AIRCRAFT CARRIER MEETS GOD

Tue, 13 Aug 1996
Source: UFO WORLD
http://www.anw.com/aliens/Aircraft_Carrier_Meets_God.htm

Aircraft Carrier Meets God

A True Story

This encounter occurred in1970 while aboard the aircraft carrier, USS John F. Kennedy in the Bermuda Triangle.

I was assigned to the communications department of the Kennedy and had been in this section about a year. The ship was returning to Norfolk, VA after completing a two week operational readiness exercise (ORE) in the Caribbean. We were to stand down for 30 days, after arriving in Norfolk, to allow the crew to take leave and visit family before deploying to the Mediterranean for six months.

I was on duty in the communications center. My task was to monitor eight teletypes printing the"Fleet Broadcasts." On the top row were four teletypes each printing messages from four different channels. On the bottom row were four more doing the exact same thing except the signal was carried on different frequencies. If one of the primary receivers started taking "hits" I would be able to retrieve the message from the bottom one. I also notified Facilities Control of any hits so they could tune the receivers. On the other side of the compartment (room) was the NAVCOMMOPNET (Naval Communications Operations Network). This was the Ship to Shore circuit with the top teletype being the receive and the bottom as the send.

It was in the evening, about 20:30 (8:30 PM) and the ship had just completed an eighteen hour "Flight Ops." I had just taken a message off one of the broadcasts and turned around to file it on a clip board. When I turned back to the teletypes the primaries were typing garbage. I looked down to the alternates which were doing the same. I walked a few feet to the intercom between us and the Facilities Control. I called them and informed them of the broadcasts being out. A voice replied that all communications were out. I then turned and looked in the direction of the NAVCOMMOPNET and saw that the operator was having a problem. I then heard the Task Group operator tell the watch officer that his circuit was out also. In the far corner of the compartment were the pneumatic tubes going to the Signal bridge (where the flashing light and signal flag messages are sent and received). There is an intercom there to communicate with the Signal Bridge and over this intercom we heard someone yelling "There is something hovering over the ship!" A moment later we heard another voice yelling "It's God! It's the end of the world!"

We all looked at each other. There were six of us in the Comm Center, and someone said, "Lets go have a look!" The Comm Center is amidships, just under the flight deck, almost in the center of the ship. We went out the door, through Facilities Control and out that door, down the passageway (corridor) about 55 feet to the hatch that goes out to the catwalk on the edge of the flight deck. If you have ever been to sea, there is a time called the time of no horizon. This happens in the morning and evening just as the sun comes up or goes down over the horizon. During this time you cannot tell where the sea and sky meet. This is the time of evening it was. As we looked up, we saw a large, glowing sphere, three feet wide at arm's length. If the sphere were, say, 100 feet above the ship, then it would have been about two to three hundred feet in diameter. It made no sound that I could hear. The light coming from it wasn't too bright, about half of what the sun would be. It sort of pulsated a little and was yellow to orange.

We didn't get to looked at for more than about 20 seconds because General Quarters (Battle stations) was sounding and the Communication Officer was in the passageway telling us to get back into the Comm Center. We returned and stayed there (that was our battle station). We didn't have much to do because all the communication was still out. After about 20 minutes, the teletypes started printing correctly again. We stayed at General Quarters for about another hour, then secured. I didn't see or hear of any messages going out about the incident.

Over the next few hours, I talked to a good friend who was a radar operator in the CIC (combat information center). He told me that al the radar screens were just glowing during the time of the incident. I also talked to a guy I knew that worked on the Navigational Bridge. He told me that none of the compasses were working and that the medics had to sedate a boatswains mate that was a lookout on the signal bridge. I figured this was the one yelling it was God.

It was ironic that of the 5,000 men on a carrier, that only a handful actually saw this phenomenon. This was due to the fact that flight Ops had just be completed a short time before this all started and all the flight deck personnel were below resting. It should be noted that there are very few places where you can go to be out in the open air aboard a carrier. From what I could learn, virtually all electronic components stopped functioning during the 20 minutes or so that what ever it was hovered over the ship. The two Ready CAPs (Combat Air Patrols), which were F-4 Phantom jets that are always ready to be launched, would not start during the incident.

A few days latter, as we were approaching Norfolk, the Commanding and Executive Office came on the closed circuit TV system that we had. They did this regularly to address the crew and pass on information. During this particular session the Captain told us how well we did on the ORE and about our upcoming deployment to the Mediterranean. At the very end of his spiel, he said "I would like to remind the crew, that certain events that take place aboard a Naval Combatant Ship are classified and are not to be discussed with anyone without a need to know." This was the only official word I ever received or heard of on the incident. I heard that some of the crew had been "interviewed" about the incident, though.

Being young and excited about my visit home and going to the Mediterranean, I completely forgot about it until years later when my wife and I went to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind at the movies when it first came out. In fact the friend that had been the radar operator was with his wife and went with us. As we walked across the parking lot to my car after the show, I ask him if he remembered what we had experienced years earlier on the ship. He looked at me and said he never wanted to talk about it again. As he said this, he turned a little pale. I never talked about the incident again, myself. When I discovered the "Aliens and UFO's Forum," I started thinking about it again.

James Kopf Sr.

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