During an excavation of an ancient temple to Vishnu in the city of Singuali, Madhya Pradesh, Indian archaeologists found something quite strange: a 1,300-year-old brick engraved with the face of a “bearded foreigner” wearing a skullcap. It’s a complete mystery as to who this person was, or why there is an engraving of them on a brick. Even more mysterious, despite the many amazing archaeological finds coming out of this temple—which, according to the Times of India, push the urbanization of this region back to at least 2,000 years —the project has now been unexpectedly and immediately shut down by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the government ministry responsible for overseeing archaeological projects. According to the  Times, sources within the ASI say that a “section of ASI officers are apparently uneasy over the puzzling brick engraving.”

This excavation is the first work being done on the site in 150 years, and was apparently going quite well. The team had apparently identified more promising mounds to begin digging in, and were expected to employ over 200 locals as the work progressed throughout the year. The shuttering of the project came as a complete surprise and the justification for it even more surprising. The letter sent by the ASI reads:

“Permission granted for carrying out exploration in landscape archaeological studies on religious architecture of Sidhi/Singrauli districts in favour of Temple Survey project (TSP) stands cancelled due to unauthorized excavations carried out contrary to the permission issued only for exploration.”

The site being excavated was an ancient temple to Vishnu.

If they were digging where they shouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be at all surprising. It would sort of be expected. But, according to an ASI official who spoke to the Times of India under the conditions of anonymity, archaeologists don’t usually need to ask permission to dig once they’ve gotten permission to explore a site. The unnamed official says:

“It is the duty and mandate of an archaeological officer to make excavations of an area where he/she believes that any area that is not protected contains ruins or relics of historical or archaeological importance.”

According to the Times, it seems as though the real reason for shutting the project down is what was being discovered. The “foreign face” engraving is apparently making the ASI uneasy, although the specifics of that uneasiness were left unsaid. Project superintendent Dr Madhulika Samanta described the uniqueness of the engraving:

“This is striking, as it means that a foreigner was allowed into the religious activities of the day. Such examples are extremely rare. Clothes of this type were not worn by people of the region in those days. The drawing on the brick shows the presence of such a person at a Vishnu shrine. The attire and features indicate a resemblance to such things found in West Asia.”

But why would that be cause to shut down the project?

AMong the relics found was a unique statue of the god Vishnu.

The strange engraving wasn’t the only thing found during the excavation. The team also found a statue of Vishnu so unique that there are only a “handful” of similar statues that have been found, with this one being the oldest. Perhaps that’s a clue as to the ASI’s motivations. According to the team, the findings at the site had the potential to “add new chapters to the history of Central India.” According to Dr Samanta:

“The relics indicate the existence of a big city, which is rare in this region for the time. We have found several temples and monasteries of the early medieval period, but hardly any trace of big habitations such as this. There are very few such sites in India.”

One thing is for certain, no matter what the motivations for shutting down this excavation are, it only makes it that much more intriguing.

In 2002, Timothy Cooper – a UFO researcher from Big Bear Lake, California, who is no longer involved in the subject – sold all of his UFO files to ufologist Dr. Robert Wood. I spent a week ensconced in an Orange County, California motel room carefully logging every one of the items contained within Cooper’s vast document collection – having been hired to do so by Bob Wood. One of those items was a controversial, undated, 8-page extract from a longer, very seldom seen, document titled UFO Reports and Classified Projects: The CIA Perspective. Provided to Cooper, indirectly by an alleged CIA source that he referred to as the “Blue Boy,” it details a controversial theory that links Roswell with down-to-earth (as opposed to extraterrestrial) biological warfare activities and the Nazis. The document appears to be a draft of a briefing paper, and provides a concise history of the role of the United States’ Government and military with respect to UFOs. The opening pages, which would have provided us with a date, are unfortunately missing; but the 1990s are mentioned. Like so many supposedly leaked documents, it’s incredibly difficult to say for sure if it is the real deal or carefully-crafted disinformation. The available portions of the document are provided in full and begin as follows, and under the heading of “Historical Perspective.”

“Since 1969, the United States Government has taken the official position that unidentified flying objects (UFO) do not exists and do not pose a threat to national security. This position is based on the conclusions reached by Project BLUE BOOK, the official United States Air Force UFO study program which began in early 1948 and was terminated in December 1969. According to General Charles P. Cabell USAF, and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, this view was no accepted until the successful moon landing of Apollo 11 and several scientific studies. In January 1953, the CIA conducted its own review of the UFO phenomenon known as the Robertson Panel chaired by Dr. H.P. Robertson, a CIA employee, and its conclusions are mirrored by Project BLUE BOOK files. The only threat was of UFO reports, not UFOs.

“Freedom of Information Act responses by the CIA state that the only involvement by the CIA ended after the Robertson Panel submitted its report. Since then, the Agency has not authorized any intelligence collection project nor has received a mandate from the National Security Council to continue UFO intelligence and operations at the scientific level. A review of declassified CIA and NSA intelligence documents suggest that this may not be the case which in either event, a re-examination of all CIA and NSA intelligence documents dealing with UFOs since 1953 is warranted. I might also add that continued reporting of UFOs and related phenomenon across the United States and foreign countries, most noticeably in China, Korea, Australia, and Russia would require some form of surveillance as was done by the CIA up until 1991. Based on past CIA conclusions, a positive identification was never reached.”

We are then told: “The need for an American central intelligence and Coordinator of Information (COI) to advise the president of impending political and military developments among hostile governments arose in pre and post-World War II era through the efforts of Sir William S. Stephenson of British Intelligence, General William J. Donovan, and President Roosevelt. In this case, technological advantages in unconventional aircraft and weapons systems of Nazi Germany became the focus of Military Intelligence Division (MID), Army Intelligence (G-2), Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and COI (later Director of the Office of Strategic Services) shortly after Germany’s capitulation in May 1945. Interest in securing all available rocket and aircraft technology was generated from earlier reports of incursions over the United States by yet unidentified aerial objects believed to have been advanced aircraft from a foreign power. This technical intelligence collection effort was carried out through a vast and comprehensive man hunt known as Operation PAPER CLIP whose purpose was to bring back to the United States leading German rocket and aircraft scientists and engineers to begin work on military defense projects while preventing the wholesale recruitment of remaining German scientists by Soviet military intelligence still in Germany.

“During the war OSS technical intelligence had secured reliable information that German advances in high speed, high altitude, long range fighters and bombers were all-wing, circular-shaped employing innovative airfoil designs capable of eliminating boundary layer restrictions achieved by their V-2 ballistic missile. Coupled with the fact that American and British intelligence were gravely concerned that such aerial machines could deliver atomic bombs anywhere in Europe and on the continental United States given the fact that Germany’s atomic bomb program had a two-year head start of the Army’s Manhattan Project. I January 1948, the Department of the Army circulated a classified intelligence document to all concerned intelligence chiefs that ‘the German High Command indicated a definite interest in the Horten type of flying wing and were about to embark on a rigorous campaign to develop such aircraft toward the end of the war.’  The report suggested that the Gotha manufacturing plant was the proposed site where such aircraft were to be built and warned: ‘This plant is now in the hands of the Russians.’ The report also indicated that such information was highly desirable and requested any additional intelligence on ‘aircraft whose shape approximate that of an oval, disc, or saucer’, including ‘boundary layer control method by suction, blowing, or a combination of both” and “special controls for effective maneuverability at very slow speeds or extremely high altitudes.’

“The OSS had information regarding such developments as early as 1943 based on transcripts taken from the Flying Wing Seminar given by the Horten brothers at Bonn, Germany, on April 14, 1943, in which the newly created Central Intelligence Agency had classified and did not disseminate in 1947. British intelligence also had this information and provided the CIA technical specifications for delta-shaped, right-angled triangle, tailless and semi-circular aircraft. Other specifications included designs for ‘boomerang’ shapes under development in Britain, Canada, and the United States which are enumerated in General Nathan F. Twining’s September 23, 1947 Air Materiel Command ‘Flying Saucer’ report to Air Intelligence headquarters after numerous UFO sightings subsided during the previous summer. During the ensuing 50-year development efforts of the CIA and defense contractors these designs evolved into today’s delta-shaped stealth aircraft and uninhabited reconnaissance drones. Some of the reported UFO sightings of the 1960’s and 1970’s were classified CIA and Air Force satellites developed under high security and for national security reasons were not divulged publicly which fueled considerable speculation among the news media and civilian UFO researchers. One basic rule of military secrecy: You don’t allow a rival service to gain control over a new area of operations. Two days after the Air Materiel Command released its ‘flying saucer’ report, the Air Staff instructed the AMC to evaluate a Research and Development (RAND) study on the feasibility of putting earth orbiting reconnaissance satellites about the earth based on the opinions of German rocket experts employing state-of-the-art photographic techniques and optical imagery.”

The “Blue Boy” then turned his attention to the matter of the Roswell affair of 1947: “Another rule of secrecy was: You always camouflage your operations from prying eyes. It was not widely known to many that the Air Force and navy were conducting classified rocket-launched reconnaissance payloads from White Sands, New Mexico, which failed to reach orbiting altitudes and subsequently crashed off range and generated considerable public interest in the United States and abroad. As part of a top secret Air Force atomic weapons detection project called MOGUL involving radiation dispersal in the atmosphere, selected monitoring sites across the United States were not acknowledged to by the Air Force and Central Intelligence Group (CIG) and as a result, wreckage from one of the payloads was accidentally discovered by a sheep rancher not far from the Air Force’s Roswell Army Air Field.

“Also, another fact was not widely known among military intelligence was that CIG had planned to utilize artificial meteor strikes as decoy devices ejected from V-2 warheads at 60 miles above the earth to record dispersal trajectories and possible psychological warfare weapons against the Soviets in the advent of a war in Europe. One of the projects underway at that time incorporated re-entry vehicles containing radium and other radioactive materials combined with biological warfare agents developed by I.G. Farben for use against allied assault forces in Normandy in 1944.

“When a V-2 warhead impacted near the town of Corona, New Mexico, on July 4, 1947, the warhead did not explode and it and the deadly cargo lay exposed to the elements which forced the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project to close off the crash site and a cover story was immediately put out that what was discovered was the remains of a radar tracking target suspended by balloons. In 1994 and again in 1995, the Air Force published what it considered the true account of what lay behind the Roswell story but omitted the radiological warhead data for obvious reasons. It may also be pointed out here that this kind of experiment was very similar to those conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission and the military in the late 1940’s. It was known in the CIA that the Soviets were conducting the same kind of radiological and biological warfare experiments in the early 1950’s after their successful detonation of a [sic] atomic bomb based on stolen documents and materials from Los Alamos forwarded to Moscow by communist espionage agents in the United States.”

Turning away from Roswell, the Blue Boy continued thus: “Prior to the August 1949 Soviet atomic bomb experiment, Army, Navy, and FBI intelligence officers had classified flying saucer sightings in the United States as TOP SECRET as indicated in a January 31, 1949 FBI memorandum which located Los Alamos as an active area of investigation by USAF Office of Special Investigations and described the UFOs as an ‘unconventional type without wings’ and resembled ‘rocket ship’ configurations similar to the German V-2. Almost a year prior to the United States 1947 Flying Saucer wave, State Department military Attaches reported similar sightings over Sweden and other parts of northern Europe and it was assumed that the ‘ghost rocket’ phenomenon was of Soviet origin and was in response to U.S. atmospheric tests of atomic weapons in the Pacific.

“In March 1949, the CIA did a review of flying saucer sighting data conducted by the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and based upon submitted reports from Air Force Project SIGN did not concur with the extraterrestrial hypothesis reached by project officers. Dr. Stone of OSI drew other conclusions suggesting that ‘many of the objects may be free meteorological sounding balloons’ and that if the sightings were classified projects they would not be launched from many locations across the United States and would be ‘closely coordinated with USAF or commercial designers.’ Stone also ruled out foreign aircraft reconnaissance flights because of the great distances involved and ‘guided aircraft’ lacked the range required for such flights and was beyond technical capabilities of any government at that time. The CIA had the best intelligence available on Soviet capabilities and for security reasons would not discuss classified ‘secret weapons’ programs that were under development within secret establishments in the U.S. which would be compromised if Stone made some obscure disclosure to Project SIGN staff officers. And, for the same reasons General Twining did not elaborate on ‘physical evidence’ for recovered wreckage of failed rocket launches conducted at White Sands.

“The CIA paid particular attention to reports originating out of New Mexico as indicated in a April 24, 1949 CIA intelligence report detailing a theodolite track of a ‘white spherical object’ that was traveling too fast to be a balloon described as ‘an ellipsoid about 2 ½:1 slenderness ratio’ at an altitude of 60 miles with a course heading that would have covered White Sands, Holloman Air Force Base and Los Alamos. At this point, the CIA did not comment on such reports and drew no conclusions without disclosing the existence of classified programs to un-authorized agencies.

“SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE: UFO Identification And Analysis: The sharing of scientific intelligence between British and American agencies in missile and atomic weapons research was instrumental in defeating Japan and Germany in World War II. In exchange of aviation advances and electronics, the OSS supplied technical and scientific intelligence and kept General Groves appraised of German scientific activities in atomic fission. The use of atomic weapons in war and the spread of scientific knowledge was anticipated and magnified by the Soviet penetration of U.S. atomic secrets enlarged the horror of a nuclear Pearl Harbor. With the growing possibility that some UFO sighting reports collected by the CIG were Soviet devices, Admiral Sidney Souers in 1946 undertook the task of coordinating scientific intelligence with the Office of Scientific Research and Development and directed the Central Planning Staff to look into the problem of surprise attack by unconventional means and recruited Dr. H. P. Robertson as his scientific consultant and established the Interdepartmental…”

The remaining pages of the document were not found within the files of Tim Cooper. And while the data imparted by the Blue Boy concerning the Roswell crash and biological warfare is certainly provocative, does it have any validity? With respect to the theory that a Mogul balloon was responsible for creating the legend of the UFO crash at Roswell, the United States Air Force firmly embraced, and still does embrace, that particular explanation. Mogul was a project that utilized balloons to carry radar reflectors and acoustic sensors aloft for the purpose of determining the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research. As far as the reference to I.G. Farben is concerned, this too is provocative: I. G. Farben was the company that made the Zyklon-B gas that was utilized in the terrible Nazi death camps of the Second World War. Indeed, at the height of its production in 1944, I.G. Farben ran a slave labor plant at Auschwitz using no less than 83,000 people. Arguably any “biological” work undertaken at White Sands involving people allied to I.G. Farben would have created intense controversy and would have been subject to stringent security measures – particularly if a V-2 rocket with such a “deadly cargo” had indeed strayed off course and crashed near the town of Corona.

And it is quite true that a wealth of tests of captured Nazi V-2 rockets were undertaken at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico in the period 1946 to 1952. Indeed, in total, sixty-seven V-2 rockets were assembled and tested at the Range, and ultimately provided the United States with valuable experience in the assembly, pre-flight testing, handling, fueling, launching, and tracking of large missiles. The scientific experiments conducted aboard the rockets also yielded significant information about the upper atmosphere. One series of tests, the Blossom Project, was responsible for undertaking the first biological experiments in space. Interestingly, in its July 1994 document titled Report of Air Force Research Regarding the Roswell Incident, the Air Force did address the question of whether or not a V-2 rocket was to blame for the monumental fuss at Roswell:

“A crashed or errant missile, usually described as a captured German V-2 or one of its variants, is sometimes set forth as a possible explanation for the debris recovered near Roswell. Since much of this testing done at nearby White Sands was secret at the time, it would be logical to assume that the government would handle any missile mishap under tight security, particularly if the mishap occurred on private land. From the records reviewed by the Air Force, however, there was nothing located to suggest that this was the case. Although the bulk of remaining testing records are under the control of the U.S. Army, the subject has also been very well documented over the years within Air Force records. There would be no reason to keep such information classified today. The USAF found no indicators or even hints that a missile was involved in this matter.”

To this day, the Blue Boy’s controversial revelations – shared with Tim Cooper almost a couple of decades ago – remain steeped in controversy. Whether or not the papers told the truth of Roswell and other UFO-themed events, or if alleged personnel at Area 51 concocted them to try and deflect Cooper away from the idea that UFOs have extraterrestrial origins, is an issue that remains wide open, years after Cooper received the documents.

My own view on all of this is one that many might not have taken into consideration: you will have noted that Nazi Germany gets a lot of coverage in this controversial document. I know for a fact that there are a number of people in Ufology who are racist pigs and who have a disturbing admiration for the Nazis. Yep, undeniably disgusting. Some of them are well-known figures in the field. In view of that, I would not be surprised if Cooper was duped by someone – or by a group – within Ufology itself, seeking to further emphasize and highlight a UFO-Nazi connection. My new book, Flying Saucers from the Kremlin, is a study of how the Russians – throughout the Cold War – used the UFO phenomenon as a tool of psychological warfare against the United States. In light of that, I’m seriously thinking of writing a similar book, but on all of the many and varied racist, right-wing extremist scumbags in Ufology – and who still have a dangerous UFO-themed agenda designed to fly the flag of the pathetic “master race.”