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2000MPH UFO Incident Sparks U.S. Navy


karl 12

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Considering the U.S. Navy has never released any official documents pertaining to unidentified flying objects, there's some interesting reading below about how an unexplained UFO incident over the Pacific Ocean sparked an official investigation by the Office of Naval Intelligence in 1952...the contents of which are still classified.

The incident occurred over the area of ocean between the islands of Guam and Hawaii and involved the aircrews of two separate Navy aircraft witnessing two 'disc shaped' objects which 'circled' their aircraft twice and departed to the East at an approximate speed of 1500 to 2000 mph - on board the aircraft was Admiral Arthur Radford and Naval Secretary Dan Kimball who later convened a conference with the Chief of the Naval Research Admiral Calvin Bolster about making a full investigation of all Navy and Marine UFO reports.

There's more details and newspaper articles about the UFO incident and subsequent investigation below, Project 1947's Jan Aldrich also raises some extremely important points about the complete lack of declassified US Naval UFO documents and undisclosed O.N.I. UFO investigations.

Incident:

Admiral Radford & Navy Sec. Kimball Planes Buzzed

lf4f855784.jpg

Navy Secretary Dan Kimball was flying to Hawaii when two disc-shaped craft streaked in toward his Navy executive plane. There is no doubt that it it actually happened. In December of 2006 Dan Wilson located an article found in the Blue Book files and Jean Waskiewicz produced a transcript of that article, which can be found at the bottom of this directory.

"Their speed was amazing," he told me later, in Washington. "My pilots estimated it between fifteen hundred and two thousand miles an hour. The objects circled us twice and then took off, heading east. There was another Navy plane behind us, with Admiral Arthur Radford on board. The distance was about fifty miles. I had my senior pilot radio a report on the sighting. In almost no time Radford's chief pilot called back, really excited. The UFOs were now circling their plane---they'd covered the fifty miles in less than two minutes. In a few seconds the pilot told us they'd left the plane and raced up out of sight."

Aftermath:

After landing, Secretary Kimball had a report radioed to the AF, since it was officially in charge of the UFO investigation. When he returned to Washington he had an aide ask the AF what action had been taken. He was informed it was against orders to discuss case analyses, even with witnesses who made the reports. In regard to other Navy & Marine Corps reports ...on checking, found that the Air Force had insisted on getting all copies of reports, without even a preliminary Navy investigation. As in his own case, the AF had refused to answer any questions about these sightings, except for a few that were already known to the press, which it later tried to debunk.

As soon as he learned this, Secretary Kimball had a conference with Rear Admiral Calvin Bolster, Chief of the Naval Research. He wanted ONR to make a full investigation of all Navy and Marine reports from then on and also try to get duplicate reports from witnesses in unexplained earlier cases. And this was to be kept separate from the Air Force Project Blue Book

NICAP Case Directory

Newspaper Articles:

se4f855273.jpg
THE CABINET MEMBER told his story to an audience of Navy officers and air cadets a couple of weeks ago at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola. He may have expected it would stop there, but since he made no such request and since nothing was said about his remarks being off the record, I'll take the liberty of repeating his report.On a recent flight across the Pacific, he said, he was flying at night from Pearl Harbor to Guam. Another plane, with additional members of his party, was trailing several miles behind on the same course.

Kimball stressed the fact that he has the utmost faith and confidence in the pilot who was with him that night, a pilot who has flown him for thousands of miles over a period of years.

Somewhere out over the dark Pacific, he said, the pilot came back to the cabin visibly excited and reported that a flying saucer had appeared out of nowhere, had flown abeam the secretary’s plane for some distance, and had just raced ahead and shot up into the sky and out of sight. He and the co-pilot had both watched the phenomenon, he said. He asked if he should radio a report of the incident to Pearl Harbor.

Kimball advised him not to pointing out that Pearl Harbor probably wouldn’t believe the story. Instead, the secretary suggested sending a message to the plane astern and ordering them to keep a sharp lookout for any unusual sights.IN A MATTER OF MINUTES, the second plane radioed excited­ly that a flying saucer had just come down and flown alongside the wing tip, then had shot ahead and vanished into the sky.

Shakespeare had it right; “There are stranger things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

link

“Operation UFO: The Official Truth about Flying Saucers”, 22 November 1953

(The Milwaukee Sentinel)

The author of the article is Captain Walter Karig, Special Deputy to Chief of Information, U.S. Navy.

This newspaper article discusses the UFO scene as of 1953.

Quote from the article: “Dan Kimball, then Secretary of the Navy, was convinced that “flying saucers” are not figments of the imagination after a UFO buzzed his airplane during a trans-Pacific flight.”

Newspaper article

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U.S. Navy UFO Investigation:

Image: Dan Kimball.

qp4f8565e9.jpg

And we know absolutely that another one existed and that it was ordered at the highest levels. This was the study ordered by Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball, and soon-to-be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff, Admiral Arthur Radford, that was precipitated by the close passage of their planes by a UFO in mid-Pacific, and the subsequent blunt uncooperative treatment of the Secretary's aides when they later inquired about the incident from the Air Force. Kimball ordered, through Radford, that a separate Navy file be maintained, particularly of Navy cases, since the Air Force could not be trusted to act in a responsible and civil manner as to openly sharing information as to what was going on.

The Kimball/Radford study was headed by a commander, Frank Lowell Thomas, out of the Office of Naval Intelligence . Commander Thomas' study/file went on for an unknown amount of time; it could have been a year, it could have been several. Radford didn't retire from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs until 1957---pretty close to when Keyhoe's informants were keeping their file "with the approval of the Admiral". We don't know if there was any relationship whatever between these two files, or even if they in some ongoing form were the same thing. Whatever the exact situation, one can never say with any honesty that the Navy had no interest in UFOs. And, those early files contained some of the best cases of the era, and would be historically important.

UFOs & The Enigma of the United States Navy

Missing Information:

MUFON
In 1962, former Secretary Dan Kimball and Admiral A.W. Radford were on planes flying between Guam and Hawaii and were circled by two high-speed flying discs. A disc flying around military people of this stature should be the only confirmation required by public, government, science alike to accept that discs do fly and they are not ours. We still have not seen the flight reports. The sighting was confirmed by a U.S. Naval Research, Chief Admiral Calvin Bolster. The full text of the investigation should be released. In addition, other UFO investigations done by Naval Research should be released.

Unidentified Flying Objects: The Missing Information

Project 1947.
US Navy Office of Naval Research - investigations set up by Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball after aircraft carrying him and the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Calvin Bolster were separately "buzzed" by UFOs over the Pacific. Later attempts by Dr. James McDonald to question Kimball and the civilian head of the project failed. Despite numerous requests under the Freedom of Information Act, to date no documents concerning the investigations have been located.

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Interesting, but the MUFON report is off by ten years (1962 v. 1952) and refers to Kimball as a 'former Secretary'. Something, somewhere, is buggered.

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Interesting, but the MUFON report is off by ten years (1962 v. 1952) and refers to Kimball as a 'former Secretary'..

PersonFromPorlock, appreciate the reply and you're right that one of the links is off by ten years (so I guess John Schuessler also had it right that Dan Kimball was the former Secretary of the U.S. Navy in 1962)- as for FOIA UFO documents, I'd say the statistics in the article below just about sums up the UFO declassification status of the U.S. Navy and Jan Aldrich's article also makes some very astute points about missing US Naval UFO Information including Secretary Kimball's ONI UFO project in 1952:

Ever wonder what the U.S. Government has in their filing cabinets? Search more than 530,000 pages of declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and find out..

This section contains batches of documents that have been received from multiple agencies. The FOIA request was for all documents relating to UFOs... the following is what was released:

Army - 355 Pages - 22 megs

Central Intelligence Agency [2,763 Pages]

Defense Intelligence Agency UFO Files Through 1979 [204 Pages]

Defense Intelligence Agency UFO Files from 1979-1989 [12 Pages]

Defense Intelligence Agency UFO Files From 1990 to date [30 Pages]

Department of Defense [270 Pages]

Federal Bureau of Investigation UFO Documents [1,600 Pages] - [ Part 01 | Part 02 | Part 03 | Part 04 | Part 05 | Part 06 | Part 07 | Part 08 | Part 09 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 ]

John F. Kennedy Library [127 Pages]

NASA Headquarters [131 Pages]

National Reconnaisance Office UFO Documents (No Records)

National Security Agency's UFO Files [159 Pages]

National Security Agency's Once Exempt From Release [254 Pages]

Navy (No Records)

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense [132 Pages]

Space Command [7 Pages]

Wright Patterson Air Force Base [910 Pages] - All documents relating to Project Sign and Grudge[ January through August, 1948 | September through December, 1948, 1949.

link

Missing US Naval UFO Information:

The sister Services, Army, USAF and CIA, DIA and NSA have released UFO files as have the British, Danes, French, Brazilians, Australians and even Uruguayans. Now the Russians.

It seems the US Navy’s turn. What specifically? For starters:

1. WWII study of ususual radar returns.

2. 4th AF documents concerning with air intrusion of Hanford, Navy radar and aircraft assets tasked to intercept same

3. About 50 AAF and Navy documents formerly TS and below refer to an equal number of other documents on the Scandinavian Ghost Rockets

4. A small amount of Navy documents in the USAF Project Blue Book files refer to other Navy documents not seen

5. AIR 203 was a Joint TS USAF/Navy study of UFOs. Yet Navy claims no records

6. BurAero analysis of AF document released not by Navy but DOD.

7. In 1951 Dr. Urner Liddel ONR claims after studying 2000 cases that UFOs are Skyhook balloons (USAF does even have 2000 cases in 1951. What does ONR have?

8. Korean War radar cases in OP322V, OP322V2 and COMNAVFE. (Some incomplete reports this era in Project BB)

9. Navy Sec Dan Kimball set UFO project in ONI in 1952

10. CIA document enumerating intel asset dedicated to UFOs refers to analyst in ONI

11. The old Hydrographic office was a published source of reports for the US Navy, merchant shipping and aircraft over waters. These were not investigated?

12. Large resevoir of “war stories” by old Navy salts, esp., aircrews and radar operators and other CIC personnel.

Further, Project Blue Book record indicate numerous contacts thru Air Attaches with foreign govt on UFOs. Naval Attaches have not such contacts even with Navies that UFO significant UFO incidents or Navy UFO project, Argentina, other incidents Chile, Brazil?

In reviews for the Clinton Executive Order declassifying records over 25 years old, Army and AF comes up with hundreds of UFO documents even though these were not specifically required for index. The Navy nada.

“We do not investigate UFOs.”

“We do not keep records filed for such a topic as UFOs.”

“If we had any records on UFOs, they were destroyed.”

“If we had any records on UFOs, we transferred them to the USAF.”

The dog eat my home work. Lost at sea!

Jan Aldrich, Project1947.com

link

Links:

Report confirmed by former Navy Secretary. Dan Kimball:

NICAP UFO Investigator (PDF File)

NAVY Independent UFO investigation Programme (PDF File)

E-Book:

Chapter 4. Crisis and Containment: 1952 and 1953

Cheers.

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Some research was already posted on the Office of Naval Intelligence thread about Dr James E. Mcdonald's attempts to discover more about Naval UFO research and there's a letter sent by him below in which he raises some interesting points about the 1952 ONI project.

After UFOs were sighted by the pilots of planes carrying the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations, the Navy instituted a short-lived UFO investigation project in the Office of Naval Research. After complaints from the Air Force about intrusion into USAF areas of interest, the project was closed. An outbriefing on the project was held, but details are unobtainable. A number of Freedom of Information requests to various Naval agencies have met with the same answer; no records exist.

A letter from Dr. James McDonald's files illustrates his attempts to find out more information on the 1952 Navy UFO project:

Dear Mr. Thomas:

During the past few years, I have been examining a number of facets of the still unsettled problem of the Unidentified Flying Objects. During a recent visit to Washington, I was discussing a number of aspects of the problem with Arthur C. Lundahl, who was affiliated with the Navy Photographic Interpretation Center in the early 1950s and has followed the UFO problem with some interest ever since. When I mentioned to him that I was most interested in trying to run down some more facts conerning a sighting that I had heard of from Adm. Delmer C. Fahrney, which involved Secretary of the Navy Kimball and Admiral Radford, Art remembered the sighting and told me that, as a consequence of Secretary Kimball's concern, something of a special study was undertaken within the Office of Naval Research, under your direction. He recalled sitting on the summary symposium at the end of the ONR investigations, but his recollection of the date seems just a bit hazy..

I brought up this particular matter today, when I happened to be talking about some of the early period of the Air Force UFO investigation with Gen. William M. Garland, Chief of Air Technical Intelligence in the 1952-53 period, when the UFO investigations were being carried out on a much more thorough basis than has ever been the case in ensuing years. General Garland who is now retired and works for Notth American in the Los Angeles area, dimly recalled the Kimball-Radford sighting and remembered being briefed on the ORN studies by Captain Ruppelt, then Project Bluebook chief. However, he was unable to recollect any details.

I am getting in touch with a lot of Navy personnel, many of them retired, many who were on active duty during the period of Korean hostilities and whose UFO sightings from that period are of unusual interest. The Maxwell AFB archives include original intelligence reports (now declassified, of course) on many of those sightings, and the scientific significance of many of them appears to be substantial. It would seem to me that a matter of no little scientific significance is involved here and has never received adequate investigation, particularly in the post -1953 years at Project Bluebook..

Sincerely yours,

James E. McDonald

Professor

Project 1947

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  • 1 month later...

For those that are interested there's also some relevant UFO statements made by various high ranking Naval personnel below which are quite revealing, particularly the one by Admiral Delmer Fahrney who's mentioned in this link from Michael Swords.

Statements:

"According to worthy information of faith, in our atmosphere objects arrive at high speed. No aircraft, neither in the United States, either in the Soviet Union is currently able to achieve the speed attributed to these objects from the radars and from the observatories. These objects appear to be driven by an intelligence the way in which they fly. According to reports from scientists and technical personnel, these objects fly in formation and finish manoeuvres that seem to point out that are not completely driven from an automatic equipment. These objects are in incontestable mode the result of long investigations and highly technological and exceptional knowledge."

Admiral S. Fahrney,head of missile testing for the American Navy

"I shall be very glad to accept appointment as a member of the (NICAP) Board of Governors and be listed as a 'believer' in the reality of UFO's, with the understanding that I shall resign if it appears at any time that your big group is being used to cover up for the top brass.

I know that there is a real need to break through the official Washington brush-off and get the truth home to the people. There seems to be a great fear among the powers that be that the American people will panic if told the truth. How little they know and understand their countrymen.

I feel that millions of our people already believe in the reality of the UFO's."

Admiral M Herbert B Knowles

US Navy

"It is time for the truth to be brought out in open Congressional hearings. Behind the scenes high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about the UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."

Admiral Hillenkoetter-the first Director of the CIA, 1947-50.

February 27, 1960.

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Its good to know our Karl 12 is keeping us informed and re-informed ! I hear where your coming from karl !

I wonder what part of 2,000 mph in 1952 people dont get?

My sighting in North Texas in the late80`s I est,it was traveling well over 3,000 mph. to a stationary position around me then off as fast as it appeared !

I bet that some day we shall get the Low down on thses wonderous craft !

Until then Keep Looking Up !

Dont forget about the "Lz1" comming our way ! If it was not for Rob McNaught from Aussie land we just might of missed a great event ! At only 3.35 million miles away from us we shall at least get a few photos of a planet killer,or huge hole in the dirt killer !

Kep-em-comming !

justDONTEATUS. :clap:

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This incident probably led the Navy to set up its own UFO investigation, although the Air Force was unhappy about this because anything in the air was supposed to be its area of concern. It was also critical of the seperate Army investigation of UFOs called the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit.

It's very hard to get records of Army and Navi investigations of UFOs and UFOs, although we know that they existed. Plenty of them have been seen on land or over the water, for example, or even underwater.

http://www.nicap.org/520314hawaii_dir.htm

When Edward Ruppelt used to receive reports of UFOs that had landed or aliens walking around, he'd refer them to the Army since anything on the ground was an Army problem.

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This incident probably led the Navy to set up its own UFO investigation, although the Air Force was unhappy about this because anything in the air was supposed to be its area of concern. It was also critical of the seperate Army investigation of UFOs called the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit.

It's very hard to get records of Army and Navi investigations of UFOs and UFOs, although we know that they existed. Plenty of them have been seen on land or over the water, for example, or even underwater.

http://www.nicap.org...4hawaii_dir.htm

When Edward Ruppelt used to receive reports of UFOs that had landed or aliens walking around, he'd refer them to the Army since anything on the ground was an Army problem.

Indeed TheMcGuffin ! Indeed ! good post !

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This incident probably led the Navy to set up its own UFO investigation,

Most likely, why shouldn't they?

although the Air Force was unhappy about this because anything in the air was supposed to be its area of concern.

I am curious about this inference. The Navy has their own flying wing, so why should they not take it on and why would the Air Force be miffed about that (although I am not sure I like the link from probably to fact)? In fact, NAVAIR is pretty busy in the skies.

Cheers,

Badeskov

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Most likely, why shouldn't they?

I am curious about this inference. The Navy has their own flying wing, so why should they not take it on and why would the Air Force be miffed about that (although I am not sure I like the link from probably to fact)? In fact, NAVAIR is pretty busy in the skies.

Cheers,

Badeskov

Well, as Donald Keyhoe put it at the time, the Air Force regarded this area as part of its special turf, which it guarded jealously. I know that in later years it also tried to take over the Army UFO investigation. As usual, I am impressed by the kind of sources that Keyhoe had in the 1950s and 1960s.

"After landing, Secretary Kimball had a report radioed to the AF, since it was officially in charge of the UFO investigation. When he returned to Washington he had an aide ask the AF what action had been taken. He was informed it was against orders to discuss case analyses, even with witnesses who made the reports. In regard to other Navy & Marine Corps reports ...on checking, found that the Air Force had insisted on getting all copies of reports, without even a preliminary Navy investigation. As in his own case, the AF had refused to answer any questions about these sightings, except for a few that were already known to the press, which it later tried to debunk. As soon as he learned this, Secretary Kimball had a conference with Rear Admiral Calvin Bolster, Chief of the Naval Research. (He wanted ONR to make a full investigation of all Navy and Marine reports from then on and also try to get duplicate reports from witnesses in unexplained earlier cases. And this was to be kept separate from the Air Force Project Blue Book). (Source: Aliens From Space 1973, pp. 65-66, Keyhoe)."

http://www.nicap.org/520314hawaii_dir.htm

Edited by TheMcGuffin
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Well, as Donald Keyhoe put it at the time, the Air Force regarded this area as part of its special turf, which it guarded jealously.

But it was not their turf. The Navy had their own flying units and whatever came within their sphere of interest would be theirs to investigate. That said, I am still curious about how this inference came about:

This incident probably led the Navy to set up its own UFO investigation, although the Air Force was unhappy about this because anything in the air was supposed to be its area of concern

You go from probably to stated fact.

I know that in later years it also tried to take over the Army UFO investigation.

It is nothing new that various fractions of the military would want to protect their turf and step on other's. But if the Navy did indeed create such an investigative group, it was well within their rights.

As usual, I am impressed by the kind of sources that Keyhoe had in the 1950s and 1960s.

"After landing, Secretary Kimball had a report radioed to the AF, since it was officially in charge of the UFO investigation. When he returned to Washington he had an aide ask the AF what action had been taken. He was informed it was against orders to discuss case analyses, even with witnesses who made the reports. In regard to other Navy & Marine Corps reports ...on checking, found that the Air Force had insisted on getting all copies of reports, without even a preliminary Navy investigation. As in his own case, the AF had refused to answer any questions about these sightings, except for a few that were already known to the press, which it later tried to debunk. As soon as he learned this, Secretary Kimball had a conference with Rear Admiral Calvin Bolster, Chief of the Naval Research. (He wanted ONR to make a full investigation of all Navy and Marine reports from then on and also try to get duplicate reports from witnesses in unexplained earlier cases. And this was to be kept separate from the Air Force Project Blue Book). (Source: Aliens From Space 1973, pp. 65-66, Keyhoe)."

http://www.nicap.org...4hawaii_dir.htm

Mjah...UFOs were definitely an area of high concern as it was during the Cold War and the US military was very concerned that the Soviets would sneak in. In hindsight, said fears were grossly exaggerated, but nobody knew that at the time.

Cheers,

Badeskov

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It is nothing new that various fractions of the military would want to protect their turf and step on other's. But if the Navy did indeed create such an investigative group, it was well within their rights.

Cheers,

Badeskov

Commander Graham Bethune was a Navy pilot who had a very spectacular radar-visual sighting in 1951 and he was questioned and debriefed by naval intelligence. He got the impression that there was already some kind of highly classified UFO investigation going on then and that certain naval intelligence officers were very familiar with various types of UFOs. This was in 1951, as I said.

Bethune also thought that the more interesting sightings were being investigated by a high-level group in Washington that combined people from various branches of the service, as well as civilians. That was my experience in the Army too.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case980.htm

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Mjah...UFOs were definitely an area of high concern as it was during the Cold War and the US military was very concerned that the Soviets would sneak in. In hindsight, said fears were grossly exaggerated, but nobody knew that at the time.

We are in a murky area here because there had already been UFO investigations going on for quite some time before 1952, and we have evidence that naval officers were involved in these. Of course, the publicly known investigations are not the only ones, or indeed even the most important ones, because there is evidence that the more interesting reports like Bethune's were bucked up to a higher level, and that would involve various organizations like the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Air Force Center for Intelligence, the Army Security Agency, and so on.

In addition, after years of denying that the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit existed, the Army finally admitted that it did, but that it had turned all its records over to the Air Force some time in the 1950s or 1960s. No one has ever been able to find them.

I have heard that the Defense Intelligence Agency might have them, and that they were very extensive, running to 50,000 pages or more--perhaps much more--which would make it the largest UFO investigation that we know of. It was probably also the first, since it began during World War II, possibly in 1941 or 1942.

If we had these records, I am personally convinced that we would know a lot more about UFOs, particularly ones that happened to be on the ground for one reason or another.

http://ufocon.blogsp...y-some-are.html

And the Air Force was also part of the Army before 1947, although the Navy always had its own independent air arm as well, going back to the early days of aviation.

Edited by TheMcGuffin
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Climbing out on a limb a little more here, I'd even suggest that there might be UFO records in the military intelligence files going back before World War II, possibly many years before the war in fact.

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Climbing out on a limb a little more here, I'd even suggest that there might be UFO records in the military intelligence files going back before World War II, possibly many years before the war in fact.

Thats not a limb its a fact !

Shhh! dont tell anyone I said that !

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