Zechel's UFOlogical Naked Emperor at the CIA

As obituaries go, it's about as nondescript as you can imagine, its 120 words painting a silhouette of a man who, unbeknownst to the uninitiated reader, managed to accumulate more enemies than friends during his 63 years on planet Earth. Well, I'm talking not about UFOlogical iconoclast James W. Moseley (publisher-editor of the gossipzine "Saucer Smear") but about one of Moseley's unfavored acquaintances -- W. Todd Zechel, who according to "Smear's" Oct. 10, 2008, issue, died in relative obscurity on Nov. 14, 2006. (Moseley, of course, remains with us, headed toward octohood.) Both men had been

By Larry Bryant The UFO Chronicles 11-7-2008

cigarette-smokers; in Zechel's case, his obesity and smoking probably caused him to sustain a stroke several years before his demise.

In his later years, Zechel (who might've enjoyed being called the "Colombo of UFOlogy") had a tacit but nevertheless self-destructive approach to interpersonal relations: if you can't successfully attack your enemies, then just go ahead and attack your friends. Somehow, "Todd the God" (as he liked to be called) viewed me as a friend -- one who, alas, could be regularly exploited whenever Zechel felt so inclined.

If Zechel could lay claim to any lasting self-descriptor, it might go like this: "The Ultimate practitioner of the strategy called 'the end justifies the means.'" Even so, he possessed a folksy, ribald sense of humor, a slightly commendable irreverence toward official authority, an abundant talent for stalking/milking his research prey, and an enviable knack for writing.

It was in the latter category that I received my final word from him -- cranked out via an e-mail message addressed to me and to several other persons on May 8, 2006. (Having no computer of his own, he relied on the communal computer service at his local public library.) His message consisted of an essay titled "The CIA's Most Secret Counterintelligence Project: The Condon Committee." One of his e-correspondents at the time -- Frank Riccardi, director of the [now defunct] UFO-research web site of eyepod dot org -- has posted the essay's contents as part of the Eyepod's online newsletter called The Alien Chronicles -- Issue 2-23.

In light of recent rumors about the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency's (alleged) interference with the (alleged) plans by certain U. S. Navy insiders to jump-start some official U. S. disclosure of the extraterrestrial presence (allegedly via a series of high-level talks at secret UN-sponsored venues), I'm presenting, below, the text of Zechel's j'accuse smoking gun -- as a sort of elongated epitaph.

Meantime, readers desiring to learn more about Zechel's investigatory projects will find his biographic sketch and other reprinted material at the Internet Archive site.

THE CIA'S MOST SECRET UFO COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROJECT: The Condon Committee
By W. Todd Zechel
Investigative Journalist
Former NSA/ASA Communications Specialist
(c) 2006

     When the U. S. Air Force, under Congressional pressure, appointed Dr. Edward U. Condon of the University of Colorado to head a purported "independent scientific study of UFOs" in 1966, it was the end result of the CIA secretly taking charge of UFO intelligence in late 1957, having gained control of "'scientific intelligence" within the intelligence community. Between 1958 and 1966, the Air Force had been stuck in the publicly humiliating position of having to pretend it was the U.S. government agency responsible for studying UFO sightings and related events for whatever intelligence could be obtained. But in reality it was the CIA that had wrestled control away from the USAF by proving to the National Security Council (NSC) that the Air Force had completely bungled the job and was incapable of handling it without covering itself in proverbial eggs.

Dr. Condon had worked on the ultra-secret Manhattan Project during WW II, helping develop the Atomic Bomb. Later he became the head of the National Bureau of Standards, which assisted in American scientific, technical development. But in early 1951 he suddenly left the Bureau to become the director of research and development at Corning Cookware in upstate New York. But unlike the previous director, Condon did not specialize in developing pots and pans at Corning; but instead he spent his time developing missile and rocket nose cones and heat shields/ablation shields for America's space program -- Condon had been and was a key member of the National Aeronautics Advisory Committee (NACA), the forerunner of NASA. In fact, Condon is reputed (within supersecret circles) to have based his heat shield developments on the analysis of recovered extraterrestrial material*, after he left the National Bureau of Standards at the behest of President Truman.

In reality, Condon was chosen to head the UFO study in order to get the Air Force off the hook, the USAF being in the position whereby it had to pretend it was studying UFOs, while behind the scenes and in secret the CIA was conducting the real study. In point of fact, the CIA would utilize the Condon Committee to collect UFO intell, while at the same time promising the USAF it would ultimately debunk and dismiss UFOs, which was done in what became known as "The Condon Report."

In February 1967, Condon and four other scientists associated with his study secretly met with CIA officials at the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in downtown Washington, D.C., where U-2, SR-71, and satellite spy photos were analyzed utilizing state-of-the-art computer enhancement techniques. After being briefed and given a dog-and-pony show by NPIC's founder and director, Art Lundahl, who implored Condon's group to obtain some good UFO photos/films for NPIC to study, Condon issued a nationwide appeal through the media for citizens to send the Condon Committee UFO photos/films to assist the purported "impartial" study of UFOs, post-haste. In reality, the photographic evidence was being sought for the CIA to further its secret study of UFOs, on-going since the early 1950s but without a mandate until late 1957.

In April 1967, a Condon Committee researcher, Dr. Gerald Rothberg of Stevens Institute, Hoboken, N.J., was dispatched to Harrisburg, Penn., to investigate an on-going local UFO flap. Accompanying Rothberg, disguised as research assistants, were two covert CIA officers, one of whom was Fred Durant, a highly experienced and knowledgeable CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence officer who typically operated under a cover of being a civilian scientist, lastly with Avco-Everett Research Lab, where he was reputed to be conducting R&D with recovered E.T. material*. Durant and his partner brought with them a van load of high-tech detection equipment such as frequency scanners, plus advanced photographic gear. The CIA men mounted a special "all-sky" tracking camera atop Harrisburg's largest hospital, interviewed local civilian UFO witnesses, and met with the Harrisburg chapter of NICAP, then the nation's largest and most influential civilian UFO group, headed by an anti-UFO secrecy activist, Maj. (Ret) USMC, Donald Keyhoe.

Condon's most valuable service to the CIA, however, began in 1968 when another Condon Committee press release invited Soviet Union scientists to participate in his purported "independent scientific study" of UFOs. Condon was just dangling bait for the CIA, trying to get Soviet officials into a "non-aggression" treaty on UFOs. Subsequently, Condon "researchers" -- some of whom were covert CIA officers -- met with Soviet Bloc scientists in Eastern Europe, where the treaty parlay was set in motion.

According to information provided in confidence to the author by the late Art Lundahl, founder and original director of the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), the highly proficient CIA center where U-2, SR-71, and satellite recon photos were analyzed, in February 1969 a high-ranking Soviet KGB official flew to Washington, D. C., in order to meet with the CIA hierarchy and work out a sort of non-aggression pact on UFOs whereby each side would pledge not to falsely claim the UFOs hovering over the other's sensitive military installations were secret devices which belonged to them. This pact was put in place in order to try to prevent an accidental nuclear exchange or war triggered by UFO intrusions and overflights.

Interestingly, Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the CIA's first director in 1947, was very vociferous about the dangers of accidental nuclear war triggered by UFO intrusions and overflights, either in the Soviet Union or America -- to the point he allowed NICAP Director Don Keyhoe to publicly quote him warning as such while he served on Keyhoe's NICAP Board of Governors. It's not known if the Admiral ever learned of the ultra-secret "non-aggression" pact between the Russians and Americans, signed in 1969, but he must have breathed a sigh of relief if he did.

In the end, the Condon Report, released in late 1969, was a classic example of CIA disinformation, for it not only dismissed UFOs but also called for the USAF to cease investigating them, no matter how concerned about UFO intrusions witnesses might be.

Thereafter, UFO intelligence became a matter for the CIA to secretly collect and analyze, even though in the fall of 1975 UFOs were buzzing USAF SAC B-52 bases and missile sites, hovering over and, in the Air Force's own words, "demonstrating a clear intent toward nuclear weapons."

Thereafter, UFO intelligence became a matter for the CIA to secretly collect and analyze, even though in the fall of 1975 UFOs were buzzing USAF SAC B-52 bases and missile sites, hovering over and, in the Air Force's own words, "demonstrating a clear intent toward nuclear weapons."

But Fred Durant, author of the CIA's Robertson Panel Report in 1953, perceived the greatest danger of UFO activity was the public and news media attention given to them. Durant had outlined a program of debunking and downplaying UFOs in order to prevent what he called "a morbid national psychology," which might foster "a harmful distrust of duly constituted authority."

The Condon Report sealed the lid on the coffin in which the truth about UFOs was buried. However, the UFO or flying saucer misinformation war between the U. S. and the USSR had been on--going since about 1950. The Soviets had suspected from the early days of saucer sightings in America that it was all a misinformation game designed to scare them into believing the U. S. had developed some sort of fantastic secret aerial weapon (which the USAF tried to reinforce by loudly proclaiming it was developing the AVRO disc** in the early 1950s). Conversely, in America some top scientific advisors to the Air Force [demurred] -- such as Dr. Anthony Mirarchi at the Air Force Geophysics Lab in Cambridge, Mass., which was receiving films of UFOs shot at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., shot by telescopic tracking cameras; Mararchi knew the UFOs surveilling White Sands were real but was convinced they were an amazing technological advancement by the Soviets.

The Soviets had gone so far as to stage an "accidental" exposure of a supposedly "Top Secret" schematic of a (bogus) Soviet-built flying saucer to an American spy in Moscow in 1950. Then in 1953 the Russians tried to reinforce this misinformation by planting a story in a Vienna, Austria, newspaper which claimed a flying saucer had crashed on Norway's Spitzbergen Island, and it had Russian markings on internal parts and matched almost exactly the bogus schematic exposed to an American spy in Moscow in 1950.

After Condon had buried the truth about UFOs with the study he headed and the report it generated, all designed to get the Air force off the hook and take UFO research underground where the CIA would answer to no-one, the public was only partly persuaded; but academia and politicians swallowed it like the proverbial hook, line, and sinker. Now, however, all manner of nonsense became part of the public forum on UFOs; but still, in spite of Fred Durant's gloomy predictions, America did not fall apart, the Soviet Union did.

The CIA's motto, borrowed from the Bible, says: "Know ye the truth, and the truth shall set ye free." Sadly, America has yet to be set free by learning the truth about UFOs being withheld by the CIA and other U. S. government agencies.

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* Note: The E.T. material studied and mentioned in this report has nothing whatsoever to do with the Roswell, N. M., incident of 1947, which was in truth the debris from the crash of a cluster of six balloons launched June 14, 1947, from White Sands as part of a Top Secret experiment to develop a recoverable sniffer of atomic tests in the Soviet Union. [LWB note: this being Zechel's bias favoring the contentious Mogul balloon theory for the Roswellian crash-retrieval/cover-up case.]

** The AVRO disc was just part of a U.S. Air Force attempt to misinform/mislead the Soviets, which started about 1953, when the USAF let a contract to Canada's A. V. Roe aviation company purportedly to build a flying saucer for only a few hundred thousand dollars. It was all a hoax designed to fool the Russians and the American public! [LWB note: The U. S. Army also had a hand in that multi-$m R&D contract. Indeed, one of the two "AVROcar's" prototypes became, back in the mid-sixties, an exhibit on the grounds of the U. S. Army Transportation Museum in Fort Eustis, Va.]

See Also:

'UFO Cover-up' Add Submitted To Classifieds at 'Robins Air Force Base'

CIA Says, "No UFO Investigation Since The '50's!"

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

Scientists Probing UFO Mystery | UFO CHRONICLE – 1967

... Dr Edward Condon, physicist, is in a sense looking for UFOs. He heads a team of scientists investigating reports of UFOs, which some persons believe are visitors from distant planets....

The Morning Call 7-23-1967

See Also:

Science and UFOs: Part 1—The Condon Committee Con Job

Dr J Allen Hynek Condems 'Condon Report' and Explains 'Swamp Gas' in Kreskin Interview | VIDEO

The CIA's Secret Counterintelligence Project

- click and or right click on image(s) to enlarge -

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

A Russian UFO Commission, the CIA, Carl Sagan and Mystery Metal

When you get a chance, I would appreciate it if you would let Art Lundahl know that I have been in contact with Carl Sagan about the establishment of the UFO commission in the USSR. While Sagan is very interested in the UFO problem and in what we're doing and also in the recent developments in Russia, he felt reluctant to contact Shklovskii. ...

By Robert Lowe UFO Project Coordinator Condon Committee 12-8-1967

There is also some follow-up to do with Lundahl on the meeting that Frank Rand called, in addition to the Sagan thing. Lundahl mentioned ... a report of an analysis that was made of a piece of metal discovered after falling through the atmosphere ....

See Also:

Noted Researcher Urges New Scientific Study of UFOs

Science and UFOs: Part 1—The Condon Committee Con Job

"WWII Navy Veteran ... Saw the Tremonton UFOs"

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

The United States Air Force vs. the UFO Witnesses

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By Kevin Randle A Different Perspective 12-28-14

     As I was completing my last UFO book, I ran into a number of things that were somewhat disturbing. Some of those were the ongoing Air Force attitude that these things weren’t alien in nature, those who saw them were somehow deluded, and it was the Air Force mission to convince people that UFOs were an illusion. It didn’t matter to them how honest the witnesses might be, how carefully they had made their observations, or what their level of education or expertise might be. The Air Force mission was to stop the UFO reports. If they had to lie about it, misrepresent the situation, hide evidence or smear witnesses, that was all for the greater good… though they don’t seem to have an idea what that greater good might be.

I have pointed out time and again, including the posting that preceded this, the clash between the Major Donald Keyhoe, he of the original NICAP and the Air Force in their discussions about what had happened in Levelland, Texas, in 1957. The short version is that Keyhoe, in the national press said there were nine witnesses to the UFO and the Air Force countered with there were only three who saw the object. The Air Force files carried the names of more than three witnesses and I now believe they were splitting a fine hair. They were saying only three had reported a craft and Keyhoe was talking about nine who had seen something in the sky including a craft. As I have said, repeatedly, both were wrong. More than three saw the craft (more than three names were available in the Blue Book files) and there were more than nine witnesses scattered throughout the Texas panhandle around the Levelland area who saw something strange that night.

This can be taken a step further, as I learned in working on the book. The Air Force sent a single NCO to Levelland to investigate. It seems he spent the lion’s share of a day there and returned to file a report that suggested a variety of answers that really explained nothing. By way of contrast, just days later when a fellow named Reinhold Schmidt told Nebraska authorities that he had been taken onboard a craft, the official response was officers from two separate command structures. They spent quite a bit of time with Schmidt and his clearly invented tale.

You have to ask yourself, “Why?”

The answer is simple. Schmidt was quite obviously making it up, the physical evidence he claimed was motor oil of a type found in his car’s trunk, and the public relations benefit for the Air Force was clear. “Look at the nonsense we have to investigate wasting time, money and personnel resources.”

At the other end, they do nothing to call attention to Levelland, dispute Keyhoe even though they knew that he was right based on what was in their own files, but that didn’t matter. Smear Keyhoe as someone just in it of the money and who had no worry about what the truth might be. That sort of outlines the Air Force position because, when Levelland is examined in a dispassionate light, Keyhoe’s report was much closer to the truth than that of the Air Force.

This isn’t the only time that the Air Force went after Keyhoe. A scientist in Australia, Harry Turner, produced a report that suggested there was something extremely strange going on Down Under and he believed it to be alien in nature. In his report, he quoted Major Donald Keyhoe, who, in his book Aliens from Space, had suggested that he, Keyhoe, was working from official and classified documents not to mention discussions with those in high places who had some of the inside information. Keyhoe was drawing his conclusions on what he had seen and what he had learned from various officials and Turner was basing his report on many of the claims made by Keyhoe.

The Royal Australian Air Force queried their counterparts in the USAF, asking about Keyhoe and his claim of access to important but classified documents and his access to important and high-ranking officials in the US government. The USAF response was that Keyhoe didn’t have the access to classified information he claimed, the documents from which he quoted did not exist, and his access to these important people was limited. He had exaggerated the information for the financial gain of a successful book. Keyhoe and his information were not to be trusted. The RAAF, believing they had received the straight information from the USAF, rejected Turner’s report because of the negative comments about it and ignored, as best they could, UFO sightings reported inside Australia.

The truth was that Keyhoe had not been overly exaggerating and the documents he claimed he had seen or used as reference did exist saying much of what he said they did. While Keyhoe might have engaged in some hyperbole, or slanted his take toward his bias, the USAF did the same thing in their attempts to discredit him. It turns out that Keyhoe was closer to the truth than the Air Force was which is sad state of affairs but also tells us something about the climate of the time.

And finally, though I don’t mean to keep harping on the November 1957 sightings, these cases offer some of the most compelling evidence of Air Force duplicity and showed that when they couldn’t find anything else, they attacked the witnesses themselves. The James Stokes sighting is a case on point. Everyone around him suggested he was an engineer. Even his bosses in the Air Force at Alamogordo referred to him as an engineer. But the Air Force couldn’t find a college degree and labeled him as a mere technician. That Stokes worked as an engineer and was called that by others in the Air Force made no difference. In the press, the Air Force investigators made it clear that Stokes couldn’t be trusted because he had been disingenuous in describing himself, or, at least that was the situation according to the Air Force.

The point here is that we just can’t take anything for granted when we look at the UFO files created by the Air Force. We can see that they were less than candid, and while it might be said, based on what I’ve presented here that this was limited to 1957, the truth is there are other examples scattered throughout the files, up to and including the letter that Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hippler to the Condon Committee explaining what the Air Force expected for their half a million bucks. I’ve explored that in earlier posts here.

Or, to put a point on it, everything the Air Force claimed should be verified because we have found the errors in their files. Some of those errors were simple mistakes, some of them born of incompetence, and more than a few were lies designed to hide the truth.

Visit Kevin's Site . . .

See Also:

UFO sightings at White Sands Missile Range

Army Reports Huge UFO Hovering Over First Atomic Bomb Explosion Site | UFO CHRONICLE – 1957

'Huge Oval-Shaped' UFO Hovering Over A-Bomb Bunker at Trinity Site | UFO CHRONICLE – 1957

Motorists Were Terrified By 'Hovering UFO' Report Police | UFO CHRONICLE – 1957

Egg Shaped Objects [UFOs] Reported By Many Sections of State

Enormous, Egg-Shaped UFO Sighted Near Missile Testing Site | UFO CHRONICLE – 1957

Egg-Shaped UFO Kills Car Engines & Headlights | UFO CHRONICLE 11-4-1957

Huge UFO Scares West Texans | UFO CHRONICLE – 1957

Egg-Shaped UFO Stalls Cars On Highway | UFO CHRONICLE – 1957

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

Science and UFOs: Part 2 — Occam’s Rusty Razor

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By Robert Hastings www.ufohastings.com 3-23-12

     As noted in Part 1, the late Dr. James E. McDonald—who held the title “Senior Physicist, Institute of Atmospheric Physics” at the University of Arizona—also holds the distinction of being one of the very few scientists to actually study the UFO phenomenon. In a prepared statement before the U.S. Congress’ House Committee on Science and Astronautics, delivered on July 29, 1968, McDonald said this:

“From time to time in the history of science, situations have arisen in which a problem of ultimately enormous importance went begging for adequate attention simply because that problem appeared to involve phenomena so far outside the current bounds of scientific knowledge that it was not even regarded as a legitimate subject of serious scientific concern. That is precisely the situation in which the UFO problem now lies. One of the principal results of my own recent intensive study of the UFO enigma is this: I have become convinced that the scientific community, not only in this country but throughout the world, has been casually ignoring as nonsense a matter of extraordinary scientific importance.”¹

McDonald arrived at that opinion after several authorized visits to the U.S. Air Force’s UFO Project Blue Book to review its files. Indignant at what he discovered, he wrote, “There are hundreds of good cases in the Air Force files that should have led to top-level scientific scrutiny of [UFOs] years ago, yet these cases have been swept under the rug in a most disturbing way by Project Blue Book investigators and their consultants.”²

McDonald’s full statement before Congress may be found in the U.S. Congressional Record, as well as on the Internet. While acknowledging that the overwhelming majority of UFO sightings undoubtedly had prosaic explanations, and that a great many questions about the phenomenon remained unanswered, McDonald succinctly summarized his conclusions regarding the most credible of the unexplained cases: “My own present opinion, based on two years of careful study, is that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial devices engaged in something that might very tentatively be termed ‘surveillance.’”³

Frequently, UFO skeptics—scientists and laypersons alike—invoke Occam’s Razor to support their position that there are far more likely, prosaic explanations for the UFO phenomenon than the extraterrestrial spaceship theory. Unlike McDonald, these persons have never studied UFOs and are, therefore, offering uninformed opinions—whether they choose to recognize this fact or not.

In essence, the principle of Occam’s Razor states that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation for an unexplained phenomenon is probably the correct one. In other words, conventional explanations—natural or man-made phenomena—undoubtedly account for all UFO sightings.

But is the basic premise of simplicity-as-truth always valid, or is it flawed? Consider, for example, gravity. The explanation for it offered by Isaac Newton—whereby physical objects possess an attractive property, proportional to their mass, that draws them toward one another—appears simple, straightforward, and fits the observable facts. Indeed, the English scientist’s revolutionary theory, experimentally validated, provided an explanation of gravity which endured unchallenged for over two hundred years. Then along came Albert Einstein.

In the early 20th Century, Einstein created his own, one-man scientific revolution by introducing the twin theories of Special and General Relativity. Among other things, General Relativity postulates that space and time are an inextricably interconnected entity which is distorted, or curved, by the presence of physical objects. In fact, said Einstein, gravity is actually a function of curved space-time. Hence, Newton’s apple did not fall to the ground because of the attractive property of the Earth. Rather, the Earth created a curved depression in space-time and the apple merely took the path of least resistance by sliding down into it. Oh, by the way, Einstein also found that gravity bends light.

One un-simple aspect of Special Relativity is the dilation of time, whereby it moves faster or slower, depending on whether it is being measured on a stationary or moving timepiece. Moreover, says Einstein, moving objects actually shorten in length in the direction they are traveling. And, last but not least, matter and energy are variations of the same thing and, sometimes, a handful of matter can release enough energy to destroy a city.

All of this is simple stuff, right? Old Occam would get it, wouldn’t he? Well, maybe not.

After an extensive evaluation of experimental data, science now considers Einstein’s explanation of gravity to be the correct one. But is it the simplest one, as Occam’s Razor dictates it should be? Is it less complicated, more reasonable and straightforward than Newton’s?

No, it is not. In fact, the bizarre, mind-bending, often paradoxical principles advanced by the two relativistic theories still elude the intellectual grasp of most of humanity one hundred years after they were published. Nevertheless, physicists have long considered Einstein’s ideas to be perceptive and accurate assessments of cosmological order and function. That said, those ideas certainly can not—by any stretch of the imagination—be described as simple, common sense answers to important questions.

If the concepts advanced by Einstein’s theories do not effectively challenge the simplicity-as-truth premise of Occam’s Razor, or sufficiently affront common sense, then consider what the other pillar of 20th Century science, the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, proposes.

One tenet, called the Uncertainty Principle, asserts that the more we know about a particle’s location in space, the less we can know about its velocity. Conversely, the more we know about any given particle’s velocity—by measuring it—the less we can know about its location. Another Quantum principle states that certain attributes of particles, including position, velocity, direction of movement, and spin, can not even be defined until they are observed. Before that moment, any given particle exists in what is termed a “superposition of states.” In other words, its very nature can not be said to exist until it has first been examined. Finally, Quantum Theory maintains that light—composed of waves of photons—exists as a “wave-particle duality”, in which it is neither one nor the other but nevertheless exhibits certain properties of both.

Physicists Gary and Kenny Felder write:

Quantum mechanics says that…the photon really, genuinely, and importantly, does not have a specific location until we measure one. [This] doesn’t seem to make sense. But another school of thought says, why should it make sense? After all, humans evolved in a world of ‘normal’ objects, and we developed a facility called ‘intuition’ that helped us survive in that world, by helping us predict the effects of our actions. That physical intuition was, and is, a great asset. But perhaps it shouldn’t be too surprising that it becomes a liability when we try to apply it to areas that we didn’t evolve for. Quantum mechanical laws generally only have measurable effects when applied to things that are too small to see, so we never evolved an understanding of them, so they seem bizarre. In fact, at roughly the same time that quantum mechanics first began to suggest that very small things defy our intuition, Einstein was proposing his special theory of relativity which shows that very fast things defy our intuition; and then his general theory of relativity, which concerns the odd behavior of very big things.⁴

In other words, taking into account both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, much of what early 21st Century scientists consider to be factual, that is, “real”, is not simple or straightforward at all. In fact, it’s downright counter-intuitive. Despite this state of affairs, the vast majority of UFO skeptics have yet to consider the possibility that alien visitation might also occur in a counter-intuitive manner, for example, by the utilization of higher-dimensional space—hyperspace—to effectively by-pass Einstein’s light-speed limitation. If ever there was a counter-intuitive theory, hyperspace is it. Nevertheless this concept is rapidly gaining support among theorists whose work involves deciphering cosmic architecture and operation.

So, instead of acknowledging the general lack of simplicity and, in fact, the predominance of counter-intuitive high-strangeness inherent in our current paradigm, UFO skeptics and debunkers ironically resort to quoting Occam’s Law as if it were an unassailable pillar of wisdom, applicable to all questions involving UFOs.

As noted above, with rare exceptions, these persons have undertaken no research on the UFO phenomenon and, therefore, their reaction to the UFO topic is almost always a smoke screen—recognized or not—to hide the fact that they have not done their homework, and have no idea what they are talking about. Ostensibly, this type of evasive and disingenuous behavior would be abhorrent someone who strives to be scientific—meaning basing one’s opinions on the evidence—nevertheless, it is continuously and pervasively exhibited by UFO skeptics, laypersons and professional scientists alike.

Granted, simplistic sloganeering—Long Live Occam!—does require far less effort than actually doing research, but does it bring one any closer to the facts? One is tempted to conclude that by not investigating the UFO phenomenon—prior to making unequivocal pronouncements about it—many skeptics are attempting to avoid the potential threat to their own worldview, which might arise should they actually research the subject and unexpectedly discover that things are not as previously assumed.

Yup, whether one is intellectually timid, or just plain pompous, it’s simply much easier and safer to presuppose that some things, like aliens visiting Earth, can not possibly be true. Clearly, practicing science by slogan has the added benefit of not having to step outside one’s comfort zone.

Observations Trump Assumptions

Furthermore, there exists another fundamental flaw with Occam’s Razor: The integrity of the assumptions underlying the premise of what is “simple” or “likely”. As regards UFO sightings, a skeptic will assert that an atmospheric mirage or exotic military aircraft is the simpler, more likely explanation for what appeared to the observer to be an alien spaceship. But these “explanations” almost always have less to do with the specific aspects of the sighting itself—the observed phenomenon—than they do with what the skeptic presumes to be the remote prospect of interplanetary travel. Since the probability of such a thing is near zero, the reasoning goes, so is the likelihood that an alien spaceship was actually sighted by a human observer.

In other words, this approach to “analyzing” UFO sightings has far less to do with observation than it does with preconceived notions, dressed-up as rational skepticism. Consequently, the simplest-explanation strategy as applied to UFO sightings is almost always fallacious because, although the debunkers would have you believe otherwise, an unacknowledged, subjective point-of-view usually taints the basic premise of their argument.

The important point here is that this presumption, flawed or not, is the basis for the skeptic’s assessment of the event, rather than the facts of the case themselves.

Moreover, as researcher Joe Nyman astutely notes, “Scientists, when confronted with the unexplainable, will often appeal to Occam’s Razor, or the Principle of Parsimony, to reduce the level of exotic explanation, but often overlook the next step, that the simpler explanation is really a hypothesis that must be tested. If the simpler hypothesis does not fit the facts, it too must be discarded.”⁵


Although this necessary testing is almost never undertaken, most UFO skeptics are nevertheless inclined to believe that their merely having offered an alternate explanation for a given sighting is sufficient. Although that “simpler” proposal is completely unproved, their confident demeanor suggests that they truly believe that they have all but solved the case.

Dr. Robert Kirshner of Harvard’s Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has also questioned the presumed wisdom underlying the simple-is-correct premise when investigating or, at least, making pronouncements about reality. Commenting upon the approach of those astronomers and cosmologists who are tempted to summarize the nature of universe in one straightforward, elegant theory, Kirshner cautions, “...the aesthetic approach, the simplest thing that you can think of, is not always a guide to the truth. Sometimes, you just have to go look—and you discover that the universe is actually much richer and more complicated than your imagination. In fact, it’s always more complicated than you imagined.”⁶


Clearly, Occam’s Razor—as a definitive, irrefutable guide for gauging the nature of unexplained phenomena, including UFOs—leaves a lot to be desired.

I sent my book’s “Occam’s Rusty Razor” excerpt to Dr. Henry H. Bauer, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Science Studies and Dean Emeritus of Arts and Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, for his critique. Bauer had previously submitted an abstract to the 24th Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) titled “The Two-Edged Sword of Skepticism: Occam’s Razor and Occam’s Lobotomy”. He offered these comments:

I find nothing major to quarrel with. I agree thoroughly with these strong points: That the data should be determinative; that the Razor should be a hypothesis, maybe a first guess, but no more than that; that judging what is “simple” depends on prior knowledge, on “common sense”, which changes over time; that our common sense is formed by experience of events at the human scale. One might emphasize that with the much-maligned saying that ‘There’s the known unknown and also the unknown unknown, [which is] totally unforeseeable.’⁷

My own, 39-year UFO research career is summarized in my 600-page book UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, which is available at my website, www.ufohastings.com. (Unless you want to pay scalper-rates for it on Amazon.)

On September 27, 2010, I co-hosted the UFOs and Nukes press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. which CNN streamed live:

As I readily acknowledged in my book, my research material does not qualify as scientific data. The testimony offered by my ex-military sources is simply anecdotal evidence, often reluctantly revealed, by dozens of highly-reliable individuals whose professional responsibilities had inadvertently and unexpectedly placed them in a position to experience the UFO phenomenon within an environment inaccessible to most persons. Those who have not worked with nuclear weapons—which is to say the vast majority of us—have obviously had no opportunity to witness UFO activity in such a highly-restricted setting.

Therefore, it seems to me, whether one is a scientist or a layperson, we should all at least listen to what these persons have to say. To automatically dismiss their now-numerous, detailed accounts of UFO encounters at nuclear weapons sites as mere fantasies, or fabrications, is to suggest that those who held the fate of the entire planet in their hands during the Cold War were dangerously demented or otherwise untrustworthy. Surely, this was not the case.

References:

1. McDonald, Dr. James E. “Prepared Statement before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics”, July 29, 1968
2. [Tucson] Daily Citizen, March 1, 1967
3. McDonald, Dr. James E. “Prepared Statement before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics”, July 29, 1968
4. Felder, Gary and Kenny. “Quantum Mechanics: The Young Double-Slit Experiment”, self-published, 1998
5. Nyman, Joseph, MUFON UFO Journal, issue information temporarily unavailable
6. Dr. Robert Kirshner to Robert Hastings, confirmation of quotation in personal communication, June 2, 2008
7. Dr. Henry Bauer to Robert Hastings, R., personal communication, March 10, 2012

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Science and UFOs: Part 1 — The Condon Committee Con Job

Remembering Dr. James E. McDonald

Scientists and UFOs

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Science and UFOs: Part 1—The Condon Committee Con Job

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By Robert Hastings www.ufohastings.com 3-13-12

     The late Dr. James E. McDonald—who held the title “Senior Physicist, Institute of Atmospheric Physics” at the University of Arizona—is one of the very few scientists to actually study the UFO phenomenon. In a prepared statement before the U.S. Congress’ House Committee on Science and Astronautics, delivered on July 29, 1968, McDonald said this:

“From time to time in the history of science, situations have arisen in which a problem of ultimately enormous importance went begging for adequate attention simply because that problem appeared to involve phenomena so far outside the current bounds of scientific knowledge that it was not even regarded as a legitimate subject of serious scientific concern. That is precisely the situation in which the UFO problem now lies. One of the principal results of my own recent intensive study of the UFO enigma is this: I have become convinced that the scientific community, not only in this country but throughout the world, has been casually ignoring as nonsense a matter of extraordinary scientific importance.” 1

And how did McDonald arrive at that opinion? After several authorized, extended visits to the U.S. Air Force’s UFO Project Blue Book, to review its files, he wrote, “There are hundreds of good cases in the Air Force files that should have led to top-level scientific scrutiny of [UFOs] years ago, yet these cases have been swept under the rug in a most disturbing way by Project Blue Book investigators and their consultants.” 2

McDonald’s full statement before Congress may be found in the U.S. Congressional Record, as well as on the Internet. While acknowledging that the overwhelming majority of UFO sightings undoubtedly had prosaic explanations, and that a great many questions about the phenomenon remained unanswered, McDonald succinctly summarized his conclusions regarding the most credible of the unexplained cases: “My own present opinion, based on two years of careful study, is that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial devices engaged in something that might very tentatively be termed ‘surveillance.’” 3

Smoke Screen

McDonald was not the only one to conclude that UFOs represented a genuine mystery worthy of rigorous investigation. Although most scientists today are completely unaware of this fact, in the late 1960s, the first U.S. government-sponsored scientific study of the UFO phenomenon—informally known as the Condon Committee—actually found persuasive evidence to support the contention that UFOs are something other than manmade or natural phenomena.

However, as I shall discuss shortly, this startling finding was effectively masked in the project’s final report through a spectacularly successful sleight-of-hand by the study’s own director, physicist Dr. Edward Condon, whose blatantly anti-UFO bias was a already matter-of-record well before the report was released in late 1968.

Ironically, for four decades, countless scientists skeptical of UFOs have pointed to the official findings of the Condon Committee as justification for ignoring the phenomenon as a legitimate subject for study. However, despite their own sincerity, because of their unfamiliarity with the facts, these persons simply do not understand that they have been thoroughly duped.

Informed persons—those familiar with Condon’s often scandalous behavior during his association with the study—frequently argue about whether the UFO project’s flawed final report was merely the result of Condon’s naked prejudice toward his subject, or the result of some as-yet undocumented government subterfuge in which he participated. Regardless, the negative spin Condon put on the committee’s findings smacks of whitewash, a fact bemoaned by a number of the project’s own scientists, following the publication of the final report.

How and why did this travesty occur? Equally important, why did the national media slavishly portray the study as an objective scientific inquiry?

The Condon Committee, formally known as the University of Colorado UFO Project, was undertaken at the Air Force’s request and funded by a $500,000 grant it provided. From 1966 to 1968, a panel of scientists from various disciplines evaluated 91 reported UFO sightings—some drawn from confidential Air Force files, others from published sources. While the investigations themselves—with a few notable exceptions—were fairly rigorous and objective, project director Condon repeatedly displayed distinctly unscientific behavior in relation to his task, while the project’s coordinator, Robert Low, was caught privately enunciating what was, at the very least, an arguably questionable approach to organizing the supposedly objective investigation.

In a memorandum dated August 9, 1966, Low had written, in part, “Our study would be conducted almost entirely by non-believers who, though they couldn’t possibly prove a negative result, could and probably would add an impressive body of thick evidence that there is no reality to the observations. The trick would be, I think, to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study but, to the scientific community, would present the image of a group of non-believers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer.” 4

Moreover, notes researcher Jerome Clark, “Low also suggested that if the study focused less on ‘the physical reality of the saucer’ and more on the ‘psychology and sociology of persons and groups who report seeing UFOs’, then ‘the scientific community would get the message.’” 5

Low’s defenders, including leading UFO debunker Phillip Klass, have tried to explain away Low’s seemingly incriminating proposal for the project’s composition and aims. They argue that Low was simply attempting to present the project in the most benign terms possible to dubious faculty members at the University of Colorado, in a bid to soften their resistance to participating in the controversial UFO study.

Regardless, one of the Condon Committee’s concerned staff members, psychologist Dr. David R. Saunders, later leaked Low’s memorandum to Donald Keyhoe, director of the civilian National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), who had long advocated an end to government secrecy on UFOs. Keyhoe subsequently shared the contents of the memo with Dr. McDonald. According to Jerome Clark, “The Trick Memo confirmed McDonald’s worst suspicions about the Committee. In response, he wrote a seven page letter to Condon, explaining point by point, his problems, frustration and disappointment with the Committee’s shortcomings.” 6

Condon was infuriated by the letter and called a meeting of the project’s staff to attempt to learn how McDonald had obtained an internal project memorandum. Saunders freely admitted that it was he who had sent the memo to Keyhoe. According to Saunders, Condon then called him “disloyal” and reportedly said, “For an act like that you deserve to be ruined professionally.” At this, Saunders reports, he responded by saying that his loyalty lay with the American people, while Condon’s own loyalty seemed to be to the Air Force.7 Saunders was subsequently fired from the project by Condon for his actions, together with another staffer, Dr. Norman Levine, who had also been involved in the memo’s unauthorized release.

Condon had already revealed his own suspect attitude toward the supposedly scientific study, well before the furor over the Low memorandum erupted. According to Clark, “In late January, 1967, [NICAP executives Donald Keyhoe and Richard Hall] gave Saunders a clipping from The Elmira Star-Gazette, dated January 26. Condon was quoted as saying [during a lecture] that he thought the government should not study UFOs because the subject was nonsense, adding, ‘but I’m not supposed to reach that conclusion for another year.’

Saunders was stunned. He asked if Condon could have been misquoted, but Keyhoe reported that several NICAP members had been present when Condon delivered his lecture; one of them had resigned from NICAP in protest, arguing that the Condon Committee was nothing more than pretense.”

If this were not enough, it is now known that one of the committee’s members, psychologist Michael Wertheimer, had openly argued against any consideration of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) well before the project concluded its work, a position openly supported by project administrator, Robert Low. In other words, even before the data-gathering phase of the study was completed, some key members of the committee—including Condon himself—had already reached the de facto conclusion that UFOs could not possibly be alien spacecraft. Obviously, this rush to judgment effectively precluded an objective analysis of the facts.

To further illustrate this point, after the various case investigations had concluded, one committee investigator, astronomer William K. Hartman, had actually written that some of the unsolved cases he examined were in fact consistent with the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs. When Condon read this conclusion in Hartman’s draft report, he wrote, “Good God!” and crossed out the passage. Given that it was Hartman, not Condon, who had investigated the cases in question, this negative editorial spin by the project director was at least presumptuous, if not downright deceptive.

The UFO project’s shortcomings finally came to light when an exposé by journalist John Fuller was published in the May 1968 issue of LOOK magazine. Titled, “Flying Saucer Fiasco”, the article laid bare the various questionable actions and attitudes exhibited by some of the Condon Committee’s leading members.8 The resulting widespread public indignation was predictable and even some scientists began to question the UFO project’s objectivity and purpose.

Researcher Dr. David Jacobs notes, “When the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) covered the ongoing Committee controversy in an issue of its official journal Science, Condon first promised to grant an interview apparently in the hopes of offering his side of the conflict. Shortly thereafter, however, Science editor Daniel S. Greenberg reported that Condon announced it would be ‘inappropriate for Science to touch the matter, withdrew his offer of cooperation, and proceeded to enunciate high-sounding principles in support of his new-found belief that Science should not [review] the subject until after the publication if his report.’” 9

A few other scientists, notably astronomer Frank Drake—founder of the Search for Extraterrestrial Life (SETI) movement and an outspoken critic of the hypothesis that UFOs are alien spacecraft—expressed deep doubts about the Condon Committee’s overall objectivity. At one point, Drake fired off a letter to the National Academy of Sciences, in which he argued that the UFO study had been “tainted” and should, therefore, be discredited.

But there was another type of fallout from the exposé in LOOK magazine, as David Jacobs further notes: “The Fuller article even helped inspire Congressional hearings. Representative J. Edward Roush [of Indiana] spoke on the House floor, arguing that Fuller’s article brought up ‘grave doubts about as to the scientific profundity and objectivity of the project’. In a Denver Post interview, Roush suggested that the Trick Memo proved that the Air Force had indeed been dictating the Project’s direction and conclusions.” 10

The committee’s final report was released in the fall of 1968. In the introduction, titled “Conclusions and Recommendations”, Condon wrote: “Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”11

Consequently, despite the evidence amassed—over 25% of the cases investigated by the committee were judged to involve “unknown” craft or other unexplained phenomena—the study’s final report, written by Condon himself, stated that there existed no basis for continued Air Force investigation of the UFO phenomenon. If one had read only Condon’s introduction, but not the actual report itself, one might reasonably conclude that the idea of UFOs, as an objective reality unto themselves, had been irrefutably disproved. However, a careful examination of the report as a whole yields an entirely different impression.

In his 1999 book, The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence, astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock examined the failings of the Condon Committee and their consequences. One review of the book correctly notes, “[The Condon Committee] report has clouded all attempts at legitimate UFO research since its release. Much of the public, including the scientific community and the press, erroneously assumes that this project represents a serious, in-depth look into the issues.”12

The review continues, “Sturrock assiduously dissects the Condon Report and makes it clear that the study is scientifically flawed. In fact, anyone who actually reads the report carefully will be surprised to find that Edward Condon, who personally wrote the Summary and Conclusions, did not investigate any of the cases. Rather it was his staff that did the legwork. That is why [Condon’s summary] is internally inconsistent with the body of the document, [which supports] some UFO cases, while the summary does not.”13

In the book, Dr. Sturrock writes about the scientific community’s sharply-divided response to Condon’s final report, noting that “critical reviews came from scientists who had actually carried out research in the UFO area, while the laudatory reviews came from scientists who had not carried out such research.”14

In other words, those self-satisfied individuals who had always dismissed UFOs, without so much as glancing at the data, were quite pleased by Condon’s claim that the subject deserved to be ignored by science—because that was already their own position. On the other hand, persons such as James McDonald and J. Allen Hynek, who had actually investigated the phenomenon, were outraged by Condon’s misleading statements. Hynek criticized Condon’s final report as “singularly slanted”, noting that it had “avoided mentioning that there was embedded within the bowels of the report a remaining mystery; that the committee had been unable to furnish adequate explanations for more than a quarter of the cases examined.”15

Unfortunately, due to the length of the Condon Committee report—which ran nearly 1000 pages—very few reporters actually read it before wrapping up their stories to meet publishing deadlines. Consequently, most media accounts covering the report’s release almost invariably focused on Condon’s easily-accessible, negatively-slanted conclusions, to the exclusion of the study’s many positive findings about the UFO reality.

Influential columnists, including The New York Times’ science editor, Walter Sullivan, applauded Condon’s disingenuous statements as the last word on the subject and urged the Air Force to move onto more important things. Only later, long after their stories had been published, did a few inquisitive reporters actually get around to reading the UFO project members’ individual reports which, in many cases, clearly pointed to the presence of an unexplained phenomenon worthy of further scientific study.

But the damage had been done. Because the initial media hoopla surrounding the release of the report had painted such a dismissive picture of UFOs, it regrettably reinforced most scientists’ negative assumptions and erroneous perceptions about the phenomenon. Whatever his motives, Edward Condon had pulled off a wonderfully slick sales job—boldly dismissing all UFO sightings as the misidentification of known, natural phenomena or manmade aircraft, as well as a few hoaxes—even though his own study had concluded otherwise.

In response to the report’s official conclusions, most scientists—led astray by both Condon’s misleading remarks and the supposedly astute pundits in the national media, who should have recognized duplicity disguised as science—nodded knowingly and with great satisfaction when they read that Dr. Condon had finally killed the UFOs. Betrayed by a debunker—and their own biases—they relegated the phenomenon to the proverbial intellectual trash heap, and washed their hands of the whole matter.

Meanwhile, as this controversy was unfolding, out in the vast prairies surrounding America’s nuclear missile bases, the UFO phenomenon—apparently unaware of its supposed non-existence—continued to assert itself, often in dramatic fashion. As now-declassified U.S. Air Force documents confirm, sightings by Air Force security personnel of disc-shaped objects at ICBM sites were ongoing, if unpredictable, sometimes punctuated by sudden, unexplainable disruptions of the missiles’ functionality, concurrent with the presence of the UFOs.

Following many of these disturbing incidents, witness statements were taken and national security non-disclosure forms were signed, whereupon the incidents became non-events, known only to a few Office of Special Investigations (OSI) agents, missile wing commanders, and their superiors at Strategic Air Command Headquarters and the Pentagon.

Given the extreme secrecy surrounding these developments, the members of the Condon Committee, scientists in general, and the public as a whole, were completely unaware of them and would remain so for decades to come. Indeed, even today, this information will be news to the great majority of American citizens, not to mention others living all over the planet.

Nevertheless, the facts are slowly emerging. On September 27, 2010, seven U.S. Air Force veterans spoke at my “UFOs and Nukes” press conference and divulged their involvement in a few of the still-classified UFO incidents at ICBM sites. CNN streamed the event live and the full-length video may be viewed here:

As I readily acknowledged in my book, UFOs and Nukes, my research material does not qualify as scientific data. The testimony offered by my ex-military sources is simply anecdotal evidence, often reluctantly revealed, by dozens of highly-reliable individuals whose professional responsibilities had inadvertently and unexpectedly placed them in a position to experience the UFO phenomenon within an environment inaccessible to most persons. Those who have not worked with nuclear weapons—which is to say the vast majority of us—have obviously had no opportunity to witness UFO activity in such a highly-restricted setting.

Therefore, it seems to me, whether one is a scientist or a layperson, we should all at least listen to what these persons have to say. To automatically dismiss their now-numerous, detailed accounts of UFO encounters at nuclear weapons sites as mere fantasies, or fabrications, is to suggest that those who held the fate of the entire planet in their hands during the Cold War were dangerously demented or otherwise untrustworthy. Surely, this was not the case.


References:

1. McDonald, Dr. James E. “Prepared Statement before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics”, July 29, 1968
2. [Tucson] Daily Citizen, March 1, 1967
3. McDonald, Dr. James E. “Prepared Statement before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics”, July 29, 1968
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condon_Committee
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Saunders, Dr. David R. UFOs: Yes! Signet, 1968. p. 189
8. LOOK. “Flying Saucer Fiasco”, May 14, 1968
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condon_Committee
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Sturrock, Dr. Peter A. The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence, Aspect, 1999
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Hynek, Dr. J. Allen. The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry, Ballentine Books, 1972. p. 217

. . . More


See Also:

Remembering Dr. James E. McDonald

Scientists and UFOs

The Science of Ufology

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UFOs and the Negative

By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
8-28-10

     The other day I was reading something and it told me that scientists ignore us because we attack the problem of UFOs from the negative. In other words, we say that there is alien visitation because five percent of the sightings remain unidentified. You simply can’t get to the extraterrestrial from that direction.

While I agree with the sentiment, I disagree with the underlying premise. I don’t believe I have ever suggested we must have alien visitors because X-number of sightings remain unexplained. I have always approached this from the positive. There are some sighting events that suggest alien visitation because of the evidence gathered.

As one example, let’s look, briefly, at the photographs taken by Paul Trent in May 1950. There are two possible explanations, given the clarity of the photographs and the story told by Trent and his wife. The pictures either show an unknown craft of a type not flown on Earth, or the pictures have been faked. There is no third possibility.

This case provides us with two chains of evidence. First is the witness testimony about what they saw. The second is what can be deduced from the photograph. They can be considered independently and they can either support or undermine one another. Is there something that can be observed in the pictures that suggest the witnesses are lying? Some skeptics will say yes. Some UFO investigators will say they are not.

As I have mentioned before I also think of the Levelland sightings of November 2, 1957as good, positive evidence. Here we have, at least, three chains of evidence. Of course there is eyewitness testimony from witnesses in thirteen separate locations who were not aware that anyone else had reported the UFO.

The second chain is one that his hotly disputed and this is the reports of the UFO affecting the electrical systems of the various vehicles. Somehow, the approach of the UFO, according to the witnesses, caused engines to fail, lights to dim and radios to fill with static. The UFO was interacting with the environment in what is now known as electromagnetic effects.

Skeptics will tell you that the Condon Committee attempted to suppress the electrical systems of cars using the most powerful magnets available and they failed... which tells us a number of things. The magnets weren’t powerful enough or those electromagnetic effects are something other than just powerful magnetic fields, and the witnesses, without consultation with one another invented this rather interesting detail in an amazing coincidence.

There was the possibility of a third chain of evidence and this is one that Don Burleson discovered some forty-three years after the event. Apparently, there was a landing that left markings on the ground. This was investigated by the sheriff at the time, but he was told not to mention it. Burleson learned about it by talking to the relatives of the sheriff. Of course, forty-three years after the fact is the same as no evidence at all in this specific case.

What all this means that an amazing series of sightings, if investigated properly when they happened, might have provided some clues about the nature of UFO sightings. The problem is the agendas of various organizations, the Air Force, NICAP, APRO, the news media, got in the way. Everyone was looking to prove his or her point and the evidence didn’t matter all that much.

I could go on. Take the Tremonton film from 1952. A Navy officer filmed some objects in the sky in Utah. There are no foreground details. Just the white lights in the sky (frame of the film seen here). The officer, Delbert Newhouse, said that he had seen the objects at closer range and they had a definite shape. The Air Force and others rejected that testimony, writing the case off as birds. But here is an intriguing case in which some of the evidence is ignored because it simply doesn’t fit with the offered solution.

And I could point out, as I have before, that Ted Philips has catalogued some 4000 landing trace cases. What would have been the result if the academic community had spent the time attempting to learn something from these landing traces? We would be having a different conversation.

Or take the Washington Nationals in which there were observers on the ground, observers in commercial airliners, fighter pilots (seen here with their aircraft), and the objects watched on radar sets... and at one time, three different sets at three different locations. Multiple witnesses with various levels of training and instrumentality involved in the corroboration. What is one of those on the ground had thought to take pictures, or what if one of those fighters had been equipped with gun cameras? What might we have learned? Another opportunity lost.

My point here, however, is that I haven’t argued the reality of UFOs from the negative, meaning that X-number of sightings are unidentified. I argue from the positive. Here is the evidence. Let’s look at it carefully and see where it leads us. The criticism, then, that we somehow, unfairly, reach our conclusions, based on a negative premise, is disproved. Now, let’s see where the positive evidence takes us... something to explore at another time.

More . . .

See Also:

Kevin Randle Joins Guest Host Frank Warren on The Joiner Report

Full Disclosure and UFOs

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