THE UFO FILES
NIGEL WATSON surveys the latest sightings and ufological news from around the world
ANOTHER TIC TAC
E-4 Petty Officer John Baughman, of the US Navy, has revealed that he saw a ‘Tic Tac’ object from the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class supercarrier, off the coast of Haiti in January 2010. He described it as definitely a solid, white object, some 20ft (6m) long, that darted into the depths and appeared to collapse on itself and disappear. Baughman felt empowered to mention this after the recent interest in UAPs, although he admitted that what he saw could have been caused by a shark, whale or moving flotsam. The story does reinforce the idea, promoted by ufologist Gary Heseltine in the Sun (3 June 2021) that there are alien bases under the sea. In any case, it seems that Tic Tacs have replaced triangular ‘Dudley Dorito’ UFOs, and we are now in danger of snack attacks from both air and sea. Ryan Sprague, “New Navy Witness Says He Saw a ‘Tic Tac’ Operating Underwater,”: medium.com/on-the-trail-of-thesaucers/new-navy-witness-says-he-saw-a-tictac-operating-underwater-92344d29ac1.
BLAST FROM THE PAST
The recently published book from Jacques Vallee and Paola Harris, Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret, promised to reveal hard evidence from San Antonio, New Mexico, of a crashed saucer and its occupants. The story goes that its secret retrieval by a US Army detachment in mid-August 1945 was spotted by two boys who also collected two metal parts from the craft. An analysis of the parts showed that they were of terrestrial origin; but a ‘scientific’ report apparently gets around this by saying that the aliens could be time travellers from our future; or that they have bases on Earth where they could use local materials to build their craft; or other solar systems could have isotopic ratios of the elements similar to our planet; or the parts are from a secret terrestrial craft. So, basically, any old bit of ironmongery could be from an ET ship if you are disposed to believe in aliens. The assertion by Paul Hynek that one piece is a windmill tailbone is far more likely.
Rather than being a new case, the story was first disclosed in the Hallowe’en edition 2003 of the Socorro-Magdalena Mountain Mail by Ben Moffett, and in 2011 one of the boys, Remigio Baca, published a book about it: Born on the Edge of Ground Zero: Living in the Shadow of Area 51. Paola Harris wrote a long article about the case in 2010, where she also makes much of the fact that the first ‘Trinity’ nuclear bomb was tested a month earlier, 20 miles (32km) from the crash site. In this manner, aliens are linked with their fear of our weaponry; which, Paola suggests, “put humanity and possibly other dimensional visitors in danger of total destruction.”
On Twitter, Chris Mellon, formerly of the US Department of Defense and the To the Stars Academy, gives this glowing plug for the book: “Thanks to the meticulous research of Dr Jacques Vallee and co-author Paola Harris, there is fresh reason to believe – unrelated to the famous Roswell case – that our government could be concealing physical proof of ET life and/or technology.”
That “meticulous research”, though, presents no new or hard evidence; but it does fit in with the agenda of aliens as a threat presented by the likes of Kean, Cameron, Mellon and Elizondo; and, somewhat frighteningly, it indicates the gullibility of highranking intelligence personnel in relation to what is essentially a Hallowe’en tale based on Roswell. Even more shockingly, Dr Vallee’s legacy is severely tarnished by being associated with this tosh. www.theblackvault. com/casefiles/analysis-two-metallic-partspurportedly-crashed-unidentified-aerial-objectsan-antonio-new-mexico-august-16-1945/; www.theufochronicles.com/2010/11/1945san-antonio-ufo-crash-witness.html.
CHARIOT PARKS
A “Chariots of the Gods” theme park in Blackpool has been renamed because the developers, Nikal and Media Invest Entertainment, decided it didn’t resonate with a younger audience. Instead, it will be called the ‘Blackpool Central Indoor Entertainment Park’, which sounds about as exciting as a cardboard factory in Slough.
The £300m visitor attraction will still use the Ancient Aliens theme, but first a multistorey car park, followed by a food hall, hotel and pub, will be built on the 17-acre site. Lastly, three indoor entertainment venues and a public square will be completed by 2029. At The Erich von Däniken Legacy Night at the Princess Anne Theatre, London, on 15 October 2016, it was announced that three theme parks were being planned. The parks would contain ancient lands and 4-D rollercoaster rides with the theme of ancient wars in the ‘heavens’ and the influence of ETs on human civilisation. There were immediate plans for a site in Berlin, and a much larger one in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, scheduled to open in 2020. There were also plans for one in the UK – presumably a reference to the Blackpool project. Blackpool should be warned that the first ‘Chariots’ theme park was opened in Jungfrau Park, Switzerland, in 2003 (see FT169:30-35) and closed down three years later due to lack of visitors .
A bigger issue might be what many argue is the inherent racism of the Ancient Alien theories. Palæontologist Julien Benoit asks: “Why is it so hard for some to acknowledge that ancient non-European civilisations like the Aztecs, people from Easter Island, ancient Egyptians or Bantu-speakers from southern Africa could create intricate structures? The answer is unfortunately as simple as it seems: it boils down to profound racism and a feeling of white superiority that emanates from the rotting corpse of colonialism. Colonial powers saw their ‘subjects’ in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia as exotic, fascinating – but ultimately primitive.”
Given the slow progress of the Blackpool project I don’t see it coming to fruition; a far better bet is to invest in my non-racist foo fighter factory scheme. www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/chariots-of-the-gods-ditched-at-blackpool-central/?; theconversation.com/racism-is-behind-outlandish-theories-about-africas-ancient-architecture-83898; www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/02/blackpools-new-chariots-of-the-gods-park-is-sadly-built-on-racist-assumptions-about-the-past/
PIE IN THE SKY
On 8 May, this was posted on Facebook: “I, Michael H Rogers, make an open apology to Travis C Walton for anything negative I may have said against him within the last few years.” Not long after, Travis’s old co-worker announced he was co-writing a book with the famous abductee. Then, on 10 July, Rogers posted about the proposed remake of Fire in the Sky: “I tell him that his supposed remake should be called, ‘Pie in the Sky’. He kept telling me there was a remake and that Robert Patrick was going to play my part again. Only a week later Travis told me in person that there will be no remake, but now he says it’s in production??? Something is wrong with this picture?!?**@> <@**?!?”