From: | skindrud@rosebud.berkeley.edu |
Title: | MILITARY ACCUSED OF DELIBERATE HOAXES OVER UFO SIGHTINGS. |
Source: | The Scotsman |
Date: | April 09, 1996 |
LEVEL 1 - 17 OF 183 STORIES
Copyright 1996 The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
The Scotsman
April 9, 1996, Tuesday
SECTION: Pg. 5
LENGTH: 1787 words
HEADLINE: Military accused of deliberate hoaxes over UFO sightings
BYLINE: Martin Hannan
BODY:
MILITARY authorities are not covering up large-scale contact with
extra-terrestrial life, according to a researcher into UFOs.
Instead they are covering up many of their own secret activities, Duncan
Lunan , a researcher into unexplained phenomena, told an audience at the
Edinburgh International Science Festival.
According to Mr Lunan, many other UFO sightings and "close encounters" are deliberate hoaxes either falsified by the military to discourage investigation
of their activities or caused by mischief-makers.
In a lecture which set out to demolish many UFO myths - to the dismay of
some of the audience - Mr Lunan demonstrated that UFO sightings could be
explained by natural phenomena such as meteorites, or by people encountering
military testing of secret hardware.
He also said that his researches had shown that statistics on UFOs - the
so-called "5 per cent" claim in which one in 20 UFOs are said to be genuinely unidentified - came about because of an international agreement that any
satellite or rocket pieces should be returned immediately to their country of
origin.
He explained: "If bits of Russian or a Chinese spy satellite, for instance, fall on Western territory they are immediately classified as UFOs, so that you don't have to hand them back to their country of origin but can hand them over
to the intelligence services."
He added: "Hoaxes feature a lot in the equation. Some of those hoaxes are
deliberately promoted by the military authorities in order to deflect
attention from their activities."
Mr Lunan said he had been told by intelligence officers that the "5 per
cent" of UFOs over the UK during the Cold War had included planes bringing in drug smugglers and illegal immigrants in order to confuse the Soviets as to what had really been identified.
He also said such famous UFOs as the original "flying saucer" sighting in 1947 and the Roswell incident in New Mexico could now be explained by the
release of information about "flying wing" aircraft and remote-controlled
pilotless vehicles (RPVs) which were in development by the US military in those areas at the time.
He added: "It would also explain why so many visitors to US Air Force bases claim to have glimpsed UFOs through hangar doors, which in turn led to
suggestions that the US government was in contact with aliens."
The most famous incident in Scotland involving a close encounter - "the only one in the world with a local authority plaque to mark the spot", said Mr Lunan - was Bob Taylor's report of an encounter with a downed UFO near Livingston in the 1970s.
Mr Lunan said that a journalist who dealt with the local police on the night that it happened and Mr Taylor himself later said the original police report
contained details of a caterpillar-track vehicle which attacked Mr Taylor and
slashed his trousers, a detail which has been left out of the official report of the incident.
Mr Lunan said that a more plausible explanation was that Mr Taylor had seen a military operation to recover a downed pilotless aircraft using a
"wheelbarrow" bomb disposal type now familiar from its use in Northern Ireland.
Mr Lunan added that "atmospheric phenomena" could explain many other UFOs.
"With Venus brilliant in the evening sky at the moment it is no coincidence we are experiencing a wave of UFO sightings in Scotland."
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: April 11, 1996