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December 15, 2000

Halifax Herald Limited

Truth is out there, in Shag Harbour
Documentary explores real Nova Scotian X-File case

by Pat Lee

On Oct. 4, 1967 many Nova Scotians saw something strange flying through the sky with flashing lights.

The mysterious object plunged into the water off Shag Harbour, leading fishermen and the RCMP to rush out in a frantic attempt to find survivors.

But by the time boats arrived on the scene, all that was found was a mysterious yellow foam that smelled like burned sulphur, although a dark object was later spotted moving out to sea. (Insert Twilight Zone music here.)

Some 33 years later the Shag Harbour UFO story continues to fascinate believers and skeptics alike, mainly because of the number of credible eyewitness accounts and the official documentation that has been unearthed.

So it's not surprising that the story has lived on in books and most recently has become the subject of a documentary by local filmmaker Michael MacDonald.

Airing Sunday at 5 p.m. on cable's Space: The Imagination Station, the hour-long The Shag Harbour UFO Story brings together eyewitnesses and pieces together the X-Files tale, which started that October night when those mysterious lights were seen around the province.

Among those who spotted the odd sight from Dartmouth was then 12-year-old Chris Styles, who subsequently heard the same story from his grandfather who lived in Shag Harbour.

"I literally felt cold inside," Styles says of seeing the glowing object that night.

Also interviewed in the film is Don Ledger, who has written extensively about the case with Styles. The pair's research provided the framework for MacDonald's film, produced by Halifax-based Ocean Entertainment.

Also providing input on the incident is local fisherman Laurie Wickens, who also saw the strange lights that night, along with fisherman Lawrence Smith.

Adding to the intrigue is a photograph taken by Wilber Eisnor, which shows coloured lights glowing in the sky.

All fascinating stuff, made all the more interesting by government documents, comic book illustrations, the usual jazz about coverups and interviews with folks who prefer to have their voices altered and to be filmed in silhouette.

Of course no one knows what really happened in Shag Harbour, but speculation abounds, particularly since the event occured at the height of the Cold War and the fact that nearby CFS Shelburne was a top-secret submarine detection base.

There's something to make every conspiracy theorist happy. MacDonald and producer Johanna Eliot have done a nice job in touching all the mysterious bases, while presenting the information in a visually interesting fashion.

It truly is a story that will not die.

Picture text: A 1970s comic book offers one interpretation of the rumoured crash of a UFO near the Eastern Shore village of Shag Harbour. The famous case is explored in a new documentary, The Shag Harbour UFO Story, airing on Space on Sunday at 5 p.m.
 

December 9, 2000

Connellsville Daily Courier

Kecksburg: Little community with a big mystery

EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to Kecksburg. Close to Home is a series which runs periodically in The Daily Courier. The story features a look at the small town from its citizens' viewpoints.

by Bernadette Myers

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the strangest night in Kecksburg's history.

According to Kecksburg resident Bob Bittner Sr., a metallic, acorn-shaped, unidentified flying object fell to earth near Kecksburg, and the event was followed by a military recovery of the object.

Bittner was there when the military came in: "Forty-five minutes later, they came out of the ravine. I saw a truck with a tarp on it, but I couldn't tell if anything was on it."

He says, however, other witnesses say they saw an object on the truck.

"No one will ever tell me there wasn't something. They didn't send all that military out there to look at shooting stars," states Bittner.

"Ninety percent think something happened, 10 percent think it's a hoax," says Bittner of one of the few points of division in the small, close-knit community.

The quiet village of Kecksburg seems an unlikely backdrop for such an unusual event. Kecksburg was founded in 1866 when John Martin Keck, a German immigrant who had settled in Greensburg, purchased five acres in Mount Pleasant Township and laid out plans for a small community. by 1868, the community had a general store, blacksmith shop and a post office with Keck serving as postmaster.

by the late 1800s, Kecksburg was also home to a cigar factory, funeral home, drug store, hotel, barbershop, church, livery stable, and doctor's office.

Keck's son William, or "Will G.," was affiliated with the firm that bottled mineral water found on the Keck farm and that lead to the development of the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant that operated in Kecksburg for many years.

In addition to the water and soft drink bottling industry, Will G. Keck also helped bring the first telephone company to the area. In 1906, the company that would become "The Citizens Telephone Company of Kecksburg" was founded.

Now mostly residential, Kecksburg today is a little quieter than it was in the past. The Pepsi bottling plant is now the site of "A-liner," a camper manufacturer. Just a few other businesses are nearby.

Hutter's Dairy sits "just over the hill" from Kecksburg, according to owner Jane Hutter. She and husband Gilbert have operated the dairy since
1951. They have processed milk from their dairy and opened a store in 1969.

Customers come from all around to buy their milk.

"Greensburg, Latrobe, wherever they don't have our milk in thestore,"says Hutter.

Duane Hutter of the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department says the VFD provides social activities as well as rescue services. They have an annual "gun bash" each spring and a fair during the last full week of July. Weekly activities include Monday night bingo and Wednesday night wing night.

These activities provide necessary funds for the fire department, which has a roster of 68 active and inactive members.

"The community has been tremendous to us," comments Hutter. The small community has enabled the VFD to keep updating its fleet. They recently joined together to build a tanker truck for $26,000 that holds 3,500 gallons of water.

Hutter adds that if a tanker of that size were to be purchased, the bill would have been $295,000. He says the Kecksburg VFD also operates the state certified rescue truck for the township, and the rescue squad is charted under the fire department.

The fire department grounds are the site of the UFO model, displayed high atop a platform for residents and passers-by to see.

Bittner was there during the filming for "Unsolved Mysteries" in 1990. "There was a reenactment. It was a pretty big project, a lot of Army trucks," he recalls.

Despite the story being featured on national television and efforts by local researchers such as Stan Gordon of Greensburg, what actually happened that December night remains unexplained, and Kecksburg remains a little community with a big mystery.
 

September 24, 2000

Caller-Times (Corpus Christi, Texas)

Believers gather at national UFO conference

by Cynthia Hodnett

Corpus Christi, Texas - Robert Matthews has believed UFOs exist ever since a trip to Mexico nearly 20 years ago.

"During the day, I saw a very white beam of light over the mountains that would appear on and off," Matthews said. "I really believe that it had to be something unexplainable."

Matthews, of Austin, Texas, was one of more than 100 UFO watchers attending the 37th Annual National UFO Conference here this weekend.

"We had conferences in other places, but we wanted to bring it here," said Doris Upchurch of Corpus Christi, assistant chairwoman of Mutual UFO Network's South Texas chapter, which sponsored the event.

James Moseley, the author of several books that document sightings as far back as the mid-1950s, said he remains somewhat skeptical about UFOs. "I accept the fact that I have seen them," Moseley said. "The trouble with the sciences like 'ufologism' is interpretation. You have a mystery that is beyond our current understanding, one that can't be measured more than once."

Other lecturers presented what they call further evidence of a government cover-up at Roswell, N.M., where some believe two alien ships crashed in 1947, leaving alien corpses behind.

Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist, said an Army Air Force general who reportedly met with investigators in New Mexico shortly after the Roswell incident was actually fishing in Port Aransas at the stated time. "There were a great deal of fraudulent documents that were used by the government to confuse researchers," he said. "And it still continues."

Pictures of crop circles supposedly found in Corpus Christi were on display, as was a reproduction of an alien's fossilized remains that were supposedly found in the early 1900s, Upchurch said.

According to Upchurch, the crop circles - a total of seven, ranging in diameter from 20 to 50 feet - were found in a vacant lot.

Other speakers included Jerrnimo Flores Cavazos, a reporter who has investigated UFOs in Mexico for 25 years, and Diana Perla Chapa, a television director who also researches UFOs in Mexico.

Perla Chapa and Flores Cavazos began a group for UFO watchers nine years ago after they met near a mountain where a UFO sighting was reported. Since then, they have done several television reports on UFO sightings throughout Mexico.

"We don't say we believe in UFOs because it is not a religion," Perla Chapa said. "We say we know there are UFOs out there. What we do is the investigation to promote UFO sightings to the public. We show them what we have found and we let them make up their own minds."

Other speakers included Greg Avery, on UFO sightings in the last 30 years, and psychologist Constance Clear, on post-abduction therapy.

Allowing those with similar experiences to meet and remaining unabashed in their beliefs is the goal of the conference, Upchurch said.

"If you ask people whether they have seen a UFO and they are in an earshot of another person, they will probably deny it," she said. "If you get them by themselves, they will probably say yes. It happens more commonly than we would like to think."
 

 September 11, 2000

Irish Times

Myth of UFO at Roswell Debunked

by Dr William Reville

Most people are familiar with stories of aliens visiting Earth in unidentified flying objects (UFOs). For some reason the belief that aliens are here is much stronger in America than in Europe, and thousands of Americans claim to have been abducted by aliens, ushered aboard spacecraft and subjected to physical examination.

Many magazines devoted to aliens/UFOs regularly report UFO sightings and human contact with aliens. Nevertheless, there is, to my knowledge, no hard evidence that aliens are visiting Earth. Probably the most celebrated event in the alien genre is the Roswell Incident. The story of what happened at Roswell is told by Robert Park in the May/June 2000 edition of The Sciences. Park effectively, to my mind, explains away the whole incident as an artificial by-product of paranoid US military secrecy.

On June 14th, 1947, a rancher, William Brazel, spotted a large area of wreckage about 70 miles north of Roswell, New Mexico. The debris included neoprene strips, metal foil, cardboard, tape and sticks. Brazel paid little attention at the time, but several weeks later he heard reports of flying saucers and wondered if the wreckage might be related. He reported his suspicions to a local sheriff who informed the army base at Roswell.

An army intelligence officer, Major Marcel, investigated the site and concluded that the debris was the remains of a radar target or a weather balloon. He loaded all the debris into the boot of his car.

The army information office issued a statement to the effect that the army had "gained possession of a flying disc through the co-operation of a local rancher and the sheriff's office". Park says this was a garbled message which the army quickly corrected, this time describing the debris as a standard radar target. The original press release lit the fire of suspicion and, with the passage of years, the subsequent correction has increasingly been seen as a Government cover-up.

As the years passed, the Roswell story grew into a fantastically detailed saga. The debris that Major Marcel reported had fitted into the boot of his car grew into the wreckage of an entire alien spacecraft that was secretly moved by the military to an air force base in Ohio.

Alien bodies were said to have been found in the spacecraft. The aliens were described as small, with large heads and suction cups on their fingers. One alien was reported to have been alive when found but was kept hidden by the Government.

Park explains the emergence of the Roswell saga as the product of over-active imaginations stitching together bits and pieces of reports of unrelated plane crashes, parachute experiments involving roughly life-like dummies, and so on, even though some of these events occurred many miles from Roswell and years later. The story grew into a full-scale myth of an encounter with extra-terrestrials, the details of which the Government found too frightening to share with the people and consequently they, it was believed, covered up the whole thing.

As it turns out, there was a government cover-up, but not of an alien spacecraft. It involved a secret government programme from the 1940s, Project Mogul. by summer 1947 the Russians had not yet exploded their first atomic bomb, but it was clear this test was imminent. It was most important for America to know when the test took place.

Project Mogul was an attempt to listen for the explosion by launching low-frequency microphones to high altitude where sound waves can propagate around the globe. Microphones, radar tracking reflectors and other devices were sent aloft on long trains of weather balloons to listen for the atomic explosion.

These balloon trains were launched in New Mexico from a point about 100 miles west of Roswell. Flight 4 was launched on June 4th, 1947 and was tracked to within 17 miles of where Brazel found the wreckage, when contact was lost. The debris found at Roswell matches the materials used in the balloon trains. Park believes the crash of Flight 4 was the birth of what has become known as the Roswell Incident.

PROJECT MOGUL remained secret until 1994, when Steven Schiff, a Congressman from New Mexico, insisted on an all-out search for records and witnesses to reassure the public there was no government cover-up of Roswell. Had the truth been revealed about Project Mogul in 1947, it would almost certainly have killed off speculation about the Roswell debris, but the truth emerged 50 years too late. For many UFO-enthusiasts, the government secrecy over Project Mogul simply reinforced their conviction that the government also covered up the far more sensitive matter of contact with extraterrestrials.

The Russians carried out their first atomic test in August, 1949, which quickly became common knowledge. At that stage what possible advantage was there for the government to hide Project Mogul, especially when revealing some details would prevent the growth of a potentially dangerous myth? Any reasonable person would allow government the freedom to maintain a certain level of secrecy in some areas, particularly at times of war or threat of war. Unfortunately this concession to government is wide open to abuse and leads to a culture of secrecy.

Keeping secrets inevitably leads to lies and inevitably some of these lies are found out. This destroys trust. Polls in the US now show a growing number of people think the government is covering up information about UFOs. When the public loses trust in government experts, there is a ripple effect outwards of diminished trust in all expert scientific opinion. As the tide of trust recedes it is smoothly replaced by receptivity to all sorts of pseudo-science and even outright superstition - and this apparently is the unfortunate legacy of the crash of a weather balloon at Roswell in 1947.

William Reville is a senior lecturer in biochemistry and director of microscopy at UCC
 

August 28, 2000

Irish Times

Group seeks reports of crop circles

by Sean MacConnell

Farmers have been asked to watch for and report any crop circles which they may find in their fields this harvest.

The appeal has come from a new group, UFO Ireland, which was formed to collate information from Ireland and to analyse whether there is any extra-terrestrial activity here.

The central co-ordinator of the group, Mr. Lorcan McGrane, said yesterday he and his colleagues would adopt a sceptical approach to all reports in the hope of discovering a genuine site.

"We would ask farmers not to report unusual patterns in their crops which may have been the work of drunken or other hoaxers. We are looking for the real thing," he said. Mr. McGrane, a Dublin-based media studies student, said crop circles have been a growing phenomenon in the UK and had received a lot of media attention.

"The whole idea is to try and find out how many crop circles appear in Ireland and how they relate to those abroad. The creation of a central database is important," he said.

He did not think the group's work was in any way weakened by an appeal to the public to report UFO sightings as well.

"We have noted a number of UFO sightings from Ireland on websites in the USA and some of them were really over the top," he said. Mr. McGrane said that reports of crop circles and other sightings of UFOs would be published in Six Mag magazine, which hosts the UFO website. He said sightings could be reported to him at 087-6556245 or on e-mail: ufo@ireland.com

 

August 10, 2000

Baltimore Sun

Agency's plan backfires as Web site boosts UFO queries

by Laura Sullivan

Two years ago, the National Security Agency (NSA) began posting previously classified documents on its Web site to deflect the growing number of requests each year for information about flying saucers and space aliens. But the plan backfired.

Rather than relieving suspicions that the agency is hiding information about unidentified flying objects, the result has been more people than ever demanding to see UFO documents. A record 36,000 people perused the UFO page last month.

What has piqued UFO believers' interest is not so much what the documents on the Web site say - often little or nothing between the blacked-out, censored sections - but their extraordinary volume: thousands of pages of unofficial reports and antiquated radio interceptions from abroad.

Among the postings from the files of the nation's most-secret spy agency is a National Enquirer article with the headline, "Take UFOs Seriously or Be Prepared for Sneak Invasion by Space Aliens."

All of this is fueling speculation among believers who wonder why, for something that doesn't exist, the NSA has collected a ton of records. The NSA staff, burdened with hundreds of written requests under the Freedom of Information Act, is not amused.

The agency hasn't kept exact numbers about UFO requests. But Pamela Phillips, chief of FOIA/Privacy Act Services, said the increase in letters asking about UFOs has been "significant," forcing the office to hire several additional staff members.
 

August 8, 2000

Fox News

UFO Hunters Search NSA Documents on Web

FORT MEADE, Md. -- UFO theorists are probing declassified National Security Agency files on the spy agency's Web site, hoping to find evidence that proves there is life beyond Earth.

The NSA hoped the documents released two years ago would quell suspicions that it harbored information about unidentified flying objects. Instead, thousands are looking at the documents, which include a National Enquirer article with the headline, "Take UFOs Seriously or Be Prepared for Sneak Invasion by Space Aliens."

"The fact that they're releasing this stuff and it's so blacked out, the theories just flurry," said John Greenwald, who has collected UFO documents from government agencies for more than five years and posts them on his Web site.

NSA staffers receive hundreds of written requests under the Freedom of Information Act and the UFO queries are slowing everything, said Pamela Philips, chief of FOIA/Privacy Act Services for the agency.

"More people than ever are interested in this stuff," said Peter Gersten, an Arizona attorney and director of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy. "Each year you get more and more people, especially young people. With X-Files and Star Wars, it's exotic. It's entertaining. It's the greatest mystery of all time."
 

August 4, 2000

Detroit Free Press

UFO question pulls politics back to Earth

by Desiree Cooper

IT'S A SHAME that our interest in the presidential race centers more on what damage each candidate can do rather than on how they can move the country forward.

"What will happen to Roe vs. Wade?" some ask of a George W. Bush presidency.

"What will happen to business under a president who's a nut about the environment?" others ask of Al Gore.

"What will happen to the supposedly classified documents about UFOs?" others ask of both.

Huh?

That's the burning question Peter Robbins, a 53-year-old UFOlogist, former art instructor and theater manager is asking of the presidential candidates. To date, none has dignified his question, save a short acknowledgement from the Libertarian candidate for president and a terse letter from the now-defunct Bill Bradley campaign.

Undaunted, Robbins followed up his Dec. 8 communication with more letters to the Gore campaign this spring, challenging him to declassify government documents relating to UFOs should he become president.

You're wondering whether Robbins is serious. It turns out, he's serious as a Mars attack.

UFOs and eroding democracy

Robbins claims there are classified papers verifying military encounters with mysterious flying objects. He's documented one such encounter in "Left at East Gate" (Marlowe & Co., $15.95), a book that details an alleged government cover-up (including U.S. intelligence) of a UFO incident in rural England. That kind of secrecy, Robbins said, is destructive to democracy -- an issue that extends beyond the question of UFOs.

"But," I protested, "do you really expect the presidential candidates to address UFOs instead of education and health insurance?"

"This isn't just about UFOs," Robbins explained. "People are sick of being told that their feelings, their experiences are not valid -- or that information regarding what they intuitively know to be true is 'classified.' "

Robbins said that UFOs are a metaphor for things most politicians won't talk about, from sex to death. And it's a metaphor for less tangible, but widely held, beliefs in things like near-death experiences.

According to a report from the National Science Foundation, about half of all Americans believe in extrasensory perception, up to one-half believe in UFOs and 20 percent to 50 percent believe in ghosts. But politicians separate themselves from life as everyday people experience it, Robbins said. And that, coupled with excessive secrecy and hypocrisy, erodes the electorate's faith in democracy.

Close encounters with truth

Hmm ...If politicians were willing to get to the bottom of the existence of UFOs, what other issues would they be willing to entertain? Could they explore why so many Americans still feel nervous about their economic futures in this era of unprecedented prosperity? Why Congress is battling over the estate tax when most parents can't afford to give their kids a college education? Why more American children and teens were killed by gunfire in the last 20 years than the total number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam? Why many voters could not care less about cyberspace, because in their virtual reality they have no transportation, affordable housing, health care or a job making a living wage?

Perhaps if politicians could stifle their giggles long enough to answer Robbins' questions, they might find the time to answer mine, too.

And wouldn't that be out of this world?
 

July 26, 2000

Reuters

U.S. Bill Aims for Order on CIA Declassification

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday said he would push for passage of legislation this year aimed at reducing the burden on CIA declassifiers overwhelmed by numerous special requests from government officials.

Those special requests from administration officials and members of Congress have asked CIA declassifiers to search for documents on everything from UFOs to murdered churchwomen in El Salvador to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, a Florida Republican, and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, have sponsored legislation to create a nine-member board to prioritize such special requests.

"The purpose of the bill is to bring some order to the chaos," Goss said at a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the legislation. He said he would seek passage of the legislation this year.

"It's a push and shove, it's who has the sharper elbows," Goss said. Right now, a special request for a search of documents by the person with the most political clout is likely to be put on top of the pile, he added.

Streamline Responses

Such requests at times end up resulting in duplicative work for the CIA declassifiers because they are made by different people at different times, Goss and Moynihan said. The proposed board would aim to reduce repetitive requests and streamline agency responses.

The CIA's 230 to 300 employees at its "declassification factory" are stretched by the sheer amount of records they must review, Moynihan said. The spy agency has in the past said it processes about 8 million pages of classified records a year.

Aside from the special requests, the declassification efforts include a presidential executive order requiring information older than 25 years be declassified unless the government decides it needs to stay secret.

Also the public requests declassification of documents under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act.

The CIA budget for declassification efforts itself is classified.

Included with Moynihan's testimony was a letter from CIA's director of congressional affairs, John Moseman, on the impact of special searches and a list detailing the types of searches that have been requested.

The list and letter, dated Oct. 18, 1999, were declassified last Friday, July 21. "In sum, special searches are a growth industry and compete with the mandates of the many existing information review and release programs," Moseman said.

Search For UFOs

From 1993 to September 1999, the CIA conducted nine separate special searches for documents on El Salvador, mainly related to four churchwomen murdered there in 1980. There were 12 on Guatemala related to the deaths of several Americans and for records on the 1954 CIA-backed coup, the list said.

CIA Director George Tenet requested a search for documents related to convicted spy Jonathan Pollard on the damage done to national security by his espionage activities.

The request was made in late 1998 when President Clinton, during the Wye River Middle East peace conference, said he would review the case of Pollard, a former naval intelligence official jailed for life in 1986 for selling military secrets to Israel.

Israel has been seeking Pollard's release, reportedly as recently as the just-ended Camp David summit that collapsed.   Tenet has opposed releasing the spy.

Other special searches were done in response to congressional requests for documents on parapsychology studies, and satellite imagery on the presence of Noah's Ark, on which after spending 1,000 hours the CIA concluded "no definitive information identified."

A CIA director also requested information on UFO sightings and Roswell, New Mexico, a subject on which more than 2,700 pages have been released, according to the list.

Several items for which special search requests had been made were
blacked out on the list.
 

July 15, 2000

ABC News

Welcoming Real Out-of-Towners
Roswell, N.M. Celebrates Its UFO Heritage

by Andres Ybarra
The Associated Press

R O S W E L L, N.M., July 15 — Santa Fe has Georgia O’Keeffe. Fort Sumner has Billy the Kid. And Roswell? Roswell has E.T.

This small southeastern New Mexico town, known as the alien capital of the world, may not have many artifacts to show off like other historic sites. But it’s still a huge draw for tourists fascinated by the unknown.

"It is a source of pride," said Roswell native Jessica Mysza, a visitor to the International U.F.O. Museum and Research Center.

The museum, the town’s main attraction, is a warehouse of information on the notorious alleged flying saucer crash landing near Roswell in 1947. Little green men decorate the outside of the building in a town where even the Wal-Mart features a picture of a big alien head and a fast-food restaurant has a sign welcoming aliens.

The theme of government cover-up hangs heavy in the building with walls covered with pictures of the alleged crash site and documents of testimonies.

However, despite the fact that many of the museum’s workers have a strong belief in UFOs, the goal is not to convince people of alien existence, museum director Carol Syska said.

"We just ask you to come through with an open mind, and then make up your own mind," said Syska, a retired Los Alamos National Laboratory worker.

Is the Truth Out There?

The 8-year-old museum sees about 180,000 visitors a year, she said. There is no admission charge and most of the workers, including Syska, are volunteers.

A history of the 1947 incident is presented through pictures and testimonies of people involved, including two of the museum’s three founders. Copies of government documents about the incident acquired through the Freedom of Information Act also are on display.

Pictures and written testimonies of UFO sightings around the world also are chronicled — including those proved to be hoaxes.

"It’s still a living museum. It’s not just a dead museum," Syska said. "It shows things that are still happening today."

The only physical evidence on display is a small piece of metal, allegedly debris from the crashed spacecraft. Syska says the metal is much thinner and lighter than the jeweler’s junk the government says it is.

That piece of "spacecraft" is 13-year-old Dustin Dearman’s favorite exhibit item. He’s Mysza’s cousin, visiting from Monahans, Texas.

"I think it’s a good place for reading," said Mysza, who isn’t convinced UFOs exist. "But I really think it’s they’ve done well with the information they present. It’s very informative."

The building also houses a research center with books and videos about UFOs. Databases with information on sightings also are available.

The Mystery and Enigma

After the tourists have their fill on the information side of Roswell’s aliens, they can venture down the street to alien gift shops for the entertainment aspect, store owner Stacy Wolkwitz said.

Wolkwitz’s Alien Zone store, a block from the museum, sells T-shirts, key chains and other alien paraphernalia. The store also features an alien studio filled with several scenes ranging from aliens barbecuing to an Area 51 toxic spill. Visitors can pay $2 to take their own pictures in the studio.

"I think the people really are interested in the mystery and the enigma about all of this," Wolkwitz said.
 

July 12, 2000

Edmonton Sun

Shadowy agency prompts speculation

by Doug Beazley

A rich-as-God real estate magnate with his own private jet can go just about anywhere he wants, whenever he wants - including North Battleford, Sask., in high August.

Question is, why would he want to? Well, if he's Robert T. Bigelow, he goes for the scenery. And the mutilated cattle.

"It was a pretty typical case," said Fernand Belzil, St. Paul rancher and one of Canada's top cattle mutilation investigators. "Tongue missing. One ear removed, one eye, the rectum, the udder. Those weird bare spots on the stomach. The corpse was fresh, about 24 hours old."

On Aug. 29, 1995, Bigelow, a billionaire who made his pile with hotel chains and apartments in the U.S., flew into North Battleford for the long drive north to a cattle farm that had seen about 15 mutilation cases in 20 years.

Bigelow, 56, is something of a legend in the UFO community - a sort of Howard Hughes figure who avoids press attention while dumping huge quantities of cash into research areas most mainstream scientists won't touch: crop circles, flying saucers and mutilated livestock.

Bigelow sat in with Belzil on a veterinarian's autopsy of the butchered cow. The cuts, said Belzil, were clean-edged, as if they'd been done with a scalpel.

"The cow was supposed to be pregnant, but we never found a fetus," he said.

Bigelow took the autopsy results and flew home to Las Vegas. Belzil waited for a report on what the veterinarian found.

"All we ever heard was that there was an error in the study. We never got any data back," he said. "Between you and I, it sounds very much like a coverup."

It's a suspicion that gets voiced a lot in the UFO field about Bigelow and his research group, the Nevada-based National Institute for Discovery Science. His deep pockets give him access to a wealth of rumors and reports about weird happenings - but NIDS is notoriously stingy with its information.

"NIDS is a black hole. Information goes in, nothing comes out," said Gord Kijek of the Alberta UFO Study Group. "Nobody seems to know what their real agenda is."

Nobody seems to know a whole lot about Bigelow either. His official NIDS bio describes him as a very wealthy philanthropist with his own aerospace company - currently working on a project to develop the first orbiting space hotel.

In 1947, according to the Wall Street Journal, Bigelow's grandparents were buzzed by a glowing red UFO while driving through the Nevada desert late at night. He's reportedly spent more than $10 million of his own money on paranormal research to date, including bankrolling the operation of St. Paul's own UFO hotline between 1996 and 1999.

"In return for paying the bills, he got first crack at any UFO sighting report we received," said Paul Pelletier, former hotline administrator. "We weren't allowed to publicize them without NIDS' permission."

In 1996, Bigelow sent a team of researchers to a Utah ranch which reportedly had been the site of a range of bizarre phenomena: UFOs the size of football fields, circular doorways appearing in midair, floating balls of light incinerating family pets. He bought out the owners on the condition that they keep mum about whatever they'd seen.

"Personally, it's not the way I feel science should be done," said Dr. Jim Butler, a U of A biologist with an interest in the paranormal. "Because of the secrecy, a lot of conspiracy theories get built up around NIDS."

Like maybe Bigelow's building his own flying saucer?

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Butler, laughing.

Colm Kelleher's heard most of the conspiracy theories himself. He's a researcher at NIDS with a resume that includes a biochemistry doctorate from the University of Dublin.

He said NIDS is working on some explosive theories about UFOs and cattle mutilation they're in no hurry to publish.

"The authentic mutilations are not done by predators," he said. "The cuts show the use of surgical instruments and techniques. We have no indication it's being done by aliens.

"People keep saying we're a CIA front, we're the Men in Black. We're just prudent. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Right now the UFO field is 95% speculation and fantasy, 5% data of very poor quality. This is why these phenomena are still ridiculed by the media.

"And no, we are not (building a UFO)."
 

July 12, 2000

Fox News

Former Astronaut Gordon Cooper On UFOs and Space Travel

Gordon Cooper was one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts and part of a select group of the nation's top military test pilots who braved the frontiers of outer space.

He was also the last American to fly in space alone. On that journey, almost 40 years ago, he did not find extraterrestrial intelligence, but he did find a deeper sense of personal faith.

As David Asman uncovered in the afternoon edition of Fox News Live, many untrue reports came out about Cooper and his extraterrestrial sightings in space. On Tuesday, Cooper said all of the reports were false, but he did have an out-of-this world experience while flying a plane during the height of the Cold War with Russia.

"We saw these vehicles that were a lot higher and faster than we were, and we could not get to them with airplanes," Cooper said. "We didn't know what Russia was doing with airplanes so it could have been an advance airplane they were building or it could have been a UFO vehicle."

Ever since that flight, Cooper has had an unshakable belief in extraterrestrial intelligence. His new book Leap of Faith, an Astronaut's Journey into the Unknown, recounts his experiences.

David Asman pointed out; the only way an object can go undetected on Earth, is to travel faster than the speed of light — a barrier which scientists only recently claimed to have broken.

"I agree that you have to go faster than the speed of light to be undetected," Cooper said. "But I don't agree that you cannot break the speed of light, in space, magnetic particles do, they zip around and they are going faster than the speed of light."

Cooper's book also touches on how looking down at Earth changed his life. "It's Probably one of the most humbling experiences that I have ever been through," Cooper said. "You are a small part of this great big universe God has made, you feel very small."
 

July 12, 2000

Washington Post

Sagan and Firmage: Not So Perfect Together?

by Joel Achenbach

Carl Sagan is a modern-day hero of science. He inspired millions of people to ponder the beauty of the universe, and to understand that we are a tiny, precious fragment of the cosmos. But he also implored them to be skeptical, to resist superstition and pseudo-science. Sagan told everyone to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.

Now comes a bit of news that just about knocked me out of my chair. Joe Firmage, a Silicon Valley millionaire who became a highbrow UFO guru after he was visited in his bedroom by "a remarkable being clothed in brilliant white light," has signed a deal with Ann Druyan, head of Carl Sagan Productions ­ and Sagan's widow ­ to start a new company that will have a Web portal and produce science-based entertainment.

I want to resist the urge to start babbling hysterically about how wrong this is. But I do think the names "Firmage" and "Sagan" do not belong in the same sentence, unless separated by an extremely elaborate clause. Sagan promoted science and scientific thinking. Firmage talks about a bunch of bizarre stuff that Sagan would have rejected in a heartbeat.

Sagan said aliens probably aren't here. Firmage says they probably are. It's not a trivial philosophical distinction.

To be fair, Firmage is a cut above 90 percent of the folks who work in the field of "anomalies." He's incredibly smart. He's successful, having started the Internet services firm USWeb before leaving to pursue his UFO interests. He's not crazy. He doesn't scream or rant. He's a perfectly genial fellow.

He's also ambitious. Firmage has said he wants to start a movement. Two years ago he pounded out a rambling book, modestly called "The Truth," and put it up on the Internet, but he's since taken it down, which means we can't link to the part where the mysterious entity in his bedroom emits an electric blue sphere that enter's Firmage's body and triggers "the most unimaginable ecstasy I have ever experienced, a pleasure vastly beyond orgasm."

Druyan has been a fierce defender of her husband's legacy. She's passionate about scientific reasoning. Why would she go into business with Firmage? How could she do it?

Her answer: the new venture will not allow Firmage to advance his fringe theories. There is a specific legal agreement that prevents Firmage from doing so, she said.

"It unequivocably states that if I feel that Carl's legacy has in any way been besmirched by any statement made in the name of our company, then I walk and I'll take everything with me. Nothing less than that can protect the legacy," Druyan told me.

I asked her if this was an unholy alliance. She said no.

"Carl and I worked with a lot of people over the last few decades who had conventional religious beliefs that in some ways are as remote from what I believe as what Joe Firmage believes," she said.

Firmage said, "I want to tread lightly." But he made clear that his new media company ­ he'll run the Web portal and Druyan will head the production studio ­ will deal with the kinds of theories that interest him.

"Will I use this media company to inequitably promote my view? No," he said. But he said it would "absolutely" deal, responsibly, with "science anomalies."

The "historic joint venture," as the press release puts it, is code-named Project Voyager. It has $23 million in venture capital behind it. I will admit that despite reading the press release and talking to Firmage and Druyan I remain a bit fuzzy on what this company will actually do. The press release calls it "a new kind of media network that intends to transform entertainment and learning drawn from the rapidly expanding knowledge base of science." The production studio will make TV shows and movies, which will be promoted on the Web site alongside news articles and other educational material. In the press release, Druyan says, "There is a hunger for myths, images and dreams that do justice to our radically altered sense of who, where and when we are … And where we might go and who we might become."

Right.

Firmage will be tempted use his new company to promote his theories about breakthrough physics. He appears to believe that a small group of scientists have discovered a heretofore secret property of the universe that will someday allow us to extract limitless energy from the "vacuum" of space, cancel the inertial mass of an object, build faster-than-light spaceships, and zip around the cosmos at the snap of a finger.

That imminent breakthrough could explain why aliens are here, snooping around, checking us out. They know we're about to go galactic. They want to give us the ground rules, maybe.

It's hard to know how much of this Firmage really believes and how much of it he is merely entertaining with his very open mind. But if humans and aliens get together soon in a formal way, Firmage wants to be at the table.

Firmage argues that he believes in science. He says he only goes where the facts lead him. But I have an unfortunate fact to report: Everyone working in the world of anomalies ­ of UFOs, near-death experiences, reincarnation, cattle mutilations, crop circles, psychokinesis, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and so on ­ says exactly the same thing. We're scientific! We're not crazy! We just want to stick to the facts, and the facts tell us there are enormous hairy proto-humans lumbering through the Oregon forests!

Firmage doesn't say that aliens are necessarily here right now. But he thinks it's "highly likely" that we've been visited at some point. A small group of people have had knowledge about this issue for the past fifty years, he said.

"I believe that the most economical explanation for some number of UFOS is extraterrestrial visitation," he said. "Ann disagrees with that view. Both of us agree to let science arbitrate."

Firmage has also been talking with The Planetary Society, which was founded by Sagan in 1980 to increase public support for space science. Some kind of business deal could be announced at any time. Firmage offers one thing to the keepers of the Sagan flame: Money. He has been able to raise tens of millions of dollars in venture capital. What they offer Firmage, in turn, is a big shot of credibility.

The SETI Institute, meanwhile, said no to Firmage. All these groups need the kind of money Firmage has, but they need their good reputations, too, and SETI, which takes on the already rather spectacular goal of detecting alien civilizations through scientific techniques, doesn't need to get mixed up with a UFO person.

Sagan's longtime friend and colleague, Frank Drake, the head of the SETI Institute, told me that a deal with Firmage's firm could have meant sizable streams of revenue coming into his organization. But it wasn't the right thing to do.

"Any connection with Firmage, no matter what disclaimers you put on your site, people will take this as an endorsement of the views of Firmage. This would damage our image in the minds of many of our scientific colleagues and members of the general public, including major donors who support us," Drake said.

There is a thought I've clung to as I've ruminated about this latest move by Firmage. It is that Sagan's legacy isn't up for grabs, no matter who strikes what deal. Sagan's name can't be bought. He put his ideas on the record. He wrote books. The books had readers, and those readers are not stupid.

We know the difference between Carl Sagan and Joe Firmage.
 

Edmonton Sun

Conspiracy theorists landing in St. Paul

by Doug Beazley

"Now, this business goes beyond mere cattle mutilation," said Graham Conway to Fernand Belzil in a very loud voice, halfway through the press conference. "Are you prepared to tell these gentlemen about the otter situation, or shall I?"

"The what situation?" asked Belzil, looking startled.

"Otters."

"I don't know about any otters," Belzil replied. "I heard of some cats being mutilated. Personally, I think that's the cults."

This is what shop talk sounds like in the UFO community. Yesterday, four enthusiasts from the murky fields of paranormal phenomena gathered in Edmonton to hype this weekend's UFO 2000 conference in St. Paul, about 200 km northeast of here.

In 1996 an Angus Reid poll found that 70% of Canadians - and 83% of Albertans - said they believed intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. Just over half of the Canadians sampled said they thought the planet had already been buzzed by extraterrestrial vehicles - 14% said future visits were quite likely.

And that, said UFO researcher Dr. Bruce Maccabee, makes Albertans some of the canniest people on the orb. Fewer and fewer intelligent North Americans, he said, are willing to accept the lame-duck explanations propped up by the press and the military for the weird lights and mangled sheep, and they're cutting through to the truth: They're out there.

"Sightings have been explained away with explanations that make no sense," said Maccabee, whose resume describes him as possessing a PhD in physics.

"Like the Roswell incident. Just recently the Air Force announced the alien bodies seen by people on the scene were actually crash-test dummies dropped from balloons in the desert.  The Air Force could have gone on ignoring the subject. Instead, it just took one foot out of its mouth and shoved the other in."

In other words, the fact the authorities tried to explain the alleged 1947 alien crash-landing in Roswell, New Mexico, proves the explanation was bogus - otherwise they wouldn't have offered it, right?

Most of the real conspiracy theorizing in the paranormal business comes from just connecting the dots: from lights in the skies to cattle mutilation to crop circles to repressed abduction memories - to aliens.

"I've never seen anything in the sky, ever. Not a single light," said Belzil.

He's a St. Paul rancher who's become the acknowledged Canadian field expert on cattle and sheep mutilations.

"I've had three reports of cattle mutilations in just the last three weeks. Sometimes they're just missing the tongue and an ear, or just the ear. Often the genitals have been removed, the penis or uterus, sometimes the anus.

"And usually there's no blood anywhere. The cuts are clean, like laser cuts. All the arrows point to aliens, but I have no proof.  So I guess I just don't know."

Conway knows. The Vancouver publisher and UFO-chaser saw his first bogey in 1966, near Scarborough, Ont. - two metallic spheres over a rotating T-shaped bar, hovering hundreds of feet above the ground.

He sees a clear link between Belzil's large cattle mutilation casebook, a report out of Fort MacMurray from a trapper who found an otter mangled in much the same fashion and a recent spate of bisected cats showing up in Ontario suburbs.

"We found several of these ... half-cats ... they looked like they'd been cut in two by buzzsaws," said Conway. "No trace of blood. The internal organs were mostly undamaged.

"We found one with a dark circle on the organs, about the size of a toonie. We sent a sample to a doctor in the U.S. and he concluded the damage was cause by a laser beam."

All of which begs the question: If aliens are buzzing deserts, snatching housewives for weird gynecological experiments and cutting household pets in two - why? Are they trying to send us a message? Or is it all an extraterrestrial version of hazing, like knocking down the neighbour's mailbox?

"The last thing these aliens want is to communicate with us," said Ted Phillips, a Missouri enthusiast who tracks physical evidence of spaceship landings.

"We've always found that when the population goes up, sightings go down.

"They tend to land in empty areas, like the middle of the desert.

"Whatever it is they're trying to do, they don't want to be seen when they're doing it."
 

July 7, 2000

Rocky Mountain News

Would you report a UFO? The truth is out there

by Bill Johnson

OK, what would you say if I admitted I was out in my back yard, and saw a low, slow, silent triangle with red lights that for long minutes glowed greenish-yellow before turning red, receding into the clouds and shooting straight across the sky?

See!

This is my nightmare scenario. There are a lot of things I'm afraid of — which I'll admit. This is THE one thing I hope I never encounter. Please, Lord, don't ever send a UFO my way.

I bring this up only because the latest copy of The UFO Report was thrown on my desk the other day. It is fascinating, scary reading. And I love UFO stuff.

Sue me. I think they exist. And why not? Is it completely out of the realm of possibility? The 11 people who sighted a UFO between May 14 and June 8 cannot all be crazy.

If I saw one, and I am serious about this, I would say not a word. Life is tough enough. Don Berliner, who edits The UFO Report out of Washington, D.C., laughed. Sort of.

It is the reason the entire UFO movement has stalled in recent years, he says. "Most people don't report because they are afraid of being laughed at. It's unfortunate, but it's life."

He started his monthly report strictly for the media. Most media people today weren't around in the salad days of the '50s and '60s, when UFO and their sightings were "really hot."

There were days back then, says Berliner, 70, when they couldn't keep up with the overwhelming amount of UFO reports.

Today is different. What most people know of UFOs, he says, comes from the supermarket tabloids and The X-Files.

"There's a lot more to it," he says. "It's a worldwide phenomenon that's covered a half-century. And there's a big story out there. It's why I keep at it."

The problem is only one in 10 sightings is reported, Berliner says. It's the laugh factor. And there really is no place for people to report a sighting. The government quit accepting them in 1969.

"It got frustrating for them because most of their explanations were always incredibly flawed," he says. "Since then, they've insisted they have no interest in the subject."

The other problem is people reporting sightings always see them at night. The key is not to see lights, but objects, Berliner says. Lights can be anything — a meteor, a plane. There's never any detail. It makes the report virtually useless.

Of the 11 May-June sightings published in his report, only two occurred during daylight hours.

Why does he do it? He is a believer, he says. An aviation writer by trade, he's heard so many stories from pilots. Almost all of them are afraid to come forward.

"A lot of good information is lost annually because people say nothing. They don't want to look crazy," he says.

He does what he does simply to help people understand the mystery. "It's a mystery that happens so often, you think it should be susceptible to scientific study," Berliner says.

"Myself and others in the field just want the answers. We want to move onto something else."

Does he ever believe he will find the answer? "If you'd asked me 30 years ago, I'd have said we'd know in a decade. Look how wrong I'd have been."

He does, though, have just one wish.

"I hope," he says, "I last long enough to at last find the answer."
 

July 7, 2000

Canadian Press

Residents of Alberta town wait patiently for UFO

ST. PAUL, Alta. (CP) -- After 33 years, people are still waiting patiently for little green men to land at this small farming community's UFO landing pad.

Built in 1967, the structure is supposed to draw visitors -- alien and otherwise -- to tour the Polaris Arena, stay overnight at the Galaxy Motel or grab a slice of pie at Mama's Flying Saucer Diner.

But for some reason (a wrong left turn at Andromeda?) the spaceships keep missing the place.

"We should probably look at painting a big bull's-eye on the landing pad to make it easier to spot from way up there," jokes Rhea Labrie, the town's UFO consultant.

To keep the faith and the tourist dollars flowing, St. Paul is hosting UFO Conference 2000 this weekend. The three-day meeting is complete with picture displays and expert speakers on paranormal activities such as UFO sightings, crop circles and animal mutilations.

Labrie says more than 500 humanoids from across North America are expected to attend.

"Most of the participants come because they have seen things," says Labrie. "They are looking for answers, more information to put their experience into perspective."

One of the experts is Fern Belzil, a 70-year-old former cattle rancher who has investigated 46 mysterious mutilations of farm animals.

While he hasn't made up his mind yet on whether aliens are responsible, Belzil says some of the discoveries have been pretty spooky. Especially when there are no tracks, no blood and no evidence of a struggle. Often the animal's genitals have been removed with almost surgical precision.

"It makes you wonder who did this. It sure as hell wasn't predators or cults," he says.

"A lot of evidence points toward aliens . . . but I have no proof of it. Seeing is believing, eh?"

Once Belzil set up a video camera pointing at some cattle on a farm in Saskatchewan. When he discovered one of the animals had
died, he rushed to view the tape.

"The video went blank for 12 minutes . . . a complete whiteout . . . the cow was mutilated."

Ted Phillips, another speaker at the conference, is a specialist on UFO sightings and crop circles.

The civil engineer from Branson, Mo., has been chasing down flying saucer reports since 1968 and has so far probed 2,300 cases in 79 countries -- including Canada.

While he has interviewed hundreds of people who say they have seen UFOs or aliens, his real specialty is looking for physical evidence of extraterrestrial visits.

"We have found eight-foot circular rings that will fluoresce (glow) for three or four nights after an event," usually in rural areas in the middle of fields, he says.

Animals won't go near the rings and people who touch dirt from such areas get a numb feeling in their fingers, he says.

In some cases these sites look like a liquid has been dumped even though the area is completely dry.

Phillips believes the spots may be caused by fluid leaks from UFOs. "Whatever generated the site had dumped this liquid residue," he says. "It would be like finding a motor oil leak."

Unfortunately Phillips has never managed to obtain a big enough sample of the fluid for chemical analysis. He says it evaporates too quickly.

So after 30 years of study does he believe in UFOs?

"I've never seen one so I try to really stay on the fence," he says. "But something has to be going on . . . There have been so many witnesses."

Phillips says UFO sightings now number about 200 per year in Canada -- mostly in August and September. He says people are more apt to witness a landing between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. to 2 a.m.

For the record, most sightings are reported in Ontario, followed by Saskatchewan and Alberta.

"Only about 15 per cent of the reported landings involve (alien) humanoids -- little guys."

If you meet one of these little green men, make sure you tell them about St. Paul's UFO landing pad.

And also let them know that Mama's Diner is featuring its Orbit breakfast special this weekend -- bacon, sausage, three eggs and toast all for $6.75 Cdn.

The town's UFO Web site is at www.ufo2000.org.
 

July 1, 2000

McClendon News Service

Pressure Builds on Congress over UFOs

by Sarah McClendon

Washington, D.C. - Pressure is building up for Congress to give attention to the controversy over unidentified flying objects.  With scientists from Stanford, MIT, Cornell, Princeton and elsewhere studying UFO evidence, the controversy is now being brought out into the open and heavy secrecy surrounding the subject is being lifted. Seminars on UFO evidence are being held periodically throughout the country with laymen discussing the evidence without fear of being ridiculed.

When about 30 members of Congress or their staff heard a briefing on UFOs in April of 1997, Rep. Dan Burton, R., Ind. chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, displayed some interest in the matter. His committee has received a number of letters on the subject, according to staff member Matthew Ebert. "These letters are treated seriously," he said. Ebert thinks there is a possibility congressional hearings will be held.

At a May 11 hearing on human rights documents pertaining to Guatemala and Honduras held by the House subcommittee on Government Management Information and Technology, its chairman Rep. Steve Horn, R. CA, asked how the government classifies UFO documents. The two witnesses, Lee Strickland, chief of the Information Review Group of the Central Intelligence Agency and Steven Garfinkle, director of the Security and Oversight Group of the National Archives, both said they thought UFO documents should be considered as public information.

There may be economic benefits from this emerging information. Dr. Steven Greer, an emergency room physician, who for eight years has briefed and been briefed by government and U.N. officials on the subject of unidentified objects in U.S. airspace, is convinced that the materials and technology of UFOs carry enormous benefits. For example, he says their energy creating apparatus does not use internal combustion.

Greer asserts the financial and environmental cost of exploiting oil and gas to service 6 billion people worldwide can be dramatically reduced. Large scale energy production derived from UFO technology would reverse environmental damage and save hundreds of billions of dollars annually in direct costs.

Dr. Greer is the International Director of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence and leads a working team of around 200 composed of CSETI members and associates, government employee witnesses, consultants and government contacts. Their hope is to get congress to hold hearings and take testimony from witnesses. He has explained his conclusions to a number of congressional members.

A national petition utilizing the Internet and calling for congressional hearings was launched last year by another group, Stargate International out of Tucson, Arizona. It has accumulated 20,000 + names to be presented to congress. A million signatures are sought.

Greer is aware that many employees of the government keep secret facts which they have obtained about UFOs. He feels it is unconstitutional for government to bottle up information of this importance. He would like to see UFO's openly discussed and covered widely in the press.

For some years the belief has been widespread there is in the public domain a presidential executive order forbidding government employees from talking about UFOs. Dr. Greer is not aware of any such an executive order but indicated concern that secret executive orders have been issued and not disclosed to Congress or the public. Such secret orders would make it difficult for people to learn more about UFOs. From the White House it was learned that a check of executive orders going back to the early eighteen thirties shows none has been issued on this subject. Surprising is the growing number of citizens showing an interest in finding out more about UFOs. Seminars are being held around the country every week with as many as five and six hundred in attendance.
 

June 27, 2000

Irish Independent

UFOs, is the truth out there?

UFOs once the preserve of the purely paranoid are now being taken seriously. Astronauts, Generals and a number of influential scientists are hammering away at the crust of international scepticism. LESLIE KEAN explains why a study by the French military may finally make governments sit up and take notice.

The release in April of the first detailed satellite images of Area 51, the top-secret Air Force test site in Nevada, prompted a website meltdown as people from around the world searched for clues about unidentified flying objects.

The interest has been really phenomenal, said David Mountain, marketing director for Aerial Images, Inc which posted the high resolution aerial photos of Area 51 on the Internet.

But those hoping to see signs of something extraordinary were destined to be disappointed. Most of Area 51s operations occur underground, making photos meaningless. Anyone looking for the fresh information on UFOs would have better luck trying a new, but less publicized source: by the French military, just translated into English.

High level officials including retired generals from the French Institute of Higher Studies for National Defense, a government-funded strategic planning agency recently took a giant step in openly challenging skepticism about UFOs. In a report based on a three year study, they concluded that, numerous manifestations observed by reliable witnesses could be the work of craft of extra-terrestrial origin and that, in fact, the best explanation is the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Although not categorically proven, strong presumptions exist in its favor and if it is correct, it is loaded with significant consequences.

The French group reached that conclusion after examining nearly 500 detailed international aeronautical sightings and radar/visual cases, and previously undisclosed pilots reports. They drew on data from official sources, government authorities, and the Air Forces of different countries.

The findings are contained in a 90-page report titled, UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For?, published in France by the magazine VSD.

The mechanics of a mystery. The number of sightings, which are completely unexplained despite the abundance and quality of data from them, is growing throughout the world, the team declared.

The authors note that about 5 percent of sightings on which there is solid documentation cannot be easily attributed to earthly sources, such as secret military exercises - especially since unexplained objects have been reported since 1944. The rest seem to be completely unknown flying machines with exceptional performances that are guided by a natural or artificial intelligence, they say.

Science has developed plausible models for travel from another solar system and for technology which could be used to propel the vehicles, the report says. assures readers that UFOs have demonstrated no hostile acts, although intimidation maneuvers have been confirmed.

Given the widespread scepticism about UFOs, many will quickly dismiss the generals ET hypothesis. But it is less easy to do so once the authors credentials are considered.

The study's originators are four-star General Bernard Norlain, former commander of the French Tactical Air Force and military counselor to the prime minister; General Denis Letty, an air force fighter pilot; and Andre Lebeau, former head of the National Center for Space Studies (the French equivalent of NASA in the United States.)

They formed a 12-member Committee for In-depth Studies, abbreviated as COMETA, which authored the report. Three-star Admiral Marc Merlo, national chief of police Denis Blancher and Jean-Jacques Velasco, head of a government agency studying UFOs, as well as scientists and weapons engineers, were also contributors. Not only does the group stand by its findings, it is urging international action.

The writers recommend that France establish sectorial cooperation agreements with interested European and foreign countries on the matter of UFOs. They suggest that the European Union undertake diplomatic action with the United States exerting useful pressure to clarify this crucial issue which must fall within the scope of political and strategic alliances.

Why might other nations be inclined to take this subject seriously? For one thing, declassified US government documents show that unexplained objects with extraordinary technical capabilities pose challenges to military activity around the globe. For example, US fighter jets have been scrambled to pursue UFOs, according to North American Aerospace Defense Command logs and US Air Force documents.

Iranian and Peruvian Air Force planes attempted to shoot down unexplained objects during air encounters in 1976 and 1980, and Belgian F-16s equipped with automatically guided missiles pursued UFOs in 1990.

Further, the French report says that there have been visits above secret installations and missile bases and military aircraft shadowed in the US. Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the Apollo 14 astronaut who was the sixth man to walk on the moon, is one of many supporters of international cooperation on UFOs. Of the French report, he says, It's significant that individuals of some standing in the government, military and intelligence community in France came forth with this.

Mitchell, who holds a doctor of science degree from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is convinced at a confidence level above 90pc, that there is reality to all of this. He adds, People have been digging through the files and investigating for years now. The files are quite convincing. The only thing that's lacking is the official stamp. He joins five-star Admiral Lord Hill-Norton, the former head of the British Ministry of Defense, in calling for US congressional fact-finding hearings into the UFO question.

Hearings would include testimony by government witnesses from the Air Force, Army, Navy, NASA, private industry and intelligence operations with personal, first-hand knowledge of UFO phenomena and related projects.

The astronaut amd the investigation Despite the fact that Mitchell is a national hero and has been honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USN Distinguished Service Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, his request for an investigation has been ignored by U.S. officials.

Nonetheless, the public's interest in UFOs is undiminished. A ballot initiative underway in the US state of Missouri, and certified by the secretary of state in March, urges Congress to convene hearings. The initiative states that the Federal Governments handling of the UFO issue has contributed to the public cynicism toward, and general mistrust of, government.

US Naval Reserve Commander Willard H. Miller has been communicating this same concern to high level officials for a number of years. With over 30 years in Navy and Joint Interagency operations with the US Defense Department, Miller has participated in a series of previously undisclosed briefings for Pentagon brass about military policy regarding UFOs.

Like many, he says he worries that the military's lack of preparation for encounters with unexplained craft could provoke a dangerous confrontation when, and if, such an encounter occurs; precipitous military decisions, he warns, may lead to unnecessary confusion, misapplication of forces, or possible catastrophic consequences.

And he says he is not alone in his concerns. There are those in high places in the government who share a growing interest in this subject, Miller reports.

Miller retired in 1994 from active duty on the Current Operations Staff (J3) of U.S. Atlantic Command, Norfolk, Virginia where he worked operations, intelligence, and special contingency issues. In a February, 2000 confidential memo prepared for this reporter, he spelled out the details of meetings with named officials - including the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, an Admiral on the Joint Staff, and the U.S. Atlantic Command's Director for Intelligence - between 1989 and 2000.

Miller concurs with the COMETA's observation that there is no evidence of hostility from UFOs The only threat to the national security of the United States is the continued denial of undeniable physical UFO occurrences and sightings to a public growing increasingly frustrated with its government's weak explanations, Miller says.

Air Force Regulation 200-2, Unidentified Flying Objects Reporting, prohibits the release to the public and the media any data about those objects which are not explainable while allowing disclosure only of the UFOs that have been identified as familiar objects.

An even more restrictive procedure is outlined in the Joint Army Navy Air Force Publication 146, which provides communications instructions for reporting sightings relevant to US security. Anyone under its jurisdiction disclosing reports without authorization is subject to prosecution under the Espionage Act.

Even the President of the United States recently had trouble accessing information on the subject. In 1995, philanthropist Laurence Rockefeller provided UFO briefing materials to President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Presidential science advisor Jack Gibbons while they spent a weekend at Rockefeller's Wyoming ranch. Clinton then instructed Associate Attorney General at the Justice Department, Webster Hubbell, to investigate the existence of UFOs, as disclosed by Hubbell in his book, Friends in High Places. Despite this request from the Commander in Chief, Hubbell was unable to obtain information on the subject.

In earlier decades, issues that remain pertinent today were openly discussed. In 1960, for example, US Representative Leonard G. Wolf of Iowa entered an urgent warning from R.E. Hillenkoetter, a former CIA Director and Navy vice admiral, into the Congressional Record that certain dangers are linked with unidentified flying objects.

Wolf cited Gen. L.M. Chassin, NATO coordinator of Allied Air Service, warning that If we persist in refusing to recognize the existence of the UFOs, we will end up, one fine day, by mistaking them for the guided missiles of an enemy - and the worst will be upon us.

These concerns were taken seriously enough to be incorporated into the 1971 Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Outbreak of Nuclear War between the US and the Soviet Union. The treaty states that the two countries will notify each other immediately in the event of detection by missile warning systems of unidentified objects...if such occurrences could create a risk of outbreak of nuclear war between the two countries.

The French report may open the door for nations to be more forthcoming once again. Chile, for example, is openly addressing it's own concerns about air safety and UFOs. The now retired Chief of the Chilean Air Force has formed a committee with civil aviation experts to study recent near collisions between UFOs and civilian airliners.

As the international conversation about UFOs unfolds, sightings continue, as they have for decades. Perhaps the most notable recent US sighting took place in March 1997. Hundreds of people across the state of Arizona reported seeing huge triangular objects, hovering silently in the night sky - a sighting that, as the state's Senator John McCain noted recently, has never been fully explained.

As recently as Jan. 5, 2000, four policemen at different locations in St. Claire County, Illinois, witnessed a huge, brightly lighted, triangular craft flying and hovering at 1000 feet. One officer reported witnessing extreme rapid motion by the craft that cannot be explained in conventional terms. Nearby Scott Air Force base and the FAA purport to know nothing.

The French Institute of Higher Studies for National Defense and the National Center for Space Studies remain several steps ahead of the United States military and NASA. Perhaps the report by the bold French generals -- with its goal of stripping the phenomenon of UFOs of its irrational layer will be a catalyst for authorities around the world to publicly examine the issue of UFOs in a new light.
 

June 22, 2000

Washington Post

'X-Files' Case Lands in Va.

by Patricia Davis

Larry W. Bryant has a court case that could have ramifications way beyond Alexandria--way, way beyond.

Bryant believes that people who claim they were abducted by extraterrestrials should have their day in court. In an effort to force a hearing on the issue, the city resident and two other Virginians have filed a lawsuit against Gov. James S. Gilmore III in Alexandria.

In the lawsuit, the trio argues that the governor has ignored an important public safety issue and has a legal obligation "to identify, assess, and repel this clandestine invasion within Virginia."

"Yet, in direct dereliction of duty," the lawsuit filed in Alexandria Circuit Court charges, "he refuses even to acknowledge the existence of the 'invasion'."

A spokesman for the Virginia Attorney General's Office would not comment on the allegations. But David Botkins said the lawsuit will receive the attention it deserves. "We have turned this case over to our 'X-Files' department," he said.

Bryant said he has been unable to find a lawyer willing to take the case, but he is prepared to argue it himself. The retired Army civilian said he has been involved in "the politics of UFO research" for more than 40 years and directs, from his Alexandria home, the Washington office of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, a public interest organization with about 10,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide.

"It deserves a fair hearing," said Bryant, 62. "I believe that the UFO subject has serious merit and that witnesses are telling the truth as they see it."

The lawsuit, which was filed June 5, is filled with talk of mysterious "flying triangles" and the abduction of citizens from their neighborhoods, homes and cars. Bryant, along with Gretchen Condon, of Hampton, and Evelyn J. Goodwin, of Newport News, believes that citizens deserve to know what the government knows and that the issue deserves more investigation.

Among other things, they want the court to order Gilmore to:

* Convene a special state grand jury, under the Alexandria court's jurisdiction, to investigate the scope, impact, perpetrators and methodology of "this clandestine invasion."

* Appoint a state police task force to analyze and publish all available intelligence on the subject.

* Direct the Virginia National Guard to establish and operate a quick-reaction force to repel "these non-human/humanoid/alien entities yet to be apprehended and brought to justice."

* Afford to invasion victims the same victims-rights counseling, comfort and protective measures as any other victim of criminal activity.

If they get their hearing, Bryant said, he will introduce exhibits to document the current invasion. How the court rules could have, well, far-reaching implications.

"Whatever the court decides in this case may affect how all Earth governments [and society] treat the UFO problem from here on out," Bryant said.

Or not.
 

June 4, 2000

Rocky Mountain News

Britain's UFO secrets revealed

by Anthony Barnett
London Observer Service

LONDON - On Feb. 15, 1999, an air traffic controller in Scotland noticed something strange on his radar screen. A bright blip on his screen suggested there was a very large object traveling at 3,000 mph over the Scottish coastline heading southwest. The size of the blip suggested the object was 10 miles long and two miles wide. Two minutes later, the object disappeared from the radar screen.

Three months earlier, British Ministry of Defense documents record that a commercial pilot flying over the Midlands region reported an unusual object traveling at "very high speed" with a very bright strobe light flashing once every 20 seconds.

Although the two incidents were unrelated, both were reported to a little-known department in the ministry known as Secretariat (Air Staff) 2a, the secretive section which collates reports of unidentified flying objects that cross British airspace.

The government has traditionally treated reports of UFO sightings as highly classified and only released information to the public after 30 years. But the par