Belgium’s Flying Triangle Wave

Posted by: Antonio Huneeus 

There were many reasons for the interest generated by the Belgian wave. One was the quality of the reports themselves, the bulk of which were registered in the French-speaking region of Wallonia. There were no landings or humanoid sightings but lots of detailed multiple-witness sightings of flying platforms moving slowly and silently above rooftops. Shapes varied, but the predominant form was triangular or delta-shaped crafts. Some of the descriptions were so precise that traditional explanations of misidentified natural phenomena or conventional aircraft were ruled out. Instead, stealth fighters and other U.S. secret military aircraft became the favorite explanations suggested by skeptics, but these were quickly ruled out by the Royal Belgian Air Force (RBAF). Another reason for the wave’s importance was that it was carefully investigated and documented by a local UFO organization called SOBEPS (Belgian society for the study of space phenomena).

SOBEPS was formed in 1971 by Lucien Clerebaut, Michel Bougard, and others, and built a small but highly dedicated cadre of field investigators. By the end of the wave in 1993, SOBEPS had collected over two thousand eyewitness reports comprising twenty thousand pages, four hundred hours of audio tapes, and six hundred full inquiries. Five hundred and forty cases remained unexplained. SOBEPS also had the assistance of top-notch scientists, including Léon Brenig, a nonlinear dynamics theorist at the Free University in Brussels, and Professor Auguste Meessen, a physicist from Catholic University at Louvain. Regarding his work with SOBEPS, Dr. Brenig has said, “here is an opportunity where we can apply the scientific method.” Brenig himself became a witness of the so-called Belgian triangle while driving in the Ardennes on March 18, 1990. The whole dossier was eventually published by SOPEPS in two massive volumes, five hundred pages each, entitled Vague d’OVNI sur la Belgique (UFO Wave ver Belgium), published in 1991 and 1994 respectively. Due to financial difficulties, SOBEPS dissolved on December 31, 2007, but some of its members formed a new, smaller organization called COBEPS (Belgian committee for the study of space phenomena) to preserve the archives and work done for thirty-six years.

A final and key element in the credibility of the Belgian UFO wave was the participation and validation by the RBAF, which showed an unusual degree of openness. As the Belgian wave gained steam, the Belgian Ministry of Defence was deluged with queries from the public and the media. The task fell upon the chief of operations of the air force, Col. Wilfried De Brouwer, who was later promoted to major general and deputy chief of the RBAF. Now retired from the service, Gen. De Brouwer has continued to speak about the wave. He was one of the many international officials who spoke at the famous event at the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington, DC, in November 2007, organized by filmmaker James Fox and journalist Leslie Kean. “The Belgian UFO wave was exceptional and the air force could not identify the nature, origin and intentions of the reported phenomena,” said De Brouwer at the NPC. He also gave a detailed presentation on the wave at the MUFON International UFO Symposium in San Jose, California, in July 2008, and was one of five generals to write an essay in Leslie Kean’s new book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record.

Although the RBAF scrambled jets on three occasions during the wave, Gen. De Brouwer has explained on various occasions that they didn’t have the manpower or resources to mount a full-fledged investigation of their own, so instead they took the unusual route of cooperating fully with SOBEPS. The radar data was turned to Prof. Meessen for analysis, and Gen. De Brouwer agreed to write the postface for SOBEPS’s first volume when he was still in the service. “I must acknowledge that I somewhat hesitated when SOBEPS asked me to contribute my share to this book,” he wrote. “Indeed, I am not a UFO specialist and, moreover, it is quite delicate for somebody who occupies an official function to put on paper his personal ideas on such a disputed issue. However, I estimate that I would not have been honest towards the SOBEPS if I had refused. The air force always played a fair game on this subject and I regard this postface as a complementary element to the exceptional file written by the people of SOBEPS.”

THE EUPEN INCIDENT

Although some sightings were reported in October 1989, the first important incident of the Belgian wave took place a month later on November 29 around the small town of Eupen, which is in a region of Belgium near the German border. This initial case put the so-called “Belgian triangle” on the map and led to the start of the RBAF’s involvement. There were both daytime and nighttime sightings, although the latter were lengthier and more detailed. Gen. De Brouwer explained in his essay for Leslie Kean’s book, “a total of seventy reported sightings made on November 29 were fully investigated and none of these sightings could be explained by conventional technology. The team of investigators and I estimate that approximately fifteen hundred people must have seen the phenomenon at more than seventy different locations from different angles during this afternoon and evening.” There were a total of thirteen gendarmes (policemen) who saw the UFO from eight different locations around Eupen. Prof. Meessen summarized the case in SOBEPS’s book:

On November 29, 1989, a large craft with triangular shape flew over the town of Eupen. The gendarmes von Montigny and Nicol found it near the road linking Aix-la-Chapelle and Eupen. It was stationary in the air, above a field which it illuminated with three powerful beams. The beams emanated from large circular surfaces near the triangle’s corners. In the center of the dark and flat understructure there was some kind of “red gyrating beacon.” The object did not make any noise. When it began to move, the gendarmes headed towards a small road in the area over which they expected the object to fly. Instead, it made a half-turn and continued slowly in the direction of Eupen, following the road at low altitude. It was seen by different witnesses as it flew above houses and near City Hall.

In his 2008 MUFON lecture, Gen. De Brouwer provided additional details on this sighting: “The UAP [Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon] emitted repeatedly and simultaneously two red light beams with a red light ball at the spearhead of the beam. Subsequently, the red balls returned to the craft.” There was also apparently a second triangular craft, which made “a forward tilting maneuver, exposing the upper side of the fuselage,” continued De Brouwer. “They [gendarmes] saw a dome with rectangular windows, lighted up at the inside. It then disappeared to the North.” Two more gendarmes saw one of the craft from a monastery nearby; “one is currently the head of the police in that area, he was scared like hell,” added De Brouwer.

The Eupen incident was followed by many other UFO sightings, including several reported on December 11, 1989. One of the witnesses that evening was a personal acquaintance of Gen. De Brouwer, Col. André Amond, a civil engineer in the Belgian Army. Col. Armond worked next door to Gen. De Brouwer and wrote a detailed report for the Ministry of Defence. Col. Armond was driving with his wife around 6:45 p.m., when they noticed a strange object with flashing red lights. They stopped the car and got out to see it better. “Suddenly, they saw a giant spotlight, about twice the size of the full moon, which approached them to an estimated distance of 100 meters,” wrote De Brouwer, adding that “the colonel’s wife was frightened and asked to leave.” In his report to the Ministry, Armond “ascertained that this craft was not a hologram, helicopter, military aircraft, balloon, motorized Ultra Light, or any other known aerial vehicle.”

Various shapes were reported throughout the wave, including round, rectangular, and cigar-shaped, but the majority were triangular objects. Gen. De Brouwer notes that the differences may also be due to the eyewitnesses’ viewing angles. Researcher Marc Valckenaers listed some of the characteristics of the UFOs in SOBEPS’s second volume about the wave, including: irregular displacement (zig-zag, instantaneous change of trajectory, etc.), displacement following the contours of the terrain; varying speeds of displacement (including very slow motion), stationary flight (hovering), overflight of urban and industrial centers, and sound effects (faint humming to total silence).

One of the strangest reports came from two factory workers from the town of Basècles, southwest of Brussels, who saw a huge trapezoid flying platform (330 x 200 feet) just before midnight on April 22, 1990. The object moved slowly and silently, covering the entire factory courtyard. In the SOBEPS report, the factory workers described the UFO as “an aircraft carrier turned upside down.” Despite the science-fiction quality of this sighting, an almost identical report was filed nearly a year later, on March 15, 1991, by an electronic engineer in Auderghem, near Brussels, who woke up in the middle of the night when he “heard a barely audible, high-frequency whistling tone. He looked out the window and saw a large rectangular craft at very low altitude with irregular structures on the bottom,” wrote Gen. De Brouwer.

One characteristic of the Belgian wave was how close the objects were flying above the rooftops, as shown with this flying rectangular platform.

Credit: SOBEPS

THE F-16 SCRAMBLE EPISODE

If the Eupen multiple-witness sightings of November 1989 triggered the Belgian wave, the jet fighter scramble incident during the night of March 30, 1990 marked the peak of public interest and global media coverage. The Belgian Air Force had scrambled jets on two prior occasions without positive results. The December 5, 1989 scramble was unsuccessful; when the jet reached the sky, the UFO was gone. Additionally, the December 16, 1989 case turned out to be a false alarm; the authorities quickly determined that it was a laser projection reflected by a cloud layer. Following these two fiascos, the RBAF implemented a new policy that jets would be scrambled only when a sighting was detected on radar and was visually confirmed on the ground by the police.

As put in a preliminary report prepared by Major P. Lambrechts of the RBAF, entitled “Report Concerning the Observation of UFOs During the Night of March 30 to 31, 1990,” the incident began at 10:50 p.m. on March 30 when the gendarmerie telephoned the radar “master controller at Glons” to report “three unusual lights forming an equilateral triangle.” More gendarmes confirmed the lights. When the NATO facility at Semmerzake detected an unknown target at 11:49 p.m., a decision to scramble two F-16 fighters was made. The jets took off at 12:05 a.m. from Beauvechain, the nearest air base, and flew for just over an hour. According to Major Lambrechts’s report:

The aircraft had brief radar contacts on several occasions, [but the pilots]…at no time established visual contact with the UFOs…each time the pilots were able to secure a lock on one of the targets for a few seconds, there resulted a drastic change in the behavior of the detected targets…[During the first lock-on at 12:13 a.m.] their speed changed in a minimum of time from 150 to 970 knots [170 to 1,100 mph] and from 9,000 to 5,000 feet, returning then to 11,000 feet in order to change again to close to ground level.

When Col. De Brouwer showed the computerized radar images of the UFO tracked by the F-16 onboard radar system in a heavily attended press conference at the Ministry of Defence on July 11, 1990, the international media went into a frenzy. Transcripts of the radio communications between ace fighter pilots, Capt. Yves Meelbergs, Lt. Rudy Verrijt, and the Glons Control Reporting Center near Liege, were also released and provide some dramatic moments. The transcripts paint a picture of the jets chasing ghost radar echoes that appear and disappear and then reappear again, but at no time are the pilots able to establish visual contact with the supposed objects. Belgium’s Electronic War Center (EWC) eventually undertook a detailed technical analysis of the F-16 computerized radar tapes, completed by Col. Salmon and physicist M. Gilmard in 1992, and later reviewed by Prof. Meessen.

Although some aspects of this case still remain unexplained, Meessen and SOBEPS accepted the Gilmard-Salmon hypothesis that most of the radar contacts were really echoes caused by a rare meteorological phenomenon. This became evident in four lock-ons, explained Meessen, “where the object descended to the ground with calculations showing negative altitude…. It was evidently impossible that an object could penetrate the ground, but it was possible that the ground could act as a mirror.” Meessen explained how the high velocities measured by the Doppler radar of the F-16 fighters might result from interference effects. He pointed out, however, that there was another radar trace for which there is no explanation to date. As for the visual sightings of this event by the gendarmes and others, Meessen suggested that they could possibly have been caused by stars seen under conditions of “exceptional atmospheric refraction.”

In a 1995 telephone interview, Gen. De Brouwer summarized his reflections on this complex case: “We always look for possibilities which can cause errors in the radar systems. We can not exclude that there was electromagnetic interference, but of course we can not exclude the possibility that there were objects in the air. On at least one occasion there was a correlation between the radar contacts of one ground radar and one F-16 fighter. This weakens the theory that all radar contacts were caused by electromagnetic interference. If we add all the possibilities, the question is still open, so there is no final answer.” De Brouwer took a more detached view of the F-16 scramble episode, however, in his 2008 MUFON lecture and his 2010 essay included in Kean’s book: “The conclusion of the Air Force, therefore, was that the evidence was insufficient to prove that there were real crafts in the air on that occasion.”

THE PETIT-RECHAIN PHOTO

Seldom has the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words become more true than in the case of the extraordinary photograph of a flying triangle taken in the small town of Petit-Rechain in April 1990. This color slide became the emblematic symbol of the Belgian UFO wave. It has been published and broadcast in television programs all over the world, and it appears on the cover of the two SOBEPS volumes on the Belgian wave. It’s also one of the most analyzed UFO photos in the history of ufology. During my trip to Brussels in 1995, I had the opportunity to talk at length with Patrick Ferryn, the investigator who researched the case initially and wrote the chapter about it in the SOBEPS book. Ferryn gave me copies of the photo and samples of computer enhancements made by Marc Acheroy, professor of electricity at the Royal Military School, where the image was analyzed by the Signal Treatment Center. The details of how the photo was taken are fairly simple and straightforward.

The photographer, P.M. (who wants privacy, but has fully cooperated with SOBEPS), was a twenty-year-old factory worker, who lived in the small community of Petit-Rechain, near Verviers. He was at home with his girlfriend on the night of either April 4 or 7, 1990 (he can’t pin down the exact date), when his girlfriend first noticed the object between 11:00 and 11:30 p.m. as she took the dog to the courtyard. According to P.M.’s statement to Ferryn, he was alerted by his girlfriend, went outside, and “saw the object practically stationary towards the southwest, at about a forty-five-degree elevation. It consisted of three white round lights on a barely perceptible triangular surface. In the center there was a blinking spot of the same color, or maybe a bit more reddish than the other lights.” P.M. grabbed his camera, a Praktica model BX20 with a 55-200 mm zoom and a “Cokin” 1A 52 mm skylight filter. He shot the last two frames of a roll of 36-200 ASA Kodak color slide film. The UFO then moved slowly towards Petit-Rechain, until it was hidden by the roofs in the village. The entire episode took about five minutes.

The roll of film was sent by mail to a development house offering a special discount, and when P.M. received the slides, he noticed only frame #35 had captured the UFO; frame #36 was entirely black. Ferryn estimated that “the photo was probably taken with a focal distance between 55 and 200 mm, and with exposition time ranging from 1 to 2 seconds.” P.M. showed the photo to his factory coworkers (all of whom were later interviewed by Ferryn), but otherwise didn’t do anything to analyze or commercialize the picture. One of his coworkers knew a local photo-journalist from Verviers, Guy Mossay, who immediately saw the image’s potential value. P.M. sold the photo rights to Mossay for a small fee. Mossay then proceeded to copyright it with SOFAM (Belgium’s multimedia society for visual arts authors).

Skeptics have naturally pointed to the possibility of a hoax with profit motive. However, if that is the case, why did P.M. sell the rights to Mossay for a minor fee? Moreover, hoaxers never supply original slides or negatives for scientific analysis, as was done by P.M. Having checked his background, interviewed acquaintances, and so on, Ferryn noted that “the account of the main witnesses was coherent.” Gen. De Brouwer spent quite a bit of time explaining the details of this case during his MUFON lecture, saying of the witness that, “this guy is genuine, he is a guy who would not fake at all, I can assure you of that.” More importantly, the Petit-Rechain photo has been subjected to more scientific analysis than practically any other UFO photo in history.

The list of experts and institutions that have analyzed this photo include Prof. Acheroy of Belgium’s Royal Military Academy; Prof. François Louange, an expert in photo interpretation of satellite images for the French space agency, CNES; Dr. Richard Haines, a retired senior NASA scientist and respected UFO researcher; Belgium’s Royal Institute of Artistic Patrimony; and André Marion, a nuclear physicist with France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), who conducted an analysis in 2002 with improved technology. The technical details of these analyses are too numerous for this article, but suffice it to say that evidence of photographic trickery has never been found. Furthermore, of several efforts to duplicate the photo using a dark cardboard triangular model with holes and light bulbs, only one made by members of the Astrophysics Institute at Liege University somewhat resembled the Petit-Rechain photo. But the luminosity of the spots in the replica was uniform, while those in the original exhibited different shapes and spectral effects. The most recent CNRS study by Dr. Marion confirmed the previous analysis and found, as put by Gen. De Brouwer, a “halo around the craft with patterned structure,” which could have been caused by the object’s “propulsion system” of “magnetoplasma dynamic.” Marion also stated that “it would be extremely difficult to fake such a photograph.”

In the end, it’s almost impossible to guarantee the authenticity of a UFO image. There will always be a difference of opinions, but the verdict in the Petit-Rechain case appears highly favorable. Triangular UFOs were seen throughout Belgium during the early 1990s. Dozens of fuzzy videos and grainy photos were taken, but they were generally not impressive. Petit-Rechain was the great exception.

• Note: Since the writing of this article, the photo turned out to be an admitted hoax.

NO EVIDENCE OF SECRET AIRCRAFT

Due to the high credibility of most witnesses in the Belgian wave and their descriptions of a silent, triangular craft being so precise, trying to explain the wave in terms of hoaxes, misidentified natural phenomena, or conventional aircraft seemed fruitless. Therefore, a number of skeptics and aviation journalists focused on trying to prove the hypothesis of secret U.S. aircraft flying over Belgium. A series of candidates were proposed, from the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) to secret airships, from the F-117A stealth fighter to some other revolutionary U.S. secret military aircraft such as the alleged TR-3A Black Manta. First, you have to ponder why the U.S. would conduct tests of their most-secret aircraft in such a highly populated area like Wallonia, which is not only a U.S. ally, but also headquarters of the NATO alliance. Gen. De Brouwer put it bluntly in a 1991 interview with the French magazine, OVNI Présence: “Why would the Americans conduct tests here in Europe, without permission and with the risk of having an accident that could create a diplomatic incident on a global scale? This doesn’t involve only Belgium, but NATO, where its concept itself could be put in question. I don’t believe that the Americans could take such a risk, it’s evident.”

Guy Coeme and Leo Delcroix, the two Belgian Ministers of Defence during the wave, denied emphatically the theory that the UFOs were actually U.S. aircraft and based their denial on official inquiries with the U.S. Embassy in Brussels. In a 1993 letter to French researcher Renaud Marhic, Minister Delcroix wrote: “Unfortunately, no explanation has been found to date. The nature and origin of the phenomenon remain unknown. One theory can, however, be definitely dismissed since the Belgian Armed Forces have been positively assured by American authorities that there has never been any sort of American aerial test flight.” A declassified 1990 document from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) entitled, “Belgium and the UFO Issue,” supports Delcroix’s position. After describing the basic events of the wave that had transpired up to that point, the unnamed U.S. official wrote at the very end of this memo: “The [U.S. Air Force (USAF)] did confirm to the [Belgian Air Force] and Belgian [Ministry of Defence] that no USAF stealth aircraft were operating in the Ardennes area during the periods in question. This was released to the Belgian press and received wide dissemination.”

Thirty years have now passed since the Belgian UFO wave, and no new significant evidence has been produced to prove that the sightings were caused by secret military aircraft. The reported cases remain unexplained. It seems certain that something massive and technologically advanced flew over Belgian territory during the 1989-93 period. Why and who was behind it are questions that remain to be answered. A suitable conclusion, for now, is to repeat what Gen. De Brouwer wrote at the end of his famous postface to the SOBEPS’s first volume: “The day will come undoubtedly when the phenomenon will be observed with technological means of detection and collection that won’t leave a single doubt about its origin. This should lift a part of the veil that has covered the mystery for a long time. A mystery that continues thus present. But it exists, it is real, and that in itself is an important conclusion.”

• A version of this article originally appeared in Issue #5 (December/January 2011) of Open Minds UFO Magazine. Back issues can be found here.

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A Survivor at Roswell: The Truth About the One that Walked Away

Posted by: Don Schmitt 

George Wilcox

The Roswell incident left an impact on all those involved, especially then-Roswell sheriff, George Wilcox. Just before Wilcox’s widow Inez passed away, she related a story to her granddaughter Barbara, who since passed on the story: “The event shocked [George]. He never wanted to be sheriff again after that. My grandmother said, ‘Don’t tell anybody. When the incident happened, the military police came to the jailhouse and told George and I that if we ever told anything about the incident, not only would we be killed, but our entire family would be killed!”’ Barbara adds, “They called my grandfather, and someone came and told him about the crash. He went out there to the site; there was a big burned area, and he saw debris. There were four space beings. Their heads were large. They wore suits like silk. One of the ‘little men’ was alive.” Inez Wilcox reiterated to Barbara that her and George took the threats very seriously and kept the information from the family.

Sergeant Homer G. Rowlette

Sergeant Homer Rowlette in 1947. Gave a death bed confession of being part of the clean-up crew.

Credit: U.S. Army/Don Schmitt

Sergeant Homer G. Rowlette, Jr., was a member of the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron at the RAAF in 1947. He was a career military man and retired as an NCO after twenty-six years of dedicated service to his country. Before passing away in March 1988, he finally conveyed to his son, Larry the following startling information about his involvement with the “crash of the flying saucer.” Rowlette was part of a cleanup detail sent to the crash site north of Roswell. Larry was told that his father had seen everything. He handled the “memory material,” which according to Homer, was “thin foil that kept its shape.” If that wasn’t enough, he described the actual ship, which was “somewhat circular.” He also caught his son completely by surprise when he announced, “I saw three little people. They had large heads and at least one was alive!”

Master Sergeant Harry Telesco

Corroboration of Rowlette’s story has come from another member of the same squadron also stationed at Roswell at that time. Master Sergeant Harry Telesco had already passed away, when I located and contacted his family in 2007. According to his daughter, her late father had spoken many years ago of being at the crash site north of town and seeing the strange wreckage and little bodies there. He also testified that he had seen one that was still alive.

Richard Loveridge

In 1947, Richard Loveridge worked as a mechanical engineer for the Boeing Aircraft Company and was part of their crash-investigation team. When information came in about the crash of an aircraft outside of Roswell, Loveridge drove to the area believing it was one of their planes. It would not be until the last year of his life in 1993 that he would finally confess to his family about the true nature of the alleged “plane” crash. The Boeing crash investigator admitted that he “saw everything.” He saw the wreckage, which was not from a conventional aircraft, as well as three small, deceased “entities” and one that was still alive. Loveridge described them as “child-size” and “grayish” in color. He refused to elaborate any further to his family: “Don’t ask me any more about this. They can hurt you.”

Ervin Boyd

Ervin Boyd worked as a B-29 mechanic at the Roswell Army Airfield (RAAF) in 1947; he worked specifically in Hangar P3, which would later be known as Building 84. On the particular day in question, Boyd was taking a cigarette break on what he called a “hot summer day,” and the doors of the hangar were open on both ends of the building. As soon as he stepped outside the hangar doors, he observed a number of men and vehicles swarming towards the building. Startled by the situation, he quickly noticed that some of the men were carrying what he first thought was the body of a child. “Why didn’t they take it to the hospital?” he asked himself. As they passed by him, he was shocked to see that it was something else.

“It was child-size, four feet, maybe a little more, and a head that was larger than one on a normal body. The eyes were walnut-shaped and also larger than normal. From my angle, it didn’t look like it had much of a nose. The arms were a bit longer too, and the skin was ashy, gray and kind of scaly. I believe it was still alive.”

Suddenly, a number of officers grabbed Boyd and rushed him away from the area and started to get physically rough with him. One of them sternly stated, “Mr. Boyd, you didn’t see anything.” But, the civilian persisted. Finally, he was warned that if he ever said one more word, not only would he lose his job, but the lives of his wife and children would be at stake. It would not be until he suffered a stroke twenty-four years later that he would finally break his silence with his family.

Joseph Montoya

That same afternoon, Monday, July 7, 1947, New Mexico’s newly elected thirty-two-year-old lieutenant governor, Joseph Montoya, was in Roswell. It is not entirely clear how the politician came to be on the base at the RAAF on the exact day as some of the bodies, including the possible survivor from the crash. One possible scenario is that he was there on Independence Day weekend for the dedication of a new plane, and after the ceremony he was escorted over to the B-29 hangar just as the first military vehicles were bearing down with their “out-of-this-world” cargo.

Montoya would confide to close associates that he had seen “four little men.” He described how small they were, along with the stunning fact that “one was alive!” Montoya painted the beings as, “short, only coming up to my chest. [They were] skinny with big eyes shaped like tear-drops. [The] mouth was real small, like a knife-cut across a piece of wood, and they had large heads.”

Next, he described the scene inside the hangar. Each of the little men, including the one that was alive, was stretched out on a table brought over from the mess hall and set up for that purpose. “I knew that one was alive because I could hear it moaning.” Montoya said that it was moving, with its knee bent and rocking back and forth

After a frantic exit from the hangar, Montoya was picked up and driven from the base by associates. Montoya would always warn that “It’s too dangerous to talk about.” Even years later, he would continue to caution that “the government will get you.”     

“Eli” Benjamin   

Another man who himself admits to having seen bodies was Elias “Eli” Benjamin (a pseudonym).  His wife told me much about the incident, but it would be several years before Eli would tell me himself. As a retired career U.S. Air Force man, Benjamin feared for his pension—and still does—if he ever talked about Roswell. Benjamin and his wife had come to the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell in 2002 to see the exhibits. Against her husband’s wishes, Mrs. Benjamin stopped into the museum director’s office to tell someone about her husband. After hearing Mrs. Benjamin’s story, especially the part about bodies and the hospital, Julie Shuster, the museum director, felt that a private interview with Mr. Benjamin was warranted. It was soon apparent, however, that there was a major problem: Mr. Benjamin was nowhere to be found. He had left the building, when he observed his wife and the director looking around for him—he was a reluctant witness, to put it mildly.

Private first class Eli Benjamin in 1947. He escorted the bodies from hanger P-3 to the RAAF base hospital.

Credit: U.S. Army/Don Schmitt

Since that day, I have managed to track down the former member of the 390th Air Service Squadron and meet with him half a dozen times to try to gain his confidence. In the process, I learned that Benjamin’s main fear, similar to so many others who were and are reluctant Roswell witnesses, was his belief that he, as a retired air force veteran, might lose his pension if he said anything about those long-ago events. I assured Benjamin that I knew of no instances whatsoever of someone losing his pension for talking about Roswell. Besides, the secretary of the air force issued a proclamation in 1994 that absolved anyone with knowledge about the Roswell incident who believed that they were still subject to security or secrecy oaths regarding the matter. The other thing I noticed was that Benjamin was still deeply moved, if not troubled, by what he witnessed back in 1947, and he broke down in tears on several occasions when talking to me about it. His wife also revealed that her husband still has trouble sleeping comfortably and continued to wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, shaking. In 2005, the eighty-year-old Eli Benjamin agreed to tell his story.

In July 1947, Eli Benjamin was a private first class with the 390th Air Service Squadron at the Roswell Army Air Field. Possessing a top secret clearance, Private First Class Benjamin was authorized to provide security support for the most highly classified operations of the 509th Bomb Group—the first atomic-bomb wing in the world. In addition to his primary job of guarding the B-29 Bombers, one of his secondary duties was that of a recovery specialist, which involved the grim activities associated with the aftermath of plane crashes.

On the morning of Monday, July 7, 1947, Benjamin walked back to his barracks after a night of guard duty on the flight line followed by breakfast at mess hall.   “Something’s going on” he thought to himself, as he stood at attention and saluted the playing of the national anthem and morning flag-raising ritual at the base headquarters on the south end of the esplanade. He knew that the base commander, Colonel William Blanchard, normally held his weekly staff meetings on Tuesday mornings, but on this day, Benjamin thought there were too many staff cars and other vehicles parked in the headquarters parking lot for a regular staff meeting. When Benjamin finally arrived back at his barracks, “Word was given to my squadron to be on the alert for special duty,” he said. Such was life in the 509th and the Strategic Air Command and sleep after his long shift would have to remain a secondary consideration. The word finally found Benjamin: “Benjamin! Get your gun and report to hangar P-3 for guard duty.”

Upon arriving at the B-29 hangar to report to the officer in charge, Benjamin walked into a commotion at the main entrance of the building. A number of military police were trying to restrain the very officer from whom Benjamin was supposed to get his duty instructions. The lieutenant colonel was clearly experiencing an emotional reaction to the situation at hand, which seemed to be the transfer of a number of gurneys over to the base hospital. Another officer quickly pointed to Benjamin and ordered him to complete the assignment.

While in the process, something under one of the sheets covering each litter appeared to be moving. Then, as each of the stretchers was loaded into the back of a waiting ambulance truck, a sheet fell away revealing the grayish face and swollen, hairless head that clearly was not human.

The military police orders were to deliver the cargo to the base hospital emergency room (Building 317) and remain there until relieved. Once at the medical facility, a half-dozen hospital personnel and men in suits took control of one specific gurney. All eyes were on the covered arrival as they removed the sheet from a being with an over-sized head, which had large, slanted eyes, two holes in place of a nose, and a slit for a mouth. For a number of moments all surrounding the patient just stood staring with mouths agape. It was alive. As the last of the gurneys was wheeled in, Benjamin and the other military police were immediately dismissed, sent back to their squadrons, and sworn to secrecy. They were told the incident never happened.

Sixty-three years after the event, the fog of time prevents Eli Benjamin from recalling the names or faces of the other men assigned to “escort duty” that day. They may well have been from other squadrons on the base or even from other bases brought in from outside (known as augmentation troops) to prevent the comparing of notes later on.

For her part, Mrs. Benjamin confirms her husband’s account of his involvement in the Roswell events of July 1947. She further states that he confided the story to her with the promise that she would never tell anyone else. Eli’s memories of that night—seeing the swollen face and slanted eyes of the “species”—remain with, and haunt, him to this day.

Roy Musser

Roy Musser happened to be at the base that afternoon. He was a civilian contractor painting part of the hospital. Working in the rear, where the loading dock area was located, he claimed to have seen the arrival of the small bodies and the “creature.” Apparently uninjured, he observed it walking and said it looked like a “very slender child.”

The military warned Musser that he was never to mention what he had seen to anyone or he and his family would be in jeopardy. Musser kept quiet for a number of years before relating the experience to fireman Dan Dwyer.

Miriam “Andrea” Bush

All military hospital administrators had their own secretary. In the case of Lieutenant Colonel Harold M. Warne, his was a twenty-seven-year-old civilian woman named Miriam “Andrea” Bush. Miriam was a graduate of New Mexico State College at Las Cruces, where she had majored in business administration. She also had a top security job at the base hospital. But none of her prior experiences prepared her for what she was about to see.

As she was performing routine duties at the hospital, Dr. Warne took her by the arm and quietly mentioned that she should accompany him to the examination room. Upon entering, she was immediately surprised to observe a number of bodies on gurneys in the middle of the room. At first she thought they were children based on their size. Their skin was grayish to brown in tone, and white linens covered most of each body. But the heads were too large to be children and had large staring eyes. All at once, one of them moved. Miriam would never forget what she had seen that day in Roswell.

What Became of the Surviving Alien?

To date there remains no eyewitness testimony as to what ultimately became of the survivor and how it was transported from Roswell. There is reliable information, however, that the being did spend some time at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and was still there up to nine months later in 1948.

While on his deathbed in 1997, Lieutenant Colonel Marion Magruder, a highly decorated World War II flying ace, swore to his five sons that, while with the War College, he was assigned to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in April 1948 and allowed to briefly see the “live alien” at that time. He and the others in his company were instructed that the being was recovered from the crash in Roswell just the year before. His description was similar to all the other eye-witnesses. He emphasized that there was no question that it “came from another planet.”

As one of the personnel at the RAAF once remarked, “They sure weren’t from Texas.” And in the same vein, they weren’t from Japan, Germany, or anywhere else on Earth. That is one issue all of the witnesses remain unanimous on.

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Original newspaper article describing the incident, by S. E. Haydon, “A Windmill Demolishes It,” The Dallas Morning News, April 19, 1897, p. 5.

Nearly seventy-six years later, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), decided to take a closer look at this UFO legend. By then, rumors had circulated that Haydon had fabricated the entire story. When Haydon wrote the story, the town of Aurora was reeling from a string of bad luck. Several residents had died from typhoid that winter, cotton crops had failed, and a railroad planned for the city had gone broke. It was believed that Haydon, a local cotton buyer, created the story to try and breathe some new life into the town. MUFON investigators found surprising evidence; however, that supported the idea that something extraordinary may have taken place.

According to MUFON’s report, Texas state director, Bill Case, found two individuals who testified that their parents had witnessed the events described by Haydon in his article. The first was Mrs. Mary Evans, who says that she was fifteen-years-old when her parents went to the crash site and when they returned home, described to Mary the explosion and the small man who was killed in the crash. She recalled they had informed her the townsfolk buried what was left of the pilot in the local cemetery. The other witness was Charlie Stephens, whose father said he had seen the crash, which caused a massive fire that could be seen for three miles.

Using the witness testimony, MUFON investigators found what they believed to be the site of the crash. Radiation levels were checked and were typical for the area. The investigators found metal fragments with metal detectors that indicated something had crashed and spread debris over a two-or-three-acre area east of where the windmill was located. One-piece, in particular, caught their attention.

The mysterious piece of metal was found beneath four inches of soil and appeared to have been in a molten state when it penetrated the Earth and smashed against a limestone rock where it was found. Under analysis, the metal was determined to be a very pure form of aluminum alloy, oddly devoid of traces of copper, which is typically seen with this sort of manufactured aluminum. It had also gone through a heating-and-cooling stage consistent with that of an explosion.

The next part of MUFON’s investigation was to find the remains of the UFO pilot. They located a headstone with a triangle and some circles carved into it, possibly an etching of the craft. The metal detectors also alerted to metal below the surface at this location. Paperwork was submitted to exhume the body, but townsfolk vehemently denied the request and asked that researchers not enter the cemetery. Soon after MUFON’s investigation, the headstone disappeared altogether, leaving the location of the grave unknown.

In an article published in the Houston Chronicle in 2007, Aurora business owner Karen Tedrow said she understood the townspeople’s reluctance: “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.”

In the end, MUFON investigators determined that there was more to the story than previously believed and that they had found “sufficient evidence to cast reasonable doubt on the hoax theory.”

Aztec, New Mexico, 1948

Another famous alleged UFO crash case occurred in March 1948 in the remote town of Aztec, New Mexico, in the northwest corner of the state. This story began with the publishing one of the first UFO books, Behind the Flying Saucers, written by Frank Scully in 1950.

Scully was a writer for the entertainment magazine Variety. He says some of his Hollywood friends recommended that he get in touch with Silas Newton, a successful oilman, who had some interesting UFO crash stories. Newton shared his stories with Scully and explained the electromagnetic nature of the propulsion of crashed UFOs. Newton, along with an anonymous scientist referred to as Dr. Gee, became the primary source for Scully’s book.

According to Newton and Dr. Gee, advanced radar stations in New Mexico caused the crash of a disc-shaped UFO near Aztec. The craft was mostly intact with just a puncture near one of the windows. Scientists, including Dr. Gee, who were first to arrive on the scene, saw bodies inside the craft. Without visible doors on the object, the scientists were eventually able to get into the craft by sticking a pole inside and pressing a button on a wall that opened a hidden door.

Inside, the scientists found sixteen charred bodies of beings that were humanoid in form but only three-to-four-feet tall. They appeared to have been killed by a fire inside the craft. The craft was made of a solid material that looked similar to aluminum and was very lightweight. Eventually, the aircraft was disassembled and taken to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which is often rumored to be the home base for recovered extraterrestrial objects.

Once Scully’s book was published, it quickly became a bestseller. However, doubts about the credibility of the main witnesses began to surface. J.P. Cahn, a freelance reporter, wrote an investigative piece for True magazine, claiming that the whole book was based on lies. Cahn claimed that he could prove that the metals Newton was purporting to be from an alien spacecraft were just a standard grade of aluminum used in pots and pans. He also said that he discovered the true identity of Dr. Gee.

According to Scully, Dr. Gee was a very accomplished scientist, with “more degrees than a thermometer.” However, Cahn discovered that Dr. Gee was a business associate of Newton’s by the name of Leo GeBauer. GeBauer owned a radio-and-television-parts company in Phoenix, Arizona. Although technologically inclined, GeBauer did not have the myriad of degrees claimed in Scully’s book. Scully’s response to this accusation was that GeBrauer was only one of many scientists represented by Dr. Gee in the book.

Cahn also uncovered that, although never formally charged, Newton had been accused of making false claims regarding stocks and oil prospects. Cahn believed that Newton and GeBrauer conned Scully into accepting their story to convince investors that they had access to secret alien technology capable of finding oil fields.

All of this has tarnished Scully’s book; however, there are UFO investigators who believe they have found evidence that supports the Aztec crash happened, including FBI documents. One such report can be found in Timothy Good’s book, Above Top Secret. In the book’s appendix, there is an FBI document from March 1950 that includes the report of an air force investigator on rumors of a crashed “flying saucer” discovered in New Mexico with three small bodies inside. It says the crash was the result of nearby “very high-powered radar.” Skeptics believe that Newton and GeBrauer had been peddling this story everywhere, and it eventually got back to the air force and the FBI.

Researchers Nick Redfern and Scott Ramsey obtained additional FBI documents regarding the Aztec crash. Ramsey says that these documents describe Newton as a very successful businessman and philanthropist. Although Newton told some tall tales to his investors, Ramsey says the investors seemed to be mostly happy with Newton’s results.

Ramsey has also been able to unearth alleged witnesses to the actual crash. Ken Farley claims he was driving from Durango, Colorado, to San Diego, California, on March 25, 1948, when he stopped outside Aztec to visit a friend. Having heard recent talk of emergency vehicles headed into the desert, Farley and his friend decided to check out what was going on. They arrived at a mesa with a large disc sitting next to it. There were several oilfield workers and a couple of police officers at the scene. They described an object much like the one Scully had written about, which appeared to be undamaged. Police eventually asked them to leave.

Another witness was nineteen-year-old Doug Noland, a gas company employee. He says that on that day, he had picked up his boss, Bill Ferguson, and drove to the desert to put out a brush fire. When Noland and Ferguson arrived at the scene, oilfield workers that were already on the scene told them that the fire was under control and showed them a mysterious large disc-shaped object.

Ramsey says he started as a skeptic, but twenty years later is still finding evidence that convinces him there may be something more to the crash at Aztec, New Mexico.

Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, 1965

On December 10, 1965, newspapers across the country reported events that took place the prior evening. Witnesses from Pennsylvania to Illinois, and even as far north as Canada, reported seeing a fireball race across the sky. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, debris was reported falling from the fiery object. Outside of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, witnesses reported a flash of light and a fire in the nearby woods.

On the evening of December 9, Robert Gatty, writer for the Tribune-Review out of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, was asked to report on an alleged UFO crash site in a forest outside Kecksburg. When he arrived, Gatty found the area was roped off by police expecting the arrival of “Army engineers and, possibly, civilian scientists.” Gatty claims that police threatened to arrest him if he proceeded into the forest. He reported that the roads were jammed with curious spectators and news reporters.

One of the other newsmen on location was John Murphy, the news director for one of the local radio stations, WHJB. According to his wife, Murphy arrived before the authorities, took pictures, and recorded some witnesses’ audio interviews. He would later put this all together in a radio documentary called Object in the Woods. Murphy later told listeners that he left out some conversations because the witnesses feared reprisal by the police or the army. Murphy’s wife and a coworker both have since said Murphy was visited by men claiming to be with the government. They confiscated some of his recordings and photographs.

To this day, the military maintains that it did not find anything in the forest that night. Nonetheless, Stan Gordon, a local UFO researcher, has gathered several witnesses who attest to the event and the object. Witnesses at the scene reported seeing an acorn-shaped object in the forest that was the size of a “Volkswagen.” Some witnesses later reported seeing the army hauling the tarp-covered object away, revealing only the lower lip of the object. Others reported a band of strange hieroglyphs around the base of the object.

Some scientists have speculated that the object was just a meteorite seen in Lake Erie’s vicinity that night. Russia’s Cosmos 96 space probe re-entered the atmosphere over Canada that day, and some have speculated that this is what landed in the woods. Witnesses claimed that the object changed direction several times before slowly falling in a downward trajectory towards the forest. Neither a Russian space probe nor a meteorite would change directions.

In 2002, inspired by Gordon’s work, the Syfy channel decided to investigate the Kecksburg case and, to do so, enlisted the help of journalist Leslie Kean. Together, they formed the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFI). According to Kean’s report on the CFI website, the team set out to obtain official documents from NASA using the procedures allowed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In doing so, the CFI team was determined to “not accept the usual ‘no records’ responses” that are usually given for such requests.

Their initiative caught the attention and support of President Bill Clinton’s then Chief of Staff, John Podesta. He joined a press conference held by the Syfy channel on October 22, 2002, in which the CFI announced the efforts to obtain NASA files on the Kecksburg incident. Podesta stated before the press,

I think it’s time to open the books on questions that have remained in the dark on the question of government investigations of UFOs… It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there. We ought to do it because it’s right; we ought to do it because the American people quite frankly can handle the truth; and we ought to do it because it’s the law.

The CFI focused on obtaining records from NASA instead of the air force or army because Gordon had previously received files from NASA, indicating that there were more files yet to be uncovered. In particular, CFI pursued the “Fragology Files,” which were described as “reports of space objects’ recovery, [and] analysis of fragments to determine national ownership and vehicle origin.” NASA responded that the files were destroyed, and, in a separate letter, NASA claimed that the records had been missing since 1987.

NASA continued to stall and claim that it had no relevant files, even files that had already been retrieved by Gordon. The CFI appealed the NASA responses and won, but NASA continued to stall. The CFI was then forced to sue and announced its intentions at a press conference on October 21, 2003. NASA finally agreed to send specific files, but only sent unhelpful pieces of information. CFI continued to pursue the lawsuit.

During this time, the chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Nicholas Johnson, reviewed whether the Kecksburg incident could have been a human-made object that simply re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. In an interview on October 10, 2003, he told Kean, “I can tell you categorically, that there is no way that any debris from Cosmos 96 could have landed in Pennsylvania anywhere around 4:45 p.m.” Kean’s report demonstrates that “Johnson’s data shows that no man-made object from any country entered our atmosphere and landed in Pennsylvania on the afternoon of December 9.”

Although Johnson made strong statements to the contrary, in 2005, NASA spokesman David Steitz told the Associated Press that “the ‘UFO’ [Kecksburg object] was a Russian satellite, but government records documenting it have been lost.” This response was particularly strange in part because NASA had said that it did not even investigate the Kecksburg case. So, where did Steitz get this information? Kean tried to follow up with Steitz to clear up these discrepancies but could not obtain any particularly useful explanation.

Finally, after being tied up in court for two years, the final hearing on the CFI’s case against NASA occurred on March 20, 2007. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, clearly dissatisfied with NASA’s conduct in the case, reprimanded NASA’s attorney and, at one point, stated, “heads should roll” at NASA, and “I can sense the plaintiff’s frustration because I’m frustrated. It’s totally frustrating.” Judge Sullivan ruled in favor of the CFI and required NASA to pay for all legal fees for the case, to reexamine the files, and declassify relevant documents if necessary, explaining any redactions.

NASA sent more files to Kean, but none of them pertained to the Kecksburg incident. NASA searched hundreds of boxes. Kean feels that NASA made a genuine effort in the end, but that the filing systems were so weak that it was difficult to find anything. She concluded, “In summary, we’ll never know whether any documents in the missing or destroyed boxes might have shed light on the Kecksburg incident, even if only by providing a small lead that could open doors for researchers. It only takes one page to change everything.”

• A version of this article originally appeared in Issue #8 (June/July 2011) of Open Minds UFO Magazine. Back issues can be found here.

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Presentation: Steven Spielberg, Ufologist

Posted by: Alejandro Rojas 

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Documentary on alien implants convinces filmmaker topic not so crazy

Posted by: Alejandro Rojas  

Of all of the fringe ideas in the UFO field, the idea that people are being snatched up by aliens and then returned without their knowledge is pretty hard for many to swallow. Added on top of that the claims some of these people have had implants placed inside of them by the aliens, well, for many, that is bat-poop crazy.

When first asked to document a surgery to remove an alleged alien implant, Cobell responded it was “way outside of my scope of knowledge or interest.”

“It seemed too wild for me to put my mind around,” explained Corbell.

However, since he was asked by friends, and has an interest in extraordinary beliefs, Corbell decided to do it. His experience ultimately resulted in his newly released documentary, Patient Seventeen.

One of the main characters, who Corbell grew very fond of, is a podiatrist and alien implant specialist, Dr. Roger Leir.

Incidentally, Leir was also skeptical when he was approached years ago with the request to remove a suspected alien implant. He thought it was ridiculous. But when he removed the object, begrudgingly, he said it was unlike anything he had seen before, and became very interested in the topic. He then removed, or aided in the removal, of dozens of the objects before passing away in 2014.

Corbell says Leir passed away while he was putting his documentary together, but it was not so much Leir that convinced him the alien abduction and implant phenomenon may be real.

“It was the patient that transformed my opinion,” says Corbell.

Corbell describes the man he refers to as patient 17, the namesake for his film, as an “average guy of above average height.”

He is six foot nine.

He is referred to as patient 17 because he wishes to remain anonymous, and because he was Leir’s 17th patient to undergo an “alien implant” removal. Corbell says patient 17 is a very down to earth person.

In fact, Corbell says, “He was, and remains, the biggest skeptic that this object removed from his leg — that is hands down extraordinary — has anything to do with his abduction experiences.”

So what is so extraordinary about the object? Well, for the full story you will have to watch the film, but, according to Corbell, some experts have interpreted the data from test results conducted thus far as being made off-world.

Corbell admits more testing has to be done, but he is convinced this thing is really weird.

A short version of Patient Seventeen was entered into the EBE Film Festival at the International UFO Congress several years ago. Although I knew Leir personally, the film exposed me to aspects of his life I was not familiar with, such as a beautiful scene of Leir playing a gigantic organ. The scene was very intimate and moving.

As for patient 17, the man. He did come across as credible, and certainly does not fit the mold of what many think of as an “alien abductee.” He came across as an independent professional who did not seem interested in seeking attention.

I admit, alien abduction is a weird topic that can be uncomfortable. The awkwardness of the phenomenon is portrayed well in the comedy television show People of Earth on TBS. However, if there was ever a documentary that would convince those interested in hard evidence, this may be the one. Not only that, I have to admit, I am partial to Corbell’s shooting style, which is intimate, beautiful and up close and personal.

As of today, Patient Seventeen is available on iTunes, and will be available on other streaming outlets soon.

• For more on Patient Seventeen, visit the website at: ExtraordinaryBeleifs.com. You can also hear Corbell and I discuss his film and other current projects on Open Minds UFO Radio.

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Mutual UFO Network Director Arrested for Solicitation of Minor

Posted by: Alejandro Rojas 

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Decades of Government UFO Gaslighting Exposed

Posted by: Alejandro Rojas

The United States Air Force claims it stopped investigating UFOs in 1969. It is a point they love to repeat when inquiries have been made for the last few decades, even when researchers present government documents to demonstrate otherwise. Often in the past couple of decades, instead of answering my inquiries about UFO documents, I am sent the USAF UFO Fact sheet. However, given recent revelations, the USAF fact sheet was wrong, and, as many have demonstrated, the government has been taking UFOs seriously for a very long time.

According to the USAF UFO Fact Sheet, the USAF program to investigate UFOs, Project Blue Book, was closed because “No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security.”

In a memo dated October 20, 1969, by Brigadier General Carroll H. Bolender, the reasons for closing Project Blue Book were outlined. In the memo, Bolender noted that “reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system.”

His note indicates that the most critical cases were not going to Project Blue Book, which begs the question, “what good is it to investigate UFOs without the best cases?” It also implies there were cases, “which could affect national security.”

JANAP 146 detailed “Communication Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings [aka CIRVIS].” “Unidentified flying objects” were one of the items listed as something to report.

CIRVIS reporting poster from 1950s

Eventually, the military replaced CIRVIS with Operational Reporting (OPREP). A document distributed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1993 says, “OPREP–3 reports containing information relating to unknown objects near U.S. military installations are considered extremely sensitive, and thus not releasable.”

Sure enough, UFO researchers have found several of these documents. They typically address UFOs incursions over weapons storage areas, including those that house nuclear weapons.

Despite having receipts, UFO researchers are often grouped in with the tin-foil hat crowd. Nick Pope ran the Ministry of Defense (MoD) “UFO desk.” He dealt with these issues from the government side. Pope told the Huffington Post, “We were telling the public we’re not interested, this is all nonsense, but in reality, we were desperately chasing our tails and following this up in great detail."

“To really achieve our policy of downplaying the UFO phenomenon, we would use a combination of ‘spin and dirty tricks,'” claims Pope. “We used terms like UFO buffs and UFO spotters — terms that mean these people are nut jobs. In other words, we were implying that this is just a very somewhat quaint hobby that people have as opposed to a serious research interest.”

As in many things, it seems the U.S. and U.K. had UFO public relations strategy in common.

I remember the first time I got a good case. It was a security officer who had recently returned from the war in Iraq. He was hypersensitive to his environment and spotted an odd object hovering over a mountain near commercial airliners’ path. He says he tried calling the local airport and the police. No one cared. He finally found the number to a local group collecting UFO reports and got to me. When I called the airport and hounded the FAA on the matter, they didn’t care. They referred me to civilian UFO groups, like the one of which I was a part.

I was shocked and very concerned. It appeared the UFO taboo was causing government agencies to lend a blind-eye to potentially dangerous situations that put the public in harm’s way. What my witness reported may have been someone flying a remote-controlled aircraft near commercial airliners. But the FAA could not be bothered once the word “UFO” was invoked.

It was refreshing to hear Senator Marco Rubio recently express a similar concern.

“The bottom line is if there are things flying over your military bases and you don’t know what they are because they are not yours, and they exhibit, potentially, technologies that you don’t have at your own disposal, that to me is a national security risk and one that we should be looking into,” Rubio told CBS Miami.

Rubio is the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). In the proposed Intelligence Authorization Act for 2021 (see verbiage below from exploratory committee report: pages 11 and 12), the SSCI is asking that the Director of National Intelligence “in conjunction” with the Secretary of Defense put together a report on “unidentified aerial phenomenon [UAP].” The report is to include information from the “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.”

Why would he assume they have this sort of information? Well, the reasons made public stem from the revelations of Luis Elizondo, a former intelligence officer who claims to have headed up a project at the Pentagon investigating UAP. His involvement in the program was featured in an article in The New York Times in late 2017. Elizondo claimed that the program continued even after he had left a few months before the article was published.

Although the Department of Defense (DoD) balked at the claims at first, they have admitted that the program existed and still exists. A DoD spokesperson recently told Swedish UFO researcher Roger Glassel it is an “interagency team.”

One agency included in the SSICI UAP report request is the FBI.

Further, just last night, Elizondo told investigative journalist George Knapp on Coast to Coast AM that he recently discovered an earlier program similar to his. A transcript of the conversation can be read on SilvaRecord.com. Elizondo says that he was recently at a meeting having a classified discussion when one of the men present told him he had done Elizondo’s UAP job in the 80s.

“I wasn’t there to ask him questions,” says Elizondo. “I was there for them to ask me questions, but it was very clear to me that AATIP was not the first of its kind ever. There was an organized effort back in the ’80s to do exactly this as well.”

The question is, how will the various agencies the SSCI is asking to provide information respond? Will they gaslight the SSCI, like they have done with the public at large since 1969?

Chris Mellon, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and former Staff Director of the SSCI worked with Elizondo to get credible information regarding Elizondo’s UAP research out to the public. U.S. Navy cases, along with firsthand witnesses, led to the Navy admitting they took UAPs seriously and investigated UAP incidents.

Elizondo and Mellon are co-leads in the History Channel series Unidentified. In the first season of the show, we saw the two take some of the Navy witnesses to Washington D.C. to brief lawmakers. Politico covered some of these briefings. All of this lead to the SSCI UAP report requests.

In a recent interview shared on the Rojas Report, Mellon says they have several never before seen military cases that should help frame the forthcoming reports.

“I think they’re going to add to the impetus and the need for Congress to be asking questions,” says Mellon. “And also begin to underscore the kinds of things or provide more reason to believe that a report of that nature should be able to produce some very interesting findings.”

One such case is from NORAD, says Mellon.

“For example, in season two, we have a NORAD watch officer who tells a story of an event he participated in firsthand, in which NORAD was trying to intercept a UFO,” says Mellon. “This [went] all the way up to the four-star level, and they were scrambling every jet they could get in the air.”

This one should make it into the reports. Although in the OPREP article I referenced above, researcher John Greenewald says NORAD had told him “in the spirit of the FOIA, they looked for UFO information but found no records.”

Now the public knows the trials and tribulations of legitimate UFO researchers. There is a lot of wild speculation on the internet regarding UFOs, including thousands claiming to already be in contact with aliens. Hopefully, mainstream science, media, and academia are beginning to realize some of those concerned that the government has been lying to us about what it knows about UFOs have the receipts to prove it.

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