UFOs Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (23 page)

In studying aviation cases, an important contribution was made by an outstanding independent French investigator,
⁶
Dominique Weinstein, who has catalogued 1,305 cases of UAP and UFO sightings by pilots—cases for which adequate data is available to categorize the UAP as unknowns—collected from official sources, including material I provided from CNES/SEPRA. The following results are interesting: 606 cases (36.7 percent) are sightings by military pilots and crews; 444 cases (26.9 percent) are sightings by civilian pilots; and 196 cases (11.8 percent) are by private pilots. In 200 cases (12.1 percent) the visual observation was confirmed by on-board or ground radar. And in 57 cases (3.45 percent), the pilots noted electromagnetic effects and disturbances on one or more of the plane’s transmission systems.

In combination with radar, we can draw a clear picture of the physicality of the UFO maneuvers in the airspace. The analysis of certain characteristics and maneuvers of these objects indicates behaviors that have nothing to do with any natural phenomena or with operations carried out by aircrafts or aeronautical and space machines.

One crucial point I have noted, which is shown in Weinstein’s study, is that a UFO’s behavior tends to depend on whether the encounter involves a military aircraft or a civilian passenger plane. Neutrality usually seems the general rule with commercial airlines or private planes, whereas an active interaction often occurs between UFOs and military aircraft. Military pilots usually describe the movements of UFOs as they would air maneuvers of conventional aircraft, using terms such as follows, flees, acute turns, in formation, close collision, and aerial combat. Twenty-two military cases in the Weinstein catalogue involve near misses, and six include reported “dogfights,” or combat maneuvers, between the UFOs and the military aircraft. I conclude that these incidents clearly demonstrate that in no way are these examples of natural events, but rather that UFOs are phenomena with a deliberate behavior. The physical nature of UFOs has been proved. Some of them also exhibit
intelligent control
when interacting with military aircraft.

I would like to propose an intriguing hypothesis that is important to me personally. On my part, it has required some research that extends outside of France and into the United States. I believe that there is a connection between strategic nuclear power, the atomic bomb, and the presence of unidentified artificial objects in the sky. This is suggested by data collected over several decades. It could be part of the answer to the question of why UFOs have been present in our environment.

I find it very interesting that this association between the sensitive strategic sites and the overflights of “flying discs” was proposed within the American Air Force during the Cold War. Air Force intelligence noted that many sightings occurred over “sensitive installations.” According to one document, a meeting was held on February 16, 1949, in Los Alamos, New Mexico, that included Edward Teller, “the father of the H bomb.” Commander Richard Mandelkorn of the U.S. Navy wrote in his report on the meeting that “there is cause for concern
⁷
of the continued occurrences of unexplainable phenomena of this nature in the vicinity of sensitive installations.” And an Army intelligence memo written a month earlier outlining different theories for these “extraordinary phenomena” stated almost the same thing: “It is felt that these incidents
⁸
are of such great importance, especially as they are occurring in the vicinity of sensitive installations.” On April 28, 1949, Dr. Joseph Kaplan, member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, recommended a scientific investigation about the observed “unidentified aerial phenomena” and emphasized that “this was of extreme importance” because “these occurrences relate to the National Defense of the United States.”
⁹

Such historical documents enable us to understand the origins of the connection between UFOs and nuclear bases, and to see that this problem was taken very seriously by the military and governmental authorities. Most explicit was part of a report by George E. Valley, MIT physicist and radiation expert and member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, submitted to the Air Force Project Sign in 1949. Valley swept aside all the assumptions of known natural and artificial phenomena and advanced the hypothesis of extraterrestrial objects, specifically “space ships.” He states that any “extraterrestrial civilization” making these objects would have to be developed far in advance of ours. He goes on to write:

Such a civilization might observe that on Earth we now have atomic bombs and are fast developing rockets. In view of the past history of mankind, they should be alarmed. We should, therefore, expect at this time above all to behold such visitations.

Since the acts of mankind most easily observed from a distance are A-bomb explosions, we should expect some relation to obtain between the time of A-bomb explosions, the time at which the space ships are seen, and the time required for such ships to arrive from and return to home base.
¹⁰

We have on record the number of explosions worldwide and tests both in the atmosphere until 1963 and underground from 1958 to 1998, from the first explosion in the New Mexico desert in 1945 to the most recent in India in 1998, a total of just over 2,400 explosions (543 atmospheric tests and 1,876 underground explosions). By comparing nuclear tests to some 150 visual/radar UFO cases collected since 1947, we note that the curves are practically superimposed in time and that they coincide, with not more than a few months appearing between the number of explosions and one of the UFO appearances. This similarity in the two curves would suggest that the proven presence of UFOs is related to the nuclear strategic activity in the world. I base my hypothesis on my studies of official documents, the places and zones of UFO sightings, and remarks made by highly placed civilian and military persons involved in secret programs. There have been numerous instances of UFOs flying over or near strategic air command and other military bases in the United States, especially as documented during the 1960s.

In fact, flights of “green fireballs” and “flying discs” occurred over sensitive U.S. sites such as Los Alamos, Albuquerque, Kirtland AFB, Alamogordo, and Holloman AFB. The perimeters of Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Knoxville, where the materials intended for the nuclear bombs were produced, were also flown over. And other examples have been documented: Great Falls and Malmstrom AFB (Montana); Fairchild (Washington); Kincheloe, Wurtsmith, and Sawyer AFB (Michigan); Plattsburg (New York); Loring AFB (Maine); and Pease AFB (New Hampshire).
¹¹
Perhaps if there is some kind of monitoring going on, it manifests more strongly when there is a nuclear crisis situation on the planet. On March 16, 1967, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, nearly twenty nuclear missiles were suddenly shut down while UFOs were in close proximity.

Something very extraordinary also occurred one year earlier at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota: On October 24, 1966, the Minuteman missile system was adversely affected during an afternoon while UFOs were sighted from the ground by multiple observers at three separate missile sites for over three hours, and two objects were tracked on radar. Communications and radio transmissions between various facilities monitoring the events were disrupted by static when the UFO came close to the site.

At 4:49 p.m. the outside and interior security alarms of safety for the Oscar 7 missile silo were activated at the control desk located sixteen kilometers (ten miles) away. A security team was dispatched and discovered that not only was the fence open but the horizontal door closing the missile silo was also open. This reinforced-concrete door weighed nearly twenty tons and there were no tire tracks nor any record of a visit that could account for this.

This case puts in stark view some serious questions about the nature of this phenomenon that was responsible for: various ground and on-board radar echoes; the loss of the UHF transmissions; the simultaneous observation on the ground and from the air of this immense stationary luminous ball above the Oscar 7 zone; the alarm trigger; and the rising of the twenty-ton silo door. The main witnesses to this incident were located and interviewed years later, confirming these events. The Minot Air Force Base director of operations submitted a detailed report, released with the Air Force Project Blue Book files.

Unlike the Tehran case in 1976, where the Iranian military authorities did not know how to react in the presence of UFOs, the U.S. Air Force knew that it should not suddenly intervene by force above a Minuteman missile silo, but instead should remain as neutral as possible faced with this kind of situation.

I am fascinated with the possible correlation between nuclear activity, the location of nuclear weapon storage facilities, and the presence of UFOs. We can see on a graph the relationship between atomic explosions and visual/radar sightings, by looking at the similarity in the two curves. We can’t be certain why, but perhaps UFOs are “monitoring,” and this activity was heightened during times of dangerous nuclear activity on the planet.

After my many years studying the most important unexplained cases, I think we have reached a certain level of knowledge about UFOs. They seem to be artificial and controlled objects whose physical characteristics can be measured by our detection systems, radar in particular. They fall under a physics which is by far superior and more evolved than the one we have in our most technologically advanced countries, highlighted by the stationary and silent flights, the accelerations and speeds defying the laws of inertia, the effects on the electronic navigation or transmission systems of aircraft, and the electrical blackouts. These performances have been shown on radar. When military aircrafts are directly involved, these objects are able to anticipate and neutralize the maneuvers of the pilots assigned to security and defense missions, and some remarkable cases show the capacity of the UFOs to seemingly understand a particular situation or to anticipate intentions of escape or military neutralization. The UFO phenomenon is definitely related to something controlled and intelligent.

The only speculation that I allow myself to make about UFOs is that if they are artificial probes, they cannot be of terrestrial origin and consequently they must come from somewhere else. If extraterrestrial civilizations exist and have the capability to reach us, their motivation might be to monitor our planet because of the concerns raised by human behavior.

CHAPTER 15

UFOs and the National Security Problem

W
hile the French agency under Velasco’s direction was focused on the scientific study of UFO evidence as a program within the National Space Center throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the American government was doing absolutely nothing to address ongoing UFO sightings on the other side of the Atlantic, no matter who reported them or what effect they were having on aircraft or military facilities. Since the termination of Project Blue Book, U.S. public policy seemed to be to deny any interest in UFOs whatsoever, even if it meant obvious evasiveness or a little bending of the truth here and there. Ideally, despite the extraordinary data collected in France and other parts of the globe, the U.S. government clearly hoped that everyone in America would simply forget about UFOs altogether.

Air Force statements issued at the close of Project Blue Book generated ammunition for UFO denial that is still used today, showing that nothing has changed in America for over forty years. When approached with a question about UFOs, the Air Force still sends out essentially the same form letter—ironically called a “fact sheet”—that it began using when Blue Book was terminated. Stating that UFO investigations have been discontinued, the statement presents three points—
exactly
the same ones made by the Air Force in its 1969 news release announcing the close of Blue Book. It stated then, as it does today, that the U.S. government will no longer be investigating UFOs for the following reasons:

• No UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security.
  

• There has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as “unidentified” represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge.
  

• There has been no evidence indicating the sightings categorized as “unidentified” are extraterrestrial vehicles.
  ¹
  

Did this Air Force “fact sheet” really give us the facts at the time, and is it applicable today? In contrast to other government agencies that are represented in this book, a look behind the scenes at how the American government
really
has behaved toward UFOs since the close of Blue Book—despite its public positioning—shows continuing official duplicity and leaves many questions unanswered about what was actually going on.

In examining the fact sheet, the second point can be disputed simply by credible, multiple-witness case studies on record at the time, and many others that have occurred since, such as those of General Parvis Jafari and Comandante Oscar Santa María Huertas. Dr. James Harder, a University of California professor of civil engineering, told the House Science and Astronautics Committee in its 1968 hearing
²
: “On the basis of the data and ordinary rules of evidence, as would be applied in civil or criminal courts, the physical reality of UFOs has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” UFOs have demonstrated “scientific secrets we do not know ourselves.”
³
The question of extraterrestrial origin, the third point, remains an unproven hypothesis, but there
was
enough evidence at the time to keep this possibility in the running, and certainly no justification for dismissing it altogether. The first point, a claim that UFOs have never threatened national security, however, is the one most relevant to any government, because it absolves agencies charged with defending the nation from any responsibility for paying attention to unidentified objects in the sky.