The Truth Behind UFO Sightings and the U.S. Air Force

[Bruce Dazzling]

The Truth Behind UFO Sightings and the U.S. Air Force
'Mirage Men' author Mark Pilkington discusses how the military used UFO stories to keep aircraft projects secret

By Alex Kingsbury

Posted: September 16, 2010


What happened in 1952 over Washington, D.C.?

The first incident took place early one morning in July. It was reported extensively in the newspapers that a number of unknown objects appeared on radar screens around Washington. Now, it looks very plausible to me that the Washington incident was a demonstration of a technology from the Defense Department, known as Project Palladium, which allowed the operator to project radar blips onto other radar screens. Later on, the technology became very sophisticated to the point where you could change the shape of the blip and its speed and so forth. We go on in the book at length about the evidence that suggests that the Washington radar incident was a planned operation.

Mirage Men Blog: http://miragemen.wordpress.com/

Hmmm, reminds me of that crazy phantom Flight 11 that had NORAD and the FAA chasing their tails on 9/11.

[justdrew]

Looks like some of these guys have finally ditched that con-artist, whats-his-name, from the "disclosure project"

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Have Been Compromised by Unidentified Aerial Objects
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15

Ex-military men say unknown intruders have monitored and even tampered with American nuclear missiles

Group to call on U.S. Government to reveal the facts

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Witness testimony from more than 120 former or retired military personnel points to an ongoing and alarming intervention by unidentified aerial objects at nuclear weapons sites, as recently as 2003. In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby. Six former U.S. Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about these events at the National Press Club and urge the government to publicly confirm their reality.

One of them, ICBM launch officer Captain Robert Salas, was on duty during one missile disruption incident at Malmstrom Air Force Base and was ordered to never discuss it. Another participant, retired Col. Charles Halt, observed a disc-shaped object directing beams of light down into the RAF Bentwaters airbase in England and heard on the radio that they landed in the nuclear weapons storage area. Both men will provide stunning details about these events, and reveal how the U.S. military responded.

Captain Salas notes, "The U.S. Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it." Col. Halt adds, "I believe that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted—both then and now—to subvert the significance of what occurred at RAF Bentwaters by the use of well-practiced methods of disinformation."

The group of witnesses and a leading researcher, who has brought them together for the first time, will discuss the national security implications of these and other alarmingly similar incidents and will urge the government to reveal all information about them. This is a public-awareness issue.

Declassified U.S. government documents, to be distributed at the event, now substantiate the reality of UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites extending back to 1948. The press conference will also address present-day concerns about the abuse of government secrecy as well as the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons.

WHO: Dwynne Arneson, USAF Lt. Col. Ret., communications center officer-in-charge

Bruce Fenstermacher, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer

Charles Halt, USAF Col. Ret., former deputy base commander

Robert Hastings, researcher and author

Robert Jamison, former USAF nuclear missile targeting officer

Patrick McDonough, former USAF nuclear missile site geodetic surveyor

Jerome Nelson, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer

Robert Salas, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer

WHAT: Noted researcher Robert Hastings, author of UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, will moderate a distinguished panel of former U.S. Air Force officers involved in UFO incidents at nuclear missile sites near Malmstrom, F.E. Warren, and Walker AFBs, as well as the nuclear weapons depot at RAF Bentwaters.

WHEN: Monday, September 27, 2010

12:30 p.m.

WHERE: National Press Club

Holeman Lounge

Event open to credentialed media and Congressional staff only

SOURCE Former U.S. Air Force Officer Robert Salas, and Researcher Robert Hastings

[jingofever]

Although, I presume “from an agency I can’t name” would refer to the guys in RAND, which was in part assigned to purportedly counter military attacks from the purported primary enemy, Russia, in the 1950’s. References to RAND and Russia are spotted in Adam Curtis’s documentary, The Trap, which I viewed while RI was getting fixed, last week. I use the word purported because, generally, I am no longer sure of much.

My guess would be an agency that is very secretive or possibly classified, like the National Reconnaissance Office (but they weren't formed until 1961). So maybe the NSA, which would support Pilkington's radar hypothesis.

All of which to say that UFO stories are not intimated in Curtis’s documentary, yet the conspiratorial like me is always waiting for validated proof that people in RAND knew the UFO circumstances. My only 2 cents.

There is UFOs: What To Do?:

Sightings of unidentified foreign objects (UFOs) have been reported throughout the centuries-most of them given a religious interpretation. Since World War II, however, there seems to have been a drastic increase in the number of sightings. We have enough data-both visual and photographic-on some of these sighting to know that the phenomenon is unambiguously extraordinary and clearly inexplicable in modern terms. The author examines UFO brightness, size, and maneuvers, and discusses the frequency and location of sightings. He ends by suggesting the need for more standardized reporting on UFOs, so that times and locations of appearances may be anticipated and badly needed objective data may be obtained.

And Request for Study by Rand Project from 1948.

Edit: I looked at Ruppelt's book for the bit about the scientist predicting the Washington D.C. sighting. Compare what Pilkington takes away:

The clearest hint that the Washington sightings were no accident was given to Bluebook’s Edward Ruppelt a few days before events kicked off. Ruppelt wrote that he and a scientist “from an agency I can’t name” had a two-hour discussion about UFOs, at the end of which the scientist made a ‘prediction’: “Within the next few days… they’re going to blow up and you’re going to have the granddaddy of all UFO sightings… in Washington or New York… probably Washington.”

With what Ruppelt actually said:

A few days prior to the incident a scientist, from an agency that I can't name, and I were talking about the build-up of reports along the east coast of the United States. We talked for about two hours, and I was ready to leave when he said that he had one last comment to make—a prediction. From his study of the UFO reports that he was getting from Air Force Headquarters, and from discussions with his colleagues, he said that he thought that we were sitting right on top of a big keg full of loaded flying saucers. "Within the next few days," he told me, and I remember that he punctuated his slow, deliberate remarks by hitting the desk with his fist, "they're going to blow up and you're going to have the granddaddy of all UFO sightings. The sighting will occur in Washington or New York," he predicted, "probably Washington."

Sounds more like a guy who was seriously studying the phenomenon rather than somebody manipulating it.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

Sounds more like a guy who was seriously studying the phenomenon rather than somebody manipulating it.

And then he died.

[Allegro]

.
Thanks, jingofever, for the links up thread. Little did I know of the documents, as you know, and will keep the RAND pdf for later perusals. As a result, I got hooked a bit on the Washington Invasion, and went searching. What actually caught my attention during the searches was Monroe’s photo on Life magazine; the essay below is redundant, really, but it contains another name, Curtis Peebles, and book not mentioned in this thread, heretofore, but mentioned here and here.

NOTES WITH REGARD TO

Life magazine article on UFOs, 1952

One of the most influential pieces of journalism in the early history of unidentified flying objects. It appeared in the April 7, 1952 issue of Life magazine, just four days after the US Air Force had issued a press release to announce that it would continue studying UFOs through the successor to Project Grudge, known as Project Blue Book. Under the title “Have we visitors from outer space?” the article cited an unnamed general in the Pentagon who “strongly believed flying saucers were interplanetary spaceships”.

In his memoirs, Captain Edward Ruppelt, head of Blue Book at this time, asserted that a number of USAF generals who privately endorsed the extraterrestrial hypothesis had unofficially encouraged Life reporters to promote the “interplanetary aspect” and that these officers ranked “so high that their personal opinion was almost policy”. 1

The article in Life, together with scores of others it spawned in newspapers around the country, may have been an important factor behind the increased rate of reports at this time. In his book Watch the Skies! 2 (1995) Curtis Peebles describes the kind of feedback effect that may have been at work:

Life said the Air Force was interested in flying saucers. People would then be more likely to report a sighting. The new regulations meant that reports that might have been ignored or thrown away before were now sent to Blue Book. The open press policy meant that questions were not brushed off as before. This, along with the increased number of reports, resulted in more newspaper articles which caused people to watch the skies.

Public interest in UFOs peaked later that year following the “Washington Invasion”.

REFERENCES
1 Ruppelt, Edward. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. New York: Doubleday (1956).

2 Peebles, Curtis. Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press (1995).

[82_28]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems various members here are contributing to the plumbing of this old decrepit UFO rabbit hole lately. Yeah, I started that "Who Parked the Moon" thread and it has turned out quite interesting. But, what you post here Allegro, is equally as interesting, if not more so.

We forget the simple things. The little things. Such as, what the pace of life was like back when the Monroe Life cover came out. As near as I can tell, it gave readers three things to trustingly think about as citizens, how much to pay for the copy and the date of issue.

Marilyn Monroe

Air force/Flying Saucers

Hollywood

Perhaps, this is a nice tell on their part. Think of JFK's famous, but not so famous (of the media magnitude of Clinton/Lewinski) imbroglios with Monroe. JFK wants us out of Vietnam while wants us on the moon. Gets waxed for all to see in eventuality. Monroe gets waxed too, by obviously, if you've ever known an addict to the hard shit, by way of peer pressure. Perpetually creating "canvasses" upon which to write a great Bernays-ian narrative of consumption, disbelief and then because of said disbelief and in return bolstering of image, becomes part of the shared fable, the right wing, technocratic future which began with a figurehead taking us to the moon, getting assassinated, concerned about human rights who simultaneously met a dreadful death, but gave America it's greatest claim to fame -- the moon.

I think the key is the "simultaneousness" of it and the dreaminess of it. It has only become more complex since. As more of us begin to have the scales drop, this shit will fall over like a Jenga game. It can only be held up by so much bullshit until some catch on. It's not about the details, but about the symbols it seems. It's about the impact of the unsuspecting mind. It's about the adrenaline and how the mind copes with its presence.

Perhaps figureheads were assassinated in the distant past to get rid of them outside of and in the absence of an instant electric media. Now, they have to farm them. Cultivate them. Breed in some sense, the revolutionaries, otherwise there would be no enemy to be found. So they create what an enemy is via the public perception of what is good. Hence all the school massacres and such. More people must be publicly murdered in order for their cover to not be blown. JFK took over the much slower news cycle of a distant time and a mere 3 networks and the various beat writers in the cities who in those days had newspapers and a proud, post WWII middle class. Michael Jackson died and it was on for a month on 78 networks nonstop.

Now that "they" have successfully divided us, should some fate befall Obama, say, it would be in and out of the cycle easily within a month. But the show would play on. The new faux creepy shows would nestle it into their scripts. They'll drag out JFK with some kind of a time dilation twist and we will all sit in awe of how capable they are at manipulating our minds -- except we won't know the better. A new war will be made, more citizens around the world biometrically databased.

Oh look. A UFO!!!!!

[LilyPatToo]

I think the key is the "simultaneousness" of it and the dreaminess of it. It has only become more complex since. As more of us begin to have the scales drop, this shit will fall over like a Jenga game. It can only be held up by so much bullshit until some catch on. It's not about the details, but about the symbols it seems. It's about the impact of the unsuspecting mind. It's about the adrenaline and how the mind copes with its presence.

Perhaps figureheads were assassinated in the distant past to get rid of them outside of and in the absence of an instant electric media. Now, they have to farm them. Cultivate them. Breed in some sense, the revolutionaries, otherwise there would be no enemy to be found. So they create what an enemy is via the public perception of what is good. Hence all the school massacres and such. More people must be publicly murdered in order for their cover to not be blown. JFK took over the much slower news cycle of a distant time and a mere 3 networks and the various beat writers in the cities who in those days had newspapers and a proud, post WWII middle class. Michael Jackson died and it was on for a month on 78 networks nonstop.

Now that "they" have successfully divided us, should some fate befall Obama, say, it would be in and out of the cycle easily within a month. But the show would play on. The new faux creepy shows would nestle it into their scripts. They'll drag out JFK with some kind of a time dilation twist and we will all sit in awe of how capable they are at manipulating our minds -- except we won't know the better. A new war will be made, more citizens around the world biometrically databased.

Oh look. A UFO!!!!!

You've nailed it, 82_28. Since at least the early 50's, certain people have known how to deftly play minds--often many minds at a time--with the manipulation of stimulus and the triggering of brain chemicals to which some of those people have become unknowingly addicted. I know this because, if there was a 12-step program for that addiction, I'd spend my days in meetings, rather than here. Though, now that I think on it, maybe in a way the insistence upon rigor here serves the same purpose....

Distraction that's based upon brain chemistry and wielded as a weapon by governments is damnably difficult to counter. The hearers have been deliberately addicted to a mix of their own adrenalin and other naturally generated chemicals and if someone asks them to give up that high, to wake the fuck up and smell the coffee, you can imagine the reaction. I've lost so many friends over the past 6 years by insisting upon rigor in thinking about the unknown that I despair of ever seeing the masses wake up.

Which make this is the place for my standard but heart-felt disclaimer: I know for a fact that there are real unknowns out there. I know it first-hand. But I also know up close and very personal that there are people who live to take those genuine mysteries and twist them to their own purposes. And that their goals are to turn entire populations into junkies who can be distracted with a few key words: Oh look. A UFO!!!!! (or a ghost!!!!! or a ______!!!!!) followed by the image of a social icon or a reminder of great national achievements or a warning to fear certain ethnic groups. The brain chemicals squirt or ooze and BINGO! a nation (or enough of a nation) is entranced for TPTB to get away with amazingly evil stuff.

LilyPat

[Luther Blissett]

That was a great post. I agree with you on every point but I still don't think that it negates the fact that Earth has likely been visited for tens of thousands of years and those of us who are experts on the subject find that it's ludicrous to apply the USAF to explain away the phenomenon in it's entirety.

[LilyPatToo]

That was a great post. I agree with you on every point but I still don't think that it negates the fact that Earth has likely been visited for tens of thousands of years and those of us who are experts on the subject find that it's ludicrous to apply the USAF to explain away the phenomenon in it's entirety.

It doesn't negate it at all, but it should make us wary of individual reports and drive us to educate ourselves on past manipulations of incidents, so that we develop/fine-tune our BS detectors.

My opinion, after spending most of my life in the UFO community, is that the USAF and their intel allies not only use UFOs as a distraction, but they also keep their targeted part of the public biochemically primed between sightings/revelations. Go to any of the bigger fringe sites and track the titillation tactics used by the pros on the fans. It will sicken you once you look at it in biochemical terms. They engineer regular flurries of excitement that are like a dealer passing out free samples. They stir the natives into a frenzy for a few days (or until enough of them see through the "sighting") and keep those tasty brain chemicals oozing.

I got hooked on this endorphin/adrenalin rollercoaster myself and it took me years to notice how regularly the "trips" were scheduled--and I use that term deliberately. I'd just begin to jones for another sighting, when, like magic, one would occur...or at least there would be a rumor of one. And we'd be off again...

My own personal impression is that while the USAF makes good use of this game, the real instigators/manipulators all smell like civilian intelligence agencies or assets they control. Just MHO, YMMV. But I'm so relieved to have found a site where this can be discussed, because everywhere else the focus comes across to me as being on getting high, not on fact-finding or deep historical understanding of the real phenomena behind the hype. And no one who reads Dolan's books could doubt that it's real and has been going on for a very long time.

But the manipulation of those of us who know that has created a handy smokescreen for the Air Force and other covert agencies wishing to hide their activities from the public. And entire classes of fascinating and, to me, deeply important events have been made into bad jokes. That just really pisses me off.

LilyPat

[Simulist]

One of the ways to render a potential threat harmless is to infiltrate it, co-opt it, and then to redirect it for more "friendly" purposes.

The U.S. intelligence apparatus seems particularly well-practiced at this.

Why do you suppose we've heard stories about the FBI (and other official agencies) infiltrating harmless (to you and me) peace groups? To people who don't understand that not only monitoring but also infiltration is a standard operating procedure in intelligence circles, these efforts appear preposterous, "a waste of taxpayer money!" (Which of course it is, but not for the reasons most suppose.)

I don't think the UFO community is by any means alone in being the beneficiary of this kind of special attention — the counter-culture movement and the anti-war movement are two more examples among many others — but I think it's undeniable that the U.S. intelligence apparatus has lavished much attention on the UFO community. To see its fingerprints throughout should be little surprise.

Like hermit crabs who move into and inhabit the identities of the enemies they have defeated, intelligence agencies also appear to consider this a goal worthy of pursuit.

[LilyPatToo]

Yes. Which brings me to my current questions re: UFOs/the paranormal--What is real and what is Memorex and who specifically are the meddlers?

And on the subject of those mind control program survivors who recall what appeared to be psychic "lessons" and/or testing, why? Why spend so much money and devote so many personnel hours to apparently fiddling with psy abilities in unwitting test subjects? Since I believe that many of those same survivors ended up at fringe sites, being jerked around by the above-discussed brain-chemical-inducing fun & games, it ties directly into this thread's subject matter.

Speaking personally, I saw a UFO back in the 1960's and also have a very confused (possibly drugged and/or hypnotically-induced) memory of seeing what looked like a pale alien during a MILAB at an Oakland military base in the mid-to-late '70's/early 80's. And I know a whole bunch of other likely MC program survivors with very similar histories--some much more detailed and clearly remembered than my own...not that that's any guarantee that those incidents actually happened, either. All of us recall being gifted with abilities like precognition, clairvoyance and in some cases pyschokinesis during childhood and, in some cases, into adulthood. And I had a handler who was almost certainly an intelligence operative (who I accidentally discovered had a number of different cover identities) who was able to induce a psy ability that I'd always believed to be completely out of my control on his command, take notes as it played out and then calmly shut it down permanently when I was in my 20's.

Someone paid that jerk. The meddling he and his fellow spooks did seems to me to be related across a number of fields in which much lore now exists about intelligence agency interference. I'd love to know what parts are actual and which have resulted from mythologizing, confabulation and induced mental illness. Because, unlike a lot of theorists, I feel very strongly that some of it is real--a very important baby that needs to be separated from its filthy, polluted bathwater before it's all tossed out the window.

LilyPat

[Simulist]

Because, unlike a lot of theorists, I feel very strongly that some of it is real--a very important baby that needs to be separated from its filthy, polluted bathwater before it's all tossed out the window.

I would agree with that (on this and several other topics). In my opinion, the UFO phenomenon is one of the most important questions that needs continued exploration.

What we're discussing also accounts for one of the reasons I consider that the most generally-held explanations for what UFOs really are probably are wrong. (That and the fact that I don't think we really have as compelling-enough of an understanding about the nature of reality and consciousness as most assume.)

[justdrew]

a very well documented multiple person sighting...
http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/illinois-ufos-police-witnesses/

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

There were biological warfare tests in Washington DC in 1949-1950.
Just like the ones in NYCity subways and SF Bay.
And in Korea, China, and France.

Also, totally illegal overflight surveillance of the USSR and China by US and UK planes that could've set off a nuclear war.

No, there are no flying saucers from outer space being covered up by NATO miltary governments.
This is a catch-all decoy cover-up of military projects and crimes for the gullible. And RI is full of 'em. Some of them honestly fooled, others not.

W.O.O.

[LilyPatToo]

Hugh, I readily agree with you that many UFO sightings are probably of classified craft, but one over the woods outside of a rural Pennsylvania county seat on a winter evening in the mid-1960's? It was a multiple witness sighting, too--I wasn't the only person who reported it. Some people in a house out N. 9th St., many blocks away from my parent's house where I saw it, were having a party and saw it too, from another angle and even closer up.

Who would have been flying a glowing golden ovoid there? We were having a huge UFO flap, with all sorts of craft sighted by all kinds of people, including the mayor, who I heard chased a "nuts n' bolts" craft at high speed down a street not far from my home. There was a multiple witness sighting by a whole crowd of people out at the country fairgrounds one evening and many sightings by workers at the nearby construction site of a new coal-fired power plant.

The sheer variety of craft sighted and the number of people who reported them is not consistent with testing of a "black" aircraft project at all. And in the wilds of western Pa? Come on, Hugh--your theory fits a lot of sightings, perhaps even most of the ones in places like southern CA or the states bordering Area 51 or other testing sites. Ours certainly wasn't a flap that was engineered to influence huge numbers of people, either. This was a small college town back then, in farming and mining country. And, from what people told me, our flap never even made the Pittsburgh papers.

To me, it fits the general pattern of what I think of as "break-through" events. It felt as though Something had opened from Somewhere Else and we'd briefly been a tourist destination. Then the novelty wore off and they all went somewhere else. I suspect that there are lots and lots of that sort of sighting, but they're unlikely to make anything but the local news (if that) and they fail to promote any of the popular conspiracy memes, so even online they don't make much of a splash. But they've been going on for a long, long time.

This is a complex subject and there's no one blanket explanation that fits all of the cases. To insist otherwise requires the cherry-picking of data and some pretty serious denial.

LilyPat