Addendum to The UFO Event at the National Press Club

In my recent wrap-up post of the National Press Club event I put a picture in there which was supposedly from the O'Hare UFO incident.

I mentioned at the time that I thought I'd seen the pictures that were presented on other blogs before and forums before, and it seems as though I was right. They've been out there for a while, and in all likelihood they're fakes as apparently the pictures, minus the UFOs, have been floating around cyberspace since before the O'Hare incident.

Why someone's taken the time to add those back into a clearly legitimate event such as this press event makes me wonder. Perhaps they're the hoaxers? Whatever happened there, the fairly popular blog out there claiming to have been at the event which has those pictures in the middle of their wrap-up seems pretty suspect right about now in my opinion.

The UFO Event at the National Press Club

After following up on the National Press Club event about UFOs from last week, it seems as though there was at least some coverage, and perhaps even some new information that came out of it. In the clip featured here, you can get an idea of what the press conference was about, and how it happened.

Looking around the 'net, I have to admit that I'm surprised at how many people are still talking about this event. Not only that, but so many blogs and sites have comments from people saying "I never thought that there was a chance that UFOs were real, but now I have to stop and think about it." I guess that's more than anyone could hope for from such an event.

It also seems like people are suggesting that there were some new pictures of the O'Hare UFO incident featured, one of which is below.



I actually thought I'd seen that before, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

The mocking continues for many out there, however. In the clip below, the CNN correspondent seems like he's really trying to cover the subject in a professional manner when the anchor, who honestly seems a little on the air-head side, giggles and says that when she thinks of people who believe in UFOs she thinks of freaks.



Not exactly professional, but, just the fact that CNN had the Larry King Live special, and then covered the NPC event speaks volumes to where the UFO enigma seems to have gone over the past few years. It's not a "career killer" anymore, like it used to be, for a news person to speak about in a serious matter.

After reading some of the testimony, parts really stand out in my mind, and I'll try to hit on the highlights of the discussion and comments from most of the attendees below.

I was glad to see Fife Symington, the former Governor of Arizona, apologize for his mockery of the Phoenix lights previously when he was the current Governor. For those who don't remember, he called a press conference claiming that he solved the mystery, and then presented a man in an alien costume. To set the record straight, he now claims that not only did he make serious inquiries into the event, but that he was also an eye witness. He's not making fun of it anymore, and he claims to be upset by the insinuation of the local Air Force that all he saw were flares. He called it a "silly explanation."

An interesting point was made by Roy Bower, a pilot from the UK. He claims to have seen two UFOs while flying a passenger jet. The UFOs were observed by passengers and another plane as well, and he says a radar hit may have been recorded as well. His point was that in the UK there's a system for reporting such incidents, and they are investigated. He was surprised to hear that the O'Hare incident seems to have never been investigated, and he feels that had that happened in the UK it would have been handled differently. He called it his "duty" to report what he saw in the sky, and says he's faced no ridicule for doing so. He urged pilots from the US to report what they see and what they've seen, and not let the FAA obstruct a real investigation into it.

Rodrigo Bravo Garrido followed that up by saying that in Chile, where he has investigated UFOs for the military, there's also a system for investigating UFOs. He made the point that he feels there can be dangerous consequences for an unknown object in the skies hovering around airplanes. He cited the case of a 737 coming into an airport to land, only to find that a "large white light surrounded by green and red" was in its way. The pilot had to make a steep turn in order to avoid a collision.

Next up, Wilfried De Brouwe, a retired Major General of the Belgian Air Force, added to the conversation by saying that investigating UFOs is no easy task. He talked about a "UFO wave" over eastern Belgium when he was in active service which included "a majestic triangular craft with a span of approximately 120 feet, powerful beaming spot lights, moving very slowly without making any significant noise but, in several cases, accelerating to very high speeds" which was witnessed by hundreds of people. That was followed up by hundreds of possible sightings over the next year of UFOs. While the local Air Force attempted to make contact by scrambling jets multiple times, they were ultimately unsuccessful.

Former Chief of Accidents and Investigations for the FAA, John Callahan, then followed with a personal story and an interesting discussion he claims took place with the CIA during the Reagan administration. He told the story of a Japanese cargo plane that was shadowed and "chased" by a UFO over Alaska. The pilot and the crew stated that they saw it with their own eyes and it was about four times the size of a 747. When he received the information, he not only received the radar information, but also the discussion amongst the crew inside of the plane and all of the related data. He found that the radar confirmed what the crew was saying, and so they relayed the data to a scientific staff from the FAA and CIA members. At the end of the briefing he claims that the CIA confiscated all of the data for their people to analyze, and when he suggested that they tell people about the incident, one of the CIA guys told him, "No way, if we were to tell the American public there are UFO's they would panic."

I hate the idea that one of the reasons incidents like this are withheld is because of fear of people's reactions, but, that's been discussed at length recently here.

After that, other pilots continued to tell their stories before Charles Halt told his. He is a retired US Air Force Colonel who was stationed in the UK in 1980 when he witnessed lights in the woods outside of his base, and found some interesting effects from what he witnessed. Shortly after finding three 1 1/2" indentations in the ground, he, and others, witnessed a "bright red/orange oval object with a black center" which he thought looked like an eye. There were broken branches and mild radiation present, and when they approached it "it receded and silently broke into five white lights which quickly vanished." They stepped out of the woods and watched the lights change shape and then several other objects approached. One of them "sent down a concentrated beam near our feet" while another object "sent down beams into the weapons storage area." This incident went on for about an hour while they had trouble communicating using their radios the entire time. He finished his statement by saying that he's sure what he saw was under intelligent control.

Another military incident was relayed by Parvis Jafari, a retired general of the Iranian Air Force. He told a story of a UFO event in which he personally piloted a fighter jet in which he attempted to intercept and engage a UFO. He described it as an "intense red, green, orange and blue light so bright that I was not able to see its body." He locked onto it with radar and says that it had a signature equivalent with a 707 tanker. Shortly thereafter, four objects broke off of the main one. He claims to have attempted to launch a heat seeking missile, fearing he was under attack. Not only did his missile instrumentation go out when he attempted, but he says that whenever the objects came close to him his weapons jammed and his radio communication went out. There was physical evidence also, as one of the objects landed in the sand and left a mark.

James Penniston, formerly of the United States Air Force, then told his personal story about the now infamous Rendlesham incident. His story is actually much like that of Charles Halt. He said that when he went into the forest to investigate what he thought was a downed aircraft he actually found a "ilhouetted triangular craft about 9 feet long by 6.5 feet high..." He also reported problems with his radio as he got close to it, also reported bright lights "swirling" around the outside. He reported that he felt like the air around him was electrified, and that he felt it in his hair and clothes. Interestingly, the team then took the time to attempt a full investigation of the craft. They took photographs, took notebook entries and studied symbols on the side of the craft which were approximately three inches high, and went two and a half feet across the outside. The largest was a triangle in the middle, and the rest were pictorial in design. After 45 minutes the craft lights brightened and it took off at a speed which he called "impossible" and disappeared. All of the photos came back to them overexposed.

At the event he had his actual original log book with the drawings of the symbols on it, but I haven't seen any pictures of that around the 'net. If anyone knows where they might be, I'd love to take a peek.

Shortly thereafter Nick Pope gave his accounts of what he knows. In case you don't know, Book of THoTH did a DVD interview with him which you can purchase here from Amazon. He was formerly with the British Ministry of Defense, and he certainly seems to know exactly what he's talking about.

To end the conference, Oscar Santa Maria Huertas presented his experience as a retired pilot of the Peruvian Air Force. His tale should be a cautionary tale as to the futility of attempting to attack a UFO(as the US military found out when they thought they were shooting at Japanese planes). His unit commander witnessed what they called a "balloon" which was in restricted airspace and refused to communicate or leave the area. The decision was made to take it down, and despite firing sixty-four 30mm shells, at it his "wall of fire" didn't do a thing. He feels as though the shots that were direct hits were actually absorbed by the UFO. He chased it for a while, locked onto it a few times, but was never able to get another shot at it. He did get within 300 feet of it, and described it as "30 feet in diameter. It was an enamelled, cream-colored dome, with a wide, circular, metallic base. It had no engines, no exhausts, no windows, no wings or antennae. It lacked all the typical aircraft components, with no visible propulsion system."

At the end of all of that, I still find it interesting that so many people poke fun at the UFO enigma. No matter what it is, no matter who has seen UFOs, no matter what anyone says, there's something going on, and it would be a major injustice not to take the time to make a legitimate study of the enigma.

Is the World Actually Close to Disclosure?

The question has me thinking quite a bit lately. It started out when I got involved a bit in Paul and Mac's discussion on contact, and what it's ramifications would be, and it's continuing now with the recent Larry King show on UFOs and the upcoming event at the National Press Club.

It's actually quite an interesting time to be keeping an eye on UFOs and the public reaction recently. O'Hare really seemed to open a lot of eyes, and got mainstream press that wasn't purely mocking. As little as it seemed at the time, it really looks like a step forward now. Of course, recently, Dennis Kucinich was asked about his sighting during a "debate" for democratic nominee for President, which only served to keep the ball rolling it seems.

Momentum seems to be gaining now, even though I was prepared to be completely and totally offended by the Larry King special. To be clear, I haven't actually seen it yet, but I've read the transcript available here. It seems to have been a fairly level headed discussion, on national TV, to a large audience. I almost feel like I'm suddenly in a parallel world here. Have we actually gotten to the point where it's not taboo to discuss this?

From what I've seen lately, I'll stick with my previous thoughts on whether or not we're ready. Some people are, some probably aren't, but it's time to understand what's going on around us. Of course, disclosure and contact are different, but I think they'd likely have similar results.

Imagine all of the world's governments coming forward with what they know and what they don't know. Would we suddenly realize an alien presence among us? Would we be forced to accept cryptoterrestrials right here on our planet? Perhaps we still wouldn't know what, exactly, we were dealing with, but we'd understand that there was something legitimate going on that we had to study. Any one of those would certainly open up a new dialogue amongst all of us.

It seems to me that we must be reaching some sort of a critical point in the study of UFOs. Whether that's "disclosure" or whether that's the opening of legitimate scientific study I'm not sure, but I'll take either one at this point.

I'll certainly be keeping my eyes open over the next few days to see what comes out of the upcoming National Press Club event. It seems like if there's ever going to be something of importance come out of such a gathering, it's going to be this one(and certainly not Hoagland's). There actually seems to be some sort of momentum gathering in this regard, and I, for one, hope it continues.

Seems the O'Hare UFO story isn't going anywhere yet. A guest opinion article from a Florida news source has reignited the debate. I guess at this point there's really nothing to discuss until we wait to see what evidence comes out. The most likely source seems like it's going to be Dan Aykroyd, but it might not be coming real soon, just "sometime this year". Seems like everyone will just have to wait a while and see what happens. At the very least there do seem to be many credible witnesses, but any sufficient video and/or photographic evidence has been disturbingly lacking thus far, from what I've seen.

There's been another twist in the Chicago O'Hare airport UFO story. Apparently none other than Dan Aykroyd is claiming to have exclusive photos and video footage in his possession, and says he'll be releasing it all at some point this year. I guess we're all caught up in the instant information age where we expect instant gratification when a story hits the news, but it looks like we'll have to wait to pass judgment on this one.

After writing about the O'Hare UFO story the other day, somehow I just knew what the next phase of the story was going to be...There's a picture out...and it's probably a fake. Who would have ever figured that someone would take the time to fake a photograph on such a popular UFO case? Sheesh...

As for the pilot who supposedly took a photo, I sincerely hope the rumors that he's holding back while he auctions it off to the highest bidder aren't true. Just put out the picture, and let people decide for themselves whether it deserves all the attention it's gotten or not, in my opinion.

Doing a little surfing today at UFOMystic, I was reading Greg Bishop's take on a recent UFO case(interesting news video included). By now pretty much everyone on the planet, seemingly, has heard of the O'Hare Airport UFO. In short, on a cloudy day, apparently many people witnessed something hovering over the airport, which then took off leaving a hole in the clouds. The story has really taken off itself, has fascinated many people, and gotten many people who would generally laugh at the subject to look a little more closely.

That is, undoubtedly, in my opinion, a good thing. However, on closer examination, even though airline employees were among the witnesses, including pilots who would seemingly be considered good witnesses, I worry about what this story is doing to the credibility of the UFO subject. Why? Because weeks later there's still been no video, nor pictures of the sighting released. Rumor has it that a pilot took digital pictures, but no one has seen them yet. So, at this point, we're left with an interesting case, for certain, with no evidence at all in the public domain. In short, I guess the whole thing has left me feeling a little restless, much like, it seems, Paul Kimball is.