48 replies to this topic

[TheMacGuffin]

R4z3rsPar4d0x, on 06 November 2012 - 12:00 AM, said:

HOLY CRAP. that would be scary as hell

I didn't want to mention the Valentich case again because that one is the most familiar and has been discussed a great deal over the years.  This one has never been explained either.

[TheMacGuffin]

Newfoundland, Canada - 1951
On February 10, a US Navy flight, Atlantic - Continental Air Transport Squadron one, located at USN Air Station, Patuxent River, Maryland, was out of Keflavik, Iceland at 49-50 degrees north latitude and 50-03 degrees west longitude about 150 kilometers [90 miles] west of Gander, Newfoundland out over the Atlantic Ocean.
The aircraft was probably bound for Gander to refuel judging by its position and course of 230 degrees true, though the report does not mention this.
US Naval Reserve Lieutenant Graham Bethune, co-pilot of Flight 125, was occupying the captain's seat on the left side of the cockpit in the passenger plane when he first sighted a huge object [at least] 300 feet in diameter on a near collision course with their aircraft.

The co-pilot stated in his official report,... I observed a glow of light below the horizon about 1,000 to 1,500 feet [330-470 meters] above the water. We both [the pilot as well] observed its course and motion for about 4 or 5 minutes before calling it to the attention of the other crew members...

Suddenly its angle of attack changed.

Its altitude and size increased as though its speed was in excess of 1,000 miles [1,670 kilometers] per hour. It closed in so fast that the first feeling was we would collide in midair.

At this time, its angle changed and the color changed. It then [appeared] definitely circular and reddish orange on its perimeter. It reversed its course and tripled its speed until it was last seen disappearing over the horizon.

The co-pilot's report goes on to say that the object came within five miles of their aircraft which was borne out by radar evidence of the encounter because the object had been tracked by DEW Line Ground Radar at the base in Goose Bay, Labrador.

Submitted by Don Ledger.
Source:
GR+V From Dominique Weinstein's Aircraft/UFO
Encounters Catalogue - Special Report #2 Canadian East Coast Cases.

http://www.ufocasebo...wfoundland.html

[TheMacGuffin]

And this report of very large UFOs from 1956.


Giant Flying Saucers

"They don't look like ships," said Benton. He called Radioman John Wiggins. No word of any unusual ship movements, Wiggins reported. And no signals from the location of the lights. If they were ships, they were keeping radio silence. "Wake up those other crews," Benton told Erdman.
"Maybe somebody can dope it out." In a few moments, two or three airmen crowded into the cockpit. Benton cut off the automatic pilot, banked to give them and the men in the cabin a better view.

As the transport began to circle, the strange lights abruptly dimmed. Then several colored rings appeared, began to spread out. One, Benton noticed, seemed to be growing in size.

Behind him, someone gave an exclamation. Benton took another look. That luminous ring wasn't on the surface - it was something rushing up toward the transport.
"What the devil is it?" said Mooney. "Don't know," muttered Benton. He rolled the Constellation out of its turn to start a full-power climb. Then he saw it was useless. The luminous ring could catch them in seconds.

The glow, he now saw, came from the rim of some large, round object. It reached their altitude, swiftly took shape as a giant disc-shaped machine.
Dwarfing the Constellation, it raced in toward them. "It's going to hit us!" said Erdman. Benton had known normal fear, but this was nightmare. Numbed, he waited for the crash.

Suddenly the giant disc tilted. Its speed sharply reduced, it angled on past the port wing. The commander let out his breath. He looked at Mooney's white face, saw the others' stunned expressions.

Watching out the port window, he cautiously started to bank. He stopped as he saw the disc.

It had swung around, was drawing abreast, pacing them at about one hundred yards. For a moment he had a clear glimpse of the monster.
Its sheer bulk was amazing; its diameter was three to four times the Constellation's wing span. At least thirty feet thick at the center, it was like a gigantic dish inverted on top of another.

Seen at this distance, the glow along the rim was blurred and uneven. Whether it was an electrical effect, a series of jet exhausts or lights from opening in the rim, Benton could not tell. But the glow was bright enough to show the disc's curving surface, giving a hint of dully reflecting metal.

Though Benton saw no signs of life, he had a feeling they were being observed. Fighting an impulse to dive away, he held to a straight course. Gradually, the strange machine pulled ahead.

Tilting its massive shape upward, it quickly accelerated and was lost against the stars.

Commander Benton reached for his microphone, called Gander Airport and identified himself. "You show any other traffic out here?" he asked the tower. "We had something on the scope near you," Gander told him. "But we couldn't get an answer."

"We saw it," Benton said grimly. "It was no aircraft." He gave the tower a concise report, and back at Gander teletype messages were rushed to the U.S. Air Defense Command, the Commanding Officer, Eastern Sea Frontier, the Director of Air Force Intelligence and the Air Technical Intelligence Center."


http://www.ufocasebo...m/navy1956.html

[TheMacGuffin]

And this is the most important part of all.  No one questioned that they had seen a real flying saucer.  This time they knew it was true, and here we see that there was a classified UFO investigation going on.  Many people in the military have come across it over the years, including me.


For two hours, Benton and the rest were carefully interrogated[debriefed], separately and together: How close did the object come? What was its size... estimated rate of climb... any electrical interference noted... what happened to the other luminous rings?

From the answers to scores of questions, the majority opinion emerged. The flying disc was between 350 and 400 feet in diameter, and apparently metallic. No interference with ignition noted; instruments not observed and radio not operating during this brief period.

Time for the giant disc to climb to the transport's altitude, between five and eight seconds, indicated speed between 1,400 and 2,200 knots; the disc had accelerated above this speed on departure.

Not all the men in the cabin had seen the luminous rings. Of those who had, most were watching the huge disc approach and did not see the "rings" disappear. If they, too, were flying discs, in a rendezvous as some suggested, they apparently had raced off while the other one was checking on the Constellation.
At one point, an Intelligence captain asked Benton if he had seen any indication of life abroad the disc.
Intelligently Controlled

"No, but it was intelligently controlled, that's certain. Benton looked at him closely. "That size, it would hardly be remote-controlled, would it?" "I couldn't say," replied the Air Force man.

Nor would he tell what the Gander Airport radar had shown about the disc's speed and maneuvers. "What's behind all this?" demanded Mooney. "Up to now, I believed the Air Force. You people say there aren't any flying saucer..."

"Sorry, I can't answer any questions," said the captain. "Why not? After a scare like that, we've got a right to know what's going on." The Intelligence officer shook his head. "I can't answer any questions," he repeated.

As quickly as possible, intelligence reports with full details were flashed to the four Defense commanders already notified, with an extra message for the Director of Naval Intelligence.

After the Constellation reached Patuxent, the air crews were interviewed [debriefed] again, by Navy order. Each man made a written report, with his opinion of what he had seen.

Five days later, Commander Benton had a phone call from a scientist in a high government agency. "I'm informed you had a close-up UFO sighting. I'd like to see you."

Benton checked, found the man was cleared by the Navy. Next day, the scientist appeared, showed his credential, listened intently to Benton's report. Then he unlocked a dispatch case and took out some photographs.

"Was it like any of these?" At the third picture, Benton stopped him. "That's it!" He looked sharply at the scientist. "Somebody must know the answers, if you've got photographs of the things."

The other man took the pictures. "I'm sorry, Commander." He closed his dispatch case and left.

At the time when I (Donald Keyhoe) learned of this case, I had served for two years as Director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.

source:
Flying Saucer Review, Volume 49/2, Summer 2004, pp. 21-23
From the NICAP records, by Major Donald E. Keyhoe

[TheMacGuffin]

February 14, 1973-McAlester, Oklahoma:


An airline DC-8 cargo flight was en route from St. Louis to Dallas on February 14, 1973, at about 2:30 a.m. At a point near McAlester, Oklahoma, the copilot noticed what he first thought was another aircraft just below the leading edge of the right wing about 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) away.

The object was on the same course and speed, keeping a constant position. Only its steady amber light seemed unconventional.

Suddenly the object rose straight up like an elevator, made a sharp turn and approached the plane, taking up a position about 300 yards (270 meters) away and slightly above them. It was disc-shaped with a transparent dome on top, its silvery, highly polished surface reflecting the moonlight. Besides some stubby protrusions no other features were visible.

The captain switched on the weather radar and it confirmed that something real and solid was there. When the radar beam hit its surface, the object reacted immediately, ascending straight up, then moving sideways over the DC-8 and briefly out of sight.

The object reappeared quickly, descending straight down and taking up a new position just below the leading edge of their left wing. It then dropped below and behind the plane, abruptly reappearing only about 300 feet (90 meters) below them.

Looking down into the dimly lit dome, the pilots saw two or three shadowy entities moving around. The object then darted out in front, performed various oscillatory motions and another sharp (noninertial) turn before speeding out of sight. It disappeared off the radar scope at a distance of 50 miles (80 km).16

by Richard Hall:
Source: Volume II, The UFO Evidence, A Thirty-Year Report, Richard Hall, (2001), page 131


http://www.ufocasebo...lahoma1973.html

[TheMacGuffin]

And there are quite a few suspected collision and crash cases from over the years, including this one.

You're probably familiar with the disappearance of Frederick Valentich and his Cessna aircraft while being followed by a UFO over the Bass Straits between Australia and Tasmania, but have you ever heard of a similar incident that occurred near Puerto Rico?


At 6:10 P.M. on June 28, 1980, Jose Maldonado Torres and his friend, Jose Pagan Santos, took off from Los Americas International Airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in an Ercoupe aircraft marked N3808H. The Ercoupe was owned by Santos' father Jose Pagan Jimenez, an Aero Police Officer for Puerto Rico. They were bound for home in Puerto Rico.

At 8:03 P.M. the Las Mesas site and several aircraft picked up radio transmissions from N3808H:

"Mayday, Mayday, Ercoup ochero cero, eight, zero, zero, Hotel. We can see a strange object in our course, we are lost, Mayday, Mayday."

An Iberia Airlines Flight IB-976 en route from Santo Domingo to Spain responded to the Mayday and received a reply:

"Ah we are going from Santo Domingo to ah San Juan International but we found ah a weird object in our course that made us change course about three different times we got it right in front of us now at one o'clock, our heading is zero seven zero degrees… our altitude one thousand six hundred a zero seven zero degrees… our VORs got lost off frequency…"

Iberia Flight IB-976 then relayed a message asking from San Juan Center asking N3808H to turn on their transponder.

N3808H replied that the Ercoup was not equipped with a transponder. At 8:06 Iberia IB-976 asked for their call sign and estimated position and received this reply:

"Right now we are supposed to be at about thirty-five miles from the coast of Puerto Rico but we have something weird in front of us that make us lose course all the time I changed our course a second (unintelligible) our present heading right now is three hundred we are right again in the same stuff, sir."


They were not heard from again. At 8:12, the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range verified the last radar position of N3808H as thirty-five miles West of Puerto Rico.
A search that included Santos' father was then mounted which centered on this last radar position. It was discontinued after two days when no trace had been found. No trace was ever found.

http://www.ufocasebo...puertorico.html

[psyche101]

Zaphod222, on 03 November 2012 - 01:57 AM, said:

LOL, I never thought I would see "UFO" and "proven" in the same sentence.

I take it you are entirely unaware of the Hessdalen project then?

[psyche101]

mcrom beat me to it. NARCAP look for exactly this sort of evidence to avoid such a disaster ever happening.

Link - NARCAP(National Aviation Centre for Reporting Centre on Anomalous Phenomena.)

[psyche101]

I found this interesting, over at NARCAP.

Quote

Near Misses with UAP:
      Overseas, there have been reported near misses between aircraft and UAP, thus raising
concerns about the safety of aircraft. If such incidents have happened here in Australia and
have been reported, where should we look for details about the incidents?
      A search through the websites of Air Services Australia; the Civil Aviation Safety
Authority and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, determined that one answer appears
to be the ATSB’s listing of “Aviation Safety Investigations and Reports.” (6) This database
currently lists 3,929 incidents which have been investigated. Examples from this list are:
 Collision with terrain
 Turbulence event
 Collision with obstacle
Of particular interest to us are incidents included here such as:
 Airprox – VH-PWQ/Unknown, PA-34/unknown near Avalon Airport, Victoria 22
May 2012.
 Airprox – Beech A36, VH-IOL and an unknown aircraft, 49kms Scone Airport
NSW 26 September 2011.
      “Airprox” means that an aircraft and something else (usually another aircraft) came
closer than they should have been.
      Before 2004, the report headings merely list the aircraft involved. Thus, there is no way
to tell, without opening each report, if the event was an airprox. The earliest report listed is
from 1969.

[psyche101]

TheMacGuffin, on 06 November 2012 - 12:28 AM, said:

I didn't want to mention the Valentich case again because that one is the most familiar and has been discussed a great deal over the years.  This one has never been explained either.

Even a mundane explanation cannot be confirmed considering the location without an act of God or a most amazing stroke of pure luck. One of the most treacherous stretches in the Southern Hemisphere.

That one will always remain a mystery. His last transmission is truly something to ponder over. Strange noises, like metal scraping. It is known that he was quite a poor pilot and struggled through his career. A crash into Bass Strait is not over the top IMHO.

Valentich was quite a UFO buff. His father wished aliens had taken him. That stikes me as strange for downunder.

Edited by psyche101, 06 November 2012 - 03:06 AM.

[R4z3rsPar4d0x]

TheMacGuffin, on 06 November 2012 - 12:28 AM, said:

I didn't want to mention the Valentich case again because that one is the most familiar and has been discussed a great deal over the years.  This one has never been explained either.

Yeah that case is definately one for the books what do you think happened with that case mac?

[booNyzarC]

psyche101, on 06 November 2012 - 02:57 AM, said:

Even a mundane explanation cannot be confirmed considering the location without an act of God or a most amazing stroke of pure luck. One of the most treacherous stretches in the Southern Hemisphere.

That one will always remain a mystery. His last transmission is truly something to ponder over. Strange noises, like metal scraping. It is known that he was quite a poor pilot and struggled through his career. A crash into Bass Strait is not over the top IMHO.

Valentich was quite a UFO buff. His father wished aliens had taken him. That stikes me as strange for downunder.

It is well known that he was a poor pilot?  I've never heard of that psyche.  Do you have anything to substantiate that judgement?  Just curious.

[booNyzarC]

TheMacGuffin, on 06 November 2012 - 12:44 AM, said:

And this report of very large UFOs from 1956.


Giant Flying Saucers

*snip*

http://www.ufocasebo...m/navy1956.html

This one has always fascinated me.  I'm not sure what to make of it.  It really is a great story.

On the surface, it seems like a viable experience and well corroborated within the story itself.  But whenever I try to dig a little deeper, I can't seem to find anything to back it up.

Could this have actually happened?  I suppose, but I don't know if we'll ever know.  If it did actually happen it would sure seem to suggest that there is validity in the subject overall.  But there are many cases that can be described that way.  Countless cases actually, especially from antiquity.

I just don't know what to think about these kinds of cases MacGuffin.  Is there any more information about this one that you're aware of?

[psyche101]

booNyzarC, on 06 November 2012 - 04:45 AM, said:

It is well known that he was a poor pilot?  I've never heard of that psyche.  Do you have anything to substantiate that judgement?  Just curious.

Yeah mate, common knowledge, you will notice the UFO sites admit he did not submit a flight plan, which is a pretty basic no-no for a commercial pilot, even WIki has an excerpt on it.

Quote

Valentich

Frederick Valentich was born on 9 June 1958 in Melbourne. He lived at home with his parents and three siblings and at the time of his disappearance was a shop assistant at an army disposals store at Moonee Ponds.
He had twice applied to enlist in the Royal Australian Air Force but was rejected because of inadequate educational qualifications. He was a member of the Air Training Corps, determined to have a career in aviation. His student pilot licence was issued 24 February 1977 and his private pilot licence the following September. Valentich was studying part-time to become a commercial pilot but had a poor achievement record, having twice failed all five commercial licence examination subjects, and as recent as the previous month had failed three more commercial licence subjects. He had been involved in flying incidents, straying into a controlled zone in Sydney (for which he received a warning) and twice deliberately flying into cloud (for which prosecution was being considered).
A firm believer in UFOs, Valentich had accumulated numerous articles about them and watched movies on the subject, and had told his father Guido that he was worried what UFOs could do if they attacked. His father told investigators that Frederick and his mother had watched a UFO move off at great speed earlier that year.

However....

The claim that he staged his disappearance is starting to look quite possible though:

Quote

Mr Basterfield and others had known the 315-page file - the holy grail in the mystery - existed. It had been seen by one researcher on the desk of a Transport Department official in 1982, as he lobbied him for its release. Since then, many have sought it doggedly to see which of the many theories on the mystery - hoax, suicide, staged disappearance, drug-induced hallucination or actual UFO sighting - was given credence by investigators.

What is significant about the file, Mr Basterfield argues, is that for the first time it is revealed that parts of aircraft wreckage with partial serial numbers were found in Bass Strait five years after the disappearance.

Mr Basterfield says Valentich's aircraft serial numbers fell within the range of those found on the wreckage, almost eliminating the theory that the pilot staged his disappearance on the way to King Island.

"There was a lot of public speculation at the time of a hoax disappearance but there is nothing in the 315 pages that even suggests that," he says.

He says transcripts and notes of extensive interviews with those who knew or were related to Valentich, doctors and colleagues virtually eliminate the possibility of suicide.

Most significantly, investigators leave the possibility of a UFO encounter open. Mr Basterfield points out it was investigators, not Valentich or the media, who took the pilot's description of the object and labelled it an Unidentified Flying Object.

UFO theorists also will take heart in one document on the file, which shows that for the first time the head of the Transport Department took the possibility of a UFO encounter so seriously, he suggested his Minister ask the Defence Minister to launch an investigation into the possibility.

"I have read about 20,000 pages of government reports on UFO files and I have never seen such a suggestion," Mr Basterfield says.

LINK

Being a bit closer to home, it is one I try to keep tabs on. The evidence Mr Basterfield has uncovered intriguing. I had not considered that angle previously, but considering that he gave different people different stories on departure, and the basic errors made, I will have to rethink that train of thought. He only had 150 hours up at the time, considering the wild weather in Bass Strait, I always assumed the weather got the better of him and took him well of course and into the briny. I think Uncle Phil was onto this hoax idea, but never got enough evidence up to prove it, and that I think is how he was misquoted as saying Valentich was smuggling drugs.
I find the Dad and Son being into UFO's and Dad's public comments more than interesting............... particularly so with the new hoax angle.

Having the transport department carry out the investigation does not seem to fit in with conspiracy guidelines though.........

Edited by psyche101, 06 November 2012 - 05:16 AM.

[booNyzarC]

Well that's a lot to take in, thanks psyche.

I'm never disappointed when I ask you for more information.