david marler – Podcast UFO

The UFO Newsclipping Service

January 16, 2022January 19, 2022admin

by Charles Lear

UFO NewsclippingFor UFO researchers, and especially those interested in UFO history, the internet is a treasure trove. There are many, easily accessible archives online, with Archive.org, and Archives for the Unexplained being two of the main go-to sites. There is also a lot of material available thanks to researchers who preserved it on their sites during periods of active research and investigation, and the material remains despite many having ceased any major activity. Two examples are the websites left behind (and looked after by caring former members) by the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena and the Center for UFO Studies. Among the archived material can be found articles on UFO incidents clipped out of newspapers. These were gathered, in many cases, by individual researchers in the area of a UFO incident, or through the efforts of a network of members of some of the larger organizations, such as NICAP and CUFOS. Then, in 1969, a young UFO enthusiast took it upon himself to start a news-clipping service devoted to UFOs and other things fortean. He copied, cut, and pasted the clippings to put together a monthly publication, available by subscription, appropriately named the UFO Newsclipping Service.

A UFO in Lumberton, North Carolina

May 31, 2021June 1, 2021admin

by Charles Lear

It is often the case with UFO investigators that once they get to an area where a UFO has been reported, the UFO is long gone, and all they can do is interview witnesses. This is important as a means of creating a record of the case that can be referred to by future investigators and researchers. But, occasionally an investigator gets the chance to be a witness and actually observe what had been reported. This happened to investigator Lee Speigel who was looking into a series of sightings by as many as thirty police officers and 50 civilians in Lumberton, North Carolina in 1975. Spiegel submitted a report on the case to the director of the Center for UFO Studies and former Project Blue Book scientific consultant, J. Allen Hynek. The case file resides in the archives housed by David Marler in New Mexico.

Along with Speigel’s report and contemporary newspaper clippings, there is also a series of paper slips in the file folder containing call information, presumably filled out at a CUFOS UFO call center. (If anyone can confirm this, please comment.) According to Speigel’s report, a violent thunderstorm in the area ended at 1:35 a.m. on April 3, 1975. A “call slip” in the case file has the information that at 1:45 a.m., Sheriff Ronn Thompson was monitoring the radio while working as the dispatcher at the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office in Lumberton when the first report of a strange object came in. It was seen by Robeson County Officer Phil Stanton and then by two officers from St. Paul. All three described the object as v-shaped with red, blue, and clear lights. A slip with 5:15 a.m., filled in for the time has the information that two Sampson County officers saw a similar object that put a spotlight on them as it moved off. One of the officers “clocked it” at 200 mph. It appears that there was a full fledge flap after 10:00 p.m. that night because a slip with 10:15-10:30 p.m. filled in for the time has information on the back that officers from four different police departments and 50 “citizens” reported seeing something.

Injured by the UFO: Part 2

January 3, 2021admin

by Charles Lear

Starting in the 1960’s, UFOs began to interact with witnesses in a most unpleasant manner. In part one of this series, we looked at cases where people were injured by UFOs, specifically by being burned. One case involved an eight-year-old boy in Hobbs, New Mexico in 1964. This week we’ll look at another episode from 1968 that has a lot of similarities. Two other cases will be examined as well. One comes from New York, and the other is a famous case from Canada. All are unexplained and may make one think twice before approaching anything unusual floating in the sky.

The first case comes from a report in the May-June 1966 APRO Bulletin. On April 24, 1966, in Fleming, New York, 45-year-old Viola Smartwood was in the passenger seat, riding in a car with her husband. A glowing ball appeared out of the rain and hovered close by. They heard a “loud snap,” and a shock went through Mrs. Smartwood’s right side. She was paralyzed on that side and was taken to the hospital where she slowly regained motor control. As it was raining, ball lightning seems like a plausible explanation. The trouble is, it has not been scientifically confirmed that ball lightning actually exists, despite hundreds of years of reports.

Next up is a well-covered classic, but it’s interesting to consider it within this larger context. On May 20, 1967, a celebrated incident occurred near Falcon Lake in Manitoba, Canada. Stefan Michalak was an amateur geologist and was prospecting in the area when he sighted two disc-shaped craft descending in the southwest. He described them as looking like they had been milled out of a solid piece of steel. As he watched, one of the discs stopped and hovered 15 feet above him. The other one ascended and moved away towards the southwest changing colors from red to orange to grey until it disappeared from sight. In the meantime, the remaining object landed about 160 feet away from him and was also changing colors from red to iridescent steel. Michalek got out a pad of paper and sketched the object while looking at it for nearly 30 minutes. He described it as being 40 feet in diameter and 10 feet thick.