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According to MUFON’s new web site, they are scientifically studying UFOs “for the benefit of humanity”. One can argue about what they qualify as “scientific” but it is best to demonstrate how they want to “benefit humanity” by examining their latest production for television “Hanger 1”.
Hanger One
The program has a regular cast of characters and a few “guests” on each program. The main cast is an interesting group of indi- viduals, who can tell a good story but, after close examination, it is revealed that much of what they say is inaccurate. One can even make the case that they falsified data in order to promote their theories. Is this science?
One of the primary players in this charade is Richard Dolan, who is a prolific UFO writer with a style similar to Donald Keyhoe. Much of what he writes is exaggerated in order to promote his belief that there is an alien cover-up.
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The next superstar is Grant Cameron, who runs the web site “Presidential UFO”. He has promoted just about any conspiracy theory that connects UFOs to the president of the United States. This includes the MJ-12 documents. During the program, Cameron ap- pears to have been filmed in a hallway. Was he not allowed inside Hanger one’s offices?
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Jan Harzan is MUFON’s Executive Director and is the driving force of MUFON . He believes the following about their goal of “benefit- ing humanity”:
It is literally a beacon to keep us on track to achieve something great through the daily words and actions of each and every member of MUFON. The words “The Scientific Study of UFOs for the Benefit of Humanity” are not to be taken lightly.1
Based on Harzan’s behavior on this program, I would suggest he is taking this statement extremely lightly in order to promote himself and his beliefs. Belief and self-promotion do not make good science and do not “benefit humanity”.
The next UFO superstar is John Ventre, who is the lord of MUFON Pennsylvania’s fiefdom. Ventre had suggested that there would be an “end of times” in 2012. Even more disturbing was that, in April of 2010, he decided to make public, one day later, that his daugh- ter had an experience with “entities” in HIS home. Like all the other “talking heads” in this program, Ventre tends to exaggerate and sensationalize. He is a perfect “fit” for “Hanger one”.
Another UFO expert seen on the program is Jason McClellan, who is an Open Minds magazine UFO writer. I have commented on some of his stories before in the “Who’s blogging” section because they appeared to lack sufficient research.
An apparent newbie to this sort of thing was Jeremy Ray. He has the credentials as a MUFON STAR team member, claims to be a contactee , and is a member of the “international Starseed Network”, which is an organization that professes to be helping humanity evolve both physically and spiritually. I had thought the original idea was that STAR team members would be objective and well trained. His comments on the program and his claim to being a contactee indicates that the qualifications for being a STAR team member have been significantly lowered. Perhaps getting the STAR team badge is more about MUFON politics instead of qualifica- tions as a researcher/investigator.
A final entry into the fray was another newbie by the name of Dwight Equitz. He is an unknown “UFO researcher”, who’s only claim to UFO fame appears to be that he is an actor. Is he on the program for his acting ability or is he there because he has been study- ing UFOs for many years? As an actor, he will say or do just about anything as long as he gets paid. This became clear when he said things that made no sense or were just plain wrong. It seems, he was simply reading from a script put in front of him.
The source of these group’s research centers around “Hanger One”, where the nearly 70,000 MUFON files are supposedly kept. We are shown a warehouse with various researchers browsing through the case files. The size of the building implies something akin to a massive library or something like the warehouse in “Raiders of the lost ark”. It is interesting to note that MUFON reports that its headquarters is at 3822 Campus Drive in Newport Beach, California (see the google image at lower left). This looks nothing like the image seen in the television program.There is no description of any other location that MUFON uses on their web site. This indicates there probably is no real “Hanger One” and this building is just a prop.
In an amusing side note, there is one scene where “top secret” files are being transported down the hallways of “Hanger one”. The funnythingaboutthisisthatindividualisheadingforadoorwiththesign,“Assessor’sHumanResources”. Apparently,thisisacrafty move. Nobody would think to look in the Human Resources department for top secret documents.
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While MUFON can claim that the producers have a lot to do with what is presented on these programs, this is all endorsed by MUFON. They are the ones, who take credit for what is said and they must be held accountable for any inaccuracies they wish to promote.
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Eisenhower’s secret trip to Muroc/Edwards
The first program started with an incident involving President Eisenhower “disappearing” for a few hours when he was on vacation in Palm Springs, California. It is speculated that he went to Muroc AFB, where he could meet with aliens. This story can be traced back to the book, “The Roswell Incident” and is not based on anything that can be proven. The official story for his “disappearance” is that the president had knocked a cap off a tooth and had to go to a local dentist to get it repaired. There is no good reason to question this story but it does not take much to turn this into some sort of grand conspiracy.
According to John Ventre, nobody knew Eisenhower was even going to Palm Springs. This is not exactly true. Prior to February 14th, there were rumors he was going to Palm Springs2. By the 15th, it was announced he was going. 3
Actor, turned UFO researcher, Dwight Equitz, states that Eisenhower appeared 100 miles away the next morning in Los Angeles at a Church Service. One should research the script a lot closer before making such claims because the truth is that the church service was in Palm Springs (The Community Church of Palm Springs a few miles from where they were staying at the Smoke Tree Ranch according to the news media).4 If Equitz got his information from the MUFON files, it does not say much for the reliability of the information in those files. Adding to this conspiracy myth was John Ventre revealing that he had “witnesses” that state they knew Ike made a deal with the aliens! These unnamed witnesses may be the same sources used by William Moore in his book on Roswell. None of them are very credible.
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Mandate 0463
The show then decides to present something called Mandate 0463 (dated 3 March 1954), which states that the existence of aliens is to be denied by all DOD depart- ments/personnel. Does such a document really exist? The document states that it was created at the 2374th meeting of the DOD on March 1, 1954. The DOD was cre- ated September 18, 1947. There were 2356 days between these two dates. According to Jason Colavito’s blog, some of the wording comes from the MJ-12 SOM-1 manual Chapter 5. 5 This document looked fabricated and gives the impression that MUFON is promoting hoaxes. Where have I heard or seen this before? Is this the kind of research that benefits humanity?
JFK killed because of UFO secrets
For some reason, the MUFONites latched onto the launch of Cosmos 21, which was a failed Russian planetary probe that never made it out of its parking orbit due to an engine misfire. There was nothing really unusual about the satellite but Professor John Putman appeared on the program stating that “its true mission is unknown today”.6 This may be true simply because the old Soviet records are not very complete. There appears to be enough evidence to conclude that it was a deep space probe that was supposed to return to earth.7 Suggesting the probe was some sort of mysterious spacecraft is not good history and Putman’s misrepresenta- tion catered to what the producers desired. This failed satellite launch seemed to spark JFK into sending a memo to the CIA ordering them to share UFO information with the USSR. The document they are referring to has a questionable provenance (it does not exist in the CIA files or JFK library) and appeared on the UFO scene through some questionable sources.8 There is a handwritten note on the document where it refers to MJ-12, which increases the likelihood that it is a hoax. The narrator is quick to point out that ten days later, JFK was assassinated. Is MUFON really suggesting that JFK was assassinated because UFO secrecy?
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Jimmy Carter and George Bush
The rest of the episode about presidents and UFOs had to do with trying to make it appear that presidents, who wanted to discover the truth about UFOs, were stonewalled by some super secret group. Grant Cameron reports that when future President George H.W. Bush (who was the CIA director for one year) briefed the newly elected president Jimmy Carter, he told the president that he did not have a need to know the truth about UFOs! The funny thing about this story is that Carter had his own CIA director, Stansfield Turner, who replaced Bush in March of 1977. He could easily have told Carter what he wanted to know. Dolan then shares a story about his “friend” from the CIA, who saw Jimmy Carter very upset when he learned “the truth” about UFOs. If Dolan can’t reveal his source, then he should not even mention it He sounds like he simply made this up or his source did.
Promoting this kind of rubbish as factual is just not what one would expect from a professional writer. It is more on the level of myth making than actually writing about history.
The program produced a very questionable looking document from the CIA to Robert French (NASA administrator) from 16 July 1977 telling them not to respond to the president’s request about UFO studies. However, I don’t see the word UFO appear in the document at all. Instead, the document focuses on intelligence gathering and requests that NASA not become involved at this time. It seems that MUFON was misrepresenting the document in question again.
Various individuals on the program concluded that President George H. W. Bush was part of MJ-12 and probably knows more about UFOs than any other president. This is because he had “oil money” , political connections, and was director of the CIA. Ventre refers to him as the “gate keeper”. Dolan states it was likely that Bush had CIA connections prior to being director. Not one fact is pre- sented to support all these claims other than George Bush was the CIA director for just one year.
Antarctica UFO battle
In the second episode of the series, we discover, thanks to Grant Cameron, that the Nazis had an underground base in Antarctica. No proof is really offered but the program states that the US Navy’s “Operation High Jump’” in 1946 was sent to Antarctica to find this base. Michael Shratt, an “aerospace historian”, stated several aircraft carriers were involved. The real truth of the matter is only one carrier (the USS Philippine Sea) was sent and it carried a load of RD-4 transport aircraft. If this were a strike force as implied by MUFON, there would have been several carriers and they would not be loaded with transport aircraft. Instead, they would have been loaded with fighters and bombers.
While in the Antarctic, the fleet supposedly engaged in a naval battle with a UFO resulting in many casualties and a rapid retreat by the US Navy. Again, this is all an exaggeration based on questionable sources. The actual operation Highjump went to Antarctica to set up a American air base (which is what the RD-4s on the USS Philippine Sea were for) and to learn how to operate in polar waters. There never was any battle with a UFO and the only casualties involved an airplane crash during a white out and damage to the USS Merrick’s rudder when it got stuck in the ice. Because, the US Navy arrived late in the Antarctic summer and their ships were not really designed for this kind of environment, many of the ships had to leave with the onset of winter conditions. The only defeat the US navy experienced in the Antarctic had to do with the weather and not a UFO battle.
Admiral Byrd was in charge as mentioned by the program but what was not mentioned was that there were plenty of press along to report what happened. If there were a battle with a UFO, they would have been aware of it. The show also misquoted Admiral Byrd as describing craft that could attack the United States by going from pole to pole at incredible speed. The program had a recording of Byrd stating this but if one looks at the fine print it states “Statement attributed to Admiral Richard E. Byrd”. This is not a recording of Byrd’s voice but a manufactured recording! Like the documents in the first episode, this was a hoax perpetrated on the audience. According to Wiki leaks, this was not what Byrd had stated and the Chilean newspaper, used as a source, had been translated incorrectly. Byrd had actually stated that the United States should be defended from planes flying from polar regions. I found a San Antonio light paper of March 4th, 1947, where the same reporter, who wrote the article for the Chilean source, quoted Byrd as saying, “It is no scare phrase but bitter reality to state that conflict, should it ever come again, will lash at our nation over one or both poles”. 9 There is no mention of attacks being launched from pole to pole. Apparently, nobody both- ered to check their sources for accuracy. Is this a shock?
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Transistor technology
MUFON’s efforts to rewrite human history continued with the Cape Girardeau crash story, which supposedly happened in 1941. The source of this story comes from Len Stringfield, who received a letter from Charlotte Mann. She stated that her grandfather, reverend Willam Huffman, had seen the crash and gave the “last rites” to a dying alien body. The military, as always, was quick on the scene and scooped up ever artifact. One of these important items supposedly went to Purdue University for reverse engineering. According to MUFON, this led to the breakthrough invention of the transistor.
The first transistor was developed in 1947 (left image) but does not even look like the modern transistor (right image)! The MU- FONites chose to ignore the fact that It was developed at Bell labs and not Purdue University. Those responsible for the invention, William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain, had no apparent associations with Purdue University as all had their degrees from other colleges. The failure to link Purdue University with the development of the transistor leaves a gapping hole in this reverse-engineering claim.
The transistor, while a modern device, is archaic compared to modern IC chips. One can’t even see the transistors on an IC chip because they are in the substrate. However, this is our modern technology, which is supposed to be hundreds of years behind the advanced spaceships that are flown by aliens. If one would find it difficult to create a transistor by looking at a modern IC chip, imagine the problems that would occur when trying to create a transistor from a piece of alien spaceship wreckage.
The idea that humankind acquired technology from aliens is one of those claims that implies that all the engineers and scientists that are credited with the development of that technology are frauds. Instead of “benefiting humanity”, MUFON is trying to rewrite history to indicate that humanity is nothing more than a bunch of idiots incapable of doing something on their own.
Alien popcorn
In the alien technology episode, the wild claims of Philip Corso, who many Roswell proponents consider to be a fraudulent witness, were presented as if they had been proven. UFO expert, Jeremy Ray, stated that IC chips, fiber optics, night vision/stealth technol- ogy, and even microwaves come from the Roswell UFO crash. Of all of these, perhaps the most ridiculous claim is that microwave technology came out of the blue in 1947. The existence of microwaves were well known well before the Roswell incident. During World War 2, the SCR-584 radar had been developed and it used frequencies in the microwave range. If Ray was suggesting that the use of microwaves to cook food was discovered because of the Roswell crash, he is incorrect there as well. Raytheon filed a patent for such a device back in 1945. They built the first “radar range” in 1947 and there was even such a device available at Grand Central Terminal in January 1947, where commuters could heat up hot dogs on the run. One would think that these UFOlogists would look at the real history before trying to rewrite it. Despite the obvious history for all of this technology, Richard Dolan clings to the be- lief that this all came from alien spaceships. He nonchalantly states, “This is a big piece of the puzzle that our official truth has sort of whitewashed out.”10 When these individuals simply make all of this up, how can one really trust anything they say?
Element 115
Because it likes to cling to the most ridiculous claims in UFOlogy, the producers of this show gave credence to Bob Lazar. Lazar states that there were nine alien spacecraft stationed at Groom Lake’s S-4 secret base and that aliens gave us the technology for anti-gravity. The key to this anti-gravity drive is element 115. John Ventre proclaimed, “So, now we finally discover element 115 in 2004. It has the exact properties that Bob Lazar said it had in 1989.”11 The actor turned UFOlogist, Dwight Equitz, would parrot this claim, “Everyone laughed when Lazar told us about element 115 and he turned out to be right about that. So, maybe we need to seriously consider his claim that the aliens actually gave us this element.” 12 Was this newly discovered element the key to spaceflight as Lazar, Ventre, and Equitz claimed?
At the time of Lazar’s claims, there was no element 115 on the periodic table. However, heavy elements were being synthesized for many years prior to Lazar presented his story and it was only a matter of time before element 115 would be created. Predicting its existence was not that great a stretch. What Lazar could not predict was the stability of the element. In his version, element 115 was a stable element because there was a predicted “island of stability” around element 115 at the time Lazar made his claims. However, he ignored the possibility that, like many of the recently discovered synthesized elements, element 115 would have a short half-life.
Contrary to what Equitz and Ventre state, element 115 does not have the characteristics that Lazar predicted. Ventre and Equitz did not even bother to look into the fact that Element 115 was discovered in 2003 and not 2004. Element 115’s most stable isotope (Uup 289), which was discovered in 2009, has a half-life of about 200msec. This means that within one second, Element 115 would essentially decay away to Element 113. It is not stable and nobody has made the report there seemed to be “levitation/anti-gravity” characteristics. Lazar’s claims were a hoax and, by promoting it, the MUFONites are complicate in this lie.
Ben Rich
Iwas not surprised to see that Lockheed’s Ben Rich was the focus of one of the segments. According to Jan Harzan, he wrote a letter, which stated that there are two kinds of UFOs.13 There are those of ET origin and those that we manufacture. Those of ET origin had an impact on our development of our UFOs. However, the letter that is presented on the program does not state this. According to Peter Merlin’s article in SUNlite 5-6, this was actually a letter to Testor Cor- poration model-kit designer John Andrews regarding the possibility of UFOs have an ET or man made source.14
What Harzan did not to mention was that Rich stated that there are far too many charlatans regarding UFOs and one had to be cautious. He also never stated that man-made UFOs came from Extra-Terrestri- al UFOs. Is Harzan describing a different letter or is he just not telling the truth?
Harzan is probably referring to another source for his claims and not the letter that was presented on the program. This source was WilliamMcDonald,whoapparentlyworkedwithJohnAndrewsatTestorcorporation. AccordingtoMcDonald,AndrewscontactedBen Rich for him and confirmed the idea that we were manufacturing aircraft based on alien technology. Of course, McDonald did not reveal any of this until John Andrews conveniently died, which makes it suspect. At best, it is hearsay information. At worst, it is a lie by McDonald. There is not one written letter, tape recording, or even an e-mail that can be traced to Ben Rich. Like the Lazar story about element 115, it is, very likely, a hoax perpetrated by another person wanting attention from the UFO community.
If this kind of hearsay was not enough, the program plays a recorded statement that is attributed to Ben Rich:
We already have the means to travel among the stars but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of god to ever get them out for the benefit of humanity.15
There is no source given for this statement and it is not Rich’s voice. Supposedly, Jan Harzan heard Ben Rich say this after a speech he made in 1993 at UCLA. This makes it hearsay as well and not verifiable.
Jason McClellan would add his commentary and state, “According to Ben Rich we learned how to build our own UFOs by studying crash retrievals. Then he came right out an said that ETs have been in contact with out civilization and we have been pilfering their technology for more than 70 years.” 16 This appears to be sourced from Willam McDonald, which indicates that McClellan does not care if his sources are reliable or not. He only cares about spreading rumors.
According to Peter Merlin, who has actually visited the Ben Rich archives to research all of this, Rich wanted to keep an open mind about all possibilities but never had any information about aliens being the source of UFO reports. He reflected about this in his speeches and letters. In the archives, there is no mention of any technology being pilfered from aliens or their crashed spaceships.
Iranian UFO crash
Another attempt to present evidence of alien technology being reverse engineered was MUFON’s explanation of how the coun- try of Iran was able to capture a highly sophisticated US drone aircraft in 2011. Jeremy Ray stated that it was captured by a UFO using anti-gravity technology and a tractor beam. His source is the mysterious scientist Dr. Mehran Keshe. Jeremy Ray goes on to imply that Keshe got this technology from a UFO crash that happened in 2004 in the mountain of Kerman.17
This UFO crash that was supposed to have occurred in 2004 actually occurred in January 2007 in the Barez mountains of Kerman (not the mountain of Kerman as Ray states) and probably was a meteor. There is no mention of a military presence in that report on January 10, 200718:
Eyewitnesses told the Fars News Agency (FNA) that a radiant UFO had crashed in the Barez Mounts of Kerman on Wednesday morning. Abulghassem Nasrollahi, the Deputy General of the Kerman province in Iran told the news agency that all the aircraft in the area had been accounted for, but did not rule out the possibility that the object could be a meteor. Another source also told the FNA that the ob- ject was on fire with thick smoke coming from it, and claimed that this implied the object was not a meteor. However, meteors appear as bright fireballs in the sky, as they are heated to high temperatures due largely to ram pressure as they fall at high speeds through the Earth’s atmosphere. Meteors often burn up completely before reaching the ground and some leave a smoke-like trail in their wake. Abul- ghassem noted that a few days earlier, in Rafsanjan, a similar incident was reported by witnesses.
This whole thing indicates that MUFON did not bother to get real information and created a myth from a news story they heard about. The Iranians claimed they used electronic jamming to exploit a weakness in the positioning technology to make the Drone think it was landing in Afghanistan and not Iran. They learned this by examining previous drones they had shot down. This seems much more plausible than the tractor beam theory. The United States said the Drone failed and “crash landed”. This seems less plausible based on the lack of damage but it still more likely than the tractor beam theory. Until Keshe/MUFON present evidence of this UFO actually existing, it is just another one of those UFO legends that MUFON and UFO proponents are so fond of repeating in order to make people think they are true.
Technology addiction
In the final segment of the Alien Technology episode, there is a discussion of how humans have become addicted to the technol- ogy we have acquired from the Aliens. Jeremy Ray goes so far as to state that we should not have such access and compares it to little kids being given a box of matches. Jason McClellan implied that we have become so dependent on this technology for everything, people probably could not navigate their way across town without it. Both are exaggerating their point. Humans are much more adaptable and could learn to live without technology if it were necessary.
The show attempts to inform us that UFOs were reported near three power plants in August of 2003. Because the UFOs were close to these power plants, it is implied they caused the power outage of the northeast that occurred on August 14, 2003. Equitz states it was “total chaos” during the power outage and added, “It’s easy to interpret these events as an act of aggression”.19
A check of the MUFON database reveals only six UFO reports between August 13 and 14, 2003. None of these mentioned the UFOs being near power plants. Additionally, there is a reasonable explanation for the power outage and it was far from “total chaos”. There was the loss of services and there were a few deaths (some unrelated to the outage) but there was no mass rioting or people suffering from mental anguish. Power was restored within a few days and the region quickly returned to normal.
To emphasize the point of our reliability on technology that the aliens might take away from us, the show quotes Carl Sagan:
We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.20
MUFON is actually quoting Sagan out of context because Sagan was referring to ignorance of technology and science by politicians and leaders. The actual statement was in an interview with Charlie Rose on May 27, 1996:
We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and
technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it? 21
MUFON deliberately chose to leave out the last sentence and what he was describing. This is another attempt by MUFON to deceive
the viewer. History has taught us that deception does not benefit humanity.
An on-line hoax?
The UFO crashes episode opened with an apparent UFO crash that occurred on December 12, 2009 in Barstow California. The funny thing about the story is that there is no evidence that it ever happened. The source of all this information came from an internet forum, where one individual talked about this “crash” and described supposed witnesses to it.22 It does not exist in the MU- FON or NUFORC sightings databases. How can they really present a case without any evidence indicating that the events described actually happened?
A UFO crash that never existed
In a desperate attempt to promote just about any UFO crash, the MUFONites presented the April 17, 1897 Aurora, Texas as a factual event. The program pointed towards two witnesses, who were in their 80s and 90s when interviewed in the 1970s. They repeated the story about a crashing UFO and dead alien body that was buried in the local cemetery. That grave had a head stone with a UFO on it. When investigators tried to get permission to exhume the body, their request was rejected. However, shortly after this, the body and gravestone were mysteriously removed.
The truth is that this was all a hoax that was exposed long ago. Kevin Randle referred to it as the UFO crash story “that won’t die”.23 Nobody even has a photograph showing this mysterious gravestone with the UFO on it. The continued promotion of such a case indicates that MUFON is more interested in story telling than scientific evidence.
South of the border UFO crash
According to legend, US air defense radar detected a UFO passing over the Gulf of Mexico on August 25, 1974. Instead of heading towards the United States, it shifted its course and disappeared near Coyame, Mexico not far from the US/Mexico border. At the same time, a civilian aircraft was lost over the area.
The Mexican military rapidly responded to these events and found the crashed airplane as well as a UFO that had collided with it. The CIA, interested in what was transpiring, intercepted the radio communications between the ground force and their headquar- ters. Eventually, they sent their own recovery force, which arrived in the area to find a bizarre scene of dead Mexican soldiers around the alien spaceship. Because they did not know how to handle such a thing, the Mexican government allowed the CIA to take the UFO off their hands. The UFO was then transported to Whiteman AFB in Kansas over a thousand miles away.
According to the program, MUFON investigated in 1992 through an anonymous report discovered by Ruben Uriarte. Uriarte sup- posedly found flight, communication, and radar logs that confirm all of this. He even discovered the names of four soldiers, which is supposed to be the “biggest find”. The Mexican government denied these men ever existed.
The case, as presented, is really not accurate. I am unaware of any logs that confirmed the incident and MUFON presented no evi- dence other than the report, which was not discovered by Uriarte. It was actually given to Len Stringfield and Uriarte followed up on the case. A big question is why the alien spacecraft was unable to avoid a small civilian aircraft? A bigger question is how the US military was able to transport the UFO and alien bodies over public roads to Whiteman AFB, which is in Missouri (not Kansas as stated on the show)? Didn’t anybody notice this and report it in the media? Speaking of the US military, where did the soldiers originate from to so rapidly respond to this event? None of these questions are even addressed. The story is based on rumor and very few facts. According to Kevin Randle, Uriarte and Torres, the principal investigators for this case, admit this24 but MUFON pre- sented this case as if it had been proven without a shadow of doubt. MUFON got so many of the details wrong that Noe Torres had to publicly complain about it in the UFO Updates Facebook page.
Acorn hunting
The crowning part of the crashed UFOs episode came when they promoted the Kecksburg case, which was explained long ago
25 (See SUNlite 3-6). All the talking heads repeated the same mantra about the case :
Richard Dolan: What everyone in the town of Kecksburg knows is that an enormous number of people, military, different types of branches of the military, probably over a hundred outside people came in, combed the woods, sealed off the woods from the public and yet, what is interesting is that there is no official acknowledgement by the military services that they did this type of a thing.
Dwight Equitz: Think about it...you see something happen with your own eyes. You know hundreds of military personnel swarmed this small town. Yet, this is outright denied by the government. When you get that kind of first hand look at how these cover-ups work, you are going to be hungry for the truth.
Leslie Kean: “So.. the fact that all these people witnessed a physical object come down. Some saw it in the woods on the ground. Others saw it on the flatbed truck being taken away....means that there is a huge evidential thing that the US government has somewhere....So you have this very black and white contradiction between what the official line was and what actually happened....”
All three individuals seem to be unaware of the key details regarding the case. The truth is there were very few witnesses, who actually saw the UFO come down in the woods or actually saw the UFO on the flatbed. Most of these witnesses are dubious and did not come forward until after the main theme of the story had been established in the late 1980s thanks to Kecksburg UFO promoter Stan Gordon. For some reason, Kean, Dolan, Equitz, and the rest of MUFON crowd seem to be unaware of other witnesses (includ- ing the fire chief in 1965), who state much of the story being told is “made up”. MUFON appears to have decided to ignore the real facts in favor of a fantasy.
At the end of the Kecksburg segment, the sad demise of John Murphy was pre- sented. He had reported about the Kecksburg event on the radio. According to Kecksburg legend, Murphy gathered all the evidence from that evening and prepared to present the truth about the event on the radio. However, the night before he planned to expose everything, mysterious visitors show up to his of- fice and had him alter the program he would later air. Where this information comes from is not stated and one must assume it is second hand, third hand, or assumption. Bob Young, who has heard the broadcast, pointed out that Murphy publicly stated on the program that he had not been influenced by any outside authorities and had received the cooperation of the state police and military.26 One would think that Murphy would have retained a diary, journal, or some sort of file with all this important information. Instead, all we got to see was a “letter” that was supposedly written by Murphy, which stated that he was interested in reopening his investigation of the incident. According to MUFON, John Murphy was killed by an unknown hit-and-run driver a few days after this letter was writ- ten.
It is really convenient the program has the date, the addressee, and the au- thor’s name blacked out. I wonder why the actual date or the author’s name was blacked out. Is it possible that this letter was not written around the time of Murphy’s death? Is it even written by Murphy? Based on MUFON’s track record, I would not be surprised if the letter was written by somebody else.
Since Murphy was apparently killed for his knowledge about Kecksburg, John Ventre states that there is a connection between UFO investigators dying and the UFO cover-up.
“There has been a long list of UFO investigators that have died under mysterious circumstances.....James E. McDonald....John Mack..... John Murphy.... it goes on and on......”27
This is the worst kind of speculation. Poor Dr. McDonald committed suicide and there is no mystery to what transpired. Using his tragic death as a tool to promote wild conspiracy theories can be considered repugnant.
When stars become UFOs
The episode concerning UFO hotspots, started with a UFO event that happened in Blue Springs, Missouri. According to the pro- gram’s presentation, Margie Kay, of Missouri MUFON, visited Blue Springs with a news team one night and they watched these “blue orbs” appear, hover, and jet away at incredible speeds and then come back. Jeremy Ray added an addition to this story:
In fact, the camera operator of a TV station refused to go back to work to do more filming because she was terrified.....28
The actual events were reported by KCTV-5 on May 24, 2012 and their story seemed to be at odds with what was portrayed by the program. The article mentioned reports they had received about UFOs that had been seen by witnesses. This prompted Margie Kay to respond along with the news reporters. They held a sky watch and began to observe these orbs when the sky got dark. The one thing missing from their sky watch was an experienced astronomer (amateur or professional). This became clear when Margie Kay had problems figuring out if she was looking at the star Vega or not:
I am 90 percent sure we are looking at Vega in this instance, and there are some other planets out right now29
When I read this, I had to wonder why she was only 90% sure and not 100%? A star chart is an elementary thing and one should be able to positively identify a star with no trouble if one knows how to use it. Apparently, MUFON does not even bother with a begin- ners astronomy class in their investigator’s training. Her method of trying to identify it was typical of most UFOlogists. She decided to call a local MUFON “expert”, who told her Vega is pure white. Because he said this, she rejected the idea that she was looking at Vega because:
That is not what we are seeing. We’re seeing colors in this. I see green in this one and in the other I see red, green and blue....I don’t think it’s a planet at this point. I don’t know what it is. It’s unidentified. 30
Again, any amateur astronomer can explain to her that she was probably observing a star (probably Vega) that was scintillating. At least she could have taken a time exposure photograph of their UFO to see if it had diurnal motion. That would prove, beyond the shadow of doubt, that it was not a star.
In the KCTV-5 article, there was no mention of any camera operators being scared of what they saw or the reporter seeing some- thing exotic. The events they saw were pretty mundane and probably were just stars scintillating. Missouri MUFON’s inept investiga- tion of this event was fuel for the producers of the program to make up details about what was seen. It would be no surprise that Jeremy Ray probably made up the story about the camera operator, who was so scared that she refused to go back to work.
Nuclear attraction
MUFON determined that the Hudson Valley, which suffered from a UFO “wave” from 1982 to 1987, was a very important UFO hotspot even though the UFOs have not returned in large numbers to this area in over twenty years. The “UFO wave” began on December 31, 1982, when a witness reported seeing a bunch of pulsating lights move across the sky that were, apparently, at- tached to a large craft that he could not see. Missing from this commentary was a film he shot of the UFO. According to the book, “Night Siege”, this video showed something not quite so extraordinary. 31 Only three main lights were visible with some fainter ones. Alone, this sighting is not that very compelling a case. However, there was a more widely seen event on March 24, 1983. This was reported by one observer as a gigantic “floating city” and was documented in “Night Siege”. It is interesting that several of the witnesses described the lights shifting in formation, indicating that they were not attached to a single object. The November 1984 issue of Discover magazine offered a plausible explanation for this and it involved a formation of Cessnas flying out of nearby Stomville airport.32 This was never mentioned by the program’s producers.
The purpose of mentioning the Hudson Valley flap was made clear when they discussed the July 14, 1984 Indian point Nuclear power plant sighting. On that night, security guards saw a huge craft hovering over the plant. Supposedly, the security cameras recorded the event. Guards “afraid” that the UFO might damage the reactor tried to point their guns at it. At that instant, alarms in the plant went off, which produced massive panic. The UFO only disappeared when the military arrived to investigate.33
The program, as always, had problems with the facts and their reporting of what happened. According to “Night Siege”, the date was actually July 24th. That book’s authors interviewed the security guards a few months later but they made no mention of alarms going off or the UFO reacting to them pulling their weapons. They did mention that the security systems at the plant had shut- down but that is not quite the same thing as described by MUFON’s finest. The episode was also misleading in that they showed the security guards dressed up like soldiers and carrying automatic weapons. These were private security guards and probably only carried sidearms. While there was a report of a UFO being seen, there is no evidence that it caused any significant disruption at the plant.34
With the interference of a nuclear power plant established with this incident, Harzan goes on to report that many nuclear power plants in the United States experienced similar events. Jason McClellan went on to add that the energy from these plants might act as a “beacon” into space. Even stranger, was the comment by John Ventre who drew the ridiculous conclusion that the UFOs were monitoring the reactors or sucking energy from them.35
While this kind of speculation might fool those who are not educated about nuclear power plants, the truth of the matter is that it is a bunch of nonsense. Nuclear reactors produce the same kind of electricity as conventional power plants. The only difference is they use a nuclear reactor to generate the heat that produces the steam to drive the turbines generating the electricity. The reactor is in a shielded facility that cuts down the neutron and gamma radiation emitted to near background levels. The further one goes from this location, the lower the strength of the radiation. To say they are emitting beacons of radiation into space indicates that McCleallan never bothered to research this. Ventre’s idea that they are sucking nuclear energy is also dim-witted rubbish for the same reason. Finally, Harzan’s claim ignores all the land based prototypes, nuclear submarines and surface vessels operated by the United States Navy. I don’t ever recall hearing my fellow nuclear sailors and submariners stating they had experienced a UFO suck- ing power from them or interfering with their operations. Do UFOs ignore the military’s nuclear reactors in favor of civilian ones?
Nukes without UFOs
If UFOs and nuclear power plants wasn’t enough, the program also mentioned the 2010 Warren AFB missile shutdowns. Accord- ing to MUFON, they received reports from on duty personnel, who saw a huge cigar shaped object over the base. According to Harzan, we lost control of 50 missiles. Jeremy Ray would add, “If we don’t have control of those missiles, who does?”36
In SUNlite 2-6, I reported about this incident and knew that MUFON or Robert Hastings would make something out of the shut- down (which was caused by an electrical/computer fault). Shortly after the event, I conducted a search of the MUFON database and discovered that there were no UFO reports from that region even though there were some fourteen reports made on that date in other parts of the country. The same can be said for the NUFORC database, which, even today, has no reports listed from the area. If the UFO was so easily seen, it would have been seen by people outside the military base and in the countryside where all the missile silos were located. MUFON’s source of these reports are nothing more than the usual rumors collected by Robert Hastings and not based on anything tangible.
If Harzan and Ray wonder who was in control of these nuclear weapons, the answer is simple. They were in control of the USAF but could not be launched. The implication that the UFOs could launch them is just more absurdity being perpetuated by uninformed “experts” from MUFON.
Buggy videos
In addition to presenting the idea that nuclear energy/weapons attract UFOs, MUFON also had determined that fault lines fascinate the alien invaders. To emphasize this point, John Ventre highlighted a November 2012 video showing a UFO moving about the Denver skyline:
His video seemed to show that a UFO was launching and landing somewhere in the city. It was displaying such astronomical movements that it defied gravity and physics.37
What was not reported by Ventre was this case was closed long ago. However, it was not closed the way MUFON closes a case by leaving it unexplained. Instead skeptics closed this case by actually going to the site and recording the same types of UFOs. They were just bugs.38 Ventre chose to ignore this explanation in favor of the more spectacular alien spaceship that nobody, except this cameraman, in the city of Denver saw land or take off despite it being a perfectly clear day.
Red Bull predicts earthquakes
Since MUFON was promoting the idea that fault lines attract UFOs prior to earthquakes, they moved to the most likely earthquake site in California. MUFON went so far as to suggest that a massive earthquake was going to occur in the region soon. Their evi- dence for this theory was the December 2010 Santa Monica fireball UFOs. At the time, it was referred to as “the silver surfer” UFOs and was recorded by multiple people over the area. Because of these widespread recordings, the source was quickly identified and the case was explained. The “silver surfers” were actually red bull parachutists, who were jumping at night with flares attached to their legs.39 For some reason, these MUFON representatives still considered this an unsolved case. Either they are completely unin- formed about this event, are not willing to admit they might be wrong, or are lying to the audience.
Shooting down a meteor?
In the sixth episode, MUFON decided to promote the idea that the Chelyabinsk fireball was shot down by some sort of space weapon. Jeremy Ray elaborated on this theory using a video that was played while he spoke:
Why did this asteroid suddenly break up fifteen miles above the Earth’s surface? When you look closely at this footage it does seem like something collides with the asteroid. It goes through it from the left and comes out through the right. To me this is an indication that this might be a space-based weapon.40
It is no surprise that Ray did not do any homework on this. Large meteors break up during their entry into the Earth’s atmosphere all the time and it is not as unusual as he seems to imply. Additionally, the program presented an altered video instead of the real one. The actual video shows the car making a gradual turn to the right on the road, which is an indicator as to why there appeared to be something moving across the field of view. The camera was inside the car imaging through the window, which means any reflections on the window would also appear to move towards the right. Somebody performed an analysis of the video and demonstrated it was a reflection on the windshield.41 With all of MUFON’s scientific advisors, one would expect them to reach that conclusion as well or,
Quelle: SUNlite 3/2014at least, address this issue on the program. Either their scientists concluded that it was a missile or Ray ignored the conclusion that it was a reflection in order to perpetuate a mystery. If this is an example of MUFON’s finest, then MUFON has a long way to go before it begins to “benefit humanity” in any way.
MUFON’s legacy
After the first six episodes, I tired of watching the show’s misleading and inaccurate reporting. The UFOlogical “experts” on the show, which includes Jan Harzan, seem to be either uninformed or deliberately misleading the audience. It does not portray MUFON as a scientific organization at all. I am sure there are some MUFON members/UFOlogists that find this show an embarrass- ment but MUFON is not listening to them.
In 2013, certified STAR team member, Antonio Paris told Jack Brewer what Harzan could do to fix MUFON:
After two years at MUFON, I quickly realized several problems that can be easily fixed by Mr. Harzan. The first and most important mis- sion for Mr. Harzan is to ensure MUFON recalibrate its compass. After attending dozens of MUFON conferences nationally, for example, it is clear that MUFON has been inundated with topics that have nothing to do with Ufology – it is intoxicated with conspiracy theories, hoaxes, junk science, new age claptrap and a level of sensationalism that would make The National Enquirer envious. His first goal, there- fore, should be to drain the swamp of all this garbage and bring the science back to the subject.42
It is clear that Harzan has ignored such sage advice and has chosen to hitch MUFON’s wagon to the philosophy of sensationalist headlines that intoxicates the audience but proves nothing. MUFON’s motto is not researching UFOs to benefit humanity. Instead, it should be to conceal or alter evidence to benefit themselves.
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