The lack of evidence would appear to be the evidence!

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And to continue further, cases with extraordinary claims ,which depend on anecdotal evidence only, and the source then saying "What? Are you calling me a liar?!" are not particularly satisfying.

Yes

And I raise you one UFO Curse

Seems appropriate to this thread.

__________________
Very funny Scotty, now beam down my clothes.

Neither side can provide physical evidence.

Irrelevant. One side presents a far more fantastic claim on its face than the other. Therefore one has a much higher burden of proof than the other. You seem to want to set those burdens equal for Jacobs/Mansmann and George. They are not.

...about a UFO shooting down a dummy nuclear warhead.

Let's be clear. UFOs do not "shoot down" anything. A shoot-down occurs only as a deliberate act. Jacobs and Mansmann are arguing that an intelligently controlled vehicle was depicted on the film, and argue that it can be the product of no earthly technology. That is a very tall, specific claim. Sugar-coating it in reserved language does not help your case nor lessen your burden of proof. By putting this object in a scenario with motives, causes, and effects, they have offered a partial identification. It is that identification them, and also you, bear the burden to prove. That burden is not borne by heaping up scorn upon Kingston George, Jim Oberg, or anyone else.

Bob Jacobs, on the other hand, publicly alluded to personal log entries suggesting that the launch in question occurred on Sept. 2nd, 3rd, or 15th, 1964. He published those dates in 1989.

How does an "allusion" in 1989 to log entries made 25 years previously constitute evidence? It constitutes a claim of evidence. If Jacobs can produce the logs themselves and evidence that they were written in 1964, then that would be evidence.

Mansmann and Jacobs were privately communicating in writing about a UFO having shot down a dummy warhead as early as 1983, within months of Jacobs publicly exposing the incident in print.

What does your skill in eyewitness testimony -- "equal to that of any competent reporter" -- tell you about witnesses who first discuss and amend details of their stories in private and then offer public confirmation of each other's claims?

Are you claiming, Mr. Printy, that Jacobs and Mansmann were conspiring to engage in a hoax?

This is not about Mr. Printy's research or claims; this is about your research and your claims. Do not shift the burden of proof. What did you do to investigate and rule out the possibility of a hoax? Do you agree that a reasonably skeptical reader would consider that possibility, and therefore expects that you, the skilled author, would have performed some exercise to determine how likely that was compared to other conclusions such as the one you hold?

I concede this point. Mansmann should have said that Jacobs’ revelations EFFECTIVELY negated his secrecy oath.

Handwaving. What exactly constitutes an "effective" negation of someone's legal obligation to maintain sworn secrecy, and what is the procedure or precedent for this type of negation?

Mansmann did not consider his own VIEWING of the film during the quality control review to be a SHOWING

I don't see any evidence for this distinction in the quoted passage. I see that Mansmann claims to have seen the film four times, which he enumerates and describes in similar language each of the four times. There is no mention of exhibition versus inspection. There is no implication that one "didn't count." This distinction seems to be your interpretation pasted onto the evidence.

Mansmann never mentioned [the "CIA men's"] names, as far as I know.

So this resposible USAF officer turns over classified material to people who simply identify themselves as "CIA men," without obtaining and recording their identities in his official records? Do you know what the normal procedure is for transferring custody of classified material? Do you know under what protocols the CIA (a civilian organization) might exercise authority over the military?

...before he began to fear “reprisals from the agency involved”

What evidence do you have that legal obligations of secrecy are enforced by the responsible agencies by means of "reprisals?" Were there actual reprisals, or only "fear of reprisals?" In short, what assurance does your reader have that this is not just a claim to excuse the lack of evidence?

You just can not accept the fact that Mansmann explicitly rules out George being at the screening.

There is no explicit ruling out. You cannot accept the fact that the best you can come up with is an argument from silence: George is not explicitly mentioned in a list compiled 35 years after the fact, therefore you conclude it is evidence of his absence. That's implicit evidence. Explicit evidence would be an authenticatable record of the meeting (e.g., a diary, an official report, or minutes) in which is said either, "Kingston George was not at this screening," or "Here is a complete and correct list of all people who attended the screening." Your inference is the problem, and trying to shift it to Mansmann's record-keeping is not sufficient proof of your ability to have analyzed this evidence properly.

But in fact, by your own admission, the "CIA" men's identities are not explicitly recorded, yet since they were the ones taking custody of the super-secret classified material their identities were the most important of any that Mansmann could have recorded. Therefore I cannot say much for Mansmann's record keeping or his recollection.

I HOPE THAT EVERYONE WHO HAS QUESTIONED JACOBS’ ACCOUNT OF THE BIG SUR INCIDENT WILL ORDER A SET. ...AND MAKE YOUR CASE.

The problem is less with the documentary evidence and more with your handling of it and your apparant unwillingness to examine it critically. You are the author whose analysis and conclusions are under examination. My line of reasoning addresses that analysis and those conclusions. I have sufficient documentary evidence already for my line of reasoning as it presently stands, but thank you for your kind offer.

Actually, it would not surprise me if not one of my critics on this blog requested to see the letters.

Accusing your critics of laziness in advance is not appropriate when you are the one swamped in long-standing unanswered questions which you say number "literally" in the hundreds. You came here inviting criticism and debate, and you are not holding up your end of it very well. It is further inappropriate to criticize in advance when you beg forgiveness for not having thoroughly examined your many UFO witnesses on the grounds that you had too many of them on your desk. Kindly stop poisoning the well.

You beg the question that a survey of your original sources is invariably necessary to a reasonable line of questioning designed to test your methods and the means by which you arrived at your conclusion. Whether or not people read your book exerpts or order your lengthy printed evidence from you or Astrophotographer does not excuse you from answering questions about how you performed your research.

Your misinterpretation of the word “showings” as previously noted.

Again, no evidence that the distinction is anything other than your interpretation. You reconcile the discrepancies in his accounts only by pasted-on hair-splitting. You cannot say that these accounts do not differ materially after all the suppositional gymnastics you've done to excuse the differences.

Mansmann said the original film...

And does Mansmann have any evidence for his claim of what happened to the film? You cannot refute George's claim simply by deciding to believe Mansmann instead.

...whose badges he checked.

Is that all that's required for a proper change of custody for classified material?

You say the Big Sur story is extraordinary. From my point of view it is old hat.

So did you report on the Big Sur event only to be read by other UFO enthusiasts who are accustomed to accepting fantastic tales uncritically? Or did you consider that people who haven't been steeped for decades in swapping UFO stories might find it a little hard to swallow?

Mansmann and Jacobs are claiming to have seen evidence of a vehicle not of ordinary Earth origin with demonstrable belligerent intent. That is a fantastic claim on its face. You don't get to lower the bar just because that's the only bar you can clear.

Of course, I have interviewed scores of former/retired USAF nuclear missileers and missile guards with similar accounts—and you have not. That’s the difference between an investigator and an armchair expert.

I cannot possibly disagree more. An armchair expert is simply one who presumes to have the necessary skills to conduct his research, as you have explicitly done when you said your skills were "equal to that of a competent reporter." A bona fide expert is one whose ability to conduct relevant research correctly has been publicly tested prior to undertaing the research, and who submits his research to ongoing review of peer experts, which it appears you have not done.

But now that you have reaffirmed your claim to expertise, you may kindly go back and answer all the questions I've asked you relevant to your expert status. You may not continue to flip-flop your claims to expertise based on how well the argument is going for you.

Mansmann identifies some of them in other letters, so your assumption is incorrect.

Did Mansmann at any time state that any list of attendees was complete? The fact that different lists were produced at different times containing different names throws out the door completely the notion that his silence rules out George.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Ahhh...I missed this gem. Actually, I have already stated that I am not particularly married to George's story. I guess you must have missed it back on post 223. I even told you I would take down the webpage if you can demonstrate that his recollections of Buzzing Bee were incorrect or falsified.

Actually, I could suggest that George is telling the truth about Buzzing Bee as he recollects it since he did pick the wrong date. Had he really been trying to lie about the case in this vast conspiracy you appear to be implying, George would have been told (or he would have selected) to use the "correct date" of September 15th.

If you want to persuade me, then you need to provide something more convincing. I just want to see evidence that states something really unusual happened on the "Butterfly net" launch. So far you have provided none other than the recollection of what Jacobs and Mansmann stated supposedly happened. All the other documentation you have collected and interviews conducted seem to point towards a normal launch and flight of the warhead.

Nevertheless, said Mansmann, because “the cat [was] out of the bag”, he had decided to confirm Jacobs’ account of the incident to various individuals who had written to him.

Name other examples in which the "cat out of the bag" excuse has been used and has been acknowledged by agencies with classificatory power as acceptable.

Jacobs has suffered reprisals.

Can you provide any example of a secrecy oath or NDA administered by any agency of the U.S. Government in which it is stated that the penalty for violating the agreement and oath is that the affected agency will nag you unnoticed by others?

Ask him about that when you write to him.

Shifting the burden of proof. You are the one claiming Jacobs' story is credible. What exercise did you undertake yourself to determine that it was credible on this one point?

I suspect the Powers-That-Be knew not to push them, especially Jacobs, too far. That probably would have back-fired. Just speculation on my part.

How much of the rest of your writings is speculation?

On the one hand you have the all-powerful CIA (or "Government Men") swooping in and taking custody of an important film document never to be seen again. The Air Force quakes in their boots.

But when scenario shifts to expect the heavy-handed CIA to take decisive action, we find they can only whimper from the shadows because Mansmann and Jacobs somehow, somewhere acquired all this knowledge-is-power leverage over them.

Where is it written that people who violate (or "effectively negate") their security obligations will be subjected to veiled, impotent threats, rather than the usual penalties of imprisonment and/or court martial?

The importance of these 1980s-era personal letters is obvious. Taken together, they capture the candid, unguarded impressions of the two most important sources for the Big Sur UFO story.

Important only because they say they are. They can't provide any evidence that any of the stuff they talk about actually occurred.

If anyone believes that I am lying about the letters’ authenticity or content, or that Mansmann and Jacobs are lying about what they say in those letters...

Straw man. Nobody's going to feed your legal saber-rattling here. The authenticity of the letters is not materially in question. The content is not necessarily in question. Your interpretation of them is appropriately in question, along with the proposal that two men trading stories decades after the purported fact is proof that the stories they told are true. You seem to have an odd notion of what evidence actually consists of.

Given what Mansmann has written about the incident’s Top Secret status, I would not expect to be able to access such documentation via the FOIA.

Ah, so the "cat out of the bag" option only works when it's about information that's favorable to your case. So Mansmann is okay saying that Jacobs' revelation exonerates him from all obligations of secrecy, and that the responsible agencies are powerless against that. But when it comes to those same agencies coughing up documents you say must exist but will never see the light of day, all of a sudden the file cabinet is locked up tighter than Fort Knox.

Have you noticed a trend? The properties of people and organizations in your stories change according to what needs to be true in order for your story to seem true, not according to what properties are sensible for those entities to have or to whether it fits the circumstances. When secrecy obligations need to be tighter than a drum in your story, they are. When they need to be loosey-goosey in your story, the are. Why?

...the mere fact that Jacobs and then Mansmann spoke openly about a still-classified matter, that in itself would not open the flood gates to the documentation.

So do you have any evidence or precedent for this seemingly cavalier approach to the protection of Top Secret information? People can talk about it on Larry King, but they can't read even a redacted document? How does that work?

On the other hand, you have made some rather naïve statements on this threat, especially for a retired USN submariner, so maybe I do understand your question.

Sticks and stones. You have admitted that you have never held any sort of security clearance. We are still awaiting your description of the adjudicated training and experience you received in classification methods, practices, and protocols so that you can dazzle us with your expert interpretation of the purported actions of Jacobs and Mansmann.

Because frankly your description sounds like a bad Hollywood movie.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Mr. Hastings writes: Jacobs never would have known [the compartmentalization], for the reasons previously stated.

So here Mansmann again violates common protocols governing the handling of sensitive information.

In preparing the letters to send to you, I ran across one in which Jacobs refers to having Top Secret clearances at one time or another.

But then...

Jacobs’ records, at least those in my possession, make no reference to his clearances, if any.

So the official record of Bob Jacobs' service in the military contains no reference to his having held any clearances, despite that being the place where such information is normally kept. Employing your professed great skill at interpreting history, you lay aside the official documentary record and rely instead upon private correspondence that serves only to identify Jacobs' self-reported claim.

And to resolve this inconsistency, what do you do? However, given that Major Mansmann requested his presence at the screening of the film in question, his input was obviously required.

Pure circular reasoning. You simply express your blind faith in Mansmann's account as if that resolves the issue. It is that absurd reasoning for which you are being justifiably taken to task here.

Now if no documents could be found to verify Jacobs' security status, we could still evaluate his claim on the basis of how well it fits the context and known workings. The problem emerging here is that we have several possible points of verification for the Jacobs/Mansmann story based on their claims of how sensitive information and access to it was undertaken. And on every single verification point we see a variance or anomaly. Sure, such a story would probably fool the UFO enthusiasts who eat up all that fictional cloak-and-dagger stuff. But you can't make their claims fit any documented procedure to secure information. For the rest of the military world, security regulations are explicit and inviolate. But Jacobs and Mansmann simply make up the security rules as they go.

Why rely on me to convey what he has told me when you can ask him yourself?

Because you are the one claiming that you have interviewed "scores of former/retired USAF nuclear missileers and missile guards" about their UFO experiences; you are the one claiming that this makes you an expert who deserves our respect; and you are the one who has authored a book making claims and drawing conclusions based on this testimony and others. You are the one assuring us that Jacobs and Mansmann tell a completely plausible and suitably-documented story. You are quite squarely on the hook to provide information about Jacobs' and Mansmann's claims. If you have not yet verified Jacobs' claims to access prior to endorsing his story, kindly do not shift the burden of proof.

Bottom line, George has no one to back up his version of events, and has produced no documentation to substantiate his story about supposedly picking the correct launch, in 1992 or so, when Mansmann and Jacobs were discussing it in detail a decade earlier.

Bottom line, you cannot substantiate the claims of Jacobs and Mansmann. You cannot speak to any of the points where their claims don't ring true, where they contradict, or where they simply make no sense -- except to speculate, suppose, and restate your firm belief. You can't demonstrate having put their claims to any sort of a rigorous test. In fact, the only thing you can do is try to undermine some other person's testimony, hoping that Jacobs and Mansmann will somehow seem less incredible by comparison. The validation of Jacobs' and Mansmann's testimony is to be found in your handling of their testimony, not in how well you think you eviscerate George's claims. "George was wrong, therefore my witnesses are right," is absolutely not a viable method of proof.

...my one conversation with George, I took extensive notes.

In keeping with your practice in other cases where you interviewed witnesses, did you compile those notes into a "logical progression" (which you've never defined) and submit them to George for his approval and comments?

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I was rechecking what I wrote and I am sorry that I missed your post. I assume this is a question and not a comment.

1) I don't have a number of satellites visible. I recall my experiences at the time and there always seemed to be a half-dozen or more satellites visible when I went out meteor observing during one evenings session. Skylab was always cool too see (esp the week after it was first launched because there were several pieces that were traveling in the same orbit and you would get a "parade") and very bright (-1 to +1 as I recall). Most others were in the second magnitude or fainter category. We did not have much in the way of advanced notice in those days because there was no internet. The best you could hope for is somebody had access to computer printout data for satellites. I remember one guy flipping through some very large printouts with satellite passes at one astronomical meeting. Unless you did not have access, you pretty much saw a satellite, recorded, and then checked with others the next time you got a chance if you wanted to identify it.

2) Most missile sites are in remote areas. The skies are usually pretty dark. I guess it would depend on how much lighting they employed at the base.

3) Allan Hendry's book "The UFO Handbook" is probably the biggest must read for anyone interested in investigating UFO stories. It is very valuable in understanding how people can misperceive stars, planets, meteors, satellites, flares, etc at night as UFOs. He even had one case where police officers actually pursued the setting moon, thinking it was a UFO! I guess they must have seen CE3K before this event.

Out of the 1307 cases he investigated, he had 1103 cases that were "nocturnal lights". Hendry positively identified 1024 of these cases. Over a third (360) involved cases of stars and planets being misperceived as UFOs. Coming next were ad planes (230). Apparently, some people thought they were being given a message from these UFOs. They were, they just could not read them from the angle they saw them. Another obvious IFO were aircraft. They contributed 196 reports. 113 involved satellite reentries and meteors. Satellites came in next at 24 cases. After that came the moon with 22. Filling out the rest of the major IFOs (>10)were prank balloons (14) and searchlights (11).

As you can see, there are a myriad of sources for UFO reports and all (as well as some others) have to be considered when evaluating reports of UFOs. I doubt that any of the airmen in question had any astronomical experience and I would be curious what further investigation by officers might have uncovered. It is possible that the reports stopped the instant somebody figured out they were just looking at stars.

Working on the "Malmstrom Missile Shutdown Cases" Post. Woulda been done by now if I coulda posted the chapter from my book, UFOs and Nukes.

C'est la vie. Maybe I will be finished with the post by tomorrow night. In the interim, a warm-up post for y'all.



UFO activates ICBMs in Soviet Ukraine in 1982

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc459.htm


Summary: The following is a transcript from ABC News Prime Time Live, aired on October 5, 1995, a segment about declassified Soviet KGB UFO files.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIANE SAWYER: In an ABC News exclusive first broadcast last October (1994) We asked ABC News Correspondent David Ensor to find out what's in the KGB UFO files.

DAVID ENSOR: During a five month investigation Prime Time obtained over a thousand pages of documents collected by the old KGB. We spoke to dozens of Russian scientists, government officials, and military men. We now know that the entire Soviet armed forces, a total of 15 million people over ten years, was involved in a UFO study that turned up forty major incidents, including one that prompted fears of starting an accidental nuclear war.

As a result of the study hundreds of UFOs were recorded and some were photographed. Some of the reports and some of the photos are clearly faked. But in other cases there were multiple witnesses {At this point they show awesome film of a huge triangular UFO, filmed by a Soviet propaganda film crew doing a film about military preparedness in the 1960's. The film is very clear, showing a huge triangle shaped UFO a few miles high. The report states that the film was locked up by the KGB. - It really is pretty amazing footage- Dick}

DAVID ENSOR: October 4th, 1982 Byelokoroviche, Ukraine. Near a sleepy farming village our search brought us to perhaps the most frightening case of all, an incident that could have started an accidental nuclear war.

RUSSIAN MAN, EYEWITNESS: "I was riding a motorcycle not far from here. I saw a large object in the air. It had a perfect geometric shape."

DAVID ENSOR: Every person we spoke to in Byelokoroviche said they saw a flying saucer on that day. They told us it was huge, about 900 feet in diameter. For hours it hovered over the nearby ballistic missile base. Where Lt. Col. Vladamir Plantonev worked as a missile engineer.

LT. COL.VLADAMIR PLANTONEV: "It looked just like a flying saucer. The way they show them in the movies. No portholes, nothing. The surface was absolutely even. The disk made a beautiful turn, like this, on the edge just like a plane. There was no sound. I had never seen anything like that before."

DAVID ENSOR: Lt. Col. Plantonev took me to the ruins of what was then a missile silo with a nuclear warhead pointed at the U.S. It was dismantled 3 years ago after an arms reduction treaty. Plantonev was in the bunker on that day 12 years ago. In this room were dual control panels for the missile, each hooked up to Moscow. What happened next so alarmed Soviet Military leadership that a four man commission was sent to investigate, including Col. Chernovshev.

COL. IGOR CHERNOVSHEV: "During this period for a short time signal lights on both the control panels suddenly turned on. The lights showing that missiles were preparing for launch. This could normally only happen if an order were transmitted from Moscow."

DAVID ENSOR: No one had touched any buttons. No one had entered any codes. And yet as the UFO hovered over the base, the control panel showed the missiles were preparing to launch. For 15 agonizing seconds, the base lost control of its nuclear weapons...

RH: (The official Soviet/Russian government explanation is that military flares were dropped near the base during an excercise, which accounted for the UFO sightings. The activation of the missiles was merely a coincidence, it is claimed. Oh well, at least they didn't trot out the twinking stars story...)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Meanwhile, back in the USA

In 2002, The Association of Air Force Missileers published a brief article of mine it its September newsletter, in which I asked former or retired USAF nuclear missile personnel to contact me with their UFO experiences. Among the 30-plus responses I received was this letter from former 1st Lt. Walter F. Billings, regarding three incidents at F.E. Warren in the early 1970s:


Dear Mr. Hastings:

This is written with the assumption that you are an ex missile man and that I do not need to go into an explanation of my position at F.E. Warren AFB or what the job entailed.

I arrived at F.E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Wyo. in late January of 1972 from Vandenburg AFB and had been trained in Minuteman One, and after further training at F.E. Warren was sent with the operations crews as a Deputy Missile Commander and assigned to a Squadron for the typical duty as a 2nd Lieutenant. I was later trained as a training officer for the Wing in Minuteman One, which encompassed assisting new arrivals in training and running simulators, and other duties. This was the standard duties until the Spring of 1973.

As a First Lieutenant, along with so many others, went back to school at F.E. Warren to learn the new Minuteman Three system that was to be installed during the year of 1973. After training and evaluations, alert duties were assigned for the new system to those that had completed their training. We were to go on alerts as the new missile system was installed. In those days, F.E. Warren had 200 missiles on alert and was very active.

I am afraid that the dates that I will provide are somewhat vague. I wrote my experiences for a publication in this arena back in September 1993 and even then the dates were not exact. Also, some of the missile terminology may not be exact. I have forgotten some of the terms. I am sorry that I did not keep a private log of these events, back when they occurred.

The first event took place in the Fall of 1973, over half of the [Launch Control Capsules] had been converted to Minuteman Three by this time and I was on alert at Golf LCC, it was late at night. The UHF radio linking all twenty LCCs opened up with urgent talk from India LCC. In those days, the UHF radio was turned on, at all times, and if one LCC spoke to their SAT team or other LCCs, all twenty LCCs heard the conversation. After the India crew received a Outer Security Zone indicator on one of their missiles and sent their SAT crew out for the standard investigation trip, we began to hear over the radio the events that developed.

From the UHF radio communication between the SAT team and the India LCC crew, as we listened, we heard that as the truck was heading to the missile silo, the Inner Security Zone indicator had been tripped at the silo. Upon arriving near the subject silo, the SAT team observed a bright UFO hovering above the silo. The LCC crew advised the SAT team to proceed no further and to observe only. Approximately a minute later, the UFO moved off slowly for several thousand feet and then sped off at a high rate of speed. The conversation between the India LCC crew and the SAT team was heard by 19 other LCC crews on duty that night.

Upon relief by the next crew and upon return to F.E. Warren AFB, all crews on duty that night were informed that they would not speak to civilians or the news media about what they had heard on the UHF radio that night. Severe penalties were mentioned for those that did not heed this warning.

We, the LCC crews in general, began to hear rumors and stories, from other officers in operations and maintenance, that SAC headquarters at Offut AFB had sent the OSI to investigate this incident by helicopter. The India crew of that night, would not speak of the incident, at all. There were stories from missile maintenance, that the missile in question had been carefully examined and that they found the target tapes on the three warheads, had been supposedly erased that night by the UFO. Needless to say, I only heard that these things had occurred. These stories were told between missile guys over the following week, but they were reliable people, who did not speak to civilians or the press about this subject. However, the Squadron commanders warned us, again, not to speak of the incident.

The second incident involved an entire missile maintenance crew, I believe six enlisted men and one officer. This, also, occurred in late 1973. A Minuteman III missile was being worked on for some routine problem during one of those late fall nights. A UFO was observed by the entire maintenance crew. The UFO appeared to be watching the work and was seen for a full five minutes has it maneuvered close to the missile silo. This was told to me by a missile maintenance 1st Lieutenant, approximately three days after the incident occurred.

The third incident took place in early Spring of 1974. As I was arriving at Charlie LCC, in the morning with my captain, to begin an alert duty, we were told by the Staff Sergeant and two security police, who had been on duty that night, of the strange thing that had happened. They told us that a UFO had actually landed near the LCC and had been observed by the three, and that a minute by minute report had been given to the operations crew downstairs. When we asked about this, as we were relieving the LCC crew for our duty to begin, they would not talk about it with us. I heard a few days later that the Staff Sergeant was in some sort of trouble for speaking to us about what he saw, and that the OSI, was again, involved.

While I was in SAC, I, personally, was not directly involved with a UFO incident, while on duty. However, during June of 1974, while on a camping trip in Dubois, Wyoming with three other Lieutenants, we observed a UFO flying relatively low. It was similar to the ones that were described to us, in the above three incidents. Since all four of us were AF Lieutenants, we knew that this low flying object was not an aircraft. From that time forward, I have had an interest in this subject and have read some on the subject, as well.

I can tell you that these three incidents, at F.E. Warren AFB, did occur. It was a long time ago and I am sure many other things have happened since. I have not been able to find any written statements of these three incidents since. This could be because there was a very good cover-up of the situation, at that time, or they were not deemed important enough to bother with. Though, I doubt that the later is true.

I have always wondered as to what really happened to the missile that had the UFO hovering above it, and if the warhead target tapes had really been erased.

I wish you good luck on any research that you may do on this subject. I doubt that you will receive any help from those that might know the truth. I am sure that the cover-up that I observed many years ago, is still in effect.

Thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,

Walter F. Billings
10/18/2002

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Robert Hastings
ufohastings.com
hastings444@att.net

Speaking as one of the lurkers who you seem to think are hanging on your every word, can I just say that your relentless self promotion and subject-changing are growing increasingly tiresome?

This is a board for debate, and as such you are expected to back up the claims you have already made rather than introduce yet more new material. You may think that it's building a stronger case, but it just looks diversionary.

Please stick to discussion of the points you have already raised and answer the outstanding questions on the cases at hand.

Woulda been done by now if I coulda posted the chapter from my book, UFOs and Nukes.

Not interested in your recriminations or complaints. You are not being treated unfairly. Most of my questions can be answered in one or two sentences and do not require you to quote from your book because they deal with what you did before writing it.

In the interim, a warm-up post for y'all.

Kindly do not post new material when there are, according to you, "literally hundreds" of questions that require your answers on material you've previously posted.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I want to add my second to this as well as JayUtah's points.

I've stopped following this thread simply because I am not interested in reading a UFOlogy book written by a UFOLogist and believer.

I'm interested in facts. Not interpretations.
Answers, not cross references to a book.

Robert Hastings, You're almost posting your work for free. Sell your book and use Good Arguments in the debate rather than excerpts.

You could have done that long ago but did not bother. Instead you posted a bunch of excerpts from your book and then brought down the ire of the moderator.

Personally, I really do not understand this at all. For somebody who is an expert, belting out the basic evidence for such a monumental case should take no more than an hour or two. Instead, we are "treated" with another posting of a completely different case based once again on nothing more than rumors!

Sigh....Let us know when you really are serious about discussing the cases in question. I think you should simply stick to Big Sur and the Malmstrom 1967 cases because they appear to be your cornerstone cases. If you can not defend those properly then you are wasting your time here.

My impression is that you don't understand how to answer questions on an online forum. The idea is to keep your answers specific to the questions and as short as possible. This is supposed to be a discussion. I'm not going to read massive text dumps with just the hope that answers are hidden somewhere inside. Here's a suggestion: Take one outstanding question that can be answered with a few sentences, quote that question, and answer it in one post. Then do it again. If you feel the need to copy 'n paste another text dump, cancel it before you post it. It won't matter - nobody is going to read that mess anyway.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Yup.

Truth be told, I stopped reading Mr Hastings' posts end to end a few pages back. I've just waited for other more patient souls to do that and then provide a condensed version via their replies. Is that one sided? Well yes, but I'm not interested in wading through that much prolix verbiage when the point could be made much more succinctly.

You're alienating yourself from your potential audience, Robert. If you fail to understand that then perhaps this is all more about you than it is about the evidence.

ETA: It would also help if you used quote tags to make your posts clearer, or did the quotes in bold text like Jay does in order to make it easier for us to see which bits are your responses.

Heh. Once I saw "excerpt" in a post, I skipped to the next. If it looked like there might be an attempt at discussion, I read a bit further, but I lost most of my patience some time ago.

And that's an entirely reasonable response. Mr. Hastings may not understand that a forum discussion is not a monologue. This is not the one-way display of text found in a book, but an interactive process.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I think Mr. Hastings is just used to delivering lengthy lectures and taking a couple of questions at the end.

Mr. Hastings,
In respect to Malmstrom:

I asked on September 18th:

Sept 27th:

I felt I should provide something that Kingston George gave me a couple of years ago when he gave me his article (through Oberg) for the Big Sur UFO. Originally, I thought this was a color film shot but at a second/third glance, I think it is black and white and the resultant colors have to do with the scanning process. This is an image of the moon shot through the image orthicon by George's group. The bright crater at the bottom right is Copernicus and Gassendi is towards the upper left. I am not sure what this says for the resolution of the system. It is obviously a good telescope but the orthicon tube does not appear to give a very good resolution. It could be the shot or it could be the film. I just thought I would share it with everyone. I believe the reason there is one main and parts of two images has to do with the orthicon tube and the refresh/scan lines not being synched with the shutter speed.

Click on the image for the larger view.

Originally, I thought this was a color film shot but at a second/third glance, I think it is black and white and the resultant colors have to do with the scanning process.

I agree. It is consistent with amplified color noise such as would occur in a modern scanning process, not in a color representation process of the 1960s. Besides, your best orthicon image is always going to be black-and-white if you want the finest detail.

I am not sure what this says for the resolution of the system. It is obviously a good telescope but the orthicon tube does not appear to give a very good resolution. It could be the shot or it could be the film.

There are too many unknown factors in the provenance of this particular image to really pass defensible judgment over that system. Since the IO has a continuous target, image resolution is supposed to be one of its strong suits, limited largely by how finally you can focus the pickup beam and how finely you can sample the amplifier.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

OK, I looked at the letters mentioned by Robert Hastings (thank you for making them available) regarding Big Sur (thank you astrophotographer for passing them on).

There is only one letter from Jacobs to Mansmann, the rest are from either of the two writing to ufo researchers.

A new aspect which arose for me, is that Bob Jacobs mentions that he is sure we recovered a flying saucer from the Roswell crash (now in Wright Patterson Air Force Base), that Hollywood leads us to conclude contact has taken place, that the astronauts saw flying saucers in space, etc. This makes me come to the conclusion, he is too much of a believer (without evidence), weakening his reliability.

Mansmann, for his part, alludes to a government cover-up regarding extraterrestrials.

There is one letter from Mansmann to Peter Bons describing the flying saucer he allegedly saw.

Mansmann, in one letter, says that Jacobs was invited to the 4th viewing of the incident. What I do not quite understand, is why Jacobs, who up to that point had no idea what was on the film, was invited to view it and then told to regard as "it never having happened".

Interesting read, but I can only agree with how astrophotographer summed it up in an earlier post:

Hollywood also leads us to conclude that people in glasses are unattractive and that Keith Richards was a pirate. What's his point?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I think glasses are cute.

As long as they aren't huge and garish anyway.

So much for the evolutionary advantage...

In case anyone missed the last post by gzhpcu, the Big Sur letters are now available from astrophotographer.

I noted that over the last 24 or so hours, 183 persons have viewed this thread. I wonder how many of those persons requested copies of the letters? I am conducting an experiment and that data would be most interesting.

Care to supply the answer, astro?

Malmstrom tomorrow, now that two follow-up interviews have been conducted, in an effort to answer a couple of questions posed here. Sorry, cyber-sound-bite aficionados, it's going to be another long one. So, you information-adverse types can just sleep in.

BTW: I live for the taunts. But that's just me...

--Bad Boy Bob

I noted that over the last 24 or so hours, 183 persons have viewed this thread. I wonder how many of those persons requested copies of the letters?

"Views" are not individual people. I myself have viewed this thread several times since your last contribution. You have no way of knowing whether 183 distinct persons viewed the thread, or whether one person viewed it 183 times.

Kindly stop trying to distract from the ongoing review of your claims by trying to cast aspersions on your critics. You are on the hook to provide answers to several questions asked by me and by others. I wonder what's taking you so long and why you have time instead to:

I am conducting an experiment and that data would be most interesting.

No, I think it's more likely you're simply trying to find another excuse to dismiss the members of this board as "debunkers," while creatively avoiding any scholarly responsibility. You're going try to argue that the apparent lack of interest in obtaining your primary sources is evidence that we are unfit critics. I have explained at length why such an argument does not apply to the questions I have asked.

You have written a book and proclaimed yourself an expert. That carries responsibility. Kindly rise to it, if you please.

I live for the taunts. But that's just me...

You're not being taunted. You're being asked simply to support your claims. You are not being persecuted. This level of scrutiny is normal and expected in historical research, especially when the conclusions drawn are controversial. Kindly stop trying to play the martyr, and simply answer the questions.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I was rechecking what I wrote and I am sorry that I missed your post. I assume this is a question and not a comment.

Yes, that was a question and thank you for your response.

1) I don't have a number of satellites visible. I recall my experiences at the time and there always seemed to be a half-dozen or more satellites visible when I went out meteor observing during one evenings session. Skylab was always cool too see (esp the week after it was first launched because there were several pieces that were traveling in the same orbit and you would get a "parade") and very bright (-1 to +1 as I recall). Most others were in the second magnitude or fainter category. We did not have much in the way of advanced notice in those days because there was no internet. The best you could hope for is somebody had access to computer printout data for satellites. I remember one guy flipping through some very large printouts with satellite passes at one astronomical meeting. Unless you did not have access, you pretty much saw a satellite, recorded, and then checked with others the next time you got a chance if you wanted to identify it.

Back in the late '60s and early '70's, the only dark skys I remember were camping trips where we'd see half a dozen or so when we looked for 'em. Now, those same dark sky camping trips often produce 2 to 3 times as many sightings, even when we're not specifically waiting for an ISS pass or some other object.

2) Most missile sites are in remote areas. The skies are usually pretty dark. I guess it would depend on how much lighting they employed at the base.

Do you know if the U.S. could derive any information from observed satellite passes over U.S. missle installations at night by trained observers?

I will check out Allen Hendry's book - looks like a good read. Thanks.

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

I have viewed this thread at least 20 times if not more.
I don't post much because Hastings has been writing novels and JayUtah and Astrophotographer are much better at posting in it then I ever could be.
In the meantime, I lack the patience to read the long rambling excerpts.

183 views, and this a large board. I've checked back when I've seen new posts, which notably haven't contained posts with your answers to outstanding questions.

Obviously you haven't seen my personal library. I'll be interested to see if you actually do answer some questions this time, rather than just posting another wandering text dump.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Wow, 183 views in one day doesnt seem like to much activity at all. I would almost bet that number has gone down significantly because we are getting rather bored with you not providing answers to what you are saying. Maybe you should consider a format like this:

This is a question by this person

This is an answer by this person


Just some helpful advice.