Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Flushing Queens, New York June 21, 1968

On The witness, a president of an advertizing agency, told Air Force investigators that he, and others were traveling from New York to Washington, D.C. Because the sky was beautiful, with the sun setting, he decided to take several pictures. Holding the camera outside the car window, as they traveled at sixty-five miles an hour. The witness told the Air Force that his vision was limited because they were in a sports car, and that he didn’t see anything strange in the sky. The objects were seen when the slide film was developed.

After they returned to New York, and with the film being projected, for the first time, they saw the objects near the bridge. The witness had the pictures blown up so that the objects were about a foot in diameter. He said that they were domed discs, with indentations on the dome. He believed they were metallic, and that they were reflecting the light of the sun. According to him, based on their position at the bridge, the objects were moving to the south, following the river.

The witness knew that the Air Force had been investigating UFOs and thought they would be best qualified to analyze the photographs. An Air Force officer, Lieutenant Conaway, from the Information Office at Suffolk County Air Force Base, reported to Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla, of Project Blue Book, investigated. He assured the witness that his original photographs would be returned, but that the Air Force couldn’t properly analyze anything other than the original negatives. Since these were color slides, the Air Force officer wanted the original transparencies.

Conaway was concerned because the man told him that the photographs were valuable. According to the report, in a sentense that was underlined, Conaway noted that the man had said he "had numerous money offers from magazines."

Conaway was told by Quintanilla that Air Force regulations demanded that he sent the original negatives and that the forms be completed properly. Quintanilla then told Conaway that the witness was probably trying to get the "Air Force to say that his photographs are authentic. Well, all photographs were authentic, but UFOs aren’t."

Although the photographs were provided to the Air Force, apparently the paperwork, that is the report by the witness, was not completed quickly enough. The Air Force returned the photographs before they received the report. Therefore, according to the Air Force, the case was labeled as "insufficient data for a scientific analysis." In this case, it meant that the witness had not complied with Air Force requests to complete their rather lengthy forms.

One of the Air Force forms, in which the officer asked specific questions, ended with a summary. It directed that the investigator "State your own personal evaluation of the report. What do you think the object was? Do you think something other than the sighting motivated the caller? Include anything which may add to the objectivity of the report. Include your evaluation of the caller’s reliability."

Sergeant Robert Becker filled out the form and wrote, "According to the caller’s description, he did photograph some type of object, rather than an optical illusion. I would not however, exclude the possibility of uncommonly shaped high or middle clouds. I did not form any opinion of some motivation for calling. I did not[e] one apparent contradiction; he said he was just photographing a beutiful (sic) sunset, yet his discription (sic) of the photos sounds to me like he might have, in fact, been shooting at the objects."

The problem here is that the witness had, quite clearly, studied the photographs for a long period before alerting the Air Force. He told Air Force investigators that they had studied the photographs. That study certainly could have contributed to the witnesses telling of the story, suggesting that the witness had actually tried to photograph the objects rather than just a beautiful sky.

The Air Force attitude here is also of interest. Their bias, that photographs are real, but UFOs are not is interesting. He suggests that by this point, June 1968, they were just attempting to explain rather than investigate.

Friday, February 08, 2008

CNCNews Doesn't Get It, Either

(Blogger’s Note: I asked Billy Cox for permission to reprint his column here, not because of the political aspects of it, but because it suggests something a little deeper about UFOs and who is interested in them. We have people with piles of money using their power to talk with other powerful, political people, to learn more about UFOs. While much of the media still delivers UFO stories with a sneer and a snicker, there are some educated and connected people who wish to learn more.

Although scientists will lecture us about the lack of evidence, those same scientists wouldn’t be caught dead actually reviewing the evidence. In some cases, such as that of Dr. Donald Menzel, they will invent answers just so that they can label cases without bothering to really understand or investigate them. Menzel, for example, labeled the photographs taken of the Lubbock Lights as a hoax for no reason except no other explanation could be offered. In my investigations of the Lubbock Lights, I interviewed the photographer some fifty years after the event and he still doesn’t know what he photographed.

So, I thought the following would be illustrative of things in the world today. It provides some insight into UFOs, who thinks what about them, and who just doesn’t seem to understand anything other than their own agendas.)

CNSNews Doesn't Get It, Either
By Billy Cox
Let's run through it again, s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y, for this annoying Internet pest called CNSNews.com:
Once upon a time, there was this guy named Laurance Rockefeller. Rocky was a billionaire. Rocky wanted the feds to declassify their UFO files. So in the 1990s, Rocky started this thing called the UFO Disclosure Initiative. He sent briefing papers to Bill and Hillary Clinton. He met with them at his Wyoming ranch in 1995. There are photos.
Additional details continue to dribble out of the Clinton Presidential Library via the National Archives. That's largely because of the Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Canadian researcher Grant Cameron.
CNSNews.com threw another hissy fit on Monday, complaining about how the archivists are responding to the UFO stuff more quickly than FOIAs about "the 1993 health care task force headed by then-first lady Hillary Clinton, the Marc Rich pardon and the Clinton administration's tracking of Osama bin Laden." Yes, CNS is holding its breath and turning blue.
CNSNews.com is an outgrowth of the right-wing Media Research Center, founded in 1987 by Brent Bozell III. The prospect of a second Clinton administration is giving him the willies, so he understandably wants as much official-document ammo as possible to sling at Hillary.
But if execs at CNSNews.com had the agility to move off their stale talking points, they would understand that UFOs are already Cameron's gift to that effort. No one in the MSM has asked Senator Clinton about what happened at those meetings. Documents indicate she received Rocky's briefing papers.
UFOs are the kiss of death to a presidential campaign. Most of this year's contenders have the luxury of laughing this stuff off. But not the senator. She's got a paper trail. Why? What exactly did she discuss with Rockefeller? Her husband's curiosity about UFOs:
is a matter of public record. Does she share her spouse's position on disclosure?
Imagine the sound bite bonanza for adversaries in both parties if someone confronted Senator Clinton with sharp and focused questions on UFOs in a public venue. Sadly for the outfit that bills itself as a paragon of investigative journalism, when it comes to this stuff, CNSNews.com is as worthless as the liberal-media titans it regularly demonizes.