Jake Barber: UFO Retrieval Whistleblower

Last Saturday night, (January 18) NewsNation aired a segment that featured Jake Barber who claimed that he had seen a “nonhuman” egg-shaped aircraft and had been recruited for a top-secret government UFO crash/retrieval program. Unlike David Grusch who talked of hearing of such things from credible but unnamed sources, Barber said that he had participated in retrievals.

I probably should point out here that neither of these “whistleblowers” was the first to make claims of an involvement in some sort of government UFO crash retrieval program. Among the first was Clifford Stone, a mid-level Army NCO, who claimed to have been involved in several such operations and had even seen the “alien autopsy file,” not long after he had joined the Army. I mention this because Stones’ revelations were little more than invention that was not backed up by any sort of independent evidence.

The late Cliff Stone, who claimed to be on the inside
of a secret program involved with crash retrievals.

According to NewsNation, which had checked Barber’s records, he was a talented airplane mechanic who was deployed on several presidential support missions. He had been recruited into the Air Force’s Elite Combat Control unit suggesting he was a helicopter pilot (though it is unclear if he had been a military pilot), freefall parachutist, expert marksman and the recipient of a NATO top-secret security clearance, known as Cosmic Top Secret and service in Bosnia, for which he earned an unidentified valor award. They don’t reveal what award that might be. Stones’ records provided no corroboration for his tales.

To indicate the off-world nature of the retrievals, Barber said, “Just visually looking at the object on the ground, you could tell that it was extraordinary and anomalous. It was not human.” The craft was metallic, pearly white, and about the size of an SUV.

Normally, I am skeptical of these sorts of claims and I believe we all should be as well. However, my own experiences in both Air Force and Army intelligence suggests there might be some truth to it.

Because of my status in the military, that is as an intelligence officer, and because some knew of my interest in UFOs, I occasionally received nuggets of information about UFO cases that haven’t been reported or that have had little military interest. Bob Cornett and I might have been among the first to gain access to the Project Blue Book records while they were still housed as Maxwell Air Force Base and had not been redacted, taking out the names of the witnesses.

Bob Cornett reviewing UFO records while on assignment from
a magazine in the 1970s.

One of the first cases we wanted to see was from November 1953 that involved the disappearance of an Air Force fighter. The Blue Book file was just two pages and it was noted that it was an aircraft accident rather than a UFO report. According to an Air Force colonel who was stationed at Kinross Air Force Base said that in November 1953, a jet fighter was scrambled to intercept an unknown target, meaning a UFO, over the Soo Locks on Lake Superior. The intercept was watched on radar, the two blips, that is the UFO and the jet, merged but never separated. That single blip flew off the scope and disappeared in the distance. From the point of the merge, there had been no further communication with the fighter. The jet was never found. The colonel told me that there had been two schools of thought. One was that the UFO abducted the jet and the second was that it had crashed into the lake.

That is the sort of thing that I believe David Grusch heard when he talked about UFO crashes. People who were at the right place at the right time to know something more than the public provided that information. The colonel believed that the jet had been abducted, or in his words, the UFO took it. I wasn’t there, but the source had been. I knew him and he was credible but then where do you go with such a tale. If it is highly classified, how do I, as a civilian now, break through that barrier. Besides, attempts to learn more about it, other than the mundane and unclassified, have failed. I’m pointed back to the information and documentation that I already had.

In a somewhat similar vein, Don Schmitt and I interviewed a general at the Pentagon. Well, interviewed might be an over statement. He agreed to meet us in a snack bar on one of the lowest levels. The tables were about waist high or higher, so that people had a place to set a plate, but there were no stools. It was a get in, get your food, eat it and get out place.

We wanted to talk about the Roswell case. Don had apparently chatted with him at some point, explaining what we were after which is information about Roswell. By this time, we had talked to many witnesses to the crash and knew more about it. We had rejected the balloon answer and had even interviewed three of those who had been in General Ramey’s office on July 8, 1947.

We were inside the Pentagon for about fifteen or twenty minutes. The general didn’t look nervous. He just told us that there was an area in the Pentagon to which he had no access. He said that our Roswell information was there. He didn’t elaborate. Just hinted that highly classified information about Roswell was in that area, and those entering had to have a specific request and their time in that area was limited. I would later talk to another man who had said he had seen the classified version Project Blue Book and described for me. He said he saw some of the pictures of crashed UFOs and the recovery operations that had been conducted. I don’t know if these classified Blue Book files were part of that section of the Pentagon to which the general had referred.

I have also talked with another general who said he knew the photographer who photographed Roswell bodies, but didn’t provide very much information about that. I need to point out that by the time the information got to me, it was third-hand. The general hadn’t seen the pictures, he had just talked to one of those men who took them.

I suppose I should mention the retired MSGT who said that he’d provided the rawin target for the Roswell explanation. What he had said to Cornett and me, was that he had taken a balloon into an area to show the witnesses what they had seen. This was before I had talked with Irving Newton, the weather officer who identified the wreckage in Fort Worth. He said they didn’t have rawin targets on the FWAAF, but did know where to get one if it was needed.

The MSGT was careful about what he told us, but the implication was that he had taken the balloon around the Roswell area. I have assumed that it was part it was part of the 1947 cover up, but when Bob and I talked to him, neither of us knew much about the Roswell case. I had read Frank Edward’s laughable description of the Roswell case in his Flying Saucers – Serious Business, but that didn’t contain much information other than it happened near Roswell and the Air Force had explained it, in Edward’s words, as a pie tin hooked to a kite.

All these are incidents, in which I was involved to some extent. Like those being talked about today, they suggest that these retrievals do happen. Sometimes the information is limited and we must deduce where it is going. Sometimes it is more explicit. What it does confirm is there was a cover up then and it remains in place now. 

The Zamora Symbol Controvery

Like David Rudiak, I really didn’t want to go down this particular rabbit hole because it was one of those no-win situations. More importantly, even if we could resolve the question of the “true symbol,” what did it gain us. And now there may be a third version to add to the mix.

I have advocated for years my belief that the “umbrella symbol” is the correct one. I based that on the documentation available in the Project Blue Book files and the testimony of some of the participants made at the time, that is in April 1964. I can see no reason that the officers involved in the investigation in the hours and days after Lonnie Zamora’s sighting would document that umbrella symbol as the true symbol if it was not. The every first is a scrap of paper on which Zamora said he scribbled that symbol as the craft was taking off. That seems to be very persuasive testimony.

On the other side of the argument are those who suggest the inverted “V” with three bars through it is the correct symbol. Ironically, it seems that Zamora is also the advocate of that symbol. It was released to some of the media, in those days meaning the press, within a day or two of the sighting.

J. Allen Hynek, in a letter dated September 7, 1964, produced a weird version of the inverted “V” symbol. It showed two parallel bars inside the “V” and a third bar over the top.

Rather than recap all this, the simplest solution for those who wish to read more about it, and to see the various pieces of evidence being discussed, is to follow this link:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-socorro-symbol-resolved.html

Now, in the last few hours, I have received additional information. As you’ll read, one of these correspondents is less than patient. I will note that I made no changes in his comment, other than to divide the paragraphs for greater clarity. He wrote:

Hi. This is Patrick Richard, former MUFON investigator, ufo artist, portrait artist, MUFON New Mexico member and a very close alliance of Lonnie Zamora up until his passing. I lived in San Antonito, 8 miles south of Socorro, from July 2004 until August 2011. Let me point out something about this blog's ruminations. There is controversy about the paper sack...whether it was a stray scrap of paper at the landing site in the arroyo, or that Lonnie had a paper sack in his cruiser that day...I never asked him. I don't know. But I do know what he divulged about the insignia when we were having coffee at the NWestern-most window table at the El Camino Restaurant in Socorro some 7 months before his well-attended funeral at the mission.

The correct insignia is, as he stated to the dispatcher, "un 'v' invertido con tres lineas debajo". Debajo is slightly different but noteworthy. He didn't say 'abajo' (below and not necessarily related to a reference point in Spanish). He meant that the horizontal lines were not apart from the inverted V, per this nuance of Spanish grammar --- according to my wife who is latin american Spanish. Lonnie's use of 'debajo' is like saying 'is attached to the subject in the bottom area' --- otherwise he would have used 'abajo'. Spanish, like German, is very fussy about exactness in location. Regressando a la vaca fria...let's get back to the cold cow : the El Camino restaurant in Socorro (which is still open). I asked if he 'd have coffee with me because I wanted to ask him in person to come to my little house in San Antonito to finish an oil portrait I was painting for the purpose of donating it to the Socorro Historical Museum. Lonnie agreed to both, to my surprise. To the El Camino I brought the Albuquerque Journal's 25 year anniversay edition of the experience. Lonnie said he never saw this. So he leafed through it while I was doodling the variations of the red insignia. I had intended to bring it up, but I was sensitive to his needs for privacy, still, after 45 years. He looked at the black & white pages of the Journal as we began talking about it. I mused which insignia it was -- not asking him directly as he looked at the Journal's photo of the paper sack or "scrap"...Then, he pointed to my doodles and said "That one." The inverted V with three horizontal lines at the bottom, running through the bottom of the inverted V.

His two sons, or his daughter, may kniw something different, HOWEVER, Lonnie was truly and irreversibly dedicated to the safety of his family until the end of his life. To me, that is in itself, the smoking gun of his reality in the arroyo.

And that is persuasive argument and I would counter with the comments I made before. There is no motivation for the officers who provided written reports for Project Blue Book to have concealed the real nature of the insignia given the circumstances. While they might not have wanted it out in the general public arena as a way of eliminating follow on hoaxes, in their internal communications, that purpose is moot.

An hour after this first comment (made about seven hours ago) he furnished the following:

I would never argue in support of just a theory. As ufoguy remarked: get away from the computer and go outside to interview. That's solid.

An hour after that, he wrote:

Not the umbrella. Lonnie and I talked briefly about the ongoing fear for his family. The AF really did a stereotypical intimidation on him and did it well...and then crystalized the veiled threat with a sickly idea of patriotism thrown at a latino man who loves family and country, in that order. "Un 'v' invertido con tres lineas debajo" means the inverted v with 3 horizontal lines at the bottom of that v in a slightly cramed cluster. He told me.

And finally, he provided the following an hour later, “Where is my comment?”

The answer was simple. I hadn’t looked at the blog. I no longer allow unapproved comments to be posted directly. I was getting too many comments like, “Loved your post Good story. See http;//blab, blab, blab.com which was just an ad for a product that had nothing to do with UFOs.

But I digress.

I had also received another comment from TheUFOGuy, who posted his comment before those of Patrick Richard. He wrote:

Once again. I have a first hand witness who discussed this with Lonnie at the local coffee shop. Here is the conversation: At El Camino, while Lonnie was talking softly about the Albuquerque Journal edition, i was sketching (doodling) a couple of versions of the red insignia.

He looked from the newspaper and pointed to "that one" . I didn't expect him to answer my rhetorical question ( more to myself than to him) "well which one was it?"

The one in the upperleft of the photo I just sent.

He pointed to the drawing of the inverted V with 3 lines, but this site will not let me paste that drawing. I could send it to you, but your mind seems to be made up. Your also forgetting that Lonnie described the inverted V with 3 lines in spanish when he called the dispatch from the site. So, I have the drawing from the first hand witness with Lonnie, but I guess you will not post it?

Once again, I’m not sure why the snarky comment. Why wouldn’t I post it? It is relevant to our discussion. But there was no attachment and I looked at my email but didn’t see anything from him… until I realized who he was: Here is the drawing he sent.

 

If you look at the following post, you can read some additional information about this controversy. David Rudiak makes a few very interesting comments about this issue. Like him, as I say, I didn’t want to get dragged down this rabbit hole, and since the information that set it all off has been discredited (that presentation about Tesla), we really didn’t need to do this. The source for the original story is from a not so credible source and I knew that if I posted that information, we’d quickly learn more about it. That turned out to be true, and that part of this episode should be reduced to a footnote.

There really isn’t way to resolve this dilemma. I have posted illustrations made by Lonnie Zamora within hours of the sighting, signed by him, as the real symbol. Ray Stanford, who was in New Mexico within a couple days, and within two weeks, wrote to Dick Hall that the inverted “V” was not the real symbol. The real symbol is the “umbrella symbol.”

When the mayor of Socorro asked that Lonnie Zamora provide an illustration, Rick Baca was the one who drew it. A version of that drawing was published in the newspaper without any symbol on it but under Zamora’s guidance, the “umbrella symbol” was added later. This information is in the following post’s comments.

And there are the comments by Harden, who lives in Socorro and I’m sure both Richard and TheUFOGuy have spoken with him. He provided some interesting commentary, found in the following post about the “true” symbol.

TheUFOGuy (sorry, I didn’t realize who you were until later in the conversation) and now Patrick Richard, provide some compelling testimony. He provided a copy of the material that Richard provided that, as noted, came about with his discussions with Zamora and approved by Zamora.

A solid case can be made for either symbol (or the new third one that developed on that illustration above). I believe, based on the interviews I conducted and the documentation from the Blue Book files, that the “umbrella symbol” is the correct one.

However, the other side makes a compelling case for the inverted “V,” so you look at the evidence and decide which you think is the right one. I’m just not certain that it makes any difference in the world today. And remember, at the chief of Project Blue Book said at the time. He was going to make the UFO people happy because he, Hector Quintanilla labeled the case as “Unidentified.”

A Good Match for the Zamora Symbol has been Found

Almost from the moment that strange craft was reported by Police Officer Lonnie Zamora in 1964, Air Force officers, UFO researchers, journalists and those with an interest in UFOs have been searching for an Earth based symbol to match that which Zamora saw. The search was complicated by military a military officer and an FBI agent who interviewed Zamora within a couple of hours. They suggested that he keep the symbol to himself, not to hide the evidence, but to have something to use if others reported the craft and symbol. That was further complicated when they, or someone at Project Blue Book, invented a symbol to satisfy the news media.

For those interested in reviewing this aspect of the case, you can find my postings about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/11/socorro-symbol-redux.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-final-analysis-of-socorro-symbol.html

Over the years, there have been suggestions about that symbol, but they weren’t very close matches. Now, however, there is one that is frightening close to what Zamora reported. It is upside down. It is attached to a document dated 1928 which is part of a larger document. You can find that document here:

https://www.hal5.org/PDF/HAL5-Dec2018-Talk-AntiGravity.pdf

If the link doesn’t work, and I’ve had trouble with this sort of thing in the past, this is a look at several patents held by Nikola Tesla. The relevant one is Patent No. 1655144. Use that number in your search engine. This is a pdf. You need to scroll down to the patents from 1928 and you’ll see it in the upper left corner of the illustration.

While it is not an exact match, but, as I say, it is frightening close to the symbol that Zamora drew. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, why not just show it. The links above show the symbols released in 1964 and provide the documentation for it. I believe these provide a good history of that symbol.

That doesn’t answer the question however. Just in case links are broken or the patent number doesn’t work, here is that symbol:

Is the symbol here, the inspiration for the Zamora/Socorro symbol?

I should point out that Charles Blithfield discovered this and passed it along to me. Credit for the discovery goes to him.

And no, I don’t know if this taints the Zamora case, though it seems to be an incredible coincidence if an alien spacecraft held a symbol that is so close to the one Telsa used. Over the years, there has been quite a bit of controversy about this. I have to wonder, if the object Zamora reported was some sort of experimental craft, if there is any link to the various machines flying around White Sands had any link to Tesla.

Anyway, Blithfield has certainly complicated the case. I am reminded that Hector Quintanilla, the chief of Blue Book in 1964 had labeled the Zamora case as “unidentified,” he thought that the solution was somewhere in Zamora’s mind. He thought there might have been something that Zamora saw but hadn’t quite figured out what it was. Maybe this is the hint that Zamora needed for access that memory.

I do want to note that I don’t believe Zamora made up the sighting and I believe he was truly confused by it. He saw something he couldn’t identify and reported what he had seen.

As I say, thanks to Charles Blithfield for the information.