Nick Pope Asks: Does the MoD Still Secretly Investigate UFOs?

ExMinistry of Defence UFO project insider examines the facts

Author, journalist and TV personality Nick Pope worked for the Ministry of Defence for 21 years. While best-known for having run the UK government’s UFO project, he writes and broadcasts on a wide range of subjects including the unexplained, conspiracy theories, fringe science, science fiction, space, defence and intelligence.

When the Ministry of Defence axed its UFO project in 2009, as part of a wider round of defence cuts, it ended over fifty years of official research and investigation. But has the Department really lost interest in the subject, or are investigations still going on secretly, behind closed doors? There are some intriguing clues.

One of the reasons why the MoD terminated the UFO project was the huge proportion of sightings that turned out to be Chinese lanterns. Added to that, on many occasions the MoD was getting more Freedom of Information Act requests about UFOs than on any other subject. This led directly to the decision to declassify and release most of the MoD’s UFO files, but also to the UFO project being closed, in view of the excessive workload being generated.

However, it seems unlikely that the powers that be would ignore a situation where a military pilot reports a UFO, or where an air traffic controller tracks one on radar. Self-evidently, the government and the military like to know about any activity in the UK’s airspace, but post-9/11, fears of a hijacked aircraft with its transponder turned off mean that unusual radar returns are a particular cause for concern. Sure enough, we know from the media that there have a number of near-misses between commercial aircraft and UFOs in recent years, with several such incidents taking place after the MoD supposedly stopped investigating UFOs. These disturbing incidents have been investigated by the UK Airprox Board, a joint civil-military body which can also include input from the United States Air Force.

So in one sense, the MoD does still investigate UFO sightings, when civil or military pilots report a near-miss between an aircraft and a UFO. It’s just that it takes place on a case-by-case basis, outside of any formally-constituted UFO project. But could there be a more formal effort going on, over and above the UK Airprox Board investigations? One possibility is that such a research effort exists, but that the phrase “UFO” is carefully avoided, so as to make it difficult for Freedom of Information Act requests. Alternative terms might include UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) – a phrase we used at the MoD – or two other terms that I’ve heard people in the aviation community use, on the basis that talking about UFOs isn’t generally good for one’s career: “unusual aircraft” and “unconventional helicopter”. There are doubtless other variations on this theme, along with terms used by radar operators, such as “uncorrelated target” and “bogey”/”bogie”.

A linguistic sleight of hand is unlikely, by itself, to be enough. While I’m sure the term “UFO” has been deliberately dropped by the MoD, a much safer course of action is to contract the work out to a private company. Defence contractors and aviation corporations often have staff with security clearances higher than most people in the MoD, and with the larger companies, the Boards often contain a number of former defence chiefs and other senior military and MoD retirees. Such a situation is useful, because the truthful answer to the question “Is the MoD investigating UFO sightings” would be “No”. Additionally, private companies are outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act

Is there any precedent for outsourcing sensitive MoD UFO work in this way? Intriguingly, there is. In the Nineties I was involved in setting up a highly-classified intelligence study into UFOs, codenamed Project Condign. This was tricky, because we’d consistently told Parliament, the media and the public that UFOs were of only very minor interest, and assessed as being of “no defence significance”.

Disclosure of Project Condign would have made our public line on UFOs look like a lie, so while the ultra-secret Defence Intelligence Staff (part of the MoD) commissioned the study, the work itself was undertaken outside the Department. As an added layer of security, instead of placing a new contract, an existing contract was amended, thus minimizing the paper trail. While the final report was declassified some years ago – albeit with the sensitive material blacked out – many of the working papers and other documents generated during the study have yet to be released, and some are unlikely ever to be released, even in redacted form.

Whether one believes UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft, an exotic atmospheric plasma phenomenon that science doesn’t fully understand (a suggestion that came up in Project Condign), a Russian spy plane or drone, or a hijacked aircraft with its transponder turned off, heading for London, we’d be pretty foolish to ignore sound evidence of unusual activity in our airspace, especially if it comes from pilots or radar operators.

So in response to the question of whether the MoD is secretly investigating UFOs, I damn well hope so. Because if they’re not, we’re leaving the UK vulnerable to terrorist attack and espionage … and maybe, just maybe, missing out on making a discovery that could change the world forever.

Pictures are in the open now but witnesses (technicians) are not. ;)

Chile releases official study on UFO photos

The government office investigating UFOs in Chile has released an analysis of two high quality photos showing what appear be genuine unidentified flying objects above a remote copper mine. The office, known as the CEFAA (Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena), is located within the Ministerial Department of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), the equivalent of our FAA, under the jurisdiction of the Chilean Air Force. It is responsible for the analysis of selected reports of unexplained aerial phenomena in Chilean airspace, most of them from pilots and aviation personnel.

The photos were taken at the Collahuasi copper mine, more than 14,000 feet above sea level in the Andean plateau in the far north of Chile. An extremely remote location with low oxygen levels and unusually clear skies, the area is desolate and inhospitable. The Collahuasi mine produces copper concentrate, copper cathodes and molybdenum concentrate from three open-pit mineral deposits. (Click here for a map).

Collahuasi lies in the far northeast of Chile, close to the border with Bolivia

Collahuasi lies in the far northeast of Chile, close to the border with Bolivia.

Four technicians - professionals specializing in electricity, electronics, and fluid control - were working there in April, 2013. They witnessed a disc-shaped object which approached slowly and was present for more than an hour, moving around in different positions and hovering at about 2000 feet. One technician took pictures with his Kenox Samsung S860 camera. The strange object made no sound, and eventually moved away towards the East.

The witnesses decided not to tell anybody because of the negative associations they had with UFO sightings, and therefore had every intention of always keeping the sighting private. But some months later, the photographer casually showed the pictures to the chief engineer at the mine, who asked for copies. The engineer sent the images to the CEFAA in February, and provided the agency with information reported to him by the witnesses. He too has requested anonymity.

Chile's meteorological office at the DGAC confirmed that there was an absolute clear sky at that time, and that there was no possibility of lenticular clouds. All other meteorological phenomena have been ruled out by Chilean officials as a possible explanation.

CEFAA officials told me they determined that there were no drones operating near the mine. "People in that zone know about drones," said Jose Lay, international affairs director for the CEFAA. "Fishing companies use drones and they make a lot of noise. This was definitely not a drone." DGAC officials also ruled out any experimental aircraft, planes, weather balloons, or anything else that could explain the incident.

With all conventional explanations eliminated, the CEFAA staff determined that the photos were worthy of analysis. The results of this study, conducted by a leading CEFAA analyst at the DGAC Meteorological Office, was released on July 3rd and is posted on the CEFAA website.

The report states that the witnesses described the phenomenon as "a flattened disc, of brilliant color, with a diameter of 5 to 10 meters [16 to 32 feet]. It performed ascending, descending and horizontal movements in short lengths, about 600 meters above the ground." The witnesses had the impression that the object was under intelligent control.

The first image, enlarged and filtered, shows a solid object reflecting the sunlight, the report states. It adds that the object could be emitting it's own energy as well, due to the high temperature shown in the image (the black area).

The second photo shows the object in a different position in the sky. (The CEFAA does not know the time sequence between the two images.)

The text on this diagram of the enlarged second image indicates lines where very soft rays were reflected from an "extremely luminous half sphere." The analyst concludes that the object "emitted its own energy that does not coincide with the natural sunlight which is also reflected off the object." At noon, the brightness underneath could not have been caused by the sun, which was reflected off the top.

The study concludes that "It is an object or phenomenon of great interest, and it can be qualified as a UFO."

Despite the strength of this analysis, the CEFAA staff recognize the limitations of the Collahuasi case. "The witnesses were not willing to cooperate," Jose Lay told me. "We tried to contact them, and we got no reply. So we treated the material just as we have treated several others of the same or similar nature: we file them for future reference or comparison purposes. That's all we can do in this case."

Retired General Ricardo Bermudez, director of the CEFAA, says "We recognize that this is the determination of only one CEFFA analyst among several. So we still must be cautious." He has called a meeting of the CEFFA scientific committee, composed of high level specialists from laboratories and universities, for next week. Although they are not expert visual photo-video analysts, the opinion of this distinguished group, which supports the work of the CEFAA and assists with investigations when needed, could shed further light on the case.

The South American media has shown great interest in these images. In the US, retired Navy physicist Bruce Maccabee, a well known photo analyst, has this to say: "In the second image there appears to be a very bright hemispherical shape, convex downward... possibly a UFO enveloped in a cloud of vapor." He notes that additional data is needed to determine more, but that it is clear that the object moved "a considerable distance" between the two photos.

"This is clearly not a normal thing seen in the sky (bird, plane, cloud, etc.)," added Dr. Maccabee in an email. "That makes it either the real thing - UFO - or a hoax, and it doesn't appear to be a hoax, although the inability to question witnesses does reduce the credibility. Certainly this case is worthy of further study."

It is indeed unfortunate that the four witnesses have not been willing to speak to the authorities, who could guarantee them anonymity. But even so, these images are important because they were studied by a government agency with access to the pertinent information needed for a proper analysis. That in itself is unusual. I commend the CEFAA for taking on cases such as this. The experts there conducted a serious investigation, and then released the information to the public, with no reservations about acknowledging the possible existence of a UFO, since that is warranted.

Remember reports of unusual activity in the skies in the '50s? That was us.

Ex-Mormons give their take on "The Book of Mormon" musical

LAS VEGAS -- The hit musical "The Book of Mormon" now playing at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts downtown, had a special group in its audience this weekend.
They call themselves "The post-Mo's", meaning, post-Mormons, people who have left the church for one reason or another.
More than 80 post-Mo's made the trip from heavily-Mormon Utah to see the production in a city that isn't exactly known for its restraint or modesty.
The post-Mo's say they weren't trying to make a statement by seeing the show in a city known for its tolerance of so-called sin. Their primary mission was to have fun and to be with like-minded people.
But the theme of the musical has a special resonance for them because of what most of them endured when they decided to split with the church. Las Vegas, it turns out, proved to be a soothing balm for wounds that are still open.
“The Book of Mormon” has been a smash hit everywhere it's played. It tells the story of two young Mormons sent on a soul-saving mission to Uganda, which is the set-up for a brutal skewering of Mormon teachings that has been described as vulgar, blasphemous, and gut-busting hilarious.
“We bought the sound track when we were still believers,” Tom and Kristen Evans said.
For several dozen Utah residents, the show was the central impetus for a bus trip to Mordor, or rather, Las Vegas. They call themselves the Post-Mo's and wear T-shirts to prove it.
Note the logo with a bite out of the apple. The post-Mo's did what other tourists do here, they danced in clubs, jumped off the Stratosphere, smoked cigars, took photos with Penn and Teller, but the focus of the trip was the musical at the Smith Center.
“It is representative of what we used to be,” post-Mo Doug Saderfield said.
“I left because I don't believe it anymore and can make a happier life for my family outside of it,” post-Mo Rachel Goss said.
The LDS church is the fastest growing religion in the world, and in Utah, it is omnipresent in family life, employment and government. Leaving the church is tough to do.
“Lonely, ostracized.
And you don't want to talk to family about it. It's like coming out if you're gay. You don't know how your family will react,” post-Mo coordinator Josh Kaggie said.
“Family relations are very hard because your siblings don't want you around their kids for fear you might corrupt them with your ideas of the world,” post-Mo member Stuart Lindsay said.
Brothers Zed and Kyle Griffiths are now both post-Mo's. Zed left five years before Kyle.
“When he left the church, I was one of the siblings trying to get him to come back,” Kyle Griffiths said.
“The church isn't just church. It's also social and family and it can be employment,” Zed Griffiths said.
For a Utah Mormon to leave the church is comparable to entering the witness protection program, Newsweek wrote, which explains why a post-Mormon website created just a few years ago now gets 10 million hits per month.
The bus trip post-Mo's used a Facebook page to coordinate and celebrate their Las Vegas jaunt. It is where they posted photos taken inside the Smith Center, which tolerates no photos at all.
Religion in general takes it on the chin in the show, but the lyrics that got the post-Mo's laughing hardest were Mormon-specific.
“We sure were laughing at the little things you catch,” post-Mo member Steve Holbrook said.
“It is incredibly insidious, like the worst song for Mormonism is ‘I Believe.’ You don’t realize it because it's so happy,” Kaggie said.
Church honchos in Utah are not fans of the show but have reacted with restraint and savvy. They've spent millions to market their message to fans of the musical, including three full-page ads in the program here, with the line: “You've seen the show--now read the book.”
Whether it is the jungles of Africa or the hot streets of Las Vegas, Mormon missionaries endure much for their faith. These post-Mo's can relate because they once did it too.
They describe their own split with the church as being more like a relationship that simply didn't work out rather than an ugly divorce.
“The play gives anod to everyone--believers, doubters,” one post-Mo said.
“It's a great message: Everyone can be who they want to be and create the world a better place,” post-Mo John Goss said.
The organizers of the bus trip say they initially figured they would have to come to Las Vegas to see the show because there is no way it would ever be allowed to play in Salt Lake City, a city which is almost a character in the musical.
However, it turns out; “The Book of Mormon” will land in Utah next year. It continues at the Smith Center through July 6 but tickets are scarce.

Stanton T. Friedman - UFO Expert - Interview with Bill Boggs

Three Prominent UFO Researchers Debunk MJ-12: Thirty Years On,
the Hoax Still Lives

By Robert
Hastings
www.ufohastings.com

Following Alejandro Rojas’ recent article about MJ-12 at Open Minds, which discusses the fraudulent nature of the affair, I decided that the time was right to begin reposting summaries of my own, 1980s-era investigations into the matter. In brief, I was one of the first persons to expose the disinformational aspects of MJ-12, involving now-retired Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI or OSI) agent Richard Doty, whose infamous duping of Linda Moulton Howe and other gullible members of ufology is now legend.

But the origins of MJ-12 were more complicated than that, involving the fraudulent actions of now-disgraced ufologist Bill Moore, whose almost-certain forging of certain “documents”, to serve his own financial motivations, were co-opted by OSI in the furtherance of the overall scheme to mislead (misdirect) researchers and the public regarding government interest/disinterest in UFOs.

Another researcher, Barry Greenwood, together with the late Bob Todd, discovered early on that Moore had made highly-incriminating statements, and engaged in highly-incriminating actions, which inadvertently exposed the early stages of the hoax. Greenwood is best known for his co-written book Clear Intent, (with the late Larry Fawcett), which examined UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites, among other topics, and remains a standard for rigorous ufological research.

Greenwood has just restated his initial MJ-12-related findings, first published in the mid-1980s, as adjunct commentary to a just published summary of the affair by another leading researcher, Dr. Kevin Randle, whose important work relating to the Roswell Incident is well-known.

My own 2009 summation of my 1980s-era findings relating to MJ-12 will also fill-in a few blanks. While Greenwood, Randle and I have different interpretations of some aspects of the still-kicking hoax/disinformation scheme—not to mention the UFO phenomenon in general—we have independently discovered enough overlapping, incriminating, noteworthy facts to warrant this joint presentation.

Alas, Linda Howe’s regrettable willingness to be a doormat for disinformationalists is well-established and ongoing, despite her self-perceived role as Disseminator of Truth in the UFO arena. One only has to review her many wholly unsubstantiated and highly misleading statements about MJ-12 “documents” and “witnesses” at the May 2013 mock congressional hearings to understand that her well-meaning but nevertheless damaging actions have only served those who would mislead, rather than inform, the public about UFOs.

Nowadays, when being a UFO “historian” apparently means that one has participated in one or more of the current crop of trashy UFO “documentaries” on the History and H2 Channels (which in the past aired UFO programming worth watching) it is important to remember that there are actually serious researchers out there, whose work would be considered valid in an investigative journalism or even an academic context.
Greenwood’s and Randle’s commentary is required reading for anyone claiming to have an informed understanding of the MJ-12 Affair.

Hi Andre', (You may post this mesage.)

Stan's wife notified me, on Saturday morning, that he had suffered a heart attack on Friday evening. Out of respect and consideration for his family, I had told only a few of the colleagues that he was scheduled to work with in the coming weeks. This morning I received news that it was announced on C2C last night. I spoke to Stanton and he asked me to make the following announcement.

Stanton Friedman suffered a mild heart attack on Friday night. I spoke with him this morning and am very pleased to report that he is feeling strong and chipper. His heart enzymes have declined, so he has turned the corner. He is awaiting a dye test and an echo cardiogram. This will probably occur today or Wednesday, as July 1 is a national holiday in Canada.

He does not presently have access to a public phone or computer, but will reply to email messages when he returns home in a few days. Please do not call his home. Well wishers can send cards to Stan at P.O. Box 958, Houlton, ME 04730. He appreciates everyone's thoughts and prayers.

Stan and I had planned to share a vendor table at the upcoming Roswell UFO Festival and MUFON's International Symposium. Stan will need a few weeks to rest and recuperate, so I will offer his/our books for sale on his behalf.

Best wishes,

Kathleen Marden

www.kathleen-marden.com

message received via André Skondras

*********************************************************************************************

I last met Stan in 2013, at a special VIP dinner for speakers at the Experiencers event in Portland, Maine. He was fit, healthy, and joy, as always. This is terrible news, and I wish Stan a full, quick recovery.

A word about the terms "UFO" versus "flying saucer": Friedman has consistently favored the use of the term "flying saucer" in his work, saying "Flying saucers are, by definition, unidentified flying objects, but very few unidentified flying objects are flying saucers. I am interested in the latter, not the former."

Friedman formerly called himself "The Flying Saucer Physicist," because of his degrees in nuclear physics and his work on nuclear projects, according to ufo encyclopedia authors Ronald Story and Jerome Clark.

Stanton Friedman drawing by Nick Shev.

Because Stan is a prolific speaker at UFO-related conferences, his biography is well-known to most in the field.

Nuclear Physicist-Author-Lecturer Stanton T. Friedman received his BSc. and MSc. Degrees in physics from the University of Chicago in 1955 and 1956. He was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by such companies as GE, GM, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell-Douglas working in such highly advanced, classified, eventually cancelled programs as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and various compact nuclear power-plants for space and terrestrial applications.

He became interested in UFOs in 1958, and since 1967 has lectured about them at more than 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 U.S. states, 9 Canadian provinces and 16 other countries in addition to various nuclear consulting efforts. He has published more than 90 UFO papers and has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV programs including on Larry King in 1997, 2007 and twice in 2008, and many documentaries. He is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident and co-authored Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident. TOP SECRET/MAJIC his controversial book about the Majestic 12 group, established in 1947 to deal with alien technology, was published in 1996 and went through 6 printings. An expanded new edition was published in 2005.

Stan was presented with a Lifetime UFO Achievement Award in Leeds, England, in 2002, by UFO Magazine of the UK. He is co-author with Kathleen Marden (Betty Hill’s Niece) of a book in 2007: Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. The City of Fredericton, New Brunswick, declared August 27, 2007, Stanton Friedman Day. His book Flying Saucers and Science was published in June 2008 and is in its 4th printing. His newest book Science Was Wrong with Kathleen Marden, was published in June 2010. On July 2, 2010, he was inducted into the Roswell UFO Hall of Fame.

He has provided written testimony to Congressional Hearings, appeared twice at the UN, and been a pioneer in many aspects of ufology including Roswell, Majestic 12, The Betty Hill- Marjorie Fish star map work, analysis of the Delphos, Kansas, physical trace case, crashed saucers, flying saucer technology, and challenges to the S.E.T.I. (Silly Effort To Investigate) cultists.

Stan has spoken at more MUFON Symposia than any other individual.

I have had my share of coincidences. I believe I had one again just recently. This weekend I received a message from Robert Hastings informing me of his Tribute article re the late Terry Hansen at the UFO Chronicles website, which I shared with you. Terry's sudden passing is really sad news. However, when I looked at my library I noticed that Robert Hastings' 2008 book "UFOs and Nukes" and Terry's 2000 book "The Missing Times" happen to be side by side. And near the end of Vallée's 2011 TED presentation dealing about general relativity, quantum mechanics, the Missing Child, the physics of energy and information, the concept of time (as a dimension) and coincidences, Jacques said something about libraries showing a picture of one. And talking about libraries, especially mine, I have just noticed that Jacques Valléé's 2010 book "Wonders in the Sky" which he co-wrote with Chris Aubeck and Jonathan Margolis' 2013 book "The Secret Life of Uri Geller" are also side by side. Jacques mentioned Uri Geller in his presentation. In fact, Jacques' book is between the Uri Geller book and the 2003 kids book "What Really Happened in Roswell" written by Kathleen Krull. A wondrous tale, don't you think, but one which is very real. I thought it was
worthwhile sharing this factoid. ;) Enjoy his presentation!

TEDxBrussels
- Jacques Vallée - A Theory of Everything (else): The Missing Child

Jacques Vallee Discusses UFO Control System

Dr. Jacques Vallee, a French-American computer specialist with a background in astrophysics, once served as consultant to NASA's Mars Map project.
Jacques Vallee is one of ufology's major figures - and also its most original thinker.
Vallee, who holds a master's degree in astrophysics and a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University, was an early scientific proponent of the theory that UFOs are extraterrestrial spaceships. His first book, Anatomy of a Phenomenon (Henry Regnery, 1965), argued eloquently that "through UFO activity … the contours of an amazingly complex intelligent life beyond the earth can already be discerned." In Challenge to Science - The UFO Enigma (Regnery, 1966) he and Janine Vallee (who is a psychologist by training, with a master's degree from the University of Paris) urged the scientific community to consider the UFO evidence in this light.
But by 1969, when he published Passport to Magonia (Regnery), Vallee's assessment of the UFO phenomenon had undergone a significant shift. Much to the consternation of the "scientific ufologists" who had seen him as one of their champions, Vallee now seemed to be backing away from the extraterrestrial hypotheses and advancing the radical view that UFOs are paranormal in nature and a modern space age manifestation of a phenomenon which assumes different guises in different historical contexts.

" When the underlying archetypes are extracted," he wrote, "the saucer myth is seen to coincide to a remarkable degree with the fairy-faith of Celtic countries … religious miracles… and the widespread belief among all peoples concerning
entities whose physical and psychological descriptions place them in the same
category as the present-day ufonauts."

In The Invisible College (E.P. Dutton, 1975) Vallee posits the idea of a "control system." UFOs and related phenomena are "the means through which man's concepts are being rearranged."
Their ultimate source may be unknowable, at least at this stage of human development; what we do know, according to Vallee, is that they are presenting us with continually recurring "absurd" messages and appearances which defy rational analysis but which nonetheless address human beings on the level of myth and imagination.

"When I speak of a control system for planet earth," he says, " I do not want my words to be misunderstood: I do not mean that some higher order of beings has locked us inside the constraints of a space-bound jail, closely monitored by psychic entities we might call angels or demons. I do not propose to redefine God. What I do mean is that mythology rules at a level of our social reality over which normal political and intellectual action has no power…."

Vallee is also coauthor, with J. Allen Hynek, of The Edge of Reality (Regnery, 1975). A resident of the San Francisco area, he is completing a book which further develops his theories concerning UFO phenomena.

We have talked together at some length about his beliefs. The following interview is a report of these conversations:

Clark: Since the great autumn 1973 sighting wave public attitudes about the UFO phenomenon seem to have changed dramatically, to the extent that society may be entering a pivotal period in its perception of the problem. What do you think will happen now?

Vallee: First, I expect increased government and scientific attention to it. More researchers will be pursuing the physical evidence aspects, conducting much more sophisticated investigations of traces left at landing sites and so on. The people moving into the field now are good physicists and good engineers who know what they are doing and who are convinced it is time for them to get involved.
At the same time I expect that public opinion will change also. Initially it probably will move strongly toward the extraterrestrial explanation. Most people see only two ways to look at the problem - either it's all nonsense or we're being visited from outer space. The current spate of movies, books and magazine articles is going to push people toward the extraterrestrial hypothesis. After that I expect a backlash effect may push them in the other direction. I don't know where that's going to leave scientists who want to do research.

Clark: You say that scientists are entering ufology in search of physical evidence. But is there physical evidence? And if there is, are they going to find it? What happens if they don't?

Vallee: If I were speaking for them I would say, "Jerry, it's premature to ask those questions."
One doesn't know the answers until one really looks - and so far nobody has
looked very seriously. So far the people who have looked have been military
types searching for enemy craft or direct threats to national security. Or
they've been superficial investigators, dedicated civilians with good training
but limited time and limited resources.
But you're asking me what I think. I think there are physical data. They are very, very interesting. They may contain a message. My inclination is to look at the message both in a physical sense and in a symbolic sense, but that's because I'm an information scientist and not a physical scientist. I look for the meaning behind the object.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Recently Paul Cerny investigated a case in northern California in which two older persons saw a UFO take off. Afterwards they saw a sort of ring on the ground. Within the ring they found some molten metal and a pile of sand.
Obviously here is physical evidence. Two tangible things - the molten metal, which turned out to be brass, and the sand. I took some of the latter to a geologist friend who knows about and. He said it was highly unusual because it did not contain quartz and it was not stream sand or beach sand or residue from mining or anything else. It seemed to be artificial sand created from grinding together stones of different origin.
Well, to a physicist that may not mean too much. It's an indication of something that turns out to be absurd. We can put it alongside other cases of physical traces and then we may start looking for patterns which might lead us to a better understanding of the modus operandi of whoever's doing all this.
In that sense, yes, there is physical evidence. But if you mean physical evidence in the sense that we're going to discover somebody's propulsion system from it, I would have to say I don't expect that to happen.

Clark: Can we infer from the existence of physical evidence, then, that there is a physical cause?

Vallee: If the UFO phenomenon had no physical cause at all, there would be no way for us to perceive it because human beings are physical entities. So it has to make an impression on our senses somehow. For that to take place, it has to be physical at some time.

Clark: So in other words there is such a thing as a solid, three-dimensional flying saucer.

Vallee: No, I didn't say that. That may or may not be true. I don't think there is such a thing as the flying saucer phenomenon. I think it has three components and we have to deal with them in different ways.
First, there is a physical object. That may be a flying saucer or it may be a projection or it may be something entirely different. All we know about it is that it represents a tremendous quantity of electromagnetic energy in a small volume. I say that based upon the evidence gathered from traces, from electromagnetic and radar detection and from perturbations of the electromagnetic fields such as Dr. Claude Poher, the French space scientist,has
recorded.
Second, there's the phenomenon the witnesses perceive. What they tell us is that they've seen a flying saucer. Now they may have seen that or they may have seen an image of a flying saucer or they may have hallucinated it under the influence of microwave radiation, or any of a number of things may have happened. The fact is that the witnesses were exposed to an event and as a result they experienced a highly complex alteration of perception which caused them to describe the object or objects that figure in their testimony.
Beyond there - the physical phenomenon and the perception phenomenon - we have the third component, the social phenomenon. That's what happens when the reports are submitted to society and enter the cultural arena. That's the part which I find most interesting.

Clark: Before we go into that, let's clarify your views on the nature of the physical aspect. When I asked you if there was such a thing as a solid, three-dimensional flying saucer, I was thinking in these terms: Let's suppose that somebody says he has seen a UFO, the bottom part of which was flat and circular. He says he saw the object come down, settle on the soil and then fly off again, leaving a flat circular impression.
Doesn't that clearly suggest the presence - at least for the duration of the sighting - of a solid object whose physical structure was more or less as the witness perceived it?

Vallee: Not necessarily. We have evidence that the phenomenon has the ability to create a distortion of the sense of reality or to substitute artificial sensations for the real ones. Look at some of the more bizarre close encounter cases - for example the incident from South America in which one man believed he had been abducted by a UFO while his companion thought he had boarded a bus which had suddenly appeared on the road behind then.
It is conceivable that there is one phenomenon which is visual and another which creates the physical traces. What I'm saying is that a strange kind of deception may be involved.

Clark: In other words the physical traces are placed there as ostensible confirmation of what the senses perceived?

Vallee: Yes. It's comparable perhaps to the strategic deception operations of the British during World War II to fool the Germans. They created artificial tank tracks in the desert and in other ways simulated the passage of large armored divisions. They even caused dust storms to perpetuate the illusion, which the Germans found very convincing indeed.
In the UFO context that might explain cases such as the one in California I mentioned earlier, in which the "physical evidence" left in the wake of the UFO appearance really seemed to have no clear, unambiguous connection with the perceived "object."

Clark: What do you think happens during the "UFO experience?"

Vallee: We don't know. There is no question that something happens. It seems as if an external force takes control of people. In the close encounters people may lose their ability to move or to speak; in the abduction cases, which are the most extreme example, they gradually enter into a series of experiences during which they lose control of all their senses. Do they experience what they think they experience? Suppose you, an outside observer, had been there. What would you have seen?

Clark: I can think of several cases which might suggest I would have seen the same thing they saw. To cite an example, one of the famous Venezuelan humanoid encounters of late 1954 was independently observed by a doctor some distance from the scene.

Vallee: Yes, I'm familiar with that incident and similar ones. But that doesn't alter my point.
The doctor may have experienced the object as "real" but we don't know what the nature of that reality is.
We know there are objects that contain a lot of energy in a small space. What do we know about what happens to the human brain when it's exposed to a great deal of energy? We know very little about that. We don't know much about the effects of electromagnetic or microwave radiation on the brain, nor about the effects of pulsating colored lights on the brain. The research into that is just beginning.
What we do know is that you can make people hallucinate using either lights or microwave or electromagnetic energy. You can also make them pass out; you can cause them to behave strangely, put them into shock, make them hear voices or even kill them.

Clark: Is there any way to penetrate to the reality of the experience, for example through hypnotic regression?

Vallee: I'm not sure that what we learn under hypnotic regression is useful. Hypnosis is really a delicate technique and some of the people in our field who are using it are doing more harm than good. If the hypnotist doesn't have medical training - and most of these people have no medical training - the results may be disastrous for the witness. But if the hypnotist does have medical training and doesn't have any knowledge of the subject, he may ask the wrong questions. I think that may have happened in the famous case of Betty and Barney Hill. The hypnotist was extremely skilled but was not especially interested in UFOs and didn't know the background of the problem.

Clark: What can we do, then?

Vallee: I'm not saying that hypnosis has no role to play in UFO investigation, nor that it can't be helpful under certain circumstances when percipients are blocking from their memories something they have seen or experienced.
The thing I really want to emphasize is that the investigator's first responsibility is to the witness and not to the UFO phenomenon. The average witness is in shock because he's had a very traumatic experience; what he's seen is going to change his life. Your intervention, the very fact that you're talking with him about it, is also going to have an effect on him. Now he may say to you, "I need help to understand what I saw," but in fact he needs more immediate help as a human being who is deeply troubled by a very disturbing experience.
Unfortunately this element has been neglected. The more UFO investigators try to appear "professional," the more they ignore that human aspect - and by extension their own ethical obligations. I want to convince my friends in UFO research that whenever we have a choice between obtaining interesting UFO data and taking chances with the life of a human being, we should forget the UFO data.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there are alternatives to the use of hypnosis. These involve putting the percipient into a state of relaxed revery or free association. There are several techniques that are equally as effective as hypnosis in bringing out the hidden details but are must less harmful. Investigators really haven't made use of these yet.

Clark: What do you think of the abduction cases?

Vallee: Again, I'm interested mainly in their symbolic contents.
Let me explain what I mean. We live in a society that is oriented toward technology, so when we see something unusual in the sky we think of it in physical terms. How is it manufactured? What makes it tick? What is its propulsion system? We tend to assume that the physical phenomenon is its most important aspect and that everything else is just a side effect and much less important.
But perhaps we're facing something which is basically a social technology. Perhaps the most important effects from the UFO technology are the social ones and not the physical ones. In other words the physical reality may serve only as a kind of triggering device to provide images for the witness to report. These perceptions are manipulated to create certain kinds of social effects.
If that's true, then the abduction cases are quite revealing. I am not concerned with how many switches there were on the control panel or whether the percipient felt hot or cold when he was inside the flying saucer. Those questions may be totally irrelevant because maybe that person never actually went inside the object.
But the report is extremely important for its symbolic content. It can help us understand what kinds of images are coming through. One might illustrate the difference in this way:
An engineer observing a computer would want to look at the back and open up the boxes. He would want to take a probe and examine the different parts of the computer. But there is another way of looking at it; the way of the programmer, who wants to sit in front of the computer and analyze what it does, not how it does it.
That's my approach. I want to ask it questions and see what answers I get. I want to interact with it as an information entity.
In the case of the abductions I think we're dealing with the information aspect. I came to that conclusion because abduction cases, in close encounter cases in general, what the witness is saying is absurd.

Clark: What do you mean?

Vallee: I don't mean simply to imply that the account is silly. I mean it has absurdity as a semantic construction. If you're trying to express something which is beyond the comprehension of a subject, you have to do it through statements that appear contradictory or seem absurd. For example, in Zen Buddhism the seeker must deal with such concepts as "the sound of one hand clapping" - an apparently preposterous notion which is designed to break down ordinary ways of thinking. The occurrences of similar "absurd" messages in UFO cases brought me to the idea that maybe we're dealing with a sort of control system that is subtly manipulating human consciousness.

Clark: But how do you prove that one is operating in a UFO context?

Vallee: I've always been unhappy with the argument between those who believe UFOs are nonsense and those who believe they are extraterrestrial visitors. I don't think I belong in either camp. I've tried to place myself between those two extremes because there's no proof that either proposition is correct. I've come up with the control system concept because it is an idea which can be tested. In that sense it's much closer to a scientific hypotheses than the others. It may turn out that there is a control system which is operated by extraterrestrials. But that's only one possibility.
There are different kinds of control systems - open ones and closed ones - and there are tests you can apply to them to find out what kind of control system you're inside. That leads to a number of experiments you can do with the UFO phenomenon, whereas the other interpretations don't lead you to anything. If you're convinced that UFOs are extraterrestrial, then about the only thing you can do is to climb to a hilltop with a flashlight and send a message in Morse code. People have tried that, I know, but it doesn't seem to work very will!
The control system concept can be tested by a small group of people - you don't need a large organization or a lot of equipment - and you can start thinking about active intervention in the phenomenon.

Clark: How could I prove to my satisfaction that there is a control system in operations?

Vallee: If you think you're inside a control system, the first thing you have to look for is what is being controlled and try to change it to see what happens. My friend Bill Powers proposes the following analogy:
Suppose you're walking through the desert and you see a stone that looks as though it was painted white. A thousand yards later you see another stone of similar appearance. You stop and consider the matter.
Either you can forget it or - if you're like me - you can pick up the stone and move it a few feet. If suddenly a bearded character steps out from behind a rock and demands to know why you moved his marker, then you know you've found a control system.
My point is that you can't be sure until you do something. Then you realize that what you were seeing, the thing that looked absurd and incongruous, was really a marker for a boundary that was invisible to everybody else until you discovered it because you looked for a pattern. I think that's exactly what we have to do with UFOs. We have to do something that will cause them to react. And I don't mean building landing strips in the desert and waiting out there to welcome the space brothers.

Clark: But what do you mean?

Vallee: I hesitate to be too specific. I'm speaking, as I'm sure you understand, of the attempted manipulation of UFO manifestations. It's a pretty tall order. We're assuming that there is a feedback mechanism involved in the operations of the control system; if you change the information that's carried back to that system, you might be able to infiltrate it through its own feedback.

Clark: How does one go about investigating UFOs, taking into consideration the possible existence of a control system?

Vallee: You should work outside any organized UFO group. Also you must be very careful about the types of instruments you use for your analysis. For example, I have become increasingly skeptical of the use of computers in UFO research. We're losing a great many data because of a certain situation that is developing: The field researcher will spend a lot of time and money investigating a case. Typically he will write it up in an excellent 10-to-20-page report; then he'll send it to his superiors in the organization, assuming that they are going to put it on the computer and that in this way it's going to add to some great body of knowledge.
But it doesn't. Investigators should understand that their reports go absolutely nowhere. They end up in a drawer somewhere, they are never published, and they're quickly forgotten. All that's left in the computer is a bunch of codes and letters and numbers on magnetic tape somewhere and that's the end of that.
For another thing you don't want to go around chasing every UFO that's reported. If a sighting gets a lot of publicity, you should stay the hell away from it. Instead you should go after cases that you select yourself, ones
that have received very little publicity and you've heard about through personal
channels. There are plenty of those and they are surprisingly rich in content.
You should take your time investigating them. Get involved with the people as
human beings. And then you have to become part of the scene, getting as close as you can to what's happening especially if it continues to happen.

Clark: Are you suggesting that the investigator should attempt to experience the phenomenon himself?

Vallee: Yes, I think that's sound scientific practice.

Clark: But isn't that rather dangerous - in the sense that there's a real risk the investigator, even if he is emotionally stable and intellectually sophisticated, might be overwhelmed by the experiences involved?

Vallee: Yes, there are dangers. Witness what happened to Morris Jessup or to Jim McDonald. But I think that now we're more aware of what the dangers are. Once you realize the phenomenon may be deliberately misleading, then you can use certain safeguards. I'm not saying that safeguards are always going to work. There is an element of danger you really can't avoid. There's no way to do that kind of study just by reading books.
It's a little bit like the study of volcanoes. You can learn a lot about them by watching them from a distance but you certainly learn a lot more when you can be right there - even if it's somewhat risky.

Terry Hansen, Noted Journalist & Author of 'The Missing Times' Has Died

By Frank Warren
The UFO Chronicles
6-26-14

It’s with great sadness that we report the passing of Terry Hansen, journalist, researcher and author of one of the most influential books re Ufology, "The Missing Times / News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up."
Terry’s wife Jessica conveyed to Robert Hastings, that he died “quietly, in his sleep, Friday late evening or Saturday early morning. He had a massive coronary and the doctor said he felt no pain at all. It was instant.”
She eloquently added:

“He was the most honest person with the greatest sense of integrity I have ever known.
My first impression of Terry was one of nobility of spirit and he never let me down
He had a lot of wonderful adventures the last few years of his life and I am so grateful for that.”

Our condolences to Jessica and the Hansen family, may he rest in peace.

From the 1969 Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, Section 1 - Conclusions and Recommendations - Edward U. Condon (p.5): "... if we came across any evidence whatever that seemed to us to indicate a defense hazard we would call it to the attention of the Air Force at once."

Professor Richard Dawkins was once again recently the centre of controversy after the media suggested that he had claimed children should not be read fairy tales:

"I think it's rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism...

Dawkins subsequently claimed his views had been taken out of context and misrepresented:

In the age of the internet it is easier than ever before for us to check if a quote is genuine, but most people won't make the effort. This enables the sexy headline which just happens to be wrong to travel further, faster, and stick around for longer than the rather more mundane truth. Ironically, this is something Dawkins has himself addressed in detail with his theory of memetics. In fact, this
isn't even the first time this has happened to Dawkins.

Another famous scientist whose alleged views towards fairy tales are often quoted is Albert Einstein, to whom the following quote is often attributed:

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

Unlike in the case of Dawkins, we can't ask Einstein to confirm the authenticity of a quote above. Like so many famous quotes, this quote is in fact, folklore:

"You can find this item all over the internet, on blogs, tumblrs, quotation sites, and those captioned images that have come to be known as “memes.”
Sometimes it’s a bare quotation, other times it’s embellished with physical details of the gestures Einstein made or what he looked like at the time.

Because of the quotation’s popularity, and because of its association with folklore, members of the AFC staff have been asked more than once about whether Einstein really said this. Our analysis suggests that the story is itself folklore. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s untrue; Einstein may well have said this, or at least something similar to this. But it does mean that the story circulated for many years, probably orally as well as in print, and then came to be passed around on the Internet, from the early days of Usenet to the current environment of Facebook and other social networks. As a result of this oral, print, and electronic transmission, the story of Einstein advocating fairy tales resembles other folk stories: it exists in multiple versions that vary in their details. And, interestingly for those who love both folklore and libraries, the story initially appears to have circulated primarily among librarians."

I must admit, that I was for a few minutes taken in by the many original news reports on Dawkin's misrepresented views on fairy tales. Even though I am nearly a month late to the party, the incorrect news reports are still circulating above reports explaining what actually happened. So what is the moral of the story from the fairy tales incident? What I'm taking away is nothing to do with fairy tales, but rather, I think the lesson here is that we should question every quote we come across that isn't straight from the horse's mouth. Whether it is in the Telegraph or the Daily Mail (in fact, definitely if it is in the Daily Mail) or whether it is transposed on top of the face of Einstein on an internet meme. Just because a quote has been shared a hundred thousand times on Facebook and has appeared in the most highly regarded newspapers in the world, it may well still be false.

Image Credit: Adapted from artwork from the Organ Museum

To keep up to date with this blog you can follow Neurobonkers on Twitter, Facebook, RSS or join the mailing list. Image Credit: Shutterstock

BTW, I taped the movie Intruders way back in the 1990s. ;)

Rare Footage of interview with Budd Hopkins “Intruders” on UFO Alien Abductions

Rare footage of interview with Budd Hopkins, and abductees: Debbie Tomey and Dorothy Wallace. Also interviewed is abduction hypnotist Dr.Gotlieb.
Budd Hopkins (June 15, 1931
– August 21, 2011) was a prominent figure in alien abduction phenomena and related UFO research and writer of the “Intruders” (Book and Movie).

The woman named Kathie Davis in the book "Intruders" by Budd Hopkins was in
actuality Debbie Tomey. Budd changed her name to Kathie in the book to protect
her identity.
In the next video, this is the first time Debbie "comes out" to the public with her real name. This video was filmed approximately three years before the movie (1992) came out, which was also called "Intruders".
The Dini Petty Show was a very popular talk show in Canada in the late '80s and '90s. This was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and aired on Sept 14, 1989.

Video courtesy of the official Henry McKay UFO Archives.
Henry McKay is the man in the suit sitting behind Dini Petty on the left side, next to the women wearing the blue dress on the right side behind Dini.. At 26.44 the camera does a close-up of Henry.
Henry McKay was a pioneer UFOlogist, and was the very first Director of MUFON for Canada. He was also one of the first modern-day UFO investigators to specialize in physical traces associated with UFO landing sites and close-range UFO sightings.
His work was mentioned in the book "The Philadelphia Experiment". He was an electrical engineer with the Air Force. He was also on the Board of Directors for the "North American UFO Federation" (headed by Richard Haines), was an associate of CUFOS, and also investigated for NICAP. He was good friends with Dr. J. Allen Hynek. He also gave a briefing at a hearing to the "Royal Commission of Electric Power Planning" in regards to UFO related power disturbances

Watch the full movie 'Intruders'

Van: "Giuliano
Marinkovic" <giuliano.marinkovic@zg.htnet.hr>

Onderwerp: Condon:
"I would take it straight to the president".

Datum: 16 Jan 2013
21:45:14 GMT+01:00

Dear colleagues.

Few days ago, I have been finally connected with the phone line and Internet
connection at this new flat where I recently moved. So I will be again more
active online.

One gem from archives:

Here is one historical detail that happened during Condon Study. It wasdescribed in classic book "UFOs-Yes-Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong"byDr. David Saunders (member of Condon Committee that was later fired becauseof the Low Memo affair).

It was always presented that Condon's study of UFOs was a transparentproject where public will finally get what it wants for its money. It is well known that Condon was a very negative towards affirmative possibilities of UFOs. However, confronted with the speculation that UFOs could be explained as ETH, he quickly changed the official image in that conversation. Even this speculative example by Condon shows that interpretation of the UFO data - that was not on the negative path - immediately enters within National Security limitations. It was a lost battle of public transparency from the beginning. If we apply such a formula from the governmental point of view and data availability to Condon itself and his review group, implications can be copied in the same way.

Saunders explains: "Condon was willing to speculate, though, on what would happen if the Project ever did find evidence to support ETI. In -this unlikely event, he said, either he would put the evidence in his briefcase and take it straight to the President, or we would write a report to the Air Force and let them decide what to do with it. In either event, we would not have honored our commitment to make a public report that told it like it was. Apparently, in Condon's mind, that commitment could be honored only if we were writing a negative or noncommittal report."

End of paste.

Scanned page is in attachment (near the end of left page).

Best Wishes to everyone.

Giuliano

Yesterday I saw on VTM News a news report about a six-fingered Brazilian family afflicted with a genetic condition, known as polydactyly. This reminded me of the 1995 alien autopsy film.

De Brazilianen zijn in de ban van een familie die zes vingers per hand hebben. Brazilië kan dit jaar een zesde wereldbeker voetbal winnen en die zes vingers zien ze als een gunstig voorteken. De meeste familieleden zijn geboren met polydactylie, een afwijking waardoor je meer vingers of tenen hebt dan normaal.

Alien autopsy (6-fingered alien)

From Stanton Friedman's 2008 "Flying Saucers and Science", Chapter 10: The Press and Flying Saucers - pp. 250-251: "I don't know why the Washington Post and the New York Times have been not only negative, but also guilty of poor journalism.
My best suggestion is that both have been suffering (along with others) from the David Susskind Syndrome, a medical condition I derived from my interactions with TV talk show host David Susskind. ... I have come to delineate the Susskind Syndrome this way: Susskind and everyone else would acknowledge that, if aliens were visiting Earth, and the government was covering it up, it would be a big and important story. But because he and other bright but clueless intellectuals such as Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Isaac Asimov take great pride in knowing about the important stories, and haven't known anything about flying saucers, then they must not be real. Anyone who thinks they are must not be very bright, and doesn't understand that secrets couldn't possibly be kept from such smart people as Susskind, et al. Right? Absolutely wrong."

From Terry Hansen's 2000 "The Missing Times", Chapter V: Editing History - Discrete contacts - pp. 173-174 (The late Harvard University psychiatrist Dr. John Mack about the differences in coverage he witnessed both in regional and national news media:

"The sense I get from the local news media, and also from many radio stations, is that they're reporting it straight," ... "it's newsworthy, and UFOs are
interesting, and they take it on." Whereas the ... elite newspapers like the New
York Times or the Washington Post, even the Boston Globe here, it's as if they have some kind of influences looking over their shoulder ... I don't know what those might be, whether those are the senior editors or corporate people [who] don't want to offend commercial interests or scientific interests or feel they have to protect the status quo philosophically, or scientifically - I don't know. I just know that there tends to be more of a snide or ridiculing attitude, or dismissal altogether. And that can go to extreme lengths. "

Nick Pope, the primary author of “Encounter in Rendlesham Forest,” insists that this case is different: It’s definitive. He’s wrong. But that doesn’t mean the book is without its charms, offering, perhaps, an answer to the question: Why more flying-saucer books?

The Rendlesham Forest incident — known in UFO circles as Britain’s Roswell — occurred in the days (and nights) after Christmas in 1980 in a wooded area of England between two military bases then occupied by the U.S. Air Force. Pope recounts the events briefly, covering the narrative in the first 90 pages.
According to him, his co-authors, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, both then with the Air Force, investigated mysterious lights in the forest. Burroughs was on patrol and had seen blue and red flashing lights. He and a superior drove out through the gate and saw a white light, too, which seemed to advance on them.
They returned to the base.

Just after midnight, Penniston joined the two men, and they drove out again.
Initially, they thought a small plane might have crashed. Instead, they and a few others who joined them came across something else altogether. In a small clearing, “there was a silent explosion of light.” In its aftermath, they could see “a small, metallic craft,” about nine feet high and nine feet across. “The craft was roughly triangular in shape” and either hovered or rested on a tripod.
It was decorated with blue and white lights as well as heiroglyphic-like markings. Penniston approached the thing and touched it, and then it sped off at an “impossible” speed.

When the lights returned two nights later, deputy base commander Lt. Col.
Charles Halt and a team that included Burroughs investigated. They didn’t see a craft, but Halt found what he thought was the original landing site and noted that nearby trees had been abraded. Measurements suggested that the radiation level was higher than that of the surroundings. Subsequently, the witnesses were debriefed by other members of the U.S. government, reports were sent up the chain of command, and British officials investigated but were unimpressed by what they saw.

‘Encounter in Rendlesham Forest: The Inside Story of the World's Best-Documented UFO Incident’ by Nick Pope, John Burroughs, and Jim Penniston. (Thomas Dunne)

The story leaked out over the coming years, becoming more urgent after the principals retired from the military and spoke more freely. Burroughs and Penniston both developed health problems that they traced back to those events in late December 1980 and the radiation to which they were exposed. The Department of Veterans Affairs, though, has seemed to block access to their medical records.

Hard evidence in support of the story is lacking. The gauge used to measure the radiation had settings too coarse to detect the small changes attributed to it — a shortcoming that Pope notes only evasively. There is no record of an unidentified craft being sighted by area radar. Penniston took photographs of the craft, but the film could not be developed. Halt made an audio tape of his investigation, but it is unremarkable. Pope gives no citations, so there is no way to know the provenance of the reports and memos he discusses.

Instead there are unwarranted conclusions and a welter of unrelated anecdotes. Most of one chapter is written by Burroughs and Penniston’s lawyer, who gives a cursory summary of attempts to obtain their medical records. The failure to release them provides all the evidence Pope needs to say that the documents must be classified. There is no conclusion as to what occurred on those winter nights almost 34 years ago. Penniston and Burroughs are of the opinion that a government is behind the event, using talk of UFOs as a cover.
Halt thinks the craft came from outer space. Pope is more coy but seems to favor the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

The witnesses, military personnel though they were, turn out to be untrustworthy. The quotations in the book attributed to Halt show him to be something of a crank, insisting that in the debriefings witnesses were “subjected to mind control efforts using drugs and hypnosis by British and American authorities.” Penniston’s story has changed dramatically over the years; he now says that he spent 45 minutes in close communion with the craft and that, when he touched it, a binary code was downloaded directly into his brain. He remembered the transmission only after hypnosis.

Despite all these (very large) holes, the Rendlesham tale remains popular among those interested in UFOs — as Pope’s book shows, with repeated references to television documentaries and magazine stories. Which raises the question: Why?

“Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” is full of paranoia about the government — not all of it, or even most of it, unwarranted. Pope refers to the Iraq war (with its missing WMDs), drone strikes and NSA spying. He also reasonably worries that the U.S. government may be subcontracting the study of UFOs to private enterprise, thus shielding it from Freedom of Information Act requests.

Indeed, much of the story turns on Freedom of Information Act requests and how they made the investigation of the Rendlesham events possible by the Americans (the Brits not so much, at least until they had similar laws). Which points to why these stories fascinate so.

Governments are so large, and the handles we have on them so small, so slippery, that it is impossible to control the leviathan we have created. Pope himself worked for the British government — in a section investigating UFOs — and felt frustrated at his inability to turn others on to the importance of this matter. If even those inside the government cannot control it, what hope those who are only its subjects? Stories about flying saucers allow readers to contemplate these issues on a vast scale. Roswell, after all, occurred in 1947, but it didn’t become a cause celebre until after Watergate.

Carl Jung once famously said that stories about UFOs were a new myth — about lights in the sky. That’s not the whole story, not anymore. Flying saucers are also myths about the mightiness of the expanding states.

Joshua Blu Buhs is the author of “Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend.”

ENCOUNTER IN RENDLESHAM FOREST

The Inside Story of the World’s Best-Documented UFO incident

By Nick Pope with John Burroughs and Jim Pennisto

Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s. 311 pp. $25.99

Mr. Sulu, Prepare To Engage Thrusters!

Engage warp drive! Nasa reveals latest designs for a Star Trek-style spacecraft that could make interstellar travel a reality

A Nasa scientist in Houston worked with an artist to create
the concept
The interstellar spacecraft builds on previous designs that
thoeretically allow distant travel by bending space-time
Called IXS Enterprise, it is similar to the Star Trek ship of the same name
Dr White said the spacecraft could reach Alpha Centauri in two weeks
Warp travel is the focus of Christopher Nolan's 2014 movie Interstellar

By Jonathan O'Callaghan

Published: 13:09 GMT, 11 June
2014 | Updated: 17:48 GMT,
11 June 2014

Last month, Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan unveiled his next science-fiction blockbuster.

Called Interstellar, it envisages a future where travel to other stars is not only a possibility but a necessity, and tasks actor Matthew McConaughey with leading the main mission.

But a Nasa scientist claims such a mission isn’t necessarily just something reserved for science fiction - and has revealed a Star Trek-style ship that could make interstellar travel a reality.

Pictured is an illustration of Dr White's IXS Enterprise, an interstellar ship drawn by artist Mark Rademaker that could be an accurate representation of what the first mission beyond the solar system will look like. The IXS Enterprise is a theory-fitting concept for a faster than light (FTL) ship

Dr Harold White is famous for suggesting that faster than light (FTL) travel is possible.

THE 100-YEAR STARSHIP PROJECT

The 100-year Starship Project is a joint endeavour run by Darpa, Nasa, Icarus Interstellar and the Foundation for Enterprise Development.

Announced in January 2012, the project has an overall goal of achieving manned interstellar travel by 2112.

To do so it is evaluating a number of different techonolgies, including ‘warping’ space time to travel great distances in short time frames at faster-than-light speeds.

The project is also considering building ‘generation ships’ that move slowly but have a self-sustainable long-term population.

To date Nasa has contributed $100,000 (£60,000) to the project and Darpa $1 million (£600,000).

Using something known as an Alcubierre drive, named after a Mexican theoretical physicist of the same name, Dr White said it is possible to ‘bend’ space-time, and cover large distances almost instantly.

This, in essence, would allow a spaceship to travel almost anywhere in a tiny fraction of the time it would take a conventional spacecraft.

The ship in Nolan’s Interstellar movie, as well as those in Star Trek, employ a warp engine.

And, in a series of new renders, Dr White reveals how a real spacecraft dubbed the IXS Enterprise could do the same thing.

The images are based on the artist who created the original look for the famous USS Enterprise ship from Star Trek - Matthew Jeffries.

To make the latest renders Dr White employed the help of artist Mark Rademaker and graphic designer Mike Okuda.

Trailer: Interstellar starring Matthew McConaughey

The ship has a number of features that make interstellar travel possible. This includes the two rings surrounding the central spacecraft - these are known as an Alcubierre drive and are used to 'warp' space-time and travel many light years in a matter of days

The engine for Dr White's ISX Enterprise is based on something known as the Alcubierre drive. As shown in the illustration above this stretches space-time in a wave that causes the fabric of space-time ahead to contract while expanding the space behind, theoretically allowing 'faster than light' travel

Although the speed of light is seen as an absolute, Dr White was inspired by Miguel Alcubierre, who postulated a theory that allowed for faster than light travel but without contradicting Einstein.

Alcubierre's theory was published in 1994 and involved enormous amounts of energy being used to expand and contract space itself - thereby generating a 'warp bubble' in which a spacecraft would travel.

Allowing space and time to act as the propellant by pulling the craft through the bubble would be like stepping on an escalator

Despite Dr Alcubierre stating his theory was simply conjecture, Dr White thinks he and his team are edging towards making the realm of warp speed attainable.

This illustration shows Dr White's design in its entirety. Struts around the spacecraft show how it would be directly attached to the rings. At the front is the 'bridge' where the crew would conduct operations on the spacecraft. Towards the back is the cargo area where so-called exotic matter for fuel would be store.

According to Gizmodo, their engine could get to Alpha Centauri in two weeks
as measured by clocks on Earth

The process of going to warp is also one that is smooth, rather than using a massive amount of acceleration in a short amount of time.

'When you turn the field on, everybody doesn't go slamming against the bulkhead, which would be a very short and sad trip,' Dr White said.

However, Dr White admits his research is still small-scale and is light years away from any type of engine that could be constructed into a spaceship like the USS Enterprise.

In Christopher Nolan's upcoming film Interstellar, due for release in November, a team of astronauts undertake a mission beyond the stars to save humanity. To get there they use an Alcubierre drive, shown above in a clip from the film - the same engine envisaged by Dr White of Nasa for his Star Trek-style spacecraft

The ship at the centre of Dr White's IXS Enterprise would need to be small enough to fit inside the rings and it would need to not stick out too much. This is because when the rings are activated they will create a 'warp bubble', and anything outside of this will be cut off when the jump is made, according to Dr White

Look familiar? Dr White's design for the IXS Enterprise bears a striking similarity to the USS Enterprise as seen in various Star Trek TV shows such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, seen here. In the show this science vessel was used to 'explore strange new worlds' and 'seek out new life and new civilisation'

To make the dream a reality Dr White has laid out a road map with important milestones that will need to be met along the way to achieving true interstellar travel.

This begins with tests on Earth to prove the technology is possible.

These initial experiments are very crude and very basic - but, if proved, there is, in theory, no limit to how it can be applied.

The next step will be to use the warp technology on a spacecraft and complete a short trip to the moon, followed by a trip to Mars.

This would ultimately test the technologies that would be necessary to complete ‘jumps’ beyond the solar system and reach destinations in a matter of months, weeks or even days.

Illustrated here is a previous design from Dr White and Rademaker. This concept had a number of flaws. First, the rings were too thin, meaning they would have needed too much energy for warp travell. Second, part of the ship extends out of the rings, which would have been cut off when the 'warp bubble' was created.

The main limitation is energy - previously it was thought mass equivalent to a planet would be necessary to provide the energy required for a warp jump.

But revised suggestions suggest mass similar in size to a car might be more realistic.

The research has done enough to pique the interest of Nasa and other agencies.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), for instance, is currently carrying out the 100-year-starship project with a view to sending humans outside the solar system at the turn of the next century.

The rings around the spacecraft (shown) would actually shift the surrounding space. The drive would require something known as exotic matter to work, hypothetical particles that violate the known laws of physics (possibly such as dark matter), but as of yet none have been found or created

The main limitation of the concept, (pictured) is energy - previously it was thought mass equivalent to a planet would be necessary to provide the energy required for a warp jump. But revised suggestions claim mass similar in size to a car might be more realistic

Warp travel is the focus of the 2014 movie Interstellar. A scene from the Christopher Nolan film, Interstellar, is pictured here. In the film lead character Cooper, played by Matthew McConaughey, is tasked with joining a team for an interstellar mission aboard an Alcubierre-inspired spacecraft to save humanity.

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Mark Rademaker

Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind: A Review

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Nick Redfern’s latest book, subtitled “Suspicious Deaths, Mysterious Murders, and Bizarre Disappearances in UFO History” provides an in depth look at the underbelly of the UFO phenomenon – the history of devilish deeds and felonies of a kind that are almost unimaginable, except they are actual possibilities in most cases and true in all the rest.

Nick Redfern is no slouch when it comes to ferreting out the truth of things; in this case the odd circumstances that underlie UFO events that ufological devotees think they know.

Nick’s 223 page exposé of deaths that have a definite link to the UFO phenomenon and its significant events (or sightings) shows what a real researcher or historian does or is meant to do when examining a portion of human activity – in this case the UFO milieu

There are 18 Chapters, with titles such as this:

From Melting Man to Maury Islan

The Victims of Roswell

Zapped by a UFO

The Microwave Incident

A Deadly Disk in the Desert

Another Adamski and Another Death

Star Wars of the Deadly Kind

A Killer Curse and a Deadly Date

The opening chapter deals with the Maury Island incident of 1947 which is replete with events weirder than any murder mystery: the death of two military men (sent to gather facts and “debris” from a sightings that involved Kenneth Arnold and his near-death) and threats of death to witnesses of a bizarre UFO sighting.

The Victims of Roswell chapter contains information that even obsessed Roswellians have not known or have ignored.

Zapped by a UFO recounts the infamous 1948 Mantell sighting and death with a slant that will make theorists, such as Kevin Randle, livid, as the Skyhook (balloon) explanation seems able to be set aside.

The “suicide” of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal in 1949 is recounted, with information that few know.

Mysterious “heart attacks” of UFO notables, including Blue Book’s Edward Ruppelt, are enumerated.

The CIA’s secret mind-manipulation efforts are detailed, especially the dastardly MKULTRA project(s).

The Tentacles of the Octopus chapter [17] provides a “Six Degrees of Separation” delineation of UFO events and persons related to UFO events that will startle even the most well-read aficionado of UFO lore.

If you want to know what lurks in the nooks and crannies of UFO stories and events you think you know, you have to get this book.

If you pretend to be a UFO maven, you need to get this book.

If you’re a ufological wannabe, you have to have this book in your library

Buying the book won’t make Nick Redfern a wealthy man but it will encourage him and other serious researchers and UFO historians to continue to unearth vital elements in the UFO saga, elements that may eventually explain what UFOs are.

Nick’s book shows how persons intermingled with the phenomenon have often ended up.

It’s not a pretty sight, but it is an intriguing insight into the furtive underside of a phenomenon that has made some do things that are not nice, not by a long shot.

The book is published by New Page Books, a Division of Career Press, Inc., Pompton Plains, NJ. [2014] and sells for $15.99 (paperback).

It can be had from Amazon or Anomalist online and at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore.

(I’m getting a few copies for my UFO compatriots. They’ll be thankful, I’m sure.

Majestic 12: A UFO Disinformation Scandal (Video)

Posted by: Alejandro Rojas
June 4, 2014 0
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Open Minds Special Report – The origins of the Majestic 12 documents has its roots in a complicated set of events that included disinformation, hoaxes, and lies. For this reason, most of this history has been lost or is glossed over.
However, the true origins of the documents and how UFO researchers came to know the term Majestic 12 is important when assessing their legitimacy. We have taken months to investigate this story, which has included working with the public relations department of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
While our investigation is ongoing, in this video we share with you what we have found thus far

To see a list of sources, and to download the documents we refer to in this story, click here.

Zapped by weapons-grade weather?

When, in 2006, the British Ministry of Defence declassified its three-year study of UFOs known as Project Condign, former USAF Sgt. John Burroughs pretty much skipped it. Initially stamped “Secret UK Eyes Only” by authorities, the 1997-2000 analysis attempted to soft-peddle The Great Taboo by swapping out the UFO acronym for the less incendiary Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAP). And it went to great pains to reassure the “Eyes Only” crowd there were no intelligent forces in play, just rare haphazard confluences of meteorological elements broadly referred to as “buoyant plasma formations.”

"(Project Condign) is a cleverly written report interwoven with weather stuff to make it look unimportant" -- USAF veteran John Burroughs/CREDIT: mercuryrapids.co.uk

Based on reported and observed effects, Condign went on to describe what was undoubtedly some of the damnedest and most fearsome highly-localized weather you’d ever want to see. Generating electromagnetic anomalies forcing pilots to take potentially catastrophic evasive action, subjecting observers to radiation exposure, and even provoking hallucinations and “lost time” events, UAP — reported Condign — even held promise for weaponization. “The relevance of plasma and magnetic fields to UAP was an unexpected feature of the study,” wrote the unnamed authors. “It is recommended that further investigation should be [undertaken] into the applicability of various characteristics in various novel military applications.”

At the time, it was all gobbledy-gook to Burroughs. Burroughs was more preoccupied with high technology and hardware, the kind of stuff he and fellow first-responder Jim Penniston insist they confronted in the woods outside a U.S. airbase in southern England in late December 1980. Now regarded as one of the most famous UFO episodes in history, the controversy about what went down in the wilderness separating adjacent American military bases in Bentwaters and Woodbridge has provided grist for documentary and cable-channel programming for years. But it it refuses to go away, because whatever these retired 81st Security Police and Law Enforcement Squadron veterans encountered in Rendlesham Forest continues to plague their health today.

What Burroughs didn’t realize — at least, not until he revisited Condign in 2008 and gave it a more careful read — was that the MoD’s formerly classified assessment also included references to his own life-altering encounter:

“The well-reported Rendlesham Forest/Bentwaters event is an example where it might be postulated that several observers were probably exposed to UAP radiation for longer than normal UAP sighting periods,” it stated. “There maybe other cases which remain unreported. It is clear that the recipients of these effects are not aware that their behavior/perception of what they are observing is being modified.”

Meteorological behavior modification -- really. But wait, it gets worse: “Any pursuit of this process of indentification or elimination [of EM radiation] is pointless if the UAP radiation is other than EM radiation as we know it.” After all, Condign continues, “It is not certain that the radiation/fields are conventional and electromagnetic in nature.”

Reconnecting after nearly 30 years to compare notes of their mutual incredulity, Burroughs and Penniston discovered they were both suffering from multiple health issues. Their subsequent efforts to acquire their military medical records have been stonewalled by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
With the VA under fire (again) for screwing veterans over, the timing probably
couldn’t be better for the release of Encounter in Rendlesham Forest, their first-person recollections of that almost impossibly complex event, written by former MoD agent Nick Pope.

For now, leave aside all notions about ETs and alien spacecraft. This is an ongoing story about doctored service records, hot-potato buck-passing among allies, and (finally) intervention from Sen. John McCain’s office. With VA critics calling for Secretary Shinseki's scalp and all eyes focused on veteran' grievances, this Cold War mystery might finally gain some traction. We'll take an even closer look next time.

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Engage warp drive! Nasa reveals latest designs for a Star Trek-style spacecraft that could make interstellar travel a reality

THE 100-YEAR STARSHIP PROJECT

Share or comment on this article

14-06-2014 om 01:09 geschreven door peter

Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind: A Review

11-06-2014 om 22:38 geschreven door peter

Majestic 12: A UFO Disinformation Scandal (Video)

04-06-2014 om 23:31 geschreven door peter

Zapped by weapons-grade weather?

31-05-2014 om 00:22 geschreven door peter

MUFON’s New Social Network

Nick Pope Asks: Does the MoD Still Secretly Investigate UFOs?

ExMinistry of Defence UFO project insider examines the facts

10-07-2014 om 02:51 geschreven door peter

Chile releases official study on UFO photos

06-07-2014 om 19:21 geschreven door peter

03-07-2014 om 22:52 geschreven door peter

Ex-Mormons give their take on "The Book of Mormon" musical

03-07-2014 om 19:51 geschreven door peter

02-07-2014 om 23:19 geschreven door peter

Three Prominent UFO Researchers Debunk MJ-12: Thirty Years On, the Hoax Still Lives

30-06-2014 om 21:19 geschreven door peter

30-06-2014 om 20:56 geschreven door peter

29-06-2014 om 20:42 geschreven door peter

28-06-2014 om 11:26 geschreven door peter

Jacques Vallee Discusses UFO Control System

27-06-2014 om 23:36 geschreven door peter

Terry Hansen, Noted Journalist & Author of 'The Missing Times' Has Died

27-06-2014 om 01:21 geschreven door peter

26-06-2014 om 21:06 geschreven door peter

Rare Footage of interview with Budd Hopkins “Intruders” on UFO Alien Abductions

26-06-2014 om 20:59 geschreven door peter

26-06-2014 om 20:57 geschreven door peter

21-06-2014 om 13:38 geschreven door peter

14-06-2014 om 22:04 geschreven door peter

Engage warp drive! Nasa reveals latest designs for a Star Trek-style spacecraft that could make interstellar travel a reality

THE 100-YEAR STARSHIP PROJECT

Share or comment on this article

14-06-2014 om 01:09 geschreven door peter

Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind: A Review

11-06-2014 om 22:38 geschreven door peter

Majestic 12: A UFO Disinformation Scandal (Video)

04-06-2014 om 23:31 geschreven door peter

Zapped by weapons-grade weather?

31-05-2014 om 00:22 geschreven door peter

MUFON’s New Social Network

Three Prominent UFO Researchers Debunk MJ-12: Thirty Years On,
the Hoax Still Lives