by Leslie Kean
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.
CHAPTER 4: CIRCLED 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].
CHAPTER 5: UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA AND AVIATION SAFETY
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.
CHAPTER 6: INCURSION AT O’HARE AIRPORT
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.
CHAPTER 7: GIGANTIC UFOS OVER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
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/.
CHAPTER 8: UFOS AS AIR FORCE TARGETS
1 General Jafari and Comandante Santa María Comandante is the rank equivalent to colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
CHAPTER 9: DOGFIGHT OVER TEHRAN
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.
While on a nighttime practice flight with three other Air Force jets, Ferreira saw an object that looked like “a bright star unusually big and scintillating, with a colored nucleus which changed color constantly—deep green, blue, reddish and yellowish hues.” Note the similarity to Jafari’s description: “It looked similar to a star, but bigger and brighter,” and then, “it was flashing with intense red, green, orange and blue light so bright that I was not able to see its body … The sequence of flashes was extremely fast, like a strobe light.” The next phase is chillingly consistent in the two encounters. Ferreira says that the pilots saw “first one small circle of yellow light coming out of the larger object, then three others,” and that these were considerably smaller than the scintillating, main object. Jafari states later in this chapter that he saw “a round object” leave the larger object and head toward him, looking like “a brightly lit moon coming out over the horizon.” And he, too, witnessed not just one of these round lights ejected from the brilliant one, but a series of them. Both incidents involved multiple Air Force witnesses. Jafari’s case was reported in a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document in great detail, as described later in this book.
It is unusual enough for pilots to get such extended close views of UFOs while in the air; for detailed reports to be filed about them; and for the primary witness to later be promoted to the rank of general. But when the details are so strikingly similar—even though they were seen nineteen years apart over two different continents—it is reasonable to wonder whether the two groups of pilots were witnessing the same, or almost identical, phenomena.
&nbs
p; 2 for an examination and more blood tests Exposure to radiation can reduce the production and/or aggregation of blood platelets, which are essential for coagulation. Perhaps this explains Jafari’s problem, but we don’t know. He does not have copies of the medical records.
CHAPTER 10: CLOSE COMBAT WITH A UFO
1 On April 11, 1980 The first draft of this piece was translated from Spanish by Andrea Soares Berrios and Oscar Zambrano, who also translated during follow-up communications and further development of the piece. I worked on the final edits with Comandante Santa María in English.
CHAPTER 11: THE ROOTS OF UFO DEBUNKING IN AMERICA
1 assigning a security classification and code name to it General Nathan F. Twining to Commander, Air Material Command, “AMC Opinion Concerning ‘Flying Discs,’” September 23, 1947 (contained in Edwin U. Condon, project director, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1969), pp. 894–95.
2 and given the code name “Sign” Directive—Major General L. C. Craigie to Commanding General Wright Field (Wright-Patterson AFB), Disposition and Security for Project Sign, December 30, 1947 (contained in Edwin U. Condon, project director, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1969) p. 896.
3 repeated attempts using the Freedom of Information Act Edward J. Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (Doubleday & Company, 1956), pp. 62–63. Ruppelt was the first chief of Project Blue Book, from early 1951 until September 1953. David Michael Jacobs, The UFO Controversy in America (Indiana University Press, 1975), p. 47. Michael D. Swords, “Project Sign and the Estimate of the Situation,” Journal of UFO Studies, n.s. 7 (2000), pp. 27–64, http://www.ufoscience.org/history/swords.pdf.
4 “from another nation in this world” W. P. Keay, FBI memorandum, “Flying Saucers,” July 29, 1952 (contained in Bruce Maccabee, UFO FBI Connection (Llewellyn Publications, 2000).
5 “seriously considering the possibility of planetary ships” W. P. Keay, FBI memorandum, “Flying Saucers,” October 27, 1952 (Maccabee, ibid.).
6 “any conceivable threat to the United States” The press conference was filmed and General Samford’s opening statement has been shown in numerous documentaries. It can be seen in the James Fox film I Know What I Saw and on this 1952 news clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utX5HvMO0PM.
7 “or known types of aerial vehicles” H. Marshall Chadwell, memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, December 2, 1952.
8 “to minimize risk of panic” H. Marshall Chadwell, memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, “Flying Saucers,” September 11, 1952, pp. 3–4.
9 “to review and appraise the available evidence” “Unidentified Flying Objects,” December 4, 1952, IAC-M-90.
10 “the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired” F. C. Durant, “Report of Meetings of Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects,” convened by Office of Scientific Intelligence, CA, January 14–18, 1953.
11 “It made the subject of UFOs scientifically unrespectable” Hynek, The Hynek UFO Report, p. 23.
12 “to decide the nature of the UFO phenomenon” J. Allen Hynek, The UFO Experience (Marlowe & Company, 1998; originally published 1972), p. 169.
13 “any basis in fact” Ibid., p. 186.
14 “as poor as they were” Ibid., p. 183.
15 hosted by the trusted Walter Cronkite This letter, dated September 10, 1966, was found in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution by Dr. Michael Swords.
16 “science is more served by fact” “UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy?” hosted by Walter Cronkite, CBS special, 1966, http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2935380n.
17 congressional hearings on the subject of UFOs Congressman Gerald R. Ford, letter to L. Mendel Rivers, Chairman, Science and Astronautics Committee of the Committee on Armed Services, March 28, 1966; David Michael Jacobs, The UFO Controversy in America (Indiana University Press, 1975), p. 204.
18 “an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer” Robert J. Low, memo to E. James Archer and Thurston E. Manning, “Some Thoughts on the UFO Project,” August 9, 1966, contained in David R. Saunders and R. Roger Harkins, UFOs? Yes! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong (Signet Books/New American Library, 1968), pp. 242–44.
19 “reach a conclusion for another year” John Fuller, “Flying Saucer Fiasco,” Look, May 14, 1968.
20 what I could call “irrefutable proof” 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), p. 32.
21 cooperation be sought through the United Nations Ibid., p. 15.
22 “within the sight of two witnesses” Edward U. Condon, project director, and Daniel S. Gillmor, editor, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (Bantam, 1969), p. 407.
23 it concluded seven weeks later “Review of the University of Colorado Report on Unidentified Flying Objects by a Panel of the National Academy of Sciences,” 1969.
24 “got involved in such foolishness” “Air Force Closes Study of UFO’s,” New York Times, December 18, 1969.
25 “should arouse sufficient curiosity to continue its study” J. P. Kuettner et al., “UFO: An Appraisal of the Problem, a Statement by the UFO Subcommittee of the AIAA,” Astronautics and Aeronautics, 8, no. 11.
CHAPTER 12: TAKING THE PHENOMENON SERIOUSLY
1 would still be dealt with accordingly BBC News, “UFO Investigations Unit Closed by Ministry of Defence,” December 4, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8395473.stm.
2 now called GEIPAN GEIPAN stands for Groupe d’Étude et d’Information sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-Identifiés (Group for the Study of and Information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena).
3 known as CNES CNES stands for the Centre National d’Études Spatiales (National Center of Space Studies).
4 and the Condon report in 1968 Associated Press, “French Space Agency Puts UFO Files Online,” March 23, 2007, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260590,00.html.
5 traditionally employed by that noted paper Sarah Lyall, “British U.F.O. Shocker! Government Officials Were Telling the Truth,” New York Times, May 26, 2008.
6 by former UK Ministry of Defence official Nick Pope Nick Pope, “Unidentified Flying Threats,” New York Times, July 29, 2008.
7 Phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés The book was published by Le Cherche Midi, 2007.
8 “to identify what we don’t know” http://www.eeb.org/publication/1999/
eeb_position_on_the_precautionar.html. See also http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/library/pub/pub07_en.pdf].
CHAPTER 13: THE BIRTH OF COMETA
1 “to do the research, to work together” James Fox’s film I Know What I Saw includes some clips of this interview with General Letty at his home, and it also covers the COMETA Report and the work of GEIPAN.
2 I first became aware Oscar Zambrano translated some sections about Captain Girard and Captain Fartek. The rest was written in English.
3 our responsibility to study them seriously Interview with General Thouverez, Armées d’aujourd’hui (Armies of Today), July 2002.
CHAPTER 14: FRANCE AND THE UFO QUESTION
1 For twenty-one years The much longer first draft of this piece was written in French and translated by Jean-Luc Rivera. Throughout the editing process, M. Velasco and I worked in English.
2 the incidents at Malmstrom Air Force Base Velasco is referring to the 1967 case described by Robert Salas in chapter 15 (pp. 144–45) and other sightings that took place in the Malmstrom area around the same time period.
3 a new internal agency then called GEPAN GEPAN: Groupe d’Étude des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-Identifiés (Group for the Study of Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena).
4 a new agency called SEPRA SEPRA: Service d’Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrées Atmosphériques (Service of Expertise on the Phenomena of Atmospheric Reentries).
5 mi
ght 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.