UFOs of the Cold War Era, and Other Mystery Objects of Military Origin

Micah Hanks

It’s a bird… it’s a plane… it’s… it’s… a UFO?

While birds and planes have certainly been mistaken for UFOs over the years, there are far more interesting things that have been mistaken for saucers, too. As history has shown, a lot of these mysterious skybound objects were secret military prototypes and other technologies, some of which were even operating outside the bounds of existing nuclear test treaties.

Popular Mechanics recently featured a piece by Kyle Mizokami, which discussed Soviet tests back in the late 1960s that dealt with such technologies. Residents in the Soviet Union reported six incidents where a strange, crescent-shaped object roughly the size of the moon appeared in the night sky, and to much attention from the press and regional UFO groups.

It was later revealed that these “UFOs” had a very terrestrial source:

The “UFO” sightings were actually test launches of the R-36 Orb, a secret nuclear space missile. Developed from the SS-9 Scarp intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-36 Orb was designed to rocket into low earth orbit and de-orbit over the United States. Launched in a southern direction, the weapon could pass over the South Pole and then come at the United States from the direction of Mexico, bypassing the network of early warning radars facing north. The trip would be longer but would catch the Americans by surprise, allowing the Soviets the chance to detonate a 2-3 megaton thermonuclear weapon wherever they might choose.

The chilling details about this technology show just how dire the Cold War period could have been, had there ever been a situation that erupted into conflict. Here, it also shows us one of many instances where weapons development by military superpowers have contributed to UFO sightings. In his book The Demon Haunted World, Carl Sagan similarly discussed how the U2 and Oxcart programs during the same era put high altitude aircraft into the sky which, seen close to dusk by ground based observers, were high enough that they could easily reflect light of the sun from a good distance away. Ideally, this would present circumstances where it was nearly dark for those on the ground, and thus the objects appeared very different from most conventional planes of that era.

One of the most famous situations involving a military operation that was mistaken for phenomenon associated with UFOs involved Paul Bennewitz, who in the 1980s had interpreted tests being conducted at Kirtland Air Force Base as evidence for extraterrestrial communication (these tests actually involved NSA studies being conducted at the locale). Bennewitz, who already had a history of mental illness, became one of the targets of a misinformation campaign, whose actors included Richard Doty, an agent with the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, as well as ufologist William Moore and others.

There are countless other examples of military exercises and various experimental technologies being mistaken for things like extraterrestrial vehicles and other more esoteric things. However, in recognizing this fundamental truth, questions must be raised in relation to whether all reports of UFOs can merely be chalked up to mis-identification of known phenomenon (including military operations, etc), or if there are indeed foreign sources behind some reports of UFO craft.

In another recent MU article, I wrote about my personal experiences with viewing space debris, iridium satellites, and other reflective objects that often are mistaken for being UFOs, driving home the importance for being able to spot and properly discern what these objects are. Part of what drives me to do this is the fact that, for instance, I’ve seen the everything from iridium “flares”, to bioluminescent plankton turn up in videos the likes of those produced by Dr. Stephen Greer’s Disclosure Project, in segments where participants claimed to have been communicating with “alien” intelligences.

While it’s easy to jump to criticism, and begin ridiculing such cases of mistaken identity, I feel a more noble (and worthy) way to engage such situations is to attempt to educate, rather than resort to cynicism. Commentators that routinely employ ridicule and cynicism in their arguments betray an intention to present themselves as intellectually superior, which further reveals motivation based in egotism, rather than education.

Unfortunately, the bad attitudes taken by many modern skeptics are, to me, evidence of this egotistically-driven cynicism; these individuals may find themselves lacking in fortitude in some other area of their lives, which may drive an innate desire to find areas where compensatory control can be established, thus manifesting in exercises that attempt to establish intellectual “higher ground,” if not through facts, through ridicule and harassment. However, further extrapolation on the motives and frustrations of such skeptics would require delving deeply into the psychology of these individuals, and is thus beyond the scope of the present argument.

As I have said countless times before, there are many good skeptics, and then there are a few bullies… we’ll leave it at that for now. At the end of the day, what we’re left to try and discern is whether a majority of incidents involving unusual aerial objects can be explained by clandestine military activities (and often in the absence of reliable data, due to the secrecy surrounding such subjects).

Thus, it becomes difficult at times for us to gauge what kinds of technology have been developed and tested over the years, versus the kinds of things that seem otherworldly, and are thus perceived as being “theirs” (i.e. the aliens).

I would nonetheless say that, if I had to guess, there is probably a lot going on behind the scenes right here on Earth, which can explain much of the weird stuff we’ve seen turn up during UFO incidents over the years. The question is, if not by virtue of the all-hallowed “disclosure” idea, then how will we ever get to the bottom of what’s really going on?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-09-2017 om 19:09 geschreven door peter  

The “IFO” Experience: Strange Strobing Lights and “Identifiable” UFOs

Micah Hanks

During a nighttime UFO “sky watch” that I participated in a number of years ago, I recall a crowd of observers that were standing near me, who became extremely excited as an object appeared directly above us. This light grew brighter as it passed overhead, and at the “climax” of the experience, it seemed to produce a bright flash almost directly downward, after which it suddenly dimmed, become faint enough that we could no longer see it.

“Did you see that?” one of them said with excitement. “It signaled to us, and then blinked out completely!” To my group of hopeful UFO-spotters, it was clear that this object had been no star; additionally, the fact that it became very bright at one point seemed to indicate that the object was attempting to communicate with us in some way.

While they were correct that the object had been no star, I found it odd–though slightly charming–that they perceived the change in brightness we observed as being somehow relevant to our little group of observers. To them, it was as though some intelligence greater than us actually had been aware that we were down here watching, and chose to send salutations to our meager little group.

Perhaps my innate cosmicism stems from my appreciation for Lovecraft’s writing, which often played down the importance of humanity in the eyes of his fictional alien Elder Gods. After all, why would humanity necessarily be of any importance to alien visitors? Furthermore, if aliens were trying to communicate with us, why would they do so in ways that are so ambiguous as to merely fly overhead and flash their landing lights at us?

Of course, to anyone that has spent enough time outside observing the night sky, the object I’ve described here was no UFO spaceship at all. It was pretty obviously an iridium satellite, which was reflecting more light from the sun in our direction as its position turned in its orbit while passing overhead. Countless times since then, I have used an app on my iPhone to determine when, almost down to the second, an iridium satellite was going to appear; in many of those instances, the same characteristics involving a buildup to a bright flash was repeated.

As instructive as the story above had been, I also recall with equal vividness the time a colleague of mine argued that there was no benefit to discussing these identifiable flying objects, or “IFOs,” for which he presented an unusual kind of logic. “At the end of the day,” he said, “this proves nothing, because we aren’t talking about actual spaceships!”

To the contrary, I think it is very important to be able to identify the more prosaic things in the night skies. The only thing more important than this would probably be discussing it with others, so that a broader range of observers can become adept at identifying seemingly unusual things they have seen.

A great example was recently sent along to me by a listener of my podcast named Calvin, who gave an excellent description of something he and a group of friends observed recently over Tennessee.

“We were all laying down on blankets looking up at the sky at the campground we were staying at, Calvin said. “We were specifically watching for iridium flares or any other kind of satellites. We saw a few iridium flares over the course of a few hours.” 

Calvin further described how at one point, a bright flash of light from another part of the sky captured he and his company’s attention:

“At one point though we saw an extremely bright flash come from the opposite side of the sky the iridium flares were traveling from. when we looked there was nothing there. But a split second later the object flashed again but not as bright as the first time. we then started to track the object going across the sky and seemingly flashing at random. The flashing didn’t seem to be evenly spaced and sometimes it would flash so faint you could barely see it and other times the object would flash so bright nothing else was as bright in the sky. Between the flashes though we would totally lose sight of the thing. Also it was moving extremely slowly compared to the iridium flares i am used to seeing.

Whatever it was it appeared to be in orbit but we have no way of knowing for sure if it was. We were talking about the thing the whole time we had it under sight, which was no less than 15 minutes. We have no clue what the thing was, but we also think from the random flashing and the degree of brightness that maybe it was a tumbling object in space. Maybe some space junk catching the sun’s rays just right or something similar. 

While the behavior was similar to what my own sky watching group had observed years ago, Calvin and his company’s interpretation of what they saw is similar to my own, in that they believe it was a manmade object in orbit, reflecting light as it tumbled along. “Whatever it was it was weird to us,” Calvin told me. “I have never seen anything like it, and I was wondering what you would think about this object as well.” Although such objects can, at times, appear a bit out of the ordinary based on their movement, light patterns, etc, my bet would be that Calvin was spot-on when he suggested it was some type of “space junk.” 

So again, the question may come to mind, “why is any of this important?” In what I consider to be a truly landmark book, Allan Hendry’s The UFO Handbook, the author spends almost half the book discussing the various “normal” things that can appear quite out of the ordinary to an observer at night. A favorite of mine had been advertising planes, which often perplexed observers for miles with their illuminated flags advertising everything from restaurants, to legal services. When seen even from a short distance away, these lit-up banners were often interpreted by ground based observers as resembling luminous, dome or saucer-shaped aircraft. In most cases, Hendry was able to make calls to regional FAA authorities, and determine almost precisely which planes were flying in an area at a given time, and hence, identified many such “saucers” as the commercial aircraft they actually were.

As Hendry was intending to help illustrate by focusing on identifying prosaic sources of nighttime UFO reports, a skilled UFO investigator needs to be informed on more than just the potentials relating unidentified aircraft. They must also be able to identify otherwise easily recognizable objects, which may appear differently when seen under unique circumstances.

Even experienced sky watchers may, from time to time, see things that fall outside the ordinary patterns associated with them, whether it be manmade objects in orbit, or even airplanes, as Allan Hendry discussed in The UFO Handbook. 

Of course, I in no way mean to assert that all unidentified flying objects have prosaic solutions, and neither did Hendry when he wrote about such scenarios decades ago. But to borrow an absurd (but relative) reference, as G.I. Joe often said, “knowing is half the battle.” I do think it’s pretty safe to say that this applies to UFOs too, and that for observers who educate themselves on the varieties of the IFO experience, sky watching is not only more fun, but it makes them better at spotting any actual UFOs, as well.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-09-2017 om 18:59 geschreven door peter  

“The UFO Dossier” – Reviewed

Nick Redfern

Just recently I was mailed a review copy of Kevin D. Randle’s book, The UFO Dossier, which is published by Visible Ink Press. Many people will associate Kevin with his books on the Roswell, New Mexico event of early July 1947, including UFO Crash at Roswell (this one with Don Schmitt); Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky; and what I consider to be Kevin’s best book on Roswell, which is titled Roswell in the 21st Century. So, when I got a copy of Kevin’s latest, I was expecting more on what many see as Ufology’s number-one case. But, no! Roswell is completely absent. I’ll refrain from saying it has been abducted…

The sub-title gets right to the theme of the book: 100 Years of Government Secrets, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups. This is a book written by someone who has been in the UFO subject a long time, and that shines through in the pages of this slightly more than 400-pages-long book. In some respects, it reads like many of the UFO-themed books I read as a kid. Now, I don’t mean that Kevin’s book is an exercise in nostalgia; it’s certainly not. Rather, I mean that it’s packed with data on classic incidents of the type many might say we rarely see nowadays. I’m talking about the likes of “vehicle interference” cases, close encounters between military aircraft and UFOs, waves and flaps, and landing cases. Even though many assume that those days are gone, Kevin shows that such incidents still occur – and to a significant degree.

The “Battle of Los Angeles” gets good, solid coverage. What I particularly enjoyed about Kevin’s write-up on this curious affair – which involved unknown targets seen in the skies of Los Angeles on the night of February 25, 1942 – was Kevin’s approach. To his credit Kevin does not rely on sensational tales – or as Greg Bishop calls it, “UFO porn.” Rather, for the most part, Kevin focuses his attention on official documentation on the case and which was prepared by the Office of Air Force History. Kevin takes issue with the military’s weather-balloon-based conclusions. And being Kevin, he does not do so in a shrill, arms-folded, defensive and sensationalized fashion. Rather, he carefully dissects the official version of events and points out the flaws – of which, he concludes, there are more than a few.

For me, one of the most interesting sections of the book is that titled “Lights in the Night Sky.” The legendary saga of the “Lubbock Lights” of 1951 gets good, solid treatment. Kevin, remaining open-minded and with no agenda, finds fault in some of the reports, but suggests that some of the encounters still fall into the “unknown” category. Kevin notes one of the most important aspects of the sighting of “a group of dully glowing lights” which passed “overhead in a matter of seconds.” And what might that be? The fact that the primary witnesses were a group of professors from the Texas Technical College – now the Texas Tech University.

In this same section, Kevin also focuses on what I consider to have been a highly credible wave of UFO activity which occurred in Belgium in November 1989, and which continued through 1990. That the Belgian Air Force took this wave of activity extremely seriously adds weight to the reports of fast-flying, triangular-shaped UFOs. Kevin, however, does not shy away from the issue of hoaxing and how this has definitely impacted on what may have been a legitimate number of encounters.

Turning his attention to the 1970s, Kevin takes a look at the October 18, 1973 extremely close encounter between a UFO and the crew of an Army Reserve helicopter in the skies of Ohio. That was the night when – according to arch-skeptic Philip Klass – the crew had an encounter with nothing stranger than a meteor. Kevin notes the many and varied reasons why Klass was wide of the mark. Kevin comes to the point: “In the end, this is a case that screams to be labeled as ‘unidentified,’ because there is no valid explanation for it. Klass was simply wrong in his analysis, and his speculations should be ignored because of his manipulation of the evidence and his lack of the flight characteristics of the helicopter.”

Particularly refreshing was the section “Humanoid Reports in the Twenty-First Century.” It’s very much a mistake to say that reports of alleged alien entities are on the decline. We’re not just talking about alien abduction-type encounters. Flying humanoids, nine-foot-tall monsters, and a classic Contactee-like report from North Port, Florida fin August 2012 all appear in the pages of Kevin’s book. As for the rest of the book, you get a good study of the Rendlesham Forest incident of December 1980, pilot encounters in the skies of France, and the controversial McMinville photos of May 11, 1950 – taken by Paul Trent. The 17-page piece on McMinville is one of the best, as Kevin turns detective and addresses the case to a really in-depth degree. Real or fake? Again, Kevin gives the reader both sides of the argument.

If you want a no-nonsense, impartial look at Ufology and some of its most well-known cases, then The UFO Dossier is one I definitely recommend.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-09-2017 om 18:35 geschreven door peter  

Nominee for Chief Scientist Once Saw a 5,000-MPH UFO

Paul Seaburn

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Those who thought that potential discussions of UFOs in the White House ended with the defeat of Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John ‘We’ll Open the Secret Files’ Podesta, have new hope. The nominee for chief scientist of the Department of Agriculture claims he once had an encounter with a UFO that he believed was traveling at 5,000 miles-per-hour. Will he pursue the release of the files that might identify what he saw?

We’ll leave the discussions about whether former radio host and economics professor Samuel H. ‘Sam’ Clovis Jr. is qualified to be a chief scientist to the political blogs and instead focus on whether the former US Air Force F-16 fighter pilot, former Inspector General of the United States Space Command and alleged UFO witness is qualified to be our inside guy for opening the X-Files.

According to a 2014 report in the Des Moines Register, Clovis was running for one of Iowa’s US Senate seats when he admitted to host Simon Conway at WHO Radio that he once encountered a UFO. From Conway’s account in the Register:

“His radar locked on it, and it was doing things our technology couldn’t do, he explained. The UFO was traveling toward him at 5,000 mph — and we’ve got nothing that does that. It came to a complete stop, he said, then reversed away at 5,000 mph.”

Clovis served in the Air Force for 25 years from 1971 to 1996 and, although he doesn’t give a date, this incident probably occurred earlier in his flying career. There’s no indication that any other pilot or ground crew member saw the UFO nor heard what would have been at least two sonic booms. According to the article, pilot Clovis handed the radar report over to his commanding officers and doesn’t seem to have said anything about it publicly until 2014.

What about privately? Towards the end of his Air Force career, Clovis served as Inspector General of the U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM). Formed in 1985, this branch of the Defense Department, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, was responsible for Air Force activities in outer space – such as satellite communications, intelligence, missile-warning and weather systems in conflict areas. As Inspector General, Clovis would have been responsible for monitoring and auditing the actions of Space Command to ensure it operated in compliance with generally established policies of the government and to watch for instances of misconduct, waste, fraud, or criminal activity. There seems to be no indication of anything of the sort happening under Clovis’ time at Space Commend, nor is there any public information that he inspected or was even interested in UFO activities at the time.

Sam Clovis

How about now? Well, he’s nominated for chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture, not exactly an organization that would be aware of or interested in UFO activities … unless they were connected to crop circles. While the department works with NASA on climate science – something important to farmers – Clovis has called climate science “junk” and would probably avoid dealing with NASA. With his background in economics, it would appear he’d be more interested in looking for spending to cut rather than X-files to expose.

For now, Sam Clovis doesn’t seem like a candidate for full disclosure of UFO files should he get an inside White House job. Perhaps someone can nominate Tom DeLonge for a job.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-09-2017 om 18:25 geschreven door peter  

Shattered! A Strange Saga of the M.I.B.

Nick Redfern

For me, it’s always a good day when I put the finishing touches to a manuscript. And, June 16, 2015 was the date on which I completed the writing of my book, Men in Black: Personal Stories and Eerie Encounters. Of course, the manuscript still had to go through the editing and proof-reading stages. And I had to dig out a bunch of photos, too. But, there’s a good feeling of satisfaction, while sitting at your desk, knowing that the bulk of the work is done. Plus, it was a hot and sunny day. The birds were singing in the trees outside my apartment. And that night I was due to see, with a bunch of friends, a Motley Crue tribute band play in a local beer and junk-food dive. It was all good! Except, that is, for one thing which occurred around 9:45 a.m. That was roughly the time when I made the final change to the manuscript, then saved and closed it. I was ready to email it to my agent, Lisa Hagan, for review.

Only barely a second or two after I closed the document, I heard a sudden bang coming from one of the rooms in my apartment. I frowned, stood up, and probably said something to myself along the lines of “WTF?” And, since my apartment home is a small one, it didn’t take long at all for me to find the cause of that bang; seconds, in fact. On walking into my bedroom, I saw that one of the many pictures I have on my walls had fallen to the floor. Despite the floor being carpeted, the black picture frame was broken and the glass had shattered, with pieces and shards all over the carpet. Dammit. Time to get out the vacuum-cleaner. What was particularly eye-opening, however, was the specific item which had fallen from the wall.

It was a framed letter written back in 1953 by none other than Albert Bender. He was the man who, arguably, birthed the mystery of the Men in Black. It was all as a result of his early-1950s-era traumatic experiences with a trio of glowing-eyed, vampire-like MIB in his hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The strange tale was chronicled in Bender’s 1962 book, Flying Saucers and the Three Men. It wasn’t long after that initial encounter in the fifties that Bender, who had got into UFOs in the late-1940s, and who created the International Flying Saucer Bureau, couldn’t take anymore mayhem and menace in his life. Bender quit Ufology, only briefly returning at the turn of the sixties to write and promote the aforementioned Flying Saucers and the Three Men. And, after that, he did not look back. Well, maybe a glance or two, but certainly not much more. Now, back to my busted picture.

At the time, the maintenance guys at the apartments were working outside, hammering away at something. So, one could make a good, solid case that the vibrations from their tools dislodged the picture and – hey, presto – I’m left with a broken frame and glass everywhere. Maybe that’s all

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-09-2017 om 18:12 geschreven door peter  

Unidentified Flying Objects Cause Concerns Over Delhi Airport, Officials Say

Micah Hanks

In Delhi, India, close to half a dozen pilots have reported seeing unidentified flying objects near the city’s largest airport every month.

In at least some of the incidents, air traffic controllers have halted flights as a safety measure, although a majority of the incidents involving “mystery objects” have not resulted in flight interruptions, Hindustan Times reported. While police say they have been unable to identify a number of the objects in the reports, this has been due in part to the reports being logged by pilots in nautical miles.

In the past two years alone, there have been hundreds of reports of the mystery objects logged by authorities.

Explanations for the “UFOs” ranges from drones, to balloons, and even bright lights flashed at events nearby, which include wedding celebrations. Aviation authorities have advised partygoers to refrain from using brightly lit fixtures and other light emitting sources when in near proximity to the Delhi airport.

Much like in the United States, the use of lasers, when directed at aircraft in flight, is a punishable offense.

This, under the local legislation section 144 CrPC, states that, “Any person, group of persons, organizers, owners, occupiers, employees contravening these orders shall be liable to be punished in accordance with provisions of section 188 of the IPC.”

UFO sightings near airports have apparently been on the rise in other locales around the world, particularly since the advent of the modern drone era. Popular varieties available online can be obtained for just a few hundred dollars, available to hobbyists and other aviation enthusiasts. However, regulations in most countries prohibit operation of drones in close proximity to airports, due to the safety concerns involved.

Drones and balloons aren’t the only strange objects reported by pilots near airports. In 2010, a truly bizarre incident occurred, which involved a “flying egg” that was observed by a pilots during a training flight near the  Anoka County-Blaine Airport (ANE), outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The pilots noted that, “other aircraft were on the frequency but no other aircraft were in our area,” despite the sudden appearance of a strange looking, egg-shaped object near them on their approach for runway number nine.

The pilots in question attempted to establish radio contact with the mystery craft, but to no avail, reporting that the pilot of the mystery object, “was heading slightly southeastward. They were pushing us off our final approach to Runway 9. As we corrected to the southeast to avoid this aircraft I told Tower we had an aircraft out our left window within probably 200 [feet]. He did not have him on a transponder and was able to visually see him with field glasses out the Tower window.”

The only other descriptions given in pilot’s report had been that, “This unidentified aircraft appeared to be a homebuilt (ultralight?) with an enclosed cabin that looked as if it seated two. It looked similar to a flying egg.” Who knows what the aircraft in question was, or who its pilots had been, since there didn’t appear to be radios or transponders on board (interestingly, there is a bit of history to these odd, “egg shaped” objects in UFO lore. For more on this subject, see my article from last year on pilot encounters with egg shaped UFOs).

Could there be some hobbyists at work in Delhi, India, as well? Regardless, it seems that with the use of conventional drones on the rise, similar reports of “mystery objects” by pilots will no doubt continue.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-09-2017 om 18:06 geschreven door peter  

Getty Ethan Miller

The U.S. Air Force has refused to reveal the aircraft involved in a crash last week that claimed the life of the pilot. The incident, which took place at a training facility in Nevada, has sparked speculation that some kind of previously unknown aircraft was involved.

The incident took place on Tuesday, September 5. Unusually, the Air Force waited about three days to make the crash public. Consider two other crashes the service reported last week, one involving two A-10 Thunderbolt fighters and the other an Iraqi Air Force officer flying an F-16. In both cases the incident was reported the next day.

The more cryptic accident took place on the Nevada Test and Training Range, about 100 miles northwest of Nellis Air Force Base. The NTTR bills itself as the "the largest contiguous air and ground space available for peacetime military operations in the free world", with 2.9 million acres of land and 12,000 square miles of airspace to test equipment and train U.S. military forces.

F-22A Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters of the U.S. Air Force over the Nevada Test and Training Range, July 2017.

Getty U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Daryn Murphy

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schultz, 44, died from injuries sustained in the crash. Schultz, who had been denied entry into the pilot training program three times due to poor eyesight, went into academia, where he earned six degrees including a doctorate in aerospace engineering from Caltech and an MBA from Penn State. Later, he was a senior scientist and business development manager at engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, and a rotary wing test engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center.

After receiving corrective eye surgery, Schultz immediately joined the Air Force and became a fighter pilot. He had more than 2,000 flight hours in a variety of aircraft, including the F-15E Strike Eagle (which he flew on 50 close air support missions over Afghanistan) and Canadian CF-18 Hornet. Schultz was the 28th pilot to fly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

His crash has led aviation watchers to ask: What aircraft was Schultz—a brilliant aerospace engineer and accomplished pilot—flying when his aircraft went down over Nevada? According to the Air Force, he was flying a training flight with an aircraft assigned to Air Force Material Command. According to Military.com, the Air Force has stated, "information about the type of aircraft involved is classified and not releasable." Asked this weekend about the crash, Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein said, "I can definitely say it was not an F-35."

F-117A Stealth fighter.

Getty

There are three prevailing theories. The first is that the plane was a F-117A stealth fighter. The F-117A was retired in 2008, with aircraft placed in storage at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada. In 2014, it emerged that some of the planes were still flying. The stealth fighters are thought to be used as flying test beds for new technologies that could make their way into future aircraft. We've been told, however, that the planes are flown only by Lockheed Martin pilots—a fact that, if true, rules out the F-117A.

A second theory is that the crash involved a foreign aircraft, one of the many Soviet-made Sukhoi and MiG fighters the Air Force has accumulated over the years through trades, defections, and other typically under-the-table means. During the 1980s, the U.S. Air Force's 4477th Test & Evaluation Squadron was responsible for this top-secret stable of aircraft under a classified program known as Constant Peg. The program was finally acknowledged in 2006. (Update: Aviation Week is now reporting that Schultz was most likely piloting a foreign aircraft.)

RELATED STORY

Crash Over Nevada Reportedly a Foreign Aircraft

The 4477th squadron was disbanded in 1990, but the Detachment 3 of the 53rd Test Evaluation Group is believed to carry on the mission of evaluating foreign aircraft. There have been repeated sightings of Sukhoi Su-27 "Flanker" fighters over Nevada, with the latest sighting in January. Although the Su-27 is an older airplane, it is still similar to its descendants the Shenyang J-11, Su-30, and Su-35 "Flanker-E".

Su-27 Flanker, Soviet Union, 1989.

Getty

It's also possible that the Air Force may have access to aircraft such as the Su-30, which was sold to countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, many of which are friendly to the U.S. The Air Force would love to get its hands on more modern Russian fighters, as the rise in air-to-air incidents between U.S. and Russian aircraft in the Baltics and over Syria makes learning about them a priority.

The third theory is there is a new, previously undisclosed "black" jet out there flying over Nevada. Highly classified and developed and built in total secrecy, the aircraft fills some valuable niche in the taxonomy of warplanes. The SR-71 Blackbird strategic reconnaissance aircraft and the F-117A stealth fighter are two examples of such aircraft. Both flew for years before being declassified. A mysterious crash outside Bakersfield, California in 1986 stirred up widespread speculation in the existence of a top-secret stealth fighter, which was finally revealed by the Air Force in 1988.

If the black jet exists, what is it? It could be one of the mysterious, triangle-shaped aircraft allegedly spotted over Texas in 2014. The aircraft, which appeared similar to the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber, were declared B-2As by the Pentagon. Still, there were enough apparent differences between the B-2A and the Texas aircraft for many to doubt the official explanation.

Getty

If it were a new plane, it could be a high-altitude precision strike aircraft. Air Force watchers were surprised by the F-117A's retirement in 2008, believing that the aircraft still had years left in them and that retiring them would leave a hole in the service's strike capability. That is, unless there was another, better plane waiting to take the F-117A's place. Could that be the aircraft spotted over Texas in 2014? Does any of this have to do with last week's crash in Nevada?

For now it's all speculation. It could be a long time before we find out the classified details behind last week's crash and the actual truth of the matter could turn out to be more mundane than any of the three theories. All we know is that the crash occurred and that a brilliant pilot lost his life in secret service to his country, and that should be enough for some real reflection.

{ http://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

14-09-2017 om 17:54 geschreven door peter  

Mystery Aircraft Involved in Fatal Air Force Crash

Brett Tingley

One of the enduring theories explaining various UFO phenomena in the modern era is that militaries have created and propagated UFO rumors in order to mask tests of new aerospace technologies. One hole in this theory, though, is that UFO sightings predate the advent of man-made flying machines by quite a few centuries. Nevertheless, it’s plausible to suspect that perhaps at least some of the sightings over the last century or so can be chalked up to clandestine military tests or even foreign entities operating over our own skies.

Tests of secretive new aircraft and reports of foreign spy planes seem to have been ramping up this year, with numerous sightings of odd planes and unconventional aircraft pouring in around the globe. Now, a strange and fatal crash of a U.S. Air Force craft is showing that there is indeed likely more than meets the eye in the skies overhead.

Lt. Col. Eric Schultz, 44, of Annapolis, Maryland died in the crash. Schultz was a highly decorated pilot and test engineer who flew over 50 combat missions in Afghanistan. The USAF reported that the crash occurred around 6:00 pm on Tuesday, September 5th at the 2.9-million acre Nevada Test and Training Range about 100 miles northwest of Nellis Air Force Base.

Lt. Col. Schultz leaves behind a wife and five children.

However, the Air Force didn’t report the crash until September 8th, and has still yet to state what type of aircraft was involved in the crash. Maj. Christina Sukach, chief of public affairs at Nellis, has said only that “information about the type of aircraft involved is classified and not releasable.” Air Force Chief of Staff General David L. Goldfein has meanwhile stated only that the aircraft was definitely not an F-35.

So what was it then? Several aviation outlets have speculated that perhaps Lt. Col. Schultz might have been flying a Chinese or Russian-made aircraft in order to test its capabilities. Photographs of Russian-built Sukhoi SU-27 planes flying over the Nevada Test and Training Range surfaced last year. Other theories state that perhaps Schultz was flying a modified F-117A or other “black jet,” meaning some form of undisclosed spy plane. If that’s the case, we’ll likely never know.

Which brings me back to my original point – can at least some modern UFO sightings be chalked up to secretive military testing? Given that the USAF clearly doesn’t want us to know what plane was involved in the crash, it’s safe to say that there are planes currently in our skies that are unlike anything the general public is familiar with. Or, could it work the other way; could the proverbial ‘they’ want us to think they’re testing new craft when in fact extraterrestrial craft are zooming around conducting surveillance on us lowly earthlings? Unlikely, but as with all things mysterious, who really knows for sure? For now, this one goes down as a genuine military mystery and more importantly, an unfortunate tragedy.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-09-2017 om 17:38 geschreven door peter  

Chinese Scientists Claim to Have Working EM Drive Prototype

Brett Tingley

The ongoing saga of the EM Drive has been one of the more intriguing space stories lately. The story goes back a few decades when U.K.-based inventor and physicist Roger Shawyer came up with the concept. The EM Drive requires no fuel, but uses powerful electromagnetic radiation and a loophole in the laws of physics to create thrust where there should basically be none. Over the last year, the EM Drive has been in and out of the news with leaked documents, publicly-available patents, and full-scale tests of the groundbreaking and controversial propulsion device. If the EM Drive lives up to the hype, it could be the first step in mankind’s quest to achieve true interstellar travel.

With such high stakes, you’d think the various space agencies of the world would cooperate in order to get a working EM Drive in space, but you know how humans are. Tribalism wins every time. The EM Drive has set in motion somewhat of a new mini-space race between China and the West. Chinese scientists announced last year that they had a successful EM Drive working in space, but doubts were cast on those claims in the West due to no real demonstration of the drive. Now, Chinese state media have released a video they claim shows their working EM Drive.

The video is titled “Propellantless propulsion: The Chinese EmDrive by CAST scientist Dr Chen Yue, China’s Space Agency,” and shows scientists performing various tests on the alleged working EM Drive. Aside from good ol’ British tabloids, few Western news outlets have jumped on the story, possibly due to the current lack of subtitles or translations.

So far, the story seems to be mostly covered by Chinese and Russian news agencies. With all of the turmoil in the U.S. over the future of NASA and its leadership, could this be merely more shadowy agitprop aimed at discouraging any future development of our storied and successful space program? Time will tell, as the Chinese scientists claim to soon launch a working EM Drive into space for actual testing.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-09-2017 om 17:26 geschreven door peter  

OVERWELDIGEND BEWIJS VOOR BUITENAARDS CONTACT IN MEXICO ( VIDEO )

Midden- en Zuid Amerika zijn natuurlijk fascinerende gebieden voor hen die op zoek zijn naar buitenaards contact in het verleden. 

Waar we recent bewijs zagen van dit contact in Egypte, zo komen er nu heel interessante objecten tevoorschijn in Mexico. 

Het is eigenlijk misdadig als je bedenkt hoe ons verleden systematisch voor ons verborgen wordt gehouden door de machthebbers. Hoe ze er alles aan doen om het overweldigend bewijs dat er is voor buitenaards contact, ook in het verleden, volkomen negeren. 

Terwijl het bewijs dat de aarde in het verleden werd bezocht door buitenaardsen letterlijk voor het oprapen ligt. Zoals dat bijvoorbeeld het geval is in een bepaalde streek van Mexico. 

We spreken dan over een gebied tussen de steden Pueblo en Veracruz waar als sinds oude tijden verhalen de ronde doen over een mysterieus ruimteschip en drie grotten in dat gebied. 

Eerder dit jaar besloot een groep onderzoekers een expeditie te ondernemen naar dit bepaalde gebied om te zien of ze iets meer te weten konden komen over dit geheimzinnige ruimteschip. 

Ze vonden geen ruimteschip, maar wel talloze stenen tabletten, met daarop allerlei afbeeldingen die aan duidelijkheid niets te wensen over laten.

Op de bovenste afbeelding zie je duidelijk een figuur dat lijkt op een alien die voor een lokale heerser staat die op een troon zit. 

De onderzoekers zijn ervan overtuigd dat deze stenen het ultieme bewijs zijn dat de aarde al duizenden jaren geleden bezoek heeft gehad van buitenaardsen.

En ook hier is de bekende vorm van een klassieke vliegende schotel, inclusief koepel, waar te nemen.

Verder zijn er op de stenen nog allerlei vreemde symbolen gevonden die nog ontcijferd moeten worden. 

Dit is het soort bewijs dat niet van tafel geveegd kan worden. Het zijn stenen van duizenden jaren oud die ons een verhaal vertellen, dat volgens de machthebbers op deze wereld niet mogelijk is omdat het niet zou bestaan. 

Navolgend nog wat meer beelden, met helaas Spaans gesproken commentaar, maar het geeft in ieder geval een goede indruk van deze zeer bijzondere vondst. 

 

{ http://niburu.co/ }

14-09-2017 om 17:07 geschreven door peter  

Bright UFO appears after lightning strike over Hastings, Nebraska

On August 3, 2017 during a lightning storm in Hastings, Nebraska a photographer recorded not only a beautiful display of lightening. After a lightning strike an ascending bright UFO becomes visible, speeding across the sky then turns a slightly before disappearing.

The lightning strike and UFO starts from 0.55 seconds to 01.36 seconds in the video which the photographer has submitted to MUFON.

You can see the video at the following Mufon case file link: https://www.mufoncms.com/files_jeud8334j/86656_submitter_file1__20170803003029.mp4

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

14-09-2017 om 16:53 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious stones engraved with alien figures and spaceships found in a Mexican Cave

Local legends speak of a mysterious ‘spaceship’ that has remained since ancient times somewhere near a system of three caves located between the cities of Veracruz and Puebla in Mexico on which a group of researchers decided to travel to the area a few months ago to find out more about this mysterious ‘spaceship.’

Credit: Link image.

So far they did not found the alleged ‘spaceship’ but during their research in one of the caves they have found stone objects with images of what seems to be alien spacecraft and aliens engraved in the stones.

Engraved in one of the stones there is a suspected alien standing next to a ruler of pre-Hispanic culture. There are also symbols found that need to be decrypted.

The researchers are convinced that the’ jade’ stones with engraved extraterrestrial figures could be the ultimate proof that the earth has been visited by aliens thousands of years ago, moreover, the mixture of extraterrestrial and non-extraterrestrial cultures on the stones suggests that there was contact between aliens and the Mayan culture.

Credit: link image.

One of the researchers, José Aguayo, admitted that the Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) cannot say anything about the discovery because there are images on the objects that contradict everything we have been told about our history and origin.

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

14-09-2017 om 16:50 geschreven door peter  

Cluster of UFOs over the US/Mexico Border filmed one day before Mexico’s Earthquake

On September 7, 2017, one day before the massive earthquake in Mexico a cluster of Unidentified Flying Objects has been filmed over the US/Mexico border.

It seems that these kind of objects appear when something is going to happen like back in 1997 when the big earthquake happened in Mexico City they were all over the skies for 3 days, then when the tsunami and earthquake hit in Japan, they were in the skies above Japan and when the big tornado hit Oklahoma a few years back, they were in the sky above that town!

According to the latest rumors, there are a lot of those objects in the sky right now above the California /Mexico border that would be the San Andreas Fault Line.

When reading the latest forecast earthquakes from Dutchsinse, then he expects the coming week large earthquakes near the West Coast USA and Japan. Let’s hope he’s wrong!!

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

14-09-2017 om 16:47 geschreven door peter  

Rendlesham UFO: Craft seen could have housed aliens says former MoD investigator

THE RENDLESHAM UFO, made infamous in 1980, could have been an alien craft from outer space according to an ex-Ministry of Defence investigator who did a cold case review of the mystery.

13-09-2017 om 23:37 geschreven door peter  

Opmerkelijke voorwerpen gevonden in Mexicaanse grot. Zijn dit afbeeldingen van buitenaardse wezens?

In een Mexicaanse grot zouden voorwerpen zijn gevonden met daarop afbeeldingen van wat aliens en ruimteschepen lijken te zijn.

De grot, die zich tussen de steden Veracruz en Puebla bevindt, maakt deel uit van een stelsel van drie grotten.

In een andere grot werden vooral vleermuizen gevonden en in de derde werden vroeger gevangenen opgesloten.

Schip

Op de stenen voorwerpen staan afbeeldingen die erg doen denken aan buitenaardse ruimteschepen en wezens.

Op één van de stenen is een vermeende alien te zien die naast een heerser van een pre-hispanische cultuur staat. Ook zijn er symbolen gevonden die nog ontcijferd moeten worden.

Naar verluidt spreken lokale legendes van een mysterieus ‘schip’ dat ergens in de buurt van de grotten verborgen ligt.

Dit was ook de belangrijkste reden dat een groep onderzoekers enkele maanden geleden afreisde naar het gebied.

Ultieme bewijs

De onderzoekers zijn ervan overtuigd dat ze op het ultieme bewijs zijn gestuit dat de aarde duizenden jaren geleden is bezocht door aliens.

Eén van de onderzoekers, José Aguayo, lichtte toe dat het Mexicaanse instituut voor antropologie en geschiedenis (INAH) niets kan zeggen over de vondst omdat er afbeeldingen op de voorwerpen staan die indruisen tegen alles wat ons is verteld over onze geschiedenis en herkomst.

Onderstaande afbeeldingen werden door Cinco Radio op Twitter geplaatst:

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Cinco Radio @JavierLopezDiaz

El explorador poblano Jac encontró en los limites de Puebla y Veracruz piedras de jade grabadas con hombres y extraterrestres (1/2)

9:19 PM - Apr 24, 2017

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Cinco Radio @JavierLopezDiaz

Se muestra la mezcla de dos culturas. Las piedras podrían significar el contacto alienígena con los mayas o aztecas (2/2)

9:20 PM - Apr 24, 2017

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