In November of 1968, the Condon team completed The Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects and it was then reviewed by a special panel set up by the National Academy of Sciences. On January 8, 1968, NAS submitted its review to the U. S. Air Force. The review fully endorsed the Colorado report’s scope, methodology, and conclusions. The so-called Condon Report was released publicly the following day and was published commercially soon afterward. (See SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS.)
The report left many UFO incidents unexplained, but the conclusions, written by Condon, were, as predicted by many observers, that UFO phenomena were not worthy of further scientific study. Condon also stated that the Earth could not be visited by extraterrestrial intelligence for another 10,000 years, although nobody has determined how this figure was arrived at. These conclusions were highly publicized by the press, which generally ignored the case studies in the report, some of which tended to contradict Condon’s conclusions. It has remained unclear to what extent the other project members agreed with his conclusions.
The University of Colorado UFO Project had a lasting impact on the study of UFOs in general and on the scientific community in particular, which generally accepted Condon’s conclusions without question. It led to the the closing of Project Blue Book in December of 1969. It remains today as the most comprehensive federally supported UFO probe, and attempts by private UFO organizations, some scientists, members of Congress, and even the White House to initiate a new federal inquiry have not met with success.
—ETEP STAFF
Uri (Doubleday, 1974). American physician Andrija Puharich tells the story of his friend, Israeli spoonbender Uri Geller, who claims to have been given his psychic powers as a three-year-old child by alien visitors to help prepare humans for alien contact. These visitors from the future—who resemble “certain exotic types of Japanese” and supposedly materialize their spacecraft at will—first visited the Earth 20,000 years ago, landing in Israel. They have made Israel a protected country and the Jews a protected race.
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
V
Valensole (France) encounter On the morning of July 1, 1965, near Valensole, France, farmer Maurice Masse reportedly saw an eggshaped “craft” resting in his lavender field. The “saucer” stood on six legs and had a door, through which Masse could see two seats, back to back. Standing by the object were two small humanoids, who seemed startled by Masse’s presence and instantly immobilized him. The object then vanished, and the farmer’s temporary paralysis soon faded away.
It was about 5:45 A.M., and Maurice Masse was finishing a cigarette before commencing work in his field (named l’Olivol). He was standing near a hillock of pebbles and rakings by the end of a small vineyard alongside the field. Suddenly, he heard a whistling noise and glanced around the side of the hillock expecting to see a helicopter; instead, he saw a “machine,” shaped like a rugby football, the size of a Dauphine car, standing on six legs connected by a central pivot. There were also, he said, “two boys of about eight years” near the object, bending down by a lavender plant.
Incensed, Masse approached stealthily through the vineyard and saw that the creatures were not boys at all; he broke cover and advanced toward them. When he was within fifteen feet (five meters), one turned and pointed a pencil-like device at him. Masse was stopped in his tracks, unable to move.
According to Masse’s testimony, the creatures were less than four feet tall, and were clad in close-fitting gray-green clothes, without any covering on their heads. They had “pumpkin-like” heads, high fleshy cheeks, large eyes which slanted away, mouths without lips, and very pointed chins. They made “grumbling” noises from their middles.
Masse will not disclose what else happened during the encounter, saying merely that they returned to their “machine.” He said he could see them looking at him from inside, while the legs whirled and retracted. With a thump from the central pivot, the machine took off to float silently away. At twenty meters, it just disappeared, although traces of its passage in the direction of Manosque were reportedly found on lavender plants for four hundred meters.
When he recovered mobility, so the story goes, a confused and frightened M. Masse rushed back to Valen sole. There, the proprietor of the Café des Sports saw him and, alarmed by his appearance, questioned him. Masse blurted out part of his story; the proprietor could not contain himself, and the news quickly broke.
—AIMÉ MICHEL & CHARLES BOWEN
Vallée, F. Jacques (b. 1939). French computer scientist, world-renowned UFO investigator—and real-life model for “Lacombe” in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Dr. Jacques Vallée, a former principal investigator on Department of Defense computer networking projects, was born in France, where he was trained in astrophysics. He moved to the United States in 1962 and received his Ph.D. in computer science in 1967 from Northwestern University, where he was a close associate of the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek.
The author of numerous articles and three books about high technology, Dr. Vallée first became interested in UFOs when he witnessed the destruction of tracking tapes of unknown objects at a major observatory. His research into the phenomenon has taken him to many places in the United States and to many countries around the world, including France, Scotland, Australia, Brazil, and Russia.
Jacques Vallée
Vallée has published dozens of scientific articles in British, French, and American professional journals, and twelve books in English on UFOs: Anatomy of a Phenomenon (1965); Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma (with his wife, Janine Vallée, 1966), Passport to Magonia (1969), The Edge of Reality (with J. Allen Hynek, 1975), The Invisible College (1975), Messengers of Deception (1979), Dimensions (1988), UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union (1989), Confrontations (1990), Revelations (1991), Forbidden Science (1992), and Fastwalker (1996), a novel..
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POSITION STATEMENT: I propose the hypothesis that there is a control system for human consciousness. I have not been able to determine whether it is natural or spontaneous; whether it is explainable in terms of genetics, of social psychology, or of ordinary phenomena—or if it is artificial in nature and under the power of some superhuman will. It may be entirely determined by laws that we have not yet discovered….
I am suggesting that what takes place through close encounters with UFOs is control of human beliefs, control of the relationship between our consciousness and physical reality, that this control has been in force throughout history and that it is of secondary importance that it should now assume the form of sightings of space visitors.
It could represent the Visitor Phenomenon of Whitley Strieber or some form of “supernature,” possibly along the lines of the Gaia hypothesis.
Alternately, in a Jungian interpretation of the same theme, the human collective unconscious could be projecting ahead of itself the imagery which is necessary for our own longterm survival beyond the unprecedented crises of the twenty-first century.
When the object we call UFO is visible to us in the reality of everyday life, I think it constitutes both a physical entity with mass, inertia, volume, etc. which we can measure, and a window toward another mode of reality for at least some of the percipients. Is this why witnesses can give us at the same time a consistent narrative and a description of contact with forms of life that fit no acceptable framework? These forms of life may be similar to projections; they may be real, yet a product of our dreams. Like our dreams, we can look into their hidden meaning, or we can ignore them. But like our dreams, they may also shape what we think of as our lives in ways that we do not yet understand.
—JACQUES VALLÉE
(Position statement was adapted from an interview in the February 1978 issue of Fate magazine and from Vallée’s books The Invisible College and Revelations.)
Valentich (Bass Strait, Australia) UFO encoun
ter On the evening of October 21, 1978, Mr. Frederick Valentich, a twenty-year-old civilian pilot, disappeared while on a solo fight between Moorabbin airport, Victoria, Australia-across Bass Strait-and King Island, in a single-engine Cessna 182 aircraft.
At about 7:06 P.M., Valentich radioed Melbourne Air Flight Service with a report that “a large aircraft” with “four bright lights” passed close to his plane, then apparently hovered over him, at which time Valentich began experiencing engine trouble followed by a radio “blackout.”
A taped transcript of the conversation between Valentich and Melbourne Air Flight Service controller Steve Robey contains the following dialogue between pilot and ground:
7:06 P.M.: Pilot to ground: “Is there any known traffic in my area below 5,000 feet?”
Flight Service Unit: “Negative—No known traffic.”
Pilot: “Seems to be a large aircraft below 5,000 feet.”
Ground: “What type of aircraft?”
Pilot: “I cannot confirm. It has four bright lights that appear to be landing lights…aircraft has just passed over me about 1,000 feet above.”
Ground: “Is large aircraft confirmed?”
Pilot: “Affirmative; at the speed it is traveling are there any RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) aircraft in vicinity?”
Ground: “Negative.” Ground: “What is your altitude?” Pilot: “4,500 feet.”
Ground: “Confirm you cannot identify aircraft?”
Pilot: “Affirmative.”
Then, three minutes after his original transmission, Valentich reported again:
“Aircraft…It’s not an aircraft. It’s (break in transmission)
Ground: “Can you describe aircraft?”
Pilot: “It’s flying past. It has a long shape. Cannot identify more than that…coming for me right now. It seems to be stationary. I’m orbiting and the thing is orbiting on top of me. It has a green light and sort of metallic light on the outside.”
Valentich then told ground control the object had vanished.
Ground: “Confirm it has vanished?”
Pilot: “Affirmative. Do you know what sort of aircraft I’ve got? Is it military?”
Ground: “No military traffic in the area.”
7:12 P.M.: Pilot: “Engine is rough idling and coughing.”
Ground: “What are your intentions?”
Pilot: “Proceeding King Island. Unknown aircraft now hovering on top of me.”
Ground: “Acknowledge.”
The pilot’s final transmission was: “Delta Sierra Juliet [Valentich’s call sign] Melbourne…” followed by seventeen seconds of a loud metallic sound. Thus began the mystery, which has yet to be satisfactory explained. An extensive search in Bass Strait failed to turn up any trace of the pilot or his plane.
A number of suggestions have been made in an attempt to explain the patently bizarre circumstances of Valentich’s disappearance. Suicide, hoax, disorientation, UFO abduction, and a host of other theories have been put forward—none of which has ended the mystery. But Valentich’s enigmatic conversation with Melbourne Flight Service demands that we at least consider the evidence for some sort of UFO connection.
Perhaps predictably, many people reported seeing UFOs on the same day and during the night of Valentich’s disappearance. While many of these sightings might have been generated by some sort of hysterical contagion mechanism, some of the reports remain difficult to explain. Some fifteen distinct sightings have survived the gauntlet of civilian research group investigations. They all occurred between midday and 9 P.M. on October 21. Six of these occurred in Victoria, one on King Island; and the rest in New South Wales, Tasmania, and South Australia. These reports seem to confirm that something quite odd was happening on that day.
While the precedent for UFO activity on the same day as Valentich’s disappearance is remarkable in itself, the situation becomes even more extraordinary, when one considers the UFO precedent for the areas that figure in the Valentich mystery—namely Cape Otway (his last land call), Bass Strait (the apparent location of his disappearance), and King Wand (his apparent destination).
During a two-month period, centered around January 1978, vacationers, fishermen, schoolteachers, local police, and lighthouse keepers in the Cape Otway area, saw UFOs.
Even earlier, during July 1977, local residents and the lighthouse keeper at Cape Otway saw an inexplicable brilliant light source that hovered out to sea for half an hour. Estimates of its brilliance were made, which suggested that the airborne power would have been of the order of five kilowatts (for a pencil-beam source) and fifteen megawatts (for an omni-directional source).
As we move out over Bass Strait, more curious mysteries are evident. A number of planes have disappeared or gone down there without a trace. A few years ago, a Tiger Moth with two people on board vanished, apparently only within a few miles of Cape Otway. In 1969, a pilot and his Fuji aircraft apparently went down in the sea, again only a few miles from the Cape.
During February 1944, a Beaufort bomber crew gained a most unusual companion out over the Strait, at an altitude of 4,500 feet. At about 2:20 A.M., a “dark shadow” appeared with what looked like a flickering light and flame belching from its aft end. The “unknown” stayed with the plane at a distance of some 100 to 150 feet, for eighteen to twenty minutes, during which time all radio and direction-finding instruments failed to function. It finally accelerated away from the plane at approximately three times the speed of the bomber—some 700 mph.
In October 1935, the Tasmanian airliner, the “Loina,” crashed “unseen” into Bass Strait, while on route to Flinders Island. Some wreckage was found, but no bodies were recovered.
One year earlier, during the morning of October 19, 1934, the new Tasmanian mailplane, “Miss Hobart,” with twelve passengers on board, disappeared without a trace, apparently within a few miles of Wilson’s Promontory. Two surveyors in the area heard the plane pass over; however, they were baffled when the engine sound suddenly ceased. A large, motionless white “flare” was seen from a surface vessel near Cape Liptrap. The ship went to investigate and saw another light, this time pink in color. To put a final seal on the whole mystery, the “Miss Hobar” had not even been carrying flares!
Back in July 1920, a schooner went missing in Bass Strait. An extensive air-sea search, by contemporary standards, was initiated. Rather than solve the mystery, the search served only to compound it. Crews and captains on two ships reported seeing “large flares,” which they thought must have been from the missing schooner. Captain J. Stut and Sergeant A. G. Daizell flew toward the area where the flares were observed. They and their plane, along with the schooner, were never seen again.
The Melbourne Argus newspaper of the day, even tells us of many people reportedly seeing “cigar shaped” objects flying over the Strait, as far back as 1896
King Island’s 425 square miles played host to a “mini-flap” of unidentified nocturnal aerial lights for at least three months prior to the disappearance of Frederick Valentich. Oval-shaped lights followed cars and mystified local residents. Strange lights or flares appeared off the north shore of New Year Island.
One of the most spectacular sightings of a UFO in the area, occurred at a wild and uninhabited part of the King Island coast, near Whistler Point, just before dawn, on April 10, 1976. “A beam of light” emanating from a “cross-shaped object” approached a duck-shooter’s car, in a direct line. The light display, eventually receded directly along its line of approach, ending a silent inspection, when it disappeared over the distant skyline.
Conflicting evidence, and the reluctance of certain officials to release their information, has effectively short-circuited any legitimate conclusions. The evidence presented here in summary form indicates that if some other explanation for the disappearance of Valentich and the Cessna aircraft is not forthcoming, then the possibility of some sort of UFO connection must be considered. As is stands now, the disappearance of the pilot and his plane remains a mystery.
—WILLIAM C. CHALKER
Van Tassel, George (1910-1978). Van Tassel was a major UFO contactee, theoretician, and entrepreneur. He was operator of the Giant Rock Airport, where he hosted the fabled Giant Rock Space Conventions, at which important contactees and their followers gathered annually, between 1954 and 1970. Furthermore, Van Tassel was founder and leading light of the Ministry of Universal Wisdom, incorporated in 1958, and the related College of Universal Wisdom. These nearly one-man organizations, which among other activities built a large structure for research known as the “Integratron,” were concerned with the advancement of “science and scientific philosophy,” partly on the basis of principles believed communicated by UFOs.
From 1927 until 1947 Van Tassel was employed in a variety of positions by such major aviation concerns as Douglas, Hughes, and Lockheed. In 1947 he moved to Giant Rock to manage the airport.
In 1951, he became absorbed in the UFO contactee movement, beginning with his own contact. In that year, he reportedly went into a trance at the base of the huge rock, for which Giant Rock is named, and was taken up to meet the “Council of Seven Lights,” a body of discarnate Earthlings inhabiting a spaceship circling our planet. Then on August 24, 1952, according to his book I Rode a Flying Saucer, he was sleeping in the desert with his wife when he was awakened by an alien named Solgonda, whose ship was hovering nearby. His wife continued sleeping, but Van Tassel went aboard with the extraordinary visitors. This dramatic encounter led directly to the first Space Convention the following spring.
Later writings of Van Tassel expounded complex theories, derived from OSCs (Outer Space Contacts), that the human race is partly nonterrestial in origin, and that cosmic reality can be reduced to “resonances.” He built the four-storey-high nonmetallic “Integratron” containing an electrostatic armature 55 feet in diameter, driven by air turbines and jets. The huge apparatus was never wholly completed, but was designed for the purpose of “research into the unseen truths of life” and particularly to develop technologies to rejuvenate the elderly and prevent aging.
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters Page 114