by Gary Bates
Some time later, UFO skeptic and investigator Philip J. Klass investigated the case and thought it to be a classic hoax. However, the Project Blue Book team investigated the event, describing the witness as credible. To date it remains as “unexplained” on their files.[11]
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The “real” Mexican wave
In the early 1990s, numerous sightings in Mexico were verified by abundant photographic and video footage, which came in from many areas of the republic.
In April 1991, Adriana Velaquez and her brothers claimed to have seen two “midgets” signaling to them with a red light from one of the craft. In May of the same year, silver-colored vehicles appeared over the town of Huejutla, and over the village of Real del Monte a UFO fired a red beam to the ground. Later that month, hundreds of people confirmed seeing 12 shining objects near the city of Pachuca. This pattern was repeated over the next few days when approximately 15 triangular lights (similar to those of the Belgian UFO wave) appeared in the same location.
In January 1992, an electrical blackout afflicted 22 municipalities in two separate states, and at the same time three UFOs were seen hovering and scanning the ground with some sort of spotlights. In April 1993, hundreds more people witnessed brightly glowing vehicles performing various aerial maneuvers for over an hour one evening. The descriptions fitted that of a mother
ship with four accompanying vehicles. Numerous other sightings were also reported.
The Mexican “wave” also saw an increase in contacts. In May 1994, a small humanoid was described by Joaquina Reyes as being dressed in white, with a crown and a belt that constantly changed color.[12]
However, an event over Mexico City in January 1993 became the most verifiable UFO event ever. If reports are to be believed, tens of thousands of people, including several in government and military service, witnessed silvery-looking craft giving an aeronautics display in broad daylight. This continued into the afternoon when two more metallic disk-shaped craft appeared and were recorded by residents with camcorders. Over 700 videotapes, including 100 in broad daylight, have been collected by researchers. Local newspapers and TV stations heavily featured the sightings, which were also claimed to have been verified by civilian and military radar. The front page of the major Mexican newspaper La Prensa carried the headline “Astonishment! UFOs over the Capital.”[13] Even “60 Minutos,” the Mexican version of the well-known current events show “60 Minutes,” devoted extensive coverage to this wave. Reporter Jaime
Maussan stated:
Thanks to the video camcorder, Mexico has become the site of the most documented UFO flap in history.[14]
UFO over Mexico City.
The wave continued for many years, and, amazingly, people seemed to become desensitized to the occurrences. Curiously, not much coverage was given to these sightings in the American press, although Mexican and U.S. UFOlogists worked closely together during this time. Even as late as May 2004, TV news broadcasts all over the world carried footage shot by the Mexican Air Force of UFOs hovering over Mexico.
Sadly, as too often happens, there were those wishing to make a few bucks out of the frenzy that surrounded the wave. The Las Lomas UFO film of 1997, for example, showed a wobbly looking saucer disappearing behind some high-rise condominiums in a suburb of Mexico City.[15] It became the subject of much heated discussion and is not widely regarded as authentic footage. This sort of thing has called the credibility of many sightings into question even where there has been no indication of a hoax.
In the second half of the 1990s, a similarly well-witnessed wave of sightings occurred over Israel, comprising the full gamut of UFO experiences, including electrical outages, cattle mutilations, crop circles, and even abductions. Israel is regarded by some as a UFO hotspot.[16]
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“One of the best” encounters
“Top American UFOlogist Jacques Vallée cited this encounter in a 1992 book as one of the best in the world. His casebook coding-scheme gave it the highest marks: ‘Firsthand personal interview with the witness by a source of proven reliability; site visited by a skilled analyst; and no explanation possible, given the evidence.’
“A graphic account of this UFO was given by American UFOlogist William L. Moore [of MJ-12 document fame] based on casebooks compiled by Zigel [a Russian UFO enthusiast]. ‘On December 3 [1967], at 3:04 p.m.,’ wrote Moore, ‘several crewmen and passengers of an IL-18 aircraft on a test flight for the State Scientific Institute of Civil Aviation sighted an intensely bright object approaching them in the night sky.’ Moore reported that the object ‘followed’ the evasive turns of the aircraft.
“But years later I discovered that the aircraft, passing near Vorkuta, in the northern Urals, had by chance been crossing the flight path of the Kosmos-194 spy satellite during its ascent from Plesetsk. The crew had unwittingly observed the rocket’s plumes and the separation of its strap-on boosters. All other details of maneuvers were added in by their imaginations. Yet this bogus UFO story is highlighted as authentic by nearly every Western account of Russian UFOs in the last 20 years… .
“The Russian UFOlogists have failed. The ultimate test of the Russians’ ability to perform mature, reliable UFO research is how they treat ‘the smoking gun’ of Russian UFOlogy, the Petrozavodsk ‘jellyfish’ UFO of 1977. The jellyfish was a brief wonder in the West before being quickly solved as the launch of a rocket from Plesetsk. Western UFOlogists readily accepted the explanation, but now it turns out that Russian UFO experts never did. They have assembled a vast array of miracle stories associated with the event, including reports of telepathic messages and physical damage to the earth.”[17]
— James Oberg
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Signs, the movie — God versus the aliens (2002)
Although Signs was billed as a science fiction movie, the reviews claimed that it was about a spiritual journey and a restoration to faith. This is an intriguing notion because practically all “sci-fi” ignores traditional religions and particularly the Christian God of the Bible.
The film is set in a small American farming community where the central character, Graham Hess (an ex–Episcopalian priest, played by Mel Gibson), has turned his back on God as a result of the horrific death of his wife in a roadside accident. Things go from bad to worse for Hess when strange crop circles appear in his cornfields and things start going “bump in the night.” It soon becomes apparent on the nightly TV news that aliens are visiting the earth and harvesting human beings (the reason is never explained). His crisis of faith deepens and he even forbids prayer at the dinner table. He exclaims to his brother and children that “we are on our own” (in the context that there is no God to help them). This is ironic because later on in the movie he “confronts” God and exclaims, “I hate you!”
This movie has some genuinely scary and tense moments, particularly during the final confrontation with a left-behind alien intent on revenge against Hess. It is at this point that the real meaning of the title Signs is revealed. The irreconcilable events in his life that caused him to turn his back on God, now viewed with meaning and purpose, ultimately restore him to faith.[18]
The movie never suggested that Hess had any difficulty reconciling the concept of extraterrestrial life with his Christian faith. Alien life can only exist from one of two causes — God created it, or it evolved (made itself by “natural” processes). This movie presumes that there is a God. However, if sentient aliens are part of His creation, then mankind cannot be the focal point of His created universe as the movie, and also the Bible, implies. The secular concept of intelligent alien life is implicitly based on the premise that, if life evolved on the earth, it must have evolved elsewhere in the universe. Evolution requires millions of years of death and suffering as “normal,” and is therefore opposed to the biblical account of the entrance of death through man’s sin.
In the movie, God uses death and tragedy in the priest’s family as a tool for hel
ping him in the future. The priest may have been satisfied with the answer because he regained his faith. But in the real world, not everyone who experiences these tragedies readily gains such an answer.
Although this is an entertaining and well-crafted thriller, it invoked this spiritual conundrum without satisfactorily answering the big-picture question of why there is death and suffering in the world in the first place.
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Fire in the Sky — The Travis Walton abduction
The alleged abduction of a young woodcutter in 1975 has become the most high-profile abduction case in history. The abduction of Travis Walton was originally recounted in a National Enquirer report, but has since grown to include three books, a major movie, and countless articles. It has been a “nice little earner” for Travis Walton, despite his claims to the contrary. It is also one of the most controversial abduction accounts, as opinions about its authenticity still divide much of the UFO community.
It is claimed that as seven young woodcutters were returning from a day’s work of forest clearing, they saw a flying saucer hovering nearby. Walton alighted from their vehicle, stood underneath the UFO, and then was apparently knocked backward by a ray or a beam of light which emanated from the craft. Terrified, team leader Mike Rogers (Walton’s brother-in-law) and his workers fled the scene. They returned later but found Walton missing. Strangely, they did not report the event to the local sheriff until two hours later.
While Walton was missing, Rogers and his men were forced to undergo a polygraph (lie detector) test, which five of them passed. Then five days later, after a phone call from Walton, his sister and older brother traveled over 30 miles to find him in a disturbed state, lying in a phone booth.
Walton claimed that he had been abducted by aliens, taken aboard their craft, and subjected to a variety of medical-type examinations. Three months later, Walton and his brother were asked to also take polygraph tests and, judging from the surrounding publicity, they passed. In short, it was cited as a classic abduction case and not a hoax for the following reasons:
1. Walton passed his lie detector test.
2. Out of the six other witnesses, five passed similar tests.
3. Walton was of good character with no motivation to concoct a story.
4. Walton and his family had no prior interest in UFOs, and therefore were unlikely to be hoaxers.
5. The other witnesses had no reason to lie or participate in a hoax.
APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organization) was one pro-UFO organization that thought it to be a genuine case. However, NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) concluded that it was a hoax. A deeper look uncovered plenty of damning evidence to refute each of the above reasons:
1. Arch debunker Philip Klass discovered that Walton had already failed a polygraph test some months earlier, which was paid for by the National Inquirer (NI), which was then complicit, along with APRO, in covering up the results. An inexperienced examiner conducted the second test, which Walton passed. Apparently, Walton was allowed to provide the questions himself. It looks like the NI needed a good front-page UFO story.
2. It has been alleged that the other tests performed on the so-called corroborating witnesses involved questions to determine only if there had been foul play, and not to substantiate the UFO story. Remember, they were being treated as suspects in Walton’s disappearance. No one gave credibility to the UFO story until Walton returned. The tests only asked if a crime had been committed.
3. Walton had a criminal record relating to burglary and forgery offences he committed with Charles Rogers (Mike’s brother). As for motivation, the NI was offering a cash reward for any proof of UFOs (see 5 below). Walton also received remuneration from the NI for his story.
4. Investigators discovered that Walton was a “UFO freak.” Both he and his family had claimed many sightings in the past. It is said that when authorities notified the family about Travis’s abduction, they were not overly perturbed, suggesting that the aliens would return him because they were always friendly.
5. Motivation for the crew was not a problem either. Mike Rogers had under-quoted on a forest-thinning contract. It was taking longer than expected to do the work, and winter was setting in. After asking for an extension, he would have been financially penalized for falling behind. After they failed to complete the work in the set time, 10 percent of the contract price was withheld. The UFO claim gave Rogers and the crew a valid reason to claim the withheld funds, as his “scared” crew refused to return to the site to finish the work.[19]
In addition, Walton did not seem to suffer from the post-abduction preoccupation with UFOs that seems to befall many others. He showed little interest in further investigation. You would presume that most people in such a position would want to get to the bottom of their experience.
A urine test for uric acid levels determined that he must have eaten during the five absent days he claimed to be on board the alien craft.[20] His urine also showed no trace of acetone. After going without food for more than a couple of days, the body begins to break down its own fat. The waste product of this is acetone, which is excreted in the urine. Yet Walton claimed he did not eat, and lost 10 pounds during his ordeal.[21] Also, there was no evidence of marks or burns on his chest where, it was claimed, a beam of light hit him with such force that it knocked him over.
Mike Rogers has since sold artwork based on Walton’s description of his “abduction,” and Walton now earns a living as a guest speaker at UFO conferences all over the world, even though he says he is unhappy with the attention that was focused on him after the abduction. Once again, one of the great shaping events of modern UFO lore is not what it seems.
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Communion (1987) — Whitley Strieber
Whitley Strieber is undoubtedly the world’s most famous abductee. As a writer of horror stories (The Wolfen, 1978; The Hunger, 1981), his “alien” experiences in December 1985 enabled him to effectively communicate the alien abduction experience to a UFO-hungry society. Both of the aforementioned horror novels were subsequently made into motion pictures, so it is hardly surprising that his publisher, knowing the potential of the UFO subject matter, paid an enormous one-million-dollar advance for his abduction tale, called Communion.
In graphic detail, he described his childhood abduction experiences, mind control, alien implants, and rectal probes. It was a sensation, eventually selling ten million copies, and was also made into a very scary movie of the same name, starring Christopher Walken. In Communion, Strieber wrote:
Tiny people were now moving around me at great speed… .I had the thought I was being taken away, and remembered my family. It was a truly awful sensation, accompanied as it was by the same sense that I was absolutely helpless in the hands of these strange beings.[22]
Strieber’s experiences were recalled under hypnosis. Over the years, his visitations continued. By the time of his second book, Transformation (1988), he was indeed undergoing a transformation of sorts. Although initially horrified by his experiences, he now started to welcome them, almost as a religious experience, and this started to put him at odds with the pro-ETH UFO community. He claims that these beings ultimately helped him develop further occult talents, such as OBEs and astral traveling. He also started to link his visitor experiences with other religious ideas, claiming them to be the gods, fairies, ghosts, and UFO sightings of history, as well as the miraculous events of the Bible. This in turn led him deeper into the occult, attending witchcraft ceremonies and the like.
However, Strieber was already a “supernatural” believer long before his “visitor” experiences (as he called them). He was a New Age devotee. He had been a long-time follower of an occultic mystic called Gurdjieff, whose practices included Zen, tarot, and shamanism, among others. He was even reported as saying:
I am a student of the great thirteenth-century mystic, Meister Eckart. I have been a witch. I have experimented with worshipping
the earth as a goddess/mother.[23]
Yet again we see a demonstrable link between occultic New Age beliefs and UFO/alien experiences. Although it is likely that Strieber didn’t initially link his New Age practices with his UFO experiences, he eventually realized the significance himself. He was quoted as saying, “I made choices a long time ago that brought me this experience.”[24]