UFOs Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (49 page)

7
“a common-sense identification, if one is possible”
Richard Haines,
Observing UFOs: An Investigative Handbook
, (Nelson-Hall, 1980), chapter 2.

C
HAPTER
1: M
AJESTIC
C
RAFT WITH
P
OWERFUL
B
EAMING
S
POTLIGHTS

1
“no USAF stealth aircraft were operating in the Ardennes area”
Joint Staff, Washington, D.C., Information Report #5049, “Belgium and the UFO Issue,” March 30, 1990.

2
“there has never been any sort of American aerial test flight”
Don Berliner,
UFO Briefing Document
(Dell Publishing/Random House, 1995), p. 144.

3
a Belgian movie producer and two colleagues
Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, from an interview with Professor Auguste Meessen, “An Unidentified Flying Object on the Radar of an F-16,”
Paris Match
, July 5, 1990.

C
HAPTER
2: T
HE
UAP W
AVE OVER
B
ELGIUM

1
and is subsequently retrieved by the diver
The study “Étude Approfondie et Discussion de Certaines Observations du 29 Novembre 1989” by Professeur Auguste Meessen,
Inforespace
, no. 95, octobre 1997, pp. 16–70, includes descriptions of the “red ball show” at Lake Gileppe.
http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/Gileppe.pdf
. These observations were also described in the first book of SOBEPS.

2
“the lines of force” in a magnetic field
André Marion, “Nouvelle Analyse de la Diapositive de Petit-Rechain” (A New Analysis of the Petit-Rechain Slide), Orsay, January 17, 2002.

3
as suggested by Professor Auguste Meessen
Auguste Meessen, professeur emeritus at the University of Louvain, “Réflexions sur la propulsion des Ovnis” (Reflections on UFO Propulsion),
http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ReflexionPropulsion.pdf
.

4
such an effect would not occur if the picture was a hoax
Translated text of Professor Marion: “It seems difficult to envisage a hoax created with a model or other similar device. This is confirmed by the digital analysis (see further) … The existence of the ‘lines of force’ is a strong argument against the thesis of a hoax, which would be particularly sophisticated. Moreover, it is unclear why a forger would have bothered to imagine and realize a complex phenomenon, especially since it is not noticeable without sophisticated processing of the slide.” Marion, ibid.

C
HAPTER
3: P
ILOTS

1
case summaries involving pilots and their crews
Richard F. Haines, “Aviation Safety in America—A Previously Neglected Factor,” NARCAP Technical Report 01–2000, October 15, 2000,
http://www.narcap.org/reports/001/narcap.TR1.AvSafety.pdf
. I reported on this in “Pilot Encounters with UFOs: New Study Challenges Secrecy and Denial,”
Providence Journal
/Knight Ridder, May 3, 2001.

2
unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP
See the Introduction to this book, p. 11, for Dr. Haines’s definition of the term UAP.

3
Haines said in a 2009 interview
Interview with David Biedny and Gene Steinberg for “The Paracast,” April 5, 2009,
http://www.theparacast.com/show-archives/
.

4
the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena
Visit
www.narcap.org
for more information.

5
Neil Daniels, a United Airlines captain for thirty-five years
I met with Daniels at his home outside San Francisco and conducted follow-up interviews by phone.

C
HAPTER
4: C
IRCLED BY A
UFO

1
a captain with Portugália Airlines
Captain Guerra has 17,000 hours of flight experience, and in 2009 he received an aeronautic science degree from the Lusofona University of Oporto.

2
a report on this incident to Project Blue Book
General Ferreira’s report of September 4, 1957, is available through the Project Blue Book archives. His description bears an uncanny resemblance to that provided by General Parviz Jafari of Iran about the object he was sent to pursue over Tehran, also as an air force pilot, in 1976. Jafari presents his case in
chapter 9
. The details of Jafari’s encounter were filed by the Defense Intelligence Agency, after the close of Project Blue Book.

Through an intermediary, I asked General Ferreira if he would speak with me, hoping this would develop into an extensive interview. Being of poor health, he declined. In 1975, Ferreira said publicly, “I think these events should be introduced and studied at the universities, because these kind of phenomena are very far from our present technological performances.” It was therefore not surprising—and fortunate for Guerra and his fellow pilots—that as air force Chief of Staff, he released the data to the scientific team from various universities to conduct the study.

3
They concluded that the object remained unidentified
. The Portugese study “UFO Daylight Report by Three Portuguese Air Force Pilots, Ota, Portugal,” by the National Center for UFO Phenomenon Investigation (CNIFO), has not been translated into English. A summary of the results by J. Sottomayor and A. Rodrigues was published in
Flying Saucer Review
, vol. 32, no. 2 (1987), pp. 12–13. Now, the Center for Transdisciplinary Study on Consciousness (CTEC), an interdisciplinary academic group at University Fernando Pessoa, has assembled all the files on the UFO phenomena in Portugal, according to its cofounder, Dr. Joaquim Fernandes. For more information, e-mail
[email protected]
.

C
HAPTER
5: U
NIDENTIFIED
A
ERIAL
P
HENOMENA AND
A
VIATION
S
AFETY

1
will not be in error by more than an order of magnitude
Richard Haines and Courtney Flatau,
Night Flying
(McGraw-Hill School Education Group, 1992).

2
one of the few official statements to this effect on record
U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book file WDO-INT 11-WC23, 1958.

3
“as if by a single command”
Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization Bulletin, January–February 1969, pp. 1, 4.

4
and interviewed Ken Hansen
This name is a pseudonym.

5
remains even more of a mystery
Richard F. Haines and Paul Norman, “Valentich Disappearance: New Evidence and a New Conclusion,”
Journal of Scientific Exploration
, vol. 14, no. 1 (2000), pp. 19–33.

6
but this aircraft suffered no ill effects
Bruce Maccabee, “A History of the New Zealand Sightings of December 31, 1978,” 2005,
http://brumac.8k.com
; Bruce Maccabee, “Atmosphere or UFO? A Response to the 1997 SSE Review Panel Report,”
Journal of Scientific Exploration
, vol. 13, no. 3 (1999), pp. 421–59.

7
a dive to avoid a collision
Richard F. Haines,
International UFO Reporter
, vol. 32, no. 3 (July 2009), pp. 9–18.

8
he believed the thing was a “spaceship”
Richard F. Haines, “Commercial Jet Crew Sights Unidentified Object—Part I,”
Flying Saucer Review
, vol. 27, no. 4 (January 1982), pp. 3–6; Richard F. Haines, “Commercial Jet Crew Sights Unidentified Object—Part II,”
Flying Saucer Review
, vol. 27, no. 5 (March 1982), pp. 2–8.

9
“in the Big Bateau Bay in Spanish Fort, Alabama”
NTSB Report ATL03FA008.

10
would have produced wing-tip vortex turbulence
R. D. Boyd, “The Last Flight of Nightship 282.” In preparation, 2010.

11
the investigation conducted by the NTSB
Boyd, Ibid.

12
“possible presence of inorganic silicate compounds”
NTSB Accident Report ATL03FA008, p. 4, undated.

13
a recently unclassified report from the United Kingdom
Defence Intelligence Analysis Staff, Project Condign, 2000.

14
high-quality foreign pilot reports as well
Dominique F. Weinstein, “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Eighty Years of Pilot Sightings,” National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (
www.narcap.org
), Technical Report 4, 2001.

15
intelligence and deliberate flight control
Richard F. Haines, “Aviation Safety in America—A Previously Neglected Factor,” NARCAP Technical Report 01, 2000.

16
“Nobody knows what to do, really”
National UFO Reporting Center, August 5, 1992.

C
HAPTER
6: I
NCURSION AT
O’H
ARE
A
IRPORT

1
the
Chicago Tribune
on January 1, 2007
Jon Hilkevitch, “In the Sky! A Bird? A Plane? A … UFO?”
Chicago Tribune
, January 1, 2007.

2
and five other specialists
Haines et al., “Report of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon and Its Safety Implications at O’Hare International Airport on November 7, 2006,” March 9, 2007, NARCAP Technical Report 10,
http://www.narcap.org/reports/010/TR10_Case_18a.pdf
.

3
“UAP as non-existent”
Ibid., p. 100.

4
“a future incident such as this”
Ibid., p. 5.

5
“whether acknowledged or unacknowledged”
Ibid., p. 54.

C
HAPTER
7: G
IGANTIC
UFO
S OVER THE
E
NGLISH
C
HANNEL

1
and many other avenues of investigation
Jean-François Baure, David Clarke, Paul Fuller, and Martin Shough, “Report on Aerial Phenomena Observed Near the Channel Islands, UK, April 23 2007,” February 2008
http://www.guernsey.uk-ufo.org/
.

C
HAPTER
8: UFO
S AS
A
IR
F
ORCE
T
ARGETS

1
General Jafari and Comandante Santa María
Comandante is the rank equivalent to colonel in the U.S. Air Force.

C
HAPTER
9: D
OGFIGHT OVER
T
EHRAN

1
It was flashing with intense red, green, orange, and blue lights
Jafari’s description of the UFO, at very close range, is unusual. However, it bears an extraordinary resemblance to a report filed by another general, when he, like Jafari, was also an Air Force pilot. As referenced in
chapter 4
by Julio Guerra, and in my note for that chapter, Portuguese General José Lemos Ferreira submitted his description of a UFO to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book in 1957. The document is available in those archives.