RECONSTRUCTION:
The UFO passes Milstadt, Illinois police officer Craig Stevens at approximately
4:28am. (Video Frame from "The Edge of
Reality: Illinois UFO, January 5, 2000")
The watch on Officer Craig Stevens’ wrist read 4:28am when he spotted
a triangular UFO moving very slowly past him near the Millstadt village
park, where he was parked, looking for the object. Officer Stevens was,
like other police officers that morning, tuned to CENCOM and at
4:39:27 Stevens
reported to the dispatcher that he saw the object. She asked if he was
kidding. “It’s huge”, Stevens replied. The UFO passed to his left
and he also observed a red blinking light on the underside of the craft.
POLICE REPORT SKETCH,
Officer Stevens; Millstadt, Illinois Police Department
Stevens described the UFO as having an arrowhead shape with a concave
rear that sported a horizontally moving, strobing light (to visualize
this, liken it to the effect seen on the front of the car in the
television series “KnightRider”). The entire aft surface of the
object consisted of a bank of white light, similar to the description by
both Noll and Barton.
POLICE REPORT SKETCH,
Officer Stevens; Millstadt, Illinois Police Department
Inverted image to clarify area of
white light across rear of craft.
Perhaps because Officer Stevens reported that the
object was only about 500 feet off the ground, he was able to hear a
faint buzzing sound from the object, which he described to be similar to
the buzz of a power transformer on a utility pole. Also, Stevens noted
that the texture of the craft could be compared to the 3-dimensional
blockiness of a naval battleship (reinforcing Officer Martin’s
observation). Before the UFO moved away from Stevens at a leisurely
pace, he also noted an effect which could possibly be an optical stealth
technology. Stevens told me that he saw what appeared to be the stars in
the sky above the craft, projected on its underside.
P-1: Unretouched scan of original
Polaroid photo taken by Officer Stevens.
Finally, Stevens
attempted to take a Polaroid photograph of the UFO as it departed,
making a slow, banking turn toward St. Louis. The temperature was cold
that morning, the camera was in the trunk, and the image, whether a
result of cold temperature or simple insufficient exposure, revealed
only four smears of light, blurred by camera motion while the camera
shutter remained open. The triangular object disappeared over the trees.
P-2: Enhanced image of Polaroid. CLICK for larger image.
P-3: Enlarged area
from image P-2. CLICK image to enlarge.
P-4: Enlarged, enhanced
area of Polaroid photo. CLICK for larger image.
DUPO,
ILLINOIS
Officer Matt Jany of the Dupo Police Department was on patrol that
morning and he could also hear the radio chatter about the UFO. Jany
started to look for the object from Interstate 255 as he was traveling
northbound, and pulled over. Soon visited by a fellow officer, they
joked about the conversation that had been broadcast over CENCOM. The
other officer departed and Jany drove up the road only to shortly see a
brightly lit object at a distance, to his east. Officer Jany estimated
the UFO to be at an altitude somewhere between where small private
aircraft and commercial jetliners fly as they approach St. Louis
International Airport, (aka Lambert Field). Officer Jany noted that the
lights on board the object were brighter than typical aircraft lights,
and that at one point he saw a large, red light glowing on the
underside, accompanied by white lights which were “sort of flashing”
around the object’s perimeter. Because the object was a good distance
from him, thus rather small, he used binoculars to view it. At that
distance, the red light he reported on the underside must have been very
large, and not the smaller, single blinking red light that was observed
by Officers Barton and Stevens. When St. Louis International Airport
(Lambert Field) called Jany and asked if he could still see the object,
he replied in the affirmative. St. Louis Air Traffic Control then
informed Jany that there were no visible aircraft on their radar in
Jany’s area.
Officer Jany communicated his sighting to Milstadt Officer Stevens at
approximately
5:03am.
CENTERVILLE/EAST
ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS
Later that morning, at 6:50am, it was dawn and light was just beginning
to break. A school teacher, Stephen Winnacott, was on his way to work
from Centerville, Illinois and noticed a strange stationary object in
the sky. It was huge, triangular, had 2 very bright white lights and
many other smaller lights around it. Mr. Winnacott was driving west on
Lake Drive overpass (going over Interstate 255) and did not stop his car
to view the object, but the image remained with him as he recounted his
sighting to the St. Louis Riverfront Times and also to the Discovery
Channel for their program “UFO Over Illinois”.
No other reports of the strange, gigantic, silent UFO emerged from that
morning of January 5, 2000…until recently.
O'FALLON,
ILLINOIS
PHOTO
RECONSTRUCTION of Detective Lopinot's view of UFO as it moves
silently to the southwest (to the right in photo). Five lights in
sky near Shell gasoline station are estimated to be larger than
wingspan of a 747 jetliner.
On July 22, 2002, I interviewed Detective Mark Lopinot of the O’Fallon,
Illinois police department. I had heard from one of the other officers
that a policeman in O’Fallon had also seen the object. Detective
Lopinot was in his squad car driving east on Highway 50 going into
O’Fallon and as he passed over Interstate 64, he saw an arrangement of
bright, occasionally “twinkling”, amber lights (much brighter than
street lights) at an approximate altitude of 200-300 feet, and covered
an area larger than the wingspan of a C-5 military cargo plane (222 ft.) or
a 747 jetliner (211 ft.). The lights consisted of two rows, three evenly
spaced lights in the top row and two evenly spaced lights in the bottom
row. Detective Lopinot first thought the lights were five helicopters
flying in formation, because they covered such a large expanse of night
sky; but he soon realized after he rolled down his window, that the
lights were totally silent and appeared to be connected, attached to a
single object, as all 5 lights moved in perfect unison. Lopinot also
noticed that the lights were moving very slowly, so slow as to
constitute a stall for a normal prop or jet aircraft. He wondered if the
object might be a blimp, but again, no sound could be heard from any
kind of engine typically used on lighter than air vehicles. When Lopinot
first saw the lights, he observed that they were to the east, beyond the
Convenient Food Mart located near the junction of Highway 50 and State
Street. As he continued to slowly drive (10-20mph) east on Highway 50,
he observed the lights, still in unison, approaching him, moving in a
northwesterly direction. As he reached a Shell gasoline station on
Highway 50 in O’Fallon, the massive lighting arrangement had now
passed over the Convenient Food Mart, approaching Lopinot and
maintaining the fixed pattern. The only sense of perspective Detective
Lopinot observed on the UFO was when the two lower lights would fade out
at times and then fade back in, as if they were being intermittently
blocked from view. The two lower lights appeared to be at a greater
distance than the top row, both by slightly less intensity, and also by
their fading from view, which elicited some sense of depth to the unseen
structure behind the lights, which was possibly at an angle.
PHOTO RECONSTRUCTION
of Detective Lopinot's view of UFO as it moves silently away from car
dealership toward Shiloh. Strange detail of sighting is how 5 lights
never change orientation to witness as they move away.
As Detective Lopinot’s police car approached the Jack Schmitt
Oldsmobile Dealer (still on Highway 50 eastbound), he saw perhaps the
strangest detail of the sighting: the 5 lights, now about 500 feet off
the ground and just to the right and south of Highway 50 stopped moving
toward him and proceeded to make what Lopinot described as a 90 degree
turn or change in direction; that is, the 5 lights, still in a perfectly
locked formation, moved to Lopinot’s right, which is Southwest on a
map of the area. As Lopinot reached the location at which the lights
made the 90 degree turn, Lopinot watched the lights moving away from him
over a field and then over the tree tops, where they went out of view.
One strange detail observed by Lopinot was that as the lights moved
south and away from him, they never changed their relationship to him as
an observer. Whatever angle Lopinot viewed the lights from, they
remained fixed in two rows, three on top and two on bottom. Detective
Lopinot’s sighting took place approximately 2 hours before the end of
his shift, which places the sighting between 4:00 and 4:30am on January
5, 2000. Lopinot did not note the exact time, nor did he think the
object was anything other than “something from Scott” Air Force
Base. Hence, he said nothing of the incident until he heard the news the
next day about the sighting by other officers in St. Clair County.
Detective Lopinot could not discern any shape of an object. The night
sky was very dark; however, the area covered by the fixed lights was
unmistakably large: estimated to be larger than the wingspan of a Boeing
747 (221 ft.).
After further conversation with Detective Lopinot and a look at the
surrounding area, we discovered that the lights seen by Lopinot headed
in the direction of Shiloh, and toward the open field bordering Lebanon
Avenue, where Officer Martin saw the object at 4:23am. Roughly 3 miles
separate Lopinot’s sighting location from Officer Martin’s sighting
location. It is not possible to make an absolute statement that the
lights seen by Detective Lopinot were also the UFO seen by Officer
Martin, but the times of the two sightings are reasonably close enough
to draw a possible connection.
A flight path can be proposed which incorporates Detective Lopinot’s
sighting.
Detective
Lopinot's map of area and UFO position drawn during July 22, 2002
interview.
The object
has shot away from the Lebanon Officer seconds prior
to
4:23:06am; actually arrives over O’Fallon,
Highway 50 and is observed by Detective Lopinot for the 45 seconds
between Lebanon Officer Barton stating the object is near Scott AFB at
4:23:12am* and Officer Martin actually making visual contact with the UFO
in Shiloh at 4:23:57am. This cannot be proven, but this new piece
of the puzzle prompts speculation. Of course, there is the
possibility that the “object” seen by Detective Lopinot was actually
a second aircraft of unknown origin, but this leads to an entirely
separate set of questions which will be discussed later. There is also
the possibility that the object was seen by Detective Lopinot in a time
frame outside this very tight temporal window. (* 6
uninterrupted seconds elapse on the actual taped police transmissions
between 4:23:06 and Offficer Barton stating the UFO is near Scott AFB,
placing the statement that the UFO is near Scott AFB at 4:23:12am).
If this was the same triangular UFO as seen by Officer Barton, and it
had just arrived in the O’Fallon area, perhaps what Lopinot observed
was an angular view of the object. Based on other reports of flying
triangle maneuvers (particularly those reported in the United Kingdom),
witnesses have seen these flying triangles flip on the side, or move
with their broad, flat end forward. How the two rows of lights on this
object always remained facing
Detective Lopinot as they moved away, is another mystery.
Artist's rendition of
UFO lights as described by Detective Lopinot.
FLORISSANT, MISSOURI
Sighting
Location: Witness rendition of unknown craft. Using Photoshop, the
witness drew the above representation in red line, superimposed onto reconstruction
photo near 5200 block of N. Lindbergh Blvd,
southbound in Florissant, Missouri near the Schnuck's Supermarket.
Object is reported to have floated across highway near Schnuck's grocery
store sign to the left. The smaller rectangle within the large rectangle
is the "window" and a childlike, humanoid figure, to scale.
A recent report has been added to this update as of 9/5/04. A
rectangular object, similar to that described by Mr. Noll in Highland,
has been reported by a man who is employed by a highly respected
organization in St. Louis. The man witnessed a large, very low flying
and silent object pass over him as he drove southward on Highway 67, (aka
Lindbergh Blvd.) in Florissant, Missouri on the morning of January 5,
2000 at approximately 2:00am. The witness reports that a Florissant
police officer also saw the object. The report can be see here:
http://dbarkertv.com/florissantmo.htm
Aside from actual witnesses, one of the more interesting interviews that NIDS
conducted was at Scott Air Force base, which was fortuitously located
near the UFO’s flight path once it arrived near Lebanon (the UFO basically “hung around” the
Scott Air Force base area as it was seen between 4:18am and 6:50am).
Scott AFB personnel informed the NIDS investigator that Scott personnel
knew nothing of the sighting and that they saw no UFO on the morning of
January 5, 2000. When the NIDS investigator mentioned during the
conversation that he could not recall which police officer first went
public, one Air Force officer responded (likely due to an unintentional
reflex) “the Millstadt officer”, thus revealing that he did indeed
know the details of the sighting. Furthermore, Scott Air Force base’s
official response to press inquiries was that Scott has no active radar
on the base; that they depend on St. Louis Lambert field for air traffic
control and that no one was in the Scott Air Traffic Control tower on
the morning in question. Expecting the truth from Air Force personnel
regarding UFOs is a tall order. However, allowing the Air Force to
blatantly lie about clearly contradictory information is at the least, a
necessary exercise in leaving no stone unturned and verifying that the
U.S. military is continuing its policy of denying all knowledge of UFO
activity or government investigation, which dates back to the 1969
closing of Project Blue Book (the last Air Force public relations entity
to openly acknowledge investigation of UFOs).
It was somewhat gratifying when I spoke with officers at police
departments near Scott AFB and a consensus surfaced that the statement
by Scott personnel regarding their radar being shut down and no longer
in use was false. It was observed that the radar at Scott AFB almost
never stops rotating and I saw the radar in operation on the day I
videotaped it for my program. Also, Scott AFB is the headquarters of the
United States Air Force 375th Aeromedical Airlift Wing which
hosts the Air Mobility Command (AMC), U.S. Transportation Command and
other units. While the base carries quite a responsibility for the
United States, I’ve been told by an associate of a serviceman
stationed at Scott that the Scott control tower is so dead at 4:00am,
that it’s probably true that no one was in the tower to see the UFO
(although there was a flight in or out of the base just prior to the
sighting). Even if things were “dead”, this does not explain Scott
Air Traffic Control’s failure to take note of the UFO, when St. Clair
County police dispatch called the tower at
the time of the sighting and asked them if they could see the
object. Because the UFO was apparently equipped with some sort of
anti-radar technology (“stealth”, if man-made), the statement that
Scott ATC could not see the UFO on their radar could have been true. Playing dumb about the sighting altogether was intentionally misleading;
but this is nothing new. One of the possibly more interesting notes
about Scott AFB is that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has a
facility there.
AFTERMATH – MEDIA EFFECTS
What has been credited as the move which shot this UFO sighting into the
limelight was the publication of the police report by Officer Craig
Stevens of the Millstadt police department on the Millstadt PD’s
website. In a matter of days, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the only
major newspaper in St. Louis, published a story about the sighting. The
article, “Police Officers in St. Clair County report seeing
early-morning UFO” penned by Valerie Schremp and printed in the
January 9, 2000 edition was a rare and exciting moment in mainstream
media. It seemed a miracle to see a mainstream publication actually give
the UFO phenomenon an unbiased and fair treatment.
During this time, the St. Louis television news media also began to
cover the sighting. FOX News KTVI channel 2 and Channel 5, the St. Louis
NBC affiliate produced news segments on the sighting and FOX spoke with
Forest Crawford, who was currently the Assistant State Director of Illinois MUFON.
David Marler was then State Director of Illinois MUFON, the acronym for Mutual UFO Network, a worldwide organization consisting
of common citizens searching for answers about UFOs. At the time, Mr.
Crawford was quoted as saying that the UFO was “possibly a secret
government aircraft used to develop anti-gravity devices” although Mr.
Crawford later told me he was misquoted. Another St. Louis area UFO
group was quoted as saying the Illinois UFO was “a military project;
possibly a new design in troopships”. At the outset, the notion was
planted that this UFO was a military vehicle.
A second, unbiased article written by Heather Ratcliffe ran January 12,
2000, in the Post-Dispatch and noted the arrival of a team of
investigators headed by John Velier from the Las Vegas based National
Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), founded by Robert T. Bigelow.
Again, Forest Crawford of Illinois MUFON was quoted as suspecting the
UFO was an “experimental government craft”. The sense of the second
Post-Dispatch article was that if professional investigators were coming
to the genuinely modest and small town of St. Louis, all the way from
Las Vegas, it must have been a pretty serious matter. Maybe there was
something to it?
And so the NIDS investigators did arrive and they did their job. NIDS
published the interviews of 8
witnesses on the NIDS website. It was my reading of these interviews
that actually convinced me that I had to document as many witness
testimonials on videotape as possible and I commend the people at NIDS
for their work.
I do not know which happened first, the St. Louis television media
receiving its gag order, or the Post-Dispatch deciding to discredit the
witnesses and successfully sweep the story under the rug; but the
debunking and censorship soon commenced.
The first biased article
“UFOs: Seeing is believing – or is it?” ran on January 21, 2000,
in the Post-Dispatch and was written by a biology professor employed by a
prominent university in St. Louis. The article was fused with
satire and mockery. Comparing the January 5, 2000 UFO witnesses’
experience to that of seeing Santa Claus, the professor wrote, “Adults too
can see with imagination’s eyes, at least in Illinois. UFOs, like
Santa, are real for those able to see them”. Although the professor did
point out that the UFO was likely a “real” object, as “Police are
high-quality observers” (the professor said he would bet his money on
an experimental military aircraft), and the article did try at one point
to evaluate the oddities of the sighting such as the fact that a blimp
cannot ordinarily float the kind of wattage necessary to power the
extraordinarily bright lights seen by several witnesses, the overall
tone of the professor’s commentary was to make light of what the
witnesses saw. Basically, as when a child “wants” to see and believe
in Santa Claus, so it goes for those who witnessed the January 5th
flying triangle. Needless to say, some of the police officers that witnessed the
UFO were very annoyed at the flippant tone of the man of science. And
how calm and cool was the author with his scientific Occam’s razor
pen, as he edged toward conclusions without ever having interviewed a
single witness. But of course, this has been the modus operandi of the
majority of UFO debunkers: conclusion prior to investigation.
The point here is that by fusing a mix of 90% smug parody with 10%
serious acknowledgement of the event, the tone is one that mocks,
derides and deflates the reality of the sighting and in turn, has a
negative impact on those whose character was being scrutinized.
In a second biased
Post-Dispatch article by Heather Ratcliffe, published January 25, 2000,
with the title “Recent UFO sightings in area lack credibility to
scientists”, the police officers’ testimony was implicitly thrown
into question. Another scientific voice of authority, this time Barry
Beyerstein, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraiser University in
Vancouver, British Columbia was quoted as saying “Smart, honest, good
people can be seriously wrong about seeing a UFO”. James McGaha, an
astronomer and former Air Force pilot said “You can’t put any
credibility into their reports – even police - because they are not
trained to observe anything in the sky or an astronomic anomaly”. And
the so-called “Dean of Ufology”, Philip Klass, who has long been a
fervent skeptic and critic of even the best UFO sightings, is quoted as
saying “I would suspect this case is bogus”.
Speaking of bogus, how about the quote itself? In the summer of 2000, I
met Philip Klass at the International MUFON conference, held in St.
Louis and I asked him about his “quote” in the Post-Dispatch
regarding the Illinois sighting. Mr. Klass told me that he never said
the case was “bogus”. He did tell me he said he had not interviewed
the witnesses and that he could not draw a conclusion. However, Mr.
Klass later stated that the Illinois UFO was actually the planet Venus
and NIDS rebutted his remarks. When it comes to Mr. Klass, there’s
only one thing for sure: he’s been working for decades to annoy
serious UFO investigators. While those quoted in the article had
interviewed many UFO witnesses themselves, and were correct in stating
that “Most UFO reports, especially lights in the night sky, turn out
to be honest misidentifications” the article is stacked with negatives
which effectively throw weight behind the notion that the witnesses did
not see what they thought they saw. The article ends with another quote
from Mr. Klass: “For 50 years we’ve gotten reports such as this, but
not a single piece of credible evidence to support these claims.” A
police officer’s testimony in court can help put a criminal behind
bars, but their testimony regarding a UFO sighting is not credible
evidence?
Is it fair to blame the authors of these articles or better yet, the
editor of the paper who decides what is published?
Of course it’s fair. Is it going too far to say that the media
was and is making an outright attempt to debunk this UFO sighting as
well as others? Of course it’s not going too far. It’s obvious
what’s happening, but most people who never look past the ink on the
page or the sound bites erupting from their television sets swallow the
manipulative rhetoric, hook, line and sinker. I know because I’ve been
there. I used to believe the media was a free media, telling us the
truth because the press was the last vestige of hope for freedom of
information and truth gathering. But now I know better; especially after
a member of the St. Louis television news community told me that the
sighting was an exciting event when it first happened, but that it had
suddenly become a “hush-hush” subject, taboo, verboten. They were
given the gag order. And that doesn’t surprise me after one of the
police officer witnesses told me he was visited by two men who advised
him to “stop talking about the sighting”. He inferred they were some
sort of federal agents, although they were not wearing solid black suits
like Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith.
But something the media propagandists could not control was the
Internet, which had already linked Officer Stevens’ UFO report from
the Millstadt police department website. Ironically, the Internet, which
was developed by the U.S. defense department in the late 1960s and early
70s, has become the nemesis of factions within all governments who are
trying to control and restrict the release of information. And how
poetic, that the free man and woman has unlimited information (and
disinformation) at his or her disposal. The trick of course, is having
enough of the skeptic within to discern the bad from the good. Thousands
of websites populate the Internet and many of those websites have
addressed the January 5th, 2000 sighting. The Art Bell
website was one of the first as Officers Barton and Stevens both went on
the air to describe their experience. Rense.com, a leading news source
has featured the sighting and the NIDS website established itself as the
cornerstone for seminal 1/5/2000 Illinois UFO data. CUFOS.org,
NUFORC.org, MUFON.com and Unknowncountry.com, all provide information
not found in the mainstream media as well as some of the best UFO
sighting data on record.
The Triangular UFO was
consistently described as being as large as, or larger than a Boeing
747 jetliner. A B-2 Stealth bomber and a 747 are scaled over the UFO
for comparison on this football field rendition.
AFTERMATH – PERSONAL EFFECTS
As I was producing “The Edge of Reality: Illinois UFO, January 5,
2000”, I was constantly attempting to be sensitive of the witnesses’
situation and respectful of their time and their personal beliefs. It
was an exhilarating experience to come into contact with the witnesses
within weeks of the sighting and everyone was polite and generous.
Without going into details of each witness’s personal take on what
they believed the UFO to be, I will say that the event created in all of
them, varied degrees of anxiety. This was exacerbated by the fact that
members of the law enforcement fraternity may be more inclined to joke
and kid each other about such things that obviously stretch the limits
of credibility. After all, it is ideally a police officer’s sense of
honesty, accuracy in observation and “doing the right thing” that
gives him or her the authority to enforce the law. So when a police
officer testifies that they saw a UFO, they are really going out on a
limb. Hence, the Post-Dispatch articles that inferred that the
officers’ observations were unreliable, was a real insult. Jokes and
teasing from fellow officers were quite intense for one of the officers
in particular; however, as the production of the video drew to a close,
and fellow members of the various police departments watched the video
reconstruction of the event in question, a new respect fell into place
for the witnesses as fellow officers realized that this was no joking
matter. It happened. It was real. And something strange and damn huge
was flying in the skies over Illinois that morning, which leads us
ultimately to a conclusion and a question. There’s no doubt something
unknown was in the sky, so there’s no sense in attempting to convince
people that it was the work of overactive imaginations who may have a
yearning to see Santa Claus in a flying saucer with Rudolph at the
joystick. The real issue here is what was
this object in the sky over Metro East St. Louis, this object which
caused for one of the witnesses, sudden sharp and intense headaches
immediately after the sighting and for weeks to come?
INTO THE FRAY
Everyone should have the eye
opening experience of meeting the unknown so they too can defend their
integrity and credibility, which everyone else takes for granted. The
witnesses of this UFO have been in this position since that cold January
morning, but I did not know that I too would find myself occasionally on
a defensive platform. As a result of my working with the January 5th
witnesses, I have been invited to speak at various civilian UFO
investigative meetings. I found the experience to be very
disillusioning; that is, to find people in these groups that were so
quick to proclaim their own knowledge of not only the UFO phenomenon,
but the “totally secret” workings of the U.S. government in what are
called “Black Programs” by the aerospace/aviation industry. And
moreso, most of the people I was invited to speak to conveyed to me that
they already knew what the January 5th UFO was. Although I am
one of the few people in the world who have interviewed the prime
witnesses of this unknown object, the “ufologists” were there to
tell me what I didn’t know, and that was that the “Flying
Triangle” is indeed a U.S. government, man-made aircraft. From the
time I interviewed the witnesses, I have long felt that they saw
something extraordinary. The degree of excitement and tension I found in
all the witnesses told me that this was no ordinary mistaken
identification of a known aircraft. It represented something beyond our
very threshold of what is physically possible.
While I must admit, my bias on this particular sighting has leaned
toward of a non man-made vehicle, I have found myself many times since
making mental notes of just how much I do not know; how much knowledge
there is in the brainchild of humanity to which I have no exposure and
therefore, no knowledge. As a result, I remain open, until conclusive
evidence is presented, (either by disclosure of an actual identical
craft of human origin, or by the lack thereof after a reasonable period
of time, [say, a generous 20 years from the date of the sighting] or
by the actual confirmation of a physical craft of non-human manufacture)
to what I consider a stretch of a
possibility that the Illinois UFO was indeed, a man-made aircraft. As a
result of this non-conclusive position, I will foray into the
actual reason for writing this article: Simply, is the technology ours or is it
alien?
HUMAN OR ALIEN TECHNOLOGY?
A - Many
Theories
Theories and statements regarding the source of the Illinois UFO have run the
gamut. Most of these, not surprisingly, have looked for a human source of origin,
a mundane explanation. From the
FAA declaring the UFO to be an advertising blimp, to a military official brushing it
off as a B-2 Stealth Bomber, to a St. Louis television news reporter
quoting a MUFON officer that the object was an experimental military
vehicle used in the development of anti-gravity, to a new kind of
“troop ship”, to the absurdity of falling back on the planet Venus
as the culprit; most attempts at explanation have been insulting to the
intelligence of the witnesses. More serious and intelligent theories
emerged from the leading investigators in the case, NIDS. As presented
in my program on the sighting, the NIDS theories examined various
plausible, if not provable hypotheses. One was that the Illinois UFO was
the so-called “Stealth Blimp”, an unacknowledged and speculative
lighter than air vehicle that appeared in the September, 1999 issue of
“Popular Mechanics” magazine.
The purported
"Stealth Blimp" which appeared in the September, 1999
issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. (Rendering by Darryl Barker)
The “Stealth Blimp” is theorized
to have the dimensions of the UFO seen over Illinois, but one must still
contend with the issue of the UFO’s unexplainable fast accelerations,
silently moving miles in seconds, as seen by two police officers. These
“unbelievable” accelerations cannot be attributed to a mere blimp,
no matter how large or small it might be. I contacted the
Editor-In-Chief of “Popular Mechanics” magazine and asked for
permission to reprint their artwork of the “Stealth Blimp” for my
program and he flat out refused my request. I had to produce my own
rendition of the “stealth blimp” to make the point in the video.
NIDS also presented the theory that the object may have been a highly
developed version of the Aereon, a rigid framed, lighter than air,
hybrid lifting body airship, designed and
successfully flown by the Aereon Corporation of Princeton, New
Jersey. It’s pioneer inventor, William Miller informed NIDS that
although the government had once looked at his Aereon, they did not
present him with a contract to build it and he has not been able to
pursue the project due to an apparent lack of interest. I spoke with Mr.
Miller, who was kind enough to allow me to use the image of one design
of his Aereon; and he was quite annoyed with the situation. His Aereon
design has apparently been pursued and built by U.S. government
contractor Lockheed Martin without his involvement. U.S. government
contractors allegedly "borrowed" Miller’s concept after meeting with him in the 1970s. But again, one troubling aspect of applying the
Aereon hypothesis to the Illinois UFO is accounting for the high
accelerations witnessed and the conclusion that the airframe would be
damaged (if not crushed) under such high G-forces; not to mention the
presence of a human pilot, who would face life threatening forces. Of
course, the possibility of remote control alleviates the pilot problem,
but it does not resolve the G-force on the airframe. Thus, this theory,
at the time, also seemed implausible.
A third and fourth theory from NIDS presented by theoretical physicist
H.E. Puthoff, looked into the use of zero-point energy, which is derived
from the residual energy found in the vacuum of empty space, which if
properly transduced, could possibly provide propulsion forces.
Alcubierre’s Time/Space contraction and expansion hypothesis, where
space and time themselves are manipulated by an as yet unknown
technology, allowing the craft to move forward in time and space at a
rate yet unseen, creating a “warp drive” type acceleration was the
fourth, yet highly speculative theory. But according to physicists in
the “White World” of science, these manipulations of quantum energy
cannot be expected to happen without some major scientific breakthrough.
Of course, as Colm Kelleher, Director of NIDS pointed out to me, those
of us who do not work in the dark, have no idea of what is really going on in the “Black
World” of secret government programs.
Other theories from anonymous origins have populated the Internet in an
attempt to explain the remarkable features and maneuvers of the Flying
Triangle as seen over Illinois. They have included speculative Black
Project development and application of Electric Propulsion thrusters
(Ion and Plasma engines), as well as Pulsed Detonation Propulsion as
developed by Liek Myrabo at Rensselaer Polytechnic University in Troy,
New York. But electronic propulsion methods fall short of providing the
kind of thrust required to move a heavy object in normal atmospheric
conditions. Electric propulsion performs best in a vacuum, such as outer
space, while pulsed detonation propulsion creates clearly audible pops
as it heats atmospheric air to the point of explosion, pushing its
vehicle forward. The only reports of audible sound from the UFO on the
morning of January 5, 2000 were reported by two witnesses, in
Summerfield and in Millstadt. A
very low pitched buzz, similar to the sound of an electrical transformer
was discerned at the Millstadt location and what sounded like a
well-tuned V-8 engine was reported by the Summerfield witness. Could
electronic propulsion explain the non-combustive aural characteristics
of the 1/5/2000 flying triangle? Perhaps. But is the technology
necessarily produced by human hands? Even if
the Illinois UFO was a lighter-than-air vehicle (foregoing the mass
found in a typical 747-sized aircraft), it’s still not possible (at
least not in the “white world” of science) for electric propulsion
thrusters to create an immediate and powerful thrust which could move a
football field-sized dirigible 6 miles in 3 to 4 seconds. Several types
of electronic propulsion are examined in "The Edge of Reality: Illinois
UFO, January 5, 2000": ion engines, plasma thrusters, Pulsed Detonation
Propulsion, and Magneto Hydro Dynamic technology. Investigative work
during the production of the documentary program consisted of contacting
leading engineers in the field of electronic propulsion, in both physics
and in direct technology development. Although these sources were
promised anonymity and they do not make on-camera statements in "The
Edge of Reality" Illinois UFO, January 5, 2000",
it was the opinion of
these U.S. government-funded researchers and engineers, that
technologies in the foregoing areas of electronic propulsion were not
yet, in the year 2000, at a level of development that would explain the
flight characteristics observed by the
1/5/2000 UFO
witnesses.
While
some sort of electronic propulsion appears to be a plausible explanation for
the propulsion systems in some reported triangle craft; the question
must again be asked: Must it necessarily be of human manufacture? An interesting case was reported by Jacques Vallee in "Anatomy of
a Phenomenon" 1965, second edition, page 239. A Brazilian army
installation, Fort Itaipu, was visited on November 4, 1957, by an orange
glowing object that first appeared to Brazilian army sentries as a "new
star" in the sky. When the UFO suddenly moved over the fort, Brazilian
army personnel were impacted by what was described as an "intolerable
wave" of intense heat. Two sentries in fact suffered first and second
degree burns over more than ten percent of their bodies, in places that
were covered by clothing. One soldier went into a state of shock while
others wept. All electrical power was neutralized for the duration of
the UFO's short visit, whereby power returned upon the UFO's departure
as it was observed shooting vertically into the sky above the
installation. Fort Itaipu was visited by both the Brazilian Air Force
as well as a liason from the United States Army. The two
Brazilian sentries who were badly burned were taken away on a security
flight to Rio de Janeiro where they were "completely isolated behind a
tight security curtain in the Army's Central Hospital". The case
remained undisclosed for years. The technology that is described in
the forgoing Brazilian incident can be compared to the recently
disclosed "Active
Denial System",
a "non-lethal" weapon, proudly lauded by the U.S.
Pentagon, which has been criticized by civil rights proponents and
others. The United States' "Active
Denial System" performs in much
the same manner as the technology reported in the 1957 Brazilian UFO
report: Intense heat, creating a feeling that your skin is burning off. A
variation in the electromagnetic millimeter wave produced by the ADS
determines the amount of "burn effect". Sound familiar? Did it take the U.S. military
almost 50 years to
produce or implement this technology which was either
an intended or unintended side effect of an advanced technology
in 1957, origin unknown? The point here is that UFOs have been
exhibiting technologies that are ahead of what human engineering is
capable of, on the dates in time where the UFO technologies
were first reported.
In the wake of historic, but superior technology
demonstrations, that point the finger to non-human intelligence,
other attempted explanations for the flying triangles are perhaps less
genuine. The “TR3” and "TR3b" "theories", which contend that the Flying
Triangles are military aircraft, a result of advanced black project
development, are such examples. Allegedly using an MFD (Magnetic Field
Disruptor), which negates the effects of G-forces on mass within the
vehicle, including the pilots, is said to decrease total mass and G-force by 89%.
The TR3 is said to be nuclear powered and by some accounts, additional
thrust is provided by conventional General Electric jet turbines. In
another version of this story, the TR3 is said to implement “rocket”
engines at each corner of the triangle. The TR3 scenario has
contradictions, depending on whose version you read. One must wonder if
these accounts are disinformation. One must also consider the possibility that
there can be shreds of truth in even the wildest accounts; that is,
perhaps what is being discussed here has a basis in an actual military
aircraft. But it does not mean that this is the explanation for the
massive flying triangle seen over Illinois, or other parts of the globe
since the 1980s.
Other theories of anonymous origin and questionable legitimacy have
proposed that the Flying Triangle is a hybrid effort of man-made, but
alien-based technology. That is, that the purported Majestic-12 (MJ-12)
team allegedly established by President Truman in the 1940s to handle
the UFO issue in America is still extant and is behind the manufacture
of the craft. Propulsion is purported to be some kind of plasma
technology. Of course, this theory alleges that the aliens are here and
we’re working with them and their technology. These “Top Secret”
programs are so “secret” that the “government” will do anything
to protect their “secrets”. So why, I ask, are the people relaying
this information alive to talk about it? This theory, like the others
cannot be proven or disproven, except by those supposedly “leaking”
the information.
None of these theories can be proven or disproven by anyone in the
visible “White World” of science. If it weren’t for the fact that
for centuries the world has been faced with the possibility of an alien
presence, the latter of these theories could be written off as pure
lunacy. But in order to maintain an open mind, nothing can be entirely
ruled out.
Finally, the folks who initiated the first major investigation of this
case, NIDS, recently presented on July 23, 2002 a hypothesis that the
Illinois UFO is indeed, man-made. Presented to NIDS by an anonymous
aircraft designer, the hypothesis cites a combination of elements
including lighter-than-air construction with “electrokinetic”
propulsion, and a fuselage that creates almost zero drag.
Theories behind a
proposed man-made explanation for the awesome aerodynamic
performance of the Flying Triangle seen over Illinois are similar to
those discussed in "The Edge of Reality: Illinois UFO, January
5, 2000", yet they fall short of a convincing argument.
The
"Hypothesis: The Illinois Flying Triangle is a Department of
Defense, not an ET Craft", can be seen on the "What’s New" page at
NIDS website (URL at end of this article). The hypothesis puts forth the idea that if the technology is possible,
(and some of it has been demonstrated, i.e. large dirigibles,
electrokinetic propulsion), it must have been done by black program
development, because….why would it not have been done? The hypothesis
points out that men were flying long before the Wright Brothers made
their historic flight, yet textbook history has not emphasized this
fact.
The lighter-than-air (LTA) vehicle, by way of its tremendous size, is
theorized to utilize its size to its benefit, in carrying a heavy
payload and using fuselage surface as an active ingredient in the
vehicle’s ability to reduce air friction. The hypothesis is totally
logical; the only question is, have the black program gurus actually
achieved it, or should I say, to what extent have they achieved it?
Perhaps the technology seen aboard the Illinois UFO has been
accomplished on some level; but even if it has, can this be the answer
to all the flying triangle sightings around the world?
NIDS completed an analysis of flying triangle reports around the United
States beginning in 1990 and found that many of the sightings are
located along straight line vectors between air bases of the Air
Mobility Command and Air Force Materiel Command. Based on this
coincidence, the hypothesis was put forth that if these triangular
objects are seen near and between military bases, isn’t it reasonable
to assume that the objects are originating from these bases? Think
Brazil, 1957.
B - Dancing
Partners - Two of a Kind
After reading the NIDS hypothesis that the Illinois UFO is a man-made
craft and not of an alien origin, I had to sit back and really force
myself to remain unbiased. And so I did. I thought about their proposal
for days before writing this piece. I thought about how I have, since
January of 2000, realized that there really is so much that I do not
know and how much I will never know. I had to make sure that I did not
want to cling to the “alien” theory because I’ve been interested
in the UFO subject ever since I was a child. I had to make sure that I
gave this hypothesis its just due, for after all, it was NIDS who I can
thank for making the Illinois case interviews available and as a result,
assisting me in my own investigation of the case. Possibly more than
anything else, it is the utmost respect I have for one of NIDS’
scientific advisors, Jacques Vallee. Mr. Vallee is a pioneer in the
ufology field, a true maverick. His books are among the most intelligent
and informative on the UFO subject and his insight into the discreet
agenda of unknown members of the world governments as they attempt to
control the public psyche regarding the UFO phenomenon is to the
point, sober, humane and refreshingly humorous. I have the greatest
respect for this man who worked with J. Allen Hynek and who to this day,
maintains his integrity while being attacked by partisanship within the
“ufology” community. So, with that said, I had to decide if I really
wanted to challenge this purported “rational” explanation.
While I will acknowledge, it could be possible that the Illinois Flying Triangle
was a man-made aircraft (likely, if so, by way of hi-tech smoke and
mirrors, rather than true anti-gravity or time/space contraction) there are many factors which must be considered
before drawing any final conclusions. The first factor to consider is that it is
likely, if not probable, that the military powers of the world have
produced a triangular, delta-winged aircraft that bears a resemblance to
the mysterious flying triangles seen in so many places around the world.
One can go further to say that it’s likely, if not certain, that a very
large, triangular vehicle has been manufactured by an aerospace
government contractor. In the wake of this assumption, it is proper to
assume that all theories thus far, likely have some element of truth;
that is, the military is flying their version of a flying triangle (FT,
for short) over the United States. There are, however, (based upon
historical
sightings
of triangular and
deltoid shaped UFOs dating back to the 1930s and possibly earlier)
unknown and unidentified triangular airships that have not, and do not, originate from the
black program world of human-engineered aerospace technology.
Since the 1940s, the debate has raged on about the similarity of
experimental military aircraft and UFOs. For example, Kenneth Arnold’s
1947 sighting of 9 silvery crescents weaving at high speed (clocked at
1,700 mph) through the
Cascade Mountain range in Washington State has been attributed by some
to a version of the German Horton Parabola jet-powered plane. However,
the speed and flight characteristics of those 9 UFOs were such that
it’s very unlikely that they were man-made aircraft. And so the
possibility exists that this pairing of the Illinois flying triangle
with a “military experimental craft” is more of the same kind of
rationalizing.
There are two additional points of argument that I have to offer for the
case of “alien” life being behind some of the flying triangle
sightings.
1)
The unexplainable effects seen by witnesses that extend beyond
the simple observation of an aircraft in flight, and….
2)
The emotional reaction of the witnesses.
As noted in Michael Hesemann’s book “UFOs – The Secret History”
a very strange phenomenon was witnessed by police officers in
Lichtenbusch, on the E40 near Aix-la-Chappelle, at the border control
point between Belgium and Germany on November 29,
1989. On page 7 of Hesseman’s book, two gendarmes had the shock
of their lives, as they were in pursuit of a similar FT. They had
previously seen to their amazement, the triangular UFO make a flat 180
degree turn and shoot off into the sky at an angle and when it returned,
they stopped and exited their police car. It was then that they
witnessed a bizarre sight. “Two thin, reddish beams of light that shot
out simultaneously” from the craft “in opposite directions and left
behind at each end, a very bright red ball. But soon after that the
‘fireballs’ returned to the ‘mother ship’ and revolved around it
for a number of minutes, before the whole process repeated itself”.
The FT was between 2 and 3 miles distant from the officers. The rays
were reported by a gendarme as being “about three quarters of a mile
long. They are like harpoons on a line, which drivers pull back”.
Unknown to these two officers, six of their colleagues had witnessed
another FT and “saw a red ball shooting down vertically from the
center of the three floodlights on the object and then abruptly, the
objects raced off horizontally”. Lasers and plasma manufactured on
good old planet earth, you ask? Maybe……Maybe
not.
The month of December,1989 saw reports of FTs over Belgium almost daily
and on December 5, the Belgian Air Force scrambled two F-16s to
intercept an FT seen on radar. The report was provided to the White
House in Washington DC (as well as several other U.S. and Belgian
government agencies) and the United States confirmed that stealth
aircraft were in the Ardennes area; however, as anyone can surmise, the
witnesses knew the difference between an F-117, a B-2 and the FT in
question. Furthermore, one of the Belgian F-16s captured the FT’s
movement on the F-16’s instrument panel/radar console film which
showed the FT accelerate from a dead stop to 900 miles per hour in a few
seconds, as well as drop from 9,000 feet altitude to 500 feet in 6
seconds. Although the latest NIDS hypothesis is proposing that the
Illinois UFO is a highly advanced, man-made, lighter than air vehicle
with near zero drag, the questions remain: how could the FT over Belgium
and the FT over Illinois move so quickly without damaging the airframe;
and furthermore, why was there an unauthorized aircraft in Belgian
airspace, outrunning Belgian Air Force F-16s? The Belgian Air Force did
not find the situation amusing.
No more humorous than the NORAD official who informed the American Press
that although the Air Force did
not know exactly what the bright blue “shooting star”- like
object was that F-16 fighter jets from Andrews Air Force Base chased to
no avail over Maryland at 1:00am on the morning of July 26, 2002, it was
a perfectly normal thing to do. And by the way, July 26, 2002 is
precisely 50 years after the same date of July 26, 1952, where UFOs were
chased by F-94 fighter jets from Langley AFB over Washington DC. That
event drew the headlines: FIERY OBJECTS OUTRUN JETS OVER CAPITAL –
INVESTIGATION VEILED IN SECRECY FOLLOWING VAIN CHASE. The UFO siege
became known as the second flap of the Washington National Sightings,
all documented in Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt’s classic work
“The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects”.
2) Regarding the emotional reaction of witnesses, it’s understandable
if an inexperienced civilian sees something they’ve never seen before,
a la “The Gods Must Be Crazy”. When I was a child, the first time I
saw the scintillation effect on a fairly bright star, I wondered if I
was seeing a light-changing object in the night sky, a UFO. But later
experience revealed to me that dust particles in the atmosphere created
the effect of a white star turning red, then blue, and back to white.
But what about the experience garnered by people who are in the streets
or skies every day? People who have lived in and around aircraft, or
better yet, in the military? These observers do not so easily jump to
conclusions because they have experience which tells them, this is one
of “Ours”…or, this is
strange, this is not ordinary. While anyone can be spooked by something
they’ve never seen before, some value must be placed in human instinct
and experience. The reactions of the Illinois UFO witnesses I
interviewed ranged from uncontrolled excitement to professional,
tempered anxiety. The required cool of the police officers was put to
the acid test for this casual observation; thus lending credence to the
very high level of strangeness that transpired during the sighting.
Of course, there’s no solid evidence that says some super secret
program has not made revolutionary breakthroughs in quantum physics, and
thus created ships that can do what ordinary folks “outside the
loop” would consider otherworldly technology. As it was with the
Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb, that effort
was a breakthrough and it was successfully carried out in secret, (well
almost, it was leaked to the Russians). Yet, could we have created this
technology and had it fully operational more than 28 years ago, in 1980,
as the FTs were seen over Missouri and Kansas and strange, round,
satellite-like objects with a blue glow emerged from the hovering
triangle before it turned on its side to fly away? Could the technology
be kept secret this long? Could the monumental logistics of employing
hundreds of people to design and build these craft, deploy them, fly
them, store them, and keep them hidden, possibly be kept secret for
twenty eight years? ** If the United States government is really
behind some of the FT sightings, why hasn’t the U.S. oil industry made
use of the technology and relieved itself of the pressures that face us
today? Surely, the wars that the two Bush administrations have engaged
in have been because they know oil is still a valuable resource, as if
there were no other working energy scheme that can replace fossil fuels.
To put to rest the historical perspective, there are even reports as far
back as 1871 in France, where astronomer Trouvelet reported seeing
formations of triangular objects in the sky and again in 1886 as he saw
the same triangular objects crossing in front of the sun.
C - Proximity Determines
Origin?
While NIDS' latest hypothesis has pointed out that the FTs are often seen
near Air Force bases and bodies of water, this by no means indicates
that all of these vehicles originate from Air Force bases. Throughout
history, UFOs have been reported in the vicinity of military bases in
the United States as well as other sensitive areas of secret project
development, such as Los Alamos, White Sands Missile Range, Oak Ridge
and strange as it may sound, the General Mills company. In Ruppelt’s
“The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects” published in 1956, he
cited UFO activity around all of these establishments and those employed
there had no idea what the UFOs were. The General Mills company, aside
from putting breakfast cereal on your table each morning, also operated
an Aeronautical Division in the early 1950s. Their engineers launched
and tracked every Skyhook balloon that was launched prior to mid-1952.
They knew what their balloons looked like and so on January 16, 1951
when they witnessed two round, disk-shaped UFOs circling their balloon
at their facility in Artesia, New Mexico, they knew the objects were of
such high strangeness that only one conclusion could be drawn: UFOs are
real and they cannot be explained away as Skyhook balloons. Hence,
although UFOs were seen near an area where a new technology was being
deployed, the UFOs did not originate from that facility.
The idea proposed by NIDS that the FTs use water as some sort of
refueling/landing medium does not preclude an alien vessel from doing
the same thing. Furthermore, there are many cases recorded by the
Phenomenon Research Association in Derbyshire, England, compiled by its
founder, Omar Fowler *, that track heavy FT activity in the areas of nuclear power
plants, bodies of water, military bases, power lines, and road
intersections. (*Omar Fowler has researched the UFO phenomenon for over 30 years
and worked on aero-engines both in the 'Fleet Air Arm' and also on experimental aircraft at the Empire Test Pilots School, R.A.E. Farnborough)
While the idea that the military has indeed manufactured their own
version of the Flying Triangle, this could be intentionally muddying the
waters for witnesses and investigators alike. Perhaps some of the FTs
seen around military bases are military aircraft, but this does not draw
the noose around all the FTs seen worldwide.
D - Human Deception
I have borrowed this section’s title from one of Jacques Vallee’s
books, “Revelations – Alien Contact and Human Deception”, for the
channel of human purpose and intent is where all the data seems to
bottleneck. Before any kind of conclusion can be drawn regarding the
true origins of any one UFO, the faulty human element that attempts to
control access to the phenomenon must be addressed.
The notion that the intelligence and military establishments of the
world’s governments place a very high priority on UFO data puts them
in a position where preventing any potential “enemy” to garner UFO
data is surely a matter of national security. Because the military
establishment must maintain the edge in ”defense” against our worst
enemies, that is, us, any help a government could garner from a superior
technology would of course be invaluable. Therefore, keeping the public
in the dark about the true nature of UFO activity must be seen as an
absolute. Why else would the entire military/intelligence establishment
insist so rabidly, that they know nothing about UFOs and that they care
nothing about
them. Since the Condon Committee announced its findings from the
University of Colorado in 1969 that UFOs were not worth tax-payers’
dollars to fund UFO investigation, the United States
military/intelligence establishment has fallen back on this verdict by
heavily biased and predisposed anti-UFO committee head Edward Condon, to
nail the coffin shut on UFO data. But because human curiosity cannot be
completely quelled, as the thousands of UFO groups worldwide attest,
there has been an apparent effort to “muddy the waters” by someone
wishing to control the data. This has been accomplished primarily in
three ways.
The first was to deny all legitimate UFO sightings and ridicule
witnesses, even if they were your own pilots, military or commercial.
This made people wonder if they really were going nuts, and put an end
to pilots and others making UFO reports. This started immediately in
1947, if not before. According to his book, "The Coming of the
Saucers", Ken Arnold had already become a pawn in an
apparent military/intelligence mind-game as Arnold was attempting to
independently investigate the Maury Island UFO case, located in Puget
Sound in Washington State. According to Arnold's book, it
appeared that he was misled by U.S. Government
officials and even survived a suspected attempt on his life.
Secondly, it is strongly suspected that there have been “faked” UFO
events, which are designed to confuse the observer. If someone sees a
fake UFO, but believes it to be the real thing, that sighting goes into
the case files, constituting a false positive and contaminating
the integrity of the UFO data available to civilian investigators. It is
very likely that these faked UFO events are also conducted for
psychosocial analysis. Basically, we are all rats in a laboratory, just
waiting for our chance to see a UFO; but is it ET, or is it Uncle Sam at
the controls?
Thirdly, there is surely a disinformation campaign being carried out and
aimed specifically at the civilian UFO investigative community. If you
want to keep a detective off your tail, you lay false tracks. Therefore,
with all the documents about MJ-12, government possession of alien
bodies, alien technology and now the so-called TR3 Flying Triangle, no
one outside the vault of secrecy can really know what is true and what
is planted disinformation. Therefore, everything must be taken at face
value and then unconditionally refuted until, as Occam’s razor
suggests, the accumulated evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of a
positive find.
After speaking with the witnesses of the Illinois UFO, I came to the
conclusion that I had enough evidence, based on testimony, that what
they observed was no less amazing than the UFOs witnessed on radar at
Washington DC National airport on July 19 and 26, 1952, as detailed in
Captain Edward Ruppelt's "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects". During the
so-called Washington National Sightings, one UFO radar
target went from roughly 100 miles per hour to 7,000 miles per hour in a
sudden burst of speed. Many Air Force people were convinced that this
event would be the one that
would announce the arrival of the people from outer space. But of
course, we all know that someone in power decided otherwise and so here
we are today, still guessing about what is and what is not a visitation
from alien beings. Thanks to Captain Ruppelt who had the courage to
write his book even though his employer, Northrup Aircraft Company,
forced him to recant his findings that UFOs were to be taken seriously,
Ruppelt’s “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects” is a
document that cannot be refuted. And no one can tell me that in 1952,
the United States or any other country on earth had the technology to
create an aircraft that could crawl at 100mph and then speed away from
an F-94 at 7,000mph. This was happening in 1952, so is it necessary to
assume that 48 years later, in 2000, the same remarkable UFO maneuvers
must be attributed to man’s own egotistical sense of genius?
There
remains today, evidence that suggests the possibility that many UFO
events are occurring entirely
outside the jurisdiction of any national government power, and that military/intelligence circles as well as other undisclosed parties
who feel they have an exclusive right to UFO data, are actually, at
least in part, powerless in relation to the UFO phenomenon itself.
Those who "know the truth" about the UFO-earth-man
relationship may (or may not) have taken into custody alien bodies at Roswell, New
Mexico in 1947, may (or may not) have taken possession of alien spacecraft and
subsequently, may (or may not) have reverse engineered various technologies; but this does not mean our governments (or shadow governments)
have control over the phenomenon, especially if there are a myriad of
non-human intelligences involved.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Some final questions still remain regarding the Illinois Flying Triangle
and the suppositions placed upon it. It has been mentioned by some that
perhaps Officers Barton and Martin did not really see the UFO move at
the fantastic speed they claimed. The question of "duplication" has been
raised, where perhaps there was more than one “UFO” flying around
Illinois that morning. If this was the case, perhaps one object was near
Officer Barton and suddenly became “invisible”, whereupon, a few seconds
later, a second “UFO” of identical design turns on its lights near the
town of Shiloh, thereby creating the impression that a great distance
had been traversed in a very short time. There’s no way to disprove
this. The notion that duplication was implemented on January 5 cannot be
ruled out, just as the hypothesis that the Illinois UFO was an alien
ship cannot be ruled out based on a lack of evidence to prove either
case.
IF such deception and manipulation are being carried out by the
military/intelligence establishment (or someone else), then these people
are very sad examples of the human spirit, outshining even those
American CEOs who steal their employees' retirement funds ("Enron: The
Smartest? Guys in the Room") and the
transparent criminals who stole the White House from the American voting
public in 2000 ("Stupid White Men", Chapter 1, Michael Moore). The whole issue
boils down to honesty and integrity and doing the right thing by your
fellow man. If military and intelligence personnel (or others) are
manipulating the minds of innocent people, as seen in the MK-Ultra and CointelPro scandals, then someone should call them on
the carpet and whack their knuckles with a wooden ruler.
But who could do this? Perhaps this is one reason the United States
Government refuses to ratify the International Criminal Courts Treaty
and continues to snub the United Nations. Perhaps an independent group
of individuals has infiltrated and is actually directing the
activities of the world’s most affluent governments, including their military and
intelligence branches, in order to control UFO data; and this is one
reason why they do not want to be held accountable to any “United
World Court”. Indeed, those in government who have requested the
release of UFO data, have encountered obstacles from intelligence
agencies. There is definitely a powerful force beyond the visible
branches of government that controls the flow of UFO information.
Perhaps this is why I have found it so difficult to find a media buyer
for "The Edge of Reality: Illinois UFO, January 5, 2000". I
can find no reason why a well-researched, television documentary
covering a landmark UFO sighting such as the Illinois Triangle,
continues to be ignored. The influence of unknown individuals who desire
to control UFO data, seemingly reaches into the editorial and
programming offices of the world's most prominent media organizations.
Fortunately, the UFO phenomenon doesn't always cooperate with those who
would like to keep it hidden from public view.
The evidence, based on flying triangle sightings around the world,
continues to create more questions than it does answers. One puzzling
aspect of the flying triangle sightings, (numerous sightings have taken
place around the globe; over England, Russia, Japan, the United States
and Peru) is that the objects are almost always making themselves quite
visible to observers, thanks to the very bright and numerous lights seen
on these craft. So why would a “black program” aircraft be
advertising itself with blazing illumination over populated areas only
to later be denied by the government that it exists. The only
explanation that makes any sense is that FTs ARE actually alien craft,
and that governments ARE intentionally flying their own versions of the
FT over populated areas in order to confuse the public, observe
reactions, collect the data, and manage the mainstream media to best
suit their goals.
Jacques Vallee has said that it is highly likely that staged UFO incidents are
being conducted by unknown parties, and I put a lot of faith in
Mr.Vallee’s inside working knowledge of the U.S.
Defense establishment (he was a principle investigator for Department of
Defense computer networking projects). His commitment to unraveling the
mysteries behind the UFO question probably began when he saw a UFO when he was a
child in France. He also witnessed the destruction of a French observatory's
tracking tapes which had captured UFO data. Vallee's books are must
reads for anyone who wants a realistic perspective on the UFO problem.
So, what about the January 5, 2000, sighting? It’s anyone’s guess
and I cannot declare without any reservation that the UFO over Illinois
was an alien craft any more than NIDS or anyone else can claim beyond
all shadow of doubt that the UFO was a military vehicle. I do know this.
Something extraordinary happened. Perhaps I simply do not have enough
faith in the scientific minds of today to believe that they have
achieved a technology to match the performance of what was, in the 1940s
and 50s, obviously a superior, alien technology. I have difficulty
reconciling mankind’s technical progress with its absolute atrophy in
the spiritual area of human development. Our enthusiastic and
shortsighted manipulation of plastics has become a force that is
transforming our very being. Because industrialized society puts so much
emphasis on the plastic nature of existence, we are becoming what we
produce: plastic. We are losing our soul. The alchemist’s goal was to
create something of higher value with precious metals, yet the majority
of what we produce today has no meaning beyond gratifying a thirst for
entertainment and power. It grieves me to think that we could achieve
such miraculous technical progress, yet use it to deceive innocent
people and in some cases, cause them pain and anxiety for much of their
lives. Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, this has not occurred
with the witnesses of the January 5th UFO; but it has
happened to others. When we, as a people cannot find a way to peace and
continue to build weapons for war, manipulating the masses into a
fearful frenzy so that they support a political agenda ready to kill
human beings for financial profit and control, I cannot come to terms
with the idea that men or women of science who possess such creative
genius, have achieved the powers once attributed to God, or to Aliens,
yet allow their creative energy to be used for destructive, national and
personal gains.
To end on a positive note, perhaps someday we’ll witness the
undeniable UFO event, and let's hope the best of human qualities will
prevail to
welcome the elusive and mysterious presence behind these intriguing and
sometimes frightening, manifestations. Let us also hope that whoever
they are, they do not tire of human kind's lack of moral and
spiritual development and
decide that the planet earth would be better off without us.
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