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