As
you all know, I have been suggesting for years that the answers we seek about
UFOs might be buried in the various official archives, in the unit histories of
various military organizations and the files of private groups such as CUFOS
and MUFON. Many good cases, with a great deal of information are hidden in
these resources, though in most cases there is no deception involved. The cases
have just been overlooked for way too long.
For
example, as I was working on a book and scanning through the Project Blue Book
files, something caught my attention. There were four sightings made in
September 1960 that were labeled as Moon Dust. That was a classified program
that was revealed in the mid-1980s when the State Department inadvertently
released dozens of documents to private researchers, many of them stamped Moon
Dust.
Those
1960 sightings were little more than streaks of light and were, most probably,
meteors. The find was not that the sightings were important but the reference
to Moon Dust in the Blue Book files was. Moon Dust was program to recover
returning space debris of foreign manufacture or unknown origin. Foreign origin
covered a lot of ground including, obviously, UFOs. I should point out that
once the code name was compromised, it was changed, according to information
received by Robert Todd in answer to a FOIA request. Not that Moon Dust had
ended. Only the name had been changed. Todd requested the new name but was told
that it was properly classified and could not be released to the general public.
There is no indication today that the program has been discontinued.
But,
to get back to the gems hidden in various files. In July 1967, Harold
Washington, a 41-year-old golf pro, was traveling to Meridian, Mississippi,
when his car’s engine suddenly stopped and the radio faded. In the hand written
statement found in the Project Blue Book files, he said:
On the evening of 10 July 1967 at approximately 1750
hrs while proceeding South on the old Popular Springs Road just south of Mr.
[redacted] home, my car suddenly coasted to a stop, and the radio went
silent. I departed my car and had taken
several steps to the rear in preparation of exploring the trouble when an
object of excessive size passed forward of my position and perhaps 200 – 300
feet overhead. The object itself seemed to be moving silently… The object was
moving in an easterly direction, having I assumed, crossed over Popular Springs
Road when I first noticed it. My first impression of the thing was that it was
crashing as it appeared to be coming to earth headed for a growth of trees some
several hundred yards to the left front of my location, however it tilted
upward appeared to be moving to the immediate right and then accelerated
rapidly at an angle almost straight up and disappeared into low… clouds. I
estimate that I had the object in my vision for maybe 3 – 5 seconds. From the
side view I had as it first passed overhead it resembled the cymbal attached to
a drum set, and was a dirty metallic Grey in color on the underside, when it
tilted upward at the tree line more of the top was visible to me and it was the
deep metallic color of the bluing on a good weapon. I noticed no port holes,
hatches, etc. no exhaust or heard no sounds of motivation. The flight resembled
nothing I have ever witnessed before unless it likened to the sharp darting
manner of a humming bird. The overall size in length and width is hard to
estimate however its broadest perspective reminds me of one of my #9 green and
its side view as it was descending could be compared with the length of a
modest house.
After the object had disappeared my radio started
again to play and I was able to start the car, however this could be
coincidental as the car has been very wet for several days, it was lightly
sprinkling at the time and the car has gone through heavy rains 15 or 20
minutes prior to this sighting.
Washington's UFO drawing. |
Another important fact is that Washington told the investigating officers that he had a cataract or a growth of some kind that affected the vision in his right eye. Washington said that his vision in his left eye was 20/20.
In
that same report, the investigation officer wrote, “Washington then noted that
a heard (sic) of black angus cattle that were in a pasture on the right side of
the parked automobile were spooked and were running away from the edge of the
road toward the center of the field.”
Washington
also said he was stopped at a point about 200 – 300 yards south of a residence
and he could also see another large brick house and other buildings across the
pasture to the west. There weren’t any other cars on the road and Washington
could not see anyone else.
A
woman, whose name was redacted in the report but is apparently Downer, and was
the owner of the residence, said that she could see a small, white car parked
on the road at the time of the sighting. Although she could see the car,
through the trees, she also said that she didn’t see anything else and heard
nothing unusual. However, she said that since her yard is surrounded by large
trees with heavy foliage that she would not have seen anything in the air
unless it was loud enough to catch her attention.
The
search for additional witnesses failed to find anyone who had seen the object,
though one person, described as a yard boy, said that he had seen a flight of
three, low flying jets at about the time of the sighting.
As
a side note, I have found that if you read the file carefully, and there is
enough material in it, that the officers assigned to remove the names of the
witnesses often miss a name or two. I had a list of all the unidentified cases
in the Blue Book files, and I did find the name, Harold Washington on it. I was
concerned by that, but I found one place in the Blue Book file where the
officer had missed a “Washington,” and later saw the note that said “[Name
redacted, but is Washington] was recontacted … by Reporting Agent, who dialed
[Washington’s] home and confirmed that he was at his residence. Mrs. Jan [name
redacted], wife of Harold, stated that her husband was completely sober and
very frightened by the incident.”
Dr. J.
Allen Hynek, who analyzed the case, provided some insight to the Air Force
attitude, even at a late date. On June 4, 1968, he wrote:
Also, characteristic of this type of sighting is the
statement that the object “tilted upward, accelerated, and disappeared into the
clouds” – all in a matter of a few seconds. In our present scientific
framework, of course, this is utterly impossible. Our technology knows of no
way of accomplishing this soundlessly, or ever accomplishing it. Therefore, we
either hide behind the word “unidentified” or in some cases behind “possible
aircraft”, or “psychological”. I would
prefer in most single witness cases simply as a way of pleading ignorance. We
have to face the fact that we do not know what causes this class of phenomenon
reported so widely from this and other countries the past many years. When
instances of this sort have several witnesses, the tempting thing to do is to
call it mass hallucination, but this we recognize as simply another label for
our own ignorance…
In summary, case should be carried as “unidentified
(single witness)” since we have no evidence the person was mentally unbalanced.
This
case also suggested something else that is important and demonstrates something
more about the attitudes of those who were charged with investigating UFOs. The
Condon Committee, that is the University of Colorado investigation, had
rejected the idea of vehicle interference, claiming they knew of no way that an
electromagnetic field could stall a car and then have the car spontaneously
restart on its own when the electromagnetic field was removed. That is
something of a misnomer. I looked at hundreds of interference cases and found
that in the majority, the witness restarted the car. There are very few cases
in which the car was reported to have restarted by itself. That renders the
Condon Committee rejection of such cases as invalid. The drivers had to take
some action.
This
case was reported to the Air Force, labeled as unidentified (single witness),
yet it didn’t make it to the Condon Committee for their research. It was
reported to the Air Force literally within hours, so that an investigation,
following the criterion set up by the Condon Committee could have been
conducted. Of course, an examination of this case would have required that they
reevaluate one of their conclusions. It might not have altered them in the end,
but was an opportunity to do some real science.
The
point here is that this is just one of those cases hidden away in various files
or archives that can provide us with some clues about the nature of UFOs. That
means there is good reason to review some of the research that has gone on
before us.
2 comments:
Post a Comment