Monday, 21 October 2013
‘The Maury Island Incident’ movie revisits UFO frenzy, rumors of a coverup
By
World War II had just ended and fear of the Russians was just beginning to ramp up. World War III seemed inevitable. Already, the world had seen no end of deadly, fantastical machinery deployed: Rockets, jets and nuclear bombs … just to name three.
Rumors (some of which had turned out to be horrifically true) sprang up throughout World War II. And afterwards, rumors swirled around even more fantastical machines like death-ray machines and weird civilizations launching attacks from space. The “Golden Age of Science Fiction” was well underway, and that era had brought even more fantastical ideas into the mainstream consciousness … including the famous invasion from space that had paralyzed millions of Americans: War of the Worlds.
So, when “unidentified flying objects” began consuming the public imagination in 1947 and reports of UFOs started pouring in, newspapers put those stories on their front pages. The FBI and mysterious secret agencies (ill-defined and suspiciously ubiquitous) stepped in to investigate, appearing in slick dark suits with stony silence and a menacing panache.
The fever had struck.
Right into the middle of it all came the Maury Island UFO incident. History Link writes:
On or after June 26, 1947, Harold Dahl and Fred Crissman report the explosion on June 21, 1947, of a giant doughnut-shaped “flying saucer” near Maury Island in Puget Sound. They make the report after another sighting makes national news on June 26, 1947. … Dahl reported observing six large “doughnut-shaped” vehicles … One appeared distressed and spewed chunks of debris that rained on Dahl’s boat, killing his dog and injuring his son. After taking shelter on the island, Dahl returned to Tacoma and showed the evidence to his employer, Fred Crissman.That report would gain national attention and the publisher of a science fiction magazine would pay for an investigation. And then a B-25 airplane, supposedly carrying parts of the UFO, crashed on Aug. 1, 1947, en route from Tacoma to San Francisco, killing the two “U.S. Army specialists” on board, according to History Link.
Dahl also said that a mysterious “man dressed in a black suit” had menaced him and fogged his photographs of the incident.
Then Dahl began recanting his story (see clippings) but nothing he said or was reported by newspapers and U.S. Government officials could stop the spread of the story. Remember, also swirling around in the media at that time, was the soon to be much more famous Roswell UFO incident.
Sounds like the setting for movie?
And indeed it is/was: Enter writer/producer Steve Edmiston and director/producer Scott Schaefer and their soon-to-be released movie: “The Maury Island Incident.”
The duo have just released their first trailer for the movie:
“The most exciting parts of the story to me are the true things that actually happened,” said Edmiston, ”all without having to decide if the UFOs were real: The first reported man in black, J. Edgar Hoover’s personal involvement, the Army’s investigation, the fatal B-25 crash over Kelso, and the fact that the facts were hidden in classified FBI documents. To me, the real story here is what happens to a man who tells the world an amazing story that no one believes and the government wants to bury.”
The two moviemakers received some money from the state to make the film. Here’s how Washington Filmworks reported on the project:
Washington Filmworks (WF) is pleased to announce that The Maury Island Incident, a short film chronicling a 1947 UFO sighting over the Puget Sound, has wrapped principal photography. From late June through early July, filming took place in Burien, Des Moines, Tukwila and the waters off of Maury Island. WF is proud to include The Maury Island Incident as part of the inaugural Innovation Cycle of the Filmworks Innovation Lab. The Lab is a groundbreaking new program offering funding assistance to Washington filmmakers and filmmakers using emerging technologies.Why do a film on UFOs?
“Before working on ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ in the ’90s, I directed for a UFO-related TV show called ‘Sightings’ in Los Angeles,” said Schaefer. “I went in as a total skeptic but came out as a total non-skeptic, and that’s where I first learned about the Maury Island Incident. In June 2012, Edmiston invited me to a party to commemorate its June 21st anniversary. After listening to Steve’s excellent presentation about the case, I approached him about making a film. The rest is history, yet with a taste of local mystery…”
Check out the trailer above and the crews’ website or Facebook page and get into the mystery of it all.
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Mac's UFO News covered this story in April, fast forward to 3 minutes 44 seconds:
Shaun Ryder probes UFO mysteries for new History UK show
English musician and celebrity Shaun Ryder hosts a new TV show premiering on History UK. The show isn’t about England or music. It’s about UFOs.
Shaun Ryder. (Credit: History UK)
History UK’s website describes the new show Shaun Ryder on UFOs:
Join us as we follow Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays as he embarks on an extra-terrestrial adventure, taking him from the mountains of Chile to the fields and forests of England.One of the UFO researchers Ryder meets on this quest is Open Minds contributing writer Antonio Huneeus, as seen in the teaser video below:
Convinced from an early age that UFOs exist after spotting one in the sky above his house in Salford, Shaun sets off on a quest to find out the truth. Along the way he scans more than just the sky, speaking to experts and witnesses, academics and abductees, sceptics and believers in an attempt to get to the bottom of their stories and separate fact from fantasy.
Following his investigation for the upcoming four-part series, Ryder is convinced that people have been abducted by UFOs. According to Digital Spy, it was meeting alleged abductee Travis Walton that convinced him.
Travis Walton. (Credit: Open Minds)
Ryder’s investigations also convinced him that governments are concealing information about UFOs and extraterrestrials. He said, “Governments are definitely hiding stuff. I mean I know they are. It’s a fact. I think it’s because they really think they are doing us a favor.”
Shaun Ryder on UFOs premieres Sunday, November 10 on History UK.
Mac's UFO News second birthday at the end of November
As many of you know Mac's UFO News will be two years old at the end of November and work is ongoing for the Volume II Video. Volume II, as with Volume I for 2012 will include all footage for UFO sightings covered by the site for 2013. I'm also pleased to say that I have managed to produce more episodes than last year.
The very idea behind the site has & always will be to help witnesses feel less alone & to provide information on the phenomena. To that end this year has seen the inclusion of the members forum. It still has few members but to date Mac's UFO News has been visited by 162 countries; so with luck & effort this should pick up in time.
Here's a reminder of the sites mission statement, and another look at Volume I from last year.
My best wishes to you all:
As a Ufologist, I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of the UFO Phenomenon, Its cultural, historic, religious, defence and political implications. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Citizen Hearing On Disclosure Update
Congressional Initiative DVD & Blu-ray Campaign
Published on 17 Oct 2013 By CitizenHearing
The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was a great success. We brought 40 researchers and military/agency/political witnesses to the National Press Club in Washington to testify for 30 hours over 5 days before 6 former members of the U. S. Congress regarding events and evidence for extraterrestrial related phenomena since 1947.
We will now take the CHD to Capitol Hill. With your help DVD and Blu-Ray sets of the CHD are being produced and on track to finish production later this year. At that time a copy of these DVDs will be sent to each member of the House and Senate. That's 535 box sets, 10 disc for each set. This initiative will be accompanied by a public campaign to encourage Congress to review the CHD testimony and meet with lobbyist Stephen Bassett to discuss the immediate need for hearings for scores of witnesses ready to testify under oath.
For more information on how to get involved, please visit http://www.citizenhearing.com/chdcamp...
Citizen Hearing on Disclosure IF THE CONGRESS WON'T DO ITS JOB, THE PEOPLE WILL. http://www.citizenhearing.org/
We will now take the CHD to Capitol Hill. With your help DVD and Blu-Ray sets of the CHD are being produced and on track to finish production later this year. At that time a copy of these DVDs will be sent to each member of the House and Senate. That's 535 box sets, 10 disc for each set. This initiative will be accompanied by a public campaign to encourage Congress to review the CHD testimony and meet with lobbyist Stephen Bassett to discuss the immediate need for hearings for scores of witnesses ready to testify under oath.
For more information on how to get involved, please visit http://www.citizenhearing.com/chdcamp...
Citizen Hearing on Disclosure IF THE CONGRESS WON'T DO ITS JOB, THE PEOPLE WILL. http://www.citizenhearing.org/
Citizen Hearing Update 2.0
We meet with our Editor Tyler and ask him his personal thoughts on the Citizen's Hearing.
UFO TV: Aztec 1948 UFO Crash - Secret Recovery of Alien technology / UFOs & The US Military - The Bullet Version
Published on 19 Oct 2013 by UFOTVstudios
This program documents the shocking facts around this disturbing mystery and includes interviews with leading UFO researchers, a walking tour of the crash site, a tour of the secret US radar station that tracked the UFO crash and the story of an intensive government investigation into alien biology and space technology.
UFOs & The US Military - The Bullet Version
This video features the history of United States military involvement with UFOs and confessions from high ranking government officials about their involvement in a cover-up to hide the truth from the American public regarding the existence of UFOs and Extraterrestrial visitors to Earth.
Army Helicopter's UFO Scare Still A Mystery, 40 Years Later
Artist illustration of a cigar-shaped UFO, hovering over an Army helicopter and a four-man crew on Oct. 18, 1973. | Explorer1x / YouTube
By Lee Speigel
Forty years ago today, a four-man crew of an Army Reserve helicopter was flying over Mansfield, Ohio, around 11:00 p.m. when they "encountered a near midair collision with an unidentified flying object," according to the official report, signed and submitted by the crew after the incident.
A full explanation for this terrifying UFO close encounter has never been offered, and to this day, the helicopter-UFO incident remains one of the most credible -- and terrifying -- in the history of the subject.
The commander of the helicopter, Maj. Larry Coyne, and his crew, thought at first that the light on the horizon was a radio tower beacon.
"We were flying along at about 2,500 feet when the crew chief on the helicopter observed a red light on the east horizon. He then informed me that the light was closing on the helicopter -- that it was coming at us on a collision course," Coyne told this reporter in 1975.
"I looked to the right and observed that the object became bigger and the light became brighter, and I began to descend the helicopter toward the ground, to get out of the collision course path. We were descending and this object was like a missile locked onto the helicopter, only it came at us on a perpendicular angle, to hit us almost broadside.
"It looked like we were going to collide with it and we braced for impact, and then I heard the crewmen in the back say, 'Look up!' and I observed this craft stopped directly in front of us -- stopped -- it was hovering, right over the helicopter!" (See main story illustration above)
Watch this video excerpt of the Coyne account from a documentary report. The story continues after the video.
With the unknown object hovering in the air above the helicopter, Coyne and his crew suddenly noticed a light coming out of the aft end of it -- a light that swung 90 degrees and came into their cabin.
"It was a bright green light. And all of the red night lights that we utilize for night navigation were dissolved in this green light -- the whole cabin turned green. It hit all of us directly in the face."
Coyne and his crew knew they were encountering something extraordinary.
"We assumed it was a high-performance fighter, but when it stopped directly in front of us, then all four of us realized that was no high-performance aircraft. This craft, from the angle that we saw it, was cigar-shaped. It had no wings, no vertical or horizontal stabilizer, was approximately 60 feet long, 15-20 feet in height."
What occurred next was like something out of science fiction.
"We were at 1,700 feet," Coyne recalled. "Then this craft began to move slowly to the west away from us. At this time, I was worried we were going to hit the ground, and I looked at my altimeter and our helicopter was at 3,500 feet, climbing 1,000 feet a minute with no changes in the control. We went from 1,700 feet to 3,500 feet in a matter of seconds and never knew it!"
The helicopter topped out at 3,800 feet and the four men felt a bump, "like turbulence, at which time we had control of the aircraft again. I had control and we went back down to 2,500 feet and then continued on to Cleveland," Coyne said.
"As far as the vehicle itself, there's no doubt in our minds what it looked like. A craft that can move at terrific speeds in excess of 1,000 knots, and then stop on a dime, maintains altitude, can change altitude, climb, descend. To encounter a UFO when it approaches your aircraft, you have no idea what it is. I think if it wanted to collide with us, it could have. You can't get away from it -- you don't have that much time to respond!"
Lending credibility to this case were eyewitnesses on the ground who observed the UFO-helicopter encounter. The Army didn't prevent Coyne and his crew from speaking out about their experience. In fact, Coyne was allowed to recount the UFO incident to the United Nations in 1978, as seen below, under the sponsorship of Grenada.
This 1973 UFO incident, while certainly dramatic and terrifying for the helicopter crew involved, is not the only time that conventional aircraft have had encounters with unknown objects.
Many crew members of major airlines have witnessed unusual objects near their aircraft but have been reluctant to tell their stories publicly.
In 1999, Richard Haines, a retired senior research scientist for the NASA-Ames Research Center in California, created the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, or NARCAP, to give pilots and air traffic controllers a confidential place to report their own unusual sightings of what Haines refers to as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP.
"We have two objectives: To make flying safer with regard to unidentified and poorly understood phenomena in the atmosphere. And the second objective is to collect, analyze and then report high quality data from the aerospace world on the phenomena, to help us understand them better," Haines, 76, told The Huffington Post.
According to Haines, on an average daily basis, since the creation of NARCAP, he's received six to 12 reports a year. He absolutely believes there are real dangerous or safety issues that come up between pilots and some UAP.
"Based upon analysis of past cases, a potential for a very serious event does exist," Haines said. "We have reviewed a great many encounters in flight where several things can happen. One of them is an electromagnetic effect in close proximity to the phenomenon, where cockpit instrumentation are affected -- it might be a magnetic field, radio interference or even an inertial effect, and that's obviously unsafe. Pilots don't want to be flying airplanes where they can't trust their instruments."
Another area of concern that Haines and his colleagues have found is similar to what Coyne and his helicopter crew experienced in 1973.
"It's where a UAP is near the airplane, perhaps ahead of the plane, and the pilot makes a rapid emergency dive to avoid a perceived collision. That's not very common, but it would have to be reported. It has happened in the past and there are still near-misses that occur which sometimes are associated with a nearby UAP."
Haines has always been impressed with the Coyne helicopter incident.
"It qualifies as a genuine UAP encounter. Multiple witness cases are very important and should command the attention of aviation officials. In the Coyne case, its color, speed and apparent shape -- those are all important physical characteristics that can be related to other pilot sightings.
"I think the Coyne case ranks very, very high in credibility. One reason is Coyne's reputation as a good pilot before this happened. And his courage -- the fact that he was willing to come forward with this very bizarre story and to stand by it says an awful lot. And he would give encouragement to other pilots to do the same.
"If everybody remains silent, we're never going to get to the bottom of this."
UFO caught from plane over Austria
Published on 18 Oct 2013 by UFOFilesTV
This object was discovered after the event by pure chance. It flies by so quickly, we do not know what it is. Could be a UFO.
Security Camera Footage Captures Ufo ?
Published on 16 Oct 2013 by NDestinationUnknown
Breaking News UFO Sighting Security Camera Footage 10-16-2013.
MIB: Alive And Kicking
By Nick Redfern
This past weekend, I lectured at the Philadelphia-based conference of the Pennsylvania chapter of MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network. It was an excellent gig, thanks to organizer John Ventre and the team. The presenters included MUFON member Fred Saluga, who spoke about the UFO-Cryptozoology connection, and Bill Weber, who detailed a very intriguing radar-visual-based UFO event. Tom Carey shared with the audience his findings on the Roswell affair, while Bill Birnes and Pat Uskert entertained everyone with a behind-the-scenes look at their TV show, UFO Hunters.
Travis Walton discussed his book Fire in the Sky and John Ventre asked the thought-provoking questions regarding UFOs: “Do you know? Should you know?” Antonio Paris dug deep into 21st Century Ufology, Anthony Sanchez shared his findings on the “Dulce Underground Alien Base” saga, Jon Maberry gave an excellent presentation on UFOs and pop-culture, and Richard Lang focused on UFO methodology. And then there was me.
John Ventre asked me if I would deliver a presentation based around my book, The Real Men in Black, which I was cool with. As is always the case when I lecture on the subject of the MIB, I always make it very clear that the real Men in Black are actually nothing like their on-screen versions portrayed by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Rather, the real-world MIB are very creepy, weird, sickly-looking creatures that look part-zombie, part-vampire and part-anemic.
Not only that, and as I also pointed out in my lecture, whereas most people assume the MIB only ever target and terrorize people in Ufology, that’s very far from the truth. As I told the audience, there have been MIB encounters at Loch Ness, Scotland, involving cryptozoologists and eye-witnesses to the monsters of the loch.
I have several cases on file where people using Ouija-boards received visits of the MIB kind. There are demonic parallels. There is the time-travel theory to explain the MIB and their weird antics. And there are even Women in Black – a subject on which, right now, I’m writing a full-length book.
In other words, the MIB puzzle is a wide and varied one that extends far outside of the confines of Ufology. Well, as is usually the case when I do a lecture, write a book, or take part in a radio-show, people contact me to ask questions or to make observations. They also, very often, share personal stories. And, with regard to the latter, that was most certainly the case regarding the Men in Black.
I know from speaking to people – and this goes for both witnesses and the UFO research community – that there is often an assumption that the Men in Black are something of the past, something that revolved around the likes of Albert Bender’s MIB-based experiences of the early 1950s and the Men in Black links to the Mothman affair of the 1960s. But, that’s very far from being accurate. Indeed, the MIB have never really gone away at all. Rather, they are simply extremely good at hiding under the radar.
But, for those dark-suited visitors, there is one fatal flaw in their sinister and covert activity. It’s when their cover is blown and the witnesses decide to come clean and reveal their experiences – even in the wake of chilling, MIB intimidation. And that’s exactly what happened over the course of the weekend – both before and after my lecture on the MIB. I’m used to getting MIB reports on a regular basis, but at the MUFON gig the reports came tumbling out.
And guess what? While one or two of the reports could certainly have been the result of visits from – or surveillance by – people at an official level, the majority of the 15 or so accounts I received were of the classic Men in Black type. That’s to say the pale-faced, scrawny, staring-eyed, Fedora-hat-wearing kind. And almost all of them dated from as late as the last decade or so.
There were two cases involving old-style black cars of a type that would have been right at home in some old B&W gangster movie of the 1950s. And to my amazement, I got no less than three accounts of the Women in Black variety. Interestingly, of the testimony provided to me, two of the witnesses described MIB confrontations that utterly lacked any UFO links whatsoever, but that revolved around the domain of the occult.
Collectively, this tells me several important things: (a) the MIB have not gone away; (b) they haven’t even bothered to upgrade, or change, their modus operandi or fashion sense (or lack of it); (c) they are as curiously out of time as they always have been; and (d) they are still keeping careful and clandestine watch on matters of a paranormal nature that extend far beyond the mystery of UFOs.
We may be no closer to really knowing who or what the MIB are, or from where they originate, but they are still out there, still knocking on doors late at night, and still provoking fear and dread whenever they appear.