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Mon 7 Jul, 2003 10:26 am
Secret papers tell how RAF hunted aliens
Quote:Paul Harris
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer
They have been the subject of derision for claiming aliens have visited Earth from outer space, but believers in the existence of UFOs were this weekend excitedly poring over newly released military documents that show how fighter aircraft were scrambled to intercept strange shapes in Britain's skies.
The secret papers obtained from the US military give an insight into an astonishing chain of events sparked by UFO sightings over East Anglia in 1956.
After receiving numerous calls reporting bright lights darting across the sky, fighters from RAF Lakenheath spent more than seven hours trying to shoot down the objects, which were picked up on army radar screens.
The classified documents were secured under the US Freedom of Information Act by Dave Clarke, an author researching the subject.
One US Air Force intelligence report described how '12 to 15' objects were picked up on radar screens on 13 August 1956. They were tracked for more than 50 miles. One object was logged travelling at 4,000mph. 'Operators making these radar sightings are of the opinion that malfunctions of equipment did not cause these radar sightings,' the document said.
The radar logs describe white lights darting across the skies. At times, the objects travelled in formation and performed sharp turns.
One document describes how an object was tracked by radar for 26 miles, before it hovered for five minutes then flew away again.
A cable was sent from US Air Force Headquarters in Washington warning of the 'considerable interest and concern' at the sightings and demanding an immediate inquiry. The cable asked if they were linked to a similar scare reported by a British radar station on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea a week later.
Most UFO sightings are explained by phenomena such as clouds, weather balloons or unusual atmospheric events. At the time of the 'Lakenheath incident', observers did report an unusual level of meteorite activity. Meteors, and the trails they leave behind, can register on radars and critics have said this explains the Lakenheath incident.
Astronomical phenomena are also considered a possible cause. One pilot sent up to intercept the objects reported 'chasing a star.' Others described objects they were able to 'lock on' to with their radar systems but that then manoeuvred around them.
But for UFO believers the new documents confirm their Lakenheath sightings as the most dramatic of British UFO encounters and provide proof that alien craft have 'buzzed' Britain for the past 50 years. 'I am absolutely convinced they were breaches of our airspace by some extraordinary flying machines,' said Graham Birdsall, editor of UFO magazine.
Clarke admitted this weekend it was difficult to attribute all the visual sightings and radar activity both from the ground and the on-board radar systems to meteorites or weather conditions. He believes the incident was treated so seriously by the military that it sparked a Cold War security scare. By 1956, the RAF Lakenheath air base, where the fighters were scrambled from, was on the front line of the geopolitical divide. Lakenheath played host to the new super-sensitive American U-2 spy planes and also provided storage facilities for atomic bombs.
Clues to solving the mystery may still lie in secret US archives. After being told no more documentation existed, Clarke discovered a reference to a further document on the incident in the US National Archives. He has logged a request to release it. All British reports were destroyed in a fire five years after the event, according to RAF records.
Clarke believes the incident had such serious security implications that documents must still exist. 'I am a UFO sceptic but this is an incident that has me baffled. It is just possible that some form of Soviet spy craft was responsible, but difficult to match any of their planes to what was observed at the time,' he said.
When i am asked if i "believe" in UFO's, my response is that i have no doubt that people see, or believe they see, objects, or what they take for objects, which appear to fly, and which they are then and subsequently unable to identify.
That said, i can think of nothing which would make a military man's mouth water more than the thought of getting ahold of an "alien" space craft, with all of the implications of advanced technology. To which i would say, when pigs fly.
Setanta, Why are you so unwilling to believe in the possibility that there are things that fly not generally familiar to man?
No setanta is right, we'll never be able to chase an extraterrestrial spacecraft with a fighter jet. We got Star Wars for that. (I'm not kidding.)
No, Snood is right. Why are a lot of people so unable to believe in something unless, to paraphrase Ross Perot, they can see it, touch it etc. etc.? It's not so intolerable to have an open mind, IMO.
When you take olk's links and search in google ... it's the start of 'silly season' ('pickled gherkin time' in German) in the newspapers.
I read a piece the other day in a newspaper that said it was a hoax put together by some bored night guards. I'll try and find it
sweetcomplication, I was being sarcastic towards setanta. In my opinion, there is no doubt some UFOs are extraterrestrial.
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1477&start=200
My SETI@Home screen saver hasn't found anything yet, but I reserve judgement because it just seems to me like ridiculous hubris to assume we are alone in a vast universe we know hardly anything about.
Well, thanks everyone, for playing the blind men and the elephant with my comment. UFO means unidentified flying object. I haven't the least doubt, as i have already pointed out, that many people see or think they see, objects which appear to fly, and which they are then and subsequently unable to identify. That this should be taken as evidence of extraterrestrial visitation is an absurdity. I have no idea if there is "intelligent" life elsewhere in the universe (the quotes are added because of the speculative nature of the contention that there is intelligent life on this planet). I do not deny that there is. Anyone claiming to know for a fact that there is, has made, however, an extraordinary claim. Those making extraordinary claims have the burden of proof. The same condition applied to a contention that our planet has been visited by "space aliens."
There is a principle of review of an idea popular among scientists known as the "Santa Claus" principle. This is to review a particular contention by looking at its patent merits, before attempting to verify or repudiate the physical reality of the claim. In the case of the Santa Claus contention, one need not address rheindeer propulsion systems, or elven sweatshops, but simply to do the math on the possibility of visiting the houses of every "good" boy and girl in the northern hemisphere on one night between sundown of December 24 and sunrise of December 25. Apply this to alien visitation, and you are immediately confronted with several problems which make such alien visitations, not impossible, but wildly improbable. Consider interstellar distances, for a start. With our television broadcasts, as very weak signals travelling outward at the speed of light, only such sentient beings as might inhabit star systems within fewer than 70 light years could know that we are here. Why would we be visited unless it were known that we are here? To suggest that this planet, a small planet by an unprepossessing star in the stellar boondocks of one of the radial arms of this galaxy would qualify for the enormous expenditure in energy and resources required for repeated instellar flights on the off chance that somebody might be found here for a casual conversation is little short of preposterous. Given that the leading edge of television signals rolling off into the void is of Hitler and the Nazis opening the 1936 Olympic Games in Munich, i would be rather embarrassed to think what any sentient being picking up those signals might imagine of us. If they're close enough to have picked up Death Valley Days and Queen for a Day, the case is likely hopeless. If they are not in our "neighborhood" one should ask why any other civilization would have engaged in the truly staggering enterprise of searching a remote galactic area with an interstellar fine tooth comb. If they are within 70 light years of our planet, why are they not detectable to us? The SETI array in Puerto Rico has been diligently searching the skies for a generation. Although a good case could be made that such a civlization might have other means of communication which we are not looking for, it is rather a stretch to think that we would not have been detected, given the radiation "noise" we produce, and that such a civilization would not produce a comparable "noise." Furthermore, if "space aliens" are as advanced as is often postulated to the credulous--whose purchases of UFO materials offer a good living to the clever and intellectually venal--what reason would they have to make the enormous effort to come here to study such a relatively "primitive" civilization, when they can just pop up a little corn, and sit back to watch I Love Lucy, thereby learning all they might ever wish to know of us?
Seriously folks, this is one of the most fertile hunting grounds for the conspiracy theory exploitation artists. There are no good reasons to assume that we have been visited or that we are likely to be visited; there are a host of good reasons to assume that we have not been visited. Consider also, that we may be the first civilization to have reached the level of technical sophistication necessary for interstellar travel (and we are not quite "there" yet), or we may be the last. Whether or not we are "alone" in this galaxy cannot be said by anyone with any certainty. To me, absent any good evidence, the contention that we have been repeatedly "visited" is nothing short of hilarious.
Thanks for the comic relief, guys, i needed it today.
An elephant is soft and mushy....
I shudder to think what portion you've investigated, Boss . . .
Do pigs really fly?
(maybe that's what all the UFO's are actually for).
Actually, as stated on another thread, let's use some common sense.
Seeing how badly we behave to virtually every species we encounter,
why would any extra-terrestrial be at all interested in dealing with us?
We're not exactly polite and respectful of who aliens are,
but more likely to treat them as "technology cows"!
Isn't using and abusing aliens the whole reason why people get so
excited about the oppurtunity to meet them?
Not very inviting, if you ask me.
Setanta, I'm confident you wouldn't recognize credible witnesses even when they had tea with ya. 'Proof' and 'evidence' are there, it suffices to study the military and scientific witness testimonies. I'm sure they'll all be called lunies by your book.
http://extraterrestrial-life.net
Let me anticipate to your reply: no, ETs probably won't come out with a press conference on the White House lawn. And no, I can't show you a piece of UFO. Grow a brain.
My stance on this issue is that it is more fun to belive in them than not to.
It's not only more 'fun', it's the more scientifically reasonable assumption to take.
Audio reports by British military pilots
wolf wrote:Setanta, I'm confident you wouldn't recognize credible witnesses even when they had tea with ya. 'Proof' and 'evidence' are there, it suffices to study the military and scientific witness testimonies. I'm sure they'll all be called lunies by your book.
http://extraterrestrial-life.net
Let me anticipate to your reply: no, ETs probably won't come out with a press conference on the White House lawn. And no, I can't show you a piece of UFO. Grow a brain.
How very charming of you . . . it appears that you must believe the strength of your argument lies in the comparative vitriol of your personal invective toward me.
Setanta wrote:wolf wrote:Setanta, I'm confident you wouldn't recognize credible witnesses even when they had tea with ya. 'Proof' and 'evidence' are there, it suffices to study the military and scientific witness testimonies. I'm sure they'll all be called lunies by your book.
http://extraterrestrial-life.net
Let me anticipate to your reply: no, ETs probably won't come out with a press conference on the White House lawn. And no, I can't show you a piece of UFO. Grow a brain.
How very charming of you . . . it appears that you must believe the strength of your argument lies in the comparative vitriol of your personal invective toward me.
...as opposed to your very pompous assertion that our thoughts provide you with comic relief....
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