Saturday, June 30, 2018

UFOs Hoaxed by Military Pilots



The study of UFOs has always been complicated by hoaxes, either from false reports or by events staged to fool witnesses. 

The Air Force’s “Status Report: Project Blue Book - Report No. 10” from 27 February 1953 reviewed the record-setting year of 1952, and of the 1000 cases analyzed, less than two percent of them were found to be deliberate fakes, “Hoaxes 1.67%

The problem is that within the remaining cases, we cannot know what fragment of hoaxes were successful and remained undetected, possibly remaining on record classified under “insufficient information” or as an “unknown.”

One particularly interesting species of hoax is when an actual aircraft is involved, but the pilot operates it in a manner to deceive witnesses. This results in sincere testimony by the witnesses, but of a false UFO. The pilots perpetrating the hoaxes are unlikely to confess since it could result in anything from the loss of their pilot’s license to criminal prosecution. Or in the case of military pilots, the loss of their flying career.

Documentation



Few of these hoaxes by pilots have been documented, but a good example was included as part of the Condon Report: the University of Colorado’s Scientific Study Of Unidentified Flying Objects led by University of Colorado Dr. Edward U. Condon, completed in 1968. In Chapter 1,  “Field Studies” by Roy Craig, he summarizes how in the spring of 1967, seven witnesses were interviewed about their UFO sighting.
Case 23 is an example of a simple prank by the young at heart. A pilot, about to take off from an Air Force base in (a twin-engine Navy) airplane equipped with a powerful, movable searchlight, suggested to his co-pilot, "Let's see if we cant spook some UFO reports." By judicious use of the searchlight from the air, particularly when flashes of light from the ground were noticed, the pilots succeeded remarkably well. Members of the ground party, hunting raccoons at the time, did report an impressive UFO sighting. Our field team found, in this case, an interesting opportunity to study the reliability of testimony. 
That summary is from page 90 of the Condon Report.  
The incident itself is detailed on pages 494 - 497, “ Case 23, North Central, Spring 1967.” 

Anecdotes from Aviation Week


Philip J. Klass, was a senior avionics editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology, but in his spare time, he was studied, debunked, and wrote about UFOs. In his 1983 book, Klass discussed incidents engineered by military pilots.
Some UFO incidents are more accurately characterized as practical jokes. For example, a neighbor of mine confided to me that he had generated a few UFO incidents during the 1950s when he was a Navy fighter pilot based on the West Coast. He explained that Navy pilots would practice intercepting an enemy bomber in darkness by using an unsuspecting airliner as a mock target. The authorized procedure called for the Navy aircraft to come no closer than about ten miles before breaking off. However, this former Navy pilot (who requested anonymity) said that if he felt in a "playful mood" he would turn off his aircraft's external lights and approach quite close to the airliner.
Then, he said, he would reach for his emergency cockpit flashlight and flash it on and off until he could see passengers in the cabin reacting to it. Then he would maneuver to the other side of the airliner and give a repeat performance. Finally, he told me, he would drop below the airliner and turn on his jet-engine's afterburner, creating greatly increased thrust and a long rocketlike plume, and would zoom out in front of the relatively slow-moving airliner. Then he would return to base. "The next day I would scan the newspapers and sure enough there would be a story about an airline flight crew who reported seeing a rocketlike UFO, with confirming reports from a number of passengers who described seeing a bright flashing light,” my neighbor told me.
During one of my UFO lectures, I recounted the story of how this former Navy pilot had generated UFO reports that would be extremely difficult to explain in prosaic terms had he not chosen to confide in me. After the lecture, a man came up to tell me that he was a former USAF interceptor pilot and that while based on the East Coast he also had generated a few such airliner UFO-encounter reports "for kicks." He added: "Here I was creating UFO incidents that another branch of the Air Force (Project Blue Book) was trying to solve, but I dared not reveal my role because it was a serious infraction of the rules."
From UFOs: The Public Deceived by Philip J. Klass, 1983 (pgs. 298-299)

Interesting examples, but Klass was unable to name his sources, so by his own debunking standards we would have to consider them hearsay. Other such rumors have surfaced over the years, but usually just as vague with anonymous pilots. Something more definite recently surfaced - and from an unlikely source - a prominent UFO witness.

The UFO Pilot


Navy Commander David Fravor became famous in late 2017 for speaking about the “Tic Tac” incident, his UFO encounter while flying an exercise from the USS Nimitz on November 14, 2004. Fravor is considered an ideal observer, credible due due to his qualifications, rank and aviation expertise. He’s like a modern Kenneth Arnold, the original all-American UFO witness.

In a recent audio interview about his sighting and its aftermath, David Fravor discussed the need for further investigation, and used his own pranks hoaxing UFO sightings in the 1990s as an example.


“I’ll tell you- so I flew night vision goggles, okay? You know when you’re a pilot, you gotta grow up, but you don’t have to grow up? Sometimes, we can be a little bit childish, ‘cause you’re 34 years old and you’re flying super-cool jets, and even if you are 25 when I started flying a real jet, it’s just fun, and it’s cool, and it’s a great job.
So, we would fly around - I had a NVG O qual. So we would fly around at 200 feet at night with no lights on. ‘Cause we’d be in the warning areas where we’re allowed to do that. So we can technically fly around with no lights on. So, we would. And then we’d see - you can see campfires ‘cause people are below us camping. You can see campfires  from way, way away. ‘Cause the goggles will pick up that light from way, way, far away.
So we would get going really fast, and then we’d pull the power back to idle, so we’d go zinging over the top of these campfires. And then you just light the afterburners and pull up. And you’d leave ‘em on for a minute, then turn ‘em off. So think about - You’re sitting on the ground, got a nice campfire, it’s a pretty starry night, and you don’t hear anything. The all of a sudden, there’s a loud roar, there’s fire above your eyes, you're like, ‘Oh, my God,’ and then the fire goes out, and there’s nothing there. ‘What is that?’
… So when you do that, we always think, God, they’re crazy. Well, maybe they are not crazy, and can you explain it? Now, if there was real investigation… they could track and say that there was an airplane in that area doing low training, and he was just messing with you, but if people never report it, then they’re going to think for the rest of their lives that they saw something you can’t explain.”
Commander David Fravor had a distinguished 18-year career as a U.S. Navy pilot, and retired from the Navy in 2006. Any UFO fireballs seen by campers after that are not his responsibility.

David Fravor is supporting UFO research and investigation, and by speaking publicly, encouraging other witnesses to come forward. If other retired military pilots would also come forward to disclose and document incidences of hoaxing UFOs, that would also be valuable. The more that is known about UFO incidents - false and genuine - the more we can hope to understand the phenomenon and the experience of the witnesses.

Monday, June 4, 2018

Hangar 18 and The Saucers That Time Forgot

The companion blog to BBL is The Saucers That Time Forgot, where the focus is strictly on historical matters, "Flying Saucer tales that UFO history has overlooked or would rather forget." Besides lost saucers, we look at topics like the underappreciated influence of seminal events, hoaxes, and the people behind the stories. 


Most often the stories are prompted by original newspaper coverage of the events, and other primary sources. For STTF, Curt Collins relies heavily on Claude Falkstrom who has a knack for unearthing news stories from local papers that provide details the national wire services often missed. There's also an occasional look at the early flying saucer researchers and authors, "The Ufologists That Time Forgot" as well.

Most STTF articles are stand alone pieces, but sometimes there are longer serialized articles such as the investigation into the origins of the Hangar 18 story. Here's a look at the opening installment: 

After the UFO Crash of 1969

The Dark Days after 1969

The flying saucer fever of 1947 created a big problem for the Government, and the United States Air Force was stuck with the job of  handling it. The fact that there was an official investigation was exploited by believers (and opportunists) who insisted that if the USAF was spending time and money investigating UFOs, that must prove that flying saucers are real - and that they were hiding the evidence. Two decades later, the Air Force finally got out of the saucer business, as briefly stated in their UFO Fact Sheet:
From 1947 to 1969, the Air Force investigated Unidentified Flying Objects under Project Blue Book. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was terminated Dec. 17, 1969... 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... 
Following the closure of Project Blue Book, public interest in the UFO subject took a nosedive. 


Empty Space

UFOs and outer space were out of fashion in the entertainment industry as well. Paranormal, ESP and psychic topics were what the public was buying, and shows like Night Gallery and The Sixth Sense had memorable runs on television and in 1973, The Exorcist had been a commercial and critical success. Entertainment was coming out of period barren not of just UFOs, but of science fiction, at least of the outer space variety. In the moves, about the closest thing to space aliens was The Planet of the Apes movie series. On television, NBC’s Star Trek series had been the cancelled back in 1969, but was popular in syndication and alive as a Saturday morning cartoon. On prime time, The Six Million Dollar Man was about as "far out" as TV got.


"Somewhere in the universe there must be something better than man."

The Literary Front

There were a few important UFO books published in those days, some in response to the Condon Report that enabled the Air Force to shut down Blue Book. Dr. J. Allen Hynek and his 1972 book were profiled by Ian Ridpath in New Scientist,  May 17, 1973, “The man who spoke out on UFOs”:
He is highly critical of the report called The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, produced in 1969 by a University of Colorado team led by Dr Edward U. Condon and based on US Air Force Project Blue Book files. He has since written his own book, called The UFO Experience, which has been called "Hynek's version of what the Condon report should have been." The book is now in its fourth printing in the United States. 
In 1973, Major Donald E. Keyhoe, the man who had written the first non-fiction book on flying saucers, wrote his last, Aliens from Space. He also blasted the Condon Report, depicting it as part of the Government’s UFO cover-up policy. Keyhoe closed the book with a more optimistic note, proposing an ambitious plan to build a facility at a remote location that would attract extraterrestrial visitors, lure them into a landing where a peaceful close encounter would establish formal contact.



Flying saucers were out of fashion, though. About the closest related matter to the UFO topic that the public really cared about was the ancient astronauts theory as popularized in the Chariots of the Gods? books and its sequels. In 1974, Chariots was in it’s 27th printing and still on the bestseller lists. Publishers Weekly, describing the paperback of its second sequel.
“The Gold of the Gods" ($1.75, Putnam), the latest best seller by Erich von Daniken, is getting a cover stamped with gold metallic letters for its paperback edition — the first time that Bantam has used that process, usually reserved for deluxe editions of hardcover books... will have a first printing of 800,000 copies...


Putting UFOs Back in Business


In late 1973, UFOs made a big comeback in the press, jump-started by the media frenzy surrounding the alien abduction case on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, making 1974 a very good year for the UFO business. In Michael Rasmussen’s 1985 book, The UFO Literature: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Works in English, he describes the resurgence:
By 1973, a major new wave of sightings was developing in the U.S. and around the world, and public interest in UFOs again began to swell... By 1974, UFO-mania was again in full swing. Ralph and Judy Blum's Beyond Earth — Man's Contact with UFOs was a national bestseller, signaling the dawn of a new boom in commercial UFO literature. The Blums surveyed the recent history of UFOs, and summarized the sensational sightings of the year before, including the Pascagoula abduction claim of Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson.

At the end of 1974, NBC broadcast “UFOs: Do You Believe?” It was a one-hour special that featured UFO witnesses such as Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, experts such as Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Jim & Coral Lorenzen of APRO, Stanton Friedman, and Walt Andrus of MUFON. The ratings broke records. UFOs were a viable commercial property once again, and there was an explosion in sightings, hoaxes, news coverage, and also an uptick in UFO lectures and conferences. It was a UFO Revival of sorts. 

In the special STTF series that follows, we’ll examine how a particular chain of events in 1974 changed UFO history. It begins with a paranormal conference in the Tampa Bay area by promoter Lawrence Brill.

The saga continues at The Saucers That Time Forgot:






The UFO and Bermuda Triangle with Charles Berlitz  
. . .


Acknowledgements

Thanks and acknowledgements to those who provided support, materials, and background detail for this project.

Claude Falkstrom, my co-author, for his work in digging deeper and finding the stories behind the stories, particularly in the case of Lawrence Brill.

Martin Kottmeyer for reference materials from his own Hangar Minus One.

Isaac Koi, for his dedication to the preservation of UFO literature, which helped greatly in the research of this project.

Also, thanks to those who provided other details, materials and verification:
Lance Moody, Brad Sparks, Roger Glassel, Robert Sheaffer, and Rich Hoffman.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Capt. William Davidson & Lt. Frank Brown, 1st Casualties of Ufology

Captain William L. Davidson (L) and Lieutenant Frank M. Brown (R).

Remembering Captain William Davidson and Lieutenant Frank Brown, and how the Maury Island hoax of 1947 resulted in the first casualties related to ufology.


The Galveston Daily News Aug. 3, 1947

Excerpts from The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects by Edward J. Ruppelt, 1956.
Ruppelt changed the names of Kenneth Arnold, Ray Palmer (publisher of Amazing Stories and Fate magazine, and also the "harbor patrolmen," Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman. 

For clarity, I've inserted the true names in parentheses.

For the Air Force the story started on July 31, 1947, when Lieutenant Frank Brown, an intelligence agent at Hamilton AFB, California, received a long-distance phone call. The caller was (Kenneth Arnold), who had met Brown when Brown investigated an earlier UFO sighting, and he had a hot lead on another UFO incident. He had just talked to two Tacoma Harbor patrolmen. One of them had seen six UFO's hover over his patrol boat and spew out chunks of odd metal. (Arnold) had some of the pieces of the metal.

The story sounded good to Lieutenant Brown, so he reported it to his chief. His chief OK'd a trip and within an hour Lieutenant Brown and Captain Davidson were flying to Tacoma in an Air Force B-25. When they arrived they met (Arnold) and an airline pilot friend of his in (Arnold's) hotel room. After the usual round of introductions (Arnold) told Brown and Davidson that he had received a letter from (Ray Palmer) a Chicago publisher asking him, (Arnold), to investigate this case. The publisher had paid him $200 and wanted an exclusive on the story, but things were getting too hot, (Arnold) wanted the military to take over.

(Arnold) went on to say that he had heard about the experience off Maury Island but that he wanted Brown and Davidson to hear it firsthand.

He had called the two harbor patrolmen and they were on their way to the hotel. They arrived and they told their story...
two men (Harold Dahl) and (Fred Crisman)... 

In June 1947, (Harold Dahl) said, his crew, his son, and the son's dog were on his patrol boat patrolling near Maury Island, an island in Puget Sound, about 3 miles from Tacoma. It was a gray day, with a solid cloud deck down at about 2,500 feet. Suddenly everyone on the boat noticed six "doughnut shaped" objects, just under the clouds, headed toward the boat. They came closer and closer, and when they were about 500 feet over the boat they stopped. One of the doughnut shaped objects seemed to be in trouble as the other five were hovering around it. They were close, and everybody got a good look. The UFO's were about 100 feet in diameter, with the "hole in the doughnut" being about 25 feet in diameter. They were a silver color and made absolutely no noise. Each object had large portholes around the edge.

As the five UFO's circled the sixth, (Dahl) recalled, one of them came in and appeared to make contact with the disabled craft. The two objects maintained contact for a few minutes, then began to separate. While this was going on, (Dahl) was taking photos. Just as they began to separate, there was a dull "thud" and the next second the UFO began to spew out sheets of very light metal from the hole in the center. As these were fluttering to the water, the UFO began to throw out a harder, rocklike material. Some of it landed on the beach of Maury Island. (Dahl) took his crew and headed toward the beach of Maury Island, but not before the boat was damaged, his son's arm had been injured, and the dog killed. As they reached the island they looked up and saw that the UFO's were leaving the area at high speed. The harbor patrolman went on to tell how he scooped up several chunks of the metal from the beach and boarded the patrol boat. He tried to use his radio to summon aid, but for some unusual reason the interference was so bad he couldn't even call the three miles to his headquarters in Tacoma. When they docked at Tacoma, (Dahl) got first aid for his son and then reported to his superior officer, Crisman, who, (Dahl) added to his story, didn't believe the tale. He didn't believe it until he went out to the island himself and saw the metal.

(Dahl's) trouble wasn't over. The next morning a mysterious visitor told (Dahl) to forget what he'd seen.

Later that same day the photos were developed. They showed the six objects, but the film was badly spotted and fogged, as if the film had been exposed to some kind of radiation.

Then (Arnold) told about his brush with mysterious callers. He said that (Dahl) was not alone as far as mysterious callers were concerned, the Tacoma newspapers had been getting calls from an anonymous tipster telling exactly what was going on in (Arnold's) hotel room. This was a very curious situation because no one except (Arnold), the airline pilot, and the two harbor patrolmen knew what was taking place. The room had even been thoroughly searched for hidden microphones.

That is the way the story stood a few hours after Lieutenant Brown and Captain Davidson arrived in Tacoma.

After asking (Dahl) and Crisman a few questions, the two intelligence agents left, reluctant even to take any of the fragments. As some writers who have since written about this incident have said, Brown and Davidson seemed to be anxious to leave and afraid to touch the fragments of the UFO, as if they knew something more about them. The two officers went to McChord AFB, near Tacoma, where their B-25 was parked, held a conference with the intelligence officer at McChord, and took off for their home base, Hamilton. When they left McChord they had a good idea as to the identity of the UFO's. Fortunately they told the McChord intelligence officer what they had determined from their interview.

In a few hours the two officers were dead. The B-25 crashed near Kelso, Washington. The crew chief and a passenger had parachuted to safety. The newspapers hinted that the airplane was sabotaged and that it was carrying highly classified material. Authorities at McChord AFB confirmed this latter point, the airplane was carrying classified material.

In a few days the newspaper publicity on the crash died down, and the Maury Island Mystery was never publicly solved.
Later reports say that the two harbor patrolmen mysteriously disappeared soon after the fatal crash.

They should have disappeared, into Puget Sound. The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax. The first, possibly the second-best, and the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history. One passage in the detailed official report of the Maury Island Mystery says:
Both ______ (the two harbor patrolmen) admitted that the rock fragments had nothing to do with flying saucers. The whole thing was a hoax. They had sent in the rock fragments [to a magazine publisher] as a joke. ______ One of the patrolmen wrote to ______ [the publisher] stating that the rock could have been part of a flying saucer. He had said the rock came from a flying saucer because that's what [the publisher] wanted him to say.
The  publisher (Ray Palmer), mentioned above, who, one of the two hoaxers said, wanted him to say that the rock fragments had come from a flying saucer, is the same one who paid (Arnold) $200 to investigate the case.

The report goes on to explain more details of the incident. Neither one of the two men could ever produce the photos. They "misplaced" them, they said. One of them, I forget which, was the mysterious informer who called the newspapers to report the conversations that were going on in the hotel room. (Dahl) mysterious visitor didn't exist. Neither of the men was a harbor patrolman, they merely owned a couple of beat-up old boats that they used to salvage floating lumber from Puget Sound. The airplane crash was one of those unfortunate things. An engine caught on fire, burned off, and just before the two pilots could get out, the wing and tail tore off, making it impossible for them to escape. The two dead officers from Hamilton AFB smelled a hoax, accounting for their short interview and hesitancy in bothering to take the "fragments." They confirmed their convictions when they talked to the intelligence officer at McChord. It had already been established, through an informer, that the fragments were what Brown and Davidson thought, slag. The classified material on the B-25 was a file of reports the two officers offered to take back to Hamilton and had nothing to do with the Maury Island Mystery, or better, the Maury Island Hoax.

(Arnold) and his airline pilot friend weren't told about the hoax for one reason. As soon as it was discovered that they had been "taken," thoroughly, and were not a party to the hoax, no one wanted to embarrass them.

The majority of the writers of saucer lore have played this sighting to the hilt, pointing out as their main premise the fact that the story must be true because the government never openly exposed or prosecuted either of the two hoaxers. This is a logical premise, but a false one. The reason for the thorough investigation of the Maury Island Hoax was that the government had thought seriously of prosecuting the men. At the last minute it was decided, after talking to the two men, that the hoax was a harmless joke that had mushroomed, and that the loss of two lives and a B-25 could not be directly blamed on the two men. The story wasn't even printed because at the time of the incident, even though in this case the press knew about it, the facts were classed as evidence. By the time the facts were released they were yesterday's news. And nothing is deader than yesterday's news.


(Twin Falls) Times-News Aug. 3, 1947


Oakland Tribune Aug. 6, 1947


For further reading, see the case files in Project Blue Book on the Maury Island UFO hoax.

For more coverage of historical UFO cases, see our companion blog, The Saucers That Time Forgot.

A special thanks to Claude Falkstrom for locating the 1947 newspaper clippings.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Pentagon Confirmation: AATIP = Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program

Update by Roger Glassel to his article,
 The AATIP, Targeting Pod Videos and the DOPSR Process



As I stated in my previous article, it was important for me to have the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications search phrase added to my request - as the reports by Dr. Eric Davis were done under the AAWSA program, and a LinkedIn profile I found connected AAWSA to Bigelow. If I was wrong, it would just have been redundant information to my FOIA request, as it already contained other information on which videos I was referring to. I have also learned that Isaac Koi sent these two AAWSA reports to Dr. Davis who confirmed that they are his reports, but I wanted confirmation from an official source.

I contacted the Pentagon spokesperson again, Major Audricia Harris of the OSD PA, with the following question and background information.

"Dr. Eric Davis - who is associated with the company To The Stars Academy (TTSA) and the company EarthTech - has stated that he has done theoretical studies for the AATIP.

On the EarthTech website Dr. Davis has listed various publications written by him. Under "U.S. Government Program Contract Reports" he has listed six theroretical studies that he has done for the DIA Defence Warning Office (DIA DWO) - between the year 2010 and 2011. Within the same time frame that AATIP was contracting studies. Two of these reports are available on the Internet.

In these reports it is stated that the reports is a product of a series of advanced technology reports produced under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Defense Warning Office (DWO) Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application (AAWSA) Program. The content of these two reports also correlates with the content of the study topics that Dr. Davis has openly stated he wrote for the AATIP. Basically the same content that is in reports that Dr. Davis wrote for the Air Force Research Laboratory (back in 2004), that are now available for download through DTIC. So AAWSA, if not the same, seem to have been closely related to AATIP.

My question is what the relationship is between the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) program and the AATIP program?"

Maj. Harris responded the following.

"Hi Roger,

Same program. Just an alternative name for AATIP. 

Maj. Harris"

I wrote back with further questions:

"Hi Maj. Harris,

Thank you for the clarification.

Was AAWSA the real contract name? and which program name must be referred to when making requests about the program? 

Sincerely,

Roger Glassel"

Maj. Harris responded:

“I would stick with AATIP. It is the official name.

Maj. Harris”

So that confirms that the name previously given by the Pentagon as the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, still apply for FOIA request done by researchers, but as the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program now been confirmed, it may be wise to include it in upcoming requests about the program. 





Answering my final question, Major Harris replied giving the clearest statement yet to indicate that the AATIP was a UFO study:

"Roger,

AATIP was funded in the July 2008 Supplemental Appropriations Bill (a Sen Harry Reid add).  Its mandate, as outlined in a 2009 letter from Reid to DSD, was to assess "far-term foreign advanced aerospace threats  the United States," including anomalous events (such as sightings of aerodynamic vehicles engaged in extreme maneuvers, with unique phenomenology, reported by U.S. Navy pilots or other credible sources).  

AATIP was terminated in 2012 due to lack of real progress and concerns about the viability of the program.

I don't any anything further to provide you. 

Sincerely,


Maj. Harris"