The Kecksburg 1965 UFO Case

Kecksburg is one of the classic UFO cases. Indeed, some have called it the Eastern Roswell. The incident occurred on December 9, 1965.
 

Many people across the north-eastern United States and in southern Canada reported seeing a giant fireball streaking across the sky. It plunged earthwards in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. A meteor perhaps? Perhaps. But some who witnessed its final descent insisted it manoeuvred violently, twisting and changing direction several times before crashing into the Kecksburg woods.

 

Word spread quickly. Radio stations broadcast the news. Local people were swiftly on the scene, swarming the woods, trying to get a look. Unfortunately for those curiosity seekers, the armed forces, backup up by the state police, were quickly on the scene too. They stood guard around the crash site and turned away anyone who got too close. A few intrepid locals had beaten them to the spot, however, and managed to get a glimpse before the authorities arrived. Eye-witness descriptions recall a bell or acorn-shaped large metal object, about 6 feet by 15 feet, half-buried in a crater on the ground. Strange writing, resembling Egyptian hieroglyphs, snaked along the surface of the object. The metal had no folds or apertures, although, in one spot, it showed a slight indentation.

Soon the authorities arrived and dispersed those who had gathered, warning them not to talk about what they had seen. Later a large object under a tarpaulin was seen being hauled away in a flat-bed truck.

At one point during the night's events, a spokesman for the state police, flanked by members of the military, issued a statement, claiming that the police had searched the area and were convinced that there was "nothing whatsoever in the woods". This was to be the beginning of the official stonewalling on the incident which has continued until the present day. On the day after the crash, the air force proclaimed that the object sighted in the skies was nothing more than a meteor.

 

Kecksburg Explanations:

 

If we discount the official mantra of "nothing to see here, move along", what explanations are there for what happened at Kecksburg? It is, of course, possible that what crashed was nothing but a meteor. But the eye-witness reports of a smooth metal object covered in symbols would seem to discount that. And why would the government be so anxious to cover up a mere meteor?Only three interpretations are consistent with all the known facts : what crashed in Kecksburg was either American technology, Soviet technology or alien technology.

The strongest case made by those who reject the extra-terrestrial hypothesis is that what crashed at Kecksburg was the Soviet satellite Kosmos 96. Kosmos 96 was reported to have crashed in Canada almost half a day before. Those who would connect it with the Kecksburg incident, however, argue that perhaps what crashed in Canada was only a disposable part of the Soviet space vehicle, and that the actual satellite module came down in Kecksburg slightly later.

Why the cover-up in this case? The argument runs that the Americans wanted to examine the Soviet technology embodied in the satellite but, under international agreements, would have been required to return the module to its country of origin. Hence the cover-up. Certainly, the shape of the object on the ground at Kecksburg, as described, would have resembled that of the Soviet space module. Both NASA and the Soviet space authorities dismiss this possible explanation, though. What about the manoeuvring seen by some observers before the object crashed? The Kosmos 96 probe was designed originally to explore the planet Venus, so it may well have been equipped with some manoeuvring capacity.

The obvious alternatives to the Soviet space probe explanation are that the object represented secret American technology, or that it was extra-terrestrial in origin. In either scenario, a cover-up is all too easy to imagine.

Kecksburg Story Today:

 

The years have not diminished interest in the Kecksburg incident. UFO aficionados have continued to bombard various branches of the American government with requests for information and documents. Fascinatingly, only a few years ago, in response to these requests, NASA was forced to admit, after decades of denying it, that, in fact, it had examined fragments of an object that had been recovered from the Kecksburg woods. The space agency declared that the fragments appeared to come from a Russian satellite, but that it had lost all documents relating to the incident.

As is often the case, the Kecksburg tale has grown in the telling. As the incident has acquired a higher public profile through the broadcast of a number of television documentaries, new witnesses have come forward, embellishing some aspects of the original story. Some say they saw a hand emerge from the crashed object; others that they heard an unearthly scream sounding through the woods; another declares he saw a lizard-like arm protrude from beneath a tarpaulin at Wright-Patterson air force base shortly after the crash. Of course, it is never easy to evaluate these belated claims. Are these genuine eye-witnesses who were too frightened to come forward until the incident acquired a high public profile, self-deluded fantasists, or hoaxers motivated by greed or a sense of mischief?

Conclusion:

 

Forty years on, Kecksburg remains an enigma. The NASA declaration proves that something did indeed fall to earth there. Whether it was a Soviet space probe, or something from much further afield, must remain the subject of intrigued speculation.

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The Belgian UFO Wave

Nothing ever happens in Belgium, they say. Nothing except one of the most remarkable UFO waves of modern times, perhaps of all time. The events in question occurred between 1989 and 1990. During this period the whole of Belgium found itself seized by UFO fever.

 

The Belgian UFO Wave

 

 

The first recorded sighting took place in November 1989 when two policemen out patrolling in their car spotted some strange lights in the sky. Too big to be stars, the lights looked as if they belonged to a giant aircraft, one that was shaped like a triangle. They saw one light at each point of the triangle and another in the centre. When the object slowly moved off, the policemen followed along in their vehicle. Utterly mystified, they wondered what it could be. They knew of no aircraft as large as the object they could see in front of them. Besides, almost no aircraft could move that slowly or hover in the air as they had seen this one doing. Helicopters could, but it was way too large to be a helicopter, and it made no noise.

 

 

The policemen radioed their command post excitedly, reporting back what they were seeing. Not sure whether it was a joke or not, the watch officer made a note of it and filed it away. The two patrolmen continued to follow the object till eventually it stopped. Two laser-like beams shot out of either end of it, seemingly scanning the Earth below. In addition, a mysterious ball of light emerged from the vehicle, dipped down towards the ground, then, after a few moments, returned to the vehicle above. The policemen watched in utter astonishment as another giant triangular craft, exactly like the first, emerged from beyond the horizon and approached. Soon both aircraft moved away and out of sight.

This was to be the beginning of one of the world's most astonishing UFO flaps. Over the next two years, literally thousands of people were to see the same mysterious aircraft in the skies over Belgium. As in the first sighting, many of the eye-witnesses were highly credible professionals in positions of authority. Soon, the newspapers were full of it and even government ministers were discussing it openly.

Suspecting it might be an experimental American aircraft, being tested in Belgian skies without permission, the Belgian government made inquiries of the American embassy. The American embassy issued a statement, declaring that there were no unauthorised flights of American aeroplanes in Belgian airspace. Although with its triangular shape, the UFO somewhat resembled the American stealth bomber, the American aircraft could not hover or fly as slowly as the UFO had done, so this explanation was dismissed.

 

The Belgian Air Force Confronts the UFOs

 

 

With UFO sighting reports coming in continuously, and the government taking an interest, the Belgian Air Force decided it had no choice but to get involved. A new policy was set : if the presence of a UFO was confirmed by both police officers on the ground and by radar detection, the air force would scramble jets to investigate.

As a result of the new policy, one truly memorable encounter took place on the night of the 30-31 March, 1990. Following reports of a UFO being spotted, and confirmed traces of it on radar being received from multiple stations, two F-16s were scrambled to investigate. They were guided in towards their target by radar controllers on the ground. As they approached, the pilots could see two of the mystery triangle craft, their lights shifting in colour, from white to red, yellow, blue and green in an irregular sequence. The F-16s tried to get a targeting lock on the UFOs and succeeded briefly several times, but, each time they did, the UFOs would react almost immediately, accelerating away at extraordinary speeds. Doggedly, the pilots did their best to keep up. The same strange pattern, of catch-up and evasion, repeated itself several times that night, as if the UFOs were toying with the F-16s.

During the chase, the UFOs exhibited rapid changes in altitude. At one point, one of them dropped from 10,000 feet to just above ground level in the space of five seconds. The speeds, rapid accelerations and abrupt altitude changes exhibited by the UFOs would have proved fatal to any human pilot. Eventually, the lights on the UFOs winked out and the craft disappeared. The F-16s lost their target and returned to base.

Some cockpit footage, showing the UFOs as they appeared on the radar of one of the F-16s, was later shown at a press conference. The sharp changes in speed and altitude of the tracked target could clearly be seen.

Over the two years in which the sightings occurred, a few people were able to capture photographs of the mysterious triangular aircraft. They stand today as some of the most remarkable UFO images of all time.

 

Conclusion

 

 

There has still been no satisfactory explanation of the UFOs seen over Belgium between 1989 and 1990. While the official report of the air force stopped short of declaring that the aircraft were extra-terrestrial in origin, it ruled out just about every other explanation. On the whole the Belgian authorities discussed the events with great candour. It would perhaps be asking too much to expect them to come out and openly declare that alien spaceships were swarming the Belgian skies.

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The Chicago O'Hare Incident

Just when you thought all the great UFO cases were in the past, just when you thought the mainstream media had lost interest in the UFO subject completely, along comes an incident to convince you that the mystery is still with us and not going away any time soon.

On Novermber 7 2006, a baggage handler at Chicago's O'Hare International airport spotted something strange hovering in the sky overhead. It appeared to be dark and disc-shaped and sat there unmoving, just beneath the cloud bank. Word spread quickly around the airport. Soon pilots were peering out of their cockpit windows, air traffic controllers were fielding queries about it, and internal office staff were running outside to have a look.

From a purely professional point of view, of course, this made perfect sense. After all, if the object had been a balloon or other conventional form of aircraft, it could have constituted a hazard to the air traffic coming in and out of the airport. But all the witnesses unanimously agreed that what was hovering in the sky that day was no balloon, or man-made aircraft of any sort. It remained dark and unmoving in the sky for several minutes.

Suddenly, watched by dozens of witnesses, it shot up into the cloud bank above it, moving at great speed and leaving visible a gaping hole where it had punched through the clouds. After a few minutes, the witnesses say, the hole closed up.

 

Aftermath of the Chicago O'Hare UFO Incident

So, with such a bizarre incident in such a public place in front of so many witnesses, many of whom were highly responsible professionals, this had to be some kind of major breathrough as far as public acceptance of the reality of UFOs is concerned, right? Surely they would all be on television the next night, telling everyone about what they had seen? Nope. Of course, with UFO stories, it's never that simple.

No great UFO story is complete without a cover-up and Chicago O'Hare didn't disappoint. Many of the witnesses worked for the American airline United Airlines. They dutifully reported what they had seen to their line managers. In response, they were told to shut up and discuss the incident with no one. Fearful of losing their jobs, the airport witnesses, by and large, complied. At least, the warnings had made them reluctant to go public with what they had seen. But they spoke about it privately.

Soon word spread to journalists who started nosing around. A reporter for the Chicago Tribune called up United Airlines and asked about the incident. United said it knew nothing about it. When the paper made inquiries of the FAA - the Federal Aviation Administration, the American agency responsible for tracking air traffic in the country - it disclaimed any knowledge. So the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information act request and, lo and behold, got back records which showed United Airlines managers talking about the incident with the FAA, asking if anything strange had been picked up on radar at the time and place in question. So both organisations knew about the UFO incident, despite their denials. A cover-up was in effect. When challenged, the FAA said that what the witnesses had seen might have been a "weather phenomenon".

 

Images of the O'Hare UFO

People often take cameras with them when they're going on holiday. So, with something so extraordinary occurring in an airport, you'd have good reason to hope that some great photographs might have been taken. Disappointingly, though, only a few have surfaced so far. They are certainly intriguing and show a dark disc hovering in the sky above the airport. As always with UFO photographs, however, particularly modern ones, questions arise about whether or not they've been photo-shopped.

No compelling video footage has yet surfaced in relation to the incident. There are strong rumours that some exists, though, and that it has come into the possession of Dan Aykroyd, the form ghost-buster who has become well-known for his interest in the UFO subject. Aykroyd has made a number of documentaries about UFOs in the past and will undoubtedly release more in the future. Hopefully, the world will one day get to see great images of the O'Hare airport UFO in one of those.

 

Conclusion

The Chicago Tribune's article about the O'Hare incident broke all records for traffic to the company's website. Other news organisations which covered the story were amazed at how much public interest it generated. The O'Hare incident demonstrates that the UFO mystery is still with us and that people are still intrigued by it.

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The Phoenix Lights

One of the most remarkable modern UFO cases is what has come to be known as the “Phoenix Lights”. Like many other UFO incidents, it was characterised by the sighting of strange lights in the sky. What made it special were two things: the lights appeared to belong to a craft which was colossal in scale, spanning much of the sky; and the sighting occurred over a populous urban area, ensuring there were a large number of witnesses.

 

It all happened on the night of March 13, 1997. People in the U.S. state of Arizona began noticing strange orb-like lights in the sky. The orbs flew around in little patterns, exhibiting occasional bursts of speed and flight characteristics that put them well beyond the range of conventional aircraft. Sometimes the orbs would appear to wink out, though some have suggested that this may have been because a nearby mountain range, which would have been invisible in the darkness, intervened between the object and the viewer.

 

Many of the Phoenix Lights witnesses describe seeing a V-like pattern of lights progressing across the sky. Whether this was a number of smaller objects moving in formation or whether the lights were only the most visible part of a huge craft is unclear.

 

There certainly are many reports of a huge craft being seen. Eye witnesses describe it as being between one and two miles wide. Some say it passed directly over their heads, in complete silence, no more than 150 feet above the ground. They claim to have seen rectangular panels on its under-body and that its metallic surfaces reflected the street lights from below.

 

One of the most striking features of the Phoenix Lights incident is the number of photographs and video recordings taken of it. There are quite a few images of the orb-like lights in the sky, some of which appear to be either moving in formation or simply attached to some huge vehicle. Alas, no one managed to capture any close-ups of the giant craft.

Phoenix Lights – Reaction and Explanations

 

The incident made the headlines at the time and there were calls by politicians to investigate it. This went nowhere and the issue was dropped. Indeed, the then Governor of Arizona, Fife Symington, initially made fun of the UFO reports. At a press conference, he solemnly announced that the perpetrator had been apprehended - before one of his staff members walked in dressed in an outlandish alien costume. In 2007, however, the now retired politician took a different tack. He confessed that he had actually seen the objects in the sky himself and thought that they were “some form of alien spacecraft”. “It just felt other-worldly,” he said. “In your gut you could just tell it was other-worldly”. He excused his earlier behaviour by saying that he didn’t want to stoke up public alarm.

Sceptics have come up with alternative explanations for the Phoenix Lights sightings. They say the lights were flares being dropped by military aircraft exercising over the nearby Luke Air Force Base. Witnesses tend to scoff at this explanation, asking how flares can move in perfect alignment across the sky. Indeed, if the chronology and location of eye witness reports are compared, they are consistent with a large aircraft slowly transiting the skies of Arizona. It is difficult to see how flares at Luke Air Force Base could account for the geographical spread of the reports.
 

Conclusion

The Phoenix Lights incident turned many sceptics into believers. Some of the imagery captured on that night is fascinating. And strange lights in the sky have been spotted several times in Arizona since then – but never again with so many witnesses.

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CROP CIRCLES EXPLAINED

Crop circles are organized harmonic forms that manifest around the world, the result of an energy interacting with the physical world - in this case plants. This energy is comprised of light, sound and magnetism. To date, crop circles have been reported in 29 countries, and have appeared in mediums such as wheat, barley, canola, trees, ice, rice paddies, even linseed.
Contrary to popular perception, crop circles are not a modern phenomenon. They are mentioned in academic texts of the late 17th Century, and over 200 cases have been reported prior to 1970. Some eighty eyewitnesses – as far flung as British Columbia and Australia – have reported crop circles forming in under twenty seconds; these witnesses describe sightings of incandescent or brightly-coloured balls of light which either precede a crop circle or are actively involved in its creation; in some cases shafts of light have descended onto a field and swirled the crop into a geometricshape in less than fifteen seconds. Such reports are often described by farmers.
Only around 1980 was serious attention was finally given to the phenomenon, primarily in southern England, where 90% of designs are reported. The designs appeared primarily as simple circles, circles with rings, and variations on the Celtic cross. By the late 1980s they had developed straight lines, creating pictograms not unlike the petroglyphs found at sacred sites thoughout the world. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today it is not unusual to come across crop glyphs mimicking computer fractals and elements expressing fourth dimensional processes in quantum physics.
Crop circles have also increased increased in size, some occupying areas as large as 200,000 sq ft. To date there have been over 10,000 reported crop circles.
If you happen to buy the media-fed misrepresentation that all crop circles were originated by two sexagenarians called Doug and Dave, you are not in the minority. Once in a while, governments like to control public interest in unexplained phenomena they cannot control by 'debunking' – a technique developed by the US government after WWII for the sad purpose of controlling mass opinion (as stated in the 1953 Robertson Panel, details of which are obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act). This method is very effective because it makes use of two extraordinarily simple tools of mass control – ridicule and fear. But only if you are prepared to believe everything you are told on television and newspapers, particularly when TV programmes suppress scientific or factual data with which the public can form an educated opinion on the subject. This absence of evidence is then replaced by ridiculing the subject through association with other 'fringe' topics; so-called 'experts' are brought-in to explain away all events as tricks of the imagination – freak weather conditions, drunk students, even sexually excited animals!

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