The Library Fairy: Coyne Edition

There is something that writers know about called the “Library Fairy.” We believe in it but know that it is not a real entity. It is just a serendipitous discovery of information that makes a story more real, provides insight into an event or answers a question that needed explanation. For me it happens frequently.

Sure, here is an example that does not relate to UFOs or the Coyne helicopter sighting. I was working on an action/adventure novel that had several scenes set at Khe Sanh but I didn’t know what it looked like. I could guess based on my experiences in Vietnam and figured that one such base would look pretty much like another. However, while I was looking at video tapes in a record store, I saw one about the Battle of Khe Sanh. It had all the visuals I would need so that I could describe the base accurately. The thing is, I rarely entered that now long-gone store and the tape was not prominently displayed but I did find it. The Library Fairy did her job.

How does this relate to UFOs in general and the Coyne helicopter case in particular? About ten days ago I was on 21^st Century Radio’s Hieronimus & Co. show. You can listen to the show here:

http://21stcenturyradio.com/audioarchives/2018/index.html#KevinRandle

They always send a nice gift box of books and magazines as a way of thanking the guests. One of the books was Paul Hill’s Unconventional

Another UFO with rad and green lights.

Flying Objects. As I was thumbing through it, just taking a general look at it, I found an illustration that I thought interesting. On page 134, there was an illustration of a UFO seen by Anton Kukla and Audrey Lawrence in western Australia in November 1965. The details of the sighting weren’t all that important and not many were given anyway. It was the illustration that was important because of the red and green lights that were seen and their placement on the object.

You all can decide if this sighting and illustration are important to the discussion. I just thought I would mention it because of everything that has been said in the last couple weeks, especially about the color of lights on UFOs.

Why I Chase Footnotes - The Coyne Edition

One of the things that I enjoy is chasing footnotes. Gives us all a chance to look at the information circulating in the UFO community, and how some of the myths and legends of the field grow. We see how the information is slightly changed as one writer or researcher uses it to prove a point. One of the latest examples of this, published here, concerned the Coyne helicopter case and whether or not a refueling aircraft was the culprit in the sighting.

As I have mentioned in the past, Richard Dolan, in UFOs and the National Security State, wrote, about other aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting, “When he

Richard Dolan. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

[Coyne] tried to confirm the existence of a craft out of Mansfield, his UFH and VHF frequencies were dead (Mansfield later confirmed there were no aircraft in the area).

Jennie Randles in The UFO Conspiracy wrote, “Mansfield later confirmed that they did not have any aircraft in the area.”

And I spoke with Bob Yanascek who said that there was nothing else in the area. But it seems he received that information from Coyne that night, in the helicopter or shortly after they landed rather than hearing it himself.

The various sources I checked, including Dolan and Randles, referred me to Jennie Zeidman and her work on the case including a monograph published by the Center for UFO Studies and an article in Flying Saucer Review. I also looked at her presentation at the MUFON Symposium in 1989, but that focused more on the additional, ground-based witnesses, than what Coyne and his crew saw.

I now believe that the quote comes from Zeidman’s A Helicopter-UFO Encounter Over Ohio, published in March 1979. On page 71, she wrote, “In addition, when Captain Coyne checked with the FAA, he could find no record of any other aircraft in the area, and the last known F-100 of the Mansfield Air National Guard landed at 10:47 p.m.”

Here’s what bothers me about this. Both Dolan and Randles give the statement a little more authority than I see in the original. Finding no record of other aircraft in the area is not quite the same thing as confirming that there were no other aircraft in the area. What gives me pause here is that, according to the records, they couldn’t even confirm that Coyne’s aircraft was in the area at the time. Though he said he had made contact with Mansfield, when he checked, the recording from the tower that night didn’t have his transmission on it. In other words, it seems the record is incomplete at best.

Based on the information we have, we know that whatever Coyne and his crew encountered, it was not an F-100 fighter. That all of them were on the ground prior to the UFO encounter seems to be properly documented.

Is this splitting a fine hair? Oh, absolutely. But it is an important one because, while it seems that Mansfield did say there had no other aircraft in the area, there are no records to back up that bold claim. Zeidman’s statement about the lack of records is not the same as confirming there was nothing else around.

Does this open the door for the refueling aircraft? Maybe a little, but there is other information that affects it. Those arguments have been made elsewhere so we don’t need to repeat them here. Just note that the statements about a lack of traffic are in the Mansfield area at the time are not as positive as they had been. This is chasing footnotes to the bitter end.

Chasing Footnotes - Coyne Encounter, Update

To recap briefly, I noted that Richard Dolan and Jennie Randles suggested that Mansfield had said that there was no other traffic in the area the night of Coyne incident. That would suggest no air refueling aircraft had made the close approach.

The endnotes by both suggested that the information had come from Jennie Zeidman, but I haven’t been able to find that specific reference. To be fair, I have not consulted her book published by CUFOS about it, but then, in her later writings and lectures about the case, she didn’t seem to mention it. I have seen the information as supplied in the Flying Saucer Review article and looked at her 1989 MUFON Symposium paper. All that took me to a dead end.

However, on May 9, 2018, I spoke with Robert Yanascek, the crew chief on the helicopter, about the sighting and asked two relevant questions. First, I wanted to know what he had seen that night. He had reported it as an “unidentified object with light.” He told me that it was shaped something like a submarine silhouetted against the bright starry background with a bright red light at the front and a bright light at the rear. In other words, a cylindrically shaped object that didn’t look like any conventional aircraft. He also mentioned that the red and green lights didn’t look like the navigation lights seen on aircraft. His experience was extensive which included tours as a helicopter crew chief in Vietnam.

Second, I asked about attempts to learn what had been flying in the area that night. He told me that they checked with Mansfield and the FAA. They were told that there was nothing else flying in their area.

What this means here, is that I have been able to find a source who was involved that night and who said that they had been unable to verify any other aircraft in the area. I would still like to find any reference in which Jennie Zeidman said that Mansfield had said there was no other traffic around them. However, since I have a source who was there, at the time, and the statement is confirmed as having come from the participants, this seems to prove that nothing else was in the air. That includes the Air Force refueling aircraft and, at lease, one additional helicopter. There could have been more for a training mission like this, but there had to be one. Documentation confirming all this would be helpful, but frankly, not overly necessary, given what we now know.

Helicopters in formation in Vietnam. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

I worried about a question about why the craft didn’t show up on radar. My go to answer these days is “Stealth,” which could apply to an alien craft but certainly not to an Air Force Tanker in 1973. However, it seems that Parabunk has supplied that answer. He wrote, “I just found out that Mansfield didn't have a radar before 1982 (sources at the end of my blog post), so the closest one was probably at Cleveland Hopkins Airport, some 50 miles away.”

What is also important here is that these flights were made under IFR, that is Instrument Flight Rules,” and because some of the flight would have been above 14,000 feet, a flight plan would have been required. Had a refueling aircraft been in the area, Mansfield would have had a record of it. When Coyne and his flight crew checked on other aircraft in the area, small, private planes flying VFR (visual flight rules) wouldn’t necessarily have a flight plan and there might not be a record of their flight. Military aircraft would have a flight plan. This seems to rule out any sort of Air Force refueling plane. I can say that with the confidence of someone who is still looking for records and data which might change that conclusion.

Brad Steiger Has Died

My friend, Brad Steiger, has passed away, after what I believe was a long illness. You can read the obituary here:

http://funeralinnovations.com/obituary/257658/Brad-Steiger/

I first learned of Brad while I was still in high school. As I have mentioned in the past, I read Strangers in the Skies, while sitting in study hall, and while that didn’t spark my interest in UFOs, it certainly set me on a track to study them.

Brad Steiger

While in college, one of my friends from Clinton, Iowa, told me about a fellow there, Warren Smith, who wrote about UFOs and the paranormal. He often paired with Brad writing books, sometimes under the pen name of Eric Norman. Brad, it seems had invented the name, but it was often Smith who used it.

In the 1970s, I was working on a book about the paranormal (which, by the way, was never published) and I was discussing the tales of people who seemed to have vanished in very mysterious ways. One of those cases was from 1909, and Brad had written about it. Given that I had met Smith, I knew the secret for finding Brad. He had been born as Eugene Olson and had adopted the name Brad Steiger because he admired the actor, Rod Steiger. Anyway, I knew that Brad taught at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and was listed in the telephone book as Eugene Olsen. Back in those days, without the Internet, I used Directory Assistance to get the telephone number and called Brad.

He was most cordial and told me that he had learned, since his book that contained the story was published, that the case was a hoax. We had a long chat, and that began the friendship that lasted for decades.

When I hosted my radio show in the 1990s (and yes, it was on the radio because podcasts didn’t exist) on KTSM-AM in El Paso, Texas, Brad was one of my first guests and often helped me to book others that he knew. If I was in some kind of a jam for the program, I could count on him to either fill the void, or find someone to step in.

Brad and Sherry Steiger

We often shared information about UFOs, sometimes about ghosts or other aspects of the paranormal. He helped me on several occasions, providing some insight to a specific case or avenue for research. Sometimes, he would provide inside information. On one occasion, as we talked about Al Bielek, who had stayed with Brad and Sherry several times over the years, they learned that Bielek’s tale might not be grounded in reality. Both were disappointed to discover that a friend had been less than candid in his tales of time travel and the Allende Letters case.

Which reminds me that back in the early 1970s, while I was still on active duty in the Army, I read Brad’s book (written with Joan Whritenhour) about the Allende case. It seems that one of Brad’s friends had written to the Navy, which provided information about the case. My thought was that if he could do it, so could I. Brad, you might say, was the inspiration for that bit of investigation… but I digress.

At one of the MUFON Symposiums held in Denver, I don’t remember if it was 2010 or 2011, a fellow came up and said that I had written more UFO books than anyone else. I immediately said that I didn’t think so. I thought it was Brad. Later, Brad and I had a chuckle about this and I don’t believe we ever resolved who had written more… not that we cared. We did notice that Nick Redfern was making a real run at this “record.”

When I began my last radio show/podcast on the X-Zone Broadcast Network, I thought that one of the first guests should be Brad. We exchanged emails and while Brad was delighted with the offer, he had just returned to Iowa and there were many problems getting settled, getting the house ready, and confidentially, his health wasn’t the best. He had an open invitation and we had even scheduled what I thought of as our Halloween “Spooktacular” show, to talk of UFOs and ghosts and other things that wen bump in the night. Brad had to cancel for health reasons. I was, of course, disappointed, but then so was Brad.

We finally worked out the details, and Brad did make an appearance on the show. It was, of course, one of the easiest interviews because Brad was the perfect guest. He knew how to answer a question, knew where to go to make the topic interesting, and in this case, said some very nice things about me. You can listen to that interview here:

https://youtu.be/lYHkNcFMM0E

Not all that long ago, I learned that Brad’s health was declining. He asked that I not share the information, which I didn’t. I was sad to hear about his health problems and worried about them. And, of course, sadden to learn that they had caught up with him.

A young Brad Steiger.

Brad was born on February 19, 1936, apparently in a blizzard in Iowa. His career took him around the country, he appeared on dozens of radio and television shows, and hosted and produced some himself. He had a near death experience when he was 11 which changed his life. He was interested in UFOs, angels, the paranormal, and, of course, near death experiences. He once told me that he accepted what people told him until he learned that they couldn’t be trusted. He didn’t look for the bad and didn’t belittle those with whom he disagreed. He had a belief in people and in their goodness, realizing that some simply were no good.

I admired his philosophy in life but the cynic in me didn’t let me accept everyone so readily. He assisted me when he could, provided help when I asked, and I never heard him say anything nasty about anyone, though he had cause to do so on more than one occasion. I suppose you would say that he had a good heart, enjoyed what he was doing, and had more than a little fun doing it.

Had I known that the last time I would speak to him would be during that interview, I probably would have done things a little differently. But you just never know. I’ll miss him, as I’m sure many others will as well. Take a moment to think of him during the next few days, and don’t forget to include Sherry, his wife since 1987, in your thoughts.

Brad was 82.

Chasing Footnotes - The Coyne Edition

In an abbreviated version of chasing footnotes, I found some information that is relevant to the discussion about the Coyne helicopter case. I took a look at Richard Dolan’s UFOs and the National Seurity State. He wrote, on page 384 “When he [Coyne] tried

UH-1H helicopters in flight. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle.

to confirm the existence of a craft out of Mansfield, his UHF and VHF frequencies went dead (Mansfield later confirmed there were no aircraft in the area).”

Dolan’s endnote, which included a couple of sources, mentioned Jennie Randles (no relation, please note the “S” at the end of her name), and her The UFO Conspiracy. On page 103, she wrote, “Mansfield later confirmed that they did not have any aircraft in the area.”

She didn’t use endnotes, but the whole, short chapter was devoted to the Coyne and she noted her information came from Flying Saucer Review, Volume 22, No. 4 (1976). I don’t have a copy of that magazine so that I couldn’t chase this any farther.

Jerry Clark covers the case in his UFO Encyclopedia but mentions nothing about Mansfield saying they had no traffic in the area.

Zeidman, in her MUFON Symposium presentation in 1989, mentioned nothing about there being no other traffic in the area.

What all this means here, simply, is that I’m currently at a dead end, but not at the end of the discussion. If someone has a copy of the Flying Saucer Review article, I’d appreciate knowing what it said. A copy would be better.

So, at the moment, I have Dolan quoting Randles who was quoting Zeidman. I have not found the Zeidman quote at this time, which means only, that I haven’t found the quote. The search goes on.

John Greenewald's Take on AATIP - Updated

(Blogger’s note: My pal, John Greenewald, had attempted to post this to the comment section of the last column, but it is too long to be accepted there. Rather than breaking it into several pieces, I decided to just add it as a new post. It clarifies some of the issues that have been raised about the AATIP and the like. You can find additional information about a wide variety of topics at www.theblackvault.com.)

John Greenewald - Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle

I published the below to my larger article at: http://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/to-the-stars-academy-of-arts-science-tom-delonge-and-the-secret-dod-ufo-research-program/

It references some stuff "above" etc., because this is only a portion of the article. I pasted it here though in hopes it addressed my thoughts on this very topic...

----

There is a lot wrong with this statement, and although it could be partially true, nothing is "official" yet -- and at the root -- only muddies the water, it does not help to clean it up.

Here is why: First and foremost, many are talking about how this is a "new" revelation discovered by Mr. Paul Dean from Australia. He writes (in part):

In March, 2018, I was contacted by someone who claimed to be in a senior defence program leadership role. He stated that the UFO program on everyone’s lips was not officially called the “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program” (AATIP). This was, apparently, a loose, almost ad hoc term for one part of a somewhat larger defence program. The true name of the overall program, or at least the official starting title, was the “Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program” (AAWSAP), or something extremely similar.

Of course, all this is based on what a DoD contact told me. The term “Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program”, or its “AAWSAP” abbreviation, hasn’t been mentioned by anyone else. Not the New York Times, not Luis Elizondo, and not even the DIA’s public relations staffers who must, by now, have been flooded with enquiries. 

As I eluded, Glassel has found two examples of the AAWSAP project title. This had been shared privately with me, by two people, and I thought that there was simply no references available to absolutely confirm them for sure. I searched, but with no luck. Well, the “Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program” indeed did, or does, exist. Glassel, on a hunch, with keen-eyed Curt Collins in tow, discovered that Dr. Eric Davis, who has been closely associated with the AATIP and TTSA story, had published a number of scientific papers for the DIA, and two of those publications were already released and available online. The titles are, “Traversable Wormholes, Stargates and Negative Energy” and “Warp Drive, Dark Energy and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions”. Both are listed as “Defence Intelligence Reference Documents” and both were published in late 2009.

What I gather is that the AATIP desk was a major part of the overall AAWSAP effort. Also, the term AATIP was developed over time, and may have been tacked on to, or into, AAWSAP. AATIP was a looser title for internal usage, and it continued in other channels while the overall AAWSAP appears to have ended. 

It should first be pointed out that all this was given to Mr. Dean by an "anonymous" source, at least "anonymous" to the public.  Anonymous sources may not be a bad thing, but they don't help, especially with this topic. Mr. Dean claims that whoever the source is, they have a clean security record. That could very well be true, but as indicated in Mr. Dean's article, when read in full, he said this contact even got the name wrong wherein words were traversed and/or changed based on multiple documents that surfaced "confirming" this new name. Why would he get them wrong if he was a clean "source"? 

That leads me to my second problem with this new story. The documents referenced above, used to "confirm" this new program, have been available online since at least December 18, 2017. There is nothing "new" about them: 

- Source 1

- Source 2  

- Source 3

- Source 4

I saw these documents back in late December and early January, but dismissed them as they are largely sourced/credited to Corey Goode, a very controversial figure to begin with. If they are genuine (and they may be) these documents do not appear that they were released under any official channels.  They may be real, I am not saying they are fake, but until they are officially released under FOIA, or acknowledged as genuine by a figure in the government, they should not be considered gospel, especially considering the source. According to another blog, it is said that Dr. Eric Davis confirmed these documents were real -- but this (at the point of writing this) is third hand information.  

It also should be noted, as I wrote the answer to the question above this one which has been on The Black Vault now for months, records like this are already publicly available which were written by Dr. Eric Davis. It would not surprise me if these documents are, in fact, genuine, but even if they are, they don't teach us anything new. We already could deduce the Defense Intelligence Research Documents (DIRDs) as referenced by Dr. Davis on Coast to Coast AM, were probably going to be along the same lines as what I found while answering the question above and those documents ARE IRREFUTABLY genuine.  In the end, just because a document is written about Warp Drives and advanced propulsion, doesn't mean the government took it seriously, built the devices or continued the research within the walls of the black budget intelligence community. 

So, I go back to my point that this is only muddying the waters.  Because as of April 30, 2018, this new material is summarized like this:  We have a name that came from an anonymous source, that coincided with a name on a "leaked" document three months prior, but is being reported in the last days of April 2018 as a "new" discovery and it has long been kept in "secret" by Mr. Dean but is now released to the public as to it being some big reveal.  We can prove this is all not true with the source links above, and the name (whether it is, or is not a genuine program name) was available on the internet for months prior to even when the "anonymous source" came forward.

Lastly, this "new name" is confirmed by these "leaked" documents, as sourced to Corey Goode. He is a highly controversial (and largely dismissed by many) figure alleging a connection between himself and a "Secret Space Program".  We can now comfortably QUESTION these documents based on these facts, not write about them as the nail in the coffin proof as some are stating in their blogs.  

This deserves repeating: this is only muddying the waters of an already muddied ocean.  When we have real documents (not leaked) that prove it, we should publish them.  Until that time, articles/allegations/claims etc. like this have not progressed this story one bit.  

The Coyne Helicopter Encounter - Explained?

For the last several days I have been engaged in a conversation with someone who identifies himself as Parabunk. He analyzed the Coyne helicopter encounter and provided what he believed to be a terrestrial solution for the case. You can read his long report here:

https://parabunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-1973-coynemansfield-helicopter-ufo.html

You can read my original post which inspired his (well, maybe not inspired to write his report, but certainly inspired to mention it on this blog), and read our discussion in the comments section here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-coyne-helicopter-ufo-case.html

By looking at both these articles, I think you’ll get a fairly accurate picture of both his theory and my comments on it. I thought his theory interesting and certainly does cover most of the information about the case, though he seems to lean heavily on interviews conducted with First Lieutenant Arrigo Jezzi and seems to reject those made by Captain Lawrence J. Coyne who was both the senior officer present and the pilot in command of the aircraft.

The point here, however, is something a little different. While I believe that I came into this as an almost neutral observer, ready to examine the facts, I also realize that my thinking might be colored by my personal experiences. On the other hand, I think Parabunk might suffer from the same sort of narrowed vision. To that end, I thought having the readers here take a look at both arguments and append their comments to this post, we might move the discussion forward.

I believe that a good mix of skeptics and believers visit here on a regular basis so that we might see some interesting comments. I think we can keep it cordial (and I will delete anything that doesn’t fit into that ideal), which it should be, and maybe provide some interesting insights into the case and possible avenues for further research.

One of the first places to start would be the “Disposition Form” dated 23 November 1973 because it provides the names of organizations that might have follow up documents that could shed some light on the subject. It also mentions a near midair collision which seem to require an investigation by the FAA, even if it was with a UFO. And, because it was created just a few weeks after the event, we have something that isn’t overly influenced by all the discussion of so many over the last forty some years.

Let’s see if this does provide us with some sort of insight to the event with an eye to providing more information about it.