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Filer's Files #16 -- 1999, MUFON Skywatch Investigations
George A. Filer, Mutual UFO Network Eastern Director,
June 11, 1999, Majorstar@aol.com (609) 654-0020
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Professor Hermann Oberth, the German rocket expert is considered
to be one of the fathers of the space age. In 1955, Dr. Von Braun
invited him to the US to work at the Army Ballistic Missile
Agency and later NASA where he researched UFO propulsion. Oberth
stated, "It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and
that they are space ships from another solar system. I think that
they are possibly manned by intelligent observers who are members
of a race that may have been investigating our earth for
centuries. I think that they possibly have been sent out to
conduct systematic, long range investigations, first of men,
animals, vegetation and more recently of atomic centers,
armaments and centers of armament production." "Flying
Saucers Come From A Distant World" American Weekly, 10/24/54
CONNECTICUT
BRIDGEPORT -- Skywatch International reports that on June 2, 1999,
a large dark gray triangle was observed at 9:53 PM. A friend saw
an object from his house 2 to 3 miles away. The witness reports,
"I was on the phone and saw a large gray triangle object
appear below cloud cover. When it first appeared the UFO
displayed two large white lights, that went dark and were
replaced by three red lights on its edges. One of the red lights
had a flutter to it. The object the size of a 747 aircraft. The
rear of the triangle had one half a circle area cut out of it. It
moved from the northeast, and made an abrupt turn to the East
without making any noise. The object followed the power lines in
area for almost four minutes. While the object was visible the
family dog was agitated and barking. The weather was partly
cloudy. The object appeared solid and was as bright as a star.
Thanks to Skywatch International Inc.
CROMWELL -- On June 4, 1999, I was driving east looking towards
the rising sun at 5:30 AM. There was a huge brilliant white
object hovering in the sky. I normally turn off on a ramp that
brings me to Route 9 and north to Hartford, but I drove straight
towards the object and the center of Cromwell. At first I was
sure it was the morning star, but I knew the object was too large
and bright for a star. I observed it for a few minutes more and
became bored. So I decided to leave, when the object suddenly
shot straight up and was gone. I was wondering if anyone else saw
it? This is the third time I have seen a craft like this in the
Middlesex, County area. Thanks to Dean Burgess djburgess@snet.net.
NEW JERSEY DISC SIGHTED
TRENTON -- Ron De Baecke called me to report his sighting on June
7, 1999, of a huge disc shaped unidentified flying object
hovering in the sky. He is a retired Army aircraft mechanic and
has worked around aircraft most of his life. He and his wife
Patricia were driving north on Route 130 near Bordentown, when a
shiny bright object caught their attention in the clear blue sky
at 7:30 PM. The object appeared to be solid and manufactured with
a shiny metal surface. There were no lights visible on the craft.
It was positioned roughly over Trenton, the state capital. Ron
estimated the disc to be the size of a football field. Although,
there was no other aircraft to help estimate the exact size of
the craft, both he and his wife felt the UFO was huge. They drove
under some trees along the highway and when they could view the
open sky again the craft had disappeared. It was just hovering
and then it was gone. Ron stated, "It was so big that others
must have seen the craft, this is why we decided to make the
report." Until this sighting they were not believers in UFOs.
Thanks to Ron De Baecke. Visit our New NJ MUFON website at: http://www.contrailconnection.com/njmufon/index.htm
ELMER - On June 10, 1999, Linda Shirley reports seeing a UFO or
more specifically lights over South Jersey. I thought at first I
was seeing a very bright star in the late afternoon at early dusk.
Linda says she saw the lights for only twenty seconds, they were
hovering in the air. The lights were bright orange, round, and
very bright. Then from a dead stop it descended all the way to
the ground, at least it appeared to go to ground because I lost
it behind the trees. When it started a direct descent I knew it
was not a star. This is the first time I saw one in the daytime.
Thanks to Linda Shirley of Elmer.
WANAQUE RESERVOIR -- Jim Cleary of New Jersey Sighting's Website
has been investigating the recent action at the Wanaque Reservoir.
He interviewed Mike who has always been interested in UFO's and
stated, "What I've seen at the Reservoir at this point could
fill a 200 page notebook. One time I went with some friends, and
usually what we see is numerous lights just kind of sitting there
in the sky. They are just above the horizon, fading or
intensifying in luminosity and ever so slowly ascending or
descending in position. But this time the lights are all sitting
there, and I noticed off to our left in the sky is a light. I say
to them "Hey check it out. There is one over there, and it
turned off." Then I look right and I saw the light, but as I
went to speak it shut off. So we were surrounded. That was
interesting that time! As I said before usually its just lights
that sit above the horizon and either fade in or out or go slowly
up or down. If you are not patient you can easily be bored, as my
friends often do. Cleary asks, "Would you characterize the
lights you have seen mechanical craft of some type or do you
think the lights are some types of visible energy phenomena
caused by the Ramapoo fault?" Mike said, "There is no
way I could tell for sure if they are either craft or energy, but
from what I have observed it is my opinion that they are
mechanical craft." Cleary asks, "Wanaque has many
legends of strange things going on. Are you aware of any of them?"
Mike stated, "DuPont has been in Wanaque since at least the
60's. There were a lot of incredible UFO sightings, including one
where the UFO actually went into the Reservoir and didn't come
out for a week. The Governor went to the schools and held town
meetings saying that it was an asteroid. Thanks to Jim Cleary at
New Jersey Sightings:
TEXAS
LAKE LEWISVILLE -- Amy Hebert reports that on June 6, 1999, I was
in my back yard helping my daughter check on her turtle in our
pond. I looked up to the west while talking with my daughter and
noticed three, large, bright white lights in a row (horizontal)
flying to the west at a steady speed at 1:10 PM. I assumed it was
an airplane but something seemed strange about the three white
lights. I kept watching it while talking to my daughter. Then
suddenly three bright red lights emerged from the left side of
the three white lights and flew south faster than an airplane
would fly. The three bright white lights continued to fly off to
the west until I lost sight of it behind the trees. The first
object or the three white lights would have been over Lake
Lewisville about the time the three red lights emerged. The three
white lights were very bright and unusually big as were the three
red lights that were a very, very bright red. The lights were not
flashing or strobing. The lights were larger than a dime held at
arm's length. Thanks to Amy Hebert: yelorose@swbell.net.
NEW MEXICO IS INVESTIGATING COW DEATHS
QUESTA -- Brendan Smith writes, No one is sure what killed a calf
and two cows last month on the Tres Ritos Ranch, but ranch
manager Tom Reed definitely finds the deaths unusual. The last
cow was found dead May 23, 1999, in a pasture near where a dead
calf and a dead cow were found earlier in the month, Reed said.
The last cow had its udder cleanly cut off and a deep hole with
smoothly cut edges gouged into its neck. Each of the three
animals had unexplained wounds and missing body parts, Reed said.
The 8th Judicial District Attorney's Office takes cattle
mutilations seriously, although no one has ever been charged with
the crime, Assistant District Attorney John Day said. Dozens of
reported cattle mutilations in northern New Mexico dating back to
the 1970s have spawned theories about aliens sent to Earth to
slice up cows. Gabe Valdez, a retired State Police officer who
has investigated cattle mutilations near Dulce, said he is
working with the District Attorney's Office in investigating the
recent cattle deaths. Valdez is now a field investigator for the
National Institute for Discovery Science, a private organization
that has volunteered to pay for necropsies and lab tests on the
dead cattle. The institute, based in Las Vegas, Nev., researches
cattle mutilations, UFOs and reported encounters with aliens.
Reed found the first dead cow on May 4 in a pasture on the 3,200
acre Tres Ritos Ranch. The cow's right eye and right ear were
missing with a circular cut around the right ear extending down
the neck, Reed said. "There were no tracks where she was
injured or hurting and dragged herself around," Reed said,
"She was just there." The calf was found dead four days
later in the same area. The calf's right eye, tongue, and rump
were missing and the genital area had been cut open, Reed said.
The New Mexico Livestock Board investigated about 30 cattle
mutilations in northern New Mexico in 1993 and 1994. The
Livestock Board concluded most of the mutilations were not caused
by predators or scavengers, but there was "possible
involvement of clandestine Satanic groups." The institute
has researched about a dozen unexplained cattle deaths in New
Mexico or Utah, over the past 3 years, Kelleher said. After
conducting necropsies and lab tests, some of those cattle deaths
were determined to be caused by infectious disease, accidental
poisoning from insecticides, or the work of predators or
scavengers. "There are a small handful of mysterious cases
for which there are no logical explanations," Kelleher said.
Albuquerque Journal, 6/9/99
UNITED KINGDOM
HOOTON -- John Hayes received this sighting report. The witness
stated, "I am from England and on the 2nd of May this year,
I saw a blue light above Hooton Leviet near Maltby near Rotherham.
It was about 1:00 AM and I was camping in Kings Wood near by and
it was just hovering above Hooton. There was no noise and then it
moved left and then right and then it was gone. Thanks to: John
Hayes jhayes@cableinet.co.uk webmaster@ufoinfo.com
SHETLAND ISLANDS RADAR SEES UFO
RAF SAXA VORD -- A retired Royal Air Force radar operator reports
a strange UFO was captured on RAF radar in the winter of 1964-1965.
Dave Ledger of UFO Scotland reports that he recently spoke (for
the record) with an ex RAF member who was once based at the
northern most Early Warning Radar tracking station at RAF Saxa
Vord. The case was also documented by the Royal Air Force. Radar
Operators observed a stationary return on their "Type 84"
early warning radar, that gained their interest and curiosity.
The flying object was observed sitting motionless at a height of
approximately 20,000 feet by a "Type 13" radar height
finder system. The radar return was a very strong signal that
showed up clearly on the radar as a "real structured object."
What caused immediate concern was that this particular object
could not be readily identified by the personnel on duty. This
was during the "cold war," so the personnel had to
assume that this anomalous radar return was an incoming hostile
craft. It was now approaching the North coast of Scotland from a
northeasterly direction. There was no reply from the IFF (identification
friend or foe system) so the unknown was treated by the on duty
personnel as a hostile, possibly Russian. The unknown object
slowly continued to approach toward the Scottish coast. An QRA
alert was sent to the nearest interceptor base at RAF Leuchars in
Fife. They scrambled two English Electric Lightning fighter
aircraft to intercept and identify the incoming threat. The two
Lightnings were vectored, via the ground controllers, towards the
incoming bogey. As they approached the unknown, it became aware
of the interceptors and climbed vertical, rapidly, directly up
and up until it was lost on the height finder radar at about 100,000
feet. The two radar operators just looked at each other, shook
their heads and said "NO!" It is a well-known fact that
no known aircraft on this planet at that time, had the capability
of climbing to this altitude. The anomaly was definitely
exhibiting intelligent control and was in his honest opinion:
"Not one of ours!" These could have not been erroneous
ground returns as this incident took place over the North Sea.
The interceptors got nowhere near their targets but the whole
incident still remains unexplained. Thanks to Dave Ledger UFO
Scotland. Editor's Note: I had a similar intercept experience
over England while flying for the US Air Force. When we got close,
a hovering UFO also climbed at an astonishing rate.
HIGHEST GREENHOUSE GASES EVER
Rick Callahan an Associated Press writer reports. A two-mile-long
ice core laboriously drilled out of an Antarctic ice sheet shows
that levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are higher now than
at any time in the past 420,000 years. As the longest ice core
record of Earth's weather history obtained to date, the core also
shows that those gases -- carbon dioxide and methane -- play a
big role in warming the planet when ice ages end. But how this
icy record will influence current theory about global warming
blamed on human activity is not clear, the researchers said. The
ice core gives us the past, not the future. "It's clear that
greenhouse gas levels are unprecedented compared with the
previous 400,000 years.'' The core was extracted from 1992 to 98
by a U.S.-Russian-French team at Russia's Vostok research station,
the coldest spot on Earth. They stopped drilling about 120 yards
short of a subterranean lake the size of Lake Ontario that's been
trapped for millions of years beneath the ice sheet. Scientists
want to send sterilized robots to explore the pristine lake and
are protecting it from contamination until then. The new core
reveals four ice ages at roughly 100,000-year intervals. All four
appear to have given way to balmier times after levels of the
heat-trapping gases carbon dioxide and methane rose by amounts
smaller than the increase blamed on human industry in the past
century. The multinational team reported its findings in the June
3 issue of the Journal Nature. They found carbon dioxide levels
rose from 180 parts per million during each ice age's height to
280-300 ppm in the subsequent warm periods. This is far below the
current CO2 levels of 360 ppm. Methane levels rose from 320-350
parts per billion during the icy interludes to 650-770 ppb during
the warm spells. Current methane levels are 1,700 ppb. The levels
of both greenhouse gases are expected to continue their rise due
to continued burning of fossil fuels and other human activities.
This study is the most persuading evidence to date that humans
are making really large changes to Earth's climate system,'' said
Jonathan Overpeck, at the National Geophysical Data Center in
Boulder. Thanks to Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com/news/6news06-09.htm
AUSTRALIA
BBC News Online Science Editor, Dr. David Whitehouse reports that:
One of the most powerful searches for aliens in space is about to
begin from Australia. It will simultaneously listen to 58 million
radio channels. "The instrument is one of the most powerful
in the world and it's going to sift the skies to look for
artificial signatures from other intelligent civilizations,
should they exist," says Dr. Frank Stootman, Chairman of
SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Australia and Co-director
of the Southern Serendip Project. "This is a very
significant experiment that will contribute to testing some
important scientific paradigms about the origin and development
of self-conscious life in the universe," he added. Right
time, right place The search for ET will use the Parkes telescope
in New South Wales. The SETI Center has increased the number of
radio channels it can listen to simultaneously from eight million
to a staggering 58 million channels. Thanks to the BBC 6/9/99.
RUSSIA
ROSTOV-NA-DONU - The UFO looked at first like Venus, but was
much larger than any planet or star and it moves!" A Russian
girl has filmed a possible UFO on a camcorder and the film was
shown in a direct report to the Russian evening news ("RTV"-
Moskva "Russian TV" on June 2, 1999. According to a
student at Rostov-na-Donu University, the UFO had a bright
spherical form and was transforming in shape from time to time on
the television monitored in Lithuania. Zoomed in video of the UFO
were shown on Russian television. The announcer asked "Whether
the UFO could be viewed at this time?" The girl responded,
"UFO is at its former place, I see it." The mysterious
has been observed by city inhabitants nightly for the last three
days. Thanks to Anatoly Kutovoy, kutovoj@mail.iae.lt who
translated especially for Filer's Files.
1952, AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE STUDY IS REVEALING
Joel Carpenter writes that USAF's Stefan T. Possony was a
visionary theoretician. He would propose a lot of ideas for the
sake of analysis. This didn't necessarily mean that because he
committed an idea to paper, he was advocating it. His Air Force
Intelligence Special Studies Group was organized to look at
"out there" concepts. The whole point was to consider
ideas that other intelligence components might think were
unlikely, if they even looked at them at all. His hypothesis
about a possible relationship between UFOs and meteors was just a
hypothesis, and I don't think many scientists took it seriously.
It's very clear from Possony's other papers that what he really
suspected was that UFOs were Soviet secret weapons. I wouldn't
get hung up on the statements about cloud seeding, global warming,
and UFOs being a possible threat. Possony DID think UFOs were a
possible threat - probably from the USSR. The following Secret
memo to the head of USAF Intelligence is revealing:
SECRET: 1 August 1952 MEMORANDUM FOR GENERAL SAMFORD SUBJECT:
USAF Interest in Flying Saucers. At the risk of boring you with a
tedious subject, I want to submit a few ideas which may be
helpful in making a proper decision. What are the Flying Saucers?
It is a well-established heuristic principle that the unknown
must be made intelligible by referring to the known. If we ask
the question: "What known phenomena bear the greatest
similarity to saucers?" The answer seems to be that saucer
behavior follows the pattern of electromagnetic phenomena.
Assuming for the time being, that the saucers are a natural
phenomenon of some electromagnetic kind, and accepting the fact
that saucer phenomena have occurred at infrequent intervals
throughout history, we should inquire as to the cause of the
increased frequency of the occurrence. (The increase is about
4000-fold from 19th-century reports, though elimination from
current sightings would tend to reduce this figure). Since the
increase in sightings started in 1946-7, it may be fruitful to
tie the sightings to events preceding them and of which there
were no counterparts at earlier periods. Prior to the upsurge in
saucer sightings, the following new activities took place: 1. The
carrying of radioactive particles into the upper atmosphere by
means of atomic explosions and production; 2. The penetration of
the upper atmosphere by guided missiles, new types of balloons,
and perhaps aircraft; 3. The production of shock waves at higher
altitude, due to the breaching of the sound barrier; 4. The
increased output in radio and radar signals, including television;
5. The seeding of clouds for purposes of weather control; 6. The
great increase in commercial and private flying. Moreover, the
present era is characterized by a general "warming up"
of the climate in the northern hemisphere. Furthermore, the solar
system may be passing through an area in the universe where there
is a great deal of debris and where, therefore, an increase in
the intensity of the meteoric bombardment may be expected.
It is probable that flying saucers are not caused by any single
one of these factors, but by a convergence of causes. If the
saucers are really electromagnetic phenomena, there is a
possibility that they are connected primarily with atomic
activities, and that they are caused by the encounter of
radioactive particles and small meteors. In other words, they may
be ionized air brought about by the entry of very small meteors
into the atmosphere. During burn-up of the meteor metal, the
natural degree of ionization may be increased greatly through
available radioactive particles, with the possible result that
after the destruction of the metallic core, there would be a
gaseous rotating ion ball subject to movements in the atmosphere.
This "interpretation" occurred to me after an
illuminating discussion with General Maxwell, and I emphasize it
merely to indicate what type of approach the Air Force should
take in tackling the phenomena. Incidentally, there was no
temperature inversion in Washington for a long time, and
therefore, the mirage theory does not explain the latest
sightings.
What is the Air Force interest? 1. The Air Force continuously
will be "on the carpet" as long as no satisfactory
explanation can be given. Should the saucer activity increase,
pressure by the press and even Congress will be quite
considerable. 2. We cannot yet rule out entirely that saucers do
represent a threat. 3. If there is any validity to the assumption
that the saucers are partly the result of atomic activity, the
phenomenon would tie in directly with long range detection and if
solved, might lead to an increase in our intelligence capability...
I suggest therefore, that before the ATIC program be undertaken,
a very small panel of scientists be brought together and be
briefed on the documentation which is in the files right now.
Stefan T. Possony. Thanks to Joel Carpenter for obtaining this
previously classified Air Force Document.
MUFON JOURNAL For more detailed investigative reports subscribe
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