UFO Study has been set up to sift through the plethora of myth and hearsay to find the truth about the existence of extraterrestrial life and to solve the UFO mystery. We welcome submissions on any aspect of Ufology and Alien life but please be aware planet-flipside’s editors reserve the right to edit all submissions to suit the style of the site. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have an article, picture, or anything which you feel may contribute to furthering our knowledge of this fascinating subject.

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Mary & Ben (Editors)

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The UFO lore woods are full of tales of photos and films taken away for inspection and returned to the source with the “good parts” excised. The first of these cases I ever read was the one about baseball team manager Nick Mariana of Great Falls, Montana who caught the famous movie film of two silvery saucers flying past the water tower. If you’ve seen many UFO TV shows, you have probably seen the Great Falls film.

Nick Mariana and his secretary were looking over the playing field one evening in August of 1950 when they saw the two craft hovering in the distance. Mariana hurried and got his movie camera and reported how by the time he was rolling film, the two craft began moving. The fact that he caught them as they passed behind the water tower made for an eerie-looking piece of film and meant it would later be possible to make some calculations about the size, speed and position of the two objects.

According to UFO researcher Richard Dolan, Mariana had the film developed and then proceeded to show it around town for the next couple of months at friendly gatherings and civic meetings. People were astounded, there was much talk and in October of 1950, Mariana met an Air Force officer to whom he lent the film. Understandably, Mariana was interested in having the Air Force analyze his unusual film. The Air Force’s reply was that the two bright lights were probably jets, or reflections of light off of jet planes. It seems the Air Force borrowed the film again in 1952 and took it to Wright-Patterson Air Force base. It is said the US Navy also looked at the film. And after the trip to Wright-Patterson, Mariana always said the thirty-five “best” frames of his film, which showed the craft as appearing to be very much disc-shaped, were gone! Taken out of the film!

There are some oddities with Mariana’s story about the sighting, so they say. Astoundingly, he seemed to be unsure of the date of the sighting. He originally said it tool place on August 15, then recanted at some point and said it was perhaps August 5. The Air Force supposedly checked the baseball schedule for that summer and upon informing Mariana his team had no home games between August 9 and 18 that season, he decided it must then have been August 5 when he took the film. Why would he and the secretary have not remembered when it happened? Oz Effect? Odd, to be sure, but it doesn’t discredit Mariana.

Mariana also claimed he and his secretary saw, stereotypically enough, two jets in another part of the sky during the sighting. How often jets seem to be “on the chase” when someone has a remarkable UFO catch! Amusingly, when the date of the sighting was thought to be August 15, the Air Force told Mariana he probably had film of jets or jets reflecting light, for two jets had landed nearby at a time which coincided with his sighting and film. So, when it was realized the date must have been August 5, it did some damage to the Air Force’s jets-behind-the-water-tower explanation.

Well, Nick’s film did wind up in Boulder, Colorado as being looked at by the(in) famous Condon Committee of 1968. Even without the thirty-five frames which Mariana thought someone snipped away, the Condon committee concurred with an earlier, admitted-to analysis of the film by Dr. Robert Baker of Douglas Aircraft……the film was not faked. Dr. Baker said the explanation of the strange objects as jets/jets reflecting light was, “quite strained”. Condon didn’t go that far, but they did say the objects were certainly not balloons, meteors or birds.

Myself, I don’t think Mariana hoaxed the film. I don’t think the Air Force thought he did either, or they wouldn’t have relieved it of the best, most “saucery” part. I think it’s fair to add the story of the Great Falls, Montana Film to the pile of indications about how the US military was extremely interested in the mid-century UFOs. They probably did not know what they were. I, personally am not a “Roswell believer”. I don’t think the revelation about saucers crashed at Roswell in July of 1947. I think something crashed there and I think MacBrazel and Jesse Marcel were telling the truth, but the way I see it, the reliable truth may stop right about there. I think throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the US military and their friends in the security of nations business around the world were completely thunderstruck by the UFOs. And I think removing disturbing pictures of the pushy saucers from public view, like the ones Mariana caught, was a matter of duty to an unsuspecting, uninformed public.

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Ghost Rockets

For a fine examination and chronology of the astonishing story of the Ghost Rockets, please click on the above link and visit the bottom of the Wikipedia page about the Ghost Rockets. There you will find a link to Joel Carpenter’s “Tangle of Fear”, an account of this important part of UFO and WW II era history.

What were the Ghost Rockets of the WW II era? Were they missiles, meteors, craft from “beyond”? Some of each? How did they move the way they sometimes did if they were mere missiles? And why were the famous Jimmy Doolittle and David Sarnoff sent from the United States to check them out? And did you know about the scientist from Greece who, long after his involvement, had something pretty interesting to say about the Ghost Rockets?

Let us take a look at the Wikipedia entry for “Ghost Rockets” and create an example for a way to think about UFOs:

The Swedish, or Scandinavian Ghost Rockets of the World War II period are certainly a strange beginning to the “modern” UFO period of the 20th Century. Yes, Kenneth Arnold’s remarkable Mount Ranier sighting, June 1947, one week before Roswell and his subsequent strange experiences with the Maurey Island UFO case are certainly the kickoff to 20th Century UFOlogy. But the summer before, especially in August, there were mysterious objects in the skies over Europe and yes, the US military was very interested in them.

As the above, concise Wikipedia entry describes, there were in Scandanavia and other European nations about 2,000 sightings of these objects during the year 1946. In over 2,000 sightings of these missile-like objects, perhaps 200 of them were radar sightings.

The longstanding explanation is that they were experimental missiles coming from northern Germany. The article also tells us the Ghost Rockets may have been captured German V1s and V2s test flown by Russia. Another explanation is that some sightings were missiles and some were meteors. But as one can see from the Wikipedia entry, no one explanation fits all the facts. This is so often the case with UFO sighting examinations. One reads the sighting reports and is left with the “big four” of UFO explanation possibilities, namely 1. extraterrestrial?, 2. military secrets? or 3. misidentification? Or, 4. a strange combination of the first three.

Were the Ghost Rockets new military items? Many of them very probably were. We now know the Germans were learning to launch and fly cruise missiles (the V1 and V2) and at that time, it was known that there was a base at Peenemunde in northern Germany. Many of the sightings seem to describe missile-like movement, missile-like sound.

Could the Ghost Rockets have been meteors? Yes indeed, some of them could have been. As the Wikipedia states, the yearly Perseid Meteor Shower peaks in August and Wikipedia suggests the Ghost Rocket photo in its entry probably depicts a meteor.

And, could the Ghost Rockets have been alien in origin and why would that be a possibility?

There are two “could they be extraterrestrial” things emphasized in the Wikipedia entry and in the UFO authors’ work cited in the Wikipedia entry (Joel Carpenter, Jerome Clark, Jenny Randles and others ) which we see again and again in examining UFO reports and UFO history, the two things that perpetually keep UFO studies/lore going.

First, there are the parts of the sighting(s) that do not seem to line up with a real-world explanation. Let’s say the Ghost Rockets were indeed guided missiles and they happened to have been a test-flown, back in the summer of 1946, during the yearly Persead Meteor Shower. Perhaps those launching the missiles even had the meteor activity in mind as a screen for their undertakings. That would make good sense and explain a lot. But, some rockets were seen as having wings or fins and others as having none. Some Ghosts were reported to make a noisy rumbling sound yet many, even most, were said to be completely silent. Many of them seemed to fall and crash like a missile, but many were said to fly at very low speeds and maneuver. One notable report told of a Ghost splashing down on a lake and traveling across the surface before sinking.

The Wikipedia entry mentions more of these anomalies which seem to be beyond describing early guided missiles. This has long been the first problem with UFO report examination –the UFO report describes vehicle capabilities “from beyond”. Researchers and interested readers then tend to immediately put such reports in the “from beyond” category and leave them there. This is understandable and in my opinion, not an error, but I truly feel thinking and case examination must not stop there.

The second stunner, after accepting how a report contains technology beyond capability, is seeing how the people in charge reacted to the UFO reports. This Wikipedia entry tells us neatly and clearly about the very high level of US government interest in the Ghost Rockets. With this information in mind, the Ghost Rockets indeed begin to look much more like early cruise missiles than alien visitation. But with the lore and cultural overlay of UFO truth/coverup in mind, governmant interest is often seen as proof the object in question must be from “beyond” or the government would not look into it and then hide the truth from us.

Often, when a story which will be kept secret breaks, there are early inklings of truth in the press. On August 14, 1946, a New York Times story said US Undersec’y of State Dean Atchison and officers in the US Army Air Corps (forerunner orgganization of the US Air Force) wanted to know about the Ghost Rockets. A week later, Generals Jimmy Doolittle and David Sarnoff were in Sweden, ostensably on other business, but actually met with the Swedish government and military officials about the suspected test missiles. It was at this time that it was decided that the objects were indeed new test rockets, that they were coming from Peenemünde on the German Baltic coast and that the Scandanavian flyovers were part of the logical trajectory for aiming missiles into the Gulf of Bothnia. Some of the test objects crashed on land or in water, far short of the ocean. This is perfectly plausible and explains much if true.

But then, as so often in UFO lore, someone had something interesting to say years later.

Here’s what happened:

The following month, September of 1946, the same Ghost Rockets began appearing over Italy, Belgium and especially, Greece and yes, there were some crashes. The Greek government did their own investigation, headed by a man who was at that time, their leading physicist. And here is what Paul Santorini said:
“We soon established that they were not missiles. But, before we could do any more, the Army, after conferring with foreign officials [U.S. Defense Dept.], ordered the investigation stopped. Foreign scientists [from Washington] flew to Greece for secret talks with me.” Later Santorini told UFO researchers such as Raymond Fowler that secrecy was invoked because officials were afraid to admit of a superior technology against which we have “no possibility of defense.” (Good, 23; Keyhoe, 142) ”

Now, Raymond Fowler was a leading American UFO writer in the 1960s and he went on to endorse the Allagash Abductions and Betty Luca. In my opinion, if Santorini was talking to Raymond Fowler about the Ghost Rockets, it would not have been an objective conversation…it would have been about the Ghost Rockets being from outer or ( as some people think today) inner space. And Mr. Santorini’s words do not help much to clear things up. Instead, they help propell the long-gone Ghost Rockets into the “from beyond” pile of UFO sightings and leave them there.

What about the slow-speed maneuverability of the Ghost Rockets, the kind of movement which makes us think there was somebody using them to look around, somebody controlling them? Unfortunately, is happened a long time ago and those frightening turns and swoops are the stuff of legend now. In short, they were frightening objects and startled observers could have gotten it wrong or seen much more than was actually happening.

Or maybe not. The sad part is, we cannot know now. Earliest of UFOs, looking at us? Earliest of cruise missiles, fizzling and spurting? A few hard, bright meteor sightings to further confound the figuring?

The Ghost Rocket Run of Scandanavia was the first great sighting spate of the 20th Century. It shows us, in characteristic UFO business fashion, how hard it is to separate fact from fright, military secret from government cover-up, indentification from misidentification and seemingly-correct “from beyond” conclusions away from the constant possibility that even though a sighting may be very strange, even bizarre, things may not always be what they seem.

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What are "the UFOs"?

What were the “tin things”of the 1950s and 1960s which inspired the writings and comments of UFO writers like Frank Edwards and Dr. Hyneck? Why was there a call in the mid-twentieth century for civilian UFO organizations like APRO, NICAP? What are the Black Triangles we see today?

Where does the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFO origin lead us? Nowhere, really, except into speculation.

Is there, as UFO writer Richard Dolan said, a “hidden technological arc”, hovercraft technology well-guarded, kept from general knowledge for years now? Again, mere speculation.

Are the UFOs from inner space, from Planet Earth, time machines from another dimension? People speculate about this as well.

If any or all of the above three hypotheses are/were true, it would explain so much. But as things stand nowadays, we cannot know.

What are UFOs in western culture? What are they in, say, Dubai? This we can look at. There are piles of material to go through, but again, if we leave aside faith-based feelings about what UFOs are, then we can examine them in a meaningful way .

What are UFOs in history? We can look at milestone occurrences, notable cases and the work of careful researchers and writers.

But as anyone who looks at UFO information knows, the great problem in looking at UFO material is pulling facts out of the matrix of faith-based beliefs, hoax, misinterpretation and error. The great problem in looking at UFO hoax and misinformation is often figuring who the hoaxer is…and why.

Ultimately, we do not know right now, what “the UFOs” are. We may never know. Yes, there are peoples’ personal experiences, channelings and such which explain the UFOs. But those are the tales which need to be taken on faith. Such reports and stories deserve to be heard, logged, kept on record. And there are UFO whistleblowers and disclosers –but were they, through no fault of their own, presented with misinformation…..or could they be hoaxing?

But in looking at UFO history, at UFO sighting reports past and present, the facts are important. These details deserve to be heard, logged, kept carefully for future research, free of faith-based feelings about what “the UFOs” may be.

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This case more than any other has baffled me from the first time I read of it…..

On May 23rd 1964 on the Solway Firth (English side) - Jim Templeton a firefighter from Carlisle took a picture of his daughter clutching a bunch of flowers. There was only her in the shot when he took it….imagine his surprise then when the picture was developed and this is what he saw…..

Now you might think - just someone walking by, or ‘double exposure’ - except that Templeton swears no-one else was there and he would NOT take a pic of his daughter with a spaceman sticking out of her head lol….and Kodak confirmed that the film had not been tampered with in any way. Indeed Kodak were so concerned that they offered a lifetime supply of film to anyone who could solve the mystery….Templeton then recalls how he was harrassed by Men In Black for several weeks after the image became public…..

And just when you thought that was all - what happened next?

At Woomera in Australia the countdown to firing the unmanned ‘Blue streak’ missile was taking place on the same day the Templeton picture was taken….the launch was aborted when two of the controllers spotted two ’spacemen’ wandering across the launch pad….the place was searched but nothing and no-one could be found - however the closing down of a multi million pound launch was no ’small matter’ - Fortunately the ’spacemen’ were captured on film….some time later the two controllers saw the Templeton pic and swore that what they saw were men dressed in exactly the same outfits as in the pic with the little girl - the filmed images backed this up.

All of the recordings on the film are still available from Woomera - except one can of film….the one showing the spacemen….

Now it gets even more bizarre - the ‘Blue Streak’ rockets although used by Australia and launched from Australia were built in Britain - just three miles from where Templeton took the picture of his daughter…..remember all this happened on the same day but in two different parts of the world.

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France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades.

The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.

“It is a world first,” said Jacques Patenet, the aeronautical engineer who heads the office for the study of “non-identified aerospatial phenomena.”

Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption.

“Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper” are clearly not worth investigating, said Patenet.

But many others involving multiple sightings — in at least one case involving thousands of people across France — and evidence such as burn marks and radar trackings showing flight patterns or accelerations that defy the laws of physics are taken very seriously.

A phalanx of beefy security guards formed a barrier in front of the space agency (CNES) headquarters where the announcement was made, “to screen out uninvited UFOlogists,” an official explained.

Of the 1,600 cases registered since 1954, nearly 25 percent are classified as “type D”, meaning that “despite good or very good data and credible witnesses, we are confronted with something we can’t explain,” Patenet said.

On January 8, 1981 outside the town of Trans-en-Provence in southern France, for example, a man working in a field reported hearing a strange whistling sound and seeing a saucer-like object about 2.5 meters (eight feet) in diameter land in his field about 50 meters (yards) away.

A dull-zinc grey, the saucer took off, he told police, almost immediately, leaving burn marks. Investigators took photos, and then collected and analyzed samples, and to this day no satisfactory explanation has been made.

The nearly 1,000 witness who said they saw flashing lights in the sky on November 5, 1990, by contrast, had simply seen a rocket fragment falling back into earth’s atmosphere.

Patenet’s answer to questions about evidence of life beyond Earth was sure to inflame the suspicions of those convinced the government is holding back: “We do not have the least proof that extra-terrestrials are behind the unexplained phenomena.”

But then he added: “Nor do we have the least proof that they aren’t.”

The CNES fields between 50 and 100 UFO reports ever year, usually written up by police. Of these, 10 percent are the object of on-site investigations, Patenet said.

Other countries collect data more or less systematically about unidentified flying objects, notably in Britain and in the United States, where information can be requested on a case-by-case basis under the Freedom of Information Act.

“But we decided to do it the other way around and made everything available to the public,” Patenet said.

The aim was to make it easier for scientists and other UFO buffs to access the data for research.

The website itself — which crashed host servers hours after it was unveiled due to heavy traffic — is extremely well organized and complete, even including scanned copies of police reports.

To visit the website: www.cnes-geipan.fr.

Source…

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The former Governor of Arizona has come out with an admission that he believes the Phoenix lights were indeed a UFO. This is in stark contrast to his initial statements a decade ago.

As reported on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/play…ix.lights.ktvk

Here is another short blurb and what may be the best video of the “craft” seen in the Phoenix area in March of 1997. This video may work for some people and may not for others, sorry about that. It’s best to view it on Windows media player. It is worth it to try to get it to work.

http://www.azfamily.com/sharedconten…rain_15_383863

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Mystery surrounds claims that jets from RAF Lakenheath were called to intercept a UFO.
UFO experts claim to have a recording which they have posted on the internet as proof that London Military Air Traffic Control contacted a flight of US Air Force
F-15s from the base, after a UFO was picked up on their radar on January 12.

But air traffic control denies making the call – and RAF Lakenheath will not comment without having more detail over the alleged incident.

Steve Johnson, features writer for UFO Data Magazine, said: “We are still looking into it and we have made a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Defence and have also contacted RAF Lakenheath – but they haven’t got back to us yet.”

The magazine and UFO Monitors East Kent are analysing an audio file picked up by radio enthusiasts purporting to be a call made by London Military Air Traffic Control to a crew of F-15s flying out of RAF Lakenheath.

They claim it tells the American airmen to intercept an unknown target at 3,000 to 4,000ft.

The F-15s get a radar lock on the target and make a ‘pass’ at 17,000ft and then again at 17,700ft.

Pilots described the black rock like object as unlike any aircraft they have ever seen.

“One pilot was heard to say to another: ‘Did you see that?’ And the other replied: ‘Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it,” said Chris Rolfe, of UFO Monitors East Kent.

It is also claimed that the object occasionally appeared to come to a complete halt.

UFO monitors are unable to give a location or a time for the incident, saying only that it happened in the afternoon.
The base itself said it was unable to look into the incident without these details.

A spokesman for London Military Air Traffic Control said: “I’ve spoken with both the civil and military supervisors at London Control. Neither has any record of an intercept request on or around January 12 – and intercept requests are recorded – so I cannot verify this account.”

You can hear the audio file for yourself at www.ufodata.co.uk – click on F-15s UFO incident.

Source

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On the 23 of November, 1953, US Air Traffic Control detected an unknown object flying in US air space 160 miles northwest of Kinross Air Force Base and near Lake Superior. Almost immediately, the USAF scrambled a F-89 jet fighter on an air defense mission to intercept the unknown object.

Excerpt from report:

Aircraft took off at 2322 (11:22 pm) Zebra 23 Nov 53 on an active Air Defense Mission to intercept an unknown aircraft approximately 160 miles Northwest of Kinross Air Force Base. The aircraft was under radar control throughout the interception. At approximately 2352 Zebra the last radio contact was made by the radar station controlling the interception. At approximately 2355 Zebra the unknown aircraft and the F-89 merged together on the radar scope. Shortly thereafter the IFF signal disappeared from the radar scope. No further contact was established with the F-89. (censored by USAF) An extensive aerial search has revealed no trace of the aircraft. The aircraft and its crew are still missing.
(full report and more http://www.cufon.org/kinross/Kinross_acc_rept.htm)

US officials would later claim that the unknown object was a Canadian air craft. Canada denies any aircraft being flown in the vicinity.

In 2005, a dive company in Michigan decided to search for the downed F-89. After obtaining radar and search grids of the suspected crash site, they began to sweep Lake Superior with sonar. On their first sweep, they located the missing jet fighter. It was determined that the left wing and a portion of the tail had been sheared off. However, the company could not locate the missing pieces.

Sonar also detected a metallic object approximately 215 feet from the downed fighter. The object is tear drop in shape and seems to have plowed into the lake bed. This evidenced from the plow mark behind the object and the pushed up sand to the fore of the object. A generous portion of the object may be buried. The visible portion of the object is 15 feet long and 8.4 feet across. The object is said to have a strike mark which matches the F-89’s wing and it is suspected that the sheared off wing may actually rest under the object.

The following photograph of the object was released…

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UFO Study has been set up to sift through the plethora of myth and hearsay to find the truth about the existence of extraterrestrial life and to solve the UFO mystery. We welcome submissions on any aspect of Ufology and Alien life but please be aware planet-flipside’s editors reserve the right to edit all submissions to suit the style of the site. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have an article, picture, or anything which you feel may contribute to furthering our knowledge of this fascinating subject.

Enjoy.

Mary & Ben (Editors)

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