On October 21, 1952, a Flight Lieutenant Michael Swiney of the Royal Air Force took off in his Meteor trainer jet on a training flight with a flight student. At the time he was a flight instructor at the RAF’s Central Flying School, at Little Rissington, Gloucestershire, England, and today his student was a Royal Navy Lieutenant, David Crofts. The two were engaged in a cross country flight that would take them on a route along the south coast of the country, after which they would turn around and head back. It was meant to be a routine flight and with the calm weather on a fairly calm afternoon there were no anticipated problems. Yet this was to be a flight into strangeness that neither one of the men would ever forget, and which would propel itself into the realm of some of the great UFO mysteries.

The flight went according to plan at first, with a perfect take off and climb up through the cloud cover. It was as they punched through the clouds at an altitude of approximately 12,000 feet that Swiney allegedly spotted three white spherical objects at an estimated altitude of 35,000 feet, directly ahead of them. It was the pilot’s first impression that these were parachutes, but as they drew closer it became very obvious that these were something far stranger. He would say of the objects:

It was something supernatural. I immediately thought of course, of saucers, because that’s actually what they looked like. They were not leaving a condensation trail as I knew we were. They were circular and appeared to be stationary. We continued to climb to twice that height [to 30,000 feet] and as we did so they did in fact change position. They took on a slightly different perspective. For example the higher we got they lost their circular shape and took on more of a ‘flat plate’ appearance – like when you hold a tea-saucer above your head and look at it, and then bring it down to your eye-level, it loses the circular shape and becomes a flat plate. At one time the objects, which were still very much in view, appeared to go from one side of us to the other, and to make quite sure it was not an illusion caused by us in our aeroplane moving to one side, I checked that we were absolutely still on a very steady heading, and sure enough they had moved across to the starboard side of the aircraft.

Swiney’s plane managed to climb to 35,000 feet, and they approached close enough to the anomalous objects to see that they were devoid of any wings, vents, portholes, fins, or anything else that would have been expected of a conventional aircraft, and it was all so outlandish that Swiney began to suspect he was perhaps suffering from a lack of oxygen and that he was possibly hallucinating. However, this was put to rest when his passenger, Crofts, saw them as well. Crofts would describe the strange objects thusly:

I looked straight through the D-window and there were three dots ahead…[initially] they wouldn’t have been bigger than my thumb-nail at arm’s length and there were certainly three of them. I looked up from time to time and saw they were approaching and getting further and further apart. What I saw looked like the bottom of a stemmed glass. They were lens shaped, like an ellipse and the sun was behind them, and there was no cloud at that height. It was impossible to tell the size of them or how far away they were.

This was all unsettling enough that the shaken Swiney decided to call off the training exercise and head back towards base, despite Crofts’ suggestion that they move to intercept. As they made their way back to base, Swiney radioed ground Air Traffic Control, and although Swiney wanted to get as far away from the objects as possible, ground control ordered them to turn around and approach the anomalies. Swiney dutifully banked around and reportedly blasted towards them at full speed, actually managing to gain on them before suddenly the objects turned at a sharp angle and sped away at a rate of acceleration that was far beyond anything known before vanishing, leaving both Swiney and Crofts completely puzzled.

In the meantime, it turns out that a Ground Control Interception radar in southern England designated Sopley had picked up the objects, which were moving at around 3,000 miles an hour over the countryside of the southwest of England. This was causing quite a bit of panic, as all aircraft in the area were meticulously tracked and accounted for, and these particular objects were nothing that was supposed to be there. Considering this was right in the middle of the Cold War and with tensions high, this meant that these unidentified, out-of-place aircraft were potentially a threat to national security. The response was to scramble any available fighter jets immediately in order to assess the potential threat and possibly engage, and two Meteors from RAF base Tangmere, in Sussex, were launched to join up with Swiney’s plane and offer support, however, they were unable to make visual confirmation, the objects vanished from radar somewhere off the coast of Kent, and the fighters returned to base.

After this incident the whole thing was kept remarkably quiet, even though it was also picked up on a private listening station and there has been evidence that GCHQ, the government’s own secret listening station at Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire, had also aware of the events as they unfolded. It seems that the RAF and the Air Ministry were keen to explain it all away and distance themselves from it all, despite the multiple radar confirmations at the same time as visual contact was made by Swiney and company. Indeed, at some point the entire file on the incident reportedly has since just sort of gone away, as if nothing ever happened on that fateful day at all. Yet those who were there insist that it indeed did happen, and speak of the thick layer of secrecy overlaying the incident. Indeed, not long after this supposedly happened, the Air Ministry issued a warning that restricted RAF personnel from discussing encounters with unexplainable phenomenon with anyone other than official superiors.

As a matter of fact, the practice of the British Ministry of Defense with regards to UFOs at the time was to typically regularly destroy and dispose of any files pertaining to such UFO incidents, as they were seen as largely explainable with mundane explanations and were not worthy of funneling resources into. Since this practice was only stopped in 1967, all official reports from before that year no longer exist in any form. However, Swiney claims that in 1974, after decades of the event weighing on his mind, he requested to see the file on the incident witnessed by he and his co-pilot, and much to his surprise it was actually shown to him. He explains of this:

I was then in a position to say that I wanted to see the report I had written in 1952. I simply said ‘I want to see it’ and the next thing was one of my staff (a RAF Group Captain) plonked it on my desk,” Swiney explained. The file was obtained from an Air Intelligence branch that had inherited D.D.I. (Tech)’s records, and the officer who recovered the file said it had been located “in the Blue Book. So I had a look at it. It was all there, and if I remember rightly I also saw David Croft’s report which was attached to it. I had a look at it and when I was satisfied I put it in the out-tray. I should have taken a copy there and then.

After this the report seems to have just vanished, and an attempt to take a look at it again in 2000 with the help of researcher Dr. David Clarke resulted in them being given the runaround through several agencies, all of who said they were unable to locate the requested file. They were also told that no files on UFOs from before 1967 were available in general because of the past policy of destroying them all, making his 1974 experience all the stranger. When confronted about this discrepancy they received no answer or further explanation from the government, and the file seems to have just disappeared into thin air. As far as the Ministry of Defense is concerned, it never happened. Yet Swiney has always remained adamant that this file did exist, that he saw something truly beyond explainable, and that it was no normal balloon, aerial phenomena, or other mundane cause, and he has said of this:

I had then been flying for about nine years and I had seen many funny reflections, refractions through windscreens and lots of other things, but this was nothing of the sort. We tried very hard to explain away what we were looking at but there was no way we could do that. There was something there, there is absolutely no doubt about it. It was NOT a reflection. I am completely open-minded. I don’t think there are little green men who are going to suddenly land and get out of peculiar-looking craft. But what I do know is that both David Crofts and I saw something, the like of which we had never seen before, and I have never seen since. I cannot explain it. But all I do know is that I did see, as did he, something which was most unusual.

In the meantime, what has gone on to be mostly known as the “Rissington Incident” has been much discussed in the UFO community and has appeared on such well-known TV programs as UFO Files the BBC’s Timewatch. What happened here with these pilots? Was this phenomenon, which was also clearly observed by ground radar, all caused by mundane causes, or was it something more? What happened to that file, and did it ever exist at all? The answers remain unclear, and the Rissington Inceident has gone on to become a regularly discussed unsolved UFO case that will likely invite debate for years to come.

In my previous article on “Invisible UFOs,” I discussed three cases from the U.K., and all from the 1950s. It’s now time to take a look at a very similar case from the United States and also occurred in the 1950s. The documentation on this intriguing story can be found in the UFO section of the FBI’s website, The Vault. With that all said, let’s now take a look at the case itself.  It all goes back to 1951 and strange, aerial activity that occurred in the vicinity of a military installation, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The documentation on the incident starts as follows: “On September 20, Andrew J. Reid G-2 [Army Intelligence] Ft. Monmouth, NJ, provided following report of unconventional aircraft observed by radar at above Army installation. On Sept 10, fifty one], an AN/MPG-1 radar set picked up a fast moving low flying target, exact altitude undetermined at approximately 11:10 a.m., southeast of Ft. Monmouth at a range of about twelve thousand yards. The target appeared to approximately follow the coast line, changing its range only slightly but changing its azimuth rapidly. The radar set was set to full aided azimuth tracking which normally is fast enough to track jet aircraft, but in this case was too slow to be resorted to. Target was lost in the N.E. at a range of about fourteen thousand yards.”

Matters had barely begun, however, as the following extract from the official papers reveals: “This target also presented an unusually strong return for aircraft[,] being comparable in strength to that usually received from a coastal ship [italics mine]. The operator initially identified target as a ship and then realized that it could not be a ship after he observed its extreme speed. September 10, fifty one  an SCR-584 radar set, at 3:15p.m., tracking a target which moved about slowly in azimuth north of Ft. Monmouth at a range of about 42,000 yards at extremely unusual elevation angle.”

Notably, the movements of the vast craft  were also picked up by another radar expert: “Both sets found it impossible to track the target in range due to it speed and the operators had to resort to manual range tracking in order to hold the target. The target was tracked in this manner to the maximum tracking range of 32,000 yards. The operator said the target to be moving at a speed several hundred mph higher than the maximum aided tracking ability of the radar sets. The target provided an extremely strong return echo at times even though it was the maximum range. However, echo signal occasionally fell off to a level below normal return. These changes coincided with maneuvers of the target.”

There was more amazing activity to come: “On September 11, fifty one [sic] at about 1:30 p.m. the target was picked up on an SCR-584 radar set that displayed unusual maneuverability. Target was approximately over Navesink, NJ, as indicated by his 10,000 range, 6,000 feet altitude and due north azimuth. The target remained practically stationary on the scope and appeared to be hovering [italics mine]. The operator looked out of the vehicle housing the radar in an attempt to see the target, since it was at such a short range, however, overcast conditions prevented such observation.”

And we have this incredible data from the base’s staff: “Returning to their operating position the target was observed to be changing in elevation at an extremely rapid rate, but change in range was so slow the operator believed the target must have risen nearly vertically [italics mine]…Once again the speed of the target exceeded the tracking ability of the SCR-584 set so that manual tracking became necessary…The weather was fair when the observation was made September 10th and cloudy for the September 11th report.”

Truly, a fascinating and amazing early encounter of the UFO kind. And of the invisible type, too.

Back in late 2013, Micah Hanks wrote a feature here with the title of:“Arnold’s Flying Saucers: Were They Saucers at All? He stated: “Despite the popularity this subject would garner in those golden years after the War, perhaps there is no early UFO incident that has proven to be quite as influential as that of Kenneth Arnold, a civilian pilot who spotted an entire fleet of strange aircraft while flying over Washington state in June of 1947.

The strange craft that Arnold observed would spark a flame that grew like wildfire, eventually forming the modern UFO phenomenon, and at the center of it all was the curious staple that became known as the flying saucer.” Arnold’s encounter took place near to Mt. Rainier and, in no time at all, resulted in the birth of the UFO phenomenon. Of course, there are numerous theories for what Arnold encountered: alien spacecraft, top secret of the U.S. military and even a flock of geese. Whatever the truth, for many Arnold’s experience is still perceived today as one of the most important UFOs cases of the 20th century.

It was said for a long time that the biggest problem with Arnold’s encounter was that it lacked any kind of corroboration. That may not have been the case, though. It’s now time to introduce you to a man named Fred Johnson, a prospector who just might have been in the right place – and at the right time – to see exactly what Arnold sighted. Both the military and the FBI took an interest in what Johnson had to say, as the following documentation – from the FBI – demonstrates: “Fred Johnson reported without consulting any records that on June 24, 1947, while prospecting at a point in the Cascade Mountains approximately five thousand feet from sea level, during the afternoon he noticed a reflection, looked up, and saw a disc proceeding in a southeasterly direction. Immediately upon sighting this object he placed his telescope to his eye and observed the disc for approximately forty-five to sixty seconds.”

Johnson “remarked that it is possible for him to pick up an object at a distance of ten miles with his telescope. At the time the disc was sighted by Mr. Johnson it was banking in the sun, and he observed five or six similar objects but only concentrated on one. He related that they did not fly in any particular formation and that he would estimate their height to be about one thousand feet from where he was standing. He said the object was about thirty feet in diameter and appeared to have a tail. It made no noise. According to Johnson he remained in the vicinity of the Cascades for several days and then returned to Portland and noted an article in the local paper which stated in effect that a man in Boise, Idaho, had sighted a similar object but that authorities had disclaimed any knowledge of such an object. He said he communicated with the Army for the sole purpose of attempting to add credence to the story furnished by the man in Boise.”

The FBI concluded: “Johnson also related that on the occasion of his sighting the objects on June 24, 1947 he had in his possession a combination compass and watch. He noted particularly that immediately before he sighted the disc the compass acted very peculiar, the hand waving from one side to the other, but that this condition corrected itself immediately after the discs had passed out of sight. Informant appeared to be a very reliable individual who advised that he had been a prospector in the states of Montana, Washington and Oregon for the past forty years.”

We may never for sure if Fred Johnson encountered the very same craft that Kenneth Arnold did. At the very least, however, it’s a fascinating and thought-provoking story.

Of the many and varied kinds of UFO encounters that have been reported since 1947 – the year in which the Flying Saucer was “born” – some stand out more than others. One category of encounter that particularly intrigues me involves UFOs caught on radar. And when the incidents involve pilots pursuing UFOs through the sky – while ground-radar is tracking them at the same time – this makes a fairly persuasive case for the reality of a genuine UFO. It gets weirder, though: what about incidents in which UFOs are tracked on radar – sometimes by staff at more than one military base – but the UFOs cannot be seen visually. Its almost as if some UFOs have the ability to become invisible to the human eye. Maybe they do. That’s the theme of today’s article. I’ll share with you three fascinating cases. The first comes from the late J.R. Oliver, whose wife very generously gave me permission to use the account of her late husband, and which makes for fascinating reading. Oliver prepared the account some time before his death, of which the following is just an extract from a much longer account:

“In August 1949, in order to test the updated air defenses of England against attack, Operation Bulldog was launched. Operation Bulldog’s attacking forces consisted of aircraft of the Benelux countries supported by U.S. air squadrons based on the continent. Flying from various airfields in Holland, France, Belgium and Germany, their objective was to attack London and other prime targets in southern and midland England, without being officially ‘downed’ by fighter aircraft brought into action by the defensive network of Fighter Command. The radar defense chain extended from Land’s End, along the south coast and up to the north of Scotland, overlapping at all heights from sea level to about 100,000 feet. Even so long ago, it was almost impossible to fly a glider across the Channel without it being plotted. The exercise ran for fifteen days and was structured in such a way that the technical resources and personnel of the defensive screen were stretched to the limit.”

It wasn’t long at all before something very weird occurred, as Oliver noted in his letter: “Within about fifteen minutes, the PBX operator came in, approached the Duty Controller and advised him that Bethe first to see the contact and my plot was the first to go on the plot board. As other operators took their positions, more plots were called out concerning position of the object and its height. The object was flying roughly parallel with the south coast, from west to east. Reaching a point out to see off the ‘heel’ of Kent, it abruptly turned north and as it approached the Thames estuary we passed it on to Martlesham radar, with whom we had been in contact via the PBX link, and whose radar area impinged on our own. Shortly after, we lost contact with it, due to the limit of our own radar range.”

Oliver then noted something even more incredible: “It was a simple matter to assess the speed of the object from the times and distances between plots and its height was directly read from our Type 13 radar, designed to read the height of any aircraft within its range. Flying at close to 50,000 feet, the air speed of the object we had observed and plotted in accordance with RAF standard procedures was assessed at very nearly 3,000 miles per hour [italics mine]. The general consensus regarding its size, among the very experienced radar personnel engaged in the operations, was that the object offered an echo similar to that of a large passenger or freighter surface vessel, something in the region of 15,000 or 20,00 tons [italics mine]. Word filtered down that on approaching Bempton radar in Yorkshire, the object suddenly increased speed and headed directly upwards, vanished off-screen at about 100,000 feet.”

Despite the careful tracking of the huge object – by the radar operators of several military bases – the UFO was never visibly seen: it was only encountered on the radar screens. Now, let’s take a look at another case that involved an “invisible UFO.” It comes from a man named William Maguire. In September 1952, he was serving in the U.K.’s Royal Air Force – on radar. Of his experience of the UFO type – that occurred  at a military facility called RAF Sandwich in the south of England – Maguire told me: “The mechanics were being blamed for not calibrating the instruments properly; we were being blamed for not interpreting the readings properly. But the obvious answer staring us in the face, on every single instrument on the base, was the fact that there was sitting up at an unbelievable height, this enormous thing with the equivalent mass of a warship and it just stood there…and stood there…and stood there.”

Invisible UFOs?

So, we have a second case that involves the tracking by radar of a gigantic craft, but that is not encountered visually. On March 26, 1957, there was yet another amazing encounter. The document states in part: “A report was received from Royal Air Force Church Lawford on 26th March, 1957 of a sighting of an unusual nature. The object moved at a speed timed at exceeding 1400mph. This in itself was unusual as the object had accelerated to this speed from a stationary position. No explanation has yet been found for this sighting but a supplementary report, including a copy of the radar plot, was requested and has been received from Church Lawford this afternoon.”

It’s important to note that the “sighting” was seen on radar. Yet again, nothing was actually seen in the sky. Invisible UFOs? Maybe. There is, however, another explanation – very different, but also very intriguing – that I’ll get to in part-2 of this article.

Over the years – decades, in fact – the CIA has declassified a wealth of UFO-themed documentation. The stash is filled with reports of UFO encounters filed by pilots, police-officers, scientists and members of the public. Many of those same reports were extracted from worldwide newspapers that the CIA carefully scrutinized on a regular basis. While there is no definitive smoking gun in the files, there’s no doubt that the papers demonstrate the longstanding interest – and occasionally the concern – the CIA had about the UFO phenomenon. There are some genuinely intriguing cases in the CIA’s archives, one of which I’m going to bring to your attention today. Dated September 20, 1957 and prepared for the Acting Director of Central Intelligence, it begins as follows:

“As reported by components of the US Air Defense Command, an unidentified flying object (UFO) was tracked by US radars on a relatively straight course from the eastern tip of Long Island to the vicinity of Buffalo. The object was reportedly moving westward at an altitude of 50,000 feet and speed of 2,000 kts. ‘Jamming’ was reported by several radars in this vicinity and westward as far as Chicago. In a subsequent briefing for representatives of the IAC, the US Air Force reported that the original reports had been degraded somewhat by information that: (a) there was an 11 minute break in the tracks; (b) weather conditions in the area were of the type which have in the past produced false radar pips and electronic interference; (c) B-47’s of SAC were in the area near Chicago on an ECM training flight. The ADC has not completed its investigation of this incident, but in any event it now seems clear that the phenomena reported west of Buffalo were not related to the UFO.”

A U-2 Dragon Lady

The report continues: “We have no intelligence on Soviet activities (e.g. long-range air, submarine, or merchant shipping operations) which can be related specifically to this reported event. We believe it unlikely that a Soviet aircraft could conduct a mission at this speed and altitude and return to Bloc territory. However, we credit the USSR with the capability to have a submarine-launched cruise-type missile of low subsonic [supersonic] performance and a range of about 500 n.m., but we have no specific evidence of the existence of such a missile. We have examined possible Soviet motives for launching a one-way vehicle on an operation over the US, and consider that there would be little motivation at this time, except possibly a psychological or retaliatory motive, which we believe is marginal. One-way reconnaissance operations are largely ruled out by the likelihood that the results would be of small value, and the risk of compromise would be very great.”

It’s clear that this case raised eyebrows and was the subject of significant investigation. It may well have been a genuine UFO. There is, however, another possibility. In 1999, Gerald K. Haines – in his position as the historian of the National Reconnaissance Office – wrote a paper titled “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90.” It’s now in the public domain, thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. It can be read at the CIA’s website at this link. Haines’ paper detailed the history of how, and why, the CIA became interested and involved in the phenomenon of UFOs. Although Haines covered a period of more than forty years, I will bring your attention to one particular section of his paper. Haines revealed an intriguing connection between UFOs and the U-2 spy plane. On August 4, 1997, the U.K.’s Independent newspaper ran an article titled “US hid spy plane projects behind UFO hysteria.” The article was focused on Haines’ paper.

In part, it stated: “Early U-2s were silver and reflected the sun’s rays and often appeared as fiery objects to people below, Mr. Haines said. They were later painted black. Air force investigators, ‘aware of the secret U-2 flights, tried to explain away such sightings by linking them to natural phenomena such as ice crystals and temperature inversions.’By 1956 the air force internally had clear explanations for 96 per cent of UFO sightings, Mr. Haines wrote, referring to the experimental aircraft. ‘They were careful, however, not to reveal the true cause of the sighting to the public.’ At the height of the Cold War the CIA hid its involvement in studies of UFO sightings because it feared that if word came out it would lead to a national hysteria that could be exploited by the Soviet Union.”

In light of all the above data, it’s possible that this September 1957 case involved a high-flying spy plane – whether the U-2 or another kind – rather than a true UFO. Sometimes, what appears to be a UFO may be something definitively home-grown. And highly secret, too.

It was midway through 1971 when a brief but intriguing letter was sent to the Pentagon by someone who had some notable things to say about UFOs. He or she was, however, determined to remain anonymous. It was a letter that was also shared with the FBI – by Pentagon staff. If its contents were true, then it told an incredible story. In some ways, we could say that it amounted to a planned, “forced UFO disclosure.” As for the letter itself, you can read it at the FBI’s website, The Vault, (in this particular UFO portion of the site and specifically on page 110). With that said, onto the content of the letter. It begins as follows: “In approximately seven months or January, 1972, certain copies of top-secret documents shall be sent to the New York Times as well as two other newspapers. These documents are related to and will be an ostentation of the involvement of the Pentagon in the controversial ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’ or ‘Flying Saucer’ subject. It will show that not only the US Air Force was involved in UFO research but the other military branches as well.”

The source of the story continued : “Analysis and the actual conclusions of the classic UFO cases shall be revealed. This shall be accomplished by zeroxed [sic] documents and photographs that General Wolfe had reviewed when he was head of the Army’s UFO support program in the Pentagon during the Eisenhower years.” They concluded with these words: “Sorry, but it is concluded here that this is the best course to take because we feel that the secret UFO investigations are parallel in nature to the Times-Pentagon-Vietnam controversy. If we are wrong in taking this action, time will tell.”

Pentagon

As for that “Times-Pentagon-Vietnam controversy,” this is a reference to the so-called “Pentagon Papers.” History.com say of this affair: “The Pentagon Papers was the name given to a top-secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. As the Vietnam War dragged on, with more than 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam by 1968, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg—who had worked on the study—came to oppose the war, and decided that the information contained in the Pentagon Papers should be available to the American public. He photocopied the report and in March 1971 gave the copy to The New York Times, which then published a series of scathing articles based on the report’s most damning secrets.”

Now, let’s take a look at General Wolfe. He was actually General Kenneth Bonner Wolfe. The U.S. Air Force provides detailed information on the general: “Kenneth Bonner Wolfe was born in Denver, Colo., in 1896. He attended high school in Portland, Ore., and San Diego, Calif., and in January 1918 enlisted as a private first class in the Aviation Section of the Signal Reserve Corps. He received ground and flying training at Berkeley, Calif., and Park Field, Tenn., and in July 1918 was commissioned a temporary second lieutenant in the Air Service. He served for a brief period at Park Field as a flying instructor and then moved to Souther Field, Ga., in the same capacity. In January 1919 he returned to Park Field and in March of that year went to Carlstrom Field, Fla. In July 1919 he was made officer in charge of flying at Souther Field, Ga., and the following January was appointed chief engineer officer at the Air Intermediate Depot at Americus, Ga. On July 1, 1920 he received his Regular Army commission as a second lieutenant in the Air Service, and was promoted to first lieutenant that same day.”

The USAF adds: “He began a tour as flying instructor at Brooks Field, Texas, in November 1922, and during this time assumed charge of aero repair at that station in addition to his other duties. In May 1926 he moved to Clark Field, Philippine Islands, as plans and operations officer. He joined the Fifth Air Force on Okinawa in August 1945, as chief of staff and became commanding general two months later. After assuming command of the Fifth, he directed its transition from a mighty assault force to the occupational air arm of Japan and southern Korea, operating from headquarters at Nagoya, Japan. In January 1948 he returned to the United States and was appointed director of procurement and industrial mobilization planning at Air Materiel Command headquarters at Wright Field, Ohio. He was appointed deputy chief of staff for materiel at U.S. Air Force headquarters in September 1949. Rated a command pilot, combat observer and aircraft observer, General Wolfe has more than 7,000 hours flying time. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster and the Order of the British Empire.”

Papers do not reveal what steps the Pentagon and/or the FBI took with regard to this letter and its whistle-blower-type writer. At least one department of the DoD dismissed it out of hand. On the other hand, there’s the matter of timing and relevancy: the source, recall, suggested that revealing the government’s UFO secrets would be “parallel in nature to the Times-Pentagon-Vietnam controversy.” The time-frame was interesting too: Ellsberg provided the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in March 1971. It was only months later that the mysterious letter surfaced. Of course, history has shown that no such mass-release of UFO documentation ever occurred. Was it all just a prank? Was the source speaking truthfully, but prevented at the last moment from disclosing whatever it really was they knew? Almost fifty years later, we will almost certainly never know. But, maybe one day, the bones of the story will be fleshed out – if someone is willing to chase down the story.

{https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

It sometimes seems that the UFO phenomena is drawn to military activity. For whatever reasons something seems to draw these forces in, and there are countless reports of UFO activity around military installations or events. It has actually become quite the point of discussion among UFO aficionados, and one very prominent example of this is the time a wave of strange UFO phenomena washed over one of the largest military exercises the world has ever seen.

In the fall of 1952, one of the largest peacetime military exercises in history was underway in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic in the vicinity of Denmark and Norway. Called “Operation Mainbrace,” or also “Exercise Mainbrace,” the massive naval operation was carried out by the Allied Command Atlantic, which is one of the commands of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and was meant to simulate a response to an attack or invasion by the Soviet Union on Europe. The operation was truly epic in scope, involving the navies of nine countries, the USA, UK, Canada, France, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium, and composed of over 200 ships, 1,000 aircraft, and 80,000 personnel. It was the most powerful fleet seen in the North Sea since World War. It was a truly impressive series of military war games, and it would also turn out to be an absolute magnet for UFOs, and indeed one of the most amazing military UFO incidents ever.

It all kicked off on September 13, 1952, when crew aboard the Danish destroyer Willemoes saw a glowing blue triangular unidentified object shoot through the night sky at an estimated speed of 900 mph. This would be far from the only strange sight witnessed in the skies above the operation, and reports from other navy personnel would come in over the coming days. On September 19, a British Meteor jet involved with the operation coming in to land at the airfield at Topcliffe, Yorkshire, England, was observed by crew on the ground to be followed by an anomalous silvery circular object that swayed “like a pendulum” and reportedly stopped when the jet circled around to engage it. The UFO then made a sudden acceleration into the distance, only to do a sharp turn and continue on in a different direction. One of the witnesses, a Lieutenant John W. Kilburn, would say of the incredible incident:

I was standing with four personnel of No. 269 Squadron watching a Meteor fighter gradually descending. The Meteor was at approx. 5000 feet and approaching from the east. Flight Officer Paris suddenly noticed a white object in the sky at a height between ten and twenty thousand feet some five miles astern of the Meteor.  The object was silver in color and circular in shape. It appeared to be travelling at a much slower speed than the Meteor, but on a similar course. It maintained the slow forward speed for a few seconds before commencing to descend, swinging in a pendular motion during descent. Like a falling sycamore leaf. After a few seconds, the object stopped its pendulous motion and its descent and began to rotate about its own axis. Suddenly it accelerated at an incredible speed towards the west turning onto a south-easterly heading before disappearing. All this occurred in a matter of fifteen to twenty seconds. The movements were not identifiable with anything I have seen in the air and the rate of acceleration was unbelievable.

On the following day another high profile sighting was made, this time by the crew of the U.S. aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Franklin D. Roosevelt. The ship was thrown into a state of confusion and alarm when a large silvery sphere was observed, seeming to follow the fleet. On board that day was a journalist by the name of Wallace Litwin, who managed to snap a series of four color photographs of the object. At the time he thought it must surely be a weather balloon, but he was soon informed that it was moving way to fast to be a balloon and also that none of the ships had launched any. The photos were examined by Navy Intelligence officers, who deemed the object to not be a balloon, although there was no other explanation offered. All witnesses also confirmed that it was not a balloon, and it was seen as very disconcerting, as this was well monitored airspace that had just been violated. Litwin would say:

In other words, the skies above this NATO fleet were very carefully observed and nothing flew around overhead unobserved. But I knew that I had taken a picture of what looked like a ping-pong ball 10 feet over my head.

On that very same day the oddness would continue when three Danish Air Force officers at Karup Air Field, Denmark, saw a shiny metal disc-like object move rapidly out towards the fleet at sea. On September 21 another silver sphere seeming to be speeding away from the fleet’s position was tracked by a formation of RAF jets. The jets moved to intercept the mysterious object, but found that it was easily able to evade them with a physics defying display of maneuvers and speed, after which is shot off into the distance. It would apparently appear once again to follow the planes, but then disappear for good when one of the pilots circled around towards it.

In many of these cases there turned out to be radar confirmation, and considering the experience of these witnesses there seemed to be little reason to think that these could be mere weather balloons or some atmospheric phenomena or Venus. There were numerous other reports from personnel aboard ships and aircraft with the fleet, from witnesses of all nationalities, and even none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower supposedly saw one as he was aboard one of the vessels. One witness reported on this incident thusly:

We were North and East of England with the NATO fleet in the North Atlantic. It was about 1:30 a.m. Through the stormy rain and lightning, this big blue-white light appeared right off starboard bow. It came down to 100 feet off the water and just hung there as we cruised by it. The UFO was easy to see when the lightning flashed. It then rose straight and left. Four of us saw it. Here’s the kicker! General Ike, who’d flown over by chopper with the Admiral had just come out on the signal bridge wearing P.J.s and a robe looking for coffee.   We were sitting and making small talk when the bright light came on. We all watched it ten minutes, then just stood there staring at each other. After a while, General Eisenhower said, he better go ‘check this out’ and left. He also told us to ‘forget about it for now’. Next day and ever after, nothing was ever said about it. I don’t know what it was or why it was hushed, but I saw it.

Interestingly, even after Operation Mainbrace ended on September 25 UFO sightings reports would come pouring in from the region, almost as if they had been agitated by the activities the fleet had been carrying out, before suddenly disappearing as mysteriously as they had arrived. What brought these phenomena here? Are these forces drawn to our military activities for some reason, or is this just misidentifications, weather balloons, and Venus? Considering the caliber of witnesses on offer here, perhaps it is best to keep an open mind, and the Operation Mainbrace UFO encounters remain a well-documented fixture of UFO lore.