Going Nuclear at the National Press Club

Maybe this time things will be different.

In 1964, many of us pinned our hopes on a document entitled The UFO Evidence, published by the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). The late Richard Hall, Maj. Donald Keyhoe (USMC, Retired) and a team of dedicated UFO researchers worked at a fevered pitch to produce and edit the lengthy report so that every member of Congress would receive a copy. This was important stuff, filled with reports, science and technical information about the UFO phenomenon gleaned from impressive military, government and civilian witnesses. Unfortunately, though many in Congress found the document of interest, and even urgent in its warnings, one could almost hear the sounds of a collective yawn throughout the House and Senate when the concept of everybody getting together and taking some sort of action actually reared its dubious head. To this very day, The UFO Evidence stands tall, and to this very day widespread congressional interest does not. Maybe because UFOs don't vote.

The Next Big Thing arrived a few years ago in the guise of The Disclosure Project, via a meeting held at the National Press Club in Washington. There were problems, a major glitch being a still troubling loss of Internet visualization and audio when the connection to viewers all over the world failed. But at least many among the media commented politely and lent credence to what they heard with their own ears, close up and personal, from competent witnesses who encountered UFOs, sometimes under dramatic circumstances.

Now, as some of you may have read in Frank Warren's UFO Chronicles (see link), it appears the National Press Club will again host a UFO conference, next fall in Washington, D.C.
When that happens, history will be made and -- if inquisitive ladies and gentlemen of the press react as one would hope with weathered anticipation -- the proceedings could exert a major influence upon the process of open government in the U.S. The event, apparently scheduled to include at least a dozen former and retired U.S. military personnel who experienced UFO visitations at crucially important nuclear weapons installations, will be organized by UFO/nukes connection researcher Robert Hastings and former U.S. Air Force Capt. Robert Salas (himself a witness to such activity and a participant at the previous NPC conference mentioned above).

Salas and Hastings have thought this out, fortunately, for by announcing the event a year in advance they hope to attract other former military personnel wishing to appear and/or write accounts of their UFO/missile base experiences for inclusion in the 2110 conference. According to their press release, UFO encounters at Air Force and Navy nuclear installations may still be occurring.

Everybody's fond expectation is that ultimate disclosure of UFO information by the U.S. government will materialize, as it has increasingly in foreign countries. My personal wild speculation suggests that NICAP's major fatal flaw in 1964 was an inability to enlist the amount of serious media interest necessary to influence congressional sources into exerting definitive action. It remains the misfortune of the people's right to know that the UFO and UFO vs. nukes issue stays below the public radar while simultaneously evidencing itself on government radar screens. The real question is whether Mr. Hastings, Capt. Salas and associates can convince media representatives, who are sure to attend their presentation in abundance, that First Amendment practitioners and all the tools at their disposal are urgently required.

Salas and Hastings may be contacted per their individual e-mail addresses:

rsalas15@roadrunner.com

hastings444@att.net

A 1972 UFO Report from Hanoi

Just a little history here. During the Vietnam conflict, private United States UFO investigative organizations received reports from their own members who happened to be in the military, stationed in Southeast Asia. APRO's Coral Lorenzen confirmed to me many years ago that APRO members stationed in that part of the world stayed on top of UFO incidents, and indeed various newsletters and journals occasionally reported on S.E. Asian UFO activity. For the most part, news services either remained blissfully uninformed about these incidents, or simply didn't care. But sometimes. . .

This one certainly wasn't among the best reports, but I did find a curious and widely reported September, 1972 news account from Agence France-Presse about an object observed over Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. According to a reporter with binoculars, a bright spherical "luminous orange" object appeared high over the city in a clear blue sky and seemed to remain in one position. The thing's mere presence caused Hanoi officials to sound air raid sirens, and barely as soon as warnings ceased three surface-to-air missiles were launched toward the object.

The missiles apparently failed to locate their extremely high target, and nearly an hour and a half later the object was still visible, though not as bright.

I have no further information (nor specific time of day) about this incident (more of an unidentified aerial object encounter than a flying one, so it would properly be called a UAO and not a UFO), and of course our first thought would be that Hanoi officials observed a bright planet, though the color noted suggests otherwise. Something about this affair made it newsworthy, and because no other media reports surfaced with an explanation, and because astronomers apparently did not come forward with a solution, we might assume that this case baffled one and all.

UFO Newspaper Headlines 1966

By 1966, the quality and abundance of UFO reports left a massive public impression, and reports submitted by law enforcement personnel all over the country added to public concern. Close encounters with lights or apparent objects in the sky no longer seemed a rarity, and ultimately Michigan Congressman (and later President) Gerald Ford demanded a congressional investigation after his own state was clobbered with nationally publicized UFO activity. The mid-sixties allowed newspapers from coast to coast to shine because, whether their UFO reporting reflected sobriety or humor, all the "good stuff" was out there in print, often on the front page, for an interested readership to judge, recorded in the archives for posterity.

UFO Newspaper Headlines 1964-66

The recent death of retired Socorro, New Mexico police officer Lonnie Zamora reminded me of the influence his 1964 UFO close encounter experience had on national newspaper reports of the day. For old times' sake, I'm posting a couple of entries showing some typical headlines, and this one highlights the Gary Wilcox (the farmer who claimed an encounter with UFO entities) incident from New York State (information available on the Web), and the four-state UFO sightings mentioned a few blog postings ago. Argentina UFOs were also in the news, a complement to other international activity. UFO evidence on the ground began to receive much more publicity and, not to make light of this, but even observing UFOs could sometimes require rocket science -- or at least a rocket scientist.

The Audacity of Ill-Advised Diversity

Here we go again. A horror story, this time at Fort Hood in Texas, and having once lived in Texas as an Air Force airman, I can tell you that Texans don't take kindly to this sort of thing. But no matter the state, we grieve for the murdered and their families, as we grieve for all servicemen and servicewomen who, all too often, sacrifice everything they have to give and everything they will ever own.

I once worked in a large Texas military hospital known for an impressive psychiatric section, so I certainly experienced no lack of psychiatrists running around every day, and some of them seemed crazy beyond crazy. If you reading this are, indeed, a psychiatrist or, even creepier, a psychologist, well, you already know about your personal demons and how screwed up and even crazy you may be yourself. So my first thought when the media reported that the good very bad doctor may be a psychiatrist was, oh no, a psychiatrist, no wonder this happened. After all, a local prominent psychiatrist I used to see around the hallways of a city hospital went bonkers and stabbed his wife with a big ol' conflict-solving kitchen knife in recent years, got off with a hand-slap and went back to emotionally cleansing patients under, um, minimal supervision, so very little surprises me anymore.

But we now know much more, and, surprising to almost nobody, radical Islam is the culprit. As in film noir, over the years we have come to realize that all we need do is round up "the usual suspects" because that's who we're dealing with in real life. You know, the ones who everybody knows should be checked at airports instead of the rest of us because government officials realize darned well who they are.

My government seems to have a problem understanding the significance of the term, the enemy within. This "alleged" mass-murdering medical professional was reportedly under official surveillance for quite some time and, frankly, should have been relieved of his duties months or years ago because my government knew exactly what reptilian skin this individual wore. Don't enlighten me with nonsense about him being the real victim here, not after my country paid handsomely for his medical education, not when he knew from day one that he signed up for an obligation. During WW II and other wars of the past, people like this would have been tried (maybe) and shot in the head, hanged or might experience a mysterious disappearance from which there would be no return. No excuses, no fancy lawyers, no audacity of dopes.

The overwhelming number of Muslims in the United States are good people who want no part of the monsters intent upon twisting and distorting their faith and if you read this blog regularly you know that I recently urged the young people of Iran all the best in their own fight with such devious, cunning and evil rulers.

The truth is, diversity isn't looking too hot right now, Mr. President, just in case you're reading this (well, that'll be the day). Just what do we want to tolerate as Americans? I believe most Americans have had it up to the proverbial here with exclusively university-trained, lily-livered legislators and negotiators who never spent a day in the military and have not a clue what real danger is. Somebody in Washington needs to hear, loud and clear, that there are folks in our country who need to be located, ripped out of their hiding places, quickly tried and, when warranted -- frequently, one hopes -- deported or destroyed with extreme prejudice. Imprisonment is such, oh, "old hat" in current circumstances, particularly because these little Islamic terror incidents crop up more and more here and abroad. Of course, I'm no expert, but it seems that justifiable executions of rabid vermin which can't even rise to the dictionary definition of cockroach are warranted.

The lone gunman. The lone psychiatrist. The lone radical Muslim. Add it up any way you wish, "lone" seldom means what those with a political agenda try to spin. What a wonderful time to not waste a crisis, to quote, um, somebody or another, and instead to tell Washington officials to take political correctness and shove it up where the sun doesn't shine -- if there's still room with some leaders' heads and brains clearly shoved and lodged so far up those crevices already. Lives will depend upon it.

Oh, just an afterthought, but, while you legislative folks are at it, start thinking of nice, polite ways to deny anything and everything to illegal people who really to need to pack and get their criminal butts out of my country. I know, I know, different subject, same time of day.

The games are over, and before one more dedicated young military officer or enlisted person, cop, fireman, or FBI agent puts his or her life up for grabs in the service of his or her country, the appropriate factions of this government must go all out to assure maximum safety. If that means putting a little "diversity" aside, that's just too bad. What good are diversity and pleasantries exchanged during Washington cocktail parties, when the most truly and dangerously diverse amongst us here in the USA endeavor 24-7 to destroy us? Do something, and do it quickly. The time for hand-wringing and worrying about sugar-coated official legacies for the history books must wait.

Come Back to the Five and Dime Barry Goldwater, Barry Goldwater

As a recipient of letters from Senator Robert F. Kennedy in the 1960s, I can assure one and all that he did not harbor an intensive public interest in UFOs, a bit of fiction helped along by a phony letter with RFK's signature which continues to make Internet rounds.

But then there was Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater, a Republican who might have become President in 1964 if not for the endeavors of an opposition successfully and absurdly depicting him as a madman whose efforts would result in a nuclear holocaust. I felt an immense respect for Goldwater, particularly because he wasn't afraid to speak his mind (for example, many among his congressional colleagues and military personnel went spastic with outrage in later years when he suggested that openly allowing homosexuals in the Armed Services is no big deal) and didn't walk the politically correct tightrope which concerns so many public servants anymore. I'm not saying I wanted him to nuke the world, but at least he would have been forthright enough to announce on TV, folks, tomorrow morning at 8:00 sharp I'm blowing up the world, and that's how it's gonna be. You just have to respect that refreshing, take-charge attitude.

Many "pro" statements about UFOs made by this late senator happen to be true. We printed one of his letters about the subject a few months ago (put his name in the on-site search engine above and that entry should pop up), and it's hardly the only one out there.

Back in the sixties and seventies, when UFOs were hot stuff and the national media stayed awake and alert, throbbing with a palpable pulse, notable events sometimes happened or were reported about almost simultaneously. During the first two weeks of November, 1973, Senator -- and retired Air Force Reserve Brigadier General -- Goldwater told students during a speech at Washington State College that UFOs are real. According to an Associated Press story that echoed throughout the nation, seasoned pilot Goldwater stated, "I've been flying for 44 years, and I'm the last guy that's going to say I don't believe they're up there." Asked about UFOs during the question-and-answer session, Goldwater replied, "I've never seen one. But when Air Force pilots, Navy pilots and airline pilots tell me they see something come up on their wing that wasn't an airplane, I have to believe them."

However, the ink regarding Goldwater had barely dried on newspapers from coast to coast before the AP coughed up another gem, the bizarre story from Canada of an Ottawa family pursued by a UFO sometime during the same week when Barry Goldwater gifted the U.S. with his insight. These were the days, mind you, when UFOs not only tended to take the high road, they also took the roads less traveled during darkness, and on this evening occasion an object with flashing white lights was reported to have chased a family's truck along Highway 417 at speeds up to 100 miles an hour.

"I noticed these bright lights in my side-view mirror, claimed Rick Bouchard, 25, driving with his wife and three small children aboard. According to his account, the object seemed to be about 10 feet wide and even at speeds up to 100 miles per hour the UFO approached within 15 feet of the truck and hovered about four feet above the road.

"The children were petrified," said Bouchard's wife, Donna. The UFO finally disappeared behind trees and police were notified.

Adding to the mystery, a family friend returned to that stretch of highway later in the evening to investigate and reported pursuit by a similar object. Ron Hamelin, a 19-year-old who knew and worked with Rick Bouchard, said when he turned off his lights the object disappeared. "I know what I saw," Hamelin insisted. "If people don't believe me, that's tough."

Enter The National Enquirer. Though a significant percentage of almost any population would roll their eyes and bemoan the Enquirer's long reputation as a sensational tabloid, some of us know a not so secret secret -- that the Enquirer of particularly the seventies and eighties offered a wealth of well-researched reports on UFO activity. This I learned personally, when the publication dispatched one, and eventually a second reporter to Central NY to investigate some major UFO activity, and I had an opportunity to watch them hard at work, practicing honest-to-goodness journalism (for more, type National Enquirer in the search engine above).

So UFO sightings and close encounter reports became nearly as commonplace as moths near a flame in 1973, all in the absence of the Air Force's long-dismantled Project Blue Book, and despite the subject's presumed banishment from common sense via the non-science performed by Dr. Edward Condon and his merry debunkers at the University of Colorado.

The thing was, however, watchdogs at The Enquirer had not neglected Barry Goldwater's November surprise, and when the January 6, 1974 edition of the tabloid hit national newsstands, grocery stores and pharmacies, Senator Goldwater returned with a vengeance: "I Believe Earth Has Been Visited By Creatures From Outer Space," screamed the quote above the Enquirer's exclusive interview with the senator. "I'm not convinced," Goldwater told reporter Allan A. Zullo, "after having been around for 65 years, that human beings are the smartest creatures in the universe. . .They may not look or talk like us, but I have very strong feelings they have advanced past our mental capabilities."

Admitting to cases where military and commercial pilots revealed to him instances where UFOs approached them and then would "just zoom away at incredible speeds," Goldwater regretted his inability to examine UFO research files at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. "I asked Gen. Curtis LeMay, who for years was head of the Strategic Air Command, for permission to check into the files and he told me: 'Hell no, and don't ask me again.' I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about -- and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them.

"But someday soon," advised Goldwater, "someone's going to have strong UFO evidence that can't be explained away."

And so we wait. Meanwhile, Sen. Goldwater, Richard Hall, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. John Mack, Dr. James McDonald and a host of others who explored pathways to the unknown are gone. Too bad that the passage of time can't confine itself to the face of a clock and not intrude upon our brief flirtations with life and curiosity.

(Thanks to playwright Ed Graczyk for naming his play -- eventually a movie -- "Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," which I knew of but never saw, and went bonkers over when I needed a title for today's entry.)

(Don't) Send in the Clowns

You don't forget that first letter to the editor when you're a teenager -- you know, the one that actually saw print in a newspaper, one of those paper thingies with ink on every page? Maybe you're old enough to answer the question, what's black and white and read all over? That's correct, it's a. . .well, I guess nobody really cares much anymore.

My first letter appeared in a newspaper during the summer of 1965, precipitated while interesting UFO sightings seemed to engulf the world and its news services. The reason for my literary outburst was a feeling of incredulity when I read of a UFO flying over the Azores with a curious ability to literally stop cold a weather station's electromagnetic clock. Time may not have stood still, but the clock apparently did. Nevertheless, during this period when UFOs were seen over Portugal as well as the Azores, an obligatory official explanation was soon thrown out to the anxious media like a soup bone to a starving dog pack, and all were enlightened with the knowledge that a "research balloon" launched from India was responsible! Surely, I post-adolescently editorialized, weather station personnel would know if balloons could stop their clocks, otherwise why should this become a news event?

As it was, 1965 was already a very big year for international UFO reports, and people all over the United States reported an abundance of strange sights in the skies. The Air Force and Project Blue Book, stressed by the sheer volume of reports, insisted to inquisitive reporters that all was well -- after all, they had their own time-worn (nevertheless, misleading) statistics to "prove" it, and frenzied newspaper editors gobbled up any officially-flavored numbers they could get like turkey buzzards at a decaying road kill feast.

The thing is, UFO reports weren't progressing quite the way skeptics and debunkers expected. For example, when thousands of people in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Kansas began seeing bright lights and defined objects zipping across summer skies in late July and early August of 1965, Air Force spokesmen came to the rescue of cool heads by explaining that wide-eyed UFO observers were probably misidentifying not only the planet Jupiter -- frequently the culprit whenever doubt needs to be introduced -- but also the stars Aldebaran, Rigel, Capella and Betelgeuse.

Unfortunately, much of the national press couldn't be bothered to report soon thereafter that all of these heavenly bodies were only visible from the other side of the earth during times of UFO activity. Despite a lack of substantial follow-up in the media, at least some news services took the opportunity to listen to witnesses such as an Air Force weather observer in Oklahoma, who assured one and all that he had watched objects exhibiting apparent structural features.

Broadcaster and writer (the late) Frank Edwards, famous for his UFO interest, couldn't have said it any better when he entitled his best-seller, Flying Saucers: Serious Business, quoted from an official statement about the phenomenon. And "saucers" were on America's mind, especially because reputable accounts of UFO landings and ground evidence began to surface. UFOs had reached a level causing reasonable concern for the U.S. public, if not downright fear on the part of some.

Then, during the first week of September, 1965, an event of extreme significance occurred in Exeter, New Hampshire as a young man named Normal Muscarello walked home on a lonely road from his girlfriend's house, long after dark. Suddenly, a large object with red lights appeared and seemed to pursue the frightened teenager. The story is related in detail in John G. Fuller's classic book, Incident at Exeter (also excerpted in Look Magazine in 1965), but suffice it to say that the boy eventually convinced a police officer to return to the scene with him that night, whereupon both -- and other area witnesses, as it turned out -- witnessed what may have been the same huge object rising silently from a field near the road, and then. . .

And then. . . here it is, almost 45 years later. Muscarello joined the Navy soon after his UFO event, became an adult and died much too soon in 2003, still haunted by his UFO experience -- or maybe the word is affected, not haunted. Whatever the word is, it wasn't good, because Muscarello and other witnesses never found the explanation they wanted and probably needed more than even they realized. One thing's for sure, the explanation wasn't Jupiter and it wasn't Betelgeuse.

So, these days I raise an eyebrow now and then, and I'm a little dismayed. I think back upon the days of the "Giant Rock" contactee-lovin' UFO meetings in California of the fifties, and all the considerably more serious UFO conventions which became commonplace in the sixties and seventies, and which survive to the current day. At least these sober attempts keep the UFO issue out there, alive and kicking for the media.

What concerns me, however, are the tribute sites, and I refer to solid-ground places, not Web sites -- locations of historic UFO events land-marked and turned into profitable "cash cows" by locals. These ventures didn't really bother me until I read several news stories about the "first" UFO festival in Exeter last September 5, noteworthy for laughs, good times, good food and refreshments, sales of all sorts of "UFO" nonsense, contests, posters drawn by children (who had a really, really nice time. . .) and -- well, you get it. It was apparently like a neighborhood circus or a cavalcade of weird field day exhibits or something. Bah. Humbug.

On one hand, I understand how this presumably annual affair will serve as an X-marks-the-spot designation for one of the most famous UFO incidents ever, and I know there are people who truly wish to honor experiences retrieved from fading memories and powerful writing related to that September night so long ago, so many surreal light years ago.

But the circus atmosphere? Aliens to laugh over, and spaceships to draw for prizes? Where are Dorothy and Toto? The Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion? Was Barney invited? Shouldn't they attend? Should we? What of the science, what about the horror, the shock, the missing time and confusion, repressed agonies and inconceivable intrusions upon mind and body? What about wounds that even time can't heal because the wounds, at least intellectually, continue for close-encounter UFO witnesses? Are cakes and pies and ice cream cones the solution, as children colorfully draw monotonous alien faces on sidewalks? Yes, but in these economically strapped times, some might say, towns and cities need the cash derived from these fun events and. . .

Shall we have ocean cruises with drunken parties to commemorate the disappearance of young pilot Frederick Valentich at sea after a possibly terrifying UFO-related disaster? Might we "celebrate" the Cash-Landrum incident (whether UFO territory or conventional) with microwave-radiated chicken dinners? Shall caterers be hired to bake cakes and provide food entertainment at homes where presumed UFO abductions have come to horrifying light in the minds of alleged abductees? For a proper remembrance of the Travis Walton abduction, how's about an annual pickup truck tailgate party in the woods, a green event featuring folks chasing one another around with chainsaws?

Why not an annual fishing derby in the Pascagoula River to keep the memory of Hickson and Parker's UFO encounter alive, with an appearance by the newly-infamous "Balloon Boy's" family and a special trophy awarded to the fisherman most likely to experience a mental breakdown after catching the biggest fish? Let's consider an annual dog show to mark the anniversary of Barney and Betty Hill's terrifying experience, where people can judge dogs that most resemble the Hills' favorite canine, Delsey.

Could we note the UFO-involved/not UFO-involved plane crash of Capt. Thomas Mantell with a race car destruction event at a racetrack somewhere in Kentucky? How about the fifties Lake Superior incident where radar showed a huge UFO and pursuing military aircraft merging, with neither craft nor two-man crew ever seen again? Surely, that's worthy of an annual lakeside volleyball tournament, spotlighting children's drawings of dedicated pilots in fear for their lives.

Have we lost our minds?

It's discouraging enough when we can't get scientists to give the UFO issue a second look, and it's head-hammering outrageous when we see events begging for a serious investigation turned into clown shows. I, for one, don't intend to attend such affairs, only to be asked by some 10-year-old attired as a space alien, why did the UFO cross the road?* Halloween only comes once a year, and notable UFO incidents would best be commemorated in the halls of scientific inquiry, not on street corners or sidewalks.

(* Um, to get to the other side, yuk, yuk. . .)

UFO Classics for Free

What's that? You say you looked for UFO books in your local library and all the dusty shelves held was a well-worn copy of My Trip to Mars, the Moon and Venus by Buck Nelson, and a couple of deservedly ignored volumes by the late Phil Klass?

With the economy in turmoil, maybe you'd like to purchase some good books about UFOs, but can't afford them, nor do you know what titles to choose.

Well, there's a temporary solution as close as your keyboard, and all you need to do is click on the NICAP link in the margin (that is, the link for the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena). Once there, click on the section offering free book downloads and you'll be on your way to sampling some very worthwhile history. A few of the classics.

For starters, there's 1964's NICAP document, The UFO Evidence, the landmark report sent to every member of Congress to alert them of the UFO issue's serious nature.

Ufology, by James McCampbell, addresses the possible relationship of UFOs to microwave energy and other power fields. UFOs: A New Look is a classic NICAP publication dealing with UFO evidence. Ted Bloecher's Report on the UFO Wave of 1947 superbly covers a year important to early UFO history.

Maj. Donald Keyhoe's first UFO book, a 1950 paperback entitled Flying Saucers are Real is also available as a free and instant download, as is Leonard Stringfield's early publication, Inside Saucer Post. . .3-0 Blue. The original sixties Congressional symposium on UFOs is here, as well as Capt. Edward Ruppelt's 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, involving his work as chief of the Air Force's Project Blue Book.

Don't miss Alfred Loedding and the Great Flying Saucer Wave of 1947 by Michael Hall & Wendy Connors, and Francis Ridge's Regional Encounters. Max B. Miller, an early UFO researcher, produced the classic, Flying Saucers: Fact or Fiction? which includes some interesting photos.

Be sure to check for click-on sections in blue indicated for some of the entries, as additional relating information may be available for free downloading.

Voluntary donations are always appreciated to help keep this not-for-profit educational site up and running under the guidance of researcher Francis Ridge, but accessing its contents is always free of charge.

During your visit to the NICAP tribute site, be sure to read more about the organization's accomplishments, affiliation with key personnel, detailed UFO reports and a virtual treasure chest of all the aspects of UFOs in need of a serious scientific investigation. NICAP may be history, but its goals and discoveries are more relevant than ever.

Media Pathetique

Okay, I get it. The nation bit its fingernails over fears that a six-year-old boy had climbed aboard a balloon in Colorado and, of course, we're all relieved that this peculiar-looking balloon actually enjoyed a childless solo flight, no matter the curious circumstances. Yet, oh, how the press danced in the televised media ballroom, thrilled to show a mushroom-shaped "flying saucer" whizzing across the skies of Colorado. How graceful! How beautiful! How dangerous! How amazing! How high! How low! Wow, it's not even a Mogul project!

Sadly, however, the bonus wasn't there. Nobody clinging to the balloon, audibly screaming in fear, nobody performing aerial acrobatics while in free-flight, nobody perched atop the thin fabric like James Bond ready to do battle on the Golden Gate Bridge. How disappointing! What a let-down! How come nobody's waving at the camera?! Ms. Peggy Lee herself might have been tempted to shake her head and belt out a song: "Is that all there is? Is that all there is to a rampaging balloon?" And the press could have responded: If that's all there is, my friend, then let's keep dancing. . .

Perhaps it's true, contemporary journalism classes really are turning out the adult version of TV babies, charged with an ability to investigate little more than shiny hypnotic images capable of rendering them senseless, hopelessly entwined in the pitfalls of brain function deprivation.

This isn't exactly a Ph.D. level observation, but'cha know I watched this freaking balloon video on TV "news" shows long, long after the biggest story in the country deflated -- pardon the balloon comparison -- to a major non-story, and I thought, yep, things are normal. For decades, all manner of high-ranking and impressive active duty and former military personnel have come forward and described fantastic encounters with things in the sky exhibiting characteristics far more incredible than the flight of a helium balloon, but Big Media just won't or can't be bothered to shout out a big "Hey, lookee here!" regarding that untidy elephant in the living room. The Colorado balloon was so. . .so. . .well, there were close-up telephoto videos and motion and the thing was spinning as if Dr. F. Anton Mesmer himself had invented the damned thing so the whole nation could fall into a trance.

So, innocuous balloons are welcome to flit about in the skies, posing for expensive photographic equipment and grown-up TV babies, and while everybody's sending instant images of nothing special to the media the sober voices of former military personnel warning that UFOs have the capacity to screw around at our nuclear missile bases go unheard, unheeded. I get it. Who wants to listen to this stuff when it's such fun to watch balloons spin and cruise overhead, or to discover animal faces in the clouds?

Look, I'm glad a kid wasn't in the balloon, because he wouldn't have had a prayer, not this time, not like on TV dramas ripped from the headlines where everything makes sense. I just wish the mature professional TV-baby journalists would put a little more effort into checking out other things in the sky, weird, usually off-camera stuff capable of intimidating military installations and confounding official personnel.

Big Media already has a public relations problem, a.k.a. down-home credibility, and someday that problem may escalate faster than a helium balloon set at warp-speed when the most untold news story ever untold hits the streets. When words matter more than videos or color graphics, who will give us the truth and be bold enough to demand answers? What will TV-baby journalists do? How will they cope? Who will change their diapers when scary government people tell them to go away?

(Jake Tapper, thank you for being you.)

Ivan the Tangible

Imagine barely reaching your teen years in the seventies and taking full advantage of an opportunity to visit and indulge in a learning relationship with the famous naturist Ivan T. Sanderson, while acquiring some great photos and recorded audio as a bonus. That's what veteran technology editor and writer Richard Grigonis recalls in his Web tribute to Sanderson at http://richardgrigonis.com/

I've posted very little on this blog about the late Ivan T. Sanderson, whom I never met. Versatile in many areas of both education and experience, and a prolific writer, Sanderson also created the (defunct) Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU), of which I remained a member and writer for its journal, Pursuit, until the organization eventually fizzled out under the increasingly troubled care of the late Robert Warth years ago.

Although my exploration of Grigonis's tribute section has barely begun, it's instantly apparent that he sees Sanderson in his own unique way, and I encourage Sanderson's many admirers and researchers to visit "Zippy" (yes, Zippy) Grigonis's site and delve into multiple chapters (some 47,000 words to date, by his estimate) already posted about Ivan, a man whom some still view as a mystery. Mr. Grigonis hosts a continuing project, so be sure to consult his Web site regularly for more about Sanderson's life, work and encounters with a (thankfully) very curious young man in search of Ivan the human. (Sanderson photo via Richard Grigonis's Web site).

Honeymooning Badly in Socorro

The marriage remains troubled, but the divorce hardly seems imminent, primarily because neither the "other" man/men or woman/women are palpable by name.

I refer, of course, to the Socorro, New Mexico UFO case of April, 1964, involving patrolman Lonnie Zamora and other possible witnesses, fellow police officers, U.S. Army and Air Force investigators, Dr. J. Allen Hynek himself, civilian UFO investigators and a cast of untold multitudes when all was said and done, or undone.

The RRR Group, seemingly intent in the long haul upon giving the old heave-ho to the Socorro incident once and for all, now approaches history with a new bend -- that, this time, the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by university students. For the evolving details, go to (and particularly watch for reader comments following the story) Frank Warren's UFO CHRONICLES Web site using the link in the margin, or click here:

http://www.theufochronicles.com/

and in his search engine at the top type in the word, Socorro.

On this occasion the RRR ice men cometh with interesting documentation via respected researcher Anthony Bragalia, but no names of those (allegedly) directly responsible for pulling off one hell of a prank. A balloon? Hmm -- weren't the small figures (now supposed prankster university students) observed by officer Zamora noted to disappear before it took off with a roar? So now we have everybody not only presumably escaping (in a balloon?) somehow, but the balloon had the curious ability to fly against the wind and be seen by other witnesses who continued to believe a UFO is a UFO is a UFO. And. . .how about that desert dynamite shack at the scene, would anybody in their brilliantly right hoaxing mind attempt to pull the cactus wool over a patrolman's eyes by staging the event near a potentially explosive source?

The questions linger, the Socorro skeptics and proponents rock on and little has changed. And, oh, for laughs here, once again I'm throwing in my 1965 letter from the Air Force regarding the matter. USAF spokesman Maj. Maston Jacks references Zamora's UFO as a "vehicle," but cautions us not to worry because, unidentified or unidentifiable vehicle though it may be, it wasn't a tin Lizzy driven by the usual extraterrestrial scofflaws.

In an odd way, and I do appreciate Mr. Bragalia for bringing his work to the forefront, I'm hoping that the prank solution holds up, lest we endure yet another explanation, perhaps a mad scientist's theory that Zamora's roughly egg-shaped object really WAS an egg, a gift from the residents of Alpha Centauri -- a giant extraterrestrial chicken egg piloted by vacationing Centaurians that turned hazardously rotten after a long, long journey and exploded in the desert heat, sending its remnants into the wild blue. Remember, too, the old movie, "20 Million Miles to Earth." Eggs can be both mysterious and deadly. Take heed, RRR Group, this theory awaits your attention. Next time.

So, just what happened in Socorro on that April day, a day I remember well as a 15-year-old lying outside in the yard, gazing upward while listening to a transistor radio crackling with a succession of news snippets regarding a UFO incident far away from my home in New York State? Important questions remain, and they aren't going away just because some folks wave their skeptical wand over a document, intent that the end is near. Neither turkey vultures nor Judge Judy would bother picking over this potential ado about nothing. Names, gentlemen, names and their personal how-to lessons are of the essence, thank you.

Oldies Still the Best: Al Chop's 1953 Classic

Why run 1953's letter from Al Chop to Maj. Donald Keyhoe's publisher again (and a better copy), having featured it two or three times before? First, because I cherish this particular triumph of correspondence from the days when letters were letters, destined to survive on paper indefinitely. How long would this document have lasted as an e-mail? As a jpg image? If converted from rich text into lackluster plain text, minus the official look, what might have been its fate? And no official seal? Please! Like a day without sunshine, to quote a TV commercial.

I've even thought of starting another blog with one eternal entry displaying this letter and nothing more, not ever. In fact, were it in my power, I think I'd instruct every TV station in the country that still runs the National Anthem before signing off for the night to show Al Chop's letter prominently prior to a hitting the goodnight switch. I don't know, maybe a sober viewing should be a requirement for every high school American history class in the U.S. As readers of my blog regarding the 1956 movie, "UFO" know (see link), I've posted several personal letters from the late Mr. Chop over there, but this timeworn document trumps every piece of mail in my files just for the last paragraph's stand-alone shock effect from a man of integrity who was just trying to do his job.

Albert M. Chop, chief of the Pentagon's Air Force press desk, did far more than type out a letter to Henry Holt & Co., a major U.S. publisher -- he put a time line on history itself. Barely six months before churning out this testimonial to Keyhoe's UFO work, Chop had endured a very busy ringside seat and public relations tightrope amidst two bouts of apparent UFO activity high over the nation's Capitol, occurring within just a week of one another in 1952. In addition to the nightmarish days and nights which followed him to and from the Air Force press desk, Chop was already so impressed by a wealth of good military and airline UFO encounters that he slowly transformed from UFO skeptic to ardent proponent. Keep in mind, Al was an ex-Marine with a dual reputation as a responsible journalist, unlikely to radically alter his views without just cause.

So -- Mr. Chop answered a letter from Henry Holt & Co., responding in a remarkably freestyle manner regarding the possible origin of UFOs. Hard to believe, but up to that time a fellow working for the government could openly speculate a bit on things like this. Yes, he took a little -- a little -- flack from superiors over this because Al never suspected (though he should have) that the publicity folks at Henry Holt would take rabid advantage of a delicious opportunity to post the letter on the back of Keyhoe's new book jacket for the whole country to see and purchase (for some reason, as we've mentioned on a previous occasion, the British version did not include Chop's letter on the jacket). Flying Saucers From Outer Space was Keyhoe's title for this 1953 release, and now it seemed to project a profitable aura of official sanctioning about it, even if it didn't. Good. So what?

But, as I said, Chop accomplished not simply a letter, but an historic time line, an indelible stamp, on January 26, 1953, for this was the year when the "Robertson Panel" convened. 1953 was also the year that aeronautical engineer Capt. Ed Ruppelt departed Project Blue Book and the Air Force, only to die of a heart attack a few years later, still a relatively young man. Al left government service that year, too, for a while, but the reason, far from being job-related, was the simple fact that his beloved wife, Dee, hated crowded Washington and yearned for the open spaces. So they up and moved West, Al went to work for Douglas Aircraft Co. and eventually rejoined the government payroll, first at NASA (sometimes as the voice of mission control during a space launch) and then with the Atomic Energy Commission.

Al's letter pretty much delineates the end of an era, a period when citizens could depend somewhat upon openness in government. The CIA, H.P. Robertson and the gang were concerned about UFO reports messing up intelligence channels integral to national security, so everybody went nuts and decided to downplay UFOs from that point forward. Maybe it was a good idea at the time, but -- but look where we are today. The policy never went away and things just became worse. Any, any -- any government public information official daring to write a letter like that on official paper tomorrow would be nailed faster than you can say yes-we-can.

Way back in this blog, I posed a question or two about heroes, contemplating who they are and what makes them heroes. While many are obvious, too many more are not. Is it heroic, for instance, for ex-military personnel to come forward and alert the public that those UFOs which governments so stringently deny are actually, from their own perspective and observation, intelligently controlled objects sired by amazing sources unknown, even when such admissions may questionably violate security oaths they took years ago?

Make no mistake, Chop echoed the UFO opinions of many in the government, though being far too modest and careful to specify more than "some of the personnel" in his letter, at this time when freedom of official speech glowed refreshingly tangible in specific instances. "Some of the personnel," hardly a reference to office folks standing around a water cooler, meant high-ranking military people, engineers and scientists, and there were many standing silently on Chop's side of the philosophical aisle.

Contrast the early fifties with the current day, when former military officers such as Robert Salas and Charles Halt come forward, probably at considerable risk to themselves, to alert us of incidents which open governments are charged with telling us about, but won't. Yet, the numbers of former military UFO whistle blowers appear to be on a steady increase (per especially the research and writings of Robert Hastings and revelations from the Bentwaters RAF base/Rendlesham Forest witnesses). Who are our modern heroes? Who are the new patriots -- or is there a "new?"

Funny, isn't it? In Chop's time, everybody recognized the enemy. Now, nebulous forces and agents of regulation consider us our own worst enemy, and telling the truth is, presumably, a punishable offense, as supposed national security entities wait vigilantly to wield a destructive club in strange ways against their own. Our own. Oh, absolutely yes, how I honor Al Chop's truthful, lay-it-on-the-line letter to Henry Holt & Co., truly bold and tragically emblematic for the end of an era.

Rendlesham: Burning Bright Among Forests of the Night

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

(William Blake, The Tiger)

"I wish to make it perfectly clear that the UFOs that I saw were structured machines moving under intelligent control and operating beyond the realm of anything I have ever seen before or since. I believe the objects that I saw at close quarter were extraterrestrial in origin and that the security services of both the United States and England were and have been complicit in trying to subvert the significance of what occurred at Rendlesham by use of well-practiced methods of disinformation." -- Lt. Col. Charles Halt, USAF, Ret., former Deputy Base Commander at RAF Bentwaters (from his statement in a press release of June 25, 2009, issued via British UFO researcher and former UK military member Gary Heseltine who, with Halt and other military personnel, experienced something incredible and UFO-related in December of 1980).

The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident was briefly mentioned in my previous entry, but I really shouldn't let it go without offering a very important update, and its substance may be read in the above quote. In little more than a year, the UFO research community will note the 30th anniversary of England's Rendlesham Forest UFO incident (several of them, actually), and Halt's admission was clarified as noted this year because a possible motion picture script is in the works, and he decided to make his already unwavering position clear in no uncertain terms.

Though many readers are already familiar with her Web site, I do suggest a worthwhile journey to Linda Moulton Howe's Earthfiles at www.earthfiles.com where Ms. Howe has posted a multi-part, illustrated section regarding the fascinating Rendlesham story. I shamelessly admit borrowing Lt. Col. Halt's quote directly from her site today.

During my four U.S. Air Force years as a medical specialist (1968-72) in two hospitals -- and particularly at a pilot training base populated by numerous veteran military pilots and other flight personnel -- I often wished I could just put up a sign requesting information from those familiar with UFO incidents. However, (1) I'm sure there were many, but they all would have kept their mouths shut for fear of ruined careers or ridicule at that sensitive time, and (2) can you imagine how quickly I would have been punished and flown away to serve out my time at a medical clinic somewhere in near-desolation?

But there we have it in December of 1980 -- U.S. and British Air Force personnel experiencing shared military UFO encounters with startling implications. If we believe the story slowly unraveling over the years, more than one installation picked up UFOs on radar, probable nuclear-equipped missiles may have been compromised by ground-invading beams of powerful laser-like light, photos were taken and confiscated, the government cover-up began early on and -- allegedly explicit telepathic contact with UFO entities occurred.

Further, for some witnesses there was noted an electrostatic effect to the air itself, causing their hair to stand on end, while time itself seemed to slow down as they approached (and, per one witness, actually touched) an object perched on or just above the forest floor. This particular facet of the Rendlesham case reminds me of a young woman's oral testimony regarding another British Air Force base UFO incident, where a large object flew at treetop level overhead and people underneath were unable to produce sound while speaking, as the UFO seemed somehow to distort its immediate environment (ref. a recording from Wendy Connors' vast Faded Discs audio collection which I reviewed a few years ago for the UFO Updates Web site).

You can read all about these allegations in Ms. Howe's excellent accounts and at Web sites dedicated to the Bentwaters/Rendlesham case, but before I sign off on this today I wish to raise just one caveat. Assuming that hypnosis sessions, conducted with an airman who claimed to have actually touched a landed UFO and received instant thoughts from "them" regarding their identity, reflect what actually happened (and he wasn't alone in believing telepathic communication occurred), beware. If, as is reported, "they" claim to be our own time-traveling species from 40,000 or 50,000 years in the future, I would tend to put as much instant faith in the veracity of that assertion as an expectation that NASA's moon rocks will sprout wings and fly off to Jupiter tomorrow.

I say this simply because, looking at all the alleged UFO entity encounters painstakingly documented by researchers internationally over the decades, if there is one thing upon which we may agree it's the likelihood that we're being fed lies. UFO entities' alleged revelations and wild promises seldom come true and, worse, often make little sense. Some researchers rightfully suspect motivations among supposed visiting UFO occupants intended not to inform us but, indeed, to throw us off the path of truth. The widely surmised reasons about why is the issue that should concern us as deeply as the apparently spoon-fed government misinformation entwined in the Rendlesham case. So be careful. While most forests are thick with flies, Rendlesham may have been thick with lies, lies of the cover-up variety issued from multiple directions, and they seem to have attacked competent military personnel mercilessly in subtle ways.

ABC-TV's UFO Recipe: The Same Crummy Formula Achieves the Same Crummy Result

ABC-TV's "The Outsiders" episode dealing with UFOs (August 18) was even worse than I expected, though the customary formula was implemented. Ya throws in a few fictional movies and TV shows containing flying saucers or absurd alien fantasies, followed by interviews with "experiencers" or witnesses whose backgrounds we know little about, and then you top off the whole exhibit of the purely sensational with debunkers disguised as skeptics. We also got to see a clip from the TV series, "V," which hasn't even aired yet (is that what this was really about, to showcase and encourage interest in upcoming TV shows which, based upon current TV offerings from all walks, may be doomed from the get-go?).

I used to respect ABC's UFO reporting, but that era was so long ago. I guess I wasn't surprised that this year's MUFON conference was portrayed minimally as little more than a circus atmosphere entity (and host Juju Chang used the uncomplimentary term, "UFO enthusiasts" at least twice during the program), but taking an opportunity on more than one occasion -- in my opinion -- to make light of and display just a shade of ridicule and implied vilification toward respected veteran UFO researcher and psychologist Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle was unconscionable. His years of work with the organization APRO were long and informative, and how strange that the university he served for so many years suddenly had problems with his long-recognized UFO research.

Of course, next the late Dr. John Mack's Harvard reputation was thrust into the mix because he "helped propagate" so much interest in UFO abductions. Nice that ABC could give fellow psych colleagues Clancy and McNally ample opportunity to hawk their well-roasted "sleep paralysis" (probably appropriate in some cases, but surely not all) chestnut to national viewers, topped off by Dr. Clancy's assertion that earth has never, ever been visited by extraterrestrials (a belief based, perhaps, upon her extensive non-existent training as an astrophysicist?). How thoughtful and ill-informed, also, for host Chang to assume that all abduction accounts seem to begin in bed. Anybody care to focus upon multiple abductions (Hickson & Parker come to mind) to nail this foolish statement to the wall? All in all, it seems the debunking element was flush with demonization time during this sixty minute abomination.

Speaking of chestnuts, there it was, turning up briefly, yet right on cue, like the weeds of springtime -- the SETI Institute, lord and master of all potential information about extraterrestrial life. If SETI doesn't announce it, you know it just isn't happening.

How interesting that this clunker was overshadowed by news a day before that Great Britain had released more official UFO files, including information about the extremely intriguing Rendlesham Forest (re Col. Charles Halt) UFO case. We in the U.S. should be so fortunate with our government, especially when we get stuck with only this televised exercise in nothingness.

I don't know who the on-screen "experiencers" are and, frankly, I harbor a few bags of doubt pending a real scientific analysis of the (so far) non-evidence presented via the ABC/Disney TV network. As far as the Romanek case goes, which received far too much attention in this limited series, skeptical UFO researchers have already had their day with that puppy and negativity exists in numerous quarters, but I suppose some juries are still out, so let the festivities continue.

My gag reflex almost went into overdrive at the very end, when religion was incorporated into this pathetically uninformed mix. Yet -- the TV UFO formula was complete and faithful to the standard, uninspired recipe of tripe, and ABC had turned out yet another clone of previous attempts. Too bad, however, that the vast UFO-uneducated TV audience will never know something important here -- that certain respected UFO researchers allegedly declined when asked to participate in this fiasco because they suspected in advance what a piece of crummy formula nonsense this would be.

Unfortunately, this is not new, and it's a discussion I've had with various researchers now and then. Commercial TV networks have produced a steady diet of UFO-related drivel over the years, and the consistency of these generally sensational burnt offerings has chased away many of the best and most knowledgeable UFO researchers, who wisely understand that their reputations will be pilloried in the name of ratings, guffaws, debunkers and electronic tabloid sensationalism.

The networks could accomplish far more and, yes, rake in the ratings by referencing the best UFO cases and avoiding the agenda-infested debunking community. But, again, gaining the trust of researchers, witnesses and organizations whom they vilify and ridicule in very subtle terms every time some network executive thinks it's time to drag out flying saucers appears darned nearly impossible by now.

A lack of common sense oft reigns uncomfortably supreme in the TV tabloid world, whose members sometimes release their pit bulls in the wrong yard to attack and chew up the obvious, while the debunkers, welcomed warmly, swarm in like medics, ready and willing to patch up the wounds to their own liking. Fractured fragments of truth ultimately get mixed up in the process, seldom healing back the way they should before the next media hit. So just wait a few months and, like inevitable annual showings of "The Sound of Music" on commercial TV, the whole process will be repeated like clockwork. What would TV do without having -- hmm, maybe this would be a great sitcom title -- lemmings in charge?

"UFO" Script Review Project Completed

For those of you familiar with the 1956 motion picture documentary, "U.F.O.," be sure to click the link to my blog regarding the film because I've finished posting, in 17 brief parts, my comments about the original script -- the one Tom Towers (who played Al Chop) stored, more or less, securely behind his living room sofa for years. I think you'll discover the differences between the script and final production of interest. Who knows, maybe one day some enterprising movie industry people will remake the production using updated information that demonstrates just how seriously (very) UFOs were/are taken by the government.