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Unidentified Flying Objects: An Historical Perspective
Abstract
The paper presents an examination of the overall UFO scene during the
past 20 years. Several representative unsolved sightings reported in the United
States are summarized and the global nature of sighting reports is discussed.
Brief mention is made of pre-2Oth Century sightings. The activities of hoaxers,
psychotics and liars-for-a-profit are outlined. Attitudes towards sightings and
the investigatory efforts of the USAF are examined.
Possible
explanations of the causes of UFO sightings are summarized and the hypothesis
that some UFO's may be extra-terrestrial vehicles is advanced.
In
conclusion, some general suggestions are advanced for more effective studies of
'the UFO phenomenon.
In opening, I'd like to thank
the sponsorsof the Design Engineering Conference for inviting me to New York and
giving me the opportunity to speak to you all this evening. My topic is a highly
controversial one; and controversy particularly when it grows out of opinions
directly opposed to governmental agencies - seems to be a dirty word much too
often these days.
Now - the
things that I have to say, and the things that you all have read and heard about
flying saucers will doubtless raise questions in your minds. Fine. I will be
happy to answer as many as I can in the time available following my talk.
But first - a word from my sponsor. I am here this evening as a representative of The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, NICAP - a privately supported, non-governmental UFO investigatory organization with headquarters in Washington, D.C. NICAP was formed in 1956 to provide a place where persons could report UFO sightings without being subject to ridicule or harassment. Aided by its Sub-Committees and Affiliated groups, NICAP endeavours, to the best of its ability, to investigate in a scientific manner UFO reports made to it. Operating funds come from member dues - $5 annually for which the members receive six issues of the UFO Investigator, an 8-page newsletter of current UFO events. In July of 1964, NICAP published the UFO EVIDENCE, a documented study of over 7OO UFO cases from NICAP's files. NICAP membership, over ten thousand at present, encompasses a representative cross section of our population. The Board of Governors and Panel of Special Advisers includes scientists, engineers and professional people in a variety of fields. Many of these men have earned doctorates in their specialty.
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In the 20 years since the term came into existence, flying saucers
have become a scientific controversy second only to the famed Canals of Mars.
And, like the Canals of Mars, the term flying saucer is a misnomer created by
the press. On June 24, 1947, while flying his private plane in the vicinity of
Washington's Cascade Mountains, Idaho businessman Kenneth Arnold observed 9
objects flying near Mount Ranier and Mount Adams. "They flew", Arnold told
newsmen, "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water." [1] Arnold's
saucers were not disc shaped, but resembled a crescent moon. The press, however,
called them flying saucers, and the name stuck. In addition to the disc or
saucer shape, other aerial unknowns have been described as having a cigar,
rocket, or fuselage-without-wings shape. Arrowheads or flying triangles have
also been reported, with Arnold's crescent shape and a rubber-heel shape also
being reported in much less frequency. Because it was felt that the term "flying
saucer" was misleading, the Air Force and the majority of other investigatory
groups prefer the term Unidentified Flying Objects. A sighting is called a UFO
when "the description of the object and its manoeuvres could not be fitted into
the pattern of any known object or phenomenon."
Once
Arnold's sighting hit the press wires, other sighting reports began to make the
papers. It wasn't long before people were seeing saucers, hubcaps, sausages, and
all manner of peculiar looking aerial objects. About this time, the USAF began
to take an interest in flying saucers, but no official conclusion was released
until early 1949. Of course individual Air Force officers had voiced opinions,
but they had not been representing any official investigatory group. The report
released April 27, 1949, stated that 270 sightings had been investigated,
including 30 from foreign countries and that 40% could not be explained. Since
that time, according to subsequent Air Force press releases, 11,107 sightings
have been investigated through December 31, 1966, with about 10% of this total
still unidentified.
This, of
course, does not take into account innumerable sightings made in foreign
countries, as well as sightings made in this country and not reported to the
USAF.
I might
digress a moment to note that reports of strange aerial phenomena are not
peculiar to the post WW II period. As NICAP staffers Lore and Deneault have
shown [2], scores of unexplained sightings were reported prior to the 20th
century by astronomers and other scientifically trained observers. However,
coming back to the recent past - just what have people reported during the past
two decades? How reliable are the sighters? I'll recap briefly some of the more
outstanding sightings.
In 1956 a Navy
Super-Constellation transport was flying west across the Atlantic, carrying
aircrews returning from overseas duty in Europe. Nearly 30 men were aboard -
pilots, navigators, flight engineers. The night was clear, visibility unlimited.
The Connie was cruising at 19,000 feet. Next stop, Gander, Newfoundland; final
destination, the Naval Air Station at Patuxent, Maryland. Glancing down, the
pilot saw a collection of lights where only open seas should be. The radio man
reported no signals from below, and that no ships were scheduled to be bunched
in the area. Curious, the pilot put the plane into a circle to examine the
lights better. As they circled, the lights dimmed, and then they saw several
colored rings appear and begin to spread out. It was then noticed that one ring
was rushing up toward the plane. The pilot rolled out of his circle and tried to
climb away, but the ring outclimbed him, reached their altitude, levelled off,
and raced towards them. Then they realized that the ring of light was coming
from the rim of a huge disc-shaped object. By this time, all men aboard were
wide awake and watching out the windows. The disc raced toward the plane,
flipped on edge, and angled past the port wing tip; then slowed, reversed
course, and paced the plane off the port wing. The observers agreed that it was
about 30 feet thick and 350 - 400 feet in diameter, with a blurred uneven glow
from the rim. The glow was sufficient to show the disc's curving surface. The
pilot held to a straight course, while the disc slowly drew ahead, then tilted
upward, accelerated sharply, and was lost in the night sky. The pilot called
Gander Airbase at once and asked if they had seen anything on the radar. Gander
replied that they had had something on the scope along side the Connie, but that
the unknown had not answered radio queries. The time it took the disc to get up
to the Connie indicated a speed of 1600 mph or more. The speed it made climbing
away was estimated at that or greater.
After
landing at Gander, all personnel were thoroughly interrogated by Air Force
Intelligence personnel. "They asked lots of questions, but gave us no answers,"
one Navy man grumbled later. When the Connie finally reached Patuxent Naval Air
Station, the air crews were again interviewed, and they furnished Naval
Intelligence with written statements as to what they had seen. Several days
later the pilot was contacted by a scientist in another government agency who
wished to talk to him about his sighting. After getting the necessary
clearances, the pilot said okay. The scientist showed up, had the pilot go over
his sighting again, and then unlocked a dispatch case, pulled out some
photographs, and asked the pilot if the object he had seen resembled any of the
pictures. The pilot picked out one as being virtually identical. The scientist
thanked him, locked up the pictures again, refused to answer questions and left.
The pilot, needless to say, was - and still is - a frustrated and bewildered
man. [3]
Here's a
case which occurred near an Air Force missile site. On August 25, 1966, the
officer in charge of a North Dakota missile crew, based in a concrete capsule 60
feet underground, suddenly found his radio transmission interrupted by static.
At the same time that he was trying to clear up his problem, other AF personnel
on the surface, reported seeing a UFO - described as a bright red light -
apparently alternately ascending and descending. A surface AF radar installation
also reported tracking the object at an altitude of 100,000 feet. The report of
the base operations director stated "when the UFO climbed, the static stopped.
The UFO began to swoop and dive. It then appeared to land ten to fifteen miles
south of the area. Missile-site control sent a strike team (well-armed Air Force
guards) to check. When the team was about ten miles from the landing site,
static disrupted radio contact with them. Five to eight minutes later the glow
diminished, and the UFO took off. Another UFO was visually sighted and confirmed
by radar. The one that was first sighted passed beneath the second. Radar also
confirmed this. The first made for altitude toward the north, and the second
seemed to disappear with the glow of red." [4] Still unsolved, the case is
termed by Dr. J. Allen Hynek as "typical of the puzzling cases" he has studied
in his 18 years as the Air Force's scientific consultant on UFO's.
One of the
best radar confirmed sightings - so stated by Captain Ed Ruppelt, [5] who headed
the Air Force saucer investigations for several years - occurred near Rapid
City, South Dakota, the evening of August 12, 1953. The events of that night
started out like this. Shortly after dark, a woman spotter of the local Ground
Observer Corps rang up the Air Defense Command radar station at Ellsworth AEB
just east of Rapid City, and reported an extremely bright light to the
northeast. The radar swung to the area the spotter had designated, and picked up
a solid blip moving slowly. The heightfinding radar also picked it up and
established the UFO at 16,000 feet. The warrant officer on duty at the radar
station got a direct wire to the spotter, and they compared notes for about two
minutes. In the middle of a sentence, the woman suddenly said that the object
was starting to move towards Rapid City. The radar scope confirmed this, and the
warrant officer sent two men outside for a visual check. They reported a large
bluish-white light moving toward Rapid City. The three groups - the radar
people, the outside men, and the woman spotter - watched the UFO make a swift
sweep around Rapid City and then return to its original position. The warrant
officer then called a jet fighter on patrol and put him on an intercept course.
The light was still at l6,OOO feet. The pilot spotted the light visually, and
had moved to within three miles of it, when the light took off north towards the
Badlands. The pilot followed it 120 miles, with the light staying a couple miles
ahead; and then, with fuel running low, the jet returned - with the UFO trailing
him!
The jet
squadron at the air field then stated that they were scrambling another F-84,
with a skeptical combat veteran of World War II and Korea at the controls. Once
he was airborne, radar worked him toward the UFO. The pilot quickly reported
visual contact, and maneuvered to get above the light. The light headed
northeast, with the F-84 behind but several thousand feet above it. The pilot,
even though getting radar reports and seeing the light, was still skeptical.
Once away from the Rapid City area, he turned off all his lights to see if it
was a reflection on his canopy. The light was still there. Next he rolled his
plane, to see if some unnoticed ground light was causing it. The light's
position didn't change. Next he checked its motion against three bright stars -
it moved with relation to them. He then figured, if it is real, my gunsight
radar should pick it up. He activated his gun cameras, turned on his radar and
got a solid blip. At this point he got scared - and remember, this was a man
who'd fought Hitler's best airplanes and tangled with Mig 15's over Korea. But
that large, bright, bluish-white light was more than he cared to chase any
longer. He requested and received permission to abandon the chase. The UFO
headed off toward Fargo, North Dakota, and a check minutes later showed that
spotter posts between Rapid City and Fargo had seen and reported a fast-moving,
bluish-white light. So there you are - two serial visuals, an aerial radar
lock-on, two ground radar sightings, numerous ground visuals from several
locations, and gun camera film which, when developed, showed a blurry object. No
details - just a light source.
On April 224, 1964, near
Socorro, New Mexico, shortly before 6:00 p.m. local time, Patrolman Lonnie
Zamora was chasing a speeding car. [6] Seeing and hearing what he then thought
was a dynamite shed exploding, Zamora abandoned the speeder and drove over a
rough, dirt road towards the apparent impact spot. Briefly, during his approach,
he saw a shiny object about the size of an overturned car. Beside it were two
"man-like" figures in white - no details of hands, feet or face were visible.
Based on a nearby bush, later measurements indicated that the figures were about
4 and a half - 5 feet tall and that the bottom of the object was about the same
distance above the ground. Because of intervening hills, Zamora lost sight of
the object and when he again had it in view, the figures were gone. Parking
about 150 feet away, he began to approach the object on foot when it suddenly
began to spew flame from its underside. Believing it was about to explode, he
ran the other way. When the noise ceased, he looked back and saw it fly away,
narrowly missing a nearby dynamite shed. Investigators from nearby military
installations, local police, NICAP representatives, and Air Force investigators
from the Air Technical Intelligence Center in Ohio and Northwestern University
thoroughly examined the scene. Several depressions, apparently from the object's
four legs, were found and nearby bushes and grass appeared to have been seared
by intense heat. Soil samples were taken but no traces of fuel residues were
found following laboratory tests. Zamora's reliability and integrity are
unquestioned and the Air Force still carries the sighting as one of an
unidentified vehicle. [7]
Of course,
these are only four of many similar outstanding UFO sightings from all points in
the USA. But sauceritis is not a peculiarly American ailment. Radar reports,
visual reports both day and night, and combined radar-visual reports have also
been received from British, French, Australian; Italian, Belgian, and other
foreign sources. For example, in November of 1962, the Argentine Embassy in
Washington, D.C., furnished NICAP with official reports of UFO sightings made by
Argentine Navy pilots. Argentine Navy Captain Luis Moreno informed NICAP that
the Argentine Navy had been constantly concerned about UFO's for the preceding
10 years. [8] Representative accounts of puzzling foreign sightings can be found
in The UFO Evidence as well as in the works of the French
mathematician-astronomer Jacques Vallee. [9] And, of course, even the Russians
got into the act - they said that saucers were all a capitalistic hoax designed
to keep up the production of war material. [10]
As is often
the case with sweeping Russian pronouncements, there is a grain of truth in this
one - there have been saucer hoaxes. Some have been of the practical joker
variety - cardboard or aluminums discs stuffed with junk radio parts and lit up
by railroad flares. One man, to win a bet, bought, chloroformed, shaved, and ran
over a monkey, which was then passed off - until a vet queered the game - as a
man from Mars. Numerous people have claimed contact with space people - some
even claim to have ridden in saucers. I know a man near Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, who claims that there is a saucer base under the Berkshire
mountains. None of these contactees have presented any verifiable proof and most
have declined to take lie detector tests. Several hoaxers have gone after money
and apparently done pretty well. A few years ago, TRUE magazine reported on Otis
T. Carr, a one time elevator operator and hotel night clerk, who has reportedly
acquired several hundred thousand dollars from trusting souls who think he has
an engine and spaceship that will revolutionize present day propulsion
techniques. [11] Frankly, I wish he really did - I'd like to go space travelling
myself but based on present day planning, it doesn't look possible for many
years. So, hoaxers, psychotics, and liars-for-a-profit are with us, and have
contributed quite a bit to fogging up the UFO question. That, however, is no
excuse for failure to conduct a proper investigation.
Now - what
has the Air Force done in the field of UFO investigations? The answer is,
surprisingly little. There have been innumerable press releases telling of all
the studies that have been conducted, of investigations and the like; but when
you look closely at the record, you see that very little has really been done.
For example, even at the height of the UFO sightings, there were never more than
three or four men permanently assigned to investigate UFO's. Investigations were
usually made long after a report, and the investigators often seemed more
interested in seeing how they could explain away the sightings than in getting
all the facts from the witnesses. Airline crews have been accused - anonymously
- of being drunk on duty. Radar sightings have been passed off as resulting from
temperature inversions, even when weather-bureau records did not bear out such a
claim. There have been several instances when UFO sightings have apparently
resulted in a rapid and substantial increase in background radioactivity, but
the USAF has made no attempt to set up any radiation-detection stations in areas
where there have been repeated sightings over the past 14 years. NICAP has
offered to sit down with the Air Force and review the reports in NICAP's files
and to publicly correct those disproved by the Air Force. [12] The Air Force,
however, refused such joint meetings and insisted that NICAP furnish its data
for secret review. Results released following such secret reviews would not
include any basis on which to evaluate the validity of the Air Force
conclusions. These are but a few examples. The overall record is worse; and
speaking as an ex-Air Force officer, I can only say that I have no confidence in
the Air Force UFO investigation program to date.
Criticism
of the Air Force position, as well as the position held by far too many of his
fellow scientists, has recently come from Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the chief civilian
consultant on UFO to the Air Force. Dr. Hynek, head of Northwestern University1s
Dearborn Observatory, stated flatly: "No true scientific investigation of the
UFO phenomena has ever been undertaken, despite the great volume of hard data...
we should put as much effort on one of these puzzling cases as we would on a
Brinks robbery or a kidnap case. [13]
In fairness to the Air Force, it should be noted that they are finally coming to realize that their attitude has tarnished their image in the public eye. A civilian scientific review committee was convened in February, 1966, by order, not of the Director of Aerospace Research, but of the Director of Public Information! This civilian scientific panel, while it did not endorse the possibility of extra-terrestrial visitors, did make strong recommendations that the Air Force substantially increase its UFO investigatory teams and solicit aid from the scientific community to more adequately examine both future and past UFO reports. [14] NICAP is fully in accord with such recommendations - indeed, a full-scale scientific investigation on a global basis has long been one of our major goals. In Dr. Hynek's words "Instead of having UFO a synonym for crackpot and ridicule, let's make it scientifically respectable." [15] We know that more and more scientists are willing to discuss the subject of UFO's "off the record" but we sincerely hope that more will follow the example set by Dr. Hynek and by NICAP's own scientific advisers. And, of course, we also hope that the recently begun 15 month study program, funded by the Air Force but to be conducted independently by the University of Colorado, will be the beginning of a full scale, impartial scientific investigation of UFO's. We, quite frankly, see this study as vindication of our long held position that the Air Force investigatory program has been both inadequate and unscientific.
All right - we've looked at
some reports of UFO's, and some attitudes towards reports Now, the inevitable
questions that arise are, just what are these UFO's and where do they come from?
It has been suggested that they are:
1.
Secret
Russian devices based on German devices obtained after World War
II,
2.
Secret American devices in the missile and/or aeronautic fields,
3.
Misinterpretation of various conventional objects such as stars, planets, birds,
weather balloons, insects, meteors, airplanes, vapor trails, etc.,
etc.
4.
Interplanetary space ships from outside our solar system.
Let's look at
each of these suggestions. The Russian and American origin suggestions can be
disposed of together. If the UFO's were of Russian manufacture, this meeting
would be sponsored by Soviet Society of Mechanical Engineers and I'd be a
visiting Commissar lecturing on Applied Marxism. And if the UFO's were American
- well, we wouldn't be spending 13 million dollars per day on Project Apollo.
After all,
the speed and manoeuvrability displayed by these UFO's calls for propulsion
systems far in advance of anything we now have. The entire vehicle represents,
in terms of present earthly knowledge, a tremendous technological break-through.
Such a break-through would be quickly reflected in hundreds of allied fields, as
well as in fields never dreamed of before. Look at the applications of nuclear
energy since 1945 - even the most imaginative science fiction writer never
dreamed, before Hiroshima, of all the applications that would be found in less
than 20 years. The break through required to create a terrestrial UFO would have
even more far-reaching effects.
Misinterpretations?
These already account for a large number of the many sightings of UFO's. Perhaps
80% of those investigated by the Air Force to date. There's no denying that many
people have been fooled by balloons, meteors, high-flying airplanes, the planet
Venus, peculiar vapor trails, and the like - and thought they saw UFO's.
Glowing
clouds, resulting from chemicals released hundreds of miles in the air by NASA
rockets, have caused UFO reports. So have re-entering space satellites as well
as orbiting satellites seen under peculiar atmospheric conditions. These, like
the other misinterpretations already mentioned, can be readily explained. They
do not, however, explain the sightings I spoke of earlier nor do they explain
the hundreds of still unsolved reports made to the Air Force, to NICAP, and to
other UFO investigatory groups over the past 20 years.
So
we are left with the Interplanetary theory. And when I say "we", I include not
only myself and the majority of the Board of Governors of the National
Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, but also many officers of the
USAF, innumerable pilots and aircrewmen - private and commercial, foreign and
domestic - many eminent scientists, missile experts, and just plain people.
Speaking for myself, I accepted this theory only after examining the UFO
question for over a dozen years. No single sighting report led to my acceptance
of this hypothesis, but rather the ever growing accumulation of reports by
reliable and trained observers. I have never seen a UFO, but as Dr. J. E.
McDonald put it, the idea of extra-terrestrial vehicles seems to be "the least
unsatisfactory hypothesis for... the intriguing array of credibly reported UFO
phenomena that are on record" [16] - reports such as those mentioned earlier in
this talk.
Now -
regardless of your feelings as to the validity of the extraterrestrial
hypothesis, I would hope that we are in general agreement that "something" has
been seen and that the recurrence of such reports from reliable observers over
the past two decades requires a more extensive investigation than has taken
place heretofore.
With that
thought in mind, then, I want to conclude by outlining some ideas on what is
needed in the way of a more thorough investigation. Let me say too, that these
ideas are not just mine but are a synthesis of those of Hynek, [17] Vallee, [18]
LeBlanc, [19] the NICAP staff and other sources.
1.
Sighting stations should be established on a global basis These could either be
new stations or existing stations, military or scientific, which have been
supplied with detailed instructions and instruments to provide for standard
observations and records. Photographs, spectrographs, data obtainable by broad
band radiation detectors, etc., should be secured if possible.
2. The
data on hand, as well as future data secured by field investigations on
standardized report forms, should be computerized so that new reports can be
rapidly and accurately compared with older reports and trends and patterns in
sightings quickly identified.
3. Policemen, civil and military
pilots, and others whose jobs keep them outdoors for long periods of time,
should be equipped with good cameras and trained in their use. Service or civic
clubs could, perhaps, furnish such equipment to their local police.
4. Anthropologists, archaeologists and other students of the past
should carefully study the legends
of ancient peoples to determine if contact with extra-terrestrial beings may not
have already occurred. Harvard astronomer Dr. Carl Sagan [20] recounts a
legend concerned with the rise of the Summerian civilization (4000 B.C.), which
is suggestive of such contact and is certainly deserving of further study.
5. Sincere, qualified amateur groups should be encouraged to assist
by researching past cases, delving into newspaper files and similar historical
documents. Such searches have already turned up much useful data on older
sightings; there is little doubt that much more data remains to be dug out. Such
research, however, would need to be coordinated by the official group to prevent
duplication of effort. Other qualified amateurs, such as ex-military
intelligence personnel, could assist in field investigations of current sighting
reports. Again, coordination with the official group would be
necessary.
Finally, assuming that the efforts outlined above warrant the
expense, serious thought should be given to the building of a "saucer trap", not
to "capture" physically but to "trap" information by instruments. Many
apparently reliable reports have commented on the seeming "curiosity" of UFO's
about the works of man. It would seem possible that a large installation, built
with a maximum of clearly visible activity and located in an otherwise barren
area, might attract the attention of UFO's. If such an installation were
equipped with all manner of detection and recording apparatus capable of
covering the entire visible, audible and electromagnetic spectrum a wealth of
valuable information might be obtained.
All of the above, of course, presupposes a willingness on the part of the scientific community at large to examine the entire UFO question with open minds, devoid, insofar as possible, of emotion charged prejudgment that the entire subject is "utter bilge". [21] It is the hope of all of us in NICAP that the Condon study group will be the beginning of a major change in attitude toward the study of UFO1s by the scientific community.
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Bibliography
5.
THE REPORT ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS by Edward J. Ruppelt; Doubleday, 1956.
6. Associated Press, United Press International and local press
reports for April 25, 19624, et.
seq.
7. Personal
communication from Major Maston M. Jacks, USAF Office of Information, The
Pentagon, Washington, D.C., dated 29 December 1964.
8.
"Argentine Confirms Navy Pilots' Sightings to NICAP" - The UFO Investigator;
Vol. II, No. 6, October - November, 1962, NICAP.
9.
ANATOMY OF A PHENOMENON (Henry Regnery Co., Chicago, 1965) and CHALLENGE TO
SCIENCE (Regnery, 1966) both by Jacques Vallee.
10.
Radio Moscow newscast on December 7, 1953.
11.
"King of the Non-Flying Saucers" by Richard Gehman; TRUE Magazine, January,
1961
12.
"Air Force Secretary Offered NICAP's UFO Evidence" - The UFO Investigator, Vol.
II, No. 3, January - February, 1962, NICAP.
13.
"UFO's Merit Scientific Study" by Dr. J. Allen Hynek; letter in SCIENCE, 21
October, 1966
14.
Unidentified Flying Objects - House of Representatives - Committee on Armed
Forces, No. 55, April 5, 1966
15.
"UFO's Merit Scientific Study" by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, letter in SCIENCE, 21
October 1966.
16.
"The Problem of the Unidentified Flying Objects", a talk by Dr. James E.
McDonald, Senior Physicist, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, and Professor,
Dept. of Meteorology, The University of Arizona; to the District of Columbia
Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, Washington, D.C., on October 19,
1966.
17.
"Are Flying Saucers Real?" by Dr. J. A. Hynek, Saturday Evening Post, December
17, 1966.
18.
CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE, Jacques Vallee
19.
"Saucer Trap", a personal communication from Raymond LeBlanc; December 2,
1966.
20.
INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE by I. S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan; HoldenDay,
1966.
21.
"Space Flight 'Utter Bilge' Says Astronomer-Royal" TIME, January 16,
1956.
THEORIES OF UFO ORIGIN
AND INTENTIONALITY
An Unidentified Flying Object is anything seen in the air or briefly on
the ground that looks like an unfamiliar object and still cannot be identified
after the report has been studied by scientifically qualified
persons.
The chances that something seen in the sky (or even on the
ground) is a UFO depends on two main factors:
1. Strangeness
An Identified Flying Object is anything that was first thought to be a
UFO, but was then explained by qualified persons. Most things reported as UFOs
turn out to be honestly mistaken observations of stars and planets, meteors and
fireballs, satellites and satellite re-entries, airplanes, balloons, clouds,
etc.
An estimated 75%-90% of all things reported as UFOs turn out to be
explainable. This is especially true at night, when all that can be seen is
usually a single light, but no object. If the light is going extremely fast, in
a straight line, it is almost certainly a meteor (also called a falling star or
shooting star). If it is a very large, bright light or group of lights traveling
together, it is probably a fireball (a large meteor) or a satellite breaking up.
If it is a light travelling slowly in a straight line, it may be a satellite in
orbit. An experienced UFO investigator has learned to spot such things quickly
in a report. There is less chance for mistakes in the daytime, but since about
1980 there have been far fewer daylight sightings of possible
UFOs.
Most of those seen in the daytime are said to have simple, geometric
shapes such as discs, ovals, spheres, cylinders or triangles. They are usually
sharp-edged and light colored, like aluminum. They sometimes have domes on top,
or on the bottom, or both. Some have what look like windows or
portholes.
It is impossible to get very specific about what UFOs look
like, since there are no really good photos of them, and no one has been able to
make authentic scale drawings with measurements of even one type. Some are
discs, shaped like two saucers face-to-face or a discus as thrown in a track
meet. Some of them have domes on top, or even on both top and bottom. Other UFOs
look like flattened ovals, or airplane fuselages without wings or tails. The
best that can be said is what they don't look like. And that is like anything
familiar. There appear to be widely differing sizes of UFOs. Some discs may be
as small as a few feet across, while more common ones are around 50 feet. The
cylindrical ones are the largest, with estimates ranging upwards from 1,000 feet
in length.
No one knows. Reports of UFO-like sights can be traced back into the
middle of the 19th Century and earlier. It is even possible to interpret
passages in the Bible as UFO-related. But there is no way to investigate and get
additional information on such reports, since the witnesses are long gone. Such
reports are interesting, but not scientifically useful.
It would be
interesting to know when the first UFO sighting was made, but there is no way to
find out. It is possible that "Ezekiel's wheel", as described in the Old
Testament, was a UFO, but there is no way to check it out. Ezekiel is long gone,
as are any other witnesses, and precise records are not available from that
time, so it will have to remain just an interesting possibility. In the
mid-1800's, sea-faring men frequently reported strange sky sights which became
known as "remarkable meteors" because they sometimes made right-angle turns or
stopped dead in the sky and then sped away! Were they UFOs? They certainly
weren't meteors.
In 1896 and 1897 there was a great flurry of sightings
of what became known as "mystery airships". They were long, like dirigibles, and
some were said to have short wings or sails or even groups of men pulling oars!
Many of the reports were probably invented by newspaper reporters, an act that
would get them fired today. It is also possible that there were some genuine
UFOs mixed in with a lot of foolishness and excessive excitement on the part of
observers. UFOs were reported sporadically through the first four decades of the
20th Century, before things really got hot with the start of the Second World
War. They have yet to cool down.
In late 1944,
following a gradual build-up of activity, "foo-fighters" were reported in large
numbers. Pilots of American and British bombers and night fighters over occupied
At about the same time in the Pacific Theater of War, American bombers
were followed for hours by bright lights that eventually turned away. Military
officials said they were Japanese suicide planes, and that is how they show up
in official mission reports. But suicide planes never flew at night, and they
never followed our bombers for long periods of time without doing anything. The
war ended with hundreds of reports still unexplained.
In a few
weeks during the autumn of 1946 there were at least 1,500 reports of cylindrical
or "spindle-shaped" objects flying over
Americans
became aware of what were then called "flying discs" on
Not
many people took the discs seriously. They figured they were either some secret
new kind of military airplanes, or else sheer imagination. If they had known how
seriously the Army Air Forces were taking them, they would have been surprised.
But all the government studies remained secret for years. Including one that
concluded, "This 'flying saucer' situation is not all imaginary or seeing too
much in some natural phenomena. Something is really flying
around."
It is certainly possible, but it hasn't been proven. Supporting this idea are the shapes of reported UFOs, which make little sense in light of our knowledge of how things fly; and the reported behavior of UFOs (violent maneuvers, silent high-speed flight, extreme acceleration). Opposing this idea are the lack of proof that any form of life exists outside the Earth, and the extreme distance from the nearest star to Earth.
This is the number-one question when it comes to UFOs, and we still aren't close to an answer. But there are hundreds of unexplained reports of people having seen strange-looking vehicles at close range, and then watched them perform maneuvers that are impossible for today's finest aircraft, let alone those from 50 years ago. Added to this is the suspicious behavior of the U.S. Air Force which reacts to talk of UFOs like it has something important to hide.
It is this lack of a firm "yes" or "no" that fuels the continued search
for alien life in outer space and alien life on or near the
Earth.
No one knows. The U. S. Air Force collected 12,500 reports. The UFO
Catalog kept by the private Center for UFO Studies lists 50,000. It is well
established that only about 10% of all UFO sightings are ever reported, mainly
because people are afraid of being laughed at.
There are "UFO
sightings", there are "UFO reports", and finally there are "UFOs". The number of
sightings could be in the millions. The number of sightings reported to someone
is probably around 50-to-60,000. And the number of those reports that turn out
to be about truly unidentified flying objects is certainly in the thousands.
Those are the ones that matter, because they could be alien craft, or some
previously unknown form of natural phenomena, or just about anything. They
constitute the mystery. As long as there is a genuine mystery, there is a chance
of something important being discovered.
No one knows. What are called alien abductions are reports that people
have been taken away during the night for a short period by odd-looking beings,
subjected to what sounds like unfamiliar medical procedures, and then returned
to where they started. Efforts to explain these reports as psychological
problems, attempts to get attention, etc. have not yet explained what people
continue to report from all over the world.
This is easily the most
peculiar aspect of the whole UFO mystery. It is outlandish, it is preposterous,
it is bizarre. And it may actually be real. There have been thousands of reports
from people all around the world who report complicated, strange experiences
that are very much alike. Attempts to explain them have all come up wanting.
Victims of whatever "alien abduction" means, remain puzzled, angry and scared.
They feel they have been mistreated and robbed of control over their lives. They
aren't sure what is happening to them, but they know they want it to stop. With
few exceptions, "abductees" thoroughly dislike their
experiences.
Explanations generally come from unqualified people: lecturers,
self-appointed experts and scientists who specialize in unrelated fields. Those
who take the subject seriously don't seem to have any answers,
According to those who insist they have seen aliens, most of them are short and skinny, with big heads and huge, black eyes, and almost no nose or ears. They are said to have wrinkled, greyish skin. They generally resemble the small beings seen near landed UFOs in the 1960's and 1970's.
Those reported by "abductees" are of several different sizes and shapes. The most common are said to be "small greys" - 3.5 to 4 feet tall, with very large heads and skinny bodies covered with wrinkled, greyish skin, and with large black wrap-around eyes, and almost no nose, mouth or ears. Others include larger, more human-looking greys; some that look entirely human, and some that look like lizards.
There is as yet no way to know how accurate any of these descriptions is,
nor if different races are present.
Almost certainly not. There are too many things wrong with the movie, and
the owner refused to answer most of the questions put to him by investigators.
The body doesn't look like any "alien" ever reported, and the man doing the
autopsy failed to treat the body as something of great scientific
value.
There is no absolute proof that the movie was faked, but most of the
evidence points in that direction. If this had actually been a film of a major
historic event, there should have been a more professional laboratory setting,
the cameraman should not have been so amateurish, color film should have been
used, and there should have also been a still cameraman evident.
One expert in such matters, consulted by the Fund, referred to the
material removed from the chest cavity as "stuffing" and suggested the film
looked like it had been made by drunken medical students,
As yet there has been no reasonable explanation for the film having
escaped from the military security system, as one would expect for something as
significant as this is claimed to be. In fact, almost nothing is known about the
origins of the film, which make the whole thing quite suspicious.
Yes and no. The Air Force had an official UFO investigation from 1948 to
1969 (Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book), and collected more than 12,500
reports. It claims to have explained all but about 600 of them, but the facts of
most of those reports strongly suggest that something important was
seen.
As so many of these were made by military and airline pilots, and
other unexplained sightings involved radar tracking, they are the heart of the
matter. Hundreds of other reports in the official files are alleged to have been
explained, but are full of unscientific and illogical reasoning.
If so
many cases are admittedly unexplained, they cannot be used to support any
conclusions, as the nature and origins of unexplained cases are, by definition,
unknown. If you add those cases that are only "possibly" explained, the total
lacking convincing explanations tops 50%, which strongly suggests that the
official investigation was a failure.
Almost
certainly. Several first-hand witnesses have described very unusual wreckage
found at a sheep ranch northwest of
The Air Force
keeps trying to explain what crashed at
A World War
II veteran intelligence officer, Maj. Jesse Marcel, was among the first to
arrive at the scene and he later said that every scrap of wreckage he saw was
unfamiliar. No bolts, no nuts, no washers, no rivets, no clamps, no connectors,
no hinges or anything else found on known devices. He also said that the most
common type of wreckage was very thin and very light material that looked like
metal foil, but was impossibly strong. His young son, later a physician and Army
Reserve helicopter pilot, confirmed this and added that he saw thin I-beams that
had raised pinkish-purple symbols on their webs that looked like no known
language or alphabet.
In its response to an investigation by the
government's General Accounting Office (GAO), the Air Force said what crashed
was definitely not an aircraft, a missile or anything connected to nuclear
weapons. The GAO then concluded that "the debate over what crashed at
No. Several
people have claimed to have pieces, but nothing has yet been seen and tested
that has been proven to be non-Earthly. There is still a chance that some of the
people involved in recovering the remains of the
They
apparently do. There are a lot of rumors and vague reports of them landing, but
only a few cases which have withstood intensive investigation. One of the most
impressive was on
Whether or not UFOs land is really up to those who operate them, if
indeed they are vehicles as they appear. Some UFOs may not be designed to land.
Those in charge of other UFOs may not want to land. Some may land in order to
make repairs. There is no way to tell. But there almost certainly have been
observed landings, even if we don't know why they landed.
17. Why are
UFOs only reported by uneducated farmers in places you've never heard
of?
They aren't.
A study by the U.S. Air Force showed that the most puzzling UFO reports came
from people who had the best technical backgrounds. They are reported from
everyplace where there are people, though fewer are seen from big cities because
less of the sky is visible.
People in rural areas may see more UFOs
because they can see more of the sky and because they may look at the sky more
often. Big city people have a poor view of the sky, and they are usually too
busy to look up. Generally speaking, UFOs are seen by people who happen to be in
the right place at the right time.
First, watch
carefully to see if you can identify what you first thought might be a UFO. If
you can't, then carefully note the time of day, the length of time you watched
it, the shape and color of the UFO, what it did and how you lost sight of it.
Then you should report it to someone who can study it and arrange to have
it investigated. That's the way you'll find out what it was...maybe.
It
will probably be a waste of your time to contact any branch of the Armed
Services, your local police, your local airport, a university, an observatory, a
TV station, a radio station or a newspaper.
19. Have UFOs ever been tracked on
radar?
There are
about three dozen radar cases among the admittedly unexplained reports in the U.
S. Air Force files, and many more which are only claimed to have been explained.
Very few radar cases have been reported in the past 20 years, because almost all
radars are operated by governments, and anything they detect can easily be kept
secret.
Radar/visual sightings are considered about the most impressive
kind of UFO reports, and the hardest to explain as ordinary sights. Probably the
most famous radar/visual cases happened in 1952, over and around
The Air Force
tried to convince everyone that nothing more exciting than mirages were seen and
tracked, but this violates well established scientific theory. In fact, one of
the two night of sightings is permanently listed as "unexplained" in the
official files of Project Blue Book. Its possible to fool radar into thinking
certain kinds of weather is really something flying around. But what was seen
and tracked in 1952 couldn't be explained that way.
No one outside the Government knows if information is still being kept
secret, let alone what it might be. Possible reasons for withholding information
may include a lack of full understanding of UFOs, a need to try to make use of
UFO technology for military purposes, and a lack of agreement among government
people on how the information should be released.
Before the up-dated
Freedom of Information Act was passed by Congress in 1975, the Air Force
insisted it had released every scrap of unclassified UFO-related documents. Then
UFO researchers started getting copies of declassified UFO documents that had
been sitting around for years, which proved the Government had been lying about
not withholding unclassified information. Several thousand pages of
once-classified material have now been released, and more show up every so
often. Based on its previous behavior, the Government is almost certainly
holding back more.
Most of the documents that have been released aren't
very interesting...just routine paperwork. Every once in awhile, something
manages to slip through that sheds a little light on what has gone on behind
closed doors. Fortunately, there are UFO researchers willing to spend time
studying each document to see if there is anything important in it.
When aliens do land (if they haven't already), they will do what they
feel like doing. If they want to meet with scientists or politicians, they will.
If they want to meet with ordinary people, then they'll probably do that. And if
they want to go about their business as quietly as possible, they'll try not to
meet up with anyone. The truth is, we have no idea why aliens will visit Earth,
or why they may already have. They may be explorers and adventurers, like the
astronauts we someday will send to distant inhabited worlds. On the other hand,
they may come here for entirely different reasons.
We can't expect aliens to act like us. We have to face facts: we know
absolutely nothing about how a single alien thinks. Just because almost all the
aliens described by claimed witnesses are generally human-shaped (and are thus
called humanoids) doesn't mean their brains are like ours. Or their kidneys or
their livers, if they even have such internal organs. Even if they come from the
same original stock as we do, their lives have been so different that they
probably won't seem like far distant relatives.
Until we have a lot of direct, meaningful communication with aliens, we
won't know very much about them.
Not in private hands. There are a very few UFO photographs that have
withstood serious scientific analysis and remained impressive, but they don't
tell us much. Most so-called UFO photographs show nothing more than dots or
specs or blobs of light, and lack enough information to permit
analysis.
The best photos are those that are connected to a good visual sighting,
one that would stand without a photo. The worst are photos of "objects" that
appeared on a photographic print, even though neither the photographer nor
anyone else saw anything when the photo was shot. These are almost always flaws
in the emulsion or lens flares.
No one knows. If there are any clues to their origins, they have not yet
been recognized.
Scientists estimate there could be as many as a billion
Earth-size planets in the universe, which means an alien's zip code could
require nine digits just to identify its planet.
Betty Hill, one of the
first believable "abductees", described a star map she said she saw on board a
UFO. It was later suggested that the stars in it could be identified, but far
more work remains to be done, as it's possible there are a lot of other star
groupings that resemble Betty's amateurish map.
We will almost certainly
have to wait for confirmed communication with aliens to find out where they come
from.
There is no evidence that any of these things exists, though some may be
mathematically possible. To try to explain one mystery with another mystery is
sure to increase the confusion, not clear it up. It's best to keep science and
fiction separate, and not to let wishful thinking get in the way of carefully
weighing the pros and cons of each suggested
explanation.
Yes. Some that have been seen recently could be secret airplanes still
being tested, but only if they were seen in areas where such tests are made.
Secret airplanes are never flown low over cities where they could be seen. UFOs
reported 10 or more years ago were almost certainly not secret airplanes,
because airplanes are almost never kept secret that long. We know all about
airplanes that were secret in the 1940's and 1950's and
1960's.
It is possible that some of today's highly classified experimental
military aircraft have one or more characteristics of UFOs, including silent
high-speed flight, amazing maneuverability and extreme acceleration. But that
doesn't explain UFOs with such performance that were seen as much as 50 years
ago. Flying a round airplane today won't explain UFOs, unless that airplane can
perform like a UFO. The idea that some country has had super airplanes for 40 or
50 years makes no sense, as there have been lots of opportunities to use such
airplanes to stop or win wars and save lives. Wars can even be prevented from
starting by revealing super weapons to a possible enemy and convincing him that
he can't win.
Some enthusiasts suggest we are flying advanced stealth airplanes that
are being mis-identified as UFOs. It would require huge advances in science and
technology to produce stealth airplanes that are not only invisible to radar and
infra-red detection, but are silent and can fly so slowly that not enough air
would flow over their wings to keep them aloft. If we had such super aircraft,
we wouldn't fly them over cities if we were trying to keep them secret. Finally,
to have spent trillions of dollars to design, build and test such super
airplanes and then not use them could lead to not just the usual grumbling by
the taxpayers, but to a genuine revolt.
Yes, but rarely for more than a few days. There have been many brief,
localized sighting waves. But they soon end, and the center of the action moves
somewhere else. There is no known way to figure out where they will be seen
next. Usually what appears to be long-term localized activity turns out to be
the result of increased interest and increased eagerness to mistake ordinary
sights as UFOs.
Yes. They have been seen wherever there are people. Every continent has
had its share, as has almost every country, though local interest plays a role
in the apparent level of activity. Wherever there is someone interested in
searching out UFO reports, they will be found, but that doesn't mean the
investigator lives in a center of activity.
28. What is Area 51?
It
is said to be part of the enormous and very secret government proving grounds
north of
29. What is Hangar 18?
It
is a building on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, outside
Leonard
Stringfield made a specialty of collecting reports and rumors of UFO crashes and
retrievals, and found that almost all the stories of people seeing crashed craft
and alien bodies in storage pointed toward Wright-Patterson AFB. No one in the
Government will admit that there ever was a hangar 18, but a lot of men who were
stationed there have testified to it, and so there must be something to it. Even
a former Commanding Officer of the base, Brig. Gen. Arthur Exon, said he heard a
lot of rumors about alien craft and bodies being stored at his base. He then
admitted he couldn't find out if the rumors were true, because he didn't have "a
need to know" this very secret information in order to do his job. If the Air
Force wanted to create a mystery about Hangar 18, it could not have done a
better job.
It is said to be a super-secret operation, set up in 1947, to study the
remains of crashed UFOs and alien bodies, and to keep it completely secret. Even
though a lot of effort has gone into investigating this, no one has yet come up
with any solid evidence that MJ-12 (or Majic-12 or Majestic-12) ever
existed.
It started with a roll of film mailed anonymously to an
associate of investigator Bill Moore in 1984, which showed a document said to be
a 1952 briefing paper for Dwight Eisenhower who had just been elected President.
MJ-12 was said to be the most secret group in the USA, formed in 1947 by
President Harry Truman to study the Roswell wreckage (see FAQ #14) and to keep
it totally secret. In 1993, a roll of film was sent anonymously to Don Berliner,
showing what was claimed to be an MJ-12 field manual for GIs engaged in
recovering crashed saucers.
Both of these documents, along with others,
have been studied and studied and studied. And still we don't know if they are
genuine or hoaxes. Many of the claims that they are faked have been shown to be
wrong, but that doesn't mean the documents are real. Arguments about MJ-12 often
get very hot, which hurts the effort to find out the
truth.
This is highly doubtful, even though the Central Intelligence Agency
claimed this in 1997. Both types of airplanes cruise too high to be seen from
the ground, and they are totally unable to perform the kind of violent maneuvers
which are a hallmark of UFOs.
When the CIA claimed that spyplanes were responsible for thousands of UFO
reports from 1955 to 1970, it had to invent the whole story, as the idea makes
no sense. It said there had been a sudden increase in UFO reports immediately
after the first test flight of a U-2. In truth, the Project Blue Book files show
there was a marked decrease in reports right after that flight. The CIA then
said it had conspired with the Blue Book staff to conceal these thousands of
alleged sightings of spyplanes by "explaining" them as obscure forms of
atmospheric phenomena. A check of the files shows only a handful of reports
explained that way, and some of them are explained wrong.
Unless the CIA people responsible for this nonsense are really stupid,
the only other obvious possibility is that they are
liars.
Some
scientists are, but most of them prefer to keep their interest quiet because
they are concerned that their fellow scientists may not take them seriously. Men
like the late Dr. Donald Menzel, a Harvard astronomer, loudly ridiculed anyone
who showed interest in UFOs, and this discouraged other scientists from speaking
out. Nevertheless,
33.
Is there any connection between UFOs and other scientific mysteries such as Big
Foot, the
There may be, but it has
yet to be demonstrated. They remain separate mysteries which are deserving of
serious scientific study.
34. Is the
Probably. Earlier claims that all UFO information had been released were
shown to be incorrect, and some agencies such as the CIA have admitted holding
back UFO-related material, claiming that releasing it would harm national
security.
There are many stories about UFOs being seen in orbit and on the Moon,
but no astronaut has admitted to having seen more than an occasional odd sight
that could not immediately be explained.
36. What was the "Great Airship Wave
of 1896-97"?
There were
hundreds of reports of blimp-like craft flying over many parts of the
37. What are "EM"
cases?
They are UFO
reports involving "Electro-Magnetic" effects, in which a car's engine,
headlights and radio stopped working when a glowing UFO was in sight, and then
resumed working as soon as the UFO flew away. The first of these was a group of
at least eight EM cases around one
38. Why hasn't Congress ever looked
into the UFO mystery?
It is a controversial subject over which few elected officials are about
to risk their reputations. Several Congressional committees have spent a few
hours, each, questioning military and scientific experts, but nothing has come
of it.
39. Have any Presidents shown interest in UFOs?
Jimmy Carter, when he was Governor of Georgia, reported a UFO sighting to
a private organization. When he was running for President, he said he would try
to have all UFO information released. But after he was elected, he showed no
interest. Gerald Ford, when he was a Congressman, took a public stand in favor
of an improved investigation of UFOs, but his interest vanished as soon as he
became President.
40. Have any UFO-shaped airplanes flown?
Yes, but only at low speed and without the amazing maneuverability shown
by UFOs. The most common shapes of UFOs make little sense for
airplanes.
41. Could some UFOs be foreign airplanes?
It's
possible, but it makes almost no sense. If any foreign country flew its
airplanes over the
There may be such a face on Mars, but there is no reason to think it has
anything to do with UFOs.
43. What is a UFO flap?
A flap is a brief period of intensive, widespread activity, both in UFO
sightings and in public interest. There have been American flaps in 1947, 1952,
1957, 1965, 1966 and 1973. There have been British flaps in 1967, French in
1954, Belgian in 1990 and Russian in 1991. When there is a lot of interest and
activity, but not enough to qualify as a flap, it is called a flurry or wave,
and may be highly localized.
44. What are Close Encounters?
The term was coined by the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who spent many years as a consultant to the U.S. Air Force investigation of UFOs, and then founded the Center for UFO Studies in 1973. There are several types of Close Encounters:
The First Kind (CE-I) - a UFO seen within 500 feet of the observer.
The Second Kind (CE-II) - a CE-I which involved physical effects to the observer(s) and/or to the environment. This can include such things as heat felt by a witness, and impressions left in the ground.
The Third Kind (CE-III) - a CE-I in which the presumed occupants are seen near the UFO. The title of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind was suggested by Dr. Hynek.
A Fourth Kind was later added: CE-IV, which is an alleged abduction.
45. What was Project Blue Book?
The U.S. Air Force had a publicly-known UFO investigation from 1948
through 1969. It was first called Project Sign, then Project Grudge, and
finally, starting in 1952, Project Blue Book. Following the end of Blue Book in
December, 1969, the files were first shipped to the Air Force Archives and then
to the U.S. National Archives in Washington, DC. In 1976 they were made
available to the public on microfilm, though the names and identifications of
all witnesses were blacked out. In 1998, an uncensored set of microfilms of the
case files were discovered, and made available to researchers and the press by
the Fund for UFO Research.
Adapted from Watch the Skies, Curtis Peebles, Berkeley, New York (1995) ISBN 0-425-15117-4
Period |
UFOs |
Aliens |
Government |
1947 |
|
||
1948-49 |
|
The Air Force may know more than it is saying. | |
1950-51 |
|
Here to observe human activities such as nuclear testing, which they may consider a threat. |
Knows the truth and is covering it up, to prevent panic. May have recovered crashed saucers and alien bodies. |
1952 |
|
Here to observe human activities such as nuclear testing, which they may consider a threat. |
Knows the truth and is covering it up, to prevent panic. Has not recovered crashed saucers or alien bodies |
1953-56 |
High-speed, ultra-maneuverable disk-shaped alien craft have been observed for centuries, and picked up on radar. |
Here to observe human activities such as nuclear testing, which they may consider a threat. Have contacted some humans, expressing concern for the future of the human race. |
Knows the truth and is covering it up, to prevent panic. "Men in Black" enforce the cover-up by means of coercion and violence. |
1957-63 |
High-speed, ultra-maneuverable disk-shaped alien craft have been observed for centuries, if not millenia, and picked up on radar. Sightings by reliable witnesses prove their extraterrestrial nature. Magnetically stop cars and cause sunburn. |
Here to observe human activities such as nuclear testing. May have contacted some humans with messages of peace and brotherhood with the intent of avoiding mankind's self-destruction. |
Knows the truth and is covering it up, to prevent panic. The Air Force has smeared reliable witnesses. "Men in Black" enforce the cover-up by means of coercion and violence. |
1964-72 |
|
Here to observe human activity and to save mankind from nuclear destruction. Have contacted some people, taking some aboard UFOs for medical examination and perhaps breeding experiments. May be mutilating cattle. |
The Air Force has fouled up their investigation of UFOs and is covering up their existence, in collusion with the CIA. "Men in Black" enforce the cover-up by means of coercion and violence. |
1973-79 |
|
Have been seen in or near flying saucers. Mutilate animals. Interested in human activity. Some people taken aboard UFOs for medical examinations. |
Knows flying saucers are real, has proof and is covering it up, to prevent panic. Cover-up directed by CIA |
1980-86 |
High-speed, ultra-maneuverable disk-shaped alien craft have been observed for thousands of years. Undertaking reconnaissance of Earth. Draw power from electrical lines and stop cars. Have landed, leaving pad prints and other traces. |
|
Has recovered crashed flying saucers and dead crewmen. Has test-flown rebuilt flying saucers and copied their technology. Cover-up, and slandering and intimidation of witnesses, led by CIA. |
1987-93 |
High-speed, ultra-maneuverable disk-shaped alien craft have been observed for thousands of years. Have landed, leaving pad prints, caused black-outs and stopped cars. Have crashed, leaving debris and both dead and live aliens. |
"Greys" are short and thin with large, bald heads. Weak and sickly, suffering from genetic disorders. Abduct humans and extract sperm and ova to produce hybrids. Erase memories and implant nasal devices. Mutilate cattle for enzymes. |
|