DISCLOSURE / FILE
This 1998 U.S. Government correspondence file tracks White House, NASA, and congressional responses to constituent questions about UFOs, Mars imagery, astronaut sightings, and claims of withheld government information.
USG-UAP-D001, Congressional, White House, UFO-related Constituent Correspondence, 1998
This 1998 U.S. Government correspondence file tracks White House, NASA, and congressional responses to constituent questions about UFOs, Mars imagery, astronaut sightings, and claims of withheld government information.
The file is a correspondence packet, not an investigative report. Its clearest final response is a September 4, 1998 letter to Senator Charles E. Grassley saying NASA astronauts had seen many objects during missions, but most were later tied to launch material, spacecraft material, or water droplets. The letter states that no unidentified materials were seen on lunar missions, that the Air Force had stopped its UFO-report investigation activity, and that NASA had no UFO investigation program. The packet also logs a Snowe-forwarded inquiry about UFOs and recent Mars photos, plus an enclosed James Oberg article arguing that major astronaut UFO claims had been misread, embellished, or explained by ordinary spaceflight conditions.
Over the years there have been many objects sighted by the astronauts during space missions.p.4
Most of these items were later identified by photographs or NORAD records as material from launch vehicles or spacecraft or were such items as water droplets.p.4
No unidentified materials were seen on missions to the moon.p.4
NASA has no program for investigating UFOs and has not withheld information on sightings.p.4
In 1976, James Oberg thoroughly researched the UFO/astronaut allegations and published an article about it in SEARCH magazine.p.4
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1320.4 Aeronautics: UFO ** «ee —eooerer
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Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L11998-00407 . (b) (6) Title: WARD/Sen Snowe fwds ltr from U.F.O. and the recent Mars photo who's interested in Recipient: UHeffernan Author: Organization: SNOWE SENATE Date Written : Date Received: Date Concurred: 05/18/1998 05/26/1998 Action Office: Status: UWard:S Closed Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed: >>Current Due Date: Original Due Date: 06/24/1998 06/24/1998 06/18/1998<< Signature Office: UHeffernan Info offices: UHeffernan, UHeninger, L/Kerwin Abstract: SEN SNOWE FWDS LTR FROM (b) ( 6 ) OF STOCKINGTON, MAINE, WHO'S INTE:RESTED IN U.FO.'S AND THE RECENT PHOTOS OF MARS WHICH WERE RECENTLY RELEASED. Comments: Enclosures: NO Related Records: Keywords: (b) ( 5 ) MAINE U.F.O. MARS File Plan: 1320.4 Analyst: BMoore 06/24/1998 Page 1 of 1
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------- Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L/1998-00415 Title: ROTHMAN/Sen Snowe fwds ltr from (o) ( 5 ) who's interested in U.F.O.'s sightings and abductions Recipient: Author: Organization: Action Office: Status: UHeffernan SNOWE SENATE LD/Rothman:P Open Date Written: Date Received : Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed: >>Current Due Date: Origi nal Due Date: 05/13/1998 05/27/ 1998 06/17/1998<< Signature Office : UHeffernan Info Offices: UHeffernan, UHeninger, UKerwin Abstract: SEN SNOWE FWDS LTR FROM ( 6 f{SJ WHO'S INTERESTED IN UFO'S SIGHTINGS AND ABDUCTIONS. Comments: Enclosures: YES LTR Related Records: Keywords : (b) (6) U.F.O. SIGHTINGS ABDUCTION File Plan: Analyst: BMoore 05/27/1998 Page 1 of 1Concatenated page-by-page transcript. Born-digital pages came through pdf.js; scanned pages were transcribed by Claude vision OCR. Pages marked unreadable failed multiple OCR retries (heavy redaction, microfilm artifacts, or blank separators) and are kept in place for audit.
1320.4 Aeronautics: UFO ** «ee —eooerer
Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L11998-00407 . (b) (6) Title: WARD/Sen Snowe fwds ltr from U.F.O. and the recent Mars photo who's interested in Recipient: UHeffernan Author: Organization: SNOWE SENATE Date Written : Date Received: Date Concurred: 05/18/1998 05/26/1998 Action Office: Status: UWard:S Closed Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed: >>Current Due Date: Original Due Date: 06/24/1998 06/24/1998 06/18/1998<< Signature Office: UHeffernan Info offices: UHeffernan, UHeninger, L/Kerwin Abstract: SEN SNOWE FWDS LTR FROM (b) ( 6 ) OF STOCKINGTON, MAINE, WHO'S INTE:RESTED IN U.FO.'S AND THE RECENT PHOTOS OF MARS WHICH WERE RECENTLY RELEASED. Comments: Enclosures: NO Related Records: Keywords: (b) ( 5 ) MAINE U.F.O. MARS File Plan: 1320.4 Analyst: BMoore 06/24/1998 Page 1 of 1
Headquarters Action T racking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L/1998-00729 Title: Rothman/UFO_ Sightings by Astronauts Recipient: UHeffernan Author: Grassley Organization: Senate Date Written: 08/03/1998 Date Received: 08/31/1998 Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: 09/04/1998 Date Closed: 09/10/1998 Action Office: LD/Rothman:P >> Current Due Date: 08/22/1998<< Original Due Date: 08/22/1998 Status: Closed Signature Office: UHeffernan Info Offices: UHeffernan, UHeninger, UKerwin Abstract: Senator Grassley forwards letter from (ts) (S) who is requesting information on UFO sightings by Astronauts. - - Comments: Enclosures: letter Related Records: Keywords: (6J (o) UFO,astronauts,sightings File Plan: 1320.4 Analyst: JMassey 09/10/1998 Page 1 of 1
--- yeA t oGU SEP - 4 1998 L:HR:mtg:L/1998-729f The Honorable Charles E. Grassley United States Senate Washington, DC 2051 0 Dear Senator Grassley: Thank you for your letter of August 3, 1998, on behalf of(b < 5 ) who is requesting informat ion about the possible sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (U FOs) by NASA astronauts. Over the years there have been many objects sighted by the astronauts during space missions. Most of these items were later identified by photographs or NORAD records as material from launch vehicles or spacecraft or were such items as water droplets. No unidentified materials were seen on missions to the moon. The Air Force, in the interest of national security, received and investigated all reports for many years but has discontinued this activity. NASA has no program for investigating UFOs and has not withheld information on sightings. In 1976, James Oberg thoroughly researched the UFO/astronaut allegations and published an article about it in SEARCH magazine. We are enclosing that article for (b) ( 6 ) )nformation. In addition, enclosed is a NASA Fact Sheet which summarizes the current status of NASA's involvement in UFO investigations. We trust this information wi ll aid you in responding to(b) 6 ) inquiry. Sincerely, Edward Heffernan Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs Enclosures
+ bee: Z/Roger Launius (with incoming) ; provided info Sent to Sherry Kuntz in the Hill office
S,ncc tho ··auron.iut UFO" genre is one of rhe m13in pillolrs o f VFO ovidcr1ce. thi5 study c lafml n g ! hat the entire set of C .)Scs i1 inv.,..l id W 1if 0U 1110U 5iy CC fCCl.? 1"18<J t..Vlth 15eeptic. ism and cr i tic ism from UFO buffs. Aation~I objections and arguments wiH bo printed and answered in a subseQuent is'5ue of this magazina. Critics are urged to raise specific points not address°'d in tho study. or to cite and docum.ant facts which might modify or invalidate conclusions in the study. James E. Oberg Associate Editor " Space World" magazine Story! SGM{ q ~ f'\~9 ~\?-j ,1{ WiN T~R 1 <;46 ( 1H~~ ij,J?_'lJ P/\LM~ fvBL\CA'11ou s f\ l''\1-\~ f\ <;T.) l-Ji ~c... S~Y OG Su\1\e C.1.1f7 pr:c~ ._f 1,25' Space flight has opened many mysteries. True, scie11tists prefer to list tlie puzzles solved and u11knoums discovered, but as men venture beyond the earth it is inevitable that new mysteries will be encountered. Somewhere out there, many obsen:ers believe, are intelligent species with technological civilizations · far more advanced tha,z that of Earth. Perhaps they are sending us radio signals we have not recognized. Perhaps they have left artifacts of past visits for us to find. Perhaps they are even_ now keeping the earth under surveillance. If they are out there, someday we will meet them. As illustrated in science fiction, this meeting will probably occur in space. Have such meetings already occurred? Have astronauts and cosmonauts already seen alien spacecraft? The UFO lite!ature is full of tales of "space UFOs". Are any ofthem valid? What can a careful study reveal? H ardly a UFO book or movie is complete without the standard assertion that "astronauts have seen UFOs too". While critics may attack the character or intelligence of many UFO witnesses, they cannot use these tactics on American and Russian space pilots. Where UFO photographs can be accused of distortion and forgery, photographs taken by astronauts and processed by NASA must be of the highest trustworthiness. Hence, most UFO scholars consider the family of astronaut UFO sightings to be one of the strongest bodi~s of evidence in the past thirty years. The best of these cases include astronaut James McOivitt's sighting of o( an "unidentified spacecraft" near his Gemini-4 space capsule in 1965, a curious photo of a pair of UFOs with glowing propulsion fields taken by the Gemini-7 astronauts. reports of nearby objects from X-15 and Mercury spacecraft. tales of how ~he 1968-1969 Apollo moon shots were followed by U.FOs on their way to the moon, and reports and pbutographs of objects seen by crewmen on the Skylab space station. Last year, the National Inves - tigations Committee on A erial Phenomena (NICAP) selected the "McDivitt UFO" photo as one of the four best photographs ever taken. The "astronaut UFO" sightings must appeal to many seriou:i researchers for a number of reasons. The witnesses and the photographs are unimpeachable as to honesty and authenticity. The conditions of the space missions can be calculated and recorded, and every object near the spacecraft can be determined by con sulting the giant space radars of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), headquartered inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Extensive crew debriefings and on-board tape recorder transcripts may be available to obtain direct eye witness testimony. With all these facts and assumptions in mind, and mindful of the nume rous 'unsolved' cases which might tell much about the lJFO phenomenon, I began a special research program into this particular body of evidence. As an aerospace writer. historian, and re searcher, I felt that my experience with astronautics, computers, Air Force operations, and space miss:ons might give me new insights into this most puzzling series of cases. I was not disappointed, and my results were startling. The basic truths behind these sightings seems lately to have gathered an accretion of exaggeration, confusion, and outright fiction. The 1968 "Condon Report" on UFOs (conducted by the University of Colorado for the U.S. Air Force) found itself unable to penetrate three specific cases, which the analyst felt were •a "challenge" to any serious investigator. Stories later began circulating about sightings of lunar surface lights and structures, and the discovery of artifacts on the moon, about near approaches of structured objects, and about attempts at radio contact between Apollo capsules and UFOs. Recent books on UFOs give lists of astronaut sightings which are out of numeric sequence, misdated, mispeUed, and otherwise distorted. My research has revealed a few examples of deliberate photo forgeries by UFO buffs or opportunistic authors. My investigations in the NASA 38arch,n•s has fl'\" l•aled ca..~es whcrl' UFO rt•~c:i rchrr; withheld Cl•rtain informa tion frl'cly gi,·1•n them by N:\SA officials. infori:tation which would have clearly explained m;my cases which the authors wantt•d to appear mysterious. So the time has come to take a ne\\' look at this whote phenomenon. What is the truth about "astronaut li rOs"? The first step in any research might be with the Condon report. t:-iought by many to have been commissioned as a "whitewash" of the UFO phenomenon. UFO enthusiasts are accustomed to hearing harsh criticism of almost all aspects of this study. but my own objections to the "astronaut UFO" section is from a novel angle. My own research suggests that the Condon investigator, far from being the best man for the job, was clearly unqualified to evaluate the difficult cases. He was not familiar with the terminology of space flight or the basics of orbital flight trajectories, as I am. As a result , he ignored possible explanations while incorrecUy eliminating other possible answers. In other words, far from being a coverup, this chapter of the Condon report is superficial. It is entirely worthless as an endorsement of the unexplained and unexplainable nature of several astronaut sightings which I will discuss. I can prove this remark able assertion to any investigator serious enough to consider all the evidence, much of which has never before been published. The Condon report does give some details about the environment of astronaut sightings, but even here does not go far enough. More stress needs to be put on the visual and photo graphic limitations of space flight: the windows are far smaller than popularly realized (about half the size of this open magazine at arm's length), and for many years were subject to obscuration and smudging by seepage o( sealant and by contamination by rocket fuel. At various p_ oints in the fligh t, the spacecraft was surrounded by cl ouds of d~bris (leaking fuel, dumped water, chipping paint, fraying insulation, ejected equipment. and more). while the inside of the weight• less cabin was usually plagued with fl oating particles of dust and debris which often passed in front of camt!ras pointing out windows. Other satellites sho uld have been visible, since few people realize that on any clear night ~ - -+s _ _ ,., - ,e-- ....... ,., ,+- ............ ,., _ all for ,., • .., .... ...... -«• Dc:sμitc the pt!r.~istl'11t rumo rs of '. ,;ccrct space p ict'"rcs •. pho /nJ!rupl1s tahl'll by .V,\S.-\ i11 space arc i11 tlie public domui11. That is. any p ict ure tuhc:,: by 1.111 astro11a111 or 011 earth resource, satellite is ai:ailablr. to anyo11c who wants to pay fur i t. There are foi: r tiers of plwto,;:-:iph Ji·cilcbility. but two a:-e rescri:ed for 11ewsme11 only The ~/ructurc is us f olluws: A . The most p o pular space photographs /alien arc lithographed for general free di.,;tributi CJ11 to anyone who asr.s for them. Seueral dozen new pho tographs are added to this list eucry year. Cost to .VAS,\ is a few ce11ts per print. 8 . The N.-lS.-l Public Information Offices at uarious centers and at headquarters prints gfossy photographs of t imely news stories distribution tu the news media. Hundreds of these photographs are released euery year. but only crrtified newsmen can receiue them for ~~ . C . .\!any thousands of other photographs and drawi11gs may be of interest to the news media and arc therefore fifad at public i11formatio11 offices. but stock copies are not kept. Each request must be filled by actual photo lab orders. which co:;ts NASA abo ut one dollar per photograph. D. A,1y citizen who wants copies of any photograph listed in 'B' or 'C' aboue con get it, but it is entirely reasonable for NASA to expect him t o pay for it. News bureau photographs. along with all other (light photography-stills and mouies-can be ordered from Bara Studios, P.O. Box 486, Bladensburg, MD 20710. The cost of any photograph ordered by st ock number is seueral dollars apiece. A ny cross-referencing or researching will also cost money. . • Some ground photographs of astronaut accidents, au topsies, and medical examinations are not releasable for publication. On seueral Gemini {lights, special photographic experiments were undertaken for the DoD, but these inuolued special cameras and exclusiuely ear th surface targe{s. In neither case would it be possible to withhold any hypothetical UFO photographs from the public. Astronaut photographs are indexed by a code which specifies year taken and frame number. S66-12387, for example, would be a NASA photo (not necessarily a space photo) taken in 1966. Beginning w i th Apollo, space photos were also indexed w ith a mission code, r oll number and frame number (neither of which were repeated on later {lights). For example, ASJ 6·108-13005 u•as taken on the Apollo-16 {light, with the 108th roll of the Apollo project (liglit film. Mouie film is indexed per magazine with similar numbers. Euery photograph euer taken by American astronauts for N ASA is on file w ith Bara Studios and can be obtained by anyone wifling to pay for them. Writers who produce 'secret NASA UFO photographs' which they claim are being hidden from the American public are doing a gross disseruice to one of the most open and cooperatiue public informat ion offices of any federal agency. an o bserver on Earth can see a number of orbiting objects with only half an effort. Out or this "backg?ound noise", can we separate the "signal" which will indicate the existence of UFOs? These problems all are of interest to space officials, and numerous studies have been made. Fragments might imply a structural failure (a rescue ship was almost sent to Skylab-3 because of the crew's observation of leaking fuel droplets). Debris inside t!1e cabin can irritate eyes and damage the electronic gear behind the instrument panels. Other satellites might be dangerous due to the potential of coll ision o r they might be of intelligence interest if they are frcm somt! other nation. Therefore, any mysterious space sighting might as easily be vital for 39 NASA to know about as it might be a true UFO: Careful investigations are called for. What are some of the most famous cases, and what are the facts? Interpre tations may differ, but productive thinking can only be done when all the information is at hand. Some o( It is hard to find or understand; other information, available to some researchers, may have been deliberate ly withheld. ·some classical cases may consist of made-up fantasies. You can soon judge for yourself. Has there been any attempt to "cover up" space sightings (a common plea when no t!Vidence is available, even in this age of sieve-like government secrecy)? Are astronauts "muzzled" about UFOs? Has fifteen,,.. ~ 1.~~- ·••·---.'",....:"-r-•':· ""'" ,. f ' I i ! t1-~f ' . ~ • ~ .....: • · ~'{~,;t't( ✓"~•'·-:..,........,:-.,:-, ::,"?\~-."':,~~""t".:~ ..-~~,.-,r-•r·,r•..,-~~•· ,~-•l"""'-..,.,, . : ;,_<..-:::~~-' . ~~ The "McOivitt UFO", pr ize-winning astronaut photograph taken on Gemini-4. Actually, McOivitt_axplained later after tho flight that the sun was coming across the window as the_spacecraft rolled, the sun rays struck a metal bolt, causing the'Ci lares in the camera lens''. NASA photo 65-H-1013. years of manned spaceflight uncovered any evidence at all which even remotely suggests that Earth is being visited and observed by advanced spacesliips from another world? Let's look at the evidence. On June 3, 1965, rookie astronauts Jim McDivitt and Ed White blasted of( from Cape Kennedy (now again Cape Canaveral), squeezed into their Gemini-4 capsule. The two youngest• ever . American spacemen were to spend four days in orbit, tripling the previous US record. They would be the first American space crewmen to have time to sightsee in space, once major experiments like a booster rendezvous and a walk in space were completed. Approximately thirty hours into the flight ( while White was asleep) , McDivitt reported that he had seen an object in space near his space capsule. It appeared to be cylindrical with ·'an arm sticking out", possibly on a collision course. Interested NAS.-\ officials in Ho uston asked NORAD which other space satellites were near Cemini--1 at the time of the sigh ting, and NORAD came up with a list of about a dozen objects. All of them were pieces of tiny debris or small scicntit"ic satellites except one: the giant, " winged" meteor satC'llitc, Pegasus-2. It seemed to iit the descrip tion radioed down by McDivitt, so NASA announced that the object had been identified. But Pegasus had been more than a thousand miles away, and McDivitt clearly saw an object much closer, much more detailed, and in an orbit very close to his own ("Collision course" to a pilot means that the relative angle of sight is unchanging, which would not be the case for any satellite crossing McDivitt's orbit). The object became a UFO when nobody could identify it. It has remained a UFO up until today, but not any longer. McDivitt's hasty attempt to take a photograph of the object thrqugh his smeared window was apparently fruit• less, since the object's motion combined with the slow stabilization spin of the spaceship carried it into the glare of the sun after about 30 seconds. The astronaut later recounted how he went through all the films of the flight (every roll of film is accounted for on a flight manifest, so they do not disappear) and found many over exposed or blank. This mission had been the first night in which space photography was a major experiment, and the glaring sunlight of space had invalidated many pre-flight exposure settings. :\lcDivitt did not find any - • thing which looked like ""his UFO". What was it he ,aw? Why has it become such a prominl•nt UFO case? And if the pictures did not turn out, where did NICAP get its "top four" photograph (which shows, not a winged cylinder, but a smeared blob)? We can answer these questions at last. The first hint as to the true identity of this space UFO can be found in McDivitt's own words, given at a press conference a week after the flight when his memory was fresh: "It looked a lot like an upper staie of a booster". Gemini does have a booster just like it, and McDivitt had been carrying out maneuvers near it early in the flight. Why didn't the -list from NORAD include the Gemini-4 boost er rocket? NORAD had been tracking the objects, but NASA had not asked about Gemini-4 and its own associated debris- it had asked about Gemini--! and any other earlier satellites. Anyone familiar with computerized information systems (one of my professional specialities) can guess what happened : the computer was given a "query" which told it to compare Gemini--t with the other satellites. The computer never knew where the Gemini booster was relati\•e to the spacecraft, since it had not been asked. :\lcDivitt had been visually tracking the thirty foot long cylind1r at a range of only 75 miles a few hours earlier, but this large satellite never made the "NORAD list" because 40Arti1t', ronrliti on o t thu ,ntron,,u1s· t> --.,.-~r..-~•r ·~ ~ .-:---•' ... •• •"t'"':•~·r-n-·'"-] l • . . . . vlow o f 1ho ro n do.r 0 0 u <J ovatv a: ion pod after it hai boon jotti1oncd from the Gemini adaptor ioc t iun. Gorn,ni r;,dar locked o n to evaluation pod. Scott Carpenter took th is photo of a subsatellit e balloon jettisoned by h is ( . ' ' . i . . , • • .. -· .. .., . . c J . • : ., .....--..:- _,..Js...:'11, . :.l• • ' ...-"... t· --.,- .. . ', ' ·,· ... ., . - £' . . ance and even make i t l ook like two objects. The potato-shaped grey b lob is the pod's insulation blanket. T h i • sequence of p ictures illustrate• the problem o f Identi fying photographs of objects in tho glare o f space. 41
~ --' ·-·. -•-,,-- • C ~ - ~=- ,.....,--.,•·-•~----. ··.•-c-,,.--~··o,•:·,1 .... .. .. .-J --.1 . - ~ 1 . ! I • ' ;.· ; ~1 • ' . . .,- + ' •.. ..,., ~ . . .;, 1 · 1 ...... - ~:· 1•;) .i. . ...'-I .,. t r t·· nobody thought to ask about it! The list was incomplete! What we do know from the complete Gemini-4 transcripts (including the on-board tape recorder as well as space-to-ground links), is that the UFO appeared at the same point in the Gemini orbit where the booster had been rept-3tedly spotted earlier in the flight. '.\fcDi\•itt had once described seeing his booster with straps h~nglng from it. Furthermore, on at least one occasion on the first day, McDivitt had at first been unable to recognize the booster when he ·saw il because it was close to the glare of· the sun! Thi5 had been :it a range of less than ten miles. Yet another iniport:int factor unknown to t!1e Cr1nciL•11 report w:i, that '.\leDivin •.•::t.; C\J1:1p!:iini:1i;: ro thl-'· ni ~ht surgt:on abou 1 . his t'Yl'$ight duri1\g this pho~c of th:) tli~ht. Hi:; eyes were red and teary due to a reaction with the cabin atmosphere and an accidental massive urine spill. "I didn't think I was going to be able t~ hack it", McDivitt later had radioed to Earth. This famous UFO case now becomes that of a pilot with watering eves catching sight of an object in p~rallel orbft, an object which he had already misidentified a few hours earlier. As to the photograph, an inves• tigator must go through all the film of the night to realize how common such . blobs- of light (o\·ere.'<posures, r~tlcct i0m. glare. etc. ) ll'erc. Both NAS.-l. and ;\lc:Di\·itt han• agrel.'d that tl-ie sc,qucnCI.' ot' mo\·ie irames are a ,iew out t!u: winc.uw. showit\~ sunlii::ht r~tl ~ ·cti1 1~ off a br\t. a~ain :;~ the dirty window ~la~s. '.~ !C..\F' thinks dii'forently b,:c:tu~e <)t t!ll' b:!tk of its cop,· of th<! ph,Ho is a handwritten - . . ,. · ... ~ .. note (nobody known by whom) stating that McDivitt {nobody• knows when) had communicated .{nobody knows how) the fact that the picture showed "his UFO". (This was made clear by a telephone conversation between the author and Jack Acuff of NICAP on March 5, 1976). Why has this case achie\'ed such notoriety'? It probably resulted from the enthusiasm of UFO believers. the naive openness of NASA public relations officials, and the publicity seeking opportunism of some of the principals. \lcDivitt himself did little to clear the case up. instead using it as a ticket onto natil•nal TV talk shows and news interviews (especially after his rr.tirement in 19~. To add to the mystPry. th~ former spaceman assl'rts. "I have never bcrn ablt- to it.:entify it, and I don't think anyone ever will." 42. ·--:a:.::-.; On a recen t "U FO rncorcli:ig'' rrll-asrd by Columbia, calt.:d "UFOs: The Credibility Facto r", :VlcDi\·itt clrarly shows h ow h is mcmorirs have ch:u1ged o r bc,m cl1a11g(•d to enhance the mystery ot' hi3 C'Xpcricnce: "They (NAS.-\) chcck,'d :'iOR..\D... to sec what they had up on radar ancf there w:isn 't anything within very close range of us." Readers can measure the credibility of this statcm~nt against . the facts. If McOivitt was fooled by his own booster ten years ago, is it too much to expect him to admit it now? What would that do to all of his public assertions of mystery? There is an easier way out, and i'vlcOivitt took it when I sent him an advance copy of my manuscript. After keeping it two months, he wrote back, "[ was not able to read it very thoroughly and I cannot offer any ext~nsive comments. I do not foresee the opportunity for me to provide any further re~w." There weren't any errors in my analysis, he implied, but it woulc! be better kept quiet. NASA never had any real doubts. "We believe it to be a rocket tank or spent second stage of a rocket," wrote a high space official on July 1, 1965. NORAD officials, confronted with my scenario, endorsed it: "Your comments on the NORAD role related to the case appear to pe logical," wrote NORAD Public Information Officer D.W. Kindschi on Feo. 23, 1976. So the "~lcDivitt case" is closed. The best space UFO case has now been identified. Do not expect to see any change in the UFO press, however. Such results are simply ignored. Photographs made in space show negative effects, such as the "McDivitt UFO" aura, often. Spacecraft ·and astronauts may be engulfed in a strange aura caused by overexposure to sunlight brighter than ever seen on Earth. Blowups of photographs of known space objects show them appearing as "blobs" due to the enlargement process and to the· courseness of the grain. Ordinary space pictures are full o f clouds o f debris, constellations of man-made starlike points fluttering through space. The Condon report was fascinated with the ~lcOi\·itt cas<', and fe\\· UFO enthusiasts have not heard of it. But n,:itlwr the Condon r£>st)archers nor the average reader had ever had all the facts. Now people can m:ike up thei r own minds. I havl' ''" d ,iub~ th;,t ~lcl)i\"itl w:i~ ~ <!l'i:1g his ow11 Til.::n tJCJostrr stage. Or. Roach wa~ also fasd n:•l • ~ cl wi t!t another :,.1coi, itt si~foiti'.1 1}, that uf a point of light ::rc:,i:::·::; the ; k·: . The object sound r.,j j• .1 .,l Iii- :<> th•! appearance of an artifici.!l earth satellite, and that is e~:actly wh:it \kDivitt thought it \•:.:s. There is no information to suggest it w.:_s anything else. Another Condon favorite is a Gemini -7 case. The report of sightings of a cloud of debris right at the moment of boostt•r separation (these particles included frozen fuel droplets, the booster itself. assorted insulation and structural fragments from where the explosive bolts were fired, and other smaller objects never identified and never cared about) is not very impressive. The crew, on their first space mission, saw a few pieces they had nol expected (the pilot guessed wrongly-that they "were in polar orbit"). Only a partisan digging for evidence, and desperate to find such evidence, would make much of this common event. But a sign of desperation is indeed . ....· . .·.; ~~.: ~~ .\1":,:;: 'f~~v·~• .~~ -...,:.. ~ ·. - · • ·• ,) : :.: ····-. . ... ... ... . - .....- . ... . h /V◄ i , •• • • ••••• g ,Cla:: t ,an ,.. ,,, round in 1'1)1111:•ction l'.'isli Lill! t,;~mi!! i· I GFO ca~t'. It is not th~ clc::1w ra•. i1a ~ 0f gtn·criun•_ •nl oflici, I:; t~y i11!{ to c:ur••r up t.he truth ahoul GfU:;. R;,hrr, it :s thr dl'spernlion of some outsider tryi:1~ t r J m:t~:;f:- ,.-:- tu:c1 cou ni .~rf,.i, "astrnnaut L:FO" <?videnc~. Jn acli·. ;r .\· which should not be nc>ce:s;a,y if th~ " rt'al" L: FO evidence w~rC' as persuasive as many thint. It involves :i photograph showing two very strange glowing ocjects. Each is he:,agonal in shape, ~ ·:ew!c'd at an angle, ~nd supported by ;;. dazzling "force field" below it. A cloud covered earth is se.?n in the background. s~~ p\cd~ ~1 ~ :l.8 This photograph h as appeared in books, magazines, newspapers, and pamphlets. It is part of the travellina slide show of UFO lectur~rs from th; Mutual UFO Network (i\!VFON) and elsewhere. I have heard it described as •\showing a typical UFO force field propulsion system", and "similar to other UFO photograph taken on Earth the same year". The photograph is a forgery. It is a hoax. What the anonymous counter feiter did (I have reason to suspect a 43·--· :® J The outhor .>nd NASA photo an.:ilvn R ichard l Undorwood show "•p~ce UFO" photos to Or. J. Allun Hynok, dirolctor o f the center for UFO n udios. July. 1976. t l vn4k -subsuquPn';'fy ,.,.,_ dorscd Ob0rLJ'S conclusions. Saturn booner S-IV-b and f our open "SL.A" panels. On moon flights tho four "petals.'.' fly free and, together with the empty boo:<t •r. tum.ble through spaca a faw miles from the Apollo capsule. They were often seon as ·bright flashing lighn as they reflected th o powerful sunligh t . On Apollo-1 2 , astronau t desc riptions of theH fra;imonts wore m i s Interpreted by UFO buffs and metamorph - ized Into alien spacecraft. ® "Mysterious" bulls aye object wen and photographed by Gam lnl-6 astronauts I n December, 1965. Unfortunately for flyi ng 1aucer buff~, It Is not• UFO; it Is an out of focus photo of the approaching Gemlnl-7 spacesh ip, noH on. NASA photo S 0 65-65296. . . ·,·- ··· ~ .... ... - :~ . ,,,_. ''--:· .. 44
~ : ~ ......1n~,~r..c.•~1 :-~-~t~ t-.\~ :-·.-..:-~~l::;...~~"-·•·.....· •~ •..;.Jl'ti., ....,..~., ';.••t•• .;..•,'\: ·~ ··• ·........•-. ,'.:.+' .. • 1 . ... : . : . . ' . ·. :. . . .... .. ~ .. _ ~ : . ..•. . '• ·. ' . . : .; . . ' . .·. . .- . , -:• • . • •' r ~ . l ·•(, .. , .. }il Photo of Gemlnl-7 from G..,mini-6, December 1965. The brlghtnus aura is a common space photo effect and often makes point 1ourcH appear to be surrounded by a "force field" or an " exhaust i:rail". NASA photo S-65-65304. Japanese UFO organization) was take an ordinary photograph oC Earth made Crom the Gemini-7 spaceship on December 4, 1965. The nose of the spacecraft fills the lower part of the frame, and on the nose, catching the glare of the sun, is a pair of roll ·control rocket thrusters used to acijus t the attitude and spin rate of the Gemini. The original photo (NASA S65-63722, which I have personally examined) was then retouched by the unscrupulous hoaxter to eliminate the edge of the nose from view. so the dark surface of the sp!lct-ship merged into the dark Earth beneath. This left the two now mysterious lights seemingly suspendt:d in space, as it were. A no rmal space touri.,t photo was turned into conrincing UFO evidence, and thousands of people were fool ed. 45 American spacemen are not the only ones reporting UFOs, according to the popular press. Stories tha t allegedly come from Moscow tell about UFOs followin g Soviet man ned spacecraft in the Vostok and Voskhod series ten years ago. But such secrecy surrounds the entire Soviet space effort that these stories cannot be checked out. That very secrecy. ho wever, is itself
!l pn\·:•· , ( .. I t11·;.:~1n1. 1i l ;i_ ! :~iu ,i ,;,.; vahdit:1 of th·! ru,:i u. •. Sn r,1., n'.) o r<!ir:JI'_' th:,:,:-; J l,v11L l hc So·.ic~ s p:.;;,J pro1rJ1n a:.: Sl' Crcl (and 1011g pri~o n terms a,·. ;.it :i11yo11c who even :icc:idc 11l:ll!y cin,l;:es .-.uclr ,fatal thal it i,; inc:·l•cii t:1 ,· lh :tt ; o .,cn, tdr:: :i,1d .;i~ nit:ca•ll:, fa.:L as a (.;fl) , i,:htin;: rould erer lea k ou~. evcn if su.:h a thing had really har,p~ned. The rule,; of ~\·id,rncc hari? been Hretched and brokt?n by I.JFO partisans. It i.; not up to me to " prn,;e" that these sightings ne\·er took place. Nobody has a.; y~ t s£:en any P.\'idcnce apart from a simp:c slat .?ment of fact that th.: .sightings did ta!,e place. I will be happy lo consider evidence when it becomes a\'ailahl <!. Let's examine more of cnese "cosmonaut UFO;;". Ir, UFOs From Behina The Iron Curtain, the UFO magazine 'Clypeus' is ouoted about an object seen by b o th Vostok-5 and Vostok-6 , a fleet of disks seen by Voskhod-1, and "strailge cylinders in space which were perfectly formed and had no apertures " seen by Voskhod-1, Voskhod-2, and Gemini-4 (sic!). UFOs have even been blamed for the malfunction of the Voskhod-2 autopilot. As I have said, these "reports" are hardly evidence, and can be far more easily manufactured than refuted. SurE:ly one of the most specious and ghouli~h "space UFO" 3tories deals with the Soyuz-11 flight, on which th~ crewmen perished during their retur., to Eal'th. UFO literature has recently been circulating a "transcript" between the cosmonauts and grc,und control. The crewmen describe several glowing re·d objects and discuss them with flight controlle:-s. To anyone familiar with typical space-to-ground communicatio ns, this "transcript" is patently co unterfeit. Someone's vivict imagination, embold,med by th·e knowledge that the men were dead and could not argue, must have creat£:d the entire incide11c. Without further evidenct), the entire cla.53 of "cosmo naut UFOs" must be rejected. D~libera te attc•mpts to " mudd y tht? waters'' Jnd to manuf..ct'..lr!:.' iancasies are common in this LiFO gen re, :,.; in o then;. In in\'e~tigatiu~ pll1Ho~rat-1hic :.-..:nt.v i ~ p;, ..,•,·r.lfl Ccnl,·r) 1 i.-ar li,,,i, t,,r,. U 11cl,•f\\' 1 11h 1 1s an cXfl'J l'i• er.- :,•u pilotu in trrp, c ter v:hu h;,s c:,:iminl•d ,J\'cry si11;:lc pho lo1;r.1 ph bYuu;;ht b.:cl; from o rbit :ind beyond, a1 11.l h1;; in credible memory can iJL·1, ,: 1y a d:?rad,J old p:1otc.i:n1μh, dl·~cribe tr.l! si .:.uatio n. and fi nd th~ citJLi o;1 in :i, <' o ld record books within minutes. 'rile o flicc o i this pho togra m c-lric engir;c,el' is full o f slacked iilm i.:ans, light t.ibles, world and le.cal maps, and piles of lette rs from ex-astronauts and ordinary citizens alite. Has he se r:n any UFO,;? Underwood answered lhat with a smile : "I've nt?n!r fou n d anything in these pictures that puzzled me for lo ng, and I'm kind of disappointed. It would be terribly exciting to find evidence for someone else's spaceship!'' When UFO writers hint broadly about a "NASA coverup" or "space censorship», they are essentially calling Dick Underwood and his colleagues a pack of liars. Distortion and withholding of the truth is no t a strange r to Underwood's o flicc , ho wever. Wht!n a li FO researcher named Al;i 11 Sa ndler was w•irkin!l on a book and a m o\'ic ("lffOs: Past. l~csenl and F'ularc". lo he ad·,ert1sed as ;i "documentarv •') he \"isited Underwood 's of[ir.c and looked through do7.ens of rolls of lilm. wriling down ordt!rs for prints of :inything that looked interesting. This is a standard service provided by NASA to journalists. SanrllP.r rhose a set of photographs for his movie, pnotographs which Underwood advised him probably o nly showt?d dust particles in fron t of the camera, de bris outside the spacecrail, or glare on the windows (this was easy enough to prove by looking at pictures ahead of and behind the shots in question). Two photographs were particularly upsetting. They both showed a black back• ground with a string of lights in the middle o( the photograph. In the book (with the same name as the mo\·ie. • although written by another author, Robert Emeneggar) the two shots are . ., ® ;>r,o ~~ ,:,r Ag,, t>.:• 12 f ro m Go-nlr,;. 12 . T h ;, ,, pan of a seQuenc:e o f photos w h ,ch ta~ ~• trio evid,Jn,:<' o f t; FQ ~i;;h tirt,;~ br A-;en t1 fr~m l 1tJnt 11 .tu d .lrk . After o ..1rk , o n ly t h e runn i ng lighu are v•i•b le. One r e,oarchet Am~rican :i.;trnn.iu ts, I 11'.>ri,~d clu:icly h:,s w,aorv pubh • hcd t h •S IJ 1tcr p ho to gr a p h as a " UFO" . .,, a ,d by N AS A te> be Agena trac:k • with Hich :ird Cndrrw,h)d at thL• NAS A ing 1;9hts" . NASA p t,oto S 6 6 -63 101. Jo hnson Sp:ice c~• 11t~r (forrn,•rly rnc . · - - ·-- -- ---- · ·- -- .~ -·. ~ . I . . . .. . .. ,;. • • , , -~, ; . . ' .... . ; - . . ·• ·- ..• . ·=·. ~' . ' ·~·:. ; ;:., .... /~--.--: ~ .-.... ~ .. :.:,·."~ .;,./•-~ . .. "Said to be ranging lights" on Gemini-12, according to Sandler. Compare with earlier ph.:ito showing Agena in the sunlight. Deliberate slanting of e•1idence. ... . ' ..... ·:. .~ ;f reproduced with the caption: "Shot during Gemini XII o n Novamber 13, 1966, and said to be Agena Ranging Lights prior to docking". The erroneous implication of these twisted words is that this is another NASA excuse for some remarkable UFO photographs. Said to be ranging lights, indeed, sneers the book! "'that's exactly what tney were!" Underwood told me plaintively. "They are part of the complete sequence of twenty photographs showi11g the • Agena as it moves from the sunlit side of Earth inLo the shadow". As Underwood anJ l stood in the photo laboratory inside buildini,: No. 8 at the historic Hou$ton sμac.:e center. the 1;equence was rii:ht thcrt) in fro11t of our eyes 011 the gluwin~ viewing board. How did the '·UFO rcscarc.:hcr" react to this expl:rnalion, [ asked°! He continued to explain: " I took the whole sequence with me to Hollywood along with other films which NASA was providing. I showed the sequence to Sandler. He wasn't interested. Unfortunately he went ahead and used the phot_ ographs anyway". Thousands more people v.-ere deceived. The flight of Gemini-11 h:5an a long battle between astronattt Ch:irles "Pete" Conrad and UFO belieVPI". The astronauts had taken three even more remarkable photogr::iphs. "Pete" Conrad had spotted a mor ir.g ubj..-ct outside his ·sindow and had s.1apped off a few frames of film, varying the .:xpo:;ure on t•ach sh,H in an :.ittempt to get at least 011t) ~oud ,ic·v which w<rnld show ;omclhin~. Pt-r a rcque,;t from NASA, NORAD soon reported th:it the object ha d b~en 47 :1 ;~;,._b;i:Ll t;4..., 111i,; r:t;, ::::),)i":lil•i':-· c•.:;;._.,J I' .'<.>tull . :;_ :\ci;()r:] ti,;_; LO .\ i I° r\,, l"':: c:0111 pulet,. it ·soul :I ha, ,~ .::; ,~-;,;.:(J Gemini's orhil s~v,.-ral l111 i1d;-_,J r,1;ks t,,-ilind Lh,• $p,,,:<;crart. Yet t itis c,bj..-.:! wa~ in .i diftc'<cnt di:c·<.:tinn ;i ,1 d 1•. a., nt\l (' h l ;)O do•;C. It ','/a_ ; :I lir O'. Dt)spilc these, objc.::tio.1.,. NOR ..\D wJ,; right i;:ir the wro11g re:1.,cns. T ;:l' object w,:s indeed P1:otor.-3, Hen tJ1ot, 6h tlt •J Aeri:tl Phe,:om,mo:': Research Organizatiu r, (A PRO) and it~ research directo,·, Dr. James Harder, has made much of the cfocrepa,:cy and consid1m this the h\?st Gemini l = FO ever seen. c~(:_ plttf-5 11~1g~1q >1. '3,~\f') Few researchers hJ\ "P. noticed . a;1d none had recogniz,,d the significacce of the fact, that the Proton-3 sateIii te was only hours away from burning up in the atmosphere. As its orbit decayed toward a fiery doom, it circled Earth fastPr and faster, run-r.ing ahead of the schedule pre dicted by NORAD. The simple truth, oft2n ig11ored or distorte d by many writers, is that NORAD does not "track e\'erything in space" like the rada:.- screens of sor.1e air traffic control center. Inste:!d, objects which pass through tha beatt15 of a handful of worldwide radar sit<'s (at a range of a thousand miles or Jess) are observed and catalogued, a:id their orbits are calculated. These calcyl a tions are then projec ted for'.'.'ard in time (the mathematical term is ··extra polated") to plot where the spacecr:11t should be if its orbit hasn't been changed. Gemini's orbit had been changed by a rendezvous rocket firing. Proton's orbit was changed by its decay. I ordered microfilm copies of the la.;t few NORAD predictions from the Tracking Reports Section at the NASA Goc!dard Space Center in Greenbelt, M;u-yland, and as soon as I read them l knew the answer. The predictions were off by Se\·eral hundred miles per da~: ! Each new projection made a correction to the previous one. Using a combination of these figures, a new dtitude difference between Gemini and Proton could easily be compul.:?d. It 1 1 ·:is entirdy close e nough to coincide with th . astron:.iu ts' sighting. Furthermore, th.i astronaut~ r.ad made a visual :.is · ,1·1.'ll ;i~ a i:;hoto5rJ,1hic record. T heir t• y c11 i1,·,.:-.;s lestin:,>ny dcscrib.:s a sat,)lliw that looks [;;.e Proton-3 look.-d. a. -; shown by exhibit.; in Rus.,iail muse11111:;: a stubbv cyli.itkr----- - . ••• • with four lar::e triantlular canted solar t ... p.,nrb. (Conract compared lhc sight to Oul>ris from open the strap-on lwosters of a Titau•3 hatch on G omini• t 2. ........... rocket.) F:vcu the photographs show this when ~ludicd with real Proton-3 photographs close at hand. A~trn:::?:.:~ Co::~::d ~:-:d th:! l.iFO people clashed again ov~r his. next ;. . space mission. Apollo•12. According t lO the Research Director of A.PRO, Dr. ltn ~-··. Harder, Conrad reported that he was • f bei11g followed by a UFO on the way . to the moon. Conrad claims that it was just a joke about the large panels which enclose the lunar module during launch but are jettisoned later in the flight and which tumble through space a few miles from the Apollo all the way to the -moon. Harder says that Conrad, under pressure from a secret government agency, is lying. These are Conrad's words: "They've been after me for years because we were followed by a UFO on · the way to the moon. That, of course, was untrue. The guy who came up with it was going by our transcript where we saw debris from our own rocket and we were joking with the ground crew about it. He took this out of context. . .I called the ground and said, 'hey, gang, we're being followed, there's· some flashing object out there'. Some scandal sheet took that a.,d Fragment i n focus at range of 3 to 5 feet-Sandler calls it 0 unidentiflabJe'', and Malian and Barry also use It. ra?'\ e11lo.~zx..,1..t-0, 16) ~ t.:: ' .' "' .. ·:--- ... ..... ..... . ....., • ...,,.,,.,, • wcc:r::a-. • ..,,,..y;.., ·,._. ,_,."',,..• ..__._"..,.e.. •..., •. ...:..J .•.r"-·- ·..,.....,..___:;,,•· ...___ ~ __._________... 48 ···-- . ..- . . Blowups of Gemini-11 photos of Proton-3. Sun glare and el<treme magnification contribute to bizarre appearance, made a helluva story out of it. But it was nothing like anything I was connected with". Conrad has left NASA and lives in Denver, presumably beyond the reach of any NASA censors. He describes a phenomenon common to all Apollo moon flights; the claim that he saw a UFO is also common, but hardly as valid. Conrad confirmed these quotations in a letter to me dated April 12, 1976. "I hope your paper is widely printed.·• he added. Ref,ming to Harder's claim of coverup, Conrad could only say: "I think you have more than your share of Kooks."
, < l ; f 1 I . , . • . ' ..· :; : · .. r · .• ..... t, ' , ~ ~· ~ --.·-, .·. ~ . ~ . :.\..® . Geminl-11 photo of Proton-3 (arrow) i nd extreme enlargement of image. UFO magazines often pront funv blobs without indicating that object w a s h ighly magnified. f; llrn ertlf,icts cause "blobblneu". NASA photo S-66-54661 . Let's take a moment to look at the Apollo--12 flight more ca·re(ully. It probably rates as one of the most "UFO-ridden" space flights ever made, and ·probably did more than any Apollo mission to encourage the stories o( astronaut sightings of UFOs. . What lies behind all these stories? Who started them? What is the "official" NASA position? Apollo-12 was launched on November 1-l, 1969, on the second m oon landing m1ss1on. The crew co;'ISisted o( Gcmini-11 veterans "Pete" Conrad and Richard Gordon, and space rookie Alan Dean (Conrad had also nown into space on Gemini-5.) Taking off during a thunderstorm, t he craft was twice hit by lightning which threatened to abort the mission.· Instead, the night proceeded successfully to t he first pinpoint moon landing fou r days later. Astronauts Conrad and Bean flew their Luna.r Module in to a precision to uchdown near the Surveyor-3 automatic moon probe. During a scheduled moon walk, the men retrieved samples from the robot crnft. The return on Eanh was "routine", if f?ights to the moon can ever be considered routine. 49 On the outbound leg, Conrad had radioed to Earth that the Apollo was "being followed". This message, trans mitted over the open radio link, was heard by hundreds of newsmen and by millions of Americans. It im:nediately gave rise to new UFO stories. According to the account best known to UFO believers (publishe d in Saga magazine, May 1970, entit led " Apollo l 2's ~Jysterious Encounter with Flying Sauct'rs", written by T.G. Beckley and H. Salkinl. the astro nau~,; watched Lwo nashing lights near ch~ir Command Module about 150,000 miles out from Earth. At first, the
- ' A •' ' :-'_.:~--\~ ~ •• A pollo -I 1 U F O, 19G9. Obroct hunbh.'\J p .1s t wind o w im,n r.d i\Jt•j ly altar A1Joll o p ull~<1 aw ay f rom Sa turn bo osto r. Metamo rpho-si s of obvi ous sp ac:ec:r aft i n sul atlon l r ~qrno n t i nto "odcl •sha o od UF O " is c ourtesy of Bob Barry o f tho fri n g e " 20th Century UFO Bureau " . Hon> Hotze,·, " Ulonoua" ( 1976) assig r,s o bj ect to Joh n Gle n n's flight. i nvents f ictitious c:o m ment ory a nd con tin ues weavi ng myth• un lotterod by I ecu. ground thought it was their S-IV-8 astronauts decided to ignore the ··astrcnuut UFO sightings". Besides booster rocket but quickly calculated apparently harmless escort and carry the three astronauts, millions of that it would have been in a different on with their mission Americans saw the TV images and direction. Next, they suggested that ln lunar orbit. new (or perhaps the heard the voices of the crewmen the lights could have been pieces of same) UFOs dogged the spacemen. wondering what the objects could be. the Lunar Module "garage'', called During the descent to the lunar They were obviously unidentified, "SLA Panels", which are quite lar ge surface, millions of television watchers they were flying in space, and they and highly reflect ive. Conrad, so the on Earth saw bright objects crossing were objects of some sort. Hence, they UFO story goes, remarked that this the field o f view of the Apollo TV were UFOs. was unlikely since one of them had cameras. Simila.r objects were seen The "Fawcett List" of space UFOs suddenly taken off at a high velocity, during the launch from the moon and says that the astronauts "said a UFO something that a piece of space debris during the final approach to Earth. accompanied ~hem all the way to simply could not do. Finally, the . Here, then, is a major case for within 132,000_ miles of the moon. . n f'~.,,.,.,"~ Ft.>.•:J ~~4":C-,! 6 S'Jr,~1Jffe»%ffifl ~ ¾4'""~ }4:t¢.:7f~ -, • ., . t:o(';. \ I(' • • • • • •r. ";'" •••.:-.:•i ••,,; ~ • ·-- --~ •C \ :--.••::-;•:~•·--•:t ~; ~ ',?~•,~•~ • '.:'• •·~~ :::\;•••'~ l • ·: ,· •. -·. •. ·- . • • : - ,... -·, •. . • .:· -_.,. - ~ - :f ·-~ ! . ·, - ·: ... - • · ·,: ".*# ,- -· -· · I • • .-· .. •.. ~-: .. . ~ . . . ... :. M erc ury,~. " (.',:,n -e..i ~•F O " on Sco u C·a,o e n : ..,,, flight i n 19 6:3. S meors and gl aro , c hanQo from @) on-9 1r:ime l O ~he no"t r v1ti1h, a~tro n n:ct ""tl~ ~nappi ng p ic tures o f linip blll oo n sub•,atellite . ::,tq, plirt,,. ?.. )'3./ + , S 50 ____.._.,.. __ - . -. . . .. . ' :, ,.;. I .. J ◄ ~-.,., . •·/ 7 • JI ._!' ~. "'1 ,..,·.· .., ~ ,,;r.1_( J~; .•..,.- . . :.; . _ - .. ~ . . • _•• / • • ~ (?-2) T wo obiecu drifting out of open hatch (lowe, r ight) of Geminl-12. Both spe_ cks are out of focus and hence are within sevoral feet of camera. -which h ad• very large depth of field. Object on right, in f ocus, i • a scrap of paper. NASA photo S-66-62871. preceding them all the way." The origin of that mileage figure is obscure, but it lends unwarranted authenticity to the report. Observatories in Europe also watc:ied the two UFOs. ether sources re\'eal. Embellishing the story. another UFO source claims that "Next day, the 15th, at 21.15 hours, one bright revohing light approached the Apollo 12 spacecraft." Fawcett, not to be outdone, also claims that the astronauts photographed the UFO (or UFOs). One of the loudest proponents of the Apollo-12 UFO is APRO research director Or. James Harder. At a UFO symposium at the University of California at Santa Cruz on November 8, 1975, Harder claimed that one CFO "followed Apollo l'.! on three orbits around the moon". Further, "N,\SA suppressed the UFO incident~ for fonr of p, 1nic", but Harder was ahle to discover the si~htin g~ b"cau$e it " was disclosed by a member of the space team" who he refused to id1:ntif:: . 5 1
!.iinc:l' all thf" m:ill.'riill ll;m.lcr used to ..prove" the r xistcncc Qf the inddcnts werl.' public information ( Harder could have read it in Saga, which is hardlr a top scc;rrt )!O\'crnmcnt r:!port), his rdcrcnce to a co\·eruμ and to sr.cret inside informatiu,1 were clearly only gimmicks t\1 impre~r; the news, media with the value of his •'information". NASA, meanwhile, says that no such UFO event took place. The lights, according to Dale Myers (Associate Administrator for Manned Space flight: quoted in a letter dated Feb. 5, 1973 to Mr. Donald Ratsch of APROj, were spacecraft fragments: "During all of our Apollo lunar missions. objects have been sighted by the various crews. Subsequent to the crew sightings, the flight controllers determined the observations were probably either the S-IVB booster, the spacecraft lunar adapter (SLA) panels, or smaller objects such as mylar foil particles. Because of their large size and highly reflective surfaces, the S-IVB and SLA panels should be visible at great distances in the space emironment..." Astronaut Conrad, as quoted earlier, claimed that the flash ing lights were obviously SLA panels but that he was 'joking with the ground. He denounced the Saga story explicitly and gave his opinion that Harder was a "kook". Astronaut Gordon has publicly stated that he has never seen a UFO on any .;pace flight. Alan Bean, the only one of the three still on active NASA duty, issued a statement soon after Harder's latest charges went out over the news media late in 1975. In a UPI dispatch: "Astronaut Alan Bean...said that at no time during his mission did he ever see an unidentified objecL Bean said that there were some metallic parts which floated behind their sp:>r.e craft after the Apollo-12 !Uf'l.?r module lifled off from t~•• r:~oon. He said these small p:.-<'::.; were visible until they (tht> ...•!:onauts) made an engine burn 'f':c: metallic objects wer~ par ts er <!",e insulation which came off the lunar module during the launch phase and lunar orbital phase. ' At no time • did we see anything which was not of our spacecraft, either during lunar orbit or during the voyage to and from the moon,' Bean stated." To Harder and his "N,\SA cuv~rup", these statements are just mo re lies designed to confuse the American public. So let's go back lo the key r\pnll 11-l 2 LlFU c111:ountcr and try lo determine just wh:1 is confused. Lale on No,.·embcr 15th. 1969, about 150,000 statute mi!es from Earlh. the Apollo crew was talking to cilDSllle communicator astronaut Ger~rJ C:m about SQmc lights they were watching out their wir.do w. Apollo: The object is very bright and it is obviously something that is tumbling. It is tumbling (at) one and one half rev(olution)s per second, or at. least it is flashing at us (at) about that (rate)... CAPCOM: Roger. We are standing by. CAPCOM: (Apollo) 12, (this is) Houston. Apollo: Go ahead. CAPCOM: As best we can tell, looking at things down here, on those SLA panels, we assume they weren't imparted with any great amount of delta-V (velocity change)-like anything more than one or so feet per second when they separated (thirty-three hours ago). Your SLA panels would probably be only about 300 (nautical) miles (345 statute miles) away fro m you right now. **** The following reply by Conrad has been claimed by UFO believers to indicate that the lights (the so-called "SLA panels") have suddenly pulled away from the Apollo, something that a tumbling piece of debris could not do. To clarify the meaning, punctuation and a few extra parenthetical words have been added by the UFOiogists: Apollo: That could be true, but gee whiz, when I (just) turned around I saw one of those "SLA panels" leaving the area at a high rate of speed, and it loo ked to me like it was leaving us pretty (fast)-at a pretty rapid clip, like it got a lot more than a foot per second or so. CAPCOM: Well, since we don't really have any idea how they left, or what their t rajectory could be, it's kind of tough really to say just what the heck that could be. Apollo: Okay. We'll assume it's friendl y anyway, OK? The UFO reasoning, as worded by APRO member Srad Sparks. goes as follows: ''After the SLA panels separated and the S-IVB's tanks were emptied (on No \·. U) they could not change their ·,t>locity simply because they had no form of propulsion to do so. But Conrad saw one of the "SLA panels" (on Nov. 15th ) suddenly leave its position at a " high rate of sμccd ... an i:11;,ossib1lity, unless it really was a m.lal!uvcrable spacec raft of some ::-ort. nut where docs one find a maneuverable spacecrait nearly 150,000 miles from the earth? The :inswer: (excepting ,\ pollo 12 itself) in November of 19C9 th~re weren't any. The conclusion is inescapable: One (possibly two) maneuverable spacecraft not of man-made origin were following our Apollo 12 on November 14 and 15, 1969." To anyone familiar with the flight plan of an Apollo moon flight, Conrad's words imply nothing of the sort. Two facts must be brought to mind. First, Apollo and the Capcom were discussing the present position of the SLA panels based upon their initial separation velocities from the spent S-IVB rocket stage. Second,. the SLA panels break free after the Apollo pulls off from the booster; the astronauts then perform a maneuver called the "turnaround" the Command Module returns to the booster to dock with the now-exposed Lunar Module, before pulling the LM free from its "garage". Striking the UFOlogist's punctua tion and clarifying words from the communication, and putting it in proper perspective, what Conrad was saying was: Apollo: That could be true (that the SLA panels were flying off at one or so feet per second), but gee whiz, when I turned around (right after they flew free, thirty-three hours ago) I saw one of those SLA panels leaving the area (of the LM "garage") at a high rate of speed, and it looked to me that it was leaving us pretty...at a pretty rapid clip, like it got a lot more than a foot per second or so. The UFO believers' reasoning-and the entire basis for Harder 's and for the Saga article's Apollo-12 UFO sighting-is phony. The most generous description of it would be a mistake, a misreading of the transcript's meaning in an attempt to "prove" a UFO incident that never really happened outside of the fertile imaginations of certain UFO believers. Conrad's statement, Gordon's statement. Bean ·s statement. and the NASA letter must stand validated on this case: Apollo-12 was not followed by a t;FO on its to the moon. But how about on the way back? "A light of indistinct shape" was spotted just prior to re-en try, 52
- ~--- __ )· _ : -_·-····-··~ ~ ~ · -·· --•-..._,' ,. ,.-:·. 1 ......__ ___
l ··-.. . :- . . .. • ... !"' ... • •••• .: . . ·• l·. '. ... : >:,;;,_;; ~.~::.. >ct-'. : '.:,·.'. _: \ . . .w~.:.~~:,.~ -. ....,-;;; ;~· ,!<~-~ --~ ~ - :· ,::: :~ J ::.s:,:, .£.,.: ·,,·~~i«~ -;c :+,21~ -==.: .. , ; - "" Publisned n~wsp!per story on UFSs captions this p11oto:"Theso two UFOs wo , u photographed on July 19, 1969-the day before Apo:lo's historic: moon landing during Buzz Aldri n'• scheduled lunar photo session. Noto the similarity to the •hot snapped throo years oarlier during Gcminl-12." according to UFO sources. Saga photos taken during the? 1960s. reports that "...at 11:47 a.m. on Whatever it was, this "halo" appE'ared November 24th, the spokesman for only in the photo, and was n«?ither Apollo 12 reported in a startled voice seen nor remarked on by the that they were all' watching a bright astronauts. red object flashing brilliantly against Houston radio commentator and the earth." This incident was carefully UFO enthusiast Frank Haley has his analyzed by Brad Sparks of APRO (I own theory about why the Apollo-12 am indebt£:ci to his letler to Saga of TV camera did not work on the moon August 28, 19i0, a letter Saga editor (NASA says Bean accidentally pointed ne\'er bothered to answer), who it toward the sun). Says Haley, "The objects that "the astronauts did not i::amera was intentionally shut off to report that the object. they were seeing avoid showing something on the moon was red, and they stated specifically that disturbed the astronauts" that 'it's a steady light', not flashing." ("Haley's Comment" newsletter, Mar. It was seen between th"'m and the dark 22, 1976). It is only a matter of time earth , somewhere off the coast of before this nonsense is absorbed into India by a guess of the cr"'wmen. the lore of the "Apollo-12 UFOs''. Perhaps it was a ship's searchlight, But Apollo 12 did see some perhaps a fire, perhaps a violent unidentified flying objects, and NASA lightning storm...there is no reason to engineers were justifiably concerned suspect that it was a craft in space. that they could have been debris from The astronauts lost sight of the light as important spacecraft systems which they turned the Apollo to take a series m ight indicate unexpected failures, or of photographs of the sunrise. which might interfere with other The wild fantasies printed in Saga spacecraft equipment. Hence, the dn no t end here. Beckley and Salkin Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston claim that the astronauts had been (now the Johnson Space Center) gave "startled by unaccountable seismic a contract to Lockhe£:d to study the disturbances o n th.:- lunar surface." objects seen on the TV pictures and on This event never occurred; there were some movie film. no such earthquakes during their visit. The Lockhc-ed report was quietly Beckley and Salkin refer to "a issued on March 18, 19i0, about the mysterious blue halo encircling one of same time that the sensationalized and our spacemen." Sparks of APRO fictionalized Saga story was being consicfors thi:; lo ha,·c bE't?ll lun3r dust printed. Titled "linidcntifhid Visual • kicked up •.,·h1le thu crcwmt',l were Phenomena Associated with Space walkii;g around. Photo analyst Dick Flight" (:-.iA$A Contract '.'i ..\S 9-5191. lind,,r·.rood sutgestect that it is a LEC; HASO No. 071-80-013), the defect in the denilopmeut of the report documents tlw "moon pigc:Qns" photo cuusE>d h,· thl' , l\'id solar i:larc (a term "coi11E:d by :'\.\S.-\ enl:{inc:t.'r.; lo oil' oi' a lii~hly ,Hl~cti,·e s11 fi·ace: dcscribu UIH!Xpcctcci 1Jbjccls seen in Undt•rwood quil'kly located half a operational photo1:r:iphy that ddy do 1.e11 ~imilar "ltalou5" on other space positive identification") of .-\polio• 12. l'o11f.r:1rl t.'lll!i111•1•r:; wen• F. D. Ul•att~ and ,I.G. !l:nrm. "Unidenli rkd \'bua! plwnon:C':1.1 as~oci:ilcd with space flight were rather common opc,,:tionally." rcn,aJ lhe authors." but. ''. .little or no clo~u111clllJli1111 ll1 p,1,~ cvc11t.; has i,e..-11 macie." Rcfore UF'O bclle,·crs jump uμ and d1Jw11 with confim~a,ion of a whole new family of ''astronaut sightings of UFO3'', the authors announce? their intention of demonstrating that 1 'such evenl~ were spacecraft debris associated with an earlier pyrotechnical operation, or ice, or window reflections. Cases for each of these theories have been presented and exhibits of similar occurenccs are included. Positive identifi~ation was not possible. . . The quality of tile imagery precludes a precise definition of the object under question. . . In general, it takes much more information to identify an object that if does to detect it." Sixteen millim~ter color magazine 11651\1, exposed on Apollo-12. shows three objects, called "A", "B", and "C". The objects appeared during the Ll\·l jettison man«?uver in lunar orbit. "A" is believed to be a small segment o f the docking channel; "B" was identified by engineers as a portion oi the docking ring, possibly the fiberglass seal; "C" was probably part of the electrical harness. All were near the spacecraft and were tumbling. From this and other examinations, Beatty and Baron concluded that "most 'moon pigeons' have as their source a programmed pyrotechnic event and are the normal debris associated with such an incident. They are often spectacular. . . The main thing to be learn«?d from this study is that the event (in question) was, in all probability, a normal result of routine spacecraft operations. . . These data will undoubtably be of use to the engineering, scientific, and public relations communities." The closing reference clearly indicates that Beatty and Baron were aware of the "Apollo• 12 UFOs" controversy and felt that their study would be useful in demolishini: any UFO buffs' wild n1mor;. unfortunately. tht? ·'moon pigeons" rrport seems to ha\·e been tiled a\\ ay in the :--i..\S.-\ archi,·C's. Baron. who still wurks at the Joh 11,;011 Space Cerlll' r, told me early in H)i6 that ht! ne\ l!r got any feedback on his report, e,·t'n thoui:h it was fun doini,: it and it had 5.i... · '· ~ - .. > }{ This photo was snapped only moments af ter Aldrin's other Apollo 11 sho t . Here the two UFOs have begun their separation and a halo-li ke force field between the two is c/ea,/y shown. ~ p retty o bvious implications for UFO repor ts. NASA apparently decided to le t the UFO writers spread their ;-umors, hoping that the stories would fade away if ignored. Wh at had ha ppened. though. was a riew shot in the arm for ·'astronaut UFO cases". The explanations could never catch up with the mi~inlerpreta• tions and w1ong impressions engendered by the onirlteard conversations and l'iewt'd i111a).(r~ (mm Apollo-12. :\lillions of ,\meric..ins were practically eyewitnesses to a "space UFO", and were suitably impressed. "E x clusive NASA Photos" and NASA cJ nsorship is another part of myth . Theso Apollo-11 spots are highly magnified window reflection, in Lunar Module dee ~ in ,pace (Aldrin turned the .:amer.> on by ac c ident w hile c hec k ing equ ipment) . When presented with the Saga story and with APRO's (and MUFON's) account of the "maneuverin g alien spacecraft at 150,00u m iles from Earth", the a\·erage· citizen could only assume that iL might indt"'d be true. If N.-\SA was denying it, '.l'e!l then, the government has bcl'n kno\'/ ,1 to lie to us in the pa~t. It is a vai:i hop<! to im :.gine that the truth will ever .:.1tc:h up co the Apollo - 12 a11<l oth,•r C [· Os..- \ s clL-c:iilc<l h ere, th.:: Apollo•I:! C FD 1 H•rcr e:-..istt!d. Somc,how, milliuns or pl•oplc beli£:Vc that il did . There is s,1ffi<:icnt blame 55( . - r ---· ,? .. .,,, ;.-,., -t,.~i '-· ~ -~. ~· ( . \ t t ~ LP,,r• ~ ··•(?; ' ~~ ..... ~ ··: • . z._ ...,.,, l' - . .. . . . ~ ••• ' vn tu, ,#,.£+,.·· ., Mi·+ r+::b· ~t- ~_.__,i,I,_ ~~~ Forgl!ry c.>n oo "'ttn r ,nt1t•J ,n 1r.•tt..t or c:oov roghl ,09ula11ons oecauso ,,.,,. ,s a N~SA photo, Evon ro\ouch ed, it cannot bv COPV"9hl8d. 56 for this delusi on lo be :.ien( rousl y dislributed to UFO buffs, ~AS.-\ public affairs officers, sc1 ii:ation sceking news media, and lal.y readers. And the "astronaut UFO" ge11r•: is not yet complrtc. Let's return to some more examples. Another example of selective omission of facts occurs in the Gemtnl-7 photo of sunl ight glinting oft roll thruster rockots on nose. Photo forgers airbrushed the nose/Earth bound• ary out, making tt,e two lights appear t o be float ing in sp:ice. NASAphoto SGS-63722 . f H- 1 iO ALSO ~!:V2~ ~ E'b QR) .. ·" ~-ip. ,~P:&,~4!•_:-.~~ ' -♦ • : '.~ . ' . . : . ... , .. . - -· .. . ... - . - ·--· - - - - - -
. . ~ t S(t'if. J . ,_,..... f7..~~T-. ... I ·· "'""11':",~'t.jv "·.--·.'" 1 ~,,...~,-7 ! 'l ' I 1 ~ -~ j ! \ I I -; ..,,'~ . <~';;~:~=~::.::~~~=~: .;'( .. and below) as published with erroneous captions. "Fawc:dt list" of astronaut sightings. Geori;e t·awcett is a respected and level-headed UFO researcher in Maiden, North Carolina. But an example of his work gives a different impression: "Gemini-XII: Jim Lovell and Edwin Aldrin saw four UFOs linked in a row. Both spacemen said the objects were not stars" (quoted from The Edge of Reality, Hynek & Vallee, 1975, page 64). From the GT-12 Astronaut Debriefing, page K/3.4, Lovell relates: "During the last EVA we discarded, in addition to the ELSE (life support system), three bags. About 2, maybe 3 or possibly 4, orbits later at sunrise condition, we looked out again and saw 4 objects lined up in a ro,v and they weren't stars I know. They must have been these same things we tossed overboard." The original distortion of this entirely ordinary event, according to the Condon Report, is the responsibility of UFO wnter, John Keel, Fawcett took it and embellished it. Another of Fawcett's favorites is M~rcury-7: "Scott Carpenter reported th<1t he had what looked like a good shot of a saucer." E!sPwhere he claimed that Carp,rnter "look a photograph of a classical saucer-shaped UFO with dome tha t foll owed his capsule." ~(._ pla.t,;:, J,l In fact, the photographs s!iow an entirr.ly ordinary object: a space balloon ejected from the capsule for tracking practice. The balloon did not inflate but spun in a limp oblong sack. The flight schedule and the voice transmissions confirm this unexciting explanation-and confirm Fawcett's fantasizing. An example of the difficulty of " disproving" an "astronaut UFO sighting" is the Mercury-9 case in 1963. Well established in the UFO lore, the story claims that on the 15th orbit, over Muchea, Australia, the astronaut (Gordon Cooper) saw a green object. More than one hundred people at the trac king station saw the bogie on a radar screen (this wasn't Shot during Sky Lab Ill second manned Sky Lab Flighl 263 day of 1973-1645 Zulu Time. NASA Photo =sLJ- 118-2 140 (4 shots taken) Listed as unrden1,r.ed ob1ec t or satellite by NASA Pho to E,·aluat,on Lab ;(f.!C,;ii!P.l!'f!';H!¥," "" , - •• ~ -, . : . • : · r · , " • i!\":i;-':. ~ -. ,.. '-' - ,. • < • · :.,. • • ,, ~ . ·. r t . I t lI . t - ~ L liio.t.'.1io-t.~ .... .:..-~ .; ...~-:::....~ 0 .:s.::·, : :...ii .,....,._...~~~....~ @ 57 . - · •• 3A . · • -
. ' scn~:itinnal rn•.•'ll(h for rir:tional •'far.t" ·,l"ril n Fr•111 ;.; Ed ·: ar-1;: hi) had two hundrf'rl peopll• ar.luatl)i me Lhc ohjt·ct.). The source of the story secll!S to have bren an NBC newsm:t!l in Australia. But the prob:crn ~ecms tll b.: th:it Cooper has nc,.·er heard of it. He has b-:cn out of tile spat'e program for SP.Ven years. and talks freely about urus lo reporters, to the Columbia "UFO recording·•.. to Mike Douglas, to friends and associates. Somehow he k:iows nothing abou t. "his" space UFO-and he has no reason to be silent. His space UFO never existed. Confronted by this evidence, Fawcett (letter of May 10, 1976) insists that "I sincer<?ly believe some of the ashonaut sigh tings are bonafide, based on some of my sources of information." John Keel, too, recalls 0etter of .March 26, 19i6) that "ex• NASA engineers have told me all kinds of fascinating UFO tales.. ." Always these write~s fall back on "secret reports" and "private information'' when their published reports and open articles disintegrate in the face of the truth. On October 18, 1973, the famous Mansfield, Ohio UFO sighting occurred, for which Captain Lawrence Coyne and his helicopter crew later were to receive the 'Best UFO Case of the Year" award (and check) from a weekly tabloid's 'blue-ribbon panel' of UFO experts. A few months later, Coyne said he was told by the panel chairman, J. Allen Hynek, (the respected head of the Center for UFO Studies) that Skylab astronauts had photographed the same UFO from space. (Hynek ultimately denied this.) A reputable ma~azine, "Army ReserYe" published the story with an intriguing photograph it had received from NASA and which it labeled "NASA: Skylab", clt>arly indic;iting that this was the astronau t photograph which had buzzed Coyne. It would ha\'e been a neat trick for the Skylab astronauts to have photo· graphed anything on October 18th. since they weren·t even on board the space s tation. The prc\'ious crew had returned to E:irth a 111011th before and thei r relie f ere ·.\· was not sr.lwduled to blast off for anothl·r thrPe weeks. The pho tograph prin!rd in the rn:il(a7.ine was clearly labt•lt·rl rm its backsidl' as r.j,•('fNI frnm hi, spaf'(•cr;1rt in an :lll!.'lllpl Lo gl't. \"isual lrackilll'. pr:tctic,: (11:is photo is often referred to :is the "cl:issical domed UFO" shnt). UfO re$c:Jrchers anrl mai;azine edi tors had dearly not made Hen a minia1u111 of effort to verify thes•? t ransparent errors and mistakes. but instr:ad p.!ssed 011 the false data to the public. ThOU$ands more were dcceivr.d. Lall' in 197:J, ;i strange ob!c••:t did appNtr in Skylab sp,,Cl' photograph,. Takrn on Conrad's S kylab fl igh t i11 June, Lhe objcct was not 11oticE' rl bl· UFO researchers but bv govE>rnmcn·t photo analysts. pl..t~ '33 • Rather than ·•swP.ep thc t;FO under the rug", the officials look the other tack : it might be a mysterious So,·itit SatP.llite and could be of great value to , . .:.:. •. ';'-,· . . -· . ,, . .. . .: .. .._ '( ' ,. .-·~·· ,._ .. ... . .. ...... . ,, . . . ... . j• • .; :·· • '• • /-"':":: . -.,"1-·/ ,-:;;..".. -':,....,(;-':.,.::,~,!~--~~i'-:i...-.., ... ~ ~Joi~~~---..:.6'~, (;A»~~~-® .: ..~ - .- ..--:, 6.::> "UFO.. -seen fro,n Skyloh-2. Tho e1O,1901tcd ou ,~c t i, actually an air1:lrip ta krn hy S.:,>tl C:irp,.•u(,•r Oil .\ll'rcury- in the Bra :d,an 1 un 9 ,.,~. Enlargomont of NASA pho t o SL2- 16-1 09, 7 morn than t1•n years before. II c-fl,t~ . show,•d a limp ball non C:i rp<'nter had ")..\ c..a-..."" ! 58' sen~Jlinnal l'll••'l~h for fii:t illnal "far.t" writ,•r Fi ·1n;_ !~d·: ;wl;: hr. had two hundrrri p<?oplt• ar.tually ree the ohjt-ct.). The sou rec c,f the ~tory seems to have bren an NBC newsman in J\t15tralia. But th,:, problem ,;eems to b.: that Cooper h:is nc•:er hc-ard of it. Hr. has b<:>cn out of ti1e spat•e program for SP.Ven yrars. and t;ilks freely about U r us lo reporters, to the Columbia "UFO recording''., to ~.·Jike Douglas, to friends and associates. Somehow he knows nothing abou t, "his" space UFO-and he has no reason to be silent. His space UFO never existed. Confronted by this evidence, Fawcett (letter of May 10, 1976) insists that " I sincerP.ly believe some of the ashonaut sightings are bonafide, based on some of my sources of information." John Keel, too, recalls (letter of . March 26, 1976) that "ex NASA engineers have told me all kinds of fascinating UFO tales.. . " Always these writers fall back on "secret reports" and "private information" when their published reports and open articles disintegrate in the face of the truth. On October 18, 1973, the famous Mansfie!d, Ohio UFO sighting occurred, for which Captain Lawrence Coyne and his h elicopter crew later were to receive the 'Best UFO Case of the Year" award (and check) from a weekly tabloid's 'blue-ribbon panel' of UFO experts. A few months later, Coyne said he was told by the pa11el chairman, J . Allen Hynek, (the respected head of the Center for UFO Studies) that Skylab astronauts had photographed the same UFO from space. (Hynek ultimately denied this.) A reputable ma~azine, " Army ReserYe" published the story with an intriguing photograph it had received from NASA and which it labeled "NASA: Skylab", clt>arly indic;1ting that this was the as tronaut photograph which had b1Jzzed Coy ne. It would h a\'e been a neat trick for the Skylab astronauts to have photo• graphed anything on OC'tobcr 18th, since they weren't even on board the space station. The prerious crew h ad returned to E:irth a 111011th bl'fore and their relie f crP.w was not schl'ouled to blast o ff for ano!h l•r thrre weeks. The photogr:iph prin!t·d in the magazine w<1s clt>arly labl'll·rl 1 m its backsidl• as t<1hn hy S-:<itt <:.::iq.>ent<•r on ~lt>rcury - 7 morl' than tPn years before. It t-pl,{q_ r.ji•rlt•d fC'.lrn hi, spac·1·cr:ifl in a11 .1ttc111pt to g1·1 \·isual tr.ic:kin~! pr:1c:tic1? (!Lis photo is o ften referred to ;is the "cl.issical domed UFO" sht>lJ. UFO researchers anri ma::azine edilors had dearly not made e\·en a minimum of effort to verify thew transparrn t errors and mistakes. but instead 1 nssed 011 the false data to the public. Thou~ands more were decei\·rd. La te i11 197'.l, a str;in~e objr,;t did aμpt'a r in Skrlab sμ,11:t' photograph~. Takl'n on Conrad's Skylab flight i11 June, lhe object was not 11oliced b\· UFO researchr1s but by go\'ernm.:n·t photo :111alysts. pl,t ._ '33 Rather than ·•swi?ep the lJFO under the rug", the officials look the other t.ick: it might be a myste rious So,·iet Satellite and could lie of great value to ... :. . . . . ,• • ... ' •: ... : ' ... •·. l r t -.- ..•· .,. i. ·.,. ,., ··., ·:--. · .• ..;'-..:. ~:.....-_,; _,,: _, ;.._ '•.,• .,,.,,:::.,~ ..,;~;.,_,,_/ ~ ~...;i~._~;,,..;.r, ..+.,_;.~~@- ..:·-~ - 33 ..UFO.. 1ee,n fro,n Skvlot,.:?. The '!tongatcd ou,"c t i1 actually an a ,rstrio . '" the 8r~:il,a" 1ur,91.i,. ElllMgomo"t of NASA photo SL2-16-109. .. ! .. show,•d a limp balloon Ca rp<'nter had ')..\ "'a'';" ! 58. .... ........:.. . ...... . rn;lit:1ry i11t1·lli~cncc. /\ prompt and <?ncrg1•Lic investigation was launched. The object looked like a long cylinder with l\\'O square p:tddlcs rr.srmbliug sol:i r panels at each end. ily 11ac,,:-.u1 i11~ its ,-tiigu:at 5i ;:c on ~~o negative, analysts were able. to deter'.nine that it wa!> about 20 feet long a mile away or 2000 feet long a hundred milrs away. j r. A careful investigation revealed the surprising answer. the UFO was actually thousands of feet in length, but its altitude was zero! lt was an airstrip in the Brazilian jungles! Further checking showed that the objected appeared at the same spot in Skylab photos taken months later; the airfield was also found on an inter national aviation chart. Recent UFO books and articles h:ive resurrected the X-15 rocket plane sightings of fifteen years ago. This has .. , prompted the NASA Headquarters Public Affairs Office to reissue a photograph taken by a belly camera of the spacecraft at an altitude of about 60 miles (photo 76-H-139). v\o:\-'!. 34 Published reports speak of "fleets of UFOs" at a range of 30 feet from the X:15. But even a casual reader with any familiarity with spacecraft systems will recognize the effect for what it was: "fireflies". This is a phenomenon seen by many Mercury, Vostok, and later spacemen, as flecks of paint chipped off the spacecraft. On the X-15, it was flecks of ice clinging to the liquid oxygen tanks. The pilot clearly describes the pieces as being close-in, small, tumbling, and drifting along with his vehicle through the vacuum. Considering these cases as I have described them (and there arc other lesser ones which [ have also investi gated to a successful conclusion), what can we now say about authors who present such evidence of :, "astronaut UFOs"? While speaking f ominously about a NASA coverup and of secret agencies which muzzle space• men, these same researchers list such quotations as: J ohn Young: '.' Odds are UFOs exist" . Edgar '.\-litchell: "\Ve all k'now UFOs are real". Eugene Ceman: "I believe UFOs belong to someone else and that they arc fro m some other civilization". Cordo n Cooper: " [ brlieve that UFOs, under i11telligcnt con trol , have ,;-..... _. - .· . .. . ' :·. - . ·.... " -,/ .. ,... .... : . . ' . .... ·• . F lake of ice floating off of the X-15 rocket plane. Somo i nvcsti g:,1or~ call thi• a " large UFO". NASA photo 76 -H-139. 59
, ..-V--~~..,,......,,,.,,,,,,~~~ ..... ___ ~ _ ••· .. ,.~~to,~J,._<.,.Q.""' ..,....._~,...,,, . .. f ► OJ, 11:'C ♦ l♦IJ . "!" "-~--:"1\i .,,,--:-__,_... -- . •""'"W.~ l , f • I J ,; ,. Clouds of debris surrou nd the Saturn booster rocket following Apollo ,opera t ion. Blow-up photos ot individual pieces ot debris inside and outside the cabin have been called "UFOs". NASA photo AS17- 148-22687. visited our planet for tho usands of years". None of these me n claim to ha\·e seen UFOs in space. By now it should be obvious to open-minded im·estiga tors that no other aHronaut claims to ha\·e seen any either. Suggestions that they have rt>ally done so are either misconceptions. mi; repn•s1•ntalions. o r frauds on the part of L: FO writers. Yt>t another cast: in poi!lt has just bt>en given, and it deals with the J ohn Young quotation. Young, in Seattle in 1973, said that the chances were good that there were in tell igen t civilizatio ns on other planets (AP, Nov. 27, 1973). The newsman started the article with the lead, "John Young says that the odds are that unidentiiied Flying Objects do exi$t'', even though none of Young's quoted words indicated that at all. Beforr. you could say "UFO tlap·•. th~ l.iFO writers had a new authority : John Yo ung says, " Odds are UFOs exist". It seems clear that astronauts as a class or the population do not possess any special knowledge about CFO:; which they may have gained from their own experiences. They are about as well informed (or more truthfully. as badly misinformed) as the anirage citizen. To quote them as above with the sugiiestion that they are special authoritit>s on UFOs is a misleading 60 . • • w.--•--· -· ... - -- - - ~
and inll•llectually dishonest tactic. Three ti llll' space veteran Wally ::ichirra, who according to lffOlogisls saw "glowing masses"( actually lightning-lit clouds, over the Indian Ocean) hos written. "I do not know enough about this subject to render an opinion of any kind. The o!lly information l ~ave is that which has been released to the public through the years by the various news media". UFO writers would ha,·e us belieH~ that this is part or a ,·ast conspiracy of lies which only they can penetrate. ,Accil~ t:l.,. The actual answi!r to the "shapeless light" mystery illustrates the wa~· NASA races real space mysteries. The crew was puzzled by the sighting but reported it to space officials who made • no e ffort to conceal the incident. If NASA were trying to co,·er up actual UFO sightings by astronauts, this was a good candidate for one-and it would never have been publicized. Astronaut Dick Gordon revealed to me the unpublicized solution to the .., publicized mystery. In a letter dated Septemhcr 15. 1976, Cordon wrote: " I ,•i\'idly re..:a!I the inciden t which oc.: 1 1rrcd when a light of indistinct shape and size was spolled on o ur return to earth... (it) did appear lo be in the Indian Ocean. ln our discussions and debriefings that occurred l:iter. Rusty Schwcikart provided the answer. He simply said, 'how about the moon's reflection?' and, of course, that is what it was... How often those of us in aviation have seen the moon's reflection on the water in the course of a nom1al flight. We simply did not put it together in returning from lunar distance, where we had the black back ground of space, the dark night of the earth. and the moon behind us." Other spacemen have been asked to answer these questions). They have been forthright in their denials: "I never ha\'e personally seen anything I could identify as a UFO", says John Glenn, now a Senator Crom Ohio. Astronauts Grissom and Young said, "We have never seen any UFOs". Richard Gordon, who was with A common sourco of space and othor UFOs is shown hore. The aura and the lens-shaped disc Is actually a sunrise photographed from Skylab. NASA photo SL3-118,2177. Conrad on Gcmini-11 and Apollo -1 2. writes that " I never s:iw a l.Jf'O". Astronaut "Dcke" Sla}·tor, claims t!1at "[ don't recollect anyone u,porting any UFOs on any of our nights''. "'Buzz" Ald rin went to the moon on Ai,ollo-11, on which the l.iFO press lists at least three separate UFO incldenls. There were no UFOs: "There are people who say there's a go\"ernment conspiracy to covu up the • existence of flying saucers." Aldrin told a Reuters reporter in 1973, "That's a lot of hogwlsh." The L.M pilot on the next fligh~. Apollo-'12, was Alan Bean. Following a new press conference in 1975 when James Harder repeated his stories of Apollo-11 and Apollo-12 UFOs, Bean told UPI that at no time during his mission did he ever see an unidentified object. "At no time did we see anything which was not of our spacecraft, either during lunar orbit or during the voyage to and from the moon," Bean stated. 61
Th :.: AH:CJ ll1d l ·t 111 \ Fdi. l!J io J c:011li1n1c<l to g1•111•r,1t..: llt.:W ;JSlClJll;JUt (;Fl) f-1iry IJlcs with tile rinony111011s rcH•l;,tinn from "Mr. X", who hL·,.irtl the Apt>II,>-I l ,htrn11:iuts d escribe Hthre•: di::,· ::h:.!:J•.•\! s h:-u:l,:-i•.•:5 tl1;,t \.V' •n-• pac i11~ them ::ic r-i,: ; th.: :;urfc1cc of the moon. '' The best answer l.'o thi.; f:tbrir.ltivn is in a I! tler from ;--: ASA Assistcnt Administrator for Legislative Afiairs Rob(;rt F'. Allnutt, to Congr<)s;:nan Bob Casey, dated January 29, 1970: ''Conversation between the Apollo 11 c,·ew :ind ~·Jission • Cont,ol were released live during the entire Apollo 11 mission. There were betwel)n 1000 and 1500 rep resentati\·es of the news media present at the Houston News Cl)nter listening and observing, but not one has suggested that NASA withheld any news or conversations of this nature." The evidence is clear. There is, out of all the dozens of "reports of astronaut UFO sightings", no residue of authentic cases, no 20:o or 5% or even 0.01% of " true UFOs" behind all the "noise". My research is compelling in its conclusion: afler fifteen year3 of manned space voyages including space stations and landing on the moon, spacemen have brought back not a: shred of evidence-verbal, phpto• graphic, or otherwise-for the existence of extraterrestrial spacecraft, or "UFOs". That" evidence, if it exists at all, must be sought elsewh ere. The performance and standards of conduct of the UFO groups and of UFO writers cannot be cause for optim;sm that such evidence, if it exi;;ts. will bP. recognized and correctly ~valuated. The lesson of the "astronaut UFOs", then, teaches us nothing about UFOs, but a lot about UFO investigators. Scientific Study nf Unidentified Fly ing Objects (Condon Report}, Bant_ am Edition, 1969, Chapter 6: Visual Observations :\lade bv Astronauts/ Franklin E. Roach. Pag;s 176-209, with bibliography through 1967. Good bal"k;;round m:itNial including unpublish<'d 1 ·alitl solutinns to a numbL'r of c;isrs. Incorrect solution to Gemini- :--~ I case. lnad..-4uat<- anal_ .-~b and u1,j11stificd encinr,;l)nH•nt ot f:,,r,;i ni-1 ',- ca.,,·. Th i: £,!;;,: o/ Uc:ul,l_\', b} fl:,-n,·k and Vallee. Hl'nry H,•:,:1 ll'ry & Co., 1975. Pa;:l· G:!,6-1 111 ::i S1.·ctit>11 cnllt·ci ..The Sl.'!,·nlbl~ :it \\',,.-1;". \,L• fi,id tl1 c phony Fa1u·..tt li.,t. Li.; L l;a~ incorn:cl dales and 111a11y lli;.:hi.:; nul ,if ~•H1ur11cc. On J uly I, 1~7Li. lk J . .-\lk-11 Hyne k rc,:i,".\"£•d 111 y ,,,·it.lean, and cndors,·d it, anrl n•p11 :l'.11,·ci I hr. F'awcctt li, t. which he ;·L'port,·d tl1,1t lw inr:luded in his book as a ru,i1.>sity Olily. That is, just becau~e ht ' pre,t'nted it a~ fact to thousands ot' ro:adt'rs '.\·as no reason for anyone to concl11 dl.! he thought it was true. This appallingly irresponsible attitude towards rules of e\·idcnce seems to in fer.t the whole UFO field. Sightings by 26 A stronauts Co11iirm: UFOs Spied 011 Sl:ylabs (sic) Jla11y Other Space Shots-U FOs Watch Every tlo\'e NASA ;\Jakes, Say Astronauts Who Were Tailed on Space Shot, " National Tattler", March 17, 1974. This is an embellished version of the same Fawcett fantasies. Weekly tabloid newspaper "conformed to the highest standards of modern reporting. Tattler and its staff are dedicated to total, truthful coverage..." In fact, staffer Robert Abborino made no effort to check any of Fawcett's outrageous claims. UFOs Past, Prese11t and Future, by Robert Emenegger, research by Alan . Sandler. Ballantine, 1974. Chapter 15, "Na:;a", pages 100-106. Extensive transcripts of space communications cover up the fact that Sandler carefuily selected evidence and must have knowingly omitted information which would have explained . many cases. An excellent photo section is included. UFO Report, People Press, 1975. "NASA Hiding UFOs From You", by Robert D. Barry, pages 4-10. Barry is associated with Carl Mcintyre's fundamentalist Christian group, and is one of the wilder UFO writers. Even the mass media has learned to disregard his fictional descrip tions of non-events. Here, he explains "why NASA called in the CIA to keep these photos secret", without explaining how , in that case, he got copies. He uses the forg.cd Gemini-7 photo proudly. Flying Saucers-Here and ,Vow', by F'rank Edwa rd,,, Lyle Stuart. >iew York. 1967. Astruna~1t iar.ta~il's w h()lly ur in part creatrd in the forti le (and unlimil l)d by w,il ily) mind o f ·11,-11-;man' l·'ra11 l- Ed1\Jrd,; :ire iound on p:1ge$ t :L l HO. an<1 l !l 'i. Tltrnu i,: h s11d1 entriL'$ :i j,>11 rnalis111 stud t"n l can trace thl· adual i::r,,wth of the myth. , \ /'l:U Hui/din, :\l.1rd1-:\pril 1970 6:! and l-'dJru.iry 197:; a11<! nthc•,~- T l11, nyi11g saucer club llt'w. ,;let tL•r b·,l t:. pi fit s the dlsn•gard for i1:1p,,.·ti:tl i11ws1i;,:atio11 o f cvid~•nc~ whid1 prtH·id1)d the climatr in wh:ch the mylh ot' --astronaut liFOs " co11IJ g-101\· and tluu nsh. Th e Star, :Vfan.:h ~- 1976. pa;:,• 7. Sequence or headlines: On the front page, ''Astronauts Say: We Saw L:FOs in Space". On pai::e 7, --Tc-iJ Astronauts Con firm: We spotted l\\'O UFOs". lll the article, ;\!cDi·:itt ta!k5 oi his UFO, and Cooper discusses his exper:ences as a fighter pilot in Germany-and makes 110 mention of the space UFO associated with his name. The headlines, as can be expected in such a newspaper, are deliberately misleading. SAGA magazine, May 1970: Classified TOP SECRET-Apollo Astronauts Reported Two UFO Sightings, by Beckley and Salkin, p. 13 rr: Complete story of Apollo-12 UFO;. plus enough false information to "discredit" the true explanation. Quotes "space expert Gary Henderson", another active spreader of the myth. Refers to long-discredited stories of "secret dead Russian cosmonauts" probably created by F tank Edwards. Houstvn Post, Nov. 30, 1975. page 1D: "Just One Astronaut Claims Seeing UFO ", by Jim ;\laloney. 1his sensible and sane investigation (i\lcDivitt stuck to his story) clearly did not excite the national news media and was relegated to the obscuri ty of a local newspaper. Science and .\lechanics, June 1969. Cover Story: "This UFO was photographed by astronaut Gordon on Gemini 11 flight" (the co\·er photo shows a tremendously enlarged out of focus image of a piece of insulation floating a f.:w inches in fron t of the camera). Page -1-1, Lloyd '.\.lallan: ··.-\re liFO Space Crews Spying on ou r Astronauts?" Descriptio n of the late L. ~lallan's inter\'iews on Ge mini-l ;. provides some new informaLion but cements some old misconce ptirrns. Also embellishes Condon Report "unknowns". Lockhced-~.-\S.- \ Contract ;\ .-\ S 9 -5 191 (.\larch 19 70), ·'T1:ch:1kal Report: L'nid1.•11tified Vi,;uJI Ph1.•11<1mena ...\ssoc;ated wilh Sp:icl' fli:,:ht''. F . HL•atty and J. R:.iron. Di s<.: tb :ic•s the fr,1i,:1ne11ts ~<',· 11 :111d photographt'd on ,\ pol!•J· 12, and traces them t,> spacc,cr:ift effct·r;;.
------------ ~ REPL,Y To: REPLY To; 0 135 HART SENATE OfFICE 8UtLOlNG Q 103 FEDERAL COURTHOUSE BUILDING WASHINGTON, 0C 20510-1501 3206THSTREET (2021224-3744 Sioux CITY, IA 5 1101- 124A 0 TTY: (2021 224-4479 e-mail:ehucLgrassley@grassley.senate.gov 721 FEDERAL BUILDING tlnitEd ~totes ~rnotr Q (71 21 233-1860 210 WATERLOO B UILDING 531 COMMERCIAL STREET 210 W ALNUT $',-REET DES M OINES. IA 50309- 2140 CHARLES E. GRASSLEY WATERLOO, IA 50701-5497 (3191 232-6657 (5151284-4890 0 206 FEDERAL BUILDING WASH INGTON, DC 20510-1501 0 116 FEDERAL BUILDING 131 E. 41H S TREET 101 1 S1 STREET SE. CEDAR RAP10S. IA 52401 - 1227 (319) 363--6832 August 3, 1998 DAVENPORT, IA 52801 - 15 13 (3191322-4331 0 307 Fl!DEHAL B UILDING 8 SOUTH 6TH STREET COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA 51501-4204 Ms . Mary D. Kerwin (7121322-7103 Deputy Assoc. For Legislative Affairs National Aeronautics & Space Administration 300 E Street, S . W . Two Independence Square, Room 9L33 Washington , DC 20546 Dear Ms . Kerwin: Enclosed please find a communication from (6) ( 6 ) regarding several concerns about the space program . I woul d appreciate any assistance you could provide pertaining to this matter. Please mark your return corre spondence to the attention of Sherry Kuntz when responding to my office . Thank you for your attention to my request . D Charles E. Grassley United St ates Senator CEG/sk En clos ure Committee Assignments: FINANCE AGRICULTURE CHAIRMAN , JUDICIARY BUDGET SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER
. ( Author: (b)(o) <(b) (6) ~ at internet Dat_e~ 7/6/98 04:14 PM Priority: Normal TO: chuck grassley at Grassley-DC Subject: M essage from a Voter Greetings Honorable Senator Grassley, I have recently encountered a number of new and interesting tidbits of i nf ormation concet"oing letters T hovo previ~unJy written to you i n regard of the UFO phenomenon that seems to be happeni ng in the United State s as well as the rest of the world. I greatly appreciate all the i n f ormation you have led me to through our past correspondence . I am hoping you c an help me track down a few more specific things. Here is a something I heard from someone I was corresponding with: 11 0n Sunday, August 10, 1997 at around 9:45am CDT, I was wat-ching TV and switched to the NASA channel f or news of the ongoing shuttl e mission . At the time, they were broadcasting a nighttime view of Earth. As I watched, I was surprised to see a light rising vertically from the bottom of the screen where Earth was displayed. As it continued to rise vertically (relative to the TV screen), the shuttle camera clearly began to track the l i ght and kept the picture centered on it . "After it rose well above the horizon of Earth, the light made an apparent 90 - degree turn to the r ight (again relative to the screen) and continued off in that direction . The shuttle camera continued to track the object a nd began to zoom i n for a closer l ook. At that point NASA cut off the feed from the external camera and displayed the Houston space center instead. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared to record this on my VCR. The entire episode lasted l ess than a minute, so I was unable to get the VCR ready i n time." I am also interested in any information that can be relayed about the Groom Lake Area , also know as Area 51, or Dreamland, and an area known as Area S-4. The media has stated t hat these areas in the Nevada desert are testing grounds for US "Black Projects". I believe that vehicles such as the SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117 Stealth Fighter where tested here. The gove rnment to date denies the existence of such places, even though I have in my possession of several videotapes, pictures, and e ven a Russian satellite image showing the area. Does such a place exist? Or at leas t , are you, the Air Force, or NASA, whoever happens to be in control of the site willing to tell us that is does exist. It is my understanding that the Nellis Air Force Base surrounds Area 51, so I imagine that t he Air force is the one who has jurisdic tion over the Area. M any people including Bob Lazar, Bill Uhouse, and the father of a guy I work wi t h all claim to have worked in this secret area, and have seen and worked on craft o f an alien origin . Bill Ohouse claims that both President Nixon, and Bush visited the Area 51 facility to examine the progress of recreating alien technology. He also claims that the project was going on with the aid of an alien "gray" known as Jarod (JAY-rod). If there is any t ruth to thei r claims and the claims of many others, I woul d wonde r why such a spectacular secret would be kept from us, and why the aliens would not have made themselves known to t he general populace of Eart h . Please do not just send me another list of Project Blue Book documents, a nd I have already seen the censored files released by the CIA . These documents have been censored so all that they do is bring more suspicion toward the government, and they just make me think even more that someone is hiding something. The thing I can "t figure out is why.
Anything you can do to help in my search for the hidden truth is greatly appreciated. Please help me find out if we do have aliens at Area 51, or even an admission that Area 51 exists. Thanks Muc ~h e-..:.. ·-------, (b) 16) Here is a list of Organizations, and places which may be helpful in helping track down some information: Organizations - Military groups and civilian contractors. • Nellis Air Force Base - Controls the land surrounding Area Sl. * Nevada Test site - Borders base on the west. I nitially "owned" Area Sl. * Security Anonymous "Cammo Dudes" patrolling base perimeter. * "Janet" Aircraft - Official EG&G "airline" ferrying workers to Groom Lake * ~ir Force Flight Test Center - Agency that controls Area 51. Based at Edwardo Air Force Base. • EG&G Special Projects - General contractor at Area 51. * Bechtel - General contractor at Nevada Test Site, with some projects at Area 51. * Tonopah Test Range - "Semi-secret" aircraft testing base northwest of Area 51 • Lo ck.heed- Martin - Aircraft manufac turer for whom the base was built. * Johnson Controls - Contractor at Nevada Test Site, possibly also at Area 51. * Wackenhut Security - Security contractor at Nevada Test Site Places * Rachel, Nevada - Nevada's "UFO capital", the closest town to Area 51 * Basecamp Airfield - "Secret" airfield in plain sight * Green River Launch Complex, Utah- According to "Popular Mechanics" the site of the "new Area 51" * Papoose Lake - Site of Lazar's "Area S-4" south of Groom Lake • Tikaboo Peak - Last accessible viewpoint into Area 51 ..
-------- Author: {~ (6) <(o) (6) at internet Date: 7/6/98 04 :48 PM Priority: Normal TO: chuck grassley at Grassley-DC Subject : NASA This is a continuation of an e-mail I just sent you. These are some alleged conversations and observations made from NASA Astronauts. If there is ANY truth to this, there is a big sha~e shame, on NASA. If you could contact NASA on my behalf about t hese incidences ·r would be very grateful. (o) (6) Major Gordon Cooper One of the original Mercury Astronauts and the last American to fly in space alone. On May 15, 1963 he shot into space in a Mercury capsule for a 22 orbit journey around the world. During the fina l orbit, Major Gordon Cooper told the tracking station at Much (near Perth Australia) that he could see a glowing, greenish object ahead of him quickly approaching his capsule. The UFO was real and solid, because i t wa s picked up by Muchea's tracking radar . Cooper's sighting was reported by the National Broadcast Company, which was covering the flight step by step; but when Cooper landed, reporters were told that they would not be allowed to question him about the UFO sighting. Major Cooper was a firm believer in UFOs. Ten years earlier, in 1951 he had sighted a UFO while piloting an F-86 Sabrejet over Western Germany. They were metallic, saucer-shaped discs at considerable altitude and could out-maneuver all American fighter planes. Major Cooper also testified before the United Nations: "I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets ... Most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs." "I did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation of many flights of them, of different sizes, flying in fighter formation, generally from east to west over Europe . " And according to a taped interview by J. L. Ferrando, Major Cooper said: "For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists in astronautics. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us. And there are thousands of witness reports and a quantity of documents to prove this, but nobody wants to make them public. Why? Because authority is afraid that people may think of God knows what kind of horrible invaders. So the password still is: We have t • o avoid panic by all means." "I was furthermore a witness to an extraordinary phenomenon, here on this planet Earth. It happened a few months ago in Florida . There I saw with my own eyes a defined area of ground being consumed by flames, with four indentions left by a flying object which had descended in the middle of a field. Beings had left the craft (there were other traces to prove this). They seemed to have studied topography, they had collected soil samples and, eventually, they returned to where they had come from, disappearing at enormous speed .. . I happen to know that authority did just about everything to keep this incident from the press and TV, in fear of a panicky reaction from the public."Ed White & James McDivitt In June 1965, astronauts Ed White (first American to walk in space) and James McDivitt were passing over Hawaii in a Gemini spacecraft when they saw a weird-looking metallic object. The UFO had long arms sticking out of it. McDivitt took pictures with a cine-camera . Those pictures have never been released . James Lovell and Frank Borman In December 1965, Gemini astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman also saw a UFO during their second orbit of their record-breaking 14 day flight. Borman reported that he saw an unidentified spacecraft . some distance from their capsule. Gemini Control, at Cape Kennedy told him that he was seeing the final stage of their own Titan booster rocket. Borman confirmed that he could see the booster rocket all right, but that he could also see something completely different . During James Lovell's flight on Gemini 7: Borman: ER GEMINI 7, HOUSTON HOW DO YOU READ? Control: Loud and clear 7 go ahead. Borman: GOT A BOGEY AT 10 O'CLOCK HIGH. Control: This is Houston. Say again 7. Borman: SAID WE HAVE A BOGEY AT 10 O'CLOCK HIGH. control: Roger Control: Gemini 7, is that the booster or is that an actual sighting? Borman: WE HAVE SEVERAL... ACTUAL SIGHTINGS. Control: . .. Estimated distance or size? Borman: WE ALSO HAVE THE BOOSTER IN SIGHT... Further controller cuts in: Gemini control here again, the reference in that conversation was er bogey. It was er Borman who reported sighting the bogey. Er this is Gemini control Houston at er 4 hours 24 minutes into the flight. Ironically, it was Lovell who ma de the classic statemen t "Please be informed that there is a Santa Claus". This was during his Apollo 8 flight on Christmas day in 1968 - some people believe there's a deeper meaning to these words, although the sceptics believe that this was little more than American humour. However, Walter Schitta, who was aboard Mercury 8, reputedly used Santa Clause as a code-name for a UFO presence, adding some weight to the argument that Lovell was experiencing another sighting. Neil Armstrong & Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin According to the NASA Astronaut Neil Armstrong the Aliens have a base on the Moon and told us in no uncertain terms to get off and stay off the Moon . According to hitherto un-confirmed reports, both Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldri n saw UFOs shortly after that historic landing on the Moon in Apollo 11 on 21 July 1969. I remember hearing one of the astronauts refer to a "light" in or on a crater during the television transmission, followed by a request from mission control for further information. Nothi ng more was heard.
A<a:c,;ord i a9 Lo a f.ormer NASA emp .1.oye~ ot t q lii nder 1 un nam ,ed ra,di o j,a rps wi t j.1 I their own VHF receiving facilities that b ypassed NASA' s b r o a d casting outletc pic k e d u p t h e follo wing exchange: NASA: W hat's there? Mission Control calling Apollo 11... Apollo 11: These "Babies " are huge , Sir! Enormous! OH MY GOD! You wouldn't believe it! I'm telling you there are other spacecraft out there,. Lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They ' re on the Moon watching us! The two astronauts, talking to the NASA base in Houston. Text of the conversation: Astronaut 1: Hal What is it? Astronaut 2: We have some explanation for that? --BEEP- - Houston: We have (not), don't worry, continue your program! --BEEP- - Astronaut 1: Oh boy it ' s a , it's, it, it is really something (similar to) fantastic here, you, you could never imagine this! --BEEP- - Houston: Roger, we know about that, could you go the other way, go back the other way! --BEEP- - Astronaut 1: Well it's kind of (rigged) ha, pretty spectacular ..... . god . . . what is that there? ··, --BEEP- - Astronaut 1: It's (hollow), what the hell is that? Houston: Go Tango, Tango! --BEEP- - Astronaut 1: Ha! There's kind of light there now! --BEEP- - Houston : Roger, we got it, we (watched it), lose communication, Bravo Tango, Bravo Tango , select Jezebel, Jezebel! --BEEP- - Astronaut 1: . ..... ya, ha! .... . . but this is unbelievable! Houston: (we call you up Bravo Tango, Bravo Tango)! A certain professor, who wished to remain anonymous, was engaged in a discussion with Neil Armstrong during a NASA symposium. Professor: What REALLY happened out there with Apollo 11? Armstrong: It was incredible, of course we had always known there was a possibility, the fact is, we were warned off! (by the Aliens). There was never any
question then of a space station or a moon city. 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. Professor: But NASA had other missions after Apollo 11? Armstrong: Naturally - NASA was committed at that time, and couldn't risk panic on Earth. But it really was a quick scoop and back again. According to a Dr. Vladimir Azhazha: "Neil Armstrong relayed the message to Mission Control that two large , mysterious objects were watching them after having landed near the moon module. But this message was never heard by the public -- because NASA censored it ." According to a Dr. Aleksandr Kasantsev, Buzz Aldrin took color movie film of the UFOs from inside the module, and continued filming them after he and Armstrong went outside . Armstrong confirmed that the story was true but refused to go into further detail, beyond admitting that the, CIA was behind the cover- up. Donald Slayton Donald Slayton a Mercury astronaut revealed in an interview he had seen UFOs in 1951: "I was testing a P-51 fighter in Minneapolis when I spotted this object. I was at about 10,000 feet on a nice, bright, sunny afternoon. I thought the object was a kite, then I realized that no kite is gonna fly that high. II As I got closer it looked like a weather balloon, gray and about three feet in diameter. But as soon as I got behind the darn thing it didn't look like a balloon anymore. It looked like a saucer, a disk . About the same time, I realized that it was suddenly going away from me - - and there I was, running at about 300 miles per hour. I tracked it for a little way, and then all of a sudden the damn thing just took off . It pulled about a 45 degree climbing turn and accelerated and just flat disappeared." Major Robert White On July 17, 1962 Major Robert White reported a UFO during his fifty - eight-mile high flight of an X-15. Major White reported: "I have no idea what it could be. It was grayish in color and about thirty to forty feet away." Then according to a Time Magazine article, Major White exclaimed over the radio:
"There ARE things out there! There absolutely is!" NASA Pilot Joseph A. Walker On May 11, 1962 NASA pilot Joseph Walker said that one of his tasks was to detect UFOs during his X-15 flights. He had filmed five or six UFOs during his record breaking fifty - mile - high flight in April, 1962. It was the second time he had filmed UFOs in flight. During a lecture at the Second National Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space Research in Seattle, Washington he said : .. "I don't feel like speculating about them. All"I know i:s what appeared on the film which was developed after the flight." - Joseph Walker To date none of those films has been released to the public for viewing. Commander Eugene Cernan Eugene Cernan was commander of Apollo 17. In a Los Angeles Times article in 1973 he said, about UFOs: "· .. I've been asked (about UFOs) and I 've said publicly I thought they {UFOs) were somebody else, some other civilization." NASA's Maurice Chatelain In 1979 Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA Communications Systems confirmed that Armstrong had i ndeed reported seeing two UFOs on the rim of a crater. Chatelain believes that some UFOs may come from our own solar system -- specifically Titan . "The encounter was common knowledge in NASA, but nobody has talked about it until now. 11 " ... 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 ." Pilot Walter Schirra "I think that Walter Schirra aboard Mercury 8 was the first of the astronauts to use the code name 'Santa Claus • to indicate the presence of flying saucers next to space capsules. However, his announcements were barely noticed by the general public. James Lovell It was a 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." The rumors persist. NASA may well be a civilian agency, but many of its programs are funded by the defense budget 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 United Nations 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?Shuttle Discovery - Mission 20 The voices of the astronaut and of the amateur radio station WA3NAN Goddard in the Space Center of Greenbelt Maryland . WA3NAN: We are retransmitting the Space Shuttle airground communication from mission 20 . This is WA3NAN . Astronaut James F. Buchli ... Astronaut: Houston, this is Riscovery, we still have the alien spacecraft under observance ...
JLJN 2 Lt /999 L:ATW:mtg: U1998-407f The Honorable Olympia J. Snowe United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Snowe: Thank you for your May 18, 1998, letter on behalf of (b) ( 6 } __ regarding Unidentified Flying Objects and his concern over the "authenticity of the recently released Mariner photographs." There are no recently released Mariner photographs. We assume (b) ( 6 is referring to the images taken from our Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). NASA does not tamper with images received from MGS. These images are received on Earth in digital format, meaning "O and 1". NASA merely translates these digital images, using computer processing, into actual images. All images and other instrument data is deposited in a publicly accessible archive within six months after receipt where they are available to everyone. All the images currently released can be found on the Internet at http://photojournal.jp1.nasa.gov. We appreciate your interest in these matters, and trust this information will be helpful to you in responding to {6) (6) Sincerely, .,d "1J • ... , . • ieninaer Edward Heffernan (Acting) Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs ecc: S/Ruth Netting LB/Barbara Cherry Sent to Mark Berumen @ Hill Office (250 SROB) ((J/22-- ltc8 w. 1-----a COMMnTEES: ~ OLYMPIA J. SN OWE MAINE ARMED SERVICES CoUNSEL TO THE AsslSTANT BUDGET MA..K.,:1TV LEADER COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND 250 RUSSELL S ENATE OFFICE 8UILD1NG TRANS PORTATION (202) 224-5344 CHAIR OF OCEANS ANO ASHERIES WASHINGTON, DC 20510-1903 SUBCOMMITTEE SMALL BUSINESS May 18, 1998 Mr. Lawrence E . Medway Director, Congressional Inquiries Division National Aeronautic and Space Administration 300 E . Street, SW Washington, D.C. 20546 Dear Mr. Medway : I am writing to x ou regarding the concerns of my constituent, (o (6) (b) (6) _:_:.:.:--- of Stonington, Maine. (~~) is interested in U.F . O. 's and the recent photos of Mars which were recently released. (o) (6) ___ is not convinced wi th the authenticity of the recently released Mariner photographs . Further, he questions the authenticity based on the picture only having 75 shades of grey, rather than t he 256 it is supposed to have. Any information you could provide which would help me address his concerns would be appreciated . Thank you for your time and attention. lticerel~ , 1 ~t. -~ uni~ tes senator OJS:mjb A UGUSTA B tDDEFORO PORTUINO PRESOUE ls~e Two GAEAT FALLS Pt.Av. 68 SEWALL STI1EET, SUITE 101C ONE CUMBERLAND PLACE, SUITE 306 231 M AIN Smerr. Su1 TE 2 3 CANAL PtAZA, SUITE 601 169 ACAOfMV STI1fe1', Sum 3 Su1Te 78 AUGUSTA, ME 04330 0ANGOA, ME 04401 8100,•0RO, M E 04005 P,O. Box 188 P•Fsoue i s, e. M E 04769 A UBURN, ME 042 10 (207) 622-8292 (207) 945--0432 (207) 282--4144 POATLANO, ME 04112 (207) 764-5124 (207) 786-2451 (207) 874'"°883 M AINE RELA'< SERVICE TOO 1" 955-,3323 AUBURN BANGOR PRINTEO ON RECYCLED PAPER IN MAINE CALL TOLL-FREE l -800-432- 1599
L98-407 - Sen. Snowe Enclosed is a fact sheet entitled "The US Government and Unidentified Flying Objects." As stated in the second paragraph of the Fact Sheet, Congress, in 1993, directed NASA to end its search program. T~r-extraterrestfials is conduetee-through-Ibe.Seatch..for:. E~teHigenee-I-nsHtute-(-SET+Institute) in-Mountain View, CA. (_ As for your interest in the recent photos of Mars taken from our Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), not the Mariner, these images are received on Earth in digital format, meaning "O and l" . NASA does not tamper with these images. However, the images do require computer processing before they are suitable for public viewing. All images and other instrument data obtained from the MGS will be deposited in a publicly accessible archive, and they will then be available to everyone, scientists and citizens alike, who wants to examine them and draw their own individual conclusions. You can access all the images currently released from the following website: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/ We appreciate your interest in this matter and trust this information will be useful to you.
L98-407 - Sen. Snowe Enclosed is a fact sheet entitled "The US Government and Unidentified Flying Objects." As stated in the second paragraph of the Fact Sheet, Congress, in 1993, directed NASA to end its search program. Today th@ searoh :fer-extratertEtrials is condttst«l-through..Ihe-Sear:ch.ior. E~rate11esli ial fotemgenee-Ins-t1-tute-(-SffFHnstitute) in-Mountain View, CA. (___ As for your interest in the recent photos of Mars taken from our Mars Global Surveyor (MOS), not the Mariner, these images are received on Earth in digital format, meaning "0 and I". NASA does not tamper with these images. However, the images do require computer processing before they are suitable for public viewing. All images and other instrument data obtained from the MGS will be deposited in a publicly accessible archive, and they will then be available to everyone, scientists and citizens alike, who wants to examine them and draw their own individual conclusions. You can access all the images currently released from the following website: http://photojoumal.jpl.nasa.gov/ We appreciate your interest in this matter and trust this informatio n will be useful to you.
.___ ACTION REQUIRED CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRY Office of Legislative Affairs DATE: May 26, 1998 NASA Headquarters PAGES, if faxed: 3 300 E Street, SW Washington, DC 20546 TO: S/Ruth Netting Anne Ward PHONE: PHONE: (202) 358-1946 FAX: FAX: (202) 358-4343 Action assigned to: S/Ruth Netting Due date: June 9, 1998 Information copies: Action number/ Member: L98-407- Sen. Snowe INSTRUCTIONS: Please prepare a draft reply to the attached Congressional inquiry and send it via electronic mail to the following address: Anne.Ward@hq.nasa.gov or send a copy of your reply on a diskette to the attention of Anne Ward. If you need clarification of this assignment or additional time to prepare this reply, please contact Anne Ward. MESSAGE: Ruth, If you answer this before June 1, please send answer to me. Thanks. Helen
< CONFIRMATION REPORT> 05-26-1998(TUE) 10:26 C TRANSM IT J NO. DATE TIME DESTINATION PG. DURATION MODE RESULT 18502 5-26 10:25 NASA HQTS 2 0°00'52" NORMAL OK 2 0·00•52"
-, HegClq Yarters Action l racKing '5ystem (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L/1998-00407 Title : Sen Snowe fwds ltr from _________ (b) ( 6 ) _, who's interested in U.F.O. and th e recent Mars photo Recipient: Author: Organization: Action Office: Status: UHeffernan SNOWE SENATE LD/Rothman:P Open Date Written: Date Received : Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed: >>Current Due Date: Original Due Date: 05/18/1998 05/26/1998 06/18/1998<< Signature Office: UHeffernan Info Offices: UHeffernan, UHeninger, UKerwin Abstract: SEN SNOWE FWDS LTR FROM (o) (6) ___ OF STOCKINGTON, MAINE, WHO'S INTERESTED IN U.FO.'S AND THE RECENT PHOTOS OF MARS WHICH WERE RECENTLY RELEASED. Comments: Enclosures: NO Related Records : Keywords: {b) (6) __STONINGTON, MAINE U.F.O. MARS File Plan: Analyst: BMoore 05/26/1998 Page 1 of 1,o~ 1 _t DRAFT 0~ {; L:ATW:mtg:U1998-407f / 7 /;> y ~ he Honorable Olympia J. Snowe United States Senanns \. ., Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Snowe: There are no recently released Mariner photographs. We assume (6>l 6 ) is referring to the images taken from our Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). NASA does not tamper with imageveceived from MGS. These images are received on Earth in digital format, meaning "0~nd 1". NASA merely translates these digital images, using cq_mputer processing, into actual images. All images and other instrument data is deposited in a publicly accessible archive within six months after receipt where they are available to everyone. All the images currently released can be found on the Internet at http://photojournal.jp1 . nasa.gov. We appreciate your interest in these matters, and trust this information will be helpful to you in responding tol 6) (6) _____ ___. Sincerely, Edward Heffernan (Acting) Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs.. ecc: S/Ruth Netting LB/Barbara Cherry Sent to Mark Berumen @ Hill Office (250 SROB)
5 Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L/1998-00494 Title: Ward/White House Referral: UFO Hearings Recipient: A/Goldin Author: Organization: (15) (6) White House Date Written: Date Received: Date Concurred: Date Submitted: 05/17/1998 06/18/1998 Action Office: Status: UWard:S Closed Date Signed: Date Closed: >>Current Due Date: Original Due Date: 06/26/1998 06/26/1998 07/15/ 1998<< 07/15/1998 Signature Office: UHeffernan Info Offices: UHeffernan, UHeninger, UKerwin Abstract: White House Correspondence from ( 6 ) ( 6 ) who supports having congressional hearing regarding the existence of UFO's. ---- - Comments: Note: Vanessa needs letterhead copy of signed/dated response. Enclosures: White House Memo Related Records: A/1998-00416 Keywords: (b} ( 6 ) J UFO, hearings File Plan: 1320.4 Analyst: JMassey 06/24/1998 Page 1 of 1
JUN 2 4 L:ATW:mtg :U1998-494f (6) (6) Dear (b) (6) The White House has requested NASA to respond to your May 17, 1998, letter to President Clinton concerning possible hearings on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). We are not aware of any hearings scheduled on UFO. Enclosed is a Fact Sheet, "The US Government and Unidentified Flying Objects," which gives a brief history of NASA's investigations into UFO. We appreciate your interest in this matter and trust this information will be helpful to you. Sincerely, Edward Heffernan (Acting) Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs Enclosure ecc: S/Ruth Netting LB/Barbara Cherry Sent to Sue J. Smith Director, Office of Agency Liaison Room 6, OEOB The White House Washington, DC 20502 &l-alt:ii ltt.LY }J.12 ' I i ~lr:;y
THE W HITE H OUS E WASHINGTON l: I DATE MEMORANDUM FOR: ' J FROM : SUE J. SMITH c;f'x1 DIRECTOR, OFFfd[ OF AGENCY LIAISON SUBJECT: REFERRAL OF CASEWORK IN BULK An unprecedented number of individuals still write the President and the First Lady for help. I know that this has meant a far greater volume of mail for your agency than ever before. I appreciate your continuing cooperation i n our efforts to be a ·s respons i ve as possible. Th e attached l et t ers have not received a White House Staff response. I am forwarding this correspon den ce to your agency f or any appropriate action. Please return the original incoming letter, along with a copy of any written or telephone response, to me at the address below. I also would appreciate y our sending a copy of y our agency ' s log of the nam~§ and adclr@& &@B of 1:h@Be :iFidi vielual 9 . Any misr ~farralg should be r e ttirn.ed -C9 my o.r:.i:u;~, i.i: yg~ 11.§V~ qy~etiQns you can reach me at: 4 5 6 - 7486. Su e J . Smith Director, Office of Agency Liaison Room 6, OEOB The White Ho u se W ashi ngton, D.C. 20502 Again , t hank you for your continuing help. A98'- 0 I I C,'f
From nobody@ wwwr.-wrutehouse.gov Sun May 17 17:57:37 l998 Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 17:54:05 -0400 From: (6) (6) Subject: Inbo W1d-White_House_WWW_MAIL => PRESIDENT Apparently-to: president@WhiteHouse.GOV To: president@WhiteHouse.GOV Errors-to: The Postmaster < P,Qstmast~I.whitehouse.gov> Reply-to: {6) (6) <(b) (6) > Message-id: <199805l 72154.RAA07723@www 1. whitehouse.gov> Keywords: WWW-Correspondence; ; Ask a specific question regarding Administration policy; Science or Technology; Private Citizen; Comments: Forwarded from White House WWW Comments: This message scanned by SCAN version 0. 1 jms/960226 [Connection Infonnation] CLIENT: ww-trD2.proxy.aol.com(l 52.163.201.136] BROWSER Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0; AOL 3.0; Wmdows 95; Sony URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Mail/html/Mail_ President.html [Sender Infonnation] PERSONAL-NAME: {6) (6) EMAlL-ADDRESS: ORGANIZATION: RELATIONSHIP: STREET-ADDRESS: (6) (6) ---------i 01Y: Ventura STA1E-PROvrnCE: Ca ZIP-CODE: 93004 ~Q1.JNTR.Y; l Sf} [Message Information) PURPOSE: Ask a specific question regarding Administration policy TOPIC: Science or Technology AFFILIATION: Private Citizen SUBJECT: UFOs [Message) Dear Mr. President, It is my understanding that you, Mrs. Clinton, Vice-President Gore and heads of Congress, including the CIA director, members of the Senate and House, the Executive Branch and senior military reps in the Pentagon were briefed in or around December of 1997 by Dr. Steven Greer, International Director of CSETI( The Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Basically, he calls on you and other members ofcongress to hold open congressional meetings. What is your positon and intent on this matter? Will you push for open hearings or are you stonewalled as well by MJ-12? Certainly on your appoinonent as President you were briefed on the existence of UFOs. Please use your Executive power to report and open the truth to the American people. It is time. Your personal reply is respectfully requested. Thank you Sincerely, (b) (6)
L:ATW:mti;,:U1998-494f (bf (o) Dear lb) (o) The White House has requested NASA to respond to your May 17, 1998, letter l'"o ~:QC:: J ot.i:!41..:f-. ( ;;~ concerning possible hearings on t1FQ!s. . - ~ r-- . . , ( f ') 0 I) ~lll\,cl• Cl.f\+. v~ '"' .'' ''~ a lOJ <.?d-.,. u ~ We are not aware of any hearings scheduled on U£f)\ -t-. T-he-att-aeAed-fact"Sflea,"The US Government and Unidentified Flyin Objects," iv~ abrief history of NASA's investigations into UFd~. llo\t1e!~f.i er be:--. ge-vemment is curFently inve&tl~aling UFO's. We appreciate your interest in this matter and trust t Sincerely, Edward Heffernan (Acting) Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs Enclosure is information will be helpful to you.
ecc: S/Ruth Netting LB/Barbara Cherry Sent to Sue J . Smith Director, Office of Agency Liaison Room 6, OEOB The White House Washington, DC 20502
Headquarters Action Tracking System (HAT S) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: U1998-00494 Title: Ward/White House Referral : UFO Hearings R e cipient: A/Goldin Author: '.@.36) Organization: White House Date Written: 05/17/1998 Date Received: 06/18/1998 Date Concurred: Date Submitted : Date Signed: Date Closed: Action Office: L/Ward:S >>Current Due Date: 07/15/1998<< Original Due Date: 07/15/ 1998 Status: Open Signature Office: UHeffernan Info Offices: UHeffernan, L/Heninger, UKerwin Abstract: White House Correspondence from 6 ) ( 6 ) who supports having congressional hearing regarding the existence of UFO's. Comments: Note: Vanessa needs letterhead copy of signed/dated response. Enclosures: White House Memo Related Records: A/1998-00416 Keywords: UFO, hearings File Plan: Analyst: JMassey 06/18/1998 Page 1 of 1
L 6/17/98 15:54:01 CORRESPONDENCE ACTION STATUS HISTORY Page 1 Correspondence and Action Tracking System Code A ID Number: A98-01199 Title: WHR BULK: CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS ON UFO'S Recipient: Organization: GOLDIN A *Other Recipients/ Organizations*: Author: Organization: (6J (6) WHR BULK •other Authors I Organizations": Date Written: Date Received: Original Date Due: >> Current Date Due: Submitted for Signature: Date Signed: j Date Completed: 05/17/1998 06/17/1998 07/15/1998 07/15/1998 << Action Office: L Signature Office: L Action Officer: HEFFERNAN Signature Officer: HEFFERNAN Status: Open Security: Public Priority: Normal In/Out: Incoming Info Copies: A,P Abstract: WHR BULK: VIA E-MAIL, (6) (6) , VENTURA, CA, SUPPORTS HAVING CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS REGARDING THE EXISTENCE OF UFO'S. Enclosures: NONE Comment: Keywords; WHR BULK CALIFORNIA CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS UFO'S ET'S Related Records: File plan: 1320-1 G Ad Hoc: A/1998-00461 Clerk: vc
Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: A/1998-00461 Title: WHR Bulk: Congressional Hearings on UFO's Recipient: A/Goldin Author: Organization: WHR Bulk Action Office: UHeffernan Status: Open Date Written: Date Received: Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed: >>Current Due Date: Original Due Date: 05/17/1998 06/17/1998 07/15/1998<< 07/15/1998 Signature Office: U Heffernan Info Offices: A/Goldin, P/WILHIDE Abstract: WHR Bulk: Via E-mail,(b) < 6 >ventura, CA, supports having congressional hearings regarding the existence of UFO's. Comments: Enclosures: None Related Records: A98-01199 Keywords: WHR Bulk California Congressional Hearings UFO's File Plan: 1320-1 G Analyst: VCoates 06/17/1998 Page 1 of 1
Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING I CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: U1998-00470 Title: WARD/Rep. Gordon re taxpayers money on space aliens. Recipient: UHeffernan Author: Organization: Action Office: Status: GORDON HOUSE L/Ward:S Closed Date Written: Date Received: Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed: >>Current Due Date: Original Due Date: 06/04/1998 06/15/1998 06/18/1998 06/18/1998 07/06/1998<< Signature Office: UHeffernan Info Offices: UHeffernan, L/Heninger, UKerwin, LO/Rothman Abstract: REP. GORDON WRITES ON BEHALF OF (6) (6) RE TAXPAYERS MONEY BEING SPENT ON SPACE ALIENS. Comments: Enclosures: YES LTR Related Records: Keywords: (b) (6) SPACE ALIENS TAXPAYERS MONEY, UFO File Plan: 1320.4 Analyst: BMoore 06/18/1998 Page 1 of 1
J N I 8 L:ATW:mtg: U1998-470f (o) (6) Deadb) (6) Congressman Bart Gordon has asked NASA to respond to your recent letter to him wherein you enclosed an article on Congress funding the search for extraterrestrials. Enclosed is a fact sheet entitled "The US Government and Unidentified Flying Objects." As stated in the second paragraph of the Fact Sheet, Congress, in 1993, directed NASA to end its search program. Today the search for extraterrestrials is conducted through The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI Institute) in Mountain View, CA. We appreciate your interest in this matter and trust this information will be useful to you. Sincerely, I. lYnn W.~He;in~ar Edward Heffernan (Acting) Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs Enclosure cc: The Honorable Bart Gordon ecc: S/Ruth Netting LB/Barbara Cherry Sent to Patton Lane@ Hill Office (2201 RHOB) ~ls \cei ~ Un it (
I II I, lll,11 ,I ,I, ..,II ,I, I, ,I.. I,, I, 111, ..,II 11, I11,1 rll)(o))____________ , , • .. '(? PM • ) I ' ·:1 ; L • ' • --~ ✓
'201 AAVBURN BUILOING WASHINGTON. DC 2051~206 ~ BAft'f GORDON 6TH DISTRICT. TENNESSEE 1 2021225-4231 FAX: 1202l 22S-6887 COMMERCE COMMITTEE SCIENCE COMMlffiE 106 SOUTli MAPLE STREET PO. BOX 1986 RANK ING MEMBER MURFREESBORO, TN'.31133 SUSCOMMITitE dNSPACE l615l89e-1986 FAX: {815) 896--8218 <trongress of tbe Wniteb ~tates 17 SOUlH JEFFEflSON STI\EET P.O. 8OX 1U0 ~ouse of l\epresentatibes COOKEVILLE. TN 38501 1'93l J528-5907 June 4, 1998 Ms . Mary D. Kerwin Deputy Associate Administrator For Legeslative Affairs National Aeronautics and Space Administration Two Independence Square, Room 9L33 300 E St., SW Washington, D. C . 20546 Dear Ms . Kerwin, I am writing to you on behalf of my constituent , (6) (6) (6) (6) , and have enclosed a copy of her inquiry . I would appreciate i t if you wou l d respond direct l y to my constituent, as well as send a copy to me for record keeping . I look forward to receiving your response. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration in this matter . Please ca l l if you n eed more information or have further questions . Stay in touch, BART GORDON Member of Congress BJG/pl email: bart.gordon@mail.house.gov Internet: http:/ /www.house.gov/gordon /| SWMPAMENIVA = BY Mi ANGE eed. ne % és <C ee Ue 7 ee alee a” I’m madder than R2D2 with a loose “g | Lat Sas eat bers eg og a 4 e=] is paying 120 million bucks “dr hard- §§ WRGeOe BW Ohana ow i; act spac€ aliens) << Ts ee ee Oe git F Lets face it — w hy the hell are ‘we spend- ay i § i A a A ig e' | f |! ; Le ~All the eggheads ASA have 6 l = ficorcerstemerce ,,, & TAXPAVERS ARE FOOTING THE BILL = BALL is ~3™. ~ . A < ae = tad ep ope seat Say more UFOs than you i a ‘ Sei re ie ab ere rs Wf Oe 8 Mey, ee to fall 4. 1 = Dr. Ruth Jones Ham; Picnics Se for smart « Pye or > fame er is the scientific Guu ae watc? =a se ee aliens. aI | terrestrial InteMfigence: day Cr esreails sae ts : I , oject That is expected Be : a TUsted, te: itn goegress bias | os tO COSL a whopping 0 : og eS . ‘ fi ey 0 Toeate thane Million this sa! million over the next 10 (ie ag é | Bo a A expyers Wh, S | eae for Extras ater = so. pig-biting mad_is fi Vay eS go seit aa ity these high-tegh elec- gillian enema nana Wha hoes wide RACERS = fronic isténing devices. : SA eee a Bc Boer ts ot 4 , SA ‘ roe “Sone oy stipid_aliens" >> ~ | jine is that smart aliens are al-|¢an about space creatures|Earth and make humans into > as) “they were mart, they would! ready here and the only ones who are already he for |STaves, that’s why. ©»: ws | 7 ih 5 ncaa youlant thes are so dumb they’! T never _an-| ‘hose are the ght but sponge on bucks — Par hb | arth) ag a ining gale did make|I’ve Sisko and Tee We could—b om..with le) < | Beast gare |_are_seeing allonat the hell dfe-we-going tol If these suckers are_so|Yhreat to Earth once and for | g = uae ——— Wh don’t | havent gone public? od Fa <a. Pr * ao “SCIENTIFIC QUEENPIN: WE get seman try! se most of them are ij xar g = _ = MY AMERICA = MY AMERICA & MY AMERICA § ra F
The US Government and Unidentified Flying Objects http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/ facts/HTM L/FS-017-HQ.htm I ' . NASA Facts fIL£ COPY National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA Head(1Jares Public A f0. irs Offce CcdeP 300 E Street SW washington DC 2054 6 FS-1997-01-017-HQ The US Government and Unidentified Flying Objects No branch of the United States Government is currently involved with or responsible for investigations into the possibility of alien life on other planets or for investigating Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's). The US Air Force (USAF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have had intermittent, independent investigations of the possibility of alien life on other planets; however, none of these has produced factual evidence that life exists on other planets, nor that UFO's are related to aliens. From I 947 to 1969, the Air Force investigated UFO's; then in 1977, NASA was asked to examine the possibility of resuming UFO investigations. After studying all of the facts available, it was determined that nothing would be gained by further investigation, since there was an absence of tangible evidence. In October 1992, NASA was directed by Congress to begin a detailed search for artificial radio signals from other civilizations under the NASA Towards Other Planetary Systems (TOPS)/High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) program (also known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project). Congress directed NASA to end this project in October 1993, citing pressures on the US Federal budget. The HRMS did not detect any confirmed signal before it was stopped. However, similar work will continue in a more limited manner through efforts of private groups and through academic institutions. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI Institute) in Mountain View, CA, effectively replaced the Government project, borrowing the signal processing system from NASA. The SETI Institute is a nonprofit corporation conducting research in a number of fields including all science and technology aspects of astronomy and planetary sciences, chemical evolution, the origin oflife, biological evolution, and cultural evolution. During several space missions, NASA astronauts have reported phenomena not immediately explainable; however, in every instance NASA determined that the observations could not be termed "abnormal" in the space environment. The 1947 to 1969 USAF investigations studied UFO's under Project Blue Book. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was 1 of 3 06/16/ 1998 10:35 AM
l'he US dovemment and Unidentified Flying Objects http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/facts/HTML/FS-017-HQ.html . . terminated December 17, 1969. Of the total of 12,6 18 sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remain "unidentified." The decision to discontinue UFO investigations was based on an evaluation of a report prepared by the University of Colorado entitled, "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects;" a review of the University of Colorado's report by the National Academy of Sciences; previous UFO studies; and Air Force experience investigating UFO reports during the 1940's, '50's and '60's. As a result of experience, investigations, and studies since 1948, the conclusions of Project Blue Book were: (1) no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force was ever a threat to our national security; (2) there was no evidence submitted to, or discovered by, the Air Force that sightings categorized as "unidentified" represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modem scientific knowledge; and (3) there was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" were extraterrestrial vehicles. With the termination of Project Blue Book, the USAF regulation establishing and controlling the program for investigating and analyzing UFO's was rescinded. Documentation regarding the former Project Blue Book investigation was permanently transferred to the • Modem Military Branch, National Archives and Records Service, in Washington, DC 20408, and is available for public review and analysis. Since the termination of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations by the USAF or NASA. Given the current environment of steadily decreasing defense and space budgets, it is unlikely that the Air Force or NASA will become involved in this type of costly project in the foreseeable future. Since neither NASA nor the Air Force is engaged in day-to-day UFO research, neither one reviews UFO-related articles intended for publication, evaluates UFO-type spacecraft drawings, or accepts accounts of UFO sightings or applications for employment in the field ofaerial phenomena investigation. UFO Points of Contact 1. For further information on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, please contact the SETI Institute, 2035 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, (415) 960-4530. 2. News media requiring Project Blue Book files should contact the National Archives Public Affairs Office, (202) 501 -5525. Public queries should be addressed to the Project Blue Book archivist at (202) 501-5385. For queries not related to Project Blue Book, contact the National Archives receptionist at (202) 501-5400. Documentation is available from: Modem Military Branch, National Archives and Records Service, Eighth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20408. 3. The Air Force publication, "The Roswell Report: Fact vs. 2 of3 06/16/ 1998 10:35 AM
l'hc US Clovemme n t and Unidentified Flying O bjects http://www.hq.nasa .gov/offi cc/pao/ facts/l lT M L/FS-O I ? - HQ.html . " Fiction in the New Mexico Desert," a lengthy document providing all of the details available from the Air Force on the Roswell incident, is available for $52 from the US Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-9328. 4. There are a number of universities and professional scientific organizations that have considered UFO phenomena during periodic meetings and seminars. A list ofprivate organizations interested in aerial phenomena may be found in Gale's Encyclopedia ofAssociations. 5. Persons wishing to report UFO sightings are advised to contact law enforcement agencies. Responsible NASA Official: Elsie Weigel - eweigel@hg.nasa.gov Web Page Curator: Woody Smith - woody.smith@hq.nasa.gov Web Designer: Pamela Sams Revised: February 14, 1997 3 of 3 06/ 16/ 1998 10:35 AM
- L:A1W:mtg:U1998-470f (6} (6) Dear 'Cb) (6) Congressman Bart Gordon has asked NASA to respond to your recent letter to him wherein you enclosed an article on Congress funding the search for extraterrestrials. Enclosed is a fact sheet entitled "The US Government and Unidentified Flying Objects." ~ ¥01:1 will Aete-.tAaHl'l the secenEI paragrc1~ -'1Ae Congress in 1993 directed NASA to end ~ ~ ~ ·its-search tore~ ,; ~ 1 -J.s'\\\ <;,,Q_ ~ Today the search for extraterrestrials is conducted through The Search for \ . ~ - Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI Institute) in Mountain View, CA. X'.t. 0 \i Q!. ~-...) ' \J 1 ~ ..J J\--e. We appreciate your interest in this matter~~ ~ k v-:- 'f- f ~ 1<:>_,,. ( ~< + Sincerely, Is 1 >-1 } ~ • )'~ ~~ ~ - ~~ ~ ,/ ·v\.,~ 'f ~ Edward Heffernan ~~ (Acting) Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs ~ Enclosure ~9. cc: The Honorable Bart Gordon
..... ecc: S/Ruth Netting LB/Barbara Cherry Sent to Patton Lane @ Hill Office (2201 RHOS)
LA98-00106 Security : U Name To: GOLDIN Action/Info: A Due Date - Current: 05/28/98 Due Date - Original: 05/28/98 Suspense Status: C Date Completed: 05/01/98 Action Office: L/S WARD Info Copy: AI,EH,LH,MDK Signature Office: HENINGER Enclosures: N Clerk : JM Interim Replies Dates: Comments : Response Progress : Rel'd records: A98-00789 File plans : 1320.4 Type: I No. Organization 1 ADMINISTRATOR 0 0 43 WHR 0 0 Topics Written : 03/16/98 Received: 04/23/98 !Keywords WHITE HOUSE CSETI HEARING PUBLIC UFO EXTRATERRESTRIAL EVIDENCE Storage Location: Summary of Contents: WHITE HOUSE REFERRAL : (o) (B) , MEMBER OF CSETI, SUPPORTS OPEN CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS, OR A PRESIDENTIAL DISCUSSION, REGARDING EVIDENCE AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF ALIEN BEINGS AND SPACECRAFT. Referred No. Organization From : 0 0 0
AY L:ATW:mtg:LA98-106f (6) (6) Dear(Df(o) The White House has forwarded to NASA for response your letter of March 16, 1998, in which you advocate Congressional Hearings or a Presidential Discussion regarding alien beings and their spacecraft. Enclosed is a NASA Fact Sheet entitled "The U.S. Government and Unidentified Flying Objects." This Fact Sheet gives a brief outline of NASA's research into UFO's and will give you other points of contact you may wish to pursue. We appreciate your interest in this matter. Edward Heffernan (Acting) Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs Enclosure This letter came to us via_the White House Bulk Mail 5lih1 cw;✓ 113( c#t ~-; I /7 l 5"/11w
4122/98 15:46:44 Correspondence and Action Tracking System CORRESPONDENCE ACTION Code A ID Number: A98-00789 Title: WHR BULK: PUBLIC CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS ON EXTRATERRESTRIAL EVIDENCE Recipient: GOLDIN Organization: A •other Recipients / Organizations•: ,(6\ (6)--, Author: , ' ' I Organization: WHR BULK •other Authors/ Organizations*: / Date Written: 03/16/1998 Date Received: 04/22/1998 Original Date Due: 05/28/1998 >> Current Date Due: 05/28/1998 << Submitted for Signature: Date Signed: j Date Completed: Action Office: L Action Officer: HEFFERNAN Info Copies: A. AB,S, P Signature Office: Signature Officer: L Status: Open In/Out: Incoming Priority: Nonnal *Responsible Office I Responsible Officer (Due Date)*: WHR BULK: ( 6 ) (S) _( MINNEAPOLIS, MN, & MEMBER OF CSETI, SUPPORTS OPEN Abstract: CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS, OR EVEN A PRESIDENTIAL DISCUSSION, REGARDING EVIDENCE AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF ALIEN BEINGS AND SPACECRAFT IN OUR GOVERNMENT'S POSESSION. Enclosures: NONE Comments: Clerk: vc Ad Hoc: I
Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: A/1998-00310 Title: WHR Bulk: Public Congressional Hearings on Extraterrestrial Evidence Recipient: A/Goldin Author: Organization: WHRBulk Date Written: 03/16/1998 Date Received: 04/22/1998 Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed: Action Office: UHeffeman >>Current Due Date: << Original Due Date: Status: Open Signature Office: UHeffeman Info Offices: A/Goldin, AB/Heffernan, PJWILHIDE, S/HUNTRESS Abstract: WHR Bulk: (o) (S) Minneapolis, MN, Member of CSETI, supports open Congresional Hearings, or even a Presidential discussion, regarding evidence as to the existence of alien beings and spcecraft in our Government's posession. • Comments: Enclosures: None Related Records: A98-00789 Keywords: WHR Bulk Open Congressional Hearings Alien Beings ET's spacecraft CSETI File Plan: Analyst: VCoates 04/22/1998 Page 1 of 1
From nobody@wwwl.whitehouse.gov Mon Mar 16 22: 19:34 1998 Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 22:16:43 -0500 From:(6J (S) do) (6) _J> Subject: Inbound-White_House_WWW_MAIL => PRESIDENT Apparently-to: president@WhiteHouse.GOV To: president@WhiteHouse.GOV Errors-t<?: The Postmaster <postmaster@www 1.whi~~e.gov> ~ - Reply-to: (b) (6) <(o) 6) ~ ~\:i,VOftf;J . .-? • Message-id: <! 998031703 I 6. W AA! 4!32@wwwl. whittJ(J.,j{fJ,l,fif 0,4L. . Keywords: WWW-Correspondence; ; Ask a specific question regJfn~iS Administration policy; Science or Technology; Private·Citizen; Comments: Forwarded from White House WWW ~ t,,A.,.}.. c-' Comments: This message scanned by SCAN version 0.1 jms/960226 -"! r l....~-~~j . [Connection Information] ~1;J- - CLIENT: 206.147.215.243[206.147.215.243] BROWSER: Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.02; Windows 3.1) URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Mail/html/Mail_Fresident.html [Sender Information] PERSONAL-NAME: ( 5 ) ( 6 ) EMAIL-ADDRESS: ORGANIZATION: CSETI RELATIONSHIP: member._________ STREET-ADDRESS: (b) ( 6 ) CITY: Minneapolis---------~ STATE-PROVINCE: MN ZIP-CODE: 55405 COUNTRY: USA [Message Information] PURPOSE: Ask a specific question regarding Administration policy TOPIC: Science or Technology AFFILIATION: Private Citizen SUBJECT: public congressional hearings on extraterrestrial evidence (Message) Dear Mr. President: During these trying days in your Presidency, I want to let you know and appreciate the work you have done as President A/1<11S--·ao 31() A'IB-tJO 78'1and the warmth and good humor you've displayed. I would like to suggest as a way ofchanging the headlines about sex in the White House, to an area that would give you a real legacy and enlighten the world as to are place in the universe... As a member of CSETI, I support open Congressional Hearings or even a Presidential Discussion - public - regarding evidence as to the existence ofalien beings and spacecraft in our government's possession. Last April members of your staff were present during Congressional Hearings in private with people who were in someway connected with knowledge about alien beings, ET technology, spacecraft. Did those discussions make you more interested to know more or are you being advised not encourage any more meetings with CSETI? Sometimes, sir... you have to take a positive risk on matters that can change the world for the better. The Richard Helms and Strom Thurmond types must be dealt with firmly. Whether it's opening Cuba to economic trade or a healthy discussion on a matter that will be far more remembered than whom you may or may not have had sex with, standing up to these dinosaurs and people like them, will go a long way in the American public's and historians recognition of you as a leader to another level. I do not have CSETI's telephone number in order for you and your staff to coordinate hearings with Dr. Steven Greer. But, his website address is: www.cseti.org I've heard early in your Presidency you asked former colleage Webster Hubbel to investigate what is known about UFO's. I think compared to past presidents, you have been kept in the dark about ET matters. Well, I hope that your interest in the topic hasn't totally diminished. Scientists, engineers, former astronauts, militay personnel and just plain citizens would like to speak up and discuss what they know. The American public's attitude would tum from initial cynicism to enlightenment. Even if it means we are not on good terms with are alien visitors, or we are not the smartest or strongest intelligent power out there, we can handle it.
So ... I do hope you receive this e-mail and not just one of the many ~sistants answering letters for you. This letter can make a difference ... and so can you Mr. President. It won't cost millions of dollars to conduct a hearing/investigation of potential huge benefits to so many. Best Regards, (o) (6)
.. L:ATW: mtg:LA98-106f DRAFT ) (6) The White House has foiwarded to NASA for response your letter of March 16, 1998, in which you advocate Congressional Hearings or a Presidential Discussion regarding alien beings and their spacecraft. ., ~ · ~ Enclosed is a NASA Fact Sheet entitled 1he U.S. Government and Unidentified Flying Objects. This Fact Sheet gives a brief outline of NASA's research into UFO's and will give you other points of contact 0A;;f:~ou may wish to pursue. We appreciate your interest in this matter. Sincerely, Edward Heffernan (Acting) Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs Enclosure
Headquarters Action T racking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: U1998-00415 Title: ROTHMAN/Sen Snowe fwds ltr from < 5 ) ( 5 ) who's interested in ,,_________ U.F.O.'s sightings and abductions Recipient: L/Heffernan Author: SNOWE Organization: SENATE Date Written: 05/13/1998 Date Received: 05/27/1998 Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: 05/27/1998 Date Closed: 05/27/1998 Action Office: LD/Rothman:P >>Current Due Date: 06/17/1998<< Original Due Date: Status: Closed Signature Office: UHeffernan Info Offices: UHeffernan, UHeninger, UKerwin Abstract: SEN SNOWE FWDS LTR FROM (o) ( 6 ) WHO'S INTERESTED IN UFO'S SIGHTINGS AND ABDUCTIONS. -------- - Comments: Helen spoke w/staffer referring him to Air Force; fwded fax sheet on UFOs. Enclosures: YES LTR Related Records: Keywords: (b) ( 6 ) U.F.O. SIGHTINGS ABDUCTION File Plan: 1320.4 Analyst: BMoore 05/27/1998 Page 1 of 1
------- Date: ~&1 /ji Time: c) '. os Phone#: Fax#: !l~Ll - \9\/ '4, From: Helen Rothman Director, Congressional Inquiries Division Office ofLegislative Affairs Voice#: (202) 358-1943 Fax#: (202) 358-4343 Message: Gl\c.u )2 - C Ac::r'. ~ f a-i, ru," J Clf'<'\ V&6 ~ Number of Pages __ including cover
NASA Facts National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA Headquarters Public Affairs Office Code P 300 E Street SW Washington DC 20546 FS-1997-01-017-HQ The US Government and Unidentified Flying Objects No branch of the United States Government is cwrently in volved with or responsible for investigations into the possi bility ofalien life on other planets or for investigating Uni dentifiedFlyingObjects (UFO's). The US Air Force (USAF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have had intennittent, independent investigations ofthe possibility ofalien life onother planets; however, none of these has produced factual evidence that life exists on other planets, nor that UFO's are related to aliens. From 1947 to 1969, the Air Force investigated UFO's; then in1977, NASA was asked to examine the possibility of resuming UFO investigations. After studying all of the facts avail able, it was determined that nothing would be gained by further investigation, since there was an absence oftangiole evidence. In October 1992, NASA was directed by Congress to begin a detailed search for artificial radio signals from other civi lizations under the NASA Towards Other Planetary Systems (TOPS)/High Resolution Microwave Swvey (HR.MS) pro gram (also known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelli gence project). Congress directed NASA to end this project in October 1993, citing pressures on the US Federal budget The HRMS did not detect any confmned signal before it was stopped. However, similar work will continue in a more limited manner through efforts ofprivate groups and through academic institutions. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intel ligence Institute (SETI Institute) in Mountain View, CA, effectively replaced the Government project, borrowing the signal processing system from NASA: The SETI Institute is a nonprofit corporation conducting research in a number offields including all science and technology aspects of as tronomy and planetary sciences, chemical evolution, the ori gin of life, biological evolution, and cultural evolution. During several space missions, NASA astronauts have re ported phenomena not immediately explainable; however, in every instance NASA determined that the observations could not be tenned "abnormal" in the space environment. The 1947 to 1969 USAF investigations studied UFO's un derProject Blue Book. The project, headquartered atWright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was terminated December 17, 1969. Ofthe total of12,618 sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remain "unidentified." The decision to discontinue UFO investigations was based on an evaluation of a report prepared by the University of Colorado entitled, "Scientific Study ofUnidentified Flying Objects;" a review ofthe University of Colorado's report by the National Academy of Sciences; previous UFO studies; and Air Force experience investigating UFO reports during the 1940's, '50's and '60's. As a result ofexperience, inves tigations, and studies since 1948, the conclusions ofProject Blue Book were: (1) no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force was ever a threat to our national security; (2) there was no evidence submitted to, or discov ered by, the Air Force that sightings categorized as "uniden tified" represented technological developments orprinciples beyond the range of modem scientific knowledge; and (3) there was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" were extraterrestrial vehicles. With the termination ofProject Blue Book, the USAF regu lation establishing and controlling the program for investi gating and analyzing UFO's was rescinded. Documentation regarding the former Project Blue Book investigation was permanently transferred to the Modem Military Branch, National Archives and Records Service, in Washington, DC 20408, and is available for public review and analysis. Since the termination ofProject Blue Book, nothing has oc cwred that would support a resumption of UFO investiga tions by the USAF or NASA. Given the cwrent environ ment of steadily decreasing defense and space budgets, it is unlikely that the Air Force or NASA will become involved in this type of costly project in the foreseeable future.
Since neither NASA nor the Air Force is engaged in day-to day UFO research, neither one reviews UFO-related articles intended for publication, evaluates UFO-type spacecraft drawings, or accepts accounts of UFO sightings or applica tions for employment in the field ofaerial phenomena inves tigation. UFO Points of Contact 1. For further infonnation on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, please contact the SETI I~itute, 2035 Land ings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, (415) 960-4530. 2. News media requiring Project Blue Book files should con tact the National Archives Public Affairs Office, (202) 501 - 5525. Public queries should be addressed to the Project Blue Book archivist at (202) 501-5385. For queries not related to Project Blue Book, contact the National Ar chives receptionist at (202) 501-5400. Documentation is available from: Modem Military Branch, National Ar chives and Records Service, Eighth Street and Pennsyl vania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20408. 3. The Air Force publication, "The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert," a lengthy docu ment providing all of the details available from the Air Force on the Roswell incident, is available for $52 from the US Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Docwnents, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington, DC 20402 - 9328. 4. There are a nwnber of universities and professional sci entific organizations that have considered UFO phenom ena during periodic meetings and seminars. A list ofpri vate Oiganizations interested in aerial phenomena may be found in Gale's Encyclopedia ofAssociations. 5. Persons wishing to report UFO sightings are advised to contact law enforcement agencies. 2
< CONFIRMATION REPORT> 05-27-1998(WED) 13:57 [ TRAN S MIT J NO. DATE TIME DESTINATION PG . DURATION MODE RESULT 18529 5-27 13:55 202 224 1946 3 0°01'31" NORM .E OK 3 0°01'31"
< CONFIRMATION REPORT > 05-27- 1998(WEO) 13 : 57 [ TRANS MIT J NO . DATE TIME DEST! NAT ION PG. DURATION MODE RESULT 18529 5-27 13:55 202 224 1946 3 0°01 '31" NORM . E OK 3 0° 01 '31"
OLVMPIA J SNOWE MAINE CoUNSEL TO THE AsSIS'l"ANT MAJOftllY l.EAoEA COMMITTEES: ARMED SERVI CES BUDGET COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND 250 RUSSELL SENATE Orn« BUILDING TRANSPORTATION (202) 224-5344 CHAIR OF OCEANS AND FISHERIES WASHINGTON, DC 20510-1903 SUBCOMMITTEE May 13, 1998 SMALL BUSINESS Mr. Lawrence E. Medway Director, Congressional Inquiries Division National Aeronautic and Space Administration 300 E. Street, SW Washington, D.C. 20546 Dear Mr. Medway: I am writing to you regarding the concerns of my constituent, ( 5 ) (S) of Portland, Maine. ___ __, is interested in U.F.O. sightings and abductions. I have enclosed a copy of his correspondence for your review. Any information you could provide which would help me answer his questions would be appreciated. Thank you for your time and attention. OJS:mjb A UBURN AUGUSTA BANGOR 8IOOEFORO PORTlANO PRESQUE ISLE Two GREAT FALLS P1.AlA 68 SEWALL STREET, SUITE 101C ONE CuM8EALA. NO PLACE, SUnE 306 231 M AIN STReer, SUITE 2 3 CANAL Pl.A2A, Sum, 601 169 ACAOcMY STREET, Sum 3 Surre 78 AVGUSTA, ME 04330 BANGOR, ME 04401 810DE.FORD, ME 04005 P.O. Sox 188 Pa£SOUE ISt.E, ME 04769 Au8UAN, ME 04210 1207) 786-2451 (207) 622-8292 (207) 945-0432 (207) 282-4144 PORTI.AND, ME 04112 (207) 874--0883 (207) 764-5124 MAINE RElAY SERVICE TOO 1- 955--3323 IN MAINE CALL TOLL-FREE 1- 800-432- 1599 PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER
~ i-;J 7953 (r'l ?C{ APR O 1 1998 FEBUARY 22 1998 TIME- 9:11 am Dear Senitor Olyimpia Snow, My name is < 6 H 6 > I'm from Portland, Maine. I'm 12 years old. (6) (6) ____ __ . I heard about the fredom of information act. I would be so grateful it you could get any or all government documents released on the Roswell crash. I'm a U.F.O. researcher. I have heard about the following U.F.O. sightings and abductions: 1. LAS LUNAS, NEW MEXICO LATE JUNE1977 11 :30A.M. 2. SHIROYAMA, KAWANOE CITY JAPAN FEB/2/ 75 16:00 MILITARY TIME 3. WAIKIKI BEACH, HONOLULU, HAWAII MARCH/1 5/93 12:00 P.M. 4. COLFAX, WISCONSIN APRIU1 9/ 78 13:30 MILITARY TIME 5. DENVER, COLARODO MAY/1991 AFTERNOON 6. BARCELONA, SPAIN JUNE/1978 SUNDOWN 7. MONTEMORELOS, NUEVA LEON, MEXICO SUMMER OF 1994 AFTERNOON 8. VANCOUVER, B.C. CANADA OCTOBER/17/1992 9. GULF BREEZ, FLORADA SEPTEMBER/24/1994 18:50 MILITARY TIME 1 0. ZACATELCO, TLAXCALA, MEXICO OCTOBER/ 31 /199 1 11. VIBORG, JUTLAND, DENMARK NOVEMBER/17/74 9:00 A.M. 1 2. COCOYOC, MORELOS, MEXICO NOVEMBER/3/73 9:00 A.M. 1 3. BELJUM MIDNIGHT 14. MT. KIDTARDIN, MAINE MIDNIGHT 3 CAMPERS WERE ABDUCTED 15. GROOM LAKE NEVADA AREA 51 FREQUNTLY As you have read ldo know alot aboout U.F.O'S. I also knoew in RIGHT PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, OHIO THERE KEEPING ALIENS AND CRAFT IN HANGER 18. THERE IS ALSO A GOVERNMENT AGENCY CALLED M.J.12. I know that U.F.O'S visit america frequntly and our government knows about it. Soon every political persons are going to get a pitition from a high school in New Hampshire to have information on the Roswell crash released to th~ public. I have heard roomers that at HULAMAN AIR FORCE BASE A U.F.O. LANDED AND THE HIGH RANKING PERSON AT THE BASE TALKED TO THE ALIEN. The government made a big mistake by letting Aliens into the country and can do nothing about it. sincerly, (6) (6 ") ~--~---- - P.S. I'm including my address, phone number, and P.O. box. AP R O7 1998 1 t------- Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L/1998-00415 Title: ROTHMAN/Sen Snowe fwds ltr from (o) ( 5 ) who's interested in U.F.O.'s sightings and abductions Recipient: Author: Organization: Action Office: Status: UHeffernan SNOWE SENATE LD/Rothman:P Open Date Written: Date Received : Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed: >>Current Due Date: Origi nal Due Date: 05/13/1998 05/27/ 1998 06/17/1998<< Signature Office : UHeffernan Info Offices: UHeffernan, UHeninger, UKerwin Abstract: SEN SNOWE FWDS LTR FROM ( 6 f{SJ WHO'S INTERESTED IN UFO'S SIGHTINGS AND ABDUCTIONS. Comments: Enclosures: YES LTR Related Records: Keywords : (b) (6) U.F.O. SIGHTINGS ABDUCTION File Plan: Analyst: BMoore 05/27/1998 Page 1 of 1