Triangular-Shaped UFO Sighted at the Nellis AFB Nuclear Weapons Storage Area

Credit: Las Vegas Review-Journal

By Robert Hastings www.theufochronicles.com 4-22-15

     Christopher Cabrera recently told me,
“I was a Security Forces member in the United States Air Force from 1998 to 2002. Beginning in October 1998, I was stationed at Nellis AFB, Nevada, where I witnessed two separate, strange and unexplainable incidents while on duty.” He continued:

At the time I arrived in [Las] Vegas, Nellis’ ‘Area 2’ served as one of two main Air Force nuclear weapons depots in the United States and ranked 4th in the world, in terms of the number of stored nuclear warheads. The 896th Munitions Squadron, a unit of the USAF Materiel Command, oversaw them in conjunction with the Air Combat Command.

Along the perimeter of Area 2 were numbered markers which were assigned to security teams known as ‘Whiskey’ posts/patrols. As a perimeter security team/patrol we were tasked to cover approximately 20 markers per team. Most teams/patrols were composed of two members who drove pickup trucks while other teams/patrols had up to fourmembers and drove Humvees.

The first incident I witnessed occurred in late 1998, while working with a partner on the Southwest perimeter patrol. I worked the 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. shift. It was winter and by 5:45 p.m. it was completely dark.


Approximately 15 minutes before leaving my shift for the day, my patrol
met up with the Northeast patrol at one of the markers to chat, before being relieved of our duties. Our trucks were parked facing southeast, when all four of us noticed three extremely bright lights blinking sequentially in a vertical, triangular formation. The event lasted about 10 seconds and the lights were so bright that it felt like it was daytime again.

The first light to shine was at the apex of the formation, then the second light, which was at the bottom left of the formation, and then the third light, at the bottom right. They did this pattern at least twice, fading in-and-out rather than just blinking on-and-off. The color was a light amber color when fully lit and a dark amber color right before it disappeared.

The bottom two lights were about 100 feet off the ground; all four of us had to look up slightly to see them. They seemed to be about a quarter-mile from us, or maybe a little closer. They didn’t seem like separate objects but lights affixed to one solid object. No clear outline could be seen but this thing blocked out the stars behind it. There was no sound at all; it was eerily quiet.

Once the light display was over, we all were asking one another if we really had seen what we saw and, most importantly, what was it? Next, we immediately notified our Control Center of the incident, as it was our duty to do so.

Even though it was our shift-change, Control put a halt to any patrol movements inside the Area and sent an outer perimeter team, called an Oscar patrol, to investigate. Another patrol with a senior member decided to assist the Oscar patrol in the investigation. The process took about 30 minutes and then the shift-change was allowed to proceed. I, along with my partner and the other patrol who witnessed the incident, were called into our Flight Chief’s office to discuss what had happened.
When we entered the lobby outside of his office, were told to fill out an incident form. We were then asked general questions by our Flight Chief
and then separately pulled into the his office and asked to tell our story in detail. During my conversation with him, I never got the impression that he didn’t believe me.

Right before he allowed us to head home for the night, he strictly instructed us that the incident never happened said that we were never to talk amongst ourselves or to anyone else about the incident. We were threatened with dishonorable discharge, among other things, which was very confusing and angered me.

The next day, as part of our morning meeting, the Flight Chief addressed the whole staff, saying that there was no incident the night before and that no one should talk about it or they would face stiff penalties. As instructed, my co-workers and I never talked about it.

I never found out what happened to our incident reports and never found out if it was further investigated. I continued to work in the Area as a sentry foranother five months until I was promoted to working at the Armory, within Area
2, for three more years. Although I didn’t experience any other incidents during the rest of my time at Area 2, others did report strange lights, disembodied voices, shadow-like humanoids and strange claw marks on certain surfaces.

At this point, I told Cabrera that I had heard about sightings of “shadow people” at Area 2 from another former Security Policeman (SP) who had worked there from 2002 to 2008. This individual gave me a detailed written statement and allowed me to record a telephone interview with him in 2010. I found him to be credible, cautious in his assessments, but nevertheless unequivocal in his remarks to me. In one email he wrote, “My experiences involved:

● Unexplained lights in the sky to include lights that hover, move in irregular patterns, appear for entire nights and disappear the next, and a
unique incident involving a small light at very close proximity that caused a chase by security personnel

● Inexplicable penetration alarms with odd phenomena at the scene to include metallic taste in the air, humanoid sightings, extreme temperature differences and loss of radio communications

● Sudden commercial power failures and failure of back-up generators

● Sightings of humanoids, shadowy figures, foot chases, and a weapons-free incident

● Animal mutilations

● Harassment of security personnel [by superiors who mandated strict secrecy]

Although he had provided me with his DD-214 service record, and told me that I could publish his statements, this individual later became concerned about possible official repercussions relating to his disclosures and ceased communications with me. Consequently, I will not identify him here.

In any case, this former SP told me that one night in 2004, he had had a humanoid sighting himself, of a silhouette-like, 8- or 9-foot-tall figure that outran three teams of SPs who were sent to investigate a mysterious light seen in a distant corner of the weapons storage compound.


Upon arriving at the location in vehicles, no light could be found.
However, seconds later, one SP spotted the towering figure, visible against the moon-lit sky, which quickly turned and ran. After disappearing over a rise in the terrain, with six Security Policemen in hot pursuit, the unknown intruder seemingly vanished into thin air.

Upon relating this testimony to Cabrera, he seemed relieved that someone else had reported such an encounter, telling me that he was concerned that I would think him a liar or mentally unbalanced.

He then mentioned a former colleague, who had arrived at Area 2 just before the end of his tour of duty there, had also reported incidents involving the so-called shadow people. I later spoke with this person by telephone, who described his sightings—two, in daylight—but he ultimately decided not elaborate in writing or on audiotape. Regardless, I consider his comments to me to be credible and it was clear that he had been deeply affected by the encounters.

One might be tempted to dismiss these humanoid sightings as ridiculous “ghost stories” told by young, bored military guards to pass the time. However, given their Personnel Reliability Program (PRP) status—whereby a Security Policeman could be immediately reassigned away from guarding nuclear weapons if his mental stability were in question—these guys had absolutely no reason to go around spreading UFO and humanoid sighting stories.
Nevertheless, they did, sometimes informing their superiors, whereupon they were
told never to discuss the incidents again, rather than being reassigned.

In any case, Cabrera then continued with his narrative:

I was supposed to be discharged in late July 2002 but was held at Nellis for two more months. During this time, I did go on base Police patrols, worked on the flight line and at the various entry control points. Every now and then, we were tasked and sent to work at certain off-site stations and other bases.

One of the places we were sent to was called Indian Springs, now known as Creech Air Force Base. We were there to fill-in at the entry control points at the front gate and another entrance. Indian Springs was located
approximately 30 miles from Nellis, but it took over an hour to get there while traversing the barren desert landscape.

I found out during my time at Main Base, that Indian Springs was primarily a practice spot for the Air Force Thunderbirds. There was also a rumor that it was also the testing ground for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Drone fighters. There were rumblings as well, of UFOs and humanoid beings that were spotted there.

I had worked Indian Springs a handful of times and always found it to be very unusual. There were never many people there and the activity was extremely low. It was like a ghost town sometimes. I never stayed late when working there so I never experienced what the nightlife was like.

One morning in late September 2002, I was told that I was to go there and fill-in at their entry control point for one shift, which was to begin at 7 a.m. and end at around 5 p.m. I was to be partnered with another individual but when I arrived, there was no partner so I proceeded to work my schedule as planned, but on my own.

At 5 p.m. I was eagerly anticipating the end of my shift but no one showed up to relieve me. I called Nellis to get an update and was told that there was a slight delay and that I would be picked up soon. About 45 minutes later, I decided to step out of the ECP—entry control point—and get some air. It was dark by this time and the environment seemed different to me; almost foreign.

I looked at the night sky. It was a cold, crisp night with tons of stars. For some reason, I felt compelled to look behind me towards the base. When I did, an amber/red orb caught my eye as it hovered motionless over Indian Springs. I stared at it for about two minutes when, suddenly, a red beam shot out from the orb and hit the side of the nearest mountain. The beam lasted about one minute and I noticed what looked like molten rock dripping from the mountain. The beam abruptly ceased and the orb just disappeared. A few seconds later, the molten effect on the mountain also dissipated. This incident took me aback and I was really eager to leave the base. Finally, I was relieved of duty, about 20 minutes later, and left Indian Springs for the last time.

Learning what could happen from my 1998 incident, I never told anyone. My fear was that I would be dishonorably discharged and/or be dropped in rank and ridiculed the rest of my time in the Air Force. These two incidents have changed my life profoundly and I stand by what I’ve stated.

Chile UFO: Government confirm mysterious object is NOT ‘made by man’

Case File Information

Date of Event / Case File: 04/15/2013

On April 16, 2015, the following was published by The Mirror:

Chile UFO: Government confirm mysterious object is NOT ‘made by man’

Authorities revealed that they do not recognize the strange object which was captured hovering in the skies

A UFO that was sighted in Chile is ‘not a known object made by man’, according to the country’s government.

Officials released the footage after completing a thorough investigation and have announced in a report that the mysterious object is not one they recognize.

They confirmed that the silver disc seen in the clip was approximately 10 metres in diameter and performed with vertical and horizontal movements that no other aircraft can do, according to Chilean media reports.

Scientists at the Centre for the Study of Anomalous Ariel Phenomena (CEFAA) confirmed: “It is not any weather phenomenon or any other known object made by man.”

The footage was originally shot in April 2013 by miners who were working at the Collahuasi copper mine in north Chile.

Initially, they chose to keep the clip under wraps, for fear of being ridiculed, but later showed the clip to one of their bosses who insisted on sending copies to the CEFAA in February 2014.

The witnesses, who have chosen to remain anonymous, revealed that the object hovered in the sky for over an hour, and did not make any sound.

According to reports published in July 2014, the Chilean Meterological Office confirmed that the sky was clear on the day in question and now lenticular clouds (saucer shaped cloud formations) were recorded.

José Lay, director of international affairs at CEFAA also excluded the possibility that the UFO could be a drone.

“People in that area are well aware of the existence of drones.

“Fishing companies use drones and [they] make much noise. This was definitely not a drone.”

Officials also ruled out experimental aircraft, weather balloons, or other military drills that could explain the incident.

Spotted: The mysterious object was seen by workers above a Chilean mine

{ http://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles }

It Sure As Hell Wasn't Venus

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), and International Air Safety Reports

  By  Ted Roe   Executive Director   NARCAP.org

Over the past twenty years several nations and US government agencies have released files on unidentified aerial phenomena, UAP, reports and investigations. Nearly all of these case files contain reports of aviation related observations and aviation safety related incidents involving unusual lights or objects, UAP. These reports often involve commercial and military pilots, air crews and air traffic controllers dealing with  UAP observations and incidents during the conduct of their duties as career professionals.

While there have been few comments regarding the source or causes of these reports it is apparent that there are many commonalities in these reports that should be examined more closely. However, there has been no coordinated effort at the official level to compare these reports and assess them for commonalities and “profiles” or for aviation safety.

Data regarding aviation related UAP observations and incidents flows away from the aviation system and is not examined for safety factors by US aviation authorities, the NTSB, etc. In fact, the FAA refers pilots and air traffic controllers that want to make a UAP or “UFO” report to contact civilian UFO research groups and private businesses. These organizations have not published a single study nor demonstrated the slightest concern for the matter of UAP and aviation safety.

The Roswell Slides ARE NOT the Roswell Slides

So now we’re told that the Roswell Slides might not be linked to Roswell and that the name, Roswell Slides was invented by the debunkers and is not a term used by anyone on the inside. For the latest interviews with Don Schmitt and Tom Carey, see The Conspiracy Show hosted by Richard Syrett which can be found here:

https://youtu.be/fQyAVrFnTos?t=1h3m59s

The segment with Carey and Schmitt starts at the 1:04:20 mark of the show and they are on for about thirty minutes. You’ll just have to fast forward through the first hour to get to the Carey and Schmitt interview.

Here’s what we learn by listening to this. According to Tom Carey, the couple who took the slides was well connected to the Eisenhowers. The wife was a “high-powered lawyer in Midland, Texas and the husband was an oil field geologist.” Part of his territory was New Mexico. Please note that Carey is suggesting that the Rays, whose name he does not use, were the ones who took the photographs though all that can be said is that they may have owned the slides at one time decades ago. The provenance of the slides is still very shaky.

Carey then went on to explain how the slides were originally discovered. He said:

•      Current owner came into possession of the slides around 1990. The husband [Bernerd Ray] died in 1982 and the lawyer wife [Hilda Ray] died in 1988 [though not mentioned, it seems that they had divorced at some point]. During a clean out of their house, in their garage, one of the people who was part of the cleanup crew discovered this huge box of color slides, Kodachrome slides, and she said, “Oh, these look interesting,” so she kept them. She took them home instead of taking them to the dumpster. She took them for herself because nobody wanted them… so she kept them and didn’t look at them for a number of years [which seems strange after she had determined they were interesting, but never mind]. She finally looked at them and these two slides… were separate from all the others. There were over 400 slides in total. But there were these two that were taped in an envelope to the underside of the lid to the box. So she looked at those and she got spooked… She shipped the whole box to her relative who has them now. He was no UFO guy but he looked at these two slides and he says, “I don’t know what this is…” he had heard about Roswell… So he looked at them and I better contact somebody who knows something about this.

Of course, in his position, my first thought would have been to search for someone who knew about the Roswell UFO case. Carey said that the man had gone to the Internet (which is something I bet we all do now a days) and looked for something about Roswell. Carey’s name came up and the man set an email.

During the interview, Schmitt suggested that the “debunkers” had labeled them the Roswell Slides and they had not made that connection meaning that the slides were connected to Roswell. Syrett, in recapping some of this said that Carey and Schmitt weren’t linking these images to Roswell but there was a possibility that there was a connection (or in the words of nearly everyone else, let’s beat around the bush some more).

All though the interview, however, Carey talked as if it was an already established fact that the slides were from the Roswell case. Continuing in that vein, Schmitt said, “The dating of the slides is from 1947 to 1949. As we will be demonstrating at the event in May, there were specific areas that the photographers visited… both worked in west Texas and New Mexico… the circle of friends were closely linked to Eisenhower.” Or, in other words, this is connected to Roswell even though these people lived in Midland, Texas and had pictures of Eisenhower in his uniform.

The link to Eisenhower seems to be based on the fact that some of the slides in the box of 400 were of Eisenhower, which doesn’t link them to him personally other than they were in the same place at the same time… Just as I was in the same place as David Letterman and I even have a picture of me standing next to him, but we are not closely linked.

During the interview, Carey was asked about what linked the eyewitness testimony to other alien bodies. He said:

•       [The] woman standing by a glass slab… the body lying on it appears to be 3½ to 4 feet tall… large inverted pear-shaped head but there is one item on it, on top of the head that was described by one of the first-hand witnesses, one of the first ones to the crash site… the local fireman named Dan Dwyer who described when he got home that night and he told his family about it… they asked him, “What did it look like?” Instead of giving a detailed description he just said, “Child of the Earth.” [Which is an insect also known as the Jerusalem cricket]… It’s something on the head, I don’t want to give anything away here… there is something on the top of the head that one of the eyewitnesses described and it’s on this particular creature on the slide… That’s why Dan Dwyer called it the Child of the Earth.

But what Carey doesn’t say here, and which is extremely important is that Dwyer was never interviewed by any of the UFO researchers and calling him a first-hand witness without explaining the circumstances is misleading. Dwyer died before the interest in Roswell was renewed. Contrary to the impression that this is first-hand testimony, it was relayed by Frankie Rowe, Dwyer’s daughter. While I believe that Rowe is telling us what she believes to be the absolute truth, it is second hand from her so anything deduced from the testimony is shaky at best.

Apropos of nothing, Carey did mention that this ranked as a “smoking gun,” slightly better than the “smoking gun” of the Ramey memo. Both, according to Carey, are extremely important bits of evidence and, of course, the Ramey memo is directly related to Roswell.

What have we learned here?

Well, the Roswell Slides don’t necessarily show a creature from the Roswell crash, at least according to Schmitt. But then both he and Carey talk as if it was already proven that the creature, whatever it was, is from the Roswell crash.

The slides were apparently in a vacant house for two years before they were found, and then the woman who found them and took them, didn’t look at them for a number of years. She was so freaked out by them that she sent all the slides to her brother…I mean a relative, who apparently did nothing with them for years. Then about three years ago this fellow, who lives in Chicago, looked at them and thought he had better find someone who knew something about Roswell. He emailed Carey.

We also learned that when they attempted to interest American scientists in the slides, no one would come forward. The news media was equally unimpressed, but foreign scientists have examined the slides and made comment about them. Two of them are Canadian anthropologists who were not named but whose analysis will be part of the Mexico City show. They will be named there. All this data and much more will be presented in Mexico City.

And, although they suggest that the slides aren’t linked to Roswell, when they begin to talk about them, it is clear that is exactly what they think. And if they don’t, then why bring poor old PFC Benavides into it so that he can say that the creature in the photograph looks like the bodies he saw in Roswell? While they might not like the name the Roswell Slides and don’t refer to them that way, it is what they believe. All we can hope for is that they’ll have some better evidence about the slides than they have mentioned in the various interviews so far. The story of how the slides ended up in the hands of UFO researchers doesn’t allow for evidence of who took the pictures in the first place or for an unbroken chain of custody. There are still too many loose ends. I do hope they can do better in Mexico City.

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.be/2015/04/the-roswell-slides-are-not-roswell.html

{ http://kevinrandle.blogspot.be/ }

The Original Roswell Slides will not be In Mexico City

Well, there is a new development in the saga of the Roswell Slides announced over at the UFO Conjectures blog. It seems that the originals will not put in an appearance in Mexico City. Instead, those who shell out their cash, and any media who show up, will be treated to copies. I’m sure that they’ll be high quality copies, much better than the screen grabs that we’ve been saddled with for the last several weeks but they will still be copies.

But here’s the thing. Without the originals, there will be no real way to prove that the slide film was manufactured in 1947, there will be no way to be sure that something hasn’t been manipulated, and it won’t advance our knowledge all that much, though we will have been given a good look at the image. But one of the critical factors is the date of the film stock from which the slides were taken and you can have as much documentation as you want, but the question will remain, is that documentation accurate. The real thing needs to be seen.

Yes, I get that if these are slides of a real, live, well dead, alien creature, their value will be enormous. Yes, I get that you might not want to take them on a trip out of the country, or out of the vault in which they should be held. But then, there are problems… as just a single example, the date of manufacture coding doesn’t appear on all the slides from a single roll, and it would be lucky that the one slide that was removed from its cardboard sleeve had that coding on it… not to mention that other coding, if visible, would provide the point of manufacture. I suppose a photograph of the slide’s coding would help, but then we’re removed from the original and that is always problematic.

Of course there will be other documentation presented, but given the nature of the slides, it will need to be quite persuasive… and copies of the slides just might not be enough. I remember in Roswell in 1997 that we were promised a great deal about a bit of metallic debris that was said to have been picked up by a soldier in 1947. We were told that the documentation would be available and that the chain of custody had been preserved. Unfortunately the documentation was flawed, the name of the soldier was not available and the chemical analysis, while exciting, was flawed. We’re not even close to that here.

Now we’re told that the real slides will be unavailable. We’re going to have a picture of a picture and that provides for a great deal of deception in the presentation. That doesn’t mean there will be deception, I merely point out that it opens the door… and I will point out that those who have engaged in the evaluation of the slides do have a rooting interest in their authenticity. In other words, much of the analysis and work has not been by disinterested third parties.

This also tells us that contrary to what he has said, Adam Dew is not the owner of the slides… unless of course if he doesn’t show up in Mexico City. That seems unlikely because he needs to be there to complete his documentary. So, we don’t know who owns the slides now other than it apparently isn’t any of those who will be at the big presentation.

And, apropos of nothing at all, I note that the Alien Autopsy footage was equally difficult to see in its original state. Frames with the alien on them were promised for proper testing, but somehow that never happened. Now we learn that the original slides will not be available for independent examination.Anyway, the point is this. The real evidence will not be presented in Mexico City and the mysterious owner of the slides, who does not live in Arizona (as some have suggested), will not be present with the slides. Say what you will, but this simply does not bode well. It is one more disappointed in a series of disappointments and I do not see a way to recover outside an independent analysis of the slides which doesn’t seem to be in the offing any time soon.

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.be/2015/04/the-original-roswell-slides-will-not-be.html

{ http://kevinrandle.blogspot.be/ }

Radio bursts from space reveal strange mathematical pattern

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/04/06/radio-bursts-from-space-reveal-strange-mathematical-pattern/

E.T. file photo from pre-opening preview of Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, Japan March 30, 2001. (U.S.  REUTERS/Eriko Sugita)

File photo - an undated Hubble image shows NGC 1566, a galaxy located about 40 million light-years away in the constellation of Dorado (The Dolphinfish). (REUTERS/ESA/Hubble & NASA/Handout via Reuters)

Eleven fast radio bursts from space seem to follow a strange mathematical pattern, according to a new study – and it has researchers scratching their heads. 

According to study co–authors Michael Hippke of the Institute of Data Analysis in Neukirchen-Vluyn,  Germany, and John Learned of the University of Hawaii in Manoa, the bursts– which were first detected in 2001 – all had dispersion measures that were integer multiples of the same number: 187.5. “The astronomers that found [the bursts] have not seen such things before and do not understand them,” Learned told FoxNews.com.

Nobody knows what causes fast radio bursts, known as FRBs. They only last a few milliseconds, and only one so far has been captured live (by the Parkes Telescope in Australia last year). Though the bursts release just as much energy in a few milliseconds as the sun does in a month, their brevity indicates that the source must be small, with estimates being several hundred miles across at most.

Researchers use dispersion measures, which records how much “space gunk” the burst has passed through, to estimate the distance an FRB has travelled. For instance, a low frequency FRB will have more gunk on it, indicating a longer trip, whereas a high frequency FRB will be cleaner, indicating it came from closer to Earth.

The fact that all of the FRBs’ dispersion measures are integer multiples of 187.5 has, according to Hippke and Learned’s team’s calculations, a 5 in 10,000 chance of being coincidental. The dispersion measures also indicate that their origin is relatively close to Earth, but unlikely from within our own galaxy.

There are numerous theories on where these bursts came from, including speculation that the messages are from extraterrestrial intelligence. To the scientific community, however, this theory doesn’t really hold water, and is seen as more of a last resort only after all other avenues have been exhausted.

“We think these are likely from some very energetic process, like a burst from a high magnetic field neutron star or energy released [when] two neutron stars merge,” Professor Maura McLaughlin of the West Virginia University Center for Astrophysics explained. “The thing that made people think they were possibly from ETs was a recent paper that showed that one fundamental property is quantized in a way that wouldn't be expected if the signals were naturally occurring. However, I imagine that correlation will totally go away once more are discovered.”

Learned himself is dubious of an alien source as well, noting that he and Hippke only noted the dispersion measures’ “peculiar” pattern, and that they may even be coming from Earth. “We are now leaning more towards a terrestrial, anthropogenic interpretation,” he said. “At this point I would place my money on some sort of governmental satellite, not a natural phenomena, but I would not bet much.  More data, which reportedly [is] being analyzed but which we have no insider information about yet, will be most interesting and refute or confirm our hypotheses.” He also noted that he’d only look to an ETI interpretation once all other possibilities have been eliminated.

As for McLaughlin, she believes there’s no way the FRBs could be messages from aliens, as the signals are very broadband and emitted over a wide range of radio frequencies. “It would take a LOT of energy for an alien civilization to produce these bursts - they'd need to harness the energy of many, many suns - and there's no real advantage for communication to send a signal over such a large bandwidth.”

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Skeptic misses point behind UFO book

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38977500/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/skeptic-misses-point-behind-ufo-book/#.VSaZo0tU9Oi

When I wrote my book about officially documented UFO reports, I fully expected the skeptics to react. That’s why I was careful to focus only on the very best evidence from the most credible sources in "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record." Since 95 percent of all sightings are eventually identified, the book is concerned only with the remaining 5 percent — those UFO events that have been thoroughly investigated, involve multiple witnesses and ample data, but still cannot be explained.     

That didn’t stop James Oberg, a space analyst for NBC News, from complaining that the book was based on a       “questionable foundation.”    

         Charles Miller

    Leslie Kean is the author of "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record."

In the biographical note appended to his commentary, he notes that he spent 22 years at NASA’s Mission Control and has written books about space policy and exploration. But he neglects to inform readers of something UFO researchers already know all too well: that he is a founding fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, formerly CSICOP), a group whose aim is to debunk UFOs and any other unexplained phenomena that challenge our familiar ways of thinking.

For many years, Oberg, while retaining his stance as an objective student of the UFO phenomenon, has been a consistently vocal skeptic.  His long list of articles dealing with UFOs date from the 1970s and are posted on his website under the heading "space folklore,"  which accurately sums up his attitude towards the subject. He may be qualified to serve as an unbiased, expert consultant on Russian or Chinese missile systems, but not on UFOs.

             Story: UFO book based on questionable foundation    

         Harmony / Crown

    In "UFOs," Leslie Kean calls for more serious investigation of unsolved UFO reports.

His objection to my many varied cases has to do with his notion that pilots are poor observers. To buttress this idea, he quotes J. Allen Hynek referring to questionable statistics compiled in the 1960s by Project Blue Book.  He also cites Russian researchers describing two events in 1982 when pilot sightings were accurately identified as "military balloons" after the fact.

This is not surprising, since the vast majority of sightings can be explained, and this kind of identification is made all the time. However, such solved sightings — whether made by pilots or anyone else — have absolutely nothing to do with the cases presented in my book.

I wonder if Oberg gave "UFOs" a careful read. He spent many paragraphs quoting me concerning a report on aviation cases by French researcher Dominique Weinstein. The problem is, those are not my quotes. The chapter from which he extracted them was written by Jean-Jacques Velasco, head of the French government‘s UFO agency for over 20 years, as is obvious in his byline and narrative about French research.

Oberg gleefully proclaims that I have “faithfully vouched for” the cases in Weinstein's list, but actually, I have respectfully allowed Velasco to write his own chapter.  (About half the chapters in my book were written by highly credentialed authorities and expert witnesses.) If Oberg wants to discuss the Weinstein study, he'll have to contact Velasco.

1.     More about UFOs
   1.     

                               NBC News         
          Share your stories about UFOs    

              Cosmic Log: The UFO debate usually focuses on reports that are many years old — but strange things are still being seen in the sky, by folks just like you.         

   2.     The case against UFOs: Are sightings reliable?    
   3.     The case for UFOs: More investigation needed    
   4.     British UFO files trace sightings (and hoaxes)    
   5.     WWII secret study cited in UFO files    
   6.     What to do if you see a UFO    

Oberg’s fixation on the question of the reliability of pilots as witnesses is not raised by the generals and aviation experts I have interviewed — officials who have studied pilot cases and interviewed pilot witnesses for decades.  As described in "UFOs," French Air Force Maj. Gen. Denis Letty initiated an extensive study of UFO data because competent pilots he knew personally were confronted by the phenomenon. Chilean Gen. Ricardo Bermudez was instrumental in the founding of his country‘s official UFO investigative agency in 1997 because of inexplicable sightings involving pilots.

Richard Haines, who has written more than 70 papers in leading scientific journals and published more than 25 U.S. government reports for NASA, was formerly chief of the space agency's Space Human Factors Office and served for 21 years as a retired senior aerospace scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center. Having studied pilot sightings and related aviation safety issues for more than 30 years, and having personally interviewed hundreds of pilots during that time, Haines has concluded that pilots are indeed excellent witnesses, given their thorough training, expertise and hours of flying time.

Haines is now chief scientist for the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena. Sadly, most pilots never report their sightings, as he points out in "UFOs."

Most importantly, the aerial cases documented in "UFOs" — and many more on the record elsewhere — involve multiple factors such as:

• Sightings of long duration, allowing for accurate voice transmissions and the refinement of the initial identification.
• Multiple witnesses — co-pilot, crew, passengers, other aircraft in different locations, and occasionally observers from the ground.
• Onboard radar and ground radar recording the presence of a physical object, often corresponding exactly to the visual sighting.
• Direct physical effects on the aircraft, such as equipment malfunction.

Taken by farmer Paul Trent with his wife in 1950, this classic picture from McMinnville, Ore., is among the most thoroughly analyzed images in UFO history.

As an example, Brig. Gen. Jose Periera of Brazil, commander of air force operations until 2005, reports on an "array of UFOs" observed over his country in 1986. Two pilots chased one of the objects for 30 minutes. Numerous other pilots saw the objects. Radar recorded them. Six jets were scrambled from two Brazilian air force bases to pursue them. Some of the pilots made visual contact corresponding to radar registrations. Both military and commercial pilots were involved. Onboard as well as ground radar systems confirmed the presence of the objects.

“We have the correlation of independent readings from different sources,” Periera writes. “These data have nothing to do with human eyes. When, along with the radar, a pilot‘s pair of eyes sees that same thing, and then another pilot‘s, and so on, the incident has real credibility and stands on a solid foundation.”

In 2007, airline captain Ray Bowyer saw two gigantic, bright yellow objects suspended over the English Channel, which he observed carefully for 15 minutes. His passengers saw them, another pilot on a second aircraft was also a witness, and an object was registered on radar.

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In 1986, three Japan Airlines pilots watched a series of UFOs for 30 minutes, communicating with air traffic control while radar operators picked up the objects in corresponding locations.

I could go on with many more examples, presented in detail in the book.

Oberg says pilots may misinterpret visual phenomena when forced to make a split-second diagnosis before taking immediate action — very rare cases, I would assume — and no one would disagree with that. But, just as was the case with the solved Russian sightings I discussed earlier, this is entirely beside the point with respect to my book, because the cases presented do not involve such a scenario.

In addition, "UFOs: General, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record" presents many other cases that do not involve pilots at all — but often military personnel and police officers — including:

• The famous 1980 incident near RAF Bentwaters in Britain, involving the landing of a UFO and objects sending beams of light to the ground.
• The 1981 "Trans-en-Provence" landing case in France, investigated by the official French agency GEPAN.
• Belgian Maj. Gen. Wilfried De Brouwer‘s report on the wave of sightings in Belgium in 1989-90, which includes a spectacular photograph.
• The 1993 "Cosford Incident" involving a UFO over two Air Force bases in Britain, investigated by the Ministry of Defense.
• The 1997 Phoenix Lights incident that former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington described.

         Courtesy of Leslie Kean

    This picture of a black triangle with lights underneath was taken in Petit-Rechain, Belgium, in 1990.

These are just a few of a host of cases with abundant data that don't rely on pilot observations — and which are still unsolved. It‘s the aggregate of cases, the accumulation of evidence and the long-running but unsuccessful attempts of qualified experts to resolve them that establishes the reality of a yet-unexplained physical phenomenon with extraordinary capabilities.

Oberg says that "if investigators are unable to find the explanation for a particular UFO case, that doesn't constitute proof that the case is unexplainable.” Fair enough. Perhaps there is some prosaic explanation still to be discovered. There‘s always that possibility, no matter how small.

But we remain in a state of ignorance concerning UFOs, leaving us with the conclusion presented in the book: We need a systematic, scientific investigation of the skies that actively looks for these mysterious and elusive objects.  In the meantime, all I ask is that devout skeptics like Oberg read the entire book before raising objections that actually have no bearing on the matter at hand.

Investigative journalist Leslie Kean is the author of the New York Times bestseller"UFOs: General, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record" (Harmony/Crown).  Her work has appeared in many publications including The Nation, International Herald Tribune and the Boston Globe.  She is also the co-author of “Burma’s Revolution of the Spirit” and co-founder of the Coalition for Freedom of Information.

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"Spooky Action at a Distance" Confirmed by New Quantum Experiment

Photo credit:         Griffith University

Albert Einstein may have been the greatest mind of the 20th century, but the great physicist famously disliked some of the weirder implications of quantum physics. Now, nearly a century after his protests, physicists may have proven one of the points that he doubted the most. 

According to quantum mechanics, a particle can be described as a wave that spreads out over a great distance. Yet the particle is still just one particle. You can't detect it in two places at once. When physicists observe the particle in a particular location, they say that the wave function—the mathematics that describes how a particle could be in multiple places at once—has collapsed.
 
Einstein could not accept this. Or, at least, that he thought the quantum mechanics of his day could not adequately explain it, referring to the phenomenon with the now-iconic phrase "spooky action at a distance." But in new research published in Nature Communications, Griffith University's Howard Wiseman and colleagues use a single particle to show that the wave function really does collapse in this strange way. In so doing, their work backs up years of research into quantum entanglement, in which particles are connected in a mysterious way even when separated, so that observing or affecting one instantly affects the other.
 
Previous experiments had tested quantum entanglement with two particles, but the researchers wanted to get at Einstein's claim by entangling a single photon of light. They did this by firing a beam of photons into a splitter that cut each photon in two, sending half of the light to one lab and half to another lab.
 
Using a finely tuned homodyne detector—a tool used to measure the waves of these particles—Lab A tried to look for its photon and measure its phase. So did the scientists in Lab B. They found that if the Lab A researchers had detected the photon, then the Lab B researchers did not, and vice versa. Plus the photon state that Lab B detected depended upon what Lab A detected. That's exactly what you'd expect if the single split photon were entangled.
 
"Einstein's view was that the detection of the particle only ever at one point could be much better explained by the hypothesis that the particle is only ever at one point, without invoking the instantaneous collapse of the wave function to nothing at all other points," Wiseman says in a news release. "Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong."

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