by Charles Lear
It was recently announced that the radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the world’s largest until 2016, is beyond repair and will be demolished. It is an icon of modern astronomy on par with the Very Large Array (seen in the movie “Contact”) located in New Mexico, and the news has stirred an emotional response among many. For UFOlogists, the Arecibo telescope holds a special significance. It was from this telescope on November 16, 1974, that the first, scientist approved message intended for extraterrestrial intelligence was sent. It consists of a series of binary numbers that code for a graphic giving basic information about the chemistry of life on earth, human DNA, human form, and the telescope itself. The message was designed by Cornell astronomy professor Dr. Frank Drake, with input from others including Dr. Carl Sagan. If anyone ever responds, there are many out there listening, from radio astronomers to those specifically searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. But, there are those who believe the call has already been returned.
On Aug. 15, 1977, a strong intermittent signal was picked up by the Big Ear telescope in Delaware, Ohio. It lasted for 72 seconds and stood out in sharp contrast to the background noise. The signal was powerful and unusual and prompted astronomer Jerry Ehman to write “Wow!” next to the signal on a printout. The team focused on the area of the signal’s origin, but it never returned. Observatory Director John Krauss wrote to Carl Sagan that the “signal is highly suggestive of extraterrestrial intelligent origin, but little more can be said until it returns for further study.”
It never did return, but there has been a recent discovery in the area of our galaxy that produced it. Kraus and his team had looked for Sun-like stars there and found none. Now, thanks to Gaia, a European Space Agency space observatory, 1.3 billion stars have been mapped, enabling the creation of the most detailed 3D map of our galaxy to date. Amateur astronomer Alberto Cabellero used the map to re-examine the area and found a single potential Sun-like star named 2MASS 19281982-2640123. It sits in the constellation of Sagittarius and is 1800 light years away. The next step is to find an Earth-like planet next to it with a Wow! transmitter.
A few months later, on Nov. 26, 1977, another mysterious transmission got the attention of Southern Englanders. It was Saturday and, at five o’clock, people were sitting down and listening to the day’s headlines read by Andrew Gardner, news anchor for Southern Television. At six minutes past, the picture wobbled and Gardner was drowned out by a strange voice with an ominous message accompanied by a slow, electronic sounding, low tone rhythmic beat.
The year 1957 was a very interesting one in UFO history. In that year, UFO occupant reports were accepted as worthy of investigation by serious organizations such as the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization and Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York; Contactees were in the spotlight thanks to the 
Because the F stands for “flying” in the acronym UFO, it stands to reason that pilots should frequently be UFO witnesses. They certainly are and there is even a specialized reporting center just for them. The National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena was founded in 1999 by Dr. Richard M. Haines. The organization is dedicated to the study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and their effects on aviation safety. By the way, Dr. Haines finds the UFO designation for the phenomena so distasteful, he refuses to appear on Podcast UFO. Most pilots prefer to remain anonymous, as publicly admitting to seeing a flying saucer is not usually an enhancement to their careers.
The 1975 book by John Keel, “The Mothman Prophecies,” is a complex book. The book’s through line centers on events in Point Pleasant, West Virginia from Nov. 15, 1966 to Dec. 15, 1967. These involved UFOs, sightings of a winged humanoid with glowing red eyes dubbed “The Mothman” and the collapse of the Silver Bridge, which spanned the Ohio River. But, the book is about so much more than that. It can be read several times and, depending on the reader’s perspective, be a completely different experience each time. It contains contactee stories, abductee stories, MiB encounters, Grinning Man encounters, a nighttime bedroom invader in a checkered jacket, strange metallic voices on the telephone, paranoia, poltergeists and prophecies. The reader can dive in repeatedly and come up with a tale that is interesting enough on its own to warrant further research. The tale involving Jaye P. Paro, Apol and Princess Moon Owl is one of those.
John Keel was a New York City resident and freelance writer who traveled the world looking for stories. During the period covered in “The Mothman Prophecies,” he was dividing his time, investigating strange events in both Point Pleasant and Long Island. The Long Island tale begins in the book with Keel’s investigation of reports of strange visitors by residents living on Mount Misery. Mount Misery is the highest point on Long Island at 400 ft and, put simply, is a big pile of gravel left behind by the last glacier that stopped by around 20,000 years ago. One resident there told of being visited by four men, three of whom looked “like Indians.” They politely told her that her land belonged to their tribe and they meant to reclaim it. She was “frightened” by their feet. They had no car and would have had to walk through mud to get to her house and yet they had none on their shoes. Keel was running into many similar stories of people who didn’t seem to quite fit in. He was becoming convinced that the people being described were extraterrestrials from another planet, or ultraterrestrials from another dimension.
In the world of UFOlogy, some stories continue on, even after they’ve been convincingly debunked. This is often due to a particular story’s entertainment value and, it should be remembered, many UFO stories exist in an area between fiction and fact. If we were to assign this area a genera name, perhaps “true science fiction” might be appropriate. The idea that a fantastic story could be true, makes the story that much more interesting and suspension of disbelief is something everyone engages in when they want to be entertained. One such story, a biographical tale under the byline, Fred Reagan, appeared in the May 1953 issue of Action magazine. It could be held up as an example of what many paranormal enthusiasts call, “high strangeness.” However, it seems to be what folklorists call, “a tall tale.”
He found himself inside a dimly lit room surrounded by strange beings. They were around three feet tall and resembled “huge stalks of metallic asparagus.” He lost consciousness. When he came to, a metallic voice spoke to him through a speaker. Using broken English, the voice apologized for the collision, saying it had been an accident. It explained they were here to observe our primitive civilization and that their mission was peaceful. The voice further told him that they’d examined him and found a cancerous tumor, which they “adjusted.” He was instructed not to talk about the incident, as no one would believe him.
In the early years of the flying saucer mystery, the U.S. Air Force was the only organization doing any sort of significant investigation. Then, in 1952, a number of private groups were organized and the first citizen investigators went into the field and endeavored to solve the mystery for themselves. The first of these to rise to global attention was the International Flying Saucer Bureau, founded by Albert K. Bender. They put out a quarterly publication called Space Review, and were taken seriously by their fellow enthusiasts. They didn’t last long, however, as Bender put an end to his creation in 1953 after telling his followers he had solved the mystery. He later informed them he’d been visited by three men wearing black suits and homburg hats, who’d threatened him into keeping silent about his discovery. The mythos of the Men in Black entered flying saucer lore and the Bender Mystery became a subject that is still being debated today.
Albert K. Bender was born on July 16, 1921 in Duryea, Pennsylvania. What the “K” stood for seems to be part of the mystery. He served stateside as a dental technician in the U.S. Army Air Forces from June 8, 1942 to Oct. 7, 1943. He was stationed at Langley Field, Virginia. After his service, he moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut with his mother and stepfather. His mother died shortly thereafter.