UFO Encounters

 Cash/Landrum- ( Piney Woods Incident )

HUFFMAN, TEXAS - On the evening of December the 29th 1980, Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and Colby Landrum had visited several small towns in the Piney Woods area of east Texas looking for a bingo game, but discovered that all games had been canceled while the clubs made preparations for the Christmas and new year celebrations. Instead they settled for a meal in a road side restaurant in New Caney.

Betty Cash was then a 51 year old business woman who owned a restaurant and a grocery store. Vickie Landrum, then 57, worked for Betty in the restaurant and also occasionally as a school meals assistant. Colby Landrum, Vickie's grandson, was then 7.

After leaving the restaurant some time between 8.20 and 8.30 pm, Betty drove them along Highway FM 1485, a road usually used only by people who live in the area because it is so isolated. Although only about 50km from Houston the area is sparsely populated and is covered by oak and pine trees, and dotted with swamps and lakes.

It was about 30 minutes later when the three noticed a bright UFO above the tree tops some distance away. Colby was the first to spot it and pointed it out to the others. As they drove on it appeared to get larger and larger. As they realized that the object was approaching the road only a short distance ahead they began to get worried but hoped to get by it in time and leave it behind. But before they could do so the object had straddled the road blocking their way.

Vickie screamed "Stop the car or we shall be burned alive!" The object, many times larger than the car remained hovering at tree top level and sending down an occasional large cone of fire like a rocked blast. In between these blasts it would settle downwards some 7.5 meters or so only to rise up again on the next cone of fire. Vickie described it as being "like a diamond of fire".

When Betty eventually brought the car to a stand still the UFO was only 60 meters away. It looked as if it was made from dull aluminum and glowed so bright that it lit up the surrounding forest like daylight. The four points of the diamond were blunt rather than sharp and blue spots or lights ringed its center line. Had the UFO not come to rest over the road the cone of fire from its lowest point would have set the forest on fire. The object also emitted an intermittent bleeping sound.

The three of them got out of the car to take a better look at the object. Vickie stood by the open door on the right hand side of the car with her left hand resting on the car roof. Vickie is a committed Christian who does not believe in UFOs or extraterrestrial life and when she saw the bright object she thought it was the coming of the end of the world. Because she expected to see Jesus come out of the light she starred at it intently.

Colby begged his grandmother to get back in the car and hold him and after about three minutes she did so and told him not to be afraid because "when that big man comes out of the burning cloud it will be Jesus." As Vickie held Colby she screamed at Betty to get back in the car with them. But Betty was so fascinated by the UFO that she had walked round to the front of the car and stood there gazing at it. Bathed in the bright light she stood there even though the heat was burning her skin. Eventually as the object began to move up and away she moved back to the car door. When she touched the door it was so painfully hot that she had to use her leather jacket to protect her hands as she got back in the car.

As the three of them watched the departing UFO, a large number of helicopters appeared overhead. As Betty said, "They seemed to rush in from all directions...it seemed like they were trying to encircle the thing." Within a few seconds the UFO had disappeared behind the trees lining the road. It was then that they realized how hot the interior of the car had become. They switched off the heater and put on the air conditioner instead.

When the effects of the bright light had worn off, Betty started the engine and they drove off down the darkened highway. After a mile or so of twisting road they were able to join a larger highway and turn in the direction of the departing UFO. This was about 8km and five minutes later. The object was clearly visible some distance ahead and looked like a bright cylinder of light. It was still lighting up the surrounding area and illuminating the helicopters.

By this time the helicopters were spread out over an 8km distance. One main group was near the UFO but moving in an erratic flight path. As they watched from their new vantage point they counted 23 helicopters. Many of them were identified as the large double rotor CH-47 Chinooks, the others were very fast single rotor types and appeared to be of the Bell-Huey type but were not properly identified. A lot of air crew members must have seen the UFO that night.

As soon as the UFO and helicopters were a safe distance ahead Betty drove on. When she reached an intersection she turned away from the flight path of the UFO and towards Dayton where the three of them lived. She dropped Vickie and Colby off at their home at about 9.50 and went home by herself. A friend and her children were there waiting for Betty but by this time she was feeling to ill to tell them about what had happened. Over the next few hours Betty's skin turned red as if badly sun burned. Her neck swelled and blisters erupted and broke on her face, scalp and eyelids. She started to vomit and continued to do so through out the night. My morning she was almost in a coma.

Some time between midnight and 2am Vickie and Colby began to suffer similar symptoms, although less severe. At first they suffered the sunburn like condition and then diarrhea and vomiting. It was a miserable night for all three victims.

The following morning Betty was moved to Vickie's house and all three were cared for there. Betty's condition continued to deteriorate and three days later she was taken to hospital. The burns and swelling altered Betty's appearance so radically that friend who came to visit her in hospital did not recognize her. Her hair began to fall out and her eyes became so swollen that she was unable to see for a week.

The appearance of helicopters at UFO sightings is becoming a common event, and the large number of helicopters at this incident is just another link in the chain. One thing is for certain, it is virtually impossible to be mistaken about the presence of CH-47 helicopters when you are directly beneath these large and noisy machines. The evidence of all the witnesses was consistent. They were interrogated separately about both the UFO and the helicopters and all gave consistent descriptions and sketches that indicated they had seen a large number of CH-47s.

Finding out where the helicopters had come from was a more difficult task than identifying them. according to a official at Houston Airport abound 350 to 400 helicopters operate commercially in the Houston area but they are all of the single rotor type, there are no CH-47s. The official also said that because helicopters fly on visual flight rules they do not have to contact the tower. Other information provided by Houston was that outside a 24km radius from the airport helicopters must stay below an altitude of 550 meters, and that due to a technical limitation the Houston control radar is restricted to a minimum altitude of 600 meters around the Huffman area.

The US army's Fort Hood press officer, Major Tony Geishauser, told the Corpus Christi Caller that no Fort Hood aircraft were in the Houston area that night. "I don't know any other place around here that would have that number of helicopters," he said. "I don't know what it could be..... unless there's a super secret thing going on and I wouldn't necessarily know about it."

All other bases in Texas and Louisiana denied they were responsible for the helicopters seen at the incident.

Betty, Vickie and Colby were not the only witnesses to the strange happenings at Huffman. An off duty Dayton policeman and his wife were driving home from Cleveland through the Huffman area the same night and also observed a large number of CH-47s. A man living in Crosby, directly under the flight path, reported seeing a large number of heavy military helicopters flying overhead. Oilfield laborer Jerry McDonald was in his back garden in Dayton when he saw a huge UFO flying directly over head. At first he thought it was the Goodyear airship, but quickly realized it was something else. "It was kind of diamond shaped and had two twin torches that were shooting brilliant blue flames out the back", he said. As it passed about 45 meters above him he saw that it had two bright lights on it and a red light in the center.

Since their encounter Vickie and Colby have been plagued with periodic outbreaks of skin troubles, as if they were more susceptible to infection than before. But the most far reaching injury has been the damage to their eyes. Their eyelids became infected very rapidly and have never fully recovered. Since the incident Vickie has had to have three new pairs of spectacles with successively stronger prescriptions to match the deterioration of her eyesight. Her eyesight continues to deteriorate and she still suffers from periodic infections. She fears she may eventually go blind. Colby has suffered similar problems but has needed only one new pair of glasses. Within a few weeks of the encounter, Vickie had lost about 30 per cent of her hair, and had large bald patches on her head. When it grew back it was of a different texture. Colby lost only a small patch of hair on the crown of his head, this too grew back in time.

Betty's injuries seemed even worse. She experienced a severe sun burn like condition and developed large water blisters, some as large as golf balls, over her face head and neck. One of these covered her right eyelid and extended across her right temple. She also developed a long term aversion to warm water, sunshine or other heat sources. In the year following the encounter she has spent five periods in hospital, two of those in intensive care. She lost over half of the hair on her head and has also had skin eruptions, many as big as a large coin, which leave permanent scars.

Doctors are baffled by these symptoms but speculate that they could be caused by some kind of radiation.

One day in April 1981 a CH-47 flew into Dayton. As Colby watched he became very upset. Vickie decided to take him to the spot where the helicopter had landed in the hope that it would seem less frightening on the ground. When they reached the landing zone they found a lot of people there already and had to wait some time before they were allowed to go inside the helicopter and talk to the pilot. Vickie and another visitor both claim that the pilot said he had been in the area before for the purpose of checking on a UFO in trouble near Huffman. When Vickie told the pilot how glad she was to see him, because she had been one of the people burned by the UFO, he refused to talk to them any more and hustled them out of the aircraft.

The UFO organization VISIT later located the pilot and questioned him. He admitted to knowing about Vickie and Betty's encounter with the UFO but maintained that he had not been in the area in December and had nothing to do with any UFO. Unless another pilot decides to come forward it seems that the source of the helicopters will remain a mystery. 

Betty Cash died of cancer after a long battle due to"over exposure to radiation" from the object as the doctor describes it, in 1999. She was 69 years old.

                         The Roswell Incident 1947

On July 2, 1947, an object crash landed on a ranch, approximately 75 miles northwest of Roswell, leaving a large field of debris. The local air base at Roswell investigated after the rancher first reported it to Roswell authorities on July 6. On July 8, the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) announced it had recovered a "flying disk". A few hours after the initial "flying disk" press release, U.S. Army Air Force officials stated that it was not a UFO, but a weather balloon. When the question of what crashed was revived in the early 1980s, the "Roswell Incident" became a focus of conspiracy theorists such as scientist and UFO investigators. It is believed the crashed UFO's were used for 'reverse engineering', explaining the rapid advancement in technology since that time.

On June 24, 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing disc, or saucer-shaped objects flying at high speed near Mt. Rainier in Washington state. In the days thereafter, hundreds of reports of the new "flying saucers" (or "flying disks") appeared in newspapers across the United States.

During the first week of July 1947 - July 2, 1947 - rancher William "Mack" Brazel discovered a large amount of unusual debris scattered widely over his ranch about 75 miles northwest of Roswell. Neighbors told him about the new "flying disk" phenomenon and suggested he go to Roswell to report his find.

Brazel informed the local sheriff in Roswell, George M. Wilcox, that he may have found a "flying disk" and Wilcox then contacted the local USAAF airbase in Roswell.

The base commander, Colonel William Blanchard, sent his head Intelligence Officer, Major Jesse Marcel, with the head of the Roswell Army Counterintelligence Corps, Sheridan Cavitt, to investigate. Marcel and Cavitt went with Brazel to his ranch, retrieved some of the debris and returned with it to the Roswell base on the evening of July 7. Some debris was later flown to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, home of the USAF's aeronautical research labs.

The next afternoon, July 8, Col. Blanchard issued an official USAAF press release from Roswell reporting that a "flying disk" had been found "sometime last week" by a local rancher and that it had been recovered by the Intelligence Office at the base for transfer to "higher headquarters". United Press also reported that residents near the ranch saw "a strange blue light several days ago about 3 a.m."

The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer.

According to information released by the department, over authority of Maj. J. A. Marcel, intelligence officer, the disk was recovered on a ranch in the Roswell vicinity, after an unidentified rancher had notified Sheriff Geo. Wilcox, here, that he had found the instrument on his premises.

Major Marcel and a detail from his department went to the ranch and recovered the disk, it was stated. After the intelligence officer here had inspected the instrument it was flown to higher headquarters. The intelligence office stated that no details of the saucer's construction or its appearance had been revealed.

Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot apparently were the only persons in Roswell who saw what they thought was a flying disk. They were sitting on their porch at 105 South Penn. last Wednesday night at about ten o'clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed. Wilmot called Mrs. Wilmot's attention to it and both ran down into the yard to watch. It was in sight less then a minute, perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, Wilmot estimated.

Wilmot said that it appeared to him to be about 1,500 feet high and going fast. He estimated between 400 and 500 miles per hour. In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers, faced mouth to mouth, or like two old type washbowls placed, together in the same fashion. The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would inside, though not like it would be if a light were merely underneath.

From where he stood Wilmot said that the object looked to be about 5 feet in size, and making allowance for the distance it was from town he figured that it must have been 15 to 20 feet in diameter, though this was just a guess. Wilmot said that he heard no sound but that Mrs. Wilmot said she heard a swishing sound for a very short time. The object came into view from the southeast and disappeared over the treetops in the general vicinity of six mile hill.

Wilmot, who is one of the most respected and reliable citizens in town, kept the story to himself hoping that someone else would come out and tell about having seen one, but finally today decided that he would go ahead and tell about it. The announcement that the RAAF was in possession of one came only a few minutes after he decided to release the details of what he had seen.

An examination by the army revealed last night that mysterious objects found on a lonely New Mexico ranch was a harmless high-altitude weather balloon - not a grounded flying disk. Excitement was high until Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, commander of the Eighth air forces with headquarters here cleared up the mystery.

The bundle of tinfoil, broken wood beams and rubber remnants of a balloon were sent here yesterday by army air transport in the wake of reports that it was a flying disk. But the general said the objects were the crushed remains of a ray wind target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes. Warrant Officer Irving Newton, forecaster at the army air forces weather station here said, "we use them because they go much higher than the eye can see."

The weather balloon was found several days ago near the center of New Mexico by Rancher W. W. Brazel. He said he didn't think much about it until he went into Corona, N. M., last Saturday and heard the flying disk reports. He returned to his ranch, 85 miles northwest of Roswell, and recovered the wreckage of the balloon, which he had placed under some brush.

Then Brazel hurried back to Roswell, where he reported his find to the sheriff's office. The sheriff called the Roswell air field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, 509th bomb group intelligence officer was assigned to the case.

Col. William H. Blanchard, commanding officer of the bomb group, reported the find to General Ramey and the object was flown immediately to the army air field here. Ramey went on the air here last night to announce the New Mexico discovery was not a flying disk. Newton said that when rigged up, the instrument "looks like a six-pointed star, is silvery in appearance and rises in the air like a kite."

In Roswell, the discovery set off a flurry of excitement. Sheriff George Wicox's telephone lines were jammed. Three calls came from England, one of them from The London Daily Mail, he said. A public relations officer here said the balloon was in his office "and it'll probably stay right there." Newton, who made the examination, said some 80 weather stations in the U. S. were using that type of balloon and that it could have come from any of them. He said he had sent up identical balloons during the invasion of Okinawa to determine ballistics information for heavy guns.

The press release caused a media feeding frenzy and phone lines into New Mexico and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. became jammed as reporters clamored for more details.Within an hour of the release, the head of the Eighth Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas, Brigadier General Roger Ramey, began changing the story. The object retrieved was now a weather balloon with "hexagonal" radar target attachment. He would later describe it on the radio as "remnants of a tin foil-covered box kite and a rubber balloon" and denied there were any identification markings or instruments found with it.

United Press also reported that Ramey said, "he couldn't let anybody look at the thing or photograph it because Washington had clamped a 'security lid' on all but the sketchiest details." However, he thought "...it was nothing to get excited about. It looks to me like the remnant of a weather balloon and a radar reflector." He said he would bring in a weather officer to confirm this. Soon after, a weather officer was summoned to make the identification official. Ramey had pictures taken of the weather balloon and radar target displayed in his office, which he said was the recovered Roswell debris.

Gen. Ramey also had Major Marcel make a statement for the press. Instead of the object being found "sometime last week" in the original press release, Marcel was quoted by Associated Press as saying the object was found "3 weeks previously" (or mid-June). Further, when Brazel first found the debris he "bundled the tinfoil and broken wooden beams of the kite and the torn synthetic rubber remains of the balloon together and rolled it under some brush."

When Brazel first learned of the "flying disks" on Saturday night, July 5, he "hurried home, dug up the remnants of the kite balloon on Sunday, and Monday headed for Roswell to report his find to the Sheriff's office."(AP story)

While the new date of discovery agreed with Brazel's account a few hours later of first finding the debris on June 14, it conflicted sharply with his story of when and how he collected it: "At the time Brazel was in a hurry to get his round made and he did not pay much attention to it. ...on July 4 he ...went back to the spot and gathered up quite a bit of the debris."

Marcel and Ramey's then chief of staff, Brigadier General Thomas Dubose (ret.), would later claim that the weather balloon was a cover story to get the press off their backs. Gen. Dubose, in fact, stated he personally received the order from Washington to start the cover-up. Both said they were acting under Ramey's orders when they made statements to the press about the object being a weather device. Supporting this to some extent was another quote attributed to Marcel from 1947 by AP saying that the balloon debris was "scattered over a square mile," inconsistent with the small amount of balloon material that was publicly displayed. Another quote inconsistent with what was shown oddly came from Ramey himself, who was quoted by the Washington Post, United Press, Associated Press, and others saying that the "box kite" covered with foil would have been "about 25 feet in diameter" if reconstructed.

Gen. Ramey also had one of his intelligence officers, Major Kirton, make statements on his behalf, starting about two hours after the initial press release. Kirton changed Ramey's 25-foot "box kite" to the balloon being "20 feet" in size when speaking to the Dallas FBI office and Reuters news agency. Kirton also told both the FBI and Dallas Morning News that the object was a weather balloon and attached radar reflector. However, he told the Morning News that the identification was definite and the flight to Wright Field was canceled. (Morning News story) Contradicting the public statement, the FBI was instead told that the object was still being transported to Wright Field. Wright Field also stated that they disagreed with the weather balloon assessment. (FBI telegram) ABC News also contacted Wright Field and was told by officials there that they expected "the so-called flying saucer to be delivered there, but that it hasn't arrived as yet." (ABC News radio broadcast)

After Ramey brought in a weather officer for definitive identification, the weather balloon story became official three hours after the first press release of a "flying disk" from Roswell base. Soon after this, Brazel showed up in Roswell at the local newspaper for an interview. Two reporters at the scene later related he was accompanied by military officers. The base provost marshal, Col. Edwin Easley, likewise later confirmed that they were holding Brazel at the base. (A number of other witnesses also testified to seeing Brazel in military hands or hearing him complain bitterly afterwards about his treatment by the military.) Initially Brazel seemed to be describing a balloon crash of some kind.

According to the story published the next day, Brazel said he found five pounds of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper, and sticks. ... Considerable Scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in its construction... The balloon which held it up, if that was how it worked, must have been about 12 feet long, he felt... The rubber was smoky gray in color and scattered over an area about 200 yards in diameter.

But at the end of his interview, Brazel seemingly recanted his earlier balloon description stating that, "...he had previously found two weather balloons on the ranch, but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble either of these. 'I am sure that what I found was not any weather observation balloon, but if I find anything else besides a bomb they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it.'"

Also contradicting the initial balloon story, Brazel said at the start of his interview that he "whispered" to Sheriff Wilcox that "he might have found a flying disk." (Roswell Daily Record, July 9, 1947) (However, some skeptics argue that there was no contradiction since Brazel allegedly found a different type of balloon device from the weather balloons he had previously found.)

Sheriff Wilcox was also quoted in other stories.

According to United Press Wilcox claimed that Brazel came in saying that he thought he had found a "weather meter." This contradicted Brazel's denial that he had found any type of weather balloon and he instead told Wilcox that maybe he had found a "flying disk."

Wilcox did say that Brazel also said the object "more or less seemed like tinfoil" and was about 3 feet across. However, when Associated Press asked Wilcox for more details about the object's description, they reported he declined to elaborate saying "I'm working with those fellows at the base." Various Wilcox family members would later claim that he was threatened by the military.

A number of UFO researchers charge that the change in the military's story from flying saucer to weather balloon was disinformation and that the U.S. government was withholding or suppressing information. Whether Ramey showed the actual debris and whether Brazel and Marcel's newspaper statements accurately describe what was actually discovered remain highly contentious to this day in debates between advocates and skeptics. Also hotly debated is whether there really was a cover-up and whether some witnesses like Brazel and Wilcox were coerced.

Beyond dispute is that a number of military and civilian witnesses, including Marcel, Dubose, and Brazel's son, gave very different accounts of the events and debris many years later, reviving interest in the case. Instead of flimsy weather balloon material, the debris allegedly possessed highly anomalous physical properties. Some material resembled dull aluminum or lead foil yet, when crumpled, straightened back up leaving no creases or wrinkles, similar to a shape memory alloy.

Other debris bore some resemblance to balsa wood in lightness and color. But like the foil material, witnesses claimed that it could not be burned, cut, or otherwise damaged. All debris was said to be extremely light in weight. Some, including metallic-looking "I-beams," was said to be covered with strange writing or "hieroglyphics." witness debris descriptions.

Even more controversial than the debris descriptions were stories to emerge later of an intact "disc" and even alien bodies being recovered, primarily second-hand accounts from friends and family members of those involved, such as the Wilcox family. Not surprisingly, no mention of bodies was made in newspaper accounts from 1947. If anything, Gen. Ramey made a big point that the object was "too lightly constructed to have carried anyone" and "scoffed at the possibility that the object could have been piloted." However, it is pointed out that another of Ramey's 1947 statements of the foil-covered "box kite" (or radar target) being about 25 feet across if reconstructed would be consistent with later testimony from two eyewitnesses of seeing a damaged craft about 25 feet in size.

There is also a current contention that the telegram held by Gen. Ramey while being photographed with the weather balloon does speak specifically of "the 'disc'" and "the victims of the wreck" (enlargement of message above right). [9] However, some skeptics claim the text is not clear enough to be read with any certainty. The USAF similarly claimed in their 1994 summary report that they had submitted the message to a photo-analysis lab of "a national level organization" and then claimed that nothing could be read. However, the Air Force has never identified the organization or provided the actual report of the lab to document their claim, despite prolonged efforts to obtain this information using FOIA.

The Roswell Incident briefly received national and even international attention in 1947, but after it was reported that the crash was of a weather balloon and not a "flying disk", the event faded from public view for over 30 years as most people simply took the government's word at face value. It did, however, occasionally receive passing mention, such as in a special article on UFOs published in Look magazine in 1967.

The Roswell incident received little mainstream attention until 1978, when researchers Stanton T. Friedman and William L. Moore compared notes from a series of interviews each had conducted independently.

Friedman and Moore interviewed Lydia Sleppy, a teletype operator who worked at an Albuquerque, New Mexico, radio station in 1947, and United States Air Force Lt. Colonel Jesse A. Marcel (ret.), chief intelligence officer at Roswell base in 1947. Sleppy claimed that the FBI had stopped their teletype story of "the crashed flying disk with bodies" from being transmitted after a Roswell radio reporter had phoned in the story. Marcel reported gathering highly unusual materials near Brazel's ranch, which he said were "not of this Earth." He was then ordered to fly the recovered debris to Wright Field, first stopping in Fort Worth, Texas, to see Brigadier General Roger Ramey, head of the 8th Air Force there. Marcel also stated that the weather balloon explanation subsequently put out by Gen. Ramey was a cover story.

Impressive testimony about the Roswell Incident came from retired Air Force Brigadier General Arthur Exon [13], as related by ufologists Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt. In 1947, Exon was stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. In recorded interviews, Exon said that shortly after the reports of the saucer crash, strange material was shipped to Wright Patterson. Though it was very thin and lightweight, Exon said, the metal could not be bent, dented or scorched. He also said he heard reports of bodies being recovered. Further, there was a national level effort to cover the whole thing up and the White House was involved. Exon added, "Roswell was the recovery of a craft from space." [Randle & Schmitt (1991), 108-112, 231-234; Randle & Schmitt (1994), 73-78, 119-120; Randle (1995), 142-149; compendium of Exon's testimony]

By 1961, Exon had been promoted to general, and was Wright-Patterson bases commanding officer from 1964 to 1966. Another statement of Exon's was that other UFO crash recoveries staged out of Wright-Patterson occurred during his tenure as base chief, though he wasn't privy to details. However, critics charge that Exon's knowledge was mostly secondhand, as Exon himself stressed in interviews and in a letter to Randle and Schmitt. In order to have access to U.S. government classified information, one must have both the proper level of security clearance as well as a need to know the information. In consequence, Exon was denied access to areas of the base where UFO-related studies were ongoing, and was never officially briefed regarding their findings. Thus it is claimed his reported statements decades later may have reflected rumor or opinion not based on personal knowledge. Against this, he also stressed that he spoke to firsthand witnesses to both the debris and bodies, people he personally knew.

Another report about the events at Roswell came from retired Air Force officer Brigadier General Thomas J. Dubose. In 1947 he was a colonel and Gen. Ramey's chief of staff. In recorded interviews, Dubose said the whole Roswell matter was conducted in the strictest secrecy and even involved the White House. One such secretive event involved a shipment of debris by "colonel courier" from Roswell to Washington D.C., first stopping at Fort Worth. Dubose handled the high-level phone communications and said he personally received the order from Gen. Clemence McMullen in Washington to cover up what happened at Roswell. He said McMullen told him the matter was so highly classified that it went "beyond top secret". He also confirmed Marcel's account that the weather balloon explanation put out by Gen. Ramey was the cover story to get the press off their backs. Dubose affidavit and audio.

Adherents to the UFO theory point to other witnesses in the Roswell case. Family and friends of Capt. Oliver Henderson, a senior pilot at Roswell, stated that he told them of flying the remains of a flying saucer to Wright Field and seeing small alien bodies. Lewis Rickett, a member of the Army Counter Intelligence Corp at Roswell base, confirmed that the metallic debris was highly anomalous and that the military engaged in a large and highly secretive recovery operation at the Brazel ranch.

Bill Brazel, Jr., Mack Brazel's son, independently corroborated Major Marcel's descriptions of anomalous debris, the large, linear debris field, and his father's finding of the debris after hearing a tremendous explosion. Both Rickett and Brazel, Jr., described what appeared to be a linear impact groove, as did Gen. Exon, who overflew the site later.

Brazel, Jr., also said the military detained his father at the base; this seems to have been corroborated by the base provost marshal, Major Edwin Easley. When pressed for details of his involvement, Easley said he had sworn an oath not to talk about what had happened. Family members also claim that on his deathbed Easley spoke of the "creatures" at Roswell, though Easley never mentioned this in interviews with researchers.

Project Apollo astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, though not a direct witness, has also stated on numerous occasions that Roswell was a real alien event based on his high-level contacts within the government. "Make no mistake, Roswell happened. I've seen secret files which show the government knew about it but decided not to tell the public."

Mitchell has also spoken about bodies: "A few insiders know the truth . . . and are studying the bodies that have been discovered." St. Petersburg Times article, Feb. 18, 2004

Another high-level, indirect witness was Senator Barry Goldwater, himself a retired Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, a 1964 Presidential nominee, and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Goldwater many times told the story of trying to get into the area at Wright-Patterson where alien artifacts were rumored to be kept.

When he brought the subject up with his good friend General Curtis LeMay, USAF Chief of Staff, Goldwater claimed LeMay swore at him, told him never to bring up the subject again, and finished by saying that even he did not have clearance to get in.

Retired Brigadier General Stephen Lovekin (North Carolina State Guard) similarly claimed to have received a Pentagon briefing on a 1947 New Mexico crash when he was a young tech specialist stationed at the White House in the U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1959 to 1961. Those briefed were allegedly shown some of the anomalous debris and were also told that alien bodies were recovered.

Skeptics state that some witnesses, whose testimony at first might have seemed compelling, have since been largely or entirely discredited. A notable recent example was Frank Kaufmann, who claimed to have been a member of an exclusive team in charge of the craft and body recovery. After his death it was found that he had hoaxed documents about the crash and about his background in intelligence.

Another important witness whose credentials were recently challenged was Stephen Lovekin. Roswell researcher Kevin Randle originally claimed that he could find no evidence to support Lovekin's rank of brigadier general and also questioned whether he would have been old enough to have served in the White House when he said he did. However, Randle's research has since been shown to be incomplete and some of his statements inaccurate.

Documents released by Lovekin and posted at The Disclosure Project website would seem to verify Lovekin's claimed credentials, most importantly having served in the White House Army Signal Agency when he said he did. Documents Randle has since printed a retraction. (Randle's blog) However, it would also be misleading to claim Lovekin as a high-level military witness, since his current brigadier general rank is only in the State Guard. Lovekin retired from active duty in the U.S. Army as only a sergeant.

A further common criticism is that the bulk of testimony on Roswell, particularly on the subject of bodies, is secondhand or even further removed from the actual events. Witnesses like Exon, Goldwater, and Lovekin would largely fall into this category.Some other witnesses, though probably sincere, are contended to suffer from various types of memory distortions such as senility, false memory, or retrospective falsification. Counterarguments are that "faulty memories" are speculative and also not equally applied to witnesses supporting the skeptical point of view.

Conventional Theories - The Mogul Balloon Theory - 1994/95 Air Force Roswell report

Under pressure from a Congressional General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation initiated by New Mexico Congressmen Steven Schiff, the Air Force in 1994/95 presented evidence that the crash was actually that of a lost Project Mogul balloon launched from nearby Alamogordo, New Mexico, whose top secret purpose was long-distance detection of expected future Russian A-bomb tests. The early Mogul balloon arrays consisted of about two dozen rubber weather balloons and sometimes had several attached radar targets, balsa wood kites covered with a foil/paper material, used for tracking. They claimed this fully accounted for the 1947 debris descriptions, particularly rancher Brazel's, and matched the photos taken in General Ramey's office. Furthermore, the balloon arrays could be up to 600 feet in length, and this was said to account for the large size of the debris field reported by Brazel and Marcel. The Air Force declared the "Roswell case" officially closed.

A few weeks before the GAO released its own report in June 1995, columnist Jack Anderson of the Washington Post wrote that GAO investigators didn't believe the Air Force. They were "quietly skeptical about whether the U.S. Air Force told the truth" and were "not satisfied with the Air Force explanation," though they didn't believe the Air Force was covering up a UFO incident. However, one GAO source told Anderson, "...we do believe that something did happen at Roswell... Something big. We don't know if it was a plane that crashed with a nuclear device on it ... or if it was some other experimental situation. But everything we've seen so far points to an attempt on the part of the Air Force to lead anybody that looks at this down another track."

The Air Force based their Mogul theory primarily on interviews with a few surviving Project Mogul personnel and comparing descriptions of the Mogul balloons with statements from witnesses in 1947 and today. In particular, rancher Brazel's mention of "tape with flower patterns" was said to be a perfect match for tape allegedly used in the construction of the radar targets sometimes attached to the balloons.

Critics counter that the report was written by Air Force counterintelligence agents and charge they used classic propaganda techniques of ridicule, selective quotations, and omission of contradictory evidence, such as anomalous debris descriptions or testimony about a coverup, such as from General Dubose. In fact, Dubose, an important primary witness and one of their own generals, was never mentioned. They also note that the Mogul personnel were not directly involved and have no idea what may or may not have been recovered in the field.

The one primary witness the Air Force did interview was Sheridan Cavitt, the Army Counterintelligence Corp agent who accompanied Major Marcel and rancher Brazel back to the ranch and participated in recovery of the material. The Air Force claimed that Cavitt's balloon testimony also supported their theory. However critics contend that Cavitt's testimony was not credible and actually contradicted the Air Force's Mogul balloon hypothesis.

Cavitt claimed to find a balloon crash no bigger than his living room and denied any markings on the debris, including the so-called "flower patterns," claiming stories of such "hieroglyphics" came solely from crashed saucer promoters. Critics charge that Cavitt was merely repeating the original 1947 weather balloon cover story. Cavitt also denied going out with Marcel or ever meeting rancher Brazel. Critics note this begs the question how Cavitt found his tiny balloon crash without Brazel's help. It also directly contradicts Marcel's testimony and 1947 newspaper stories, including a statement by Brazel that Cavitt was with them. Finally they point out that Cavitt also contradicted himself by telling researchers for years that he wasn't involved in any way and/or not at Roswell at the time.

The Air Force also noted in their 1994/95 report that they deliberately weren't addressing the issue of alien bodies. One justification given was that the crash wreckage was from a Project Mogul balloon which had "no 'alien' passengers therein." Another reason they said was that some of the claims had been shown to be hoaxes or made by anonymous witnesses. Critics of the report note that the first reason is an example of circular reasoning, since the Air Force was using its own unproven explanation as justification for its other conclusion of no bodies being involved. Some witnesses were also clearly not hoaxers or anonymous, a notable example being Gen. Exon, whom the Air Force never interviewed.

1997 Air Force "case closed" report

However, after initially ridiculing the notion of bodies, the Air Force changed positions and did a follow-up investigation examining possible sources for the reports of bodies. In 1997 they issued another "case closed" report stating that stories of alien bodies were actually distortions of various aviation experiments from the 1950s and 1960s. They claimed to show that the testimony of the people saying they had seen bodies near Roswell was in good agreement with actual events involving crash test dummies dropped from high altitude balloons, aircraft accidents, and a manned balloon accident. The time discrepancy between the 1947 incident and the later period of crash test dummy drops and the accident they said could be accounted for by distortions of memory.

Critics of the 1997 "crash dummies" report note that it is inconsistent with the Air Force's earlier position that there was nothing to the stories of bodies because all witnesses were unreliable. Indeed, some of the witness testimony they relied most heavily on were from the same people strongly suspected of hoaxing. It is also argued that there is no resemblance between the six-foot test-dummies made to human proportions and the descriptions of small, non-human, decomposing bodies. Also the experiments were conducted in areas of New Mexico that were remote from Brazel's ranch and where witnesses said bodies were found. Finally, it is argued, the severe memory distortion theory is at best highly questionable and cannot account for the serious differences in times, locations, and body descriptions.

The question has been raised why the Air Force chose to deal with the issue of bodies after initially ridiculing and avoiding it. Speculation from some UFO researchers is that this may have been the result of pressure from the Clinton White House. President Bill Clinton is known to have had an interest in Roswell, instructing friend and associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell to find out what happened (reported in Hubbell's memoirs).

In November 1995, only a few days before the Air Force issued the final version of its first Roswell report, Clinton responded in a prepared speech to a child's letter about Roswell during a trip to Northern Ireland. Clinton said that as far as he knew "an alien spacecraft did not crash in Roswell, New Mexico," but then added, "If the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies, they didn't tell me about it, either, and I want to know." (See also 2005 Clinton Roswell comments in Recent Developments below, where he again states his doubts about Roswell but again raises the possibility of information being withheld from him.)

The question remains that if it was not a flying saucer, why the initial reports of a recovered "flying disk" and government secrecy? Here is a theory proposed by skeptic Karl T. Pflock in his book Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe:

• Some officers at Roswell, particularly Major Marcel, allegedly bungled the identification of the Mogul balloon equipment and then compounded the blunder by putting out a press release that they had instead recovered a "flying disk."
• Once the crash was publicly revealed and since Project Mogul was top secret, a cover-up was imposed to protect the project's secrecy.

Proponents of this theory further claim the balloons used in Project Mogul were extremely strange looking and would have appeared otherworldly to observers, and the project itself was so heavily classified it was nearly unknown outside of the higher branches of the U.S. government.

Those who dispute this interpretation note that only the purpose of Project Mogul was classified, but the main components were not, being standard meteorological equipment such as rubber weather balloons and radar-target kites made of balsa wood and foil/paper also used for wrapping candy bars. None of this would have appeared otherworldly to anyone. It is also pointed out that such flimsy materials do not match the many descriptions of anomalous, extra-strong and heat-resistant debris reported by witnesses such as Marcel, Rickett, Brazel, Jr., and Exon.

A clear example of the non-classified, public side of the equipment and project was a scientific article written by three of the Mogul people in December 1947, published in the Journal of Meteorology in May 1948, and titled "Controlled-Altitude Free Balloons." It showed multiple diagrams of the altitude-control equipment used on the Mogul balloon flights, a photo of one of the new polyethylene balloons that replaced the original rubber weather balloons, detailed how the balloons were tracked, and had multiple graphs of some of the flights. The only thing left out was the top-secret purpose of some of the flights, namely listening for distant Soviet A-bomb tests.

It is further argued that Mogul records indicate that the military was unconcerned about civilians stumbling across other Mogul balloon crashes, since the components were unclassified and the balloon's top-secret purpose could not be discerned from the debris. One such noted incident from June 8 involved another New Mexico rancher, who immediately notified Alamogordo Air Force Base, which then sent out three men to retrieve the remains of the balloon. This is completely unlike the very large and secretive military response to what rancher Brazel found at his place in early July. However, some skeptics counter that the situation was different because Brazel first claimed he found a "flying disk" and not a balloon. While this might explain an initial difference in response by the military, it is not clear why they would continue to behave in a heavy-handed manner once they had an opportunity to examine the debris. There was nothing secret or mysterious about any of the Mogul balloon debris.

Another point raised is that historically the military made no attempt to conceal the existence of the Mogul balloons. (Indeed, as some of the former Mogul people testified, it was impossible to do so.) For example, the day after the Roswell base press release, a mock Mogul balloon launch was staged for the press at Alamogordo and used to try to explain both the Roswell events and the recent nationwide flood of flying saucer reports (see Kenneth Arnold). Again, it is contended, this is inconsistent with the notion that a crashed Mogul balloon would be bathed in high secrecy, even if the purpose of the project was top secret.

Regarding Pflock's claim that Major Marcel was both incompetent and a publicity seeker, Marcel defenders note that his subsequent career and performance reviews by his superiors do not seem to bear this out. For example, Roswell base commander (and Marcel's commanding officer) Col. Blanchard raised Marcel's overall fitness report rating from "excellent" to the highest rating of "superior." A year later, Gen. Ramey called Marcel's performance "outstanding" and rated him command officer material. Marcel was also transferred to Washington and became the chief briefing and intelligence officer of a top secret project to learn of Soviet A-bomb tests. (Ironically, part of this program's intelligence involved Project Mogul.) It is pointed out that none of this fits the profile of an incompetent.

The nuclear accident theory

There is also some speculation that the Roswell incident was the result of a broken arrow: an accident involving a nuclear weapon. Even the GAO considered this possibility, according to columnist Jack Anderson. Some have proposed that the military created the cover story of a "flying disk" crash, rather than admit that a nuclear weapon had accidentally fallen out of their hands.

However, the facts do not support this theory. There are no known nuclear accidents from this period, despite dozens of such incidents being declassified and now in the public record. (See List of nuclear accidents) Indeed, the U.S. had no assembled nuclear weapon in its arsenal at the time. Some also argue that it makes no sense that the military would be completely unaware of losing a nuclear weapon until a sheep rancher notified them about it.

The horrible secret experiments theory

A variation of the nuclear accident theory came out in June 2005 when UFO researcher Nick Redfern published a book called Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story.

Redfern's thesis is that the Roswell crash has nothing to do with aliens or Mogul balloons, but was instead the crash of an experimental spy craft hybrid involving advanced Japanese Fugo balloon technology lifting a German-based Horten flying wing glider and with a captured Japanese flight crew inside the glider.

The alleged experiment went awry when the glider prematurely decoupled and crashed at one site, while the lifting balloons drifted off and allegedly created the debris field at the Mack Brazel ranch site. Almost the identical theory was first presented in an article in Popular Mechanics magazine in July 1997, the 50th anniversary of the Roswell crash.

The "horrible truth" that was subsequently covered up to this day was allegedly the illegal detention and use of Japanese prisoners of war in this and other experiments, including biological weapons research, high altitude decompression tests, and radiation exposure.

Genetically deformed surviving victims of criminal medical experimentation by the notorious Japanese Unit 731 were also allegedly used. Further, captured Japanese war criminal scientists were allegedly brought over and participated in these experiments, similar to the program of using captured German scientists brought to the U.S. with Operation Paperclip.

Allegedly, the primary purpose of these criminal experiments was to obtain needed physiological data for the development of a Nuclear aircraft, plus other delivery systems for nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry. Redfern also contends that the U.S. government is quite content with the public believing in aliens because it is less shocking and damaging than what really happened.

Allegedly other purported New Mexico flying saucer crashes were just cover stories for some of the experiments. Redfern wrote that when he contacted the U.S. Air Force, they had no comment on his theory and said they were sticking to their official Mogul balloon and crash dummy reports for explaining the Roswell incident.

Redfern bases his theory primarily on five sources, all of whom approached him, and several of whom Redfern says he knows to have been in contact with one another, raising the possibility of collusion. The main source was an unnamed colonel who provided details of the actual crash and other manned high-altitude experiments using human guinea pigs that supposedly took place from May through August 1947.

Another source, an unnamed official in the British Home Office, initially approached Redfern in 1996, and also claimed that he and others were told in 1989 of the alien Roswell crash and shown the alien autopsy film (see next section) by the CIA and British Ministry of Defense in an attempt to dissuade them from pursuing their own UFO studies. But instead, they allegedly suspected the Roswell story given them was bogus and the autopsy film a fake, part of a cover story to hide criminal U.S. experiments on Japanese POW's. Even Redfern admits he initially found this source's approach, story, and willingness to publicly disclose such information suspicious.

There are also no documents to support that any such program ever existed. One of Redfern's sources claimed that all documents and photos plus bodies were destroyed to eliminate all traces of this criminal activity. Some critics of Redfern's thesis note it is almost entirely based on dubious testimony of a few people who approached Redfern, nearly all of whom admit to previous psyops/counterintelligence backgrounds, with conveniently no way to ever check their stories against official records since allegedly all such records have been destroyed.

Critics also note other problems, such as the gross mismatch between the materials described by most witnesses from the Brazel debris field--numerous, mostly small metallic pieces with anomalous properties scattered along a long linear path--and what would be expected from a balloon crash. Redfern's sources also claim that part of the flying wing craft and one of the Japanese crew were carried away with the balloons and were also found near the main debris field.

Redfern states high priority was attached to recovering these and searches were initiated. Left unexplained is the seeming absence of any tracking or how searchers could have missed spotting the large, fully-exposed debris field from the air, despite over two days having elapsed from the time of the alleged disaster. Redfern attributes this to "bad luck."

Another serious objection raised was the historical fact that there were no survivors of the medical experiments of Japanese Unit 731. They were all killed to eliminate evidence when the Russians invaded China and quickly overran the Japanese positions. Hence there were no genetically deformed bodies for the U.S. to "snatch," seriously undercutting one of Redfern's key "horrible truth" arguments supposedly underlying the Roswell crash and subsequent cover-up.

Nonetheless, Redfern's theory is undoubtedly provocative and has quickly gained much support inside the UFO research community along with much criticism.

                        Exeter, New Hampshire Incident

                                           (L to R) Muscarello, David Hunt, Eugene Bertrand, & dispatcher "Scratch" Toland.

An extremely well-documented and investigated UFO case of close encounters occurred in Exeter, New Hampshire in 1965. This case would make a huge impact on Ufology, and mainstream media as well. The Exeter events would be chronicled in an excellent book by investigative writer John G. Fuller, titled, "Incident at Exeter." Look magazine also ran a two-part series on the events, bringing the case to the minds of millions of people.The events at Exeter began as eighteen-year-old Norman Muscarello was hitching for a ride on the cold night of September 3, 1965. He was on Route 150 heading for the small New England town of Exeter, population 7,000, at 2:00 AM. As he walked along, he suddenly noticed an unusual light glowing in the dark skies. The light soon became an object, and headed straight toward the hitchhiker.Muscarello would later describe the UFO as being about 90 feet in diameter. It had extremely bright lights positioned around its exterior. The object was now slowly floating downward toward the frightened man. Actually thinking that the object would hit him, he fell to the ground, just off of the pavement. Seemingly at the last possible second, the object veered away from him. Muscarello jumped to his feet, and made a run to house nearby.

Meanwhile, police officer Eugene Bertrand was manning the phones at the Exeter police station. He was later to leave on patrol. He received a strange call from a woman who told him that while driving her car from the nearby city of Epping, a large, silent object had followed her for about 12 miles, frightening her to death. Finally, she reached a spot where she could make a phone call. She said that the object left the area after she pulled off the side of the road. Bertrand thought the call to be a joke, and dismissed it.Meanwhile, back near Route 150, Muscarello was running back to the road, after not being able to get anyone to answer his frantic knocking at the farmhouse. Finally, a car stopped for him. A middle-aged couple drove the frightened man to the Exeter police station. Immediately, he began to relate the events of the last half hour or so to desk Officer Reginald "Scratch" Toland.

Toland, aware of the strange phone call that officer Bertrand had received, now believes that something strange is going on. Officer Bertrand is now on patrol, and Toland radios him and tells him of the report from Muscarello. Around 3:00 AM, Bertrand arrives back at the station, and listens to Muscarello's story. He now believes that he dismissed the woman's earlier call erroneously, and thoroughly believes what Muscarello is telling him. He decides to take the teenager back to the spot of his sighting.When Bertrand and Muscarello arrive at the site of the teenager's sighting, they look around the area, and at first, see nothing. Finally, they decide to venture out into the open field which contains the house that Muscarello visited, and also horse corrals. The horses, according to Bertrand, seem restless. Then they hear the sound of dogs barking. Suddenly, from behind two large pine trees, a UFO begins to rise up and fill the landscape with a red hue.Bertrand was a four year veteran of the Air Force, and very familiar with planes of all types, but the object he is looking at is like none of the planes he had ever seen.

Muscarello screams, "I see it! I see it!" The next moment, Bertrand says, "My God, I see the darn thing myself!"

Similar to a dead leaf falling, the UFO gently moves toward the two stunned observers. They run back to the police car, while the UFO hovers some 100 feet above them.

The light of the UFO is so intense that it makes the shape of the object indecipherable. The light of the UFO dims and then brightens from their left to their right, and then right to left. Shortly, the UFO begins to slowly move away from Bertrand and Muscarello, toward the city of Hampton. As the object moves away, another Exeter policeman, David Hunt arrives in time to see the object. Soon reports of the craft being seen in Hampton are received.The testimony of police officers and civilians to the incredible sightings and events at Exeter were so convincing that the case was part of the April 5, 1966, Congressional hearing that eventually led to the creation of the Condon investigation.

An unofficial "stamp of approval" was given to the case because of the testimony of policemen. Author John G. Fuller insisted that the Exeter incident was "convincing evidence" of the existence of UFOs and that they were of extraterrestrial origin.

                         Pascagoula Abduction

 On the night of October 10, 1973, there was a UFO sighting by fifteen different witnesses who saw a strange, unknown object fly over a housing project in St. Tammany Parish, New Orleans, Louisiana. Two of the witnesses were policeman. This sighting would only be the beginning of what was to occur the next night on the nearby Pascagoula River. Two fishermen, nineteen-year-old Calvin Parker, and forty-two-year-old Charles Hickson were about to have an experience that would forever change their lives.

Parker and Hickson were good friends, and often fished together. They were both living in the town of Gautier, Mississippi. On one particular night, they were fishing the waters of the Pascagoula River, when they heard a strange sound... a type of buzzing. The two men immediately turned to see what the source of the strange noise was. They were shocked to see an egg-shaped object with bluish front lighting. The object was only a few feet above the water, and about ten yards from the two frightened fishermen.While they sat stunned, looking at the weird flying machine, a door opened in the UFO, and to their utter amazement, three beings of unknown origin began to float toward the two. The beings did have legs, but did not use them-they literally floated across the water toward Hickson and Parker. The two fishermen would later attempt to describe what the beings looked like "... about five feet tall, had bullet-shaped heads without necks, slits for mouths, and where their noses or ears would be, they had thin, conical objects sticking out, like carrots from a snowman's head.

Hickson sat frozen on the river bank. Suddenly, two of the odd-looking beings grabbed him, while the third being snatched Parker, who immediately fainted from fear. The beings supported Hickson by literally holding up his body. As they did, he felt numbness over his entire body. By some power he could not see, he was floated into the bowels of the waiting object to a brightly-lit room. The room had no gravity. He floated with a strange eye-like device. This device would go over his entire body as if it was scanning him.After the eye-like device was finished with Hickson, he was left floating in the room alone. The beings had probably left to examine Parker. Approximately 20 minutes after the ordeal had begun, it was over. Hickson was now floated back out of the craft. Back on the river bank, he could see Parker, who was crying and praying on the ground. Shortly, the strange flying object rose straight into the night sky, and flew away.

After some time to regain their senses and strength, they began to talk about what action they should take. At first they were afraid to report their experience, but they felt obligated to tell someone. What if these beings were taking other people in the area? Fighting fears of public ridicule, they called Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi. They were instructed to report their incident to the local sheriff's department.Not wanting to deal with local law enforcement, they decided instead to go to their local newspaper office. The office was closed, which left the men only one recourse-the sheriff office. As would be expected, the local sheriff thought their story was a hoax or trick. Trying to get to the bottom of their story, the two fishermen were placed in a room wired for sound. It was thought that they would discuss the joke between themselves, and their story would be found out. This was not to be. Soon law enforcement personnel knew that something had certainly frightened Hickson and Parker, and that this was no joke.

It would be no time until details of the alleged abduction began to leak out to the public. First, the account of the incident was published in local newspapers, soon followed by the wire services. In a matter of a couple of days, the Pascagoula, Mississippi, abduction was a big news item over the entire United States. Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) sent University of California professor James Harder to investigate the story. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who represented the U.S. Air Force also would research the case.Harder and Hynek did a lot of the investigative work together. The two well-known researchers first interviewed the two fishermen together. Harder tried to do regressive hypnosis on Hickson, but the abductee was so frightened, that the hypnosis was stopped. To get things off on solid ground, both of the witnesses took polygraph tests, and both passed without a problem. Harder and Hynek both believed that the two tormented men were telling the truth.

Even after thirty-plus years, both Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson still testify to the same story, and have never wavered in their account of what happened that October night on the Pascagoula River.

There have been many articles, magazine reports, and television documentaries done on the case, and the two men have given numerous interviews about their experience. Their account, although bizarre, is one of the best researched and documented alien abduction cases in UFO history.

                         Rendelsham Forest Incident

The Rendlesham forest incident of Christmas 1980 is probably one of the most remarkable UFO incidents on record. It has been dubbed the "British Roswell" but in reality is probably a far more intriguing case. Like the Roswell incident this one occurred close to several top secret military establishments including two air bases. As such the case profile couldn't be higher yet getting at the truth has never been easy. The full answers may never be known, but varying accounts from different people make for a story that is never anything less than sensational. A story that seems to leap straight from the archives of the most exciting X - files episode.Although every aspect of this case has been subject to claim and counter claim, the undisputed fact is that on Boxing Day night of 1980 strange events happened close to the Woodbridge and Bent water air-bases just eight miles north-east of Ipswich. At that time a party was in progress at one of the air bases which was then leased to the American Air Force. In the early hours of the 27 Th of December news went around that something strange was happening. 

An unidentified object was tracked on radar in the vicinity of the bases and a state of full alert was declared. After awhile however it became clear that the object, whatever it was, posed no direct threat to the bases yet continued to cause the most intense excitement. Witnesses spoke of bright revolving lights circling in the sky as the object hovered over a nearby pine plantation called Rendlesham Forest.For awhile confusion prevailed as no-one seems to have known what they were dealing with. According to some reports a bright ball of light seemed to crash into the nearby forest. A patrol was promptly dispatched to the vicinity and finding their way blocked by a farm gate, were forced to continue the search on foot. From the farm gate a narrow path led directly to the forest! Following this for approximately half a mile the astonished servicemen eventually came across a conical metallic object hovering over a clearing in the trees. Above them a pulsating beam of light sent out a rotating circle of red and blue light ! The object-whatever it was also appeared suspended in a haze of yellow mist through which one of the men recalls seeing the vague outline of triangular shaped landing gear.

By this time the object seems to have been fully aware of the service men's presence. It began to back away but giving chase the airmen eventually came so close to it that one of them was reported to have climbed on top of the object to confirm its solidity. The growing unreality of the situation was making the patrol members feel unusual! At least one of them had to be physically dragged from the forest in a trance-like condition, and the others were left in a highly confused state of mind! At the same time local farm animals as well as domestic pets became possessed with wild fear and panic! Cows went into a complete state of frenzy stampeding onto nearby roads where they were run into by a taxi, though without serious consequences.At this point the exact sequence of events becomes harder to verify! Varied accounts speak of strange lights that continued to plague the vicinity throughout that night and of a landing in the woods during which small creatures with domed heads were seen to emerge from a peculiar shaped craft!

Apparently the craft remained on the ground long enough to be approached by Base Commander Gordon Williams who is said to have attempted to communicate with the aliens through sign language! An eye witness claimed to believe that the beings - possibly robots - were carrying out repairs to the craft that appeared damaged from its descent through the trees! Once these repairs were complete the aliens were observed to take off again in a brilliant burst of light.The following day the whole site was subjected to intense investigation! Small indentations, thought to have been where the landing legs stood, gave off above normal readings of radiation! In addition overhead branches and leaves were torn away and parted as if some massive object had plunged through the trees.

The excitement concerning the incident was heightened even further by the release of a moment by moment tape recording of the foot search through the pine woods! This was of a highly dramatic nature though ufologists have always doubted its authenticity! It is also widely believed that the entire episode was filmed on video by a USAF officer, though needless to say nothing of this tape was ever made public!

Ace UFO investigator Jenny Randles is quite sure of the existence of this secret film. In her book The UFO Conspiracy she claims: "There is also ample evidence that film was taken of the object and subsequent damage, and flown to Germany, for USAF analysis."Even in the days that followed the incident strange events continued to occur in the area! A local man putting his dog in his shed for the night saw a fluorescent green object pass over his house and disappear into Rendlesham Forest! Mysteriously the dog became ill and died soon after wards, apparently from an unidentified poison! In addition a plane flying overhead was unaccountably damaged by flying debris from an unknown source!

After the incident a veil of secrecy hushed up all mention of the strange events. Questions from reporters were met with persistent denials, and the revolving lights were explained in terms of a nearby lighthouse. Jenny Randles condemned this secrecy as a crime against "the rights of British citizens", adding: "This was the most audacious conspiracy ever perpetrated on you (the British Public). It is time that you knew about it"!

Years later the American base commander, now retired, went on British television and confirmed many of the details of what transpired that night. Several former airmen also backed up his story, insisting that whatever they had seen was impossible to explain in any ordinary way.Just over a year after the incident, deputy commander of the Bent water air base, Lt. Col. Charles Halt issued the following report to the MOD: "The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately three meters across the base and two meters high. It illuminated the entire forest with a white light....As the patrolmen approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared. At this time the animals in a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The next day three depressions were found where the object had been sighted on the ground."

Although the Rendlesham incident has traditionally been explained in terms of a UFO encounter not everyone accepts this version of events. In fact some local residents believe it was a cover story for a nuclear accident. For her part Jenny Randles is on record as believing that a Russian spy satellite might have been deliberately brought down to Earth near the site - hence the need for a plausible cover story to deflect unwanted attention.

Whatever the truth the Rendlesham incident, like Roswell continues to gather impetus as one of the most remarkable UFO accounts on record - a story that is a legend in the making.

            Travis Waltons Abduction

The Travis Walton abduction is one of the most controversial cases in Ufology, yet one of the most compelling. The events of Walton's abduction began on November 5, 1975, in the Arizona, Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. Walton was one of a seven man crew that was clearing trees on a government contract. After the end of the work day, all of the crew jumped into foreman Mike Rogers pick-up truck and began their trip home. As they drove, they were shocked to see by the side of the road, a "luminous object, shaped like a flattened disc.Travis, still young and fearless, was enthralled by the object's presence, and left the truck to get a better look, against the better wishes of his crew mates. As he gazed up at the wonder of the object, a blue beam hit him, throwing him to the earth. Creating fear in the six other men, they roared away in the truck for a distance, but then, realizing they had left Travis behind and he might need help, they turned the truck around and headed back to find him. Walton was gone.

The men left the scene and returned to the small town of Snowflake, where they made a report to the police. They first talked to Deputy Ellison and then Sheriff Marlin Gillespie, who stated that the men were sincerely distressed. The policemen and the crew members went back to the scene with flashlights, and searched for Travis again, but again without results. They decided to come back the next morning and search again with the aid of daylight. Little did any of the members of the search know they were to be players in one of the largest manhunts in Arizona history.Very soon, the case would break into the national media. The small town in Arizona would be literally overrun by researchers, newspaper writers, UFO buffs, and other interested individuals. After several days of using men on foot, men in four-wheel drive vehicles, scent dogs, and even helicopters, no sign of Walton was found. Temperatures dropped rapidly at night, and there was fear that Walton, injured by the beam and lying somewhere disoriented, would not survive. Finally, law enforcement began to follow another line of investigation, and a possible motive for murder.

Thinking that there might be bad blood between Travis and another crew member, law enforcement began to evaluate the credibility of the men involved in the clearing contract. Finally yielding to demands to take polygraph examinations, all of the men passed the test, except for one inconclusive, that being Allen Dalis. Police personnel, after background checks, and interviews with the men, decided that there was no cause to believe that the men were covering up a fight or even murder. Ruling out foul play, that only left one possibility. Was it possible that the crazy story the men were telling was true?As rumors ran rampant, and theories were discussed back and forth, five days after his disappearance, Travis Walton returned. Travis stated: "Consciousness returned to me on the night I awoke to find myself on the cold pavement west of Heber, Arizona. I was lying on my stomach, my head on my right forearm. Cold air brought me instantly awake." He was rescued from a small filling station, hungry, thirsty, dirty, weak, and feeble. He was taken for a medical examination. Now that some questions had been answered, another one was created, "Where had Walton been for the last 5 days?"

Travis would later tell investigators that the very last thing he could recall was the feeling of being thrown backward in the forest. After that, nothing... nothing that is until he awoke frozen in pain, and thirsty. Finally, he could make out an image of some kind of light, and then realizes that he is on a table like an examining table in a hospital. Walton thought at first he had been found by the crew and taken to the hospital.This assumption was far from the truth. He is lying on a table, but it is a table in a strange room. Finally able to clear his vision, he would be utterly shocked to see a horrible creature! Three horrible beings were in the room with him, looking at him. He tried to lunge at one and push it away. When he did, the creature went flying across the room. He would see several different types of aliens during his time aboard what must have been the flying object that had thrown the blue beam at him in the forest. Travis would be subjected to numerous medical procedures during his stay on the UFO.

"It was many years ago that I got out of a crew truck in the national forest and ran toward a large glowing UFO hovering in the darkening Arizona sky. But when I made that fateful choice to leave the truck, I was leaving behind more than just my six fellow workmen. I was leaving behind forever all semblance of a normal life, running headlong toward an experience so overwhelmingly mind-rending in it's effects, so devastating in its aftermath, that my life would never-could never-be the same again." - Travis Walton

                          Betty and Barney Hill Encounter

                                                                                       Photo Courtesy of Kathy Marden

Many early researchers into the mystery of UFOs had distinctive lines of belief. It is in the realm of possibility that someone could see and report a UFO,but it is impossible that the alien beings flying the UFO would interact with humans, and certainly not take them against their will. This line of distinction would forever disappear because of one flagship case of alien abduction, the Betty and Barney Hill encounter. Their journey into the unknown began in New Hampshire in September, 1961, and would forever change the course of Ufology.The Hills were an interracial couple. Barney, a 39 year-old black man, worked for the postal service, and Betty, a 41 year-old white woman, was a child welfare worker. The couple had embarked on a vacation into Canada. Betty had a week of vacation time from work and Barney knowing that Betty had always wanted to see Niagara Falls thought they would add this stop to their trip as well. Barney had been looking to do something special for Betty and thought the trip to the falls would fit nicely. On September 19, they began their journey back home. At about 10:00 PM, just south of Lancaster, New Hampshire Betty saw a star-like object.

Ms. Hill thought at first this object was a falling star only to her amazement it suddenly shot upward into the night sky. As the object grew closer, Betty convinced Barney to stop the car at the Mt. Cleveland Picnic area south of Twin Mountain and the Old Man of the Mountain so they could observe the object through binoculars. The object was a large and silent and was moving very erratically it also seemed to be rotating. The object moved up and down in the sky and seemed to bounce back and forth. After they continued driving Barney was forced to stop the car again south of Indian Head when the object shifted ahead of their vehicle and began to hover about 80-100 feet above their car. Both Betty and Barney observed a double row of windows on the forward side of a now visible disk shaped craft. The craft also emitted an intense blue-white light from these windows. Barney stepped out of the car at this time to better observe the craft in front of them. The craft then shifted over a nearby field and Barney followed it on foot where the craft descended closer to him. As the craft came closer Barney observed eight to eleven human like figures behind the windows on the craft and each figure was dressed in a shiny black uniform. All of the figures seemed to move with precision, and all but one moved in unison to what looked like a control panel inside the craft. The one figure who remained at the window conveyed a message to Barney to "Stay there and just keep looking." Barney was terrified and wanted to run back to his car at this moment, but he realized he was unable to move. After a moment and with great effort Barney was able to break free of a possible trance he was beginning to be put under and ran to the car. After reaching the car he told Betty who was frantic at this point that he thought they were about to be captured. After Barney got into his car he realized the craft had now assumed a position overhead of them and soon they began to hear a series of code-like beeping and buzzing sounds that seemed to bounce directly off the trunk of their vehicle which caused the vehicle to vibrate. The buzzing and beeping also caused Betty and Barneys body to tingle all over and they began to notice a feeling of numbness associated with this also. After the recall of the numbness being felt by both Betty and Barney they felt only a few minutes had passed when a second wave of buzzing and beeping they were both stirred back into full consciousness. The sounds now came not from directly above, but from a location thirty-five miles south of the field that Barney had earlier gone to when he exited his car. The Hills both could recall seeing a large, fiery orb silhouetted against some trees and also recalled encountering some sort of road block during this time frame, but could not recall exactly where or when it had happened.

Betty and Barney finally arrived home safely. After seeing the UFO, the rest of their trip home had been uneventful, but they had realized that they were much later arriving home than expected even considering the three observational stops they had made earlier. They had expected to arrive home around three a.m. , but to their amazement dawn had already arrived and it was nearly five o'clock in the morning. They were tired from their journey and wanted to rest very badly, but they both seemed to feel a feeling of being contaminated and uncomfortable so they both took long showers before they turned in. When Betty awoke later that day, she telephoned Janet, her sister, and told her about the strange object they had seen. Janet urged her to call Pease Air Force Base, and tell them what her and Barney had seen. After hearing Betty's report, Major Paul W. Henderson, told her:

"The UFO was also confirmed by our radar."

At least the Hills were not seeing things, and they were trying to put the incident behind them. But soon Betty began to have nightmares. In her dreams she would see her and her husband being physically forced into some type of craft. Before long, two writers heard about the Hill's story, and contacted them. The Hills, with the aid of the writers, compiled a time chart of the events of September 19. There could be no doubt that the couple had lost about two hours of time somewhere along the way. The sighting that the Hills had witnessed stayed confidential except within the UFO community itself. Betty reported the incident to NICAP days after it had occurred and NICAP investigated it. Shortly after Donald Keyhoe of NICAP met with a Mr. Hohmann a writer for IBM and Mr. Jackson a senior engineer from the same corporation and all contacted the Hills about their encounter in November of 1961. As news of the UFO sighting was leaked out through a violation of confidentiality and printed in a Boston newspaper in October of 1965, the Hills were forced to hide from reporters as much as possible during this time. The Hills had already undergone six months of hypnotherapy at this time with Dr, Benjamin Simon on weekly visits to Boston.

His suggestion for treatment was regressive hypnosis, which would hopefully unlock the memories of the two missing hours of time. His sessions began with Barney and soon Betty followed. After six months of treatment, Dr.Simon came to the conclusion that the Hills had indeed seen and been taken aboard a hovering craft of some sort, but could not entertain the idea of them being abducted by aliens. Dr. Simon though was unable to find a mundane explanation of what exactly the craft was or where it had come from. Regressive hypnosis, a controversial treatment, is often used to unlock lost memories. Some of the memories that were uncovered from the Hills included that their automobile had stalled on the road. The UFO had landed in the middle of the road, and alien beings came to their car, carrying both Betty and Barney to the UFO. They were subjected to various medical and scientific tests. Before the aliens released them, they were hypnotized and ordered to keep their capture a secret. During the intensive regression sessions, the Hills would describe their captors as "... bald-headed alien beings, about five foot tall, with grayish skin, pear shaped heads and slanting cat-like eyes." This description very much described what would become known as the "grays," now a standard description for the small beings with large heads, small mouths, and little or no ears, and hairless. 

I would like to thank Ms. Kathleen Marden for her help with the Betty and Barney Hill story. All pictures dealing with the Betty and Barney Hill Case for this site courtesy of Ms. Marden. Reuse of such material is prohibited. 

         Landing at Socorro , New Mexico

A UFO encounter with occupants in Socorro, New Mexico took place on April 24, 1964, and involved policeman Lonnie Zamora. This encounter is one of the best documented events with physical trace evidence. Some other examples of UFO trace evidence can be found in the Tulley Saucer Nest Case and the Delphos , Kansas Glowing Ring Case.

Zamora was a 31-year-old veteran police officer at the time of the encounter. While on patrol, he was passed by a car running over the speed limit. Zamora raced after the speeder, but as he did, he heard and saw something that called him away. He heard a thunderous roar and saw bluish-orange flame in the distance. He at first thought a near-by dynamite shack had exploded. Zamora radioed his intentions to headquarters, and headed down the bumpy road to the shack.

Nearing the dynamite shack, the could see a shining object in the distance. It appeared to be several hundred yards away. He thought an automobile had turned over and its gas tank exploded. But as he got nearer, he saw the object was not a car, but an oval-shaped object. He could see no entrance into the object, and no windows of any kind. The object's size approximated that of a medium-size car.

His attention was drawn to an unusual red drawing on the side of the object. Was this an insignia? Then he saw two beings beside the object, clad in white coveralls. They looked like children from his viewpoint. One of the beings "jumped" as if frightened when it noticed Zamora. He radioed the incident to the office. He was going to take a closer look. Before he could proceed any further, he heard a sound like a large engine roaring to life, and saw bluish flames coming from the underside of the craft. Thinking that the object was about to explode, he protected himself by falling to the ground. Covered but still watching, he could see the object lift from the ground, and head to the southeast in a straight line. He watched it until it disappeared from view. Police Sergeant Sam Chavez, who had been monitoring Zamora's calls, arrived, but just after the object had flown away.

Soon, the area was overrun with police officers and investigators. Deep landing marks were found and photographed. Obviously something heavy had sat on the spot. Also, footprints were found. Someone had walked around the craft. Soon, local authorities were joined by FBI and Air Force personnel, who began their own investigation. Additional evidence that was found included bent and burned brush around the spot of the landing. Also, measurements were taken of the landing indentations. There were four-the distance between them made a quadrilateral which diagonally intersected at 90 degree angles.

Besides ample evidence at the scene to verify the sighting, Zamora himself was known as a reliable police officer, family and church man, and well-liked around the city. He was forthcoming with his view of the incident to all of the investigators. His account of the strange object landing was accepted as fact by Dr. J Allen Hynek, who was representing the U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book at the time. This would become one of Hynek and Blue Book's most famous cases. Zamora made a drawing of the red insignia that he had seen on the craft.

From a CIA report: "... Lonnie Zamora saw an object which left quite an impression on him. There is also no question about Zamora's reliability. He is a serious police officer, a pillar of his church, and a man well versed in recognizing airborne vehicles in his area. He is puzzled by what he saw, and frankly, so are we. This is the best-documented case on record, and still we have been unable, in spite of thorough investigation, to find the vehicle or other stimulus that scared Zamora to the point of panic."

If there was any negative to the Socorro landing case it would be that it was a single-witness case. However, in this particular incident, that one witness was known as totally reliable, and certainly not given to making up stories. Besides that, there is more than ample evidence to support the facts that some craft of unknown origin landed in Socorro on that day. At least two beings of some type were seen near the craft, and the ground trace and indentations indicate the object had burned some type of fuel when taking off.

The case generated an enormous amount of press coverage all over the world. Though his story was accepted almost universally, the ridicule from other policeman and members of the community dubbing him as the "man who sees Martians," was more than he could bear. Zamora retired two years after the incident.  Dr. Hynek's stated: "There is much more evidence to indicate that we are dealing with a most real phenomenon of undetermined origin." This case has well stood the test of time and skepticism, and is noted as one of the most intensively investigated cases in UFO annals.

         Kecksburg, PA Incident

          Model of the alleged craft

A UFO crash case that is discussed almost as much as the Roswell Crash occurred at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania on December 5, 1965. Eyewitness reports coupled with radar confirmed an anomalous object moving through Canada, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The object appeared as a fireball to witnesses, yet it seemed to be under intelligent control. The Pennsylvania saga began with a report from Frances Kalp, who phoned in her sighting to WHJB radio station in Greensburg at about 6:30 PM. 

Kalp stated that she saw an object which appeared to be on fire as it crashed into the woods not far from her house in Westmoreland County. She and her children had gotten to within a half-mile of the crash location. They claimed to see an object which looked like a "four-pointed star." John Murphy, who worked at WHJB, immediately called the report in to the Pennsylvania State Police, who in turn called Kalp, and set up a meeting with her in Kecksburg.

Murphy followed his reporter instincts to the site, where he interviewed Kalp and her children for his report. Meanwhile, the State Police were searching the woods for the site of the crash. Murphy was anxiously awaiting a report from the Police regarding their find. Was it a plane? Or something else? When the police emerged from their search, neither Carl Metz nor Paul Shipco, the heads of the search, would reveal any details of their findings. The only information that the Pennsylvania State Police would release was that they were calling in the U.S. Military to take over. Dissatisfied, but now more intrigued than ever, Murphy phoned the State Police offices in Greensburg, and talked to Captain Dussia. Dussia told him he would have to actually visit the office for an "official" statement. By the time he reached their offices, the military was already present.

Ironically, after finding something that was beyond the expertise or security clearance of the State Police, and calling in military forces, the official statement denied finding anything.

"The Pennsylvania State Police have made a thorough search of the woods. We are convinced that there is nothing whatsoever in the woods."

Needless to say, Murphy was stunned. He smelled a cover-up. But, of what?

Murphy called in what news he had to his station. Then he happened to overhear one of the State Policeman who had been on the initial search mention a "pulsating blue light." So, there was something in the forest after all. The military, along with Officer Metz was taking a second trek into the woods, even though nothing had been found, officially. Initially, Murphy was allowed to go along, but arriving at the woods edge, he was turned back. At least, Murphy became an eyewitness to the area being sealed off. No one was allowed anywhere near the scene. In a very short period of time, the news of the crash had reached television and newspaper media. The area would soon fill up with people who wanted to get word of what exactly crashed in the Kecksburg woods, and why the military was keeping it to themselves.

It soon became apparent that the State Police were not the first individuals to go into the woods, According to UFO researcher Stan Gordon, several inquisitive locals had been there before police or military had arrived. They described to Gordon a bronze-colored object, about 9-12 feet in length with a gold band surrounding its bottom part. It appeared "acorn" shaped. The U.S. Air Force, after finishing their investigation, issued their "official' version of what happened. They stated that a meteorite had been responsible for the fiery crash into the woods of Kecksburg. For the most part, this simple explanation seemed to satisfy the general public. Was this the end of the Kecksburg mystery? It might have been had it not been for the "Unsolved Mysteries" television show. The airing of the Kecksburg segment in the 1990s began an entirely new investigation into the matter.

It seems that John Murphy, who was so eager to find the truth behind the Kecksburg crash, gave up his battle rather easily. Maybe not. After his death, his widow told a shocking story. She said that her husband was one of the first to the object, and had taken a photograph of the object. This photograph was confiscated by the military, and he was instructed to not reveal any details of what he had seen that day. Should he go against the warning, he would suffer "severe consequences." Interestingly, Project Blue Book's report on the Kecksburg case does confirm that there was a photograph of the object in the woods, but they did not include it in their report, or discuss its source. There are still many unanswered questions to be answered about what crashed into the woods near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in 1965.

     Gulf Breeze Incident

World-wide attention was drawn to the UFO mystery in 1987 by one wave of sightings, those which occurred over Gulf Breeze, Florida. These were much more than just sighting reports-the sightings were accompanied by many photographs and videos. The majority of the attention was on one Ed Walters, a contractor from the area, who took extraordinarily clear photographs.

Walters claimed that his first sighting of a UFO occurred on November 11, 1987. He was working in his living room late at night when he noticed a light shining through the window. He immediately went outside to find the source of the light. He saw a glowing object which was only partially visible because of a large pine tree in his yard. He moved to get a better look at the object-now he noticed that the object was shaped like a top. The UFO was hovering just above the surface of the road. Walters could see some details of the UFO-square windows and portals. The object also had a ring around the bottom which glowed brightly. He ran and grabbed his Polaroid camera, and took several pictures before he moved even closer to the road. He stood motionless on the pavement to get the best photograph he could, but suddenly, he was hit by a beam from the UFO.

Walters was almost directly underneath the UFO when the beam lifted him off of the ground. This is eerily similar to the case of Travis Walton. Walters then heard a voice saying, "Don't worry, we will not harm you." He then began to receive images in his mind. He stated that they were revealed to him "as if they were turning the pages of a book." His next conscious memory was waking up. The UFO was gone for now. On November 17, only a few days after his encounter, he took the photographs of the object to the local newspaper, the Gulf Breeze Sentinel. He told the editor the details of a UFO sighting and taking of the photographs, but attributed them to a friend of his, a Mr. X. Obviously, Walters was afraid of being laughed at by the editor. Mr. X's account was given thusly:

"Bang! Something hit me. All over my body, I tried to lift my arms, I couldn't move them. They were blue, I was blue, everything was blue. I was in a blue light beam. I was trying to breathe but my chest wouldn't expand. My feet lifted off the floor, a voice groaned in my head, 'We will not harm you.' I screamed, and the voice said to calm down." Walters also supplied the editor a letter from Mr. X, but Ed's anonymity would not last. Soon, the man who took the great UFO photographs was known all over Gulf Breeze, and before much longer, the whole world would know who Ed Walters was. Ed took more and more photographs of the enigmatic flying objects, and claimed more visits from the beings who drove them. Though Walters was known as a trustworthy man, the UFO photos had caused his credibility to come under fire.

Walters reputation would receive a big boost from MUFON, the world's largest UFO organization. After hearing about Walters' photographs and sightings, they began a full blown investigation into the Gulf Breeze story. After they completed an initial look into the evidence that Walters had, they were convinced that he and his evidence was genuine. Walter Andrus, state director of MUFON studied the case for three years. His conclusions were: "The overwhelming evidence is in. Gulf Breeze is indeed one of the most incredible cases in modern UFO history." This was a rare declaration of this magnitude for any UFO case.

Although Walters was the star witness of the Gulf Breeze sightings, he was not alone. Over 200 other witnesses came forward validating the sighting reports, and some even had taken their own photographs. Looking back on the Gulf Breeze case, it is still uncertain if Walters had hoaxed the photographs or not, and the UFO community is divided on a final verdict.

Flatwoods UFO and Monster Incident 1952 

 One of the most famous "monster" cases associated with a UFO occurred in 1952 in Braxton County, West Virginia. Known as the "Flatwoods Monster," the case has stood fairly well on its own merits until recently. The story unfolds on September 12, when Sheriff Robert Carr and his Deputy Burnell Long received a call from witnesses who had seen a fiery object as it crashed into the earth. The unknown object had crashed near the Elk River, south of Gassaway. The natural assumption was that an airplane had faltered, and fallen from the skies. Not long afterward, a second unusual sighting was made by some school buddies at the Flatwoods School.

Shortly before nightfall, four boys playing football saw something fall on a hill not far from the school playground. The boys went to the nearby house of Kathleen May, and she and her two sons joined the trip to find out what the object was. Reaching the location, they could see a "glowing, hissing" object about 10 feet in diameter, about 100 yards away. Now completely dark, the night was shattered by two lights, about a foot apart.

One of the boys had a flashlight, and when he turned it on the two distant lights, a creature ten foot tall appeared...a bright red face, bright green clothing, a head which resembled the ace of spades, and clothing which, from the waist down, hung in great folds. Suddenly, the creature began to "float" toward them, sending the group running back down the hill to the May house, where they quickly called the Sheriff. Soon, a local reporter joined the search, and accompanied by a small group of researchers, he found "skid marks," and was stunned by a "sickening odor." Others had seen the unknown flying object, yet there was never a definitive outcome of the case.

O' Hare Airport Sighting 2006 

 The UFO Reporting Center received an eyewitness report from an employee of the O'Hare Airport in Chicago as early as the middle of November, 2006, stating that an unknown object had hovered over the major airport for several minutes on November 7. The object then shot away from the area, creating an "eerie" hole in the cloud cover. This initial report went virtually unnoticed, viewed as just another report. On January 1, 2007, Jon Hilkevitch of the Chicago Tribune wrote an article titled, "In the sky! A bird? A plane? A... UFO?" which broke the O'Hare sighting report to the mass media. Peter Davenport of the NUFORC, had related his findings to Hilkevitch, which listed a number of United Airline employees who had come forward with their eyewitness accounts of that day. When contacted, an United Airlines spokesman denied the reports.

The employees became upset that the airlines would not take their reports seriously. They reported that a saucer-shaped UFO had hovering above the airport for several minutes before shooting away at great speed through the clouds. The energy expelled from the burst of energy had made a strange, eerie hole in the cloud bank. The question had to be asked, Could this have been something as simple as a weather balloon, or some trick of the eye? Although more than a dozen witnesses had seen and reported the UFO to United Airlines, when first queried by the Chicago Tribune, the Airlines denied that they had any knowledge of the events of November 7. However, the Federal Aviation Administration admitted that the air traffic control tower had received a call from a United Airlines supervisor requesting information on an "elliptical-saucer-shaped craft" hovering over Concourse C of the terminal.

FAA spokesperson Elizabeth Isham Cory stated that none of the air traffic controllers had seen the object, and they saw no radar return from an uncorrelated target. She also stated that the FAA had no plans to investigate the incident. They did, however, have a theory-the sightings were caused by a "weather phenomenon." Hilkevitch reported that there were plenty of "chuckles" in the tower over the report.

The UFO was first seen by a United Airlines ramp worker who was directing a plane at Gate C17, according to a report by the NUFORC. He stated that his sighting occurred at 4:30 PM. He and other witnesses said the object was a dark gray, and clearly visible in the clouds. The object did not show any lights, and could have been up to 24 feet in diameter. The object made no noise as it hovered over the airport. "I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17. "But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft," the mechanic said.

"I stood outside in the gate area not knowing what to think, just trying to figure out what it was," he said. "I knew no one would make a false call like that. But if somebody was bouncing a weather balloon or something else over O'Hare, we had to stop it because it was in very close proximity to our flight operations." An important consideration in the matter is public safety, and whatever was in the area at the time posed a risk to planes and passengers. All witnesses to the events of November 7, state that the object was not a weather balloon, helicopter, airplane, or any known conventional flying craft. It is important to note that some of the reports were made by pilots, whose professional expertise involves the identification and observance of flying craft.

Pilots aboard the plane at Gate C17 were alerted to the sighting by United personnel. One of the pilots opened his cockpit windscreen to get a good look at the UFO. He saw the object accelerate through the clouds, which had a ceiling of 1,900 feet at the time. Because of the fear of losing their jobs, and probably being under instruction to not discuss the incident, all of the employees who have come forward have done so anonymously. There are reports from reliable sources that at least one photograph was taken of the object, but as of this writing, none have been made public.

United Airlines had the witnesses make drawings of what they saw, but even these drawings have not been made public. The FAA, which initially told the Chicago Tribune that it had no knowledge of the sightings, has changed their position because the Tribune filed a Freedom of Information Act request. It remains to be seen what will be revealed in this compelling UFO sighting case at O'Hare Airport in Chicago.

Levelland, Texas UFO Landings 

 On November 2, 1957, one of the best documented cases of UFO landings took place in Levelland, Texas, at the time a city of about 10,000 people. This night would be the most unforgettable experience ever for patrolman A. J. Fowler, who was manning the police call line. He received fifteen different calls from anxious citizens reporting UFOs. The sightings began at 11:00 PM, some four miles west of town. Pedro Saucedo and friend Joe Salaz were driving in a pick-up truck, and observed a brightly lit cigar-shaped object heading in their direction. Pedro's truck began to fail, the engine cut out, and the electrical system went dead. The truck was allowed to roll to a stop. Pedro and his friend recalled the unknown object as being 200 feet long. In the small town of Whiteface, he called in what he had seen to Fowler, who thinking he was talking to a drunk person, dismissed the call.

At 11:45 PM, Fowler gets his second call of the night. Near the small town of Whitharral, located four miles east of Levelland, a man encountered an egg-shaped object, this time the object was sitting in the middle of the road. The object was brightly lit. The man left his vehicle, watching the object from a safe distance. Shortly, the UFO slowly raised from the ground to an altitude of about 200 feet, and disappeared. His vehicle had also stalled, but restarted after the UFO was gone. At 12:00 AM, the third call of the night comes in. A man traveling about 11 miles north of Levelland sees a UFO sitting on the road. His vehicle is disabled. He sits for a time watching the unknown craft. Before long, the silent object lifts up, and disappears into the night. The man's car immediately fires up again. He drives to the nearest telephone, and calls in his report.

At 12:10 A.M, Texas Tech freshman Newell Wright was driving 9 miles east of Levelland when his engine failed. The nineteen-year-old got out of his car, popped open the hood, and tried to see if he had an electrical problem. He then saw an unknown object landed on the pavement a small piece down the road. He estimated the object's length at 125 feet. It was a bluish-green color. It soon rose up and disappeared. Only five minutes later, at 12:15 AM, another driver near Whitharral, encountered an unknown object in the middle of the highway. His vehicle also was disabled. Like the other drivers, after the object left, his vehicle returned to normal. After a fourth call reporting a landed object in the middle of the road, patrolman Fowler began to worry, and called patrol cars in the Levelland area to be on the look out for this object.

At 12:45 AM, Fowler received yet another report from the general area of Saucedo's initial sighting. This time the driver sees an orange ball-like object coming toward him. He reported that the UFO made a soft, quiet landing on the pavement of the road. He also related a strange phenomena-the orange color of the object changed to a bluish-green color as it landed on the highway. He could also estimate the length of the object at about 18 feet, as it covered the entire width of the road.

There would be about a 30 minute lapse in the reports with the next one coming in at 1:15 AM. A truck driver from the city of Waco, Texas, made the call. He tells Fowler that driving northeast of Levelland, he saw a large unknown object which glowed in the dark sky. The man sounded frightened on the phone. The trucker noted that the object was about 200 feet long, which agreed with the initial Saucedo report. The man's truck, temporarily disabled by the object, roared back to life when the object left his area. Up until 1:30 AM, all of the reports received by Fowler had been from civilians. That would change when he received a report from two lawmen, about 3-4 miles out of Levelland. Sheriff Clem and Deputy McCullough testified that they observed a "large, glowing object," pass across the highway in front of them. The had never seen anything quite like it. They had been monitoring Fowler's reports on the positions of the callers, and tracking the object. The officers stated that the entire highway was lit up below the sun-like object.

For reasons that we will never know, for some 2 1/2 hours on the night of November 2, 1957, the city of Levelland, Texas was visited by unknown flying objects that landed on the roads of the city and surrounding areas. Patrolman Fowler logged fifteen calls from concerned, and sometimes frightened callers. What exactly were the UFOs that landed in or near Levelland? Certainly, a full investigation was needed. The day after the sightings, the entire city was full of newspaper reporters, and other interested parties. The United States Air Force did eventually arrive in Levelland, but only did a brief overview of the case. They theorized that "ball lightning" could be the cause of the sightings. Naturally, we know that ball lightning does not land on highways, and disrupt car engines. The case of the Levelland, Texas, landings is still unsolved.

UFO Battle: Los Angeles 1942 

 It is very rare that among the annals of Ufology there should appear a UFO case which involved military, yet is accompanied with actual photographic proof. Such is the case of an event which took place over the Los Angeles area on February 25, 1942. A giant UFO would actually hover over the city, and be witnessed by hundreds of observers. As America was gathering its senses after the shocking attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, there was a heightened feeling of insecurity and anxiousness. The skies were being watched as never before as a giant UFO moved through California, alerting the military and civilian watchers as well. This case is known as the "Battle of Los Angeles," and is one of the most important cases in Ufology.

It would be early morning on February 2, 1942 when the incoming craft sirens were first heard in the Los Angeles area. Many Americans were expecting another wave of Japanese fighter planes, and thought this is what they would see as they left their homes, and ventured outside. How wrong they were! The first sightings of a large UFO would be made in Culver City, and Santa Monica. Air Raid Wardens were ready to go at the first hint of an invasion. But, this invasion would be something other than Japanese planes. The giant hovering object was soon lit up by the gigantic spotlights of the Army's 37th Coast Artillery Brigade. Everyone who looked up was shocked by the sight of the giant UFO sitting above their city. Military aircraft were sent to confront the object.

Because of a well-organized alert system, the whole California southern section was searching the night skies in a matter of minutes. What they saw were beaming searchlights illuminating the night sky, all of them converging on one thing-a UFO. A similar scene would be repeated later during the The Norwood Searchlight Incident albeit, on a smaller scale. The beams of light would soon be accompanied by tracer fire from anti-aircraft artillery, all of the rounds aiming at the invading craft. The giant UFO would take direct hit after hit, yet without damage.

The 37th Brigade was relentless in its attempt to bring down the large object, but found no success. The barrage of spent shells would fall over the entire area-no place was safe this night. Many were injured, and there were even reports of death from the falling shells. According to newspaper reports, eyewitnesses described the sight of the UFO like a "surreal, hanging, magic lantern." As the large UFO moved into more lighted areas, view of the object became better. It moved directly over the MGM studios in Culver City. Fortunately, an extremely good quality photograph was taken of the object-beams attached, tracer fire visible. This photograph has become a classic UFO photograph. The UFO would soon move over Long Beach before disappearing altogether.

Woman Air Raid Warden Gives Testimony: "It was huge! It was just enormous! And it was practically right over my house. I had never seen anything like it in my life!" she said. "It was just hovering there in the sky and hardly moving at all. It was a lovely pale orange and about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. I could see it perfectly because it was very close. It was big!

"They sent fighter planes up and I watched them in groups approach it and then turn away. There were shooting at it but it didn't seem to matter."

"It was like the Fourth of July but much louder. They were firing like crazy but they couldn't touch it."

"I'll never forget what a magnificent sight it was. Just marvelous. And what a gorgeous color!" she said.

The giant invading airship was now gone, and the citizenry of the southern California area began to resume normal activities. This was an extremely important event-one that will not be forgotten.

Only the news of the war kept this from becoming a major news event. This case must have been in the mind of President Ronald Reagan when he warned us of an "alien threat, from outside of our world."

    Lubbock Lights 1951 

 The state of Texas has had more than its share of great UFO cases, four of them legendary. The fourth is the well-documented "Lubbock Lights" case of 1951. The case began as three Texas Technological College professors, Dr. W. I. Robinson, Dr. A. G. Oberg, and W. L. Ducker were chatting in Robinson's backyard at 9:10 PM, August 25. Without a warning, the three men saw a number of lights fly across the clear, dark Texas sky. The lights appeared to be made up of glowing beads, and the grouping, looking at it straight on, was a boomerang shape. A second group would soon make its appearance. The following day, the three professors checked with Air Force personnel, who claimed that there had been no traffic in the air the night before. From the initial sighting until November, Ducker alone saw 12 different groups of these lights.

Talk of the lights brought a public awareness, and there would soon be reports of what seemed to be a systematic schedule of as many as three sets of lights in one night over Lubbock. Many eyes were trained on the night skies, and within a few days of the initial sightings on August 30, 18-year old Carl Hart Jr. would take five photographs of the lights with a Kodak 35-mm camera at f3.5, 1/10 of a second. Texas education officials could find no reasonable explanation for the objects in Hart's photographs. With the objects caught on film it was simple now to count the number of light spots. The number ranged anywhere from 18 to 20. It was determined that the brightness of the objects was greater than that of the planet Venus. There could be one or two groups of the boomerang-shaped lights at any one time. Some photographs seemed to show one larger light separate from the group. It was surmised that this lone object might be a mother ship.

As one would expect, soon the United States Air Force would become involved in the matter. During the later part of September, they would make a detailed examination of the Hart photographs. The Air Force could not authenticate nor debunk the photographs. Captain Edward J. Ruppelt was sent to Lubbock to examine the mystery. He would later become the first director of Project Blue Book. Hoping to get away from any extraterrestrial explanation, several earthly explanations for the lights would be offered. One was that the objects were plover birds, similar in size to a quail, another a flock of ducks, and another of shooting stars, or comet fragments. The most likely cause, the plover bird, was quickly dismissed by game wardens. They explained that the plovers never flew in groups of over 3.

The case of the Lubbock Lights is still being discussed today, with different theories being offered to explain what was seen and photographed over the Texas city in 1951. The photographs taken by Carl Hart Jr. have never been debunked as to their authenticity, but the question remains. What were the strange lights that moved across Lubbock, Texas in 1951?

Phoenix Lights 1997 

UFO cases with multiple witnesses, photographic and video evidence are always the most sought after by researchers. One of the best of these is the Phoenix, Arizona lights case of 1997. Supported by many photographs and videos, this fantastic event is still discussed and analyzed today. A large, unknown object sitting over a major city? It really happened. March 13, 1997, was the onset of this extremely compelling account of various and sundry phenomenal lights which moved over the state of Arizona. These lights, though referred to as the "Phoenix Lights," were actually witnessed in at least five other cities. Phoenix has the distinction as the first Arizona city to report the unknown light sources, which were initially spotted over Superstition Mountains, east of the city, at about 7:30 PM.

The first reports indicated an object of six points of light, immediately followed by a report of eight connected lights, with a separate ninth, which moved in unison with the eight. The formation was seen again over the Gila River just before 10:00 PM. In a matter of minutes, the enormous, lighted structure had made its way over the southern part of the city of Phoenix. By this time, literally thousands of people had witnessed the object.

The enormous object was extremely low, and mountainous areas could be seen behind the craft in pictures, therefore giving photographic experts scale to approximate the elevation from the ground, and the distance from the camera. This would enable an estimate of the craft being a whopping one mile or more in length! The color of its lights were described as "blue-white," to "yellow-white," to "amber." A dramatic description of the mother-ship was made by a group of real estate agents who had subdivided property over the northern part of Phoenix. They would get a close-up view of the gigantic object. They estimated the craft to be a staggering two miles wide as it flew at a low altitude near Phoenix. They could see dozens of bright lights along the leading edges, and also a row of windows with "silhouettes of people."

Among the most reliable witnesses of the craft's movements that first night were two airplane pilots, one retired from an airline, and another from Vietnam, who was also a U. S. Marshall. Though seeing the object at different times and places, both men described a craft of "immense size," measuring up to a mile long. The Marshall could also see the city lights of Phoenix reflecting from the bottom of the massive object, while it "blocked out the stars."

A truck driver had been observing two amber colored UFOs moving ahead of him southward for two whole hours. The two UFOs hovered nearby. While his truck was being loaded, the driver walked upon a pile of materials to get a better look at the two UFOs. He could make out two identical "toy, top-like amber orbs" with a white glow to them. A band of red lights pulsated on the craft as it hovered near the Luke AFB runway. Suddenly, two F-16s "blasted out of Luke with their afterburners on full." An Air Force airman telephoned the National UFO Reporting Center at 3:20 a.m. on Friday, some eight hours after the sightings on the previous night, and reported that two USAF F-15c fighters had been scrambled from Luke AFB, and had intercepted one of the objects. Two days after his first telephone call, the airman called to report that he had just been informed by his commander that he was being transferred to an assignment in Greenland. He has never been heard from again.

The Phoenix lights case is not without its controversy, much of which originated from the Air Force. In May of 1997, Luke AFB Public Affairs Office stated that Air Force personnel had investigated the so-called "UFOs," and had solved the case. They claimed that flares dropped from an A-10 "Warthog" had caused the numerous reports of night lights. This explanation is totally unfounded for several reasons. First of all, flares do not move in unison, fall toward the ground, and then fly back up into the air, and move across many miles without changing their relative positions.

Secondly, many witnesses had made reports of the giant lights hours before the reported time of the launch of the flares. This would not be the end of the Phoenix lights. Sightings over the Phoenix area have continued to this day, supported by many photographs and video.

Stephenville, Texas Sighting 2008 

It does appear that major UFO events come in phases or "flaps" according to most researchers. And this is a theory that I happen to agree with. As I write this account, the latest, and one of the most media heavy events in recent UFO history is ongoing. The incredible reports of UFO sightings over the city of Stephenville, and surrounding areas have become a media frenzy.

The sightings of massive objects, reported as up to a mile long and half as wide, did warrant attention, and attention it has received. The MUFON organization, the world's largest UFO investigative group, was on the case immediately. Much of their investigation will be done the weekend of 01-18-08, which will be comprised of question and answer sessions with eyewitnesses, the creation of drawings and sketches, and comparison of the different witness statements as to where they saw the UFO, what altitude it flew at, its size, color, and much more. Even before this investigation proceeds, there have already been researchers on NBC's Today Show, and are scheduled to be on CNN's Larry King Live Show on 01-18-08. Also, there have been numerous reports on the NET on all major news reporting web sites. The importance of this event still remains to be seen, but it has certainly began with a bang.

Even with the many eyewitness reports, UFO watchers have been waiting for someone to take a photograph and/or video of this anomaly. They didn't have to wait too long, when Virgil Fowler sent video footage of a UFO to the Austin, Texas, FOX television station. In a short period of time, frame grabs were taken from it, and it was presented on television and the Internet. Although the film was taken over Lake Travis in Austin, an entire region of Texas has been reporting UFOs, and they all seem to be part of the same anomaly.

The story first made headlines when Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center, appeared on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, and released several reports from the Stephenville area. The first report was made by a pilot:

Flashing strobes, silent, flames out the back side and jets chasing it! On 01-08-2008, at 6:15 PM, CST, my friends and I were watching the sunset when several strobes or flashing lights coming from the east at about 3500 feet and heading west toward Stephenville, Texas were observed. Estimated speed was 2000 to 3000 MPH.

The strobes made several changes of flash patterns and configurations. The flight duration lasted about 3 minutes. The front two strobes were about 1/2 mile apart and the back ones were about 1 mile back from the front strobes. The back side of the flashing lights came to a vertical flashing. Then there were 2 separate vertical flames about 1/4 mile apart for several seconds and the craft was gone.

We never head any noise from the craft! They headed west towards Abilene, Texas. Then about 10 minutes later, the craft was seen again. This time with 2 jets chasing. They were headed east towards south Ft. Worth, at about 4000 feet altitude. The jets were unable to catch up with the UFO and went off into the distance at FULL throttle.

I am a pilot and have been flying for 30 years and have never seen anything like this. I also fly several times a week in the area. The craft is NOT from around these parts! The second report, though less involved, was extremely compelling. The eyewitness states that:

The object I saw was one mile long by 1/2 mile wide traveling at about 3,000 MPH being chased by military aircraft. Several credible witnesses saw the object. Military aircraft were chasing the UFO.

It is extremely important that the two reports, along with others, have clearly noted that the UFOs were being chased by military jets. As one would expect, the military has denied that it had any planes in the air at the time of the sightings. This serves to prove two points, assuming the government is being truthful. If no jets were in the air at the time of the sighting, then the UFOs cannot be explained as conventional aircraft. Also, if no jets were in the air at the time of the sightings, what was chasing the UFOs? Oddly, though, the reports of military craft were made by pilots. This initial report will be followed up with more reports as they come in. This appears to be a event of major implications, so keep an eye on this one.

The Aurora, Texas UFO Crash 1897 

Those who study the UFO mystery are always asked for proof. And proof is hard to find. The enigma of UFOs is different than any other phenomena, and proof is elusive. There have been many reports of crashed UFOs, but most of these rely heavily on circumstantial evidence, and not solid, physical proof. Sometimes there are eyewitness accounts of physical evidence, but that evidence has been removed, lost, or stolen. Such is the case of the Aurora, Texas UFO Crash of 1897.

Aurora's History: Because of ever changing railroad lines, and Texas highways, it is a miracle that the small town of Aurora, Texas is still there. And not only that, but it is a legendary "historical site" as designated by the state of Texas. Why would a small farming community get such a distinction? One reason-an alien spacecraft crashed there in 1897. At least that's what the residents say, and what the newspaper reports claimed. 

Although it would be five years or so before the Wright brothers would make the first controlled aircraft flight, this pre-flight era would become known as the "great airship" period in Ufology. Whereas many of today's unexplained UFO sightings are assigned to conventional flying craft, that luxury did not exist in 1897. Anything flying that was not a bird, blimp, or balloon could be extraterrestrial. These early ships were slow moving craft, and so was the one that crashed into an Aurora windmill on April 19. According to the legend, the craft was destroyed, and the remains of an alien pilot were discovered among the remains. Also found among the scattered debris was a strange material with hieroglyphic-type etching. The alien creature was given a proper burial in the one and only cemetery in town. The alien body has long since disappeared.

For the time period, news of this event was spread wide and far. Many new visitors made their way to the little town to see what all the gossip was about. Second and third hand stories would soon morph into eye witness accounts. Where the information came from that supplied newspaper accounts is anyone's guess.

Local newspapers carried this story;

About 6 o'clock this morning the early risers of Aurora were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing around the country. It was traveling due north and much nearer the earth than before. Evidently some of the machinery was out of order, for it was making a speed of only ten or twelve miles an hour, and gradually settling toward the earth.

"Aurora, Tex. -- (UPI) -- A grave in a small north Texas cemetery contains the body of an 1897 astronaut who was 'not an inhabitant of this world,' according to the International UFO Bureau. The group, which investigates unidentified flying objects, has already initiated legal proceedings to exhume the body and will go to court if necessary to open the grave, director Hayden Hewes said Wednesday."

UPI also picked up the story, and the legend was spread far beyond the borders of Texas. There were a number of eyewitness accounts of the incident later published, and they all agreed with the basic facts. An unknown craft had crashed into the town, strange debris was found, and a being "not of this world" was found in the wreckage. One intriguing account, although second-hand, came from a 15-year-old girl. Her parents had visited the site, and claimed that the alien pilot was a "small man."

There is also evidence of a military cover-up. Soon after the crash, military personnel came to Aurora. Could they have been responsible for the removal of the alien body? For a time, there was a headstone for the body, but even it has disappeared. All that remains are photographs of the headstone.

There have been, at times, lobbying to dig up the alien grave, and see what evidence may remain. But townsfolk have kept this from happening. What excitement would run through UFO circles if alien DNA was found there. Maybe it is best to leave the grave alone, and let the Aurora mystery remain.

Update: The grave site of the reported "alien" body was searched for by the team of "UFO Hunters", the exact location however could not be determined.

The Vanishing of pilot Frederick Valentich 1978

In 1978, another report of a pilot UFO encounter became a classic UFO mystery. Twenty-year-old Australian Frederick Valentich was buzzed by a UFO, and a search by boats and aircraft could find no trace of the pilot, or his plane. Valentich was on a 125 mile training flight in his single engine Cessna 182 along the coast of Bass Strait when he related to air traffic controllers in Melbourne that he was being buzzed by a UFO with 4 bright lights about 1000 feet above him. 

The pilot's final communication to the tower contained this enigmatic, haunting phrase:

"It's approaching from due east towards me. It seems to be playing some sort of game... flying at a speed I can't estimate. It's not an aircraft. It's... it is flying past. It is a long shape. I cannot identify more than that. It's coming for me right now."

About a minute later this message followed:

"It seems to be stationary. I'm also orbiting and the thing is orbiting on top of me also. It has a green light and a sort of metallic light on the outside."

Valentich then radioed that his engine was running roughly. His very last words were: "It is not an aircraft."

If not an aircraft, then what could it have been?

Subsequent inquiries by the Air Force claimed that there were as many as eleven reports of UFOs along the same coastline that Valentich had flown over. Something unusual definitely happened on the night that Valentich went missing. The fact that the reports followed the report of Valentich's plane being lost, caused the Australian Transport Department to be extremely skeptical about the reports. "It's funny all these people ringing up with UFO reports well after Valentich's disappearance. It seems people often decide after the event, they too had seen strange lights. But although we can't take them too seriously, we can never discourage such reports when investigating a plane's disappearance."

As would be expected, there was speculation that Valentich had just become disoriented, and was seeing his plane's lights in the water. Although Valentich was not an older experienced pilot, it is still unlikely that he would make this type of error in judgement. He was reporting, for the most part, an object above him, not below. He would have to flown his plane upside down to see his own lights reflected in the ocean waters below.

Valentich's father, Guio, said his son used to study UFOs "... as a hobby using information he had received from the Air Force. But, he was not the kind of person who would make up stories. Everything had to be very correct and positive for him. The fact that they have found no trace of him really verifies the fact that UFOs could have been there." Guio said he hoped his son hadn't crashed but had been taken by a UFO.

There is not enough evidence to suggest that Valentich was not aware of what was going on around him. Though young, he was known as a careful pilot, and he knew how to handle his plane. The fact that no wreckage of any kind was found indicates that there is a good possibility that Valentich was indeed taken by a UFO.

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