by Leslie Kean
And, it says, during these pursuits, the attempts to “detain” the objects were also unsuccessful. Detain? This is peculiar; how would the military detain one? Chances are, the only way to detain such a craft would be to physically disable it, or shoot it down. The Post statement suggests that the Air Force may have tried to do just that, but we don’t know, and have not yet been able to find out.
We do know a great deal, however, about what happened in 1976 over Tehran, and about the 1980 incident in Peru, partly because of U.S. government interest in both cases, which led to the filing of American reports with intelligence agencies. One can assume that the cases of Jafari and Santa María must have been of particular interest not only because the pilots took military action against the UFOs, but also because they actually interacted with them. In both instances, there was an interplay of actions and response over an extended period of time, a type of communication, between a vulnerable man in a small plane and an unknown, highly technological flying machine. Neither pilot knew where it was from, or why it was there. But during this lengthy engagement, both were able to observe the objects at very close range.
The national security aspect is obvious—or perhaps global security would be a more apt phrase. In their attempts to shoot down the UFO, neither pilot was successful, but for different reasons. Santa María penetrated the object the first time with a barrage of shells, which had absolutely no effect, but in subsequent attempts the object shot up vertically extremely fast and avoided additional fire. In Jafari’s case, missile firing mechanisms were rendered inert several times at the moment he was about to launch his missiles. Both UFOs demonstrated an uncanny, astonishing trait: They repeatedly evaded attack at the very last moment, just when the pilots locked on to the target and were ready to fire, as if they somehow “knew,” or registered in some way, when the pilots were about to push the button. These last-minute evasions seem too perfectly timed, and were repeated too many times, to be coincidental. Both cases are among the best illustrations on record of some kind of intelligent control by a UFO. Despite the distance between them, the objects appeared to be highly cued in to the actions of the aircraft with which they were engaged. And neither UFO retaliated or harmed the jets, despite their aggressive maneuvers. One would surmise that our government would clearly have been interested in such remarkable events, despite claims to the contrary. And it was. The fascinating FOIA documents tell the real story.
The 1976 Iranian incident was a major news event in Tehran, and even American television was on the scene. As General Jafari described earlier, U.S. Air Force officer Lieutenant Colonel Olin Mooy had attended the debriefing the day after the incident. It was Mooy who penned a three-page U.S. government memorandum titled “UFO Sighting,” which was classified and distributed as a teletype from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency to the secretary of state, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the White House, and the Air Force, Army, and Navy. This highly unusual report13 spells out in detail the information presented at the briefing that Jafari attended, including a description of the primary object and the secondary, smaller objects; the loss of on-board instrumentation in conjunction with attempts to fire; and an apparent landing of one object.
Most significant was the incredible DIA evaluation of Mooy’s descriptive narrative, written by Air Force Major Colonel Roland Evans on October 12, 1976. It states:
An outstanding report: this case is a classic which meets all the criteria necessary for a valid study of UFO phenomena.
The object was seen by multiple witnesses from different locations (i.e., Shemiran, Mehrebad and the dry lake bed) and viewpoints (both airborne and from the ground).
The credibility of many of the witnesses was high (an Air Force General, qualified aircrews and experienced tower operators).
Visual sightings were confirmed by radar.
Similar electromagnetic effects (EME) were reported by three separate aircraft.
There were physiological effects on some crew members (i.e., loss of night vision due to the brightness of the object).
An inordinate amount of maneuverability was displayed by the UFOs.14
The evaluation indicates that the reliability of the information was “confirmed by other sources” and its value was High (defined as “unique, timely and of major significance”). It was used, or planned for use, as “current intelligence.” This intelligence information of high value, of major significance, concerning an outstanding UFO report that justified further study of the phenomenon, was filed as such—even though U.S. government disinterest in UFOs, and outright dismissal of sightings, was the public pattern repeated in so many cases in America, and even though it had told the public in 1969 that UFOs were of no concern.
Four years later, our government also filed a report on the Peruvian incident involving Oscar Santa María. A Department of Defense (DoD)/Joint Chiefs of Staff “info report” was distributed to almost as many agencies as the Iran report. Titled “UFO Sighted in Peru,”15 the June 1980 document was prepared by Colonel Norman H. Runge, who states that his source was an “officer in the Peruvian Air Force who observed the event … source has reported reliably in the past.” Santa María does not know the name of that officer, was not interviewed by any American, and clearly remembers that no U.S. officials were present during his briefing. “We were very careful about guarding our own sensitive operations and military procedures,” he explained in one of our telephone interviews from his home in Peru.
Unfortunately, the DoD report provides the wrong date for the Peruvian encounter: May 9, 1980, rather than April 11. Santa María believes that the information was distorted, and some of the data imprecise, because the report was not filed until two months after the incident. There were apparently delays as the communication made its way through various channels to the Americans.
The document reports that a UFO was observed over the base, and the Air Commander scrambled an SU-22. “The FAP [Peruvian Air Force] tried to intercept and destroy the UFO, but without success,” it states. The pilot “intercepted the vehicle and fired upon it at very close range without causing any apparent damage. The pilot tried to make a second pass on the vehicle, but the UFO out-ran the SU-22.”
I find it interesting that the term “vehicle” was used consistently and interchangeably with “UFO” throughout this U.S. government document; usually the term “object” is the official choice, leaving wider room for a range of possible explanations. A “vehicle” is something constructed for the purpose of transporting people or things. This one, which remains of unknown origin, was inexplicably unaffected by large shells fired at very close range. Assuming it was a vehicle of unknown origin, as stated, with a capacity that no man-made vehicle has, the concept of “vehicle” then becomes a provocative one, coming from an Air Force colonel. What was it transporting, and why? There seems to have been no problem with an official acknowledgment of the existence of an actual UFO, ten years after the close of Project Blue Book, as long as the document was classified. In this case, a U.S. Air Force colonel acknowledges the existence of an actual UFO—not what one would expect from a government agency that publicly scoffs at such a notion.
For some reason, in recent decades, there seems to be an official preference for looking into cases overseas, rather than those at home. Perhaps there is a particular interest in military cases, involving either the firing on a UFO or a chase by Air Force fighter jets, which drew the authorities to Iran, Peru, and Belgium. Or is it easier for our government to explore cases overseas without being noticed and drawing attention to a UFO event? If it were to do so openly, the Air Force conclusions issued at the time of Project Blue Book, and repeated ever since, would have to be rescinded. Obviously, the consequences of that would be something the Defense Department would prefer to avoid.
Yet while making these once-classified reports, our officials were well aware of the efforts of governments overseas—the host countries within which they probed for
information—to properly investigate military UFO sightings. We benefited from their information, but we certainly did not follow their example.
Instead of contributing in any way, U.S. officials seem to enjoy tiptoeing around the world and checking out cases elsewhere, occasionally finding one that “is a classic which meets all the criteria necessary for a valid study of UFO phenomena,” as the DIA evaluation stated. Rather than assigning the U.S. Air Force to openly handle UFO events here, our government has stubbornly ignored unambiguous sightings affecting the lives of thousands of Americans. Simultaneously, it has in place a reporting system for UFO incidents “within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations,” which it doesn’t like to talk about. It all gets a bit confusing. But as far as all of us citizens are concerned, government agencies still provide untenable explanations for American UFO events, or ignore them altogether, even when close encounters raise issues of aviation safety and, yes, national security, and even though we know they are interested in cases overseas. For how long will the authorities continue to toss out the faulty Air Force “fact sheet” to justify this irresponsible behavior?
CHAPTER 16
“A Powerful Desire to Do Nothing”
Most Americans are not aware that, not too long ago, while our government was quietly filing reports on cases overseas, a dramatic UFO wave unfolded over American soil. The spectacle of this wave was as dramatic as the one in Belgium, and the large, low-flying craft resembled those seen over that country in some ways. Only three years after details about the 1980 incident in Peru were distributed to U.S. government agencies, the “Hudson Valley wave” began in upstate New York and parts of Connecticut. It lasted a few years, and after it all died down, our government filed another secret document about the 1990 Belgian wave. But no officials made inquiries about something here that happened in between these two other reported events, even though our own UFOs were witnessed by thousands of American citizens. No official documents have been filed about the Hudson Valley events—at least as far as we know.
Yet its resemblance to the Belgian wave was notable. Beginning in December 1982, the American wave also lasted many years, with its peak occurring within a two-year period, and it, too, involved repeated visits by large silent objects, sometimes more than one at a time, hovering at low altitudes with extremely bright spotlights. Groups of people watched, often at close range or while standing directly underneath, and some reported seeing a dark, solid structure behind the lights. Many, while driving along the Taconic Parkway or meandering alone down curving backcountry roads, pulled over to get a better look at the UFOs, while others saw the objects when walking their dogs or jogging along reservoirs and lakes. Witnesses said these structures appeared to be as huge as football fields and were capable of shooting off at incredible speeds from stationary positions. As is typical for UFOs, they were silent or emitted a low humming sound.
The Hudson Valley UFOs, like those in Belgium, did not exhibit any aggressive or hostile behavior. In fact, in similar fashion, the less intimidated witnesses reported flashing their car lights at the objects and receiving flashes in return. And this wave, too, featured simultaneous sightings by police officers—in Danbury, Connecticut, police initially joked about calls from witnesses, before being rudely awakened, which was exactly how the Belgian police initially responded. Later, twelve officers from this department alone had their own sightings.1 Pathways could be determined due to the volume of reports from varying locations within short time periods, and route maps were constructed just as they would later be in Belgium. Similarly, some nighttime photos and videos were taken in New York and analyzed by various laboratories, although not as extensively, nor were the images as powerful, as the Petit-Rechain photo of 1990.
An artist’s copy of drawings made by independent witnesses in different parts of New York and Connecticut in 1983 and 1984, which have been reduced and sized to fit the same scale. Collection of Phil Imbrogno
Although the Hudson Valley residents reported mainly delta- or V-shaped objects and the Belgians saw mostly triangular ones, in reading the many witness accounts of both events, the similar behaviors of the crafts are striking. The bizarre and highly unusual “red light ball” phenomenon reported by the four Belgian policemen made an appearance in upstate New York as well. During the first, dramatic night of the Belgian wave in 1989, two pairs of policemen in different locations watched the red light ball shoot out on a beam from a hovering craft, which was then drawn back into the UFO—a rare detail observed at very close range. Heinrich Nicoll, one of the policemen who witnessed this spectacle, interpreted it to be a probe of some sort. In an interview, he said, “The ball kept leaving and coming back, as if the ball were trying to measure something.”2
During the Hudson Valley wave, David Athens, chief of the New Fairfield Fire Department in Connecticut, was standing outside talking with a police officer in July 1984 when both saw a row of lights in a circular pattern. “I would say it was something man-made except that two of the red lights dropped down from the group and went in a different direction behind the mountains. One came back and the other didn’t,” Athens reported.3
Jim Cooke, a biomedical engineer, was shocked to see a triangular object hovering no more than fifteen feet above the water of the Croton Falls Reservoir late one October night in 1983 while driving home. He got out of his car and watched from the edge of the water. “Something came from the underside of the object, a red beam of light or something solid that was glowing red—I really don’t know what. But it seemed to be probing the water,”4 he said. According to Cooke, the object moved slowly over the reservoir, and at each stop the “red probe” interacted with the water, and was then retracted. Like the Belgian craft displaying essentially the same thing, this one was triangular. Heinrich Nicoll’s description was remarkably similar to Cooke’s. He also witnessed the phenomenon over a body of water, which he, too, interpreted to be a probe of some sort. We may never know the purpose of this strange red offshoot of the UFO, but this suggests that very similar objects may have visited both locations in the 1980s.
Despite the intriguing similarities, there was a major difference between these events in upstate New York and those in Belgium—not in the details of what actually happened, but in the way these extraordinary close encounters, repeated year after year, were handled by the authorities—those in charge of protecting citizens and monitoring unregistered air incursions over populated areas.
We must remember that the 1989–90 UFO wave in Belgium was handled rationally, openly, and responsibly by the government. The Belgian Air Force was called into action immediately, and other agencies, such as the Gendarmerie Nationale (a combination of police and army) and the Belgian equivalent of our FAA, also cooperated in the mobilization to identify the objects. The Air Force was not only responsive, but was even proactive in its investigation, looking for craft on multiple radar systems, scrambling F-16s to intercept one on three occasions, and then holding a press conference to explain all this to the public. In addition, state-of-the-art analysis was provided by a number of laboratories on the superior photograph of a craft, one of the best UFO pictures on record. And to take it one step further, the Belgian Air Force made all its data and every resource, including radar stations and even aircraft, available to a highly competent group of civilian scientists who organized data, interviewed witnesses, and kept extensive records. All of these important developments were covered in the European media, with some reporting in the United States, as well. Through it all, the Belgian government did not hide information, issue false explanations, or ridicule witnesses. In fact, we know that Colonel Wilfried De Brouwer, head of the Air Force investigation, told the people the truth. Much was learned, except for the most important thing of all: the origin and purpose of the crafts themselves.
However, in the United States, our UFO wave wasn’t handled at all. Not a thing was done by any branch of our government. There was no national or st
atewide mobilization. No Air Force F-16s were launched (at least not as a matter of public record). No attempts were made to capture the objects on radar. Nor was there any established partnership with a leading U.S. research organization to collect reports, though such qualified scientific groups were ready and waiting. No government labs analyzed the photographs. No government body convened a press conference to provide Air Force data for a public eager for information. The local media gave plenty of coverage in places where the events were actually happening and were a fact of life, but because no officials were engaged other than local policemen, national coverage was minimal.
When pressed by concerned callers, the FAA told witnesses that they had seen something other than what they saw—recognizable things that made a lot of noise, such as airplanes in formation, or helicopters. Numerous factors rendered this explanation untenable, the most obvious being that sometimes the craft hovered or moved more slowly than planes could fly, often at very low altitudes, and it was usually silent. Hovering helicopters or a group of planes flying in formation are notoriously loud. Also, the UFO was seen on many occasions when there were no planes or blimps aloft, as confirmed by the nearby airport. Sometimes, witnesses saw a massive, solid structure around the lights blocking out the sky behind it, easily distinguishable from conventional aircraft. In 1984, for example, six security guards at the Indian Point nuclear power plant witnessed the UFO hovering about 300 feet over the reactor in restricted airspace. Two guards told investigators it was a solid object bigger than a football field.5
