Of all people, the ones who probably should have seen UFOs if they’re out there are astronauts. Well, it just so happens that, a few astronauts have indeed come forward over the years with accounts of unexplained experiences in space. The latest to do so is former NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who lived aboard the now-defunct Russian Space Station Mir for five months in 1997. Linenger’s stay aboard Mir was marked by an accidental fire and near-catastrophic systems breakdown that according to his NASA bio “altered the whole nature of his mission and served to change the relationship between the U.S. and the Russian space programs.” Also, he saw UFOs. That’s a really weird five months.

Linenger, a retired captain of the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, spoke about his experiences with UFOs and other anomalies witnessed from Space Station Mir during an interview last year. He says he witnessed bizarre, unexplained things, many times during his stay in space. From the interview:

”Well I’m going to stick my neck out, but how many people think I saw a UFO when I was up there? Well I did, I saw things in the true sense of the word, unidentified flying objects – don’t take me out of context there – no aliens. But I saw stuff that made me call my crewmates over and say ‘what the heck is that?’”

Space Station Mir

It’s not surprising he gave the caveat of not seeing aliens. It’s highly doubtful a Navy physician and NASA astronaut would jump to that conclusion unless he saw an alien’s big spooky eyes staring right at him. He says that the nature of witnessing these things in space make it hard to tell what exactly you’re looking at, but he does describe some pretty strange—and weirdly familiar—sightings:

“We’d look and sometimes it was metallic, it was like a spoon if you were off in the distance and in the province of space good luck figuring out if it’s a really small object close-by, something floated out of the airlock.

Is it something 100,000 miles away that’s the size of a big spacecraft? It’s very hard to distinguish that, usually it was something you could kind of explain, maybe an external tank or something like that. But you would see things and you go ‘wow, that’s cool – I don’t know what that was exactly, but it’s not a satellite’.”

That could definitely look like a spoon in the right context.

Linenger also says that UFOs and anomalous events are just as noteworthy in space as it is on Earth:

“You definitely, just like when you see something weird [on Earth], call everyone over like ‘I don’t care what you’re doing, get over here and take a look at this.”

It’s all very interesting. Of course, as Jerry Linenger says, distance in space is weird and it’s hard to tell what it is you’re looking at. Still, these are trained astronauts we’re talking about. That they would be surprised and excited by unexplained things up in space suggests that there might just be some surprising, exciting, and unexplained things up there after all.

Tom DeLonge has never served in the US military but that isn’t stopping the US Army from recruiting him and his organization, the To The Stars Academy. Why? That’s what a lot of military watchdogs are wondering, since this announcement comes shortly after TTSA’s announcement that it has materials from UFOs that don’t match any known earth metals. Should we get ready for a big reveal (cue the green alien balloons) or will it be another TTSA disappointment?

“SAN DIEGO — Oct. 17, 2019 — To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA) announced today a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command to advance TTSA’s materiel and technology innovations in order to develop enhanced capabilities for Army ground vehicle

TTSA’s technology solutions, which leverage developments in material science, space-time metric engineering, quantum physics, beamed energy propulsion, and active camouflage, have the potential to enhance survivability and effectiveness of multiple Army systems. TTSA will share its discoveries with Ground Vehicle System Center (GVSC) and Ground Vehicle Survivability and Protection (GVSP) and the U.S. Army shall provide laboratories, expertise, support, and resources to help characterize the technologies and its applications.

“Our partnership with TTSA serves as an exciting, non-traditional source for novel materials and transformational technologies to enhance our military ground system capabilities,” said Dr. Joseph Cannon of U.S. Army Futures Command. “At the Army’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center, we look forward to this partnership and the potential technical innovations forthcoming.””

Well, that quote from TTSA’s announcement explains everything … not. For one thing, Joseph Trevithick and Brett Tingley at The War Zone point out that the announcement is vague and non-specific. Their research into the CRADA agreement found that it’s full of legalese … except for one interesting paragraph:

“To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science is a company with materiel and technology innovations that offer capability advancements for Army ground vehicles. These technology innovations have been acquired, designed, and produced by the Collaborator [TTSA], leveraging advancements in metamaterials and quantum physics to push performance gains.”

This could use some help.

In other words, the Army is admitting that DeLonge’s TTSA HAS “materiel and technology innovations” it is interested in. Since it’s hard to believe TTSA has developed materiel (military materials and equipment) that the military doesn’t already know about, this appears to be a confirmation that it has something the military DOESN’T know about. Is this the materials from UFOs TTSA has been dropping hints about?

“TTSA has had a primary message that the military is hiding information about UAPs, and that has resonated with many of their fans along with their investors. However, now that TTSA has allegedly acquired physical pieces of the “phenomena,” to some, they are now just walking it all back through the doors of the military and sharing the discoveries with those they claim are hiding secrets from the public.”

John Greenewald, Jr. at The Black Vault points out the obvious – TTSA’s part of the deal involves giving materials to the government that they claimed they GOT from the government … things involving “material science, space-time metric engineering, quantum physics, beamed energy propulsion, and active camouflage” according to Popular Mechanics. What is the Army providing to TTSA? “Laboratories, expertise, support, and resources to help characterize the technologies and its applications.” All of the watchdogs and many of the commenters make another obvious point … “resources” most likely means funding, something TTSA desperately needs.

The War Zone drops another interesting tidbit about some of the metamaterial samples that may be changing hands.

“The late Art Bell, long-time host of the paranormal radio program Coast to Coast AM, had originally acquired these from a purported anonymous source. Bell had said the individual claimed that their grandfather had been in an unspecified branch of the U.S. military and that items were related to the Roswell UFO crash conspiracy theory.”

DeLonge claims to have gotten the materials from well-known ufologist Linda Moulton Howe and sold them (you read that right) to TTSA. Howe and DeLonge have both claimed that these metal samples show antigravitational behavior when exposed to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation and they can’t be reproduced in a lab.

Are we getting close to one of these in every garage?

The War Zone has written extensively about this TTSA/Army deal and TTSA in general. While it’s essential to have watchdog groups in these times (an understatement if there ever was one), the CRADA agreement also calls for an annual review at the end of each fiscal year through 2023 of progress being made. Will this review be made public? That probably depends on who’s making or losing money at the time.

In the meantime, it would be great if some medium could get in contact with Art Bell and see what he thinks.

Tom DeLonge has never served in the US military but that isn’t stopping the US Army from recruiting him and his organization, the To The Stars Academy. Why? That’s what a lot of military watchdogs are wondering, since this announcement comes shortly after TTSA’s announcement that it has materials from UFOs that don’t match any known earth metals. Should we get ready for a big reveal (cue the green alien balloons) or will it be another TTSA disappointment?

“SAN DIEGO — Oct. 17, 2019 — To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA) announced today a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command to advance TTSA’s materiel and technology innovations in order to develop enhanced capabilities for Army ground vehicles.

TTSA’s technology solutions, which leverage developments in material science, space-time metric engineering, quantum physics, beamed energy propulsion, and active camouflage, have the potential to enhance survivability and effectiveness of multiple Army systems. TTSA will share its discoveries with Ground Vehicle System Center (GVSC) and Ground Vehicle Survivability and Protection (GVSP) and the U.S. Army shall provide laboratories, expertise, support, and resources to help characterize the technologies and its applications.

“Our partnership with TTSA serves as an exciting, non-traditional source for novel materials and transformational technologies to enhance our military ground system capabilities,” said Dr. Joseph Cannon of U.S. Army Futures Command. “At the Army’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center, we look forward to this partnership and the potential technical innovations forthcoming.””

Well, that quote from TTSA’s announcement explains everything … not. For one thing, Joseph Trevithick and Brett Tingley at The War Zone point out that the announcement is vague and non-specific. Their research into the CRADA agreement found that it’s full of legalese … except for one interesting paragraph:

“To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science is a company with materiel and technology innovations that offer capability advancements for Army ground vehicles. These technology innovations have been acquired, designed, and produced by the Collaborator [TTSA], leveraging advancements in metamaterials and quantum physics to push performance gains.”

This could use some help.

In other words, the Army is admitting that DeLonge’s TTSA HAS “materiel and technology innovations” it is interested in. Since it’s hard to believe TTSA has developed materiel (military materials and equipment) that the military doesn’t already know about, this appears to be a confirmation that it has something the military DOESN’T know about. Is this the materials from UFOs TTSA has been dropping hints about?

“TTSA has had a primary message that the military is hiding information about UAPs, and that has resonated with many of their fans along with their investors. However, now that TTSA has allegedly acquired physical pieces of the “phenomena,” to some, they are now just walking it all back through the doors of the military and sharing the discoveries with those they claim are hiding secrets from the public.”

John Greenewald, Jr. at The Black Vault points out the obvious – TTSA’s part of the deal involves giving materials to the government that they claimed they GOT from the government … things involving “material science, space-time metric engineering, quantum physics, beamed energy propulsion, and active camouflage” according to Popular Mechanics. What is the Army providing to TTSA? “Laboratories, expertise, support, and resources to help characterize the technologies and its applications.” All of the watchdogs and many of the commenters make another obvious point … “resources” most likely means funding, something TTSA desperately needs.

The War Zone drops another interesting tidbit about some of the metamaterial samples that may be changing hands.

“The late Art Bell, long-time host of the paranormal radio program Coast to Coast AM, had originally acquired these from a purported anonymous source. Bell had said the individual claimed that their grandfather had been in an unspecified branch of the U.S. military and that items were related to the Roswell UFO crash conspiracy theory.”

DeLonge claims to have gotten the materials from well-known ufologist Linda Moulton Howe and sold them (you read that right) to TTSA. Howe and DeLonge have both claimed that these metal samples show antigravitational behavior when exposed to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation and they can’t be reproduced in a lab.

Are we getting close to one of these in every garage?

The War Zone has written extensively about this TTSA/Army deal and TTSA in general. While it’s essential to have watchdog groups in these times (an understatement if there ever was one), the CRADA agreement also calls for an annual review at the end of each fiscal year through 2023 of progress being made. Will this review be made public? That probably depends on who’s making or losing money at the time.

In the meantime, it would be great if some medium could get in contact with Art Bell and see what he thinks.

For many months now, an incident involving pilots who attempted to intercept a strange, oblong-shaped white aircraft while part of a training mission with the U.S.S. Nimitz carrier group in 2004 has been at the center of the modern UFO discussion. The incident has received even more attention in recent weeks, following an appearance by Commander Dave Fravor, one of the principal witnesses, on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

No one who takes the UFO subject seriously would dispute that the incident is noteworthy. However, many with long-held interests in the subject will also recognize that it is only one of many similar instances where such an object has been observed. In fact, some accounts from the historic record detail sightings of remarkably similar things dating at least as far back as the 1940s.

Loren Gross was among the handful of historically-minded UFO chroniclers who, for many decades, collected and self-published annual UFO commentaries. Beginning in the late 19th century with the famous reports of “mystery airships” and proceeding up until around 1960, Gross’s historical record-keeping on the UFO topic had been noteworthy for its lack of sensational details (unlike the majority of the UFO writing of both then, and now).

One unique report from the early days of UFOs (that is, prior to Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting) occurred in September 1944, near Oak Ridge, Tennessee; a site that would be notable for other UFO sightings over the years, which some commentators find unsurprising due to the area’s proximity to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

(Public Domain).

The report states that at about dusk on a September evening in 1944, a witness identified only as “Mr. Nelson,” who had been “in the company of two other Oak Ridge workers, A.C. Butler and Albert Profitt, were driving from Oliver Springs into Oak Ridge,” the report states. As the drivers reached a point about two miles outside of Oliver, they said: “a strange object showed up about 50 feet in front of the car ended about the height of the windshield.”

The report says that Nelson, the primary observer, described it as “glossy white in color, and the reflected light had a dimension of about 30 feet long and 4 feet wide.”

“When Nelson eased the car up to the object, it moved slowly away, and when he stopped the car, it also stopped. Nelson claims that he called people out from a house to the roadside to see what they were observing and they were as dumbfounded at the site as the three men were.”

This unusual cat-and-mouse game between the drivers and the strange object continued for several minutes, as Mr. Nelson moved the vehicle back and forth toward the object, watching as it appeared to mimic their movements, moving away as they approached, or following when they backed away.

“Finally, after Nelson had moved forward and stop again several times, the light rose high into the air and disappeared over Black Oak Ridge,” the report states.

Afterward, the incident was reported to several local authorities, along with the FBI’s Knoxville Field Office. According to Mr. Nelson (who had presumably been the one who made the report to the Bureau), “Nelson said that at first the FBI was very interested in the report but then they seemed to lose interest in it completely. He assumed that they found out that the object was some sort of secret weapon being developed at Oak Ridge and so it was no longer of any interest to them.” Whether or not this had actually been the reason for the FBI’s waning attention or not remains unclear.

Certain aspects of the craft observed–particularly the glossy white color and the oblong shape–are notable for their similarity to the now-famous “tictac” UFO observed during the equally well known U.S.S. Nimitz UFO incident of 2004 (Commander Dave Fravor, one of the witnesses to this incident, can be heard describing the object in his interview with Joe Rogan here).

Whether or not this truly indicates any continuity between the two object sightings, observed more than half a century apart, can’t be determined from their descriptions alone. The descriptions of their appearance could very likely be superficial, and the possibility that either or both cases might have been experimental aircraft tests cannot be ruled out.

However, it does appear to show that certain aspects of the UFO phenomenon–whatever it ultimately represents–that have been widely discussed in recent months are not particularly new… although that certainly isn’t news to the many of us who have studied this subject for years, if not decades.

It was on December 2, 1952 that the CIA’s Assistant Director H. Marshall Chadwell stated the following to agency personnel: “Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles.” Chadwell did more than that; he prepared the following guidelines for the National Security Council: “The Director of Central Intelligence shall formulate and carry out a program of intelligence and research activities as required to solve the problem of instant positive identification of unidentified flying objects. Upon call of the Director of Central Intelligence, Government departments and agencies shall provide assistance in this program of intelligence and research to the extent of their capacity provided, however, that the DCI shall avoid duplication of activities presently directed toward the solution of this problem. This effort shall be coordinated with the military services and the Research and Development Board of the Department of Defense, with the Psychological Board and other Governmental agencies as appropriate. The Director of Central Intelligence shall disseminate information concerning the program of intelligence and research activities in this field to the various departments and agencies which have authorized interest therein.”

Two days later, the Intelligence Advisory Committee agreed with Chadwell’s plans and made a recommendation that “the services of selected scientists to review and appraise the available evidence in the light of pertinent scientific theories” should be employed. It was as a direct outcome of this development that what became known as the Robertson Panel was created; a group headed by Howard Percy Robertson, who was a highly respected consultant to the Agency. He was also a noted physicist, and the director of the Defense Department Weapons Evaluation Group. It was Chadwell’s job to select a group of individuals who were deemed to be the right people to tackle the UFO problem – which included anxieties concerning Russian propaganda. The group included Luis Alvarez, physicist, radar expert (and later, a Nobel Prize recipient); Frederick C. Durant, CIA officer, secretary to the panel and missile expert; Samuel Abraham Goudsmit, Brookhaven National Laboratories nuclear physicist; and Thornton Page, astrophysicist, radar expert, and deputy director of Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office. In rapid time they plunged into the heart of the mystery.

There have been longstanding rumors in the field of Ufology that the CIA knows all about the truth of the UFO enigma, of the Roswell incident of 1947, and of what really goes down at Area 51. The Robertson Panel’s conclusions, however, suggested that UFOs did not have a direct, significant impact on the United States’ national security. Rather, the major worry of the panel was how the public mindset could, in theory, be affected by bogus tales of UFO encounters – and created and weaved by the Reds. On this very matter, the Robertson Panel recorded these words: “Although evidence of any direct threat from these sightings was wholly lacking, related dangers might well exist resulting from: A. Misidentification of actual enemy artifacts by defense personnel. B. Overloading of emergency reporting channels with ‘false’ information. C. Subjectivity of public to mass hysteria and greater vulnerability to possible enemy psychological warfare [italics mine].”

Clearly, when it came to UFOs, it was those matters concerning “mass hysteria” and “false information” that dominated the thinking of the Robertson Panel. The possible presence of real aliens in the United States seemed to be very much in the background for the CIA. There was also a recommendation that a number of the public UFO investigative groups which existed in the United States at the time should be “watched” carefully due to “the apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes.” For the CIA, “subversive purposes” meant the actions of the Soviets, or, worse, of home-grown-and-groomed communists. Maybe, both. It’s entirely possible that at least some reports of fear-filled encounters with the so-called “Men in Black” in that era may have been provoked by such surveillance. Particularly so if UFO researchers were threatened by fedora-sporting and trench-coat-wearing government agents late at night – which typifies the appearances and actions of the MIB.

One report of a UFO sighting is interesting. A report of a UFO over a refinery is intriguing. Multiple reports of UFOs over the same refinery in a town known for UFO sightings demands attention … and possibly a government or military investigation. Welcome to Ciudad Madero, a Mexican coastal city in southeast Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico where a UFO was seen and recorded by many people, reported by multiple media sites and raised questions about why UFOs seem to be attracted to refineries and mineral mines, especially in Mexico and Central and South America.

“Photographs of an alleged unidentified flying object (UFO) flying over the facilities of the “ Francisco I. Madero ” Refinery in Pemex , in Ciudad Madero , Tamaulipas , have begun to circulate through social networks.

These facts were reported by public transport operators, in addition to the same workers of the parastatal, who recognize that this type of sightings is not something new.”

El Heraldo de Mexico reports that the UFO sighting occurred on October 12 between 6:50 and 7:00 am and was witnessed by numerous workers. Along with photos of the ring of lights above the refinery (see them here), El Heraldo reminds readers of the “urban legend” of an extraterrestrial ship located just offshore of the city that many believe is there to protect it from hurricanes and tropical storms. The El Rrun Rrun blog shows more photos of the sightings and says that the state’s Direccion de Proteccion Civil (Civil Defense) has received over 50 reports of UFOs in Tamaulipas since October 22, 2008.

“Since the terrible catastrophe caused by Hurricane Hilda in 1955, Tampico seems to be immune to natural disasters. A popular belief says that about 800 meters deep at Miramar Beach, located in Ciudad Madero, an extraterrestrial base was established that protects the coast. It is not uncommon to hear tampiqueños talk about strange lights coming out of the sea or flying saucers guarding the city. The belief in extraterrestrial beings has taken so much strength that on that coast the Martian Day is celebrated on the last Tuesday of each month. On one of these Tuesdays, the municipality of Ciudad Madero unveiled a monument to aliens which, unfortunately, was the victim of robbery within a few weeks.”

In 2015, Vice.com interviewed three of the many UFO witnesses in Ciudad Madero who believe the “urban legend” and the BBC talked to members of Tampico UFO Scientific Research Association, including Eduardo Anguiano Ortiz, author of “On UFOs, Ghosts and Other Extraordinary Events” who claimed to have talked to over 100 other UFO witnesses and concluded:

“To doubt the existence of UFOs is to have no intelligence.”

Many people like Guillermo H. Sosa Tovar, who shared the images on Facebook, agree. So do local authorities according to the 2015 BBC article.

“The last time a hurricane that was heading towards the Tampico area was diverted was in 2013. That year, local authorities placed the bust of a Martian in Playa Miramar (which was stolen shortly afterwards) and declared that the Martian’s Day would be celebrated on the last Tuesday of October.”

Guillermo H. Sosa Tovar

12 oktober om 13:54 · 

Ovnis en Cd. Madero, Tamaulipas (Fotos tomadas en este frente frio por unas mujeres maderences cercas de la Refinería)

Juzguen ustedes mismos, existe la creencia que hay una base alienígena a unos kilómetros de la Escollera de Playa Miramar

Vertaling bekijken

Ufologists have long speculated that sightings over refineries, mines and volcanoes – all common in Mexico – could be extraterrestrial ships refueling or getting parts. Skeptics point out that gasoline is a poor fuel for long-distance travel and believe Martian Day is just a way to attract tourists to this poor city. (Did they see how well this worked out on Storm Area 51 weekend?)

Which way to Martian Day?

“I have many friends who have told me about ships leaving the sea. Even other fishermen have told me that when they go out at night or at dawn, they see very large, very powerful lights that follow them on their routes. Many serious people they told me about things that happened to them. I think it was a ship, they visit us.”

A fisherman named Guadalupe told Vice.com why he believes. Did these same visitors hover their craft over the Pemex refinery in Ciudad Madero on October 12? There appears to have been no interviews with the workers and no official explanation given, leaving locals to draw their own conclusions.

“To doubt the existence of UFOs is to have no intelligence.”

What do you think they believe?

It seems that there are some places in this world that just seem to draw UFOs to them. For reasons not yet understood these locations are positively overflowing with such unexplained phenomena, and in many cases they have gone on to become noted hot spots of UFO sightings. One such area lies in the country of Scotland, and it is an area steeped in tales of UFOs, alien encounters, and high strangeness.

What has come to be known as the “Falkirk Triangle” is an amorphously defined area in central Scotland generally accepted as stretching from the the small, quaint town of Bonnybridge, going off east to Fife, and then spanning back west to Stirling, although the borders are rather malleable and are often also seen as enveloping some of the surrounding towns and villages as well. The area itself is mostly rural farmland, rolling hills, moors, and mining villages, not really much to see typically, but the area is know as an absolute hotbed of UFO activity, and ground zero for this seems to be the little village of Bonnybridge itself, which lies not so far from Edinburgh and is often called “The UFO Capital of Scotland.”

Bonnybridge, Scotland

It certainly earns its nickname, as there are allegedly around 300 UFO reports a year from this one little town, with 1 in 3 town residents claiming to have seen something odd in the sky at one point or other, and this phenomenon can be traced back to at least the 1980s, when some high profile sightings put Bonnybridge on the map. One of the earlier big reports came from a fire crew who were fighting a blaze in 1989 when a red glowing orb of light allegedly flew right up to one of the fire trucks before shooting off into the sky, after which a second UFO, this one an intense white light, came down to float over the nearby Loch Ellrig. The objects were witnessed by numerous people who all described the exact same thing.

A perhaps even more well-known account from the town came in 1992, when local businessman James Walker was driving between Falkirk to Bonnybridge on his way home from work and noticed some strange lights in the sky. Walker stopped his car to watch these enigmatic lights move about in the sky, wondering what they could possibly be. He then continued on his way but the lights then allegedly formed a larger, star-shaped object that descended to ominously hover over the lonely road leading off before him, and he stopped his car to look on in puzzlement. As he sat there wondering what to do, the mysterious object then shot off into the night at exhilarating, amazing speed, remaining completely silent the entire time. This report really seemed to open up the floodgates on UFO sightings in the area, and sighting reports began to pour in at an incredible rate. People began to see UFOs prowling the roads outside of town, buzzing cars, hovering in the skies above, and even one reported as landing on a golf course, and suddenly Bonnybridge was getting a reputation as being a UFO magnet.

Another notable case from here supposedly happened in March of 1992, when the Sloggett family was out on a walk in the early morning hours. As they walked along they noticed some strange lights in a ring formation over the moor not too far away, which was enough to spook them into heading back to their home nearby. They would claim that a bright blue light shaped like a football would then pursue them to block their path, and a craft about the size of a house would land right in front of them, after which a door on the craft slid open and from within issued what sounded like a deep roar or growl. The family ran as fast as they could away from this unearthly sight and when they looked back the lights were gone.

Over the next five years, from 1992 to 1997, there would be hundreds of UFO reports in and around Bonnybridge, and there were numerous videos taken of these objects as evidence, with one resident named Craig Malcolm claiming to have taken over 18 hours of video footage of strange lights in the area. Another piece of strange footage was taken by a Mrs. Bonnetti, who filmed a bizarre black triangle flying above her neighbor’s house. The UFO activity became so intense that Cllr. William Buchanan of Falkirk District Council began writing letters to the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Defense expressing his concerns and seeking advice about what to do. It is perhaps no surprise that these pleas fell on deaf ears, and Buchanan would lament, “I have tried to get an answer for the people and have been ridiculed for it.” In the meantime, media attention was fully focused on the little town of Bonnybridge, and UFO talk was all the rage. However, the strangeness was not just confined to this one town, but rather seemed to extend to the surrounding areas as well, and this is where the Falkirk Triangle would begin to come into focus, and it seems that the phenomena even predated the Bonnybridge incidents.

One of the most well-documented and strangest UFO cases in Scottish history came from this area even before all of these encounters began in the area of Livingston, West Lothian. In 1979, a forester named Robert Taylor was at a place called Dechmont Woods, near the M8 motorway, when a “flying dome” appeared over the tree line, so close that Taylor would be able to make out that it was made of a metallic black material. He would then allegedly smell a burning odor, after which two smaller objects dropped from the main craft. At this point the two smaller objects fired a pair of metal rods at him, which attached to his hips, after which Taylor was overcome with the unsettling sensation that he was being pulled towards the strange object.

Shortly after this he awoke on the forest floor and the menacing objects were gone. Disoriented and not knowing whether he had dreamed it all or not, he was soon convinced that something was very wrong when he noticed that his clothes were torn and that he was covered with bruises, as if he had been attacked by someone, but he could not remember anything after that pulling sensation he had felt. He would find that his car would not start, and so he was forced to walk all the way back home, where he would tell of what happened and claim that a UFO had attacked him. Police would go to investigate the scene, and although they did not find any further evidence the torn clothes and Taylor’s general standing as an honest person and reliable witness have made sure that his story has been discussed and debated up to this day, with many holding it up as a genuine case of alien abduction, and the West Lothian area has been a hot spot of UFO activity ever since.

One place within the triangle that would prove to be very odd is the motorway called A70 road, which runs a route between Edinburgh and Ayr, passing right through the Falkirk Triangle. In August of 1992, witnesses Garry Wood and Colin Wright were driving along a stretch of A70 through West Lothian when they had a rather bizarre and terrifying experience near the Harperrig reservoir. It started when they experienced 2 hours of missing time which neither of them could account for, leaving them puzzled as to what had happened. They underwent hypnosis, upon which it was revealed that during that 2 hours they had been taken aboard an alien craft and then brought to some sort of underground base lined with people frozen in glass jars, where they were experimented upon and then released. Weird stuff, indeed.

There is also the nearby mining village of Gorebridge, also mostly considered to lie within the confines of the Falkirk Triangle, and possessing its own tales of strangeness. Here there is an old coal mine called the Blinkbonny Mine, from which some strange reports have come in, such as that of two people hunting for Christmas trees who claimed to have been chased by a “luminous, floating, green eye” coming from the mine. Throughout the 1990s there were numerous reports of UFOs plaguing the residents of Gorebridge, most of it centered around that mine, and it was widely featured in the media at the time. The town was also the origin of several compelling pieces of UFO footage, such as three glowing orbs over a field and another buzzing a 737 jet on its way into Edinburgh Airport, the incident apparently reported by the pilots as well.

Another area of the Falkirk Triangle is the town of Grangemouth, just 3 miles east of Falkirk. In 1991 two photographers at the BP chemicals plant in Grangemouth saw flashing lights circling the Kincardine Bridge, which they at first took to be a helicopter. The object drifted over to the nearby Grangemouth Stadium, where it hovered for several minutes before suddenly dropping with astonishing speed to come rushing right over to hover 300 feet above the witnesses, emitting a pulsing hum before shooting off. This was obviously no helicopter. In 1994, there was also an entire team of cleaners at the Grangemouth oil refinery who would report having seen flashing lights cavorting about in the sky above them.

Other areas of the Falkirk Triangle with numerous weird reports of UFO activity are the town of Larbert near Bonnybridge, the Rosslyn Chapel, and a place called “Newton of Falkland,” near Falkland in Fife, from where there was a truly outlandish 1996 report of a field full of ant-like aliens commanded by taller white entities, the whole scene overshadowed by a massive black triangle covered in twinkling lights, apparently some sort of bizarre mass landing. Interestingly, despite all of this alarming UFO activity in and around the Falkirk Triangle, the government has long been rather nonchalant and uninterested about it all, and indeed in 2009 the Ministry of Defence closed its file on UFO investigations altogether, with one briefing prepared for Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth reading:

[The MoD] should seek to reduce very significantly the UFO task which is consuming increasing resource, but produces no valuable defence output. In more than 50 years no UFO sighting reported to [the MoD] has ever revealed anything to suggest an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat to the UK [and] there is no defence benefit in [MoD] recording, collating, analysing or investigating UFO sightings. Investigations into UFO sightings, even from more reliable sources, serve no useful purpose and merely divert air defence specialists from their primary tasks. Accordingly, no further investigations should be carried out into UFO reports received from any source.

It seems that whatever is going on in the Falkirk Triangle is either being ignored or covered up by the Ministry, and yet enough sightings and encounters come in from the region that it has continually incited discussion as to why this area should have so much such phenomena gravitate towards it. One idea is that the area, for reasons not full understood, serves as some sort of portal through which these beings and their craft can easily travel through from place to place, perhaps even allowing inter-dimensional interlopers to come through the veil into our reality. It could also be that there is some mystical property to the land itself, steeped in history and legend as it is, full of tales of imps, fairies, and other supernatural entities, making this all perhaps more of a paranormal phenomenon dressed up and morphed by our own modern sensibilities and the popularity of UFOs. Andrew Hennessey of Stargate Edinburgh Tours has mused on this, saying:

Is there some ancient connection between history and mythology, between land use of the Falkirk Triangle to the alien-looking events that are unfolding before our very eyes here today, on the ground, under it and in the skies? Is there some sort of timeless pageant or battle being waged between beings of Light and beings of Darkness within this same mysterious Falkirk Triangle?

Of course there are the more mundane explanations. The area is home to several military bases, as well as two busy airports in Edinburgh and Glasgow, so perhaps it is just misidentified aircraft or even experimental craft being tested by the military. The area also has several large oil and chemical plants, the flames of which could perhaps be at the root of some of the reports. Some have even suggested that it is a trick of atmospheric phenomena combined with traffic on the motorways that meander through or even just hallucinations. None of these really fully explain these reports, though. Whatever the case may be, the Falkirk Triangle has remained an intense center of UFO activity in the UK, and continues to stir debate and the imagination.