Randles trained as a science teacher and has a diploma in audiovisual/media communications. For some years she served as the ITV network “Paranormal Agony Aunt” answering viewers questions. She has written and presented a series of radio comedy items about the paranormal and serious radio documentaries about UFOs for the BBC. In l996 she co-produced, scripted and presented her own documentary—“Britain’s Secret UFO Files”—for BBC Television. This venture achieved a record audience rating for the department and was the third most watched show on the whole channel that week.
Between l993 and l998 Jenny was officially contracted as “Story Consultant” by the hit ITV series “Strange But True?” Her extensive involvement from the pilot onwards included the writing of two spin off books and work on a 90-minute live special on the night of UFOs 50th anniversary in l997. “Strange But True?” set a record audience figure in 1994 when almost one quarter of the entire U.K. population (12.5 million people) watched its celebrated episode on the Rendlesham Forest case. In l999 she was consultant to the six-part Granada TV series “Origin Unknown”—devoted exclusively to UFO cases.
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POSITION STATEMENT: There is no “UFO phenomenon.” But there are multiple UFO phenomena that require a range of different explanations.
From my experience in the field I have no doubt that 95 percent of sightings can be explained as the result of known scientific causes (such as bolides, weather effects and other IFOs). Many of the remainder are what I prefer to term UAP—Unidentified Atmospheric Phenomena —and result from energy sources created by atmospheric physics, geology and meteorology. Some of these will, in my opinion, extend the boundaries of known science and are “new” phenomena in that sense. Indeed researchers in fields such as ball lightning lose key evidence because they ignore UFOs. In fact more extreme forms of ball lightning are often reported not to science, but to UFOlogy in the mistaken guise of alien craft.
I also suspect that there are other rare and more “exotic” types of UAP, involving plasma energy and vortices that can perhaps cause temporary rifts in the fabric of space. We do a disservice to ourselves by neglecting to study them or by our ill-judged presumption that the word UFO is synonymous with alien spacecraft. Some of these energies can be harnessed for the benefit of mankind—as may have been grasped by a few scientists in government employ. The coverup, such as it is, operates not to hide fantastic secrets such as crashed spaceships, but to obscure ignorance of the truth. I fear that the powers that be may well be using UFOlogists as unsuspecting pawns in a social disinformation exercise to make the subject appear absurd to mainstream science. This allows research to continue covertly where such energies are more likely to be used for offensive purposes. A UFO cold war is thus afoot with UFOlogists puppets in it.
As for alien contact/abductions, the vast majority of witnesses are sincere, telling things as they perceive them to have occurred. They are not psychologically unstable. However, it seems beyond question that these close encounters are fundamentally different from UAP. They are experiences, not sightings, and occur when the witness is in altered state of consciousness, as marked by the Oz Factor. Those who are prone to undergoing such experiences have abilities that are different from most other people. This includes high levels of visual creativity and an unusual level of recall of early life. Such people are either able to have a visual experience that is so vividly real and appears to them to be reality, or can communicate with some other level of reality not normally accessible to the rest of us.
These experiences have more in common with near-death and out-of-body visions than with UFO or UAP. In my opinion the concept of aliens coming to Earth in starships to perform medical examinations is unsuccessful—as is the skeptical dismissal of cases as mere illusion. Instead the truth reveals a great deal about the nature of consciousness and of reality itself. But until we realise that we are looking in quite the wrong direction for the answer to the close encounter mystery, we will appear to make little progress. In fact we have actually made huge strides towards that truth—not least by clarifying what is not taking place. Far too few UFOlogists, let alone members of the public, have come to realise this sobering news, because the media have dismally failed to grasp the true complexity of the field. There is a huge social and financial incentive to maintain the illusion of alien invaders.
—JENNY RANDLES
reconnaissance theory of UFOs Once the existence of UFOs is accepted, their purpose must be addressed. The most pervasive thinking tends to gravitate toward the ideas of secret, stealthy, or covert observation. (Haines, 1987) Is Another World Watching? (Heard, 1951), Why Are They Watching Us? (Erskine, 1967), Are We Being Watched? (Bord, 1980) are just a few of the titles which exemplify this theme.
UFOlogists have preferred the terms “reconnaissance” or “surveillance” to describe these operations. Some, like Donald Keyhoe, were more precise and called it “spying.” Spies evoke connotations of furtiveness, moral ambiguity, and psychological complexities that the other terms skirt. This essay traces how the aliens-are-watching-us anxiety came to occupy such a central place in UFOlogical thought.
The flying saucer era opened in an atmosphere of deep intrigue. Kenneth Arnold saw nine objects brush by Mount Rainier at speeds far beyond that of anything then being tested by the U.S. Air Force. Arnold believed they were unconventional craft being tested by the government. The public was fascinated. The Pentagon was, however, confused. It wasn’t anything of ours, they were fairly sure. Was it something of the Soviets? They got a lot of German scientists from World War II and we knew the Nazis had a lot of wild ideas. But why fly it here? It set a lot of heads scratching in the intelligence community. The FBI was asked to do background checks on saucer reporters to see if they had Communist leanings.
The linking of flying saucers to extraterrestrials happened very quickly. Within four days of his sighting, Arnold said some woman rushed into a room, took one look at him, then dashed out shrieking: “There’s the man who saw men from Mars!” (Gross, 1976) Hal Boyle, an Associated Press columnist, spoofed going on a trip in a flying saucer with a green Martian named “Balmy.” (Strentz, 1982) Dewitt Miller spoke of the objects being not just possibly from outer space, but from other dimensions of time and space. (Gross, 1976) On July 8th, the Army issued a statement expressing assurances that the devices were neither bacteriological devices of some foreign power or secret Army rockets, and they were not from outer space. (Gross, 1976)
On July 10th, Senator Taylor expressed the wish that saucers would turn out to be from outer space to unify Earth. (Gross, 1976) This idea was apparently common coin for it had been satirized already two years earlier in a favorite Fritz Leiber story “Wanted – An Enemy.” The plot consisted of an Earthling trying to convince peace-loving Martians to make a token invasion and looting of the Earth. He explains wistfully that mankind needs an enemy to unify him. The discussion convinces the aliens that they should reconnoiter the Earth and verify that our psychology was as the visitor claims. If true, they would exterminate us. Why take chances? (Leiber, 1974)
Kenneth Arnold
Amid these extraterrestrial speculations can be found an early expression of the idea that aliens are watching us. Loren Gross found a little news article dated July 8, 1947, bearing the headline “Eyes from Mars.” In it R. L. Farnsworth, a Fortean and the president of the U.S. Rocket Society, noted that spots in the sky were nothing new and opined, “I wouldn’t even be surprised if the flying saucers were remote-control eyes from Mars.” (Gross, 1976)
Despite talk of Martians in the air, few took the idea seriously. Of 853 cases collected by Ted Bloecher for his Report on the Wave of 1947, only two witnesses openly expressed the opinion that the objects they saw were space ships. Kjell Qvale was the first and dates to July 5th
. (Bloecher, 1967)
The other one was by John H. Jannsen and is of a rather special nature. To begin with, he is one of the few witnesses who took a photograph of the saucers. He states: “I really believe these craft to be operated by an intelligence far beyond that developed by we earth-bound mortals and am inclined to agree with the theory they are spacecraft from outer space.” He theorizes about magnetic and antigravity propulsion methods, then continues: “In all probability these are reconnaissance craft and as they have been seen all over the world and not only in this country, are probably making a thorough study of us and our terrain and atmosphere before making any overtures.”
Donald Keyhoe
It is all reminiscent of Keyhoe, but undeniably precedes him by two years. Several weeks after this sighting, Jannsen has another encounter. His plane is stopped in midair for a number of minutes while being scrutinized by a pair of disks hovering nearby. Since this makes Jannsen a repeater, Bloecher counsels suspicion. The case is, however, an instructive microcosm of reconnaissance beliefs generating reconnaissance experiences in a period when practically no one had such expectations. (Bloecher, 1967)
A Gallup poll in August of 1947 indicated that 29 percent of the public thought the saucers were optical illusions or products of the imagination. Ten percent thought they were hoaxes. A fair percentage, 15 percent, agreed with Arnold that the saucers were a U.S. secret weapon. Only 1 percent thought they were Russian secret weapons. If anyone volunteered the opinion that the saucers were extraterrestrial, the pollsters did not bother to tally them.
The intelligence community continued to ponder the mystery in the months following the 1947 wave and was less inclined to dismiss it as imagination. A letter between General N. F. Twining and Brigadier General George Schulgen demonstrates belief by the intelligence community that the phenomenon was real and either a domestic high-security project or a foreign nation had developed a new form of propulsion, possibly nuclear. (Gillmor, 1969)
Sometime during this period a school of thought grew which held that the phenomenon was probably interplanetary. A Top Secret “Estimate of the Situation” by some of these people allegedly exists that recommended the military be put on an alert footing. The Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg, however, vetoed any such drastic official action. (Gross, 1982)
An Air Intelligence Report dated December 10, 1948, concluded that the flying objects were probably Soviet in origin, and pondered the reasons for the flights: (1) negating U.S. confidence that A-bombs were the ultimate defense; (2) photographic reconnaissance; (3) testing US defenses in advance of a one-way all-out attack by strategic bombers; (4) familiarizing their pilots with our topography. The report expressed doubts about each of these ideas.
With regard to the reconnaissance notion, the report pointed out that sightings rarely involved areas we considered strategic. Maybe it was an effort to fill in gaps that were left from intelligence the Soviets gathered in liaisons with American industry in World War II. Some sites like Oak Ridge, Las Cruces, and the Hanford atomic works (which had sightings) would not have been accessible to them. (Andrus, 1985)
Almost simultaneously, in a report for Project Sign dated December 13, 1948, James E. Lipp offered the first thoughtful analysis of the notion that extraterrestrials were involved. From the text it is evident that various people had begun taking the possibility seriously. One section of the report dealt specifically with the reconnaissance concept.
Here it was suggested that perhaps the Martians, having kept a longterm routine watch on Earth, became alarmed at the sight of our A-bomb blasts as evidence that we were warlike and on the threshold of space travel. (Venus is eliminated here because her cloudy atmosphere would make such a survey impractical.)
The first flying objects were sighted in the Spring of 1947, after a total of five atomic bomb explosions i.e., Alamagordo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Crossroads A, and Crossroads B. Of these, the first two were in positions to be seen from Mars, but the third was at the edge of the Earth’s disk in daylight, and the last two were on the wrong side of Earth to be seen. Some thought it was likely that Martian astronomers, with their thin atmosphere, could build telescopes big enough to see A-bomb explosions on Earth, even though we were 165 and 153 million miles away, respectively, on the Alamagordo and Hiroshima dates.
Lipp didn’t foresee the possibility that the watch could be turned over to computers and photoelectric sensors and other monitoring devices like remote satellites which would leave Martians free to consider more exciting pastimes and still be alerted to special developments when they happened.
Elsewhere in the report for Project Sign, G. E. Valley did a little brainstorming of the various possibilities. He astutely said of the Soviet secret weapon theory: “It is doubtful a potential enemy would arouse our attention in so idle a fashion.” He toyed with the idea of space animals explaining saucer behavior. He junked notions about ships propelled by rays or magnetic fields on straightforward physical considerations, but held out the possibility of an antigravity shield. The notions that seemed to be left were mass psychology or extraterrestrial visits prompted by A-bomb development. (Steiger, 1976)
The public knew little more than the fact that saucer sightings kept popping up from time to time. The Mantell case in January, 1948, seemed to remove the possibility it was all some kind of joke. While the Air Force seemed to be taking some of the sightings seriously, it still downplayed the materiality of the phenomena as well as the Soviet or outer space notions about their origin.
The editor of True magazine thought their behavior was “damned queer” and called in Donald Keyhoe to snoop around aviation circles to see if he could turn up anything. (Gross, 1983) Keyhoe thought the Air Force’s treatment of the Mantell case looked like a coverup. He was also unimpressed by their handling of the Gorman and Chiles-Whitted cases. A former intelligence officer provided Keyhoe with a scenario in which saucers were remote-control “observer units with television eyes sent from an orbiting space base.” This would be a prudent preliminary step to determine if we were a “fiercely barbarous race” before exploring the world in “person.”
These contentions formed the basis of Keyhoe’s infamous article for True magazine “The Flying Saucers are Real”. His main conclusions were that:
1. For the past 175 years, the planet Earth has been under systematic close-range observation by living, intelligent observers from another planet.
2. The intensity of this observation, and the frequency of the visits to the Earth’s atmosphere by which it is being conducted have increased markedly during the past two years.
3. The vehicles used for this observation and for interplanetary transport by the explorers have been identified and categorized as follows: Type I, a small nonpilot-carrying disk-shaped aircraft equipped with some form of television or impulse transmitter; Type II, a very large (up to 250 feet in diameter) metallic disk-shaped aircraft operating on the helicopter principle; Type III, a dirigible-shaped, wingless aircraft which, in the Earth’s atmosphere, operated in conformance with the Prandtl theory of lift.
4. The discernible pattern of observation and exploration shown by the so-called “flying disks” varies in no important particular way from well-developed American plans for the exploration of space expected to come to fruition within the next 50 years. There is reason to believe, however, that some other race of thinking beings is a matter of two and a quarter centuries ahead of us.
The True article was one of the most widely discussed magazine articles of its time. Prominent newsmen like Walter Winchell and Frank Edwards discussed it. The article was expanded into a book bearing the same title later that same year. (Keyhoe, 1950)
In May 1950, the Gallup poll showed that the American public was leaning toward Arnold’s view. Twenty-three percent now believed saucers were an American secret weapon. Those who believed they were illusions or hoaxes had dropped to 16 percent of the sample. The Russian secret weapon idea now garnered 3 percent of
the public. The pollsters had to add a new category called “comets, shooting stars, something from another planet” and placed 5 percent of the public into it. (Gallup, 1972)
Documents released by the intelligence community were of such a contradictory nature that Keyhoe sensed a coverup. Never mind that the contradictions could be explained more simply by the fact that they had not come to any consensus. Keyhoe claimed many scientists had come to believe the saucers contained “spies from another planet.” Even Nazi scientists believed space observers (according to Keyhoe) were watching us, and their conviction had led to their experimentation with circular aerofoils. (Keyhoe, 1950)
Keyhoe bolstered the reconnaissance theory by pointing to what he perceived as a pattern of focused interests. In the 19th century, interest was on the most advanced part of the globe—Europe. It shifted to America in the late 19th century as industry and cities sprang up. Then came surveys of both continents as aircraft were developed. Observation increased in response to the V-2s during World War II.
Still more increases followed our A-bomb explosions and a second spurt followed Soviet A-bomb testing. Recent interest had focused on our Air Force bases and atomic testing areas. Encounters like the Gorman incident were viewed as a test of our aircraft capabilities. Keyhoe concluded that observation had become intermittent and that the long-range survey would continue indefinitely. Their plans concerning us were incomplete so no contact seemed evident. (Keyhoe, 1950)
Three years later, Keyhoe came out with a sequel, Flying Saucers from Outer Space (1953). He articulates in greater detail the clustering of saucer sightings over various locales. These are: (1) atomic energy plants at Oak Ridge, Hanford, but most frequently over Los Alamos; (2) Air Force bases; (3) Naval bases; (4) the high-altitude rocket base at White Sands; (5) aircraft plants; (6) major cities. The repetitive nature of some of the saucer visits led to the speculation: “it looks like they’re getting ready for an attack.” The dominant theme, however, remained that this was a new phase of “surveillance by some planet race” prompted by radio and television signals. Keyhoe unmodestly quoted a friend as saying: “But one thing’s absolutely certain. We’re being watched by beings from outer space.” (Keyhoe, 1953)
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters Page 82
