CONTENTS

UFO Files: Black Box UFO Secrets

Missing Time: A Personal Account

2056 - Aliens Are Among Us!

Trimingham Radar Fault: The MoD Stance

The Thousand Oaks Incident

UFO Files: Pacific Bermuda Triangle

The Great British UFO Show 2

UFO Seen by Multiple Witnesses in Chicago

Book Reviews April '07

Two USAF Fighters Encounter UFO

The Great British UFO Show 2

Leeds Rugby Supporters’ Club, Headingley, Leeds

21^st – 22^nd October, 2006

Some say that ufology is a fringe subject. Some say that it is dead or on the wane. Judging from two sold-out days at The Great British UFO Show in Leeds, I’d say that ufology is alive and well and as strong as ever.

Over the weekend of 21^st to 22^nd of October, 2006, nine speakers would deliver lectures that would keep the audience spellbound with subjects ranging from political conspiracies to crop patterns and, of course, UFOs. From the UK, we had Tony Topping, David Shayler, Philip Mantle, Sacha Christie, Rob Whitehead, Alan Foster and Russel Callaghan. From overseas, Odd Gunnar Roed from Norway and Maurizio Baiata from Italy both provided excellent talks.

Each speaker was filmed and a DVD set of the entire weekend will be released through ufodata.co.uk soon. Thanks should also go out to Paul France, who took some amazing photographs of the event.

So, let’s get on with the show, as they say. First up on Saturday was Tony Topping. Tony hails from Selby, North Yorkshire, and he spoke openly and with great power about his experiences. From childhood, he has endured terrifying dreams and nightmares about being taken from his home. He believes dark forces are out there, manipulating our minds and perceptions of reality for some deep, covert objective.

He told of how he has suffered psychic attacks from unknown assailants and how he learned that children were needed by the forces behind them for some unknown purpose. The strain on his mind was so great that he became suicidal.

Tony showed video of black helicopters, as well as bright objects in the sky that he had filmed. He told of how, one day, near a canal in Selby, he observed a fighter jet chasing a UFO across the sky, after the object rose from a field, with a brilliant flash of light.

Tony went on to talk about a case from New Zealand where a man called Alec Newald was abducted by extra-terrestrials for ten days, returning dazed and confused. When he told the authorities about what had happened to him, he was contacted by the Royal Institute of International Affairs (the famous Chatham House group), but when Alec refused to cooperate with them, he was promptly jailed. A book of Alec’s story, Coevolution: The True Story of a Man Taken for Ten Days to an Extraterrestrial Civilization, is now available.

Tony has come to the conclusion that most UFOs are actually not from outer space, but emanate from either the poles or the interior of the Earth, perhaps both. He is certain that many come from beneath the oceans. He recounted Operation High Jump, that huge operation in Antarctica, led by US Admiral Byrd, which is barely known to the public, but allegedly cost thousands of lives when they encountered ‘something’ down at the bottom of the world.

Tony’s experiences, including contacts with extra-terrestrials, have had such a profound effect upon him that he now shields himself from personal relationships, fearing for the lives of anybody with whom he might become intimate. His website can be found at http://www.etlife.co.uk.

Former MI5 officer and whistle-blower, David Shayler kindly stepped in at very short notice when advertised speaker, Anthony Mallin, had to cancel his appearance because of ill health. He delivered a brilliant lecture and it was great to see him talking with our delegates afterwards. He had quite a crowd around him!

David spoke of how he came to be involved with MI5 in 1991, replying to a job advertisement, thinking he was going to work in the media. While at his post, he learned of an MI6 plot to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. The operation went ahead without the permission of the Home Secretary, failed and many innocent civilians lost their lives. David became disillusioned with the way the security services operated outside of the law and left MI5.

David and his partner, Annie Machon, fled to France, where they lived for two years before returning to the UK and being promptly arrested. He was sentenced to six months in prison in 2002 and served seven weeks of that time before being released.

With his knowledge of how the security services go about their business, it is obvious to David that many so-called terrorist attacks are really ‘false flag’ operations, in which these secret agencies instigate atrocities and then blame terrorist groups. They may learn of plots by genuine terrorist cells and make them happen, perhaps funding and supplying the groups covertly or undertaking the attacks themselves. The bombing of the World Trade Centre in 1993, the devastating attack on 9/11 and the London bombings of 7/7 are all prime examples of false flag operations.

Another example that David covered was Gladio. This was a NATO, CIA and MI6 operation in Italy after World War Two that staged terror attacks and blamed communist activists. When it seemed that Italy would have Europe’s first democratically-elected communist government in the 1970s, Gladio instigated the assassination of Italian Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, and the blame fell on the Red Brigade.

David kept the audience spellbound and we cannot thank him enough for stepping up at such short notice.

After lunch, Norway’s Odd Gunnar Roed stepped onto the stage and gave a fascinating talk about unexplained tracks found in his home country in the 1990s. These huge gouges in the earth appear to have been created by something hitting the ground, scraping out huge furrows and then leaving again.

Studies by geologists have yet to find an explanation for them, but prosaic explanations, such as tracks left by heavy vehicles, have been discounted.

Some of the tracks end at huge boulders, weighing many, many tons, suggesting that some force shifted these great lumps of rock, seemingly with ease. What is inexplicable is that the tracks often pass through areas of foliage, yet there is no damage to the plants, except in one case, where bark was scraped from a tree.

Odd Gunnar explained that it had been suggested that something made of ice could have fallen from space (a mini-c0met, I suppose you could call it), broken up and created the tracks in impact, the ice then melting and leaving no trace. However, the tracks do not all lead in the same direction, as one would expect if something fell from the sky.

Whatever the cause of these enigmatic gouges in the earth, they are fascinating, but an explanation may never be found.

Odd Gunnar then presented a slide show of the famous Hessdalen Lights. He showed us his favourite photographs of the lights, which included long-exposure images that indicated they flashed on and off or pulsated. Many theories abound about the cause of the lights, but they are still essentially unexplained.

Our thanks go to Odd Gunnar for making the journey from Norway to speak at the conference.

UFOData Magazine features editor, Philip Mantle, gave a fascinating talk about the infamous Alien Autopsy. Philip was present right at the beginning of the AA saga, so he could speak first-hand about the real story behind the controversy.

He showed the autopsy footage in its entirety, explaining how Ray Santilli claimed to have come into possession of the film, what part he (Philip) had to play in getting it to the public’s attention and how it was released to the world to such fanfare and hype.

Philip also told the story of his and others’ investigations into the footage, how the props used in the film seemed authentic and even how professional experts were duped by it, how some investigators were led, by directions from ‘the cameraman’, to the crash site and how there are many that still believe that there is a grain of truth in the autopsy story. Despite Santilli knowing next to nothing about the UFO subject, he knew about the showbiz industry and his project was a masterstroke of ingenuity and attention to detail.

When Santilli and his partner, Gary Shoefield, came clean and admitted that they had created the autopsy footage, along with the ‘debris’ shots, Philip explained his small part in the Eamonn Holmes programme, Eamonn Investigates The Alien Autopsy, telling about his interview in a small café, a location that baffled him.

He talked about UFOData’s documentary, Alien Autopsy: A Little Bit Of This And A Little Bit Of That…, in which he and Russel Callaghan interviewed Keith Bateman and his staff. Keith explained how he was commissioned by Santilli to create some autopsy footage and the infamous ‘tent footage’ was the result.

Finally, Philip told of the impending legal action against Santilli. It seems that a case of consumer fraud is to be brought against him by several of the television companies that paid money for the alien autopsy footage. If it goes to court, there may be interesting developments, especially if Santilli has to finally produce some of the actual footage that he claims is genuine to save his bacon, so to speak.

The final speaker of the day was UFOData’s own roving researcher, Sacha Christie. Speaking publicly for the first time about her own experiences, Sacha did an excellent job and we are all very proud of her.

Sacha told of the night in Wales, ten years ago, that would change her life forever. She, her son and her friends were staying at a holiday cottage in Glyn Cyriog and one night, a light appeared in the sky. They watched as it hovered above them for a long time before another light appeared to land or hover just above the ground quite close to them. Everybody was remarkably calm, even though an apparently a genuine UFO incident was going around them. Sacha’s son, Louis, then tugged at his mum’s sleeve and said that something had reached out from the bushes and touched his leg. It was then that they decided to go back inside. Almost everybody else decided to go to bed, despite a large UFO hovering not far above their cottage, but Sacha ventured back outside.

She looked up at the round, glowing object, that reminded her of a mushroom, with spokes extending out from the centre to the edge, and called out to it, asking what it was going to do next. Then she heard footsteps and something tugged on the back of her jacket. She panicked and fled back to the cottage. The next day, Sacha, her son and her boyfriend left the cottage, never to return.

Afterwards, Sacha’s life changed completely. She became afraid of the dark and had to sleep with the light on. Animals became attracted to her for some reason, with birds and insects landing on her after avoiding other people. Her allergies to several things mysteriously vanished. Not everything was beneficial, however.

Bravely, Sacha went on to explain how she began drinking, became an insomniac and eventually resorted to drug-taking, losing a lot of weight. Sacha is grateful to the many friends she has made since becoming an active UFO researcher and although sharing her experiences with them has helped, it still took a great deal of courage for her to climb on stage and open up to a large audience. Thank you, Sash!

With the speaker line-up complete for the day, we had to rush around and get the room ready for the evening’s entertainment. Musical duo, Full Fat Funk, entertained the audience with a mix of tunes and, boy, were they loud! In between sets, bingo was played and hoots of ‘Conspiracy!’ resounded when Russ won. Fix!

Sunday’s events got underway with Rob Whitehead from LAPIS giving an entertaining talk about some of the UFO cases he has investigated.

Rob said that this was the first time he had spoken in front of an audience, but you wouldn’t have known. His talk was funny, insightful and honest. Rob calls a spade a spade and that can be refreshing.

Playing a video of orange lights that he was sent in by a member of the public, we saw them moving about the sky, seemingly making patterns that resembled constellations. The audience laughed when the chap behind the camera suddenly announced that, “The dog’s been sick!” The lights eventually moved into a roughly linear formation.

Rob then showed another video that he had taken himself, showing similar lights above St. Annes. Rob suspected that these orange orbs were quite close and, after sending somebody to investigate, found that they were lanterns released only a couple of streets away for a birthday party.

This year there have been many reports of these orange lights and the media has been gripped by UFO fever. The sad thing, Rob explained, is that they hardly ever ask reputable UFO investigators what these orbs may actually be. Thai lanterns, available for only a few pounds, have been the bane of ufology in 2006.

Moving on to a more inexplicable case, Rob covered the experiences of the Devereaux family from High Bentham, Lancashire, in 2005. This case was featured on the Sky One programme, The Real 4400, and Rob showed clips from that show. The family had been driving in their car when they saw a bright light in the sky. They experienced about an hour of missing time and the incident affected them all greatly.

The new website for the Lancashire Anomalous Phenomena Investigation Society (LAPIS) will soon be online at www.lapis.org.uk.

Alan Foster devoted his ninety minutes to the subject of crop patterns. Largely dismissed as hoaxes by many, Alan explained how many patterns have features that would be difficult to fabricate and cannot be the result of a few circlemakers stomping around with wooden boards.

Some patterns appear to have been blasted with microwave radiation, causing the crop to become almost fluid and causing stem nodes to burst from the inside. Sometimes the crop is not laying flat, but bent about a foot (30cm) above the ground. This would be hard to achieve with planks and string. Quite often, visitors to patterns have seen vortices of energy rising from within, sometimes accompanied by orbs of light. Alan’s slideshow of beautiful crop pattern photographs was augmented with equally lovely paintings by his wife.

Alan is firm in his belief that crop patterns are some form of communication from elsewhere. He presents a good case and points out anomalies in some patterns that would be extremely difficult to hoax.

Three of my favourite patterns were highlighted by Alan. These were the famous Chilbolton messages of 2001, where a variation of the Arecibo radio signal was found in a field next to the Chilbolton Radio Telescope, along with an image of a face that bore a striking resemblance to the Cydonia Face on Mars. My other favourite was the Alien Head formation of 2002, which appeared only a few miles from the Chilbolton glyphs.

The Alien Head pattern was remarkable in that a message was encoded into the design and that message was deciphered. Although it was cryptic, it sends a shiver down my spine every time I read it:

"Beware the bearers of FALSE gifts & their BROKEN PROMISES. Much PAIN but still time. BELIEVE. There is GOOD out there. We OPpose DECEPTION. Conduit CLOSING (BELL SOUND)".

Alan’s lecture was fascinating and illuminating and well worth getting a numb bum for.

After lunch, Maurizio Baiata took the stage and gave an enthralling talk about the work of Colonel Philip J. Corso. Maurizio is the editor of Italy’s best-selling UFO magazine, Area 51, and certainly knows his stuff.

Colonel Corso, who passed away in 1998 barely a year after his autobiography, The Day After Roswell, was published, was the head of the Pentagon’s Foreign Technology division in the early Sixties. He maintained that many technologies that we take for granted nowadays, such as fibre optics, lasers, integrated circuits and night vision lenses, were developed from alien systems recovered from the Roswell crash of 1947.

In interviews conducted by Maurizio and played for the audience, Corso claimed that rather than directly handing over alien technology to the private sector for development, his team basically planted seeds of ideas and then, over time, produced some of the alien stuff to help the research process. Of course, the inventors of these new technologies claim that back-engineering extra-terrestrial spacecraft had nothing to do with their research process, but remember that they were never told where the ideas or research samples came from.

Maurizio produced many documents that verify Corso’s movements during his active service and also several sketches, made by the colonel, of the aliens recovered from the Roswell crash. Maurizio made it quite clear, though, that nobody was to film or take photographs of the slides he presented.

Maurizio gave an animated talk and our audience enjoyed it immensely. We cannot thank him enough for making the trip from Rome to be with us this weekend.

To close The Great British UFO Show, UFOData Magazine editor and conference host, Russel Callaghan, talked about some of the problems with ufology today, especially in terms of the media.

There are some in the ‘UFO industry’ that want to own everything. They buy up videos taken by witnesses, forcing them to sign exclusivity contracts. They try to copyright common-use terms and threaten legal action when a certain word or acronym is used. More serious, though, is that they stifle debate because the evidence is not available for public scrutiny and examination. UFOData Magazine is about sharing information with the public at large, disseminating the evidence we receive with our readers and hoping that they may shed light on the subjects we cover.

Russel begged that if anybody ever filmed or photographed something strange, never to sign a contract granting exclusivity. Allow the footage or images to be used, but retain the rights so that you can do what you want with them.

With that out of the way, Russel went on to talk about UFO reports from airline pilots, playing clips from The History Channel’s excellent show, UFO Files. If eyewitness reports and radar traces from aviation professionals is not good evidence, then I don’t know what is!

He also showed footage from the Discovery Channel programme, Rocketships, of the famous ‘tether satellite’. The clip was actually shot from the Earth by somebody with a camcorder as the tether orbited, reflecting the sunlight and appearing like a Star Wars lightsabre drifting across the night sky. Amazing stuff.

Russel thanked everybody for attending, for those that gave such fantastic lectures and for those that helped out with the conference. He then slipped in the bombshell announcement that next year, the 60^th anniversary of the Roswell Incident, two of our guest speakers will be noted Roswell researcher, Kevin Randle and the only man who can definitely say that he has held a piece of the Roswell debris, Dr Jesse Marcel Jr. If everything goes according to plan, The Great British UFO Show 2007 will be an event not to be missed!

Everybody at UFOData Magazine would like to thank all of our friends and guests over the weekend for making the conference such a resounding success. See you next year.

Steve Johnson

MISSING TIME:

A Personal Account

Simon Murphy tells his own, bizarre story to friend and UFOData contributor, Steve Johnson

Simon Murphy (left) & Steve Johnson (right)

Introduction

Simon Murphy is not only a good, honest family man, but he is also my best friend. I’ve known him for the best part of twenty years and to say he’s as straight as a die is something of an understatement. He has known of my interest in UFOs for years, but doesn’t really share that interest. Last year, I dragged him to The Great British UFO Show, but he only went so that I didn’t look like a lemon going by myself. His own areas of interest lie in more earthly subjects, such as the Titanic, World War II and writing poetry.

He is also extremely sceptical and this shows in the interview near the end where he tries his level best to explain what happened to him in rational terms. This interview was conducted on Saturday, 28^th January, 2006. I have edited some portions of the transcript for clarity and omitted some information, such as descriptions of his home and his wife’s name, but what we have here is basically what he told me that evening:

Steve Johnson (SJ): When did this event happen?

Simon Murphy (SM): I was working at Zedmark (a local firm that specialised in refractories (furnace liners etc.) and heavy clay goods (pipes, roof tiles, bricks etc.) - SJ), so it would have been ‘94 or maybe ‘95. (See Note at the end of the article – SJ)

Yeah, anyway, as I was saying, I worked at Zedmark and I finished work, so it would have been about half past four/ five o’clock-ish.

SJ: What time of year was it?

SM: I can’t remember exactly, but it was dark outside, so it would have been autumn or winter. (coughs) Excuse me. Yeah, it would have been winter-time, but before Christmas, though, so it would have been autumn/November. Something like that. I walked home and it was about a ten or fifteen minute walk, so I got in probably just after five o’clock. I opened the door, walked in, nothing out of the ordinary. I went into the kitchen, put the kettle on, had a cup of tea. [My wife] was at work because she went to work at about twelve o’clock and didn’t get back until about nine. So, I was on my own, put the immersion heater on, made myself a cup of tea, er, had a cup of tea. I went upstairs about six o’clock-ish, ran myself a bath and stayed upstairs while the bath was filling up. So, the bath filled up, I turned it off, then I heard a noise. No, not a noise, more of a feeling. You know, when you think “something’s not right”, yeah. So I came back out because I thought I’d heard something or I had a feeling that maybe somebody had tried the door or something. So, I came down the steps [describes the layout of his living room into which the stairs open] and that’s when I saw my granddad. He was sat on the furthest cushion from me and I'm looking at him and I sort of remember thinking “This is weird”…

SJ: Your granddad had died?

SM: Yeah, my granddad had died probably twelve months before, maybe a bit longer. But when I saw him [on the sofa], he looked really healthy. He looked old, but he didn’t look ancient like he did just before he died. Anyway, he was sitting on the settee on the furthest cushion on the right-hand side of the settee and I noticed the depression in the cushion where he was sitting. And he just looked at me…

SJ: As though he was a real person.

SM: Yeah, as though he was a real person, a proper, physical being sat there. And then he turned and looked at me and smiled. (pause) And I just stood there and thought “This is weird”. But, it’s worthy to note that only a few months before, I had had that episode with my grandma. Shall I talk about that?

SJ: Please.

SM: Okay, prior to this incident, a few months before, which was the summertime, erm, maybe May/June/July time, I was working at Zedmark, it was lunchtime and I had my dinner and I made myself a cup of tea to have with my dinner and I nodded off. I had a dream about my grandma and I woke up with a start. I knocked my cup off and I was all like “Oh bloody hell” and that. Anyway, I thought, I’ve just had this dream and I'm a silly bugger and stuff. In my dream, she had been like “Are you all right, lad?” and I’d woken up, knocked my tea over and I was a bit shaken up, you know? So I picked my cup up and I never thought anything more about it, you know, I thought “fair enough” and just shrugged it off. I went back to work, doing my normal duties and I had to move a pallet of stuff. Normally, it’s not my job to, sort of, move pallets about because I didn’t actually have a license for driving the forklift, but there was nobody about and I knew how to drive the forklift, so I trundled off and got on the forklift. Now, if you can imagine the area, it’s a wide open area with concrete, but all around it is a large, grass area and the river runs just further down.

SJ: Long, wild grass…

SM: Yeah, with a few trees dotted about and stuff. Anyway, as I say, I was on the forklift, trundling past that area, past some parked cars and stuff and to the right was where I had to get my samples from, so I did that, got a pallet with some stuff on and reversed, starting to head back and [right in front of me] I saw a figure. It was a female figure in sort of a gown, like a white gown, but not like a funeral gown, like somebody might be buried in, but a flowing, large dress like a muumuu (laughs). You know, that kind of thing.

SJ: Like a nightie?

SM: Yeah. Anyway, as I said, she was just stood there in the grass. I eased off on the accelerator, so I was slowly trundling towards her and then I stopped. It took ages, but suddenly recognition kicked in and I thought “I know her. I do know her” and I was watching and watching her and then it dawned on me that it was my grandma. And we just stood there for ages and ages staring at each other. We made eye contact and then she smiled at me and I just carried on watching her. Then, I don’t know why, but I glanced away. I don’t know, I looked down at the steering wheel or something and when I looked back, she’d gone. So, I trundled to that area by the edge of the car park and got out and sort of had a good look because I thought, you know, she can’t have disappeared. But there was, what I took to be a depression where somebody had been standing in the grass, but there were no tracks to or from, as though somebody had walked there, you know. It was quite tall, you know, like scrubland grass, but there was a depression like where the grass had been trodden down, but I couldn’t see any paths off. And obviously, where I had walked, in the grass behind me, you could see where the grass had bent where I had walked…

SJ: How far was it to the depression?

SM: I’d say from the tarmaced bit to there, I would say that it was, like, thirty yards? So it was a fair way from the edge. There was a path further up, but there was no way somebody could have leaped there and then disappeared in the few seconds from me looking down and then looking back up. I’d have seen them because it was that open. Anyway, I just put it down to being a silly bugger. So, anyway, that was done and dusted and I thought at the time that maybe I had subconsciously wanted to see her and my brain created a heavenly image of her for me. You know, as if to tell me that everything’s great. I don’t know. Anyway, puzzled about it for a couple of minutes and went back to work. Anyway, this incident with my granddad would have been about three or four months after. As I said, I saw him there on the settee, saw the depression and, as I said, he looked healthy. My grandma had looked healthy when I saw her – oldish, but probably looking like she was in her early fifties. You know, she didn’t look like she did when she died or like when she was in her sixties. She looked like she had gone to an age like she was in her fifties and she looked nice and healthy and happy. And my granddad looked the same. He didn’t look like he’d gone back to like he was when he was thirty or in his twenties because I probably wouldn’t have recognised him as much. He looked like he had gone back to a time maybe ten or fifteen years when I was young, but I knew him, obviously. And he looked right good and healthy and, again, happy.

Anyway, I thought “Bloody hell, this is weird” and then (pause) nothing. I can’t remember. From that point on, I can’t say anything because I don’t know what I was doing. I don’t remember anything, nothing at all. I don’t remember walking anywhere, I don’t remember any sounds, I don’t remember any smells, I don’t remember any lights or, or any figures. Nothing, I have absolutely nothing there. Just a total blank. The first thing I remember is the fish shop down at the bottom of our road. I was standing there, on the corner. I thought “What am I doing here?” The fish shop was shut – I hadn’t gone to get myself some fish and chips (laughs). Anyway, I started walking back up the road. 

SJ: What was your physical state?

SM: Well, I didn’t notice at first. I had a t-shirt on and some tracksuit bottoms and a pair of trainers. No coat or anything and, as I say, it wasn’t over-warm. It was autumn time. So I started walking home (about a hundred yards or so – SJ) and then I noticed that I had dirt on my hands. I thought “Where has this come from?” I had soil and dirt on me and then when I looked down, I saw that my trousers were all ripped and I had scratches all over myself. It was like I had been fumbling about in briar bushes or something, you know, for some reason and the thorns had nipped me and cut me, or something like that. The knees were all ripped, as though I had fallen, and they were ripped up the side. They were not major, but I had cuts all over my legs…

SJ: I know the area in which you live and I can’t think of anywhere where you might have fallen in some bushes like that. There’s Caulm’s Wood way over the other side of the car park behind the chip shop, but it’s a fair way to go and have no recollection.

SM: Yeah. It’s not impossible, I suppose, that I couldn’t go there, because the timescale we’re talking about is between about six o’clock and when [my wife] got back from work, which was about half past nine. So we’re talking over three hours.

SJ: I didn’t realise it was so long, actually.

SM: Yeah. Anyway, I was all dirty and cut and my clothes were ripped. I felt okay in my head, apart from being confused, thinking “Where have I been?” but I wasn’t panicking, I felt quite calm. It was later when I felt a little panicked when I found out how much time had gone by when I looked at my watch at home. I didn’t have my watch on, you see. I’d taken it off when I’d run the bath, so I had no idea how long I’d been gone… It never occurred to me to question how long I’d been gone. I just knew that something had happened. I didn’t feel woozy or sick or wobbly, I just felt like “What the bloody hell’s happened?”, you know.

Anyway, I carried on walking and I passed a bloke, who was walking towards me on the opposite side of the street and he sort of looked at me, as though he as thinking “What’s happened to him?” I remember looking at him, but I didn’t engage him or anything. I don’t know why, well, probably because I thought “Look at the state of me. He probably thinks I'm a druggie or something!” So I thought, well, just go home. Anyway, he was the only other person I saw, there were no other people about, no cars passed me, which is unusual, because there’s a taxi rank up there. When I got [close to home], [my wife] actually drove past me. There were no cars parked on my side of the road, there were a couple on the other side, but anyway, she came up and I started waving at her and she totally ignored me.

SJ: You say she ignored you, but as you say, you were quite noticeable because this other bloke had seen you and your condition was such that he’d given you a good looking over…

SM: Yeah, that’s it, but he was the only other person I’d seen. There was nobody else about and I can’t remember anything about him, except that he sort of looked at me, as though… you know… but [my wife] totally ignored me. Anyway, I was walking up the middle of the road, because it was a bit of a cul-de-sac by now, and [my wife] got out of her car, turned around and then she saw me. And then she basically said to me: “What the f*** have you been doing?” I said: “What do you mean?” And she said: “Who’ve you been fighting with? What’ve you been doing?” And I just said to her: “I don’t know!”

She said: “Look at the state of you. You’re covered in mud, you’ve got dirt all over you and your trousers are ripped to bits.” I said: “You’ve just driven past me.” And she said: “Well, I didn’t see you.”

Genuinely, she might not have seen me. I could have just been another bloke and she might not have thought it was me, because you don’t always pay attention, do you? Anyway, when we went round the corner to the house, the front door was unlocked and slightly open. Like I’d left and not shut the door, only pulling it closed, but not locking it. Anyway, the lounge light was on, the kitchen light was on, the immersion heater was still on, erm…

SJ: It was a good job you’d stopped the bath…

SM: Well, I’d filled the bath, taken my watch off, stopped the bath filling and that’s when I thought that something was not right… and trundled downstairs. Anyway, we went in and I told her about what had happened, with me seeing my granddad and not remembering anything else. After that I went upstairs. The bath was still full, but the water was cold, so emptied the bath and refilled it back up and, erm, had a bath. And that’s basically it. That’s the story. There’s no more to tell that I can think of.

Then when we went to the UFO convention (The Great British UFO Show 2005 – SJ) and I heard him (Philip Mantle – SJ) talk about the green mist. Something triggered and I do remember, very vaguely, a green mist surrounding me. But I don’t know where. It wasn’t in the house and it wasn’t by the chippie, but I have basically no idea where I was. I don’t remember anything else, but when that green mist was mentioned, it did sort of trigger something and I do remember being in a green mist. It wasn’t a sci-fi green mist or billowing clouds, it was sort of like a fog, but with somebody, like, with a green lamp waving it about. It was just a hazy, diffuse mist with, like I said, this green light as if somebody had a lamp with a green filter on it waving it about and that was it.

SJ: Have you ever considered trying hypnosis to try and find out what happened?

SM: There was somebody at work that I mentioned it to, an old bloke, whose wife did hypnosis. Now, either she wasn’t very good at it, but I think I wasn’t receptive enough, because I didn’t really want to do it. I didn’t believe it and I didn’t want to be regressed, so it didn’t work. So, I did try it, but I don’t know if it wasn’t the right settings or… I actually felt quite uncomfortable and a bit fearful, so maybe I wasn’t receptive to what she was saying. I just didn’t want to know. But she did say, though, that there was something there in my mind that was blocking the efforts to try and do it, that I was blocking it. As you know, I’ve had experiences, but I'm still a very sceptical person, so I think my mind was thinking that it was all a load of rubbish. I don’t know.

SJ: But even the most sceptical person would want to find out why they had three hours missing from their lives.

SM: Yeah, three hours is a long time to have no memory of. I don’t know. Maybe the vision of my granddad made me have a brain lock or something and I went wandering off somewhere and I could have done. I could have fallen all over. I could have gone somewhere… maybe I thought I was going somewhere and ended up falling through some bushes somewhere. I’ve no idea.

SJ: But what you describe does fit in with other abduction reports. (Simon laughs) Like you said, the green mist reference at the conference triggered a memory and abductees have reported seeing long-dead loved ones just before an abduction experience, or furry little animals, stuff like that – things to set you at ease. It has been known, it’s quite common.

SM: But, I’ve never had it since. Maybe I am unacceptable. (we laugh, recalling Homer Simpson’s encounter with aliens when they spray him with rum and kick him out of their flying saucer)

Yeah, it is weird, but it’s something that I have never lost a night’s sleep over. It’s never haunted me, it’s never bothered me. It was just something that happened.

SJ: Well, that’s another aspect to so-called paranormal sightings. They’re called ‘incidents of high strangeness’, and they’re so weird that your brain just filters them out, it doesn’t let you worry over them. Like when people report seeing ghosts, they’ll often say that they weren’t frightened at the time, they only became frightened later when they were retelling the story. But at the time, you think “That’s odd!”, or words to that effect, and then carry on with what you were doing.

SM: Yeah. I never got a feeling of terror. When I appeared, or got there from wherever I’d wandered from, I didn’t feel panicked. There wasn’t something screaming out from inside my head asking what’s happened. I just felt calm. I can’t explain it. Since then, like I said, I’ve never lost a night’s sleep over it and I’ve never given it another thought really.

The only time I got upset was at the UFO conference when the green mist was mentioned and I became shaken and had to go outside for a bit of fresh air, but I think that was because it was so unexpected. But I don’t recall anything nasty happening to me. I’ve got no scars or anything and the scratches on my legs were nothing. I mean, for all I know, I could have walked back to where I thought I saw my grandma, because it’s all grass and overgrown there. Plus it’s all dark and there’s no streetlamps, so I could have been wandering about all over there and falling over and stuff.

The thing is, if I was wandering around for those three hours, surely somebody must have seen me. If I have no memory of it, then I must have looked lost or confused or something. But saying that, if I did look like that, would folk go near me? They’d think I was a nutter or a druggie or whatever. I can’t explain it.

***

Later, Simon told me about another incident that occurred sometime before his missing time event. One night, sometime after 10pm, he was driving in his wife’s car along a lane in the countryside that surrounds our town, when for about five seconds the rear section of the car was brilliantly illuminated from somewhere. He described the light as almost having substance; he could feel it on the back of his neck as though it was slightly pushing him forward. Thinking a car or truck was behind him, he glanced into the rear-view mirror, but the road behind was dark. The road ahead was also dark, save for the beam of his headlights. His dashboard was also not illuminated by the light, only the normal lights of the speedometer etc. Then the light went out and he continued his journey. He has no explanation for this and had almost forgotten about it until I interviewed him about his missing time experience.

Is Simon the victim of alien abduction, or did he witness something else of a paranormal nature and suffer from some sort of temporary nervous breakdown and went wandering off for three hours? Was it all in his mind? Where did he go? How did he get dirty and covered with scratches, with his clothes torn? Why did the mention of a green mist at The Great British UFO Show cause him to become so distressed that he had to leave the room and go outside?

As Simon has no internal need to truly find out what happened to him that evening, it will likely remain a mystery.

Note:

Simon said that the events took place in 1994 or 1995. I recall him telling me about seeing his grandmother at work. I even mention it in an article I wrote for my website (http://www.mercuryrapids.co.uk/articles2.htm#ournightofterror ). As the events of that article took place just after the birth of my son, I can positively confirm that the events of Simon’s missing time experience happened in the year 1992 – SJ

© Steve Johnson - 2005

UFO Files:

Pacific Bermuda Triangle

The History Channel’s excellent series, UFO Files, keeps on going from strength to strength. If they ever release a DVD box set of the series, not only will it be huge, but it will be a required purchase for anybody interested in this subject.

I digress, though. One of the latest episodes was entitled Pacific Bermuda Triangle and concerned itself with an area of the Pacific Ocean known as the Dragon’s Sea, Devil’s Sea or the Dragon’s Triangle. This is an area, on the opposite side of the world to the North Atlantic’s Bermuda Triangle, where ships and boats have vanished without a trace and numerous strange sightings have occurred for many, many years.

Covering an area of about half a million square miles, the Dragon’s Triangle is located south of the islands of Japan, reaches down to the isle of Guam and across to the island nation of Palau, east of the Philippines. Curiously, the northern tips of both the Dragon’s Triangle and the Bermuda Triangle lie close to the latitude of 35° north.

Bill Birnes, publisher of UFO Magazine, claims that the magnetic anomalies within both of these triangles disrupt compass readings by about twenty degrees.

Despite being less well-known than its western counterpart, the Dragon’s Triangle appears to have a more deadly history, with vessels disappearing on a far more regular basis. Since World War II, it has been estimated that over 1,500 vessels and hundreds of aircraft have vanished here.

The region gained notoriety after the publication of The Dragon’s Triangle by Charles Berlitz in 1989. Berlitz had brought the Bermuda Triangle to worldwide attention fifteen years previously with his best-selling book. For his 1989 book, Berlitz researched hundreds of disappearances and strange events in the Dragon’s Sea, citing ghost ships, compass fluctuations, UFO sightings and ships being transported hundreds of miles in seconds.

On the second of July, 1937, famed aviator, Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae in Papua New Guinea. Their goal was Howland Island, some two and a half thousand miles distant. Barely eight hundred miles into the flight and with no warning, her plane vanished. Many explanations have been proffered for Earhart’s and Noonan’s disappearance, ranging from navigational error resulting in the plane running out of fuel and ditching into the ocean, to the pair being captured by Japanese soldiers and possibly killed or imprisoned for espionage, to abduction by UFOs. Whatever the cause of Earhart’s loss, hers is one of the most famous stories linked to the Dragon’s Triangle.

Another aspect of the mystery of the triangle is that of ghost ships. For centuries, stories have abounded of cursed vessels sailing without crews and the stories continue to this day. Ghost ships exceeding a hundred thousand tons have been reported. What happened to their crews is a complete mystery.

On the morning of June 11^th, 1881, a British warship, HMS Bacchante, encountered the legendary Flying Dutchman, deep within the Dragon’s Triangle. A young ensign, who would later be crowned King George V, reported in the ship’s log:

“The Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. She emitted a strange, phosphorescent light as of a phantom ship, all aglow. She came up on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge saw her. But on arriving, there was no vestige or any sign whatever of any material ship to be seen, either near of right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm.”

In January, 1989, a Japanese whaling ship came within fifty feet of a small fishing boat. The boat was boarded, but no crew or cargo could be found. All that was found was the corpse of the captain, his hands still gripping the helm.

Bill Birnes suggests that these missing crews may have been abducted by aliens, snatched from their vessels by a USO or Unidentified Submerged Object.

Of course, entire vessels have vanished without a trace, taking their unfortunate personnel with them.

In April, 1949, the Kuroshio Maru No. 1, a Japanese ship with twenty-three people on board, disappeared. In June 1952, the Chofuku Maru No. 5 vanished with all twenty-nine hands. On 26^th June, 1955, a US Air Force F-3B jet lost contact with its base and the plane was never heard from again. In March, 1957, a KB-50 tanker aircraft with eight crewmen aboard vanished. June 7^th, 1963, and what was left of the Donan Maru was found adrift.

The Kaiyo Maru No. 5 was a Japanese survey ship researching the area for the Hydrographic Department of the Maritime Safety Agency. On September 24^th, 1952, the ship was lost with all thirty-one crew, making it the biggest disaster in the history of Japanese oceanographic research. The favoured explanation for the complete loss of the ship is that it was caught by the blast from a submerged volcano (the Triangle has many volcanoes, as it lies within the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’), some are not convinced, claiming that the Kaiyo Maru was a victim of the Dragon’s Triangle.

Like the Bermuda Triangle, the Dragon’s Sea is said to be an area in which the rules of time and space are in flux, causing ships and planes to be forced off course by many miles in an instant. Loren Coleman, author of Mysterious America, says that there are many explanations, but it really is a mystery why these temporal effects occur.

In the late 1950s, American entertainer, Arthur Godfrey, was flying over the Dragon’s Triangle when his instruments failed and he saw a USO. Flying blind for an hour before his instruments returned to life, he made it to Tokyo and found that he had ‘lost’ thirty minutes.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hopkins, an advisor to the 106^th Air Transport Group, was flying in a C-97 Stratofreighter over the triangle in 1968. Back then, he was a navigator and, as protocol required, he used star navigation to plot their course every hour. Three hours into the flight, he took another celestial fix and was astonished to find that their position was more than 340 nautical miles down their intended course. On landing, he told his duty officer that the aircraft had been ‘dropped’ many hundreds of miles ahead of their plotted course. No report was filed. Hopkins maintained that the area was prone to peculiar forces that posed danger to planes and ships that ventured across it.

Over the years, there have been huge numbers of UFO and USO reports from within the Dragon’s Triangle. In Berlitz’s book, he tells of Mikakunin Hiko-Buttai, the Japanese for UFOs, which have sunk ships whilst leaving or entering the ocean. In bygone days, these losses were attributed to demons or dragons that lurked beneath the waves. Nowadays, Japanese researchers blame USOs or UFOs.

Some experts believe that part of the Dragon’s Triangle includes the city of Tokyo in its boundaries. Junichiro Kato, head of OUR-J, the Organisation of UFO Research – Japan, has photographed over two hundred objects over the Dragon’s Triangle. He claims to have being witnessing one or two a month at one point.

On June 14^th, 1997, Kato photographed what appeared to be three glowing discs, travelling at over five hundred miles per hour over Tokyo Bay. The event was witnessed by ten other people and the news media were alerted, but no reports made it to air.

In 1990, on a quiet beach about thirty miles south of Tokyo, magazine editor, Masanobu Miyoshi, witnessed a white light ‘buzzing’ a jet that was flying over the ocean. He describes the UFO as moving like it was writing a ‘W’ in the sky. Before his sighting, he did not believe in UFOs, but what he saw has changed his opinion.

The former Soviet Union had one of the largest active fleets in the Pacific and many UFO and USO reports were filed. According to famed Russian researcher, Vladimir Ajaja, in 1977, the Soviet Navy ordered a study to be begun to examine reports of unidentified objects seen at sea. He was in charge of that group and, by the end of that year, instructions had been given to Soviet naval vessels about how to observe UFOs and what to do when one was spotted.

On August 18^th, 1980, the Soviet research ship, the Vladimir Volbirov was moving south through the Dragon’s Sea on a course towards the Japanese island of Okinawa. At about midnight, a glowing, cylindrical object rose from the sea, hovered for a while and then shot off across the sky.

In April, 1981, the 165-foot Japanese freighter, Taki Kyoto Maru, was in almost the exact location of the Vladimir Volbirov. Suddenly the ship was rocked by shockwaves erupting from the sea. A bright, saucer-shaped object rose out of the water and hovered, silently, over the ship. It was about fifty feet in diameter.  The ship’s instruments fluctuated wildly as the saucer circled the ship for about fifteen minutes. Then it plunged back into the ocean, again creating huge waves that buffeted the Japanese vessel, almost causing it to capsize. When their instruments returned to normal, the captain found that they had lost fifteen minutes of time.

In December of 1984, the Japanese research ship, Kaiyo Maru (obviously not the same as the one that disappeared in 1952), was off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. A crewman, Mr Naganobu, saw two dozen UFOs, hovering in the sky. Suddenly, they shot off in three different directions. Two years later, the ship was in the Dragon’s Triangle. A huge, cigar-shaped UFO, over a hundred feet in length, approached the ship and plunged into the ocean. This event was once again witnessed by Mr Naganobu. This time, the UFO was also seen on radar. Both of Naganobu’s reports were published in a 1988, Japanese edition of Scientific American.

On March 18^th, 1965, the captain of a Toa Airways Convair passenger plane encountered a large, oblong-shaped craft. To avoid a collision, he turned his aircraft sixty degrees at over five hundred miles per hour (the programme shows a twin-prop aircraft, likely a Convair 240, so it is unlikely that a speed of 500 mph was achieved. The passenger plane may have been a Convair jetliner that can fly over that speed and were in service in 1965, such as the Convair 990). The UFO stopped suddenly and then manoeuvred alongside the airliner. The captain radioed that he was being ‘shadowed by a UFO’.

The object was about fifty feet long and glowed with a greenish hue. The encounter was witnessed from the ground and another pilot in a separate aircraft heard the Toa captain’s frantic radio transmissions.

The object was independently spotted several times that night at different locations.

Stories from the Dragon’s Triangle stretch back hundreds of years, with tales of sea dragons pulling ships to their doom. The region is also home to one of the oldest UFO stories:

One day, a spherical boat was towed into a Japanese village after it appeared on the beach. Inside was a woman who looked nothing like the locals: she had white skin, red and white hair, spoke a strange language and held a box close to her at all times. The ‘boat’ has strange symbols upon it, like nothing the local people had ever seen.

Dr Kazuo Tanaka of Gifu University studied the old stories about this ‘alien woman’ and her craft and came to the conclusion that she was extra-terrestrial. The story of the Utsuro-fune (or Utsuro-bune) appeared several times in 19^th Century Japanese literature and many depictions of the woman and her craft were printed, all very similar. The stories, though set in about 1803, may date back much further and be drawn from Japanese folklore. It has been suggested, however, that the woman may have been British, or at least European, and that the ‘unknown writings’ on her craft may have been Latin alphabetical characters.

On the 24^th of September, 1235, strange lights were seen to hover over an army camp in Kyoto. The troops were terrified, thinking the lights were sea dragons coming to attack them.

In 1274, Kublai Khan, the Mongol Emperor, amassed a fleet of nine hundred ships, holding over forty thousand men, and set sail to conquer Japan. A typhoon formed and more than half of the ships were sunk. Not to be deterred, Khan assembled over three thousand ships in 1281 and a hundred and forty thousand men and gave his invasion of Japan another go.

This time, a ‘divine wind’ destroyed most of the ships and half of the men lost their lives. This gave rise to the notion that Japan was protected by the gods and any invasion of her shores was doomed to failure.

July 8^th, 1853, and Commodore Matthew Perry was in Tokyo Bay at 4am. In his log, he described ‘a remarkable meteor’ that illuminated the entire area with a blue light. It flew from south-west to north-east before gradually sinking into the ocean and disappearing. It was described as a large, blue sphere, with a red, wedge-shaped tail. The tail appeared ‘like the sparks of a rocket’.

American researcher, Steven Greer, notes that because the Dragon’s Triangle is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, a highly active area of volcanism, many UFO sightings in the region will be because of the tectonic activity deep below the sea.

US Navy ships have detailed charts showing where the known areas of activity are located and ships are advised to stay away from those regions. Dr Joann Stock, of the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), explains that when undersea volcanoes erupt, huge amounts of gases are released. A ship above such an eruption of gases will find that it is no longer buoyant, as the bubbles of gas disrupt the water volume. When this occurs, a ship can be pulled under the surface very quickly. These submarine eruptions can also release large amounts of particulate matter that can clog the intakes of aircraft, causing them to drop of out the sky.

The Dragon’s Sea is also prone to a phenomenon known as ‘triangle waves’. These are when winds converge from different directions and can create a powerful wave many tens of feet high. There have been reports of triangle waves of a hundred feet or more.

Whatever the reasons for the incidents in the Dragon’s Triangle, and they are likely to be varied, we have to remember that what happens there is real. Planes and ships are destroyed and people lose their lives in that vast expanse of ocean. It is not something that can be simply dismissed with a shrug of ‘I don’t believe it’. The evidence is there, mysterious things happen.

Pacific Bermuda Triangle was yet another excellent episode from the UFO Files series. As usual with this programme, every avenue was explored and both sides of the argument were given time to put their views across. It was also nice to have an episode that wasn’t called Northallerton’s Roswell, or whatever. Saying that, we’ll probably get The Indian Ocean Bermuda Triangle, The Sahara Bermuda Triangle and The Milton Keynes Bermuda Triangle before very long.

As I said at the beginning of this article, if a DVD set was released, it should be at the top of the list of everybody who has even the slightest interest in UFOs. Maybe it is out on DVD already and I’ve missed it!

The images used are the property of the copyright holders and are only used here for review purposes.

© Steve Johnson - 2006

UFO FILES:

Black Box UFO Secrets

Wednesday, 11^th August, 2006

The History Channel aired another new UFO Files episode this week and it was as fascinating and illuminating as any other part of this fantastic series.

Some of the most convincing evidence of UFOs comes from military and civilian pilots. These are well-trained professionals of the utmost regard, not prone to flights of fancy and regularly given the responsibility over the safety of hundreds of lives. If anybody should be listened to when they say they have seen something out of the ordinary, it is these guys. This episode, however did not just tell us stories of UFO sightings by pilots, it played us the actual recordings of conversations between them and Air Traffic Control (ATC).

Not only airline pilot reports were included, but also sightings from NASA astronauts from Gemini 7 in 1965 to STS-114 in 2005.

On November 17^th, 1986, Japanese Airlines Flight 1628 (JAL 1628) was flying over Alaska, on a course for Anchorage, where it was to refuel for the final leg of its flight from Paris to Tokyo. At 5:11pm, the pilot, Captain Kenju Terauchi reported three unidentified objects, two thousand feet below his Boeing 747. There were two smaller objects and one larger craft, described as twice the size of an aircraft carrier and shaped like a ‘shelled walnut’.

After several minutes, it became clear to the JAL crew that this trio of UFOs were matching the jumbo jet’s speed of 600mph and apparently tracking them. Suddenly the craft began performing impossible manoeuvres and the two smaller objects approached so close to the jet that Terauchi said that the glow from them made his face feel warm. The captain requested with the ground controllers that he be allowed to deviate his course to avoid a collision with the UFOs.

The plane’s communications equipment went dead and all contact with ATC was lost. Then the objects rose sharply and vanished. When the radio link was restored, ATC asked if Terauchi could still see the objects, but he replied that they had gone.

A few minutes later, the military radar operators at Elmendorf Air Force Base (AFB) contacted Anchorage ATC and informed them that the JAL flight was still being trailed by several unknown targets. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) requested that the Air Force scramble jets to intercept the unknown objects, but, bizarrely, they failed to do so. Thankfully, JAL 1628 landed safely at Anchorage at 6:20pm.

The incident received tremendous press coverage at the time, but the official FAA report mysteriously disappeared, according to researcher, Stanton Friedman.

A little over two months later, on January 30^th, 1987, a US Air Force (USAF) KC-135, out of Elmendorf AFB, was en route to Eielson AFB in Fairbanks, Alaska, when it encountered something similar to the object seen by JAL 1628. The UFO approached to within only forty feet of the aircraft! The pilot of the plane even mentioned the Japanese Airlines incident, asking if this sort of thing was seen regularly up in Alaska. The ground controller replied that it was rare. The FAA requested a report of the sighting from the pilots.

Less than twenty-four hours later, another sighting occurred over Alaska. Alaska Airlines Flight 53 (AS 53) reported brightly-lit, disc-shaped objects trailing them. Nothing was seen on radar from the ground. The pilot described the objects as suddenly moving away at about a mile per second and quickly disappearing.

Bill Birnes, publisher of UFO Magazine (US), claimed that any pilot that tried to file an official report to the FAA or the military about a UFO sighting might as well hand in their license. The powers that be just do not want to know about these incidents.

Ever since man began powered flight, pilots have reported UFOs, but it was not until 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, a pilot from Boise, Idaho, made his historic sighting in Washington State that the general public became aware of these incidents. He saw nine, crescent-shaped objects, flying at tremendous speed in an echelon formation. Their motion was described as being like ’saucers skipping across a pond’. The press, with their knack for latching onto useful puns, interpreted this as ‘flying saucers’.

The US military had experimented with flight recorders since World War II, but it was not until 1956, and an airborne collision that killed 128 people, that civilian airlines began using cockpit voice recorders (CVRs).

Since then, there have been many recorded sightings of near-misses with UFOs, objects tracked on radar and other hair-raising incidents.

On November 18^th, 1995, Lufthansa Flight 405 (LH 405) was flying over Long Island, New York, at 10:20pm. The pilot reported to Boston ATC that an unknown object had zipped by his jet. He described it as cylindrical, with a white light on the front and a long, green, comet-like tail. The UFO was also seen by British Airways Flight 226 (BA 226) and the pilot described a ‘very strong vapour trail that looked more like smoke’ and a very bright light on the front of the object.

The UFO passed as close as two thousand feet above LH 405 and about a mile distant, very close in the busy air corridors of New York. The pilot of the German aircraft even said it ‘looked like a UFO’.

Boston ATC contacted ‘Giant Killer’, the military surveillance facility that monitors US airspace in the north-east. On hearing a description of the reports from the two civilian carriers, Giant Killer suggested that what they had seen was a meteor. Boston passed this along to the airliners, but they were adamant that what they saw was no meteor. Neither the airlines involved nor the FAA have commented on this incident since.

On August 9^th, 1997, Swissair Flight 127 (SR 127), a Boeing 747 en route to Zurich, Switzerland, was flying at about twenty-three thousand feet over New York with excellent visibility. Suddenly, an unknown object appeared, heading towards the jumbo jet and passed only two hundred feet or so above them. The pilot, Captain Philip Bobet, immediately got on the horn to Boston ATC. He described what had passed close to their aircraft as looking like a rocket and incredibly fast, too fast for an aeroplane. Later, he would describe it as a bright, white, cylindrical object, wingless and resembling a shark.

Although classified in the reports as a UFO, the FAA concluded that what Bobet had seen was a weather balloon. Pilot and UFO researcher, Don Berliner, said that the weather balloon explanation holds no water, as pilots know a weather balloon when they see one.

February 28^th, 1996, and the US Mid-West was inundated with reports of aeroplane-shaped objects flying around at amazing speeds. Two flights in particular were noted, those of Air shuttle Flight 5959 and Mesaba Airlines Flight 3179.

The Air Shuttle flight first reported a pulsating object below them, in between two cloud layers. Cleveland ATC replied that they had nothing on their radar and asked for an altitude from the pilot. He said that the object was perhaps two thousand feet below them and about ten miles distant. The pilot of Mesaba 3179 confirmed the sighting and reported that it appeared to be flickering.

It was suggested by Cleveland ATC that what they were seeing was a landing beacon, reflecting on the clouds. Both flights replied that it was a distinct light source that they were seeing. The Mesaba pilot said that it was flashing red and green lights, while the Air Shuttle pilot described it as looking like a bright, spinning Frisbee.

Flight 5959 descended beneath the object and viewed it from below, confirming that it was not something on the ground, reflecting into the cloud layers. Mesaba 3179 blinked its lights to see if there was any reaction from the UFO, but there appeared to be none.

What was not covered in the program was that the Mesaba plane reported that one of their passengers had taken photographs of the object and that Cleveland ATC had expressed an interest in seeing them:

Mesaba 3179: Okay, 3179, we got a passenger taking a picture of it right now and, ah, we have a flight attendant who says that, ah, they might have saw the same thing the other night.

Cleveland ATC: Okay, so it's off your right side about two o'clock. I'd sure be interested to see those pictures. Can I, ah, get you an address that you might be able to send a copy, if you get a copy of them?

Mesaba 3179: Yeah, sure. We can do that and actually we made a right turn and he's off about ten to eleven o'clock.

Cleveland ATC: Okay, so he's off your left side. Okay.

Mesaba 3179: Okay, thirty-two-nine. We'll see ya. I wonder if those pictures will show anything.

Mesaba 3179: Air Cleveland, Mesaba 3179.

Cleveland ATC: Mesaba 3179, go ahead.

Mesaba 3179: I just want you to know that I took a picture, as captain, on the left side. I also took [garbled] of some of the stars above, so the lowest light on those pictures. The only single light at the bottom of the picture should be, ah, what you're looking at. And you might be able to get a position with the sky if you want to go that far.

Cleveland ATC: Okay, great. That's a good idea, I appreciate that.

Mesaba 3179: It was an instamatic camera. Good night, sir.

Cleveland ATC: Good night.

The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) made history on May 25^th, 1995, when it became one of the first governmental agencies to officially be involved in a UFO incident.

America West Airlines Flight 564 (HP 564) was cruising from Tampa, Florida to Las Vegas, Nevada. They were thirty-nine thousand feet over Bovina, Texas, when, at 10:25pm, a huge, cigar-shaped craft appeared about nine thousand feet below them.

The pilot, Captain Eugene Tollefson, and co-pilot, John G Waller, reported that it had a bright strobe that moved anti-clockwise around the massive, four to five hundred-foot long craft. It did not show up on radar at all.

Albuquerque ATC contacted Cannon AFB in New Mexico and they could not believe what they were told. Asking what the report meant, the ground controller at Albuquerque said: “I don’t know, it’s a UFO or something. It’s that Roswell crap again!”

Soon afterwards, an F-117a Stealth Fighter, from Holloman AFB, was alerted to the report and the pilot radioed that he had seen something passing by his left side. Apparently, this time, it was picked up on radar, as ground control confirmed this. Silhouetted against flashes of lightning, HP 564 saw the UFO pass very close to their aeroplane and described it as an ‘eerie sight’. The craft then disappeared from view.

Albuquerque ATC contacted NORAD’s Western Headquarters at McChord AFB in Washington State. The lady at NORAD claimed that they had nothing in the area that she knew about. The Albuquerque controller said that it was a ‘definite UFO’ and was ‘right out of The X-Files’. All the lady could do to voice her amazement was to curse into the microphone about ‘religious poo’ – you get my drift.

Thirteen minutes later, she was back on the line to Albuquerque ATC, confirming that they had an unknown target in that area and had been tracking it for several minutes. NORAD later denied anything had been detected.

One of the most famous UFO cases of recent times is that of the New Zealand sighting of the night of December 31^st, 1978, when a television camera crew captured several unknown objects over the ocean. Ten days earlier, an aircraft had reported seeing strange lights over New Zealand’s South Island. The objects had also been detected by Wellington ATC.

Channel 10 television despatched reporter, Quentin Fogarty and a camera crew to try and film the UFOs, if they appeared again. They did.

At around midnight, over the town of Kaikoura, what they captured on film was soon beamed all around the world. Soon after take-off from Blenheim Airport in Christchurch, Fogarty reported that they could see two very bright objects on their starboard side. They kept pace with the aircraft and were ‘much brighter than any of the other stars in the sky’. Again, the sighting was confirmed by ground radar.

The pilot, Captain Bill Startup, reported that one of the objects began ahead of him, then moved at an incredible speed down the left-hand side of his aircraft. He banked left, in an attempt to keep the UFO in sight. Wellington ATC informed him that another target was on his left side and was closing in on his position. Fogarty recorded that he could see the object and that it flashed very bright white and green lights. Captain Startup said he could see that the UFO had an array of bright lights, pulsing in rapid succession. Then, somehow, the object began to increase to double its size. This was also confirmed by Wellington ATC before it returned to its previous appearance, thirty-six seconds later.

Fogarty reported that two more objects appeared, making three UFOs in their vicinity. They were now off the plane’s right wing and had been following them for about ten minutes. Quentin was clearly shaken by what he was seeing and suggested that they had enough film and that they should return to Christchurch.

In 1979, Bruce Maccabee received a copy of the 16mm film from the television network and the complete, unedited footage has never been made publicly available before.

As we all know, Russian and American spacemen and women have reported UFOs in Earth orbit.

In 1965, Gemini 7, with astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell aboard, was in orbit above Hawaii when both men reported a ‘bogey’ above their capsule. NASA maintained that what they saw was the Titan booster, but Lovell replied that he could see the booster as well as several other objects.

On September 13^th, 1966, Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon, aboard Gemini 11, photographed an unknown object outside their capsule. It was described as metallic and revolving at one revolution per second. Three images were snapped before the object dropped down in front of them and vanished.

NORAD suggested that it was a booster from a Russian satellite, but NASA rejected this hypothesis and the Gemini 11 case is the only one which the American space agency considers to be unidentified.

As the Apollo program progressed, it became clear that ‘somebody’ was taking an interest in our tiny ships hurtling towards the Moon. Each mission reported unknown objects, but for many years refused to talk about them, until Buzz Aldrin’s startling revelations this year (see Apollo 11: The Untold Story).

Apollo 12 commander, Pete Conrad reported a tumbling object that had been following them for more than a day.

UFO sightings continued during the space shuttle era. One controversial incident occurred during STS-29 in March of 1989. Shuttle pilot, John Blaha, was picked up by a Maryland ham radio operator as saying: “Houston, this is Discovery. We still have the alien spacecraft under observance.” (It has been suggested that instead of ‘under observance’, Blaha said, ‘on VFR’, meaning Visual Flight Rules i.e. visible to the naked eye.)

NASA has never confirmed or denied whether this transmission is genuine.

For decades, NASA astronauts have had two communications channels available to them, a traditional radio channel, open to all and sundry, and an alternative channel, sometimes called the ‘biological or medical channel’ that could be used for private or medical conversations. UFO researcher, David Sereda, referred to this as ‘an encrypted Department of Defence channel’, but it is possible, some might say likely, that, since the more ‘innocent’ days of space exploration ended, an encrypted channel would be available to shuttle crews. Whatever the designation of this alternative channel, it does appear that NASA crews do have the ability to switch channels to converse with the ground, unheard by the public.

In October, 1995, STS-73 mission specialist reported to Houston: “We have an unidentified flying object.” The exchange was filmed, yet audio drops out immediately after her initial statement, yet it seems that she continues talking, suggesting that the frequency was switched so that the viewing public could not hear what was said.

Only last year, on August 6^th, 2005, startling footage of a UFO was captured by mission STS-114. As Discovery orbited at eighteen thousand miles per hour, an object rushes into frame, moves in an arc and disappears back out of frame. What kind of natural phenomenon, such as meteors or debris, can change course in this manner? A still image cannot do justice to this amazing piece of footage, so go to Jeff Challender’s Project P.R.O.V.E. website and see it in motion - http://www.projectprove.com/Arts/114u/114u.php

Yet again, UFO Files hits it out of the ballpark, with another excellent episode. Any sceptic can say that Joe Bloggs seeing a UFO while out walking his dog was really seeing swamp gas or whatever, but when reports come from trained professionals such as airline pilots, ATC personnel and astronauts, you have to take them seriously. This program did that, presenting the facts (because that is what they were – actual, recorded facts) without bias and bringing to the public another facet of this fascinating UFO subject.

The images used are the property of the copyright holders and are only used here for review purposes.

© Steve Johnson - 2006

The Pleiadian Hoax

Issue 4 of UFOData Magazine was devoted to the subject of ‘crafts’, the vessels that form the bedrock of the UFO phenomenon. There have been countless photographs, film and video images of UFOs over the years, but few have come close to the quality and, let’s face it, impressiveness of those taken by a Swiss farmer known as Eduard ‘Billy’ Meier.

His best photographs (let’s face it, some were terrific, some were pretty dire) are the stuff of legend and at least one is wheeled out in just about every television programme made on the subject.  Billy’s images of the Pleiadian ‘beamships’ were not just lights in the sky, or out of focus blobs against a blue background, what he released to the world were well-composed, up-close and personal images of flying saucers, often with foreground objects (including people) to give a sense of scale. The photos were so good that image analysts were fooled and a cult grew around this one-armed, former legionnaire. Scores of books and magazine articles were written about his contacts with the Pleiadians and television producers clamoured for his images and film footage.

It seems, however that Billy Meier’s evidence was just too good to be true and that he fabricated the images himself, albeit very skilfully in some cases. It is cases like this that leave serious ufology open to ridicule, because the media pounces upon these stories and use them to paint all of the subject in a similar light. That said, there are still people who believe in Meier’s stories and some claim to have been present and witnessed the beamships for themselves.

Eduard Albert Meier was born in 1937 in the North Swiss town of Bülach. From an early age, he claimed to have been in contact with aliens. These beings, who claimed to be from the Pleiades star cluster (albeit in a shifted dimension known as the Dal Universe), called themselves Plejarans and Billy met several over the years.

In his formative years, Meier travelled greatly, joining the French Foreign Legion, living in an Indian ashram, working as a snake catcher, acting as an informer to US drug agencies in Turkey, before finally returning home to Switzerland. In 1965, he was involved in a road accident and lost his left arm. A year later, he met the woman who would become his wife and mother of his children, Kalliope.

In 1975, the Plejarans decided that they wanted Meier to let the world know about their existence and thus began his program of photographing and filming their vessels. He even took pictures of the aliens themselves, revealing them to be human-looking, if a little ‘Sixties’ in their hair styles. He was taken aboard their ships and travelled the universe with his camera, snapping away merrily. He photographed Venus, the Apollo-Soyuz link-up, and even the eye of God! Asked why he didn’t photograph both eyes of the Supreme Deity, Meier declared that God had winked at him…

Meier was also taken on trips through time. He met Jesus, photographed dinosaurs and snapped the demise of San Francisco in some future catastrophe.

With this mass of evidence, it would seem that confirmation that we are not alone in the universe was soon to come. Those who believed his claims, such as Wendelle Stevens, Lee Elders and Jim Dilettoso, trumpeted the evidence as incontrovertible proof that Meier’s story was true. Computer analyses, they said, showed that his photos were genuine and that metallurgical samples taken from landing sites produced results that could not have come from Earth.

Unfortunately, many of Meier’s images did not hold up to close scrutiny, despite the protestations from those who believed.

In 1998, Meier critic, Kal Korff, helped produce a television special which debunked many of Meier’s ‘travel’ photos. The photographs of Venus and other astronomical bodies were almost identical to widely available images. Other images were taken from science fiction books, the San Francisco destruction one being hoisted from a painting. The less said about the dinosaur image, the better.

One of Meier’s most famous photographs is of a ‘Type-4’ beamship. It is a sharp, clear image and looks fantastic. Yet, image analysis from Ground Saucer Watch clearly showed that this was a small model, about eight-inches across hanging from a wire.

Another image emerged, from a partially burnt negative found at Meier’s home, of a model on a table top. Meier tried at first to explain this as a model made by his children, but then said that it was a test model to help illustrate how he couldn’t have faked the images. Billy’s now ex-wife, Kalliope, confirmed that she had seen the models and even helped him fake some of the photographs, going so far as to swear to the above under oath in the Swiss courts.

The photographs of the Plejarans themselves have been proven to be taken from a Sears catalogue and another from a Dean Martin television show.

Other images of the beamships are clearly fakes, because, well, they’re rubbish:

These images are clearly small models close to the camera, with the final one even having a toy car in the foreground!

Of course, Meier states that he is innocent and that some photographs and stories have been planted by those wishing to discredit him. Is Meier a cult guru, living off those who enter his orbit or did his following grow because he did have contact with aliens, but felt compelled to provide evidence? As pressure mounted for more and more photographs of the Pleiadian beamships, was Meier forced into faking images to quench the insatiable appetites of those who believed? His often confusing and contradictory statements did not help matters. What began as a sensation in ufology has now become a laughing stock the world over.

Perhaps Billy Meier was in contact with extra-terrestrials, but, as often happens in the UFO field, he has been caught cheating and this undermines his entire story and the subject as a whole, which is sad for everybody.

© Steve Johnson - 2006

(First published in Issue 4 of UFOData Magazine. A response from Meier advocate, Michael Horn, can be found in Issue 5.)

A Reply to the Eduard ‘Billy’ Meier Article in Issue 4 of UFO Data Magazine

By Michael Horn (Authorized American Media Representative)

I want to thank Russel Callaghan and UFO DATA for the opportunity to respond to the article by Steve Johnson, attempting to debunk the Billy Meier UFO case and its physical evidence.. 

The absolute lack of awe and amazement that should be generated in a reasonable, thinking person who even only saw the few photos that accompanied Johnson’s article is telling, in my opinion, of the lazy, dumbed-down mentality that now pervades most of our world, including the so-called “UFO community”. There is not one person in this audience who could, even with the help of 10 of his/her friends, accomplish what Meier did in presenting his (more than 1,200) clear, daytime photos of UFOs (sometimes 3-4 in a photo), the 8 film segments, the stunning video, the sound recordings and the metal alloy samples, authenticated by IBM scientist Marcel Vogel. This painfully obvious and absolutely ironclad fact is glossed over, especially today with so many people living virtual lives in front of computer and TV screens, thinking that all of life is a PhotoShop or digital effect. Or simply the latest hour-long “reality” show.

While Johnson and others could certainly cobble together some cheap hardware and take photos that seemed to look like UFOs, the lack of the comparable detail and craftsmanship of the real objects, let alone the failure of each and every one of those photos to meet pass the specific standards and parameters that authenticated the Meier photos (http://www.theyfly.com/PDF/PhotoAnalysis3.pdf), as well as the sounds of the UFOs that he and his wife recorded on several occasions (http://www.theyfly.com/PDF/ UFOSoundRecordings.pdf)is guaranteed. And I mean GUARANTEED.

Johnson says that Meier “fabricated the images himself”, which is not only not true, but is refuted by the six-year long, on-site investigation – and a separate, independent investigation by author Gary Kinder (“Light Years”, published in 1987), who actually took the time to meet and interview the two owners, and the former owner, of the photo shop from which Meier bought his cameras and film, and to which he brought all of his rolls of film and movie footage for outside development. Why didn’t Johnson know that, as well as the fact that these people (including Kinder), who were skeptics themselves, vouched for not only Meier’s inability to have hoaxed any of the photographic evidence but also the stunning, authentic photos and films that would come back from the developers (who were in yet other locations) and to whom they had to send Meier’s films for processing?

Regarding the implication that there are only a few people who “believe” Meier or who claim to have witnessed the UFOs, how – and why – did Johnson fail to investigate the comprehensive, credible eyewitness information here that is completely contradictory to his unsubstantiated, inaccurate assertions:

http://www.tjresearch.info/witness.htm

http://www.tjresearch.info/witnessa.htm

http://meiercase.0x2a.info/meiercase/002/index.php

Johnson also says that Meier “met Jesus”, something that Meier has never claimed. And while Johnson is trying to make points about Meier photographing the “eye of God” (which is the name of a constellation seen in space), his photographs of Venus etc., he glosses over the rather amazing, prophetically accurate, information that Meier published about Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and the two planets beyond Pluto (among many other things) in his rush to display his own ignorance. (See: http://www.theyfly.com/ prophecies/prophecies.htm)

Regarding Kal Korff (who had to apologize on-air to Art Bell, twice, in front of millions of listeners, for lying about Bell), Korff has been so thoroughly discredited as to effectively destroy the credibility of anyone who would attempt to use him as any kind of truthful reference:

http://meiercase.0x2a.info/meiercase/temp/index.html

http://www.tjresearch.info/hasenbol.htm

Johnson tries to dismiss Meier’s photo of a coming earthquake in San Francisco without knowing that there were actually 11 photographs that were seen by the investigators as well as other witnesses.

Then we come upon his quoting the “analysis” of Ground Saucer Watch, who claimed that Meier photographed a – never discovered – eight-inch model. When it comes to taking the word of Ground Saucer Watch regarding the authenticity of the Meier photos, Kinder makes an effective dismissal of their value here: http://www.figu.org/us/figu/ supporter/kinder.htm (and you would do well to read the entire article and the accompanying testimonials of numerous scientific experts he quotes who authenticated Meier’s physical evidence).

As far as claims that Meier made models of the UFOs, it needs to be said that the investigative team had a model made by a Hollywood special effect company, specifically for the purpose of photographing, so that comparisons could be made, through computer analysis, to determine if there was any difference. In every case, the computer could distinguish between the models and Meier’s real, 21-feet in diameter UFOs, such as the one seen here: http://www.tjresearch.info/moretree.htm.

In regards to Meier’s wife, the sad and simple fact that real human beings can have acrimony between them to the degree that one would lie about the other is nothing new. As a matter of fact, Meier’s now ex-wife passed a lie detector test affirming Meier’s truthfulness and she is on a video in support of him and the case as well. Meier’s children also support him and have also been dismayed at their mother’s own untrue statements about him.

It should also come as no surprise that any man who has been the target of 21 documented assassination attempts on his life, as Meier has, would also be the target of attempts to discredit him via tinkering with and manipulating his photographs and films – none of which were ever developed by him, as has already been established. To be clear, Meier had no darkroom, no access to, or training in, special effects, image manipulation, model making, digital effects, sound engineering, metallurgy, electronics, astrophysics, geology, laser technology, astronomy, etc. Johnson and others prefer to attribute to Meier super-genius levels of ability in these and numerous other exotic disciplines rather than concede the obvious, i.e. that he’s a genuine contactee…one of very, very few to ever be able to truthfully say that.

As for Johnson’s dismissal of what are called the Wedding Cake UFO photos (WCUFO), allow me to direct you to:

http://www.theyfly.com/newsflash/newsflash2.htm

http://www.tjresearch.info/Wedcake.htm

http://www.billymeier.com/archives/Wedding_Cake_ship.mpg

I ask that Johnson, and anyone else who wants to claim that these are models, actually duplicate the craft pictured. That means, in case I’m not making myself clear, make a detailed, exact model of that craft, photograph it as Meier did (Meier took an amazing 63 photographs of the WCUFO) and duplicate the video. Use materials known to be available to Meier at the time and…use one hand. Anything less than that is simply more nonsense from these self-appointed “experts”, completely unacceptable and discrediting of them, not Meier.

As far as Meier being the source of “confusing and contradictory statements”, how much of Meier’s 24,000+ pages (most of it still in German), with volumes of specific, prophetically accurate information dating back to the 1950s (http://www.gaiaguys.net/MEIER.PROPHECIES.1958.htm) has Johnson actually read and researched himself for accuracy?

Why didn’t Johnson present as well documented a case to support his slanderous comments as is easily made in support of Meier’s truthfulness and the authenticity of his six categories of still irreproducible physical evidence? Does it go back to the earlier point I made about the shallow, two-dimensional, jump to conclusions behavior of people today who either can’t, or won’t, learn how to think, see the big picture and contemplate the sheer impossibility of one man (to this day, no accomplices, finances, resources, technology, etc. have ever been found) accomplishing all of this, let alone asking why we have the Meier case, and its impeccably accurate prophetic information, before us for the past 55+ years? (See: http://www.theyfly.com/news2005/july05/july05.htm#puzzle)

Regarding the skeptics and their stunning failures, despite intense efforts, to debunk, let alone duplicate Meier’s physical evidence, their equally intense efforts to disprove his truthfulness and accuracy regarding prophetic information, such as pertains to Jupiter, have also failed (See: http://www.theyfly.com/newsletter/jan06/jan06.htm).

So while Johnson closes out his article insinuating that Meier is a “laughing stock” who’s been “caught cheating”, the real laughing stock are people like Johnson who are the purveyors of the most slipshod, irresponsible, inept and incompetent “research”, which is nothing more than another attempt at character assassination, such as Meier has endured for decades. And it’s more telling of Johnson’s own superficiality – and that earlier mentioned lack of awe – that he concedes that Meier “was in contact with extra-terrestrials”, as if it was a long proven, everyday occurrence instead of what it would be – and what it actually is in the Meier case – the most important story in all of human history.

Michael Horn

Authorized American Media Representative

The Billy Meier Contacts

www.theyfly.com