Nexus - 0204 - New Times Magazine-pages

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USAF & UFO's On the evening of 4 November 1957 at Fort Itaipu, Brazil, two sentries noted a “new star” in the sky. The “star” grew in size and within seconds stopped over the fort. It drifted slowly downward, was as large as a big aircraft, and was surrounded by a strong orange glow. A distinct humming sound was heard, and then the heat struck. A Sentry collapsed almost immediately, the other man- aged to slide to shelter under the heavy cannons where his loud cries awoke the garrison. While the troops were scrambling towards their battle stations, complete electrical failure occurred. There was panic until the lights came back on but a number of men still managed to see an orange glow leaving the area at high speed. Both sentries were found badly burned - one unconscious and the other incoherent, suffering from deep shock. Thus, UFO sightings not only appear to extend back to 47,000 years through time but also are global in nature. One has the feel- ing that this phenomenon deserves some sort of valid scientific investigation, even if it is a low level effort. of the gully. He parked short, and when he walked the final few feet to the edge, he was amazed to see that it was not a car but instead was a weird eggshaped object about fifteen feet long, white in color and resting on short, metal legs. Beside it, unaware of his presence were two humanoids dressed in silvery coveralls. They seemed to be working on a portion of the underside of the object. Zamora was still standing there, surprised, when they suddenly noticed him and dove out of sight around the object. Zamora also headed the other way, back toward his car. He glanced back at the object just as a bright blue flame shot down from the underside. Within seconds the eggshaped thing rose out of the gully with “an earsplitting roar. “ The object was out of sight over the nearby mountains almost immediately, and Sergeant Zamora was moving the opposite direction almost as fast when he met Sergeant Sam Chavez who was responding to Zamora’s earlier radio calls. Together they investigated the gully and found the bushes charred and still smoking where the blue flame had jetted down on them. About the charred area were four deep marks where the metal legs had been. Each mark was three and one half inches deep, and was circular in shape. The sand in the gully was very hard packed so no sign of the humanoids’ footprints could be found. An official investigation was launched that same day, and all data obtained supported the stories of Zamora and Chavez. It is rather difficult to label this episode a hoax, and it is also doubtful that both Zamora and Chavez shared portions of the same hallucination. [c] - Secret Weapons There are few cohesive theories as to the nature of UFO’s. Those theories that have been advanced can be collected in five groups: [a] Mysticism; [b] Hoaxes and rantings due to unstable persons; [c] Secret Weapons; [d] Natural Phenomena; [e] Alien visitors: [a] - Mysticism It is believed by some cults that the mission of UFO’s and their crews is a spiritual one, and that all materialistic efforts to deter- mine the UFO’s nature are doomed to failure. A few individuals have proposed that UFO’s are actually advanced weapon systems, and that their natures must not be revealed. Very few people accept this as a credible suggestion. [b] - Hoaxes and Rantings due to Unstable Persons It has also been suggested that at least some, and possibly all of the UFO cases were just mis-interpreted manifestations of natural phenomena. Undoubtedly this suggestion has some merit. People have reported, as UFO’s, objects which were conclusively proven to be balloons (weather and skyhook), the planet Venus, man-made artificial satellites, normal aircraft, unusual cloud formations, and lights from ceilometers (equipment projecting light beams on cloud bases to determine the height of the aircraft visual ceiling). It is also suspected that people have reported mirages, optical illu- sions, swamp gas and ball lightning (a poorly-understood dis- charge of electrical energy in a spheroidal or ellipsoidal shape. . . some charges have lasted for up to fifteen minutes but the ball is usually no bigger than a large orange). But it is difficult to tell a swamp dweller that the strange, fast-moving light he saw in the sky was swamp gas; and it is just as difficult to tell a farmer that a bright UFO in the sky is the same ball lightning that he has seen rolling along his fence wires in dry weather. Thus accidental mis- identification of what might well be natural phenomena breeds mistrust and disbelief; it leads to the hasty conclusion that the truth is deliberately not being told. One last suggestion of interest has been made, that the UFO’s were plasmoids from space.- concen- trated blobs of solar wind that succeeded in reaching the surface of the Earth. Somehow this last suggestion does not seem to be very plausible; perhaps because it ignores such things as penetration of Earth’s magnetic field. Some have suggested that all UFO reports were the results of pranks and hoaxes, or were made by people with unstable person- alities. This attitude was particularly prevalent during the time period when the Air Force investigation was being operated under the code name of Project Grudge. A few airlines even went as far as to ground every pilot who reported seeing a “flying saucer“. The only way for the pilot to regain flight status was to undergo a psy- chiatric examination. There was a noticeable decline in pilot reports during this time interval, and a few interpreted this decline to prove that UFO’s were either hoaxes or the result of unstable personalities. It is of interest that NICAP (The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) even today still receives reports from commercial pilots who neglect to notify either the Air Force or their own airline. There are a number of cases which indicate that not all reports fall in the hoax category. We will examine one such case now. It is the Socorro, New Mexico sighting made by police Sergeant Lonnie Zamora. Sergeant Zamora was patrolling the streets of Socorro on 24 April 1964 when he saw a shiny object drift down into an area of gullies on the edge of town. He also heard a loud roaring noise which sounded as if an old dynamite shed located out that way had exploded. He immediately radioed police headquarters, and drove out toward the shed. Zamora was forced to stop about 150 yards away from a deep gully in which there appeared to be an over- turned car. He radioed that he was investigating a possible wreck, and then worked his car up onto the mesa and over toward the edge NEXUS - 32 _ 33. 3 - SOME THEORIES AS TO THE — NATURE OF THE UFO PHENOMENON [d] - Natural Phenomena YEAR BOOK - JULY/AUGUST 1991