V-shaped UFOs in NM photos

Daniel Drasin is a writer and media producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

He's aligned himself at least once with that huckster Hoagland, which is all we need to know.

It’s all I can do to feebly keep slightly in sight of their dust.

....as you're looking behind you, Quix.

Awwwwwwwwwwwww

Guilt by association strikes again!

LOL.

Such OBJECTIVITY! Sooooooooooo impressive!

/s

PERSONALLY,

I think his fine article stands on it’s own regardless of anything else about him.

Not at all!

I’m really a Johnny-come-lately

poor white trash, shirt-tail relative, incompetent at insults

compared to the average naysayer hereon.

STANTON FRIEDMAN ON MJ-12 DOCUMENTS:

http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/mj12_update1.html

SECION I [SECTION III PARTIALLY FOLLOWING. SECTION II AVAILABLE AT THE LINK]

Update on Operation Majestic 12 Documents

by Stanton T. Friedman
April 2004

[«] [1] [2] [3] [»]

BACKGROUND

It should be no surprise that the various highly classified Operation Majestic 12 or Majic-12 or MJ-12 documents have been attacked since their existence was first made public. Equally unsurprising is the fact that a number of phony or hoax or fraudulent MJ-12 documents have been released as well. Clearly if the original documents: The Eisenhower Briefing Document (EBD) of November 18, 1952; the Truman-Forrestal Memo (TFM) of Sept. 24, 1947 (page 8 of the EBD); and the Cutler-Twining Memo (CTM) of July 14, 1954 (found in July, 1985, in Box 189 of Entry 267 of Record Group 341 at the National Archives by Jaime Shandera and William Moore) are genuine, then the consequences are enormous. Aliens are visiting earth; the government has recovered at least one crashed saucer and several alien bodies; and a very significant group of outstanding American scientists and military leaders has collected, reviewed, evaluated, and kept secret all kinds of information about the visitors. Man is NOT alone and the government has covered up the biggest story of the millennium at least since 1947.

Ten years after the 1984 receipt of a roll of exposed 35mm film by Jaime Shandera at his Burbank, California home and his efforts with William Moore and myself to evaluate them, a new roll of film showed up in the mailbox of aviation and science writer (and longtime ufologist) Don Berliner. This contained many pages of SOM 1-01: Majestic 12 Group SPECIAL OPERATIONS MANUAL: “Extraterrestrial Entities and Technology, Recovery and Disposal.” Meanwhile Tim Cooper, a researcher in Big Bear Lake, California, began receiving loads of supposedly related MJ-12 documents. There would appear to be no connection between the original three documents and the SOM 1.01 (Mailed from Wisconsin rather than Albuquerque, NM) or the mass of Tim Cooper documents which were usually in the form of Xerox copies, often only legible with difficulty and received by him by mail or dropped off at his PO Box.

THE DEBUNKERS

There seem to be several distinct groups attacking the documents:

A. There are those who believe (despite all the evidence to the contrary) that no alien spacecraft have ever visited Earth. Therefore, any documents saying that they have must be false. No need to do a detailed investigation, to spend time in Archives, research the people involved, etc. THEY MUST BE FRAUDULENT!!

B. There are those who are convinced that some UFOs are indeed alien spacecraft, but that no saucer crashed near Roswell because they haven’t found any other classified documents indicating any have. Karl Pflock in his book (Ref.1) epitomizes this approach. If no saucer crashed at Roswell, then the documents must be fake.

C. There are several former military people who are convinced that the documents must be false because the style, format, details, etc. do not match what they would have expected them to be based on their military service from the 1960s onward. This ignores the many changes in office procedures (copy machines, word processors, etc.) and the fact that the White House is a civilian organization not a military one.

D. There are a lot of armchair theorists who think they can make judgements without doing any homework at all.

In much of the discussion one finds the use of the four basic rules for debunking of any controversial idea:

1. What the public doesn’t know, I won’t tell them.

2. Don’t bother me with the facts, my mind is made up.

3. If one can’t attack the data, attack the people; it is easier.

4. Do one’s research by proclamation; investigation is too much trouble.

Another important rule for some of the attackers is that “Absence of Evidence is Evidence for Absence.” Karl Pflock and others cite numerous documents, mostly only classified Secret, that say nothing about Roswell or MAJESTIC 12. This, of course, neglects the fact that there are still numerous documents from the Truman and Eisenhower eras 1945-1961 that are still classified, that we rarely see documents that have classification stamps of TOP SECRET Code Word (TSCW). I was told in November, 2003, by an archivist at the Ike Library that they still have about 300,000 pages of classified documents. We know that the NSA classified 156 UFO documents (found in response to a Judge’s directive) as TOP SECRET UMBRA when they finally released a highly expurgated version (about two lines per page are not covered with Wite-Out), supposedly because that information is about sources and methods. Why would it be listed under UFOs if only 5% is about UFOs?

In addition, as a result of my spending a lot of time at twenty different Document Archives from coast to coast, I can say that almost never does one find TSCW documents about anything. The best documents for comparison with the EBD would be the four National Security Briefings for President-Elect Eisenhower presented by DCI Walter B. Smith in the time period between Ike’s election on November 4, 1952, and January 9, 1953, when Smith informed President Truman of his security briefings for Ike before and after the election. Unfortunately, despite my FOIA request to the CIA and a subsequent appeal to their response (”We have nothing in response to your request” even though I gave the dates and times of two of the briefings), we have no such documents for comparison.

I won’t try to cover all the existent literature on the documents. There is my 1990 108-page “Final Report On Operation Majestic 12” (Ref. 2) and my 272-page 1996 book “TOP SECRET/MAJIC” (Ref. 3). There are several lengthy papers (Ref. 4-8) and Kevin Randle’s new book “Case MJ-12” (Ref. 9). There are also numerous statements on the Internet.

Academics have found it necessary to jump into the fray as well, often without benefit of any research. For example, Carl Sagan (Ref.10) said “The Air Force says the documents are bogus. And UFO expert Philip J. Klass and others find lexicographic inconsistencies that suggest the whole thing is a hoax.” He seemed to be unaware of the fact that Klass had paid me $1000.00 for providing more than fourteen documents done in exactly the same Pica typeface as the Cutler-Twining Memo though Klass, on the basis of nine Elite Typeface documents (obtained by him by mail, he had never been to the Ike Library) of the 250,000 pages of NSC material at the Ike Library, had insisted the CTM should have been done in Elite! Some lexicographic research! Our correspondence and a copy of his check to me are in Ref. 2.

Dr. Robert Alan Goldberg in the Roswell Chapter of his book “Enemies Within” (Ref. 11) stated

Evidence of malfeasance was plentiful. Critics noted that the date format did not conform to governmental style, the papers carried no top secret registration number, military titles were improperly noted and signatures appeared to be grafted on to the document. Anachronistic usages like “media” and “impacted” further betrayed the find.

Goldberg is a Professor of History at the University of Utah. Anybody spending much time at the Truman and Eisenhower Archives would find many different date formats in classified, limited distribution, old documents. In Ref. 2 I published three brief cover memos from CIA Director Allen Dulles to White House Staff Secretary Colonel Andrew Goodpaster, done within a ten-day period, using these three date formats: 12 November l956... November 20, 1956... And NOV 22 1956 (Rubber stamp) and even noted one file folder that had seven date formats and found examples of both Roscoe Hillenkoetter and W.B. Smith (DCIs and MJ-12 members) using the day, month, comma, year format of the EBD. Goldberg didn’t bother to check the Oxford Dictionary. Both “media” and “impacted” were in use at the time. I will discuss military titles below.

TOP SECRET CONTROL NUMBERS

The old military guys have persistently attacked the fact that the EBD, the TFM, and the CTM items all lacked a TOP SECRET CONTROL number. They vociferously insisted that all TS documents must have a TS control number.

Ed Stewart made a truly strong claim on UFO UPDATES:

For those who might not be aware, here is something that you will not hear from Stanton T. Friedman, even though he is well aware of the fact having visited the archives on many times in his own words. RG 341 is a record group with nothing but declassified Top Secret documents. All documents in the group are filed by control numbers. If a document did not have a Top Secret control number, it would not have been able to be filed in RG 341. Repeat, every document in RG 341 is a Top Secret document that has been declassified and has a control number, the entire record group.

This was a truly incredible proclamation and is totally false. One might be forgiven for thinking Ed was claiming to have reviewed all of RG 341. Record Group 341 has 9787 cubic feet of material (about 1000 4-drawer filling cabinets). I have, since 1985, had a 56-page Preliminary Inventory of the Records for RG 341 which lists various entries and how many feet of files are in each and how much of the total is TS: typically only a few percent. For example “Unclassified through Secret, Incoming and Outgoing messages 1946-Dec. 1957”, 1743 ft. Entry 21 of RG 341. “Top Secret Incoming and Outgoing Messages, Oct. 1947-Jan, 1958”, 51ft. Entry 23 of RG 341. In other words there were only 3% (51 of 1743) as many TS messages as those through SECRET. Furthermore many of the documents are still classified. I pointed this out on the UFO Updates Internet interest group. Ed’s response after a few days of silence was

My apologies to Stanton Friedman. On attempting to verify the statements I made with the source of the information, it became apparent that much that I had posted related to RG 341 was misleading to false. I asked for clarification, which was promised, but after four days was undelivered. I felt a reply to Friedman’s last message needed to be time-sensitive to be of any value. Thus my apology to Stanton Friedman and readers of this mailing list for having posted the first paragraph of my last message which is not supported by facts. Unfortunately, I will not be available for further discussion on the UFO subject. I have decided there isn’t anyone in this field that I really care to associate with any longer regardless of what their opinions are.

Like the kid who takes his marbles and goes home.

Jan Aldrich who, like Ed, is quite knowledgeable about army classification procedures, later picked up the same argument even after I pointed out that I had been told by the Archivist Larry Bland at the General George Marshall holdings in Virginia, that if they had to use TS control numbers in Marshall’s day, on all TS documents, we would still be fighting WW 2. I noted that an archivist at the Ike Library said that often the White House didn’t use TS Control numbers. I had published two TS documents without control numbers in Ref. 2 in 1990. One would think they were relevant since they came from Robert Cutler and wound up in General Nathan Twining’s papers at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Jan said it would only count if the originals at the Ike Library had no TS Control numbers. Dr. Herbert Pankratz at the Ike Library graciously supplied me with a Xerox copy of the one memo he found (It indeed had no TS control number) and noted in writing on January 9, 2003, “We have numerous documents classified as ‘TOP SECRET’ which do not have control numbers on them.” I should stress that, of course, many TS documents do have TS control numbers — especially when there are multiple copies of a many-page document. The EBD says “Copy One of One.”

TOP SECRET RESTRICTED

Many including the US government have made a big thing about the typed security marking on the brief CTM: TOP SECRET RESTRICTED over a line saying SECURITY INFORMATION. The point is that supposedly this was never used and doesn’t make sense because TOP SECRET is the highest category and RESTRICTED is the lowest. The Archives in their first version (May 9, 1988) of a commentary about the CTM stated “The Acting Director of the FOI office of the NSC informed us that TSR is a marking which did not come into use at the NSC until the Nixon Administration [1969]. The Eisenhower Presidential Library also confirms that this particular marking was not used during the Eisenhower Administration.” They later corrected several false claims in response to data provided by me. I must admit that although I had found Confidential Restricted and Secret Restricted, I had not found TOP SECRET RESTRICTED. Does that mean it wasn’t used? NO, since we have seen only a small amount of TS material. It should be noted that often highly classified information from one administration was carried over to the next at the White House rather than being sent to the appropriate presidential Library. The Ike Library had a number of documents from the Truman era that were not at the Truman Library.

The uncertainty was removed when the General Accounting Office in its pursuit in many archives for Roswell-related material made the following statement on page 80 of their 400-plus-page report on their Roswell Investigation:

Dec. 7, 1994, Ms. LJ and I reviewed records pertaining to the Air Force’s atomic energy and certain mission and weapons requirements. These files were classified up to and including Top Secret. The period covered by these records was from 1948-1956. There was no mention of the Roswell Incident. No information pertaining to the assignment was obtained. In several instances we noticed the classification Top Secret Restricted used on several documents. This is mentioned because in past references to this classification (Majestic 12) we were told that it was not used during this period.” [Italics added]

I tried to obtain copies of the materials they had seen. I was told that the materials were still classified. Clearly absence of evidence was NOT evidence for absence. An obvious question is why would a clever forger use a security marking that was so uncommon rather than just a plain vanilla TOP SECRET? How did he know to place a slant red pencil mark through the marking? I was informed that this was standard practice prior to declassification. An obscure detail indeed.

SECTION III:

[NOTE: SECTION III HAS A LOT OF IMAGES of the copies with annotations about various aspects and should really be read at Stanton’s website]

PHONY DOCUMENTS

Tim Cooper of Big Bear Lake, California, had received a load of supposed MJ-12 documents over a period of time. With the exception of a lengthy piece on the history of UFOs (Bowen Document) which is on original paper but only has a magenta TOP SECRET MAJIC stamped on it, they are Xerox copies. In a number of instances the originals were very hard to read which meant much time was spent trying to decipher the words. To some this means authenticity. One had bothered me because it was supposedly a memo from Admiral Hillenkoetter to President Truman (Feb. 17, 1948) noting that President Truman wasn’t getting much of the MAJIC material being received in large quantities every 24 hours. Marshall would prepare special black books for Truman (see Figure 1). This made no sense. Truman wasn’t an engineer or scientist. What was the purpose of so much material going to him? It sounded to me like it would have been from Marshall to Roosevelt about the MAGIC material being processed by the ton after we broke the Japanese codes during WW 2. I was also concerned by the recently discovered “machines” and so much “product” being received every day. Sounded very much like what would have been a letter from General Marshall to President Roosevelt during WW 2 talking about the “intelligence product” of code breaking using a cipher machine.

My suspicions were confirmed when I discovered the original (see Figure 2), from Marshall to Roosevelt, about MAGIC, in the readily available book “The American MAGIC” in the University of New Brunswick Library not far from the very important book “Wedemeyer Reports” by General Albert C. Wedemeyer.

On the other hand there was one which I thought was genuine because some regulations which were noted in an item to C. Humelsine matched info turned up by Larry Bryant at the Pentagon. The signature was Humelsine’s according to his wife (see Figure 3). Marshall was in New York according to the archives, hence the need for using the referenced secret telephone. (But then look carefully at Figure 4, clearly an emulation.) There were a number that were questionable. A real breakthrough came when I asked for an opinion from Archivist Larry Bland at the Marshall Archives about a letter supposedly from Marshall to Humelsine (see Figure 5). He immediately recognized it as a takeoff on a famous letter (see Figure 6, also from Lewin’s book) from Marshall to Governor Thomas Dewey (the Republican Candidate for President in the election of 1944) trying to get Dewey not to make any charges that we had broken the Japanese codes since that would lead to their being changed and would cost many lives. Marshall noted that he couldn’t be seen with Dewey. The emulation said he couldn’t be seen with Humelsine!! But Humelsine had been his executive secretary during WW 2 and was again playing that role to Marshall as Secretary of State. They saw each other almost every day. Also it was addressed “Dear Carl:” but Marshall essentially never used first names except for contemporaries. Marshall was decades older than Humelsine.

This was a real break. I also asked Bland if he could see any reason why General Albert C. Wedemeyer (his signature is on one of the Cooper documents) should be connected with MJ-12. His field was China. He had served there during WW 2 and was sent in 1947 to make a study about what the effects would be if the US did or did not get heavily involved in fighting the communists. Bland agreed that he couldn’t see the connection either. He mentioned that there was an entire book “Wedemeyer Reports” (Ref. 16). I located it at the nearby University of New Brunswick Library. Almost immediately I found three documents that were the models for three phony emulations. The technique was straightforward. Retype an existing document with an old typewriter, making a few changes (dates etc.) to conceal the chicanery, scan or Xerox the handwritten portions of documents, combine, and voila, a genuine-looking phony. I checked other books at the library and sure enough the book “The American Magic” had both the original of the Dewey letter (Figure 6) and the original Marshall Magic letter (Figure 2). Bob Wood had located the original (Figure 4) of the letter supposedly from Marshall to Truman via Humelsine letter. It was from Marshall to Truman about Wedemeyer, not Twining. (Figure 4). I hadn’t paid attention to the fact that I knew from Twining’s pilot log that he flew to DC on Sept. 26, not Sept. 25.

Almost all of the phony documents not only had word-for-word portions of the original, but the handwritten items fit right on top. Even though there was a Truman signature, a handwritten date (July 9, 1947) and “I approve.” Spacing was perfect. See the emulation (Figure 7) of a supposed July 9 Directive to General Twining. Compare it to the Genuine item from Wedemeyer’s book (Figure 8). A number of the non-emulation documents had direct quotes from the phony ones establishing that they were phony as well. One of the phony documents (Figure 9) had some handwritten portions from two documents that I had copied at the Marshall Archives with Truman saying “I approve” or “holding for further study” etc. I had sent off copies of the 23 sign offs I had collected to some people including Tim Cooper. Also, all had mistakes in the text that made no sense such as “when finished in New Mexico go to Sandia.” This was to Twining, an emulation of a real directive to Wedemeyer in which it was said “when finished in China go to Korea.” Korea is not in China, but Sandia is in New Mexico. The handwritten date on the Wedemeyer directive (which according to Ref. 16, he wrote) is July 9. But Twining went to New Mexico on July 7. It makes sense for Wedmeyer to take along specialists from State, Treasury, the Navy because he had to look at the total Chinese picture. Not only would those people make no sense as a part of the Twining expedition, but we know who went with Twining from an article in the Alamogordo paper saying Twining had made a routine inspection of Alomogordo Army Air Field (later Holloman AFB).

The fraudulence is further noted by the supposed letter from Twining to the President dated Sept. 19 (see Figure 10) about presenting his findings. Compare the almost identical wording to that of the real items from Wedemeyer to the President’s Office. (Figure 11). Twining’s flight log proves he was only gone from July 7 - July 11 (hardly 2 months). Could Twining’s small group really have generated the same exact number of documents — 1200 — as Wedemeyer’s?

Note also the big paragraph on the first page of the supposed First Annual Report from Twining (Figure 12). It is clearly lifted from the emulation of the Wedemeyer “... In consonance...” (see Figure 11). Repeating a phony portion of a document in another document doesn’t make it genuine.

Bob and Ryan Wood have suggested that General Marshall must have prepared both directives. Not only did General Wedemeyer (an expert on China) say he had prepared his own directive, but he was based in Baltimore in the Army, knew many of the key figures in China, and was reporting to Secretary of State Marshall who had spent most of 1946 in China. Twining was based in Dayton, was head of the Air Material Command, had been head of the 15th and 20th Air Forces and served on The National Advisory Council on Aeronautics with a very strong technical background. The two situations (China in a political upheaval) and an alien saucer in New Mexico were drastically different. Wedemeyer needed presidential authority to speak for the US in China. How could Marshall have used almost identical language and why would he be instructing Twining??

There is a detailed discussion in Ref. 7. This phony boloney stuff clearly established almost all of the documents were phony and is discussed in Ref. 7. Some people insist that if I can’t provide the identity of the forger and the reason for forging, that they must be real. I can’t follow the logic. My concern is if they are genuine. I can’t find a motive for serial killers, for grown men who sexually attack small children, for parents who abuse their children. But it happens. One quite obvious motivation would be to cast doubts on the legitimate documents, a sort of guilt by association. Another might be to waste the time and money of researchers. Ryan Wood of Majesticdocuments.com claims that all the Cooper documents are genuine. However, in his paper (Ref. 17) he talks at length about the various versions of the Truman to Wedemeyer Directive but never shows the full page from Wedemeyer’s book next to the Twining one so that one can’t see the identity in placement and handwriting of the three handwritten comments. This same problem holds on the Humelsine documents. He shows several different versions of the directive to Wedemeyer, but never shows all the other pairs of original and emulation documents as noted here. He also seems to feel that Marshall was in charge of both Wedemeyer, based in Baltimore, and Twining; though Marshall was Secretary of State and not in the War [soon to be Defense] Department. Twining was Head of the Air Materiel Department in Ohio — definitely in the chain of command of the Army.

It also makes perfect sense for the Wedemeyer directive to say “In presenting the findings of your mission you should endeavor to state as concisely as possible your estimate of the character, extent and probable consequences of assistance which you may recommend, and the probable consequences in the event that assistance is not given.” China was a major foreign policy headache with the communists taking over. But what sense does this comment make in the Twining Directive “In presenting the findings of your mission you should endeavor to state as concisely as possible your estimate of the character, extent and probable consequences in the event that assistance is not given”? Assistance to whom for what? Makes no sense at all. One document claims that Air Force General Carl Spaatz met with Twining in New Mexico on July 7, 1947. I was able to show via Spaatz’s flight log, his desk calendar, and a newspaper article, that he was fishing in Port Aransas, Texas, several hundred miles away.

There are a whole host of false claims in others of the Cooper documents including a number of technical errors such as referring to “deuterium, light hydrogen.” But Deuterium is HEAVY hydrogen. Other errors are noted in Ref. 7, p. 207.

OVERALL SUMMARY

The Majestic 12 documents problem is complex and extensive. On balance it appears that the EBD, TFM and CTM are almost certainly genuine, the SOM 1.01 memo is very likely genuine (see Dr. Robert Woods paper (Ref. 18)) and the Tim Cooper Documents are emulations and fictional. It is perhaps not surprising that a documentary movie “Do you Believe in Majic?” is being prepared by Paul Kimball of Redstar films who had dug into a great deal of UFO material in preparation for the documentary “Stanton T. Friedman IS Real!” (Ref. 19) first broadcast on the Canadian Space TV channel in June 2002. Critics have been interviewed. One strange criticsm was made by Karl Pflock when he claimed twice that because Menzel was famous for doodling small cartoon Martians that the statement in the EBD that Menzel was saying the aliens were from Mars was an inside joke. I am afraid the joke is on Karl. The EBD (p. 4) says exactly the opposite:

... considerable speculation has centered around what their point of origin might be and how they get here. Mars was and remains a possibility, although some scientists, most notably Dr. Menzel, consider it more likely that we are dealing with beings from another solar system entirely.

Stan Friedman

fsphys@rogers.com
http://www.stantonfriedman.com

REFERENCES

1. Pflock, Karl T. “Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe” 2001, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY 331 pages, Hardcover.

2. Friedman, Stanton T. “Final Report on Operation Majestic 12” 15th Printing 2003, 108 pages, $10.00 Including Shipping and Handling from UFORI, POB 958, Houlton, ME 04730-0958

3. Friedman, Stanton T. “TOP SECRET/MAJIC” 272 pages, Marlowe and Co., 10-page Bibliography, 1996 HC List $22.95. Autographed, 0nly $15.00 Incl. S & H, UFORI

4. Friedman, Stanton T. “Crashed Saucers, Majestic 12 and the Debunkers” July 1992, MUFON Conf., 21 pages. 48 Refs. $4.00 From UFORI

5. Randle, Kevin D. “Conclusions on Operation Majestic 12” August 1994. 30 pages. FUND For UFO Research

6. Friedman, Stanton T. “Operation Majestic 12? YES!!” 1994, 37 pages 50 Ref. $4.00 UFORI

7. Friedman, Stanton T. “Roswell and the MJ-12 Documents in the New Millennium” MUFON July 2000, 28 pages 20 Ref., $4.00 UFORI

8. Friedman, Stanton T. “Review of Case MJ-12” January 2003, at website www.stantonfriedman.com; 9000 words, 27 pages Also $4.00, UFORI

9. Randle, Kevin D. “Case MJ-12:The True Story Behind the Government’s UFO Conspiracies” Dec. 2002, Harper Torch, Paperback, 311 pages. $7.50

10. Sagan, Carl “The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” Random House, 1995, 475 pages.

11. Goldberg, Robert Alan “Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America” Yale University Press, 2001, 368 pages. Chapter 6, “The Roswell Incident”

12. McDonald, James E. “Statement on UFOs” to Congressional Hearings, July 1968. 71 pages. Data on 41 cases. $10.00 From UFORI

13. Goldberg, Leo “An Appreciation of Donald Howard Menzel” Sky and Telescope, April 1977.

14. Friedman, Stanton T. “The Secret Life of Donald H. Menzel” International UFO Reporter, Jan./Feb. 1988 pp. 20-24.

15. Korff, Kal “The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don’t Want You to Know” Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 1997 264 pages.

16. Wedemeyer, Albert C. “Wedemeyer Reports!” Henry Holt and Co. 1958, 496 pages.

17. Wood, Ryan “Resolving the Emulation in Directives Between Twining and Wedemeyer” pp. 199-240, UFO Crash Retrieval Conference Proceedings, Nov.14-16, Las Vegas, NV, 240 pages, $25.00 From Ryan Wood, 14004 Quail Ridge Dr., Broomfield, CO 80020 rswood@majesticdocuments.com

18. Wood, Robert M. “Authenticating the Special Operations Manual” pp. 165-184 See item 17.

19. Video “Stanton T. Friedman IS Real!” by Redstar Films, 2002, 48 minutes, TV Documentary, $20.00 From UFORI.

*** Argue that extraterrestrials would or wouldn’t, should or shouldn’t, can or can’t behave in certain ways because such behavior would or wouldn’t be logical. Base your notions of logic on how terrestrials would or wouldn’t behave. Since terrestrials behave in all kinds of ways you can theorize whatever kind of behavior suits your arguments.

This doesn't make your illogical argument logical.

FROM:

http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/sf-government-lies1.html

GOVERNMENT UFO LIES [PARTS I AND III. SEE PART 2 AT THE LINK]

[SOME ADDED QUIX PARAGRAPHING FOR EASIER READING AND SOME . . . CENTERINGS FOR EMPHASIS]

Government UFO Lies

An Illustrated Lecture

MUFON 2005

by Stanton T. Friedman

May 2005

ABSTRACT

For almost sixty years the public has been hearing about flying saucers and then UFOs. Press coverage has ebbed and flowed, but polls have always shown a very high awareness score. Motion pictures, tabloids, and TV programs have picked up the slack with a mélange of fiction and some truth. Unfortunately, much of what we have been told by the “powers that be” has been false. Many different government agencies have shared in the misrepresentation and have provided outright LIES as well.

These include the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, United States Air Force, etc. The press and certain other academic and supposedly scientific groups, such as SETI (Silly Effort To Investigate) have often blindly accepted and promulgated nonsense without any effort to get at truth. Hopefully, the LIES presented in this paper will help cause these protectors of the public to do their job: seek and present truth.

LIE:

An untrue statement made with intent to deceive (Webster’s)

BACKGROUND

For many years much of the focus in serious ufology has been on the government’s cover-up of UFO information. I can guarantee a laugh when at my lectures I show the 1980 NSA 21-page legal-sized TOP SECRET UMBRA justification (a legal affidavit) for withholding 156 UFO documents in response to an FOIA suit by CAUS (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy). Initially it was 75% blacked out.

I turned page after page on which one could read nothing. This also went over well on television since one needn’t read anything.

I also quote from the November 18, 1980, response by Federal Judge Gerhart A. Gesell, who wasn’t allowed to see any of the disputed documents. His comment in his ruling was that “The public interest in disclosure is far outweighed by the sensitive nature of the materials and the obvious effect on national security their release may well entail.”

The Federal Court of Appeals agreed with him and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. In about 1997 the NSA decided that because of the new Executive Order 12958, making it much tougher to continue to keep documents more than twenty-five years old classified, they released a much more lightly censored affidavit with only 20% blacked out. In addition they “released” all 156 UFO documents.

Unfortunately, they used Wite-Out to cover-up all but one or two lines per page. Whited out pages don’t have quite the same impact on television as solid black areas. A number of people in ufology then gave me a hard time saying that now it was clear that there was no cover-up.

They reluctantly admitted that one couldn’t read what was under the Wite-Out. Still they insisted, per the NSA, that everything covered up was just about Sources and Methods, which by law could not be released. They also took note of the fact that the lines one could read often said “(Probably a Balloon)” after the mention of a UFO. This seems highly unlikely considering that NSA’s job is to monitor foreign military communications.

Why was the material filed under UFOs, if there was nothing of substance? I should point out that I have very quietly talked to a number of former NSA people who told me they often intercepted UFO reports from foreign pilots.

Another important aspect of the cover-up is the October 20, 1969, statement by USAF Brigadier General Carroll Bolender, while reviewing Project Blue Book, with which he had no previous connection: “Moreover reports of UFOs which could effect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 and Air Force Manual 55-11 and are not part of the Blue Book System.”

Two paragraphs later he noted “However, as already stated, reports of UFOs which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose.” I spoke with Bolender and it was clear that he understood the distinction between civilian reports and ones which could effect national security.

Clearly the sightings of most interest are the ones that could effect national security. Blue Book wasn’t even on the distribution list for sightings reported under JANAP 146 or AF Manual 55-11. I well remember the frustration expressed by Blue Book Scientific consultant Dr. J. Allen Hynek when I told him about the Bolender memo at a West Coast MUFON Symposium in 1979. He felt very used.

But if they weren’t part of Project Blue Book, where were the important cases documented? Why haven’t we been told about them? Why does the USAF always respond to queries about UFOs by referring to Blue Book and the fact that it was announced as being closed in December, 1969?

I have heard, for example, of flying saucers being observed going right down the runway of a Strategic Air Command base. Unfortunately, my informants don’t provide classified documents. There is testimony, but no proof. I must admit it is also true that people have found plenty of Project Blue Book sightings that were brushed off by Blue Book that, upon much more careful investigation, turned out to be significant cases.

Dr. James McDonald in his congressional testimony (Ref. 1) talked about some of these. Brad Sparks and Jan Aldrich of Project 1947 have also been working on these sorts of cases. USAF Pilot manuals still have instructions for reporting UFOs despite the USAF still claiming they now have no interest in UFOs.

In this paper what I intend to do is provide numerous examples of flat out LIES by various government agencies and individuals about UFOs.

LIES about Roswell

LIES about the recovery of a crashed flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico, in July, 1947, have gone on for fifty-eight years. Evening newspapers across the USA from Chicago west on July 8, 1947, carried front page headlines stating that the government had recovered a flying saucer on a ranch outside Roswell.

That the cover-up went into effect quickly is shown by the full-width front page headlines later that same day in the Los Angeles Herald Express “Army Finds Flying Saucer.” In smaller print on the next line the LIE was in place: “General Believes it is Radar Weather Gadget.” Earlier, newspapers east of California only had the “finds saucer” story.

Within just a few hours of the press release from Roswell announcing the find, Brigadier General Roger Ramey, then Commander of the Eighth Air Force based at Ft. Worth Air Field in Texas was LYING to the press and the public that it was just a radar reflector balloon combination.

Pictures were taken in his office showing phony wreckage not matching at all the description given by Major Jesse Marcel who had retrieved a small part of the wreckage located by rancher Mack Brazel “last week” according to all the July 8 stories. Ramey really had chutzpah since he was holding a folded piece of paper in his hand with printing on it that Dr. David Rudiak has deciphered including such phrases as “victims of the wreck.”

The Army Air Force solidified the weather balloon radar gadget explanatory LIE with the launching of such a device for the press over at Alamogordo Army Air Field on July 9. The full-width July 10 front page headline of the Alamogordo News, with three related pictures, was “Fantasy of ‘Flying Disc’ Explained Here.”

There was a 24-column-inch front page article. It was accepted, though it was perfectly obvious that the weather balloons could not explain all the sightings of high speed objects such as those observed by Kenneth Arnold on June 24.

It took until 1994 for the USAF to make a preemptive strike against the GAO, searching for Roswell information for congressman Steven Schiff, by finally admitting that they had LIED about the weather balloon explanation. They LIED again to do it, now falsely, in a two-inch-thick volume The Roswell Report: Truth vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (Ref. 2 ) by USAF Colonel Richard Weaver (he provided the fiction).

He claimed that the Roswell wreckage had been a super secret Mogul balloon train found on June 14, 1947, by rancher Brazel. In the first place, June 14 is hardly “last week” from July 8. In the second place, the characteristics of the wreckage described by witnesses don’t match Mogul balloons.

For the latter the paper-backed foil could easily be torn, the balsa wood sticks were easily broken, cut, and burned. The I-beams described by Jesse Marcel could not be broken, cut or burned.

In the third place, it was claimed that the unusual symbols described by people like Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr. were from a toy manufacturer’s tape used to hold the radar targets together. Isn’t it amazing that the Air Force has not been able to show a picture of any such tape nor are such symbols visible in the high-resolution photos taken in Ramey’s office?

In the fourth place, USAF Colonel Richard Weaver, a disinformation specialist, in his huge, grossly misleading report (Ref. 2) carried a LIE by Counter Intelligence officer Colonel Sheridan W. Cavitt claiming “The area of this debris was very small about 20 feet square and the material was spread on the ground, but there was no gouge or crater or other obvious sign of impact. I remember recognizing this material as being consistent with a weather balloon. We gathered up some of this material which would easily fit into one vehicle.”

Cavitt also LIED in saying that he had not met the rancher. The only way he and Jesse Marcel could have found the crash site would have been to follow the rancher out. Jesse indicated that Brazel had given them a can of beans and they stayed overnight in their sleeping bags. Considering that a Mogul balloon train consists of 20-25 standard neoprene weather balloons tied with string at twenty-foot intervals, with ballast packs, sonobuoys and radio transmitters, and stretched over 500 feet, it would have been impossible to fit such a pack in one vehicle.

If Cavitt’s description had been accurate, there would have been absolutely no reason for Marcel and Cavitt to follow the rancher out, much of the trip cross country at that. The debris would all have fit in Brazel’s pick-up truck and would have all been left in town.

The reason Marcel went out to the ranch was because there was nothing conventional in what Brazel brought in and because Brazel had indicated that the wreckage had covered an area hundreds of feet wide and three quarters of a mile long,
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and his sheep wouldn’t cross the debris field.
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Remember that Brazel had recovered weather balloons before and also had first heard on July 5 in Corona about flying saucers and a reward for recovery of one. It is interesting indeed that Weaver also quoted heavily from the Roswell Daily Record of July 9 with the new story for Brazel (“Harassed Rancher who Located ‘Saucer’ Sorry He Told About It”), but left out the final comment “I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon.”

Weaver also left out the comment in the article that the debris covered an area 200 yards in diameter or 1000 times greater than that stated by Cavitt. Nobody mentioned that neoprene balloons left in the hot dry air of New Mexico turn to dust in a couple of weeks.

In the fifth place, the many Air Force claims about how classified Mogul was were LIES. Results that showed they had picked up sound waves from a Soviet nuclear explosion with their constant altitude balloon train would indeed have been TOP SECRET.

But the equipment was standard conventional balloons, sonobuoys, etc. Some launches were allowed to just come down in the desert, no chase planes, no ground crew following. The guys cleared to work on it were cleared through Confidential according to a June 1946 memo at the National Archives.

Another LIE from Weaver was his absurd statement: “In 1978, an article appeared in a tabloid newspaper the National Inquirer [sic] which reported the former intelligence officer, Marcel, claimed that he had recovered UFO debris near Roswell in l947. Also in l978, a UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman, met with Marcel and began investigating the claims that the material Marcel handled was from a crashed UFO.”

This neatly tabloidizes the story. After all, how could the Enquirer know about the story unless Marcel had taken it to them? Where else does a UFO researcher (can’t say scientist, after all) get his leads, except from the tabloids?

Weaver finishes with another LIE: “Similarly two authors William L. Moore and Charles Berlitz also engaged in research which led them to publish a book The Roswell Incident in 1980.” One would think falsely that there was no connection between me and Berlitz and Moore who must also have gotten their lead from the Enquirer.

The fact of the matter is that the article in the Enquirer by the late Bob Pratt appeared in 1980 not 1978. I gave Jesse’s contact info to Bob because Bill Moore and I
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had already talked to sixty-two people about Roswell
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and the first Roswell book The Roswell Incident by Bill and Charles Berlitz, with Bill and I doing more than 90% of the research, was about to come out. I had previously met Bob at MUFON Symposia and had read a number of articles that he had written. He was far more accurate than the UFO articles I have seen in the New York Times and Washington Post.

Bob also served as the liaison between the Enquirer and their panel of 5 professionals, including Dr. J. Allan Hynek, Dr. James Harder, Dr. Leo Sprinkle, and aerospace engineer John Schuessler, now MUFON’s international director.

PART III:

http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/sf-government-lies3.html

Government UFO Lies
Page 3

FBI LIES

Here is a statement (February 22, 1972) from J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime head of the FBI: “The investigation of UFOs is not and never has been a matter within the investigative jurisdiction of the FBI.”

As noted in my movie UFOS ARE Real and in the book UFO-FBI Connection (Ref. 9) by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, Hoover was able to obtain more than 1600 pages of FBI files about UFOs back in the late 1970s.

Nick Redfern in his book The F.B.I. Files: The FBI’s UFO TOP SECRETS EXPOSED (Ref.10.) also notes FBI involvement in detail. Even Colonel Weaver quoted from an FBI memo about Roswell though in a grossly misleading fashion.

How about the CIA? Is Colonel Shubert really unaware that a suit brought against the CIA by Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (back in the 1970s) brought forth 900 pages of UFO material (after LIES that they had nothing) and a list of 57 documents from several other agencies including the State Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency? Eighteen of the documents listed were from the National Security Agency, which after considerable prodding from the courts as described above “released” 160 of its own UFO documents. They were almost entirely whited out.

There is also a funny story about the FBI and UFOs. I had written back in 1988 to both the CIA and FBI, under Freedom of Information and the Privacy Act, for any and all files they had on me. I provided my full name, Stanton Terry Friedman, date and place of birth, the fact that I had a Q security clearance from 1956 until 1970, etc.

I know from talking to friends that had been interrogated by the FBI for my initial clearance and renewals five and ten years later, that the FBI had conducted the investigations. However, the FBI wrote saying they had no file on me. A LIE.

Then the CIA responded that all they had on me was a negative name check request from the FBI and gave the file number. I sent a copy of the small CIA response to the FBI and asked that they recheck their files.

They responded that indeed they did have a file, but it was classified. I asked how big the file was and at what level it was classified (I doubt if it was TOP SECRET RESTRICTED like the Cutler-Twining memo). They responded saying that both the size and level of classification of my file were classified.

Eventually Larry Bryant, with my permission, was able to get a small portion of my file. The passport records were noted. At one point it appears as though they thought Stanton was Terry’s brother! It is hard to believe that they are totally incompetent … just arrogant in thinking they can get away with LYING.

CIA UFO LIES

The CIA, not surprisingly, has also LIED. When they were first approached by CAUS for UFO documents, they claimed their only involvement with UFOs had been in the Robertson Panel of 1953 and that they had no other UFO documents.

Their 900 pages of released UFO documents (none of it classified higher than secret) proved that was a LIE. When the NSA finally did a court-ordered search, not only did they find their own 160 old UFO documents, but they also found 23 more from the CIA, which somehow hadn’t found them in its court-ordered search.

In other words the CIA LIED to a federal court judge. It took me two years to get nine of those (they’re supposed to provide FOIA responses in ten working days). They were unclassified English translations of Eastern European newspaper articles about UFOs. It took another three years in response to my appeal to get four more very heavily censored CIA TOP SECRET Code word UFO documents.

On two, one could read only eight words that weren’t blacked out. One said “DENY in TOTO!” I am convinced that the CIA also LIED when they claimed they had nothing in response to an FOIA request from me for any information related to four national security briefings provided to President Elect Dwight Eisenhower by DCI Walter B. Smith between November 4, 1952, and January 9, 1953.

I had given the CIA dates and times of two of the briefings and a copy of the letter from Smith to President Truman describing that he had kept Ike abreast of national security matters. The CIA in response to my appeal said they still had nothing. It is impossible for me to believe there was no record of four such high level briefings which we know took place according to a letter found at the Truman Library. They LIED.

There were also a number of LIES in a paper by CIA Historian Gerald Haines in 1997, “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs.” For example, it was stated that the U-2 and Oxcart (Spy Plane) projects were responsible for over half of the UFO sightings from the late 1950s and 1960s.

Dr. Bruce Maccabee has checked the statistics and there was no increase when they started flying. Surely these high altitude aircraft were never observed to appear to be round, able to hover, to move straight up and down, to make right angle turns all without noise or visible external engines or wings or to land and take off vertically as so many UFOs can.

Haines said the first wave of UFO sightings was in 1947. Sweden had a huge wave in 1946. Haines says there are no original MJ-12 documents. He LIED. The Cutler Twining memo is at the National Archives. It is stated that 57 UFO documents were withheld because of national security and sources and methods. LIE.

They were withheld because they originated from other agencies. Haines states “most scientists dismissed flying saucers as a quaint part of the 1950s and 1960s….” He provides no data. Polls taken for more than 30 years have shown that the greater the education the MORE likely to accept UFO reality. Two polls of engineers and scientists involved in research and development activities showed that more than 60% of those who expressed an opinion said they were likely real.

The NAVY has LIED in claiming they have no information on UFOs, even after I sent a formerly TOP SECRET UFO report by the Navy and the Air Force. They found it interesting, but they still had nothing!

An interesting LIE illustrates the need for cover up of TOP SECRET data in documents having a lower classification. USAAF General Nathan F. Twining was commanding officer of the Air Materiel Command in July, 1947. According to his flight log, which I found in his papers at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, as confirmed by the flight log of his pilot, which I was allowed to copy, he spent the week of July 7-11, 1947 in New Mexico and had obviously been tasked to look into UFOs.

In his famous letter of September 23, 1947, to the Commanding General of Army Air Forces, he stated “Due consideration must be given to the following: … (2) The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these objects.”

Many have claimed that this statement proves that no alien craft wreckage had been found in New Mexico in July. They ignore the fact that this letter had been only classified SECRET. Clearly crash wreckage would have been TOP SECRET Code word (note the NSA and CIA TS Code word UFO documents and an FBI memo claiming that the Air Force and Navy considered the subject of UFOs TOP SECRET).

TOP SECRET material cannot be referenced in SECRET documents. Twining went on to be Chief of Staff of the USAF and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He certainly deserved his spot on Operation Majestic 12.

I by no means intend to imply that only government officials or employees lie about UFOs. Debunkers have often made false claims.

A number of so called whistleblowers have lied repeatedly about their backgrounds. These include Robert Scott Lazar, who is not a scientist, did not get degrees from MIT or Caltech, did not work for Los Alamos (he worked for a subcontractor), did not figure out how saucers work, did not steal any element 114 or 115. Frank Kaufmann was not a Roswell witness. Guy Kirkwood, a.k.a. Mel Noel, was not an Air Force pilot who took pictures of UFOs from the air. Michael Wolf Kruvant had none of the six degrees he claimed, was not a colonel/pilot in the Air Force or a consultant to MJ-12. Lt. Colonel Philip Corso was not a member of the National Security Council, etc. etc.

One can understand lying to really protect national security such as was done after the successful Atomic Bomb test in New Mexico July 16, 1945, with a story that an ammunition dump had blown up and nobody was injured.

But with all the (False) claims that UFOs are no threat to the security of the USA, how can they continue to lie? If they are a threat, don’t we as citizens of a democracy have the right to know? I, for one, don’t want technical data such as could be used by Osama Ben Laden, or Iran, or North Korea for military purposes—to be put out on the table.

I do think it is of extraordinary importance for the future of this planet that we recognize we are NOT alone. We all on this planet do have something in common much as we hate to admit it. We all are Earthlings. It is time we started acting like it.

Stan Friedman

fsphys@rogers.com

www.stantonfriedman.com

REFERENCES

1. McDonald, Dr. James E. “Statement on UFOs” Presented to Congressional Hearings, July 29, 1968, 71 pages, 41 cases. Available from UFORI, PO Box 958, Houlton, ME 04730-0958. $10.00 Includes S&H.

2. Weaver, Colonel Richard “The Roswell Report: Truth vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert” USAF, US Government Printing Office. 1994.

3. Friedman, Stanton T. “Majestic 12 Documents Update,” April 2004, 26 pages, $4.00 from UFORI.

4. Friedman, Stanton T. “Review of ‘Case MJ-12’ by Kevin Randle,” 28 pages, $4.00 from UFORI.

5. “Blue Book Special Report No. 14” by Battelle Mem. Inst. 1955, 260 pages, $25.00 from UFORI. Includes S&H.

6. Friedman, Stanton T. “TOP SECRET/MAJIC” Marlowe & Co., 1997, 271 + xiv pages. New Edition 9/05 with additional chapter. See http://www.stantonfriedman.com. $17.00 Includes S&H. Foreword by W. Strieber.

7. Feschino, Frank Jr. “The Braxton County Monster: Cover-up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed.” 2004, 351 pages, over 70 Illustrations. Hardcover available from UFORI. $33.45 Includes S&H. Foreword and Epilogue by Stanton T. Friedman.

8. Friedman, Stanton T. and Berliner, Don “Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident.” 2nd. Ed., Marlowe & Company, New York, 1997, 227 pages. $15.00 from UFORI. Includes S&H.

9. Maccabee, Dr. Bruce “UFO-FBI Connection: The Secret History of the Government’s Cover-Up” Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN 2000, 311 + xv pages. Foreword by Stanton T. Friedman.

10. Redfern, Nicholas “The F.B.I. Files: The FBI’s UFO TOP SECRETS EXPOSED” Simon & Schuster, 1998, 354 pages. Hardcover.

And now . . . boys and girls . . .

we have OBTUSE illogical silliness.

Guilt by association strikes again!

Tell me about "you're known by the company you keep" from a churchgoer's perspective. ;)

I think his fine article stands on it’s own....

To me it reads like something from a huckster who is hypersensitive to criticism.

LOL.

Clearly we have different affinities for different styles of writing.

I didn’t read it that way, at all.

BTW, I don’t mind feeling, recently, more of a fondness toward you as a person and a FREEPER and even as an intellectual sparing partner.

But it is a bit durned disconcerting at times. LOL.

It was easier to be more fiesty and ornery with you when you were more ornery and mean-spirited.

This virtually friendly collegial banter is getting almost embarrassingly warm and kindly. What will the observers think! Goodness!

However, on the whole, warm and kindly more or less mock emotionality in the “hostilities” are much more my preference.

CHEERS.

BTW,

I think the STARGATE WORMHOLE thing is nonsense.

There may be something roughly equivalent in terms of results but I just have a hard time buying that description of what happens. Not sure why.

I’m not a physicist by any means. But it just doesn’t fit my fantasies about reality.

I wouldn’t be surprised that there are STARGATES and that they allow instantaneous travel from wildly diverse points in our time/space dimension.

I just don’t think they function via wormholes etc.

That there are doorways via other dimensions etc. . . . much more plausible, to me.

Any physicists care to comment?

But it is a bit durned disconcerting at times. LOL.

Then just wait until it's that time of the month, okay?

LOL.

I don’t do PMS.

Gave it up for Lent and any other day I can think of.

My mother complained of menopause and such for more than 20 years. Maybe her estrogen replacement therapy had something to do with it. Mostly, though, I think it was her cussedness from having had a hard life growing up. That and getting her exercise mostly from jumping to conclusions.

My wife had PMS 3 weeks out of 4 . . . or close to it. No fun in that! LOL.

Have always been thankfull that I was a man and didn’t have to put up with it in my own body. Putting up with it in someone else’s body has been . . . dramatic . . . enough!

Have a good rest.

My mother had it 24/7/365 for many years. You’d have thought she was bleeding to death. But she outgrew it. My exes actually were quite tolerable during those times.

It’s easy to get aggravated at them, but no doubt it was/is bewildering to them, especially at the onslaught of puberty. Heck, those are days I don’t want to ever go through again, for that matter.

Now get lost. :)

I don’t think mother ever outgrew it.

It mellowed a bit but was still there lurking underneath the surface.

Then the Alzheimer’s hit and her better qualities were more blunted while the prickly irrationality was still as strong as ever.

Yet, she could, even in her earlier years, remark about how even tempered my step-father’s mother was . . . through all manner of hardships . . . coming West from the Midwest in a covered wagon or some such . . .

I just don’t think calm or serene were in her dictionary. They certainly weren’t in her personna or constitution.

I keep having the fantasy that I’m going to bed soon. Guess my long nap is still energizing me.

Cheers.

LATEST FUZZY PHOTO (UK)

UFO spotted in St Helens

Published Date: 23 January 2009 By Andrew Moffatt

A UFO has been spotted hoovering over the East Lancs in St Helens - nightshift worker Michael Simpson, 31, took these snaps using his mobile phone camera.

He was cycling home at around 4.30am travelling on the Liverpool-bound carriageway when he was stopped in his tracks by the object, which he estimates to be flying at around 300ft.

The incident took place on Wednesday (January 21) near to the Waterside pub. Michael, who is the nightshift kitchen manager at Sainsbury's distribution depot in Haydock, initially dismissed the sighting as a hot air balloon.

He explains: "It was around the height that the police helicopter can normally be seen, so this was my first thought as to what it could be. There was, however, absolutely no sound emitting from the object.

"I had stopped travelling at this point and the object was moving very slowly and steadily towards me. It could not have been travelling any faster than 40-60 knots.

"Initially, I thought I could see a shaft of orange or red light shining down beneath the object, but as it crept ever closer it became apparent I was looking at flames. Please, let me be clear; I do not think I saw flames. I know I did."

Michael began filming the incredible sight with the video function on his mobile phone, only to discover he had forgotten to activate the 'night mode' switch.

He went on: "For complete want of a better comparison, the object was 'bowler-hat-shaped' with flames protruding from 'inside' at the centre, and I could clearly make out their reflections on the metallic underbelly of the craft. Also visible, were tiny, red lights on the sides and top of the craft.

"As soon as my eyes had convinced my head that what I was seeing was real, I reached for my mobile to capture this amazing sight on video. I activated the camera and began recording as the vehicle passed directly overhead and continued east, gradually increasing it's pace.

"To my complete horror and disbelief, I noticed that my camera was capturing nothing but pitch-black because it wasn't in 'night mode'. I stopped recording, turned on night mode and restarted recording but the craft was now too far away to make out any detail."

He did, however, manage to retrieve these stills from the footage which clearly show an unusual object.

Michael's incredible story is not the first UFO sighting in St Helens in recent times. Many sceptics dismiss UFO sighting as simply the European Space Station - something Michael says is not possible because of how low his unexplained object managed to fly.

"I have spoken to a lot of people about and the people that know me and know how rationally-minded I am are intrigued," he added. "The people that don't know me have been dismissive, but that is what you expect.

"Before I saw this I was open-minded about the chances of life on another planet but thought it unlikely they would be advanced enough to travel to Earth. I'm not so sure now.!"

UNEXPLAINED: The object spotted over the East Lancs in St Helens

http://www.sthelensreporter.co.uk/st-helens-news/UFO-spotted-in-St-Helens.4905550.jp

Here ya go, JoJo. I'd like to see you try and explain away this amazing photo. How can you maintain your position after seeing proof like this! LOL!

It's hard to say, because I need more coffee, but the first impression is that it's the last randomly firing brain cell of objectivity the "journalist" had. :)

Michael began filming the incredible sight...

...He did, however, manage to retrieve these stills from the footage which clearly show an unusual object.

Can we really call any output from a cell phone "footage"? I don't really consider people sounding like they're under water "audio" either.

Two lumps, please....