Pages

Friday, June 28, 2024

Hudson Talks Oklahoma UFOs on Un-X News

 https://www.youtube.com/live/vi9jWdp-RlI?si=hxPfBA_HtMegw4Ys


Live interview, Friday, June 28, 2024

Friday, June 21, 2024

"Interrogation Forms": A Reflection of the Attitude to Witnesses

From the initial days of the US UFO story, there is ample evidence that the FBI and Military investigative services interviewed people about what they had seen. The FBI was brought in because they were concerned with the security clearances of individuals and because they had helped to investigate the backgrounds of many government workers it was natural they be involved.  From the start they people - military and civilian - were not interviewed they were "interrogated."   There was no "interview form" but there was an "interrogation form" that would be recreated and improved several times during the 1950's.

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary the term "interrogation" is defined as "process of asking someone a lot of questions for a long time in order to get information, sometimes using threats or violence..."

Modern meanings, include those from the The Handbook of The SAS And Elite Forces: How the Professionals Fight and Win. (Edited by Jon E. Lewis. p.186-Tactics And Techniques, Evasion, Capture and Escape. Robinson Publishing Ltd 1997. ISBN 1-85487-675-9), that defines it as - "Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful information, particularly information related to suspected crime. Interrogation may involve a diverse array of techniques, ranging from developing a rapport with the subject to torture" (Wikipedia).

In essence, the process of interview and interrogation come from opposing ends of a spectrum of soliciting information.

Interrogation presumes hidden facts, motives, and actions. It presumes guilt.

Interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers. The purpose is to collect information, facts, data, and evaluates the skills of the observer and the nature of the observed event.

Was it any wonder the initial UFO history was fraught with problems?  Many assumed witnesses were Soviet operatives or closet communists set to destabilize a government. Many assumed the craft were secret Soviet ships designed to lead an invasion. The authorities ALWAYS drove home the HOAXER, the CRACKPOT, and the DRUNKS as a primary causative for the sightings. 

Ridicule did the rest...



TRACKING THE UFO HUNTERS

In the early years of ufology, as Project Blue Book, struggled to handle the vast issues of its mandated purpose, the emergence of "clubs" about the subject of the "flying saucers" or "UFOs" were perceived by many to be a threat.

The fact that people were questioning and challenging the word of the Government, in the form of its Air Force, in the minds of Cold War citizens placed them in the same potential problem box as "Communists" and "Socialists."  The FBI files are filled with helpful letters from concerned individuals asking about the political views of APRO, NICAP, and several other groups of the 1950's.

Several times in the files of Project Blue Book there will be lists of organizations, membership claimed, and sometimes scathing editorial comments.






Sunday, June 9, 2024

A Tale of Two Lights - August 25, 1951

The New Mexico object

The Lubbock Lights Photos

 The famed lights over Lubbock, Texas in August of 1951 are a fascinating case of unknown lights in the skies. Many accept the government claims of light reflections on migrating birds and others do not. One important element in historical research into the unidentified phenomenon involves locative vision.  It is tunnel vision to a specific location. For the Air Force and other researchers, the focus was on reports for a specific time and location.  Seldom were investigators encouraged to make the logical next step of asking "where did the lights go?" or "where did they come from?"  It was very experiential and location oriented. Given that so much background data was keep from the public and other research inclined groups it was easy to keep such events locked in a single location.

Sometimes, however, that was hard to do. 

ON August 25, 1951, around 9:30 p.m. in the community of Lubbock, Texas, three local professors from Texas Technical College observed from a back yard a very strange object fly overhead. 

The "Lubbock Lights" would be seen several times and by many people. A few sightings were labeled birds but others did not fit that explanation at all. 

Various claims in following days of sightings of what was dubbed a "flying wing" seem like scrambled attempts to explain something hard to explain. The professors in Texas and the witnesses in New Mexico had agreed strongly on one point - they object made no sound.

The idea they professors and others had seen migrating Plover birds was denounced by experts as a blanket explanation. Some things seen by people were migrating birds and they recognized them as such. They were reported to act different than the "lights."

A local youth took two good photos of the v- shaped object and was instantly labeled a hoaxer. The photos, however, had stood the test of time and recent tests with modern technology indicate they should be studied more. 

Several hundred miles northwest (320 miles) of Lubbock, just about fifteen minutes after the professors watched the strange lighted object silently pass through the night sky...a couple was driving in the cool of a New Mexico night.

In the dark skies over Albuquerque, New Mexico August 25, 1951, (at about 9:45 p.m.), witnesses reported seeing an odd sight. In the region with its high population of experts and scientists of every field it made it almost a given the witnesses would be topflight quality and they were.  They reported driving back from an evening out and seeing an object making no sound, lacking the standard, and required landing lights of normal aircraft, pass eerily just overhead as they slowed their vehicle. 

The object appeared chevron shaped with 6-8 brilliant mercury white lights all along the trailing edge (back half) of the "wings." The witnesses estimated the thing was moving about 300-400 mph at 160 degrees and with an altitude of 1000 ft. One witness noted it was "similar to the Flying Wing but one and a half times larger than a B26..."

The object this couple witnessed was moving south to southeast and some other accounts of the object indicate seeing bluish-green lights.

The underside of the object had what appeared to be black strips. The black stripes reflected light, but no reflection was seen anywhere else. Of note is that if this had been caused by a reflection of birds the reverse would be seen). Also, stripes of white and black were used in wartime to distinguish "friendly craft" from  unfriendly.  

On November 10, 1951, the couple in New Mexico were shown a photograph and a letter regarding the sighting at Lubbock, Texas.  The couple had supplied their own sketch of what they saw and when shown the photograph they felt it appeared similar to what they had seen. 

The obvious conclusion is that both cases reflect people observing a startling similar object. Also flying low, no sound was observed, and the craft bore no standard anti-collision or required lighting.  Its size, silence, and apparent speed  (if indeed the same objects) are unique.

Was it a stealth balloon, a forerunner of the large covert dirigibles used to collect information? The silence seems to preclude traditional and conventional power sources. The dark reflective lines under the "wings" of the delta or chevron shape are also interesting. Radar reflectors to enhance or jam the craft being read by radar?

A truly interesting case that should have been studied in greater depth.