CONTENTS

Guernsey Pilot Spots UFO

Roswell 60 Conference 2007 Review

Man-Made UFOs: WWII's Secret Legacy

The Quantum Conundrum - NEW

Who Was There First? - NEW

Black Triangles

Falling To Earth

 Fire from the Sky

 The Apollo 20 Controversy

NEW - National Press Club Conference: Pilots Speak Out About UFOs

NEW - Texas Sightings Spark Worldwide Interest

Texas Sightings Spark Worldwide Interest

In early January, 2008, a UFO story took the world by storm. Residents of the Texas town of Stephenville, about 60 miles south-west of Fort Worth, as well as nearby Dublin and Selden, reported seeing a massive UFO crossing the sky at great speed.  As the story grabbed headlines in the mainstream media across the globe, it became apparent that Texans had been seeing these huge craft over a period of weeks.

Most of the reports appeared to describe bright lights that flashed brightly and changed configuration. While some just reported lights, businessman, Steve Allen, said that what he saw was a mile long and half a mile in width. He has offered a $5000 reward for video footage of what he saw. He described what he saw as rectangular and travelling at about 3000 miles per hour. The lights blinked out, only to reappear 10 minutes later. Military jets arrived and appeared to pursue the object. He told reporters, “It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts.”

Other reports of military jets in pursuit of the objects resulted in Major Karl Lewis from the Naval Reserve base in Fort Worth to deny that any aircraft from his station were in the air that night. Two other nearby bases also denied having planes in the sky during the sightings. This stance was later retracted, with Major Lewis explaining that F-16s were in the area on a training mission and that the earlier, incorrect statement was due to a miscommunication.

A week earlier, Ricky Sorrells of Dublin, about 12 miles from Stephenville, was deer hunting in the woods near his home at about sunset. Speaking to Linda Moulton-Howe, he said: “For some reason, I don’t know what, I look up and look back down. I don’t know what made me look up, but then I realized what I had seen with my eyes and immediately looked back up. There was this thing. It covered from – I could not see the edges in my tree canopy.” The underside of the metallic craft was dotted with circular depressions and emitted heat waves, like haze on a hot road. He said it appeared moulded and had no seams or rivets. Although he could not see its edges through the trees, he estimated it to be about 300 feet above him, making the craft at least 1000 feet across. As he watched, it shot off at a 45-degree angle. He has seen the object on two more occasions, both times from his back porch. He said it appeared like “a thick piece of plate. But it was a long way away, like a 1.5 to 2 miles.”

Speaking to local TV stations, Stephenville resident, Glenda Jackson, said, “It looked like two plates upside down, like a saucer. It was at least as wide as a football field.”

Also from Stephenville, James Huse said he saw large, round objects in the sky that, he estimated, were about the size of conventional aircraft.

Many other sightings were reported both to the media and to organisations such as the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). The reports on the MUFON website are generally lacking in detail, but interesting nevertheless. Here are a few:

“I am a resident of Stephenville, TX. I was getting back from buying fireworks in Stephenville, TX on December 31, 2007. It was around 6:00. I was in the car with my dad and my friend; they both saw the thing in the sky also. There was a very bright light in the sky travelling very, very fast, about 2-3 times bigger than a star, a second light popped up, very close to the first one, for about 30 seconds, then disappeared, but the first light was still there. Tuesday the 8th of January wasn't the only day we saw the UFO.” – 31^st December, 2007

“We left together from fiancé’s house in Stephenville near HEB (Hard Eight Barbecue - SJ) around Green View Additions. I went the wrong way and turned left on 377. Then went over the bridge and turned left on Harbin Rd. Went over the railroad tracks. Drove past Swan St. and noticed it to the left of us about 500 feet up (I WOULD SAY IT WAS SITTING RIGHT OVER HEB MAYBE.) It was hovering in place. It was amber in color with the color moving throughout it. We didn't stop. I couldn't drive down the road straight because we where looking at it. I called my brother and told him what we saw and where it was so he could see it.” – 19^th January, 2008

“At around 8:45 pm I received a call, telling me that there was a strange amber light hovering over Stephenville. After driving around for ten minutes or so, my wife spotted the object towards the north east side of town. As I stopped the car and stepped out of the vehicle, I witnessed the amber light flicker as if on a metallic surface. It was several miles away, and around 1,500ft to 3,000ft (or maybe higher) in the sky. I have no way of describing just how large the light was, but I am guessing sizeable. It moved in the same general direction, but not necessarily in a straight line. There were no flashing aircraft lights, only the amber flicker. It moved slowly, before stopping in mid air. Suddenly it gained several thousand feet in altitude (almost straight up) in a matter of seconds, before turning bright (almost stoplight red) as if on fire, and then vanishing.

“I was unable to take photos, or video.

“The exact duration of time wasn't very long. But I know it was no plane.” - 19^th January, 2008

“Driving home from the grocery store I looked up at the sky and saw 3 comet looking things, I commented to my son they looked like comets, but they were going in a horizontal line at 3 different altitudes, not falling and by the time we got home they were gone. He said maybe falling stars, but it wasn't the same. I joked and said maybe they were UFO's, but after seeing the report on Larry King maybe it wasn't a joke. I thought maybe airplanes, but I am a Flight Attendant and have never seen any aircraft look like this or with the bright lighting at the one end like this, nor fly at that altitude with those characteristics?” – 10^th January, 2008

“I drive a water transport in the oilfield out of Bono, TX. I drive to and from Stephenville Saturday thru Wednesday. I left work at 5:45pm Tuesday evening January 8, 2008, travelling west on Hwy.67, between Chalk Mountain and Three Way. This is when something caught my eye off in the western sky. I saw two very bright lights shining in no apparent direction. The lights were very bright, like a welding arc. The lights were dancing around and then they split in two different directions at a very fast rate of speed.

“I do not know what it was that I saw, but I don't think that it was a plane, weather balloon, a reflection of the sun or anything manmade.” – 8^th January, 2008

Several videos have appeared on the web, claiming to be UFOs over Texas. Most of these are poor quality, though, and simply depict distant lights in the sky.

January saw other reports of large UFOs from outside Texas.

On the night of January 19^th, 2008, residents of Guanica, Puerto Rico, saw a huge, round UFO, with hundreds of rows of red lights glide across the sky. Jose Martinez reported: “The object rested for several minutes on a nearby hill, at very low altitude, nearly treetop level, blinding witnesses with its red lights. Among them were Roberto Garcia and wife Patricia, who tried to photograph the object with their cell phone but didn't manage to obtain an image. Other local residents were frightened and unable to sleep that night after the object took off toward Lajas at high speed.”

Brian Vike of hbccufo.org received a report from Altoona, Iowa, of an object ‘as big as a house’ that was seen on 22^nd January, 2008. The witness stated: “I was getting a drink of water when I happened to look out the window and saw an unknown object with three big white lights flying near my house. I went outside to see it this object was huge, it was probably the size of a house. The back of the object had 2 silverish brown lights, but I can't stress enough how big this object was and the big bright white lights were pretty bright, but not blinding. This object was in sight for about three minutes.”

More recently, the local reporter that broke the story, Angelia Joiner, has been forced out of her job for covering the incident. A staff reporter at the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, Ms Joiner was ordered by her superiors to ‘back off’ from the UFO stories. She tried to do this, but being the ‘point person’ on the case, she still received many letters and emails about the incident. Trying to cope with these on her own time, it became clear to Ms Joiner that something was wrong at work and she offered her two-week notice. She was told to leave immediately. She said: “I had given notice when I realized my boss was unhappy with my performance, but was unexpectedly asked to pack my things and leave.” Ms Joiner has now created her own website which can be found at www.stephenvillelights.com.

Her sacking came after local eyewitnesses reported being harassed by officialdom.

Ricky Sorrells reported that he was contacted by a man claiming to be from the US Air Force, after a heated discussion over the phone, threats were made. Mr Sorrells said: “I said if he was who he said he was, why didn't he stop flying over my air space with all those helicopters. And he informed me that it was not my air space — it was his. He told me if I'd quit talking about what I saw he would stop the helicopters.”

He told Angelia Joiner that he encountered an intruder on his property. She reported in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune:

“I was in bed asleep,” Sorrells said. “I keep my bird dogs on the east side of my house and three others on the west side. The black lab doesn't bark until someone comes across the cattle guard and the Catahoula doesn't bark until she actually sees someone. They were all barking so I got up to see what was going on.”

Sorrells said he walked to his bedroom window and looked out to the top of his driveway - he saw someone.

“I went around the bed and grabbed my rifle,” Sorrells said.

His family was still sleeping, so with one hand on his gun and one hand on his backdoor knob, he peered through the window of the door to see if he could spot the intruder again.

“He had positioned himself in between the car and the pickup 40 to 50 feet from my back door,” Sorrells said. “He stood staring at me rocking back and forth. I didn't think his feet were moving but the next morning when looking at his tracks I could tell they were.”

Sorrels said it was cold and misting rain and it was obvious the guy was “dressed for the elements with a heavy parka-like coat.”

He said he strained to see if the man carried a gun but could not see one but could clearly see the face of someone he thought to be in his late 20s or early 30s judging from the way he “walked and acted.”

“I'm trying to decide whether or not to open the door,” Sorrells said. “We're just standing there face to face looking at each other. I'm thinking he's dressed for the elements and the dogs are raising such a ruckus he must know he's in danger of being caught. That's when I realized he wanted me to see him.”

Sorrells said the trespasser had positioned himself in such a way he decided he could be vulnerable if opened his door. He thought of his family and then the man slowly turned and walked into the woods.

“He walked through an area where I'd cleared the brush so apparently he'd been there before because he knew where to go,” Sorrells said.

Sorrells said shortly after the unwelcome caller disappeared the dogs calmed down and he stayed up the rest of the night to keep watch.

Later, when walking through the woods on his property with Howe, he decided to return to a bare spot where his property line ends at a fence.

“It is washed out there and I like to go there to look for deer and turkey tracks.” Sorrells said. He said he's an avid hunter and keeps abreast of the wildlife on his place. He said he had not been to this particular spot in about a month.

“The first thing I saw was a man's footprint,” Sorrells said. “Ms. Howe videotaped me putting my foot beside it. The sun was going down and I saw something shiny.”

Sorrells said he walked over and picked up a bullet - a shiny new 25-06 Remington - with some dotted tarnished smudges.

“I think the man that I saw that night dropped this bullet and the tarnished spots are from the misting rain that night,” Sorrells said. “I just think it was the military showing me they could get to me if they wanted to.”

A set of new images emerged in February, taken by police constable, Lee Roy Gaiten and his wife. Over several nights, he videotaped an object apparently ‘drawing’ symbols in the sky. His wife took stills with a good quality digital camera. Speaking to Linda Moulton-Howe, he said: “... [It was] throwing off coloured strobe lights. What was so odd about it was when I zoomed in, it looked like a triangle or pyramid inside of the spinning disc.”

A week later, he saw the object again. “I'm at Stephenville working a security job and I see the damn thing again! I see it south toward Dublin. It looks like an object that is spinning and hovering. Well, that was February 9, 2008, OK. Well, that evening at 10:30 PM, I get a phone call from a guy who tells me: ‘Lee Roy, that light is back up in the sky. It’s southeast of your house. I’m watching it through my telescope.’

“I bought my wife a pretty nice still camera and we saw it. The light was travelling southeast towards the little town of Gustine, Texas. We get in the car and travel about 15 miles and my wife takes some pictures.”

“Then about 11:30 PM – I had been at my sister’s house and I told her about it. She lives in town (Dublin) and they can see this light from town and they are all freaking out. Anyway, around 11:30 PM, my wife and I  lost sight of it, but my sister could still see it from town.

“Well, we come into town and the same guy who called me about the first one calls me again. He says, ‘Hey, Lee Roy, there is a second one.’ He says it’s coming in from around the Selden, Texas, area coming towards Dublin. And sure enough, there’s another one – same thing.

“We could see both in the sky at the same time. One was in the southeast and the other was in the northeast sky. We take pictures of the second one also. There are several eyewitnesses: my sister, her husband, my niece, their neighbour. Anyway, we still don’t know what this is.”

UFO DATA Magazine contacted Dick Criswell. He is the co-founder of the International Paranormal UFO Society and has taken an active interest in the Stephenville sightings. He told us:

“A former employee for a government contractor (now retired) told the International Paranormal UFO Society that he worked on F-16s for many years as an electronics engineer and has his own opinion of what happened on January 8, 2008. This informant is known to IPUS and he claims that it would be very unlikely for so many F-16s to be on a evening or night-time training mission at one time. Instead, he believes that the reason so many F-16s were involved in the incident is because the unidentified flying object they were chasing had violated restricted presidential airspace over the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas. IPUS is continuing to investigate the Stephenville Sightings and related matters. We will post any new information that we have on our website at http://www.CanYouStandTheTruth.com. We encourage anyone with information about the Texas UFO sightings to contact us through this website or call our UFO Sightings Hotline at 765-483-9089.”

When asked about Ricky Sorrells’ sighting, he said, “Ricky Sorrell had a classic UFO sighting that many people have each year. Sadly, it probably would not have even made the news except for the inclusion of the other UFO sightings near Stephenville at the time. Sorrell seems like an honest and credible UFO witness.”

© Steve Johnson - 2008

Who Was There First?

Who was there first? Is this a chicken and egg riddle? No, it’s a valid question raised by those who have studied what appear to be artificial structures on various bodies in our solar system.

We like to think that humankind is at the peak of its evolutionary scale. We have never been so advanced and our technology is the most complex in history. Is this really true? Can we be certain that our race, which has existed in this form for over 200,000 years, has only just made the transition to interplanetary flight in the last fifty years? What if civilisations, lost in the mists of time, also achieved that tremendous leap and have left evidence for their existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Does this sound impossible? Perhaps, but there are relics right here on Earth that suggest man’s ingenuity was evident in our ancient history.

In 1900, a lump of rusty metal was hauled out of the sea off the Greek island of Antikythera. When analysed, it was found to be some sort of mechanism, consisting of over 30 gears, although more than 70 may have been present originally. It appeared to date from around 150BC and it has been suggested that it was a form of astronomical computer. The level of complexity and miniaturisation of the gears was not seen in the Western world until the 18^th Century, almost 2,000 years after the device’s construction.

The magnificent pyramids of Giza, in Egypt, were constructed by a Bronze Age civilisation that had yet to utilise the wheel. Despite this, they managed to construct an edifice, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, which remained the tallest building in the world until the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889, over 4,000 years after they were raised. Not only were the three pyramids on the Giza plateau astonishing feats of physical engineering, but they were also aligned to the cardinal points so accurately that so-called modern science could not match it until very recently. The internal structure of the Great Pyramid also displays remarkable technological skill. Four shafts rise up from two chambers called the King’s Chamber and Queen’s Chamber, although there is no evidence that anybody was interred here, let alone Khufu’s queen, who got her own pyramid beside her husband’s. The shafts, once described as air shafts, since completely debunked, are aligned to specific areas of the sky that were incredibly important to Ancient Egyptian religion. These shafts were not simply cut into the stone, they were carefully-planned, integral structures within the pyramid. They were included as the pyramid rose and it must have been incredibly difficult to keep them aligned to their astral targets as work around them continued.

It has been suggested that extraterrestrials came to Earth in antiquity and helped our ancestors in many ways. Books by the likes of Erich Von Däniken and Zecharia Sitchin have sold in the millions espousing this theory. The Ancient Astronaut Theory (AAT) should not be completely disregarded, as there is evidence as to its veracity, despite what academia might tell us.

Ancient carvings depict flying beings or gods coming to teach man. Often these beings are seen wearing garb that would compliment a modern astronaut. Their ‘chariots’ often appear technological in nature, rather than supernatural. Were these gods really aliens or was there an ancient human civilisation that was much more advanced than our Stone Age ancestors or even than we are today? While Däniken and Sitchin fight for the AAT, authors, such as Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval, believe that humanity once achieved great heights of learning, only for this knowledge to be lost in a great cataclysm some 12,000 years ago. Did the lost cultures of Atlantis or Mu really exist?

Whatever your beliefs in this regard, it seems that whoever came before us left their mark not only on Earth, but all around our solar system. We will begin on our closest neighbour, the Moon. Many ‘anomalies’ can be found on that barren world.

The recent, best-selling book by Richard C Hoagland and Mike Bara, Dark Mission, reignited the anomalist community. Did the Apollo astronauts really photograph the remnants of vast, glass domes, rectilinear, artificial structures and robot-like heads? That is for the reader to decide.

It has been mooted that the Apollo 10 image, AS10-30-4421, shows a glass dome in the Mare Crisium. Indeed, if you look closely, it appears that the hill behind the feature can be seen through the translucent, dome-shaped structure. This appears to be an intact dome, but Hoagland and Bara claim that there are many shattered domes that arch over 50,000 feet above the lunar surface, their supporting members being captured by Apollo cameras (see ‘Mitchell Under Glass’ boxout).

Perhaps the most famous lunar anomaly is ‘The Shard’. Captured by the Lunar Orbiter III probe in 1967, this appears to be a colossal, tower-like structure reaching thousands of feet into the sky. The shadow cast by the object seems to confirm that it is real and not a photographic defect. Is it a huge, solid structure or something more transient, such as an outgassing of some kind from below the Moon’s surface? Either explanation is fantastic on this supposedly dead world.

Dark Mission’s ‘smoking gun’ evidence was the artefact they have called ‘Data’s Head’, after the android in Star Trek: The Next Generation. During the Apollo 17 mission, astronauts Schmitt and Cernan were exploring a small crater called Shorty. Found in frame AS17-137-21005HR, Hoagland and Bara enhanced the skull-like object and firmly believe it is the remnants of an android, left behind aeons ago by some advanced, as yet unknown, civilisation. Could it be retrieved and, perhaps, reactivated by future astronauts?

Heading away from the Moon, man’s next port of call will be the planet Mars. But were we the first to land there when the Viking probes set down in 1976? Mars is a favourite for anomaly hunters and there are literally thousands of images that allege to contain artificial structures.

The first probes to reach the Red Planet were the Mariners. Mariner 4 arrived in 1965 with Mariners 6 and 7 getting there in 1969. Mariner 9 entered orbit in 1971.

It was Mariner 9 that first photographed the ‘Pyramids of Elysium’ and the so-called ‘Inca City’. Were these remnants of a lost, Martian civilisation? Another feature snapped by Mariner 9 was dubbed ‘The Airport Terminal’.

When Viking arrived 5 years later, the two landers found evidence of life, but this was dismissed by NASA, even though the experiment that found the evidence had been sanctioned and included in the mission! Besides, why include a flawed experiment in a mission that cost $1 billion? The Labelled Release Experiment’s originator, Dr Gilbert Levin, stands by the findings to this day.

There was also controversy about the first images received by the Viking landers. They appeared to show a blue sky on Mars. These were later tweaked to appear more reddish. Why was this done? If the sky is blue, why not show it as such?

The Viking orbiters circled around the planet, relaying data from the landers and taking photographs of the surface. One of these images has become probably the most famous space photograph in history, the ‘Cydonia Face’. Not only was a peculiar, humanoid face captured, staring enigmatically into space, but nearby, there was a veritable city of pyramids and mounds. These were given names, such as ‘The D & M Pyramid’, ‘The City Square’ and ‘The Fort’. Researchers concluded that all of the structures in the region were connected by geometry, proving that they were artificial and not just ‘tricks of light and shadow’ playing with our imaginations.

Dr Tom Van Flandern calculated that the Face once sat on the old Martian equator and was perfectly aligned to true north (remember the Giza pyramids?). He concluded that the odds of the Face being natural were 1,000 billion to one.

When Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) arrived at the Red Planet in 1997, it was hoped that the controversy about the Face would be put to rest. When the first image was released, it was a huge disappointment. Dubbed ‘The Catbox’, it showed the Face as an almost flat, hardly discernible feature. Later enhancements improved the quality, but it wasn’t until MGS took more images that science could proudly proclaim that it was ‘just a mesa’. This did not satisfy anomalists, who maintained that it resembled no natural mesa on Earth and still displayed evidence of artificiality. The debate rages on.

Shortly before MGS arrived in Mars orbit, a lander called Pathfinder set down in the Ares Vallis in July, 1997. It deployed a small rover, called Sojourner, and took many photographs of the area. Immediately something appeared to be wrong. The images from Pathfinder appeared even redder than those obtained by Viking. Had the boffins at NASA been tweaking the images again? Curiously, an image released from Pathfinder’s planned final day of the mission appears to show the Sojourner in a distinctly blue light. Ultimately, Pathfinder continued long after the planned 30 days had elapsed.

Whatever the colour of Mars’ sky, the Pathfinder mission revealed some intriguing anomalies.  Within range of the probe’s cameras, there appeared to be many regularly-shaped boulders, some rectangular, some other geometric shapes.

On the horizon lies a pair of hills, dubbed the Twin Peaks, which appear to have terracing on their slopes. In front of the left-hand hill sits what some have described as a Sphinx!

Mars has become a favourite location for those studying so-called ‘planetary artforms’. Van Flandern’s MetaResearch website (www.metaresearch.org) features images of many of these huge works of art, only viewable from space. Are these random patterns on the planet’s surface, conjured into recognisable forms by our imaginations, or actual pictograms scratched onto the Martian surface, much like the Nazca Lines in Peru?

No doubt Mars will reveal many more anomalies before humans set foot there. How many will our astronauts find to be genuine, artificial creations?

© Steve Johnson - 2008

National Press Club Conference:

Pilots Speak Out About UFOs

On November 12^th, 2007, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, perhaps the most important public event in ufology took place since Dr Steven Greer’s Disclosure presentation in 2001. Moderated by former governor of Arizona, Fife Symington III, the conference, which was covered by many major media outlets, allowed several international military and civilian pilots, along with intelligence officials and scientists, the chance to speak about their UFO encounters. It was organised by Out of the Blue director, James Fox and Leslie Kean of the Coalition for Freedom of Information.

In all, fourteen men spoke at the press conference, some of them very well known in UFO circles, some not so well known. All of them, though, shared the same goal – to let the public know that UFOs exist and are not only seen by hillbillies out in the boondocks.

First to speak was Wilfried De Brower. Now retired, Major-General De Brower was a leading colonel in the Belgian air force in 1990 when a famous wave of UFO sightings took place. General De Brower said:

“I was Chief Operations in the Air Staff when an exceptional UFO wave took place over Belgium. Indeed, during the evening of 29 November 1989, in a small area in Eastern Belgium, approximately 140 UFO sightings were reported. Hundreds of people saw a majestic triangular craft with a span of approximately 120 feet, powerful beaming spot lights, moving very slowly without making any significant noise but, in several cases, accelerating to very high speeds.”

He concluded: “The Belgian Air Force tried to identify the alleged intruder(s) and, on three occasions, launched F 16 aircraft. On one occasion, two F 16 registered rapid changes in speed and altitude which were well outside of the performance envelope of existing aircraft. Nevertheless, the pilots could not establish visual contact and the investigation revealed that specific weather conditions may have caused electromagnetic interferences and false returns on the radar screens. The technical evidence was insufficient to conclude that abnormal air activities took place during that evening.

“In short, the Belgian UFO wave was exceptional and the Air Force could not identify the nature, origin and intentions of the reported phenomena.”

Dr Claude Poher is a retired astrophysicist and worked with GEPAN, the French study on UFOs, often described as France’s Blue Book. His statement included one notable incident that the group investigated:

“[In] August 1967, two young witnesses were alerted by the agitation of dozens of frightened farm animals at around noon. The witnesses then observed a landed spherical UFO at a distance of 80 yards, with four occupants near it.

“Very high luminosity was reported after slow takeoff, leaving physiological effects on the witnesses’ eyes that were confirmed by the village mayor. The hiss noise described by the two witnesses was also heard by the hunting guard of the village. The UFO acceleration after vertical takeoff was estimated to be about a hundred g’s by GEPAN experts. The occupants were seen floating in the air while entering the craft, from its top, in a hurry.

“Physical traces on the ground from the craft were confirmed by the local police, as well as a sulphur oxide odour. CNES experts in meteorology and space debris worked in the field with the witnesses, along with a judge, a psychologist, an optical engineer and aeronautical engineer. They had full measuring equipment and worked with the police as well.

“The official conclusion of GEPAN in 1979, was that about 15% of cases remained unidentified after careful analysis by our experts. We concluded that the objects, in most of these cases, were compatible with flying machines whose flight physics were foreign to the experts’ knowledge.

Another French contribution came from Jean-Charles Duboc, a retired Air France captain. He described what he saw in 1994 at 1PM:

“During Air France Flight 3532 from Nice to London, on 28 January 1994, I observed, with my crew, a daylight UFO near Paris. We had few passengers on board and none of them had reported that observation to the crew.

“That object had been identified initially by a steward who was in the cockpit and by the co-pilot as a weather balloon, but when I identified it, it looked quite different.

“It seemed to be a huge flying disc.

“This large object was below us at the altitude of 35, 000 ft (we were at 39 000 ft), at a distance of about 25 nautical miles.

“The colour was red-brown with blurred outlines.

“The apparent diameter of this object could be compared to the diameter of the moon, or the sun. That means that it was about 1000 feet wide.

“The most incredible aspect is that it became transparent and disappeared in about 10 to 20 seconds.

“My co-pilot, chief steward and I quickly realized that what we were seeing did not resemble anything known to us, and we reported our sighting to Reims traffic control.

Simultaneously, the radar of the Operational Centre of the Air Defence (the CODA), registered a one minute spot crossing the track of our plane.”

The final statement from France came from Dr Jean-Claude Ribes, a radio astronomer and associate director of National Institute for Astronomy and Geophysics. He was asked to represent GEIPAN at the press conference. GEIPAN is the current body studying UFO cases for the French space agency, CNES. He also contributed to the famous COMETA report. He said:

“The COMETA report was written mainly by high ranking military people from the French High Studies Institute for National Defence. It analyzes the possible explanations for UFOs and their implications in terms of Defence, with the extraterrestrial hypothesis presented as the most logical one, even if not formally proven. Some recommendations are made, including that all managers of the Army, Police, Politics, and pilots be informed about UFOs; that detection systems be modified to take UFOs into account; and that the French government contact the United States and other allied countries to initiate cooperative action on the subject. So far, these recommendations have not been implemented.

“However, last March, my country took a big step forward. Jacques Patenet, current director of GEIPAN, released the French UFO files to the public. They were posted on a website - more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades. Some cases involved multiple sightings and physical evidence such as burn marks and radar trackings. Others documented UFOs with flight patterns or accelerations defying the laws of physics. M. Patenet told the press at the time that "We do not have any proof at all that extra-terrestrials are behind the unexplained phenomena. Nor do we have any proof at all that they aren't.”

“My personal opinion is that UFOs should be taken seriously and studied without prejudice. There may be several possible explanations, such as rare atmospheric phenomena, but some cases strongly suggest actual flying machines with characteristics well beyond our terrestrial capacities. If these cases could be completely proven as such, then the extraterrestrial hypothesis would probably be the most likely explanation for these advanced craft. Admittedly, it is a fantastic possibility, but not an irrational one, given the data that we have.”

Parvez Jafari is a retired general, formerly with the Iranian air force. In 1976, he was a major and squadron commander and encountered something in the skies above Tehran:

“At about 11 pm on the evening of 18th September, 1976, citizens were frightened by the circling of an unknown object over Tehran, the capital city of Iran, at a low altitude. It looked similar to a star, but bigger and brighter.

“They reported it to the tower and it was seen by the tower man too. He alerted the Air Force command post and Deputy General Yousefi decided to scramble an F-4 jet to investigate.

“The pilot in the first jet lost instrumentation and communications when he got too close to the brilliant object, so he headed back. About 10 minutes later, they scrambled a second jet, which I was piloting. At the time I was squadron commander.

“I approached the object, which was flashing with intense red, green, orange and blue light so bright that I was not able to see its body. The sequence of flashes was extremely fast, like a strobe light.

“We locked on it with radar; it was at 30° left, at a range of 25 miles. The size on the radar scope was comparable to that of a 707 tanker.

“Four other objects with different shapes separated from the main one, at different times during this close encounter.

“Whenever they were close to me, my weapons were jammed and my radio communications were garbled.

“One of the objects headed toward me. I thought it was a missile. I tried to launch a heat seeking missile to it, but my missile panel went out. Another followed me when I was descending on the way back.

“One of the separated objects landed in an open area radiating a high bright light, in which the sands on the ground were visible.

“During my interview at H.Q, after the incident, an American colonel took notes, but after it was over I could not find him to talk with.

“Later, a once-classified document was released here in America through the Freedom of Information Act. The Defence Intelligence Agency documented the event in great detail, and it was sent to NSA, The White House and the CIA. The DIA assessment said “this case is a classic that meets all necessary conditions for a legitimate study of the UFO phenomenon.””

Captain Rodrigo Bravo Garrido is a pilot for the Chilean army. He spoke of his country’s efforts to get a handle on the UFO phenomenon:

“Since the beginning of Chilean history, there have been reports of unidentified phenomena, sometimes called UFOs, observed in our skies.

“Over the years, we have increased our capacity to explain many of the sightings, but some continue to remain without a scientific or logical explanation.

“For that reason, in October of 1997, the Department of Civil Aeronautics, the Chilean equivalent of the American FAA, set up the Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena, known as the CEFAA. This agency handles the best reports of unidentified aerial phenomena in cooperation with aeronautic specialists.

“In 2000, the Aviation branch of the Army of Chile assigned me to research anomalous aerial phenomena, which they knew were real, and their effect on aerospace security. I then graduated to become a military pilot, and learned that the Aviation Amy had in its files many reports of UFO incidents from military pilots.

“A link was then established between our Army office and the CEFAA, and as a result, nine official cases have been documented. This has helped to create awareness among the flight crews about UFOs, and they now cooperate with flight security to report any abnormal situation.

“One of our most important civil aviation cases occurred in 1988, showing that unidentified flying objects can be a danger for air operations. A Boeing 737 pilot, on a final approach to the runway at “The Tepual” Airport in Puerto Montt City, suddenly encountered a large white light surrounded by green and red. The light was moving in the opposite direction of the airplane, coming straight at it. The pilot had to make a steep turn to the left in order to avoid a collision. The phenomenon was observed by the control tower personnel.

“In 2000, the crew of a Chilean plane from the Aviation branch of the Army, flying South of Santiago, observed a long cigar-shaped object, a brilliant grey. It flew parallel to the right side of the aircraft for two minutes and then disappeared at a very high speed. This object was detected by the radar of the Control Centre of Santiago which notified the crew minutes before the incident.

“New cases are being documented by pilots, traffic controllers, operations staff at the world’s airports, and by many others with the proper training to determine if a flying object is something unusual.

“The true origin of these UFOs is unknown, yet they do affect aviation all around the planet, and this must be addressed.”

Now retired, Oscar Alfonso Santa Maria Huertas was a commander in the Peruvian sir force. In 1980, he witnessed something inexplicable:

“On April 11, 1980, at 7:15 in the morning, 1800 men were in formation at the Air Base of La Joya, Arequipa.

“They all observed a stationary object in the sky which looked like a balloon, at about three miles distance, and approximately 1,800 feet altitude. It was luminous because it reflected the sun.

“My unit commander ordered me to takeoff in my Sukoi -22 jet to shoot down the spherical object. It was in restricted airspace, without clearance, and we were concerned about espionage.

“I approached the object and strafed sixty-four 30mm shells at it. Some projectiles went towards the ground, and others hit the object fully, but they had no effect at all. The projectiles didn’t bounce off; probably they were absorbed. The cone-shaped “wall of fire” that I sent out would normally obliterate anything in its path.

“The object then began to ascend, and move farther away from the base. When I was at about 36,000 ft., it made a sudden stop, forcing me to veer to the side since I was only 1500 feet away. I flew up higher to attack it from above, but just as I had locked on to the target and was ready to shoot, the object made a straight vertical climb evading the attack.

“Two more times I had the object on target, when the object was stationary. Each time, it moved away at the very last minute, when I was just about to fire, always eluding my attack.

“I decided to climb at full thrust to get above the object, but it began to ascend almost parallel to my plane, and when I reached 63,000 ft., it stopped.

“At this point, I came to within about 300 feet of the UFO. It was about 30 feet in diameter. It was an enamelled, cream-colored dome, with a wide, circular, metallic base. It had no engines, no exhausts, no windows, no wings or antennae. It lacked all the typical aircraft components, with no visible propulsion system.

“It was at that moment that I realized this it was not a spying device, but that it was a UFO, something totally unknown. I was almost out of fuel, so I couldn’t attack or manoeuvre my plane, or make a high speed escape. I was afraid. I thought I might be finished.

“When I had calmed own, I radioed for another plane to come and have a look, trying to hide my fear. They said no, it’s too high, just come back. I had to glide part way down due to lack of fuel, zigzagging to make my plane harder to hit, always with my eyes on the rear-view mirrors hoping it wouldn’t chase me. It didn’t.

“I had spent 22 minutes manoeuvring with this object. After I landed, the object remained stationary in the sky for two hours, for everyone at the base to see.”

Dr Anthony Choy is a founding member of the Peruvian air force’s official study into UFOs, the Office of Investigations of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (OIFAA), set up in 2001. He said:

“I am the author of Project 33, the first integral study on the UFO phenomenon in Peru. I travelled all over my country for about three years, speaking with witnesses, obtaining audio-visual information such as photographs and videos, and collecting data for this study.

“On October 13, 2001, in the northern city of Chulucanas, and before hundreds of people, eight spheres of light, of an intense red-orange colour, were recorded on video. We were the first ones to obtain this video and we gave it to the air force. These objects were suspended in the air for over five hours, moving in an apparently intelligent manner, and in absolute silence until they disappeared.

“A few days later, on October 25th, the luminous tear-shaped object of some 25 meters diameter (approx. 80 feet), was recorded over the countryside near the city. Within a few minutes, the apparent “landing” of light spheres in the woods was also recorded.”

Officially tasked with investigating the case, Choy said:

“The preliminary conclusion was that the sightings, although being physically real, had no explanation. The case remains open, and the investigation continues independently.”

Captain Ray Bowyer is a pilot with Guernsey-based airline, Aurigny. UFO DATA Magazine reported his sighting last year. Here is some of what he said at the conference:

“I have been invited here due to my sighting last April of multiple as yet unidentified objects over the Channel Islands region of the English Channel. This encounter lasted for 15 minutes with the first object being visible from 55 miles distant.

“On nearing the object a second identical shape appeared beyond the first. Both objects were of a flattened disk shape with a dark area to the right side. They were brilliant yellow with light emanating from them. I estimated them to be up to a mile across.

“I found myself astounded but curious. But at 12 miles distant these objects were becoming uncomfortably large, and I was glad to descend and land the aircraft.

“Many of my passengers saw the objects as did the pilot of another aircraft 25 miles further south. There is also possible radar information still being investigated.

“I have taken note of the differences between the British and U.S. reporting system. It appears that attitudes on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean are very different when it comes to the required reporting and recording of this type of event.

“Air Law stipulates quite clearly that if an operating crew of an aircraft see another aircraft in a place that it should not be, then at the earliest opportunity the whole scenario is to be reported to the relevant authority. In my case the British Civil Aviation Authority knew within 20 minutes of the sighting what was seen, as described in the flight log faxed directly to the relevant CAA office. The military were informed by Jersey Air Traffic Control at the same time. This is not an option; it is an obligation that crews react in this manner.”

He notes that US pilots and airline staff are often afraid to come forward for fear of ridicule or job security. He went on:

“I would have been shocked if I was told that the CAA would obstruct an investigation, or if the CAA told me that what I had seen was something entirely different. But it seems that pilots in America are used to this kind of thing, as far as I can tell.

“I would urge all aircrew to report whatever they see as soon as possible, and to stand up and be counted. It is only when crucial witnesses, such as professional pilots, make reports that the authorities will be kick-started into a broader investigation of these phenomena.”

UFO DATA Magazine contributor, Nick Pope, was next. We all know Nick as ‘the Man from the Ministry’ and he spoke of his experiences while working there:

“Since 1950 the British Government has received over 10,000 UFO reports. Responsibility for this subject rests with the Ministry of Defence, whose remit is to look for evidence of any potential threat to the UK, or anything else of any "defence significance". From 1991 to 1994 I was the desk officer responsible for these investigations.

“Most UFO sightings turned out to be misidentifications of things such as aircraft, satellites and meteors, but in around 5 per cent of cases no explanation could be found. These cases include incidents where reliable witnesses such as police officers and pilots reported structured craft performing speeds and manoeuvres significantly in excess of anything they had seen military jet aircraft perform. Other cases included in this category involved UFOs tracked on radar and incidents where photos or videos were produced and where the MoD's technical experts found no evidence of fakery.

“The MoD takes no position on the nature of the UFO phenomenon but I and some of my colleagues were privately convinced that whatever was going on, there were important defence, national security and flight safety issues involved.

In March 1993 I investigated a case where a UFO was seen by about 60 witnesses, including military personnel at two air force bases. Witnesses included a patrol of air force police, together with a meteorological officer with 8 years experience. This latter witness described a triangular-shaped craft midway in size between a C-130 and a Boeing 747. He said that it was emitting a low frequency humming sound and he said it moved slowly at first, before accelerating away many times faster than a military jet. My Head of Division's brief to the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff concluded: “In summary, there would seem to be some evidence on this occasion that an unidentified object (or objects) of unknown origin was operating over the UK”. The case file - published on the MoD website - also mentions related enquiries from the US authorities, asking if the UK had a black programme that might explain some UFO sightings involving large triangular-shaped craft. That's interesting, given the US government's public position that UFOs are no longer investigated.”

Jim Penniston was the senior security officer at the US air base, RAF Woodbridge in 1980:

“Shortly after midnight on the 26th of December, 1980, Staff Sergeant Steffens briefed me that some lights were seen in Rendlesham Forest, just outside the base. He informed me that whatever it was didn’t crash… it landed. I discounted what he said and reported to the control centre back at the base that we had a possible downed aircraft. I then ordered Airman Cabansag [and] AIC Burroughs to respond with me.

“When we arrived near the suspected crash site it quickly became apparent that we were not dealing with a plane crash or anything else we’d ever responded to. There was a bright light emanating from an object on the forest floor. As we approached it on foot, a silhouetted triangular craft about 9 feet long by 6.5 feet high came into view. The craft was fully intact sitting in a small clearing inside the woods.

“As the three of us got closer to the craft we started experiencing problems with our radios. I then asked Cabansag to relay radio transmissions back to the control centre. Burroughs and I proceeded towards the craft.

“When we came up on the triangular shaped craft there were blue and yellow lights swirling around the exterior as though part of the surface and the air around us was electrically charged. We could feel it on our cloths, skin and hair. Nothing in my training prepared me for what we were witnessing.

“After ten minutes without any apparent aggression, I determined the craft was non hostile to my team or to the base. Following security protocol, we completed a thorough on-site investigation, including a full physical examination of the craft. This included photographs, notebook entries, and radio relays through airman Cabansag to the control centre as required. On one side of the craft were symbols that measured about 3 inches high and two and a half feet across.

“These symbols were pictorial in design; the largest symbol was a triangle, which was centred in the middle of the others. These symbols were etched into the surface of the craft, which was warm to the touch and felt like metal.

“After roughly 45 minutes the light from the craft began to intensify. Burroughs and I then took a defensive position away from the craft as it lifted off the ground without any noise or air disturbance. It manoeuvred through the trees and shot off at an unbelievable rate of speed. It was gone in the blink of an eye.”

In 1980, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Halt was deputy base commander at RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk. He described what he saw in December, 1980:

“ In late December 1980 I was called upon to investigate a strange event that was distracting our Security Police from their primary duties. Early on the morning of December 26, 1980 our police patrolmen discovered strange lights in the forest east of the back gate of RAF Woodbridge. Three patrolmen were dispatched into the forest to investigate. They reported discovering a strange triangular craft sitting on three legs. The craft was approximately 3 meters on a side. The craft had multiple lights. It rapidly manoeuvred and quickly left the area. I was not immediately aware of the details only being told of strange lights and assumed there was a reasonable explanation.

“Two nights later the family Christmas party was interrupted by the on duty police commander. He told of strange events and claimed “it” was back. Since my boss had to present awards I was tasked to go out and investigate. I fully expected to find an explanation. I took two senior Security Police, a Disaster Preparedness expert and the reporting On Duty Police Commander. At the site we found the three 1 ½” indentations in the ground in a triangular pattern.

“We discovered mild radiation, and evidence including broken branches. We suddenly observed a bright red/orange oval object with a black center. It reminded me of an eye and appeared as though blinking. It maneuvered horizontally through the trees with occasionally vertical movement. When approached it receded and silently broke into five white lights which quickly vanished. We moved out of the forest into a pasture and observed several objects with multiple lights in the Northern sky. They changed in shape from elliptical to round.

“Several other objects were seen to the South. One approached at high speed and sent down a concentrated beam near our feet. Another object sent down beams into the weapons storage area. The whole time we had difficulty communicating with the base as all three radio frequencies kept breaking up. This activity continued for about an hour.

“During this entire event I had my pocket recorder and taped the event as it unfolded. A copy of the tape was released without my knowledge. This is the original recorder and tape. I have no idea what we saw but do know whatever we saw was under intelligent control.”

John Callahan was Division Chief for the Federal Aviation Authority’s (FAA) Accident and Investigation Branch in Washington DC in the 1980s. His testimony follows:

“In early January of 1987, I received a call from the Air Traffic Quality Control Branch in FAA's Alaskan regional office, requesting guidance on what to tell the media personnel who were overflowing their office. The media was requesting information about the UFO that chased a Japanese 747 across the Alaskan sky for some 3 minutes at flight levels between 3,000 and 35,000 ft. on November 7, 1986.

“Japan Air Lines flight 628, a cargo jet with a pilot, co-pilot and one crew member, was just north of Anchorage, and it was about pm when the pilot first reported the UFO. He described it as a huge ball with lights running around it. He said it was about 4 times bigger than a 747, and he saw it with his own eyes. So did the other two crew members.

“Over the course of 3 minutes, the UFO jumped miles in a few seconds, changing places to different spots around the 747, in one sweep of the radar scope.

“After receiving the data from Alaska almost two months later, I briefed my boss Harvey Safer and the FAA Administrator Admiral Engen, and Safer and I went to the FAA Tech Centre to observe the playback. The FAA had developed a program capable of recreating the traffic on the controllers' scope, or plan view display. I instructed the FAA specialist to synchronize the voice tapes with the radar data so we could hear everything the controller and pilot said. I video taped the radar display. Later that day, I requested that the FAA automation specialists plot the radar targets along the route of flight and explain what each target was doing. I videotaped the resulting chart.

“The print out and radar play back displayed primary targets in the vicinity of the 747. These target returns were displayed about the same time and place as the pilot advised viewing the UFO. Both the radar and manual controller observed the primary target. The military controllers also viewed the primary target on their radar and identified it as a “double primary”. The pilot and crew viewed the target on their radar and were able to see the huge UFO at the same time as it approached their aircraft.

“If this craft had been a Learjet or military aircraft at the wrong altitude, that would have been clear. The FAA has procedures that cover tracking unidentified aircraft violating another's airspace - but it has no procedures for UFOs.

“Back at FAA headquarters, I gave Administrator Engen a quick briefing and showed him the video. He set up a briefing with President Reagan's scientific staff, and told me my function was to give them a dog and pony show and hand this event off to them, “since the FAA does not deal with UFO's.” I brought along a copy of the video and all the data print outs available at the time. One of the scientists asked a number of questions, such as, what is the range of the radar, what is the frequency of the radar, what is the band width, what is the formula for the height equipment, etc.

“I was impressed with the response from the FAA experts. At the end, one of the three people from the CIA said, “This event never happened. We were never here. We’re confiscating all this data and you are all sworn to secrecy.”

“Some time after the briefing, the detailed FAA report which included extensive interviews with the pilot and crew, the chart prepared at the Tech Centre; and facility voice tapes arrived at my office and were placed on a small table waiting for the CIA to request more data. The material stayed there until I retired 2 years later, and I've had it ever since. Most people including FAA controllers really aren't familiar with how the FAA radar system works and why all aircraft travelling through our airspace are not caught on radar or displayed on the controllers PVD. But I am. The system and organization of the FAA is not configured to identify and track these types of performances.”

Conference moderator, Fife Symington, then gave his own statement:

“In 1997, during my second term as Governor of Arizona, I saw something that defied logic and challenged my reality. I witnessed a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigating over the Squaw Peak, Mountain Preserve in Phoenix, Arizona. It was truly breathtaking.

“To my astonishment this apparition appeared, and it was a solid structure; dramatically large with a very distinctive leading edge including embedded lights. It was travelling through the Arizona sky. I still don’t know what it was. As a pilot and a former Air Force Officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man made object I'd ever seen. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares because flares don't fly in formation. The incident was witnessed by hundreds, if not thousands of people in Arizona and my office was besieged with phone calls from very concerned Arizonians. The growing hysteria intensified when the story broke nationally. I decided to lighten the mood of the state by calling a press conference where my chief of staff arrived in an alien costume. We managed to lessen the sense of panic but at the same time, upset many of my constituents. I would now like to set the record straight. I never meant to ridicule anyone. My office did make inquiries as to the origin of the craft, but to this day, they remain unanswered. Eventually the Air National Guard claimed responsibility stating that their pilots were dropping flares. This is indicative of the attitude from official channels. We get explanations that fly in the face of the facts. Explanations like weather balloons, swamp gas and military flares. I was never happy with this silly explanation. There might very well have been military flares in the sky later that evening, but what I and hundreds of others saw had nothing to do with that.

“I now know that I am not alone in witnessing something extraordinary. There are many high ranking military, aviation and government officials who share my concerns; some of them have joined me here today. There is absolutely no doubt as to the veracity of what these men have told you. They have fought in wars, guarded top secret weapons arsenals and flown countless passengers throughout the world’s skies.

“Incidents like these are not going away. One year ago, Chicago's O'Hare airport experienced a UFO event that made national and international headlines. Pilots and many other airline employees observed a metallic disc hovering over the United Airlines terminal for several minutes. It then shot straight up and cut a hole in the clouds. The FAA did not investigate, dismissing the sighting as “weather.”

“We want the US government to stop perpetuating the myth that ALL UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth, conventional terms. Instead, our country needs to re-open its official investigation that it shut down in 1969. The US government can no longer shun an international dialogue about this, and we invite the government to work in cooperation with the countries represented at this table.

“When it comes to events of this nature dealing with the great unknown, we deserve more openness and a serious pursuit of the facts by our government.”

Despite a lot of press coverage (for what is basically a UFO story), with pieces appearing on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News to name but a few, there has been little reaction to this event. Much the same happened with the Disclosure Project Press Conference in 2001, but that event was soon overshadowed by 9/11.

If a group of highly credible individuals cannot stir up some interest among the general public and mainstream media with their experiences, what is it going to take to push ufology from the ‘loony pages’ to the headlines? Would even a flying saucer landing on the White House lawn be enough, I wonder?

The full transcripts of the witness statements can be read at www.freedomofinfo.org/national_press.htm

© Steve Johnson - 2008

The Quantum Conundrum

Mention Quantum Physics to most people and their eyes will glaze over or they’ll just admit to knowing nothing about it – or both! Generally considered as a ‘new’ science, Quantum Theory actually has its roots going back almost two hundred years to the experiments of Michael Faraday. In the 1900s, Max Planck and Albert Einstein made further advances in understanding Quantum Mechanics. Quantum Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Theory – there’s confusion right off the bat! What the heck are we talking about? For the rest of this article, we’ll use the term Quantum Theory and abbreviate it down to QT (which, for some reason brings forth an image [perhaps a quantum image?] of Quentin Tarantino, but never mind).

QT is often said to be the theory of very small objects, particles much smaller than atoms. This is true for the most part, except that quantum particles don’t always behave like particles. Sometimes they behave like waves. No wonder we can’t get to grips with QT when things in that realm don’t even know what they are themselves!

Probably the most well-known quantum particle is the photon. A photon is a particle of light and, like all quantum particles (quanta), it can also display the properties of a wave. A wave can be refracted or bent while a particle cannot, being limited to transferring energy when coming into contact with matter. There are also many other types of quantum particles such as quarks, neutrinos, leptons and a hatful of others.

One of the things that differentiates quanta from atomic matter (i.e. you and me or that rose bush in the garden) is its ‘spooky’ qualities. Quanta can seemingly appear from nowhere, they can be in two places at once and an effect on one quantum particle can transfer to other, identical quanta that are totally isolated. For instance, a quantum particle can be made to spin in the opposite direction to its normal state and identical particles completely separate will do likewise. This is what has become known as quantum entanglement. It should also be noted that because of the uncertain nature of quanta (as postulated by Werner Heisenberg in his famous Uncertainty Principle), they are not measured in definite terms, but as measures of probability. This also links in with the so-called Observer Effect (although they are separate theories), where the mere act of observing an object affects the nature or actions of the object.

A famous experiment, known as the Double-Slit Experiment, suggested that quanta can exist in two places at once. Two slits were set in a solid plate. When one slit was opened, and photons were fired through only a narrow diffraction pattern was seen.  When both slits were opened and photons passed through, as expected, they created a wider interference pattern on the photographic plate beyond the slits.

Now here comes the spooky bit. When only a single photon was fired towards the slits, an interference pattern was seen on the photographic plate. This means that, somehow, this single photon had to be in two places at the same time to pass through both slits. Further experiments have led to the theory that the single photon must pass through every point in space-time to get to the photographic plate.

Recently, experiments with larger molecules (fullerenes) have resulted in quantum interference patterns when just one molecule has been utilised. Further experiments are to be attempted (or may already have been attempted) with viruses, which are twenty to three hundred times the size of a molecule. This has led to the notion that QT is not just the theory of very, very small things, but it is also a theory of isolated things. Basically, if you could isolate yourself from the rest of the universe, you could appear in two places at the same time. If Dr Richard Feynman’s calculations are correct, you could actually exist in all of space and all of time simultaneously!

Okay, so how does this affect the study of UFOs?

UFOs and the beings that travel inside them have often been reported as winking out and appearing somewhere else almost simultaneously. The so-called Greys and other entities have been reported as appearing out of nowhere in abductees/contactees houses, often passing through seemingly solid objects. Often the passage of time has been interrupted or affected in some way. All of these effects suggest some kind of manipulation of what we call Quantum Theory. More advanced extra-terrestrial (or perhaps extra-dimensional) species may have gone beyond theory and made practical use of the quantum realm. Heck, given that the laws of space-time as we know them appear to have little or no effect in quantum mechanics, could these aliens exist outside of space-time? Are they from everywhere and nowhere? Are they from the past, the present, the future, or do they exist in all times? If so, what effect would this have on us plebs stuck in a linear timeline? Have they affected our history and, if so, would we know about it anyway?

While this all seems pretty far-fetched and fantastic, it is all very possible within the contexts of QT. Will humanity ever be able to adapt quantum theory into our technology? We already do to a certain extent, with many of our electronic devices displaying quantum mechanics in their operation, such as the laser and the magnetic resonance image (MRI) scanner. Can we go further, though?

There are efforts to create quantum computers, which would be able to perform calculations much, much faster than today’s machines, perhaps being able to give an answer to a question, no matter how complex, as soon as it is submitted.

Looking farther ahead, might QT be able to allow us to travel to other planets? This may be possible. If you can isolate a person from the outside universe, it may be possible to transport them to any place in space and any point in time you desire. In a quantum state, the person would exist in all of space-time simultaneously, getting them to appear where they wanted to go may only be a matter of fine-tuning.

I know, I know, this all sounds like the science fiction of Star Trek, but recall the words of Arthur C Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Or perhaps Einstein got closer to the truth with, “reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.”

© Steve Johnson - 2008

The Apollo 20 Controversy

On July 20^th, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, became the first men to walk on the Moon. High above, Michael Collins orbited in the Command Module (CM). Four months later, Apollo 12’s Pete Conrad, Alan Bean and Richard Gordon also made it to our only natural satellite. In April, 1970, the Apollo 13 mission went awry, but Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise made it back safely albeit with frozen sausages. Almost a year later, for Apollo 14, Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell landed at Fra Mauro while Stuart Roosa orbited. At the end of July, 1971, Apollo 15 set down on the lunar surface, leaving Alfred Worden circling the Moon. David Scott and James Irwin were the moonwalkers in this mission. Nine months on, John Young and Charlie Duke stepped out onto the Descarte Highlands as Ken Mattingley remained in orbit for Apollo 16. The final Moon landing, Apollo 17, in December, 1972, had Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt landing and Ronald Evans piloting the CM.

The enormous Saturn V rocket that had sent men to the Moon was also used, in a modified form to launch Skylab into earth orbit. The famous Apollo-Soyuz link-up was launched using the smaller Saturn I-B. In that historic mission, Apollo astronauts, Thomas Stafford, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule containing cosmonauts, Aleksei Leonov and Valery Kubasov. Mentioning this will make sense later…

In all, only twelve men have landed on the Moon, all Americans. Or so we have been told by history and those that perpetuate history’s written form.

In April of 2007, some videos appeared on popular website, YouTube, purporting to be footage from Apollo 20, a mission that set down on the far side of the Moon in 1976! Even more astonishing than the possibility that we continued going to the Moon after 1972 was what was depicted in the footage – an apparent, derelict alien spacecraft. According to the information released by the person, who went under the username, ‘retiredafb’ (his YouTube profile can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/retiredafb), Apollo 20 launched on August 16^th, 1976, from Vandenberg Air Force base in California and carried a mixed American-Soviet crew. These were Mission Commander William Rutledge, Command Module Pilot, Leona Snyder, and Lunar Module Pilot, Aleksei Leonov.

The alien ship was originally photographed in 1971, during Apollo 15 and the image can be found at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS15-P-9625.

Almost universally ridiculed as an elaborate hoax, this remarkable story failed to ignite interest in the mainstream media, but the YouTube links received well over a million ‘hits’.

Although sceptical, Italian journalist, Luca Scantamburlo, contacted the person who had posted these clips. He learned that ‘retiredafb’ claimed to be none other than William Rutledge himself! Now living in Rwanda, that war-torn nation in Africa, he apologised for his bad English, saying that he had not spoken it since 1990, instead speaking French, German and the native tongue of his new homeland, Kinyarwanda. He was born in Belgium in 1930 and remains an American citizen.

Rutledge said that after Apollo 17, Apollo 18 was the Apollo-Soyuz Link and Apollos 19 and 20 were flights to the lunar far side. Both the latter missions were not overseen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), but by the United States Air Force (USAF). Apollo 19 ended in disaster, he said, when all telemetry from the capsule was lost inexplicably. Although the real reasons are unknown, Rutledge believed that the ship hit or was hit by a ‘quasi-satellite’, one of the many chunks of rock that orbit the Earth-Moon system or share our orbit of the Sun.

Both Apollo 19 and 20 had the same objective, to land on the far side of the Moon and explore the ‘alien wreck’ that had been photographed by Apollo 15. According to Rutledge, he and Snyder worked for Bell Labs and were contracted out to the USAF. He had also worked for Avro, the Canadian company that developed the famous Avrocar, and Chance Vought, the aircraft company that developed the ‘Flying Flapjack’ aircraft. Leonov was the first man to walk in space and was the Soviet mission commander for the Apollo-Soyuz link.

When they landed on the Moon, they saw a deserted and ruined city, ‘full of scrap’, as Rutledge put it. He and Leonov entered the derelict spaceship and also a triangular one nearby. It was estimated, he said, that the larger ship was about 1.5 milliard years old. A milliard is another way of saying a thousand million, what we generally now call a billion. I find it odd that this American citizen would use the milliard term when the more common American usage was ‘billion’. Having said that, the word derives from French and Rutledge claimed to have spoken French instead of English for years. The craft was pitted with craters and other damage. Inside, they found evidence of plant-life and ‘triangular rocks [that] emitted “tears” of a yellow liquid which has some special medical properties’.

They also found alien bodies. The remains of small creatures, about 10 cm long, were found in glass tubes that ran the length of the ship and two ‘full-size’ aliens were found. Unbelievably, he claimed that one of them, a female, was still alive and returned to Earth! Here is how he described them:

“Humanoid, female, 1.65 meter. Genitalized, haired, six fingers (we guess that mathematics are based on a dozen). Function; pilot, piloting device fixed to fingers and eyes, no clothes, we had to cut two cables connected to the nose. No nostril. Leonov unfixed the eyes device (you'll see that in the video) [No video has appeared yet – SJ]. Concretions of blood or bio liquid erupted and froze from the mouth, nose, eyes and some parts of the body. Some parts of the body were in unusual good condition, (hair) and the skin was protected by a thin transparent protection layer. As we told to mission control, condition seemed not dead not alive. We had no medical background or experience, but Leonov and I used a test, we fixed our bio equipment on the EBE, and telemetry received by surgeon (Mission Control meds) was positive. That’s another story. Some parts could be unbelievable now, I prefer tell the whole story when other videos will be online. This experience has been filmed in the LM. We found a second body, destroyed, we brought the head on board. Color of the skin was blue gray, a pastel blue. Skin had some strange details above the eyes and the front, a strap around the head, wearing no inscription. The "cockpit" was full of calligraphy and formed of long semi hexagonal tubes. She is on Earth and she is not dead…”

Scantamburlo asked how he had managed to hang on to the footage he had posted. Rutledge said that it had been rescued during the demolition of a building (presumably at Vandenberg) when a security guard had found it and passed it on to the commander of Apollo 20. He bought them from the entrepreneurial security person 15 years ago, along with some photographs and other items.

Rutledge has posted several videos on YouTube, one of the alleged launch from Vandenberg, a flyover of the alien ship before landing, another clip with more detailed shots of the craft as well as interior CM images and a clip of the ‘city’. He also posted other clips that have been removed, in particular a clip of launch preparations at Vandenberg.

There have been several problems with the clips posted by ‘retiredafb’. The clip of the launch of the rocket appears to have had the Apollo 11 audio dubbed onto it. The audio of the flyover of the alien ship seems to have come from Apollo 15 transmissions and dubbed onto the clip. The now-removed video of the launch preparation at Vandenberg is clearly a clip of a Saturn V at Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) that has been flipped i.e. it is a mirror-image. The clip of the city is a fake and appears to be a CG or painted ruin pasted onto a photograph taken by Apollo 17 (which can be found at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20437.jpg).

Having looked at the second clip of the flyover, the one that shows great detail on the surface of the alien ship, I feel that it is simply a model. The lunar surface does not look real and the spaceship looks like it is made from play-dough!

Another problem for the mission would be maintaining communication with the crew on the far side of the Moon. Scantamburlo has suggested, quite correctly, that one or more satellites would be needed in lunar orbit to relay radio signals from the lunar module to Earth.

Would a secret Saturn V launch from Vandenberg AFB be possible? Vandenberg launches more rockets every year than the Kennedy Space Centre, but a rocket capable of carrying a crew to the Moon is much larger than those that deploy satellites into Earth orbit. I cannot believe that this could have been achieved without somebody seeing it. The cities of Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Lompoc are very close to the base so surely the launch of this massive vehicle would have been noticed.

UFO Data Magazine contacted Luca Scantamburlo by email. He had this to say to us:

“I am still sceptical about identity of ‘retiredafb’ and I do not know what to think about him, but I am convinced that there are some kernels of truth spread by him in this difficult case and that seems to be a real leak of information, in my opinion, in spite of it being contaminated with some fakes and contradictions; whoever William Rutledge is.

“For example, I have found an official NASA reference in which they say that the Apollo capsule of the ASTP (Apollo Soyuz Test Project) was the "Apollo 18". So, NASA uses the term ‘Apollo 18’ in one of its articles. (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/apollo/soyuz.html)

“About Leonov, I have found the original NASA photos on the web, in which you can see Aleksei Leonov at the Johnson Space Center in Texas learning the Apollo instruments, during his training by NASA, before the ASTP. And Rutledge told us that the ASTP was the Apollo 18 mission.

“What it is very interesting is that on the JAXA website (http://www.jaxa.jp/article/interview/vol5/index_e.html), there is an interview to Alexei Leonov, taken place in Japan on October 16, 2003, in which Leonov underpins some important conditions which allowed the mission ASTP (American-Soviet joint space mission, July 1975). Among them Leonov mentions the Academy of Science, and Dr. Fletcher:

“Q. I believe the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Project was the first step leading to the current International Space Station. What do you think of that idea?

A. The preceding period, from around 1972 to 1973, was a politically difficult one. We were placed in an explosive and hopeless situation, and a war could have broken out at any moment. The world had been divided into two by the Cold War. Even now, I am frightened by the fact that the world was in that desperate situation.

But having said that, it was also at this period of time that some wise men had appeared, such as Mr. Kosygin, (prime minister) of the Soviet Union, President Nixon of the United States, Dr. Keldys of the Soviet Science Academy, and Dr. Fletcher, Administrator of NASA. [...]”

“In the interview that William Rutledge granted me, he mentioned Dr. Fletcher and the Academy of Science in Ural:

“12) L.S. Can you tell me anything about the Russian collaboration to "Apollo 20?”

W.R. James Chipman Fletcher for USA and Valentin Alexeiev for Russia [...]”

“From the 13) answer:

“[...]  the center of decision was located in the Ural, in the town of Sverdlovsk. The chief of the program was Professor Valentin Alekseiev, who became later president of the academy of science in Ural. Leonov was chosen because of his popularity in the communist leading staff, and secondary only because he was on Apollo-Soyuz.”

“Another thing that is very interesting: the presumed W. Rutledge said he was a volunteer for the MOL-Gemini project (USAF), but he was not chosen (he told me he was not chosen in one of our private contacts).  He told us, in the interview, that, before retiring, he worked at the KH-11 project. I have found out later that the MOL-Gemini was also called ‘KH-10’, code name ‘Dorian’. So, as a detail, it is quite logical and correct from the point of view of space history, and from the point of view of somebody who is a test pilot involved with USAF after the MOL-Gemini (KH-10) was cancelled in 1969.

“We can say that at least something will remain in any case: the knowledge of the official NASA ‘Section 508’ (that Rutledge has indicated) [‘Section 508’ is a division of NASA that provides information for people with disabilities. They have a website at http://section508.nasa.gov/index.html - SJ], and the attention on a strange and huge lunar anomaly, not discussed before in the press, as far as I am aware:  a cigar- shaped object that could be an ancient alien mother spaceship, even if the Apollo 19 and 20 missions had never taken place.

“So, if we think that the Apollo 20 is a carefully prepared fake, we have to recognize that there was a great attention to the historical details. But my impression, as I told you, is that this controversial case contains some kernels of truth.”

Luca has written several articles, including an interview with ‘retiredafb’, and these can be found on his website http://www.angelismarriti.it/ANGELISMARRITI-ENG/home-ENG.htm.

Another website devoted to finding out the truth about Apollo 20 is http://www.spaceheroes.org/

It is up to the reader to decide if ‘retiredafb’/William Rutledge is telling the truth, but I believe t