Immaculate Constellation - My Analysis

 

Last night, on my normal UFO segment on Coast-to-Coast AM, I mentioned something called Immaculate Constellation, which, according to a whistleblower, who is never identified, is a top-secret archive of UFO, well, UAP images. According to the whistleblower, the military and intelligence community are operating a database of videos and images taken from "infrared (IR), forward-looking infrared (FLIR), full motion video (FMV), and still photography of UAPs.

The whistleblower alleged that the Department of Defense created Immaculate Constellation under what's known as an Unacknowledged Special Access Program (USAP) in 2017 after The New York Times reported on an informal Pentagon UAP program known as AATIP.

Reporter Michael Shellenberger of Public said on "Joe Rogan Experience" that in the whistleblower's report, the Pentagon is "illegally" hiding information about this program from Congress.

The whistleblower said that simply printing the name "Immaculate Constellation" could trigger government surveillance of whoever publishes the name using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as probable cause. They won't comment on it, but talking about it will put you in the danger zone. I guess that means I am now in the “Danger Zone,” which sounds like a good name for a podcast or a rock band. BTW: Agents, if you come for me, please don’t crash through the door. I’ll happily open it for you.

DoD spokeswoman Sue Gough, who has been called on many times as UFO and UAP questions are asked, denied on Wednesday, any knowledge of a special access program known as Immaculate Constellation. I’m not sure that this is relevant because if it was a special access program which would also suggest a need to know and she might not have been in the loop. Would a spokeswoman, or spokesman for that matter, be read into every highly classified program? If they are not then they have plausible deniability, meaning that she can say such things as having no knowledge of a program and be telling the truth. Doesn’t mean the program doesn’t exist, only that she doesn’t know about it.

I am reminded that when the Moon Dust was inadvertently revealed in 1986, the Air Force denied that such a program existed. When shown official documents with the name Moon Dust on them, a higher-ranking Air Force officer said Moon Dust did exist but had not been used. Other documents refuted that claim as well. For more precise information on this see:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/03/aaro-and-beginning-of-moon-dust.html

The point is that the first officer, Lieutenant Colonel John E. Madison, of the Congressional Inquiry Division, Office of Liaison, wrote, “There is no agency, nor has there ever been, at Fort Belvoir, Viriginia, which would deal with UFOs or have any information about the incident in Roswell. In addition, there is no Project Moon Dust or Operation Blue Fly. Those missions have never existed.”

Most of what Madison wrote was the truth. There may well not have been any agency at Fort Belvoir that dealt with UFOs or Roswell, which, course, doesn’t mean that such agencies might not exist at other installations. And he is accurate in saying there is no Project Moon Dust because Moon Dust was the code words dealing with UFO material.

So, Madison wasn’t lying, he just didn’t have access to all the information he needed to properly answer the questions put to him. However, when the documents were presented and properly vetted, meaning the source of the documents was legitimate, Colonel George M. Mattingley, Jr., wrote, “…Upon further review of the case (which was aided by the several attachments to Mr. Stone’s letter), we wish to amend the statements contained in the previous response…”

Cliff Stone

The point is that even people at the highest levels aren’t read into all programs and a denial by Gough that she had no knowledge of such a program doesn’t mean there is no such program.

The real problem here is that Shellenberger has not identified his source. Years ago, decades really, we were presented with documents suggesting a cover up of the Roswell UFO crash. These papers, known as MJ-12, appeared at the home of a UFO researcher. Well, photographic film arrived and when developed, revealed the existence of a special group known as MJ-12 to exploit and direct the recovery of the Roswell UFO.

The trouble with these documents was that we didn’t know who had sent them. We didn’t know where they originated. Finally, we didn’t have the originals which could have been tested. What good would it do to test the paper on which they were printed? We all know that it was photographic paper.

Investigation into the information provided by the MJ-12 documents suggested they had been created in 1984 rather than 1952 as alleged on the documents. In 1984, there was a believe that the Del Rio UFO crash, which in the MJ-12 documents, is mentioned as El Indio-Guerrero crash. But there is no evidence and the lone witness changed so much about it over the years, that it is clear that it was invented. You can read one analysis of the case here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/08/absense-of-evidence.html

The point is that originally the MJ-12 documents caused a stir not only in the UFO community but among the news media and those interested in UFOs. Investigation revealed the flaws and the major flaw was we didn’t know the original source. Without that, we were left with an interesting aside into the possibility of a cover up. Eventually, nearly everyone agreed that the documents were a hoax and that was underscored by the lack of the original source.

That’s where we are with Immaculate Constellation. We have no source and we don’t even have copies of documents suggesting there is something to the claims. At least, MJ-12 had documents, which led to the revelation that it was a hoax. For an in depth analysis see Case MJ-12: Updated.

I’ll note here that for years Stan Friedman held up several documents that related to UFOs that were nearly all redacted. There were only one or two words on a page that could be read. This was proof of the cover up. However, we now have the unredacted versions of those documents and realize that the missing information had nothing to do with UFOs but with intelligence collection methods in certain parts of the world. That information would have been of value to our competitors in the world and was rightly redacted. This merely shows that sometimes, we over react to government secrecy.

We can look to whistleblower David Grusch. He talked of high-level, important people who told him about UFO crashes, but he supplied no names. I can deduce some of those names and while they had once held important posts in the government or were respected scientists, that didn’t say anything about Grusch’s sources other than we have the names. Didn’t prove what they had told Grush, or that Grush overheard, was accurate information, only that they might have said it.

I point all this out because we now have more information about an important government program hidden from the public which, supposedly hides information about UFOs or rather UAP. But we have no way of vetting the information. We have no way of finding corroboration. We just must believe the stories told by this unidentified source. And I ask, “Why?”

Here's something else that hasn’t been considered and that is that this collection of UFO images might not have a thing to do with alien visitation, but is, instead, images of terrestrial craft that have been flying around various locations in the US. It might be that the images are held in secrecy because revelation of them might provide information of intelligence value to our competitors. In other word, national security might have raised its ugly head.

I could go on about other great stories circulating or circulated in the UFO field that intrigued and excited people inside and outside the UFO community that blew up when we finally were able to get to the sources.

Right now, I can’t verify that Immaculate Constellation exists, but then I can’t reject the tale either because the evidence to do that doesn’t yet exist. I can only caution against drawing any concrete conclusions now because we simply don’t have enough information to just either way to justify any conclusion.

Foo Fighter (UFO) Film from World War II

 

Here is the information about the Foo Fighter film that was taken in 1944 as a Soviet fighter attempts to (or actually does) shoot down a Nazi bomber. I found the information at the National UFO Reporting Center.

Following is the information as reported there. I found it interesting but I also wonder if the orb is not a tracer round from another aircraft not see on the film. If nothing else, it is an interesting piece of film:

I [the original poster and not me] stumbled across this video on YouTube while watching old WW2 dog-fights and lo and behold, I found a video where there is clearly 2 Foo-Fighters that are clearly visible in this video. There's no way in hell this is fake while this plane was using a 16MM gun camera but for some reason nobody ever saw them on this video. Most every Ufologist talks about Foo-Fighters and there's plenty of WW2 pilots that said they saw them but other than some blurry pics, and believe me I've searched, I've never seen such definitive proof than this video. Before I send the video I need to tell you some things to observe because I've studied this video to death. When you see the first craft enter the screen from the front and go under and to the left of the BF-110 watch the pilots reaction. You can clearly see his tracer rounds and his plane deviate to the left while he's watching it go by. BTW, that's 3:44 seconds into the video. When you see the next craft, it comes from the top right-hand corner of the screen and goes in front of the bombers then almost does a 90 degree turn to the left and goes right by the BF-110 on his left side. If you look when it enters the screen at the top right-hand corner you will see that pilot's tracers rounds go from hitting the bomber to his tracers flying wildly up and to right and he wasn't shooting at the craft, it’s because the nose of the plane goes up because he saw that craft and when the craft does a hard left turn, the exact thing happens again. The nose of the plane turns left and his tracer rounds do the same. BTW, that's 4:14 seconds into the video.

I'm figuring, depending on the month that this happened somewhere around Estonia or Bucharest where the Russians where advancing on the Germans because the dogfight was going on over one of the seas which was either the Baltic or the Black sea. And if you watch the beginning, there were flack guns shooting at the bombers but when the BF-110 got behind them the flack guns refrained from firing. But that's just a rough guess.

You can find the video on YouTube. The link starts the video just before the object appears:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZyJbSIFJn8&t=254s

As I say, this was posted to the NUFORC website. I thought it of interest to those who visit here. I will note that the information is as it was found with only a few minor changes… a hyphen in right-hand and left-hand and the duplication of one word was deleted.

Kingman UFO Crash and Michael Schratt

Christopher Mellon’s email chain that mentioned the Kingman UFO crash retrieval set many wheels in motion. I have been of the opinion for a long time that the crash is based on a single witness. David Rudiak and I have been researching the case which has taken us down several rabbit holes. One of them was an interview with Michael Schratt. He was talking about Harry Drew, who, apparently was the Kingman resident expert on the crash.

Michael Schratt

Learning this, I thought Schratt would be a good guest for the radio show/podcast version of A Different Perspective. I sent him a note, mentioning my interest in Kingman and we agreed on a show on September 18. Before we started the recording, I mentioned we would be talking about Kingman but he said he wanted to talk about Len Stringfield’s crash/retrieval research.

Well, we did both.

My main interest at that time was a long report that had been written by Ray Fowler about Kingman. I had been surprised that the file included a long interview with the original witness, Arthur Stansel. While those who wrote about the Kingman crash, and I include myself in that group, quoted for the first part of the Stansel interview, we ignored the second part. This was called, “A Man Who Made Contact.”

Here Stansel said that he had been part of a group of five who studied many things paranormal. He talked about astral projection and how he had contacted alien beings around our section of the galaxy. I did a post about that which you can find here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-kingman-ufo-crash-connumdrum.html

To me, this was somewhat problematic. Yes, Stansel had an impressive CV, but this side trip into weirdness seemed to negate some of that. I bring this up because, after Mellon’s email chain, there were several television reports about it including one conducted by a TV station in Phoenix. The reporter there had the Fowler file. I recognized the drawing that accompanied that file. I wanted to know if the reporter had seen the second part of the interview. I have never received a reply, which is not surprising. Local television news has no concept of follow up investigation. Once the initial story is reported, they have no interest in doing any more research.

I mention all this because Schratt had a copy of the Fowler file, which he received from Harry Drew who was the curator of the museum in Kingman where the file is housed. I pressed Schratt on this point because I thought it important. Had Harry Drew edited the file before putting it into the museum’s collection. Schratt didn’t think he, Drew, would do that, but it was clear to me that he, Schratt, didn’t have both parts of the interview.

Kingman, Arizona. Photo by Kevin Randle

We talked about Kingman for the first two segments of the show and then turned to the work that Len Stringfield had done. We agreed about that. We both understood that many of the cases cited in Len Stringfield’s Status Reports were single witness. We knew that he gathered the stories, published them, hoping that someone else would take an interest and follow up. Stringfield wasn’t endorsing all the reports, he was providing the information he had been given. You can listen to or watch the discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-michael-schratt-kingman-ufo-crash-crashes--62038779

https://youtu.be/FjYQlUIGmlw

But, as I say, the important part of the interview, at least to me, was the discussion of Kingman. On this, I’m the glass is half empty guy. To me, at the moment, the Kingman tale is reduced to a single witness and that is Arthur Stansel. David, and Michael Schratt seem to be the glass if half full guys.

We are still following the leads. David has uncovered a great deal of information, much of it from newspaper articles, that suggest several strange incidents around Kingman in the early 1950s. I’m not sure where all this is going but it is certainly creating a very complex tale that might completely implode at the end of the trail… or it might not.   

Rob Swiatek, EM Effects and a UFO Photo

 

Over the last week, as I prepared for my radio show/podcast and my segment on Coast-to-Coast AM, I came across several interesting UFO cases. These came from my interview with Rob Swiatek, searching for additional content and interest in cases with multiple chains of evidence.

Oddly, the first thing I found came from Stan Gorden’s UFO Anomalies Zone that had multiple witnesses, photographs and possible EM Effects. Unfortunately, the photographs aren’t very good and the two witnesses, who didn’t know one another, had the opportunity to discuss the sighting before Gordon arrived on the scene. According to Gordon’s report, the witness (who he identified as John and pointed out that John was not his real name) said that he was near Smithfield, Pennsylvania, when his car stalled as if it had been turned off.

John saw a large, black object that he described as a cylinder or pipe-shaped object that was hovering about 300 feet over him. After a few moments, it moved off until it was partially hidden by some tree branches, where it hovered again. He wanted to get a picture and got out of his car for a better perspective.

He walked out into a field for that better view but now the UFO was about a mile distant. It hovered for a few seconds and then moved again. He took a few pictures with his iPhone but the photos only showed a dark, distant object.

Gordon, who learned of the case almost as it happened, drove out immediately to investigate. He spoke to the first witness, John, who wasn’t the only one there. Another car had stopped behind the first. Gordon interviewed John and was told that the second witness (Joe, which was not his real name either) also had car trouble. Gordon confirmed that with Joe, who had also seen a large object, but his view was partially obstructed by the trees.

When Gordon arrived, he learned that the two witnesses had compared notes, which was unfortunate. They agreed on the description. Gordon examined the cars but found no unusual magnetic effects. John said that as the car stalled, the radio was filled with static, but it was working fine when Gordon checked it later.

The men had attempted to start their cars after the UFO was gone but failed. Joe had called for a tow truck. Gordon suggested they try again and both cars then started with little trouble.

The ultimate description of the UFO was a dark gray object that resembled a piece of pipe. John said there seemed to be some stuff inside the end but he couldn’t make out what it was. Joe said that he saw the UFO hovering over the John’s car as he stalled.

John said that the object was about ten to fifteen feet across and about thirty feet long. There was a haze around the craft that partially obscured his view. He said that it was a pale green haze, and that he could only see one end of the UFO.

Gordon obtained copies of the photographs to attempt to enhance them but that process hasn’t been completed. He did have an illustration made that the first witness said was a good drawing of what he had seen.

This sighting is interesting because there were two witnesses who were slightly independent, meaning they didn’t know one another at the time. There are photographs of the UFO, but those aren’t as sharp and clear as we would like. And there was the interaction with the environment, which is the electromagnetic effect. You can read Gordon’s full report here:

https://www.stangordon.info/wp/2024/09/08/two-vehicles-stall-on-pennsylvania-highway-as-cylindrical-ufo-passes-low-overhead-july-2-2024/

Also, during the show, Rob mentioned a photograph that had been taken by an airline passenger. According to the report that was filed with MUFON and is part of their Case Management System, the woman, riding in the first-class section, looked out the window when she saw a black trail of black smoke, she estimated was about 10,000 below them. She thought it was strange and it would be a good idea to snap a picture of it because she believed the plane was having serious engine problems. If there was  an accident,  she would have able to supply some photographic evidence.

She said she was on the left side of the plane and since it was so close, she believed the pilots had to be aware of it as well as other passengers. She said that it took her a bit to grab her phone, but she tried her best to get a clear picture.

The picture reminded me of a classic photograph taken in South America in the 1950s of a cigar-shaped craft that was also had a long smoke tail. Her picture follows:

Florida UFO picture.

The analysis of the picture didn’t reveal any sort of control surfaces. The smoke was thought to be a normal type of contrail. The analysis suggested the object was only about 400 feet below the airliner. The MUFON Field Investigator’s conclusion was that the object was not an aircraft.

Rob also talked about a case from Florida in which the witness was startled by a loud, metallic, ripping sound. She reported seeing a triangular-shaped UFO, seeming to parallel the highway. The object sheered the top off a tree and seemed to stall traffic. She said that she got out of her car and spoke to other witnesses who manifested some rather severe injuries. She didn’t think to get the names of any of those witnesses, and searches later for the damaged tree were unsuccessful. You can listen to our discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/kevin-randle-interviews-robert-swiatek-current-ufo-sightings--61353158

When I interviewed Robert Sheaffer a couple of weeks earlier, I had asked him what he wanted in the way of evidence of off-world visitors. He suggested a case with multiple, independent witnesses and some form of other evidence such as good photographs. Ideally, and I add this myself, that radar data was available as well, not to mention an interaction with the environment. These cases fit that requirement… almost. In the Florida case, the woman said that everyone was shook up by the encounter, so no one thought to take pictures or get the addresses of the other witnesses. If they could have found the damaged tree, it would have added an important element to the case. You might say, “Close, but no cigar.”

The Stan Gordon report is the same. Two, what I think of as semi-independent witnesses, whose cars had stalled were involved. There are photographs, but by the time the first witness (John) got his cell phone into action, the object was too far away for there to be any detail in the pictures. A missed bet.

And, as I say, the witnesses, had the opportunity to discuss the sighting before Gordon arrived, meaning they aren’t all that independent. But the elements are there no matter how compromised. Oh, I don’t mean to suggest that the case rises to the level of good evidence, but the elements are there. They just needed to be refined.

Rob and I finished the show with a discussion of the statistics about UFO sightings in the last few years. They reveal some interesting trends. For those interested, You can listen that the last segment and look at those charts that he mention, which follow here.

There was a great deal of information included in the interview that I haven’t mentioned here. For those who enjoy a discussion of multiple events and observations about the current state of UFO investigation, this is a show you don’t want to miss.

David Rudiak, Kingman UFO Crash and Other Rabbit Holes

In the second interview inspired by Christopher Mellon’s “leaked” email that mentioned the Kingman UFO crash of 1973, I talked with David Rudiak about some of the rabbit holes he had gone down in his research of Kingman. While searching newspaper files about the case, he found people disappearing out of jail cells and others disappearing in an ambulance being followed by the sheriff. You can hear the interview here:

https://rumble.com/v5cztz8-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-david-rudiak-the-kingman-ufo-cras.html

What David found, was information on three UFO crashes in the Kingman area in a short period of time, including the one revealed by Arthur Stansel. You can read my longer analysis of the Stansel’s tale here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-kingman-ufo-crash-connumdrum.html

According to Rudiak, the newspapers in the area do report on some of these events and he created web pages for those interested in following up on these tales. You can see them here:

http://www.roswellproof.com/kingman_main.html

http://www.roswellproof.com/Kingman_1950_Newspapers.html

There were mass sightings in the Kingman area, and by area, I mean southern Nevada and western California as well. There were many sightings of strange craft there starting in 1950. You can read more about this here:

http://www.roswellproof.com/UFO_CalNev_1950.html

Kingman, Arizona, photo by Kevin Randle

Our discussion showed how an investigation can be conducted from home using the incredible resources of the Internet. An investigation in the past might have required trips to libraries and towns and the searches of newspaper morgues. Today, many of those resources are available online.

Let me say here that on site investigations can result in a better understanding of the event and sometimes reveal a solution that no amount of online research can provide. But a great deal can be learned on line.

I will note here the importance of this particular research. As mentioned, it was Mellon who started this latest research with the email that suggested the May 1953 Kingman crash was something real. But the evidence (including research I had conducted years ago) does not hold up. Stansel, who originated the tale is not the credible source he has been made out to be. If Mellon and his pals were truly on the inside, you would expect them to know this. Apparently, they do not.

Read the Kingman UFO Conundrum, linked above for a good overview. There will be more to follow on this story and how it affects the latest UFO, or should I say UAP, fad. 

Dr. Jon T. Kosloski Takes Over AARO and It's More of the Same

On Monday, August 25, the Pentagon announced that Dr. Jon T. Kosloski would be taking over the job abandoned by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick several months ago. Kosloski comes to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, commonly called AARO from the National Security Agency.

Official government portrait of 
Dr. Jon Kosloski

We are told that he held several technical and leadership positions in the NSA’s Research Directorate and that he has extensive experience working in multiple scientific fields, including quantum optics and crypto-mathematics. He was described as NSA’s subject matter expert in free space optics and that he invented an advanced language-agnostic search engine.

While we are told, according to the press release, that he possesses the unique set of scientific and technical skills, policy knowledge and proven leadership, I note there is nothing in his background that suggests he knows anything about the history of UFO research or in the thousands of credible sightings that have been reported.

His background is impressive but I see this as similar to selecting a person skilled in esoteric anthropological research to run a program designed to create the next generation of fighter aircraft. That person might be a highly skilled, high trained anthropologist but that doesn’t mean this is a person who has the background to create a military aircraft. It seems the listing of Kosloski’s impressive background as an appeal to authority. This man has studied quantum optics and crypto-mathematics so you can believe that he knows what he is talking about.

In the past, we have been treated with military officers and scientists who tell us there is nothing to flying saucers, UFOs and now UAPs. The March report written by Kirkpatrick told us there was no evidence of off-world technology flashing through our skies, but did we really expect anything else.  There is nothing new in that report. It was what I expected and I’m sure that most of us who have been around the world of the UFO from more than a week or two expected exactly what was reported. I have discussed this sort of thing in the past and you can read it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/01/kirkpatrick-aaro-project-mogul-and-moore.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2023/08/dr-sean-kirkpatrick-responds-to-david.html

I can point to half a dozen of other reports, authoritative studies that told us the same thing but the trouble is they were riddled with errors, mistakes and no real understanding of the history of the UFO phenomenon. There include the Air Force Project Grudge report, the 1953 CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel that advocated a strategy to convince people that there was no mystery and the alleged scientific study of UFOs that had the conclusions written before any investigation began. You can read more about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2019/01/moon-dust-robert-hippler-and-project.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/03/hippler-letter.html

And if you are interested in a long read that provides the evidence for this, you can find it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-latest-from-arro-more-of-same.html

Seems like we are now going down the same road again. We are told that this is a serious subject, investigations are proposed and eventually it devolves into what we have seen for decades. If there was nothing to this as Sean Kirkpatrick seemed to suggest (other than a threat to aerial navigation by terrestrial based problems such as drones), why hasn’t this been discovered by now.

If we could find an official study that wasn’t driven by an agenda of cover up and lies, that would be one thing, but every time the government gets involved in UFO research, the outcome is the same. And when the documentation is located and becomes available, we can verify that the fix was in. And now, we see it all happening again. 

Imminent and the Council Bluffs UFO Incident

 

Given what we have learned from Imminent, Lue Elizondo’s UFO book, which, of course, he refers to as his UAP book, there are some developing issues. He comes at the UAP phenomenon from the point of an insider. He is someone who has supposedly had access to those hidden files and investigations that those of us on the outside don’t have. But you have to wonder what those files were and what information did he have because there seems to be problems with what he has written about some of the well-known cases and some that have not received widespread publicity.

As just a single example is a case of recovered debris that might be remnants of some sort of off-world craft. He wrote:

In 1977, on a night close to Christmas, unusual lights were spotted in the skies over Council Bluffs, Iowa. When witnesses ran to where these lights neared the ground, they found not an aircraft but what looked like a small pool of molten metal. Had the craft melted when it hit earth? Had it melted in the air and oozed to the ground? Vallée had obtained materials recovered from this incident. He suspected the multicolored lights seen in the sky by witnesses came from a wobbling craft in distress. When no craft was actually found on the ground, it begged the question: Was the pool of molten metal some sort of by-product of the craft? After some sightings, researchers had recovered a fine metallic fiber on the ground. They called it “angel hair.” I have handled some of this material. It’s a little like steel wool. The working theory is that the exteriors of these aircraft are ablative in nature; that is to say, they are capable of self-sacrificing. When the skin of the craft interacts with the propulsion unit, the craft ablates, or peels off, some of its outer surface, resulting in these fibers. Back in 1977, the Council Bluffs case had undergone an unusually rigorous amount of investigation by local and federal authorities. It was a blue-chip legacy case.

But, like so much of the book, we don’t get many facts about the case. We don’t get names and in fact, we don’t get a date. I don’t know why that is left out. A simple Google search tells us the event happened on December 17, 1977, which is, of course, a “night close to Christmas.”

Here is the rest of the story, as the late Paul Harvey used to say. At 7:45 p.m., three people saw what they said was a red object at about 500 to 600 feet above the ground, falling straight down. They lost sight of it when it disappeared behind the trees in the Big Lake State Park in Council Bluffs, Iowa. That was followed by a flash of bluish-white light and what they said were two arms of fire shooting into the air. They believed that something had hit the ground.

Article from the Cedar Rapids
Gazette, December 17, 1977

They drove to the park to investigate and saw a glowing, orange blob with a bluish crystalline substance in its center. It had impacted on a dike that was about sixteen feet from the road. They said it looked like lava running down the dike and it seemed to be cooling. They said it too hot to touch.

They were not alone. A young couple saw what they called a big round thing that seemed to be hovering. They drove to the park and then called the fire department when the saw the glowing blob.

A third couple reported a bright red object falling to the ground at Big Lake. It is interesting that some of the witnesses reported that it was falling, suggesting something out of control.

Fifteen minutes after they had called the fire department, or about 8:00 p.m., Assistance Fire Chief Jack Moore arrived. The molten metal was still glowing and had spread out into a six by four-foot area. It was about three or four inches thick and said by some to have weighed a thousand pounds. Moore described it as “some kind of metal,” and said “you can’t break it and you can’t bend it.” That, of course, suggests that it had cooled enough so that they could now touch it.

Moore called the police and then Eppley Airfield and Offutt Air Force Base. There were no missing aircraft and though the Air Force knew nothing about what had fallen, they denied that there had been an aircraft accident. Moore said that the Air Force officers were not interested in what he was telling them.

Samples of the metal were collected. There was nothing exotic about the metal. It was high carbon steel that wasn’t at all uncommon. It was used in manufacturing. Two foundries in Council Bluffs could have produced the metal, though there is no evidence to suggest that either of them was the source of the material.

There is one other aspect to the story that might be significant. Four teenagers, in what was called a small, foreign car, arrived just after the first group got there. They asked the other witnesses if they had seen the thing fall out of the sky. The teens then drove off.

There was a scientific paper about the case published years later and that is available online. It provides additional information, including the names of some of the witnesses and an in-depth report on the analysis of the metal, including a photograph of two samples. You can access it here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376042121000907 Manuscript_0d3637b7965056e1f5526820849aa561

I suppose the real point here is that Elizondo presented nothing new about this case. In fact, just typing Council Bluffs UFO into a search engine provided a wealth of information, including the scientific paper that resulted from the analysis of the metal.

I’ll have more to say about Elizondo’s book and I am preparing a longer and more comprehensive review of the material found there. I’ll post that as soon as I can.

(Blogger’s note: In a world in which plagiarism is claimed even with the most innocuous failures to properly footnotes, I did read an article written by Dr. Richard Warner who serves on the board of directions of the Historical and Preservation Society of Pottawattamie County, Council Bluffs being in Pottawattamie County. I also used various newspaper reports and the scientific paper mentioned above.)