By Charles Lear
In 1957, the same year the Soviets launched Sputnik, British authorities, media, and citizenry had their attention drawn back down to Earth as they attempted to unravel the mystery of a flying saucer said to have been found laying in a moor. It was dismantled, studied, and opinions were divided between its having come from space and its having been manufactured right here on Earth. Over time, the saucer went missing, but the mystery as to its origin remained. Then, in 2018, pieces of the saucer and its mysterious contents were found in the archives of the Science Museum in London.
The case was first reported in the December 9, 1957 Yorkshire Post in an article headlined “Mystery Object Found on Scarborough Moors” with the sub-headline “Has Unusual Hieroglyphics.” It was written about in detail in the March-April 1958 issue of Flying Saucer Review.
According to the Flying Saucer Review article headlined “The Silpho Moor Mystery,” a man “who writes under the pen name Antony Avendel” had examined an object discovered lying in Silpho Moor near Scarborough. The object is described as being shaped like a top, weighing 35 pounds, having a diameter of 18 inches, and having hieroglyphics on its outside. It was made of a double skin of 3/16” copper. A “burnt powdery substance” was found inside along with a copper book rolled up and inserted into a coil of copper tubing. The book was made of 17 copper sheets containing over 2000 words “engraved in phonetic-type symbols.”

One of the most famous early abduction cases is that of Travis Walton in late 1975, which received a lot of attention and still fascinates many people to this day. Walton’s case was investigated primarily by the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. In the midst of that investigation, APRO was contacted by Johnny Sands, a country western singer who claimed he had encountered two humanoids in the desert outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is perhaps because of the attention given to the Walton case, that Sand’s case has all but been forgotten. I might also be because it’s seriously weird.
On August 21, 1955, there was an incident that took place on a farm located in the town of Kelly, 7 miles north of Hopkinsville, Kentucky that reads like it was straight out of a ‘50s sci-fi comic book. The story has been recounted in many books and all over the internet but, because of its comic book nature, that it involved real people who were deeply affected and real people who did earnest and laudable investigations tends to be overlooked.
Of all the private organizations devoted to UFO investigation, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena was arguably the most ambitious and tenacious. This was driven in large part by its director, Donald Keyhoe. Keyhoe held the beliefs that UFOs are extraterrestrial and that the U.S. Government, particularly the Air Force, was keeping information from the public that could possibly prove the ET hypothesis. As effective as NICAP was at hounding the Air Force and convincing many in the U.S. Congress that UFOs were deserving of scientific study, there are indications that the CIA was involved in both the beginning and the end of the organization.
Todd Zechel wrote about the CIA – NICAP connection in the January 1979 issue of
In the hunt for proof that strange vehicles are flying through our atmosphere, possibly under the guidance of alien pilots, researchers have long looked to photographs. There are some, such as the
by Charles Lear
From February 17 to February 24, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in Palm Springs, California, on what was described to the public as a “vacation.” On February 20, he disappeared from public view and rumors spread to the point that the headline, “Pres. Eisenhower died tonight of a heart attack in Palm Springs.,” appeared on the Associated Press newswire. The story was removed two minutes later and the AP reported that he was still alive. UFOlogists have speculated on where he was that day, and some have come to the conclusion that Eisenhower went to Muroc Air Force Base for a secret meeting with alien visitors.
UFO documentaries, besides being informative and entertaining, also serve to preserve UFO history for future researchers. However, one documentary, “UFOs: It Has Begun.” has itself become a part of UFO history. One of its producers has claimed that the U.S. Department of Defense offered him and his partner the use of some film footage taken by the Air Force at Holloman Air Force Base. According to him, it showed a UFO landing and a meeting between its occupants and Air Force officials, and it was going to be the finale of the documentary until the DoD withdrew the offer at the last minute.
1967 was quite a year in UFO history. In Canada there was the
Pilot UFO sightings have been a constant in the world of UFOlogy ever since the sighting in 1947, that started the public fascination with the subject, by Kenneth Arnold, who was flying in his own plane near Mount Rainier in Washington State. Even though these are often single witness sightings, researchers generally take them seriously, as pilots, especially a commercial pilots, risk their reputations and continued employment by coming forward. But, what about airplane passengers? In the case of passenger sightings, you often have multiple witnesses, or at least one witness that can corroborate the pilot report.
An instance where a passenger witness came forward to back up a pilot report occurred in 1948 in the case of the classic Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter. On July 24, 1948, pilot Clarence Chiles and co-pilot John Whitted, were flying a DC-3 over Alabama. At about 2:45 a.m., Chiles spotted a red glow up ahead and brought Whitted’s attention to what he assumed was an Army jet. It closed in on the DC-3 quickly, shot past the right side of the plane, and then, with a burst of flame coming out of its rear, climbed up into the clouds. The pilots reported that the object was torpedo-shaped, had no wings, was 100 feet long, and 25 to 30 feet in diameter. Passenger Clarence L. McKelvie added to the credibility of the sighting by reporting that he saw a bright light streak by his window at that time. He later appeared in the documentary,
On February 9, 2021, at around 10:30 p.m., a helicopter pilot with U.S. Customs and Border Protection flying over Tucson, Arizona, reported to air traffic control that he had just had a near collision with a drone. A Tucson Police Department helicopter was sent into the area and the two helicopters followed the object and attempted to determine the location of whoever might be operating it. While it was described as a drone and a quad-copter, it was mostly tracked using night vision, and the only visual description was of a blinking green light. If it was indeed a drone, it attained an altitude well above the 400 foot limit set by the FAA, performed extraordinary evasive maneuvers, and had a power source that lasted far longer than a normal drone battery.