CUFON - UFO Information Service Seattle, Washington
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INTRODUCTORY SPACE SCIENCE - VOLUME II - DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS - USAF
Edited by:
Major Donald G. Carpenter
Co-Editor:
Lt. Colonel Edward R. Therkelson
CHAPTER XIII
UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS
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What is an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO)? Well, according to United
States Air Force Regulation 80-17 (dated 19 September 1966), a UFO is "Any"
aerial Phenomenon or object which is unknown or appears to be out of the
ordinary to the observer." This is a very broad definition which applies
equally well to one individual seeing his first noctilucent cloud at
twilight as it does to another individual seeing his first helicopter.
However, at present most people consider the term UFO to mean an object
which behaves in a strange or erratic manner while moving through the
Earth's atmosphere. That strange phenomenon has evoked strong emotions
and great curiosity among a large segment of our world's population. The
average person is interested because he loves a mystery, the professional
military man is involved because of the possible threat to national
security, and some scientists are interested because of the basic curiosity
that led them into becoming researchers.
The literature on UFO's is so vast, and the stories so many and varied,
that we can only present a sketchy outline of the subject in this chapter.
That outline includes description classifications, operational domains
(temporal and spatial), some theories as to the nature of the UFO
phenomenon, human reactions, attempts to attack the problem scientifically,
and some tentative conclusions. If you wish to read further in this area,
the references provide an excellent starting point.
33.1 DESCRIPTIONS
One of the greatest problems you encounter when attempting to catalog
UFO sightings, is selection of a system for cataloging. No effective
system has yet been devised, although a number of different systems have
been proposed. The net result is that almost all UFO data are either
treated in the form of individual cases, or in the forms of inadequate
classification systems. However, these systems do tend to have some common
factors, and a collection of these factors is as follows:
a. Size
b. Shape (disc, ellipse, football, etc.)
c. Luminosity
d. Color
e. Number of UFO's
CUFON - UFO Information Service Seattle, Washington
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Behavior:
a. Location (altitude, direction, etc.)
b. Patterns of paths (straight line, climbing, zig-zagging, etc.)
c. Flight Characteristics (wobbling, fluttering, etc.)
d. Periodicity of sightings
e. Time duration
f. Curiosity or inquisitiveness
g. Avoidance
h. Hostility
Associated Effects:
a. Electro-Magnetic (compass, radio, ignition systems, etc.)
b. Radiation (burns, induced radioactivity, etc.)
c. Ground disturbance (dust stirred up, leaves moved, standing wave
d. Sound (none, hissing, humming, roaring, thunderclaps, etc.)
e. Vibration (weak, strong, slow, fast)
f. Smell (ozone or other odor)
g. Flame (how much, where, when, color)
h. Smoke or cloud (amount, color, persistence)
i. Debris (type, amount, color, persistence)
j. Inhibition of voluntary movement by observers
k. Sighting of "creatures" or "beings"
After Effects:
a. Burned areas or animals
b. Depressed or flattened areas
c. Dead or missing animals
d. Mentally disturbed people
e. Missing items
We make no attempt here to present available data in terms of the foregoing
descriptors.
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CUFON - UFO Information Service Seattle, Washington
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33.2 OPERATIONAL DOMAINS - TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL
What we will do here is to present evidence that UFO's are a global
phenomenon which may have persisted for many thousands of years. During
this discussion, please remember that the more ancient the reports the less
sophisticated the observer. Not only were the ancient observers lacking
the terminology necessary to describe complex devices (such as present day
helicopters) but they were also lacking the concepts necessary to
understand the true nature of such things as television, spaceships,
rockets, nuclear weapons and radiation effects. To some, the most
advanced technological concept was a war chariot with knife blades attached
to the wheels. By the same token, the very lack of accurate terminology
and descriptions leaves the more ancient reports open to considerable
misinterpretation, and it may well be that present evaluations of
individual reports are completely wrong. Nevertheless, let us start with
an intriguing story in one of the oldest chronicles of India...the Book of
Dzyan.
The book is a group of "story-teller" legends which were finally
gathered in manuscript form when man learned to write. One of the stories
is of a small group of beings who supposedly came to Earth many thousands
of years ago in a metal craft which orbited the Earth several times before
landing. As told in the Book "These beings lived to themselves and were
revered by the humans among whom they had settled. But eventually
differences arose among them and they divided their numbers, several of the
men and women and some children settled in another city, where they were
promptly installed as rulers by the awe-stricken populace.
"Separation did not bring peace to these people and finally their
anger reached a point where the ruler of the original city took with him
a small number of his warriors and they rose into the air in a huge shining
metal vessel. While they were many leagues from the city of their enemies,
they launched a great shining lance that rode on a beam of light. It burst
apart in the city of their enemies with a great ball of flame that shot up
to the heavens, almost to the stars. All those who were in the city were
horribly burned and even those who were not in the city - but nearby - were
burned also. Those who looked upon the lance and the ball of fire were
blinded forever afterward. Those who entered the city on foot became ill
and died. Even the dust of the city was poisoned, as were the rivers that
flowed through it. Men dared not go near it, and it gradually crumbled
into dust and was forgotten by men."
"When the leader saw what he had done to his own people he retired to
his palace and refused to see anyone. Then he gathered about him those
warriors who remained, and their wives and children, and they entered their
vessels and rose one by one into the sky and sailed away. Nor did they
return."
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CUFON - UFO Information Service Seattle, Washington
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Could this foregoing legend really be an account of an extraterrestrial
colonization, complete with guided missle, nuclear warhead and radiation
effects? It is difficult to assess the validity of that explanation...
just as it is difficult to explain why Greek, Roman and Nordic Mythology
all discuss wars and contacts among their "Gods." (Even the Bible records
conflict between the legions of God and Satan.) Could it be that each
group recorded their parochial view of what was actually a global conflict
among alien colonists or visitors? Or is it that man has led such a
violent existence that he tends to expect conflict and violence among even
his gods?
Evidence of perhaps an even earlier possible contact was uncovered by
Tschi Pen Lao of the University of Peking. He discovered astonishing
carvings in granite on a mountain in Hunan Province and on an island in
Lake Tungting. These carvings have been evaluated as 47,000 years old, and
they show people with large trunks (breathing apparatus?...or "elephant"
heads shown on human bodies? Remember, the Egyptians often represented
their gods as animal heads on human bodies.)
Only 8,000 years ago, rocks were sculpted in the Tassili plateau of
Sahara, depicting what appeared to be human beings but with strange round
heads (helmets? or "sun" heads on human bodies?) And even more recently,
in the Bible, Genesis (6:4) tells of angels from the sky mating with women
of Earth, who bore them children. Genesis 19:3 tells of Lot meeting two
angels in the desert and his later feeding them at his house. The Bible
also tells a rather unusual story of Ezekiel who witnessed what has been
interpreted by some to have been a spacecraft or aircraft landing near the
Chebar River in Chaldea (593 B.C.).
Even the Irish have recorded strange visitations. In the Speculum
Regali in Konungs Skuggsa (and other accounts of the era about 956 A.D.)
are numerous stories of "demonships" in the skies. In one case a rope from
one such ship became entangled with part of a church. A man from the ship
climbed down the rope to free it, but was seized by the townspeople. The
bishop made the people release the man, who climbed back to the ship,
where the crew cut the rope and the ship rose and sailed out of sight.
In all of his actions, the climbing man appeared as if he were swimming
in water. Stories such as this makes one wonder if the legends of the
"little people" of Ireland were based upon imagination alone.
About the same time, in Lyons (France) three men and a women supposedly
descended from an airship or spaceship and were captured by a mob. These
foreigners admitted to being wizards, and were killed. (No mention is
made of the methods employed to extract the admissions.) Many documented
UFO sightings occurred throughout the Middle Ages, including an especially
startling one of a UFO over London on 16 December 1742. However, we do
not have room to include any more of the Middle Ages sightings. Instead,
two "more-recent" sightings are contained in this section to bring us up to
modern times.
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CUFON - UFO Information Service Seattle, Washington
In a sworn statement dated 21 April 1897, a prosperous and prominent
farmer named Alexander Hamilton (Le Roy, Kansas, U.S.A.) told of an attack
upon his cattle at about 10:30 p.m. the previous Monday. He, his son, and
his tenant grabbed axes and ran some 700 feet from the house to the cow
lot where a great cigar-shaped ship about 300 feet long floated some 30
feet above the cattle. It had a carriage underneath which was brightly
lighted within (dirigible and gondola?) and which had numerous windows.
Inside were six strange looking beings jabbering in a foreign language.
These beings suddenly became aware of Hamilton and the others. They
immediately turned a searchlight on the farmer, and also turned on some
power which sped up a turbine wheel (about 30 ft diameter) located under
the craft. The ship rose, taking with it a two-year old heifer which was
roped about the neck by a cable of one-half inch thick, red material. The
next day a neighbor, Link Thomas, found the animal's hide, legs and head
in his field. He was mystified at how the remains got to where they were
because of the lack of tracks in the soft soil. Alexander Hamilton's sworn
statement was accompanied by an affidavit as to his veracity. The
affidavit was signed by ten of the local leading citizens.
On the evening of 4 November 1957 at Fort Itaipu, Brazil, two sentries
noted a "new star" in the sky. The "star" grew in size and within seconds
stopped over the fort. It drifted slowly downward, was as large as a big
aircraft, and was surround by a strong orange glow. A distinct humming
sound was heard, and then the heat struck. One sentry collapsed almost
immediately, the other managed to slide to shelter under the heavy cannons
where his loud cries awoke the garrison. While the troops were scrambling
towards their battle stations, complete electrical failure occurred.
There was panic until the lights came back on but a number of men still
managed to see an orange glow leaving the area at high speed. Both
sentries were found badly burned...one unconscious and the other incoherent,
suffering from deep shock.
Thus, UFO sightings not only appear to extend back to 47,000 years
through time but also are global in nature. One has the feeling that
this phenomenon deserves some sort of valid scientific investigation, even
if it is a low level effort.
33.3 SOME THEORIES AS TO THE NATURE OF THE UFO PHENOMENON
There are very few cohesive theories as to the nature of UFO's. Those
theories that have been advanced can be collected in five groups:
a. Mysticism
b. Hoaxes, and rantings due to unstable personalities
c. Secret Weapons
d. Natural Phenomena
e. Alien visitors
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Mysticism
It is believed by some cults that the mission of UFO's and their crews
is a spiritual one, and that all materialistic efforts to determine the
UFO's nature are doomed to failure.
Hoaxes and Rantings due to Unstable Personalities
Some have suggested that all UFO reports were the results of pranks
and hoaxes, or were made by people with unstable personalities. This
attitude was particularly prevalent during the time period when the Air
Force investigation was being operated under the code name of Project
Grudge. A few airlines even went as far as to ground every pilot who
reported seeing a "flying saucer." The only way for the pilot to regain
flight status was to undergo a psychiatric examination. There was a
noticeable decline in pilot reports during this time interval, and a few
interpreted this decline to prove that UFO's were either hoaxes or the
result of unstable personalities. It is of interest that NICAP (The
National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) even today still
receives reports from commercial pilots who neglect to notify either the
Air Force or their own airline.
There are a number of cases which indicate that not all reports fall
in the hoax category. We will examine one such case now. It is the
Socorro, New Mexico sighting made by police Sergeant Lonnie Zamora.
Sergeant Zamora was patrolling the streets of Socorro on 24 April 1964
when he saw a shiny object drift down into an area of gullies on the edge
of town. He also heard a loud roaring noise which sounded as if an old
dynamite shed located out that way had exploded. He immediately radioed
police headquarters, and drove out toward the shed. Zamora was forced to
stop about 150 yards away from a deep gully in which there appeared to be
an overturned car. He radioed that he was investigating a possible wreck,
and then worked his car up onto the mesa and over toward the edge of the
gully. He parked short, and when he walked the final few feet to the edge,
he was amazed to see that it was not a car but instead was a weird
eggshaped object about fifteen feet long, white in color and resting on
short, metal legs. Beside it, unaware of his presence were two humanoids
dressed in silvery coveralls. They seemed to be working on a portion of
the underside of the object. Zamora was still standing there, surprised,
when they suddenly noticed him and dove out of sight around the object.
Zamora also headed the other way, back toward his car. He glanced back at
the object just as a bright blue flame shot down from the underside.
Within seconds the eggshaped thing rose out of the gully with "an ear-
-splitting roar." The object was out of sight over the nearby mountains
almost immediately, and Sergeant Zamora was moving the opposite direction
almost as fast when he met Sergeant Sam Chavez who was responding to Zamora'
s
earlier radio calls. Together they investigated the gully and found the
bushes charred and still smoking where the blue flame had jetted down on
them. About the charred area were four deep marks where the metal legs
had been. Each mark was three and one half inches deep, and was circular
in shape. The sand in the gully was very hard packed so no sign of the
humanoids' footprints could be found. An official investigation was
launched that same day, and all data obtained supported the stories of
Zamora and Chavez. It is rather difficult to label this episode a hoax,
and it is also doubtful that both Zamora and Chavez shared portions of the
same hallucination.
A few individuals have proposed that UFO's are actually advanced weapon
systems, and that their natures must not be revealed. Very few people
accept this as a credible suggestion.
Natural Phenomena
It has also been suggested that at least some, and possibly all, of the
UFO cases were just mis-interpreted manifestations of natural phenomena.
Undoubtedly this suggestion has some merit. People have reported, as UFO's,
objects which were conclusively proven to be balloons (weather and skyhook),
the planet Venus, man-made artificial satellites, normal aircraft, unusual
cloud formations, and lights from ceilometers (equipment projecting light
beams on cloud bases to determine the height of the aircraft visual ceiling)
