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AUGUST 2021 No. 640 $5.99 UNCONQUERABLE EARTH: DEFEATING HOSTILE ETs Why is it Hard to be an Experiencer? Missing Accounts of Missing Time Part One
AUGUST 2021 No. 640 $5.99
UNCONQUERABLE EARTH: DEFEATING HOSTILE ETs
Why is it Hard to be an Experiencer?
Missing Accounts of Missing Time Part One
THE MUFON JOURNALUSPS 002-970ISSN 0270-6822
MUFON’s mission is the scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity.
Executive Director David [email protected]
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Creative DirectorLisa Wright
Columnists Arman BirnbaumShelley Goodman
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Copyright 2021 by Mutual UFO Network. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL POLICIESThe MUFON UFO Journal contents are determined by the MUFON Editorial Committee and do not necessarily reflect the official position of MUFON. Opinions expressed are solely those of the individual authors and columnists and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Editor or MUFON UFO Journal staff. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Copyright Owners. Permission is hereby granted to quote up to 200 words of any one article, provided the author is credited, and the statement “Copyright 2021 by the Mutual UFO Network, 4212 Airport Rd, Ste. 100–102, Cincinnati, OH 45226” is included.
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5 DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE Moving Ahead at Light Speed
6 UFO ACTIVITY REPORT Worldwide Sightings
10 UFO INTERNATIONAL MEDIA Unconquerable Earth: Defeating Hostile ETs
13 THE ERT FILES Why is it Hard to be an Experiencer?
16 UFOView Missing Accounts of Missing Time • Part One
18 BOOK REVIEW Whitley Strieber’s A New World
19 UFOThinkTank Keep Watching the Skies
22 PRESS RELEASE The Top Five 2020 UFO Cases*
from the Mutual UFO Network
22 SPOTLIGHT ON… Maine MUFON
23 MUFON MINUTES What’s happening
MUFON’s mission is the scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity.
Executive Director David [email protected]
Chief Operating OfficerKenneth St. [email protected]
Editor Barbra Schuessler [email protected]
Creative DirectorLisa Wright
ColumnistsArman BirnbaumShelley Goodman
Office ManagersMarketa KlimovaHannah Trimble
Mutual UFO [email protected]
4212 Airport Rd, Ste. 100–102Cincinnati, OH 45226p: 949.47.MUFON (68366)e: [email protected]: mufon.com
MUFON amateur radio net:75 meters - 3977.7 MHzWednesdays 8 p.m. ET
THE MUFON JOURNALUSPS 002-970ISSN 0270-6822
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COVER ART by Jessica Sobhani
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3THE MUFON JOURNAL |
DAVID MACDONALDDIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
WOW! Things are moving at light speed, and all of us are hanging on to our seats as MUFON speeds towards the 2021 Symposium. If you have not yet registered, you’d better hurry as we are just about to surpass our room alloca-tion. Once we fill it, we can no longer offer the special room rate.
It looks like after a period of lockdowns and all the grief that went along with it, people
are ready to travel, go out, have a good time and be able to socialize like the human beings we were created to be. The signs of a come-back are all around. Air travel is exceeding pre-covid levels, and ground transportation is showing the same growth.
As good as that is, it is requiring considerable pre-planning to insure smooth transition. So, I do not recommend waiting until the last minute.
Meanwhile, in Cincinnati, a 53-foot tractor trailer showed up at the new location carrying the entire office contents of the Irvine office. Now, contrary to the agreement to unload, reassemble the shelving and refill it, the truck showed up with only the driver.
So, we had two old men (myself and our cor-porate attorney), two young men (the truck
driver and a flight instructor) and one young woman (the Cincinnati office manager) to deal with the shipment.
The five of us unloaded 270 50-pound boxes, plus the shelving, filing cabinets, furniture, office equipment, desk, conference tables, computer equipment, wall art and a myriad of other yet-to-be-identified items. And we did it in under four hours!
We are in the process of reassembling the shelves, sorting and unpacking the boxes and placing the contents back on the shelves. We hope to have all back in order within the next few weeks. When finished the new headquar-ters will be amazing. A headquarters to serve an amazing organization made up of truly amazing people.
Thank you all, and I hope to see you in Las Vegas. l
Moving Ahead at Light Speed
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DAVID MACDONALD can be reached at [email protected]
DAVID MACDONALD
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WORLDWIDE SIGHTINGS Cases of interest are extracted from the closed case files as an edited list of best cases. Some witness testimony may be edited for clarity.
CASE 114792
Witness Image. Credit: MUFON
Idaho witness sees silver object in flight
A witness in Hagerman, Idaho, reported seeing a silver object in the sky, according to testimony in Case 114792. The object was videoed.
The witness was outdoors near a windmill farm at 10 a.m. on April 17, 2021.
The witness’s written statement in CMS says: “I was just off of Bell Rapids Rd., by the windmill farm, and saw a silver object’s flight from right to left. It seemed to have some sort of aura that bent light around it. I pulled out
my phone to get the best video I could.” An 82-second video accompanied the CMS filing, a still image from which appears above (a blade and tower of a wind tur-bine are prominent therein).
Idaho MUFON State Director Jim Millard closed this case as Unknown Aerial Vehicle.
Hagerman is a city in Gooding County, Idaho, United States. The population was 872 at the 2010 census, up from 656 in 2000.
CASE 115280
Witness Image. Credit: MUFON
Utah witness sees multiple, dancing lights in the sky
A Utah witness in Salt Lake City reported seeing many lights in the sky that disappeared, reappeared, danced, and formed various shapes, according to testimony in Case 115280.
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UFO ACTIVITY REPORTSHELLEY GOODMAN
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The witness was driving on Utah’s Bangerter Highway at 12:51 p.m. on May 6, 2021.
The witness wrote in CMS that “I was driving back to work from my lunch break when I saw what looked to be shiny balloons in the sky. But then they were behaving a little odd for balloons; when I looked harder, I thought maybe they could be birds, but they were disappearing and reappearing, dancing and making shapes. They seemed to be like orbs, not birds. There were about 10 of them moving oddly in the sky, so I pulled over and took a video.” The duration of the sighting is listed as five minutes in CMS; the length of the video is around two minutes.
Utah MUFON State Director Michael Barrette closed this case as Unknown Other.
In his report, Barrette stated: “Prior to my contact with the witness, I enlarged a still copy from the video that the wit-ness submitted. The objects are definitely circular in shape, like an orb or weather balloon might be, but I was unable to tell if any of them were tethered to each other. They act like they are caught up in some kind of updraft of air as the wind conditions that day were ‘variable’ in nature. I did note that the objects appear to separate from each other, which leads me to believe they are not tethered. So, I am not cer-tain what they are.”
Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah, as well as the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With an estimated population of 200,567 in 2019, the city is the core of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a population of 1,222,540 (2018 estimate).
CASE 115104
Witness Image. Credit: MUFON
Fireball appears over lake, transforms into “craft,” then back into fireball, and vanishes
A female witness living on an island in Lake George, Florida, on the edge of the Ocala National Forest, re-ported a complicated series of events involving a fireball appearing to take on the semblance of a large struc-ture of some kind, before changing back into a fireball and flying out of sight. A “significant other” was also a witness at one point in the proceedings. The complete details of the case and its follow-up investigation are set forth in CMS 115104.
The reporting witness’s detailed statement in CMS and the MUFON investigator’s report of the incident are briefly summarized as follows. The primary witness was outdoors on her patio at 3:03 a.m. on May 1, 2021, pursuant to her job of running a cat rescue, when she observed a fireball “approximately 150 to 200 feet in length and at least 60 feet tall” cross the lake and come to a stop. It either landed on or hovered a few feet above the water. Then a white light appeared. After obtaining binoculars, the witness noted the fireball had changed into an object over 100 feet tall “with spires of various heights rising above the main structure. It looked trans-parent.” The white light remained at some distance from the spired object for 10 to 15 minutes before moving back to it, after which point it “was extinguished.” After several more minutes, the large object purportedly re-as-sumed its initial fireball appearance, maneuvered behind a tree line and vanished.
After the experience had begun, the primary witness woke her partner, and he confirmed to the investigator he had seen “what she said,” i.e., a structured object four to five stories in height with spires. However, he was not there to see the transformation of the fireball to the “structure.”
The entire episode lasted about an hour, during which the witness obtained one photo, which appears above.
Florida MUFON Field Investigator Sabrina Marie Robb closed this case as Unknown – Other. “After a very thorough investigation,” she writes, “that led to many possibilities in many directions, I am not convinced this is a hoax. And that’s the bottom line….the witness did experience something unusual.”
Georgetown, the nearest city to the witness, is an unincorporated community in Putnam County, Florida, United States, located on the shores of Lake George. The community can be found south of the Welaka State Forest and north of the Lake George Conservation Area.
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CASE 113932
Witness Image. Credit: MUFON
Lighted circular object photographed in the night sky
A witness in Fulton, California, reported seeing a hover-ing flying craft with lights, according to testimony in Case 113932.
The reporting witness was in her house at night on Febru-ary 19, 2021, when she went to use the bathroom. Based on the event description in CMS, she then saw an object outside the bathroom window. It resembled a flat frying pan with a white light atop it and a horizontal row of yellow-gold lights on the bottom. The object hovered for over a minute and was the size of a nickel at arm’s length. She left the bathroom to get her phone, returned to find the object still there, and took a single picture (shown above). “I then went to get my hubby and it went away. No explana-tion and no sound,” she wrote.
California MUFON Assistant State Director Dev Rugne closed this case as Unknown Aerial Vehicle.
In her report, Rugne stated: “Her bathroom window faces due west.This could not have been an airplane, because it hovered for a minute or two, and it was circular like a frying pan. Also, she said her husband used Flight Tracker and nothing showed up. It didn’t have any flashing or strobing lights like anti-collision lights that a drone would have or should have by regulation.”
Fulton is a census designated place (CDP) in Sonoma County, California, United States. Fulton is just to the north of the city limits of Santa Rosa, and seven miles (11 km) north-northeast of Sebastopol. The population as of the 2010 U.S. Census was 541.
CASE 115486
Witness Image. Credit: MUFON
Mystery aircraft photographed over Indiana
A witness in Bloomington, Indiana, photographed a flying object that resembled a plane, according to testimony in Case 115486.
The witness was fishing in Lake Monroe at 8:41 p.m. on May 1, 2021.
In the detailed description of the event in CMS, the wit-ness wrote: “I was fishing in Monroe Lake and took some pictures of the sunset. I took two photos within seconds of each other, but zoomed in a little on the photo with the ob-ject in it. I didn’t notice the object until after I took it, then I zoomed in on it. The first photo doesn’t show it, and there were no planes flying over where the object was.” Subse-quent to her CMS statement, the witness added she “heard nothing” at the time the photos were taken.
Addressing the photographs, Indiana MUFON Field Investigator Patrick O’Brien wrote in his summary and conclusions that in “the first picture I could see nothing, but the last object was a dark outline of a US Air Force C-130, which I am familiar with having 14 years’ experience and retired US Air Force. But no noise according to witness. Conclusion, witness saw something in her photos.” Case disposition: Unknown/UAV.
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe in the central region of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana. The city’s population was estimated at 85,755 as of July 2019 by the U.S. Census Bureau.
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CASE 113034
Witness Image. Credit: MUFON
Close encounter with disc-shaped object startles witnesses in 1975
A California man reported seeing a star shooting in the sky, which resolved into a silver disc-shaped object of vari-ous colors as it got closer, according to testimony in Case 113034.
The reporting witness with three family members (his mother and two brothers) were driving on Imperial High-way in La Mirada at 12 p.m. on December 24, 1975, when the encounter occurred, with the case being submitted to MUFON 45 years later in January 2021.
As of March 2021, California Chief Investigator Earl Grey Anderson had interviewed the mother and two of her three sons about the incident. One of the brothers recalled:
My mom, my brothers and I had been at a party at my cousin’s house; I remember this being on Christmas Eve, 1975….
We were on the Imperial Highway, near La Mirada, it was close to midnight. We were stopped at a red light, when I noticed a very bright star-like object, it was brighter than any star I’ve ever seen, and I pointed it out to my mom, and asked her what it was.
As soon as I mentioned the object to my mom, it shot out of the sky, to where it was the size of a dinner plate held at arm’s length. It was a dull silver disk, the shape of a pie pan, except thicker than that. No markings or insig-nia. It had three rows of lights around the bottom rim, red, blue, and green, that were spinning sequentially….
In her interview with Anderson, the mother, now in her eighties, described what happened next:
Just as I said this [“I think that’s a UFO!”], the main object shot down out of the sky, to where it was right there in front of us, maybe one hundred feet away…I could now see that the lights were spinning around on the bottom. The object
itself was so beautiful, it was breathtakingly beautiful, a creamy white look to it, and featureless, but for the spinning lights. I looked away for a moment, as the light seemed to have been red for a very long time. That’s when I noticed that nothing else around us was moving. I had already noticed how inordinately quiet it was. It was as if nothing in the world was in motion except for my boys and me, and the Flying Saucer outside. Time felt very strange, and I was becoming concerned, as the traffic light had stayed red for a long long time. I was scared it would turn green, and I’d still be sitting there staring at this thing…This may seem strange to you, it sounds silly, but I’m not sure if we were sitting there for 10 minutes or an hour. Time was just…different.Two of the sons and their mother also noted the presence of two smaller objects seemingly accompanying the larger UFO. When the main UFO left, hightailing it vertically into the darkness, the two others left with it, each “like a falling star in reverse,” as the mother put it.
MUFON Investigator Anderson closed this case as Un-known Aerial Vehicle.
In his synopsis of the incident, Anderson writes: Family of four (the mother and three brothers) were driving on Imperial Highway late at night, on Christmas Eve, 1975, when the eldest brother (witness #1) saw what appeared to be a very bright star in the sky. The witness pointed it out to his mother and brothers, when the star “shot down out of the sky” and resolved into a silver disc-shaped object, surrounded by red, green, and blue lights, which spun in sequence, on the bottom of the object. Witness stated that the object was the apparent size of a dinner plate held at arm’s length; it had no visible markings or insignia. The wit-ness stated that he could see an area on the side that looked indented, rectangular, like a closed door or hatch.
The traffic light they were sitting at was red. The witness stated that he began to feel nervous, as the light hadn’t changed in what seemed like a long time. He noticed a few people waiting at the crosswalk and realized that they were not moving. One man was frozen mid-stride, as though time around them had stopped. Witness stated that it seemed like five to 10 minutes had passed, that the only things in motion were the object hovering in the sky and his family members in the car.
Suddenly the light turned green, simultaneously the disc-shaped object shot off into the night sky “faster than you could blink.”
The brothers were driven home by their mother without further incident….La Mirad is a city in southeast Los Angeles County, Cali-fornia, United States, and is one of the Gateway cities. The population was 48,527 at the 2010 census, up from 46,783 at the 2000 census. l
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KIM MACDERMOTROE
UFO•InternationalMedia
Unconquerable Earth: Defeating Hostile ETs
As Earth enters into the spacefaring community, no re-sponsibility is more important than protecting Earth’s
autonomy and the personal liberty of its people. While it is hoped that most ET species will be friendly, one must consider that some may be hostile. Numerous reported ab-ductions of our people by ETs suggest that this possibility is not remote.
It is prudent to assume that any hostile ET force capable of reaching Earth from a distant star system possesses technology and weaponry superior to Earth’s. Given that the ET forces might defeat Earth’s most advanced space weapons, Earth should also prepare to defend on a lower tech level, i.e., asymmetrical warfare.
In asymmetrical warfare, a weaker military power uses creative strategy and tactics to eventually wear down and defeat a superior military. Below, we review two important examples of effective asymmetrical warfare campaigns from modern Earth history to learn what military reforms would help us prevail in such a conflict.
The Boer War 1899–1902
Background Boers—Dutch settlers—colonized southern Africa in the 1600s. While the British later took over the Boer territories in the southernmost part of the region, the Cape of Good Hope and the Natal, the Boers established two republics, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, farther north. With the discovery of gold and diamonds in the Boer re-publics in the late 19th century, British commercial interests sought the support of the British military to invade them.
The Conflict To resist the British, the Boers, primarily farmers, organized an army composed of irregulars. Although outnumbered and outgunned, the Boers stunned the British with initial successes at pitched battles at Stormberg, Magersfontein
and Colenso. However, the British responded by increasing their forces to over 500,000, including auxiliaries.
As the Boer forces did not exceed 10,000 in any of the three battles, it was clear they had no chance of winning in a direct confrontation. Recognizing this limitation, the Boers allowed the British to capture the Orange Free State’s capital unopposed and initiated a guerrilla war.
Although the Boers were not professional soldiers, they had the benefit of a 200-year-old commando tradition. In this decentralized fighting force, each commando unit composed of local volunteers was assigned to a town under a local commandant. The surrounding area was divided into wards under cornets, with a further subdivision to units of about 20 soldiers.
Armed primarily with modern bolt-action German Mausers and mounted on horseback, small highly mobile Boer com-mando units launched effective surprise attacks on the Brit-ish. Afterward, the Boer soldiers, attired in civilian clothes, would disappear into the countryside where they could count on supplies of horses and food from local homesteads.
Boers at Spion Kop, 1900
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The most formidable Boer guerilla leader was Christiaan de Wet. Although lacking any professional military training, de Wet had some combat experience as a cornet (a grade of commissioned officer) in an earlier conflict, the Anglo-Boer War of 1880–1881.
De Wet was an ordinary burgher when he joined the Boer commandoes in September 1899 without rank. However, in six months he rose to become commander of the Orange Free State forces. Using classic guerilla hit-and-run tactics, de Wet and his men annihilated isolated British outposts. De Wet won notable victories at Sanna’s Post and Redders-burg in early 1900 and evaded strenuous British pursuit throughout the war.
Although foreign countries fearing the British Empire refused to openly side with the Boers, there was widespread sympathy for the Boer cause among ordinary citizens throughout Europe. Over 5,000 Boer supporters from diverse nations including the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Russia and Ireland volunteered to join the Boer’s guerilla army.
As their losses mounted, the British became increasingly frustrated in their failed attempts to grapple with their elusive enemy. Eventually, the desperate British resorted to partitions of the country and civilian concentration camps to break the Boer resistance. However, the suffering and death of Boer civilians stiffened Boer hatred of the British and fueled anti-war sentiment in Britain.
Eventually, the British saw no choice but to agree to a truce. Although the Boers surrendered, it was a pyrrhic victory for the British. Just a few years after the war, the British government had to agree to the establishment of an inde-pendent Union of South Africa in which the Boers had majority control.
Irish War of Independence 1919–1921
Background Although the British invaded Ireland in the 12th century, it was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that the British consolidated control through military occupation accompa-nied by the suppression of Irish civil rights, culture, religion and the confiscation of property. An unsuccessful Irish rebellion against the British in 1798 was followed by a cen-tury of unrest culminating in a new nationalist movement.
In 1916 Irish nationalists staged another rebellion known as the Easter Rising. Though the Rising was unsuccessful due to poor coordination and weak public support, the nation-alists briefly held important public buildings in Dublin, including the General Post Office, from where they pro-claimed an Irish Republic. The British unwittingly promot-ed sympathy for the nationalists when they summarily
executed the Irish leaders by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin.
The Conflict Soon after the Rising, Michael Collins, a young nation-alist leader who narrowly avoided execution, emerged as the key leader in a renewed rebellion. In 1917, Collins, who like de Wet had no professional military training, was appointed director of organization for the Irish Volunteers, a nationalist militia organization, which evolved into the Irish Republican Army. When Irish members of the British Parliament formed an independent Irish government, Collins was appointed finance minister, as well as director of intelligence.
Like the Boer leaders, Collins recognized that a conven-tional war against the British regulars and their brutal aux-iliaries could not be won. Organizing the Irish Republican Army into regional units under local commanders, Collins oversaw a guerrilla campaign against the British occupation characterized by “flying columns.”
Operating as small, mobile, locally-based units, the Irish flying columns launched surprise attacks on British Army barracks and the Royal Irish Constabulary, a quasi-military British occupation force. Other IRA members aided the columns with scouting information, security, and supplies.
The success of the IRA raids forced the British to abandon many of their small outposts and retreat to large towns. As a result, much of the countryside came under the control and protection of the new Irish Republic.
Additionally, as director of intelligence, Collins created a web of nationalist spies in the offices of the British govern-ment in Dublin. These assets provided crucial information about British plans that Collins could share with the IRA’s regional commanders.
Sackville Street (later O’Connell Street), Dublin in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising.
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Among the most notable and controversial of Collins’s war methods was the establishment of the “Squad,” nicknamed the “Twelve Apostles”, whose aim was to cripple the British intelligence apparatus by assassinating its agents. In its largest attack, the Squad killed fourteen British MI5 officers linked to the “Cairo Gang,” a deep-cover British intelligence group.
In June 1921, the British commander in Ireland advised his government that only the imposition of martial law could defeat the rebels. Significantly, this was rejected by the British leaders due to Irish American support for the Irish nationalists. With no options left, the British sought a truce and entered into negotiations, which eventually led to Irish independence.
Logistical Considerations Both the Boer and Irish conflicts suggest that in prepara-tion for a possible asymmetrical war, attention should be given not only to training, tactics and weaponry, but also to logistics, such as communications and transportation.
While efforts should be made to harden electronics, com-munications satellites may be destroyed or disrupted. Thus, it may be necessary to rely on low-tech alternatives, such as shortwave radio. Essential information, including maps and maintenance manuals, should be downloaded to users’ computers and distributed in hard copy.
Civilians should be able to communicate as much as possi-ble with each other and with authorities to maintain social and political cohesion. As Mao showed in his classic work, On Guerilla Warfare, the military effort cannot be isolated from public support. And this support should be earned by involving ordinary citizens at all levels in the resistance campaign.
As to transportation, Earth’s plentiful supply of civil-ian vehicles could be adapted for use by soldiers. In this regard, battery-powered vehicles with minimum reliance on expensive, difficult-to-repair electronics would be most practical.
With respect to basic weapons in asymmetrical warfare, simplicity and durability are paramount. For example, a rifle like the AK-47, durable, powerful and easy to operate and maintain, would be more useful in guerrilla operations than the complicated American M16 or its shortened version, the M4 carbine.
Conclusion Based upon the above, important changes in Earth mili-tary policy, such as the following, would help Earth defend itself in an asymmetrical war with technologically superior extraterrestrials.
1. Bring overseas military home to focus on territorial defense. 2. Emphasize training on basic soldier skills for all soldiers. 3. Restore locally-based active duty regiments. 4. Expand locally-based reserve units. 5. Relocate military bases to defensible areas of military importance. 6. Prepare new operation/training plans for small autonomous units. 7. Introduce durable, uncomplicated weapons. 8. Harden communications and develop low-tech alternatives. 9. Decentralize energy generation. 10. Encourage local farming to ensure adequate food supplies. The above changes, including an end to foreign wars, rep-resent a fundamental shift in military policy for the United States and certain other developed nations. However, Earth’s anticipated entry into the spacefaring community is a development of such magnitude that it calls for new ways of thinking. As President Ronald Reagan said in his September 21, 1987, speech to the United Nations General Assembly:
“In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites the members of humanity. … I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.” l
Kim MacDermotRoe, a graduate of Princeton, BA, history, and Columbia Law School, hosted the In Context War Report radio series. Kim is the author of “Take Me to Your Leader,” MUFON Journal, July 2020, and “The Perils of First Con-tact,” MUFON Journal, December 2020, and can be reached at [email protected].
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NOTES FROM MUFON’S EXPERIENCER RESOURCE TEAMThe ERT Files
Why is it Hard to be an Experiencer?By Gwen Farrell, CHT RT, Director, MUFON Experiencer Resource Team Adapted from Forbidden Questions: A Guide to Human-ET Contact
Experiencers, abductees, contactees—different terms that, in modern ufology, refer to the same things,
individuals who believe they have had contact with extra-terrestrial, interdimensional or otherworldly beings. Dictio-naries define the word experiencer simply as “someone who experiences something.” The field of psychology defines an experiencer as “the thing that experiences the effect of an action, state or process” or “the thing, feeling or being affected by an experience.” Based on those definitions, since we are all affected by different experiences every day, in truth we are all experiencers. But in the field of ufology and human-ET contact, the term “experiencer” means much more. Of course, not all human beings experience contact with UFOs and ETs, although I suspect many people have had such experiences but either don’t recall them or don’t want to admit them. Every year, thousands of people see lights in the sky they believe are flying saucers or other alien craft, but upon investigation, turn out to be animals, weather effects, conventional aircraft or other explainable phenomena. Most of the time, the lights pass by with no physical contact or trace left behind. But in rare instances, the lights do prove to be something more, and a contact experience happens.
No one comes away from contact with alien beings unchanged. Regardless of their age, the circumstances of contact and whether the contact is positive or negative, once humans come into contact with ETs, they are never the same. For some experiencers, contact begins in childhood and ceases at puberty; for others, it runs continuously throughout their lives. Some individuals are visited frequently—every week or every month—and some only once or twice every few years. Some experiencers are alerted to upcoming contact by dreams, psychic messages or visual images. Some experience feelings of anticipation or physical sensations, such as buzz-ing or ringing in their ears, before contact, and some are taken completely by surprise, with no warning at all. After contact, experiencers may have memories of the event, to
which they respond with joy and feelings of privilege and blessing, even with eager anticipation of future contact; while others react with fear, dread and confusion, perhaps doubting their sanity. In most cases, there is no conscious memory of the event or, at best, only vague partial recollec-tions or recurring dreams that don’t make sense.
Human contact experiences are widely varied. For most people who go through them, such events prove to be the most frightening, enlightening and weighty happenings of their lives. Although the media and entertainment industry tend to pigeonhole contact with extraterrestrial beings into a limited range of images that fit neatly into news blurbs and movie story lines, in reality, it is far more than that. Some people who are not experiencers wish they were, and some who are experiencers wish they were not. Some experiencers think they are going crazy, some believe they are seeing angels, demons or ghosts, and some think it’s just a dream and roll over and go back to sleep. In the past, pop-ular culture and ufology have lumped all ET contact events into the general domain of “abductions” without attempting to characterize them further. However, contemporary com-prehensive research and investigation of reported contacts reveal that such events are not homogeneous; indeed, they are quite varied in nature and effect.
Why is it so hard being an experiencer? The human-ET contact phenomenon is vast and complex, and individuals from all walks of life are interested in it. The explosion of science fiction in art, literature and all forms of entertainment is proof of that. In that context, human-ET
Some people who are not experiencers
wish they were, and some who are experiencers wish they were not.
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contact stories are great fun, but in reality, interaction with alien beings is serious business that often leaves experi-encers struggling with confusion, fear and haunting ques-tions. Even positive interactions with alien beings can be overwhelming. Whether positive or negative, contacts with extraterrestrial beings are not everyday run-of-the-mill oc-currences, and they challenge many of the biases and beliefs about ourselves that all humans share.
Cultural/social bias According to accepted norms, contact with extraterrestrial beings is impossible, so experiencers often find themselves either trying to deny the experience or suffering alone in si-lence, unable to reach out to anyone for help in understand-ing what happened and how to deal with it. Understand-ably, most experiencers are reluctant to come out and talk openly about their ET contact due to the very real possibili-ty of ridicule, loss of respect, increased stress between family and friends, and even loss of employment. Additionally, by talking about such an experience, an individual is relin-quishing an important coping mechanism—the ability to pretend that such an event never occurred. Once it’s out in the open and other people know about it, it can no longer be denied, and an experiencer may feel that he/she has fur-ther lost control of his life and is more vulnerable. Worse, in some countries even today, individuals are institutionalized for professing contact with extraterrestrial or otherworldly beings.
The challenge to our sense of predominance The very thought of contact with beings so technologically superior to us challenges our understanding of reality and our place in the universe. Can ETs really cross vast expanses of space, transport us through walls, travel through time and do all the other things they reportedly do? After all the years they have supposedly been on Earth and all the history of contact with us, we still don’t have answers about who they are and why they are here. If they really do exist and are as technologically superior as they appear to be, it’s obvious that humanity doesn’t hold the position of predom-inance and mastery in the universe we like to think we do, and that’s not easy to accept, by individuals or governments.
The challenge to our sense of safety Probably the most difficult thing about being an experi-encer is the threat it represents to an individual’s personal sense of safety and control. Contactees often recount being treated like we often treat animals, by beings with vastly superior technology and unknown motives: “You’re being controlled by creatures who show no regard for your wishes or needs, without knowing what they’re gonna to do to you. You’re helpless.” Contact, especially abduction-type con-tact, can bring us face-to-face with the pain and fear of our worst nightmares. Even positive contact experiences often contain elements of fear, and many long-time contactees report that even though their contact events may have be-
come more positive over time, their early experiences were threatening and traumatic.
Experienced anomalous trauma The thoughts and behaviors of experiencers often fit into a pattern of responses to traumatic events that are beyond society’s current explanation of normal human experiences and that it has no logical explanation for. Contact with alien beings isn’t part of the normal human experience, and yet abductees/contactees may suffer very real trauma as a result.
Fantasy proneness The whole human-ET contact phenomenon seems fantas-tic, so it’s easy to believe that experiencers must not possess the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. But there is no good, hard evidence that experiencers are more fantasy prone than the rest of the general population. Indeed, sever-al reputable, scientific studies of contact experiencers found that their levels of fantasy proneness were no higher than fantasy proneness levels in the general public.
Psychological/emotional effects While many experiencers have some temporary difficul-ties adjusting and coping with their contact events, most don’t require medical treatment. But some may suffer from symptoms similar to those of post-traumatic stress dis-order (PTSD), avoiding anything linked to the contact experience, experiencing intrusive thoughts and emotions or nightmares, flashes of images related to the event and trouble focusing on daily tasks. In addition, they may avoid the location of the event, written and video material about UFOs or ETs, and doctor or dentist visits that involve bright lights or examination scenarios. Some also report a decreased interest in physical intimacy due to feelings of vulnerability they didn’t feel before the contact experience. The next response to contact is often fear and anger, espe-cially if contacts continue. This can be a difficult stage to move past and, unfortunately, many people get caught up at this point and spend years viewing themselves as victims. However, after speaking to a therapist or investigator about their experiences, even if no formal therapy is involved, many acute PTSD-like symptoms can begin to fade, and after a while, experiencers may become interested in learn-ing all they can about UFOs and ETs, perhaps in an effort to make sense of what happened to them or prevent future contact events. The human mind has a reasonable ability
Contact with alien beings isn’t part of the normal human experience,
and yet abductees/contactees may suffer very real trauma as a result.
15THE MUFON JOURNAL |
to block memories of events that are too traumatic to deal with in the moment, but if such memories remain unre-membered over time without being expressed and faced, they can cause problematic behaviors (such as phobias) that cannot be resolved until the contact event is dealt with.
Contact—positive and negative Contact between a human being and an alien being is very personal. No one can understand what the experience is like until they actually live it for themselves, and whether it’s beautiful or terrifying, it’s a part of their life that may even-tually need to be dealt with. But being an experiencer can also be an opportunity for personal growth in a myriad of ways and can lead an individual to help others. Many expe-riencers consider themselves blessed and wouldn’t exchange their contact experiences for anything. Some believe they have important roles to play in raising the consciousness of humanity and protecting the Earth, and are happily work-ing toward those ends. Others are not. Being touched by
ETs doesn’t make a person a saint, a genius or better than any other human being, but it does give them something special. Whether that something is a gift or a curse differs with each experiencer.
Contact with alien beings isn’t normal, and yet, for the most part, experiencers are normal people with families, jobs and routine lives. At the same time, they are amazing individu-als with the strength and grace to persevere through what are often the most frightening and remarkable ordeals human beings can experience—contact with extraterrestrial beings.
“The Experiencer of contact with non-human intelligence is the ‘key’ that will open the door to understanding . . . the relationship between consciousness and contact with non-human intelligence.” —Dr. Edgar Mitchell l
MUFON JOURNAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS We want to hear from you!
WHO MUFON field investigators, directors, international directors, members
WHAT We welcome article submissions about case investigations, case analysis, international cases, and historical research on sightings or related phenomena
CONTACT Send all submissions to [email protected] for consideration. Publication is not guaranteed, all submissions will be reviewed, and authors will be notified if selected for publication.
GUIDELINES
WORD COUNT 500-1500 words
IMAGES Must have permission to use
FORMAT .doc or .docx preferred
AUTHOR INFO Include short summary of author qualifications and MUFON affiliation
QUESTIONS Send all inquiries to [email protected]
| AUGUST 202116
UFOView
Ufology investigation focused primarily on flying saucers, or unidentified flying objects (UFOs), through the
1940s to the ’60s. Highly unusual spaceships could be seen in the sky. Then, in the 1960s, with disbelief, the abduction of humans became associated with the witnessing of those UFOs. Soon, negating known science, investigators learned from the accounts provided by acknowledged abductees that spaceships, extraterrestrials and abduction might be completely hidden to sight. Evidently, invisibility, seeming-ly provided through cloaking technology of extraordinary capability, was employed because, though people were in the immediate vicinity when abduction took place, no one witnessed anything.
Also discovered was the surprising fact that abductees might have had no inkling they had been captured by beings of non-human intelligence (NHIs). Potentially of startling significance to the future wellbeing for all humanity, a large number of abductees had no conscious memory of see-ing a UFO or anything remotely suggesting their strange involvement with extraterrestrials. In addition to invisibil-ity, ignorance was also due to amnesia, a loss of memory, engendered by extraterrestrials. Cognizance of a lost period of time was usually extant, but not always. Missing time was the term investigator Budd Hopkins used to describe that period of memory loss and also the title of his seminal book describing documented cases of what amounts to unlawful kidnapping.
Concealment of abduction through means of invisibility and missing time would mean reports would never be made in those cases. Complete concealment of the crimes would be achieved. Investigators began to realize the implications. If most abductions were hidden while known abductions represented only a small fraction of those having taken place, the total number of Homo sapiens serving the needs of extraterrestrials throughout the world might be immense, perhaps beyond imagining.
That possibility exists because the literature of abduction in-vestigation repeatedly ascertains that the NHI connection is often only discovered when individuals consult a therapist or psychologist and, subsequently, report their abductions to an
investigative organization such as MUFON. Although it is estimated that approximately one-third of victims remember some portion (perhaps a very small portion) of their abduc-tion experience (Fowler, 1990), circumstances in the majori-ty of cases suggest the motivation to enlist professional help only emerges after enduring such disquieting annoyances as the repetition of severely disturbing nightmares, bizarre, per-plexing, paranormal incidents or unexplained acute fear of a certain location or area such as an open field or section of road. Then, perhaps exasperated but curious, or in some cases even anxious to the point of despair, sufferers may undergo regressive hypnosis therapy. In most cases, they have no idea they are about to lift a curtain concealing mindboggling incidents in their lives from conscious knowledge. The vast majority of abductees find the vision revealed unbelievable and terribly frightening. Once discovered, perhaps more in-cidents of missing time take place that are also later revealed through regressive hypnosis. Episodes of amnesia may occur with varying degrees of frequency, perhaps once a month during particular periods to lapses lasting several years.
Our knowledge of extraterrestrial activity is largely based on the accounts of those acknowledged abductees or, as they’re known with the more positive connotation, experiencers. Despite what would seem to be a fairly large number of individuals gaining awareness of having been taken against their will by extraterrestrials during a period of missing time, we probably cannot establish what percentage of the total number of abductees in the world do, or do not, suffer negative effects to such a degree they find a need to consult specialists. It may well be that the great majority of victims have not seen a UFO, have not experienced any psychologi-cal pain or anything unusual (such as psychic abilities, which are acquired in some cases) and have, therefore, not become
MUFON MEMBER PERSPECTIVE
Missing Accounts of Missing Time • Part OneBy Rod Ragsdale
Most often an abductee is involved in a sudden, unexplained break in a sequence of events. It is similar to a
quick scene change in a film.
17THE MUFON JOURNAL |
aware of signs that would suggest something as weird as being glided up to a hovering spacecraft by extremely un-usual-looking hominoids. Consequently, they have nothing to report and we, in turn, don’t know they exist. Therefore, calculating the number of people temporarily taken by extraterrestrials would seemingly be impossible due to a very serious limitation. Reports of missing time are, quite literally, missing. Perhaps the only clue to abduction would be the discovery of incidents of missing time, and that would only be possible if victims recognized the fact it had occurred.
Based on my own experience at the age of five, the personal reports I have received from individuals through inquiries as well as the cases described in the literature of alien abduc-tion, when missing time is acknowledged the period that cannot be accounted for is often two or more hours. (I know of an individual who experienced an entire day of missing time. I hope to obtain a report.) The sense of enduring a loss of cognizance varies. Most often an abductee is involved in a sudden, unexplained break in a sequence of events. It is sim-ilar to a quick scene change in a film. You are in your house about to put a plate in the dish washer. You reach for the plate. (Cut.) You are standing on the sidewalk several houses down the street from your house. The experience can be even more unusual if you find yourself situated in another part of town. You have no memory of walking out of your house or down the street or to a location several blocks from your home. Your sense of reality is: IN THE HOUSE. OUT-SIDE THE HOUSE. Instantly. No transition whatsoever. HERE. THERE.
Although experiences vary, a very perplexing segment of missing time is often the sequel. People do not think about the enigma in what occurred. No sense of surprise. No ques-tions arise. Individuals simply continue as though nothing happened. If you find yourself on the street several blocks from your house, you just walk home without a second thought. Apparently, you have been programed to continue as though everything is normal. It is only when you happen to look at your watch that you realize it is quite late. You had been about to put a dish in the dishwasher after eating lunch. That would have been around a quarter to one. As far as you know, you did not touch the plate. Instead, you were outside standing on the sidewalk. It is now three o’clock. Several days later you might possibly wonder why you were outside your house standing on the sidewalk. Or, you may simply contin-ue to go about your affairs and not think about the incident at all, or the mystery, for many years. The thought of UFOs and extraterrestrials never enters your mind. At some point you will probably realize you have no idea what happened during more than two hours of missing time.
A further impediment to assessing the total number of indi-viduals temporarily taken by extraterrestrials during missing time is that abductees may not even realize they are lacking memory for a certain period. They have no cognizance of
missing time. For example, driving to another city or hiking, the traveler arrives at their destination one or two hours later than would be expected but does not check the time because of involvement in hurried activities. And of course, abduc-tion during sleep would seem to be the obvious choice for obscuring knowledge of missing time. Abductee accounts do indicate that a great many abductions occur at night. Again, based on possibilities suggested by investigated reports, per-haps the first, initial abduction occurs out of doors when a quarry is first sighted, while the majority of later snatchings may employ the convenience of unawareness in nighttime sleep at the residence of the abductee.
If the mind control utilized by extraterrestrials maintains complete amnesia for both the duration of captivity and even for a period thereafter, while invisibility conceals all activity, there is a good possibility investigators are unaware of po-tentially vast numbers of abductions taking place throughout the world. While abduction investigations have discovered individuals who do remember portions of their abductions as well as incidents of missing time, we don’t know if the mind control is inadequate for perfect management of human thought or if some knowledge of contact with extraterrestri-als is intentionally being allowed. Perhaps complete suppres-sion of the facts is possible but not utilized in pursuit of a greater good. Though abductees report a genetic program to restore viability for certain extraterrestrial types using Homo sapiens eggs and sperm is taking place, education sessions also occur, apparently directed, at least in part, for adaptation of humans to the alien presence. We are an evolved hybrid species and perhaps further hybridization for upgrading using extraterrestrial genetic components is also in the works. Whatever their purpose, if nothing else, discovery of missing time cases might provide a better idea of the possible extent of human abduction undertaken by NHIs. lEndnotes1. Hopkins, Budd (1988), Missing Time, Ballantine Books2. Fowler, Raymond E. (1990), The Watchers: The Secret Design Behind UFO Abduction, Bantam Books, 1990, page xxiv.
| AUGUST 202118
Whitley Strieber’s A New World
In the foreword to his new book, A New World, Whitley Strieber writes: “Most of what you read in these pages is
going to be strange beyond belief...what we call the physical is only a part of the huge tapestry of reality. Consciousness is key.”
Some of us may remember Strieber’s bestselling book Communion, with the iconic face of an alien on the cover, which Strieber wrote 30 years ago. I never read past the first chapter of Communion. It seemed to me that Strieber’s accounts of aliens communicating with abducted humans in disembodied voices about various grotesque alien species that are visiting us were just too weird to be taken seriously.
Now, 30 years later, as I picked up Strieber’s latest book, A New World, I considered that since UFOs have now been openly accepted as real by even the U.S. government, the visiting alien vehicles almost certainly contain intelligent lifeforms. Making such speculations reasonable are the findings and theories of many competent UFO researchers who have written about lifeforms that are radically different from our human conception of sentient beings, such as our-selves. Based on the seemingly credible accounts of not only Strieber, but also the many human abductees, worldwide, it appears we are being visited by a variety of extraterrestrial species. It is an enormous universe out there.
Strieber’s almost daily direct and telepathic communi-cations with species that may have existed millions of years longer than humans have been on Earth lead him to conclude that the essence of life is consciousness. So does Grant Cameron, one of our leading UFO investigators. The message of the aliens is that they consider the body as only a disposable vehicle enabling us to experience the many and diverse aspects of reality.
To the aliens, Strieber reports, death is merely a transitional period between lives; this implies that human death is the end of the body but not our essence. Our consciousness lives on. The aliens provide Strieber with visions of many dead people waiting to return to life, including his own deceased wife, with whom he has communicated many times. The real world, the aliens tell us, is in the realm of what we call “death.” However, the aliens have com-municated little about this death world that we primitive humans can comprehend.
They tell us they have existed so long that they have learned everything. They can predict the future with complete ac-curacy. The price they pay is boredom—the lack of surprise. So, the purpose of alien visitation is to embody as humans to experience the drama and exhilaration of human life. This, of course, implies that there are aliens masquerading as humans. And beyond Strieber’s experience of frequent alien contact over several decades, there are a surprising number of accounts from other credible researchers—most notably David Jacobs—that lifeforms from other worlds are, indeed, walking among us.
Of course, we humans are very far from knowing every-thing. We can learn from the aliens the technology that will make our lives better and how to medically enhance and extend our lives. Meanwhile, by inhabiting human bodies, the aliens experience human drama. This reciprocal relationship—beneficial to both ourselves and the aliens— is what Strieber calls communion.
Strieber brings into his narrative the instantaneous com-munication made theoretically comprehensible by quantum theory and the immutable value of the fine structure con-stant to suggest how the laws of the universe may facilitate instantaneous communication. This isn’t even to mention modes of transportation deemed theoretically possible by our physicists, such as time travel and interdimensional travel. Our scientists are only beginning to understand such abstruse concepts, but we have learned enough to reveal the ignorance of those who are certain that the universe is so vast that alien life forms could never arrive here.
A New World is a mind-blowing book. l
Dean DeHarpporte was a MUFON Field Investigator at Minnesota MUFON for 24 years and is active with the Minnesota chapter.
by Dean DeHarpporte
BOOK REVIEW
19THE MUFON JOURNAL |
Seventy years after an urgent broadcast from Antarctica, the
government finally admits there’s something to this UFO business. Back in 1951, reporter Ned Scott radioed his famous warning about otherworldly intruders: “Tell the world. Tell this to everybody, wherev-er they are. Watch the skies—every-where. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies.” Those immortal words closed The Thing from Another World and made cinematic history. The subsequent response to real-world UFO reports was delivered in dismis-sive, starchy prose handed down by expert panels advising the government. The language of the new Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenom-ena of 25 June 2021 is formal but not dismissive. It’s a dramatic break from the UFO reports of old.
In 1953 the Robertson Panel con-cluded “that the evidence presented on Unidentified Flying Objects shows no indication that these phenomena constitute a direct physical threat to national security.” Not stopping there, the report continued “that there is no evidence that the phenomena indi-cates [sic] a need for the revision of current scientific concepts.” And even more, “the continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these parlous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of the pro-tective organs of the body politic.” In other words, the panel found UFOs
an imaginary and harmful distraction from real national security business.
The Condon Committee took up the debunker’s baton in 1968: “Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge.” The report left open the theoretical possibility that someday, somewhere, some academic UFO re-search proposal might be worth fund-ing, but they weren’t betting on it. The report concluded “that further exten-sive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.” Consider how things look since June 25th.
The Robertson Panel and Condon Committee closed doors. The Prelim-inary Assessment is promising more to come. It opens them. The Robert-son Panel said no threat to national security. The Preliminary Assessment says this: “UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security.” The Condon
Committee found nothing of scien-tific value in UFOs and was cool on the notion of funding future research. The Preliminary Assessment offers this take: “Consistent consolidation of reports…standardized reporting, increased collection and analysis…streamlined process for screening all such reports …will allow for a more sophisticated analysis…Some of these steps are resource-intensive and would require additional investment.”
The Preliminary Assessment offers teasers, leaving room for the ET hypothesis. One teaser: “A handful of UAP appear to demonstrate ad-vanced technology.” Another that the UAP task force is “conducting further analysis to determine if breakthrough technologies were demonstrated.” On a UFO/UAP acceptance scale, with the Robertson/Condon school on one side, the Ned Scott/Thing from Another World school on the other, where does the Preliminary Assessment land? Let’s watch for updates. And keep watching the skies. l
ARMAN BIRNBAUM can be reached at [email protected]
Keep Watching the Skies
ARMAN BIRNBAUMUFOThinkTank
20| AUGUST 2021
The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is holding its 2021 World Symposium in Las Vegas, Nevada, this
year from August 27 through August 29 at the J.W. Marri-ott Hotel.
In a 2021 otherwise filled with military disclosures and an underwhelming Office of the Director of National Intel-ligence UFO report, MUFON tries to present the public with the most interesting civilian UFO cases investigated in the previous year. MUFON’s top five entries of 2020 will be presented at its symposium on August 29 by Director of Investigations Douglas Wilson and Director of Investiga-tions International Robert Spearing.
#5 MUFON Case #109534 at Long Beach, California, submitted 6/17/2020 An intriguing close encounter case involving a mother and child in California. The case was closed as an Unidentified Aerial Vehicle with a possible abduction! The witnesses were driving home in December 2014 in Long Beach, California. They spied a large boomerang and believed they had missing time! The witnesses saw a 200–300-foot silent boomerang with three alternating blue and white lights on the underside. The close encounter occurred at treetop level less than 100 feet from them. The witnesses later began having bizarre realistic dreams of insectoid aliens, possibly reliving their actions during the missing timeframe.
#4 MUFON Case #105762 over Zion National Park, Utah, submitted 1/22/2020 A commercial airliner flying from Utah to Texas on 19 Sep-tember 2019 was in airspace over Zion National Park
when it encountered an extremely white seemingly wingless tic-tac flying leisurely below. The pilot observed the object for three minutes and shot 50 seconds of extraordinary video from the cockpit. The pilot was flying at 40,000 ft and the object about 10,000 feet lower. The case was closed as an Unknown Aerial Vehicle.
#3 MUFON Case #109242 outside Tijuana, Mexico, submitted 6/3/2020 Outside the city of Tijuana, Mexico, on 3 June 2020, the witness was filming the horizon when he saw a dark spot far away and zoomed in. A metallic-looking object was seen in the distance. Initially, a drone was suspected. MUFON conducted an extensive photo analysis and closed this case as an Identified Flying Object.
The Top Five 2020 UFO Cases* from the Mutual UFO Network
PRESS RELEASE
21THE MUFON JOURNAL |
#2 MUFON Case #108694 at Encinitas, California, submitted 5/9/2020 On 7 May 2020, an Indiana witness was watching a live feed of a beach camera in Encinitas, California, that was facing the ocean towards dusk. The month of May offered a unique natural occurrence of bioluminescent sea plank-ton illuminating the Pacific Ocean waves breaking at the shoreline. The video clearly shows phosphorescent blue highlights in the waves but something else also!
A small, orange comet-shaped object enters the video field, slowly moving over the breaking waves. It hovers for long periods before resuming a flight path along the shore. The object then proceeds out into the ocean. The last several seconds provide a pivotal clue, showing a white strobe on the object. An extensive photo analysis was done. MUFON determined the object was not a reflection within the camera lens. An early hypothesis suggested it was a military drone, given the amount of military activity around Encinitas. MUFON stands by its conclusion that it was most likely a civilian drone engaged in filming the plankton-based bioluminescence occurring at the time. The drone’s FAA-required red light and anti-collision white strobe were what was captured by the webcam. The case was closed as a man-made Identified Flying Object.
#1 MUFON Case #107281 over Renosa, Mexico, submitted 3/28/2020 FEDEX Flight #82, en route to Memphis, Tennessee, on 19 March 2020, was over a desolate stretch of Mexico when it was accosted by a plasma-like object, which accompanied it for approximately 30 minutes at 30,000 feet to the US/Mexico border, before breaking off to the west at Renosa, Mexico, near Brownsville, Texas.
A possible sophisticated aerial object encased in a radar- evading plasma might have been the answer! Plasma can absorb a radar signal. The U.S. military is experimenting
with fighter jets shooting plasma ahead of our craft to confuse enemy ground radar. The plasma shield makes our fighters invisible. Who or what else may have a better version of this technology? And if so, why did the object not cross into American territory? The pilot filmed the object for over four minutes. He also filmed the cockpit anti-collision radar. Nothing registered, yet it was definite-ly outside their cockpit window. The case was closed with a disposition of Unknown Aerial Vehicle.
For further information about the Las Vegas MUFON UFO Symposium this August, go to www.mufon.com.
*While it is true that in the traditional sense the term UFO is generally interpreted as meaning an “unknown” that re-mains an unknown even after rigorous investigation, in this article we have included a case that ultimately was found to be explainable. The intention here was not to redefine the term UFO, but, in a year of so many changes in the attitude toward the term UFO, it seemed like an opportune time to showcase the science, technology and expertise that go into MUFON investigations. l
OFFICIAL MERCHANDISE AND BOOKS Unique Gifts
and More!
VISIT WWW.MUFON.COM
| AUGUST 202122
STATE DIRECTOR Fred Richards is the current State Director for MUFON Maine. He is a US Navy veteran and continues to work for the Navy as a logistics manager. He received his as-sociate degree in information systems from Andover College in 2003. He grew up in the Northern Adirondacks and his interest in the UFO phenome-non started in the winter of 1977 when he had his own UFO experience.
Fred has been an FI with MUFON for the past seven years. Fred is also a member of the ERT and is a STAR Team member. Fred enjoys the study of the UFO phenomenon as well as other aspects of the paranormal. His contin-ued research leads him to believe all paranormal experiences may related.
When Fred is not researching UFO sightings, he spends his time volun-teering with Coast Guard Auxiliary and is a member of the Selective Service for Maine.
FIELD INVESTIGATOR Brian Hauprich has been a Field Investigator for almost a year. Since he was a teenager, Brian has worked as a professional chef, earning his degree in culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America in NY. Upon moving to Maine over 20 years ago, his life went in a different direction, and he gave up his chef’s hat for turnout gear. He has served as an officer, firefighter, and wilderness EMT in his community, as well as sharing his knowledge with others in the region. Brian brings elements of all these life experiences to investigations—a calm demeanor, paying attention to detail, and never assuming anything.
He currently spends much of the year as a property manager along Maine’s beautiful coastline. During winter months, Brian is mostly working on the 100-plus-year-old house on an island off the coast that he calls home. He, like everyone, is looking forward to getting out around the state to meet with people once pandemic restrictions begin to ease.
FIELD INVESTIGATOR Mike Barronis a Field Investigator living in Augusta, Maine. He is originally from Kansas City, MO, but moved to his wife’s home state of Maine in 1982 when he was discharged from the USAF.
He initially joined MUFON in 2009 and became an FI shortly thereafter. He took a break for a few years around 2015 but rejoined in 2019. He has an AS degree in liberal studies from the Univ. of Maine in Augusta.
Mike served 10 years on active duty with the USAF, from 1972 to 1982. He was an avionics technician on F106s at McChord AFB in Washington, and, in 1977, he cross-trained to become a B52 gunner at Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. After his active-duty tours were over, he joined the Maine Army Nation-al Guard, and retired as an air traffic controller with the guard in 1996.
Mike’s civilian career was with the Veterans Administration, retiring in 2009 after 25 years of service. He now does volunteer work at the Owls Head Transportation Museum in Owls Head, ME. He works in the aviation resto-ration shop, where he helps restore antique aircraft to flyable condition and maintain them.
Mike’s hobbies include riding his Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide, model railroading, building model cars and armor models, taking road trips, and spending winters in Zephyrhills, FL, with his wife of 46 years, Bonnie. They have two adult children and five grandchildren.
Maine is most famous for—
• 3,478 miles of coastline—more than California (3,427)—and over 5,000 miles of coast, if one includes all the islands as well
• 3,166 offshore islands
• Many haunted inns and lighthouses
• Over 32,000 miles of rivers and streams
• Over 6,000 lakes and ponds
Maine is the northernmost state in the New England region of the north-eastern United States. Maine is the 12th smallest by area, the 9th least populous, and the 13th least densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. It is bordered by New Hampshire to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the south-east, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Québec to the northeast and northwest, respectively. Maine is the only state to border just one other state, is the easternmost state along the contiguous United States, and the northernmost state east of the Great Lakes. l
SPOTLIGHT ON…MAINE MUFON
THE MUFON JOURNAL | 23
MARKETA KLIMOVAMUFON MINUTES
MUFON welcomes new Field Investigators Charlot Symmonds, IL; Mike Woods, VA; Phillip Harrell, GA; Douglas Bush, AR; Jeffrey Palen, NY; Chris Jahn, AZ; Tracy Maurer, WA; Adam Young, GA; Jerry Holmes, MS; Greg Fisch, NC; Paul Bridgeman, NC; David Sakmyster, NY; Penny Koons, WA; Santosh Dandin, India; Kurtis Blacq, Canada (ON); Gerard Lamarque, Australia.
MUFON Appointments Daniel Spell, State Director, MD; Jason Hitson, State Sec-tion Director, TN; Issabelle Azzopardi, National Director, Malta.
CAG International: Susan Howe, NH; Fred Kohler, PA.
ERT: Eric Barrouillet, France; Sev Tok, NC; Anniversary Feinstein, CO.
Upcoming MUFON meetings and events
MUFON Colorado meetings held regularly on the second Saturday of every month. More info on comufon.org.
MUFON Connecticut meets the first Saturday of the month online through Zoom. The meeting time is 5–7 p.m. The link information will be published on the front page of our website www.mufonct.com
MUFON Orange County, CA. Visit www.mufonoc.org and scroll down the page to register for monthly live streaming lectures.
MUFON San Diego Zoom meetings are held monthly on the third Sunday at 6 p.m. PST. Contact Wil Wakely at [email protected] to receive instructions on attending the Zoom meetings. They are free and open to all.
MUFON Marin Sonoma Zoom meetings until further notice, first Saturday of the month at 3 p.m. PST. Visit MUFONMarinSonoma.com for meeting information.
MUFON Missouri meets virtually on the second Thursday of the month on Zoom at 6:30 p.m. CST. Each month we feature a guest speaker. Open to all.
Visit www.missourimufon.org for more information. Email: [email protected]
United MUFON Exciting, interactive, and educational online MUFON meetings!
Teri Lynge-Kehl, MUFON Director of Memberships, will be your host.Meetings are 2 to 4 p.m. CST on the fourth Saturday of every month.
Upcoming United MUFON guest speakers: 07/24/21 Shane Hurd (ASD AZ)
08/28/21 No meeting due to Symposium
09/25/21 Chris DePerno
10/23/21 Earl Grey Anderson (ASD CA)
11/27/21 TBA
12/18/21 Preston Dennett
“Seating” is limited via Zoom; please register early. Overflow attendees will be able to view a livestream of the meeting but will not be able to interact.
To register for the meeting, watch the livestream, or find out more information about upcoming meetings, visit www.mufonmeetings.com
2021 MUFON Symposium August 27–29, 2021, in Las Vegas, Nevada, will be in person and livestreamed on MUFON TV. For more info and to register go to www.mufonsymposium.com
MUFON MINUTES ITEMS: Send state notices of meet-ings and events to Marketa Klimova at [email protected] for inclusion before the 10th of the month prior to the month of the event. l
