Podcast UFO

Rony Vernet returns to Podcast UFO to discuss his field investigations into unusual phenomena reported in the Amazon rainforest and other remote regions of Brazil. An electrical engineer and researcher, Vernet shares accounts from indigenous communities involving luminous orbs, humanoid figures, strange lights, apparent equipment interference, and encounters that local residents believe originate from the forest itself. Martin and Rony also discuss the Peru flying humanoid reports, the Varginha case, alleged Brazilian military and police encounters with UAPs and beings, and the difficulty of collecting repeatable scientific data in unpredictable field conditions. Vernet explains his use of cameras, drones, infrared equipment, sensors, and other tools, along with why some of the most striking incidents reportedly involved lost or corrupted recordings. The conversation explores possible physical, spiritual, psychological, and interdimensional interpretations of the phenomenon, as well as Rony’s upcoming work and documentaries. SHOW NOTES

Martin Willis is joined by Donna Killeen, UFO Jack, Kelly Hughes, and Sam Milodragovich for UFO Headlines, discussing the latest developments in the UAP and UFO world. Martin and Donna share highlights from the recent Disclosure Forum in Washington, DC, including Martin’s question to Representative Eric Burlison about government file releases, private-sector crash-retrieval claims, and the search for more meaningful transparency. The panel also discusses the latest UAP records release, unusual orb reports, the role of skeptics, government disclosure efforts, archival research, and major historic cases including Roswell, Ariel School, Phoenix Lights, and Rendlesham Forest. They also explore the larger questions: Could there be multiple intelligences behind the phenomenon, and what evidence would it take for the public to truly accept the reality of UAPs? SHOW NOTES

Guest Joe Biscotto, founder of the rapidly growing UAP Reporting Center and host of Beyond Top Secret. Joe discusses his background in law enforcement, his lifelong fascination with UFOs and the unexplained, and how he built one of the fastest-growing UAP news platforms online. We also talk about UFO disclosure, investigating sightings, social media’s impact on the subject, and his work with The Contact Report. SHOW NOTES

Rhys Dalton-Morgan joins me from Contact in the Desert for a fascinating conversation about a remarkable family connection to one of Australia’s most intriguing UFO cases. Rhys’s grandfather, a decorated RAF fighter pilot and later operations head of the vast Woomera Test Range in South Australia, reportedly witnessed a bright disc-shaped object during the era of Black Knight rocket testing. According to Rhys’s research, the object was seen over the range by multiple personnel, appeared to circle a missile site, and then accelerated away at extraordinary speed. The case has since led Rhys into a deeper investigation of his grandfather’s military background, including a reported early involvement with a secret U.S.-U.K. UFO inquiry. We also discuss Rhys’s mother’s personal experiences, the role of respected Australian researcher Bill Chalker, the strange history surrounding Woomera, and some of Australia’s most compelling cases. Later, Rhys gives an excellent overview of the 1966 Westall school UFO incident, including the witnesses, reported landings, unusual aircraft, alleged military response, and some lesser-known details surrounding the event. We also touch on Australian high strangeness, alleged abduction cases, cryptid reports including the Yowie, and why the UFO phenomenon may be far more complex than simply unexplained technology. SHOW NOTES

Actor, writer, and technology innovator Sal Amato joins Martin Willis for a fascinating discussion on UFOs, disclosure, media influence, and the inspiration behind his upcoming novel, Hidden Powers: Disclosure From Within. Drawing from decades of interest in unexplained phenomena, technology, and human behavior, Sal shares his thoughts on historical UFO cases, the 1952 Washington, D.C. sightings, information control, and why curiosity is essential when exploring extraordinary claims. The conversation also explores how technology shapes public perception, the challenges of separating fact from fiction, and the themes of disclosure, power, and truth woven throughout his new book. An engaging discussion for anyone interested in UFOs, mysteries, and the bigger questions surrounding what we know—and what we may not know. SHOW NOTES

Martin Willis is joined by Podcast UFO producer Donna Killeen, UFO Jack, Kelly Hughes, and Sam Milodragovich for a lively, spoiler-filled roundtable discussion of one of the most anticipated UFO films in recent memory. The panel shares their honest reactions to the movie, explores its many references to UFO history and lore, and debates whether Spielberg successfully captured the mystery, wonder, and complexity of the UFO phenomenon. Topics include experiencers, screen memories, government secrecy, whistleblowers, historical UFO cases, disclosure, and the film’s surprising ending. Was Disclosure Day a groundbreaking UFO movie, a fun science-fiction adventure, or a missed opportunity? Tune in to hear a range of perspectives from voices deeply involved in the UFO community. Plus, the panel discusses some of the real-world UFO developments making headlines and what the movie may mean for public interest in the UFO topic going forward. SHOW NOTES

Martin Willis welcomes Simon Bown, author of Aspects of Alien Abduction: Shocking UFO Encounters, Vol. 1. Simon discusses his own UFO sightings, a possible abduction memory recovered through hypnosis, and the recurring patterns he has found after interviewing hundreds of experiencers. Topics include consciousness, missing time, healing cases, family connections, and the mystery behind alien abduction reports. SHOW NOTES

Recorded at Contact in the Desert, Martin Willis sits down with explorer Dennis Åsberg, discoverer of the Baltic Sea Anomaly, and astronomer Dr. Beatriz Villarroel of the VASCO Project. Dennis discusses new developments surrounding the anomaly, repeated equipment failures during expeditions, and the discovery of the lost Russian submarine Som, while Dr. Villarroel shares her groundbreaking research into unexplained transient objects, vanishing stars, and evidence suggesting highly reflective objects in Earth orbit. Together they explore the intersection of ocean exploration, astronomy, UFOs, scientific inquiry, and some of the most intriguing mysteries of our time. SHOW NOTES

Preston Dennett returns to Podcast UFO to discuss his latest book, Humanoids & High Strangeness: 20 True UFO Encounters. In this fascinating conversation, Preston shares remarkable cases involving face-to-face encounters with mysterious beings, missing time, telepathic communication, giant owls, elf-like entities, and other bizarre experiences that challenge our understanding of the UFO phenomenon. Martin and Preston also explore schoolyard UFO encounters, witness credibility, differing memories among eyewitnesses, the famous Ariel School case, and the possible connection between UFO contact and consciousness. A thought-provoking discussion with one of ufology’s most prolific researchers that ventures far beyond lights in the sky. SHOW NOTES

In this special live episode, Martin Willis reviews the June 9 Capitol Hill UAP Disclosure Press Conference featuring David Grusch, James Fox, Leslie Kean, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Rep. Tim Burchett, Rep. Eric Burlison, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, and others. The speakers called for increased transparency, declassification of government records, stronger whistleblower protections, and further investigation into claims involving recovered craft and non-human biologics. Grusch discussed ongoing oversight concerns, alleged obstruction of congressional inquiries, and the need for greater accountability. After the event, Martin was joined by Matt Ford of The Good Trouble Show, along with Krys Devine and Kelly Hughes, for an in-depth discussion of the key statements, potential implications, and what may come next in the ongoing disclosure effort. SHOW NOTES

At Contact in the Desert, Martin Willis sits down with entrepreneur, AI researcher, and quantum computing expert Deep Prasad for a wide-ranging discussion that explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, consciousness, advanced physics, and the UFO phenomenon. Deep shares details of an extraordinary experience he had in 2019 that profoundly changed his understanding of reality and led him to explore questions surrounding non-human intelligence and consciousness. He also discusses the rapid advancement of AI, the promise and challenges of quantum computing, and how future technologies may help unlock some of the deepest mysteries surrounding UAP. SHOW NOTES

Tonight on UFO Headlines, we’re joined by UFO Jack, Kelly Hughes, and Sam Milodragovich to discuss the latest developments in the UAP world. We’ll cover the recent release of more than 160 government UAP files, the upcoming June 9 Capitol Hill press conference involving David Grusch and congressional transparency advocates, the controversy surrounding Aliens.gov, and some of the most talked-about cases emerging from the newly released documents. We’ll also share our experiences from Contact in the Desert 2026, including standout presentations, behind-the-scenes conversations, and the overall mood of the UFO community regarding disclosure and the future of UAP investigations. Join us live and bring your questions and comments as we discuss the latest UFO headlines and what may be coming next. SHOW NOTES

Whitley Strieber returns to Podcast UFO for a thought-provoking discussion on UFOs, non-human intelligence, Roswell, consciousness, AI, and the enduring mystery of contact. Best known for his groundbreaking book Communion, Strieber shares personal experiences, reflects on the impact of disclosure, discusses the possibility that UFO intelligences originate from another reality, and explains why he believes humanity may have lost abilities once possessed long ago. From the Allagash Abduction case and Roswell to artificial intelligence and the future of human consciousness, this conversation explores some of the deepest questions surrounding the UFO phenomenon and our place in the universe. Whether you’re a longtime follower of Strieber’s work or new to these topics, this is an engaging and wide-ranging interview you won’t want to miss. SHOW NOTES

In this episode of Podcast UFO, Martin Willis and UFO Jack welcome Jordan Flowers of the Disclosure Foundation for a discussion on UFO disclosure, government transparency, classified file releases, and the growing momentum surrounding the UAP topic in Washington, D.C. Jordan discusses the impact of the 2017 The New York Times UFO article by Leslie Kean, the Disclosure Foundation’s work with FOIA requests and congressional briefings, recent NSA and military UAP releases, and the upcoming Disclosure Forum taking place June 25th in the historic Kennedy Caucus Room inside the U.S. Senate. Topics include national security, declassified documents, whistleblowers, public stigma, media coverage, and the future of UFO transparency and disclosure. SHOW NOTES

Jerome Clark by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Among the many possible explanations for UFOs is that some UFOs might be creatures that live in the sky. The person who became best known for this idea was Trevor James Constable who presented it, along with infrared photos of what he claimed were bioforms invisible to the naked eye, in his 1958 book (as Trevor James) They Live in the Sky. James wasn’t alone in his belief, and the concept of sky creatures goes back farther than 1958 in both speculative literature and science fiction. A good starting point for the history of the sky-creatures hypothesis is the 1997 paper by Jerome Clark, Spacemen, Demons and Conspiracies, published by the Fund for UFO Research. Clark explores the many explanations for UFOs put forward throughout the years and looks at the SCH in the section “Secret Weapons and Space Animals.” After going into the speculation by people such as James Moseley, Leon Davidson, and Jacques Vallée that flying saucers/UFOs can be explained as classified secret weapons, Clark delves into the history of the sky-creature concept. According to Clark, sky creatures originally appeared in fictional form, possibly for the first time, in the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Horror in the Heights,” published in the November 1913 issue of The Strand Magazine. The first person to offer the speculation that our skies might truly be full of living creatures was Charles Fort in his 1923 book, New Lands, in what Clark calls “a casual aside.”  Fort wrote, “It seems no more incredible that up in the seemingly unoccupied sky there should be hosts of living things than that the seeming blank of the ocean should swarm with life.” In his 1931 Book, Lo!,  he wrote, “Unknown, luminous things, or beings, have often been seen, sometimes close to this earth, and sometimes high in the sky. It may be that some of them were living things that occasionally come from somewhere else.” After Kenneth Arnold’s June 24, 1947, sighting, on July 7, John Phillip Bessor wrote the Army Air Forces giving his opinion that what Arnold and the many others that followed him had seen were “a form of space animal, or creature, of a highly attenuated (ectoplasmic?) substance, capable of materialization and dematerialization, whose propellent is a form of telekinetic energy.” Bessor posited that their presence might explain blood and meat falls reported throughout history (Fort wrote about such events), and in the assumption that they were hostile predators with a taste for human flesh, might explain missing persons. As silly as Bessor’s theory might seem, according to Clark, an Air Force spokesman replied to Bessor saying it was “one of the most intelligent theories we have received.” In a 1949 summary of Project Sign’s investigations it was noted, “Although the objects as described act more like animals than anything else, there are few reliable reports on extraterrestrial animals.” Clark adds that aerospace engineer Alfred Loedding who worked with Project Sign as a civilian (he was a core member when it was established), is quoted in the October 10, 1954, Trenton Times-Advertiser as saying, “I suspect that [UFOs] may be a kind of space animal.” Much of Clark’s paper seems to have been sourced from the December 15, 1957, Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York newsletter. CSI-NY was a science-minded organization founded in 1954 by Isabel Davis, Ted Bloecher, and Lex Mebane. On page 31 of the news letter is the article (page 33 of the pdf) headlined “Who ‘Discovered’ Space Animals?” which has most of the same information provided by Clark. Clark references another CSI article on the subject that appeared in the September 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe. The newsletter article begins with a reference to the Fantastic Universe article: “After we’d written an article for the September Fantastic Universe suggesting that ‘angel hair’ might be interpreted as organic tissues cast off by stratospheric creatures, we began to wonder who was the first to think of UFOs as animals.” Ivan T. Sanderson is the first person mentioned as possibly being the “most eminent advocate” of the idea at the time and is said to have been “principally influenced” by an article by Countess Zoë Wassilko-Serecki published in the September 1955 American Astrology. Clark provides an excerpt and says her article was the most influential of all articles written on the subject because it “gave the theory concrete shape.” It’s summed up in the CSI newsletter this way: “This theory postulated ionospheric, energy-feeding, quasi-electrical entities.” According to the CSI article, others came up with their own sky creature theories at about the same time. French engineer Rene Fouéré published his theory in the summer 1954 Paris-Montparnesse that UFOs were “disc beings,” Commander Walter Kerig suggested that UFOs behaved more like “puppies” than spaceships, and Desmond Leslie suggested in Flying Saucers Have Landed that, in the CSI reporter’s words, “the cylindrical UFO of Oloron-Gaillac might have been a huge living thing.” The CSI article brings up the same early post-1947 theorists as Clark and adds Arnold to the list: “Sometime during this period, too (we don’t have definite references), the idea was first publicly advanced by pioneer saucer investigator Kenneth Arnold.” A search on our part came up with a quote from Arnold in the article by Fred Schneiter headlined “Eerie Blue Light Said Live ‘Thing’” in the January 29, 1955 issue of The Observer out of La Grande, Oregon: “I believe that whatever they are, they are living organisms, and not controlled by any type of Man from Mars.” Going back farther in time, the CSI article, like Clark’s, ultimately attributes Charles Fort with the origin of the SCH and includes the same quote from New Lands at the end. The Civilian Saucer Intelligence article on the subject that appeared in the September 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe is mostly about the angel hair phenomenon. The first part of a series headlined “Shapes in the Sky,” it begins with a description of an investigation by CSI of an angel hair report begun after the witness had contacted Ivan T. Sanderson. Other contemporary cases are described with the source provided for each of them, and then there are several more cases presented going back to 1741. The reader is told that the latter cases were “mostly taken from Fort, but we quote in all cases from the original reference.” This all leads to the speculation that angel hair might come from “live large flocks of spherical entities or creatures, about six feet in diameter,” which the authors admit “is un-questionably in conflict with present scientific view of what is possible.” The two possibilities offered are that these “jellybirds” shed their appendages after mating, or “burst open” after death leaving behind their “cobwebby” remains. A 1950 case in Philadelphia is referenced that is said to have been described in the 2nd of the “Shapes in the Sky” series published in the May 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe. Clark also described this case in his article and its source is the September 27, 1950, Philadelphia Inquirer. According to the article “Flying ‘Saucer’ Just Dissolves,” at around 10 p.m. the night before, Patrolmen John Collins and Joseph Keenan spotted what seemed to be a parachute and watched through their patrol-car windshield as it settled into a field near 26th Street and Vare Boulevard. They called in Street Sergeant Joseph Cook and Patrolman James Casper, and the four of them went to investigate. According to them, when the object was hit by the light of their flashlights, “it gave off a purplish glow, almost a mist, that looked as though it contained crystals. Collins went to pick it up and the area where he made contact dissolved and left a sticky, odorless residue. Within 25 minutes the entire object, which was so light it didn’t even bend the reeds it sat on, dissolved. Cook notified the FBI, but there was nothing to show but “a magic circle on the ground where something purple, and quite evanescent, once had been.” According to many sources, including the Classic Movie Hub blog, the case was the inspiration for the 1958 movie, The Blob. As for sky creatures appearing as movie monsters, it wasn’t until 2022 that such a creature was featured in a major film. This creature has the un-monster-like name of “Jean Jacket” and is the nemesis of Earth-bound humans in Nope.

Robert Powell joins Podcast UFO to discuss the controversial May 8 UFO file release and why SCU says much of the material lacks the metadata needed for real scientific analysis. We discuss over-classification, AI-assisted UAP research, the Aguadilla case, government transparency, and the growing involvement of academia in UFO studies. Robert also previews the SCU 2026 Conference in Toronto featuring Christopher Mellon, Dr. Randy Bostick, Kevin Knuth, and many others. SHOW NOTES

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  In the early years of the flying saucer/UFO mystery, magazines played a significant part in the public perception of the phenomenon. One of the most popular magazines in that era was LIFE, which started covering saucer/UFO news at the very beginning during the 1947 summer of the saucers. For anyone interested in the early history of the phenomenon, Archives for the Unexplained has a collection of related magazine articles which includes LIFE articles from 1947 t0 1966. In the article published in the July 1947 issue headlined “Speaking of Pictures… a Rash of Flying Disks Breaks Out Over the U.S.,” it is lamented that none of the many saucers seen that summer paused long enough to get its picture taken. There are pictures, however, of two fake saucers: one an obvious saw blade with what looks to be a capacitor attached to it held up by Reverend Joseph Brasky who claimed it hit the lightning rod of his church with an explosion, and the other an aluminum disk with what looks to be spent fireworks attached held up by a man from Shreveport, Louisiana, who said it flew out from behind a signboard. In 1950, a saucer in McMinnville, Oregon, seemingly did pause long enough for not only one, but two photos, and the article headlined “Farmer Trent’s Flying Saucer” published in the June 6, 1950, issue presents two photos taken by Paul Trent of what he said was a saucer flying over his farm. Trent is described as frugal, and it is noted that after he took the two saucer pics on May 11, he used up the last of the roll taking three pictures at a family picnic on Mother’s Day. LIFE had this to say about Trent and his photos: “Herewith LIFE prints Farmer Trent’s pictures. No more can be said for them than the man that took them is an honest individual and that the negatives show no sign of having been tampered with, although there are people who would say that the object looks like the lid of a garbage can.” The next issue in the collection is the May 5, 1951, issue which has the article headlined “Through the Interstellar Looking Glass.” The article is about the rise in popularity of science fiction, described as “the fastest-growing folklore of the machine age,” which had been a genre with a small dedicated fandom since the 1930s. The article covers the recent spate of movies featuring space travel and aliens such as Man From Planet X, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, and then gets deep into the culture of science fiction fandom. Significantly, the Shaver mystery (called the “Shaver hoax”) is discussed, which set a precedent for the flying saucer mystery. There are three issues from 1952, which was a big year due to a major flap throughout the country and the fact that the Air Force had resurrected its neglected saucer investigation, Project Grudge, under the new name, Project Blue Book. The director was Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, who wrote about his time as director throughout 1952 in his 1956 book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. In it, he mentions reporters from LIFE contacting and visiting the office of Blue Book, but describes personnel other than himself interacting with them. Throughout the 1952 LIFE articles, Blue Book and Ruppelt are not mentioned by name. The April 7, 1952, issue has Marilyn Monroe on the cover next to the teaser, “There is a Case for Interplanetary Saucers,” for the article by H. B. Darrach and Robert Ginna headlined “Have We Visitors From Outer Space?” The article is based on the fact, as the reader is told, that the Air Force had, “for the first time” opened up its files on UFOs “for study.” At the top of the article is a center page spread of an illustration of a green fireball done by the wife of Dr. Lincoln La Paz. Dr. La Paz was head of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico and had investigated a series of such sightings (and claimed to have had one himself along with his wife) for the Air Force. The article is then introduced with this: “The Air Force is now ready to concede that many saucer and fireball sightings still defy explanation; here LIFE offers some scientific evidence that there is a real case for interplanetary flying saucers.” The article begins with a list of “facts” reported to LIFE by the Air Force, which includes statements that the Air Force is maintaining an active investigation with a “positive policy” in its efforts to discover the source of UFO reports. Significant is the news that the Air Force was now welcoming civilian reports and guaranteeing confidentiality and freedom from ridicule. Then, after a review of what are now classic cases in UFO history up to that point, starting with Kenneth Arnold’s June 24, 1947, sighting and including the Thomas Mantell incident, the sighting reported by pilots Clarence S. Chiles and John B. Whitehead, and the “Gorman dogfight,” ten cases from the Air Force files are presented in detail along with three cases uncovered by LIFE investigators and “reported for the first time.” The most notable of these is the first case presented known as “The Lubbock Lights” which involved photos taken on August 30, 1951, by 18-year-old Texas Tech student Carl Hart Jr. of lights in formation over Lubbock, Texas. The photos are printed under the fireball illustration, and copies can be seen in the Blue Book files. The June 9, 1952, issue has the article by Ginna headlined “Saucer Reactions” which describes “unprecedented” reader responses to the former article: “Some have been non-sensical, some philosophical, some have contained provocative and plausible theories.” It is noted that the Air Force is “enlarging” its investigation and that LIFE has offered its news resources to Air Force intelligence for “the gathering of pertinent data.” Readers are encouraged to report their sightings to the Air Force and instructions are given on what information to include and how use a coin to judge elevation. The August 4, 1952, issue has an article headlined “Washington’s Blips” covering the two consecutive weekends in July starting July 19th when multiple UFOs in restricted Washington, D.C., airspace were spotted visually and on radar. Jets were scrambled and the blips on radar disappeared when the jets arrived. Ruppelt mentions in his book that Blue Book hadn’t been alerted and that he found out about the events when Ginna asked him for a statement. Afterwards, the largest press conference since WWII was held by the Air Force and the explanation was offered that the radar returns might have been caused by a temperature inversion. Notably, the coverage in the LIFE article is cursory, and the main source is the chief of radar at Washington’s CAA control center, Harry Barnes. The Air Force is said to have denied sending in jets and then to have later admitted doing so with no explanation for the denial. The press conference isn’t mentioned. After 1952, coverage is scant. There is a short article on plans to build a practical flying saucer in the May 31, 1954, issue and a short article in the November 29, 1954, issue covering three Italian cases. The first of these is the famous case of Rosa Dainelli who claimed that two small humanoids took one her stockings along with some flowers. A picture of her with her husband and children is presented over the well-known illustration of the reported incident from the cover of La Domenica del Corriere. There is another short article in the December 5, 1955, issue on the various shapes of craft reported to the Air Force and an article in the May 27, 1957, issue covering contactees and George Van Tassel’s Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention at Giant Rock Airport near Yucca Valley, California. The April 1, 1966, issue is the last in the collection and it makes up for the lean years with three articles. In spite of it being April Fool’s Day, the articles are a mostly serious look at the phenomenon up to that point with a major focus on the flap in March around Dexter, Michigan. Several pictures of strange lights in the sky are presented under the headline, “A Well-witnessed ‘Invasion’ by Something,” and the Dexter flap is covered under the headline “‘It wasn’t no hullabillusion,’ said the farmer, and 52 agreed.” The quote is from the main witness, Frank Mannor as he was complaining about the crowds of people around his property in the aftermath. His wife, Leona is quoted at the end of the article saying, “We ain’t Martians- they act like you’re not human or something because you seen it. I’m about to get a gun and shoot some of these smart alecks if they don’t stay to hell away.” Blue Book’s director at the time was Hector Quintanilla (spelled Quintanella in the LIFE articles), and he sent consultant Dr. J. Allen Hynek to investigate. Hynek is quoted as saying, “I believe the people who made these sightings are entirely honest and sincere, but I am not willing to guess what they saw.” Unfortunately, Hynek did guess, and at a press conference given after the article was written he suggested that some of the sightings in the area were of flaming marsh gas, which became “swamp gas” in the press. This led to the Air Force representatives being brought before Congress at the behest of outraged Michigan State Representative Gerald Ford. The last article is headlined “Of 10,147 flying saucer sightings there are rational explanations for all but 646.” Hynek and “Quintanella” are featured giving their thoughts on the phenomenon. Hynek expresses his feeling that there is an obligation to try and provide an explanation to “solid citizens” who report “something puzzling,” and Quintanilla says, in spite of his belief that there has been no evidence that saucers are of interplanetary origin, that “it is impossible to prove that flying saucers do not exist.

Martin Willis & Dean Alioto speak with Bogna Konior, author of The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet, about the surprising connection between artificial intelligence, the internet, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Drawing from the dark forest theory, she explores the idea that true intelligence may remain hidden, avoiding detection in a potentially hostile environment. The conversation covers whether the internet itself is a form of first contact, how AI may already be learning from human communication, and why advanced intelligence might choose silence over expression. This thought-provoking discussion challenges how we think about AI, communication, and the possibility that contact may already be underway in ways we do not fully understand. SHOW NOTES

John and E.J. Craig, a husband and wife UFO research team based in Colorado, discuss their new platform UFO Track, designed to detect and report UAP activity in real time. Instead of relying on after the fact sightings, their system alerts nearby users instantly so multiple witnesses can observe and document the same event. We talk about their sensor technology, triangulation methods, and the idea of proactive disclosure, empowering the public to help gather meaningful data. It is an interesting look at how coordinated, real time reporting could shape the future of UFO research. SHOW NOTES

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Ted Bloecher, who passed away not too long ago at the age of 94, was a researcher/investigator who started out in the days of flying saucers as a founding member of Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York and was active until the mid-1980s. He was an early researcher of humanoid reports starting in 1955, just after the 1954 French humanoid wave and the 1955 Kelly-Hopkinsville incident, and was the author of numerous publications on the subject. Tucked away in the United Kingdom file of the downloads section of the Archives for the Unexplained website is a report he wrote titled Close Encounters of the Third Kind that was published in 1977 by the British UFO Research Association. According to the introduction, the paper was prepared for a talk he gave at the BUFORA National UFO Conference at the Centre Hotel in Birmingham, England, in November 1976. The subtitle describes the paper as “The preliminary presentation of extensive study into UFO cases involving the reported sightings of humanoids and other alien beings.” In this blog, we’ll look at some of the highlights. The publication starts off with a biography of Bloecher which includes his saucer/UFO involvement as a founding member of CSI-NY, a staff member of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, a member of the Mutual UFO Network (since 1972), and some of his publications. At the time, he was MUFON’s state section director for New York City and co-chairman with David Webb of MUFON’s Humanoid Study Group founded in 1974. Bloecher begins his report saying that there had been “a number of unusual events that involved strange humanoid beings” reported throughout North America during the fall of 1975. He describes them as being the source of a great deal of “disbelief, confusion, and controversy,” and posits they may be the result of alien visitation or “as some researchers are suggesting, poorly understood manifestations of the human psyche about which there is much to discover.” According to him, CE III reports (from a classification system developed by J. Allen Hynek) had not only escalated, but their level of strangeness had as well. Bloecher then summarizes specific cases, which are all footnoted with references. The first is a mother and daughter from Birmingham, Alabama, who, in November, reportedly saw two eight-foot-tall humanoids wearing tight-fitting silver suits, silver ankle-high shoes, and helmets that reflected their car’s headlights as they drove towards them. One of the figures held one arm over its head. The women were “startled” by the creatures’ appearance and swerved around them without stopping to investigate. Next, a woman driving near Peers, Alberta (Canada), at 5:30 p.m. on October 14, reportedly saw what she first thought was a cattle truck parked with its lights on. It turned out to be some sort of object with two men, each holding a staff and wearing a helmet, standing motionless on top. The woman went to get two witnesses, but when they returned, the object and the men were gone. A highly strange case involved an elderly couple in Wauwatosa near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. According to Bloecher, they were at home on the evening of November 10th. The doorbell rang, the wife answered it, and was confronted with a “man” wearing a narrow-brimmed hat. He had a brown face “like smoked meat,” with vertical grey lines, a narrow chin, a small opening for a mouth less than a quarter inch wide, and he was holding a white, five-foot-long rod. He didn’t respond to “her queries,” and she called her husband over. When he saw the man, he said, “What the hell is this, something left over from trick or treat?” He went to grab the man, and the man hit the ground with the rod, which made an audible click, and he then glided backwards out of the husband’s reach. As he drifted across the lawn, he raised his arm and presented a bent hand to the witnesses. In spite of having seen the man up close, the husband was unable to recall the details of his face other than the small mouth. The couple saw at least four other similar creatures on their lawn and in the street. They were all moving “like the astronauts on the Moon” in long, slow jumps. They all had rods and hit them on the ground and would then float a few inches above the lawn. The creatures are described as looking deformed “like gnomes” with bowed legs and claw-like hands. Bloecher notes there were no UFOs reported in the area. The next case from Poland Springs, Maine, does involve a UFO. According to Bloecher, on October 27, at 2:30 a.m., “two youths” were driving and found themselves no longer controlling the car. The car proceeded down a back road near a lake, and they saw a UFO, described as a “large, cylindrical object,” as it rose up over a field. A “number of strange events” are said to have occurred, which included a fog or mist enveloping the car. They were able to drive away, but later returned due to an “irresistible impulse,” and this time, they saw the original object as well as another one. When they got home, there was a period of time they couldn’t account for, and one of them, identified as a young man, began to suffer “some odd physical effects.” The young man underwent hypnotic regression “weeks later” and recounted being taken from the car and then finding himself looking down at his car and companion through a porthole. According to him, he was confronted by a four-and-a-half-foot-tall creature that communicated telepathically and told him not to be afraid. He was led into a room, told to undress, and then underwent a physical exam which included blood being taken and him being scanned by a “machine with dials.” He was told to get dressed, that they’d see him again, and he then found himself back in the car where his companion seemed unaware that he’d been gone. According to Bloecher, the young man and his family reported seeing UFOs afterwards “on numerous occasions.” He says they also reported other events of a strange nature that were “too complex and involved to be included in this summary…” and that everything had occurred during a “spate of reported UFO sightings in the area.” The last case Bloecher summarizes is the Travis Walton incident. He notes that it was “widely publicized here and abroad” and out of all the cases summarized, “the most highly controversial” with too many “complications” to include in the summary. After his summaries, Bloecher explains that due to the enormous number of UFO reports, for instance, the 90,000 case entries in the computerized UFO Catalogue (UFOCAT) set up by David Saunders, researchers are “obliged” to focus on the phenomenon “in microcosm,” and that this is what he is doing with humanoid reports. Bloecher then makes note of the benefits of research into CE-III reports in terms of the amount of data they provide as compared to a light in the sky report. He introduces the term “entity” and goes on at length about the reports of their appearance, behavior, activities, association with vehicles, and communication with witnesses.  He provides a chart of the yearly distribution of reports and a statistical breakdown, and introduces the Humanoid Study Group and Humanoid Catalogue (HUMCAT). Bloecher was a pioneer in humanoid study at a time when most researchers, in his words, “dealt only gingerly with the subject.” After the Travis Walton incident and the Pascagoula incident just over three years before, at the time of his talk, Bloecher’s fringe research was on its way to becoming mainstream.    

In this episode of Podcast UFO, I’m joined by Miguel Sancho, executive producer of the HISTORY® series The Proof Is Out There® and author of Evidence of the Extraordinary. We discuss how his team evaluates UFO sightings and unexplained phenomena using a mix of journalistic rigor, scientific analysis, and expert review—revealing that most cases can be explained, while a select few remain truly puzzling. Miguel also shares insights from his book, exploring how our perception of reality can be challenged by experiences that don’t fit conventional explanations. From AI-generated hoaxes and government disclosure to credible UFO cases and even mysteries in our oceans, this conversation takes a grounded look at what holds up under investigation—and what still defies explanation. SHOW NOTES

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  It’s always a plus when UFO cases come along with physical evidence to back them up. Sometimes this evidence is in the form of physiological effects on the witnesses, and cases involving these are numerous enough that investigators have been able to focus on them as a specific area of study. Conjunctivitis (burning red eyes), nausea, hair loss, numbness, paralysis, and burns are some of the symptoms commonly described, but a very unusual effect was reported in the following 1976 case from Bolton, England. While the incident was said to have occurred in 1976, it didn’t show up in major media until 1987. In the March 1987 issue (page 19 of the pdf) of She magazine, there is an article by Peter Hough headlined “The UFO in Armadale Road.” According to Hough, at 5:15 p.m. on January 23, 1976, 17-year-old Shelley McLenaghan had just gotten off a bus and was 100 yards from home when she saw a UFO. She is quoted as saying, “Before that, I would have thought anybody who said they’d seen a UFO was crazy.” She added, “I think the government know far more than they let on.” McLenaghan is then quoted describing her encounter: Peter Hough I saw a red and green light in the sky, thought ‘what’s that?’- it was a bit weird. The lights were about four or five times the size of a star. Then, as if they’d said, ‘we’ll catch your eye with the space ship,’ the lights merged and the semblance of a real nuts-and-bolts craft zoomed in. It was the size of a small house, flat on top, with sloping sides and sloping underneath, with a trap door, tripod legs. It was spinning on an axis, then righted itself, I could see portholes with light shining through. Suddenly, it tilted towards me, then there was a terrible pressure on my head and shoulders, an off taste in my mouth. My teeth seemed to vibrate. When I tried to run it was like being in a nightmare. My arms and legs moved, but in slow motion. I tried to scream, nothing came out. Then everything went hazy until I remember bursting through the side door at home. Mother was cooking tea. She gave one look at me, then said ‘What on earth’s happened?’ She thought I’d been raped. I grabbed her arm, dragged her outside and pointed at the sky, but whatever it was had gone. We went back into the kitchen and I started to calm down. Then I noticed the time – ten minutes past six. A ten-minute walk had taken me 45 minutes.   According to Hough, when McLenaghan’s father got home that night, the family called the Bolton Police, who didn’t believe Shelley’s story and suggested she had misidentified a low-flying plane. Over the weekend, McLanaghan developed a rash that covered her upper body from the neck down. Along with this, her eyes hurt, her joints ached and “she had problems with her mouth.” She went to a doctor who told her mother that the symptoms were due to hysteria and a means to get attention. However, a dentist she went to thought otherwise and was puzzled by the condition of her teeth: her top fillings had come out, and her bottom fillings had turned to powder. Hough describes this as being what would come from a serious head injury like one might get from a car accident. According to Hough, the family was visited by two men eleven days later at 7:00 p.m. in the midst of a downpour. They were “an odd couple,” and one of them said he was an RAF commander. Hough points out that that rank only exists in the Navy. The “commander” was around 40, had fair hair, only one arm, and “did most of the talking,” while the other man was dark-skinned, small, and sat silently with “a black box on his knee.” This man said it was a tape recorder, but reportedly never changed a tape in the course of a four-hour discussion. McLenaghan said the “commander” gave her a “grilling” calling her a liar, “stupid enough to wrongly identify a weather balloon,” and just looking for publicity. She told him that the Bolton Evening News and Granada TV must have heard about her sighting from the police and that she hadn’t cooperated with them, and “he seemed placated.” He said this was good and insisted that she, in her words, “not mention it to anyone – especially UFO organizations.” McLenaghan describes being pushed to the point of breaking down, at which point the “commander” would talk to her parents “about something trivial.” She says the men “had a strange effect on all of us,” and that her father, who was normally protective, “sat by while this man was tearing me to pieces.” She says the man seemed to know about her rash even though the family hadn’t said anything about it. Hough adds that when her father asked for identification, the men evaded the issue and then said “We investigate these sort of things.” They then drove off in a black car. According to Hough, McLenaghan agreed to help him and Jenny Randles “reopen the case,” and he recounts McLenaghan’s experiences under hypnosis. She described herself lying on a table in a strange room with, in Hough’s words, “a figure with long blond hair” examining her feet. She then found herself running home. Hough says that during a second session, McLenaghan said she was talked to by the “commander” twice. She is quoted as saying, “But I can’t say anything about the hypnosis because I wasn’t conscious. Maybe it was something like a nightmare.” What is noteworthy here is that Randles was the director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association from 1981 until 1993 and instrumental in getting a moratorium put into place starting in 1988 on the use of hypnosis in investigations by BUFORA members. She and Hough wrote several books together covering UFOs and the paranormal. The article ends with a final quote from McLenaghan: “If anyone has an experience they can’t put in a box, file away and take out as a normal memory, they’re bound to ask just what happened. Why did they choose me?” In a box below the article, Randles is quoted explaining why McLenaghan’s case was re-investigated: “Because the information is verifiable via other people, for example Shelley’s parents, and also because of the associated effects of the sighting – Shelley’s rash and crumbled fillings. One odd aspect is the medical silence over these; we have asked in vain to look at Shelley’s medical records of the time.” This case is included in A Catalogue of UFO-Related Human Physiological Effects (page 69 of pdf) published in 1996 by John Schuessler, and in Jacques Vallée’s 1990 book, Confrontations. Accounts can also be found in the March 22, 1988, Weekly World News, and the July 30, 1987, Australasian Post.

Martin Willis interviews filmmaker Ron James, Head of MUFON Media, about his new documentary Accidental Truth: Next and the current state of UFO Disclosure.Ron shares behind-the-scenes insights from Washington, D.C., including conversations connected to lawmakers such as Tim Burchett and Kirsten Gillibrand, and discusses whether the ongoing UAP narrative is true transparency, or a controlled rollout. Topics include Congressional hearings, limited vs full disclosure, missing scientists, MUFON’s role behind the scenes, and how the UFO subject may be shifting beyond “nuts and bolts” into deeper questions about reality itself. Ron also previews Accidental Truth: Next, premiering June 1 at Contact in the Desert and streaming June 2. SHOW NOTES

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Recently, footage taken of a video that has been described by documentarian James Fox as the holy grail of UFO videos has been shown online. The original video on VHS had been in the possession of one of the early Area 51 researchers, Chuck Clark, since 1995. Clark was reportedly offered a large sum of money to turn over the video, and he refused, whereupon underhanded means were employed to get what was on it out to the public. This story goes all the way back to the 1990s when the United States was in the midst of its own special brand of paranoid UFOlogy, which emphasized government cover-ups and conspiracy theories fueled by the popularity of The X-Files. Area 51 had become the most famous secret base in the world after Bob Lazar, in silhouette using the name “Dennis,” was interviewed by George Knapp on KLAS in Las Vegas in May 1989. He claimed to have worked on reverse-engineering nine recovered alien space craft at a site he said was called “S-4” located in the southern section of Area 51. The excitement stirred up by Lazar’s claim resulted in a flood of UFO tourists descending on the area. Many would stop at the only bar in the nearby small town of Rachel, Nevada, a population that usually numbers around 50 people. According to the “Rachel Timeline” section of A Short History of Rachel, Nevada by Glenn Campbell and Edith Grover, Pat and Joe Travis bought the Rachel Bar and Grill in 1988. They renamed it “The Little A’Le’Inn” and held the first annual UFO conference there in July of 1990. According to the timeline, Campbell moved into the Little A’Le’Inn in January 1993, and started “publishing his Area 51 Viewer’s Guide.” In August 1993, he was “kicked out” by Joe Travis and started the Area 51 Research Center in a mobile home in the trailer park owned by the founder of Rachel, D. C. Day. The first Area 51 researcher to gain notoriety was Norio Hayakawa. According to his autobiography on DreamlandResort.com, he first became interested in Area 51 in 1987 when Bill Moore sent him a copy of a satellite photo of Groom Lake taken by the Russians along with a 10-page research paper. He says he attended a lecture given by Bill Steinman who wrote The Crash at Aztec, which had a chapter devoted “to the mysterious base in Nevada, and also that “Area 51 was briefly mentioned” in the 1988 TV special UFO Cover-Up?: Live! He goes on to describe the developments that led to Rachel being permanently associated with extraterrestrials and credits Campbell as being the person to discover the Area 51 vantage point that came to be known as “Freedom Ridge.” It appears that Clark’s history with Rachel and Area 51 begins around 1991. There is a 1995 video covering a UFO Clark said he saw over Area 51, and he is described as an author and astronomer who has lived near the base “for the past four years.” A comprehensive look into his history and activity regarding Area 51 is presented in the article “Chuck Clark: The Desert Astronomer Who Kept Looking at Area 51” posted on UAPedia. According to the writer, “biographical data on Chuck Clark is sparse, which is itself very Rachel. In a video posted 17 years ago on YouTube, Clark says he formerly lived adjacent to Vandenburg AFB in Southern California and was the director of the Western Spaceport Observatory. A web search failed to find any such observatory, so it might have been an amateur facility and Clark is often described as an amateur astronomer. He describes capturing footage a UFO passing by a rocket during launch and what seems to be that footage is shown. According to the UAPedia article, Clark has been described as ex-military and there is a link to an Area 51 tour site where Clark is described as “ex-Air Force Captain Chuck Clark.” Anyone with access to military records could, of course, verify this. Clark put out his own guide for Area 51 tourists around 1995-96 titled The Area 51 & S-4 Handbook, which is said to have angered Campbell. He continued his observation of Area 51 into the 21st Century and ran into trouble with the Air Force and the FBI. According to the UAPedia article and other sources, Clark had discovered sensing devices on public land, dug them up, reburied them, and mapped them. After Clark showed several of them to a Las Vegas TV crew (KLAS), Air Force personnel and FBI agents raided his trailer and took his computer, photos and records. One of the sensors reportedly went missing and Clark was charged with “malicious interference with a communications system used for the national defense.” He reached a deal to either replace the sensor or pay restitution, and the case was dismissed in January 2005. James Fox made the acquaintance of Clark when he was working on his first UFO documentary. He spoke about this in an interview with Richard Dolan. According to him, he interviewed Clark about his reported Area 51 sighting and later got a phone call from him saying he had something to show him and that in Fox’s words, “When you see it, your jaw is gonna hit the floor.” Fox says he drove twelve hours to Clark’s double-wide trailer in Rachel where Clark told him that what they were going to watch was shot by two men from Los Angeles, one around 19 and the other around 30. Fox says it was a typical Area 51 road-trip video with them hitting all the stops and that there is then a section shot at dusk from what seems to be the armrest of the car. At this point he describes the men being in a panic and seeming like they’re trying to crawl under the seats. According to him a “yellowy-orange light” flooded the inside of the car and the shadows shifted as if the light source was on a pendulum. He describes the effect as “fluid” like “something you’ve ever seen before.” One of the men, Fox assumes it was the younger man, said he was getting out and in the midst of his companion’s protests, took the camera and started filming what was above the car. Fox describes it as a “perfect, perfect flying saucer” at about the height of a telephone pole. He says it was rocking and that it glowed like “phosphorous on a beach.” He says there were seams like the lines in a sliced pizza. What was on the video can now be seen thanks to Logan Paul who made arrangements to see the video through Royce Meyers, known for running the website UFO Watchdog. On the May 9, 2023, episode of his Impaulsive podcast, Paul admitted to secretly filming the video using a button camera after Clark had refused to sell him the video for $1oo,ooo. He says he’s waiting for the right time to release it, describes it as “compelling, not convincing,” and that “everything about it screams bullsh*t.” Coming full circle in the Area 51 saga, Paul chose to show his footage for the first time to Bob Lazar (at around 1:22:00) when Lazar was a guest on the April 13, 2026, episode of American Alchemy hosted by Jesse Michels. Lazar comments that “it’s moving the right way, it’s the right color, and it’s the right shape. It makes it very compelling.” Adding some context, Reddit user SignalsIntelligence posted a link to a transcript of an interview he did with Clark regarding the video, where it came from, and where it is now. According to Clark, he got the video from someone who “was in the media out of Hollywood, Burbank.” He was a cameraman for a, in the writer’s words, “major network news organization,” the name of which was redacted. Clark got to know him when he was in the area working on a non-UFO-related Area 51 documentary. This person was “acquainted with at least one” of the men who shot the video. They had brought it to him, he made a copy of it, and he gave it to Clark to evaluate. Clark said he made a promise not to release it and that the man had since died. As for Paul offering to buy the video from him, Clark says he didn’t recall Paul offering him money. He adds that he “made it pretty clear that it wasn’t for sale.” He says he was “advised” afterwards that Paul had $200,000 with him. Meyers made an unsuccessful attempt to locate the men who had shot the video by posting stills on X on March 26, 2022. Their identities remain a mystery.

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Last week, Nick Pope, full name Nicholas George Pope, passed away on April 6th at the age of 60. A fixture in the UFO scene, Pope first gained notoriety with his 1996 book, Open Skies, Closed Minds. Besides providing an overview of UFO history up to that point, the book has an autobiographical account of his time as the head of the “UFO desk” at the Ministry of Defense from 1991 t0 1994. After the book came out, he became a go-to “UFO expert” whenever an authoritative comment was needed to punch up a news story. He maintained his interest and a media presence and was sought after as a speaker at conventions and a commentator in various documentaries. By the time of his passing, he was a well-known personality in the UFOtainment industry, having appeared regularly on Ancient Aliens and at Contact in the Desert. In the midst of his notoriety and association with the more sensationalistic aspects of UFOlogy, his commentary seemed to be heartfelt and true to his actual beliefs. According to Pope in his book, he was a skeptic before he was assigned to the “UFO desk” in Secretariat (Air Staff) Department 2A at the Ministry of Defense. He had been with the MoD since 1985, and personnel were shifted to different sections every three to four years as a matter of policy to give them “a breadth of knowledge and experience.” When he was assigned to deal with UFO reports, he took it upon himself to learn as much as he could about the subject, and the comprehensive historical overview in the book shows the depth of his research. Besides studying UFO history, Pope reached out to British UFO researchers, such as Timothy Good who wrote the Foreword of the book, and established relationships with organizations such as the British UFO Research Organization. This set him apart from his predecessors and helped diminish the us-and-them perception between the MoD and the British UFO community. Pope’s assignment came when The X-Files was popular and he describes his co-workers calling him “Spooky” and whistling The X-Files theme when passing him in the hallway. He was fully aware how unusual his job was, and when Focus, the MoD’s in-house journal, started a regular feature on unusual jobs within the organization, he was the first person to be profiled. Pope presents cases he looked into, and the most notable of these was what has become known as “The Cosford Incident” which involved over 30 reports to the MoD of bright lights over the Southwest England in areas that included RAF Shawbury and RAF Cosford, overnight from March 30-31, 1993. According to him in his book, the MoD was “asked to take part” in the production of a Central Television program on UFOs. While such a request would normally have been refused, Pope persuaded his superiors that it would be good to explain the Ministry’s policy on UFOs on camera and “lay to rest a few misconceptions.” On April 24, 1994, he was interviewed by producer Lawrence Moore and “freely admitted that many of the cases on file cannot be explained today in conventional scientific terms.” Just before his book came out, Pope made his first BBC Television appearance on the Newsnight program. A segment was devoted to him and his book and begins with an actor dressed like him on a shadowy office set reading from the book over ominous background music. The actor reads from the section describing cases Pope looked into, and witness interviews are presented covering incidents in Bonnybridge, Scotland, and Dorset, England. Pope is then interviewed, and he is remarkably confident and articulate in this very early television appearance. The interviewer, Peter Snow, is noticeably taken aback when Pope says that he is “convinced by the sheer weight of evidence” that some of what are seen in the sky “are extraterrestrial in origin.” After moving on from Sec (AS) 2a with what he describes in the book as a promotion, Pope continued investigating UFO reports in his spare time, and there is an early account (page 14 of the pdf) of one of these in the article by Mike Merritt headlined “Expert in UFO Probe on Isle” published in the November 4, 1996, Sun. According to Merritt, “Top UFO hunter Nick Pope is probing a mystery mid-air explosion which sparked a massive search nine days ago.” Pope is quoted as saying, “This sighting off (the Isle of) Lewis could be a UFO – I would not rule it out until I look at the reports I have asked for.” The caption under his picture at the top of the column reads “Pope… former MoD man,” which is inaccurate because he was still with the MoD at that time. Pope left the MoD in 2006, and in 2007, the Ministry made the decision to release its UFO files. Pope describes this on his website, Nick Pope in the section titled “MoD UFO Files.” According to him, there were three reasons for the decision: the French had released their UFO files that year, it would be good P.R., and there had recently been a huge number of Freedom of Information Act requests for UFO-related documents. Pope describes the laborious process of review, redaction, and digitizing which led to the first group of documents being released in 2008 and the final group in 2019. As for his involvement, Pope says that the staff at the National Archives asked him to select cases to highlight in the media, and that he did “literally hundreds” of interviews across all media “and thus became the public face of the file release project.” As can be seen in the section titled, “Spokesperson” on his website, Pope embraced his fame as a “UFO expert” and capitalized on it working in film, television, video games, and advertising. Besides his appearances on sensational programs such as Ancient Aliens, in 2019, he began appearing as a regular guest on The Basement Office with Steven Greenstreet starting with the first episode which premiered on May 29th. While still advocating for the extraterrestrial hypothesis and displaying obvious enthusiasm when discussing cases that he has a personal interest in, his commentary is restrained and well-informed. Pope wrote a total of six books in his lifetime which include three books on UFOs, two science fiction novels, and one action thriller. Besides Open Skies, Closed Minds, his other two UFO books are The Uninvited, a book about abductions published in 1997, and Encounter in Rendlesham Forest written with John Burroughs and Jim Penniston (both USAF Ret.) about the reported lights and UFO landing near RAF Woodbridge in 1980 that was published in 2014. R. I. P. | Check out Martin’s Tribute HERE

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  For many years, stories of recovered crashed saucers and alien bodies were usually dismissed by investigators due to the stigma created by the effective debunking of the Aztec incident by J. P. Cahn in two articles he wrote for True magazine, the first in 1952 and the second in 1956. The stigma remained until the 1970s when influential researchers started becoming open to such cases, and an early story to come out during this period was that of a 1953 crash in Kingman, Arizona, that made the news in 1973. It was looked into by National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena investigator Raymond E. Fowler, who published an article covering it titled “What About Crashed UFOs?” in the April 1976 issue of Official UFO. Leonard Stringfield included the Kingman portion of it in his 1977 book, Situation Red! The beginning of the renewed interest in crash recovery stories can be traced back to January 15, 1974, when Robert Spencer Carr claimed during a debate at the University of South Florida that the government was keeping two saucers inside Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson AFB. This was reported on in the January 16, 1974, edition of The Tampa Tribune. According to the article headlined “Does USAF Have UFOs?” by Frank Bentayou, Carr was a “mass communications instructor” at the university. It was around this time that Fowler began looking into an article that was published in the Framingham, Massachusetts edition of the Middlesex News on April 23, 1973. Kevin Randle described this in a report he submitted to NICAP on February 19, 2007. According to Randle, the article is based on an interview of a man named Fritz Werner by two teenage UFO researchers, Jeff Young and Paul Chetham. Fowler contacted Werner and also interviewed him. He wrote a report for NICAP, which Randle has said he has a copy of, and presented Werner’s story, along with a signed affidavit, dated June 7, 1973, in the April 1976 issue of Official UFO:   I, Fritz Werner, do solemnly swear that during a special assignment with the U. S. Air Force on May 21, 1953, I assisted in the investigation of a crashed unknown object in the vicinity of Kingman, Arizona. The object was constructed of an unfamiliar metal which resembled aluminum. It had impacted 20 inches into the sand without any sign of structural damage. It was oval and about 30 feet in diameter. An entranceway hatch had been vertically lowered and opened. It was about 3½ feet high and 1½ feet wide. I was able to talk briefly with someone on the team who did look inside only briefly. He saw two swivel seats, an oval cabin, and a lot of instruments and displays. A tent pitched near the object sheltered the dead remains of the only occupant of the craft. It was about 4 feet tall, dark brown complexion and had 2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 2 ears, and a small round mouth. It was clothed in a silvery, metallic suit and wore a skull cap of the same type of material. It wore no face covering or helmet. I certify that the above statement is true by affixing my signature to this document this 7th day of June, 1973.   Signature: Fritz A. Werner Date Signed: June 7, 1973 Witness: Raymond E. Fowler Date Signed: June 7, 1973   According to Fowler, in the process of trying to verify Werner’s story, he contacted Wright-Patterson AFB, former Blue Book personnel, the Atomic Energy Commission, Stanford Research Institute, “and a number of persons employed within the military-industrial complex.” While he didn’t find any corroborating witnesses, the tests, dates, people, and places in Werner’s personal account which follows “checked out very well.” Werner’s story as he told it to Fowler is the same as that in the affidavit with more details added. He explained that he had been working for the AEC under Dr. Ed Doll as a project engineer for Operation Upshot-Knothole. This involved a series of three atomic explosions at the atomic proving ground in Nevada, and Werner’s job was to measure the effects of the blasts on different buildings built for the tests, which were the “tests” Fowler was referring to. According to Werner, he got a phone call from Doll who told him he was going on a special job the next day. He reported for his assignment and was driven to Indian Springs AFB where he and about 15 other “specialists” got on a plane, were told not to “fraternize,” and were flown to Phoenix, Arizona. There, they got on a bus with blacked out windows. Others were already onboard and they were driven or four hours to what Werner thought might have been the area of Kingman. On the way, an Air Force colonel told the group that they were to conduct an investigation on a crashed “super-secret Air Force vehicle” based on their own individual specialties only. Werner’s job was to determine the forward and vertical velocities of the vehicle when it crashed. Werner was escorted to the crash site, and it was there that he happened to glance inside a tent with an armed guard in front of it. This is where he said he saw the body and he speculates that the creature’s dark brown skin may have been due to exposure to our atmosphere. This was the explanation for the “chocolate-brown” skin color of the Aztec creatures. When everyone was done and back on the bus, the colonel had them raise their right hands and take an oath that they wouldn’t tell anyone what they had seen. They were told to write out a report in longhand and were given a number to call when they were finished. When Werner finished his, he called the number and an airman came and picked it up. Kevin Randle took an interest in the case and wrote numerous blogs about it, which were mostly dismissive. In his August 14, 2024, post titled “The Kingman UFO Crash Conundrum,” Randle tells the reader he “was unimpressed with it (the case) for several reasons.” His reasons included the fact that Stansel was the only witness, there was no documentation supporting his story, “and a suggestion that Stansel, after he had been drinking, told wild stories.” What throws a new light onto Stansel’s tale is part of the interview with Young and Chetham “that seems to have been left out of this whole tale.” Randle, presents a transcript of a section of the interview with Young and Chetham that starts with Stansel being asked, “Did you say that you had contacted beings from other planets?” Stansel answered, “Yes, but now we’re getting into things where you’ll just have to take my word for it because I can’t produce it or prove it.” Stansel said he met with a group once a week and that after a year they were able to make psychic contact. He said he “learned astral projection” and was able to project himself onto a ship. He then goes on much like many contactees have done throughout the years.

Join Martin Willis and UFO Jack for the premiere episode of UFO Headlines, a new monthly series covering the latest developments, controversies, and breaking stories in the world of UFOs and UAP. In this episode, we explore alarming drone incursions over U.S. military bases, including activity near strategic nuclear assets, and discuss what this could mean for national security, along with the ongoing mystery surrounding the disappearance of Major General William Neil McCasland and other unusual cases involving scientists and defense-related personnel. The conversation also dives into explosive claims circulating in Washington, including alleged hybrid programs and statements from members of Congress, while taking a critical look at the controversial “Buga Sphere,” Dr. Steven Greer’s upcoming event, and the broader issues of credibility, evidence, and misinformation in the field. We also touch on NASA’s Artemis mission, strange aerial anomalies observed during launches, and the growing push for transparency, including efforts to release additional UAP footage. This is a wide-ranging, candid discussion blending skepticism, curiosity, and real-time analysis of today’s most talked-about UFO topics, and UFO Headlines airs the first Thursday of every month so join us live and be part of the conversation. SHOW NOTES

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Screenshot Throughout the 1950s and 60s, major science-based UFO organizations in the United States, and especially the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, looked down on contactee claims as ridiculous and unworthy of their time. This started to change as the 1970s got underway, due in part to the ideas put forward by Jacques Vallée and John Keel, but by the 1980s, things started going back to the way they were, at least in the United States. Investigators in other countries, however, stayed open to such reports, and in this week’s blog, we’ll look at a 1983 case from Brazil as it was presented in the British publication, Flying Saucer Review. In the Vol. 29, No. 4, April 1984 issue of FSR (page 10 of the pdf), there is a translation from Portuguese by Gordon Creighton of an article by Marcos Bedin that appeared in the December 18, 1983, O Estado out of Florianópolis, Brazil. It’s presented under the headline “A New Brazilian ‘A. V. B.’” The initials stand for Antônio Villas Boas, who claimed (page 5 of pdf) in 1957 that he was taken aboard a craft where he had a sexual encounter with an alien female. According to the article, 49-year-old father of six, Antônio Nelso Tasca, was well-liked in his former community of Chapecó where he had worked as an announcer at Radio Chapecó. Three years prior to the time of the writing he left Chapecó and went to work in various locations. He had a good reputation and was “well-known for his impeccable honesty.” He ended up in Barreiras where he became a cattle rancher. At around 8:00 p.m. on December 14, 1983, Tasca was driving alone on a road that led to route BR-282 at Chapecó. When he was about 1,000 meters from a Coca-Cola factory, he felt an urge to stop. He pulled over and parked about 5 meters from the road and saw a stationary object up in the air to his right. He got out of the car and walked towards it and saw it was circular, lit from the inside, and emitting beams of white light. According to Bedin, “He at once realized it was a UFO or ‘flying saucer,’ such as he had read about in dozens of books on the subject.” Feeling he was brave enough to handle a meeting with whatever might be occupying the craft, Tasca continued walking until he suddenly felt strong waves of heat. Thinking this might be some sort of radioactive emission, he turned around and started towards his car but only made it a few steps before a shaft of light came down and pulled him up into the craft at an “unimaginable speed.” He was terrified, and in the midst being taken, he went unconscious. When he woke up, he was lying naked in a dark place feeling constricted and sensing a lack of air. His first thought was that he had been buried alive. He was then gradually able to move his legs and arms and breath with difficulty. The darkness and oppressiveness filled him with a terror such as he had never felt before and he broke down into tears. He then felt small hands or claws touching his body and realized that two or three creatures were examining him. After a while, the creatures left and then the space he was in became lit up. Still terrified, Tasca saw he was in a room with no sharp angles and no indications of any doors or windows with the walls and ceiling being the source of the light. Tasca saw his clothes lying nearby on the floor and he went to put them on when a door opened in a wall and “a very beautiful small woman came in, a woman with delicate skin and light-coloured clothing.” The italics are Creighton’s and he seems to be using them to emphasize where Tasca’s story is reminiscent of Boas’s. Tasca is quoted describing her: “She was an enchanting woman, with wide-set eyes like Bruna Lombardi – eyes extending backwards in the oriental style.” He said she was wearing something similar to slippers on her feet and that her clothing resembled pajamas. According to Bedin, as a flood of questions welled up in Tasca’s mind, before he could say anything, a telepathic link was established, and the woman told him her name was Cabalá from, in Bedin’s words “the world of Agali.” She said he had been chosen to be given a message for the people of Earth, in Bedin’s words, “warning against destroying the planet and against other typical malpractices of Earthlings.” Tasca asked her why he, a person of no influence with no special traits should be chosen to receive such a message, and the woman replied, “Because you have always believed in the existence of higher civilizations. Because you have always desired to have contact with me, and because you have a cosmic mind.” After this, in Creighton’s italics, it is explained that an incident followed that Tasca didn’t want to reveal because “it would create problems of a personal nature for him and he therefore prefers to keep silent about it.”  Tasca said that he would leave a complete account of what took place with his children before his death. Tasca warned Cabalá that his memory was bad, and she assured him that he wouldn’t forget the message. She went over to a crescent-shaped desk coming out of the wall (the only furniture in the room) pressed a button, and a “sort of monstrance” holding a “diadem” rose out of the floor. Cabalá placed the “diadem” (described as yellow, red, and green, and having eight sections), on Tasca’s head, gave him the message, and told him to repeat it twice. After that, Cabalá told Tasca the message would never be removed from his mind and then “the extraterrestrial woman took her leave of him, raising aloft her right hand with open palm.” Creighton added an asterisk and his footnote reads “Just as A. V. B.’s little lady did!” In fact, Boas reported that his “little lady” pointed at him, her belly, the ground, and then at what he believed was the southern sky. The room went dark, and Tasca felt himself being conducted to another room by the creatures that had examined him. He lost consciousness, and when he came to, he was lying on a rock on top of a small plateau next to the BR-282. A diesel factory was nearby and when he was able to muster up the strength to make his way down, he went to the factory. Someone in the office agreed to notify his family, who had already called the police, and when Tasca went to his car he found them and the police waiting for him. Screenshot At his son’s home in Palmital, Tasca’s family noticed there were what looked like burn marks on his back, one of which was “W” shaped. He was examined by Dr. Júlio Zawadscki who gave a statement that he was mystified by the marks, as they caused Tasca no pain or any other symptoms associated with first or second-degree burns. The first person Tasca approached to deliver Cabalá’s message was Bedin. According to Bedin, Tasca sat down at a typewriter in the newspaper office in Chapecó and “instantly produced” the text that follows in the article for more than half a page. As is typical of contactee messages, there is a warning against the use of nuclear weapons and it is explained that a “total nuclear war will drive the Earth off its celestial orbit and cause grave disturbances to life on neighbouring worlds, some of them worlds existing in dimensions of which terrestrial man still has no inkling.” There are instructions to abolish imperialism, preserve human reproductive functions, and not engage in potentially disastrous experiments with genetics. Finally, it is promised that the “Masters of Supreme Wisdom” will come back to Earth, establish a paradise, and resurrect the dead “within the beam of the four Xis.” A translation of the article without the message is included in the February 1984 UFO Newsclipping Service (page 14 of the pdf) and Tasca’s case is included in the UFO Related Entities Catalogue where there is an abundance of additional information.

Blog by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Amidst the many assorted descriptions of UFO-related entities, silver-suited humanoids, sometimes with antennas, show up in many reports. They are described repeatedly in the 1976 Center for UFO Studies publication by David Webb, 1973 – Year of the Humanoids, and there were several reports during the 1977 flap in what has been called “The Welsh Triangle” that we wrote about recently. In this week’s blog, we’ll look at a couple of cases from the Southern United States, the second of which became quite well-known. In the January 4, 1981, issue of The Robesonian out of Lumberton, North Carolina, there is an article (page 7 of the pdf) by Tim Lewis headlined “Shining Silver Man Stalks Forest Acres Area.”  According to Lewis, the previous Tuesday at around 10 p.m., a couple had just exited Barker Ten Mile Road when they saw a round flashing light near the turnoff at Bee Gee and McLeod. As they got closer, they were able to determine that the light was located in a vacant wooded lot. They turned onto McLeod Street, and a shiny figure came out of the bushes waving its arms as if it was signaling them to stop. They thought better of it, sped up, and continued on. Lewis tells the reader that he did some research after hearing the story and found an article in the Robesonian files that described multiple reports of the same sort of figure. There is a reprint of the article headlined “Area Residents Report Sighting UFO Sunday.” According to the article, dated December 30, 1974, county dispatcher Fred Barnes said there were four calls from residents who said they  saw an “object or subject wearing a silver and black suit and wearing some kind of helmet.” They all said that when they saw it, it jumped into the bushes at the intersection of Forest Road and Barker Ten Mile Road. There were also reports of a white object with bright lights over Forest Acres. Four deputies investigated and didn’t find anything. Lewis notes that that the events reported in both instances occurred in the month of December around the time of a full moon in the same area. He then goes on to describe other strange reports received by the staff at the paper. According to Lewis, there was a series of recent reports from residents living along a railroad track going through Forest acres involving loud wailing and voices speaking in a foreign language. About two weeks prior to Lewis’s article, a resident said she saw a figure run from her yard into the woods. When her husband went outside to investigate, he found a set of fence posts had been pulled out of the ground. Lewis has this to say about the effort involved: “Evidently, this had to have taken super-human strength to have pulled fence posts out of the ground bare-handed.” During the “Year of the Humanoids,” on October 17, 1973, 26-year-old, recently-elected Falkville, Alabama, Chief of Police Jeff Greenhaw reported an encounter with a silver-suited humanoid and had four Polaroid photos to back it up. A comprehensive examination of the case can be found in the blog by Mark Russell Bell headlined “Detailed Report of Jeff Greenhaw’s Falkville Incident Alien Encounter Testimonial” posted on August 4, 2020, at metaphysicalarticles.org. Along with reproduced articles on the case from Official UFO Magazine, Bell includes one from the October 19, 1973, Birmingham News and one from the November 16, 1973, Decatur Daily. His source for those was the 1975 book by Ralph and Judy Blum, Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact With UFOs. The originals are available with a subscription at newspapers.com and the Decatur Daily website. According to the Birmingham News article headlined “Falkville Chief Says ‘Howdy’ to Spaceman,” Greenhaw was at home when he received a call from a woman who told him, in the reporter’s words, “that a spaceship with flashing lights had landed in a field west of the city.” Because there had been “numerous reports” of UFOs in the area, Greenhaw took along a camera as he drove to the site. As he was driving down a gravel road, he saw a human-shaped creature standing in the middle of it. The creature walked towards him, and Greenhaw took four photos. He said “I was scared stiff.” The creature was covered in a material like tin foil and had an antenna on top of its head. Greenhaw said, “It moved stiffly, like a robot, and didn’t make any sounds.” Greenhaw turned on the blue flasher on top of his car, and the creature turned around and took off running down the road. Greenhaw said, “I jumped into my car and took after him, but I couldn’t even catch up with him in a patrol car. He was running faster than any human I ever saw.” Greenhaw told the paper he received multiple calls the day after from people who said they had seen UFOs in the area during the time of his encounter. His wife is reported to have laughed the incident off, and Greenhaw commented, “She wouldn’t be laughing if she saw what I saw.” There is a follow-up article in the November 16, 1973, Decatur Daily. Headlined “Falkville Police Chief Resigns Under Pressure,” it describes the unfortunate events in Greenhaw’s life following his encounter. Besides being asked to resign by the mayor, his car engine “blew up,” his wife divorced him, and his mobile home burned down. Greenhaw is quoted describing his situation: “So now I’ve lost my car, my wife, my home, and my job, and I guess I’ll just have to go where ever I can to find another job. I had planned to stay in Falkville in spite of all of the problems I have been having, but now it doesn’t look like I can.” The four photos made the rounds among UFO enthusiasts and were used on the cover of Beyond Earth. Georgia-based NICAP Investigator Marion Webb looked into the case and a report is presented on the front page of the October 1974 UFO Investigator under the headline “Police Chief’s Nightmare: Real or Contrived.” According to the article “an official received word of a rumor that several firemen from a nearby community may have collaborated on a hoax which involved their ‘borrowing’ silver firefighting uniforms.” Webb managed to acquire such a suit, added aluminum foil to the hood and feet, and had his picture taken wearing it. While there were similarities to Greenhaw’s photos, Webb found it difficult to move in the uniform, which contradicts Greenhaw’s claim that the creature outran his car. Webb speculated that Greenhaw had only gone a short distance before spinning out in the gravel, which is a detail that shows up in Bell’s blog. Greenhaw stayed away from public exposure for most of the remainder of his life, but gave an interview in 2020 to Red Water Filmworks. In the recording posted on YouTube, he describes coming upon the creature and saying “something to the effect (of) ‘howdy stranger,’” and getting no response. He says he initially thought someone was “pulling a prank” but that “things just started that was so strange.” He said that the creature moved stiffly with “no bending of the arms and legs…” Describing its running after it turned away, he said it was “like it had springs on its feet or something.” Greenhaw added that almost to the day, 10 years later, someone broke into his house and took the four photos, along with his service revolver and shotgun. He said he thought it was “really weird” that the only three things he had with him that night should turn up missing.      

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Timothy Green Beckley Among UFO enthusiasts, in between the serious, science-based researchers and the crackpots, there are people who enjoy the mystery for the fantastic tales and the colorful people it spawns, as well as the social interaction with the like-minded. One of the first examples of this sort of person was Gray Barker, who became known for his 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. He became good friends with James W. Moseley, who would become well-known as the publisher of Saucer Smear magazine, and the two of them became notorious for pranking and poking fun at what they considered their over-serious peers. As the 1960s got under way, a group formed around Moseley, who was based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. This included Allan Greenfield, Eugene Steinberg, and Timothy Green Beckley. Of these, Beckley, Like Barker, would become a prolific publisher of UFO-related material, and in 1978, he started putting out UFO Review, which was a tabloid-style newspaper chock full of UFO news, reports, interviews, and lurid ads for UFO books, UFO merchandise, new age self-help guides and related paraphernalia. Timothy Green Beckley left this planet on May 31, 2021. Records of his age at the time of his passing range from 65 to 69. According to the IMDb, he was born on March 4, 1952, as Jeremy Stone. In addition to his interest in the paranormal, he was an actor in and producer of soft-core porn/horror movies and was known to fans as “Mr. Creepo.” He wrote and published many books on the paranormal with a definite sensationalized bent and was active in the community up until his death. According to what is believed to be his self-authored bio, “Tim Beckley had so many careers that even his own girlfriend didn’t know what he did for a living… Timothy Green Beckley has been described as the Hunter Thompson of UFOlogy by the editor of UFO magazine Nancy Birnes.” His bio contains the claims that his life was saved by an invisible force at the age of three, he started having out of body experiences at the age of six, he had his first UFO sighting at age ten, and had two more after that in the course of his life. As near as we can tell, the first issue of UFO Review, “Collectors Edition,” Vol. 1, No. 1, came out prior to June 1978. The month and day are not noted anywhere, but there is a 1978 copyright as well as a notice for the 15th Annual National UFO Congress in Cleveland (organized by Moseley) in June. The front-page headline is “Top Secret UN Committee Probes Startling Case of Mexican Doctor Who Claims: ‘I Examined a Live Space Alien,’” which sits over a photo purported to be “startling photographic proof” that “UFOs have a base beneath Lake Ontario.” Inside, on page 2, is “On the Trail of Flying Saucers” by Timothy Green Beckley–Mr. UFO. It starts off with the heading, “Welcome Aboard,” and Beckley proceeds to tell the story of his motivation for creating the newspaper and the process of bringing it to life. According to Beckley, it occurred to him that while interest in UFOs was “at an all-time high,” there weren’t many “sources to turn to for legitimate information on this vital subject.” He assures the reader that those who are aware of his 15 years of research “will instantly recognize my sincerity when it comes to getting to the bottom of the mystery and placing before the public all the information that is available.” UFO Review ad. Beckly says “one of the main reasons” that the paper is being put out at this point in history is that the public is hungry for the truth and that Close Encounters of the Third Kind, “has ignited a spark that has turned into a full-blown flame and it is up to someone to kindle the fire before it goes out.” Beckley says he has been busy “spreading the word” in areas where UFO stories wouldn’t be touched and proudly announces that two of his articles will be appearing in Swank and Knave. Beckley then relates how “a well-known New York City publisher” hired him and his staff at Global Communication to put together a UFO magazine and then told him to drop the project because he, the publisher, had done some research and had found that UFO magazines don’t sell very well. Beckley explains that he tried in vain to make the argument that the magazines didn’t sell well because of poor distribution and then opted to publish a magazine with his own money in the economical tabloid form. To the right of Beckley’s article there is an ad for three of his books: Book of Space Brothers, a book of “alleged communications from space;” Subterranean World, covering the theory that some UFOs come from an underground base populated by descendants of the people of Atlantis; and People of the Planet Clarion, about the claims and messages of contactee Truman Bertherum. The lead story about the UN committee hearing about the examination of the alien is on page three. This would have happened just before the presentation at the UN on UFOs organized by Lee Speigel (listed as UFO Review’s chief of field investigations staring with issue number 3) at the behest of Grenada Prime Minister Eric Gairy. According to the report, a Mexican doctor in Guadalajara was visited by a man who said he was very ill. Upon examination, the doctor saw that the man’s skin was unusually pink and that he had no hair follicles except for those on his head. The man then said he had wanted to be examined to prove he was not human and proceeded to say that Earth had been visited regularly by beings from other planets and that there was concern about our slow development. The doctor felt obligated to report the encounter to “someone in authority” and Ambassador Francis Redhead of Grenada “was called in to investigate the matter.” The doctor was subsequently “invited to UN headquarters to tell his story.” The Centerfold Story is “Flying Saucers & Big Foot are Related!” by Jim Barnett. Barnett presents cases where Bigfoot creatures and UFOs were reported in the same area around the same time. Under the centerfold artwork by Dick Massa, the reader is told that it’s available as a poster for $3.80. For Gray Barker fans, there is what would be a recurring column by him called “Chasing the Flying Saucers.” In this first one, Barker describes waking up in his West Virginia home on January 9th to see 12 inches of snow covering the area, making breakfast, and opening the West Virginia Reader. He describes a report involving four women spotting a classic saucer while driving. The driver described tears starting to flow uncontrollably from her eyes upon spotting it. Barker describes rescuing the bacon he was cooking before it burned and then satisfying his hunger with some cinnamon rolls before digging into other reports from S.A.U.C.E.R.S. (Saucers and Unexplained Celestial Events Research Society) which was Moseley’s group that often had him as its sole member. He then presents the details of some more cases and ends describing a discussion of a case with a woman from his office, which might give the reader the impression that he makes his living as a professional UFOlogist. Right in the midst of the article on page 12 there is an ad for books by Barker and saucer related tape recordings for sale describing him as “one of the top UFOlogists in America.” UFO Review lasted until issue 39, which is the “official program” for the 1994 National New Age, Cosmic Conspiracies & UFO Conference held from May 20-23 in San Diego, California. Beckley was the organizer and speakers included Jim Moseley, Dr. Frank E. Stranges, and Sean David Morton. The keynote address was given by Vince Davis, who was notorious as one of the “Gulf Breeze Six.” Despite the sensationalism and the silliness contained in the paper throughout its existence, there are reports of some noteworthy cases. If nothing else, UFO Review provides a look into the popular, unabashedly commercial side of UFOlogy at that time.

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  In 1977, there was a flap in the area of St. Brides Bay in Pembrokeshire, Wales, that involved reported sightings of craft and humanoids. The most well-known incident involved 14 Broad Haven Primary School students running inside to tell their headmaster that they had seen a yellow cigar-shaped craft land in a field. On February 17, three staff members reported they saw the same craft. The story made national news thanks to British UFO Research Association investigator and UFO Investigators Network correspondent Randall Jones Pugh, and a flap began that would result in the area being referred to as “The Welsh Triangle.” A lesser-known case involved an entire family that reported a series of strange events which Pugh covered in articles published in issues of Flying Saucer Review and the BUFORA Journal. In April, while driving, Pauline Coombes and three (out of four) of her children were reportedly chased by a football shaped UFO. Later that year, in October, Coombes, her four children, and her mother reportedly witnessed a craft and humanoids that behaved in an especially bizarre manner. It came out that all sorts of strange happenings were said to have been occurring on the family homestead called Ripperston Farm. Journalist Clive Harold got close to the family and wrote a book about their experiences titled, “The Uninvited.” In the Vol. 23, No. 1, June 1977 issue (page 6 of the pdf) of Flying Saucer Review (page 6 of the pdf), Pugh includes Coombes’s report in “West Wales Roundup,” just after his article on Broadhaven. He presents the details from an article (in which he named as a “local UFOlogist”) by Hugh Trumbull that was published in the April 14, 1977, edition (page 15 of the pdf) of the Western Telegraph. According to the article headlined, “Chased by a Flying Football,” Coombes had seen three UFOs that year. In this instance, she was driving near Little Haven with her three children, when her 10-year-old son, Keiron, saw a light coming down towards them. He described it as yellow, about football-sized, with a beam coming out of the bottom. The object followed along the side of the car, hopping over hedges, for over a mile. When they reached the farm, the car’s engine and lights died. They went to get Coombes’s husband, Bill, but the object was gone by the time he came out. Pugh wrote an article covering a sighting Coombes and all four of her four children said they’d had, along with her mother, on October 30, 1977. It’s headlined “Stack Rocks Humanoid Display” and was published in the Vol. 23, No. 6, April 1978 issue (page 8 of the pdf) of Flying Saucer Review. According to Pugh, they were pulling up to the farm in their car when Coombes’s mother drew her attention to something in the sky. Coombes stopped the car and everyone got out to look. They described it as a “round, flat disc, whitish in color” moving towards the sea at what Coombes estimated was at around 200 feet “at the speed of a motor-boat going fast across the bay” or at about 20-30 mph. It came down to about the height of nearby Stack Rocks, maintained the same speed and then went into the side of the islet and disappeared. Coombes said she and her mother expected an explosion, but there was none, and “both women were quite adamant that ‘it just disappeared into the rock.’” The entire group crossed two fields to get to the water’s edge.  The water between them and the islet at this point was only about 400 feet wide, and as they approached, they saw what they first thought were, in Pugh’s words, “two skin-divers going about their business in the deep waters around the Stacks.” They then realized that the heads of the figures were elongated and much larger than a normal human head. Coombes described them as “rectangular in shape with the corners rounded off.” When asked if she was sure they weren’t divers or fisherman, Coombes said that while “they were human in shape, they were definitely not human beings.” They watched for about 15 minutes as, in Pugh’s words, “the silver-clad humanoids moved about on the uneven surface of the Stack Rocks.” Pugh points out that the islet rises “abruptly” to a height of about 80-100 feet and that the surface of the rock is such that it would require a good deal of caution in order not to fall off. Coombes said they saw “a door opening and shutting fairly rapidly on the right-hand side (the Broad Haven side) of the rock face.” The door seemed to be about the same size as a normal household door, had a “shimmering haze” around it, and the space behind it was “quite black.” It opened and closed, in Pugh’s words, “much as would the sliding doors of a serving hatch in a restaurant,” and the group saw a “silvery clad humanoid” repeatedly come into view and leave as if it was walking up and down some steps. The other figure moved across the rock face as if it was a smooth surface and even seemed to walk on the water. Eventually it went out of view behind the left side of the islet towards the sea. The other figure then vanished “abruptly” along with the door. According to Pugh, he and BBC news reporter David Allen interviewed Coombes and the children on December 1st. One thing that came out was that Coombes took a different road home that day and “could not fathom why she decided to take that particular route.” Pugh tells the reader that he is convinced that Coombes “has a psychic ability to see things not normally visible to other people” and mentions there being a paranormal aspect to the farm without going into specifics. As for Coombes’s credibility, he reports that she stuck to her story and was prepared to take any test that would prove she wasn’t imagining things. Pugh ends his article relating a sighting of his own through his bedroom window overlooking St. Brides Bay, Pembrokeshire. According to him, he saw a crescent-shaped object with a tube sticking up about 3 feet and a dome on top sitting in a field. As he pulled aside the curtain exposing the light from his room, the object took off vertically at great speed. The Coombes family shows up repeatedly in reports published in the BUFORA Journal throughout 1977 into 1978. In the Vol. 6, No. 2, July-August 1977 issue (page 16 of the pdf) Pugh says the family reported seeing a  7-feet-tall silver-clad humanoid looking in at them through their living room window. Coombes can be seen on YouTube describing this to a group of visitors at her farm. In the Vol. 6, No. 1, January-February 1978 issue (page 17 of the pdf), there is a report by Pugh that on May 17, 1977, Coombes’s twin daughters, Joanne and Layann, saw a silver-suited being walking around on the farm that then went through a hedge and a barb-wire fence and disappeared. He says they also saw “a silver-white ‘platelike object’ with a red light” that landed, put out a stair ramp, and ejected a box down it. The stairs then retracted, the door shut, and the craft took off. The family investigated and found no box but did find large footprints in the area. In the meantime, the twins and Coombes’s eldest daughter Katrina are said to have shouted out to the adults as they had seen a craft similar to the first one fly into the water by the Stack Rocks. Pugh wrote a book about the flap with Fredrick “Ted” William Holiday titled The Dyfed Enigma that was published in 1979. The Uninvited by Clive Harold published that same year focuses on the events reported at Ripperston Farm which were said to have also included televisions exploding and a herd of cows being mysteriously transported from a locked field to a neighboring farmyard. Pugh can be seen talking about the events he investigated here.

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  In 1980, The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and William Moore was published. In the book, on page 103 of the first printing, there is a bad photocopy of a photo showing two soldiers escorting a small creature. One of the soldiers is carrying a suitcase-shaped object that seems to be a respiration device, as there is a hose going from it to the creature’s mouth. The photo is said to have “reportedly first surfaced in Wiesbaden, Germany.” In 1981, Wiesbaden resident Klaus Webner took it upon himself to investigate. He wrote an article presenting his findings that was published in the September 1981 issue of The Probe Report, put out by the Britain-based Probe UFO Research Organization. In the book, the photocopy is presented with the caption “Alien from Another World or Elaborate Hoax?” The reader is told that it, along with the “artist’s interpretation” on the preceding page, is being published “without comment about whether it may or may not pertain to certain significant aspects of the Roswell Incident.” According to the authors, “an unnamed informant” gave the original photo, which he said he bought for a dollar, to FBI agent John Quinn at the New Orleans field office. They say the photo “purports to show an alien survivor of a UFO crash in the custody of two U.S. military policeman.” Lastly, they say that it got “limited publicity in West Germany in the 1940s” and was met “with skepticism by U.S. officials of the then-existent Allied Military Government.” In his article headlined “The Strange Case of ‘Mister X,’” Webner describes Berlitz as “inventor of the Bermuda Triangle and mystification man of all things which are surroundable [sic] with the haze of mystery, and realisable [sic] in hard cash.” He describes the book as “nothing more than a mixture of far-fetched speculations, fantasies and false information.” Webner didn’t have to look far to establish the origin of the original photo. According to him, he found an article in “the archives of the local newspaper Wiesbadener Tagblatt” that had three photos under the headline “Flying saucers over Wiesbaden. A Giant Flying Disc Crashed at the Bleindenstadter Kopf. Crew Member is in Protective Detention. No Cause for Panic.” According to Webner, the article reports that a “crew member” had been taken into protective custody after a search for a saucer that had crashed overnight near Wiesbaden. He says the detainee is described as a “strange creature with only one leg moving about a rotating plate. His arms come to an end in four stubby fingers.” It reportedly had “large glaring eyes” and an oval-shaped head. The creature, called “Mr. X” in the article, was said to have been taken to the Neroberg Hotel where it would be taken for daily walks between “14 and 15 hours” in order to get used to our atmosphere. A search for other crew members was said to be ongoing. The photo used in the article showing the creature in custody is presented in Probe. The reproduction in Probe is of much better quality than the photocopy seen in The Roswell Incident, but they both come from the same source. Webner tells the reader that the article was published on April 1, 1950. According to him, on April 15, 1981, he was able to talk with the reporter and the photographer. The reporter was Wilhelm Sprunkel, and he told Webner that the whole thing was an April Fool joke. Sprunkel wanted to make the photo as realistic looking as he could, so he called the local U.S. liaison officer (we presume he told him his plan) and asked if he could “borrow” two soldiers. The officer laughed and said he needed to get permission from the commanding officer. The commanding officer also laughed and said he needed to get permission from headquarters in Heidelberg. Permission was granted, and Sprunkle proceeded with his plan with the help of photographer Hans Scheffler. First, Sheffler created fake saucer photos using pictures he took of “light fountain glasses from Wiesbaden’s cure house pond.” He cut out saucer shapes and stuck them on photos that would provide a background. One of these, showing two saucers over the Market Place Church, is reproduced in Probe. For the creature, Scheffler enlisted the aid of his five-year-old son, Peter. One of the soldiers held a jerry can and Sheffler painted in the “hose, breathing gear, horror head, griffin hands, one leg and foot-plate.” The source of the photos was given as “3 TRANSLAG/USA PHOTOS” which was invented by Sprunkel using the name of a local business. The story caused a sensation, and the American Wiesbaden Post reprinted it along with the photos. Sprunkle got a call from a female journalist who wanted to buy the copyright for the Mr. X photo, and it took Sprunkle around 20 minutes to convince her that the story was a joke. The Wiesbaden Tagblatt published a confession on April 3rd under the headline “Tuchtig Reingefallen!” which Webner translates to “Good Letdown!” and Google translates to “Fell Right In!” As for how Moore and Berlitz got ahold of the photocopy, Webner says it was discovered by UFO Information Network affiliate Barry Greenwood. According to Webner, UFOIN had “acquired a bundle of FBI photocopies” thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. Because the photocopy was in such bad shape, another UFOIN affiliate, Lawrence Blazey, made the “artist’s impression.” He says, “William Moore ordered this material for his book The Roswell Incident and Mister X was born for the second time.” Webner says his investigation was easy, as there were only two newspapers in Wiesbaden. According to him, he was told by employees at Wiesbadener Tagblatt that neither Belitz nor Moore had contacted anyone at the paper and neither had anyone else. He tells the reader that Sprunkle, Scheffler, “and even Mister X himself, Peter Scheffler are still employed there.” Webner’s research resulted in the paper publishing an article on April 22, 1981, headlined, “A Tagblatt April Fool Joke in the files of the FBI…” Webner laments that his name wasn’t mentioned. As for the Roswell story, Webner concludes that “the latest research says” that “‘Crashed flying saucers’ and ‘crew members on ice’ are fantasies and not facts!” https://archive.org/details/charles-berlitz-william-l.-moore-the-roswell-incident-1980_202012/mode/2up

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  As anyone who has looked into the subject of UFO-related humanoids knows, reported creatures come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more unusual than others, and a pair of creatures said to be seen in Italy in 1978 definitely stand out. In the Vol. 28, No. 6, issue (page 15 of the pdf) of Flying Saucer Review, there is an article by Antonio Chiumiento headlined “An Encounter with ‘Rat-Faces’ in Italy.” The article was translated from Italian and Chiumiento is described as an “Investigator and member of the board of directors of C.U.N. (Italian National UFO Research Centre, Turin.)” According to Chiumiento, on the morning of November 24, 1978, 61-year-old Gallio resident, Angelo D’Ambros, went to get some firewood in nearby Gastagh. At about a quarter before noon, he turned to put down a branch he had been chopping up when he “was gripped with horror” upon seeing two creatures looking at him that were “extremely close.” They were hovering about 40 cms above the ground and D’Ambros estimated that one of them was 1 m 20 cm tall while the other was 1 m. They were “extremely thin,” and had yellowish skin that was tight to where D’Ambros could see large veins on the head and hands of the larger creature that was closest to him. Their heads were bald, smooth, large and pear-shaped, and they had “enormous” pointed ears that stuck straight up. They had no eyelids and large, sunken white eyes. Their noses were long and almost went below their lower lips, and they had large mouths with a long, pointed tusk at each end. They seemed to be wearing dark, tight overalls, and sticking out of the sleeves and leggings were huge hands and feet that were out of proportion to the rest of their bodies. Their ring fingers were bigger than the others, and their nails were long. As D’Ambros stood frozen in terror, the smaller creature began moving back and forth in rapid leaps between D’Ambros’s left and right side as though gliding and without moving its feet. As it did so, there was the sound of air displacement and the rusting of vegetation due to its ears brushing the lowest branches of the trees nearby. D’Ambros managed to overcome his terror enough to shout “Help!” as loud as he could. He then got the strength to ask the creatures who they were and what they wanted with him. It was of no use as he only got “incomprehensible mumblings” from the smaller creature. Suddenly, D’Ambros’s attention shifted to the larger creature that had remained almost motionless about a meter away from him. The creature grabbed the billhook (also known as a “sling blade”) D’Ambros was carrying at a spot that had no cutting edge and attempted to take it from him. D’Ambros became determined not to let the creature have it, as it was his only defense should they should prove hostile. D’Ambros tightened his grip, and the creature grabbed onto the tool further down, at which point, D’Ambros felt what seemed to be “a slight electrical shock.” The creature made one more attempt using both hands, and D’Ambrose felt what was clearly another shock go up his arm. D’Ambros became “furious” as the creature refused to give up, and he used his free hand to grab a large branch he had cut and was ready to hit the creature. Both creatures, seeming to recognize the threat D’Ambros posed to them, “fled instantly.” D’Ambros recovered “his normal calm” and then, compelled by curiosity regarding the origin of the creatures, ran after them “as fast as he could along the mule-track along which they had come.” Finally, in a clearing, he saw a disk-shaped metallic object with a dome on top standing on four legs. The upper part was red, and the lower part, separated by a white band around the middle, was blue, while the legs were aluminum grey. Without the legs it was about two meters high and four meters wide. As soon as D’Ambros spotted the craft, he saw the hand of one of the creatures closing “from inside the dome, a sort of trap-door by drawing it backwards.” The craft then took off silently at an angle at great speed while putting out a “burst of red flame.” It quickly went out of sight behind some fir trees. When D’Ambros got home, he kept his story to himself but was so disturbed that he skipped his lunch. He then decided to confide in his son in law, Luciano Munari. The next day, Munari got someone to go with him and went to the spot where D’Ambros said he’d seen the craft. At the site, Munari saw a 3.5 m circular area of grass that was blackened more from oil than burning and swirled flat in an anticlockwise direction. When he touched the grass, his hands stayed clean. He also saw two impressions that were U-shaped, 20 cm long, 3 cm wide, and 3 cm deep, and some bushes that had been uprooted, “this being the result of the displacement of air as the ‘object’ departed.” Many of the local townsfolk didn’t believe the story and Munari decided to photograph the site as proof. Unfortunately, it snowed, and he wasn’t able to get back there until December 3rd. He went with some of the non-believers who helped him clear away the snow, and he took some black and white photos that didn’t show the details of the impressions very well. He tried again with color film on the 10th and circled the marks with yellow paper to make sure they’d show up. The photos are not included in the article. Thanks to “an initiative of Munari,” the story made the local paper, Giornale di Vicenza, under the headline, “I Was Attacked by Two Martians: They Wanted My Billhook.” After it appeared, D’Ambros was swarmed with curiosity seekers and local UFO enthusiasts. The billhook’s blade reportedly had an imprint about the size of a pinky, and the cutting edge had turned red. Local UFO “students” took it for testing but brought it back when they found that the lab work would be too expensive. Munari told Chiumiento that D’Ambros started using it again, and that the imprint and discoloration were no longer visible. According to Chiumiento, he (he uses what I assume is the royal we) found out about the case when a “fellow investigator” sent him the article. He went to Gallio in the fall of 1979 and was told by the D’Ambros family that the site was still blackened, but he wasn’t able to see it for himself because it had snowed. He went there again in February 1980 and got a statement from Munari who said he believed his father in law’s story, and that he had read UFO Report by J. Allen Hynek. He said he saw there was a resemblance between the marks he saw and the marks pictured in photos in the book, which Chiumiento identifies as photos of the Socorro landing site. Chiumiento made several visits and established that D’Ambros and Munari had good reputations. He compares the creatures reported by D’Ambros to the ones reported in the 1955 Kelly-Hopkinsville case. He then includes descriptions of five more sightings in the area around the same time, including one where a witness gave photos he’d taken, along with the negatives, to a man identifying himself as an Air Force officer who “was never seen again.” Chiumiento predicts that the Gallio case will become as well-known as the Kelly-Hopkinsville case and argues that it supports the theory “which asserts the presence here of UFO occupants of unknown but in any case non-terrestrial origin.”

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  On January 20, 2026, Francis Lee Ridge passed away. His contributions to UFO investigation and research spanned six decades, and thanks to his efforts, a treasure trove of historical UFO-related material is available to anyone with an internet connection. According to Ridge’s bio at nicap.org, he was born on October 13, 1942. In 1960, he became an active investigator as head of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena Indiana Subcommittee and remained in that position until 1970. In 1970, Ridge began a project called MADAR (Multiple Anomaly Detection and Automatic Recording) which he continued throughout his life. He created detection and recording systems to gather data on geomagnetic, electromagnetic, and background radiation anomalies and monitored them at his home in Newburgh, Indiana. In April 2016, “a new idea was conceived to create a network of affordable devices.” This resulted in the creation of the MADAR-III DataProbe system with the help of MADAR member Rich Vitello and his team at ARUFON after a “costly and disastrous false start” in the fall. By May 2018, the system was operational, and as of 2023, there was a network operating with 221 members operating 168 sites (56 of which were “DAS-equipped”) throughout the world. In 1972, Ridge became Indiana state section director for the Mutual UFO Network and state director in 1986. He was also a field investigator for the Center for UFO Studies. He investigated hundreds of cases and created the Regional Sighting Information Database which, as of the last update in 2023, had 4,000 entries covering the area of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. He also ran the UFO Filter Center doing computer studies on regional and nationwide sightings. In 1997, Ridge was authorized to start work on a website for NICAP. The site contains a wealth of information for historical researchers including NICAP casefiles, biographies, chronologies, publications, documents, and links to other resources. Ridge was project coordinator for The Nuclear Connection Project, which focused on UFO reports around nuclear sites, and in 2006, he led a re-investigation into the Mantell case which concluded that “Mantell was chasing a real UFO.” The report in book form, titled The Mantell Incident: Anatomy of a Re-Investigation was published in 2010. Along with a link below the bio to the Mantell book, there is a link to his 1994 book Regional Encounters: The UFO Center Files, and his 2021 book CAP POINT: A series of staggering events with global implications for everyone on planet earth.  At the bottom is a position statement regarding the UFO mystery: “There is no question or doubt that most UFOs are actually IFOs (Identified Flying Objects). For the subset of events that cannot be explained, there is a small group of sightings that demonstrate solid objects under intelligent control. I am convinced that these objects are somebody else’s craft. Although I cannot prove that the intelligence behind the phenomena is ET in nature, I consider the ETH to be the least unlikely. I also feel that there is a nuclear connection (or one that indicates a cause and effect relationship with serious world events that could lead to a nuclear threat) and that the evidence in the form of military sightings indicates we are being observed and are obviously scientifically and militarily inferior to this presence.” In Ridge’s “detailed” biography, also found on the NICAP website, there is much more information regarding his activities. There are also links to his afore-mentioned books and several papers written by him. An updated version now begins with his obituary written by his friend Phil Leech. Francis Lee Ridge made a huge contribution to UFOlogy and his efforts are greatly appreciated, particularly by those of us who are passionate about the history of the subject. R.I.P.    

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  In 1969, Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallée was published. Its central thesis is that there may be a link between folklore, particularly stories of the Fae folk, and UFO lore. In the Vol. 25, No. 6, issue (page 25 of the pdf) of Flying Saucer Review, there is an article by Eileen Morris headlined “The Winged Beings of Bluestone Walk” covering a case that certainly seems to support Vallée’s ideas. According to Morris, a “necessarily brief” version of the story told by Jean Hingley first appeared in the January 12, 1979, edition of The Dudley Herald. She says she met Hingley and her husband “a number of times” both at their residence and at her own, and describes them as “honest, hard-working people.” She took notes and used them to type up Hingley’s version of events and then had Hingley read it. Hingley was “satisfied that it is accurate.” According to the account written as if Hingley was telling it in the first person, she lived “in a small council house in Bluestone Walk, Rowley Regis, near Birmingham,” with her husband, Cyril, and their Alsatian, Hobo. On January 4, 1979, it was a cold, dark morning, and there was snow on the ground as she saw her husband off to his job at a cement works (she worked at a company that made soundproofing for cars). She was at the back door of the house that opened out to the road, and as her husband drove off, she noticed a light from the area of the garden. Thinking her husband had left the light on in the car port on the other side of the garden, she walked over to it with the dog to check and saw that the light was off. She turned to go back to the house and saw an orange light over the garden that turned white and lit up the whole area. She went into the house through the back door and there “was a sound like Zee… zee… zee…” as three “beings” floated through the door and went past her. The creatures were between 3 and 4 feet tall, glowed brilliantly, “had wonderful wings,” and were about a foot above the floor. Hingley was terrified and grabbed onto the steel sink in the kitchen. She was “frozen” with her mouth wide open and unable to speak. The dog went over to his water bowl “swaying from side to side.” His hair was sticking out “like a hedgehog’s,” and he seemed as if he was drugged. He then lay down on the floor, “stiff, with his eyes open.” “After a while,” the fear seemed to go away, and Hingley felt as if she was lifted up. She felt like a different person as if she was “in Heaven,” and seemed to float into the “lounge.” She was warm, even though the doors were wide open. She was blinded by a bright light and covered her eyes. It seemed to her that the creatures were reading her mind: “It was like a light or an X-ray penetrating my mind.” She could hear their artificial Christmas tree shaking. She took her hand from her eyes and could see the creatures shaking the tree. The light surrounding them was dimmer as if they had turned it down. They were “slim ‘men,’” and were wearing “silvery-green tunics and silver waistcoats with silver buttons or press studs.” They had pointed hands and feet covered with the same silvery green and wore pointed caps, also of that color, “with something like a lamp on top.” Covering their heads were transparent helmets. Their faces were waxy, white, and corpse-like, and they had “black diamond” eyes and thin mouths. Their wings were large and oval-shaped, glowed with “rainbow colours,” and were covered with dots Hingley describes as being like “‘Braille’ dots.” The creatures floated around and touched everything in the lounge. Hingley was finally able to speak and said “Three of you and one of me. What are you going to do? What do you want with me?” The creatures all touched the buttons on their chests and their voices then seemed to come from there. They all spoke together and said, “We shall not harm you,” and when Hingley asked where they came from, they said, “We come from the sky.” The creatures shook the tree again, and “the little fairy fell from the top.” Hingley wanted to pick it up but wasn’t able to move. She explained about the tree, Christmas, and Jesus, and the creatures said they knew who Jesus was. Hingley saw the creatures looking at the Honour list in the Sunday paper on the table. She explained that the people listed had been made lords, and the creatures replied, “There is only one Lord.” Hingley then told them she was just a working woman and suggested that they should go see the Queen or a “real lady.” They said, “You are a lady.” The creatures then sat on the couch and “bounced like children,” causing Hingley to say in a sharp tone, “Be careful of the furniture.” They “put the light up,” and she became concerned that they had the power to hurt her, and she felt she should be friendly. She said “I can’t call you ‘creature,’ so I shall call you ‘gentlemen.’” She started to say, “Nice to see you! Nice.” They replied saying, “Nice.” The creatures floated around the room with their wings fluttering “gently” and made no sound. They went through a door and “folded their wings behind their backs like pleated fans,” went upstairs, and then came back. They picked up some tapes, looked at cigarette packs, whiskey, and sherry on the sideboard, and Hingley asked, “Do you want a drink?” They replied, saying “Water,” three times. Hingley went and filled four glasses so she could drink with them and show that the water wasn’t poison.  When she brought the glasses in on a tray, it felt as though the tray was “magnetized towards them.” They took the glasses, seemed about to lift their helmets, and then “put the ‘power light’ on,” so she wasn’t able to see them drink. When they put the glasses back, they were empty. A long discussion then followed in which the creatures told Hingley they’d been to Australia and New Zealand to talk to people there, and no one seemed to be interested. Hingley asked if she should “tell people on Earth about it,” and they said, “Yes.” They told Hingley that everyone goes to heaven, and “It’s a man’s world,” and Hingley said she hadn’t been to chapel “for a year or two.” They said there was “no need to worship in synagogues,” and Hingley tells the reader that she didn’t know the word for the Jewish place of worship until her husband told her. Hingley then offered the creatures some mince pies, and they “each lifted a mince pie from the plate as though their hands were magnetic.” Hingley saw they were looking at the cigarettes again, and she decided to demonstrate how people smoke them. When she lit one with a match, the creatures leapt back as if they were scared and then floated out the door. Hingley put out the cigarette and ran after them asking them to come back. Outside, she saw them, still holding the mince pies, get into an orange cigar-shaped craft that was 8-10 feet long and about 4 feet high. It seemed to be covered with shiny plastic, had port holes, “a scorpion tail” on the back, and a “kind of wheel” on top. Once inside the ship, they flashed the lights twice and took off heading towards Oldbury. In the aftermath, Hingley found that the tapes the creatures had touched were ruined by distortion. She was left with sore eyes for a week and had to wear dark glasses. She felt ill and had to take a leave from work. As strange as this story is, Morris assures the reader that Hingley told it to people from the following organizations who went to her house: The Oldbury Police, the West Bromwich Police, and the UFO Studies Investigation Services. The case is mentioned in Northern UFO News No. 57 (page 4 of the pdf), and the reader is told that the case is being investigated by UFOSIS and UFORA under the supervision of Mark Pritchard and Martin Keatman and that “landing marks in the snow were seen and photographed.”    

By: Albert Wain In 2015, while handling an inspection claim for damaged furniture in Buffalo, New York, I met with a client at his home. He was around eighty years old and wore a cast on one arm. As we walked through his condo inspecting the damaged pieces, he explained that he was battling bone cancer in his arm and that his wife of many years had recently passed away. At one point, he brought me into a room lined with photographs of various aircraft. He told me he was a retired Air Force officer who had flown many combat missions in Korea and Vietnam. This, he explained, was his room of memories. He spoke easily about his time in the military, and it was clear he was enjoying the conversation. When we finished the inspection, I asked if we might sit for a while and visit before I headed out. He smiled and said, “That sounds nice.” We discussed his wife and the life they had shared, his military service, and I shared a little about my own life as well. Because I’ve always had an interest in the UFO topic — and because he seemed receptive — I decided to ask. “So,” I said, “have you ever seen anything up there you couldn’t quite explain? A flying saucer or something like that?” “You mean like a spaceship, or something like that?” “Yes,” I replied. He looked up at the ceiling for a few moments, his eyes moving back and forth, then said, “Nope. Not that I recall. Some of the other pilots and I would see these things called contrails and couldn’t figure out where they came from, but no UFOs.” I was, of course, disappointed and was about to move on to another subject or get ready to leave when his demeanor changed. He stared at me with a look that suggested he wasn’t sure whether he should tell me something — or whether I would even believe him. “I’ll tell you something that happened while I was with another pilot at an officers’ club in Korea,” he said, “if you’re interested.” “Yes, of course,” I said. He told me they had been sitting at a table with two young pilots they met that night, playing pool and drinking beer. As the evening went on, the conversation drifted through careers and the usual pilot talk. At some point, the two young men mentioned that their first assignment out of flight school had been Roswell Air Base. “My friend and I chuckled a little,” he said, “and one of us asked, ‘Oh, isn’t that where the flying saucer supposedly crashed?’” Both men went silent. Their expressions turned serious. They looked around the room nervously, then at each other, and back at us. Finally, one of them spoke quietly. “They were there,” he said. “We saw them.” They tried to get the young men to explain, to tell them more, but neither one would say another word about it. “And I guess,” he added, “that’s all I can tell you as well.” My visit ended shortly after that, and I moved on with my business and with my life. In reflection, I cannot speak to the sincerity of the two young airmen from Roswell. But I will never doubt the sincerity of the story I was told by a very fine older gentleman — and a patriot.

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  The cattle mutilation mystery and its association with UFO activity didn’t get the attention of researcher investigators until the 1970s. There is an article on page 2 of the March 1975 APRO Bulletin, headlined “More on Mutilations,” discussing the findings of APRO Field Investigators Bill Pitt, Lee Spiegel, and Kevin Randle. It was the opinion of APRO at the time that “no satisfactory evidence has emerged which links UFOs to mutilated animals.” The first mutilation to get the public’s attention was that of a horse named Snippy found by its owners in the San Luis Valley of Colorado on September 8, 1967. Shortly after that, in his article (page 8 of the pdf) in the July/August 1968 Flying Saucer Review headlined “West Virginia’s Enigmatic Bird,” John Keel mentions that cow and horse mutilations are “now common” in the midst of sightings of the Mothman and UFOs in the area around Point Pleasant. However, there is a report far earlier than this that, by most accounts, appeared in the April 23, 1897, Yates Center Farmer’s Advocate. This involves a mystery airship caught in the act of abducting a cow right in front of prominent Woodson County, Kansas, citizen Alexander Hamilton (not the one on the 20-dollar bill).  While the Advocate article remains elusive, Redditt user Remseey2907 found an article in what appears to be the Globe Democrat that includes the details of and references the Advocate article. According to the Democrat article dated April 26th and headlined “The Airship Steals,” Hamilton, a farmer who lived near Yates Center, said that “last Monday at 10:30 o’clock,” (April 19th) he and his family “stood mute in wonder and fright” as an airship appeared and proceeded to, in the reporter’s words, “swoop down upon the cow lot and steal a 2-year-old heifer.” Backing up Hamilton’s story is an affidavit signed by eleven prominent citizens, including a sheriff and a justice of the peace, stating that they believe Hamilton’s story “to be true and correct.” The details of the story are presented in Hamilton’s words. According to him, “we were awakened by a noise among the cattle.” He got out of bed, went to the door thinking that his bulldog “was performing some of his pranks,” and was astonished to see an airship coming down over his cow lot “almost forty rods from the house.” He called his son, Wall, and his tenant, Gid Heslip, and after grabbing some axes, they “ran to the corral.” When they were about fifty yards from the ship, it was no more than thirty feet above the ground. Hamilton describes it as cigar-shaped, about 300 feet long, with a carriage underneath “made of panels of glass or other transparent substance, alternating with a narrow strip of some material.” The rest of the craft was dark red. It was brilliantly lit from within and had three external lights: “an immense searchlight,” and two smaller lights, one red and one green. The searchlight was pointed directly on Hamilton and the others and then “a great turbine wheel about 50 feet in diameter, which was slowly revolving below the craft, now began to buzz…” The craft rose up, and when it was about 300 feet high, it appeared to be hovering over a two-year-old heifer that seemed to be stuck to a fence. They went over to her and saw there was a half-inch red cable tied in a slip knot around her neck that went up to the ship. They tried to free the cow but were unable to, and they watched as the ship rose up and carried the cow away towards the southwest. According to Hamilton, Link Thomas of Coffey County, about four miles west of LeRoy, Kansas, found the hide of the cow, along with its head and legs, in his field on Tuesday. Hamilton was able to identify it by his brand on the hide. This story got widespread public exposure thanks to Frank Edwards’s bestselling 1966 book, Flying Saucers–Serious Business, and Jacques Vallée included it in his 1965 book, Anatomy of a Phenomenon, and his 1969 book, Passport to Magonia. It seems, however, that the story was a hoax and how this was discovered is told in detail by Jerome Clark in his article (page 94 of the pdf) headlined “The Great Airship Hoax,” published in the February 1977 issue of Fate magazine. According to Clark, “the truth about the affair” came out in an article published in the January 28, 1943, Kansas newspaper, the Buffalo Enterprise. A week before, the paper had recounted Hamilton’s original tale, and this prompted Ed F. Hudson, who had been the editor of the Farmer’s Advocate in 1897, to write a letter to the Enterprise. According to Hudson, he had just installed a small gasoline engine to replace hand power on his “old Country Campbell press” and invited friends, including Hamilton to watch it operate. Hudson explains the origin of the story: “Hamilton exclaimed, ‘Now they can fly,’ hence the airship story that we made up.” Clark says the Enterprise article was discovered in 1976 by an American correspondent of Fortean Times Editor J. M. Rickard. Rickard sent Clark a copy, and Clark got a letter seeking confirmation published in the September 16, 1976, Yates Center News. This got a reply from Donna Steeby of Wichita, Kansas who said that her 93-year-old mother, Ethel L. Shaw, had heard the story from Hamilton, himself. Shaw provided Clark with a statement. According to Shaw, when she was about 14 years old, she was at the Hamilton house with Mrs. Hamilton and their daughter, Nell, when Mr. Hamilton came in and said “Ma, I fixed up quite a story and told the boys in town and it will come out in the Advocate this weekend.” Mrs. Hamilton was “rather shocked” by the story but the girls weren’t bothered “as we felt it was just a fabricated story.” Shaw goes on to say that “it seems there were a few men around who had formed a club which they called ‘Ananias’ (Liars’ Club).” To her knowledge, the club broke up not long after the story was published. She adds that the men who signed the affidavit “knew it to be a falsehood but simply went along with it for the fun.” According to Clark, Lucius Farish had an article about the case published in the April 1966 issue of Fate in which he proclaimed “this case (is) one of the most astounding to be found on record!” The editor’s note at the end of Clark’s article states: “Lucius Farish has asked us to convey his apologies to Fate readers for his unwitting role in publicizing this fallacious incident.” Thanks to Redditt user tweedboltmegacorp for posting the link to the Fate issue.  

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  For many people growing up in the 1970s (of which this writer is one), seeing a UFO documentary was their first in-depth look into the subject. These films often came along with books tied in, and major publishers such as Bantam were getting onboard. More and more people were willing to accept the idea that UFOs were worthy of serious consideration, and this meant that more and more people were willing to spend money on movies and books covering the subject. What had formerly been mostly confined to a subculture of enthusiasts, was now becoming a somewhat profitable entertainment industry. Indeed, it may come as a surprise to some readers, but between the summer of the saucers in 1947, and 1968, there were only two documentaries made in the midst of all the science fiction saucer films that became popular starting in the 1950s. The beginning of the 1970s wave of UFO documentaries can be traced back to the 1968 book Erinnerungen an die Zukunft (Memories of the Future) by Erich von Däniken published by Econ-Verlag in West Germany. The book not only whetted the public’s appetite for UFOs and aliens (especially ancient ones), but opened up the doors for all things strange and mysterious, including Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle, ghosts, and lake monsters. The book was translated into English and published in 1969 by Souvenir Press in England as Chariots of the Gods? and under the same title in 1970 by Putnam in the United States. It made The New York Times bestseller list and was the source (along with von Däniken’s second book published in 1970, Return to the Stars) for a film with the German book title. This was produced by Berlin-based Terra-Filmkunst, directed by Harald Reinl, and released in West Germany in 1970. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film. In 1972, the English version, Chariots of the Gods (note the lack of the question mark), was released in the United States by Sun International Pictures. According to the website the-numbers.com, which lists it under its German title, it ranked 25th in all-time highest grossing documentaries and had grossed $25,900,000 as of this writing. Past guest: Erich von Däniken 1935-2026 Before becoming a successful author, Von Däniken’s future didn’t look so bright as he came into adulthood. According to the introduction of an interview with him presented on pages 51 and 52 of the August 1974 Playboy magazine, his father took him out of Catholic school when he was 19 and apprenticed him to a hotelier. This was after he was convicted of stealing money from a camp where he worked and an innkeeper. He was given a four-month suspended sentence, and a psychiatrist who examined him said he showed a “tendency to lie.” After sticking with the apprenticeship “for a while,” he ran off to Egypt, got involved in a sketchy jewelry deal, and wound up being convicted of fraud and embezzlement upon his return. This time he served nine months in jail, and he told Playboy that he had experienced a vision there but didn’t see fit to share the details. Von Däniken returned to the hotel business as a manager. For the next twelve years, on vacations, he traveled the world and gathered material for his book. Law officials began to wonder how a man of his means was able to afford this and found that he had obtained $130,000 in loans by “falsifying hotel books.” He was convicted on charges of fraud and embezzlement and spent a year in prison. At the trial he was described as a liar and a criminal psychopath by a court appointed psychiatrist. As it turned out, jail served him as a writer’s retreat. His book was published in Europe by then, and was a best seller, so he was able to easily pay off the $130,000. While doing his time, he wrote his second book, and continued his career as a writer after his release. As of this writing, his biography at daniken.com states that he is the author of 49 books which “have sold at around 70 million copies and have been translated into 32 languages.” According to the “Books” section of the site, his “last and final book,” Notizen aus meinem Leben (Notes of my Life) was published in 2024. The movie set the tone for 1970s UFO docs. It opens with a shot of outer space for the title sequence and then moves into footage of Mount Palomar observatory as the narration begins. The soundtrack was done by German composer Peter Thomas, who, like Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer best known for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, became renowned for his creative use of a variety of sounds and instruments. For Chariots, Thomas made use of orchestral and jazz styles with electronic beeps and burbles sprinkled in throughout. Interspersed with footage taken from all over the world, there are talking heads with academic titles offering speculations on alien intervention in not only our architecture, but also our culture, religion, and genetic makeup. The success of Chariots spawned a series of movies in the same vein. For television, it was re-edited, Rod Serling was hired to do the narration, and it aired in 1973 as In Search of Ancient Astronauts. Serling also did the narration for The Outer Space Connection, created by Alan Landsburg Productions and released in theatres in 1975. Besides rehashing the ideas from Chariots, it veered into other realms of the mysterious, including the Bermuda Triangle “mystery,” which had captured the public imagination thanks to Charles Berlitz’s 1974 book The Bermuda Triangle. Then, in 1975, William Shatner hit the big screen in Mysteries of the Gods. This was based on Von Daniken’s 1974 book Miracles of the Gods and was another movie made in Germany (produced by Terra-Filmkunst, directed by Harald Reinl) and redone for American release with Shatner’s narration and added footage of him interviewing “experts.” This includes what may have been the first big-screen appearance of a crystal skull, and a prediction by Jeanne Dixon that the Earth would be visited by aliens in August of 1977. Von Däniken’s theories and claims were challenged early on, notably in two books: Clifford Wilson’s 1972 book, Crash Go the Chariots, and Ronald Story’s 1976 book, The Space Gods Revealed. Carl Sagan wrote in the forward of Story’s book, “I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of Däniken.” Von Däniken commented on his critics for Playboy and is quoted in the introduction: “I’m the only author who has really frightened the critics. Other writers sit at home and wait for miracles. I’m making miracles.” Von Däniken passed away on January 10th.  

Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter | Tuesday, January 20, 2025 @ 11:00 AM EST (-5GMT) Podcast UFO will be attending and livestreaming a historic press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2026. 11:00am – 1:00pm ET. For the first time publicly, Dr. Italo Venturelli, a leading Brazilian neurosurgeon, will describe his direct hospital contact in 1996 with a living, non-human intelligent being following the infamous Varginha incident. Multiple Brazilian witnesses, medical professionals, and officials will present first-hand testimony regarding the reported crash of an unidentified object, the capture of non-human entities, and the subsequent involvement of Brazilian authorities and the U.S. Air Force. Organized by investigative journalist and filmmaker James Fox, the press conference will introduce new medical, forensic, and governmental evidence, including testimony from Dr. Armando Fortunato, the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy of a military police officer allegedly injured during the incident. The event coincides with the release of Fox’s new documentary Moment of Contact: New Revelations of Alien Encounters and follows growing calls for transparency after The Age of Disclosure. This press conference aims to present unprecedented data, encourage mainstream discussion, and prompt further governmental investigation into non-human intelligence encounters.

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  The first feature-length UFO documentary was titled, appropriately, Unidentified Flying Objects with the subtitle, The True Story of Flying Saucers. It was produced by Clarence Greene and released in 1956. Researcher Robert Barrow devoted a blogspot.com site to it titled UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers and posted from June 2008 until July 2025. In his June 12, 2008, post, “The Driving Force: Clarence Greene,” Barrow includes a statement “signed” by Greene, but he tells the reader that he found it on the web “uncredited.” According to Greene in his July 26, 1967, statement titled, “UFO: Why I Made Unidentified Flying Objects,” one night in August of 1952, a friend called his attention to something in the sky Greene describes as “a sphere of light.” They watched it for about five minutes as it moved, stopped, made turns, and then moved off over the horizon. He later learned that members of the Ground Observation Corps had also observed it. The next morning, he told his partner, Russell Rouse, and the Greene and Rouse production staff about it. He became aware of the ridicule factor around UFO reports and felt empathy for witnesses who had been victims of it. He tells the reader he “was at a complete loss to understand why there seemed to be such a determined effort to suppress all news of Unidentified Flying Objects by what seemed to be a planned campaign of skepticism and scoffing.” Notably, at the time, there was an intense public interest in UFOs following sightings, both visual and on radar, of UFOs in Washington, D.C., airspace over two successive weekends beginning July 19, 1952. This was followed by a press conference held by the Air Force to answer questions about the events. The first head of Project Blue Book, Edward J. Ruppelt, describes both events in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. According to him, the press conference “was the largest and longest the Air Force had held since World War II.” As fate would have it, as Greene was preparing to make his film, Ruppelt was in California working as an engineer for Northrop Corporation. Al Chop, the former public information officer at the Pentagon who dealt with UFO inquiries, was also in California working in public relations for Douglas Aircraft. This is according to James W. Moseley in his 2002 book, Shockingly Close to the Truth: Confessions of a Graverobbing UFOlogist. Moseley interviewed both men together in 1953. Al Chop was in the radar room at Washington Airport on July 26th and observed the unidentifieds firsthand. According to Greene, he met with Chop, and once Chop was convinced that Greene was going to do a serious film, he gave Greene “a breakdown on Project Blue Book.” Then, Chop and “certain newspaper men” arranged a meeting with Ruppelt, and Ruppelt got onboard. Chop and Ruppelt served as uncredited technical advisors but were featured in news articles about the film. Greene found out from “some newspapermen” that there were rumors that the Air Force had motion picture footage of UFOs. Greene “confronted Chop and Ruppelt,” and they confirmed the existence of the films, which were designated by the Pentagon as the “Utah” and “Montana” films. The Utah film had been shot by Navy Chief Photographer Delbert C. Newhouse, and the Montana film by Nicholas Mariana. Green got in touch with both men, saw their films, and was able to have them “analyzed by scientists and film experts” who concluded that the objects seen were genuine unknowns. Greene was told by Chop and Ruppelt that this was also the conclusion of Air Force and Navy scientists. Mariana and Newhouse appear, along with their footage, in the film. Besides having the help of Chop and Ruppelt, Greene also managed to get Major Dewey Fournet involved, who was the senior officer in the radar room during the D.C. flap. Fournet was the liaison officer between the Pentagon and Blue Book. However, even with the involvement of these three men, there was no cooperation from the Pentagon. In fact, then head of Blue Book, Captain George T. Gregory, expressed concern that the movie would bring on 1952-level public relations headaches for the Air Force, and he wrote the following memo dated May 17, 1956, which can be found in the 40-page Blue Book file on the film: “This film may stir up a storm of public controversy similar to that which USAF was subjected to in 1952 with regard to UFOs, as a result of the unwarranted sensationalism generated by so-called ‘UFO experts’, writers and publishers…” He also says that in a series of meetings held with advisors, including J. Allen Hynek, “and other pertinent personnel,” it was agreed that ATIC should review the film before its release “for purposes of ‘countermeasures,’” meaning that an official comment should be prepared and “kept in readiness” for the inevitable queries. A year after undertaking the project, Greene now had the task of putting a film together. This involved “months of interviews with saucer sighters, scientists, Air Force personnel, law enforcement officers, airline pilots, in fact, with anyone who had something to contribute in the way of legitimate information.” Greene points out that the process of verifying all the information down to the minute details often took weeks. As for the filming process, he says, “It was practically a tour of the entire country.” The film ended up being more docudrama than documentary, and the screenplay by Francis Martin tells the story of the flying saucer/UFO mystery and Air Force investigation mostly from the point of view of Chop, played by Los Angeles newspaper reporter, Tom Towers. The rest of the cast is made up of non-actors as well, and it’s often painfully obvious. Ruppelt is also portrayed. Unidentified Flying Objects is a black and white film and starts off with the title and credits over a background of a cloud-filled sky that changes with each new credit sequence. The music is generic and of the flag-waving variety, and continues in that vein throughout. After the opening, a narrator describes the June 24, 1947, sighting by Kenneth Arnold that kicked off the saucer craze that summer, as a re-enactment, minus the saucers, is shown. Then, there is a long sequence covering the Mantell incident, also with re-enactment, which is said to have motivated the Air Force to initiate Project Sign. As an example of a credible witness who reported a sighting, American Airlines pilot, Captain Willis Sperry is presented, who tells his story of a UFO encounter 30 miles out after taking off from Washington, D.C. After Sperry, the narrator states that on January 9, 1950, “the press reported that Project Sign was closed.” At this point, over 17 minutes in, Tom Towers takes over the narration as Al Chop, and Chop’s story begins with him visiting his old newspaper office in Dayton, Ohio, after his discharge from the marines. His “good friend” and former editor gives him a tip that there’s an opening for a public information officer at Air Material Command. Chop says it was due to his editor’s suggestion that he “walked right into the middle of the flying saucer story.” He then goes on to take a PIO position at the Pentagon. In the course of his employment, he is shown the Montana and Utah films, and ends up experiencing the Washington, D.C., flap up close and personal. At the end his story, in voiceover, Towers/Chop sums up how what he has seen and experienced has affected his beliefs regarding UFOs: “For me, the evidence indicates intelligence behind the control, and by now, the belief that their source was interplanetary was no longer incredible.” The Utah and Montana films are then shown for the second time with analysis in text and voiceover, and the movie ends with the questions: “If they cannot be identified as objects known to man… What are they?” “If they are not man-made… Who made them?” “If they are not from this planet… Where are they from?” Despite the Air Force’s concern, its “countermeasures” were unnecessary. The film opened to mixed reviews and did poorly in the box office, and there wouldn’t be another feature-length documentary film dealing with the UFO subject until 1968’s Chariots of the Gods.    

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  For many people growing up in the 1970s (of which this writer is one), seeing a UFO documentary was their first in-depth look into the subject. These films often came along with books tied in, and major publishers such as Bantam were getting onboard. More and more people were willing to accept the idea that UFOs were worthy of serious consideration, and this meant that more and more people were willing to spend money on movies and books covering the subject. What had formerly been mostly confined to a subculture of enthusiasts, was on its way to becoming the profitable entertainment industry it is today. What may may come as a surprise to some readers is that between the 1947 summer of the saucers and 1968, there were only two documentaries (if any readers know differently feel free to comment) made in the midst of all the science fiction saucer films that became popular starting in the 1950s. What is thought to be the first flying saucer/UFO documentary was released in 1950 as an approximately 9 ½ minute short titled The Flying Saucer Mystery. It was re-released in 1952 with added footage that brought it up to around 12 minutes. Both releases were produced by Telenews, which had a chain of 13 theatres in major cities throughout the U.S. that only showed newsreels. According to the December 20, 2019, post on The Science Fiction Encyclopedia website, the film (which release isn’t specified) was lost until the 1990s. The producer, director, and screenwriter are unnamed. The release dates coincide with two significant events in flying saucer/UFO history: in 1949, Donald Keyhoe had his article, “The Flying Saucers are Real,” published in the January 1950 issue of True magazine, and in 1952, a press conference was held to field questions from the press about UFOs in Washington, D.C., airspace over two successive weekends in July. Edward J. Ruppelt describes both events in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. According to him, it was “rumored among magazine publishers” that Keyhoe’s article “was one of the most widely read and widely discussed magazine articles in history. As for the 1952 press conference, he says it “was the largest and longest the Air Force had held since World War II.” It seems as though the article was the inspiration for the production of the movie, as Keyhoe appears as the final commentator. After the introduction by the narrator (name unknown), commentary by Keyhoe’s Annapolis classmate and friend, Adm. Calvin Bolster, and testimony by Arthur Weisberger about his July 21, 1950, sighting of three saucers over Tucson, Arizona, the first “authenticated” saucer photos taken by Paul Trent in McMinnville, Oregon, and the first motion picture footage shot of a saucer in Louisville, Kentucky by TV cameraman for WHAS, Al Hixenburg, are shown. Then, the narrator brings up the argument by “many authoritative sources, including U.S. News and World Report,” that the saucers are jets developed from a 1945 experimental Navy fighter, and a photo is shown of the Vought XF5U-1, also known as the “Flying Flapjack.” He points out that there had been no publicly known improvements made on the V-2 since the war and asks, “Are the saucers the secret descendants of the V-2?” We then get to Keyhoe, and he has this to say: “After a one year’s investigation, I believe that the flying saucers seen by veteran airline and Air Force pilots are objects from another planet.” The narrator closes saying that “Commander McLaughlin” (Robert B., USN) agrees with Keyhoe, and a model built for an episode of the television show, We the People, based on his observations is shown. The model was the basis of the illustration of the saucer on the cover of Keyhoe’s 1950 book, The Flying Saucers are Real. In 1952, things changed in a big way as far as saucers were concerned. The Air Force had revitalized what was known to the public as “Project Saucer,” and Project Blue Book was born out of the ashes of Projects Sign and Grudge. Ruppelt was the person in charge and he recounted his experience in his book. According to him, he was the person who came up with the term, “Unidentified Flying Object,” and its acronym, UFO, is pronounced “yoofo.” Just as Ruppelt was settling in, Blue Book got hit with a full-on nationwide flap starting in June that culminated in sightings, both visual and radar, of UFOs in restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., on two successive weekends starting July 19th. Ruppelt and the rest of the Blue Book staff first heard about the sightings from newspaper reports, but the Air Force public information officer who handled UFO inquiries, Albert M. Chop, was in the Air Route Traffic Control radar room at Washington Airport on July 19th and experienced the events first hand. One episode in particular was all the UFO blips disappearing from radar the moment that jets scrambled to intercept appeared. The re-release of The Flying Saucer Mystery was announced on August 23, 1952, in Billboard magazine, and it was distributed to a broader audience by Sterling Films. Most of the footage was new, as was the narration. It was updated to reflect the current state of the mystery. There is a clip of General James A. Sanford speaking at the press conference saying, “We can say that the recent sightings are in no way connected with any secret development by any agency of the United States,” followed by Keyhoe saying, “With all due respect to the Air Force, I believe that some of them will prove to be of interplanetary origin.” Additional witness reports include August C. Roberts describing a saucer photo he took saying, “I think it was from outer space, but friendly,” and East German refugee (and former mayor) Oskar Linke and his daughter who claimed to have both seen a saucer and its crew while they were still in East Germany in 1950. Frank Scully appears, who had, in 1950, just after Keyhoe, published the second-ever flying saucer book, Behind the Flying Saucers. He adds some unique commentary. Speculating on the nature of intelligent beings on other planets he says that they might be more “mature,” might have made it to the other side of their “atomic age,” and might “have been souls that were never fogged up like Adam and Eve” making them perfect and immortal. According to him, if this was the case, “the idea of the Air Force telling them to shoot them down is idiotic.” Some of the footage used in both releases of The Flying Saucer Mystery, such as that of Sanford and Keyhoe, shows up in documentaries from the seventies on. What’s noteworthy, and may be a factor in the dearth of UFO documentaries throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, is that in 1953, the CIA convened scientific advisory board known as the “Robertson Panel” recommended that the UFO subject be downplayed in the interest of national security. One of their concerns was that public hysteria could overwhelm communications and offer enemies of the United States an opportunity for a sneak attack. Even so, one producer, Clarence Greene, was so moved by his own UFO sighting that he was willing to risk ridicule and produce the first feature-length UFO documentary. Next Week: UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers. For more information and related news clippings, see the excellent site The Saucers that Time Forgot.    

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Throughout 1954 in France, there was a wave of humanoid reports that received national and international press coverage. That same year, Italy experienced a wave of its own that didn’t get nearly as much attention, although one particular case has since become a classic. A detailed account (page 12 of the pdf) of the case and a follow-up investigation 18 years later is presented in the Vol. 18, No. 5, Flying Saucer Review. Jacques Vallée included a brief account in his catalogue titled Une Siècle d’Atterisages” (a Century of Landings) published as a series in Lumières dans la Nuit starting with the April 1969 issue and ending with the February 1970 issue. However, according to editor Gordon Creighton, “so far as I am aware, no full description of it has ever appeared in English.” The account, by Sergio Conti, appears on page 11 (page 14 of the pdf) under the headline, “The Cennina Landing of 1954.” It was translated by Creighton from Il Giornale dei Misteri No.17, published in August of 1972. According to Conti, on the morning of November 1, 1954, Rosa Lotti nei Dainelli, a 40-year-old mother of four, left her farm to go into Cennina. It was a Catholic feast day, and she planned to visit the church and cemetery there. She brought a bunch of flowers for the altar of the Madonna Pellegrina (a procession for her had taken place the night before) and was also carrying her stockings and good shoes so she wouldn’t get them dirty. As she walked barefoot on the path to town that went through fields and thickets, she came upon a strange object. Conti includes quotes from Lotti describing it that appeared in three publications: “A sort of double cone, over 2 metres high and about a metre wide in the middle.” (La Nazione Italiana, November 2, 1954.) “Like two bells joined together at their bases.”  La Settimana Incom, No. 24, Year XV.) “The object was very swollen out in the middle and pointed at the two ends. It seemed to be covered with leather.” (Il Giornale del Mattino, November 2, 1954.) A quoted portion of the La Nazione Italiana article adds the details that it made no sound, shone like polished metal, and had a glass door in its lower part, through which, Lotti could see two child-sized seats. According to Conti, as Lotti stood there in astonishment and curiosity, two little creatures with friendly expressions came out from behind the object and walked towards her. She described them as about one metre tall; wearing helmets, grey overalls, and short grey cloaks. Over the overalls, they wore doublets with small buttons that were, in her words, “like shining stars,” along with pants that were tight like long underwear. Lotti is quoted as saying, “they were very fine looking, even though rather old.” In what seemed to be a friendly attempt to strike up a conversation, they gesticulated and spoke in a “lively” manner. According to Lotti, they sounded “as though they were Chinese,” using the words “liu,” “lai,” “loi,” and “lau.” Conti provides more details of the creatures’ faces including “magnificent eyes, full of intelligence,” and noses and mouths like those of humans except that their upper lips were curled and exposed their teeth. Their teeth are described as “short (as though they had been filed down) and somewhat protruding, like the teeth of rabbits.” He adds that, “Their ears were hidden under two leather discs, and there was a band around their foreheads, also of leather.” According to Conti, they grabbed the flowers (carnations) and one of Lotti’s stockings (black), and after “she remonstrated timidly” the older looking one handed back all but five of the flowers. After examining “the structure of the flowers with an air of curiosity, and laughing all the while,” the older creature wrapped the flowers in the stocking he kept and threw the bundle into the craft. The creatures then stepped back from Lotti and each took a circular object from the craft. The objects were wrapped in something that looked like, but wasn’t, newspaper. They put the objects under their arms and turned towards her, but she had taken the opportunity to run away when their backs were to her. When she looked back, the creatures and the craft were gone. At this point Conti cites the November 2, 1954, “La Nazione Sera.” The remainder of Conti’s account seems to come from the La Nazione Italiana. According to Conti, Lotti arrived in Cennina gasping for breath, terrified, and unable to remember what had just happened. She apparently recovered her memory (it seems she got it back in church and told her story to the parish priest, as Conti says at the end of the account) because the next thing Conti tells the reader is that she reported her experience to Brigadier Rocco Benfanti and Corporal Nello Focardi of the local Carabinieri (Italian national police) and repeated it for officers of the Búcine region. Her report got out, and Carabinieri investigators ended up examining the location amidst many curiosity seekers. A hole was found where Lotti said she’d seen the craft, but any possible footprints had been wiped out by the throng. The bonus in this report is that Conti provides details from a follow-up investigation conducted 18 years later by the Prato UFO Study Group. According to Conti, its members visited the site, found corroborating witnesses, and interviewed Lotti. Lotti stuck to her story, but made some corrections to what was reported in the press. She said that she only experienced fear after the encounter, and she described the craft this way: “In the thickened part of the spindle, it had two port-holes, on opposite sides to each other, and in the centre, between them, there was a little door, enabling me to see, inside, two little kiddie-chairs set back to back, each of them facing towards one of the port-holes.” Lotti said that the creatures’ lips were not curled, but normal, and emphasized that their faces were “well shaven.” She said they took all the flowers and that none were returned; that only the older creature brought out an object; that it was round, dark brown, and looked like it was wrapped in cardboard; and that the creature held it up to his chest and pointed it at her as if he was taking a photo. Finally, she said that as she was running away, the creatures and the craft were still there when she looked back. As for the corroborating witnesses, according to Conti, one reported seeing something land, one something taking off, and one something flying in the air, all in the area of Lotti’s reported encounter. But for Conti, the most impressive corroboration came from an investigation in March 1955 by the Giornale del Mattino: Ampelino Torzini, a student in a junior elementary class in Ambra, had written in a class scrapbook that while tending to their pigs, he (then age 6) and his brother (age 9) had, in Conti’s words, “seen a lady ‘chatting with the men’ and that he had seen the ‘spindle’ but had mistaken it for an animal.”    

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  In 2019, U.S. Navy pilot Lt. Ryan Graves began speaking publicly about regular encounters by flight teams starting in 2013 with UFOs. On July 26, 2023, he testified before congress and said that on one occasion, two jets were forced to make evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision with an object he described as a clear sphere with a black cube inside. By the time of the hearing, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office headed by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick had looked into these types of reports, and in May of 2023, Kirkpatrick informed NASA’s UFO advisory council that AARO had about 800 instances of “metallic orb” UFOs. This is according to a January 24, 2024, Science Times article by Caleb White headlined “Cube in a Sphere UAP Could Be ‘Aliens’ or ‘Next Generation’ Spherical Drones, Pentagon Former UFO Chief Says.” In the article, Kirkpatrick is quoted saying, “There’s a large number of people, pilots, others, who have said, ‘Hey, I saw this giant sphere. It had a cube in it. I don’t understand it. It must be an alien.’ Well, actually, no, there’s a number of papers out. The most recent one was from the University of Singapore, I believe, where the next generation of drones that are being built are spherical.” One of the papers he might have been referring to is one by Ying Hong Pheh, Shane Kyi Hla Win, and Shaohui Foong that was published in Drones 2022, 6 (9), titled, “Spherical Indoor Coandă Effect Drone (SpICED): A Spherical Blimp sUAS for Safe Indoor Use.” It describes and has an illustration of the drone, and it is a good match for what was being reported. While this is a very plausible explanation, a report of a similar object from 1960 obviously predates this technology, and the Air Force investigation under Project Blue Book resulted in a conclusion that some might find less than satisfying. The 1960 case got a paragraph (page 7 of the pdf) in the September 1960 APRO Bulletin and the date is given as September 20: Denver, Colorado. Object described as disc-shaped, or spherical, enclosing a square object with lights alternately flashing red, white and green lights [sic] was reported by FAA agents and many others in southwest Colorado. FAA employee at Eagle, using an inclinometer estimated object was 37 miles above earth. It appeared to hover for 30 minutes, then moved off to southwest. First seen at 9:35 MST. Among observers were two Frontier Air Lines pilots. A news clipping from an un-named paper out of Grand Junction, Colorado, of an Associated Press story is included in the July-December 1960 portion (pages 97 and 98 of the pdf) of the Loren Gross compilation titled The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, UFOs: A History. Gross lists the date and time of the incident as September 28, 1960, between 9:35 p.m. and 10:35 (?) p.m. The description is short (FAA detects “space object” that hovers 30 minutes), and the reader is referred to the clipping dated 9/29/60 on the next page. According to the AP article, headlined “Flashing UFO is a Mystery in Southwest: Spherical Flying Saucer Enclosing a ‘Square’ Reported to AF,” the night before, reports of a UFO “flashing red, white and green lights” came from FAA offices in Grand Junction and Eagle, Colorado; as well as from Farmington, New Mexico. An FAA spokesman said the reports had been forwarded to NORAD at Colorado Springs. At Eagle, an FAA employee used an inclinometer and estimated that the UFO was 37 miles above the earth. First seen at about 9:35 p.m. MST, it seemed to hover for around 30 minutes before moving off towards the southwest. Other witnesses included two pilots, one in a military jet and one flying for Frontier Airlines. The spokesman described the object as appearing to be a sphere enclosing a square object with the lights seeming to come from the square. Because it was reported to the Air Force, there is a Project Blue Book file on the case. The Project 10073 Record Card gives the date as September 28, 1960, and the location as Grand Junction. The summary of the sighting is the same as in the AP article except that the object is said to have been reported as being stationary for 20 minutes and the total length of the sighting is said to have been 40 minutes. The conclusion is listed as “Temp Inversion,” and in the comments there is this typed explanation: The sighting gives all indication of being due to atmospheric refraction. There is this handwritten correction initialed by J. Allen Hynek under it: Stellar scintillation possibly. This caused by turbulence, not inversion. If motion was real, cause is not inversion. A document headed “MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD” has more details. According to this, a phone call was made to the home of a witness (name redacted) in Grand Junction, “and the following information was acquired.”  The first report of the object was from Farmington, New Mexico, where it was observed at a bearing of 35º. It was also reported from Eagle, Colorado where it was seen at a bearing of about 225º. The witness in Grand Junction saw it at a bearing of 100º, made a triangulation and determined that it was over Gunnison, Colorado. The witness said there was a B-52 refueling in Deadwood and that when the aircraft was contacted, “a reply was made to the effect that the object could be seen.” After refueling, the plane changed course and headed for the object, but once the it was in the area, the pilot reported to Denver control that they saw nothing. The last paragraph of the memorandum has the description of the object as it appears on the record card as do the first three paragraphs of the report written by then head of Project Blue Book, Lt. Col. Lawrence J. Tacker, who was notorious as a debunker and made his anti-saucer feelings clear in the 1960 book, Flying Saucers and the U.S. Air Force. The remaining four paragraphs explain that weather data obtained from the Air Weather Service at Asheville, Carolina, showed there was a temperature inversion in the area, that these are known to produce “looming mirages, and that this is what was responsible for the reports. Check out this seasonal blog by Charles Lear! Thanks to UFO Jack for this week’s blog suggestion.

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  In last week’s blog, we looked at a case from Spain that involved three airmen who were stationed at a Spanish Air Force base near Talavera La Real. It was investigated by Juan José Benítez who wrote a report (page 4 of the pdf) and sent it to Flying Saucer Review. The report was translated into English by Gordon Creighton, and it was published in the Vol. 23, No. 5, February 1978 issue. According to Benítez, the three airmen, José María Trejo, Juan Carrizosa Luján, and José Hildago were on guard duty after midnight on November 12, 1976. Trejo and Carrizosa were in their sentry boxes, and Hildago was on patrol with a German Shepherd. At around 1:45 a.m., Trejo and Carrizosa heard what sounded like radio interference, which then turned into a piercing, high-pitched whistle that hurt their ears. The whistle started and stopped repeatedly, and the two men, armed with Z-26 quick-firing rifles, searched the area where it seemed to be coming from. They then saw a light that looked like a flare high up in the sky that lit up a wide area. Hildago came by with the dog and he had also seen the light. They were joined by a corporal and two support guards, and they went to do a search. After hearing branches breaking in a stand of eucalyptus trees and sending the dog in repeatedly, they saw a luminous green figure that was about three meters tall with what looked like a helmet on its head, long arms, thick body, and it didn’t seem to have any legs or feet. The men described it as being like a bobbin or a spindle. Trejo went to fire, was unable to move, and then felt weak and fell to the ground yelling, “Down! They’ll kill us! While he was on the ground, the world around him faded away as his vision slowly failed. Carrizosa and Hildago fired 40-50 shots, and the figure vanished. The next day, 50 men searched the area and found no cartridge casings on the ground or bullet holes in the wall that was behind the figure, even though it was determined “by Air Force experts” that the men’s rifles had been fired. Over the next month, Trejo’s vision failed repeatedly and after multiple hospital stays and tests he was told he had “a nervous maladjustment.” At the end of his report, Benítez tells the reader that Trejo, 21, “has experienced no further abnormal symptoms.” There is a follow-up report (page 11 of the pdf) on this case in the Vol. 30, No. 6, August 1985 FSR. Editor Gordon Creighton says in the introduction, just before the reprint of the original report, that FSR is not normally able to offer follow-up reports on “all these weird happenings, 99% of which are never referred to again by anybody!” After the reprint, “Part Two: New and Dramatic Material on the Case at Talavera La Real” is presented, translated from French. It was written by Geneviève Vanquelef and originally appeared in the November/December 1984 Lumières Dans La Nuit, No. 245/246. According to Vanquelef, a cassette tape without a case was found in the baggage compartment of a French train running from Geneva to Port Bou. The railway employee who found it, gave it to Michel Rouanet, who he knew was enthusiastic about taping music. When it was played, it was found to have a conversation in Spanish, so before erasing it, Rouanet, who was French, played it for his wife, who was Spanish. What she heard was “a lively discussion about UFOs, blinded soldiers, a dog burnt to death, etc.” As it turned out, Rouanet belonged to the Béziers-based Orion UFO Investigation Group, and he took the tape to a meeting where one of the members translated it into French. Research indicated that the conversation was about the Talavera case, an account of which was published in the August/September LDLN No. 187. What was on tape was an interview that was clearly done on the train where the tape was found, as announcements for stations on that line were heard. According to Vanquelef, the person being interviewed was Trejo, and after providing a summary of the case from “Jacques Scornaux’s story as given in LDLN No. 187,” she presents transcripts of portions of the tape. There are major discrepancies between Trejo’s account on the tape and the account as reported by Benítez and Scornaux, but Vanquelef ignores most of them. Vanquelef describes a discussion of “vital energy” with Trejo expressing the idea that this energy is controlled by “something” that is operated by “someone.” The interviewer asks if Trejo had seen “this someone” during a séance, and this is his reply: No. During my military service on guard duty. I saw a machine about 100 metres wide, as big as a football pitch. I had my rifle and I had a dog with me. I saw a million lights underneath it. A door opened, held by an individual. I wanted to shoot. I received a discharge, the sort that leaves you blind! The dog leapt into the air, and was burnt to death before it touched the ground again. After an interruption, Trejo starts the story from the beginning. It’s similar to the original account except that he says he and his fellow airmen left “the guard room” after hearing “intermittent noises, like a radio,” and then saw “an explosion of light brighter than the Sun.” According to Trejo “all the lads turned out,” thinking there was an attack on the base, and the corporal, as opposed to Hildago, came up with a dog and asked if they had seen anything.  Trejo says they tried to contact the base “but there was no telephone, no electricity, no radio contact.” As for the figure, Trejo describes it this way: A glass globe on his head, a sort of astronaut’s space-suit, all made of metal, of a green, phosphorescent colour…  Arms and the rest of the body much bigger… At the end of the final transcription, Trejo claims to have gone through some changes: After this contact I felt an intense development of my brain, I experienced a sensation of superiority, of quickness of mind…  It happens to me that I re-live moments that are past, or that will come in a thousand years’ time… One has the power to travel mentally… I had never had any premonitory dreams about what has happened to me… But at present, I often have extrasensory perceptions about my future… However, I’m not a daydreamer, I prefer the present, action, studying people, society, animals… In the last part of her report, Vanquelef addresses two discrepancies between the accounts. One is Trejo saying that the electricity and phone failed, and the other is Trejo failing to mention his first hospital visit after his blindness. As for his “psychic transformation,” Vanquelef notes that Trejo has “an admiration (very suspect) for the unparalleled power of this ‘extra-human’ intervention.” She asks, “Do contactees become ‘manipulatees’?”      

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  In the Vol. 23, No. 5, February 1978 Flying Saucer Review, there is a report (page 4 of the pdf) out of Spain headlined, “Encounter at Talavera.” It was written by Juan José Benítez and translated by Gordon Creighton. Benítez got the story from the main witnesses who were three airmen stationed at a Spanish Air Force base near Talavera la Real, close to the Spanish-Portuguese border. He describes the case as “simply staggering.” Benítez explains that the incident occurred on November 12, 1976, and that he got the story firsthand from the witnesses, but kept the details to himself because the three men involved had still been in the service “until a short time ago.” According to Benítez, at around 1:45 a.m., José María Trejo and Juan Carrizosa Luján were in their sentry boxes on guard duty near the fuel depot of the Talavera Air Force Base and Jet Aircraft School a few kilometers from the city of Badajoz. Their boxes were 60 meters apart and they both heard what sounded like radio interference, which then turned into a piercing, high-pitched whistle that hurt their ears. After a few minutes, it stopped, and then started up again five minutes later, this time near Trejo’s box. Trejo called for Carrizosa to come over and both men searched the area armed with Z-26 quick-firing rifles. The noise stopped and started again as before and finally went silent. They then saw a light that looked like a flare high up in the sky. It lit up a wide area “over towards Badajoz” and then vanished after 15-20 seconds. After a few minutes, José Hildago, who was on patrol with a German Shepherd, came up to Trejo and Carrizosa and asked them if they’d seen the light and they said they had. They were soon joined by a corporal and two support guards from a nearby hut, and it was agreed that they should do a search of the area. Moving along the wall that surrounds the base, they headed for the fuel stockpile. As they were coming up on a sentry box that was under construction “they experienced a sort of ‘whirlwind,’” that Trejo said in his account, was localized in a particular spot. They then heard branches breaking in a stand of nearby eucalyptus trees and let the dog loose. The dog ran in, and the men stood ready with their rifles for a short time, but heard no barking from the dog. The dog staggered back and acted as if “‘something’ or ‘someone’ had thrashed him and terrified him.” They sent the dog back in “four or five times” and he came back the same way every time. One of the men is quoted (Benítez rarely specifies which man throughout) saying, “His ears seemed to be hurting. . .  he was whimpering. . . Then, when he returned to us for the last time, he started circling round us.” This is described as part of the dog’s training. By circling the men, he was using his body as a barrier in the presence of a threat. Trejo sensed that someone was behind him and “felt cold shivers run through his stomach.” He turned around and saw a luminous green humanoid figure that was about three meters tall and about fifteen meters away. The men said that it seemed to consist entirely of small points of light which were brighter on the periphery. It seemed to have a helmet on its head, long arms, thick body, and while it was on the ground, it didn’t seem to have any legs or feet. The men described it as being like a bobbin or a spindle. Trejo was “paralyzed with astonishment and terror” and took what he estimated was 10-15 seconds to react. He made the decision to shoot at the figure, and at that moment, “he felt as though he was totally bound and shackled.” He felt weak and fell to his knees, and as he did, he yelled, “Down! They’ll kill us!” As he shouted, the other two saw him fall to the ground and saw the figure. Trejo ended up face down on the grass, and the world around him seemed to fade out as his eyesight slowly failed. Carrizosa and Hidalgo fired 40-50 shots at the figure, and in the instant they started, the figure either vanished in a flash according to one of the men, or faded like the image on a television screen after it’s turned off according to another. They heard the whistling noise again, which lasted for fifteen seconds this time, and then there was silence. Trejo told Benítez that he thought it was strange that he started to fall the moment he decided to fire on the figure. When asked to explain why he thought this, Trejo said, “It seemed as though that ‘being’ had guessed my intentions. But how could that be possible? How could that ‘thing’ have known that I was just about to pull my trigger?” Trejo said that Hildago and Carrizosa helped him up and he felt a pain in his chest that lasted about 20 minutes. The sound of the shooting put the whole base on alert and the men were faced with the difficult task of explaining what had happened. The next day, fifty men went over the area and found no cartridge casings on the ground or bullet holes in the wall that had been behind the figure, even though the men’s rifles were found to have been fired “by Air Force experts who were called in to investigate the case.” A few days later, Trejo’s vision failed again when he was in the mess hall, and he was taken to the sick bay. He lost consciousness for fifteen minutes and stayed there for a day. He started to recover, and was then sent to Badajoz Hospital where he stayed for ten days. After all sorts of tests, the doctors found nothing, and at that point, he felt normal. Trejo left the hospital and his vision failed again for 15 minutes five days later. He then went to a hospital in Madrid where he stayed for a month, and after numerous tests, he was told he had “a nervous maladjustment.” He had another “attack” in the Air Force hospital where he thrashed up and down in his bed as his sight, once more, began to fail. He said that he would feel a pain in the nape of his neck and then in his forehead each time before his sight failed. Benítez reports that Trejo, 21, “has experienced no further abnormal symptoms.” Next week: A follow-up report.

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  This past week, I found myself in the position of having two co-workers who are UFO witnesses and decided to take advantage of this and have them tell their stories for this blog. The first story is that of Ilya Vett, 54, who has been with the organization for over three years, and he first told it to me not long after I met him. He grew up in the area of New Paltz, New York, which is near Pine Bush and the Hudson Valley. Both of those areas are notorious for UFO flaps in the 1980s (Ilya and I went to the 2022 Pine Bush UFO Fair where I met up with Martin), which is when Ilya said he had his sighting. Ilya also told me that his wife, prior to their marriage, had a sighting of a UFO with her family while they were driving. According to him, when they got home, it was over their house. As for Ilya’s story, he recorded it for me on his own time not prompted by any questions from me. According to him, he and some friends were riding their bikes on Prospect Street in New Paltz sometime in the fall (school had started) “in the early 80s.” It was dark, and they were heading north towards Henry W. Dubois Drive. The area was undeveloped at the time, and there were “a lot of trees” on both sides of the road. They heard what Ilya indicated through vocalizations was a combination of a whoosh and a hum, though he settled on it not being “distinct.” He and his friends stopped and looked up. They saw some lights through the trees that were on a “ship” with a shape they couldn’t make out that proceeded to move slowly from east to west over their heads. They checked with each other: “Do you see this? I see this. Do you see this? We’re all seeing this, right?” He said, “We were all confirming with each other that we weren’t mad.” According to Ilya, they sat frozen and watched as the craft moved off towards Mohonk Mountain. It went out of their sightline and they rode to the end of the block to where they expected to see it, and it was gone. As Ilya is unavailable at the moment for follow-up questions regarding the size and shape of the craft seen by him and his wife, I’m not able to include these details in this blog. The second story is that of Michael Brooks, 33, who has only been with us for a few weeks. He came up to me and said he was told that I have an interest in UFOs. I said I not only have an interest but that I write about them. He then told me he’d had a sighting and proceeded to show me footage he took with his phone that was posted by a friend of his on Reddit. It was intriguing, and he agreed to be interviewed. I’ve written about how frustrating it is to see UFO footage on social media, posted by an anonymous source with no way to follow up, and this was an opportunity to do just that. As Brooks’s footage was taken at 230 5th Rooftop Bar, in midtown Manhattan, as a responsible investigator, I felt it was important that we do the interview there and arranged to meet him with my field recorder. When we got there and went to buy drinks, we were informed by the bartender that happy hour would be over in five minutes. While it took me a moment to process this, I came to my senses and ordered a second vodka and soda. Brooks stuck to just one rum and coke (I was buying), which is a detail I include to support Brooks’s claim that he wasn’t drunk at the time of his sighting. We sat down amidst some loud and terrible Christmas music and proceeded. According to Brooks, he and his girlfriend moved from California t0 New York in April, and he had been working with our organization since just before Halloween. His sighting was prior to this on October 4th. He was attending his best friend’s bachelor party (his friend and a group flew into New York for the occasion) and had only had “a couple beers.” He was sitting in the northeast section of the bar, and at around 11:30 p.m., while he was talking with his friend, his girlfriend said “It looks like there’s a UFO in the sky,” and in his words, “We all looked at once, and we all saw it, and I immediately pulled out my phone and started filming it.” I later asked him how many people constituted “all” and he told me there were seven, including him. I asked him to describe the UFO, and he said, “It was floating and kind of gyrating” and “was a doughnut of light.” He added that this was how it looked to the “naked eye.” As far as size, he said that the light of a plane he saw “in the distance,” which he estimated was at 30,000 feet, could have fit “in the circle of the doughnut.” According to him, it was either “not too big, or far away.” He shot “for a little over a minute,” and stopped because they “were getting ready to leave.” He said, “Right as I stopped filming, it actually sped up and left towards the northeast.”  According to him, the initial acceleration was caught “on film,” and “it accelerated even more after the film stopped.” I asked Brooks if he had any emotional reaction, and he said he was excited and felt “nothing negative” and that “the beer was hitting at that point.” He explained that he had never seen “anything so definitively, myself, that was a UFO.” He added that he’d seen lights before, but could possibly explain them as satellites or shooting stars. When asked if he’d had any other strange experiences recently, Brooks said he hadn’t, and when asked about his knowledge of the UFO subject, he said he knew very little. Brooks’s footage was posted on Reddit “about a week after” by his friend under the username mindmelder8. Responding to positive comments, he provided these details: Location: NYC – rooftop of 230 5th Rooftop Bar 11:46 PM Saturday Oct 4. Video is facing North-East, my guess based on a map is about 40 degrees from North. And for those saying balloon or plastic bag: -it was emitting light, constant. Reflecting light would fluctuate. the camera does not catch what our eyes saw, it looked like 2-3 orbs chasing each other in the loop, and the whole loop was gyrating.    

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  While June 24, 1947, marks the beginning of the modern-day UFO mystery, claims of earlier encounters and incidents, Maury Island for example, are found throughout the literature. One such case is that of Udo Wartena, a Dutch immigrant working as a miner for the Northwest Mining Syndicate in Broadwater County, Montana. Wartena claimed that in 1940, an alien invited him to go on board a huge flying saucer. The case came to light in the 1990s, and is based on the testimony of Wartena just before he died in 1989. Prior to this, he reportedly kept the story to himself, not even telling his wife. It was included in the 1993 book, Aliens and UFOs by James L. Thompson. Australian researcher Warren P. Aston looked into it after reading the book and presented his findings at the July 1997 Mutual UFO Network International Symposium in Grand Rapids, Michigan. According to Aston in an account from the March/April 1998 UFO Magazine posted on ufoevidence.org, the story as told by Thompson “contained numerous factual errors.” Aston put his version together from accounts by Wartena, two of which that were handwritten and one that was typewritten, and interviews with Wartena’s friends and family. The story starts off in May of 1940 with Wartena, then 37, working in his spare time looking for gold in a glacial deposit at the base of Boulder Mountain, not far from Canyon Ferry Lake, near the town of Townsend, Montana. At the time, he was clearing an old ditch running around the mountain so he could divert water from a nearby stream for his mining operation. As he was working, he heard a humming, drone-like sound and assumed it was from an airplane from Great Falls Army Air Base to the north. As it continued, he thought it might, instead, be from a vehicle driving towards him, and he moved to higher ground. According to Aston, Wartena then saw a 35-feet-high by 100-feet-diameter disk-shaped object that was the color of stainless steel, though not as shiny. As he watched, a circular stairway descended from the bottom, a “man” walked down it, and then came towards him. Wartena wrote (Aston never indicates which of the three written sources he’s quoting from), “As I was somewhat more than interested, I went to meet him. He stopped when we were ten or twelve feet apart. He was a nice-looking man, seemingly about my age. He wore a light gray pair of overalls, a tam of the same material on his head, and on his feet were slippers or moccasins.” The man came up to Wartena, shook his hand, and apologized for the intrusion. He asked if they could take some water, and Wartena said “Sure.” The man signaled to the ship and a hose came down. While the man spoke English, according to Wartena, “he spoke slowly as if he were a linguist and had to pick his way.” The man asked Wartena what he was doing and Wartena explained. The man then invited him to come on board the ship, and he went willingly and without fear. Wartena described the humming noise as “not loud, though it seemed to go through you,” and said it was hardly noticeable once inside the ship. According to Wartena, “We entered into a room about twelve by sixteen feet, with a close-fitting sliding door on the farther end, indirect lighting near the ceiling and nice upholstered benches around the sides. There was an older man already in the room, plainly dressed, but his hair was snow white. I then noticed that the younger man’s hair was also white.” According to Aston, Wartena asked the men how old they were and was told that the younger man was “about six hundred years old and that the older was “over 900 years old” in Earth years. They also told him that they knew over 500 languages. Wartena asked why they wanted water from the stream and not the lake and they told him that it was free from algae and more convenient. Wartena told family members many years later that they extracted hydrogen from the water to use as fuel for their craft. Warten asked about the noise and was shown the mechanism that powered the craft. They told him, “As you noticed, we are floating above the ground, and though the ground slopes, the ship is level. There are in the outside rim, two flywheels, one turning one way and the other in the opposite direction.” According to Wartena, “He explained [that] this gives the ship its own gravitation or rather overcomes the gravitational pull of the Earth and other planets, the sun and stars; and through the pull of the stars and planets…to ride on like you do when you sail on ice.” Wartena asked why they were visiting Earth, and they explained that since they looked like us, they were mingling among us, monitoring us, and giving us instruction and help as needed. When Wartena asked if they knew of Christ and religion, they refused to discuss such things, and contradicting their statement that they gave us help and instruction, they said “we cannot interfere in any way.” The men offered to examine Wartena for impurities and when he agreed, they passed a device over him. Wartena didn’t elaborate on this any further. A light came on, and Wartena took it to be a signal that they were done taking on water and that it was time for him to leave. When he mentioned this, they invited him to come with them, and he declined. He wrote, “I said that I thought it would be interesting, but felt it would inconvenience too many people. Later, I wondered why I said that.” As he left, they told him not to tell anyone as he would not be believed and then took off. He estimated he had spent around two hours with them. When Aston talked about this case at the MUFON Symposium in 1997, the abduction narrative was still dominant, and Aston suggested that researchers should be open to other possibilities and that contactee claims, dismissed by most in the community since the 1950s, should be re-examined. Aston’s presentation was written about by Townsend Star reporter Linda Kent in an article headlined “Alien Encounter.” We found it reprinted in the January 7, 1998, edition of The Independent Record out of Helena, Montana. Kent credits Aston’s presentation as “the first public exposure of the 50-year-old incident.” According to research by the Star, Wartena did live in Broadwater County, Montana; did work for the Northwest Mining Syndicate; and did die in Clackamas County, Oregon, in 1989. Two “anachronisms” are mentioned: the encounter was said to have occurred near Canyon Ferry Lake, which didn’t exist until 1954; and construction of the Great Falls Army Air Base, now known as Malmstrom AFB, didn’t begin until 1942. After the article, there is a section headlined “Alien Encounter Questions,” which describes the Star reaching out to Aston via express mail with some questions to which he responded from Australia by fax. He addressed the Canyon Ferry Lake issue saying it didn’t come from Wartena and was his mistake. The Great Falls Army Air Base issue isn’t addressed.        

In last week’s blog, we looked at the beginning of the modern crop circle phenomenon that first got the attention of the media and UFO researchers in 198o. This was described in the 1986 report compiled by Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles (written by Randles) for the British UFO Research Association titled Mystery of the Circles. According to Randles, the idea that UFOs had something to do with the mystery came from the fact that the first circles appeared in the West Country in the area of Warminster, which had become famous in the 60’s as a UFO hotspot. When we left off, that idea was falling out of favor with researchers, particularly Ian Mrzyglod of the newly formed organization, PROBE, who is quoted from the March 1982, Vol. 2, No. 4, PROBE Report: “…even to suggest that the flattened circles were UFO landing nests is wildly speculative wishful thinking, without any foundation.” After a lull in attention in 1982, things picked up after eight sets of five circles appeared that were made up of one large circle surrounded by four smaller circles at equidistant locations. Prior to this, there had been only single circles or two or three in a row. Playing a large part in the media attention was the fact that the circles appeared in the summer, often called the silly season due to the fact that stories of a less-than-serious nature are used as filler in the midst of what is traditionally a slow news period. And, it did get silly. One example presented by Randles is Daily Express columnist Jean Rook being sent to one of the sites “to come up with a lovely, poetic ode to ‘E.T.,’” the titular alien from the movie. According to Randles, Rook “found physical evidence of his presence in the midst of one of the rings – a poppy.” Randles emphasizes that “serious UFO investigators refused to get involved” and notes that she, herself, refused to appear on BBC and ITV television, even though she had a new book to promote, The Pennine UFO Mystery. According to Randles, members of PROBE took visitors out to see the five circles at Westbury and were shocked to see an identical set right next to them. Somehow, they had been missed by the media. At this point, the group was looking out for hoaxers who might be encouraged by all the attention from the press, and Randles notes that the five-ring patterns looked “remarkably symmetrical and artificial.” Throwing confusion into the mix, it was found that aerial photos taken by Now magazine for a story on the first circle reported in Westbury in 1980 showed there were three smaller circles around it with a hedgerow running through the position where a fourth circle would be. Randles sees this as supporting the possibility that the five-circle patterns could be naturally formed. What was odd about the second set at Westbury was that the circles were swirled counter-clockwise, whereas every circle previous had been swirled clockwise. They were finally reported on in the August 29, 1983, Wiltshire Times, and Francis Sheppard, son of the owner of the Westbury field, Alan Sheppard, said they were possibly hoaxed because he and his family were able to create a circle themselves using rope and a chain. PROBE followed up and discovered that the Sheppards had created the entire second set. The story that came out was that the Daily Mirror, not wanting to be outdone by The Express, had paid the Sheppards to have Francis, his father, and some Mirror reporters create the circles. They filmed the operation with a stop-motion camera, and the whole process from arrival to departure took under an hour, with only 24 minutes spent actually making the circles. The idea was that the circles would be discovered and reported on, hopefully by The Express, and then the Mirror would step in and expose the hoax. As it turned out, interest in the circles had already died down that season, and the only report covering the whole affair was in the Vol. 4, No.2, October 1983 PROBE Report, which was the final issue before the organization folded. Randles describes Mrzyglod, a council member of BUFORA during this period, quitting UFOlogy after becoming frustrated by “people who did not want to know the facts.” The Sheppards are said to have “insisted” that they were only responsible for the one set and not for the other on their land or any of the others elsewhere. According to Randles, while she and BUFORA stuck to playing down the UFO connection when dealing with the media, the media played it up. She cites the article “Healey’s Comet” (named after Shadow Foreign Secretary Dennis Healey who took photos of a five-ring pattern featured in the article) in the August 4, 1984, edition of The Daily Mail that mentions a “giant spaceship” and people being “totally baffled.” She points out repeatedly that not a single UFO was reported in connection with any of the circles. The report is broken up into five sections, and after “A Historical Review of the Mystery Circles,” the remaining four are: “Facts About the Mystery Circles,” “Theories,” “The Weather Theory,” and “Conclusions.” Randles starts off the “Theories” section saying that the most popular theory is that the circles are hoaxes, and other theories, all of which are presented along with their “problems,” include helicopter downwash, “hippies” marking areas for aerial drug drops, and UFOs.  “The Weather Theory” section is a detailed look at the work of meteorologist, Dr. Terrence Meaden, who argued that the circles were caused by whirlwinds. Finally, in “Conclusions,” Randles states that BUFORA doesn’t intend to offer a solution and that UFOs are low on the list of possible causes. As anyone who was following the UFO subject in the late 20th century is probably aware, the report failed to make the mystery go away, and its association with UFOs, mostly in the press, continued. In 1990, Bob Kingsley put out the first issue of The Circular, which is a compilation of articles, news clippings, and reports, and it is noteworthy that the only mentions of UFOs are in the news clippings and one instance where Kingsley includes ufology in a list of other “ologies” that might be of use in exploring the mystery. He provides the phone number of the information line of the Circles Phenomenon Research group run by Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews since 1984, but notes that he’s not sure it will be set up for the next year’s season. At this point, the circles are more plentiful and elaborate, and Kingsley mentions in the introduction that hoaxers are making research more difficult. The very next year, the media caught on to the hoaxing aspect when two landscape painters, David Chorley, 62, and Douglas Bower, 67, came forward claiming that they had been making circles since 1978 and would make 25 to 30 every season. Kingsley teamed up with The Center for Crop Circle Studies, and starting with the Vol. 2, No.1, March 1991 issue, The Circular became that organization’s quarterly journal with Kingsley staying on as editor. They kept publishing until 2005, and in the final issue it is announced that CCCS is shutting down. In his editorial, Kingsley sums up the state of the phenomenon at that time: As someone who has kept a watchful eye on the phenomenon, and those involved with it, since 1988, I have been saddened to see the evident loss of its ‘magic’ over the years. Both the hoaxers, or self-styled ‘land artists’ aided and abetted by the media, and an increasing band-waggonism by so-called croppies, have sapped much of what was once a mystery and replaced it with a dull repetitiveness -of pretty patterns, ‘new-age’ commercialism and of often tiresome adages repeated at summer gatherings. But this is not to say that the mystery, the ‘genuine crop formation’ has ceased, as numbers of most interesting and unusual events are continuing to be recorded both in Britain and across Europe and America.    

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  Jenny Randles Within UFOlogy, there are several areas of specialization, such as abductions, landing traces, humanoids, contactees, military encounters, etc. They often have their own specialized literature put out by individual researchers or organizations, and many have come and gone in terms of popular fascination and press coverage. One aspect that has fallen by the wayside is crop circle research, also known as “cereology.” Its early history, and the reasons for it falling out of favor with the press, and even among UFOlogists, is summed up neatly in the 1986 report, Mystery of the Circles, “compiled by” by Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles (Randles is the writer) for the British UFO Association. Of course, their report didn’t put an immediate end to the phenomenon or the activity of researcher/investigators who were focused on it, but it did presage the eventual waning of interest to where very few in the community continue to consider it seriously as having anything to do with UFOs. According to Randles, mystery circles in the British West Country first started getting media attention in August of 1980, but “persistent local rumors” of them appearing in oat, barley, and wheat fields throughout Wiltshire and Hampshire goes back to at least 40 years before that. As of the release of the report, mysterious circles had shown up in fields between May and August for six successive years. Randles points out that the reason BUFORA became involved was because of the appearance of circles in the area of Warminster, which was notorious for a UFO flap in the 1960’s involving an object known as “The Warminster Thing.” She explains that this “created a definite hype which sees these marks regarded as ground traces left by a landing, or hovering, spacecraft.” Tulley NestWhile this is very likely a valid argument for crop circles in England becoming associated with UFOs, mysterious circles that started appearing in the area of Tulley, Australia, in 1966 were called “Tulley nests,” and notably, “saucer nests,” in the press, so the association of mysterious circles with UFOs goes back far earlier than 1980. However, the Tulley nests consisted of swirled reeds and swamp grass, so they can’t be called crop circles. There is an article covering the Tulley nests headlined “1966 – Tully” posted under the “Related Cases: Australasia” section on the Old Crop Circles website run by Terry Wilson. According to Wilson (we assume he is the writer), they actually occurred closer to the town of Euramo, south of Tully, which is “known informally as Horseshoe Lagoon.” The first incident there involved a witness, George Pedley, who reported that while driving a tractor in the area at around 9 a.m. on January 19, 1966, he heard a hissing sound and then saw a flying saucer rise up out of a swamp and fly away. When he went over to investigate, he found a circle of flattened reeds swirled clockwise in a 3o-foot-diameter circle. He later brought the landowner, Albert Pennisi, to see it, and when Pennisi waded out into the circle, he found that the reeds had all been uprooted and were floating as a mat on the surface of the water. Five more nests appeared, all in swamp grass, including one with a scorched center.  That same year, also in Australia, circles in the grass were said to have been seen where around 200 school children and a teacher reported seeing at least one saucer land in a field on April 6th. This was near Westall High School in Melbourne. According Randles, what “seems” to have been the first West Country crop circle newspaper report appeared in the August 15, 1980, Wiltshire Times. It told the story of two circles being found by John Scull in his oat field just below “the famous Westbury White Horse Hill.” A UFO group from Bristol that had recently formed, NUFORA (soon to be renamed PROBE) investigated. Ian Mrzyglod and Mike Seager interviewed Scull, and with the help of Dr. Terence Meaden (a meteorologist), took measurements (the circles were 64.5 and 58.5 feet in diameter and had an 80% and a 93% eccentricity respectively) and samples, and learned there had originally been three circles, but the first one was destroyed when Scull harvested that section of his field before the other two appeared. Mryzglod published an account (page 8 of the pdf) in the Vol. 1, No. 2, August 1980 Probe Report and told his readers that “UFOs are not ruled out, (but) neither (are they) readily accepted as an easy answer.” He noted that natural explanations were possible. Crop CirclesAccording Randles, the story fizzled out “like all nine-day wonders” until three circles all in a line were discovered a year later “at Cheesefoot Head, near Winchester in Hampshire.” Quickly on the scene was Ken Rogers of BUFOS who had promoted the idea that the 1980 circles were created by a UFO and held up the latest circles as evidence to support this. As local farmers became concerned about their fields getting vandalized, the August 26, 1981, Southern Evening Echo reported that one landowner, Giles Rousell, claimed that the circles were caused by the downwash of a twin-rotor helicopter. An MoD spokesman said that an American Chinook helicopter may have been involved. Meaden advised PROBE (it is emphasized that he was not a member) that the new circles were similar to the ones from the year before in that they were eccentric and swirled clockwise. His theory was that they were caused by a weather-based phenomenon. Randle lauds PROBE for its stance that UFOs were an unlikely cause. They quote Mrzyglod from the March 1982, Vol. 2, No. 4, PROBE Report: “…even to suggest that the flattened circles were UFO landing nests is wildly speculative wishful thinking, without any foundation.” There was a lull in press reports in 1982, and it was announced in the October 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, PROBE Report, “It is now time that the ‘mystery’ be dropped from (the circles) definition, as they are seasonal as Christmas and regular as clockwork.” However, PROBE’s efforts to demystify the phenomenon were in vain, as, in 1983, eight sets of mostly five-ring formations (a large central circle with four smaller circles “on a compass point grouping” around it) appeared, and the press presented not only UFO theories, but the idea that the mating habits of deer and hedgehogs were a causal factor. That year, the circles received nationwide coverage via the July 11, 1983, Daily Express, and Randles describes that morning as “one of the busiest in my life.” According to Randles, “every newspaper in Fleet Street” called her (as she was BUFORA’s director of investigations) asking if she had heard about “the UFO landing.” She says her “obvious lack of interest in speculating about giant spacecraft was met with varying degrees of incredulity” by those she spoke with. With the circles now receiving national attention, Randles says it was felt at BUFORA that this would result in more people looking for them and more reports coming in, and would also embolden those with intentions of hoaxing them. Next week: Hoaxes and confusion cause researchers to pack it in.

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  In the Volume 26, Number 6, March 1981 Flying Saucer Review, there is an article (page 7 of the pdf) by Russian UFO investigator Nikita A. Schnee headlined, “Contact Reported Near Pyrogovskoye Lake.” It tells the tale of an unnamed Red Army officer who said he was taken aboard a craft by “two men in dull-coloured cellophane like garments,” who told him they wanted to have a talk. In his introduction, Schnee explains that Soviet UFOlogists were of the belief that there were no Russian CE-3 cases. He cites Felix Y. Zigel, an assistant professor at the Moscow Institute of Aviation, who presented his opinion in the second issue of Observations of UFOs in the USSR that, in Schee’s words, “such reports are the fruits of sick minds, or obvious hoaxes with the aim of making money or obtaining publicity.” With that said, Schnee assures the reader that in his report, “all the events described actually (emphasis in the original) took place and are not products of the contactee’s imagination.” He says this “has been proved, quite convincingly” through examination of the witness and “the landing site of the UFO.” As the reader shall see, Russian UFOlogists had a unique style of landing site examination in those days. According to Schnee, a Soviet Army officer of high rank was walking away from Lake Pyrogovsoye “at the end of May or the beginning of June, 1978.” He suddenly felt like he was being taken by the arms and then saw the two men in the cellophane-like clothing. One of them communicated this to him: “We’d like to talk to you. It’ll take just a few seconds. Everything we’ll talk about will be erased, and you’ll forget it.” Schnee then continues the story from the witness’s written statement. According to the witness, he couldn’t remember the faces of the men, explaining, “they are as if in a haze.” He says that neither he nor the two men talked, but he could “feel” their words, and they were able to understand his thoughts. As they communicated, the fear he had initially experienced gave way to feeling “light-hearted” and “free.” His answer to their request was “I’ve nothing against talking with representatives of another civilization.” According to the witness, the next thing he knew he was in a dome-like room with bright white walls. He couldn’t tell where the light was coming from as he didn’t see “lamps of any kind.” He saw the two men sitting at a table, but his memory of them was hazy. The part of the room opposite him was dark, but he could see “some small tables with buttons and a big screen like a TV-set.” He was trying to figure out how to prevent the men from erasing his memory after their conversation and “had to try one of our old customs.” He told the men it was a rule here to celebrate important meetings with a drink and they responded by bringing him a glass of salty liquid that looked like lemonade.  He told them that we like to celebrate with something stronger, and they asked him to explain. He remembered the formula for alcohol and asked for paper and a pencil. They told him he could write on the wall, and to his surprise, he found he was able to do so with his finger “just like writing on misted glass, or on black velvet.” One of them said they’d “make it right away,” and “disappeared into the gloom.” He came back with a glass and gave it to the witness. The witness asked “How’s this, that such a highly-developed civilization does not use something like this?” One of them answered saying, “Maybe if we’d used it, we would never have been so highly developed!” The witness felt it was said jokingly. The witness then asked why they didn’t help us here on Earth in our struggles against the evils of “poverty, fascism, the rich, and so on.” They explained that it would be difficult to know whom to help and they would “either have to exterminate everybody, or let everybody be and let life on Earth go on the way it goes.” According to the witness, “they aren’t going to interfere; they are just watching us.” After what seemed to be three hours of conversation, one of them told him they would now erase his memory. He went to a keyboard and started pressing buttons but seemed to be having problems. There were “pulses jumping about on a small screen,” and when the witness asked what was the matter, the man told him that the pulses were usually strongest from the area of the brain affected by the conversation, but strong pulses were coming from everywhere. He said he didn’t know which pulses to erase and told him to just not tell anyone anything he might remember. The next thing the witness knew, he was back in the spot where he had been before, and it seemed as if only seconds had passed. He told Schnee that his clothes smelled fresher. He went home and told his wife what had happened, and she asked him not to tell anyone lest he be thought insane. He told his co-workers later during a break, and they laughed at him, and also told him he “shouldn’t go around with things like that.” According to Schnee, he believed the witness was telling the truth, and his friends and co-workers believed he was sincere, but that his experience might have been a dream or “a figment of his imagination.” Schnee then describes the Russian-style site investigation. To aid in this, he brought along “sensitives” who were able to feel “biological fields.” If these are detected, a landing is believed to have occurred and the investigation moves forward. Jacques Vallée describes encountering this during his time in Russia in his 1992 book, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union. According to Vallée, the term for the practice is “biolocation,” and during a discussion (p.94) with UFOlogist Alexis Zolotov, Vallée and his co-author, Martine Castello, were told by Zolotov that students of geology “graduate with a diploma in biolocation,” which is basically the same as dowsing. Vallée describes Zolotov demonstrating using a coiled piece of metal wire and declaring, “The desk should not be here. This is a negative section of the room.” Patrick Gross looks at this case on his site, UFOs at Close Sight, and it’s catalogued as URECAT-000313. Besides the FSR article, which is the original source, he lists the 1983 book by Jenny Randles, UFO Reality – A Critical Look at the Physical Evidence (pp. 22-23), and the compilation of reports (page 82 of the pdf) by John Schuessler, UFO-Related Human Physiological Effects. He also lists two websites, and in the account he provides from the Alien Conspiracy website, the officer has developed the name, “Anatoly.” Gross doesn’t think much of the case. To begin with, he says he couldn’t find a Lake Pyrogovskoye, though he did find embankments with that name. He also notes that Schnee was “a partner of Vladimir Azhazha,” a Russian UFOlogist known for sensationalism and “his pure inventions of UFO sightings.”