UFOs Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (51 page)

5
might account for the chlorophyll reductions
The case was presented in the GEPAN report Note Technique No. 16, Enquete 81/01, “Analyse d’une Trace” (Analysis of Trace Evidence), March 1, 1983.

For more on the Trans-en-Provence case, see “Report on the Analysis of Anomalous Physical Traces: The 1981 Trans-en-Provence UFO Case,” by Jean-Jacques Velasco, p. 27, and “Return to Trans-en-Provence,” by Jacques F. Vallee, p. 19, in
Journal of Scientific Exploration
, vol. 4, no. 1, 1990. Both articles can also be found in the excellent book
The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence
, by Peter A. Sturrock (Warner Books, 1999), pp. 257–97.

Vallee’s paper is noteworthy: The site of the 1981 Trans-en-Provence UFO case was visited again during 1988. Soil samples taken at the time of the initial investigation were analyzed in an American laboratory in an effort to validate the GEPAN/CNES study of the case. The results of the interviews with the witness and his wife and the examination of samples taken at the surface and below the surface of the physical trace support the findings of the CNES team and the truthfulness of the witness’s testimony.

6
an outstanding independent French investigator
Dominique Weinstein, “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Eighty Years of Pilot Sightings—Catalog of Military, Airliner, Private Pilots’ Sightings from 1916 to 2000,” February 2001, 6th edition.

7
“there is cause for concern”
Richard Mandelkorn, Commander, U.S. Navy, “Report of Trip to Los Alamos, New Mexico, 16 February 1949,” Subject: Project Grudge, February 18, 1949, p. 4. Project Blue Book file.

8
“It is felt that these incidents”
Memo from Headquarters Fourth Army to Director of Intelligence, “Unconventional Aircraft (Control No. A-1917),” by Colonel Eustis L. Poland.
www.project1947.com/gfb/poland.htm
.

9
“the National Defense of the United States”
Report concerning a conference held on April 27 and 28, 1949, at Kirtland Air Force Base on unidentified aerial phenomena, for the director of special investigations, USAF, Washington, D.C., May 12, 1949, p. 4. From Project Blue Book files. Richard Mandelkorn, Commander, U.S. Navy, “Report of Trip to Los Alamos, New Mexico, 16 February 1949,” Subject: Project Grudge, 18 February 1949, p. 4. Project Blue Book file.

10
“and return to home base”
George E. Valley, “Some Considerations Affecting the Interpretation of Reports of Unidentified Flying Objects,” report for Project Sign, USAF, originally classified Secret.

11
and Pease AFB (New Hampshire)
Larry Hatch, Nuclear Connection Project (1998); also see the book by Robert Hastings,
UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites
(AuthorHouse, 2008), for details of these and other incidents.

C
HAPTER
15: UFO
S AND THE
N
ATIONAL
S
ECURITY
P
ROBLEM

1
“sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ are extraterrestrial vehicles”
The Air Force Fact Sheet, “Unidentified Flying Objects and Air Force Project Blue Book,” can be found at
http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=188
. The December 17, 1969, News Release, no. 1077–69, “Air Force to Terminate Project Blue Book,” was issued by the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), Washington, D.C.–20301. See
http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/ufo/asdpa1.pdf
.

2
Astronautics Committee in its 1968 hearing
This is the same hearing discussed in
chapter 11
in reference to the testimony of James E. McDonald, held just before the Condon report was issued and Project Blue Book was shut down.

3
“scientific secrets we do not know ourselves”
Hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninetieth Congress, “Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects,” July 29, 1968 (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington 1968), pp. 121–24.

4
General Samford in his 1952 press conference
See
chapter 11
to review details of Samford’s press conference. He stated the percentage of credible reports of UFOs did not represent “any conceivable threat to the United States.”

5
“responsibility for the defense of the United States”
UPI, “Air Force Order on ‘Saucers’ Cited; Pamphlet by the Inspector General Called Objects a ‘Serious Business,’”
New York Times
, February 28, 1960.

6
“UFOs could not be Soviet machines”
Statement of Hon. Leonard G. Wolf of Iowa in the House of Representatives, August 31, 1960. Entered into the Congressional Record, p. 18955.

7
“cause for grave concern to this headquarters”
SAC headquarters to Ogden Air Material Area (OOAMA) Hill AFB, Utah, “Loss of Stategic Alert, Echo Flight, Malstrom AFB,” March 17, 1967. Originally classified Secret. The document is reprinted on p. 108 of Robert Salas and James Klotz,
Faded Giant
(privately published, 2004), a book with useful information about the Malmstrom case and other missile UFO incidents from the 1960s. For a more detailed and broader look at such cases, see Robert Hastings,
UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites
(AuthorHouse, 2008).

8
directly injected into the equipment
Salas, op. cit., p. 29.

9
have come forward with similar reports
Hastings, op. cit.

10
“reports which fall within their responsibilities”
C. H. Bolender, Brig. Gen. USAF, memorandum, “Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO),” October 20, 1969. Obtained through the FOIA by Robert Todd in 1979.
http://www.nicap.org/directives/Bolender_Memo.pdf
.

11
the NORAD log reports
24th NORAD Region Senior Director’s Log, November 1975; NORAD Command Director’s Log, November 1975.

12
the
Post
reported
Ward Sinclair and Art Harris, “UFOs Visited U.S. Bases, Reports Say,”
Washington Post
, 1979.

13
This highly unusual report
JCS Communication Center of the USDAQ Tehran Message 230630Z, September 1976, released in 1977 through the Department of Defense, “Reported UFO Sighting,” 3 pages plus 1 page evaluation. See also Henry S. Shields, “Now You See It, Now You Don’t,” United States Air Force Security Service,
MIJI Quarterly
Report 3–78, October 1978.

14
“maneuverability was displayed by the UFOs”
This list is exactly the way it is in the document, except I’ve put bullets where there were letters (a.–f.) and removed 1) from the first line (“an outstanding report …”) to make it easier to read.

15
Titled “UFO Sighted in Peru”
Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff message center, “UFO Sighted in Peru,” June 3, 1980.

C
HAPTER
16: “A P
OWERFUL
D
ESIRE TO
D
O
N
OTHING”

1
twelve officers from this department alone had their own sightings
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Philip J. Imbrogno, and Bob Pratt,
Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings
(Llewellyn Publications, 1998), p. 81.

2
“as if the ball were trying to measure something”
Interview with Heinrich Nicoll for the NBC television series “Unsolved Mysteries,” hosted by Robert Stack.

3
“One came back and the other didn’t” Athens reported
Hynek, Imbrogno, and Pratt, op. cit., p. 117.

4
“probing the water”
Ibid., p. 2.

5
bigger than a football field
Ibid., pp. 165–66.

6
well-documented visits by some kind of phenomenon
Hynek’s research on the Hudson Valley wave was collected into the very readable book
Night Siege
, published after his death, first in 1987 and later reissued, in collaboration with Philip Imbrogno and Bob Pratt.

7
In a 1985 essay
While he was investigating the Westchester County “boomerangs” in New York, Dr. Hynek left this essay on a diskette at the home of his friend Dr. Willy Smith on August 30, 1985. Titled “The Roots of Complacency,” it was meant to be a draft preface for
Night Siege
. A few weeks after writing the piece, Hynek went into surgery. His health rapidly declined in the ensuing months, and he died in April 1986. This last essay is quite different from the much shorter preface to
Night Siege
in its passion and intimate, unedited style.

8
“springboard to mankind’s outlook on the universe”
J. Allen Hynek,
The Hynek UFO Report
(Dell Publishing, 1977), p. 1.

C
HAPTER
17: T
HE
R
EAL
X-F
ILES

1
“until some material evidence becomes available”
The working party’s conclusions, titled “Unidentified Flying Objects” and classified Secret Discreet, were presented in a document dated June 1951, bearing the designation DSI/JTIC Report No. 7. Its six pages are posted at
http://www.nickpope.net/documents.htm
.

2
had
not
been released to the public
It was later released in 2001 under the title “Unidentified Flying Objects (U.F.O.’s) Report of Sighting, Rendlesham Forest, December 1980.” The key documents are posted at
http://www.nickpope.net/documents.htm
.

3
some rapid sketches in his police notebook
A detailed account of what happened is provided in Jim Penniston’s contribution to this book, in the next chapter.

4
one of the most significant UFO sightings ever
For a detailed account of the case, see the book by Georgina Bruni,
You Can’t Tell the People
(Pan Books, 2001).

5
“repeatedly denied, in precisely those terms”
Letter from Lord Hill-Norton to Lord Gilbert, Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, dated October 22, 1997.

6
“to out-maneuver a UAP during interception”
Defense Intelligence Analysis Staff Study, December 2000, “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defense Region,” vol. 1, chapt. 5, p. 4. See
http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/AB43D483-FF03-44F0-85DE-C4233C7C9F10/0/uap_vol1_ch5_pg4.pdf
for the relevant extract.

7
“and dealt with by RAF fighter aircraft”
BBC News, “UFO Investigations Unit Closed by Ministry of Defence,” December 4, 2009,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8395473.stm
.

C
HAPTER
19: C
HILE

1
known as the OIFAA
OIFAA stands for Oficina de Investigación de Fenomenos Aéreos Anómalos (Office for the Investigation of Anomalous Activity). The Peruvian Air Force established the agency within the DINAE, Division de Intereses Aeroespaciales (Division of Aerospace Interests), an Air Force department, in December 2001.

2
physically real but could not be explained
Dr. Anthony Choy, a UAP field investigator and founding member of the OIFAA, was the lead investigator in the very remote Chulucanas region, beginning even before the OIFAA was founded in 2001. Choy had the unique of experience in 2003 of actually witnessing a dramatic UFO event over the town square of an ancient village, along with about forty other witnesses, while in the process of conducting investigations. His studies in this region precipitated the Air Force’s first acknowledgment of a physically real but unknown phenomenon. Choy is now petitioning the Peruvian government to declassify its UFO files.