THE UFO CASEBOOK- UFO Magazine Issue # 288, Issue date, 01-07-08

Thursday, January 03, 2008-As I reported earlier, the UK's Ministry of Defence has agreed to open its secret files on UFO sightings over the UK. These are five of the most controversial incidents that UFO spotters hope will be solved (don't hold your breath!):

1. The Cosford Incident. On March 31, 1993, triangular-shaped UFOs were spotted by dozens of people in western Britain, speeding through the night sky.

The MoD's man then running their "UFO desk", Nick Pope, told his superiors: "It seems that an unidentified object of unknown origin was operating in the UK Air Defence Region without being detected on radar.

"This would appear to be of considerable defence significance, and I recommend that we investigate further, within MoD or with the US authorities."

A meteorological officer said he saw a triangular-shaped craft flying at about 200ft. It made a low hum and fired a narrow beam of light which swept the ground.

Skeptics say the sightings were actually of a Russian rocket booster breaking up in the atmosphere after putting a satellite, Cosmos 2238, into orbit.

But Pope, who has since left the MoD, claims that �no satisfactory explanation� was ever found for the reports. He called Cosford the "big case" that made him believe extraterrestrials could penetrate Britain�s defences at will.

2. The Berwyn Mountain Incident. UFO believers claim that a flying saucer crashed in Wales on January 23, 1974, and that allien remains were discovered in a UK equivalent of the US's famous Roswell Incident.

The area was reportedly cordoned off and local villages visited by mysterious "Men in Black".

Police quickly set up a search team and had ten officers scouring the mountains, later to be joined by an RAF mountain rescue team from Anglesey. Their official report was that they found nothing.

During the investigation, it was discovered that there had been an earthquake at the time of the reported UFO crash. The Institute of Geological Sciences said that if the size of the tremor had been due to an impact, there would have been a clearly visible crater, yet none was found.

Skeptics say the UFO stories resulted from a combination of the earthquake, a meteor shower and the lights of poachers who were active in the mountains.

3. The Flying Cross Incident. A celebrated case championed by UFO believers was a flying saucer chased by two police officers across Devon on October 24, 1967.

The patrolmen, Roger Willey and Clifford Waycott, followed the UFO through country lanes at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour in the early hours of the morning.

But instead of being saucer-shaped, "it looked like a star-spangled cross radiating points of light from all angles,� PC Willey said afterwards.

He added: "It was travelling about tree-top height over wooded countryside near Holsworthy, Devon. We drove towards it and it moved away. It then led us on a chase as if it was playing a game with us."

Astronomers quickly came up with an explanation for the Devon Flying Cross. They said it was a case of mistaken identity and the officers had been chasing the planet Venus which was prominent in the morning sky at that time.

4. The Manchester Incident. As a British Airways Boeing 737 carrying 60 passengers approached Manchester airport on the evening of January 6, 1995, it was apparently buzzed by a bright, fast-moving UFO.

The incident was enough to make the first officer duck instinctively as it flashed past. But air traffic controllers said they saw nothing on the radar.

The pilot told them: "We just had something go down the right hand side just above us very fast. It had lights, it went down the starboard side very quick."

At the time of the sighting, the Boeing was descending at 4,000 ft, about nine miles southeast of Manchester. The silent UFO was moving in the opposite direction and was visible for about two seconds.

The pilots submitted a report that was investigated as a near-miss by the Civil Aviation Authority. But stargazers claim the airmen simply saw a fireball or brilliant meteor.

Leading UK UFO skeptic Ian Ridpath commented: "These kinds of cases show that pilots and policemen make the same mistakes as everyone else when it comes to misidentifying objects in the sky.

"The people who spend most time looking at the sky, amateur astronomers, report the fewest UFOs because they are less easily fooled."

5. The Rendlesham Incident. Britain's most famous UFO mystery began on Christmas night, 1980. There were countless UFO reports, including from aircraft passengers, of strange lights streaking through the skies over southern England.

Then at 2.50am on Boxing Day, a brilliant light was seen to fall over Tangham Woods in Rendlesham Forest by a military cop at Woodbridge NATO base near Ipswich.

Other airmen, fearing an aircraft had crashed, drove into the woods to investigate. They followed strange lights for an hour ans one said he saw an alien craft's metallic form.

The incident was taken so seriously that police were called to the scene. Two nights later, other airmen entered the woods on a UFO hunt and reported seeing coloured lights which they followed for two hours.

They also reported higher radiation levels than normal, burn damage to trees and three depressions in the ground where a UFO had landed.

Skeptic Ian Ridpath spoke to a young forester, Vince Thurkettle, who identified the brightest light as nothing more alien than Orford Ness lighthouse, six miles away, seen through a gap in the trees. He said he had himself mistaken it for poachers' lamps.

Ridpath says the lights seen that Christmas night across England were rocket debris from the satellite Cosmos 749 as it burned up in the atmosphere.

source and references:

http://news.skymania.com/2008/01/britains-top-five-ufo-reports.html

Mexico: Alleged UFO Photographed at Chichen Itza

Posted: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 3:22 PM-Photo taken on December 18, 2007 by Judith Trujillo, a Mexican national residing in Canada. The witness visited Mexico to see her family, and during a tour of the Chichen Itza archaeological site, she took photos of the Mayan ruins. Only one of those photos displays what could be an unidentified flying object, which was not visible when the shutter was pressed to capture a image of the Kukulkan Pyramid, also known as El Castillo.

Ana Luisa Cid reports that there are two options regarding this image:

1) There was indeed a UFO at the pyramid: If we accept this possibility, we must bear in mind that some researchers have associated these archaeological sites with UFO visitations, based on the premise that pyramids are concentrators of energy, which would be hypothetically essential for these vehicles to travel.

2) An ordinary element out of focus: It is possible that a bird or insect slipped into the photo, appearing blurry by virtue of being out of focus. When focusing on a distant object, elements in the foreground usually become blurred. Judith Trujillo employed an Olympus Digital UD600-S600 at a normal setting and at ISO 64.

source and references:

www.analuisacid.com

photograph © Judith Trujillo

Jeers & Loathing On The Campaign Trail

Poor Dennis Kucinich, it seems everyone is determined to turn the thorn in his side into the nail in his coffin. The Wall Street Journal has just published a story on (January 2, 2008) Kucinich�s UFO encounter and more, importantly featuring what appears to be two corroborating witnesses.

Strangely it�s provocatively sub-headed as follows, �Candidate's Pals Recall Three Throbbing UFOs; Outed by Shirley MacLaine�. It�s by Michael. M. Phillips. (It�s also worth noting that it�s only a matter of weeks since the Murdoch/News Corp. takeover).

To be fair, the Wall Street Journal supports Kucinich�s claim, but I don�t doubt Kucinich wants to forget this incident completely, and still refuses to elaborate or comment on it. The article mentions another two witnesses who have since gone, �On record� as also witnessing the event with Kucinich.

The witnesses were a Mr. Costanzo (who served as deputy campaign director and security chief for the 2004 presidential run) and his former girlfriend who chose not to be named. Mr. Costanzo said:

�At no time did I feel afraid, even though I felt very small�.I sensed that I was in the presence of a greater technology and intelligence�.There was a feeling of wanting to communicate something, but I didn't know what�.

Regardless of this new corroborative testimony I hope Shirley�s giving him a cut of her profits of the expertly timed, "Sage-ing While Age-ing."...

source and references:

http://www.ufo-blog.com/ufo-blog/2008/01/jeers-loathing-on-campaign-trail.html

http://tinyurl.com/2w9bat

Unknown Object Files over Interstate in Georgia

Georgia-12-26-07-I was driving north on I-75 near exit 142, which is close to Warner Robbins, GA on December 26th at approximately 8:15 PM. I was with my mother (passenger seat, not paying attention), brother (back right seat, asleep), and father (back left seat, asleep) and we were on our way home to the Atlanta area from Miami, FL. At the point where I saw the object, the interstate was on a downward slope and my car was at the top of a hill so that I could see down pretty far. The highway dipped down and a mile or so down the road it sloped back upward. There were lots of trees and billboards, etc., on each side of the highway, but there were no overpasses for about 3-4 miles north from where I was.

It was a cloudy night and I could see no stars. I wasn't able to see any airplanes that night until about 9 PM. While driving I was very alert, wide awake, and concentrating on the road ahead of me. All of a sudden, from behind the tree-line on my left (west), a very bright, large, and extremely fast-moving star-like object appeared to come off the horizon and shoot across the interstate at approximately a 30 degree angle. It proceeded to move at this very rapid rate until it was past the tree line on my right (east) and was out of sight. It seemed to disappear behind the clouds, but I can't be sure.

The object looked to be about 2-3 miles down the road from me. The diameter of the bright area was about twice as big as the diameter of the bright area of a headlight from a very close oncoming truck, except it was much farther. The object's size and brightness remained constant throughout the entire time (about 1.5-2 seconds).

My first reaction to seeing this was complete shock. The object's size and intensity, and the fact that it came without warning, really took me by surprise. I immediately tried to see where it went and I slowed down to see if I could get a glimpse of it or anything unusual to the east of my location. My brother and father were asleep in the backseat and my mother was not paying attention to anything, but I started asking, "Wow did you see that?!" She had her eyes closed and I was upset because I wanted someone to explain it to me.

Once I realized I was alone in seeing it (in my car at least), I went back to driving. However, I spent the rest of the drive home analyzing the situation in my mind, as the images of the event were burned into my brain. I ruled out a car due to size, speed, point of origin, and angle. An airplane was also ruled out for the same reasons, plus the fact that I had been unable to see any at that point due to cloud cover. I ruled out a meteor due to size (I've never seen a shooting star anywhere near this size), point of origin (it started from ground level and ascended), angle (meteors seem to go across the sky, this went from ground up), and the fact that the object's size and brightness remained constant throughout (meteors burn up completely or hit the earth at a smaller size than when they start out).

The cloud cover would also rule out the ability to see a shooting star. As soon as I got home (around 10 PM), I drew a rough sketch of what I saw (what I have attached is an updated, cleaner version made in MS Paint). I actually was a little frightened by the sighting for the rest of the night, and I could not stop thinking about it.

Although I am a believer, I had never seen a UFO, and even when I saw this I remained skeptical. I have waited a few days to report it because I wanted to be completely sure that I could not find an explanation of what it was in the sky that night.

source and references:

MUFON submitter # 8747

What Did Reagan Know About UFOs?

December 28, 2007-Reagan seemed more enthralled with UFOs than all the U.S. Presidents, including Nixon. Reporter Billy Cox noted the many mentions of extraterrestrials in Reagan 's speeches and commented, "Ronald Reagan 's abiding fascination with extraterrestrials." One of Reagan 's daughters also commented on her father 's obsession with UFOs and life on other planets. The source of his fascination is often thought to be the "few" sightings he claimed to have had.

In September 1981, Reagan received a letter from an UFO research group director, Major Ret. Colman VonKeviczky. This man had made a second career of sending plaintiff pleas to not only the Presidents of the United States but to the U.N. Secretary Generals. When a new president was elected or a new Secretary General came on the scene they all heard from Major Ret. Colman VonKeviczky.

What VonKeviczky wanted was to get the figures of power and authority in governments to recognize that UFOs , "...represented an intergalactic task force that will destroy earth unless world leaders band together to end their hostile actions against UFOs."

http://www.presidentialufo.com/reagan_ufo_story.htm

He was relentless. As a true believer of what he said he sent letter and packages with materials outlining the dangers and with demands than plans be drawn up for a defense against the alien threat. In the September 1981 letter, more than 17 documents were sent to Reagan outlining the immediate threat to the world from the aliens. This was his third letter to Reagan.

While his previous letters were not answered, his third one was. A distinguished Army officer who gathered many high ranking positions and metals including Director of Strategy, Plans and Policy; Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans; National Security Defense Group Director; and the Chief of the Policy Branch of SHAPE in Belgium, Major General Robert Schweitzer, answered it. Schweitzer was the Chief Military Advisor of the White House and National Security Council.

Part of Schweitzer 's answer to VonKeviczky read as so:

"The President is well aware of the threat you document so clearly and is doing all in his power to restore the national defense margin of safety as quickly and prudently as possible."

Well, VonKeviczky didn't need a flying saucer to fly like the wind to the Associated Press with "an admission" of the alien threat by the Reagan administration. The AP almost put it out on the wire but didn't once they called and talked with Schweitzer. Had Schweitzer put the word "UFO" in between "the" and "threat" they would have run with the story. You've just got to ask what Schweitzer was really thinking? Was his song and dance he offered to the AP the real deal, was it a stupid slip, or did he really mean "the UFO threat" in the context of VonKeviczky 's persistent screed?

The Chief Military Advisor of the White House and National Security Council, Major General Robert Schweitzer, was let go on 10/26/81.

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program

Though Reagan was credited with this program and its "possible use" against space invaders, it was concept decades in the making and one has to ask the question, how come? Generals Douglas MacArthur and John A. McDavid both made comments for public consumption of the possible invasion of interplanetary beings. McDavid said an Air Force approved speech at Milliken University, Decatur, Illinois:

"Before long, people may be forced to realize and accept as a fact that this earth is only an infinitesimal grain of sand in an infinite universe," declared McDavid. "The human is one of many forms of life with which God is concerned and others are superior to us. And if this is true, our meeting with other types of existence in other places in the universe quite likely will increase the potential element of conflict rather than reduce it."

Why would a brigadier general have to have an Air Force approved speech unless he was treading on Top-Secret grounds and had to walk a very thin line in what he said? And, why if UFOs don't exist, they are just balloons and swamp gas, would he have to walk a very thin line and get Air Force approval?

A career State Department diplomat, Michael Michaud, wrote of Nixon 's worry about an alien invasion:

"Aliens from other solar systems are a potential threat to us, and we are a potential threat to them. Scientists and others have often postulated that extraterrestrial societies more advanced than ours would be less warlike. Regrettably, the stereotypes of the benevolent, super intelligent alien may be as unrealistic as the stereotype of the bug-eyed monster carrying off shapely human females. Even if a species had achieved true peace within its own ranks, it would still be worried about us, and would take the measures it felt were necessary to protect itself. This includes the possibility (not the inevitability) of military action . . . Our basic interest will be to protect ourselves from any possible threat to Earth 's security..."

There is some speculation that "Reagan 's " SDI had a two-fold purpose: To defend against the Soviets and extraterrestrials. Here are some of the sources:

In a June 1995 Bay Area Lecture Dr. Steven Greer announces information leaked to him from the North American Air Defense Command in Colorado shows that the Air Force tracks an average of 500 "fastwalkers" (term used for UFOs) entering the earth atmosphere every year.

New York Times Pulitzer prize winning author Howard Blum reports that NORAD deep-space radars track many UFOs.

Two Aerospace engineers working on the AeroJet 's DSP spy satellite claim UFOs are detected coming from deep space two or three times a month.

Author Whitley Strieber, in his book Breakthrough, stated that he had seen part of a document which revealed that the EG&G Corporation is involved in developing defense weapons against extraterrestrials.

Two further sources have told Greer that rogue units within Unacknowledged Special Access Programs, have directed black budget funds to develop SDI weapons to down UFOs. Further the sources have stated that they have been successful in shoot downs.

It must be said that there are other Ufologists who do not agree with these sources.

A Close Encounter of the Spielberg Kind

When Steven Spielberg 's movie, ET, came out, Spielberg did a private showing for Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the White House. There were guests invited for this private screening totally about 35 other persons. Apparently, the Reagan 's loved the movie indicated by Nancy 's tears and Ronald 's enthusiasm.

After the movie ended, the President leaned over to Spielberg and in a hushed tone said,

"You know, there aren't six people in this room who know how true this really is."

http://www.presidentialufo.com/reagan_spielberg.htm

Spielberg told a TV producer of Reagan 's comment while being interviewed for a documentary.

About the Author:

Douglas Bower - I Was Abducted By Aliens But They Threw Me Back

source and references:

content4reprint.com - Rome, Italy

http://tinyurl.com/3dufck

1997 UFO Crash Video (Desert Crash)

At the 2nd Australian Symposium in Brisbane, Australia, a video was shown of a supposed UFO crash in the New Mexico desert sometime in early 1997. It depicts an object careening towards the desert floor. The object bounces once before coming crashing onto the ground, exploding and sending sparks flying.

While this footage may show an alien craft plummeting to its end, a number of experiments involving Edwards Air Force Base scientists and personnel are known to take place there.

An American researcher who has a highly placed NASA source working at Edwards AFB said that a small scale model of the X-38 space 'Liferaft' crashed on a small scale test range, with the range control officer executing a self-destruct procedure before it landed.

While it is difficult to form definitive conclusions as to the film's authenticity given the absence of camera specifications, original footage, eye-witness testimony or exact date, it is nonetheless very intriguing.

The source of this video has never been established. It was first released publicly during a UFO conference in Australia in Brisbane. The crash allegedly depicts an unknown object which crashed into the deserts of New Mexico in early 1997. The object seems "lighter than air" as it bounces before it ultimately bursts into thousands of pieces.

Although the film is very compelling as to the characteristics displayed by the unknown object, the fact that there is no source material, exact time or date, and location make it very difficult to evaluate. At best it is a great conversation piece, but adds no validity to the study of UFOs.

Download Windows Video-404 kb-:16

(right click on link, from menu select "save target as")

Source & References:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/ufocrash.html

UFO Casebook Video Club

(last update, 01-07-08)

New Hampshire-Light Beam Seen

12-29-07, at 10:45 PM, a light beam resembling a car light beam ( it was a broad band of light) was seen entering a cloud that was at the level of Orion's Belt in the southeastern sky. There was no craft seen, nor any noise heard.

The azimuth was about 160 degrees and the height was over 20,000 feet as confirmed by the Pease International Airport operation with a cloud cover of 25,000 feet that was broken. There was no sound at any time. Neither were there any red or green lights that shone at any time during the sighting nor was there any noise. (Maybe because of the height.)

The light entered the cloud after traveling about the size of a pea at arm's length. As it neared the cloud he observed the light beam entering the cloud and never saw it again as it traveled into the cloud.

My conversation with Pease Base Operations Officer confirmed my facts and figures and helped me contact the USWX.com weather information center to confirm these facts and told me that they had no incoming aircraft at that time of night nor did he know of any radar confirmation of the object. (You can take that for what it is worth.) source: http://ufos.about.com

Canada-Spiraling Dark Object

12-26-07-On December 26, 2007, at about 5:30 pm, he and his wife saw a dark object spiraling towards the ground near the horizon. They grabbed their video camera and began filming, and what was caught on film is remarkable. A blackish object giving of "smoke" was seen, which the witnesses likened to a "plane in trouble."

The actual object was difficult to see, bit the witness thought it was shaped like a ball. It was descending at a shallow angle, in a corkscrew motion, moving away from the witnesses, towards the west. Eventually, a long, black contrail was formed. The witnesses lost sight of the actual object, and it did not seem to actually reach the ground before it became too dark to observe it, lasting more than half an hour in total.-http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/canufo/ The link to the video is at: http://www.journalpioneer.com/index.cfm?main=broadcast&bcid=751

Canada-Helicopter Encounters Unknown

Canada-Helicopter Encounters Unknown 12-21-07-The other Maritime case is from December 21, 2007, at 6:05 pm local. A helicopter pilot was flying near Halifax when he saw a bright white light flying at a much higher altitude. It was in sight for about five minutes.

What's most intriquing about this case is that when the helicopter pilot notified the nearby control tower, they contacted NORAD, who confirmed that they painted the helicopter as well as a "possible UFO" at the location and direction indicated by the pilot, but at 6:18 pm local and fading from radar at 6:22 pm-http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/canufo/

Ibiza-Yellow/Orange Object

12-31-07-On New Years Eve I was working as a chauffer in Ibiza with a friend. Neither of us had taken alcohol due to the nature of our job. At exactly midnight we stood outside the Blue Marlin Restaurant (SW coast on the Island of Ibiza) and looked northerly. From the distance appeared a yellow/orange ball shaped object. It travelled at a constant speed and on a constant trajectory above Blue Marlin and beyond downwards towards the sea, near to Es Vedera (a highly magnetic rock formation) and disappeared. During its flight path its shape changed and it appeared to have a ring around it similar to the planet Jupiter. There was no sound.

The sky was clear, there were no clouds and no wind. There was a small amount of light polution from one light in the car park. Approx 12 mins later and on exactly the same line of trajectory the same bright yellow/orange light appeared. It moved along the same pathway and then seemed to rise upwards fading until it disappeared completely. We tried to use a phone camera tp pick up this image but it was not sensitive enough to capture anything meaningful.

It was almost impossible to gauge how far away it was and therefore at what speed it was travelling. We explored most of the obvious explanations and could not apply logic to this sighting. I send these details for your records and am curious to know if anyone else observed this object. The only possible explanation we could find was that it could have been a satellite or meterorite.-source: UFO Casebook reader

Sweden-10-15 Objects Seen

01-01-08-I can also tell you that myself and about 6-7 other people had a big UFO sighting this new years eve at 00:00, from my balconies up on the 10th floor, I have two balconies, one facing west (Copenhagen), and one facing central Malmo. It wasn't fireworks we saw, it was multiple orange/yellow orbs/spheres of light (10-15 of them) flying in formation from Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmo, Sweden, the sighting lasted about 10-15 minutes and some of the orbs were stationary over central Malmo while most of them were moving fast (some of them very fast). Some just seemed to vanish in thin air to reappear moments later (could be clouds covering them, but it wasn't very cloudy)

Two of the orbs went quite slow (together in "formation"), then one of them stopped completely and hovered for a couple of seconds, then shot to the skies vertically (above the clouds and out of sight), the second one followed the first one slowly (all the way above the clouds). This was witnessed by at least 4-5 people and only one or maybe two (the boyfriend had to agree with his girlfriend) of them thought it was something other (Airplane or whatever) than a UFO/UAP.

Most of the people were nonbelievers. source: Cristofer Ohlsson-www.ufocasebook.com

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Editor B. J. Booth is a member of MUFON.