Many people unacquainted with the complexities of the UFO puzzle assume that all talk of attempts by “the government” to silence certain players in the field is nothing but outright paranoia and lies. Even within Ufology there are those who dismiss such stories as X-Files-like nonsense. How wrong they all are. Published in 2005, Greg Bishop’s book, Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth, provided the field of UFO research with what was without doubt one if its most important contributions in years.

The subject matter of Project Beta was an unusual one; and while seasoned researchers were already aware of certain aspects of this dark and ultimately tragic affair, those unaccustomed to the events in question might have been forgiven for thinking that they had stumbled upon a high-tech, X-Files-meets-Robert Ludlum-style thriller. But Project Beta told a very real story – one that was as harrowing as it was informative.

In essence, the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction book related the saga of physicist Paul Bennewitz, who, after digging into Air Force and National Security Agency secret projects at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico in the late 1970s that he believed were connected to the activities of sinister extraterrestrials and UFOs, was put under deep surveillance by the US military and intelligence services, and was bombarded by the murky world of officialdom with a mass of disinformation, faked stories and outright lies in order to divert him from his research – which worked. In fact, it worked rather too well, and led to the mental and psychological disintegration of Bennewitz.

While everyone with an interest in UFOs should read Greg Bishop’s book, it will not please all – particularly those who are of the opinion that aliens inhabit underground bases in the United States, that cattle mutilations are the work of sinister extraterrestrials, or that the rumors of government-alien collusion have a firm basis in reality. As Greg skillfully demonstrated, many of the cornerstones upon which today’s ufological lore are built, had their origins in the fertile minds of military intelligence and the behind-the-scenes, spook-brigade.

Much of the UFO “truth” fed to the research community by purported and sympathetic insiders and whistleblowers might not be “out there” after all. It may all be one big con behind which a veritable plethora of classified, military projects have been hidden – and, in the Bennewitz caper, projects specifically focused upon NSA communications systems, test flights (and possibly crashes) of early, prototype Stealth aircraft, and Air Force technologies designed to track the orbital movements of space satellites launched by the former Soviet Union.

As Project Beta skillfully revealed, Bennewitz had come to the conclusion that the collective operations described above were related to the activities of extraterrestrials, when in reality the truth was far more down to earth, although most certainly not in a mundane fashion. The book demonstrated that the Intelligence community cared not a bit that Bennewitz thought that their secret operations were UFO-related – precisely because the UFO connection was one of Bennewitz’s own making.

However, there was deep concern on the part of the world of officialdom that by digging into classified activities at Kirtland in search of UFOs, Bennewitz would inadvertently reveal – to the Soviets, in a worst-case scenario – information and technology that had to be kept secret at all costs, even if those costs included Bennewitz’s own sanity.

And so a plan was initiated: Having learned the essential parts of Bennewitz’s theories – very ironically from the man himself, by actually breaking into his home while he was out and checking his files and research notes – that aliens were mutilating cattle as part of some weird medical experiment; that they were abducting American citizens and implanting them with devices for purposes unknown; that those same aliens were living deep underground in a secure fortress at Dulce, New Mexico; and that we were all very soon going to be in deep and dire trouble as a direct result of the presence of this brewing, intergalactic threat, the Air Force gave Bennewitz precisely what he was looking for – confirmation that his theories were all true, and more.

Of course, this was all just a carefully-planned ruse to bombard Bennewitz with so much faked UFO data in the hope that it would steer him away from the classified military projects of a non-UFO nature that he had uncovered. And, indeed, it worked.

When Bennewitz received conformation (albeit carefully controlled and utterly fabricated confirmation) that, yes, he had stumbled upon the horrible truth and that, yes, there really was an alien base deep below Dulce, the actions of the Intelligence community had the desired effect: Bennewitz became increasingly paranoid and unstable, and he began looking away from Kirtland (the hub of the secrets that had to be kept) and harmlessly towards the vicinity of Dulce, where his actions, research, and theories could be carefully controlled and manipulated by the Government.

As long-time watchers of the ufological research scene will be aware, American Intelligence even brought Bill Moore (co-author with Charles Berlitz of the 1980 book, The Roswell Incident) into the scheme and asked him to keep them informed of how their disinformation operations against Bennewitz were working. In return, Moore was promised – and provided with – data and documents on super-secret, official UFO projects, crashed saucers, dead aliens, and more.

After informing a shocked and outraged audience at the 1989 Symposium of the Mutual UFO Network with the details of his involvement in keeping the Intelligence community informed of how their disinformation campaign against Bennewitz was working, Moore largely retired from the UFO scene. Similarly, the official disinformation operation that targeted Bennewitz resulted in his hospitalization, after he was driven to a near-complete mental collapse. This may have been the full intent all along: to crush Bennewitz, and to keep Moore busy chasing similar officially created lies and half-truths about UFOs.

You think officialdom won’t do whatever may be deemed necessary in the name of national security? Read Project Beta and you’ll almost certainly find yourself changing your mind – drastically so, too…

(The images used in this post are for illustration purposes only)

Many have speculated in the decades following the end of the Second World War that the Axis Powers–namely Nazi Germany–had been involved in the secret production of highly advanced technology and exotic aircraft. According to various sources of rumor and speculation, some of these advanced aircraft, variously believed to have been jet-propelled saucers and possibly even “alienesque” field propulsion discs, were given names such as the “Hannebu” and “Vril,” the latter of these drawing from the ancient traditions of esoterica that many among Hitler’s ranks drew heavily from, both in terms of inspiration, as well as mystical and technological knowledge.

The idea that the Nazis may have been utilizing advanced technologies toward the end of the war is an intriguing prospect indeed. After all, the Ally’s most advanced aircraft had still yet to employ the the use of swept-wing designs and other more efficient construction that the Nazis were indeed exploring already. However, those inclined toward paranoia might wonder if there were other things Hitler’s scientists and aeronautics engineers might have been developing… and perhaps even strangest of all, if there is any existing potential that any such craft or other technologies might have somehow continued on, carefully (and conveniently) behinds the scenes of mainstream science.

This idea, however strange it seems, has obviously remained popular enough, at least, to have garnered Hollywood’s attention; hence the upcoming release of the farcical new alternative history/Scifi yarn Iron Sky features the concept heavily, drawing from the idea of Nazis who had gone into hiding on the dark side of Earth’s moon, in order to regroup and institute an elaborate and several-decades-long plan for revenge against the Earth that scorned them during the 1940s.

This, of course, is wholly fictional; and yet, the notion that Nazi technology and advanced physics they may have been investigating toward the end of the war has nonetheless served well as an alternative, in the minds of some, with regard to the origins of UFO craft witnessed since the late 1940s. For many, this notion seems more plausible than the idea that exotic lifeforms might be the forces behind what may, in fact, only appear to be highly-exotic aircraft seen above Earth at various times. This is likely because the idea of alien visitors, while intriguing, remains an area that is largely unquantifiable in terms of there being any scientific proof to back such claims. On the other hand, while we may never know to what real extent Nazi scientists may have been involved in projects that dealt with such things as anti-gravity, field propulsion systems, and other highly advanced technology, there is little question as to whether they would have shown interest in such things. Again, the question regarding the entire Nazi UFO question is this: how plausible is it that technologies as advanced as what do seem to be described in modern UFO reports could not only have been developed here on Earth, but were already in existence by the end of the 1950s?

During a recent edition of The Gralien Report Podcast, I discussed the various curious potentials associated with the Nazi UFO mythos during an interview with author Joseph P. Farrell, who put things in no uncertain terms: while there is evidence that certain files and documents released over the years may have some relation to alleged “Nazi sciences” of yesteryear, there is very little evidence that anything akin to what we see in films like Iron Sky will have any direct relevance to the reality of the situation. In other words, to suppose that UFOs might emanate from decades-old Nazi science is probably even less likely than to suppose that there may be an extraterrestrial link to the UFO equation.

Of course, when we take into consideration all the potential ties to underground Antarctic bases, strange experiments taking place during the Third Reich, and high-strangeness claims that involve the ongoing and multi-faceted UFO mythos, there will always be proponents of there being some esoteric Nazi connection to the greater UFO mystery… however unlikely the evidence for this may be in reality.

What constitutes a good, solid and credible UFO incident? That’s a very good question, and one I get asked now and again. Well, my answer would be that such a case would, ideally, have the support of a number of witnesses, some form of evidence that can be analyzed, and on the record individuals whose words we can refer to and study. And, for me, this is typified by a highly notable affair that falls into this particular category, and which will be celebrating its 60th anniversary in just a few months from now…

On both July 19 and 20, 1952, there were repeated sightings of unknown aerial objects in the Washington, D.C., airspace, something that, on July 24, led USAF Major General John A. Samford to state in a Secret memorandum for the attention of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations: “We are interested in these reports in that we must always on the alert for any threat or indication of a threat to the United States. We cannot ignore these reports but the mild hysteria subsequent to publicity given this subject causes an influx of reports which since the 19th of July has almost saturated our ‘Emergency’ procedures.”

The situation really escalated after the weekend of July 26-27. A two-page USAF document, prepared only days later, related the facts: “This incident involved unidentified targets observed on the radar scopes at the Air Route Traffic Control Center and the tower, both at Washington National Airport, and the Approach Control Radar at Andrews Air Force Base. In addition, visual observations were reported to Andrews and Bolling AFB and to ARTC Center, the latter by pilots of commercial aircraft and one CAA aircraft…”

The report continues:

“Varying numbers (up to 12 simultaneously) of u/i targets on ARTC radar scope. Termed by CAA personnel as ‘generally solid returns’, similar to a/c except slower. Mr. Bill Schreve, flying a/c NC-12 reported at 2246 EDT that he had visually spotted 5 objects giving off a light glow ranging from orange to white; his altitude at time was 2,200’. Some commercial pilots reported visuals ranging from ‘cigarette glow’ to a ‘light…”

And the deep strangeness only continued, as the USAF noted:

“ARTC crew commented that, as compared with u/i returns picked up in early hours of 20 July 52, these returns appeared to be more haphazard in their actions, i.e. they did not follow a/c around nor did they cross scope consistently on same general heading. Some commented that the returns appeared to be from objects ‘capable of dropping out of the pattern at will’. Also that returns had ‘creeping appearance’. One member of crew commented that one object to which F-94 was vectored just ‘disappeared from Scope’ shortly after F-94 started pursuing. All crew members emphatic that most u/i returns have been picked up from time to time over the past few months but never before had they appeared in such quantities over such a prolonged period and with such definition as was experienced on the nights of 19/20 and 26/27 July 1952.”

Although the portions extracted from this report speak for themselves, let us now examine an official transcript of a conversation, dated July 26, between staff at Washington National Airport and personnel from Andrews Air Force Base at the time of the sightings:

Wash: “Andrews Tower, do you read? Did you have an airplane in sight west-northwest or east of your airport eastbound?”

Andr: “No, but we just got a call from the Center. We’re looking for it.”

Wash: “We’ve got a big target showing up on our scope. He’s just coming in on the west edge of your airport – the northwest edge of it eastbound. He’ll be passing right through the northern portion of your field on an east heading. He’s about a quarter of a mile from the northwest runway – right over the edge of your runway now.”

Andr: “This is Andrews. Our radar tracking says he’s got a big fat target out here northwest of Andrews. He says he’s got two more south of the field.”

Wash: “Yes, well the Center has about four or five around the Andrews Range Station. The Center is working a National Airlines – the Center is working him and vectoring him around his target. He went around Andrews. He saw one of them – looks like a meteor…went by him…or something. He said he’s got one about three miles off his right wing right now. There are so many targets around here it is hard to tell as they are not moving very fast.”

Within a matter of hours of hearing of the events of July 26-27, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover instructed N.W. Philcox, the FBI’s Air Force liaison representative, to determine what had taken place and to ascertain the Air Force’s opinions on the UFO subject as a whole.

On July 29, Philcox made arrangements through the office of the Director of Air Intelligence, Major General John A. Samford, to meet with Commander Randall Boyd of the Current Intelligence Branch, Estimates Division, Air Intelligence, regarding “the present status of Air Intelligence research into the numerous reports regarding flying saucers and flying discs.”

Although the Air Force was publicly playing down the possibility that UFOs were anything truly extraordinary, Philcox was advised that “at the present time the Air Force has failed to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion in its research regarding numerous reports of flying saucers and flying discs sighted throughout the United States.”

Philcox was further informed that Air Intelligence had set up at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, the Air Technical Intelligence Center, which had been established in part for the purpose of “coordinating, correlating and making research into all reports regarding flying saucers and flying discs.”

As Philcox listened very carefully to what Boyd had to say on the matter, he noted that the Air Force had placed their UFO reports into three definable categories. In the first instance there were those sightings “which are reported by citizens who claim they have seen flying saucers from the ground. These sightings vary in description, color and speeds. Very little credence is given to these sightings inasmuch as in most instances they are believed to be imaginative or some explainable object which actually crossed through the sky.”

Philcox then learned that the second category of encounters proved to be of greater significance: “Sightings reported by commercial or military pilots. These sightings are considered more credible by the Air Force inasmuch as commercial or military pilots are experienced in the air and are not expected to see objects which are entirely imaginative. In each of these instances, the individual who reports the sightings is thoroughly interviewed by a representative of Air Intelligence so that a complete description of the object can be obtained.”

The third category of encounters, Boyd advised Philcox, were those where, in addition to a visual sighting by a pilot, there was corroboration either from a ground-based source or by radar. Philcox wrote to Hoover: “Commander Boyd advised that this latter classification constitutes two or three per cent of the total number of sightings, but that they are the most credible reports received and are difficult to explain.”

“In these instances,” Philcox was told, “there is no doubt that these individuals reporting the sightings actually did see something in the sky.” And to demonstrate that Boyd was well acquainted with the UFO issue on a worldwide scale, he confided in Philcox that “sightings have also recently been reported as far distant as Acapulco, Mexico, Korea and French Morocco… the sightings reported in the last classification have never been satisfactorily explained.”

The commander then came out with a true bombshell, as Philcox noted in his report on the meeting: “[Boyd] advised that it is not entirely impossible that the objects may possibly be ships from another planet such as Mars.”

Clearly, within both the military and the Intelligence community of the day, there was deep concern about the Washington events – something which led to the development of startling and intriguing theories, and the analysis of countless data. So, collectively, this is why – in my opinion – the July 1952 encounters over the nation’s capital were evidence of true unknowns in our very midst…

On a fairly frequent basis, I get asked if I think there could be one or more “secret government files” on me. Well, as someone who writes about UFOs in terms of what officialdom knows about the subject, I can never say for sure that such files do not exist. And, one of the reasons for this is that the Freedom of Information Act has clearly demonstrated that certain authors of books on the UFO subject have indeed been secretly watched by officialdom – even to the extent of having their books reviewed by government agencies!

Although not widely known, the FBI has on various occasions taken more than a passing interest in monitoring publications on the UFO subject. To illustrate this, June 1966 saw the first printing by Lyle Stuart Publishers of Frank Edwards’ book, Flying Saucers – Serious Business. By October of that year, Edwards’ book was in its third printing.

On 16 October, it was announced in the This World supplement of the San Francisco-based newspaper The Examiner & Chronicle that the Congressional Representative of Michigan (and later US President) Gerald Ford, was pressing for Congress to look into the UFO matter. It was also announced that the US Air Force had commissioned a University of Colorado physics professor named Edward U. Condon to conduct an in-depth study of unidentified flying objects.

An FBI memo of 19 October 1966 stated: “…The [This World] article also points out that since last summer pressure has been mounting for the establishment of an independent, civilian controlled investigative agency to look into the UFO problem…[Edwards’ book] is probably a contributing factor to the current controversy.”

That both Edwards and his book were of interest to the FBI is something spelled out further in the 3-page Bureau document of 19 October, which – given its significance and relevance – I will quote at length:

“In [Flying Saucers – Serious Business] Edwards points out that flying saucers were observed in the spring of 1946, in Scandinavia and Russia (which he points out is about a year from the date of the testing of the Alamogordo atomic bomb), and the book documents many reports throughout the world of UFOs since that date, and claims that 1965 was the year of the greatest number of UFO sightings and that these were observed by multiple witnesses.

“It is author Edwards’ contention that UFOs are space vehicles sent to observe activities on earth and the Air Force, which is charged with the responsibility of investigating UFOs, has deliberately withheld information and given misleading explanations because it was fears a mass panic by the public if the public were told the truth.

“The book describes UFOs as polished metal objects, radiating heat and light (sufficient to have burned witnesses who were too near), and emitting some force field that interferes with electromagnetic instruments and power sources. Colors range from brilliant white to dull reds and brilliant orange. Some objects have carried blinking lights. There are three basic shapes: 1) Zeppelin-shaped ships up to 300 feet long; 2) disk-shaped objects ranging from a few feet in diameter to 100 feet, with many reported at about 30 feet diameter; and 3) egg-shaped objects, which according to the author are the ones most recently sighted.

“According to the book, the objects move silently and attain fantastic speeds, yet can hover motionless in mid-air; they have been reported to land and take off with great speed, usually with a burst of light from the underside, which in some cases has left the ground beneath them scorched.

“Many of the persons named in the book who have reported them are reliable individuals, including law enforcement officers, military personnel on official duty, military pilots, commercial airline pilots, civilian defense officials, etc. A number of photographs of the objects have been reproduced in the book, some reportedly taken by reputable persons. Many reported sightings are from atomic and missile research areas.

“Wreckage of crashed saucers has been reportedly recovered on at least three occasions, in one case described as a magnesium alloy, in another as pure magnesium, and in a third case, attributed to an official of the Canadian government, the material was described as an exceptionally hard unknown metal, actually a matrix of magnesium orthosilicate which contained thousands of 15-micron spheres throughout, and showing evidence of micro-meteorites on its surface.

“A few witnesses have reported seeing crewmen who have landed from the objects, who are described as three and a half to four feet tall, wearing what appear to be space suits and helmets.”

The FBI noted, in their final words on the matter: “Author Edwards concludes this book with a prediction that in the near future UFOs will make an ‘overt landing’ or deliberate contact with earth. A copy of this letter is being directed to Denver, in view of the contract to Dr. Edward U. Condon. The above is being called to the Bureau’s attention in view of the press report of mounting pressure for a civilian controlled investigative agency to handle UFO matters.”

Having discussed the issue of UFOs with a number of journalists in the mainstream media, I know that many view the hypothesis that government and intelligence agencies are taking an interest in the activities of civilian UFO researchers as little more than paranoia. Yet, as the remarkably detailed document cited above makes clear, those of us that enter the field of UFO research and begin publishing the details of our discoveries, can expect to soon attract the attention of the official world…

Last fall, a series of strange circumstances had befallen a number of students in the Le Roy Central School District in New York. Tests were being performed on soil and other for various molds and quality of air, in addition to the potential for side effects resulting from a number of drugs and vaccines, with hope of confirming some cause for various kinds of strange behavior erupting among a handful of students.

In total, twelve children had begun displaying odd “symptoms,” described primarily as “tics and impulsive verbal outbursts” similar to the popular neurological disorder Tourette’s syndrome. And yet, despite concerns (and even widespread belief among parents) that there may have been environmental agents acting on these students, no evidence was ever found as to what, precisely, had been causing the disruptive behavior.

The situation hadn’t drawn as much attention since news first broke during the latter portion of last year, that is, until Monday morning when Reuters news service carried a story describing that three more individuals have been added to the list of students affected by the “mystery illness.” District Superintendent Kim Cox addressed the strange circumstances publicly over the weekend, according to the Reuters report; for the time being, amidst continued concern over what may be causing the strange behavior among students, a familiar old explanation has sifted its way to the surface: we’re obviously dealing with mass hysteria here.

Hysteria cannot be ruled out as a cause for these strange, repetitive instances of odd behavior among certain demographic groups, though it does seem to play the roll of a “catch-all” excuse that is tossed out when all other reasonable explanations fail. For instance, in 2007 an almost identical set of circumstances to that witnessed in New York during the last several months had been afflicting a small number of female students at a high school in Roanoke, Virginia. According to the Associated Press, the school district spent a total that may have exceeded $30,000 performing environmental tests, which found no evidence of any contaminants or other factors that could contribute to the behavior. A similar series of events took place in 2002 in North Carolina, where ten teenagers—all girls—reportedly began suffering from “epileptic seizures and fainting.” No environmental causes were found here, either.

The attribution of mass hysteria, or even psychosis, has seen prevalence elsewhere in recent weeks, with some now claiming that an entirely different kind of mystery virus—the so-called Morgellon’s disease—may be a form of psychosis. The strange condition, which some reports link with diseases carried by deer ticks such as Lyme disease, features it’s own host of bizarre symptoms; these include “crawling” sensations on or beneath the skin, in addition to strange “fibers” that appear to be growing from sores appearing on the skin. However, controversy has stemmed from reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who claim to have discovered “no environmental or physical cause for the cases.” Furthermore, conversion disorder, a form of neurosis that often includes the presence of symptoms like blindness and paralysis, has been cited as a possible underlying cause for some patient’s perception of having Morgellon’s-like symptoms.

Can all the reports of such “mystery” illnesses be attributed to mass hysteria and obscure neurological disorders? Also, can we truly rule out the possibility that a potentially dangerous condition might exist, simply because various studies in the past have sought to find “alternative” explanations for them? Indeed, there are a number of problems that can arise from limiting causes of an unknown or little-understood condition to those of the psychosomatic variety; chief among these are the way that doing so may run the risk of allowing a potentially real disorder or disease to continue or proliferate, while remaining largely untreated. Mass hysteria, in the absence of other substantial evidence, may be a convenient explanation, as well as being in keeping with general scientific approaches to diagnoses… but does that mean it’s an accurate one?

In early July 1947, something very unusual plunged to earth on the Foster Ranch, located in the wilds of Lincoln County, New Mexico, not far from the now-infamous town of Roswell. The event has been the subject of dozens of books, official studies undertaken by both the General Accounting Office and the U.S. Air Force, a plethora of television documentaries, a Hollywood movie, and considerable media scrutiny.

The admittedly-odd saga has left in its wake a near-mountain of theories to explain the event, including a weather balloon, a Project Mogul balloon secretly utilized to monitor for Soviet atomic-bomb tests, an extraterrestrial spacecraft, some dark and dubious high-altitude-exposure experiment using Japanese prisoners-of-war, a near-catastrophic atomic-bomb-based mishap, the crash of a V-2 rocket with shaved monkeys on-board, and an accident involving an early “Flying-Wing”-style aircraft, secretly built by transplanted German scientists who had relocated to the United States following the end of World War Two.

And, as I’m sure many of you will be aware, last year yet another theory for the Roswell affair surfaced. The latest story appeared in Annie Jacobsen’s Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base. The book included details of a sensational story suggesting that the Roswell craft and bodies were, in reality, the diabolical creations of a near-Faustian pact between the notorious Nazi (and “Angel of Death),” Dr. Josef Mengele and Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin.

The purpose of this early Cold War plan, so the book told it, was to plunge the United States into a kind of War of the Worlds-style panic (echoing the Orson Welles affair of 1938) by trying to convince the U.S. Government that aliens were invading. And how would the plan work? By placing grossly mutated children (courtesy of the crazed Mengele) inside a futuristic-looking aircraft designed by the brilliant aviation experts, the Horten brothers, and then try and convince the U.S. of the alien origins of both.

Unfortunately for Stalin, the plot failed when a storm brought down the craft and its “crew” in the wilds of New Mexico, an event that did not lead to widespread panic, but that instead was hastily covered-up by U.S. military authorities.

Is the story true? Was Jacobsen duped? Is it a blend of fact and fiction specifically weaved by government insiders to even further confuse the true nature of what did, or did not, happen outside of Roswell back in the summer of 1947? The questions are many, but definitive answers are less so. But, there’s something else I want to talk about; something that is highly relevant to this particular saga.

The angle of insiders with links to Area 51 being told that Roswell was a Soviet hoax (involving genetically-altered human beings) is an intriguing one. Now, just so there can be no misunderstanding, I don’t mean that because it’s intriguing I believe it’s the answer to the puzzle. I certainly don’t think, at all, that this is the answer to Roswell. However, here’s the important thing: the scenario of Area 51-linked people being told such a story does not begin and end with Jacobsen’s informant.

In late 2010, my book, The NASA Conspiracies was published and included a whole chapter that told the tale of a man who had worked at Area 51 in the early 1970s, and who had heard a very similar story to that told to Jacobsen and which appeared in her 2011 book. It’s a strange and convoluted saga involving a man named John who was exposed to a series of weird and controversial files that told astonishing tales of alien visitation and UFO crashes in the early, formative years of the Flying Saucer era. But, were those files real? That’s the crux of John’s revelations, as you will now see.

As I note in my book, The NASA Conspiracies: “John stressed that although the documentation at issue certainly looked genuine, he was never able to entirely dismiss from his mind the possibility that his exposure to the files could have been a part of some large, and very curious and convoluted, mind game on the part of NASA and the intelligence services, such as the CIA, Air Force Intelligence, and the National Security Agency.”

I continue in the book as follows: “Since his work at Area 51 and his access to the files surfaced as a direct result of his FBI contacts, John speculated that his superiors may have exposed him to totally bogus materials at Area 51, and then watched his every move to see if he spoke out of turn, and to those without security clearances. The fact that John never did speak out of turn in that twelve month period, and was thereafter considered utterly trustworthy, led him to be rewarded with a near decade long career in the private security sector. It was a career that saw him move, practically effortlessly, within highly influential circles in the world of U.S. Intelligence that were totally unconnected to UFOs.”

To me, at least, this is all very refreshing. Whistle-blowers are generally extremely keen to have their story believed; but John noted to me from the absolute outset (and as the above extract clearly demonstrates) that the nature of the data to which he was exposed should be addressed very carefully, and not accepted uncritically at all. Maybe, as John noted, the documentation was entirely bogus, prepared by disinformation specialists to test his reaction and response.

But, there’s more. John related an aspect of the story to me, that was published in my NASA book, and which dealt with one specific set of papers that, today, we can see is highly relevant to the account provided to Jacobsen. I described it in the pages of my 2010 book like this:

“…John did assert, however, that there was a brief collection of documents dating from July 1947 speculating that this might have all been the result of a very ingenious hoax on the part of the Soviets – until, that is, it very quickly became acutely apparent to one and all that not even the Soviet Union would have had the required expertise to successfully pull off such a fantastic ruse, much less biologically alter, or mutate, a number of human beings into something very different.”

To me, this is important, as we have old files seen and read by John (that ultimately found their way to Area 51 – they did not originate there) discussing the two central points of the story told to Jacobsen: (A) the idea that Roswell was a Soviet ruse; and (B) the theory that the bodies found at the crash-site might have been biologically altered or mutated by the Russians.

The story told by John, and published by me in late-2010, is astonishingly close to the one provided to Jacobsen and that appeared in her 2011 book. The big difference, of course, is that Jacobsen’s Area 51 source believed the Russian theory, while the originators of the files read by John at Area 51 – and John himself, too – clearly did not accept it as having any validity at all.

But, that such files did apparently exist at Area 51, and did refer to both the Russian hoax angle and the issue of genetically altering human beings, does make me think that this Russian-themed story/theory was indeed in circulation amongst Area 51 personnel at some point decades ago.

And maybe some of those people who were exposed to the files, to the rumors, and (as John speculated as a possibility) to some weird loyalty-testing mind-game, came to accept the Russian story as being utterly genuine (such as Jacobsen’s source), when in reality the truth, as John noted, may have been very different.

This controversy, I suspect, is far from over…

The short answer to the title of this post is “yes.” Obviously, anything capable of causing devastating illness among large portions of the world’s population should be quite concerning to all of us. However, as is the case with a particular circumstance at present regarding the creation of a new kind of synthetically engineered super-flu, experts are advising that we not break out into a panic just yet.

Indeed, new experimental procedures have successfully created what scientists call H5N1, which amounts to being a synthetically-mutated form of the H1N1 virus that has caused great concern (and legitimate harm) around the world. This is already old news, since the first mention of the new “mutated” form of the virus came out late last year; but experts who have attempted to qualm the fears of the public have had little success in dampening the worry associated with how such a potential killer might escape into the world at large.

Described as “a virus that could kill tens or hundreds of millions of people if it escaped confinement or was stolen by terrorists,” the new super flu has indeed managed to elicit concern from a variety of disciplines; some in the scientific community are worried that the virus should never have been engineered at all, and that it’s existence is of little value, since the particular mutation in question would likely never have occurred naturally in the first place. Hence, why studying H5N1 in it’s mutated form would be of any justifiable merit–weighed against it’s potential dangers–seems questionable.

Then from the perspective of national security and potential “germ warfare,” there is always the possibility that such a virus, falling into the wrong hands, could wreak havoc on an unsuspecting population, especially in the event that vaccines or other suitable measures for containing and treating the illness weren’t available (and this would likely be the case if, God forbid, the populace in question were caught off guard). In an editorial that appeared in the New York Times Sunday Review, the author espoused concerns as follows:

“We nearly always champion unfettered scientific research and open publication of the results. In this case it looks like the research should never have been undertaken because the potential harm is so catastrophic and the potential benefits from studying the virus so speculative.”

The Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam has served as the center for the controvertial H5N1 studies, as this was where attempts at learning how a virus that normally would not infect or spread among a human populace might become highly communicable. Tests performed on ferrets, which respond nearly identically to humans with the spread of influenza, showed that five mutations induced in the laboratory (hence the “H5″) allowed for the strain to become airborne in its virality.

At present, two scientific journals plan to publish information about the mutated strain, though officials have asked that information regarding the specific processes induced in the lab that allowed the mutations be redacted, so that those with ill intent may not have access to the information necessary to simulate the outcome of this highly dangerous synthesis. Then again, there have been some pretty strange things that have appeared in scientific journals recently… hopefully the information regarding H5N1 that is released will not allow any potentials for the spread of dangerous infectious disease, especially where no threat had (or perhaps ever would have) existed previously.

One of the most bizarre, not to mention flat out terrifying, mysteries of the modern age concerns the enigmatic deaths of nine Russian mountaineers whose cross-country skiing trip ended in a tragedy so ghastly and perplexing that it has mystified experts for over half a century.

Excursions into nature can be serene for some and exhilarating for others, but for an unfortunate few these sojourns into the untouched wilds of our world can be tragic. Still other such journeys into the unknown end in such unfathomably frightening circumstances that they become the stuff of legend. Such is the destiny that befell nine ill-fated skiing enthusiasts in the late 1950s.

Unlike so many of the most intriguing mysteries of the 20^th Century — including the fate of the crew of the Ourang Medan or the whereabouts of the missing Anjikuni Villagers of Canada — What makes the so-called “Dyatlov Pass Incident” so fascinating is the fact that there is absolutely no doubt that these events actually occurred… and dreadfully little doubt that one of the last sensations experienced by these poor souls was one of abject terror.

The proof of this tragedy exists not only in the plethora of photographs that have been preserved, but also in the extensive records (many of which are still allegedly classified) of the Soviet military who investigated the odd case and were manifestly unable to reach any definitive conclusions despite an overwhelming amount of physical evidence. In fact, the investigators tasked with solving this case were eventually forced to attribute the whole peculiar affair to: “a compelling unknown force.”

But, before we go any further; like any good mystery we must begin at the beginning…

TEN LITTLE SKIERS

On January 25, 1959, one ski instructor, three engineers and seven students from the former Soviet Union’s Ural Polytechnic Institute, located in the city then known as Sverdlovsk, boarded a train and embarked on a journey to the nearby Otorten Mountain range, which is nestled in the northern Urals, for a strenuous cross-country skiing expedition.

The leader of the excursion was an enthusiastic 23 year-old by the name of Igor Dyatlov — for whom the notorious Pass would eventually be named — who had assembled a crack team of male and female skiers with the intention that this arduous trip would serve as a training exercise for a future expedition to the more difficult and treacherous Arctic regions.

As the group of seasoned skiers left the train station and hopped a truck headed toward their very own “Alpine in the Urals,” one of the team members, Yury Yudin, fell ill and was forced to remain behind at the settlement of Vizhai, which was the last outpost before the Otorten range.

Yudin hugged his comrades goodbye and with envy watched them leave… scarcely could he imagine at the time that he would the lucky one.

Later in life Yudin would claim that the one thing that had haunted him the most over the years was not being able to discover what kind of diabolical force stole the lives of his friends; a fate he would have shared were it not for his unexpected illness. According to Yudin:

 “If I had a chance to ask God just one question, it would be, ‘What really happened to my friends that night?’”

Two day after embarking on their adventure, the nine remaining athletes — including engineers Rustem Slobodin, Georgyi Krivonischenko and Nicolas Thibeaux-Brignollel, as well as students Yuri Doroshenko, Zinaida Kolmogorova, Lyudmila Dubinina and ski instructor and guide, Alexander Zolotarev — all followed Dyatlov toward the first stop on their long and grueling journey, the Gora Otorten mountain.

The date was January 28, 1959. The team would never make it to their destination… and none of them would ever be seen alive again.

THE SEARCH BEGINS

On February 11, 1959, The Dyatlov Ski Team was supposed to arrive in Vizhai. Among their first orders of business, following a hot meal and a stiff drink, were to send their loved ones telegrams announcing the success of their mission.

When no telegrams were received, most of the team’s family members were not concerned, realizing that journeys like this rarely end on schedule, but when over a week went by with no word from the skiers, their relatives began to demand that the Ural Polytechnic Institute organize a search and rescue operation, which they did posthaste.

Within days it became clear that the institute’s ground based initiative would not be able to produce any results on their own and that was when both military and civilian authorities got involved in the search.  Military planes and helicopters were swiftly dispatched to the area and it was on February 25, that a pilot first spotted something curious on a mountainside below.

A MYSTERY IS BORN:

The next day the search party — including fellow Polytechnic student Mikhail Sharavin — made their way up to an abandoned encampment on the eastern slope of a mountain listed as “1079.”

The foreboding peak is better known to the indigenous Mansi tribesmen as “Kholat Syakhl,” which (prophetically perhaps) translates from their native tongue as the “Mountain of the Dead.”

The would-be rescuers discovered a badly damaged tent and a plethora of footprints made by what appeared to be at least eight different people radiating out from the devastated tent. Sharavin then described the state of the large tent that the skiers all shared:

“We discovered that the tent was half torn down and covered with snow. It was empty, and all the group’s belongings and shoes had been left behind.”

The search party members quickly realized that the tracks consisted of either bare or sock clad feet and, in one case, a single shoe. Two sets of prints led down a slope toward a densely forested area, but the tracks were covered by snow roughly 1,500 feet away from the tent.

Sharavin followed the trail and found the remains of a fire beneath a looming, ancient pine… and with it something much worse.

Near the long dead fire were the frozen remains of team members Doroshenko and Krivonischenko. The searchers noted with utter bewilderment that even though the men were well within range of the now ravaged tent both men were naked and shoeless, save for their underwear. The investigators also saw that the branches of the old pine had been snapped off up to a height of almost 15-feet.

Forensic tests later confirmed that traces of skin were found embedded in the bark, indicating that the pair had frantically attempted to climb the tree, snapping off branches until their hands were mass of pulpy flesh.

At this point the searchers no doubt began to wonder what manner of “beast” could scare these men so much that they abandoned their clothes, despite the freezing cold, and tore the skin from their palms in a desperate attempt to get to safety. The fact that there were no evident animal tracks and that they had the time to try and start a fire, combined with the fact that the bodies of the men remained untouched only heighted the searchers puzzlement.

Not long after the party found the bodies of Doroshenko and Krivonischenko, they stumbled across the corpse of team leader Dyatlov nearly 900-feet away from the other cadavers, but somewhat closer to the tent. Dyatlov was on his back; one hand was clinging to an undersized birch tree branch while his other hand, locked in ice and rigor mortis, appeared to be protecting his head from some unknown assailant.

Half buried in the snow not far from the tent was the body of Rustem Slobodin, which rescuers found lying face down in the snow. Slobodin’s skull bore a deep fracture nearly 7-inches long; nevertheless medical experts later determined that the most likely cause death was hypothermia, which only compounded the befuddlement of the volunteer and military search party participants.

The carcass of Zinaida Kolmogorov was turned up the furthest away from the group. Traces of blood were found near her corpse, yet it was not revealed if she was its source, although that conclusion would seem likely. The rescuers could not understand why there was no evidence of a struggle.

The party continued their efforts to locate the rest of the team, but a lengthy search for the remaining members turned up nothing. The men on the site could not comprehend why a group of experienced skiers would dash half-naked into the bitter cold of the forest in the black of night. Nor could they fathom the kind of terror that must have inspired these young people to act so recklessly.

Even more perplexing was the fact that the searchers, after inspecting the severely damaged tent, came to the conclusion that the material had been torn from the inside, as if its occupants had been frantic to escape from something that was already sealed in the tent with them or were in such a rush that unclasping the tent from the inside was not an option!

Amidst the broken wood, shredded canvas and debris of the ravaged tent, investigators discovered rolls of undeveloped film and the journals of a few of the expedition members, but rather than helping to illuminate the truth, these finds would only add more layers to this already dense mystery.

MAY 4, 1959:

After two months of fruitless searching, the spring thaw finally set in and the weather let up enough to reveal the corpses of the missing team members in a ravine situated some 225-feet from the pine that served as an arboreal memorial to Doroshenko and Krivonischenko.

The four lost skiers — instructor Alexander Zolotaryov, engineer Nicolas Thibeaux-Brignollel and students Alexander Kolevatov and Ludmila Dubinina — were discovered buried beneath 12-feet of snow and ice. All had apparently succumbed to brutal internal injuries. Unlike their friends who had perished above, these victims were all fully dressed.

As in the case of Slobodin, Thibeaux -Brignollel’s skull showed evidence of having been struck by a heavy object. Zolotarev and Dubunina’s chests had been crushed inward, shattering several ribs and causing massive internal damage. Strangely there were no indications of what may have caused this severe trauma and, even more bizarrely, the corpses showed no signs of bruising or soft tissue damage.

Doctor Boris Vozrozhdenny, who inspected the bodies, stated that the force with which these corpses were hit exceeded that capable by man and went on to claim that the damage: “…was equal to the effect of a car crash.”

The searchers were startled to observe that Dubinina’s head was tilted back; her stretched mouth wide as if emitting a silent scream. Upon closer inspection the rescuers realized that her tongue had been ripped out by the root.

They also noted that at some point these poor individuals had either exchanged or stolen the clothing off their comrades as Dubinina’s foot was swaddled in a tattered piece of Krivonishenko’s wool pants and Zolotaryov was found wearing Dubinina’s faux fur hat and coat. The searchers were unsure if this was the result of dressing too swiftly in a dark tent or a case of scavenging articles of clothing from deceased teammates.

At the funerals that soon followed the discovery of the bodies, many family members claimed that the skin of the deceased bore an unnatural orange color and, even more disturbingly, most reports insisted that their hair had lost its pigmentation and was a dull shade of grey. Skeptics claim that the orange skin was caused by exposure and that the hair had not lost its color, but it’s interesting that so many of the bereaved relatives took the time to notice these strange features.

As if all of this were not odd enough, some of the articles of clothing found on the bodies were measured as emitting higher than normal levels of radiation.

THE INVESTIGATION:

The compounding enigmas surrounding this fantastic case, combined with the youth and popularity of the victims, sent Soviet investigators into overdrive.

The first thing they did was to try and reconstruct the series of events that led to the Dyatlov Ski Teams shocking demise with the help of the journals and film rolls discovered at the scene.

The primary mystery that faced them was why Dyatlov and his team would have chosen to make camp on an exposed mountain face when a detour of less than a mile would have afforded them some shelter from the harsh Russian elements.

It would be Yudin — the only team member to survive thanks to a timely illness — who would shed light on this question:

“Dyatlov probably did not want to lose the distance they had covered, or he decided to practice camping on the mountain slope.”

The photos developed from the rolls of film found in the tent revealed that the expedition members had set up camp on February 2, at approximately 5:00 pm. on the slope of Kholat-Syakhl, in order to get out of the inclement weather. The group had cleared the tree line and was a mere 10-miles from the first destination on their long trek, Gora Otorten. In the photos they all looked healthy and jovial.

Investigators came to the conclusion that sometime around 7:00 pm. the team ate a meal and not long thereafter members began to settle down for the night. The temperature on the slope was less than five degrees Fahrenheit, which has always made investigators wonder why it was that so many of the skiers were in a state of undress. Whatever their reasons may have been, most researchers agree that at this point everything was relatively normal.

Forensic pathologists later estimated that the events which ultimately led to the untimely deaths of the skiers must have occurred somewhere between 9.30 and 11.30pm. They based this speculation on the undigested food found in the stomachs of the victims. At this point military investigators began piecing this puzzle together to the best of their ability. What follows is, in their best estimation, what occurred:

THE TIMELINE OF A TRAGEDY:

The investigators speculated that sometime before midnight on February 2, the skiers were frightened by an “unknown event.” Members of the team managed to cut or rip through the fabric of the tent in a frantic attempt to escape whatever might have been attacking or approaching them and in their haste they burst out into the icy night mostly unclothed and in a state of sheer panic.

Being experienced skiers and mountaineers, the group must have been fully aware of the fact that they would not be able to survive long in the frigid wastes without protection. This indicated to the investigators that the team must have been convinced that they were facing mortal peril and had opted to flee for their lives.

The generally bare tracks found in the deep snow implied that the team had initially scrambled outward in all directions, but that they managed to rejoin one another down the incline about 900-feet away from the now shredded tent. Investigators then surmised that the group then huddled for safety beneath the large pine that Doroshenko and Krivonischenko tried so desperately to climb.

At this point the investigators speculated that an attempt was made by teammates to share clothes, but the states of undress that so many of the victims were found in would seem to indicate otherwise. Still the evidence suggests that the group, obviously terrified by the prospect of returning to their tent, manage to gather enough kindling to start a fire.

The agents on the case then begin to wonder of if Doroshenko and Krivonischenko’s efforts to climb the tree were a futile attempt at escape or if they might have been trying to gain a better vantage point to see if their tent, which was much higher up on the slope, was still under siege by whatever unknown menace had compelled them to take flight.

At some point during the night investigators proposed that Doroshenko and Krivonischenko likely had succumbed to exposure. It was then that three members of the team — Kolmogorova, Slobodin and Dyatlov — determined that braving whatever it was that had apparently infested the tent was preferable to dying of hypothermia. Resolute (and almost certainly terrified) the exhausted trio attempted to make their way back up the slope — none of them would make it.

With their young leader out of sight one can only assume that the remaining team members Zolotaryov, Thibeaux-Brignollel, Kolevatov and Dubinina hoped for the best, but expected the worst. Likely terrified beyond belief the four remain survivors strip whatever they can from the corpses of their comrades… and almost certainly pray for daylight.

Fearing that their friends are all dead, investigators hypothesized that Zolotaryov, Thibeaux-Brignollel, Kolevatov and Dubinina decided to move nearer to the forest in hopes of finding some kind of shelter. Somewhere along this journey and eventual descent into a nearby ravine the remaining teammates would sustain their fatal internal injuries, but investigators could not find an obvious cause.

The first to perish, according to forensics reports, was Thibeaux-Brignollel. Within hours he was followed by Kolevatov and Dubinina. Zolotarev would be the last to expire from a combination of internal trauma and hypothermia. It was not clear if the removal of Dubinina’s tongue occurred postmortem or if it contributed to her demise.

When all was said and done, the final survivor died less than eight hours after the initial event. As with everything else in this case, the discovery of the missing team members offered more questions than answers, and the most important one was…

WHAT HAPPENED?

While investigators were able to piece together much of what happened that terrible evening from the physical evidence left at the scene, the primary questions remained unanswered; firstly what could have possibly have frightened these athlete caliber skiers so badly that they were willing to freeze to death rather than confront it… and secondly, what (if anything) lethally injured the remaining survivors?

Despite the popularity of the region, for 3-years following this harrowing event the pass was closed to outdoorsmen, hikers and skiers. This was, presumably, to avert the same terrifying fate from befalling anyone else.

This proves how seriously authorities took this case, but after months of dead ends and disappointments the case was closed and the files were sent to what many allege was a clandestine Soviet archive, but even though the final official word on the event was that the skiers fell to: “a compelling unknown force,” that does not mean that there weren’t plenty of theories floating around. The first supposition that the investigators proposed was that they were murdered by…

MANSI WARRIORS… AND GHOSTS:

The first theory offered up as grist for the rumor mill regarding the fates of the nine skiers was that they had unintentionally run afoul of some Mansi tribesman by trespassing into their territory and that these legendarily harsh Siberian natives had dispatched them accordingly. The theory goes something like this…

Mansi natives enraged by the intrusion of the team tear their way into the communal tent and force the mostly disrobed skiers down the slope, where they build a fire.  After Doroshenko and Krivonischenko perish, Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova desperately try and make their way toward what’s left of their tent. Slobodin’s skull is crushed by the butt of a rifle or some other heavy object, knocking him cold. He and his friends then succumb to the elements.

Following the deaths of their compatriots, Zolotaryov, Thibeaux-Brignollel, Kolevatov and Dubinina are compelled to balance on the steep precipice of the ravine wherein their bodies were found the following spring. Thibeaux-Brignollel is wounded with perhaps the same blunt instrument that claimed Slobodin’s  life and Dubinina’s screams prove to be so annoying that one of the Mansi throws her to the ground, breaks her ribs with his knee and forcibly removes her tongue to prevent her from shrieking.

They are both thrown into the ravine, followed by Zolotarev and Alexander Kolevatov. At this point the Mansi leave the interlopers for dead… or so this admittedly dubious theory goes anyway.

Military investigators were swift to dispel this rumor, stating that the damage done to the corpses were inconsistent with an attack by a human being. Some modern day researchers have suggested that the Soviets may have concealed evidence of a Mansi attack in order to avoid a distracting and potentially costly confrontation with the Mansi on their own oil rich soil, which they hoped to exploit.

To even the armchair investigator — a clan of which I am a proud member — it would seem that the total absence of bullet wounds in the victims, combined with the utter lack of footprints, essentially rules out the Mansi as potential suspects in this heinous crime.Add to this the fact that the groups’ provisions were left untouched and we can all but totally dismiss the circumstantial case again these aboriginal hunters

As if that weren’t enough evidence to exonerate these native Siberians, there is conclusive proof that the Mansi assisted in the hunt for the missing skiers. Regardless of how sound the Soviet’s motivation may have been for covering up a Mansi attack, the evidence simply does not bear out this hypothesis.

Intriguingly, Mansi legend has it that Kholat-Syakhl received it’s ominous name after nine Mansi warriors had mysteriously perished on the same peak years before. This has led some investigators to surmise that the region might be cursed or infested by ancient and malicious spirits, but for the most part the mountain was not considered to be a particularly sacred region by the Mansi.

So if we rule out the indigenous human culprits as well as undead ones, then perhaps we should (like so many before us) look to the skies and wonder whether or not the Dyatlov Team might have fallen prey to an…

ALIEN ATTACK:

Like all classic 20^th Century mysteries involving groups of missing persons or enigmatic deaths, someone, somewhere is bound to blame strange flying saucers and their insidious occupants for the crime and this case proved to be no different.

According to archived reports, Lev Ivanov, the lead Soviet investigator on the case, collected a report from a group of hikers suggesting that something extraterrestrial might have resulted in the Dyatlov Team’s tragic demise.

The hikers were camping in an area about 32-miles south of Kholat-Syakhl on the night in question when they spied a series of “strange orange spheres” in the northern sky.  It’s worth noting that during the next month and a half other residents of the area report similar anomalous aerial phenomenon.

Ivanov himself believed that these spheres might have been involved with the unusual deaths. In a 1990 interview, Ivanov claimed that he had been ordered to close the case and classify the findings as secret.

He stated that officials were worried that reports of U.F.O.s in the area by multiple eyewitnesses — including members of both the military and weather service — could result in some unnecessary speculation. In an interview with a small Soviet newspaper, Ivanov was alleged to have stated:

“I suspected at the time, and am almost sure now, that these bright flying spheres had a direct connection to the group’s death.”

Ivanov speculated that one of the skiers might have spotted the U.F.O.s and that his or her cries might have panicked the other team members into rushing out just as one of the vehicles exploded above, sending them all fleeing in terror. He even speculated that the concussive blast may be what had cracked Slobodin’s skull. I feel compelled to add that the removal of the tongue is one of the most common features in cattle mutilations, but that seems to be a sketchy link at best.

Other “evidence” that researchers claim is evidence of alien interaction is the allegedly orange flesh and grey hair found on the victims — a point which is hotly debated — and the fact that some of the team members were wearing clothes contaminated with a low level of radiation.

While it’s certainly impressive that the head of the Dyatlov investigation supported this theory, and the anomalous radiation readings are intriguing, it seems as if we might be yet again casting unwarranted aspersions upon our intergalactic brethren. While there can be little doubt that there was some kind of bizarre object soaring in the skies above the Urals that night, perhaps it was not from out of this world, but an all too terrestrial…

MILITARY EXPERIMENT GONE AWRY:

This conjecture supposes that the Soviet government was conducting a highly classified test of an unknown weapon on the secluded slopes of Kholat-Syakhl and that — either by intention or accident — the ski team fell prey to this monstrously powerful weapon.

One of the biggest proponents of this theory was the only surviving member of the team, Yudin. Yudin believed that his friends inadvertently entered a covert military testing ground and had paid for it with their lives. He speculated that this was why the military had been so secretive about the investigation and that it also explained his comrades’ irradiated clothing.

After all of the evidence had been collected, the searchers asked for Yudin’s help in identifying who the objects found at the site belonged to. He said that he saw in the mix of his friend’s possessions a torn swathe of fabric that resembled a piece of a soldier’s coat as well as a pair of glasses and skis that had not belonged to any of the team members.

This proof — combined with the fact that Yudin testified to seeing documents that indicated the actual investigation had begun two weeks before the camp’s “official” discovery — compelled him to claim that the military had discovered the camp before the volunteer search party arrived. Yudin also claimed that he knew for a fact that: “there were special boxes with their organs sent for examination,” but this was not reflected in any of the papers that were released.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that the search party found no indication on any explosion on or near the campsite at Kholat-Syakhl. There is also no record of any missile launches in the region, but even in the 21^st Century records of clandestine Soviet military operations are still few and far between.

But if we’re dealing with a hazardous unidentified weapon there’s no reason to assume it was explosive. Perhaps there was a bacteriological or chemical spray released that resulted in their panic and eventual demise. A few have even suggested, due to the haphazard method they used in building the fire, that they were blinded by a bright flash, but most researchers do not agree with this assumption

There are also some who believe that it might have been some kind of experimental sonic weapon that employed Infrasound, which has been known to cause feelings from dread to outright panic in humans. Since this sound is inaudible in a classic sense, many people who have been subjected to Infrasound experiments claim to feel that some manner of paranormal force is at work.

This would frankly explain a lot, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s absolutely no proof to support this assumption. Bringing this back down to Earth… literally… there are those who feel that the team may well have surrendered to…

AVALANCHE PARANOIA:

The eastern face of Kholat-Syakhl is a potentially disastrous avalanche zone and while these intrepid mountaineers chose to brave the slope rather than retreat to the safety of the forest, it seems indubitable that they were keeping one ear open for any tell tale signs of an avalanche.

While there is no evidence supporting the theory that the skiers were caught in even a small avalanche, there are a few who suspect that they might have heard a strange rumbling sound during the night, which led them to believe an avalanche was imminent and in their haste to escape they cut their tent and ran half-naked into the 3-foot deep snow drifts.

While this is a distinct possibility, one would envision that the manifest lack of falling rocks and snow would be enough to compel the team to return to their torn tent to patch it up and bundle up in the clothing they left behind. Investigators have reported that the base of the pine tree where the group gathered was just out of sight of the tent, but I find it difficult to imagine that these seasoned skiers would run that far and never look behind them.

Beyond that, “avalanche panic” doesn’t account for the extensive injuries suffered by so many team members. Still, the one element of this mystery that is universally agreed upon is that the frenetic condition in which the  team members ripped, then abandoned their tent indicates that they were genuinely afraid. The biggest question has always been “what caused this fear?” and some have suggested that the Dyatlov crew might of had a nasty run-in with a…

VICIOUS SIBERIAN YETI:

Although the evidence for this supposition is scant to say the least, there are some who have proposed that the skiers fell victim to the notoriously territorial wild man of Siberia, known to locals as the Almas. They speculate that the terrifying roar of the beast might have sent the team into a panic, resulting in their poorly prepared escape into the snow.

The two primary reasons for the existence of this theory are the seemingly inexplicable impact wounds found on the skulls and torsos of nearly half of the corpses and an as yet unverified piece of paper that was allegedly discovered near the campsite which read:

“From now on we know there are snowmen.”

While the crypto-dork in me salivates at the idea of lumbering, ape-like beasts dwelling in the dark and forested nether regions of our ever shrinking world, the evidence in this case simply does not support the involvement of hairy hominids. The first and most obvious point is that amidst all the manmade tracks that the searchers found, there is no way a pair of gargantuan, bare prints would have gone undetected.

Secondly, while a punch from a Bigfoot-like beast could most assuredly shatter ones ribcage, why would these commonly gentle giants choose to attack some in the group, while allowing others to succumb to the elements? It might be suggested that they were hurling large rocks from a distance, as these creatures are sometimes known to do, but if that were the case then where was the debris when the searchers arrived? Finally the existence of the note itself is highly debatable and most researchers dismiss the entire theory. I’m inclined to agree.

A LEGEND IS BORN

In 1967, journalist Yuri Yarovoi wrote a novel about this enduring mystery titled: “Of the highest rank of complexity.” Yarovoi had served as the official photographer for the Dyatlov Ski Team search party, so he was privy to inside information. Nevertheless, many modern investigators think that due to the fact that the book was published in an era when Cold War tensions were running high and secrecy was the rule rather than the exception, the likelihood that this book told the full story was not very good.

Regardless of how revealing Yarovoi’s book may actually have been — and he conceded that it was a “dramatization” of the actual events, with a much more happy ending — it did manage to lay the groundwork for the legend that would eventually creep its way past the Iron Curtain and into the outside world.

Yarovoi’s colleagues would later reveal that he had written alternative (and ostensibly more authentic) versions of the novel, but his first two attempts were scratched by Soviet censorship. Sadly, following Yarovoi’s death in 1980, his photos, diaries and manuscripts were, conveniently perhaps, lost.

In 1990, author Anatoly Guschin had been granted “special permission” to study the original files of the Dyatlov inquest for a book he wanted to write about the incident. He later reported that scores of pages had been removed from the files, including an “envelope” mentioned in the evidence list. What this envelope was supposed to contain (or if it ever really existed) remains just one of the many mysteries surrounding these events.

In his book: “The price of state secrets is nine lives,” Guschin speculated that the team had fallen victim to a “Soviet secret weapon experiment.” While his theory was just as controversial as the rest, Guschin’s reintroduced this mystery to a brand new generation of curiosity seekers and the floodgates were thrown open with literally hundreds of articles and documentaries following in its wake, including a 2011 segment on the History Channel’s hit program “Ancient Aliens.”

CONCLUSION

So what really happened to these nine poor souls? For over half a century forensics experts, scientists, military officials and amateur investigators have scratched their collective heads over this eerie enigma… and it doesn’t seem as if any answers are forthcoming.

On February 2, 2008, an investigative conference was organized by Ural State Technical University and the Dyatlov Foundation. The six surviving members of the original search party as well as 31 technical experts assembled in Yekaterinburg, Russia, to look at the evidence and determine the actual fate of the Dyatlov Ski Team. After much deliberation the panel concluded that their deaths were likely the unintended result of a secret military test. Needless to say there are many who disagree with this conclusion.

Regardless of the fact that the victims’ grey hair may be an exaggeration or that the radiation readings might be dismissed due to mild exposure to Radium or Radon in one of the Polytechnic Institute’s many laboratories, the fact is that nine experienced hikers were thrust into such a terrified state that they literally doomed themselves in an effort to escape a fate that they believed would be even more horrendous that freezing to death on an icy mountain slope… what could do that?

In the end we must never forget that this is first and foremost a tragedy in which nine young lives were tragically cut short, with little more than a memorial stone and a rusted plaque to commemorate the terrible loss. Almost as sad is the fact that none of their families were offered the dubious consolation of knowing why it was there loved ones had perished in such a frightening fashion.

There are many who would attribute this mystery to little more than a mundane series of unfortunate mishaps that resulted in nine sorrowful deaths, but these were experienced skiers and it seems unlikely that they would all follow such a foolhardy path. Now, despite generations of effort to debunk and demystify this extraordinary event, the “Dyatlov Pass Incident” remains one of the great mysteries of the 20^th Century…  and one of the most frightening true life campfire stories I’ve ever encountered.

In his classic book The Mothman Prophecies, author John Keel made it clear that he was no stranger to general weirdness. In addition to being followed around by MIBs, demented Keel-clones, and dark critters that go “flap” in the night, it’s also probably worth nothing that even his phone line was hardly exempt from receiving spillover of the supernatural kind.

In fact, we might as well get things off to a good start by adding a heaping dose of synchronicity: just as I was sitting down to write this piece, my phone inexplicably lit up, then shut itself off completely, and restarted. I usually ignore this kind of thing… but for some, it’s enough to keep one’s paranoid fantasies close to the edge for days at a time. With regard to my own situation, this isn’t the only time my phone has appeared to come to life on its own, and activate or deactivate itself arbitrarily. For several months now, I’ve been experiencing a remarkable amount of Keelian weirdness regarding my cellular phone… and in truth, I might as well admit it: I’ve kind of got a history with this sort of thing.

To set the stage for what kind of telephonic hijinks I’m referring to exactly, I’ll first recap some of the things John Keel had been describing back in the late 1960s. In addition to his ongoing pursuit of awkward acting, strange dressed “weirdos” and the more stereotypical Men in Black, John Keel also described having a number of issues with his telephone line. Beeps and static were rife throughout many of his calls, and he also claimed to have heard portions of previous conversations being replayed at times, which he surmised as being a form of “intimidation tactic.” Even more curiously, Keel would go on to find that many witnesses of weirdness he would go to visit would describe similar phenomenon; occasionally such calls would only occur while Keel was visiting, and strangest of all, some would claim to have received calls from Keel himself, when he was certain no such call had been made!

My own early experiences with telephonic weirdness actually began years ago, when I was working regularly with Joshua P. Warren’s LEMUR group. Josh would call me pretty often in those days, sometimes rapping back and forth into the wee hours of the morning about various things. Often, our discussions would gravitate in the direction of what I, again, prefer to call “Keelian” phenomena (rather than “Fortean,” at least so far as when the subject matter has direct relevance to John Keel or the subjects he focused on a lot). Things would often get funny, however, as soon as we would begin to discuss anything having to do with Mothman. When we broached this strangest-of-subjects, we quite often would find that our conversation would be interrupted by strange audio, or even disconnected altogether.

On one occasion many years ago, around the month of April Joshua had begun to get a distinct impression that there might be some particularly unusual occurrences going on. This had merely been a hunch on his part, as I remember, but subsequently we had been discussing various matters of strangeness, when we came back around to the subject of Mothman. As if on cue, we were suddenly disconnected; but here’s one of the curious things about this instance: neither of us were on cell phones! Indeed, we couldn’t chalk our severed line up to being poor reception or a “drop zone” one of us had passed through while driving. So naturally, I had gone about trying to reconnect with Josh, and I pressed and held the redial button for a moment. Upon doing so, I could again hear movement on the other end of the line, followed by Joshua punching the keypad as he tried to reconnect. It was the moment that he put the phone to his ear and found that we were already connected that we both noticed a faint sound in the background: a busy signal, the likes of which one is used to hearing if they become disconnected from a phone line!

“Wait, listen… do you hear that?” Josh said excitedly. Of course I heard it, and we both went scrambling through our respective homes to make sure there hadn’t been a phone off the hook elsewhere. Indeed, it sounded as though a third line had connected to our conversation from some place, though they had obviously failed to disconnect from the call at the time Josh and I lost signal.

This sort of unusual phone activity would continue for a number of years, and in my case, right up to the present. Do I think I’m being monitored by government officials, MIBs, or space aliens, you might ask? In truth, I don’t really think this is the case, knowing the variety of glitches and bugs that cell phones in particular can fall victim to. I’ll admit, however, that it is a bit strange at times; on one occasion this past summer, I had been having a late-night esoteric discussion with a friend of mine at her apartment, when I glanced over and saw that the “message alert” LED light on my phone was on. This isn’t outside the ordinary in itself, since this light often begins flashing if a text message or email is received. But in this instance, the light was just staying on, and there were no messages! I even recall joking at the time that “it looks like we’re being monitored!”

We laughed about it, and I subsequently shut my phone off for good measure. While I haven’t been given good reason to think I’m under surveillance by the MIBs yet, I’ll start to worry if my friends start getting calls from people claiming to be me, or if similar calls forwarded to my own cellphone start replaying clips of earlier conversations. Then again, such things may be nothing sinister at all… for all we know, playing messages back to people and acting like an all-round creep may just be ET’s way of “phoning home”!

For many, a recent “We the People” petition, aimed at getting U.S. President Barack Obama and his Administration to acknowledge extraterrestrial presences here on Earth, fell just short of the long-sought “disclosure” so many in UFO circles advocate today. The idea here is, of course, that not only has Earth been visited by neighbors from distant star systems, but that government organizations have been hiding the information from the public for years… and that it’s high-time for them to stop.

And yet, world governments have already acknowledged a number of UFO-related incidents over the years, many documented in old declassified files that have been expunged from bulging file cabinet drawers in the basements of organizations like the CIA, FBI, and the NSA. The latter of these three groups drew particular interest in this regard as recently as April of this year, when a large batch of UFO-related files appeared at their website; that said, here is a direct link to the NSA’s portal to all disclosed UFO documents for your browsing pleasure.

Browsing the NSA site’s collection of UFO documents, among the files listed one will see links to documents titled, “Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages by H. Campaigne,” and “Extraterrestrial Intelligence by Howard H. Campaigne.” Looking at the PDF documents these links provide access to, one will find that a rather intriguing bit of information is disclosed: what appear to be references to a series of “alien” radio signals recorded decades ago via satellite are described, in addition to an attempt by the author of these articles at deciphering the ET messages! Could this really be “the smoking gun” so many have hoped for, or is there more to the story than meets the eye?

If one digs around on the web a bit, there are indeed a number of blogs and other sites showing where people came across this information, discussing the apparent references to radio signals from deep space that these articles, first featured in an NSA technical journal, appear to describe. However, among these various sites, I also managed to uncover this piece, which after careful study, alludes to a slightly different account regarding the origins of the alleged communications.

While lecturing at an IEEE Conference on Military Electronics held in Washington, D.C. on 23 September 1965, Dr. Lambros Callimahos, a famous NSA cryptology expert who had authored a number of innovative studies on deciphering coded messages around the same time, seems to have made references to the very same series of “ET” communications as follows:

“As an illustration of how much information could be conveyed with a minimum of material, and as an example of facile inverse cryptography, let us consider a message I have devised to be typical of what we might expect of an initial communication from outer space.”

Indeed, it seems obvious here that Callimahos not only knew of a series of alleged “ET messages,” but admits to having designed them himself as an exercise! Furthermore, looking back at the roundup of articles released at the NSA’s website, among them one will also find the appropriately titled, “Communication With Extraterrestrial Intelligence” by none other than Lambros D. Callimahos. While it seems obvious to us, looking at the series of documents in this order, what the intentions and goals of the two men were, we are left with a number of websites that do make the assertion that Campaigne’s lone documents were, in fact, addressing actual signals collected from outer space. So why, if  information exists that contradicts this, has the myth of ET contact been perpetuated here?

First of all, it is obvious that Campaigne’s documents were read by many enthusiastic researchers at the time of their release earlier this year, but probably in the absence of being cross-referenced with the earlier articles of Dr. Callimahos (funny enough, Campaigne’s own articles even make direct reference to the earlier publications, but still removed from context, this was obviously fairly easy for many to overlook). Second, although the NSA documents in question were apparently cleared for release by around 2004, it took seven more years–and a lawsuit filed against the agencey by an Arizona lawyer–before the documents were finally made available to the public.

The third factor is far less conspiratorial, however; it seemed that Campaigne tended to sport a rather dry wit at times. For instance, on page 18 of the second document (Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages), the author’s subtle humor begins to help make evident that what is being detailed is, in fact, a sort of game, as he states the following: “The later messages of this group have the mysterious sequences ABCD, ABCDE, DEFG, etc, each ending with STV.” The obvious tongue-n-cheek references to the human alphabetical sequence as “mysterious” begin to allude to the nature of Campaigne’s “game.” But the real icing on the cake appears at the very end of his “analysis,” where Campaigne states the following:

“Looking back over the exercise we see we have penetrated the meaning of the basic symbols, and even more important, have learned some of the syntax rules of the notation, and have caught mistakes in the process… The concepts used here are the basic ones of number, sets, and physical constants which any cultures must share. How bizarre the syntax and values of a culture could be I cannot conjecture, but any civilizations capable of sending a message across space must have many things in common.”

Of course, if the good doctor can’t conjecture how bizarre the coded language structure of an alien race may be, it suggests what should already be obvious by now: that in stating this conclusion following what he calls an “exercise,” he also confirms that he has not, in fact, had access to any such coded language of extraterrestrial origin… he had indeed been working all along with the previous document, issued by his colleague Dr. Callimahos.

So despite there being high hopes that Campaigne’s analysis had been dealing with real extraterrestrial signals from space–a myth still perpetuated by a number of websites–when taken into context, his articles only show one thing: that at least a handful of individuals within the NSA during the mid-1960s did in fact take the idea of extraterrestrial communication seriously (this approach to the entire story served as the focus of a similar article I discovered shortly afterward, which appears at the Open Minds TV website). While it’s good to know there was genuine interest in how mankind may go about deciphering alien messages in the eventual sense, almost half a century later it looks like we’re still waiting for that fabled and cosmic long-distance call from the deeper cosmos… hey ET, why dontcha phone home, already?