The UFO “WHY?” Questions

ABSTRACT

I have been fortunate enough to lecture (usually “Flying Saucers ARE Real”) over 700 times in 18 countries. My audiences, mostly college and professional groups, seem to have no problem accepting the detailed factual data that I present leading to my conclusions that SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft and that the subject of flying saucers represents a kind of Cosmic Watergate. But what seems to be of most concern, judging by the Question and Answer sessions, are the “WHY?” questions. Why would saucers crash? Why would aliens visit Earth? Why doesn’t the government tell us what it knows? Why would aliens not land on the White House lawn or at the United Nations? Why would people fake MJ-12 documents? Why do you say SETI stands for Silly Effort To Investigate? Why have you kept at it for 39 years? Why hasn’t the government taken you out? Perhaps my answers will help the reader answer his “WHY?” questions, or lead to more such questions.

THE UFO “WHY?” QUESTIONS

1. WHY have you concluded that the evidence is overwhelming that Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled Extraterrestrial Spacecraft?

The simplest answer is that it is the only conclusion merited by the enormous amount of evidence. In my lectures I review 5 large scale scientific studies and ask after each one how many have read it. Typically fewer than 2% have read any. I note the 5000-plus physical trace cases that Ted Phillips has collected from over 70 countries. In these people see a craft land and then take off leaving behind various markings on the soil such as burn circles, landing gear marks, small footprints, dried out rings of soil, etc. These are not crop circles where normally no saucer is seen. About 1/6 of these cases involve reports of small beings. I refer to the more than 1000 abduction cases that have been investigated by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, John Mack, and Raymond Fowler and the Betty and Barney Hill case as recorded by John G. Fuller. I review the outstanding work by Marjorie Fish clearly indicating that Betty’s star map makes sense and provides information not previously known to us. Furthermore, I have spent time at 20 archives, had a security clearance for 14 years, and find it perfectly obvious that crucial data has been withheld and many government people have lied with regard to UFOs. Saying some UFOs are of ET origin, of course, doesn’t answer other questions such as WHY are aliens coming here, WHY haven’t I seen one, where are they from, etc., etc.

2. WHY don’t the aliens, if they are real, just land on the White House lawn and say “Take me to your leader.”?

Obviously I don’t speak for any aliens. However, let us note three facts:

A. The White House is in a forbidden flying zone. Our response to intruders in such zones is to take immediate action to escort the intruders away or shoot them down. As far back as the summer of 1952 when, in July, UFOs did fly over the White House, orders were given to military interceptors to shoot down UFOs if they don’t land when instructed to do so. This is described in detail in Frank Feschino Jr.’s new book Shoot Them Down. Major General Roger Ramey proclaimed that interceptors had been scrambled hundreds of times without any luck. As an indication of the zeal of pilots, I have heard of at least 7 specific cases in which the UFOs zapped attacking earthling aircraft. Tim Good in his new book Need to Know recounts similar cases. I am working on a claim by a pilot that UFOs took out 20 of our planes in Europe in the early 1950s.

B. It may come as a surprise to many Americans, but the President of the USA doesn’t speak for Planet Earth. After all who elected him World President? Certainly not the billion people from India or the 1.3 billion people in China. Obviously the UN also does not speak for Planet Earth, either.

C. Normally, negotiations only take place between roughly equal parties. Surely it is not difficult to see that aliens have technology far in advance of earthling technology. Their vehicles are clearly faster, more maneuverable, and have access to huge space carriers (mother ships) with lord-knows-what capability. They have no reason to negotiate when they can already do what they please.

3. WHY in the world would aliens want to come here if, as you have claimed, we are a primitive society whose major activity is clearly tribal warfare?

Answers to this question depend very much on one’s picture of the local galactic neighborhood and of the situation on our planet. The SETI cultists seem to think we are the Crown of Creation and that there may be “as many” as 50,000 civilizations in our Milky Way Galaxy, which has a few hundred billion stars. It is almost 100,000 light years across which, according to Frank Drake, means there may be another civilization “only” 1000 light years away. This would, of course, make us very special as one of the elite civilizations. I think that there are probably many advanced civilizations within our local neighborhood on planets around some of the 2300 stars within 54 light years, especially the 46 that are very similar to the sun. The driving fact here is that we have only had fancy technology for perhaps 100 years. But the earth is about 4.5 billion years old and has been suitable for life for well over a billion years.

Just down the street, 39.4 light years away, we find a pair of sun-like stars, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli. These are only an 1/8 of a light year apart from each other, but are a billion years older than the sun. In other words, there has been a great deal of time for other civilizations to establish themselves. Having an easily observable neighbor nearby would provide far more incentive for the development of interstellar travel than we have out here in the boondocks. My view is, per a fine analogy from physicist Beatriz Gabo Rivera, that we are like the gorillas in a nature preserve in Africa who know nothing about what is going on outside the preserve. I think aliens have been traipsing around the neighborhood for a very long time indeed. I think it is hilarious that Dr. Seth Shostak, one of the noisier SETI guys, says there is nobody at ZR 1 or ZR 2, because they were listened to by a Southern Radio Observatory 10 years ago. One would think he knows what equipment and frequency alien communicators way ahead of us would use, and that they are trying to attract our attention, which is totally absurd.

Answers also depend greatly on how difficult it is to travel within the neighborhood. If one is a SETI cultist noting (as on the terrible Peter Jennings, Feb. 24, 2005, TV mockumentary) that our fastest spacecraft is the Voyager probe and that it would take 70,000 years to get to the nearest star, trips would be very uncommon indeed. A much more realistic approach is to note that Voyager hasn’t had a propulsion system on it since it left Earth. It is coasting, helped by some cosmic freeloading. Can we estimate the time it takes to cross the ocean by throwing a bottle in? Can we tell how long it would take to fly from New York to Los Angeles by putting a feather in the air? It took Charles Lindberg 33 hours to cross the Atlantic. The Concorde did it in just a few hours. The space station goes around the entire earth in 90 minutes. Electromagnetic signals take 1/7 of a second to circumscribe the earth.

Remember, we have just started on our technological kick. Think back to 1900. Note no TV or radio or microwaves or nuclear power plants or satellites or DNA testing or lasers or computers or airplanes or rockets or nuclear weapons or transplanted organs. I am convinced that, unless we stupidly destroy ourselves, there will be a time when star travel is not considered any more far out than crossing the Atlantic on a 747 is today. I recently flew nonstop from Newark, New Jersey, to Hong Kong, China, in less than 17 hours. Nuclear submarines circumnavigate the globe without surfacing. Obviously there are those who think star travel is impossible. If that were true, which it isn’t, obviously nobody could be coming here from the stars.

Think of all the people going through O’Hare Airport in a year and the huge variety of reasons for travel. To get the ball rolling, here are some reasons for coming here. I am sure the reader can think of more:

A. Graduate students doing their thesis work on the development of a primitive society, on a planet where, amazingly, there is no planetary government, and where there are many different languages; on various strange biological specimens, or on genetic variations of the intelligent beings.

B. Broadcasters with weekly shows such as “Idiocy in the Boondocks.”

C. Mining engineers similar to those who went to California and the Klondike and Australia for gold, or to Texas and the Middle East for oil. As it happens, the earth is the densest planet in the solar system, so would be expected to have more of the rare but very important very heavy metals such as gold, uranium, rhenium, platinum, tungsten, osmium, etc. These are all much denser than lead. We know from studying star spectra that they are rare. They also have very special properties.

D. Mining engineers extracting more common metals from the nodules on the bottom of the ocean and from the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. We have been talking about doing this. Obviously war is much more important than ocean mining to us, so we build nuclear submarines to stay in the depths of the ocean carrying their multitude of nuclear tipped missiles. There are also abundant supplies of so-called rare earths, many used in the electronics and nuclear industries. It should not be forgotten that a century ago the primary use for uranium was to prepare yellow glazes for pottery. Zirconium and titanium were essentially worthless. Now nuclear navies use zirconium based alloys because of their splendid nuclear and anticorrosion properties. Titanium is used in aircraft like the SR-71 because of its high strength and low density.

E. Operators of refueling and rest and relaxation centers on the back side of the moon or in the depths of the ocean or in the asteroid belt.

F. Visitors checking on old colonies established by their ancestors. Perhaps there were many different ones which might explain why we have black, brown, red, yellow and white races.

G. Jailers. This may be a penal colony on which aliens dropped off their bad boys and girls and that is why we are so nasty to each other. Georgia and Australia were first settled by convicts. Letting the convicts go bother other civilizations who, unlike us, have learned to live peacefully, may be a no-no in the galactic rule book.

H. Vacationers. This may be a recreation center. Notice how many people visit Hawaii and Las Vegas and Orlando. If the travel wasn’t easy, how many would venture forth to see Mickey Mouse or gaming tables or surfing beaches?

I. Specimen gathererers for ET zoos and aquariums. We are still finding new specimens.

J. Local galactic horticultural societies collecting specimens for their displays and genetic cross breeding.

K. Medical researchers. They may have to evaluate the genetic material of loads of specimens to find genetic defects or super-special genes. There are a number of conditions whose frequency in the population is quite small (for example, only one person in 14,000 has hemophilia) so many specimens must be checked.

L. Honymooners. Perhaps this is the honeymoon capital for this corner of the neighborhood. Special rates for a week on Earth… side trips to the moon and Mars…

M. Cartographers. Local neighborhood maps may describe, for example, the equivalent of English coaling stations in the 19th century.

N. Sports enthusiasts. There may be special excursions to observe various such events. Don’t forget that a World Championship Chess match was held in Iceland.

O. Scouts seeking the best site for a new amusement park in the solar system.

P. Weapons inspectors. If we make the eminently reasonable assumption that every advanced civilization is concerned about its own survival and security, than we would expect that our development of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the means for delivering them in the local neighborhood would be of great concern. Clearly after World War II it should take less than a century for us to master fission and fusion and other new technologies to allow us to take our brand of friendship/hostility… out there. Thus, a logical reason to visit is to quarantine us until we develop a technique for learning to live at peace with each other. No galactic federation new-member committee would allow us to join. Too primitive.I suspect that the SETI cultists think they would be welcome guests. Not very likely.

Q. Producers. Having worked on a lot of motion picture documentaries at many locations, I would suggest perhaps some visitors are planning epic fiction and factual movies for film companies at home… shooting on location hither and yon.

4. WHY is the government not telling what it knows?

Are they afraid of War of the Worlds panic? I hardly think so. After all, New Jersey was being destroyed by Martians. What could we do against them? Panic was not inappropriate. First we have to recognize there is a Cosmic Watergate and a long history of government lies about UFOs such as I described in Ref. 1, which lists lies from the FBI, CIA, USAF, NSA, etc. Some want to insist that (A) governments can’t keep secrets, and (B) the real secret is that they don’t know what is going on and can’t admit that either.

I disagree with both. A few examples of secret-keeping that have leaked out: The Manhattan Engineering District employed 130,000 people to develop the atomic bomb at a cost of several billion dollars in total secrecy during World War II. The Allies broke the German code during World War II and had 12,000 people working at Bletchley Park in the UK intercepting, decoding and translating German military communications. If the secret had come out, the Germans would have changed their codes. There was really nothing in public until 25 years later despite the obviously great improvements in technology. We also had broken the Japanese military codes — again in secret. With regard to B, note that the military agencies have monitoring systems that provide far more information than we civilians can obtain — and in secret.

The Naval Research Laboratory finally admitted in 1995 that it had launched a bunch of Corona electromagnetic intelligence satellites to monitor Soviet radar and communications systems starting in 1960, after 12 secret failures. The first one that worked provided more data than all the previous secret U-2 flights that preceded it. The Soviets knew about the U-2, but dared not admit that they couldn’t do anything about it. The American people had not been informed. Similarly the Soviets had shot down a number of military reconnaissance aircraft probing Russia, North Korea, and China causing the loss of 166 crew members. Their families were lied to: unfortunate accident, crashed at sea, etc. It was not until 2001 that the USA had a meeting with families of the crew members that they were told what happened, even though most of the losses occurred in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Medals were distributed. William Burrows tells the story in his book By Any Means Necessary (Ref. 2).

The National Reconnaissance Office first admitted in 2005 that it had launched 7 Poppy satellites between 1962 and 1971. Their function was to conduct very sophisticated monitoring of electronic and radar installations on Soviet ships. Thousands of people were involved.

So yes, indeed, secrets can be kept. The annual US Black Budget is estimated at 30-40 billion dollars. That is a lot of secrecy.

So WHY keep UFOs secret?

A. All major countries and many terrorist groups would very much like to duplicate the flight technology of the saucers. They can literally fly circles around our vehicles, move at very high speed, make right angle turns, move straight up and down — typically with little noise, no visible engines, no exhaust. They would make wonderful weapons delivery and defensive systems. Since we have recovered wreckage at least as early as 1947 (see Crash at Corona, Ref. 3) we would have set up a highly classified project (call it Operation Majestic 12 as described in my book TOP SECRET/MAJIC (Ref. 4)) to try both to evaluate the wreckage and to obtain measurements of flight characteristics using airborne and spaceborne and earth-based radar sets, cameras, electromagnetic sensors, and other instrumentation. Surely governments have very much more sophisticated instruments and observation platforms than do private individuals. The key rule here is that one can’t tell one’s friends without telling one’s enemies. It appears that there have been many UFO crashes including ones overseas (Varginha, Brazil, for example). There is a long history of countries gathering and evaluating crashed vehicles of their enemies. This does not require a conspiracy; everybody has the same self interest concerns.

B. Each country worries about its enemies determining the secrets of saucer technology before they do and must be concerned about how to defend against new vehicles and also how to learn what the other guy has already learned. Soviet spies at Los Alamos apparently shortened the time it took the Soviets to test their first A-bomb (1949) by at least a year.

C. What if an announcement were made, by highly trusted individuals around the world, such as the Queen and the Pope, saying that indeed SOME UFOs are ET spacecraft? Here are some things I believe would happen:

(1) Church attendance would increase.

(2) Mental hospital admissions would increase.

(3) The stock market would go down; uncertainty is always the enemy.

(4) Based on my more than 600 college lectures, the younger generation, which, unlike me, was never alive when there wasn’t a space program, would push for a new view of ourselves as EARTHLINGS instead of as Americans, Canadians, Greeks, Peruvians, etc. Many would think that would be great. But I know of no government on Earth that wants its citizens to owe their primary allegiance to the planet (where it belongs) instead of to individual national governments. Nationalism is the only game in town. I believe that alien visitors — they may be our landlords, for all we know — think of us as earthlings even though, because of our military traffic, they would be well aware of different ruling groups in different places.

D. A small group of religious fundamentalists (Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson come to mind) have already loudly proclaimed that UFOs are the work of the devil and there is no other intelligent life outside Earth. What an insult to the notion of an all powerful GOD! They would be up the creek without a religious paddle if an announcement were to be made. They have had a great deal of political clout.

E. Making an announcement would require that governments admit they have been lying through their teeth for decades. I don’t know of any government that wants to do that.

F. If an announcement were carefully made without the scare mongering of “War of the Worlds”, a lot of people would think that surely, aliens, who can come here, must be far more advanced technologically than are we, since we can’t go out there. This would strongly suggest that soon there would be new methods of energy production, air and ground transport, computers and communication systems, i.e. economic chaos. We are not very good at large scale economic changes in a hurry. Think of the Soviet Union which, at our strong demands, had democracy, elections, freedom, capitalism. On the average, except for the high price of oil, are Russians better off today than they were 17 years ago??

G. Because I am convinced that military pilots in many countries have been disintegrated or “disappeared” by UFOs, I think governments would all be very resistant to telling their citizens that we tried to attack UFOs and they returned the favor — only they succeeded. The head of the American Rocket Society in 1952 took President Truman to task for the attack orders. Frank Feschino Jr. (Shoot Them Down) has gathered hundreds of reports of supposed airplane crashes in the USA and overseas in the early 1950s. Three military pilots, each of whom flew over 100 missions in Korea where they had to deal with marauding MIGs, crashed when they came back home. That seems very suspicious to me.

5. WHY would saucers crash?

Usually this is accompanied by a comment that it makes no sense that a sophisticated vehicle coming from many light years away could possibly crash. Please note that the vehicle could have come from a base on the back side of the moon, in the asteroid belt, on Mars or some alien “coaling station” in the local neighborhood. I once did 25 college lectures in 35 days in 15 states. I was gone all the time from when I left home until I returned rather than going back and forth to home after each lecture.

A. In the first place, there are many indications that what crashed at Roswell and in the Plains of San Agustin in New Mexico in early July, 1947, were small Earth excursion modules rather than the interstellar, very large vehicles (space carriers? mother ships?) which would have brought them to Earth just as our large aircraft carriers carry 75 or so small airplanes whose mode of propulsion is distinctly different from that of the carrier.

B. Secondly, when we examine major efforts by the Transportation Safety Board to determine the cause of aircraft crashes, we often find, after much effort, that it was simple unexpected things ranging from loose bolts, to ingested birds, to faulty wiring, to pilot error, to ice in the wrong place. It could have been very high atmospheric electricity levels because of storms or the great dryness of the desert air. Or unexpected high altitude hail. We know a radar set was on over at White Sands because of an impending rocket launch and the fact that it used vacuum tubes. This was a tracking radar pointed North. Crossing the beam might have led to a small hiccup in the control system for a magnetoaerodynamic propulsion system leading to a collision and subsequent collision of the lead saucer and its wingman’s saucer. Perhaps a US military rocket launched in the neighborhood might have inadvertently homed in on a saucer. Perhaps there was a momentary loss of attention when the Trinity highly radioactive site, at which the first atomic bomb was tested, was noted. We certainly have no reason to believe that aliens never make mistakes, or never run into the unexpected. Some day perhaps the government will release the report that was undoubtedly written as to the causes of the crashes. Just because we don’t have that report, it doesn’t mean the event didn’t take place.

6. WHY haven’t you seen a flying saucer?

I have no idea, though I have mostly lived in cities and am watching for traffic rather than looking to the skies. I check my audiences after my lectures and find that typically 10% have seen one, which covers many decades. Only 10% of those were reported. I have never seen Tokyo either or had polio or HIV. I know people who have seen Tokyo, had polio, or HIV. I spent many years chasing neutrons and gamma rays. Never saw one of them either. They are also real.

7. WHY do you say SETI stands for Silly Effort to Investigate?

Frankly I find that there is very little science behind the SETI effort. It is assumed that there are civilizations using communication technologies similar to ones we have developed to try to attract our attention. It assumes there is no colonization and no migration and that nobody is coming here. They assume that because it takes less energy to send signals than to travel, that nobody is traveling. Of course nobody flies from Newark to Hong Kong because the Internet and telephone is cheaper! Hah. It is all fancily dressed hogwash. They could easily be thousands or millions of years ahead of us. An AM radio doesn’t pick up FM signals. A German General just before the start of World War II in Europe noted (see Ref. 2) that the Brits were building a whole array of tall (more than 200′) towers with cross pieces which he figured had to be part of a radar net. The Graf Zeppelin slowly moved parallel to the array and listened and found no signals. The frequency being used was 10 times higher than what the Germans were using and they fortunately were never aware of how well their planes were being tracked.

If civilizations, with a great deal of common heritage and similar background and access to similar science, can’t correctly predict the technique to be used by similar people a few hundred miles away, why assume we can second-guess aliens? They persistently say there is no evidence for UFOs, but always avoid dealing with the large scale scientific studies. Check their references. Look carefully at the Drake Equation, their Holy Grail. We have no way to determine the lifetime of a civilization, or the fraction of planets that have intelligent life or that develop technology. We have data on one “civilization” on one planet in one solar system. Real scientists don’t extrapolate or interpolate from one data point. The SETI people omit colonization and migration which could greatly lengthen the life span of a civilization. That is pseudoscience, no matter how many degreed professionals are involved. Admittedly, their job security is dependent on nobody coming here…

8. WHY hasn’t the government taken out Stan Friedman, if what he is saying about a Cosmic Watergate and overwhelming evidence that we have visitors is true?

Obviously I don’t speak for the government. I am careful in what I say, and I don’t break the law in seeking classified data from people with clearances. I may be doing exactly what they want, that is, preparing the public for the date when the great secret is released. I have never had an unlisted telephone number. It is in my books and on my website. All those lonely drives to Roswell would provide plenty of opportunity. My answering service is instructed to give out my travel information to callers. Frankly, I can’t live my life looking over my shoulder. Some have suggested I was too well known and that a sudden death would be suspicious…

9. WHY would people fake a bunch of MJ-12 documents?

I am not a psychiatrist, but I would suggest to enhance status; to think “Gotcha”; or to disinform the public so that the fake documents would be an excuse for labeling such genuine documents as the Eisenhower Briefing Document, the Truman-Forrestal Memo, and the Cutler-Twining Memo as frauds. Or, perhaps, might it be to be able to claim that the proponents are stupid or are disinformation specialists? The same old tired false anti-MJ-12 arguments keep being put forth despite the fact that I have demonstrated that they are nonsense. The Majestic 12 article in Wikipedia is loaded with false and misleading claims. For example, in the 5000-word afterword in TOP SECRET/MAJIC 2nd Edition (2005), in “Update on Operation Majestic 12” (see www.stantonfriedman.com), in “Roswell and the MJ-12 Documents in the New Millennium” (Ref.5), and in my “Review of Case MJ-12” also on my website I demolish the anti’s and show that other MJ-12 documents are fraudulent. Remember, one of the key rules for debunkers is “Don’t bother me with the facts, my mind is made up.” Another is “Do your research by proclamation, investigation is too much trouble and the public won’t know the difference.” I distinctly showed that at least seven of the supposed MJ-12 documents provided to Timothy Cooper are emulations of real documents published in books and generally available. They were retyped, much handwritten material was Xeroxed or scanned, and the two were combined. And there were often factual misstatements. Deuterium is not light hydrogen. Sandia is in New Mexico, while General Spaatz was not in New Mexico on July 7, 1947 (I found his flight log and a newspaper article and desk calendar indicating he was in Port Aransas, Texas, fishing).

Some of the statements from the phony emulations were repeated in other documents which means the latter ones were also phony. I have been told that when good information is leaked, bad is put out so as to confuse things and imply the real ones are phony: guilt by association. It is interesting that Colonel Richard Weaver, author of the grossly misleading USAF Book The Roswell Report: Truth vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (see Ref. 5) had as his military specialty “Disinformation.” He provided the fiction.

10. WHY have you kept at it since reading Ruppelt’s book in 1958 and giving your first lecture in 1967?

I enjoy being on the stage and the very enthusiastic response I get from my audiences, especially from the technical societies. I am pleased when people tell me that they decided to teach a course about UFOs, after hearing me talk. I can think of no subject more important to the future for my children and grandson than the notion of an earthling orientation in the hope of helping stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. What is more exciting than alien visitations and government cover-ups? I believe I bring a unique background to my presentations:

A. So far as I know I have worked on more cancelled high technology classified programs than anybody and so can deal with those silly “It would violate the laws of Physics” arguments. Not many have worked on nuclear airplanes, or in general on fission and fusion propulsion systems.

B. Because I worked on many classified programs and have visited 20 archives, I am in a better position than most to deal with the silly “Secrets can’t be kept” notions.

C. Because I have probably had to answer about 40,000 questions at lectures and on talk shows and in classes, I have been forced to think about the questions such as the “WHY?” questions, more than most.

D. I was very fortunate to be able to find that my memory was good and reliable (at least until recently) and I could give acceptable answers in a hurry. Being on debate teams in high school probably helped a lot. I have been very lucky, first to have worked on so many leading edge classified programs, and second to be able to provide so many presentations to attentive audiences.

REFERENCES

5. Weaver, Colonel Richard L. “The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert.” US Government Printing Office, 1995 (about 1000 pp.). 

The post The UFO “WHY?” Questions first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post The UFO “WHY?” Questions appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Debunkers At It Again

By Stanton T. Friedman

I hated wasting the money to buy the January/February 2009 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer (Vol. 33, Issue 1) which has for years been trying to debunk all sorts of so-called paranormal phenomena. But the cover said: Special Issue “The New UFO Interest: Scientific Appraisals.” This is an excellent example of false advertising since the appraisals are anything but scientific. SI is published by what is now labeled “The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry” (CSI Lite??). In actuality, the active writers and “investigators” aren’t skeptics. They are Debunkers doing their best to pull the wool over the eyes of a curious public. They know the answers, and so don’t really need to investigate. Proclamation is more their style. Deception is the name of the game. For example, inside the front cover is a very impressive list of about 75 scientists, writers, philosophers, etc., including three Nobel Prize winners. Also included on the list is Bill Nye, “The Science Guy,” whose purpose is to Deny… judging by his Larry King appearances. Unfortunately, most of the highly credentialed people aren’t the ones who write the articles or “investigate.” The dirty work in the trenches is normally done by the debunkers in residence. The primary tools are those of the propagandists such as very selective choice of data, positive and negative name calling, and misrepresentation.

Listed under Investigative Files is an article “Return to Roswell” by Dr. Joseph Nickell. Joe’s three degrees are in English and he spent a lot of time as a magician. Not much science there. Of course the stock-in-trade of magicians is intentional deception with another sterling example being the Amazing Randi. Joe’s been attacking Roswell for over a decade. At the 50th Anniversary celebration in Roswell, I was being interviewed there, and he was in California. We couldn’t see each other, but could hear. He explained Roswell by saying the press release was put out by the PR person from the base to attract attention to himself! Joe didn’t even know Walter Haut’s name. I pointed out that I had known Walter from almost twenty years and that the notion that the PR person for the most elite military organization in the world, the 509th Bomb Group, would put out such a press release without his boss’s blessing was completely absurd. Of course in SI Joe never mentions the 509th or that it had dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and set off two more at Operation Crossroads in the Pacific in 1946. It is of some interest that Walter Haut was chosen to drop the instrument package during one of those tests, that he had flown over twenty bombing missions as a bombardier over Japan during WW2 and was quite close to Colonel Blanchard, 509th Commander. Some inexperience!

Apparently Joe had learned nothing from our exchange and stated “On July 8, 1947, an unauthorized press release from an eager but relatively inexperienced public information officer at New Mexico’s Roswell Army Air Field propelled the Roswell Incident into history.” It has been known for thirty years that Blanchard ordered (authorized) Walter to put out the release. Walter after years in the far east during WW2 was hardly just wet behind the ears. Joe even goes on to claim Kenneth Arnold’s sighting two weeks earlier may well have been nothing more than mirage effects caused by a temperature inversion. That is as sensible as saying the moon may be made of green cheese. This crazy notion was thoroughly destroyed by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, a physicist. But why let the facts get in the way?

Nickell goes on to say the young officer was reprimanded. He provides no evidence. I and others have asked both Walter and his wife and both denied there was any reprimand. Why would there have been, since Blanchard had ordered the release? Nickell then moves right over to the baseless Project Mogul explanation which has been thoroughly destroyed by Brad Sparks and Dr. David Rudiak and Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr. (Ref.1) despite the assertions of Dr. Charles Moore who worked on the program.

Nickell describes in some detail tests run by Engineer Robert Galganski with the Discovery TV Channel crew and Nickell in attendance. They put up a half size Mogul Balloon Train carrying some radar reflectors and then shot down the balloons showing that the area covered by the debris was much smaller than described by Major Jesse Marcel. Joe was there and doesn’t really buy the test because he notes that Jesse’s estimate, 3/4 of a mile long by hundreds of feet wide, was much greater than described by Rancher Mack Brazel in the July 9 Roswell Daily Record article. He quotes that article at length, but somehow never mentions that Brazel was sure what he had found wasn’t balloons. He also fails to mention that testimony from Brazel’s son Bill, neighbor Loretta Proctor, and others all saying that Brazel was brought back into town on July 9 and given a new story to tell the press. Also not noted is that if all there had been was the “bundle about three feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick and the another rubber bundle 18-20 inches long and 8 inches thick with a total weight of maybe 5 pounds,” it would easily have fit in Brazel’s small truck and there would have been no reason for Marcel and Counter Intelligence Corps Captain Sheridan Cavitt to follow Brazel the long way back to the ranch on July 6 as they did. Joe, of course, never mentions that the July 8 article, carried all over in Evening papers from Chicago West, said the wreckage was found “last week.” The phony July 9 explanation says “found June 14” — hardly last week from July 8.

Joe also notes that though the news story died almost immediately, “but the event continued as the subject of folklore and fakelore [much provided by Roswell Debunkers]… there emerged amateurishly forged government conspiracy documents.” He has a note saying “The ‘MJ-12 Documents’ fooled arch Roswell-conspiracy writer Stanton T. Friedman who has continued to tout the bogus documents (Friedman 1996).” WRONG, Joe. I have done far more detailed investigation (not Nickell-style proclamations) to show that the great majority of the MJ-12 documents are indeed fakes — but that the four major ones are solid. As I recall Joe claimed the “Eisenhower Briefing Document” was an obvious fraud because of the comma in the date “18 November, 1952.” As it happens that was one of many date formats in use at the time. I found seven original documents which were used as a basis for phony emulations and was able to dispose of the other objections to the four good ones in Ref. 2, 2005, and a number of papers — none noted by Nickell, of course. Ref. 3 by myself and Don Berliner is also not noted.

Robert Sheaffer also contributed a “historical” overview: “Ufology 2009: A Six Decade Perspective.” Sheaffer clearly shows his disdain for UFO abductions and the rest of the UFO scene, and for the facts as well. Speaking of Betty and Barney Hill: “Under hypnosis, they each told a UFO Abduction story that largely matched Betty’s nightmares (which Barney had heard her repeat many times).” The comment is nonsense. Barney read Betty’s dreams once, and the notes were put in a drawer. There was no repetition and the comparative analysis of what they said under hypnosis and what was in the dreams is detailed by Betty’s niece Kathleen Marden, in our book Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experiences (Ref. 4) — also not referenced. Sheaffer theorizes a “New Age” vs. “Science Fiction” ufology. Both are junk science and consistently ignore Occam’s razor (all things being equal, the simplest solution is the best).” By far the simplest solution to the UFO problem is that the best cases (Multiple witness radar visual, landings etc.) involve alien spacecraft. Debunking ufology of the SI variety ignores science all together. He also claims “The FBI investigated the documents [MJ-12] and quickly concluded that the documents were “completely bogus.”

Not so. The FBI on its website carries the USAF Colonel Weaver’s set with his hand written comment “BOGUS.” They accepted his word. Sheaffer also claims one document was typed on a typewriter that was not manufactured until “fifteen years after the date on the document.” This, too, is nonsense as noted in Ref. 2 on page 227 which quotes forensic document examiner James Black that the typeface preceded the document date by seven years.

Dr. David Morrison, a NASA senior scientist, chimes in in SI with “UFOS and Aliens in Space.” He says “If UFOs are alien spacecraft visiting Earth, then it seems reasonable that evidence of alien civilizations might be seen by astronomers or the radio signals from alien spacecraft might be picked up by the sensitive receivers we use to communicate with our own spacecraft.” Frankly this is absurd. Astronomers (some of whom have indeed seen UFOs) aren’t looking for signals from alien spacecraft which are very likely using techniques about which we are ignorant. Maybe secret NSA listening devices pick up alien signals, but then the NSA doesn’t release info about what signals it receives. They did release 156 pages of UFO related intercepts. All but one or two sentences per page are redacted (whited out). Another astronomer, Andrew Fraknoi, has a brief piece bemoaning the lack of sightings by even amateur astronomers. There is no mention, of course, of Stanford astrophysicist Dr. Peter Sturrock’s discussion of astronomer UFO sightings as noted in Ref. 5.

Retired air force major and pilot, James McGaha, also an avid astronomer, with his own observatory, lists fourteen areas of astronomical knowledge needed to be a good UFO observer. He, too, has appeared on Larry King attacking “unqualified observers.” One hardly needs to be very astronomically knowledgeable to describe the silent slow flight at low altitude of the huge “Phoenix lights” taking four minutes to fly right overhead blotting out the stars as it did so. I can enjoy and benefit from eating various foods without being an expert on the digestion process. He and I tangled in a spirited formal university debate as can be seen in Ref. 6.

Another SI anti-Roswell article is “Roswell Update: Fading Star?” by Dave Thomas, a scientist in New Mexico and President of “New Mexicans for Science and Reason.” Dave has certainly demonstrated his lack of knowledge of both the Roswell and Aztec UFO crash retrieval cases. I am looking forward to a soon-to-be-published book by Scott and Suzanne Ramsey about the Aztec case. Unlike Thomas, they did an enormous amount of serious research.

There are a few other articles as well. Suffice to say that the Skeptical Inquirer provides many examples of the intellectual bankruptcy of the pseudoscience of anti-ufology.

REFERENCES

1. Marcel, Jesse Jr. and Marcel, Linda, The Roswell Legacy: The Untold Story of the First Military Officer at the 1947 Crash Site, 2008, New Page Books Div. of Career Press, Franklin Lakes, NJ. Foreword by Stanton T. Friedman
2. Friedman, Stanton T, TOP SECRET/MAJIC, Marlowe and Company, NY, 2nd Edition 2005, 282 pp. Foreword by Whitley Strieber

3. Berliner, Don and Friedman, Stanton T., Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident, 2nd Edition, Marlowe and Co. NY 1997

4. Marden, Kathleen and Friedman, Stanton T., Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience, New Page Books Division of Career Press, Franklin Lakes, NJ 2008, 320 pp., 2008. Foreword by Dr. Bruce Maccabee

5. Friedman, Stanton T., Flying Saucers and Science, 2008, 320 pp., New Page Books Div., Career Press, Franklin Lakes, NJ. Forewords by Dr. Edgar Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Maccabee

6. Are Flying Saucers Real? DVD 2 hrs. Debate between James McGaha and Stanton T. Friedman, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, January 24, 2004

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The following case is used with permission from UFO Casebook.

by BJ Booth

There have been numerous legends about UFO crashes; some of them have quite a bit of documentation and eyewitness testimony. Others are based mostly on legend and folklore.

Two of these crashes alleged occurred in or near Spitsbergen, Norway. However, there is just not enough verifiable evidence to support either of these events, and here are the reasons:

1946 Spitsbergen UFO Crash

The 1946 case, more than anything else, is memorable for its characters. The legend goes something like this; In 1946, General James H. Doolittle was sent to Sweden by the Shell Oil Company, supposedly to investigate the mystery of the “Ghost Rockets.”

Why an oil company would investigate UFOs is beyond my understanding; unless they felt they could strengthen their profits somehow.

Somehow, Doolittle supposedly wound up in Spitsbergen. There are a number of Internet sites which claim that there was a short-lived article published in America of a UFO crash in the Norwegian city about this time.

Some people claim to have seen the article.

The really odd thing about the tale of this case is what does Doolittle have to do with anything, since he is only mentioned as being in the area, and that is the end of his involvement.

The only redeeming part of this particular case is that it was reported by Dorothy Kilgallen, celebrity for her years appearing on the “What’s My Line?” TV game show.

She claimed that someone in the upper echelon of the British government informed her that a UFO had crashed near Spitsbergen, and was under investigation by the British and American military.

Supposedly, this informant was Lord Mountbatten.

Some investigators claim that since no mention of the name Spitsbergen was found in the reports, that the location’s mention was to cover up a crash in Great Britain. A crash in Great Britain during the same time period has no basis in fact either.

In addition to being a game show regular, Kilgallen also was a journalist of a sort, having written “gossip columns,” but she also was well known for covering hard current events.

She had covered the headline-grabbing Lindbergh kidnapping story.

In the 1950s, she had covered one of the top stories of her time, the Sam Sheppard murder trial.

Her last real claim to fame was in the 1960s when she got an interview with Lee Harvey Oswald killer, Jack Ruby. This interview was carried by the “Los Angeles Examiner.” She told friends that she had information that would “break the case wide open.”

On 8th November, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates.

The notes of her interview with Ruby and the article she was writing on the case had disappeared.

Luckily, she had given a friend a draft of her interview. Kilgallen was probably fearful for her own life, since several other writers who had worked on the Oswald / Ruby case had died under “unusual circumstances.”

Kilgallen’s reputation and notoriety was the only thing that kept the weak story of the Spitsbergen crash of 1946 alive. The last hope of further research into the Norwegian crash died along with her, as her sources were never verified.

1952 Spitsbergen UFO Crash

by Loy Lawhon

The other Spitsbergen crash story first appeared in the German newspaper “Saarbrücker Zeitung” in June 1952. The article, entitled “Auf Spitsbergen landete Fliegende Untertasse”, was soon picked up by several other German newspapers, with many of them citing “The Stuttgarter Tagerblatt” as the original source.

The story was that jets of the Norwegian Air Force spotted a crashed UFO while flying over Spitsbergen on maneuvers. The craft was disc-shaped with a series of jets around the rim of the disc to make it spin.

According to the first article about the crash, the craft was an unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle with Russian writing on the controls, but as the story was embellished with each retelling, it soon acquired seven alien crewmen who were burned to death in the crash.

The post The Legends of UFO Crashes at Spitsbergen, Norway, 1946 & 1952 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

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Background

On June 13, 2021, a photo (which led to more) was posted on the social media network called Reddit, and the /r/UFOs ‘subreddit.’

The Black Vault reached out to the ‘witness’ who posted it, and began a deep dive into the origin of where they came from, and attempted to piece together the full story.

What resulted was a bit of a rabbit hole. This now smells like a hoax after some deep digging. There were obvious signs up front, but my approach has always been to exhaust all possibilities.

NOTE: I feel I may be a bit more neutral than is warranted on this. After this video was uploaded, and the article was programmed, I made a discovery which slipped by me prior to creating this.

The key element in all this that I missed until just before publishing, is this fact: In CAM01877.jpg (raw files available at the link above), the metadata states the photo was taken at 8:26pm. The “identical” photo labeled as CAM01878.jpg which did not have the lens flares, was taken at 8:25pm, one minute earlier. Sequentially in the file naming structure vs. the time stamps; they are reversed. The camera would have named the 8:25pm photo as *1877 and the 8:26pm photo as *1878. I feel that may be the deciding factor in labeling this a hoax. However, I opted not to record the entire video again and re-edit it all, but rather, post this addendum and show you all the evidence as complete as I could make it. Plus, the journey to get there!

In addition to the above, there are too many other red flags to dismiss. When I recorded the video, I tried to stay neutral giving way to long-shot possibilities, but possibilities none-the-less. However, right before publishing everything, I made additional discoveries. 

Ideally, I’d delete it all, and have a different approach. Re-edit, re-do, and re-upload. However, I want to show you all the investigative techniques to exhaust all possibilities. Sure, we can dismiss more easily. I just opt not to. What you see in the above links is why…

Sometimes, we just need to keep digging despite having the deep down feeling on what the overall outcome will be. The more evidence we collect; the better we are for the next one.

UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this investigation, the Reddit user /u/Munchizmo deleted their account after having it for 10 years. This is another highly suspect action, and more in line with what I would expect from a hoaxer.

Moral of the story: Always follow the evidence, and always keep pushing.

Additional Information

.zip File

[ .zip file of ALL photographs released by the witness – metadata attached ]

Photo Gallery

Note: In my video above, I felt a made an error with outline/positioning of the photographs. When making this table array, I realized I did not make a mistake, rather, the metadata is reversed.

In CAM01877.jpg, the metadata states the photo was taken at 8:26pm. The “identical” photo labeled as CAM01878.jpg which did not have the lens flares, was taken at 8:25pm, one minute earlier. Sequentially in the file naming structure vs. the time stamps; they are reversed. The camera would have named the 8:25pm photo as *1877 and the 8:26pm photo as *1878. I feel that may be the deciding factor in labeling this a hoax. However, I opted not to record the entire video again, but rather, post this addendum and show you all the evidence as complete as I could make it.

Metadata Breakdowns

Another complete red flag is the fact that the photograph dimensions for all photos was 960×720, taken by a LG LDC-F20. However, the LDC-F20 shot a resolution of 640×480. A special thanks to Mick West for notating that discrepancy.

Here is proof of the tech specs behind the LDC-F20, as taken from the Digital Camera Museum.

CAM01875.jpg

CAM01876.jpg

CAM01877.jpg

CAM01878.jpg

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The below is written by Dr. Bruce Maccabee:

NAVY PHYSICIST (RET), DR. BRUCE MACCABEE  PREDICTS THAT THE U.S. NAVY’S SPECIAL UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA (UAP) TASK FORCE (UAPTF) WILL CONFIRM WHAT CIVILIAN INVESTIGATORS HAVE LONG SUSPECTED: SOME UAP ARE VEHICLES CONTROLLED BY NON-HUMAN INTELLIGENCES (NHI)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

brumac@compuserve.com (email)
www.brumac.mysite.com  (web site)

The origin(s) of these NHI is (are) unknown but they may come from other planets using transportation technology based on very advanced physical principles.

President Joe Biden of the U.S.A. and leaders of other countries may find it necessary to develop a single, uniform, world-wide policy for co-existing and interacting with NHI. The policy should be world-wide because allowing various countries to develop their own policies could result in some form of disaster.

If the NAVY TASK FORCE discovers that some UAP are evidence for NHI, the Task Force will, I presume, write an unclassified report (with classified appendix, if needed) ready for publication. However, it might be that the policy makers in the Administration, when confronted with the UAPTF report, might decide to withhold all or part of the unclassified report because of a perceived negative impact on the citizens of the USA and other countries.

The “Yes or No” policy for releasing the report would be based, in part, upon whether the Task Force determines that they “love” us (for example, if they made us or we are “pets”), “hate” us (for example, if they view us as a potential danger to them or their activities) or are indifferent to us (for example, they do whatever they want to do and ignore us as long as we don’t get in their way).

The release policy  may also be based partially on the determination that “they” are as curious about us as we are about them.  An example of this possibility is the series of radar and visual sightings made during the early morning of December 31, 1978 about twenty miles off the east coast of the South Island of  New Zealand.

Wellington Air Traffic Control radar, located at the south end of the North Island detected unknown radar “targets” (radar reflective objects) that seemingly traveled along with a freighter aircraft that was flying south to Christchurch, a city on the east side of the South Island, about 160 miles south-southwest of Wellington. One such target approached the airplane in a sort of stepwise manner, ultimately getting so close to the airplane that the radar could not separate the unknown target from the airplane target. As the radar operator told the plane, “There’s a strong target right in formation with you now…could be left or right … Your target has doubled in size.”  This radar event is referred, in the more detailed recounting below, as the “Double Sized Target” event.  After about 30 seconds the unknown target moved away and the airplane target reduced to normal size.  (Further details are given below.)

The action of the unknown, temporarily getting very close to the plane, appears to have been deliberate.  There were, after all, plenty of places for the unknown to be besides near the airplane. So, this raises the question, why did it get so close to the airplane? Curiosity could be one answer and an intent to scare the people in the airplane might be another answer.  Either answer would be consistent with NHI as being the cause of the unknown targets.

BACKGROUND

BRIEF HISTORY

Starting in the latter 1940’s military personnel and citizens in all countries and in all walks of life began reporting unusual objects traveling through the sky. They came to be known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Hundreds of reports per year from 1947 through 1969 were collected and analyzed by three U. S. Air Force projects , SIGN (1948), GRUDGE (1949 – 1951) and the well-known PROJECT BLUE BOOK (1952 – 1969).

After studying some 13,000 reports BLUE BOOK concluded that most could be explained as ordinary phenomena that were misperceived but that 701 resisted explanation because of their non-aerodynamic shapes (sphere, disc, cylinder), because of the absence of recognizable features (wings, stabilizers, fuselage, propellers, jet engines), because of their ability to hover  with no recognizable means of support (anti-gravity?) and extreme dynamics (high acceleration leading to extreme speed – thousands of miles per hour –  being achieved in a second  or less).  BLUE BOOK then claimed, without proof, that the reports of these 701 sightings were faulty or incomplete and that if they (USAF investigators) had had more information about them they, too, could have been explained.

After BLUE BOOK closed in 1969 the Air Force responded to queries by handing out a “Fact Sheet” that said that after investigating thousands of sightings it had found nothing that was a threat to the United States and nothing indicating that reports of UAP were evidence of an advanced technology or Non-Human Intelligence (NHI).

RECENT EVENTS

More recently there have been sightings by U.S. Navy fighter pilots and sailors who have detected and tracked UAP using modern radar and optical devices. The Navy has confirmed that the UAP are unknown objects or phenomena. The new radar and observational data confirm what has been reported ever since the first UFO sightings in the late spring of 1947, namely that these objects can undergo extreme acceleration and reach very high speeds.  They can also hover above ground despite the lack of observable means for support such as rotating blades as on a helicopter.

The most intriguing question is, could these objects or phenomena, at least some of them, be evidence that the Earth is being visited by Non-Human Intelligences (NHI) that travel around by means of various technologically advanced Alien Transportation Vehicles (ATV)?

In order to answer this question the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), responding to direction by Congress, has set up a task force (the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, UAPTF) to collect and analyze reports of UAP/UFO sightings and prepare an unclassified report for publication.

The Navy can be commended for “taking the bull by the horns” and setting up a program to tackle the above question “head on.” However, investigations and analyses of many unclassified reports by civilians (and military) over the last 70 years have already led many investigators to conclude that at least some of the reports of UAP are evidence of NHI. The Task Force is likely to confirm this conclusion based on their studies of classified (and unclassified) sightings.

EXAMPLE OF AN EVENT POSSIBLY CAUSED BY NHI

A prime example of a civilian sighting that can be explained by assuming the UAP was controlled by NHI is the “Double Sized Target” (DST) radar sighting that occurred in New Zealand during the early morning hours of Sunday, December 31, 1978.

The DST radar sighting is one of a series of radar and visual sighting events that occurred between 0015 (15 minutes after midnight) and 0100 (1:00 a.m.) local time as an Argosy four engine freighter aircraft flew southward along a well-traveled air route carrying newspapers from Wellington to Christchurch. These sightings are unique for the quantity and quality of data available. There were five witnesses on the plane and two at the Wellington Air Traffic Control Center (WATCC). The WATCC recorded all the (audio) communications between the WATCC and the plane. This made possible a time-accurate reconstruction of the sighting events that occurred during the flight.

There were numerous sightings, both radar and visual, during this flight.  However, only radar sightings related to the DST event are presented here.  Information on the many other sightings is presented at http://brumac.mysite.com where you scroll down to paragraphs 29, 30 and 41.

The Double Sized Target sighting occurred as the airplane was flying southward at 14,000 ft and 215 knots (215 kt or about 250 mph or about 4 statute miles per minute; from here on distances are in nautical miles – nm – which are about 15% larger than statute miles, and speeds are in nm/hr or kt). The plane was about 90 nm south of WATCC which was following the airplane with its search radar that swept a narrow (about 2 degree wide) beam around the sky every 12 seconds (5 revolutions per minute). If a radar-reflective object, such as an airplane, were “hit” by the beam, reflected radar power would cause a short bright arc of light, a “target,” to appear on the circular radar display. During the next rotation of the radar beam another bright arc would appear at a short distance from the previous arc, a short distance because the plane could only travel a short distance, about 0.6 miles, during the 12 seconds. When a bright arc appeared on the display its brightness would decrease rather slowly with time so that at any time, for a particular “target,” there would be a line or trail of short arcs of diminishing brightness indicating where the target object was at the most recent rotation (the brightest arc) and where it had been during previous rotations.  Thus the series of arcs indicated where the target had been and the direction it was heading.

The above description of what would appear on the radar display applies to normal targets (e.g., airplanes). However, on this particular night the radar operators saw what they called “weird targets” that didn’t create lines of arcs. Instead they saw the following: as the radar beam swept around it would detect a single target and create an arc at some location on the radar screen. When the beam swept past the location again there would be only the previous (fading) arc and  no new arc indicating that the target was no longer at that location. However, there would be an arc at some other location many miles away where there hadn’t been an arc before, suggesting that the target had traveled many miles to a new location during the 12 second rotation.

In early 1979, during the initial analysis of these sightings, targets that were “arcs without tracks,” were assumed to be some sort of weather-caused anomalies (“radar angels”) and that these anomalies appeared randomly around the plane. Little thought was given to the possibility that these anomalies actually traveled large distances in 12 seconds, which would imply that the weird targets were able to undergo high acceleration and achieve very high speeds, a capability beyond that of any weather anomaly.

However, the recent Navy sightings of radar targets that achieve high acceleration and high speed suggest that the radar targets seen in New Zealand should be re-evaluated since they were of the same nature as the Navy targets. That would imply that we can learn something about objects reported by the Navy by studying the reported activities of the New Zealand unknown objects/targets.

THE DOUBLE SIZED TARGET

Between 0015 and 0027 (24 hour time in minutes past midnight), as the plane flew southward, WATCC reported  six weird radar targets at various times and at various distances and directions relative to the location of the plane. Then, at 0027, WATCC reported to the plane, “Target is at 12:00 at 3 miles.” (Directions are given as clock face times.) The air crew responded immediately, “Thank you. We pick it up. It’s got a flashing light.” This sighting by itself is extraordinary since, according to WATCC, there were no other planes in the sky south of Wellington and there were no known sources of light directly ahead of the plane. (There were the lights of the Japanese squid fishing fleet about a hundred miles east of them, but they were recognized by the air crew.)

At about 0028 WATCC reported that there were targets 10 nm to 15 nm behind the plane. Of course, the air crew couldn’t see them. At about 0029 ½ WATCC told the plane that there was a target at 6:00 at 4 nm (behind them). At 0030 WATCC told the plane that there was a “further” target at 3:00 (to their right) at 4 nm. (If this latter target was the same object as the previous one, then it traveled about 5 ½ nm in ½ minute or about 660 kt, three times faster than the plane.)

Then came the most surprising radar event, the Double Sized Target. At about 30 minutes and 45 seconds after midnight WATCC reported to the plane as follows: “There’s a strong target right in formation with you now…could be left or right … your target has doubled in size.” According to the radar operators the motion of the DST, as displayed on the radar screen, was exactly what one would expect if two airplanes were flying side by side at the same speed and separated by a short distance (actual distance not known; perhap less than a mile),

Both the radar operators and the air crew waited with some trepidation to see what would happen next!

Finally, at about 0031:30 (30 seconds past 0031) WATCC reported, “Your target has reduced to normal size” (They could now exhale.).

Because of the radar sweep rate, 12 seconds per rotation, it is not possible to determine exactly the duration of the DST, but it was at least 36 seconds, enough time to rule out any explanation other than that for a time the airplane had a traveling companion. (The plane was flying in a straight line so the increase in radar target size was not due to a change in orientation of the plane.)

About a minute and a half after being told that the airplane target was the normal size the plane reported to WATCC, “Got a target at 3:00 just behind us.” WATCC responded immediately, “Yes, and going around to 4:00 now, at 4 miles.” About a minute later WATCC reported a target at 5:00 at 10 miles. About 40 seconds later WATCC reported that the same target was at 6:00, directly behind the plane, that it was at 15 miles distance and that it had been joined by two other stationary targets! Shortly after that the three targets were replaced by a single target that was larger than the airplane target. Several minutes after this the plane began its descent to land at Christchurch and there were no more radar incidents during the flight south. (There were radar and visual incidents while the plane flew north to Blenheim later but there was no double sized airplane target.)

The DST incident is uniquely important because it shows that there was more to these radar targets than mere existence. The existence of these targets might, in some way, be attributed to short lived atmospheric phenomena and, in fact, skeptics who have studied these sightings have attributed the “weird targets” to fluctuations in the turbulent flow of air as it blows eastward over the jagged mountain peaks of the South Island of New Zealand. But turbulence-generated radar targets are weak targets, they appear at random times and random locations and they don’t move rapidly, certainly not as rapidly as an airplane.

The motions, if any, of turbulence generated radar targets do not give the appearance of intent. Yet the target that moved along with the plane did give evidence of intent, such as an intent to “move closer for a better look at the airplane.”  Intent is a characteristic of intelligence.

The motions of this target also indicate curiosity, which is another characteristic of intelligence.

These weird radar targets weren’t controlled by humans.  We may therefore conclude that these targets, and, by extension, the targets detected by the Navy, were controlled by Non-Human Intelligences or … aliens.

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On December 16, 2020, Former CIA Director John Brennan was asked about UFOs.

Professor Tyler Cowen, host of “Conversations with Tyler,” allowed The Black Vault to share his answer here.

For the full interview, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdQ7L0ugZJc

—
TRANSCRIPT

COWEN: Let’s say we take a concrete issue. The Navy has reported that a lot of its pilots have seen unidentified flying objects. If you’re tackling that, as a CIA director or someone who works there, what is it you would sift through and interpret? How would that go?

BRENNAN: I’ve seen some of those videos from Navy pilots, and I must tell you that they are quite eyebrow-raising when you look at them. You try to ensure that you have as much data as possible in terms of visuals and also different types of maybe technical collection of sensors that you have at the time.

Also, I believe, it’s important to reach out into other environments and find out, were there any type of weather phenomena at that time that might have, in fact, created the appearance of the phenomenon that you’re looking at? Were there some things that were happening on the ground, or other types of phenomena that could help explain what seems to be quite a mystery as far as what is there?

I think an important thing for analysts to do is not to go into this type of challenge either discounting certain types of possibilities or believing in advance that it is likely X, Y, or Z. You really have to approach it with an open mind, but get as much data as possible and get as much expertise as possible brought to bear.

COWEN: At the end of all that sifting and interpreting, what do you think is the most likely hypothesis?

BRENNAN: [laughs]I don’t know. When people talk about it, is there other life besides what’s in the States, in the world, the globe? Life is defined in many different ways. I think it’s a bit presumptuous and arrogant for us to believe that there’s no other form of life anywhere in the entire universe. What that might be is subject to a lot of different views.

But I think some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.

COWEN: Being an agnostic, you don’t think it’s something supernatural?

BRENNAN: Well, supernatural is in the eye of the holder. Again, I’m not going to discount them. That’s why I’m an agnostic as opposed to an atheist. I just want to leave my mind open as to what something might be, but who knows what these things might be?

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The post Former CIA Director John Brennan on UFOs, December 16, 2020 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Dayton, Ohio brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright were always interested in being able to soar in the skies. Being influenced by printed material of early German attempts with gliders, the two experimenters built their own glider in 1900.

Early on, they tested different types of wing shapes, while honing their plane-making skills. By 1903, the brothers had built a 12-horsepower engine and two propellers.

Late in the year, on December 17, they finally made their first flight.

Though tagged as a plane, their first success in flight was actually done in a motorized glider.

The flying apparatus had no way to steer it. The two had gained experience in motors while experimenting with motorized bicycles operating their own bicycle shop.

The first historic flight at Kitty Hawk lasted only twelve seconds, but it was a start. By 1905, the brothers could stay in the air for up to 30 minutes, and even steer their plane.

As far as we know, no one else had developed the capability of sustained air flight, at least on this planet. But early accounts of our first settlers included an occasional report of something flying in the sky.

These happen chance sightings were normally made when one would check the sky for weather conditions, or see birds fly over.

One of the very first sightings of what could be a UFO occurred as early as 1865, over 35 years before the first known flight at Kitty Hawk. Fortunately, there are still newspaper accounts of this and other early sightings of days long since passed.

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Note from The Black Vault: The following was published by the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), and although the organization is now defunct, the record was stored within the Wayback Machine, but got very little attention. It is being republished here for archival reasons. All respective copyrights, if any, are held by their respective owners.

From the preface, written by NIDS:

For the first time NIDS is electronically publishing a book manuscript written in 1975 by Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla, the head of the USAF Project Blue Book. Project Blue Book was supposed to be an objective investigation and documentation of the UFO phenomenon carried out by the United States Air Force from March 1952 until December 1969. Project Blue Book was the successor to Projects Sign and Grudge.

The book is a summary in Quintanilla’s own words of his involvement, as head of project Blue Book, in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. “UFOs, an Air Force Dilemma” was also given the title “UFOs: A $20,000,000 Fiasco” by Quintanilla in a book proposal to unnamed publishers.

NIDS’s purpose in making available this previously unpublished manuscript is twofold: (a) to demonstrate to the interested public, through the authors own unedited words, Lt. Col. Quintanilla’s attitudes, preconceptions, and biases that dominated Project Blue Book, and (b) to make available to historians and to the public the methodology and practices employed by the United States Air Force in investigating and cataloging the UFO phenomenon.

“UFOs, An Air Force Dilemma” by Hector Quintanilla, USAF (retired), Published 1974

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The following is reproduced, with permission, from the book UFO CONTACTS IN ITALY VOLUME TWO.

By Roberto Pinotti

The following information is taken from my new book ‘UFO CONTACTS IN ITALY -VOLUME TWO’ which has just been published by Philip Mantle’s publishing company ‘FLYING DISK PRESS’. It is the first time that this information has been made available in english.

In 2000, during the annual World UFO Symposium in San Marino, my colleague Alfredo Lissoni and I gave a lecture on the sensational discovery of some new original material, which has been sent to us anonymously on a number of occasions regarding the existence of the so-called “Fascist UFO Files”. This material dealt with a purported flying saucer that had either crashed or landed near Magenta in Lombardy in Italy on April 11th, 1933, some fourteen years before the famous Roswell, New Mexico, UFO crash. This event involved a subsequent investigation by an obscure war time intelligence unit called “Gabinetto RS/33” (or RS/33 Cabinet ), ‘RS’ is the acronym for Ricerche Speciali or Special Researches, and 33 means 1933, this group had been authorized by Benito Mussolini to study the problem.

Later the crashed UFO was stored in the hangars of the SIAI Marchetti in Vergiate. Mussolini thought that this “unconventional flying vehicle” was a French, British or German secret weapon, but apparently Guglielmo Marconi believed it was Extra-Terrestrial in nature. The RS/33 Cabinet – according to the mysterious sender of the material who wrote to us saying he was a relative of one of its members who had investigated this. Apparently, between 1933 and 1940, there were many different Italian UFO sightings: in one instance an Italian fighter plane intercepted an UFO between Ravenna and Rome and in August 1936 there was a multiple UFO sighting (a “flying cigar” and two Saturn-shaped UFOs) over Mestre and Venice.

Indeed, in Italy there were many UFO sightings between 1933 and 1940, so little wonder a secret commission was established to study them. According to the “Fascist UFO Files” we received, it was founded by Mussolini along with Fascist Ministers Italo Balbo and Galeazzo Ciano and it was headed by Guglielmo Marconi. The first UFO case was in 1931 near Venice; the second is above mentioned case when, on June 13, 1933, a landed UFO was recovered.

We have three telegrams (there are four) concerning the recovery of this UFO and a ‘protocol’ was sent to the Prefect, intended for the Italian secret services and the newspapers, in order to cover up this news. It all began in early 1996 when I received a handful of hand written notes on stationary bearing the seal of the “Kingdom’s Senate” in the mail. The year mentioned in the material was 1936 and in the hand written document, first sent to a Certain “Valiberghi” by a secret agent using the first name “Andrea” there was a sketch of a “mysterious airship”.

“It was observed in the morning” he writes “it was a metallic disc, polished and reflecting light, with a length of ten or twelve meters. Two fighter aircraft from a nearby  air force base took off, but were not able to reach it even traveling at 130 Km/h. It didn’t emit  any sound, which would lead one to consider an aerostat (balloon). But nobody knows of balloons that can fly faster than the wind. I know for sure that it was seen by other pilots… the report arrived in the hands of Ciano [Mussolini’s son-in-law and Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs]. “Then, after approximately an hour and after flying over Mestre, it was seen as a sort of metallic tube, grey or slate in colour”. A drawing by a confidential informant was redrawn by Andrea, who, as far as the two ‘A’ and ‘B’ drawings are concerned, explained that “ ‘A’ was described as being like a kind of aerial torpedo, with very clear windows… and with alternating white and red lights. ‘B’ were two ‘hats’, two hats like those used by priests. They were wide, round with a dome in the center, metallic and followed the torpedo without changing their relative positions”. The document mentions that “the Prefecture has opened an inquiry, but you can imagine that it will make little inroads and have a similar outcome to that of 1931. The Duce has expressed his worries, because he says that if it was an English or French aircraft, his foreign policy would have to start all over again”. Although Andrea’s report is only one of several received by Lissoni and I since 1996, its contents are sensational since it describes a classic “flying saucer” in 1936, with aircraft alerted and multiple witnesses. It also reveals that Mussolini and Ciano, Italy’s number one and two leaders at the time, were kept informed of the situation.

At first, as the recipient of the material for Centro Ufologico Nazionale, I decided to file it away for the time being until a deeper analysis, or fresh evidence was available that might be able to establish its authenticity. A long time passed and the search for eyewitnesses was fruitless. The document had indicated three names, all of whom were now untraceable.

Then, finally, CUN member Dr. Cristina Vannucci managed to secure the testimony of an ageing relative, Faustino (who unfortunately died shortly afterwards), but who confirmed that he had been present and had seen the incredible thing flying over Mestre and Venice.

Indeed, other caches of documents sent by the anonymous “Mr. X” (as we decided to call him) were received by CUN, before the daily newspaper, IL RESTO DEL CARLINO of Bologna, – whose skeptical journalists did not publish them – and by the contactee-oriented magazine, UFO: LA VISITA EXTRATERRESTRE– mentioned in Cabinet RS/33. This magazine was charged with both investigating and covering up what the documents call “Velivoli Non Convenzionali” or VNC as an acronym for (Unconventional Flying Vehicles).

Unfortunately, an original thirty-page dossier about VNC (i.e. the one that had been sent to the newspaper IL RESTO DEL CARLINO of Bologna) was lost, while the first batch of photocopied material sent to UFO: LA VISITA EXTRATERRESTRE did not have the result “Mr. X” had desired. This magazine entrusted their enquiry to the Naples ufologist Umberto Telarico who was skeptic about the case.  The material got published, but they considered it a fake.

Evidently greatly disappointed and weary, on September 10, 1999, “Mr. X” sent a letter of protest (always of course anonymously) repeating what we have just said about the RS/33 CABINET and supplying the names of some of its members: – a certain shadowy Dr. Ruggero Costanti Cavazzani, and also Professor Severi, Professor Bottazzi, Professor Giordano, and Professor Crocco, all real people.

Enclosed also was a newspaper-clipping about a French air force pilot who had vanished in Italy (a pilot who, as we discovered later, had had the misfortune to film a UFO and then spoke to the Italians about it!).

Cabinet RS/33 had links with the Fascist Secret Police OVRA and with “Agenzia Stefani”, the regime’s news agency in charge of disseminating Fascist information and propaganda. As far as the 1933 case, the “Fascist UFO Files” include a “PRIORITY and MOST CONFIDENTIAL” telegram from the Telegraphic Office in Milan, the sender was Agenzia Stefani – Milano, explaining that:

“By personal order of the Duce (i.e. Mussolini), absolute silence is required about an alleged landing on national soil of unknown aircraft STOP Released version dispatched today by Stefani Agency confirmed STOP The same version also applies to personnel and journalists STOP Anticipated max punishment for transgressors up to referral to the Tribunal for State Security STOP”.

Although it has not been possible for us – 70 years later! –To find eyewitnesses to those events who were still living, we think we did find an indirect confirmation of the landing (or maybe of the “crash”) of the flying saucer – in a news item in the popular weekly magazine Domenica del Corriere of July 9, 1937.

Ably camouflaged, this spoke of an ‘enormous and brilliant flash of lightning’ which, one night, injured five pedestrians on the road between Magenta and Novara”.

As the President of the Royal Italian Academy of Sciences, Senator Guglielmo Marconi, Italy’s Nobel Prize winner and most famous scientist and inventor, was the director of the cabinet, which also included several other eminent Italian astronomers, scientists and aeronautical engineers such as Senator Luigi Cozza, astronomer Gino Cecchini and professors Vallauri, Pirotta, Crocco, Debbasi, Severi, Bottazzi and Giordano.

The late Dr. Antonio Garavaglia, a top Italian forensic consultant, conducted tests on the material I received, and the results were positive, authenticating the most important of the papers (the drawing of the 1936 UFO reported over Mestre). Copies of eighteen secret documents from the Fascist era (handwritten notes and telegrams), as well as a forensic report authenticating one of the papers (with a drawing of two Saturn-shaped “flying saucers” following their cylindrical “mother ship”) were released by CUN to the Italian media, including the National TV network RAI UNO and leading newspapers such as IL RESTO DEL CARLINO, LA NAZIONE and LA REPUBBLICA.

As things went sour for Italy during the war, all the files from the RS/33 Cabinet were supposedly shipped to Nazi Germany. As Lissoni points out, rumours of Nazi discs have plagued the UFO literature for decades, and one Italian scientist, Giuseppe Belluzzo, is always mentioned in conjunction with the Germans, Miethe, Schriever and Habermohl. Much nonsense has been written about the so-called Nazi flying saucers – some of it unabashed neo-Nazi propaganda – yet undoubtedly there is at least some truth to the matter. The names of Miethe, et al., are confirmed by FBI and other U.S. and German documents. It is also possible that the German V-7 (a revolutionary discoidal aircraft whose existence as a prototype was confirmed by Hermann Oberth) was initially developed after Italian research by VNC.

The technician for Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic in 1944 and 1945 in the Garda Lake area, found and gave us seventeen original documents from her father, including detailed drawings of the outer parts of the design of an Italian disc-shaped “DISCOMET” showing an unknown and never produced Italian discoidal aircraft he had designed in the last months of WW2.Besides, since the end of the Thirties a German aircraft designer named Nordung had been attempting to build a “solar” flying disc to be sent out into space – subsequently re-named the “flying wheel”, so it is no wonder that the Italian Fascists, finding themselves confronted with a UFO, should have opted for the explanation that it was a secret weapon!

Are the “Fascist UFO Files” authentic? Obviously, considering the technical forensic analysis conducted for CUN, the answer is positive for me and  my colleague Alfredo Lissoni (who, in the Archives of the Prefecture in Milan, also found about 500 copies of telegrams of the Prefects of the Kingdom of Italy to the Government, between 1933 and 1938, some of which concerned definite reports of “Unconventional Flying Vehicles” and showed the attention Italian Authorities directed to the problem).

So they appear genuine, in spite of the fact that critics do not accept them as proper “historical documents”. But even if we considered them only as a sort of “private correspondence”, the fact that they mention the UFO the phenomenon in a report dated 1936 cannot be ignored.

To the investigators’ credit, the whole affair was kept strictly confidential until Antonio Garavaglia’s professional forensic analysis was completed. Only then the documents were released to the Italian press and published in a series of articles in CUN’s official magazine and later in a book. Garavaglia conducted a series of chemical tests of the paper and ink – remember, he had originals and not copies – and he concluded they are really authentic, hand written documents from the Fascist era. The color of the paper and ink aging process led him to believe they were absolutely genuine and not modern forgeries.

Alfredo Lissoni also consulted with Andrea Bedetti, a historian and expert on Italy’s Fascist period. “I cannot exclude the existence of a “RS/33 Cabinet” said Bedetti. He also examined in the documents for the wording and the bureaucratic style of the period”, as well as the stationery (“Kingdom’s Senate” and Stefani Agency telegrams) and aeronautical terminology used. Bedetti found that all of it was consistent with genuine Fascist-era documents. According to debunkers this didn’t rule out a skilled forger, but they have to admit he would have to be someone deeply knowledgeable about Fascist history, style, vocabulary and terminology. Bedetti also pointed out that in the period between 1933-1940 – coinciding with the alleged RS/33 Cabinet – Mussolini’s power was at its peak and Italy was one of the world’s leading nations in aviation and military aeronautics.

So, if the “Fascist UFO Files” are authentic, this rewrites the history of ‘official’ ufology, and the first country to officially deal with the UFO problem was no longer the United States, but Italy.

Alfredo Lissoni’s hypothesis is that the purported saucer recovered in 1933 had been hidden in one of the nearest and most discrete hangars in that region – namely the hangars of the aeronautical establishments of the SIAI Marchetti at Vergiate or Sesto Calende in the Varese region of Ticino. At that time they were under the control of Regia Aeronautica (Royal Italian Air Force) and General Italo Balbo, a very popular and world famous airman and, as indicated, a member of the RS/33 Cabinet. At the beginning of World War II, although he was against Italy’s alliance with Nazi Germany, he became the viceroy of Lybia, but his plane was shot down there by Italian batteries “by mistake”. Another member of the Cabinet, Mussolini’s son-in-law Count Galeazzo Ciano, was later executed by the Fascists due to his opposition to Il Duce.

The “Varese trail” had been suggested to Lissoni via several clues: namely that the messages about the recovery of the UFO came from the nearby Telegraphic Office of Milano; and at that time Black Shirts were suddenly dispatched to that region; and a Varese newspaper, “Cornice Praline”, of June 20, 1933, gave the first report, emphasizing that forms of life on Mars were in contact with the Earth – almost as it were a matter of fact. Also at the SIAI Marchetti at Sesto Calende, there was a director by the name of Moretti; and during the existence of the Italian Social Republic, it was a man named Moretti who, having gone over to the Resistance, set fire to the hangars at Vergiate (which were perhaps guarding some aerospace secret). And finally, when the war was over, the US Air Force and members of the Nazi Secret Service were simultaneously infiltrated into Sesto Calende, to investigate rumours of the presence of terrestrial flying saucers kept at Vergiate. Also, from time immemorial the entire region, was at the centre of intense ufological activity – to such a degree that it gained the nickname of being “The Ticino Triangle”.

In April of 1945, the 1st Armoured Division captured the SIAI Marchetti Aviation Facility where the 1933 Magenta UFO (or it debris) was probably kept and it was brought to the United States. Indeed the “RS/33 Cabinet” had continued to work right up to the time of the Italian Social Republic, the period in which a part of the documentation on UFOs, in several sealed boxes, had been sent to Berlin, while a part – “a not irrelevant part” – remained in Italy.

And this latest consignment of material, included copies of new documents, which possibly demonstrated the existence of agreements between Hitler and Mussolini regarding the study of a new (alien?) technology, agreements that had been made in 1938.These documents were: a Stefani Agency message from Florence containing an interview with Hitler when he was visiting Italy; a banknote of the nominal value of a million Lire (maybe “black funds” of the RS/33 Cabinet); minutes regarding the oath of secrecy given by the professors who collaborated with the Fascist Government; an invitation (registered) to Benito and Rachele Mussolini to Villa Torlonia (said to be for a “riuione riservatissima dedicada al Gabinetto RS/33” (that is “an extremely private meeting dedicated to the RS/33 Cabinet”).

Indeed, we know that a few years later, just before the Second World War, the Italians were able to produce the prototype of the first jet airplane in History (the “Campini Caproni 1”). But we also know that the aviation industry in Italy was the last in Western Europe at the end of WW1. So the question is: can it be that the study of the UFO stored in hangars near Milano gave the Italians the needed technology? We have to remember that Italian engineer Secondo Campini submitted a report on the potential of jet propulsion to the Regia Aeronautica (Royal Italian Air Force) and demonstrated a jet-powered boat in Venice. In 1934 the Regia Aeronautica granted approval for the development of a jet aircraft to demonstrate the principle used by Campini and requested him to build two aircraft with “propulsione a reazione” (jet propulsion) in the second half of the 1930s.

What is striking is the coincidence that all this “jet” development, in line with the Italian interest in the so-called “superaviazione” (super aviation) started to happen exactly one year after the first VNC sighting in Venice (1931) and one year after the Magenta UFO crash (1933).Campini had proposed the jet engine in 1932 and the first flight of a jet engined aircraft that is known about was in the Italian Caproni Campini N. 1 motor jet prototype that flew on August 27, 1940.

It was the first jet aircraft recognized by the Fédération Aèronatique Internationale (at the time the German Heinkel 178 program was still being kept secret by Nazi Government). Has all this to do with “reverse engineering” to copy the unknown flying machines reported in the “Fascist UFO Files”?

Another question relates to the original idea of the disc called, “Turboproietti” (Turbina proiettile), created during WW2 by Giuseppe Belluzzo. Working with the SS after 1943, Belluzzo designed a three motor jet-pipe system that would rotate an annular wing. Belluzzo had been inspired by Hermann Oberth’s orbital platform concepts in the 1930’s so he put his own engineering skill to work with this design. Here is a brief description of the design, made by Rob Arndt: “Jet pipes on the edge of the disc had a variable diameter.

A turbine drove the pipes initially until air accelerated through the pipes. At the widest section of each pipe, oil was injected and ignited. The temperature was raised quickly and at the end of each pipe, the air reached a speed of 700 meters/second, able to allow the circular craft to spin at a rotation speed of 400 meters/second. When the fuel ran out, the explosive-laden “Turboproietti” simply dropped to the ground in similar fashion to the German V-1 missile. It was hoped that it would hit its target.”

While the SS supported this idea, an unmanned aerial “Flakmine” version was considered more important, and that was what Giuseppe Belluzzo was working on in 1945 when the war ended. No prototypes were ever constructed. And so a third question arises: is it possible that the design of the Belluzzo’s Turboproietti is similar to the UFO allegedly stored in the hangars of the SIAI Marchetti in Vergiate near Milan after 1933?

Besides, there is also a strange and cryptic reference from a speech by Mussolini on March 23rd, 1941, when the Duce stated:

“It’s more likely that the United States will be invaded by unknown but war-like inhabitants from the planet Mars, who will come down from the starry space on unimaginable flying fortresses, than by the soldiers of the Axis”. What was the Duce trying to say quoting ‘Martian’ invaders? Beyond H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds”, as Timothy Good underlines, “this was almost certainly the first official reference to alien spaceships – and one that turned out to be prescient. A year later, an extraordinary incident led some American military leaders to wonder if they were indeed being invaded by beings from elsewhere”. This happened in 1942 with the so-called “Battle of Los Angeles”. In 2013 we learnt that U.S. classified documents obtained by French ufologist Jean Gabriel Greslé stated that two UFOs were shot down and recovered during that incident, and the June 1947 Einstein-Oppenheimer undelivered letter about “Relationships With Inhabitants of Celestial (sic) Bodies” addressed to the President of the United States implies that the U.S. Authorities were well aware of alien UFO crashes before the “Roswell incident”: that is, the Los Angeles case (1942) and the Magenta 1933 case (1945).

About the author:

Roberto Pinotti was born in Venice, Italy, in 1944. He is an aerospace journalist and author and the main Italian scholar in ufology, with a  degree in politics and sociology from the University of Florence. Roberto Pinotti is a world-class UFO expert. He is the only living founder of Italy’s Centro Ufologico Nazionale (CUN), one of the world’s oldest and most authoritative private UFO study organizations formed 50 years ago. Formerly an officer of the NATO Italian Army III Missile Brigade, he also co-operated with the Italian Intelligence  community as a consultant for UFOs and was given important official documents by the Italian Department of Defense and was a writer for the Rivista Aeronautica of the Italian Air Force. Over the last 50 years he has been the editor of CUN’s ufological magazine, publishing more than 250 issues. UFO CONTACTS IN ITALY: VOLUMES ONE & TWO are out now on Amazon.

The post THE UFO FILES OF MUSSOLINI: Fascist UFO Files by Roberto Pinotti first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post THE UFO FILES OF MUSSOLINI: Fascist UFO Files by Roberto Pinotti appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

The following was collected and scanned by Matthew Riot, and is used here, with permission. Copyrights held and maintained by their respective owners, and the material is archived here for reference purposes.

Document Archive

UFO Secrets of the Third Reich, American Academy of Dissident Scientists, 1977 [5 Pages, 15 MB]

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The post Marco Rubio on UFOs, July 16, 2020 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post Marco Rubio on UFOs, July 16, 2020 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

The following was collected and scanned by Matthew Riot, and is used here, with permission, as part of the “Matthew Riot Collection.” Copyrights held and maintained by their respective owners, and the material is archived here for reference purposes.

Document Archive

What You Should Know About UFOs, by Dr. J Allen Hynek, 1975 [8 Pages, 24MB]

The post What You Should Know About UFOs, by Dr. J Allen Hynek, 1975 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post What You Should Know About UFOs, by Dr. J Allen Hynek, 1975 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

The following was collected and scanned by Matthew Riot, and is used here, with permission, as part of the “Matthew Riot Collection.” Copyrights held and maintained by their respective owners, and the material is archived here for reference purposes.

Document Archive

Preparation For The Landing 2001 AD Brochure [7 Pages, 18MB]

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For twenty-two years, from 1947 – 1969, the United States Air Force ran a trifecta of UFO research programs known as Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book. The public is most familiar with the latter of the three, undoubtedly due to the success of a History Channel series by the same name. However, lesser known to non-UFO-aficionados, is why those studies ended. That was due to a near fifteen-hundred page report generated by what was known as the Condon Committee, which convened from 1966-1968 at the University of Colorado, to evaluate whether the further study of UFOs was worth it. Spoiler alert: they concluded UFOs were not worth the time. However, something strange has happened to that report over the years. A chunk of it went missing within the main government agency that disseminates it.

This is the story…

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Additional details (original article) is at: https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/astronaut-ufo-sightings-mysteriously-removed-from-government-ufo-study-here-they-are/

The link above also contained the original Condon report documents, along with a .pdf of only the missing pages.

WATCH the Nimitz Encounters film by Dave Beaty. HIGHLY recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e9NoKp8EnE

The post Astronaut UFO Sightings Mysteriously Removed from Government UFO Study; Here They Are first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post Astronaut UFO Sightings Mysteriously Removed from Government UFO Study; Here They Are appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

In the UFO field, a growing excuse for the lack of official evidence on AATIP and UAPs is that it is all “Exempt from FOIA” or simply “FOIA Exempt.”

But that isn’t quite true. In fact, it’s not even close to being accurate, at least in the way it is being portrayed.

Here is a breakdown, with sourced information, on why this is all not what it seems.

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Reference Links

– 38 Reports Created Under AAWSAP/AATIP: https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/the-advanced-aviation-threat-identification-program-aatip-dird-report-research/

– The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), Tom DeLonge, Luis Elizondo and the Claims of To The Stars Academy: https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/to-the-stars-academy-of-arts-science-tom-delonge-and-the-secret-dod-ufo-research-program/

– Luis Elizondo Presents the History of AATIP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3r6SmrCUM0

The post Debunking the “FOIA Exempt” Myth in Under 17 Minutes first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

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This listing is developed from one that was published in U.F.O.I.C. Newsletter, Australia, and re-printed in the Fall 1973 issue of Flying Saucers. Sources of further sightings include:  Richard L.Thompson ‘Alien Identities’ (orig.source ‘The UFO Evidence’); ‘Flying Saucers Over America’ (collection of newspaper cuttings); Robert Loftin ‘Identified Flying Saucers’; ‘Flying Saucer Review’s World Roundup of UFO Sightings and Events’; Desmond Leslie’s section of ‘Flying Saucers Have Landed’; Richard Hall ‘From Airships To Arnold’; Harold T.Wilkins ‘Flying Saucers On The Moon’ and ‘Flying Saucers Uncensored’; Jimmy Guieu ‘Flying Saucers Come From Another World’; Kevin Randle ‘Project Blue Book Exposed’; ‘165 Little Known UFO Sightings’; Loren E.Gross’ series ‘UFOs:A History’; Lt.Col.Wendelle C.Stevens (Ret.) & Paul (Moon Wai) Dong ‘UFOs Over Modern China’; M.K.Jessup ‘The UFO Annual’; Paris Flammonde ‘UFO Exist!’; G.McWane & D.Graham ‘The New UFO Sightings’; Michael Hervey ‘UFOs Over the Southern Hemisphere’ & ‘UFOs: The American Scene’; Wendelle C.Stevens & August C.Roberts ‘UFO Photographs Around The World’; Michael David Hall ‘UFOs: A Century of Sightings’ ; Jan L.Aldrich ‘Project 1947’; Peter Paget ‘UFO-UK’ & ‘The Welsh Triangle’; Ion Hobana & Julien Weverbergh ‘UFO’s From Behind The Iron Curtain’; Charles Fort ‘New Lands’ & ‘Book Of The Damned’; ‘The Dictionary of Scientific Biography’; Irene Granchi ‘UFOs and Abductions in Brazil’; Coral & Jim Lorenzen ‘UFOs:The Whole Story’; Jacques & Janine Vallee ‘Challenge To Science’; Nicholas Redfern ‘A Covert Agenda’; Kenneth Arnold & Raymond Palmer ‘The Coming of the Saucers’; Michael Hesemann ‘UFOs The Secret History’; Paul Stonehill ‘The Soviet UFO Files’; Roger H.Stanway & Anthony R.Pace ‘Flying Saucer Report – UFOs Unidentified Undeniable’; George Leonard ‘Somebody Else is on the Moon’; Richard M.Dolan ‘UFOs and the National Security State’; Jenny Randles ‘The Pennine UFO Mystery’; Arthur Shuttlewood ‘Warnings From Flying Friends’ & ‘The Flying Saucerers’ & ‘UFO Magic In Motion’ & ‘UFOs: Key To The New Age’; Michael Hesemann ‘UFOs:The Secret History’; Frank Edwards ‘Flying Saucers – Serious Business’ ; Fred Steckling ‘We Discovered Alien Bases On The Moon’; William R.Corliss ‘Mysterious Universe’; L’Astronomie Bulletin de la Societe Astronomique De France; Flying Saucer News; Mundo Monitor; The Emergency Press; Spacelink; UFO Chronicle; Uranus; UFO Universe; Awareness; Bufora Journal; Understanding Yearbooks 1965 /68; Flying Saucer Review. Also: National UFO Reporting Center,edited by Peter Davenport (NUFORC) / UFO Roundup, ed.Joseph Trainor (UFORup) / Filer’s Files, ed.George Filer (FF).

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 A List of UFO Sightings by Astronomers (Compiled in 2000) [48 Pages, 0.5MB]

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

November 17th, 1623: ‘A burning globe appeared at sunset – on 17 November 1623. It was visible in
different places all over Germany. In Austria, it is affirmed a sound of cracking or crushing came from it, as if
from a thunderbolt, which, however, I take to be groundless.’ Johannes Kepler.

March 21st, 1676: The Italian, Geminiano Montanari, was knowledgeable in geophysics, biology,
mathematics, ballistics, and meteorology; but his greatest achievements are considered to have been in
astronomy. He reported this sighting to Edmund Halley, who commented – ‘I find it one of the hardest things
to account for, that I have ever yet met.’….. ‘It appeared one and three quarter hours after sunset, coming
over the Adriatic from Dalmatia. It crossed over all Italy, at a height of some 40 miles, and hissed as it passed,
over Ronzare. It passed over the sea from Leghorn to Corsica, with a sound like the rattling of a great cart
over stones. I compute that it travelled 160 miles a minute. It seemed to be a vast body apparently bigger
than the moon!’ (FSOM/DSB)

May 1677: ‘..the famous astronomer, Edmund Halley, Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford University,
reported seeing a “great light in the sky all over Southern England, many miles high.”‘

July 31st, 1708: ‘..from 9 to 10 p.m., a similar apparition, thought to be 50 miles high, passed over
Sheerness, and the ‘Buoy at the Nore,’ Suffolk, and London. It moved “with incredible speed, and was very
bright. It seemed to vanish and left a pale white light behind it. There were no hissing sounds and no
explosion.”‘ (FSOM)

1715: Unusual phenomena were observed on the Moon, at the time of the solar eclipse, by Edmund Halley
and J.E.de Louville – ‘..as it were a sort of flash or momentary vibrations of beams of light, as though
someone were setting fire to gunpowder trails as used in mining. These bright flashes were very brief in
duration and appeared now here, now there, but always in the shade.’ (FSR 41-2)

March 6th, 1716: Halley saw an object illuminating the sky for more than two hours from about 7:00 p.m.
onwards: ‘A man could easily read print in the light thrown out by these spears from the same body. It did not
change for two hours, and then it seemed as if new fuel had been cast on a fire.’ / Similar phenomena were
reported to Halley by other astronomers of his time, notably by astronomers Gottfried Kirch and Schlazius, at
Leipzig, Germany re. an event on July 9th, 1686 and by Montanari an Italian mathematician and astronomer
regarding a sighting on March 21st, 1676.

March 17th, 1735: ‘A strange apparition of “an uncommon bright glade of light” was seen from the top of his
house in Buckingham Street, off the Strand, London, by John Bevis, at 8.05 pm, on March 17, 1735, when he
was observing Mars, in the west: “It was quite unlike the Aurora Borealis, being steady and not tremulous in
motion. The stars could be seen through it. It was not a comet; for I could see no nucleus through my 17-foot
optical glass. It gre dim in the middle in half an hour, and then seemed to split into two very luminous parts,
which grew dimmer till about 9.” (FSOM)

August 9th, 1762: Two Swiss astronomers saw an object in front of the sun. They were De Rostan in Basle
and Croste in Sole. [Article in 18th Century Sightings]

May 1764: Astronomer Hoffman saw a large round spot traverse the sun from north to south. (MHervey)

June 17th, 1777: Charles Messier, famous for his nebula catalogue observed a large number of dark spots in
the skies, disc shaped, which were unknown to him. In his log book he wrote – ‘They were large and swift and
they were ships, yet like bells.’

August 18th, 1783: Tiberius Cavallo, Italian chemist, inventor and writer on natural philosophy – a fellow of
the Royal Society, saw at Windsor Castle what he termed a ‘most extraordinary meteor…North-east of the
Terrace, in clear sky and warm weather, I saw appear suddenly an oblong cloud nearly parallel to the horizon.
Below the cloud was seen a luminous body… It soon became a roundish body, brightly lit up and almost
stationary. It was about 9.25 p.m. This strange ball at first appeared bluish and faint, but its light increased,

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

and it soon began to move. At first, it ascended above the horizon, obliquely towards the east. Then it
changed its direction and moved parallel to the horizon. It vanished in the SE. I saw it for half a minute, and
the light it gave out was prodigious. It lit up every object on the face of the country. It changed shape to
oblong, acquired a tail, and seemed to split up into two bodies of small size. About two minutes later came a
rumble like an explosion.’ [Article in 18th Century Sightings]. Cavallo’s book ‘The History and Practice of
Aerostation’ was published, in London, two year later. He was buried in 1809 in St.Pancras Churchyard.
(FSOM)

Also on August 30th an object was observed at Greenwich Observatory from which eight objects emerged,
described as satellites. / Other reports by scientists named by Wilkins on the following dates: March 19, 1718
at Oxford, December 5th, 1737 and December 16th, 1742 – both in London.

William Herschel on Mars – ‘..From other phenomena it appears, however, that this planet is not without a
considerable atmosphere; for, besides the permanent spots on its surface, I have often noticed occasional
changes of partial bright belts.. and also a darkish one, in a pretty high latitude.. And these alterations we can
hardly ascribe to any other cause than the variable disposition of clouds and vapours floating in the
atmosphere of that planet.

[Result of the contents of this paper] …And that planet has a considerable but moderate atmosphere, so that
its inhabitants probably enjoy a situation in many respects similar to ours.
Datchet, Dec.1, 1783. W.HERSCHEL’ [On the remarkable Appearances at the Polar Regions of the Planet
Mars, the Inclination of its Axis, the Position of its Poles, and its Spheroidal Figure; with a few Hints relating to
its real Diameter and Atmosphere. By William Herschel, Esq. F.R.S.]

October 22nd, 1790: ‘The famous astronomer, Frederick William Herschel, who discovered the planet
Uranus and its satellites and the satellites of Saturn, was looking through a 20-foot reflector telescope.. when
he saw, in time of total eclipse of the moon, many bright and luminous points, small and round. But “the
brightness of the moon, notwithstanding the fact that it was in eclipse”, did not permit him to view the
phenomenon long enough to locate these points on the lunar surface. / He wrote to the Royal Society – “We
know too little of the surface of the moon to venture a surmise of the cause and remarkable colour of these
points.”‘ [Article in 18th Century Sightings]. Previous sightings of lights on or near the moon were made by
Herschel in 1783 and 1787. (FSOM)

May 1799: A luminous spot was seen moving across the disc of Mercury by Johann Schroeter, his assistant
K.L.Harding at Lilienthal observatory , and other observers- ‘In the transit of 1799.. Schroter and Harding at
Lilienthal, and Kohler at Dresden, saw a small luminous spot on the dark disk. The spot was not stationary,
for Harding saw it change its position, and later in the day Schroter saw it sometimes on one part of the disk,
sometimes on another. Others saw, not one, but two small spots of a greyish colour.’ (Monthly Notices 38,
1878/MU)

February 7th, 1802: An unknown body [‘dark disc’ DL]was seen crossing the sun by the Astronomer Fritsch,
at Magdeburg, in central Germany. (NL)

October 10th 1802: An unknown dark body was seen by Herr Fritsch rapidly crossing the sun. (NL)

January 16th 1818: A Mr.Capel Lofft, astronomer of Ipswich, England, observed a strange object near the
sun. It was visible for three hours and a half. (DL/NL)

June 26th, 1819: Three dark bodies crossed the sun together, observed by astronomer Franz Gruithuisen.
(NL) Pastorff saw something near the sun, which he had thought was a comet; but could not have been,
according to Olbers. (NL)

September 7th, 1820: Francis Arago, the famous French Physicist/Astronomer describes observations that
day during the eclipse, at Embrun, of objects moving across the sky in a nearly military precision. He
mentions also that a number of other scientists have seen similar events.

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

February, 1821: A bright point of light, like a star, was seen on the Moon, in the crater Aristarchus – on the 4th
& 7th of February, by Capt.Kater; on the 5th, by Dr.Olbers. Star-like lights on the moon also observed that
year in May and November. (NL)

October 23rd 1822: Astronomer Pastorff observes two unknown objects cross the sun’s disc. (DL)

May 22nd 1823: Astronomer named Webb sees bright shining thing near Venus. (DL)

October 18th, 1824: ‘At five o’clock, morning.. a light was seen upon the dark part of the moon, by
Gruithuisen. It disappeared. Six minutes later it appeared again, disappeared again, and then flashed
intermittently, from 5:30 A.M., until sunrise ended the observations.’ (NL)

January 22nd, 1825: A star-like light was again observed in Aristarchus, on the Moon; reported by
Rev.J.B.Emmett. (NL)

February 13th, 1826: Gruithuisen reported that on this date, two straight lines of light, with, between them a
dark band that was covered with luminous points, was observed in the western crater of Messier.(NL)

July 31st 1826: Unknown object seen by astronomers. (DL)

May 26th 1828: Disc crossing the sun, seen through telescope. (DL)

September 6th to November 1st, 1831: At Geneva Observatory the Swiss astronomer Dr.Wartmann and his
staff saw a strange luminous body practically every night. / In the years following there were reports by
Pastorff (1834, 1836, 1837), Cacciatore (1835), De Vico (1837), De Cuppis (1837), and Glaisher (1844).

July 4th, 1832: W.L.Webb saw ‘a brilliant display of minute dots and streaks of light, in the Mare Crisium..’ on
the Moon. (NL)

December 22nd, 1835: Another star-like light in the crater Aristarchus – reported by Francis Bailey. (NL)

May 15th, 1836: At Havana, Professor Auber saw many luminous bodies that seemed to move out from the
sun, in diverse directions. (BoD)

1844: James Glaisher reported shining discs “which sent out quickly flickering waves of light.” (UFOsTSH)

May 11th-13th, 1845: ‘Erman sends me a report of Capocci about bodies, which he has seen pass in front of
the sun on 11 to 13 May… he has also seen bodies of indeterminate shape like shadows pass, and for this
reason the idea occurred to him that there could be nearer bodies and therefore that one must pull out the
eyepiece further in order to see them clearly. In fact, when he pulled out the eyepiece 1 to 2 centimeters, he
saw these bodies pass by with a very definite outline. They had irregular shapes. A few went quickly like
shooting stars, others remained visible 2 to 3 seconds and so on.’ (Letter from astronomer Heinrich
Schumacher to mathematician Carl Gauss, Sept.18 1845)… …G.A.Erman (1806-1877) worked chiefly in
terrestrial magnetism and related fields, and also undertook many expeditions. His father-in-law was Bessel…
Ernesto Capocci (de Belmonte) (1798-1864) was the first astronomer at the Capidomente observatory in
Naples, remaining there until 1848. (I.Grattan-Guinness, FSR 23-2)

‘Italian astronomer working at Capodimonte Observatory, Naples saw a number of shining discs, some star-
shaped, others sporting a tail-like appendage. He considered them of smallish size. / Further reports in the
following years came from Schmidt (1847), Brown and Sidebotham (1849) and Inglis in Switzerland in the
same year.’

March 18th & 19th, 1847: Large luminous spots seen upon the dark side of the moon, and a general glow
upon the upper limb, by Rev.T.Rankin and Prof.Chevaillier. (NL)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

Summer 1847: Benjamin Scott and his five-year-old son both observed, through a telescope, a body that
seemed to be the size of Venus crossing the sun. (BoD)

December 11th & 12th, 1847: A bright light that flashed intermittently, was seen on the dark side of the
moon, by Hodgson. (NL)

September 11th, 1852: A bright shining disc was visible to people in Staffordshire between 4.15 and 4.45
p.m. Lord Wrottesley, who had an observatory at Wolverhampton, said it seemed relatively near the Moon.
Others said near Venus. (FSOM)

June 11th, 1855: Astronomers, Ritter and Schmidt saw with their naked eyes a darkish body, unexplainable
to both of them.

March 26th, 1859: Dr.Lescarbault, a French amateur astronomer, observed a body of planetary size cross
the sun. Later given the name ‘Vulcan’ by Urbain Leverrier, who had become aware of five other seperate
observations. (BoD)

September 1st, 1859: Richard Carrington, oberving through his telescope at Redhill Observatory in Surrey
saw two luminous bodies, certainly not meteors.

April 1860: ‘..4 leading astronomers, Herrick, Buys-Barlott and de Cuppis of Great Britain, together with their
Swiss colleague Dr.Wolf, watched from the Zurich Observatory as “a large number of small black discs which
came from the east flew past.” ‘ (UFOsTSH)

October 1862: ‘Lockyer saw a spot like a long train of clouds on Mars, and several days later Secchi saw a
spot on Mars..’ (NL)

April 27th, 1863: Henry Waldner, a German astronomer, saw at Weinheim Observatory that day a great
number of small luminous bodies travelling at great speed. He notified Johann Wolf (professor of astronomy
since 1855 at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule and the University at Zurich, Switzerland. And
through whose efforts an observatory was constructed in that city, in 1864). Dr.Wolf was convinced of the
reality of the phenomenon, and told Mr.Waldner of the similar sighting by Sig. Capocci, 18 years earlier.
(BoD/DSB)

October 19th, 1863: Astronomer Schmidt saw ‘..a bolide that was following an exceptionally slow course. He
was able to study it through a comet searcher and stated that it was a double object.’ (compare to Jan.3rd
1898 sighting)

March 8th, 1865: M.Coumbary, an amateur astronomer of Constantinople, saw ‘..a black point, sharply
outlined, traverse the disk of the sun. It detached itself from a group of sunspots near the limb of the sun, and
took 48 minutes to reach the other limb..’ (BoD)

August 10th, 1865: An astronomer named Ingall spotted ‘a most minute point of light glittering like a star’ on
the moon, just west of Picard. (Astr.Register, 3-189/UFORup, 2-44)

September 5th, 1865: Ingall again reported ‘..a conspicuous bright spot west of Picard.’
(Astr.Reg., 3-252/Fort/UFORup, 2-44)

April 9th, 1867: ‘Thos G.Elger reported to the Astronomical Register, that, in the English sky, he saw a dark
part of the moon suddenly flame out with a light like a star of 7th magnitude. This was at 7.30 p.m. At 9.30
p.m., it faded out. “I have seen lights on the moon before, but never so clear as this.” ‘ Various other
observations of anomalous features on the moon also detailed. (FSOM)

May 30th, 1867: Bird, a British astronomer observing Venus, saw a number of objects similar to Capocci and
Waldner.

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

1867: Professor Eduard Heis saw a dark object slowly traverse eleven degrees of arc of the Milky Way. (BoD)

June 8th, 1868: A number of British astronomers at Oxford’s Radcliffe Observatory saw a luminous object
moving quickly across the sky, stopping and changing its course at least three times.

August 7th, 1869: Observing a total solar eclipse at Iowa Observatory Professor Zentmayer and Prof.Coffin
saw a number of objects moving nearly parallel across the sky. Also Prof.Himes of this observatory when
called observed some of them. They were unexplainable to all three astronomers.

October 17th & 18th, 1869: A keen amateur astronomer, Lieutenant Herschel while observing the sun saw,
from noon on the 17th until about 7 a.m. on the 18th numerous dark shadows crossing the sun, and also
luminous streaks going across the sky near the sun. They were nearly a continuous stream and all
explanations could not solve these sightings. Some objects stopped and hovered before flying fast away.

May 13th, 1870: Multiple lights (4, 27, 28) observed from England in the lunar crater Plato – ‘..it was observed
that, as one of these lights.. increased in brightness, another diminished. Then another light alternately shone
and faded out…’ (FSOM)

October 12th, 1870: ‘The astronomer William F.Dennis saw at Bristol a luminous ball travelling faster than a
balloon but slower than a meteor, and emitting sparks. The same object, or one quite similar, was seen at
Wimbledon by a member of the Royal Society of Astronomy.’ (Michel)

August 1st, 1871: A French astronomer, E.A.Coggia, known for cometary discoveries, saw, in Marseilles, an
object slowly moving across the sky, he was unable to explain. According to his description, it appeared at
10:43 pm, and was a magnificent red object moving slowly eastward. At 10:52:30 pm it stopped, and then
moved northward, until stopping again after a further seven minutes. Its next movement was once again
towards the east, finally disappearing, or falling behind the horizon at 11:03:20 pm. (NL)

August 29th, 1871(?): Another leading French astronomer, Etienne Trouvelot, saw a great number of
seemingly opaque bodies crossing the sun, and similar sightings for some days until September 1st, 1871.

June 17th, 1873: Dr.Sage, whilst watching the planet Mars, from Rybnik, Upper Silesia, saw a large object
‘apparently issue’ at incredible speed from the planet, and seemingly explode on reaching Earth’s
atmosphere. There were other witnesses reported on by a Dr.Galle. (NL)

1873: ‘..the royal British Society of Astronomy reported that for many months, flashing lights had been seen
on the moon, which they took to be intelligent attempts by an unknown race from the moon to establish
contact..’ (UFOsTSH)

April 24th, 1874: Prof. Schaffarik of Prague Observatory saw an unidentified object crossing the moon. He
reported that it was ‘..of such a strange nature that I do not know what to make of it. It was bright white and
moved slowly across the face of the moon. I saw it even after it had left the disc of the moon. In other words,
the object was no part of the moon because it left the moon behind and wandered out into space. What else
can it be other than a flying machine?’ (UFOsTSH)

December 1875-January 22nd, 1876: Rio De Janeiro Observatory reported ‘..a vast number of bodies
crossing the sun, some of them luminous and some of them dark..’ (BoD)

February 20th, 1877: That night, Etienne Trouvelot, French-born astronomer/scientist, resident in the U.S.,
saw a fine luminous line, like a luminous cable drawn across the lunar crater Eudoxus. (FSOM)

March 21st, 1877: An astronomer in England reported having seen a brilliant light in the lunar crater Proclus,
which was not the reflection of the sun’s light. / That month, another bright spot was observed in or near the
lunar crater Picard. (FSOM)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

June 17th, 1877: ‘Professor Henry Harrison, in New York State, saw a light on the dark part of the moon
which looked like a reflection from a moving mirror. Frank Dennett, in England, saw, at this time, a minute
point of light in the lunar crater, Bessel.’ (FSOM)

November 23rd, 1877: Dr.Klein reported to L’Astronomie – ‘I saw a luminous triangle on the floor of the lunar
crater, Plato. It may have been reflected sunlight.’ On this same night, observers in USA saw flakes of light
moving from all other lunar craters towards the crater Plato. They formed into a triangle on the floor of Plato.
(FSOM)

July 29th, 1878: Reports from both Professor James Watson (from Wyoming) and Professor Lewis Swift
(from Colorado) that they had seen two shining objects at a considerable distance from the sun, during the
time of the total eclipse. (BoD)

April 12th-13th, 1879: A large luminous body, certainly not a comet, was seen by Mr.Henry Harrison, and a
friend. (NYTribune/Scientific American 40, 1879/MU)

January 23rd, 1880: ‘Something like another luminous cable, or like a shining wall’ was observed in the lunar
crater Aristarchus by Etienne Trouvelot. (NL)

August 25th, 1880: Marcel A.Trecul, a member of the French Academy reported that day an extremely bright
yellowish-white, torpedo-shaped or cylindrical object “with slightly conical ends,” and of small size. It dropped
something that fell straight down, and then, itself, disappeared into the clouds. (BoD)

November 30th, 1880 (?): Ricco, an Italian astronomer, saw at Palermo Observatory while watching the sun
a number of objects crossing its surface. (date uncertain – see Nov.30 1888)

January 13th, 1881: A light was seen in Marius, on the moon, by A.Stanley Williams, the astronomer. (FSR
3-4/English Mechanic)

May 4th, 1881: Trouvelot observed an unexplained light in the lunar crater Eudoxus. (NL)

September 27th, 1881: Colonel Markwick, in South Africa, saw an object moving rapidly near the moon.
(FSR 3-4/Journal of Liverpool Astronomical Society)

July 6th, 1882: ‘..report by an astronomer, N.S.Drayton, upon an object duration of which seemed to him
extraordinary, duration three-quarters of a minute, Jersey City..’ (BoD)

November 15th, 1882: This letter was printed in The Times, November 20th, 1882. ‘Sir,-It may be of some
interest to your many scientific readers, to know that at the present moment there is an enormous spot on the
sun’s disc, not only unusually large, but making also very rapid transformations of shape. To those who have
powerful telescopes these changes are of exceeding interest. I have not noticed so large a spot for many
years. / The general contour of the “penumbra” is nearly circular and measures 56,037 miles in its longer axis
and 51,106 miles in its shorter axis. The “umbra” is of an extraordinary shape from its numerous
ramifications. The greatest length of this is 39,266 miles and its greatest breadth 23,052 miles. / The
telescope used in these measurements was an eight and a half inch equatorial, by Messrs. Cooke and Sons,
York. / I beg to remain, Sir, yours obediently, FREDERICK BRODIE, F.R.A.S. Observatory Fernhill, Wootton-
bridge, Isle of Wight…’

November 17th, 1882: E.W.Maunder, Superintendent at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and others, saw
a greenish object, torpedo-shaped and luminous. He definitely did not link it to an auroral display and after
seeing zeppelins in the First World War, he linked it in shape to these airships.

February 23rd, 1883: Camille Flammarion, who is still very well-known in our day and one of the most known
astronomical writers of all times, saw an object remaining stationary for some time, he could not link to
anything known to him. He saw also at other times objects similar to this one: he even named them Bradytes.

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

April 15th & 25th, 1883: At Marseilles, Monsieur Bruguiere observed bodies crossing the sun that were
‘irregular in form. Some of them moved as if in alignment.’ (BoD)

August 12th, 1883: Bonilla, director of Zacatecas Observatory, Mexico saw whilst observing sun-spots, not
less than 283 bodies crossing the sun. He admits the count was only approximate, as many appeared at the
same time. Photos taken are still in existence – the earliest known UFO photos. Some objects were also seen
the following day. (UFOsTSH)

February 5th, 1884: ‘Mr.Lopez Morales, Director of the Meteorological Observatory of Almeria (Spain): On
some luminous red points observed on the Moon. On the subject of an analogous observation by Mr.Jose
Braziliano de Souza (Brazil), the writer recalls an observation of 5 february 1884: at 2 o’clock in the morning,
a portion of the lunar cirque in the form of a crescent appeared luminous in the walls of the crater Kepler, near
to Encke, the convexity directed to the South-East.’ (Societe Astronomique de France, Seance du 5 mars
1890)

February 7th, 1884: Astronomers at Brussels Observatory, Belgium did notice from that day until Feb.16th,
an extremely bright spot on the planet Venus, which moved away from it on the 16th February.

September 16th, 1884: Professor Haywood of Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio, USA, reported that
between 3.30 and 4a.m., he had observed a bright glow covering the dark part of the Moon. Though
considered by him to be an electrical manifestation – it was too bright to be earth shine and obscured the
features of the surface of the Moon – he admitted ‘This latter fact is puzzling and unsatisfactory.’

February 21st & 22nd, 1885: ‘..Lorenzo Kropp, an astronomer of Paysandu, Uraguay, writes that, upon Feb.
21, 1885, he had seen, in Cassini, a formation not far from Hercules, both of them in the northwestern
quadrant of the moon, a reddish smoke or mist. he had heard that several other persons had seen, not a
misty appearance, but a star-like light here, and upon the 22nd he had seen a definite light, himself, shining
like the planet Saturn.’ (NL)

August 22nd, 1885: Two amateur astronomers, Reveillere and Guiberteau witnessed at Saigon a
phenomenon lasting about eight minutes, an object crossing from south to southeast, red in colour, certainly
much slower than a meteor.

November 1st, 1885: A Turkish amateur astronomer, Mavrogordato, reported an elongated object, very
luminous, near Adrianapole, 4-5 times larger than the full moon. The time was about 9:30 p.m. Another report
on the next day near Skutari, Albania, forwarded through the same astronomer, described a blueish-greenish
object, making a series of turns before falling into the sea after 90 seconds.

May 11th, 1886: Marseilles, France; 8pm. From sighting report by A.Fauchier – ‘..observing the Moon.. my
attention was drawn to two points reflecting an extraordinarily brilliant light and of a kind that I had never seen
there before that day and that I have never seen again since; this light was iridescent and surpassed by
several times in brightness the most luminous parts of this heavenly body seen in the same light conditions in
other instances…’ These anomalous lights were witnessed at the south of Plato. (L’Astronomie 6) Complete
report is in 19th Century sightings

1886: Dr.Max Wolf saw something obscure a star for three and a half seconds. (BoD)

November 30th, 1888(?): Palermo, Italy. Senor Ricci of the Palermo observatory saw “a number of spindle-
shaped flying objects crossing the sun’s disc at a great height.”
(UFOsTSH – date uncertain, see Nov.30, 1880)

October 27th, 1890: From the Observatory at Grahamstown, South Africa, Eddie watched a comet-like body,
that moved one hundred degrees during the three-quarters of an hour period of observation. John Dreyer at
Armagh Observatory read of this sighting, and reported a similar observation (as did others). (BoD)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

April 4th, 1892: A Dutch astronomer, Muller saw a large black disc slowly crossing the moon, unexplainable
to him.

August 13th, 1892: Professor Barnard reported seeing an unknown object close to Venus. (FSOM)

March 7th, 1893: The French astronomer Raymond Coulon saw at Val de la Haye Observatory, France, a
clearly defined object, looking like an elongated pear, of an iridescent and luminous nature. He could not
explain it.

November 25th, 1894: ‘A light-reflecting body, or a bright spot near Mars – seen..by Prof.William Pickering
and A.E.Douglass, at the Lowell Observatory, above an unilluminated part of Mars – self-luminous, it would
seem – thought to have been a cloud – but estimated to have been about twenty miles away from the planet.’
(BoD)

August 11th, 1895: ‘Remarkable Bolide. — I was the witness Sunday 11 August, at 9 in the evening, to a
curious phenomenon. A bolide traversed the sky in a west to south direction between Ophiuchus and the
Scorpion. At the altitude of Ed Ophiuchus, the meteor split in two, and formed two glowing nucleii about 1
deg. distant from each other, and connected by a luminous trail. In that manner, the two bolides followed the
same trajectory and lost themselves in the misty horizon. CHATELET, at Avignon.’ (L’Astronomie vol.9)

September 16th, 1895: ‘Celestial Phenomenon. — Today, 16 September, at the time when a very clear sky
adorned the town of Saint-Helier, I was watching, at 9.14 in the evening, from the window of my hotel, the
giant constellation of Cygnus, which was at the time situated around the zenith altitude, when a sheet of
intense and blinding light ran across the sky from North to South with breathtaking speed.
As a passenger on board the steamer Le Honfleur, I was stunned during the crossing, by the exceptional
clearness of the firmament, made altogether more strange by a vaporous mist spreading out over the whole
of the sea. Several people that I spoke to about this unknown light affirmed to me that they had likewise seen
it and that it was not an electric light.
PAUL ROULAND, at Saint-Helier. Island of Jersey, September 1895.’ (L’Astr. v9)

December 1895: Muller, of Nymegen, Holland saw a luminous object near Venus.

July 31st, 1896: At Smith Observatory, U.S.A., astronomers noticed a dark circular disc-shaped object going
across the moon’s surface very quickly, timed at about four seconds, which should prove its closeness to
Earth. / Coming back to the moon and various observations of lights, etc., in England in the Seventies or so of
the 19th century, an astronomer, Birt, deposited at the Royal Astronomical Society over 1500 observations of
lights, moving objects and changes of brightness, mostly in the crater Plato, which is, with its about 60 miles
diameter quite a prominent feature of the moon.

September 20th/21st, 1896: Echo Mountain, California, USA; evening. Dr.L.Swift observed a ‘luminous
object’ about one degree above the sun – ‘..Going out on the veranda, the object was seen more distinctly. At
first it occurred to me that it might be a small fire on the mountain, but this idea was quickly dispelled, as one-
half of the sun’s disk was still above the mountain, and the object still higher. Seizing an opera glass I saw
that it had a very much fainter companion some 30′ north, but it could not be seen without the glass. In about
four minutes after the sun had set the two objects also disappeared behind the mountain. / Both objects were
seen by some fifteen people… Last evening I began a search with the comet-seeker with the sun 10[degree
sign] in altitude, but nothing was seen until fully one half of the sun had disappeared when I caught sight of it,
but its faintness surprised me, for it was less bright through the telescope than with the naked eye the
previous evening… / I only saw it for 5 seconds… I estimate that the object disappeared simultaneously with
the sun’s upper limb. / The only thing that perplexes me about this strange affair is, that the sun, object, and
companion, were not in line, but must have deviated from it by 30 [degrees]or more.’ (The Astronomical
Journal XVII)

January 3rd, 1898: At 8.40pm, a Monsieur Georget observed something unusual in the sky while returning
home – ‘..I saw in the northeast, at an elevation of 30-40 degrees, a luminous meteor, fairly bright, having the
the same colour as the planet Mars, travelling at a relatively slow rate through the sky. It went away toward

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

the north and disappeared at the horizon at a point that formed an alignment with the satrs Zeta and Eta
Ursae Majris, behind the hills situated to the north of Vannes, about eight or ten kilometres away, and about
110 metres higher than the town itself. / It went through a trajectory of 45 degrees in five or six minutes,
during which time it steadily lost brightness, as a luminous body would if it went away. About the time of its
disappearance, one could see a yellow or reddish flash. / I was able to examine this meteor for a few minutes
with a small telescope of 30 mm.. It seemed to be formed by two luminous bodies, A and B, situated at
approximately the same elevation, the brighter one, A, being in front. Remarkable peculiarity: the motion of B
was affected by sudden oscillations, which lasted about half a second. Four or five oscillations were counted
per minute. These objects gave the appearance of two balloons linked together.’ When published in the
periodical Comptes Rendus, this sighting was compared to a sighting by Schmidt, on October 19th, 1863.
(CTSc)

April 25th, 1898: Prof. J.Michailovitch of Belgrade Observatory saw for about six minutes an object hovering
over Belgrade. He referred to it as a ‘comet,’ but it obviously did not behave like one.

June 29th, 1898: A French astronomer, Lucien Libert, who was in the habit of observing and recording
meteors at every possible opportunity, saw – ‘..at 1hr. 03m.A.M., a bolide with very slow motion (that) glided in
sixty seconds from Hercules to Ursa Major. Its diameter was 25 seconds of arc, and it was very bright and
white in colour.’ (CTSc)

July 4th, 1898: Lucien Libert – ‘..I was in my observatory when suddenly, at 7hrs. 10m. 18s., I saw a luminous
body appear above a tree at the northern horizon. It was of a beautiful golden-yellow colour and perfectly
spherical. Its apparent diameter was one-fourth that of the moon. This object started from the north-northeast,
rose slowly in the sky, went through the zenith, then started losing brightness as it went down toward the
horizon. It disappeared at elevation 30 degrees above the above the west-southwest horizon, near Venus, at
7hrs. 22m. 44s. Its duration, therefore, was twelve minutes, twenty-six seconds. It is by far the longest
duration I have observed. A short time before it disappeared it increased its speed… A fairly strong noise of
explosion was heard a few seconds after its disappearance.’ (CTSc)

May 6th, 1899: Monsieur Libert, again – ‘..at 8:30 P.M., a magnificent bolide with a very, very slow motion, of
yellow colour and surrounded with a shower of sparks, appeared in the constellation of the Scale. Night had
not completely come and it was difficult to ascertain points of comparison. Only Jupiter and Spica were
visible. This bolide had a completely peculiar shape, which I cannot compare to anything better than a
tadpole’s head. There was a very bright point in front, and a tail with extremely fast movements of undulation.’
(CTSc)

June 7th, 1899: M.Libert – ‘..at 9 hrs. 25m. 32s. P.M., a yellow bolide, very slow, of the magnitude of Venus,
leaving no trail, went from Ophiuchus to Scorpio in twelve seconds. (CTSc)

February 9th, 1902: M.Libert – ‘..at 7 hrs. 40m. P.M., I observed with MM.Schoux, Marcel Libert and Lucien
Briand an extremely remarkable bolide, of the magnitude of Venus. It started from the position of Capella, at a
point I estimate to be about five hours of right ascension and +45 degrees declination, and went on a straight
line toward beta Persei, which it reached in about three seconds. Having reached the vicinity of this star, it
suddenly changed direction, followed a sort of loop and went toward Aldebaran with a curved trajectory.
When it was about to disappear it split into three or four objects of approximately second magnitude. The
whole observation had lasted about twelve seconds. the point of disappearance was about 4 hrs. 50m. of
right ascension and +20 degrees of declination. The bolide left a trail that lasted about one and one-half
minutes.’ (CTSc)

November 20th 1902: ‘ (At) 9.27 a.m., Mr.Griffiths, the assistant astronomer at Adelaide Observatory and
colleague were taking weather observations when a “brilliant globular light” appeared to the SSE at about 45
degrees elevation. It moved slowly north and remained visible until 9.31 a.m., covering about 20 degrees of
arc in that time, and was lost sight of about 45 degrees above the northern horizon. When it was near
overhead it appeared elongated “and took an elliptical form” with its axis in the direction of motion. (FATA/Bill
Chalker)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

May 25th, 1903: A body was seen on the terminator of Mars, later reported by Professor Percival Lowell, of
Lowell Observatory. (BoD)

December 24th, 1909: ‘..amateur astronomer, James Fergusen, of Limerick, Ireland, reported watching a
brightly lighted object rise over the northeastern horizon, maneuvering generally southward for twenty
minutes, then retracing its course and vanishing below the horizon at two minutes past nine…’ (FS-SB)

May 22nd, 1911: ‘Curious meteoric phenomenon – On the 22 May, about 11.49 (Konigstahl mean time), a
feeble meteor was observed following an oblique 4 deg. trajectory, going from east to west. It passed over the
star y of the Eagle with great speed. Its breadth was around 15′ and it disappeared, leaving behind it a light
trail that faded immediately. Nevertheless, the star remained invisible at least three and a half seconds after
the meteor’s disappearance, as if the light had been absorbed by the substance that this had abandoned in
space. Dr MAX WOLF Director of the Observatory of Heidelberg.’ (L’Astr. v25)

January 27th-28th, 1912: Astronomer Frank B.Harris wrote to Popular Astronomy and The Times that he
saw “a huge object of some kind, moving across the moon’s surface.” He stated that the object was opaque,
black, approximately 250 miles long and 50 miles wide, and close enough to the surface to cast a shadow on
the moon. Observation spanned 10.30pm-2am. (PA 20, 1912/MU)

December 11th, 1915: At Glenorchy, Tasmania, astronomer Bernald Thomas saw “a particularly bright spot”
on the north shore of the Mare Crisium that “looked like a star.” (English Mechanic, 203-12)

December 1915: In the lunar crater Aristarchus, ‘a.. new black wall that had not been there before..’ was
observed. It ran ‘..from the center to the rim..’ (FredSt)

May 14th, 1916: At Cordoba Observatory, Argentina, astronomers Perrine and Glancy noticed an object,
similar to a comet near the zenith, with ‘..proper motion of ten degrees an hour, visible one hour..’ (BoD)

1918 approximately: Mr.Erwin Schoen, a native of Austria and (subsequently) a resident for many years in
Australia, while hiking near the Austrian ammunition town of Steyr with friends, saw during the First World
War, a round object, similar to the size of the full moon, cruising over Steyr. he was on a mountain at the time
and remembers that the object seemed to rotate, afterward moving in one direction. Visible 2-4 minutes.

1922: ‘Three long artificial looking mounds, or objects, appeared on the floor of the (lunar) crater Archimedes.
Later, three more objects were discovered not far away, composed in the form of a triangle.’ (FredSt)

circa-1936: The 100 inch telescope at Mount Wilson, USA, aimed at the lunar crater Cassendi, photographed
‘..a remarkable “tube system”.. while some of these constructions were growing, others have been removed..’
(FredSt)

October 1939: One night, at Wisconsin Rapids, in Wisconsin State, USA, ‘..an egg-shaped object with 8
spots like portholes was observed through an astronomical reflector telescope..’ (FATA/NICAP)

May 3rd, 1947: USA; Nighttime – ‘An amateur astronomer in Boulder, Colorado, after training his telescope
on the moon, saw a dark object hurtle across the disk of the moon in a horizontal straight line path.’ (Pr.N47)

June 24th, 1947: The same day that Kenneth Arnold had his sighting of “Flying Saucers”, astronomer Fred
Johnson in Oregon saw these objects, according to his later declaration.

July 3rd, 1947: Harborside, Maine, USA. At 2.30 pm, astronomer John Cole of South Brooksville, Maine,
watched ten very light objects, with two dark forms to their left, for 10-15 seconds. They moved like a swarm
of bees, and a loud roar was heard. (PrBBE) ‘..Air Material Command publicly explained it as birds or insects,
although the Air Force’s Project Grudge later listed the sighting as an “unusually well-supported incident” with
no explanation..’ (Dolan)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

July 10th, 1947: An eliptical UFO was seen by astronomer Dr.Lincoln La Paz and his family near Port
Sumner, New Mexico, (driving) by car with wife and child. He saw a luminous unknown object sort of
oscillating beneath the clouds. Its brightness was stronger than the planet Jupiter and its shape regular and
elliptical. The nature of this object was unknown to the astronomer.

Info from Life 5/5/52 article: ‘The object “..exhibited a sort of wobbling motion” and then disappeared behind
some clouds. It reappeared and “projected against the dark clouds gave the strongest impression of self-
luminosity.” The object then moved slowly from south to north and two and a half minutes behind a
cloudbank. / According to the astronomer’s calculations, confirmed by his wife, who with their two daughters
was with him, the object was 235 feet long and 100 feet thick. Its horizontal speed ranged between 120 and
180 miles per hour and its vertical rise between 600 and 900 miles per hour.’ (JGuieu)

June or July 1947: Jyvaskyla, Finland – ‘A technician who was also an amateur astronomer was reading a
book after midnight and saw a metallic cigar-shaped object flying at a distance of about two kilometers from
northwest to southeast. A bluish light was seen at the end of the cigar. It was flying a lot faster than the
airplanes of the time. the observation lasted about 30 seconds.’ (Pr.N47)

1948: ‘F.H.Thornton.. saw a brilliant flash of light at the western rim of Plato. He likened it to the flash of an
antiaircraft shell exploding in the air ten miles away.’ (SEMoon)

April 24th, 1949: Charles Moore, a highly qualified meteorologist, whilst launching a weather balloon saw an
elongated object at White Sands proving grounds, crossing the horizon in about one minute. The sighting was
seen by five others. Similar sightings were also at the same place earlier that month.

August 20th, 1949: Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto in 1930, saw at about 10:45 p.m. while
sitting outside his home at Las Cruces, New Mexico, with his wife and mother-in-law, between six and eight
greenish objects which were travelling soundlessly across the sky. He reported – ‘In all of my several
thousand hours of night sky-watching, I have never seen anything so strange as this. I was so astonished that
my impression of it was somewhat confused. How I wished I could have had some binoculars at hand. No
sound whatever.’ (Michel)

Letter from Clyde Tombaugh to Richard Hall, dated September 10th 1957: ‘Dear Mr.Hall: Regarding the
solidity of the phenomenon I saw: My wife thought she saw a faint connecting glow across the structure. The
illuminated rectangles I saw did maintain an exact fixed position with respect to each other, which would tend
to support the impression of solidity. I doubt that the phenomenon was any terrestrial reflection, because
some similarity to it should have appeared many times. I do a great deal of observing (with telescopic and
unaided eye) in the backyard and nothing of the kind has ever appeared before or since.’ (AId/TUE)

1949: Witness Bertrand Collin, New Zealand – ‘My second sighting.. I was studying the stars through my
telescope when suddenly four objects in doamond formation passed overhead. They had stubby flanges
instead of wings, with short thick bodies. They looked dark, and did not shine. the next morning, the
newspapers carried reports of mysterious cobweb-like substance falling from the sky and draping itself across
fences and telegraph wires, which melted on being touched.’ (MHervey)

Christmas Eve, 1949: Witness Mr.R.Henderson, Melbourne, Australia – ‘As an ex-member of the
Astronomical Society, and with considerable knowledge of the appearance of meteors, planets, etc., I know a
UFO when I see one. The object I saw is still vivid in my memory… I first sighted, in my usual admiration of
the stars, a UFO. At an angle of 30 degrees in a north-west direction, I saw a bright orange light travelling due
east across the northern section of extreme northern suburbs; this is the opposite direction of travel of stars,
etc. / The UFO stopped about 10 degrees east of north, at about a 30-degree elevation. It remained
stationary for some time and pulsed with a regular steady beat of light, but now a dull red colour instead of
orange it had whilst travelling along. / In its stationary position the dull red colour was almost hard to see; the
UFO was still stationary but after about twenty minutes in this position it became brighter. It went from dull red
to bright red, and then to bright orange. At a terrific speed it went from 10 degrees north to a position slightly
north from my east viewpoint. It slowed down from bright orange to its usual red to its pulsating dull red whilst
stationary again. It remained in this stationary position for about fifteen to twenty minutes. / From this position

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

it went due south, to a position SSE and a bright orange whilst in motion, where it again became stationary
and a dull red colour. This time it remained only a short time and proceeded in a north-westerly direction
almost overhead across the city at a terrific speed and bright orange.’ (MHervey)

February 16th, 1950: Mount Hamilton, Santa Clara County, California – ‘Dr.C.D.Shane, an astronomer at Lick
Observatory saw and made 8 photographic plates of a queer flying object very high in the sky and moving
unusually fast. He considered it one of the most unusual objects sighted in the sky, and saw it only by
chance.’ (UFOPhATW/FSOM)

March 2nd, 1950: ‘MEXICO CITY, March 11 (U.P.). The director of a Mexican observatory today produced a
photograph of a flying saucer but it looked more like an amateur’s snapshot of a klieg light. / The photograph
was a black square with a diagonal band of light across it. The caption in the newspaper Excelsior said it was
“possibly the only picture of a flying saucer which existed outside of the larger countries.” / Luis Enrique Erro,
director of the Tonantzintla Astronomical Observatory where the photograph was made, said: “The strange
object crossed the sky March 2. Since that day we have wondered what it could have been. We don’t know.” /
Meanwhile, dozens of reports of flying saucers poured into the capital from all over Mexico. The “saucer
craze” began shortly after a Mexico City newspaper printed a series of articles which appeared in Time
magazine.’

March 9th, 1950: ‘Next day, March 9, the saucer again visited Durango at noon. This time its movements and
appearance were carefully checked by a scientist. E.Nuncio, professor of astronomy in the technical school of
Durango, studied the saucer through a telescope and other instruments. Afterwards he gave his data to the
press. Nuncio said that the saucer maintained 40,000 feet altitude. It was shaped somewhat like a child’s top,
and had fracture bands around it where its material was joined together. The tip or point of the top was red,
and was tilted down and toward the east. Its altitude over the horizon was 53 degrees 20 minutes and its
position was southeast. While Nuncio checked, the saucer moved toward the last 3 degrees in each five
minutes until it was out of sight. He pointed out that Venus and other heavenly bodies move to the west.’
(True 6-50 in LG6)

March 11th, 1950: ‘On that day, also, the astronomical observatory at Culiacan watched a disk-like object
through the telescope, and in Tampico, Tamaulipas, amateur astronomer Gonzalo Ibanez reported watching a
saucer through his telescope at 9 p.m. in the direction of the Great Bear Constellation. It moved toward the
southeast at a great velocity.’ (True 6-50 in LG6)

March 27th, 1950: Berlin, Germany – An inexplicable body of a brilliance that rivalled the North Star, was
seen by astronomers zigzagging its way westward, occasionally pausing.

May 6th, 1950(?): Palomar Gardens, California – At 3.30pm, Amateur astronomer Mr.George Adamski
‘..observed and photographed a huge bright cigar shape crossing the face of the Moon..’ He also ‘..shot a
picture of 3 luminous UFOs near the limb of the Moon..’ (UFOPhATW/CotS/FSHL)

May 20th, 1950: Seymour Hess, an astronomer at Flagstaff Observatory, Arizona, saw a metallic looking
disc, unexplainable to him:

(From AId/TUE) ‘..between 12.15 & 12.20 p.m., Dr.Seymour L.Hess, a meteorologist, astronomer, and an
expert on planetary atmospheres, observed a bright, at least partially spherical object in the sky from the
grounds of Lowell Observatory. According to his account of the incident, which he wrote within one hour of
the sighting, the object was definitely neither a bird nor an airplane, as it had no wings or propellers. Although
it appeared to be very bright against the sky, as it passed between Hess and a small cumulous cloud in the
Northwest its colour appeared dark. Based on the object’s elevation and angular diameter as he perceived it
through 4-power binoculars, Hess calculated its size to be approximately 3 to 5 feet. Judging from the
movement of the clouds, which were drifting at right angles to the motion of the object, he estimated that the
object must have been moving at about 100mph and possibly as fast as 200 mph. However, he neither saw
nor heard any sign of an engine. Dr.Hess was head of the Department of Meteorology at Florida State
University as of 1964.’

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

‘Astronomer says disc he saw wasn’t plane FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., May 23.- (U.P.) – Seymour L.Hess, Lowell
observatory astronomer, said today he saw a bright disc cutting through the clouds and that it “definitely was
not an airplane.” / He said in a signed statement that he spotted the object in the southwestern skies around
12:15 p.m. last Saturday. / Through four-power binoculars, it looked at first like a parachute, he said. / “But
this may have been just the section of one-half of a spherical object, the other half being in shadows. The
object presented a visible disc to the naked eye. It definitely was not an airplane.” / Williams Air Force base
near Phoenix, Ariz., disclaimed any knowledge of the object. The Air Force repeatedly has denied the
existence of flying saucers.’ (FSOA)

May 27th, 1950: Palomar Gardens, California – At 8.30 pm ‘..George Adamski observed and photographed
through his telescope two luminous objects seen against the Moon..’ / At 10.30 pm, he ‘..observed and
photographed two lens-shaped luminous flying objects in the sky an estimated 75 and 100 miles distant. He
made the pictures through his home-made telescope and camera set-up. In the developed print two more
similar objects may be seen much farther away.. the objects were leaving faint luminous trails behind them in
the sky.’ (UFOPhATW/CotS)

May 29th, 1950: Palomar Gdns. – ‘George Adamski obs. & ph’d. 6 luminous UFOs in formation in the sky in
the direction of the Moon. The Moon is seen in the background.’ (UFOPhATW/FSHL)

One of a series of 5 stamps issued by Grenada, in 1978, to commemorate the ‘Year of UFOs’ – the picture on
the right-hand side of this one is based on the formation photograph taken by George Adamski on May 29th,
1950. (UFOsTSH)

June 6th, 1950: Palomar Gdns. – At 2.30 am, ‘George Adamski obs. and ph’d. a brightly luminous object in
front of the Moon…’ (UFOPhATW)

June 27th, 1950: U.S.A. ‘Dr.J.C.Bartlett, a well-known American amateur astronomer recorded what
appeared to be a conspicuous, bright central peak within the shadow-filled interior of the crater Herodotus
without attaching any significance to it. Not until four years later, after resumption of observational survey of
the region and referring to his earlier work did he realise that the floor of Herodotus is almost featureless and
that it certainly does not contain a central elevation! Subsequent research and consultation with his observer
colleagues revealed the following: – 1) It had previously been noted by him in Nov.1949 though unwittingly. 2)
It was independently seen by the English selenographer Dr.H.P.Wilkins in March 1950. 3) Recovered again
on July 27th, 1950. It has not been seen since by Dr.Bartlett. (Uranus)

August 25th, 1950: ‘(Patrick) Moore says that “flashes on the Moon are very rare indeed. However, some
have been recorded, notably by the ALPO (Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers) observers and by
Tsuneo Saheki in Japan, who, on 25th August 1950, saw what he termed a stationary yellowish-white flare
lasting for quarter of a second.” / Rare? Thousands of reports of flashes, glows, and flares add up to “rare”?’
(SEMoon)

March 5th, 1951: Palomar Gdns. – At 10.30 am, ‘George Adamski claimed he observed and photographed
through his telescope a large dark cigar shape, seen launching smaller luminous domed disc shapes with
bright lights all around the rims, until five of them are seen in the last picture together with the larger
mothership.’ (UFOPhATW/ITSp)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

March 9th, 1951: Palomar Gdns. – At 9.00 am ‘George Adamski observed through his 6″ Newtonian
telescope and photographed through the same device.. a large submarine-shaped spacecraft operating at
very high altitude above Southern California.’ (UFOPhATW/ITSp)

August 3rd, 1951: three miles south of Pinckney, Michigan, USA; shortly after 11pm. Professor Walter
N.Webb, Chief Lecturer on Astronomy of the Charles Hayden Planetarium in Boston, was acting as nature
counselor at a boys’ camp on the shores of Silver Lake – ‘..He had been letting the boys observe various
celestial objects through a small telescope.. (when) he noticed a glowing yellow or yellow-red light moving in
an undulating path over the hills at the south end of the lake.. He quickly ruled out the possibility of its having
been an inversion effect of some ground-based lights, because the conditions for such a phenomenon were
nonexistent…’ The light’s wavelike trajectory and its very low altitude also meant that it could not be identified
as either a plane or planet. (FS-SB)

December 1st, 1951: Palomar Gdns. – At 1.30pm ‘George Adamski shot one picture through his telescope of
a large disc-shaped object with something like a heatwave radiation coming from the aft rim.’ (UFOPhATW)

December 7th, 1951: Sunbury, Ohio, USA. At 4.30 p.m., Carl Loar, an amateur astronomer, saw – through a
telescope – a silvery sphere, with two specks on its sides. It seemed to explode and be replaced by a dark
cloud and many specks. (PrBBE)

April 2nd, 1952: Fort Worth, Texas. ‘A fiery, spherical object crossed the sky in a flat path, within fifteen
seconds. Observed by an amateur astronomer who said it was not a meteor, and by two Convair aviation
engineers who said that it could not have been an airplane because of its silence.’

April 16th, 1952: 10pm San Jose, California. ‘Two glowing globular objects appeared hovering together in
the sky. Under examination by a 45-magnitude telescope, they were two reddish glowing globes with a dark
belt around each, moving up and down in the sky without horizontal movement. They appeared between
Mars and Polaris, but were not stars, since they covered the stars when they moved near them. Two
photographs were taken, and one showed an irregular twin track in the sky, that might have been caused by
two luminous objects moving close together. Observed by five people, including an amateur astronomer. (DL)

May 1st, 1952: Palomar Gdns. – At 7.58 am ‘George Adamski observed and photographed, through his 6″
telescope, a large cigar-shaped object very high in the sky.’ (UFOPhATW)

May 13th, 1952: National City, California – A Convair design engineer, an ex-Navy Pilot and an amateur
astronomer observed a luminescent white, circular object that descended rapidly and circled the area.

Greenville, South Carolina – ‘..astronomers.. saw four oval-shaped saucers flying in a diamond-shaped
formation, wobbling slightly as they flew.’ (Dolan)

August 5th, 1952: Baltimore, Maryland – An experienced amateur astronomer observed two copper-like
discs.James Bartlett saw, during a daylight observation of Venus, a flight of two discs with a diameter about
30 minutes of arc; passed overhead and turned east. Then two more discs with dome-like protrusions in
centre. (NICAP)

September 15th, 1952: ‘..at about 8 p.m., there was a most interesting sighting by M.J.Grivel at Thies,
Senegal, French West Africa. M.Grivel, an amateur astronomer, at once communicated his findings to the
Astronomical Society of France which published them in the February number of its journal Astronomie under
the title: “A Suspicious Object!” / On September 15, the report stated, a large really luminous spot appeared
between the star mu of Scorpio, moving slowly and quite noiselessly eastward, passed near to khi of Scorpio
and moved towards Sagittarius. Suddenly, when between the stars Delta and Gamma of Sagittarius, it
stopped for a moment, then resumed flight northward and then westward and finally vanished near to Phi of
Ophincus. There were no planes at all in the sky and no sounds whatever.’ (JGuieu)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

September 27th 1952: Inyokern, California, USA. Between 10-10.15 p.m., two couples, using a telescope,
watched a single large round object, which went through the colour spectrum every 2 seconds, and flew in a
level path. (Pr.BBE)

November 20th, 1952: Desert Center, California, USA. George Adamski’s historic contact with Venusian.
(FSHL)

December 1st, 1952: Palomar Gardens, California, USA; 1.30pm. ‘Mr. George Adamski photographed a dark
circular object moving in the sky and leaving a kind of misty trail seen to come from the aft part of the craft.’
(UFOPhATW)

December 13th, 1952: Palomar Gardens, California, USA; 9am. ‘Mr. George Adamski again shot pictures of
the bell-shaped circular craft, taken this time through his 6″ homemade telescope.’ (UFOPhATW)

J.Allen Hynek polled forty-five fellow astronomers and discovered them all to be frightened of “jeopardising
their careers” by showing interest in UFOs. (MDH)

1952: London, Ontario, Canada – W.Gordon Graham, astronomer saw an UFO “like a smoke ring, elliptical in
shape, and having two bright pinpoints of light along its main axis, move overhead from west to east.”
(NICAP)

Gnivan, Ukraine. ‘A triangular object raced across the clear summer evening sky.. and was observed by a
Soviet astronomer, Mrs.Faminskaya of the Shternberg Astronomy Institute.’ The object was yellowish, moved
at great speed, and made no sound. (TSUFOF)

Pre-1953: New Mexico, USA – ‘A few degrees north of the moon, I noticed what seemed to be a bright star,
and then a second star appeared not far from the first… To my surprise, I could bring neither of these objects
into clear focus… Both hazy discs shone with a slightly bluish light… We climbed out of the car just in time to
see the saucers literally fade away as mysteriously as they had appeared… I have long wondered what it was
that I actually saw… But at no time did I have even the slightest suspicion that the objects were of
interplanetary origin.’ Dr.Donald H.Menzel, Director of Harvard University Observatory. (FSR 9-1)

In a study of over 40 astronomers contained in Blue Book Report No.8 of December 31, 1952, five were
found to have seen a UFO – thought to be a higher percentage than applicable to the general population at
the time.

January 1953: Marham, Norfolk, UK; about 3pm. Marie L.Martin, who had ‘a very great interest in astronomy
and in any flying aircraft,’ was gazing up at the sky. It was a brilliant afternoon. She noticed what she took to
be a jet aircraft travelling extremely fast, and was then shocked to see what she assumed to be its two wings
leave the fuselage. However, it then transpired that instead of the detached objects coming ‘hurtling down’
and the jet crashing, ‘..without any loss of speed, they went round, one behind the other, so that in a straight
line they continued to race across the sky. Just as abruptly, they came to a halt in midair…’ Mrs.Martin was
then able to determine that the flying objects were ‘..round, shiny and metallic, glinting brightly in the rays of
the sun…’ (WFFF) For complete Marie L.Martin account, click here.

May 29th, 1953: New Zealand – ‘An amateur astronomer at Palmerston North reported seeing an unusual
object.. while observing the planet Venus. He described the UFO as being rather small and blue in colour. It
dived and manoeuvred in the sky and then made off rapidly with an irregular motion. / Later he saw a large
amount of filament-like substance floating down from the sky, which he examined under a microscope. They
were white in colour and ashy in texture. The filaments were also seen by a reporter belonging to the staff of
the Manawatu Evening Standard.’ (MHervey)

July 29th, 1953: As John J.O’Neill ‘..was studying the moon’s Mare Crisium, where earlier he had seen only
“the clear sweep of the great sea,” he saw something which spanned an estimated 12 miles distance,
something that could only be called a “bridge.”‘ (Understanding 4-68)

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October 6th, 1953: Norwich, England; 7.15pm – Mr.F.W.Potter, a member of the Norwich Astronomical
Society, was observing the night sky of Norwich with a 3.5-inch refractor telescope, when he saw a very
bright object coming from the south-west: “I focused on it and found the light given from the object was not
reflected sunlight, as I first believed, but an internal light being sent out from a fixed apparatus situated
around the dome. The rays or beams of light could be seen distinctly from the dome and attached directly
beneath it was a much larger and flattened dome with a protruding band running in a circumference around
its edge. This was clearly seen in the telescope by the rays of light thrown out from the apertures in the top
dome. The underneath of the large flattened bottom dome was hollow and appeared to be glowing red, but
there were no vapour trails or gases to be seen. / It did not rotate but kept the same portion of the dome
towards the telescope until it changed its angular course. Then it gave me a chance to visualise another of
the apertures that previously had been hidden from view. It was then travelling to the north-east and
disappearing from view.” (ACA)

January 3rd, 1954: ‘Mr.John W.Boyle, vice-president of the Victoria (Australia) branch of the British
Astronomical Association, saw at 11 a.m.. visible for 30 seconds, what at first looked like a “piece of paper”
blown by the wind, at a height of about 30,000 feet. But there was little wind, and the object resolved itself
into something like aluminium, rocking from side to side and flashing in the sunlight. each time it flashed, a
halo of purple shone round it.. If the object had been 30,000 feet up, he thought its speed might be 1,000
miles an hour, “five degrees a second,” and its diameter about 60 feet. Mr.Boyle emphatically denies that
what he saw was a cosmic ray balloon. He does not dismiss the theory that the object was interplanetary.
“Anybody,” he say, “who denies the possibility that these things may be visitors from other planets, is eother
very frightened, or just plain stupid. Some people as I’ve seen myself at public lectures on interplanetary
travel, become seized with screaming horrors if one talks of little men landing on the earth.”‘ (FSOM)

May 5th, 1954: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Astronomy students witnessed a V-formation of UFOs. (The
Temporal Doorway/TUE)

May 15th, 1954: Southampton, UK. An amateur astronomer viewed 18 UFOs in V-formation. “Windows” were
visible in some of the objects through a telescope. (TTDoorway/TUE)

Berlin, Germany; about 10.15 pm – three round luminous bodies that flew at great height, on a zig-zag course,
were observed by two amateur astronomers. The men, Wolfgang Kobski and Rudi Fibich said that what they
had seen could not have been meteors, stars or an hallucination. (FSNews6)

June 11th, 1954: (Charleston, West Virginia – Atlanta, Georgia, USA) ‘The late Percy Wilkins was among the
world’s foremost astronomers and, quite possibly, its premier selenographer… The English scientist is the
source of a remarkable account. During a plane journey along the eastern seaboard he glanced out of his
window at about 10:45 toward a cluster of cumoulous clouds a couple of miles away. Immediately above
them, Dr.Wilkins sighted two radiant ovoids about which he remarked: “They looked exactly like polished
metal dinner plates reflecting the sunlight as they flipped and banked around beside the clouds. Presently a
third object came slowly out of a huge cloud, remaining motionless in the shadow of the cloud and therefore
darker than the others. Presently it zipped away and plunged into another cloud mass. After about two
minutes, the first two did the same manoeuvre and I did not see them again.’ (PFl)

July 6th, 1954: Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Frank Halstead, his assistant at Darling Observatory, and sixteen
visitors, all observed a straight black line on the floor of the lunar crater Piccolomini, that had not previously
been there. The observation lasted for several hours, and was confirmed by observations made at Tulane
Observatory, and by well-known amateur astronomer Frank Manning. (FS-SB)

July 8th, 1954: Wigan, Lancashire, England. British astronomer, Mr.Harold Hill, saw a silvery object with
fifteen to twenty smaller satellite objects. (Ln) For Mr.Hill’s personal account click here.

August 10th, 1954: USA – ‘Amateur astronomer Edward Heinhold was observing Saturn with his four-inch
reflector telescope, when he saw in that area six lights moving in a straight line. They were evenly spaced,
except for two which were near together. Going east, they covered horizon to horizon in fifteen minutes – up
to 11 P.M. His station is at Cedarhurst, Long Island. The front lights suddenly disappeared, then two more

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lights followed suit, and thirty seconds later, the remaining lights vanished while still above the horizon. Their
altitude “must have been terrific.”‘ (FSUnc.)

September 5th, 1954: USA – ‘Three amateur astronomers at Rockford, Ill., claim to have seen through a six-
inch telescope, a spherical object ascending from Mare Humboldt area of the moon, of a size estimated at
one quarter of the diameter of the lunar crater Vlaco. velocity very great – over a 29 feet 30 inch arc in 40
minutes. They think it travelled under power, and was ascending in space. They estimate its length as close
to two and a half miles.’ (FSUnc.)

September 6th, 1954: Baltimore, Maryland, USA. An amateur astronomer saw 4 UFOs, three of which
changed formation. (TTDoorway/TUE)

October 10th, 1954: ‘In Alexandria, Egypt, observatories see cylindrical flying saucer, red and green.’
(FSUnc.)

October 2-, 1954: ‘..it was on October 27, 1954.. that Yugoslavia officially announced that a serious
investigation of UFOs would be undertaken in that country. On the preceding monday a strange object had
been observed over that country by astronomers, meteorologists, and pilots, as well as average citizens.’
(UFOWhS)

October 31st, 1954: India; 6pm – ‘..in Calcutta.. a mysterious object passed only five miles to the north of
Dum Dum Airdrome. Reports described it speeding at more than 2,000 ft., around 500 mph. The unknown
remained in view on a sraight course for about a minute as observers agreed that it made no audible sounds.
An officer in the control tower described it as a bright object with a long luminous tail of diffused white light.
Area astronomer Father F.Goreux of St.Xavier College Obs. and senior professor at Calcutta University
stated that it could not have been an astronomical object. He added: “that is certain.”‘ (MDH)

November 8th, 1954: ‘Dr.Francisco Aniceto Lugo of Caracas, Venezuela, saw a reddish, star-like point of
light at a spot close to the base of the western outer wall of the crater Kepler. It was obscured for an hour and
described as artificial-looking and very obvious. Nothing similar has been seen here either before or since
though often looked for. Clearly not an impact flare, it is difficult to imagine what it could have been. (Uranus,
12-60)

November 24th, 1954: England – ‘White disc “like a small moon” moving across the sky – seen through two
and a half inch telescope by a member of Southampton Astronomical Society (Mrs.A.Marley), at 12.15 a.m. It
was not visible to the naked eye. It was moving dead south over Southampton Water – but suddenly turned
on itself – and came back.’ (FSNews8)

December 1954: Mr.Cloris Hamel of La Florida, Venezuela was viewing the moon through a 125-power
telescope, when ‘a fleet of opaque objects’ showed up, crossing the moon’s disc. (UFOWhS)

March 8th, 1955: ‘Amateur astronomer, Mr.Lonzo Dove observed and photographed a round luminous object
near the apparent edge of the Moon.’ (UFOPhATW)

March 15th, 1955: ‘University of Miami Senior Robert Leventhal, 200 SW 58th Street, an amateur
astronomer, was out in his yard with a telescope at 10.50 p.m. yesterday when he saw a “round, oval-shaped,
bluish-white disc.” / It traveled quickly from southeast in “an irregular motion in about a minute,” he told
police. “It was bright as a second magnitude star.” / “It wasn’t a plane or meteor,” he said, “and I don’t have
nay idea of what it actually was. But it looked like something I saw in the sky about two years ago in Ithaca,
N.Y., along with thirty other people.”‘ (TUAn)

April 7th, 1955: Two sightings by Bill Raub of San Jose, California: ‘Mr.Raub has been most helpful with
news items and personal sightings. He reported personally to your editor that on April 7th, 1955, at
approximately 9:10 p.m. he observed the moon through 7 by 50 binoculars. The moon was at first quarter. On
the dark side, near the edge farthest from sunlight, he saw a light which he describes as “much brighter than

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one of Jupiter’s moons.” He watched it for several minutes, and then, suddenly, it was gone. / On the same
day, Mr.Raub and Leo Denny saw two black objects traveling very fast in the sky. Jets were nearby, and were
of entirely different shape. Also, the jets left vapor trails, which the objects did not. / The UFO’s disappeared
when they got near the sun, but the jets were seen in silhouette against the sun.’ (TUAn)

May 24th, 1955: Testimony from well-known British author/astronomer V.A.Firsoff – ‘On May 24, 1955, on the
southern horn of the ‘sickle’-moon, two bright points were seen where the sunlight touched the peaks of the
Leibnitz region. Between these two bright points there was a third light, fainter than them, and it (and only it)
was jumping about and sparkling. Finally, a fainter shaft of light came out of it and shot up vertically into the
sky above the Moon’s surface, flaring in intensity as it climbed while simultaneously dying away at the base.
Then it vanished. The total length of the shaft of light, exclusive of its projection, would have been some 100
miles, and its upward movement lasted for two seconds or possibly somewhat longer. I tried to check to see
whether it could be illusory, maybe due to the telescope, but without success, and it does seem that the
phenomenon was real.’

‘..the Moscow astronomer V.I.Timkov.. from the outskirts of the town of Ordzhonikidze in the Caucasus.. at
approximately the very same time, observed the upward movement of a similar shaft of light.’ (Alexei
Arkhipov, FSR 41-2 [trans:G.Creighton])

June 3rd 1955: Letter sent by Eugene Metcalfe of Paris, Illinois, USA – ‘Dear Mr.Jessup: After reading The
Case for the UFO, I have been scanning the skies more than ever with my three inch stellar telescope, mostly
at the moon. You are right about the small planets between the Earth and Moon. I found this to be true on
June 3, 1955. There are at least four such planets that are visible to the eye, but you have to look through a
‘scope to see they are so near! I saw four shadows crossing the Moon and watched them from 8:30 until
11:30 p.m…’ (TUAn)

June 16th, 1955: ‘An aircraft of the flying saucer class was sighted last night from Waterbury (Connecticut,
USA), according to a 12-year-old boy who said astronomy was his hobby. / The boy, Joseph Lamontagne, of
28 Dixie Avenue, said he was sure the object he saw was not an optical illusion, nor a conventional airplane. /
Joseph related he was outside his home scanning the sky with a four-inch diameter telescope, when the
noiseless object moved into his view. / Carrying four yellow lights on top, and one green light below, the
aircraft seemed to be oval shaped, the boy said. He reported the object, in view about two minutes, moved
fast from the south and disappeared over the western horizon. / Asked if he could have mistaken the yellow
and green lights for recognition lights on a military aircraft. Joseph reiterated that he did not think the machine
was of conventional type. He said his mother could see the lights after the location was pointed out. / A pupil
in the seventh grade at Washington School, the boy has been studying astronomy to the point where he can
pick out 15 of the 90 known constellations.’ (TUAn)

mid-August 1955: Astronomer V.V.Yeremenko made these observations with a home-made telescope –
‘Above the surface of the Moon, parallel to its rim and at a distance of approximately 0.2 of a lunar radius,
there was flying a shining body resembling a star of the third magnitude. Flying one-third of the circumference
(this took 4-5 seconds) the body then plunged downwards at a sharp angle and landed on the surface of the
Moon.’ (A.Arkhipov, FSR 41-2[trans:G.Creighton])

August 26th, 1955: ‘..I was observing the moon with my home-built 6-inch reflector, using an Erfle eyepiece
and a Goodwin Barlow lens which gave a magnification of 200 times and a 20-minute field. At 7:51 p.m. CST,
while examining the neighbourhood of the Apennines, I saw on the dark portion of the moon a bright flare that
remained visble for about 35 seconds. It appeared roughly as bright as a 2nd-magnitude star does to the
naked eye. The terminator region of the moon had been under survey for about an hour, and I am certain that
the flare was not present for many seconds before I saw it. / The position of the flare, as estimated in terms of
the diameter of the field of view, was in the neighbourhood of the Carpathian Mountains. this seemed to be
too far inside the dark portion of the moon for the object to have been an isolated mountain peak catching the
sunlight. The flare remained fairly steady in brightness, fading only slightly before it abruptly disappeared..’
Letter to Sky & Telescope from K.E.McCorkle, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. (TUAn)

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September 8th, 1955: ‘Shortly after sunrise.. I was looking at the moon, high in the sky, through a small 20
power telescope. My attention was directed to the Taurus Mountains at the western edge of Mare Serenitatis
when, at 7:35 a.m. EDT, I saw two distinct flashes of light, about a quarter second apart, that seemed to come
from the edge of these mountains. / There appeared to be nothing that could have caused reflections in my
telescope. The sun was hidden behind trees at the time, and there were no aircraft in the sky.’ Letter to Sky &
Telescope from W.C.Lambert, Ironton, Ohio, USA. (TUAn)

Morris K.Jessup’s first book ‘The Case for The UFO’ was published in 1955. Here’s a biographical sketch
from the flyleaf of his later work ‘The UFO Annual’ – ‘Explorer and instructor in Astronomy and Mathematics at
the University of Michigan and Drake University, M.K.Jessup completed his Thesis for the Doctorate in
Astrophysics at the University of Michigan. He erected and operated the largest refracting telescope in the
Southern Hemisphere in South Africa, for the University of Michigan. His research program resulted in several
thousand discoveries of physical double-stars which are now catalogued in the Memoirs of the Royal
Astronomical Society of London.’

November 1st, 1955: Mojave Desert, about 100 miles west of Las Vegas, USA; daytime. Frank Halstead of
Darling Observatory was travelling on a fast train to California with his wife Ann, when she called his attention
to an object moving parallel to the train, and at about the same speed, above a range of mountains. This
apparent pacing lasted for four or five minutes. The appearance of the object was described to Frank
Edwards during a 1959 interview – ‘..At the time I thought it was a blimp, you know, one of those cigar-shaped
dirigibles.. But as I watched it I realised that it could not be a blimp – they are only about two hundred feet
long – and this thing was gigantic. It was about eight hundred feet long. I could estimate that because it was
so close to the mountain ridges where trees and clumps of trees were visible for comparison..’
While Frank and Ann Halstead were watching this object, a second object suddenly appeared behind it – ‘..It
was a disc-shaped thing. In fact, both the objects were very shiny, we noticed.. (possibly) about one hundred
feet in diameter – flat on the bottom with a low dome on the top side.. My wife and I watched the pair of them
for two – possibly three – minutes.. Then they began to rise, slowly at first, and a few seconds later, much
faster…’
(FS-SB)

‘Elegant and immortal utterance by Dr.Richard van der Riet Woolley, F.R.S., the new Astronomer Royal, when
asked for his views on space travel, after alighting at London Airport, January 3, 1956: It’s utter bilge….’
(Understanding 1-68)

January 24th, 1956: ‘..more recently a report came from a Brian Warner.. reproduced in “Saucers,”
sept.1956. The incident occurred on Jan 24th, 1956, just east of the crater Liebig, the flashes actually coming
from the East wall of Cavendish. In describing the phenomenon, Warner states, “The flashes evidently began
with a bright glare and continued very bright for almost three minutes.” The light slowly faded over a further
period of some 8 minutes before finally disappearing. Warner continues, “The frequency of the pulsating was
approximately 11/2 flashes per second and between maximum brilliance the source could be seen as a point
of light slightly more intense than the surrounding walls. There were definite indications of reflection from the
west wall and the floor was faintly lit by the glare.” Warner then goes into some detail in trying to explain the
flashing light but he himself regards the occurrence as an unsolved mystery..’ (Uranus, 7/8-58)

April 21st, 1956: Luanda, Angola – ‘Astronomer C.M.Bettencourt, observing the moon through a small
telescope, saw 8 luminous objects enter the eyepiece from the left proceeding from the left towards the
moon’s position in the sky. He estimated them to be over 500 kilometres distant and 200 to 300 metres in
diameter. He used a Butenshon 64-magnitude telescope, holding his camera to the eyepiece’ (to photograph
the phenomena). (UFOPhATW)

September 1956: Baja, California, USA. ‘Mr.George Adamski filmed 16mm movie footage of two very large
round UFOs in close formation high in the clear blue sky.’ (UFOPhATW)

November 26th, 1956: Alamagordo, New Mexico, USA; night. Astronomer and photographer, Robert
E.Curtiss ‘..was making some test shots with.. a motion picture camera.. loaded with highly sensitized film
and.. coupled to the rangefinder of his 16-inch reflector telescope. With this setup he was able to shoot

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pictures of the moon at speeds of 24 to 48 frames per second. The telescope was covering that portion of the
moon around Fra Mauro.. between Parry and Copernicus.
When Mr.Curtiss developed and printed his films he was startled by a peculiarity. Just to the left of the
terminator, which is the dividing line between sunlight and shadow on the moon, there was a small white
Maltese cross. It was on frame after frame and was unquestionably either on the surface of the moon or very
close to it…’ (FS-SB)

February 13th, 1957: Steve Papina, an amateur astronomer, was walking home in Placerville, California, at
about 9:40 P.M., when ‘..he noticed off to his left the ionized track of what he thought was a shooting star..’
Mr.Papina watched the trail, carefully noting its movements upward in the sky.. ‘Suddenly a black disc
appeared.. directly in front of the trail,’ which was about equal in diameter to the width of the trail. The disc’s
surface was not smooth ‘..but appeared to be roughened by cross-checked canyons. In the southeast
quadrant was an area which seemed to have a few canyons filled with a very black material. On the
northwest quadrant another area was visible which had dark streaks but on a lesser scale..’ The disc was
very clear in the sky, and as it now traveled in a westerly course, it changed to a white colour, its diameter
reduced by two-thirds, and it took off into outer space – as Mr.Papina put it, like “letting the air out of a toy
balloon.” (UFOWhS)

March 10th, 1957: ‘Mr.Paul M.Cornick, of 205 Manor Road, Fishponds, Bristol, was observing Jupiter on
Sunday, March 10, at about 7 p.m. He writes: “When I took my eye from the telescope, I noticed an extremely
bright object that appeared to be due north of Jupiter. So bright was this object that I realised at once that it
could not be a natural phenomenon. / I watched it for a few moments, thinking that it might possibly be some
optical illusion, but far from it. It was moving! / My first thought was to focus my telescope on the object, and it
resolved itself into two lights – one red and the other white. (The latter being on the left-hand side) Every so
often a reddish flash danced from the red light to the white one. / By this time the phenomenon was clearly
visble to the naked eye, and I could easily see the occasional red flash as well as the lights. the course of the
object was going to take it between the Pole Star and Ursa Major. / The object was now almost directly
overhead, and I listened intently for some sound, but none came. It seemed to float over like some ghostly
shadow, and yet it conveyed the impression of power. / Abruptly, as it passed the Pole Star, it faded and
vanished from sight. / It could not have been an aeroplane because of the absence of noise and the steady
lights (they should flash) and they were the wrong colours…”‘ (FSRWR)

‘..many professional astronomers are convinced that saucers are interplanetary machines… I think they come
from another solar system, but they may be using Mars as a base.’
Dr.Frank Halstead, Darling Observatory, Duluth, Minnesota, USA. (Flying Saucers, 6-57)

May 3rd, 1957: At Forcalquier Observatory, France, ‘Roger Rigollet, a specialist in meteor studies for the
French National Center for Scientific Research’ had set up a ‘shutter that revolves in such a way’ in front of a
camera ‘as to cause an interruption of the light beam eight times a second,’ and also a second shutter to
cover ‘the instrument every four minutes.’ That evening, two of these automatic camera arrangements were
put in operation – one rotating and one fixed. When the results were viewed the next day, two luminous forms
were found on the film, at 10:38pm & 10.41pm. (CTSc)

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This photo is from the fixed camera – compare this photographed form to Harold Hill’s illustration of the large
object he observed on July 8th, 1954….

June 15th, 1957: near Mawdesley, Lancashire, UK; 6.06pm. Astronomer, Mr.G.Marsden – accompanied by
his son – observed a point of light in the distant sky. Looking through his pocket telescope, he was able to
view an aircraft somewhat resembling the planet Saturn, silver in colour, with a bluish tint. He estimated that
this object was 25 feet in diameter, and travelling at 500-600 mph. (Uranus 4-1) For the original article click
here.

June 18th, 1957: ‘..an object with a fiery red tail was seen high above Glasgow (Scotland). This UFO was
well authenticated and seen by many reliable witnesses. One of these was.. a member of the Royal Observer
Corps.. Mr.Arnot Thomson, of 157 Harlaw Crescent, an amateur astronomer, watched the UFO through a
telescope. “I could see a black shape with a flaming tail,” he said, “but couldn’t make out any outline.”‘
(FSRWR)

July 1957: “Auroras do not behave as the objects seen at Katoomba have apparently been behaving. There
must be something at Katoomba. I do not think all those people could have hallucinations.” Mr.W.Robertson,
Assistant Astronomer at Sydney Observatory, NSW, Australia.

September 11th, 1957: Sicily – In the morning, Dr.H.Percy Wilkins, F.R.A.S., while studying Mt.Etna through
binoculars, watched.. a brilliant oval mass, described by him as “an unidentified stationary object” poised
above the edge of the crater of Etna.’ (see earlier sighting by Dr.Wilkins on June 11th, 1954) (Creighton, FSR
14-4)

October 6th, 1957: At about 4.15pm, Earl Sydow, reportedly an engineer and a ‘competent amateur
astronomer,’ saw a large, bright object over Tucson, Arizona, along with six other observers. According to his
report sent to APRO, the object measured about three minutes in diameter along the major axis and about
one minute along the minor axis – ‘..Smaller objects seemed to exit from the larger object as observations
(using ‘astro scopes’) continued. A total of six objects were seen at one instant but other observers noted a
total of ten objects.. (They) appeared to be a flat white to a silver white. The shape of the smaller objects.. to
be somewhat semi-wedge-shaped. The objects moved from the southeast toward the northwest. The smaller
objects disappeared from the field of the telescope until in the final phases of observations there was only
one object still in the field of view. This object was the original object sighted and it slowly disappeared from
view as if it were moving away from the observer. I would estimate the diameter of the smaller objects to be
about fifteen to thirty seconds. the last object was observed at about 180 degrees azimuth and 80 degrees
elevation.’ (UFOWhS)

November 6th, 1957: ‘Four astronomers at the Commonwealth Observatory at Mt.Stromlo, near Canberra,
Australia, on “Sputnik watch” reported a strange object moving across the sky. It was a vivid pink and unlike
anything seen before, it was stated. It remained in view for about two inutes, and disappeared under the
moon. / “The strange thing is that it should disappear after passing under the moon as it was a perfectly
cloudless sky,” said Dr.Przybylski, who saw the object just after having completed observations of the
passage of the passage of the two Russian satellites.’ (FSRWR)

‘On the same evening, a young astronomer, M.Chaupis (? see below account), at the French National
Observatory at Toulouse, France, sighted an elliptical object in the sky. Other scientists said the brilliant
canary coloured object could be neither a meteorite nor one of the Sputniks. The astronomer watched it
through a telescope for about five minutes. He said it appeared from W.N.W. of Toulouse and it sped to where

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the sun had set an hour and a half earlier, made two sweeping turns, and then flew in the opposite direction.
It then disappeared for 30 seconds, then appeared and descended almost vertically in a clear sky and
vanished. / Then a similar, or possibly the same object was seen by observatories in two different European
capitals. The object, whatever it was, and astronomers said it was not one of the satellites, was sen through
telescopes and heard by radio monitors. / It appeared over Oslo hours before Russia’s second earth satellite
was due, and was travelling south at great speed. Signals were picked up differing from the Sputniks! The
Hague Observatory also reported seeing a UFO. At The Hague, too, scientists picked up radio signals that
were different from those of the two satellites..’ (FSRWR)

‘..many inhabitants of Toulouse observed a mysterious shining object in the form of a bright orange disc with
something resembling a cupola on top. The disc was rotating and travelling rapidly across the sky. The
astronomer I.L.Chapeux (?) watched the object through a telescope. Here is the note he wrote about it – “A
shining yellow spot of the second magnitude, elliptical in shape, no twinkle whatsoever, its edges very clearly
visible against the sky, and leaving a short trail behind it.”‘ ( FSR 13-6)

1957: Letter to Flying Saucer Review, from Susanne R.Stebbing, 1961 – ‘Sir,- you may be interested to know
that now I am an active member of the British Astronomical Association. I come in contact with observers
from various sections. / One observer, Mr.K.S.G.Stocker, F.R.A.S., of Wallington, Surrey, claimed a sighting of
an unusual UFO during 1957. He has promised to let me have details, and does seem interested in the
subject. He claims that good sightings are rather rare, but as the result of his experience he retains an open
mind. Mr.Stocker’s work for the B.A.A. includes colour photography of the stellar heavens and tracking of
artificial satellites.’ (FSR 7-6)

January 8th, 1958: ‘An amateur astronomer and four witnesses sighted a luminous yellow-reddish object in
the sky at about 8:50 pm. It was travelling in a northerly direction, then swung almost at right angles in a
curve to the east. / Mr.B.Welstead, of Punchbowl, a suburb of Sydney, was looking for star clusters, and on
observing the object with the naked eye, he called the attention of a colleague who possessed a telescope. It
was then they called three other people in the house to observe the phenomena. / The observation lasted at
least 30 seconds. the Australian Air Force later stated that there were no jets in the air on that night.’
(MHervey)

August 4th, 1958: Coventry, UK; approx. 10.45-11.02pm. A unnamed schoolteacher observed five seperate
unidentified aerial objects. He described them as ‘..stellar in appearance, giving a more or less steady light
but seemed to waver slightly in the air. This was a very minute effect which was like the tiniest oscillation on
their straight path..’ He remembered them (twelve years later) as having passed in the same direction, WNW
to ESE. The following was written during the observation – Approx 10.45 p.m. G.M.T.; pale (blue?) object
passing.. magnitude approx.3, passed North of Altair.
+3 minutes. Mag.3.5., bluish object passed North of Altair as previous one (about 1/2 degree North).
+3.5 minutes. Mag.3. bluish object passed 1/4 degrees North of Altair.
+5 minutes. Mag.2.8. intense red object passed 2 degrees North of Altair.
+5.75 minutes. Mag.3.8. intense red object passed 1.5d. North of Altair.
Cloud interrupted after this and when, five minutes later it cleared, no more objects were seen.
(Peter Ashby/CUFORG, Syntonic 8)

c.early-October 1958: Japan. ‘Dr.Kenzaburo Toyoda, of the Meiji University.. was scanning the surface of the
moon with the aid of a powerful telescope when he suddenly focussed on two giant sets of letters under Mare
Serenitalis, to the left of Mare Tranquilitatia, which read: PYAX and JWA. / The letters were black and easily
discernable. Two of his colleagues were called upon to witness the strange writing. The mystery has yet to be
solved.’ (UFOs:ThAS)

November 5th, 1958: Mt.Palomar, California, USA.
‘New Mystery Star Baffles Astronomers.. U.S. astronomers are mystified by a new, strange celestial body
photographed by telescope. Two astronomers, Dr.W.J. Luyten, of Minneapolis, and Dr.G.Haro, of
Tonantzintia, Mexico, discovered photographic records of the object made at Palomar Observatory, California,
on November 5, 1958.
While a blue star was found in that position in 1950, it does not appear on Palomar survey plates made in

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

1954. The only observation made since the November record showed no star at that point.’
(FSR 5-3)

1958: The prominent Russian Astronomer, Dr. Nikolai A.Krozyen, sighted an oval-shaped object which
hovered within the lunar crater Alphonsus, near the moon’s surface. It ‘..radiated a weird glow. This report
was quickly confirmed by two American astronomers – H.F.Poppendick and W.H.Bond.’ (Understanding, 4-68)

1958: ‘..Quite recently we received a letter from Mr.Marsden.. in which he stated he had sighted a second
UFO, once again through his telescope. He described it as being cylindrical in shape and moving across the
face of the Moon from Mare Crisium to the crater Plato. Plato, we might mention has often been associated
with flashing lights..’ (Uranus, 7/8-58)

July 14th, 1959: Norman River, N.Queensland, Australia; approx. 6.40pm. Witnesses including C.A.Marshall
Renou, F.R.C.S., F.R.A.C.S., and amateur astronomer Dr.Athol Quayle, observed a UFO for about 8 seconds.
It made no sound, and moved parallel to the earth at about twice the speed of a jet aircraft. It had a head,
body and tail. The head was a ’round.. iridescent, shimmering greenish-white light..,’ while ‘..the body
consisted of a wide and fairly long streak of intense white light..,’ and the tail was a number of bright stars,
which, during the observation period blew out of the body and disappeared. The whole UFO went out abruptly
‘..just as if someone had turned the electric light switch out…’ (C.A.M Renou, FSR 6-3)

October 6th, 1959: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. ‘A U.S.Army Colonel, his wife and their son saw an object
making abrupt turns at high speed. The son had been studying astronomy and pointing out the stars.. His
mother noted the object and pointed it out.. At first they thought it was a meteor. It was round and.. the colour
between white and yellow.
(It) was first seen 70 deg. above the horizon at 15 deg. azimuth (S-SE). It moved north-northwest (330 deg.)
for about 12 miles and then made a quick turn (90 deg.). Shortly thereafter.. it made another abrupt turn south
(180 deg.).. It dimmed out and returned to bright several times…’ (UFOIRC/O.Binder)

October 13th, 1959: Paignton, Devon, UK; approx. 7pm. ‘..While observing the Moon with a 36-inch
telescope my attention was directed to the crater Aristarchus, then on the terminator, and brilliantly white in
colour.. I was surprised to see a delicate yet bright reddish-amber glow in or near Aristarchus clearly outlined
against the white background. It was visible for only a few seconds.. After it disappeared no trace remained to
show it had been there.’ (E.H.Rowe, FSR 6-1)

February 7th-8th, 1960: Hollywood, California, USA; about midnight. (Reports spanned four U.S. western
states of ‘a bright flash’) ‘..amateur astronomer Floyd Rickores said he tracked a “red ball” – without a tail – for
nearly five minutes with his 300-power telescope. “I was looking at the moon through my telescope when
there was an explosion and a bright flash lighted the room.”
He said that he and his wife heard a rumble. Immediately afterwards he located nearly overhead a red ball. “It
seemed to stay stationary between two stars for three or four minutes, then took off with fantastic speed and
disappeared. I’d guess it was several thousand miles off the surface of the earth and it was brighter than any
star at at that time.” ‘ (Oregon Statesman/FSR 6-3)

February 13th, 1960: Grand Blanc, Michigan, USA; nighttime. ‘A colour photo of a UFO was taken after a full
moon by Joe Perry.. whose hobby is astronomical photography. the UFO was disc-shaped with a dome and
leaving a greeen trail. The FBI learned of the photograph after Perry, who runs a restaurant, showed it to
some of his customers. Two agents from the Flint office were sent to investigate. Perry showed the agents
several of his slides taken the same night.
“They did not seem to be interested until I showed this particular one,” Perry said, “and then both of them
jumped up.” The agents took the UFO photograph and several others for study. Needless to say, the photos
were not returned to Mr.Perry.’ (UFOs:ThAS)

May 4th, 1960: Bedford, Massachusetts, USA; 9.15pm. ‘..a dark spherical UFO was observed in the eastern
sky by Charles S.Oates, chief technician at Charles Hayden Planetarium in Boston, and his wife. / The
sphere was sighted shortly after Oates saw two bright white lines appear and disappear quickly, one after the
other, in the same area of the sky. The UFO appeared at an elevation of about 50 degrees in the east, near

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

the constellation Bootes. It pulsated from red to white to red. While Oates tried to call other members of the
Planetarium staff, his wife watched the object which vanished suddenly after about five minutes.’
(UFOs:ThAS)

May 5th or 22nd, 1960: Palma, Majorca, Europe; 9.33 pm. ‘..various astronomers of the Palma, Majorca,
Observatory reported seeing a “mysterious triangular- shaped object” manoeuvring over the region. The
astronomers said that the object appeared to be spinning around on its own axis without deviating from its
path and had the apparent size of the full moon.’ (H.Ganteaume, FSR 7-1/NICAP)

late-October 1960: San Antonio, Texas, USA. ‘A glowing, mystery flying object was reported that.. week in
two other areas. In San Antonio.. a spokesman for Trinity University’s moonwatch team said they had seen a
UFO and it was reported over California.’ (UFOS:ThAS)

A conversation in an observatory: ‘The International Bulletin 11, the journal of the Netherlands Study Group
for UFOlogy, prints in its November, 1960, issue the results of an interview with Mr.Damen Sterk, of the
observatory of Utrecht. The questions and answers went as follows: Question: “Do you know the
phenomenon of the so-called UFOs?”
Mr.Damen Sterk: “Indeed, scientists did observe a number of solid bodies during the last few years, which
moved with an unexplained speed in the sky.”
Question: “Were they aeroplanes or celestial bodies?”
D.Sterk: “No, decidedly not. Of about thirty of these bodies one couldn’t explain the origin.” Question: “Is it
possible that they are space ships with beings of other planets?”
D.Sterk: “That is not excluded. In fact there are so many planets on which life and even higher evolved life
than on this earth is present.”
Question: “So it is probable that our earth is visited by space ships of other planets.”
D.Sterk: ” That is not improbable.”
Question: “May we conclude from your words that the unexplained solid bodies mentioned by you are UFOs
or flying saucers?”
D.Sterk: (after some hesitation)”The only conclusion can be a question mark!”
This interview was submitted to Dr.C.de Jager, director of the Observatory, and he answered: “The opinion of
our librarian remains excusively the responsibility of our librarian.”‘ (FSR 7-1)

November 27th, 1960: California, USA – ‘..a group of seven inhabitants of a trailer camp in California
maintained a surveillance of aerial activity for more than a quarter of an hour. Among the company were two
amateur astronomers, Mr. and Mrs.Lewis Hart, who subsequently submitted an excellent report to the Air
Force. Amendations to that record were published by professional ufologist Lloyd Mallan. A brief portion,
which was in response to a questionnaire supplied by the authorities, read – “In your opinion what do you
think the object was and what might have caused it?” The Harts’ answer – “It was unquestionably some kind
of intelligently controlled air or space vehicle.”…’ (PFl)

1960: ‘MYSTERY SPACE OBJECT SEEN AGAIN – The director of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago said that
he has received reports of a mysterious object in orbit around the Earth. / The director, Mr.Robert Johnson,
estimated the object to be about one-tenth the size of the American balloon satellite Echo 1 – which is about
100 feet in diameter – but travelling twice as fast. / First sighted by Mr.Johnson and two assistants last friday,
it is neither an artificial satellite nor a meteor. It has not been seen on radar, he told reporters, but he
understood that an aircraft company had used a ballistic camera to track its course. / Amateur astronomers in
many parts of the United States had reported seeing it.’

“..it is by no means impossible that such phenomena exist and have existed for a long time. It is only recently
that man has started observing the heavens constantly with highly developed instruments.” Russian
astronomer Basykin, of the Moscow Observatory, quoted in Swiss magazine (Zuercher Woche) article, June
1961.

May 18th, 1961: Jupiter, Florida, USA. ‘(On May 19th), the discovery that a mystery satellite was orbiting the
earth was revealed by the Smithsonian Observatory at Cambridge, Massachusetts, which controls a world-
wide network of tracking stations.

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

“Satellite tracking stations around the world were asked to help track an unsuspected, unpredicted bright
satellite. The satellite was first spotted.. at Jupiter, Florida, and was reported as being about as bright as Echo
One and could be seen easily with the naked eye under right conditions.”
At Haleakala, Hawaii, Clifton Marsh, head of the local observatory, said Smithsonian officials had also alerted
its network of high powered, telescopic cameras to spot and photograph the mystery satellite. / One
unexplained factor was introduced by a Smithsonian spokesman who stated that they had “no reason yet to
believe the satellite is anything new, because such orbiting mavericks are spotted with some regularity.” ‘
(UFOs:ThAS)

June-August 12th, 1961: From June 1961, Jacques Vallee worked on the staff of the artificial-satellite
service of Paris Observatory, at Meudon. in his diary entry for August 12th, 1961, he wrote – ‘..Occasionally
we observe objects that remain unidentified. Thus on 11 July at 10:35 P.M. I saw a satellite brighter than
second magnitude. I had time to log a few data points. On another occasion several of us recorded no less
than eleven points. The next morning Muller, who behaves like a petty army officer simply confiscated the
tape and destroyed it, although a similar object had just been tracked by other astronomers at Besanscon
and by Pierre Neiriuck, a satellite expert based in Saint-Malo. / “Why don’t we send the data to the
Americans?” I asked him. / Muller just shrugged. “The Americans would laugh at us.” / He seems terrified at
the idea that the morning papers might come out with the headline PARIS OBSERVATORY TRACKING
SOMETHING IT CANNOT IDENTIFY…’ (Forbidden Science)

early-October 1961: While making a sweep to re-locate 19 Piscium in the constellation of Pisces, with a six
inch Newtonian telescope, Derick Shelton observed an unidentified object cross his field of view for an
estimated 5-10 seconds, under excellent observing conditions. Concerning the appearance of the object,
Mr.Shelton later reported – ‘..I could see no lights.. but there was a seeming reflection of light from the upper
part, which looked like a glow of some kind.. The object, though dark, stood out against the background of the
sky quite clearly…’
Mr.Shelton, at the time of his report had been an amateur astronomer for 48 years since the age of 7. He was
able to categorically rule out the possibility that what he observed could have been any known celestial
phenomenon, a balloon, or a known type of aircraft. He later saw a report by another astronomer of an
identical unidentified object, also in October 1961 – this man’s sighting was, however, 15 to 20 minutes in
duration. (Spacelink 6-4)

November 19th, 1961: Australia – ‘A Somerton man has reported seeing mysterious flying objects over the
Adelaide Hills at 6.15 p.m. on Sunday.. He is Mr.Guy Page.. an amateur astronomer. / “There was a cluster of
about six to eight objects, due east of Somerton. They were crescent-shaped and travelling at high speed,”
Mr.Page said today. / “I had binoculars trained on the Adelaide Hills when they came into sight. They were not
visible with the naked eye. I watched them for about ten minutes before they disappeared into cloud.” /
Mr.Page reported the sighting to the Bureau of Meteorology, but said he was mystified as “what I saw
definitely wasn’t a weather balloon. I didn’t report this before because if you do people seem to think you’re a
crackpot. But when I read where two policemen saw something yesterday, I decided to report it.”‘ (FSR 8-3)

April 4th, 1962: Wurtland, Kentucky, USA. G.R.Wells and J.Lewis, watched a small object through a 117
power telescope. Its brightness fluctuated, it gave off smoke, and didn’t move for six minutes. (Pr.BBE)

July 1962: England – ‘More reports of an “unidentified flying object” over Stratford last Monday night are
sought by Mr.J.D.Llewellyn, who observed it twice through an earth satellite-tracking telescope. / Mr.Llewellyn
was with another member of a Midlands interplanetary tracking team who keep a watch on earth satellites
when he first saw the “flying saucer” type object at 10.40 p.m. at his home, 80 West Green Drive. / He
described it to the Herald as an “extremely bright satellite-like object with what appeared to be a powerful
searchlight on top. Slow-moving, it rose from the north-east horizon at about 40 degrees, and its radiance
diminished until a green pinpoint remained. From the overhead position until its exit to the north-west, it
resolved itself into a triangle of two orange and one green lights. / “I heard nothing but a faint whisper of
sound, similar to a high-flying aircraft, when it was about overhead,” he said. he saw it again at 11.20 and
said both times in the early part of the flight it threw out a sort of beam of light which illuminated high-altitude
cloud..’ (FSR 8-6)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

August 17th, 1962: Meloy, Norway ‘..planes from Bodo Air Station went up to have a look at a luminous
object which was sighted.. above meloy. A pilot found the object and had a very clear view of it from
underneath. It was, however, impossible for him to estimate the size and character of the object. he followed
it, but it climbed, and at 33,000 ft. he had to abandon the pursuit… / There were no weather balloons in the
vicinity, and, besides, the balloons in use would not have behaved in that way. / A lot of people in the district
saw the object. For some time it made a vertical climb and then disappeared in a northerly direction. It looked
like a luminous star, but seen through binoculars it had a triangular form. The object was sighted for two
hours, (and) by some.. described as looking like a pyramid. An amateur astronomer who looked at the object
through as telescope, was quite sure that it could not be a balloon. He also says that it had a pyramidal form
and that on top it had a luminous cupola and at the bottom a luminous edge. Also the middle part.. glowed,
but more weakly.’
(Dahle, FSR 9-1)

October 4th, 1962: ‘An unidentified flying object was seen on Thursday evening by Mr. and Mrs.R.F.Wood, of
Copsley, Shere Road, West Horsley (England). It was first seen by Mrs.Wood when she looked out of a
bedroom window of her home at about 6.50 p.m. It was getting dark at the time, with the sun setting quite
brightly in the west. / According to Mrs.Wood, the object – “an elliptical thing” – was due west of her home,
about ten degrees above the horizon and at an estimated distance of twenty miles. “It was bright as the
Moon,” she said yesterday. / Mrs.Wood called her husband, who is an amateur astronomer. With his
telescope he was able to pick up the object for a few seconds before it dropped behind a cloud. He described
it as being similar to a ball flattened in the middle with two pieces protruding – one on each side. / Neither Mr.
or Mrs.Wood can find a possible explanation for the object they saw. “It was definitely not an aeroplane,” says
Mrs.Wood…’ (FSR 9-1)

March 21st, 1963: USA; 8.15pm approx. Sighting by an amateur astronomer, Larry Conner.
[see also April 4th, 1963](UFOs:ThAS)

March(?) 27th, 1963: Norfolk, Virginia, USA; nighttime. ‘A.. glowing object, streaking across the sky, was
observed by several people.. Among them was an amateur astronomer, Professor Albert Godden, assistant
director of Old Dominion College, Technical Institute. “It was a startling sight,” Godden stated. “It was a solid
white mass with the size and appearance of a full moon in the fall. It formed a red tail about twenty times as
long as its diameter.” ‘ (UFOs:ThAS)

April 4th, 1963: USA; 8.15pm approx. A thirteen-year-old amateur astronomer sighted a bright UFO twice
within a fortnight – ‘Larry Conner said the object appeared on the Thursday night.. and also on the Thursday
about the same time two weeks earlier. The object, which looked like a large star and moving swiftly in a
somewhat zig-zag course, was near the end of the Big Dipper when spotted by Conner. It was travelling from
west to east both times. Although he possesses an 80-power telescope, the object was moving too swiftly to
get a fix.’ (UFOsThAS)

October 29th/November 27th, 1963: ‘In the December, 1963, issue of Sky and Telescope, Lowell
Observatory reports that on the night of October 29 it had detected two clusters of bright red lights north of
the crater Herodotus; on the night of November 27, the red spots had vanished from their previous location
and were clustered in an oval formation along the south rim of the crater Aristarchus!…’ (FS-SB)

December 11th, 1963: McMinnville, Oregon, USA. At seven in the morning, W.W.Dolan, professor of
mathematics and astronomy, and dean of the faculty of Linfield College, saw a bright, star-like light hover,
slow, dim and flash during one minute.

December 28th, 1963: Hiroshima, Japan; 3.55pm. ‘..T.Sato, astronomer at the Rakurakuen Planetarium at
Hiroshima sent the.. report.. The observation was not made by Sato himself, but by seven young Japanese
astronomers using the 10in reflector at Rakurakuen.. They were carrying out observations in preparation for
the lunar eclipse on 30 December.. at 15.55 one of the observers Y.Yamada, noted a large, distinct pink patch
covering the southern part of Aristarchus, which was soon confirmed by the other six observers. It gradually
spread toward Herodotus until 16.26 when cloud prevented any further observation. The patch was not
markedly brighter or darker than the adjacent area…’ (Spacelink 1-4)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

January 7th, 1964: San Miguel, Buenos Aires, Argentina – ‘At the private observatory owned by amateur
astronomer Luis Ferro, this gentleman reported that he and several scientific friends, including an engineer
and a chemist, had.. observed a reddish-orange coloured object traverse the sky from south to north. It
travelled on an apparently level course and was in view for five minutes.’
(Creighton, FSR 12-2)

March 1964: ‘Priest-Astronomer Reports ‘Flying Saucers’ – BUENOS AIRES (NC) – A Jesuit priest-
astronomer here said he has seen unidentified flying objects – “flying saucers” – in Argentine skies. / Father
Benito Reyna, is professor of mathematics at Salvador University in Buenos Aires and an astronomer with
more than 30 years experience. / “The first time I saw UFOs I was in Cordoba,” Father Reyna told newsmen.
“With the help of my telescope I ws able to follow their flight clearly and to note their shape and color. Then
last March I saw them on two successive nights in San Miguel. At the time Echo II was orbiting the earth and I
believe the crew of the flying saucers was closely following the U.S. man-made satellite to study its
characteristics..”‘ (Understanding 9-65)

April 5th, 1964: South Norwood, London, UK; evening. A 14-year-old boy, Lee Turner, walking his dog, saw
an anomalous light in the sky.. ‘..”It moved too slowly for a shooting star and was definitely not a balloon or
aircraft. It was like a star in the first magnitude moving north-north-east,” he said. / Lee ran to his uncle’s
home.. Anthony Gittens, an amateur astronomer, said: “I have seen meteorites before. But this was unlike
anything I have seen. It took about four minutes to move across the sky before it went below the horizon.” / A
group of people formed to watch the object as it moved past the ITV tower at Upper Norwood.’… Mr.Gittens
had previously been “quite sceptical” about UFOs , but this event “really changed” his way of thinking. (FSR
10-4/Croydon Advertiser)

August 25th, 1964: ‘WASHINGTON – Two scientists at the Goddard space flight center at Greenbelt,
Maryland, reported that they had sighted through a telescope two reddish bands and one bluish band on the
face of the moon. / Mr.Saul H.Genatt, astronomer and station manager for the Goddard optical research
facility, said he and an electronic technician, Mr.Edwin Reid, saw the colored bands on August 25 from 9 p.m.
to 10 p.m../ The bands were over the crater Aristarchus, on the north-west quadrant of the moon. / Mr.Genatt
said that through a 16-inch telescope they saw two distinct reddish bands over the southern part of the crater
and a bluish band over the northern part. / The bands were roughly parallel and the reddish bands were of
equal thickness – about four or five miles. The longest reddish band was about 35 miles in length. It was the
most southerly of the three. / The other reddish band, just above it, was only two or three miles away and
about 30 miles long. / Mr.Genatt said: “Up in the northern part of the crater, about 20 miles from the northern
reddish band, was a bluish band about 15 miles long. All the bands ran an east-west direction, roughly
parallel to each other. The colors were very prominent at first – the reddish bands were really red and the
other was quite blue. As time passed the intensity of the colors weakened.” / Mr.Genatt said that he and
Mr.Reid had been checking the mechanical operation of the telescope and Mr.Reid noticed the lunar colors
by pure chance. / He had no basis for any speculation what the bands were.’ (Understanding 4-65)

September 14th, 1964: At the Adarra (Adhara?) Observatory in San Miguel, Argentina – ‘..another impressive
sighting was recorded at 10.55 p.m. on September 14, 1964. The flying object, its apparent size being twice
that of the Moon, was seen with the naked eye passing across the constellation Lyra. the central part of it was
white and fiery green, while the rear seemed to look like half-rings of an intense blue colour. Its speed was
estimated at three times the speed of sound. the sighting lasted for three minutes, the object moving throught
the constellation of Lyra in the direction of Jupiter. The witnesses were astronomers Luis Ferro and Renato
Matteassi and three students of Astronomy.. the astronomers admitted that, whatever the object was, it could
not possibly be an artificial satellite inasmuch as it had flown across the sky and then reversed.’
(Creighton, FSR 12-3)

October 17th, 1964: Rainhill, UK; 8.50pm. A letter from Mr.E.A.Fairclough –
‘With reference to the report by Mr.Robert Kemp in the Daily Post regarding the two bright objects he saw in
the sky on Saturday night. / I confirm that one of these objects was observed by my son Martin (aged 12
years) and myself at about the same time. We were in fact star-spotting with a home-made telescope when a
star, as we thought, was noticed to be moving at a fairly rapid rate through the night sky…
..(We were) looking in a northerly direction from latitude 53.26 N. longitude 2.47 W. the object, of magnitude
+0.7, was seen moving from west to east from 5hr 51m at 46 degrees for a period of 2 min. 30 sec., passing

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

over Capella and then vanishing.
In size the object appeared about half the diameter of Jupiter.’ (FSR 11-1/Liverpool Daily Post)

November 14th/15th, 1964: ‘At midnight..astronomers at the San Miguel Observatory (Argentina) saw an
elongated flat reddish-orange flying object which crossed the heavens first from east to west and then back
again, at a speed estimated at approximately four and a half times that of the satellites usually seen. Nor was
this the first occasion, as scientists at the..observatory had already experienced two similar sightings.’
(Creighton, FSR 12-3)

c.December 1964: ‘As this is being written Dr.Daniel W.Fry is approaching Albuquerque..his last scheduled
lecture stop..The tour has taken him across the Midwest, to the East Coast, down to the South and
Southwest, during a period of seven weeks. Understandably with driving days and lecturing evenings, there
has been little time for personal reports, but mail from his various sponsors has been both interesting and
encouraging..Attendance in many areas has surpassed expectations..(An) interesting letter was received
from the young men of the Rissler Observatory in Philadelphia, which contained the question – What did you
think of the UFOs that were overhead that Tuesday night?..’ (Understanding 1-65)

July 3rd-7th, 1965: Amateur astronomer Ron Emanuel of Covina, California, observed a pulsating star-like
image in the lunar crater Aristarchus, on July 3rd. The sighting was confirmed, during the next four days by
others in a group known as the Argus-Astronets; and also by observers at Whittier College, who also reported
a red colour in Theophilus’ Central Peak. (Understanding 11-65)

July 25th, 1965: Castalia, Ohio, USA. 9.15 pm. A sixteen-year-old amateur astronomer, M.D.Harris, watched
a bright blue “star” cross 90 degrees of the sky in 10 to 15 seconds. (Pr.BBE)

July 26th, 1965: ‘Latvian astronomers Robert Vitolniek, Jan Melderis and Esmeralda Vitolniek were studying
silvery clouds from the observation station of Ogra in Latvia. / At 9.35 p.m., in the gathering dusk, they
spotted an unusually bright star slowly flying westward. Viewed through 8-power binoculars, the star
appeared as a small flat spot. The telescope revealed a small ball in the centre of the lens-shaped disc. / The
astronomers set the disc diameter at about 100 metres. Around the disc, at a distance of two doameters,
there were three balls similar to the one in the centre of the disc. / the balls slowly rotated around the disc,
and the whole system dwindled as it receded from the earth. / Some 15-20 minutes later, the balls began to
depart from the disc in different directions. The ball in the centre also left its place and flew aside. / Finally, at
10 p.m., all these bodies, which emitted a greenish-pearly glow, faded into the distance.’ (FSR 14-3/Soviet
Weekly 2.1968)

‘The Los Angeles Times of August 28th presents an interesting account of a group known as the Argus-
Astronets interested in lunar observations. We offer a report of the group not only not only because of its
goals and achievements but as a reminder that individuals and amateurs may still contribute much to learning
although our civilization seems to be dominated by large corporations, foundations, and computers!’
(Understanding 11-65) – Report here.

Summer 1965: Chongwen District, Beijing, China. A sighting on a clear night, by Song Jiandong, 19 year old
student and lover of astronomy, and Song Jianmen, university student. They were observing stars in the night
sky, when Song Jiandong saw a slow-moving star-like object, which was soon followed by a larger elliptical
one, giving off a blue-green light. He quickly got his home-made telescope. The larger object suddenly
dashed towards the ‘star,’ which rushed off too. They had begun to zigzag, and were judged not to be
satellites. (Beijing sky is restricted airspace). (UFOMC)

“There is scientific evidence that strange objects are circling our planet. It is lamentable that Governments
have drawn a veil of secrecy around this matter.” Professor Gabriel Alvial, astronomer at Cerro Calan
Observatory – quoted by Reuters 26.8.1965.

September 11th, 1965: ‘La Razon, July 14, 1968. Valparaiso, Chile. The well-known astronomer and director
of the private observatory at Villa Alemana, Mr.Carlos Munoz Ferrara, declared during an interview that flying
saucers were harmless. When questioned whether he himself had seen any, he replied in the affirmative. /

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“On September 11, 1965, at 8:30 P.M. there appeared a strange moving light in the sky. It was not a star, nor
a planetoid, nor any known object. It went from South to North. Later between Venus and Mars there
appeared two disks which were transparent, for the bright stars could be seen through them. Many people
who were with me saw them. When the disks came to the zenith one of them disappeared. Several minutes
later we saw one of them again. It remained stationary at a certain height for five minutes. Photographs were
taken, but nothing appeared on the negatives.” Mr.Munoz Ferrara concluded – “Flying Saucers are harmless,
but must not be touched, because one may be affected by a kind of strange power they possess.” ‘ (Greinart,
Understanding 10.68)

September 18th, 1965: ‘At about 3 a.m., local time, in the night of September 17/18, three astronomers (at
the St.Michel Observatory) who had finished work stepped out of the cupola to take a breath of fresh air. The
night sky was clear and they were able to identify with ease the lights – very familiar to them – of the various
villages, far and near. But towards the ESE… precisely in the direction of the peak marked 1577m. lying to the
SE of the village of Aiguine, but much lower down, and on the exact level of the Valensole Plateau, they
beheld a large stationary ovoid-shaped, orange-red light. They watched this light for 10-15 minutes without
seeing any change in its position or its appearance, nor did it flicker as the flames of a fire would have done.
A solid object emitting its own light would have looked no different. The three astronomers wondered what it
could be, but none of them dared to suggest that they remain there until something happened and, feeling a
bit uneasy, they went off to bed…’ (Michel, FSR 14-1)

September 19th, 1965: Hay, NSW, Australia – ‘..The first time the object appeared was on September 19th,
at about 9.30 a.m. One of the men who saw it was Mr.G.Hamm, a member of the Royal Astronomical Society
and an officer in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve. He tried to measure the height of the object with a
theodolite when he first saw it, but failed because of cloud. / He reported his sighting to the Canberra
Headquarters of the R.A.N. The general concensus of opinion was that the object looked like an upturned
saucer and emitted reddish flames.’ (MHervey)

September 24th, 1965: Abhazia, Soviet Union – ‘Astronomer-geologist L.Tshehanovici saw a small disc
darting over the New Athos monastery and executing unusual manoeuvres. The monastery is high in the
mountains in the middle of a number of gorges. The disc’s movements – often spiral – were very complicated.’
(UFOFBIC)

Novi Afon, Black Sea – ‘..astronomer Dr.Larissa Zechanovitch of the Moscow Planetarium was on holiday..
The sun had just set, and Larissa, still swimming in the sea, saw a black object in the sky.. a disc with a
viewing window, from which (shone) a yellow light. It came down to about 300 feet above the water.. about
1,000 feet away from Dr.Zechanovitch.’ (UFOsTSH)

c.early-December 1965: ‘Objects from Jupiter – A Roman Catholic priest has claimed in Buenos Aires that he
photographed three unidentified flying objects. / The priest, a Jesuit and Mathematics professor who directs
an observatory, said he photographed the objects passing across the surface of the moon. He added they
might possibly have come from Jupiter.’ (165LKUFOS)

‘UFOs SILHOUETTED AGAINST THE MOON – About a year ago the Reverend Father Segundo Benito
Reyna, a Jesuit priest who is the director of the Adhara Observatory at San Miguel in the Province of Buenos
Aires, held a press conference and showed the newsmen a sensational photograph taken with the powerful
telescope of that observatory. / Father Reyna a distinguished scientist who holds the degrees of Doctor of
Science, has kindly made a print of this photograph available for the FLYING SAUCER REVIEW. / The
history of the picture is as follows: At 8.30 p.m. on December 1, 1965, the Observatory began to receive
numerous phone calls informing them that there was something strange on the Moon and asking if they could
see it. / As it happened, the staff of the Observatory were indeed occupied with the Moon, but they were
taking photographs of it at four-minute intervals and were not looking at the Moon itself. / When however they
came to develop the pictures, which had been taken with a camera affixed to the telescope, the sixth of the
series was found to show what looked like UFOs, one of them somewhat bell-shaped like the saucer in the
well-known photo by the late George Adamski. / There is no question whatever that these objects were either
entering or leaving the Earth’s atmosphere, as can be seen from their size. Furthermore, a few minutes after

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the photo had been taken, three strange luminous bodies passed very low over the city of La Plata, to the
astonishment of hundreds of witnesses.’ (Galindez, FSR 13-1)

One of the Series of Moon photographs taken at Adhara Observatory – this one is an enlarged detail of a
“bell-shaped” object.

1965: New South Wales, Australia. ‘They crossed the State from north-west to south-east, passing
Coonabarabran, Kandos and finally Sydney. Sightings came from many parts of the central west, including
Orange, Molong and Bathurst… between 7.45 p.m. and 8 p.m., and an estimated 200 callers immediately
jammed the “Herlad” switchboard reporting “white heads and long red tails.”… Mr.H.Richardson, of
Leppington said: “It was a weird sight. No sound, just a steady movement of eight lights in close formation.
Too fast for planes and too slow for a meteor. I just couldn’t make anything of them.”… The lights passed
almost overhead as 50 members of the Astronomical Society of N.S.W. were meeting at Belfield Observatory.
/ The director of the observatory, Mr.Gordon Patson, said later that all the amateur astronomers had seen the
lights, and dozens more people had telephoned about them. / Mr.Patson said the lights, of which most
observers counted about eight, were seen 30 degrees above the horizon, 25 degrees west of north.’
(165LKUFOS)

1965: Caucasus, Soviet Union – ‘Dr.Ludmila Tsehanovich, geodetical astronomer, saw a glittering disc with a
dome in the form of a cabin.’ (UFOFBIC)

April 25th, 1966: Canada-Northeast U.S.A. – ‘At approximately 8:15 P.M…a brilliantly illuminated object
flashed across the Canadian border and sailed majestically southward over the northeastern United Staes. It
was seen by millions of people along the Atlantic seaboard. Astronomers and amateur photographers took
excellent color pictures of it, some of which were later published in Life, Newsweek, and newspapers all
across the country. It was so bright that it lit up the countryside like daylight as it arced gracefully overhead. /
It was quickly explained as a meteor. The explanation made sense to those who saw it, and so the whole
incident was forgotten. / However, I spent many months collecting reports of this object and assembling the
whole story. Thousands of actual unidentified flying objects are erroneously explained away as meteors every
year. Usually no one bothers to collect these meteor reports, lay them out on a map, and study them properly.
Astronomers seem least interested of all…’ (John Keel OTH)

August 1966(?): Chernigov, Ukraine – ‘In August of last year, on a glorious starry night, I decided to watch for
meteors. First of all I carried out a systematic search, then I sat down by the telescope for about an hour,
studying the sky with the naked eye. Suddenly in the constellation Serpens, I caught sight of some object, of
a conical shape. In two or three seconds, it moved into the constellation Aquarius. During that time, I could
distinctly hear a sound similar to that of chirping birds. the object flew above Chernigov.’ (BJ 2-3/Vassili
Klemenko, Knowledge & Work No.1)

August 1966: ‘Reading was visited last August. Amateur astronomer Mr.Alan Eker described “fast moving
points of light in the sky in a square formation. They were not like anything I have seen before.” / The same
lights were seen 30 miles away at Oxford.’ (FSR 13-1)

November 13th, 1966: Zanesville, Ohio, USA; afternoon. Barber and amateur astronomer, Ralph Ditter took
three photographs (one underexposed) of an unidentified object that moved quite slowly around the sky over

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his home. It was about 20 feet in diameter, and rotating counter-clockwise. There was no accompanying
sound.

One of the two photographs taken by Ralph Ditter on that fateful afternoon which came out well.

1966: ‘5 UFOs in V-formation’ crossing the heavens horizontally were sighted by Dr.Benito Reyna and his
team at the Adhara observatory, San Miguel, Argentina. (UFOsTSH)

April 6th, 1967: Sofia, A.P. – ‘On two days a mysterious celestial body has flown over the South-Eastern part
of Bulgaria. The phenomenon was observed from the observatory at Stara Zagora on Thursday, April 6, at
6.30 p.m. The object, which was triangular in shape, was followed by a trail which was only just visible, and
rapidly lost its luminosity.’ (FSR 13-4)

Late-April 1967: Vastmanland, Sweden – ‘Twenty people have seen a red-yellow object with a poerful light.
Sometimes it has been stationary, at others it has moved horizontally and vertically with an incedible speed.
One observer heard an aeroplane ‘buzz’ in connection with it. Another at first thought the red light, or glare,
came from a fire. His son – an amateur astronomer – looked through a telescope and discovered three lights,
two green and one red. A ‘sighing’ noise was also heard.’
(FSR 14-2/Expressen)

July 18th/September 4th/October 18th, 1967: ‘..At first, reports of sightings of UFOs in the Soviet Union
were the field only of individual ‘enthusiasts,’ but last year a committee of scientists and other specialists was
formed to make a systematic study of the reports… On July 18, September 4, October 18 and other days of
1967, crescent-shaped UFOs were seen over southern parts of the Soviet Union, according to reports from
the Mountain Astronomical Station near Kislovodsk, from the astronomical observatory at Kazan, and from
several private individuals. / The most characteristic type of UFO is a luminous orange-coloured crescent with
a diameter of 15 to 20 ft. of arc.. flying with its outward bend first.. Sometimes a bright flaming disc preceded
by a crescent is observed. And sometimes the crescent is preceded and flanked by what look like first-
magnitude stars, which keep at a constant distance from it. / Kazan astronomers, who carried out their
observations from two points simultaneously, set the diameter of the crescent-shaped UFOs at 500-600
metres and their speed at some five kilometres a second. / Assuming that the crescent is a luminous shock
wave, the UFOs must fly at altitudes between 30 and 65 miles. Such objects could not have been made by
man. They are definitely not sputniks or space rockets…’ (FSR 14-3/Soviet Weekly)

August 8th, 1967: ‘..at 8:40 P.M., the astronomer Anatoli Sazanow of the Astrophysical station of the
academy of Science at Kislovodsk in the Caucasus saw a huge UFO of 180 meters diameter. Many scientists
working at the station witnessed this sighting.’ (Understanding 12.68)

August 30th, 1967: Stoke-on-Trent, UK; 10.45pm. Mrs.Angela Becanin and her son Michael – a keen
amateur astronomer – saw through a bedroom window three orange lights, which were about half a mile away
‘..in the fields opposite Hethersett Walk. Mrs.Becanin reported that two were near together and the other was
further away. They stayed there until 11.15 p.m. flashing all the time, then became very faint and
disappeared…’ Michael told the investigators that ‘..the object had the appearance of an orange 2nd
magnitude star but after a few minutes became a brilliant orange. After one or two minutes it rose and faded,
and by 11.30 p.m. had disappeared. Michael spoke of a second smaller light which did not change in
brightness, and said afterwards that there may have been a third, further from the other two. Most of the time

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both witnesses watched the lights through the telescope… They were certainly not aircraft.. and were not
street lamps since these could be seen at the same time.. Finally, the lights rose and faded as though they
were under control, and moved beyond the sight of the witnesses…’ (FSR-UUU)

September 2nd, 1967: Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs, UK. A prominent British amateur astronomer made his
first UFO sighting – a ten minute observation – ‘..The objects were two equally sized circles of light side by
side and close together.. Magnitude greater than any celestial body other than the sun and moon. Colour..
yellow.. not quite white. Each was the size of a head of a pin held at arm’s length. Reminded observer of the
headlights of a landrover suspended from a helicopter.. No apparent change in position except perhaps a
very slight drift north. Height estimated at approx.2-3,000 ft. Objects probably eventually obscured by cloud…
No sound audible.’ (FSR-UUU)

September 26th, 1967: (possible balloon) Statement by the El Turo del Home Observatory, Catalunia, Spain:
‘Between 4.30 and 5.30 p.m. yesterday, at a great height directly above Mt.Minseny, an unidentified object
was observed. It was white, shining brilliantly, and remained stationary there until hidden by clouds.
Examined through binoculars, it was seen to be triangular in shape. It was higher than the cirrus-type clouds
and its altitude can consequently be put at 10,000 metres above sea-level.’ (Ribera, FSR 14-3)

October 25th, 1967: ‘..the Royal Observatory at Herstmonceux in Sussex announced – “There is something
up there which is not a star or a planet.”(Daily Express 27.10.67).. it seems that the disclosure was inspired
by a sighting by amateur astronomer Peter Baker of Hastings, during the early morning… The bright object
seen by Mr.Baker was on the earthward side of the clouds, and was farther north than Venus..’ (Bowen FSR
13-6)

October 29th, 1967: In the early hours of the morning, an amateur astronomer in Hartlepool, Durham,
England, was looking through his telescope, when he saw ‘..two white objects moving through the sky.
Seconds later a third white object appeared – “They moved across the sky in a “V” formation and then
stopped dead,” he said. He watched them for an hour and they never moved. Then they started to zig-zag
towards the moon, changing colour first to green, then to blue and finally a bright red. He could not see any
details because the red colour seemed to enshroud them. It was very bright but he could see that they were
oval in shape. When they “reached” the moon, all three objects disappeared and he could not pick them up in
his sights again.’ (Lloyd, FSR 14-3)

November 21st, 1967: Bulgaria; 5.30pm – ‘..a large unidentifiable object was spotted over Sofia shedding a
bright, bluish light of the neon type.’ It appeared at a height of 30km, and was subsequently witnessed by
many people travelling slowly on a defined route. Appearance changed – ‘..bigger than the sun.. trapeze
shape.. a parachute (below) a dark disc.. around which there was a phosphorescent-green halo.. parachute
or “balloon,” then grew bluish-silver, changing then to an orange shade..’ / Professor D.Simetchiev of the
hydrological and meteorological centre later stated that the object had flown against the wind, and had ‘no
perceptible influence’ on their radar installations. Professor Bogomil Kovatchev, secretary of the astronomical
section of the Bulgarian Academy said (in part) – ‘First and foremost I would like to stress the fact that the
object which appeared over our capital was not an artificial satellite of any sort known to us. It moved more
quickly than a Sputnik and cast a brighter light… The colour-variations were perhaps a result of the setting
sun which coincided with the disappearance of our object – the latter went out right in front of our eyes as if it
had been extinguished.’ (UFOFBIC)

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Photo taken of the UFO by cameraman Liuben Donov, of the daily newspaper Trud….

Note: The shape photographed here is the same as that of an object later photographed over Madrid, Spain,
on the evening of September 5th, 1968. The object over Madrid was seen by thousands of people, and was
ultimately tracked by radar at a height of 75,000 feet (see text/photo in UFOsTSH).

1967: Montevideo, Uraguay. Professor Reyes Febles, chief of the Antares observatory – in the course of an
observation lasting one hour fifty minutes – took 19 photographs of an unidentified craft. He first saw the
object while looking through his telescope, with the intention of photographing the sun. He was soon able to
make out that the unknown craft was oval-shaped with two bays at each end, steely in appearance, and
spewing ‘some gas towards the sun.’ Professor Febles took some photos before a number of objects, of
various colours, shot out from its left side. About 17 minutes later, these reappeared and entered the main
craft through its right side. The craft then hovered at a height of 4,000 feet, before flying into a cloud. It
ultimately ‘..disappeared into space at high speed.’ (UFOsTSH)

1967/1968: Blaxter, far north of England, UK. ‘Royal Observer Corps personnel and a member of the British
Astronomical Association were among those present when unearthly wonders flew over Blaxter. C.O.R.S.
Telfer and Messrs. F.Coulson, A.Coulson, J.N.McKie, F.Corbett, V.Grieve and G.Storey testified to the
following recent sighting – Four fiery gems in formation, breaking off and heading in different directions later,
featured in a series of exciting UFO displays one night. Speeds varied from almost stationary to fast moving,
for the quartet of shining spheroids also hovering unblinkingly while in formation. Joe esimated that at
maximum velocity they would have journeyed from horizon to horizon in anything between six and ten
seconds. / They turned at fast speed and what could only be described as ‘impossible angles.’ Two observers
detected a greenish tinge about one of the objects. Joseph said that, as far as he knew, no such phenomena
are listed in any standard works of astronomy.’ (WFFF)

May 17th, 1968: Andes Mountains, Chile; 1.35am. The team at El Infernillo observatory, which lies at a height
of over 13,000 feet above sea level, managed to photograph a huge blinking, shining disc that had hung, high
above the Andes, for an hour. El Infernillo is aligned with the University of Chile. Commented its chairman,
Professor Gabriel Alvial Caceres – ‘..since October of last year, our logbook alone has registered 15 UFOs,
unexplainable starlike objects which move in space and can come to a standstill right in the middle of flight.
Now we have at last succeeded in photographing one of them…’ (UFOsTSH)

July 30th, 1968: Mihai Beres (Romania) – ‘..observed a shing body, similar to a star, located slightly to the
east of the rim of the New Moon.. with a jumping motion, the object performed a movement being in the
shape of a quadrangle – most of this movement being on the lunar disc. As it did so, the “star” lingered for 2-3
seconds at the four corners of the quadrangle. After hanging for a while near the rim of the lunar disc, the
object moved down towards the Moon and suddenly vanished, seemingly passing behind the western edge.’
(A.Arkhipov, FSR 41-2[trans:G.Creighton])

August 2nd, 1968: Germany – ‘U.S.Air Force jets chased a large brilliant object over Bavaria tonight.
Whatever it was, it got away before it could be identified. Two F-102 jets were sent up from Ramstein Air
Base after hundreds of telephone calls to observatories and police by people who saw the object, mostly

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described as dragon-shaped. It made a silver glare in the night sky. / The object, about 40 yards across,
appeared at times like a giant balloon with a triangular shape suspended below it as it hung at about 75,000
feet, too high for the planes to approach. One astronomer said the object hung for several hours in one
position.’ (FS&UFOs1969)

September 5th, 1968: ‘The sighting of a bright object in the night sky over Madrid caused a monumental
traffic jam and sent a Spanish Air Force F104 jet scrambling to find out what it was. / An official Air Force
announcement said the pilot climbed to an altitude of more than 50,000 feet and reported the object was still
above him when he had to return to base for fuel. The pilot of another plane flying at 36,000 feet reported
seeing the same object. Air Force radar screens tracked the Unidentified Flying Object and said it was flying
at 90,000 feet and moving slowly. One reporter, sent to the Madrid Astronomical Observatory for a look
through its powerful telescope, said the object gave off a “blinding light.” A photo taken through the telescope
revealed a triangular object, apparently solid on one side and translucent in some sections.’ (UChron1)

September 21st, 1968: Russia. L.Tsekhanovich, astronomer and lecturer at the Moscow Planetarium
observed a UFO for a period of one hour. (TSUFOF)

October 3rd, 1968: ‘..at 2:47 A.M., a flying disc, which looked like a hat, was seen over Thessaloniki, Greece.
The observer said it appeared to be about 50 meters in diameter and was traveling east. / On October 3rd, a
UFO which appeared to change its form was seen from 6 to 6:20 P.M. over Thessaloniki. The changing form
of this object suggested to the observers that it was constantly switching its position, thus giving the
impression of actually changing form. It was observed by two astronomers who described it as triangular
shaped and golden in color. its estimated height was about 3,000 meters and it followed a west to east
course..’ (FS&UFOs1969)

December 21st, 1968: Belgrade, Yugoslavia; 6.50pm – ‘A brightly-lit UFO was seen.. for a quarter of an hour
by a group of young astronomers.. The orange-red object had a diameter less than that of the moon and was
travelling south-east.’ (UFOFBIC)

News report published February 18th, 1969 – ‘Prague. As from today Czechoslovakia has a centre for UFO’s
led by scientists such as Dr.Josef Dvorak of the Medical Centre of the Air Forces, Dr.Jaroslav Sychra of the
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Dr.Svatopluk Kriz and Dr.Boris Valnicek of the Ondrejov Observatory. All
information on the subject, whether from laymen or scientists, will be classified and analysed by the Centre –
which unfortunately has very limited means at its disposal as yet – and the findings will be published. The
Centre will work in close contact with the Czechoslovak Air Force and will have links with foreign UFO
centres. The UFO Information Centre has been established at Panska 8, Prague 1.’ (UFOFBIC)

‘Jesuit priest, the Rev.Segundo Benito, of Argentina, and internationally recognised astronomer, issued a
statement to the press not long ago saying: “Unidentified flying objects do exist. they are craft manned by
living beings from another world. These alien beings are currently studying the earth and its inhabitants.
Sooner or later they will establish formal contact with mankind.’ (MHervey, 1969)

‘..Aptly named Truth, a Melbourne newspaper asked its readers “What Was It?” in a front page story in the
issue of October 25th, 1969. Photographs of a strange bright light moving across the sky had completely
baffled one of their leading astronomers.. Professor David Marshall, head of Melbourne observatory and
lecturer of the city planetarium, killed reports that the pictures showed the planet Saturn. The object could not
possibly have been this, “but I have no idea what it is. I am baffled,” he admitted. The photos.. were taken
near Denilquin.. 200 miles north of Melbourne. They were not the sole evidence of mysterious flying objects
in the district…’ (UFOs: Key To The New Age)

‘Do flying saucers exist? The chairman of the Irish Astronomical Society, Mr.Andrew Trimble, thinks they do,
and last night put forward a strong argument in support of unidentified flying objects. In an illustrated talk
Mr.Trimble said that many astronomers privately believed in UFOs but did not say so publicly because they
feared ridicule.’ (Belfast Newsletter 18.12.69/FSR 16-2)

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February 13th, 1970: England – ‘Several stationary “yellowish” lights in the southern sky were spotted by
R.Beavan, of Paulsgrove, Portsmouth in Hampshire, at about 21.30 hours. he stood watching them for some
minutes, noticing also that two people about 30 yards away were gazing in the same direction as himself. /
The lights, numbering approximately 6 to 10, neither moved nor vaired in their intensity and were grouped
roughly together, though not in any particular geometric pattern. They appeared sharply defined in the clear
evening sky at an angle of 35-40 degrees above the horizon. / Mr.Beavan (23), who is something of a keen
amateur astronomer, was puzzled for they bore no relationship to anything he could identify and said they
“certainly did not originate from shooting stars, an aeroplane, or rocket stages etc.” Keeping an eye on the
lights he commenced to walk in a westerly direction and halted briefly at evry spot which afforded him an
uninterrupted view. Gradually, lights began to disappear from among the cluster, until quite soon there were
none visible at all.’ (UFOChron6)

March 1st, 1970: Porto Alegre, Brazil – ‘..a family observed a roundish light of the brightness of the star Sirius
which went through a series of complicated manoeuvres over the city for a period of 40 minutes. The principal
witness and the head of the family is an amateur astronomer of 20 years standing..’ (BJ 3-4/Apro Bulletin)

September 1st, 1970: Cradle Hill, Warminster, UK; 9.30pm. A skywatch party included ‘amateur astronomer
John Edwards, of the Bryn, Wyesham, Monmouth, a grassland development officer for South Wales..,’ who
was making his first visit to Warminster. One of those present ‘..spotted a fairly distant moving light.. glowing
brightly. With his 200 mm magnification lens fitted in readiness, John – who has an eight-inch telescope at his
home – was anxious to get his camera in action straight away, but we waited until the object gently glided
closer, much closer.. At our estimated altitude of fewer than 200ft, the glowing sphere approached.. No sound
came (from it).. as it swept gracefully towards north, then east-north-east to shoot over the top of Imber. here
it dropped.. sharply.. through binoculars.. it was not circular but hemispherical..’ There was a small round
speck of light at the apex of its dome… A second object, similar but much higher followed. (UFOsKeyTTNA)

September 4th, 1970: Greenville, Texas, USA. ‘..Gary Graham.. was fortunate enough to capture a UFO on
film. Graham, whose hobbies are astronomy and photography, combined both in obtaining his photograph.
Using a 45-power refractor telescope with a 50-power eyepiece and a yashicamat 124 camera on a 5-foot
tripod he was taking 1/2 second time exposure shots of the moon at 10pm and while waiting for the planet to
rise at 11pm.
Though Graham himself did not see the object photographed, one of three consecutive 1/2 second exposures
of the moon through his telescopic camera did record clearly ‘a cigar-shaped UFO with rounded front and a
tapered back which trailed some sort of exhaust’ as it was caught on the film, silhouetted against the face of
the moon.’ (UFOsThAS)

November 1970: While studying the Archimedes area of the moon with a twelve and one-half reflector, Fred
Steckling and his son sighted three very large cigar-shaped objects on the floor of the crater – two in the
northern area and one in the south. Mr.Steckling and his son referred to the Air Force Lunar Sectional Chart
of the Archimedes area, and found that no evidence of these objects was recorded. Based on an approximate
diameter of fifty miles for the crater, it was estimated that the cigar-shaped objects – which remained in the
crater for several hours – had to have been at least twenty miles long and about three miles wide. (FredSt)

February 24th, 1971: Nuneaton, Warwickshire, UK; 6.15am.
Four policemen were reported to have seen ‘..three single white lights in the sky.. moving at a great speed in
a westerly direction towards Birmingham..’ before turning northwards. Two days later, a follow-up report
appeared:
‘More on the UFOs from amateur astronomer, Steve Melvin of Nuneaton.
Steve, a worker at Coventry Power Station was on top of a tower at the same time as the three policemen
reported seeing (mysterious objects) in the sky.
“I have been interested in astronomy since 1944 and have been ‘skywatching’ since then but.. never seen
anything like these objects. / They made no noise and I can confirm that they were flying at about 30 degrees
in a North Westerly direction. I have no answer for it, said Steve.’
(Mr.G.Coxon, BJ 3-4 / Evening Tribune)

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June 1971: Jacksonville, Illinois, USA; 9pm.
Warren Davis observed from his doorway a bright light moving northwards in the sky…
“..on examining it through binoculars I discovered that it was oval-shaped, the front being indistinct because
of three very bright white lights being situated there. It didn’t display position lights or a rotating beacon as in
the case of an aeroplane, just the lights in front which could also be observed from the side.. the sky was still
fairly bright so it wasn’t difficult to observe the object. It was at least a mile west of our position, flying at a
speed of at least 300 miles per hour. Altitude was at least 3,000 feet. To the naked eye it looked like a satellite
but it was distinct but very small.
I am an amateur astronomer and I am familiar with most aircraft and their lighting systems so I feel that I can
distinguish between ordinary objects and objects of an unusual nature.” (UFOs:ThAS)

August 25th, 1971: Lancashire, UK; 10.30pm approx. For two reports by astronomers (unknown to each
other), click here.

September 1st, 1971: ‘An amateur astronomer has joined the growing band of people who claim they have
seen UFOs over North Staffordshire. / John Hancock, aged 21, of 122 Ashford Street, Shelton, made detailed
notes of two unidentified flying objects in Weston Coyney last night. / One of the sightings, he said, was
cylindrical in shape with a row of coloured lights. A middle light was green and it was flanked by red and white
lights. / John’s father, 44-years-old Mr.Norman Hancock, of the same address, said today: “We are deadly
serious about these sightings. I was with John and I can verify what he saw. I must say I was rather shaken
by it all.” ‘ (FSR 18-1)

September 16th, 1971: region of Haute-Province, France; 8.46pm. ‘..the Observatory of Haute-Province..
began receiving telephone calls from nearby towns calling attention to a light in the sky. Several astronomers
observed two small lights very close to each other moving together. Later they appeared as only one point of
light, surrounded with a faint halo, and sometimes preceded, not followed, by a short luminous tail of yellow-
orange color. Visibility was excellent without clouds or fog. The radar station at Marignane confirmed the
object and said it was moving too slow to be a conventional airplane. For various reasons, satellites and
weather balloons were ruled out. The possibility of a helicopter seems unlikely since there was absolutely no
sound from the object at any time to any of the observers. Whatever it was, no identification was ever made,
and the witnesses at the Observatory concluded they had indeed seen a UFO.’ (Info Journal III,2)

1971: One night, at 11.30pm, a witness at Castleford, England, saw three objects in close line formation
gliding across the sky, just below the cloud level. ‘..They approached from the north.. when they were almost
directly above me you could make out the shape of them quite easily. They were completely silent.. No lights..
in..sight for I would say about three to four minutes. One of the objects on the outside of the three then made
a perfect right angle turn away from the objects… At the time of my sighting I was interested in astronomy and
was building my own 6″ Newtonian reflector telescope…’ (NUFORC)

February 2nd, 1972: Manchester, UK; 9.11pm. ‘Young astronomer A.Darbyshire.. had just been studying
Mars.. when he noted a peculiar red light in the east. “I put my 40 by 40 telescope to my eye and looked at it.
It turned out to be a glowing red-orange light, spherical in shape. I took down my telescope to clean the lens
for better viewing and, when I gazed again, it moved to the north of the sky,” he reported.’ (TFS)

March 1972: ‘Mysterious red objects the size of tennis balls have been sighted in the sky over the North-
West. / Amateur astronomer Mr.Les Morris, of Beechfield Road, Swinton, saw a strange red light in the sky
while walking home with his daughter, Marlene. “It was as big as a tennis ball and looked to be 500 feet in the
air,” he said. / Mr.Morris, who works for Shell Chemicals at Carrington, phoned Manchester Airport and was
told there had been no planes in the area for at least 15 minutes before he saw the object. / “I’ve seen
shooting stars and other natural phenomena but nothing like this,” he added. / Swinton schoolgirls Ellen
Chapman and Fiona Cannon, both of Tennyson Road, also saw four of the ‘flying red tennis balls.’ / “One was
continually flashing and seemed to lead the others about the sky,” said Ellen.’ (FSR 18-3)

July 6th, 1972: Kaitaia, New Zealand – ‘Object In The Sky Puzzle. During most of yesterday a peculiar
traveling light was observed over the Kaitaia Aerodrome. The object was discovered accidentally by a
meteorological office man who came across it when tracking a weather balloon. “It is not fast moving enough

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to be a satellite and if it is a star it should not be able to be seen in daytime,” said C.B.Michie who is a
recognised authority on astronomy. “It was in the wong position to be Venus the only star visible in daytime.”‘
(TEP, 10.72)

July 27th, 1972: ‘..At Paris, Ontario (Canada) an amateur astronomer, D’al Illes, and his friend George Peart
were taking time-exposure photographs near the Nith River at about ten o’clock in the evening when the
object appeared./ “It was a spherical ball of pale white light which slowly travelled across the sky,” said the
witnesses. “It lasted for fifteen or twenty seconds.” / They said the object, which appeared to have a solid
center and fuzzy edges, was about fifty-five degrees off the horizon. / Illes who has studied astronomy for
seven years, claims that he saw similar objects in 1964 and 1966. This time his camera was set for a half-
hour exposure, so he could not record the sighting photographically.’ (TNUFOS)

October 4th, 1972: Winsford, Cheshire, UK; 10.25pm. ‘Witness, Mr.Bryan Bishop, was on night shift, and
while he was in the works yard he saw in the eastern sky a series of eight lights forming a diamond shape. (At
first) only five lights were visible, but as the object moved almost overhead, eight.. were visible. The centre
appeared hazy and it was not possible to discern whether this was eight objects or one.. / Mr.Bishop is an
amateur astronomer and a keen meteor observer, he is familiar with the night sky and can recognise natural
phenomena and satellites, etc.’
He described the lights as white, magnitude -1. Visible for four minutes, travelling into the distant east at a
moderate speed. (Gordon Clegg, BJ 3-8)

‘During an evening reception of several hundred astronomers at Victoria, British Columbia, in the summer of
1968, word spread that just outside the hall strangely manoeuvring lights – UFOs – had been spotted. The
news was met by casual banter and the giggling sound that often accompanies an embarassing situation. Not
one astronomer ventured outside in the summer night to see for himself. / Erwin Schrodinger, pioneer in
quantum mechanics and a philosopher of science, wroye, “The first requirement of a scientist, is that he be
curious. He should be capable of being astonished and eager to find out.”‘ J.Allen Hynek ‘The UFO
Experience,’ published 1972.

February 18th, 1973: New Zealand – ‘Man Sees UFO, Clocks It At 1800 MPH. A UFO was sighted over
Dunedin by several people last night. It was “huge,” bright yellow and red, cigar-shaped and travelling at a
minimum speed of 1800 mph. Two groups of people reported sighting the UFO at 11:20pm, one at East Taieri
and the other in Gilkison St., Dunedin. From Gilikison St., two men, one a professional engineer, sighted the
UFO travelling north for about 5-8 seconds before disappearing behind Flagstaff Hill. The engineer, also an
amateur astronomer, calculated the minimum speed of the object to be 1800 mph “because if it disappeared
behind Flagstaff it must have been at least 2 miles away and I allowed 3 in my calculations. “We watched it
for 6 seconds during which time it travelled through about 60 degrees. This makes its minimum speed 1800
mph. the UFO was luminous and cigar-shaped with a ball of fire following it.”‘ (TEP, 6.73)

Autumn (?) 1973: ‘Frans de Bruyn of Adamayviewm Klerksdorp, Africa, was looking at the night sky when he
saw a bright, luminous object moving from east to west at an angle of thirty degrees above the horizon. /
Mr.de Bruyn, an amateur astronomer, ran in to call his father, who came out immediately. As they watched,
the UFO moved upward at an angle of ninety degrees to its original course. It moved through the clouds,
which de Bruyn judged to be at a height of about three thousand feet…’ (TNUFOS/Skylook)

April 10th, 1974: UFO sighting by ‘Jeff’, who had become an amateur astronomer in 1965; had won the
SVAS’ Samuel S.Smythe Award in 1967, and was president of the Jr. section of the SVAS for two terms in
1968 and 1969. (source)

Pre-May 1974: ‘..it is distinctly odd to find an interesting UFO-related report in the Soviet Academy of
Sciences’ own popular-scientific journal Khimia i Zhizu (Chemistry and Life) No.5 (May 1974). / The item
appears in an article reporting the views of some of the Soviet and foreign astronomers who participated in a
Symposium on Extraterrestrial Civilizations, which was held during the recent congress held in Baku, USSR,
by the International Academy of Astronautics… I.Kotnik, a Yugoslavian engineer.. made the following
interesting statement – “But maybe contact has already occurred, and beings from other planets are already
watching us? Now, look… I myself was a witness of such a happening in Zagreb, not long ago. / Suddenly the

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lights went out on several streets of the city… I was in the studio of the radio-station just at that moment,
giving my regular weekly programme about extraterrestrial civilizations, when the lights started going out all
over the place. I said, into the microphone – “Flying saucers have got nothing to do with this.” / Then a listener
telephoned to the studio, and suggested that I go down and try to start up my car. And, do you know, the car
wouldn’t move… and not only my car either… / We were told at the Power Plant that all their equipment there
was functioning perfectly, and yet despite that, we were six whole hours without electricity. The people of
Zagreb were quite convinced that ‘saucers’ were flying around overhead. / Well, there’s an inexplicable story
for you…” ‘ (Creighton, FSR 20-3)

May 23rd, 1974: Vernon(?), Illinois, USA – ‘Two boys, both 11, david Dorn and friend Troy Warren, about 5:30
pm left home to play basketball and had a camera with them. They noticed a dark object in the sky and
David, an amateur astronomer, took six pictures of it as it came closer, dropped to a height above the tree
tops, hovered slightly and then rose up through the clouds and disappeared. When developed, a classic type
saucer appeared. They took it to the sheriff, who submitted it to Allen Hynek, self-styled civilian UFO expert,
Dept. of Astronomy at Northwestern University.. who ruled out the possibility of a hoax. He termed the
photographs convincing evidence of a UFO sighting and said the boys were reliable witnesses. How times
have changed! (a kodak x-15 camera was used). (MM, 10.74)

August 14th, 1974: Cheltenham, UK; 1.55pm. An eight minute observation by Brian Savoury and his father –
‘The weather was hazy over the hills around the town; otherwise.. clear.. I was observing Jupiter from the
bathroom roof through 16 by 50 binoculars. Turning to observe Sirius, I noticed red and green lights,
alternating and bright, coming through the haze over Leckhampton Hill, part of the Cotswolds. They travelled
south to the north-east and moved slowly towards where I was standing, right up to a point directly facing me.
By this time I had a perfect “fix”; and it was a riot of red, green, blue, orange and white. The structure.. was a
distinct crescent, and on the top.. a spherical dome…
Gently it swung to and fro like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, then rose slightly into the air before it
descended to its former position. The UFO eventually moved away slowly to the south, and I feel sure it was
not of earthly origin. My father and I will never forget what we saw sparkling in the sky that night! I am a
regular watcher of the night sky and have seen many unexplained lights not falling into the satellite category,
including some at Warminster…’ (UFOMIM)

August 10th, 1974: Gunard, Isle Of Wight; 9.17pm.
‘Aquarius Viewpoint includes a sighting by an astronomer in its Oct.1974 edition.. from the Isle of Wight, out
with his telescope, watching for Perseids (meteors), but one object he picked up, far from rapidly burning out
as meteors usually do, C.Laing says – “It continued to completely traverse the firmament and disappeared
below the southern horizon while exhibiting some singular characteristics which leave me in confusion and
doubt as to its nature & origin. It is my firm belief it was not of human construction.. emitting an orange glow,
travelling great speeds, and as it went overhead it was clearly defined as a disc or sphere.” – It altered its
course after it passed Laing, to eastward in a manner no natural phenomenon could do. he can only suppose
it was under some form of control, but he would not care to speculate…’ (MM, 7.75 + BJ 4-4)

December 31st, 1974: A second UFO sighting by amateur astronomer ‘Jeff.’ (see Apr.10th, 1974)

January 31st, 1975: Southampton, UK; 8.35 & 9pm. ‘..these observations come from a young astronomer,
out star gazing and well equipped with star atlas and binoculars. The first object was red/orange and moved
in stops and starts. After minutes it was only visible through binoculars. The second sighting consisted of two
hazy white nebulae moving on parallel paths faster than a satellite, but slower than an aircraft..’ (BJ 4-9)

March 7th, 1975: Southampton, UK; 8.30pm. A young astronomer out star gazing (see also 31.1.75) saw ‘..a
swift moving fuzzy white light the apparent size of a pea. It glided through the sky “like a ghost.” Satellites and
other phenomena were all logged by him and he made very accurate measurements of flight paths of the
unknown objects.’ (BJ 4-9)

March 18th, 1975: Waterdown, Ontario, Canada; 1.30pm. Amateur astronomer, Patric McCarthy, aged 19,
had gone to an abandoned quarry to try to photograph some wild birds – “Suddenly I saw this massive
circular object in the sky. I had been focussing my camera on a tree branch when I saw this thing like a

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frisbee zig-zagging around above me. I just started snapping away as fast as I could.’ Although Patric had
difficulty keeping the fast-moving aircraft in frame, he did succeed in getting three good shots in a sequence
of four attempts.

The third of Patric McCarthy’s photographs of the huge craft that flitted about in the sky over the quarry.
Credit: UFO Photographs Around The World Volume 2.

June 1975: ‘Amateur Stargazer Spots UFOs Dashing Around The Sun & Moon. Oscar Carter, a retired
salesman and baker in St.Petersburg, Fla., has developed an an interest in astronomy and grinding his own
lenses, assembling his own telescope, noting UFOs circling the Moon, making criss-crossings and reversing
directions. Authorities, of course, won’t believe him.’ (MM, 7.75)

1975: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ‘The square, Praca General Osorio, was recently mentioned again in a report
given to me by a man, E.V., who studied astronomy at the National Observatory. He, too, was at this square
when he made his observation in 1975.’ (I.Granchi)

Clyde Tombaugh, speaking with reference to his 1949 sighting, from an interview printed in Science Digest,
August 1975: ‘..I was working at White Sands, and I knew we didn’t have anything that could do that, so I
reported it to the FBI and asked them not to make my report public… But it leaked out, and I have gotten
thousands of crank letters since. I was accused of having hallucinations. I don’t have hallucinations. I’ve
actually seen two other strange phenomena since, but I didn’t bother to report them. I don’t want any more to
do with it. It has become ridiculous. / It is still a very open question. But I can’t have my career or reputation
damaged by any more association with the UFO question.’ (MM, 9.75)

late-summer 1976 (?pre-1979): Chard, UK; nighttime. Ed Harris, observing the constellation of Ursa Major
through his bedroom window, focused on Etz, then moved on to look at Arcturus. Then, he became aware of
a ‘star’ shining to the left of his field of view, and was amazed to see that it was moving. It was a ‘faintly yellow
object,’ and Mr.Harris watched through binoculars as it crossed over Polaris before stopping a little below
Cassiopeia.
As the object remained in this one position for close to ten minutes, Mr.Harris was able to observe it through
his three-inch refractor, and was considerably excited by the appearance of ‘..a perfect example of a UFO –
circular with raised roof..’ It seemed to revolve on its axis, with its luminosity’s colour changing from yellow to
light orange.
When increasing magnification to 120-power, the (apparent) craft filled the telescope’s field of view, and
Mr.Harris realised that it was descending. He then rushed out of the house, with his binoculars. Lieing on the
grass watching the craft hovering at an altitude of no more than 200 metres, his whole body relaxed, and a
drowsy feeling of ‘complete contentment’ passed over him.’ (UFOMIM)

19th November, 1976: Llanelli, Dyfed, Wales; 5.20pm. 16-year-old Brian Jones, ‘something of a student of
astronomy,’ observed a very bright white light moving slowly across the sky:
‘It varied in brightness as it moved. I realized that what I was looking at was definitely not an aeroplane, a
helicopter, or any other aircraft because it travelled low and made no noise. I began to get so excited about
the object that I ran to my house, and as I came to our side entrance I looked up behind my shoulder and
there, closer to where I was standing, I saw that the light had brightened to a yellowish, round fireball with,
underneath, a bright emission of sparks. As I was excited and a little frightened about it, I ran in at our
backdoor and told my mother about the light, for her to see it. But when she came outside, it had completely
disappeared.’ (TWT)

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November 1976: Sea Palling, Norfolk, UK. ‘Did anybody see what looked like a UFO over Norfolk early on
Wednesday week? If so, eleven-year-old Karl Rose, a Sea Palling boy, would like to hear from them. Karl, a
pupil at the Paston School, North Walsham, saw what he thought was a flying saucer, low in the sky, as he
looked through field glasses outside his house. Karl, a keen student of the stars, saw lights flashing on and
off as the object passed the lower right of Venus. It made no noise and appeared to be descending slowly.
His mother, Mrs Janet Rose, said that Karl often sits on the lawn at night studying the sky. Bright lad!’ (North
Norfolk News 26.11.76/UFOMIM)

Late-November 1976: Warlingham, Surrey, England – ‘An evening of no moon, broken cloud, about 10:30
p.m. I went out into the garden. I glanced at the sky to observe Venus, large and bright with Jupiter laying low
on the horizon in an easterly direction. / I have been interested in astronomy since a boy of twelve years of
age. I am now sixty-nine years old, and still very active, and know the difference of what I see. / Into the
heavens there appeared two red discs; not a briiliant red, more of a glow. They were about three inches in
diameter, spaced about a foot apart apparently, travelling from south-south-west to north-north-east. The time
of the sighting and leaving my vision was no more than nine to ten seconds, disappearing over the rooftops at
a reasonable speed. At what height I am at a loss to say, it was a dark night, but I can say they were below
the cloud ceiling.. I can say with absolute certainty that no aircraft of any kind was visible in the sky that night.
/ The night was quiet, and to see two glowing discs moving across the heavens silently, being held in a
horizontal position, by what? Was there a solid body between them? Who knows? / It has puzzled me much.
One thing I am sorry about and that is I have night glasses and a five-inch spectroscope; owing to it not being
a good night for stargazing they were not at hand. Who is ever prepared when strange things occur! / Stars,
galaxies, nebulae, meteors, these I can explain. What I have tried to describe I cannot explain. The number of
known galaxies are many thousands and the stars contained in them billions upon billions. If only one star in
these galaxies is a world like ours, then there are millions of worlds, larger, smaller; intelligent, some not so
intelligent. / If we are capable of sending a robot on a journey of many billions of miles or light years distant,
to fall or orbit a planet of which nothing is known, some insignificant globe in a far-off galaxy, then reverse this
theory. And why not?’ (UFO-UK)

pre-June 1977: Grantham, Lincolnshire, UK. Pensioner Donald Taylor wrote to Arthur Shuttlewood – ‘I have
been interested in astronomy for many years and have passed many a cold night with my stepson watching
the planets. On one of these occasions I was to see my first UFO. We had been looking through an old
theodolite which I used, and a semi-toy telescope which was his.
Suddenly an orange-coloured object swung into our vision. We both spotted it at the same time. The speed
with which it had approached was phenomenal! Before we could recover our breath it had made a right-
angled turn and – as quickly as it appeared – it vanished. This was the beginning, and I have now experienced
many more sightings made in the Lincolnshire area…’ (UFOMIM)

July 26th, 1977: Chengdu, Sichuan province, China. Observation by Zhang Zhousheng of Yunnan
Observatory. He saw a ‘spiral-shaped’ UFO. (A.Huneeus, UFO Universe, Summer ’89)

September 12th, 1978: Paignton, Derbyshire, UK; approx.11pm. An amateur astronomer was watching the
stars in Cassiopeia through his telescope. He was amazed when ‘a diffuse grey object of a precise cubic
shape’ swam into view. No matter what focal length the witness tried, he could not get the object into sharp
focus. Suddenly, it split into two seperate forms which moved off in opposite directions, and he could only
track one of these for a time until it went out of sight.
(Awareness, Autumn 1978)

‘A 1977 poll of American astronomers (conducted by Peter Sturrock), published in JSE, showed the following.
Out of 2611 questionnaires 1356 were returned. In response to whether the UFO problem deserved further
study the replies were: 23% certainly, 30% probably, 27% possibly, 17% probably not, 3% certainly not.
Interestingly, there was a positive correlation between the amount of reading done on the subject and the
opinion that further study was in order.’ ‘UFO’s and Mainstream Science’ by Bernhard Harsch, Ph.D Five per
cent of the respondents had experienced sightings that they could not explain.

April 16th, 1979: At 1 a.m., Amateur astronomer Dave Darling sighted a large cigar-shaped object close to
the crater Isidorus, near the Sea of Nectar, while observing the moon with a 121/2 inch reflector. The object

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was ‘..about ten miles in length, and 11/2 miles in diameter.. silvery metallic, casting a distinct shadow onto
the lunar surface.. (It) landed about fifty miles from the sunset terminator…’ (FredSt)

August 12th, 1979: At 3.45 a.m., Dave Darling observed a cigar-shaped object beside the rim of the lunar
crater Romer. It was ‘..over twenty miles long.. silvery metallic.. bearing two wing-type appendages which
protruded out of each side.. Later, the object disappeared…’ (FredSt)

A statistical analysis of UFO observations produced by the Institute of Space Research of the Academy of
Sciences, USSR was published in 1979. The report stated that 7.5% of UFO witnesses are astronomers.

December 30th, 1979: Kunmin, China; 7.40am. A sighting by astronomers attending an astronomical
congress was reported by Zhang Zhousheng – ‘..the weather was magnificent. Many comrades and I were
observing the clear sky from the Yunnan Observatory. Suddenly, the astronomers discovered at 20 degrees
below the zenith a strange object flying from west to east. It’s velocity was similar to that of an aircraft at high
altitude. We could not distinguish the shape of its nose since the object was too high in the sky. What caught
our attention was that on its back there could be seen flowing three flames of physical particles, very brilliant,
with an orange-yellow colour. From a distance, this object seemed like an electric arc. At a moment when the
sun had not yet risen, an object of such luminosity emerging from the deep blue sky offered a spectacle truly
magnificent.’ (A.Huneeus, UFO Universe, Summer ’89)

April 13th, 1980: Munich, Germany; 10.55pm. Engineer and amateur astronomer, Mauro Venturini observed
‘Eight light yellow-coloured discs with fuzzy-looking peripheries (which) appeared at the level of the
constellation Bootes and flew slowly.. from.. northeast.. to southwest…’ Commented Mr.Venturini – “Since the
UFOs were flying in such a peculiar formation, the confusion with something else is ruled out.. before I saw
this I never believed in UFOs but I honestly say that I have changed from Saul to Paul and am now convinced
of their existence..” (UFOsTSH)

June 9th, 1981: Tao-yvan, Taiwan – ‘..Mr.Tsai Chang-hsien, Director of Taipei Yuan-shan Astronomical
Observatory, said he noticed (the) array of 15 light spots yesterday when he was driving along Taipei Bridge,
and he hurried back to the Observatory at once to study the singular astronomical phenomenon. / He said
due to the regular rotation of the universe, there should only be two planets, Venus and Mercury, in the
western sky of Taiwan at this time of the year. Unfortunately, as the elevation angle those 15 light spots
formed was too low, the telescope of the Observatory could not reach them. / In spite of his consultation with
other observatories and the information that several citizens supplied over the phone, till 12:00 a.m. last night,
Director Tsai was still unable to provide an answer. / However, as he pointed out, the so-called unidentified
flying objects were not necessarily flying saucers, but only mystery beyond our current knowledge..’ (UOMCh)

June 15th, 1981: Taipei, Taiwan; Afternoon – ‘Fifteen light spots again appeared over taipei. They were seen
positioned in a straight line at equal intervals of separation. They were sighted also by Cai Zhangxian,
director of the Taiwan Observatory in North Taiwan. / A similar array of UFOs was spotted by Yunan
Observatory at about the same time.’ (UOMCh)

late-October 1981: Bradford area, UK – ‘Amateur astronomer David Roberts, a former sceptic, revised his
opinions on seeing two fireballs that drifted together across the moors. He remarked to the press, “I am
convinced that professional astronomers should come to observe the strange things that are now happening
at Woodside. I believe that young and older people on the estate could get worried if scientific observations
are not carried out and an answer found soon.” ‘ (PUFOM)

early-1980s/1970s: Presquile and The Sandbanks Provincial Parks, Lake Ontario, Canada. ‘..Throughout the
years, on clear starry summer nights, being amateur astronomers, we would stare up while sitting around the
campfire. We would see aircraft lights, satellites and the occasional meteorite fly by. On a number of
evenings, we would witness what at first appeared to be the familiar white light of a satellite. The only thing
that would set it apart would be its ability to stop dead and change direction (90-180 degree turns), with no
change in speed (which was already faster than a conventional aircraft). Sometimes, we would see a
formation of lights doing this and on one occasion, that I can recall, we were looking at what appeared to be

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the Pleiades Cluster, but then split apart into seven separate lights that flew off in two different directions…’
(S.R.Liddle, UFOUn, Winter ’95)

1982: Chinasaki, Japan. While riding a train, amateur astronomer Yasumo Mizushima, and many other
people, sighted a cylindrical “..bright orange object very bright in the sky.”
(A.Huneeus, UFO Universe, Spring ’93)

1983: Japan. Yasumo Mizushima reported that, while looking through his telecope, he saw “many objects
pass across the southeastern part of the Moon. Five objects shaped like a small piece of ‘rice’ crossed the
lunar surface..,” and that “..other people back then caught this object at the same time in other places.”
Mr.Mizushima estimated that the objects had a diameter of about 400-500 metres. In the years to come, he
was to observe these objects cross the moon a further seven times. (A.Huneeus, UFO Universe, Spring ’93)

July 3rd, 1984: South Coast of England. ‘U.F.O. mystery baffles South’ article here.

pre-August 15th, 1984: Darlington, England; Night. Christopher Wardell saw ‘triangle-shaped series of green
lights’ through his telescope – ‘Chris spots UFO!’ article here.

May 4th, 1985: Japan. Yasumo Mizushima filmed an anomalous object near the moon. (UFOsTSH)

October 1985: Japan; 12.30am. Yasumo Mizushima had been filming the moon, with his video camera
connected to two Celestron telescopes (C-14 and C-8), when he noticed and filmed two unidentified objects
‘manoeuvring around the southeast side of the moon’s surface. Their shadows on the moon were clearly
discernable, which excluded the possibility of their being somewhere “out in space” between the Earth and
the moon. They flew close above the sea of craters..’ Later, Mr.Mizushima estimated the objects to be 1,200-
1,500 feet in length. (UFOsTSH)

Summer 1987: Trenton-Lake Ontario, Canada. ‘..I was sititng at a park in the vening with my fiance.. We
looked up and saw a formation of lights travelling completely silently from the direction of CFB Trenton
towards, yet again, the Lake. The following week, there were reports of similar formations causing problems
for the local airbase. They were witnessed hovering at a high altitude over the airbase on different occasions,
always causing the searchlights to come on and aircraft to be scrambled…’ (S.R.Liddle, UFOUn, Winter ’95)

May 1989: Yokohama, Japan. Akira Ishiguro photographed three black oval objects over the surface of the
sun. They changed position from one shot to the next. (UFOsTSH)

April 1991: Yokohama, Japan. Akira Ishiguro while making test photographs of the sun using a Polaroid
camera attached to a telescope with a 60mm diameter lens and a 660mm focal lens, obtained a single shot
of an unidentified object that has been described as ‘..something like a huge space station.. above the disc of
the sun, a space platform on which apparently 5 cigar-shaped objects had docked…’ (UFOsTSH +
A.Huneeus, UFO Universe, Spring ’93)

September 8th, 1991: About 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; approx.2pm. ‘..an astronomer
who was a passenger on board a commercial aircraft reported seeing three disc-shaped objects moving at
tremendous speed and flying in a spread-out triangular formation..’ (Stan Gordon)

March 15th, 1992: Moscow astronomer E.V.Arsyukhin saw something extraordinary on the Moon – ‘At 1645
hrs, and lasting for 21/2 seconds, I observed the rapid flight, over a zig-zag course, of a square black body.
This body appeared literally “out of nowhere”. It flew at first towards the east, and then towards the west, and
then it vanished in the bowels of the Crater Alphons. The length of its flight was about 500 kms, and its speed
was in the neighbourhood of 200 kms per second. The length of the body was about 5 kms. Its speed was
uniform. I am totally confident of this. The quality of the viewing at the time was excellent.’ (A.Arkhipov, FSR
41-2[trans:G.Creighton])

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October 7th, 1992: Kharkov, Russia. Yu A.Lutsenko saw something mysterious on the Moon – ‘At 23.14 and
40 seconds, against the background of the Sea of Rain, I saw an extremely bright patch, with an assymetrical
outline, which was moving. It was seen slightly to the south of Plato and it travelled almost along the
meridian… for 41/2 minutes. When it vanished, it was not instantaneous, but lasted some 2-3 seconds, dying
out as it were.’ (A.Arkhipov, FSR 41-2[trans:G.Creighton])

March 31st, 1993: 1) Truro, Cornwall, UK; 1.09am. Phillip Young, “astronomer for some years,” observed, for
30-40 seconds, two very bright objects travel from the area of Ursa Minor, going parallel with the pointers in
Ursa Major. They were blue-white and “..left a ropey trail, like a vortex from a plane wing, though.. it was not a
plane because it had no navigation lights and was.. silent…”
2) Sligo County, Ireland; 1.10am. ‘Seen by Astronomer NW to SE.. two bright orange stars leaving fiery train
behind them. Other smaller, fainter objects with trails also.’ (Aw 19-2 & 19-3)

March 24th, 1994: Ossett, Yorkshire, England; approx.9pm. A father and son, both astronomers, made an
observation through a telescope set up in their garden. ‘There seemed to be hundreds of these lights moving
together. As I focussed the telescope on them, I suddenly saw that the lights were attached to much larger
objects. There were seven cigar-shaped objects – enormous. Three lines of small yellow/white lights
appeared to be running along the full length of them. At the front was a small red light. This continued for at
least thirty minutes. I have never seen anything like this in my life.’ (UFO 7/8-94)

May 11th, 1994: Brooklyn, New York, USA; 10pm. ‘While viewing the full moon through my Tele Vue
Genesis-sdf refractor telescope, I saw a small, perfectly round, black object pass over the lunar disk. The
object took approximately 10 to 15 seconds to make the transit. The object was in sharp focus, not fuzzy at
all. The moon was also in focus at the time. It appeared as if out of nowhere on the eastern edge of the
moon, travelled across the moon’s face from east to west, then disappeared into the black sky at the moon’s
western edge. I looked to see if it was visible with the naked eye after it had passed the moon, but it was not.
I do not recall exactly which eyepiece I was using at the time, but I am sure the magnification was somewhere
in the 30 to 60 power range. I am currently 34, and I have been an amateur astronomer ever since receiving
my first telescope at age 7. I am thoroughly familiar with the night sky, and I have perfect vision.’ (NUFORC)

June 15th, 1995: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA; 7.30pm. ‘..Three disk shaped objects were observed to
the north of the city and moving to the south. Objects were arranged in a triangular formation and appeared
blue in color, almost matching the color of the sky. When objects reached the zenith they abruptly veered to
the east and rapidly disappeared from view. When close to this observer, the objects were approx half the full
moon’s diameter. This observer is an amateur astronomer and has been for past 40 yrs. Prior to my
retirement i have been employed as an electro mech design engineer at various firms for over 40 yrs. I have
been furnished a Q clearance while employed at the Sandia corp during the early ’50’s.’ (NUFORC)

December 19th, 1995: Joliet, Illinois, USA; 3.20pm. ‘While driving east on U.S. Highway 30, an observer well
versed in astronomy and weather saw two objects in a clear sky, hovering. One.. appeared to float around the
other. They were coloured dull aluminium on top and black on the bottom. Both the tops and bottoms of the
objects were less than perfect circles. (They) were observed for about 8 miles of travel.’ (J.Rath ‘The I-Files’)

1995: North Vancouver, Canada. An astronomer told the RCMP that she had seen “a dark arrowhead-shaped
object – three times the size of a jumbo jet – with orange-yellow lights at the tips.” She reportedly told the
Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics that there “..was absolutely no sound, and the speed was incredible. This
was no aircraft or weather balloon. I found the experience a little disconcerting to say the least.”
(Can.Nat.Archives/UFORup, 1-7)

February 13th, 1996: Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland. ‘Amateur astronomer Alan White, 17, saw the object
through a friend’s telescope.’ (UFO 5/6-96)

February 18th, 1996: Brighton, England; 10.40pm – ‘I know that UFOs exist – two orange discs flew over my
house.. These had the apparent size about two-thirds the diameter of the full Moon, and were travelling at
about 1,000 ft and a speed of 200 miles per hour. They were completely silent. / I’ve spent a lot of time
stargazing as an amateur astronomer and have seen some very unusual sights (green meteors etc.), but

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

these objects were totally different and inexplicable. They were in sight for about 12-15 seconds and I could
estimate their altitude and speed from the height of the mist which was spreading across the sky at the time.
However, I have severe doubts about the extraterrestrial hypothesis..’ (Dr.Alan P.Morse, UFO 5/6-97)

April 10th, 1996: near Huntsville, Alabama, USA; 8.30pm. A female amateur astronomer and her six-year-old
daughter looking into the sky directly overhead saw “..a fuzzy white light.. like the Comet Hyakutake”
descending in an arc toward the horizon, moving very rapidly. It stopped falling just above some trees, and
the woman viewed it for 15 minutes with her telescope. It “..did not decrease in its intensity” as a meteor
would, and was “much larger than a star.” The UFO stopped, travelled horizontally to the left, stopped again,
travelled to the right a short distance, stopped once more, then moved straight up and straight down. Finally,
it veered leftward and was gone. (UFORup, 1-9)

May 5th, 1996: Wayne, New Jersey, USA; 10.12pm. A party of amateur astronomers set up their telescope
on a hillside, hoping to get good views of Venus, then prominent on the western horizon. The first astronomer
peering through the telescope’s eyepiece saw “..a bright flash near Venus.” S/he said, “At first I thought it was
some sort of meteor exploding in the upper atmosphere.” Another member of the group described the
explosion as “A whitish-green colour.”
When the first astronomer looked again, s/he could make out a grey saucer shape with “..two bright lights on
the top of the dome. It was about the size of a two-bedroom house.” There were two transparent “glass
blisters” fore and aft of the object’s dome. While in view for about 20 seconds, it hovered and then flew away
to the north very fast. (UFORup, 1-13)

“I’ve been stargazing since the age of six. I’m now 73 and in all that time I’ve not seen one UFO. Astronomers
don’t generally see UFOs. We leave that sort of thing to housewives and policemen.” “Anyone who believes
in UFOs must also believe in Father Christmas.” Patrick Moore, 1996.

“UFOs are a figment of the imagination.” Richard Taylor, President Interplanetary Society, 1996.

early-November 1996: Bombay, India. ‘..In the Thane-Panvel district of the city, eye-witness Ms. Brooks
spotted a glowing “frisbee-like object” seen moving in an arch around 9.00pm.. / “It disappeared in a few
seconds but not before emitting a beam of light. I had my binoculars and telescope which I use for star-gazing
from my farm, but before I could get to them it vanished. / I am a regular skywatcher and I know what an
artificial satellite looks like – something like a zero candle bulb. This was something else – brighter, golden
without the blinking, coloured lights you see on aeroplanes. It was something like the planet Saturn seen from
the side without its rings,” said Ms.Brooks.’ (G.W.Birdsall, UFO 3/4-97)

May 22nd, 1997: Tillsonburg, Ontario, Canada; 10.30pm. Amateur astronomer Nicholas K. set up his
Schmidt Cassegrain telescope in his backyard. He was looking “to find galaxies in the Big Dipper” when he
noticed “a giant white cloud and against it as a background.. a cigar-shaped object about the size of an
aeroplane, black or brown in colour.”
The UFO was “unlit (and) it had four or five wings at right angles to and along its body. Flew at speed of
plane. No sound.. No idea of height but beneath cloud. It hadn’t rained.. Didn’t see craft through telescope…”
(Joe Daniels/UFORup, 2-23)

July 31st, 1997: Barrie, Ontario, Canada; 10.10pm. An amateur astronomer observed an unusual meteor
with “a brilliant green trail and a trail of sparks like conventional fireworks…It made a noise as it passed
overhead. Not a whistle, not a whine, a rushing noise and a series of pop, pop, pop noises, like an out of tune
car engine backfiring. As an amateur astronomer, I know meteors are usually silent unless they are bolides
and explode in the atmosphere or on impact. I have seen lots of meteors before, and all were silent.” (UFO
Times 45)

October 5th, 1997: Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA; 7pm. An amateur astronomer witness, who spends many
hours observing the sky, noticed a ‘comet’ heading north. It looked like it was moving at the speed of a
satellite, with the tail fading to nothing – ‘I know comets don’t move like this.’
( NUFORC)

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A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

December 24th, 1997: Kimsar, Rajahstan State, India; 11pm – ‘A Swiss family and a dozen local residents
watched as a UFO performed aerobatic manoeuvres high above the town of Kimsar.. Eyewitness Alex
Carrara said his family had left their home in Geneva, Switzerland to spend the Christmas holiday in India.
Alex was standing outside their rented home with his parents, brother and sister when they saw a crowd of a
dozen or so local people looking at the sky. / “We were struck by the sight, and there was no sound,” Alex
said. The UFO was bright yellow or orange and seemed to be surrounded by a yellow-orange aura as it
followed three different courses. “I know the sky well and have been studying astronomy for years,” Alex said.
“I know this was not a star.” / Alex also pointed out that it couldn’t have been a distant electric light because
“there are no lights in Kimsar – there is no electricity.”‘ (UFORup, 3-3)

March 2nd, 1998: Rosario, Santa Fe province, Argentina. ‘..the Rev.Pizzi, astronomy professor and director
of the Colegio Cristo Rey observatory in Rosario, reportedly saw “a strange object of a yellow colour with an
aura of the same magnitude as the planet Venus.” / Rev.Pizzi said the condit ion of the sky was clear as he
peered through the eyepiece to watch the object which “hovered in the sky for a period of ten minutes” before
shooting off at speed towards the Andes. / The professor declined to call the object a ‘UFO’ but did concede:
“Evidentially there is an enigma in the skies of our planet.” (UFORup, 3-10/UFO Argentina)

March 24th, 1998: Another UFO sighting by long-time amateur astronomer ‘Jeff.’
(see Apr.10th&Dec.31st, 1974)

April 29th, 1998: Singleton, W.Australia; around 7.30pm. Two families ‘..reported seeing a strange orange-
yellow object travelling quickly across the sky in a southeasterly direction. The light was quite large, made no
noise and was travelling at quite a low altitude. One of the.. witnesses is an amateur astronomer.’ (UFORup,
3-23)

July 12th, 1998: Sutersville, Pennsylvania, USA. An amateur astronomer doing some backyard observations
sighted a UFO. The witness ‘..owns a telescope and is familiar with the planets’ and states that he was
watching some aircraft when he saw a “bright, star-like source of light approx. west-southwest.. in the
generally clear sky.”
After fetching/focussing his telescope, the witness could see “..what appeared to be a solid white globe, but
the centre of it appeared to be more transparent.” It didn’t move, but there was another smaller sphere just
above it “..making a continuous back-and-forth motion, in a somewhat circular fashion.. (This one) moved
from a 10 o’clock position to a 2 o’clock position and then would reverse the motion.. continued for over two
minutes.” (Stan Gordon/UFORup, 3-29)

July 25th, 1998: Aalst, Belgium. “I’m a 14 year old amateur astronomer that was observer with the Aalst
Astronomy Club on July 25, 1998. Suddenly, there were some objects with green lines visible in our
telescopes in the constellation of Sculptor. These objects were also visible in the finderscopes. They were
slowly moving away. Their structure was irregular (something like aeroplane gases). Magnitude: about m7.0.
heaven-horizon. They were about 10-13 degrees long. we saw four of them. P.S.: I’m not very interested in
UFO’s, but this was something strange.” (Lennart/J.Thompson, ISUR)

October 22nd, 1998: Mordialloc, Victoria, Australia. ‘Witness is an amateur astronomer who described three
orange lights larger than star but with less magnitude. The lights had no sound and maintained a regular
formation for the 5-10 seconds that she could see them. They were no longer visible when she reached
another window to follow the object. She knows of meteorites and other astronomical phenomena. She also
mentioned that the lights were lower than local aircraft in and out of Moorabbin Airport.’ (Diane
Harrison/Ufomind)

November 6th, 1998: Bend, Oregon, USA; 5.55pm. A formation of five sky objects in a straight line following
one another, was seen by 50 year old ex-Air Force Weather observer, who had been an amateur astronomer
for about 15 years. (NUFORC)

November 16th, 1998: Austin, Texas, USA; 2.30am. ‘Triangular object w/three hemi-spherical ‘projections’
from the bottom, travelling N-S reflecting pink glow of city lights… I am an amateur astronomer with a degree
in Physics. I am very sceptical about what I saw, but have no explanation. I have to count out normal balloons

46

A List Of Sightings By Astronomers

or weather balloons due to the extremely fast movement of the object and the lack of any wind whatsoever. I
was very startled to find a similar report in your database dated 10/8/98, also in Austin.’ (NUFORC)

November 18th, 1998: Stafford, South Australia; 3.20am. During the Leonid Meteor Shower, an amateur
astronomer saw “a bright light going from left to right, then straight up.”

January 13th, 1999: Northern Territory, Australia. Astronomer Matthew Pearce, 23, spotted a UFO with his
telescope while skywatching – “I observed an object due south, around 10 kilometres from Yulura. The object
resembled a star, silvery blue in colour. I heard no noise. Height around 15 degrees, southeast of Yulura, near
Uluru. Visibility clear. It looked like a planet where there shouldn’t be one. I watched it for around two minutes,
then the object blinked out.” (UFORup, 4-7)

July 6th, 1999: Kankauna, Wisconsin, USA; 10.50pm. ‘A silent, triangular shaped object with a faint reddish
light in each of its 3 corners flew directly over me… I am & for over 30 years have been a backyard
astronomer. I have always had a fascination for the night sky. As a boy I spent many weekends & summers in
the remote north woods of Wisconsin learning the night sky. I know more about the stars & planets than the
average person so there is no mistaking what I saw, the only question I have is, what did I see?’ (NUFORC)

July 10th, 1999: Sunshine, Victoria, Australia. Four witnesses, including two policemen, observed four
orange-red lights about magnitude +1-0, for about 15 minutes.. The objects were moving SW to SE at a
distance of 50 (..) from the observers. They faded off into clouds in formation. One policeman commented,
“That is freaky!” Another witness with an astronomical background stated: “Those objects did not look normal
and the police officers were alarmed as well.”
(Australian UFO Bulletin/Auforn 18)

August 28th, 1999: Bronx, New York, USA; 10pm. ‘..I had decided I was going to try to video tape the moon
thru my Meade ETX90 telescope.. I was looking thru my 8mm camcorder, which is looking thru the scope at
48X.. The moon was East/SouthEast at the time.. approximate point in the sky.. was Right Angle 0hr15.0m
and Declination -3*37 degrees.. I then see a round object with no lights or distinguishing marks move across
the face of the moon in a straight type of motion. It made no sound, no strange anything at all, just a
round/disclike object going across the moon.. I was recording, so I have it on tape..’ Witness continued to
observe the moon, and saw the same thing or an identical object cross the moon in the same direction. Both
were ‘..round, black..’ and recorded on tape. Stated the witness – ‘..I do not claim this to be a spacecraft, or
meteor, or satellite.. or anything else. I am just a amatuer astronomer who saw something weird. I have tried
to use some deductive reasoning to come to some conclusion. And my conclusion is that it simply is a UFO.
No doubt about it.’ (NUFORC)

October 11th, 1999: due south of Kirbyville, USA; 8.35-10.35pm. A detailed sighting by a very serious
amateur astronomer; his friend with years of shared stargazing – who called from 60 miles distant; (the
reporting witness’s) daughter, and at least five others. (NUFORC)

October 12th, 1999: Three Rivers, Michigan, USA; 7.40pm. The witness has been an amateur astronomer
since 1970. Saw two ‘jet contrails,’ then spotted ‘two round star like objects about 10 or 20 degrees above the
horizon.’ They had the same colour – ‘pinkish orangeish’ – as the jets. Witness does not believe they are stars
or planets and took photos. (NUFORC)

November 30th, 1999: Cumming, Georgia, USA; 10pm. ‘A brilliant amber, circular object trailing sparks
moving from zenith to western horizon (traveling approximately due west) very quickly, in about 1 second.
One object trailing sparks or debris, surprisingly large, the circular shape was clearly visible. 1/8th the
approximate diameter of the moon? debris trail cover about 15 degrees of arc. Observer is a civil engineer,
amateur astronomer.’ (NUFORC)

December 1st, 1999: At Santo Domingo, it was 11pm, when an experienced amateur astronomer ‘..saw
through a 5″ telescope a black tear shaped object against the moon’s disc. It moved spinning its backward
directed narrow end..’ (NUFORC)

47

A List Of Sightings By Astronomers
April 23rd, 2000: Sighting at 9.30pm, from Scarborough, Toronto, Canada. ‘I was looking west watching a
commercial jet overhead and noticed three disc shaped objects that formed a triangle move quickly and
silently north… I am 36 years old, married and have been an amateur astronomer for 2-3 years now…’
(NUFORC)
May 3rd, 2000: Toonagabbie, NSW, Australia; 6.35pm. Stuart saw a white/silver ball emitting light. It was
moving 3 to 4 times faster than a plane, and travelled in a straight path for about 3 seconds to a position
behind trees, about 200m distant. ‘It appeared to be sitting on a hill and Stuart could align telegraph poles
with the object.. (it) appeared small with no tail or sonic boom. Stuart is an amateur astronomer.’ (K.Burden,
UFOR(NSW)/Auforn 19)
October 1st, 2000: near Shackleton, W.Australia; midnight. John C. was camping with his friend, when he
noticed ‘..a 45 degree triangular formation of star-like objects all with the intensity and brightness of Sirius.
The three.. objects were perfectly still and about 15 degrees above the horizon before just fading out over a
period of one or two minutes. As an amateur astronomer he knew there were no stars in that area of the sky.
John continued to watch.. but they did not reappear.’
(D.Moffet, AUFORN/OZ Files)

***

48

The post A List of UFO Sightings by Astronomers (Compiled in 2000) first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post A List of UFO Sightings by Astronomers (Compiled in 2000) appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

A witness claims to have seen a vortex in the sky from which shiny particles fell onto his property. This occurred in Newtown, Pennsylvania on January 21, 2014.There was no mention of an unidentified object observed. The objective is to identify the shiny particulates.

Conclusions

• The shiny particulates are identified as common glitter. They are composed of a man-made common polyester specifically identified as poly(ethylene terephthalate). Glitter is commonly made from this polyester.1 This conclusion is confirmed by both microscopic and infrared analysis.
• Analysis of the soil was not done because of the positive identification of the particulate as a man-made product. Furthermore, there was no observation of an UFO so no physical evidence commonly observed when these craft are in proximity would be detected. However, the soils will be permanently stored for possible future analysis if it becomes warranted.

The Analysis

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The post Analysis of Shiny Particles Purportedly Falling from the Sky MUFON Case File: 55131 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Two formations in snow appeared in December 2009, one on December 19th and the other on December 22nd. (See http://bltresearch.com/robbert/snow09.php. Observations of them included:

a.) No footprints were found in the rings or elsewhere in the field;
b.) No marks of any kind in the centers of the circular rings;
c.) Rings were created by removal of the top 4 inches of snow, but snow was not removed down to the surface of the soil.
d.) No evidence of the snow that had been removed to create rings (where did it go?);
e.) No evidence of icing in the rings (which would be expected if something had been used to melt the snow in the rings).

Another snow formation appeared on February 2, 2010. There was much less snow on the ground than in the above formations, and this one is also very “rough” looking, i.e. not as “geometric” or precise. And there are “scrape” marks, the same as appeared in the larger rings in the other two formations, as if somebody just dragged something around and around. There are no footprints anywhere in any of the rings, and even the slightest weight on the snow leaves a very clear mark. This time snow samples were collected for analysis. Following are diagrams of the formation with sampling locations, as well as photographs.

The objective of this analysis is to determine if there is any chemical signature which could indicate a substance placed on the field either prior to or following the discovery of the new snow formation.

Conclusions

• pH measurements and amounts of residues from the snow control and formation snows are equivalent. Ph measurements amounted to 5.8 for all samples. This is normal for snow. Residues amount (on average) to 0.1 g/l for all samples.
• No anomalous material is obvious in the formation snow samples. All snow samples (both control and formation) contain similar components, which can be considered as originating from the environment and some contamination. While they are qualitatively similar, they quantitatively vary in amounts of components. The control samples contain environmental materials such as inorganic sulfate and nitrate, humate and carboxylic acid salt functionalities, which resemble sodium formate (though this structure is not confirmed), and some natural ester. A trace amount of poly(dimethylsiloxane) contamination is also detected. This may be from the containers. The formation snows contain environmental components such as humate, and carboxylic acid salt similar to sodium formate, and inorganic nitrate and sulfate.
• It should be noted that inorganic nitrates appear to predominate only in snow formation samples C and D. The two nitrates appear to be different. Spectral bands in C are most similar to sodium nitrate and those in D are closer to ammonium nitrate. It is unknown if this is significant.
• No snow melting components were found in the formation samples. Sodium formate is possibly present, though not confirmed, in both control and formation

The Analysis

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Major General William C. Garland is commander of the 1st Strategic Aerospace Division at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

General Garland was born in 1916, in Barnesville, Ga., where he attended high school and junior college at Gordon Military College. During this period he served over four years with the Georgia National Guard. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in May 1942, and immediately entered pilot training at the Greenville Aviation School, Ocala, Fla. He completed pilot training and received his pilot wings at Turner Field, Ga., in March 1943, and completed B-17 transition training at Sebring, Fla., in April 1943.

During World War II, General Garland served with the 401st Bombardment Group stationed in England and flew 32 combat missions in B-17 bomber aircraft. In June 1945 he returned to the United States and subsequently was assigned to Davis-Monthan Field, Ariz., as commanding officer of the Davis-Monthan West Camp.

In October 1945 General Garland went to Colorado Springs, Colo., and was assigned to Headquarters Second Air Force as chief of Operations and Training Division, and in 1946 became operations and training staff officer with the Fifteenth Air Force. In 1948 he was assigned as commander of the 32nd Bombardment Squadron, Smokey Hill Air Force Base, Kan. After graduation in June 1950 from the Air Command and Staff School, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., he was assigned to Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., as requirements officer and later served as chief, Programs Division, Directorate of Plans.

General Garland was transferred to Madrid, Spain, in April 1954, where he served in the Plans Section of the Joint U.S. Military Group and in November was named chief of staff of the group. In October 1956 he became chief of staff of the Sixteenth Air Force in Spain. He returned to the United States in May 1957, and was assigned to Lockbourne Air Force Base, Ohio, as deputy commander of the 91st Strategic Wing and later of the 376th Bombardment Wing.

In August 1958 he became commander of the 97th Bombardment Wing, Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, and from December 1958 to July 1961 he served as commander of the 98th Bombardment Wing, Lincoln Air Force Base, Neb.

General Garland entered the National War College, Washington, D.C., in 1961, and following graduation was assigned as chief of staff, Second Air Force, Barksdale Air Force Base, La. During the National War College assignment he obtained his master’s degree in international affairs from The George Washington University. From March 1964 to August 1965 he was commander of the 12th Strategic Aerospace Division at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.

In August 1965 he became deputy director of information, and in June 1967 he assumed duties as director of information, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. He became commander of the 1st Strategic Aerospace Division, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in August 1969.

He is a command pilot. His military decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster, Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters, Air Force Commendation Medal with two oak leaf clusters and Army Commendation Medal.

Interview

The following is the UFO portion of Major General Garland’s oral history interview. Below, you will find the interview, as received under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), in it’s entirety.

A: Another thing and, once again, this is not the most important aspect. What was the status of the flying saucers when you were in SAF/IO? Did you ever find yourself standing up there and trying to say there are none?

G: Yes. I told them we had the little green men in a hangar at Wright-Patterson. (laughter)

A: You are the one who wrote that one? (laughter)

G: We were having about a thousand letters a month come into our community relations section on flying saucers, UFOs, so we decided we had to do something about it. This was not just SAF/OI. The Air Staff got involved in it. A guy named Randy Holzapple [Gen Joseph R. ], a lieutenant general, was involved in this sort of thing . We worked up a program to let the president’s Scientific Advisory Board get involved in it. We got about a million dollars from someplace and hired this fellow Dr. Condon, who at that time, I think, was at the University of Colorado . Before that he had been running the Bureau of Standards or something and a highly qualified and capable guy. We gave them the money. Our Systems Command people in the Pentagon drew up the contract with them. We didn’t handle it; we said, this is what we need to do. Here’s what we want. We want scientific, top technical people in the country to evaluate this problem. We want them to write a report in detail. We want them to give us a copy of the report, and at the same time we want them to give the press a copy of the report. We don’t want to know a damned thing about it until we see the final report, and we get it at the same time that the press gets it. You are going to have to monitor the contract just like you would monitor a contract if you buy an airplane. We don’t want anybody in the blue suit side giving anybody instructions on what to do. That is the ‘way it was handled. I don’t know’ if you have ever seen the report or not.

A: This is project Blue Book that used to be at Wright-Patterson. We used to have all that down at Maxwell.

G: It’s very interesting because in this study they went back to things like “Ezekiel saw the wheel ,” and they went back to your imagination. In other words , once you started shooting missiles and rockets, now you can imagine that you are going. Of the whole study though, it came out that a very, very high percentage, into the 90s, were explainable. You ended up with only 2 or 3 or 4 percent that were not explainable. In other words, we never questioned that an airline pilot saw something. We questioned what he saw, not what he thought he saw. Most of these things these people were able to reproduce. In a laboratory you could recreate the atmospheric condition, the lighting, and the shadows at that point in time and come up with an answer that the scientific community could accept.

Getting into the technical aspects of it , let’s just reverse the situation . If we are going to outer space, there are windows in which you go in, certain time period. You are going to go in these time periods, or you won’t have enough energy to get there. Then you can back that up and say, “If they are coming here, they are going to come in this time period. If they don’t come in that time period, then it is something else, and they couldn’t come. “It is like when you see an object going through here. You know you reach the speed of sound and you break the barrier. You can ‘t go at that speed of sound without breaking the sound barrier , whether you are round, square, oblong, or what. (laughter) 

That quieted down the thing for a while. Then we had Major Kehoe, an ex-Marine, and Carl Sagan from Cornell, who is a famous TV character now. Kehoe made a living at this. He had a vested interest in it, so he kept the thing going. Sagan had a vested interest in it because he was trying to get us to put up the radio type things that you could send signals out or you could receive signals from outer space. He couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t sponsor all of his programs on that. He is a brilliant man, he is a good scientist. He is involved in NASA programs, but when you have a vested interest you can say, “Well, there might be something to it,” and then the next thing you know, you’ve got a big story and got a lot of people interested. It was one heck of a problem to quiet down.

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/afhistory/Garland.pdf

The post Oral History Interview with Maj. Gen. William C. Garland Regarding UFOs first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post Oral History Interview with Maj. Gen. William C. Garland Regarding UFOs appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

That is, until it mysteriously vanished.

Background

The background behind my discovery of Air Force Instruction 10-206, is pretty short and sweet. I wanted to get proof of the fact that the U.S. Military and U.S. Government was still, decades after the closure of Project Blue Book, interested in the UFO phenomenon.

I stumbled on AFI 10-206 by accident in the year 2000  (don’t be confused by the document saying 2008 above — that’s simply a later revision).

I was surfing through some online government archives, and came across a reference to Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). It read, as follows:

Chapter 5
COMMUNICATIONS INSTRUCTIONS REPORTING
VITAL INTELLIGENCE SIGHTINGS (CIRVIS)

5.1. Subject and Purpose. This report provides vital information to the security of the United States and Canada which, in the opinion of the observer, requires very urgent defensive action or investigation by the US and/or Canadian Armed Forces.

5.2. Submitted By. Any Air Force personnel.

5.3. Submitted To:

5.3.1. Airborne reports: US, Canadian military, or civilian communications facility.

5.3.2. Post-landing reports: Commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Cheyenne Mt, Colorado, or HQ Northern NORAD Region, North Bay, Ontario, Canada, whichever is more convenient. If landing outside Canadian or US territories, submit reports through the nearest Canadian military or diplomatic representative or US.

5.4. When Submitted. As soon as possible after the intelligence sighting.

5.5. How Submitted. Reports are normally UNCLASSIFIED but handled as FOUO.

5.5.1. Use the most rapid means of transmission available. For airborne reports, use the same procedures as for air traffic control. When pilots cannot establish contact with a ground station, make maximum effort to relay the report via other aircraft.

5.5.2. To avoid delays while airborne, repeat the word CIRVIS three times before the message to preempt all other communications (except distress and urgency). If this fails to clear the frequencies, use the International Urgency Signal “PAN” spoken three times. For the ground relay of airborne reports or post-landing reports, use FLASH precedence.

5.5.3. Transmit during MINIMIZE.

5.5.4. Use the ESC C1 designator- Continue reporting, priority. 5.6. Reporting Instructions: 5.6.1. Facilities receiving CIRVIS reports will rapidly process and forward them as prescribed by NORAD Instruction 10-19. 5.6.2. Report all unidentifiable, suspicious, or hostile traffic (land, aerospace, or seaborne), which, because of its nature, course, or actions, considered a threat to the security of the United States or Canada. Such reporting extends the early warning defense system for the United States and Canada. There are five types of CIRVIS reports:

5.6.2.1. Issue initial CIRVIS reports while airborne (or as warranted, upon landing).

5.6.2.2. Issue post-landing CIRVIS reports if airborne reports made.

5.6.2.3. Issue follow-up CIRVIS reports by anyone with additional information about an earlier report (refer to the initial report).

5.6.2.4. Issue cancellation CIRVIS reports once sightings are positively identified as friendly or determined it was erroneously reported.

5.6.2.5. Submit evaluation CIRVIS reports to each addressee of the above CIRVIS reports. Promptly submit evaluation reports to keep all interested parties fully informed.

5.6.3. Report the following specific sightings:

5.6.3.1. Hostile or unidentified aircraft, which appears directed against the United States, Canada, or their forces.

5.6.3.2. Missiles.

5.6.3.3. Unidentified flying objects.

5.6.3.4. Hostile or unidentified military surface vessels or submarines.

5.6.3.5. Any other individual surface vessels, submarines, or aircraft of unconventional design engaged in suspicious activity, observed in an unusual location, or on a course, which may threaten the United States, Canada, or their forces.

5.6.3.6. Any unexplained or unusual activity, which may indicate a possible attack against or through Canada or the United States (includes the presence of any unidentified or suspicious ground parties in remote or sparsely populated areas, including the polar region).

5.6.3.7. Unlisted airfields, facilities, weather stations, or air navigation aids.

Granted, there may be a whole lot of nonsense in there that doesn’t mean much to you, but check out 5.6.3.3. “Unidentified Flying Objects.”  So, what does that mean?

If you take the company line, then you believe the U.S. Military, ESPECIALLY, the U.S. Air Force, cares nothing about the UFO phenomenon. So, if that were true, why would they have a regulation still on the books, mandating that all military pilots report them? (That is, still on the books at the time I discovered it – make sure you read through until the end).

I thought to myself, this may be the “Smoking Gun!” This was finally proof that the Air Force was still collecting UFO reports.  I dug a bit deeper, and found where these CIRVIS reports were being sent to (that’s what the reports were called, if filed under AFI 10-206).  I found that piece of the puzzle, here:

Once I found this reference, I thought I had it made. I filed a FOIA request to the NORAD installation, and finally, got a response. I expected to receive a packet of CIRVIS reports dealing with UFOs. Instead, I got this:

Not sure how you spell, “convenience,” but my guess it will include the above somehow.

There aren’t many places that are not subject to the FOIA, and wouldn’t you know, that all “UFO” information, better known as CIRVIS reports, are sent to one of those places. Hmmm.

The letter went on to state that in the spirit of the FOIA, they looked for UFO information but found no records. In essence, they claimed there were no CIRVIS / UFO reports that were ever sent under Air Force Instruction 10-206. That’s odd. Not one?

The Canadian Connection

Well, you’re going to to kick me on this one because it took me over a year before it dawned on me.

The answer to this riddle laid within the letter above.

Under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, NORAD was exempted, as it was under Canadian control as well as American. Therefore, U.S. law did not apply. However, after about a year of thinking about it, I thought maybe the Canadian government had an equivalent that I could use to access the documents.

I learned that there was the “Access to Information Act (AIA).” This was, for the most part, identical to the FOIA here in America, but I just didn’t know if a U.S. Citizen could use it.

I called the Department of National Defence (equivalent to the Department of Defense in America) and I asked them on the telephone if a U.S. citizen could use the AIA?  Although this was quite a few years ago (circa 2000), I remember it like it was yesterday. After I asked my question to the nice gentleman who answered the phone – he thought for a moment, and said, “Well, if the information has been released before, I do not see why not.”

So, I thought, “Great!”  I began explaining what I was looking for. “What I am looking for are called CIRVIS reports, the acronym stands for Communication Instructions for Reporting…….”

He interrupted me (politely) before I ever got the sentence out. He said, “Oh yeah! I have those right here!”

A very awkward silence ensued.

He had no idea who I was, why I was calling, or even the fact that the call had to do with UFOs or CIRVIS.

This was not a UFO office. This wasn’t a special CIRVIS division. This wasn’t even after being placed on a hold. He had them, within arm’s reach, and it took only seconds for him to grab them.

What happened next was pretty obvious. I asked if I could get a copy of them. He asked for my VISA, and I’ll tell you that was about the best $3 (U.S dollars) I ever spent.

A few weeks later, the stack of CIRVIS reports came in the mail:

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However, before I got off the phone, he said something I didn’t expect. “You know, this isn’t all of them!”  He informed me that there were many more CIRVIS  and UFO related reports in the Archives division. Years later, through the assistance and generosity of researcher Michel Deschamps, I have also obtained those documents. You can download those pages, here.

The Vanishing Act

For a few years, I would bring up the above find in my public speaking. In fact, I even worked it in to a History Channel documentary I was writing at the time, and I spoke about it in a few television interviews.  But I didn’t feel it was getting the attention it deserved.

However, in 2011, my friend, investigative journalist Lee Speigel from the Huffington Post, decided to do an expose on my work and The Black Vault.

He asked a very commonly asked question, “What are some of the most intriguing documents?”

So, I gave him a short list, which included this very find. I felt then (as I still do now) the above document, along with my trouble to get it, is an important piece of evidence. I even showed Mr. Speigel that he didn’t have to take my word for it – I found it could be directly downloaded from the Air Force itself, on their website, and I pointed him in the right direction to get it.

You had to dig quite a bit — but it was there! And it was amazing it was right there in the open.  It was just that nobody was looking hard enough to find it!

While investigating my claims and the information, he did what any great journalist would do. He contacted the Air Force at the Pentagon, to get their side of it. Why would they still, after all these decades, have a UFO regulation ‘on the books’ if they claimed no interest in the phenomena after their investigation that ended in 1969?

He received no written response or return calls at this point.

A few days later, with a deadline looming, Mr. Speigel went back online to download the manual again, and finish his article.

I received a fairly frantic, but excited call, late on a Friday evening. I was in Los Angeles, while Mr. Speigel was in New York.  It was late for me, so with the time difference, I figured this had to be good since it was SO late for him.

I must admit, I never expected what he was going to tell me.

When I answered, he informed me that while re-downloading the Air Force Instruction 10-206, he discovered that Chapter 5 was ‘missing’ and had been replaced with something on hurricanes.  The references to UFOs, CIRVIS and the entire reporting procedure — had vanished.

To be honest, and with all due respect to him, I thought he messed up. Government archives are archaic, disorganized at best, and it’s easy to click on the wrong thing. So I told him when I got home, I’d find the correct link and shoot it over to him.

But I was wrong. The Air Force, within 72 hours after the Huffington Post inquiry, deleted the entire chapter, modified the instruction, and silently republished it online with a brand new publication date.

Chapter 5 was, in fact, about hurricanes.  CIRVIS was completely omitted. It was like a different publication all together.

I filed a FOIA request for all documents relating to the change of AFI 10-206. I came up with the change log below:

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Today, AFI 10-206 has been revised again, and is current a/o 12 April 2016.

Linked directly from the Air Force, you can find one of the supplemental versions here:

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Don’t Be Too Skeptical

AFI 10-206, and the amazing vanishing act, in my opinion, is an important piece of evidence for this field. And if you think it was just simply an old, outdated, publication that was changed because it was long forgotten and Mr. Speigel just brought it up to them — think again. While I was lecturing about it for many years, I watched as AFI 10-206 was edited and republished multiple times. I would update my powerpoint presentation, to ensure I had the most recent copy to show audiences. Those changes prove that they had every opportunity during those edits to remove CIRVIS and UFOs.  Yet, after each edit, the entire chapter was untouched and UFOs remained in.

Do you believe it was simply a coincidence, that this revision which entirely removed the chapter dedicated to UFO sightings and CIRVIS reports, would by some amazing chance, come within 48-72 hours of a major media organization attempting to put a spotlight on it?

Post your thoughts below – and let me know!  Because I sure don’t believe it.

The post Air Force Instruction 10-206 – The Vanishing UFO Regulation first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post Air Force Instruction 10-206 – The Vanishing UFO Regulation appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Introduction

As published by NIDS:

For the first time NIDS is electronically publishing a book manuscript written in 1975 by Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla, the head of the USAF Project Blue Book.

Project Blue Book was supposed to be an objective investigation and documentation of the UFO phenomenon carried out by the United States Air Force from March 1952 until December 1969. Project Blue Book was the successor to Projects Sign and Grudge. The book is a summary in Quintanilla’s own words of his involvement, as head of project Blue Book, in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon.

“UFOs, an Air Force Dilemma” was also given the title “UFOs: A $20,000,000 Fiasco” by Quintanilla in a book proposal to unnamed publishers. NIDS’s purpose in making available this previously unpublished manuscript is twofold: (a) to demonstrate to the interested public, through the authors own unedited words, Lt. Col. Quintanilla’s attitudes, preconceptions, and biases that dominated Project Blue Book, and (b) to make available to historians and to the public the methodology and practices employed by the United States Air Force in investigating and cataloging the UFO phenomenon.

NIDS had the choice of introducing editorial changes into the manuscript. We refrained in order to preserve the historical accuracy of this document. The manuscript covers the years of Quintanilla’s own involvement from July 1963 to December 1969 in Project Blue Book and also contains many valuable insights into the public and media reaction to the USAF funded study, from the perspective of the author.

In particular, Lt. Col. Quintanilla’s antagonistic descriptions of University of Arizona professor James A McDonald’s pursuit of the UFO phenomena as well as Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s relationship with project Blue Book are annotated for the public record in considerable detail. NIDS does NOT endorse or support Lt. Colonel Quintanilla’a opinions, biases, or judgments regarding any organizations or individuals mentioned in the manuscript, nor about the UFO phenomenon in general. Rather, our intent is to enter Lt. Col. Quintanilla’s thoughts, attitudes, and actions in his own words into the public record.

In this way, the public will be free to judge for themselves the efficacy and serious lack thereof by Lt. Col Quintanilla of the taxpayer-funded investigations of the UFO phenomenon that were carried out by the United States Air Force during the period of 1963–1969.

The public will be free to judge from Quintanilla’s own words whether the USAF investigation led by Quitanilla could objectively accomplish the mission it was asked to perform on behalf of American taxpayers.

Disclaimer:  NIDS does NOT endorse the views espoused by Hector Quintanilla in this manuscript entitled “UFOs, an Air Force Dilemma” regarding the UFO phenomenon or regarding any individuals or organizations mentioned herein. The views are those of the author himself and are being presented by NIDS solely as a historical service to the public. NIDS assumes no liability or responsibility for any of the statements made in this manuscript.

Download the Manuscript

 “UFOs, An Air Force Dilemma” by Hector Quintanilla, USAF (Retired)

https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/afdilemma.pdf

The post “UFOs, An Air Force Dilemma” by Hector Quintanilla, USAF (retired) first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post “UFOs, An Air Force Dilemma” by Hector Quintanilla, USAF (retired) appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.