Posted on 04/13/2009 11:39:11 AM PDT by TaraP
A former engineer at the top secret airfield "Area 51" in Nevada has spoken out about UFO sightings in the region in the 1960s, saying the witnessed flashes of light were part of top secret US aircraft experiments.
In an interview with ABC News, Thornton "T.D." Barnes, 72, a former special-projects engineer at Area 51 said: "No one really knew we existed. Even our wives didn't know where we were going when we left Monday morning and came back Friday evening."
Barnes was an electronics engineer for NASA who also specialised in advance radar and Soviet MiG fighter aircraft and was asked to join a team of CIA experts who would work on secret military projects at the infamous base.
UFO folklore has it that Area 51, about 80 miles north northwest of Las Vegas, is where captured aliens and their spacecraft have been stored by the US military. The conspiracy theory comes in part because of the preponderance of strange, unaccounted for lights that have been seen in the region of the top secret military base.
However Barnes poured cold water on the theory saying the "alien spaceships" were in fact light flashes from top secret spy planes being flown at 2,000 miles per hour at altitudes of 90,000 feet.
The experimental planes produced light flashes that some interpreted as alien spaceships and this was considered helpful by the team in covering their activities.
"We considered it to be a bonus," said Barnes. "They made it easier to conceal what we were doing."
However some ufologists have said the area has only been partly declassified and UFO work at the base may well have carried out though in a region unknown to engineers such as Barnes.
"Those guys who came forward may very well be telling the truth, with the caveat that they wouldn't know if there was something going on," said Stanton T. Friedman, a nuclear physicist, lecturer and top UFO researcher.
Friedman added that evidence coming out of places such as Area 51 proved how much was going on in the country without peoples' knowledge.
"National security has a real place in all of this stuff. There is no way to tell your friends without telling your enemies," he said. "A lot of Americans woke up to the fact that there's a lot going on that they don't get told about."
I’m not asking for documentation; I want the conclusion. Give me a one sentence summary of what the evidence concluded “beyond any reasonable doubt”.
Enjoy your construction on reality.
It’s going to land you in some very interesting situations.
That the basic facts as related by the main witnesses were essentially true.
Gonna present some facts? Or is it all sound and fury signifying nothing from you? Talk about a construction on reality.
I guess you fail to understand another aspect of reality on these threads . . .
naysayers baiting folks WITH UTTER FOOLISHNESS AND UTTERLY DISINGENUOUS BAD FAITH MOTIVES AND INTENT
is
very very very very very very very very VERY OLD HAT in these parts.
I rarely enjoy playing that game.
Perhaps you could figure out a way to play it with yourself.
And he returns with the shouted insults and the lame excuses for not bothering with facts.
I understand the big reality of this thread, which is that even you know you’ve got no facts to prove your case.
If there’s somebody playing with themselves here it’s the guy that can’t finish a post without insulting something. The guy with the caps and the blue text. I’m just pointing out that he’s full of it.
I do much appreciate your setting yourself up so persistently and so grandly for massive egg on your face.
It’s a real gift.
There seems to be a slowly growing pile of such in the back corner of the orchestra pit.
IIRC, folks have demonstrated that to be a hoax.
I know, I post it for fun really ...
I don’t have any egg on my face. The guy calling everybody else an idiot while refusing to even attempt to present facts is wearing all the egg.
Bring facts.
I do appreciate those sacrificial naysayers who are sooooo doggedly faithful to present themselves as such
perfect foils and targets.
Most welcome.
BTW,
Always happy to welcome nooooob’s to the pile of naysayers.
I’m not a naysayer, I’m asking questions. Questions you’re afraid to even pretend to answer.
You’re proving that you have no facts. You’re proving you’re everything you say the naysayers are: logically impaired, rude, closed minded, and basically full of it.
Naw.
Throwing facts at naysayers would be unkind, unloving and useless.
Naysayers are
TERMINALLY ALLERGIC to authentic facts.
It’s a well known malady on these threads.
got any facts?
And once again with the flim flam dodge.
Every single time you refuse to post facts you prove you know you have none.
GROSSLY FLAWED ASSUMPTIONS AGAIN.
However, I’m happy to oblige and hereby formally
accept you into the ranks of the pile of UFO threads naysayers on FR.
Welcome.
There are rooms piled to the ceiling with facts.
I don’t know of any I care to waste on you at the moment.
What assumptions?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.