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By The Toronto Star
11-11-1953
11-11-1953
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Flying Saucers or Not?
Canada Sighting Station To Seek Scientific Proof
11-11-1953
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Monday, September 29, 2008
Politician and Pilot Spot UFO in Meath
By The Belfast Telegraph
9-29-08
The truth is out there - and if a police officer, a politician and a pilot are to be believed, aliens are keeping a close eye on us from above.9-29-08
Dramatic eye-witness testimony was heard at a conference over the weekend which, delegates were told, provided "definitive" proof of recent UFO activity in the skies around north Dublin and Meath.
Footage, filmed on a camera phone at 10.35pm on August 3 near Dunboyne was also played and replayed to over 70 delegates who attended the fifth Irish International UFO conference in Carrick-on-Shannon.
The triangular shaped image, with lights at each point, which appeared to send a red laser-type light towards earth, drew gasps of amazement from the 70 or so delegates who attended the world premiere of the footage.
A senior garda officer who was driving when he noticed the unusual light formation in the sky stopped to film it.
"There is no footage like this in the world. It is the most amazing and spectacular I have ever seen," said Carl Nally, co-founder of UFO and Paranormal Research Ireland and joint author of 'Conspiracy of Silence'.
Five days earlier, on July 29, an off-duty pilot who photographed lightning from Howth pier just after midnight later noticed what appeared to be a triangular-shaped object to the right of the lightning fork in the developed image.
And Fianna Fail Town Councillor in Trim, Jimmy Peppard, ran indoors for a camera on August 8 when he spotted a triangular-shaped object measuring "about a mile in diameter" in the sky, where it remained static for about half an hour.
"What we have here is sightings of three objects east, west and south-east of Dublin airport, each five days apart by reliable and trained observers and even since I have arrived here I have received another image from a pilot," Mr Nally told the conference.
He later described the laser beam footage as the best footage on the planet and said it would be shown all over the world. "This is what the sceptics are crying out for. What all this footage has in common is that trained observers, honest people, took it. What better could you get than a senior garda, a politician and a pilot," he said.
He added that he would not rule out speculation that increased UFO activity in the north Dublin and Meath areas was linked to the road construction works near Tara. "We cannot rule this out as a possibility. We are talking about a very ancient sacred place," he said.
Ross Hemsworth, who presents a TV show on Sky which investigates the paranormal, said he would reserve judgment until he examined the footage more closely.
"There have been a lot of sightings in Ireland in a lot of strange places and the proximity to the digging of the motorway may have opened things up," he said.
Delegates at the two-day event, organised by Betty Meyler, President of the UFO Society of Ireland, otherwise immersed themselves in talk of orbs, luminosity, crop circles, alien abductions and star children. And ex-oilfield executive Ian Crane warned of plans for a fake alien invasion to be staged at the 2012 Olympics in London by the terrorists behind 9/11 and other atrocities, in their quest for global control.
For organiser Betty Meyler the conference provided an opportunity for like-minded people to come together and make friends. "Before, people were afraid to report sightings because they did not want to be thought of as 'cuckoo' but that has changed now," she said.
UFO Chases Plane Home
6-25-1954
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Object "Chases" Plane Home . . . Saucer Watchers Ready
By The Dayton Journal Herald
6-25-1954
By The Dayton Journal Herald
6-25-1954
Sunday, September 28, 2008
[UFOS] "Air Force Policy Since the 1950s Has Been not to make Encouraging Remarks About this Mystery to the Public"
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The economy's tanking, but ...
By Billy COx
De Void
9-26-08
By Billy COx
De Void
9-26-08
De Void knows what you’re thinking:“My 401(k) is on fire. My house is worth $45,000 less than what I paid for it. I’m losing $$$ driving to work. If I lose my job, I’ll have to eat the cat. I’m tweezering the gruesome splattered chunks of my mutual funds from the fresh splinters in the walls and ceiling. Why won’t the U.S. Air Force comment on the Stephenville UFO?”
Well, forget Stephenville. Dr. Michael Swords, retired history professor at Western Michigan University, says you’d need a time machine to understand the USAF’s dysfunctional PR relationship with this stuff.
“Alexander The Great once asked Aristotle what it’d take to teach him geometry quickly,” Swords says from his home in Kalamazoo. “Aristotle said, ‘There is no royal road to geometry. And there isn’t a royal road to this, either. This is one of the most complicated fields in world history.”
You’d have to revisit the late 1960s, when the USAF was looking for a way to wriggle off the UFO accountability hook. Its mechanism was the University of Colorado study of UFOs, whose bogus conclusions that the phenomenon did not and never would produce compelling science stirred a tempest of controversy even before they were published in 1969.
Swords has spent countless hours evaluating that amazing ruse, which was endorsed by the National Academies of Science despite the fact the U of C’s dismissive conclusions were at sharp odds with raw data reflecting alarming percentages of unknown explanations for UFOs. He added his dissent to the growing body of skepticism in the Journal of UFO Studies nearly 20 years ago.
In June, Swords and Mutual UFO Network’s national research director Robert Powell traveled to Texas A&M University to examine files kept by the one of the Colorado Project’s late panelists, physical chemist Roy Craig. After sifting through 1,500 pages, they discovered even more evidence that its late director, Edward Condon, had produced a $500,000 report (in 1960s dollars, remember) designed to fit pre-assigned conclusions.
Craig stated in 1968 that Condon had drafted his recommendations “without benefit of prior reading of the other sections of the report which were by now nearing completion.”
The Colorado study’s official rendering of UFOs listed over 30 percent as unknowns. But in yet another recently retrieved 1968 memo to Condon, physicist Joseph Rush noted the disparity in the forthcoming official attitude with the facts: “This may seem an anomalous conclusion, since more of the (cases) are unexplained than explained.”
Whoa.
“The only way to write a bulletproof history is through official military documents, Freedom of Information Act documents, ironclad stuff,” says Swords. “And Air Force policy since the 1950s has been not to make encouraging remarks about this mystery to the public.
“You’ll get official statements like, ‘This incident is under investigation, we’re studying it, and there’s no need for false alarm,’ or ‘This incident has been looked into and we’ve found an explanation,’ whether it’s a balloon experiment or a flight of ducks or whatever. It’s a mistake to open your mouth up and start talking about things that are actually interesting.”
Almost as astonishing to Swords as the USAF’s ability to sustain the mindless charade for so long is the apparent behavior of the mystery that enables it.
“This phenomenon is kind of amazing, not only for what it does, but by the way it seems to gauge its impact,” Swords says. “It’s managed to be covert enough so that it doesn’t force you to admit its reality on an official, organizational structural level. It’s like this thing understands what we’re like well enough to know how far it can push without going over the top.”
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Contactee 'Buck Nelson's' Letter to
Flying Saucer Review
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By Flying Saucer Review
1-22-1955
1-22-1955
" . . . The Flying Saucers Have Landed Underpinned the New Age Movement"
Desmond Leslie
By The Telegraph
11-22-2001
By The Telegraph
11-22-2001
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Eccentric Irish aristocrat whose book The Flying Saucers Have Landed underpinned the New Age movementDESMOND LESLIE, who has died aged 79, was a celebrated Irish eccentric and self-styled "discologist" best known for his book The Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), which became a key text of the New Age movement.
The prevailing scientific materialism of Leslie's time held no appeal to him, and he turned his attention instead to the world of mysteries. Attracted to ancient history, archaeology and esoteric philosophy, he saw in them evidence of a world view quite different from that of more soberly academic contemporaries.
To Leslie, ancient monuments and artefacts were proof of a sophistication of culture and technology that could not be attributed to the people of their times. The makers, he concluded, were evidently super-human - or came from elsewhere. In the 1950s, there were regular reports of "flying saucers" and of encounters with alien creatures, and Leslie's merger of these accounts with his antiquarian researches led to The Flying Saucers Have Landed.
During his investigations, he wrote to the Californian mystic and ice cream salesman George Adamski, who in the presence of witnesses had encountered blond visitors from Venus and taken photographs of their spacecraft. Adamski replied with pictures and an account of his experiences. Leslie added these to his text, and credited Adamski as co-author.
Leslie asserted that the first inter-planetary vessel had arrived from Venus in 18,617,841 bc. He made no apologies for his precision, saying that "it was calculated from ancient Brahmin tables". Brahmins, he explained, were "exceedingly accurate people". He addressed potential doubters and seekers of proof with matter-of-fact disdain: "Why should they risk a public landing? Their ship would be impounded for evasion of custom duties. Their clothes would be torn off and sold as souvenirs."
The Flying Saucers Have Landed became a bestseller and was translated into 50 languages. To Leslie's gratification, it was denounced by the sort of people he liked to infuriate. Arthur C Clarke attacked it as a "farrago of nonsense"; Professor Bernard Lovell suggested it be "dumped overboard in space".
With his mystical doctrines and cult following, Adamski was an easy target for the sceptics, but Leslie stood by him. In 1954, Leslie visited his co-author in California and enjoyed with him several flying saucer sightings. In a letter from San Diego to his wife, he described seeing "a beautiful golden ship in the sunset, but brighter than the sunset . . . It slowly faded out, the way they do."
Back in London, Leslie joined forces with another Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Brinsley le Poer Trench, who as the 8th Earl of Clancarty later promoted a debate on UFOs in the House of Lords. Together they founded Flying Saucer Review. Contributors included C G Jung, who published his own book on flying saucers in 1959.
Thereafter, Leslie continued to preach the message of the space people. Their intentions, he was at pains to explain, were wholly peaceable. Desmond Arthur Peter Leslie was born on June 29 1921 and grew up at Castle Leslie beside Glaslough in County Monaghan. Glaslough, "the green lake", has been extolled in verse and song. Richard Hayward, the balladeer, sang: For there's no place like lovely Glaslough/In all Monaghan wide. Dean Swift, on the other hand, once wrote in the visitor's book: "Glaslough with rows of books upon its shelves/Written by the Leslies all about themselves."
Desmond's father was the colourful man of letters Sir Shane Leslie, 3rd Bt, who supported the Nationalist cause and habitually wore a saffron kilt. Shane's father, Sir John, had married Leone, one of the three beautiful daughters of Leonard Jerome, of New York. Her sister had married Lord Randolph Churchill, and their son Winston paid regular visits to Castle Leslie until banned by his uncle (a staunch Ulster Unionist) on account of his espousal of Home Rule.
Sir Shane's interests extended from politics to the paranormal - his works include Shane Leslie's Ghost Book (1955) - and his fascination with the latter rubbed off on his younger son. Desmond later recalled that one night at prep school, his dormitory was "suddenly lit by a brilliant green glare" as "an immense green fireball moved slowly across the sky and disappeared behind the Sussex Downs".
After Ampleforth and Trinity College, Dublin, Leslie became a fighter pilot in the RAF, flying Spitfires and Hurricanes during the Second World War; according to family legend, he destroyed several aircraft, most of which he was piloting himself. He celebrated VE day with his cousin, the Prime Minister, at 10 Downing Street.
During the war, Leslie had met Agnes Bernauer, the daughter of a German Jewish impresario (Marlene Dietrich's first employer); they married in August 1945. In 1954, Agnes Bernelle - as she now styled herself - became the first non-stationary nude on the English stage as Salome at St Martin's theatre. A decade later, Leslie caused a sensation by throwing a punch at Bernard Levin during a live transmission of That Was Week That Was (Levin had given Agnes Bernelle an ungenerous review).
For all his enthusiasm for UFOs, Leslie was no zealot and enjoyed all the pleasures of life, imaginative conversation above all. He published several other books, including Hold Back the Night, and The Jesus File. In 1963, he moved back to Castle Leslie, where in a bid to restore its finances he opened a night club, Annabel's on the Bog, and entertained such house guests as Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger. A gifted musician, he also experimented with Musique Concrete, using samples of recorded natural sounds.
Desmond Leslie's first marriage was dissolved in 1969. He married secondly, in 1970, Helen Strong, who survives him, together with his two sons and four daughters.
Friday, September 26, 2008
A Town in Texas Ponders Mystery of 1897 Spaceman
2-26-1979
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By The New York Times
2-26-1979
2-26-1979
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
UFOs in the Skies Over St Lawrence
By The Jersey Evening Post
9-24-08
SOMETHING is stirring in the sleepy parish of St Lawrence. There are reports that mysterious red lights were crossing the sky at the weekend.9-24-08
Clive Feltham-Fletcher was watching the Ryder Cup coverage on TV late on Saturday evening when something outside the window caught his eye. He wants to know if other people saw it and whether they can explain what it was.
‘We live right below the flight path, so we are used to seeing planes,’ he said. ‘But when I saw this red light follow the same path I knew that the Airport was closed and instantly thought to myself “What on earth is this?” It was a very vivid bright red light, moving across the sky.’
Mr Feltham-Fletcher quickly ran outside and called his wife, Jane, to look out of the bedroom window from upstairs. ‘I had never seen anything like it,’ said Mrs Feltham-Fletcher. ‘When Clive called me, I went out on to the balcony and stood there watching this red light. It was so bright and big and then it just disappeared. It couldn’t have been a satellite because it was too low.’
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A Picture and a Thousand Words - A Rebuttal
By Bill Taylor
The Star
921-08
Editor's note--The following (subsequent to the introduction to the piece in question) is my response to the author of the a fore mentioned article; the piece is "way off the mark," and is certainly not representative of historical facts--it is what I (politely) call pure "flapdoodle!"--FWThe Star
921-08
At the tail end of the 19th century, when millions were out of work, North Americans craved airships. The fact that there weren't any did absolutely nothing to stop people from seeing them
. . . A hundred years later, as evidenced by this picture from a leading popular science weekly, what North Americans craved were airships, preferably real, but imaginary would do. The technology required for a powered, lighter-than-air vessel that could be steered and travel against the prevailing winds, was far from being perfected.
But technical journals of the time were happy to write about such craft as if they were an established, flying fact. And people all across America proved themselves capable of believing they'd seen something that wasn't there.
Mass hysteria, wish fulfillment or a desperate dream to counter desperate times make the "Great Airship of 1897" the UFO (though that term hadn't yet been coined) of its time, J.P. Chaplin wrote in his book, Rumor, Fear and the Madness of Crowds. Hundreds of thousands of people believed they'd seen ... something in the sky that was man-made, had engines and could fly . . ..
Dear Mr. Taylor,
I have to admit that I got a chuckle in reading your piece, "A picture and a thousand words"; at the same time I was a little surprised, as one would think that as a writer for "the Star" there would be some prerequisites in regards to presenting a "human interest essay” . . . like for example, some “facts.”
I was amused by the irony, as you write about, “mass hysteria,” “madness,” and a “great willingness to believe” which certainly doesn’t represent the reality of the matter nor the historical record. The piece was so far off the mark, that it gave me pause about its author in relationship to the very descriptions he was using; however in the end, giving you the benefit of the doubt, methinks you just failed to do your homework.
In your second paragraph you wrote:
“The technology required for a powered, lighter-than-air vessel that could be steered and travel against the prevailing winds, was far from being perfected.”
Just the opposite is true! There is a myriad of “Airship patents,” and related contrivances beginning in the early 1800’s. Moreover, there had been many successful test flights, as well as unsuccessful ones as early as the 1840’s; these were heavy-then-air ships, some “more like planes,” then the more popular “cigar-shaped” airships of the time. The point being, is that “actual craft” were being built and patented both in this country and Europe, and although the ideas started in the imagination of man, spurred by his desire to conquer flight, this precipitated the beginnings of man’s trek into the heavens and certainly wasn’t hallucinations as you intimate in your article.
John Stringfellow's steam powered tri-plane of "1868," flew successfully in short distances; it by the way was a tri-plane with a steam engine and is now on display at the Early Flight Gallery of the National Air & Space Museum, Washington, D. C. This was but one of several he built in that time period.
Jean Marie Le Bris's "The Artificial Albatross" had a successful test flight in 1856.
Mariott's, "Avitor Hermes performed a successful test flight in Burlingame Ca. in "1869!" This, a hydrogen gas filled cigar-shaped-envelope powered by a steam engine.
Paul Haenlein performed successful test flights of his Airship in "1872"; his ship was powered by 4 cylinder "gas engine." His ship was about the same size as today's "Goodyear blimps."
Henri Giffard performed a successful test flight of his Airship in "1852;" a propeller was powered by a small steam engine.
Félix Du Temple successfully flew his steam-powered aircraft in "1857."
Solomon Andrews flew his "Aereon" over "New Jersey" in "1865!"
These are but a few samplings what took place in the 19th century in regards to man’s quest for flight, and particularly the “airship,” and or “aeroplane.” The a fore mentioned men and their respective inventions were highly publicized, and gave birth to “Aerial companies,” as they needed funding to further their ideas and contrivances. There was nothing “imaginary” about it!
In fact, the very founder of Scientific American, “Rufus Porter, “ in 1849 flew a scale model” of an airship in New York which he had been working on since the 1820’s.
In conclusion, “man’s imagination” certainly played a part in “conquering the skies,” and began much earlier then most realize, as well as more successfully then you erroneously portray in your piece; however, “the imagination” in use was “ingenuity and cunning,” not hallucination or “mass hysteria” as you’ve lead your readers to believe.
Throughout man’s history there have been those who couldn’t conceive or accept advancement in science or technology; in fact this is usually the majority, as it wasn’t prudent to go against the “status quo.” Henceforth men like “J.P. Chaplin” try to explain extraordinary events of a time in more palatable way, (although one might argue whether “mass hysteria” is “more palatable”) often times ignoring the evidence or just not doing their respective homework, as I believe is the case here.
In regards to what has become known as the “Mystery Airships of 1897,” to suggest that this was a result of “mass hysteria” is quite frankly, preposterous! This was an “international phenomenon,” which publicly began in Sacramento, Ca. in 1896. Near-by in San Francisco the local newspapers “ridiculed Sacramentans,” depicting them in caricatures coming out of opium dens, and or local taverns regarding the sightings of the airborne contrivances; the Bay Area locals treated the stories in “like manner” . . . that is until the airship flew over their towns, and homes!
This is not to say that there weren’t any “hoaxes” or misidentifications as sightings took place in different parts of the country; however, to write the multitude of events off as some sort of psychosis is nonsensical. Moreover, anyone who’s bothered to look into the matter knows there is some “wheat in the chaff.”
Respectfully.
Frank Warren
Monday, September 22, 2008
'Triangular' UFOs spotted near Wrexham - VIDEO
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By The Evening Leader
9-22-08
STRANGE, dazzling lights flying slowly through the night sky have been reported near Wrexham, sparking a new UFO scare.9-22-08
The Evening Leader has been inundated with calls reporting the triangular shapes over Rhos, as well as sightings in Johnstown and Borras.
The incident, the latest in a long line of sightings in the town, is strengthening claims that the town is fast becoming a UFO hotspot.
Janet Bancroft, 28, and partner Mark Pluke, 24, both witnessed the dazzling lights from their home on Maes-y-Ficerdy, Rhos, after Mark had gone to put the rubbish out.
According to the couple, the lights, spotted at about 7.40pm, formed into a slow-moving triangle before eventually disappearing from view some 20 minutes later.
Janet said: "It was really strange. They formed into a 'V' shape and then into a triangle which sort of got bigger and bigger."
Some have dismissed the phenomenon as Chinese lanterns or low-flying aircraft. Janet, however, is not so sure.
"From the way they came up and formed, I don't think lanterns could do that in the air," she said.
"It is something stranger than that and somebody knows what they are.
"It was really creepy. It takes a lot to scare me and that scared me.
"After that we counted four helicopters in the sky – there is definitely something odd going on."
She added: "I'm not one to believe in UFOs, but that was definitely not right."
Another Rhos resident who spotted the lights on Wednesday evening was taxi driver Steven Austin.
Steven's wife, Mandy, had already seen the mysterious objects on a number of previous nights over the past week, but he had always been absent – until then.
He said: "My wife first saw them last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 8pm and 8.30pm, but Wednesday I was there too.
"It flew in some weird triangle formation. It was an upside down triangle.
"I'm a taxi driver and when I got to Rhostyllen I could see them.
"There's a slight buzzing noise to them but I wouldn't have thought they were military jets because they were going too slow.
"I'm always on the road so obviously I can't keep looking up to the sky.
"It's the first time I have ever seen anything like that. Whether they are UFOs, it is hard to say really."
Mysterious Objects May Have Been Sky Saucers
12-20-1953
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By Ogdensburg Advance
12-20-1953
Sunday, September 21, 2008
'They're Out There:' Farmer Remembers His Close Encounter
By Darren Bernhardt
The StarPhoenix
9-20-08
It was 34 years ago this month when Edwin Fuhr encountered five dome-shaped objects hovering about a half-metre above his canola field.The StarPhoenix
9-20-08
The passage of time has done nothing to quell the 70-year-old Langenburg man's conviction that we are not alone in the universe. In fact, Fuhr believes his visitors are still keeping watch -- from a distance.
"They're out there, there's no question," he said in an interview.
About five or six years ago, in the northeast part of the sky, four or five lights did something strange.
"They followed you," Fuhr said, saying they looked like stars but "a star doesn't move or change colours."
In 1988, he moved from the farm, about 10 kilometres north of Langenburg, into town. The urban lights tend to wash out the night sky, but every so often in the northeast, the lights show up and follow along, Fuhr said.
"I'm pretty sure they're the same ones (that were in the field in 1974). That's the direction they took off in '74," he said.
Many UFO sightings on the Prairies occur in fall, when farmers are harvesting before the frost hits. That's when reports of crop circles tend to . . . er, crop up.
Going to inspect the landing area the day following his encounter, Fuhr found five rings of depressed canola swirled in a clockwise direction. More circles were found in the area later that month, according to media and police reports from the time.
Over the next while, the site was visited by the RCMP, scientists, UFO researchers from across North America and even the FBI. Sniffer dogs used by the police refused to enter the circles, according to Fuhr.
"Something was there and I doubt it was a hoax. There's no indication anything had been wheeled in or out and Mr. Fuhr seemed genuinely scared," RCMP Const. Ron Morier was quoted in a StarPhoenix story of Sept. 19, 1974.
On Sept. 27, 1974, another newspaper article referred to a Martensville police constable and his wife witnessing a UFO over Saskatoon. It hung above the Nutana neighbourhood briefly before taking off. The officer, Albert Goddue, described it as being dome-shaped.
"No one will ever convince me it was any type of conventional aircraft. It was like nothing I have ever seen in the sky before," Goddue was quoted as saying.
Not everyone remains a believer after a close encounter. On Sept. 19, 1963, an 11-year-old boy and three friends were playing in a Saskatoon schoolyard when they saw a bright oval object hover and drop something. They claim a figure stood up three metres tall, made a moaning sound, held out his hands, and floated towards them.
The 11-year-old told investigators the figure was a man dressed in clothes "like a monk's" which were "white like a crayon."
The accounts are recorded in two books, Passport to Magonia: on UFOs, folklore, and parallel worlds, by Jacques Vallee, and The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings, by John Keel.
The children ran off and one girl became so hysterical that she had to be hospitalized.
"Sometimes I could see right through him," the 11-year-old said.
Now 56, he refuses to believe it ever happened.
"It was just overzealous kids with good imaginations," he said in an interview Friday, the 45th anniversary of the event. "I don't want to discuss it."
The man said he went through a "tough time" in school after the supposed sighting was made public. Since then, he has moved from Saskatoon and no longer associates with the other three children who were with him that day. He has been married 35 years and neither his wife nor any of his immediate family members know anything of the incident, he said, asking his name be kept out of the newspaper.
"It's in the past and that's where it should stay," he said. "I don't need the headache."
Fuhr was 36 when he saw the saucers around 10 a.m. Initially, he noticed one metallic object in a depression on the land. He walked to within 15 feet of the object.
"I saw the grass was moving and I looked up and saw this thing spinning at one hell of a speed," he said on Thursday.
There was no sound, no smell, no windows to peer into, said Fuhr, whose joints ached as he walked backwards to the swather, keeping his eye on the saucer.
Then he noticed four more off to the side, arranged in a "half-moon" formation. He estimates the two largest ones were 30 feet in diameter with the rest slightly smaller. They hovered about 15 minutes before taking off, one-by-one, with a gust of vapour.
A few weeks after the incident, a scientist from the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa suggested the rings were caused by mushrooms. Allen McNamara, head of the NRC's upper atmosphere research section, also theorized the glow from the saucers may have been caused by the fungi.
The crop circles were exactly the same as "fairy rings" produced by underground mushroom filaments, he was quoted as saying. When asked by reporters about the canola pressed in a circular motion, McNamara guessed it was caused by wind.
Fuhr has never been provided an explanation that would convince him he was imagining things.
"Imagination doesn't leave marks in the ground, does it?" he said, noting the landing site was tested as recently as four years ago and is still emitting radioactive waves.
For the first year, nothing would grow where the circles were and "the ground was hard, like cement."
Though he no longer works the land, it remains in the family, farmed by a nephew. Fuhr has never asked him whether he's encountered anything strange.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
"There Was a Time When the USAF Gave the MSM Permission to Ask Questions About UFOs . . ."
They don't teach this in J-school
By Billy Cox
De Void
9-19-08
By Billy Cox
De Void
9-19-08
Still agog over ABC’s emasculating refusal Tuesday night to get the Air Force on record about the UFO incident Stephenville, De Void nearly wept with nostalgia this week when alerted to the existence of a 41-year-old book.It’s called “Problems of Journalism: Proceedings of the Society of Newspaper Editors, 1967.” Veteran UFO watcher Robert Barrow (robert-barrow.blogspot.com) picked it up for $3.50 in 1968, and the chapter he blogged about involves a round table discussion between UFO researchers and newspaper editors.
Gasp — it’s true. There was a time when the USAF gave the MSM permission to ask questions about UFOs because its own official study (which turned out to be crap, but that’s another story) was underway.
What’s great about Barrow’s post is how, way back then, one of the few real heroes in any government-authorized assessment of UFOs doubted the media had the stones for the job. Physicist Dr. James McDonald, a member of the University of Colorado panel contracted by the USAF to analyze its data, told journalists they were blowing the story.
“Something is going on here of the greatest scientific interest that has been shoved under a rug, ridiculed and laughed out of court,” the former Navy cryptographer told them.
“You and your feature writers have helped ridicule it. It’s easier to write a funny story. And once the Air Force tells you there’s nothing to it, what is more logical than to say ‘People see things; there are a lot of nuts around the country’? And that has led to the net effect that very few of these are reported.”
McDonald would go on to be the leading critic of the Colorado report, a whitewash that allowed the USAF to rinse its hands of UFO transparency once and for all. But what’s also interesting are remarks made by Harvard astronomer and UFO debunker Donald Menzel, who never read a report he couldn’t explain or deride:
“The Air Force has made its mistakes. They never have had enough scientists in the project. They have failed to follow up certain sightings of special importance. To me their questionnaire is amateurish, almost cleverly designed to get the wrong answer and lose track of the facts.”
Four decades later, of course, McDonald’s pessimism has been borne out. And really, as ABC “PrimeTime” proved, you don’t even have to ridicule UFOs anymore. Just pile a lot of colorful garbage in the picture window, keep away from the Air Force, and call this exercise in paternalism whatever you want — like journalism.
"What I Saw" - By Kenneth Arnold
Excerpts From Arnold Declarations
By Kenneth Arnold
1947-1952
Official Declaration To Army Air Forces July 1947
They were approaching Mt. Rainier very rapidly, and I merely assumed they were jet planes. Anyhow, I discovered that this was where the reflection had come from, as two or three of them every few seconds would dip or change their course slightly, just enough for the sun to strike them at an angle that reflected brightly on my plane.
These objects being quite far away, I was unable for a few seconds to make out their shape or their formation. Very shortly they approached Mt. Rainier, and I observed their outline against the snow quite plainly.
They were approaching Mt. Rainier very rapidly, and I merely assumed they were jet planes. Anyhow, I discovered that this was where the reflection had come from, as two or three of them every few seconds would dip or change their course slightly, just enough for the sun to strike them at an angle that reflected brightly on my plane.
These objects being quite far away, I was unable for a few seconds to make out their shape or their formation. Very shortly they approached Mt. Rainier, and I observed their outline against the snow quite plainly.
I thought it was very peculiar that I couldn't find their tails but assumed they were some type of jet plane. I was determined to clock their speed, as I had two definite points I could clock them by; the air was so clear that it was very easy to see objects and determine their approximate shape and size at almost fifty miles that day.
I remember distinctly that my sweep second hand on my eight day clock, which is located on my instrument panel, read one minute to 3 P.M. as the first object of this formation passed the southern edge of Mt. Rainier. I watched these objects with great interest as I had never before observed airplanes flying so close to the mountain tops, flying directly south to southeast down the hog's back of a mountain range. I would estimate their elevation could have varied a thousand feet one way or another up or down, but they were pretty much on the horizon to me which would indicate they were near the same elevation as I was.
They flew like many times I have observed geese to fly in a rather diagonal chain-like line as if they were linked together. They seemed to hold a definite direction but rather swerved in and out of the high mountain peaks. Their speed at the time did not impress me particularly, because I knew that our army and air forces had planes that went very fast.
What kept bothering me as I watched them flip and flash in the sun right along their path was the fact that I couldn't make out any tail on them, and I am sure that any pilot would justify more than a second look at such a plane.
I observed them quite plainly, and I estimate my distance from them, which was almost at right angles, to be between twenty to twenty-five miles. I knew they must be very large to observe their shape at that distance, even on as clear a day as it was that Tuesday, In fact I compared a zeus fastener or cowling tool I had in my pocket with them - holding it up on them and holding it up on the DC-4 - that I could observe at quite a distance to my left, and they seemed smaller than the DC-4; but, I should judge their span would have been as wide as the furtherest engines on each side of the fuselage of the DC-4.
The more I observed these objects the more upset I became, as I am accustomed and familiar with most all objects flying whether I am close to the ground or at higher altitudes. I observed the chain of these objects passing another high snow-covered rIdge in between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams and as, the first one was passing the south crest of this ridge the last object was entering the northern crest of the ridge.
As I was flying in the direction of this particular ridge, I measured it and found it to be approximately five miles so I could safely assume that the chain of these saucer like objects were at least five miles long. I could quite accurately determine their pathway due to the fact that there were several high peaks that were a little this side of them as well as higher peaks on the other side of their pathway.
As the last unit of this formation passed the southern most high snow-covered crest of Mt. Adams, I looked at my sweep second hand and it showed that they had travelled the distance in one minute and forty-two seconds. Even at the time this timing did not upset me as I felt confident after I would land there would be some explanation of what I saw.
[When Davidson and Brown met with Arnold, et al, he (Davidson) sketched an image of what Rhodes photographed over his house in Arizona. Arnold made the following statements]
“It was a disk almost identical to the one peculiar flying saucer that had been worrying me since my original observation—the one that looked different from the rest and that I had never mentioned to anyone.”
LIVE SIGHTING REPORTS BY MUFON
