UFOS OVER THE PENTAGON
It’s not often that UFO-related stories make headlines in the mainstream press these days; yes, the tabloids still rely on blurry cell phone pictures and dubious videos to fill space during the silly season, but (as Noel Rooney points out in his column on p5) conspiracy-based material seems to have been the fringe material du jour in 2017 as far as the mainstream media are concerned. As 2017 drew to a close, then, it was quite a surprise to see the NewYork Times (of all publications) running a story that revealed the existence of a shadowy secret programme funded (to the tune of $22 million) by the US Defense Department to examine claims of unknown technology, military UFO encounters and even physical effects on people who had come into contact with materials associated with unidentified aerospace technology (“Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program”, NewYork
Times, 16 Dec; see also “The Pentagon’s Secret Search for UFOs”, politico.com, 16 Dec 2017).
Apparently launched in 2007 with the backing of Democrat Senator Harry Reid, the programme channelled much of the cash into the aerospace research company run by Bob Bigelow, founder of the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). While the Pentagon has never acknowledged the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification programme and apparently withdrew its funding in 2012, word is that the programme continues its ongoing investigations of military encounters with unidentified craft, collaborating with officials from the US Navy and the CIA. Much information, it seems, remains classified for the time being.
It wouldn’t be the first time that the US military has mounted a long-running investigation into UFOs; but as Jenny Randles points out (see p28) in her look at where ufology stood in 1957 and where it is now, we’ve become used to such official programmes being shut down since the high-water mark of Project Blue Book in the 1950s. There is a lot to chew on here, including some fascinating video footage released by the Pentagon of an encounter between Navy fighter jets and an unknown object. We’ll be bringing you a full look at this developing story next issue, along with the personal recollections of retired US Army colonel John Alexander (of The Men Who Stare
at Goats fame) about working with Bob Bigelow as part of NIDS to investigate the high strangeness reported from Utah’s infamous Skinwalker Ranch.
ERRATA
FT358:63: Nick Warren, sometime FT contributor and eagle-eyed Ripperana editor, spotted a ghastly error. “Your review of the 2016 Jack the Ripper book
The Man Who Would Be Jack states that the police suspect was Charles Cutbush. He was actually Thomas Cutbush. Charles Cutbush was his uncle, a senior Scotland Yard officer who committed suicide.”
FT359:28: Bill Robinson of Slough, Berkshire, found a classic howler in our obituary of Albert Stubblebine III, where we “stated that that he was ‘instrumental in the invasion... of Granada’. I am not aware that the US has ever invaded this Spanish city. They did, however, invade Grenada, a small Caribbean nation, in 1983.”
FT360:25: Donald Rooum emailed to point out a Mythconceptions mistake: “Attention Mat Coward. If your sources really say coal is born no more than three or four million years ago, you need some more sources. Welsh coal was laid down in the Permian, between 300 and 250 million years ago, as any fule kno.”