Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries (63 page)

Maurice Chatelain also confirmed that Apollo 11's radio transmissions were interrupted on several occasions in order to hide the news from the public. NASA chief spokesman John McLeaish denied that the agency censored any voice transmissions from Apollo 11, but admitted that a slight delay in transmission took place, due simply to processing through electronic equipment.

Before dismissing Chatelain's sensational claims, it is worth noting his impressive background in the aerospace industry and space programme. His first job after moving from France was as an electronics engineer with Convair, specializing in telecommunications, telemetry and radar. In 1959 he was in charge of an electromagnetic research group, developing new radar and telecommunications systems for Ryan. One of his eleven patents was an automatic radar landing system that ignited retro rockets at a given altitude, used in the Ranger and Surveyor flights to the Moon. Later, at North American Aviation, Chatelain was offered the job of designing and building the Apollo communication and data processing system.

In his book, Chatelain claims that "all Apollo and Gemini flights were followed, both at a distance and sometimes also quite closely, by space vehicles of extraterrestrial origin—flying saucers, or UFOs ... if you want to call them by that name. Every time it occurred, the astronauts informed Mission Control, who then ordered absolute silence." He goes on to say:

I think that Walter Schirra aboard Mercury 8 nauts to use the code name "Santa Claus" flying saucers next to space capsules. However, were barely noticed by the general public. It was a was the first of the astroto indicate the presence of

his announcements little different when James Lovell on board the Apollo 8 command module came out from behind the moon and said for everybody to hear: "Please be informed that there is a Santa Claus." Even though this happened on Christmas Day 1968, many people sensed a hidden meaning in those words.

I asked Dr. Paul Lowman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center what he thought about the Apollo 11 story. He replied:

Most of the radio communications from the Apollo crew on the surface were relayed in real time to earth. I am continually amazed by people who claim that we have concealed the discovery of extra-terrestrial activity on the Moon.The confirmed detection of extraterrestrial life, even if only by radio, will be the greatest scientific discovery of all time, and I speak without exaggeration.The NASA, operating in the glare of idea that a civilian agency such as publicity, could hide such a discovery is

absurd, even if it wanted to. One would have to swear to secrecy not only the dozen astronauts who landed on the Moon but also the hun

dreds of engineers, technicians, and secretaries directly involved in the missions and the communication links.

Yet the rumours persist. NASA may well be a civilian agency, but many of its programmes are funded by the defence budget, as I have pointed out, and most of the astronauts are subject to military security regulations. Apart from the fact that the National Security Agency screens all films (and probably radio communications as well), we have the statements by Otto Binder, Dr. Garry Henderson and Maurice Chatelain that the astronauts were under strict orders not to discuss their sightings. And Gordon Cooper has testified to a UN committee that one of the astronauts actually witnessed a UFO on the ground. If there is no secrecy, why has this sighting not been made public?

Not all communications between are public, as NASA itself admits. Information at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center) in Houston, explained to me in 1970 that although there is no separate radio frequency used by the astronauts for private conversations with mission control, private conversations, "usually to discuss medical problems," are re-routed: "When the astronauts request a private conversation, or when a private conversation is deemed necessary by officials on the ground, it is transmitted on the same S-band radio frequencies as are normally used but it is routed through different audio circuits on the ground; and unlike other air-to-ground conversations with the spacecraft, it is not released to the general public."

But is there any truth to the Apollo 11 story? A friend of mine who formerly served in a branch of British military intelligence has provided me with unexpected corroboration. I am not permitted to reveal the name of my source, nor the location and date of the following conversation that was overheard and subsequently confirmed by my friend, which will inevitably lay me open to charges of fabricating the story or being the victim of a hoax. Yet the story must be told, however apocryphal.

A certain professor (whose name is known to me) was engaged in an earnest discussion with Neil Armstrong during a NASA symposium, and according to my friend's recollection, part of the conversation went as follows: the astronauts and ground control

John McLeaish, Chief of Public

PROFESSOR: ARMSTRONG: What really happened out there with Apollo 11?

It was incredible ... of course, we had always known there was a possibility ... the fact is, we were warned off. There was never any question then of a space station or a moon city.
PROFESSOR:

ARMSTRONG: PROFESSOR: How do you mean "warned off"?
ARMSTRONG: I can't go into details, except to say that their ships

were far superior to ours both in size and technology—Boy, were they big! . . . and menacing. . . . No, there is no question of a space station.

But NASA had other missions after Apollo 11 ?
Naturally—NASA was committed at that time, and

couldn't risk a panic on earth. . . . But it really was a quick scoop and back again....

Later, when my friend confronted Armstrong, the latter confirmed that the story was true but refused to go into further detail, beyond admitting that the CIA was behind the cover-up.

What does Neil Armstrong have to say about the matter officially? In reply to my enquiry he simply stated: "Your 'reliable sources' are unreliable. There were no objects reported, found, or seen on Apollo 11 or any other Apollo flight other than of natural origin. All observations on all Apollo flights were fully reported to the public."

UFO Phenomena
and the Self
Censorship of
Science

George C. Andrews

In the field of UFO research, there is a constant tug-of-war between zealot skeptics and zealot true believers, which like a Punch-and-Judy show distracts public attention from open-minded attempts to address the real issues, since both of these groups have their minds made up in advance.

It is unfortunate that a large proportion of the academic community falls into the category of zealot skeptics, insofar as UFO phenomena are concerned. Although regrettable, this is understandable, since any other attitude endangers the grants on which their livelihood depends, as well as their prestige in the hierarchy's pecking order.

The treatment Dr. John Mack received from his colleagues and the trustees at Harvard after his book on UFO abductions was published amply illustrates what happens when a previously respected professor investigates a taboo subject and comes up with unconventional conclusions. However, Dr. Mack emerged from the controversy relatively unscathed, when one compares what happened to him with what happened to Dr. James E. McDonald about a quarter of a century earlier.

Dr. James E. McDonald was Senior Physicist of the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona. He thought that the Federal Power Commission was evading the evidence concerning UFO involvement in the total power failure that paralyzed New York on July 13th, 1965, and dared to say so in front of a Congressional committee. His courageous statements on this and other occasions triggered a torrent of derision and abuse, and he was ostentatiously ostracized by his colleagues, in ways reminiscent of the treatment Dr. Mack recently received from his colleagues at Harvard. However, unlike Dr. Mack, Dr. McDonald was shortly thereafter found dead under suspicious circumstances, which to this day have not been satisfactorily elucidated.

Arbitrary denial of the reality of UFO phenomena by the academic community, in spite of the substantial evidence to the contrary which has been surfacing persistently at irregular intervals for the last fifty years, demonstrates a self-censorship that amounts to an abdication of responsibility and is incompatible with the principles on which their work is supposed to be based. No matter what the subject matter, scientific research is supposed to be carried out impartially, following the trail of truth wherever it may lead, without skewing the results one way or another to make them fit preconceived biases. It should make no difference if the results are unpopular or subject to ridicule by the ignorant who have not bothered to examine the evidence themselves, even if some of the ignorant happen to be in positions of authority that control research grants and advancement in the academic hierarchy.

It is the academic research community which sets the tone for so-called serious media coverage, as well as statements made by government representatives. Because it has systematically deprecated, minimized or denied evidence out of fear of ridicule, for a full half-century adopting an attitude of zealous skepticism, the academic community now bears a large part of the responsibility for the catastrophic present situation, in which the population as a whole must adjust to the shock of acknowledging the reality of the alien presence on this planet, although deeply conditioned for fifty years to dismiss it as a laughing matter, as easily controlled as a television set. Of course, the decision made in 1953 by the CIA's Robertson Panel to pursue a policy of systematic ridicule towards civilian UFO reports is also a major factor in the equation. This decision illustrates the extent to which contemporary science is influenced by the military/industrial complex, since that disastrous policy is still being implemented to the present day.

What is the evidence I claim is being arbitrarily denied? An incident witnessed by a single person is always open to question, and an eyewitness report on its own does not constitute substantial evidence. However, in the investigation of a traffic accident or a crime, if there are multiple witnesses who independently give similar descriptions of the event, their cumulative testimony tends to be taken seriously in a court of law. If there are literally hundreds or even thousands of witnesses independently giving similar descriptions of an event, the cumulative weight of their testimony becomes overwhelming. Long-term patterns over periods of several decades that include entire populations of towns and cities making similar reports should be considered scientifically as even more decisively significant, no matter what the subject matter.

The exception is the taboo topic of UFO phenomena. There are literally hundreds of examples I could point to, but one incident illustrates particularly well how this taboo operates.

I'll begin by specifying my sources, which are articles in the following newspapers: Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, AR, January 23, 1988; Arkansas Democrat, Little Rock, AR, January 23, 1988; Gazette, Texarkana, TX, January 23 & 24, 1988; BEE, Dequeen, AR, January 28, 1988; Northwest Arkansas Times, Fayetteville, AR, February 4—8 and March 27, 1988; McCurtain County Gazette, Idabel, OK, April 10, 1988.

The magnitude and extent of the incidents that began to be reported on January 19, 1988, from Little River County in Arkansas were on a scale that went beyond any other UFO phenomena that occurred in 1988. The incidents clustered around the towns of Foreman and Ashdown in southwest Arkansas, near the Texas border. A few sporadic sightings had occurred in previous months, including a low-altitude sighting of a UFO as large as a football field in November, 1987, but the witnesses did not dare speak out for fear of ridicule. The local population tends to be quite conservative, and the first witnesses to go public after a UFO chased three women in a car at terrifyingly close range on January 19, 1988, were subjected to persistent harassment and ostracism, until hundreds of citizens began seeing the phenomena simultaneously and its reality became undeniable. A typical report described

... a ball of light that was as big as a hay wagon at first, but which got smaller when as many as 100 people gathered to look at it. The object changed color from red to green to blue. It was first seen near ground level, then flew high into the sky. It got under the moon and it looked just like a star up there until everyone went away, then it came back down. When it was up off the ground, lights were flashing, and you had to see it to believe it.

Witnesses included a professional astronomer, an Air Force veteran with 1,800 hours of flying time who had been a navigator on a B-52, a science teacher who had been selected as a finalist for the NASA "teacher in space" program, and a design engineer familiar with propulsion systems. Photos were taken that neither the Arkansas Sky Observatory, NORAD [North American Air Defense Command] or NASA were able to give plausible explanations for. However, Clay Sherrod, the Director of the Arkansas Sky Observatory, succeeded in insulting everyone's intelligence by maintaining that the extremely mobile metallic objects with multicolored flashing lights being perceived simultaneously by whole crowds of people, hovering at low altitude then suddenly rising straight up at incredible speed, performing maneuvers such as no known aircraft can perform, were either misidentifications of the planet Venus or moonlight reflecting off the bellies of white snow geese flying overhead.

Although newspaper coverage of the incidents ceased on March 27, the incidents continued to occur for approximately one full year well into 1989, without even being mentioned in the local press. They were considered no longer newsworthy, having been persistently disparaged by the authorities and the national news media, which parroted the "planet Venus" and "moonlight reflecting off the bellies of snow geese" explanations made by the Director of the Arkansas Sky Observatory, who was hundreds of miles away from the scene of the action in his office in Little Rock.