In early 1941, Sir David Petrie was appointed Director General of the Security Service. MI5, and was given substantial resources to restructure the organization, whose origins date back to 1909. As a result, MI5 became one of the most efficient agencies of the War. After the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, it was learned that all of the Nazi agents targeted against Britain had been successfully identified, and in some cases recruited as double-agents, by MI5 – something that contributed to the success of the Allied Forces landing in Normandy on D-Day on 6 June 1944. 

A number of files pertaining to the wartime activities of MI5 have been declassified and are now available for public inspection at the National Archive, Kew, England. One deals with MI5 investigations of what are intriguingly described as “markings on the ground.” With hindsight, today, those markings may have been nothing less than Crop Circles!

According to the report: “This account is not concerned with the activities of fifth columnists such as sabotage, capturing airfields and key points, and harassing the defending army, but in the methods used in communicating to each other and to the enemy. Reports from Poland, Holland, France and Belgium showed that they used ground markings for the guidance of bombers and paratroops (and of lights by night).”

The author of the report continued: “Such ground markings might be the cutting of cornfields into guiding marks for aircraft, painting of roofs and the inside of chimneys white, setting haystacks on fire, and laying out strips of white linen in pre-arranged patterns. For guiding and giving information to advancing troops they would conceal messages behind advertisement hoardings and leave markings on walls and telegraph poles.”

Most notable of all: from interviews conducted with Allied personnel who had taken part in the hostilities in Poland, MI5 had determined that one of the ways that Nazi spies were communicating with German Luftwaffe pilots was by “beating out signs,” twenty meters in diameter, “on harrowed fields or mowing such signs on meadows or cornfields.” Crop circles, as they are famously known today!

Interestingly, as a result of finding such curious formations across wartime Europe, MI5 began a stealthy check of cornfields throughout the British Isles for any evidence of similar activity. In a section of a report titled Examples of Ground Markings Investigated, a still-anonymous MI5 employee wrote:

“Field, north of Newquay, Cornwall: Aircraft noticed, in May 1940, strange marking in this field and it was photographed. Enquiries were made and it was found that the lines were formed by heaps of lime used for agricultural purposes. The farmer concerned was above reproach and removed the lime heaps.”

A second report followed: “Field at Little Mill, Monmouthshire: In May 1941 a report was made that an unusual mark was visible amongst the growing corn. Near one of the gates was a mark in the form of the letter G, some 33 yards long. This mark had been made by sowing barley transversely through the grain.”

MI5 added: “Air photographs were taken and it was seen that the tail of the marking pointed towards the Ordnance factory at Glascoed. The farmer, a man of good character, was interviewed, and admitted that he had sown the field himself. He explained that he had sold the field in April.

“Shortly after, having a drilling machine nearby which had a small quantity of barley seed in it, and wishing to empty it as he had to return it to the farmer from whom he had borrowed it that night, he turned his team of horses into the grain field and drilled it into the ground thickly to get rid of it. He did this because it is extremely difficult to remove the grain in the machine by hand, and to sow it was the quickest way of getting rid of it.

“He agreed to plough up this part of the field. As a satisfactory explanation had been reached, the case was carried no further.”

And the reports kept on coming: “Field, near Staplehurst, Kent: In October, 1943, aircraft saw a faint white circle on the ground. Enquiries were made, and it was discovered that before the war the field was used as an emergency landing ground by Imperial Airways; the mark was made by them, and they paid a small yearly rent to the farmer. At the beginning of the war the mark was obliterated in some way, but this had worn thin. Steps were taken to obliterate it again.”

It is quite clear from examining the contents of these now-declassified files that the foremost thought on the part of MI5 was that the wartime Crop Circles across Europe – as well as the similar formations found on the British mainland – were the work of Nazi spies, and that the designs were intended to convey a specific, coded message to German bomber-pilots.

It’s also deeply important, however, to note that with regard to the truly unknown formations that MI5 studied (those from Poland, Holland, France and Belgium), the theory they were created by the Nazis was simply that: a theory, an assumption, an assessment of the fragmentary data available.

Of course, in 1944, no-one was perceiving these formations as something possibly linked to distinctly unusual – possibly even paranormal – phenomena. But, maybe, that’s exactly the direction MI5 should have been looking in…

Over the years, a great deal of Roswell-related debate has focused upon John Keel’s assertion that what came down at the Foster Ranch, New Mexico in July 1947 was a Japanese Fugo balloon. Despite what some have said, Keel’s theory is not one which I endorse. The people I interviewed for my Body Snatchers in the Desert book said the Roswell device involved a Horten Brothers-type glider, held aloft below a massive balloon array based on Japanese designs for what was specifically described as a next-generation Fugo. But, most certainly not the far smaller, less advanced designs that were used to attack the United States during the latter stages of the Second World War.

But, I digress. Back to Keel. From 1990 to 1993, there was a deep debate on this very Roswell/Fugo matter in the pages of Fate magazine, with comments, observations and articles from the likes of Keel himself and Kevin Randle, who has written (and co-written) a number of books on Roswell, from the perspective that what came down in 1947 was extraterrestrial.

What I find intriguing is that many of the people who have commented on Keel’s Fugo theory have failed to note – or even comment on the fact that – Keel also talked about uncovering data on manned Japanese balloons that, allegedly, reached the U.S. in the closing stages of the war, and which – his sources said – were subject to military secrecy.

In April 1993, in an article titled Return of the Fugos, Keel noted that he had been contacted by three unrelated people who had intriguing reports to relate of things that occurred back in the 1940s. These same things – which took place at some point in 1945 – involved the sighting of a low-flying balloon that had a gondola attached below it, and which, said one of the witnesses, contained “a living creature” that one thought, initially, was a “screaming monkey.”

As the balloon came closer, said Keel, the “creature” could now be seen as a “a very small man wearing some kind of headgear, probably radio headphones. The poor fellow was clearly agitated…He appeared to be Oriental.” The balloon then disappeared over the horizon, and a couple of military jeeps quickly appeared on the scene, heading in the direction of the balloon. A few minutes later, gunshots rang out.

Realizing that the witnesses had seen or heard pretty much all that had taken place, the military returned and sternly warned them not to say anything about what they had experienced – to anybody at all. Keel himself commented on this matter – of secret Japanese balloon-based flights to the U.S. undertaken in the latter stages of the Second World War with people on-board – as follows:

“If such a project was launched, they would have selected the smallest, lightest volunteers available…It is also likely they might have expired during the trip…their complexions would have been very odd, discolored by the cold…”

He concluded on this matter: “If even one such volunteer balloonist attempted the trip and crashed, we would have the answer to all those rumours and legends which persist to this day.”

I intend pursuing Keel’s data – and sources – on these claims, and, in fact, have already made some significant headway, which I will be reporting on in the near future. The picture that is developing as a result of probing further into Keel’s data is one suggesting a wealth of secret balloon-based ops in the United States with a Japanese connection, and a “bodies” link too. And not just at the Foster Ranch, New Mexico in 1947, but possibly as far back as 1944-era northern California and Washington State.

Some of these stories are focused on secret, domestic projects of the military. A few, astonishingly, really do appear to be genuine (albeit only several) examples of manned flights to the U.S. by Japanese military personnel in the latter part of the Second World War – all of which ended catastrophically for the crews, who did not survive the flights, for a variety of reasons; but chiefly as a result of altitude, weather and the rigours involved in undertaking such dicey missions.

I’ll have more to report on this very soon..

One of the most notable UFO encounters ever recorded occurred shortly after 11p.m. on October 18, 1973. That the prime witnesses were serving members of the U.S. Army Reserve only added to the credibility of the report. Having departed from Port Columbus, Ohio, their UH-1H helicopter was headed for its home base at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Aboard were Captain Lawrence J. Coyne; Sergeant John Healey, the flight-medic; First Lieutenant Arrigo Jezzi, a chemical engineer; and a computer technician, Sergeant Robert Yanacsek. All seemed normal as the crew climbed into the air and kept the helicopter at a steady 2,500 feet altitude.

But approximately ten miles from Mansfield, they noticed a “single red light” to the west that was moving slowly in a southerly direction. Initially they thought the object might be an F-100 aircraft operating out of Mansfield. Nevertheless, Coyne advised Yanacsek to “keep an eye on it.” These were wise words, as suddenly the unidentified light changed its course and began to head directly for them.

Captain Coyne immediately swung into action, putting the helicopter into an emergency descent, dropping 500 feet per minute. Equally alarming was the fact that radio contact with Mansfield Tower could no longer be established, and both UHF and VHF frequencies were utterly dead, too.

When it seemed that a fatal collision was all but imminent, the red light came to a halt, hovering menacingly in front of the helicopter and its startled crew. At that close proximity to the object, Captain Coyne and his team were able to determine that this was no mere light in the sky. Coyne, Healey, and Yanacsek agreed that the object before them was a large, gray-colored, cigar-shaped vehicle, which they described as being somewhat “domed,” and with “a suggestion of windows.” They could now see that the red light was coming from the bow section of the object.

Then without warning, a green “pyramid shaped” shaft of light emanated from the object, passed over the nose of the helicopter, swung up through the windshield, and entered the tinted, upper window panels. Suddenly the interior of the helicopter was bathed in an eerie green light. A handful of seconds later the object shot off toward Lake Erie. But the danger was still not over.

To the crew’s concern, the altimeter showed an altitude of 3,500 feet and a climbing ascent of 1,000 feet per minute, even though the stick was still geared for descent. The helicopter reached a height of 3,800 feet before Captain Coyne was able to safely and finally regain control of the helicopter. Shortly thereafter, all radio frequencies returned to normal and Coyne proceeded on to Cleveland Hopkins Airport without further problems.

While the UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass opined at the time that the crew had been spooked by nothing more mysterious than a “fireball of the Orinoid meteor shower,” this was never proved, and an in-depth study undertaken by investigator Jennie Zeidman for the Center for UFO Studies summarily ruled out any conventional aircraft as being responsible. Zeidman concisely and accurately concluded: “The case has maintained its high ‘strangeness-credibility’ rating after extended investigation and analysis.”

On several occasions in the immediate aftermath of their encounter, Captain Coyne received telephone calls from people identifying themselves as representatives of the Department of the Army, Surgeon General’s Office, asking if he, Coyne, had experienced any “unusual dreams” subsequent to the UFO incident. As it happened, not long before the Army’s call, Coyne had undergone a very vivid out-of-body experience.

Sgt. John Healey also reported being called about the incident and its aftermath. “As time would go by,” said Healey, “the Pentagon would call us up and ask us: ‘Well, has this incident happened to you since the occurrence?’ And in two of the instances that I recall, what they questioned me, was, number one: have I ever dreamed of body separation? And I have. I dreamed that I was dead in bed and that my spirit or whatever, was floating, looking down at me lying dead in bed. And the other thing was had I ever dreamed of anything spherical in shape; which definitely had not occurred to me.”

That the Army’s Surgeon General’s Office was interested in both out-of-body experiences and the nature of death and the after-life in the early-to-mid 1970s is not in doubt. For example, a September 1975 document titled Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research that had been prepared for the Defense Intelligence Agency by the SGO’s Medical Intelligence and Information Agency contains a section titled Out-of-the-body Phenomena that focuses on the research of Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder who “reported that the Soviets were studying out-of-the-body phenomena in Yogis.”

Ostrander, a Canadian, and Schroeder, an American, were the authors of the classic 1971 book, Psychic Discoveries behind the Iron Curtain. In June 1968, the pair was invited to attend an international conference on ESP in Moscow. The invite had come from Edward Naumov, a leading figure at the time in Soviet psi research.

With the late 1960s seeing the emergence of a more relaxed atmosphere of discussion in such controversial areas of research in the Soviet Union, Ostrander and Schroeder began contacting Soviet scientists and researchers in an effort to understand the scale of investigations being undertaken behind the Iron Curtain. This ultimately led to the publication of their book.

Interestingly, the Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research document also displays interest in the issue of unusual, and somewhat unsettling, occurrences reported at the moment of death within the animal kingdom. Referring to the work of Russian scientist Pavel Naumov, the document states:

“Naumov conducted animal bio-communication studies between a submerged Soviet Navy submarine and a shore research station: these tests involved a mother rabbit and her newborn litter and occurred around 1956. According to Naumov, Soviet scientists placed the baby rabbits aboard the submarine. They kept the mother rabbit in a laboratory on shore where they implanted electrodes in her brain.”

The document continues: “ When the submarine was submerged, assistants killed the rabbits one by one. At each precise moment of death, the mother rabbit’s brain produced detectable and recordable reactions. As late as 1970 the precise protocol and results of this test described by Naumov were believed to be classified.”

Of course, all this begs two important questions, which I will leave you to ponder on: (A) Why is the world of officialdom interested in out-of-body experiences; and (B) why was someone, also in officialdom, making a connection between that curious phenomenon and UFOs?

As many students of Ufology will be aware, the last couple of decades or so have seen a rise in reports of one particular type of UFO. It has become known as the Flying Triangle. The FTs are triangular in shape and very often black in color, hence the name, of course! They often emit a low humming noise, and have a trio of lights on their underside. They usually have rounded corners too, rather than sharply angled edges. And, in some ways, they are not unlike the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (otherwise known as the Stealth Bomber) in design. This has, quite naturally, given rise to the possibility that the FTs are next-generation Stealth planes, rather than true UFOs. It’s not an unreasonable assumption. But there’s a problem with that scenario: the FTs are actually not new, or even recent, at all.

While digging through a whole host of formerly classified files on UFOs at the National Archives at Kew, England in 1996, I came across a one-page report dated 28 March 1965 that, I confess, I almost overlooked. On closer inspection, however, I realized that it was potentially one of the most important UFO-related documents that I had ever come across. According to the MoD paperwork, on the night in question a witness saw at approximately 9.30 p.m. over moor-land near Richmond, North Yorkshire, England: “Nine or ten objects – in close triangular formation each about 100ft long – orange illumination below – each triangular in shape with rounded corners, making low humming noise.”

Interestingly, as noted in the first paragraph of this article, the “rounded corners” and “low humming noise” are precisely what many witnesses to Flying Triangle-style UFO encounters are reporting today – in a world-wide capacity, no less.

Recognizing the significance of this, I made a photocopy of the document and set about locating the witness, who is named in the files, I should stress. This did not prove to be a difficult task. I introduced myself and explained that I had located at the National Archives a copy of the original report that dealt with his sighting all those years ago. It is fair to say that the man was shocked, to say the least, to find that details of his long-gone encounter had been kept on file by the MoD for more than thirty years.

“Yes, I did send in a report all those years ago, but I didn’t think they would have kept it all this time,” he told me, with astonishment in his voice. As he explained, on 28 March 1965 at approximately 9.30 p.m., he had been driving through the North Yorkshire moors. On approaching the village of Skeeby, near Richmond, however, the engine of his car began to splutter and die.

“It was a 1951 Ford,” he states, adding with some humor, “and it was a good car but a bit unpredictable at times. I didn’t want to break down on the moor because it was icy cold and the nights were still dark. I got out of the car to have a look at the engine and that’s when I saw this light.”

He continued: “At first, because it was so dark, I wondered if it might be a weather balloon. But then I had a good look at it over the hedge and realized how big it was and how low down it was. It was about one hundred feet from end-to-end, about one hundred feet above the moors and shaped like a huge triangle and white, milky-white in colour.

“It kept coming towards me and then stopped about two hundred yards from me over the moors. It hovered for a while – nothing came out of it, but there was a light below it that just pulsated like a light bulb. There could have been quite a few lights on it but from a distance the light just looked like a glow. Then without a warning, it just took off at a speed that isn’t recognised. Good gracious, I thought, it must be a UFO!

“As it shot up, not vertically but at an angle, it joined a group of others that were identical and that were in a triangular or V-formation. The others were very, very high; a whole fleet of them. They all then headed south, I think, at a tremendous speed and disappeared over the horizon. I saw the main one for no more than a couple of minutes,” he recalls, “but after they had gone I was still stood by the moor watching this fleet disappear. I waited in case something else exciting happened, but of course it didn’t.”

Curiously, shortly after the encounter, and after having reported the incident to the Ministry of Defence at Whitehall, the witness began to notice “awful red marks on my skin which were like a stretch mark, but they were like a deep salmon red and they kept coming and going. But I didn’t have them before.”

The most bizarre angle of the entire episode was still to come, however, as the man now graphically illustrates: “For about eighteen months after the sighting, I would get strange telephone calls from people. These would be every two or three months. They just phoned out of the blue but didn’t introduce themselves. They just said they were from some bureau or other. They didn’t mention the name of the bureau but kept mentioning ‘sightings’ and asked whether I had seen anything else strange. Had any men come to interview me?”

The witness was never visited by anyone with regard to his Flying Triangle encounter, nor did the MoD ever offer an explanation as to what it was that he saw on that fateful night in March 1965. He was, however, unnerved by those mysterious telephone calls – primarily because aside from informing the MoD of what had occurred, he made no other report (either official or unofficial) with anyone and kept the details to himself: “The only report I ever made was the one I sent to the MoD. It was so exciting that I had to tell someone.”

This important testimony raises a number of vital questions. Why was someone so determined to find out if the witness had received any strange visits with regard to his encounter? Why the interest in knowing if he had had any other unusual encounters of a UFO nature? And most important of all: who was his mysterious caller?

Finally, if as some researchers contend, the Flying Triangles are a relatively modern day creation of the military, how is that an entire squadron of them – right down to the triangular shape, the underside-illumination, and the low humming sound – could have been seen flying over England almost 50 years ago?

November 22 of this year marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. It’s a place I know very well, as it’s only a short journey from where I live. One of the areas of controversy surrounding the assassination that is seldom discussed in a serious forum is that which posits a link between the event itself and the UFO controversy.

As fantastic as it may appear, there is a demonstrable body of evidence available that links numerous people to the JFK saga who were also allied to the UFO subject. More notably, nearly all of those people with connections to the JFK story were specifically linked with crashed-saucer accounts, rather than just the UFO subject in general.

It must be stressed that not all of the individuals in questions had personal and direct connections to the assassination itself – some were merely acquainted with the President, or had an awareness of his UFO links and interests. Several had backgrounds that were dubious, unclear, and filled with suspicious deaths.

Between now and November 22, it’s my intention to share with you – via a number of posts (you’ll note that this one is titled “Part 1″) – the huge amount of data I have uncovered on this very weird topic. We’ll start with the very odd saga of Maury Island. It all began on June 21, 1947, three days before what is widely regarded as the first modern UFO event – pilot Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of a number of elliptical shaped objects over Mt. Rainier, Washington State.

So the story goes, on the morning in question, a man named Harold Dahl, his son, and two still-unidentified individuals witnessed six, disc-shaped aircraft – one in the middle, wobbling in a strange fashion while the remaining objects surrounded it – flying in formation over Puget Sound, Tacoma at a height of around 2,000 feet. Dahl described the objects as being “shaped like doughnuts,” and with “five portholes on their sides.”

Suddenly, the central disk began to wobble even more and dropped to a height of no more than 700 feet. The remaining discs then broke formation, with one of them descending to the same height as the apparently malfunctioning disc and then proceeded to “touch it.”

Without warning, the malfunctioning disc then began to “spew forth” what appeared to be two different substances: a white-colored material that Dahl described as a thin, white “newspaper-like” metal that floated down to the bay; and a black substance, that also hit the water, and that was reportedly hot enough to “cause steam to rise.” Indeed, sections of the black substance allegedly hit both Dahl’s son and his pet dog that were also on the boat, and reportedly killed the animal outright.

According to the story, Dahl reported the events in question to his superior: Fred Crisman, a man with a long and complicated life story, and suspected ties to the murky world of American Intelligence. Since Dahl had supposedly retained samples of the recovered debris, he convinced Crisman to go to the Maury Island shore and take a look for himself.  Crisman later claimed that he saw on the shore an “enormous amount” of both the black and the white material, and recovered some of it for his own safekeeping.

Crisman duly reported his experience to the publisher Ray Palmer (of Amazing Stories fame), who hired none other than Kenneth Arnold to investigate the Maury Island affair. Arnold, whose own, historic encounter came three days after Dahl’s encounter at Maury Island, delved deeply into the story, and was later joined by two Air Force investigators, Captain William Lee Davidson and First Lieutenant Frank Mercer Brown, who were working under General Nathan Twining to collect information on the then-current wave of UFO encounters that was being widely reported across the United States.

Crisman turned over samples of the mysterious debris collected at Puget Sound to the Air Force investigators, who intended to fly it to their final destination at Wright Field, Ohio. Fate would have another outcome, however. Shortly after Brown and Davidson departed from Washington State, their plane crashed, killing both men. A team was dispatched to clean up the site. Reportedly, however, the strange debris could not be located.

Many commentators (including Captain Edward Ruppelt of Project Blue Book fame) have stated that the entire Maury Island event was nothing more than an unfortunate hoax that had a tragic outcome for Brown and Davidson. Kenn Thomas’s intense and dedicated research, however, has shown that the affair might not be so black-and-white as has previously been assumed.

Most significant, are Crisman’s alleged links to the Intelligence community: In 1968, Fred Crisman was subpoenaed by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, as part of Garrison’s investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy.

In a well-known report titled The Torbitt Document, Crisman is named as one of the three “hobos” picked up in the rail yard behind the infamous Grassy Knoll at Dealey Plaza, Dallas where, some maintain, a “second gunman” was located during the killing of Kennedy. The fog of time has effectively resulted in certain aspects of the Maury Island case remaining unresolved – and perhaps, unfortunately, permanently.

For some, the case is still nothing but a tragic hoax. For others, however, it is seen as one of the most important cases of all, involving the actual recovery of debris from a malfunctioning UFO.

The involvement of shadowy players on the periphery of the Intelligence community; the possibility of the deliberate murder of Air Force personnel in possession of the strange materials recovered at Maury Island; and even both direct and indirect links to the JFK assassination, all serve to ensure that the controversy surrounding the Maury Island affair continues.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this ongoing JFK-UFO issue in the very near future…

Since the release of Dr. Steven Greer’s latest documentary film, Sirius, the primary focus remains on the series of tests featured in the movie, regarding a small humanoid nicknamed “Ata”. Greer presents it, rather hopefully, as evidence of extraterrestrial life that has visited Earth.

However, the general consensus among the media, of course, has been that the small creature is of human origin,based on results that appear in Greer’s film that seem to lead to this conclusion. My pal Lee Speigel, writing for the Huffington Post, even noted following the film’s release that, “now that the film is available to everybody, and DNA analysis shows that Ata was human, was that early PR hype about the humanoid a bit premature?” It remains a fair question.

I had expressed previously here at Mysterious Universe that the miniature humanoid, if proven to be anything but human, would still not actually prove the existence of extraterrestrials. If anything, it would prove the existence of anomalies here on Earth, which may challenge conventional views held in the fields of archeology, anthropology, and the scientific study of our evolution as a species… perhaps even the evolution of other humanoid beings believed to exist, as represented largely in the more “fringe” literature of today.

Either prospect–an extraterrestrial, or a tiny nonhuman earthling–would have been fascinating. But as we’ve mentioned, the evidence seems to suggest that the diminutive mummy is indeed of human origin. Still, what does this prove for us at this stage in the game, and are there elements that would still warrant a suspension of disbelief until further information is provided? Indeed, perhaps the verdict is still out on the Atacama humanoid, and here’s why.

Over at The Gralien Report, a very thoughtful comment about this was recently made by Tyler Kokjohn, Ph.D, in relation to both the merit of Greer’s treatment thus far, as well as why we may wish to withhold harsh criticism of the so-called “humanoid” until further information is provided:

The analyses of the entity are incomplete, tentative and not yet vetted by peer review, the gold standard for scientific data… When scientists issue ‘preliminary’ findings, be careful.  That means they are subject to revision.  If they comport with your opinion, be even more cautious because that is when you are most likely to make the error of being insufficiently critical.

Unless and until the complete data are available for scrutiny, this story remains a story, not scientifically established fact.  Dr. Greer has found competent collaborators who should be able to meet the customary requirements to produce a quality scientific publication detailing the full data and results.  Until that happens I believe neither Dr. Greer nor his scientist collaborators.  Maybe each and every assertion made to date will turn out to be the absolute truth.  And maybe none of it will hold up to external, independent scrutiny.  Time will tell all.

Indeed, scientific process (especially in the world of publication) requires not just the serious, technical and skeptical treatment of such subjects, but also in a manner that features the work of qualified experts which is then peer-reviewed by other qualified experts. As Kokjohn points out in the commentary above, we should note that Dr. Greer, to his credit (and despite making somewhat sensational claims about the “alien” find early on), nonetheless followed through with arranging study of the anomalous mummy by qualified individuals. Whether this goes on to be studied further, questioned, reevaluated, and then presented for peer review remains to be seen… but if it does, and despite the outcome, perhaps Greer’s work will help set new (and truly scientific) precedents with regard to the serious (or should I say “Sirius”) study of the unexplained.

Greer’s presentation can be more than a bit biased, at times, toward belief in the extraterrestrial component regarding UFOs. And of course, his meditative remote-viewing sessions for purposes of creating CE-5 “encounters” borders on being outright kooky. And yet, when presented with possible evidence of the imposible, he also managed to raise funding for proper scientific testing, and then released his findings, to date, in a documentary film. Arguably, this is more than most in the field have managed to achieve, and thus perhaps it warrants a suspension of our disbelief until further scientific information can be presented about the final determination on the Atacama Humanoid.

Although many people look to the skies for answers concerning the UFO puzzle, there are more than a few reports on file demonstrating that UFOs have a deep connection to the oceans of our world. Indeed, I have many such cases in my files, and here’s just a few of them. Puerto Rico, or to give it its correct title, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is what is known as an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Caribbean Sea. And according to some, it may very well be the one place – possibly more than any other on the planet – that is home to not just one secret base, but to an overwhelming plethora of classified locations, certainly of a governmental nature, and maybe even of an alien nature, too.

Over the course of the last twenty-years or so, the people of Puerto Rico have been swamped by a multitude of UFO encounters, sightings of strange and unearthly-looking craft surfacing from both mountainous and cavernous lairs, and run-ins with strange, vampire-style creatures that one might accurately describe as the distinctly evil-twin to Steven Spielberg’s benign E.T.: the Chupacabras. And then there are the USOs (Unidentified Submarine/Submersible Objects) of Puerto Rico.

In 2004, when I visited Puerto Rico for the first time – in search of the Chupacabras – I was told of the account of a former civil-defense employee, who had seen a gigantic, unknown craft rise silently out of the coastal waters of the island, while he was on an early-morning jog in the spring of 1999. In this case, the vast device, which was viewed at a distance of around half-a-mile off the coast, or perhaps slightly more, wobbled slightly – rather like a falling-leaf – as it took to the skies, and then streaked vertically at a fantastic speed, before finally vanishing from view as it grew ever smaller, and was finally lost due to the effects of the bright, rising sun.

Further rumors of a potentially-related nature were also provided to me on that same expedition to the island. They came from a retired police-officer who had heard rumors to the effect that, somewhere off the coast of Puerto Rico – he was not entirely sure where exactly – in late-1993, elements of the U.S. Navy spent several days tracking, via sonar, the movements of a huge USO in the deep waters off Puerto Rico. Perhaps aware of its potentially hazardous nature, the U.S. Navy contingent was ordered to merely carefully log the movements of the undersea craft, but never to engage it any way, shape or form whatsoever that might be interpreted as hostility.

Taking the above into thoughtful consideration, is it truly feasible that Puerto Rico might be home to a massive undersea installation? When one realizes that we, the Human Race, have had the ability to construct such science-fiction-like facilities for decades, then the possibility becomes all-too-real, and not so unbelievable, after all. And, make no mistake: evidence of our very own undersea abilities is far from lacking.

For example, an October 1966 document prepared by one C.F. Austin, of the U.S. Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake, California, includes a truly remarkable statement. Titled Manned Undersea Structures – The Rock-Site Concept, it states in part that: “Large undersea installations with a shirt-sleeve environment have existed under the continental shelves for many decades. The technology now exists, using off-the-shelf petroleum, mining, submarine, and nuclear equipment, to establish permanent manned installations within the sea floor that do not have any air umbilical or other connection with the land or water surface, yet maintain a normal one-atmosphere environment within.”

If, as this previously-classified U.S. Navy document demonstrates, the government of the United States was constructing undersea installations – with a comfortable shirt-sleeve environment, no less – a number of decades before the documentation was even prepared in the mid-1960s, perhaps someone else, someone from a world far, far away, has secretly been doing likewise. And, maybe, they chose Puerto Rico as their secret base of both underground and undersea operations.

Extending from Bermuda in the north to southern Florida, and then east to a point through the Bahamas past Puerto Rico and then back again to Bermuda, is a truly ominous realm of wild, churning and turbulent waters known infamously as the Bermuda Triangle, a permanent fixture in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, and one that has become renowned for the hundreds of aircraft, ships, boats and unfortunate souls that have disappeared in the area without trace – and for decades, too.

Down to earth explanations for such vanishings, it goes without saying, most certainly proliferate. Compass malfunctions, disorientation, sudden and violent bouts of severe weather, mechanical and electrical failure, and pilot error are just some of the conventional theories that have been offered as answers relative to why there should have been so many disappearances in such a clearly delineated area over so many years.

But, not everyone is quite so sure that those particular theories provide all the clues to solving the maritime mystery; one of the reasons being that on numerous occasions USOs have been seen in the area.

One particularly significant case involving a craft of distinctly unknown origin occurred in April 1973 when a Captain Dan Delmonico, a calm and collected character with a fine reputation for being grounded and logical, had an encounter that could be considered anything but grounded and logical.

It was around 4.00 p.m., while negotiating the waters of the Gulf Stream, specifically between Great Isaac Light, north of Bimini, and Miami, when Delmonico was amazed by the sight of a large cigar-shaped object – nearly two hundred feet in length, grey in color, and with rounded ends – which shot through the water, not surprisingly amazing and astounding Delmonico in the process. Who, or what, piloted the strange submersible on that April 1973 afternoon remains unknown.

Ninety sixty-six saw an unusual event occur at Pasajes, Northern Spain that caught the attention of the Ministry of Defense. From a radio officer attached to the S.S. Patrick M. Rotterdam, came the following, which I found in 1997, in a then-newly-released batch of formerly classified British Ministry of Defense files on UFOs. This case does not involve a USO directly, but since the witnesses were at sea, it may be of some relevance. A letter sent to the MoD by the ship’s captain reads thus:

“Perhaps the following will be of some interest to you or Jodrell Bank. Whilst at Anchor at Pasajes, North Spain on 22 April at 2100 Bst in a very clear sky, one of the crew noticed a bright patch in the sky and drew my attention to it. It appeared stationary and squarish, the area being about 4 times the size of a full moon. Several of the crew watched, being interested and of course at anchor, there is very little to do.

“The patch elongated and became brighter and to our amazement a complete ring, similar to pictures of flying saucers, bright and distinct with dark centre. For several minutes this object remained visible then returned to a patch, receding elongated again. Then it branched out to form a letter M. When the ring was clear it was about [the] same size as a full moon. We know it was not the moon because the moon was in another quadrant and lying on back at [the] same time. The patch receded away into distance. I can assure you none of us were drunk.”

And there you have it: a round-up of just a few of the weirder USO-themed reports from my files, all of which suggest maybe it’s not to the stars – but to the seas – that we should be looking for the answers concerning the many UFO-themed mysteries that dominate our world.

In the latter part of 1973, a series of distinctly unusual events began to quietly unfold above the green fields and rolling hills of northern England that subsequently triggered a strange, and still-ongoing operation coordinated by an elite division of the British police force. It all revolved around the phenomenon of phantom helicopters. Of the varied elements that make up what is popularly known as the “UFO phenomenon,” there can be few so strange as the phantom helicopter and its close relative, the even-more-sinister black helicopter.

For at least four decades, numerous people throughout the world have reported seeing helicopters, very often completely black in color and with no identifying markings, in areas that have been subjected to intense UFO activity. This has led a number of commentators to speculate that the helicopters are operated by covert groups from within the military-industrial complex and that they are involved in a surreptitious UFO monitoring program.

Many such cases, if not the overwhelming majority, surface from within the United States. Few people, however, realize that Britain had its own run-in with the phantom helicopters in a specific period of time that ran from late 1973 to early 1974. It was a run-in which ultimately attracted high-level, official interest and concern.

Indeed, it was revealed in the press on January 15, 1974 that police forces throughout the North of England had been alerted to look out for any unusual helicopter movements in their vicinity. For six months, night sightings of unidentified helicopters had been filed in both Cheshire and Derbyshire, something confirmed by Cheshire Police, who stated the following:

“We don’t know of any reason why the helicopter should make these trips at night. Obviously we are anxious to find out. Apart from anything else, the helicopter crosses one of the main flight paths to Manchester Airport. There is an obvious danger to the aircraft going into the airport. We are very interested to know what is happening. We hope to be able to trace the pilot and put some suggestions to him. It would appear the pilot is in breach of civil aviation laws. A special license is needed to fly a helicopter at night.”

A spokesperson for Derbyshire Police added: “All sorts of things spring to mind but we have pretty much ruled out that it is anything to do with illegal immigrants, and nothing appears to have been stolen in the areas where the aircraft has been sighted.”

Although Cheshire Police expressed their opinion that only one helicopter was involved in the nighttime sorties, Staffordshire Police admitted on January 16 that their officers had received details of no less than fifty encounters with the phantom helicopter across Staffordshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire.

While the reasoning behind the following conclusion was never disclosed, Staffordshire Police said that their inquiries had led them to believe that the phantom helicopter mystery originated in the London area, and added that whoever was flying the craft was either highly skilled or “completely crackers.”

Still more phantom helicopter reports surfaced in Staffordshire, this time near the town of Newcastle-under-Lyme. In response to inquiries made by the Birmingham Post newspaper, police confirmed that they had received “several reports…of it being heard in the north of the country. All traffic controllers report that no flight plans for a helicopter have been filed. We do not know what it is up to.”

Darley Moor, Derbyshire, was the site of a strange incident in the early hours of January 18. An unnamed person informed police that they had seen a “single, bright light” flying at an unspecified altitude over the Moor. Derbyshire Police declined to speculate as to whether or not there was a connection with the helicopter sightings, but confirmed that an investigation had been set in motion.

The probability that a number of helicopters were responsible for the many accounts on record is supported by the fact that a multitude of additional reports surfaced on January 18. The county of Cheshire was the location once again, and reports poured in from Bramhall, Prestbury, and Scholar Green.

More sightings of unusual aerial lights and phantom helicopters were reported throughout mid-January 1974. Possibly one of the last recorded encounters of this particular wave took place on the evening of January 24, 1974, when Paul Gelling, sub-editor at the Birmingham Evening Mail newspaper, saw a “white descending light” in the sky at Aston Catlow, near Stratford-upon-Avon. “The light fell from the sky and seemed to explode into blue and green,” said Gelling.

Precisely who was flying the oddly elusive phantom helicopter was never fully resolved – at least, not to the satisfaction of the public and the media. Numerous theories were formulated within the corridors of power, however, with much of the attention focused upon the possibility that the many and varied helicopter sightings were linked with the activities of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Following a series of phantom helicopter encounters in and around the area of Buxton, Derbyshire the Metropolitan Police Special Branch initiated an operation to try and resolve what was taking place. Special Branch studied twelve encounters reported to police in Derbyshire in September 1973, including one actually filed by police personnel, who reported “a positive identification of an Augusta Bell 206A Jet ranger helicopter.”

And as Special Branch ominously noted in its now-declassified files on the matter:

“The machine was observed on a number of occasions over a period of two weeks to be apparently practicing landings in the vicinity of the sites of quarries and explosive stores in the Derbyshire countryside. Special Branch Constable [Deleted] has made numerous enquiries to discover the ownership and reasons for the flights from various sources but has yet to establish any positive facts. He has contacted an experienced Royal Air Force helicopter pilot with night flying experience who explained that night flying in the Derbyshire areas would be extremely dangerous due to the nature of the terrain and to the number of overhead pylons in the area.”

The report concluded that there was a “strong possibility” of the flights being “of an illegal nature.”

Sightings of the phantom helicopters continued through March 1974 – something that prompted a meeting to be held at Horseferry House, London, on the 21^st of that month that was attended by senior officers from the Derbyshire and Cheshire constabularies, Special Branch, the Home Office, and the Ministry of Defense.

Intriguing and eye-opening plans to utilise Harrier Jump-Jet aircraft and Ministry of Defense helicopters in response to phantom helicopter encounters were deemed too costly and ultimately impractical. A unanimous agreement was reached, however, for a continual monitoring of the situation, if indeed such action was considered necessary.

As it transpired, however, no further reports were filed, and the Home Office asserted that “…the helicopter and the pilot were never identified.” For some, the mystery lingers on…

As you all know the Dr. Steven Greer documentary “Sirius” is out on April 22nd. You can buy it below and watch it directly through Mysterious Universe.

Purchase and watch Sirius right now!

Back in January of this year I gave a lecture for the Orange County, California chapter of the Mutual UFO Network, MUFON. While there, a member of the audience asked me if there had ever been any reports of cattle mutilations in the UK, where I was born and brought up. When I asked the man if he meant mutilations of animals by what might be perceived as extraterrestrials, he replied: “Yes.” Well, that’s a tricky one to answer.

In my books There’s Something in the Woods and Monster Diary, I discussed a variety of highly disturbing animal mutilation events in the UK. Some of those cases involved sheep. In other cases, cats were the victims. And in a few, horses were the unlucky ones. Moreover, I have also discussed other such incidents from the UK right here, at Mysterious Universe. Here’s one example and here’s another. But, I have to say that all the cases of animal mutilation I came across in the UK seemed to be linked to occult sacrifice, rather than to UFOs, as the links above will demonstrate.

I do, however, have one case in my files that, just perhaps, might indicate a UFO-cattle mutilation connection in the UK. In this case, however, it wasn’t so much a mutilation as an interrupted mutilation. Or, maybe! To this day, I’m still not sure.

At approximately 8.30 p.m. on an autumn evening in 1985, a father and son were driving across the Cannock Chase (a densely packed and huge area of woodland that dominates Staffordshire, England) towards the town of Rugeley, having visited the nearby town of Penkridge to purchase a motorbike. All was normal until they approached one particular area of the Chase that the military used to use as a rifle range.

As they rounded a bend in the road, both the father and son were shocked and amazed to see sitting in the sky at a distance of around one hundred feet – and at a height of no more than one hundred and fifty feet – a large, black triangular-shaped object that was lit up by a series of three lights attached to its underside.

They screeched the car to a halt, jumped out and stared in awe at the incredible spectacle. For a moment, the object simply hung there in utter silence above the silhouetted trees of the forest, and then without warning shot away at an incredible speed. Both father and son looked at each other and then raced back to the car and headed home to Rugeley.

On arriving, the father telephoned Rugeley Police Station to report what had occurred. Interestingly, the police responded immediately and two uniformed officers arrived on the doorstep post-haste. Detailed witness statements were taken from the two men who, significantly, were informed by the officers: “You know, you should never have got out of the car.”

Precisely why this should have been the case was never made clear; however, the police did admit that a report on their close encounter would be forwarded to the Ministry of Defense for analysis.

To this day, no explanation has been forthcoming as to why police at Rugeley responded with such speed to the report; however, the possibility that the police action was prompted by other, similar reports on the night at issue, or that the object was being test-flown by the military, must be given some consideration.

Of course, this case could be just another baffling UFO event. Except for one thing: only two days later, and at the nearby, aforementioned town of Penkridge, something decidedly strange and sinister occurred.

In this particular case, the prime witness had previously served as a military policeman with the British Army in Egypt. At approximately 4.00 a.m. on a weekend morning, and along with a friend, the man in question had driven to Penkridge to take part in a “duck-shoot” at a stretch of river that was situated on the fringes of local farmland. All was normal until around 5.30 a.m.

Suddenly, the man caught sight of a light in the sky that appeared to be moving in his direction and across the fields on the opposite side of the river. It was at a height of what he estimated to be approximately three hundred feet. He watched carefully and with mounting concern as the light came to a complete halt above one particular field and proceeded to fire a beam of light down to the ground. As it did so, the man was able to see directly illuminated in the beam of the object a herd of cows that were blissfully munching away on their breakfast of grass.

Astonished by what he was seeing, the man leapt to his feet; as he did so, however, three smaller lights came out of the larger one – two “swept off” and one, to his horror, headed straight for him.

“Don’t point your gun, whatever you do!” the man told me he said to himself. And so what course of action did he take? He made a run for it. Clearing a fence of not inconsiderable height, he ran to his friend who was busy at the car and blurted out what he had seen. Both decided to head back to the scene, but the lights had vanished. As for the cows, they were still eating breakfast, seemingly oblivious to all that had taken place.

An interrupted cattle-mutilation? Your guess is as good as mine. But, to be sure, it’s a saga of strange and eerie proportions…

One of the things that has long fascinated me is how and why certain places on our planet seem to attract an incredibly large amount of paranormal activity of an astounding and varied nature. I guess the best example would be Point Pleasant, West Virginia, USA. Most people would associate it with the legendary Mothman of John Keel’s classic book, The Mothman Prophecies. And they would be right to do so. But, when sightings of the red-eyed winged-thing were at their height in the 1960s, the Men in Black were also making their presence felt in Point Pleasant. Animal mutilations were reported. Contactee-style UFO encounters occurred. The weird list goes on. And, notably, so do the weird places…

One particular locale that I know firsthand to be a hotbed of on-going weirdness is the old village of Ranton, Staffordshire, England, located only 30 minutes or so (by car) from where I grew up. The History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire – published in 1851 - describes Ranton thus:

“Ranton, or Ronton, is a small scattered village, five miles W of Stafford, comprising within its parish the scattered hamlets of Extolls, Long Compton, Park Nook, and including 320 inhabitants, and about 2670 acres of land, belonging chiefly to the Earl of Lichfield, and Francis Eld, Esq., and the former is lord of the manor, which, at the time of the Norman Conquest, was held by Goderick, a Saxon nobleman, and afterwards by the Noels and Harcourts. Swynfen Jones, Esq., and a few smaller owners have estates in the parish.”

The book continues: “About a mile W of the village is Ranton Abbey, an extra parochial liberty of 700 acres belonging to the Earl of Lichfield. The ancient abbey was founded by Robert Fitz-Noel, in the reign of Henry II, for regular canons of the order of St. Augustine. Considerable remains of the abbey are still standing, including a lofty well-built tower, and the outer walls of the church. The abbey liberty contains 28 inhabitants and the Abbey House which is the seat of ED Moore, Esq.”

Ranton Abbey

Ranton has changed very little over the years, as can be firmly evidenced by the fact that according to the national census of 1991, the village’s population had by then only risen to 415. Yet, the amount of downright oddness in the area has certainly been considerable – and that’s putting it mildly indeed.

Back in the 1920s, for example, there occurred in Ranton a close encounter of the pixie kind, according to an elderly (and now, unfortunately, deceased) lady who personally related her account to me back in February 2000. It was in 1929, the woman recalled, and she was then five years of age when she witnessed the startling sight of a group of “tiny little pixies,” all adorned in dark green clothing, and all prancing wildly around the large and mighty oak tree that stood at the foot of her parents’ back-garden.

But what had begun as an overwhelmingly friendly encounter, with smiling little creatures that playfully tipped their hats in the direction of the entranced young girl, became far more sinister when the atmosphere changed dramatically and the little folk mutated into malevolent, sinister figures. The old woman explained that they slowly began to move towards her in a stalking fashion, complete with menacing frowns on their suddenly-wizened faces. Needless to say, the petrified witness fled for the safety of her home, never again to see the strange, unearthly parade.

Peggy Baker’s tale is a particularly notable one, too. In the winter of 1997, Peggy was driving through the village of Ranton with her daughter, Kathleen, when at around 11.30 p.m., the pair was shocked and scared witless by the surreal sight of a shambling, hairy man-beast that loomed out of the darkened fringes of the roadside,”threw its arms around in the air,” and proceeded to “shout at us, like a big roar.” Not surprisingly, the terrified mother and daughter did not once slow down to get a closer look at the creature. Instead, they fled the scene with the utmost haste.

And with the account of Peggy Baker now firmly fixed in our minds, it is worth noting that Ranton is in almost literal spitting distance of Bridge 39 on the Shropshire Union Canal, where a shining-eyed, violent “man-monkey” was famously seen, late one night in January 1879, by a terrified local. Then there was the glowing-eyed “black panther” that a resident of Ranton saw bounding across the road in front of her late one Friday night in the early 1990s.

But surely Ranton’s most famous story of a distinctly paranormal nature was that of Jessie Roestenberg, who, in October 1954, claimed to have witnessed with her children a classic George Adamski-type flying saucer-style object over Ranton that had built into its side a large “observation window,”  through which could be viewed a number of human-like entities with long-blond hair. In other words, the whole area seems to be a veritable hot-bed of over-the-top weirdness.

So, with that all said, if you ever have the opportunity to visit Ranton, I suggest you hang out there for a few days, get to know the locals, listen to their stories of high-strangeness and – who knows? – maybe you too will experience that very same high-strangeness. You will, after all, be in the perfect place…

The so-called “Kinross Case” focuses upon the strange – and still-unresolved – disappearance of a U.S. Air Force F-89C jet fighter that was scrambled late on the night of November 23, 1953. At the time, it was on an “active air defense mission” to intercept an “unknown aircraft” over Lake Superior. Kinross Air Force Base, which was closest to the scene where the “unknown” was initially tracked, quickly alerted the 433rd Fighter Interception Squadron at Truax Field, Madison, Wisconsin, and the F-89C gave immediate chase.

Available USAF records demonstrate that the F-89 was vectored west-northwest, then west, climbing to 30,000 feet. While on its westerly course, the crew received permission to descend to 7,000 feet, turning east-northeast and coming steeply down on the target from above. Alarmingly, as the aircraft closed-in on the”unknown” it subsequently vanished into oblivion, along with its two crew-members. The last radar contact placed the interceptor at 8,000 feet, 70 miles from Keeweenaw Point, and about 150 miles northwest of Kinross AFB, which, today, is called Kincheloe AFB.

An extract from the official USAF Aircraft Accident Report outlines further details of the official story:

“Aircraft took off at 2322 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. An extensive aerial search has revealed no trace of the aircraft. The aircraft and its crew are still missing.”

First Lieutenant Felix E. Moncla, Jr

Although a search-and-rescue mission was immediately launched, no answers were forthcoming. The intriguing fact that the official records on the affair acknowledge the presence of the “unknown aircraft,” as well as the equally intriguing fact that neither the aircraft nor its crew, pilot First Lieutenant Felix E. Moncla, Jr., and radar observer, Second Lieutenant Robert L. Wilson, were ever found has led to theories suggesting that crew and aircraft were abducted by entities from another world.

For its part, the Air Force eventually concluded that the “unknown aircraft” was a Royal Canadian Air Force C-47 aircraft and that the pilot of the F-89 had identified it as such as he closed in, but then crashed – “probably” as a result of “vertigo” – after abandoning the chase. Nevertheless, in both 1961 and 1963 the RCAF vigorously denied to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) that the object had been one of its C-47’s.

Harvard University astronomer Dr. Donald Menzel championed the Air Force’s position, but added that, in his opinion, the radar operators saw a “phantom echo” of the F-89 that had been produced by atmospheric conditions, and that the “echo” subsequently “merged” with the radar return from the jet and vanished with it as the aircraft crashed into the lake – thus creating the impression that two separate objects had become one, or that an abduction of the Air Force plane had occurred.

It is important, however, to note the important questions and issues raised by the late author and UFO researcher Richard Hall, who stated: “Exactly what happens that night remains unclear, as the Air Force acknowledges, and serious unanswered questions remain. How likely is it that a pilot could suffer from vertigo when flying on instruments, as official records indicate was the case? If the F-89 did intercept an RCAF C-47, why did the ‘blip’ of the C-47 also disappear off the radar scope?”

Hall continued: “Or, if Menzel’s explanation is accepted and there was no actual intercept, why did the Air Force invoke a Canadian C-47, which RCAF spokesmen later stated was not there? No intelligence document has yet surfaced that reports the radio communications between the pilot and radar controllers, and what each was seeing. Without this information, it is impossible to evaluate the ‘true UFO’ versus the false radar returns and accidental crash explanations.”

Very curiously indeed, there is another intriguing aspect to this story that has been overlooked by many researchers of the case: only five hours prior to the disappearance of the F-89, another F89 from Truax Field – this one piloted by First Lieutenant John W. Schmidt and Radar Operator Captain Glen E. Collins – had crashed on the shores of Lake Wingra, approximately 400 miles from the site of the crash at Lake Superior.

In an article in the Wisconsin State Journal on November 24, 1953, it was stated with respect to this earlier crash that: “An Air Force clamshell crane was being used today to lift wreckage of the crashed Scorpion in the mud-filled hole of the University Arboretum in an attempt to find the bodies of Schmidt and Collins.

“Col. Shoup said he was convinced that the men had stuck with their plane in an attempt to keep it [from] crashing into densely-occupied areas of Madison. He praised the cooperation of police, fireman, members of the press and radio and others in trying to find the men.

“He added that an all-out effort will be made to salvage every bit of wreckage to present to an investigating board of experts so that the cause of the mishap may be determined. Officials were inclined to believe that a sudden mechanical failure caused the crash and the two occupants of the plane had no opportunity to radio that they were in distress or to bail out of the speeding aircraft.”

Perhaps this event was indeed a tragic accident resulting from nothing stranger than “mechanical failure” as the Air Force suggested. However, taking into consideration the strange, second incident that occurred only five hours later over Lake Superior – and involving personnel from the same military base and in the same type of aircraft, no less – an open-mind should be kept on the possibility that there was a connection; even if it is one that remains unresolved.

Arguably, two of the greatest problems inherent to the field of Ufology today are that approaches to studying UFOs are 1) not keeping up with available technology and 2) are perhaps, at times, being influenced negatively by technology more so than in ages past. I’ll expound further on precisely what I mean by this in a moment, but first I must pose the very necessary question: will the serious study of UFOs continue to live up to the challenges of our rate of technological growth, or will the study of more advanced intelligence than our own become hindered by these advancements?

Bearing this issue in mind, I must say that seldom after reading many UFO blogs do I want to jump up and say, “Finally, somebody seems to get it!” But today, I admit to feeling a bit refreshed, in that there is someone who has seemingly called the present field of Ufology on the carpet, in addition to acknowledging that technology is not being properly employed in this failing effort toward the furtherance of UFO studies. This alone may not shake UFO research to its core, nor will it beckon saucers toward the ground from their lofty sky-born pinnacles of imagination where they continue to reside today; but changes in attitudes, I think, might still aid us in naming the problems inherent to this field, and ultimately, helping us move forward feeling (and acting) a bit wiser.

“I have some serious concerns,” were the words that appeared over at The Big Study, a blog dealing with ufological matters penned by one calling himself “The Professor”:

There are ways to adjust to this of course, but they all require civilian researchers to step up their games significantly, and create very strong and investigatively efficient linkages to the sites which are brainlessly accumulating the unprocessed data. If that doesn’t happen, UFO research [with one exception] is over. The one exception will be historical research — old cases/ old FOIAs newly released etc. The same thing would be true for hauntings, poltergeists, bigfoot, faerie, Fortean Falls, black dogs, etc etc etc. In every one of these types of spectacular event anomalies, the mere typing into a collecting site which is a dead end will ultimately result in the complete reduction of the anomaly to shallow entertainment in everyone’s mind, and the anomalies will sink to the status of imaginary computer games. The UFO research community MUST STEP UP IT’S GAME!!!

Well said… and while for some it may come across as seeming a bit dramatic, the above statement inspires a number of questions about the current state of UFO research… questions which, routinely, I also find myself being attacked for even proposing for serious discussion (though I do so anyway… also in routine fashion).

A poorly made fake ufo made from a bin. You can even see the strings!

Few would argue that the realistic capacity of computer generated imagery (just as we see already in “imaginary computer games”) has progressed to a point where, at times, it can be very difficult to tell “real” from “fake.” This has certainly been influential in terms of the study of UFOs, since rather than dangling hub caps from fishing line out in a Swedish field someplace, hucksters nowadays are more apt to render their illusions utilizing CGI technologies. With the levels of realism already what they are today, it can be difficult, to say the least, when one hopes to utilize any kind of photographic or video evidence in an effort to bolster the view that UFOs exist. This isn’t to say, as I’ve already touched on, that UFOs couldn’t have been hoaxed three four decades ago using film, but simply that efforts toward creating realistic-looking fakes have become far more accessible, and less easy to determine from “the real thing.”

Amazing computer generated UFO footage

Which begins to lead to more troubling questions, such as what, precisely, IS “the real thing,” anyway? Is there such a thing anymore? While most would say that, without any question, of course there are real UFOs that people witness from time to time, the serious UFO researcher also knows that the mere testimony of any individual claiming to see an unidentified aircraft is nearly worthless. Stories about UFO sightings are to be found just about anywhere these days, but they cannot, by themselves, do much in terms of furthering our effort to “prove” whether UFOs do exist.

Hence our present conundrum: the majority of the basis for UFO studies today involves collected eyewitness reports that, by themselves, do little in terms of “proving” anything. While some would still argue that the preponderance of similar reports must stand for something (and I think that they do, in fact, bear some merit), the collected body of UFO reports, compiled by various agencies since the early 1950s, still do little on their own in terms steering us toward a reasonable explanation for the UFO phenomenon. We’re just about as “in the dark” as we’ve ever been, and we’re still attached to the same preconceptions we’ve held as “facts” for decades now.

Obviously, there are things that can be done in terms of furthering our knowledge, rather than simply continuing to mindlessly “study” UFOs. However, as the Professor points out here, these things really aren’t being done. For some time, I’ve spoken about the necessity for “very strong and investigatively efficient linkages to the sites which are brainlessly accumulating the unprocessed data,” since to my way of thinking, compiling and rehashing UFO reports doesn’t do enough on its own.

Hence my amazement when, after the release of my book The UFO Singularity, I found that many people considered the book to be “a rehashing of old cases” because I took time to examine the implications of statements and observations made by researchers like Jacques Vallee, Whitley Strieber, and several others over the years. The two names I’ve mentioned here, if anything, are fine (perhaps among the best) examples of individuals who have offered insights in the past, and not just “mindless” reporting on the UFO subject… the need for processing the data we have, and not just adding more and more useless information to our existing databases and entry systems, has become quite dire.

And yet, when we talk about “the next big UFO book,” nobody wants anything that really seeks to understand the phenomenon. Instead, people seem to want what amount to being “campfire stories” that will intrigue them a bit, and of course, which can also be passed off as “new material,” whether or not such stories really do anything to further our understanding of the UFO enigma at its core.

So will technology really continue to improve our ability to study UFOs, or will it only present more problems? Or, should we consider whether the “problems” we’re facing are actually more the result of shortcomings in the research community, and a lack of knowledge (or interest) in using technologies that will actually help us move forward?

If I had to guess, I would remain optimistic, and while I think we’ll eventually “get there,” we may be experiencing a bit of a ufological “lull” right now nonetheless…

Reports of strange phenomena absolutely abound throughout the English county of Staffordshire – which happens to be where I spent my childhood. But there is one place in Staffordshire that seems to attract a great deal more than its fair share of such activity. Its name is deeply familiar to one and all throughout the area as Castle Ring. Located near to the village of Cannock Wood, Castle Ring is an Iron Age structure commonly known as a Hill Fort. It is 801 feet above sea level, and it main ditch and bank enclosure is fourteen feet high and, at its widest point, 853 feet across.

It has to be admitted that very little is known about the mysterious and long-forgotten people who built Castle Ring, except to say that they were already in residence at the time of the Roman invasion of A.D. 43 and remained there until approximately A.D. 50. Some suggest that the initial foundations of Castle Ring may even have been laid as early as 500 B.C. Moreover, historians suggest that the creators of Castle Ring might have represented a powerful body of people that held firm sway over certain other parts of Staffordshire, as well as significant portions of both Shropshire and Cheshire at the time in question.

While its enigmatic builders exited our world millennia ago, and left us with very little solid knowledge of who they were or what they actually represented, Castle Ring can claim to play host to far stranger entities, as I will now demonstrate.

On May 1, 2004, Alec Williams was driving passed the car-park that sits at the base of Castle Ring when he witnessed a hair-covered, man-like entity lumber across the road and into the trees. A shocked Williams stated that the sighting lasted barely a few seconds, but that he was able to make out its amazing form: “It was about seven feet tall, with short, shiny, dark brown hair, a large head and had eyes that glowed bright red.” Interestingly, Williams stated that as he slowed his vehicle down, he witnessed something akin to a camera flash coming from the depths of the woods and heard a cry that he described as “someone going ‘Hoo.’”

Just over one year later, on June 8, 2005 to be precise, in an article titled Hunt For Dark Forces at Chase Monument, Chase Post newspaper journalist Sarah Taylor reported that “paranormal investigators are set to swoop on one of the area’s oldest monuments to find out what dark forces lie beneath it.” As the newspaper noted, “a team of real-life ghost-busters” had determined that the area of Gentleshaw that surrounds Castle Ring lay upon what was described as a “psychic fault.” Certainly, the whole area surrounding Castle Ring has been a hotbed of weird activity for years – and not all of it revolves around weird beasts.

For example, commenting on the mountain of strange activity at the Ring, Sue Penton – of Paranormal Awakening, a group affiliated to the Association for Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena – said: “There have been reports of strange music being heard up there. It is such a high place there have been lots of UFO sightings there, too.”

The comments of Sue Penton were echoed by Graham Allen, then of the Etchinghill, Rugeley-based Staffordshire UFO Group: “Obviously, Castle Ring is the highest point on the Chase which makes it a good place for UFO spotting. There have been numerous incidents of UFOs, which could be because you are more likely to see something from a high point.”

Graham Allen elaborated to the press on what he knew about the mysteries of Castle Ring: “There have been reports of something landing there in the 1960s. From a research point of view there are a high number of reports around ancient sites. One argument could be that ancient sites have been located there because of the incidents of UFOs and natural phenomenon. There could be locations where there could be magnetic influences in the ground which have been attributed to earth lights.”

Moreover, relatively close to Castle Ring is an old, disused windmill, which, it is widely believed by local folklorists, was built upon nothing less than an ancient, pagan burial ground. Ghosts of the miller’s children, who allegedly suffocated in a flour silo, are said to haunt the mill to this day, and legend tells of a strange black, humanoid figure that manifested just before the tragedy occurred. Could this perhaps have been the very same, dark figure that Alec Williams saw near Castle Ring in 2004?

Equally as strange are the reports that come from the nearby village of Cannock Wood – from which Castle Ring lies in a northwest direction – of a ghostly nun reported seen in the vicinity of an ancient well where water was once dutifully gathered by local villagers.

In September 2005, local media reported that the aforementioned Paranormal Awakening investigation group had recently completed a nighttime investigation of Castle Ring in an attempt to chronicle the strange activity that had been reported there for years. It was an investigation that proved to be immensely profitable.

A spokesperson for the group said, after the experience was completed: “The Cannock Chase local authorities were kind enough to give permission for PA to conduct its research. Indeed, we are extremely grateful to them for being so open-minded as to allow us to conduct our research at this historical and most important monument. The group’s results are stunning and have created yet more questions than we have answers. We appear to have obtained a very strange mix of UFO and genuine paranormal activity.”

As for the specific nature of that activity, this was made public midway through February 2006. The Chase Post elaborated on the revelations: “A paranormal investigations group say they have evidence of strange, dancing lights and ghostly figures at the area’s most ancient monument.” On one tape, said the Post, one of the group’s members is heard to exclaim: “Tell me that isn’t a big black shape walking towards me.” The Post added that: “A mystery make voice responds, ‘There is!’”

Lest we forget, large, walking, dark shapes and strange lights were both staple parts of Alec Williams’ May 2004 Bigfoot-like sighting at Castle Ring, too. But the story is far from over. In a future article I’ll highlight the most recent reports of high strangeness at Castle Ring, which are as creepy as they are monstrous…