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

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S,ncc tho ··auron.iut UFO" genre
is one of rhe m13in pillolrs o f VFO
ovidcr1ce. thi5 study clafmlng !hat
the entire set of C .)Scs i1 inv.,..lid
W 1if 0U 1110U 5iy
CC
fCCl.?1"18<J
t..Vlth
15eeptic. ism
and
cri ticism
from
UFO buffs. Aation~I objections
and arguments wiH bo printed and
answered in a subseQuent is'5ue of
this magazina. Critics are urged to
raise specific points not address°'d
in tho study. or to cite and
docum.ant
facts
which
might
modify or invalidate conclusions
in the study.
James E. Oberg
Associate Editor
"Space World" magazine
Story!
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Space flight has opened many mysteries. True, scie11tists prefer to list tlie
puzzles solved and u11knoums discovered, but as men venture beyond the
earth it is inevitable that new mysteries will be encountered.
Somewhere out there, many obsen:ers believe, are intelligent species with
technological civilizations · far more advanced tha,z that of Earth. Perhaps
they are sending us radio signals we have not recognized. Perhaps they have
left artifacts ofpast visits for us to find. Perhaps they are even_ now keeping
the earth under surveillance.
If they are out there, someday we will meet them. As illustrated in science
fiction, this meeting will probably occur in space.
Have such meetings already occurred? Have astronauts and cosmonauts
already seen alien spacecraft? The UFO lite!ature is full of tales of "space
UFOs". Are any ofthem valid? What can a careful study reveal?
H
ardly a UFO book or movie is
complete without the standard
assertion that "astronauts have seen
UFOs too". While critics may attack
the character or intelligence of many
UFO witnesses, they cannot use these
tactics on American and Russian space
pilots. Where UFO photographs can be
accused of distortion and forgery,
photographs taken by astronauts and
processed by NASA must be of the
highest trustworthiness. Hence, most
UFO scholars consider the family of
astronaut UFO sightings to be one of
the strongest bodi~s of evidence in the
past thirty years.
The best of these cases include
astronaut James McOivitt's sighting of
o( an "unidentified spacecraft" near
his Gemini-4 space capsule in 1965, a
curious photo of a pair of UFOs with
glowing propulsion fields taken by the
Gemini-7 astronauts. reports of nearby
objects
from
X-15
and
Mercury
spacecraft. tales of how ~he 1968-1969
Apollo moon shots were followed by
U.FOs on their way to the moon, and
reports and pbutographs of objects
seen by crewmen on the Skylab space
station. Last year, the National Inves­
tigations
Committee
on
Aerial
Phenomena
(NICAP)
selected the
"McDivitt UFO" photo as one of the
four best photographs ever taken.
The "astronaut UFO" sightings
must
appeal
to
many
seriou:i
researchers for a number of reasons.
The witnesses and the photographs are
unimpeachable as
to honesty and
authenticity. The conditions of the
space missions can be calculated and
recorded, and every object near the
spacecraft can be determined by con­
sulting the giant space radars of the
North
American
Air
Defense
Command (NORAD), headquartered
inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado.
Extensive
crew
debriefings
and
on-board tape recorder transcripts may
be available to obtain direct eye­
witness testimony.
With all these facts and assumptions
in mind, and mindful of the numerous
'unsolved' cases which might tell much
about the lJFO phenomenon, I began
a special research program into this
particular body of evidence. As an
aerospace writer. historian, and re­
searcher, I felt that my experience
with
astronautics,
computers,
Air
Force operations, and space miss:ons
might give me new insights into this
most puzzling series of cases. I was not
disappointed, and my results were
startling.
The basic
truths behind these
sightings seems lately to have gathered
an
accretion
of
exaggeration,
confusion, and outright fiction. The
1968 "Condon Report" on UFOs
(conducted by the
University of
Colorado for the U.S. Air Force)
found itself unable to penetrate three
specific cases, which the analyst felt
were • a "challenge" to any serious
investigator.
Stories
later
began
circulating about sightings of lunar
surface lights and structures, and the
discovery of artifacts on the moon,
about near approaches of structured
objects, and about attempts at radio
contact between Apollo capsules and
UFOs. Recent books on UFOs give
lists of astronaut sightings which are
out of numeric sequence, misdated,
mispeUed, and otherwise distorted.
My research has revealed a few
examples of deliberate photo forgeries
by UFO buffs or opportunistic authors.
My
investigations
in
the
NASA
38