Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
In the winter of 1967, a no-nonsense Missouri farmer had a run-in with a horde or strange, scurrying, entities from outer space that one could only describe as resembling “green space penguins.
On the bone chilling morning of February 14, 1967, a 64-year old farmer by the name of Claude Edwards woke up to attend to his duties on a remote parcel of land near Tuscumbia, Missouri. As the sun rose low on the horizon, Edwards bundled up to face the bitter day, never imagining that he was about to have a face to face encounter with the unknown.
Edwards was a simple, hardworking, salt of the Earth Midwesterner who had no time for any kind of foolishness regarding aliens, flying saucers or the like; so as his worn boots tramped across the icy, rock strewn slope that took him from his home to his barn, nothing could have shocked him more than to see what appeared to be a UFO sitting in one of his nearby fields.
Edwards stated that before he saw this unusual object, the first thing that he noticed was that all of the cattle in his east field were gazing in the same direction.
Intrigued, Edward’s followed their stares through a grove of trees and was astounded to see what he described as a massive, grayish-green, mushroom-like object — which was perched atop a circular tube — in the meadow adjacent to his barn.
Almost as if on autopilot, the farmer continued to the barn; his eyes never leaving the UFO. He set down the feed bucket he’d been hefting and latched the door shut. With his barn secured, Edwards then turned back toward the peculiar object occupying his field and that’s when he saw something he would never forget… a group of tiny, strange creatures hastily swarming beneath the object. [The "X" in the above photo indicates approximately where the UFO was when Edwards -- also depicted above -- first spied it.]
Edwards estimated that he was separated from the odd entities by about 70-feet of land, two wire fences, and a smattering of cows. The gutsy farmer was not pleased by the fact that his cows were being spooked or that his property was being trespassed on, even if said trespassers happened to hail from OUT OF THIS WORLD. The farmer — no doubt fueled by a combination of curiosity and adrenaline — climbed the first gate and started walking directly toward the ostensibly alien interlopers.
As Edwards reached the second gate, the diminutive creatures began moving in an even more agitated fashion. Edwards would later describe these miniature monsters as being approximately 3-feet in height and having a grayish-green complexion much like their “ship,” although (based on his own drawing) it would seem that these beings erred on the greenish side a bit.
Also (based again on Edwards’ sketch) it would seem that either these beings had no hands or that their arms were moving too swiftly for Edwards to discern the shape of the appendages. Edward’s also claimed that these aliens were either wearing goggles or had large, wide-set, black eyes.
They also had dark protuberances where their noses and mouths ought to have been. Whether or not he believed the protrusion to be a natural part of their physical features or some sort of protective (or possibly breathing) apparatus is not clear.
Although the connection may be tentative at best, when hearing a description of the Tuscumbia aliens it is difficult not to have it invoke memories of an encounter reported by a pair if Finnish lumberjacks in 1971.
The allegedly alien life form that they ran into on that wintery day near Kangaskyla, was a small, almost lighter than air creature, which would come to be known as the KINNULA HUMANOID. This being was said to be clad in a green colored protective suit similar to the creatures that Edwards bore witness to. That is assuming, of course, that the things that Edwards saw were wearing anything at all!
Edwards watched in wonder as these bizarre creatures buzzed back and forth directly beneath the odd device, arms swinging frantically at their sides. He would later claim that these “invaders” resembled little, green penguins, with no visible neck. Edwards also stated that he could not clearly discern what manner of locomotion they were employing with their lower extremities.
At this point Edwards — like any primal man defending his property minus weapons — picked up a pair of bulky rocks and approached what, at this point, he was convinced was a UFO. In fact, Edwards would later state that his intention was to use the rocks to throw at the device and puncture holes in its side in order to prevent it from taking off.
As the farmer got within 15-feet of the “mushroom” and the energetic entities, he was abruptly stopped by some sort of “force field.” Edwards claimed that he could neither see nor tangibly feel it, but that the pressure the invisible barrier emitted was unmistakable. According to Edwards:
“I thought I was going right up to it. I got up there and there it was. I just walked up against a wall.”
It was then that Edwards (who would eventually sketch the domed vehicle) got his first good look at the soundless, glinting vessel. He would later describe the metallic surface of the vehicle as being smooth and seamless, even going so far as to compare it to “shiny silk.” He estimated that the curved top of the craft was about 18-feet in diameter and nearly 8-feet at its apex. The stem-like tube that was supporting the object was evidently made of the same material as the domed top and stood not much higher that the beings beneath it.
At this point the perplexed farmer could also discern evenly spaced oval portals — about 12-inches long and 12-inches apart — situated around the lower rim of the “saucer.” Edwards would insist that these portals did not seem to function as windows as he could see a dazzling array of colors radiating from each of the ovals. The colored lights oscillated as if they were spinning behind the portals. Edwards described the craft:
“The object it just looked like a big shell, grayish-green looking outfit. And underneath there were oblong holes where the lights were coming out. They were so bright you couldn’t see when you got up there… as if a color wheel was turning inside the thing.”
Anxiously, this rugged man of the land backed off about 10-feet, then hurled one of the rocks he had gathered at this immobile object. The rock bounced of the imperceptible barricade noiselessly and landed on the ground. Edwards then threw his second rock with even more force, but this one just skipped over the object like a stone over water, before landing in the field behind the UFO.-
As soon as he lobbed the second stone, the scuttling, green critters swiftly disappeared behind the shaft supporting the craft, presumably into an access portal that was concealed from the farmer. It was then that the strange UFO tilted toward him not once, but twice. On the third lurch the UFO actually began silently ascending off the frozen Earth.
According to Edwards, the flying mushroom soared skyward at tremendous speed before it leveled off and began heading toward St. Elizabeth, which is located northeast of Tuscumbia. The vehicle vanished within moments leaving behind a puzzled Edwards and a pasture full of befuddled bovines. Edwards later encapsulated his fantastic encounter for UFO investigator Ted Phillips:
“The whole thing took over five minutes, maybe ten. I have never seen anything like it. It looked like shiny silk or something. I couldn’t tell. I was going to tell though if I could have hit it with that rock.”
One detail that would seem to add a stroke of veracity to this admittedly bizarre account is the fact that Claude Edwards was a seasoned man of the land who stood gain very little — except for the ridicule of this peers — by admitting to this potentially harrowing event. In fact, when Phillips was introduced to Edwards through his brother, the farmer refused to utter a word about the incident until the young researcher pledged to protect the farmer’s anonymity, which he did until Edwards’ death. Phillips described his first encounter with Edwards:
“When I arrived at the farm we visited for several minutes gaining his confidence that I wouldn’t reveal his name or location until his death. He didn’t like talking about the sighting at first, but became more comfortable as we discussed the weather and farming. I asked him to relive the event in real time and we began on his front porch which faces the large barn near the landing area.”
The fact that this farmer never tried to squeeze and ounce of publicity (or make a penny in profit) from his strange Valentines’ Day experience has lead many investigators to conclude that there would be no motivation for a prank on the part of Edwards. In further support of Edward’s claims is the uncanny trace evidence left behind in the field where the UFO had landed.
Phillips, who arrived to interview Edwards not long after the events in question, was able to photograph the effects this UFO had on the field, including the spot where the support tube had met the soil. Phillips explained:
“When I arrived at the site the traces were still quite visible. It was one meter in diameter in a slightly irregular circle where the shaft had rested. The soil was extremely dehydrated in contrast with the surrounding soil.”
This would be the last encounter that Edwards ever reported with these peculiar, space penguins and their mushroom shaped UFO, but I’d say it’s a safe bet that as stepped out of his modest home at the crack of dawn to begin his work every morning, that he never did so without looking out at that field with some apprehension… and perhaps just a bit of anticipation.
That sound you just heard, that faint death rattle? That was journalism's last dying breath. Yup, the centuries old craft of reporting news finally kicked the f**king bucket!
And, before you starting pointing any fingers, also us to direct your attention to this:
CNN has been caught red handed.
You know the enigma surrounding the missing Malaysian airplane? Those scruple-free newsmen and women have been milking that mystery for two months, but their 24/7 tragedy coverage might have finally just crossed the line!
In a "scientific" poll they conducted, the cable news network asked fans and followers whether they thought Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was… wait for it… wait for it… abducted by space aliens, time travelers, or perhaps even beings from another dimension!!!
What!? SERIOUSLY!
In case you were wondering, 9% of those who responded to the asinine inquiry said it was likely that the aliens/time travelers/inter-dimensional beings played a part in the plane's disappearance. See the pic (below)!
Ugh! How disconcerting!
The real story, though, is how low CNN sank to indulge any wackadoo theory that might be good for TV ratings or internet clicks!!
We expected better from you!!! What happened to raising the bar on public discourse?
An Air Force U-2 spy plane was conducting training operations in the area
(DVIDS Image)
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — The failure of the primary air traffic control system around Los Angeles last week happened because electronic data from a single plane's flight plan confused the system's software, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
When that system failed, a backup helped safely guide flights already in the air, but hundreds of planes across the nation headed for Southern California were ordered not to take off Wednesday as an air traffic control facility north of Los Angeles effectively rebooted.
The Pentagon confirmed Monday that an Air Force U-2 spy plane was conducting training operations in the area. It is not unusual for a U-2 to operate in the region, and the necessary flight plan had been submitted for the high-flying plane, Col. Steve Warren said.
FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford would not specify whether the flight plan that caused the issue was that of the U-2.
"It was an individual flight plan and the issue had to do with the way it was coded," he said.
Since the incident, the FAA has been analyzing what went wrong with its En Route Automation Modernization system. The computer system, known as ERAM, allows air traffic controllers at several dozen "en route centers" around the country to identify and direct planes at high altitudes.
The Los Angeles en route center is located at the Palmdale Regional Airport, about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. It controls high altitude air traffic over southern and central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and western Arizona — except airspace designated for military use.
When the system went down, air traffic controllers in Palmdale had to call their counterparts at neighboring centers to update them on each plane's flight plan, according to Nate Pair, the president for Los Angeles Center of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. While that was more onerous than normal operations — when computers automatically pass along updates — the system still worked, Pair said.
"Not knowing why it was happening is the reason why we decided to shut everything down," he said. "They're searching to find the cause of the glitch, and we're waiting analysis on that."
Last month, after two years of hard work, “Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” was published. Co-written with the two ex-US Air Force witnesses at the heart of the Rendlesham Forest incident, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, this new book tells the story of the UFO encounter that is increasingly being seen as bigger and more compelling than Roswell, and is often now regarded as ufology’s ‘flagship case’, not just by ufologists, but by TV networks and production companies, who have featured the case in at least half a dozen new documentaries in the last year, with more in the pipeline.
Now that our book has been published, I can finally reveal a few facts that could not have been disclosed previously. The first is that this is the only UFO book ever to have required security clearance from both the American and the British governments. This was because of my previous service with the Ministry of Defence, and the fact that John Burroughs and Jim Penniston both served with the United States Air Force. While all three of us have now left government/military service, our respective security oaths bind us for life. This, together with the extreme sensitivity of some of the information that we wanted to include, made this a very difficult book to write.
The marketing and publicity plan for the book had to be kept secret too, and the big news is that in the UK, the book was serialized by the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail is the UK’s second best-selling national daily newspaper, and needless to say, it’s extremely rare for the mainstream media to highlight a UFO book in this way, so that the story reaches literally millions of people. The deal – skillfully negotiated by the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency – propelled the book to number 35 in Amazon’s UK book chart. Most UFO books never break out of the paranormal niche and onto the main bestseller list in this way.
In the US, I was interviewed on The Alan Colmes Show on Fox News Radio, and wrote a tie-in feature on US government UFO investigation for the prestigious St. Martin’s Press history blog/newsletter, “The History Reader”. As I write, there’s more mainstream media coverage in the pipeline, both in the US and the UK.
The most difficult aspect of the book is the so-called binary code message. This relates to the sequence of ones and zeroes that Jim Penniston believes he received as a “telepathic download” when he touched the side of the UFO. He wrote them down in his police notebook later, at home, under what he believes to have been some sort of compulsion.
The “Rendlesham Code”, as it’s being called, has rapidly become the most controversial story in ufology today. Is it really, as some believe, a message from extraterrestrials, or from humanity’s far future? Or is it something implanted into Jim’s memory by a combination of the drugs and hypnosis that we now know were used on at least five of the main witnesses as part of the post-incident interrogations administered while some of the personnel involved were still in shock? The debate is ongoing.
Many people have attempted to translate the Rendlesham Code. The best-known suggestion so far is “Exploration of humanity. Continuous for planetary advance. Eyes of your eyes. Origin year 8100”. Also included is a list of geographical co-ordinates which seem to match up with a number of mysterious and ancient sites such as the Great Pyramid in Egypt and the Nazca Lines in Peru. Another co-ordinate corresponds with the fabled location of the ‘lost continent’ of Hy-Brasil, a supposed sunken island in the Atlantic, off the West coast of Ireland, sometimes dubbed the “Celtic Atlantis”.
At first glance, this all seems pretty impressive. The New Age and alternative belief communities are certainly very excited about this and the internet is buzzing with ideas, e.g. the suggestion that dives be organized to investigate the Hy-Brasil site. The whole saga is rapidly becoming a real-life Da Vinci Code.
To some people’s surprise, I’ve been cautious about the Rendlesham Code and reluctant to leap to conclusions. I think people are coming at the problem from a very anthropocentric viewpoint and my government training has taught me to be wary of obvious solutions, which can often be misleading – sometimes because that’s the intention, e.g. in the shadowy world of counter-intelligence! Sometimes, people see what they want to see, and the list of ‘sacred sites’ in the Rendlesham Code, for example, reads just a little bit too much like a New Age holiday wish-list for me. It’s all a little too clichéd.
If there’s a message here, my guess is that it’s buried much deeper in the code. A message within a message, perhaps. If I still worked for the Ministry of Defence I would have run the Rendlesham Code through a GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters – the UK equivalent of the NSA) supercomputer. But this option was no longer open to me, though pre-submitting the book to the US and the UK governments for security clearance doubtless gave the authorities a chance to examine the code prior to publication.
Now that the Rendlesham Code has been published in full, in our book, everyone can have a go at deciphering it. Who will be the first to crack the code? Will it be the NSA or GCHQ, or will a private corporation like Bigelow Aerospace beat government to the finish line? A Silicon Valley start-up, perhaps, or a more established tech giant? I now spend much of each year in San Jose, at the heart of Silicon Valley, and it’s clear to me that all the big players are investing heavily in Artificial Intelligence. Google’s recent purchase of the DeepMind AI firm is one such indicator, as is Facebook’s creation of an artificial intelligence research group. IBM, Microsoft and Apple are also in the race, along with many others – some of whom are keeping their involvement secret.
My own view – and perhaps my hope – is that if there’s to be an answer, it will come from the public. Experts such as computer systems engineer Joe Luciano, web developer Nick Ciske and esoteric researcher Gary Osborn have already put countless hours of work into the Rendlesham Code, and now that “Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” has been published, many others are following suit. What they might discover remains to be seen, but for anyone with aninterest in UFOs and the unexplained, this ongoing story is one to watch.
Nick Pope is a former employee of the UK Ministry of Defense. From 1991 to 1994 he ran the British Government's UFO project and has recently been involved in a five-year initiative to declassify and release the entire archive of these UFO files. Nick Pope held a number of other fascinating posts in the course of his 21-year government career, which culminated in his serving as an acting Deputy Director in the Directorate of Defense Security. He now works as a broadcaster and journalist, covering subjects including space, fringe science, defense and intelligence. Nick Pope’s latest book, Encounter in Rendlesham Forest, co-written with John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, was published by Thomas Dunne Books on 15th April and is available via Amazon and all good bookstores.
"For years scientists have speculated that there could be life on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, deep beneath the surface and outside the goldilocks zone. So therefore the roadblocks zone in irrelevant in many ways."
"The historical relationship between science and philosophy has not been a friendly one. Philosophers like to start with their conclusions, and work to prove them. When it came to trying to figure out what the world was like, philosophers tended to argue about what the world should be like. Science was born as a rejection of this method. Its goal was to figure out what the world was really all about, and its primary tool was actual experimentation."
"We've all seen philosophy at its worst. Philosophers are often completely disconnected from reality and, more recently, don't care. Rationalism, the view that only deductive knowledge is really reliable, is commonplace. Philosophers often expound their ideas from armchairs and ivory towers, where the facts of reality don't concern them."
"It's not surprising science would want to distance itself from philosophy. It becomes even more personal for the scientist when he's told that he must conform to preconceived views of the world. It started with Galileo having to renounce his scientific views on astronomy, but continued through the ages. Countless other scientists have had to hide their views on topics like evolution, the age of the earth and the existence of glaciers, with a range of punishments from the inquisition and burning at the stake to losing their jobs or financing. Philosophy, often in the form of religion, does not seek the truth. It seeks believers, and the truth is an enemy."
"Dr Mack’s credentials provided him with some measure of protection from critics"... "Nonetheless, in 1994, the Dean of Harvard Medical School appointed a committee of peers to confidentially review Mack’s clinical care and clinical investigation of the people who had shared their alien encounters with him. Because the committee was not a disciplinary committee it was not governed by any established rules of procedure; the presentation of a defense was therefore difficult costly for Mack."
John Mack hiking in 1998 (photograph courtesy of the family of Dr. Mack).
"Upon the public revelation of the existence of the committee (inadvertently revealed during the solicitation of witnesses for Mack’s defense, ten months into the process), questions arose from the academic community (including Harvard’s own Professor of Law Alan Dershowitz) about the validity of an open-ended investigation of a fulltime professor who was not subject to any claim of ethics violation or professional misconduct. After fourteen months of inquiry, Harvard issued a statement stating that the Dean had “reaffirmed Dr. Mack’s academic freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment,” concluding “Dr. Mack remains a member in good standing of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine.”
"In the 1980s, Mack interviewed many international political figures as part of his research into the root causes of the Cold War, including former President Jimmy Carter and the “father of the hydrogen bomb”, Edward Teller. Together with luminaries such as Carl Sagan, Mack and other Physicians for Social Responsibility (the US affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) promoted the elimination of nuclear weapons and an end to the simmering conflict between the United States and the USSR. Emboldened by the organization’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, Mack, Sagan, and 700 other academics walked upon the grounds of the Nevada Test Site in the summer of 1986, setting a civil disobedience record for that nuclear weapons testing facility."
Roswell has long been everyone’s favourite UFO case. Mainly, that’s because almost everyone has heard about it: “Roswell? Oh yeah, the place where a UFO crashed, right?”
But last year, the last primary witness – Jesse Marcel Junior – died, and the UFO community realised something important, namely that it doesn’t say much for ufology if the subject’s so-called flagship case is one that happened nearly 70 years ago, with nobody left alive to tell the story first-hand. It was something of a gift to the sceptics. Couldn’t ufology come up with something better? Fortunately, it could.
TV networks and production companies led the way. Knowing that the lack of witnesses made it very difficult to make new shows on Roswell, they began to focus instead on the Rendlesham Forest incident. It was the ‘perfect storm’ of a UFO case: a UFO that landed next to two US military bases (Bentwaters and Woodbridge) in the UK, at the height of the Cold War, and was witnessed by dozens of military personnel. The UFO was seen on three consecutive nights and witnesses included the Deputy Base Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt.
The Rendlesham Forest incident wasn’t just ‘lights in the sky’. The UFO landed, and on the first, night two United States Air Force security police officers, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, approached the craft.
Jim Penniston made sketches in his police notebook, showing the craft, and strange symbols that he saw on its side, which he likened to Egyptian hieroglyphs. (Seen Below)
Penniston touched the craft, and at this point received what he could only describe as a “telepathic download” of ones and zeroes, which many in the UFO and alternative belief community think is a binary code message, perhaps from extraterrestrials, or maybe from the far future. This ‘Rendlesham Code’ has fast become the most controversial story in ufology today, and has probably featured in at least a dozen TV shows recently, with more in the pipeline.
What makes the Rendlesham Forest incident bigger and more compelling than Roswell is the physical evidence. The UFO was tracked on military radar. The trees in the clearing where the UFO landed had braches smashed off and were scorched – but only on the sides facing the UFO. There were indentations in the frozen ground, showing where the object – estimated to weight several tonnes – landed. Radiation levels recorded at the landing site were assessed by the MoD’s Defence Intelligence Staff as “significantly higher than the average background”. Best of all, the MoD’s case file (now declassified and made public) showed that the senior US Air Force general in Europe flew to the twin bases of Bentwaters and Woodbridge after the landing, was briefed on the incident, and took evidence back to his HQ – without telling the UK authorities! And this took place at a time when the US government’s official line was that it no longer investigated UFOs!
I teamed up with John Burroughs and Jim Penniston recently to write a book on the case. “Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” was serialised in the Daily Mail last Saturday and reached number 35 in the Amazon book charts as a consequence. It’s the only UFO book ever to have required security clearance from both the American and British government.
So, Roswell is dead. Long live Rendlesham Forest!
Nick Pope’s latest book, Encounter in Rendlesham Forest, was published on 15th April. Click here for details.
"One lowlight came along in December 1974 when Dickinson, as editor, penned a story that seriously examined the supposed UFO-abduction story of Betty and Barney Hill in “The Zeta Reticuli Incident.” The Hills had allegedly drawn a star map from memory based on seeing our solar system from the perspective of this nearby star, Zeta Reticuli. The fact that the magazine covered such an absurd thing set back the credibility of the title for a while, and Dickinson left in mid-1975. (Staff members at the magazine later referred to this legendary story as “The Zeta Ridiculi Incident.”)"
"Ithink that there are probably many advanced civilizations within our local neighborhood on planets around some of the 2300 stars within 54 light years, especially the 46 that are very similar to the sun. The driving fact here is that we have only had fancy technology for perhaps 100 years. But the earth is about 4.5 billion years old and has been suitable for life for well over a billion years."
"Just down the street, 39.4 light years away, we find a pair of sun-like stars, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli. These are only an 1/8 of a light year apart from each other, but are a billion years older than the sun. In other words, there has been a great deal of time for other civilizations to establish themselves. Having an easily observable neighbor nearby would provide far more incentive for the development of interstellar travel than we have out here in the boondocks. My view is, per a fine analogy from physicist Beatriz Gabo Rivera, that we are like the gorillas in a nature preserve in Africa who know nothing about what is going on outside the preserve. I think aliens have been traipsing around the neighborhood for a very long time indeed. I think it is hilarious that Dr. Seth Shostak, one of the noisier SETI guys, says there is nobody at ZR 1 or ZR 2, because they were listened to by a Southern Radio Observatory 10 years ago. One would think he knows what equipment and frequency alien communicators way ahead of us would use, and that they are trying to attract our attention, which is totally absurd."
"Chris Gibson has been described as one of the world’s experts in aircraft recognition, and in international recognition tournaments where a long distance shot of an aircraft would be flashed on a screen for a fraction of a second. At the time of the sighting, he was writing an aircraft recognition manual."
"In August 1989, Chris Gibson, a Scottish oil-exploration engineer and, at the time, a member of the British Royal Observer Corps (ROC), was working on the oil rig Galveston Key in the North Sea when he noticed an aircraft in the shape of a pure isoceles triangle refuelling from a KC-135 Stratotanker alongside two F-111s.
The unknown aircraft, cruising in a formation northward through Air-to-Air Refuelling Area (AARA) 6A, is what people have come to believe, is the mysterious Aurora hypersonic spyplane. Another possible aircraft, which could have been seen over the North Sea however, is Northrop's A-17 stealth attack plane. Chris Gibson's observation of the mysterious flying triangle is often cited by UFO researchers when the subject of Aurora rises. Below, Chris Gibson explains precisely what happened, as well as giving an insight into himself."
Aurora, Texas was Roswell before Roswell: a middle-of-nowhere town that suddenly became surrounded by legend when an alleged alien visitor crash-landed from outer space.
On this date in 1897 the alien UFO allegedly smashed into a windmill belonging to Judge J.S. Proctor. It's pilot, who an officer from a local Army outpost described as a "Martian" and "not of this world" died and was buried in the cemetery nearby.
The reported crash was one of several American alien mysteries of the mid-1890s, but the most notable one (if not only) recorded in Texas.
Today, the only reminder of the visit, which occurred on this date in 1897, is a small historical marker near the Aurora Cemetery.
Buried deep in its stories of town founders and war heroes is a single line about the visitor supposedly buried in an unmarked grave there:
"The oldest known graves, here, dating from as early as the 1860s, are those of the Randall and Rowlett families. Finis Dudley Beauchamp (1825-1893), a Confederate veteran from Mississippi, donated the 3-acre site to the newly- formed Aurora Lodge No. 479, A.F. & A.M., in 1877. For many years, this community burial ground was known as Masonic Cemetery. Beauchamp, his wife Caroline (1829-1915), and others in their family. An epidemic which struck the village in 1891 added hundreds of graves to the plot. Called "Spotted Fever" by the settlers, the disease is now thought to be a form of meingitis. Located in Aurora Cemetery is the gravestone of the infant Nellie Burris (1891-1893) with its often-quoted epitaph: "As I was so soon done, I don't know why I was begun." This site is also well-known because of the legend that a spaceship crashed nearby in 1897 and the pilot, killed in the crash, was buried here. Struck by epidemic and crop failure and bypassed by the railroad, the original town of Aurora almost disappeared, but the cemetery remains in use with over 800 graves. Veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts are interred here."
The single line seems about as interested as Aurora is in becoming famous from the supposed crash.
On the 110th anniversary of the crash, former Houston Chronicle writer Eyder Peralta (now with NPR) visited Aurora, 30 miles north of Fort Worth and found the townsfolk mostly apathetic about the alien visitor then, or the scores of new human visitors who have come to visit the infamous crash site.
The visitors had been fun at first, but when they began trampling the cemetery and stealing headstones and other artifacts from the city museum, the town's notoriety became a nuisance.
In the 1970s, a group from the International UFO Bureau showed up to exhume the body – media in tow – but were turned away by angry residents.
"There was quite a mess," one resident, Karen Tedrow, told Peralta. "The residents had guns and everything, because they didn't want them to do it. And I understand, because my parents are buried there, and I don't want them digging around. Earthly body or not, they ought to let it rest in peace."
Boeings Airborne Laser (ABL) will locate and track missiles in the boost phase of their flight, then accurately point and fire the high-energy laser,destroying enemy missiles near their launch areas.
... retired USAF Major Florenze Mansmann, the officer who actually analyzed the film at Vandenberg AFB in 1964, has written: "The [UFO's] shape was [a] classic disc. The center seemed to be a raised bubble … the entire lower saucer shape was glowing and seemed to be rotating slowly. At the point of beam release—if it was a beam, it, the object, turned like an object required to be in a position tofire from a platform … but again this could be my assumption from being in aerial combat."
Published: 13:13 GMT, 14 April 2014 | Updated: 16:55 GMT, 14 April 2014
Weather experts have been baffled by a black ring which appeared in the sky above Leamington Spa on Friday evening.
Schoolgirl Georgina Heap was playing tennis with her mother Jo Heap when she looked up at the sky near Warwick castle and saw a mysterious black ring.
She photographed the circle on her iPhone but so far, no one can explain the origin of the strange black mark.
Scroll down for video
Georgina Heap, 16, took the photograph on her iPhone on Friday evening. The ring was seen in the sky above Leamington Spa, near Warwick castle
The ring remained in the sky for around three minutes before disappearing completely.
The circle resembles a giant smoke ring but Warwickshire Fire and Rescue service said that there had been no reports of fire at the time of the sighting.
The Met Office said that the ring did not appear to be weather-related.
Nick Pope, an expert on UFOs and a previous government adviser on unexplained phenomena, said he believed the circle to be 'organic'.
He said: 'It's a truly bizarre image. It looks like a smoke ring, but I can't see where it could have come from.
'Other alternatives would include some sort of unusual meteorological phenomenon.
'One other possibility is that the shape is made up of millions of bees or other insects, but I've never heard of insects behaving in this way before, so if this is the explanation, it's a real-life X-File.'
What is this curious black ring seen in Leamington Spa?
Georgina Heap took the picture of the strange black ring on her iPhone. The 16-year-old described the sighting as 'the weirdest thing I have ever seen'
Nick Pope, an expert on UFO sightings and former government adviser, said he believed the circle may be a swarm of insects in the sky
Miss Heap, who is studying for her GCSEs, described the circle as 'the weirdest thing I have ever seen'.
She said: 'I looked up at it and thought ‘what the hell?’,it was amazing.
'It was just floating there like a cloud and then it disappeared. It wasn’t birds either.
'There were about ten of us who stopped what we were doing and watched.'
The black circle appeared in the sky near Warwick castle. It stayed there for around three minutes before vanishing. The local fire service said it had received no reports of fire on Friday evening
Last Sunday night the Dutch current affairs programme Brandpunt (equivalent of 60 Minutes), which is aired on the Dutch public broadcasting organization KRO, covered the UFO topic (which included investigative journalist Leslie Kean, Captain Ray Bowyer, retired Major General Wilfried De Brouwer, Jose Laye (director of CEFAA)). The coverage was short; however, it was treated in a positive and serious manner which doesn't happen that often in the mainstream (national) media. I suspect the diehard skeptics (ideological debunkers) were on leave ;) because they justly didn't appear in the coverage. Below you can watch the programme which is not entirely in English.
Aflevering KRO Brandpunt met Coen Vermeeren over buitenaards bezoek
Zondagavond in KRO Brandpunt om 22.35 op Nederland 2 is Coen Vermeeren te gast geweest. Coen Vermeeren is auteur van het boek Ufo’s bestaan gewoon, uitgegeven door Uitgeverij AnkhHermes. Vanavond in de aflevering gaat het over buitenaards bezoek. Het is zo’n onderwerp dat meestal lacherig wordt besproken en vaker nog belachelijk wordt gemaakt: het bestaan van UFO’s. Vliegende schotels. Maar de afgelopen jaren zijn er alleen al in Nederland zes meldingen geweest van de luchtverkeerleiding en van piloten die een object hebben gezien waarvan ze niet weten wat het is. Aart Zeeman over de vraag of we al jaren worden bezocht door buitenaardsen of dat het gewoon een onbegrepen aards fenomeen is. ‘Verstandige’ mensen geloven niet in ufo’s. Geïnformeerde mensen weten dat dit ook niet meer hoeft; ufo’s bestaan namelijk gewoon. Er is inmiddels zoveel over bekend dat ontkennen niet alleen zinloos, maar ook buitengewoon naïef is. Wetenschapper Coen Vermeeren pleit met Ufo’s bestaan gewoon voor meer wetenschappelijke openheid en debat. Ufo’s bestaan en dat heeft grote consequenties. De wetenschap is volledig overtuigd van het bestaan van buitenaards leven, maar niet dat andere beschavingen ons zouden kunnen bereiken. Ondertussen bestaan er wel, naast officiële rapporten, vele duizenden betrouwbare getuigenverslagen en beelden van ufo’s. Waarom praten we er dan niet over? Is het angst – voor buitenaardsen of om bespot te worden? Hoe het ook zij, Coen Vermeeren vindt dat er onterecht weinig serieuze aandacht is voor dit belangrijke onderwerp. Ufo’s bestaan gewoon is zijn eerste stap in de richting van een open discussie. Een uitgebreid boek met gedegen informatie over onbekende vliegende objecten, hun bestuurders en hoe de wereld hiermee omgaat. Ufo’s bestaan gewoon draait om de vragen: wat valt er te zien, wie hebben wat gezien en hoe betrouwbaar zijn die gegevens? Daarnaast is er de kwestie van de wereldwijde cover-up: is die er echt, en waarom? Vermeeren gaat in op belangrijke ufo-ijkpunten als Roswell, de ufo- golf in België en de relatie tussen ufo’s en nucleaire wapens. Ook getuigenissen van astronauten, militairen, piloten en zelfs Amerikaanse presidenten komen aan bod. Vermeeren is niet bang om te speculeren over de belangrijke vraag waaróm ufo’s hier komen. ‘Hoewel we al vele jaren horen over onbekende objecten in ons luchtruim, brengt Vermeerens uitdagende overzicht van wat we hierover weten en niet weten ons tot een belangrijke conclusie: we moeten de vele getuigen serieus nemen en onze wetenschappers hier onderzoek naar laten doen’. Prof. Dr. Herman Wijffels, econoom
Secret Surveillance Of Ufologists: Diary of A Real-Life Fox Mulder
People in the UFO and conspiracy theory communities often claim that the government keeps them under surveillance. The debate has come more sharply into focus recently, following revelations from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and the resultant media storm over bugging, interception of communications, and the secret state more generally.
But is there any truth in this? Has the Ministry of Defence ever kept tabs on ufologists? Well, actually – yes! There were three strands to this, and I have direct knowledge and experience of all of them, from my time on the MoD’s UFO project.
The first strand was the understandable need to check out ufologists who were taking a close interest in military bases. It wasn’t inconceivable that someone could use ufology as a cover for terrorism or espionage-related activity, perhaps embedding themselves within a UFO organisation. If someone was caught taking long-lens photos of a military base, but claimed their only interest was in checking out rumours that crashed UFOs or alien bodies were being kept there, what were we to do? Say, “Oh, that’s all right then”, and let them go, or check them out? The latter, obviously. More than one well-known ufologist has fallen foul of the Ministry of Defence Police around bases rumoured to have a UFO connection, such as RAF Rudloe Manor in Wiltshire.
The second reason for monitoring the activity of ufologists had to do with the fact that the UFO community takes a close interest in secret prototype aircraft and drones – sightings of which sometimes generate UFO reports. There were particular concerns if, for example, ufologists claimed to have leaked copies of classified documents. Clearly such claims couldn’t be ignored, and needed to be investigated. My way of keeping an eye on all this was to subscribe (using a dummy name and a PO Box) to various UFO magazines and publications. It wasn’t quite as obvious as “Mr John Smith, PO Box 007, Whitehall”, and I think we got away with it, until the recently- completed declassification and release of the MoD’s UFO files, when the truth emerged. But the mainstream media either missed or ignored the story. In parallel with this, before my face became known, I attended some UFO conferences covertly, and submitted reports back to the MoD’s Defence Intelligence Staff. At least one such report has now been declassified and released, but again, the media somehow missed the significance of this.
The final strand of this official surveillance was the most low-tech, and simply involved my reaching out to various UFO organisations and individual researchers, asking them to send me material that might help us make a better determination of what we might be dealing with, in relation to the UFO phenomenon. This seemed a sensible way to gain a fuller understanding of what data might be out there, and there was nothing particularly underhand about this. It often involved arranging lunches with ufologists, or asking them to send in case files so that I could take a look. People were generally thrilled and flattered that the MoD was taking an interest in their work, and I hardly ever had any problems getting what I wanted. There was seldom any fallout, though on one occasion I recall a huge row breaking out within the ranks of the British UFO Research Association, when somebody found out that one of their key officials had sent their alien abduction case files to the MoD!
Does such surveillance continue, now that the MoD’s UFO project has been axed? And does such monitoring go beyond ufology, into the wider conspiracy theory and alternative belief community? Now that I’m out of government, I don’t know. And if I did know, I probably wouldn’t be able to say so.
Nick Pope is one of the speakers at the 2014 Ozark Mountain UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on April 11-13. Click here for details.
Het is zo’n onderwerp dat meestal lacherig wordt besproken en vaker nog belachelijk wordt gemaakt: het bestaan van UFO’s. Vliegende schotels. Maar de afgelopen jaren zijn er alleen al in Nederland zes meldingen geweest van de luchtverkeerleiding en van piloten die een object hebben gezien waarvan ze niet weten wat het is. Aart Zeeman over de vraag of we al jaren worden bezocht door buitenaardsen of dat het gewoon een onbegrepen aards fenomeenis.
Deze uitzending is te zien op 13 april 2014 om 22:35 uur op Nederland 2.
Ed Fouche Disclosure in 1998 was the first time in public to reveal the Top Secret TR-3B Astra, and the associated secret technology. This whole show talks about the TR-3B, flying triangles, the two MJ-12 (Top Secret Majestic Twelve committee) documents we disclosed in our book. 'Alien Rapture' and a lot more of what I've spoken of for the last thirty years, and publically since 1998. This is the FIRST time that the TR-3B has been discussed on TV since I revealed it When I talked about quasicrystals, metamaterials, solid hydrogen and cloaking & stealth electronic countermeasures in 1998, nobody in the public and most of academia had never heard of any of these terms.
Hangar 1 files reveal that President Ronald Reagan's personal encounters with UFOsmay have been the driving force behind his "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative. I've debated scientists and engineers for 15 years over these matters. They always have that smirking (smug) air about them that they think I'm full of shit and they know everything. So up yours failed experts. Daniel Schechtman won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for Chemistry AND his research was based on 'Quasicrystals' which I disclosed in 1998.
Metamaterials, quasicrystals, and solid hydrogen, are hot topic research programs now and in the last few years. I wrote and talked about, how these technologies and science would revolutionize:
1. Che a p energy technologies,
2. Cloaking and invisibility using quasicrystals
3. Stealth & ECM,
4. Exotic propulsion advances
5. Space technology and military space forces (Space Fleet)
6. One stage to orbit military aerospace vehicles/platforms
7. Gravity warping to greatly reduce weight/mass of platform,
Disclosure! As Clinton Claims- Alien Attack ‘Only Way '
Comments made by former US President Bill Clinton about an alien invasion have ignited speculation on the net that the powers-that-be may be preparing us for either that eventuality or that they may be resurrecting the alien invasion false-flag operation to suppress dissent.
Speaking on US network channel ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, last night, Clinton said: "If we were visited someday I wouldn’t be surprised. [...] It may be the only way to unite this increasingly divided world of ours … think about [how] all the differences among people of Earth would seem small if we feel threatened by a space invader. That’s the whole theory of Independence Day. Everybody gets together and makes nice.”
Nick Pope, who ran MoD’s UFO Desk and is an expert on the subject, welcomed Clinton's mainstream disclosure, calling it: "Great news for UFO believers and conspiracy theorists. "
"The suspicion, of course, is that Clinton knows more but can't say it directly," he added, speaking exclusively to Neon Nettle, "and is hinting at a secret so big and perhaps so terrible that even a former president is unable or unwilling to disclose it. "
Talk of a secret 'so big' and 'so terrible' will likely reverberate around Internet sites dedicated to proving 'we are not alone' and will stir debate that we are on the point of 'disclosure', the time when our human overlords will be told to reveal their archives about alien visitation and technology by their alien masters.
Clinton made similar but more subtle comments at a conference put on by the Saudi Arabian government in 2011. It was a conference where the world’s elite met, including Clinton, Blair and other top people around the world. Disclosure was discussed openly and informally.
"[Clinton] delivered the keynote address, using part of it to discuss what I think he clearly believed would be the day we'd find out that we're not alone," said Pope, who also spoke at the Saudi government conference. "Ronald Reagan dropped similar hints in a speech to the United Nations, in 1987 -- and had a sighting himself -- before he was President."
Other commentators took a more sceptical and less thankful line, pointing out that the elite have reportedly been using the spectre of alien invasion to perform the ultimate false-flag operation on an unsuspecting humanity.
"Think about it." said David Shayler, the former MI5 officer and Truth Campaigner, also speaking exclusively to Neon Nettle.
"This would be a false-flag with consequences even greater than 9/11. The powers-that-be could argue that the very future of our species would have been at stake, meaning they could take any action they wished to 'protect' us and the planet."
“Given that the powers-that-be have in recent months tried and failed to start the Third World War in Syria and then Ukraine, they are increasingly desperate to find a solution to concern about their collapsing economies. The false-flag alien invasion would provide the ultimate distraction.”
"They could lock up -- or worse execute -- any refuseniks, claiming that we could not risk hearing dissenting voices,when we had to all pull together to see off an unparalleled threat," Neon Nettle columnist Shayler added. "There would be no free press, no free speech, no rights to free movement or association, no right to hold property, material or intellectual.
"Ironically it would signal the end of 'life as we know it' and bring about virtually overnight the sort of world they have been trying to impose on us for many decades."
Clinton also told the Jimmy Kimmel Live that when President he had his White House staff review all the material on Roswell, the site where an alien craft allegedly crashed in the New Mexico desert in 1947. They also -- he said -- researched the entire list of places featured on the then-popular television show The X-Files, including Area 51 — the infamous Nevada military base — just “to make sure there was no alien down there.”
READ: Shocking! Clinton Admits To Wanting False-Flag Alien Invasion Here.
READ: Post X-Files Blues: Diary of a Real-Life Fox Mulder Here.
This documentary from British UFO researcher Richard D. Hall below re strange mutilations and NATO's alleged active involvement with UFOs in general and human mutilations in particular reminded me of a Belgian UFO researcher and former Belgian soldier (paratrooper) who passed away several years ago and who told me that he and other military men during a mission in Norway were taken to a deep underground US facility in Norway by black helicopters. He was asked by Americans in civilian clothing if he was interested in science and UFOs. They asked him if he would be willing to collect UFO information after his retirement from the army. He agreed to do so and after his active army service he collected UFO information which he had to deliver to the US Embassy in Brussels. He got a pass and identification coin with the inscription "On Site Inspection Agency". I was not at liberty to disclose his identity. I promised him I wouldn't do that. So, I'm keeping this promise (so as not to jeopardize his family in any way). He e-mailed me the image of this OSIA coin. However, he allowed me to find out if other researchers have been aware of this organization. So, I contacted Jerry Clark, Nick Pope and Stanton Friedman. Nick and Stan replied. Their replies can be found in the enclosed e-mails dating back from April-May 2007.
In2009 Richplanet produced “Silent Killers”: A documentary exposing the truth about animal mutilation in the UK, and attempts by authorities to cover up what is happening. Animal carcases including horses, sheep and cows have been discovered regularly having undergone surgical procedures, where blood and organs are cleanly removed. The phenomenon is difficult to explain in conventional terms, and has been linked for decades with UFO’s, because strange lights are sometimes witnessed in proximity to sites where animal carcases are found. A question people ask when they hear about animal mutilation is whether human beings have suffered similar attacks. This film attempts to answer this very controversial question. Rumours about human mutilation have circulated the UFO community for years with some people claiming to have had contact with a military group which is used to acquire the corpses of victims of human mutilation. In the film we reveal the testimony of a black ops soldier, who was employed by a secret NATO “find and secure” military team. Their job is to search for and then protect sites where human mutilation has taken place until another team arrives to remove the evidence. A staggering claim revealed in the film is the level of advanced knowledge NATO has of UFO activity, and technology used to intercept UFOs in attempts to bring them to the ground. The “find and secure” team would be sent out to locations before UFO activity had taken place, indicating NATO has some sort of advanced intelligence about the behaviour of UFOs. Our source also claims NATO has technology with the capability of immobilising UFOs which it has used to acquire them.
Mysterious UFO appears on Mississippi trail camera
Home / Featured / Mysterious UFO appears on Mississippi trail camera
Owners of a trail camera were perplexed when they discovered it had taken photos of strange lights on the night of February 16.
Rainer and Edith Shattles live on 150 acres in the Cumbest Bluff area of Jackson County, Mississippi. They have trail cameras set up around the property to view the various wildlife regularly seen in the area. The cameras took photos of deer on February 16, but strange lights appear in some of the photos.
Mysterious lights captured on a trail cam. (Credit: Rainer and Edith Shattles/WLOX)
The timeline of the pictures is clear. At 7:24pm, deer appear and all is normal. At 7:29, a dim light appears. At 7:35, it gets brighter. Then at 7:53, a weird shape appears on the camera. The deer are lit up brightly, but how? The cameras are infrared and don’t emit light. At 7:56, another sharper light appears, then it gets much closer, seemingly focused on the deer. It looks like headlights, but well off the ground and there is no road. It then flies away.
In another photo, a deer appears to be looking at an unknown light source.
Mr. Shattles is puzzled by the mysterious lights, but he doesn’t think extraterrestrials are responsible. He explains to WLOX, “Well, if it’s alien, I’m not sure about that. But it’s definitely a UFO. Now whether it’s a government drone or what, I wish if nothing else, one of them would step up and say, ‘Yes, that’s ours.’”
Nowadays, when the media reaches out to the US government for a quote on a UFO story, the response is a polite “no comment”, referral to a dismissive statement on the Department of Defense website, and the suggestion that people interested in the subject should contact civilian UFO organizations. It wasn’t always like this. Back in the forties, fifties and sixties, the issue was taken seriously by the United States Air Force and the Pentagon, and the subject even attracted congressional and presidential interest. It’s probably a story that DOD press officers would prefer to gloss over, but it’s a fascinating piece of Cold War history and it shines a light on an era when Hollywood sci-fi movies led many people to believe that an alien invasion was just as likely as a Soviet invasion.
Throughout human history, people have seen strange things in the skies. Meteors and fireballs were once seen as signs from the gods. But the modern UFO phenomenon dates back to the Second World War, when pilots on bombing missions reported strange balls of light (and sometimes unusual aircraft) following their planes. Allied pilots thought they were some sort of Axis secret weapon, but there was no apparent hostility and after the war it transpired that Axis pilots had seen similar things. These objects were dubbed “Foo Fighters.”
On June 24, 1947, a light aircraft pilot called Kenneth Arnold saw nine delta-shaped craft flying over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. He described how they moved in a strange, jerky fashion, “like a saucer skipped across water.” The media coined the phrase “flying saucer,” and reports were soon coming in from all over America— and indeed from all around the world. A modern mystery was born.
Letter from Kenneth Arnold to Army Air Force intelligence, July 12, 1947.
Via Wikimedia Commons. A couple of weeks later, in early July, a rancher in New Mexico noticed some strange debris on his land and contacted the local military base at Roswell. The debris was taken back to the base and the military drew up a press release suggesting that the flying saucer mystery was about to be solved: “The many rumors regarding the flying disk became a reality yesterday when the intelligence officer of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disk,” the text began. The story was picked up by numerous media outlets, yet in a move that gave rise to conspiracy theories that persist to this day, within 24 hours a retraction was put out, with the military authorities stating that a mistake had been made and that the debris had been from a crashed weather balloon.
Roswell quickly faded from public consciousness, in a way that would never be possible now, given the internet, new media, and social networking sites. The story was largely forgotten until some of the original military witnesses started telling their stories in the late seventies. But back in 1947, while Roswell faded from memories, the flying saucer phenomenon did not. Sightings came in thick and fast, and the United States Air Force set up a small team to investigate. The thinking was that these objects were more likely to be Russian than Martian. Indeed, fears that UFOs might be foreign military aircraft underpinned official interest in the subject in countries all around the world.
The USAF’s program to look into the flying saucer phenomenon was codenamed Project Sign. This was later changed to Project Grudge, and in a final alteration, in 1953, became Project Blue Book. One of Project Blue Book’s most far-reaching decisions was to invent a more scientific-sounding term for the phenomenon than “flying saucer”. “Unidentified Flying Object” was chosen, and was soon abbreviated to the more familiar UFO.
Over the course of its existence, this USAF program investigated 12,618 UFO sightings. Most turned out to be misidentifications of ordinary objects or phenomena such as aircraft lights, bright stars and planets, meteors, weather balloons, or swamp gas. There were a few hoaxes too. But there were some more interesting cases, including ones where UFOs were seen (and sometimes chased) by military pilots, and where visual sightings were corroborated by radar evidence. Over the life of the project, 701 sightings were formally categorized as “unexplained.”
Over two weekends in July 1952, flying saucer fever hit Washington D.C., with air traffic controllers at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base sighting uncorrelated targets on their screens. There were visual sightings from military personnel, and air force jets were vectored to try to intercept the mystery objects. The sightings made headlines all over America, and public interest was at an all-time high. Speculation was rife and there were even rumors that a shoot-down order had been issued. President Harry Truman called the head of Project Blue Book to demand an explanation. The Pentagon was forced to hold a press conference, which was the largest and best-attended press conference since the end of the Second World War. The official explanation put forward was that the radar signals had been false returns, generated by a temperature inversion. The visual sightings were dismissed as misidentifications of aircraft lights, stars or meteors, but not everyone believed the official story.
One reason for the media and public fascination with the UFO mystery was the influence of science fiction. Hollywood movies such as The Day the Earth Stood Still popularized the idea that UFOs were extraterrestrial in origin, and a whole host of other sci-fi films such as Invaders from Mars and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers raised the specter of an alien invasion. The public was certainly open to such a possibility; while it predated the flying saucer/UFO era, the 1938 radio dramatization of the classic H.G. Wells sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds (narrated and directed by a young Orson Welles) caused widespread panic as some listeners thought the Martian invasion being described was real. Fear of the outsider is arguably hardwired into human beings, and extraterrestrials were the ultimate outsiders.
The USAF stance in relation to UFOs was notoriously defensive. This, coupled with the inherent secrecy of the military, led to the suspicion that the government was not telling the truth about UFOs. This suspicion (fueled by a combination of Hollywood movies and Cold War paranoia) led directly to the spaceship-in-a-hangar trope that one sees in modern UFO belief. Ufologists (as they like to call themselves) treat The X-Files as if it was a documentary. The ultimate irony is that to date, the only proven government conspiracy in relation to the subject was a CIA/USAF initiative to encourage belief in UFOs. This was on the basis that it was helpful if sightings of spy planes like the U2 and the SR-71 were reported as flying saucers, and thus written off by the mainstream media—and hopefully by Soviet intelligence officers too.
Belief and interest in UFOs was never confined to the public. There have been two formal Congressional hearings on UFOs; one by the House Armed Services Committee in 1966, and another by the House Science and Astronautics Committee in 1968. In later years, two presidents— Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan— went on the record stating that they had seen UFOs.
Project Blue Book was terminated at the end of 1969, after an independent University of Colorado review. By that time, the USAF’s corporate irritation with the subject was substantial, and the review certainly gave military bosses the answer they wanted to hear: no UFO sightings had been assessed as a threat to national security, and there was certainly no evidence that UFOs were extraterrestrial. There were, in short, plenty of better things on which to spend taxpayers’ dollars.
The story didn’t end in 1969, of course. UFOs continue to be seen, and the subject generates a steady stream of news stories, TV documentaries and sci-fi movies. But the government no longer investigates UFOs, and gone are the days when they were the subject of press conferences at the Pentagon, congressional hearings, and presidential inquiries. It’s really rather a pity, because I suspect it made government just a little bit more interesting and fun than it is these days.
NICK POPE worked for the UK Ministry of Defense for twenty-one years, and from 1991 to 1994 he ran the British government’s UFO project. He now works as a broadcaster and journalist. His latest book, co-written with former US Air Force officers John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, is Encounter in Rendlesham Forest. -
See more at: http://www.thehistoryreader.com/contemporary-history/official-history-ufos/#sthash.byBdnjYz.dpuf
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
This would be the last encounter that Edwards ever reported with these peculiar, space penguins and their mushroom shaped UFO, but I’d say it’s a safe bet that as stepped out of his modest home at the crack of dawn to begin his work every morning, that he never did so without looking out at that field with some apprehension… and perhaps just a bit of anticipation.
