By the way, the question to the author of the topic: instead of UFOs, did you mean Alien ships? …
Because in the UFO is not what we believe, they even are - it’s just unidentified years. object)) and you never know who unidentified …
But the question will be more correct for them to pose precisely using formulations about alien civilizations.

I have been fascinated by the UFO phenomenon ever since I was a child. Over the years, I have spent a lot of time studying this subject, reading books, digging through old reports, following credible researchers, and sifting through a large amount of noise and disinformation. Through all that, I have managed to form a set of core opinions about UFOs and related topics.

1. Although the vast majority of UFO sightings can be explained by ordinary causes, there is a small percentage of cases that remain unexplained even after serious investigation. The most reasonable explanation for these specific cases is that they involve spacecraft from other planets.
2. Based on the variety of UFO shapes, as well as the different types of beings reported near landed UFOs by witnesses, it is reasonable to conclude that multiple alien species are visiting Earth. Each species operates its own kind of craft.
3. Since there is no evidence of hostile actions against humans, the best explanation for alien visitation to Earth is that the aliens are here with the goal of monitoring humanity and studying its long-term development.
4. Although some UFOs are probably extraterrestrial spacecraft, there is no solid evidence that any of them have ever crashed on Earth. The Roswell incident, along with other supposed UFO crashes like Aztec, Kingman, and Kecksburg, can all be explained in conventional terms. In most cases, like Aztec and Kingman, the stories were completely made up. In others, like Roswell and Kecksburg, what actually happened was likely the crash of classified man-made vehicles.
5. The counter-intelligence branch of the U.S. Air Force has actively encouraged the spread of crash-retrieval stories, especially during the 1950s and the 1980s, as part of disinformation campaigns aimed at creating confusion among the public and undermining the credibility of serious UFO research. There is good evidence suggesting that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations was heavily involved in creating and spreading the whole Roswell/MJ-12 mythology, as well as pushing Frank Scully’s Aztec crashed saucer story.
6. Since no alien spacecraft has ever crashed on Earth, no alien bodies have ever been recovered, whether at Roswell or anywhere else. All the stories about aliens being captured, held by the U.S. government, and interrogated are the result of hoaxes and deliberate disinformation, much of which was actively promoted by Air Force counter-intelligence during the 1980s.
7. The U.S. government is not in possession of extraterrestrial technology. All the stories about recovered alien craft stored in secret hangars, alien bodies being studied in underground laboratories, and reverse-engineering programs are either the result of hoaxes or deliberate disinformation, much of which was deliberately spread by Air Force counter-intelligence during the 1980s and 1990s. In more recent years, these stories have been kept alive and amplified by fake whistleblowers who offer no real evidence and simply recycle long-debunked rumors for attention or agenda-driven purposes.
8. There has never been any secret treaty between extraterrestrials and any government on Earth. The idea that aliens have negotiated with world powers in exchange for resources or permission to abduct humans is not supported by evidence. Aliens have never established contact with any government.
9. Alien abductions are an Earth-based phenomenon. The vast majority of abduction experiences can be explained through psychological mechanisms such as sleep paralysis, false memory formation, or cultural influence. The remaining percentage of reports can be plausibly attributed to covert human experimentation involving mind-control technologies, similar to those studied in the MK-Ultra program.
10. Cattle mutilations are an Earth-based phenomenon. The vast majority of cattle mutilations are caused by natural processes such as predation, disease, or environmental factors like insect activity. The remaining fraction of cases may involve covert human experimentation, possibly for biological or environmental monitoring purposes.
11. There are no alien bases hidden beneath the Earth or under the oceans. Stories about underground alien installations in places like Dulce, New Mexico, or underwater alien structures in remote parts of the ocean are based on hearsay or deliberate hoaxes. No verifiable evidence has ever been presented to support the existence of such facilities.
12. There has never been any credible contactee. None of those who have claimed to be in regular contact with aliens from Venus, the Pleiades, Sirius, Arcturus, Lyra, or elsewhere has ever provided credible evidence to support their story.
13. In some cases, during a UFO sighting, witnesses have reported hearing voices in their heads saying things like “We will not harm you” or “Stay where you are.” These cases are not fabrications. However, there is no spiritual or natural component to these interactions. Rather, they are simply the result of advanced alien technology interacting with the human brain. Telepathy is not an intrinsic characteristic of alien biology and has no metaphysical cause; instead, it is enabled through the use of advanced technology.
14. The Ancient Astronaut Theory is incorrect. Ancient civilizations developed entirely on their own, through human ingenuity, observation, and effort. There is no credible evidence that aliens intervened in the construction of ancient monuments or guided the development of early societies.
15. The gods described in mythology were not visitors from space; they were imaginary characters created by humans to explain natural forces. Those who interpret ancient legends as evidence of extraterrestrial intervention in ancient history are simply engaging in retroactive reasoning, projecting contemporary concepts onto ancient cultures.
16. Even though there is no evidence that extraterrestrials established direct contact with ancient human civilizations, it is still plausible that alien visitations took place in the distant past. For example, some of the strange flying objects reported in ancient times, such as the so-called “flaming shields” seen by the Romans, might have actually been extraterrestrial craft. That said, any alien visitation to Earth back then was probably much less frequent and much more discreet compared to what seems to have happened since 1947.

Here there is an excellent video that offers a convincing natural explanation for the famous “UFO Battle of Nuremberg of 1561”, which many ufologists and supporters of the Ancient Astronaut Theory claim to be evidence of the presence of extraterrestrial spaceships in Earth’s skies in ancient times:

https://youtu.be/_-7W9mZGFQo?si=1UDuFzTVmSWEHkLf

I’m not opposed to the idea of ancient battles between alien fleets. In fact, one idea I find particularly fascinating is the possibility that the giant impact crater near Chicxulub, Mexico — the one most scientists believe was caused by an asteroid impact and is linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs — might actually have an extraterrestrial origin.

According to a hypothesis I came across online several years ago, that crater could be the result of a massive orbital battle between two alien civilizations that took place around 65 million years ago. The idea is that during this ancient conflict, the flagship of one of the fleets fired a powerful weapon at the flagship of the opposing fleet, but the shot missed and ended up striking Earth instead. The impact of that weapon would have been what caused the massive destruction and led to the extinction event. Of course, this is pure speculation, there’s no real evidence to support it, but I think it’s a really interesting hypothesis, and I’m willing to entertain it.

However, even though I don’t reject the idea of ancient alien battles in Earth’s skies and low orbit, I’ve always been very skeptical about the Nuremberg case. And since the explanation offered in this video makes way more sense to me, I’m more than happy to share it. Enjoy!

Channel72 said:

The dinosaurs were likely wiped out by the asteroid that hit the Yucatan peninsula. I mean, while not all paleontologists agree, there’s something of a consensus about this, and the Chicxulub crater is large enough and dates to the correct time period to explain the extinction of all (non-avian) dinosaurs. Speculating about some alien laser battle in the skies seems ridiculous.

Why are you being so antagonistic? I never tried to present my hypothesis about the accidental hit of an alien weapon in the context of an orbital war between two different alien species as an historical fact. It’s just a fascinating hypothesis that I think is realistic and that I like to speculate on. And I personally think that it is not ridiculous at all. None of the proponents of the asteroid impact theory were in Chicxulub 65 million years ago, nor was I. All we know is that something hit the Earth, caused a huge crater, and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Why are so many people against speculation, even when it is openly presented as speculation and not as objective fact?

Also, while aliens probably exist somewhere, evidence of alien visitations to Earth from ancient sources is likely all 100% bullshit. The ancients had all kinds of interesting ideas and mythologies surrounding gods, demi-gods, angels and other supernatural beings, and ancient artists and writers depicting weird shit happening in the sky were probably inspired by that kind of stuff rather than actual alien visitations. Consider the bat-shit crazy description of a divine or angelic being in the Biblical book of Ezekiel. The description includes things like spinning crystal wheels, wings, fire, lightning, a crystal dome and multiple “eyes”. It’s easy to read something like a spaceship or whatever into that description, but in reality Ezekiel was probably just high on opium one day, and drew from various imagery inspired by things he was familiar with, like chariot wheels and other ancient equipment.

If you had read what I wrote in my previous post, where I extensively expressed all my opinions regarding the UFO phenomenon and related topics, you would know that I spoke unfavorably about the Ancient Astronaut Theory. I consider this theory to be heavily flawed, and based on scant or entirely non-existent evidence. However, I think it is important to make a distinction between the Ancient Astronaut Theory and Clipeology, because they are not the same thing.

The Ancient Astronaut Theory attempts to reinterpret sacred texts from various cultures, suggesting that the gods worshipped by these ancient civilizations were actually extraterrestrial beings who descended from the sky. According to this theory, these aliens supposedly taught ancient civilizations about astronomy, medicine and agriculture, built the megalithic structures we still see today, and performed other acts that the ancient civilizations attributed to divine intervention. Clipeology, on the other hand, is simply the study of unidentified flying objects in ancient history. Typically, clipeologists don’t rely on sacred texts or myths to identify UFO sightings from the distant past. Instead, they focus on historical texts, such as the works of historians like Josephus Flavius and others, as well as the writings and diaries of emperors, kings, soldiers and sailors. They look for references to strange flying objects in the sky within these sources. In this sense, Clipeology doesn’t take mythology as fact, and has no direct connection to the Ancient Astronaut Theory. Clipeology is more about examining historical records for possible evidence of UFO sightings in ancient times, rather than reinterpreting religious or mythological texts. Therefore, what you said about the Ezekiel account from the Bible is applicable to the ancient astronaut theorists, but not to clipeologists. Clipeologists are perfectly aware of the difference between mythological accounts and historical records, and they look for evidence only in historical records.

I am quite convinced that extraterrestrial spacecraft were sighted in ancient times, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. However, I have never supported the idea that aliens made direct contact with ancient civilizations, provided them with knowledge they didn’t possess, or built the ancient megalithic monuments we see today. Furthermore, I have never claimed that descriptions of flying chariots in some ancient texts were references to extraterrestrial spacecraft. Like clipeologists, I recognize the difference between mythology and history, and I never take mythology as factual. In fact, I argue that most biblical accounts are historically inaccurate.

Channel72 said:

I didn’t mean to come off as antagonistic. Just saying the asteroid theory is the scientific consensus at the moment. True, no paleontologist was alive 65 million years ago, but all paleontology requires using the scientific method to extrapolate from archaeological evidence and arrive at the most likely conclusion. Currently, the consensus among paleontologists (who study this for a living) is that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. Of course this consensus could be wrong, but at the moment it’s the best explanation given the available evidence.

The reason I say the alien war thing is ridiculous is because we already have a perfectly reasonable explanation backed up by geological evidence and radio-carbon dating. There’s a huge crater in Mexico that dates to the correct time. Plus, any extraordinary claim should require extraordinary evidence. Asteroid impacts are not really extraordinary. They happen quite often over geological time scales, so there’s nothing particularly weird or extraordinary about it, unlike an alien space war. So the Chicxulub impact is simply the best explanation. Again, obviously it’s possible that something else happened and paleontologists are wrong, but currently there’s just no compelling reason to believe so.

The asteroid impact theory is probably the right explanation, but it doesn’t mean it is the only explanation. I am aware of the fact that my hypothesis is pure speculation and has no concrete evidence, but I presented it as speculation and as a mere hypothesis from the very beginning. I never tried to demonstrate its correctness, it is just a fascinating hypothesis I like to speculate on,

Anyway, what do you think is the most convincing evidence that somebody observed an alien spacecraft back then?

I appreciate your curiosity, but I have to admit, I’m not really an expert in this area. My interests and knowledge are more focused on modern UFO sightings that gave been reported from 1947 onwards. I haven’t really dived deep into the study of Clipeology, so my insights here are pretty limited. That said, while my focus has been on more recent sightings, I do know of some interesting references from ancient history that might point to sightings of extraterrestrial spacecraft. For example, the Romans documented the appearance of what they called “fiery shields” or “clypei ardentes”. Historians like Livy and Pliny the Elder wrote about these events, and they seemed extraordinary and hard to explain with the knowledge of their time. Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita talks about glowing orbs or shields moving across the sky. Similarly, Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, also describes cases where unusual lights and objects appeared in the heavens, often causing a lot of fear among those who saw them.

BedeHistory731 said:

I’m just happy you’re not citing Erich Von Däniken’s legitimately racist garbage.

I did not reference Erich von Däniken because, as I have explained in detail in a previous post within this thread, I do not support the Ancient Astronaut theory. While I consider it possible that some anomalous aerial phenomena observed in ancient times — such as the so-called “fiery shields” described by the Romans — might have been spacecraft or probes of extraterrestrial origin, I do not believe that extraterrestrials made direct contact with ancient civilizations, taught them astronomy and mathematics, and were worshiped as gods. Furthermore, I believe that alien visitation to earth started to become regular only from the end of the 19th century onwards, and that ancient visitations were quite rare, perhaps occurring only once every century or so. Since there was no direct contact between ancient civilizations and extraterrestrials, the “Chariots of the Gods” should not be interpreted as genuine alien craft.

The Case for the Extraterrestrial Origin of Flying Saucers

by Stanton T. Friedman, 2008

One of the standard claims of UFO debunkers is that there is no evidence that any unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft. After all, they say, we have only anecdotes, usually from uneducated people looking for publicity. No scientists have seen UFOs; there are no radar cases; there is no physical evidence; governments can’t keep secrets; all that crash-landed at Roswell was an array of Mogul balloons; so on and so forth. As it happens, all of these claims are false. This chapter will replace these myths with the facts. I start all of my Flying Saucers ARE Real lectures with these four conclusions, which I’ve reached after more than 50 years of study and investigation:

1. The evidence that planet Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft is overwhelming. In other words, some UFOs are ET spacecraft. Most are not—I don’t care about them.
2. The subject of flying saucers represents a kind of Cosmic Watergate. That means that some few people in our government have known since at least 1947, when at least two crashed flying saucers and several alien bodies were recovered in New Mexico, that indeed some UFOs were alien spacecraft. This does not mean that everybody in the government knows. The way to keep secrets is to restrict their distribution to as few people as possible and stick by a strong need-to-know policy.
3. There are no good arguments against conclusions number 1 and 2, despite the very vocal claims of a small group of noisy negativists such as the late Carl Sagan, a classmate of mine for three years at the University of Chicago. The debunking claims sound great. However, once one examines the data, they collapse because of an absence of evidence to support them and the presence of evidence that contradicts them.
4. Flying saucers are the biggest story of the millennium: visits to planet Earth by alien spacecraft and the successful cover-up of the best data, bodies, and wreckage, for more than 60 years.

I will be focusing on evidence. I seldom use the term proof. Some people have insisted that if I can’t provide a piece of a saucer or an alien body, there is nothing to support my claims. I was quite surprised during my last visit with Carl Sagan in December 1992 when he claimed that the essence of the scientific method was reproducibility. In actuality, as I wrote Sagan later on, there are at least four different kinds of science:

1. Yes, there is a lot of excellent science done by people who set up an experiment in which they can control all the variables and equipment. They make measurements and then publish their results, after peer review, and describe their equipment, instruments, and activity in detail so that others can duplicate the work and, presumably, come to the same conclusions. Such science can be very satisfying and certainly can contribute to the advancement of knowledge. However, it is not the only kind of science.
2. A second kind of science involves situations in which one cannot control all the variables but can predict some. For example, I cannot prove that on occasion the moon comes directly between the sun and the Earth and casts a shadow of darkness on the Earth because I cannot control the positions of the Earth, moon, or sun. What can be done is predicting the times when such eclipses will happen and being ready to make observations when they occur. Hopefully, the weather where I have my instruments will allow me to make lots of measurements.
3. A third kind of science involves events that can neither be predicted nor controlled, but one can be ready to make measurements if something does happen. For example, an array of seismographs can be established to allow measurements to be made at several locations in the event of an earthquake. When I was at the University of Chicago, a block of nuclear emulsion was attached to a large balloon that would be released when a radiation detector indicated that a solar storm had occurred (something we could neither produce nor predict). Somebody would rush to Stagg Field and release the balloon. When the balloon was retrieved, the emulsion would be carefully examined to measure the number, direction, velocity, and mass characteristics of particles unleashed by the sun.
4. Finally, there is a fourth kind of science, still using the rules to attack difficult problems. These are the events that involve intelligence, such as airplane crashes, murders, rapes, and automobile accidents. We do not know when or where they will occur, but we do know they will. In a typical year, more than 40,000 Americans will be killed in automobile accidents. We don’t know where or when, so rarely are TV cameras whirling when these events take place. But we can, after the fact, collect and evaluate evidence. We can determine if the driver had high levels of alcohol in his or her blood, whether the brakes failed, whether the visibility was poor, where a skid started, and so on. Observations of strange phenomena in the sky come under this last category.

In all the category-4 events, we must obtain as much testimony from witnesses as possible. Some testimony is worth more than other testimony, perhaps because of the duration of observation, the nearness of the witnesses to the event, the specialized training of the observer, the availability of corroborative evidence such as videos and still photos, or the consistency of evidence when there is testimony from more than one witness. Our entire legal system is based on testimony—rarely is there conclusive proof such as DNA matching. Judges and juries must decide, with appropriate cross-examination, who is telling the truth. In some states, testimony from one witness can lead to the death penalty for the accused. We should take note of the fact that even instrument data is dependent on testimony from the observer of the instruments, and on appropriate calibration and validation under standardized circumstances. Also, our courts place limits on requirements for testimony, such as that against one spouse by the other. Furthermore, there are rules about hearsay testimony, and rules regarding legal evidence are complex and detailed.

When it comes to flying saucers, we must remember that the reason most sightings can be determined to be relatively conventional phenomena, often seen under unusual circumstances, is that most people are relatively good observers. The problem comes with the interpretation of what was observed. People watching the sky late at night may get excited about a very bright light that moved very slowly. Checking on the position of the planets at that time may reveal that that light was Venus, because we have good information as to the angle of observation, the direction of the light from the observer, the relatively slow rate of motion, the location of Venus at that time, and so on.

On three occasions, when living in Southern California, I was called by people who described an unusual object moving rapidly. I tried to make sure that I analyzed their observations, such as: What time was it? In what direction were you looking? In what direction did it seem to be moving? Was there any sound? What was its apparent size, say, as compared to the moon (just covered by an aspirin held at arm’s length)? Two of the people wanted to tell me that the object was just over the next hill. I stressed that this was an interpretation because even huge objects far away can seem to be small objects nearby. In all three cases, I felt that what was being described sounded similar to a rocket launched down the California Coast when the sun had gone down, but while the object was high enough to still be in sunlight. I had seen such a spectacular case once myself.

I checked, in all three cases, with Vandenberg Air Force Base, which launches many rockets down the U.S. West Coast. Indeed, there had been a launch at the right time in each case. One case was especially intriguing because several witnesses were looking out across the ocean from a beach area and described the thing they saw as similar to a string of popcorn. It turned out to be the launch of a special weather satellite with extra solid boosters being dropped off multiple times.

The people were good observers. To say the least, it would be irrational to say that people are good observers when their input allows us to identify the object being observed, and yet poor observers if we can’t identify the UFO as something conventional.

CATEGORIES

Every UFO sighting can be placed in one of three groups:

• A) Those reports of UFOs that eventually, after careful investigation, turn out to be identified flying objects (IFOs). This is by far the largest category. Subcategories include astronomical phenomena, aircraft, balloons, advertising planes, experimental aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, flocks of birds, and hoaxes.
• B) Those reports of UFOs that provide insufficient data on which to base a conclusion. Sometimes, for old reports, people aren’t sure of the exact date and time, for example, or can’t recall the direction of motion, or the color, and so on. Not much one can do with these.
• C) The Unknowns. These are reports by competent observers of strange objects in the sky or on the ground, which cannot be identified by the witness, and which remain unidentified after investigation by competent investigators, and whose appearance indicates that they were manufactured (this rules out most lights), and whose flight behavior indicates that they were made somewhere other than Earth. We Earthlings can’t build things that look and act that way. If we could, we would, because of the military applications of such craft.

Remember that the question is not “Are all UFOs alien spacecraft?” The question is, “Are any?” As shall be seen, my answer is definitely yes. If you were to ask me, “Are any UFOs secret, government-sponsored research-and-development vehicles?” my answer would again be yes.

There are some logical traps awaiting the unwary here. Some people want to claim: “Isn’t it reasonable to say that, if most UFOs can eventually be identified, all can be?” Think about that for a minute. Would it be reasonable to say that because most people are not 7 feet tall, no one is? Because most isotopes aren’t fissionable, none are? Because most people don’t have AIDS, no one does? Because most chemicals will not cure any diseases, none do? Obviously, we learn early on to focus on the data relevant to the question at hand.

The basketball coach is well aware that there are far more people shorter than 7 feet than those taller than 7 feet. But he knows there are some of the latter. When I was at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Dr. Selman Waksman of the microbiology department collected soil samples from all around the world seeking chemicals with anti-disease properties. One of his major discoveries, after checking on many thousands of soil cultures, was streptomycin, the first cure for tuberculosis. He won the Nobel Prize in 1952 for that work. Other antibiotics were later found; most of the cultures were worthless.

Gold miners know that ore is worth mining if there is a half-ounce of gold per ton of ore; that’s less than 0.001% of the ore. I learned early on, when working on designing and testing radiation shielding for aircraft nuclear propulsion systems and other compact nuclear reactors, that by far the majority of gamma rays and neutrons produced in the reactor get absorbed in the surrounding shielding material. But it is the tiny percentage that penetrates the shield that had to be my focus if I wanted to protect crewmembers.

It is the category-C cases that matter: The Unknowns. The problem then becomes finding the Unknowns. Many books talk about individual cases; how can a reader evaluate them? There are tens of thousands of newspaper articles and videos about UFO cases. YouTube has loads of videos—the Internet is chock full of UFO-related material, much of which is worthless. But how can one evaluate this mass of uneven and usually uninvestigated cases?

I think that, in general, the best place to search involves the several large-scale scientific studies… almost never mentioned by the UFO debunkers.

PROJECT BLUE BOOK SPECIAL REPORT NO.14

The largest official scientific study of UFOs performed for the United States government was reported in Project Blue Book Special Report No.14. The work was done by professional engineers and scientists at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. BMI is a highly respected research and development organization that does contract research for private and government groups. This study was the result of a contract with Project Blue Book, a USAF group at the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The contracting agency has had many names throughout the years, including Air Technical Intelligence Center and Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center, and is now known as the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC). Blue Book, in turn, was the continuation of Projects Sign and Grudge that had preceded it. At that time (mid-1950s), Project Blue Book was the only publicly acknowledged government group concerned with UFOs. We now know that there were others.

It was BMI’s job to review all the UFO sightings in the Blue Book files for the period 1948 through 1953. Exactly 3,201 sighting reports were eventually categorized as something such as Astronomical, Balloon, Aircraft… and UNKNOWN. Every report was also evaluated for quality: Excellent, Good, Doubtful, or Poor. Presumably, a sighting by a priest, a physicist, and a pilot—of something observed for 10 minutes from 50 feet away in daylight—would have been considered a higher-quality observation than a 4-second observation by the town drunk at 4 a.m. of a light zipping by in the sky. Obviously, these are subjective judgments, but they are certainly meaningful. All sorts of data about each case (duration, speed, color, shape, and the like) were stored on punch cards so they could be sorted with the primitive computer systems then available.

The professionals who worked on the project established a number of sensible ground rules and definitions. For example, no sighting could be listed as an Unknown unless all four Final Report evaluators agreed it was an UNKNOWN. Any two could label it as anything else.

The BBSR 14 definition for Unknown (my category C) is:

“This designation in the identification code was assigned to those reports of sightings wherein the description of the object and its maneuvers could not be fitted to the pattern of any known object or phenomenon.”

Their definition of Insufficient Information (my category B) is:

“This identification category was assigned to a report when, upon final consideration, there was some essential item of information missing, or there was enough doubt about what data were available to disallow identification as a common object or some natural phenomenon. It is emphasized that this category of identification was not used as a convenient way to dispose of what might be called poor Unknowns, but as a category for reports that, perhaps, could have been one of several known objects or natural phenomena.”

Psychological Manifestations:

“This identification category was assigned to a report when, although it was well established that the observer had seen something, it was also obvious that the description of the sighting had been overdrawn. Religious fanaticism, a desire for publicity, or an overactive imagination were the most common mental aberrations causing this type of report.”

This includes the crackpot reports that so fascinate debunkers.

It is worthwhile to note that, before tabulating their findings, UFO debunkers have often made negative statements about UFO evidence, such as the following:

“The reliable cases are uninteresting and the interesting cases are unreliable. Unfortunately, there are no cases that are both reliable and interesting.”

—Dr. Carl Sagan, astronomer, Cornell University, Other Worlds

“Almost every sighting is either a mistake or a hoax. These reports are so riddled with hoaxes, and the flying saucer enthusiasts have so many cranks, freaks, and nuts among them that Hynek is constantly running the risk of innocently damaging his reputation by being confused with them.”

—Dr. Isaac Asimov, author, “The Rocketing Dutchman,” Fantasy and Science Fiction

“All non-explained sightings are from poor observers.”

—Dr. Donald Menzel, astronomer, Harvard University, Physics Today

“The Unexplained sightings are simply those for which there is too little information to provide a solid factual basis for an explanation.”

—Ben Bova, writer, editor, Analog

“The number of people believing in flying saucers remains at about 6% of the adult population, according to Gallup Polls.”

—Science

“A two-year-old Gallup Poll reported that more than 3 million Americans believe flying saucers are real. But that still leaves 98% of the country somewhat doubtful.”

—Los Angeles Times

“…[L]ike most scientists, he puts little credence in UFO reports.”

—Science News (speaking of Carl Sagan)

“On the basis of this study we believe that no objects such as those popularly described as flying saucers have overflown the United States. I feel certain that even the Unknown 3% could have been explained as conventional phenomena or illusions if more complete observational data had been obtained.”

—Donald A. Quarles, secretary of the U.S. Air Force

These statements have several things in common:

1. None includes any accurate references to data or sources.
2. All are demonstrably false.
3. All are proclamations rather than the result of evidence-based investigations.
4. All are many years old, but my 40 years of lecturing and hundreds of media appearances have indicated that many people still share these views, despite their inaccuracy.

Together, they certainly illustrate the four basic rules of the true UFO nonbelievers:

1. Don’t bother me with the facts; my mind is made up.
2. What the public doesn’t know, I am not going to tell them.
3. If one can’t attack the data, attack the people. It is much easier.
4. Do your research by proclamation rather than investigation. No one will know the difference.

A major reason for these false claims can be seen in the comments in the press release issued on October 23, 1955, by the U.S. Air Force, in conjunction with the supposed release of Project Blue Book Special Report No.14. Surprisingly, there is no mention of the organization that did the study: the Battelle Memorial Institute. There is no mention of the names of the authors of the report. There is no mention of the actual title of the report, though it was not classified. If it had been noted, surely some journalist would have asked what happened to reports 1 through 13. The answer, if it had been honest, would have been that they were all still classified at the time. Although a large summary was provided in the press release, amazingly, it includes no data from the more than 240 charts, tables, graphs, and maps that are in the report. How could it be called a summary?

The key quote is given from Donald B. Quarles, then the secretary of the United States Air Force: “Even the Unknown 3% could have been identified as conventional phenomena or illusions if more observational data had been available.” There would appear to be two factual statements here:

1. The percentage of the sightings listed as Unknown was only 3%.
2. These Unknowns were simply reports for which there wasn’t enough data (my category B).

In that case, “there is nothing to flying saucers” would be a reasonable conclusion. However, these statements are both flat-out lies. Table 1 on page 41 shows the tabulation of the categorization of the 3,201 cases investigated. Notice that the percentage of Unknowns was actually 21.5% of the cases studied-seven times as many as stated by the secretary of the USAF. Note especially the category listed as “Insufficient Information”: 9.3%. No sightings for which there was insufficient data, by definition, could be listed as Unknowns. Clearly, both “factual” statements by Secretary Quarles were bunk. More accurately, he lied big time.

It is tempting to think that perhaps it was only the poor-quality reports—those 4 a.m., 4-second observations by the town drunk—that were listed as Unknowns. This proclamation is clearly destroyed by the data in Table 2. It shows that the better the quality of the sighting, the more likely it was to be an Unknown, and the less likely it was to be listed as “Insufficient Information.” This is not surprising at all, though it is exactly the opposite of the unsubstantiated and false claims of the “true non-UFO believers,” as I call them. It is exactly what one would expect if the Unknowns were really different from the knowns. This tabulation is also not shown explicitly in PBBSR 14. Notice that 35.1% of the excellent cases were listed as UNKNOWN, but only 18.3% of the poor cases were. In other words, the better the quality of the report, the more likely it was to be unexplainable.

Another proclamation often made by the debunkers is that the unexplained sightings were of short duration—certainly not long enough to make a scientific determination as to what was observed. Table 3 provides information on the duration of observation. The average Unknown was observed for longer than the average known: 63.5% of the Unknowns were observed for longer than 1 minute; 36.1% were observed for longer than 5 minutes; and 12.9% for longer than 30 minutes. So much for the nonsense that unexplainable UFOs are only observed for a few seconds.

Some debunkers like to claim that only nutty people report seeing UFOs. Notice that only 1.5% of the sightings were listed as “Psychological Manifestations.” The American Physical Society, to which I (and most other professional physicists) belong, has said that 2% of the papers submitted to it for publication by physicists are crackpot papers. This suggests that there are more crackpots associated with physics than with flying saucers. Fortunately, I am not the only physicist with a foot in each camp.

Finally, comments are often made by the true nonbelievers that there is really no difference between the Unknowns and the knowns. If that were the case, why pay attention to the knowns? The Unknowns must simply be missed knowns. The professional engineers and scientists doing the work presented in PBBSR 14 were clearly concerned about this possibility, so they sought answers to the question: “Is there any difference between the characteristics of the knowns and the Unknowns?” To be technical about it, they performed a Chi-square statistical analysis based on six different characteristics of the UFOs: apparent size, shape, speed, color, duration of observation, and number of objects seen. They found that the probability that the Unknowns were just missed knowns was less than 1%! Unknowns were not missed knowns.

Obviously, this does not prove that the Unknowns are alien spaceships. However, it does show that no matter how much they manipulated the data, they could not get a match between the Unknowns and the knowns. One crucial characteristic of the Unknowns—maneuverability—was not considered in this part of the BMI effort.

My reason for stating that some Unknowns are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft is very simple: witness reports clearly indicate that the observed objects are manufactured and behave in ways we cannot duplicate. Generally, they are small, 10-foot to 40-foot disc-shaped vehicles without wings, tails, or visible external engines. Frequently, they demonstrate high maneuverability—right-angle turns at high speed (as observed on radar), the ability to fly straight up and hover, and to go forward and then backward without making a big turn. Usually, there is no sound, no exhaust, and often a glow around the object (not the observer). A much smaller number of observations describe huge “mother” ships, perhaps ½ to 1 mile long. In recent years, several triangular objects have also been observed. If we Earthlings could build such craft, we would—because they would make wonderful military vehicles. There have been several wars in which we have not used such craft. If they were not built on Earth, they were built somewhere else. This does not tell us where they are from, why they are here, or why they do not behave the way some Earthlings would want them to.

Despite all the data available in the Blue Book report, its summary contains none. The press release was given very wide distribution, whereas the report itself was available for review in only a few places. It is no wonder that quotes from the totally misleading press release appeared in newspapers across the United States and in other parts of the world. The deception was clear and effective. No newspaper that I have seen noted any part of the actual report, and the false comments have been repeated over and over again by the news media and so-called scientists as if they were facts instead of lies.

The reader should not get the impression that I consider PBBSR 14 a perfect study. There were serious problems, besides the misleading press release, such as the failure to note relevant data and even the title itself. For example, a shameful effort was made to put together a composite picture of a UFO based on 12 cases—a frankly ludicrous approach, with drawings that would make any sensible artist ashamed. There is no section with recommendations on how to gather more and better data using the available resources of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. There is no discussion of the military and security implications of alien spacecraft violating U.S. airspace with impunity. There is not even an indication of the many highly classified military reports that must have existed. After all, a January 31, 1949, FBI memo stated that the Army and USAF considered the subject of flying saucers Top Secret. Where is all the data obtained by the Air Defense Command? These data are all born classified. Newspapers do not receive listings of military aircraft being scrambled to go after “uncorrelated targets”—a much less intriguing term than flying saucers or Unknowns.

USAF General Carroll Bolender, in a memo dated October 20, 1969, stated that “Reports of UFOs which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 and Air Force Manual 55-11, and are NOT part of the Blue Book system.” In a later paragraph, discussing the impact of closing Blue Book (which was shut down because of his memo) and denying the public a government office where sightings could be reported, he added: “As noted above, reports which could affect National Security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose.” The public has never been officially told that the important cases did not go to Project Blue Book—it was not even on the distribution list for cases reported through JANAP 146 or AF Manual 55-11. I managed to locate and speak with retired General Bolender, who clearly understood the implications of having a separate channel for the most important cases. Then, in 1979, when I showed a copy of the Bolender memo to the former Project Blue Book scientific consultant, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, he was very upset and felt that he had been badly used by the USAF: the best cases did not go to Blue Book!

Throughout its existence, Blue Book was not a high-level technical group. Typically, it consisted of a major and a sergeant, some secretaries, and a monthly visit from Dr. Hynek—a professor of astronomy and, by nature, not a boat-rocker. Blue Book did not have sophisticated instrumentation or communication systems, nor did it have a need-to-know for classified data collected by the Air Defense Command.

We know of only two fully classified Top Secret documents connected with UFOs. One was a report of a fascinating observation in the Soviet Union by U.S. Senator Richard Russell and associates in 1955, which was finally declassified in 1985. The other is AIR (Air Intelligence Report) No. 100-203-79, dated December 10, 1948. This joint USAF and U.S. Navy report aimed to evaluate the possibility of UFOs being from the Soviet Union and the implications for national security if that were the case. A history of sightings is given in these documents, but clearly, the authors did not have a need-to-know for Top Secret information about such events as the recovery of a crashed flying saucer and alien bodies outside Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947, or the destruction of U.S. aircraft while attempting to attack flying saucers. I have quietly heard of several such disastrous events and the cover-ups that followed. As an aside, it took many years for Americans to finally learn that 166 aircraft crew members had been lost in U.S. planes shot down while conducting reconnaissance missions too close to the USSR, China, or North Korea, as described in By Any Means Necessary by William E. Burrows.

From a scientific perspective, classified observations by our most sophisticated monitoring systems—radar networks, spy satellites, and the web of observing systems operated by the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office—are of utmost interest. The latter, of course, did not exist during Project Blue Book Special Report No.14. But where are the Top Secret cases?

My experience indicates that the Battelle Memorial Institute and the Foreign Technology Division of the Air Force could produce both a highly classified technical report and an unclassified companion report that made no mention of the classified one. I believe that such a report was Blue Book Report 13, produced by the same two groups. Two people have quietly told me they saw a copy of it in classified files. The Air Force has variously claimed that Report 13 does not exist or that it was contained in PBBSR 14. The old National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) actually published Reports 1 through 12, but nobody I have spoken with has a copy of 13. Based on my 14 years of professional scientific work on classified projects, I am absolutely convinced that secrets can be kept. Chapter 5 goes into much more detail about the “Cosmic Watergate,” which, unlike the political Watergate, has been very successful.

One final important fact about Project Blue Book Special Report No.14: when I check my lecture audiences after discussing it, I find that fewer than 2% have read it—even though one would assume an audience attending my lectures would be biased in favor of believing in flying saucers. I should also note that I once compiled a list of 13 anti-UFO books by debunkers such as Donald Menzel and Philip Klass. None of the books mentioned the report, though I can prove they were aware of it. The rule is: What the public does not know, I will not tell them. Even the University of Colorado study, despite having a long chapter on government involvement in UFO studies, does not mention it. I personally wrote to Dr. Condon about it and even received a letter acknowledging my inquiry.

THE UFO EVIDENCE

Richard Hall, who is still an active ufologist, compiled another outstanding report on UFOs for the Washington, D.C.-based NICAP in May 1964. The 184-page large-format report, The UFO Evidence, has information on 746 Unknowns-or 16% of the 4,500 cases investigated by the (mostly) professional members of NICAP. There are entire chapters on sightings by military and civilian pilots, by police officers, and by scientists and engineers. There are special sections on the major UFO wave of 1952, and on official UFO investigations. It is truly an outstanding volume; copies were given to all members of Congress. Again, fewer than 2% of my lecture attendees are aware of it. Hall put out a huge update, volume 2, The UFO Evidence: A Thirty Year Report in 2000. It has 681 fact-filled pages. There is an 87-page comprehensive section on UFO abductions, and a 10-page overview of the Roswell Incident. The book has very extensive bibliographies, and really should be in all libraries, but isn’t.

CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS

Thanks primarily to the efforts of Dr. James E. McDonald, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Arizona, the U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics held a Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects in Washington, D.C., on July 29, 1968. McDonald had become interested in UFOs in the mid-1960s and was shocked when visiting Project Blue Book in Dayton, Ohio, to find a host of sighting reports of very interesting cases. He noted that the explanations often made little sense. He became upset that Dr. Hynek had not called the attention of the scientific community to the wealth of data in the files. (Their battle is discussed in detail in the excellent book by Ann Druffel: Firestorm: James E. McDonald’s Fight for UFO Science.)

Six scientists testified in person. They were:

• Dr. J. Allen Hynek, chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois (and Project Blue Book consultant for almost 20 years).
• Dr. Carl Sagan, professor of astronomy at Cornell University.
• Dr. James E. McDonald, professor of physics at the University of Arizona.
• Dr. James Harder, professor of civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
• Dr. Robert L. Hall, head of the department of sociology at the University of Illinois, Chicago (and Richard Hall’s brother).
• Dr. Robert M. L. Baker, senior scientist for System Sciences Corp. in El Segundo, California.

In addition, the printed 247-page proceedings (available on the Internet at [URL=https://www.project1947.com/shg/symposium/index.html]www.project1947.com/shg/symposium/index.html[/URL]) included written submissions from six more scientists:

• Dr. Donald Menzel, astronomer at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle, psychologist at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.
• Dr. Garry C. Henderson, senior research scientist for Space Sciences at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas.
• Dr. Roger N. Shepard, department of psychology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
• Dr. Frank Salisbury, head of the plant science department at Utah State University in Logan.
• And myself, then a nuclear physicist at Westinghouse Astronuclear Laboratory in Large, Pennsylvania. I have taken pride in the fact that I was the only one of the twelve without a PhD.

In my opinion, the best paper by far was that from Jim McDonald. He presented information on 41 separate cases, including multiple-witness radar-visual cases, sightings over big cities, sightings by scientists and astronomers, and clear indications of intelligent control of some UFOs. His paper alone is 71 pages long and should be read by anyone who thinks there are no good UFO cases. John Fuller, who earlier had written The Interrupted Journey, the story of the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, and Incident at Exeter, also wrote Aliens in the Skies, which includes most of the papers, but without the references.

Quite frankly, I have found throughout the years that very few people have read this very valuable volume, The Symposium on UFOs. The reward for Indiana Congressman J. Edward Roush, who presided over the session, was that in the next election he was gerrymandered out of his district. Another member of the Committee on Science and Astronautics was Donald Rumsfeld of Illinois, who later became Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush. Hynek, also from Illinois, once told me of approaching Rumsfeld much later, saying he thought he had a need-to-know for what was happening. Rumsfeld told him in no uncertain terms that he did not.

There is a substantial difference between the factual content of most of the papers by people who had really dug into the facts and those of Menzel and Sagan, whose papers revealed a lack of concern with facts and data, instead full of proclamations and little investigation. If Jim McDonald had lived many more years, instead of dying in 1971, I believe the situation today would be very different. He spoke to many sections of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and many other professional organizations and used hard-nosed science to destroy the often foolish explanations of Menzel (who often proclaimed “temperature inversions” without doing the required computations that Jim did) and Philip Klass (who often proclaimed “plasma explanations”—again without doing the scientific calculations that Jim did, which destroyed those proclaimed explanations).

THE CONDON REPORT

There is no doubt that the largest and most publicized study of UFOs is the 965-page 1968 Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. Its editor was Daniel S. Gillmor, and the study was conducted under the direction of Dr. Edward U. Condon, a professor of physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder, with funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Many universities had been approached by AFOSR in response to recommendations from the O’Brien Panel (established after the controversy over Hynek’s swamp-gas explanation for sightings in Michigan in 1966). Condon was known as a tough figure and had, much earlier, taken on the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Problems with the Condon study have been described in many places well after its publication. At the time, in early 1969, it was lauded by the press primarily because of the introduction by Walter Sullivan, science editor of The New York Times, and the complimentary comments by a special panel of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)—who did not investigate any cases to evaluate Condon’s work. Of course, he had not investigated any cases either and had made a number of negative comments along the way. Not enough attention was paid to the fact that Condon was himself a member of the NAS, a self-electing body. What might be described as a minority report was later published by Dr. David Saunders (UFOs? YES! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong), who had been fired by Condon. John G. Fuller had written a Look Magazine article titled Flying Saucer Fiasco on May 14, 1968, pointing out, among other important aspects of the unscientific study, a letter from Robert J. Low, an assistant dean at the University of Colorado, describing how the project would be made to look scientific but, of course, would not be. In the August 9, 1966, memo, he said:

Our study would be conducted almost entirely by nonbelievers, who, although they couldn’t possibly prove a negative result, could and probably would add an impressive body of thick evidence that there is no reality to the observations. The trick would be, I think, to describe the project so that to the public, it would appear a totally objective study, but to the scientific community would present the image of a group of nonbelievers trying their best to be objective, but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer…

There is much more, and the article is available on the Internet (at [URL=https://www.project1947.com/shg/articles/fiasco.html]www.project1947.com/shg/articles/fiasco.html[/URL]). The public wound up paying more than half a million dollars for this so-called study. As a young scientist, I was angry about the whole business and the praise given to the study by the press and the National Academy. I have often wondered how many other controversial areas have seen the public so betrayed by what passes for an objective scientific community and an objective press.

As was the case with Project Blue Book Special Report No.14, the press coverage was generally based on the press release and the first chapter—Condon’s summary and conclusions—and not on the facts in the report. Frankly, I got the impression that Condon had not even read the rest of the volume. It comes as a great surprise to many that, according to a UFO subcommittee of the world’s largest group of space scientists—the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics—one could come to the opposite conclusions as Dr. Condon based on the data in the report. Any phenomenon with 30% unidentified classifications is certainly worth further investigation, as the AIAA noted. I am a member of the AIAA, but they would not allow me on the committee (I must be biased because I had reached a conclusion! One would think that after 11 years of effort, I would be expected to have a bias, and that ignorance is the worst bias). Indeed, 30% of the 117 cases studied in detail could not be identified. There are some good sections in the report, and I have talked to some old-timers who say they were drawn into the subject of UFOs by some very interesting unexplainable cases.

One can only wonder how many fields have rejected the exceptional simply because only 30% of the cases examined could not be explained away—think of cures for cancer, great musicians, and elite athletes. My son-in-law works at the Diavik Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is a rich diamond mine, producing 3.5 carats of diamonds (less than a handful) per ton of ore—another case of having a small percentage but high value.

Both Hynek and McDonald (along with several others) have written factual negative reviews of the Condon report. Condon later made public statements that the files of the study had not been preserved, yet I found them at the American Philosophical Society library in Philadelphia. Why lie? Fear of a critical review?

THE UFO EXPERIENCE

Dr. J. Allen Hynek had been a consultant to Project Blue Book for about 20 years, starting at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio (close to Blue Book in Dayton), and then continuing later when he became chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He had a PhD from my alma mater, the University of Chicago (1935), as did Carl Sagan (1960). Jim McDonald was a research physicist at the University of Chicago in 1953 and 1954 when Sagan and I were there. As far as I know, Sagan did not know him then, and neither did I. In order to meet with Hynek, I had to pass muster with an associate of his, also at the University of Chicago, who attended my lecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago campus, in 1968. I passed and was taken up to Evanston. Hynek was 58 years old at the time, the same age as my father. I was 33. His first question was, “Why haven’t you received a PhD?” I noted that I had worked my way through college as a union waiter at a Chicago hotel my last three years and was anxious to get out into the real world of industry to work on exciting and challenging programs. We saw each other at conferences and when I was going through Chicago, or in Southern California when I lived there. We existed in very different worlds and had very different personalities. I did arrange a press conference and media appearances for him in L.A. when he published The UFO Experience. It was like pulling teeth to get background info for the press release. He suggested I look in Who’s Who, which contained a very small bio. When I finally got something from Northwestern, UFOs were barely mentioned in it.

Hynek’s book has information about roughly 70 good sightings that could not be explained. It contains the definitions for Close Encounters of the first, second, and third kinds. He was a consultant on the very successful movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind and had a cameo role himself. He also made some fairly strong comments about the inadequacy of the Condon Report and some recommendations as to what should be done. He established the Center for UFO Studies, which still exists, to try to accomplish some of those goals. He had a good sense of humor and even collected some of the cartoons that were published about his swamp-gas explanation. The book is well written and serves as a good introduction to the subject, but I do wish he had done more looking at interstellar travel and atmospheric propulsion technology, among other topics.

THE COMETA REPORT

I decided to include this report, even though it is not book length, because it is much more recent than any of the other volumes, was done in France, and comes at the subject from a less academic viewpoint, which gets closer to many of my views. The actual title in English is UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For? It is 90 pages long and originally appeared in a special issue of the magazine VSD in France in July 1999. It is an independent report on UFOs written by the French association COMETA, presenting the results of a study by the Institute of Higher Studies for National Defense. The foreword is by Professor André Lebeau, the former chairman of the French National Center for Space Studies. This is the French equivalent of NASA, but it is hard to imagine NASA leadership having the courage to speak out about UFOs.

The report covers a number of excellent cases from France as well as from the United States and gives a good overview of various non-ET explanations—but is quite willing to seriously consider the extraterrestrial hypothesis. It discusses Roswell and also, in a sensible fashion, the reasons why the United States would keep things secret and not share with its allies what scientists have learned from the examination of Roswell wreckage. The authors of the report definitely seem to understand why it could not be shared with America’s enemies.

The Fund for UFO Research paid to have the report translated. Unfortunately, the French group leaders, for reasons still unknown, were very upset when I offered copies of the translation for purchase. They also rejected the notion of letting the Fund distribute it or collect royalties. This situation arose only because, when the report became a topic of conversation on the Jeff Rense radio program, I mentioned that I had a copy of it. Rense said, “Of course you are going to make it available, right, Stan?” I hesitated and then said yes. As someone who has been complaining about the Cosmic Watergate for decades, I could hardly say no and become part of the cover-up myself. Later, people on my website were threatened, so it is not listed there. Perhaps the French are sensitive because the report is critical of the United States for not revealing more information to its supposed allies.

I have distributed copies of Project Blue Book Special Report No.14 for the same reason. It is a government document, so it cannot be copyrighted. I could hardly say, “It is a very important report, but you can’t see the data… just trust me.” Fortunately, one of the best investigative journalists covering UFOs in the United States, Leslie Kean, managed to prepare a comprehensive article about the COMETA report, which appeared in The Boston Globe and a number of other newspapers. She has continued her efforts, taking on NASA over their attempt to hide information about the Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, UFO crash and retrieval of December 9, 1965. She also helped set up the very important National Press Club press conference on November 12, 2007, in Washington, D.C. She and James Fox, a documentary film producer, arranged for pilots and military personnel from many countries to reveal their own experiences at the conference, and they are preparing a documentary.

A statement worth repeating about the U.S. UFO cover-up appears near the end of the 1999 COMETA Report: “Only increasing pressure from public opinion, possibly supported by the results of independent researchers, by more or less calculated disclosures, or by a sudden rise in UFO manifestations, might perhaps induce U.S. leaders and persons of authority to change their stance.”

OTHER SOURCES

A truly enormous amount of material has been written about flying saucers. Some people do not even want me to use the term, but I use it to make an important distinction: Flying saucers are, by definition, unidentified flying objects, but very few unidentified flying objects are flying saucers. I am interested in the latter, not the former. As an example, all great-grandfathers are men; only a small percentage of men are great-grandfathers.

I cannot possibly take note of all the relevant literature here. However, the studies I have listed make an excellent starter kit. I would add the dozen or so PhD theses that have been done on UFOs and the many excellent books on UFO abductions (though there are some that are very unscientific, such as Dr. Susan Clancy’s Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens). I have a detailed review on my website, at https://web.archive.org/web/20191221095618/http://www.stantonfriedman.com/index.php?ptp=home.

I do recommend books by Budd Hopkins and Dr. David Jacobs. An excellent overview with 11 essays is the book UFOs & Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge, edited by Dr. David Jacobs. I would also point to the outstanding work done by Ted Phillips concerning physical trace cases. Phillips was a protégé of Allen Hynek and has, for more than 40 years, collected information about more than 4,000 such cases from more than 70 countries. These are cases in which a flying saucer is observed on or near the ground, and where, after the saucer has left, one finds physical traces in the dirt or vegetation. In about 1/6 of these cases, humanoids are observed. Phillips still has not written a book about his work, but he has been writing a monthly column for the MUFON Journal for some time. The next time debunkers claim that there is no physical evidence, refer them to Phillips’s work.

Two other topics I am not covering here are crop circles and animal mutilations. These are in my gray basket—they are interesting, but it is not easy to find a direct connection to the flying saucer phenomenon.

Original Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12HUrFpvmgysve8t2gVD7UUy8TUaXd0sj/view?usp=drivesdk

PERSONAL NOTE: I completely distance myself from the positive characterization of Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs that Friedman presented in this piece. I deeply respect Friedman’s contributions to UFO research and acknowledge his extensive work in the field, but I do not agree with his conclusions regarding the abduction phenomenon. He was firmly in the pro-abductionist camp, while I, on the other hand, am more inclined to believe that the solution to the abduction phenomenon is likely to be found here on Earth rather than among the stars. So, while I appreciate Friedman for his outstanding research, his perspective on abductions is one aspect of his work with which I fundamentally disagree.

The Trent Photos

Original Source: https://www.nicap.org/reports/500511mcminnville_report2.htm

by Brian Zeiler

A classic set of impressive UFO photographs was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Trent in the early evening, just before sunset, on May 11, 1950, near McMinnville, Oregon. According to the Trents’ account, the object—as it appeared over their farm—was first seen by Mrs. Trent while she was feeding the farm’s rabbits. She quickly called her husband, who retrieved the family’s camera, and Mr. Trent then took two photographs from positions only a few feet apart.

The pictures first appeared in a local newspaper and were later published in Life magazine. Seventeen years later, the photos were subjected to a detailed analysis as part of the University of Colorado UFO Project. William K. Hartmann, an astronomer from the University of Arizona, conducted a meticulous photometric and photogrammetric investigation of the original negatives and established a scaling system to determine the approximate distance of the UFO. Hartmann used known objects in the near foreground—such as a house, a tree, a metal water tank, and a telephone pole—whose images could be compared with that of the UFO. There were also hills, trees, and buildings in the far distance, whose contrast and details had been obscured by atmospheric haze.

Hartmann used the known distances of various objects in the photos to calculate an approximate atmospheric attenuation factor. He then measured the relative brightness of several objects in the photos and demonstrated that their distances could generally be estimated with an accuracy of about ±30%. In the most extreme case, he noted, the error could be as high as a factor of four. He wrote:

“It is concluded that by careful consideration of the parameters involved in the case of recognizable objects in the photographs, distances can be measured within a factor-four error… If such good measurement could be made for the UFO, we could distinguish between a distant extraordinary object and a hypothetical small, close model.”

Hartmann also observed that his photometric measurements indicated the UFO was intrinsically brighter than the metallic tank and the white-painted surface of the house—consistent with the Trents’ description of a shiny object. Furthermore, the shadowed surface of the UFO was significantly brighter than the shadowed region of the water tank, which was best explained by a distant object being illuminated by scattered light from the environment. He noted:

“It appears significant that the simplest, most direct interpretation of the photographs confirms precisely what the witnesses said they saw.”

In his conclusion, Hartmann emphasized that all the factors he had investigated—both photographic and testimonial—were consistent with the claim that:

“An extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disc-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of the two witnesses.”

CONTROVERSY — THE SKEPTICS’ CASE

Unsatisfied with Hartmann’s findings and lacking any evidence that the UFO was a hoax suspended by wires, UFO debunker Robert Sheaffer argued qualitatively that the haze in the photos—which led Hartmann to conclude that the UFO was about 1.3 kilometers away—could have been caused by a “dirty” camera lens. He further claimed that the shadows on the garage suggested a large time lag between the two photos and alleged that the shadow positions indicated the photographs were taken at 7:30 in the morning rather than in the evening. (The image on the left depicts the edge enhancement technique, which, under typical conditions, can reveal the presence of a wire less than a quarter of a millimeter thick at a distance of up to 3 meters.)

Dr. Bruce Maccabee, an optical physicist, analyzed the original negatives and found no support for Sheaffer’s time lag claim. He also repeated Hartmann’s calculations in greater detail—including corrections for lens grease—and obtained results consistent with Hartmann’s. One crucial flaw in Sheaffer’s “dirty lens” hypothesis is that it fails to explain why the haze would affect only the UFO and not the other objects in the photograph. Nearby objects appear sharp and high in contrast, while distant objects such as barns, trees, and the UFO appear in lower contrast—exactly what would be expected due to atmospheric absorption and scattering of light.

Maccabee calculated the UFO to be over 1 kilometer away, and approximately 30 meters in diameter and 4 meters thick.

As for the alleged timing of the photographs—Sheaffer claimed the shadow positions were inconsistent with an evening shot—Maccabee discovered that the garage shadows could only have been caused by a diffuse light source. He suggested that a bright cloud illuminated by the evening sun could plausibly have produced such lighting. Furthermore, neither Sheaffer nor fellow skeptic Philip Klass provided a plausible explanation for why the Trents would lie about the timing, especially since it is immaterial to the analysis of the UFO’s distance.

“REPEATERS”

In his book UFOs Explained, Philip Klass argued that the Trents were “repeaters,” citing a June 10 article from the Portland Oregonian in which Mrs. Trent is quoted telling reporter Lou Gillette: “She had seen similar objects on the coast three different times, but no one would believe me.” Klass also referenced a newspaper article written about 17 years later, in which Mrs. Trent is quoted as saying: “We’ve seen quite a few since then, but we didn’t get any pictures. They disappeared too fast.”

Klass’s accusation of “repeater” status rests solely on Mrs. Trent’s claims as reported in the press. Assuming the reports are accurate, a significant detail is that Mr. Trent apparently did not share these experiences. For reasons unknown, Klass omitted from his book Mr. Trent’s response to a reporter’s question (published in the L.A. Examiner, June 11, 1950) about why the Trents waited so long before telling anyone about the photos:

Trent admitted he was “kinda scared of it.” He said: “You know, you hear so much about those things… I didn’t believe all that talk about flying saucers before, but now I have an idea the Army knows what they are.”

This response suggests that Mr. Trent had not previously seen any UFOs and was skeptical of the phenomenon—hence Mrs. Trent’s remark that “no one would believe me.” That changed when he saw one himself.
This leads to a logical contradiction. If, as Klass believes, there are no flying saucers and therefore the Trents could not have seen one, then Mrs. Trent must have been lying about her previous sightings. Yet Mr. Trent’s stated skepticism and fear indicate honesty and surprise. If the incident were a hoax, Mr. Trent could have easily supported his wife’s claims by saying he too had seen several UFOs, even if he had not. The fact that he did not do so actually supports the sincerity of both individuals.

One way out of this logical impasse is to assume that both were telling the truth—Mrs. Trent had experienced several sightings (possibly misidentifications), while Mr. Trent had none and was skeptical until this event. Of course, Mrs. Trent’s earlier sightings could very well have been honest misinterpretations of mundane phenomena. If so, she would not truly be a “repeater,” unless one defines a repeater as someone who repeatedly and honestly misidentifies things.

REFERENCES:

• Condon, Edward. U., “Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,” New York: Bantam Books, 1969.
• Clark, Jerome, “The Emergence of a Phenomenon: UFOs From the Beginning Through 1959,” Omnigraphics, 1992.
• Klass, Philip. J. “UFOs Explained,” New York: Random House, 1974.
• Maccabee, Bruce., “On The Possibility That The McMinnville Photos Show a Distant Object,” Proceedings of the 1976 CUFOS Conference, 1976, pp. 152-163.
• Maccabee, Bruce., “The McMinnville Photos,” Proceedings of the Second CUFOS Conference, September 25-27, 1981, Chicago, pp. 13-57.
• Maccabee, Bruce., “McMinnville Oregon Photos,” in: The Encyclopedia of UFOs, 1980, pp. 223-26.
• Sheaffer, Robert, “The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence,” Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1981.
• Story, Ronald D., “UFOs and the Limits of Science,” William Morrow and Company, 1981

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Design Engineering Conference
George W. Earley
Americana Hotel, New York City
May 15-18, 1967

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-20th Century sightings. The activities of hoaxers, psychotics and liars 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 UFOs may be extraterrestrial 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 harrassment. Aided by its Sub-Committees and Affiliated groups, NICAP endeavors, 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 700 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.

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 maneuvers 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-World War 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, leveled 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 climbed 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 UFOs.

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 UFOs 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 Vallée. [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 aluminum 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 UFOs. 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 University 1st 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 extraterrestrial 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 UFOs “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 UFOs. 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 UFOs, and some attitudes towards reports. Now, the inevitable questions that arise are, just what are these UFOs and where do they come from? It has been suggested that they are:

2. Secret Russian devices based on German devices obtained after World War II,
3. Secret American devices in the missile and/or aeronautic fields,
4. Misinterpretation of various conventional objects such as stars, planets, birds, weather balloons, insects, meteors, airplanes, vapor trails, etc., etc.
5. Interplanetary spaceships 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 UFOs were of Russian manufacture, this meeting would be sponsored by the Soviet Society of Mechanical Engineers and I’d be a visiting Commissar lecturing on Applied Marxism. And if the UFOs were American—well, we wouldn’t be spending 13 million dollars per day on Project Apollo. After all, the speed and maneuverability displayed by these UFOs 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 breakthrough. Such a breakthrough 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 breakthrough 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 UFOs. 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 UFOs. 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 oribiting 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 aircrew men—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 extraterrestrial 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] Vallée, [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, archeologists and other students of the past should carefully study the legends of ancient peoples to determine if contact with extraterrestrial 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 UFOs 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 UFOs. 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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. The Coming of the Saucers by Kenneth Arnold and Ray Palmer; Amherst Press, 1952, p. 11.
2. End of a Delusion: A Historical Perspective of UFOs by Gordon I. R. Lore, Jr., and Harold H. Deneault, Jr.; Prentice-Hall, Inc. (in preparation, scheduled for May 1967 publication).
3. Flying Saucers: Top Secret by Donald E. Keyhoe; Putnam, 1960, pp. 15-20.
4. “Are Flying Saucers Real?” by Dr. J. Allen Hynek; Saturday Evening Post, December 17, 1966, p. 17.
5. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects by Edward J. Ruppelt; Doubleday, 1956, pp. 303-306.
6. Associated Press, United Press International, and local press reports for April 25, 1962, et seq.
7. Personal communication from Major Maston M. Jacks, USAF Office of Information, The Pentagon, Washington, D.C., dated December 29, 1964.
8. “Argentina 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 Vallée.
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. “UFOs Merit Scientific Study” by Dr. J. Allen Hynek; letter in Science, October 21, 1966, p. 329.
14. Unidentified Flying Objects – House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Forces, No. 55, April 5, 1966, p. 5995.
15. “UFOs Merit Scientific Study” by Dr. J. Allen Hynek; letter in Science, October 21, 1966, p. 329.
16. “The Problem of the Unidentified Flying Objects,” a talk by Dr. James E. McDonald, Senior Physicist, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, and Professor, Department of Meteorology, 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. Allen Hynek; Saturday Evening Post, December 17, 1966, p. 21.
18. Challenge to Science by Jacques Vallée, pp. 201-202.
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; Holden-Day, 1966, pp. 455-461.
21. “Space Flight ‘Utter Bilge’ Says Astronomer-Royal” – Time, January 16, 1956.

Original Source: https://nicap.org/histper.htm

NOTE: The article asserts that the objects sighted by Kenneth Arnold were crescent-shaped rather than disc-shaped. But this claim is not entirely correct. The idea that Kenneth Arnold did not actually sight disc-shaped UFOs and that the press merely misinterpreted his words is a narrative often used by UFO debunkers. They rely on this argument to claim that all subsequent sightings of disc-shaped UFOs since the 1940s were nothing more than a product of collective hysteria. However, this narrative does not align with what Arnold himself stated in 1947.

Shortly after his sighting on June 24, 1947, Arnold gave a recorded statement on June 26, in which he described the objects as looking “something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a convex triangle in the rear.” This description closely matches a drawing he later provided to the Army, which depicts an object that is nearly a full disc with only small portions missing. Additionally, early reports from 1947 indicate that Arnold used terms such as “saucer,” “disc,” and “pie pan” to describe the shape of the objects. It was not until 1952 that Arnold mentioned one object appearing different from the others, suggesting that a single crescent-shaped object may have been among the nine he saw. However, even at this stage, he maintained that the majority of the objects were disc-shaped. Decades later, in 1978, Arnold gave an interview in which he stated that all nine objects were crescents, contradicting his earlier statements. It is important to emphasize that the evolution of Arnold’s account does not imply that he was lying about his experience; rather, it simply suggests a case of memory distortion over time, a phenomenon that is well-documented in psychology.

In order to dismiss UFO witnesses, debunkers often claim that human memory is not perfect and that it deteriorates over time. And this is entirely correct. So, it is curious that they selectively accept Arnold’s later recollections while dismissing his earliest statements. The best approach would be to rely on the earliest information, recorded when Arnold’s memory was freshest. For a better overview of Arnold’s earliest statements, I highly recommend you to read this Reddit post.

THE LOGICAL TRICKERY OF THE UFO SKEPTIC

By Brian Zeiler

Skeptics in the scientific community resist the evidence for extraterrestrial visitation because of the implications it raises and the questions it begs. But should the integrity of the determination rely on the implications of a positive classification? Or should the classification of true or false be assessed in isolation from the implications? Which is worse — a false positive, meaning ruling in favor of the UFO as a unique phenomenon when in fact it does not exist, or a false negative, meaning ruling against it and missing out on its true existence? The answer, of course, lies in the incentive structure of the analyst. An equally intelligent non-scientist has no incentive nor predisposition to favor one type of error over the other, but scientists do. For scientists, it would open a whole new confounding problem domain, and it would make them look incompetent in the public’s eyes for missing out on this fact for 50 years.

That is why the incentive structure of contemporary scientists is such that they will not accept alien visitation unless they must — meaning when they get irrefutable physical proof. Their incentive structure prohibits them from making any such inference unless it is unavoidable, and they will strain the boundaries of logic and reason to no end to dismiss all evidence other than physical proof, no matter how powerful it may be. This scientific predisposition toward disbelief, rooted not in science and logic but rather in dogma and paradigm, brings us to the logical trickery of the scientific UFO debunker.

WHAT EXACTLY IS “EXTRAORDINARY”?

First, the scientific debunker will say that because alien visitation is an extraordinary claim, it thus demands extraordinary proof. Therefore, no evidence is suggestive of alien visitation unless it is accompanied by irrefutable physical proof — even if the observations directly indicate, within normal scientific evidential standards, the presence of a solid object under intelligent control with propulsion technology beyond human understanding. No matter how directly the observations indicate an anomalous vehicle of non-human origin, skeptics maintain that a prosaic explanation must be adopted unless physical proof is obtained. But such a stance, rigid beyond the normal standards of scientific methodology, is a direct product of the incentive structure, not of logic, as indicated above. Normal standards of science would require meeting the evidential threshold for each of the above conditions necessary to establish extraterrestrial origin; yet the same degree of evidence for physical substance is rejected for anomalous vehicles when it would otherwise be accepted for observations of more conventional vehicles.

Thus, the debunkers have failed to define the boundary of extraordinariness, which renders the declaration logically specious due to its wholly arbitrary implementation that is easily contaminated by individual and collective incentives. They exploit the arbitrary classification of “extraordinary” by applying absurdly rigid evidential boundaries to cases that clearly feature anomalous, physical vehicles that humans could not have built. Instead of assessing the case for physical substance on its own merits with the radar-visual observations, they merely apply a priori probabilities of nearly zero to the detection of anomalous vehicles, with no logical defensibility in the face of insufficient information to estimate the a priori probability, and therefore give themselves license to reject all evidence of any quality unless a physical specimen is obtained.

For instance, if SETI receives an anomalous repeating signal with intelligent content, such as a mathematical constant, and rules out all known causes of terrestrial and deep-space interference, do they need a chunk of the alien radio dish or a dead alien to attribute it to alien origin? It would be just as easy to apply UFO-skeptic logic and insist that the signal is nothing more than anomalous until we obtain physical proof of aliens; after all, why ascribe a radio signal to alien origin before we have physical proof of the existence of aliens? After all, we cannot rule out malfunction, fraud, or human error with 100% certainty, so the simplest explanation is an undetected flaw, not an alien message. Right? Or is it really just the case that the a priori probability assumed by scientists of alien radio detection is higher than that assumed for atmospheric detection? Is this a priori probability differential between radio versus atmospheric detection logically defensible? Or do we lack sufficient information to make anything but a wild guess, a guess contaminated by incentive, dogma, and mere habit?

Why do so many scientists, including Tipler and Fermi, argue that interstellar travel would be feasible for advanced civilizations whose productivity growth has created such vast wealth that journeys are less expensive than they would be for us humans? Do we know what alien energy resource stocks are? Even right now, we have the technology to mount a journey at 10% of the speed of light and arrive at the nearest star in 40 years. How “extraordinary” is it to consider that, several billion years ago, one culture might have mounted a gradual expedition that took them to our solar system and many others? We sure do not know whether this is “extraordinary” or the natural outcome of technological advancement, but many scientists wish to believe, simply due to heavily entrenched ideologies with absolutely no basis in logic nor fact, that such interstellar expansions are far less likely than the human interception of alien radio signals. So just what is “extraordinary,” aside from a word referring to a claim for which extremely low a priori probabilities of truth are applied? I consider extraordinary a claim that undermines fundamental precepts of physics. Alien visitation does not do this. And no matter the difficulty as we perceive it, interstellar travel does not violate the laws of physics. Neither do aliens. Therefore, alien visitation does not violate the laws of physics, nor does it require a straining of credible probabilistic expectations. We simply do not know how likely it is. And that is hardly a strong case for considering alien visitation an “extraordinary claim.”

Nevertheless, skeptics will insist on applying to alien visitation an a priori probability of nearly zero for some strange reason. Interestingly, many scientists, such as Fermi and Tipler, were skeptical of both UFOs and of alien life in general; they contended that interstellar travel would be easy for advanced civilizations, so the lack of overt contact disproved alien existence. Yet most UFO skeptics do believe alien life exists out in the universe — just not here. So they defend the near impossibility of interstellar travel, which contradicts a considerable portion of the scientific community. This a priori probability allows them to reject evidence arbitrarily that would otherwise confirm the presence of a solid object under intelligent control with propulsion irreproducible by human technology. For instance, when a certain degree of corroboration of physical substance for an airplane is obtained for an unconventional disk-shaped vehicle, this degree of evidence is accepted for the airplane but rejected for the anomalous vehicle. The only way to do this is to apply a priori probabilities of nearly zero to the detection of such an anomalous object. The problem, of course, is that, first of all, we do not have enough information to defend a low a priori probability, and second of all, this approach guarantees the automatic rejection of normal avenues of evidence. Effectively, what the skeptics are saying is that radar evidence is too “ordinary” to suffice for an “extraordinary” claim. They succeed in eliminating from review all types of indirect and direct evidence, except for physical proof.

This type of logic can be successfully applied to any claim. For instance, let us declare that dinosaurs are an extraordinary claim. This declaration requires no logical substantiation — just the way skeptics use their nearly zero a priori probability of extraterrestrial visitation to declare the claim extraordinary with no logical defense whatsoever, given the insufficient information to determine this probability. So, we have declared dinosaurs to be an extraordinary claim. The next step is to reject all fossil evidence for dinosaurs, since fossils are only acceptable for ordinary claims such as woolly mammoths; for extraordinary dinosaur claims, fossils are worthless. What we need, as dinosaur skeptics, is physical proof of an intact dinosaur. And, to make it even more similar to the skeptic approach, we do not need to defend the rationale of the demand for physical proof of dinosaurs; the fact that it is an extraordinary claim allows us to demand the very upper boundary of conceptually feasible modes of proof — but conceptual feasibility does not translate into practical feasibility. Sure, I can demand physical proof, but will I get it? Is it worth ignoring fossil evidence while I wait for physical proof?

We could extend the analogy further by applying more skeptic logical tricks. For instance, dinosaur articles are published in journals that already believe in dinosaurs; therefore, they are biased and one-sided, and hardly representative of truly critical peer review. We could assert that all fossils are best explained as hoaxes, misidentifications of known and unknown geological processes, and hallucinations and/or misinterpretations by overzealous paleontologists imposing their belief system on an anomalous rock. This, I can contend, is the “simplest explanation,” and I do not have to worry about using overly strenuous logic because, in the absence of physical proof of dinosaurs, any explanation is simpler — no matter how contrived and convoluted! This is the essence of the scientific rejection of UFO evidence: an overwhelming need to disbelieve coupled with a shameful lack of research into the actual evidence.

THE DEMAND FOR PHYSICAL PROOF

If aliens were visiting, I find the expectation of physical proof quite illogical, since it is going to be hard to obtain. In fact, it may even be impossible. But the skeptics do not mind, since they have already decided to disbelieve until they obtain the highest conceivable level of proof. In the discussion above, it was noted that anybody can apply this logic by insisting that dinosaurs should not be accepted until we find an intact, frozen, preserved dinosaur with the flesh still on the bones. And if that is impossible — well, too bad. Is it rational to reject fossils the way skeptics reject radar-visual cases and ground-trace cases, and then demand a preserved dinosaur specimen the way skeptics demand an alien and/or vehicle specimen? I contend that physical proof is an unattainable evidential boundary that guarantees rejection of the hypothesis of extraterrestrial origin.

Despite the table-pounding insistence by skeptics on physical proof, they have simply not been able to defend this demand — one which is far beyond the scientific rigor that standard scientific methodology would require. The UFO evidence has satisfied the evidential threshold of normal scientific protocols; unfortunately, the evidence has been rejected by dogmatic, specious demands for physical proof. For all these demands for physical proof, the skeptics have not been able to meet any of the following logical criteria necessary to defend the imposition of this arbitrary evidential threshold:

• How can one declare a claim to be extraordinary without sufficient information to defend a low a priori probability?
• Are there degrees of extraordinariness?
• How does one relate a degree of extraordinariness to a fair and reasonable evidential threshold?
• What is it about extraterrestrial visitation that implies the availability of physical proof?
• How can we obtain physical proof?
• How can an evidential threshold be imposed with no logical defensibility nor any rational expectation of actually meeting such a stringent threshold?

OCCAM’S RAZOR AND THE SKEPTICS

The UFO skeptics do not understand Occam’s Razor, and they abuse it regularly. They think they understand it, but they do not. What it means is that when several hypotheses of varying complexity can explain a set of observations with equal ability, the first one to be tested should be the one that invokes the fewest number of uncorroborated assumptions. If this simplest hypothesis is proven incorrect, the next simplest is chosen, and so forth. But the skeptics forget two parts: the part regarding the test of the simpler hypotheses, and the part regarding explaining all of the observations. What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher the observations until they can be “explained” by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse of the proper approach. The proper approach is to alter the hypothesis to accommodate the observations. One should never alter the observations to conform with a hypothesis by saying:

“If we assume the object was not physical, despite the level of evidence that would imply the solidity of a conventional aircraft with near-certainty, then we can also assume the object was not moving, was not exhibiting the color orange, was not 50 feet in diameter as described, and then declare that it was really Venus.”

But that is okay for the skeptics to do, because it is an “extraordinary claim” being made that deserves to be explained away in a Machiavellian fashion as rapidly as possible, with the urgent zeal of a religious missionary. Now, to alter observations to force conformance with the preferred hypothesis — is that science? Or is that dogma? The answer, of course, is dogma. This practice is extremely poor science, and the approach undermines the very spirit of scientific inquiry. It is simply unacceptable to alter the observations that refuse to conform with the predetermined, favored explanation.

THE ETH AND FALSIFIABILITY

While a more thorough discussion of the formulation and potential falsification of the ETH can be found on the ETH page, one particular aspect is worthy of note as another logical trick. The skeptics complain that the ETH is not falsifiable, which is a condition that violates a necessary component of hypothesis formulation. This is not true, as explained on the ETH page. However, even if it were true, the skeptics fail to realize that their beloved SETI hypothesis of alien radio signal detection can be said to be non-falsifiable! Does a lack of detection disprove the hypothesis that aliens are beaming mathematical constants at us? Certainly not, since our equipment may not be strong enough to detect them. It has been 30 years since SETI’s beginnings, with absolutely no positive results whatsoever, yet the non-falsifiability allows the preservation of the project with hopes as high as ever.

SCIENCE VS. SKEPTICISM

Skeptics are skilled propagandists who appeal to base emotions just like seasoned politicians. Skeptics like to wrap themselves in the robe of science, declaring that their approach and conclusions are “scientific,” in just the same way that a politician will cloak himself in the mantle of “family values” and “doing what’s right for America.” But is skepticism really as scientific as the skeptics want people to believe? As has been explained throughout this essay, the clear answer is no. Their logical reasoning is rife with fallacies, from their arbitrary declaration of a claim as being extraordinary to their specious demand for physical proof, to their abuse of Occam’s Razor, to their erroneous complaints about hypothesis falsification. So why do they claim that they are the real scientific side?

Skeptics are mostly scientists, but that certainly does not mean they behave scientifically, as has been explained. Their behavior stems partially from their distaste for public opinions that contradict the consensus of the scientific community. When a public consensus does contradict the scientific opinion, scientists will mount a public campaign to discredit this opinion because such an opinion undermines the role of the scientist in society as the appointed knowledge-seeker and truth-gatherer. What good are scientists if mankind will only insist on believing in warm, fuzzy superstitions anyway? So, these scientists who are guilty of the logical infractions exposed in this essay are so consumed with the presumed validity of their opinions that, like zealous religious fanatics, they must convert the masses to the side of truth in order to salvage their own self-image.

The second stimulus of pseudoscientific skepticism is that these scientists, who do not represent all scientists but rather a rogue band of propagandists, feel that science is about the mastery of nature. When nature introduces an anomaly — a violation of expectation — to science, the anomaly must be crushed. How dare nature violate science’s laws and principles! The anomaly is supposed to indicate an incomplete framework or incorrect a priori assumptions, yet to the skeptical propagandists, it indicates misbehavior by nature that cannot be allowed to undermine their role in society. The anomaly is a threat to the validity of their work, so they must wish it away, convince themselves through wild logical fallacies that the anomaly does not exist, and return the public back toward the truths of nature that are approved by the scientific community. This tendency only changes when it becomes more work to deny the anomaly than to accept it; sadly, with UFOs, this is not likely to occur, because the scientific community will never deal with UFO reports.

CONCLUSION

The scientific community has vociferously resisted the acceptance of anomalies for centuries, with the Copernican Revolution being the most notable historical example. They threaten the paradigm and disturb the equilibrium. They undermine the community’s self-perception of usefulness and value to society by threatening to destroy the assumptions behind their work. For the purposes of emotional well-being, they will be protested and debunked until they can no longer be denied; with UFOs, the breaking point will be physical proof. Yet, as this essay demonstrated, the criterion of physical proof is a product of anomaly resistance rather than a rational assessment of a priori probabilities or a rational interpretation of evidence. Instead of applying fallacious reasoning to the evidence, applying normal scientific standards to the UFO evidence would long ago have enabled the scientific community to embrace the ETH.

Original Source: https://nicap.org/papers/zeiler2.htm

THE ETH AND THE LIKELIHOOD OF INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL

by Jean van Gemert

“If we at once admit the foolishness of these perennially suggested ‘impediments’ to star flight, we will be on our way to understanding that interstellar space does not need a bridge too far. Interstellar travel may still be in its infancy, but adulthood is fast approaching, and our descendants will someday see childhood’s end.”
— Dr. Eugene Mallove and Dr. Gregory Matloff, The Starflight Handbook, 1989.

The (un)likelihood of extraterrestrial visitation is probably one of the most debated aspects of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, and the answer is an essential component to the validity of the ETH. After all, the assumed unlikeliness of interstellar travel has become the cornerstone of those who resist the ETH as an explanation for UFOs. So, does extraterrestrial visitation necessarily require all sorts of “unlikely” science, or is it possible to accomplish interstellar travel using conventional wisdom?

CAN THEY GET HERE?

Opinions on the practicality of interstellar travel diverge, but the negative and positive opinions seem to stem primarily from the backgrounds of those conducting the studies. SETI researchers believe that the degree of dispersion of stars throughout the galaxy, combined with the limitations of interstellar travel as we understand General Relativity, effectively precludes the feasibility of extraterrestrial visitation. Thus, they conclude that any extraterrestrial intelligence would only be transmitting their love and good wishes to us. On the other hand, physicists and engineers involved in propulsion research tend to believe that interstellar travel is difficult but not a barrier—or not difficult at all once technology progresses [Mallove and Matloff, 1989; Forward, 1986; Crawford, 1990]. Not surprisingly, the latter choice appears to be the most defensible.

A number of clever designs have appeared in print, describing various methods of getting mankind to the stars. These include projects such as the star probe Daedalus, a robotic interstellar vehicle designed by members of the British Interplanetary Society, which uses nuclear fusion power, or interstellar ramjets that scoop up their fuel between the stars. Physicist Robert Forward, one of the leading experts on space travel, has also proposed an entirely different method of interstellar propulsion—using photon pressure to accelerate a vehicle to a significant fraction of the speed of light in a few years [Forward, 1984]. Such ships would appear as huge sails, using the output of space-based orbital power platforms (Beamed Power Propulsion) for acceleration, eliminating the need for an onboard energy supply [Mallove and Matloff, 1989; Crawford, 1990]. Hence, much less mass would need to be accelerated. The important point here, as astronomer Ian Crawford notes, is that we

“can already identify technological solutions to the problem of interstellar travel that are consistent with the laws of physics as we currently understand them. We do not need new physics” [Crawford, 1990].

Another factor relevant to interstellar flight is relativistic time dilation. Any object traveling close to the speed of light will be subjected to effects predicted by Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. An observer on board a spaceship traveling close to c would observe that time on Earth has sped up, while time on the spaceship, relative to an observer on Earth, would appear to have slowed down. For example, a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri—assuming a constant acceleration of 1g up to a high relativistic speed during the first half of the flight and a constant deceleration of 1g during the second half—would take only three years of spaceship time, while six years would have passed outside the spaceship.

Moreover, recent ideas on speculative space propulsion may bring us the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. Some researchers propose making use of yet undiscovered “loopholes” in physical laws that would allow fast transit between widely separated points in space-time [Alcubierre, 1994; Visser, 1989; Crawford, 1995]. It might even be possible to extract large quantities of energy from the zero-point field (the vacuum) itself. If this can be done practically, then the energy available to a space traveler could be essentially unlimited, eliminating the need for an onboard fuel supply [Froning, 1986].

TOO EXPENSIVE?

Although it is impossible to precisely determine how expensive interstellar travel would be for a civilization about which no pertinent data is available, we can still make educated predictions. Interstellar travel appears not to be expensive for an advanced economy whose productivity has grown steadily for millennia. Therefore, alien contact by visitation is likely once these advanced economies implement interstellar propulsion technologies at insignificant costs relative to their wealth and capital stocks. Similarly, an interstellar transportation system may seem expensive from our perspective, but so would a 747 to the Wright brothers [Jones, 1995]. So, is interstellar flight as “improbable” as the naysayers claim? Only if we grant them their negative and self-defeating assumptions. As Ian Crawford noted in New Scientist (October 1996):

“It seems unlikely that interstellar spaceflight is impossible. Even today, we can envisage propulsion strategies that might make it possible to reach between 10 and 20 percent of the speed of light, permitting travel between nearby stars in a few decades. Any civilization with this technology would be able to colonize every planetary system in the Galaxy in about 10 million years, which is only one-thousandth of the age of the Galaxy” [Crawford, 1996].

WHERE ARE THEY?

Computer simulations and mathematical modeling suggest that the galaxy could be colonized in no more than a few million years [Hart, 1975; Jones, 1976; Papagiannis, 1978]. However, the galaxy is over ten billion years old, and second-generation (metal-rich) stars are up to nine billion years old. Thus, the time needed to colonize the galaxy is much shorter than its actual age.

O’Neill (1974) described large artificial space settlements capable of holding vast numbers of people, which he argued could be realized with existing technology in just a few decades. Scientists such as Frank Tipler and Michael Hart noted the relevance of these designs to the Fermi debate, suggesting that such habitats, equipped with propulsion, could also be used to colonize other star systems. The consequences should be clear. There is no need to invent fantastic propulsion systems such as “warp” or “hyper drives.” Current technology could theoretically allow for the colonization of the galaxy. Yet, despite calculations showing that an extraterrestrial species could have visited our solar system by now, there is no evidence of such visitation—leading to the famous Fermi Paradox. Hart and Tipler believe this paradox proves we are the only intelligent civilization in the galaxy, while SETI researchers argue that interstellar flight is entirely impossible. Other hypotheses include:

• Extraterrestrial civilizations are short-lived. If the average lifespan of an advanced civilization is only 50,000 years, none would persist long enough to colonize the galaxy.
• Most advanced civilizations focus on “more important” matters and have not developed an interest in space exploration.
• Earth is a colony, because one civilization colonized the entire galaxy long ago and now exercises a form of benign paternalism over developing civilizations (Zoo Hypothesis, Ball, 1973).

The first two hypotheses require that every civilization follows the same pattern, which seems unlikely given a galaxy with potentially millions of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. It only takes one civilization to colonize the galaxy. This author favors the third hypothesis—that there is a “galactic club,” an established network of old, advanced civilizations, and that Earth is under a form of quarantine. Thus, in my opinion, there simply is no Fermi Paradox. The only reason it remains a paradox to most scientists is their failure to recognize possible evidence of extraterrestrial presence in our own solar system.

CONCLUSIONS

The feasibility of interstellar travel suggests that it should be easily accomplished by an advanced society. Arguments that extraterrestrials have not had enough time to find us appear implausible [Hart, 1975; Jones, 1995; Hoerner, 1995]. Neither technical feasibility, energetics, economics, nor social factors seem sufficient to prevent interstellar travel or slow the colonization of the galaxy [Papagiannis, 1980]. The probabilities appear heavily in favor of aliens visiting Earth—perhaps they already have.

• Alcubierre, Miguel, “The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast Travel Within General Relativity,” Classical Quantum Gravity, Vol. 11, 1994, pp. 73-77.
• Ball, J. A., “The Zoo Hypothesis,” Icarus, Vol. 19, 1973, pp. 347-349.
• Crawford, Ian A., “Some Thoughts on the Implications of Faster-Than-Light Interstellar Space Travel,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, 1995, pp. 205-218.
• Crawford, Ian A., “Interstellar Travel: A Review for Astronomers,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, 1990, pp. 377-400.
• Crawford, Ian A., “Where are all the extraterrestrials?,” New Scientist, October 1996.
• Forward, R. L., “Feasibility of Interstellar Travel,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 39, 1986, pp. 379-384.
• Forward, R. L., “Roundtrip Interstellar Travel Using Laser-Pushed Lightsails,” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 21, 1984, pp. 187-195.
• Froning, H. D., “Use of Vacuum Energies for Interstellar Space Flight,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 39, 1986, pp. 410-415.
• Hart, M., “An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society," Vol. 16, 1975, pp. 128-35.
• Hoerner, S., “The Likelihood of Interstellar Colonization and the Absence of its Evidence,” in: Extraterrestrials: Where are They?, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Jones, E. M., “Estimation of Expansion Timescales,” in: Extraterrestrials: Where are They?, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Jones, E. M., “Where is Everybody?,” Physics Today, August 1985, pp. 11-13.
• Jones, E. M., “Colonization of the Galaxy,” Icarus, Vol. 28, 1976, pp. 421-22.
• Mallove, E. F., and Matloff, G. L., “The Starflight Handbook,” Wiley Science Editions, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1989.
• O’Neill, G. K., “The Colonization of Space,” Physics Today, Vol. 27, September, 1974, pp. 32-40.
• Papagiannis, M. D., “Strategies for the search for life in the universe,” Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing, 1980.
• Papagiannis, M. D., “Could we be The Only Advanced Technological Civilization in Our galaxy?,” in: Origin of Life, Japan Scientific Societies Press, 1978.
• Tipler, Frank, “Extraterrestrial Intelligent Beings Do Not Exist,” Physics Today, April 1981, pp. 70-71.
• Visser, Matt, “Traversable wormholes: Some simple examples,” Physical Review D, May 1989, S. 3182.

Original Source: https://nicap.org/papers/gemert-eth.htm

A RESPONSE TO JACQUES VALLÉE’S ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL HYPOTHESIS

by Spartacus01

NOTE: If you compare what I say in this essay with what I wrote earlier in this thread, you’ll notice a clear shift in how I view pre-1947 UFO sightings. Up until last year, I used to take those early reports much more seriously. But, as I’ll explain in this essay, my perspective has changed quite a bit. I’ve grown increasingly skeptical of those accounts, and I now strongly believe that extraterrestrials first arrived on Earth in 1947. Before that year, I do not think alien spacecraft were present in Earth’s skies.

For those unfamiliar with Jacques Vallée, he’s a French-American scientist and UFO researcher with a background in astrophysics and artificial intelligence. In his early work, Vallée supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis. However, over time, he developed a much more complex and unconventional interpretation of the phenomenon. According to Vallée, UFOs are not physical craft from other worlds, but rather manifestations of a paraphysical phenomenon originating from another dimension. In his view, the so-called “aliens” people encounter are actually interdimensional entities that coexist alongside our reality. These beings, he argues, deliberately take on the appearance of extraterrestrial visitors as part of a long-term effort to influence human perception, culture, and even our evolution. Vallée worked closely with J. Allen Hynek, and eventually convinced him to reconsider the extraterrestrial hypothesis later in his life.

In 1990, Vallée published a paper titled Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects, where he presented several objections to the idea that UFOs are alien spacecraft. Since I support the extraterrestrial hypothesis and do not share Vallée’s conclusions, I’ve decided to offer responses to each of his arguments. So, let’s go through them one by one.

1. The sheer number of reported close encounters with UFOs far exceeds what would be necessary for any systematic physical survey of Earth by extraterrestrial visitors.

The vast majority of UFO sightings can be explained as misidentifications of man-made vehicles, hoaxes, or natural phenomena, and this is something just about every serious UFO researcher agrees on, regardless of what hypothesis they favor. The number of cases that remain genuinely unexplained is much smaller. If we focus only on those, Vallée’s argument that “there are too many sightings to be extraterrestrial” starts to fall apart. Instead of looking at the total number of reports per year, he should be looking at the small percentage that cannot be explained using conventional means.

But even if we were to ignore the numbers entirely, there’s still no contradiction in the idea that an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence might carry out repeated visits to Earth over time. Think of a scientist observing an anthill: would he glance at it once or twice and then move on forever? Of course not. He would return regularly, studying the colony’s behavior over an extended period. The same logic could apply to extraterrestrials observing us. If they’re interested in our biological, cultural, or technological development, it would make perfect sense for them to conduct frequent observations rather than limit themselves to a few flybys.

It’s also worth pointing out that, while credible UFO sightings and close encounters involving humanoid beings were relatively common between 1947 and 1997, reports of that nature have become much more sporadic in recent decades, at least when we’re talking about truly convincing, unexplained cases. For example, we no longer see the kind of mass UFO sightings that were frequently reported in the 1960s and 1970s. Given this trend, it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that extraterrestrials arrived on Earth in 1947, conducted an intensive study of humanity over the course of several decades, and then sent most of their fleet back home around 1997.

If that hypothesis is correct, then Vallée’s argument loses even more ground. It would mean that the majority of UFO activity was concentrated within a specific historical window, rather than spread out evenly over time. In that case, the idea that “there are too many encounters per year for them to be alien” would not really apply, since the phenomenon would not be ongoing, but rather tied to a particular period of observation.

2. The beings associated with UFO sightings are often described as humanoid. It is improbable for intelligent life forms from distant planets to independently evolve such a similar physical form.

We currently have no direct access to alien ecosystems and no way to observe what forms complex life might actually take elsewhere in the universe. Because of this, any claim about what extraterrestrial beings should or should not look like is entirely speculative. Vallée’s objection would carry more weight if we had concrete data about the environments of other planets, which could help us make informed guesses about which types of biological forms are likely to evolve under different conditions. But since that kind of information is far beyond our current reach, it is unreasonable to say that the humanoid form is any more or less likely than any other.

In the absence of actual knowledge about alien biology, dismissing the idea of humanoid-looking extraterrestrials as improbable has no solid foundation. It is pure speculation and lacks the data needed to back it up. Until we can study alien ecosystems up close, we cannot say what is or is not likely to evolve out there.

Imagine trying to figure out the ingredients of a traditional Indian dish by looking at it from far away through a pair of binoculars. You would not be able to smell it, taste it, or examine it closely. Under those conditions, accurately identifying the ingredients would be nearly impossible. Why? Because understanding something as complex as a recipe requires direct interaction and close observation. The same idea applies to life on other planets. To make solid predictions about what kinds of life might evolve elsewhere, we would need to observe those planets up close and study their environments in detail, which is something we are currently unable to do.

3. Many abduction reports detail behaviors by these entities that are illogical or contradictory if their intent were scientific study or genetic experimentation. For instance, repetitive and invasive procedures lack the methodological consistency one would expect from an advanced civilization conducting research.

This is a fair point, and I fully acknowledge its importance. However, it does not automatically rule out the possibility that some UFOs could be extraterrestrial craft. What it does challenge more directly is the notion that alien abductions are truly extraterrestrial events.

It is entirely possible to argue that some UFOs are alien spacecraft without subscribing to the idea that aliens are abducting humans for experimentation. In fact, most alien abduction reports can be explained without invoking extraterrestrials at all. Even researchers who take the phenomenon seriously agree that many abduction experiences are better understood through psychology: hallucinations, sleep paralysis, vivid dreams, and other mental states are often enough to explain what people report.

For the relatively small number of cases that do seem to suggest some kind of external influence, there is still no need to immediately jump to the conclusion that aliens are involved. For example, researcher Martin Cannon has suggested that some abduction experiences might actually be the result of covert human experimentation. According to him, intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA, have explored advanced mind control techniques, including hypnosis, brain implants, and remote manipulation using electromagnetic frequencies. These experiments, documented in projects like MK-Ultra, could explain many of the strange sensations, memory lapses, and other elements often reported by alleged abductees.

In short, there are multiple ways to account for the abduction phenomenon that do not require extraterrestrial involvement. Vallée’s argument, while valid in critiquing the logic of abduction narratives, does not disprove the broader idea that some UFOs might be alien spacecraft.

4. UFO-like occurrences have been documented throughout human history, long before the modern era of space exploration. This historical continuity implies that the phenomenon is not a recent development and may not be linked to extraterrestrial visitors.

One major problem with using pre-1947 sightings as evidence against the extraterrestrial hypothesis is that, before the rise of UFOlogy, there was no reliable way to verify such accounts. Back then, stories of strange aerial phenomena were published in newspapers or passed around in books, but they were never investigated with any real rigor. There were no witness cross-examinations, no radar confirmations, no physical trace analysis, none of the tools that modern UFOlogists use to separate credible reports from rumors or misinterpretations. It was only after 1947, when both governments and private researchers began taking the UFO phenomenon seriously, that real investigative standards were applied to sightings.

Because of this, we have no reliable way of knowing whether most early reports were genuine, misunderstood natural events, or outright fabrications. Take, for example, the airship sightings of the end of the 19th century. Considering the sensationalist tendencies of newspapers at the time, it is quite plausible — and perhaps even likely — that many of these stories were either hoaxes or heavily embellished for dramatic effect. Similarly, when ancient Roman writers described “flaming shields in the sky,” we cannot say with confidence what they actually saw. Some of these accounts could easily have been caused by natural optical effects, such as sundogs, atmospheric refraction, or other unfamiliar phenomena. Others might have simply been narrative flourishes added by the authors to enhance their historical accounts.

It is also possible that some of the glowing aerial phenomena observed by ancient Greeks and Romans were natural events that remain unexplained even today. In fact, several UFO researchers have proposed that many glowing spheres reported in both ancient and modern times may be natural atmospheric phenomena. For instance, Paul Devereux has argued that areas near fault lines or rich in certain minerals might generate electromagnetic fields capable of ionizing the surrounding air, creating plasma-like luminous objects. This idea is backed by research showing that quartz-bearing rocks, when subjected to intense pressure, can emit light. Based on that, it is plausible that some of the strange lights reported in antiquity — as well the Foo Fighters observed over Germany and Japan during World War II — could be explained by this mechanism.

In light of all this, Vallée’s argument does not hold up to scrutiny. The fact that people described strange things in the sky before 1947 does not disprove the extraterrestrial hypothesis, because we have no way of confirming whether those early sightings were real or even anomalous. If anything, they are largely irrelevant to the discussion, since they cannot be reliably investigated or verified. Serious UFO research should focus on well-documented cases that have been examined with modern investigative tools rather than vague, ambiguous reports from ancient or pre-modern sources.

5. Reports often include descriptions of UFOs exhibiting behaviors that defy our current understanding of physics, such as sudden appearances and disappearances, shape-shifting, or instantaneous movements. These capabilities suggest that the phenomenon might involve dimensions or realities beyond the conventional space-time framework.

The fact that UFOs appear to manipulate space and time does not necessarily mean they originate from outside our physical universe. More likely, it indicates that they are equipped with technology far beyond anything we currently understand.

For example, the seemingly instantaneous appearance and disappearance of these objects does not have to mean they are literally materializing or vanishing. It is entirely plausible that they are moving at such extreme speeds that they become imperceptible to the human eye. Since it takes about 13 milliseconds for our eyes to register a visual image, an object accelerating to speeds of 50,000 or 100,000 km/h within that tiny window could easily seem to vanish instantly. Similarly, an object decelerating from that speed to a complete stop could appear to suddenly materialize. In other words, what we perceive as a sudden disappearance or appearance might just be a result of acceleration and deceleration that exceeds our perceptual limits, not some interdimensional event.

In the same way, reports involving time distortion — like witnesses experiencing hours passing when only minutes have gone by — could be the result of advanced technology interfering with human perception. Whether intentional or not, this interference might cause people to lose track of time or experience it differently.

So, suggesting that UFOs operate outside the framework of conventional space-time is premature. It ignores simpler, more grounded explanations. The way something appears to human observers does not always reflect its true nature. Just because these objects seem to defy the laws of physics does not mean they actually do, and certainly does not mean they are coming from another dimension. Before turning to exotic theories, we should first consider the possibility that we are simply witnessing technology that is far more advanced than our own.

A RESPONSE TO THE “WHY EARTH?” ARGUMENT AGAINST EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITATION

by Spartacus 01

Many people who oppose the idea of extraterrestrial visitation argue that it is highly improbable that, out of all the planets that extraterrestrials could have visited, they would have ended up on Earth. However, I have never truly understood the logic behind this argument. Why would it be improbable for extraterrestrials to decide to visit Earth? On what basis is the assumption made that such a scenario would be unlikely? What specific parameters are being used to determine the probability of such an event occurring?

Even though we are, by all reasonable standards, a relatively primitive civilization, we have already developed the capability to detect potentially habitable planets beyond our solar system. For example, we are able to observe the atmospheres of exoplanets and identify the presence of gases such as carbon dioxide or methane, which may indicate biological activity. In the near future, as our technology advances, it is highly likely that we will develop instruments sensitive enough to detect even more subtle signs of life. We may even reach the point where we are capable of identifying clear indicators of technological activity — such as artificial illumination or industrial pollutants — originating from distant exoplanetary civilizations located light years away. Now, let’s consider a hypothetical civilization that is a thousand years ahead of us in technological development. Such a civilization would likely possess capabilities that far surpass anything we can currently imagine. If we, despite being a species that has only recently begun to explore the cosmos, are already on the verge of detecting exoplanetary biosignatures and technosignatures, it stands to reason that a civilization with a thousand-year technological advantage would have already mastered such detection methods to an incomprehensible degree of precision.

Consequently, the idea that extraterrestrials would have needed to “stumble upon Earth” purely by accident is a fundamentally flawed assumption. If an advanced civilization has developed the ability to systematically scan vast stretches of space for signs of life, then they could have identified Earth as a biologically active planet long ago. They may have detected signs of intelligent life, and subsequently made the deliberate decision to come and investigate. The notion that their presence here would be some kind of extraordinary coincidence is based on an outdated and anthropocentric perspective that fails to account for the likely capabilities of a far more advanced civilization.

A possible objection to my argument could be: If extraterrestrials are capable of detecting habitable planets from great distances and have the ability to choose from a vast number of such planets to explore, then why would they have selected Earth specifically? What would make our planet more worthy of their attention than any of the countless other habitable worlds scattered throughout the galaxy? However, this objection is based on an unspoken and unnecessary assumption — namely, that extraterrestrials would be restricted to visiting only one habitable planet at a time. There is no logical reason to believe that an advanced civilization, or even multiple civilizations, would be compelled to focus all of their exploratory efforts on a single world while ignoring all others. On the contrary, if a civilization has developed faster-than-light travel, and has the technological capability to detect habitable planets across vast cosmic distances, then it is entirely reasonable to assume that they have also developed the means to explore multiple worlds simultaneously.

After all, even we — despite being a species that is still in the early stages of space exploration — do not limit ourselves to studying just one planetary body at a time. At this very moment, we have multiple robotic probes operating on or around Mars, the Moon, Venus, the Sun, and several outer solar system bodies, all engaged in simultaneous exploration. If we, with our comparatively primitive technology, are capable of investigating multiple planets at once, then it follows that a civilization far more advanced than ours would have the capacity to conduct large-scale, coordinated exploration efforts across an entire region of the galaxy. For all we know, the extraterrestrial civilization — or the coalition of civilizations — responsible for visiting Earth may possess entire fleets of spacecraft, consisting of thousands upon thousands of massive motherships and hundreds of thousands of smaller exploratory vessels. Such a fleet could be systematically surveying multiple habitable planets within our galactic neighborhood at the same time, rather than singling out Earth as their sole focus. In other words, our planet may not have been “chosen” in the way that some skeptics assume; rather, it may simply be one of many worlds currently under observation by a civilization with the capability to explore on an enormous scale.

The notion that Earth must have been singled out among all other planets is, therefore, an anthropocentric assumption that fails to consider the sheer scale at which an advanced extraterrestrial species may be operating. Just as we send probes to multiple worlds throughout our solar system without restricting ourselves to a single target, they could be engaged in a widespread exploration effort, encompassing Earth along with countless other planets harboring life.

Soviet Nukes and UFOs

Original Source: https://openminds.tv/soviet-nukes-and-ufos/

It sounds like a tabloid headline, but the question is a valid one: Did UFOs almost trigger an accidental nuclear war in 1982? The incident in question occurred in south-central Ukraine on the evening of October 4th, according to official depositions from Soviet military units and interviews with one of the officers in charge of the investigation. There were multiple witnesses to the event, which took place between 7:30 and 9:37 pm, and many of them were Soviet military officers and personnel stationed at a long-range nuclear missile base in Usovo, near Byelokovoriche.

The depositions describe nighttime unidentified lights performing acrobatics in the sky over several villages around the missile base. That, in itself, is not particularly worrisome, as the reports don’t indicate any sign of hostility from the lights. But what happened at an underground bunker of Military Unit (MU) 52035, one which contained nuclear missiles launch control panels, is another matter entirely.

“For a short time,” retired Air Force Colonel Boris Sokolov told ABC TV News Moscow correspondent David Ensor, “signal lights on both the control panels suddenly turned on, the lights showing that missiles were preparing for launching. This could normally only happen if an order was transmitted from Moscow.” As director of the Ministry of Defense’s effort for “research into the field of anomalous phenomena in the atmosphere and in outer space,” Sokolov became a member of the four-man commission set up to investigate the so-called Usovo case.

That was back in the early ‘80s when the missile targets were located in America, former KGB Director Yuri Andropov was General Secretary, and Ronald Reagan was denouncing the USSR as “the evil empire.” Today, of course, it’s a different story. The missile base was closed in the early 90s with the end of the cold war, the Ukraine is an independent country, and military witnesses are free to talk, sometimes. So we are lucky to have the official deposition of Major M. Davidovich Kataman, senior assistant of the commander of the Military Unit 52035’s communication service, in charge of the computerized control panels for the long-range nuclear missiles at the Usovo base. Major Kataman did not see the UFOs flying above because he was, at the time, on shift in the underground bunker. But what he did see was, militarily speaking, the stuff of nightmares in his line of work.

Major Kataman wrote in his deposition that, “on the 4th of October 1982 at 21:37, I observed spontaneous illumination of all displays: BR, P, Sh, DR, GP, SR, PR, CZ, BT, NBT, GP, message, GB message, PP, PS, OR, PNS, Z, PZG, PZNS, figure indicators as in the regime ‘light marks’ at first push on the information board.” Confusing as this sounds—and the difficulties of translation notwithstanding (1)—the Major is implying that someone or something was apparently manipulating the series of precise control codes, four spaces and control code combination, which regulate the computerized missile control launch panel. His deposition added that, “testing of apparatus and measurement of parameters according to technical map 1-30 showed no defects. The apparatus was functioning normally,” that is, before and after the strange “illumination of all displays.”

The officer then added: “I suppose that this effect can take place as a result of the influence of a powerful impulse on the apparatus’ power system, especially on block BP-263 (U-10) then on VTG-127 (U5, U3, U2) and then on blocks U14, U12 and U11 [missile silos], bearing the main load in processing data in the apparatus. No abnormal effects were observed in other communications means… No such cases had been observed before.” The equipment was later taken apart piece by piece but no anomalies or malfunctions were found.

According to the ABC-TV News Prime Time Live segment “KGB UFO Files,” which was broadcast on October 6, 1994, “for 15 agonizing seconds, the base lost control of its nuclear weapons; what happened here on this day has never been explained.” ABC also interviewed two witnesses to the 1982 sighting: a civilian from Byelokovoriche and Lt. Col. Vladimir Platunov. Lt. Col. Platunov described the object as “… just like a flying saucer, the way they show them in the movies, no portholes, no nothing. The surface was absolutely even, the disc made a beautiful turn…on the edge, just like a plane. It [made] no sound. I had never seen anything like that before.”

In comparison, the language in the nine other depositions—in addition to Major Kataman’s—is quite sober. They are by witnesses from MU 52035 and MU 32157, and include one soldier, one Lieutenant, three Captains, two Majors and three Lt. Colonels. It’s quite an impressive list. The witnesses were in various locations, mostly on roads linking Byelokovoriche and the villages of Usovo, Topyilnja, Zhovtnevo, Perebrody and Korosten. These small villages probably will not appear in a general atlas, but the area is located in central Ukraine, south of the capital Kiev.

THE TESTIMONY

Captain Valery Polykhaev was on a bus, returning home from his post at the Usovo base at 7:30 pm on October 4, 1982. “After the bus stopped at the cross roads to Usovo,” he stated in his deposition, “I saw in the clear space above the road, at 5-6 km of altitude, two brightly shining objects resembling very much a New Year’s tree garland in it’s shape.” (I believe “New Year’s tree garland” is a politically correct, Communist term for a common Christmas tree decoration.) “They were shining with bright-golden light and those lights were twinkling,” continued Capt. Polykhaev. “There were 6-8 brightly shining spots making a circle in every object. The distance between objects was about 2-3 km. Then a shining small ball separated from the left object and moved to the right one.” The lights continued their acrobatics for another 5 to 7 minutes, according to the Captain, who added that, “while moving the object changed its shape, the twinkling lights reformed from an ellipsis to a straight line.”

Lt. Colonel Balanev was returning home on the same military bus when, together with the rest of the passengers, he “observed a luminescence in the sky unknown to me from 19:20 to 19:40 hours. It was in the shape of many twinkling stars from pale-yellow to dark-cherry in color.” Other passengers in the bus who also witnessed the phenomenon and wrote depositions for the Ministry of Defense were Captains Duman and Tukmachev, and Lt. Colonels Povar and Kuzmin. Lt. Colonel Zinkovsky at first thought that it was a helicopter, but “on coming to the place where I observed the object, I saw that there was nothing there.”

Capt. Polykhaev saw the object again later in the evening. By 8 pm, he was driving his car with his wife, two children and some friends. They were near the railway crossing between Topyilnja station and Zhovtnevo street when they noticed once again an unusual light show in the skies over Usovo at an altitude of 5-7 km. “A bright light flashed and went out, then it flashed again and after that, 6-8 bright-golden lights flashed around it in the shape of an ellipsis,” continued Capt. Polykhaev’s deposition. “A small brightly shining ball separated from them and flew to the earth and on approaching it, went out. In 10 minutes the phenomenon repeated… the shining object began to move quickly in our side, with high speed and rising in size. Then the object suddenly stopped. Our distance to it was about 1-2 km. The children were scared that the object would fall down on us. After it stopped, the light went out slowly as if melted away. In ten minutes, another garland ‘flourished’ at a large distance and went out again.” Captain Kovalenko was in the same car with Capt. Polykhaev and basically described a similar event.

Most of the depositions are shorter and less detailed than Capt. Polykhaev’s. Major Lipezki was driving along the Perebrody-Usovo road with Capt. Ryabinin. His deposition states that, “I paid attention to the luminescence of some object straight in front of me somewhere above Usovo. The luminescence came from a group of shining spots forming 5 groups. The lights were disposed on the area approximately equal to the area of the setting sun. It was situated at an altitude of about 30 meters above the edge of a distant forest. The color of the lights was from pale-yellow to red. It was about 19:10-19:15 hours.” The two officers saw the lights again twice as they continued on the road towards Byelokovoriche, which they reached without further excitement.

Senior Lieutenant Kobulyansky, the Battery vice-commander, and Major Drobakhin, also saw unidentified lights on and off from another car along the road to Byelokovoriche between 19:30 and 21 hours. At one point, they reported an apparent electromagnetic effect on the car radio, such as if “we were coming under high-voltage lines, but there were no high-voltage lines there,” states Lt. Kobulyansky’s deposition.

NO CONCLUSION

What could have triggered the multiple-witness UFO by several Soviet military officers in the Ukraine on October 4, 1982? The ABC broadcast added that “there were military exercises going on at the time of the incident involving explosives in the air, but they were over 200 miles away from here. The weather conditions were normal.” Unlike other Soviet military reports from Col. Sokolov’s collection we have obtained, the dossier on the Usovo affair is quite slim: nine pages with the typed depositions quoted above, but no evaluations, no technical appraisals on the control panel malfunction; no mention of other possible factors or data on military maneuvers, radar, additional witnesses, etc.; and perhaps most significantly, no conclusions by the investigating commission.

Presumably all or some of the additional data exists in a Russian Ministry or intelligence archive somewhere, but it’s still secret. Yet even if the incident’s visual component could be explained by flares and explosives from nearby military maneuvers—something Col. Sokolov has apparently discounted in his interviews—these could not account for the “spontaneous illumination” of the control panels reported by Major Kataman M. Davidovich, which makes this case unique.

THE SOVIET UFO DOSSIER

The report on the Usovo incident and other cases of “anomalous atmospheric phenomena” in the former Soviet Union would have remained secret under normal circumstances. However, the fall of communism and the demise of the USSR produced something that 15 or 20 years ago would have seemed unthinkable: the declassification and literal “sale” of government documents of all kinds—from nuclear disasters and sunken submarines to UFO reports and psychotronic research. George Knapp, the well-known reporter from KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, visited Moscow for the first time in 1993. With the assistance of Dr. Nikolai Kapranov, a national security advisor for the Russian Parliament, Knapp and his associate Bryan Gresh were able to meet and interview Boris Sokolov, the retired Soviet Air Force Colonel who directed the UFO collection effort for the Ministry of Defense between 1978 and 1988.

Col. Sokolov had kept copies of approximately 386 UFO sightings reported simultaneously to both the Ministry and the KGB and, after some delicate negotiations, the whole dossier was sold to George Knapp. “In essence,” says Knapp, “an order went off from the Ministry of Defense to every unit in the Soviet military empire to fully investigate, report on, and file any UFO sightings, so in essence the entire Soviet military was like a giant UFO listening post.” (2) The whole effort was undoubtedly cold war-oriented, as Col. Sokolov himself acknowledged in his interview with ABC: “It was presumed that if we obtained the knowledge of such technologies we would achieve a considerable advantage in the competition that we were unfortunately engaged at the time.”

The UFO documents obtained by Knapp can be divided in three broad categories. The first is a short Summary of 357 cases logged between 1978 and 1991. They give the date, time and location for each incident; a brief summary of the report; a notation on whether any space launches or other technical experiments took place on the same time; and finally what the investigators call “Influences,” such as radar detection, electromagnetic effect on equipment, or physiological effects on the witnesses. While these Summaries are basically raw or unevaluated data, some of them provide interesting and provocative reading.

The second part of Col. Sokolov’s dossier is a more detailed discussion of individual cases. These consist of full depositions written by the military witnesses, such as those reviewed in the Usovo case, as well as a complete Questionnaire. This questionnaire includes not just the obvious questions about time, shape, direction followed by the object, meteorological conditions, and so on, but also “Influence on technical means” (electric equipment, radar, etc.) and “Influence on people and other living beings and environment.” Drawings and sketches of the observation are also included in the Questionnaire.

The last category of documents obtained by Knapp are not part of the old Soviet Ministry archives kept by Col. Sokolov, but part of the “Thread-3” project undertaken since 1991 by the current Russian Ministry of Defense. These documents were actually smuggled out of Russia by Knapp, and their style and contents are quite different from the previous project. They consist of a number of reports not so much on individual UFO cases, but on a variety of topics such as: the history of UFO research in the USSR and Russia; propulsion and “non-traditional engines” and “the possible application for the creation of military and industrial technical devices”; a brief review of American UFO documents and popular Western ufological research; analysis of the messages and philosophical outlook of some Russian UFO contactees; reports and rumors of UFO sightings by Russian cosmonauts; and so on.

The head of “Thread-3” agreed to meet Knapp but only off-the-record; his name was not disclosed and his face hidden from the TV camera. But in 1992, a man described as “Lt. Colonel Alexander Platskin, a CIS-United Armed Forces consultant on the problem of anomalous phenomena,” was interviewed on camera on the record for the Russian documentary film, UFO: Top Secret, produced and directed by the Samara ufologist Dr. Vladimir Avinsky. Lt. Col. Platskin stated candidly that, “there were cases of unauthorized firing at UFOs from automatic weapons. For instance, in the Djerzhinsky region of the Gorky province, fighter planes rose to intercept UFOs and buried a glimpse more than once, but it was all in vain. The singularity of the phenomenon startled and terrified sentries who opened fire at the strange objects. Pilots often saw them on their radar screens.”

Col. Sokolov, in an interview with George Knapp, seemed to confirm Plastskin statement. “Pilots recognized UFOs as a threat to them,” he said. “There were 40 episodes in which they shot at UFOs. An order was given to pilots to chase UFOs and shoot at them, but when the pilots tried, the UFOs sped away… In three cases, the pilots lost control and crashed. Two of the pilots died. After that, pilots received a new order. When they see a UFO, change course and get out.”

COL. SOKOLOV’S FLIP-FLOP

In 2000, Col. Sokolov and Yuli Platov, a well known Russian scientist and UFO skeptic, published a comprehensive article in Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, the official proceedings of the Russian Academy, titled “History of UFO State Research in the USSR.” It described the history of the secret military studies of UFOs between 1977 and 1990, only to dismiss the bulk of them as mostly space-related IFOs (Identified Flying Objects). “Practically all the mass night observations of ‘UFO’ were unambiguously identified as the effects accompanying the launches of the rockets or the tests of aerospace equipment,” stated the report. After discussing and debunking a few cases, Sokolov and Platov concluded that there were no genuine UFO landings, contact cases or abductions. “This means that either the territory of the USSR was, due to any reasons, closed for alien visitations during, at least, 13 years or that the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial origin of ‘UFO’ is inconsistent,” wrote Sokolov and Platov. You can access the entire Platov & Sokolov paper translated by James Oberg here [http://www.debunker.com/historical/HistoryRussianUFOlogy.html].

Needless to say, the Usovo case is also discussed in some length in the Russian Academy journal and debunked as well. The first strange item is that the authors give its date as October 5, 1983, while all the official depositions in our possession clearly state that the year was 1982. Could this be a typo either in the original or in the English translation supplied by the well known American space expert and UFO skeptic, James Oberg? Sokolov and Platov then explain the visual sightings in the Usovo area by bomb dropping exercises conducted at “an air polygon of the 26 army located in the belorussian Polesje approximately 400 kms from a place of observation.” Finally, the two authors deal with the nagging problem of the malfunction of the nuclear missile control panel described by Major Kataman. Nothing to worry about. Almost as an afterthought, they finished the section on the Usovo case with this statement: “It should be added, that the fault in the operation of the command post equipment had nothing to do with the observed phenomena, it just completely accidentally coincided in time. However, just this time coincidence was the main reason for an urgent investigation of the event.”

The main question we are left with is what happened to Col. Boris Sokolov. His article with Yuli Platov in 2000 sounds totally different to the man who was interviewed by George Knapp and ABC Prime Time Live in the early 1990s. What caused his reversal? One possibility is that he got some flack for giving Knapp the Soviet military UFO dossier. There is some murkiness on how this transaction took place and it’s almost certain that, given the dire economic situation in Russia at the time, Sokolov was paid for it.

OTHER UFO INCIDENTS AT MISSILE BASES

Another important point is that the Usovo case is not in a vacuum. There is at least a handful of incidents involving UFOs at sensitive installations with nuclear bases the in both the U.S. and the old USSR that are documented and there might be more in still secret military files. One fascinating case Soviet military case which ironically is not even mentioned in the Sokolov and Platov article, occurred at an army missile base in the district of Kapustin Yar, Astrakhan Region, on the night of July 28-29, 1989. A partial file of this incident was declassified by the KGB in 1991 to the late cosmonaut and general Pavel Popovich, as part of a so-called “blue folder” of 124 pages of “Cases of Observations of Anomalous Occurrences in the Territory of the USSR, 1982-1990.”

The Kapustin Yar dossier consists of the depositions of seven military witnesses (two junior officers, a corporal and four privates) plus illustrations of the object by the observers, and a brief case summary by an unnamed KGB officer. The KGB file is obviously incomplete, since there is no data on the jet scramble mission (which is mentioned) and no final conclusions. However, the documents we do have provide fascinating reading. The most detailed observation comes from the Officer-on-Duty, Ensign Valery N. Voloshin:

“One could clearly see a powerful blinking signal which resembled a camera flash in the night sky. The object flew over the unit’s logistics yard and moved in the direction of the rocket weapons depot, 300 meters [1,000 ft.] away. It hovered over the depot at a height of 20 meters [65 ft.]. The UFO’s hull shone with a dim green light which looked like phosphorous. It was a disc, 4 or 5 m. [13-17 ft.] in diameter, with a semispherical top.

“While the object was hovering over the depot, a bright beam appeared from the bottom of the disc, where the flash had been before, and made two or three circles, lighting the corner of one of the buildings… The movement of the beam lasted for several seconds, then the beam disappeared and the object, still flashing, moved in the direction of the railway station. After that, I observed the object hovering over the logistics yard, railway station and cement factory. Then it returned to the rocket weapons depot, and hovered over it at an altitude of 60-70 m. [200-240 ft.]. The object was observed from that time on, by the first guard-shift and its commander. At 1:30 hrs., the object flew in the direction of the city of Akhtubinsk and disappeared from sight. The flashes on the object were not periodical, I observed all this for exactly two hours: from 23:30 to 1:30.”

Ensign Voloshin also provided a sketch of the disc-shaped object emitting the beam (see picture). The multiple witness incident at Kapustin Yar was selected as one of the cases in the Laurance Rockefeller-funded UFO Briefing Document – The Best Available Evidence, which I coauthored with Don Berliner and Marie Galbraith in 1995. You can read our entire treatment of this episode here [http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ufo_briefingdocument/1989.htm].

On the American side, there are at least two other similar examples of missile launch code manipulation coinciding with a UFO incident. The testimony of USAF Capt. (Ret.) Robert Salas, who was on duty at Oscar Flight as part of the 490th strategic missile squad in Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana on the morning of March 16, 1967, is well known. Salas was one of the military witnesses at the famous Disclosure Project event in the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington, DC in May 2001; he later published in 2005, with James Klotz, the book Faded Giant – The 1967 Missile/UFO Incidents. Basically, Salas’ story is that on that fateful morning, while on duty inside the underground bunker, he received a call from the one of the guards, who sounded quite disturbed. “Sir, there’s a glowing red object hovering right outside the front gate – I’m looking at it right now. I’ve got all the men out here with their weapons drawn.” As Capt. Salas went to notify his superior of the situation, “our missiles starting shutting down one by one,” he testified at the NPC event. “By shutting down, I mean they went into a ‘no-go’ condition meaning they could not be launched.” You can read the full details in Faded Giant, which includes a large number of declassified documents.

Fast forward to the fall of 1975. This time the target was the K-7 Minuteman nuclear missile area at the Malmstrom Strategic Air Command (SAC) base in Montana, on November 7, 1975. It occurred during a famous two-week UFO flap at several SAC bases along the USA-Canada border. According to The UFO Cover-Up, the authoritative book by Lawrence Fawcett and Barry Greenwood on the declassified American UFO documents, “targeting teams, along with computer specialists, were brought to the [K-7] missile site to check out the missile, and specifically, the computer in the warhead that targets the missile. Amazingly, when the computer was checked, they found that the tape had mysteriously changed target numbers! The re-entry vehicle was then taken from the silo and brought back to the base. Eventually, the entire missile was changed.”

Although there are no specific declassified documents for this warhead computer tampering, the overall UFO flap over five SAC bases (Loring AFB, Maine, Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, Malmstrom AFB, Montana, Minot AFB, North Dakota, and Canadian Forces Station Falconbridge, Ontario, Canada) during a two-week period in late October and early November 1975, is well known and fully documented by declassified USAF and NORAD documents. A couple of sample quotes provide the alert status of these incidents:

“Several recent sightings of unidentified aircraft/helicopters flying/hovering over Priority A restricted areas during the hours of darkness have prompted the implementation of security Option 3 at our northern tier bases. Since 27 Oct. 75, sightings have occurred at Loring AFB, Wurtsmith AFB, and most recently, at Malmstrom AFB. All attempts to identify these aircraft have met with negative results.” (CINCSAC Offutt AFB message, “Subject: Defense Against Helicopter Assault,” November 10, 1975.)

“November 7, Malmstrom AFB, Montana. A Sabotage Alert Team described seeing a brightly glowing orange, football field-sized disc that illuminated the Minuteman ICBM missile site. As F-106 jet interceptors approached, the UFO took off straight up, NORAD radar tracking it to an altitude of 200,000 feet [38 miles or 60 km.]. An object… emitted a light which illuminated the site driveway. The orange-gold object overhead also has small lights on it.” (24 NORAD Region Senior Director Log November 1975.)

With all these facts in mind, it’s not unreasonable to think that the nuclear superpowers set in motion a policy to deal with these situations and avoid a risk of nuclear war. A curious clause about “unidentified objects” within an Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics, points in that direction. The Agreement was part of the policy of detente during the Nixon and early Brezhnev administrations. It was signed on September 30, 1971 by Secretary of State, William Rogers, and Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko.

The Agreement has nine articles on issues such as informing each other “against the accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons under its control,” notification in advance of missile launches that go beyond the national territory of each country, and other measures of cooperation in order to avert “the risk of outbreak of nuclear war.” Article 3 reads: “The Parties undertake to notify each other immediately in the event of detection by missile warning systems of unidentified objects [emphasis added], or in the event of signs of interference with these systems or with related communications facilities, if such occurrences could create a risk of outbreak of nuclear war between the two countries.”

The interpretation of Article 3 as including the possibility of UFO incursions seems inescapable. It is indeed reassuring in view of the cases where UFOs hovered over military facilities with nuclear weapons (SAC bases in USA, NATO bases in England, missile bases in Russia). On the other hand, attorney Robert Bletchman pointed out that “unidentified objects” (UOs) include non-UFO situations as well (such as an accidental overflight by a civilian aircraft or a terrorist attack), but in the final analysis, UOs do include UFOs. What degree of cooperation about UOs/UFOs existed between the USA and USSR (and currently with Russia), is hard to say, but Article 9 stated: “This Agreement shall be of unlimited duration.”

NOTES:

1. The depositions’ English translations were done in Russia and so the wording can be rough. I’ve edited the text slightly to make it more readable, but otherwise not changed the descriptions.
2. Knapp gave me copies of his entire Soviet and Russian military dossier in the fall of 1996, for publication originally in Japan (I was then a columnist for the now-defunct Tokyo paranormal magazine Borderland). An English version was also published in the journal The Anomalist Nº 7, Winter 1998/99.

Majestic Twelve: One of the Greatest Hoaxes in the History of UFOlogy

As evidence that the Roswell incident was the result of the crash of an alien craft, many UFO enthusiasts and Roswell believers often cite the so-called “Majestic Twelve” documents. The history of these documents is complex and multifaceted. Since no one has ever attempted to write a single, unified post containing all the available information about them, I thought that it would have been worthwhile to do so myself. In my opinion, it is important for people who are new to this topic to have a comprehensive reference. Therefore, I will write a single essay, explaining how the documents came into the hands of UFO researchers, what is their content, and why I believe they should be regarded as a hoax.

There are many documents associated with Majestic Twelve. Some of these documents were allegedly leaked in the early 1980s, while others were supposedly leaked in the 1990s and sent to UFO researcher Timothy Cooper. This essay will focus exclusively on the original Majestic Twelve documents that surfaced in the early 1980s. These early documents are the only ones worth discussing in detail, because they were the first to introduce the concept of Majestic Twelve and the entire lore surrounding it. Proving that the first documents to reference Majestic Twelve are forgeries would mean proving that the very name “Majestic Twelve” itself is a fabrication. Which, in turn, would automatically demonstrate that all subsequent documents referencing Majestic Twelve are fraudulent as well.

Furthermore, it is important to note that the documents sent to Timothy Cooper have never been considered authentic by UFO researchers. Even Stanton Friedman, one of the most vocal advocates of the authenticity of the original 1980s documents, firmly rejected the Cooper documents. In fact, in his pro-Majestic Twelve book Top Secret/Magic,, Friedman devoted several chapters to systematically debunking the documents Cooper received. For this reason, not only is it unnecessary to examine the 1990s documents in detail, but it is also reasonable to assert that their fate is inextricably tied to that of the original documents. If the 1980s documents are discredited, then the entire narrative built upon them inevitably falls apart.

THE HISTORY OF THE DOCUMENTS

The Majestic Twelve documents first appeared in December 1984, when a package with no return address and a postmark from Albuquerque, New Mexico, arrived at the residence of television producer Jamie Shandera in North Hollywood, California. The package contained a roll of 35mm film. When developed, the film revealed a classified memo dated September 24, 1947, in which President Harry S. Truman authorized the creation of “Operation Majestic Twelve.” It also contained a document dated November 18, 1952, which purported to be a briefing document written by Vice Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter and destined to President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower. The document outlined the nature and purpose of Operation Majestic Twelve, describing the Roswell crash and other related events. The text of the Eisenhower Briefing Document is reported below:

Operation Majestic-12 is a top-secret research and development/intelligence operation responsible directly and only to the President of the United States. Operations of the project are carried out under the control of the Majestic-12 (Majic-12) Group, which was established by a special classified executive order of President Truman on 24 September 1947, upon the recommendation of Dr. Vannevar Bush and Secretary James Forrestal.

Members of the Majestic-12 Group were designated as follows:

• Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter
• Dr. Vannevar Bush
• Secy. James V. Forrestal
• Gen. Nathan P. Twining
• Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg
• Dr. Detlev Bronk
• Dr. Jerome Hunsaker
• Mr. Sidney W. Souers
• Mr. Gordon Gray
• Dr. Donald Menzel
• Gen. Robert M. Montague
• Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner

The death of Secretary Forrestal on 22 May, 1949, created a vacancy which remained unfilled until 01 August, 1950, upon which date Gen. Walter B. Smith was designated as permanent replacement.

On 24 June, 1947, a civilian pilot flying over the Cascade Mountains in the State of Washington observed nine flying disc-shaped aircraft traveling in formation at a high rate of speed. Although this was not the first known sighting of such objects, it was the first to gain widespread attention in the public media. Hundreds of reports of sightings of similar objects followed. Many of these came from highly credible military and civilian sources. These reports resulted in independent efforts by several different elements of the military to ascertain the nature and purpose of these objects in the interests of national defense.

A number of witnesses were interviewed and there were several unsuccessful attempts to utilize aircraft in efforts to pursue reported discs in flight. Public reaction bordered on near hysteria at times. In spite of these efforts, little of substance was learned about the objects until a local rancher reported that one had crashed in a remote region of New Mexico located approximately seventy-five miles northwest of Roswell Army Air Base (now Walker Field).

On 07 July, 1947, a secret operation was begun to assure recovery of the wreckage of this object for scientific study. During the course of this operation, aerial reconnaissance discovered that four small human-like beings had apparently ejected from the craft at some point before it exploded. These had fallen to Earth about two miles east of the wreckage site. All four were dead and badly decomposed due to action by predators and exposure to the elements during the approximately one week time period which had elapsed before their discovery. A special scientific team took charge of removing these bodies for study. The wreckage of the craft was also removed to several different locations. Civilian and military witnesses in the area were debriefed, and news reporters were given the effective cover story that the object had been a misguided weather research balloon.

A covert analytical effort organized by Gen. Twining and Dr. Bush acting on the direct orders of the President, resulted in a preliminary consensus (19 September, 1947) that the disc was most likely a short range reconnaissance craft. This conclusion was based for the most part on the craft’s size and the apparent lack of any identifiable provisioning.

A similar analysis of the four dead occupants was arranged by Dr. Bronk. It was the tentative conclusions of this group (30 November, 1947) that although these creatures are human-like in appearance, the biological and evolutionary processes responsible for their development has apparently been quite different from those observed or postulated in homo-sapiens. Dr. Bronk’s team has suggested the term “Extraterrestrial Biological Entities”, or “EBE’s”, be adopted as the standard term of reference for these creatures until such time as a more definitive designation can be agreed upon.

Since it is virtually certain that these craft do not originate in any country on earth, considerable speculation has centered around what their point of origin might be and how they get here. Mars was and remains a possibility, although some scientists, most notably Dr. Menzel, consider it more likely that we are dealing with beings from another solar system entirely.

Numerous examples of what appear to be a form of writing were found in the wreckage. Efforts to decipher these have remained largely unsuccessful.

Equally unsuccessful have been efforts to determine the method of propulsion or the nature or method of transmission of the power source involved. Research along these lines has been complicated by the complete absence of identifiable wings, propellers, jets, or other conventional methods of propulsion and guidance, as well as a total lack of metallic wiring, vacuum tubes, or similar recognizable electronic components. It is assumed that the propulsion unit was completely destroyed by the explosion which caused the crash.>
A need for as much additional information as possible about these craft, their performance characteristics and their purpose led to the undertaking known as U.S. Air Force Project Sign in December, 1947. In order to preserve security, liaison between Sign and Majestic-12 was limited to two individuals within the Intelligence Division of Air Material Command whose role was to pass along certain types of information through channels. Sign evolved into Project Grudge in December, 1948. The operation is currently being conducted under the code name Blue Book, with liaison maintained through the Air Force officer who is head of the project.

On 06 December, 1950, a second object, probably of similar origin, impacted the earth at high speed in the El Indio-Guerrero area of the Texas-Mexican border after following a long trajectory through the atmosphere. By the time a search team arrived, what remained of the object had been almost totally incinerated. Such material as could be recovered was transported to the A.E.C. facility at Sandia, New Mexico, for study.

Implications for the National Security are of continuing importance in that the motives and ultimate intentions of these visitors remain completely unknown. In addition, a significant upsurge in the surveillance activity of these craft beginning in May and continuing through the autumn of this year has caused considerable concern that new developments may be imminent. It is for these reasons, as well as the obvious international and technological considerations and the ultimate need to avoid a public panic at all costs, that the Majestic-12 Group remains of the unanimous opinion that imposition of the strictest security precautions should continue without interruption into the new administration. At the same time, contingency plan MJ-1949-04P/78 (Top Secret - Eyes Only) should be held in continued readiness should the need to make a public announcement present itself.

Although the envelope bore no name or identifying marks, Shandera presumed that the package had been delivered by his friend William Moore, a prominent UFO researcher and the co-author of the very first book about the Roswell crash, titled The Roswell Incident. However, when Shandera showed him the envelope, Moore denied having seen it before. Nevertheless, when Moore had the opportunity to read the Eisenhower Briefing Document, he quickly discerned a connection between the document and his own Roswell research. After receiving both the Truman-Forrestal Memo and the Eisenhower Briefing Document, Moore and Shandera, together with Stanton Friedman, embarked on a meticulous effort to determine the authenticity of the documents and validate their content. This endeavor involved extensive research and fact-checking, which led them to spend significant time at the National Archives, combing through government records and declassified materials. Their goal was to uncover any circumstantial evidence or corroborating details that could indicate the authenticity of both documents.

In March 1985, Stanton Friedman visited the National Archives during a trip to Washington, D.C. While there, Friedman was informed that Air Force intelligence files were undergoing a classification review, which might yield information related to UFO phenomena. This promising lead prompted a return visit in July 1985 by Moore and Shandera, who meticulously searched through the records identified as Entry 267 of Air Force Record Group 341. After painstakingly reviewing over 120 boxes of documents, Shandera stumbled upon a peculiar memo dated 14 July 1954, addressed to General Nathan Twining and signed by Robert Cutler, then Special Assistant to President Eisenhower. This memo, known as the “Cutler-Twining Memo,” stated:

"The President has decided that the MJ-12 SSP briefing should take place during the already scheduled White House meeting of July 16, rather than following it as previously intended.”

The document was an administrative note, devoid of substantive details, but its reference to "MJ-12 " was groundbreaking. The memo was typed on onionskin paper with a watermark and bore a red pencil mark through its security classification, consistent with archival practices for declassified materials. The discovery provided the first tangible link to the existence of Majestic Twelve.

Following this significant find, Moore, Shandera, and Friedman undertook further efforts to authenticate the Cutler-Twining Memo. By 1987, Moore, Shandera, and Friedman had gathered enough evidence to confidently present their findings, and decided to officially and publicly release the documents in a press conference. The release ignited intense debate within the UFO research community and the broader public. Some researchers hailed the documents as conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, while others questioned their authenticity, claiming that Moore and Shandera were the perpetrators of a hoax.

THE AQUARIUS DOCUMENT AND “MJ-TWELVE”

Contrary to what one might think, the first mention of Majestic Twelve does not come from the Truman-Forrestal Memo or the Eisenhower Briefing Document, but rather from a 1981 teletype, commonly referred to as the “Aquarius Document.” However, in order to understand the history of the Aquarius Document, one must first thoroughly understand the history of the Bennewitz affair. The Bennewitz affair has a very complicated history, but I will attempt to summarize it as clearly and comprehensively as possible.

In December 1979, Paul Bennewitz, a physicist and businessman from Albuquerque, began observing, photographing, and filming unidentified flying objects over the Manzano Weapons Storage Area, a highly sensitive nuclear weapons depot located just east of Kirtland Air Force Base and directly bordering his neighborhood of Four Hills. Concerned by what he had witnessed, Bennewitz reported his observations to various authorities, including the Air Force, members of the UFO research community, and even the media.

Because the presence of unidentified flying objects over a nuclear weapons site posed a potentially serious issue for national security, the Air Force feared that Bennewitz’s claims might attract unwanted scrutiny. Rather than addressing the situation openly, they launched a covert effort to discredit him. The goal was to feed him sensational and exaggerated information so that he would disseminate it and, as a result, come across as unreliable and unstable. This, in turn, would ensure that no one would take anything he said seriously, and people would entirely disregard — if not outright dismiss — the genuine UFO sightings he had reported in December 1979.

In early 1980, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) assigned Special Agent Richard C. Doty to the Bennewitz case. Doty was instructed to establish contact with Bennewitz and lead a carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign. This effort began almost immediately after the Air Force learned of Bennewitz’s initial reports. Soon after Doty’s involvement began, Bennewitz started receiving strange electronic signals at his home. These transmissions, which were engineered and transmitted by the Air Force itself, contained intelligible messages that Bennewitz interpreted as communications from the occupants of the UFOs he had seen. The messages conveyed claims such as “the number of our crashed saucers is eight,” “our race is dying on home planet,” and “women of Earth are needed.” Convinced that these transmissions were authentic, Bennewitz came to believe that an alien presence was operating near the base and attempting to contact him directly.

In 1981, Doty approached William Moore — a prominent UFO researcher — and recruited him into the operation. According to what Moore himself admitted later, the Air Force — through Doty — offered him a deal: if he collaborated with them in managing the Bennewitz affair, spied on other UFO researchers, and spread disinformation on their behalf, they would grant him access to classified documents about UFOs. Moore accepted the deal and began working with the Air Force.

Through Doty and Moore, the Air Force gradually convinced Bennewitz that he was on the brink of discovering a large alien plot to conquer the planet. According to the narrative they constructed, the signals he was tracking were linked to the activities of the so-called “Greys,” small humanoid beings who, he was told, came from the double star system of Zeta Reticuli. Bennewitz was led to believe that these extraterrestrials were operating from a concealed base deep within Mount Archuleta, near the town of Dulce, New Mexico. To reinforce his beliefs, the Air Force installed fake ventilation shafts on the mountain and airlifted old storage tanks, jeeps, and equipment shacks to remote locations around Dulce, creating the illusion of an underground facility. Bennewitz was persuaded that the Greys stationed within the base were responsible for the cattle mutilations that had been reported in the area and that they were conducting horrific experiments on human prisoners, implanting devices that would allow them to control and monitor their test subjects.

The deception had a profound impact on Bennewitz. He began conducting frequent aerial surveys of Mount Archuleta, searching for evidence of the supposed alien base. During one of these flights, he discovered a site that appeared to be the scene of a crash. Seeing an opportunity, the Air Force reinforced his belief in an alien presence by feeding him further disinformation, this time suggesting that the crashed object was a nuclear-powered craft — an experimental vehicle allegedly built through the reverse-engineering of alien technology. As the operation became more complex, Bennewitz was further misled to believe that the Greys had established a clandestine pact with the U.S. government. This alleged agreement, he was told, granted the aliens permission to abduct American citizens for medical experimentation in exchange for providing advanced technology to the government. He was also persuaded to believe that the aliens had later broken the treaty, leading to a violent underground battle between the U.S. military and the Greys stationed within the Dulce Base. According to the story, the nuclear-powered craft that had crashed on Mount Archuleta had been shot down by the aliens during this conflict.

Over time, the sustained stress and anxiety took a severe toll on Bennewitz’s mental health. His growing paranoia led him to suspect that his own wife had been implanted with an alien device, and that extraterrestrials were entering his home at night to inject him with unknown substances. He eventually suffered a breakdown in 1988 and was hospitalized for several months. Tragically, his mental health never fully recovered, and he passed away in 2003.

As UFO researcher Robert Hastings eloquently explained in a letter to Robert J. Durant dated October 2005:

Despite Richard Doty’s recent public “explanation” regarding the reasons for the campaign against Paul Bennewitz, I am of the opinion that Bennewitz may have actually photographed and filmed bona fide UFOs over the Manzano Weapons Storage Area, which is located just east of Kirtland Air Force Base. It was this nuclear weapons depot, now decommissioned, which directly bordered Bennewitz’s subdivision, Four Hills. If you are familiar with some of the nuclear weapons-related UFO sightings — including those at intercontinental ballistic missile sites and weapons research laboratories — then you may also be aware that a few of those sightings have occurred at Weapons Storage Areas.
In view of these facts [about other UFO sightings at various Weapons Storage Areas], I have suggested the following scenario to other researchers: Bennewitz — a reputable businessman whose company held contracts to supply engineering components to various government agencies — photographed bona fide UFOs above the Manzano Weapons Storage Area and then talked about it to anyone who would listen, including the Air Force, ufologists, and the media. Because nuclear weapons-related UFO incidents were — and are — extremely sensitive, a decision was made by the Air Force to undermine Bennewitz’s credibility. Consequently, the Office of Special Investigations at Kirtland Air Force Base formulated a disinformation scheme whereby the talkative Bennewitz would be provided with outrageous stories of alien visitations at Kirtland, underground alien bases in the Southwest, secret U.S.-alien treaties, and all the rest of it.
Once this “inside information” had been passed along to others by the increasingly paranoid Bennewitz, the legitimate media — as well as the more rational members of ufology — would quickly lose interest in his claims, leaving only the most gullible to “oooh” and “ahhh” at these amazing “revelations.” The net result? The initial, bona fide UFO sightings at a highly sensitive nuclear weapons facility got lost in all of the hoopla and were only rarely, if ever, mentioned in the articles and news stories about Bennewitz’s claims.

If you want a comprehensive overview of the Bennewitz case, I highly recommend you to read Project Beta by Greg Bishop and X Descending by Christian Lambright. These books provide an in-depth analysis of the events, how they unfolded, and their implications.

You might wonder: what does the Aquarius Document have to do with the Bennewitz case? And the answer is: the Aquarius Document is one of the forged papers handed to Bennewitz by the Air Force. Specifically, Doty gave it to Moore, who then passed it on to Bennewitz. Of particular significance is a line within the document that marks, in essence, the very first mention of Majestic Twelve. This pivotal sentence appears near the end of the document and is quoted below:

Results of Project Aquarius are still classified Top Secret with no dissemination outside official Intelligence channels, and with restricted access to MJ-Twelve.

This sentence is extremely important, because the Aquarius Document was handed to Bennewitz in March 1981, three years before the Eisenhower Briefing Document and the Truman-Forrestal Memo arrived at Shandera’s house. It resets the clock on these matters, and suggests that Moore had seen a reference to MJ-Twelve in 1981, which is something that has now disappeared from the discussion of the Majestic Twelve documents.

LINDA HOWE AND MAJESTIC TWELVE

In early 1983, Linda Howe — hot off the success of her regional Emmy Award-winning documentary on cattle mutilations, A Strange Harvest — had been tapped to produce an HBO special with the proposed title of UFOs: The E.T. Factor. On April 9, 1983, Howe met with Richard Doty at Kirtland Air Force Base, an incident that seems lifted straight out of a spy novel. As Howe recounted in An Alien Harvest:

I sat down with my back to the windows. [Doty] sat behind the desk. “You know you upset some people in Washington with your film, A Strange Harvest. It came too close to something we don’t want the public to know about.” That began a brief discussion about my documentary. I asked him why extraterrestrials were mutilating animals. Richard Doty said that the subject was classified beyond his need to know. He told me I had been monitored while I was making the film. […]
[Doty] reached with his left hand to a drawer on the left side of the desk and opened it. He pulled from the drawer a brown envelope. He opened it and took out several standard letter sized sheets of white paper. "My superiors have asked me to show this to you,“ he said, handing me the pages. “You can read these and you can ask me questions, but you can’t take any notes.” I took the papers and I read the top page. It was entitled “Briefing Paper for the President of the United States of America” on the subject of unidentified aerial craft or vehicles.
Richard Doty then stood up and said, “I want you to move from there.” He motioned me toward the large chair in the middle of the room. “Eyes can see through windows.” I got up and moved to the big chair, confused. I didn’t know what was happening. As I looked at the pages in my lap a second time, I wondered why he was showing them to me. I was very uncomfortable, but I wanted to read and remember every word…

The documents given to Linda Howe detailed four distinct saucer crashes that were said to have occurred in Roswell, Aztec, Kingman, and Mexico. The Roswell incident reportedly involved a lone survivor referred to as “EBE,” an acronym for Extraterrestrial Biological Entity. EBE was described as being four feet tall, with gray skin and no hair, possessing a large head and prominent eyes that were likened to those of a child, though he was said to have the intellect of “a thousand men.” EBE was allegedly held captive at the Los Alamos Laboratories until his death in 1952.

According to Howe, the documents stated that Project Blue Book was a public relations operation that was supposed to divert attention from the real investigative projects. In his conversations with Howe, Doty mentioned MJ-12, but suggested “MJ” stood for “Majority” rather than “Majestic.” Whatever the real name, it was a committee of twelve high ranking government officials, scientists, and military officers who set the policy for the cover-up and the dissemination of disinformation about UFOs and government interest in them.

One of the documents claimed that extraterrestrials had, approximately two thousand years ago, created a being who was placed on Earth to teach humanity about peace and love, a reference that strongly implied a connection to Jesus Christ. According to the documents, after EBE’s death, other extraterrestrials, identified as EBE-2 and EBE-3, arrived on Earth as part of an exchange program. Doty informed Howe that EBE-3 was still alive and indicated that she might have an opportunity to interview him. Furthermore, Doty claimed that high-level intelligence officers were in possession of classified materials, including film footage of a UFO landing at a military base and other photographs, which he suggested could be used for Howe’s documentary. He assured her that he would contact her in the future using the code name “Falcon.”

Several months later, however, Doty told Howe that he had been removed from the case and referred her to other intelligence contacts. These individuals also delayed providing the promised materials, continuing to string her along for many more months. Ultimately, the prolonged delays led HBO to withdraw from the project, leaving Howe without the necessary resources to proceed with her documentary.

This information is significant, as it strongly suggests that Doty had a deep and deliberate involvement in the creation of what would later become the Eisenhower Briefing Document. In fact, the documents that were shown to Linda Howe contained a great deal of the same content that would eventually appear in the Eisenhower Document. For example, the acronym “EBE” can be found in both documents. Similarly, the document that was shown to Linda Howe referenced a UFO crash that allegedly happened in Mexico. This crash is a clear allusion to the so-called “Del Rio crash,” which the Eisenhower Document specifically places near the border between Mexico and Texas, in the El Indio-Guerrero region. Therefore, just like with the Aquarius Document, we are faced with a situation where information that would later appear in the Eisenhower Document had already surfaced before that document was ever sent to Shandera. Which, much like in the case of the Aquarius Document, resets the clock on these matters.

75 MILES? NO, 62 MILES

In both Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood’s paper, The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12, and later in an article adapted from the paper and published in the MUFON Journal under the by-line of Brad Sparks, there is a discussion of what they regard as a fatal error in the Eisenhower Briefing Document.

To explain what they mean by a “fatal error,” they quote Stanton Friedman, who had stated that one way to determine whether “the document is a phony is on the basis of any mistaken information in it.” Both William Moore and Jaime Shandera echoed this concern at various times by suggesting the same principle. Erroneous information in a document strongly indicates that it has been forged. All of them, including Sparks and Greenwood, argue that such fatal errors would demonstrate that the Eisenhower Document, at best, constituted disinformation and, at worst, was a hoax designed to divert attention from more significant areas of research.

The error identified by Sparks and Greenwood in the Eisenhower Briefing Document pertains to the distance to the debris field near Corona, New Mexico, which is so significantly inaccurate that they consider it a major flaw. Brad Sparks asserted that “the Eisenhower Document wrongly claimed that the Roswell crash site, which refers to the Mack Brazel debris field, was approximately 75 miles from the Roswell base, when in fact it was only 62 miles away.” He has been highlighting this error since 1987. Sparks calculated the actual distance to be 62 air miles, while the distance by road exceeds 100 miles, further emphasizing that the 75-mile figure mentioned in the Eisenhower Document is incorrect. Such an error, even over something as minor as the distances involved, should throw the entire document into question, because those creating such a report for review by a president would not commit an error of this nature.

Sparks suggested that the 75 mile figure originates from The Roswell Incident, published by William Moore and Charles Berlitz in 1980. It is, at best, an estimate that is not based on the facts that should have been available to an aviation unit. Their navigation needed to be precise, and even a miniscule error made at the beginning of a flight could result in missing the destination by dozens of miles. The staff of Roswell Army Air Field would have known the precise distance to the Brazel debris field, and this information should have been reflected in the Eisenhower Document.

A MAJOR FLAW

As previously mentioned, the Eisenhower Briefing Document refers to two UFO crashes: the Roswell incident and another crash that allegedly occurred on December 6, 1950, in the El Indio-Guerrero area near the Texas-Mexico border. This second crash is relatively obscure, but its inclusion in the document is significant, as it serves as additional evidence that the document is not genuine.

In fact, the story came to light in the late 1970s through the efforts of W. Todd Zechel, a UFO researcher who claimed to have discovered a 1968 newspaper article referencing a UFO crash. Building upon this vague lead, Zechel contacted Robert B. Willingham, who described himself as a retired Air Force colonel. In 1977, Willingham signed an affidavit in which he recounted visiting the crash site, observing unusual debris, and even recovering a piece of metal that he described as having a honeycomb-like structure and being resistant to extremely high temperatures.

However, as the years passed, Willingham’s story began to change in significant ways. Initially, he claimed that the crash occurred in 1948, while he was flying an F-94 jet along the Texas-Mexico border. He stated that he had been alerted to a UFO on radar and that the object subsequently crashed south of the border. Over time, the date shifted multiple times, with Willingham later asserting that the event took place on December 6, 1950, then in 1954, and finally in 1955. The location of the crash also changed, moving from the El Indio-Guerrero area to a site closer to Del Rio, Texas, and eventually to a region south of Lantry, Texas.

Willingham’s credibility was definitively undermined when various researchers started looking into his background. While he presented himself as a retired Air Force colonel, investigators discovered that he had never served in the Air Force at all. Instead, he had been a member of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), a civilian auxiliary of the Air Force, where he held the rank of lieutenant colonel. His military record showed that he enlisted in the Army in December 1945, achieved the rank of E4, and was discharged in January 1947. Furthermore, no evidence has ever surfaced to corroborate his claims, and no additional witnesses have come forward to support his account.

Since the story of the Del Rio UFO crash relies entirely on Willingham’s testimony, and since Willingham has proven to be an unreliable witness, it is clear that there was never any UFO crash in Del Rio. This, in turn, means that the inclusion of this alleged UFO crash in the Eisenhower Document represents a significant flaw. An authentic presidential briefing document written in 1952 cannot, by definition, include a demonstrably false story that was created in the 1970s. Therefore, the inclusion of the Del Rio UFO crash in the Eisenhower Document proves that the document was not created in 1952.

THE SMOKING GUN

A significant controversy surrounding the Majestic Twelve documents concerns the unusual date formatting they exhibit, which appears inconsistent with the standard practices employed by the United States government during the late 1940s and early 1950s. During that period, government documents typically used a specific date style: the day written as a number, followed by the fully spelled-out name of the month, and concluded by the complete year written numerically (e.g., “2 March 1948”). Although, on rare occasions, a comma might appear after the month, this was exceedingly uncommon. In one examined sample of 600 pages, only three instances of this anomaly were identified, all originating from a single individual in Air Force Intelligence.

Philip Klass, a well-known UFO skeptic, drew attention to the fact that the Eisenhower Briefing Document deviated from this conventional style. He highlighted that it not only included an additional, uncommon comma after the month but also added a leading zero before single-digit dates (e.g., “07 July, 1947”). Klass noted that such formatting was absent from authentic government documents of the time, but was present in the personal writings of William Moore. Consequently, critics raised the question of whether Moore had been involved in the creation of the Majestic Twelve documents.

In 1990, Barry Greenwood received a letter from Jun-Ichi Takanashi, a respected UFO researcher who has since passed away. In this letter, Takanashi claimed to have discovered five government documents concerning Green Fireballs that exhibited the same peculiar date formatting as the Majestic Twelve documents. Green Fireballs were mysterious luminous objects reported in the late 1940s and early 1950s, often seen streaking across the skies near sensitive military installations, particularly in New Mexico. Some researchers speculated that these phenomena might have been related to classified military projects, while others suggested a possible extraterrestrial origin.

Initially, Greenwood considered the possibility that the dating style in the Majestic Twelve documents might have genuinely been used by the government. However, Takanashi made an important observation. He noted that out of the five documents he had examined, only one appeared to be a direct copy of an original government document. The other four had been retyped, presumably for better readability, and all of these retyped documents were included in William Moore’s 1983 publication, The Mystery of the Green Fireballs. Recognizing the need to verify the authenticity of these documents, Greenwood embarked on a thorough investigation. He located the original versions of the retyped documents in the Project Blue Book microfilms stored at the National Archives, specifically in Roll 88, which contained the OSI Chronological Files. Upon comparison, Greenwood discovered that Moore had modified the date formatting during the retyping process. Moore consistently added the uncommon comma after the month and, in one instance, inserted a leading zero before a single-digit date that had not existed in the original document (e.g., “9 February 1949” became “09 February, 1949”).

It became evident that Moore had a habit of retyping government documents to improve their legibility. However, in doing so, he inadvertently introduced his distinctive style of date formatting into these reproductions. Moore referred to these retyped documents as "faithful reproductions” in his publication, but the alterations in date formatting created a strong resemblance between these documents and the Majestic Twelve documents. Which, in my opinion, definitively proves that the Eisenhower Briefing Document, the Truman-Forrestal Memo, and the Cutler-Twining Memo were fabricated by Richard Doty with the assistance of William Moore, whose consistent use of this unusual date formatting across his personal writings implicated him in the creation of the documents.

CONCLUSIONS

After thoroughly examining all available evidence, I believe the case against the authenticity of the Majestic Twelve documents is overwhelming. The internal inconsistencies, factual errors, and peculiar stylistic choices, combined with their suspicious origin and connection to known disinformation agents such as Richard Doty, leave little room for doubt. These documents are not genuine, and there is every indication that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations had a hand in creating them. They had the means, the motive, and the right people to pull something like this off. The way they handled the Bennewitz affair proves that this kind of disinformation campaign was well within their playbook.

So why would they do it? Most likely to push and reinforce the idea that an alien spacecraft had crashed at Roswell. By putting out a dramatic story about UFO crashes, dead alien bodies, and secret recovery teams, they managed to hijack the conversation. Instead of asking the right questions or following more credible leads, researchers got pulled into chasing after this made-up narrative. Spreading a flashy, attention-grabbing story about flying saucer crashes and secret committees reverse-engineering alien technology can be a great way to confuse the public and distract UFO researchers from a more worthwhile avenue of investigation. In the end, the MJ Twelve documents did exactly that. They created confusion, divided researchers, and polluted the whole topic with noise.

From now on, whenever you come across a reference to Majestic Twelve, think of Richard Doty, of Paul Bennewitz, of the Air Force. And every time you see someone mentioning Majestic Twelve, send a link to this post. It is important for people to know where this story originated from, and why it should die, once and for all.

MY SOURCES

• Top Secret/Magic by Stanton Friedman
• Project Beta by Greg Bishop
• X Descending by Christian Lambright
• Important New Revelations About the Paul Bennewitz Affair by Robert Hastings
• Crash: When UFOs Fall From The Sky by Kevin Randle
• The Myth of MJ-12 by Kevin Randle
• Case MJ-12 by Kevin Randle
• The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12 by Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood

On February 5, 1947, months before Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, a very similar formation of high-speed egg-shaped objects was seen by multiple witnesses in Australia

by Spartacus01

FEBRUARY 5, 1947, AUSTRALIA

February 5, 1947 – The Advertiser – Adelaide, South Australia, Australia – Page 1
Strange Objects Reported in Sky
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-advertiser-strange-objects-reported/175455362/

Alternative link: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3511159

Based on accounts from three witnesses, this article describes the sighting of five “quivering” egg-shaped objects. The objects were flying in formation across the sky and disappeared “within a few seconds.” One witness estimated the size of the objects as comparable to a locomotive, judging by their shadows. The sighting occurred on February 5, and reports started appearing in newspapers the following day.

Here is the same story zoomed out, with the date clearly visible on the newspaper:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-advertiser-the-advertiser-feb-07/175455485/

A letter to the editor from G.F. Dodwell, government astronomer at the Adelaide Observatory, dismissed the possibility that the sighting might have been caused by a mirage:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-advertiser-strange-objects/174279212/

This sighting did not seem to attract much attention from the UFO community, but it was discussed in a blog post back in 2011:
https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2011/01/cold-case-port-augusta-5-february-1947.html

The blog points out that an additional witness separately reported seeing a similar group of five objects on February 5, though this account was only reported two weeks later. This time, the objects were described as “oblong with narrow points”:

February 20, 1947 – Quorn Mercury – Quorn, South Australia, Australia – Page 3
Objects in Sky Seen at Lock
https://www.newspapers.com/article/quorn-mercury-objects-in-sky-seen-at-loc/175456236/

JUNE 24, 1947, THE KENNETH ARNOLD SIGHTING

I will focus solely on Arnold’s original description. Since memory can fade over time, I will disregard Arnold’s later recollections and concentrate on what he described in the days and weeks immediately following the sighting.

Arnold’s original drawing submitted to the Army:
https://imgur.com/a/ETRrFB1

Audio recording of Arnold’s description:
http://www.konsulting.com/K-Arnold Layer-3.WAV

Arnold verbally described the shape as similar to a pie pan cut in half, with a triangle added to the rear. This means the object was roughly round overall, but one side was pointed. His drawing shows a roughly round object with a more triangular back half that ended in a rounded blunt tip. Arnold initially estimated the speed at about 1,800 miles per hour, but conservatively reduced it by one-third to 1,200 miles per hour. The sighting involved a formation of nine objects. He described their movement as similar to a rock skipping across water, with the objects sometimes flipping on their sides like fish.

THE FRED M. JOHNSON SIGHTING, JUNE 24, 1947 (REPORTED TO THE AIR FORCE IN AUGUST 1947)

An interesting lesser-known fact is that another witness, a prospector from Portland, claimed to have seen the same objects that Kenneth Arnold observed on June 24. Although the orientation was reversed, the report is otherwise quite similar.

Letter from prospector Fred M. Johnson to Headquarters, Fourth Air Force, reporting his “flying disc” sighting:
https://www.project1947.com/fig/johns47.htm

And I saw the same flying objects at about the same time. Having a telescope with me at the time, I can assure you they are real and nothing like them I ever saw before. They did not pass very high over where I was standing at the time. [They were] probably 1,000 feet [altitude], they were round, about 30 feet in diameter tapering sharply to a point in the lead end in an oval shape, with a bright top surface. I did not hear any noise as you would from a plane. But there was an object in the tail and looked like a big hand of a clock shifting from side to side like a big magnet. Their speed, as far as I know, seemed to be greater than anything I ever saw. Last view I got of the objects they were standing on edge banking in a cloud.

Johnson also noted that his compass fluctuated wildly during the sighting. You can read the Project Blue Book report on Johnson’s sighting on pages 600–604. The report classified it as unidentified, though it expressed skepticism that any aerial object could cause magnetic disturbances strong enough to affect a compass from such a distance:
https://archive.org/details/roll1_BlueBook_nara/page/n599/mode/2up

ANALYSIS

Comparing Arnold’s sighting to the February 5, 1947 sighting, both reports mention the objects maintaining a steady altitude and flying in formation. The February sighting involved five objects instead of nine. Both accounts describe roughly round objects that are pointier on one end. In both, the objects were described as moving oddly.

The objects seen on February 5 must have been moving extremely fast to vanish from sight in just a few seconds. If the witnesses were even close to correct in estimating their altitude, these things were traveling at incredible speeds. To put it in perspective, imagine the objects were only 1,000 feet above the ground — a very low and conservative estimate — and let us say they were visible for about 20 seconds as they crossed the sky from one end to the other. Even under those generous assumptions, they would have been flying at around 14,000 miles per hour. Compared to that, Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, where he estimated the objects at about 1,200 miles per hour, seems much less extreme. Still, despite the difference in speed, the two sightings share a lot of striking similarities.

As for the belated witness for Arnold’s sighting, and the belated witness for the sighting in February, both later reports recalled the objects as tapering to a sharper point. I would assume that the original reports, reported a day after the sighting, were probably more accurate than belated reports two weeks later and two months later, but they are all still quite similar, all things considered. One possibility: due to the angle they are viewed at, the same object could appear wider or thinner.

I am confident that the February sighting was discussed somewhere within the UFO community before 2011, but I found no evidence of it being mentioned anywhere in 1947. It seems likely that Arnold was unaware of this sighting since it happened on the opposite side of the globe months before the “flying saucer” craze in the U.S. It appears to have been overlooked, but it could serve as useful corroboration and a reference point for what Arnold’s objects probably looked like, especially if his original description did not convince everyone.

Let’s Kill Ufology?

Original Source: https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2022/09/lets-kill-ufology.html?m=1

by Kevin Randle, published on September 19, 2022

Many years ago, my pal, Rich Reynolds, thought that we geezers in the UFO field should step aside and allow the youngsters to take over. I do not think he phrased it quite that way, but the implication was clear. We had failed to solve the riddle of the flying saucers, so let someone else, with newer ideas, come forward. Maybe they would do better than we had.

Now we have Lue Elizondo, a latecomer to the party, saying that he wanted to kill Ufology so that whatever replaced it might be more holistic and harmonized. He wanted a community that was far more academically serious and representative of the topic. You know, like the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences. Yes, I know that he is no longer associated with it, but then, it certainly was not, exactly, serious and representative of the topic.

What he seems to have missed was that Ufology has always been relegated to the civilian world for any serious investigation. The Air Force spent its time ridiculing the topic, often suggesting that those who see UFOs are not the most reliable of observers, and providing useless answers to high-quality cases.

Oh, you want an example?

In a word, “Levelland.”

Here was a case in which witnesses, who had observed a UFO close to the ground, that stalled their car engines, dimmed their headlights, and filled their radios with static, provided multiple chains of evidence. Sightings lasted for minutes, giving the witness enough time to get a good look at the UFO before it took off in a bright red glow. The craft interacted with the environment, and there are even hints of landing traces having been found. The local sheriff saw the UFO, but if you read the Air Force report, it said that he had only seen a streak of red light in the distance rather than an object. Before the Air Force investigator arrived, he told reporters that he had seen a glowing red object that was oval or football-shaped. After he talked with the Air Force investigator, and according to the Project Blue Book file, he said he had only seen a streak of red light in the distance. Later still, he told Don Berliner that he had seen an object.

Witnesses around the Levelland, Texas, area independently reported the craft, reported the electromagnetic effects, and there were reliable reports of landing traces. The Air Force said that only three people saw the object, and ignored most of the reports of stalled engines. The Air Force concluded that the sightings were the result of ball lightning, even though, at the time, scientists argued about the reality of ball lightning. It does not really matter because ball lightning has been described as never being larger than a foot to two feet in diameter and existing for mere seconds. Witnesses talked of large craft that remained close to them for five or more minutes. The sightings by multiple witnesses lasted for two and a half to three hours in and around the Levelland, Texas, area.

The Air Force did not issue an immediate explanation for the Levelland sightings because they were waiting for NICAP to issue theirs first. The Air Force believed that it was easier to respond to NICAP than it was for them to issue the first report. By waiting, the Air Force was able to change the tone of the discussion from the sightings, to the number of the witnesses to those sightings, and then to lie about those numbers. They claimed that only three witnesses had seen an object, but their own files provide five names, and newspapers, some of the clippings in the Air Force file, reported on many other names.

This was not the only deception by the Air Force related to the sightings in November 1957. James Stokes, an engineer working at Holloman Air Force Base, reported that just days after the Levelland sightings, his car had been stalled by a low-flying UFO near Orogrande, New Mexico, just south of the Air Force base and near the White Sands Missile Range. Stokes also spoke of a slight sunburn effect that reddened his skin. Although the sunburn was seen by others, including the news director at an Alamogordo, New Mexico, radio station, the Air Force investigator, who arrived two days later, did not see the burn. The Air Force officers also made a big deal out of the claim that Stokes was an engineer, saying that there was no record of his graduating with any sort of engineering degree and that he was just a technician assigned to the base. It was a smear designed to reduce Stokes’s credibility by suggesting that he was misrepresenting his job status.

The problem was that the Air Force officers assigned to Holloman AFB, and who knew Stokes, refuted the other Air Force claim. They said that Stokes was an engineer, had been doing the work of a trained engineer for some eighteen months, and was a twenty-year veteran of the Navy. It was an example of the attitude suggesting that if you cannot explain it, then ridicule it. We had two Air Force organizations dueling over Stokes’s qualifications, which, of course, changed the discussion from the reality of the sighting to the credibility of the witness, which was what some in the Air Force wanted anyway.

The point here is that the problem was not the quality of the civilian investigations into UFO sightings, but the government and the Air Force attitude and interference in them. Rather than conduct a real investigation, the Air Force just labeled the cases, smeared the witnesses, and went on about their business as if they had supplied accurate analysis.

There are other examples of this, including the case of the photographs taken by William Rhodes in 1947. I have detailed this on the blog, and you can access some of that information here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/10/still-more-on-rhodes.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/10/rhodes-wrap-up.html

I certainly could supply additional examples of these tactics, but after a point, it becomes tedious. For those who wish to read more information about Air Force attempts to smear witnesses, including members of the Air Force, I point you to:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/07/air-force-character-assassination-and.html

Elizondo complains that some self-professed Ufologists (is there really another kind?) on social media have been less than productive. He reminds us that the Intelligence Community and the Defense apparatus watch social media. I’d suggest their time might be better spent engaging those of us who stay away from social media and the nonsense produced there. While Elizondo mentions a “few naughty children… that have decided that no other children are allowed to play in their sandbox…,” I would suggest that these spats, once called flame wars, have little to do with the scientific work being done by those of us associated with the Center for UFO Studies and the recently formed Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), which embrace the scientific method and rejects these other spats as counterproductive.

Many of these “spats” are not between members of the UFO community on the side of alien visitation, but are the result of half-truths and lies created by the so-called skeptical community. Philip Klass had a habit of attacking those with whom he disagreed. In the past, I have enumerated some of these allegations. Rather than go into them at length now, you can find the information here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/09/philip-klass-and-his-letter-writing.html

I would also point out that there are scientific journals that routinely report on UFOs. The Journal of Scientific Exploration, a peer reviewed scientific journal, publishes research into the UFO phenomenon. This is the sort of thing that Elizondo advocates but seemed to know nothing about.

And there is the MADAR system created by Fran Ridge and others. These are stations around the world with sensor arrays that detect and record a wide range of anomalies in the environment. Then, tracking with MUFON and the National UFO Reporting Center, they search for visual observations of UFOs, looking for correlation. Although the results have been slim, there have been some interesting correlations between alerts from the MADAR array and UFO sightings. This brings another level of science to the investigations that provides corroboration for the visual sightings and adds another link in a chain of evidence.

Elizondo wrote that the first place the newcomers go for information about UFOs is social media and that suggests a rather superficial look at UFOs. There are some very good websites and blogs that provide solid and well thought out examinations of the evidence but, of course, there are those that are filled with conjecture, conspiracy, and conflicting data. Shouldn’t anyone interested in the topic seek out multiple sources of information rather than just searching social media? Shouldn’t they be given the opportunity to draw their own conclusions rather than have some suspected and self-appointed authority tell them what the truth is and where to find it?

Elizondo wrote, “Sadly, the UFO Community as of late has become somewhat of an irrational morass of mob rule and popularity seekers. Gone is the respect and decorum, in favor of mosh pit elbow shoves and boot kicks. Voices of those who would otherwise apply a scholarly focus are being drowned out by those social media personalities sensationalizing their efforts as ‘disclosure activists’ in order to generate revenue through viewers and subscribers. Those who seek ‘credit’ instead of cooperation are hijacking the topic for their own enrichment at the expense of genuine truth advocates.”

While I might point out that science is often driven by the same sad motivations, and would point to the Dinosaur Wars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as but a single example, it would seem that some of these newcomers are driven by the same motivations. Some of these newcomers have engaged the services of agents and public relations specialists for the very purpose of enriching themselves and propelling themselves into the spotlight. Others have used their connections, however indirect those connections might be, to suggest inside information and knowledge as a way of improving their access to media and those important monetary rewards.

I have often wondered, however, why researching and writing about UFOs is about the only field in which it is a sin to profit from hard work. I can name several older UFO researchers who have written books and given presentations about their research to share the information for the purpose of sharing that information. For those who visit my blog, there is no pay wall or donation button. The information is offered freely. But I still wonder why I am criticized for publishing books on the topic when the compensation rarely covers the expenses for gathering the information. I don’t know how many times I have been accused of only being in it for the money, when there are easier and better ways for me to make money such as historical fiction. The accusation is hurled as a way of dismissing my work, and that of many others, without having to do much research into how we gathered the data or what credentials we might hold.

And while Elizondo condemns us for many of the problems in Ufology, I would suggest they grow from the attempts to cover up what is happening. I can point to the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel from early 1953 as a good example. Their recommendations after their alleged investigation were to debunk the phenomenon, have teachers deny students permission to use UFOs as research projects and reject reports on UFO books. They suggested an “education” program to demystified UFOs so that the public would lose interest all the while knowing that the truth was much more interesting.

We also have had the Air Force sponsored, University of Colorado “Scientific Study” of UFOs, commonly called the Condon Committee. We have the documentation showing that the conclusions were written before the investigation began. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hippler wrote to Dr. Robert Low of the committee telling him what the Air Force wanted, that is, there was no national security threat, there was no scientific benefit in continued in the investigation of UFOs, and that the Air Force had done a good job with their investigation. For the next fifty years, science beat us all over the head with the results of this “scientific endeavor” only to learn that it was more anti-UFO propaganda paid for by the US Government and the Air Force. You can learn more about this here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/03/hippler-letter.html

Now we learn that “the social media circus of today has challenged the government’s confidence in UFOlogy as a worthy area of study.” I submit that this social media circus might be driven by the government that has worked for 75 years to prove that UFOs do not exist and are not worth the expenditure of government resources. I suggest that the podcasts, YouTube channels, Twitter fees, and Instagram pages are not the problem here, but the decades of ridicule, misinformation and outright lies spread by official government and Air Force sources are the reason that there is the confusion and division that Elizondo condemns as he attempts to propel himself into a leadership role in the UFO community. That ridicule and division was exactly what the Air Force and the government wanted to keep the answers hidden and it has worked for 75 years.

And now we have a bunch of ex-government officials, some with questionable credentials, lecturing us on what is wrong in the world of UFOs. While many of us have been toiling for decades to bring science to UFOs, have written about it, made suggestions about it, and have attempted to apply science, we have the newcomers telling us that we should now embrace science as if we hadn’t thought of that all by ourselves long ago. Well, thanks for the enlightened view of the situation and I’m sure everything will now change… except, of course, the government is again wrapping its investigation in the cloak of national security so that they can bury the information. John Greenewald just reported that the Navy has determined that the majority of the information and video evidence they have gathered is a national security issue and will not be released to the general public anytime soon. This is the same dodge they used for the last 75 years.

But that’s okay, because we have these newcomers who have the answers as they find themselves on the lecture circuit and writing the books, for which they are paid, sometimes quite handsomely, all the while condemning us for writing books and appearing on the lecture circuit. But that’s okay because their motives are pure. We know this because they have told us so.

So, obviously, I find it difficult to read the suggestions made by someone who doesn’t seem to know the history of UFO research. I find it difficult to listen to the suggestion that we embrace science when many of us have done that for years. I wonder just how useful Elizondo’s suggestions are, because they seem to address a symptom of the problem but not the problem itself. The problem isn’t the current state of UFO research, but the interference by government, DoD, and Air Force officials. Had they not attempted to hide the information, we would be having a completely different discussion and we would have “solved” the problem decades ago without the help of the enlightened newcomers.