A UFO Landing and a Meeting With Eisenhower

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.

The earliest mention of Eisenhower and aliens being at Muroc appears in a letter from Gerald Light to Meade Layne, founder of the Borderland Sciences Research Association. Now a foundation, BSRF has preserved the letter, and the date on the link is April 16, 1954. The letter opens with this:

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A UFO Landing at Holloman AFB?

by Charles Lear

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.

The movie was originally released in 1974 as “UFOs: Past Present and Future.” It was written primarily by Robert Emenegger, who also produced it along with Allan Sandler. It has Rod Serling as its main narrator, and there are appearances by Burgess Meredith, Jose Ferrer, Jaques Vallée. and J. Allen Hynek. In 1976 and 1979 it was re-released under its new title.

The story of the film’s beginning is as follows: Emenegger and Sandler had originally set out to produce a series of films about advanced military technology but were diverted by an intriguing piece of information offered by their military contact, Paul Shartle, with whom they were working at Norton Air Force Base. Shartle, Security Manager and Chief of Requirements for the Audio-Visual Program at the base, said he had seen a film of an alien craft landing at Holloman AFB three years previous. As discussions about possible projects continued, the idea that one of them be about UFOs came up and was encouraged by military officials who offered the producers the use of the footage. Emenegger and Sandler decided to go ahead with a UFO documentary, and the film was made.

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UFOs Before The NET

by Michael Lauck

images-1It has become almost cliché to point out that the Internet has changed the way Americans get information, but it is true. The average American has easy access to news, history, shopping and more. Vast virtual archives now exist that allow researchers, students and scholars to access books and other materials that was once difficult to find. This easy access to information makes it easy to forget that only a few years ago if someone developed an interest in something such as UFOs but their town did not have a bookstore or library that carried anything but the most basic books, the interested probably died. Now that tablets and smartphones have made the Internet portable it is easy for people to access even the most trivial information at their whim. What was the name of that girl who replaced Suzanne Somers for a season in Three’s Company? Check the IMDB app. Can you still get Sea Monkeys? Try Amazon. Who sings that song in that commercial right now? You don’t even need to know the title, just hold your phone up to the TV and there’s an app that will recognize the music and give you all the relevant information. Read more

A UFO Invasion in England

by Charles Lear

1967 was quite a year in UFO history. In Canada there was the Falcon Lake Incident, where a man with a grid pattern of circular burns on his torso claimed to have gotten them from an ascending UFO, and the Shag Harbour Incident, where a UFO was seen to plunge into the water by citizens and was subsequently searched for by Canadian officials. Meantime, here in the U.S., the Air Force funded UFO study at the University of Colorado headed by Dr. Edward Condon was underway as was a major flap, which included UFOs sighted around nuclear weapons facilities at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. A bit of history that’s been all but forgotten is an incident that year that involved six grounded flying saucer-shaped objects in England. They caused quite a stir and were examined by the British intelligence service, the Army, the RAF, a bomb disposal unit and police.

On September 4, 1967, British authorities became alarmed as six identical saucer-shaped objects, approximately four feet in diameter and making beeping and hissing noises, were reported to be lying on the ground across England. They were roughly equidistant and lying along the 51.5° parallel running from Kent to Somerset.

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Airplane Passenger UFO Sightings

by Charles Lear

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, “UFOs: It Has Begun,” (A 1976 and 1979 re-release of the 1974 documentary “UFOs: Past, Present, and Future.”) and there he says he spoke with one of the pilots and his description matches theirs. Read more

A UFO Over Tucson Arizona?

by Charles Lear

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.

The story was first reported on May 20, 2021, by Dan Marries of KOLD News who described the “drone” as having attained an altitude of 14,000 feet, staying aloft for over an hour, and being “heavily modified.” A May 21, 2021, Associated Press article reports that the FBI had begun an investigation and was treating the incident as a case of illegal drone operation. It was thought that the “drone” had launched from an area about five miles south of Tucson.

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A UFO Flap in Virginia in 1965

by Charles Lear

Throughout modern UFO history, there have been periods when a large number of reports have come from one area. These were termed UFO “flaps” by Air Force UFO investigators working for Project Blue Book. According to former Project Blue Book Director in his 1956 book “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,” in Air Force parlance, a flap was a state of confusion just below panic that could be brought on by any number of things. This week, we’ll look at a 1965 flap in the Virginia area that involved reported EM effects, creatures, and armed citizens ready to defend the planet.

Newspaper clippings and comments by investigators about the events can be found at the UFO History Group website. The flap actually began in 1964 with the December 21st sighting by Harrisonburg, Virginia, gunsmith Horace Burns. According to the report, he was driving on Route 250 near Fishersville when he saw a huge metallic object in the sky coming from the north. As it landed in a field to his right, his car stalled, and he drifted to a stop.

Burns described the object as shaped like a beehive, 125 ft in diameter, and 80 ft tall. He observed it as it rested for 60 to 90 seconds and then rose up and flew away to the northeast. He was able to restart his car and drive home.

Burns contacted the UFO Investigators Club at Eastern Mennonite College. Club President Ernest Gehman, who was a professor at the College and a member of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, checked the area with a Geiger counter and claimed to have found heavy radioactivity. He also reported that homeowners in the area had complained to the Virginia Electric and Power Co. that their radios and televisions stopped working for several minutes and that their lights dimmed. Read more

UFOs and Missing Soldiers in Gulf Breeze, Florida

Charles Lear

Many readers may be familiar with the controversial case of the Gulf Breeze, Florida, UFO photographs taken in 1987 by local contractor Ed Walters. The photos were clear and detailed and stirred up a great deal of excitement within the UFO community. Some, such as former Navy optical physicist turned UFO researcher Dr. Bruce Maccabee, believed the photos were genuine, while others believed they were hoaxed.

Then, in 1990, after Walters and his family had moved from their home at the time, the new owners found a Styrofoam model of a UFO in the attic. Pensacola News Journal reporter Craig Meyers was able to closely duplicate Walters’s photos using the model, and Walters responded to hoax allegations by claiming the model had been planted after he left.

What readers may not be familiar with is a saga that unfolded around the Gulf Breeze incident involving six soldiers, all intelligence analysts, who went AWOL from a U.S. Army Intelligence unit in Augsburg, West Germany. They became known as “The Gulf Breeze Six,” and their story is… something.

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A UFO and Creatures in the Mountains of Taos, New Mexico

by Charles Lear

New Mexico is famous for its reports of landed (and crashed) UFOs and associated creatures. While many might think that these sorts of reports have long since ceased since the golden age of UFOs, there was a report just a couple of years ago of creatures and a huge landed craft in the mountains of Taos, NM.

According to an article by Staci Matlock in the September 5, 2019 Taos News, days before, on September 1, two bow hunters, Josh Brinkley, 41, and Daniel Lucero, 26, were looking for elk on Pot Mountain northwest of Taos. Brinkley had been coming to the mountain for fifteen years while it was the first visit for Lucero.

They set up on opposite sides of a field and waited for three hours with no luck. At around 9:30 a.m., Brinkley became restless and went walking through the woods looking for elk there. He got to the top of the mountain, which was the rim of a collapsed volcano known as a caldera. There, he saw what he thought were two fellow hunters about 35 yards away. He was preparing to speak to them when they disappeared. According to him, “They were gone, just gone.”

The more Brinkley thought about the figures he had seen, the less like hunters they seemed. He saw only their torsos above the brush that covered their lower half. They seemed to have been wearing large hoods that had what looked like pairs of ribbons on both sides that came to a point at the top and bottom. The left side was white and somewhat shiny and the right side was black. He described their torsos as “kind of black.”

Brinkley went back down the mountain and met up with Lucero. He didn’t tell Lucero what he’d seen until they were back at camp.

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UFOs and Esotericism

by Charles Lear

From the days of flying saucers in the 1940s and 1950s, up until the present where many now prefer the term “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP), investigators and researchers have approached the mystery using scientific methods. However, this is not the case for all who have sought answers as to the source and purpose of the reported encounters with strange things in our skies. Many have turned to esotericism, in addition to science, as a means of inquiry. This approach has actually been present from the very beginning of modern UFOlogy and those interested in the subject might consider looking into it, even if only from a historical or sociological perspective.

Esoteric is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone.” When one talks of esotericism in association with UFOs or the paranormal, one is usually referring to what has become known as “Western Esotericism” which is a term used to describe a loosely connected group of religious and philosophical ideas that deviate from Judeo-Christian beliefs and post-Enlightenment rationalism. By the late 19th century, organized groups and secret societies had developed around these esoteric ideas, two of the most prominent being the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Theosophical Society. Both of these adhered to the belief that there is a group of cosmic beings that can be contacted by adepts who wish to receive ancient wisdom and advice. The Theosophical Society still exists today.

Arguably, the first group to investigate claims of a mysterious flying object, was the Borderland Sciences Research Association. Formed in Southern California by Meade Layne along with Max Freedom Long, BSRA was an association dedicated to paranormal research and included parapsychologists, spiritualists, and Theosophists. Their research methods included Yoga, Qabalistic technique, and spirit channeling. Their main spirit channeler was Mark Probert, the “Telegnostic from San Diego.” The group put out its first newsletter, the Round Robin, in February 1945. It wasn’t long before they were investigating what they called, “The Ether Ship Mystery.”

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Floated Into a UFO

by Charles Lear

In the 1970s, New York artist and UFO investigator Budd Hopkins began to specialize in abduction research after being confronted by multiple reports. He wrote about his research in the 1981 book “Missing Time” and it wasn’t long after the book was published that people started to be featured in the press and on television with claims of their own abduction experiences. In an interview for the PBS series “Nova,” Hopkins stated that his “best case” was one that involved witnesses who claimed to have seen a woman accompanied by three small humanoids float out of a 12th story apartment in Manhattan and into a waiting craft close to the Brooklyn Bridge. The woman who was reportedly seen was originally identified by Hopkins as “Linda Cortile” (now known to be Linda Napolitano) and the case has become known as the “Linda Case” or the “Brooklyn Bridge Abduction Case.”

Hopkins described the “Linda Case” in his 1996 book, “Witnessed.” According to him, Linda had written him a letter in spring of 1989 after reading his 1987 book, “Intruders.” In the letter she described seeing strange nighttime visitors while lying paralyzed in bed as a child. She also wrote that she was asked by a doctor about what looked like evidence of surgery inside her nose as he was dealing with some built up cartilage that caused a lump that had concerned her. She wrote that she had never had surgery in her nose and that this was confirmed by her mother.

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The Allagash Abductions

by Michael Lauck  ~
Four friends studying at the Massachusetts College of Art, Chuck Rak, Charlie Foltz and twins Jim and Jack Weiner, set out from Boston for a wilderness vacation in late August 1976. They were dropped off in northern Maine by pontoon plane and canoed through the Allagash Waterway. On the night of Thursday, August 26 the men, all art students, were night fishing on Eagle Lake. In order to easily find their way back to their campsite in the dark, they had prepared a large log bonfire as a beacon to mark their camp.  Shortly after they began trout fishing a glowing oval object was spotted rising above the forest. Charlie Foltz signaled to the object with a flashlight which apparently caused it to stop its ascent and slowly move towards the students’ canoe. Read more

Government Funded UFO Study in France

by Charles Lear

Many countries around the world have active, state funded, long-term UFO studies. If the United States Congress follows up on the recommendation in the recently released Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force report that “additional funding for research and development could further the future study of the topics laid out in this report,” the U.S. may soon have one as well. The U.S. has had two acknowledged, publicly funded UFO investigations in the past. One was run by the Air Force under the name of “Project Blue Book” for most of its existence from 1948 until 1969, and the other by the Pentagon from 2007 until 2012 as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. While the 21-year run for the Air Force investigation may seem substantial, the investigation funded by the French government has lasted more than twice as long.

The group studying UFOs in France is now operating as Groupe d’Etude et Information des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés or GEIPAN. The group was first called Groupe d’Etude des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés, or GEPAN, when it was started in 1977, and then Service d’Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrée Atmérique, or SEPRA from 1988 to 2004. GEIPAN operates as part of the French Space Agency, Centre National d’Études Spatiales, or CNES. Read more