Night Talk (25 page)

“What sort of corroboration is there of the sighting?” Ali asked.

“The incident was revealed sixty-six years later in 2010 by the BBC after the United Kingdom's National Archives released the information. While pilots in general are in a good position to judge other flying objects, it's interesting that it was the crew of a military reconnaissance plane that made the report. We have to assume that these wartime airmen were highly trained observers whose job it was to report accurately what they saw.”

Greg said, “Sounds like their jobs were similar to that of analysts who interpret the pictures from our spy satellites.”

Ali gave him a stone face.

“There were many other wartime reports of similar high-speed UFOs pacing our planes,” Greg said. “Fighter pilots called them Foo Fighters and thought they were some new type of enemy aircraft. After the war there were also significant civilian observations.”

“Yes, Arnold and Chiles would top my list from that era,” Inez said. “In 1947 Kenneth Arnold was a successful Idaho businessman and pilot active in search-and-rescue missions. He was flying near Mount Rainier, Washington, looking for a Marine Corps transport plane that had crashed in the area when he saw UFOs flying in formation. Because he had a technical background, he was able to calculate both the supersonic speed and size of the UFOs.

“The Arnold incident was very important not only for what was reported by a pilot, but demonstrates the peculiar way reports of UFOs were handled from the very beginning. The military intelligence investigators who investigated Arnold's report labeled the UFOs a mirage, an optical illusion, despite the fact he was an experienced pilot and the founder of a successful business.

“The investigators also ignored the fact that a man prospecting in the area reported that on the same day Arnold saw UFOs he saw the same type of flying objects through a small telescope. The prospector's report was labeled as the first ‘unexplained' UFO report to the air force and Arnold's was rejected outright—yet both men were describing the same objects.”

“Was there any further confirmation other than the prospector with a telescope?” Ali asked.

“There were sixteen sightings in the region during that time period, but the hardest to rebut came ten days later on July 4
th
from the crew of a United Airlines flight. The airliner was over Idaho, en route to Seattle, when the pilot and co-pilot observed a UFO similar to what Arnold had described. They said it paced their plane for ten to fifteen minutes. The fact the report came from an airline crew should have had serious import with the investigators but it didn't. But it comes as no surprise to those who have come to believe in UFOs that reports were being discredited without consideration of the evidence and regardless of the credentials of the observers.”

“Chiles and Whitted were also airline pilots,” Greg said.

“Yes, they certainly were. That encounter occurred the following July. Chiles was the pilot, Whitted the co-pilot of an Eastern Airlines passenger plane over Alabama; about three in the morning they observed a rocket-shaped UFO with windows sweep by at high speed. What really intrigued the air force investigators was that a report from the Netherlands gave the same description of a UFO.”

Ali shook her head to clear it. “Are you telling me that there were all these reports and the government did nothing?”

“Of course they did something—they began a cover-up that has lasted right up until the present. Remember now, I am only giving you the high points. There were many other reports, a number of them from air force pilots and military ground personnel with technical and scientific backgrounds. The reports were coming in so frequently and so many questions being asked that the government finally conceded it had to examine the phenomena.

“Under pressure, the air force established Project Sign in 1947 to investigate reports of UFOs. They staffed it with investigators that included aeronautical and missile engineers. However, when the air force investigators created a report that there were sightings most likely of extraterrestrial aircraft, the project was quickly shut down.”

“No,” Ali said. “There would be a stink.”

“There was a stink. So the air force formed another project to investigate the sightings, this one called Grudge. However, Project Grudge from the start earned a reputation as being out to debunk all UFOs sightings even though I've been told that some personnel tried to be fair. It served its purpose by soon issuing a report denying UFOs had an extraterrestrial origin. The report was issued in 1949 and the project was then closed down for all intents and purposes even though a skeleton crew was left for a time. Because Grudge so lacked credibility, under pressure again the air force came up with Project Blue Book in 1951.”

“Three different projects in four years,” Greg said, “all formed because the government was compelled to do something. That speaks loudly about the state of our investigations of extraterrestrial activities.”

“Wasn't there also a famous sighting in Roswell around this time?” Ali asked.

“The most famous sighting of all.” Inez nodded. “But Roswell has been tainted by so many wild claims and intentional governmental misinformation that many ufologists not only avoid studying it, they won't even talk about it. It began by air force officers who examined the wreckage calling it a space vehicle and the government lying by giving out a false report that it was a weather balloon. Then came reports of strange sightings at the airbase, some of which were obviously false.”

“Roswell suffers from what Carl Sagan called self-deception when it comes to extraterrestrial visitation,” Greg said. “Some people eagerly accept UFO incidents as real even in the face of meager evidence and others reject the notion of aliens out of hand because they don't want it to be true. Both attitudes get in the way of serious study of a phenomenon reported by thousands of people around the world.”

The telephone rang and Inez got up and excused herself. She left the room and went to her bedroom to answer the call.

Greg leaned over and whispered to Ali, “Let's hope that's not Mond.”

“Maybe it's E.T.”

 

48

“Sorry. Where was I?” Inez asked as she returned to the chair with the oversize arms.

“I suspect you were about to describe Project Blue Book to Ali.”

“Yes, well, it's pretty much the same story as the other two, isn't it? There were thousands of reports to be examined, most of which could easily be explained as weather or some other natural phenomenon. Then there was an occasional hoax by someone who had a saucer-shaped pie pan, some fishing line and a camera and thought they were funny.

“When it was all over, Project Blue Book was closed down in the late sixties, but it had served its purpose by ensuring no sighting, no matter who made it or how credible it was, was ever classified as extraterrestrial.”

“Everything was classified as terrestrial?” Ali asked.

“No, that wouldn't work because of the shape and speed of the objects seen. What the investigators first did was discredit the observations like they did in the past by saying they were caused by weather, optical illusions, that sort of thing. By the late sixties the project had debunked so many sightings that had credible witnesses, including one involving police officers from several jurisdictions chasing a low-flying UFO, that the project simply lost credibility. Like Grudge, it left with a report that debunked an extraterrestrial connection to UFOs, but its specific conclusions were doozies.

“Even though it couldn't give terrestrial explanations to a large number of the sightings it examined, the project came out with a final report that said UFO sightings were the result of misinterpretation of conventional objects, mass hysteria, hoaxes and psychopaths.”

“No,” Ali said.

“Oh, yes. Can you imagine how respectable airline and military pilots felt? To be labeled with having a mental disorder because they reported seeing a UFO? It isn't hard to imagine that most people would keep their mouths shut rather than face ridicule and ruin of their careers. And that's exactly what happened. As soon as the crazy and ridiculous labels were attached to sightings, most people refused to report what they saw.”

Ali waved her hands in frustration. “Is this still going on? Strange sightings being shoved under the table?”

“Constantly, consistently and vengefully until it takes an act of bravery to report a close encounter because of the stigma the government has associated with seeing something that they say doesn't exist. The stigma is especially directed against airline pilots, who risk loss of their careers for reporting UFO sightings.”

“How do Betty and Barney Hill fit into all this?” Ali asked, giving Greg a glance.

“I'm guilty of telling her about how two intelligent, educated people with good jobs and strong community ties reported an encounter with a UFO and extraterrestrials and that their sighting was not seriously investigated.”

“Did you also tell her about the JFK connection?”

He shook his head. “Be my guest.”

“There is a theory that the assassination of JFK was related to the Hill and other encounters. In the sixties there was another rash of UFO sightings, some of the most credible ones that Project Blue Book dealt with and was unable to come up with explanations for. So many, in fact, that it was like a repeat of the forties invasion all over again. In New Mexico and New Hampshire the sightings were by respected police officers; in Australia two hundred students and teachers outside saw a UFO descend and land briefly before taking off again.

“The Hill incident in 1961 was among the most sensational but even though they reported it to the authorities soon after the incident, they didn't go public with their ordeal until 1963. After their sensational story hit the presses, President Kennedy demanded the files on UFOs that the air force was concealing. He knew that President Truman had issued a secret order during the 1947 invasion creating a clandestine group to deal with UFOs.”

“Majestic 12,” Greg said.

“Yes, code name Majestic 12. As the reports of UFO incidents poured in, Kennedy realized that we had been invaded and that key elements of our military had been subjugated by the invaders. He was killed shortly after making a demand for the secret files. Some believe that Robert Kennedy was assassinated because he also took up a sword against the invasion. Project Blue Book was phased out in 1969 following Robert Kennedy's death.”

“You haven't told us your role, Inez,” Greg said.

“As you might imagine, publicly shutting down Project Blue Book didn't stop the actual investigation of UFOs. The reports kept coming in and had to be investigated even though Blue Book was sucked into the same black hole as Sign and Grudge and for the same reasons—it had lost all credibility as an impartial investigator of encounters of any kind. But the government still had to have people dealing with UFO reports, even if it was done covertly, if for no other reason than we were in the middle of the Cold War and the next unidentified flying object streaking across our skies just might be a Soviet intercontinental missile carrying a nuke.”

“How did they manage to do it covertly?” Ali asked.

“By not giving it a name; that's all it took. They referred to it internally as the interagency. And we were instructed never to capitalize the
I
because that would imply it was an actual government agency.”

“That's certainly vague enough,” Greg murmured. “Interagency” was how Detective Batista had described Mond's position and what the search warrant had said. Which meant Mond's day job might be investigating—or deliberately not investigating—UFO incidents. Or more likely Mond was an enforcer—taking care of business when the sightings were reported with more accuracy and enthusiasm than the “interagency” wanted.

“I went to work for the interagency, the project, whatever you want to call it, in the late seventies right after getting my PhD. I had no problem with the mission statement given to me when I was hired—I was to evaluate the mental faculties of people who claimed to have seen UFOs, aliens, or had been abducted. I assumed I would be doing a thorough, professional psychological workup of the people.

“But that's not how it came down. Most of the reports that came in turned out to be easy for the investigators with aeronautical skills to provide mundane explanations—weird cloud formations, freak atmospheric phenomena, weather balloons, meteors, Venus glowing, even flares dropped from planes and Chinese lanterns. And we got the occasional person with a psychopathic disorder that caused them to see things that weren't there for the rest of us. There's no question that most UFO sightings were reported by well-intentioned people who saw something strange that turned out to be something explainable besides the spacecraft of extraterrestrials.

“However, we wouldn't be here having this discussion if all UFO sightings could be explained by things we earthlings are comfortable with. Occasionally something is seen that simply defies any explanation other than it is not of earthly origin. When that happened, the true mission of the nonagency called interagency was to summarily debunk it. No one realizes how easily these things are simply swept under the rug without an investigation by handpicked personnel who are only looking for ways to discredit the sightings.

“Take the incredible sighting at Chicago's O'Hare airport in 2006 when twelve airport employees and several people outside the airport witnessed a hovering disk-shaped UFO before it shot up and disappeared into clouds. It was during daylight, about four in the afternoon. Here again, the most bizarre thing is not that the event occurred but that no investigation was done. The FAA first denied that anyone had reported the incident until the
Chicago Tribune
uncovered the fact that a supervisor had called in a report. Confronted with their lie, the FAA stated that the sighting they say they had no record of and had not investigated was a weather phenomenon.”