Friday, February 26, 2010

The Washington National UFO Sighting Press Conference, Part 6

They continued the discussion about the temperature inversions and what would be visible to the unaided eye. A reporter asked, "Would that account for the fact that these images disappeared and reappeared on these screens recently?"

James: I’m not positive about that. There’s a possibility.

Reporter: Captain, was there temperature inversion in this area last Saturday night?

James: There was.

Reporter: And the Saturday night preceding?

James: I’m not sure about the one preceding, but there was last Saturday night.

Reporter: Was there one last night?

James: I don’t know.

Reporter: Captain, did any two sets in this area get a fix on these so-called saucers around here?

James: The information we have isn’t good enough to determine that.

Reporter: You don’t know whether Andrews Field and Washington National Airport actually got a triangulation on anything?

James: You see, the records made and kept aren’t accurate enough to tie that in that close.

Reporter: What is the possibility of these being other than phenomena?

Samford: Well, I’d like to maybe relieve Captain James just a minute. Your question is what?

Reporter: What is the possibility of these sightings being other than optical or atmospheric phenomena? In other words, what is the possibility of their being guided
missiles launched from some other country, for example?

Samford: Well, if you could select out of this mass any particular one or two and start working on them and say, "What is the possibility of them being these things?" Then you come to the point and say this one is reported to have done things which require for it to do those things either one of two conditions, absolute maximum power or no mass. If this is a thing in terms of a guided missile, it does these things if there is theoretically no limit to the power involved and there is theoretically no mass involved. That’s one of the conditions that would say, well, if someone solved one of those problems, this could then be explained as one of those things. You find another one and it has -- it just develops into no other purpose or no other pattern that could be associated with them, a missile. Those which we might identify as being missiles will be tracked. They’ll have a track to develop, something that people can put a measurement to. I don’t know whether that answers the question. It satisfies some of it, but maybe not all of it.


The truth is, that Samford’s response didn’t answer the question which was simply if the objects spotted could have been missiles launched by another terrestrial government. The answer was a simple, "No." Instead Samford begins to talk of an object that has access to virtually unlimited power and that has no mass. He never did explain what these two conditions had to do with the question that had been asked, but is certainly sounded as if he was rendering a scientifically sound answer.

Reporter: Have there been any such instances so far in which you had information that indicated that either of these two conditions were fulfilled?

Samford: Absolute, no mass?

Reporter: No limit to the power.

Samford: You know what "no mass" means is that there’s nothing there! (Laughter).

Reporter: How about the power?

Samford: In terms of earthly weights and earthly value.

Reporter: Yes.

Samford: And unlimited power -- that means power of such fantastic higher limits that it is a theoretically unlimited -- it’s not anything that we can understand. It’s like my trying to understand -- I want to be careful because I was going to say a million dollars, but I can’t understand a hundred! It’s one of those questions of unlimited power that just gets beyond your comprehension that has to be used to meet this.

4 comments:

  1. Kevin: I wonder, do you think that Samford was the best man to lead this conference? Did he really possess the right knowledge to do so? Was there not someone else in a senior position to be leader? Keyhoe says in his book 'FS from Outer Space' that General Twining was the man at the top who decided the conference should take place. Presumably it was he who appointed Gen Samford to lead it. Or did Samford offer himself? I'd be interested to see your views on this, and whether who (if anyone) could have stood instead. Have we any reason to believe Samford was the best man for the job?

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  2. "Reporter: You don’t know whether Andrews Field and Washington National Airport actually got a triangulation on anything?

    James: You see, the records made and kept aren’t accurate enough to tie that in that close."

    I would like to have followed up on this exchange.

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  3. CDA -

    Samford was the chief of Air Force intelligence. He was the perfect officer to oversee the conference. He probably should have taken a back seat...

    Missing from this conference were the two men who might have contributed the most... Major Dewey Fournet and Al Chop. Both had been in the radar room on te second night and both had witnessed the exchanges between the pilots and the radar operators. Both were conspicuous by their absence.

    Frank -

    My point here is, and has been, that the reporters were lead to a conclusion and to a belief that the Air Force had a handle on the events. They did not.

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  4. "My point here is, and has been, that the reporters were lead to a conclusion and to a belief that the Air Force had a handle on the events. They did not."

    I'm pretty sure they upgraded their systems significantly as a result of this event.

    I see an odd parallel between this event and Sept. 11, 2001. Those two events have caused us to re-examine how we defend the skies over our major cities more than any others I can think of.

    The presence of Rand Corporation employees at the Sept. 3 White House meeting seems to indicate a willingness to think outside the box.

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