By Great Falls Leader
3-25-1967
3-25-1967
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Malmstrom Air Force Base Picks Up UFO on Radar; "Sabotage Alert Team Located Another UFO Directly Over The Base"
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UFO Experience Changes Woman’s Life
By Arlene Jongbloets
100 Mile House Free Press
12-30-08
100 Mile House Free Press
12-30-08
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Miriam Delicado has been on an incredible 20-year journey that began on the outskirts of 100 Mile house one October night in 1988.The current Vancouv-erite, who was 22 at the time, lived in northern BC and she and four others were on their way to the Lower Mainland when the incredible is said to have happened.
Driving south along Hwy. 97, just past Prince George, Delicado said a pair of huge, luminescent lights drew up and followed within 10 feet of their back bumper.
“It was night time and we thought it was a truck but the lights would follow us when we were alone and then disappear when a car or a house came into view,” said Delicado. “After the lights had been following us for hours, we came to 100 Mile House and I thought we’d be able to lose whatever it was.”
They nervously sped through town and, within minutes of leaving 100 Mile, the lights were back on their tail, appearing and disappearing within the blink of an eye, she said.
“I started panicking and told my friend to pull over. She said no, because she was scared, but I told her that it wasn’t her they wanted, it was me. As soon as we stopped she turned into a zombie. Her head flopped back and she just had a blank stare and the back seat people were in animated suspension,” said Delicado.
What happened next brought Delicado to the realization that her inner fears had been well-founded.
“The two spheres were a foot behind us and the car was engulfed in bright light. I turned to the front of the car and saw a craft sitting on the road. It was luminescent and it was hard to see the details but it looked like there was steam coming off of it,” she said.
Short beings, close to four feet tall, with big round, black eyes and large, childlike heads approached her.
“They had a small mouth and tiny nose and wore a one-piece suit and I heard instructions in my head to get out of the car. I was scared but not terrified, more in a state of confusion, but they kept saying not to be afraid. We will not harm you,” said Delicado.
The beings took her hand and they all walked a short way along the highway and up an embankment. Delicado said that when she looked up, she saw a larger craft with an open doorway.
“There were two tall beings, seven feet tall, in the doorway. They had blond hair of the purest white, large, water blue eyes and they wore long robes,” she said.
Delicado boarded the craft, which she recalled to have had a metallic interior with a sterile feel.
“In the centre was a circular work area with stools and overhead was a hovering white light ball of what I think was energy. It seemed to be a control centre where information streamed from the ball to the beings,” she said.
Her communication with the beings seemed to occur through telepathy.
“They sat me down on some kind of light chair recliner and, in front of me, a screen appeared which showed pictures of possible futures of the Earth. I saw an earthquake aftermath and they explained what it was and seemed to have the ability to place the experience within me. They gave me the physical ability to experience the trauma,” she said.
Delicado said she spent about three hours on the craft, watching what appeared to be a movie of some sort, before returning to the car. Everyone woke up when she got back and there was conversation about the lights, but no recognition of what she claims to have seen.
She drew the group’s attention to what she said were a group of glowing eyes on the side of the road. Everyone else thought they were deer, but Delicado believed they were aliens, watching.
They continued on their journey to the Lower Mainland without conversation about what Delicado believes to have happened but, the next day, new memories that had been embedded in her mind started to spill out.
Experiences of war, meteors hitting the earth and other disasters played over and over in her head.
“They started to filter clearly into my mind. All of these possibilities of a future we are heading for if we don’t change the path humanity is on,” said Delicado.
The experience
instilled in her how important it is to have a respect for the earth and made her believe humans are not alone in the universe.
“We have a responsibility to ourselves and to all of life,” she said.
Delicado believes the beings she claims to have seen are the caretakers of the earth.
“They are not allowed to interfere with what we are doing here on earth, but they give people like me information and we have the free will to do what we want with the information.”
She kept it all her own secret for 15 years but, during that time, Delicado claims to have had many telepathic communications with the beings.
There were also unusual encounters, she said, with men who looked and dressed the same and all claimed to work in the computer industry.
“They all talked about the same thing. About computer technology and about aliens and they all said they installed super-computers for the government,” said Delicado, noting that she’s met others at various UFO conventions who have had the same experience.
Delicado said she was telepathically instructed on when to start publicly sharing her experience and knowledge and for the past five years has been filling requests to speak at conventions and other gatherings. She said that since going public, she’s received emails from people all over the world claiming to have had the same types of experiences.
She believes she was chosen because her soul had already chosen a conducive path, long ago.
“My family has a psychic strain,” she said, explaining that her father had psychic abilities.
“He didn’t talk about aliens, but he talked about how the earth would change one day and how we needed survival skills and know how to defend ourselves,” said Delicado.
She described her message from the aliens as not being a dark one, but one of hope and encouragement.
“These beings have been out there since the beginning of time and my understanding is that they take care of other planets out there. They are also in the dream world and some walk around us. I’ve seen them in public and they don’t look like us, but others don’t see what I’m seeing,” said Delicado, recalling encounters on city buses and other public places.
She said that everyday for her involves just trying to fit in because she finds it difficult to view the world in the same way she once did. She’s worked in the food services industry and as a nanny and house cleaner but most recently, Delicado turned author, writing a book about her experiences she called “Blue Star: Fulfilling Prophecy”.
“The right people are finding their way to the book and that’s the goal,” she said. “I want to share this story with others who have had a similar experience so they know they are on the right path and there are others out there like themselves.”
According to Delicado, her experience came shortly after she watched a television special called UFO Coverup? Live! It was a two-hour prime-time syndicated television special that was broadcast in North America and elsewhere on Oct. 14, 1988.
A couple of high-level U.S. government intelligence officials, disguised as “The Falcon” and “Condor” were interviewed in shadow and with masked voices. They disclosed information about the U.S. government’s involvement in UFOS and alien interaction, UFO crashes and occupant retrievals. The show also included the first public mention of Area 51, a highly secret military airfield in Nevada used for testing experimental aircraft and weaponry and a central component to UFO folklore.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
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Monday, December 29, 2008
Producer/Director James Fox Returns To The Paracast
Editor’s note—For those who missed last Sunday’s episode of the Paracast, or if in fact their still might be some unaware of the existence of the show, I highly recommend taking the time to treat yourself to this outstanding discourse between co-hosts, “David Biedny and Gene Steinberg” with their guest “James Fox,” producer (and Ufologist) of the outstanding film, Out of The Blue—you won’t be disappointed! —FW
Sunday, December 28, 2008
MY UFO EXPERIENCE: Triangular Shaped UFO Puts on Light Show Over I-5
Reader Submitted Report
[Unedited]
California, United States
10-6-08
[Unedited]
California, United States
10-6-08
At around 2 a.m. on Friday, October 3rd I spotted a UFO while driving on Interstate 5 in Central California. The GPS located that we were between Panoche, and Mendota. I was sitting in the passenger side of the car, while our car headed north on the interstate.
There were only 2 passengers in the car including myself. From afar, we both noticed some kind of craft that appeared to be a helicopter or crop duster. At first the craft would pulse light similar to an airplane, then the whole thing would light up, followed by the appearance of three distinct separate lights. This light pattern: pulsing light, to sustained bright light, to three linear lights, continued for about a minute, each individual stage lasting a few seconds.
The craft made incredibly low figure eights over the interstate; its’ distance above the ground roughly tripled the height of an overhanging freeway exit sign. At that point I still could not make out the body of the craft, as all I could see were incredibly bright lights.
The craft kept making figure eights over the interstate, flying over both north and south lanes, making low and sharp turns over the fields that surrounded the road. As it continued to figure 8, it no longer followed the light patterns, but was simply three linear lights. I thought "Wow, what a cool plane. This is something," up until the point when I looked to my left as the craft made its turn back towards the interstate and the three individual lights began to interchange and rotate, changing its linear form into no form; disconnected and spontaneous. Each of the three lights seemed to act independently. As I witnessed this, I knew it was not a crop duster, or helicopter, or normal airplane.
This time when the craft came back across the interstate and into the surrounding fields it sank so low to the ground that I thought it had disappeared. I thought it was gone, but out of no where it rose up to my left directly above the car, this time it's three lights made the shape of a giant triangle which we were able to clearly view through our front windshield. While the giant triangle flew over us, the three lights that composed it’s shape shifted back into three linear lights, transforming the craft and changing it’s direction from straight up, to straight out towards the east as if the pattern of the lights controlled and shifted it’s movement.
Shocked, I rolled the window down to see if I heard any noise, but we were driving around 70 mph and there were so many cars and trucks on the road that we could not hear anything. As we continued driving forward, I turned around in my seat to watch it fly away. It appeared to look like a normal plane now (pulsing and flying steady) with an exception of the occasional bright light that would be sustained for a few seconds.
Overall, what shocked me about this craft was the way it flew so low and turned with such ease. It did not appear to be flying, but almost floating. In addition, the interchanging, shape-shifting lights that initially appeared as three lights in a linear pattern did not calm my suspicion that this craft was not a normal airplane or helicopter. By the maneuvers that I witnessed, it would have to be one ridiculously talented and daring pilot to be able to pull off such stunning acrobatics in the air.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
MY UFO EXPERIENCE: On Flight To Toronto Witness Observes White Light Exhibit 'Unearthly Speed!'
By Reader Submitted Report
Toronto, Canada
[Unedited]
12-18-08
About a month ago, this past November 2008, I was flying back from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Toronto, Ontario. It was about 8 or 9 pm, and the flight had been uneventful. I always select a window seat, and I have, for most of my adult life, been aware of the existence of UFOs, and usually take time to observe the night sky, particularly when I am in unfamiliar areas. Toronto, Canada
[Unedited]
12-18-08
It was a clear night, and as we made a long approach to Pearson International airport, the lights of other approaching aircraft were common. These included the bright white lights facing forward on the aircraft, and the flashing amber lights and the stationary red lights also.
I was looking directly at what I had assumed was an approaching aircraft. Our plane was at about ten thousand feet and this whitish light seemed to be around the same altitude. It appeared to be stationary, but I assumed this was because it was moving toward us.
Suddenly the light dropped more than a thousand feet straight down, and much more rapidly than free fall, or even a diving aircraft. I had to press up against the window to look down at it, and when I did, it executed a very sharp lateral course change and veered off east, out of my sight.
It took a moment for me to allow this to sink in, and I looked at the person sitting next to me, on my right. He had been watching out the window on and off as we approached, and I asked him "Did you see that?"
My tone may have been a bit odd, because he suddenly looked alarmed. "See WHAT?"
Needless to say, he hadn't been watching. I muttered something about a light dropping straight down, and then I laughed and said: "A UFO"
I have climbed mountains and flown often. I believe the distances I expressed are fairly accurate, and the speed of this thing was downright unearthly. If I had to guess how far it was from our aircraft, I would say no more than 2-3 km.
I also believe that we were close enough to the airport for this to have been on radar, we were probably 20 km east of the airport.
It happened very quickly, and being in the aircraft hindered my observation of the thing, but one thing is certain: I was looking straight at it when it dropped, and straight at it when it turned sharply and accelerated away.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Did UFOs Cause the Shutdown of ICBMs at Malmstrom AFB, in March 1967?
By Robert Hastings
ufohastings.com
12-22-08
ufohastings.com
12-22-08
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In response to my initial post on this thread, James Carlson has questioned the truthfulness of my former/retired U.S. Air Force sources, including former Captain Bob Salas, regarding their knowledge of UFO-involvement in large-scale nuclear missile malfunctions, at various Strategic Air Command bases during the Cold War era. Below I have inserted what will be the first in a series of responses to Carlson’s wild and inaccurate charges.But first, in his first post on this thread, an indignant Carlson, writes:
“[Former Minuteman missile launch officer Bob] Salas' account states that my father [Captain Eric Carlson] and First Lieutenant Walt Figel, the Echo-Flight Missile Combat Crew, were below ground in the E-Flight Launch Control Center (LCC) or capsule during the incident, and that during the early morning hours, more than one report came in from security patrols and maintenance crews that UFOs were in the area. A UFO was supposedly reported directly above one of the E-Flight launch facilities. These sightings supposedly occurred at the same time the missiles went into "off-alert" status. In other words, the UFOs were supposedly the cause of the entire flight of ten ICBMs going offline. All of their missiles reported a "No-Go" condition – i.e., they became inoperable, apparently due to a Guidance and Control (G&C) System fault. Although declassified documents support the assertion that there was a missile line failure throughout the E-Flight complex, no documentation supports the story told here of UFOs having anything whatsoever to do with the failure. True believers see this as ‘proof’ that the government is hiding the actual facts of the March 16, 1967 incident. It’s apparently far more reasonable to believe that the government is lying about UFOs, than to believe that Jim Klotz and Robert Salas – who actually made some money off of this smelly butt – might have lied about UFOs being involved in a national security incident 30 years earlier...”
“I can assure you that absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened that Thursday morning, March 16, 1967 in the E-Flight Launch Control Center. There was a computer malfunction, but given the quality of computers used in 1967 -– even state of the art computers -- this was hardly a rare occurrence. There was an investigation, but this was standard operating procedure, and again was nothing new. Everything else is totally false, from the UFOs on down…Security Alert Teams were often dispatched from Echo in those days, because they provided tier one security for the missiles. There were, however, no UFOs seen by anybody concerned, and had Figel received such a report from one of the mobile security crews and not informed the strike teams – or my father, who was in charge during the watch – as all the above article asserts, he would have been arrested. That didn't happen, however, and my father, being the watch Captain, is absolutely certain that no such report was ever made. Searches were made, but no record or log entry was ever uncovered This wasn’t due to a conspiracy. Nothing was found because nothing was there.”
Now, Robert Hastings responds:
Below are pertinent excerpts from my taped telephone conversation on 10/20/08 with Col. Walter Figel (USAF Ret.). Figel was Eric Carlson’s deputy missile commander at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967:
WF: [At the time of the Echo Flight shutdown] what was unusual was that several of the missiles were open...for some routine maintenance. I don’t remember why. But, uh, at least two of them were running on diesel power so they were not connected to the power grid. I don’t remember if it was three open or four open [but] it was just routine maintenance. Nothing had happened [to the missiles]. It was just the time of the year for routine maintenance. Um, and the day before, there were maintenance teams out there. They had stayed overnight—
RH: Do you know how many maintenance teams were out overnight?
WF: You know, I think it was four. It was the two sites that had diesels running and two others. And when maintenance stays overnight they...stay in a camper...When you have maintenance on the site and they’re going to stay overnight, you have a security team on the site.
RH: Right.
(Break. Figel goes into detail about security procedures.)
WF: [When] the missiles dropped off alert, I started calling the maintenance people out there on the radio to talk to them. I had the security guard authenticate so I know I’m talking to a security guard and, you know, [I asked] “What’s going on? Is maintenance trying to get into the silo?” [The guard said,] “No, they’re still in the camper.” [So, I said,] “Get ‘em up, I want to talk to them.” Then I tried to tell them what I had was a Channel 9 No-Go.
RH: Uh huh.
WF: Uh, we did that with the sites that were there, that [had maintenance teams and their guards on site] and I sent Strike Teams to two other sites. There’s no sense sending them where I [already] have a guard and a gun and an authenticate.
RH: Right.
WF: Uh—
RH: So far in this narrative, you haven’t mentioned UFOs.
WF: [Laughs] That’s correct. Um, somewhere along the way, um, one of the maintenance people—cause he didn’t know what was going on any place else either, they have no capability of talking to each other [at different launch sites], in other words, they can talk to the [launch] capsule but they can’t talk to each other—
RH: Right
WF: —unless they were on the radio and no one was using the radio except the security police. And the guy says, “We got a Channel 9 No-Go. It must be a UFO hovering over the site. I think I see one here.” [I said,] “Yeah, right, whatever. What were you drinking?” And he tried to convince me of something and I said, well, I basically, you know, didn’t believe him. [Laughs] I said, you know, we have to get somebody to look at this [No-Go]. [A short time later] one of the Strike Teams that went out, one of the two, claimed that they saw something over the site.
RH: How did they describe that?
WF: Oh, on radio, [they said,] “There’s this large object hovering over the site!” I’ve always been a non-believer [in UFOs] so I said, “Right, sure you do.” [They responded,] “Yeah! Yeah, we do!” So, [I said,] “There’s two of you there, saying so, so write it down in your report.” [The Strike Team leader] said, “What do you want us to do?” [I said,] “Follow your checklist. Go to the site, open it up, and call me.”
RH: What was the demeanor of the guard you were talking to?
WF: Um, you know, I wouldn’t say panicked, or anything [like that]. I was thinking he was yanking my chain more than anything else.
RH: But he seemed to be serious to you?
WF: He seemed to be serious and I wasn’t taking him seriously.
RH: Alright. If it was a large object, did he describe the shape of the object?
WF: He just said a large round object.
RH: Directly over the LF?
WF: Directly over the site.
(BREAK. Figel describes hearing from the maintenance man about his opening up the silo, going down into it, and reporting that even though the missile was offline, nothing was visually damaged or otherwise amiss at the site.)
RH: Did he describe the object leaving the scene?
WF: No. He never said anything about it again.
(BREAK. Figel describes telling all the maintenance teams to stay at their sites until relieved, and not to attempt repairs until told to do so, since the missile silos were in effect “crime scenes”.)
RH: When you got the first call, well, when the missiles went down, you didn’t have an inkling of an alleged UFO-involvement until you got the report back from the first Strike Team member?
WF: That’s correct. (RH: Actually, the missile maintenance man mentioned seeing the UFO first.)
RH: Okay, uh, and only one of the two teams reported seeing an object?
WF: Right.
RH: Uh, did you discuss the report with Mr. Carlson—that you were being told that there was a UFO at one of the sites?
WF: Um, he could hear it, uh, I mean he was sitting right there, two feet away from me—
RH: So—
WF: Whatever I said, he would have heard.
(Break. Figel describes going back to Malmstrom with Carlson and being debriefed by “everybody and his brother.”)
RH: Did any of the conversations back at squadron headquarters, uh, was there any mention of UFOs?
WF: I told them everything everyone told me. No one made any comments or inquiries—
RH: So you did mention the report that you got from the Strike Team?
WF: Yes.
RH: And no one asked any questions about UFOs per se?
WF: No.
RH: Did they act skeptically or negatively when you mentioned [the Strike Team’s UFO report]?
WF: They just wrote things down.
RH: [Laughs] That sounds right. Poker-faced and—
WF: [Laughs] Poker-faced and wrote things down. They just said, “Thank you very much. Don’t talk about it.” I didn’t sign anything, I can tell you that.
(Break. Hastings describes similar testimony from other missileers who were debriefed at Malmstrom and other Strategic Air Command bases, following UFO-related incidents in the missile fields.)
WF: What did Eric [Carlson] have to say [about the shutdown incident]? (RH had interviewed Carlson two weeks earlier, on 10/6/08)
RH: Uh, he said that he couldn’t recall any UFO-involvement in the incident. He couldn’t remember if you had mentioned UFOs, one way or another. His son [James] has now [posted] on a blog, a web log, a couple of lengthy statements in which he defamed Salas, said Salas was a liar, [and said] there was nothing involving UFOs at Echo...
WF: Did Eric say anything else that was a discontinuity [relative to what I’ve said]?
RH: ...Well, I [told Eric] that you had [heard from] a guard or a maintenance person that there was an object above the site, which you’ve confirmed today—
WF: Yes.
RH: —And I asked Eric if he remembered any of that, and he said that he did not. And, um, I asked him why his son would have written this scathing, very negative summary, which I will send [to] you, about the event—
WF: That will be interesting.
RH: —calling Salas a liar, and so on and so forth.
WF: Well, I didn’t do that.
RH: Well, I know, but his son, you know, for whatever reason, his son, James Carlson, has got a bug up his nose and said that nothing happened, there were no reports of UFOs, which you told me is incorrect because you got one.
WF: I did!
RH: Well, according to James, it was all bull and Salas was basically pulling it out of the air. [Eric] Carlson just, he didn’t really want to talk about it, frankly, but he did answer my questions. He just was kind of circumspect. I can’t say that he’s not being truthful when he says he doesn’t remember talking to you about UFOs, but that’s what he told me.
WF: I’m sure we had a long conversation. I mean, I reported everything to him that I heard or was told. I mean, we were together, you know? [Laughs]
RH: Well, it has been 40 years, so we have to take that into account. [That is, the possibility of faded memories.]
END OF TELEPHONE TRANSCRIPT
So, folks, James Carlson has it all wrong, according to his father’s deputy missile commander that day at Echo Flight, now retired Col. Walter Figel. Actually, James, the presence of a UFO at one of Echo’s missiles was indeed reported to Figel, by both a missile maintenance technician and a Security Alert Team (or Strike Team) member. It was described as a “large, round object”, hovering directly over the launch facility. Moreover, Figel insists that your father was fully aware of the situation, given that he was sitting “two feet away” from Figel during his phone calls with the on-site maintenance man and the responding missile security policeman. As to why your father can not, or will not, confirm Figel’s story, I won’t speculate.
So, James, will you also now call Col. Figel a liar, just as you have called the other honorable Air Force veterans liars, simply because they have come forward and spoken the truth about UFO activity at ICBM sites? If you would like to speak to Col. Figel yourself, please email me at hastings444@att.net and I will provide you with his telephone number.
Finally, because your reckless and unfounded charges are so numerous, James, I will require a number of posts to correct them all. Stay tuned, I shall return in the near future with the facts. You won’t be swayed by them, of course, but they will serve as an antidote to your uninformed, biased, and inaccurate mutterings, for those who wish to learn the truth.
More . . .
See Also:
UFO Sightings at ICBM Sites and Nuclear Weapons Storage Areas
- part I -
Launch in Progress!
UFOs Seen in Great Falls Vicinity
By The Daily Inter Lake
3-22-1967
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Magical Meteor
6-10-1884
- click on image(s) to enlarge -
By The Daily Nebraska State Journal
6-10-1884
Editors Note—This is a follow-up article to “A CELESTIAL VISITOR” written two days earlier—FW 6-10-1884
Monday, December 22, 2008
UFOs Again Roam Montana's Big Sky
2-6-1967
- click on image(s) to enlarge -
By Billing's Gazette
2-6-1967
2-6-1967
Sunday, December 21, 2008
An Historical Curio re "MJ-12"
By Larry W. Bryant
ufoview.posterous.com
12-18-08
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LWB note: Subscribers for the bimonthly "Journal of UFO History (A Publication of the Donald E. Keyhoe Archives)," published-edited by former NICAP assistant director Richard H. Hall ( http://www.hallrichard.com ), have a nostalgic treat on page 11 of the Journal's November-December 2008 issue. It consists of this excerpt from Hall's recent interview with former NICAP staffer Donald Berliner:Q: I think I know the answer to this, but what is your opinion on the reality or non-reality of the alleged MJ-12 organization?
A: Either there was an MJ-12 as described in the Eisenhower Briefing Document, or there was a similar organization that went under another name/designation . . . or maybe a series of titles. To have ignored the greatest scientific discovery in history and not marshaled our best talent to learn everything possible would have been malfeasance of the worst kind."
That conversation -- with its ageless perspective -- prompts me to publish here the contents of my 2000 public "Petition to Investigate the 'MJ-12' UFO Cover-up," which I'd circulated for three months via the now-defunct service called "petitionpetition.com." Alas, none of the agencies cited ever responded to my snail-mail delivery of the petition (which also had listed as a recipient one Va. U. S. Senator Charles Robb). Had they done so, they probably would've invoked their discretionary power to ignore it. But it certainly does stand as a nagging footnote in the history of the official, worldwide UFO cover-up, no? Here's the petition's text and list of signatories:
TO: Secretary, U.S. Department of the Army (Washington, D.C.);(1) With their 169 electronic signatures now entered upon subject petition, citizens from all walks of life -- from homemakers and students to government workers and professional specialists -- are requesting that you take all appropriate action toward fulfilling their plea as expressed in the text of the petition.
Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy (Washington, D.C.);
Director, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (Washington, D.C.);
Director, U.S. Office of Special Counsel (Washington, D.C.);
Attorney General of the United States (Washington, D.C.)
FROM: Larry W. Bryant
3518 Martha Custis Drive
Alexandria, VA 22302
DATE: July 22, 2000
(2) Circulated during the period April 21 to July 21, 2000, via the Internet website of http://www.petitionpetition.com, the petition presented the following background information:
The inspectors general of three federal agencies -- the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of the Army, and the Department of Energy -- are continuing to ignore a written request to investigate their agencies' role in the official cover-up of the "UFO/E.T. experience."
This ADMINISTRATIVE petition (as carried by the website of www.petitionpetition.com) sets the stage for a forthcoming "Petition for Writ of Mandamus," to be filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Accordingly, if the IG officials involved persist in stonewalling the formal request to investigate their agencies' role in the UFO cover-up as revealed by certain whistleblower-"leaked" documentation (now posted upon the website of www.majesticdocuments.com), then they'll have to justify their decision not to just the Court of Public Opinion but also to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
This next logical, legal step in the public's growing demand for the full story as to what these agencies know (and when they knew it) about UFO reality centers on the behind-the-scenes conduct of a supersecret panel of top-rated military leaders and scientists selected circa 1947 to analyze, exploit, and conceal certain recovered artifacts of alien-spacecraft origin. Known as Majestic-Twelve, the 12-member panel managed for decades to keep its affairs hidden from public view -- until one or more whistleblowers began to "leak" documentary evidence of those affairs.
As work proceeds to fully evaluate (via technical, literary, political, and forensic means) the content and specific origin of the MJ-12 documents, you now have this opportunity, through your signatures on this petition, to say no to the UFO status quo -- and to remind these agencies that the public has the right to know, and they have a duty to tell.
(3) Here's the text of the petition:
We, the undersigned citizens -- concerned about the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's, the Department of the Army's, and the Department of Energy's having been implicated (by whistleblower-"leaked" documentation) in the official cover-up of the "UFO/E.T. experience" -- do hereby petition our elected and appointed government officials to compel these agencies' inspectors general to cease their stonewalling and to fulfill their statutory duty to investigate (and to report upon) whatever role their agencies have had (and continue to have) in concealing from public view various hard evidence of UFO/E.T. reality.
-- Whereas, each of these IG officials have received -- and have chosen to ignore -- a formal, written request to commission the sought-for investigation;
-- Whereas, this stonewalling contravenes both the spirit of government accountability and the letter-of-the-law as to the IG charter;
-- Whereas, to countenance that stonewalling invites these agencies to perpetuate their decades-old abuse of authority, violation of the public trust, and deliberate evasion of congressional oversight (as revealed by documentation posted upon the website of www.majesticdocuments.com); and -- Whereas, a growing body of UFO-cover-up whistleblowers and other material witnesses are waiting in the wings to testify against that official agency wrongdoing (if given a chance in a court of law or in an open congressional hearing)--
We sign this administrative petition in full expectation that its recipients will exercise, forthrightly and swiftly, their authority toward granting its demand; and should they deny its demand, we encourage the petition's originator to append the electronically signed version to his proposed "Petition for Writ of Mandamus," for filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
(4) On behalf of the petition's signatories, I ask that you keep me regularly and fully informed as to your progress in helping achieve the goal of this petition. Your failure to do so will add that much more substance to the petitioners' quest for judicial review of your agencies' role in the worldwide government cover-up of the UFO/E.T. experience.
(5) Please note that I'm snail-mailing to you a printout of this e-mail-formatted communication so that you may readily process it among
the multiple levels of your agencies.
(6) Here is the list of signatories:
Saturday, December 20, 2008
A CELESTIAL VISITOR
". . . Evidently a Machine . . ."
~ 6-8-1884 ~
By The Daily Nebraska State Journal
6-8-1884
6-8-1884
- click on image(s) to enlarge -
Friday, December 19, 2008
Skeptologists Attack Ufologists
ByGreg Taylor
The Daily Grail
12-12-08
The skeptical superstar team pushing for their own (spectacularly ugly-named) reality TV series - 'The Skeptologists' - have gone out of their way this week to pick on ufology, in particular two researchers: Stanton Friedman and Chris Rutkowski (or maybe they just don't like Canadian residents?). [Trent UFO] 'Skeptoid' host Brian Dunning rushed into battle with his post "Stanton Friedman Doesn't Like Me". As Dunning points out in his own post though, Stan's probably got good reason not to like him, considering Dunning has previously labeled Stan (and continues to) “an obsessed UFO wacko."The Daily Grail
12-12-08
Now, ufology has plenty of problems - there's no real 'group authority', and plenty of hucksters and deluded people. I'm not criticising them here, because basically they're hucksters and deluded people...whom most people can see right through. Skeptics on the other hand, take on a heavy burden in giving themselves that name - it means they're imposing themselves as guardians or gatekeepers to science and the collective body of human knowledge. As such, when they fail to uphold fairness, and fail to understand something when criticising it, they deserve every bit of blowback that they get. And let's be clear about this - Dunning's post is an ugly piece of personal vindictiveness. Beyond his name-calling, there's pettiness (in saying his podcast is 'kicking the ass' of the Paranormal Podcast) and innuendo (Stan is apparently more "concerned with his bank account than with reason"). I also find it amusing that Dunning tries to talk up how much Stan is earning from ufology (not much actually) in contrast to the fact that "reason doesn't pay" - while posting alongside Michael Shermer and Phil Plait!
Beyond that though, Dunning's main point was regarding his investigation of the Betty and Barney Hill case - in particular, Stanton Friedman's assertion that there were "40 flat-out false claims" made by Dunning in debunking the case. I'm not sure whether the number mentioned was hyperbole on Stan's part, but as we'll see below, there is no doubt that Dunning made some major errors (or got creative in his writing). I don't agree with Stan on a lot of things, including some parts of the Hill case, but he does know the material having dedicated much of his life to studying it. Challenging him on the evidence is no trivial matter - as Phil Klass once found out to his financial detriment. (I'll post Stan's response to Dunning's original investigation at the end of this update.)
A few days after Dunning's post, Phil 'Bad Astronomy' Plait jumped on the bandwagon in a post titled "Ufonies". In it, Phil Plait takes ufologist Chris Rutkowski to task for bad logic regarding the case of amateur astronomers and UFO sightings. I've got a lot of time for Phil's everyday postings on his blog - he does a great job in educating people regarding science and astronomy. But every time he discusses the topic of UFOs, he seems to put on a sneer and enter debunking mode - and unfortunately for him, he is really, *really* bad at it. And it makes him look petty and ignorant.
In this case, he brings up Chris Rutkowski's argument against his claims - but it's a post from 2002 regarding the facts in Phil Plait's first book, Bad Astronomy - Chris did not contact Phil about his recent article which has received much criticism. Furthermore, Phil is quick to assume that Chris "doesn't know a lot of amateur astronomers" and doesn't understand the subject. This is perhaps Phil's intellectual ego stepping in - "don't argue on the topic I know best" - but it's a real lesson in why you should learn about a subject before posting about it (especially when doing so with a sneer). Because Chris Rutkowski has spent many years heavily involved with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada - he was President of one of the local chapters, and is a prior recipient of the RASC's 'Simon Newcomb Award' for science writing and education. In fact, Chris has a Bachelor of Science degree specializing in astronomy, and a Master of Education degree specializing in science education. He's known as one of the more 'skeptical' ufologists in the field, but is well-respected nonetheless.
Chris has now responded on his own blog to Phil Plait's attack on him (ironically, Chris writes about astronomers and UFOs in his new book, A World of UFOs):
Curiously, Phil quoted something I wrote to UFO Updates six year ago, noting that many amateur astronomers have reported UFOs but that most amateurs don't pay much attention to objects in the sky that aren't things of astronomical interest. In fact, many amateurs sit in warm-up rooms and do their observing remotely, looking at small areas of the sky on computer screens. Some are outside, but use their computers to find galaxies and nebulae automatically without looking skyward all that much.
Now, it is true that many amateurs spend nights outside comet hunting, star hopping and doing real astronomy, and in the course of these actions might see something that was a bit odd. But to report such an object would not be something most would do. In fact, astronomers like Phil would be one really good reason not to report them.
Despite this, we know from a few surveys that astronomers, both amateur and professional, do see and report UFOs, the percentage of which is variable. If they reported the same as the general population, about 10% would see them. The surveys that have been conducted have them a bit lower than this, and we could speculate on why that would be so. Nevertheless, the percentage of astronomers and amateur astronomers who have seen UFOs is significant, and not just "a handful" as Phil Plait notes.
Chris also points out that contrary to Phil's view - and that of most 'skeptics' - ufology is not made up simply of "true believers" who think UFOs are extraterrestrial spaceships:
First of all, no serious ufologist believes that the majority of reported UFOs are flying saucers. Neither Stan nor I nor anyone else involved in serious research has ever held that contention. In fact, we provide evidence to show that most reported UFOs are either misidentifications or have insufficient evidence for a conclusion. It's nice to see that Phil has arrived at the same view as we have, only 40 or 50 years behind.
It's a good point from Chris - the 'skeptics' have their straw man and they are happy to bash it good without looking at the entire topic in a scientific manner. Why not blog instead about this year's Channel Islands UFO investigation? It's too often about shooting fish in a pond for the skeptics - identify some whackos, generalise to the whole field, and write it off without letting science do its thing. Good for stroking your intellectual ego, not so great for investigating a topic objectively...
One final note: in response to a critical comment I left below his blog posting, Phil noted that "I have researched this, and the overwhelming majority of pilot reports are objects like meteors and Venus. Even the report that started the craze — Kenneth Arnold in 1947 — is now understood to have most likely been a fireball breaking up." I don't know what Phil's source for this is - the only mention I've heard about the Arnold sighting being a fireball breaking up is Phil Klass's debunking effort more than a decade ago, which didn't get much attention (for very good reasons). I certainly haven't heard that this sighting is "now understood" to have been a fireball - sources please Mr Bad Astronomy!!
Returning to Brian Dunning and Stan Friedman to finish, as promised I've posted Stan's response to the Dunning debunking below (Update: See also "Friedman on the Skeptologists":
By Stanton Friedman
12-12-08
"I am sure that everybody who has been following the US election campaign is well aware that much of what has shown up on the internet simply wasn’t true. Clearly some was intentionally posted to deceive. It has also been true that much that has been written about UFOs has been false. A fine example of ignorance or intentional deception appeared in a “skeptical” piece by Brian Dunning which appeared as Skeptoid No. 124 on October 21, 2008. It was sent to me by a guy who occasionally sends nasty comments after I appear on Coast to Coast...the title is “Betty and Barney Hill: The Original UFO Abduction”. It can be found on Skeptoid.com.
It is truly a splendid textbook example of propaganda and misrepresentation. BD does get the date right, Sept. 19, 1961, but very little else. “Near the resort of Indian Head they stopped their car in the middle of Rte. 3 to observe a strange light moving through in the night sky. The next thing they knew, they were about 35 miles further along on their trip and several hours had elapsed”. Talk about omissions. There was more than one stop. The large object (hardly a light) was within a few hundred feet. Barney observed it through binoculars from outside the car. He observed a double row of windows through which he could see about 10 individuals, red lights on fins on the outside, etc This was conscious recall and was described to NICAP Investigator Walter Webb during a six hour interview on October 21 1961. No hypnosis was involved.
“Then Betty began having nightmares two weeks later; in her nightmares she described being taken aboard an alien spacecraft and having medical experiments performed. As a result of these nightmares, Betty and Barney decided to undergo hypnosis.” This is absurd. Barney had developed hypertension, bleeding ulcers, was unable to sleep. He was in therapy . The original thought, that these symptoms were related to his having moved to NH leaving his sons, was dispelled by the therapist. At one session he noted that he and Betty had been searching for the location where they had seen the UFO. Then he was referred to Psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon, an early expert in treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder using medical hypnotic regression with amnesia induced after each session.
BD States “Innumerable books and movies were made about the Betty and Barney Hill abduction… you almost never hear a critical treatment of their story”. He mentions none of the books . I know of three (Ref. 1, 2, 3) and one movie, NBC’s 1975 “The UFO Incident” starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons. There have been loads of very critical treatments, for example, by Carl Sagan in the bestselling “Cosmos”(Ref.4) and in an article in Parade magazine (Ref.5). BD goes on “Much of the Hill story is said to be based on these separate hypnosis sessions.. In fact that turns out not to be case at all..It is important to note that that it was more than two years after the incident that the Hills underwent hypnosis. During those two years Betty was writing and rewriting her accounts of her dreams. All of the significant details you may have heard about the Hills medical experiments came from her two years of writing “. This is a total lie. There was no writing and rewriting as can be seen by reading what she wrote, for example, in “Captured!” and the comparative analysis between the dreams and the hypnosis material.
She did dream of a star-map, but it was on a roller like maps at school and was not 3D. BD has the gall to claim “Betty probably told the story to Barney over and over again until his ears fell off over a period of two years before they ever had any hypnosis”. I have no idea what the source is for this nonsense. Nor for this ridiculous comment “When they first saw the light, Betty said she thought it was a spacecraft. Barney always said he thought it was an airplane”. Without hypnosis they described seeing it close-up near their car with a double row of windows and barely moving and without any noise. This is an airplane?
Dunning then notes that Betty’s written description of the beings in her nightmare was different from Barney’s under hypnosis But when reliving the moments together their descriptions of events matched.. “After Betty Hill heard these sessions suddenly her hypnosis accounts began to describe the same kind of character”. The simple fact of the matter is that Betty and Barney were each hypnotized separately and amnesia was induced after each separate session so they could not talk with each other about what came out under hypnosis .Betty could not have heard any of these sessions until Dr. Simon finally played the tapes for them.
Dunning then tries to relate the characters described in the hypnosis session to aliens who appeared 12 days prior to Barney’s first hypnosis session in February 1964 to an experience on the Outer Limits TV program called The Bellero Shield. As a matter of fact, they do not match. Dunning admits “The Hills stated they did not watch it”. As with most of Dunning’s claims, no basis is given for claiming they did. It should be noted that nowhere does Dunning bother to note that Betty was a social worker and a supervisor in the Welfare Department of the State of New Hampshire. Of course he doesn’t mention that Barney was on the governor’s Civil Rights Commission. Nor does he give Dr. Simon’s name or background such as that he ran a 3000 bed hospital for shell shock war veterans and that he was featured in an army film “Let There be Light” about his successful treatment of these veterans, using hypnosis in the same fashion he used with Betty and Barney to recover missing memories..
Dunning claims “Betty had commonly spoken of UFOs even before 1961, including one story she often told of her sister’s own close encounter in 1957.” Again no source is given. The fact is that her sister’s daughter, Kathleen Marden, co-author of “Captured!” has stated this is false. Betty mentioned it once to Barney and he didn’t believe in UFOs and that was the end of that.
Dunning then gives this strange summary “So here’s what we have so far: A woman who clearly had an obsession with UFOs [no evidence whatsoever] saw a light in the sky that her husband described as an airplane [when it was farther away].She then spent two years writing an elaborate story [totally false] and no doubt telling it and retelling it to her husband [totally false]. Later under hypnosis Barney was asked about the events described in Betty’s story, and surprise, surprise he retold the story she already told him a hundred times [totally false] and added a dash from the Outer Limits”
Dunning mentions radar sightings included in the Blue Book file and dismisses them naturally excluding some important data such as the supposed weather balloons having a very low radar profile. He tries to throw out measurements made on Betty’s dress by unnamed “crop circle enthusiasts” but ignores the important work done by analytical chemist Phyllis Budinger, employed by a major company for 35 years. He claims that anything found on the dress was the result of its being in the closet for 40 years. Phyllis actually had a very similar dress (her wedding dress) kept for that long and not having any of the same stuff. on it.
Dunning is equally cavalier in trying to toss out the star map work done by Marjorie Fish. Surprisingly he mentions her by name, then totally misrepresents what she did . He says she read a book [Of course he doesn’t mention that it was John Fuller’s “Interrupted Journey” and that she visited Betty to get more data] “It’s seven or 8 random dots connected by lines”. More nonsense, there are 15 dots. The lines make sense: nearest star to nearest star. “She then took beads and string and converted her living room into a 3 dimensional version of the galaxy based on the 1969 Gliese star catalog”. The fact of the matter is she built 26 different 3D models of the local galactic neighborhood, out 55 light years, at most, from the sun. The biggest model was a 3foot cube.. hardly living room size, and was used as a teaching tool by Dr. Walter Mitchell, Chairman of the Astronomy Department at the Ohio State University. He and Marjorie and Betty are all in the movie“UFOs Are Real” (Ref. 6) The galaxy is about 100,000 light years across. Most of the work was done before the Gliese catalog was published. Nobody doing what she did before the Gliese was published could have identified the stars because the correct distance data had not been available.. Of course he says Zeta Reticuli when there are 2 stars, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli.(The constellation is Reticulum). He makes no note of the facts that they are the closest to each other pair of sun-like stars in the neighborhood (1/8th of a ly apart), and a billion years older than the sun and 39.3 light years from Earth and that all the pattern stars are sun-like though only 5% of those in the neighborhood are, and that all the sun-like stars in the 3D volume represented by her models are part of the pattern and that they are all in a plane. He claims that anybody could have made a crude drawing using the Gliese data.. not published until 8 years after the event!! He makes claims about Carl Sagan and other astronomers’ comments, but neglecting to say they don’t stand up to careful review such as provided by Astronomy writer Terence Dickinson (Ref. 7 and 8)
He concludes this mockery of journalism and science: “The Betty and Barney Hill abduction story has every indication of being merely an inventive tale from the mind of a lifelong UFO Fanatic. It is unsupported by any useful evidence and is perfectly consistent with the purely natural explanation.”.
I have been unable to find any biographical data about Dunning though there is a well known flautist with the same name. His piece (There are many other false claims besides those noted above) stands as a monument to laziness, misrepresentation, bias and ignorance. It is almost pure baloney, an inventive tale from the mind of an anti-UFO fanatic. No, I have no idea why he and other debunkers are so determined to ignore the UFO evidence."
More . . .
* Special Thanks To Greg Taylor & The Daily Grail
See Also:
Stanton Friedman's Ongoing Task in Educating The Ignorant (Debunkers)
UFOs & Science: If One Can't Attack the Data, Attack the People - It's Easier!
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
California Drones Mystery Solved By Sarah Connor Chronicles?
By Bruce Simmons
12-17-08
The mid season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (TSCC) threw me something to chew on Monday night that I was surprised to see. Was TSCC yet one more project that was bitten by the writers strike? When the heck are we gonna stop seeing ramifications from that event? Cripes!12-17-08
Confused? Good… Keep reading my Tarantino-ish outline of this event.
In Monday night’s episode, Sarah is chasing her “three dots” clue and ends up going to a UFO convention. There, she meets a “woman” who has pictures plastered all over “her” home’s walls. The interesting thing about that is that I recognized those pictures and said, “Hey! I know those pictures! Those are the California Drones that Raji posted in 2007!” Yes, I’m a bit of a UFO non-disbeliever with a freaky memory!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Stanton Friedman's Ongoing Task in Educating The Ignorant (Debunkers)
Editor's Note-For the purpose of clarity in regard to Mr. Friedman's rejoinder to Brian Dunning's article, the latter is published here in it's entirety; accreditation is to Mr. Dunning and "Skepticblog."-FW
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Debunker Brian Dunning must be congratulated for adhering so closely to the basic rules for debunking:
A. What the public doesn't know, I won't
tell them.
B. Don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up.
C. If one can't attack the data, attack the people. D. Do one's research by proclamation, investigation is too much trouble.
He demonstrated these in his off the wall attack on Skeptoid on the Betty and Barney Hill case about which I have written a detailed critique. Then he reacted like a spoiled brat caught with his hand in the cookie charge by insulting me after hearing on a radio station that I had said his piece was loaded with false claims. He said Friedman was "the principal Author of the Roswell, Travis Walton, and Betty and Barney Hill UFO mythologies". I haven't written any mythologies and certainly didn't write a book about Travis Walton. More : "he wrote the most significant books inventing the most popular stories". Wow , I am impressed. He must be jealous of my being a nuclear physicist.. "in fact his only career since 1970, was writing UFO books". I must be a very slow writer. My first book, "Crash at Corona", co-authored with Don Berliner, was published in 1992. My second book "TOP SECRET/MAJIC" was published in 1997. "Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience", co-authored with Kathleen Marden, Betty's niece, was published in 2007.
My most recent book "Flying Saucers and Science" was published in June, 2008. He quite obviously hadn't read "Captured!" and I seriously doubt if he has read any of the others either. He thinks TV producers should "call a spade a spade and call me an "Obsessed UFO Wacko". He then makes the out of this world claim that his claims in his skeptical piece "are corroborated by Stanton Friedman's own books." This is hogwash to the 4th power!
He says "the Facts of the case aren't really in question [so why didn't he get them right?], it's the interpretation of the facts that are. Betty Hill spent two years writing a UFO story and sharing it with her husband, and then when asked about that story under hypnosis, Barney Hill was able to rattle it off pretty much as she wrote it". This is a total and complete lie as he and anybody else would know if he had read "Captured". I can only wonder what the source for this completely wrong claim was. Dunning calls me "a successful author busy with book tours and UFO conventions". Fact is I have never done a book tour. I have spoken at over 600 colleges and 100 professional groups. After 1970 and prior to "Crash at Corona", I was involved in a lot of professional activities. I worked on the commissioning of the Pt. Lepreau nuclear generating station. I measured radon levels in houses and wells in the Fredericton area. I did a study for the Canadian Electrical Association on "The Recovery and Utilization of Waste Heat from Power-plants"(visiting a number of facilities) and another for them on "The Use of Electron Beams to Treat Flue Gas." I did a study "Future Technology Scenarios for New Brunswick" for the Province, and other studies on food irradiation, and seed stimulation. I gave professional papers at meetings of the European Society for Nuclear methods in Agriculture in Piacenza,Italy, and Warsaw, Poland, among others.
So it is clear Brian Dunning is a skilled liar, not a skeptic. He deserves "Debunker of the Year" award. And he should apologize to his readers and me for gross misrepresentation.
UFOs & Science: If One Can't Attack the Data, Attack the People - It's Easier!
The Roswell Exhibit: Conservative Scientists Resort To Ad Hominem Attacks Against Noted Ufologist Stanton Friedman
A reader wrote me on Facebook that he was listening to the “Paranormal Podcast”, another of the usual promoters of nonsense inexplicably allowed to remain in the Science & Medicine section of iTunes. The guest was Stanton Friedman, the principal author of the Roswell, Travis Walton, and Betty & Barney Hill UFO mythologies. Anyway, at 25 minutes into the episode (#56, but don’t bother listening as it’s only a 15 second blurb), Stanton mentioned that he “came across a piece on the Internet” the other day that got “40 flat-out false claims” about the Betty and Barney Hill story, and added with a condescending chortle that he “couldn’t believe it.” It was the online transcript of my Skeptoid episode on that story.
The Paranormal Podcast host, Jim Harold, acknowledged that he had heard of Skeptoid. Of course you have Jim, because it’s kicking your ass in iTunes, probably much to your dismay.
Stanton was probably predisposed to have a problem with me. I’ve called him “an obsessed UFO wacko”, which I think is accurate. I grew up watching Stanton Friedman; he’s on just about every TV documentary about UFOs, and of course he wrote the most significant books inventing the most popular UFO stories. I used to listen to him in awe: The TV always said “nuclear physicist” under his name, so of course, anything he said had to be true. (I didn’t know that his real career, in fact his only career since 1970, was writing UFO books. I guess the TV producers feel that calling him a nuclear physicist gives him more credibility than calling a spade a spade and saying “Obsessed UFO Wacko”.)
I browsed through the transcript looking for 40 factual errors. This is a daunting task, because there aren’t more than 20 or 25 points made that you could call factual claims. Most of them either came from or are corroborated by Stanton Friedman’s own books. The facts of the case aren’t really in question, it’s the interpretation of the facts that are. Betty Hill spent two years writing a UFO story and sharing it with her husband, and then when asked about that story under hypnosis, Barney Hill was able to rattle it off pretty much as she wrote it. I say “Duh,” Stanton Friedman cries “Proof that aliens abducted them!”
If I thought he might care (which I don’t presume to), I would love to challenge Stanton to list even just 25 of the “40 flat-out false claims” I made, keeping in mind that virtually all the statements of fact I made are corroborated by his books. Not interpretations or innuendos, but statements of facts. Not that it’s a 40 minute drive from Ashland to Portsmouth, not a 45 minute drive, but substantive errors. He argues that I distorted the facts (my “false claims”) in order to discredit his fiction. This is an easy argument to make when you have an unchallenged platform on a podcast. An intelligent opponent would point out that the significant facts are not disputed, and that it’s the interpretation of the facts that makes all the difference.
He won’t accept this challenge, of course, mainly because he’s a successful author busy with book tours and UFO conventions, and I’m just one of many farts in the breeze of reason. Reason doesn’t pay, and since he’s more concerned with his bank account than with reason, he’s right to ignore piss-ant blogs like this. But it won’t be long before The Skeptologists are on his ass, and he’ll find that condescending chortles only take him so far.
Anyone can take a mundane newspaper headline and expand it into a dramatic fictional UFO abduction tale. If it’s done well, it will be gobbled up by an uncritical public. It’s those of us who caution against the folly of pseudoscience and faith in the supernatural who have the hard job.
More . . .
It was shortly before midnight on September 19, 1961 when Betty and Barney Hill had the experience which was to shape all of modern alien folklore. They were driving from Canada to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Near the resort of Indian Head, New Hampshire, they stopped their car in the middle of Route 3 to observe a strange light moving through in the sky. The next thing they knew, they were about 35 miles further along on their trip, and several hours had elapsed.
Betty telephoned their close friend, Major Paul Henderson at nearby Pease Air Force Base, to report a UFO sighting. Major Henderson found that this was corroborated by two separate UFO reports from radar data from two different Air Force installations nearby. All three reports are officially recorded in Project Blue Book. Then Betty began having nightmares two weeks later. In her nightmares, she described being taken aboard an alien spacecraft and having medical experiments performed. As a result of these nightmares, Betty and Barney decided to undergo hypnosis. In separate sessions, they described nearly identical experiences of being taken on board the alien spacecraft by what we now call gray aliens: Short beings with huge black eyes and smooth gray skin. Both of the Hills had a whole spectrum of tests done. Betty was shown a star map which she was able to memorize and reproduce later, and which has been identified as showing Zeta Reticuli as the aliens' home planet. After the experiments they were taken back to their car in a dazed condition, and sent along their way.
Innumerable books and movies were made about the Betty & Barney Hill abduction. It was the introduction of the gray alien into popular culture. It was also the beginning of the entire "alien abduction" phenomenon. The physical evidence of the star map and the radar reports are said to have both withstood all scrutiny. In fact you almost never hear a critical treatment of their story.
Much of the Hill story is said to be based on these separate hypnosis sessions. In fact, that turns out not to be the case at all. It's important to note that it was more than two years after the incident that the Hills underwent hypnosis. During those two years, Betty was writing and rewriting her accounts of her dreams. All of the significant details you may have heard about the Hills' medical experiments came from Betty's two years of writings: A long needle inserted into her navel; the star map; the aliens' fascination with Barney's dentures; the examination of both Betty and Barney's genitals; and the overall chronology of the episode, including being met on the ground by the aliens, a leader coming forward and escorting them to exam rooms, the aliens' general demeanor and individual personalities, and the way they spoke to Betty in English but to Barney via telepathy. Betty wrote all of this based only on what she claims were her dreams, and probably told the story to Barney over and over again until his ears fell off over a period of two years, before they ever had any hypnosis.
During those two years, Barney's own recollection was somewhat less dramatic. When they first saw the light in the sky, Betty said she thought it was a spacecraft, but Barney always said he thought it was an airplane.
Betty's written description of the characters in her nightmare depicted short guys with black hair and "Jimmy Durante" noses. It was only in Barney Hill's hypnosis sessions that we got the first description of skinny figures with gray skin, large bald heads, and huge black eyes. After Betty Hill heard these sessions, suddenly her own hypnosis accounts began to describe the same type of character, and from that moment on, she never again mentioned her original Jimmy Durante guys. Many modern accounts wrongly state that her original nightmares also described grays.
Although the popular version of events is that Barney Hill's hypnosis description is the first appearance of a so-called gray alien in modern culture, that first appearance actually came twelve days earlier, on national television, in an episode of The Outer Limits called The Bellero Shield. The alien in that episode shared most of the significant physical characteristics with the alien in Barney's story: Bald head, gray skin, big wraparound eyes. The Hills stated they did not watch it and didn't know about it.
Remember: Before examining the specific claims made in a fantastic story, you should check the source of the story for credibility. Barney Hill died only a few years after the alleged incident, but Betty Hill stuck around long enough for her credibility to be pretty thoroughly demonstrated. Skeptical Inquirer columnist Robert Shaeffer wrote:
I was present at the National UFO Conference in New York City in 1980, at which Betty presented some of the UFO photos she had taken. She showed what must have been well over two hundred slides, mostly of blips, blurs, and blobs against a dark background. These were supposed to be UFOs coming in close, chasing her car, landing, etc... After her talk had exceeded about twice its allotted time, Betty was literally jeered off the stage by what had been at first a very sympathetic audience. This incident, witnessed by many of UFOlogy's leaders and top activists, removed any lingering doubts about Betty's credibility — she had none. In the oft-repeated words of one UFOlogist who accompanied Betty on a UFO vigil in 1977, she was "unable to distinguish between a landed UFO and a streetlight." In 1995, Betty Hill wrote a self-published book, A Common Sense Approach to UFOs. It is filled with obviously delusional stories, such as seeing entire squadrons of UFOs in flight and a truck levitating above the freeway.
She also once wrote in a 1966 letter "Barney and I go out frequently at night for one reason or another. Since last October, we have seen our 'friends' on the average of eight or nine times out of every ten trips." But is it possible that Betty's obsession with UFOs could have been caused by her trauma from a genuine abduction? Yes, it's possible that it could have pushed her further in that direction, but Betty had commonly spoken of UFOs even before 1961, including one story she often told of her sister's own close encounter in 1957.
So here's what we have so far: A woman who clearly had an obsession with UFOs saw a light in the sky that her husband described as an airplane. She then spent two years writing an elaborate story and no doubt telling and retelling it to her husband. Later, under hypnosis, Barney was asked about the events described in Betty's story, and surprise surprise, he retold the story she'd already told him a hundred times, with an added dash from The Outer Limits episode of twelve days before. So far, we have a tale that's hard to consider reliable.
But then there are those three items said to be physical evidence of the Hill abduction: first, the star map hand drawn by Betty by memory from one shown to her aboard the spacecraft; second, the purple dress she was wearing on that night, kept for forty years in her closet, torn and covered with mysterious dust; and third, reports in the Air Force's official Project Blue Book stating that radar confirmed the presence of a UFO on that night at two separate Air Force facilities in the area, both within hours of the Hills' claimed abduction. Let's look at those first.
The first report was from Pease Air Force Base, about 82 miles southeast of Indian Head, at 2:14am. The Hills got home in Portsmouth at 5:00 in the morning on September 20. Their story states that they came to after their medical experiments about 35 miles south of Indian Head, near the town of Ashland. From Ashland to Portsmouth is about an hour and 45 minute drive, so they came to in their car around 3:15. This chronology puts Pease AFB's UFO radar evidence squarely in the middle of the Hills' three hours of medical experiments aboard the spaceship, which they say was sitting on the ground the whole time. If the Hills' story is true, the Pease AFB report must be an unrelated event.
The second report is from North Concord Air Force Station, a small hilltop radar station (closed in 1963) that was about 40 miles north of Indian Head, at 5:22pm on September 19. This is about seven hours before the Hills observed their light in the sky. It clearly does not corroborate the Hills' sighting. The reports in Project Blue Book note each target's extremely high altitude and low speed, and conclude that each was probably a weather balloon.
Next we have Betty's purple dress, the zipper of which she found to be torn. She then hung it in the closet. Two years later, after the hypnosis, she got it out and said there was strange pink dust on it. She hung it up again, this time for forty years, when a group of crop circle investigators examined it. They concluded the dress had an "anomalous biological substance" on it. While a good stretch of the imagination might consider this to be consistent with the abduction story, it's also consistent with perfectly natural explanations, namely, 40 years of dust mites, moths, and mold. I don't find the Great Purple Dress Caper to be good evidence of anything.
So the only thing we're left with is Betty's star map. In her original written stories, she described the aliens' star map as three dimensional. Under hypnosis, she redrew it on paper, in two dimensions. It's seven or eight random dots connected by lines, and it's quite rough and by no means precise. Several years later, a schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish read a book about the Hills. She then took beads and strings and converted her living room into a three dimensional version of the galaxy based on the 1969 Gliese Star Catalog. She then spent several years viewing her galaxy from different angles, trying to find a match for Betty's map, and eventually concluded that Zeta Reticuli was the alien homeworld. Other UFOlogists have proposed innumerable different interpretations. Carl Sagan and other astronomers have said that it is not even a good match for Zeta Reticuli, and that Betty's drawing is far too random and imprecise to make any kind of useful interpretation. With its third dimension removed, Betty's map cannot contain any useful positional information. Even if she had somehow drawn a perfect 3D map that did exactly align with known star positions, it still wouldn't be evidence of anything other than that such reference material is widely available, in sources like the Gliese Star Catalog. We would not conclude that an alien abduction is the only reasonable way that Betty could have learned seven or eight star positions during those two years.
And so, there we have it. The Betty & Barney Hill abduction story has every indication of being merely an inventive tale from the mind of a lifelong UFO fanatic. Despite the best efforts of authors to bolster it with mischaracterized or exaggerated evidence, it is unsupported by any useful evidence, and is perfectly consistent with the purely natural explanation.