Wilbur's conspiracy theories: Ufos

Well, hello there, and welcome to Wilbur's Weird and Wacky World! There are some subjects that are hard to discuss

Some subjects that not everyone wants us talking about

So thanks for meeting me out here in the Nevada desert, where I'm fully equipped to handle any situation and teach you the latest facts on the most mind-boggling issues

Now let's go UFO spotting and hunt down some conspiracies! What are you waiting for? Today we're going to comb through my secret files and learn all about

There's always been a question burning into the thoughts of mankind, and it is, are we alone in the universe? Are there any other races, planets, communities out there like those we know on Earth? Are the often reported unidentified flying objects actually spacecrafts from another world piloted by aliens? If so, what do they want? Why haven't they made their presence known in an official manner? There are many different theories surrounding the possible answers and more

Strap in, as we're about to take off into the world of UFO conspiracy! Hey, here is a strange and exciting topic to tackle

You better buckle up before we dive into this wacky conspiracy theory! UFO conspiracy theories argue that various governments and politicians globally, most notably the officials of Washington DC, are hiding evidence of extraterrestrial unidentified flying objects and alien visitors

Such conspiracy theories commonly argue that Earth governments, especially the government of the United States, are in communication or cooperation with aliens despite public claims to the contrary, and further that some of these theories claim that the governments are explicitly allowing alien abduction

Various UFO conspiracy ideas have grown like wildfire on the internet and were frequently featured on paranormal radio host Art Bell's program Coast to Coast AM

According to the Mutual UFO Network, aka MUFON, publications like the National Enquirer reported that a survey found 76% of participants felt the government was not revealing all it knew about UFOs, 54

5% thought UFOs definitely or probably existed, and 33% thought UFOs came from outer space

Whoa, conspiracy theories abound, let's continue seeking for the truth, follow me! Over the years, there have been many notable people to have publicly stated that UFO evidence is being suppressed

This surprising list includes Senator Barry Goldwater, former NATO Head of Chief of the British Defence Staff, British Admiral Lord Hill Norton, former Commanding Officer Wright Patterson Brigadier, General Arthur Exon, the first CIA Director Vice Admiral Roscoe H

Helencoder, astronauts Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell, and former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer

Beyond their testimonies and reports, they have presented no evidence to substantiate their statements and claims

According to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, little or no evidence exists to support them despite significant research on the subject by non-governmental scientific agencies

So when did this all start? We're going to have to go back many decades for that answer

On the night before Halloween in 1938, actor and radio personality Orson Welles directed the Mercury Theatre on the air live radio adaptation of H

G

Welles' classic novel, The War of the Worlds

By mimicking a news broadcast, the show was quite realistic sounding for its time, and some listeners were fooled into thinking that a Martian invasion was underway in the United States

Widespread confusion was followed by outrage and controversy

Some later studies have argued that the contemporary press exaggerated the extent of the panic, but it remains clear that many people were caught up, to some degree, in the confusion

In other countries, reactions were similar

In 1949, part of the script for The War of the Worlds was read out over the radio in Quito, Ecuador without announcement, as if it were a major piece of breaking news

Huge crowds of people emerged onto the streets and sought refuge inside churches with their families

When the radio station was informed of this, its announcers broadcast the fact that no invasion was happening

An angry mob formed and burned the station to the ground, causing between 6 and 20 deaths

Many other countries also experienced problems when broadcasting The War of the Worlds

According to U

S

Air Force Captain Edward J

Ruppelt, the Air Force files often mention the panicked aftermath of the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast as a possible reaction of the public to confirmed evidence of UFOs

However, the files have not been made available to corroborate his assertions

During the 1940s, journalist Donald Kehoe began investigating flying saucers for True Magazine

Kehoe was one of the first significant conspiracy theorists, asserting eventually that the saucers were from outer space and were on some sort of scouting mission

Kehoe claimed to derive his theory from his contacts in Air Force and Navy intelligence

Project Sign, based at Air Technical Intelligence Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and its successors Project Grudge and Project Blue Book were officially assigned to investigate the flying saucers

Edward Ruppelt's book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, reports that many people within these research groups did in fact support the conclusion that the flying saucers were from outer space

Kehoe later founded the National Investigations Committee of Aerial Phenomena, which is also known as NICAP

NICAP is a civilian investigation group that asserted the US government was lying about UFOs and covering up information that could be shared with the public

NICAP had many influential board members, including Roscoe H

Hellencoder, the first director of the CIA

To date, no substantiating evidence for NICAP's assertions has been presented beyond accounts that are anecdotal and documented hearsay or rumour

One night, residents of Los Angeles, California got the fright of their lives

The Great Los Angeles Raid, also known as the Battle of Los Angeles, is the name given by modern sources to the imaginary enemy attack and anti-aircraft artillery barrage that took place from late February 24th to early February 25th, 1942 over Los Angeles, California

Initially, the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox speaking at a press conference shortly afterward called the incident a false alarm

A small number of modern-day UFOologists have suggested the reported targets were extraterrestrial spacecraft

When documenting the incident in 1983, the US Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of war nerves likely triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries

Wacky wisdom! I think we blew that one right open! Let's keep this between us and dive into more details

In 1946 and 1947, numerous reports occurred of so-called ghost rockets appearing over Scandinavian countries, primarily Sweden, which then spread into other European countries

One USAF top secret document from 1948 stated that Swedish Air Force intelligence informed them that some of their investigators felt the reported objects were not only real, but could not be explained as having earthly origins

Similarly, 20 years later, Greek physicist Dr

Paul Santorini publicly stated that in 1947, he was put in charge of a Greek military investigation into reports of ghost rockets sighted over Greece

Again, they quickly concluded the objects were real and not of conventional origin

Santorini claimed their investigation was killed by US scientists and high military officials who had already concluded the objects were extraterrestrial in origin and feared public panic because no defense existed

It was during this time that the world's most famous alien encounter took place

In 1947, the United States Air Force issued a press release stating that a flying disc had been recovered near Roswell, New Mexico

This press release was quickly withdrawn, and officials stated that a weather balloon had been misidentified

The Roswell case quickly faded from the attention of most UFO-ologists until the 1970s

Speculation persisted despite the official denial that an alien spacecraft crashed near Roswell

For example, retired brigadier General Arthur E

Exon told researchers Kevin D

Randall and Donald R

Schmidt that a spacecraft had crashed, alien bodies were recovered, and the event was covered up by the US government

Exon further claimed he was aware of a very secretive UFO controlling committee made up primarily of very high-ranking military officers and intelligence people

His nickname for this group was the Unholy 13

In the 1990s, the US military published two reports disclosing the true nature of the crashed aircraft, a surveillance balloon from Project Mogul

Nevertheless, the Roswell incident continues to be of interest in popular media, and conspiracy theories surrounding the event persist

Roswell has been described as the world's most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim

Weird and wild stuff

I'm Wilbur, and I'm glad you're with me on this truth-seeking mission

Ready to investigate? Here we go! In 1948, Air Force pilot Thomas Mantell was killed in a crash while pursuing what he described as a metallic object of tremendous size

Project Blue Book concluded that Mantell had lost control of his aircraft while chasing a then-classified Skyhook balloon

Some UFOologists reject Blue Book's conclusion because of its initial suggestion that Mantell was chasing Venus or a comet

The US Air Force may have planted the seeds of UFO conspiracy theories with their 1947 Project Sign, which later became Project Grudge and then Project Blue Book

Edward J

Ruppelt, the first director of Blue Book, characterized the Air Force's public behavior regarding UFOs as schizophrenic, alternately open and transparent, then secretive and dismissive

Ruppelt also revealed that in mid-1948, Project Sign issued a top-secret estimate of the situation, concluding that the flying saucers were not only real, but probably extraterrestrial in origin

According to Ruppelt, the estimate was ordered destroyed by Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg

Project Sign's final report, published in early 1949, stated that while some UFOs appeared to represent actual aircraft, data were insufficient to determine their origin

Project Blue Book wouldn't be the only government-run branch looking into the existence of extraterrestrial visits to our planet

Some UFOologists have claimed the existence of a US government group called the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit, allegedly established by General Douglas MacArthur that was supposedly formed to investigate crashed and retrieved flying saucers

It was during the 1950s that the world saw an increase in both governmental and civilian investigative efforts and reports of public disinformation and suppression of evidence both here and around the world

The UK Ministry of Defence's UFO project has its roots in a study commissioned in 1950 by the MOD's then Chief Scientific Advisor, the great radar scientist Sir Henry Tizard

As a result of his insistence that UFO sightings should not be dismissed without some form of proper scientific study, the department set up the Flying Saucer Working Party, or FSWP

In August 1950, Montanen Baseball manager Nicholas Mariana filmed several UFOs with his colour 16mm camera

Project Blue Book was called in, and after inspecting the film, Mariana claimed it was returned to him with critical footage removed, clearly showing the objects as disc-shaped

The incident sparked nationwide media attention

Frank Scully's 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers, suggests that the US government had recovered a crashed flying saucer and its dead occupants near Aztec, New Mexico in 1948

It was later revealed that Scully had been the victim of a prank by two veteran confidence artists

Donald Kehoe was a retired US Marine who wrote a series of popular books and magazine articles that were very influential in shaping public opinion, arguing that UFOs were indeed real and that the US government was suppressing UFO evidence

Kehoe's first article on the subject came out in True Magazine during January of 1950 and was a national sensation

His first book, Flying Saucers Are Real, also came out in 1950, about the same time as Frank Scully's book and was a bestseller

In 1956, Kehoe helped establish NICAP, a powerful civilian UFO investigating group with many inside sources

Kehoe became its director and continued his attacks on the Air Force

Although contemporary critics also charged that the United States Air Force was perpetrating a cover-up with its Project Blue book

Canadian radio engineer Wilbert B

Smith, who worked on the Canadian Department of Transport, was interested in flying saucer propulsion technology and wondered if the assertions in the just-published Scully and Kehoe books were factual

In September 1950, he had the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC arrange contact with US officials to try and discover the truth of the matter

Smith was briefed by Dr

Robert Saarbacher, a physicist and consultant to the Defense Department's Research and Development Board

Other correspondents, having to do with Kehoe needing to get clearance to publish another article on Smith's theories of UFO propulsion, indicated that Bush and his group were operating out of the Research and Development Board

Smith then briefed superiors in the Canadian government, leading to the establishment of Project Magnet, a small Canadian government UFO research effort

Canadian documents and Smith's private papers were uncovered in the late 1970s, and by 1984, other alleged documents emerged, claiming the existence of a highly secret UFO oversight committee of scientists and military people called Majestic 12, again naming Vannevar Bush

Saarbacher was also interviewed in the 1980s, and corroborated the information in Smith's memos and correspondence

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Smith granted public interviews, and among other things stated that he had been lent crashed UFO material for analysis by a highly secret US government group, which he wouldn't name

A few weeks after the Robertson panel, the Air Force issued Regulation 200-2, ordering airbase officers to publicly discuss UFO incidents only if they were judged to have been solved, and to classify all the unsolved cases to keep them out of the public eye

In addition, UFO investigative duties started to be taken on by the newly formed 4602nd Air Intelligence Squadron, AISS, of the Air Defense Command

The 4602nd AISS was tasked with investigating only the most important UFO cases having intelligence or national security implications

These were deliberately siphoned away from Blue Book, leaving Blue Book to deal with the more trivial reports

My head's spinning, I'm seeing grays

Let's keep this talk going, but be careful, they could be listening in

In 1954, an automatic working station for UFO monitoring was installed at Shirley's Bay near Ottawa in Canada

After this station detected the first suspicious event, all data gained by this station was classified as secret, although the cameras of the monitoring station could not make any pictures because of fog

1956 saw the publication of Gray Barkers' They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers

The book which publicized the idea of sinister men in black who appeared to UFO witnesses and warned them to keep quiet

There has been continued speculation that the men in black are government agents who harass and threaten UFO witnesses

Also in 1956, the group Foundation for Earth-Space Relations led by film producer Zaddy Soffit tested their own flying saucer outside the Long Island town of Ridge Landing

It is speculated in Robertson's The Long Island Saucer that an FBI cover-up silenced witnesses

On January 22, 1958, when Donald Kehoe appeared on CBS television, his statements on UFOs were pre-censored by the Air Force

During the show, when Kehoe tried to depart from the censored script to reveal something that has never been disclosed before, CBS cut the sound, later stating Kehoe was about to violate pre-determined security standards and about to say something he wasn't authorized to release

What Kehoe was about to reveal were four publicly unknown military studies concluding UFOs were interplanetary, including the 1948 Project Sign Estimate of the situation and a 1952 Project Blue Book engineering analysis of UFO motion presented at the Robertson Panel

But Gordon Cooper reported suppression of a flying saucer movie filmed in high clarity by two Edwards AFB range photographers on May 3, 1957

Cooper said he viewed developed negatives of the object, clearly showing a dish-like object with a dome on top and something like holes or ports in the dome

When later interviewed by James McDonald, the photographers and another witness confirmed the story

Cooper said military authorities then picked up the film and neither he nor the photographers ever heard what happened to it

The incident was also reported in a few newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times

The official explanation was that the photographers had filmed a weather balloon distorted by hot desert air

There's little doubt the 50s was the height of UFO hysteria

Things began slowing down as we moved towards the 1960s and 1970s

In 1973, Robert Emanager and Alan Sandler of Los Angeles, California were in contact with officials at Norton Air Force Base in order to make a documentary film

Emanager and Sandler report that the Air Force officials, including one who is named Paul Chardell, suggested incorporating UFO information in the documentary, including, as its centerpiece, genuine footage of a 1971 UFO landing at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico

Furthermore, says Emanager, he was given a tour of Holloman AFB and was shown where officials conferred with extraterrestrial biological entities, also known as EBEs

This was supposedly not the first time the US had met these aliens, as Emanager reported that his US military sources had been monitoring signals from an alien group with which they were unfamiliar, and did their ET guests know anything about them? The ET's said no

The documentary was released in 1974 as UFOs, Past, Present, and Future, narrated by Rod Serling, contained only a few seconds of the Holloman UFO footage, the remainder of the landing depicted with illustrations and reenactments

When questioned about the film in 1988, Chardell said that it was genuine and that he had seen it several times

In 1976, a televised documentary report, UFOs, It Has Begun, written by Robert Emanager, was presented by Rod Serling, Burgess Meredith, and Jose Ferrer

Some sequences were recreated based upon the statements of eyewitnesses and observers

Together with the findings and conclusions of governmental, civil, and military investigations, the documentary uses a hypothetical UFO landing at Holloman AFB as a backdrop

The late 1970s also saw the beginning of controversy centered on Paul Benowitz of Albuquerque, New Mexico

Benowitz claimed the existence of a plot involving an extensive network of UFO bases tied to an alien colonization and control scheme to subjugate the human race

After he saw the hypnosis sessions of Myrna Hansen, who claimed to have UFO experiences, he became convinced that cattle mutilations were due to aliens

As a result, Benowitz claimed to have uncovered evidence of aliens controlling humans through electromagnetic devices, and furthermore claimed that UFOs were regularly flying near Kirtland Air Force Base and the nearby Manzo Nuclear Weapons Storage Facility and Coyote Canyon Test Area

Realized that he was intercepting electronic communications originating from alien spacecraft located outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Benowitz soon believed that he had located a secret alien facility that he called Dolce Base

By 1982, Benowitz began to spread his ideas regarding Dolce Base to others in the UFOlogy community

In 1988, he wrote a paper entitled Project Beta detailing how the base might be successfully attacked

Benowitz detailed his assertions to the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, who regarded him as a deluded paranoid

UFOlogist William Moore claims that he tried to push Benowitz, who had been in a mental health facility on three occasions after suffering severe delusional paranoia, into a mental breakdown by feeding him false information about aliens

Former Special Agent for the U

S

Air Force Office of Special Investigations Richard Doty claimed that in the 1980s, he was tasked with hoaxing documents and feeding false information to UFO researchers, including Benowitz

Wait, I think we might have been followed

Alright, it's safe, let's keep going

In 1982, a set of documents known as the Majestic 12 documents surfaced

According to them, there was secret high-level U

S

government interest in UFOs dating to the 1940s

Upon examination, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, declared the documents to be completely bogus, and many UFOlogists consider them to be an elaborate hoax

Years later, in November 1989, American conspiracy theorist Bob Lazar appeared in a special interview with investigative reporter George Knapp on Las Vegas TV station KLAS

Lazar claimed to have worked on reverse-engineering purported extraterrestrial technology at a site called S-IV, located several kilometers south of the Area 51 Groom Lake operating location

In his interview with Knapp, Lazar said he first thought the saucers were secret terrestrial aircraft whose test flights must have been responsible for many UFO reports

Gradually, on closer examination and from having been shown multiple briefing documents, Lazar came to the conclusion that the disks must have been of extraterrestrial origin

He claims that they use Moscovium, an element that decays in a fraction of a second, to warp space, and that he has since met gray aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system

According to the Los Angeles Times, he never obtained the degrees he claims to hold from MIT and Caltech

The Mutual UFO Network held their 1989 annual convention in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 1, 1989

UFOologist Bill Moore was scheduled as a main speaker, and he refused to submit his paper for review prior to the convention, and also announced that he would not answer any follow-up questions as was common practice

Unlike most of the convention's attendees, Moore did not stay at the same hotel that was hosting the convention

When he spoke, Moore said that he and others had been part of an elaborate, long-term disinformation campaign begun primarily to discredit Paul Benowitz

"

my role in the affair was primarily that of a freelancer providing information on Benowitz's current thinking and activities

" Air Force Sergeant Richard C

Doty was also involved, said Moore, though Moore thought Doty was simply a pawn in a much larger game, as was I

One of their goals, Moore said, was to disseminate information and watch as it was passed from person to person in order to study information channels

Moore said that he was in a rather unique position in the disinformation campaign

Judging by the positions of the people I knew to be directly involved in it, the disinformation definitely had something to do with national security

"

there was no way I was going to allow the opportunity to pass me by

I would play the disinformation game, get my hands dirty just often enough to lead those directing the process into believing I was doing what they wanted me to do, and all the while continuing to burrow my way into the matrix so as to learn as much as possible about who was directing it and why

" Once he finished the speech, Moore immediately left the hotel

He left Las Vegas that same night

Moore's claims sent shockwaves through the small, tight-knit UFO community, which remains divided as to the reliability of his assertions

Do you believe this? There's enough information here to build a case

What do you think? Things were pretty quiet on the UFO front until November 24, 1992

It was on that date a UFO reportedly crashed in South Haven Park, Shirley, New York

A Long Island MUFON researcher investigated the crash

Four years later, on June 12, 1996, Ford was arrested and charged with plotting to poison several local politicians by sneaking radium in their toothpaste

On advice of counsel, Ford pleaded insanity and was committed to the Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Center

Critics say the charges are a frame-up

During the 90s, there was nearly as many UFO experts as there was sightings

During this period, Philip Schneider, an engineer and geologist formerly working for the US government, made a few appearances at UFO conventions in the 1990s, espousing essentially a new version of the theories mentioned above

He claimed to have played a role in the construction of deep underground military bases, DUMBs, across the United States, and as a result, he said he had been exposed to classified information of various sorts, as well as having personal experience with EBEs

He claimed to have survived the Dalchi base catastrophe, in which a firefight broke out between the military and a group of large aliens known as Greys

He died by suicide on January 17, 1996, after a series of lectures given in late 1995 on topics including the Black Budget and underground alien bases

Others believe that Schneider did not take his own life, and that he was actually murdered by the government

Slowly but surely, evidence that was left under lock and key for many years began to slowly come to light

Eight files from 1978 to 1987 on UFO sightings were first released on May 14, 2008 to the National Archives website by the British Ministry of Defense

Two hundred files were set to be made public by 2012

The files are correspondence from the public sent to government officials such as the MOD and Margaret Thatcher

Copies of Lieutenant Colonel Halt's letter regarding the sighting of RAF Woodbridge to the UK Ministry of Defense were routinely released by the USA's base public affairs staff throughout the 1980s until the base closed

The MOD released the files due to requests under the Freedom of Information Act

The files included, among other things, alien craft flying over Liverpool and Waterloo Bridge in London

In the early 2000s, the concept of disclosure became increasingly popular in the UFO conspiracy community, that the government had classified and withheld information on alien contact and full disclosure was needed, and was pursued by activist lobbying groups

In 1993, Stephen M

Greer founded the Disclosure Project to promote the concept

In May 2001, Greer held a press conference at the National Press Club in DC that demanded Congress hold hearings on secret US involvement with UFOs and extraterrestrials

It was described by an attending BBC reporter as, The strangest ever news conference hosted by Washington's August National Press Club

The Disclosure Project's claims were met by derision by skeptics and spokespeople for the US Air Force

In 2013, the production company CHD2 LLC held a citizen hearing on disclosure at the National Press Club in DC from April 29 to May 3, 2013

The group paid former US Senator Mike Gravel and former representatives Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, Roscoe Bartlett, Merrill Cook, Darlene Hooley, and Lynne Woolsey $20,000 each to participate, and to preside over panels of academics and former government and military officials discussing UFOs and extraterrestrials

Allegations of suppression of UFO-related evidence have persisted for many decades

Some conspiracy theories also claim that some governments might have removed and or destroyed or suppressed physical evidence

On July 7, 1947, William Rhodes photographed an unusual object over Phoenix, Arizona

The photos appeared in a Phoenix newspaper and a few other papers

An Army Air Force intelligence officer and an FBI agent interviewed Rhodes on August 29 and convinced him to surrender the negatives, which he did the next day

He was informed he wouldn't be getting them back, but later he tried, unsuccessfully, to retrieve them

The photos were analyzed and subsequently appeared in some classified Air Force UFO intelligence reports

A June 27, 1950 movie of A Flying Disc over Louisville, Kentucky, taken by a Louisville Courier-Journal photographer, had the USAF Directors of Counterintelligence, AFOSI, and intelligence discussing in memos how to best obtain the movie and interview the photographer without revealing Air Force interest

One memo suggested the FBI be used, then precluded the FBI getting involved

Another memo said it would be nice if OSI could arrange to secure a copy of the film in some covert manner, but if that wasn't feasible, one of the Air Force scientists might have to negotiate directly with the newspaper

In a recent interview, the photographer confirmed meeting with military intelligence and still having the film in his possession until then, but refused to say what happened to the film after that

In another 1950 movie incident from Montana, Nicholas Mariana filmed some unusual aerial objects and eventually turned the film over to the US Air Force, but insisted that the first part of the film, clearly showing the objects as spinning discs, had been removed when it was returned to him

According to some conspiracy theorists, during the military investigation of Green Fireballs in New Mexico, UFOs were photographed by a tracking camera over White Sands Proving Grounds on April 27, 1949

They claimed that the final report in 1951 on the Green Fireball investigation claimed there was insufficient data to determine anything

Conspiracy theorists claim that documents later uncovered by Dr

Bruce McAbee indicate that triangulation was accomplished

The conspiracy theorists also claim that the data reduction and photographs showed four objects about 30 feet in diameter, flying in formation at high speed and an altitude of about 30 miles

According to conspiracy theorists, McAbee says this result was apparently suppressed from the final report

A March 1, 1967 memo directed to all USAF divisions from USAF Lieutenant General Hewitt Welles, Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, stated that unverified information indicated that unknown individuals impersonating USAF officers and other military personnel had been harassing civilian UFO witnesses, warning them not to talk, and also confiscating film, referring specifically to the Helflin Incident

AFOSI was to be notified if any personnel were to become aware of any other incidents

This is a game of intrigue

Let's keep playing

John Callahan, former division chief of the Accidents and Investigations branch of the FAA, Washington DC, also a disclosure project witness, said that following the Japan Airlines Flight 1628 incident that involved a giant UFO over Alaska, recorded by air and ground radar, the FAA conducted an investigation

Callahan held a briefing a few days later for President Reagan's scientific study group, the FBI, and CIA

After the briefing, one of the CIA agents told everybody they were never there and this never happened, adding they were fearful of public panic

According to one theory related to the assassination of President John F

Kennedy, the CIA killed Kennedy in order to prevent him from leaking information to the Soviet Union about a covert program to reverse-engineer alien technology

Nick Cook, an aviation investigative journalist for Jane's Information Group and researcher of Billion Dollar Secret and author of The Hunt for Zero Point, claims to have uncovered documentary evidence that top-secret US defense industry technology has been developed by government-backed defense industry programs

Beginning in the 1940s, using research conducted by Nazi scientists during World War II and recovered by allied military intelligence, then taken to the US and developed further with the collaboration of the same former German scientists at top-secret facilities established at White Sands, New Mexico, and later at Area 51, allegedly resulting in production of real-world prototype operational supersonic crafts actually tested and used in clandestine and military exercises, with other developments incorporated later into spy aircraft tasked with over-flying hostile countries

The UFO story that evidence of alien technologies being suppressed and removed or destroyed was generated and then promoted by the CIA beginning in 1947 as false-led disinformation to cover it all up for the sake of national security, particularly during the Cold War

At a time when, his investigations found, the Soviet Union, too, was developing its own top-secret high-tech UFO craft, Cook's conclusions alleging suppression of evidence of advanced human technology instead of alien, together with what he presents as declassified top-secret documents and blueprints and his interviews of various experts, some doubtful reliability was developed and broadcast as a feature documentary on British television in 2005 as UFOs the secret evidence, and in the US in 2006 as a two-part episode on the History Channel's UFO files retitled An Alien History of Planet Earth with an added introduction by actor William Shatner, the History Channel program teaser promised a look at the rumours of classified military aircraft incorporating alien technology into their designs

What's the real truth? Keep seeking and it will reveal itself

That's a Wilbur quote you can take home to mama

In 1993, Stephen M

Greer founded the Disclosure Project to promote the concept of disclosing allegedly suppressed evidence of extraterrestrials

In May 2001, Greer held a press conference at the National Press Club in DC that featured 20 retired Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration, and intelligence officers, who demanded that Congress begin hearings on secret US involvement with UFOs and extraterrestrials

In 1997, one of the most incredible and historic UFO-related happenings the world has ever seen occurred over the state of Arizona

The Phoenix Lights, sometimes called the Lights Over Phoenix, were a series of widely-sighted, unidentified flying objects or UFOs observed in the skies over the US states of Arizona, Nevada, and the Mexican state of Sonora on March 13, 1997

Lights of varying descriptions were seen by thousands of people between 1930 and 2230 Mountain Standard Time

In a space of about 300 miles, or 480 kilometers, from the Nevada line through Phoenix to the edge of Tucson, there were two distinct events involved in the incident

A triangular formation of lights seen to pass over the state, and a series of stationary lights seen in the Phoenix area

The United States Air Force identified the second group of lights as flares dropped by an A-10 Warthog aircraft that were on training exercises at the Barry Goldwater Range in southwest Arizona

Witnesses claimed to have observed a huge, carpenter square-shaped UFO containing five spherical lights or possibly light-emitting engines

Jeff Semmington, the governor at the time, was one witness to this incident

He later called the object otherworldly

The lights were reported to have reappeared in 2007 and 2008, but these lights were quickly attributed to, respectively, military flares dropped by a fighter aircraft at Luke Air Force Base, and flares attached to helium balloons released by a civilian

At about 1855 Pacific Standard Time, or 1955 Mountain Standard Time, a man reported seeing a V-shaped object above Henderson, Nevada

He said it was about the size of a Boeing 747 aircraft, sounded like rushing wind, and had six lights on its leading edge

The lights reportedly traversed northwest to the southeast

An unidentified former police officer from Palden, Arizona, is claimed to have been the next person to report a sighting, after leaving his house at 2015 Mountain Standard Time

As he was driving north, he allegedly saw a cluster of reddish or orange lights in the sky, compromising four lights together and a fifth light trailing them

Each of the individual lights in the formation appeared to the witness to consist of two separate point sources of orange light

He returned home and, through binoculars, watched the lights until they disappeared south over the horizon

Lights were also reportedly seen in the areas of Prescott and Prescott Valley

At approximately 2017 Mountain Standard Time, callers began reporting the object was definitely solid, because it blocked out much of the starry sky as it passed over

John Kaiser was standing outside with his wife and sons in Prescott Valley when they noticed a cluster of lights to the west-northwest of their position

The lights formed a triangular pattern, but all of them appeared to be red, except the light at the nose of the object, which was distinctly white

The object, or objects, which had been observed for approximately two to three minutes with binoculars, then passed directly over the observers, were seen to bank to the right and then disappeared in the night sky to the southeast of Prescott Valley

The altitude could not be determined, however the object was fairly low and made no sound whatsoever

The National UFO Reporting Center received the following report from the Prescott area

While doing astrophotography, I observed five yellow-white lights in a V formation moving slowly from the northwest across the sky to the northeast, then turn almost due south and continue until out of sight

The point of the V was in the direction of movement

The first three lights were in a fairly tight V, while two of the lights were further back along the lines of the V's legs

During the northwest-northeast transit, one of the trailing lights moved up and joined the three and then dropped back to the trailing position

I estimated the three-light V to cover about 0

5 degrees of sky and the whole group of five lights to cover about 1 degree of sky

At the town of Dewey, 10 miles or 16 kilometers east of Prescott, Arizona, six people saw a large cluster of lights while driving northbound on Highway 69

Tim Lay and his wife Bobbie, his son Hal, and his grandson Damien Turnage first saw the lights when they were above Prescott Valley about 65 miles or 100 kilometers away from them

At first, the lights appeared to them as five separate and distinct lights in an arc shape, as if they were on top of a balloon

But they soon realized that the lights appeared to be moving towards them

Over the next 10 or so minutes, the lights appeared to come closer

The distance between the lights increased, and they took the shape of an upside-down V

Eventually, when the lights appeared to be a couple miles away, the witnesses could make out a shape that looked like a 60-degree carpenter square, with the five lights set into it, with one at the front and two on each side

Soon, the object with the embedded lights appeared to be coming right down the street where they lived, about 100 to 150 feet or 30 to 45 meters above them, traveling so slowly that it appeared to hover and was silent

The object then seemed to pass over their heads and went through a V opening in the peaks of the mountain range towards Squaw Peak Mountain and toward the direction of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport

Witnesses in Glendale, a suburb north of Phoenix, saw the object pass overhead at an altitude high enough to become obscured by the thin clouds

This was at approximately between 2030 and 2045 mountain standard time

When the triangular formation entered the Phoenix area, Bill Greiner, a cement driver hauling a load down a mountain north of Phoenix, described the second group of lights

I'll never be the same

Before this, if anybody had told me they saw a UFO, I would have said, yeah, and I believe in the Tooth Fairy

Now I've got a whole new view and I may be just a dumb truck driver, but I've seen something that don't belong here

Greiner stated that the lights hovered over the area for more than two hours

A report came from a young man in the Kingman area who stopped his car in a pay foam to report the incident

The young man, en route to Los Angeles, called from a phone booth to report having seen a large and bizarre cluster of stars moving slowly in the northern sky

A repeat of the lights occurred February 6, 2007, and was recorded by the local Fox News television station

According to military officials and the Federal Aviation Administration, these were flares dropped by the F-16 aircraft training at Luke Air Force Base

On April 21, 2008, lights were again reported over Phoenix by local residents

These lights appeared to change from square to triangular formation over time

Wilbur's wacky world continues! Are you ready to follow the next lead? Let's do it! A Valley resident reported that shortly after the lights appeared, three jets were seen heading west in the direction of the lights

An official from Luke Air Force Base denied any United States Air Force activity in the area

On April 22, 2008, a resident of Phoenix told the newspaper that the lights were nothing more than his neighbor releasing helium balloons with flares attached

This was confirmed by a police helicopter

The following day, a Phoenix resident who declined to be identified in news reports stated that he had attached flares to helium balloons and released them from his backyard

Wow, what a weird and wacky world this is! I should know! I've been out here in the Nevada desert using the latest technology to investigate the truth of what's really going on

So this subject really gets my gizzards! Now let's keep talking! Imagery of the Phoenix lights falls into two categories

Images of the triangular formation seen prior to 2200 MT in Prescott and Dewey, and images of the 2200 MT Phoenix event

Almost all known images are of the second event

All known images were produced using a variety of commercially available camcorders and cameras

There are no known images taken by equipment designed for scientific analysis, nor are there any known images taken using high powered optics or night vision equipment

There are few known images of the Prescott Dewey lights

Television station KSAZ reported that an individual named Richard Curtis recorded a detailed video that purportedly showed the outline of a spacecraft, but that the video had been lost

The only other known video is of poor quality and shows a group of lights with no craft visible

During the Phoenix event, numerous still photographs and videotapes were made, distinctly showing a series of lights appearing at a regular interval, remaining illuminated for several moments and then going out

These images have been repeatedly aired by documentary television channels such as the Discovery Channel and the History Channel as part of their UFO documentary programming

The most frequently seen sequence shows what appears to be an arc of lights appearing one by one, then going out one by one

UFO advocates claimed that these images showed that the lights were some form of running light or other aircraft illumination along the leading edge of a large craft, estimated to be as large as a mile or 1

6 kilometers in diameter, hovering over the city of Phoenix

Wacky wonders! Who would have known things could be this strange? Let's dive into the evidence

Other similar sequences reportedly taken over a half hour period show differing numbers of lights in a V or arrowhead array

Thousands of witnesses throughout Arizona also reported a silent, mile-wide V or boomerang shaped craft with varying numbers of huge orbs

A significant number of witnesses reported that the craft was silently gliding directly overhead at low altitude

The first-hand witnesses consistently reported that the lights appeared as canisters of swimming light, while the underbelly of the craft was undulating, like looking through water

However, skeptics claim that the video is evidence that mountains not visible at night partially obstructed views from certain angles, thereby bolstering the claim that the lights were more distant than UFO advocates claim

UFO advocate Jim Delatoso claimed to have performed spectral analysis of photographs and video imagery that proved the lights could not have been produced by a man-made source

Delatoso claimed to have used software called ImageProPlus, exact version unknown, to determine the amount of red, green, and blue in the various photographic and video images and construct histograms of the data, which were then compared to several photographs known to be of flares

Spectral sources have pointed out, however, that it is impossible to determine the spectral signature of a light source based solely on photographic or video imagery, as film and electronics inherently alter the spectral signature of a light source by shifting hue in the visible spectrum, and experts in spectroscopy have dismissed his claims as being scientifically invalid

Normal photographic equipment also eliminates light outside the visible spectrum, for example infrared and ultraviolet, that would be necessary for a complete spectral analysis

The maker of ImageProPlus, Media Cybernetic, has stated that its software is incapable of performing spectroscopic analysis

Wondrous wackiness! Is this real or is this fiction? We'll have to keep looking

Cognitech, an independent video laboratory, superimposed video imagery taken of the Phoenix lights onto video imagery it shot during daytime from the same location

In the composite image, the lights are seen to extinguish at the moment they reach the Estrella mountain range, which is visible in the daytime, but invisible in the footage shot at night

A broadcast by local Fox broadcasting company affiliate KSAZ-TV claimed to have performed a similar test that showed the lights were in front of the mountain range and suggested that the Cognitech data might have been altered

Dr

Paul Scalwin, visiting professor of astronomy at Arizona State University, performed a third analysis using daytime imagery overlaid with video shot of the lights and his findings were consistent with Cognitech

The Phoenix New Times subsequently reported the television station had simply overlaid two video tracks on a video editing machine without using a computer to match the zoom and scale of the two images

We may never know the truth behind UFOs or the various theories surrounding them

Sometimes just not being able to explain things is what keeps our lives interesting

As one popular television series once stated, the truth is out there

Maybe one day you'll be the one who finds it

We've done it! We've learned everything we can about this for now

Let's keep connecting the dots and revealing the hidden truth together

Enter Wilbur's Weird and Wacky World for more history of mystery

And if you can't find me, don't worry, I'll find you