X-Zone Broadcast Network - Mark O'Connell

Mark O’Connell, author of The Close Encounters Man, a biography of J. Allen Hynek, was this week’s guest. Although we were going to talk about J. Allen Hynek and his investigations during the years of Project Blue Book, we started with my predictions about who would end up on the Iron Throne. Yes, we took a dive into

Mark O'Connell

the pool of Game of Thrones, and since I thought I had figured out the ending, I wanted a record of that. You can listen to the show (which was about much more than GoT here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/17873376

We did talk about the way Hynek had ended up as the Air Force consultant on UFOs, and how that compared to the way it had been presented in the History series. (And I didn’t even mention that the lead actor, Aidan Gillen, had played Littlefinger in GoT.) Mark provided some interesting insight into how and why Hynek ended up doing what he did.

One of the cases that we discussed was the Chiles-Whitted sighting. I was surprised that Mark thought of as a good case. I believe that it is explained by a bolide, given what we have learned in the last fifty years. You can read my analysis here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/01/chiles-and-whitted-revisited.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/12/history-channel-project-blue-book-and.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/01/chileswhitted-and-skepticism.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/04/meteorite-men-and-ufos.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/03/chiles-whitted-turbulence-and-ed-ruppelt.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/03/chasing-footnotes-chiles-whitted-cigar.html

We did go off line later to talk about it some more. Mark had done additional research and still believes it to be a good case. In this, he agrees with Jerry Clark, who will be on next week’s show. Mark thought that the ground sighting, if linked to Chiles-Whitted argued against a bolide. I’m just not convinced that the sightings should be linked, but my arguments are laid out in the above links.

We also talked about some of Hynek’s favorite cases which included the Lonnie Zamora landing in 1964 and the Coyne helicopter case in 1973 (which was not part of the Blue Book investigation). I have covered both of these on the blog and in books I have written. We both agreed that these were good cases. For those who want more on Coyne, you can find it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/06/october-181973-coyne-helicopter-case.html

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

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-i-chase-footnotes-coyne-edition.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/05/chasing-footnotes-coyne-edition.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-coyne-helicopter-encounter-explained.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-library-fairy-coyne-edition.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/05/chasing-footnotes-coyne-encounter-update.html

We closed the show talking about who makes the best witnesses. That evolved into a discussion Michigan swamp gas fiasco and who was the blame for it. The problem was the Air Force need to bury the incident quickly and Hynek caught the flak for the lousy answers. The Air Force officers were afraid that the national attention would create more problems for their investigation in Michigan in particular and UFOs in general. Turned out that the sightings resulted in Congressional interest and eventually lead to the demise of Blue Book.

Next up is Jerome (Jerry) Clark, who had just published the third edition of his massive UFO Encyclopedia. For the serious researcher, this is a must have addition to any library. The Encyclopedia is a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the UFO phenomena. As always, if anyone had questions for Jerry, send them to the comments section here and I’ll try to get them asked during the show.

History's Project Blue Book - Chiles-Whitted

Well, they’ve finally done it. Slipped completely off the rails. The latest episode bears almost no relation to the sighting on which it was based. I mean (SPOILERS) that it opens with Hynek either reviewing what was the Chiles-Whitted sighting in

The Chiles-Whitted Illustrations.

1948, or having been on the aircraft to see it himself. It’s not overly clear which it was, but I would guess Hynek was reviewing the information rather than having been a participant. Paul Hynek said during my radio interview with him that Hynek had been on the plane… or that was one interpretation.

And that’s sort of it for the UFO investigation. Hynek and Quinn (who might be Ruppelt, might not be Ruppelt or might be sort of Ruppelt) head to Alabama where Chiles and Whitted saw the cigar-shaped craft with square windows and a flame out the back. They think that it might be a rocket and head down to talk with Werner von Braun, the German rocket whiz.

What we have here, is not really an investigation into the sighting, but an excuse for Quinn to crash through a barrier on the base and later break into what must be a top secret research lab, complete with an Independence Day alien suspended in liquid preservative. The rules for guarding highly classified material are

The Zond IV Reentry.

apparently ignored on this base because there really is no way that Hynek and Quinn should have been able to get in as easily as they did, escape as easily as they did or for Hynek to carry out the photograph of the alien he took…

And did I mention the crop circle that Hynek found?

And, just so we remember the time frame, we have Mimi Hynek and Joel attending some sort of afternoon drill on what to do if there is an atomic bomb attack. Hynek mentions that it won’t do any good if the bomb drops, and they happen to be close to ground zero he is right, but if not, then a fallout shelter, which is designed to protect from fallout and not over blast of a bomb with all the sun-like heat would be beneficial.

For James Carrion (The Roswell Deception), we have the spies, Soviet, I would guess, who are hanging around Mimi Hynek and radioing their findings back to their home base. Here too, we have the penetration of a secure facility that is much too easy by the female spy. Spy lady asks to use the restroom on the base and is allowed to roam the hallways until she finds the office that contains all the UFO stuff, which she then photographs.

I’m not going to continue with this. I have enjoyed the previous episodes, which seemed to be about the sightings, even with large the liberties taken with them. I was going to say that this is science fiction, thought that’s not really fair to science fiction. It’s more of a thriller with a hint of the UFO thrown in as the connecting thread. I can only hope that the next episode slides back on the rails and sticks a little closer to the UFO investigation.

For those interested in the sighting that was the basis for this show, and I use the term basis loosely, here is where you can read more about it:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/01/chiles-and-whitted-revisited.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/12/history-channel-project-blue-book-and.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/01/chileswhitted-and-skepticism.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/04/meteorite-men-and-ufos.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/03/chiles-whitted-turbulence-and-ed-ruppelt.html

Rather than rewrite these postings for here, I thought it simpler to just point to what I have written in the past. Besides, there are lots of illustrations that go with this sighting and I think those are almost as important as the written word.

Finally, I will note that back in 1948, just as History mentioned at the end of the episode, Hynek believed that the solution for the sighting was a bolide. Given what I have learned about the case and in a review of the Air Force file on it, I find no reason to reject that solution. History should get some credit for the notes at the end of the show. I just wonder how many people bother to read those.

Tucker Carlson Knows Nothing about UFOs

Tucker Carlson might be a wiz at political commentary (or he might not be depending on your point of view) but when it comes to UFOs, he knows nothing. He demonstrated that again just last night, November 13. He was discussing the report of a UFO by a couple of airline crews and played the tape of the discussion with air traffic control. He then brought on someone else who knows nothing about UFOs to discuss the case.

First, let me say that Carlson and his pal didn’t make fun of the sighting. In fact, Carlson suggested that we needed to listen to what the pilots said because they were, well, trained observers. While we can argue that point if we’re so inclined, I will say that a pilot who has flown all over the place at night should be more familiar with what is in the sky and what those things look like. This just means that they are probably more familiar with the sky than the average citizen who sits around inside watching television rather than being outside, or looking outside, into the night.

As they, Carlson and his pal, wrapped up the short segment, they both commented on the unidentified astronomer who thought what the pilots had seen was merely space dust, meaning, of course, a meteor. Carlson mentioned that he didn’t know of any pilots who had misidentified meteors, which, of course, was another proof that he knew nothing about the topic… but as a pundit on TV, he can comment on all sorts of matters of which he knows nothing.

So, let’s break this down.

The sighting sounds, suspiciously like a bolide, which is nothing more than a very bright meteor. CNN reported, that one pilot said, “"It came up on our left hand side

Daylight bolide over the Grand
Tetons, 1960s.

(rapidly veered) to the north, we saw a bright light and it just disappeared at a very high speed ... we were just wondering. We didn't think it was a likely collision course ... (just wondering) what it could be.”

Another pilot who saw the object (and even if it was a meteor it would be an object) said, “meteor or some kind of object re-entry appears to be multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory... very bright where we were." 

An aviation expert said that he thought the sighting was of a meteor.

And while that was my first thought as well, we get back to Carlson saying that he didn’t know of other sightings of meteors that had fooled people, or rather pilots. I’m thinking that he hasn’t looked at the Project Blue Book files, or the MUFON files, or read much of anything about UFOs. While I know that some of my colleagues will object, I will point out that I believe the July 1948 sightings by airline pilots, Clarence Chiles and John Whitted, was of a meteor. If nothing else, this suggests that pilots, just like others can be fooled by meteors.

I do think the astronomer was a little bit too dismissive when he called it a sighting of space dust. True, most meteors are very small but do glow brightly as they fall through the atmosphere. Most burn up long before they reach the ground. A meteor the size of a softball will light up the sky and often break up as they fall. Back in the day, as I was delivering newspapers in Cheyenne, Wyoming, I saw a very beautiful, blue-green meteor break into four pieces directly overhead, which is to say, miles and miles above me… but I digress.

Some of these larger meteors, as they break up, look just like a cigar-shaped craft with a lighted cockpit and a row of windows behind it. This, I believe is what Chiles – Whitted saw back in the 1940s. I mention this only to provide a perspective.

Anyway, it seems that what the pilots saw was a meteor, probably a little larger than dust, maybe the size of a grain of sand, or even a baseball, as it burned in the atmosphere. Such displays are rare, so that pilots who routinely see meteors, have not seen anything quite as spectacular as a bolide. When these are seen, newsrooms, sheriff’s offices and the military receive calls about UFOs.

While I will applaud Carlson for his reporting, meaning he didn’t use this to ridicule anyone one, he did display his ignorance. True, he mentioned that many reporters don’t bother with such stories because they don’t want to be ridiculed by their colleagues but he took it a step too far. He suggested that this fear was why reporters never followed up on such stories, implying that no one did. This is untrue. No matter what you say, MUFON, among others, do follow up on these sorts of reports, often identifying the true nature of the event.

For other views of this sighting see:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a25051512/ufo-sighting-ireland/

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ireland-ufo-pilots-intl/index.html

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/update-ufo-seen-off-irish-coast-in-all-probability-were-meteorites-884774.html

and many more can be found online for those who wish to look.

Ian Ridpath sent the following link for those with a more visual nature:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5csvJTNU4QA

Tim Printy offered more on the fireball explanation at:

https://www.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2018/4788

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Lance Moody

Lance Moody

This week I tried something completely different and invited a dyed in the wool skeptic to join me. Lance Moody told about his conversion to skepticism from a younger man who was more open to the idea of alien visitation… as many of us were. Although we did talk about his sometimes rather nasty postings, and attempted postings to my blog, Moody, when engaged in private conversation (or in this case a rather public conversation) is quite rational and not at all snarky. You can listen to the interview here:

http://differentperspective.rnn.libsynpro.com/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-ep-0038-guest-lance-moody-ufo-slepticism 

His main argument with much of the paranormal crowd, and this includes those in the UFO community, is the lack of critical thinking. He has a point because we all sometimes accept testimony that is lacking in logic and that we sometimes refuse to accept answers when they are obviously correct. I think here of the Chiles – Whitted cigar-shaped UFO reported in 1948. To me, and many others, the answer is bolide, and as I have said before, the re-entry of the Zond IV in 1968 is the best example of this. You can read some of these arguments on this blog by simply searching for Chiles – Whitted.

An even better example of the lack of logic, one that we didn’t discuss is the Barney Barnett tale of a crashed saucer on the Plains of San Agustin. When coupled with the Eisenhower Briefing Document of MJ-12 fame you have a logical conundrum. If the Barnett tale is true, then it should have been mentioned in the EBD because this was allegedly a briefing for the incoming President about crashed saucers. That it was excluded suggests that it never happened.

If the Barnett tale is true, and it is not in the EBD, then that suggests the document is false. You simply can’t have it both ways because they are mutually exclusive. Both can’t be true and authentic, but, on the other hand, both could be false. The point is that the logic of the situation seems to be lost on some of those who believe that both are true. If you are interested in this in more detail, much of it has been published here, but you can look for the complete details in Roswell in the 21^st Century.

Next week’s guest: Jan Harzan

Topic: UFOs/MUFON

Ufology in Decline, Part Two

Back more years than I care to think about it, I developed my interest in flying saucers. At that time I had questions and wrote to both APRO and NICAP. NICAP responded with a membership package and nothing else. APRO responded with a membership package but also took the time to answer my questions. Naturally, I joined APRO and developed a relationship with both Jim and Coral Lorenzen.

Over the years I spoke with Coral and Jim on many occasions, visited them in Tucson, which was their headquarters then, and met them in various locations. They asked me to investigate specific cases for them, which I was happy to do. Coral provided information for me to use in magazine articles with the only requirement that I mention them and APRO’s address in the text of the article which was never a problem. I don’t remember a single time that it was ever edited out or that an editor asked that I remove it.

Eventually I noticed that every case I was investigating turned out to have no solution. I knew that something above 90% of all sightings resulted in a conventional solution but I wasn’t finding that myself. I began to dig a little deeper and found that there were avenues that I sometimes failed to explore. I began to find solutions. I investigated a series of three photographs taken near Amana, Iowa that seemed to be unexplained but further analysis revealed that the streak of light seen on the pictures could be a private aircraft. Years later, with all the computer programs available, scans of one of the pictures showed the actual aircraft at the beginning of the streak of light. For more information see:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/04/amana-iowa-sighting-november-22-1975.html

One of three photos taken over Amana, Iowa. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle

Blow up showing the aircraft at the beginning of the light
streak. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

I mention this to provide a context. Maybe we should think of it as becoming more professional in the investigations. Maybe it was just becoming more skeptical in the investigations. Whatever, I was finding far more solutions than I was unexplained cases.

One of the best examples of finding solid solutions is the Chiles-Whitted sighting which we have discussed before at:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/01/chileswhitted-and-skepticism.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/01/chiles-and-whitted-revisited.html

Given what we have learned in the last fifty years about bolides, about human perception and ambiguous stimuli, the answer here seems, at least to me, to have been found, yet there are those who will argue the point. To be fair and honest, there is a remote chance that Chiles and Whitted witnessed something other than a bolide, but the evidence now argues against that.

We have seen the Aztec UFO crash case revitalized once again. The first time was in the mid-1970s, then in 1986 when William Steinman wrote UFO Crash at Aztec and lately with Scott Ramsey, et. al. with their The Aztec Incident. There is still no solid documentation for the event and the few eyewitnesses that have been put forward are shaky at best. In fact, some of the information misrepresents the actual situation.

I could go on in this vein, suggesting the same trouble with the Kingman UFO crash, the Las Vegas crash, and several other sightings that seemed inexplicable at the time but now have what I see as logical and rational explanations. That is not to say that there won’t be those who wish to argue using outdated information or witnesses who have demonstrated that they are less than credible.

And this is the problem. When there is a solid explanation to one of the “classic” UFO cases, it seems to me that the solution should be embraced. I’m not talking about debunker solutions such as that offered by Philip Klass for the Coyne helicopter case. You can read my take on it here:

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

You can see a more detailed analysis of this in The UFO Dossier which came out last year. Of course that is my take on the case as well.

The point is that real solutions are being rejected in an attempt to preserve the status quo, which is not the way to do research. If there is an answer for a case, we shouldn’t reject it simply because we prefer the mystery of it. There are still many good cases that continue to defy explanation so that when a solution is offered that covers all the facts and makes sense, we shouldn’t reject it. Test the solution, yes, but reject it out of hand, no. That is why UFOlogy is in a decline. It is no longer about learning what is happening, it is no longer about finding an answer, it is now about making money, getting asked to lecture throughout the United States and in some very exotic location, and standing in the spotlight spouting what the audience might wish to hear.

Research is no longer about finding the truth and answers but in confirming a belief structure. Too many people only want validation for their beliefs and if the evidence aligns against them, they reject the evidence. They argue the trivia endlessly, applying their own opinions as if they are fact, and refuse to understand that others might know something about a case as well.

Until we pull back on the speculation, reject the use of anonymous witnesses when there is no other evidence available and concede that sometimes we can find solutions to classic cases, we’re just not going to advance. We’re going to be stuck in the 1940s, afraid of what is flying around over our heads, and unable to find any rational solutions. We’re just not going to get anywhere.

Lies and More Lies

In an earlier posting I purposely and deliberately said that the Air Force lied about sighting solutions in the Project Blue Book files. I said this because they knew, based on their own files, that the satellite solution for one aspect of the Portage County Chase did not work. They, which is to say Hector Quintanilla, knew the truth. As the man in charge, he owns the ultimate responsibility here and he had, naturally, complete access to the Project Blue Book files.

Let’s look at something that I have found in the Air Force file on the Las Vegas UFO crash of April 1962. A New York civilian had written to the Air Force and asked if fighters had been scrambled to intercept the object, whatever that object might have been. Major C. R. Hart of the Air Force Office of Public Information wrote back and said that no fighters had been scrambled. Other evidence showed that jets had taken off from Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, but nothing came from Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas. Did Hart lie in the letter?

No, I don’t think so. I believe he was answering the question honestly based on the information he had and based where he was located. He was not part of Project Blue Book staff but assigned to Air Force public affairs. He didn’t know of the attempted intercepts so when he wrote that none had been tried, he was telling the truth as he knew it.

The difference here is that Quintanilla knew the truth about the Portage Country chase and knew that part of the solution didn’t work. The memo for the record that mentioned that the Echo satellites were not visible in northeastern Ohio at the time was in his file, in his office and he should have seen it. I don’t believe that he ever thought the UFO files would become part of the public record or that we would ever see that memo, so that any solution provided was just fine with him.

And yes, I can provide other examples where the Air Force mislead the public about their UFO information. They say that only 701 sightings remained unidentified at the close of Blue Book but that isn’t exactly true. Overlooking the fact that some cases were labeled as identified when that identification can be shown to be untrue, there were some 4000 sightings labeled as “insufficient data for a scientific analysis.” That means that more than thirty percent of the sightings were labeled as “insufficient data,” which isn’t an identification at all but keeps that sighting off the unidentified roles.

We can reduce it to single cases as well. In Levelland, Texas in 1957, witnesses at thirteen difference locations reported that their engines had been stalled, their headlights dimmed, and their radios were filled with static as a glowing UFO landed near them or flew over them. The Air Force concluded that ball lightning was responsible.

But ball lightning is very short lived and there are no cases in which a dozen or more displays of ball lightning are seen over a limited geographic area within a couple of hours of each other. Ball lightning is small, eight inches to a foot in diameter. They sometimes roll along the ground and “pop” out of existence. They in no way match the descriptions provided by the witnesses, but in the world in 1957, the Air Force didn’t care about that. They just wanted a solution and ball lightning, to their minds, fit the bill.

To be fair, the Air Force did get some of the solutions right. In the Chiles – Whitted case from 1948 in which the two airline pilots thought they saw a cigar-shaped craft with windows on it, the Air Force suggested a “bolide.” Most rejected this idea, but when the Soviet rocket Zond 4 re-entered the atmosphere in 1968 there were some who described a cigar-shaped craft with windows. It became obvious that this sort of illusion was possible. In today’s world, with hundreds of meteor falls recorded and displayed on YouTube, it is possible to see this illusion. As the meteors break up, it does look as if there is a structured craft with windows on the side. When the witness only manages a split second sighting, this sort of explanation becomes even more likely.

The real point here, however, is that the Air Force, as their investigation continued was not interested in investigating UFO sightings, they were only interested in explaining them. If that explanation sounded “scientific” that was even better. But as we review the files, we see how some of those “scientific” explanations fail, and we see where the Air Force bent the facts to propose some ridiculous explanations. And, as noted, in a few cases their solutions were contradicted by the facts they had gathered themselves.

The Meteorite Men and UFOs

Since the last couple of postings has created an acrimonious debate, let’s move onto something a little tamer for the moment. I have been watching Meteorite Men on Discovery Science and was surprised by the number of meteor falls that have been captured on video tape. And I was surprised at how, as the meteor broke up, it began to look like something else.

Let me take a step back here and provide a little history. On March 3, 1968, there was a series of UFO reports in the Midwest. These were of a cigar-shaped craft with lighted windows (first two illustrations from March 3). Skeptics, including Philip Klass, identified the UFO as the reentry of one of the Zond 4 booster rockets. The spacecraft had been placed in orbit the night before so we were dealing with a spacecraft or rather part of one but not with an extraterrestrial one.

Klass suggested in his book, UFOs Explained, that this was also the solution for the Chiles – Whitted sighting of July 24, 1948. Chiles and Whitted were the pilot and co-pilot of an airliner and they reported they had seen what they thought, at first, was some kind of jet aircraft but then described a cigar-shaped object with lighted windows (second two illustrations supplied by Chiles Whitted). Originally it had been suggested they had seen a meteor but that explanation was rejected, especially when one of them reported that their aircraft had been rocked by the passing of the UFO. It was a short sighting but one that baffled the Air Force investigators originally. Later, or maybe eventually, it was identified as a "Fireball". That is, an extremely bright meteor.

Along with many others, I wasn’t happy with these explanations, offered by Klass and the Air force, but now we have a compilation of meteor falls on video tape. I confess that looking at some of these, it does appear that they resemble some kind of craft with lighted windows, especially as they begin to break up. Given the coincident of the Zond 4 reentry with the drawings and descriptions of the Chiles – Whitted sighting, it seems that these cases can be marked as solved, as Klass and the Air Force has suggested.

Yet, there seem to be other cases that fit into this as well but do not have these simple solutions. Two that spring to mind immediately are the Kecksburg case of December 9, 1965 and the Washington case of November 25, 1979. In fact, Jim Clarkson, who has been investigating the Washington case almost since the day it happened, has a number of descriptions that match, generally, those given in the Zond 4 and the Chiles – Whitted case.

Clarkson also seems to have found a military connection and does report that military and police authorities searched an area near Westport and the Elk River Bridge looking for something. Some witnesses have reported roadblocks by the military, a larger than normal military presence in the area after the events, and some unusual activities. He has spent years assembling his data.

Stan Gordon has done the same with the Kecksburg case. There are no reports of anything like a cigar-shaped craft with windows. There are reports that the military responded, reports of the military establishing some sort of a forward command post and that something was found in the woods near Kecksburg only to be hauled away by military authorities. The connection to a meteor was drawn by several skeptics including Robert Young who though that pictures of the smoke trail published in astronomy magazines shortly after the event solved the case.

There is one other fact that impacts both those cases and it was something that was demonstrated as the bolide, that is, an extremely bright meteor flashed over the Midwest last week. Within hours there were meteorite hunters all over the place looking for fragments. On the news the next day were reports from one man who had found a small piece of the meteorite and an expert from Chicago who was talking about the radar return and the strewn field.

Let me elaborate. In the old days of radar, it was said that radar could not detect the meteor but could see the ionized trail left behind. Today’s weather radar that is all over the place with interlocking patterns still might be only able to see the ionized trail, but it does see them. That gave the meteorite hunters a direction of flight (as if the eyewitnesses didn’t) and a possible location of impact.

The strewn field is an area that contains the pieces of the meteor as it broke up in flight. Think of it as a debris field left as an aircraft crashed. The strewn field could be very long but would be relatively narrow and it could hold thousands of pieces of the meteor.

Knowing all this, I contacted Stan Gordon, the long time investigator and local expert on the Kecksburg crash. I asked him if he had been contacted by any meteorite hunters. His response was that not about this, but he had been contacted about other events around Pennsylvania.

I put the same questions to Jim Clarkson about the Washington crash. He told me, " I never heard of anyone searching the area for meteor fragments."

But I took this one step further. I sent an email to the Meteorite Men. It took them a week to get back to me, but considering the number of emails they received, I was surprised by the speed of their reply. They told me that they knew of no meteor falls on either December 9, 1965 or November 25, 1979 (Photographs of meteor falls seen in the last four illustrations).

Does this rule out the meteor answer for both those cases? I would say, "Not really." However, a meteor, or bolide of sufficient size to cause the stir these two events did would seem to be listed in someone’s database and the Meteorite Men would seem to be the experts on this. Which is to say that they should know, but something might have slipped through.

Where does all this leave us? I believe, based on the evidence, that the March 3, 1968 UFO sighting has been explained by the reentry of the Zond 4 booster.

I believe, based on the illustrations supplied of the Zond 4 and the descriptions given by Chiles and Whitted, that they probably saw a meteor as it approached them and then broke up. Given that this was 1948 and extremely early in the morning, there simply weren’t any other witnesses awake to see the object, though there were some ground reports. The illustrations made by them seem to match those drawn to reflect the Zond 4.

With both Kecksburg and Elk River Bridge in Washington, I’m not sure. With Kecksburg there are no eyewitness drawings to match the Zond 4 and there apparently have been no one hunting the meteorites. Had this been such an event, I would expect it to be overrun by meteorite hunters. And yes, I know the closest road to the impact site is known as Meteor Road.

With the Washington case, the drawings and illustrations provided by Jim Clarkson seem to be reminiscent of the Zond 4, but do not match with the same degree that those of Chiles and Whitted do. And, there have been no meteorite hunters in the area that Clarkson knows about. He also said that the possible impact area is being returned by the state to it’s natural condition which means swamps and rough, tangled brush.

This means that I believe the solutions to Kecksburg and Washington have not been found... or rather the evidence for something other than a meteor remains high. In both cases, it was reported that the object changed course and there have not been the meteorite hunters in the area that you would expect.

But it also means that we might be getting closer to an overall solution as we learn more about meteors, we gather more videos of them falling, and we search these areas for those fragments that we would expect.