Over the last few days I have been asked for my views on the History Channel’s new show, Project Blue Book. I was on vacation up until last week, so I only watched the opening episode yesterday. Finally, I’m now catching up on things. So, here goes: In an article titled “Where in the hell is the outrage?”Rich Reynolds says of Project Blue Book: “The show was a disservice to J. Allen Hynek, his wife, Captain Ruppelt, and Lt. Gorman whose Fargo ‘dogfight’ with a UFO is one of the classic and intriguing cases in the UFO literature. That UFO enthusiasts are so desperate for something in their interested field they accept such idiocy is more than discouraging; it’s madness. The defaming History Channel effort should be condemned outright and loudly. It is, as I’ve already noted, a travesty of UFO history and a joke. To let it stand as representative of what Blue Book was and did and how J. Allen Hynek, a moderate and reserved academic was, is shameful.”

Then, there is this from Kevin Randle: “Back in the 1970s, Jack Webb of Dragnet fame created something he called Project UFO. It was based on the files of Project Blue Book and it was difficult to recognize the cases presented. The attitude of the program, if I remember it correctly, was to examine a case  that might have been inexplicable and find a rational and reasonable answer before the hour expired. Although I was excited about the show, I was quickly disappointed in the final product. It reeked somewhat, again if I remember correctly, of a debunking operation.”

Kevin continues: “This new incarnation, given the snappy tile of Project Blue Book, seems to be at the other end of the spectrum. It suggests a grand conspiracy that involves what most of us believe is the mythical MJ-12, Air Force officers who will go to about any length to prove a case has a terrestrial explanation and a hint of the Men in Black. In other words, it is filled with the paranoia of the UFO field and has very little to do with the reality of the situation as it was then or as it is now.”

And there are these words from Micah Hanks: “…as far as being an entertaining television program goes, we give it two thumbs up. So in conclusion, Project Blue Book may be one of the better UFO-themed productions to come out in recent years, and though it may not become renowned for its historical accuracy, it nonetheless presents some fun and entertaining food for thought on a subject that has remained both perplexing, and controversial, for many decades.”

As for me? Well, here’s my take on it all: if the show was specifically presented as pure fiction and used real people in a wholly fictional format (such as the 1990s series Dark Skies, which had actors playing such figures as JFK, RFK, and Dorothy Kilgallen – all of who have been tied to UFOs by certain elements of Ufology), viewers would at least know what they are getting: namely, fiction and absolutely nothing else, like it or like it not. But, that’s not the case with Project Blue Book. This new show blurs the lines to a point where many may not realize what amounts to fact and what amounts to fiction. For example, the show begins with the following words: “This series is inspired by Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s investigations for the U.S. Air Force into the existence of UFOs. The cases depicted are based on real events.”

Well, that is true. But, it’s these words we need to focus on: “inspired” and “based on.” Episode 1, “The Fuller Dogfight,” relates a classic case that dates back 71 years. As Wikipedia notes:  “The Gorman UFO dogfight was a widely publicized UFO incident. It occurred on October 1, 1948, in the skies over Fargo, North Dakota, and involved George F. Gorman, a pilot with the North Dakota Air National Guard. USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt wrote in his bestselling and influential The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects that the Gorman Dogfight was one of three ‘classic’ UFO incidents in 1948 that ‘proved to [Air Force] intelligence specialists that UFOs were real.^‘However, in 1949 the US Air Force labeled the Gorman Dogfight as being caused by a lighted weather balloon.”

In the show, Gorman is portrayed as being so traumatized that he is hit with a chemical cocktail that wipes out his memory. As Kevin Randle puts it (see the same link to Kevin’s article above),” Gorman is “…suffering from an acute case of PTSD and eventually ends up in the psycho ward before being given a shot and dragged off.”

The fact is that none of that happened – in the real world. What the Air Force actually said of the affair is that Gorman “…did not make the impression of being a dreamer. He reads little, and only serious literature. He spends 90 percent of his time hunting and fishing; drinks less than moderately; smokes normally; and does not do drugs. He appears to be a sincere and serious individual who was considerably puzzled by his experience and made no attempt to blow his story up.” That assessment is at significant odds with what we see in Project Blue Book.

Gorman was a man who fought for his country in the Second World War. In the post-war era he was a Second Lieutenant in the North Dakota National Guard. I don’t know if Gorman has any surviving relatives (he and his wife did have a child), but I wonder what they would think of the way in which he is portrayed in Project Blue Book. Also in the show, J. Allen Hynek has an encounter with a Man in Black (albeit very briefly). For those who are wondering which other parts of the show are “inspired,” you may like to know that Hynek never had such an encounter.

I was hugely unimpressed and the show did a disservice to the real George Gorman, a decorated, WW2 pilot. The one saving grace: the prospect of what looks to be a bit of hot girl on girl action on the horizon, which probably didn’t happen either.

On the evening of September 13, 1990, something unusual appeared in the skies above Mojave, California. Most observers described it as a large, delta-shaped aircraft, which produced a low, rumbling sound as it moved across the nighttime sky.

The mystery aircraft appeared to be accompanied by an F-16 and one other plane, apparently “chase” planes assisting or gathering observational data in relation to the larger aircraft. This would not be the only appearance made by this “mystery aircraft”; a similar display appeared in the skies over Mojave again on October 3 that same year, then again in April of the following year. During the Spring 1991 incident, an observer was able to identify an F-16 accompanying it in the “chase” position, as was seen during its initial appearance earlier in September. The larger aircraft, which appeared to be white or some lighter color, was said to “dwarf” the chasing F-16.

Sometime later, the monolithic “mystery plane” began to make appearances over the Southeast. One such sighting was reported in the early 1990s by CNN writer Glenn Emery, who observed the aircraft near Atlanta, Georgia, at an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 ft altitude (Emery said this was difficult to judge, since the size of the aircraft was unknown, but that the plane he witnessed was “clearly higher and faster” than conventional traffic elsewhere in the sky, which were on their descent into Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport).

Reports would continue, though seldom in occurrence, with some comparing the mystery aircraft to the XB-70, a late 1950s supersonic prototype aircraft designed by North American Aviation, for use in bombing missions by the USAF Strategic Air Command.

The Federation of American Scientists, commenting on sightings of this “mystery plane,” noted that the aircraft’s wingspan would have been roughly equivalent to that of a B-2 bomber, but with a shape that was different enough to be discerned even at night:

Some observers also claim that another larger and more agile aircraft has been cruising the California desert. This aircraft reportedly has a wingspan close to 150 feet. While this dimension is roughly equivalent to that of the B-2 bomber, observers insist that they can distinguish it from the B-2 at night. Unlike the B-2 and the aircraft flying in F- 117A formation, this vehicle appeared highly maneuverable. One is said to have turned 90 degrees on its wingtip.

The B-2 photographed in 1989 during an early public flight.

With time, this large aircraft had picked up a nickname in aviation and defense reporting circles: many had begun calling it the “mothership.”

Based on sightings of the aircraft, mostly reported in Aviation Week and Space Technology, the so-called “mothership” was believed to have been part of a two-vehicle system, with the large craft being observed during the early 1990s being a carrier plane for an orbital component—that is, a smaller spaceplane fitted under the primary craft—which was flown to sub-orbital altitude before being released. The system became known in “secret” circles as the SR3 Blackstar, with its accompanying orbital spaceplane dubbed XOV or “Speedy.”

Speculation about the Blackstar system continued for a number of years in aviation circles. Then in the early 200s, news began to circulate that the Blackstar program might have been shelved, prompting Aviation Week editor William B. Scott to write a lengthy three-part series detailing all that was known about the suspected project at that time.

“Exactly what missions the Blackstar system may have been designed for and built to accomplish are as yet unconfirmed,” Scott wrote in 2006, “but U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) officers and contractors have been toying with similar spaceplane-operational concepts for years. Besides reconnaissance, they call for inserting small satellites into orbit, and either retrieving or servicing other spacecraft. Conceivably, such a vehicle could serve as an anti-satellite or space-to-ground weapons-delivery platform, as well.”

Scott’s articles received a mixed reception from aviation experts, with some expressing critical views about the legitimacy of Aviation Week’s reporting on the hypothetical Blackstar. Others were critical of the critics, including Steve Douglass, an aerospace writer and photojournalist who argued that many of the attacks seemed to have been based on an incomplete reading of Scott’s original series of articles:

“Negative comments centered mostly on the belief that it would be almost impossible to develop such a complicated, expensive and sophisticated system without the American public being aware, but those type of comments came from posters who did not read the entire article with Bill Scott’s excellent research on how the project was specifically structured to isolate it from the military (promoting “plausible deniability”) with it being overseen by private sector contractors much like how the United Space Alliance now manages huge parts of NASA’s manned space flight program.”

“Those who scoff at the report,” Douglass went on to argue, “saying it is too dangerous and difficult to launch a simple space-plane system into space, forget the private-sector has already accomplished just that and without the billion-dollar backing of any government,” citing the aforementioned XB-70, along with the USAF’s Dyna Soar spaceplane project, as examples.

The buzz that the “Blackstar” program created back in the early 2000s led to further interest among many commentators who had been searching for evidence of other hush-hush aerospace projects, among them the mythical “Project Aurora,” a hypothetical reconnaissance plane and successor to the SR-71 Blackbird.

Artist’s conception of Project Aurora based on eyewitness reports from the early 1990s

(Wikimedia Commons).

Lawrence Harris, an aerospace and security analyst with the Chicago-based Kemper Securities Group was quoted on July 17, 1992 in Aerospace Daily saying that “Circumstantial evidence suggests that this project has been underway since 1987 and that a first flight occurred in 1989… Aurora could be operational in 1995, six years after the probable first flight.”

However, in the world of black projects and secretive aircraft, seeing is believing, even if the projects in question involve stealth technologies that aren’t meant to be seen. I recall having a discussion about projects like these a number of years ago with a colleague of James Oberg at a conference we both attended, where I proposed that a number of sightings of unexplained aircraft from over the last few decades could be evidence for programs the likes of Blackstar. My friend seemed to think this was unlikely, however, saying that such programs “would have been declassified by now.”

Apparently, Steven Douglass has encountered this argument in the past, as well. In a post at his Deep Blue Horizon blog that accompanied a copy of his original article on the Blackstar program, he discussed the way many dismiss the possible existence of craft like Aurora or Blackstar (which may have been one and the same, as Douglass has argued), along with other rumored aircraft the likes of the TR-3A “Black Manta.”

“Many Internet pundits,” Douglass wrote, “have said, ‘Okay –where’s Aurora. Where’s the F-19? Where’s the TR-3A?’ ”

Douglass thinks it’s unlikely that all such secret aircraft would become public knowledge after only a few decades, as many critics claim:

“It is quite likely that the [Secret Aerospace Projects] that [William Scott] and I wrote about are still classified above Top Secret and may not be acknowledged for another fifty years or so – not just because the technology is sensitive but the various purposes and missions these classified aircraft flew are sensitive as well as are still-classified missions flown by the f-117, SR-71 and U-2.”

The fact that these hypothetical aircraft have captured the interest of aerospace professionals over the years is not proof in itself that they existed (or might still exist). It does, however, suggest that such ideas are not pure speculation, nor are they crazy.  Even if the majority of cases like these were proven unreliable, it would seem that there would have to be at least a few secret aerospace projects that do exist, and which are seen by people–both in the civilian and military sectors–from time to time. The eyewitness reports must account for something, after all… whether any official details will be forthcoming any time soon is another story.

In 1816, something very strange and ominous occurred across the planet: temperatures dropped by around 1.3 °F. That may not sound like a lot, but it was enough to cause significant problems which bordered upon catastrophic, and particularly so across much of the Earth’s northern hemisphere, which is defined as anywhere and everywhere north of the equator. It was a situation which had its origins as far back as the 1300s. That’s when the Earth was subjected to what has become known as the Little Ice Age. While certainly nowhere on the scale of previous ice ages, it still proved to be calamitous for the people who were forced to endure it.

The Little Ice Age – a term created by a Dutch geologist named François Émile Matthes (1874-1948) – was a period of more than a few centuries which resulted in noticeable fluctuations of temperature, which, having begun in the 14^th century, extended to midway through the 19^th century. Much of North America was affected, as was Europe, to the extent that from the commencement of the 15^th century to the 18^th century, London, England’s famous River Thames froze solid on no less than two dozen occasions. In 1683, the huge river was frozen for no less a period than an incredible two months. Norway, Holland, and Iceland were particularly hit hard, too. But, what was it that provoked such disastrous, cold temperatures, ones which led to famine and death on a large scale? The U.S. Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) offers the following:

“…climate data obtained from trees, ice cores, marine sediment and historical documents indicate 1816 was part of a mini ice age that lasted from 1400 to around 1860. During this time lower solar output produced harsh winters, shorter growing seasons and drier climates which were blamed for a host of human suffering and crop failures such as the Irish Potato Famine.”

But, other things were afoot, too, as NOAA make very clear: “Another possible cause was the eruption of the Tambora volcano on the island of Soembawa in Indonesia on April 15th 1815. The eruption lasted one week and rumbled for 3 months. The mountain elevation dropped from 14,000 feet to 9000 feet, killed close to 10,000 people on the island and another 80,000 people would eventually die from starvation and diseases related to the eruption. Tambora was one of the largest recorded eruptions with estimates of 1.7 million tons of dust put into the air equaling 6 million atomic bombs. The theory is that the dust reached the Northern Hemisphere during 1816 reducing solar output.”

Science and history have both demonstrated that Ice Ages have certainly occurred – and up to recent times, too, as the story of the Little Ice Age demonstrates. Theories abound, however, with regard to what, exactly causes them. Massive volcanic eruptions, strikes by huge meteorites and comets, and changes in the levels of methane and carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, have all been offered up as potential candidates. What we do know for sure, however, is that over the course of the last one million years alone, there has been more than a handful of glacial events, specifically in the northern hemisphere, and of varying degrees of harshness.

Around 650,000 years ago the Earth was engulfed by massive amounts of ice, with gigantic sheets extending from what is, today, the American Midwest to central Europe. It was a turbulent time for the planet and for the early, primitive humans and wild animals that lived in that era. And it was a long spell of time, too: the glacial period lasted for around 50,000 years. Successive ice ages occurred, of varying lengths and frequency, with the most recent true Ice Age having reached its end around 11,500 years ago, but having reached its peak roughly about 18,000 to 16,000 years ago. And it wasn’t just the colder, northern parts of what are today Europe, Russia, and North America that were badly affected. Evidence exists to show that New Zealand suffered too, as did portions of South America, including the Andes of Chile.

As staff at the San Diego-based University of California – a focal point for research into Ice Age history and development – note: “The reasons for these large swings in climate change are not yet well understood” We would do well to remember that. Maybe even prepare for such events. Anyone who thinks climate change is nonsense is speaking nonsense themselves.

As far as modern science has come, there are still many natural phenomena that scientists struggle to understand or explain. For years, scientists have studied the Earth’s magnetic field in an attempt to better understand the powerful forces which shape many of the geological and even biological processes which occur on spaceship Earth, and those studies have revealed that the geomagnetic field is weakening and displaying anomalous behavior that can’t yet be explained. We know that the magnetic poles shift periodically, and there are signs that they may shift sooner than we thought. The scariest part of all this is that we have no idea what effects such a shift would have on the world around us.

Earth‘s magnetic field protects us from various forms of solar and cosmic radiation.

The latest in geomagnetic fear-mongering comes from a report published in Nature this week which basically lays out the case that we have no idea what’s going on with the planet’s magnetic field. Every five years, an international panel of geologists and physicists publish what’s known as the World Magnetic Model, a kind of descriptive map of the Earth’s magnetic field. The map is an integral part of modern navigation and telecommunications systems, but according to Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “the error is increasing all the time.” The current map, despite being only a few years old, is already out of date.

That’s because rapidly wandering magnetic poles and unexplained magnetic anomalies are making it more difficult to map the Earth’s magnetic field. The north magnetic pole is moving at a rate of 55 kilometers per year and is currently squarely in the Eastern Hemisphere heading towards Siberia, and that high rate of movement is forcing geomagnetists to revise the World Magnetic Model much sooner than normal. Ultimately, the effects of such a rapid shift remain unknown.

Geomagnetic anomalies have even been proposed as possible causes for recent mass animal deaths.

Already, the effects of these magnetic anomalies are being felt around the world. Mass unexplained animal deaths and beachings are happening with terrifying frequency, and some top scientific agencies believe geomagnetic anomalies could be the cause. What’s going to happen when the poles shift?

Within the domain of science-fiction, the death ray is a device that has been put to extremely good use. H.G. Wells’ classic novel of 1898 The War of the Worlds, is a perfect example. In Wells’ story, hostile ETs from Mars unleash upon a terrified human race what is referred to as a heat ray. Plasma-guns appear in the 1986 movie, Aliens. A death-ray-like device was unveiled in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. And, Babylon 5 had its very own equivalent. All of these fictional situations and stories involve death-ray-style weapons and aliens. But, what of the real world?  Certainly, there is no shortage of stories suggesting that death-ray technology has been developed. Quite possibly, even decades ago.

A press-release dated June 6, 1934 offers the following: “A death ray machine was conspicuously absent today from the exhibition room of the National Inventors Congress, presumably at the request of the Federal Government. Its death-dealing potentialities were described to the congress last night by President A.G. Burns of Oakland, California. The machine, an invention of Dr. Antonio Longoria of Cleveland, resembles a motion picture projector, Burns said.”

And there was more to come from Burns: “I witnessed a demonstration of the machine in Cleveland last October. Several Government scientists were there. Dr. Longoria turned the ray on rabbits, dogs and cats. They fell over, instantly killed, their blood turned to water. The same thing happened to pigeons. They fluttered to the ground and were dead when picked up. Because of the ray’s death-dealing possibilities, Burns said that Dr. Longoria readily agreed with Government scientists that the machine will be suppressed” (Ibid.).

In September 1940, the New York Times ran an article titled “Death Ray for Planes.” In part, it stated: “Nikola Tesla, one of the truly great inventors who celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday on July, 10 tells the writer that he stands ready to divulge to the United States government the secret of his ‘teleforce,’ of which he said, airplane motors would be melted at a distance of 250 miles, so that an invisible ‘Chinese Wall of Defense’ would be built around the country against any enemy attack by an enemy air force, no matter how large” (“Death Ray for Planes,” 1940).

Moving onto 1957, there is the following, which is extracted from the FBI’s voluminous files on Albert Einstein, which have been declassified under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act: “In May, 1948, [Einstein] and ‘10 former Nazi research brain trusters’ held a secret meeting to observe a new beam of light secret weapon which could be operated from planes to destroy cities, according to the ‘Arlington Daily,’ Arlington, Virginia, May 21, 1948. The Intelligence Division of the Army subsequently advised the Bureau that this information could have no foundation in fact and that no machine could be devised which would be effective outside the range of a few feet.”

Bringing matters more up to date – but still in relation to both death-rays and the FBI – there is the following, which is taken from significantly-censored Bureau files from the 1980s, and which refer to the groundbreaking work of Nikola Tesla. One particular, partly censored document will demonstrate the U.S. Government’s interest in – and concerns regarding – Tesla’s work in this particular field. It states, in part:

“…the Soviet Union has allegedly had access to some of Tesla’s papers, possibly in Belgrade and/or elsewhere, which influenced their early research into directed energy weapons, and [name deleted] feels access to much of Tesla’s papers on lightning, beam weapons and/or ‘death rays’ would give him more insight into the Soviet beam weapons program. This is Butler’s area of expertise and responsibility. He has been unable to locate any Tesla papers or copies of same in the classified or unclassified libraries at WPAFB [Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, located in Dayton, Ohio]. However, there are reports that some portions of them were shipped by the Custodian of Alien Property Office in Washington, D.C. to a technical research lab at WPAFB, possibly the ‘Equipment Lab,’ now closed for some years or reorganized into another organization.”

All of this data, noted the FBI, was collected “in the interest of national security.”