UFOs, USOs and the US Navy

 

Just last Friday, May 14, another video taken by Naval personnel was released into the public arena by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. It shows an object, a black, somewhat indistinct sphere, as it flies near the USS Omaha. At the end of the video, the object drops into the ocean. The Navy has confirmed the authenticity of the video, meaning that it was recorded by Navy personnel on July 15, 2019 in the Combat Information Center on the ship using FLIR which is Forward Looking Infrared. There is a lot of data available about this sighting, and many others involving Navy ships. George Knapp has been onto of this as well. You can read George Knapp’s interview with Jermey Corbell here:

https://kfor.com/mystery-wire/new-video-from-uss-omaha-shows-unknown-aerial-sphere-vanishing-into-ocean/

George Knapp

What I have been unable to learn is if this sighting, as some of the other, equally interesting sightings, was strictly on the CIC equipment or of there were sailors who saw the object without the aid of a digital display. There have been cockpit photographs taken with cell phones that are not limited to video displays but this isn’t really the same thing as the videos.

This latest video ends with the object dropping into the ocean. At that point, it becomes, what is known around the UFO community as an unidentified submerged object or USO.

This isn’t, of course, the first instance of a UFO dropping into the ocean. One of the best documented cases is that from Shag Harbour, Canada on October 4, 1967. A day later, on October 5, 1967, Jim Lorenzen of APRO, called the Condon Committee to alert them of the events that had taken place in and around Shag Harbour. With that, the committee launched their telephonic investigation and it was Dr. Norman E. Levine who wrote the report on what they labeled as Case No. 34, in the North Atlantic and dated as Fall 1967. Levine wrote:

He [Jim Lorenzen] stated that the original report had come from two teenagers and that the Navy was searching for wreckage. No aircraft were reported missing in the area... A corporal of the RCMP [Victor Werbicki] stated that the first report had come from five young people, 15 - 20 yr. old, who while driving near the shore had seen three or four yellow lights in a horizontal pattern comparable in size to a ‘fair-sized’ aircraft... They observed the light while they drove about .25 mi., then reported the incident to the RCMP detachment.

Chris Styles and Don Ledger, two Canadian researchers who have, between them, decades of experience in UFO investigations, provided me with a thick file on the case. According to them, the events began on the night of October 4, 1967, near the small fishing village of Shag Harbour. Something, estimated to be about sixty feet in diameter, with four bright flashing lights, descended to the surface of the water about a half mile from shore.

Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada

Halifax Herald, reported that Laurie Wickens, with four others, spotted something above and in front of them at about 11:00 p.m. It was a large object that had four flashing amber-colored lights that was descending, as opposed to falling, toward the harbor.

As it struck the water, there seemed to be a bright flash and explosion. Wickens decided to contact the police drove to a nearby town, attempting to keep the object in sight so that he could provide precise information. Eventually parking, all five of the witnesses, Wickens included, ran to the water’s edge when they could see what they would later describe as a dark object floating or hovering just about the water. Now the flashing lights were gone and only a single, pale yellow light that seemed to be on top of the object could be seen.

Wickens then reported the sighting to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He contacted Corporal Victor Werbicki who initially, wasn’t very impressed with the report. Instead of asking him anything about the crash, Werbicki asked him if he had been drinking but then told Wickens to hang up but to wait by the telephone.

Several other witnesses, some of them thinking that some sort of aircraft had crashed, also called that same RCMP detachment at Barrington Passage. Mary Banks, who was on Maggie Garron’s Point, which is near the harbor, told Werbicki that she had seen an airplane crash into the sound. A third call came in from two women who were about thirteen miles away and who had seen the same thing.  A man, in a fourth call said that he had also heard a whistle and a bang. Although they all talked in terms of an aircraft accident and others mentioned only bright flashing lights, no one suggested that this was a UFO, meaning alien craft.

It was now apparent to Werbicki that something had happened out there. He called Wickens back and told him to meet him at the Moss plant. Three of RCMP officers made it to the shoreline and one of them, Constable Ron Pond, said that he had seen the lights from his car and that he’d seen the object, or the lights, or whatever, dive toward the water. He thought he saw a shape behind the lights which certainly changed the dynamic of the sighting. In other words, Pond saw, not only the lights, but believed those lights had been attached to something solid.

Standing on the shore with the Mounties were a number of other witnesses. These included Wickens and his four friends, and the occupants of a pick-up truck that pulled into the lot. Norm and Wilfred Smith had seen the object in the air before stopping for a better look. Although Werbicki didn’t see anything until Wickens pointed it out to him, all could see the pale-yellow light that floated about a half mile from shore. Through binoculars, they could see that whatever floated on the surface was creating a foaming, yellow wake as it moved. Because the object was in the water off shore, the Coast Guard was notified and fishing boats were called in to look around. Although the cause of the yellow foam disappeared before the boats arrived, they could still see some evidence of its passing. The Coast Guard cutter arrived too late to see anything and by three in the morning the search was suspended for the night.

This is the situation as it stood when Jim Lorenzen notified the members of the Condon Committee.  Levine, in his preliminary statement, suggests that the first reports were made by teenagers and he seems to be suggesting that others saw lights on the water, but nothing in the sky. Levine went on to write:

Two officers [RCMP constables Ron O’Brien and Ron Pond] and the corporal [Werbicki] had arrived about 15 min. later, in time to see the light on the water. It persisted about five minutes longer. Ten minutes after it went out the two officers were at the site in a rowboat; a Coast Guard boat and six fishing boats were on the scene. They found only patches of foam 30 - 40 yd. wide that the fishermen though was not normal tide foam...

The site of the presumed impact was in between an island and the mainland, about 200 - 300 yd. off shore. Apparently, no one actually saw anything enter the water [though I must point out that a number of people saw the object descend to the water, which is, essentially, the same thing]. However, two young women driving on the island reported that a horizontal pattern of three yellow lights had tilted and descended, and then a yellow light had appeared... The RCMP corporal stated that the light on the water was not on any boat, that Air Search and Rescue had no reports of missing aircraft in the area, and an RCAF radar station nearby reported no Canadian of U.S. air operations in the area at the time, nor any usual radar object... A search by Navy divers during the days immediately following the sighting disclosed nothing relevant.

Five days later the Naval Maritime Command advised the project [that is, the Condon Committee] that the search had been terminated. The watch officer read a report from the RCMP indicating that at the time in question a 60 ft. object had been seen to explode upon impact with the water... A captain of a fishing boat that had been about 16 mi. from the site of the earlier reports, reported to the project that he and his crew had seen three stationary bright red flashing lights on the water, from sundown until about 11 p.m. The ship’s radar showed four objects forming a six mile square; the three lights were associated with one of these objects [so now we see that Levine is contradicting himself with radar reports and people seeing the object descend]. At about 11:00 p.m., one of the lights went straight up. The captain had judged that the radar objects were naval vessels and the ascending light a helicopter; he had attached no significance to these observations until he had heard on the radio of the sightings; he then reported the foregoing observations... However, since the position he reported for the objects was about 175 n. mi. from the original site, the two situations do not appear related.

No further investigation by the project was considered justifiable particularly in view of the immediate and thorough search [that had failed to find anything which would suggest that the Condon Committee should be interested in the case] that had been carried out by the RCMP and the Maritime Command.

This shows that the on the scene investigation by the Condon Committee was a telephone call and then a dismissal of the case. This was a case of multiple witnesses, certainly more than just the teenagers that Levine mentioned, and there was a possibility of physical evidence, they declined go to Canada. Levine seemed to believe, or at the very least claimed he believed, that the sightings had been thoroughly investigated by others on the scene, that nothing of interest was found, and that the search had been called off.

Years later, an investigation by Canadian researchers Chris Styles and Don Ledger uncovered not only additional witnesses, a photograph of the object in the sky, but also documentation and testimony from high-ranking Canadian officials. Styles, in writing about the case would say that he had met with a former general who had served with the DOPS section of the Canadian Forces Headquarters. The officer was annoyed with Styles for finding him but did supply some interesting information about the case.

According to Styles:

The story told to me in Ottawa by the Brigadier contained all the verifiable bits and earlier partial stories of ships sitting over a submerged U.F.O off C.F.S. Shelburne’s government point. The Brigadier’s source was [sic] men who were loyal to him that were commandeered by NORAD and the navy to play the role of identification team if they found something physical. Apparently, they did and according to the Brigadier the men claim that ‘There was no doubt.’ It was not a conventional aircraft or spacejunk [sic] originating from either 1967 superpower. They told their regular Canadian C.O. that ‘There was activity down there.’ In fact, incredibly they say that there was a second craft. In the Brigadier’s own lingo, “It was standing nines for the damaged saucer.’ The basic outline of the story ends when a russian [sic] sub enters the then 12 mile offshore international limit. The small flotilla sails toward the intruder to offer challenge. This is after a weeks [sic] observation by sonar and T.V. remote over the U.F.O.’s resting place. It is at this point that both U.F.O.’s [sic] begin moving under the water back towards the Shag Harbour area. Once they clear open water in the Gulf of Maine they surface and fly away. The Brigadier closed our meeting by stating that he doubles I will find any paperwork on this operation in Canada.”

That Styles and Ledger were able to uncover the documentation and testimony from the event suggests that this was something that the Condon Committee should have done as well. It happened on their watch, would have provided them with a very interesting case that hinted at the extraterrestrial, and met the criterion for an investigation with the exception of it happening in Canada. Even with that problem, there were American military forces involved, and the scientists could have arrived before the conclusion of the incident, but they were content to ignore it as a prank by teenagers.

Condon had said, in various meetings and to various groups, “I wouldn’t be satisfied with anything other than actually getting a vehicle, with or without occupants, so under my control that I could take it and exhibit it to something like this committee so that all of you saw it, or take you to a place where I had it ‘captured’. Anything less than that I wouldn’t believe.”

This meant, clearly, that the observations, regardless of the training, integrity, expertise or ability of the witnesses wouldn’t be sufficient for him. He wanted a vehicle to study, which brings us back to Shag Harbour. The witnesses said the object fell into the harbor. There are indications that he was maneuvering under water which changed it into a USO. And there are indications, based on the research of Styles and Ledger, that the object eventually maneuvered itself out of the harbor and disappeared

This is a singular, or even rare event. As I say, there is a long history of these USOs, and as just another example, a woman, described as 79-years old, said that her father, a Naval officer based in San Franciso, said these were seen all the time. She said that her father showed her a telegram that reported UFOs had been seen entering and leaving the water and was complete with the geographical coordinates.

On April 19, 1957, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat saw two silver objects, about 30 long without wings, descend. They hit the water, creating an area of turbulence. The objects did not reappear.

Which, I suppose brings us back to 2021. We have another good sighting of something unidentified, disappearing into the ocean. We know that a search for wreckage failed, which suggests the object entered the water intact and did not break up. It suggests a transition from one environment, air, into another, water. That transition is not something easily accomplished and suggests a technology that is superior to ours.

This sighting would be even stronger if there were some sailors who watched the UFO with an unaided eye. It would add another chain of evidence to the sighting but it seems this all took place at night with no sailors seeing the UFO other than those watching in the CIC. There must be more to the story here and I wonder what that is.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Rob Brun Del Re and UFOs: Proof Positive

 

This week I spoke with Rob Brun Del Re about his book, UFOs: Proof Positive. But before we got to that, we talked about other things. One of the first things that came up was MJ-12 and the Wilbur Smith “Top Secret” report to the Canadian Department of Transportation. In it, Smith had suggested that UFOs were alien craft and he had received this information from Robert Sarbacher. You can listen to the program here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/44916522

I did point out that Sarbacher had seen nothing himself, but had gotten his information from some other, unidentified sources. This made Smith’s data third hand at best, and might be even farther removed from any source of reliable source. This did lead us into a discussion of MJ-12, which rarely goes anywhere. Proving that I’m not very good at promoting my own work, I failed to mention Case MJ-12, a book that I had written examining the story of MJ-12 and that was heavily updated just a couple of years ago. In Del Re’s bibliography he listed four books about MJ-12 but not mine, which does not contain a ringing endorsement of the whole MJ-12 theory.

Rob Brun Del Re

One of the things that did come up, or rather that I brought up, was the information supplied by Brigadier General Arthur Exon and his discussion of what he called “The Unholy Thirteen.” This was not an official name, or nickname, just Exon’s way of describing the group. The membership of it is at odds with MJ-12 and since we can point to Exon as the source, and the MJ-12 documents have no provenance, Exon’s information is more important.

We did discuss the idea that the book, UFO’s: Proof Positive, provided logical arguments about UFOs but no real evidence, it seemed to me that the title was misleading. Rob’s answer was that he was more interested in providing arguments explaining how the skeptics and non-believers were wrong in their thoughts. For example, he argued that because we can’t travel interstellar distances, it doesn’t mean that another race having evolved on another planet hasn’t figured out a way to do it. While I concede that argument, it needs to be said that we don’t have a way of defeating those distances.

We did discuss some UFO sightings. Roswell, of course, entered the conversation, as did the Phoenix Lights and Shag Harbour. I don’t need to provide a list of my writings on Roswell. I think they’re well know and culminate in Roswell in the 21^st Century. I have discussed the Phoenix Lights on past programs including a long discussion with Mike Rogers about his observations.

Next week, I’ll be speaking with Don Ecker who has a long history in the UFO field and has some very interesting insights into what has happened in the past and what is going on today.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Ryan Wood and MJ-12

This week I spoke with Ryan Wood. He had sent out an email complaining about the anti-UFO bias on Wikipedia. I thought that would be an interesting topic, and since he is a proponent of MJ-12, I thought we could spend some time on that as well. But, as usual, the conversation took on a life of its own. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20493888

We veered off into the Cape Girardeau UFO crash of 1941, which, as everyone will tell you, is six years older than the Roswell case. The problem here is that there are no first-hand witnesses and while the granddaughter of minister who was called to scene heard about it from family, the problem is that she heard about it from family. There really is no documentation in the form of newspaper articles and diary entries, or anything of that nature. And while I didn’t make the comment

Ryan Wood. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle.

during the show because, well, we went off in other discussions, I always worry about these pre-Roswell cases. If this had happened, it would seem to me that the military might have been better prepared for the events in Roswell.

Ryan said that his book, Majic Eyes Only, listed 74 crash retrievals. I thought that there just weren’t that many because it would be impossible to keep all that secret for so long. At some point one of those crashes would have produced evidence no matter how hard the various government agencies attempted to suppress it all. I did point out that in my book, Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky, I listed something like 110. One of those was an alternative look at the Cape Girardeau crash. An analysis of that case follows this posting.

Given there were so many alleged crashes, I asked what Ryan thought were the best. He suggested Roswell, Kecksburg and Shag Harbour. I mentioned that I thought of Shag Harbour as more of an emergency landing than an actual crash. But the real point was that each of these had documentation and newspaper articles while most of the other crashes were single witness with no documentation at all. Some were clearly mundane objects seen under unusual circumstances. Some were clearly meteors, others debris from missile tests, and a few outright hoaxes.

We finally did make it to MJ-12 and the so-called Operations Manual. I mentioned that there were some anachronisms in it. Ryan pointed out that skeptics said the War Department seal on the front was one, but that he had found that symbol on other manuals printed after the War Department ceased to exist in 1947, meaning that, in this one case, it might not be an anachronism.

I wondered about the lack of a provenance for the manual and asked if there were any MJ-12 documents from a legitimate government source that lead to support MJ-12. Ryan said that there was a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blount to Dr. Robley Evans that did lead to MJ-12. You can see that letter here:

http://www.majesticdocuments.com/pdf/blount_evans.pdf

I believe the top-secret report to which Blount referred is the Air Intelligence Report (AIR) 100-203-79 with a date of April 29, 1949. There is nothing in it about UFO crashes or anything like that. Blount seemed to think it was more of a psychological analysis, which the AIR report is not.

But there is a real problem with the Blount letter that I’m sure if obvious to everyone. To sort of prove that point, I think the Hottel Memo makes the case. Here is an FBI document that mentions a UFO crash. You can read it here:

https://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/view

The point is, the Hottel Memo refers to the Aztec crash hoax and is based on information from Frank Scully’s book, Behind the Flying Saucers. Time magazine, in January, 1950, printed an article about little men from Venus. That predates the Blount letter and might well be the source of the rumor.

Next week, John Burroughs is the guest. He’ll be offering some new information about the Rendlesham Forest events of December 1980. If you have questions for him, put them in a comment here, and I’ll try to get them answered during the program.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Paul Kimball (Oak Island and More)

This week I talked with Paul Kimball about a variety of topics that included Oak Island, reality TV, and some of the best UFO sightings. You can listen to the program here:

https://youtu.be/Qxo55By5zWg

For those interested, since Paul lives in Nova Scotia, the scene of the Oak Island program, and since they have teased us with the idea that treasure has been

Paul Kimball

found, I asked if he had heard anything about that. He said that he hadn’t, but that he didn’t pay close attention to the newspaper reports and he wasn’t overly interested in Oak Island anyway. I wondered if the gold coin they found, according to the tease, and that had been brought up during their latest dig, might have been planted. But, of course, he had no idea if that happened or not. We just speculated that it might have happened and I mentioned an Air Force button allegedly found on the Brazel (Foster) ranch in New Mexico during one of these reality shows had obviously been planted there. The Air Force didn’t exist in 1947 and even if it had, no one would have been wearing a Class “A” uniform out to the remote ranch to lose a button.

Back in January of this year, at www.Inquistr.com, they reported that no treasure had been found on Oak Island. They noted the same thing that I suggested, which is if the treasure had been found, the information would have leaked into the mainstream. The news would have been huge and too big to contain. Or, in other words, no treasure was found and they suggested there is none to find.

We did talk about some of the best UFO cases, and how he had determined which ones to use in his documentary. He’s still interested in Shag Harbour and mentioned that he had talked with people who were involved in the case. Like Roswell, everyone agrees that something fell, it’s just not clear what it was. He thought the idea of a cover-up had not been proved, though there was certainly some government secrecy.

Interestingly, he talked with a crew man who had once been involved in the same sort of radar and training flights as had been the crew of the RB-47, which was a radar and visual sighting case in 1957. He mentioned that Brad Sparks had provided him with some of the analysis and that he had challenged Tim Printy, who writes and publishes the SUNlite skeptical newsletter, to come up with a solution. Printy spent on issue of his newsletter on analysis and Paul said that the analysis was interesting. What I noticed was that the man Paul talked to, who had been flying the same sort of mission as those on the RB-47 that had the first sighting, reported a similar incident. Asked what it was, the crewman said, “A UFO.” Sometimes it just comes down to where you sit on the no alien – alien visitation continuum.

Next week’s guest: Colonel Charles Halt

Topic: Rendlesham and Left at East Gate

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Don Ledger

This week I reached out to Don Ledger, a Canadian UFO researcher. My thought was to talk about the Shag Harbour UFO crash and his book Dark Object written with Chris Styles. He mentioned another book about Maritime UFO sightings cleverly called Maritime UFO Files. However, other than a brief mention here and there, the discussion centered around the Shag Harbour case. You can listen to it here:

https://youtu.be/wE9-7ZZ7Ni4

There were a couple of things that surprised me. First was the suggestion that there had been two objects and according to what Ledger called “anecdotal testimony” they had crossed into Canada from the west, at one point hovered for four minutes (or rather one of them did) and that intercepts by jet fighters had been attempted. In all the paperwork and documentation that he and Chris Styles had reviewed, there seemed to be no corroboration for this aspect of the case.

He also told a couple of stories about reluctant witnesses, found only some forty or fifty years after the event, who had been engaged in romantic escapades but who had been in a position to see the object in the air and fall to the water. While interesting and somewhat titillating, they added little to the case.

Alleged picture of object in the air. Photo
copyright by Wilford Isnor.

I did ask about a picture taken of the object in the air but Ledger didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Chris Styles, twenty years ago had supplied a copy of the picture to me. Looking at it now, it appears to be a time exposure with numerous star trails visible but nothing that actually looks like a UFO. Maybe they learned that there was nothing extraordinary about the picture so they have ignored it.

During the discussion, it seemed to me that Ledger didn’t answer the direct questions and spent too much time describing the landscape. I had a hard time drawing the description of the object out and that there were many documents both official and those from the media that showed something had happened. It just didn’t take us to the extraterrestrial, or rather directly to it.

Next week: Paul Kimball

Topic: The best UFO cases, as he saw them a couple of years ago, and the fiasco that is known as the Curse of Oak Island.

My List of the Best UFO Cases

For decades I have avoided answering the questions about what I believe to be the ten best UFO cases. I understood it to be a trap. Once I provide the answer, the debunkers would attack, explaining why those cases are nothing spectacular. There would find mundane answers for all of them, even if they have to make up the answers, which is not an unreasonable assumption.

I have discussed the Coyne helicopter case in the past. While some of you might disagree with some of the evidence of the case and point out that it is mainly the testimony of the flight crew, the fact is they were interviewed within hours of the event which provides us with a very good record of what they experienced. As you might remember, Phil Klass explained the sighting as a meteor with no evidence to support that explanation.

True, it might not have been an alien spacecraft, but Klass’ answer was pure fiction. This is the thing that worried me. People will remember this cockamamie explanation not realizing that it is bogus. The claim of an answer lives even when it makes no sense given the facts.

But this is about the cases I believe have not been explained. These are the ones that should have been investigated in depth at the time. Had that happened, we might have learned something important. Had that happened, we might be having a completely different discussion. As you will see, this is not a numbered list or a top ten list. It is a list of those cases I find interesting.

Pilots who attempted to intercept UFOs over
Washington, D.C.

In July 1952, on two consecutive weekends, UFOs were seen over Washington, D.C., reported by airline pilots, people on the ground and seen on radar. There were multiple attempts by Air Force fighters to intercept the objects. The Air Force pointed out there was a temperature inversion over Washington on those days which caused the radar returns and that some of the sightings were caused by the same natural phenomenon. The explanations don’t fit all the observations, but the press had an answer that made them happy. The Blue Book files on these cases are rather confusing which might have been the whole point.

(As a side note, and as I have mentioned here, these sightings were responsible for what I think of the greatest newspaper headline ever… SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL.)

Photo copyright by the Cedar Rapids Gaxette.

In November 1957, witnesses in at least thirteen separate locations in and around Levelland, Texas, reported a glowing object close to the ground, that stopped their car engines, dimmed their headlines and filled their radios with static. Many of them called the sheriff’s office or the local police to report the sighting unaware that others had seen the same thing and had reported the same thing. Sheriff Weir Clem (yeah, I wish he had a name like Jack O’Neill or something with a little more pizzazz) saw the object when he went out in search of it (he said publicly, he saw it in the distance, but it seems he might have gotten much closer) as did other law enforcement officials. The Air Force and NICAP’s Donald Keyhoe got into public arguments over the number of witnesses while no one actually made the attempt to interview them (no I don’t really count the afternoon that one Air Force NCO spent in Levelland talking to a few of the people and who proposed an explanation that did not fit the facts).

Looking down on the White Sands Missile Range. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

Within hours of the Levelland sightings and before the news media was reporting on them, MPs at White Sands Missile Range reported an object that landed near them. Twelve hours later a second team made a similar sighting. The Air Force interviewed three of the four MPs, mentioning that they were all very young, 20, 21 years old as if this disqualified them as observers. The Air Force explained the sightings as the moon and Venus. (As an aside, I remember being an aircraft commander and flight lead in Vietnam at 19 but you just can’t trust those teenagers and young men with anything important).

Lonnie Zamora.

I would include the Lonnie Zamora case but it is single witness with some landing traces. I do know that Phil Klass suggested that this was a hoax concocted by the mayor of Socorro, New Mexico, and Zamora to create some sort of tourist attraction on land owned by the mayor, except the mayor didn’t own the land and no tourist attraction was ever build. For me this case is somewhat problematic, though there are some very interesting aspects to it.

I also like the sightings around Belt, Montana, in March 1967. At the time these were going on, there was a shutdown of a Minuteman missile site nearby that the Air Force went out of its way to say it had nothing to do with the UFOs. What is important here is that Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Chase (he of RB-47 fame in 1957), the base UFO officer, when asked about some of this told the University of Colorado (Condon) investigator that he couldn’t discuss it because of national security… and yes, if a flight of missiles had been rendered inoperable by an outside force, whatever that force might have been, that was a matter of national security. The UFO sightings might have been a coincidence… but what if they weren’t?

One of the most documented UFO sightings took place in October 1967, while the Condon Committee was allegedly investigating UFO sightings. There were multiple witnesses to something falling into Shag Harbour in Canada. Although the initial reports came from a group of teenagers, eventually law enforcement and the military were involved in attempts to recovered whatever it had been… but the Condon Committee members, after a telephone call or two, decided the sighting was not worthy of additional investigation.

The series of sightings in Rendlesham Forest in December 1980 are also interesting. The sightings were multiple witness, were reported officially, and there was physical evidence of the landings. Debunkers have explained the case, but I don’t find their explanations particularly persuasive. I have met both Jim Penniston and John Burroughs and I find them to be solid witnesses. I have also met Larry Warren who first leaked the case.

The JAL 1628 case is important because there are complete radar records of the flight. The FAA investigated and the chief investigator John Callahan has those files. He said it was the only case he knew of where there were thirty minutes of radar data with voice recordings so you could watch and listen to the case in real time. Callahan said that he briefed people at the White House about the case.

I haven’t mentioned many photographs simply because I have noticed that about

Blow up of images from the
Montana Movie.

99% of them were taken by teenagers and 99% of those were faked. But there are two movies, one made in Great Falls, Montana in 1950 and the other near Tremonton, Utah in 1952 that are very interesting. There is also evidence that the Air Force tampered with the Montana Movie, removing a portion of it that showed the objects as disk shaped. Allegations were made that they had done the same with the Tremonton Movie, but the evidence argues against it.

Frame of the Tremonton Films, and no I don't believe sea gulls answers the question.

Yes, the list is incomplete and involves cases that I investigated, talked to the witnesses, been to the locations and the like. I do not believe that adequate explanations have been offered. I believe that some of the evidence has been twisted to force it into an explanation because like nature abhorring a vacuum, the Air Force and debunkers abhor an unexplained UFO sighting… But sometimes there just isn’t a good solution which is not to say that one won’t appear someday or that any of them proves alien visitation, only we don’t have a good explanation… and some of them suggest that had a proper investigation been conducted at the time, we might be having a different discussion.

UFO Crashes and the Public Record

I got an email from a fellow the other day talking about the Del Rio UFO crash. He said that he had gone through the local newspapers, had interviewed various long time residents, and completed other research without finding out anything about the crash. That got me to thinking.

True, you could say that the government had effectively covered up the whole story. But then I thought about the big five in UFO crash reports and realized that they had never effectively covered up the stories.

Roswell, as you may remember, was reported in the newspapers all around the world as a flying saucer crash for about three hours. Then the cover story of the weather balloon kicked in and everyone forgot about it.

Jesse Marcel, Sr., then told Stan Friedman and Len Stringfield about it and the race was on. Newspaper clippings were found. Government documents were found and here I’m thinking of the FBI Telex as a good example and not the laughable MJ-12 papers. And, there were many witnesses who were there in Roswell who did remember something about it.

The Las Vegas crash of 1962 was reported in newspapers, especially those in the west. There were illustrations of the object that flashed through the sky and there are many official documents in the Project Blue Book files about the event including the report from a general officer. I talked with a couple of dozen witnesses who saw the thing in the sky, who reported it interacting with the environment, and police officials who went in search of the wreckage.

The Kecksburg crash of 1965 was reported in the newspapers and I have lots of clippings from them. There are many official documents in the Project Blue Book files and Stand Gordon has talked to dozens of witnesses. There are reports of something being taken out of the woods on a flatbed truck.

The Shag Harbour crash of 1967 was reported in the newspapers. The Condon Committee, the Air Force sponsored study of UFOs even mentions the case. Chris Styles and Don Ledger have uncovered dozens of official documents, there is a picture of the object (well, light) in the sky and they have talked to dozens of witnesses including police officials, military officers and many civilians.

The Washington state crash of 1979 was reported in the newspapers. There are few official documents but Jim Clarkson has talked with dozens of witnesses who were in the area. There are some police reports and Clarkson has learned of a possible military connection, meaning they cordoned off the crash site.

So how do these cases differ from Del Rio, and a few of the other, well known hoaxes? There is a paper trail to them. There are multiple first-hand witnesses who have been identified and who had spoken about what they have seen...

And, no, here it really matters little whether these crashes are the result of a natural, though extraterrestrial cause, or if the object that fell had been manufactured on another world. The point is that any researcher can find lots of documentation even if that documentation suggests a natural event rather than an alien craft.

With Del Rio there was nothing in the local newspapers and the first mention I have been able to find is 1968 in Pennsylvania. There are no independent witnesses in the area who can verify something strange. There are no military witnesses either.

The conclusion to draw here is simple. Even if the event was eventually classified there is some kind of open source to lead us to it. We can find newspapers and government documents. We can find independent witnesses who share part of the story with us... witnesses who have a demonstrated connection with the area and the time. But with Del Rio, and some of the other crash reports, there is nothing like that. It is just one more reason to suspect that nothing happened in those cases.

UFO Crashes Survey Results

The results of the UFO crash poll weren’t all that surprising. Almost half of those responding, that is 48%, said that the best of the UFO crashes was Roswell. The most has certainly been written about Roswell, it has been the subject of many documentaries and TV investigations and inspires the most discussion when the topic is brought up here.

Nineteen percent of those responding believed that none of the crashes on the short list was the best and I take that to mean that they don’t think that any UFO crashes are worth further research. Given the number of skeptics who visit here, that too is not a surprise... although I was expecting a number little higher.

Shag Harbour came next with 16% and that isn’t much of a surprise either. Chris Styles and Don Ledger have done a marvelous job of tracking down both witnesses and documentation. On the document front, they are way ahead of the Roswell proponents. They have found many very interesting documents that show something fell into Shag Harbour and they have some very impressive witnesses as well.

Kecksburg got only 8% which is a little surprising, given the job Stan Gordon has done in his research. Maybe those visiting here are persuaded by the alternative solution which suggests a bolide.

Finally the two sort of surprises. I knew that Scott Ramsey was about to publish a book about the Aztec UFO crash and that he had new information. I have not seen that information and don’t know the form it takes. Stan Friedman chastised me a few weeks back for suggesting Aztec was a hoax. He seems to be on board with Ramsey. As I say, I don’t know what he might have found, but for the moment, I still reside in the hoax camp.

And I put Del Rio on the list because I have been doing some work on the case and wanted to see if anyone thought it as a solid report. The whole case swings on a single witness and a suggestion in the Eisenhower Briefing Document. I suppose some might suggest that since it is mentioned in this MJ-12 document, it has added validity. I’d respond by simply saying that the document features much more information about Roswell which should have overpowered the single paragraph about Del Rio.

As I say, no real surprises here. Most responded believed there have been UFO crashes. A few skeptics believe there have been none. Personally, I think there have been a couple, but nothing like the numbers suggested... and given what I have learn in the past, that number is shrinking. But, until we can find some documents that have a provenance, we have a government announcement about a crash, or we have full access to any hidden records or wreckage, this will always be a matter for debate.