Without referencing almost every day of each month in these little blurbs I write to accompany "Year of the UFO" entries, it's impossible to emphasize the strangeness and rock-solid importance of the UFO phenomenon. The reader really has to click on and enlarge these monthly pages to review and regard as a whole the undeniable truth that UFOs are real and have the ability to influence our lives in ways far removed from current scientific knowledge. If the reports highlighted in August don't make that point, what would?
Lakenheath, England, in a famous series of events, was the scene of multiple radar and visual UFO incidents in 1956 (well-reported in the literature). In 1950, Nicholas Mariana miraculously retrieved his camera in time to film in color two, still officially unexplained, UFOs over Great Falls, Montana before they disappeared.
In 1959 a UFO passing above a Brazilian power station somehow caused automatic keys to turn off, and upon departure they turned on again. Ten years previously in 1949, astronomer and discoverer of the planet (or not a planet, depending on whose science one currently believes) Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh, and his family watched six rectangles slowly traverse the sky. Tombaugh's name always seems to surface whenever the question arises, have scientists seen UFOs -- probably because he openly shared the mystery of the event in written reports and drawings. When this writer reviewed an mp3 disc release from Faded Discs (see link in margin) a few months ago, featuring an astronomer describing his UFO sighting of just hours before, the poor fellow was literally on the verge because he had never "believed" in these things previously -- and now he was confronted with a sighting that apparently violated every scientific rule he thought he knew.
Project Blue Book chief Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt made a most intriguing statement in 1953 when he revealed that a gun camera's UFO photo taken while a jet pursued a UFO over Ellsworth Air Force Base showed the "best unknown." Also in 1953, in conjunction with the Robertson Panel (CIA) report on UFOs, Air Force Regulation 200-2 was put into effect, detailing how Air Force personnel should report UFOs and, especially important, that USAF personnel would be severely restricted in revealing UFO information to the public.
Not to belabor the obvious by now, but new readers should know that in most cases one can go to nicap.org (link in margin) and consult its excellent search engine for the best information on the cases highlighted in these monthly calendars.
