UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

Looking at sightings reports, it seems people have encounters with UFOs all of the time, and sometimes they even see occupants of these mysterious craft. Yet rising above even this weirdness are those cases in which individuals have claimed to have actually communicated wit and even literally sat down and had a chat with these enigmatic entities. What did they have to say? Well, here we will look at a few of the more bizarre cases of people claiming to have talked with alien beings, and they are really quite outlandish to say te least.

A few surreally bizarre cases come to us from the 1950s, and one of the more colorful and memorably absurd accounts comes from someone who is actually probably what one would consider to be the most traditionally reliable witness on this whole list. In 1954, we have the very curious encounter of an Air Marshal Sir Peter Horsley, who had quite a long, illustrious military career and who would eventually be the deputy commander-in-chief of RAF Strike Command, of the United Kingdom. Horsely would write in his autobiography Sounds From Another Room, which actually talks a lot about UFOs and also tells of a bizarre chance encounter he had one day in a London waiting room while waiting to meet with a Mrs. Markham. As he sat there, Horsley says that he met the acquaintance of a man calling himself “Mr. Janus,” and who was partially obscured by shadows at another end of the room. This Mr. Janus seemed to be very interested in Horsely’s knowledge of UFOs, and he would write:

Mr. Janus dived straight into the deep end by asking me to tell him all I knew about UFOs. He listened patiently… At the end I thought I might be equally as direct and asked Janus what his interest was? He answered me a quite simply, ‘I would like to meet the Duke of Edinburgh.’

Sir Peter Horsley

OK, then. Weird for sure, but it would get weirder when he began talking about humankind’s desire to reach the stars and ow their technology was bringing them closer to this goal. He said since humans were moving along so rapidly, we were bound to discover the true mysteries of the universe awaiting us, saying:

Just as tribes found other tribes and Christopher Columbus discovered on his travels unknown centers of ancient civilizations so Man in his journeys through the universe may find innumerable centers of culture far more ancient than his own…He will discover a wealth of experiences infinitely more startling and beautiful than can be imagined: and infinite variety of agencies and forces as yet unknown: great fields of gravity and anti-gravity where objects are accelerated across space like giant sling shots, even other universes with different space and time formula. Why does Man reach for the stars? His energies have never been solely directed towards material benefits alone. From the beginning of Man’s history he has striven… towards a spirituality and grace of which he was aware but could not fully comprehend.

However, he also warned that humanity was in a sort of “Dark Age,” and that if we continued in our ways we would never live to see that achievement fulfilled. Mr. Janus would apparently say, “In his greedy quest for more complex machines Man is prepared to sacrifice almost anything – his natural environment, animals and even his fellow humans. The dreadful specter of blowing up his world hardly makes him falter in this headlong rush,” and it all seemed quite dire. Mr. Janus also complained about mankind’s nuclear weapons, and through it all he apparently displayed an incredibly deep knowledge of the military. Horsely seemed to think that he had actually met a real alien in that waiting room, and would credit his rise through the ranks to this chance encounter.

Another off-the-wall case is the story of Italian mechanic Luciano Galli. On July 7, 1957, Galli was allegedly on his way back to his small, humble workshop on his lunch break when he was approached by an enigmatic stranger in the streets, who had “piercing eyes” and asked if the business man remembered him. Galli realized that he did indeed recognize the man, recalling seeing him several times around town staring at him only to melt away. The man, who was described as “a rather tall gentleman of the dark type, with regular features and very dark eyes,” spoke perfect Italian, and invited Galli to take a ride with him in his fancy black Fiat 1100. Someone apparently never gave Galli the memo to not just go off getting into the cars of strangers they’ve just met on the street, and he accepted.

Fiat 1100

They then rode in silence in the car, where Galli claims he felt remarkably calm, until they came to an isolated place called the Croara ridge, where Galli claimed a large saucer-shaped UFO was hovering. Galli was invited aboard, and presumably figuring why not, he accepted and walked up into the craft via a metallic cylinder that descended down from it. He was then taken to a “pilot’s cabin,” which was described as “spacious” and filled with flashing lights and myriad instrument panels, and told to sit on a seat that was firmly bolted to the floor. He then noticed that a good portion of the floor was actually a window looking down, and he could see that they were rising rapidly through the atmosphere, until he could actually see the earth shrinking into the distance. Galli himself would say of this all in an interview with Italian journalist Renato Albanese:

The pilot’s cabin was spacious and round with a lot of instruments around, panels with many lights. There were also hatches, and the seats were fixed somehow to the floor. In the middle of the floor was a kind of circular window, about one meter wide. Through it we could see the earth fall away from us. First the earth looked like from one of our own planes, then – when we were already in the dark zone – it looked like the moon and later like Venus or Mars.

It only gets weirder from there. Galli would claim that they approached an immense, cigar-shaped “mothership,” reminiscent of a blimp, which dwarfed the craft they were on, and as they approached he could see hundreds of people walking about in the hangars dressed in some sort of shiny one-piece outfits. They would actually board this mothership, where Galli learned that they had come from the planet Venus, and he was shown through a massive hall to the commander’s area. After this tour was finished, he was once again asked to board the smaller craft and was taken back to where they had started, where he saw that the whole thing had lasted approximately 3 hours and 10 minutes. Galli would swear an oath that all of this was true, insisting that he was not making it up, and whether it is true of not it is still a more interesting lunch break than most people have.

We seem to have had a lot of visitors from Venus in the 1950s, because that very same year there was another rather far-out account, this time from a journalist named Hubert Lewis. He claims that he was out cycling in the countryside of Church Stretton, in Shropshire, England when he came across a metallic disc floating not far away and a very tall, human looking being approaching him. The stranger told Lewis not to be afraid, and the two began to chat for around a half an hour while that mysterious craft hovered in the background. The being told him during this conversation that he was from Venus, and that there were many of his kind living on Earth among humans, and after their talk this stranger got into the disc to shoot off into the sky. In the days after, Lewis claimed that he had been approached by mysterious military personnel who told him to forget about what had happened and to not tell anyone. It is an interesting account, given that Church Stretton is considered to be a UFO hotspot.

Coming along into the 60s, we have the insane story of German businessman Ludwig Pallman. His weird tale begins in 1966, when he was in the jungles of Peru looking for medicinal plants, operating in a very remote area south of the Colombian River port of Leticia on the Amazon River. It was here in this mosquito choked untamed wilderness that he claims to have been brought to an area that was unexplored even by the native peoples, who told him that there were savages that lived in that jungle, as well as a mysterious group of white men. This was very intriguing to Pallman, and although his native guides refused to travel further up the river, he continued on alone, thus entering a new chapter of oddness.

He soon came across the “savages” he had been told about, but rather than attack him as he had been led to believe, they instead took him to their village. Here he found some very strange dwellings, reminiscent of upside down cones and made of an unusual smooth plastic-like material. Pallman then saw that among the Natives were others who were very white looking and wearing clothing that resembled togas. Thinking they might be Americans Pallman tried speaking English to them but they showed no comprehension of what he was saying, and he got the same response when he tried Spanish and German. One of the light-skinned strangers then produced a small device and handed it to Pallman. It turned out to be some sort of translator device, and with it he could understand what they had to say, and what they had to say was bonkers.

They allegedly explained that they were from the planet Itibi, and were here to cultivate and experiment with earth plants in order to cross breed with those of their home world to create hardier species. According to them, this site was sort of like a plantation, and they hoped to take some samples for mass production on their own planet. Pallman explains that he lived with these aliens for a whole month, during which time he learned that these aliens had been living on earth since 1946, moving there when they had heard of the planet from another alien race, and that they had other such plantations as well. He also apparently saw them using disc-shaped shuttle craft to come and go. He claims that they also gifted him a ring that would glow when their kind was present. Eventually he left to head back to civilization, sadly with no evidence whatsoever other than his wild tale.

We have the weird tale of Walter Rizzi, of Bolzano, Italy just a few years later. In 1968 he says that he stopped his car after a long drive to take a nap, but would wake to the startling sight of a UFO hovering nearby and some humanoid beings approaching his car, described as being smaller than a human being, with grey skin, round hairless heads and slanted eyes. These entities communicated with him telepathically, and told him that they were there to collect samples of various species of Earth plant life, as well as tracking the evolutionary progress of the planet. They also explained that they could not stay on Earth for too long, because our planet made them somehow age faster, and oh yeah, that we were going to all die in the near future because of a cataclysmic polar shift that would cause extinction level climatic catastrophes. Was any of this real? Who knows?

There are certainly other cases of people claiming to have had communications with actual alien beings, and this is by no means a comprehensive listing of them, just some of the more curious that I have found. Were any of these beings real, and if so what did they want? Why did they choose to reveal themselves in such strange ways? Are these aliens, interdimensional travelers, or just the ravings of the imagination? Whatever the case may be, they are certainly entertaining at the very least.

In November of 2004, the U.S. Navy USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was on combat training maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean, just about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, California, in order to prepare for upcoming deployment to the Persian Gulf. This was not unusual in and of itself, and it was a perfectly normal series of operations they were engaged in, but things would soon get very weird indeed, and would launch one of the strangest and most talked about military UFO encounters on record.

It was all supposed to be a routine combat training exercise, but things would soon get strange when over a period of several days the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton began picking up frequent radar signatures of unidentified aircraft of some sort on their cutting edge AN/SPY-1B passive scanning phased array radar. These objects were very odd in that they were numerous and seemed to be travelling at an altitude of up to 80,000 feet, far beyond what any normal aircraft would be operating at. The radar hits were very persistent and happened often, with well over 100 of the objects supposedly tracked over the course of the week, usually in formations of up to 8 to 10 at a time, and it was so odd that the radar operators at first thought it had to be some sort of equipment glitch, yet they recalibrated everything and it was all found to be in working order. At times the crew would try and get some sort of visual confirmation of what they were picking up but it was difficult to make out clearly even with binoculars. Whatever it was, it was certainly strange, and one of the radar operators, Petty Officer 3rd Class Gary Voorhis, would later say of the objects:

Once we finished all the recalibration and brought it back up, the tracks were actually sharper and clearer. Sometimes they’d be at an altitude of 80,000 or 60,000 feet. Other times they’d be around 30,000 feet, going like 100 knots. Their radar cross sections didn’t match any known aircraft; they were 100 percent red. No squawk, no IFF (Identification Friend or Foe). When they’d show up on radar. I’d get the relative bearing and then run up to the bridge and look through a pair of heavily magnified binoculars in the direction the returns were coming from. I couldn’t make out details, but they’d just be hovering there, then all of a sudden, in an instant, they’d dart off to another direction and stop again. At night, they’d give off a kind of a phosphorus glow and were a little easier to see than in the day.

The crew continued to keep their eye on the phenomena until they were alarmed to see that some of the objects seemed to at times carry out rapid descents in altitude that took them well into commercial airspace, and this was where things would get weird. On November 14, 2004, it was decided that some sort of action should be taken, and two F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jets from the USS Nimitz piloted by Commander David Fravor and Lt. Commander Jim Slaight were told to break off from their training maneuvers in order to go investigate an object that had appeared to drop towards the ocean surface on radar. Although they were not carrying live weaponry, the fighters were told to fly by and see if they could make visual confirmation of anything out there and report back. It was clear, calm weather, and the pilots were certain that if there was anything to this then they would soon figure out what the mysterious object was, and they were not wrong. The problem is, it was far from what any of them had imagined.

As they scanned the area the pilots allegedly saw something causing a disturbance in the water, where it seemed as if the waves were breaking over an oval shape under the surface. At precisely the time they noticed this odd sight, a bright, white object shaped like a “Tic-Tac” reportedly suddenly appeared nearby, hovering around 50 feet over the water. This startling object was estimated as being around 30 to 46 feet long, and oddest of all was that it had no noticeable ports, windows, rotors, wings, or any visible method of propulsion. The pilots attempted to approach the craft, after which it launched into a breathtaking display of maneuvers and erratic movements which seemed to defy physics, of which Fravor would say, “This thing would go from one way to another, similar to if you threw a ping-pong ball against the wall.” It then sped away with a rate of acceleration that left the experienced pilots in awe.

The pilots tried to pursue the “Tic-Tac,” but it accelerated at an astronomical rate, and according to Fravor “was just gone.” Oddly, the object soon after appeared around 60 miles away near the combat air patrol (CAP) rendezvous point “within seconds,” suggesting that it was travelling at speeds twice as fast as the F-18s and an estimated three times the speed of sound, the whole time demonstrating what was called “an advanced acceleration, aerodynamic, and propulsion capability.” Other fighters were launched in response, but the object soon sped away again to disappear. Fravor was so impressed by the object that he would later say, “I have no idea what I saw. It had no plumes, wings or rotors and outran our F-18s. But I want to fly one.” Another wingman who was with them at the time would comment, “It was so unpredictable—high G, rapid velocity, rapid acceleration. So you’re wondering: How can I possibly fight this?” Other witnesses to the event were equally as baffled as the pilots, with one Petty Officer 3rd Class Jason Turner later saying of the object and its physics defying display:

This thing was going berserk, like making turns. It’s incredible the amount of g forces that it would put on a human. It made a maneuver, like they were chasing it straight on, it was going with them, then this thing stopped turning, just gone. In an instant.

The whole incident was causing a big stir at the time, and making it all even more impressive was that one of the fighters in the second wave of pilots had managed to capture footage of the object with an infrared camera system, called a FLIR pod, but this would be kept under wraps for years. In fact, the USS Nimitz UFO encounter would largely be buried and kept from the public until 2017, when a clip of the footage was acquired and leaked by a UFO organization called the To the Stars Academy, which co-founded by Blink-182 frontman and kajor UFO buff Tom DeLonge, followed by an article the New York Times ran on the incident, and it all immediately caused a firestorm of debate and discussion. Was it real, was this a hoax? No one knew, but everybody seemed to be talking about it.

The footage made major waves at the time, and this was all ramped up when the U.S. Navy finally admitted that the footage was indeed real, that it had indeed been taken by infrared cameras aboard their aircraft, and even released further clips of the incident, complete with audio of the pilots marveling over what they are looking at. The Navy also said that they were putting new protocols into effect for dealing with unidentified craft encountered by pilots in incidents such as this and others like it, as well as that they were funding a program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

Even with this official release of information the conspiracy theories swirled that this was only the tip of the iceberg, and that they were in possession of longer video footage and other data on the incident. This would only be fanned by an investigation into the incident carried out by Popular Mechanics, which interviewed numerous people who had been involved in the event and uncovered evidence that there were some shady things going on in the wake of the incident. One anonymous witness they managed to track down identified as an Operations Specialist aboard the USS Princeton at the time would give a comment on the incident and explain that much of the data was suddenly seized and whisked away, saying:

I do remember the events of 2004 very well. The decision was made to scramble two fighter jets to investigate. From what the pilots described, the movement of the UFO was defying the laws of physics. What really made this incident alarming was when a Blackhawk helicopter landed on our ship and took all our information from the top secret rooms. We were all pretty shocked and it was an unspoken rule not to talk about it because we had secret clearances and didn’t want to jeopardize our careers.

A still from the USS Nimitz footage

This was corroborated by others who were present, such as the radar operator Voorhis, who also said that a helicopter landed and he was told to hand over all the data recordings for the AEGIS system. Others have also insisted that a substantial amount of the 8mm footage of the incident was confiscated by this unknown party, and insist that what was released is only snippets. This has only furthered conspiracy theories and discussion surrounding the event, and the USS Nimitz UFO encounter is just as mysterious as it has ever been, the Navy very tight-lipped about offering any official statement on what is seen in the videos and wary of any speculation on the matter, merely saying that what is seen in the videos is unidentified.

This of course has not stopped widespread speculation on the incident, and various theories have been proposed for the mysterious object and what the pilots experienced. One idea is that this is indicative of perhaps some sort of top-secret aircraft or advanced reconnaissance drone test, utilizing never-before-seen technology. This seems plausible on the surface, but if that were the case why would it be tested so close to where a carrier fleet was in the middle of performing military combat exercises? There is also the fact the most researchers, journalists, and military personnel willing to talk about it are adamant that no one has technology anywhere near what was reported and what is seen in the videos. Other ideas are that this was all due to equipment malfunction, pilot error, or even weather balloons or some misidentified natural atmospheric phenomena, but this is all still unsatisfactory as the incident was witnessed by numerous highly qualified personnel and pilots and was observed both visually and with corroborating radar. It is this perfect blend of photographic evidence and highly reliable witnesses that has made the case so persistent. What happened out there during that training mission? Was this drones, experimental aircraft, pilot error, or something not of this world? No matter what the real answer may be, the USS Nimitz UFO encounter remains one of the most spectacular, well-documented military accounts there is, and has remained very much discussed.