Appropriate security on UFOs probably 2-way street

By Steve Hammons

If some unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are related to intelligent visitors from elsewhere, what is the impact on national security and global security? This is a question that may have faced U.S. and international officials at least since the World War II era.

Wartime security and secrecy procedures probably would have been implemented in such a case. The alleged Roswell incident reportedly occurred in that climate when “Loose lips sink ships” was one of the mottos to remind Americans to keep information about sensitive military activities secret so it would not fall into the hands of enemies.

Many elements of American society including industries, scientists, journalists and others understood the reason for this kind of security related to defense matters and gladly cooperated. American lives were at stake and the outcome of WWII hung in the balance.

And, the “need-to-know” guideline used to maintain security was (and is today) widely accepted as reasonable and necessary in many cases.

During and after WWII, loyal Americans were helping make sure that necessary secrecy was maintained to protect the country and our friends around the world. Most people probably assumed that this was a united group effort that benefited everyone in the long run.

GRASSROOTS INTELLIGENCE

Today, concerns exist about finding the balance between certain security situations, including UFOs and other anomalous phenomena, and making sure that this balance is a united group effort that benefits everyone. Is secrecy at the appropriate levels? Do Americans have a need to know about certain developments?

Many researchers and others have weighed in on these kinds of questions. In fact, there may be different kinds of views within the defense, intelligence and scientific communities about how much and what kind of information and awareness should be made available to the American people.

Additionally, how the information is made available may be a key factor.

It’s hard to make a judgment without knowing more about what we might be facing. Is there a threat from hostile adversaries from elsewhere? Are there friends and allies who want to help the human race? Are there just explorers, visitors and those passing through who are neutral and unconcerned one way or other about the human condition on Earth?

Managing relationships with our international human friends, allies, “frenemies,” competitors, adversaries and flat-out enemies is quite challenging. Maybe we can think about how more complex it would be when dealing with unusual visitors from elsewhere.

Gathering intelligence might be a lot more difficult. As in dealing with other human groups, communication and cultural differences could also play a part. In the case of certain extraterrestrials or other anomalous beings, actual physical and biological differences could also be an element. Gaps between humans and others in technology and/or deeper knowledge might be significant.

If unusual visitors are actually interacting with Earth and humans, who are friends, allies, frenemies, adversaries and flat-out enemies?

And, what if some visitors want to “save us from ourselves?” That is, they look down on the Earth, gather intelligence about how it is functioning and being run, and note that there is vast poverty, hunger, suffering, disease, ignorance, injustice and overpopulation.

What if they note that the Earth’s ecosystem and climate are in grave danger? Or, maybe they know that Earth may face some other threats that we do not fully understand at this time.

And, they may see that the human race has the potential to rise to a higher consciousness and deeper understanding, but is not there yet.

TEAM EFFORT

These are quite complex dynamics that could actually be facing us now, if you believe the many credible researchers looking into these topics.

Maybe we can understand how difficult it would be for insiders in the defense, intelligence and scientific communities to sort it all out and make sound decisions. Their missions include protecting and helping the American (and other countries’) people in various ways. Maintaining appropriate security is part of this.

And standard intelligence tasks do not just include gathering information and keeping it secret. They also include interpreting and organizing the information, then disseminating it to the right people in the right way.

In the case of the UFO subject, providing information to the people about what they need to know may be a legitimate and important part of this intelligence mission.

The people, for their part, probably must take the responsibility for being open to new information, including that which is subtle, complex, “between the lines” or presented in relatively general ways. We might also need to use our own judgment, perception and gut feelings about what we are told.

We might need to find understanding within ourselves about what is going on. Human consciousness is undoubtedly a key factor that is part of the overall situation.

As we move forward, there will be more research into UFOs and what is going on. Many people will learn more, one way or the other. This ongoing educational process can contribute to national and global security, as well as enhance the development of the human race.

UFOs and MJ-12 - Stanton Friedman (Video)

"Nuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman is considered one of the worlds leading experts on MJ-12, the code given to an elite group of scientists and military personal set into action by secret presidential order to over see the harvesting and reverse engineering of technology from crashed UFOs of ET origin. After years of painstaking research, this LIVE presentation provides the facts about this secret research group that operates without congressional oversight."

Is There a Covert Extraterrestrial Alien Presence?

If the aliens have already been here, then, perhaps, they are still around. And if they are here right now, who knows the truth? Is there a covert extraterrestrial presence?
Where are the aliens?

By GARY S BEKKUM
Futurist, STARstream Research

(STARpod.org) -- If the aliens have already been here, an idea suggested by Professor Paul Davies during his talk at the Royal Society, then, perhaps, they are still around.
And if they are here right now, who knows the truth?
Is there a covert extraterrestrial presence?
Where are the aliens?
And what about the allegations of a secret government "core story" of contact with an unearthly presence?
It's called the "Fermi Paradox."
Almost sixty years ago, a group of nuclear physicists, including Edward Teller, father of the American H-bomb, and Enrico Fermi, were casually discussing the topic of UFOs.
According to the historical record, in the 1950s, American intelligence services were concerned about reports of "flying saucers" and "unidentified flying objects."
Fermi, according to the legend, did a quick "back of the envelope" calculation, knowing that in spite of the vast distances between the stars, the universe was old enough to support the spread of intelligence across the cosmos.
Is it possible that in the vastness of intergalactic space, we are all alone? The latest data suggests there are an enormous number of planets within our home galaxy.
Consider this: light can travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in about 100,000 years. Yet the oldest stars are more than thirteen billion years old. So called "second generation stars," thought to be responsible for the creation of the materials which make up the basis of complex worlds, appeared shortly thereafter.
One recent estimate put the length of time required for an advanced technological civilization to spread throughout the galaxy from 5 to 50 million years.
The bottom line? There has been more than enough time for intelligent life to spread across the galaxy, in spite of the daunting distances involved.
If Earth-like worlds are out there, in vast numbers -- assuming intelligent life follows -- then the galaxy should be filled with extraterrestrial civilizations.
So where are they?
Maybe they are already here.
According to a few well placed individuals, who remain unidentified to protect their relationship to the United States government, there is a real alien presence.
Physicist Beatriz Gato-Rivera tackled the problem in a couple of unusual papers published in 2006.
Gato-Rivera posed the question: "Is our Solar System part of a Galactic Hyper-civilization?"
The idea assumes our Solar System is deeply embedded within a far superior extraterrestrial civilization -- in fact all typical galaxies are already colonized with embedded "sub-civilizations" -- just as an ant colony might be embedded inside a vastly larger modern city. For all practical purpose, the ants, and the humans, remain oblivious to the higher-level activities all around them.
Pointing to recent developments in string theory, involving new large extra dimensions of space, which remain invisible to human senses and technology, Gato-Rivera explained, "It would be most natural if other universes would also exist located along the extra space dimensions. As a result, these theories open up enormous possibilities regarding the visitation or colonization of the Solar System by alien civilizations."
If the Earth has already been visited, then at some point in time over the vast history of the galaxy, the "extraterrestrial presence" may have left something behind -- something "alien" and probably far beyond our conception of technology -- to keep an eye out for any interesting developments.
For example, the detonation of nuclear weapons.
Is it really a surprising coincidence that nuclear facilities, weapons, and delivery systems, appear to be the focus of the so-called government phenomenology problem? Or are the reports merely useful cover stories for Earthly technologies in need of protection from the other side?
One account of government weirdness arrived in the form of a "core story" of alien contact.
Naturally those familiar with the tale often request they remain unidentified, or even "on deep background."
"The term 'Core Story' has three separate meanings," explained someone familiar with the tale, who added, "The first ... was invented by three persons in a Denny's Restaurant in San Jose, California, on the 15th of July 1986, immediately after new and veridical data had been received directly by two of them from the Director of Security of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory."
"The second is the 'hijacked' term Core Story," which the source explained had been used by Captain Robert Collins in his book, Exempt from Disclosure.
[For background, see our review of Captain Collins' book.]
The differences between the different flavors of the Core Story were described as being "night and day" by the source, who added that the UFO alien visitation tales were "grounded in fantasy, are phantasmagorical to the extreme ... and possess zero data or circumstantial testimony from credible government sources."
As for the first and original core story, one source familiar with the origin of the legend simply noted it was "well grounded" from "credible sources."
It appears that the so-called "phenomenology problem" has less to do with flying objects and more to do with observed violations of physical laws.
Many years ago author Arthur C. Clarke declared that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Are the alleged anomalies, such as those rumored to have occurred at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, evidence of magic? Is this the "smoking gun" for Paul Davies' idea that the Earth may have been visited in ages past?
The landscape of weird alien tales is populated by many past and present government-affiliated individuals -- some highly placed -- who offer stories which defy any reasonable explanation, in the context of their daily responsibilities.
Ingo Swann, the man the U.S. government tasked to train a secret team of "remote viewers" to psychically spy on the Russians, revealed a secret operation to psychically spy on aliens building a base on the moon.
Another source added to this tale, "There is a fortress there. Dark side of the moon ... It is forbidden for our species to go there, It is a multi-planetary, multi-species 'dominated by contract' of the old barbaric sect of the race that contractually dominates this Solar System by permission of the old and new confederacy."
Stories of an alleged alien presence on the moon, perhaps inspired by popular science fiction like 2001: A Space Odyssey, represent the hidden eye of the subconscious mind.
"Occular Luna" stares down at our world, acting as a portal into a repackaged metaphysical territory.
What one learns from investigating the Core Story, is how covert 20th Century "weaponization" of the human mind opened a channel into the "extraterrestrial presence."
Ultimately, the real "core story" extraterrestrial encounter may be the one we experience when we look in the mirror.

BRIGHT UFO FIREBALL OVER TOKYO JAPAN 2ND FEBRUARY 2012 (Video)

UFO Footage Over California Ehnanced: What Is It? (Video)

By Tom Rose

February 06, 2012 06:02 AM EST

A video of a UFO over the skies of San Rafael, California, takes on new significance after the footage is inverted and enhanced. What looked like a glowing orb at first, takes on a different shape and flies erratically, like no known aircraft. What is it?

The video, recorded on Saturday, seems routine enough at first glance. It's shot through the front windshield of a car parked in a shopping mall lot. The videographer notes that the original video was recorded with no sound.



The music track laid over instead doesn't help the credibility of the UFO sighting, but that changes when the video's color is "inverted" and the unidentified flying object reveals some previously unnoticed details.

The OVNI flies shakily through the sky and performs a number of cartwheels and turns as its wings vibrate from side to side. It's obviously under some pilot control. A moment later the UFO begins to descend in a perfectly straight line as it disappears behind a building. What is it?

Here's the video:

(Mac:  Warning, the music is dreadfull)!

UFO Hunters - The NASA Files (Video)



Encounters of the third kind? Not even close… Oh, really?

By Aaron Wright

This is a special guest post by Andrew Nicholson - www.weirdaustralia.com

A recent article by an Australian astronomer on UFOs and extraterrestrials illustrates the continuing ignorance of many within the scientific community in relation to the UFO phenomenon and other aspects of the paranormal, and exposes the double standards employed when it comes to making extraordinary claims.
In Encounters of the third kind? Not even close published on The Sydney Morning Herald website on 19 January 2012, Perry Vlahos, an astronomy educator, author, broadcaster and past president of the Astronomical Society of Victoria discusses the subject of UFOs and extraterrestrials.
Vlahos begins by taking a refreshingly objective point of view in relation to the possibility of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe.
“From my experience, astronomers disagree on the possibility of sophisticated civilisations among the stars – some think ‘yes’ and others think ’no’,” he states.
But he is far less flexible in his thinking when it comes to the possibility that we may have been visited by any such ‘sophisticated civilisations’. “But most agree on one point,” he continues. “There is no credible evidence to suggest we have ever been visited by extraterrestrials.”
“If they exist, they’ve not been here yet,” he confidently concludes.
Oh, really!

This is a bold statement. In fact, it is an extraordinary claim. And as Carl Sagan famously said, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. This should be as true for a scientist claiming we have never been visited by extraterrestrials, as it should for an ancient alien proponent claiming we’re the descendants of a slave race of alien-human hybrids.
Perhaps he should’ve said that, “If they exist, we have no conclusive evidence that they have ever been here”. A far more scientifically acceptable approach, one would think.
Vlahos then takes it upon himself to share the thoughts of the astronomy community.
“Most astronomers think reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are just that – objects in the sky that are yet to be identified. Certainly, all reports of such sightings cannot be hoaxes and so we must accept that some of them are genuine.”
I commend Viahos for at least acknowledging that some UFO reports are genuine.
He then adds that, “It does not necessarily follow, however, that they are craft piloted by extraterrestrial beings.”
This is true. We do not know that such sightings are craft piloted by extraterrestrials. Unfortunately, there is a widespread misconception that any poor misguided soul who takes the subject of UFOs seriously believes they must be piloted by aliens from elsewhere in the universe. The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) is just one theory on the origin of the UFO phenomenon. There are other equally valid theories, and not everyone open minded enough to take the phenomenon seriously automatically equates UFOs with extraterrestrials.
The fact is, we do not know who or what is responsible.
Vlahos then discusses the astronomy community’s involvement in investigating sightings. “Many astronomers, including the author, have been involved in identifying sightings that have puzzled the public.”
“In most of these cases, natural phenomena, astronomical objects or local intelligence in the form of aircraft, balloons, satellites and the like are the cause.”
I agree with Vlahos here. The vast majority of UFO sightings, once investigated, usually have a more prosaic explanation.
It’s time to redefine what a UFO is.
It is time to weed out such reports that, with a little investigation, can be easily explained. The currentconvention that any anomalous object seen in the sky remains a UFO until it can be identified otherwise only damages the credibility of the many genuine, inexplicable UFO sightings.

 

We need to turn this on its head. Only after a sighting satisfies certain criteria, and all other possibilities ruled out, should an anomalous object be classified as a UFO.
Such criteria might include, for example, the number and/or credibility of witnesses, the size and shape of the craft, the ability of the object to defy known laws of physics, and the object demonstrating speed impossible for any known aircraft.
Tick two or more boxes, and you have a UFO sighting. No more sightings of satellites, Jupiter, Chines lanterns, balloons or swamp gas please.
Double standards … what happened to scientific rigour?
Next, Vlahos links the UFO phenomenon with crop circles through the religious fervour of some believers.
“In some instances, it becomes almost a religious experience to people and no amount of explanation seems to change their beliefs.
“A good example of this is the crop circles that started appearing in England in the late 1970s. Some members of the public thought these to be the work of artistic aliens.
“Some years later, however, two men, Dave Chorley and Doug Bower, decided the joke had gone on for long enough and declared to news reporters how, under cover of darkness, they had made the circles in the wheat fields with rope and boards. They even gave a demonstration for the cameras.”

Ok, this is fair enough. This pair of pranksters was obviously responsible for some crop circles. But all crop circles? And where their claims rigorously tested as the scientific process dictates?
No. Because they came forward and admitted to some reporters they were responsible and gave their demonstration with a couple of planks and some rope, that’s good enough for this scientist. Case closed!
Similarly, the famous Belgian Triangle UFO photo was declared a hoax when last year, a Belgian man identified only as Patrick, obviously wracked with years of guilt, announced to the world that as an 18 year old, he had hoaxed the photo by making a simple polystyrene model and photographing it.
Okay, maybe he did perpetrate a hoax. But where was the scientific testing to prove or disprove his claims? There was none. Because he said he did it, again that’s good enough. Why weren’t his claims treated with scepticism until he could successfully reproduce the photos using the same camera he supposedly used to take the original photos?
Here is a case of double standards, as the scientific establishment is often quick to dismiss the claims of the paranormal due to the inability of paranormal investigators and researchers to replicate results.
A mystery no longer, should all the facts be known.
Vlahos concludes in his article that, “The tiny percentage of UFO reports that remain unsolved would almost surely be a mystery no longer, were all the facts known.”
Tell this to the former Head of Operations at the Belgian Air Staff and to the Iranian and Peruvian fighter pilots who contributed to Leslie Kean’s acclaimed book UFOs Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On The Record.

It is time for all of us to take a more mature, open-minded approach to the UFO phenomenon. This includes scientists taking a more objective stance and treating the true phenomenon with the same scientific curiosity admirably demonstrated in so many other areas of our everyday world.
And it applies equally to the so-called ‘true believers’ who treat every coloured light in the sky as a sign that our space brothers are lovingly watching over us.
Only then can we hope to have an intelligent conversation and perhaps gain some understanding of the perplexing UFO mystery.
This is a special guest post by Andrew Nicholson – www.weirdaustralia.com

The RAND Corporation and UFOs (Pt. 1)

By Antonio Huneeus

 

RAND Corporation logo

Everyone is aware of various studies and investigations on UFOs undertaken in the past by a fairly large number of U.S. government agencies including the Air Force, CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of State, etc., which at least to some extent have been released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). More murky, however, is the role played by semi-official think tanks and research institutions which conduct classified studies for the government and which are an integral part of the so-called military-industrial complex.
It makes perfect logical sense that at least some of these private organizations were contracted in the past to conduct research on certain specific aspects involving UFOs and extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). We know for sure this is true in the case of the Brookings Institution, the RAND Corporation, and the Battelle Memorial Institute, but there may be other organizations which have not yet surfaced to public light. One problem with think tanks and private research companies is that they are not subjected to the same FOIA rules which apply to official agencies, unless their studies were published as part of government reports.
I’ve published in this page many of my “UFO Chronicle” columns which appeared originally in Fate magazine, and occasionally articles for other publications like UFO Universe, all from a period stretching between 1990 and 2004 more or less. This time, however, we’ll take a time trip all the way back to the early days of my career as a UFO journalist when I was publishing a weekly column for the supplement UFOs and other Cosmic Phenomena in the long-defunct New York City newspaper The News World, which appeared between 1981 and 1983. Although I loved the subject, I was still hesitant to be typecast as a UFO journalist, so I used the pseudonym of A. Hovni. I deliberately chose a play of words combining my initials AH with OVNI, the Spanish acronym for UFO. Although the article was published almost 30 years ago, since it deals with historical documents, it’s still just as valid as when it came out of my typewriter. Other than correcting a few spelling typos and adding illustrations, I am reproducing it intact, just as it was written back in 1982.* * *

Article as it originally appeared in The News World.

UFOs interest think-tank scientists at RAND
Scientists wonder if UFOs are from space & what powers them
By A. Hovni
Special to The News World
New York City, April 17, 1982
First in a two-part series
When Mr. William Laub of Northfield, Illinois requested the U.S. Air Force in October of 1969 for information regarding a UFO Study reportedly made by the RAND Corporation, the Air Force’s Community Relations Division at the Pentagon responded curtly that, “The RAND Corporation has never made any reports on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) for the United States Air Force. If any reports were made by this corporation they were made on their own.” Similar enquiries with the RAND Corporation itself elicited a no more forthcoming answer.
One letter from The Reports Department indicated that “RAND has done very little research on the subject of UFO’s: therefore, no publications have been written on the subject.” Still another letter from RAND, date June 25, 1969, seemed to get closer to the truth. “We are unable to identify any RAND publication on UFO’s available for external distribution,” it said.

RAND Corporation
Though well known by name, the RAND Corporation is actually a rather secretive semi-official think tank, based in Santa Monica, California, whose work includes computer “war games” scenarios and other classified research for the Air Force. Knowing the Air Force’s long background with the UFO problem, it shouldn’t come as a surprise then that RAND, as well as other similar outfits such as the Battelle Memorial Institute, have conducted specialized UFO projects in the past. Despite all denials to the contrary, the RAND report which Mr. Laub wanted to know about, did indeed exist. Titled UFOs: What to Do?, it was published on November 27, 1968, “FOR RAND USE ONLY.” Its author was George Kocher. The document was eventually downgraded or leaked to the public, and it can now be obtained through the Center for UFO Studies in Evanston, Illinois.

studies for Air Force
Yet the history of the RAND Corporation and UFOs goes back to the earliest days of Air Force involvement in the matter. The Air Materiel Command’s Project “SIGN” final Technical Report on “UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL OBJECTS,” issued in February of 1949 and declassified only in 1967, states very clearly that the RAND Corporation was assisting the Air Force UFO project along with consultants from Ohio State University (Dr. J. Allen Hynek), General Electric Research (Dr. Irving Langmuir) and MIT (Dr. G.E. Valley). On page 3 of this report, we read that “inasmuch as various surmises have been advanced that some of the reported observations may have represented ‘space ships’ or satellite vehicles, a special study has been initiated with the RAND Corporation, under the RAND Project, to provide an analysis from this standpoint and also to provide fundamental information, pertaining to the basic design and performance characteristics that might distinguish a possible ‘space ship’.” So much for the USAF’s Community Relations Division denials that no such report had ever been requested by the military.

RAND's original office in Santa Monica, CA in 1948. (image credit: RAND Corporation)

space ships theory probed

Dr. James E. Lipp (image credit: RAND Corporation)

We know only from this period what Project Sign termed “a preliminary undertaking,” and which consisted of a RAND project study prepared by Dr. James Everett Lipp, an aeronautical engineer then serving as head of RAND’s Missiles Division. It was submitted in a letter form to Brigadier General Putt, Director of Research and Development Office, USAF, and published as APPENDIX “D” of project Sign’s final Technical Report. (Shortly after, Project Sign became Project grudge).
Dr. Lipp’s letter indicates that further research was being conducted by a Mr. Collbohm on the “special design and performance characteristics that are believed to distinguish space ships,” but this or other reports from the time have not been obtained by UFO researchers that we know of. Professor Lipp’s work was reviewed briefly on a previous article (see UFO Supplement, April 3, 1982 issue) as it pertained to the possible relationship between UFOs and the planet Mars. Dr. Lipp devoted several pages of his study discussing the likelihood of intelligent life in Mars and what the technical requirements would be for the hypothetical Martians to visit Earth in “a nuclear hydrogen-propelled vehicle.”

the red planet
Dr. Lipp however, seemed more convinced of the possibility that UFOs could be space ships from elsewhere in the galaxy rather than from our own solar system. He discussed the different types of stars and those similar to the Sun that could generate planetary systems, in much the same way as Dr. Carl Sagan would popularize over 20 years later. Of a sample of 47 known stars within a distance of 16 light years from the Sun, Dr. Lipp maintained that 22 “can be considered as eligible for habitable planets.” And long before Sagan, the Russians Kardashev and Shklovsky, and other proponents of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), Dr. Lipp advanced “some personal intuition into the discussion with the view that life is not unique on Earth, or even the RANDom result of a low probability, but is practically inevitable in the right conditions.” He also took the educated guess that, “knowing nothing at all about other races, we must assume that Man is average as to technical advancement, environmental difficulties, etc. That is, one half of other planets are behind us and have no space travel and the other half are ahead and have various levels of space travel. We can thus imagine that in our sample volume (the 22 potential stars within 16 light years from earth—ed.) there are 11 races of beings who have begun space explorations.”

more advanced civilizations
Continuing with the argument that a number of space civilizations could be way ahead of us, Dr. Lipp wrote that their space ships would “require improvements of propulsion that we have not yet conceived.” He mentioned “a large number of hypothetical methods of transportation like gravity shields, space overdrives, teleports, simulators energy beams and so on,” drawn from the combined “efforts of all the science-fiction writers.”
Dr. Lipp’s study seem truly revolutionary if we consider that it was written on December 1948. In fact, his astronomical analysis is quite similar to that of George Kocher in another RAND UFO study, this one written in 1968. Yet Lipp’s final remarks against the “flying objects” being space ships are weak and seem perhaps a bit contrived in order to adjust to the official Air Force policy of denying the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. He based his first counter-argument on the proposition that all UFO incidents up to his time “have occurred within the United States, whereas visiting spacemen could be expected to scatter their visits more or less uniformly over the globe.” Dr. Lipp was evidently misinformed about the UFO phenomenon occurring only in the U.S. in 1947 and 1948. On the other hand, that UFOs became a global phenomenon is an undisputable fact.
The second and final counter-argument is that the only “motive” that could explain the “purpose” of UFOs is, according to Lipp, “that the spacemen are ‘feeling out’ our defenses without wanting to be belligerent. If so, they must have been satisfied long ago that we can’t catch them. It seems fruitless for them to keep repeating the same experiment.” As Head of the Missiles Division of the RAND Corporation, Dr. Lipp should have known that weapons research after World War II was advancing dramatically, thus justifying the continuing UFO surveillance of our planet’s sensitive military and industrial installations for purposes that are still unknown.

RAND Corpartion Headquarters in Santa Monica, CA. (image credit: Cbl62/Wikimedia Commons - CC License 3.0)

The Martian invasion scenario
Before reviewing the 1968 RAND Document, UFOs: What to Do?, in our next article, we must mention another interesting study made by RAND. Although it was constructed as just one more computer war game scenario, its implications seem indeed strange. Information on this report came from the popular French science writer Jacques Bergier, who in turn obtained it from a book that reveals “the tip of the veil of secrecy” of RAND, titled Analysis for a Military Decision. Among the many hypothetical war scenarios disclosed in this book, Bergier mentions the astounding one of “a plan to invade the earth with flying saucers manufactured on Mars.” According to Bergier, some of the facets studied in this particular RAND scenario were mathematical graphs of the saucers in the Earth’s gravitational fields, as well as the gravitational fields of Mars and its satellites.
“As soon as the flying saucer has been picked up by radar in the earth’s atmosphere and airplanes have gone up to head it off,” continued Bergier, “the model must be subjected to constant alterations and improvements.” To which he added with good sense that, “this problem seems to have been solved in a masterly fashion by the Martians colleagues of the men from RAND, since to date not one single flying saucer from Mars has been shot down or forced to land.” And this despite the efforts to the contrary by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and those of other nations. Bergier’s final sentence in his section on “Martian Invade the Earth,” is also highly suggestive: “In these laboratories not only man-made wars are studied but also the possibility of wars unleashed by unknown enemies.” We’ll review next what to do with UFOs, according to the men from RAND.
* * *
Update
Looking back at this article 30 years later, one has to admit that the small December 1948 study prepared by James Everett Lipp of the RAND Missiles Division for Project Sign, makes him a true pioneer of SETI in an era long before even that acronym was coined. “This may have been the first U.S. government sponsored study on non-human life in the universe,” wrote Curtis Peebles, an aerospace historian for the Smithsonian Institution and UFO skeptic. Born in 1910, Lipp earned a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1935 and worked for Douglas Aircraft Co. for 13 years before joining RAND in 1948, where he eventually headed its aerospace division. By all accounts, Dr. Lipp was a highly competent aerospace scientist who is mentioned in several histories of the genesis of the American space program. He wrote a RAND paper in February of 1947 titled, “Communication and Observation Problems of a Satellite,” which among other things mentioned the possibility of “spy satellites” for the first time. He is also remembered for a “prophecy” written in this same paper about the enormous prestige to be gained by the first country to launch a space vehicle. Ten years before the USSR launched Sputnik, Lipp wrote:

Since mastery of the elements is a reliable index of material progress, the nation which first makes significant achievements in space travel will be acknowledged as the world leaders in both military and scientific techniques. To visualize the impact on the world, one can imagine the consternation and admiration that would be felt here if the United States were to discover suddenly that some other nation had already put up a successful satellite.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate online the full Lipp report to Project Sign (it may exist in some government FOIA repository somewhere), but those who care to read the complete text can see it in Project Blue Book – The Top Secret UFO Findings Revealed!, an anthology of documents from Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book edited by Brad Steiger in 1976 (Ballantine Books), where it was included.
We did find online a copy of a letter from A. M. Mood of the RAND Corporation to Lt. Col. A. J. Hemstreet of the Technical Intelligence Division at AMC in Wright-Patterson, dated 29 March 1949, which sheds some additional light about the cooperation between RAND and the USAF regarding their early UFO projects. The letter begins by stating that, “we had not planned to issue a formal report on Project Grudge until or unless our study leads to some unusual or unexpected finding which would throw new light on Grudge.” Mood then goes on to say that “we are now working through the data in search of significant consistencies or other indirect bits of evidence,” but that “to date we have found nothing which would seriously controvert simple rational explanations of the various phenomena…” (he includes a long list with balloons, aircraft, planets, hoaxes, etc.).

Memo between USAF and RAND on UFOs.

Mood finally raises a few questions about specific incident that seem to be misfiled and wants to know more about the Maury Island case of June 1947: “We have heard from a reliable source of an incident in which fishermen observed flying objects which dropped hot material which they collected and subsequently gave to official investigators. The investigators’ plane crashed but there was a survivor. We do not seem to have a file on this incident – certainly not a complete file. May we have one?”
Finally, my original article mentioned a RAND computer war game of a flying saucer invasion cited by French science writer Jacques Bergier. This came from the book Analysis for Military Decisions, edited by E. S. Quade in November 1964 under the USAF Project RAND contract. The full book is now available online at the RAND Corporation’s Reports and Bookstore page here, where it’s described as: “Presentation of the lectures prepared for the RAND course ‘An appreciation of analysis for military decisions.’ The lectures are designed primarily for decisionmakers and not for analysts; they are not intended to teach systems analysis, but to point out the weaknesses and possible abuses, as well the effectiveness, of an analytic approach to long-range military planning.” Pages 73-75 discuss the flying saucer invasion scenario.

UFO Hunters - UFO Dogfights (Video)



Alien Archives and the FBI

By Nick Redfern

Digging through the FBI’s declassified, multi-volumed, UFO files at its Vault site can be a rewarding task. Even though the files in question were declassified decades ago, there are a few stand-out nuggets of data that, perhaps years later, still shed more light on the early days of Ufology than many have realized or recognized.
For the most part, when the Flying Saucer era began in the summer of 1947 with the famous sighting of Kenneth Arnold - of a veritable squadron of craft near Mount Rainier, Washington State, USA – people were reporting encounters with strange objects in the sky, a few landings, and even the occasional, alleged UFO crash. But, interaction with the intelligences behind the craft wasn’t that commonplace. There is, however, one early report in the FBI’s files that is suggestive (to me, anyway!) of some sort of immediate post-Arnold interaction of the human/non-human variety.

The story began on July 9, 1949, when columnist Walter Winchell brought to the attention of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover a story he had received from a “Mr. Jones of Los Angeles” who maintained he had seen a Flying Saucer in August 1947, only two months after the Arnold affair. Winchell advised Hoover that Jones had mailed him a letter that was “very well written, obviously by a man of intelligence.”
In view of this, the FBI took time out to pursue the strange matter, as the following memorandum, written by FBI Assistant Director D.M. Ladd makes clear: “In this letter, Jones stated that in August of 1947 he left Los Angeles for the mountains and started hiking through the mountains. About 10:00 a.m. he was laying on the ground when he observed about one-half block away from him a large, silver, metal object, greenish in color, shaped like a child’s top and about the size of the balloons used at Country Fairs.

“He stated that there appeared to be two windows in the object and portions of metal appeared transparent and that he gained the impression that there was some life within this object although he saw no persons. The object appeared as though sealed as a pressure chamber. He stood up and waved toward this object and this so-called flying saucer was off the ground in a second, knocking Jones to the ground.”
The documentation continues: “In its flight he stated that its power was silent and he raised the question as to whether this was an inter-global landing on our planet. He thought that it might be a device to land on our planet because the occupants of another planet had become curious as to the reaction caused by the atomic bomb causing trouble in an expanding universe. He asked the question as to whether it was possible that the occupants of another planet might have solved the theory of negative energy.”
A source whose name has been carefully deleted from the FBI files – but who was described as having a “scientific background” – advised the Bureau that Jones’ communication suggested he possessed “a very good knowledge of physics,” and added it might be to the FBI’s advantage to “check into” Jones’ background and interview him at the earliest opportunity. All attempts to do so were unsuccessful, however: Jones could not be located, or had seemingly vanished. There are, however, a couple of issues that are worthy of note.
First: Jones reportedly lived in California – just like many of the original Contactees that surfaced in the early 1950s and who claimed alien-human interaction. Second: as was the case with many who followed in his path, Jones’ encounter occurred in a remote location. Then, there is the matter of the concern exhibited by the aliens in relation to the power of the atom. Was this merely a case of Jones speculating? If so, it was an astonishing coincidence, as only a few years later countless other people were making very similar – if not identical – observations of an atomic kind in relation to Flying Saucers.
Furthermore, that Jones’ encounter occurred in the mountains while he was “laying [sic] on the ground,” raises an important question: was Jones in some form of altered-state of mind throughout his encounter, and perhaps one brought on by “the occupants” of the strange, aerial device? If that was the case, then Jones’ story might possibly represent one of the earliest, officially-recorded examples of alien/human interaction in the immediate period after the Kenneth Arnold affair.