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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: TaraP

While you you find fewer on FR more open-minded on this subject than me, I met one of the inventors of the transistor. He was a smart guy all on his own, and I really don’t think aliens were involved in that tech development.


41 posted on 04/13/2009 12:29:19 PM PDT by Frank_Discussion (May the wings of Liberty never lose a feather!)
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To: TaraP; pfflier
planes being flown at 2,000 miles per hour at altitudes of 90,000 feet. THIS CAUSES A LIGHT FLASH????

Google "Iridium Flare". Here, try this: http://www.satobs.org/iridium.html

42 posted on 04/13/2009 12:30:08 PM PDT by Travis T. OJustice (I can spell just fine, thanks, it's my typing that sucks.)
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To: Frank_Discussion

LMAO< is that what she was driving at, that UFO’s are responsible for inventing transistors? LMFAO!

I generally don’t read much into whackjob rants.


43 posted on 04/13/2009 12:31:55 PM PDT by Travis T. OJustice (I can spell just fine, thanks, it's my typing that sucks.)
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To: TaraP

Good points.

Thx.


44 posted on 04/13/2009 12:33:44 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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To: Frank_Discussion

INDEED.

some folks are not interested in the truth.

LOL.


45 posted on 04/13/2009 12:34:41 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

Do you really believe aliens taught bell labs to make transistors? Honestly? Do you think there’s even a shred of credibility to that story?


46 posted on 04/13/2009 12:36:30 PM PDT by Travis T. OJustice (I can spell just fine, thanks, it's my typing that sucks.)
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To: allmendream

Thanks.

What gracious kindness for yet another naysayer to give such ample evidence of such wholesale ignorance of the literature and the facts.

UFO’s have been seen for AT LEAST many centuries . . . as witnessed by artistic renderings . . . Midevil and even much earlier . . .


47 posted on 04/13/2009 12:36:50 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: Travis T. OJustice

Was it Corso or Corsi . . . one of them . . . wrote of such.

He was far from a whackjob.

His book far from a whackjob rant.


48 posted on 04/13/2009 12:37:58 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

Anyone who belives in this gobbably gook, which apparently includes you, is certifiably insane.

You’re nuts. Get help.


49 posted on 04/13/2009 12:38:02 PM PDT by Onerom99
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To: Frank_Discussion
The Manhattan Project was compromised to the Soviets right from the beginning.

Richard Feynman used to get a ride into Los Alamos to visit his dying wife. He caught a ride with the only other person with business in Los Alamos; the guy selling what secrets he could get to the Soviets.

50 posted on 04/13/2009 12:39:25 PM PDT by allmendream ("Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?")
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To: Onerom99; TaraP

WRONG. EXCEEDINGLY WRONG.

As a psychologist, I fiercely affirm that

TaraP

appears to be

MUCH MORE FACTUALLY, REALISTICALLY

ORIENTED TO PERSON, TIME AND PLACE . . . as well as other evidential facts from reality . . .

than any of the naysayers on this thread appear to be.

Your insecurities are showing.


51 posted on 04/13/2009 12:39:56 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: Travis T. OJustice

Yeah, that’s what she’s driving at. A fella by the name of Col. Corso made that claim some years ago in a book, and I don’t think he was the first. A lot of people cling to that book like it is fact, and after reading it myself, I don’t think much of his claims hold much merit.

That said, I think your attitude sucks. There is a very wide lane of discussion to still be had on the topic of UFO’s without all the name-calling. There are a lot of people just like you who discount the possibilities out-of-hand who hang just as hard onto THEIR flawed information as the most sold-out Raelean. It doesn’t help, and it makes you look very small.


52 posted on 04/13/2009 12:40:07 PM PDT by Frank_Discussion (May the wings of Liberty never lose a feather!)
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To: Onerom99
You’re nuts. Get help.

*****************

That's quite an argument. I'm sure we're all convinced.

53 posted on 04/13/2009 12:41:56 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: allmendream

That’s fine and true. How many US citizens outside of the project knew the project existed, or even the chain-reaction theory?


54 posted on 04/13/2009 12:42:11 PM PDT by Frank_Discussion (May the wings of Liberty never lose a feather!)
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To: TaraP

Occasionally strange lights are seen in the sky. Therefore, we are being visited by aliens from another star system. The logic is impeccable!


55 posted on 04/13/2009 12:42:39 PM PDT by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: allmendream

Since I come from this with a Biblical Perspective I would say that UFO sightings go back to Old Testament...

The Book of Enoch
The Prophet Ezekiel...

And if we were so technically savvy, why weren’t the Great Pyramids duplicated thousands of years after they were built?

THE PROPHET DANIEL: Stated and Knowledge Shall be increased
Book of Daniel
The Endtime Key of Knowledge.....

On January 23, 1999, exactly 49 years after the proclamation of Jerusalem as the capital of the restaured Israel, astronomers discovered a big flash brighter than all of the rest of the Universe put together. Scientists recorded the biggest explosion ever to occur in the heavens in what is known as a Gamma Ray Burst.

This burst lasted approximately 40 seconds, yet it turned out to be the brightest object ever detected. It was a burst of energy equal to “BILLIONS OF YEARS OF LIGHT FROM THOUSANDS OF SUNS.”
Known as GRB 990123, it released 10,000 times more energy than the Sun could emit over a 5 billion year period or 10 to the power of 47 joules - a million billion billion billion times as great as that released at Hiroshima by the atomic bomb. The fact that it also coincides with the 49 year period of Daniel’s prophecy is beyond the realm of mere chance.


56 posted on 04/13/2009 12:43:07 PM PDT by TaraP (The RAPTURE: Separation of Church and State)
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To: Travis T. OJustice
Those that believe in this stupidity will be all mad, like a wet hen, seeing as their foolish dreams have been further doused.

Yeah, like you assuming that you know everything about everything that exists in this universe. Talk about foolish.

57 posted on 04/13/2009 12:44:24 PM PDT by Isabel C.
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To: Quix
Midevil? Wow. Dumb and deluded is no way to go through life.

The modern UFO sighting is unique to the modern age and its understanding of technology and the universe.

Previous to this all such “sightings” were of a decidedly more mystical bent.

58 posted on 04/13/2009 12:45:22 PM PDT by allmendream ("Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?")
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To: TaraP

Actually you do get light flashes as the light rotates relative to the observer. Lights pointed straight at your eyes will appear brighter than lights even slightly off,and at a serious distance it takes very little movement for the light to go off center line then back then off etc. Or of course the lights could just be set to flash.


59 posted on 04/13/2009 12:45:40 PM PDT by razorboy
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To: TaraP

Yeah, then Project Paperclip happened and we imported a bunch of German rocket scientists.

Actually we weren’t that primitive. We already had nukes, and radar, and jets.


60 posted on 04/13/2009 12:48:05 PM PDT by razorboy
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