Number 109 THE MUFON DECEMBER 1976

UFO JOURNALFounded 1967 ^̂ ^̂ " * $1.00

••••••••••OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF IHUFONJ MUTUAL UFO NETWORK, INC.̂ M^H^̂ HM

NEW INFORMATION ON THE C A L I F O R N I A A I R S H I P SCARE APPEARS ON PAGE 1^ OF THIS I S S U E ,

FROM THE EDITORMUFON UFOJOURNAL

103OldtowneRd.Seguin, Texas 78155

Dennis W'lliam HauckEditor

Walter H.AndrusDirector of MUFON

Joseph M. BrillEditorial Assistant

Mark ChesneyAssociate Editor

Recently I was in LosAngeles conferring withMurry Weisman, producerof Columbia Pictures new20-million dollar UFO film"Close Encounter of theThird Kind". I was veryimpressed with the efforts"being taken to insure theaccuracy and scientifichandling of this motionpicture, to which Dr. Hy-nek is serving as tech-nical advisor.

I cannot help "but won-der what effect the filmwill have on ufology whenit appears next December.

It will certainly thrusta new image of ufology toa public accustomed to late-night-TV flying saucergenre; yet it cannot helpbut to provide a shot inthe arm to the so-calledUFO Industry. I foreseea "Jaws" phenomenon witheveryone jumping on theband wagon. In fact, HalRoach Productions has anew film entitled "AlienEncounter" coming out inJune, and Columbia Pictureshas already initiated legalaction against them. AllI can say is caveat emptor!

In this issueRev. Dr. Barry Downing _Religion and UFOs R E D O B J E CT H O V E R S B E H I N D H I G H W A Y O V E R P A S S 3

B Y L A W R E N C E L A C E YAnnDruHel R E P O R T F R O M S W E D E N 5California Report

B Y B E R T I L S O D E R Q U I S TLucius Parish ^ UFO S I G H T I N G O V E R P A L O A L T O 6Books/Periodicals/History By M | K f M , L L S

MarjorieFish - P S Y C H O L O G I C A L A S P E C T S OF S O M E R E C E N T C L 0 S E E N C O U N T E R S 7Extraterrestrial Life B Y K E I T H B A S T E R F I E L D A N D B E N W E S T

Stan Gordon C A L I FO R N I A S I G HT I N G 10Creatures S UFOs B Y M I K E M I L L S

R E D D I S H - O R A N G E U F O SPOTTED 1 1

1ichardH°". BY B I L L S L A U G H T E RAssociate EditorF O R E I GN N E T W O R K 1 1

Mark Herbstritt I By R 1 C H A R D H A L LAstronomy • , , _.

• IN O T H E R S ' W O R D S . . . 12Rosetta Holmes BY L U C I U S F A R I S HPromotion/Publicity NEW C L O S E E N C O U N T E R C A S E F R O M I N D I A N A - .13

David A. Schroth BY F R A N C I S R I D G ESt. Louis/Mass Media A NEW LOOK AT THE L O D I I N C I D E N T 1*4

, u c c k i BY L O R E N G R O S SJohn F. SchuesslerUFO Propulsion R E P O R T FROM I R E L A N D 16

B Y R I C H A R D H A L LA U S T R A L I A N A N D B R I T I S H U F O C O N F E R E N C E S . . . . 1 7

Editor/Publishers Emeritus BY R I C H A R D H A L L, • S O M E G O A L S FOR THE NEW Y E A R 18

Len StrmgfieldCommentary BY H E N R Y M C K A Y

D I R E C T O R ' S M E S S A G E 1 9BY WALT ANDRUS

R E C A P P I N G AND COMMENTING 20n.,m* UFO _ „****»*» BY " ' C H A R D H A L L

M«ul UFO Retm* Softin, Tun. ktauiptioo «« A S T R O N O M Y N O T E S 20

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BY M A R K H E R B S T R I T T

* Sttaii. Tun. Mm ondelnerible copia IK IIUFO* Iht eontenta of Ihi MlffON UFO IOUIIIIIU. in daintiincd b, the editor, nd do Fermmion a hereb, innted to quote hwn thb roue gmided not moti than 200UFO JOJIM1.10J Odlenu It, Stjuta, TUB 7I1SS. M netmjrilj f,pmM, th, ̂ ,1,1 pjjjtbn „, jattmKt of nunm. Opinteo «otdi in quote Inn tba torn proiided not mon thin 200 mnb in quoted

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^̂ ^̂ ^̂ ^̂ ^̂ ^̂ ^̂ _̂—.J Gottlin St, Hmimond, Ind. 46327. induded.

Red Object Hovers Behind HighwayOverpass in Nebraska

By Lawrence Lacey (MUFON State Section Director)

At 4:30 am December 1,1976,1 was awakened by a callfrom South Sioux City policedispatcher Doug Adams report-ing a UFO observed by 3 boysnearby that morning. I talkedbriefly with David Snyder, 16,and obtained Ihe basic facts. Ilater arranged for an interviewwith all 3 boys at a trailerowned by Dale Snath's motherat Lot 129, Freeway MobilHomes at 2:30 p.m. December3. This included retracing thepath their truck took during thesighting with the 3 boys in mycar. I also had each of them fillout .MUFON UFO SightingQuestionnaire #1 (GeneralCase) and secured a sketch ofwhat each saw.• , As I have reconstructed theevent, it was essentially asfollows. The 3 boys Dale Spath(21 years, driver), his brother 16and friend David Snyder wereout driving in, Dale's pick-uptruck at 2:50 a.m., December 1.They had just passed under the

;new 1124 overpass travelingsouth on the entension ofRoundhouse Road, As theyreached the point marked by anX on accompanying mapsketch, where they first had anunobstructed view to the west,just before the road turns, theynoticed an orange light slightlynorth of due west. Followingthe road they rounded the curveand proceeded on west. DaleSpath thought at this point thatthe orange glow nearly filled thespace between the north em-

SKETCH ;OF I NC I DENT

bankment .\nd the middle sup-port of the new highway 77overpass crossing north-southover both lanes of 1-128 andstill under ̂ construction. Fromthe Description given by DavidSnyder its apparent size was 4Xthat of the setting sun. 1determined this was reasonablyclose to Dale Spath's descrip-tion, since on initial sightingthey were Vi mile east of theoverpass.

:Upon further questioning,Dale thought the glow was from1 to 3 feet off the ground, withthe top somewhat above theroadhead of the overpass. Asthey drove on west, the objecteither moved to the left, nowfilling both halves of the spanon either side of the centercolumn and extending abovethe railing, or the approach ofthe truck could have changedthe viewing perspective so thatit appeared to move, especiallyif it was located 50 or more feetbeyond the overpass.

All 3 witnesses described somesort of dark splotches vary ing innumber from 2 to 7 dependingupon the time of observationand the witness. There was nota definite outl ine or border orpermanent shape to the blackspots and they seemed tochange shape and location inrelation to the orange glowenclosing them. As can be seenfrom the witnesses drawings,the object is shown extending avariable distances above theoverpass, depending again up-on the location* of observers,time and person reporting it.The object also reportedly didnot have a distinct outline atthe top. In the telephone reportDave Snyder said the total timeunder observation was about 2minutes. When they first sawthe light, their car gave a timeof IVi minutes. When they firstsaw the light, their windowswere down, but during theobservation they became fright-ened and rolled them up. The

truck had a loud muffler andconsequently they couldn't haveheard anything even if therehad been any noise. When theyreached the grade cut whereRoundhouse Road again turnssouth, about 250-300 feet fromthe overpass the bank obscuredthe object from their view. Theythought of driving off Round-house Road through the ditchand up on to the new not yetopened 1-128, so they coulddrive right up to the object andunder the overpass, but wereafraid they couldn't make it.They drove on south to the nextintersection then west andnorth h-<t when they reached aposition to see the overpassfrom the west, the source oflight was gone. They drovearound the area for about IVahours even Agoing up the con-struction site under the over-pass, but saw nothing moreother than the constructionequipment. They then drove tothe South Sioux City policestation to report the observa-tion. Later questioning abouttheir 9 week old Shepherd andMalamute pup revealed thatwhen they returned to theirtrailer after reporting to thepolice dispatcher and to me,that the pup had acted "sickand scared". According toDoug Spath, his ears were flaton his head and that was notnormal.

Futher questions were direct-ed at the witnesses in an effortto verify their reliability. All 3reported having seen UFO's onat least one occasion before.They did not however seemovereager to volunteer infor-mation. Dale was in a wheelchair from an auto accidentand uses crutches to get to andfrom his pickup. Police dis-4

patcher Doug Adams reportedto me that they had no policerecords, except numerous traf-fic violations for Dale. He didnot see any indication that theyhad been drinking and hebelieves they saw what theyreported and that it is unlikelythat they would attempt toperpetrate a hoax. After talkingwith them for 2'/2 hours, I aminclined to agree that all 3would not imagine the sightingor attempt a hoax.

Details on the earliest sight-ing by Dave Snyder are asfollows: He and another boynow living in Sioux Falls, werewalking across a field in thesouth east part of South SiouxGity about 6:00 between Feb-ruary 20 and 24th, 1972 whenthey came upon an object onthe ground flashing blue, greenand red lights. They werescared and ran home. Theyapparently returned the follow-ing day and found a large circle

F.'rs*•jj^te-iJre.

25 to 30 feet in diameter withmelted snow. Dave related thatbefore the sighting he hadbought books and read up onthe subject of UFO's, but thatafter this he got scared andburned the books. He said hetold his parents, but they didn'tbelieve him. His second. sight-ing occurred about 2 weeksprior to the present one whilewalking one night with DougSpath on a street in SouthSioux City. They saw two whitelighted objects which movedapart, grew smaller, as ifmoving away, merged into oneand then quickly faded fromview.

The sighting by Dale Spathwas about 8 years ago and hewasn't sure of the details.

Doug and David reported acar following them just after thesighting and it disappeared in astrange manner they couldn'texplain. Dale, the driver of thepickup did not see it.

Report From SwedenBy Bertil Soderquist (MUPON Representative)

[Ed. Note: These cases wereselected by Professor Soder-quist from a larger numberoccurring in Scandinavia lastyear, on the basis of containingsome unusual features. Num-erous "light-in-the-sky" reportsalso were made]

At Gardsjo (southwest Swe-den), 11 March 1976, at 6:05AM, Mrs. L.G. saw a UFO,glowing in a reddish hue,hovering above her cowshed atan altitude of about 30 meters.The object had a dark, rotatingband around the perimeter andcupolas of a glasslike materialon top and bottom. No soundwas heard. The witness ex-perienced a severe headache,lasting several days afterwards.

Fagersta (central Sweden), 16May 1976, 1:05 AM. An am-ateur radio operator was prac-ticing his art at a nearby skislope (due io the excellentreceiving conditions there)when he noticed a large white,circular object above the hori-zon. The size was about equalto half a full moon. The UFOmoved irregularly up and downin elevation, and also laterally.The interesting feature was thatcommunications on the 2 meterradio band were unusually goodonly as long as the UFO was inthe neighborhood.

At a cottage on a ski slopejust outside Valadalen (63.3 degN; 13.2 deg E), 7 January 1976,about midnight. Two witnessesobserved two UFOs in a valleyat a distance of about 1kilometer. The first object was

pyramid-shaped, with squarebase and vertex pointing up-ward. It shone in yellow-orangeand green. Around its basewere strung a series of whatlooked like Lamps. (See Figure)

After a while, a rocket-likeobject rose up in the sky, butthe observers were unable to tellfrom where it started on theground. No sounds were heard.After watching the UFO fornearly two hours, the witnessessaw a very powerful bluish-white light illuminate the forestin the vicinity of the first UFO,and suddenly another UFOcame into view.It was emitting a reddish-yellowlight that "vibrated," and threevery large "windows" could beseen at the lower end. A whitegas-cloud seemed to emit fromthe upper end of the UFO. Thecloud was distinctly boundedand seemed to rotate. Thediameter of the upper portionwas estimated to be 50 meters.

The second UFO was visiblefor about 40 seconds, before

both UFOs darkened and van-ished. This observation is inter-esting because the UFO couldbe seen against a backdrop oftrees, which makes the esti-mated size more reliable. Ac-cording to police and militarysources, there was no airborneactivity this night in the area.

Smedjebacken (central Swe-den), 25 September 1976, 7:00PM. Three witnesses saw abright blue-white UFO in slowtransit across the sky, movingslowly southward over a periodof five hours. A long, wire-likeobject was suspended under-neath it, emitting a constantshower of sparks. Finally, theobject stopped for 10 minutes,started moving northward, thenshortly afterwards disappearedfrom view. (Ed. Note: In somerespects this resembles a largeplastic balloon reflecting thesun's rays from near or justbelow the horizon, and a sus-pended package. However, theshower of sparks has no obviousexplanation). ,-

UFO Sighting Over Palo Alto

S K E T C H OF O B J E C T

On the 22nd of October,1976,30-year-old Jack Hicklingwas driving alone in his auto-mobile, traveling southeast onAlma Street in Palo Alto,California. It was shortly before9:00 P.M. when Hickling stop-ped at the traffic light at theintersection of Alma Street andCharleston Road. Through hiswindshield he saw the airborneobject due south of his positionat an estimated distance of twoor three miles. Hickling laterremarked that he felt curiousand continued traveling downAlma Street in the roughdirection of the UFO. Althoughtrees along the roadway inter-mittently obscured his vision,(the UFO was at an elevation ofapproximately 15 deg. abovethe horizon), Hickling was ableto give a full description of theobject.

What he saw was the size of aquarter held at arm's length,sharply detailed and somewhat6

drum shaped, with its widthbeing about three times itsheight. It rotated slowly in acounter-clockwise direction asviewed from Hickling's ground-level vantage point. Rows ofbrightly lit "windows" uniform-ly surrounded the outside of theUFO except for one narrowvertical space that appearedfeatureless. Hickling noted thatthe UFO reminded him of thetop of an office building with itsshining windows contrastedsharply against the night sky.The sighting lasted no longerthan three minutes; the objectmoved rapidly from view duringthis time period and since itspath carried it steadily awayfrom Hickling, he at no timefelt threatened by the object.

Although this case involvesonly a single witness and forthat reason will be held in-herently suspect by some UFOresearchers, it should be stres-sed that Mr. Hickling possesses

a masters degree and was char-acterized by the MUFON in-vestigator as being "very reli-able". Hickling stated that hehad never before seen an objectof an unidentified nature andwould rather hot label what hesaw as a UFO, but instead as anobject about whose nature hepreferred not guess.

It would, perhaps, be fruitfulfor investigators in the PaloAlto area to search the backpages of the local newspaperspublished the day following thesighting to see if any otherpersons reported a UFO on theevening of October 22nd. Theobject, with its luminous win-dow-like structures, must havebeen quite prominent in theevening darkness. While mostpeople are indoors at 9:00P.M., a significant number ofother motorists would still beout on the roads at that time.Such a follow-up to this casecould result in significant cor-roboration of the sighting.

Psychological Aspects of Some RecentAustralian Close Encounters

By Keith Basterfield and Ben West

Several months ago we beganto become interested in thepsychological aspects and at-titudes of people who reportedclose encounters with the UFOphenomenon.

This led to a survey of theavailable literature on humanthought processes, the humanbrain and human reactions.This reading showed us that wedon't really yet have more thana vague understanding of themechanisms of the humanmind. The factual side of thearticle is based upon materialwe have personally been able toinvestigate and verify in themain, especially most of thecases used.

This restriction was imposedto'minimize supposition aboutthe event to try and work fromfirst hand material wheneverpossible.

We have speculated on pos-sibilities and we stress they areonly possibilities, finishing witha suggested idea for furtherinvestigations along the lines ofthis article.Social background

Throughout history as a peo-ple we have had an inherentfear of the night and the dark.As children we are frightenedby our parents with "don't goout in the dark the bogey manwill get you," and sleeping withthe bedroom light on is a popu-lar thing at some stage in earlylife. '

Long ago whole villages livedin fear of creatures of the night,ghouls, witches and vampires.

Ghosts are said to be particu-larly active at night and mostreported poltergeist events takeplace during the dark. .

Our ancestors were afraid ofeclipses of the Sun because theyfeared the Sun was being eaten,away and the light was beingtaken from them. Without thesunlight our imagination canroam over a multi tude ofpossible events. Even today inour technologically advancedsociety most people don't likethe night because of a deeprooted fear of what might be"lurking out there", althoughmany people wouldn't readilyadmit it.

A great many of our closeencounters of the three kindsoccur to solitary witnesses.Suddenly they are confrontedwith the appearance of a diffuselight or a defined object and areaction is set up which some-times goes alpng these lines. "Itcan't be a UFO; they don'texist. Yet there it is and I can'texplain it. Maybe it is a UFO. Ifit is why has this occurred tome?". Fear and/or panic maythen set in.

A solitary witness has no oneto confirm the event. Theymight think "anything couldhappen to me-no one wouldever know what happened to ,

'me if I disappeared".Television series, movie pic-

tures and books have had agreat impact upon our generalconcept of the subject of life inthe universe and UFOs. Todaymany people accept the strong

possibility of l ife existing out-side the Earth and quite a few,the possibility of extra-ter-restials v is i t ing us.

In the story line of televisionand movies plus books, mostp.lots seem to have extra-ter-restials as bent on taking overthe world by invasion. A fewpicture s them . as a detachedgroup of scientists watching ourevolut ion. Thus a majority ofpeople would appear to be ofthe opinion that if extra-ter-restial life is visiting us that thislife would be hostile to us.

From personal observationsthe younger element of societywith their more ready ac-ceptance of television and gen-eral media promulgation of"UFO's don't exist" propa-.ganda, despite their schoolingin physics and possibly astron-omy, would still .be in theposition of the previous gener-ation who grew up with the"man won't get to the Moon"syndrome.

Thus witnesses from anysocial background may verypossibly be seeped in a subcon-scious blanket of pre-conceivedideas of UFO encounters andwhat might happen to them ifthey came across them.Biological Considerations

Several years ago it wasthought that each human beingwas a completely separate en-tity in the environment. Recent-ly ideas have produced theconcept that we are a biologicalunit in a completely integratedenvironment. Suggestions have

been made that our mentalapparatus produces electricalcurrents which generate mag-netic fields, albeit very weakmagnetic fields. These fieldsmay interact with solar, lunarand geomagnetic fields causingpeople to be Sensitive to weath-er changes, etc. This interactioncould also be the source of our"moods."

Our moods to an extentdetermine our reasoning abil-ities. Someone after an argu-ment is said "not to be thinkingstraight." Perception problemsmay be experienced due totiredness as well as moods.

More importantly from ourpoint of view, biologically dur-ing the night humans are at an"ebb" with a low around 2-3a.m. Our metabolism slowsdown with pulse rate, brain-wave activity, breathing andbody temperature at a mini-mum even if one isn't actuallyasleep. This differs for nightshift workers to some degree.

Also, events which are ob-served immediately uponawakening due to a disturb-ance, and of short duration,may be very much open tointerpretation.

Our close encounter witnes-ses, then, vary in their degree ofbiological awareness and care-ful note should be made of theconditions under which somecases occur.Environmental and sociologicalsituations

* An event which happenedin an isolated area wouldappear to have less chance ofbeing observed than one in apopulated area, on an inversepopulation ratio basis, i.e.,fewer people less chance.

* An event which happenedin bad weather would appear8

also to have less chance of beingobserved.

* An event in which a car was"stopped" would appear toimpress a witness more thanone where they merely passedan object.

These and many more itemsneed to be taken into consider-ation. However we have not thedata yet available to test outcomments such as this.

From an analysis of Austra-lian close encounters type 3 (36cases on file) we can state (1).

1. Out of these 36 cases 12occurred in a metropolitan typeenvironment and 21 in a coun-try environment, (3 localitiesunknown.)

2.14 cases out of 36 occurredwhile the witness was in transit,11 transit/remote area, 3 trans-it/urban areas.

3. Five each for domestic/re-mote and domestic/urban.

4. Witness familiarity withsituation/environment/areashows:

familiar 58%unfamiliar 42%

5. Male/female breakdownAdult male 17

Female 14Teenage male 4

female 4Children male 5

female 1Aborigine l

Indigenous 5A study of the time distri-

bution of close encounter typeone to three cases here inAustralia reveals two peaks: (2)between 8-10 p.m. (40) and 2-4a.m. (30) from a study of 193cases where the time was stated.

One can readily under-stand a peak between 8 and 10p.m. as a sizeable proportion ofthe population is still movingaround/active at this time.

possibly more so than at anyother time of the day exceptduring peak hour traffic.

However, a 2-4 a.m. peak (of75% of the 8-10 p.m.) peak doesnot seem to be so readilyunderstandable in terms of thepercentage of population mov-ing around.

These peaks of 8-10 p.m. and2-4 a.m. are not only to be seenin Australian close encounters,but in other samples, namely in

a. a study of 573 landingreports on a global basis byJacques Vallee (3), and

b. a study of 100 type oneevents in Spain and Portugal byVicente-Juan Ballester Olmos(4).

One should also note therelationship of the biologicalebb at 2-3 a.m. and the 2-4 a.m.secondary peak. Coincidence?Deliberate or accidental?

One area which we haveclosely examined based on thewitnesses' report is the conceptof "deliberate" and "accident-al" encounters for want of abetter terminology.

A short list of cases willillustrate our division."Accidental"

•1. Willasto^S.Aust. 28.6.632130hrs.

A driver rounded a bend inthe road and encountered anobject sitting on the road infront of him. He described it asdiscoid. Braking violently to ahalt only a few yards from theobject, he watched as the objecttook off straight up at highspeed.

2. Tully,Queensland.l9.1.66ca 0900 hr.

A farmer travelling past alagoon noted an oval shapedobject rising from the groundnearby. Upon checking thelocation, a circular swirled mat

of reeds was found floating ontop of the lagoon.

3. Eucla,S.Aust.8.5.72 oo!5hrs.

Whilst travelling over theNullabor plain, a family notedan orange disc rise from nearbyscrub in front of them as theyapproached. It shrank in ang-ular size until it was one thirdof its original size, then "van-ished". .

4. Mannum t S.Aust, 31.5.720635 hrs. .

A manager on his way towork encountered an objecthanging above a road in thickfog. He stopped his car, theobject rose into the fog with awhistling noise."Deliberate"

5. Childers,Queensland.14.1.69 0430 hrs.

A migrant family were wak-ened by an intense buzzingsound. Going outside, they allsaw a disc and three "space-men" who collected samples.The men did not seem to be

, concerned that they were beingwatched.

6. Frankston^ Victoria. 3rdand 25th Jul 72 2115 hrs.

A woman saw a blue disc inthe sky. On the later date theobject apparently stopped hercar — a message was given toher. There were follow-up psy-chic type events.

7. Central Australia. 27/28Aug 72 Night

On two nights during aDarwin-Adelaide trip, two wo-men experienced mul t ip lesightings of a mushroom shap-ed object in the sky and at close.ground level. One had "feel-ings" of contact with the object.Object later seen on the groundby the side of the road.

8. Ivy Tanks, S. Aust. 6.9.730300 hrs.

Woman passenger in a semi-trailer was awakened by a voicewhich told her to look out of thewindow. She saw a "caravan"and two human-l ike figures.Driver of semi did not seeobject.

9. Tayene,Tasmania. 22.9.74, 1700 hrs.

Woman waiting for relativealone was approached by a topshaped object. In panic, thewitness backed car almost overa cliff. Nervous disorder fol-lowed.

10. Renmark |S . Aust. Sep 74ca 2215 hrs.

Woman t r a v e l l i n g home"buzzed" by object. She knewit was a UFO.Into speculation:

In viewing our collection ofreports, we have arrived at thepossibility of two (there may bemore) opposing hypotheses.Briefly stated, they are:

a. Close encoun te r s areevents generated by humanminds — within the mind —and may parallel poltergeist ac-tivity which seems on availableevidence to be human psycho-kinetic activities.

b. Close. encounte r s areevents which are aimed athuman beings — they aresometimes accidental andsometimes deliberate. Mindmanipulation may occur forsome as yet unknown reason —but may be due to a vastpsychological style observationof us. ;

Firstly a look at hypothesis B-^ that close encounters areevents aimed at us, possiblystimuli to observe our reactions.In cases such as Ivy Tanks andFrankston we have people be-ing spoken to by "voices" whichthey link to UFO's. In theCentral Australian case a feel-

ing of mental "contact". Inreports like Renmark and ano-ther example Kimba SouthAus t r a l i a (5) we 'have an initialw i t n e s s r e a c t i o n t h a t they"knew" s t ra ightaway that i twas a UFO. In the Renmarkcase when questioned why sheknew it was a UFO, the ladyw i t n e s s cou ldn ' t expla in why,she just "knew" it was a UFO.At Childers, the occupantsd idn ' t seem to care if they werebeing watched. .

AM these cases plus a vastnumber of overseas ones, es-pecially "abduction" cases putan "overview of mankind" pro-

; ject up as a working hypothesis.Before looking at hypothesis

A, we wish to briefly discussaspects of the human brain.Wi th in the brain we are able tomeasure brain "waves" withthe help of an electroenceph-alograph machine.

We believe that we can sep-rate four main types of waves:

.a. Alpha waves — usual lyassociated with an alert butrelaxed state. The .most prom-inent brainwave in typical wak-ing state. Blocked by suddenst imul i ., b. Beta waves — appear inintense concentration and men-tal agitation.

c. Delta waves.—.associatedwith disease, death and de-generation.

;•• d . Theta waves — involved inemotionality, creative imagery,and computation on a deeplevel. Infrequent in a wakingstate.

Very li t t le is known abouttheta waves. One wamn inRussia is supposed to haveshown a pulse rate of 240 perminute and theta waves of .240per minute, while psychoki-netically moving small objects

whilst under scientific obser-vation. This pulse rate is fourtimes normal average (6).Speculation plus:

A person is normally inAlpha waves for the majority ofthe time scattered with Betawaves. If a person, especiallyone travelling alone was at abiological ebb, thinking of theenvironment they were in andmaybe of things that mighthappen, then theta waves mightemerge. The same might occurfor a person awakened fromsleep, coming from a dream toreality where theta waves occurin creative imagery. This maycause an emotional state. Notealso that Ivy Tanks, Frankston,Renmark, Tayene and CentralAustralia witnesses were allwomen.

Once this occurs creativeimagery might be present orgenerated (asleep or awakerespectively) — created withinthe mind — an event mightthen be registered, involving theperson intimately within theframework of their subcon-scious knowledge.

Thus an event is born as-sisted by a person's sociologicalbackground, inherent fears andanxieties, in which the witnesscompletely believes.

As has been found as a resultof telepathic experiments inRussia that one person cantransmit their images to ano-ther person, then multiple wit-nesses can also be covered bythis hypothesis by suggestingt h a t sympathet ic creativeimagery is conveyed to allpresent.A line of research:

A suggestion can be made ofplacing a close encounter wit-ness under hypnosis on an EECmachine and then getting them10

to relive the incident. Check theresultant EEG recording whichshould be a record of theirbrain waves at the time of theevent and see what it reveals.

If one gets Alpha/Beta, Beta,Strong Theta then one couldexamine hypothesis A. If Al-pha/Beta, Beta, strong Betaregisters, perhaps hypothesis Bcould bear further inspection.Summary:

In this article we have putforward some ideas on thepsychological aspects of closeencounters here in Australia. Itis hoped that this will stimulateothers to pursue this line ofresearch further.

Case references:1. Files of UFO Research Inc.2. Files of Queensland UFO

Research Bureau.3. Files of UFO Research Inc.4. Files of UFO Research Inc.5. "The News" Adelaide

17.1.69 "North QueenslandRegister" 18.1.69.6. Garry Little and Bill Sta-

pleton of Victoria.7. Files of UFO Research Inc.8. Files of UFO Research Inc.9. Files of Tasmanian UFO

Investigation Center.10. Files of UFO Research Inc.Text References:(1) "An Australian catalogueof close encounter type threereports" by Bill Chalker andKeith Basterfield.(2) Australian listing of closeencounter type one to threereports by Bill Chalker.(3) Flying Saucer Review Vol.15 No. 4 p. 14.(4) Flying Saucer Review specialno. 4 — "Type one phenomenain Spain and Portugal."(5) "Psychic discoveries behindthe Iron Curtain" by SheilaOstrander and Lynn Schroeder.

CaliforniaSighting

By Mike Mills

Shirley Johnson, a Reseda, .jCalifornia homernaker, wasmotoring east on KittridgeAvenue in Reseda on Septem- *ber 25, 1976, when at approx-imately 8:30 P.M. she sightedwhat she described as a UFOhovering low in the sky at adistance of three city blocks.Kristine Rimkus, 14, a pas-senger in the car, also saw theobject which was glowing bril-liantly in the clear evening sky.The UFO moved slowly fromsouth to north, (their right totheir left), at times disappear-ing behind residential trees.Ms. Johnson pulled over to thecurb so that the pair could get abetter look at the unusualobject. Both agreed that it wasoval shaped, appeared to besolid, and was quite bright.Their drawing of the UFO sub-mitted to MUFON investigatorWalter Greenawaid reveals aclassic saucer shape, its under-side covered with dozens of '-small brightly shining lights. Ablinking red light could be seenat the top of the saucer. Theobject was very large, largerthan a house, but no soundfrom the object could be de-tected by the two observers. Itwas watched for perhaps twominutes before disappearingfrom view. The UFO did noteffect in any way either thehealth of the witnesses or thefunctioning of the automobilein which they were riding.

Reddish-Orange UFO SpottedBy Bill Slaughter

South Sioux City (Nebraska)police dispatcher Doug Adamsaroused MUFON State SectionDirector Dr. Lawrence A. Laceyat 4:30 a.m. Dec. 1 with a UFOreport from three young men.

After routine investigation byLacey, he filed a report of thesighting, which was reddish-orange and "the size of ahouse" behind a highway over-pass under construction onInterstate 129.

All three witnesses said theyspotted the object about 250 to300 feet from the pickup truckthey were riding in at about2:30 a.m. that Wednesday inlate 1976.

"We were on our way home,"said Dale Spath, 21, '.'some-body said there was a fire. But,when I looked at it, I thought itwas the moon at first."

Slowing down to observe theobject, the observers said theUFO was first seen in the westand seemed to pass behind theoverpass, just about a footballfield in distance from the truck.

They lost sight of the objectas they neared because an em-bankment from the highwayconstruction project obstructedtheir view. They didn't see itagain.

David Snyder, one of the 16-year-old /passengers in thetruck, said the redness in thesky first made him notice theobject.

"The object was orange andabout four times bigger thanthe sun with dark moving ob-jects in it," said Snyder.

Each witness stated in theMUFON questionnaire that it

was about the size of a houseand egg-shaped.

A loud muffler on the truckprevented the young men fromnoticing any noise coming fromthe object, plus they rolled uptheir windows when they be-came frightened.

The early morning sky wasclear with no precipitation re-ported. And, each witness saidthe object had fuzzy edges.

In his interviews with theyoung men Dec. 3, Lacey re-ported the "reconstruction ofthe event."

"From the description givenby Snyder, its apparent size was4X that of the setting sun,"related Lacey. "I determinedthis was reasonably close to (thethird boy's) description..."

Further questioning revealedthat Spath thought the glowwas from one to three feet offthe ground with the top some-what above the overpass.

"All three witnesses describ-ed some sort of dark splotchesvarying in number from two toseven, depending upon the timeof observation and the wit-ness," reported the Iowa statesection director.

Lacey said there was nodefinite outline, border or per-manent shape to the blackspots "and they .seemed tochange shape and location inrelation to the orange glowenclosing them."

Snyder told the director thetotal time the object was underobservation was about twominutes.

"After it was gone, we wentback around four or five timesto try and find it, but couldn't,"said Spath.

ForeignNetwork

By Richard Hall

MUFON's international net-work was expanded significant-ly in the latter part of 1976 byseveral new appointments, in-cluding countries not previouslyrepresented.

Greece. Steve Hatzopoulous,Athens University student, fieldinvestigator.Iran. Darrell A. Oaks, an

aircraft mechanic, is monitor-ing news reports and collectingsighting data for MUFON.

Japan. Masaru Mori, Sec-tional Director for NorthernJapan. Takao Ikeda, SectionalDirector for Southern Japan.Yasuo Nishimura, Hikone-shi,has joined the astronomy sec-tion and will monitor newsreports.

Mexico. Luis Francisco Mu-noz, electronics student in Tep-atitlan, Jalisco State, field in-vestigator.

South Africa. Mike Viljoen,biochemist in Durban, hasreplaced Carl Van Vlierden asRepresentative.

Sweden. Juan Manzanares, ateacher and amateur astron-omer in Ludvika, has beenappointed to the position offield investigator.

Yugoslavia. Milos Krmelj, ateacher in Ljubljana, Repre-sentat ive . Marko Breskvar,electronics student in Ljub-ljana, field investigator.

MUFON now has represen-tation in 25 countries on allmajor continents of the world.

11

Lucius Parish

In Others' WordsOne of the more contro-

versial National Enquirer arti-cles of recent date is the (al-leged) interview with newscasterWalter Cronkite in the De-cember 14 issue. Cronkite hadapparently become a UFO"believer" over the years, ifRobin Leach's story could betaken at face value. Ah, there'sthe rub! Cronkite was laterquoted as saying that the entirearticle was a lie, that reporterLeach never spoke with him atall, etc. All of which brings up avital question: How much ofwhat we read — UFO-wise orotherwise — in the Enquirercan be believed? A few morefiascos such as the Cronkiteaffair might very well destroywhatever amount of credibilitythe Enquirer has built up inrecent years. It is understoodthat the publication is con-cerned about such matters andwill attempt to obtain absoluteverification for future stories.Let us hope so. A second articlein the December 14 Enquirergives a summary of the recentexcellent book by Robert Tem-ple, The Sirius Mystery. TheDecember 28 issue rehashes theCandian Indian rock paintingswhich seem to show UFOs(already covered in detail inJohn Magor's Canadian UFOReport) and also presents theUFO views of ex-astronautHarrison Schmitt, now a Sen-ator-elect from New Mexico.

The Star for December 14contains an interesting UFO/occupant report from England.No date for the event is given in12

the article, but this is appar-ently the incident which tookplace in early November of1976,

The January issue of Fate hasan article on the 1974 Rho-desian abduction case whichhas already been detailed inseveral UFO publications. Lit-tle, if any, new information isincluded here.

1 think I'll quit trying tofigure out when Playboy isgoing to publish their paneldiscussion on UFOs. I original-ly said it would be in theDecember issue, but that waswrong. I then said it would bein the February issue, but atthis writing, I'm not sure that iscorrect. At any rate, it ap-parently will be published inone of the 1977 issues, so Isuggest you keep checking is-sues of Playboy (a task which Ishall not mind in the slightest!).

An article summarizing thepast 30 years of UFO researchcan be found in the March issueof Psychic World. Not too muchof interest here.

Want to read an absolutelycharming and delightful book?If so, I can wholeheartedlyrecommend Hands by Mar-garet Williams & Lee Gladden.Frankly, I don't know if any ofthe information is objectivetruth or not (and neither do theauthors), but I have rarely readany book which I enjoyed asmuch as I did this one. It allbegan with experiments in hyp-notic age regression, but thesubject found herself in ap-parent telepathic communica-

tion with a creature living on aplanet in some far-distant solarsystem. He (or it) was some-thing on the order of a giantjellyfish, with eight arms andhands. In some way, the crea-ture was able to use the sub-ject's body in order to ex-perience Earthly life. Granted,this all sounds very far-out andimplausible, but as I said, it's adel ightful narrative. The"Hands" creatures claim tohave been visited by a race ofhumanoid space travellers, theCenosites, who have apparentlyvisited Earth as well. Theyclaim to have been in contactwith various people in ancienttimes, so there is a flavor of"ancient astronauts" in Handsalso. If you are weary of UFO-related statistics, this is an idealbook to read for pleasure.You'll have to form your ownopinion of the material, ofcourse, but that's what it's allabout. Hands is $5.50 per copyfrom Galaxy Press, Box 100,Warner Springs, CA 92086.

A brief look at what iscoming up in 1977, so far asUFO and related subjects areconcerned. February will seethe publication of the late Dr.Menzel's last assault on theUFO subject, The UFO Enig-ma, to be released by Double-day. Dr. Roger Westcott's Puz-zles of Prehistory is also sched-uled for February publication(publisher unknown at thiswriting), as is Irwin Gins-burgh's First, Man. Then,Adam! from Simon & Schuster.Leonard Stringfield's new book

(exact title unknown) is due outfrom Doubleday in May. D.Scott Rogo's The HauntedUniverse is set for May releaseby New American Library andthere is a rumor that CoralLorenzen may have a new bookon UFO abduction cases com-ing out about this same time.Other books in progress includeone by Ronald Story (title un-known) from Doubleday, Clark& Coleman's Creatures of theBorderland from Warner Pa-perback Library, The Myster-ious Planet Mars by DonWilson (publisher unknown),The Lubbock Lights by DavidR. Wheeler from Award Booksand George H. Leonard'sSomebody Else Controls OurWorld (publisher unkown).And, as always, there'll beseveral others which haven'tmade it onto the grapevine atthis time. Good reading to all!

CORRESPONDENTREQUESTED

Brian G. Panter, 7 ChurchClose, Braybrooke near Mkt.Harborough, Leics. LE16 8LD,England, has sent the followingrequest to MUFON: "We don'tget to hear much about sight-ings in the U.S.A. and I waswondering if there was anymember in your organizationwho I could write to regularlyon the subject of UFOs."

J.B. Delair of Contact (UK),who participates in the MU-FON international data ex-change program, is specializingin reports of skyblasts or sky-quakes relative to UFO activity.Address: 75 Norreys Rd., Cum-nor, Oxford, OX 2 9PU, Eng-land.

New Close Encounter CaseFrom Indiana

By Francis Ridge (State Section Director)

A close encounter case withsix witnesses occurred around7:05 p.m. on October 28, 1976in Evansville, Indiana. Al-though a nocturnal sighting,the case has a high degree ofstrangeness, as can be deductedfrom the testimony of witnessLee Golden: "This is no hallu-cination...! live over here on theeast side on Emmett St. Thisthing came right over the top ofthe house (which was 50' fromthe witness), I'd say a hundred-ISO feet over the top of thehouse...And it was rectangularon the top and it had a big lightat the bottom. I couldn't seehow the bottom was made, butit was totally noise-proof,(there) wasn't any noise at all.

"As it came over it wasgaining altitude and it washeading North and when it got(way) up in the air (it got uppretty far) and something shotout from the bottom of it. Andsomething shot out of the sideof it later on." The object camefrom the South, heading Northat low altitude (100-150') thenturned and headed NE andgained altitude and shrank tothe size of a star, when theobject ejected something. Atthe lower altitude the objectappeared to be about the size ofan automobile. Observationtime: 15 minutes.

"The object had a rectang-ular-shaped cage of some sorton the top portion, and lookedvery clearly like some sort ofcylinder or entrance from top tobottom, located in middle. Alsonoticed what appeared to be a

door or heavy screened openingat top part located in middle.Noticed the lights had a yellowcast and then went to a white.The object was moving veryslow at first and then seemed tostop, head from due north toNE, took on a quick speed fromstopping point, went up a gooddistance, stopped again, ejectedsomething and went up higherand did this again. Then it gotso far out 1 lost sight of it."

The most interesting part ofthis report is not the difficultnarrative, but the two sketchesmade by two of the six witnes-ses. We are unable to reproducethem here, but maybe a littleexplanation on my part willhelp convey better the discrip-tion the men were havingdifficulty with. Try to picture a"hot-dog"-shaped object with awhite or yellow light at eachbottom-end (the hot-dog lyinghorizontal). In the center-bot-tom visualize a protuberancelike a rocket nozzle. Somethingsmaller, but similar is on eachend of the hot dog, whichincidentally appeared metallic.Above this hot dog or cilind-rical configuration is a rectang-ular panel about IVi times thesize of the cylinder and appearsas something like a sail on aship. It is connected to the"ship" by three thick tubes, thefirst and 3rd being dark and thecenter one being shiny; evenly-spaced under the "sail". Inbetween each tube is a white oryellow light. The space betweenthe sail and the cylinder is

(Continued on page 16) 13

A New Look at the Lodi IncidentAuthor's Note:

My latest booklet on UFOhistory, CHARLES FORT,THE FORTEEN SOCIETY, &UNIDENTIFIED FLYINGOBJECTS, covers the begin-nings of the UFO mystery, from1895 to the summer of 1947,when the strange riddle a-chieved enduring nationalprominence. In this booklet Ihave touched on the origin ofvarious theories that enjoy con-temporary popularity. The fol-lowing excerpt should be ofinterest to the student of theUFO problem in light of othersuch sensational stories cur-rently being entertained. Aresuch stories true, or do peoplemerely adhere to some standardmental pattern in the construct-ing of a fictional experience?

Ex-California Attorney Gen-eral W. H. H. Hart, who, withthe help of the sensation-proneSan Francisco Call, causedsome debate over his claimsthat he knew all about themystery airship and its secretinventor, finally revealed adrawing of the alleged airshipon January 10, 1897. ; The"airship" as described by Hartwas ridiculous even by , 1890standards, but the claims by theex-Attorney General were notnearly as fantastic as some ofthe stones that would be car-ried in the newspapers later onin 1897. A few peculiar storieshad already begun to appear inthe press as early as November,1896. For example, a hunterclaimed he had come across theairship and its inventors while14

By Loren Gross

San Francisco: Call, December 5, 1896

walking through the woods inMarin County. The inventorswere quite ordinary people heasserted. Needless to say, thesealleged inventors, who hadbeaten the Wright brothers by adecade, never came out ofhiding to be recorded by his-tory. The foregoing story wastame compared to the one toldby John A. Heron, of San Jose,a man well known for tellingtall tales. He boasted he hadtaken a two-day cruise toHonolulu and back aboard themystery airship. And in SanDiego a man, who was obvious-ly deranged, told authorities hehad ridden in the airship toheaven where he had conversedwith angels.

But perhaps the most fasci-nating reading was in theStockton, California, EveningMail:

For more than a week thepapers all over the coast havebeen reporting, the presence ofan alleged airship or flyingmachine, which many reput-able people claim to have seenon several occasions in theheavens at night. Whether ornot there really is such acontrivance navigating the airthe Mail is unable to satisfact-orily determine, but some of thepapers have taken the matterseriously and others have beendisposed to make light of thestatements. A couple of SanFrancisco attorneys have se-cured a lot of free advertisingby claiming to have clients whohave invented and tested suc-cessful flying ships, and thenewspapers have filled severalcolumns talking about the aer-ial mystery.The Mail then continues:

The Mail makes the abovestatement merely by way ofpreface to a most remarkablestory which is related by Col-onel Shaw is at present engagedin collecting an exhibit for theStockton Commercial Assoc-iation to be displayed at theCitrus Fair which will be held inFresno during the comingmonth. The gentleman was veryreticent about relating the cir-cumstance, as he said he had noidea that it would be believedby anyone, and he was loath toappear before the public as aromancer. . . .The Mail at this point inserts asubheading: "THREESTRANGE BEINGS," and be-gins a long quote from ColonelShaw:

"Were it not for the fact that1 was not alone when I wit-nessed the strange sight, Iwould never have mentioned itat all. Wednesday afternoon Iwent out to Lodi and Lockefordin company with Camille Spo-oner, a young man recentlyarrived from Nevada. I went tothe places mentioned in questof materials to form an exhibitto represent this county at theFresno Citrus Fair. We leftLodi on the return trip, I shouldjudge, shortly before 6 o'clock,and we were jogging alongquietly when the horse stoppedsuddenly and gave a snort ofterror. Looking up we beheldthree strange beings. They re-sembled humans in many re-spects, but still they were notlike anything I had ever seen.They were nearly or quite sevenfeet high and very slender. Wewere both somewhat startled, asyou may readily imagine, andthe first impulse was to driveon. The horse, however, refusedto budge, and when we saw that

we were being regarded morewith an air of curiosity thananything else we concluded toget out and investigate. Iwalked up to where the strangelooking persons were and ad-dressed them. I asked wherethey were from. They seemednot to understand me, butbegan-well, 'warbling' expres-ses it better than talking. Theirremarks, if such you would callthem, were addressed to eachother, and sounded like amonotonous chant, inclined tobe gutteral. I saw it was no useto attempt a conversation, so Isatisfied myself with watchingand examining them. Theyseemed to take great interest inourselves, the horse and buggy,and scrutinized everything verycarefully."

San Francisco Call, November 22, 1896

Here another subheadingwas inserted by the Mail:WEIGHED LESS THAN ANOUNCE EACH." The storycontinued:

"While they were thus en-gaged I was enabled to inspectthem as well. As I have alreadystated, they were seven feet inheight, and very slender. I

noticed, further, that theirhands were quite small anddelicate, and that their fingerswere without nails. Their feet,however, were nearly twice aslong as those of an ordinaryman, though they were narrow,and the toes were also long andslender. I noticed too, that theywere able to use their feet andtoes much the same as amonkey; in fact, they appearedto have much better use of theirfeet than their hands. I pre-sently discovered that this wasprobably a provision of nature.As one of them came close tome I reached out to touch him,and, placing my hand under hiselbow, pressed gently upward,and lo and behold I lifted himfrom the ground with scarcelyan effort. I should judge thatthe specific gravity of the crea-ture was less than an ounce. Itwas then that I observed himtry to grasp the earth with histoes to prevent my lifting him.You can readily understandthat their slight weight madesuch a provision necessary, orthey might be blown away.

"They were without any sortof clothing, but were coveredwith a natural growth hard todescribe; it was not hair, nei-ther was it like feathers, but itwas as soft as silk to the touch,and their skin was like velvet.Their faces and heads werewithout hair, the ears were verysmall, and the nose had theappearance of polished ivory,while the eyes were large andlustrous. The mouth, however,was small, and it seemed to methat they were without teeth.That and other things led me tobelieve that they neither ate nordrank, and that life was sus-tained by some sort of gas.Each of them had swung under

the left arm a bag to which wasattached a nozzle, and everylittle while one or the otherwould place the nozzle in hismouth, at which time I heard asound as of escaping gas. It wasmuch the same sound as is pro-duced by a person blowing up afootball."

A third subheading read:" O F I N D E S C R I B A B L EBEAUTY." The Colonel wenton to say;

"From the description I giveI do not want you to get the ideathat these creatures were hid-eous. In appearance they weremarkedly the contrary. Theywere possessed of a strangebeauty. I can express myself inno other way. They were grace-ful to a degree, and more di-vinely beautiful than anything Iever beheld."

(Continued from page 13)

almost is almost the width ofrather thickness of the cylinderor "hot dog". The rectangular"sail" looks like a STARTREK space sail propulsiondevice with cross-members orsupport braces, being thicklyraised across the sail formingalmost an '"X" with anotherrectangular item in the centerof the "X". The item here wasdescribed as a door-like objectwith a heavy screen over it like aheavy-duty fence.

When multiple witnesses seeand describe something of thisnature it really makes onewonder. Some may say morepeople should have seen it, butthe old statistics show thatpeople just don't look up unlesssomething is noisy and/orbright, which this thing wasn't.What do we have or know ofthat looks like this?16

Report From IrelandBy Richard Hall (MUFON International

Coordinator)

The Emerald Isle does notusually come to mind in con-nection with UFO sightings.Yet, that troubled country hasits share. During the 1960's Imet someone from the IrishEmbassy in a Washington,D.C., "pub" and asked himwhether his country investigat-ed UFO sightings. His smiling,cheerful countenance turnedsober and he said cryptically:"Let's just say my country isaware of UFOs."

.MUFON's Representative inNorth Ireland (Prehen, Derry)is Jim Smyth, who kindly offer-ed to translate some materialfrom French UFO journals. Inreturning the translations, Jimenclosed publications of theIrish UFO Research Centre,BUFORA (Ireland) and somenewspaper articles for July andAugust 1976. The Center isexploring the possibility ofdeveloping instrumented UFOtracking sites with cameras,magnetometers, recorders, etc.

The Irish UFO News, July1976, reports a fascinating closeencounter with robot-like be-ings who emerged from a UFOthat landed on the water nearan island on the west coast ofIreland, about Christmas 1945.The beings reacted to a dogbarking, zapped a cow with ared beam of light, and kid-napped the dog. They floated asif levitating. Unfortunately, thereport came in an anonymousletter so that no follow-up ispossible unless the writer sub-sequently identifies himself.

The report is being turned overto Dave Wabb, co-chairman ofthe Humanoid Study Group.

BUFORA is operating alarge UFO investigation centerin Belfast, presently followingup on reports from anywhere inIreland, and is consideringanother center in Dublin. Pro-jects under consideration in-clude the possibility of settingup a mobile investigation teamcapable of fast response. TheBelfast Center has a permanentaddress and phone number,holds regular meetings andsupports continuing research.

One of the center's SpecialInvestigation Reports (No. 2,July 1976) describes investiga-tion of a "psychic contactee"case, including taped interviewswith a woman who claims visitsaboard spaceships beginningabout 1969 or 1970. The space-men were like "perfect humanbeings," Adamski-like withshoulder-length hair, speakingEnglish, and presenting thereincarnationist philosophy.Some were said to come fromthe "dark side of the moon," aswell as from Venus and Mars.The center draws no conclu-sions, and notes that a BU-FORA psychologist is analyzingthe tapes.

That Ireland has its "popularpress" problem is confirmed bya Sunday World , (nationalnewspaper) article, August 8, "IWas Seduced by a Sex Goddessfrom Space, says Irishman!"Part 2 of the article, August 15,

(Continued on page 17)

Scientific UFO logy: The Australianand British UFO Conferences

By Richard Hall (MUFON International Coordinator)

UFOCON 2 was held at Mt.Gambier, South Australia, Oct-ober 24-26, 1976 following on atotal solar eclipse visible thereOctober 23. Representatives offive Australian UFO groups, arepresentative of ACOS (Aus-tralian Co-Ordination Sectionfor Center for UFO Studies),and one independent research-er attended. Papers were pre-sented on various aspects ofUFO research and on up-grading future investigationtechniques.

Among the topics exploredwere psychological aspects ofAustralian close encountercases, instrumented UFO re-search, UFOCAT, andR.A.A.F. (Air Force) investi-gations. MUFON Representa-tives Keith Basterfield, BillChalker, and Paul Jackson allparticipated as representativesof their separate AustralianUFO groups. Dr. Geof Stevensled a discussion of how torecognize when a local flap isdeveloping in order to sendwell-equipped investigationteams to the area in time toobtain "hard data."

A conference very similar intone was sponsored by theBritish UFO Research Asso-ciation (BUFORA) and attend-ed by five or more representa-tives of other British UFOgroups November 5-7, 1976 atBirmingham, England. Specialguest speaker was MUFONmember Ted Bloecher whoreported on the status of hu-

manoid occupant case investi-gations. Ted also had an oppor-tunity to confer with UFOresearchers from all over Eng-land, and was impressed by thedegree of close cooperationamong British UFO groups.

Papers were presented onINTCAT (an internationalcomputer catalogue), UFOwaves and their prediction, theE-T hypothesis, and similartopics. Group sessions wereheld on investigation tech-niques, photographic analysis,cataloguing and documenta-tion, and instrumentation fordetecting UFOs.

Whoever said that scientificUFO research was dead ap-parently is out of touch withthis strong international trend:taking stock, tooling up, andpooling resources in a con-certed effort to apply scientificmethods to UFO investigation.Similar conferences by CUFOS,MUFON, and APRO, and theFort Smith conference organ-ized by Bill Pitts, show that thismovement is alive and well inthe U.S. too. Scientific con-ferences in France and by MU-FON-C.E.S. personnel in Ger-many have been reported pre-viously.

Most encouraging of all arethe increasing links betweennations (individuals servingUFO groups in more than onecountry) and the growing co-operation in sharing data andinformation. Catalogues, largeand small, of special UFO case

types are proliferating and arebeing pooled toward the verydesirable goal of internationalcatalogues.

While individual scientistsare playing important roles inthis movement, it is noteworthythat the work is being ac-complished outside the normalchannels of science. That is,governments in general still donot acknowledge UFOs as areality and do not provide fundsfor research. This is a commenton how wedded to political ends"official" science has become;only "political realities" receiveresearch support. It remains anopen question whether somegovernments have their ownsecret and secrety funded UFOinvestigations.

(Continued from page 16)

includes some more crediblecases. One is a report by Capt.Paddy Kirkwood, retired BEApilot and former RAF fighterpilot, who encountered a glow-ing UFO that illuminated hiscockpit before taking off atincredible speed. "I'm surewhat 1 saw was a space craft ofsome kind," Capt. Kirkwoodsaid. "1 know that at one timeor another 90% of BEA pilotshad also seen unexplained phe-nomena from their f l ightdecks."

17

Some Goals for the New YearBy Henry H. McKay

Writing as a long timeobserver and active participantin the UFO scene, may Isuggest the following goals forthe coming new year? HisExcellency Mr. Eric M. Gairy,Prime Minister of Grenada,recently addressed the GeneralAssembly of the United Nationsand, in part, his statement withreference to Unidentified Fly-ing Objects (UFO's) an inspir-ational message from a man ofvision. To quote: "In the sameway as this planet is the ac-cepted inheritance of all hu-manity, knowledge is also to beshared for the benefit of allmankind, and, in this light, onewonders why the existence ofUFO's or "flying saucers," asthey are sometimes called, con-tinue to remain a secret to thosein whose archives repose usefulinformation and other data.While we appreciate that somecountries consider this to be inthe interest of military expedi-ence, I now urge that a differentview be taken because it is myfirm conviction that the world isready, willing and ripe to acceptthose phenomena relating toman and his existence on theplanet Earth and to planetEarth and life in outer space:

A. In a concerted effort,through personal and publicmedia, an open policy pro-gramme of relevant informa-tion being released as indicatedby public statements by Presi-dent Jimmy Carter.18

Prime Minister Eric M. Gairy addresses the31st session of the United Nations.

B. A strongly worded requestthat National and Provincial/State library boards establish anew classification for subjectmatter germane to this NewScience. It is proposed thisAccultural Studies categorywould include a reference sec-tion to include: a revised, up-dated, edition of UFO's andRelated Subjects; an AnnotatedBibliography by Lynne E.Catoe, USA Gov., publicationno, AFOSR 68-1656. Thiscould be the first significantstep by President Carter. Thisreference library . should alsoinclude Canada's Project Mag-net, The Soviet/American Con-ference on Communicationwith ETI, held in ArmeniaSSR, 1971, the BUFORA Na-tional Science Conference ofNov., 1976 held in Birming-ham, England, plus other pub-lished major proceedings.

GovernmentUFO ReportThe UFO Enigma, by Marcia

S. Smith (Washington, D.C.:Library of Congress, Congres-sional Research Service, March9, 1976; 124 pages, reference76-52 SP), provides a generaloverview to the subject ofUFOs. The diverse contentsinclude aspects of witness credi-bility, reports of unusual UFOsights, and U.S. Air Forceinvolvement and Congressionalinterest in UFOs. This report isrecommended to our readers,but not only because it isavailable free on request.

Ms. Smith is ananalyst in science and tech-nology in the Science PolicyResearch Division of the Con-gressional Research Service(which works exclusively for theU.S. Congress but also makesits research results available inmany, forms). She has .alsorecently completed anotherpublication of use to seriousstudents of the UFO phenom-enon — Extraterrestrial In-telligence and Unidentified Fly-ing Objects: A Selected, An-notated Bibliography (Wash-ington, D.C: Library of Con-gress, Congressional ResearchService, February 18, 1976; 45pages, reference 76-35 SP).

Requests for copies of thesereports may be sent directly to:Director, Congressional Re-search Service, Library of Con-gress, Washington, D.C. 20540,U.S.A.

DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE byWalt Andrus

William D. Leet, 15 DelroseDrive, Little Rock, Ark., 72209;Telephone: 501/565-9175 wasrecently appointed State Sec-tion Director for Pulaski, Lo-noke and Saline Counties. Billhas a Juris Doctor degree; is aformer USAF Command Pilotand was previously the presi-dent of Bluegrass NICAP af-filiate. He comes to MUFONhighly recommended by Rich-ard Hall.

P. Wayne Laporte, 315 Ce-darwood Lane, Matthews, N.C.,28015; Telephone: 704/882-1732 is the new State SectionDirector for Mecklenburg,Cabarrus, Gaston, Union, andLincoln Counties working withGeorge Fawcett, our State Di-rector for North Carolina.Wayne has a B.S. in IndustrialManagement and is also anamateur astronomer.

Yugoslavia representationhas been expanded with theselection of Mijos Krmelj, Mil-cinskege 6, 61000 Ljubljana,Slovenija, as MUFON's rep-resentative and coordinator forhis country. He has alreadyselected new Field Investigatorsto assist him in this endeavor.Milos is a teacher by profession.

The Staff of The MUFONUFO Journal welcomes TedPhillips back to an active rolewith the new year. He has beenworking on a book dealing withlanding trace cases and theirinvestigation. Ted is also amember of the Board of Di-

rectors and serves in the capa-city of Specialization Coordi-nator. He is recognized as oneof the leading UFO landingtrace investigators in the Worldtoday. His file currently con-tains 1,012 trace cases from 53countries.

The CBS News-TV ChildrensProgram on December 4, 1976from 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.was appropriately titled "FlyingSaucers From Outer Space —What's It All About". It wasdirected by Vern Diamond,written by Joe Siegel with PhilipKlass as the advisor. Eventhough it was professionallydone, it was another "white-wash" by CBS News giving ourchildren and grandchildren thebenefits of the "expert" adviceof Philip Klass as "the author-ity on UFOs." It is anticipatedthat CBS received a deluge ofunfavorable letters.

In direct contrast to the CBSvideo taped program, ColumbiaPictures is investing twentymillion dollars in a UFO filmtitled "Close Encounters of theThird Kind"; directed by Ste-ven Spielberg, and starringRichard Dreyfuss of "Jaws"fame. This is the biggest gam-ble Columbia Pictures has evertaken when it is considered thatthe "Jaws" budget was only 9million. The picture is beingfilmed in Mobile, Alabama, butwon't be released until De-cember, 1977, according to Dr.J. Allen Hynek, who is serving

as the technical advisor. Thisshould be a fantastic film anddemonstrates the confidencethat Columbia Pictures has inthe interest and appeal of thepublic to the UFO phenome-non. The story is fictional butUFO researchers will recognizemany true cases that influencedthe writers as this unique pro-duction unfolds before youreyes.

Ray Stanford, Director ofProject Starlight Internationalin Austin, Texas, will speak atthe 1977 MUFON UFO Sym-posium in Scottsdale, Arizonaon July 15, 16, and 17th. TheSafari Hotel has blocked 100guest rooms for these dates withsingle rooms for $16.00 anddoubles for $20.00.

MUFON had a double fea-ture via the radio waves onDecember 13th, when Dr. W.P."Bill" Armstrong, State Di-rector for Missouri, was ex-pounding on a UFO talk showfrom KMOX radio in St. Louis,Mo., while Walt Andrus wasappearing on the Olin MurrellShow from WOA1 in SanAntonion, a 50,000 watt clearChannel station. We receivedmany letters explaining howlisteners in the midwesternstates tried to listen to bothprograms simultaneously. Tele-phone calls came in from as faras Vermillion, South Dakota,which attests to the nationwidecoverage of WOA1.

19

RECAPPING AND COMMENTINGby Richard Hall, MUFON International Coordinator

(Comments appearing in thismonth's column are based, inpart, on articles appearing inthe August 1976 MUFON UFOJournal).

Like the rabbit in Alice inWonderland, we are runningbreathlessly along — late inpublishing and trying to catchup, due to the logistical andother problems described bythe Editor. The problems be-setting MUFON have inevitablyresulted in some editorial im-balance and some unattractivephysical appearance. Now thetypeface looks sharp and clearagain, and the outlook is goodfor resuming a more normalschedule in 1977. If MUFONspecialists and State Directorspitch in to do their share ofcontributing information (inarticles for the Editor), MU-FON UFO Journal should hitits stride soon and once againbe among the premier UFOpublications in the world.

1 cannot stress too stronglythe importance, in the overallgoals of MUFON and theJournal, of the InternationalData Exchange Program de-scribed in this issue. Foreigngroups and key individualshave been more than generousin representing MUFON over-seas and in sharing informationwith us. However, it has tendedto be a one-way street (some-thing some of us have beenquick to criticize in others). IfMUFON wants to maintain its

good relationships with foreigngroups and its outstandinginformation sources, we (notethat "we") must send as muchinformation as possible to theseCenters. Please keep the list ofCenter addresses handy forreference, and do your part bysending some information —whether a detailed publicationor a few clippings — to one ormore of the Centers.

New Center Address in Aus-tralia. The Australian MUFONInformation Exchange Center,where information is copiedand forwarded to serious re-searchers and groups all overthe country, has a change ofaddress (please correct yourlist): Keith Basterfield, 3 ParkLake Drive, Wynn Vale, SouthAustralia 5127.

Photoanalysis FeedbackNeeded

Computer enhancement an-alysis of UFO photographs, asundertaken by Bill Spauldingand Ground Saucer Watch(GSW) in Phoenix, Arizona,seems to be a vitally importantnew tool, and the efforts arecertainly to be commended.However, I have heard privatelyexpressed opinions by know-ledgeable scientists and engi-neers skeptical about some ofclaims being made for thesetechniques. What they amountto is that some of the analysisresults are being over-inter-preted and that some of theclaimed results cannot be stat-ed with such finality. These

criticisms should be voicedopenly, and I am sure Billwould welcome the chance torespond to them and to correctany errors of technique or inter-pretation if the criticisms arevalid. There is no doubt aboutthe usefulness of this type ofanalysis, or the potential valueto UFO research of the ex-pensive equipment available toGSW, so constructive criticismis definitely in order along withwords of praise for GSW'simportant contribution.

iMark R. Herbstritt

stronomyNotes

January 1977

MERCURY — For a fewdays before and after the 29th,it may be seen very low in thesoutheast just before sunrise.

VENUS — On the 24th, it isat greatest eastern elongation,which means that it is wellplaced for observation. It willbe about 33 degrees above thesouthwestern horizon at sunsetand will set about four hourslater.

MARS — In the morningsky, it is too close to the sun foreasy observation.

JUPITER — In Aries, it iswell up in the east at sunrise.

SATURN — In Cancer andretrograding, it rises about twohours before sunset.