U.S., or perhaps merely to save their own ass.
This theory suggests that much if not all of UFO testimony of this kind may be a plot of deliberate mis- and dis-information for a variety of motives. Advocates of deception theories disagree as to how much of the UFO phenomenon is deliberately 'staged' by geovernments or extragovernmental "rogue" agencies, and whether or not governments 'know the truth' about "real" UFOs and are hiding it through classification, deception, and disinformation.
Pros: May be the best explanation of governmental involvement. After all, we know how good governments are at deceiving.
Cons: Who is the author of deception in some of these cases - the government of the UFOnauts themselves? It's certainly hard to tell.
These last two theories have been promoted most forcefully by Vallee, who does not rule out categorically any of the other possibilities listed.
He does not shy away from suggesting that the 'Messengers of Deception' may be testing the value of UFOs for behavioral/propaganda/political warfare value, or that they may be studying UFO cults as a prime candidate for the absorbtion of irrational and/or fascistic ideas.
Be, he also feels that there is in addition a genuine phenomenon, which is probably extradimensional (#7) and is an intelligent 'thermostatic' control system of human consciousness (#2). Vallee leaves open the question as to whether the phenomenon is malevolent or benevolent, but he has chronicled examples of UFO behavior which were clearly injurious to humans in an intentional matter.
OCCULT/MAGICAL/SUPERNATURAL;
There are techniques of altering human perception that have been studied by ascetics, fakirs, mystics, and magicians. Those techniques were known collectively as "Magick," as Crowley put it, "which is the art of bringing one's will to fruition in reality."
That is the rub, of course: as Arthur C. Clarke put it, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." But, as the authors of The Morning of the Magicians note, perhaps magic and alchemy are the remnants of lost sciences? These are difficult questions. Those who think UFOs are supernatural entities usually assume they are angels or devils, though Crowleyans posit that they are magical 'elementals,' and some Eastern scholars have weighed in that they might be daevas, djinni, or spirits. The theory most in vogue in this vein is that the UFOs are the Gentry or Evans-Wentz' mystical faerie race.
Pros: This is what some occult groups, such as the OTO or Golden Dawn factions, have been maintaining about UFOs all along.
Cons: It does not seem to require an incantation to bring our UFO friends, and precious little sorcery seems to be able to get them to leave.
Theories of UFO intentionality;
If UFOs are intelligently directed, many people feel it is of the upmost importance to discover whether their purpose is maleveolent, benevolent, or benign. Such arguments are frequently waged within the confines of the parameters of the ETH, although others have taken up the debate.
Benevolence. Betty Andreasson, Ray Fowler, Whitley Streiber, and Ida Kanonberg have all stressed this belief.
They feel the UFOnauts are here to help us take our place in the universe, save ourselves from planetary destruction, or complete our evolution. This is supported by stories of UFO contactees who receive healings, paranormal gifts, increased intelligence, etc. The problem with this hypothesis is, if they are benevolent, why are they operating with such secrecy? What are they trying to hide from us regarding their purposes? Why not tell us their beneficial aims?
Malevolence. Proponents of malevolence feel that the UFO-human relationship is exploitative and amoral at best, sinister and dangerous at worst. They feel the UFOs are out to do us grave harm, conquer the planet, or do something even worse.
They feel that examples of apparent UFO benevolence may be a means of creating fifth-column 'collaborators' within the human race to help them complete their objectives. UFO malevolence is supported by animal and human mutilation cases, the savage experiments performed on UFO abductees, the rare cases of human injury from UFO "attack," and intimidation by the MIB and so forth.
Nonetheless, the cases of direct human injury are extremely rare; in fact, much rarer than we might expect from a hostile force of invaders.
Benignness . Supporters of this theory point out that we seem to be treated by the UFOnauts in much the same way as we treat lower forms of life. Not with hostility or overt concern - we simply make sure that we go about our business with as little interference from them as possible.
The problem with the 'benignness' hypothesis is that the abduction phenomenon suggests a quite direct concern with humans - although perhaps the same concern we show lab rats, however, while we are making sure they are content and well fed before running them through our mazes. Supporters of the benign hypothesis feel that UFO-caused trauma, injury, or suffering is unintentional and that the UFOnauts are completely unaware of psychological trauma to our species that might result from their activities.
They may be here to observe or study but they have some sort of 'prime directive' of noninterference with our society and/or life on our planet.
I strongly suspect we cannot answer questions about intentionality until we know more about origin.
Steve Mizrach, aka Seeker1
The Case of the Missing Report;
Blue Book Unidentified: May 1, 1952, 9:10 A.M.,
Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona;
B-36;
*ALL EXTERNAL QUOTES BELOWTHIS IS DIRECTLY FROM NICAP;
QUOTE;
"This case is a classic. The late Dr. James McDonald made a valiant attempt in get details from original witnesses after discovering that a major report, submitted to Blue Book by the “UFO Officer” (who was one of the witnesses!) at Davis-Monthan, was missing. A small part of this was apparently recovered and now appears in the Blue Book microfilms. The story is as follows:"
"An Air Intelligence Officer (who had as one of his regular duties, the analysis of UFO cases reported to the local air base), a B-36 crew, and an airman on the steps of the base hospital (just coming from having his knee treated) all attested to this event.
Two shiny round objects overtook a B-36, slowed down to the speed of the B-36, stayed in formation with it for about 20 seconds, then executed a sharp no-radius 70-80-degree turn from the line of flight of the B-36, and resumed original speed and went to about one-fourth the distance to the horizon where one of the two objects made an immediate stop and hovered. There was no sound other than that of the B-36.There were no contrails from either the objects or the B-36.
Despite the detailed description (in the original report) of the maneuvers of the two shiny, silent objects, Blue Book dismissed this case as “Aircraft.” The following letter from Dr. McDonald dated July 14, 1966, was sent to Major Quintanilla, Blue Book head:
Dear Major Quintanilla:
Following our second unsuccessful effort to locate in the Blue Book files any record of the B-36 incident at Davis-Monthan AFB, I have asked Maj. Postalozzi to put down in a letter to me an account of such details as he can still remember with confidence (see Appendix).
Maj. Postalozzi has told me, in previous conversations, that he was an Air Intelligence officer from about 1950 to 1960, and was stationed at Davis-Monthan during 1951-53. Field investigation of UFO sightings was one of his routine duties, not only at Davis-Monthan but also at other duty stations. The B-36 case, which he believes occurred in 1952, was one in which he himself happened to be an observer. Although he has now made a number of efforts to run down clues to the precise date, the latter still remains uncertain, as I indicated to you in my last visit at WPAFB on June 30.
He recalls filing a rather thick report on this B-36 case, the thickest he ever filed on a UFO. It included not only his own observations and those of the B-36 crew which he personally interrogated, but also that of an airman who was standing beside him during most of the time of his own observation.The airman (whose name he has forgotten) was coming out of the base hospital just as the major was about to enter (for treatment of an injured knee)
He pointed out to me today that approximately six or seven other Air Force personnel at scattered locations around the base also reported seeing the UFOs from the ground. Because their descriptions matched closely those given by himself and the airman, he did not (at least as far as he now recalls) include them in his official report.
I have queried Maj. Postalozzi closely about the length of time during which he had the UFOs under observation. He estimates it at something like five minutes. He actually saw the two UFOs overtake the westbound B-36, and be held them under observation as the aircraft passed overhead until the objects departed.
His recollection, as of today, was that his line of sight to the B-36 at the time the UFOs moved into position was at an angle of elevation of about 50 degrees (estimated uncertainty about 5-10 degrees); and the UFOs departed when the line of sight to the aircraft was about the same angle above the western horizon. The aircraft was almost due east of the base when the objects joined it, and it lay due west when they departed. Its heading was almost due west during the entire period of observation. (In an earlier conversation, he estimated the total time of observation at perhaps 3 minutes.
The latter time would be a bit more compatible with an estimated flight altitude of 20,000 ft. and the estimated angle of line of sight. But every one of these estimates is based on recollecting of an event 14 years old, so perhaps all that is now warranted is the conclusion that the UFOs paced the B-36 for “several minutes." The latter time is compatible with the fact that all of the crew, save the pilot, were able to get back to the starboard blister to see the UFO before it left.)
As he sketched the relative positions, he recalled an important detail. The UFO near the aircraft was at a level distinctly lower than the mid-section of the fuselage (see sketch). He recalled that the crew described looking somewhat down upon it, and the blister itself is below mid-section. This may explain why there was no marked aerodynamic disturbance of the aircraft’s flight characteristics, one of the very puzzling features of this incident.
The major’s enclosed account does not directly state it, but he has mentioned to me that the B-36 crew was a bit shaken by this experience. He pointed out to me that after the UFOs departed, the B-36 radioed Davis-Monthan control tower and demanded permission to land immediately. It was just after they landed that Operations called him over to interrogate the crew. . . .
Sincerely,
James L. McDonald;
Senior Physicist;
I recall that at the time Dr. McDonald was regarded by Blue Book personnel as an outstanding nuisance. This was partly because he was interested in a scientific study of the “true” UFOs (those that completely defied simple natural explanation) and partly because he was so outspoken. He spoke his mind forcefully, and didn’t hesitate to criticize Blue Book methods whenever possible. On occasion I, too, was the target of his criticism--criticism which was entirely justified according to his very strict standards.
It is unfortunate that Dr. McDonald couldn’t understand or adjust to the political-military situation, and chose instead to act only according to strict scientific dictates. A carefully planned diplomatic approach in these military circles might have proved successful, especially if Dr. McDonald had consented to work with me in a much less antagonistic manner, as I invited him to do on several occasions. I fear, however, that he regarded me as a lost cause and that his temperament would hardly have permitted it.
It is due largely to the industry and perseverance of Dr. James McDonald that this excellent case was resurrected at all.
J. Allen Hynek;
APPENDIX B;
Major Pestalozzi's July 7 Letter to Dr. McDonald:
Dear Jim:
The information you requested several weeks ago concerning a UFO report submitted by me, as reporting officer to the USAF Project Blue Book follows:
The intervening years and a very mediocre memory do, of course, preclude my recalling the exact date, report data such as time, meteorological conditions (these obtained later from existing Blue Book records of this case are:
Weather clear, visibility 50 miles, temp. 72 deg F., dew point 50 deg. F., wind calm. sea-level pressure 143 millibars, station pressure 27.310 inches), flight altitude (which must have been about 20,000 feet), names of observers, etc. I will, however, relate the incident to you to the best of my recollection.
While standing on the front entrance steps of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Hospital, I observed the approach of two UFOs upon a B-36 flying on a general east-west heading directly over the base. The UFOs appeared, from the ground, to be round in shape and metallic in color (the same color as the B-36). The objects approached the aircraft from the northeast at a speed about three or four times that of the aircraft.
The two objects appeared to be about the same size when first observed. One object appeared to gain altitude as it approached the aircraft because it seemed to grow smaller. It stationed itself, at the B-36 speed, just behind and to the port side of the B-36.
The second stationed itself between the pusher-type prop spinners and the leading edge of the starboard elevators. The air crew, which landed the aircraft at DMAFB, and were interrogated by me, confirmed the ground-observed stationing of this object in this extremely close proximity to the aircraft.
I can no longer remember the length of time of the observation, but all of the air crew members, except one who flew the aircraft during the entire incident, were able to get to the starboard observation port to see the UFO.
The objects were reported to be symmetrically convex top and bottom, about 10 or 12 feet thick from top to bottom at the middle and quite sharp at the edge. (The crew gave an appropriate figure in inches which I cannot remember.) The object was reported by the crew, as I remember, to be about 20 or 25 feet in diameter. (It fit rather snugly between spinners and elevator.)
Some of the air crew members reported seeing a pale band of red color about halfway between the top and the edge of the object. All members did not see this color band, however. Upon questioning, the pilot denied that the objects interfered with either the flying characteristics of the B-36 or the navigation or radio equipment.
Upon departure from the aircraft the UFO lost altitude, crossed under the aircraft, joined the other object, and the two departed at extremely high speed in a southerly direction. (Aircraft altitude, air-speed, heading, UFO headings, approximate speeds and exact size estimates are in the original report, but I cannot remember them.) (What a loss not to have the original detailed report! One can only wonder how it disappeared!) During the close proximity of the object the pilots did not try evasive action.
The aircraft and crew were from Carswell AFB, Texas, and were on a flight to March AFB, Cal. It is possible that this report is filed in Blue Book archives under either of those base names. (Unfortunately, it is not).
Here is a list of Prominent Military and Scientific Personnel who were involved in the UFO investigation agendas;Some were directly involved with governmental stances on this UFO reality.The below list is from NICAP AND all QUOTES ARE FROM THIS SOURCE LINK AT THE END OF THIS TEXT;
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:24:32 -0600
From: Francis Ridge <[email protected]>
Subject: The WHO WAS Series;
is written and sponsored by the NICAP Website;
QUOTES;
"The starting point for this work was the unpublished papers of Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, and many times Ruppelt is quoted in the report below, except where historical records show the information was incorrect. Many new bios have been added.
Ackerman, Brig. Gen. John B.
In a June 1952 reorganization, Ackerman became Deputy Director for Collection & Dissemination of AF Intelligence, AFOIN-1. He had no direct connection with Project Blue Book but was very much interested, according to Ruppelt, and used to stop in and visit. According to Ruppelt, he had definite ideas as to what Blue Book had and what they should be doing. "He would tend to get all excited about individual sightings. He got copies of the UFO reports and several times he was on the phone wanting to know what we planned to do even before he had time to digest what was in the report." Ackerman had a "direct channel" to the top, to the Secretary of the Air Force and people in the Department of Defense. Detailed bio
Adams, Col. William A.
Col. Adams was the Chief of the Topical Intelligence Division of AF Intelligence, AFOIN-2A, after the reorg of June 1952, and Col. Smith and Major Dewey Fournet worked for him. According to Ruppelt, Adams was pretty much sold on the UFO. Ruppelt thought that Dewey Fournet influenced Adams' thinking to a great extent and said, "he pushed Fournet's study of the motions of the UFO's and he is the one who used to be the most vocal in briefings and at meetings in regard to Blue Book's taking a 'negative' attitude."
Adams was the person who became irked in one briefing (June 1952) and asked Ruppelt if it wasn't true that "if we made a few positive assumptions we could prove that the UFO's were real". (In a 1979 interview with Brad Sparks, Col. Adams said that in Jan 1953 he had signed and approved Fournet's study concluding that UFO's were extraterrestrial and sent it up the chain of command, to the Deputy Director for Estimates, Col. Jack Morrow, who also signed and approved the study and sent it to the D/I, Maj. Gen. John A. Samford.)
Alvarez, Luis Dr.
Luis Alvarez was a physics professor from the University of California in Berkeley, developer of MEW (Microwave Early Warning) radar at MIT at the beginning of World War II. Alvarez developed the detonators for the high-explosive shaped charges in the plutonium implosion bombs, and after the war, returned to Berkeley to work on high-energy particle physics. He sat on the CIA Robertson panel that met in Washington in January 1953. (Brad Sparks: According to Ruppelt's notes, Alvarez was one of the two Robertson Panel members who was pro-UFO, Panel Chairman and CIA consultant H. P. Robertson was the other.) Alvarez won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968.
Burgess, Brig. Gen. Woodbury M.
General Burgess was Deputy for Intelligence, Air Defense Command under General Chidlaw. Gen. Burgess, not a believer in UFOs, was firmly convinced that the Air Force should make every effort to find out what they were, even if they were all explainable. Ruppelt said that Burgess "bent over backwards to give Blue Book all the cooperation that they needed." Ruppelt also said that Gen. Burgess' ideas reflected those of General Chidlaw. Gen Burgess later became Deputy Director for Production of the NSA.
Major General Charles P. Cabell
General Cabell was the Director of Intelligence for the Air Force from May 15, 1948 to October 31, 1951. According to Ruppelt's private papers, Cabell was pretty much a "believer" in UFOs. Cabell became Director of the Joint Staff of the JCS on Nov. 1, 1951, and became the no. 2 man in the CIA, the DDCI (Deputy Director of Central Intelligence) on April 23, 1953, and held the post until Jan. 31, 1962, when he was fired for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Cabell held the dramatic meeting in the Pentagon on October 2, 1951, when Project Grudge chief Lt. Jerry Cummings and his boss Lt. Col. Nathan Rosengarten gave the briefing on their Ft. Monmouth radar case investigation, which Cabell had ordered on Sept. 28.
According to Ruppelt's papers Cabell got angry at the anti-UFO answers he was getting from the debunkers (Watson cronies) at the briefing and said "I've been lied to, lied to, lied to. I want it to stop." Afterward Cabell ordered Project Grudge reorganized, in mid-October 1951. (Brad Sparks: According to Lt Cummings, Cabell thought that Col. Harold Watson had simply taken the UFO Project Grudge "underground" when it was publicly closed in Dec 1949 so it could quietly continue its UFO investigations. When Cabell found out that was not true, that it really was all but terminated, Cabell got upset and in July 1950 ordered his own staff in AF Intelligence to begin conducting the UFO investigations that Watson refused to do.
Cabell fired this leading UFO debunker Col. Watson as soon as he got command of the unit Watson headed, in May 1951, when Watson's AMC Intelligence Dept became the ATIC. Since a "firing" in the military is not the same as in civilian life, does not mean being booted out of the military, it meant Watson was transferred to another position, which took several months to find, at USAFE as it turned out, during which time Watson was left in limbo.) General Samford replaced Cabell as D/I on Nov. 1, 1951.
Chapman, James.
According to Ruppelt, this man was in charge of one of the photo labs at Wright Air Development Center and did all of the work on UFO photos for Project Blue Book. Although a firm "believer", Ruppelt said Chapman did do a good job of making unbiased analyses of Blue Book's photos.
Chop, Albert M. (1916-2006)
As Press Chief for the U.S. Air Force in 1952, Albert M. Chop was a direct participant in the famous July 1952 radar-visual UFO sightings around Washington, D.C. Chop attended the University of Dayton for two years, and was a newsman for the Dayton Daily News and the Associated Press from 1937-1943. During World War II he served as a combat correspondent with the U.S. Marine Corps (which might account for his cooperative relationship with Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC Ret.) After several years in public relations and advertising copywriting, Chop became Press Chief for the Air Materiel Command in Dayton, Ohio, in 1951.
He was transferred to the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C. in 1952 where he served as Press Chief and was public spokesman for the Air Force UFO project. From 1953 to 1962 he was a public relations representative for Douglas Aircraft Company. He then became Deputy of Public Affairs for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from 1962 until 1975. For two years after that he was employed by the Atomic Energy Commission in a management position. Chop was involved in providing information and writing for the 1956 Greene-Rouse Productions documentary film UFO, which included the 1950 Montana film taken by Nick Mariana and the 1952 Utah film by Delbert C. Newhouse.
The documentary also recreated the Washington sightings and other important cases, providing new, inside information to the public. Chop gave an oral history to the Sign Historical Group in November 1999 in which he talks about his relationship with Donald Keyhoe, whose dedicated and persistent interest resulted in his obtaining the good information that he did on Air Force cases.
He (Chop) also describes being present at Washington National Airport on the night in July 1952 watching on radar and hearing the communications when an Air Force F-94 pilot reported being surrounded by UFOs. (This incident is reconstructed in the movie UFO.) He quotes the pilot as saying, "They're closing in on me! What shall I do?" Chop: "There was dead silence in the radar room; no one knew what to say. I don't mind telling you this, it scared me! It was frightening! And I think everybody in the room was very apprehensive. They had to be intelligently controlled." His experience that night convinced him that UFOs probably were from another planet.
William T. Coleman;
Colonel William T. Coleman is a retired Air Force bomber pilot, former Public Information Officer for Project Blue Book, and Air Force's Chief Public Relations Officer during the early 1970s. He was also the Producer of a series called "Project UFO" that ran on NBC for two seasons. (1978-79) In June of 1978, while promoting his new TV show on the Merv Griffin show, Coleman spoke about a UFO sighting he had experienced while a bomber pilot in 1955. The plane closed to within an eighth of a mile of the disc-shaped object. "It was about 60 feet in diameter and 10 or 11 feet thick through the center," he said. "It had what looked like a titanium-type finish". (silver gray). See report.
Lt. Gen. Lawrence Cardee Craigie;
Born in Concord, N.H., in 1902. Laurence Cardee Craigie graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in June 1923, being commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Service. In October 1942. Craigie, then a colonel, became the first pilot of the Armed Forces to fly a jet-propelled plane when he piloted the XP-59 on its initial flight at Muroc Dry Lake, Calif. In November 1944 he vas back at Wright-Patterson as deputy chief of the Air Technical Service's Engineering Division. He became chief of the division in August 1945 and was promoted to major general in July 1946.
In 1947 he became chief of the Research and Engineering Division at Headquarters Army Air Force. That October he was appointed Director of Research and Development under the deputy chief of staff for materil at Headquarters U.S. Air Force, and the following September returned to Wright-Patterson as commandant the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology. Craigie became vice commander of the Far East Air Forces in Tokyo in July 1950 and returned to Headquarters U.S. Air Force in November 1951 as deputy chief of staff for development.
He was promoted to lieutenant general July 5, 1952. In April 1954 he took command of th Allied Air Forces in Southern Europe, at Naples, Italy. And his connection to Wright Field and the UFO Project SIGN, like LeMay, he had no time to waste, and especially no money to waste, on distractions like UFOs. He almost certainly didn't "hate" UFOs; he merely thought they were a valueless diversion of personnel and funds.
Deyarmond, Col. Albert B.
Albert Deyarmond was an "old hand" with the UFO's, in on the first of Project Sign. From the old memos signed by him it could be determined that he was once a firm believer, along with Alfred Loedding, John "Red" Honaker and the rest of the veterans or Project Sign. But by the time Ruppelt got into the picture Deyarmond, at least on the surface, was lined up with the scoffers. Ruppelt had said that, "once, when I began to knock the UFO's, he raised the devil and chewed me out for not keeping an 'open mind'." Ruppelt had called him a "scoffer" because he was a "disciple" of Col. Watson's. Deyarmond later became chief of structures at Ryan Aircraft Company.
Ericksen, Col. John G.
Col Ericksen was head of the Policy and Management Group of the Directorate of Intelligence and in some way got in on all of the UFO business. (Sparks: Ericksen had previously been Fournet's boss as Chief of the Technical Capabilities Branch, Evaluation Division of AF Intelligence before the June 1952 reorganization.) Ruppelt said that Ericksen was "sort of power behind the throne on what the official policy would be." Ruppelt gave him quite a few briefings and he seemed to be a "lone wolf" in that he wanted to get the picture for himself.
Ruppelt: "He got a little hacked at Fournet quite often, because he thought that Fournet was pushing his ideas, that the UFO's were real, too hard. I think that Ericksen tended to put a lot of faith in the UFO's but he was one of those who was afraid to stick his neck out." Col. Ericksen was National Air Intelligence Commander from July to December of 1958.
Brigadier General Arthur E. Exon.
General Exon is a pilot with 135 combat missions and over 300 hours of combat flight time during World War II. His aircraft was severely damaged by an exploding ammunition dump and he was forced to bail out over enemy territory. Captured, he spent just over a year in German prisoner of war camps. He was liberated in April, 1945. After the war he completed an industrial administration course at the Air Force Institute of Technology and was then assigned to the Air Materiel Command (AMC) Headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. (It should be noted that General Nathan F. Twining was the commander of the Air Materiel Command which controlled various intelligence functions.
Twining's letter of September 23, 1947 has been quoted by many. It was Twining's conclusion then that flying discs were real.) Over the next several years he held a variety of positions finally arriving at the Pentagon as a full colonel in 1955. In 1960 he became Chief of Ballistic Missiles and was responsible for establishing the Jupiter Ballistic Missile system for NATO in Italy and Turkey. In July, 1963, he left Europe for an assignment at Olmsted Air Force Base in Pennsylvania. In August, 1964, he was assigned as commander, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. On August 20, 1965, he was promoted to brigadier general.
General Exon has had a most impressive military career. Officers are not promoted to flag rank (general officer) without having proven themselves as competent. Those who make it while on active duty, who are not rewarded with the promotion on retirement, are in a small minority. Only the top officers achieve the privilege of wearing stars. General Exon, as a lieutenant colonel, was assigned to Wright Field in July of 1947. He was there when the wreckage from the Roswell crash came in and was aware of the recovery in New Mexico.
He knew that it was brought in and knew where it was sent. A few of his colleagues performed the tests on the metal, trying to determine what it was. And he learned from other colleagues that the bodies had arrived on the base. All in July, 1947. Official military bio
Fahrney, Rear Admiral Delmer S.
Rear Admiral Fahrney was "the foremost Navy pioneer for the development of guided missiles. His vision of future weaponry, technical excellence and tireless advocacy formed the basis for the post-World War II Navy missile programs." "Admiral Fahrney's early work in guided missiles and his foresight in planning for future generations of missiles earned for him recognition by many peers as 'the father of naval air guided missiles.'" (circa 1956). On Jan 16, 1957, Admiral Fahrney held a press conference for NICAP. "Reliable reports indicate there are objects coming into our atmosphere at very high speeds.
They way they change position would indicate their motion is directed." (New York Times article) Fahrney was chairman of NICAP's Board of Governors for one week, and then, for personal reasons, had to resign. (Washington Daily News). His replacement was first CIA Director and DCI, RoscoeHillenkoetter, who was recruited in April or May 1957, and this must have infuriated the CIA.. (Richard Hall: Fahrney was a NICAP member for a long time, visited the office when I was there after early 1958, and later exchanged a lot of information with Jim McDonald. Throughout, he kept funnelling good Navy pilot and missile officer cases to us.)
Fournet, Dewey J., Major, USAF.
Fournet served in the Technical Capabilities Branch of AF Intelligence until transfer to the new Current Intelligence Branch in the June 1952 reorganization. Fournet took over UFO duties in the TCB (liaison officer between Project Grudge/Blue Book and the Pentagon) from Lt. Col. Milton D. Willis in Feb 1952. (Ruppelt: Dewey got hot on the subject right away and helped us a great deal in getting things straightened out in the Pentagon. His job was just supposed to be part time, but within a matter of months he was working on it full time) Fournet was the most confirmed believer Ruppelt had run into in the Pentagon.
He had access to all of their reports, read them all over very carefully, and was absolutely convinced. His most notable effort was the famous "motion study" that "proved" the UFOs operated under intelligent control. (In 1979 interviews with Brad Sparks, Col. William A. Adams and Col. Weldon H. Smith said that in Jan 1953 Smith signed Fournet's study and sent it to Adams who also signed and approved Fournet's study concluding that UFO's were extraterrestrial.
Col. Adams said he sent the study up the chain of command, to the Deputy Director for Estimates, Col. Jack Morrow, who also signed and approved the study and sent it to the D/I, Maj. Gen. John A. Samford.) This study was presented to the Robertson Panel in January of 1953 and was rejected. After retiring from the Air Force, Fournet became a member of NICAP's original Board of Governors.
Garland, Brig Gen, William. M.
General Garland was Ruppelt's boss at ATIC from Sept 1952 until Ruppelt left, and was a moderately confirmed believer, according to Ruppelt's unpublished papers. He was Gen. Samford's Assistant for Production in the Pentagon, the no. 2 man in AF Intelligence, then transferred to ATIC as Commander in September 1952. He was the inspiration behind the Life article by Robert Ginna. (Ruppelt: He gave Ginna his ideas and prompted Life to stick their necks out.) After he got out of the Air Force in September 1953, Gen. Garland became a consultant to Rand.
Gittings, Homer T.
Homer Gittings was Ruppelt's contact in Los Alamos. He was a charter member of the group that was trying to correlate recorded radiation from an unknown source with UFO reports. Ruppelt: He worked closely with a Ph.D. but I've forgotten the Ph.D.'s name (Dr. William Baker). Gittings, the Ph.D. and several other scientists would fly down to Albuquerque and we'd meet with Col. Matheny at 34th Air Division Headquarters.
If I remember correctly, Gittings had an MS degree in Physics and was an instrumentation specialist." Joel Carpenter provided the 30 Nov. 49 DOE Green Fireball doc: "A group of scientists and technicians from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory have become extremely interested in the observations of the aerial phenomena observed at various times in this vicinity, on which reports have been rendered periodically.
This group is headed by Richard Taschek and is composed of the following additional personnel: Homer T. Gittings, Jr. George A. Jarvis Stan N. Simmons Jed [?] Nicholas Harold Agnew W. J. Masilum Howard Parsons Robert Potter All of the foregoing have been appropriately cleared under the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act and therefore would have access to any and all information on this subject which might be developed by the National Military Establishment, principally the U. S. Air Forces."
Goudsmit, Samuel ;
This man, from AEC’s Brookhaven Lab on Long Island, sat on the CIA/Robertson Panel that met in Washington in January 1953. Goudsmit was probably the most violent anti-saucer man at the panel meeting, according to Ruppelt's papers. Everything was a big joke to him which brought down the wrath of the other panel members on numerous occasions. (This was actually Page who made the UFO jokes, whom Ruppelt confused with Goudsmit, as they were the two anti-saucer panel members).Goudsmit discovered electron spin in 1925. In 1944 he led the Alsos scientific intelligence mission to investigate and exploit German technological developments including atomic weapons research.
Hardin, Capt. Charles;
In January 1954, Captain Charles Hardin was appointed the head of Project, Blue Book, and he was replaced by Captain George T. Gregory in 1956. However, most UFO investigations were conducted by the 4602nd Air Intelligence Service Squadron (AISS). Ruppelt wrote that Hardin "thinks that anyone who is even interested (in UFOs) is crazy. They bore him." (Clark, 468). Ruppelt also wrote: "He has been the one big bottleneck in my getting anything from the Air Force because he is afraid that my book will stir things up too much."
Hayden, Father;
Father Hayden was head of the astronomy department at Georgetown University. Ruppelt said he had never met him but mentioned that Dr. Stefan Possony was always going to him with Blue Book's UFO problems, and couldn’t at all be classed as a scoffer.
Hillenkoetter, Vice-Admiral Roscoe;
Admiral Hillenkoetter served as the first "official" DCI of the CIA. Appointed first as DCI of CIG and then after the National Security Act of 1947, he was sworn in as DCI of CIA. Hillenkoetter's tenure was from May 1947 to October 1950. He believed that while the stated role of the CIA was to coordinate intelligence activities, realistically the Agency lacked the bureaucratic muscle to effect such a lofty goal. As a result of this decision Hillenkoetter urged the Agency into the area of current intelligence production.
In 1949 a group appointed by the NSC recommended that the Agency be restructured. Hillenkoetter served on the board of governors of NICAP and is on record as stating: "Unknown objects are operating under intelligent control. It is imperative that we learn where UFOs come from and what their purpose is." He resigned from NICAP in Feb 1962 and was replaced on the NICAP Board by a former covert CIA high official, Joseph Bryan III, the CIA's first Chief of Political & Psychological Warfare (Bryan never disclosed his CIA background to NICAP or Keyhoe).
Hynek, Dr. J. Allen;
Dr. Hynek had been the consultant astronomer to Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book. Ruppelt said that Hynek was "darn interested" and had devoted a great deal of his valuable time to the project. Ruppelt stated Hynek had read almost every UFO report in the Air Force files, which simply was not true. Brad Sparks: "One person working very few hours part-time, like Hynek, could not possibly have read almost all of the 4,000 reports. Hynek also suspected he never got to see certain sensitive reports. Sometimes BB used the excuse that Hynek was only to analyze astronomical aspects of cases to explain them away in order to deny Hynek knowledge of or access to spectacular Unknowns."
On Oct. 11, 1952 he debated with Menzel at the American Optical Society meeting in Boston and (according to Ruppelt) "blasted Menzel right out of the hall". He sat as an associate Member on the CIA Robertson Panel in Washington in January 1953 and was cautiously pro-UFO. Dr. Hynek was Head of the Ohio State Univ. Astronomy Department, Director of the Perkins Observatory and Assistant Dean of the USU Graduate School. Hynek headed up Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Moonwatch project from 1956 to 1960 then went to Northwestern University where he was Director of the Dearborn Observatory and the Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, until his retirement from Northwestern in June 1978.
Two of his most enduring efforts are the close encounters scale, a new classification system of sightings from which the term "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" became famous, and the creation in 1973 of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).
This was one of the people that Ruppelt claimed he liked to talk to at General Mills. He was one of the members of the original Skyhook balloon launching crew. He had a BS degree in aeronautical engineering and was considered to be pretty sharp. All of the people at General Mills were convinced that the UFO’s were real, as they said they had all seen the UFO’s. The boss, Charles Moore, whom Ruppelt talked to for only a few minutes, was very put out at the way the Air Force had handled many of the UFO reports and was very indignant. In the summer of 1952, Kaliszewski was quoted in the Minneapolis paper as saying that the Air Force should put forth more effort because he was convinced that the UFO’s were real.
Kaplan, Dr. Joseph
Joseph Kaplan was a geophysics professor at UCLA. His main UFO interest was the Green Fireballs. Ruppelt stated that Kaplan put a lot of stock in Dr. LaPaz’s theory that the GFB’s were man-made (Russian), although at one time he thought that they were auroral patches. Dr. Kaplan originated the grid camera idea. Dr. Kaplan later headed the satellite program for the International Geophysical Year.
Lipp, Dr. James
James Lipp was the Rand Corporation's guided missile expert and he was violently anti-saucer, according to Ruppelt's notes. Lipp wrote an analysis of UFO reports in December of 1948 for Project Sign to see if they could be space visitors, but concluded UFO's were probably not extraterrestrial. Ruppelt stated that early in 1952 Col. Don Bower and he tried to enlist the Rand Corporation's aid, on a contract basis, to try to develop some way of getting more positive answers but, at the recommendation of Lipp, Rand refused to touch it. “Too hot,” was their reason. Ruppelt: "I think controversial would have been a better word than 'hot'."
Col. William A Matheny
Col Matheny was the CO of the 34th Air Defense Division in Albuquerque. He later became a Brig. General. He was firmly convinced that the UFO’s were real and that they were interplanetary space ships. He wrote up a plan, Project Pounce, that called for a special squadron of stripped down F-94C’s to chase the UFO’s. The plan went through Western Air Defense Headquarters and to Air Defense Command Headquarters but it was rejected because of the non-availability of the aircraft. It was in the 34th that the F-86 pilot claimed that he shot at the UFO, in the disturbing incident Ruppelt wrote about in the beginning of his book, which evidently occurred in september of 1952, according to Brad Sparks' research. His official bio can be found at: http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6323
Page, Thornton
Thornton Page of John Hopkin’s Operations Research Office, editor of the Operations Research Journal, and an astronomer, sat on the CIA Robertson Panel in Washington D.C. in January 1953. Page and Goudsmit were both anti-UFO, but it was Page who kept cracking jokes about UFOs until Robertson reprimanded him. Later his opinion changed and in 1969, after reviewing the Condon Report, he stated: "How can we logically reject this theory when we accept theories of rotating neutron stars to explain pulsars? Of course, a better theory might be devised if more data were collected and the present data examined in broader terms."
Parrish, Lt. Glen
This was the Intelligence Officer at the 34th Air Defense Division at Albuquerque where Col. Matheny was the CO. Ruppelt: "Parrish sent in some of the best reports that we had and he is the man who showed me the report on the pilot who shot at the UFO." (Sept. 1952) According to Ruppelt, with all of the good reports that Parrish had submitted, he wasn’t a confirmed believer. But he did think that the reports were important enough to warrant careful investigations. In addition to the above, Parrish was the middle man for the reports from the people who were doing the radiation work in Los Alamos.
Porter, Col Edward H.
Ruppelt: "Col Porter was the Deputy Director for Estimates of the D/I. He was violently anti-UFO. He was Fournet’s boss. At every briefing or meeting he always got his two cents worth in and he minced no words. But he never had a decent argument; he didn’t know what was being reported nor did he care, he just didn’t believe that there was anything to it. General Cabell is reported to have climbed all over him and Col Hal Watson for conspiring to get rid of the UFO project in 1950."
Possony, Dr. Stefan T.
Ruppelt: "Steven Possony was the acting chief of the Directorate of Intelligence Special Studies Group and he had a direct channel to (Gen.) Samford." Possony was apparently pretty much sold on the UFO and did a lot of investigating on his own "book", and had Father Hayden, the astronomer, as his special consultant. Ruppelt: "Steve and his crew used to cruise all over the U.S. and Europe, and during these travels they picked up a lot of UFO data. Steve was behind Fournet 100% and tended to push him. He was smart enough to know that the UFO situation was hot so he used Fournet, who was a reserve and didn’t plan to stay in the Air Force any longer than he had to, to try out his ideas.
Possony didn’t much care what he said, however, and he used to go to battle with any or all of the more vocal skeptics. He really got teed off at Menzell and went to all ends to find out everything about the man. It turned out to be very interesting. Possony had a good reputation in the Air Force. Besides being a fairly sharp intelligence man, he is a professor at Georgetown University and he has written quite a bit on the strategy and concepts of airpower. He is considered one the of the world’s experts on this subject."
Maj. Gen. Roger Maxwell Ramey;
Detailed military career bio herehttp://www.nicap.org/bios/ramey_detailed_bio.htm Briefly, Highly decorated during WWII, and noted for his heavy bombing campaigns against the Japanese. In charge of air operations during the post-war A-bomb tests for Operations Crossroads and Sandstone. Air Force Director of Operations and headed the 8th and 5th Air Forces. Left the service a three-star general and Director of the Air Defense Command. Ramey and UFOs: Roswell fame. Ramey was already debunking UFOs before Roswell. And in 1952 was said to be the Air Force's "saucer man" and one of their top UFO experts. He played an important role in debunking the 1952 flying saucer wave, including going on national. Issued a false press release that the Air Force never gave an order to shoot down the saucers.
Robertson, Howard Percy
Robertson later became chief scientific advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of NATO. Ruppelt: "He first came out to ATIC in November 1952 [actually Dec. 12, 1952] with a group of other scientists [from the CIA] to review our UFO material. He and his party stayed two days [one day] and then went back to Washington and suggested to the National Security Council [actually the CIA] that a group of top scientists get together to look over the reports." (Sparks: Ruppelt has the events of Nov/Dec 1952 confused.
In fact the Chadwell-Robertson-Durant CIA group strongly recommended _against_ convening what became known as the Robertson Panel because Battelle scientist Dr. Howard Cross told them that Battelle needed more time to finish its massive statistical analysis of Blue Book's 4,000 UFO reports.)
Rosenzweig, Leslie
Ruppelt: Les Rosenzweig worked for Possony. He was sort of a dull tool and whenever Possony said or did anything Les took it as the gospel. When it came to UFO’s there was no difference. Les made quite a few studies on how the UFO’s could be powered, how they could be contacted, etc. He pushed the idea of using a huge horizontal movie screen to flash messages to the UFO’s. He, or possibly it was Possony himself, made a lot of contacts with Willy Ley. They dropped him fast however, when good old commercial Willy began to try to push himself into the act a little too fast.
It is interesting to note that those people in the U.S. who are actually considered to be tops in the fields of interplanetary travel have no use for Willy Ley or Von Braun. (Sparks: Note that this is Ruppelt's veiled reference to his CIA friend Fred Durant, a rocket expert who was soon to be proved spectacularly wrong about von Braun. Ruppelt wrote this in 1955, before von Braun proved himself by launching the US's first satellite in Jan 1958, after the Soviets beat everyone into space with Sputnik 1 in Oct 1957 and after the "experts" were humiliated by their Vanguard launch failure.)
Samford, Major General John
General Samford was Director of Intelligence, USAF, and was neutral on the subject of UFO’s, and always very much interested and gave Ruppelt the utmost in cooperation. He took comments and suggestions at meetings but never agreed or disagreed with anyone. Ruppelt: "The only time that I ever heard him say anything was when Col Porter got real nasty about the whole thing one day and began to knock ATIC, UFO’s, me and everything associated with the project. Then the General said something to the effect that as far as he could see,
I was the first person in the history of the Air Force’s investigation that had taken a serious approach to the investigation and that he didn’t see how anyone could decide until I’d collected more data." General Samford felt like he got “burned” real bad on the press conference in July 1952. According to Ruppelt, Samford's statements were twisted around and newsreel shots of him were “cut and pieced” and quoted him out of context. (Sparks: "Gen. Samford became Director of the NSA in 1956 and held that position until 1960.")
Smith, Weldon H. Col .
Ruppelt: "This man was Dewey Fournet’s boss. He wasn’t quite as sold on the UFO’s as Col Bill Adams but he was pretty well sold. He also 'bought' Fournet’s ideas and studies. I remember specifically the case of the burned Scoutmaster: Col Smith was 'sold' that this was the real thing. He was following the whole show from the Pentagon, through my calls to Fournet and from the wires that I was sending back. Just as soon as I got back from the first trip to Florida I went in to see him and he got quite irked when I said that something about this scoutmaster just didn’t ring true. He said that I was biased and wasn’t giving the man a chance. According to Keyhoe, he is the person from the D/I that wrote the anonymous letter that Keyhoe quotes in his book. I don’t believe it, however, I think that Fournet wrote it."
Thompson, James
Ruppelt: "When I knew Jim Thompson he was an astronomer working for RAND in Santa Monica. He used to stop in at ATIC quite frequently and spend a day or two reading reports. Whenever I got out to California he used to arrange an unofficial bull session with a dozen or so of the 'believers' and we’d talk UFO’s."
Watson, Col. Harold E.
Ruppelt wrote in his papers that Col Watson, later a Brig Gen and once again Chief of ATIC, was chief of ATIC when he arrived. (He later went to Europe for three years.) "He was violently anti-saucer but he crossed himself up too many times trying to constantly grab publicity. He was the one who made the famous remark about all UFO observers being nuts or 'fatigued airline pilots'. He continually hauled in writers who would plug him and debunk the UFO's. I've overheard him tell how he completely snowed Bob Considine."
White, Major General
Ruppelt: I think that this man’s name was White. He was from some branch of research and development in the Pentagon. He and his staff religiously attended every one of my briefings and were sold that the UFO’s were real. He had Gen Samford’s ear but I don’t think he quite convinced Samford that the UFO’s were real.
Zimmerman, Charles
Ruppelt: Charley Zimmerman was the technical advisor to the chief of the Analysis Branch at ATIC. I never could figure out exactly where he stood on the subject of UFO’s but I think he was a bit of a believer. Several times I tried to put through an explanation that a UFO was a balloon or other known object and he’d argue like mad against it. Many times he’d come running into my office to show me “a new, red hot report”.
LeMay, Curtis Emerson, General
LeMay was an Air Force General and the vice presidential running mate of independent candidate George C. Wallace in 1968. He is credited with designing and implementing an effective systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific Theatre of Strategic Air Command. After the war, he reorganized the Strategic Air Command into an effective means of conducting nuclear war. Critics have characterized him as a belligerent warmonger (even nicknaming him "Bombs Away LeMay") whose aggressiveness threatened to inflame tense Cold War situations (such as the Cuban Missile Crisis) into open war between the United States and the Soviet Union. He was AAF Deputy C/S for R&D in 1946-1947.
He was AF Chief of Staff after SAC. In the summer of 1952 LeMay enlisted Edward Teller to do a UFO study just like many other agencies following the LIFE article and riding on the UFO wave. The April_25 1988 issue of The New Yorker carried an interview of Barry Goldwater, who said he repeatedly asked his friend Gen. LeMay if there was any truth to the rumors that UFO evidence was stored in a secret room at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and if he (Goldwater) might have access to the room.
According to Goldwater, an angry LeMay gave him "holy hell" and said, "Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again." Referred to as "The Blue Room.", Goldwater reported in an interview with Larry King (LARRY KING LIVE AT AREA 51) that he had felt "chewed out" by General LeMay.
Knowles, Rear Admiral H.B,, USN (Retired)
Admiral Knowles was a veteran of both World War I and World War II. He held important submarine commands and wasn a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Wilbert B. Smith (head of the Canadian government's UFO project, Project Magnet) claimed that in 1952, a time of the great UFO wave, the U.S.A.F. had recovered a piece of a UFO that had been shot at near Washington, D.C. He said that the U.S. Air Force had loaned him a piece of the recovery. He showed it to a friend, Rear Admiral H. B. Knowles. Statement by Rear Adm. M. Herbert B. Knowles:
"I shall be very glad to accept appointment as a member of the (NICAP) Board of Governors and be listed as a 'believer' in the reality of UFO's, with the understanding that I shall resign if it appears at any time that your big group is beinq used to cover up for the top brass. I know that there is a real need to break through the official Washington brush-off and get the truth home to the people. There seems to be a great fear among the powers that be that the American people will panic if told the truth. How little they know and understand their countrymen. I feel that millions of our people already believe in the reality of the UFO's."
Here is a fascinating document from a report made by the credible "Brookings Research Institute" in Washington ,the bit i am highlighting here is the section entitled "Implications of a Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life". (Commonly referred to as "the Brookings Institute report".); All text below is from external sources;
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quote;
"On December 14, 1960, The Brookings Research Institute in Washington released a report prepared during 1960 for NASA entitled "Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs", including a section entitled "Implications of a Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life". (Commonly referred to as "the Brookings Institute report".)
The report discusses effects of meeting extraterrestrial life: "It is possible that if the intelligence of these creatures were sufficiently superior to ours, they would choose to have little if any contact with us. . . " (New York Times, Dec. 15, 1960);
The original site for the 219-page report and the 50-page summary is listed below. For security reasons, if the site would go down, the NICAP site also hosts the full documents, also listed below. The article in the NICAP UFO Investigator that announced the release of the report in its Dec/Jan issue is produced below. Recently added is the New York Times article transcript,
SPACE-LIFE REPORT COULD BE SHOCK;
UFOI, Vol. I, No. II (Dec 1960 - Jan 1961 issue);
quote;
"The discovery of intelligent space beings could have a severe effect on the public, according to a research report released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The report warned that America should prepare to meet the psychological impact of such a revelation.
The 190-page report was the result of a $96,000 one-year study conducted by the Brookings Institution for NASA's long-range study committee.
Public realization that intelligent beings live on other planets could bring about profound changes, or even the collapse of our civilization, the research report stated.
"Societies sure of their own place have disintegrated when confronted by a superior society," said the NASA report. "Others have survived even though changed. Clearly, the better we can come to understand the factors involved in responding to such crises the better prepared we may be."
Although the research group did not expect any immediate contact with other planet beings, it said that the discovery of intelligent space races "could nevertheless happen at any time."
Even though the UFO problem was not indicated as a reason for the study, it undoubtedly was an important factor. Fear of public reaction to an admission of UFO reality was cited as the main reason for secrecy in the early years of the AF investigation. (Confirmed to NICAP's present director in 1952-3, when the AF was planning to release important UFO reports, also the famous Utah motion-pictures of a UFO formation.)
Radio communication probably would be the first proof of other intelligent life, says the NASA report. It adds: "Evidences of its existence might also be found in artifacts left on the moon or other planets."
This report gives weight to previous thinking by scholars who have suggested that the earth already may be under close scrutiny by advanced space races. In 1958, Prof. Harold D. Lasswell of the Yale Law School stated:
"The implications of the UFOs may be that we are already viewed with suspicion by more advanced civilizations and that our attempts to gain a foothold elsewhere may be rebuffed as a threat to other systems of public order." (UFO Investigator, Dec. 1958.)
The NASA warning of a possible shock to the public, from the revelation of more advanced civilizations, support's NICAP's previous arguments against AF secrecy about UFOs. All available information about UFOs should be given to the public now, so that we will be prepared for any eventuality.<
Brookings Report - The NY Times 12/15/1960
Dateline: The New York Times, Thursday, December 15, 1960
Mankind is warned to Prepare for Discovery of Life in Space - Brookings Institution Report Says Earth's Civilization Might Topple if faced by a Race of Superior Beings
Washington. Dec 14 (UPI) -- Discovery of life on other worlds could cause the earth's civilization to collapse, a Federal report said today.
This warning was contained in a research report given to the National Aeronautical and Space Administration with the recommendation that the world prepare itself mentally for the eventuality.
The report, prepared by the Brookings Institution, said "while the discovery of intelligent life in other parts of the universe is not likely in the immediate future, it could nevertheless, happen at any time." Discovery of Intelligent beings on other planets could lead to an all-out effort by earth to contact them, or it could lead to sweeping changes or even the downfall of civilization, the report said.
Even on earth, it added, "societies sure of their own place have disintegrated when confronted by a superior society, and others have survived even though changed."
Responding to Crisis;
"Clearly, the better we can come to understanding the factors involved in responding to such crisis the better prepared we may be."
The agency's 100-page report, prepared at a cost of $86,000 was for the space agency's committee on beings-in-space studies. The members, headed by Donald M. Michael also recommended further study of other space activities, including the symptomatic and propaganda effects and the implications of communications and weather satellites.
On the question of life in outer space, the report said that if intelligent or super-intelligent beings were discovered in the next twenty years they would probably be found by radio communications with other solar systems.
Evidence of such existence "might also be found in artifacts left on the moon or other planets," it said.
An attempt already has been made to contact outer space. Government scientist at Greenbank, West Virginia used radio astronomy in an effort to pick up signals that might have been beamed by intelligent beings. They concentrated on a star about fifteen light years away.
"Signals were sent from Greenbank were of a kind that would show to anyone receiving on other planets that they were man-made and not natural phenomena".
This for me is a mother of a speech by Astronaut Gordon Cooper when he addressed the UN panel on the subject of UFOs; All below texts are from external sources;
Astronaut Gordon Cooper addressing U.N. panel discussion on UFOs and ETs, 1985;
Summary: This message was given to the U.N. by Astronaut Gordon L. Cooper, one of America's original seven Mercury Astronauts. Cooper orbited the Earth for a record 34 hour, 22 orbit flight in the spacecraft 'Faith 7', in May of 1963. He has been outspoken about the need for an open inquiry into UFOs - based on his own personal experience of sighting UFOs in space and the testimony of other Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Astronauts.
Astronaut Gordon Cooper's Message to the UN
"I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which are a little more technically advanced than we are on Earth. I feel that we need to have a top level, coordinated program to scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the Earth concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to interfere with these visitors in a friendly fashion.
We may first have to show them that we have learned how to resolve our problems by peaceful means rather than warfare, before we are accepted as fully qualified universal team members. Their acceptance will have tremendous possibilities of advancing our world in all areas. Certainly then it would seem that the U.N. has a vested interest in handling the subject quickly and properly.
I should point out that I am not an experienced UFO professional researcher - I have not as yet had the privilege of flying a UFO nor of meeting the crew of one. However, I do feel that I am somewhat qualified to discuss them, since I have been into the fringes of the vast areas of which they travel. Also, I did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation of many flights of them, of different sizes flying in fighter formation, generally from west to east over Europe. They were at a higher altitude than we could reach with our jet fighters....
If the U.N. agrees to pursue this project and lend the credibility to it, perhaps many more well qualified people will agree to step forth and provide help and information."
[Astronaut Gordon Cooper addressing a U.N. panel discussion on UFOs and ETs in New York, in 1985; Panel was chaired by then U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
The above message was given to the U.N. by Astronaut Gordon L. Cooper, one of America's original seven Mercury Astronauts. Cooper orbited the Earth for a record 34 hour, 22 orbit flight in the spacecraft 'Faith 7', in May of 1963. He has been outspoken about the need for an open inquiry into UFOs - based on his own personal experience of sighting UFOs in space and the testimony of other Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Astronauts.
Source: Nov. 1988 issue (Vol 1, No. 3) issue of UFO Universe magazine; Condor Books 351 West 54th St., New York, N.Y. 10019]
Gordon Cooper;
Image Credit: NASA/JPL
Leroy Gordon Cooper, was one of the nation's first astronauts who once set a space endurance record by traveling more than 3.3 million miles aboard Gemini 5 in 1965. He died on Monday October 4th 2004. He was 77.
"As one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper was one of the faces of America's fledgling space program. He truly portrayed the right stuff, and he helped gain the backing and enthusiasm of the American public, so critical for the spirit of exploration," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said on the space agency's Web site.
Cooper, an Oklahoma native who entered the Marine Corps after graduating from high school in 1945, later became an elite Air Force test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where he became fascinated with the space program.
By April 1959, Cooper was named as one of the Project Mercury astronauts, following grueling physical and mental tests each candidate had to endure.
At the news conference naming the future of America's space program, Cooper was joined by Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, M. Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra Jr. and Deke Slayton.
On May 15 and 16, 1963, Cooper piloted the Faith 7 spacecraft on a 22-orbit mission that concluded the operational phase of Project Mercury.
A little more than two years later, he would set a new space endurance record, serving as command pilot of the eight-day, 120-revolution Gemini 5 mission, which began August 21, 1965.
It was on this flight that he and Charles Conrad traveled a distance of 3,312,993 miles in 190 hours and 56 minutes. Cooper also became the first man to make a second orbital flight.
During his two space flights, Cooper logged 225 hours, 15 minutes and 3 seconds. He served as backup command pilot for Gemini 12 and as backup commander for Apollo X.
In addition to his space flights, Cooper logged more than 7,000 hours flying time in jets and commercial aircraft. He retired from the Air Force and NASA in 1970 with the rank of colonel.
Concerning UFOs;
In his post-NASA career, Cooper became known as an outspoken believer in UFOs and charged that the government was covering up its knowledge of extraterrestrial activity.
"I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which obviously are a little more technically advanced than we are here on Earth," he told a United Nations panel in 1985.
"I feel that we need to have a top-level, coordinated program to scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the Earth concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion."
He added, "For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists and astronauts. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us."
"Each administration has probably tried to figure out how, with the least embarrassment, they could confess to this whole thing," he said at a recent appearance in Washington to promote his new book, Leap of Faith: An Astronaut's Journey in the Unknown
"There certainly have been too many people, very qualified people and qualified groups of people, that have had interface of one type or another with extraterrestrial craft or beings," Cooper said. "To really deny that something is going on and deny that they definitely exist…we need a little more explanation."
In his book, written with Bruce Henderson, Cooper tells how he saw his first UFO over Europe in 1951. An Air Force pilot in West Germany, Cooper and his squadron mates were scrambled in their F-86 Sabre jets to intercept what appeared to be several metallic silver and saucer-shaped craft.
Cooper also describes an incident at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in which he once looked at film of a crashed UFO in the American Southwest taken in the late 1950s. That film, he writes, was whisked away to the Pentagon never to be seen or heard of again.
Throughout the book, the former astronaut argues for the government to open up its files and come clean about alien visitations.
So convinced is Cooper that UFOs deserve serious study that he once testified before the United Nations in 1978 on the topic. His hope was that the U.N. would become a central repository for accounts of UFO sightings.
"I made the effort to get the U.N. to pick up the ball," Cooper said at the book signing. "They thought it was a great idea, but they never did anything about it."
Colonel L. Gordon Cooper, Mercury-9, Gemini-5 Astronaut, Addressing a United Nations Panel Discussion on UFOs and ETs in New York in 1985. The panel was chaired by then Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
"I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets which obviously are a little more technically advanced than we are here on Earth. I feel that we need to have a top level, coordinated program to scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the earth concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion.
We may first have to show them that we have learned to resolve our problems by peaceful means, rather than warfare, before we are accepted as fully qualified universal team members. This acceptance would have tremendous possibilities of advancing our world in all areas. Certainly then it would seem that the UN has a vested interest in handling this subject properly and expeditiously.
For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists and astronauts. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us.
And there are thousands of witness reports and a quantity of documents to prove this, but nobody wants to make them public.
Why? Because the authorities are afraid that people may think of some kind of horrible invaders. So the password still is: We have to avoid panic by all means."
In another interview he said:
"As far as I am concerned, there have been too many unexplained examples of UFO sightings around this Earth for us to rule out the possibilities that some form of life exists out there beyond our own world."
And in an exclusive interview with the National Enquirer on 14 January 1997, Cooper speaks openly about alien spacecraft. He says there's been a massive government cover-up of UFOs for nearly 50 years and insists the American public has a right to know the truth.
"I know other astronauts share my feelings,"declared Cooper, 69, who went into space aboard a Mercury craft in 1963 and on a Gemini craft two years later.
"And we know the government is sitting on hard evidence of UFOs!"
Cooper said he first encountered UFOs as a military pilot in Germany in the early 1950s, when unidentified craft were spotted over an air base.
"We thought they could have been Russian. We regularly had MiG-15s overflying our base. We scrambled our Sabre jets to intercept and got to our ceiling of 45,000 feet . . . and they were still way above us traveling faster than we were.
"These vehicles were in formation like a fighter group, but they were metallic silver and saucer-shaped. Believe me, they weren't like any MiGs I'd seen before! They had to be UFOs."
In 1957, Cooper was one of an elite band of test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base in California, in charge of several advanced projects, including the installation of a precision landing system.
"I had a camera crew filming the installation when they spotted a saucer. They filmed it as it flew overhead, then hovered, extended three legs as landing gear, and slowly came down to land on a dry lake bed!
"These guys were all pro cameramen, so the picture quality was very good. "The camera crew managed to get within 20 or 30 yards of it, filming all the time. It was a classic saucer, shiny silver and smooth, about 30 feet across. It was pretty clear it was an alien craft.
"As they approached closer it took off."
When his camera crew handed over the film, Cooper followed standard procedure and contacted Washington to report the UFO and"all heck broke loose," he said.
"After a while a high-ranking officer said when the film was developed I was to put it in a pouch and send it to Washington.
"He didn't say anything about me not looking at the film. That's what I did when it came back from the lab and it was all there just like the camera crew reported."
When the Air Force later started Operation Blue Book to collate UFO evidence and reports, Cooper says he mentioned the film evidence.
"But the film was never found supposedly. Blue Book was strictly a cover-up anyway."
Cooper revealed he's convinced an alien craft crashed at Roswell, N. Mex., in 1947 and aliens were discovered in the wreckage.
"I had a good friend at Roswell, a fellow officer. He had to be careful about what he said. But it sure wasn't a weather balloon, like the Air Force cover story. He made it clear to me what crashed was a craft of alien origin, and members of the crew were recovered."
Why has the government kept its UFO secrets for so many years?
"It started in World War 2, when the government didn't want people to know about UFO reports in case they panicked," said Cooper. "They would have been fearful it was superior enemy technology that we had no defense against.
"Then it got worse in the Cold War for the same reason.
"So they told one untruth, they had to tell another to cover that one, then another, then another...it just snowballed.
"And right now I'm convinced a lot of very embarrassed government officials are sitting there in Washington trying to figure a way to bring the truth out. They know it's got to come out one day, and I'm sure it will.
"America has a right to know!"
NAME:
Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr. (Colonel, USAF, Ret.)
NASA Astronaut (deceased)
PERSONAL DATA:
Born March 6, 1927 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. His interests included treasure hunting, archeology, racing, flying, skiing, boating, hunting and fishing. Gordon Cooper passed away on October 4, 2004, at his home in Ventura, California, at the age of 77.
EDUCATION:
Attended primary and secondary schools in Shawnee, Oklahoma and Murray, Kentucky; received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 1956; recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Science degree from Oklahoma City University in 1967.
ORGANIZATIONS:
The Society of Experimental Test Pilots, The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, The American Astronautical Society, The Blue Lodge Masons, The York Rite Masons, The Scottish Rite Masons, The Royal Order of Jesters, The Sojourners, The Rotary Club, The Daedalians, The Confederate Air Force, The Boy Scouts of America, The Girl Scouts of America.
SPECIAL HONORS:
The Air Force Legion of Merit, The Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross, The Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross Cluster, The NASA Exceptional Service Medal, The NASA Distinguished Service Medal, USAF Command Astronaut Wings, The Collier Trophy, The Harmon Trophy, The Scottish Rite 33 , The York Rite Knight of the Purple Cross,
The DeMolay Legion of Honor, The John F. Kennedy Trophy, The Ivan E. Kincheloe Trophy, The Air Force Association Trophy, The Primus Trophy, The John Montgomery Trophy, The General Thomas E. White Trophy, The Association of Aviation Writers Award, The University of Hawaii Regents Medal, The Columbus Medal, The Silver Antelope, The Sport Fishing Society of Spain Award.
EXPERIENCE:
Cooper, an Air Force Colonel, received an Army commission after completing three years of schooling at the University of Hawaii. He transferred his commission to the Air Force and was placed on active duty by that service in 1949 and given flight training.
His next assignment was with the 86th Fighter Bomber Group in Munich, Germany, where he flew F-84s and F-86s for four years. While in Munich, he also attended the European Extension of the University of Maryland night school.
He returned to the United States and, after two years of study at AFIT, received his degree. He then reported to the Air Force Experimental Flight Test School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and, upon graduating in 1957, was assigned as an aeronautical engineer and test pilot in the Performance Engineering Branch of the Flight Test Division at Edwards. His responsibilities there included the flight testing of experimental fighter aircraft.
He logged more than 7,000 hours flying time--4,000 hours in jet aircraft. He had flown all types of Commercial and General aviation airplane and helicopters.
NASA EXPERIENCE:
Colonel Cooper was selected as a Mercury astronaut in April 1959.
On May 15-16, 1963, he piloted the "Faith 7" spacecraft on a 22-orbit mission which concluded the operational phase of Project Mercury. During the 34 hours and 20 minutes of flight, Faith 7 attained an apogee of 166 statue miles and a speed of 17,546 miles per hour and traveled 546,167 statue miles.
Cooper served as command pilot of the 8-day 120-revolution Gemini 5 mission which began on August 21, 1965. It was on this flight that he and pilot Charles Conrad established a new space endurance record by traveling a distance of 3,312,993 miles in an elapsed time of 190 hours and 56 minutes. Cooper also became the first man to make a second orbital flight and thus won for the United States the lead in man-hours in space by accumulating a total of 225 hours and 15 minutes.
He served as backup command pilot for Gemini 12 and as backup commander for Apollo X.
Colonel Cooper logged 222 hours in space.
He retired from the Air Force and NASA in 1970.
BUSINESS EXPERIENCE:
From 1962 to 1967, he was President of Performance Unlimited, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of race and Marine engines, and fiberglass boats.
From 1963 to 1967, he was President of GCR, Inc. They designed, tested and raced championship cars at Indianapolis and other USAC tracks, conducted tire tests for Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and pioneered turbine engine installation on cars.
From 1965 to 1970, he was President of Teletest, Inc. They designed, installed and tested various systems using advanced Telemetry.
From 1966 to 1969, he participated with Doubloon, Inc., on design, construction, and utilization of Treasure Hunting equipment.
From 1968 to 1969, he participated with Cosmos, Inc., on Archeology exploration projects.
From 1968 to 1970, he was part owner and race project manager of the Profile Race Team. He also designed, raced and constructed high performance boats.
From 1968 to 1970, he was a Technical Consultant for corporate acquisitions and public relations for the Republic Corp.
From 1967 to 1969, he was Technical Consultant for design and construction of various automotive production items for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler Motor Companies.
From 1970 to 1972 he was Member of the Board of Directors and Technical Consultant for developing technical products and public relations in land development projects for Canaveral International, Inc.
From 1970 to 1975, he was President of the consulting firm Gordon Cooper & Associates, Inc. They specialized in technical projects ranging from airline and aerospace fields to land and hotel development.
From 1970 to 1974, he was on the Board of Directors for APECO which produced and marketed modular homes, computer systems, office systems, copy machines and boats and marine equipment.
From July 1972 to June 1973, he was a Member of Board of Directors and Technical Consultant for Campco, a corporation which built campers and mobile homes.
From August 1972 to December 1973, He was on the Board of Directors and a Technical Consultant for design and production of various advanced electronic systems for LowCom Systems, Inc.
From 1972 to 1973, he was on the Board of Directors and a Technical Consultant for design and construction of lifting, inflatable, steerable foils which could land cargo and/or personnel at a precise spot for Aerofoil Systems, Inc.
From July 1973 to January 1974, he was Vice President and member of the Board of Directors for Craftech Corporation. They specialized in the design and construction of economical homes, garages, storage buildings, and hangers of Craftboard and fiberglass.
From January 1973 to 1975, he was Chairman of the Board for Constant Energy Systems, Inc.
From January 1973 to 1975, he was Vice President for Research and Development/EPCOT for Walter E. Disney Enterprises, Inc., the research and development subsidiary of Walt Disney Productions.
This is one hell of an interesting data base complied and brought into existence, by a one Gary Heseltine a serving police officer in the UK;
All quotes are from external sources;
THE PRUFOS POLICE DATABASE;
quote;
"My name is Gary Heseltine and I am a serving police officer. The Database is my hobby and is done in an unofficial capacity.
It was launched publicly in January 2002.
It caters for serving and retired officers who have been involved in British UFO police sightings.
Each year I publish an annual report outlining the results of my research conducted during the previous twelve months.
When I began the database I had a half dozen police reports involving approximately 10 police officers. Now after 8 years of research I have collected over 330 reports dating back to 1901 involving 800 police officers.
The database is divided into two separate categories - on and off duty police sightings.
The sighting reports derive from a number of sources, from officers themselves who contact me directly, to historical newspaper archive reports to official information reports released by the Ministry of Defence.
See the 'About Me' page for further details about the events in my life that ultimately led to the creation of this database.
Note - This website operates in an unofficial capacity and does not represent the views of my own Force".
21/12/1901. 0045 hours. Location: Haworth, West Yorkshire. As two uniformed police officers, PS JOHN JOHNSON and PC CLARK were walking along a snow covered beat in Haworth when suddenly a green light illuminated the surrounding area. The officers looked up to the sky to see a luminous UFO shaped like a cigar pointed at both ends. The object emitted occasional flashes and sparks.
They watched the object for 15 minutes as it slowly and silently moved across the night sky before disappearing into the distance. PS JOHNSON stated that the object was seen at an altitude of 100-150 feet before gradually gaining height. Two members of the public reported seeing similar objects in Keighley and Shipley respectively. UFO CLASSIFICATION – CE1 (CLOSE ENCOUNTER 1ST KIND). On duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source – Mr Midgley via Keighley News 02/12/94.
1950;
Monday. 02/11/50. Location – Gowerton, Wales. Following a report by a member of the public of two lights traveling across the sky, DETECTIVE SERGEANT AMBROSE DAVIES, of Gowerton Police station observed a single white ball of flame. It was much brighter than any star and after a few seconds was seen to break into two pieces. A shower of reddish sparks were seen to the rear of the objects. The officer ruled out planets and meteors stating that there were definitely two objects in the sky and that they were joined by some kind of tether. UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source – UFO Magazine Press Archive.
1952;
2115 Hours. Location - Leek, Staffordshire. A police officer on plain clothes observations and two passing civilians saw a UFO literally above their heads at the recreation ground, Burton Street, Leek, Staffordshire. The object was seen for approx 2-3 minutes at an alt of 500 feet. They described it as orange in colour prior to the object changing shape from sphere to cigar by which time it was blue. Eventually the object accelerated away at a fantastic speed in a northerly direction.
Throughout duration of the sighting the UFO made no noise whatsoever. It was a clear cold night, no wind and the stars were visible. The sighting was reported by the officer but he was told by his Superintendent to ‘keep his mouth shut’. The sighting was released to the press.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – CE1 (CLOSE ENCOUNTER 1ST KIND).
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source: Irene Bott archive.
1954;
February. 0600 hours. Location – Bognor Regis, Sussex. PC WILLIAM KEATS was cycling to work for the 6am shift when he saw the road ahead suddenly illuminated from behind him. He stopped and turned to see an intense white light travelling from west to east.
Upon reaching the police station two other officers from Chichester, PC HOWARD NORTH and PC TONY COX confirmed they too had seen what they described as a ‘tadpole’ shaped UFO.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 3 Officers. Source: Daily Mail 11/02/54.
1955;
Evening. Summer. Location - Sussex coast. An on duty uniformed police officer PC JOHN L CLARKE observed a bright light flying at high altitude along the Sussex coast on a late evening summer’s sky. He estimated the size of the UFO as ¼ size of the moon. It was first seen low from the east taking ten minutes to arrive overhead and then a further ten minutes to disappear from view. No sound present at any time. He described the UFO as a distinct circular shape at the front with a broken and distorted rear.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source - John L Clarke.
1957;
September 1957. 2345 hours. Sunday. Location. Bristol Channel. Three uniformed officers observed a red disc shaped UFO rise from the Bristol Channel. One half of the disc was like a large harvest moon and moved out of sight towards the west. The officers reported the sighting to Glamorgan Police HQ.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL/USO (NOCTURNAL LIGHT/UNDERWATER SURFACE OBJECT)
On Duty sighting. 3 Officers. Source: Daily Telegraph 04/09/57.
November 1957. 0235 hours. Location – Cowbridge, Glamorgan. Two uniformed officers observed a green blue UFO as it passed over South Wales. Five minutes later two other uniformed officers saw the same object as it passed over the Rhonnda Valley. The object was described as being delta shaped and travelling at high speed. Several civilian witnesses also observed the UFO.
UFO CLASSICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 4 Officers. Source – Press Archive.
1962;
Location – Dartmoor, Devon. 8. A senior police officer in a newspaper article confirmed that two officers on mobile patrol had had a UFO encounter over Dartmoor. He said that the officers had chased the object along country roads where it was seen to stop and hover before disappearing. The officers submitted a long report about the incident.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source: Sunday Mirror 19/08/1979.
1963;
July. Location - Charlton near Shaftesbury, Wiltshire. An on duty uniformed police officer, PC ANTHONY PENNY reported seeing an orange coloured UFO flash across the sky in the above location and disappear over a potato field where days later a large spherical crater measuring eight feet was found. The crater appeared from nowhere in the field and within its centre was a hole three feet deep, 5-12 inches in diameter. Radiating from the centre of the hole were four slot marks, four feet long and one foot wide.
No cause could be found for the appearance of the crater or the marks found within it. The crater was investigated by a Bomb Disposal Unit but no satisfactory explanation was ever found for it. The mystery was even mentioned in parliament on 29th July by Major Patrick Wall, Conservative MP for Haltemprice.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source - UFO Flying Saucers over Britain by Robert Chapman. Mayflower Books. Pages 104-107.
1964;
20/02/64. 0955 hours. Location: Shoeburyness, Southend, Essex. PC 392 CROOK was on patrol when he observed three fast moving objects in the southern sky. They were spaced in a line. The colour of the objects was off-white and their shape appeared to be oval. They were seen above cloud height and travelling at great speed with no discernable sound. The officer forwarded a report to the Air Ministry who stated he may have witnessed three Lightning fighter aircraft flying in formation.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – DD (DAYLIGHT DISC)
On duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source – Irene Bott archive.
1965;
1500 hours. 30/11/65. Location – Warminster, Wiltshire. An on duty uniformed police officer, PC ERIC PINNOCK was on foot patrol of the Bishopstrow area of the town when he observed a large bright silver ball shaped UFO hurtle through the sky before it disappeared over Sutton Common. He said, “It was a giant plate of light. It lit up the whole horizon with a glare”. It was flying low over the landscape and appeared to be spinning. During the mid sixties Warminster was a haven for UFO spotters and there were literally hundreds of sightings made in that area.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – DD (DAYLIGHT DISC)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source - The Warminster Mystery by Arthur Shuttlewood. Tandem Publishing 1976. Page 139.
1954 hours. Thursday 16/12/65. Location - Chineham, Basingstoke, Hampshire. An on duty uniformed police officer, PC J HARWOOD was speaking with a member of the public outside the man’s home when they both observed a tadpole shaped UFO with a large green dome on top and a flaming red tail that was two or three times the length of the dome pass by overhead. It was seen only briefly as it sped across the sky from south to north at an incredible speed.
The object was estimated to have been four to six feet in length. PC HARWOOD said, “The colour attracted me - green. This may have been caused by low clouds. I have never seen anything like it before”. The member of the public, Basil Gibbons (aged 67), likened the object to a Gemini space capsule.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT) On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source - The Warminster Mystery by Arthur Shuttlewood. Tandem Publishing 1976. Pages 141-142.
1966;
0410 hours. March. Location - Wilmslow, Cheshire. An on duty uniformed officer, PC COLIN PERKS was on foot patrol on Alderley Road in the above town when he saw a UFO moving across the sky at an altitude of only 30 feet and that it was only 100 yards from him. He described it as being 30 feet in diameter and as bulky as a double decker bus. He said, “There was an eerie, greenish-grey glow in the sky. Then I picked out an object about thirty feet long and built up in three sections with the top looking like a dustbin lid. It gave off a high pitched whine.
I was paralysed. I just couldn’t believe it.” The duration of the sighting was five minutes before it disappeared. His police report was forwarded to the MOD who did visit him to investigate his story. When officers visited the scene a short time after the incident the area where was seen was covered in a fine glass like substance that disippated after a short period.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – CE2 (CLOSE ENCOUNTER 2ND KIND)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source - UFO Flying Saucers over Britain by Robert Chapman. Mayflower Books 1999. Page 43 and PRUFOS.
September. Location – Southampton, Hampshire. Following a report from a member of the public that a UFO was hovering motionless over the city a marked police vehicle was sent to investigate the claim. When they arrived at the man’s address on Coxford Road they were amazed to see the object where he had claimed it would be. They contacted Police HQ by radio and said, “He’s right.
There is an object in the sky to the west and remaining still. It keeps flashing red, white and blue lights and dropping flares. There’s no sound of an engine and it does not appear to be an aircraft.” Enquiries with Eastleigh Airport proved negative as did those with Southampton University Air Squadron. Calls to the Southern Meteorological Centre also proved fruitless. Eventually the UFO disappeared at high speed in the direction of Eastleigh.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source - UFO Flying Saucers over Britain by Robert Chapman. Mayflower Books 1969. Page 43.
0300 hours. Between Potters Hill and Bristol Lulsgate Airport, Avon and Somerset. PC LESTER STENNER and a colleague were driving along a quiet road when suddenly they saw an oval shaped UFO approximately 100 feet off the ground above the road ahead. At the same time the object appeared the engine of the police vehicle died as did the headlights. Also the streetlamps lining the road went out.
The object just appeared and remained motionless for about 10 seconds when it disappeared. As soon as the object had gone the headlights, street lighting and engine came on. The officers described the object as being around 100 yards wide by 50 feet and made no noise whatsoever. The officers did not report the incident fearing ridicule. UFO CLASSIFICATION – CE1 (CLOSE ENCOUNTER 1ST KIND/EM). On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source: The PRUFOS Police Database.
1967;
August 1967. Location – Worthing, Sussex. Four campers reported seeing two UFOs over Rye Bay near Worthing that were later confirmed by two uniformed police officers. The objects moved quickly across the sky heading in a north easterly direction.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source: Evening News 21/08/67.
July 1967. 2110 hours. Saturday. Location – Nottingham, Nottinghamshire. A member of the public, teacher Mr Doy, reported seeing a UFO over a local school and a PC HOLMES attended the school and confirmed the object in the sky. He then reported the sighting to his duty officer, Inspector R Street. PC HOLMES stated that the object was a bright light spinning on its own axis in a stationary position above the school. The police could not offer any explanation for the UFO.
UFO CLASSICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source: Nottingham Evening Post 10/07/67.
October 1967. Location - Sussex and Oxfordshire. Following reports by several members of the public (including an RAF Wing Commander) police officers across the counties of Sussex and Oxfordshire observed a fiery cross UFO. One of them, a motor cycle officer, PC BRYAN CAWTHORNE, observed the UFO between Ringmer and Halland having initially thought the object to be a star. He pulled over to the side of the road to getter a better look at it and described its motion as slowly moving forward and backwards.
He definitely confirmed that the object was actually moving by lining it up with a telegraph pole. He reported the incident to his control and was informed that other officers had also reported seeing the object.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 3 Officers. Source: Evening News 25/10/67.
The following two sightings took place within two days of each other across the counties of Devon and Sussex at a time when sightings of fiery cross shaped UFOs were being widely reported in the media. October 1967 0445 hours. Wednesday. Location – Sussex. A uniformed police officer observed a fiery cross shaped UFO. October 1967 1600 hours. Tuesday. Location – Devon.
A uniformed police officer, PC KEITH DROUDGE observed a UFO and said of his sighting, “There is no doubt in my mind. It was a UFO. It wasn’t a plane. We’ve seen enough planes not to be fooled like that”.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source: Sunday Express 29/10/67.
0130 hours. 05/07/67. Location – Stoney Cross, New Forest, Wiltshire. Following a report by a member of the public of an orange ball shaped UFO above Stoney Cross, New Forest a uniformed officer, PC DAVID HOLLOWAY, was dispatched to the scene. He corroborated the sighting of the orange UFO that he said did a ‘loop the loop’ before heading away in the direction of Southampton.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source – FSR Vol 13 No 5.
27/08/67. Location - Between Spelsbury and Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. Two on duty uniformed officers observed two dark oval shaped UFOs on the road between the above locations. They estimated the size of the objects as fifty feet in diameter each. The craft disappeared in a northerly direction at a height of 600 feet.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source - A Covert Agenda by Nick Redfern. Pocket Books 1998. Page 97.
27/08/67. Location - Glossop, Derbyshire. Six on duty uniformed police officers observed a UFO over the town from a number of different locations. They described the object’s movements as ‘swinging’ from side to side.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 6 Officers. Source - A Covert Agenda by Nick Redfern. Pocket Books 1998. Page 97.
10/08/67. 0043 hours. Location: Hindley, Wigan, Lancashire. During the early hours two uniformed police officers, PC LIONEL HAW and PC STEVE PARSONAGE, observed a round shaped object in the sky that appeared to be travelling too fast to be either a comet or plane. PC HAW made a pocket notebook entry regarding the sighting. The officers observed the object for two minutes and dismissed any notion that they had seen a trick of the light. Chief Superintendent Tom Andrews of Wigan police confirmed the officer’s report of the sighting.
October. Location – Gosport, Hampshire. Two uniformed officers PC EDNA WIELK and PC TONY CONNELL observed a red and white coloured UFO whilst on mobile patrol in the Little Anglesey area of Gosport. The UFO was seen above the HMS DOLPHIN submarine base. They got out of their vehicle to watch the object which they observed for five minutes before it moved out of sight.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source – Steve Gerrard, Southampton UFO Group (SUFOG).
Evening. 21/10/67. Location – South Shields, South Tyneside. Following a report by a member of the public, a uniformed police officer visited the family and witnessed with them the sighting of three triangular shaped UFOs in the sky above Tyne Dock, South Shields. The objects appeared to fly in formation before and stopping and coming to a brief hover. They departed heading off in the direction of Newcastle. The objects were extremely bright to look at and were seen for a duration of 30 minutes.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source – FSR Vol 14 No 2.
0400 hours. 24/10/67. Location - A3072 between Okehampton and Holsworthy, Devon. Two on duty uniformed police officers, PC CLIFFORD WAYCOTT and PC ROGER WILLEY had spotted a pulsating flying cross whilst driving between the above locations. It was seen at low altitude moving above the treetops of the surrounding countryside. Intrigued they began to chase the UFO, however they were never able to significantly gain on it. At times the object slowed to 50 mph and at one point came to a stop in mid air. The pursuit involved speeds of up to 90 mph and covered a distance of 14 miles. Whenever they did gain a little ground on the object it would simply accelerate away from them.
Eventually they reduced their speed fearing an accident themselves. The closest distance they reached to the UFO was 400 yards. At one point they stopped at a farm to wake up the owner so they could gain some corroboration that they were not mistaken in their sighting. At a later press conference PC WAYCOTT said, “The light wasn’t piercing but it was very bright. It was star-spangled - just like looking through wet glass and although we reached 90 mph it accelerated away from us.” Before the object disappeared from view they saw a second UFO that was also cross-shaped, very bright and made no noise.
Both officers were impressed by the relevant speeds of the objects as they quickly departed, especially the first one. Enquiries at nearby RAF Chivenor proved negative. Within 48 hours numerous other witnesses began to report sightings of similar objects. A ‘fiery cross’ was witnessed above the skies of Glossop, Derbyshire by six police officers.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – CE1 (CLOSE ENCOUNTER 1ST KIND)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source - UFO Flying Saucers over Britain by Robert Chapman. Mayflower Books 1969. Pages 13-15.
0500 hours. 25/10/67. Location – Okehampton, Devon. Two uniformed officers in a patrol car observed a fiery cross shaped UFO above the town. One of the officers was a police photographer but he did not have time to get a picture of the object as the duration of the sighting amounted to only a few seconds.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source – FSR Vol 14 No 2.
0205 hours. 26/10/67. Location – Okehampton, Devon. Only two days after his involvement in the famous high speed police UFO chase, PC ROGER WILLEY, observed a similar star shaped UFO in the skies above Okehampton. It was seen to drop down low as if to land in the area it was originally seen. The sighting was very brief lasting only a few seconds.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source – FSR Vol 14 No 2.
0530 hours. Late October. Location - Bacup, Lancashire. An on duty uniformed police officer, PC BRIAN EARNSHAW heard a crackling sound coming over the station’s short wave radio. Curious he went outside to see what might be causing the interference. When he did so he looked up to see a cigar shaped UFO hovering 250 feet above the station. He said, “It was approximately 50 feet in length.
There were portholes on the side but there were no visible signs of propulsion. The ship appeared to be metallic and gave off a bright glow. There was a low whirring sound coming from it.” Two other uniformed officers, PC COLIN DONAHOE and MALCOLM READER also saw the same object from a different location in Lancashire, watching for several minutes before it rose vertically into the sky and disappeared. Later a statement was issued by Lancashire Police that read, “We have had UFO reports before, but nothing like this. There has been no reasonable explanation but it was something definitely seen.”
UFO CLASSIFICATION – CE1/EM (CLOSE ENCOUNTER 1ST KIND/ELECTROMAGNETIC EFFECTS)
On Duty sighting. 3 Officers. Source - UFO Flying Saucers over Britain by Robert Chapman. Mayflower Books 1969. Page 19.
0520 hours. Late October. Location - Lancing, West Sussex. Three on duty uniformed police officers including PC MICHAEL SANDS spotted a silver UFO above the skies above Lancing. PC SANDS said, “It looked like a silver point of light which moved rapidly across the sky.”
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 3 Officers. Source - UFO Flying Saucers over Britain by Robert Chapman. Mayflower Books 1969. Pages 19-20.
0445 hours. 25/10/67. Location - Lewes, Sussex. Following reports by at least five police officers the senior officer for Lewes, G .W. R. Terry called a press conference at the Lewes Police HQ to discuss their sightings. All the officers, each from different vantage points described the same object - a bright light travelling in a northerly direction in total silence. These sightings along with many others made by the public were part of a high number of similar reports in the Sussex area over a number of days.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 5 Officers. Source - A Covert Agenda by Nick Redfern. Pocket Books 1998. Page 97.
Before Midnight. October/November 1967. Location – Sharneyford near Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Two uniformed officers were parked up in a marked police vehicle when they observed a bright light between their location and Stoodly Pike (local landmark).
The light was well below cloud level. Then the object rose vertically into the sky before moving horizontally across the landscape in a side to side motion. The object itself was described as cone shaped, similar to a Gemini space capsule. Later the officers reported the sighting to the duty night shift Inspector. The reporting officer eventually spoke with an official from the War Office who asked him to submit an official report. This was duly completed and submitted. The officer never received any further communication about the incident.
Thursday 38/03/68. Evening. Location – Torquay, Devon. Two uniformed police officers saw a UFO over Torquay. Both officers reported the sighting to senior officers. A police spokesman said, ‘There appears to be something in the story.’
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source: The Sun 29/03/68.
1969;
August 1969 0430 hours. Location - Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Three uniformed police officers, two with binoculars, observed a triangular shaped UFO with concave sides over Mansfield General Hospital for one and half hours. It was first seen by PC PAGE at around 0430 hours. At 0606 hours the object was seen to change colour and disappear. A police report was sent to RAF Finningley.
Dagenham, Surrey. 0630 hours 1969. Two uniformed police officers observed a UFO above the Surrey Downs minutes after it had been seen over Dagenham.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source: Researcher Roy Lake.
August 5th 1969. Location – Camarthen, Wales. Two uniformed police officers were among several civilian witnesses to a UFO seen hovering over Camarthen. Initially spotted by several members of the public a motor cycle officer turned up at the home of a farmer and confirmed the UFO through binoculars. It was described as being spherical in shape and silvery in colour. Later a second officer observed the object. Checks with the RAF proved negative.
Late evening. 10/11/69. Location – Withernsea, North Lincolnshire. A couple observed a triangular shaped UFO as it flew low over the sky near the above named location. The object moved closer to the vehicle they were in. Frightened they contacted the local police and were informed that a police officer had also witnessed the same thing. This information was confirmed by CHIEF INSPECTOR W BARROWCLOUGH of Withernsea police who also went on to say that checks had been made and that no aircraft had been in the area at the time of the reported sightings.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 1 Officer. Source – FSR Vol 16 No 1.
Late Evening. November 1969. Location—Werrington, Stoke on Trent, Cheshire. A uniformed officer, PC TREVOR BLOWER was driving a marked police vehicle when he was advised by radio to look for an unusual object heading in his direction. Moments later he observed a ‘V’ formation of nine UFOs. There was no sound at all and they moved at an exceptionally high speed. The officer stated the object had mother of pearl effect with colours swirling all around each other.
It was a clear night with little cloud cover. He reported his sighting over the radio and heard another officer saying he too had witnessed the lights. The next day he attended Leek police station with another five officers who had witnessed the formation. Each independently gave their descriptions to a civilian male. Senior police officers later advised all the men to keep quiet about the incident.
0400 hours. Tuesday 16/06/70. Location – Hampstead, London. Two Metropolitan uniformed police officers, one of whom was PC H M BISHOP, observed a bright light whilst driving on Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead. The object was seen only briefly before disappearing from view. They continued to drive in the area until they saw three separate lights low in the sky having turned onto Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead.
Two of the lights were ahead of a third one that seemed to be lagging behind the others. The officers stopped their vehicle to get a better look at the objects. After about 30 seconds and against a clear sky, each of the lights in turn disappeared from view as if they had gone behind an invisible screen. The objects were traveling at an altitude of 100-500 feet when first seen and then at 2500 feet by the time they vanished. The duration of the sighting was one to two minutes. It was a warm night with little cloud giving excellent visibility.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – DD (DAYLIGHT DISC)
On Duty sighting. 2 Officers. Source – FSR Case Histories Supplement, October 1970.
1971;
Location – Tynemouth, North Tyneside. A uniformed police constable based at Tynemouth Police station was driving a marked panda car along Tynemouth Road when he noticed a bright circular disc hovering in the sky above Knot’s Flats. The officer pulled over the vehicle into Oxford Street car park to get out and take a better look at the object. He observed it for about five minutes as it hovered over the flats before suddenly rising into the air vertically in a tremendous burst of acceleration and out of sight.
2140 hours. 27/10/71. Location – Banbury, Oxfordshire. An on duty uniformed police officer, PC PERRY JACKSON, accompanied by a Cadet, WILLIAM BRYON spotted an orange coloured UFO moving across a moonlit star filled sky near to Bratch Hill, Banbury. It was the size of a golf ball to us. It was seen for three seconds before it moved downwards to the ground at a 45 degree angle. Numerous members of the public also reported sightings of the object. All the reports were collected by Banbury police and submitted to the Ministry of Defence.
0615 hours. Late February, 1971. Location – Nuneaton, Midlands. Four uniformed officers observed a UFO over the Nuneaton area during the early hours of the day. PC BRIAN HEWITT of Foleshill Police station said, “We were attending a job in Lythalls Lane when we saw a strange thing in the sky. It was not a meteorite or anything like that.” He described seeing three white lights in the sky over Nuneaton which were moving at great speed heading in a westerly direction towards Birmingham. The lights were independent of each other and appeared to be traveling in formation. He checked with Air Traffic at Birmingham Airport and drew a blank.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 4 Officers. Source – FSR Vol 17 No 2 March/April 1971.
Evening. August. Location – Aldridge, Staffordshire. Four uniformed Staffordshire police officers which included PC LESLIE LEEK observed a disc shaped UFO above the night sky over Aldridge. PC LEEK photographed the object.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 4 Officers. Source - UFO Flying Saucers over Britain by Robert Chapman. Mayflower Books 1969. Page 45.
1972;
August. Early hours. Wed. Location - Acton, Hounslow, London. Following a report by a member of the public to Hounslow Police station two officers inside the building viewed the UFO with binoculars. They saw a circular UFO with black spots and its brightness increasing. It was described as being four times brighter than Venus. A spokesman for Scotland Yard confirmed the sightings.
December. Location: Beoley, near Redditch, London. A young couple observed three lights hovering 600 feet above the ground for four hours. They contacted the police and two police officers attended the scene. A spokesman for Henley in Arden police confirmed that two officers had seen the lights.
Location: Banbury, Oxfordshire. Two on duty uniformed police officers, PC PERRY JACKSON and PC WILLIAM BRYNE saw a cigar shaped UFO that was yellow in colour. BRYNE said, “It travelled along slowly for a few seconds, then shot off into the night at a fantastic speed. We didn’t know what it was, nor had we ever seen anything like it but many reports have been made at the police station of strange lights and objects. The MoD confirmed that numerous reports had been made to them over several weeks but no conclusions had been reached as to their origin.
Late evening. Thursday 14/09/72. Location – Crumlin, Monmouthshire, Wales. Following reports by several members of the public of a UFO above the village of Crumlin, several uniformed officers were sent to the scene. There they observed the object which was described by PS CLIVE WILLIAMS as an orange circle in the sky that changed its shape to become a cone shaped UFO. The duration of the sighting was 60 minutes.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 3 Officers. Source – FSR Vol 18 No 6.
March 1972. Late Evening. Location – Liverpool, Merseyside. Three on duty uniformed officers (one sergeant and two constables) were on patrol, in a van in Liverpool city centre late one evening, when they observed a brightly lit UFO over the Pier Head that is alongside of the River Mersey.
UFO CLASSIFICATION – NL (NOCTURNAL LIGHT)
On Duty sighting. 3 Officers. Source: The PRUFOS Police Database.
BASIC STATISTICS OF THE NEW CASES LISTED IN THE 6TH REPORT
Of the 44 cases there are 4 Close Encounter of the 1st Kind.
Of the 44 cases 5 are Daylight Discs.
Of the 44 cases 35 are Nocturnal Light.
Of the 44 cases 6 involve sightings with high multiple officer corroboration.
Of the 44 cases 14 involve multiple UFOs.
ANALYSIS OF THE ENTIRE DATABASE AFTER THE 6TH REPORT;
When this year’s totals are added to last year’s tally the total number is 256 cases between 1901-2007 involving 608 British police officers.
There are 217 On Duty cases on the database involving a total of 564 British police officers.
There are 39 Off Duty cases on the database involving a total of 44 British police officers.
(NOTE: I do not claim to be a statistician so much of the following data is based on what interests me the most).
1. After six years of research 73% of the ‘on duty’ cases are multiple officer
sightings.
2. The top three multiple officer cases are:
a. April 1984. Stanmore, Middlesex, near RAF Bentley Prior. Up to 20 officers
involved.
b. March 30-31 1993 South Wales, Devon and Cornwall involving 19 officers.
c. 28/08/77 Windermere, Cumbria involving 17 officers.
5. The county in England with the heaviest concentration of police UFO sightings is West Yorkshire with 30 cases recorded on the database. In joint second place are North Yorkshire and London with 14 cases each. Wales and Scotland have been dealt with collectively with 14 and 9 cases respectively.
6. The top five UFO Shapes are: Light 105
Sphere 26
Cigar 21
Triangular 13
Saucer 13
7. UFO Classification breakdown: Category – On Duty:
10. There are 2 cases that involve USOs (Underwater Surface Object).
11. There are 6 cases that involve radar confirmation or radar visual.
12. UFO Characteristics: I intend to do more research in this area in the form of graphical charts/spreadsheets but already some interesting aspects stand out. For example when one examines the ‘On Duty’ CE1 (CLOSE ENCOUNTER 1ST KIND) of the 25 cases in this category, 15 display the UFO characteristic of being silent when being observed i.e. 60%.
13. UFO Shapes breakdown in CE1 (CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF 1ST KIND) category:
Of the 25 cases in this category 17 are mulitple police officer witness sightings i.e. 68%.
*Note – the UFO Classifications are based on Dr J Allen Hynek’s classification criteria in his book ‘The UFO Experience’ (1972). I have extended the range of CE1 cases from Hynek’s 150 metres (distance from the witness to the UFO) to
400 metres for the purpose of this analysis.
*EM = Electro Magnetic Effects
*INT = Interaction between UFO and observer
GARY HESELTINE;Founder of The prufos police data;
Now the man himself describes a bit about himself;What i feel should be noted here is that Gary was a Police DETECTIVE to, in short these guys are trained to sniff out liars and those with a deceptive agenda or nature;In essence it is fitting that a man of his experience in trained interrogation methods and techniques for interviewing UFO witnesses.This i believe is the UFO site that catalogues a lot of genuine UFO sightings and is sadly a bit over looked.
It was on a warm summer evening in 1975 that an event took place in my life that was to fundamentally alter it in ways that I could never have imagined. I was to experience something that would change my perception of the universe and man's place within it. In simple terms I had a UFO encounter that sowed the seeds in an ever widening ripple effect that would eventually pull me into the field of ufology to the extent that it has become the pervading theme of my life.
That sighting was to become the catalyst for a personal journey that was to take 26 years to fully realize. As I now look back on my life I can recall five clear steps that I took before creating the PRUFOS (Police Report UFO Sightings) Database in November 2001. I believe that all five of those steps are relevant to the story of the founding of the database so I will outline each one in chronological turn.
Step 1. My sighting.
I have often tried to be more precise about the actual date of my first UFO sighting but in the end all I seem to be able to do is narrow it down to a pretty loose framework of time. That is not to say the incident that unfolded is unclear, no, much of it remains very vivid to this day. It is simply the practical things like the exact month, the actual date etc; that remain beyond my recall.
To the best of my knowledge the sighting took place during the summer months of 1975 in my home town of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. To be more precise in a suburb of Scunthorpe called Ashby. I was 15 years old and going out with my first proper girlfriend called Dawn 'S' (I won't embarrass her by printing her surname as I have not had contact with her since we broke up at the age of 16). I went out with her for about twelve months and it must have been during the first summer we were together that our sighting took place.
I'm not sure where we'd been but all I remember is walking beside her on Grange Lane South heading in the direction of my comprehensive school (Frederick Gough). Dawn lived in another suburb of Scunthorpe called Bottesford. In order to get to her home we had to walk along a long narrow footpath that dissected the school fields of my comprehensive school and a large allotment site.
The school fields were on our left and the allotment on our right. As I recall there was little or no street lighting at that time and it was a very dark and isolated place at its quietest stretch. That spot was approximately half way down it, after you had passed by the school buildings and were walking alongside the school fields.
As we were walking along the footpath both of us suddenly became aware of what I can only describe as a large bright white light moving very slowly from our right to left. The light was set against a background of a clear night and the twinkling of numerous stars. The object was much larger than the background stars (see plate one - a photograph recreating the event taken at the actual location) and appeared to be moving in total silence at a sixty degree angle to our position.
If you can imagine the line of the footpath stretching out in front of us the object passed directly across our course. No sooner had it done so something really odd occurred. Suddenly all the electricity on the housing estate that we could see in the distance was plunged into darkness. Dawn immediately became frightened and rightly or wrongly associated the light with somehow causing the power failure.
I tried to calm her down whilst at the same time we were both transfixed by the strange object in the sky before us. It seemed to 'glide'. I remember straining to hear for any engine noise but there appeared to be none. The UFO (for want of a better word) was moving very slowly and heading in the direction of the Anchor Steel plant and indirectly towards my home. Moments later a second power cut followed in a different area of the same housing estate. Things were getting really odd.
There is a classic scene in Steven Speilberg’s film 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' where the bemused Richard Dreyfuss character has his first real encounter with the UFOs and watches in awe as they appear to trigger a series of grid failures one by one (note - our sighting took place prior to the film's release and therefore at that time I had no context in my mind to associate/invent such a scene).
Significantly I realised that the power cuts had taken place once the UFO had passed by the housing i.e. behind the flight path of the object. With Dawn still visibly shaken by what we'd seen I said I would take her home. I quickly told her to get on the crossbar of the cycle (I’d been pushing it to that point) and we quickly rode to her home.
There we found it and the entire area in total darkness. I literally dropped her off and sped back through the darkened streets heading in the direction of my home. I reasoned that because of the object’s slow speed that if I raced back and took a short cut I might just be able to get ahead of the UFO before it passed over the area near my home.
I have this clear memory of taking the short cut and getting onto Grange Lane South (a long main road near to my home) and emerging into the 'light' as it were. By that I mean an area where the electricity was still on. In other words I had managed to get ahead of the UFO. Every few seconds I would glance over my right shoulder to make sure where the light was in relation to my position.
It wasn’t long before I turned the corner onto Baysdale Road where my house was. I remember jumping off the bike and running into the living room of the house to find my parents having supper. In a state of excitement and some apprehension I said to them, "Come out into the garden, there's this light and I think it's going to cause a power cut!"
Looking bemused neither said a word! Realising they weren’t going to follow me I rushed through the hall and into the kitchen before running out of the back door and into the garden. Stopping halfway down the garden I turned to look back at the house and no sooner had I done so I saw the same object appearing over the rooftop of my home (see plate 2). Now by this stage the object appeared much higher in the sky and was not as bright as earlier but I clearly remember having the belief that there would be a power cut after it had passed over the house.
Guess what? As soon as the object passed by over me at a ninety degree angle my home and the entire surrounding area was plunged into darkness! Wow! Elated I rushed back into the house to find my parents looking even more bemused as they stumbled in the gloom to find a set of candles.
I couldn’t believe it; I’d actually predicted a power cut! It was that realisation that led me to conclude that from a second geographical location the light must have been in some way involved in triggering the series of power failures.
After approximately 30 minutes of candle power the electricity was restored and whatever it was that had happened was over. Now at the time we weren't on the phone so I had to wait until the next day to speak with Dawn. She told me the power had been off for a similar period but that her parents had dismissed what we'd seen as nothing more than a plane and the power cuts as a pure coincidence.
As for my parents, they also said that it was just a coincidence but for me it was something much more. I didn’t know what the light was but it like nothing I’d seen in the sky before.
That said I did not pursue up any follow up enquiries to establish what it may have been. The reason, well who do you tell? Because we weren’t on the phone it would have meant going round to the local confectionary shop to use one and anyway my parents didn’t believe my story, so why bother to think that anyone else would. So sadly I did nothing. I didn’t ever look in the local newspaper, The Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph, the next day to see if anyone else had witnessed the strange object.
However having seen the UFO the real effect of me was pretty much instantaneous because prior to the sighting I had no interest in the subject, afterwards I was mad keen to find out anything about flying saucers and I did what most people do after having had some kind of paranormal experience... I visited local bookshops in an effort to any reading material on the subject.
Significantly the first book I came across was entitled ‘Aliens from Space’ by Major Donald Keyhoe and it was during the course of reading it that I came across references to UFOs being linked with triggering several power grid failures in the United States (most notably the 1965 New York blackout that stranded hundreds of thousands of people for several hours). When I read that my reaction was to definitely categorize what I’d seen as a 'genuine UFO'.
But the book also impressed me because of the wealth of high calibre witnesses reporting UFO experiences. After all, Keyhoe was a senior military officer who had links with people in even higher office and he was saying for certain that a proportion of sightings, especially those by military pilots, were definite proof an extraterrestrial presence on Earth. Wow! UFOs – I was hooked.
Step 2. Discovering ‘UFO Magazine’.;
So having had one genuinely puzzling UFO experience and after doing a bit of reading, my deep and lasting passion for the subject was born and so over the next year or so I built up my library of UFO related books.
But what else did I do to follow the phenomenon? Well, when I was 18 or so I became a non active associate member with BUFORA – The British UFO Research Association, a grand sounding organisation that produced a quarterly publication. It was nothing fancy, just a small A5 booklet containing news of sightings from around Britain and the world.
Was there a local club I could join? Well there were one or two people scattered around the town with an interest in the phenomena and I met with a couple of them but I never felt comfortable so never became actively involved in any investigations or the like. Having said that it would be around that time that I got involved in the organising of a local UFO event at what was then the newly opened Scunthorpe Film Theatre.
Philip Jenkinson, the presenter of the BBC Cinema programme at that time had been approached to give a presentation on the way UFOs had been depicted throughout the history of the movies. That was to take place in the evening after a full day of UFO related lectures, one of whom was from a young Jenny Randles, who has since gone on to become a prolific author on the subject.
I actually found myself opening the event and presented the first segment of the event that featured the showing of a number of classic UFO film sequences that included the famous Great Falls, Montana and Tremonton, Utah footage.
Little did I realise that the event was to mark the beginning of an extended period where I pulled back from the subject as my adult life began to take shape. By the age of 19 I was in a long term relationship, with a young daughter, a job and a mortgage. UFOs were still interesting but they were pushed back into the background. I would still read the occasional book and watch anything on television about the subject but that was about it.
After sixteen years of being away from the subject (during which time I got married, became a father again, spent six years in the RAF before eventually joining the Police in 1989) something happened to change all that.
By the spring of 1995 I had been police officer for almost six years. I had just been appointed an aide to CID and was seconded to a Major Crime Unit. Now from time to time the unit would have to go to Leeds and it was during one such visit that I found myself in W H Smiths on the main concourse of the station casually glancing through the racks of magazines.
Suddenly I came across a publication that literally stopped me in my tracks. There in front of me was this glossy A4 colour magazine called ‘UFO Magazine’ (published by Quest Publications). I picked it up and even now I remember the buzz of coming across the magazine for the first time. I immediately bought a copy of it and over the course of the next few months (it was then a bi-monthly publication) I began to gradually re-acquaint myself with the subject that I’d been away from for such a long time.
The first thing I noticed was the amount of new ‘evidence’ that had seemingly emerged in the public domain during the intervening years since I had been away from the subject. New evidence that took the form of thousands of documents obtained in the United States as a result of their Freedom of Information Act. Documents relating to UFOs had been released that had originated from all strands of the major intelligence and military services in America i.e. FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), NSA (National Security Agency), Army, Navy, Air Force not to mention the likes of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).
This was significant in itself given the fact that according to the infamous ‘Condon Report’ (The Colorado University Report presided over by physicist Dr Edward Condon commissioned by the U.S Air Force to reach conclusions about the phenomenon published in 1969) had concluded that all sightings could be identified as misinterpretations of known objects or meteorological phenomena etc; and there was no evidence to support the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Far from negating the subject, these documents appeared to totally contradict that stated position. Why if there was nothing to this subject were there so many documents (many classified at Top Secret and Secret level)? Several actually appeared to promote a belief in the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
What’s more some of the documents showed that many commercial and military pilots had come forward with extraordinary reports that quite clearly seemed to me to suggest that some UFOs were real machines that performed in ways beyond our current knowledge of technology. For example objects that could make incredible right angled turns, perform reverses in flight, make instant stops, hover in total silence, had the ability to change shape or separate into multiple objects not to mention displaying incredible bursts of acceleration (to many thousands of miles per hour and often officially confirmed on radar).
Over a period of eighteen months or so I regularly bought the magazine and purchased the latest books on the subject. In particular I was drawn to the works of two British authors, Tim Good and Nick Redfern.
Tim Good had written several best selling books about UFOs including what are arguably two of the finest works ever made on the subject, ‘Above Top Secret and Beyond Top Secret’. What particularly impressed me was the amount of factual data i.e. military and commercial pilot reports, sightings by astronauts and cosmonauts, radar operators as well as those of senior military officers (including the likes of Admirals, Generals and Colonels etc).
The other book that really impressed me was by a new British author called Nick Redfern. His book, ‘A Covert Agenda’, covered much of the same ground as Tim Good’s work – in other words providing more factual testimony and documentary evidence from a whole host of credible witnesses.
Note the phrase ‘documentary evidence’. Without realising it I was not looking at this information through the eyes of just another interested reader, no, I was assessing the material through the eyes of a police officer.
To me the testimony of the pilots, the radar confirmations, the documentary evidence all pointed to the conclusion that the phenomena was real and that some of the sightings appeared to genuinely support the premise that they were of extraterrestrial origin.
Yet there was an obvious contradiction staring me in the face. If I could see the evidence then why did the media and mainstream science dismiss it virtually out of hand? For example, one day a newspaper would publish a serious fact based article about UFOs, whilst the next day the same paper would print another piece which totally belittled the subject.
As time went by and my thirst for knowledge grew, I began to feel a sense of frustration welling up within me. More and more I began to question the reasons why the media and mainstream science were ignoring what to me was glaring evidence that indicated that the subject of UFOs was worthy of serious scientific investigation.
After all I was a police officer used to dealing with ‘evidence’ everyday at work. The testimony of the high calibre witnesses alone demanded serious scientific discussion, yet there was virtually none. That sense of frustration was to suddenly manifest itself in a way that I could never have predicted.
Step 3. Writing a fictional UFO related film script!
As a teenager I had often dallied with writing stories but what always happened was that after that initial burst of enthusiasm my interest would wane and I ended up never completed the story. It was a bit of fun but no more. Now as a rule I usually can’t recall my dreams but on one particular night I went to bed and had a really vivid dream that upon waking I could still clearly remember. So much so that I quickly wrote down the premise of the story.
A respected senior U.S Senator would go on a fishing vacation with his son in the rugged wilderness region of Montana. One day as they are fishing on the lake they witness a UFO being pursued above the water by several military helicopters. Meanwhile on a hillside overlooking the lake an Oscar winning documentary filmmaker is recording a bird habitat that has the lake in the background. Moments later the helicopters take down the UFO that sinks beneath the water, all of which is captured on a state-of-the-art high definition camera.
Within minutes a military retrieval operation begins to recover the alien craft and a cordon is put in place to secure the area. Anyone witnessing the crash within the cordon is to be systematically eliminated. Will the Senator and his son survive? What happens to the cameraman and will the film ever be broadcast to the outside world?
In effect my frustration had conjured up a fictional scenario that could bring about total disclosure on the subject of UFOs. I was convinced that I had a really good story, but what would I do with it? I suppose most people would think of developing the premise into a novel but for me it was always going to be in the form of a screenplay because my first genuine passion in life (away from playing football) was the cinema or as I called it ‘the pictures’. Yet in terms of writing a screenplay I had absolutely no experience or knowledge of how to do so.
That said, over the course of several weeks I began to just write it down in a format that I thought could easily read. Seeking feedback I would print it off in segments and ask friends and family to read and review it. All the feedback I got indicated that the story was readable and enjoyable. But one thing stood out above all my previous attempts at writing. This time I knew that I would finally finish a story.
I found I really could sit down at a keyboard and produce something from nothing. I wrote every day for a period of eight weeks and the story developed before my very eyes until it was finished. I had finally made the journey from A to B and I was elated.
Now at this juncture you might be forgiven for wondering what the relevance is for highlighting the screenplay as a step toward evolvement of the database. Well it is relevant because of what writing the screenplay made me do next.
Step 4. Meeting Graham Birdsall, Editor, UFO Magazine
Now there is one thing thinking you have written a good story and another trying to actually prove it. After completing a second draft of 'Conclusive Proof' I wanted to get a professional ufologist to review it. One Sunday I drove over to Ilkley where Quest Publications were then located and nervously posted a large A4 envelope through the letterbox of their business premises. The script was addressed to Graham Birdsall, the founding editor of UFO Magazine, a magazine widely regarded as the finest publication of its kind in the world.
I wondered whether he would bother to read the script and what his reaction to it might be even if he did. Some three or four weeks later I was to find out the answer. Early one evening whilst at home, I took a call from Graham who was nothing short of gushing in praise of the script and wished me every success in trying to get it made into a film. We talked for about ten minutes and I was really flattered that he had taken the time to call me personally. He had even sent a written review of the script which I have framed and kept on my wall to this day.
Dated 23rd February 2000 he wrote,
Dear Gary,
Thanks for sending me a copy of your screenplay entitled 'Conclusive Proof'.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading every page and found it difficult to put down. From beginning to end, I found myself carried along in a plot full of twists and turns and was never really certain how it would all end until the final page.
Were it to become a move, I've little doubt it would be a big hit at the box office.
A UFO crash retrieval, the cover-up, murder most foul by the 'Duty, Honour, Country' brigade, the hunt, the conspiracy, the little guy coming out on top over the establishment, the truth finally dawns etc… All highly convincing and hugely entertaining.
Thanks again for allowing me the opportunity to read the screenplay and wish it, and you, every success in for the future.
Yours faithfully,
Graham W. Birdsall (Editor)
UFO Magazine
As I said earlier the relevance of the above letter is important to the story of how I became active in UFO research. Not content was I to just make contact with Graham, I found myself wanting to become involved in research.
The lure of this subject was beginning to slowly take its grip on my life.
For twenty two consecutive years between 1980-2002, Graham Birdsall and UFO Magazine hosted a UFO Conference in Leeds with guest speakers flying in from all over the world. From humble beginnings the conference had grown year by year into three day event widely regarded as the subject's principal calendar conference in Britain and Europe.
On Saturday 22nd September 2001 whilst at the 21st conference I finally met Graham Birdsall and put a face to the voice on the phone from seventeen months earlier. He remembered me and was again kind with his praise for the script.
Over three days of that conference I listened to the lectures from the likes of Dr John Mack, the esteemed Harvard Psychiatrist and expert on the 'abduction phenomena', Budd Hopkins, widely regarded as the leading abduction authority in the world and Dr Richard Haines, the world's leading expert on pilot/UFO encounters.
Listening to the various speeches I found myself more and more convinced of the reality of UFOs as a real phenomena and that there was factual material in the form of real and documentary evidence to support the ET hypothesis.
That particular conference was also memorable for me for one other reason. As was custom during the lecture breaks the various speakers would mingle with the audience to sell their respective books, sign autographs and answer questions. At one such break I noticed one of the most respected ufologists in the world, Tim Good. Seizing the unexpected opportunity I approached him, told him of my high regard for his work and asked if he would be kind enough to read the script!
I was pleasantly surprised to find that he was willing to do so. Several weeks later he too rang me unexpectedly and in enthusiastic tone praised the script saying he'd really enjoyed it. He wished me every success for the future and offered to help in any way he could. I was very flattered by his kind words of support.
Which brings me back to the relevance of the script, without it I would not have approached Graham Birdsall and without his influence and enthusiasm I would not have attended the conference, met Tim Good and thus opened myself up to the stimuli of some of the lecturers.
The result was I wanted to get involved in serious research. The question was how?
I now found myself at the point of wanting to become an active UFO researcher but the problem for me was doing it in a way that would fit around my full-time role of of being a busy police detective.
I contemplated joining one of the many UK based UFO organizations but concluded that such a move would not suit my particular circumstances and ruled it out. No, I had to find something that would suit my needs.
It would be a further two months before the final piece of the jigsaw would suddenly fall into place.
Step 5 - The creation of the PRUFOS Police Database.
Having finally realised that my destiny lay in UFO research I still had to find a solution to making it fit around my daily police life. What could I do that would cater for my set of circumstances?
Well, for perhaps only the second time in my life I went to bed and had another good idea. I woke up the following morning with an idea that seemed to fit all the necessary criteria to make it work for me. It was November 2001.
The idea? I would research British police officer UFO sightings and the more I thought about it the more I was certain there must have been literally hundreds of sightings made by officers during the modern era of UFOs (1947 onwards). Having said that, I guess the germ of the idea had been in my sub conscious mind for a while because as I’d done ongoing research for re drafts of my first script ‘Conclusive Proof’ I read more and more UFO literature in books and magazines.
Whilst reading them I had come across several references to British police officer UFO sightings, perhaps a dozen or so cases involving around 14 officers. I’d even bookmarked the references as if unwittingly preparing myself for the task ahead.
The database didn’t have a name at that point but the basic idea would be to record 'on and off' duty sightings made by serving and retired officers and in an effort to get them to come forward I would offer total confidentiality (if requested).
The database seemed to offer me the perfect solution for my particular set of circumstances. After all, I was a police officer and knew how they worked and their mindset.
That said I needed a catchy title for the database. It would have to contain the word ‘UFO’ within it. After one or two attempts I suddenly hit on the idea of the name ‘PRUFOS’ that stood for Police Reporting UFO Sightings.
Having thought of the name I now needed the oxygen of publicity.
I immediately thought of approaching Graham Birdsall at UFO Magazine. I quickly wrote down some notes about the proposed database and went to visit Graham at the magazine’s new offices at Stourton in Leeds. Once again I found him to be very accommodating and over a cup of coffee he invited me to outline my idea to him.
I asked him if I could write an article for the magazine and just a few minutes he said ‘OK’ and that was that! So by mid December 2001 I supplied Graham with my first article for the magazine. He agreed to publish it in the January 2002 issue and it would mark the public launch of the database. I will never forget the thrill of seeing that first article in print.
When the article was published I realized that I had completed a journey that had begun unknowingly 26 years earlier with my own sighting - a journey that had fundamentally changed the course of my life.
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THIS IS DIRECTLY FROM NICAP;
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