Saturday, June 30, 2007

Roswell Officer's Amazing Deathbed Admission Raises Possibility That Aliens DID Visit

Roswell Saucer
By This is London
6-30-07

     
Exactly 60 years ago, a light aircraft was flying over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, at a height of around 10,000ft.

Suddenly, a brilliant flash of light illuminated the aircraft. Visibility was good and as pilot Kenneth Arnold scanned the sky to find the source of the light, he saw a group of nine shiny metallic objects flying in formation.

He estimated their speed as being around 1,600 miles per hour - nearly three times faster than the top speed of any jet aircraft at the time. He described the craft as arrow-shaped and said they moved in a jerky motion - 'like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water'.

A reporter seized on this phrase and in his story described the objects as 'flying saucers'. The age of the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) had begun.

Soon, similar reports began to come in from all over America. This wasn't just the world's first UFO sighting, this was the birth of a phenomenon, one that still exercises an extraordinary fascination.

Then, two weeks after Arnold's sighting, something happened that was to lead to the biggest UFO conspiracy theory of all time. On or around July 2, 1947, something crashed in the desert near a military base at Roswell, New Mexico.

Military authorities issued a press release, which began: "The many rumours regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence officer of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc."

The headlines screamed: 'Flying Disc captured by Air Force.' Yet, just 24 hours later, the military changed their story and claimed the object they'd first thought was a 'flying disc' was a weather balloon that had crashed on a nearby ranch.

Amazingly, the media and the public accepted the explanation without question, in a way that would not happen now. Roswell disappeared from the news until the late Seventies, when some of the military involved began to speak out.

The key witness was Major Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer who had gone to the ranch to recover the wreckage. He described the metal as being wafer thin but incredibly tough.

It was as light as balsa wood, but couldn't be cut or burned. Some witnesses described seeing strange inscriptions on the wreckage.

These and similar accounts of the incident have largely been dismissed by all except the most dedicated believers.

But last week came an astonishing new twist to the Roswell mystery - which casts new light on the incident and raises the possibility that we have, indeed, been visited by aliens.

Walter Haut (In Army)Lieutenant Walter Haut was the public relations officer at the base in 1947, and was the man who issued the original and subsequent press releases after the crash on the orders of the base commander, Colonel William Blanchard.

Haut died last year, but left a sworn affidavit to be opened only after his death.

Last week, the text was released and asserts that the weather balloon claim was a cover story, and that the real object had been recovered by the military and stored in a hangar. He described seeing not just the craft, but alien bodies.

He wasn't the first Roswell witness to talk about bodies. Local undertaker Glenn Dennis had long claimed that he was contacted by authorities at Roswell shortly after the crash and asked to provide a number of child-sized coffins.

When he arrived at the base, he was apparently told by a nurse (who later disappeared) that a UFO had crashed and that small humanoid extraterrestrials had been recovered. But Haut is the only one of the original participants to claim to have seen alien bodies.

Haut's affidavit talks about a high-level meeting he attended with base commander Col William Blanchard and the Commander of the Eighth Army Air Force, Gen Roger Ramey. Haut states that at this meeting, pieces of wreckage were handed around for participants to touch, with nobody able to identify the material.

He says the press release was issued because locals were already aware of the crash site, but in fact there had been a second crash site, where more debris from the craft had fallen. The plan was that an announcement acknowledging the first site, which had been discovered by a rancher, would divert attention from the second and more important location.

Haut also spoke about a clean-up operation, where for months afterwards military personnel scoured both crash sites searching for all remaining pieces of debris, removing them and erasing all signs that anything unusual had occurred.

This ties in with claims made by locals that debris collected as souvenirs was seized by the military.

Haut then tells how Colonel Blanchard took him to 'Building 84' - one of the hangars at Roswell - and showed him the craft itself. He describes a metallic egg-shaped object around 12-15ft in length and around 6ft wide. He said he saw no windows, wings, tail, landing gear or any other feature.

He saw two bodies on the floor, partially covered by a tarpaulin. They are described in his statement as about 4ft tall, with disproportionately large heads. Towards the end of the affidavit, Haut concludes: "I am convinced that what I personally observed was some kind of craft and its crew from outer space."

What's particularly interesting about Walter Haut is that in the many interviews he gave before his death, he played down his role and made no such claims. Had he been seeking publicity, he would surely have spoken about the craft and the bodies.

Did he fear ridicule, or was the affidavit a sort of deathbed confession from someone who had been part of a cover-up, but who had stayed loyal to the end?

Another military witness who claimed to know that the Roswell incident involved the crash of an alien spacecraft is Colonel Philip J. Corso, a former Pentagon official who claimed his job was to pass technology from the craft recovered at Roswell to American companies.

He claims that discoveries such as Kevlar body armour, stealth technology, night vision goggles, lasers and the integrated circuit chip all have their roots in alien technology from the Roswell crash.

Corso died of a heart attack shortly after making these claims, prompting a fresh round of conspiracy theories.

As bizarre as Corso's story sounds, it has support from a number of unlikely sources, including former Canadian Minister of Defence Paul Hellyer, who spoke out recently to say that he'd checked the story with a senior figure in the U.S. military who confirmed it was true.

The U.S. government came under huge pressure on Roswell in the Nineties. In July 1994, in response to an inquiry from the General Accounting Office, the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force published a report, The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert.

The report concluded that the Roswell incident had been attributable to something called Project Mogul, a top secret project using high-altitude balloons to carry sensor equipment into the upper atmosphere, listening for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests.

The statements concerning a crashed weather balloon had been a cover story, they admitted, but not to hide the truth about extraterrestrials.

A second U.S. Air Force report, The Roswell Report: Case Closed, was published in 1997 and focused on allegations that alien bodies were recovered.

It concluded that any claims that weren't entirely fraudulent were generated by people having seen crash test dummies that were dropped from balloons from high altitude as part of Project High Dive - a study aimed at developing safe procedures for pilots or astronauts having to jump from extreme altitudes.

These tests ran from 1954 to 1959 in New Mexico, and the U.S. government suggested that sightings of these dummies might have been the root of stories about humanoid aliens, with people mistaking the dates after so many years, and erroneously linking what they'd seen with the 1947 story of a UFO crash.

Sceptics, of course, will dismiss the testimony left by Haut. After all, fascinating though it is, it's just a story. There's no proof. But if nothing else, this latest revelation shows that, 60 years on, this mystery endures.

UFO enthusiasts plan to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Roswell incident with a series of events. In Roswell itself there will be a conference partly sponsored by the city authorities. Thousands are predicted to attend. Roswell has become not just big news, but big business.

Ever since Kenneth Arnold's sighting and the Roswell incident, UFO sightings have continued to be made around the world.

In the UK, in 1950, the Ministry of Defence's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Henry Tizard, said UFO sightings shouldn't be dismissed without proper, scientific investigation.

The MoD set up arguably the most wonderfully named body in the history of the Civil Service, the Flying Saucer Working Party. Its conclusions were sceptical.

It believed UFO sightings were attributable to either misidentifications, hoaxes or delusions. Its final report, dated June 1951, said no further resources should be devoted to investigating UFOs.

But in 1952 a high-profile series of UFO sightings occurred, in which objects were tracked on radar and seen by RAF pilots. The MoD was forced to think again and has had been investigating ever since. To date, the MoD has received more than 10,000 reports.

The best-known UK incident occurred in December 1980 in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk. In the early hours of December 26, personnel at RAF Bentwaters (a base leased to the USAF) reported strange lights in the forest. Thinking an aircraft had crashed, they went to investigate.

What they found, witnesses say, was a UFO. They took photographs (which they were later told hadn't come out) of the brightly illuminated craft and one of the men got close enough to touch the object, which then took off and flew away. The stunned men briefed their bosses, including the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt.

Halt ordered the men to make official witness statements, including sketches of the craft. The following night Halt was at a social function when a flustered airman burst in, saluted and said: "Sir, it's back."

Halt looked confused and said: "What's back?" "The UFO, Sir. The UFO is back," the airman replied.

Halt and a small team went to investigate. His intention, he later reported, was to 'debunk this nonsense'. As they went into the forest, their radios began to malfunction and powerful mobile searchlights cut out. Suddenly, Halt and his team saw the UFO and attempted to get closer. At one point it was directly overhead, shining a bright beam of light down on them.

After these events, Halt ordered an examination of the area where the UFO had been seen on the first night. Three indentations were found in the ground where the craft had landed. A Geiger counter was used and radiation readings were taken, which peaked in the three holes. Halt reported it to the MoD and an investigation began.

This was inconclusive, but Defence Intelligence Staff assessed the radiation readings taken at the landing site were 'significantly higher than the average background'. The MoD's case file on the incident has only recently been released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Another spectacular UFO incident occurred in March 1993. Over six hours, around 60 witnesses in different parts of the UK reported a series of sightings of spectacular UFOs. Many of the witnesses were police officers and the UFO also flew over two military bases in the Midlands, RAF Cosford and RAF Shawbury.

The Meteorological Officer at RAF Shawbury described the UFO as being a vast triangular-shaped craft that moved from a hover to a speed several times faster than an RAF jet in seconds.

He estimated that the UFO was midway in size between a Hercules transport aircraft and a Boeing 747 and said that at one point the craft had been as low as 400ft. He also said that it had been firing a narrow beam of light at the ground and emitting an unpleasant low-frequency hum.

The MoD investigation lasted several weeks and the case file - also recently released - runs to more than 100 pages.

The final briefing submitted to the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff stated: "In summary, there would seem to be some evidence on this occasion that an unidentified object (or objects) of unknown origin was operating over the UK." That is about the most frank admission on UFOs that the MoD has ever made.

Sixty years after Kenneth Arnold's 'flying saucer' sighting, pilots are still seeing UFOs. In April this year, Captain Ray Bowyer, a pilot based in Alderney, saw two bright yellow UFOs in the vicinity of the Channel Islands.

Some of his passengers saw the same thing, another pilot in the area made a similar report and some unusual readings were seen on air traffic control radar. The MoD and the Civil Aviation Authority investigated the incident and no explanation has been found.

Despite any number of hoaxes over the years, interest and belief in UFOs remains strong. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the MoD receives more requests relating to UFOs than on any other subject.

So what is it about UFOs that continues to excite our imaginations? To some people, the subject has become almost a religion and perhaps that gets to the heart of it. Those who study the subject are on a quest not just for the truth, but for meaning. It's a search for the answer to one of the most fundamental questions we can ask - are we alone?
More . . .

See Also:

Interview of Original Roswell Crash Photographer By Dennis Balthaser

Roswell - It Really Did Happen

SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

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Friday, June 29, 2007

MY UFO EXPERIENCE:Multiple Black Spheres Reported

UFO Illustration By Witness
Reader Submitted Report
6-28-07
[Unedited]

     About ten years ago at my moms house in pagosa springs colorado at about 4pm myself, my sister, my mom, and my nephew saw two UFOs in the sky. My sister is the one that actually brought it to our attention.

The UFOs appeared to be be black spheres assembled together in rough rectangular shapes with one of the UFOs having a "flagella-like" protusion of black spheres extending from the top middle part of the 'rectangle'.

Attached is a "drawing" of what the UFOs looked like. None of us had a camera but we did have binoculars which we used to try and distingusih more detail about the black blobs in the sky - however when we looked throught the binoculars at the UFOs they seemed futher away that when viewing them with the naked eye.

It freaked us all out and we watched the UFOs until we could no longer see them - about an hour. The UFOs moved very languidly as if they were in water. The flagella protrusion from the rectangular shaped UFO seemed to undulate very slowly as
if it was 'feeling' about.

Flying Saucers To Be Tracked By Planes, Cameras

By Gazette & Bulletin
Monday July 7, 1947


- click on images to enlarge -

Flying Saucers To Be Tracked Planes - Cameras (A)
Flying Saucers To Be Tracked Planes - Cameras (B)

Flying Saucer Over Sacramento?

Flying Saucer Over Sacramento
By Frank Warren
6-29-07

     

UFO Research Continues . . .

By Joel de Woolfson
This Guernsey
6-27-07

Capt Ray Bowyer     The Aurigny captain, who claimed to have spotted two huge UFOs off Alderney two months ago, explained the sightings on the Richard & Judy Show and CNN on Monday night.

Capt. Bowyer was quizzed about the incident by the couple and discovered that the objects he saw were similar to a UFO photographed in New Mexico, USA, in 1957.

He told the Channel Four couple that he was now working with Dr David Clark, a writer for the Fortean Times and lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University who appeared in the Guernsey Press last month, to try to discover more about the sightings.

‘That photo from New Mexico was surprisingly similar and Dr Clark will be looking into the similarities,’ he said.

Capt. Bowyer added that he was very well looked after on the two shows and claimed Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan were the same off-screen as they were on.

‘It was marvellous. I asked them if they would ever come to Guernsey to do a show and Judy said they have never been to the Channel Islands, so you never know.

‘CNN was a different experience because it’s just you talking to a TV camera, which is far less inspiring. But virtually every home in America has CNN so it went out to a significant amount of people.’

He also got the opportunity to meet comedian Ronnie Corbet, who was also appearing on Richard & Judy, and said he was a very pleasant man.

Capt. Bowyer is still researching the sightings and said he had had a very worthwhile trip to Jersey Radar.

‘I’m looking forward to getting some more information from the radar. The radar in Jersey was very informative.

‘There was the possibility that there were two objects on the radar in the same area for the same length of time.

‘We need to research it more but it was very large on the radar.’

Lunar "UFO"s May Be Volcanic Belches

Moon Explosions
By JR Minkel
Scientific American
6-26-07


Mysterious lunar flashes match up geographically with puffs of radon gas
     Strange, bright flashes observed on the moon for centuries and often dismissed as the lunar equivalent of UFOs may in fact be emissions of volcanic gas. A researcher says he has reviewed the evidence for so-called lunar transients and found them to occur only in areas of the moon that belch radon gas, suggesting that the flashes could be the result of dust stirred up by such emissions—possibly volcanic in origin.

"A lot of people think that this is just craziness—this is up there with UFOs," says astrophysicist Arlin Crotts of Columbia University. "But no, this is real science. And it's something people should have done 30 years ago." Other experts, although intrigued, are not yet convinced of transients or Crotts's proposed explanation.

Moon watchers since at least 1540 have reported seeing bright spots or other pinpoint distortions on the moon's surface that faded anywhere from a minute to a few hours later. Interest in these transients exploded in the late 1950s and 1960s among amateur astronomers, who cranked out many a spurious-looking report of lunar lights, Crotts says; even the Apollo astronauts claimed to see a few. "People have been wondering about this for hundreds of years, to the point where they've given up on it," he says.

To determine which, if any, sightings were legit, Crotts statistically analyzed the hundreds of documented transients—"a hair ball of a data set," he says—and found 450 sightings, most pre-1960s, that were similar in description despite occurring in different centuries or on different continents. "However you split them up, historically or by the geography of observers…, everybody sees the same [kind of] thing," he says. "It makes it easier to believe they're real."

The crater Aristarchus was the site of the most transients, followed by Plato, Grimaldi, Kepler, Copernicus and Tycho, Crotts reports in a paper submitted to the journal Icarus. These areas, which account for about 10 percent of the lunar surface, also encompass four sites where lunar missions have pinpointed emissions of radioactive radon 222 gas, a by-product of uranium 238, and the more diffuse radon by-product, polonium 210. Crotts says the odds of such overlapping are less than 1,000 to one.

One possible explanation for transients, he says, is volcanic gas escaping from the moon's interior to the surface, where it might build up under the fine lunar soil until it erupts, puffing up a visible cloud of dust. Researchers believe that Aristarchus was the most volcanically active part of the moon, leaving behind solidified lava called basalt riddled with gas pockets.

Crotts' analysis goes further than prior work in proving that transients are real, but the gas explanation is "mostly 'correlations equals causation,'" says geologist Paul Spudis of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Transients are difficult to study, he adds, because observations are hard to confirm or replicate. Hoping to address that problem, Crotts is currently setting up a robotic imaging system in Chile to begin a systematic search for transients.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Capt Roy Bowyer Interviewed On British TV


UFOs Spotted Over Southampton, Captured On Video

UFOs Over Southampton
By Matt Smith
This is Hampshire
6-26-07

     WERE they floating balloons; an elaborate hoax or aliens from another world?

Strange goings on in the skies over Southampton lights were have been captured on film by a Daily Echo reader.

The video shows UFO activity, lights moving slowly over the Thornhill estate, apparently in pairs.

Kevin Prince, 34, of Holcroft Road, who shot the footage, said his kids were playing outside when they spotted the strange lights at about 9.30pm.

"They were moving in a perfectly straight line and were very smooth," he said.

"I'm quite sceptical about UFOs but it was really strange - really weird.

Search is On for Flying Saucers Reported To Have Landed in Idaho

By The Daily Courier
July 8, 1947

- click on images to enlarge -

Idahoans Hunt For Downed Flying Discs (UFOs) - The Daily Courier - 7-8-1947

UFO Spotter On Prime-Time TV

By Tom Edwards
This is Guernsey
6-26-07


UFO spotter Ray Bowyer was in the spotlight again last night when he appeared on the Richard & Judy show.
Capt Ray Bowyer     The Aurigny pilot, who said he spotted two huge unidentified objects off Alderney two months ago, explained the sightings to a national audience yesterday.

The Channel 4 couple quizzed the captain about his brush with the unknown and showed him some photographs of other famous sightings.

Mr Bowyer said that one of the images, of an object spotted over New Mexico, was very similar to what he had seen and added that he had not previously been aware of the picture.

Media attention has been growing over the pilot’s UFO sighting since it was first reported by the Guernsey Press on Thursday 26 April.

His descriptions of a mile-long, bright yellow object made headlines in the Sun and Daily Mail last week.

Show co-host Richard Madeley said he had heard some extraordinary reports from other pilots in the past and asked what had prompted Captain Bowyer to come forward.
‘My experience is that commercial pilots don’t often speak out, so why have you decided to?’ he said.

Captain Bowyer replied that the Guernsey Press had broken the story and revealed there was convincing radar evidence that confirmed something was in the area at the time.

‘I have visited Radar Control in Jersey, which picked up some interesting traces for 55 minutes.’ he said.

Mr Madeley asked the pilot whether what he saw could have been a strange cloud, to which Captain Bowyer replied that it ‘didn’t look anything like a cloud’.
‘In my view, there was a strange object in a controlled airspace which should not have been there.’ he added.

After thanking the captain for coming on to the show and sharing his ‘fascinating’ story, the show’s other presenter, Judy Finnigan, commented: ‘I wish they 'the aliens' would just come out and show themselves.’

Richard replied: ‘Well I’m glad they haven’t.’

Following yesterday’s show, Captain Bowyer then rushed across London to appear on news network CNN, where he was again interviewed live about his experience.

UFOs Sighted Over Norwich

UFOs Over Norwich
By Lucy Bolton
Evening News 24
6-26-07

     It could be proof there really are little green men out there - or it could just be a close encounter with something far less alien.

A couple spotted five round orange objects moving silently across the skies over the city on Saturday night in one of the first UFO sightings this year.

Liam King, who was visiting Norwich from Colchester with his girlfriend, spotted the glowing orbs as he was walking along St Giles' Street, Upper St Giles' Street and Earlham Road at 10.35pm.

Mr King and his girlfriend were walking back to their hotel on Earlham Road when they saw the mystery objects.

He said: “When we first saw the lights we were walking west up St Giles Street where it was reasonably quiet - and quiet enough to hear that the objects were not emitting any sound.

“Just as we lost the first two behind the roofs of the buildings on Upper St Giles Street we saw a third travelling in the same direction, then a fourth and a fifth.

“We were able to view the fifth light more clearly and were able to see that the light was flying between us and the nearest cloud.”

Another man, who also saw the UFOs but did not want to be named, said: “It was amazing - there were six fireballs in the sky, one was much brighter than the others. I took pictures on my camera but they've come out as white fuzzy blobs. When you zoom in it looks like a spiral in spirals. I watched and they all started disappearing, then, this sounds crazy, but one shot into the other one at a speed far faster than any plane could go. And then they shot into space. I feel silly saying it - but what I saw was not normal.”

The Norfolk UFO Society confirmed Mr King's description is a very common sighting of an unidentified object.

John Sayer, 54, from the organisation said: “Orange is quite a common description and so are balls of light.

“It seems the Norwich area is a hot spot for UFO activity - a lot aren't reported, but the city has one of the highest number of sightings.”

Mr Sayer of Stratton Strawless had around six reports of sightings in the city during the autumn months last year.

Spotters of unidentified flying objects over Hellesdon saw a black triangular craft above Low Road on August 23.

Last week, a pilot and passengers crossing the Channel Islands spotted two large yellow cigar-like objects in the sky.

The objects were thought to be a mile long and the sightings have sparked interest in the eternal question of whether UFOs exist.

Those who believe they have seen an unidentified flying object can report it to the Norfolk UFO Society, but the Ministry of Defence also keeps recordings from across the country.

The MOD reports at the end of 2006 state Norfolk had a similar sighting in East Dereham on May 20 last year where “Orange lights were seen. They appeared to be in formation and travelling slowly.”

MY UFO EXPERIENCE: Close Encounter With a Luminescent Humanoid Form

My UFO Experience
Reader Submitted Report
6-25-07
[Unedited]

     I don't know how this applies, But...

In Feb.1974 my family was on vacation in Colorado. Avid skiers, the family turned in early to get a good nights rest. On this stop, I got to have my own room with Sis. Mom and dad stayed in another room. sometime during the night, I awoke to what looked like a neon light outside the rooms window. I remember rolling over to see if I could close the curtains. Between the time I got out of bed, and the walk to the window, I saw the light break through the wall of the hotel room.

I first thought that I was dreaming. My second reaction was to yell for my sister, but she would not awake. My yells turned to screams when I found myself face to face with the shape of a humanoid. Its body was not a solid, and had particles flying Through it. the very shape of the Humanoids body trapped the flying particles from leaving its shape.

It illuminated the room in a bluish white light. Unfortunately I had positioned myself between the wall(trying to hide behind the curtains) and the alien. I watched as the dude just stared into my face. I could see his facial features in contrast to the dark of the room. The speckles seemed to grow intenser s I calmed down. He and I stood in silence when I noticed that his light was no longer mainly in his body with the speckles. His light went to my sister as his body stayed next to me.

I mustered up my courage, and took a step forward expecting him to take a step back. He did not. In fact I'm sure that the form was empty as I stepped into it. My body went Through his, and as I exited I ran for the door in hopes of escape. Screaming for my sister as I ran. The blue light got intensely bright, and I don't remember what happened for the rest of that night.

The next morning I was awoke by Dad who was mad as hell because we had slept past our 5:am wake up call. In fact it was 9:am, and the Hotel manager had to wake us. I tryed to explain all of this to the parents, but I was pushed aside and written off as a dreamer. Sis saw nothing, and teased me. I remember being mad as hell and bent on revenge because ofthis.I swore that I would make them believe me...they never did.

Flash forward to 1983, I'm living in Yosemite Natl' Park. Iv often tried to compare bright lights to my memory of that Colorado night. None had ever compared...Until one day I was getting off work to go to lunch. I worked In Curry Village, a very busy tourist area. I went to the burger joint to get lunch surrounded by folks from all over the world. As I stood in line, the earth began to shake. Earthquake! People yelled, and ran in all directions. but behind me a lady from France shouted at the air in front of her and I. The earth heaved, and the lady kept screaming at something that was visible only to her and I apparently.

In Front of her and I was my friend the bright blue/white light. Her screams terrified my senses,and my instinct was to put my back to the blue dude, and block her view. The earth continued to jolt around, and now we were reaching for things to hold onto. even the buildings and trees were bathed in this blue light.

It hined from behind me onto her face and body. Her eyes met mine several times in disbelief. She could not comprehend what was happening to her, and it must have been terrifying.

I could see the light dim behind me, then the shaking stopped. The lady went hysterical in french and English trying to figure out why the people were only screaming about the quake.She had no apperent family or people with her, and she just Wandered to anyone who would listen. She was sure(as was I) the event was caused by or some how connected to the blue light. I did my best to under describe to others what I had seen, but in my heart I knew Id seen it before.I never said anything about Colorado. I wanted to ally with her, but I could tell, she knew I knew something. She not only hesitated, but later left my side with no further comment or good by. this lady had a life changing experience, and was terrified of it.

Fast forward to 1999,(coincidence, but in line for a burger)at a Burger King in Pasadena California. I'm waiting next in line to order, when I see the girl motion me forward to a new register. as I stepped forward, I "felt" a warm connection between the girl and I (I'm gay so it wasn't that)she looked into my eyes, and both of us were able to feel her unborn baby laugh. Both her and I broke into tears of what I can only explain as pure joy. Beyond joy, it brought both of us to shake in our shoes as we cried tears of Ecstasy, knowing exactly where it was coming from. ...instinct...never met...we could feel the baby laugh out loud. I walked out and sat in my truck and shook for about 20 minutes....Id left her standing there crying and laughing, and shaking because all of the other people started to freak out and leave. I wept like a baby until I saw her walk out the back and into a van that puled up.She didn't look over, and I didn't want to scare her.

I started the car, and went through the drive through hoping to avoid confrontation of anyone who just saw this weird thing happen. I ordered, and drove up to
pay, when the girl saw me, she told me, "What did you tell her, and why did you do that to her" I played dumb, and kept handing her money for the meal. the girl continued,"why did you make her quit?" I was stunned. Over this incident this girl was also so scared by her life changing experience that she could not cope. I kick myself now for not staying in the burger king and asking her questions. But even this
was too weird for me.

Truth, Id take the Aliens any day over what I felt with that girl, because joy so pure is sure to be exclusive to the unborn.

...at the time of writing this, I showed it to mom, and she reminded me of something else...when I was a kid, in 1971 I think, Los Angele's had a huge earthquake. during the quake, mom screamed for me to come out of my room to her side of the house. but I did not go because I was watching the beautiful colored lights in the sky. I had a bunk bed that sat right next to the window. Later in life it was explained to me that friction can cause plasmatic like lights to appear. I believed them...untll I started to read about UFO's online.

I don't know why I decided to share this, other than I'm really not sure what to think about these incidents.

I'm hoping you can shed some light...no pun intended...

Monday, June 25, 2007

Huge Disc Sighted 56 Miles Up

By Frank Scully
The Charleston Daily Mail
February 3, 1951

- click on image to enlarge -

Huge Disc Sighted Flying 56 Miles Up - By Frank Scully - Charleston Daily Mail - Feb 3, 1951

Channel Islands UFOs

UFOs Sighted Over Guernsey (Channel Islands)
By Dr. David Clarke
6-25-07

Dr David Clarke (Sml)     Captain Ray Bowyer, the pilot who reported two UFOs over the Channel Islands on 23 April, will be appear on the British TV's Channel 4 this
afternoon (25 June) today to talk about his experiences.

As Ray is now talking publicly on TV about the investigation that is going on behind the scenes, I can say that this does appear to be one of the most interesting - and so far, inexplicable - UFO sightings made in the last decade.

Capt Ray BowyerRay Bowyer has agreed to work with a small group of investigators including myself, Martin Shough, Paul Fuller and several others both in the UK and France, to reconstruct the Channel sighting using a collection of detailed evidence.

This includes video replays of the radar picture and audio recordings of the conversations between the pilots and air traffic control, all of which have been - perhaps uniquely in this case - preserved for use in our investigation. The video picture does appear to show two definate unidentified tracks corresponding with the position and timing of the visual sightings reported by Bowyer and another pilot in an aircraft flying in a different direction.

At the weekend I discussed the case with Jacques Patenet of the French government UFO agency GEIPAN, as both of us were guest speakers at the IUFO group CISU's congress at Saint Vincent in the Italian Alps. Patenet - who appeared most open-minded and happy to work with serious investigators - expressed an interest in the case which our UK MOD have dismissed as being of any interest as it occurred "within French airspace." Thankfully, the French are a little more open minded and if all goes to plan we should be able to draw upon GEIPAN's pool of expertise in the ongoing investigation.

More to follow in due course.

The Guernsey UFO Photograph?

UFO Near Guernsey Photograph


By KJS72
6-21-07

UFO Appears During a Live News Broadcast?





THIS VIDEO IS NOW UNAVAILABLE

Friday, June 22, 2007

'Mile-Wide UFO' Spotted by British Airline Pilot

UFOs Sighted Over Guernsey

By This Is London
6-22-07

Capt Ray Bowyer     One of the largest UFOs ever seen has been observed by the crew and passengers of an airliner over the Channel Islands.

An official air-miss report on the incident several weeks ago appears in Pilot magazine.

Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, flying close to Alderney first spotted the object, described as "a cigar-shaped brilliant white light".

As the plane got closer the captain viewed it through binoculars and said:

"It was a very sharp, thin yellow object with a green area. It was 2,000ft up and stationary. I thought it was about 10 miles away, although I later realised it was approximately 40 miles from us. At first, I thought it was the size of a [Boeing] 737.

"But it must have been much bigger because of how far away it was. It could have been as much as a mile wide."

Continuing his approach to Guernsey, Bowyer then spied a "second identical object further to the west".

He said: "It was exactly the same but looked smaller because it was further away. It was closer to Guernsey. I can't explain it. This was clearly visual for about nine minutes.

"I'm certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I'm saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying."

The sightings were confirmed by passengers Kate and John Russell. John, 74, said "I saw an orange light. It was like an elongated oval".

The sightings were also confirmed by an unnamed pilot with the Blue Islands airline.

The Civil Aviation Authority safety notice states that a Tri-Lander aircraft flying close to Alderney spotted the object.

"Certain parts of the report have not been published. I cannot say why," said a senior CAA source.

Earlier this year however, the MOD declared its intentions to open its UFO files to the public.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Maury Island’s UFO: 60 Years Later, The Mystery Lingers

Maury Island UFO (ShaverMysteryMagazine1948)
By Amelia Heagerty
The Beach Comber
6-20-07

     Roswell, once just a military base in the New Mexican desert, is known today as the site of the United States’ most high-profile and controversial UFO sighting and crash. But few Islanders know that Maury Island was home to the first alleged UFO sighting in U.S. history, and it took place weeks before two crafts fell from the sky in Roswell.

Tomorrow marks the 60th anniversary of the Maury Island Incident, as it was later dubbed in books and newspaper articles. It took place in June 1947, two years after World War II ended. The nation was abuzz with paranoia and suspicion, and it was in this atmosphere that first one, then two, then hundreds of Americans reported seeing strange, unidentifiable, usually saucer-shaped, objects whizzing through the sky.

These were the incidents that triggered UFO hysteria, which gripped the nation for decades and spawned countless movies and books. But it all started with one close encounter. One X file. It all started with Maury Island.

“I consider (the Maury Island Incident) the most complex mystery in Washington,” said Charlette LeFevre, co-director of the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries, the state’s only paranormal science museum. “It wasn’t as well promoted as Roswell, but it was the beginning of modern UFOlogy.”

While no one can say for sure what happened that afternoon in the Puget Sound, after cobbling together the various eyewitness, secondary, government and media accounts, a story with a life of its own emerges:

At 2 p.m. on June 21, 1947, Tacoma seaman Harold Dahl was trolling the waters just east of Maury Island, looking for loose logs, which he collected and sold for profit.

“As I looked up from the wheel on my boat I noticed six very large donut-shaped aircraft,” Dahl later told one of the investigators of the incident. “I would judge they were about 2,000 feet above the water and almost directly overhead.”

He said the ships were 100 feet in diameter, had no “visible signs of propulsion” and made no noise.

One craft wobbled and dipped to about 500 feet, he told investigators. It then spewed what Dahl described as thin sheets of white metal and several tons of hot lava-like rocks or slag. As the slag rained down on Dahl, his son and his dog, it punched holes in the vessel, burned Dahl’s son on the arm and killed the family dog.

Another of the six saucers seemed to come to the assistance of the ship in distress, “jump-starting” it, according to Dahl. Then the crafts took off. Dahl gathered samples of the rocks and the white metal and went home for the night, shaken.

The next morning he had what modern UFOlogists refer to as the first encounter with a “Man in Black” — an ominous individual who warned Dahl his family would be in danger if he went public with his story, according to Kenn Thomas, who wrote the book “Maury Island UFO.” Although Dahl had not yet told anyone about his UFO sighting, the man in black knew many details of the incident, he later reported. Dahl said he suspected the man was a government official.

Later that day, Dahl told his supervisor Fred Crisman about his UFO sighting. Crisman, dubious, visited Maury and collected his own samples of the slag. He then contacted Ray Palmer, an adventure magazine publisher, to see if Dahl’s story was fodder for his magazine.

The next day, three days after Dahl’s sighting, UFOs went from obscurity to front-page news. On June 24, 1947, U.S. Forest Service employee and pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine “saucer-like” objects flying in formation at speeds of up to 1,200 miles per hour near Mount Rainier. Arnold contacted the press immediately, and the tale spread like wildfire. Soon, U.S. media were saturated with reports of Americans spotting UFOs, almost always saucer-shaped. “Flying saucer” became a household term.

Because Arnold had the eye of a highly trained pilot, his story became big news. Dahl’s story, however, remained obscure until Arnold was dispatched by Palmer to investigate just what it was Dahl saw off the shores of Maury.

Arnold flew to Tacoma in July 1947 and rented a room in the Winthrop Hotel, where, according to FBI reports, Arnold met with Dahl, decided the sighting was authentic and called two U.S. intelligence officers to tell them the news. The men, Capt. William Davidson and Lt. Frank Brown, became the first two Army officers to investigate UFOs, Arnold said in a book he later wrote.

After Arnold phoned Davidson and Brown on July 31, 1947, they flew to Tacoma within an hour, gathering in Arnold’s hotel room where they pored over the details of the incident and collected samples of the slag and white metal, according to Arnold.

The officers’ plane was due back the following morning for inaugural Air Force Day ceremonies, marking the separation of the Air Force from the Army. So, although it was after midnight, they returned to their plane, allegedly carrying UFO slag and metal, and headed for Hamilton Air Force Base in California. Twenty minutes into the flight, their engine caught fire, igniting the left wing. The two crew members aboard the plane with Davidson and Brown parachuted to safety. But neither intelligence officer jumped nor radioed distress, according to news reports. Instead, both died when their B-25 plane crashed near Kelso, Wash.

“Why didn’t they call in to land?” LeFevre said. “It was like they made up their minds they were going to go down with the plane.”

The military promptly sealed off the crash site and cleaned up the rubble from the U.S. Air Force’s first accident. But they left some of it behind.

Only a few locals knew the location of the crash, and none investigated it fully, LeFevre said. But in April 2007, now-owner of the site Bob Greear visited it, accompanied by LeFevre and Philip Lipson, co-directors of the Seattle Museum for the Mysteries.

The three retrieved a blackened, lava-like rock from the site, which now sits in their museum, as well as mangled pieces of the B-25 that went down that night.

Bill Beaty, a research engineer at the University of Washington and a member of the museum’s board, analyzed the rock and found that it was “almost certainly an Earth rock.” But more analysis should be done before writing the specimen off, he said.

After the fatal accident, the government staunchly denied any classified material had been on board the B-25.

But the media knew the names and mission of the deceased officers before the military released them. An anonymous caller contacted various Washington dailies on July 31 through Aug. 3, 1947. The caller gave such intimate details of the conversations that took place in Arnold’s hotel room that Arnold thought the room was bugged. The identity of the caller remains unknown.

While newspapers differed on details, they were in agreement on one thing — the government wasn’t telling the whole truth.

The U.S. military cited Dahl and Crisman’s signed confession that the Maury Island Incident was a hoax. But upon government questioning, the two said they had only sworn their story was a fabrication to protect their families.

It wasn’t until 1979 that the government declassified the FBI files admitting Davidson and Brown had been investigating the Maury Island flying discs at the time of their deaths.

“It didn’t start with Roswell. It started here in the Pacific Northwest,” LeFevre said of UFOlogy. “People should be aware of that.”

UFO Witness Recovers "Tin Foil" Like Material Ejected From Craft

Palestine Residents See Flying Balls Over City (Heading) - By The Brownsville Herald 7-9-1947

[...]


     Flying balls of fire circled a wide area around Palestine, and some Negroes, believing the end of the world was near, began praying. A white man grabbed a gun and shot at the mysterious objects
By The Brownsville Herald
7-9-1947

Sheriff Paul Stanford of Anderson County described them as orange basketballs of fire.

[...]

Mrs. Marian Reed, farm wife, found what she believed was part of a Flying Disc. It landed in her back yard while she was hanging out the clothes yesterday afternoon. She admitted she was frightened. She described it as a round piece of tinfoil, eight inches wide, scorched or burned around the edges. Both sides were shiny, but one side was marked with black, stenciled lines a quarter-inch apart. She said the tinfoil dropped straight down from the sky.

She lifted it with a stick, put it in a tin can, and drove five miles to Gunter, 20 miles southwest of Sherman. Scores crowded about to see it.

UFOs Will Crash, Part II

White Sands UFO Crash Still
By Mike Smith
My Strange New Mexico
6-1-07

Mike Smith (Sml B)     Last week, in “My Strange New Mexico,” we examined a mysterious film that some believe shows the crash of a UFO in the desert of south-central New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, in 1997. The film depicts a white, football-shaped craft as it plummets from the sky, skips violently across the ground, and explodes.

Over fifteen or so noiseless seconds, this intriguing footage plays out with no commentary, no captions, and no known filmmaker willing to take credit for it. Where it really came from, who shot it, or even when it was first viewed, remains uncertain.

In the last few days, after the column about this unusual film appeared in print and online, a number of interesting e-mails have arrived at the top-secret “My Strange New Mexico” lair, printed and delivered, of course, by a trained staff of flightless five-foot-tall owls.

One such letter, from someone calling himself Light Eye, read simply, “This video was made by Ted Loman. It’s not a UFO crash.”

Another—by Peter Gersten, former Director of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS)—said, “Ted Loman produced the video on UFO crashes and created the opening scene of the skipping UFO.”

Ted Loman is a well-known UFO researcher. In 1973, Loman became convinced he needed to travel to a certain mountain in Baja, Mexico, where aliens were going to land, pick him up, and take him back to his home planet. His family forced him to go to a psychiatrist instead, and for the most part he filed the incident away in his mind for around seventeen years. Then, in 1989, he suffered a severe injury while melting silver in a laboratory—an injury that cost him his sight in his left eye, forced him to don a pirate-style eye patch, and gave his father the opportunity to read to him about UFOs and their supposed role in the universe. In 1991, Loman began hosting and producing a weekly cable access show in Tucson, Arizona, UFOAZ Talks, a live one-hour show that examined the reported presence of UFOs in the West.

In 1997, the show changed its name to Off the Record, and broadened its focus to include alternative medicine and ancient mysteries. Also in 1997, Loman interviewed a group known as “Total Overcomers, One Step Beyond Human”—or, as the world would soon come to know them, the Heaven’s Gate cult. When thirty-eight members of that cult committed mass suicide sometime later, believing their souls would soon be ascending into space to join Jesus Christ on a spaceship hidden behind the then-visible Comet Hale-Bopp, Loman and his footage of the cult became much in demand, appearing on shows ranging from Geraldo! to Larry King Live. In 1997, the show—by then widely syndicated—changed its name to Off the Record, and in 2002, Off the Record went off the air. Loman moved to northern Idaho, and there he finished work on a documentary about UFO crashes entitled It Fell From the Sky. The footage of the White Sands appeared as the opening scene of that hard-to-find 2000 documentary.

Loman is currently on vacation in Mexico, and unavailable for comment, but Peter Gersten—who served with Loman on CAUS’s board of directors—said, “The only thing that isn’t real about [It Fell From the Sky] is that opening scene. That is not real. …I don’t remember if it was actually CGI or some sort of computer enhancement.”

In an undated online clip from UFO Connections, a Sacramento, California cable access show, Loman played the video of the crash as if it were something new, claiming he didn’t know when it was made and saying the footage had not been professionally analyzed.

Of the film, he said, “That came to me through Jaime Maussan. Right. And, uh, uh, I don’t know where Jaime got it. Well, I just don’t know where—it’s best to say I don’t know where Jaime got this. But, I, uh, I believe it to be at White Sands. But I cannot, and I will not, confirm or deny that it is, uh, I’ll leave it up to the viewers to, to, see it and watch it, and decide for themselves.”

This was followed by a cryptic and somewhat evasive exchange between Loman and Cynthia Siegel, the show’s host.

Siegel: “But if you thought it was a complete piece of junk you would not have brought it to the show.”

Loman: “It’s not…whatever it is, it’s fascinating.”

Siegel: “It is fascinating. The question is whether it’s actually a UFO.”

Loman: “No, I never raised that question.”

Siegel: “No?”

“I can tell you that [Loman] would not have made the film up as a visual aid for the show,” Jilaen Sherwood, an artist who has worked with Loman, said. “I do know Ted very well and if he mentioned on the show that he got this footage from Jaime, then he probably did.”

This, unfortunately, hardly improves the film’s credibility. Jaime Maussan is a popular Mexican television host, the self-proclaimed “Mike Wallace of Mexico,” with a reputation as an overeager and perhaps recklessly naive promoter of notorious UFO hoaxes. Many of the videos featured on his website are the sort of alleged UFO footage that almost anyone with a trash can lid and a camcorder could film, though others remain intriguing. He has promoted a joke filmed by the Sci-Fi Channel as an actual sighting, promoted the idea of Comet Hale-Bopp hiding giant UFOs intent on evacuating the planet, repeatedly cited nonexistent evidence for numerous cases, and, for what it's worth, has been included in UFOWatchdog.com’s UFO Hall of Shame.

The film of the White Sands crash evidently came from either Maussan—the man who has inspired such online headlines as “Jaime Maussan: Damaging Serious UFOlogy One Hoax at a Time”—or it was made by Ted Loman for his documentary.

The absolute truth still remains to be learned, but—unless Loman tries and succeeds at a little interstellar hitchhiking while in Mexico—the truth will come out eventually, and the record will at last be set straight.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

On The Road To Roswell 2007: A Discussion With Nick Pope
- Part V -

Nick Pope
By Tom Horn
Raiders News Network
5-28-07


Tom Horn Sml (B)Editors note: This is the fifth in a special series of Raiders News Network interviews focusing on the 60th Anniversary of the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico UFO Incident. Tom Horn is joined by Nick Pope, former project leader for the British Government's UFO department at the Ministry of Defence. Initially skeptical, Nick's research and investigation into the UFO phenomenon and access to formerly classified government files on the subject soon convinced him that the phenomenon raised important defence and national security issues, especially when the witnesses were military pilots or where UFOs were tracked on radar.
     HORN: Nick. Thanks for joining me today. Earlier this year I emailed you when Britain declared it was going to open its MoD UFO files to the public. Because you had ran this department for the British Government, I wanted to know if we should expect anything unusual in these materials. You emailed me back to say that I should not expect a smoking gun, but that there were some devils in the details. What has been the result of the MoD files going public?

POPE: Although a good deal of material is already available at the National Archives and on the MoD website, the rest of the UFO files have yet to be made public. Two separate things are happening right now. Firstly, 24 Defence Intelligence Staff UFO files are going to be considered for release. These were part of a much larger batch of files (on various subjects) that had been contaminated with asbestos. Originally it was feared they'd have to be destroyed, sparking outrage from historians and leading to various conspiracy theories. At huge cost, the files have now been decontaminated and can be considered for release in the normal way. Numerous ufologists have made Freedom of Information Act requests in relation to these files. The second thing that's happening is that the MoD has decided to release its entire archive of UFO files, not least because of the increasing burden of responding to FOI requests (the MoD get more FOI requests in relation to UFOs than on any other subject, including the war in Iraq). This is a massive job and may take months, if not years, as personal details of witnesses have to be removed, along with any information that would genuinely compromise national security - e.g. information on the capability of military radar systems.

HORN: When and why was the MoD's UFO Project set up?

POPE: The MoD's UFO project has its roots in a 1950 initiative by the then Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Henry Tizard. He said that UFO sightings shouldn't be dismissed out of hand without some form of proper scientific study. The MoD then set up a body called the Flying Saucer Working Party, to look into the phenomenon. It reported its sceptical conclusions (that UFO sightings were attributable to misidentifications, hoaxes or delusions) in 1951 and recommended that no further action be taken. But there was a series of high-profile UFO sightings in 1952 when UFOs were tracked on radar and seen by military pilots. This forced the RAF and the MoD to think again, and the Department has been investigating UFO sightings pretty much continuously since then. To date, there have been over 10,000 sightings reported to the MoD.

HORN: What is the MoD's policy on UFOs?

POPE: The policy is to investigate UFO sightings to see whether there's evidence of anything of any defence significance, i.e. evidence of any threat to the defence of the UK, or information that may be of use to us, scientifically or militarily. Having a UFO project in no way implies a corporate belief in extraterrestrial visitation. It simply reflects the fact that we keep a watchful eye on our airspace and want to know about anything operating in the United Kingdom's Air Defence Region. Although the British effort was on a much smaller scale, the terms of reference and methodology were virtually identical to that of the United States Air Force study, Project Blue Book.

HORN: MoD also acknowledged that a government UFO unit, known as S4F (Air) and DI55, existed. Tells us about this unit and what they did (or do).

POPE: S4(Air) no longer exists. It was a division that had responsibility for UFO investigations some years ago. Like any bureaucracy, the MoD undergoes frequent reorganisations where divisions are opened, closed, merged, split or restructured. It's a nightmare! So, over the years, all sorts of different areas have had responsibility for UFOs, leading some researchers to wrongly conclude there are many different areas of the MoD all working on the subject. In fact, at any one time, there'll be a division that has the lead for policy and investigations (i.e. where I worked) and a number of other areas on whose specialist skills and expertise the lead division can call. DI55 is part of the Defence Intelligence Staff. They were one of the specialist branches that I could bring in to assist me with certain aspects of my UFO investigations. Up until a few years ago I couldn't talk about this aspect of my work at all, or even acknowledge the existence of DI55. Recently, however, details have emerged under FOI, including some documents relating to my own dealings with them. But as I'm sure you'll understand, this is still an area of my work that I can't discuss in any great detail.

HORN: How were you recruited into the UFO Project?

POPE: I joined the Ministry of Defence in 1985. At the time, the policy was to move people every 2 or 3 years - either on level transfer or promotion - so that everybody gained experience in a wide range of different jobs: policy, operations, personnel, finance, etc. I'd done 2 or 3 different jobs and prior to taking up my post on the UFO project I was working in a division called Secretariat(Air Staff), where I'd been seconded into the Air Force Operations Room in the Joint Operations Centre. I worked there in the run-up to the first Gulf War, during the war itself, and in the aftermath of the conflict. It was while working there that I was approached and asked whether, after I was released from duties in the Joint Operations Centre, I would like to run the UFO project, which was embedded in another part of Secretariat(Air Staff). I accepted the invitation. So, in a sense, I was headhunted.

HORN: Did your views change from the time you started working with MoD until you left the department?

POPE: I knew little about the subject before I joined and I certainly had no belief in extraterrestrials. So while I was open-minded in all my investigations, my start point was broadly sceptical. As I began to read into the archive of previous files, and as I began to undertake my own official research and investigation, my views began to change and I became more open to the possibility that some UFOs had more exotic explanations. What impressed me most were cases where UFOs were seen by trained observers such as police officers, where they were tracked on radar, where they were seen by pilots, and where there was evidence to suggest that UFOs were performing speeds and manoeuvres way ahead of the capabilities of even our most advanced aircraft. My position now is that while I can't say what these UFOs are, the phenomenon raises important defence, national security and flight safety issues. I've seen no proof that these things are extraterrestrial, but I don't rule out this possibility.

HORN: What were your procedures / protocols for investigating UFO sightings?

POPE: We used to receive 200 - 300 reports each year and the methodology of an investigation is fairly standard. Firstly, you interview the witness to obtain as much information as possible about the sighting: date, time and location of the sighting, description of the object, its speed, its height, etc. Then you attempt to correlate the sighting with known aerial activity such as civil flights, military exercises or weather balloon launches. We could check with the Royal Greenwich Observatory to see if astronomical phenomena such as meteors or fireballs might explain what was seen. We could check to see whether any UFOs seen visually had been tracked on radar. If we had a photograph or video, we could get various MoD specialists to enhance and analyse the imagery. We could also liaise with staff at the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System at RAF Fylingdales, where they have space-tracking radar. Finally, on various scientific and technical issues, we could liaise with the Defence Intelligence Staff, although as I've said previously, this is an area of my work that I can't discuss in any detail.

HORN: What did you conclude about the majority of your investigations?

POPE: I concluded that sightings could be categorised as follows. Around 80% could be explained as misidentifications of something mundane, such as aircraft lights, weather balloons, satellites, meteors, etc. In approximately 15% of cases there was insufficient information to make a firm assessment. That left around 5% of sightings that seemed to defy any conventional explanation. But while we could say with reasonable certainty what these 5% weren't, we couldn't say what they were. They were by definition unknown, unexplained, or whatever word you care to use.

HORN: The Flying Saucer Working Party was set up in October 1950 by Ministry of Defence Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Henry Tizard. Was this a reaction to the 1947 Roswell incident or something else?

POPE: It wasn't a reaction to the Roswell incident, but to increasing numbers of UFO sightings in the UK and elsewhere, and to the associated media coverage. As a scientist, Tizard knew that any assessment of UFOs not based on investigation was assumption and guesswork, and therefore meaningless. He didn't have any firm view on the phenomenon but he knew UFOs were being reported in considerable numbers and he wanted to know what they were.

HORN: Britain's most sensational UFO case occurred in December 1980 in Rendlesham Forest , between RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge. Tell us about that.

POPE: This is the UK's most famous UFO incident and it's sometimes referred to as "Britain's Roswell". Over a series of nights in December 1980 UFOs were seen by dozens of United States Air Force personnel at Bentwaters and Woodbridge, two RAF bases operated by the Americans. On the first night the UFO landed in Rendlesham Forest (which lies between the two bases) and one of the witnesses got close enough to touch it. Sketches from the USAF witness statements clearly show a craft with strange markings on its hull, which have been likened to Egyptian hieroglyphs. The UFO returned on another night and was seen by more witnesses, including the Deputy Base Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt. At one point the UFO illuminated the spot where Halt and his team were standing and at another time the UFO was directly over Woodbridge, firing beams of light down at the base. Subsequently, radiation readings were taken at the location where the UFO had been seen on the first night. They peaked in three indentations found where the craft had apparently landed. The MoD's Defence Intelligence Staff assessed that the radiation levels were significantly higher than background levels. Subsequently it emerged that a radar operator at RAF Watton had tracked an object briefly, over the base. I re-opened the investigation into this case but was unable to determine what happened. It remains unexplained.

HORN: On 1 November 2006 you were involved with a Channel Five documentary, The British UFO Mystery. The programme focused on a wave of UFO sightings that occurred on 30 and 31 March 1993 -- The Cosford Incident -- where many of the witnesses were police officers and military personnel. What did you conclude about this case?

POPE: We had a wave of UFO sightings over the UK for a period of about six hours. Many of the witnesses included police officers and military personnel. At one point the UFO flew over RAF Cosford and RAF Shawbury. Witnesses described a vast triangular-shaped craft capable of moving from a virtual hover to speeds of well over a thousand miles an hour in seconds. I led the investigation at the time and even my Head of Division, who was extremely sceptical about UFOs, was intrigued by this case. We even briefed the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff, one of the UK's most senior RAF officers. Channel Five's recent investigative documentary exposed the case to over a million viewers on primetime terrestrial TV and led to over 30 new witnesses coming forward. The production company had obtained the MoD case file on the incident (which ran to over 100 pages of documentation) under the Freedom of Information Act and asked me to front the programme, talking viewers through the case an the MoD investigation. As a result of the interest generated by the programme, the MoD made the file available on its website. The file includes my sceptical Head of Division's briefing to the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff, which states "In summary, there would seem to be some evidence on this occasion that an unidentified object (or objects) of unknown origin was operating over the UK". This is as close as the MoD will ever get to saying that there's more to UFOs than misidentifications or hoaxes.

HORN: What were some of the other interesting UFO cases you investigated?

POPE: It's difficult to single out interesting cases unless they're on the scale of something like Rendlesham Forest or the Cosford Incident. Also, it's difficult for me to talk about cases the MoD hasn't yet released. I can't anticipate what the Department will release and what they may withhold, so you'll have to await the release of the files. But in general terms I can say that other interesting cases included some radar/visual cases, cases where UFOs were seen close to military bases, and some interesting sightings by civil and military pilots - including a few near-misses, where collisions were only narrowly avoided. Both the MoD and our Civil Aviation Authority has information on several such cases, and whatever one's beliefs about UFOs, the flight safety implications should be of concern to everyone. When the MoD released Project Condign last year (a highly classified study that had its roots in discussions I had with the Defence Intelligence Staff in 1993) some of the most interesting recommendations related to this point. One read "No attempt should be made to out-manoeuvre a UAP during interception". Another recommendation states "At higher altitudes, although UAP appear to be benign to civil air-traffic, pilots should be advised not to manoeuvre, other than to place the object astern, if possible". UAP was the abbreviated form of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, a term we decided to use instead of UFO, as it sounded more scientific.

HORN: Why did you leave the MoD's UFO department?

POPE: After having done the job for 3 years I was promoted and moved to another post at a higher grade. There's certainly no truth to the rumour that I was moved because I was getting too close to the truth, as some conspiracy theorists allege. After I left, I took up a financial policy post, before moving to a security-related job.

HORN: Yet you still work in a different capacity at the Ministry of Defence, correct?

POPE: No. I resigned last year and left the MoD at the end of October. I'd greatly enjoyed my 21 year career, but decided it was time to seek fresh challenges. I have a number of business interests and I now have more time to pursue these.

HORN: I once asked Stanton Friedman a similar question I'd like to ask you. How do you respond to allegations that you're involved in a cover-up or that you're a disinformation agent?

POPE: How can I respond? You can't prove a negative. The rumour isn't true, but if people believe this sort of thing they won't believe my denial, or the MoD's confirmation of my departure. I can't win. It does amaze me though, how many people genuinely seem to believe this. I get asked it a lot and see the theory discussed frequently on various websites and discussion lists. The bottom line is that I worked for the Government for 21 years, for the very people who many conspiracy theorists believe are covering up the truth about UFOs. To them, the government are the bad guys, so I'm the bad guy, who's part of the conspiracy.

HORN: Your investigations ultimately led to other unexplained phenomena. What do you make of so-called alien abductions?

POPE: While none of these other subjects were in the UFO project's terms of reference, they inevitably ended up on my desk, because there was nowhere else to send them. I've probably looked into around 100 cases of alien abduction. Some of these cases were reported to me at the MoD, but most people contacted me after I'd written a book on the subject, called The Uninvited. Some sceptics say these people are attention seekers after their 15 minutes of fame, but this clearly isn't true. Out of the hundred or so abductees I've been involved with, maybe half a dozen are interested in engaging with the media or the UFO community. Most aren't interested. Other people suggest these people are delusional, but again, this theory doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The few scientists who have looked at this phenomenon have found no signs of psychopathology in the abductees, and evidence (in terms of increased heartrate and perspiration) that they genuinely believe they've had these experiences. The use of regression hypnosis in some of these cases clouds the issue. The scientific community generally doesn't accept the validity of the technique in recovering suppressed memories, and indeed many believe it can distort memories or even create false ones. But regression hypnosis isn't used in all abduction cases, so we can't say False Memory Syndrome is the answer. Something's going on with these people, but the truthful answer is that we don't know what's happening.

HORN: Crop circles?

POPE: Some of the small, single circles (and that's where the phenomenon started) may be attributable to some form of meteorological phenomenon such as a whirlwind or wind vortex. As for the more complex ones - the so-called pictograms - there's no doubt in my mind that most of them are made by people. I've seen it done. Some of the people involved in this are highly skilled and motivated, plan the formations meticulously, well in advance, and split the work between several people. Some people call them hoaxers but many of the people involved see themselves as conceptual artists. Do I completely rule out a more exotic explanation? No. In my line of work, I tried never to rule anything out altogether, and always tried to keep an open mind.

HORN: Ghosts?

POPE: People associate ghosts with old houses, churches or pubs, but in my experience there are just as many reports of ghosts on military bases as anywhere else. I've received numerous such reports, often from the MoD Police officers or guards who have to patrol these areas at night. Now, these are pretty tough guys, as you can imagine, but some of them have been really spooked by what they've seen. All the classic signs are present in many of these cases: unexplained cold spots, guard dogs growling, with their hackles rising, at certain locations. And actual ghosts seen at sights where people have been killed. Ghosts have even been seen in MoD Main Building itself, where the modern headquarters is built on the site of the much older Whitehall Palace. The remains of Henry VIII's wine cellar are perfectly preserved in the basement, and there are some areas of the building where guards don't like to patrol alone at night. Perhaps the oddest report I received was an animal ghost story. During the Second World War, Wing Commander Guy Gibson (who led the famous Damn Busters raid) had a dog that was knocked down by a car and killed, shortly before the raid. The ghost of this dog has been seen several times at RAF Scampton.

HORN: You've written extensively about your work with MoD. Is this not a problem since you signed the Official Secrets Act?

POPE: I signed the Official Secrets Act on my first day in the MoD and even though I've left, it binds me for life. But it doesn't preclude writing or speaking about my work. Politicians invariably keep diaries and write memoirs, and military officers often write accounts of their careers. There's no bar on this sort of activity, provided you follow various rules and procedures, the most obvious one being the absolute prohibition on revealing any classified information.

HORN: Your books include "Open Skies, Closed Minds", "The Uninvited", "Operation Thunder Child", and "Operation Lightning Strike". Anything else you are working on?

POPE: Researching and writing a book typically takes me between 6 months and a year. While I intend to write further books (both non-fiction and fiction) at some stage, the pressure of other commitments means that I simply don't have time for this at the moment. I have numerous media commitments (mainly television work) and various private business interests to look after. These are my priorities at present.

HORN: This is the 60th anniversary of the Roswell UFO incident. What is your opinion about what happened there in 1947?

POPE: Clearly something crashed. But in my experience, if UFO sightings aren't solved quickly, they're unlikely to be solved at all. With that in mind, 60 years on, with most of the direct participants dead, the chances are we'll never be certain what happened at Roswell. Unless some 'smoking gun' emerges that's beyond dispute, I suspect the events will remain a mystery.

HORN: How do you think ufology can best use the 60th anniversary of Roswell to promote the subject?

POPE:To keep the subject in the public eye and generate as much serious, mainstream media coverage as possible. Spin-off benefits from this should include encouraging more people to report their UFO sightings, and bringing new people to the subject. But, fascinating though Roswell is, ufology should look forward as well as back. Promoting ufology should involve not just the old cases, but recent ones such as the sighting of a UFO over O'Hare airport or the sighting by the pilot who saw a UFO in the vicinity of the Channel Islands. It should also focus on the release of UFO files by the British and French governments. Finally, ufology might also consider how it could best engage with the scientific community, and in particular engage in constructive dialogue with those involved in SETI research.

HORN: Will you be in Roswell this July?

POPE: I have no current plans to come to Roswell this July, but I'll probably be doing some media interviews here in the UK, to tie in with the anniversary.

HORN: Thank you for taking time to do this interview.

Some of the speakers at this year's Roswell festivities include Col. Jesse Marcel Jr, Dennis Balthaser, Greg Bishop, Donald Burleson, PhD, Stephen Bassett, Richard Dolan, Adam GoRightly, Stanton Friedman, John Greenewald, Paola Harris, Michael S. Heiser PhD, Tom Horn, Dr. Roger Leir, Guy Malone, Nicholas Redfern, John Rhodes, Peter Robbins, Rob Simone, and many more.

Learn more about the 60th Anniversary Roswell Festivals at both official websites:
http://www.roswellufofestival.com
http://www.roswellufomuseum.com/festival.htm

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