Tag: J. Allen Hynek

US Government Acknowledges UFOs… Surprise, Surprise

Article by Mark Farris                                                       June 7, 2021                                                       (monroenews.com)

• The name change from UFO to UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) shows that our government wants to distance itself from past efforts to cover up their dismissing visitors from elsewhere. The rest of the world released their UFO files years ago. There is too much global evidence by too many credible witnesses over decades to dismiss this issue. The Pentagon is now expected to release its report in June revealing the extent of UFO activity on our planet.

• Back in the 1950s, it was common for commercial airliners to have a UFO pull up alongside to observe. The aircraft pilots would report this to the control tower and any media waiting when they landed. It didn’t take long for the government to put a stop to aircraft personnel talking to all media. The government-induced cancel culture took. Around 1980, J. Allen Hynek, director of the US Air Force’s UFO research project Operation Bluebook, hosted a conference on UFOs at Monroe Community College in Monroe, Michigan, near where Hynek dreamed up the ‘swamp gas’ cover story for a UFO incident. No media attended, not even the college newspaper.

• There were about a hundred in attendance at the Monroe Community College conference. There, Hynek revealed “Operation Bluebook” was not an investigation, it was a cover up. He said that the U.S. military has in its possession crashed discs and bodies of aliens. So here we are, 40 years later, and the government now acts like they just figured out there are strange objects flying around that could be a threat.

• Coincidentally, Monroe, Michigan was where a corporate/government consortium built the Fermi nuclear ‘breeder reactor’, beside Lake Erie near Detroit, to manufacture plutonium for the nuclear weapons program. There were problems with the reactor overheating so they welded some improvised metal plates (not on the blueprints) to re-direct the coolant. One of those welds broke and the area became contaminated.

• It is well known that UFOs have been seen near our nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons sites, starting with Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. UFOs have on occasion hovered around our intercontinental ballistic missile sites and actually deactivated our weapons. In his book “The Grand Design” (2010), the late astrophysicist Steven Hawking revealed that there are probably 11 dimensions within which we exist. It is speculated that the massive shock waves of Earth’s nuclear weapons testing crosses over into other dimensions of reality.

• Some people argue that UFOs are back-engineered technology developed by us humans. The question is: back-engineered from what? Werner Von Braun was the ex-Nazi who helped develop NASA, said in 1974 that eventually our government would run out of enemies needed to perpetuate the military industrial complex budget. He suggested the final fabricated threat would be a false flag attack by extraterrestrial aliens. Today, Space Force needs a reason to exist and grow. Is this renewed interest in UFOs a prelude to a false flag attack designed to gain more (deep state) government control over the people?

 

If you watched “60 Minutes” a few weeks ago, you know the Pentagon will soon release

                          J. Allen Hynek

a report revealing the extent of UAP — unidentified aerial phenomena — activity here on planet Earth.

Up front, you should realize the name change from UFO to UAP means our government wants to distance itself from past efforts to cover up their activity dismissing visitors from elsewhere. The rest of the world released their UFO files years ago.

Fermi nuclear ‘breeder reactor’ in Monroe, MI

There is too much global evidence by too many credible witnesses over decades to dismiss this issue. With everyone now carrying top notch still/video cameras within their phones, you can go to YouTube and see numerous unexplained aerial/underwater craft on a regular basis. I’m certain we have visitors from elsewhere.

Back in the 1950s, it was common for commercial airliners to have a UFO pull up

           Wernher Von Braun

alongside to observe. The aircraft pilots would report this to the control tower and any media waiting when they landed. It didn’t take long for the government to put a stop to aircraft personnel talking to all media.

           Steven Hawking

If you want an example of cancel culture, this is it. I remember when Allen Hynek, director of the UFO research project Operation Bluebook, actually presented a conference on UFOs at Monroe Community College about 1980. No media attended. Not even the college paper the Agora covered it.

There were about a hundred of us in attendance, and Hynek revealed “Operation Bluebook” was not an investigation, it was a cover up. He told us the U.S. military has crashed discs and bodies of aliens stored away! So here we are, 40 years later, and the government now acts like they just figured out there are strange objects flying around and, just maybe, they are a threat.

Hynek came to Monroe for his lecture because this is the area where he dreamed up the swamp gas explanation for UFOs in 1966. Coincidentally, that was about the time a corporate/government consortium was just firing up the experimental Fermi I nuclear reactor in Monroe.

Fermi I was a breeder reactor designed to manufacture plutonium for the nuclear weapons program. There were problems with the reactor overheating because the liquid sodium coolant was not flowing efficiently. The solution was to weld some improvised metal plates (not on the blueprints) to re-direct the coolant. One of those welds broke and the rest is history.

It is well known UFOs hang around our nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons sites. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, plus all the nuclear weapons testing that followed, there was a major uptick in reported UFO activity. UFOs have on occasion hovered around our intercontinental ballistic missile sites and actually deactivated our weapons.

In his book “The Grand Design” (2010), the late astrophysicist Steven Hawking revealed it is common knowledge in the world of physics that there are probably 11 dimensions within which we exist. Speculation is the massive shock waves of our nuclear weapons testing has crossed over into next dimension areas of reality we are ignorant of.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Man Claims Extraterrestrials Gave Him Pancake with Unknown Type of Wheat

Article by Nirmal Narayanan                                          February 18, 2021                                          (ibtimes.sg)

• Among the many UFO and alien reports that the US Air Force investigated under ‘Project Blue Book’, the encounter reported by Chicken farmer Joe Simonton in Eagle River, Wisconsin in 1961 remains “unexplained”.

• Around 11am on April 18, 1961, Simonton (age 60) claims that a UFO landed on his farm. Three aliens came out of the UFO. They each stood about 5 feet tall and wore black or navy blue clothing with turtleneck shirts and helmets. Remarkably, the aliens offered Simonton some pancakes for breakfast. One of the aliens asked for water, which Simonton readily provided.

• Simonton described the incident to the press, which attracted the attention of the US Air Force. Astronomer J Allen Hynek was deployed to investigate. Hynek took one of the pancakes to the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center for analysis and determined that the pancake was made from flour, sugar, and grease. Hynek wrote in his report, “There is no question that Mr. Simonton felt that his contact had been a real experience.”

• In his book: The W-Files: True Reports of Wisconsin’s Unexplained Phenomena, author Jay Rath reinvestigated the Simonton event and he claimed that the wheat flour in the pancake was of an unknown type.

• Last December, former Israeli space security chief Haim Eshed claimed that alien existence on Earth is real and that powers like the United States and Israel are in regular contact with them. Eshed says that there is a Galactic Federation that controls space activities. Conspiracy theorists claim that world governments are covering up the facts surrounding alien life to avoid public panic.

 

   Joe Simonton with pancake

Conspiracy theorists have long been claiming that advanced aliens from distant civilizations have visited Earth many times in the past. According to these conspiracy theorists, governments and space agencies like NASA are aware of extraterrestrial existence, but they are covering up the facts surrounding alien life to avoid public panic. Alien believers strongly argue that several people have even encountered aliens in real life, and Chicken farmer Joe Simonton was one person who allegedly saw extraterrestrials.

Simonton’s Unusual Experience

Simonton allegedly met aliens at around 11.00 AM on April 18, 1961, and the extraterrestrials even tried to serve him intergalactic pancakes. He was aged 60 at that time, and aliens visited him at his farm in Eagle River, Wisconsin. Simonton added that aliens reached his farm in an unidentified flying object (UFO).

The man claimed that three aliens who had a height of 1.5 meters, wore black or navy blue clothing with turtleneck shirts and helmets came out of the UFO, and they offered him a piece of pancake. One alien asked for water from Simonton, and he readily gave these extraterrestrials sufficient water.

US Air Force Investigated the Incident

As Simonton told everything that he saw to the press, the United States Air Force (USAF) conducted an investigation to solve the mysteries surrounding the incident.
Astronomer J Allen Hynek was deployed by the USAF to investigate the event, and he took one of the pancakes to the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center for analysis. Upon analysis, the team found that the pancake was made from flour, sugar, and grease.

“There is no question that Mr. Simonton felt that his contact had been a real experience,” Hynek wrote in his report, Daily Star reports.

The US Air Force called the experience of Simonton ”Unexplained”.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

The Betz Mystery Sphere

Article by Caroline Delbert                                       December 31, 2020                                              (popularmechanics.com)

• In 1974, the Betz family moved to a home in Fort George Island, Florida, at the beach near Jacksonville. In the yard of the house they discovered a 30-pound shiny metal sphere. They assumed that it must be a cannonball from Renaissance-era Spanish colonizers in the area, although it is unlikely that Spanish missionaries would have cannons. Curiously, the sphere was clean and free of corrosion. It appeared to be made of stainless steel or silver plate, although 16th century Spaniards would have used iron.

• The family soon discovered that the sphere behaved autonomously – rolling by itself, making noises, and vibrating. They noticed that it made a throbbing noise in reaction to guitar music. It reportedly moved “intensely” when the sun shone brightly. When it was rolled in one direction, it would change direction midway and head back to the person who rolled it. Gerri Betz claimed that when the family dog got next to the sphere, “she began to whimper and cover her ears with her paws, something I’ve never seen her do before.” An expert from a research firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana examined the sphere and found “radio waves coming from it and a magnetic field around it,” according to Gerri. Could it be alien technology?

• The US Navy analyzed the sphere at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. A x-ray managed to penetrate the steel. A Navy spokesman remarked, “We do know it is not an explosive and presents no hazard.” “I say it came from Earth.” Upon examining the metal sphere, renowned ufologist J. Allen Hynek agreed the object was manmade.

• The Betz’ accounts of the sphere’s spontaneous motions and noises made the local news and continued to inspire UFO origin theory believers. Seeing the steel ball on television, the president of a Jacksonville equipment supply company compared it with a stainless steel ball he kept in stock. He produced a Bell & Howell stainless steel ball that was 8 inches across and weighed over 21 pounds—almost the same size as the sphere. It is also unlikely that an advanced alien technology would use a steel alloy 431 used in fasteners and bolts on Earth. And not even a solid steel ball would remain unblemished after falling through the Earth’s atmosphere as suggested.

• As for the noted strange behaviors of the sphere, which have been festooned with extra details over years, experts say the sphere was probably rolling on an uneven floor. Said a Navy spokesman, “I believe [the sphere moved] because of the construction of the house. It’s old and has uneven stone floors. The ball is almost perfectly balanced, and it takes just a little indentation to make it move or change direction.” UFO theory stalwarts attributed the spontaneous motions and vibrations due to having different sections of different materials inside the alien sphere, making it unknown to terrestrial science despite being coated in a carefully human-developed steel alloy.

• It’s easy to see how a regular family in Florida would decide a strange object in their yard had some kind of improbable alien properties. The 1970s were a heyday for UFOs, new religious movements, and transcendental meditation – a heady mix for people to run with some wild ideas. Such a legend could grow very quickly.

 

The Conspiracy

The Betz mystery sphere is a strange object that the Betz family found near their home in Fort George

   Gerri Betz and her son

Island, Florida in 1974. It’s a metal sphere that’s a little smaller than a bowling ball (a diameter of 8 inches), but a solid 8 pounds heavier than even the sturdiest professionals use (22 pounds).
The Betz family said the sphere acted of its own accord, moving and making noises. What does this surprising backyard shotput have to do with conspiracy theories? Is it some kind of autonomous cannonball? Could it actually a piece of alien technology?

The Origins

                      J. Allen Hynek

After a fire destroyed their property in March 1974, the Betz family found the bizarre metal sphere in their yard and believed it was a historic cannonball from Florida’s Renaissance-era Spanish colonizers, Skeptoid explains. But the sphere was clean, free of corrosion, and shiny. Weaponry in the Spanish colonial time period, unlikely from Florida’s missionaries to begin with, would have been iron or stone—not stainless steel or silver plate.
When the family took the sphere home, they said, it started to behave by itself. Their accounts were of the sphere rolling by itself, making noises, and vibrating.

From Wonderful Engineering: “Terry, the son of Antoine and [G]erri Betz, was playing guitar and found that the sphere reacted to the sound of the guitar and made a throbbing noise which scared the family dog. Things took an even odder turn when they were sitting on the floor and rolling the sphere towards one another. When it was sent in one direction, it would change direction midway and head back to the person who rolled it.”
In an April 1974 interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Gerri Betz said when the family dog got next to the sphere, “she began to whimper and cover her ears with her paws, something I’ve never seen her do before.”

The Betz family suspected solar radiations affected the sphere, which may have been why it reportedly moved “intensely” when the sun shone brightly, according to Wonderful Engineering. Eventually, the U.S. military got their hands on the sphere to analyze it for more answers.

When an expert from a research firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana examined the sphere, he “found radio waves coming from it and a magnetic field around it,” Gerri Betz told the St. Petersburg Times. Then, the U.S. Navy analyzed the sphere at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. A Navy spokesman told the St. Petersburg Times that the Navy’s first X-ray attempts failed because its “machine wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the steel, but two subsequent tests showed the contents of the globe.”
|
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

UFOs Deserve Scientific Investigation

Article by Ravi Kopparapu and Jacob Haqq-Misra          July 27, 2020                 (scientificamerican.com)

• UFOs have been back in the news because of “unidentified aerial phenomena” videos officially released by the Pentagon. But the UFO phenomenon is a worldwide occurrence. Scientists in several other countries have studied them. Shouldn’t American scientists choose to investigate and curb the speculation around them? An interdisciplinary scientific investigation is needed, while discarding the taboo surrounding this phenomenon.

• Such unexplained UFO cases drew interest by scientists during the 1960s. As a result, the US Air Force funded a scientific group at the University of Colorado, headed by physicist Edward Condon, to review UFO cases from 1966 to 1968. The resulting ‘Condon Report’ concluded that further study of UFOs was unlikely to be scientifically interesting. Concerns over the inadequacy of the methods used by the Condon Report culminated with a debate sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1969, with participation by scholars such as Carl Sagan, J. Allen Hynek, James McDonald, Robert Hall and Robert Baker.

• Regarding the 1969 scientific debate, Sagan wrote of the “strong opposition” by scientists who feared that AAAS sponsorship of the debate would lend credence to ‘unscientific’ ideas. While Sagan himself dismissed the extraterrestrial hypothesis, he still claimed that the UFO subject was worthy of scientific inquiry.

• We, as scientists, should be cautious of outright dismissal of the UFO phenomenon by assuming that every instance has a “scientific” explanation. We must let scientific curiosity be the spearhead of understanding such phenomena. But these recent Navy pilots’ accounts of UFO sightings have failed to generate similar interest among the scientific community.

• Why should astronomers, meteorologists, and planetary scientists care about these UFO events? Because we are scientists. Curiosity is the reason we became scientists. UFOs represent observations that are waiting to be explained, just like any other science discovery. A systematic investigation is essential in order to bring the phenomena into mainstream science. Collection of hard data is paramount to establishing any credibility to the explanation of the phenomena. A rigorous scientific analysis is sorely needed, by multiple independent study groups.

• The transient nature of UFOs, and the unpredictability of when and where the next event will happen, is one of the main reasons why UFOs have not been taken seriously in science circles. But how can one identify a pattern without systematically collecting the data in the first place? In astronomy, the location and timing of gamma-ray bursts, supernovae and gravitational waves are similarly unpredictable. By meticulously collecting data from each occurrence and systematically observing them, we now recognize these as natural phenomena arising from stellar evolution. Similarly, gathering UFO data with tools such as radar, thermal, and visual observations would be immensely helpful. Not every case is a classified military aircraft or strange weather formation.

• As Sagan concluded at the 1969 debate, “scientists are particularly bound to have open minds; this is the lifeblood of science.” We do not know what UFOs are. This is precisely the reason that we as scientists should study them.

• [Editor’s Note]   Back in the 1960s, the Condon Report didn’t stand a chance of seeing the light of ‘scientific curiosity and impartiality’. The deep state jackels had just gotten away with assassinating a sitting US President, and they felt invincible. The 1969 Condon Report was a set up, just like the Warren Commission. Even Carl Sagen, who played the role of the open-minded advocate of scientific curiosity, was later revealed to be an actual member of the top-secret Majestic 12 deep state UFO government debunking committee.

The question is, has the deep state lost its absolute control over the modern scientific community to a point where there are, in fact, some independent scientists who would make an impartial inquiry into the UFO phenomenon and reveal their objective findings to the public? Or will these scientists continue to bow to the deep state governmental authorities and private foundations that provide the funding for their work, and thus their livelihood?

 

UFOs have been back in the news because of videos initially leaked, and later confirmed, by the U.S. Navy and officially released by Pentagon that purportedly show “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP) in our skies. Speculations about their nature have run the gamut from mundane objects like birds or balloons to visitors from outer space.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to say what these actually are, however, without context. What happened before and after these video snippets? Were there any simultaneous observations from other instruments, or sightings by pilots?

Judging the nature of these objects (and these seem to be “objects,” as confirmed by the Navy) needs a coherent explanation that should accommodate and connect all the facts of the events. And this is where interdisciplinary scientific investigation is needed.

The proposal to scientifically study UAP phenomena is not new. The problem of understanding such unexplained UAP cases drew interest by scientists during the 1960s, which resulted in the U.S. Air Force funding a group at the University of Colorado, headed by physicist Edward Condon, to study UAP from 1966 to 1968. The resulting Condon Report concluded that further study of UAP was unlikely to be scientifically interesting—a conclusion that drew mixed reactions from scientists and the public.

Concerns over the inadequacy of the methods used by the Condon Report culminated with a congressional hearing in 1968 as well as a debate sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1969 with participation by scholars such as Carl Sagan, J. Allen Hynek, James McDonald, Robert Hall and Robert Baker. Hynek was an astronomy professor at the Ohio State University and led the Project Blue Book investigation, while McDonald, who was a well-known meteorologist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and AAAS, performed a thorough investigation of UAP phenomena. Sagan, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, was one of the organizers of the AAAS debate. He dismissed the extraterrestrial hypothesis as unlikely but still considered the UAP subject worthy of scientific inquiry.

Recent UAP sightings, however, have so far failed to generate similar interest among the scientific community. Part of the reason could be the apparent taboo around UAP phenomena, connecting it to the paranormal or pseudoscience, while ignoring the history behind it. Sagan even wrote in the afterword of the 1969 debate proceedings about the “strong opposition” by other scientists who were “convinced that AAAS sponsorship would somehow lend credence to ‘unscientific’ ideas.” As scientists we must simply let scientific curiosity be the spearhead of understanding such phenomena. We should be cautious of outright dismissal by assuming that every UAP phenomena must be explainable.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Forced & Faked Alien “Abductions” Were Conducted by the CIA Says Renowned Researcher

Article by Arjun Walia                            May 28, 2020                           (collective-evolution.com)

• Dr. Jacques Vallee, the French astrophysicist who co-developed the first computerized map of Mars for NASA in 1963 and was a close associate Project Blue Book’s J. Allen Hynek, has written several books on the UFO enigma. Vallee has investigated an uncountable amount of case reports regarding UFOs and extraterrestrial beings. He’s been a major player in bringing the UFO phenomenon to the mainstream public. Vallee knows that something real and quite possibly extraterrestrial and inter-dimensional is going on. He is currently a venture capitalist living in San Francisco.

• Credible information regarding UFO sightings, crash retrievals, contact experiences with ‘aliens’, and possible bodies are out there to be examined. But there is a lot of disinformation out there as well. It is well documented that for years intelligence agency and government operatives infiltrated the UFO community for the purpose of deceiving researchers – and for one simple reason: to hide the truth. These disinformation initiatives still seem to be in operation today. On top of disinformation, there has long been an official campaign of ridicule and secrecy as well. Vallee is one of many who have written about the evidence of well-constructed hoaxes and media manipulations designed to mislead UFO researchers and the public.

• In one of his latest books, Forbidden Science 4, Vallee makes an entry for March 26, 1992 writing: “I have secured a document confirming that the CIA simulated UFO abductions in Latin America (Brazil and Argentina) as psychological warfare experiments.” In the book, Vallee notes that Air Force Colonel Ron Blackburn told Vallee in May 1990 that he was “convinced the government is working on UFOs”. Blackburn said that the chances were “pretty good” that the US government was “fooling” UFO witnesses “by special effects developed by psychological warfare”. “Suppose you shine a week infrared laser into people’s eyes,” said Blackburn. “[I]t won’t hurt them but may induce a hallucinatory state. Experiments have been done where you send a microwave beam through someone’s brain; you pick up the transmitted energy pattern. You can influence people this way, even make them hear things. Holograms have been used too.”

• In 1992, Vallee wrote that he had received a document that the CIA had been involved with staging UFO (alien abductions). There are many examples and evidence that point to staged abductions happening for reasons unknown, and that it’s also continuing today. It’s not surprising if you’ve looked into the CIA’s technologically advanced black budget world with programs like MK Ultra intended to manipulate the perception of the masses.

• In his book, Vallee also mentions retired Air Force Special investigations officer Richard Doty. Doty’s job in the Air Force was to spread disinformation about the UFO subject. Doty has admitted to infiltrating UFO circles along with his colleagues to ‘feed’ ufologists and journalists lies and half-truths so that they would never understand the ‘real truth’.

• Retired university professor Dr. David Jacobs hypnotically regressed people who claimed to have had ET abduction experiences. Thousands of these ‘abductees’ share the same story of forced impregnation and ‘hybrid’ children, among other things. Could some of these forced abduction experiments simply be deep black government projects? Yes. But there are many who have claimed to have had non-threatening or even pleasant encounters with alien beings. Still, even these ‘abductees’ often sensed a military component to the encounter.

• Could the story about President Eisenhower’s meeting with aliens and the secret deal to allow a certain amount of human abductions in exchange for technology also be fabricated? Could all reported alien abductions be military operations? It’s not likely.

 

Throughout history, the field of ufology and the examination of the extraterrestrial hypothesis has, without a doubt, been overcome with a plethora of

                      Dr. Jacques Vallee

disinformation. Those who have dived into the depths of ufology know this best, as it’s well documented that ‘outsiders’ from intelligence agencies and governments have infiltrated the field for the purposes of deceiving researchers and people who are interested in the topic for one simple reason, to keep them

          Dr. David Jacobs

away from the truth. On top of these disinformation campaigns, which still seem to be in operation today, there has long been an “official campaign of ridicule and secrecy” (Roscoe Hillenkoetter, Ex CIA director) associated with the subject. This is why I encourage all those reading who dive into this subject to stick with facts, data, and evidence rather than entertain what seem to be outlandish claims that in no way, at all, can be verified.

I’d like to draw your attention to Dr. Jacques Vallee, who holds a master’s degree in astrophysics and a Ph.D. in computer science. The subject of UFOs first attracted his attention as an astronomer in Paris. He subsequently became a close associate of Project Blue Book’s J. Allen Hynek and has written several books on the UFO enigma. He is currently a venture capitalist living in San Francisco. Vallée co-developed the first computerized map of Mars for NASA in 1963. He later worked on the network information center for the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern Internet, as a staff engineer of SRI International’s Augmentation Research Center under Douglas Engelbart.

                     Richard Doty

He’s a researcher that’s had a very interesting life, to say the least, with regards to researching the topic of UFOs. He’s come into contact with and had meetings with most experts in the field, politicians from around the world, high ranking military personnel and much more. His journey into the subject has led him to investigate an uncountable amount of case reports regarding UFOs and supposed extraterrestrial beings, and he’s been a major player with regards to bringing the mainstream scientific community forward to look at the evidence and data that’s involved with such a serious subject, that, in his time, was largely ridiculed. He is an important reason why the phenomenon has gained as much credibility as it has today.

Valle is one of many who have written about and documented the startling evidence that well-constructed hoaxes and media manipulations have misled UFO researchers, diverting them from the UFO phenomenon itself, what’s really going on.

In one of his latest books, Forbidden Science 4, he shares a record of his private study into unexplained phenomena between 1990 and the end of the millennium, during which he was traveling around the global pursuing his professional work as a high-technology investor. It’s a bit of a diary, documenting his experiences and encounters/meetings as he tries to examine and explore the phenomenon.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Alien Investigation Series ‘Project Blue Book’ Promises More Weird Encounters in Season 2

 

Article by Elizabeth Howell                        January 28, 2020                         (space.com)

• The History Channel’s hit television series, “Project Blue Book”, is back for Season 2. The show, which airs on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST and PST, follows the U.S. Air Force “investigation” into UFOs during the 1950s and 60s. Under Blue Book, Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt and astronomer J. Allen Hynek and their successors examined over 12,000 UFO sightings. The HISTORY show delves into some of the 700 still-unexplained encounters.

• Series creator and executive producer David O’Leary said that he became convinced that UFOs really existed through his research on Project Blue Book. He is quick to note that this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are extraterrestrial. O’Leary says that in the end, both Ruppelt and Hynek themselves became convinced that UFOs were real and represented a true mystery worthy of scientific study. “Something clicked for me,” said O’Leary, “This is unbelievable (to me). So this ….series … examines this (UFO) program through the eyes of these two men.”

• O’Leary has spent many hours reading the first-hand research from both Blue Book, via the declassified documents found in Hynek’s book The UFO Experience, and from independent UFO historians. O’Leary interviewed the last living director of Blue Book — Robert J. Friend, who died in June 2019 at age 99. Friend provided not only details of the investigations, but advised them on what the Blue Book offices looked like and details of the show’s set.

• The ten episodes of Season 1 of Project Blue Book ran between January and March 2019. Last year’s show topics included a “dogfight” with a UFO over Fargo, N.D. in 1948; “foo fighters” during World War II (Friend was a WWII fighter pilot himself); and UFOs buzzing Washington DC in the summer of 1952. O’Leary says he likes to mix it up and explore scenarios beyond traditional UFO sightings in the sky, such as chasing aliens through the forest, making telepathic connections with aliens, and a Kentucky family that reported an alien home invasion.

• Anything beyond Season 2 has not been confirmed. But O’Leary and his team say they “have a lot of new ideas and areas to explore” and would be interested in producing more episodes.

 

“Project Blue Book,” the hit television docudrama about the U.S. military’s investigations into aliens more than 50 years ago, is back for Season 2.
The History Channel series runs on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST and PST — check your local listings to confirm the time in your viewing area. The next episode is tonight (Jan. 28).

                    David O’Leary

The series shares the same name as the real-life U.S. Air Force investigation into unidentified flying objects (UFOs), which was called Project Blue Book. That investigation launched in 1952 and continued until 1969. Experts examined more than 12,000 UFO sightings (of which more than 700 are still unexplained), according to series creator and executive producer David O’Leary.

“For me, UFOs have been a lifelong obsession,” he told Space.com. “I have always been fascinated by the question [of] ‘Are we alone in the universe? And I never felt you could honestly answer that question without examining the UFO issue.”

O’Leary said through his research on Project Blue Book, he became convinced that there “really is a phenomenon” of UFOs, even though experts often debunk the purported sightings, or say that the existence of UFOs doesn’t necessarily mean that aliens are in our airspace.

“Once I learned the chief of scientific consultants for the U.S. Air Force [J. Allen Hynek] and the first director of that program [Edward J. Ruppelt] both became convinced through this program that UFOs are real and represent a true scientific mystery and worthy of true scientific study, something clicked for me. This is unbelievable. So this is a drama series that examines this program through the eyes of these two men.”

O’Leary has spent many hours reading the first-hand research from both Blue Book, via the declassified documents in Hynek’s book “The UFO Experience” (Regnery, 1972), and from independent UFO historians. The producer also interviewed the last living director of Blue Book — Robert J. Friend, who died in June 2019 at age 99. Friend not only provided details of the investigations, but also discussed matters such as what the project’s offices looked like. His testimony helped with the sets on the show, O’Leary said.

2:14 minute trailer for Season Two of ‘Project Blue Book’ (HISTORY YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

George Adamski Got Famous Sharing UFO Photos and Alien ‘Encounters’

Listen to “E225 George Adamski Got Famous Sharing UFO Photos and Alien ‘Encounters’” on Spreaker.

Article by Greg Daugherty                           January 9, 2020                           (history.com)

• George Adamski is perhaps the most famous UFO contactee and is certainly one of the most controversial characters in UFO history. Throughout his life, Adamski took photos of UFOs, wrote books and told stories of his encounters with human-like extraterrestrials from other planets in our solar system, gaining international fame as well as criticism.

• Adamski was born in Poland in 1891, coming to the U.S. with his parents and growing up in northern New York state. He had little formal education. In 1934, he told a Los Angeles Times reporter that he had lived in Tibet as a child, and planned to establish the first Tibetan monastery in Laguna Beach, California. In 1936, he told the newspapers that he was going to establish the world headquarters of an organization called ‘Universal Progressive Christianity’ in Laguna Beach. He also offered a tax plan to end the Great Depression in 1938.

• After World War II, Adamski’s ambitions turned to UFOs. In October 1946, he spotted his first UFO – a motionless black cigar-shaped craft. In August 1947, he witnessed a procession of 184 UFOs in the sky. By 1949, he’d attached a camera to his six-inch telescope and began scanning the skies. Adamski estimated that he took about 500 flying saucer photos, from which he got a dozen good quality shots. Newspapers and magazines published Adamski’s photos, and he gave lectures on UFOs. He also operated a tiny restaurant with a small telescope set up out back (in a rural area between Los Angeles and San Diego).

• In 1952, Adamski reported that he had met and conversed with a visitor from Venus in a California desert using a combination of hand gestures and mental telepathy, which he recounted in his 1953 book: Flying Saucers Have Landed. His 1955 sequel: Inside the Space Ships, recounted meeting human-like emissaries from Mars and Saturn. Adamski claimed that every planet in our solar system had human-like inhabitants, as did a base on the dark side of the Earth’s Moon.

• In his books, Adamski claimed that his extraterrestrial friends took him aboard a scout ship, flew him to a mother ship hovering over the Earth, gave him a ride around the Moon, and treated him to a colorful travelogue about life on Venus. He said that a 1,000 year-old man shared with him the secrets of the universe, some of which he was not allowed to divulge back on Earth.

• Adamski recounted his meeting in November 1952 with a human-like visitor from Venus in a remote part of the California desert. “The beauty of his form surpassed anything I had ever seen,” said Adamski. “(His) hair was sandy in color and hung in beautiful waves to his shoulders, glistening more beautifully than any woman’s I have ever seen.” The Venusian had come to deliver a message: ‘Earthlings should stop messing around with atomic bombs before they destroy their entire planet.’

• Project Bluebook investigator J. Allen Hynek called Adamski’s flying saucer photos ‘crude fakes’. Hynek’s Bluebook partner, Edward J. Ruppelt, visited Adamski’s restaurant in 1953 to find Adamski hawking his UFO photos. While Ruppelt didn’t believe him, he wrote that he was impressed all the same. “To look at the man and to listen to his story, you had an immediate urge to believe him,” said Ruppelt, … he had “the most honest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen.” SciFi writer Arthur C. Clarke also denounced Adamski’s work and called his believers “nitwits.” But in 1959, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands invited Adamski to her palace to discuss extraterrestrials. Adamski is said to have also had a secret meeting with the Pope in 1963.

• In 1961, Adamski published his last book: Flying Saucers Farewell, and continued to lecture widely. In 1965, Adamski predicted that a large fleet of flying saucers would soon descend on Washington, D.C. He died in April 1965 at age 74.

• Since his death, Adamski’s critics have tended to portray him as a harmless, small-time con artist. Others like Arthur C. Clarke and J. Allen Hynek have accused Adamski of discrediting the entire field of UFO research. But Adamski stuck by his story to the end. In his first book, Adamski gave an upbeat but ominous message: “Let us be friendly. Let us recognize and welcome the men from other worlds! They are here among us.”

 

To some, he was a prophet. To others, a laughing stock. Even today, more than half a century after his death, George Adamski remains one of the most curious and controversial characters in UFO history.

Adamski had multiple claims to UFO fame. Starting in the late 1940s, he took countless photos of what he insisted were flying saucers. But experts, including J. Allen Hynek, scientific consultant to the Air Force’s Cold War-era UFO investigation team Project Blue Book, dismissed them as crude fakes.

                 George Adamski

Then, in 1952, Adamski reported that he had met and conversed with a visitor from Venus in a California desert, using a combination of hand gestures and mental telepathy.

His story would only get stranger from there.

A star gazer is born

Adamski chronicled his alleged adventures in several books. The first, Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), coauthored with Desmond Leslie, recounted his chat with the Venusian. Widely read at the time, it later gained a new generation of fans in the trippy 1960s.

Adamski’s 1955 sequel, Inside the Space Ships, described further meetings, not only with the Venusian but also with emissaries from Mars and Saturn.In Adamski’s telling, every planet in our solar system was populated with human-like inhabitants, as was the dark side of the earth’s moon.

In the 1955 book, Adamski claimed that his new friends took him aboard one of their scout ships, flew him to an immense mother ship hovering over the earth, gave him a ride around the moon and treated him to a colorful travelogue about life on Venus.

Along the way, he was also tutored by a space man he called “the master.” The master, who was said to be nearly 1,000 years old, shared the secrets of the universe with Adamski, only some of which he was allowed to divulge back on earth.

Preposterous as his stories seemed, Adamski became an international celebrity and lectured widely. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands raised a public stir after inviting him to her palace in 1959 to discuss extraterrestrial doings. Adamski supposedly claimed a secret 1963 meeting with the pope, as well.

Adamski soon had followers all over the planet. But not everybody was on board. Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, not only denounced Adamski’s work but characterized his believers as “nitwits.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

How the CIA Tried to Quell a UFO Panic During the Cold War

Listen to “E222 How the CIA Tried to Quell a UFO Panic During the Cold War” on Spreaker.

Article by Becky Little                     January 5, 2020                      (history.com)

• In the 1950s, when Cold War anxiety in America ranged from Soviet psychological warfare to nuclear annihilation, LIFE Magazine published a story titled “Have We Visitors From Space?” that offered “scientific evidence that there is a real case for interplanetary saucers.” A few months later in the summer of 1952, newspaper headlines blared reports of flying saucers swarming Washington, D.C. During this period, the US Air Force said that reported UFO sightings jumped from 23 to 148.

• the U.S. government worried about the prospect of a growing national hysteria. The CIA decided it needed a “national policy” for “what should be told the public regarding the phenomenon, in order to minimize risk of panic.” The CIA convened a group of scientists to investigate whether the UFO phenomena represented a national security threat.

• The CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence collaborated with Howard Percy Robertson, a professor of mathematical physics at the California Institute of Technology, to gather a panel of nonmilitary scientists. The Robertson panel met for a few days in January 1953 to review Air Force records about UFO sightings going back to 1947. The panel reviewed Project Blue Book investigators Captain Edward J. Ruppelt and J. Allen Hynek and concluded that many of these ‘unexplained’ sightings were actually explainable if you just got creative about it. The panel’s main concern was controlling public hysteria.

• According to former UK government UFO investigator, Nick Pope, the CIA was worried that “the Soviets would find a way to use the huge level of public interest in UFOs to somehow manipulate, to cause panic; which then could be used to undermine national cohesiveness.” The Robertson report itself supports this viewpoint, suggesting “mass hysteria” over UFOs could lead to “greater vulnerability to possible enemy psychological warfare.”

• The Robertson report, which was released to the public in 1975 (see the Robertson report here), recommended debunking the notion of UFOs in the media content of articles, TV shows and movies in order to “… reduce the current gullibility of the public and … their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda.”

• News reporter and book author, Leslie Kean, points to a CBS television show hosted by Walter Cronkite in 1966, which a Robertson panelist claimed to have helped organize “around the Robertson panel conclusions”. The program focused on debunking UFO sightings.

• Between 1966 and 1968, the US Air Force commissioned another ‘scientific’ inquiry into Project Blue Book by physicist Edward U. Condon and a group of scientists at the University of Colorado. The Condon Committee concluded that UFOs posed no threat to the U.S., and that most sightings could be easily explained. It also suggested that the Air Force end Project Blue Book’s investigations into UFOs—which it did in 1969. (see Condon Report here)

• UFO researchers have suggested that the government never really allowed the Robertson panel, the Condon Committee, or even Project Blue Book to review the most sensitive ‘classified’ UFO sightings. This is directly supported by a 1969 memo signed by Brigadier General Carroll H. Bolender revealing the Air Force hadn’t shared all UFO sightings with Project Blue Book and would continue to investigate sightings that could present a national security threat after the project ended.

• Critics claim that the real goal of the Robertson panel, the Condon Committee, and Project Blue Book was never to identify UFOs, but simply to influence public reaction to them. If so, then the government must have had information about extraterrestrials it wanted to conceal.

• The secrecy involving national security issues gave the CIA and the Air Force the audacity to explain away UFO sightings as “natural phenomena such as ice crystals and temperature inversions.” An example of a cover-up of UFOs that continues to today is the CIA’s claim that over half of the UFOs reported in the 1950s and 60s were actually US spy planes. CIA National Reconnaissance Office historian Gerald K. Haines notes a CIA tweet in 2014 that read, “Remember reports of unusual activity in the skies in the ‘50s? That was us.”

 

     Howard Percy Robertson

In January 1953, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency had a thorny situation on its hands. Reports of UFO sightings were mushrooming around the country. Press accounts were fanning public fascination—and concern. So the CIA convened a group of scientists to investigate whether these unknown phenomena in the sky represented a national security threat.

                  The Robertson Panel

But there was something else.

At a time when growing Cold War anxiety about the Soviets ranged from psychological warfare to wholesale nuclear annihilation, the U.S. government worried about the prospect of a growing national hysteria. In the previous year, UFOs had begun to figure prominently in the public conversation. In April 1952, the popular magazine LIFE published a story titled “Have We Visitors from Space?” that promised to offer “scientific evidence that there is a real case for interplanetary saucers.” In July that year, newspaper headlines around the country blared reports of flying saucers swarming Washington, D.C. Between March and June that year, the number of UFO sightings officially reported to the U.S. Air Force jumped from 23 to 148. Given all the attention UFOs were getting, the CIA decided it needed a “national policy” for “what should be told the public regarding the phenomenon, in order to minimize risk of panic,” according to government documents.

The Robertson report: The real enemy is hysteria

          Edward U. Condon

To this end, the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence collaborated with Howard Percy Robertson, a professor of mathematical physics at the California Institute of Technology, to gather a panel of nonmilitary scientists. The Robertson panel met for a few days in January 1953 to review Air Force records about UFO sightings going back to 1947.

Project Blue Book, which had started in 1952, was the latest iteration of the Air Force’s UFO investigative teams. After interviewing project members Captain Edward J. Ruppelt and astronomer J. Allen Hynek, the panel concluded that many sightings Blue Book had tracked were, in fact, explainable. For example, after reviewing film taken of a UFO sighting near Great Falls, Montana on August 15, 1950, the panel concluded what the film actually showed was sunlight reflecting off the surface of two Air Force interceptor jets.

The panel did actually see a potential threat related to this phenomena—but it wasn’t saucers and little green men.

“It was the public itself,” says John Greenewald, Jr., founder of The Black Vault, an online archive of government documents. There was a concern “that the general public, with their panic and hysteria, could overwhelm the resources of the U.S. government” in a time of crisis.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Project Blue Book Episode 4 Review: Operation Paperclip

Alejandro Rojas                  January 30, 2019                          (denofgeek.com)

• Episode 4 of the History Channel series, Project Blue Book, is entitled “Operation Paperclip” and delves into the events in Huntsville, Alabama in the late 1950’s, when the former Nazi rocket scientist, Wernher von Braun, was heading up the US military’s development of its own rocket weaponry. The show’s protagonist, J Allen Hynek, is led to Huntsville after he sees a UFO darting around his commercial airplane and his partner, Air Force Captain Michael Quinn, feels certain that it was a rocket from the Huntsville base. While there, they are introduced to Von Braun and other Germans that were brought here under Operation Paperclip to assimilate into American society and work on the rocket program. They see a humanoid alien floating on a vat of liquid, and a UFO or replica that disappears when a force-field is activated around it.

• Operation Paperclip was real, and Wernher von Braun was a real rocket scientist brought to the U.S. The German rocket scientists were first brought to Fort Bliss, Texas, but in the ‘50s, von Braun and his team were moved to Huntsville, Alabama. The Americans wanted the Germans to create the world’s first ballistic missiles for them.

• During WWII, the Nazi’s communicated with aliens (Draco Reptilians) and were able to develop technologies based on alien technology. There are pictures online of saucer-shaped craft with Nazi symbols and guns mounted on them, although firing the weapons disrupted the propulsion systems and would not work. The Germans were able to develop rudimentary anti-gravity propulsion with a “Nazi Bell” craft. The propulsion system consisted of two cylinders filled with a mercury-like substance that spun in opposite directions.

• In 1943, the USS Eldridge, a 300 ft long Navy destroyer, was used to experiment with cloaking technology. When the invisibility machine was enabled, the ship disappeared. When it reappeared crewmen reported feeling sick, and some were killed by somehow being embedded into the bulkhead of the vessel. Known as “The Philadelphia Experiment”, this is the technology alluded to in this episode of Operation Blue Book when the prototype spaceship disappears at the end of the show.

• This Project Blue Book episode seems to suggest UFO sightings are actually due to civilian sightings of our own experimental aircraft, or in this case, experimental rockets. This is a ruse that the CIA has often used. The problem is that the U.S. Air Force began investigating UFO sightings in 1947 with Project Sign and Project Blue Book began in 1952. The U.S. did not conduct test flights of the U-2 spy plane until the mid to late 50s. So it is not possible for the U-2 test flights to have been the UFOs that caused the creation of Project Blue Book.

• Project Blue Book, the TV show, is getting more exciting. This particular journey into conspiratorial sci-fi is intelligent in that it is expertly incorporating the UFO and conspiracy mythologies while making the viewers think about alternate explanations to the UFO mystery.

 

Project Blue Book episode 4 takes a nosedive into the rabbit hole, but the wild storylines follow real conspiracy and UFO mythologies that are popular on the web. It also presents an intriguing alternate theory to the idea that UFOs have anything to do with aliens at all.

   the real Wernher von Braun

Take an odd part of history, add a bit of conspiracy mythology, then sprinkle with magic Hollywood dust and up sprouts a huge, beautiful tree of fantasy. That would sum up my feelings on “Operation Paperclip.” I am a student of history, so I relish in historical accuracy. However, I am also a sci-fi buff, and this latest episode frustrated the history buff in me while exciting my sci-fi side.

Let’s get into it. The show begins with Hynek on an airplane. The first mystery presented was that the passenger cabin of the aircraft looked more like a train with curtains over the windows and seats that faced one another. However, in a tweet, show creator and writer David O’Leary wrote: “Yes, these old 1950s planes really did have train-like booths that faced each other. And lots more leg room!” Score one for historical accuracy! Granted, it’s one of the few points that I will award in this category for this particular episode.

Hynek then sees a UFO flying around the airplane. We are lead to believe Hynek is experiencing this sighting, but then he wakes from a dream. He was dreaming about his most recent UFO case – a sighting by the passengers and crew of a commercial aircraft near Huntsville, Alabama.

          the real J. Allen Hynek

Quinn feels certain he knows who is responsible for this UFO incident and he is not very happy about it. Quinn explains that after World War II, German scientists were snatched up by the U.S. as part of Operation Paperclip. He says Huntsville was set up to house German scientists working on rocket technology, led by Wernher von Braun. Having fought in World War II, Quinn is with the situation.

Hynek and Quinn travel to Huntsville to find out what the Germans are up to. Quinn is convinced that the UFO that buzzed the airplane was a rocket built by the former German scientists, who he believes were not concerned with endangering the lives of the passengers.

Security denies Hynek and Quinn access to the base, but Quinn crashes through the barricades anyway. This does allow them an audience with Von Braun but also lands Quinn a suspension. Von Braun says he is familiar with Hynek’s work, shows them a secret rocket launch and offers Hynek a job. He admits it was one of his rockets that buzzed the airplane, but Hynek doesn’t believe him.

To make a long story short, after leaving, Hyenk and Quinn break into the base again. This time they sneak around and find a body floating in a suspended animation container. It looks like an alien. The base alarms sound, so the two race off, only to be caught. Von Braun tells them what they saw was a monkey that had been sent into space and was undergoing testing as to the effects of space on its body. Hynek tells him he is suspicious of their project because the rocket explanation for the UFO sighting did not fit the witness testimony. There is something von Braun is hiding.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Aliens and Cold War Paranoia Collide in ‘Project Blue Book’

by Judy Berman                    January 3, 2019                      (time.com)

• Based on the true story of J. Allen Hynek’s evolution from UFO skeptic as the head astronomer for Project Blue Book, to a believer suspicious of a government cover-up, premiered on January 8th on the History Channel. Project Blue Book was an Air Force project to ‘study’ and ultimately debunk all UFO reports, which existed from 1952 to 1969.

• The show, entitled “Project Blue Book” is executive produced by Robert Zemeckis. Aidan Gillen, Game of Thrones’ “Littlefinger”, portrays the brilliant but arrogant J. Allen Hynek. Set in the simpler times of the 1950’s and 60’s, the historical drama brings forth the underlying paranoia of government agendas and Soviet espionage that was brewing just below the surface.

• Project Blue Book works as a paranormal procedural in the X-Files mold; the story moves quickly, the performances elevate the scripts and episodes strike the right balance between the character’s relationships and a darker scenario that drives the season-long arc of a ‘very watchable’ show.

 

After World War II, as tensions with the Soviet Union fueled both the space race and fears of nuclear apocalypse, the U.S. Air Force started investigating UFOs. For help debunking the strange reports flowing in from across the country, the military enlisted J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer later known for developing the “close encounter” classification system. But over the years, Hynek grew less skeptical about UFOs and more suspicious of his bosses’ agenda, even as he remained instrumental to the 17-year study Project Blue Book.

His story is so obviously the stuff of prestige TV that it’s surprising it has taken so long to reach cable, in the form of a sci-fi drama from executive producer Robert Zemeckis that premieres on Jan. 8 on History. Project Blue Book smartly casts Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones‘ Littlefinger) as the brilliant but arrogant Hynek. Captain Michael Quinn (Michael Malarkey) is the grounded Scully to his obsessive Mulder, a World War II hero charged with overseeing Allen–and ensuring that he toes the Air Force line. Above Quinn’s pay grade, a cover-up is brewing. And at home, Allen’s long absences have primed his wife Mimi (Laura Mennell) for a friendship with a mysterious new woman in town (Ksenia Solo).

Many great historical dramas–Mad Men, Halt and Catch Fire, The Knick–have been built on similar setups, following difficult visionaries who struggle against contemporary mores and authorities to shape the future we inhabit. Project Blue Book calls back to The Americans too, with Soviet spies sniffing around Allen’s classified research.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Meet J. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified UFO ‘Close Encounters’

by Greg Daugherty                      November 19, 2018                      (history.com)

• In 1947, a rash of reports of UFOs had the public on edge. The Air Force created Project Sign to investigate these UFO sightings. But they needed outside expertise to sift through the reports and come up with explanations for all of these sightings. Enter J. Allen Hynek.

• In 1948, Hynek was the 37-year-old director at Ohio State University’s McMillin Observatory. He had worked for the government during WWII developing new defense technologies for the war effort with a high security clearance. The Air Force approached him to be a consultant on ‘flying saucers’ for the government. “I had scarcely heard of UFOs in 1948 and, like every other scientist I knew, assumed that they were nonsense,” Hynek recalled.

• Hynek’s UFO investigations under Project Sign resulted in twenty percent of the 237 cases that couldn’t be explained. In February 1949, Project Sign was succeeded by Project Grudge, which said Hynek, “took as its premise that UFOs simply could not be.” The 1949 Grudge report concluded that the phenomena posed no danger to the United States, and warranted no further study.

• But UFO incidents continued, even from the Air Force’s own radar operators. The national media began treating the phenomenon more seriously. The Air Force had little choice but to revive Project Grudge under a new name: Project Blue Book. Hynek joined Project Blue Book in 1952 and would remain with it until its demise in 1969. But he had changed his mind about the existence of UFOs. “The witnesses I interviewed could have been lying, could have been insane or could have been hallucinating collectively—but I do not think so,” he recalled in 1977. Hynek deplored the ridicule that people who reported a UFO sighting often had to endure, causing untold numbers of others to never come forward, not to mention the loss of useful research data.

• “Given the controversial nature of the subject, it’s understandable that both scientists and witnesses are reluctant to come forward,” said Jacques Vallee, co-author with Dr. Hynek of The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.

• On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union surprised the world by launching Sputnik, a serious blow to Americans’ sense of technological superiority. Hynek was on TV assuring Americans that their scientists were closely monitoring the situation. UFO sightings continued unabated.

• In the 1960s, Hynek was the top expert on UFOs as scientific consultant to Project Blue Book. But he chafed at what he perceived as the project’s mandate to debunk UFO sightings, and the inadequate resources at his disposal. Air Force Major Hector Quintanilla, who headed the project from 1963 to 1969, writes that he considered Hynek a “liability.”

• Hynek frustrated UFO debunkers such as the U.S. Air Force. But in 1966, after suggesting that a UFO sighting in Michigan may have been an optical illusion created by swamp gas, he became a punchline for UFO believers as well.

• In his testimony for a Congressional hearing in 1966, Hynek stated, “[I]t is my opinion that the body of data accumulated since 1948…deserves close scrutiny by a civilian panel of physical and social scientists…”. The Air Force established a civilian committee of scientists to investigate UFOs, chaired by physicist, Dr. Edward U. Condon. In 1968, Hynek assailed the Condon Report’s conclusion that “further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified.” In 1969, Project Blue Book shut down for good.

• UFO sightings continued around the world. Hynek later quipped, “apparently [they] did not read the Condon Report”. Hynek went on with his research, free from the compromises and bullying of the U.S. Air Force.

• In 1972, Hynek published his first book, The UFO Experience. It introduced Hynek’s classifications of UFO incidents, which he called Close Encounters. Close Encounters of the First Kind meant UFOs seen at a close enough range to make out some details. In a Close Encounter of the Second Kind, the UFO had a physical effect, such as scorching trees, frightening animals or causing car motors to suddenly conk out. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, witnesses reported seeing occupants in or near a UFO.

• In 1977, Steven Spielberg released the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Hynek was paid $1,000 for the use of the title, another $1,000 for the rights to use stories from the book and $1,500 for three days of technical consulting. He also had a brief cameo in the film, playing an awestruck scientist when the alien spacecraft comes into view.

• In 1978, Hynek retired from teaching. In 1973 he had founded the Center for UFO Studies which continues to this day. Hynek died in 1986, at age 75, from a brain tumor.

 

It’s September 1947, and the U.S. Air Force has a problem. A rash of reports about mysterious objects in the skies has the public on edge and the military baffled. The Air Force needs to figure out what’s going on—and fast. It launches an investigation it calls Project Sign.

By early 1948 the team realizes it needs some outside expertise to sift through the reports it’s receiving—specifically an astronomer who can determine which cases are easily explained by astronomical phenomena, such as planets, stars or meteors.

For J. Allen Hynek, then the 37-year-old director at Ohio State University’s McMillin Observatory, it would be a classic case of being in the right place at the right time—or, as he may have occasionally lamented, the wrong place at the wrong one.

The adventure begins

Hynek had worked for the government during the war, developing new defense technologies like the first radio-controlled fuse, so he already had a high security clearance and was a natural go-to.

“One day I had a visit from several men from the technical center at Wright-Patterson Air Force base, which was only 60 miles away in Dayton,” Hynek later wrote. “With some obvious embarrassment, the men eventually brought up the subject of ‘flying saucers’ and asked me if I would care to serve as consultant to the Air Force on the matter… The job didn’t seem as though it would take too much time, so I agreed.”

Little did Hynek realize that he was about to begin a lifelong odyssey that would make him one of the most famous and, at times, controversial scientists of the 20 century. Nor could he have guessed how much his own thinking about UFOs would change over that period as he persisted in bringing rigorous scientific inquiry to the subject.

“I had scarcely heard of UFOs in 1948 and, like every other scientist I knew, assumed that they were nonsense,” he recalled.

Project Sign ran for a year, during which the team reviewed 237 cases. In Hynek’s final report, he noted that about 32 percent of incidents could be attributed to astronomical phenomena, while another 35 percent had other explanations, such as balloons, rockets, flares or birds. Of the remaining 33 percent, 13 percent didn’t offer enough evidence to yield an explanation. That left 20 percent that provided investigators with some evidence but still couldn’t be explained.

The Air Force was loath to use the term “unidentified flying object,” so the mysterious 20 percent were simply classified as “unidentified.”

In February 1949, Project Sign was succeeded by Project Grudge. While Sign offered at least a pretense of scientific objectivity, Grudge seems to have been dismissive from the start, just as its angry-sounding name suggests. Hynek, who played no role in Project Grudge, said it “took as its premise that UFOs simply could not be.” Perhaps not surprisingly, its report, issued at the end of 1949, concluded that the phenomena posed no danger to the United States, having resulted from mass hysteria, deliberate hoaxes, mental illness or conventional objects that the witnesses had misinterpreted as otherworldly. It also suggested the subject wasn’t worth further study.

Project Blue Book is born

That might’ve been the end of it. But UFO incidents continued, including some puzzling reports from the Air Force’s own radar operators. The national media began treating the phenomenon more seriously; LIFE magazine did a 1952 cover story, and even the widely respected TV journalist Edward R. Murrow devoted a program to the topic, including an interview with Kenneth Arnold, a pilot whose 1947 sighting of mysterious objects over Mount Rainier in Washington state popularized the term “flying saucer.” The Air Force had little choice but to revive Project Grudge, which soon morphed into the more benignly named Project Blue Book.

Hynek joined Project Blue Book in 1952 and would remain with it until its demise in 1969. For him, it was a side gig as he continued to teach and to pursue other, non-UFO research, at Ohio State. In 1960 he moved to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to chair its astronomy department.

As before, Hynek’s role was to review the reports of UFO sightings and determine whether there was a logical astronomical explanation. Typically that involved a lot of unglamorous paperwork; but now and then, for an especially puzzling case, he had a chance to get out into the field.

There he discovered something he might never have learned from simply reading the files: how normal the people who reported seeing UFOs tended to be. “The witnesses I interviewed could have been lying, could have been insane or could have been hallucinating collectively—but I do not think so,” he recalled in his 1977 book, The Hynek UFO Report.

“Their standing in the community, their lack of motive for perpetration of a hoax, their own puzzlement at the turn of events they believe they witnessed, and often their great reluctance to speak of the experience—all lend a subjective reality to their UFO experience.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Two Pilots Saw a UFO. Why Did the Air Force Destroy the Report?

by Greg Daugherty                    August 10, 2018                          (history.com)

• On July 24, 1948, at 2:45 am, twenty passengers and two pilots were in an Eastern Air Lines DC-3 twin-engine propeller plane on route from Houston to Atlanta, flying at 5,000 feet on a clear and moonlit night. The plane was flown by former World War II Air Corps officers and veteran pilots, Clarence S. Chiles and John B. Whitted.

• About 20 miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, the two pilots and one passenger, Clarence L. McKelvie, who was the only passenger awake, saw a 100-ft long cigar-shaped UFO with no wings, and having an upper and lower deck of windows. They could see bright light glowing through the craft’s windows. Underneath the craft was a glow of blue light. And it had a flame shooting out from the back of the craft.

• As the UFO seemed to be heading right for them, Chiles said, “We veered to the left and it veered to its left, and passed us about 700 feet to our right and about 700 feet above us. Then, as if the pilot had seen us and wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame out of its rear and zoomed up into the clouds.” All three witnesses watched the craft for ten seconds before it disappeared from view into the clouds.

• The pilots made drawings of the craft and made written statements. (Chiles’ statement; Whitted’s statement) They both provided further details in subsequent newspaper and radio interviews.

• An Air Force department known as the “Air Technical Intelligence Center” reported that in its estimation, the UFO craft was ‘interplanetary’. When this classified report reached Chief of Staff General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, he outright dismissed any extraterrestrial connection. The Air Force was already convinced that these mysterious craft was Soviet spy technology, even though the Soviets wouldn’t even have the A-bomb until a year later. So the intelligence report was unceremoniously declassified and destroyed.

• The sighting was downplayed, alluding that the pilots merely saw a weather balloon or a mirage. The official Air Force determination was that the pilots saw a fireball or very bright meteor. Consultant to the Air Force’s ‘Project Blue Book’, J. Allen Hynek, claimed in his 1972 book, The UFO Experience that “the Pentagon had declared that the problem really didn’t exist.” Edward J. Ruppelt, the Air Force officer who initially headed Project Blue Book, said that “[T]he Air Force tried to throw up a screen of confusion. They couldn’t have done a better job.”

• But Chiles and Whitted always stuck to their story. In fact, Whitted later added a new twist to the story that he felt he needed to withhold at the time. Whitted said that the UFO didn’t just go into the clouds, but it actually vanished in front of their eyes.

 

Whatever occurred at 2:45 a.m. on the morning of July 24, 1948 in the skies over southwest Alabama not only shocked and stymied the witnesses. It jolted the U.S. government into a top-secret investigation—the results of which were ultimately destroyed.

The skies were mostly clear and the moon was bright in the pre-dawn hours as pilot Clarence S. Chiles and co-pilot John B. Whitted flew their Eastern Air Lines DC-3, a twin-engine propeller plane, at 5,000 feet, en route from Houston to Atlanta. The aircraft had 20 passengers on board, 19 of them asleep at that hour. It was a routine domestic flight, one of many in the skies that early morning.

                 Pilots Clarence S. Chiles
                    and John B. Whitted

Until suddenly, it wasn’t. What the two pilots and their wide-awake passenger saw in the skies about 20 miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, did more than startle them. It would reportedly become the catalyst for a highly classified Air Force document suggesting that some unidentified flying objects were spaceships from other worlds—a tipping point in UFO history.

Chiles described what he saw in an official statement about a week later: “It was clear there were no wings present, that it was powered by some jet or other type of power, shooting flame from the rear some 50 feet. There were two rows of windows, which indicated an upper and lower deck, [and] from inside these windows a very bright light was glowing. Underneath the ship there was a blue glow of light.” He estimated that he’d watched the ship for about 10 seconds before it disappeared into some light clouds and was lost from view.

Whitted offered a similar description in his official statement: “The object was cigar shaped and seemed to be about a hundred feet in length. The fuselage appeared to be about three times the circumference of a B-29 fuselage. It had two rows of windows, an upper and a lower. The windows were very large and seemed square. They were white with light which seemed to be caused by some type of combustion…. I asked Capt. Chiles what we had just seen and he said that he didn’t know.”

The passenger who was awake at the time, Clarence L. McKelvie of Columbus, Ohio, corroborated the pilots’ account that an unusually bright object had streaked past his window, but he wasn’t able to describe it beyond that.

Both pilots also made drawings of the craft they believed they had seen and provided further details in newspaper and radio interviews, some just hours after the sighting. The Atlanta Constitution headlined its July 25 account, “Atlanta Pilots Report Wingless Sky Monster.” In that article, Chiles described what sounded like an uncomfortably close encounter, as the object appeared to be coming at them. “We veered to the left and it veered to its left, and passed us about 700 feet to our right and about 700 feet above us. Then, as if the pilot had seen us and wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame out of its rear and zoomed up into the clouds.”

Chiles and Whitted weren’t the only ones baffled by what they’d seen.

Asked for comment, William M. Allen, the president of Boeing Aircraft told the United Press he was “pretty sure” it was “not one of our planes,” adding that he knew of nothing being built in the U.S. that matched the description. General George C. Kenney, the chief of the Strategic Air Command, which was responsible for most of America’s nuclear strike forces during the Cold War, told the Associated Press: “The Army hasn’t anything like that. I wish we did.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AND SEE THE PILOTS’ DRAWINGS

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Littlefinger Chases Aliens in History’s Good-Looking UFO Drama

by Tim Surette                 July 18, 2018                    (tvguide.com)

• A television series entitled “Project Blue Book” is in production for the History Channel, based on the real UFO investigations by the Air Force in the ’50s and ’60s. Robert Zemeckis, director of “Contact” and “Forrest Gump”, is behind the show. Aidan Gillen, who plays Little Finger in HBO’s “Game of Thrones”, plays J. Allen Hynek in the History Channel series.

• As portrayed in the trailer below, Gillen’s character, J. Allen Hynek, initially doubts the existence of UFOs and then tells anyone who will listen that there are aliens out there, much as the real Hynek did.

• The stories are pulled from the actual declassified files of Project Blue Book, a military program that studied the existence of unidentified flying objects based on eyewitness accounts. However, the series will be more about government cover-ups than the aliens themselves.

 

Anyone who tells you aliens don’t exist is a fat liar, and finally someone on television other than that weirdo “It was aliens” guy is here to help us spread the truth about the existence of our intergalactic neighbors. Game of Thrones’ Aidan Gillen stars in History’s upcoming Project Blue Book, a drama about real UFO investigations by the Air Force in the ’50s and ’60s, back when our species was still worth it for extraterrestrials to be curious about.

 

 

Aidan Gillen (left) as J. Allen Hynek

The first extended trailer is a two-minute journey of Gillen’s character J. Allen Hynek initially doubting the existence of UFOs and then telling anyone who will listen that there are aliens out there deforming children and tearing up our Air Force. The stories are pulled from the actual declassified files of Project Blue Book, a military program that studied the existence of unidentified flying objects based on eyewitness accounts. However, the series will be more about government cover-ups than little green men, so don’t expect to see the Washington Monument blown up.

       the real J. Allen Hynek

Robert Zemeckis, director of Contact and Forrest Gump, is behind the show, which is the latest from the network that continues to teeter on success with historical dramas after initially being dominated by black-and-white footage of WWII. Vikings is great and will conclude its fifth season later this year, but military drama Six was canceled after two seasons and Knightfall had a lukewarm debut when it premiered late last year.

Project Blue Book does not have a premiere date yet.

 

2:54 minute trailer for the History Channel’s Project Blue Book

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

UFO Mania Hit Muncie Hard in 1973

by Keith Roysdon              January 1, 2018            (thestarpress.com)

• In October, 1973, The Muncie Star, in Muncie, Indiana ran a UPI story about three UFOs over Tennessee reported by twenty witnesses including a county sheriff. In Chester County, Tennessee, two UFO’s reportedly buzzed two young brothers who hid in a chicken coop. Police blamed the misidentified objects as merely weather balloons.

• On October 9th, The Muncie Star reported, several hundred people saw mysterious multi-colored lights in the skies over Muncie. Police blamed it on weather balloons.

• On October 13th, the UPI reported that two shipyard workers in Pascagoula, Mississippi claimed to have been abducted and taken aboard a UFO by “silvery-skinned creatures with big eyes and pointed ears.” The shipyard workers’ stories were verified under hypnosis.

• Other reports began coming in from Muncie and Delaware County, Indiana of a rash of UFO sightings. The Star’s newspaper article headline read “[UFO] Reports Rampant in the South.” Indiana National Guard helicopters were blamed for these UFO sightings.

• On October 14th, a Dayton, Ohio woman told police that “an oblong object with blinking lights killed two cows when it landed in a field.”

• On October 17th, The Muncie Evening Press reported an encounter of a Muncie woman who claimed that a UFO had landed behind her home. The patrolman at the scene said, “That lady did see something because she was terrified”. “There are people out there that are not people,” one caller to police said about an incident near the town of Wheeling, north of Muncie.

• On October 19th, The Muncie Evening Press reported a Blackford County Sheriff’s Deputy seeing a “strange looking” object with arm-like extensions over a manufacturing plant.

• On October 20th, The Muncie Star reported UFO sightings near Portland, IN.

• Throughout October 1973, UFO sightings were reported every day from Texas to southern Indiana. But by November, the local UFO craze was over.

• Northwestern University researcher J. Allen Hynek said there was no doubt Earth was being visited by aliens. Steven Spielberg’s movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was set largely in Muncie, though not filmed there, and partially based on Hynek’s accounts.

• [Editor’s Note] I certainly hope that the guy responsible for losing all of those weather balloons was sacked.

 

With recent news reports of a secret Pentagon investigation of flying saucers and Unidentified Flying Objects going back over a period of several years, it’s important to note that Muncie, IN — all of East Central Indiana, really — got there first.

Muncie’s dramatic 1973 brush with UFO mania was recently cited in a magazine article and, of course, 2017 saw the 40th anniversary of the release of Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” which was set largely in Muncie (although it was not filmed here).

Before any of that happened, however, in October 1973, Muncie newspapers ran daily stories about sightings of UFOs around the country.

And then the flying saucer sightings began in earnest right in our own backyard.

October 1973 began with a United Press International story, played on page 16 of The Muncie Star, about UFO reports in Tennessee, where a county sheriff said he had personally seen three UFOs. Twenty people called police down there, noting they had made similar sightings.

The next day, another UPI story appeared, this time on the front page of The Star, expanding on the Tennessee sightings. Two brothers, 13 and 9, took refuge in a chicken coop when they were buzzed by a UFO in Chester County, Tennessee.

Two days later, according to a story published in The Muncie Star, police found a weather balloon that was likely responsible for UFO sightings north of Indianapolis.

For several days in a row, Muncie newspaper readers saw account after account of UFO sightings elsewhere. “Reports rampant in the south,” read one headline.

Then, on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 1973, the UFO craze came to Muncie. The evening before, The Muncie Star reported, “mysterious multi-colored lights” were seen by “several hundred” people. About 100 people called police, sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Cranor said, over the course of two hours. Another 50 to 60 people called Muncie police.

Police theorized that weather balloons were to blame. Newton Sprague, director of Ball State University’s observatory, offered the balloon theory too.

Then on Oct. 13, local newspapers carried a UPI story about two shipyard workers in Pascagoula, Mississippi, who said they were abducted and taken aboard a UFO by “silvery-skinned creatures with big eyes and pointed ears.” The reported encounter became one of the most famous of the UFO era.

The floodgates were opened for UFO sightings in the Muncie area.

On Saturday, Oct. 13, 1973, “four or five” Indiana National Guard helicopters were blamed for a rash of UFO reports over Muncie and Delaware County. The choppers prompted 40 calls to police.

The next day, in Dayton, Ohio, a woman told police that “an oblong object with blinking lights killed two cows when it landed in a field.”

In the meantime, UPI reported that hypnosis supported the stories of the two Mississippi men who said they were abducted. Northwestern University researcher J. Allen Hynek, upon whose cases Spielberg’s movie was partially based, said there was no doubt Earth was being visited by aliens.

On Oct. 17, The Muncie Evening Press reported on a few days of Muncie UFO encounters. “More UFOs reported in Muncie,” read the headline.

“A Mrs. Pierce at 226 N. Davis called police at 8:54 p.m. Tuesday to report that a UFO had landed behind her home. Patrolman William Kirby, who was at the scene, said, ‘That lady did see something because she was terrified.’” A neighbor had heard clicking sounds at about the same time.

“There are people out there that are not people,” one caller to police said about an incident near the town of Wheeling, north of Muncie.

“I’ll believe in one when it flies through my living room,” Muncie’s Deputy Police Chief, Jack Turner, told The Evening Press.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Copyright © 2019 Exopolitics Institute News Service. All Rights Reserved.