A 1978 Russian Contactee Case

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

In the Volume 26, Number 6, March 1981 Flying Saucer Review, there is an article (page 7 of the pdf) by Russian UFO investigator Nikita A. Schnee headlined, “Contact Reported Near Pyrogovskoye Lake.” It tells the tale of an unnamed Red Army officer who said he was taken aboard a craft by “two men in dull-coloured cellophane like garments,” who told him they wanted to have a talk. In his introduction, Schnee explains that Soviet UFOlogists were of the belief that there were no Russian CE-3 cases. He cites Felix Y. Zigel, an assistant professor at the Moscow Institute of Aviation, who presented his opinion in the second issue of Observations of UFOs in the USSR that, in Schee’s words, “such reports are the fruits of sick minds, or obvious hoaxes with the aim of making money or obtaining publicity.” With that said, Schnee assures the reader that in his report, “all the events described actually (emphasis in the original) took place and are not products of the contactee’s imagination.” He says this “has been proved, quite convincingly” through examination of the witness and “the landing site of the UFO.” As the reader shall see, Russian UFOlogists had a unique style of landing site examination in those days. Read more

Brazil’s Official UFO Archives

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 
Brazil has a history of official UFO investigation almost as long as that of the United States. However, it has an official policy on disclosure that predates the U.S.’s by more than a decade. In 1954, the Brazilian Air Force started The First Confidential Inquiry into Unidentified Aerial Objects in response to the first major flap in that country. In 1969, the Sistema de Investigação de Objetos Aéreos Não Identificados (SIOANI) was established, and nearly 100 detailed case files were accumulated up until its termination in 1972. After this, in 1977, in response to reports of injuries and deaths as a result of UFO encounters in the area of Pará (mainly in Colores) Operação Prato was authorized by Colonel Protásio Lopes de Oliveira. This resulted in more than 2000 photos, 16 hours of film, and a 179-page report. The First Confidential Inquiry, SIOANI and Operação Prato files were classified for decades, but thanks to a freedom of information campaign begun in April of 2004 by the Brazilian UFOlogist and publisher of UFO Revista, Ademar José Gavaerd, many of the files were shown to him and other UFOlogists in 2005 as a prelude to releasing them to the general public. Then, in 2010, Brazil issued Ordinance 551/GC3, requiring every branch of the military and aviation sectors to collect and transfer all UFO reports to the Aerospace Defence Command in Brasilia along with any material proof by way of photos or video on a yearly basis. There, it is to be catalogued and made available to the public. Along with this, since 2012, the Air Force has periodically released declassified files through the Brazilian National Archives, and recently released 893 reports in May of this year. In this blog, we’ll look at the history of the Air Force investigation, the efforts of Gevaerd and other UFOlogists to gain access to the case files, and some of the most interesting (at least to us) cases (translated files can be found here) found within them. Read more

UFO Encounters on the Roads of Spain

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

In the course of researching UFO cases in Spanish speaking countries, one is bound to run into Scott Corrales and Inexplicata: The Journal of Hispanic UFOlogy. It exists today as a website, but in the fall of 1998, Corrales put out the first print version. In issue number 3, put out in the spring of 1999, Corrales celebrates the public reception of the first two issues and notes that there were 1800 visitors to the inexplicata.com website. In that issue is an article by Javier Garcia Blanco headlined “Roadside Encounters: UFOs, Aliens and Missing Time,” that Corrales promises, “does for driving what Spielberg’s Jaws did for swimming: you won’t want to get behind the wheel!” Blanco is credited with being the editor (along with Angel Briongos Martinez) of the Spain-based magazine Declasificado and the director of LACIP.

The first case Blanco goes into is that of “veteran radio personality” Pedro Mateo and his wife, Gloria Jiménez. According to him, Mateo described what he said happened to him and his wife on June 26, 1977, after explaining, “I have it etched upon my mind because we were flying to Dusseldorf that day, and most of what happens to me I write in a notebook.” He said that after leaving Zaragoza at around 5:00 a.m., they were just past the town of Los Garrigues after sunrise when they saw a disk-shaped object off in the distance. He wasn’t “overly concerned” at that point, but got scared when it proceeded to move quickly and silently towards them. Read more

Show 705 Notes: Stacey Wright

Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter & Rumble | Thursday, October 23, 2025 @ 8:00 PM EDT (-5GMT) | Friday on KGRA Digital Broadcasting @ 6:00 PM ET

1975 Travis Walton & Crew
1975 Travis Walton & Crew
1975 Travis Walton

In this episode, host Martin Willis interviews Stacey Wright, Director of Phoenix MUFON (Mutual UFO Network). Stacey shares how she first became fascinated by the UFO phenomenon and what led her to take a leadership role within MUFON. Together, Martin and Stacey explore: What drives public interest in UFOs and UAPs; How MUFON investigates sightings and evaluates evidence; Some of the most compelling UFO reports from Arizona, The importance of maintaining curiosity, critical thinking, and open dialogue in the search for truth. Stacey also discusses how local MUFON chapters contribute to national UFO research, public education, and scientific transparency in one of the most active regions for sightings in the United States.🔹 Guest: Stacey Wright, Phoenix MUFON Director 🔹 Recorded in: Sedona, Arizona

CLIP OF TRAVIS WALTON ACCEPTING THE MUFON AWARDS

Bio: Stacey Wright is the State Director for Arizona MUFON, and also the Director of Phoenix MUFON. Stacey is a certified Field Investigator for MUFON and over the past 13 years, has helped to build the Phoenix MUFON chapter from ground up to become MUFON International’s 2017 Chapter Of The Year.
Stacey has also worked as team leader on Roswell archaeological digs, helped design and produce the Phoenix Lights exhibit for the Arizona Historical Society Museum, acted as MUFON’s coordinator for the 2018 and 2019 Field Investigator Boot Camps, and was team leader for the revision of MUFON’s State Director Handbook. MORE PICS BELOW Read more

Show 704 Notes: Mitch Randall

Simulcast on KGRA Digital Broadcasting, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter & Rumble | Tuesday, October 21, 2025 @ 9:00 PM EDT (-5GMT)

 

🌌 In this interview, we cover:

How SkyWatch technology works

The results of the proof-of-concept with the Galileo Project

The vision for a nationwide citizen radar network

Why funding and public participation are essential to make this a reality

👉 Don’t miss this fascinating discussion about technology, science, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence!

BIO: Mitch Randall, MSEE, MS Phys, began building scientific instrumentation and research radars in 1984. He joined the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in 1989 where he developed airborne, ground-based, and mobile scientific weather research radars. Randall pioneered Software Defined Radio (SDR) techniques and deployed them in NCAR, NASA, and NOAA radars. He developed a software-based Dopplerization technique for incoherent magnetron radars to create the Doppler On Wheels (DOW) tornado-chasing trucks, upon which was formed the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, CO. His technologies became the industry standard for the meteorological weather radar community in the mid 90s. Working for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2010, Randall developed a millimeter wave channel sounder to characterize real-world cell communications, used to develop today’s 5G networks. Randall co-founded Binet in the 90s to bring passive radar tech to weather radars. Randall co-founded Advanced Radar Corporation in the 2000’s. In 2005 Randall co-founded WildCharge and licensed his wireless charging technology Duracell. This invention was featured in TIME magazine’s “Best Inventions of 2007” issue. Randall is a prolific inventor with licensed toys currently on the market. Randall co-founded Ascendant Artificial Intelligence (AAI), a consulting firm developing custom AI and consumer electronics. In 2021 Randall became a Research Team member of Harvard’s Galileo Project, where he developed and deployed the proof of concept SkyWatch passive radar. Randall is the lead author of the paper describing the system in the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation.

Show 703 Notes: Charles Lear

Simulcast on KGRA Digital Broadcasting, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter & Rumble | Tuesday, October 04, 2025 @ 8:00 PM EDT (-5GMT)

 

Blog discussed: https://podcastufo.com/mibs-in-mexico

Frederick Valentich Incident: https://podcastufo.com/pilots-and-planes-swallowed-by-the-ufo

Social media blog discussed: https://podcastufo.com/another-problematic-ufo-report-originating-on-social-media

Website Charles often uses for research: https://www.afu.se

Joe Simonton & Purported Alien Pancake

BIO: Charles Lear has been writing about UFOs for several years and still finds the subject, and the stories of the people involved, fascinating. Besides his interest in all things fortean, his pursuits include paleontology, geology, hiking, bad movies, and music. He has been a theatre person for most of his life. As a performer, he sticks to Shakespeare, and he makes his living as an I.A.T.S.E. Local One welder/carpenter in the construction shop of the Metropolitan Opera. His first saucer book was “The Flying Saucer Investigators,” second title, “Crashed Saucers and Malevolent Aliens.”and he’s just published his second, titled, “The Flying Saucer Investigators, Edition II”

MiBs in Mexico

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

In the August 1975, APRO Bulletin, the front-page story, headlined “UFOs ‘Escort’ Mexican Aircraft” has details of a pilot’s reported UFO encounter. Backing him up is confirmation from the air traffic controller who was in contact at the time. What’s not included are details of the aftermath, which include reports by the witness of encounters with Men in Black. This part of the story can be found in the 1990 book, The UFO Silencers by Timothy Green Beckley, and in the 1997 British UFO Research publication (page 21 of the pdf) by Robert Bull, Men in Black: A Preliminary Report.

According to the Bulletin, at 10:30 a.m. on May 3, 1974, 23-year-old Carlos Antonio de los Santos Montiel, took off from Zihuatenajo, state of Guerrero, in his Piper Aztec 24 with the registration, XB-XAU. He was headed for Mexico City on a cloudy day with poor visibility and had to climb to 14,500 feet to get above it.

When he was over Tequesquitengo, he dropped down to try and get a look at Lake Tequesquitengo so he could verify his position. When he got below the clouds, fog and mist near the ground blocked his view of the lake, but his attention was quickly drawn to another matter altogether. To his right, he saw a 3-meter-diameter saucer with a cupula on top that had what looked like a small window and an antenna. He looked to his left and saw an identical object. Both were 20 centimeters above the wings and about 1 ½ meters from the cabin. Read more

The U.N., UFOs, ICUFON, and SBI

Waldheim Meeting. Credit: ICUFON Archives

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

On October 7, 1977, Prime Minister of Grenada Sir Eric Gairy gave a 90-minute speech during the 32nd session of the General Assembly of the United Nations urging the organization to create an agency that would monitor UFOs. This led to a presentation and panel discussion over one year later, organized and produced by Lee Speigel, that included Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. Jacques Vallée, and Col. Gordon Cooper. While this was considered a high point at the time in terms of gaining respectability for the UFO Waldheim Meeting. Credit: ICUFON Archives subject (Grenada issued a set of stamps in 1978 commemorating Gairy’s efforts) and still is today, not everyone was happy about it, particularly the directors of the Scientific Bureau of Investigation, formed in January of 1979. Read more

SHOW 702 NOTES: Joshua Bertrand

Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter & Rumble | Thursday, October 09, 2025 @ 8:00 PM EDT (-5GMT) | Friday on KGRA Digital Broadcasting @ 6:00 PM ET

Is the famous “Tic Tac” a home-grown technology? In this deep-dive, Martin Willis sits down with mathematician and technologist Joshua Bertrand to explore the cutting edge—and century-long history—of America’s lighter-than-air programs, vacuum-based aerogels, and the black-budget pathways that may intersect with the Nimitz Incident. Bertrand (B.Math, University of Waterloo; Computer Science honors; former EA/industry engineer) has spent nearly a decade cross-referencing open sources, defense programs, and material-science breakthroughs.

We cover:

Aerogel & laser-induced graphene: printing electronics into polyimide hulls; rigid “vacuum balloons”; station-keeping swarms; multi-medium propulsion via thermal pumping; stealth & low-drag profiles.

Nimitz (2004): training range context, multiple simultaneous objects, the speed “assumption,” and a test-range scenario including LASH (Littoral Airborne Sensor, Hyperspectral) tethered balloons launched from subs.

Project Walrus & cargo airships: how DARPA’s hybrid UL lighter-than-air efforts evolved into modern platforms—and why Congress lost oversight.

Materials & provenance: Kistler, Monsanto, Los Alamos; tektites; and a MUFON-handled Russian aerogel sample with intriguing lab notes.

We also discuss technology leakage, Five Eyes contractor pipelines, and why transparent congressional oversight matters.

BIO: Joshua Bertrand is a Canadian technology researcher. Joshua graduated with a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo in 2002. He spent 20 years working as a database storage expert for Reuters, Cisco Systems, Electronic Arts, and SAP Canada. In his retirement, he researches Aerogels, Lighter-than-Air technologies and their intersections with the UAP/UFO Phenomenon. He can be reached on X/Twitter at the account korea_ufo

“LASH” :  https://x.com/korea_ufo/status/1811627408757252509

Read more

Show 701 Notes: Inside the Nations’s Largest UFO Archive | David Marler

Simulcast on KGRA Digital Broadcasting, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter & Rumble | Tuesday, October 07, 2025 @ 9:00 PM EDT (-5GMT)

 

 

👉 Learn more about NUFOHRC: https://nufohrc.org

RAY STANFORD’s Archive Fundraiser: https://shortifyme.co/QsJnp

BIO: David has had a lifelong interest in the UFO subject and has actively
investigated and researched the subject for 31 years. He joined The Mutual
UFO Network (MUFON) in 1990 as a Field Investigator Trainee. Since then,
he has served as Field Investigator, State Section Director, as well as Illinois
State Director. Read more