Congressional, White House, UFO-related Constituent Correspondence, 1998

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'
sen~Jlinnal l'll••'l~h for fii:tillnal "far.t"
writ,•r Fi ·1n;_ !~d·: ;wl;: hr. had two
hundrrri
p<?oplt•
ar.tually ree
the
ohjt-ct.).
The sourec c,f the ~tory seems to
have
bren
an
NBC newsman in
J\t15tralia. But th,:, problem ,;eems to b.:
that Cooper h:is nc•:er hc-ard of it. Hr.
has b<:>cn out of ti1e spat•e program for
SP.Ven yrars. and t;ilks freely about
Ur us lo reporters, to the Columbia
"UFO recording''., to ~.·Jike Douglas,
to friends and associates. Somehow he
knows nothing about, "his" space
UFO-and he has no reason to be
silent. His space UFO never existed.
Confronted
by
this
evidence,
Fawcett (letter of May 10, 1976)
insists that " I sincerP.ly believe some of
the ashonaut sightings are bonafide,
based on some of my sources of
information." John Keel, too, recalls
(letter of .March 26, 1976) that "ex­
NASA engineers have told me all kinds
of fascinating UFO tales.. . " Always
these writers fall back on "secret
reports" and "private information"
when their published reports and open
articles disintegrate in the face of the
truth.
On October 18, 1973, the famous
Mansfie!d,
Ohio
UFO
sighting
occurred, for which Captain Lawrence
Coyne and his helicopter crew later
were to receive the 'Best UFO Case of
the Year" award (and check) from a
weekly tabloid's 'blue-ribbon panel' of
UFO experts. A few months later,
Coyne said he was told by the pa11el
chairman,
J.
Allen
Hynek,
(the
respected head of the Center for UFO
Studies) that Skylab astronauts had
photographed the same UFO from
space. (Hynek ultimately denied this.)
A
reputable
ma~azine,
"Army
ReserYe" published the story with an
intriguing photograph it had received
from NASA and which it labeled
"NASA: Skylab", clt>arly indic;1ting
that this was the astronaut photograph
which had b1Jzzed Coyne.
It would ha\'e been a neat trick for
the Skylab astronauts to have photo•
graphed anything on OC'tobcr 18th,
since they weren't even on board the
space station. The prerious crew had
returned to E:irth a 111011th bl'fore and
their relief crP.w was not schl'ouled to
blast o ff for ano!hl•r thrre weeks. The
photogr:iph prin!t·d in the magazine
w<1s clt>arly labl'll·rl 1m its backsidl• as
t<1hn hy S-:<itt <:.::iq.>ent<•r on ~lt>rcury­
7 morl' than tPn years before. It t-pl,{q_
r.ji•rlt•d
fC'.lrn hi, spac·1·cr:ifl in
a11
.1ttc111pt to g1·1 \·isual tr.ic:kin~! pr:1c:tic1?
(!Lis photo is often referred to ;is the
"cl.issical domed UFO" sht>lJ. UFO
researchers anri ma::azine edilors had
dearly not made e\·en a minimum of
effort to verify thew transparrn t
errors and mistakes. but instead 1nssed
011
the false data to the public.
Thou~ands more were decei\·rd.
Late i11 197'.l, a str;in~e objr,;t did
aµpt'a r in Skrlab sµ,11:t' photograph~ .
Takl'n on Conrad's Skylab flight i11
June, lhe object was not 11oliced b\·
UFO researchr1s but by go\'ernm.:n·t
photo :111alysts.
pl,t._ '33
Rather than ·•swi?ep the lJFO under
the rug", the officials look the other
t.ick: it might be a mysterious So,·iet
Satellite and could lie of great value to
... :. . .
. .
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...'
•: ...: '
... •·.
l r t
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.,.
i.
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,.,
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..:·-~­
33
..UFO.. 1ee,n fro,n Skvlot,.:?. The '!tongatcd ou,"ct i1 actually an a,rstrio
. '" the 8r~:il,a" 1ur,91.i,. ElllMgomo"t of NASA photo SL2-16-109.
.. ! ..
show,•d a limp balloon Carp<'nter had
')..\ "'a'';" !
58