TheMUFONUFO JOURNAL

NUMBER 132 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1978

Founded 1967

OFFICIAL PUBUCATION OF JMFfJPOJV/ MUTUAL UFO NETWORK, INC.,$1.00

RADAR-VISUAL UFO WITNESSES IN NEW ZEALAND

The MUFONUFO JOURNAL

(USPS 002-970)103 Oldtowne Rd.

Seguin, Texas 78155RICHARD HALL

Editor

ANN DRUFFELAssociate Editor

LEN STRINGFIELDAssociate Editor

MILDRED BIESELEContributing Editor

WALTER H. ANDRUSDirector of MUFON

PAULCERNYPromotion/Publicity

REV. BARRY DOWNINGReligion and UFOs

LUCIUS PARISHBooks/Periodicals/History

MARJORE FISHExtraterrestrial Life

MARK HERBSTRTTTAstronomy

ROSETTA HOLMESPromotion/Publicity

TED PHILLIPSLanding Trace Cases

JOHN F. SCHUESSLERUFO Propulsion

NORMA E. SHORTDWIGHT CONNELLY

DENNIS HAUCKEditor/Publishers Emeritus

The MUFON UFO JOURNAL ispublished by the Mutual UFONetwork, Inc., Seguin, Texas.Subscription rates: $8.00 per yearin the U.S.A.; $9.00 per yearforeign. Copyright 1979 by theMutual UFO Network. Secondclass postage paid at Seguin,Texas. POSTMASTER: Send form3579 to advise change of address toThe MUFON UFO JOURNAL,103 Oldtowne Rd., Seguin, Texas78155.

FROM THE EDITORThe New Zealand radar-visual UFO sightings reported in this

issue appear to be some of the most significant cases in some time.To our knowledge, the December 31 case is the only simultaneousradar-visual-movie film report on record. Apparently some sightingsof the planet Venus were mixed in during December to confuse theissue, but the radar and multiple-object reports obviously cannot beexplained in astronomical terms and Venus had not risen when themovie film was taken. The glib, long-distance explanations advancedby alleged scientists nowhere near the scene do no credit to science.Clearly these were the knee-jerk reflexes of skeptics who can't bebothered with facts.

Journal No. 130 was accidentally labelled "September 1979" onthe cover; although we are catching up to schedule, we haven'tadvanced that fast! It was, of course, the September 1978 issue. Thisissue is labelled "November-December" and the next issue will belabelled "January-February" in order to bring the cover date in linewith the calendar date. However, all subscribers will receive 12issues for the subscription price as explained in the Director'sMessage in this issue.

(Photos from The Dominion, New Zealand)

In this Issue

NEW ZEALAND RADAR-VISUAL AND FILM CASES .3By Keith Basterfield

HUMANOID ENCOUNTER ON JAPANESE MOUNTAINTOP 7By Jun-Ichi Takanashi

WEST VIRGINIA FLAP: Part 1 .9By Ted Spickler

DISC WITH PRONG TERRIFIES WEST VIRGINIA WITNESSES 10By David Bodner & Ted Spickler

UFO RELATED INFORMATION FROM THE FBI FILE - Part 7 11By Bruce S. MaccabeeWOBBLING UFO IN NEW ENGLAND 16

By Richard HallCALIFORNIA REPORT 17

By Ann DruffelUFO TECH NOTE 18

By John F. SchuesslerIN OTHERS' WORDS 19

By Lucius ParishDIRECTOR'S MESSAGE ! . ; . . . 20

By Walt Andrus

The contents of The MUFON UFO JOURNAL aredetermined by the editor, and do not necessarilyrepresent the official position of MUFON. Opinions ofcontributors are their own, and do not necessarily reflectthose of the editor, the staff, or MUFON. Articles may beforwarded directly to MUFON.

Permission is herby granted to quote from this issueprovided not more than 200 words are quoted from anyone article, the author of the article is given credit, andthe statement "Copyright 1979 by the MUFON UFOJOURNAL, 103 Oldtowne Rd, Sequin, Texas" isincluded.

NEW ZEALAND RADAR-VISUAL AND FILM CASESBy Keith Basterfield

(MUFON - South Australia)

(This article is a summary of the eventsrecently reported in New Zealandduring December 1978 and January1979, during which UFOs were trackedby radar, observed from severalaircraft on different dates, and filmedby an Australian TV crew from oneaircraft. The details have been derivedfrom newspapers and tapes of radioand television interviews with pilots, airtraffic controllers and the TV crew, anda personal viewing of the film. As thisreport is compiled on January 4, 1979,the following is the story which hasunfolded so far. Further details willfollow as available. It is hoped thatinvestigators in New Zealand itself willbe able to document the incidents inmore depth.)

It was Friday morning December221 when the action began. An Argosyfreight plane took off from Blenheimabout midnight 21/22 December andheaded south, which would take it outto sea and on its way to Christchurch. Itwas still over land moving toward thecoast when the first UFO appeared, theplane's speed at this point being 220knots.

Captain John Handle, 45, and FirstOfficer Keith Heine, 32, saw an object"giving off an intense'white light, toopowerful to be a vehicle's headlamps",said Captain Handle, "Besides, it wasairborne. Its light was very intense and Icould see land features lit upunderneath it as it passed."

Handle and Heine were only mildlycurious and did not make a radioreport.

Soon after, senior radar controllerJohn Cordy, 45; and precisiontalkdown controller Andy Herd, 25,were awaiting the arrival of an Air NewZealand DC-8 at Wellington airport onthe North Island, when they wereadvised of the sighting of five lights inthe Clarence River area on the SouthIsland. Wellington got a radar fix on

these lights, and the echoes were saidto be very strong. They watched themfor a time then called radar controllersat Christchurch airport. Christchurchalso picked up the echoes. The targetsapparently travelled off the coast andwere moving about in a 16 km quadrantover the sea.

At 3 a.m. Wellington radar pickedup a large echo 48 km southeast of thecity. Mr. Cordy said: "It appeared tohover there for some time. Abruptly itmoved at 120 knots to a point 80 kmsoutheast and stayed there at least 30minutes."

Meanwhile the five others were stillmoving around in the same area.Suddenly another showed up inland.

About 3:30 a.m. a second Argosyplane took off from Blenheim headedfor Christchurch, flying roughly thesame course. Mr: Cordy radioedCaptain Vern Powell and First OfficerIan Pirie, 21, when they were 2000 m upand climbing to their ceiling of 3200 m.Wellington asked them if they could geta visual sighting of a radar target theyhad at 20 km starboard of the plane.The crew looked but couldn't see athing. Within a matter of seconds theywere asked to check for a sighting 40km to port as the radar echo hadapparently moved to that position.

Pirie spotted a bright white lightwith an intermittent reddish tinge,which seemed to change hue back andforth noticeably. They approached towithin several kilometers as indicatedby the plane's weather radar andlevelled off at 3200 m remaining oncourse. As they picked up speed thelight remained in the same positionrelative to them. At times it disappearedinto bits of cloud but would thenemerge again as bright as before.

Mr. Cordy said that these radartargets were at least as big and as solidas the Argosy plane. The crew watchedthe light for some 10-12 minutes before

Australian TV CrewGets First VFO FilmMELBOURNE, Australia,. Dec. 31 (AP>—

An Australian television station claimed to-day it has the world's first film footage ofan unidentified flying object.

A spokesman for the Melbourne stationsaid the UFO was filmed flying over NewZealand yesterday. He said the BritishBroadcasting Co. and the CBS televisionnetwork have purchased the footage for anJinflisclosed amount.

CBS said it would show the film Mondayfluting its nightly news show.

*«An oval-shaped object with three bandsaround it can be seen clearly. At one stagethe film crew saw 25 of these objects/'spokesman George Wilson said here.

He said the film showed blobs of lightdancing about in front or and alongside theaircraft carrying the camera crew.

The film was made at the .direction of sta-tion reporter Quentin Fogarty, who waschecking out a UFO report by a New Zea-land Airline pilot, Wilson said. The pilotsaid Dec. 21 he saw strange objects whileflying over Cook Strait, a narrow body ofwater that separates the two islands of NewZealand.

Wilson said flight control at WellingtonAirport confirmed that objects other thanairplanes had appeared on radar screensat the time the seven-minute sequence wasfilmed.

POSTthey had to turn 60° to starboard tokeep on track. The object then seemedto lag behind and vanished. Wellingtonradar shortly afterwards lost theirtarget. However, as the plane reachedChristchurch its weather radardetected an object streaking acrosstheir path. Captain Powell got a view ofa bright, flashing white light which shotpast at speed. He estimated 24 km in 5seconds making a speed of 17,000km/h. The object turned sharp rightand disappeared. Christchurch's radarsweep has a blind spot 40 km seawardfrom the city at that point and they wereunable to confirm this object.

Meanwhile, the first Argosy plane(continued on next page)

(New Zealand, Continued)had taken off from Christchurch andwas heading for Auckland at the top ofthe North Island, on a direct routewhich took it up the South Island's eastcoast. It had already passed the secondplane when Wellington radar askedCaptain Handle to watch for any of theUFOs. At first they saw nothing, thenthey spotted the five objects stilloffshore from the Clarence river area.

Mr. Cordy said: "Captain Randleradioed that he was turning around fora better look. He reported, 'Yes, we cansee them...they're white tinged withamber...passing 16 km south ofus . . . they ' re r e f l ec t ing on thew a t e r . . . d e f i n i t e l y not distressflares...estimate 150 meters above thewater.'"

The first plane completed an orbitaround the objects before it resumed itsnortherly course. Captain Randle said:"As we flew on we saw on our ownradar what appeared to be three largesurface vessels moving down the SouthIsland coast, very close inshore. Thenwe got a visual sighting on them. Twocarried lights the other didn't. One ofthem appeared to be in shoaling waters.The whole thing was strange becauseyou couldn't consider that stretch ofcoast safe for any kind of shipping inany circumstances."

December.30-31, 1978This was all the activity until

Saturday, December 30, when a similarevent occurred. A Safeair four-enginedturbo-prop Argosy, piloted by CaptainBill Startup, -*vith co-pilot Bob Guard,took off from Wellington at 11:20 p.m.and headed towards Christchurch. Onboard were a TV crew consisting ofreporter Quentin Fogarty, freelancecameraman David Crockett and hiswife Ngaire, who were taking the flightto recreate the incident of the previousweek for a documentary.

The first contact came 10 minutesafter takeoff when the plane was some40 km south of Wellington. Capt.Startup said: "We saw five or six lightsat different angles", which were visibleto their front. They contactedWellington and asked control if theyhad any targets, and were advised in theaffirmative. From then on the plane andcontrol kept up a mutual conversation.

During the 400 km journey along

the east coast of the South. Islandvarious lights were seen at differenttimes. The exact sequence anddescriptions are very difficult to obtain,from the media reports which tend toconfuse details and times, failing tomention directions and elevationsalmost entirely.

However, it is apparent that —

(a) At one stage a bright light suddenlyappeared off the starboard wing andwas filmed. The film, shot from the co-pilot's seat using a 250 mm lens shows awhite light which quickly assumes theshape of a sphere. Several times itflattens out somewhat. This light wasalso apparently picked up byWellington radar, and on the plane's 40km radius radar.(b) Wellington control called the planeand informed them that they had atarget behind the plane. Mr. Causer ofcontrol declared that: "As the planeturned, I advised him his target nowappeared to be in formation with him.The plane's return blip had doubled itssize on the screen. This persisted forabout five sweeps of the radar then theplane signal suddenly returned tonormal. "Captain Startup said: "AirTraffic Control told us there was anobject about one mile behind us, and Iturned the plane around to have a look.We spotted something which keptaccelerating to get close to us andwould then fall back. I know of no planewhich could carry out such amaneuver. We made a two-minuteorbit, then continued the run becausewe didn't want to push our luck."

The plane landed at Christchurchand Mrs. Crockett left the plane as shewas "frightened" according to herhusband. A local TV reporter Mr.Dennis Grant flew with them in lieu, forthe return trip to Blenheim.

Capt. Startup relates that: "As wewere climbing out of Christchurch at3,000 feet I spotted a light travellingparallel to us. We turned 90 degreesand got within 10 miles of it. It overtookus, stayed above us, came in front andthen shot away."

Mr. Grant was quoted as sayingthat he saw a great spherical light withvarying intensity.

After gaining height and when at4,000m, Capt. Startup commented:

"We were at 4,000m and flying over thesea. Suddenly there was this bright,very bright light. It was like a sphere alllit up. It wasn't shining in our face like asearchlight, but the light was reflectedon the sea."

Subsequent DevelopmentsOn Monday, January 1, 1979, a

New Zealand Defence spolesman saidthat one or two Skyhawk fighterbombers would be "scrambled" if theWellington radar picked up any morepositive targets. The spokesman said:"We do not consider there is a defencethreat. But its all very interesting." .

Well ington airport 's chiefcontroller said: "It's got us guessing.We have all been skeptical about flyingsaucers, but there must be somethingup there."

Wellington radar apparentlypicked up more mystery blips on theirscreens early on January 1. One officersaid they lasted only seconds, "Butdespite this brief appearance andfaintness, they registered as somethingtravelling at speed."

The Australian Air Force asked fora copy of the film, and later the NewZealand Air Force adivsed that anOrion patrol plane crammed withsophisticated radar equipment wouldcircle the area from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thisit apparently did on the following twonights.

The film was immediately releasedto the UK, U.S.A., Australia, and NewZealand and was viewed personally byme in a 20 minute special on January 2.The actual film taken lasted about 6minutes, and shows mainly one lightwhich the camerman zooms in and outfrom, interspersed with which theyshowed some frozen frame shots, andenlargements of these. The sourceappears as a whiteish bright lightagainst a dark background.Occasionally the light would pulse andonce or twice it faded almost to nothingthen came back as bright as ever. Myinitial impression was that I was viewingan astronomical source at low elevationwith the naked eye, with someatmospheric scintillation and loomingeffects evident.

Mr. D. Mabin, the head of the Mt.John observatory, 300 km from thearea of sightings, said that the UFOsalmost certainly were the planet Venus,

Eric McNae, Air Traffic Service Controller: "At one stage our radar controllers had five very strong radar targets(echoes) where nothing should have been — if anything should have been there we would have known about it."

Capt. John Randle, Argosy co-pilot, on the December 22 Clarence River radar-visual sightings: "They were close toshore and unusually bright. In one case the light appeared to be lighting up both ground and sea surfaces."

while in Sydney, Australia, Dr. D. Cole,an atmospheric physicist, said falseradar echoes were a natural feature ofthe ionosphere in summer and said thatthe light could have been caused byrefraction in the pre-dawn sky.

Sir Bernard Lovell, Britishastronomer, was quoted as saying theUFOs were most probably meteors,while Patrick Moore believed theycould have been some kind, ofreflection, a balloon or an unscheduledaircraft.

Elsewhere both the planetsJupiter, visible in the evening sky in thenortheast, and the planet Venus, visiblein the morning sky in the east, werecited as causes for the observations.Jupiter2 was said to be the culprit on thefilm. However, Capt. Startup wasadamant that the object filmed was hota reflection or a shot of Venus, as hesaid: "We could see Venus at the sametime. At one stage Venus was behindthe object, and we could see both at thesame time. Then later the UFO was onour starboard side and Venus was onthe left-hand side of the aircraft andquite high up."

Summary. Overall, we have several seperate

sequences of events on two completelydifferent occasions but all in the samegeneral area. Visual observations, aswell as radar targets were evident, plusa film was taken. Suggestions havebeen made that the radar images wereanomalous propagation effects, thatthe visual objects were astronomical inorigin, and that the film was of Jupiter.There are points for and against thesesuggestions, and much more detailedinvestigation needs to be undertakenby someone on the spot. The mostessential details so far missing are theazimuth and elevations of both visualand radar targets, and the positions ofVenus and Jupiter at the time.

LATE NEWSA second film has been taken by a

New Zealand film crew from the groundin the early hours of January 3, 1979.

; Appro*. Argosy. H '

This film shows a round, glowing ballwith a bright light, which faded andbrightened. It was not picked up onradar by the Wellington, Christchurchairports nor by the RNZAF Orionwhich was patrolling the area. Doubtshave therefore been expressed that thefilm shows little more than the planetVenus.

Squadron leader Ray Carran, whowas flying the Orion at the time, saidthat a large Japanese fishing fleet wasoperating 160 km off the coast and"Was putting up an awful lot of light-."He also stated that he and his crewchecked 14 unexplained radarobservations, some of which werefound upon inspection to be pockets ofturbulence.

SOURCES"Australian" newspaper, 12/23/78, 12/27/78,1/1/79, 1/2/79, 1/3/79.Melbourne "The Sun," 1/2/79, 1/3/79.Adelaide "Advertiser," 1/2/79,. 1/3/79.Adelaide "News," 1/1/79, 1/3/79."The Daily Telegraph ," Sydney 1/2/79.Channel 10 TV news Adelaide, 1/1/79.Channel 10 special, 1/2/79.Radio stations SAD, 5AA, 5CL, 5DN, SAN.AAP Press.

NOTES1. This date varies according to which source isinspected. However, the one used is the correctone according to the majority of sources.2. Jupiter rose at 2230 hrs. Central StandardSummer Time (GMT + 10% hrs) on 1/3/79 atlatitude 35°S and longitude 138°E. The Moon wasat first quarter on 1/5/79.

NEW ZEALAND CHRONOLOGY

Capt. Vern Powell, Argosy pilot, to Air Traffic Control: "Something is coming toward us at a tremendous speed onour radar....It has now abruptly veered off." The object was visible as a "flashing white light."

Capt. Bill Startup, Safcair pilot on flight that filmed UFO: "We could see Venus at the same time. At one stage Venuswas behind the object, and we could see both at the same time."

December 22, 1978

About midnight of Dec. 21/22--Argosyfreighter plane (Capt. Handle & F/OHeine) took off from Blenheim enroutesouth to Christchurch. While still overland moving toward coast, saw brilliantlight illuminating ground beneath.

About 1:20 AM--Wellington airportradar (Cordy & Herd) detected 5objects (also sighted visually and onChristchurch radar) moving around offcoast near Clarence River area.

About 3:00 AM--Wellington radardetected a "large echo" hovering about48 km southeast of city, then movingabruptly to 80 km southeast(meanwhile, the 5 objects continuedmoving around off coast and a sixthshowed up inland).

About 3:30 AM--A second Argosyaircraft (Capt. Powell & F/O Pirie) tookoff from Blenheim enroute toChristchurch on approximately samecourse as first. Asked by ground radarto investigate a radar target, they firstsaw nothing; then the "blip" moved to anew position and the crew saw a brightwhite light tinged with red, also showingon their weather radar. Ground radarshowed a "blip" as large and solid asthat of the aircraft that kept pace withthe plane for about 19 km. The planeapproached within several kilometersas measured on radar.

-- Later near Christchurch, the aircraftweather radar detected an objectmoving rapidly across their path andCapt. Powell saw a bright, flashingwhite light shoot past and make a sharpright turn before disappearing. Heestimated its speed as 17,000 km/h.

The first Argosy, meanwhile, was

6

enroute back up the east coast of SouthIsland and had passed the secondaircraft when the crew saw the 5 objectsstill moving around offshore of theClarence River area, their lightreflecting off the water. The aircraftradar showed what appeared to be 3large surface vessels close offshore andthe crew spotted some lights visuallythat corresponded; however, theobjects were in an area consideredunsafe for shipping of any king.

December 30-31, 1978UFO Film from Aircraft

11:20 PM--Safeair Argosy (Capt.Startup & co-pilot Guard) leftWellington enroute to Christchurchcarrying a TV crew (Fogarty & Mr. &Mrs. Crockett) to recreate the sightingsof the previous week.

11:30 PM--40 km south of Wellington 5or 6 lights appeared ahead of theaircraft in different locations, confirmedby ground radar.

- A bright light appeared off thestarboard wing and was filmed througha 250 mm lens; object confirmed byground and airborne radar.

-- Later, an object was detected byground radar following the aircraft;Capt. Startup turned the plane aroundto look and saw an object that keptaccelerating closer to the plane andthen falling back.

-- Mrs. Crockett, said by her husband tobe "frightened," left the plane inChristchurch. On the return flight, alarge spherical light paced the plane,hovering above it, then pulled in frontand shot away. Its light was reflected offthe sea.

January 1,1979

More radar targets of fast-movingobjects. A New Zealand Air ForceOrion patrol plane, equipped withsophisticated radar, circled the area forthe next two nights.

January 3,1979

In the early morning, a second film wastaken by a New Zealand film crew onthe ground. There were no radartargets, and the film probably shows theplanet Venus.

(Credit: Harold Fulton, MUFONDirector for New Zealand, for extensivenewspaper coverage of the sightingsfrom the Sunday News, The Dominion,the Euening Post, and the EueningStandard.)

INFORMATION WANTED

In recent years a number ofcolleges have offered courses entirelyor partially about UFOs, some forcredit and some not. For example, TomGates of MUFON-Northem Californiahas taught "Social Science 302E--E x t r a t e r r e s t r i a l SociologicalConsiderations: Interaction WithAliens," at Foothill College where he isthe Director of the Space ScienceCenter. We would like to publish a listof such courses including name ofcollege or university, course title, andbrief description of content, indicatingthe department offering the course,whether or not it is for credit, and nameof teacher. If you know of any UFOcourses being taught in your area,please submit the information toMUFON UFO Journal.

HUMANOID ENCOUNTER ON JAPANESE MOUNTAINTOPBy Jun-Ichi Takanashi

(MUFON Director for Japan)

On the night of November 6,1978,one of the most. popular TV nightprograms, called "11 PM" (pro-nounced literally "ELEVEN PM" inEnglish) being presented each nightMonday through Friday, from 11:15p.m. to 12:25 a.m., which quitefrequently features both UFO andoccult subjects, came out with a verystrange, eerie encounter with a weirdhumanoid on the top of a mountain inSayama City in Saitama Prefecture, inJapan by an amateur wireless operator("ham") on the night of October 3,1978.

The unfortunate witness is Mr.Hideichi Amano (29) who operates asnack bar called "Juri" after the nameof his baby daughter. On that night,having stationed his mobile unit car onthe top of a mountain nearby to get anunobstructed reception of wirelesswaves, he indulged in communicatingwith his younger brother in anotherpart of Japan, far in YamanashiPrefecture, beginning around 8:30 p.m.After finishing his communication withhis brother, he chatted with his localham friends for some time and thenwanted to go down the mountain, whenhe found that the inside of the carsuddenly became very bright. Heturned around toward the back seatand found the inside of the carilluminated ten times more brighty thanthe usual fluorescent lamp fixed on theceiling there. (He had fixed afluorescent lamp on the ceiling of theback seat of his car, instead of the usualroom lamp.) Highly surprised, he stuckhis neck out of the side window of hisdriver's seat and tried to locate thesource of the light. Not only he could

I not locate the source of the light, but hewas flabbergasted to find that the ultrabright light was restricted inside the caronly and no light was leaking out of the

, car windows.He found at this time that his 2-

Hideichi Amano, humanoid witness

year-old daughter, Juri, who had been ashort while before standing on thedriver's seat beside him, was lying therewith foam at her mouth. Then he founda strange, round orange-colored lightilluminating his stomach area.Mystified, he traced back the lightthrough the windscreen outside of thecar and found it originated at a point inthe dark night sky. At that verymoment, he sensed a metallic objectpressed tight to his right temple andhaving looked sideways with fear, hefound a very weird, unearthly creaturestanding there! It was projecting ametallic pipe-like device from its mouthand pressing its front edge tightly to histemple and communicating somethingincessantly through it to his brain bystrange, voiceless, high-pitched noises,which sounded somewhat like a high-speed play back of a recorded tape.

The eerie creature's face wasround, with no neck, and depressed inhis forehead to form a triangle there. Itsears were rather big and sharp in theirupper edges, and he could not locatethe nose in its face. Although it had two

eyes, they were very small andmotionless and appeared to be glowingin bluish white, like two miniaturelamps. Its mouth, which was eitherprojecting into a pipe or holding a pipeas mentioned above, was quiteambiguous to him, as it was quitedifficult for him to spy the mouthsideways in such position. He wasshocked and frightened and wanted toflee from the place, and he tried to startthe car, but the engine did not respondproperly and he could not put on theheadlights either.

In the meantime, the strange noiselike a crazy "space message" continuedto flow into his brain. He was terrifiedand could not move, and sensed thathis brain became gradually vaguer andvaguer. After about 4-5 minutes in thisstate, the figure of the strange creaturefaded out gradually and the strangeround orange light on his stomach alsodisappeared, and the dazzling brightlight inside the car returned to thenormal brightness, too. Then, theheadlights came to life and suddenly the

(Continued on next page)

(Japanese Humanoid, Continued)car radio and car stereo began to soundloudly. (Later his watch was found tohave stopped at 9:37 p.m.)

Realizing that the fearful situationhad returned to normal, he tried theengine and having found that it worked,he ran away from the spot at once anddescended the mountain roadfrantically. In retrospect, he remembersthat he ran away from the place at fullspeed, without even caring about thecondition of his little daughter until hereached the foothill of the mountain,when his daughter woke up and stoodup, saying "I want water, papa!"

On his way back, he worried aboutwhether he should report this incidentto the police or not, as he may not bebelieved, but he decided to report it anddropped in at the police station. But, ashe had expected, they did not believehis story and made fun of him. So, hereturned home, arid having handed hisdaughter, who was already sleeping, tohis wife, as she was still keeping the bar(which is open up to 2:00 a.m. everyday), and crept into his bed,complaining that he had a very severeheadache.

The TV crew, who hadinvestigated this affair, obtainedAmano's permission to have himhypnotized by a professional hypnotist,by the name of Mr. Akio Moribe, toascertain the validity of the occurrenceand to delve into his memory further.During the first hypnotic session, whichwas videotaped and shown on a screen,many things hidden in his memory weresaid to have been recovered. The mostsensational thing among them was thathe remembered having been asked bythe creature to come back again on acertain day to the same spot to meethim again. This part was deleted fromthe video tape and the exact day wasnot mentioned in the program, in orderto avoid many curious persons flockingto the spot on that day to share themeeting and to spoil the meeting, butthe program assured the viewers that ifthe meeting proved to be successful, itwill be shown on TV in the sameprogram.

Toward the end of the hypnoticsession, another seemingly importantfact came to light. Pressed hard formore information by the hypnotist, he

8

Amano's sketch of humanoid creature

uttered a word, which could beinterpreted to mean "rosary", fromwhich the experimenters inferred thatalthough he did not remember itconsciously, he was given a glass rosaryby the being during the encounter andalthough it was still kept hidden by himunconsciously somewhere around him,when the day comes when he wouldmeet the being again, if he "rings" therosary, the being would return in frontof him. Although this is very interestinginformation, I doubt its authenticityvery much, because the hypnotist'sinsistence for more information was toosevere and I presume that the witnessmay have been impelled to create sucha story unconsciously, and I do notbelieve that the creature would returnagain on the designated date, as I amafraid that this may also be anunconscious concoction of thewitness's romantic mind.

Anyway, the witness said after thehypnotic session that although he didnot remember what he said during thesession, he saw a "bracelet" instead of a"rosary" during the half-consciousperiod after the termination of thehypnotic introgation. So, the TV crewdecided that the item he was given wasa kind of crystalline bracelet and it wasstill hidden somewhere around himwithout his remembering it, butultimately he would remember it andwhen he "rings" it, or vibrates it on thetop of the same mountain on the day

designated by the being (I know thedate, as he confided to me about itwhen ultimately I interviewed him in hishouse, but I would not reveal it now. -JIT), the humanoid would return againto him to reveal further information tohim. The crew is planning to attend themeeting secretly and to catch the sceneon video to show to the viewers.Although I doubt its success verymuch, I believe this encounter is one ofthe most outstanding UFO incidents —in fact, the strangest — in this country.

After the above TV show, I met thewitness in his house, after repeatedlong-distance calls to him, andinterviewed him with one of our ableinvestigators on November 15, 1978,and many interesting details wererevealed in the conversation. Based onsuch details, this incident appears moreauthentic to me, but poses moremysteries, and I will discuss thepossibilities (at least four hyptheses)with full details of the incident revealedduring my interview of him in my follow-up report. I believe this is the mostauthentic and interesting humanoidencounter case in Japan since two 7-year-bld boy's encounter in Kofu Cityon February 23, 1975.

Jun-Ichi Takanashi is Chairman of theModem Space Flight Association,C.P.O. Box No. 910, Osaka, 530-91,Japan.

WEST VIRGINIA FLAP: PART 1By Ted Spickler

(MUFON State Director forWest Virginia)

Throughout the last few weeks ofOctober 1978 newspapers in WestVirginia were buzzing with UFO storiesinvolving many state police and sheriffsdeputies. The fuss began Friday nightOctober 20 when trooper GaryWilliams of the state police went to thehome of Mr. Romeo Miller to look attwo mysterious lights in the clear, blacksky. Eventually 13 witnesses gatheredfor several hours to marvel at theobjects described as, "brighter than thebrightest star." As seen throughbinoculars and a telescope, the objectsappeared to change color over a widerange of hues and held their positionamong the stars.

By Saturday the story was out inthe Charleston Gazette and that nightUFOs were reported from theHuntington area to the west, all aroundCharleston, and as far east as Morgancounty. The Kanawha County sheriffsoffice alone received over 30 calls fromexcited residents. An informal groupgathered again at Miller's residencealong with the photographer for thepolice, Sydney Boggs. He managed toacquire some black and white pictureswith the help of a 500mm telephoto lensand Tri-X film. Meanwhile the policehad alerted the flight controlsupervisor, William Givens, at theCharleston airport. He was.able to findthree unidentified returns from a sectornear the home of Mr. Miller but at a highaltitude. Checks with Air Route TrafficControl and the military failed to turnup an identification for the returns.

The Sunday Charleston Gazettecarried the dramatic account of UFOsover the state capital as tracked onradar and witnessed visually by manypolice officers and "solid citizens of thecounty." That night additional sightingspoured in from south of Charleston andtwo additional photographers hadsome success in capturing images onfilm. i

On Monday October 23,newspapers all over the state werecarrying UFO articles and the rash ofsightings moved north to theParkersburg area where a repeat of theCharleston experience seemed toengulf many law enforcement officerswho reported multicolored lights in thenight sky.

As if by design the reports movedfurther north and finished up in thenorthern panhandle of West Virginiawhen, again, police officers reportedseeing a huge craft the size of a footballfield Friday night November 3.

MUFON InvestigationDavid Bodner, MUFON's

investigator in southern West Virginia,drove to Charleston to talk with thepersonnel at the airport. Bill Givensdescribed in detail his observation ofthree unidentified returns fromSaturday night. A correlation of hisaccount with thosetof the eyewitnessesdisclosed such glaring discrepanciesthat a radar-visual designation for thiscase had to be ruled out. At no time didthe unknown returns behave in amanne r beyond the no rma lperformance of helicopters. Althoughthe radar returns remain formallyunidentified, they cannot be linked withthe many visual reports and should notbe considered significant. Mr. Bodner'sdetailed data on the radar reports is onfile and serves to illustrate Philip Klass's"UFOlogical principle number nine"; itstates: If a sighted UFO is reported to aradar operator, almost invariably anunknown target will be found. (Ofcourse we investigators know not tocarry that principle to its debunkingextreme, a practice unfortunately hotobserved by its originator!)

A series of attempts to securephotographs taken by the variousphotographers for analysis have failedas of the time of writing. The principal

Area of W. Virginia "flap"showing location of Spencerwith respect to Charleston.

reason for this difficulty may be thecrashing fall of a laughter curtain onWednesday October 25 whennewspapers around the state cited"authorities" as having identified theUFO sightings. Robert Brown of theNational Radio Astronomy Observ-atory glibly proposed an explanationbased upon the rapid change intemperature that had just occurred as aresult of a cold front. Oddly, hediscounted the extraterrestrialhypothesis because there were radarreturns and any alien craft would beable to disguise itself from radardetection!

The broadcaster of a weekly space(Continued on next page)

DISC WITH PRONG TERRIFIES

WEST VIRGINIA WITNESSES

By David Bodner (State Section Director) and Ted Spickler (State Director)

The October 1976 issue of theMUFON UFO Journal (No. 107, page3) contains a report by Paul Cemydetailing a UFO case involving danglingconduit-like appendages. This exoticcase is similar to a West Virginia CE-IIthat has only now come to light after 5years.

Just after dark on a Monday inOctober of 1973, Mrs. Mary Rose ofWilcoe and her 11-year-old son Teddywere walking home from a visit toTeddy's grandmother. They recajlseeing the full moon and hadapproached some power lines when alow flying object with bright lights cameup from behind. At first Teddy thoughthe was seeing a helicopter but the quiethumming noise given off by the thingquickly killed that idea. Mrs. Rose

found herself idly comparing the scenewith the abstract beauty of an accidentinvolving bright lights.

By now the two witnesses weredirectly under the power lines and theobject had positioned itself directlyabove the wires. They could make out asilver whitish disc about 20 feet indiameter associated with brightspotlights. The colors were reported asred, purple, and greenish blue. Mrs.Rose recalls a feeling of considerablefear as two silver metallic prongslowered toward them from below thecraft. She sensed that the disc was fromouter space and had plans to capturethem; the lowering prongs were givingoff a sensation described as heat-like(or possibly electrostatic).

The two witnesses were

sufficiently spooked to run 20 yards forthe protection of a tool shed. For tenminutes they hid under the shed on theground. Mrs. Rose buried her face inher arms. During this time the objectleft and the witnesses took half an hourto compose themselves after theexperience.

(West Virginia "Flap", Continued)report over station WOAY confidentlystated that he has been unable touncover a single shred of evidence toindicate alien visitation and he shouldknow because he is in contact withexperts at the astrophysical laboratoryin Cambridge. They pointed out that ameteor shower had just occurred whichexplains everything. Finally thechairman of the physics department atMarshall University in Huntington,West Virginia, declared that the objectscould have been the result of opticallooming. (We can rule that one out onmany grounds including the inadequatetemperature inversion reported by theweather bureau in Huntington forSaturday night.) Some of the witnesseshave become quite sullen about all ofthis armchair theorizing by experts anddo not wish to say any more about theirexperiences. Once again ridicule hasburied data.

One of the photographs taken bySydney Boggs can be seen in an articlecovering the West Virginia flap for UFO

10

REPORT magazine. It bears aresemblance to an over-enlarged startrail that would be expected from a timeexposure. At the time that MUFONinvestigator Wayne Laporte wrote thearticle, it was not yet certain in ourminds whether the objects wereactually stars. His accurate andcautious report was rather heavilyhyped up by the editor of UFOREPORT so that we could read aboutthe "UFO Siege" of one of the "mostintense flaps in UFO history" which thisone certainly was not.

A principal witness, Romeo Miller,was finally located and he ratherhurriedly dismissed the whole affair asbeing much ado about stars. For 2weeks after that first Friday night hewatched those same objects night afternight following the motion of theheavens until it was quite clear in hisown mind that his group had in factbeen taken in for a while by particularlybright stars on two unusually clearnights. Sydney Boggs recalled the

location of the objects which indeedcorrespond to the brightest stars outat that time: Capella in the constellationAuriga, Vega in the constellation Lyra,and for a while Arcturus in theconstellation Bootes. When looking atthese stars for a period of time one cansee that scintillations of the atmosphereappear to change their color as ifdifferent lights were flashing on and off.

The West Virginia flap is afascinating example of just how a groupof sober and experienced witnesses canbecome caught up in a UFO feverwatching stars. It is likely that theyunderstand this now and do not wishany further publicity. Miller has no"debunkers block" when it comes toUFOs, and in fact apparently really sawa cigar-shaped thing about 10 years agowhich brings up the second half of theWest Virginia flap; investigationuncovered a few cases that weredefinitely not stars, or anything elseidentifiable for that matter! Thesereports will be discussed in Part 2.

UFO RELATED INFORMATION FROM THE FBI FILE - Part 7By Bruce S. Maccabee

MUFON State Director for Maryland(Copyright Bruce S. Maccabee, 1978)

In his letter to Col. Rees, datedMay 23, 1950, Dr. La Paz1 reiteratedarguments that he had presented asearly as December 1948 which led himto believe that the green fireballs werenot natural meteors. Briefly, thesearguments are the following: (1) thepaths of many of the fireballs wereapparently horizontal; (2) the fireballsappeared to be travelling at unusuallylow altitudes (i.e., far below 40 milesabove the earth's surface, which is theminimum altitude that is "normallyobserved"); (3) the velocity of greenfireballs seemed to be lower thannormal; (4) there were usually no noisesassociated with the fireballs, but"normal meteorites that penetrate to aslow levels. . . are always accompaniedby very violent noises"; (5) the greenfireballs had an almost constantbrilliance as long as they were seen,unlike normal fireballs that showconsiderable brightness fluctuations;(6) whereas normal meteors travel onpaths that are "directed towards allpoints of the compass," with the greenfireballs "there is a very pronouncedtendency for the paths to come in fromthe north half of the sky"; (7) "The threegroups of anomalous greenishluminous phenomena show a curiousassociation with well known meteorshowers, although none of thesemeteor showers normally produceextremely bright green fireballs... Thisrelationship might indicate an attemptto render the green fireballs lessconspicuous by causing them to appearonly when there is considerablemeteoric activity." (8) The green coloritself was anomalous. It was the color offlame-excited copper salts, "a colorrarely observed in the case of genuinemeteors." (9) 'The duration estimatesof between 2 and 3 seconds reportedfor the green fireballs are considerablylonger than those (0.4-0.5 seconds) for

1. Dr. Lincoln La Paz is an expert on meteorites.

the ordinary visual meteors, but shorterthan the duration estimates invariablyreported in the case of a genuinemeteorite fall (5 to 30 seconds or evenlonger)"; and (10) "For none of thegreen fireballs has a train of sparks or adust cloud been reported. Thiscontrasts sharply with the behaviornoted in case of meteoric fireballs —particularly those that penetrate to verylow levels were the green fireball ofDecember 12 (1948) was observed."

Following this list of differencesbetween the green fireballs andordinary meteors, Dr. La Paz pointedout that since the list had been made,on December 20, 1948, many moreobservations had supplied informationon the green fireballs. As a result of thenew information he wanted to modifyonly one of his early statements of thedifferences. In particular, someobservations in late 1949 and early 1950described the fireballs as appearing tofall straight down. Thus he wanted tomodify the previously listed reason (1)to include the fact that "a strictlyvertical infall is also very rarelyobserved in the case of genuine meteorfalls." Also as a result of the newinformation, Dr. La Paz wanted to addan eleventh item to his list. The eleventhitem concerned the time distribution ofgreen fireballs as compared withmeteors and meteorites. "The graphsof frequency versus local time whichaccompanies the present report showsthat the maximum frequency of sightingof green fireballs (occurring atapproximately 2030) coincides in timewith neither the frequency maximumfor ordinary meteors (occurring atapproximately 0300) nor the frequencymaximum for meteorite falls (occurringat approximately 1600)." Not referredto by Dr. La Paz, but shown in hisgraph, was the time distribution for theobjects referred to as "disk orvariation." The maximum frequency

time for disks was around 1600 (4:00PM).

After listing all these differencesbetween normal meteors/meteoritesand green fireballs, Dr. La Paz oncemore brought up his Russian missiletheory (which he had initially stated inearly 1949). He pointed out that most ofthe green fireballs had been seenbetween 5 PM and 11 PM, "whichextends from about 7AM to 1 PM in theUral region of the USSR." "Sincemissiles moving with velocities of theorder of those found for the greenfirebal ls for which real pathdeterminations have been possiblewould travel from the Southern Urals toNew Mexico in less than 15 minutes, apossible interpretation of theconcentration of sightings referred to...is that the green fireballs result fromguided missiles launched from bases inthe Urals in the morning hours beforecloudiness due to convection orblinding afternoon storms can interferewith non-radar tracking, such as hasbeen used by the Optical TrajectorySection at White Sands ProvingGround." Dr. La Paz also mentionedthe interesting fact that most of thegreen fireballs were seen during thefour, days, Friday, Saturday, Sundayand Monday, with Saturday andSunday being the peak days. Dr. La Pazthen made his only direct reference to"disks" in the following paragraph:

It is a curious and fairly well-established factthat there has been a distinct decline in thenumber of green fireball sightings during the lasttwo months, within which the number of so-called"flying saucer" incidents in this region hasattained an all-time high.

In closing his letter, Dr. La Pazmade a series of recommendations forinvestigations that should beundertaken if the military was sure thatnone of the green fireballs/disks wereU.S. government experimental

(Continued on next page) _ _

(FBI Files, Continued)devices. Of course, as diligent readersof the FBI file information are aware,the Air Force had no experimentalmissiles that resembled either greenfireballs or flying disks. Apparently theAir Force accepted Dr. La Paz'srecommendation and contracted withLand-Air, Inc. to do research whichwould supplement the Air Force'sProject Twinkle, which had begunabout a year before.68

As part of the new effort to obtaindata on unconventional aircraft the AirForce sent out another official requestfor information on September 8,1950. Itwas e n t i t l e d "Repo r t i ng ofUnconventional Aircraft" and wassigned by Major General C.P. Cabell,Director of Intelligence, USAF. Thedocument began with the followingparagraph69:

The United State Air Force has a continuingrequirement for the reporting and technicalanalysis of observations of unconventionalaircraft which might indicate an advance intechnological progress of a foreign power. Anunconventional aircraft, within the meaning ofthis directive, is defined as any aircraft or airborneobject which by performance, aerodynamiccharacteristics, or unusual features, does notconform to any presently known aircraft type.

The request then listed the mannerin which information was to be reportedand the types of information required.Basically the reporting method and thedesired information were the same asgiven in the previously issuedIntelligence Memorandum Number 4 ofFebruary 15, 1949. The request endedwith the statement, "It is desired that nopublicity be given this reporting oranalysis activity." Thus even though theAir Force, often claimed that nothingwas "hidden," it is clear that it didn'twant its interest in UFO activity openlyadmitted.

About a month later Mr. Laddwrote a memorandum to update thegreen fireball situation for the FBI.Dated October 9, 1950, thememorandum read as follows:70

You wiU recall that on August 23, 1950, Ifurnished to you a memorandum regardingProject Twinkle set up by the Department of theAir Force, with the assistance of Land-Air, Inc. atVaughn, New Mexico, for the purpose of obtain-ing data regarding these unusual aerialphenomena which had been seen in the vicinity ofsensitive installations in New Mexico. To date the

12

Air Force has not advised us of any newdevelopments in connection with this project.Mr. , Project Engineer of Project Twinkle,has been contacted by the Albuquerque Officeand arrangments have been made in order thatthe Bureau will be advised in the event anyinformation relative to these phenomenaindicates any jurisdiction on the part of theBureau. According to Bureau files, an average ofapproximately three or four complaints havebeen received per month from June throughSeptember .(note by present author: the FBIreferred to UFO reports as "complaints" aboutflying discs, flying saucers, green fireballs, etc.).These complaints were brought to the attentionof OSI. A review of Bureau files does not indicatethat there has been any increase in the sightingsof these phenomena during or as a result of thewar in Korea.2

You will recall the investigation to. obtaininformation concerning these aerial phenomenais the jurisdiction of the Department of the AirForce. The Department of the Air Force is awareof our jurisdiction in matters relating toespionage, sabotage and internal security, andwe have contacted OSI and requested them to.advise us of any developments in connection withthese phenomena which would be of interest to usas a result of our jurisdiction. The Bureau hasbeen advised in the past by OSI that many of thesightings reported to them were determined byinvestigation to have been of weather balloons,falling stars, meteorological phenomena andother air-borne objects.. Bureau liasiondetermined on the morning of October 9, 1950,from OSI headquarters that investigations ofthese aerial phenomena are being handled byOSI, Wright Field, Ohio. Their investigation ofthese phenomena fails to indicate that thesightings involved space ships or missiles fromany other planet or country. According to OSI,the complaints received by them liave failed toindicate any definite pattern of activity. OSIfurther advised they are closely following theinvestigation of the captioned matters, and theywill advise this Bureau of any matters of interest.

With regard to the continuing AirForce interest in UFOs, only ten dayslater Mr. Ladd received a memordumfrom another agent which read asfollows":

The matter of flying saucers was discussedby Special Agent —— with Major General JosephF. Carroll of OSI on October 16,1950, at whichtime General Carroll advised that insofar as hehas been able to determine the Air Force is notworking on any type of "flying saucer" or "flyingdisk." General Carroll stated that the Air Force isworking on high altitude rockets and jet aircraft.He stated these experiments may account forsome of the reports concerning flying saucers butthat the Air Force is not apparently working onanything which is the cause of many flying saucersreports. He stated that the Air Force program forinvestigating reports concerning flying saucers,etc., has been reinstated at Wright Field and that

any pertinent'information of interest coming tohis attention will be furnished to the Bureau.

Pity the poor Air Force. Despiteall public pronouncements about theirexplanations of UFOs as mundaneobjects or misidentifications, UFOswould not go away. First the Air Forceset up Project Sign and found that mostof the reports could be explained, eventhough there was sufficient reason tocontinue the study. Then the Air Forceended Project Sign and set up ProjectGrudge, which was to continue theevaluation of UFO reports. ProjectGrudge, along with Dr. J. Allen Hynek,concluded that some reports were toobizarre to be explained astronomically,but that most could be explained insome way or another and that thereforeprobably all reports could be explained.Project Grudge issued a long report inthe summer of 1949, and then Grudgewas officially "killed" and its death wasannounced publicly in December of1949, shortly after Major Keyhoe'sfamous article in True Magazine waspublished. The Air Force told the FBI inMarch 1950 that the special project tostudy flying saucers had beenterminated in late 1949 because "aftertwo years of investigation over three-fourths of the invidents . . . . proved tobe misidentifications . . . ,"K

In May 1950, the FBI received fromthe Air Force a sort of summary ofresearch on flying saucers (probably apress release)72. This documentmentioned Ezekiel's "wheel," Sweden'sghost rockets, and the 1947 flap. Withregard to the reports since 1947, thedocument states that: "The USAF for along time conducted a thoroughinvestigation of each of hundreds ofincidents involved. It found thatapproximately 75% of the reports coulddefinitely be related to known causessuch as meteorological balloons,aircraft , meteors, and otherphenomena. A public statement wasissued debunking the entire existenceof flying disks or saucers. This did littleto cut down the flood of reports. It onlyresulted in convincing a large number ofpeople that the National MilitaryEstablishment was trying to cover up

2. Note: On June 25, 1950, the North KoreanArmies crossed the 38th parallel into SouthKorea.

our own experiments with newweapons." The document then lists the"popular" theories: spaceships, atomicpowered Soviet missiles, U.S.experiments, natural phenomena, andmass hysteria or other psychologicalcauses. The document ruled out thespaceship explanation "on reasonablegrounds" by pointing out that theexistence of life "on other planets isextremely tenuous and debatable."Moreover, "The level of technicalachievement required to launch pilotedor pilotless missiles from one planet toanother and return is several orders ofmagnitude beyond that existing onearth today and probably would haveresulted in firm contact prior to this,either through deliberate landings orunscheduled crashes." In other words,spaceships are ruled out because if"they" do not do what we would expect"them" to, then "they" do not exist.

After throwing out spaceships, thearticle proceeded to throw out Sovietweapons because the Soviets could nothave been that far ahead of "us" (e.g.,atomic powered planes), and even ifthey were, there would be no reason todesign planes that look different fromconventional planes (i.e., atomicpowered planes would still have wingsand a fuselage). The article also statedthat the U.S. Government was notworking on any aircraft that evenremotely resembled a "flying saucer."Thus this document concluded that"The continued reporting of aerialphenomena must then be attributed toa mass hysteria caused by the presenttenseness in the international situation;the public belief in the ability of scienceto accomplish miracles; and tostatements in the press by "name"individuals hinting at the existence ofsome new weapon." (On May 16,1950,Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker made thefollowing public statement:, "Theremust be something to them, for toomany reliable persons have madereports on them. I am duty bound not tosay what I know about them — or what Idon't know about them. However, ifthey do exist, you can rest assured thatthey are ours.")

This document was probablyissued by the Air Force to counteractthe publicity given to Rickenbacker'sstatement because it was received by

the FBI only three days later andbecause it ended with a direct referenceto Rickenbacker's statement as follows:"Such statements of the type attributedto Rickenbacker, often solicited in themost sensational form by newsreporters in order to make a goodstory, make people watch the sky andany object they cannot immediatelyrecognize is called a 'flying object.' Thishelps to maintain the 'chain reaction' ofsuch reports."

Pity the poor Air Force. Masshysteria caused by the "presenttenseness in the internationalsituation," referring to the Korean War,was not a sufficient explanation. Mr.Ladd of the FBI pointed out in a memodated October 9, 1950, that "A reviewof Bureau files does not indicate thatthere has been any increase in sightingsof these phenomena during or as aresult of the war in Korea." In fact, theAir Force files, according to SpecialReport #1473, showed the number ofreports per month decreasing fromMarch through May 1950. (The totalnumber of reports for 1950 was 306, ascompared with 395 for 1949. Manyreports for these two years were "greenfireball" reports.73

Pity the poor Air Force. Masshysteria would not explain the incidentsof "green fireballs and discs" over thesouthwestern military installations in1949 and 1950. Mass hysteria would nothave been an acceptable explanationfor Dr. La Paz," who pointed out theinteresting fact that a "distinct declinein the number of green fireball sightingsduring the last two months" wasaccompanied by an increase in thenumber of flying saucer sightings to an"all-time high" in the southwest.67

Pity the poor Air Force; UFOswould not go away despite repeatedattempts at "debunking" them. Everytime the Air Force ended a UFO studyproject it had to start a new one. And,during the periods when there was nospecial UFO study group, UFO reportswere studied by members of the OSI asa "routine intelligence function". Thus,at the same time that the Air Force waspublicly chastising Capt. Rickenbackerfor asserting that "there must besomething to them," Col. Doyle Rees,the Commander of the 24th OSIdistrict, was compiling a "Summary of

Observations of Aerial Phenomena inthe New Mexico Area"67 in which heincluded reports by observers "whosereliability is not questioned." Many ofthese reports involved "flying discs."Col. Rees also referred to the setting upof a research program involving theLand-Air Corp. This was part of"Project Twinkle" which, according toan FBI memorandum66, was set up "forthe purpose of photographing anddetermining the speed, height andnature of the unusual phenomenareferred to as green fireballs and discs."(Emphasis by present author.)

Pity the poor Air Force;"unconventional aircraft" would not goaway. Therefore General Cabell issueda document requesting information onsuch aircraft from all the majorintelligence agencies of the U.S.Government. He also requested that"no publicity be given this reporting oranalysis activity"69. Does this sound likea cover-up?

Pity the poor Air Force. It wasa house divided within itself. Oneportion of the Air Force (publicrelations) was trying hard to convince("brainwash'?) the public and the otherportions of the Air force that "flyingsaucers" didn't exist. Another portion(OSI) was handling day-to-day UFOreports and indicating that there wasdefinitely cause for concern, especiallywith regard to the incidents in thesouthwest. This portion of the OSI hadmore than enough UFO reports tokeep it busy. Yet another portion of theAir Force (the top men in the OSI, ascompared with the lower level OSI thatwas handling the green fireball/discreports from the southwest) wassending requests to governmentintelligence agencies for moreinformation. From the point of view ofthe other investigative agencies the AirForce approach to UFOs (flying discs)may have appeared as either anuncoordinated research effort or elseas a deliberate attempt to cover upsomething (otherwise, why statepublicly that flying saucers don't existand imply that the Air Force is notinterested in such reports, while statingprivately — to other covert intelligenceagencies — that the Air Force is in needof all the information it can get on"unconventional aircraft".) We all know

(continued on next page)13

(FBI Files, Continued)that the "house divided cannot stand."(The Air Force investigation of UFOsfinally "crashed" in 1969, after a longand "checkered" history.

The public appearance of the AirForce UFO investigation versus the"private" appearance was probablywhat caused Hoover to write his March1950 memo asking for the Air Forceopinion on flying saucers. A diligentreader of Ruppelt's book will notice thatsoon after the Grudge report was madepublic (following Keyhoe's widely-readarticle in True magazine) late inDecember 1949, Project Grudge was"junked"74. This explains the answerthat Hoover got from the Air Force("The Air Force discountinued theirintelligence project ")K. However,as Ruppelt points out, the top men inAir Force Intelligence did not requestthe end of Project Grudge; it was thelower echelon OSI officers who decidedto stop the activities of Project Grudgesince "most UFO reports were trash,"according to the Grudge Report. Whenthe top AF intelligence officers inquiredabout the status of Project Grudge theywere told that UFO investigativeactivity was now carried out in normalintelligence channels (i.e., by the OSI)along with other intelligence reports74.

Air Force Project Reinstituted.Apparently the green fireball/discsituation in the midwest combined withthe continuance of good UFO reportsfrom reliable individuals despite a lackof public Air Force interest75 forced thelower echelons of the Air Forceintelligence into rethinking their,positions on the need for UFOinvestigations, because by October1950 the special project for theinvestigation of flying saucers had been"reinstituted at Wright Field"71.Moreover, the need for continuedreporting of UFO incidents had beenexpressed in September by GeneralCabell in his document (previouslydiscussed) entitled "Reporting ofUnconventional Aircraft"69. Thus,when Ruppelt arrived at ATIC (AirTechnical Intelligence Center) inJanuary 1951, there was a UFO project,although it didn't involve many people.Moreover, the attitude toward UFOreports was generally one of amusedtolerance rather than scientific interest.According to Ruppelt the reason for the

14

highly skeptical attitude toward flyingsaucers was that "the powers-that-beare anti-flying saucer, and to stay infavor it behooves one to follow suit."76

By comparing the information inthe FBI file with that given by Ruppelt Ihave gained the impression that the"powers-that-be" weren't exactly anti-flying saucer because they repeatedlyasked for more information. However,the public impression of flying saucerreports that resulted from the negativeconclusions of the Sign and Grudgereports made it seem that the "official"Air Force attitude, i.e., the attitude ofthe top generals, etc. (the so-called"powers-that-be") was that there wasnothing to UFO reports. This publicimpression also affected the lowerechelon of the Air Force intelligence.Therefore, the lower echelon assumedthat the "powers-that-be" didn't believein flying saucers and that therefore they(the lower echelon) had better explainall UFO reports. Naturally, the moreUFO reports that were "explained," themore it appeared that there wasnothing to UFO reports. This self-reinforcing cycle caused the interest inUFO reports to drop to virtually zero,which was the level of interest whenRuppelt arrived at ATIC.

UFO Reports for 1950. I havealready presented the Kodiak, Alaskaradar-visual report and others fromKodiak. These are probably the mostinteresting of 1950, but there are someothers worthy of mention. In June 1950,a Washington, D.C., man reportedseeing a silvery object resembling atilted cigar over Washington at 9:25 AMon the 25th of the month77. On the 29thof June, FBI personnel and citizens ofPheonix, Arizona, reported seeing anobject at 5:45 PM that was high in thesky. It was picked up on radar, and aplane traveling at 290 m.p.h. was able tocircle under the object, which appearedto be at an altitude of about 35,000 ft.From the description, the object mayhave been a balloon, although it wasdescribed as travelling westward in .theabsence of wind. It travelled at anestimated average speed of about 50m.p.h.78.

On July 18 the Special Agent inCharge (SAC) for Chicago reportedthat a Chicago man had seen a cigar-shaped object travelling rapidly from

the northwest to the southeast at 1:00AM on the morning of July 1. Theinformant, who was in a watchman'stower in North Chicago, said that "theobject did not appear like any fallingstar or meteor he had evem seen." The"front two-thirds of the object had aconstant glow about the color of aburning kerosene lamp, and the rearthird was dark. . . . The object left abluish-white trail which was three timesthe length of the object.... there wasno sound discernible." The informantknew of no other witnesses.79 At 9:54PM, July 4,1950, the SAC for Chicagoreceived a phone call from ameteorologist who worked with UnitedAir Lines. The meteorologist said thatabout 16 minutes earlier he had seen alarge, bright silvery object moving in anorth, northwesterly directly at anapproximate altitude of 10,000 feet andan approximate speed (if at thataltitude) of 700 to 800 m.p.h. Themeteorologist advised the SpecialAgent that the "object he observed wasnot a plane nor was it a fireworksdisplay."*1

About the first of September theFBI received a letter from a "gentlemanfarmer" near Toronto, Ontario. Thefarmer reported that he and his"houseman" watched a strange "hazyobject of light" through thin clouds fromabout 10:30 to 11:05 PM on July 19,1950. The object circled in oppositedirections at various times after a rapidapproach toward his farm. At about11:05 PM it disappeared in a westerlydirection. The farmer closed his letteras follows: "I am passing this along toyou for what it is worth. If you are notinterested throw it in the waste paperbasket." There is no indication that theFBI was interested in this case, but itwas not thrown in the wastebasket.81

In late September the FBI office inPhiladelphia reported an incicent whichtook place on September 26 and whichinvolved police officers. The reportread as follows: "... yesterday eveningwhile two officers of the PhiladelphiaPolice Department were cruising intheir scout car they saw through thewindshield an object descending slowlyto the earth which appeared at firstglance to be a parachute. When theofficers first noticed the object, it was attree-top level and was described as

being six feet in diameter. It landed in afield nearby and the officers, uponexamining it, noted that it gave out apurplish glow which was almost a mist.The officers summoned two otherpolice officers. After looking at theobject for some time they attempted topick it up. The object broke, leaving aslight odorless residue. Over a period ofabout 25 minutes which the officersspent watching the object it completelydisintegrated. The officers furthercommented that the object was so lightthat when it hit the field, it did not evenbend the weeds or the grass it fell on."The FBI letter says that the local OSIoffice was notified.82 .

On October 13 the FBI received ateletype message from Knoxville,Tennessee, which reported the radardetection of eleven or more objects at.11:25 PM on October 12. The objectsappeared to be travelling across acontrolled area of the atomic energyinstallation at Oak Ridge. The altitudesvaried from 1,000 to 5,000 feet, and thedensities of the targets werecomparable to those made by "lightaircraft to aircraft equal in size to C-47.The apparent speeds were about 100-125 m.p.h. A fighter plane attempted anintercept but could not detect anythingvisually or on its radar.83

A letter reporting an interview witha man who worked for the Chemicaland Physical Laboratories of theWinchester Repeating Arms Co. ofNew Haven, Connecticut, was receivedby the FBI headquarters in November.The man advised that on October 20 atabout 6:15 PM he and his wife anddaughter, while in the back yard of theirhome, saw a golden-orange sphere-likeobject in the sky directly overhead. Theglow given off by the object was steadyand the whole sphere glowed withabout equal brightness. The object wasseen for about 20 seconds while ittravelled toward New York City andthen changed direction. He lost sight ofit when it got so low on the horizon thattrees blocked his view. He said theobject was about "ten times thediameter of Venus, which was shiningvery brightly that night/'The witnessfurther stated that ". . . it was a veryclear night and that all the stars in thesky were twinkling as compared to thesteadiness of the glow given off by this

object." He detected no sound. Thisreport was turned over to the OSI.84

In December the FBI was informedof one visual and two radar sightings ofunknown objects over Oak Ridge,Tennessee. The Army attachmentprotecting Oak Ridge reportedcontacts for about three hours startingat 4:05 PM on December 14. Accordingto the Army report, which was in theFBI file, "A group of targets blanketedthe radar scopes in the area directlyover the government Atomic EnergyCommission projects at Oak Ridge,Tennessee. These objects could not beidentified from radar image and aperfect fighter interception met withnegative results." Photographs of theradar screen were made. On December18th the Army fowarded another reportto the FBI. This one concerned a visualsighting by eight witnesses who workedon the Nuclear Energy for Propulsion ofAircraft project (Project NEPA) then atOak Ridge. The sighting was made fromtwo vehicles travelling to work at about8:30 AM. Signed statements from thewitnesses were obtained by the FBISpecial Agent at Knoxville. The Armysummary stated: "A light . . . in theshape of a circle, of an intensity muchgreater than that of a bright moon,giving the impression of form inconnection with the light (was seen).The light was white in appearance anddid not show any signs of refraction intoa band or continuous spectrum. Thisobject was travelling in a northwesterlydirection, 15 to 30 degrees elevationabove the horizon, and appeared todiminish considerably in size during the30 seconds of observation (by one ofthe groups of men). To another groupthe object appeared only as a brightreflection of the sun from an apparentlymetal surface. No accurate estimate ofthe object's size or range could be madefrom the observation." The radar log ofthe McGhee Tyson Air Force RadarStation which was nearby showed acontact at 8:39 AM lasting until 8:45AM. "A fighter interception wasattempted with negative results."85,86

The third radar contact occurredon December 20 at 12:47 PM. TheArmy report states, "small paint in area(Oak Ridge Controlled Area). Very,very slow. Made perfect intercept (withF-82 Fighter aircraft) and orbit

surrounding small smoke cloud."Assuming the radar set was sufficientlysensitive to detect a cloud of smoke,then it would appear that this UFO wasmerely the exhaust from some furnaceor engine. On the other hand, perhapsthere was a solid UFO which vanishedbetween radar sweeps leaving a cloudof smoke (e.g., Heflin case, Aug.1965.)8'

On the fifth of December, Hooverhimself took an interest in radar signalspicked up at Oak Ridge. In a teletype tothe SAC at Knoxville, Tennessee,Hoover wrote, "Arrangements shouldbe made to obtain all facts concerningpossible radar jamming by ionization ofparticles in atmosphere. Conductappropriate investigation to determinewhether incident occurring northeastof Oliver Springs, Tennessee, couldhave had any connection with allegedradar jamming." There is no referenceto an "incident occurring northeast ofOliver Springs" in the selection of FBIpapers which I now have, so I don'tknow what this teletype refers to.88

The final item of interest for 1950 isa teletype message from the SAC atRichmond, Virginia. It reads as follows:"This office (has been) veryconfidentially advised by Armyintelligence, Richmond, that they havebeen put on immediate high alert forany data whatsoever concerning flyingsaucers. CIC (Counter IntelligenceCorps) here states background ofinstructions not available from AirForce Intelligence, who are not awareof reason for alert locally, but anyinformation whatsoever must betelephoned by them immediately to AirForce intelligence. CIC advises datastrictly confidential and should not bedisseminated."89 I do not know thereason for this "high alert," but furtherinvestigation may uncover the reason.

Thus ends the UFO history of1950, as far as the FBI is concerned.The information contained in the FBIfile shows that the Air Force interest inUFO reports was picking up again in1950 despite attempts to downplay theimportance of such reports. Thisincreased interest, caused mainly bythe improvement in quality of thereports, ultimately resulted in thecomplete revitalization of ProjectGrudge in late 1951 under Ruppelt. The

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WOBBLING UFO IN NEW ENGLANDBy Richard Hall

Reports of UFOs that wobble oroscillate in flight are of special interestbecause of what they may tell us aboutthe propulsion and flight methods ofunidentified craft-like objects. Such acase occurred in Medway, Mass., onJune 25,1978, and was investigated forMUFON by Edwin Fogg and JosephNyman, who filed a 20-page reportcomplete with photographs, maps, andwitness statements.

Samuel S. Torrey, Jr., 32, a welder,Judy Willinski, and Michael Koczwarawere gathered in the Torrey's backyard watching the children playbaseball about 8:00 PM. "As Mr. Torreylifted his head to follow the flight of abatted ball, he noticed through a gap inthe tall pines. . .what looked like aballoon in the distance. As he continuedto look the object moved rapidly closeruntil, in a matter of seconds, it hadreached a point that the witnessestimated as 200-300 feet from them atan elevation of 15°: Mrs. Willinski hadnow also noticed the object as ithovered, bobbed and wobbled forabout 5 seconds before beginning tomove slowly to the observers' left andbeing lost to view behind the nearestpines. ..."

The three walked quickly to thefront of the house to fry to continue theobservation, where Michael Koczwaranow also saw the object through a gapin the pines. "Koczwara and Torreysaw the object hover and wobble againfor a few seconds before it receded intothe distance and was lost to sight belowthe tree line." The total time ofappearance of the object was estimatedto be about 1 minute. Phone calls to thepolice and the airport turned up noexplanation for the sighting.

"The bobbing at the points of theobject's hover were described by Mrs.Willinski as similar to a 'ball on water.'Mr. Torrey noticed wobbling aroundtwo axes; that is, he saw both pitch and

16

roll but not apparently at the same time.It was when the object first tilted aroundits pitch axis at the initial point ofobservation that Mr. Torrey observed adome. He also noticed pitch and roll atthe second observation point." Thecolor was described as silvery-gray, or"like pewter" (Mrs. Willinski).

After witness interviews andcharacter checks, as well as checkswith local authorities for possibleexplanations, the investigatorsconcluded that the identity of the objectwas "unknown".

JMarkR. Herbstritt

AstronomyNotes

THE SKY FOR DECEMBER 1978

Mercury - Early in the month it is tooclose to the sun for observation, but bythe 24th it is at greatest elongation west(22°) at which time it stands about 14degrees above the horizon at sunrise.

Venus — at mid-month it is at greatestbrilliancy again, rising about 3% hoursbefore the sun, and standing about 28degrees above the horizon at sunrise.On the 26th Venus is occulted by themoon.

Mars — It is too low in the sky for easyobservation.

Jupiter — In Cancer, it rises about 3hours after sunset and is about 30degrees above the western horizon atsunrise.

Saturn — In Leo, it rises beforemidnight and is past the meridian atsunrise.

^

Pitch and yaw during hovering;Medway, Mass., June 25,1978.

(FBI Files, Continued)

FBI file has. provided us with somebackground information which was notpreviously available and which helps usto understand the reasons behind theincreased Air Force interest.

REFERENCES68. Ruppelt, op. cif., page 73. Ruppelt presents agood summary of UFO/green fireball history inchapters 4, 5, and 6.69. Air Force Document AFOIC-CC-1, datedSeptember 8, 1950.70. FBI Memorandum dated October 9, 1950.71. FBI Memorandum dated October 19, 1950.72. Air Force Document entitled "UnidentifiedAerial Phenomena (Flying Saucers)"; undated,but received by the FBI on May 19, 1950.73. Project Blue Book Special Report #14,published by the Air Technical IntelligenceCenter at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, May5, 1950.74. Ruppelt, op. at., pg. %•75. Ibid., pg. 96-121.76. /bid., pg. 118.77. FBI document dated June 29,1950.78. FBI teletype dated June. 30, 1950.79. FBI document dated July 18, 1950.80. FBI document dated July 11, 1950.81. FBI document dated August 29, 1950.82. FBI document dated September 27, 1950.83. FBI document dated October 13,1950.84. FBI document dated November 9, 1950.85. Army document dated January 20,1951.86.-Army document dated January 2, 1951.87. Army document dated January 20,1951.88. FBI teletype dated December 5,1950.90. FBI teletype dated December 8,1950.

I"

ByAnnDruffcl

"ETHEREAN INVASION" (A Key to the UFO Door?)

In September 1978 a new book,important to ufology, was published byHwong Publishing Company. Its title isThe Etherean Invasion and its author isJohn de Herrera, widely known inSouthern California and elsewhere forhis careful, open-minded research ofthe UFO phenomenon.

John is an APRO investigator, buthe moves freely among the ranks ofother organizations' investigators,sharing information generously andcooperating wholeheartedly in jointresearch projects. One of the tragediesof UFO research at present is itstendency to sectionalize studies — todifferentiate between "MUFON cases,""APRO cases," "CUFOS cases," etc.Our human tools of detection andperception are too limited to permit usto fully understand the UFO problem.Cooperation between organizationsand individuals must be the key, withopen communication wheneverpossible.

John's book sprang from suchcooperation between researchers ofdiffering organizational ties. It tells thefull fascinating, and sometimesfrightening, story of UFO abducteeBrian Scott. It is the first book, to myknowledge, to give full details of thetransformation of a human being fromobscure witness to evangelisticcontactee.

The Etherean Invasion isespecially remarkable in two ways:

1. It is essentially a researcher'smanuscript, combining narrative,documented description, and tapetranscripts of the case as it unfoldedfrom beginning to end. There is <nosensationalism in de Herrera's writing.He maintains for the most part the styleof an investigator's report. Thefantastic nature of the case itself,however, comes through John's

objective style, making the bookabsorbing reading. I know from closeassociation with persons concernedwith the investigation that every word istrue, even the parts which seemincredible.

2. It is a carefully documentedaccount of the metamorphosis of anordinary, suspected abductee into afull-blown ultramontane prophet,complete with a direct link betweenBrian Scott himself and the"extraterrestrial entity" which impartsdirection to Brian's followers.

The Scott case was firstinvestigated by Dr. Alvin Lawson, Dr.W. C. McCall, and Idabel Epperson onbehalf of MUFON, with Al Lawson asthe primary investigator. Hypnoticregression sessions unfolded a full-fledged abduction experience. Eachsuccessive session uncovered morefantastic detail.

The case took a frightening turnwhen poltergeist activity broke out inthe Scott home. These manifestationsseemed associated with the entitiesScott had met aboard the UFO, andindeed the chief entity, known as "TheHost," was himself a frequent visitor inthe home!

At this point, when "balls of fire"were seen by different witnessesfloating around and inside the Scottresidence, Brian began falling intospontaneous trances, allowing thevoice of "The Host" — and other alienvoices — to be transmitted throughhim. C o n c u r r e n t w i th thesephenomena, Scott was caught in theact of perpetrating an apparent hoax,and Lawson and McCall, understand-ably, dropped the case.

DeHerrera, however, had beeninterested in the case from thebeginning. He continued on with it,taking over as primary investigator.

Having had prior experience with "ballof fire" manifestations, he was notdiscouraged by the bizarre turn theScott case had taken. Within him, hehad an instinctive curiosity that spurredhim on.

Human minds are limited. Theycannot, unlike the "universal geniuses"of centuries past, comprehend allsciences and a l l knowledge .Consequently, we have specialists inphysical sciences, in psychology, inparapsychology, for instance. Trainedscientific minds, however, tend toignore or scorn what they have notlearned. Therefore, our paradox in theBrian Scott case. A trainedparapsychologist can see implicationsof paranormal aspects in UFO casesand tends to ignore a physicist's theorythat UFOs are nuts and bolts craft, andso on down the line.

But in rare cases, such as deHerrera's, a researcher can extend hisknowledge beyond his specialty andapply this new knowledge toward agreater understanding of the UFOphenomenon. When this happens, itgenerally can be explained thus; thatthe researcher in his own life hasencountered some weird experience,entirely alien to him but which hasintrigued him and captured hisimagination.

John de Herrera from childhoodwas interested in the "ball of light"phenomenon, for among his ownrelatives were persons who hadwitnessed these objects. In his book isinformation about the phenomenongleaned from many sources. DeHerrera has attempted to showcorrelations between other casesworldwide and Brian Scott's "balls oflight." He also attempts explanationsfor the phenomenon and presents thesurprising hypothesis that "balls of fire"

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UFO TECH NOTEIDENTIFICATION OF CRASH SITES

By John F. Schuessler

On June 30, 1908, at approxi-mately 7 AM, a cataclysmic explosionscarred a vast area of the Tungus taigain Siberia. Although argumentscontinue to the present as to whetherthe explosion was caused by a UFO,black hole, meteor, or some crazynuclear explosion, the date and time, aswell as the location of the incident is wellestablished. Eyewitness testimony isaccepted at least for that much.

Sometimes, however, theevidence contains missing parts and thesituation is less clear. For example, BobPratt of the National Enquirerinvestigated the report of a UFO overBolivia and northern Argentina. Theobject was observed by hundreds at4:15 PM, on May 6,1978, as it traverseda south by southeasterly course,finally turning southwest over Tarijatowards the mountains in the borderarea. An explosion was heard and theobject seemed to crash in that remotemountainous part of the country. Afteran: extensive period of on-the-spotinvestigation, Mr. Pratt concluded thatif a crash site existed it would probablybe on the side of Bravo Mountain, a 5-hour horseback ride west of Mecoya.He searched the area from the air aridfrom the ground and found a hugerockslide, possible evidence of a crash.Even though the rockslide was the onlyone anywhere throughout those ruggedmountains, and was in the approximateline of flight of the cylindrical UFO, itcould not be proven that the slideactually occurred on the day of theUFO sighting. More evidence wasneeded.

It is not often that large geographicdisturbances appear to coincide withUFO sightings, but when it doeshappen a space-age tool is nowavailable to the investigator. TheLandsat satellite program, supple-mented by Skylab and NASA aircraftdata, provides fairly good geographic

18

coverage of the globe. The data isavailable to anyone willing to pay anominal fee.

The third Landsat was launchedinto near-polar orbit on March 5,1978,and now orbits bur globe at 570 mileshigh every 103 minutes. This type oforbit allows surface coverage of theEarth to proceed westward, with aslight overlap, so that the globe will becovered once every 18 days. Thispermits a systematic study of theEarth's resources and environment.The Landsat is used for remotelysensing features on the Earth's surface,a potential tool for determining whetheror not a particular UFO caused a crashsite.

The Landsat carries two sensorsubsystems to view the Earth directlybeneath the spacecraft. The systemsare the return beam vidicon (RBV) andthe multispectral scanner. Details maybe found in the August 1978 issue of theJournal of the British InterplanetarySociety.

It is doubtful that a Landsat passover a given site would coincide exactlywith the UFO sighting time because ofthe 18 days required by the satellite tocover the globe. However, a set of datamay be available that is near the correctdate. For instance, if Landsat photostaken days or even weeks to monthsbefore May 6, 1978, indicated a largearea of rock landslide at the allegedcrash site, it would be fairly obvious thatthe UFO was not the cause. On theother hand, if no rockslide is evidentthen the two anomalies may reallycoincide. Further, if the Landsat datawere available for the date of thesighting or very soon thereafter, thethermal band sensors could clearlyindicate a "hot" spot, suggesting that itmight be worth digging into therockslide for a closer look.

The process for ordering Landsatphotographs is fairly simple. One must

(California Report, Continued)are i n t r ad imens iona l . en t i t i e sthemselves! There is some evidencethat these entities can change form andshape at will.

The book is an intriguing accountof the terrifying milieu which canemerge from a seemingly harmlessabduction experience. Even to onefamiliar with the tapes and transcriptsof the Scott hypnotic sessions, it isabsorbing reading. For thoseresearchers and other interestedpersons who are not familiar with theBrian Scott case, prepare yourselvesfor a journey into the Twilight Zone.

The book, for all its intelligentpreparation, is flawed, however, as deHerrera is the first to admit. Hismanuscript was rushed into publicationover his protests that it needed editingor, indeed, rewriting. He considered hismanuscript as a first draft, but thepublishers were so excited by thetotally new aspect it threw onto thesubject of UFOs that they went aheadand typeset it over John's objections.The publishers, to their credit,however, u;ere aware of the popularinterest the book will probably create.

It is easy to overlook the flaws,however, for they are mereimperfections in construction and notin content. The entire story of BrianScott is there, together with a greatamount of peripheral research relatedto various psychic aspects of the UFOphenomenon, as displayed in thisbizarre case.

In summation, read The EthereanInvasion, available at selectedbookstores or from the HwongPublishing Company, 10353 LosAlamitos Blvd., Los Alamitos,California 90720, priced at $2.95.Author de Herrera has written theultimate report, a complete case studyof a "contactee," and of histransformation from normal man to full-fledged prophet.

fill out a form to request a geographicsearch by computer for imagery over apoint or area of interest. The results ofthe search will be returned on acomputer listing and instructions forordering. Forms may be obtained fromNCIC Headquarters, U.S. GeologicalSurvey, 507 National Center, Reston,VA 22092.

Lucius Parish

In Others' Words

The November 21 NATIONALENQUIRER reports on UFO sightingsover western Scotland during theSpring of 1978. This issue also containsactor Clint Walker's account of a UFOwhich he saw in the late 1940's. TheENQUIRER for December 12 presentsa UFO cafe from Rocha, Uruguay, inwhich a farmhand was allegedly burnedby a green "fireball." A September 14,1978, sighting from Italy is summarizedin the ENQUIRER'S December 19issue.

The December 10 issue of theSunday newspaper supplement,PARADE, has a good article on some1975 UFO reports from militaryinstallations in Maine, Michigan, NorthDakota, Montana, and Ontario,Canada. As this article clearly pointsout, military encounters with UFOs arecontinuing.

Articles by Larry Arnold, HughCochrane, Wayne Laporte, the late B.Ann Slate and others are found in theJanuary issue of UFO REPORT. One ofthe more interesting recent issues.

Most of the UFO material formerlypresented in BEYOND REALITY hasapparently been channelled into thepublisher's other magazine, UFOUPDATE. However, the January/February issue of B.R. has an article byJereome Eden on the late Dr. WilhelmReich's UFO research and his meetingswith Air Force personnel concerninghis experiments.

The January issue of FATE has anarticle by David Stupple on the highlycontroversial claims of the latecontactee, George Adamski.

As I have mentioned in previouscolumns, the material presented inissues of IDEAL'S UFO MAGAZINE is,at best, highly suspect. Therefore, I willonly mention that the #5 issue is nowavailable. Caveat ernptor!

WORLDS BEYOND: TheEverlasting Frontier edited by The New

Dimensions Foundation is a collectionof articles on various aspects of space.The contributors include formerastronauts Edgar Mitchell and RussellSchweikhart, Buckminster Fuller,California's Governor Brown, GeraldK. O'Neill, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, J.Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee, TomGates, James Harder, Stanton T.Friedman, Timothy Leary and variousothers. The book is divided into five"Phases": . "Reaching Outward,""Space Industries," "ExtraterrestrialLife," "The UFO Phenomenon," and"Space Age Myths." Of the UFOmaterial presented, Friedman's isperhaps the most interesting andreasonable. A "Resource Directory"gives information on space-orientedorganizations, publications, lecturers,etc. Some of the addresses given areout-of-date, but most will be helpful foranyone wanting to learn more aboutany of the topics covered in the book.WORLDS BEYOND is a largepaperback of 302 pages, selling for$6.95. The publisher is: And/Or Press,Box 2246, Berkeley, CA 94702.

(Director's Message, Continuedfrom back cover)

February 1979 issue of the Journal.San Francisco as a location for our

1979 symposium and Los Angeles in1981 are ideal areas when oneconsiders the number of members andsubscribers to the Journal living nearthese metropoli tan cities. 79subscriptions are "bagged" for the postoffice in Los Angeles and 154 for theOakland, California mail distributioncenter. This may be attributed to thetwo State Directors for California, Mrs.Idabel E. Epperson and Paul C. Cerny,for their fine public relations activities.Paul also serves on the staff of theJournal for promotion and publicity/He

has been helped by both Tom Gatesand Jim McCampbell via radio,television, and public speaking eventsin northern California. 233 copies of theMUFON UFO Journal to one state is achallenge to be taken up by the StateDirectors for other large populatedstates.

Bruce S. Maccabee, Ph.D.,MUFON State Director for Marylandand UFO photo analyst, is presentlyevaluating the original copy of themotion picture film made of purportedUFOs by a film crew from an airliner inNew Zealand on December 31, 1978.The motion picture filmed on January1, 1979, by another crew from theground was definitely the planet Venusbased upon the time of filming, anddescription.

The NICAP Board of Governorshas voted to place Jack Acuff on theBoard of Governors and hired AllenHall to become President of NICAP inan attempt to revitalize thisorganization. NICAP, while under theleadership of Major Donald Keyhoe,Director, and Richard H. Hall,Assistant Director, was once theworld ' s largest pr ivate UFOorganization, but is now struggling forsurvival. The fine people who formerlyprovided the leadership for NICAP nowoccupy key leadership roles in theMutual UFO Network. Both MUFONand CUFOS have come on the UFOorganization scene since the demise ofNICAP as a viable group.

MUFON103 OLDTOWNE RD.SEGUIN,TX 78155

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DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE byWalt Andm.

After changing editors of theMUFON UFO Journal three times inthe past three years, and typesetters anequal number of times, logisticalproblems have created delays in thepublication whereby the month andyear on the cover does not reflect thecurrent information contained within itspages. We receive numerous inquiriesasking why we are apparently late. Nowthe people are questioning how we canreport in the August 1978 issue(number 129) the Frederick Valentichpi lo t /a i rcraf t d isappearance- inAustralia that actually occurred onOctober 21,1978. It is imperative that apublication of the caliber of theMUFON UFO Journal should becurrent and make it unnecessary forour staff to apologize for the coverdate.

Starting with this issue, you willnote that it contains the combinedmonthly identification of November-December 1978, issue number 132. Thefollowing issue, number 133, will bedesignated January-February 1979. Wewill then resume our monthly editionwith March 1979 issue number 134.when we will be current. Other monthlyUFO publications have faced the sameproblem, therefore it is not unique toMUFON. With 20 pages, the Journal isthe largest monthly UFO publication inthe world. Others vary from 4 to 12.Some people have suggested that wesimply skip several issues, which wouldautomatically bring the issues up-to-date. We believe our plan will bereceived favorably.

The plan described here willguarantee that each member andsubscriber will receive twelve (12) issuenumbers even though two will becombined issues: (1) The subscriber'sexpiration date now appearing on theJournal cover as part of your address,would be effectively extended twoadditional months. (2) This would becontrolled by the MUFON office by

inserting the "blue renewal application"in each copy 2 months after the normalexpiration date printed on the cover. (3)Presently, we are sending renewalreminders in the last issue of thesubscription. In order to encouragepeople to renew their membership/subscription, two additional monthlycopies are mailed with renewal noticesbefore their address stencils areremoved from our file. This policy isespecially important for our foreignsubscribers due to the slow handling ofsecond class mail. Continuity is thusmaintained in their copies even thoughit may take over a month for them toreceive their issue and then renew. (4)By using consecutive issue numbers,subscribers will recognize thecontinuity of their copies even thoughwe have combined two monthly issues.This is also very important to highschool, college, and university librariesthat purchase their subscriptionsthrough book and periodical agencies.We could thus explain this plan, ifrequested, to their satisfaction. We areconfident that this method of becomingcurrent will meet the approval of ourmembers and subscribers. May wethank all of you for being so patient inthis regard during the past two years.

On the humorous side, someonewill probably jibe our editor on the factthat issue number 130 was dated"September 1979" in error by ourtypesetter. Seriously, this was not amethod of becoming current orpredating our publication as somemagazines make a practice of doing.

Our Continental Coordinatorexpansion program has now includedAustralia/New Zealand with theappointment of Keith Basterfield, 3Park Lake Drive, Wynn Vale, SouthAustralia 5127 as coordinator byMichael Sinclair , Internat ionalCoordinator. Keith has been one ofMUFON's Australian Representatives

„ for the past two years and was

designated as our official informationcenter for Australia by Richard Hall,formerly our International Co-ordinator. Keith has been one of theJournal's most consistent contributorsof published articles for UFO events inAustralia. Bill Chalker and Keithsupplied the lead story about themissing pilot for the August 1978 issue.The New Zealand visual, radar,photographic sightings occurring nearthe year's end by pilots and film crewswas reported by Keith. Harold Fulton,MUFON Director for New Zealand,supplied an immense number ofnewspaper clippings from the NewZealand press on the same events andhas been an effective MUFONspokesman on the scene. AsContinental Coordinator, Mr.Basterfield will not only be our majorcommunication source, but he will beworking with Mr. Fulton and the statedirectors of Australia.

Tom Gates, Chairman for the 1979MUFON UFO Symposium on July 6,7,and 8 at the Airport Marina Hotel at SanFrancisco International Airport, 1380Bayshore Highway, Burlingame, CA94010, telephone (415) 347-5444, ispleased to announce that the hotelrates contracted are $33 for single and$39 for double occupancy. A pre-registration packet may be secured bywriting to Paul C. Cemy, Box 1072, Mt.View, CA 94042. Stanton Friedman isthe Publicity Chairman for theSymposium and also a featuredspeaker. Other featured speakerspresently confirmed are Dr. J. AllenHynek, James M. McCampbell, Dr.Dennis Regan, Dr. Ted Peters, and Dr.Richard Haines. There will be severalother speakers who will presentpublished papers in the symposiumproceedings and will participate in thespeaking sessions. The advanced pre-registration price for the sumposiumwill be announced in the January-

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