Chasing Footnotes - The Kevin Randle Edition (Sort of)

 

Well, this isn’t exactly chasing footnotes but it comes close. Curt Collins sent me an email about a photograph that had accompanied a magazine article that I had written in the 1970s. This was a time when there were half a dozen magazines that were devoted to UFOs and I was writing articles for them to, at first pay my college bills, and later to earn a living. Curt wrote:

I'm hoping you can answer a question, hopefully an easy one. Your article, "The Truth about the 1957 UFO Flap," Official UFO, March 1977, labeled as being by Kirby. 

Your article, "The Truth about the 1957 UFO Flap," in Official UFO, March 1977, labeled as being by Kirby. I suspect this is a photo from somewhere else, but if it is from Kirby, can you verify it and tell me where you found it?

 

Two of his photos were submitted to the Air Force, and as far as I know only one has ever been published. I came across an ad that stated there were 6 photos by Kirby. So, if this is one of the others, I'd love to know about it.

 

I looked at the picture and had no memory of having submitted it. I did recognize some of the other pictures with the article. They had come from the Project Blue Book files. I believe now that the editor of the magazine, or one of the other staff members, had found the picture and included it with my article.

The magazine picture that began the hunt.

I did remember, however, that I had seen the picture before. In my mind, I could see that it was on the cover of a magazine. I don’t know why I had such a clear memory of it and it took me about ten minutes to find the magazine. It was in a file of random UFO magazines, meaning simply that I only had an issue or two of the magazine, rather than the number I have for others such as UFO Report or UFO.

I scanned the cover and emailed Curt a copy of the cover and the title page that provided information about the publisher, which, I suspect, was of little help. Other than learning that the picture was in a magazine for 1968, this did little to make an identification.

Not long after that I received an email from Curt that said he found the original story. It said:

RCAF pilot Childerhose Canada 1956 Photo over the Canadian Rockies near Ft. MacCleod, Alberta by Canadian Air Force pilot R. J. Childerhose.

A Royal Canadian Air Force pilot while flying in a 4 plane formation at an altitude of about 11 km on 27-Aug-1958 [sic], saw and photographed a bright disc, that was remaining stationary between the clouds.

From a letter to Philip Klass: “I had the object in good view for upwards of 45 seconds. It was stationary, with sharply defined edges. Looked like a shiny silver dollar sitting horizontal. The light emitted was much brighter than the existing sunlight and overexposed the film causing the blurred edges in the picture… It neither moved nor changed shape while I had it in sight.”

From a letter to Dr. James McDonald: “the photo of the bright object doesn’t represent quite what appeared to the naked eye. When I first saw the object it appeared as a very bright, clearly defined discoid, like a silver dollar lying on its side. The photo makes it look like a blob of light, the result of light intensity. It appeared much brighter than that (sic) of the sun which, of course, was setting behind the clouds up ahead. What appears in the Kodachrome slide is a disappointment, really.” It was in good view for some minutes because I looked at it trying to figure out what I was seeing and I called the attention of the formation to it before remembering that I had a camera in my leg pocket.”

That wasn’t the end of it for me. Curt supplied the photographer’s name and provided the information from a story about the picture. I used that and learned more about Childerhose. It turns out that the pilot held several aviation records and was a respected airman. Dr. Bruce Maccabee investigated the photograph several years ago and published a paper about what he had learned. You can read the paper here:

http://data0.eklablog.com/scienceetovnis/perso/brucemaccabeechilderhose.pdf

Included in that paper was an affidavit completed by Childerhose about the event. Rather than retype it here, following is that affidavit.

I will note that this is an interesting case now that we have more information about it. It’s the sort of case that AARO would investigate if it happened in today’s environment. And think about it. A multiple witness sighting that has a photograph for additional support. Information could be derived from the photograph that could improve our overall knowledge.

Anyway, I will note that the cover of the magazine doesn’t provide us with the best look at the photo, but it does give us a clue about the case. Given that the picture was taken nearly 70 years ago, there isn’t much we can do with it today. And had it been taken today, there is so much more we could have done with it. Here, however, is the journey I took to get to this point, sparked by Curt Collins and my memory of seeing the magazine cover.

Chasing Footnotes: Kevin Randle Edition

 

Well, this is going to be a weird one…

For those who visit here regularly, you’ll remember, just a few weeks ago, we were talking about the DIRD reports, specifically, that one created by Kit Green. That one, which actually dealt with UFOs, referenced a number of sightings in which the witnesses were injured in some fashion. Dr. Michael Swords had connected some of those sighting reports to an article written by Walter Webb that appeared in Official UFO in 1976.

That launched a search for the article which I eventually published here. The problem was that the entries were not very detailed and while Webb did mention the sources at the end of the article, he didn’t provide any way to connect those sources to a specific report, which meant that we needed to search all the mentioned sources for the specific case we wanted to identify. A rather tedious task.

I was able to do it with a few exceptions and one of those was the case from Mannford, Oklahoma. Webb provided a little information about it. He wrote:

Mannford, Oklahoma. October 16, 1973. As the UFO hovered nearby, witnesses in a pickup truck heard or felt, or both, an intense and penetrating low-pitched hum. The air seemed charged and oppressive.

That was it. I went through my books and sources, looking for anything to provide additional information. Remember, I did have Webb’s list of sources, but since the list included The UFO Investigator published by NICAP and The APRO Bulletin, published by, well, APRO, it meant searching through many issues. The task was complicated because sometimes a case would be reported months or years after the fact. And, of course, there was the final note that some of the sightings were from his personal files, which I couldn’t search.

Anyway, there was only three or four that I couldn’t find anything beyond what Webb had published. The Mannford, Oklahoma, case was one of those. In the catalog that I was preparing of the sources Webb used, I was stymied by these cases.

George Eberhart, was doing the same thing, or rather, had cataloged a number of the cases in the past so that he was able to provide a long listing to those of us interested in it. His listing included additional sources, almost as if he was chasing the footnotes or sources back to their original appearance before the latest interest brought all this to our attention.

He did have a longer entry for the Munnford, Oklahoma, case, which was helpful. He wrote:

Night. William and Donna Hatchett are driving down a country road near Mannford, Oklahoma, when she sees a bright light coming from the south. They first think it is a security light on a pole, but then realize the object is pacing them and descending. When the Hatchetts stop the truck, the light also stops in front of them. As the object hovers, it gives off a blinding light and a penetrating low-pitched hum. They have a feeling that there are occupants who know everything they are thinking. Donna is so afraid that she twice leaves the truck cab and goes into the back. William manages to persuade her to return, and they set off, the object rising up in the opposite direction. 

That was something, and the names of the witnesses struck a chord with me. I mean I recognized the names but I didn’t know where I had heard or read them. That meant that his source was a real shock to me, when I reached that point. It said, “Kevin D. Randle, The UFO Casebook, Warner, 1989, pp. 143–144.

Unfortunately, The UFO Casebook was made up of magazine articles I had written back when I was starting out as a writer, and in keeping with the conventions of the time, sources were generally not included. There was a sort of “Reference” section in the back of the book, and for the entry on the October 1973, sightings, it didn’t provide much in the way of help for finding the original source. It said:

October 1973: The UFO Occupants

Charles Hickson [yes, I had actually interviewed him], Pat Roach, James Harder, Susan Ramstead, Leigh Proctor, Coral Lorenzen, the APRO Bulletin, various newspapers from October 1973, and a number of witnesses who asked their names be withheld.

In other words, I didn’t know now where that information had originated and wasn’t sure how to find it. There were hints, but suggesting the that I had found information in various newspapers and The APRO Bulletin, just didn’t tell me much. However, I had a very good working relation with Coral Lorenzen, and the entry in the book seemed to suggest more than just a newspaper report. I suspected it might have been something that Coral had provided. I do have a file labeled, “October 1973 Occupant Reports.” I was surprised to find that it contained several issues of The APRO Bulletin from 1973.

Yes, the information I sought came from the September-October 1973 issue. The Bulletin usually ran a month or two behind so that information gathered by APRO in October, would have appeared in the September-October issue. Credit is given to APRO Field Investigator L.G. Sikes for the investigation, whom I would guess lived in Oklahoma at the time.

This is about as far as I can take this. Rather than retype the entry for inclusion here, I’ve just scanned the relevant parts which you can read here:

The APRO Bulletin entry for the Mannford UFO sightings

 

Unless someone knows Sikes or how I might contact him, this is the end of the road. I did find an email address but it bounced as not existing now. I did, however, make it to the original published source that I had used and the only way to improve on it would be to talk with Sikes, or even better, the witnesses themselves. But, at least, I have found the source that I used to prepare the entry for The UFO Casebook.

MADAR - Instrumentality and UFOs

 I’ve mentioned the types of evidence for the existence of alien visitation. One of those elements of the proof is the interaction with the environment. I’ve mentioned the electromagnetic effects which have been reported in some, but not very many of the sightings. Levelland, Texas, of course, is the best example. There were vehicle engines stalled and lights dimmed around the Levelland area on November 2, 1957. These were independently reported. For those who want more information, you can find it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/03/one-of-best-cases-levelland-texas.html

There is good evidence that these EM Effects can be observed by instrumentality, meaning, of course, that they are not a misinterpretation by the witness. This means that we have something that can be recorded and can be studied. Something that is real rather than imagined.

In the mid-1970s, Jim Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization designed and published information on how to build a UFO detector in Official UFO. The theory behind it was that the magnetic waves given off by some of the UFOs, because they were so strong, could be detected. This gave rise, in the world today, of the MADAR sightings. That information is at the end of this post.

Currently, there are MADAR Data Probes deployed around the world and the network became operational in May of 2018. The DataProbe is a small plug and play device that connects to the internet and collects data on the local magnetic field in milligaus, the compass heading changes in degrees, and the local barometric pressure, all documented with the Universal Time Code once every 60 seconds. The data is fed and stored in the MADAR server. Once the field reading reaches or surpasses the threshold, the device goes into alert mode and ramps up to once per second. When the alert is over, the data-rate continues for an additional 180 seconds. The operator is alerted with a text message to his cell phone and an email which further documents the event. Which is probably more information than most of us need, but the point is that the instrument collects data when the magnetic field suddenly increases.

Here's an example of how it works. On August 19 of this year, a retired security lieutenant, who used to work night security at a factory adjacent to that airport, meaning he is familiar with various types of aircraft had a UFO sighting. It was about 9:47 PM. when he noticed a pair of odd flashing lights in the night sky, traveling west to east in a straight trajectory at a slow but constant speed. The event lasted a little more than a minute before the lights disappeared behind the trees. The bright white lights were flashing in unison and similar to anti-collision strobe lighting on an aircraft, but there were no red or green navigation lights observed, just the two very bright flashing lights.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Fran Ridge reported that MADAR site operator at node 137 in Cambridge, like other ops, checked the weekly printouts from NUFORC and the MUFON CMS. He noticed that there was an incident that occurred right in his proverbial back yard, only 3-1/2 miles from his site. So, he pulled up the MADAR data spreadsheet for his node and looked to see if there were any perturbations in the data. Our analysis showed compass heading change in the MSV (Multi Sensor Verification) range of 3 degrees from 111.12 to 108.13 in five minutes beginning at 01:47:19 UTC, but without the qualifying field reading change that normally triggers the device, which in this case would need to be in excess of the threshold of 29. This is VERY interesting in view of the compass heading change for three reasons: 1) Three degrees under controlled conditions is considered as significant. 2) One has to remember that the original MADAR was based on compass heading change and was very successful. 3) 3.5 miles was given as the distance between the sighting location and the MADAR site at Canton and occurred within 5 minutes of each other! So, although the alarm didn't sound, MADAR recorded a significant anomaly.

There are more stories to be told. One of the most interesting discoveries might be a lead we have from a source tied to Operation Foal Eagle. This was posted to our team and appeared as a two-parter in the MUFON UFO Journal in November and December.

http://www.nicap.org/match/papers/UAP&theKU-Band.htm

By itself, this won’t prove sightings are if alien spacecraft, but it does suggest that scientific progress is being made as we bring more technology to the investigation of UFOs.

Spy Balloons and Philip Klass

In the last few days I have been fielding some inquiries about the Staff Sergeant Charles L. Moody abduction in August 1965. Moody had mentioned to Jim Lorenzen, then the International Director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), that after his UFO encounter, he had gone to the news stand and bought a copy of Official UFO. I wondered what might have been in that issue and thought I could figure it out based on the date of the sighting, but the most likely candidate is Official UFO Volume 1, No. 2, which I don’t have and probably would have had a publication date of August 1975. It would have been on the news stand in late July, if the normal distribution procedure held true.

I mention all of this to explain how I happened to see Official UFO Volume 1, No. 4, dated November 1975. As I was putting the magazines away, I glanced at the cover which had a big headline in the middle of the cover that said, “Interview: Philip Klass Tells – “Why I Don’t Believe In UFOs.”

Okay, seeing an interview with Klass so early in his anti-UFO career seemed interesting. The interview was conducted by George Earley, who found himself at FORTFEST ’74 in Baltimore, and had an opportunity to sit down with Klass for several hours.

All that was fine, but not particularly helpful, and most of what Klass told Earley was the same thing that he would say time and again in articles, his SUN newsletter and his various books. One thing I did find interesting was his discussion of secret balloon projects.

Earley asked, “There have been numerous claims of CIA involvement in the ‘UFO coverup.’ Didn’t they suggest debunking UFO reports at one time?”

Philip Klass

Klass said, “Yes, and I go into the reason for that in my new book [which is now, what, 38 years old]. Just briefly – about the time flying saucers were discovered (perhaps “invented” is a better word) [and I point out in my new book to be published later, Secrets in the Government Files… hey, everyone else promotes their work, why shouldn’t I? that the sightings began before the Arnold sighting] in the summer of 1947, the CIA and the USAF and the Navy were involved in a top-secret program involving giant, camera-carrying balloons. [That’s right, Klass is blaming balloons for UFO sightings made in 1947 in this 1975 interview]. They would be released from Western Europe; the westerly winds would carry them over the Communist Bloc countries – Soviet Union, Red China, etc. – snapping photographs all the way. Then, if the balloons arrived over Japan, we would send up a radio signal which would bring the camera down by parachute. We would recover the film. We would get a lot of pictures of Russian farms, but, hopefully, we would also get some pictures of Russian military installations, pictures that might indicate the Russians might be preparing to start World War III. This was 1947 – 48, remember.”

Well, our favorite topic here, Project Mogul was certainly underway in 1947, but they were experimenting with using microphones to detect nuclear explosions as opposed to photographing the Russian landscape, but Klass is referring to projects that actually existed including Moby Dick, Skyhook and Genetrix, to name just a few. And while most of them were operating, in a limited and experimental fashion in 1947, they didn’t actually get going until later.

Klass said, “They were experimenting. It began to become operational about 1949 or 1950. Because it was an intelligence gathering operation, the CIA was in overall charge. The Navy supplied the balloons while the USAF supplied the cameras, radio gear and the parachutes. The CIA knew we were flying balloons over Russia to photograph their military facilities, and now here we are getting flying saucer reports. Did this mean the Russians were doing the same thing – releasing reconnaissance spy balloons from Russia and Siberia to fly over the U.S. and photograph our military installations? In those days, back in the 1950s, where we had our missile sites, our air defense installations, our bomber bases was a very hush—hush operation.”

All well and good but the basic premise here is flawed. Klass is suggesting that these high altitude balloons being flown around were the genesis of the flying saucer reports and speculates that the Soviet Union might have been doing the same thing to us. Except the balloon operations here, in the United States, didn’t begin until after the Arnold sighting in June 1947, with the exception of Mogul, but those balloons were in New Mexico or on the east coast and numbered about a dozen. So, whatever Arnold saw, it wasn’t one of these balloons, and the follow up sightings reported around the country were not these balloons.

 Oh, don’t get me wrong, balloons, weather and experimental, were responsible for some UFO sightings. Although I’m worried we’ll get into a big argument about it, I believe that Thomas Mantell was killed chasing a balloon, so it did happen. But the genesis of the UFO sightings, which actually began earlier than Arnold, was not caused by balloon research.

Earley asked about Skyhook, and cosmic ray balloons. Klass said, “Yes, the same type of balloons as used for that. And they flew at such very high altitudes – 100,000 feet or more – that they could not be shot down by ordinary fighter planes of that day. Of course this was a classified program, but what is [emphasis in original] a matter of record – and you can check on this – is that not all of those balloons made it to Japan. They developed leaks or came down for various reasons, and they came down in Russia and the Russians complained about ‘spy balloons’ in the United Nations. There are accounts in the New York Times about this. The U.S. delegate at the U.N. simply said that these were not spy balloons but scientific research balloons. So the CIA’s interest in flying saucers had nothing to do with the idea they were spaceships from another world; the possibility that they were Russian spy balloons similar to ours was what concerned them.”

Well, that might not be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but there is some truth in there. The Japanese, during the Second World War had succeeded in launching some 200 to 300 attacks on the United States using “balloon bombs.” Six people were killed in these attacks, and some forest fires were set, but given they had launched some 9000 of the balloon bombs, the results were small and the damage done was of little consequence. The tragedy was the deaths of the six people… which given the destruction rained down on England, Germany and Japan during the war pales in comparison.

Anyway, the timing seems to suggest that the balloon explanation offered here is a little more enthusiastic than the data warrant. But what is really interesting was that Klass was floating [pun intended] the idea of balloons before it was fashionable. Kind of like the old adage, “Let’s just send up a trial balloon ….”

I'm a Spy... According to Some

Well, it’s happened again. I’m a spy sent, in this case, to "investigate" the Center for UFO Studies and to dig up dirt. Those sending me were Jim and Coral Lorenzen who ran the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Tucson, Arizona.

I have said before and I’ll probably say it again. You know you have arrived when you’re accused of being a spy for somebody. Years ago someone slung the allegation that I had worked with Hector Quintanilla on Project Blue Book. This is, of course, untrue.

Toward the end of Blue Book, I was still in high school. About a month after graduation I entered the Army for training as a helicopter pilot, which included basic training, pre-flight, and the various phases of flight school. That all lasted about thirteen months and upon graduation, I, along with every other member of my flight school class with a single exception, had orders for Vietnam.

Project Blue Book was officially closed in December 1969 while I was sill on active duty with the Army. Clearly I had no opportunity to participate in Blue Book investigations. I suspect that someone learned of my later association with the Air Force and just made an assumption... because no one would just have an interest in UFOs without some motivation such as an investigation assignment with the Air Force.

Back in the mid-1980s Bill Moore said that he had been spying on APRO for the Air Force and that he suspected there was another two or three working on the same assignment. He said this because the Air Force, according to him, was getting more information on APRO that he was supplying. He suggested that I was one of those others spying on APRO.

Again, I suspect he said this simply because, by that time, I had served on active duty with the Air Force and was a member of the Air Force Reserve. Of course his allegation was untrue and I say this so people will know that I deny it without getting lost in "weasel" words.

What is more interesting is Moore’s claim that he was spying on his fellow researchers. No, I don’t really think he was, though he might have believed that. I just don’t think the Air Force cared that much by that time.

And now the latest, slung by an anonymous source, who claimed that in 1984, at a MUFON function in San Antonio, she heard that I had been sent, in the mid-1970s by APRO to dig up dirt on Hynek. This too is untrue.

I did receive some assignments from APRO. One was for me to learn what I could about cattle mutilations in Minnesota. With Robert Cornett, I spent a week in the Minneapolis area talking to all sorts of people about the mutilations. What we learned then was that UFOs had nothing to do with those particular mutilations. There were terrestrial explanations for all the alleged mutilations we encountered, which is not to say, of course, that this investigation solved the entire mystery. It solved this one small part of it, and we sent our conclusions onto APRO headquarters.

The issue with the Hynek Story

I believe that this latest allegation is an outgrowth of an article and editorial published in Official UFO, volume 1, number 8, in May 1976. At the time Official UFO was one of several UFO related magazines including UFO Report, Argosy’s UFO and True’s UFOs and Flying Saucers Quarterly.

For those keeping score at home, one of the editors of one of those magazines warned me that if I wrote for Official UFO I would not be published again in his pages. I ignored his warning simply because I was a freelance writer and was attempting to make a living as a freelance writer. I wasn’t going to have a market closed on the say-so of some junior editor at another magazine, unless that magazine would pay me a retainer of some sort.

So, I was writing many articles for the many magazines and making a good enough living at it, even with the sporadic nature of payment, which seemed to be at the whim of the magazine.

The editor of Official UFO at the time was Bernard O’Connor who was a good guy and a good editor. He once sent a check for payment to Robert Cornett that was a dollar over the agreed on fee... the extra dollar was for a beer.

Artwork that accompanied
the story.

Anyway, O’Connor had a story called, "Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the Pied Piper of UFOLOG'Y," by Dick Ruhl. O’Connor wanted to use the story but it lacked something and it needed editing. O’Connor put Ruhl in touch with me and he asked me some questions about Hynek and the Center for UFO Studies. The one thing that stands out in my mind, at the time, was Hynek had been saying that the Center was on the stairs of his home... meaning they had not yet acquired offices. Later, they would have an office in the Wrigley Building in downtown Chicago. When Hynek showed a slide of the building where the office was, there were those who thought CUFOS occupied the entire building... but I digress.

Dick Ruhl interviewed me about my experiences and one of those related specifically to the cattle mutilations. I was given the name of a federal agent who had investigated the claims of one or two federal prisoners about their involvement in those mutilations. I took that as far as I could, but in the end was blocked by Hynek’s suggestion that there were too many people involved and too much information was flowing in too many directions. He suggested that some of us back off... or to be blunt, cut out of the loop. I continued on in another direction, eventually learning what I wanted to know. I related this to Dick Ruhl who included it in his article. I will note here because some seem to have missed it, those statements were in quotation marks which means I didn’t write that section, I told the story to Ruhl who put in it the article.

There was another event covered as well, but the same thing applies there. I related my experiences to Ruhl who included them in the article. When it was finished and submitted, O’Conner asked me to review it as would any editor. I think of is as looking at the grammar, syntax, sentence structure and flow. I might even have done some fact checking.

In the end, I was surprised to find my name on the story. I hadn’t really had a hand in writing it, other than the editorial work I had done. In the same issue there is a story that I did write about the Green Fireballs and Project Twinkle.

I did notice that O’Connor had something of an editorial in that issue and he talked about a UFO investigator at Hynek’s home. He talked about asking the secretary there to find a specific case file but after a search was unable to locate it. This investigator suggested that the files were on the stairs (which is where I learned this fact) and on the grand piano in Hynek’s home. For those interested, that was not me. I don’t know who it was and O’Connor does not identify him. I can see why some might have assumed that I was that investigator and that he operated as a "spy" to learn more about the operation of the Center as it existed in 1976. But, as I say, that was not me.

There is another aspect to all this that probably should be addressed. I have, for way over twenty years, been associated with CUFOS. I have been listed on the masthead of their publication for twenty years as a contributing writer and was a special investigator for them. In 1988, as they were gearing up their Roswell investigation, they approached me to assist them. They believed that my background as a military officer would be of some assistance in talking with those who were retired military.

I was asked then about the article that Dick Ruhl and I were listed as writing. I told them how it came about... besides, it really didn’t say anything all that nasty about Hynek, just suggested that, at the time, CUFOS was a black hole. Information went in but nothing came out. That changed later with the establishment of their magazine.

The bottom line is this. I didn’t spy on CUFOS for APRO and I didn’t spy on APRO for the USAF (I thought I’d keep that acronym thing going). I have not been a government agent reporting on the activities of the UFO community but I have reported (in magazines and books and not to any official, or unofficial agency, for those who read way to much into things)on what I learned during my investigations, which was sometimes not what others wanted to hear. I have reported on what I believe to be the important issues in the UFO field, and while I have used pen names on articles, I have not introduced myself using a fake name or misrepresented what I was doing. Yes, there have been allegations, but I am able to refute them with evidence. (I think of J. Bond Johnson and his associated nonsense here as he claimed to be the "Roswell Photographer").

I also realize that there are those who will not believe this because they simply have their minds made up about these spying allegations. Evidence means nothing to them and to them I say, "I don’t care." For the rest of you, these are the events as they happened (which sounds like a great line to start a movie).