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UFO or not UFO? Area 51 declassifying pours cold water on theory..
The Tech Herald ^ | April 12th, 2009 | Rich Bowden

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."


TOPICS: Conspiracy; UFO's
KEYWORDS: aatip; area51; fringe; mystery; ohsomysteriouso; uap; ufo; ufos; usaf
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To: razorboy

Some of the astronauts in earlier years said things more or less discretely to friends . . . some even a bit publicly.

THEN

when it blew up in their faces, they wimpishly recanted. Maybe they needed their pensions to much. Don’t blame them terribly.

IN THE LAST 3-6 MONTHS THEIR MORE RECENT STATEMENTS HAVE BEEN BOLDER, MORE DETAILED AND MORE STRONGLY AFFIRMING THE UFO/ET aspects of the strange things they saw in orbit, on the moon and heard from their colleagues and contacts in their professions.

You can choose to ignore their more recent stuff, if you wish. But that’s not very scientific to do so.


441 posted on 04/14/2009 2:34:51 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: TaraP

The Facts are the Facts, but Quix refuses to present any of them.


442 posted on 04/14/2009 2:35:45 PM PDT by razorboy
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To: razorboy

Tara, Quix, and I have met a being who is out of this world. His name is Jesus Christ.


443 posted on 04/14/2009 2:35:49 PM PDT by marbren
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To: marbren

If He wasn’t in a space ship that’s basically off topic.


444 posted on 04/14/2009 2:36:48 PM PDT by razorboy
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To: razorboy

No.

Quix has presented tons more facts than you have on FR.

He does refuse to present facts to naysayers who have persistently demonstrated they have no capacity nor willingness to apprehend the facts nor to discuss them meaningfully.

I think naysayers must be allergic to facts or to have terminal phobias about facts.


445 posted on 04/14/2009 2:37:48 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: marbren

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

BLESSED BE THE NAME AND WORD OF THE LORD; KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.


446 posted on 04/14/2009 2:38:34 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: razorboy

This topic has everything to do with his second coming.


447 posted on 04/14/2009 2:38:57 PM PDT by marbren
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To: razorboy
Light is weird. But I usually stop delving into the weirdness of light with the wave/ particle thing. While that’s not strictly a light thing it’s easiest to play with in light, and it’s almost guaranteed to give you a headache if you start playing with it.

Light as well as angles can play some interesting visual tricks.

One early evening on my way home, I saw a silvery shimmering object in the sky that appeared to be hovering in a stationary position over the highway. To my eyes it looked saucer shaped and then it then suddenly changed direction and sped off very quickly.

What I actually saw was a jetliner coming in for a landing, at an altitude just high enough to catch the last rays of the setting sun and at an angle and in enough darkness that obscured its wings and with my relative speed and angle with the aircraft’s relative speed and angle, for a moment made it look like it was hovering saucer.

As I’d been commuting back and forth to work every day and passing by and right underneath a major flight path for BWI airport I knew what it was but if I’d been of a gullible nature or pre-disposed to believe in UFO’s, I would swear to you that what I saw was a flying saucer.

But perhaps I’m just a naysayer. ;),
448 posted on 04/14/2009 2:39:07 PM PDT by Caramelgal (When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.)
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To: Quix

Glad you liked my response.


449 posted on 04/14/2009 2:39:14 PM PDT by stockpirate (" My bother George and I want Obama to succeed." Jeb Bush 4/10/09)
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To: marbren

Quite a lot, anyway!


450 posted on 04/14/2009 2:39:21 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: razorboy

Sorry it’s Corso

Yes he exsisted...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFdlwXw9tX0&feature=related

Why don’t you check it out for yourself what Astronauts have said about Alien Encounters?


451 posted on 04/14/2009 2:39:29 PM PDT by TaraP (The RAPTURE: Separation of Church and State)
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To: marbren

Maybe. That’s part of the topic there to some, the ones that think aliens are angels/ demons. But that still has certain logical problems since these folks can’t manage any real proof of these “visitors” regardless of where they come from.


452 posted on 04/14/2009 2:40:42 PM PDT by razorboy
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To: Caramelgal

Conceivable that you might be.

I’ll say the jury is still out on that score.

LOL.


453 posted on 04/14/2009 2:41:12 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: stockpirate

You mean my affinities for your post showed?

Oh Dear!

LOL.


454 posted on 04/14/2009 2:41:34 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: marbren

Amen!

Most people will be fooled by the Antichrist though! :(


455 posted on 04/14/2009 2:41:47 PM PDT by TaraP (The RAPTURE: Separation of Church and State)
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To: razorboy

Even that assertion is not true.


456 posted on 04/14/2009 2:42:20 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: Quix

right, quite a lot not everything.


457 posted on 04/14/2009 2:42:39 PM PDT by marbren
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To: razorboy
"If He wasn’t in a space ship that’s basically off topic."

Now that is absurd! - Nobody has ever offered a shred of proof that the "UFOs" traveled through space to get here, thus from whence comes the assumption on your part that they are "space ships?"

458 posted on 04/14/2009 2:43:25 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: TaraP; JoeProBono

We should glean the astronaut quotes from JoeProBono’s list of quotes and shove it . . . up some noses.

. . . welll . . . onto some screens would do.


459 posted on 04/14/2009 2:44:13 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: editor-surveyor

I think you’re mostly correct on that score.

Inter dimensional is also quite plausible.


460 posted on 04/14/2009 2:45:44 PM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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