I hate to keep picking on Philip Klass, but I’ve
just stumbled on another of his solutions and thought we might look at it. Back
in 1975, at Loring Air Force Base in Maine, Sergeant Steven Eichner, was
working with Sergeant R. Jones, when Jones saw a red and orange object over the
flight line. To both of them the object looked like a “stretched out football”
that hovered and then seemed to disappear as the lights went out. It reappeared
over the north end of the runway, moving in what they described as “jerky
motions.” They began to give chase, maybe just get closer for a better look,
and when they turned onto the road that led to the weapons storage area, they
saw the UFO some 300 feet in front of them. It was about five feet off the
ground and the air around it seemed wavy, such as heat coming off a desert
highway. They saw no doors, hatches or windows on it.
It wasn’t long before sirens sounded and Eichner
said that he saw many flashing blue lights on the Air Force security team
coming at them, or rather toward the weapons storage area. They didn’t want to
be close by as the Air Police tried to identify the lights and find out what
was happening.
That is a quick rundown of what Eichner and his
buddy saw that night. I mention it only because in the newspaper column that
we’re going to talk about, Eichner was mentioned and his story recounted. This
gives us all a view of what happened without getting into a discussion of
whether it was something from space or something from Earth.
Philip Klass decided to see what he could learn
about this and investigated. He told John Day of the Bangor Daily News, that “…he investigated the 1975 Loring incident.
Among other things, he was given access to base Telex communications during the
four or five nights when the mysterious object repeatedly hovered over Loring’s
nuclear storage facility. According to Klass, the cable traffic shows that
Loring officers had strong evidence that the mysterious object cited by Eicher
was a helicopter. Their concern was not that the SAC base was being penetrated
by spacemen, but that a radical anti-Vietnam group had rented a helicopter and
was trying to steal a nuclear warhead.”
I will only note here that any messages that might
have affected national security would have been highly classified, even five or
six years after the event and I doubt that Klass had access to them. He
certainly would have seen the regular traffic, but in this case, with someone
or something attempting to penetrate the nuclear weapons storage facility, the
classification of the communications would have been increased.
Day wrote, “According to Klass, the cable traffic
he obtained pertaining to the Loring UFO incident indicated that authorities
established that a well-financed crew operating out of a motel near Moosehead
Lake, was flying on the nights the mysterious object was observed hovering over
Loring’s nuclear stockpile.
“Klass has no proof that the Moosehead Lake
helicopter was the object which buzzed Loring. He says it is unfortunate that
the Air Force never followed up on their suspicions, or made public the results
of their investigations.”
Let’s just think about this for a moment. Klass
claims that the cable traffic suggested a “well-financed crew operating out of
a motel near Moosehead Lake, was flying on the nights the mysterious object was
observed” but that the Air Force didn’t follow up on it. We have this
helicopter (and it does sound like a helicopter meaning the maneuvers,
hovering, sound like a helicopter but there is no sound associated it which is
odd) which the Air Force apparently knew was flown by a crew staying in a local
motel, but they do nothing about it. These guys and girls, these anti-Vietnam
radicals (who apparently didn’t know that Vietnam War was over, US forces had
long been withdrawn and Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City, was in the hands of
the communists) were attempting to steal an atomic bomb. But the Air Force
didn’t follow up on it, so Klass has no proof for it.
I’m surprised that Day could write this without
phoning out to Loring to ask them a couple of questions. Oh, I doubt he would
have gotten much in the way of an answer, but he could have asked where these
radicals went after they failed to steal an atomic bomb. I would have thought a
reporter would wonder why the Air Force didn’t care enough to find those
trespassers and have them arrested. Isn’t deadly force authorized to keep
intruders out of those weapons stock piles? I mean, if they can shoot you for
trespassing, it would seem that they would want to arrest you, even if you were
aiding the local economy by renting helicopters, staying in local motels, and I
would guess buying food, and probably more than one bottle of bourbon.
But no, even though they knew the name of the
motel, and surely could have learned where the helicopter was parked and who
owned it, the Air Force didn’t follow up on it… or maybe as Klass said, never
made public the results of their investigation… which also seems odd. They
would have arrested the people and wanted others to know what would happen if
you rented a helicopter and flew it over their weapons storage facility.
So, no, I don’t believe Klass’s anti-Vietnam
radicals, which is not to say that aliens were responsible, only that there is
no evidence of Klass’s theory (ah, but absence of evidence isn’t evidence of
absence, or does that apply here?). Anyway, I thought I’d give everyone a
chance to see this wonderful explanation for the Loring UFO sightings.
Day finished up writing, “When you think about it,
there’s more logic to Klass’s contention that UFOs are more the product of
overactive imaginations on earth, than they are of little green men from
another galaxy. I’ve chased UFO stories as a reporter and found the bottom line
was somebody saw something but only God knows what it was.”
I wouldn’t have mentioned this last paragraph,
except it does provide a bit of a clue as to Day’s attitude about this, which
is basically even a crummy explanation is better than no explanation. But
really, I just wanted to note that he probably meant another solar system
rather than galaxy.
