Gunfights with Alien Beings

 

Here’s a bizarre one. As some of you know, I had been reviewing the Kelly-Hopkinsville UFO encounter from August 1955. I say bizarre because I don’t know of another case that quite mirrors it. There are some that come close, but as they say, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. What struck me here was that the witnesses engaged the alien “stalkers” with firearms that had no effect on those creatures. I’m not going to argument the merits of the case here, only focus on one aspect of it, and that is the gunfire.

To recap briefly, Billy Ray Taylor had gone to the well out behind the Sutton house and saw something strange fly over. No one else in the house, and there were quite a few of them, had seen or heard anything. They weren’t buying the flying saucer story but then, not long afterward, the dog began to howl, so Taylor and Elmer “Lucky” Sutton went out to investigate. They saw a strange glow in the field and in that glow there seemed to be a strange man some three to three and a half feet tall, with a large head, thin arms and talons for feet. Oh, and big eyes.

The creature began to move toward the house and the two men retreated. They picked up a couple of weapons, either a shotgun and a rifle or a shotgun and a pistol. When the being was inside twenty feet of the door, both men fired at it. The creature flipped backwards, as if struck by either the shotgun pellets or the bullets from the other weapon. It leaped to its feet and fled.

The creature, or one like it, reappeared and was shot at. One was on a fence post, one in a tree and one on the roof of the porch. That’s not to say there were three creatures, because they were appearing one at a time. There was only one occasion when two were seen at once. They were shot at, apparently hit, would float down or flip over, but would then jump up and run away.

This went on for several hours. The family, at one point, jumped into cars and fled into town to alert the local law enforcement. A number of law enforcement officers along with some military police, returned with the family but found no evidence of the alien creatures. Once everyone left the house, the family went to bed but one of the creatures returned. About dawn the whole thing was over.

There was evidence of the shooting, however. Bullet holes were found in the screens and in some of the siding on the house. There are reports that the neighbors heard the gunfire and shotgun shells were found. There was no evidence that the creatures had been harmed by the bullets, and there was no evidence of Great Horned Owls had been the culprits as was later alleged. For those who would like a little more information, you can find it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/08/chasing-footnotes-kelly-hopkinsville.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/08/chasing-footnotes-kelly-hopkinsville_18.html

This got me to thinking about this sort of thing. Hostile encounters between humans and aliens. Normally, the attitude is that the aliens make the hostile moves, but I have found a number of cases in which the hostility seemed to have flowed in the other direction.

In an event that took place in November, 1961, but not reported until sometime later, Don Flickinger, a government agent, said that he had received the information in 1968 about a close encounter incident. Flickinger learned of the UFO sighting from a man identified only as “S”.

According to the tale, S and his pals had been hunting and were returning home when they saw something bright descending. Terrain got in the way and they lost sight of the object. They thought it was a plane crash and rushed to help. They saw, about fifty yards away, an object they said looked like a silo sticking in the ground.

To get a better look, they used a spotlight. Near the “silo” were four human looking beings. It was then that there was a “whoosh” and the men thought the silo, the wrecked airplane, had blown up.

As the men returned to the car, they spotted the object again. Near it was one of the figures, apparently dressed in a white coverall. It was estimated to be about five feet tall, though I’m not sure how accurate that estimate is. That figure, being, attempted to wave them away.

The men left, drove into town, thought to be Martin, North Dakota, and located a police officer. They all drove back to the site after convincing the cop that they weren’t drunk. There was nothing to see except some lights that looked like the taillights on a car. They could find nothing in the field. With nothing else to see, everyone left that site.

Two miles down the road, the object reappeared. It landed about 150 yards away. Two figures from the craft appeared watching the men. They plugged in their spotlight. Two of the men got out of the car, one of them carrying a .22 Hornet rifle. The man with the weapon dropped to a prone position and fired one shot. One of the beings reacted, struck high in the shoulder. He was assisted to his feet by the other and shouted, “Now, what in the hell did you do that for?”

Although it seems that S believed that this was some sort of Air Force project, there were no repercussions. It is highly unlikely this was a terrestrial project. However, the only name associated with the case is Flickinger, and he wasn’t with the men. He heard the story from S. He also mentioned that one of the men was an Air Force NCO who was honorably discharged from the Air Force a few years after the shooting.

A better documented case took place at Fort Dix/McGuire Air Force Base in 1978. Here we have the name of a witness who was there at the time. According to what George Filer, a retired major, said that it was after midnight on January 18, when Army military police chased something that stopped and hovered. The jeep’s headlights showed some sort of weird creature that was about four feet tall with a large head and big black eyes. An MP apparently fired five rounds at it. The being, injured, attempted to escape by crossing the fence line between Dix and McGuire. It collapsed on a runway near a hangar, dying from the wounds.

Filer said that he arrived at the base at the normal time and realized that something was going on. He had to show his ID to get on the base, something that wasn’t normal. When he arrived at this office, an NCO told him that an alien had been killed, explaining that it was not human but something from outer space. Filer was to gather information to brief General Thomas Sadler.

Filer thought it was a joke and one that the general wouldn’t appreciate. He then called various offices and each of the people he spoke to verified the event. Filer began to prepare his report but a senior officer beat him to it.

Most of these sorts of things, humans firing at UFOs and alien beings aren’t quite that spectacular. During the Levelland sightings of November 1957, Don Adams, from Edgewood, New Mexico, reported he had driven under a UFO and his car stalled. He got out, grabbed his revolver, and fired six shots, which he claimed had hit the object. He reloaded and fired another six, but the UFO had begun to move to the north, so he didn’t know if those shots had hit the object. He said that the bullets had no effect on the UFO.

The Air Force did investigate and reported that Adams was drunk at the time. He was thought to be unreliable, but since he was on his own property, he had not violated the law. The Air Force labeled the case as a hoax.

The military has also engaged objects that might be considered UFOs. During World War II, the USS Helm, fired on a disk-shaped object that had circled overhead. According to the MUFON UFO Journal article written by Paul C. Cerny and Robert Neville, a chief aboard the ship told them that in August 1942, off Guadalcanal, he had an excellent view and told them that fleet radar reported an intruder. Not long after that, there was a visual sighting. When the object was about a mile away the fleet opened fire. The object made a sharp right turn, eventually circled the fleet and then disappeared.

On March 25, 1942, the tail gunner on a Royal Air Force bomber, saw a glowing, orange disk or sphere following them. He told the pilot who also saw the UFO. When it was about 100 yards from the plane, the gunner fired, hit the object but saw no effect. The UFO finally disappeared.

Colonel Oscar Santa Maria Huerta at
the National Press Club in 2013.

Keeping with the international flavor of this, Peruvian Air Force fighter pilot, then Lieutenant Oscar Santa Maria Huerta, on April 11, 1980, attempted to shoot down some sort of a silver object near this airfield. When first spotted, the UFO was about two and a half miles away, and about 1800 feet in the air. It was not responding to any radio transmissions from the air field.

Huerta, approached the object and began his attack. He said that he fired a short burst of 30 mm rounds, that should have taken out anything nearby. Although just one of the rounds would have shredded a car and he thought that the balloon would be torn open by the rounds. He told me, in 2013, that he hit the object multiple times but there was no effect on it.

At that point the UFO began a rapid climb. Huerta, flying a Soviet designed SU-22, used the afterburners in an attempt to catch the object. The UFO stopped and Huerta lined up another shot but before he could fire, the UFO began another high-speed maneuver. He tried a couple of times to gain a firing position but the UFO continued to evade him.

Running low on fuel, he decided to try to get a better look at the UFO. He said it was about 33 feet in diameter with a shiny, cream-colored dome, looking like a light bulb that had been cut in half. There were no wings, propulsion jets, exhausts, antenna or windows.

Huerta had to return to base. He turned and began a zig-zagged descent, hoping the UFO wouldn’t follow him. The UFO remained in place for about two hours after Huerta attempted to shoot it down. The incident was the subject of a July 1980 Department of Defense document entitled “UFO Sighted in Peru.” It concludes by saying that the object was not identified.

The point here is that there are many encounters in which we Terrans (a much better term than Earthlings) fired on the UFO. Sometimes it was officially sanctioned, sometimes it was frightened men and women and, of course, there are always the drunks. This survey is nowhere near complete. I know of many other events. However, a search of the UFO literature can take many days and I would ask for help. Send me any instances in which we opened fire. Just a source would be fine so that I might look it up. A few details would help. I’ll compile a compendium of these instances, whether military or civilian. This is an area I believe has been overlooked.

Jeffrey Morse, Len Stringfield, Richard Hall and The Fort Dix Alien

 

Since this has come up in a couple of questions asked of me, and since there is some interest in this case, I thought I would look a little deeper into it. To be clear, I have read George Filer’s book about his experiences in the Air Force, which does cover the events at McGuire Air Force Base/Fort Dix in January 1978. This involved an alien creature that was allegedly shot and killed and the subsequent cover up of the incident.

I will note, up front, that I am not a fan of anonymous sources or witnesses identified only by a pseudonym. That means, simply, that there is no way for us to verify the credentials of that source or to follow up on the details. It means that we must believe the source to be honest, and while others might know who he is, the rest of us simply don’t.

Len Stringfield

The information was originally provided to Len Stringfield, who had been collecting tales of what he termed UFO crash/retrievals. On September 23, 1980, Stringfield received a letter from a man who Stringfield identified as Jeffrey Morse, but that wasn’t his real name. The letter was written on Air Force stationery, but there is no significance in that. Such stationery is available on nearly every base exchange on military installations. Morse wrote:

In January of 1978, I was stationed at McGuire AFB, N.J. One evening, during the time frame of 0300 hrs. and 0500 hrs., there were a number of UFO sightings in the area over the air field and Ft. Dix MP’s were running code in the direction of Brownsville, N.J. A state trooper then entered Gate #5 at the rear of the base requesting assistance and permission to enter. I was dispatched and the trooper wanted access to the runway area which led to the very back of the air field and connected with a heavily wooded area which is part of the Dix training area. He informed me that a Ft. Dix MP was pursuing a low flying object which then hovered over his car. He described it as oval shaped, with no details, and glowing with a bluish-green color. His radio transmission was cut off. At that time in front of his police car, appeared a thing, about 4 feet tall, grayish, brown, fat head, long arms, and slender body. The MP panicked and fired five rounds from his .45 cal. into the thing, and one round into the object above. The object then fled straight up and joined with eleven others high in the sky. This we all saw but didn’t know the details at the time. Anyway, the thing ran into the woods towards our fence line and they went to look for it. By this time several patrols were involved.

We found the body of the thing near the runway. It had apparently climbed the fence and died while running. It was all of a sudden hush-hush and no one was allowed near the area. We roped off the area and AFOSI came out and took over. That was the last I saw of it. There was a bad stench coming from it too. Like ammonia smelling but wasn’t constant [in] the air. That day, a team from Wright-Patterson AFB came in a C141 and went to the area. They crated it in a wooden box, sprayed something over it, and then put it into a bigger metal container. They loaded it in the plane and took off. That was it, nothing more said, no report made and we were all told not to have anything to say about it or we would be court-martialed.

I will be getting out of the Air Force in about two months. Do not disclose my name as I could get into trouble. I am interested in pursuing this and other matters if you need help. Forgive me for not signing this but I can’t take any chances. Please reply to the above address and my parents will forward it to me or I will be home already. Don’t send it here because they monitor all mail closely and I again don’t want to take any chances.

Although Stringfield was skeptical of the claims, he wrote to Morse, but there was no reply. Stringfield wrote again and this time Morse responded, claiming he hadn’t received the first letter. Now out of the service, he thought he’d be getting his mail regularly. He wrote that he didn’t know much else be did remember the name of the desk sergeant.

Stringfield then enlisted the assistance of a close friend and colleague, Dick Hall., who, on April 10, 1982, wrote to Morse. There was no response for months. Finally, on September 27, 1983, nearly 18 months later, Morse wrote:

I’m sorry that it has taken so long to answer your letter. I had to be sure about you and your organization. My mail has not been monitored for some time now, however, I must not express my information in the letter form. I have been threatened and I have personally been interrogated as recently as February, 1983, in reference to the subject I discussed with Len Stringfield. I also have further information… which I know will interest you… I have the opportunity now to travel to D.C. area. So if you wish to contact me again, you should still have my address. Hope to hear for you soon. If after 2 weeks I have not heard from you, I will no longer acknowledge my participation with your group, nor will I answer any mail.

Hall failed to meet the deadline by two days and as promised, Morse did not answer. Stringfield then wrote and on December 6, 1983, Morse called Stringfield. He said that two days after the shooting, he and several others, were taken to Wright-Patterson AFB for interrogation. Morse wrote:

While there we were all together except actual interrogations. Mine had two men, one apparently a civilian with a pipe and a beard who never spoke [a veiled reference to J. Allen Hynek?]. At one point there were three men. One played nice guy, one mean guy, and, of course, the silent civilian. All they wanted to know was the nature of the incident, what I knew and then told me about my duty to keep my mouth shut… I signed a form and it is supposed to bind me for life.

From this point, Morse was returned to McGuire AFB, where his commanding officer again warned him about talking out of turn. Shortly after this, Morse was transferred to Okinawa. He said the others who were involved were transferred to other bases around the world so that they wouldn’t be able to compare notes.

Dick Hall

Now, the communications between Morse and Stringfield took on a new life. He even supplied some documentation by certified mail. It seemed to be an official form that noted, “One body of unknown origin released to the care of the OSI [surely an official form would have said AFOSI] District Commander and special recovery team at Wright-Patterson AFB.”

The document held the names and ranks of a number of others. The social security numbers, now being used as the military serial numbers, had been blacked out for privacy reasons. Stringfield and Hall verified the existence of the people named and Hall reported that two others stationed at McGuire were eventually interviewed. They said that something strange had gone on but they had not been involved in it.

With somewhat regular communication reestablished, Morse provided additional details about the incident. He said that his unit have been kept away from the site but others, known as the Blue Berets, that is an Air Force security force and who all were staff sergeants were not. Interestingly, Morse said that they wore no identifying insignia, except of course, their blue berets and their ranks. Morse said they wouldn’t answer questions about themselves and he wasn’t sure how they arrived at the base.

Morse said that he never got closer to the humanoid body than 40 to 70 feet and it was guarded by men with M-16s. He said that he could see that the being was four feet tall with a large head, slender torso and skinny arms and legs. The skin was wet and shiny. I’m not sure how Morse figured out the height from more than 40 feet away since the body was lying on the ground.

Although there was some continued correspondence with Stringfield, Hall did manage to meet with Morse twice. At any rate, Morse got a job overseas and that ended this aspect of the episode.

Then retired Air Force officer George Filer, mentioned that he had been at McGuire at the time of this incident and, according to him, he had been involved in the shooting of an alien creature at the Fort Dix/McGuire Air Force Base complex. Well, maybe involved is too strong a word. He was near the scene as the military police and Air Force officials took care of the problem. Filer was to brief a general about what had happened, based on his interrogation of some of the participants. Unfortunately, events intervened so that Filer didn’t see the alien, didn’t see the photographs of the alien, and was just around the periphery of the event… but then he was there on the morning of the incident so that provides him with a better perspective than those of us who just read about it much later.

There is little else to tell about this. Morse is a pseudonym and I certainly don’t know who he is. Dick Hall apparently thought he was reliable, but I would disagree. The others who have mentioned they were at McGuire were not involved or didn’t see much. As Jerome Clark wrote in his massive UFO Encyclopedia, “Since then however, no significant progress has been made in the investigation. Given the utter absence of substantiating evidence, it is safest to deduce this is an elaborate fabrication.”

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Susan Swiatek

 

This week my guest was Susan Swiatek, the MUFON State Director for Virginia, a member of the MUFON Board, and a woman who has been around the UFO field for longer than she probably wishes to mention. We had an interesting discussion that covered many topics. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/41575288

Susan Swiatek

We began talking about some of the problems with Stan Friedman’s Crash at Corona, including the rather dubious testimony of Gerald Anderson. Anderson’s credibility collapsed when he forged a telephone bill disputing the length of our first, and as it turned out, only conversation. He said that he had done it to make me look bad, but, of course, it had the opposite effect when I was able to prove it was a forgery. One of the first articles outlining the problem with Anderson can be see here (though the Anderson information is toward the end of the post):

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/08/stan-friedman-vs-philip-klass-whats.html

There is more about Anderson and the tales he told, but that gives you the idea. I put an entire Appendix in Roswell in the 21^st Century, outlining all this in great detail for those who wish to pursue it farther.

Special Colletion at UTA

Moving away from that part of the Roswell story, but continuing in that vein, we talked about the Ramey Memo, which has been a topic here on several occasions. I have even been to the Special Collections at the library at the University of Texas Arlington twice. You can read about this here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/10/josh-gates-ramey-memo-and-meme.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/12/jan-aldrich-barry-greenwood-and-ramey.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-ramey-memo-latest-information.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/09/ramey-memo-update.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/10/ramey-memo-and-victims-of-wreck.html

And, we did talk about the Fort Dix/McGuire Air Force Base incident in which it was alleged that an alien creature had been killed during an encounter there. Susan provided some insight to the event because of her friendship with George Filer, who was assigned to the base at the time. We both had read the book written by Filer that included the incident in it. I wrote a review of the book and you can read it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/09/george-filer-and-strange-craft.html

Finally, we talked about one of the UFO sightings in Virginia that she investigated recently. As usual, there was much more that we could have talked about, but time just slipped away.

George Filer and "Strange Craft"

 

Given that we were without electricity for more than 8 days, and that my iPad is filled with books that I haven’t read (thank you Book Bub*), I used the time to catch up. I mention this because one of the books I read was Strange Craft: The True Story of An Air Force Intelligence Officer’s Life with UFOs by John L. Guerra with Major George Filer III, USAF (Ret.) and published by Rayshore Publishing Company in Tampa, Florida.

Before we start, let me say that I was a little annoyed with one of the first pages that said, “What reviewers say about ‘Strange Craft.’” Oh, not that the reviews were all good but that none of the reviewers were named. In most books which quote reviews, there is a source mentioned. That none were identified is a little, dare I say it, “Strange.”

As a retired military officer myself, I’m always interested in the career paths of those who took a similar journey. In that respect, I enjoyed the book. I thought Filer’s description of his UFO sighting was vivid and interesting, if not a bit frightening. I did think it strange that the aircraft commander would put his aircraft into a dive that pushed the envelope and red lined the airspeed, but hey, I wasn’t in the aircraft and don’t really know what pressures were put on that officer to intercept the UFO.

The 116th AHC, preparing for a combat
assault, 1968. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle

I learned that my tour in Vietnam overlapped Filer’s, though his began at the very beginning of 1968 (well, the last couple of days of 1967) and mine some months later. During the Tet Offensive, Filer mentions the helicopters landing on Ton Son Nhut, and the gunships attacking the VC attempting to overrun the air base. I mention this only because one of those units was the 116^th Assault Helicopter Company, which I would join a few months after this.

And, since I have leaped right into the Tet Offensive, I thought I’d mention a couple of points. Filer suggests that he, and his pals in the Air Force, predicted the Tet Offensive and advised MACV (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam) and General William Westmoreland, that an attack was planned. According to Filer, his warnings, and those of his cohorts, fell on deaf ears. Once the attacks were launched, to the surprise of the Army, both American and Vietnamese, his predictions were validated. Westmoreland was demoted and replaced by Creighton Abrams… but the truth is, Westmoreland was promoted to Chief of Staff of the Army. He’d already been in Vietnam for four years and he wasn’t all that surprised, except, possibly by the tanks used to attack Lang Vei Special Forces camp.

The trouble here is that history doesn’t reflect the theory that the Army and the Vietnamese were ill-prepared for Tet. Filer suggests that Westmoreland had rejected the idea because Tet was such an important holiday and both sides had honored a tacit cease fire during Tet. There would be no attack because of that.

Except… the Vietnamese, centuries earlier, had launched a surprise attack on the Chinese during Tet. General Earl Wheeler, who was in Australia in November, 1967, told an audience that they expected a big attack, probably around Tet. American forces in Vietnam were moved into more centralized locations in late January 1968 so that they would be able to redeploy quickly into hot spots expected during the attacks. The only people really surprised by the Tet Offensive were the reporters who didn’t understand military strategies and were astonished by the initial gains and the politicians who would be expected to have something negative to say because they just don’t know better. In the years that followed, it would be acknowledged that it was a defeat for the VC but seen as a psychological victory for them… again an assessment by a press who simply don’t understand what happened… and, once again, I digress.

As I say, I was interested in the track of Filer’s military career and the problems that he faced during it. I was surprised when he was offered an opportunity to go to Vietnam at the invitation of a general who wanted Filer on his staff but Filer declined. Seems that he missed a golden opportunity, but then he had young children and such a deployment is tough on the family. He went a couple of years later. I think, during our military careers we all face tough choices and sometimes we chose wrong. I believe I always chose wrong, but that’s a tale for another time.

After twenty years in the Air Force, Filer retired as a major. He believes that his interest in UFOs, and possibly his involvement in a big UFO sighting might have derailed his career. He believes he missed promotions because this.

But, his interest in UFOs didn’t stop with his retirement. Instead, he jumped into the world of the UFO with both feet. According to him, he had been involved in the shooting of an alien creature at the Fort Dix/McGuire Air Force Base complex. Well, maybe involved is too strong a word. He was assigned to McGuire when the events took place and was near the scene as the military police and Air Force officials took care of the problem. Filer was to brief a general about what had happened, based on his interrogation of some of the participants. Unfortunately, events intervened so that Filer didn’t see the alien, didn’t see the photographs of the alien, and was just around the periphery of the event… but then he was there on the morning of the incident so that provides him with a better perspective than those of us who just read about it much later.

And now, for those interested in the workings of MUFON and the UFO field, we learn how Filer joined MUFON, what he did in the beginning and what he continues to do today, even though he is in his eighties. He helped establish or refine some of the procedures that MUFON uses and eventually became a regional director.

The problem for me here, is that he accepts, as authentic, some of the UFO events that worry me. He talks of multiple crashes and suggests that General George Marshall, who was the Chief of Staff of the Army during WW II and later was the Secretary of State under President Truman, was on the scene of two UFO crashes. I might have missed it, but I don’t believe that those crashes were ever identified by Filer and I don’t believe that Marshall was involved in any such activities.

Filer hints at other crashes as well. The problem for me is that I can accept one or two, but this idea of many crash retrievals has moved into the realm of fantasy. It seems to be illogical to believe that there could be so many UFO crashes without much better evidence slipping into the public arena. Too many crashes and so many of them with dubious testimony.

I guess the long and the short of it is that I enjoyed reading the book and was especially interested in a fellow Vietnam veteran’s military career. I was interested in his insights in the world of the UFO but reject much of the information provided there. True, many will accept it, but I found the lack of names, dates and locations of this to be troublesome. There is no way for us to independently verify the information because there are simply too few clues for us to find or paths for us to follow.

Bill Brazel, 1989. Photocopy 
right by Kevin Randle

I get that UFO witnesses, once their names are known, are subject to many, many UFO investigators, or maybe just UFO enthusiasts, wanting to talk with them. Too many of those enthusiasts have no social skill when it comes to talking with witnesses, meaning they call at all hours, demand all sorts of information, and don’t realize they are intruding on another’s life without invitation. Bill Brazel told me that he would sometimes receive calls from drunks in bars at 2 or 3 in the morning, wanting to know if the Roswell story was true… for those interested, I sent him a letter with my telephone number in it and asked him to call me collect if he could help me. He called and he did.

Oh, I do recommend the book but remember, the evidence for many of the tales is lacking. If that doesn’t bother you, well, good for you. For me, I’d have liked a little more detail, a few more documents, and some hints of where to look for corroboration. Other than that, it was fun.

And, yes, I have invited him on the radio show, twice, but have yet to received a response to that invitation.

*Book Bub is a website that sends out a daily list of books that can be picked up for free or for a buck or two, rather than the full price. This explains why there are something like 100 titles on my iPad which I haven’t yet read, but thought those books would be interesting. You can select the type of books that interest you (science fiction, true crime, biographies, history, action adventure, etc.) and the list sent is tailored to your personal tastes. Check it out when you have the chance. This is my small gift to those of you visit here regularly.