Operation Trojan Horse: The Classic Breakthrough Study of UFOs

by John A. Keel

  So once again we have a series of sightings and incidents that corroborate an unusual story. But, unfortunately, we also had those four miserable pancakes. Simonton turned one over to a local judge named Carter who, incidentally, vouched for his honesty and reliability, as did everyone else who knew him. Dr. J. Allen Hynek was given the second one, and a third went to the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena, which turned it over to a New York researcher, Alex Mebane. Simonton held onto the fourth one. He said he took a nibble out of it, and “it tasted like cardboard.”

  Were the pancakes made out of exotic Martian mush? Of course not. They were plain old cornmeal, salt, and hydrogenated oil.

  Simonton’s story got a big play in the national press, and NICAP capitalized on the publicity by issuing statements about their “thorough investigation” which was “under way,” etc. But when the press interest died, NICAP dropped the whole thing. The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization investigators stuck with it, however, and when an Eagle River businessman made a joking reference to Simonton having been hypnotized (he later denied this), some leaped on that as the explanation. Cecile Hess, APRO’s man in nearby Rhinelander, Wisconsin, didn’t buy the hypnotized theory. “If I ever saw a sincere and honest man, it was Simonton,” Hess commented.

  “If it happened again,” Simonton told a UPI reporter in early May, “I don’t think I’d tell anybody about it.”

  Simonton was a bewildered victim of the artifact game. Scores of contactees have been given pieces of junk metal, scraps of paper, and, in many cases, chunks of crystal or tektites (pieces of glass). The contactees display these materials almost proudly as proof of their experiences. One would assume that outright hoaxsters would try to construct better, more impressive, artifacts to support their stories of encounters with the wonderful “space people.”

  Another fascinating game, which the ufonauts play with a vengeance, is the “repair” gambit. Beginning in 1897, there has been an endless stream of stories and reports, many from police officers, school teachers, and other “reliable witnesses,” describing how they encountered a grounded UFO and observed the occupants busily making repairs of some kind. In many instances, the ufonauts deliberately get out of the object and inspect its underside with a flashlight. These instances have been reported in Italy, Australia, Scandinavia, South America, and the United States. The basic details in these stories are so similar that it seems as if the ufonauts are following a carefully rehearsed procedure.

  The “superior technology” of Operation Trojan Horse has apparently produced a line of faulty flying machines that constantly break down. Pieces of the damned things are always falling off where they can be grabbed up by eager UFO investigators. If the UFOs were real, it would be logical for a saucer in trouble to seek out a very isolated hilltop to make repairs. Instead, they prefer to land in the fields of occupied farms and on major highways close to big cities.

  A fifty-six-year-old electronics engineer from Temple, Oklahoma, William “Eddie” Laxton, became the center of considerable attention after he reported a bizarre incident in the gray predawn hours of March 23, 1966. At about 5:30 A.M. on that bleak March morning Laxton was driving along a deserted stretch of Highway 70 near the Texas-Oklahoma border, on his way to work at the Sheppard Air Force Base outside of Wichita Falls, Texas, where he teaches electronics, when a huge fish-shaped object suddenly loomed up in front of him. He jammed on his brakes, he said later, and pulled to a stop about 50 yards from where the object was blocking the road at a 45-degree angle. The thing was, he estimated, about 75 feet long and 8 feet deep.

  “There were four very brilliant lights on my side,” he said. “Bright enough so that a man could read a newspaper by the light a mile away.” He also observed that it seemed to be lit up inside and that it “had a plastic bubble in front which was about three feet in diameter, and you could see light through it.” It had a tail structure with horizontal stabilizers that measured about 2.5 feet from the leading edge to the trailing edge. Friends and associates have confirmed that Eddie has always been blessed with a phenomenal memory, and they believe him when he says he was able to distinguish a group of earthly numbers painted vertically in black on the side of the fuselage. He remembers them as reading either:

  T or T

  L L

  4 4

  7 1

  6 6

  8 8

  Halfway along the fuselage there was a porthole about two feet in diameter. It was divided into four equal sections, and there was a small door below it, measuring about 4.5 feet high and 2.5 feet wide. This door was open and white light was pouring through it. Directly outside the object a human-looking man was examining the underside of the craft with some kind of flashlight. As Eddie climbed out of his car, this person turned, climbed up a metal ladder, and entered the door. “I’m sure it was aluminum,” Laxton noted. “When the door snapped shut, it sounded like when a door closes.”

  He described the pilot as weighing about 180 pounds and being 5 feet 9 inches tall with a light complexion. He was wearing what looked like a mechanic’s cap with the bill turned up.

  “I got the impression due to his stooped shoulders he was about thirty to thirty-five years old,” Eddie said. “He wore either coveralls or a two-piece suit that looked like green-colored fatigues. I got the idea that he had three stripes above and three below [on his sleeve]. The above stripes were in an arch and the below stripes were in a wide V shape.”

  A few seconds later “the craft started up… it sounded like a high speed drill. It lifted off the ground about fifty feet high and headed toward the Red River. In about five seconds it was a mile away.”

  When the machine took off, Laxton reported, “The hair on the back of my hands and neck stood up.”

  Admittedly excited by what he had seen, Eddie got back into his car and drove about 100 yards when he came upon a huge tank truck parked beside the road. The driver, C. W. Anderson of Snyder, Oklahoma, said that he had seen something following him in his mirror and that he had also watched it fly away toward the Red River. After their story appeared in local papers, other truck drivers came forward with reports of having seen similar objects along Highway 70 earlier in the year.

  Eddie Laxton faithfully reported the incident to his employer, the Air Force, and a couple of days later a line of jeeps pulled up in front of his office. “A colonel and other officers wanted to see the spot where the object had been,” Laxton said. “I went out with them and showed them the place. They asked me a lot of questions while their men searched the place with all kinds of instruments. They seemed to know just what they were doing.”

  In the Air Force files, the object Eddie Laxton saw is officially recorded as “unidentified.” As for the man, Eddie claims, “He looked just like you or me. If I met him tomorrow in a bar, I would know him instantly.”

  Among the great heaps of neglected and ignored UFO data, we find hundreds of “minipeople” accounts. These are very rarely published anywhere because they are so unbelievable. Most of them are identical to the fairy and gnome stories of yesteryear. The minipeople are only a few inches in height. Some dress like spacemen, complete with transparent helmets, while others are described in much the same way as the Irish leprechauns. Witnesses to these events can experience conjunctivitis, akinesia (paralysis), amnesia, and the other effects often noted by witnesses to more conventional UFO events. Many contactees admit that they have seen minipeople cavorting about on their furniture and even riding around in miniature flying saucers.

  One of the strangest minipeople stories I have received came from a young woman in Seattle, Washington. In the latter part of August 1965, she awoke around 2 A. M. and discovered she could not move a muscle or make a sound. Her window was open, and suddenly a tiny, football-sized, dull gray object appeared. It floated through the window and hovered over the carpet near her bed. She said she felt no desire to leap up or cry out as three tripod logs lowered from the object, and it settled to the
floor. A small ramp descended from it, and five or six tiny people clambered out and seemed to work on some kind of repairs on the object. They wore tight-fitting clothing. When their job was finished, they went up the ramp again, and the object took off and sailed out the window. Then she was finally able to move. She was certain she was wide awake. The case was investigated by J. Russell Jenkins of Seattle.

  You can see why very few witnesses to this type of event would be anxious to tell anyone about their experiences. And you can see why almost none of these stories ever appears in print, except in occult-oriented literature. Nevertheless, if we hope to assess the true UFO situation, we must examine all of these stories. We can learn nothing by considering only those episodes that are emotionally and intellectually acceptable to us.

  Fewer than two percent of the known UFO sightings are reported to the Air Force at all. Likewise, the various UFO organizations receive only a tiny residue of the data. It is most difficult to judge the situation at all on the basis of such a small sampling. The problem is compounded by the fact that the majority of UFO witnesses and contactees tell no one outside of their own circle of family and friends. I have concentrated, therefore, on the hidden incidents and the little-known, seldom officially reported aspects of the phenomenon.

  Individually, the sighting reports are nothing more than anecdotes. Thoroughly investigated, objectively reported cases are very rare. Even so, when you collect together all the available data, as I have tried to do, and view it quantitatively, you naturally expect that this mass of information will reveal some positive factors. Instead, an astounding paradox is presented.

  The scope of the phenomenon and the overwhelming quantity of reports negates its validity.

  The various UFO organizations and cultist groups, and the few interested scientists, had tried to deal with all this on an anecdotal basis, selecting those anecdotes which seemed to contain the best descriptions and had been reported by the most reliable witnesses. Thus, the actual scope of the phenomenon has escaped them. And the best reports rarely contain details that can provide correlations with other reports. In short, the great bulk of all the anecdotes are worthless and can provide little or no insight into the real problems.

  The statistical data that I have extracted, and which I have tried to summarize briefly here, indicate that flying saucers are not stable machines requiring fuel, maintenance, and logistical support. They are, in all probability, transmogrifications of energy and do not exist in the same way that this book exists. They are not permanent constructions of matter.

  Operation Trojan Horse has made us believe, first, in angels and phantom armies, later in mystery inventors, ghost airplanes, and ghost rockets, and finally in the splendid Venusians.

  Because the scope of the phenomenon far exceeds the limits of the tiny residue of known reports, we can learn almost nothing from studying the observations of a minute group of pilots and police officers.

  However, by carefully investigating many flap areas in depth, I have come up with an alternate line of research. I discovered that the witnesses and people living in these areas experienced direct manifestations of a different sort. If we can put the witnesses themselves under our microscope, we may find that a wide variety of psychological and hallucinatory factors are involved. This is something we can investigate thoroughly and systematically.

  In 1897, the airships deliberately dropped peeled potatoes, newspapers, and messages at the feet of astonished witnesses to create and support the secret inventor myth. In recent years the same kinds of objects have been dispensing strips of metal and globs of purple goo suggestive of machine oil to support the idea that we are being visited by “a superior intelligence with an advanced technology.” Some contactees have produced moon rocks and moon dust as proof of their experiences on other worlds, but these substances have been discouragingly like the rocks in your own backyard. The endless messages from the space people would now fill a library, and while the communicators claim to represent some other world, the contents of those messages are identical to the messages long received by mediums and mystics. I do not believe that the Saratoga was real in 1897. Nor do I believe that the aluminum-spewing spaceships of 1957 were any more real. The engraved message from the Saratoga was real; the aluminum shavings are real. But I would hate to have to go into a court of law and prove the reality of extraterrestrial visitants on the basis of such evidence.

  Because flying saucers may not actually exist as physical machines, we must study these witnesses and closely examine the experiences which led them to believe that UFOs were real and extraterrestrial. The UFO phenomenon seems to be largely subjective; that is, specific kinds of people become involved and are actually manipulated by the phenomenon in the same way that it manipulates matter. These subjective experiences are far more important to our study than the random, superficial sightings.

  Like Canadian scientist Wilbert Smith, Dr. Condon, and so many others, we are obliged to forget about the meaningless sightings and concentrate on the claims and experiences of the contactees.

  10

  “What Is Your Time Cycle?”

  In November 1966, two women were standing in a field outside of Owatonna, Minnesota, watching a familiar sight—what they called little flashers: bright, blinking lights that danced around the sky almost every night. Suddenly one of the objects descended rapidly and hovered at the far end of the field where they stood, swinging back and forth a few feet above the ground. Colored lights flickered around its glowing rim. One of the women let out a little gasp and crumpled to her knees in a trancelike daze. Her friend, Mrs. Ralph Butler, reached for her, but she was immobile, her head dipped down. A strange voice, stilted and metallic, came spasmodically from her lips.

  “What…is…your…time…cycle?” The voice asked. Mrs. Butler recovered from her surprise and tried to explain how we measured minutes, hours, and days. “What…constitutes…a…day…and…what…constitutes…a…night?…” The voice continued.

  “A day is approximately twelve hours long—and a night is twelve hours long,” Mrs. Butler replied. There were a few more innocuous questions, and then the other woman came out of her trance.

  “Boy, I’m glad that’s over,” she remarked simply.

  The object shot upward. Believing that they had communicated with a flying saucer through some incredible telepathic means, both women were naturally excited. But later when they tried to discuss the incident with others, they found that they suddenly came down with blinding headaches.

  Mrs. Butler wrote to me after reading one of my magazine articles. I immediately called her and spoke to her for almost an hour.

  “It’s strange,” she declared, “but this is the first time I’ve ever been able to talk about these things without getting a splitting headache.”

  I asked her all of my weird and seemingly silly questions, and she had all the right answers. She had been having unusual telephone problems and had also been receiving strange voices on her citizen’s band (CB) radio.

  “Tell me,” she asked, “has anyone ever reported receiving visits from peculiar Air Force officers?”

  “I’ve heard a few stories about them,” I said cautiously.

  “Well, last May [1967] a man came by here,” she continued. “He said he was Major Richard French, and he was interested in CB and in UFOs. He was about five feet nine inches tall with a kind of olive complexion and pointed face. His hair was dark and very long—too long for an Air Force officer, we thought. He spoke perfect English. He was well educated.”

  This man was nattily dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, and black tie. “Everything he was wearing was brand-new,” she observed. He drove a white Mustang, and her husband copied down the license number and had it checked out later. It proved to be a rented car from Minneapolis.

  “He said his stomach was bothering him,” she noted. “I told him that what he needed was some Jello. He said if it kept bothering him, he would come back for some.”


  Early the next morning Major French drove up to the Butler’s house again. His stomach was still troubling him, so Mrs. Butler sat him down at her kitchen table and slid a big bowl of Jello in front of him.

  “Did you ever hear of anyone trying to drink Jello?” she asked me. “Well, that’s what he did. He acted like he had never seen any before. He picked the bowl up and tried to drink it. I had to show him how to eat it with a spoon.”

  Major French didn’t visit any of her friends, and it is something of a mystery why he singled the Butlers out. Later, she said, this same man turned up in Forest City, Iowa, and dropped in on some close friends of the Butlers there.

  There proved to be a Richard French in the Air Force in Minnesota, but he did not even remotely answer to the above description.

  The Butlers have reportedly experienced all kinds of poltergeist phenomena in their home since the UFO flap began in Owatonna in 1966. Objects have been moving about of their own accord, glass objects have suddenly and visibly shattered without cause, and strange noises have resounded throughout the house.

  On another occasion she claimed that while she was standing outside watching some “little flashers,” she suddenly felt a cool, comforting hand on her shoulder. She looked around, but there was no one there.

  “Sometimes I’ve seen some kind of activity—men moving around in the trees behind our house at night. But something keeps me from going near them.”

  No one around Owatonna reported any of the extensive UFO sightings to the Air Force. “We’re all disgusted with the government,” Mrs. Butler declared. “We know they’d just tell us it was all swamp gas.”

  There were airship sightings in Owatonna in 1897. And in 1880, the home of a Mr. Dimant was plagued with poltergeist-like activity. Explosions of undetermined origin took place in his house, the doorbell rang frequently when no one was there, and so on. So perhaps this isolated little community of 14,000 is of some special interest to the mysterious ultraterrestrials.