On February 25, 2009, a legendary figure within the Contactee field – Howard Menger – passed away at his Vero Beach, Florida home, at the ripe old age of eighty-seven. As Contactee authority Greg Bishop notes, Menger was quite a character, and someone who had a particular thing for women of the allegedly E.T. kind: “At the age of 19, Menger enlisted in the Army and saw service in the Pacific during WWII in a flamethrower unit flushing the Japanese out of caves and other hideouts,” says Greg. “He was wounded and received the Purple Heart. Returning to his native New Jersey in 1946, Menger started a sign painting business and a family.” Greg adds:

“This changed in 1956, when he appeared on the Long John Nebel radio show, along with Contactee George Van Tassel. He talked about contacts with space brothers – and, more specifically, sisters – who appeared to him, beginning when he was ten years old. Some of his later published descriptions sounded distinctly sexual in nature, although he carefully couched them in language that could be construed as platonic. He also started taking pictures of the space people and their ships; although most who saw the photos say that they are quite indistinct. On August 4th of 1956, Menger said he was invited on board one of the flying saucers. The next month he said that the space people took him for a joyride where he saw alien civilizations on other planets and structures on the Moon.”

It was not long before there was a major development in Menger’s life, says Greg. In 1956, Menger met Connie Weber, a woman who turned up at one of Menger’s events. According to Menger, he suspected – and finally came to believe – that Connie was nothing less than a reincarnated alien; an alien that Menger had met in another life, no less. It wasn’t long at all before Menger and his then-wife went their different ways and Connie became his new love. They were together for more than fifty years. Things changed radically for the pair as their lives in Ufology progressed: in 1959, Menger’s Contactee-driven book, From Outer Space to You, was published. It cemented his place in the domains of the Space Brothers and Menger’s fellow contactees. He was soon lecturing up and down the west coast. Connie was very much a part of all this too: she wrote her own book, My Saturnian Lover. It was focused on Howard’s and  Connie’s fun-filled escapades in their previous lives.

At the dawning of a new decade, something else happened; something unforeseen and weird. It was in 1960, while on a prime-time television program, that Menger came out with an amazing confession. He said that much of his story was not what it seemed to be. Menger elaborated and claimed that a clandestine branch of the U.S. Army had secretly approached him some years earlier. That same branch could not have cared less if Menger’s tales were true, partially true, or complete garbage. All they wanted from Menger was his help in determining how the public might react to the presence of extraterrestrials in their midst. So, they wanted him to keep on doing what he was doing: spreading the words of the aliens among us. It must be said that very few of the many contactees of the 1950s-1970s ever backed off from their original claims. In fact, quite the opposite: they made sure that their stories remained fully intact. Not so Menger. Interestingly, as Greg also notes: “Fortean writer Ivan Sanderson arrived at the Menger residence in the late 1950s and claimed that Menger got very angry with him when Sanderson discovered some equipment and crates in a storage area with ‘U. S. Army’ stenciled on them.”

There can be no doubt at all that the stories (or, rather, the yarns) of Howard and Connie stretch credibility to the absolute limit. They still stretch matters to that very same limit! The tales of new lives in new bodies, and of a home on a new world (ours), are highly entertaining. But, in terms of being the literal truth? Well, I just don’t buy it. What I do buy, however (well, sometimes I buy it…) are Howard’s claims that he was approached by the military, who wanted him to play psychological games with the American public – and to do so by using the UFO phenomenon as a means to an end. Such a thing may not be so far-fetched as it might initially seem to be. Read on…

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we know that the CIA’s Robertson Panel of 1953 was deeply concerned about the UFO phenomenon. Not because it believed that real aliens were visiting us, but because they – the panel members – were worried that the Russians might use the lore of the UFO to create fear, hysteria and paranoia in the minds of Americans. We’re talking about psychological warfare. Perhaps, there were still similar concerns a few years later; something which promoted someone on the inside to enlist Menger into the program. There is an earlier case that reinforces this theory: Silas Newton, a millionaire business man and a conman too, was significantly responsible for creating the infamous “UFO crash” story of Aztec, New Mexico in March 1948. There’s very little doubt that the tale was bogus. What we know now, however, is that while the Aztec story was still riding high, representatives of a secret group within the U.S. Government clandestinely approached Newton and asked him to keep spreading his UFO tale – even though they knew there was no truth to the story. This all sounds very much like Menger’s claims.

When it came to Menger’s stories of alien contact, some might say that he was telling the literal truth. Others, like me, conclude that his overall tale was simply that: a tale. But, just maybe, Menger was being absolutely truthful when he said that he was pressed by some arm of the U.S. Army to assist them in a program designed to see how the population was reacting to the UFO phenomenon – and how it could be manipulated, too. If you want to find more about the complex lives and claims of Howard and Connie, you can do so in Greg Bishop’s book, It Defies Language!

In the southeast region of the country of Brazil lies Guanabara Bay, off the coast of the major metropolis of Rio de Janeiro. It is the second largest bay in Brazil, but other than that there is nothing particularly special about it other than perhaps the large amount of pollution here. However, lying approximately 15 miles offshore, buried down in 100 feet of water across an area around the size of three tennis courts is a rather strange oddity. Here scattered along the bottom are various relics from ancient Rome, far from where they have any business being, and which have remained a baffling historical anomaly and conundrum that remains unsolved.

The unusual spot was originally first discovered in 1976, when some lobster divers reported having come across what appeared to be ancient, barnacle encrusted jars at the bottom of the bay. It wasn’t long before a diver named Jose Roberto Teixeira actually produced two of the strange artifacts, which were found to be a type of tall, tapered ceramic jars with two handles called amphorae, typically used by the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Phoenicians to carry around all manner of things such as wine, oil, water or grain during long sea voyages. This was certainly a rather odd thing to be pulled up from Guanabara Bay, as the first known European presence in Brazil is thought to date back to 1500, when Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral reached these shores.

Guanabara Bay

The unusual find caught the attention of author, underwater archeologist, and treasure hunter Robert Marx, who in 1982 decided to try and locate more of the objects, along with the help of Dr. Harold Edgerton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Marx was able to get permission for his expedition from the Brazilian government and then went about combing the bottom of the bay with sophisticated sonar technology, peering down there through the waves to try and catch a glimpse of anomalous history. At first he was actually rather skeptical of the whole thing, thinking that the jars that had been found were hoaxes, but what he found was beyond anything even he could have expected.

After finding a promising spot, Marx dove down to find an accumulation of 200 amphorae found down there in the murky, heavily polluted water, where they had been for thousands of years, some on the surface and others buried deep, covered with muck, barnacles or even ensconced in coral and some of them entirely intact even after so many centuries lying there on the sludge of the bottom. It was a remarkable find to say the least, and it was thought by the team that these jars could not have been planted there in modern times, but were rather from some unknown, hidden past. It was Marx’s speculation that the mysterious jars had come from an ancient Roman ship, and he even claimed that there had been evidence of a possible wooden wreck buried down there, but if this was the case then how did such an ancient voyage manage to make it to Brazil many centuries before the first known European presence here, when the Romans were never known to have made it any farther than India in an era when South America might as well have been another planet across a sea of stars? These were things that Marx wanted to find out, and he went about trying to organize a further expedition to the area to uncover more information and look for any wreck that might be there or any other artifacts such as hull fragments, coins, or weapons, for as he has said, “If authentic, it would be one of the most important discoveries in the field of marine archaeology.”

Amphorae

In the meantime, Marx had the jars studied by experts, claiming that everyone who looked at them confirmed that they were from the 2nd or 3rd century and of Roman origin. One of these experts was a professor of classics and specialist in ancient Roman amphoras at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst a specialist by the name of Elizabeth Will, who has said of them:

The highly publicized amphoras Robert Marx found in the ship are in fact similar in shape to jars produced in kilns at Kouass, on the west coast of Morocco. The Rio jars look to be late versions of those jars, perhaps datable to the third century A.D. I have a large piece of one of the Rio jars, but no labs I have consulted have any clay similar in composition. So the edges of the earth for Rome, beyond India and Scotland and eastern Europe, remain shrouded in mystery.

According to Marx, the jars likely came from a Roman ship that had made it to Brazil, and that it could not have been merely a wandering derelict that had blown away across the ocean unmanned because it had managed to navigate all the way up the bay without crashing on the rocks or reefs along the way. His theory was that it had likely made it to Brazil under human control and then perhaps been blown off course to end up where it had. It was an incredible mystery, and one which Marx had hoped to solve before a series of setbacks kept him from it.

Roman ship

In 1983, the Brazilian government, which had been cooperative up to that point, suddenly and without any real explanation denied Marx’s request for permission to further explore the area. In fact, they even went as far as to ban him from entering the country at all, citing the allegations that he had stolen numerous historical objects from shipwrecks all over the country, and with Guanabara Bay this would extend into a full ban on any underwater exploration by anyone whatsoever. The frustrated Marx then accused the Brazilian government of a cover-up, saying that they were trying to wipe out anything that would clash with the established known history of the country, and this was why no effort had ever been made to investigate the fishermen’s claims in the past. He even went as far as to accuse the Brazilian Navy of burying the jars and possible shipwreck in silt in order to keep them hidden, which they denied.

So what is going on here? How did ancient Roman jars get all the way over in Brazil? Were these from a derelict ship blow out across the sea? Were they from some Roman voyage overseas that actually managed to cross the Atlantic? Is the Brazilian government trying to cover it up and subdue any further research on the matter? Or is it all a hoax perpetrated by Marx? Are the jars really even ancient at all? It is still undetermined, and considering that the area has been closed off to any more expeditions, it seems likely that if there is anything there, then it will remain down there in its watery final resting place for many millennia more, forever eluding answers.

The more we learn about this weird universe of ours, the more we realize just how little we know. Soon after scientists realized that they don’t actually know how the sun works, it seems that another thing we thought was totally settled might be completely wrong as well. A new study seems to show that the universe could be a billion years younger than previously thought. Which is a big deal, as it means that something, somewhere in our model of how the universe works, is broken.

The age of the universe was determined by the European Planck telescope’s measurements of cosmic background radiation in 2013. By measuring the background radiation, astrophysicists could determine the rate that the universe was expanding, and by extension, how long it’s been since the universe was a single point, what we call the “big bang.” The number the Planck telescope came up with was 13.8 billion years.  It was a solid answer, and was believed to be almost certainly correct. It only needed to be confirmed by other independent telescopes, pointed at neighboring galaxies. Six years and a whole bunch of data later, it turns out we might not be as smart as we think we are. The data did not confirm the Planck telescope measurements, but instead throws a billion year wrench into the whole thing.

The new data showed that the universe was expanding 9% faster than the Planck telescope showed. That 9% difference in the expansion rate adds up to an age discrepancy of a billion years. According to Nobel prize-winner Adam Riess, who co-authored the new study, they were completely unprepared to deal with such a discrepancy:

“It was getting to the point where we say, ‘Wait a second, we’re not passing this test — we’re failing the test!'”

Alone, Riess’ data would suggest that the universe is only 12.5 to 13 billion years old. So there’s a problem somewhere, but no one knows where it is. Further observation by Riess’ team only confirmed their results, while reanalysis of the Planck data showed there was no problem there either. If the numbers are correct, it means that the problem is in how we’re interpreting them. Riess says:

“This is not just two experiments disagreeing. We are measuring something fundamentally different. One is a measurement of how fast the universe is expanding today, as we see it. The other is a prediction based on the physics of the early universe and on measurements of how fast it ought to be expanding. If these values don’t agree, there becomes a very strong likelihood that we’re missing something in the cosmological model that connects the two eras.”

It’s starting to look like there’s a fundamental problem with our model of the universe. As the competing data is checked and re-checked and neither seem to have any errors, it becomes more and more likely that the problem lies with the underlying theories. According to astrophysicist Jo Dunkley, we don’t have any models of the universe that can account for everything:

“There’s currently no consistent story that works for all our cosmological data. That means there is fascinating work to be done, to see if there is something out there that can explain all of it.”

Maybe there is a “theory of everything,” but it’s safe to say we haven’t found it yet, and it’s a good bet that we’ll be wrong a whole bunch of times before we get it right.

In late 2017, the alleged disclosure of a black budget government research project known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) changed the contemporary conversation surrounding UFOs and what the U.S. government may know about them. As it turns out, the Department of Defense is quite aware of many anomalous or otherwise unidentified aerial phenomena which regularly enter U.S. airspace and easily outrun the very best aircraft we have. Who knew?

Naturally, there are those within the government who encourage the study of these phenomena and those who want to ignore them. However, there are voices within the intelligence and defense agencies which argue United States government has an obligation to study these phenomena to determine if they pose a threat to American air superiority, the American people, or humanity itself.

That’s according to Chris Mellon, who served for two decades in various intelligence advisory roles within the U.S. government including Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for Intelligence from 1999 to 2002. Mellon currently serves as “national security affairs adviser” for Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science and as a consultant on its upcoming History channel series Unidentified.  In a new essay published by The Hill, Mellon pulls no punches in declaring prior attempts to study the UFO phenomenon to be failures:

Most Americans would no doubt agree that our inability to identify scores of mysterious aircraft repeatedly violating restricted U.S. military airspace in recent years is a shocking failure.

Mellon argues that given the overwhelming evidence, the United States Congress must act to mandate a report on UAPs, unidentified aerial phenomena. The evidence is clear that these phenomena exist and are much more frequent than we know, Mellon writes, meaning it’s time the government for the government to finally get to the bottom of the UFO phenomenon once and for all:

If UAPs turn out to be toys of Elon Musk’s making, we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief. If they are Russian, we’ll be glad we took action now rather than kicking the can down the road. If we learn that someone else’s more advanced version of our Voyager spacecraft has reached Earth, then this humble measure will forever transform our understanding of the universe and man’s place within it.  

Let’s hope they are Elon Musk’s toys. Mellon doesn’t outright call for full disclosure, instead merely arguing that Congress must “require the secretary of Defense and the director of national intelligence to review the UAP issue and deliver a report providing a comprehensive assessment.” It’s unknown if Congressional committees would make such a report public even if it’s ever produced, and Mellon himself argues that the Trump administration “should be free to provide the report at whatever level of classification it deems appropriate,” but come on: why would the government want citizens to know there are freaky outer space gizmos whizzing around overhead that make the F/A-18 look like a failed Wright Brothers model? That’s bad for Boeing  sales.

Still, it’s reassuring to see major political publications taking the UAP phenomenon seriously enough to publish such an opinion piece. The timing makes me wonder, though: is all of this merely part of the publicity campaign for the History channel’s upcoming series? History is owned by Hearst and Disney, huge media conglomerates with extensive reach within the media. It’s not too far-fetched to wonder if some strings have been pulled to get this piece published.

Then again, this could be a sign that more voices are joining the chorus calling for disclosure of the government’s UFO research. Are the AATIP revelations a smokescreen or the first taste of public disclosure?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

There are paranormal sightings that make you want to know more in the hopes that they’re truly real. Then there are paranormal sightings that make you go “Really?” These three recent, well-publicized sightings are varying degrees of “Really?” and are presented to show just how hard it’s becoming to prove the existence of cryptids, aliens and otherworldly things while the mass media has discovered the attraction of publicizing highly skeptical events in the name of paranormal reality.

Case One is the alleged Chupacabra sighting in Houston reported by multiple local media outlets. This one was the typical Texas-style Chupacabra – a mangy-looking canine-ish creature staggering through the brush on the west side of this heavily populated and increasingly urbanized city in a manner that suggests a sick animal looking for comfort or a secluded place to suffer in peace – not a blood-sucking, vicious cryptid looking for fresh goats, livestock or pets. (See the picture and coverage here.) This is the same city where a starving pet tigerwas found recently in a home living in a filthy cage.

Possible 'chupacabra' caught on camera in Houston, if it were really real

The photo of this animal was taken on Richmond near Highway 6, behind the Shell facility, according to the viewer who spotted it. 

So it’s not inconceivable this “Chupacabra” was a mistreated pet. Houston is also the home of numerous recent chemical spills and explosions, so it’s also possible this was a coyote or loose dog suffering from toxic exposure … a possible cause of the Texas version of what Puerto Ricans see as more of a two-legged reptilian creature. Sorry, Houston … the needle is buried in the Highly Skeptical area on our meter.

Better-fed dogs and no chemical spills = less Chupacabras?

“Is that Jesus Christ? Please, oh, Father God.”

Case Two is the alleged “flying humanoid” reported and recorded over Burbank, California, by Pablo Morales, whose inclusion of religious exclamations in the audio surely attracted even more attention to this typical “flying humanoid” sighting on what appeared to be a stormy day – always good for adding to the mood. (Watch the video here.) As usual, the most common of the logical comments on the video was an escaped string of balloons (aren’t we supposed to be suffering from a helium shortage?). With so many Marvel movies out, it seems various fictional superhero characters came in second, while angels of some sort benefited from Pablo’s religious exclamation and finished third. On this dark and stormy nightmare of a balloonish floating ‘something’, the meter is pointing to Very Skeptical.

Finally, we have Case Three – an animal mutilation report from Cornwall that in the U.S. might be blamed on aliens but in England it’s instead linked to witches and pagans. Cornwall Live interviewed Brian Lemin, an animal control official who was contacted by a farmer in the Middle Taphouse area of Dobwalls and arrived there to find two lambs which had their heads cut cleanly from their bodies – heads which were nowhere to be found. (Gross pictures here.) Lemin ruled out any sort of local predator like a fox or dog because the bodies showed no gnaw marks and still had all of their organs. He could have also ruled out Chupacabras or other cryptids because the bodies were still full of blood. Aliens? Cornwall Live says locals would rather blame witches or people who have different religious beliefs that they do – i.e. “pagans.” Richard Blackett, a media officer for the Pagan Federation (pagans have a media department?), responded quickly and angrily.

“This has no part in any practice by Pagan groups. I would say it smacks of antisocial behaviour, cruelty to animals. What has been done to these lambs is gruesome and unpleasant and it is not something those in the Pagan community would ever condone.”

Amen … or whatever Wicca, witchcraft, Druidism and other “land-based religions” say to agree. This actually sounds more like what Jennifer Hobson told Cornwall Live:

“It’s probably nasty little a***holes. Or older nasty a***holes who want to sell the skulls on eBay.”

Nasty a***holes. (Why three asterisks? It’s ‘arse’ in England.) For some reason, that seems to increasingly be the real cause behind many of these alleged paranormal events. While the clean cuts and missing heads in this case warrant further investigation, the needle on this one is still firmly on the skeptical side of the meter.

All together now … Really?

Over the years (decades, in fact) rumors have circulated suggesting that the CIA has a deep interest in nothing less than the final resting place of Noah’s Ark. There are tales of clandestine treks up Mount Ararat, Turkey to find ancient remains. There are also stories of pieces of the Ark having secretly been taken to the Smithsonian for study and storage. The big question, of course, is this: how much of all this can be vindicated? Can any of it be vindicated? Certainly, the CIA has a “file” on the Ark, but having a dossier does not mean that its staff have found the Ark, or have uncovered something amazing about it. Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA has declassified a number of interesting papers on the Ark, mostly from the 1970s and the 1980s. Let’s take a look at the content. The following words are taken directly from the CIA’s files. The first document of any significance reads as follows: “Noah’s Ark 1974 – 1982. On 13 May 1974, DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] Colby sent a letter to the DS&T, Sayre Stevens, asking if the Agency had any evidence of Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat. Mr. Colby said that Lieutenant Colonel Walter Brown of the US Air Force Academy had asked ‘whether it would be appropriate or possible to exploit satellite photography to examine the glacier systems there to see whether any evidence of the Ark could be found.’ On 21 May, the Center responded that no evidence of the Ark could be discerned on U-2 photography acquired on 10 September 1957 or on any satellite imagery available at the Center.”

Moving on to August 6, 1974, the CIA recorded the following: “Congressman Bob Wilson asked the Agency whether any aerial photos of Mt. Ararat could be released to a friend of his, Dr. John Morris, son of Dr. Henry M. Morris, the head of the Institution of Creation Research of San Diego, California. Mr. Hicks stated in a letter to the Agency legislative liaison staff that several U-2.photos dated 1957 were available but were still classified ‘Confidential.’ The younger Dr. Morris wrote to the Agency later requesting the photos. His request was denied by Angus Theurmer, the Agency’s press spokesman who stated ‘We have looked into this matter in some detail and we regret that we are unable to provide any information.’ In September/October 1974, Admiral Showers of the Intelligence Community Staff, in response to a query from Lieutenant Commander Lonnie McClung, asked about the availability of intelligence information concerning the location of Noah’s Ark. He was told that a search had been made of aerial photography with negative results.”

One year later, 1975, there was this from the CIA: “On 30 January 1975, Dr. John Morris again wrote Congressman Bob Wilson noting that aerial photos “were taken in August 1974, as a result of my request. They were not to be classified, but have been classified since and are not available.” Congressman Wilson again contacted the Agency with the request. On 27 February 1975, Mr. Hicks again denied the request. On 11 March 1975, Dr. Morris was notified that the photography of Mt. Ararat was classified and, therefore, could not be provided. An additional request made through Dr. Charles Willis of Fresno, California to Mr. Arthur C. Lundahl, retired Director NPIC on 5 March 1975 was also denied on 31 March 1975.” For those who may not know, “NPIC” means “National Photographic Interpretation Center.”

The CIA continued: “On 3 April 1975, NPIC Section Chief [deleted] sent a memo to the Chief, IEG, detailing the efforts of Messrs. [Deleted] and [deleted] who had searched unsuccessfully all available U-2 and satellite imagery for possible evidence of Noah’s Ark. This search had been prompted by the visit to the Center, on 14 March 1975, of Captain Howard Schue of the IC Staff with a ground photo “showing a long range view of the purported Ark.” The [deleted] Division of NPIC was tasked to determine if the Ark’s features in the photo had been altered; tests failed to identify any manipulation. Attempts to compare the ground photo with satellite imagery for identification and location purposes also proved negative. From 27 March to 5 April 1975, a French archeological explorer, Fernand Navarra was at Iverson Mall in Washington, D.C. publicizing his book Noah’s Ark: I Touched It. As part of the sales pitch for the book, there was a display which included a supposed wood fragment of the Ark. Several NPIC analysts concerned with the Ark problem visited the display but found nothing that would help their search efforts.”

And, there was even more from 1975, as the CIA recorded: “On 10 April 1975, Colonel Paul Tanota and Captain Howard Schue, of the IC Staff visited NPIC to discuss Mt. Ararat and to see the August 1974 aerial photography of the mountain. At the request of Captain Schue, a print of Mt. Ararat showing the 13,000 and 14,000 foot elevations was provided. On 5 July, 1975 a book entitled The Ark of Ararat by Thomas Nelson was released. Mr. Nelson maintained that the CIA had photos of Ararat and that they had been analyzed in the search for the Ark. On 12 October 1975, Tom Crotser from a group known as The Holy Ground Mission of Frankston; Texas showed a ground photo supposedly of the Ark taken during their 1974 expedition to Mt. Ararat. Sometime in 1977, Bill Chaney Speed of Search Foundation, Inc. requested the aerial photos of Mt. Ararat. His request also was denied.”

Senator Barry Goldwater wrote DCI Turner on September 1, 1978, “You may think this is a screwball request and it may be, but I would like to know if you can do anything about it.” The letter went on to ask if satellite photography could be searched “to determine whether or not something in the way of an archeological find might be located near or on top of the Mount.” Goldwater explained that a letter he had received had come “from a man in whom I have great confidence, who certainly is no nut, who knows Turkey rather well but who feels that there is reason to believe the Ark may be resting at or near the top of the mount. I assure that I will keep this at any classification you want it kept and if you desire me to go to the devil, I know the way.” DCI Turner replied “we have been requested on several occasions if we could determine whether there was remains of the Ark on Mt. Ararat. We have, as a result, carefully reviewed the photography of the area but have not found any evidence of the Ark.”

Moving onto the 1980s, the CIA added this to the Noah File: “On 27 May 1981, [deleted] of the Center received a telephone call from Air Force Talent Control Officer, Major Ray Abel, requesting information on Noah’s Ark. Major Abel said he had received a request from General Lew Allen, Air Force Chief of Stall, who, in turn, was answering a, requirement from Congressman Bill Archer of Texas. Congressman Archer had indicated that some of his constituents from Houston, Texas were going on an expedition to Mt. Ararat and would like to have as much information as possible. [Deleted] told Major Abel that NPIC had conducted a study of Mt. Ararat in the 1970s and had found no evidence of the Ark. In February 1982, former Astronaut James B. Irwin of the High Flight Foundation, a Christian group in Colorado Springs, Colorado, called former NPIC official Dino A. Brugioni, at his home and asked about the aerial photos of Mount Ararat. Irwin was informed that no evidence of the Ark had ever been seen on aerial photography.”

A fair amount of material has surfaced from the CIA from the latter part of the 1980s and the early 1990s (the 2000s, too), but it’s almost completely comprised of photocopies of magazine articles and newspaper features on Noah’s Ark. So, what does all of this tell us? Well, that very much depends on how we interpret the data. It’s pretty clear that the CIA was notsitting on some deep and dark secret concerning the Ark. In other words, there’s no evidence that the CIA has portions of the Ark locked away in some kind of “Hangar 18” vault and akin to the final moments of the 1981 Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. But, the fact is that the CIA does refer in its own files to “the Ark problem.” And, as the files also show, back in 1975, “… Several NPIC analysts concerned with the Ark problem visited the display but found nothing that would help their search efforts.”

Was the “problem” somehow connected to something amazing? Some might very well say “Yes.” On the other hand, though, maybe the problem was actually something else entirely. Namely, a case of the CIA becoming more and more sick and tired of being asked about the Ark and the conspiracy-tinged issues surrounding it. When you’re trying to chase down Russian spies and Chinese espionage agents, being asked repeated questions about a rotted old boat may not be high on your list of priorities. But, it might very well be a pain in the neck. A problem, in other words. As for those 1975 “search efforts,” that does kind of sound like someone in the NPIC wasactively looking for the Ark. Unless, that is, the “search efforts” the CIA referred to were not to find the Ark, but to help find the alleged photos that astronaut James B. Irwin and Congressman Bob Wilson asked for. The latter scenario is far less exciting than the former, but it may very well be the correct scenario. So, at the end of the day, what can we say about this saga of Noah’s Ark? Let’s see.

It’s clear that, on this ancient issue, most of the CIA’s time was spent explaining that they didn’t have much – if anything – in the form of evidence when it came to the Ark. But, a file wascreated, and not all of it is in the public domain. Maybe, one day, we’ll learn that the CIA does hold some extraordinary data on the Ark. But, right now we are a long, long – very long – way away from that. In fact, there’s no solid evidence of it at all in the slightest. While the CIA’s papers don’t provide us with anykind of smoking guns, I still find the whole thing very interesting. Maybe one day, someone will write a book on the whole “Noah’s Ark Conspiracy Theory.” It definitely won’t be me, but I would certainly look forward to reading it, whatever the conclusions might be.