THE UFO CHRONICLES

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

“Operation Saucer”: New Revelations

From Kentaro Mori
forgetomori.com
10-17-07

In the years of 1977 and 1978, locals of northern Brazil were terrorized by what they described as luminous and vampire balls of light, a phenomenon soon nicknamed “chupa-chupa“, meaning “suck-suck”. The panic reached great proportions and led to the creation of a military operation of the Brazilian Air force dedicated to investigate the subject. Called “Operation Saucer”, it would become one of the biggest “ufology” stories in Brazil, mainly after in 1997 its commander, Uyrange Hollanda, publicly confirmed his participation in the operation. Recently, the episode was revisited in a popular Brazilian TV show, “Linha Direta“, and was also one of the subjects of a series of documentaries from History Channel, titled “The Brazilian Roswell“.

But little concrete evidence is known about the operation. To the “Linha Direta” TV show, the Brazilian Air Force stated that the operation had been the result of personal interest from those involved, and that it only had some reports of one of the members of the operation. And the author of mostly all reports was Sergeant João Flávio de Freitas Costa. Unfortunately, Flávio Costa passed away in 1993, without giving greater details of his participation in the Operation, then still officially secret.

Even Flávio Costa’s death became subject of speculations regarding “alien implants” — which commander Uyrangê Hollanda later claimed to have had –, and it was investigating these claims that we met Fernando Costa, the son of sergeant Flávio Costa. To our surprise, Fernando Costa not only was already exposing such unfounded stories on the rather mundane death of his father, he was also ready to reveal valuable information on little known aspects of the Operation. The following interview was conducted in collaboration with journalist Jeferson Martinho, from the Brazilian electronic magazine Vigilia:

CA: Flávio Costa was the author of almost all of the reports, drawings and pictures of the “Operation Saucer“. He also helped to convince Uyrangê Hollanda that they were dealing with something unknown. How do you view, today, your father’s role in this polemic Operation?

Fernando: Viewing today, I can see a man divided between his personal beliefs — with some mysticism, and very enthusiastic with ufology — and a strict military man, zealous with his missions, that had to limit himself to factual reports, scientifically based.

CA: You told us that your father was passionate about ufology. Did he happen to tell some story on the subject?

Fernando: To the close ones, he was always telling stories… He always put personal impressions in a convincing and meticulous way, with a lot of excitement and a dose of mysticism. Regarding facts related with the military activity, he only spoke what his duty allowed him to. He very seldom let away secret details of his activities. After he retired, in the Sunday lunches, after some drinks, I managed to know some things. I think in the beginning of the Operation Saucer he was quite unsatisfied with the lack of resources for obtaining evidence. I got to see pictures of three circles, harmoniously disposed in a triangular form, imprinted in the grass as if they had been burned. He told that radioactivity was detected in those marks. For him, that represented the impression of the landing of a ship. I didn’t see, in any of the reports to which I had access, any reference or comment on that picture.

CA: Your father’s reports are detailed in their descriptions of the sightings, from weather conditions to many maps and diagrams. He was trained as a meteorologist, wasn’t he?

Fernando: He was a graduate meteorologist from the School of Specialists of the Brazilian Aeronautics. We can notice, below his signature in the reports, that besides his military rank there’s the acronym QMT, designating his specialty. In spite of not having concluded the Flying School on the Para Aeroclub, he also piloted small airplanes.

CA: Did he comment on how he understood the UFO phenomenon and the Chupa-chupa specifically?

Fernando: He had some theories: he associated the occurrence of ufological phenomena to geodesic faults. He spoke about a fault that went from the central plateau to Colares, in Para, and that the great majority of the phenomena observed by him were located in that line. But he didn’t dismiss the possibility that such phenomena involved experiments from developed countries, with top secret vectors still in testing phase. We cannot forget the similarity of the illustration of a sighting in the area of Santarém, with the today known “Stealth” flying wings.

CA: And did you see something at that time? Do you remember how the phenomenon was publicized by the media and how did the people react to it?

Fernando: The Chupa-chupa phenomenon took a great space in the local media, which generated some conflict between the military and part of the press. There are some stories that the then captain Hollanda invaded the office of a newspaper and confiscated pictures related with the Operation. For my part, I wasn’t interested in the subject, so much so that I always escaped from the patrols [to watch for the UFOs] when I was called. Studying was always a good excuse. My mother joined several patrols and she is even mentioned in one of the lists of witnesses in the reports.

CA: And how was it to participate, in a certain way, personally in the Operation?

Fernando: Today, I think it was indeed interesting. But at that time, it was a horror. To be the son of a military man, of the “big sergeant”, was not an easy task. As such, I had to walk always “in the line”, not to involve myself with student politics and to be an exemplary student. I was studying in high school and I was finishing an apprenticeship in the Bank of Brazil in which I passed, in Brasília, in an excellent position. My father did everything he could to direct me to the military career, because he knew that I had potential for it. I always rejected such possibility, because I thought I had been already “serving” the military during all my life and passed all the possible trainings, including the “united order”, handling of weapons, survival in the jungle, navigation notions, aviation, airplane modeling and so on. My heart pointed me to the road of the humanities and social sciences that, later on, I ended up studying. The conflict between generations and ideologies was quite stark, but it did maintain a respectful level as much as possible.

During the time of Operation Saucer, an improvised photographic laboratory was set up, with equipment of the I COMAR, in the maid’s room of our house, in the military village. My participation in the developing some pictures of the operation was imposed by my father: “It is better for you to be learning a profession home, instead of learning useless things in the street”. Today I can understand it, but for an adolescent that generated a big rebellion. While I was developing the pictures in the small room, he was at the living room, writing reports and drawing many of the illustrations of the Operation. In that period, the rage ended up overcoming the reason and I started to “play”, enlarging any luminous point in the film to make them similar to a “flying saucer”. Afterwards, some of those pictures leaked, I don’t know how, and I laughed a lot when I had news of their publication in ufology books. I shared the reason of the laughter only with some close friends.

CA: Very interesting. But did some of the images that you saw or manipulated catch your attention? Some story or element especially memorable that you could share?

Fernando: There was one that all of us thought was the best, and that was around in my mother’s house and that I don’t know where it ended up. The objects in the films that I manipulated were almost always spherical or cylindrical. However, there was a picture of an object that resembled a sea ray. That was not developed by me, but, in fact, it was impressive.

CA: In one of the reports written by your father, he regrets the lack of resources and admits that the accumulated evidence could not sustain the conclusions that they had arrived to regarding the phenomena being “intelligently driven”. Hollanda also told how he bought film for the recordings with his own money. Did your father speak something about the lack of resources?

Fernando: He spoke on the initial difficulties with the equipment for photographic registration. Only after a larger repercussion of the subject they received an improvement of resources. I think the position of BSB was very skeptical, though they did send some observers, which left the Operation Saucer members a little frustrated. As a military observer, he was very impressed with the capability of abrupt maneuvers of the UFOs, that, according to him, violated the possibilities of movement of the known vectors.

CA: The late American journalist Bob Pratt also investigated the Chupa-chupa phenomenon, and he even became friend of commander Uyrangê Hollanda. Today we also know that your father received military training in USA. How do you see those suggestions of a great involvement and interest of American government in the Operation Saucer?

Fernando: I noticed in my father’s comments an enormous distrust in relation to the “foreigner” (Pratt). Since my father came back from a training abroad, he nurtured some xenophobia. He was always photographing and classifying members of religious missions, that he said were foreign agents that took abroad all possible information on the great treasure of the world, the Amazon. Even then, I read that he traveled with Mr. Bob Pratt. Sometimes there were civil observers, ufology buffs, linked with the civil aviation. Some were even effective collaborators of the Operation, as Mr. Piñon. However, in the case of Mr. Pratt, I don’t believe that a captain and a sergeant had autonomy to introduce a foreigner in an operation considered so secret. I was always under the impression that the imposition of Mr. Pratt came from the top. There was another foreigner too, Priest Alfredo de la O, that, if I’m not mistaken, was parish of the area of Colares in Pará, and that later collaborated here with the information services in other political subjects, so common in this area. I heard my father’s comment, where he suspected that the priest was a CIA agent.

CA: After almost thirty years, the phenomena and the Operation got the public’s attention again with the production of the TV program “Linha Direta” of TV Globo. Following this renewed interest, some of those involved began to make new declarations, like Ubiratan Piñon, who made imaginative claims about your father’s death.

Fernando: The claims are imaginative and complete lies. This gentleman was always prone to the fantastic stories. I know people that already heard him tell that he witnessed a sea cow turning into a man [a folkloric Brazilian legend], there in the Marajo Island… While he was limiting himself to the Amazonian legends and myths, everything was well. But it happens that he made false claims to an ufology publication about my father’s death. Publication that didn’t have enough responsibility in verifying the claims with Flávio Costas’s family and the doctors of the Air Force Hospital, that treated my father.

Could it be that the medical team that cared for my father was incompetent to the point of not noticing an “implant put by the aliens”? Wouldn’t the family that took care of his personal hygiene after the stroke have noticed? Piñon claimed he went to our house after my father’s death, and attributed false statements to my mother. In the beginning of January, 1993, Flávio Costa had a stroke. He was hospitalized at the Air Force Hospital of Belém for about a month. As a result of the stroke, he became hemiplegic in the right side and also lost his speech. After he was released from the hospital, the family took him home, hired a private physiotherapist and took care of him, giving bath, making all his personal hygiene and curatives, as the long stay in the bed of the hospital left him with bed sores. The wife and children examined him carefully, therefore, they would have noticed anything strange. The death certificate, by Dr. José Luiz Carvalho, indicates CARDIOREPIRATORY STOP, HEART ATTACK AND CEREBRAL VASCULAR ACCIDENT as Causa Mortis. Mr. Ubiratan Piñon must have suffered some kind of mental mutilation to make the statements he did.

CA: What is your opinion on the way the events are being approached today? And finally, what do you think about the Chupa-chupa and the Operation Saucer?

Fernando: The occurrence of a strange phenomenon is undeniable. It affected a portion of the population of Amazon. Even knowing that our natives are very prone to myths and legends, it is difficult to deny the bizarre occurrences. However, some claims should be more responsible. The “conspiracy theorists” love to invent things. Such was the case with my father’s death, with the death of Hollanda, and even with the Japanese balloons of the Second World War destined to cause fires in the USA [Fugos] and other hundreds of stories. Sometimes they believe so much in the baloney they help to create that they omit facts that can solve their myths.

Even with the death of some members of the Operation Saucer, the easy communication that we have today gives us better investigation resources, which allow for more accurate and responsible work. When our family discovered and was shocked with the article published with Mr. Piñon’s absurd statements, I decided to find and talk with one of the officials of the Operation. Even in a country with hundreds of thousands of municipal districts, it took me only three days investigating and I got a phone contact. With the help of the internet and some phone calls, I located who I was after. It is worth noting that in some rare occasions I work as a journalist, in a specialized magazine in my area. I am an audio professional. I write about some events whose sound stage complexity can be interesting to the readers. But investigative journalism was never my area.

With a little bit of intelligence and good will, it is possible. You have to responsible with your readers!

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Monday, October 15, 2007

MY UFO EXPERIENCE: Witness Recalls Close Encounter With Flying Saucer On New Mexico Highway

Reader Submitted Report
[Unedited]
July 1951

What I have seen were just as clear as the car in my drive way. Granted I was a lot younger then, but I know with out a doubt what I have seen. I was 10 years old and it was in July, my mother and I were driving through norther New Mexico When you looked at the highway in front of the car you could see the heat ripples coming up off the road. This was a long flat straight stretch of 2 lane highway, when all of a sudden coming straight at us out of those ripples, was this wide silver almost flat "thing" It was about 25 feet off of the highway. my Mom hit the brakes and at the same time it went straight up in the air! there was no sound that I can remember. When she hit the brakes I went forward and caught my self with both hands on the dash.I was looking right at this "thing"as it when up and saw the bottom of it! from what I think was no more than 300 feet. It was a saucer shape and the bottom looked very much like the bottom of a pie pan! . (that's all i could relate it to being a kid). It was somewhat wider that a 2 lane highway.It was really moving fast. my Mom had to pull over to the side of the road, and we sat there for along time until she could drive again. Now this was as clear as a bell! and had no flashing lights, and it wasn't very shiny on the bottom.

My next encounter was when I was 12 years old and it was in march or feb. 1953 in Del Norte Colorado, I was in school and it was lunch time we were out side in the playground. It being winter there wasn't leaves on the tree's. You see there was only one small spindly tree on the play ground, I was standing maybe 10 feet from it looking up for some reason. It was a really nice clear day, when right over that tree 6 or 7 hundred feet up, Was this long round cylinder. (cigar shape) It was rounded on the front, and flat on the back. What i related it to was a huge water boiler, it was about 200 feet long and 20 feet high with what appeared to be rivets going around it at the front and at the rear. there was no sound at all!! and it was only traveling at about 20MPH. It was travelling south east. we watched it get to this small range of hills it pointed the front down, then straighten up and it was gone. These are real and the ! truth.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

"UFO Reports Near-triple Average"

Strange sky sights pick up

By ROB NAY
SUN MEDIA
10-13-07

The night skies over Manitoba were apparently busier than usual last month.

Nearly triple the average number of UFO sightings were reported, according to Chris Rutkowski, research coordinator for Ufology Research of Manitoba, a Winnipeg-based independent centre that investigates and researches Canadian UFO sightings.

"It's significantly above what we normally get," said Rutkowski, adding 11 sightings in Manitoba were submitted in September.

The monthly average is about three or four, he said.

Ufology Research is concerned that most of the sightings were not reported to investigators in Manitoba but were instead submitted to websites around the globe.

That makes it difficult for researchers here to speak to witnesses, collect further information and potentially rule out objects as planets or stars instead of UFOs.

"Every year, it's whittled down to about 3% to 5% that don't have an easy explanation," said Rutkowski.

Among the UFOs sightings reported last month, one came from a witness parked near Headingley about 2 a.m. on Sept. 10.

The man claims he heard a humming sound and then saw a light in the northern sky. He turned and saw a "floating disc" land in a field. Scared, he jumped in his car and drove away. In his rearview mirror, the witness said he saw the object rise from the ground and race across the sky before vanishing.

As for the rise in UFO sightings last month, Rutkowski said it's possible there's something out there or that "people are paying more attention to their surroundings."

Rutkowski said anyone who observes a UFO can e-mail information to Manitoba investigators at canadianuforeport@hotmail.com.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

The Canary Islands: Riddles of Light and Stone

By Scott Corrales
10-11-07

Whether they are the Isles of the Blest, Elysium, the Fortunate Isles or the surviving mountaintops of fabled Atlantis, the Canary Islands--an archipelago off the coast of northern Africa--remain enshrouded in mystery, a fact overlooked by its burgeoning tourist trade, more interested in the cloudless skies and fine beaches. The islands of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Palma, Gomera and Hierro, which have belonged to Spain since the archipelago's conquest by Norman mercenaries in the 14th century, were a point of interest to all the chroniclers of antiquity and medieval Christianity. The religious and occult significance of the seven volcanic isles has been handed down from the earliest dynasties of Ancient Egypt to our own UFO-minded times.

The association with an earthly paradise is not difficult to understand. A spectacular landscape awaited the mariners of yore: the twelve-thousand-foot peak of Mount Teide presiding over a cobalt-blue ocean festooned with flying fish. Flowers, chestnut trees and rich green valleys covered the seaward landscape, while the landward side (facing Africa) revealed nightmarish vistas of lava flows and beaches of black volcanic sand. The Canaries offer surprises galore, with trees unique to the islands; giant lizards--now nearly extinct--that gave the Spanish conquistadores quite a surprise; enormous ravines and canyons that become raging rivers during the wet season, and arid plains where camels are used to pull the plough. Contrary to popular belief, the islands were not christened after the bird of that name, but due to the abundance of local dogs (canes) encountered by the Conquistadores.

The Guanches, the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands, were a warlike race, according to chroniclers. Tradition claims that Saint Avitus, an early Christian martyr, met death at the hands of the Guanches during his attempt to evangelize the islands.[i] The Guanches possessed no weapons or boats--the latter being a very unusual feature for island dwellers--wore goatskins, and were subdued by the European invaders' use of the horse, which was unknown to them. Ignatius Donnelly pointed out in his groundbreaking book on Atlantis that stones had been uncovered in the isles of Hierro and Palma that bore sculptured symbols closely resembling those found in archaeological digs near Lake Superior, prompting an association between the enigmatic Guanches and the cultures of North America.[ii]

The tall, fair-skinned Guanches, believed by many to be the last surviving specimens of the Cro-Magnon Man, employed a curious language consisting of whistles when communicating with one another across gorges or hilltops. They also practiced the art of mummification to an extent known only to the Incas and the Egyptians, believing in the immortality of the dead, and going as far as leaving dead rulers mummified and unburied to provide "assistance" to the living monarch. They lived in complete isolation from the rest of the world, and indeed, from one island to the other.[iii] Spanish chroniclers state that the Guanches presumed that the rest of humankind had been lost in the Flood, and that they were its only survivors.

Certain cultural aspects found in the modern Canaries are believed to be part of the Guanche legacy: cockfights, the agricultural methods which were later imported to the Spanish Caribbean and even a culinary contribution, gofio, a form of cereal that is still consumed today.[iv]

The Canary Islands were known to the Carthaginians and to other sea-faring peoples of the Mediterranean. The Roman chronicler Marcellus, describing the "land of the Aethiopians" mentions a cluster of seven islands in the Atlantic Ocean, whose inhabitants preserve memories of a much greater island which held sway over them for ages; They are the seven Hesperides made famous in mythology by the labors of Hercules, and described in the Book of Ezekiel as the isles of Elysium (Ezek. 27,7). In the 1st century B.C., an unsuccessful bid to conquer the island was made by King Juba II of Mauretania.[v]

But all evidence points to signs of an earlier occupation by unknown quantities. On the isle of Hierro, there exists a wall of basalt facing the ocean, far above sea level which is carved with a number of undeciphered glyphs, among which are prominently displayed discs, labyrinth-symbols and sunbursts. The gorges of Tejeleite and Candia also contain rock shelters with petroglyphs presumably etched into the rough basalt by the aboriginal occupants of the archipelago. Elaborate cave systems--like that of Belmaco, on Palma--are filled with the same insistent petroglyphs and images of discs and sunbursts. The Zonzama Stone, unearthed on Lanzarote, provides more intricately carved symbols: messages from a past we unable reconstruct.[vi] Who were the original carvers of these symbols, and what was their purpose? It is true that the oceans were being navigated by Neolithic mariners whose voyages may have well inspired those of the Phoenicians or the Cretans. They left no traces of their existence aside from the "cyclopean" stone walls, tumuli, fortresses and memorials can be found on the coasts of the continents bordering the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast of Europe as well as on the Canary Islands and Malta, and perhaps even as far south and inland as Zimbabwe. Two German scholars,

Hermann and Georg Schreiber, have pointed to the existence of a "heliolithic" cultural sphere (borrowing a term coined by H.G. Wells), owing to the fact that solar worship, personified by the disk symbols, is common to all these sites). The Canaries were important to them, following this line of thought, as an important center of solar worship. Or perhaps for other reasons...

Unexplained lights have soared above the volcanic peaks of the Canary Islands throughout history. Commercial airliners have been repeatedly intercepted over Lanzarote as they prepare to land on Gran Canary or Tenerife. Could these brilliant lights be the discs represented on the ancient Guanche stellae, and the reasons for the islands prominence not only in recorded history, but also in the days of lost Neolithic realms?

In 1975, coinciding with a global increase of UFO sightings, a group of contactees from Santa Cruz de Tenerife allegedly established contact (by means of an improvised Ouija board) with the occupants of the enormous flying craft which had hovered every night over their skies at La Tejita, a beach not far from the slopes of Mt. Teide. On one of these instances, the Canarian investigators were able to witness an enormous light some 1200 feet away from the beach. Double rows of windows emitting a purplish light could be made out through the use of binoculars. The spectators experienced a "missing time" interval during their sighting, and were assured later on by the light's "crew" that they had been brought aboard for an hour and a half.[vii]

A year later, a driver on a lonely stretch of road saw a perfectly round orb, silhouetted in a bluish light, which flew over his car at low altitude, causing the engine to stall. The witness was able to see two tall humanoids in attired in red garments through an aperture in the noiseless sphere, which landed on the roof of a nearby farmhouse before taking off again in the general direction of Tenerife. Shepherds had encounters of a grislier nature with a "robotic entity" that sliced a mountain lion to pieces and walked in a stilted, crab-like manner.

By 1979, UFOs had started to interfere with the regular operations of commercial airliners flying in Canarian airspace. A DC-9 flying between Lanzarote and Grand Canary was intercepted by an oval-shaped craft as it took off, flying over the airliner and "escorting" it for 20 minutes until it became lost in the clouds. A smaller commuter plane was equally intercepted and escorted for ten seconds at an altitude of 9000 feet by another object, which bathed the plane in a bluish-green light.[viii]

In a world where it is increasingly harder to keep a secret, particularly in the post Cold War era, surprisingly little coverage has been given to a recent "crash/retrieval" scenario which took place in 1992. Two Canarian youths and their friends claim that the Spanish military, in conjunction with unnamed foreign powers, retrieved a mysterious artifact that fell from the skies on the evening of October 12, 1992.

Sergio and Mario, whose surnames remain undisclosed, were on their way to Las Cañadas del Teide Park, an expanse of wilderness on the island of Tenerife, with another acquaintance and his girlfriend, when they found the narrow road leading to the natural landmark barricaded by armed personnel in yellow Jeeps with "ET" license plates (Ejército de Tierra, the infantry). The would-be tourists were told in no uncertain terms to turn around and not to attempt re-entering through the park's southern entrance, either. The officer in charge of the barricade told them that landslides had wiped out the roads ahead.

Their curiosity piqued by the suspicious roadblock, the foursome decided to park their vehicle and try to enter Las Cañadas on foot, finally managing to reach a hillside from which they were able to see another detachment of military vehicles. A powerful beam of light swept the sides of Mt. Teide, as if searching for a particular object. But what was it?

According to investigators, the Canaries Astrophysical Institute had placed a call earlier that evening to the Spanish Army, claiming that "an artifact" had crashed in the Ucanca Valley, at the feet of Mt. Teide. Whatever "it" was, it possessed a tremendous mass, having apparently snapped off a 450-ton lava projection jutting from an outcrop close to the summit of Mt. Teide itself, which can be reached by cable car from the ground.

Rescue helicopters from the Spanish Air Force base at Gando were dispatched to the area in question the following morning, unable to find anything at all after five separate sorties. The airbase's radar claimed not to have picked up anything unusual on the night of October 12 or the early hours of the 13th.

On the island of Grand Canaria, across the water from Tenerife, a couple in the village of Almatriche had witnessed the descent of strange lights, which they were unable to identify, and which appeared to be heading straight toward them. The lights changed course in mid-air and headed toward Tenerife. The time of the sighting was 10 p.m.--just prior to the Canarian youths' arrival at Las Cañadas.

The evening's excitement wasn't over for Sergio and Mario. Once back in their car and returning home, they were surprised to encounter a convoy of ten large military container trucks with balloon tires, darkened but for their intermittent hazard lights. The convoy moved slowly, and the onlookers were given the impression that materials of great weight were being carried aboard the sealed vehicles.

The allegations of the four witnesses aside, the fact remains that all approaches to Las Cañadas park were blockaded for two weeks until authorities announced that the "landslides" had been cleared. A hunter who had been spending the night of October 12 at El Refugio, a natural shelter on the slopes of Mt. Teide, claimed having seen "a brilliant cloud" come within six meters of the peak's summit and spin around it at tremendous speed, giving off bursts of energy before flying away. Local UFO researchers Asunción Sarais and Francisco Padrón initiated what promises to be months of research into this possible "crash/retrieval" incident, which is merely the most recent episode in a long history of sightings. In spite of official silence on the incident, it has since become known that employees from the Canaries Astrophysical Institute were threatened with the possible loss of their jobs if they discussed the incident.

In the U.S., increasingly greater attention has been paid to the folklore and traditions of our native peoples with regard to manifestations of the UFO phenomenon. The same is beginning to happen in Spain, where anthropologists have experienced a renewed interest in searching for Guanche artifacts and possibly even locating surviving Guanches in isolated communities on the smaller islands.

[i]. Atienza, Juan G. En busca de la historia perdida. Barcelona: Ediciones Martínez Roca, p. 207.

[ii]. Donnelly, Ignatius. Atlantis: Myths of the Antediluvian World,Chicago, 1882.

[iii]. Berlitz, Charles. Atlantis: The Eight Continent. New York: Fawcett, 1984.

[iv]. Llorens, W. El Habla Popular en Puerto Rico. Rio Piedras: Editorial Edil, 1981.

[v]. Bailey, James. The God Kings and the Titans. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.

[vi]. Atienza, Juan G. En busca de la historia perdida.

[vii]. Benítez, J.J. 100,000 kilómetros tras los ovnis. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1978.

[viii]. Benítez, J.J. Encuentro en Montaña Roja. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1981.

Expert Discusses UFOs, Students Still Skeptical

By Eric Nigosanti
The Daily Campus
10-10-07

Ever see a strange light move mysteriously across the sky? Think it might just be an atmospheric disturbance, swamp gas or a weather balloon? Well if that is case, it will be surprising to learn that it might be something else entirely.

For the past 40 years, Robert Hastings has been uncovering the secrets of these unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and he presented his extensive findings to a crowd of truth-seeking students Tuesday evening in the Student Union Theater.

A UFO is an aircraft of unknown origin and is usually depicted as a flying disk with a bulge in the center and a light underneath, which gave way to the nickname "Flying Saucers." In his lecture, Hastings noted that sightings of these Flying Saucers are not isolated incidents, but that reports of sightings have occurred throughout the past several decades all around the world.

Yet with all these sightings of UFOs, there seems to be very little panic about their intentions. The probable reason is that the testimonies of eyewitnesses offer no hard evidence. Even the photos of these supposed objects are often distorted and, at best, a light can be seen amidst a darker background. Also, according to Hastings, the U.S. government may have played a part in concealing circumstantial evidence that UFOs exist.

Since the 1940s there has been a government conspiracy, according to Hastings, conducted largely by the CIA and U.S. Air Force. of secretly hoarding all information concerning UFOs and then denying any evidence to their existence. Fortunately for all sky-watchers, through the Freedom of Information Act, the government has turned over thousands of pages of documents concerning UFOs to the public. The most revealing was a FBI memo to then-director J. Edgar Hoover which described the recovery of a crashed UFO in New Mexico, including descriptions of the passengers of the craft. Who exactly are these passengers? The general consensus, which includes the opinions of high-ranking military personnel whom Hastings has personally interviewed, is that the passengers and their ships are extraterrestrial in origin.

This is also the agreement amongst a group of people who have generated a ton of controversy on their own: the abductees. While most testimonies by abductees have been proven false, some have been given credit by the toughest of critics. Common themes in abduction stories are the landing of the UFO followed by a brief interaction with the UFO's occupants on their ship and then the abductees are returned without their memory of the incident. These stories are told later if the abductee decides to undertake a hypnosis memory retrieval technique, but most decidedly all the details point to an extraterrestrial experience.

Throughout the lecture Hastings recited everything with a very serious tone. For him, this has been a life-long quest for answers which began with his own personal experience as a teenager. On an Air Force base in New Mexico, a 16-year-old Hastings was with a group of officers in a control tower when several unidentified blips appeared on the radar. For the next 30 minutes, those blips performed maneuvers that no human- built aircraft could perform, and then they were gone, but Hastings' curiosity remained.

Hastings' lecture presented a lot of evidence in the UFOs existence, but the audience still was skeptical.

"I thought it was interesting, but nothing presented had me entirely convinced," said Justin Waters, a 5th-semester foreign language major.

Laura Sharpe, a 7th-semester political science and psychology major, agreed. "There was a lot of good info, but I am not totally convinced but also not not convinced."

Commenting on the interest in UFOs, Sharpe also said "People are interested because UFOs are something they do not have all the answers to."

In the lecture Hastings said that nobody today has all the answers, but by the time of our grandchildren we'll have what we're looking for.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Airline Pilot Shares Airspace With V-Shaped UFO Over California

V-Shaped UFO Witnessed By Airline Pilot Over California

From Peter Davenport
NUFORC
10-8-07

Peter Davenport of NUFORC generously shares this most recent UFO report submitted presumably by an "airline" pilot of yet "another" air to air" sighting.

This sighting occurred while I was acting as Captain during a routine [type of flight deleted] flight in a [type of a/c deleted] from OAK (Oakland, CA) to BUR (Burbank, CA). We had leveled-off at FL210 and were cruising just south of Manteca VOR (a navigational aid near the city of Manteca, CA).

Traffic at this time of night is usually very light and quite easy to spot at ranges exceeding 50 miles. ATC (Oakland Center) routinely advises us of traffic in our area.

While on a mostly southern heading, I noticed a somewhat unusually colored light off to my nine-o-clock position (east of us). It appeared to be close to our altitude, but many miles distant (over the foothills of the Sierra mountain range). Normally, lights seen at that altitude and distance appear to be of a clear white color. Usually the recognition or landing lights of another aircraft descending into the Bay Area for landing. This light was exceptionally bright and very yellow in color.

I pointed it out to my First Officer, in passing. He also remarked on how bright it was. I'd seen unusual lights like this one before - both out over the ocean and on descent into the Bay Area over Concord, CA. They'd always turned out to be oil refineries/rigs burning off gas. This light did not flicker as those had.

As we continued our flight to BUR, we'd occasionally look out to the left to watch the light - which, over time grew both larger and brighter.

After about five minutes of observing the light, it began to take a definite shape and seemed to be paralleling our course. The top portion of the light was semispherical, and the bottom portion formed a clear "V" shape coming to a point at the base. Over time, this "V" shape with a pointed-bottom became larger-and-larger.

Our curiosity piqued, I asked my F/O to call Oakland Center and ask if they had any traffic on their radar at our nine-o-clock, same altitude. They replied saying that the only traffic in our vicinity was an opposite direction King Air descending out of 13,000 feet (which both I and my F/O already had in sight). No traffic at our nine-o-clock was seen on radar.

We continued to watch this bright yellow light grow in size over the next ten minutes, until it filled about a four-inch square through the window on my side. It was impossible to accurately gauge our distance to the object, or its true size, since we didn't have any other visible references againstwith to judge it.

Anecdotally, all I can say is that it was both LARGE and of a VERY unusual shape and color. Other aircraft lights (while flying at night) uniformly appear to be circular points of light, and are all in standard colors (red, green, white or white strobe). The light we saw did NOT appear to be a light ON an aircraft - the light appeared to be the entire outline of some sort of aircraft.

As I said before, the light appeared to be paralleling our course and coming closer (i.e., remaining in the same relative position even though we were moving south at around 300 knots over the ground, yet getting larger). Please take that observation with a grain of salt though. Without being close enough to see details on the craft or compare it against a ground reference - it could just as easily be something very large seen at a great distance. Things observed at a large distance do not appear to have any relative motion.

We continued to watch the light until it appeared to take a northern course away from us at great speed (both decreasing in brightness and size, without changing ltitude).

Both my F/O and I have 5,000+ hours of experience - most of which was gained under similar circumstances (at night, over California routes). and we were both flabbergasted by what we saw. We both admitted it made the hair on our neck stand up. To be honest, I was spooked by the experience, but have chosen to not bring it up with our airline or the FAA out of concern for being judged a nut-job.

I'm not saying the things we saw were of extraterrestrial origin - but I am saying we saw something that (in both of our professional opinions) was nothing like any other aircraft we've ever experienced in our careers.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Spain: 4-Hour UFO Sighting Over the Canary Islands

By Kalani and Katiuska Hanohano
10-8-07

We are two American ex-pats currently living on the island of Tenerife, one of 7 beautiful islands located 250 nautical miles off the coast of Morocco, North Africa. Our home is part of a private residential area located at the southern edge of the old city of San Cristobal de La Laguna. La Laguna was founded in 1496 and is today declared a World Heritage Site, a designation given by UNESCO in 1999. It is protected by all the laws governing that honor. La Laguna is located high in the mountains overlooking the sprawling capital of Tenerife, Santa Cruz. Our home overlooks a portion of this huge city.

To our west, not more than a mile and a half distant, is the eastern air approach to the airfield at Los Rodeos Airport. On March 27, 1997, two Boeing 747s, one KLM, the other a Pan American, collided on the airfield killing 583 passengers. This stands as the worst single airline accident in aviation history.

Today most passenger air traffic arrives to Tenerife using Sophia Reina Airport, located to the south of the island, nearer to the ever-expanding tourist resorts that dot the south. However, some passenger and cargo crafts continue to use the northern airport of Los Rodeos. Incoming planes that land using the eastern approach to the airport fly almost directly over our home.

Our UFO sighting of September 9, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007, we woke up late and eased into the noon hour. At about 12:45 pm I went outside to do trimming work in our back yard. The afternoon was very warm, totally clear and devoid of clouds. There was a very soft breeze coming in from the east.

At approximately 1:40 pm I asked my wife if she could bring me a cold glass of water and some cookies. This she did and I sat in the shade on the back porch to rest.

While sitting there I began to feel restless and gazed at the sky. I immediately saw to the east of me, perhaps no more than a half a mile away, a silvery object floating over the freeway that links La Laguna to Santa Cruz. I watched this object for about 5 minutes, trying to figure out what it was. This object was moving slowly as it described a very large circle over the area east of where we reside. When the object reached the point where I first observed it, it continued to describe another circle following its previous path. I could see that there were no strong winds that could carry an object into the sky, and with that knowledge, I went into the house and grabbed my binoculars.

When I returned to the back porch the object was still circling the neighborhood east of me. I trained my binoculars on the object and immediately could see that this object was silver in color, it reflected the intense sunlight, and looked like it was a blanket of some sort twisting and folding into itself.

At that moment I remember thinking, “Okay, this is pretty strange. What´s keeping this object in the air. There´s no wind. It shouldn´t be maintaining the same altitude. It should vary.”

So, for about 5 minutes I watch this silvery looking blanket twisting object circle the sky. And I watched as this “blanket” folded in upon itself. As I continued to watch, with and without my binoculars, I observed a very bright oblong-shaped light arriving from the southeast. This light intersects the “blanket” object and continues to head northwest toward the city of La Laguna.

I immediately uttered the most well known and time-honored epithet on our planet: “What the _______ .”

I could see that something very strange was occurring and turned to enter the house to get our video camera. As I did so, facing north, I glanced toward the sky over the mountainous area that backdrops the northern edge of the city of La Laguna. What I saw was impossible.

My attention was focused on the clear sky over the mountains. The reason I focused there was because I saw a rectangular portion of the sky assume a different quality from its surroundings. What formed in the sky was a rectangular area, a window if you will, The difference between the ambient-environment and this “window” was that the area inside of this rectangle “rippled”. I could discern very clearly the border area of this rectangle because the visual quality of the “rippling” was so distinct from the stillness of the area surrounding this rectangle.

As I watched this rectangular area, from the west came 2 bright lights, oblong in shape, and they entered into this rectangle at a ferocious speed . . . one after the other. As they entered into this rectangular area, these two objects created a sine wave-shaped trail. The same kind of sine wave one would instantly recognize on a waveform monitor.

As soon as this “waveform” was created, it dissipated. The rectangular area also ceased to express itself and the area over the mountains returned to normal. This entire event lasted no more than 5 seconds at most.

This was serious, I thought. I ran into the house to grab our video camera. My wife could tell from my frantic behavior that something was up and asked me what was happening. I told her that I was seeing some strange objects from the back and to follow me outside. This she did, and almost immediately we began to see the phenomenon that would occupy us for the next 3-1/2 hours.

From an elevated area at the north side of our house, but still part of the back yard, we observed an oblong-shaped light appear in the sky near the western edge of Santa Cruz. This light traveled in a straight line almost directly over our home. It was silent, traveled smoothly and was using the approach to Los Rodeos Airport.

For the next 15 to 20 minutes we observed these lights appearing out of the blue, heading west toward the Airport. These lights would appear every 30 seconds or so, one after the other. Their external oblong-shape never changed.

Shocked that we were witnessing an ongoing parade of anomalous objects, we moved to the front yard, in a position to watch these objects arriving and heading west.

We need to emphasize that these transiting objects were no more than 500-700 feet over us at all times. They never varied from this. We can approximate their height based upon visually watching passenger aircraft flying over our home as they prepared to land at Los Rodeos Airport. The direction that they were taking took them parallel to the landing field at that airport. In a few cases that we witnessed, these objects seem to have taken the corridor that would place them exactly over the landing field. The airport tower personnel had to be seeing these objects. It was impossible to miss.

Now, there were about a dozen other objects that we counted that came in from a southerly and northerly direction. They would all intersect with the objects heading due west and changed their course to a westerly one.

We observed these objects appearing from the east and heading west for about 2-1/2 hours. During this long period we observed each object visually by eye and with the aid of two binoculars. There was a very BIG difference between what we were seeing with our eyes, and what we were offered through the binoculars. We will expand on this momentarily.

Now comes a part that is difficult to disclose because it is so unacceptable to many. We decided to verbally and mentally ask these objects to stop and hover so that we could observe them better. Most of the objects ignored this request. But 5 of these objects did respond. Four of these objects stopped over the airport area, reversed their direction and headed directly to our home. They stopped and hovered a few blocks from our home. The fifth object directly over our home, in fact directly over my wife who was then asking them to do exactly that. I could see the object directly over her at about 500 feet. An oblong-shaped light. Silent. Obliging.

It remained in this position for a few minutes while my wife was almost bent backward with her binoculars observing this mysterious thing. She continuously dialogued with me about what she was observing. There was so much going on that I chose to direct my attention to another group of objects heading west. We didn´t want to miss anything.

At about 2 hours and 45 minutes into the sighting we sensed that things were slowing down. Since all things must end, we figured this was the case. We were wrong.

At about 5 p.m., as I watched the few remaining objects coming in from the east, I began to notice from the periphery of my vision objects heading in the reverse direction, west to east, as if they had completed what they had intended to do and were heading home. I was witnessing the beginning of a parade going in the opposite direction. Objects behaving just as before.

I mentioned this to my wife, but was beginning to suffer visually from the very bright sun and needed to get into the house to rest. This she did, leaving me to observe the remainder of the sightings.

Observing these returning objects, through binoculars I noticed a very marked difference in some of the objects. Something very unexpected. More on this shortly.

I observed that these returning objects were using a flight path slightly south of our home, which would probably put them over the area near to the pueblo of La Esperanza. This area overlooks the Los Rodeos Airport.

At the same time that I was observing these returning lights, I observed for 45 minutes a very interesting event. And I would not have seen it were it not for a large palm tree that grows in our front yard.

During the entire 4 hour event the sky remained clear, cloudless and blue. A soft breeze insinuated itself into our area. Since I dislike intense sunlight I sought the comfort of the shadow cast by the palm tree. As I did so the glare of the sun was obscured. I took this moment to relax my eyes and casually looked at the upper portion of the tree trunk. To my surprise I could see 5 glowing objects with the same oblong-shape, maneuvering in the glare of the sun. These movements showed neither rhyme nor reason. I would never have seen this event had it not been for the partial obscuring of the sun. No one else would be able to see them under normal conditions. It seemed to me that they were using the strong glare to hide themselves. But why hide themselves when they had just offered us 3 plus hours of strangeness. Talk about an embarrassment of richness.

Finally, after a little over 4 hours, the last objects were seen heading east. Those objects using the suns glare were also gone.

In the remaining moments of activity, I mentally asked the most obvious question: “What was all of this about. And why such a long sighting.”

What we observed through binoculars
When we watched these objects visually using our eyes, they appeared oblong and self-luminescent. A soft white light, not brilliant, and at no time did this luminescence vary in intensity. These objects appeared to slide through the sky effortlessly as if they were immune to resistance. There was never any sound. As for its speed, all we can say is faster than a landing passenger craft, but slower than a jet fighter.

But when we trained our binoculars on these lights we were stunned at what we saw. There were 5 different shapes that we observed during this 4-hour event:

1. Wedge-shaped

2. Stubby-bullet shaped

3. Elongated bullet shaped

4. Curved hot dog shaped

5. Dice shaped (cube)

The “wedge-shaped” object appeared periodically. It flew with the pointed end ahead. It appeared blue-grey in color.

The remaining objects were far different . . . and they morphed.

The “stubby-bullet shaped” objects tumbled as they flew. As they tumbled, they morphed short stubby fins from the side. We observed these fins developing out of, and returning back into the object as it continued its tumbling.

The “elongated bullet shaped” objects also tumbled as they flew. And like its short, stubby partner, they also morphed what appeared to be fins that appeared and withdrew into the objects.

The “curved hot dog shaped” objects were amazingly strange. I got to observe this morphing miracle as it went over our home (side view) and as it receded (side and back view). As with the others, these objects tumbled as they flew. They were shaped like a curved hot dog with the front end located at a shortly higher position than the back end. As it flew, the back end rose up and curved into its middle section. As it did this, the front portion, unaffected by the rear rising action, sprouted short, stubby . . . fins. These fins receded back into the objects when they assumed their normal hot dog shape.

The object that paused directly over my wife at about 500 feet was cube-shaped. It tumbled as it flew, very similar to rolling dice on a table. When the object was hovering over my wife, through binoculars she could see that it was also morphing, sprouting short fins, and other forms that are impossible to describe. But she could see very clearly three “lights” on the bottom of the cube shape. She described red, white and blue lights. When she was describing to me what she was seeing I remember responding to her, “Yea, red, white and blue lights.” Obviously made in America.” She wasn´t pleased with my sarcasm.

The reader must remember that we observed these objects for more than 4 hours. We observed 5 basic shapes repeated one after the other, but not necessarily in a particular order. Although we have told a few friends that we saw about 90 objects, the truth is that we simply lost count. Too much was happening.

Morphing objects are a big problem in today´s ufology. This seems to be a relatively new evolution with these objects and we´re simply going to have to accommodate it.

There were two things that bothered us greatly during this sighting and we need to elucidate them.

The first is that when the objects were seen visually with our eyes they appeared as oblong-shaped lights of no great size. But when we trained our binoculars on these objects we could see no glow, no suggestion that any overall illumination was present. What we saw were objects displaying enough definition for us to observe shape, structure and morphing changes. But still lacking in high definition. It seemed as if the objects were housed in a field that guaranteed that the objects would remain fuzzy.

Secondly, while we visually observed oblong-shaped glowing objects, when we trained our binoculars on these lights, we saw chaotic tumbling and morphing activity inside of that glow. And yet, when we removed the binoculars, the objects appeared steady, with no hint of distortion or change. The reason why we find this odd is because in the case of the bullet-shaped and curved hot dog-shaped devices, as they tumbled, their length would have exceeded the height of the oblong-shaped glow. Yet, when we watched this oblong object glide across the sky, no distortion or accommodation to the object inside of it occurred.

One final observation please! When I observed the objects returning, heading west to east, a number of the bullet-shaped objects appeared different. They appeared dirty, as if debris were sticking to them. I observed these silver-grey objects surrounded by a dark brown substance. It was as if these objects had an important duty to perform, and having performed that duty, they returned soiled from the work they had done. I thought about this for many days, trying to figure out a proper way to describe the “debris” that I saw attached to some of these objects.

About a week later it struck me: What I saw attached to some of these objects was very similar to what happens when you bring a magnet in touch with iron filings. If you place that magnet below a piece of paper with iron filings, those filings will stand out and follow the contour of the magnetic field.

That is the best possible description of what I observed.

Admission

I am an American UFO investigator of long standing. My wife is a singer and entertainer, but also a Spanish-language translator. We have both had a number of UFO sightings – together and separately. My sightings took place in Hawaii, Seattle, Denver and now, Tenerife. My wife´s sightings took place in North Dakota, Denver and now, Tenerife.

This means that we are REPEATERS. This admission will not settle well with the more conservative element within ufology. The broad-minded investigator may acknowledge that there is indeed a growing number of such people showing up in the UFO field. The debunkers will . . . well, they´d probably debunk their own mothers.

We understand the problem. Millions have seen strange objects in the sky. Millions more have not. So what makes us so damned special?

We´ve thought about this. Endlessly. We have no answer. We are as confused about this as anyone else could be. But there are two things we should mention about ourselves that may be contributing factors:

1. We look up! We make it a practice to scan the sky when we find a moment.

2. We anticipate. We´ve had numerous sightings. That means we MIGHT have others. Therefore, we anticipate the next event.

If there is anything more at work than this, we know nothing about it. We are clueless.

There is one more thing that needs to addressed. The claim that we have made that UFOs have stopped and hovered when we have mentally or verbally requested such action:

For many this is difficult stuff to tolerate. Think about how we feel. We asked . . . and they complied. This has happened to me on 4 occasions. It has happened on a few occasions with my wife.

Our concern is that this will be misinterpreted by the overenthusiastic. Those who will say that we are in communication with these . . . things. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me make this as clear as is possible. When the opportunity has presented itself, we have experimented. Simple as that. The question is simple. “Please stop!” On occasion they have. It´s not like we are asking them to dinner, or a game of chess.

Although it is kind of a “rush” to see them stop per our request, closely following is the feeling of “trepidation”. Trepidation because we have brought attention to ourselves. Trepidation because we are not interested in going the next step.

Finally, regarding our beloved video camera. I was unable to film these events, much to my anger and chagrin. It was impossible to focus the camera using the LCD screen because the intense sunlight washed the image out. I pointed the camera wildly, but no image showed up. I was so desperate to show the morphing of these objects that I had zoomed the lens instead of going for a wide-angle view. My fault.

Endnote:
We have seen nothing in the local newspapers to suggest that anyone else reported this event. We have called no one in authority at various venues to report this sighting. We have attempted to contact the leading ufologist here, Jose Gregorio Gonzalez, to inquire whether he had heard anything about a sighting in our area. He has chosen not to return our calls or inquiries. We received the same brush-off from the late Francisco Padron Hernandez, otherwise known as Paco Padron. He was the revered dean of anomalies research in the Canaries. He refused to see an American ufologist. His reason. He didn´t want to talk about ufo abductions, which he considered nonsense. We didn´t want to talk about abductions either. We had other reasons to want to speak with him. Surprisingly, in April 2000, he published a book, Luces de Medianoche, which spoke about his . . . abduction. Go figure!

Mysterious Lights Spark UFO Scare

By Miles Godfrey
The Argus
10-8-07

Masses of mysterious red lights have sparked another UFO riddle.

More than 60 of the glowing orbs were spotted throbbing and hovering above Uckfield on Saturday night.

Resident Jamie Smith, 20, from London Road, thought the town was about to be invaded by aliens.

He said: "It was like something out of Space Invaders.

"My dad said to come out into the garden and what I saw was the amazing thing I've ever seen.

"There were at least 60 of these lights right above us, all in close formation. There was no way they were planes or anything like that.

"Then they moved off and just two remained. Then they too totally disappeared."

Mr Smith said the lights hovered for around five minutes before zooming off.

It the latest in a series of UFO sightings reported by readers of The Argus.

Recently published Ministry of Defence records show that between 1998 and 2006 there were 52 reports of UFOs flying over Sussex.

Don Imus, Like a UFO, Keeps Coming Back

Don Imus Close To Deal for Return To Airwaves Dec. 1

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
10-6-07

Don Imus appears to be heading back to the airwaves.

Less than six months after his long-running radio program was terminated in an uproar over a racial remark, the sharp-tongued host has come to financial terms with one of the nation's top broadcasting companies.

A source familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations, said the contractual details would likely be finalized within a week. Although the deal, which would pay Imus millions of dollars, might hit a last-minute snag, the Imus team is confident that he will be back on the air around Dec. 1.

Improved Weapons in War Against Corporate Oil Barons

By Daniel Gross
Newsweek
10-1-07

"Translation: a 45-miles-per-gallon hybrid can now get as much as 125 miles per gallon."

In 2001, when hybrids were barely on the radar screen, Dave Vieau cofounded A123Systems in Watertown, Mass., to build lithium-ion batteries, which can store and deliver more energy than traditional batteries. The first application was in power tools. "But at the end of 2002, we saw hybrids as an opportunity that could be interesting," he says. A123Systems has raised $102 million in venture capital, and about half of its 800 employees are working on hybrid-related projects. "We can improve the energy density, accelerate more quickly, and all without taking up too much space." Translation: a 45-miles-per-gallon hybrid can now get as much as 125 miles per gallon. Today, about three dozen vehicles equipped with A123Systems cells are prowling the cul-de-sacs of chichi suburbs.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

MY UFO EXPERIENCE: Airline Passenger Spots Massive Flying Saucer Nesting in Clouds

Flying Saucer in Clouds Seen Through Plane Window

Reader Submitted Report
[Unedited]
10-4-07

On October 2nd of this year (2007) I was flying from Toronto to Miami on a business trip, on Air Canada flight 916. We departed at 9:45 AM and the weather was rainy and overcast. I had an aisle seat, but the seat next to the window was empty, so I took it once we were airborne. We climbed through a layer of clouds but it was still fairly gloomy, with another layer still above us. After a while, we reached our cruising altitude and broke through the secondary cloud layer, which looked like a solid cotton blanket below the aircraft. Above the plane, all was blue and clear in the bright sunlight. I don't know exactly which direction I was looking, as I don't know the vector the pilot was flying, but I was on the left side of the Embraer 175.

After about an hour in flight, I noticed a huge depression in the cloud cover near the horizon. It looked as though someone had made a massive hollow in the clouds with an ice-cream scoop. There was a huge bright light in the centre of the depression. As I stared at it, I realized that there was a massive metallic disc that seemed to be hiding in the middle of the hollow. The sunlight was gleaming on the disc and I could see both above and below it in the clear sky. I looked around the plane and the other passengers were watching the inflight video or reading, with many of the shades pulled down against the brightness. The seatbelt light was on too, and I felt absolutely no desire to share the experience; it was all very surreal. As I stared at the massive disc I suddenly noticed another smaller shape to its right. It was a round gleaming metal object that hovered on the lip of the depression. About a minute later, another small round object appeared on the left of the disc. Because it was so far away on the horizon, I was able to keep watching for about 5 minutes before it passed out of sight. The small object on the right must have rotated, because I suddenly noticed it was actually egg-shaped. It moved much closer to the large disc and hovered there as the objects passed the point that I could continue watching them.

Just then, the seatbelt light went off, and I'd been waiting to urinate, so I took this opportunity. When I came back I looked back out right away, and noticed another one of the smaller objects, high up in my right field of vision. As I watched, it dropped slowly down and soared back toward where the other 3 objects had been. As it flew out of my sight, I noticed a fifth object very high up to the right. If we were traveling at about 30,000 feet, this must have been nearly twice that hight, gleaming in the sunlight, because it was extremely high. There was a faint and short contrail behind this craft and as I watched, it dropped down to near the horizon and seemed to shadow our Air Canada plane for a couple of minutes. Then it tipped upward and I clearly saw that the underside was black and the entire craft was shaped like an inverted V with rounded edges, like nothing I'd ever seen. It soared back to the left horizon where the other 4 had gone. I sat there stunned for a long time with my heart pounding. When I reached Miami, even though it was very hot, I stood out on my balcony in room XXX of XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX Hotel for a long time, staring at the sky over the ocean. I didn't see any of the 3 types of craft again, nor did I see them on the way back to Toronto .

I have shared this account with my wife and only 3 other people, as I didn't want to set myself up for mockery and jokes.

I know what I saw though, and this is an accurate and inexplicable account.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Details of the Aztec Incident are Revealed By Ufologist Scott Ramsey In Recent Interview on The Paracast

By Frank Warren
10-1-07

Noted Ufologist/researcher “Scott Ramsey” dropped by the Paracast last week to discuss his 20-year research project on the Aztec Incident, as well as his upcoming book on the topic.

Co-hosts Gene Steinberg and David Biedny left no stone unturned in their interview with Scott. In differentiating Aztec from the widely known Roswell event, which took place 8 months earlier, Scott responds to the co-hosts inquiries with eyewitness names, occupations, the exact location, as well military intervention and post removal and site sanitation.

Moreover, he details the description of the craft, as well as it occupants; the discussion also delves into the early book by Frank Scully, Behind The Flying Saucers (New York: Henry Holt & Co. Inc., 1950) which was the first exposé on the matter, and although the book was highly successful, it’s critics felt the information provided was dubious given two of Scully’s sources, i.e., "Silas M. Newton" and “Leo A. GeBauer.” (Not to mention the magnitude of Scully’s assertions).

One journalist in particular, J.P. Cahn , seemed almost to have a personal vendetta against Scully, and was the primary source of condemnation; he wrote a few articles early on for some popular Magazines of the time; in essence stating that Scully was duped by the two conmen. Scott carefully addresses these charges, and gives the listener an educated alternative analysis.

For all the essentials, and an enthralling two-hour dialogue with Scott Ramsey, and co-hosts Gene Steinberg and David Biedny visit the Paracast.

The Truth Is Out There: Roswell Incident Recalled By Local Vet

By Gary Warth
North County Times
9-29-07-

Something happened in Roswell, New Mexico, 60 years ago this summer.

In June or early July 1947, a farmer found strange debris while working on a ranch about 70 miles north of Roswell. He put some of it in a box and drove to the local sheriff. Neither man knew what to make of it, so the sheriff called Roswell Army Air Field, which sent two men to investigate.

On July 9, 1947, the Roswell Daily Record, a newspaper, printed a story with the alarming headline: "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region."

Other than those facts, there appear to be few things people agree on regarding what has become known as "the Roswell incident."

Six decades later, competing UFO enthusiasts promote their own theories, skeptics dismiss the spaceship claims as outrageous, and the military, which originally claimed all the fuss was over a weather balloon, now sticks to its story that it was an experimental spy craft.

Escondido resident Milton Sprouse, 85, said he knows what happened in Roswell ---- not because he favors one theory over another, but because he was there.

As for the outrageous stories of mysterious metal, alien corpses and a military coverup?

It's all true, he said.

From atom bombs to flying saucers

Before arriving at Roswell Army Air Field in 1945 as a corporal and engine mechanic, Sprouse already had participated in an undisputable historic event.

As a member of the 393rd Bomb Squadron assigned to the 509th Composite Group, Sprouse worked on the ground crew of Big Stink, one of the B-29 bombers stationed on the Pacific island of Tinian, where the two atomic bomb missions on Japan were launched to end World War II.

After the war, the 509th Composite Group was reassigned to Roswell, where they were renamed the 509th Bomb Wing. Sprouse continued to lead the ground crew of Big Stink, which had been renamed Dave's Dream after the pilot.

"There was nothing there but tumbleweeds blowing for miles," he said about arriving at Roswell in November 1945.

Sprouse first learned that something odd was going on at Roswell after returning from a three-day trip to Florida aboard Dave's Dream.

"I was there the day they announced a UFO had crashed," he said. The next day, it was published in the Roswell Daily Record, and that night, all the generals said the story was untrue."

Farmer William "Mac" Brazel had found debris on the J.B. Foster Ranch, where he was a foreman, sometime in June or early July. Brazel took some of the material, which reportedly included sticks, rubber strips, metallic foil and sturdy paper, to Sheriff George Wilcox, who called the air base.

Intelligence Officer Jesse Marcel was sent to the sheriff's station. Marcel reported what he saw to Air Force commanding officer Col. William Blanchard, who told him to go with Brazel to the ranch and examine the crash site.

After spending the night at the ranch, Marcel and another officer loaded their vehicles with debris, some of which reportedly was marked with mysterious symbols, and drove back to the base. Blanchard then ordered a press release stating that the base had captured a flying saucer.

The original story ran in the local paper July 8. That same day, the debris was loaded onto a B-29 and sent with Marcel to an Air Force base in Texas. Marcel was photographed with what was said to be the debris, and the military issued a statement saying that it was in fact a weather balloon.

Search for the truth

Meanwhile, Sprouse said, all copies of the Roswell newspaper were collected by officers, and hundreds of men from the 509th were taken to the crash site and told to walk shoulder-to-shoulder through the field, looking for debris pieces.

Sprouse himself did not go because he was told he was needed for Dave's Dream, but five men from his ground crew went to the ranch.

"They said it was out of this world," Sprouse said about what the crew reported finding. Among the objects it reported seeing was a metallic foil that, when crumpled, unfolded without a crease.

But what was the debris? Was it really something from another world, or just the product of overactive imaginations fueled by the monotony of a desolate 1950s desert town?

One thing that is agreed upon now: It was not from a weather balloon.

In 1995, after years of questions about the incident, the U.S. Air Force admitted the weather-balloon story was fabricated to cover up a top-secret project called Project Mogul designed to detect atomic activity over the Soviet Union with high-altitude balloons.

Some of the launches in the project contained more than two dozen neoprene balloons strung across more than 600 feet.

Charles Moore, a Project Mogul scientist interviewed in the Air Force report, has spoken in public about the project and described striking similarities to what was found at the ranch outside of Roswell and the Project Mogul material, which used sticks, metallic paper and strangely marked tape.

The strange markings that had seemed like cosmic hieroglyphics may have had a much more mundane explanation: Moore said the project used tape made at a toy factory.

The balloons were launched in June and July 1947 from Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico. One flight was launched June 4 and tracked to Arabela, N.M., about 17 miles from the Foster ranch, before its batteries ran down and contact was lost.

More questions

But if the debris did come from a Project Mogul craft, how could a string of balloons create the types of gouges on the ground some witnesses have reported?

Then again, maybe there were no gouges; skeptics of the UFO theory have noted that some witnesses changed their stories about what they saw on the crash site.

The Project Mogul explanation also does not address why some people reported seeing alien bodies at the site. Those were explained in another report in 1997 that concluded the bodies actually were anthropomorphic dummies used to test high-altitude parachutes.

UFO believers found the explanation a little too convenient. There also was a timing problem, as the parachute tests were not conducted until the 1950s. The timing discrepancy has been explained as the result of people who over the years confused the two incidents and compressed memories of them into one event.

Sprouse, however, said he recalls people speaking about "alien bodies" immediately after the debris discovery.

"They took the bodies to a hangar, and there were two guards at each door with machine guns," he said.

Sprouse said one witness, a barracksmate, was an emergency-room medic who reported seeing what he called "humanoid" bodies in the hospital.

"They went to the ER room and two doctors and two nurses were called in, and they dissected two of those humanoid bodies," he said. "Then the doctors and nurses were transferred.

"My friend said he saw the bodies, and I believed him," Sprouse said. "He said, 'We don't think the humanoid ate food.' I don't know why he said that. The digestive system wasn't designed for food or something."

Like the other doctors and nurses, Sprouse said, his friend suddenly was transferred, and he never heard from him again. Others on the base, however, kept the story alive.

"I heard it so many times, it had to be true," he said.

Sprouse said he knew Marcel, but he never spoke to him after the incident.

"From that day on, I could never get close to him," he said.

The story lives on

After the story about the UFO crash was retracted, the rest of the world largely forgot about Roswell and accepted that what had been discovered was just a misidentified weather balloon.

The men stationed at the base, however, did not easily forget.

"They were still talking about it when I left, and I left in
'56," Sprouse said.

In 1978, Marcel was interviewed by a researcher and appeared in a documentary, "UFOs Are Real," the following year. The National Enquirer interviewed Marcel in 1980 for an article in which he said the woodlike debris could not be burned and the thin metal could not be bent. "The Roswell Incident" was released in 1980 as the first of a string of books on the subject.

As interest grew in the Roswell UFO incident, so did the number of detractors. Some have questioned Marcel's credibility, saying he got caught up in UFO hysteria and was known to exaggerate his own military past.

Jesse Marcel, Jr. published his own book this year, "The Roswell Legacy," defending his father, who died in 1986.

Sprouse has not kept up with all the books and documentaries on Roswell and did not go to Roswell in July for the 60th anniversary of the discovery.

He does, however, attend annual reunions with the 509th, which attracts 25 to 30 veterans.

"The Roswell incident comes up every year, but there's nothing really new," he said.

Sprouse also speaks about his experience at Tinian to about five high schools a year, and he often is invited to speak to other groups. He usually ends his talk with his memories of Roswell, often to the surprise of his audience.

At a talk in Tucson, Ariz., earlier this year, Sprouse said a man came up to him afterwards and said, "I don't believe a damn thing you said."

"I told him, 'You can believe what you want, but I know it's true,'" Sprouse said.

Walter Haut, Roswell and a Whole Lotta Questions

During the past eight years I have written several editorials accentuating the importance of verifying and confirming information pertaining to the subject of UFOs. The recently released affidavit signed by Walter Haut in 2002, first made public this summer in Don Schmitt and Tom Carey’s book is no exception, and it appears that as verification and confirmation is attempted about the affidavit, more questions are being raised than answered.

A few things are now known, and by Don Schmitt’s own admission on the “Paracast radio show” recently, we have learned that Walter Haut did not write the affidavit he signed in 2002, but rather it was prepared for his signature based on comments and remarks Haut had made over a period of time to Schmitt, Carey and others. (Editor’s note: After denying any involvement in the Roswell Incident for 55 years except for writing the now famous newspaper article of July 8, 1947, why wasn’t Walter Haut reading, approving and signing such an important document video taped for historical value?)

By their own admission publicly, we know that neither Schmitt nor Carey were present when Walter supposedly signed the affidavit, and the witnesses last name on the 2002 document is not shown, preventing any opportunity for verifying what that person witnessed. Additionally we know that the verbiage, content and style of writing in the 2002 affidavit is totally different from the 1993 affidavit Haut wrote, in which he denied any involvement. The 1993 affidavit was witnessed by Max Littell, one of the co-founders of the UFO Museum in Roswell, which included Walter Haut, Max Littell and Glenn Dennis.

We also know that the oral history videotape of Walter Haut done on November 15, 2000 and copyrighted by Wendy Connors and myself shows a man that couldn’t remember where he took basic training, names, dates, etc., while the 2002 affidavit is very detailed and precise with information Haut could accurately remember 2 years after he was video taped. Under constant questioning by Wendy Connors during the video interview in 2000, Walter did agree to several points mentioned in the 2002 affidavit such as seeing a body, a meeting in Roswell with General Ramey and Colonel DuBose present, leaving me with the impression of not knowing if he was still trying to cover-up what he knew during our video taping, or actually couldn’t remember. All quite different than the 2002 written affidavit.

Also known is the fact that less than 24 hours after Walter Haut passed away, Wendy Connors and I both received a written letter from Walter’s daughter (the current Director of the UFO Museum in Roswell), threatening us that we could not now, or ever share any of the information we gathered in our copyrighted 2000 video interview of Walter, nor talk about any conversations we ever had with him. Many of those conversations occurred privately with Walter on a daily basis while I volunteered at the Museum from 1996 – 1998, before the current Director took “power”. Obviously the 2000 video tape shows Walter as a totally different person than the one represented in the 2002 written affidavit, and we now know that he didn’t write the affidavit, nor are we able at this time to determine under what conditions it was signed.

The alleged meeting in Roswell with General Ramey, Colonel DuBose, Base Commander Colonel Blanchard, Intelligence Officer Major Marcel and Public Relations Officer Walter Haut, and others is of utmost importance to the research of the Roswell Incident. If in fact such a meeting occurred, why was it necessary for Major Marcel to fly debris from Roswell to General Ramey’s office in Ft Worth, since they had all handled the debris in the meeting and apparently set up the cover-up operation?

Recently on an Internet UFO list, Don Schmitt accused Wendy Connors and I of “crossing the line” when we did the video interview with Walter in 2000. Schmitt said, “that Walter was never told in advance that we would ever touch on the subject of Roswell”. Of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of researchers and media personnel that have interviewed Walter Haut over the years, not one has not asked Walter about the Roswell Incident, due mainly to Walter having written the July 8, 1947 press release, and being a first-hand witness.

Don Schmitt needs to retract that statement because at the beginning of the videotape, details of what the interview would involve were explained to Walter to his satisfaction. He was informed on camera that the tapes would not be sold by Wendy or I, (the museum could sell them if they chose to), however Wendy and I would use the information for our research and share the videos with serious researchers. Additionally 10 copies of the interview were given to Walter’s daughter for the family. Most importantly, Walter’s daughter was asked to review and approve a 6 page written agenda Wendy and I prepared for the interview, which she did and in fact added some questions about her Father for us to ask during the interview. I have a copy of the written agenda with a note that she had seen the agenda, so we didn’t “cross the line” as Schmitt has accused us of.

If in fact Walter’s comments about going to the crash site(s), seeing a body, being in on the meeting in Roswell at the base, etc., are true as stated in the affidavit, Walter was a part of the cover-up, and basically maintained his silence for 55 years, until 2002. Walter idolized his boss Colonel Blanchard as he personally shared many stories with me over the years, and on the videotape, about his relationship with him. Walter was a dedicated soldier as most, if not all were that were involved with the Roswell Incident. They had a job to do and did it well. Keeping secrets was their prime responsibility, lest we not forget that these were the same guys that ended WWII by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan.

What remains for us researchers is as stated in the beginning of this editorial---verifying and confirming information:

Were General Ramey and Colonel DuBose from 8th Army-Air Force headquarters in Ft Worth Texas, in Roswell for a meeting about the crash?

Which of Walter Haut’s statements are correct; the 1993 affidavit, the 2000 oral history video tape, or the 2002 affidavit?

Why were Wendy Connors and I threatened about releasing any information about the videotape we did, when apparently Schmitt and Carey were allowed to publish the 2002 affidavit with the approval of Walter Haut’s daughter and the UFO Museum?

Why wasn’t the affidavit released after Walter’s death in December 2005, instead of in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the Roswell Incident this past July?

Why didn’t Schmitt and Carey or the UFO Museum include original Roswell researcher Stanton Friedman in obtaining or releasing the affidavit?

As with most everything related to the Roswell Incident, more answers are needed. In the case of Walter Haut’s affidavit we have some more information to work with, and will search for the truth in finding the answers.

www.truthseekeratroswell.com

truthskr@roswell.net

See Also:

Is Timing Everything---As Related to the Roswell Incident?

Verification, Confirmation and Facts

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