The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters

by Story, Ronald

  It seems obvious that open contact with extraterrestrials would have a profound effect on the human race and on our fundamental institutions—in some ways unforeseen. This awareness may well explain, at least in part, our visitors’ enigmatic behavior. I also believe, however, earth’s citizens deserve a truthful and complete disclosure of any and all facts that governments may be privy to regarding UFOs. Only through an informed populace can we and our scientists meet the challenge facing us. In the meantime the following courses of action need to be taken:

  1. Science professionals must be encouraged to explore the UFO problem without fear of ridicule, and UFO witnesses should be encouraged to come forth with their experiences, again without fearing derision.

  2. UFO researchers need to document their investigations much more thoroughly and in a scientific manner.

  3. We must continue to seek out physical evidence.

  4. Sleep paralysis imagery, a little known phenomenon, is creating false entity reports, especially in bedroom encounter claims. Both UFO investigators and mental health professionals must learn to recognize this phenomenon’s potential role in UFO encounter and abduction cases.

  —WALTER N. WEBB

  Wellington-Kaikoura radar/visual sightings On New Year’s Day, 1979, the news quickly spread around the world that UFOs sighted over New Zealand’s Canterbury coast were being taken seriously by the Royal New Zealand Air Force to the extent that Skyhawk fighter-bombers had been placed on standby alert. Not since the famed Washington National sightings of 1952 had such a furor arose within the news media over the subject of UFOs, and for good reason.

  Never before had there been a case of simultaneous radar-visual-photographic observations. The New Zealand sightings of December 21 and 31, 1978, involved several airborne observers, which included the pilots and crewmembers of three separate aircraft-radar operators, both in the air and on the ground, and on December 31, a professional TV cameraman shot several thousand frames of 16mm color movie film of unidentified lights. The brightest object to be captured on film was described by the camerman, David Crockett, as having “a transparent sphere on top with brightly lit saucer-shaped bottom.” Other “objects” were variously described as saucer-or eggshaped with rotating bands of red light going around the white or yellowish-white globules of light. Up to four lights were reportedly seen at one time during the high point of UFO activity (However, lights were seen in many different places, so it is difficult to determine exactly how many UFOs might have been present.)

  Here are the essentials of the story from the beginning:

  The first sightings occurred around 12:30 A.M., December 21-22, 1978, as an Argosy cargo plane owned by Safe-Air Ltd. departed Blenheim en route (along the eastern coast of New Zealand’s South Island) to Christchurch. Captain John B. Randle reported “a number of white lights,” near the mouth of the Clarence River “similar to landing lights,” in the sky. Five objects were confirmed by the powerful Wellington Air Traffic Control (WATC) radar and were considered unexplained.

  One of the famous New Zealand UFOs, as photographed by an Australian TV crew from a plane.

  Around 3:30 A.M., a second Safe-Air Argosy, flying approximately the same course as the first, also encountered UFOs. WATC received five strong returns, which Captain Vern L. A. Powell and his copilot, Ian B. Perry, were asked to identify. Wellington said there was a large return on the port side of the plane at nine o’clock at a distance of forty kilometers. The two pilots looked out and there it was. Somewhat later, Powell blurted out over the radio: “Something is coming towards us at a tremendous speed on our radar. It has traveled some twenty-four kilometers [fifteen miles] in five seconds. Now it has abruptly veered off [at an estimated speed of 10,800 miles per hour]. It was moving so fast it was leaving a tail behind it on the radar screen,” Powell said. Air traffic controller Eric McNae at Wellington reported that one object paced the Argosy freighter for twelve miles along the Kaikoura coast before disappearing off their screens.

  On December 26, after a flurry of news reports in the New Zealand papers, Australian television Channel 0 in Melbourne decided to do a feature story on Vern Powell’s experience. Reporter Quentin Fogarty, vacationing in New Zealand at the time, was contacted for the assignment. Fogarty soon arranged for a camera crew (which turned out to be David Crockett and his wife, Ngaire) to accompany him on a similar trip to reconstruct for the television audience what had happened on the same flight path ten days before.

  The plane, an Argosy four-engine turboprop freighter, as before, left Blenheim at 9:30 P.M. on December 30th for an uneventful trip to Wellington, where it would be loaded with newspapers for the trip south to Christchurch. Upon arrival at Wellington, Fogarty interviewed the controllers at WATC. Then, at 11:46 P.M., the Argosy, piloted by Captain William Startup and First Officer Robert Guard, departed Wellington, with Fogarty, the Crocketts, and a full load of newspapers on board.

  At ten minutes past midnight, as the plane had just passed Cape Campbell below (twenty-five miles south of Wellington over Cook Strait), Startup and Guard observed some unusual lights in the direction of a town called Kaikoura. Meanwhile, Fogarty and the Crocketts were in the loading bay working on a “stand-up” to use in their story on the previous UFO sightings. Fogarty had just recorded this statement: “We are now approaching the Clarence River where the highest concentration of UFOs was sighted on the morning of December 21. We’re at an altitude of 14,000 feet and we’re on exactly the same route taken by Captain Powell when he encountered those mysterious objects. It’s a beautiful clear night outside and naturally we’ll be looking out for anything unusual.” Just then, pilot Bill Startup yelled: “Get up here quick!”

  “There were bright globules of light pulsating and expanding and lighting up the foreshore and town of Kaikoura,” Fogarty said. A radio call to WATC confirmed that Wellington also saw radar targets located in the direction of Kaikoura, about thirteen miles from the plane. The encounter had begun.

  Over the next fifty minutes or so, until the aircraft landed at Christchurch, those on board were treated to a spectacular, and at times frightening, UFO display. Some of the activity was also captured on film, but because of the objects’ apparent ability to appear and disappear at will, filming was very difficult.

  There were times when Wellington radar confirmed an unidentified target on the tail of the aircraft. Reporter Fogarty, who did a taped commentary throughout the flight, perhaps best summed up the feelings of everyone on board, when he said: “Let’s hope they’re friendly.” Just before the aircraft landed, Captain Startup invited the television crew back on the return leg.

  December 31, 2:15 A.M.: The Argosy took off for Blenheim. It was only a couple of minutes out of Christchurch when a bright object was observed outside the starboard window.

  The object was also picked up on the aircraft radar. At first it was within the twenty-mile range. Later it came as close as ten miles. This time the object didn’t disappear or fade, and David had a lot more success with his filming. He described it as having a brightly lit base with a sort of transparent dome. Fogarty, who was continuing his taped commentary, said at the time that it sounded suspiciously like a “flying saucer.”

  About thirty-seven nautical miles out of Christchurch, with the object still outside the window, Captain Startup decided to turn toward it. He put the aircraft into a 90-degree turn. The object kept its relative distance from the plane until Startup decided to get back on course. As he turned, the object maintained its location at the right of the aircraft, then approached the aircraft and passed beneath the right-hand side and disappeared. During the turn, the captain saw another bright object appear, at first higher than the aircraft and in front. This object then passed to the left and beneath. From this point until landing at Blenheim, those on board occasionally saw bright, pulsating lights. Some “objects” were also picked up by ground radar.

  About 10:05 P.M., Fogarty, with the film firmly clutched in his hand, took off f
rom Christchurch for Melbourne. News of the morning’s incredible events was already making headlines around the world. He arrived back in Melbourne as the New Year was dawning. Then began the major task of getting the story together for distribution around the world.

  A week after the sightings, the film was on its way to the United States for scientific analysis. Channel 0 chose NICAP for the task. The investigation was conducted on behalf of NICAP by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, a Navy physicist. He spent ten days in New Zealand and a week in Australia interviewing the witnesses and analyzing the film. He subsequently presented his findings to several groups of scientists in the U.S. Not one of the scientists was able to explain the radar-visual-photographic sightings in conventional terms.

  Mr. Jack Acuff, former director of NICAP, said that his organization had never previously endorsed a UFO film as being genuine but added that the evidence in this case pointed to some new phenomenon that was probably related to other UFO reports.

  Dr. Maccabee has been a member of NICAP for twelve years. He is also op the Scientific Board of the Center for UFO Studies, and in that capacity he presented the evidence to Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Hynek stated his opinion that the New Zealand evidence clearly suggests some phenom enon that cannot be explained in ordinary terms. He criticized those in responsible scientific positions who had publicly stated that the New Zealand film showed Venus, Jupiter, meteors, etc., without even bothering to talk to the witnesses or to find out at what times and in which directions the various portions of the film were shot.

  Some of the other scientists joining Dr. Maccabee and Dr. Hynek in the opinion that the film shows something unusual are Dr. Peter Sturrock, a plasma physicist; Dr. Richard Haines, an optical physiologist; Dr. Gilbert Levin, a biophysicist; and Neil Davis, an electronics specialist. Other scientists, most notably several government and industry radar specialists, requested that their names not be used because of their sensitive positions.

  —RONALD D. STORY

  References

  Maccabee, Bruce. “Wellington/Kaikoura radar/visual sightings” in Story, Ronald D., ed. The Encyclopedia of UFOs (Doubleday/New English Library, 1980).

  Story; Ronald D. UFOs and the Limits of Science (William Morrow/New English Library, 1981).

  When Time Began (Avon Books, 1993). Zecharia Sitchin, in book five of his Earth Chronicles series on the ancient astronaut theme, theorizes that Stonehenge was built or inspired by alien visitors as a solar clock to chart the passage of Celestial Time. Among other enigmas, he wonders why seven was chosen as the number of days to represent a slice of a year known as a week. He answers his own question by concluding that the extraterrestrial visitors we call God first passed the six outer planets of our solar system before reaching Earth, the seventh planet, and thus the number seven has held sacred symbolism for humans ever since.

  —RANDALL FITZGERALD

  Whispers from Space (Macmillan, 1973). Scottish astronomer John Macvey became, in this book, one of the first scientists to admit publicly to having had his own UFO sighting, prompting him to urge an open mind about UFOs and ancient astronaut theories. He suspects that alien contact with our species may have occurred but evidence of it remains far beyond our comprehension or ability to detect.

  —RANDALL FITZGERALD

  window areas particular geographical locations where UFO sightings and other odd happenings frequently occur. Examples are: Sedona, Arizona; Gulf Breeze, Florida; and Hudson Valley, New York. These and other window areas are described in the book UFO USA (Hyperion, 1999) compiled by “SPACEAGE: The Society for the Preservation of Alien Contact Evidence and Geographic Exploration”).

  —RONALD D. STORY

  Witnessed (Pocket Books, 1996). Budd Hopkins details in this book what he describes as the most important alien abduction case “in recorded history.” Manhattan housewife Linda Napolitano was floated into a hovering UFO at night from her twelfth-floor apartment window, witnessed by Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations, and two of his American bodyguards.

  —RANDALL FITZGERALD

  X

  X-Files (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp./Fox-TV; Producer: Chris Carter). This popular TV series, which premiered in 1993, has a pronounced symbiotic relationship with modern UFO-ET mythology. So much so that virtually every element of UFO lore has been incorporated into these weekly scifi mystery dramas.

  Heavily laden with conspiracies and coverups—covert liaisons between the U.S. Government and aliens, UFOabduction tieins, genetically-engineered deviants, and virtually every aspect of paranormal phenomena that can be imagined—the show basically follows the exploits of two young FBI agents, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, as they investigate all of it in pursuit of the “truth.”

  Their credo is summed up by two catch phrases: “The truth is out there” and “trust no one”—which taps into the paranoid suspicions of many. However, the greater appeal probably has to do with the series’ visual artistry, interesting and attractive lead characters, and the bizarre nature of the horrors endured. And, of course, almost everyone enjoys a good mystery, which X-Files usually provides.

  The show has been called “provocative,” “intriguing,” “spooky,” “incredible,” “eerie,” “creepy,” “intelligent,” “paranoid,” and “preposterous”—all of which is true.

  —RONALD D. STORY

  Y

  Yorba Linda (California) photo At twilight on January 24, 1967, fourteen-year-old “Tom X” (name withheld by request) was reportedly startled by a dark, hat-shaped object hovering outside a second-storey window of his home in Yorba Linda, California. He rushed quickly to an adjacent room and returned within seconds with his inexpensive Mark XII fixed-focus camera. Tom said that the object had moved farther away from the windowpane, but that he was still able to snap one black-and-white picture before running downstairs, shouting for his family to come and view the bizarre visitor.

  Tom X’s family lived in a small, relatively isolated town on the edge of rapidly growing Orange County. He regularly used a mail-order film company to process his photos, but they had lost a roll of film shortly before this incident. So instead of trusting his UFO picture to the mails, he had a fourteen-year-old friend develop it for him.

  Tom’s friend tried his best, but the negative and photo emerged scratched and dulled. In addition, it was light-struck and/or fogged. Later, professional cleaning restored it to reasonable clarity, but nothing could be done about several long scratches which had been produced by the camera’s faulty winding mechanism.

  When the sighting and photo came to this writer’s attention in June 1967, it was subjected to analysis by six photographic experts during the next four years. Equipment used included sophisticated aerospace photogrammetric systems. The consensus of the experts was that the hat-shaped image denoted a solid, three-dimensional, free-flying object. It seemed to be either stationary or moving at slow speed.

  Tom X had reported four thin appendages hanging down from the bottom rim, but by the time he snapped the photo, the object had apparently withdrawn or otherwise folded up one of them, one expert theorized. Double exposure, cutouts, hand-thrown, or string-suspended models were ruled out. The object’s true size was judged to be about twenty inches in diameter along its horizontal axis and about two feet in height, and was about one hundred feet from the camera.

  The dark, hat-shaped object photographed by “Tom X” on January 24, 1967. (Lines across the photo are scratches from the camera’s faulty winding mechanism.)

  Tom’s character and reliability were checked. He was determined to be an honest, intelligent individual, who was well thought of by his friends and school authorities. His family verified the fact that he was in a highly excitable state after viewing and photographing the object. However, they could not corroborate the sighting itself, because the object had disappeared by the time other family members hurried back upstairs with him.

  The entire X family, which included Tom, his parents, and sister, had witnessed
a large silvery object with lighted windows on January 4, 1967, just twenty days before the hat-shaped object was photographed. Prior to that time, none of the family had any interest in UFOs, and even considered the subject unreal and uninteresting. Following the January 24th occurrence, a considerable number of other more-distant UFOs were sighted by members of the X family and other residents of Yorba Linda and surrounding communities.

  Tom X had the impression that the January 24th object was “gigantic,” but this might have been due either to his excited state, an optical illusion, or the fact that the object when first seen was actually very close to the window. Investigation revealed that when first seen, it subtended and angle of about sixteen degrees and about one degree when the photo was taken.

  Tom’s visual impression was that the bottom rim was continuous and slanted like a top hat; however, the photo showed the rim was actually composed of eggshaped bulges, from which the legs apparently protruded.

  Another sighting of a similar object was reported from Wapello, Iowa, by another fourteen-year-old boy, Douglas Eutsler, on March 22, 1967, about two months after Tom’s sighting. Douglas reported the sighting to the Air Force, and his sketch appeared in a December 1967 U.S. magazine. The two witnesses did not know each other.

  Douglas reported that the bottom part of the object was rotating. This might be a possible clue why Tom X saw the rim as a continuous slope, rather than as eggshaped protrusions as revealed in the photo. Eutsler reported the object as large, also, but there was no objective way to measure the Wapello object’s true size. Perhaps the phenomenon of size constancy, in which the brain zooms in like a telephoto lens could be applied to both cases.

  The initial decision by NICAP (the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) was that the photo was a hoax (a cutout or small model at the window-photographed with a close-up lens). The object was further studied by means of comparison photos, and the NICAP conclusion was proved to be in error.