UFOs - Documenting The Evidence

Surprising Cooperation From The Defence Intelligence Organisation

I had a ripper idea in March of this year. Take the record management details of a “known” government UFO file, and then find out what files are either side of it, both literally on the shelf, or numerically. I've tried it just the once, and it will not be the last time.

The Australian Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) describes itself, on its website, as:

“….Australian Government's source of expertise for matters relating to global security, weapons of mass destruction, foreign military capabilities, defence economics and transnational terrorism.”

Fair enough. My tax dollars are hopefully are in safe hands at the DIO. Something else that was in safe hands for a very long time was a 59 page file variously known as the “JIB file”, the “JIO file”, the “JIB/JIO file”, or, simply, the “Harry Turner file”. Without re-writing the saga unnecessarily, the current DIO was, up until 1990, known as the JIO – the Joint Intelligence Organisation. Before that, up until 1969, it was the JIB – the Joint Intelligence Bureau. For a significant length of time, the JIB, then the JIO, was made up of 10 Directorates. One of them was the Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence (DSTI). And it was there that, on and off, one Harry Turner was head of the Nuclear Section of the DSTI. He pushed for nearly two decades for his superiors to take the UFO matter more seriously, and, attempted to work intelligently and fairly with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Turner endeavoured to instigate a serious, semi-official study of the mystery to little avail. That’s the bad news. The good news is that some of Turner’s efforts were recorded in a file titled “Scientific Intelligence - General - Unidentified Flying Objects”. Researcher Bill Chalker had access to this material in the early 1980’s, and researcher Keith Basterfield had the Minister of Defence action its release to the National Archives of Australia in 2008. For a more complete understanding of this JIO/JIB file, I suggest having a look at both:

http://ufohistorykeys.blogspot.com.au/2008/10/joint-intelligence-organisation-ji0-and.html

http://hauntedauckland.com/site/wp-content/uploads/UAS-files-located-in-the-Australian-Government-record-system2011.pdf

Now, for those who don’t happen to know, Australian government files have Series Numbers, Control Symbols, various numerical references, etc. Also, government files are by-and-large kept in subject matter order, with one file numerically coming after the next… Recently, I happened to be looking at the front cover of the JIB/JIO file, I realised something… The details of the file, right there on the front cover, are:

Title: Scientific Intelligence - General - Unidentified Flying Objects

Contents Date Range: 1957 - 1971

Series Number: A13693

Control Symbol: 3092/2/000

But what about any files either side of this file?! We know that government files are kept in subject matter order and/or numerical order, so would it be possible that there are UFO files numerically right next to the one JIB/JIO file we know about? Note the Control Symbol for the file we know about is 3092/2/000.. What about a 3092/3/000? Or a 3092/4/000? Or, even if there is no numerical linkage to the files either side of our known UFO file, what about the files that are simply physically next to it on the shelves?

On the 17th March, 2015, I wrote a letter to the current Minister for Defence, Kevin Andrews, introducing my research aims and highlighting the details of the currently known JIB/JIO file. I too stated point-blank:

“Years of research show me that Defence files are often kept in subject matter groupings. I wish to know what are the titles, series numbers, control symbols, etc of the files that were kept “either side” of the above mentioned file. By “either side” I mean both: 1.) The actual location and filing (boxes, shelves, etc) of currently archived files, and 2.) Numerical assigning/sequence of files before and after.”

Presumably, the Minister’s office received my letter a few days later, and tasked my enquiry to the DIO, the current holder of old JIB/JIO files. Waiting weeks, and then months, I started to wonder if the lack of any response was based general bungling and disinterest in my enquiry, or, a hopeless attempt at deception.

On the 1^st of July, just two days ago, I received a reply in the mail. The Deputy Director of the DIO, W.J. Karle had replied, finally, on behalf of the Minister of Defence. After thanking me for my enquiry, the letter states:

“You have requested a list of those files which were either numerically or phycally “either side” of the file titled “Scientific Intelligence - General - Unidentified Flying Objects” (JIB 3092/2). A list of those files is attached.”

Further, the letter reads:

“Please note that as DIO archives are stored according to their numbering system, the files listed were both physically and numerically “either side” of JIB 3092/2. Despite their age, the files remain classified until requested and examined for public release in accordance with the provisions of the Archives Act 1983.”

Finally, W.J. Karle states, in part:

“None of the other files in DIO holding appear to be of a similar nature to JIB 3092/2…”

So, what files are next to the known “Scientific Intelligence - General - Unidentified Flying Objects” 3092/2/000 file? Below is the attachment to the letter provided to be by the DIO.

Note that there seems to be a random mix of files with titles describing research and development of guided missiles, scientific intelligence focused on China, nuclear weapons development in various countries, etc. None of them are very promising. However, possibly of importance to us is the file right “below” our known UFO file, and it is titled “Space Rockets and Earth Satellites”. Its Control Symbol is 3092/3 and it has a date range of “1958 to 1971”. All three of these pertinent details point to a potential relationship with our known “Scientific Intelligence - General - Unidentified Flying Objects” file. I say “potential” because, from experience, I know that coincidences aren’t always, well, coincidences. Is it likely that Harry Turner and the DSTI Directorate was doing research work or intelligence work on “space rockets and earth satellites” which may have crossed over to the UFO mystery? Sure it is. The US Army’s Counter-Intelligence Corps linked such technology with the UFO matter on occasion, as have a pretty long list of privately employed scientists who worked tirelessly in aerospace and aerodynamics fields. MacDonnell Douglas scientists dabbled in the UFO issue in the 1960’s. Why not here?

We will not have to wait long. Effective Monday morning, the 6^th of July, 2015, I am going to be phoning the National Archives of Australia (NAA) and setting in motion my acquisition of this tantalising “Space Rockets and Earth Satellites” file from the DIO’s shelves right to my letterbox. There are other lessons here, aside from trying to link files by title and numbering, like the awkward issue of how the DIO are still keeping ancient JIB/JIO files on where no one can study them. The Archives Act indeed states that after 30 years all government agencies, no matter how shadowy, should be boxing records up and trucking them the Defence Department for final review and declassification, and, then, sending them forth to the NAA. How can we make sense of history when so much material is lolling about on filthy shelves?

Finally, for the record, below is an image of the front cover of the Harry Turner JIB/JIO file“Scientific Intelligence - General - Unidentified Flying Objects”.

Monthly Australian Report Listing

June, 2015

Welcome to my blog post, and thank you for visiting. Presented below is the ninth edition of mine and Keith Basterfield's national level UFO/UAP sightings reports for Australia, which is on a twelve month trial. Readers are advised that most of these sightings have not been investigated.

June reports:

1 June 2015 0425hrs Heathcote Road, Sydney, New South Wales ? secs Under investigation

Two men were driving through a bushland section of the road, when the driver saw a bright light appear, which zoomed up behind the car. It was visible in both the rear view and driver’s side mirrors. The driver changed to the left lane, but the light remained behind the vehicle. It seemed only three metres above the ground. The vehicle was travelling at 110kph. The light then went backwards at high speed behind them. The driver saw the light fading over the horizon. The driver did not have time to inform his brother, the passenger about his observation. The driver was very familiar with the area.

Bill Chalker.

8 June 2015 2000hrs Newcastle, New South Wales ? mins Raw

Tiger writes:

“3 different and behaving objects seen across the sky over 90 minutes. Captured two events with HD video camera and the footage is amazing at 200x zoom. The best video taken viewing west from Newcastle just above horizon from 2010pm and one object seen morphing 3 routines for 30 mins whilst floating about and making impossible direction moves from orb Sphere/s to white brilliant coloured coffee cup shape with purple hue outline and something possibly attached to its top section then morphs and begins to cloak as it departs heading 45 deg upward until vanishing.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting

9 June 2015 ?hrs Beckenham, Perth. Western Australia ? mins Raw

At an outdoor birthday celebrations children were looking at the stars, “When lights were first noticed I thought it was a domestic airplane...” 3 lights grouped, flashing at “...roughly the same rate as a normal aircraft...” When directly above they turned west and after 30 seconds they disappeared.” There was an aircraft landing at Perth at the same time.

ACERN.

9 June 2015 1200hrs Pacific Pines, Queensland ? mins Raw

UFO visited for two nights. An aircraft flew behind it. On the second night, witness used the zoom on his phone camera. When they looked up the object had gone. They looked to their right and saw intense bright lights. They were scared so they went inside.

http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl

9 June 2015 2015hrs Beckenham, Perth, Western Australia ? mins Raw

The witness reported seeing three lights in the sky, flashing at the same rate as an aircraft’s lights. They travelled north to south at the same speed as an aircraft. When overhead, they made a sharp turn to the west. After thirty seconds of travelling westwards, they disappeared. A commercial aircraft was in the same area at the same time.

http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl

Ca. 10 June 2015 Daytime Mole Creek, Tasmania Facebook IFO - bird

Witness took photographs of local scenery including nearby snow covered mountains. On later viewing pictures, a dark spot was noticed in the sky above the mountains. Nothing was seen at the time. Analysis suggests a bird caught in the field of view.

TUFOIC.

10 June 2015 1830hrs Gympie, Queensland ? mins Raw

The Gympie Times sports photographer took a picture of a light at 35 degrees elevation and azimuth 315 degrees (north-west). The image shows a purple light.

https://www.facebook.com/thegympietimes

11 June 2015 1805hrs EST Mollymook, Australia 5 secs Raw

A flickering/shimmering point of light moved across the sky at 65 degrees elevation and in the S to SSW.

National UFO Reporting Center USA.

11 June 2015 2147hrs Kingsmeadows, Tasmania ? Mins Facebook IFO - star

Witness reports watching a very bright light in the northern sky. It moves about a bit whilst under observation. Observation of a star.

TUFOIC.

12 June 2015 0630hrs Oakey, Queensland 1 min Raw

FieldEquip employee Greg Young took a sunrise photograph on his iPhone, after looking at the sky and seeing a triangular object flying through clouds. He showed the photo to fellow employee Darren Mauger. Mauger went outside but saw nothing unusual. The newspaper article shows the photo.

http://m.thechronicle.com.au/news/ufo-spotted-flying-over-toowoomba-region/2670301

Reported 14 June 2015 No location given Raw

Jameeka Graham said “I have been abducted several times by the same light in the sky...”

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting

18 June 2015 Ca 3pm Jacobs Well, Queensland ? mins Raw

Michael and some friends were on their way home from school. They noticed “...an unusual silver object floating nearby. It appeared small but this may have been due to distance. It was also absolutely silent. We were almost home, and while just chatting I noticed this object floating past.” Michael provided a map of the sighting location, and a sketch of the object. “It appeared to be floating south over Kangaroo Island.”

ACERN.

19 June 2015 1820hrs Karnup, Western Australia ? mins Raw

Driving home in the dark, witness saw “...a red glowing ball of light in the sky north of my location.” He pulled up his vehicle, but saw the object go into clouds. Then another “...red glowing ball” became visible in the same area. It flew from north to south overhead and disappeared into clouds. Then there was a third, and fourth seen and videoed on iPhone. He drove off and saw a fifth object.

https://youtube.com/bSIVvuAg310

19 June 2015 1650hrs Perth, Western Australia 1 sec Raw

“I saw in the clouds a fast moving white streak of a craft. It was not a regular aircraft as it moved much too fast and was only visible for a split second between the clouds as it past through.”

ACERN.

20 June 2015 1800hrs Windsor, Melbourne, Victoria 30mins Under investigation

Bright light seen in the sky. Originally “...thought it was a plane but then noticed it moving (quite rapidly) however for the most part it was floating. The light was within cloud layers.” Checked FlightRadar24 but there were no planes in the area. No Moon.

VUFOA.

20 June 2015 1930hrs Kilmore, Victoria ? mins Raw Under investigation

Robert reported seeing a bright, orange coloured orb, fairly intense, drifting low, through clouds, from SW to NE. No sound.

VUFOA.

21 June 2015 1850hrs Patterson lakes, Victoria (5-10)mins Under investigation

Three people watched an object, which was also videoed and still photographs taken on an iPhone 5. “The UFO just hovered for a few minutes then flew to the right, then just shot off.” No sound. It appeared to be the same size as a star. Partly cloudy skies. Moon out.

VUFOA.

24 June 2015 1740hrs Lindisfarne, Tasmania ? mins Facebook & ABC local radio IFO - meteor or space junk

Brief view of a bright light (or lights) falling in northern sky. Report to TUFOIC and local media. Meteor or space junk burn up.

TUFOIC.

28 June 2015 (1800-1830)hrs Redcliffe Peninsula, Brisbane, Queensland Several mins IFO- hot air balloon

Jan reported two orange lights in the sky, to the west, travelling north-west. One light “split” into two. One part fell to the ground, the other went on then disappeared. The second whole light, also then disappeared.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting

30 June 2015 Evening Blue Knob, New South Wales ? mins Raw

Suddenly a “fireball” came into sight. “My first thought was that it was a plane on fire, but it steadily made its way silently across the sky with no smoke or being in distress, and then another appeared and followed the first one-and then another. They were three fireball flying objects too high to make out what shape they really were, but colour wise yellow and orange and appeared kind of flimsy...They all disappeared at a certain spot in the night sky.”

ACERN.

Older reports:

31 May 2015 (1700hrs)? Chatswood, New South Wales 45mins Raw

David Payne was looking west at 50 degrees elevation. It was a clear evening sky. he noticed a small object, flashing red and white lights, out to the east over the sea. It was 45 minutes of hovering. Going up and down. “...hover again head left at great speed not plane/helicopter no noise...”

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting

31 May 2015 (1630-1700)hrs Blacktown, Sydney, New South Wales 20 mins Raw

Jason and his wife saw what “...looked like a flock of birds flying but changed direction very quickly and changed its size.” Witnesses were looking in the direction of Campbelltown. It disappeared and reappeared.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting

31 May 2015 1720hrs Top of Fullarton Road, Adelaide, South Australia

An object descended to twice the height of a house, in the sky. There was no sound. There were no lights on it. “Black rectangular shape with no clear edges/no windows/doors...Matt finish with no reflection...watched it turn from horizontal to vertical manoeuvre within a second and shoot straight up and past the clouds.”

Dasher Spaceski - Adelaide UFO sightings Facebook page.

25 & 27 May 2015 1950hrs Australian Capital Territory / mins Raw

On the 25th was driving home when the witness saw a really bright object, low in the sky. On the 27th saw two similar objects.

UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

16 May 2015 2030hrs Brockman, Australia 10 mins Raw

“Brighter orange sphere descending from the sky. Observes it descending from sky. A bright orange glow. It hovered over a certain altitude and it made zig-zag movements. It sometimes disappeared but it would reappear within 1-2 seconds.”

National UFO Reporting Center USA.

16 May 2015 1337hrs Port Willunga, South Australia Under investigation

A man watched a plane travelling over, and took a few still shots of it. He didn’t notice anything else in the area at the time. However, when he later looked at the photographs, there was another object visible in the shots. When the image was enlarges, a “saucer shaped” object is visible.

Email from photographer to Keith Basterfield.

16 May 2015 2106hrs Sydney, New South Wales 1min Raw

While filming a Moonrise, the witness noticed an eastbound 737 approach to Mascot airport. They videoed the aircraft. Upon playback they saw a “...bright dull-orange orb.

http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl

15 May 2015 ? hrs Beaconsfield, Perth, Western Australia ? mins Raw

“I was seeing again a lot of commercial aircraft...I saw two aircraft coming from the NE...south. I saw a huge craft coming which had 3 ball lights beneath it with a small red flashing light in the centre of the 3.”

ACERN.

14 May 2015 1900hrs Teewaa Beach, Queensland 60 mins Raw

Orange lights were visible out to sea, for 20-30 seconds at a time. They appeared rectangular in shape.

UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

13 May 2015 0450hrs Razorback, New South Wales 5 mins Raw

Witness was looking through the bedroom window at the stars. An object glided past, very low in the sky. Could see underneath it, and viewed two rings of lights. Also saw white lights on its wings. No sound.

UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

11 May 2015 (2045-2100)hrs Wamberal, New South Wales 40 secs Under Investigation

A woman was driving south-west in a car, along The Entrance Road. At about 2045-2100hrs she sighted two, quite bright,circular, yellow in colour, lights in the sky, visible through her windscreen.

When she initially saw them, she slowed down her vehicle. She watched as she drove towards them. They were “...roughly half the size of the top of a street light.” They were diagonally right across from each other, in a pair, not far apart. Eventually she drove under the. When she looked in her rear vision mirror there was no lights were visible. The total duration was about 40 seconds. There was no associated noise. Initially, she thought “...it might have been a reflection, so I turned around and drove the road again to have them not appear. Before and after that night I have never seen those lights and I have lived here for 12 years.”

(Emails to Keith Basterfield.)

7 May 2015 0010hrs Bronte, New South Wales 1 min Raw

“I noticed a very bright white mass of lights, quite low” in the sky. “Looked at it through binoculars and it was quite strange like fractured glass.” Moon behind me. Got a camera and took one shot which showed a greenish oval or disc and a bright white mass.

\UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

6 May 2015 1820hrs Southern Highlands, New South Wales ? mins Raw

While stargazing witness saw a light of the same brightness as Venus. Travelling faster than a jet. No strobe lights. heading south-east. Through binoculars it looked like a star or planet.

UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

23 April 2015 2002hrs Queensland (8-10) secs Raw

Two people star gazing in their backyard saw a “Strange v shaped formation” moving quickly across the sky. No sound.

UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

15 April 2015 2040hrs St Andrews Few mins Raw

Five lights in a circular motion starting in a small circle then spinning.

UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

24 August 2014 1814hrs Hobart, Tasmania / mins Raw/IFO - hot air balloon

“I was driving over the Tasman Bridge coming up over the highway I saw five bright orb lights and they became distant without really seeing that they became distant was really weird but they kinda kept going up and up and disappear.” There are five images attached to the report which show orange lights.

http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl

TUFOIC also has this report on file and concluded that it was hot air balloons.

7 July 2013 1720hrs Shellharbour, New South Wales 2mins Raw

Witness has the sensation of being watched. They saw a large, round, black object hovering in the sky. No noise. No wings, nor tail nor lights. It moved slowly to the right. After a couple of minutes it stopped moving. All of a sudden moved upward at 45 degree angle and disappeared from view.

UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

2011 (?) 2116hrs(?) Mario, Victoria 5 mins Under investigation

“3 orange lights following 200 metres part in a straight line very low almost directly overhead moving slowly in tandem from the sea to the south, in a northerly direction along the coast, zero noise.”

VUFOA.

20 December 1981 2130hrs Flemington, New South Wales ? mins Raw

Driving along when “...a craft came into my view, at about 100 ft, it was a massive, dark, metallic and travelling north south...and descending quickly.”

UFOPRSA Phenomena Times June 2015.

Contributing Australian groups this issue:

ACERN

Website: http://www.acern.com.au

Tasmanian UFO Investigation Centre

Website: http://tufoic.eu.pn

UFO and Paranormal Research Society of Australia

Website: http://www.ufosociety.net.au/

VUFOA

Hotline: 0456 447 112

Website: http://www.vufoa.com

NORAD And The UFO Smokescreen

Part 1

About a year ago, I took the plunge and begun the near-impossible task of ascertaining what role joint US/Canadian North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) has maintained regarding the UFO matter. Sure enough, just as I had suspected, there is a paper trail dating back decades, and much of it makes for rather awkward reading. Furthermore, I have been working with David Charmichael, a brilliant British citizen who has been aggressively asking NORAD, and its parent agency Northern Command (NORTHCOM), one of ten Unified Combatant Commands organised directly under the Secretary of Defence and Joint Chiefs of Staff, for some honest answers regarding the oddities they track on vast radar systems, and other UFO-related matters. Together he and I have discovered much.

For those that don’t know, NORAD, as its current Fact Sheet states, is:

“...charged with the missions of aerospace warning and aerospace control for North America. Aerospace warning includes the detection, validation, and warning of attack against North America whether by aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles, through mutual support arrangements with other commands. Aerospace control includes ensuring air sovereignty and air defence of the airspace of Canada and the United States.”.

Put simply, NORAD uses myriad primary and secondary radars to build up an integrated, recognised air and aerospace picture, even out into sub-space, of what is flying around about the USA and Canada. NORAD has generally maintained that the only “UFOs” they detect and track are simply strayed aircraft, hostile formations of Russian combat aircraft and such. NORAD do not have any interest, or, any knowledge, of our sort of “UFO” events.

Unfortunately for NORAD, however, if one goes by what the contents of their own declassified paperwork says, the overwhelming evidence is that they have not been honest, and this dishonesty has been going on since the 1950’s. But first, let’s see what official concoctions NORAD has come up with over the long years.

The Official Stance

In a reply letter dated 10th November, 1975, Colonel Terrence C. James, NORAD Headquarters, Ent Air Force Base, to researcher Robert Todd, it was stated:

“…this command has no present activity in investigating UFOs, nor does any area of the United States government that I’m aware of.”

Another letter from NORAD HQ, dated 28^th, November, 1975, also to Robert Todd, said:

“We do not undertake investigative measures… …our interests are satisfied in near real time, and no formal documentation is created by this command.”

In a 19 December 1995 letter to researcher Dr. Armen Victorian, NORAD’s Directorate of Information clarified their terminology, while distancing themselves, as one would expect, from the core UFO issue:

“Historically, the term UFO was used by the Air Force starting in 1947 and ending in 1969 with the shelving of the Project Blue Book. We all know what the term UFO means, we just don’t use it... …The specific term “UFO” is not used by this command even though you could say that this term would equate to Unknown Track Report: either an Uncorrelated Event or an Unknown Track, since an unidentified flying object could be considered either.”

These official statements may sound legitimate at face value, but, in fact, they fly in the face of various documents begrudgingly released by the US military over five long decades.

For Restricted Readership

Since 1954, the “Joint Army Navy Air Force 146” (JANAP 146) procedures, promulgated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have issued a series of “Communications Instructions for Vital Intelligence Sightings”, more commonly referred to as simply “CIRVIS”. The timely reporting of UFO’s by military and civilian pilots, as well as other professionals, is clearly laid down in these CIRVIS procedures, and, first on the addressing distribution list is none other than the Commander-in-Chief, NORAD (CINCNORAD). For example, the February 1959 version of JANAP CIRVIS procedures, published as JANAP 146(D), states, in part, under the “Information to be Reported and When to Report” section on Page 8:

(1) While airborne and from land based observers.

(a) Hostile or unidentified single aircraft or formations of aircraft which appear to be directed against the United States or Canada or their forces.

(b) Missiles.

(c) Unidentified flying objects.

(d) Hostile or unidentified submarines.

(e) Hostile or unidentified group or groups of military surface vessels…”

(f) Individual surface vessels, submarines, or aircraft of unconventional design, or engaged in suspicious activity or observed in a location or on a course which may be interpreted as constituting a threat to the United States, Canada or their forces.

(g) Any unexplained or unusual activity which may indicate a possible attack against or through Canada or the United States, including the presence of any unidentified or other suspicious ground parties in the Polar Region or other remote or sparsely populated areas.”

Note, that “Unidentified Flying Objects” is listed as distinct from single aircraft, formations of aircraft, missiles, etc. Below is an image of this page from JANAP 146(D) CIRVIS.

Of even more interest are these two procedural statements, on Page 12:

“c. A post-landing report is desired immediately after landing by CINCNORAD or RCAF-ADC to amplify the airborne report(s).”

And,

“(1) Post-landing reports should be addressed to CINCNORAD, Ent AFB, Colorado Springs, Colorado, or, RCAF-ADC, St. Hubert, Quebec…”

CINCNORAD is merely Commander-in-Chief, NORAD, and, RCAF-ADC is Royal Canadian Air Force, Air Defence Command. Below is an image of the page.

Thus it is established that NORAD, even so long ago, was very much concerning itself with serious UFO sightings made by US or Canadian forces, and any claims to the contrary are absolute nonsense.

Now, I can already hear the “But, that was in 1959! What about something current?!”.

The 2008 “Air Force Instruction 10-206 Operational Reporting” instruction contains the second most current CIRVIS sightings procedures, which still include “Unidentified Flying Objects” as separate from aircraft, missiles, etc. On Page 36, it is stated, with regards to the addressee of such “vital” reports:

“5.3. Submitted To:

5.3.1. Airborne reports: US, Canadian military, or civilian communications facility.

5.3.2. Post-landing reports: Commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Cheyenne Mt, Colorado, or HQ Northern NORAD Region, North Bay, Ontario, Canada, whichever is more convenient. If landing outside Canadian or US territories, submit reports through the nearest Canadian military or diplomatic representative or US.”

So much for NORAD not being in the US military’s “UFO loop”.

“Unknown Objects”

It isn’t just the above mentioned CIRVIS procedures which raise questions. NORAD’s Operational Instruction Index 0-2, dated 7^th of March, 1978, inventories a number of instructional publications vital to the overall mission success of NORAD Regional and Sector Operations Centers. Page 2 of the index lists an instruction titled “Possible Unknowns, Unknowns, Special Tracks and Unknown Objects Actions”. Below the list is imaged.

While these procedural and instructional records are significant, there is far more material which catches NORAD out red-handed being involved with localized and serious UFO events. In my next post, Part 2 of this series, I will be highlighting such material which provides ample evidence that NORAD know far more about the UFO issue than they are prepared to discuss.

Monthly Australian Report Listing

July, 2015

Welcome to my blog post, and thank you for visiting. Presented below is the tenth edition of mine and Keith Basterfield's national level UFO/UAP sightings reports for Australia, which is on a twelve month trial. Readers are advised that most of these sightings have not been investigated.

Survey

Last month we circulated a questionnaire asking readers to consider what value the listings were to them. Thank you to those who responded. The consensus was that the lists are of value to people, and that people would like to read both raw and investigated reports. However, the preparation of the listings has been taking up quite a bit of our time, with part of the work being a constant review of Australian Facebook pages reporting sightings, and videos submitted to YouTube. Both of these sources provide a frustrating experience when trying to extract even the most basic of data points. Thus this listing should not be seen as a comprehensive source of Australian sightings.

After production of the twelfth in the series, we will then be in a position to decide on the future of the listings.

Sighting of the month

10 July 2015 (1850-1900) hrs Chinderah, New South Wales 3-5mins Investigated

A 24 year old woman, her little brother and three of his friends, and her mother, were travelling south from Tweed Heads on the highway. They spotted “...two very large orb lights in the sky to our right...At first I thought it was Venus and Jupiter then realised they were too big and moving...They were moving diagonally down then started moving horizontally looking like they were flying right towards us. They then moved across the highway and behind Chinderah petrol station.

“Myself and my brother’s friend were the only ones who could view them while they hovered and moved slowly behind the trees on our left hand side of the highway. There were several cars who seemed to view it also and they all pulled into the petrol station at once and stopped on the turn off at the highway...

“The orbs then headed south again travelling the way they were and then they were right in view on the left hand side of the car about 100-200 metres above us (mine and my brother’s friend’s side.)

“They started to cross back over to the right side of the highway and hovered directly above out car whilst we were going about 70km. The first orb manifested itself into a craft that I have randomly found a hand drawn picture that was posted 5 days ago that describes what Dane and I saw exactly. The other people in the car did not see the full craft because it was hovered over the car more on our side.

“It moved very slow, and the second orb light was about 100 metres behind the craft. The craft then manifested into the orb again and both of them continued in the direction they were currently flying.

“We drove to Pottsville (20kms) and dropped off one of the kids off and decided to go back to the petrol station on the coast road to ask if anyone saw what we saw. On the way, I’m Cabarita Beach. I noticed there were many planes in the sky at once and they weren’t moving like planes. They were in a triangle shape with blue white and red lights at each point and there were 7 at the sky at once,

I focused on one in particular that then disappeared in front of my eyes.

“I have pictures of a sighting in Byron last year that is the same as the first sighting with the orbs, but ours were much closer. I then have the hand drawn picture that describes the craft to a T and the drawing underneath describes the second sighting perfectly as well with the triangles. “

Read the full investigation report at:

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/investigation-report-chinderah-new.html

Update

12 June 2015 0630hrs Oakey, Queensland 1 min Raw FieldEquip employee Greg Young took a sunrise photograph on his iPhone, after looking at the sky and seeing a triangular object flying through clouds. He showed the photo to fellow employee Darren Mauger. Mauger went outside but saw nothing unusual. The newspaper article shows the photo.

http://m.thechronicle.com.au/news/ufo-spotted-flying-over-toowoomba-region/2670301

Keith Basterfield contacted UFO Research (Queensland) to determine if they had researched this case, they had not. He then asked, given that the location was in Queensland if it was alright for him to follow it up? UFOR(Qld) responded that this was ok with them. An investigation was conducted and the full investigation report may be read at:

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/investigation-report-oakey-queensland.html

July sightings

2 July 2015 1911hrs Townsville, Queensland 1 hour Raw

Walking home, a witness saw “...very bright lights hovering in the sky.” After an hour “...it had moved a bit to the left.”

http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=search_page

3 July 2015 1915hrs Sydney, New South Wales ? mins Raw

Peter Gianfrancesco reported that while looking north-east over Little Bay, Sydney, he “...saw a large object brightly illuminated in the sky. It was heading in a downward trajectory, most likely travelling north-north-west.” Sky was clear. Bright white light seen at first which became a “...rough cigar shape, almost like a dirty potato.” There was a smoke trail behind it.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

3 July 2015 2213hrs Near Nirimba, New South Wales 16mins Raw

Looking out a window witness saw a “...large bright red light in the distance.” No sound. “...it began to descend slowly toward the state forest...in the direction of Huskisson. It appeared to lose brightness and size as it sank out of sight.” A second or the same light was seen “...at around the same altitude and sat stationary...the second appearance of the red light disappeared (as though turned off) - no descent.”

http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=search_page

4 July 2015 1850hrs Snug, Tasmania 4 mins Facebook Telephone IFO? Balloon?

A bright fireball like light appeared from the south-west. It gradually moved to a position overhead. The witness said it now seemed to be made up of four lights. Almost at once they all faded out and nothing more could be seen. Most likely a hoax balloon device.

TUFOIC.

4 July 2015 2100hrs Scarborough, Redcliffe, Queensland 2-3mins Raw

“At first I thought it was 2 planes heading towards the Brisbane airport as they were low in the sky over the top of buildings. And then about 2-3 minutes later I look up in the sky and see 4 of the exactly same orange dots and they were slowly moving across the night sky exiting the earths atmosphere until they were no longer visible by the naked eye.”

Shannon Bain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVDIxf8dLU0

5 July 2015 0400hrs East Gippsland, Victoria ? mins Raw

“Very strange thing happened to me. I was driving along the highway at about 4.00 am in East Gippsland, Victoria. There were no other cars on the road or any nearby houses/buildings. All of a sudden a massive bright white light was in front of me. I thought it was a helicopter with its spotlight on but a helicopter driver wouldn’t”t be as stupid to shine a light directly in front of a driver’s car even near a large highway. It kept coming towards me so I started to hit the brakes. For a split second I was thinking it was a small plane crash landing on me. It hovered for a minute or two about 10-20 metres from the ground, with the light still beaming. Then it seemed to take off on a diagonal up into the sky and disappeared. I’ve never seen such a thing.”

Although we submitted a request, via the website, to the witness to contact us, we have heard nothing from them.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

5 July 2015 1910hrs Watsonia, Melbourne, Victoria 2m53s

A 2m 53s video by Brad Morris. “This could be our long awaited red pulsar. Filmed over Watsonia, also witnessed from the eastern suburbs at the same time.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wkHDvpOYK8

6 July 2015 2100hrs Bracken Ridge, Brisbane, Queensland? mins Investigated

A woman was driving with her friend and 2 children in the car when the oldest child (age 10) saw something in the sky and brought it to her mother’s attention. It was a large globe of light that came lower to the ground and then followed it for 6 to 7kms. It moved over the road then over adjacent bushland in a “slippery-slide” movement, before settling on the ground in the bushland.

The woman got out of her car and walked to the fence line of the bushland trying to see the light on the ground through the trees. She described the light emanating from the object as covering an area smaller than a car.

She then ‘got the feeling’ there would be more objects further down the street so she walked to where she thought they would be and she saw two more on the ground in the bushland.

She described the lights as yellow at the bottom and blue at the top. As it was very dark the witness didn’t walk into the bush but returned the next day with her friend, however she didn’t find anything. Two of our team visited the area in daylight with the witness soon after the report but failed to find any ground traces or hoax devices at the scene.

UFO Research (Queensland.)

7 July 2015 ?hrs Coffs Harbour, New South Wales ? mins Raw

While looking east, Jean reported seeing”...a triangular shape with the point at the top. It had a light at each point of a gray triangle shape, all the 3 pulsating lights were different colours, not all white...It came from the north...and went towards the south and veered off to the east...It was not a plane, nor a helicopter...”

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

Outside looking for the ISS to go over. Facing east “...suddenly a triangle shaped ‘craft’ appeared over the top of my house...came from behind trees...Three pulsating lights...in a triangle shape, yellowy green and then white. Very bright and flashed sequentially...It hovered for about 5 seconds, then shot off south for a little way (about 2 secs) then banked east towards the airport...and disappeared...It moved vertically, not horizontally...There was no sound at all...was not a plane nor a helicopter nor a drone (unless deathly silent) but did not look like a drone...My son (on the balcony of the house and unable to see it)...I was at the top of my driveway on a hill...The colour looked as though it was black with grey edges. It was a definite triangle.”

http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=search_page

Ca. 8 July 2015 Evening Mole Creek, Tasmania Facebook IFO? Reflection/flare?

A motorist took pictures of bright full Moon to the west. Later noticed two small lights in the picture. One at the top and a second duller light in the centre. Most likely reflection or lens flare.

TUFOIC.

10 July 2015 2158hrs Joondanna, Western Australia 1min IFO - aircraft

Alan observed “...what I took to be a satellite -small starlike object moving due west...it passed near the southern cross...However, as I watched, the aircraft running lights suddenly came on and the aircraft then turned sough-west. I thought that to be unusual...While I am not reporting a UFO per se, I did not know who else to ask. I simply believed it to be an unusual aircraft practice.”

ACERN.

15 July 2015 1010hrs Coolaroo, NNE Melbourne, Victoria 2mins 27secs Video

“Amazing object filmed above Coolaroo, tried to capture it on the Nikon but failed to find it again, possible identification at” https://www.youtube.com/watchv=wGdN_p1udUs&feature=youtube_gdata

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_f3fqyb2Ow Filmed by Brad Morris.

16 July 2015 0515hrs Perth, Western Australia ?mins Personal observation

Witness, Amanda, was travelling south on Roe Highway from the airport. She noticed a light in the sky over Armadale direction. “...it looked like four white lights spread across the wind span of a plane, but it went bright, then dim, bright then dim....I watched it head south-east to north-west and it got closer and closer to the highway...when it got closer it started flashing green, red and believe it or not a purple? lights that lit up the underneath of the craft ...It w triangular with a red light emitting from one corner...no sound...”

Perth UFO Casebook Facebook page.

18 July 2015 2100hrs Lewisham, Tasmania 1 mins Facebook Telephone IFO - balloons

Four flare like lights noticed rising one after the other in the northern sky. They moved across towards the east and after minute each light seems to go out or fade into the distance. Hoax balloons.

TUFOIC.

18 July 2015 2250hrs North of Bundoora, NE Melbourne, Victoria several mins Video

“Stunning night time. morphing triangle. Object appeared to be high altitude at a distance north. Filmed x2 cameras, both manual focus.” 7mins 20secs video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWSTye2Fr2A

19 July 2015 1413hrs Bundoora, NE Melbourne, Victoria 1min 50secsVideo

Video of a daylight high altitude sphere, flashing. Camera on tripod. Headed south-east.. Taken by Brad Morris. Available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Vw8A7CVfg

21 July 2015 0634hrs Albany, Australia ? mins Raw

“Woke up and had a coffee around 6:20 proceeded to go outside onto my veranda, looked up at the horizon as the sunrise was beautiful then noticed a huge red orb sitting on the horizon a fair way away from the sun, it then sped off in a right direction stopped almost instantly, changed from red to blue in a split second then shot up into the clouds at supersonic speed.”

http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=search_page

21 July 2015 1045hrs Near Hobart, Tasmania several mins Telephone interview Under investigation

An employee noticed a strange light on a security monitor screen. Going outside the witness could not locate anything in the sky to explain the light. Returning to the monitor the light was seen to move erratically over several minutes. Eventually it looked to stop, go grey, then move off at speed. As the monitor has no recording facility the witness took some pictures of the screen with a mobile phone. Investigation yet to be finalised.

TUFOC.

24 July 2015 2130hrs Melbourne, Victoria ?mins Raw

“The craft was silent and flying south/west to south/east. What is it - plane, drone or UFO?” Video- 16 mins 32 secs, posted at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBCa0WNLLZo

25 July 2015 Late afternoon Ocean Beach, New South Wales 2mins Raw

Gloria noticed “...an object flying from SSW to NNE. About a minute later, a small plane flew very fast circled from north to south so it intercepted the flying plane or object, narrowly missed it, up ahead to the south over the water. In the time it took to blink my eyes in surprise, the object had disappeared without a trace.”

Tuggerah Lakes UFO Group Facebook page.

28 July 2015 (1900-19301900-1930)hrs Berwick, Melbourne, Victoria 5mins Raw

A woman reported that her family saw an “...orange ball of light in the night sky.” Stationary for 5 minutes then “...zoomed off within a second and disappeared into the atmosphere...It was in th direction of Tooradin...it kept going really bright orange colour to a dull orange then really bright every second.”

VUFOA.

Older reports

28 June 2015 1530hrs Umina Beach, Queensland ? mins

Two ladies, Adrianne and Gloria saw, “...a round white object flying around Lion Island, that looked like a white ball from where we were at Umina beach. It was darting off in all directions like a UFO and took off over Palm beach area in the end. It was down really low.” Adrianne added “It went up and down high so u cd see it then lower and it was not on a straight trajectory. Finally it flew off at a sloping kind of angle towards past Palm beach then lost sight.” Gloria added “It was far too big to be a drone of any kind...I first saw it circling Lion Island and pointed it out to Adrianne who was with me when it began flying more erratically; not like a plane...it was flying fairly low over the island, maybe 50 metres up.”

Tuggerah Lake UFO Group Facebook page.

18 July 2014 0310hrs Narrabeen, Sydney, New South Wales 1.5 mins Raw

A man was woken by loud crackling noises. He opened his eyes and saw the lounge room lit up with white light seeming to come from outside. He got out of bed and opened the drapes to see about 12 objects in his yard that were close to the ground, circular and looked like wagon wheels with radiating spokes. They ranged from approx. 4 to 2 feet in diameter (120-60cm), were flashing like strobe lights, and the “spokes of the wheel” were radiating a blue/grey light. he watched the objects for a good 90 seconds as they lit up his entire front yard, then split up into three groups. They moved between his property and the next two properties in the street before silently moving down to street level then they regrouped and “poof” they were gone. The “wheels” looked 2 dimensional as they easily passed through a Jacaranda tree on the witness’ property. The witness felt they were living beings.

UFO Research (Queensland.)

1995 2000hrs The Entrance, New South Wales ?mins Under investigation

“I was sitting with a friend on a headland at The Entrance, north of Sydney, Australia looking east over the ocean. It was around 8pm and we were there at random - we went for a drive to visit some relatives up that way. All of a sudden the sky in front of us seemed to “shudder,” as if something was entering the airspace. My friend reacted like I did - about to run. I said “Did you see that!” In front of us was a gigantic craft- it would have been over 1km wide, & the aspect was the same as if you looked at a jet from the front. It looked like a pyramid on its side, looking up at the point. We could just make out the right angles. The thing was silent, and we felt rather eerie, & got the hell out of there. Interestingly, around that time there were multiple sightings of smaller craft reported but as far as I now we were the only witnesses to this thing.”

UFO Research (NSW) Incorporated.

Australian groups contributing to this issue

ACERN Website: http://www.acern.com.au

Tasmanian UFO Investigation Centre

Website: http://tufoic.eu.pn

Tuggerah Lake UFO group:

Facebook page.

UFO Research (NSW) Incorporated.

Website: http://www.ufor.asn.au

UFO Research (Queensland)

Hotline: 07 3376 178007 3376 1780

Website: http://uforq.asn.au

Facebook page.

VUFOA

Hotline: 0456 447 1120456 447 112

Website: http://www.vufoa.com

Facebook page:

Note: The US based Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) collects reports from Australia but does not provide public details

NORAD And The UFO Smokescreen

Part 2

Continuing on from my last blog post, “NORAD And The UFO Smokescreen: Part 1”, which can be found here I will carry on presenting evidence, in the form of declassified documents, that the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) has been heavily involved in significant, inexplicable and unexplainable UFO events since its formation in 1957. Even when given the opportunity to disclose UFO case material, not to mention probable investigation and study records, to flawed Condon Commission (the US Air Force’s final word on the UFO matter in 1969), NORAD managed to stay nearly silent on the matter despite evidence they were sitting on vital, even startling information. I am not attempting here to analysis the actual cases as such. This would not be the appropriate platform to do so, and, much work has been done of these events already. Don’t re-invent the wheel, as they say. What I am attempting to do is prove NORAD, like so many other agencies, have not been truthful, which is getting seemingly easier every day.

“Unidentified Flying Objects”

Take, for example, a 10^th of April, 1964 information relay message found in the US Air Force’s (USAF) Project Blue Book records. The document highlights and summarises the contents of previous information moving around US Air Force Headquarters (USAF/HQ), USAF Air Staff, and the National Military Command Center (NMCC). In the subject line there are three very familiar words: “Unidentified Flying Objects”. Under this, two pieces of sectioned information state:

“NMCC, NORAD advised that there were 6 to 12 unidentified flying objects at 30 miles East of Merced, California. Radar picked up 12 objects at altitudes 60,000 ft., 90,000 ft., and higher elevations. F-106’s were scrambled at Castle Air Force Base. There were no results because of high altitudes. They are checking the possibility of sending U-2’s.”

And,

“Objects were following a 60 mile race-track pattern. F-106’s were ~~flying a 90,000 ft. altitude.~~ Pilots locked on to some of the objects but could not keep the lock. NORAD said they were sending 2 more XXXXX aircraft with pilots in pressure suits.”

The case was later dismissed by the USAF as one mere weather balloon. Whether that conclusion is accurate has been debated ad nauseam, but for the purposes of my study it is interesting to note that NORAD is mentioned not once, but twice, in the message text. Specifically, “NMCC, NORAD advised that there were 6 to 12 unidentified flying objects...” and “NORAD said they were sending 2 more XXXXX aircraft with pilots in pressure suits.”. So, for NORAD to state – as they did throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s – that they had no interest or “records held” relating to unidentified flying objects is clearly deceptive. Below is an image of this record.

Another record, dated September 10, 1972, and sent from 22 NORAD Region Headquarters, North Bay, Ontario, Canada to both the Canadian Forces Headquarters (CFHQ) and the National Research Council (NRC) is an unclassified telex discovered in the Canadian Archives, along with dozens of others like it. It details an object seen visually, and, tracked on radar by two tower operators at North Bay Airport, which is connected to Canada’s NORAD Operations Headquarters. Described visually as “one object flashing red and green lights, speed very slow to 300 knots at 4000 to 6000 feet estimated”, the report then gives the following further description:

“Visual sighting correlated with a North Bay terminal radar return at 340 degrees, six miles. Object appeared to turn in tight circles or hover for approx. 15 minutes and then lose altitude steadily with flashing lights becoming dimmer until visual contact lost at 0345Z. Radar contact lost prior to visual contact.”

Below is an image of the telex.

Aside from the obvious fact that NORAD, again, is mentioned in what can only be described as some sort of UFO event, two interesting issues are raised here. Firstly, the message reads “UNLCAS” in the security classification line – meaning “unclassified”. In other words, the contents of the message are not security or intelligence sensitive. From this, one can’t help but wonder what sort of material is held in NORAD records which are classified. Apparently there are many. Secondly, it is interesting to note that the telex was sent from NORAD, not to NORAD – further rubbishing the assertions that they have not one scrap of interest in odd aerial incidents. Furthermore, this event occurred in 1972, only 2 years after the Secretary of the USAF famously claimed that no US military agency will continue the reporting, or receiving of reports, of UFO events, and, that:

“No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security.”

But did the US Department of Defence – especially the commands dealing with air defence and air warfare – really accept this? Do we have any evidence that the above statement is complete rubbish barely fit for the trash bin?

Who’s Telling Lies At Air Force Headquarters This Week?

In 1979, research Robert Todd had the USAF release some of the documents related to the closure of Project Blue Book – the USAF’s 17 year study (one of three such study’s) into the UFO phenomenon. One of the documents was a 20^th October, 1969 memo known as the “Bolender Memo”. Signed by Brigadier General Carrol H. Bolender, Deputy Director of Development, USAF, the second page of the memo contains two passages which depart radically from the USAF’s above mentioned statement that no UFO event reported or investigated was a threat to national security. Those passages are:

“Moreover, reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system.”

And,

“However, as already stated, reports of UFOs which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose.”

Below is an image of the page in question.

The Bolender Memo, quite simply, admits that some UFO reports can, and do affect national security. This flies in the face of what the public were being told. Also, the memo indicates that Project Blue Book was never supposed to receive the most alarming, security-vital UFO reports, and, specifically, such reports were being made using the JANAP 146 system or Air Force Manual 55-11. In fact, at this time Blue Book was only receiving reports filed using Air Force Regulation 80-17. This raises awkward questions. For example, if Project Blue Book staff were not getting a chance to evaluate the most sensitive UFO reports submitted by USAF airmen and other military professionals, then who was? As I highlighted in my Part 1 of this series, NORAD were in fact at the receiving end of JANAP 146 reports (under which CIRVIS instructions are laid out), and, as it turns out, reports made using Air Force Manual 55-11 as well.

Even America’s political leaders have been fed the same nonsense. In a letter to Senator Patty Murray, dated August 25, 1993, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Shubert, USAF, stated:

“As information, the Air force began investigating UFOs in 1948 under a program called Project Sign. Later, the program's name was changed to Project Grudge and, in 1953, it became known as Project Blue Book. On December 17, 1969, the Secretary of the Air Force announced the termination of Project Blue Book... ...As a result of these investigations, studies, and experience, the conclusions of Project Blue book were: 1) no UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security…”

Again, compare this with the contents of the Bolender Memo: “…reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system.” Since the public and Congress did not, and do not, know about this JANAP 146 and AFM 55-11 business, the impression can be easily given, as it was to Senator Murray, that the USAF had then, and have now, no reason to take whatsoever the UFO matter seriously. Below is an image of the USAF letter to Patty Murray.

The above examples are only a handful of quite contradictory pieces of information that have managed to find their way out of NORAD, and the wider US military. I have countless more on file. Thousands. Why are we consistently finding that the press, the public, and even politicians were, and still are now, told one thing, but, in classified documents, meant for very restricted readership, the exact opposite is stated? Recently, retired USAF Colonel Charles Halt, who was Deputy Base Commander of the Bentwaters Air Force Base during the famous Rendlesham Forest event, stated:

“I've heard many people say that it's time for the government to appoint an agency to investigate. Folks, there is an agency, a very close-held, compartmentalized agency that's been investigating this for years, and there's a very active role played by many of our intelligence agencies that probably don't even know the details of what happens once they collect the data and forward it. It's kind of scary, isn't it?”

Should we brush these sort of comments aside? Probably not. Why should we? He may just be confirming what government documents have been telling us all along.

Department of Defence "Unusual Aerial Sightings" Policy Cancellation? Not So Fast...

Up until two years ago, Australia’s Department of Defence (DOD) maintained one scant policy regarding UFO sightings, or, as they term it, “Unusual Aerial Sightings” (UAS). It was titled “Defence Instructions (General) ADMIN 55-1, Unusual Aerial Sightings Policy” and, with minor changes in 1996 and 2000, had existed as a Defence Instruction (General) since 1994. I found out, inadvertently through other UFO research, that this policy was cancelled in May, 2013. In January 2015, I initiated a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the DOD asking for all records that “went in to” cancelling this already near useless “policy”. I published two pieces on this sad and sorry matter in April and May. They can be seen here:

http://ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/royal-australian-air-force-officially.html

http://ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/royal-australian-air-force-officially.html

But was this really the last hoorah? Aside from the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) “Contacts of Interest” (COI) – the term given to unknown or unresponsive radar tracks picked up by various radar surveillance units of the 41 Wing – there are seemingly no channels within the DOD, at least not that I have yet found, that accept UFO sightings, study them, respond to witnesses, compile data, formulate reports and the like. It really does seem that the cancellation of “Defence Instructions (General) ADMIN 55-1, Unusual Aerial Sightings Policy” was the final say. No more policy paperwork. Cancelled. Indefinitely.

Except, one thing. There is still a “policy” after all. In fact there is quite a few.

In the 58 pages of documentation I received when I asked for all records related to the 2013 cancellation, I noted two passages of text which alluded to a possible continuation of the old policy in the form of SOP’s at RAAF bases. In military jargon, SOP stands for “Standard Operating Procedure”. On the 8^th of July, 2015, I submitted an FOI request to the DOD asking what became of this proposal. On the 10^thof August, at surprisingly no cost, I received a series of documents which were responsive to my request.

The first “file” is title “RAAF BASE AMBERLY STANDING INSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION 05-01 DUTY MEMBER ANNEX E” and at two pages contains a front cover, and a second page about the RAAF’s stance, at least at Amberley Air Force Base in Queensland, on reports or enquiries regarding “Unusual Aerial Sightings”. It is part of a larger “Standing Instruction” promulgated by the RAAF at the base. The text is extremely similar to the old, full Defence Instruction of the last two decades, and it states, in full:

ANNEXE TO

AMB SI(ADMIN) 05-01

UNUSUAL AERIAL SIGHTINGS

1. In past the RAAF was responsible for handling a1l queries for Unusual Aerial Sightings (UAS) at an official level until J996 when the function ceased to operate. Scientific records suggested there was no compelling reason for the RAAF to continue to devote resources to recording and investigating of UAS.

Responsibilities.

2. The ADF does not accept reports on UAS. If the DM receives a phone call for a sighting, they are to refer the caller to local police authorities. The ADF does not have an affiliation with any existing civil UFO organisations.

3. Some UAS relate to events that have a defence, security or public safety implication which include man-made debris falling from space or burning aircraft. If members of the community have witnessed an occurrence of this type they are to contact the police or the civilian aviation authorities. Any identified aerial activity which appears to have an obvious

defence implication, will be investigated.

Media Organisations.

4. There are occasions when media organisations will seek information regarding a sighting or policy issues UAS. The DM is to obtain the media contact numbers and inform the ABXO on XXXXXXXXX The ABXO may then have the DM contact Defence Public Relations on XXXXXXXXX and pass on the media contact information or ABXO will advise DM to stand-down on the issue.

Below is an image of the above mentioned page.

The above nonsense is so similar to the previous statements of the last 20 years, it is hard to tell the difference now between any of them. The only sliver of information that interests me is the statement “Any identified aerial activity which appears to have an obvious defence implication, will be investigated.”. I mean, what constitutes an “obvious defence implication” and who makes such calls? Even though they are talking about “identified” aerial activity, I will be still looking into this matter in due course. Also, as a matter of interest, I clarified that “ABXO”, mentioned in the final paragraph, is merely short for Air Base Executive Officer.

The next “file” I received is, at one page, titled “RAAF RICHMOND DUTY MEMBER INSTRUCTIONS-NUMBER 43: UNUSUAL AERIAL SIGHTINGS”. The content is part of Richmond Air Force Base’s Duty Member Instructions, a larger document related to low-level base activity, basic logistics, etc. It has the usual, well-worn declarations like: “For many years the RAAF has been formally responsible for handling Unusual Aerial Sightings (UAS) at the official level. Consideration of the scientific record suggests that not all UAS have a ready explanation; there is no compelling reason for the RMF to continue to devote resources to recording, investigating and attempting to explain UAS.”

However, it does list a few UFO groups in NSW, with full contact details. These are listed simply in-case the Duty Member at RAAF Richmond receive a moderately serious enquiry or sighting report, the caller can be fobbed off to UFO groups. Have a look for yourself below.

The next document I received is titled “RAAF Base Edinburgh Duty Member Instruction 064: Unusual Aerial Sightings” and is hales from none other than the 24 Squadron at Edinburgh Air Force Base in South Australia. At one page, it contains similar statements to the above Amberley document. The one reasonably big difference is the passage regarding media organisations:

“5. There are occasions when the media might seek information regarding the ADF policy on UAS. Inquiries of this nature should be directed to the Defence Public Affairs Operations Centre at Air Force Headquarters on 0262653343.”

Below is an image of the Edinburgh Air Force Base document.

The final document, a two page file, from Williamtown Air Force Base, and, again, part of a larger base Instruction, is titled “RAAF Base Williamtown Duty Member Instruction (ADMIN) 05-06”. The first page is entirely redacted (blacked out), and the second page isn’t much better. However, before anyone gets excited about some mini-cover-up, the redaction is in place “in accordance with section 22 of the FOI Act, on the grounds that the deleted material is irrelevant.” Anyway, the section of interest to us is exactly the same brief dryness seen over and over again:

3. Unusual Aerial Sighting. The ADF does not accept reports on unusual aerial sightings (UAS). The DM is to direct any such calls from the public to their local Police authority. Any UAS that may have a Defence, security or public safety implication, such as man made debris falling from space or burning aircraft, are also to be referred to the local Police or Civil Aviation Authorities. If the DM is contacted by media organisations regarding UAS, they are to redirect them IAW the DM Media Contacts instruction.

Below is an image of this page.

The final word on this is that clearly the DOD feel they have to have some sort of response to public or media enquiries, but, as we have seen, those responses are nothing more than passages of text within wider base-level Administrative Instructions. The RAAF are not interested in UFO’s unless the highly unlikely scenario of say a distressed, burning aircraft or massive re-entry of space junk occurs. Having said that, as I have published previously, the RAAF’s 41 Wing handles primary radar detection and tracking of “Contacts of Interest”, which is a whole different ball game kept, understandably, for restricted eyes only. One wonders if they have plotted anything really unusual on their systems as has happened elsewhere around the globe. For now though, they aren’t talking to the likes of us about it.

John Callahan of Japan Airlines 1628 Fame:

Federal Aviation Administration Career Credentials Finally Confirmed Part 1

One of my favourite UFO cases is the infamous Japan Airlines flight 1628 event which occurred on November 17^th, 1986, over Alaska. So wide spread was the media coverage of this incident that even people who know little to nothing about the UFO matter have at least vaguely heard of it. For anyone who doesn’t recognize the case, put simply, a cargo flight from Paris to Tokyo encountered three UFO’s for a duration of 31 minutes, all of which were picked up, to varying degrees, by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) primary radar and United States Air Force (USAF) primary radar. The voice tapes of the radio communications, target data print outs, Air Traffic Controller statements, etc were all released in 1987 and make for some of the most powerfully compelling evidence found regarding the UFO matter. Probably the best report on the event was written by retired United States Navy physicist Bruce Maccabee. His final report can be viewed here: http://brumac.8k.com/JAL1628/JL1628.html

Adding even more weight to the event was the testimony of retired official John Callahan who was, in 1986, the FAA’s Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations Division Chief. Callahan came forward and blew the whistle in 2001, and, came forward with hitherto unknown paper records, video tapes, voice tapes and other material to back up his claims. Since then, Callahan has participated in two documentaries, three “disclosure” style conferences, and made numerous statements for researchers concerning his involvement with the JAL 1628 case – and the cover-up of the event, as we shall see.

The JAL 1628 case is, to me at least, a key event in UFO history. I have periodically – as anyone who knows me would expect – studied it at some length. One issue key to the case has, however, troubled me for some time: Despite the wealth of information, much of it official record, about this extraordinary event, it seems that no one thus far has been willing or able to actually verify John Callahan’s exact role at the FAA. Some armchair debunkers have even claimed he may even be a fraud. In both this post, and a sequel, I shall present an appraisal of Callahan’s employment with the FAA, and the various high level positions he held in the late 1980’s. Through substantial digging, plus lengthy discussions with Callahan himself, I am now entirely satisfied with his public statements and assertions.

For those who are unfamiliar with John Callahan’s side of the story, the long-and-the-short of it is this: Firstly, no one in FAA officialdom outside Alaska was aware of the incident until the pilot of the JAL flight, Kenji Teriuchi, decided he would no longer stay silent. In early-December, weeks after the UFO encounter, Teriuchi contacted the huge Kyoda News Agency for a private meeting in his London hotel room. Kyoda subsequently contacted the FAA’s Alaska Region Headquarters on the 24^th of December. They were informed by an off-guard Public Information Officer at Anchorage, Paul Steucke, that a UFO event had indeed taken place. Throughout the last days of December and throughout January, 1987, the story exploded across the worlds press. As this played out, Alaska Region HQ contacted John Callahan, who, as stated, was the Division Chief of Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations in Washington DC. Callahan had been entirely unaware of the UFO incident and told the Alaskan FAA officials to inform the media, and anyone else who came knocking, that “the event was under investigation”. Callahan further asked Alaska Region to forward the relevant data to the FAA Technical Center in Atlantic City, where he and his superior, Harvey Safeer, analysed the evidence, and, most importantly, played back the radar data on a Plan View Display. The radar data was matched in with the voice tapes of the conversation that had occurred between the pilot and Air Traffic Controllers from both the FAA and the USAF. This playback and tie-in was filmed on a video recorder for later use.

The same day Callahan and Safeer briefed FAA Administrator Vice Admiral Donald D. Engen. Adm. Engen initially gave them five minutes of his time. When he realised the gravity of the event he started cancelling his upcoming meetings. Engen watched the whole of the video recording that had been made earlier in the day, and, furthermore, instructed Callahan and Safeer not do discuss the situation with anyone to prepare an encompassing presentation, or “dog and pony show” as Callahan likes to call it, for various officials the following day at the FAA Round Room. Engen had even spoken to the President to facilitate the attendance of the upcoming meeting by Presidential scientific and technical staff. This presentation went ahead as scheduled and was attended by a number of FAA technical specialists, plus, perhaps more ominously, three representatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), three representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and three scientists from President Reagan’s Scientific Study Team, among unknown others. At the end of the meeting, one of the CIA staff stated:

“This even never happened. We were never here. We are confiscating all this data, and you are sworn to secrecy.”.

Moreover, the same CIA staff instructed Callahan that they were taking all the data, the paperwork, the video tape, any-and-all material that the FAA had accumulated. What no one knew was this: Callahan kept copies, in some cases originals, of everything, including the primary radar target printouts, the video tape of the first analysis on the Plan View Display, the pilots report, the first FAA report, first generation copies of the voice communications tapes, etc. Callahan has allowed serious researchers to study this material, and is willing to further testify that all of what he, and his documented evidence, says is true.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, John Callahan’s employment history and career credentials, especially his claimed role as Division Chief of the FAA’s Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations area, have barely, if at all, been verified. I wished, this year, to change that. Without detailing every investigative step, I have variously searched for records – in US Government directories, FAA press releases, etc both the existence of a John Callahan ever being at the FAA in the 1980’s, and, the existence of an “Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations” branch or division within the FAA in the 1980’s. Worryingly, only a handful – and by that I mean literally four – referances came up for a John Callahan being at the FAA, and none of them really matched his claimed “Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations” area. In fact, all I could find was a John Callahan who was “Quality Control Branch Manager” of the “Quality Assurance Staff” under the “Associate Administrator for Air Traffic”. Below is a capture of one such listing.

Not knowing how to track down Callahan directly, on the 10^th June this year I got in contact with author and journalist Leslie Kean who has spoken to him at length. The JAL 1628 story appears in Kean’s excellent book “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record”. Luckily I had been in contact with Kean previously, so it was not an issue for me to ask her for a favour: Get Callahan to contact me, and iron this FAA employment issue out once and for all. Within a day, she got back to me and indicated that she would ask Callahan if I could contact him. He was agreeable to this, and on the 12^th of June I introduced myself via email, and outlined some of the questions I would be presenting him in the future. Over the next few months – and indeed even to this day – Callahan and I have been in contact, and we have covered a lot of ground regarding his role at the FAA and the infamous Japan Airlines 1628 case itself. In my next blog post I will detail, with documentation, Callahan’s FAA career; especially during the mid-1980’s when the UFO event occurred. For now, a teaser – I am entirely satisfied that Callahan is the real deal, and hopefully all of you will be too.

Monthly Australian Report Listing

August, 2015

This is the eleventh in our series of Australian national level sightings reports listings, most of which are raw reports, meaning they have not been investigated.

August 2015

4 August 2015 0818hrs Ardeer, Melbourne, Victoria IFO - lens flare?

The witness took a photograph but did not see anything unusual at the time. When they looked at the image later they saw what looked like an orb in the sky.

VUFOA.

5 August 2015 0250hrs Adelaide, South Australia ? mins IFO? - re-entry?

SA Police received numerous calls from Aldinga; Semaphore etc of possible sightings of “flares” from boats in distress. However, “...Police believed the lights were in fact space junk...” “A small Australian company last year struck a deal with US defence giant Lockheed Martin to track space junk in Earth’s orbit from a tracking centre in Western Australia. The company, Electro Optic Systems said the problem of space junk was getting rapidly worse...”

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/1015-08-05/strange-lights-in-adelaide-skies-space-junk-police-say/6673150

11 August 2015 Ca 2330-2345hrs Sydney and Central Coast, New South Wales IFO - fireball

Numerous witnesses reported the same object, including Vicki who, facing south east from Mayfield, saw an object appear above the horizon. “It was sort of like an ice cream cone turned upside down, the cone was a red/orange triangle shape with this really bright white light at the base...just controlled drop about 50 to 60 degree angle.” Soundless.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

19 August 2015 1845hrs Hobart, Tasmania

Saw two satellites, less than a degree apart, slightly east of north, around the constellation Serpens. The brighter was the same magnitude as Jupiter. The lesser “companion” (about +1 to +2 magnitude) just to it’s LS (when facing north.) Objects bright and not twinkling like stars do. Seemed stationary when first seen. Unlikely to be that bright, or accompanied, if they were flaring GS. They faded fairly quickly about where Earth’s shadow would be at that time. Not seen anything like that before. Heavens Above says ISS over Middle East at that time.

TUFOIC from

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

22 August 2015 Sydney, New South Wales

“Footage of a bright orb hovering over Sydney.” 45 seconds long video.

http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/2015/08/hovering-orb-over-sydney-australia-22-aug-2015.html

22 August 2015 1550hrs Montague Bay, Tasmania (3-4)mins Telephone. IFO - aircraft

Witness notices something bright low to the south-east moving from left to right. Looks to stop briefly and is then obscured by cloud. Unable to discern any features. Commercial aircraft in area and is probably what was witnessed.

TUFOIC.

23 August 2015 1530hrs Point Cook, Melbourne, Victoria ? mins Under investigation

Driving to the super market, the witness noticed a “...strange object moving south to north just below the cloud line. It was a shiny silver ‘ring’ or doughnut for want of a better word, and it was flying at about the same speed as a commercial airliner. It made no sound and had no vapour trail. I quickly pulled over ...”

Personal email from witness to Keith Basterfield.

Ca. 28 August 2015 (2000-2030)hrs Quakers Hill, Sydney, New South Wales Raw

Witness reported seeing, twice this week, “...a red light similar to a helicopter...but moves fast very high in the air and turns rapidly in a 180 degree angle as fast as a shooting star. It just hovers for a few seconds in one place then moves very fast towards the right and does a “U-turn” back to where it began, then flys away in 2 seconds it was no longer visible.”

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

Older reports

29 July 2015 2030hrs Parramatta, Sydney, New South Wales ? mins

Witness looked up and saw a halo around the moon. “I saw two white lights that moved as fast as you would see a shooting star.” The lights left “...a trail of light which took around 10 seconds to fade away.”

UFOPRSA - “Phenomenon Times.” August 2015.

20 July 2015 2130hrs Camden, Sydney, New South Wales ? mins

While stationary in a car, two witnesses saw “A larger bluish light shot through the sky with great speed...It was probably about 40 metres above the ground.” Soundless.

UFOPRSA - “Phenomenon Times.” August 2015.

15 July 2015 0220hrs Central Coast, New South Wales ? mins

Witnesses reported what they thought “...could be a plane or a planet blinking.” It moved “...erratically and swooping in a backwards ‘J’ direction...It got higher and higher until it was impossible to see.”

UFOPRSA - “Phenomenon Times.” August 2015.

July 2015 N’Dhala Gorge, East MacDonnell ranges, Northern Territory

“In July this year (2015) over two weeks, a friend of mine and her fellow university students from Sydney were doing geological field excursions in and around the N’Dhala Gorge, East MacDonnell Ranges, in the Northern territory of Australia.

They were staying at a homestead called Ross River, which was situated about 65 km east of Alice Springs. In their first week over three nights, the 13, 14 and 15 July 2015 they came across a find that was totally out of the ordinary.

While returning back to their cabins after dinner, my friend and seven other students witnessed rays of coloured light (red, blue and yellow) rising up behind the ranges to their south-west. This display lasted for at least thirty minutes. She said over this period the lights would fade and become bright again, and their colours would mix producing more complex colours. Unfortunately these lights were over 2 km away , too far to get a suitable photo with their mobile phones.

She said at the time they were all totally bewildered by these lights. After the second and third night of witnessing these lights they decided that the next day they would actually go to the are where these lights were appearing from. When they got there they could not find any evidence at all that would cause the appearance of these lights!

The best was yet to come, on the night of the 21 July 2015 while again returning to their cabins after dinner, my friend and four other students witnessed a much closer sighting of a bright white orb (see image below). It was about 500 meters to the north at an angle of 45 degrees and was travelling slowly from west to east, no sound was heard. The orb was roughly the size of your thumbnail with your arm out stretched. She was very lucky to get a photo because the light only lasted about 5 seconds, this photo was taken at 8.06pm. If you look at the image you will notice what looks like flaring shooting out from the top and bottom of the object and also coming out of the object’s left hand side. These are not camera flares, this is what it looked like to the naked eye, according to my friend. The clincher is, the top and bottom flares were actually “horizontal” before she took the photograph! So it actually rotated in a split second into this position just before it disappeared. Some of you might say it looks like a full Moon but if you check the records it was just over a half moon on the night of the 21 July 2015. She also said that it you look closely, the orb actually looks slightly oval shaped!”

UFO Research (NSW) Incorporated. (27 August 2015.)

8 July 2015 Australia IFO - hoax

A photograph circulated on Facebook showing a shot across water, with dark cloudy skies and a lighting strike. In the top right hand corner is a spectacular UFO image looking like a traditional “mother ship.” The “Skeptical blog” discovered a “...near identical looking lighting feature...” indicating that the “object” was really a reflection on glass of a light fitting in a room to the rear of the photographer.

http://www.skeptical.gb.net/blog/the-ufo-picture-from-australia-that-facebook-are-trying-to-remove-or-a-lampshade-in-Jackson-hole-Wyoming

6 July 2015 0615hrs Koonunga, South Australia 4 secs

A man was seeing his wife of to work when “I was taken back by two, very bright, dazzling blue green coloured lights just travelling across the sky above our cottage... These two lights were about the size of a rock melon and looked to be circular. They looked to be approx. 30 to 40 feet above the house roof and were travelling at the same speed I estimate to be around 80kms an hour. They were travelling horizontally across the sky heading from north to south. They were arranged one above the other...clear, crisp morning.”

UFOPRSA - “Phenomenon Times.” August 2015.

1 July 2015 0750hrs Appin, New South Wales 10 mins

Looking out of the window, a witness “...saw a very bright object with another object next to it.” Stationary. “When I went back to the window after 10 minutes or so it was gone.”

UFOPRSA - “Phenomenon Times.” August 2015.

4 June 2015 1510hrs Moree, New South Wales ? mins

“I was at the prestart for work the sound I heard was being emitted from a human like life form from its mouth orifice was very English like. The electrical interference came from the Electrical Supervisor who was emitting something which resembled laughing.”

UFOPRSA - “Phenomenon Times.” August 2015.

25 May 2015 1950hrs Australian Capital Territory ? mins

“I was driving home and there was a really bright star.” It was low and bright.

On 27 May saw “...two of very bright stars. One gave off a bright spark...and then dulled...it was phenomenal.” UFOPRSA - “Phenomenon Times.” August 2015.

2014/2015 (2300-000)hrs Kairi, Queensland ? mins Under investigation

“For the last year I have been watching a strange drone like object that is shaped like a stingray, every night between 11pm and 12 am fly over Tinaroo Dam and it heads towards Mareeba. It goes towards Mareeba then comes back later, then goes back a few times a night. It has strange lights on it and is supper quiet almost silent.”

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

1995 2000hrs The Entrance, New South Wales

“I was sitting with a friend on a headland at The Entrance, north of Sydney, Australia, looking east over the ocean. It was around 8pm and we were there at random - we went fro a drive to visit some relatives up that way.

All of a sudden, the sky in front of us seemed to ‘shudder”, as if something was entering the airspace. My friend reacted like I did -about to run. I said “did you see that!” In front of us was a gigantic craft - it would’ve been over one kilometre wide, the aspect was the same as if you looked at a jet from the front. It looked like a pyramid on its side, looking up at the point. We could just make out the right angles. The thing was silent and we felt really eerie, and we got the hell out of there.

Interestingly around that time there were multiple sightings of smaller craft reported but as far as I know we were the only witnesses to this thing.”

UFO Research (NSW) Incorporated. (7 July 2015.)

Early 1970’s about 1971 or 1972 Night Olary, South Australia, near broken Hill, NSW

“I am a former Seaman in the Navy and have worked with radar and are accustomed to helicopters and similar craft. Back then the last thing I expected to see was a UFO while driving near Broken Hill, NSW, Australia. I was driving a VW Kombi van and there was a bed in the back on which a hitchhiker lay sleeping when the event occurred. I had picked up two hitchhikers near Kalgoorlie for company and had dropped one at Port Pirie.

While driving at night I saw a red light in the sky, looking like a star. Then suddenly the red-orange light was right over the Kombi about 15 metres above . The light enveloped the Kombi and there was no sound coming from the object. The Kombi engine had stopped by itself when the light approached. I sensed danger and was concerned for the hitchhiker so I grabbed my two rifles and dragged the hitchhiker out of the van into the Spinifex grass outside the van. The hitchhiker could not be woken, and this alarmed me. I could not identify the light/object, only being able to view a dull red light above us.

In fear I shot at the red light with one of the firearms and then everything went blank. What was strange is that to two of us made breakfast the next morning and drove on as if nothing had happened and never spoke about it again. Later I dropped the hitchhiker off in Sydney and that was the last time I saw him.

I often wondered if something else happened that night because I’m mystified at how everything went blank. I have no idea how we got back to the Kombi or why we did not speak about the event the next day.”

UFO Research (NSW) Incorporated. (26 August 2015.)

Australian groups contributing to this issue:

Tasmanian UFO Investigation Centre

Website: http://tufoic.eu.pn

UFO Research (NSW) Incorporated.

Website: http://www.ufor.asn.au

VUFOA

Hotline: 0456 447 112

Website: http://www.vufoa.com

Note:

There were a number of quite detailed reports, said to have originated in Australia, made to the publicly available MUFON case management system during this month, which appear to have been generated by one individual, and which show indications they may not be genuine. As it is not possible to find out from MUFON in Australia, any details of their investigations into such reports, we have decided not to summarise these MUFON reports in this listing.

NORAD And The UFO Smokescreen

Part 3

This blogpost is the third in a series which aims to link, through official and documented record, the UFO matter with the huge North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). For over 50 years, NORAD’s stance on so-called “UFOs” – and I don’t mean merely stray aircraft – is that they know nothing, see nothing and hold nothing on record. However, myriad US military documents prove that NORAD has not been entirely honest. In this post I will highlight two especially unusual occasions where they were certainly involved. But, beforehand, if my readers need to catch up, Part 1 and 2 of this series can be seen here and here.

UFOs Are Tracked On NORAD Systems: And That’s Fact

Now down to business. A little known fact concerning the infamous Japan Airlines sighting in 1986 is that NORAD almost definitely played a role in the extraordinary event, completely aside from the FAA and even the USAF. For those that do not know about this case, I will only briefly summarise it. On November 17^th, 1986, Japan Airlines (JAL) cargo flight 1628 was flying at nearly 900 kilometres an hour over Alaska. Just after sunset, the three crew witnessed a series of UFO encounters that last for 31 minutes, and, the entire fiasco was watched on both FAA primary radar, and, USAF primary radar. The case made headlines around the world. In 2000, John Callahan, Chief of the FAA’s Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations division confirmed the seriousness of the event, and the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency and the President’s Scientific Staff. He also came forward with more FAA evidence, on top of the hundreds of pages of official documentation already released.

NORAD’s involvement has been overlooked in this case, I believe. At the heart of the matter, we know for an absolute fact that boththe primary radar at the FAA’s Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center (AARTCC), and the primary radar at the USAF’s Elmendorf Air Force Base Regional Operations Command Center (ROCC) picked up “surge primary returns” next to the JAL flight. As these returns were being watched on the screens, the crew were discussing with the FAA, over radio, the worrisome traffic they had around them. It’s a classic radar-visual case, pure and simply. The actual voice tapes of this event are available, and one can actually hear the gravity of the situation in the voices of the pilot, as well as those of the air traffic controllers at FAA AARTCC and USAF ROCC. The important thing here is that there may have been, in some no-doubt complex way, a thirdset of air traffic controllers, using a thirdsystem, watching the event. In the official FAA voice tape transcript the USAF’s ROCC controller says, at 5:38:51:

“Ah, I’m gonna talk to my other radar man here has gotta, he’s got some other equipment watching this aircraft.”

The passage of speech is somewhat broken, but he clearly says “my other radar man here” and “some other equipment”. Considering it is a USAF controller who was talking, one can’t help but question who “my other radar man” could be, and, what “other equipment” was “watching” the UFOs around the JAL flight? It turns out it was probably NORAD. Elmendorf Air Force Base had, in the 1980’s, a more classified system operated by NORAD, which complimented the USAF hardware. The two merged in Year 2000, but, back in 1986, NORAD’s presence wasn’t exactly advertised at the time of the JAL 1628 UFO sightings. In fact, when one reads that dismal FAA paperwork on the incident, even the USAF’s involvement, let alone NORAD’s, was barely mentioned, despite the fact that they were watching the same thing on their screens, and stating such to the FAA controllers and the JAL pilots.

Whatever the exact situation, speculation that NORAD was involved in this event is strengthened when one reads a particular FAA document from the FAA’s JAL 1628 report. After one of the post-landing interviews between the JAL crew and FAA Special Agents James Derry and Ronald Mickle, Special Agent Derry wrote a one page statement. The final paragraph states:

“Upon completion of my discussion with the crew, I called Captain Stevens (Duty Officer to NORAD) and asked if he had any questions other than what I had asked. He said he had no other questions, but they also showed two targets on radar (one was JAL). He stated that they would give all data to Intelligence in the morning. I then asked Bobby Lamkin by phone if the Air Force was holding the data and he said yes”

Below is an image of this document.

NORAD On Alert

Another incident where NORAD paperwork connects them, very strongly I might add, to serious UFO events, is the extraordinary October-November, 1975 “over flights” of a dozen US military bases by unknown aircraft, variously described as mundane helicopters right through to totally unfamiliar and oddly performing craft that appeared repeatedly on ground-based radar and utterly eluded USAF authorities for weeks. These events were highlighted in Barry Greenwood and Lawrence Fawcett’s game-changing 1984 book “Clear Intent”, later published with the title “UFO Cover Up: What the Government Won’t Say”. I will not even attempt here to give an overview of the wave of UFO activity that occurred at that time. What does need to be said though is that hundreds and hundreds of pages of official documents were released from nearly two dozen commands and agencies within the US military throughout 1976 to 1983. Barry Greenwood and Robert Todd accessed most of them, and Barry fondly tells me how stunned he was – time after time – that such raw intelligence and front-line reporting was being furnished to him. These researchers cannot be thanked enough for their work.

Amongst those piles of gold, was a four page release of “incident” summaries extracted from both the NORAD Command Directors Log and the 24^th NORAD Region Senior Director’s Log. The time period for released material was from the 29^thof October to the 10^th of November, 1975. The actual documents were released to researcher Todd Zechel on the 4^th of October, 1977. Despite the fact these are quite well known, I wish to highlight some of the contents, and provide imagery of the offending pages. The first page details various worrisome intrusions by “unknown helicopters” over Loring Air Force Base, Maine, Wurtsmith Air Force Base, Michigan, and Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana – all of which maintained mission-ready nuclear weapons. See below.

The stakes are raised on page 2 of the release where the 24th NORAD Region Senior Director's Log (Malmstrom AFB, Montana) The most alarming incident summaries are probably:

“7 Nov 75 (1035Z) - Received a call from the 341st Strategic Air Command Post (SAC CP), saying that the following missile locationsreported seeing a large red to orange to yellow object: M-1, L-3, LIMA and L-6. The general object location would be 10 miles south of Moore, Montana, and 20 miles east of Buffalo, Montana. Commander and Deputy for Operations (DO) informed.”

And, for the actual word “UFO”,

“7 Nov 75 (1429Z) - From SAC CP: As the sun rose, the UFOs disappeared. Commander and DO notified.”

On page 3, the continuing NORAD summaries mention the term “UFO” five times, plus radar tracks of “unknowns”, “objects”, plus the inspection of such events by fighter jets, which met with failure. The page is imaged below.

The final page summarises a continuation of similar events that kept plaguing nuclear-weapon equipped bases along the US-Canadian untill mid-November. One piece of text, which brought Minot Air Force Base into the spectacle states:

“10 Nov 75 (1125Z) - UFO sighting reported by Minot Air Force Station, a bright star-like object in the west, moving east, about the size of a car. First seen approximately 1015Z. Approximately 1120Z, the object passed over the radar station, 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet high, no noise heard. Three people from the site or local area saw the object. NCOC notified.”

Finally, this 4 page NORAD release was finalised with some interesting statements which eluded to more material that related to the over flights of these bases, and, thus, Todd Zechel's FOI request. The text indicates that more documents of NORAD providence are in existence, but that they are not fit for release to the public due to legal exemptions. Specifically:

“2. HQ USAF/DADF also forwarded a copy of NORAD document for a review for possible downgrade and release. We have determined the document if properly and currently classified and is exempt from disclosure under Public Law 90-23, 5 USC 552b(1).”

These pages were signed off by one Colonel Terrance C. James, USAF, Director of Administration. The USAF and NORAD run administrative and functional operations hand-in-hand, thus, a USAF Colonel was able to clear this material for release. Also, aside from the above releases, there were actually a great deal more documents of NORAD providence, or, that mentioned NORAD, released to the likes of Barry Greenwood, Robert Todd, Lawrence Fawcett, Todd Zechel and others in that extraordinary period of FOI openness. In one, which Barry Greenwood has on file, the Commander-in-Chief of NORAD sent a four-part message to various NORAD units on November 11, 1975 summarizing the events:

“Since 28 Oct 75 numerous reports of suspicious objects have been received at the NORAD CU; reliable military personnel at Loring AFB, Maine, Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, Malmstrom AFB, Mt, Minot AFB, ND, and Canadian Forces Station, Falconbridge, Ontario, Canada have visually sighted suspicious objects.”

Regardless of who released what, clearly any NORAD Log Extracts that contain the phraseology like “UFOs”, radar tracks of low-flying “unknowns”, “objects” and “unknown helicopters” indeed fall within our area of interest. NORAD, as well as other US military branches, stated that these incidents were “isolated”, but even the most bone-headed skeptic would not accept that. In my next blog post I will be discussing more about NORAD's capabilities and mission, and the current and ongoing efforts by myself and UK researcher David Charmichael to get to the bottom of how NORAD currently handles the UFO matter. Stay tuned.

John Callahan of Japan Airlines 1628 Fame:

Federal Aviation Administration Career Credentials Finally Confirmed Part 2

By anyone’s measure, the skies of Alaska were visited by something extraordinary during the evening of the 17^thof November, 1986. Flight 1628, Japan Airlines had front row seats. Very briefly, for 31 minutes, three UFO’s of varying forms were witnessed by a flight crew of three, as well as ground-based air traffic controllers watching primary radar display screens. Hundreds of pages of authorized, officially released records appeared in the public domain within months of the event. Furthermore, John Callahan, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Chief of Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations came forward in 2001 with far more to add to the story. The question I have attempted, in the last four months, to answer is whether John Callahan did indeed head the FAA roles he has always claimed; and, if so, how can we verify those claims, and to what degree of satisfaction. As this is Part 2 of this series, for anyone not up to speed, I would encourage them to appraise Part 1, which can be found here:

http://ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/john-callahan-of-japan-airlines-1628.html

On 19, 2015, after lengthy email exchanges, Callahan posted to me an impressive 51 pages of resume material and official FAA employment documents which detailed his entire career. What surprised me the most was that these records were not copies, but originals. These were old– the paper, the ink, the rubber stamping – certainly none of it was thrown together recently. Space and time restrict me from displaying the entire 51 page file here, but I will most certainly present some of the more important pages. For example, Callahan provides us with a mulit-page Federal Office of Management and Budget “Form 171”. On the “Personal Qualifications Statement continuation-from-page-1 sheet a section titled “Name and address of employer’s organization” resulted in a type-writer entry of “FAA ATS-1 Washington Headquarters”. The box to the right of asks for “Dates employed (provide month and year)” to which was answered “Oct. 1986 to present”. Most importantly, a third box asks for “Exact title of your position”. The phrase “Division Mgr. Investigations/Evaluations” answers this section, and thankfully so. “Name of immediate supervisor” is entered as “Harvey B. Safeer”. The actual page itself is here:

Thus it is established, on a legally binding Federal Government form, that Callahan was indeed employed with the FAA in Washington DC in the year 1986. This is precisely the first claim I wanted to verify. The second issue was the not-insignificant matter of all this “Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations” business that he says he managed. As one can see above, the term “Investigations/Evaluations” is listed. But where is the term “Accidents”? Callahan consistently claims that he ran “Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations”. The answer to this can be found when we move on to another page of his employment records. It turns out that just prior to him managing “Investigations/Evaluations” (or as Callahan usually says “….Evaluations and Investigations”) his role happened to be manager of the “Accident/Incident Analysis” branch. Also, during that time period he was also manager of the “Quality Control” branch.

Confused yet? To simplify all this, I highlight his “FAA Headquaters Experience” page of his lengthy resume. The top few line items read:

John J. Callahan

Resume

FAA HEADQUARTERS EXPERIENCE

Oct 86 to Present Division Manager Investigation and

Evaluation Division, ATS 100.

Jul 85 to Oct 86 Branch Manager Quality Control Branch

and Accident/Incident Analysis Branch, AAT 60

Below is the copy of this page.

So, to sum up, in a two year period, Callahan had run both the “Accidents/Incident Analysis Branch” and the “Investigation and Evaluation Division”. Critically, this period was from July 1985 to after the beginning of 1987 – which is precisely when the JAL 1628 incident occurred. One may ask why Callahan never made any of this clearer in the various documentary appearances and conference presentations he has been a part of. Obviously, to list the above position titles in full is not what listeners or viewers quite need to hear. The general notion that he was managing multiple areas of critical FAA officialdom in a very short period of time is more than enough. However, two things were entirely new news to me. Keen readers may have noticed that his “Accidents” Branch was actually titled “Accident/Incident Analysis” Branch, and, while managing it he was alsomanaging the “Quality Control Branch”! Much of this is mere semantics, but it does make clear the exact nature of the roles and responsibilities Callahan had in this 1985 to 1987 time period.

More specific than the above imaged list of roles, another page in Callahan’s resume contains a full paragraph of summarised roles he held going back to the late 1970’s. This page acts as a cover sheet to a dozen pages of far more detailed position duties and role responsibilities, and the core of it matter-of-factually reads:

“Presently assigned as Division Manager Investigation/Evaluation Division, ATS-100. Prior to this assignment I held the position of Branch Manager for both the Quality Control Branch, AAT-63 and the Accident/Incident Branch, AAT-340. I have also held the following positions: Assistant Staff Manager, Quality Assurance Division, ACT-60; Assistant Division Manager, Test and Evaluation Division, ACT-500; Branch Manager, National Automation Support Branch, AAT-550; Assistant Chief, National Enroute Data System Branch-540, and other managerial and supervisory positions in Air Route Traffic Control Facilities.”

Here it is, imaged from John Callahan’s resume material:

To sum up, there are over 50 pages of material similar to what I have been able to present here. As stated before, Callahan sent me the original file, and it held up to scrutiny. So armchair sceptics can move on to greener pastures, because the providence of John J. Callahan is firmly and finally established. So does any of this matter? I argue that it matters enormously. Testing the credentials of someone directly involved with one of the most potent UFO cases in history is surely of great significance as we painstakingly continue to compile the history of the UFO matter for future generations. Possibly of greater importance is that it may encourage other high ranking officials to also come forward and risk disclosing their role in the UFO matter. Of course, none of this solves the actual case. I often wonder what became of pilot Kenji Teriuchi. Maybe one day we will know what engaged his aircraft that night, and he, and John Callahan, can be vindicated.

Monthly Australian Report Listing

September, 2015

Greetings everyone. This is the twelfth and final (at least in this format) listing of Australia wide UFO sighting reports, usually in raw form. Keith Basterfield and I have spent countless hours trawling through a variety of sources to compile and publish this material. I want to, again, thank all the Australian groups and individuals who have directly sent us, or alerted us to, these case reports. I also want to make it known that while this effort was brainstormed and initatiated by Keith and I over a year ago, in the end, Keith did the vast majority of the work, and certainly all of the actual typing of so much of these cases out. Last month we advised of the reasons why we are about to change the format and length of these monthly listings. Soon, we will move on to studying the actual data: trends on rural versa urban cases, color descriptions, etc. Thank you all for checking in on us.

Update

23 August 2015 1530hrs Point Cook, Melbourne, Victoria (5-6) minutes

Details

1. Email:

The sighting was initially reported by email directly to Keith Basterfield, shortly after it happened. The email read:

“I was driving along Sneydes Road, Point Cook towards my local IGA supermarket when I noticed a strange object moving south to north just below the cloud line. It was a shiny, silver ‘ring’ or doughnut for lack of a better word, and it was flying about the same speed as a commercial airliner. It made no sound and had no vapour trail.

I quickly pulled over and stopped in a quiet side street, got my phone out of the car and began filming it. As I was filming I realised I could see the object by naked eye but it wasn’t shown up in my view finder.

The ‘ring’ was flying vertically at a consistent speed and at first I thought it might be a balloon but quickly realised the wind was blowing in the opposite direction this object was flying in.

The object also began to rotate on an angle so that at times it appeared as a ring and then as a straight vertical line then rotate back to a ‘ring.’

2. Telephone interview:

I telephoned the witness within two days and spoke to her to gather additional information. The witness was most co-operative at all times with our investigation, being very puzzled as to what she had observed.

Additional information secured by interview was:

- The first person she told about the sighting was her husband and she told him “I think I just saw a UFO.”

- The object was below clouds, not in them.

- Total duration of the sighting was 5-6 minutes.

- She has excellent eyesight.

- After the object had disappeared from view, she stayed around for a while in case it returned.

- She turned off Sneydes into Florey.

3. Email questions:

Over the course of the next few days both authors communicated with the witness by email and asked a series of questions, to which the witness promptly responded. These questions and answers are listed below.

Q1 Which direction were you travelling in?

A1 Travelling east.

Q2 Did you initially see the object through the vehicle windscreen or another window?

A2 Initially seen through the driver’s side window.

Q3 Initially was the object sighted down near the bottom of the window, near the top or at some other point?

A3 Closer to the top of the window, just above middle of window.

Q4 Did the object’s apparent size change?

A4 Never changed size.

Q5 Did its brightness change?

A5 Never changed brightness. But stood out very clearly against the clouds.

Q6 How did you lose sight of it?

A6 It disappeared behind a thick bank of clouds.

Q7 What was its angular size, say compared to the full Moon when seen on the horizon?

A7 It was tiny compared to the full Moon.

The witness also advised that a more accurate track for the object was from south-east to north-west.

Investigation

1. WebTrak

The Air Services Australia WebTrak secondary radar website was consulted for that day and time. The program was run between 1500 and 1600 hours on Sunday 23 August 2015, and the area around Point Cook was examined.

Between 1500 and 1600 hours, only three aircraft passed near Point Cook:

a) At 1533 hrs a light aircraft tracked north-east to south-west to the north of Point Cook at 9000 feet.

b) At 1547 hrs QJE 1505 flew Melbourne to Hobart tracking north-west to south-east almost directly over Point Cook at 12000 feet.

c) At 1548 hrs another light aircraft flew north-east to south-west, almost directly over Point Cook at 3100 feet.

2. Weather

We secured weather details from the Bureau of Meteorology. The closest weather station listed is at RAAF Laverton, 5.9km from Point Cook. Station number 087031.

For 23 August 2015, the minimum temperature was 4.9 deg C; maximum 15.8 deg C; maximum wind gust was from the south-south-east at 30 km/hr at 1618hrs that day.

At 9am the temperature was 10.9 deg C; 91% relative humidity, cloud cover was total; and the surface wind was from the north-west at 9km/hr ; pressure was 1020.ohPa.

By 3pm that day, the temperature was 14.9 deg c; 64% relative humidity; cloud cover was 1/8th; wind was from the south-south-east at 17 km/hr; pressure 1019.0hPa.

As we checked within three days of the event, we were also able to obtain weather details at half hour intervals for Laverton that day.

Laverton details for the time of the sighting, 1530hrs were:

13.5 deg C;70% relative humidity; winds from the south-east at 19km/hr; pressure 1019.1hPa.

Upper air soundings:

We located a website which provides twice daily upper air soundings, measured at Melbourne airport. Here we find details which include the wind speed and wind direction for various heights above the ground. These are taken at 0000hrs UTC (1000hrs Melbourne time) and 1200hrs UTC (2200hrs Melbourne time.). Data for 1000hrs 23 August 2015. Surface wind is from the north at 5 knots. Compare this to Laverton at 9am where wind is coming from the north-west at 5 knots, very similar data. Data for 2200hrs that night, 6.5hrs after the sighting shows surface wind is from 170 deg, almost south at 9 knots. Compare this with Laverton at 1530hrs wind from the south-east at 19kms/hr, similar data.

Primary radar

I obtained primary radar data from Air Services Australia (ASA) using the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) and we are reviewing this material now.

In summary

An observation was made at 1530hrs Sunday 23 August 2015 from Sneydes Road, Point Cook, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. Initially it was seen at about 30 degrees elevation to the south-east. The object travelled south-east to north-west. The object, according to the witness was at all times below clouds and seen against the clouds. The object never changed size, colour or brightness. After a total duration of 5-6 minutes it was lost to sight behind a thick band of clouds to the north-west. Angular size was tiny compared to the full Moon. In appearance it looked at times to be a shiny silver ‘ring’ or doughnut shape. At other times it appeared to be a straight vertical line. The witness stated that it was travelling against the prevailing surface winds.

Analysis

The initial impression gained from all this data, is that the object was probably wind borne debris of some kind. The weather data, contrary to the witness’ assertion, indicates that the object was moving with the surface wind direction. The small angular size, no change in size, colour or brightness, but changing geometry from ‘ring’ to vertical straight line, also, in our opinion supports this hypothesis.

September reports

3 September 2015 0230hrs Pontville, Tasmania. Facebook with follow up. 60 mins IFO - ground light.

Witness noticed a light coming through the glass in the front door. Going outside it was all dark except above the tree line by the nearby church west to south-west of the house. There seemed to be an orange light beyond the trees that was visible through a misty sky. The light never moved but had disappeared after about an hour. Investigation suggests this was a ground light reflecting in the mist.

TUFOIC.

4 September 2015 125hrs Brisbane, Queensland 3m 56secs Raw

Barry Taylor filmed an object in the sky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI1fZVE9FeE

6 September 2015 1815hrs Cambridge, Tasmania. Facebook. IFO - aircraft

Witness reports that while travelling east near Hobart airport he noticed an object moving quickly through the air at low altitude. It appeared to be a disc with flashing blue lights. The object then flew off as the witness continued on his journey. It was then visible as a small light in the distance. Follow up with Hobart Airport revealed two aircraft took off at the time indicated by the witness.

TUFOIC.

6 September 2015 1930hrs Varsity Lakes, Gold Coast, Queensland ?mins Raw

Source: http://m.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/lifestyle/the-truth-is-out-there-as-gold-coasters-report-spike-in-ufo-sightings-over-the-past-weekend/story-fnj94iqm-1227516797656

Tarina Callihan said the appearance of lights above her home was out of this world... “Its colour changed from green to yellow and finally to red and my housemate and I saw what looked like a plane going down and watched for news of a plane crash but nothing came,’ she said.” The light appeared as bright as Venus “...and flashed again before disappearing...I believe in UFOs.”

“No reports of unusual activity within local airspace were made to Gold Coast airport, Air Services Australia or the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.”

7 September 2015 1940hrs Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania. Letter & telephone

The witness noticed some bright flashes of light at high elevation to the north-west. A torch was flashed at this area and a golden light flashed back. The light then moved into some mist. Three seconds later an oval yellow mist shot out of the cloud heading south, it was gone in an instant. The witness has seen similar lights on previous occasions and will continue to observe the night sky.

TUFOIC.

7 September 2015 1928hrs Beckenham, Western Australia 2m37s Raw

“2 objects travelling in tandem in the N+E, the first object was very bright and it caught my attention as I was looking about. As I was filming I noticed another small orb moving with the bright object which appeared to stay at the same magnitude and brightness.”

http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/2015/09/ufo-sighting-filmed-over-western-australia-7-sep-2015.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOJKjSS5tpw

9 September 2015 Time? Sunshine Coast, Queensland ?mins Raw

Joshua Ross, using his mobile phone, filmed an object in the sky. He said it was moving “...from side to side” and “...up and down.” It was described as a yellow/white glow “floating” above houses. On Channel 7 TV news he said “It was just going side tom side up and down, round and round, it would go up in one direction and then shot back the other direction. And then it just went under a tree and that was it.”

https://au.new.yahoo.com/a/29472492/ufo-spotted-on-sunshine-coast

9 September 2015 1745hrs Toongabbie, Sydney, New South Wales 1min Raw

Rick Kronberger, while driving, saw “...a very bright light hovering about 100 metres above the ground over Winston Hills.” It appeared oval in shape, had some angular size. Moved slowly eastwards, then separated into three parts which took off to the north, and disappeared within a second.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

10 September 2015 1944hrs Bundoora, Melbourne, Victoria 12.5mins Raw

Brad Morris took a video of a pulsing object which was 20 degrees elevation to the west.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUJZjxKjeA

11 September 2015 1530hrs Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 1.5mins Raw

Ben reported that he “...noticed a vertically long dark grey shape like a cylinder come up slowly and diagonally from behind the mountains south-south-west of Canberra.” It stopped for 45-60 seconds, moved left and then took off at speed. It was gone from sight within 2-3 seconds.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

12 September 2015 1845hrs Bundoora, Melbourne, Victoria 5m43s Raw

Brad Morris filmed a pulsing object east of Bundoora. Filmed with two cameras. Panasonic HC-V520M and Nikon P900.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVzZm7eY7QM

15 September 2015 2305hrs North Bellingen, Central Coast, New South Wales 2mins Raw

Keith Reynolds and family watched, at 45 degrees elevation, a “phenomenon.” It grew bigger as if approaching, travelled east and disappeared at 15 degrees elevation. Overcast sky.

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

15 September 2015 2000hrs Byron Bay, New South Wales (3-4)mins Raw

A storm was approaching from the west, when Jim Christou saw, to his north, “...a red light flashing and stationary...for 3-4 minutes.” Then it flashed white and red. “Suddenly it moved towards the south almost above my head before making a semi circle turn towards north-east. “ It stopped, flashed white and red then sped off over the ocean.”

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2007/report-a-sighting/

17 September 2015 2100hrs Bentley Park, Cairns, Queensland 5mins IFO?

Four people saw “...an orange light, which then divided. The lights were just floating or hovering in the distance” in the west. “...2 more arrived. They moved very smoothly weaving in and around each other. Two then disappeared and then the final two did a bit more dancing and then also disappeared.” (email from witness directly to Keith Basterfield.)

Keith posed the following questions to the witness who contacted him. The witness’ responses are also shown below:

Q1. What direction were they moving in?

A1 “They were just kind of moving calmly around and hovering. Not closer or away.”

Q2 What was their apparent size?

A2 “They were about a star size and about as bright as Venus.”

Q3 Was there any associated noise?

A3 “No.”

Q4 What was the total duration?

A4 “I watched them for about 5 minutes.”

Q5 Was there any variation in brightness?

A5 “No they were consistent. They did twinkle, just a solid light.”

Q6 How did they disappear?

A6 “Just disappeared. Vanished. There was nothing to hide behind.”

Q7 What was the weather at the time?

A7 “Perfect clear night.”

The witness then added:

“Some others on Facebook said they saw them and people replied saying they were lanterns. I don’t know how they could be lanterns because they wouldn’t emit that much light.”

Keith checked the weather details for 2100hrs for Cairns international airport, some 9 kms to the north. These were:

Temperature was 20.4 deg C; 90% relative humidity; wind was from the West at 6km/hr. Pressure was 1016.5hPa. No rain since 9am.

Another witness from an adjacent suburb contacted Keith and advised an additional detail, being that the light was concentrated at the bottom of the lights.

Keith’s view, based on the details provided above, was that there was nothing inconsistent with either hot air garbage bags or Chinese lanterns. For a detailed investigation report click here.

20 September 2015 1930hrs New Town, Tasmania Facebook. IFO - ISS

A bright, large light was observed moving from north-west across the sky towards the south-east. It disappeared after a few minutes in the distance.

TUFOIC.

21 September 2015 (Between about 2120 and 2150)hrs Armidale, New South Wales 20mins IFO? Balloons/lanterns?

Two groups of people reported sighting two amber/orange lights, travelling eastwards. For a full investigation report by Keith Basterfield, click here.

27 September 2015 (Between 1830-1900)hrs Southern Adelaide, South Australia 2mins IFO - balloon

Three people in two adjacent suburbs reported seeing an initial bright orange light, which then pulsed and went out, leaving a dark blob in the sky. Two photographs were taken of the dark phase.

(“Adelaide UFO sightings” Facebook page, and investigation by Melbourne researcher Brad Morris, and Keith Basterfield.)

30 September 2015 Evening Melbourne, Victoria Minutes IFO - blimp

Numerous reported observations from a variety of suburbs.

“Melbourne UFO Sightings” Facebook page.

Older reports

24 August 2015 1900hrs Kingsville, Melbourne, Victoria 30secs Raw

Two people, one named Sue, travelling by vehicle, “spotted a ball of fire with a fiery trail...to our right.” It was travelling horizontally. “I saw the fiery trail got ‘swallowed back’ into the ball. The bright ball hovered in the sky a little, then it disappeared about half a minute later.”

http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/ufo-sightings-Melbourne

Australian groups contributing to this issue

Tasmanian UFO Investigation Centre

Website: http://tufoic.eu.pn

No Love From The Royal Australian Navy

Be forewarned. This is the driest, most “essentially non-UFO” blog post I have yet published. If anyone wants thrilling tales of pilots being dragged off by formations of glittering unknown objects they will have to close this and pick up Keith Chester’s “Strange Company” or something. For the few who want to risk sticking with me, let me sum up something I have being banging on about for nearly a year: The Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) Surveillance and Response Group, or rather, its subordinate Wings, are tasked with the surveillance and monitoring of our country’s vast aerospace environment. RAAF assets track and identify both known and unknown aircraft, and other airborne bodies, plus provide the wider Australian Defence Force’s a true and timely aerospace picture of what is flying above and around the continent. An unknown or unidentifiable track is titled, at least within the 41 Wing, as a “Contact of Interest”. My work on this matter can be appraised here:

http://ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/the-raafs-contacts-of-interest.html

http://ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/obtaining-actual-contacts-of-interest.html

But what about the Royal Australian Navy? A modern Navy has just the sort of aerial detection and plotting capability as its equivalent Air Force. What a state of affairs we would be in if our Navy sailed blind while our Air Force was able to pick up and near-continuously plot small planes two thousand kilometres away (which they can) using a world-leading over-the-horizon radar system? So, if the RAAF sometimes picks up “Contacts of Interest”, what does the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) manage to do? For example, our Anzac class frigates have an entire “suite” of radar systems that produce a variety of combined three-dimensional imaging that facilitate hostile aircraft tracking, theatre-wide battle management, etc. The two systems of interest to us are the Raytheon SPS-49[V]8 ANZ for sensitive aerial search and long-range surveillance, and, the CelsiusTech 9LV-453 TIR Radar for general, especially mid-range, aerial scanning. So with all this fool-proof ability to monitor the skies, one would assume that the odd UFO – whatever UFO means exactly – could and should be detected.

On the 17 September, 2015 I submitted the following FOI request to the Department of Defence’s Freedom of Information (FOI) desk:

“I wish to obtain a list or index of any operational Standing Instructions, Standing Orders, Manuals, Directives, or any publications, maintained by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) which relate to the detection, tracking and identification of known or unknown aircraft, unidentified aircraft, hostile aircraft, hijacked aircraft, unlawfully operating aircraft, and matters related generally to air and aerospace surveillance, monitoring and sovereignty.”

Some of you may wonder why I would want to merely get an index, which is basically a list, of a whole lot of our Navy’s paperwork. Why wouldn’t I go straight for the good stuff? Well, it doesn’t work that way. A person requesting information from a government agency must be quite specific. In the case I am highlighting here, all I want to do is get a list of Navy publications that may have words like “unknown contact” or “suspect track” or whatever in the title. It would be then that I would ask, again under the FOI Act, for the publications themselves to be released. And that would be when things get interesting. The world’s greatest UFO-document FOI user and abuser, Robert Todd, now sadly not with us, used to do this all the time. And the volume of material that he was able to identify from such lists of military publications is quite impressive. Anyway, back came an answer to my FOI request on the 21^st of September. In part it stated:

“A preliminary assessment of charges was sought from the departmental area which would be responsible for the processing of your request. However, in response to their own preliminary inquiries they do not consider your request is valid in its current form, essentially because there is no ‘list or index’ which covers all of the requested information.

The type of information requested is spread across a large range of publications including classified Allied publications. Given the types of operating environment for our ships, there is no simple short list of instructions like that cited for the RAAF. The request is so broad as to encompass a wide spectrum of operations from basic training of our people to highly complex and classified instructions issued to cover specific Operations and Exercises.

For example, the Anti-Air Warfare Procedures chapter of one of Navy’s Maritime tactical publications is highly classified and is 334 pages. While not all of the chapter is relevant to your request, it would be a considerable cost to you for the Department to review the entire content, and then it is unlikely that much information would be released.

To produce a ‘list or index’, the Department would need to construct a document which is outside of the scope of the FOI Act as described in para 2.29 of the Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under s 93A of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Oct 2014). In this case, the expected decision would be to refuse access under section 24A [Requests may be refused if documents cannot be found, do not exist or have not been received] of the FOI Act, as the requested ‘list or index’ does not exist.

In view of the above, you are invited to consider, whether your request may be refined to more specified terms.”

So, the RAN are basically saying that, unlike the RAAF, there are no concise, short list of publications – Standing Orders, Instructions, Directives, etc – that would satisfy my request. Furthermore, they are saying that the situation with operational and tactical RAN publications is socomplex that no list would be even creatable or manageable. I found, and continue to find, that claim a bithard to believe; however, I have it on good authority from a serving member of our Australian Defence Forces – who never lets me down – that the Navy’s procedural paperwork is a full order of magnitude more complicated than the RAAF’s or the Army’s. So, this time the benefit of the doubt goes their way, but that doesn’t get them off the hook as far as me reducing the scope of my FOI request and raising the bar somewhat.

On the 4^thof October I replied to Defence FOI and stated that I wanted the same type of material, but this time only for the Anzac class frigate. In other words, I want a list of enforceable RAN publications that relate to unknown or unidentifiable aircraft or other airborne bodies, but only created for the particular systems on the Anzac ships. Simple right? Maybe not… The reply came back on the 7^th of October, and, in it, the Navy stated directly to me:

“The applicant’s revised request below and his additional explanation does not significantly change his original request. As such, I consider this request remains a s24A response in that no list or index exists and to produce one would be contrary to the guidance provided by the Information Commissioner in para 2.29 of the Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under s 93A of the Freedom of Information Act 1982. Similarly, to provide a list of publications, as alternatively requested by the applicant, would also require the production of a document.

Additionally, there is a set of Anzac Class Standing Orders which facilitate standard procedures across the eight ships of the class. These Orders are generally unclassified and cover routine management instructions rather than the types of information requested by the applicant and they specifically do not address operational procedures.

The applicant’s requested information goes to the very core of Navy’s warfare role. Navy’s combat systems, procedures and operations are all developed around the ultimate use of warships, that being combat. As such, most warfare related material is in classified operating manuals and combat system manuals. Further, a great deal of this material is generated through classified Allied publications which are imperative to enabling our ships, submarines and aircraft to readily interact and operate with other Allied forces. RAN warships are not like RAAF Air Traffic Control and other fixed installations which predominantly operate in a civil type regime; our ships operate in warfare regimes which are occasionally used in non-warfare roles such as Humanitarian Assistance and/or Disaster Relief.

Detection and Tracking of contacts: This part of the request essentially asks how we get to the identification of contacts/targets with Anzac Class ships. The Australian publications which cover system descriptions and use of the Anzac Class combat system are principally divided into 12 Volumes/Parts. I have sampled four (33%) of these and they are 612, 758, 838 and 1148 pages, resulting in an average of 840 pages per Volume/Part or a total or approximately 10,080 total pages. While naturally not all of the information will be relevant to the applicant’s request, it would be a considerable body of work, and probably a s24AA diversion of resources, just to review the documents to ascertain which content which might be relevant to the request. These publications are all classified, and even if within the scope of the FOI request, would very likely be heavily redacted to the point where any released information would be meaningless.

Identification of contacts: At its core, Air Warfare Identification Criteria is contained in a small section (11 pages) of a Combined Exercise Agreement which carries a NATO security classification which would essentially prevent its release under FOI. This core ID Criteria is then distilled into other Australian warfare publications which describe how these criteria are applied in our operating environment and systems. My previous advice regarding the content of RAN Maritime Tactical Instructions remains valid, in that the Anti-Air Warfare section is 343 pages. 45 pages of this section directly relate to Anzac Class operations and some other pages are indirectly relevant. Again, this is a highly classified document.”

Below this RAN response, the FOI desk officer finished the correspondence with this:

“In view of the above, you are again invited to consider whether your request may be refined in more specific terms. The department is only obliged to assist an applicant once to frame a suitable application under the FOI Act. However, in order to assist you we are prepared to extend this obligation.

Your request will be classified as ‘Pending’ until such time as your reply is received. However, if we do not receive any further contact from you by 12 October 2015, we will consider your request has having been withdrawn. Notwithstanding, you are welcome to submit a fresh application after that date.”

So.. That is what we are up to. I do not usually post my research endeavours until they are wrapped up. This one however will probably go nowhere. It’s not worth the fight sometimes. Having said that, I am not quite through with them yet. Stay tuned.

The CIA's Unreleased, Unacknowledged UFO Files:

Just How Many More Are There?

So!! It appears that after 40 years, there are still government documents to be found regarding the infamous and still unsolved aerial incursions over nearly a dozen key nuclear armed military bases all over North America. Known as the “1975 Over Flights”, the first sensitive location to be harassed by unknown craft was Loring Air Force Base in Maine. Hundreds of pages of documents were begrudgingly released to researchers in the late 1970’s, but many were not. Below is a one page “Event and Action” log of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) providence that, as far as I know, has not been seen before by researchers.

How this came about was that recently I’ve been spending some time on the CIA’s electronic search engine known as “CIA Records Search Tool”, or “CREST”. I usually don’t search the archive using keywords like “unusual flying object”, “unidentified flying object”, “unknown object”, etc as these have been attempted ad nauseam by others. What I do attempt are keywords that possibly no one else has thought or doing bothered to do: anything associated with extremely well-known UFO cases or investigations, such as “Mansfield”, “JAL 1628”, “Kirtland OSI”, etc is a good start.

One successful hit using this method was using the keyword “Loring”. The significant file details of the result read:

Title: UNTITLED (DISCUSSES PENETRATION OF LORING AFB, MAINE)

Document Number: (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005516212

Release Decision: RIFPUB

Original Classification: U

Document Page Count: 1

Document Release Date: January 31, 2011

Case Number: F-2010-00651

Publication Date: October 28, 1975

From here, the document is viewable in PDF form, which I imaged above.

As the reader will have noticed, the title banner tells us that the document is from the CIA’s Operations Centre. The line-itemed date is listed as 28th October, 1975, and the main box of information is headed “Event and Action”. All of the log entries are redacted (in white for once) except the second last one. The time given is 06:10 and the text states:

“NMCC Rep notified Ops Ctr that DDO Talker contained update concerning penetration of Loring AFB, Maine by unidentified helicopters(s) flying out of Canada. Received copy via LDX and disseminated.”

For clarity, “NMCC” is the National Military Command Center; “DDO” is is Deputy Directior of Operations; “Talker” is raw, intelligence text, written in a way somewhat akin to human speech; and, last, but most importantly, “Loring AFB” is Loring Air Force Base. The content of the document may not be earth shattering itself, but it’s all the evidence I need to show that there may be more such material in CIA possession – whether available to the public or still under lock-and-key – which has not been appraised by researchers.

So what’s it all about? Although mothballed today, in 1975 Loring AFB was a huge United States Air Force (USAF) base run by the old Strategic Air Command (SAC). Of considerable size, the base was a storage site for nuclear weapons. The arsenal was stored in a specialized, secured area consisting of small huts, known as “igloos”. The facility was patrolled day and night by the 42nd Security Police Squadron. On October 27 and 28, 1975, unidentified aircraft aggressively buzzed the base, taking particular interest in the nuclear weapons storage area and causing the base to nervously go to a high-alert status. Shortly before 8pm, on the Oct. 27, an airman patrolling the weapons dump area saw an unidentified aircraft nearing the north perimeter of the base at an altitude of about 300 feet, its red navigational light and a white strobe light in operation. At exactly the same time, the Loring ABF control tower got a clear radar paint from an unknown aircraft 10 to 13 miles east-northeast of the base. Numerous attempts were made to contact the aircraft, but there was no response. It came within 300 yards of the base nuclear weapons area. The base went into a full alert mode and an intense ground sweep was conducted by security personnel. The intruder circled for about 40 minutes before heading toward Grand Falls in Canada, some where it dropped from the radar screen. The next night featured a repeat performance, only weirder. This time, airmen reported seeing a silent orange-and-red object shaped like an elongated football hovering over the runway. It was described as being about four car lengths long, solid, with no doors or windows, and with no visible propellers or engines. It eventually departed in the direction of Grand Falls.

This, and similar incidents – some far more potent and unexplainable - were occurring above and around USAF bases, usually operated by SAC, or otherwise housing operational nuclear weapons, all over the United States for weeks, and then sporadically into 1976. The others were, as amazing as it may seem, Wurtsmith AFB, Malmstrom AFB, Minot AFB, Grand Forks AFB, Eglin AFB, Fort Richie, Cannon AFB and Falconbridge Air Station in Canada! Released documents indicate that Selfridge and Plattsburg AFB’s were also affected by unknown intruders too, though we don’t have any details. Oh, and possibly one base in Alaska. How do we know any of this? In probably the most stunning successes in the quest for government UFO documents, Barry Greenwood, Lawrence Fawcett and Robert Todd, and a few others, successfully urged various areas of the US military to release respective historical records regarding these events. Collectively, these documents paint a picture of multiple unknown aerial intrusions against some of the most supposedly secure facilities operated by the strongest military on the planet.

So, with regards to my finding just one document positively sourced from the CIA,we now have concrete proof that even the CIA was knowledgeable concerning all this USAF base intrusion business. The job now is to look far deeper into the CIA record and hopefully discover what other material was received or created by them over the long years. It’s not even like researchers are going on a hunch. For example, when research group Ground Saucer Watch (GSW) successfully forced the CIA to release some 900 pages of UFO records in 1978, researcher Brad Sparks determined that over 200 extra documents were directly referenced in those 900 pages, but conveniently not included in the release. In other words, the CIA couldn’t find, or, chose not to find, at least 200 documents it they could or should have. The CIA were effectively thumbing their noses at the Washington DC’s District.

As for the Loring Air Force Base, and the whole 1975 over flight fiasco, for those interested, the definitive account of the evolution of this story can be found in the 1984 blockbuster book Clear Intentby Barry Greenwood and Lawrence Fawcett, and republished UFOs the Government Cover-Up in 1990. Imaged below is the front cover of the book in its original guise. Readers perhaps wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it is one of my favourites UFO books.

The United States Air Force, The Joint Intelligence Committee, And A Top Secret UFO Report

Anyone familiar with the United States Air Force’s (USAF) early response to the UFO phenomenon should be familiar with at least a handful of reports, letters and memoranda written to-and-from several extremely senior-ranking officers of the USAF. The famous “Twining Letter” springs to mind. Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining’s classified three page masterpiece, written in September, 1947, to the mighty Brig. Gen. George Schulgen outlined that the current opinion of the Air Material Command (AMC) on UFO’s was that “the phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious”. The document itself has been reproduced from the holdings the National Archives countless times in books and on websites, so much so that even many casual readers on the UFO subject have seen it in its some form. There are scores of powerful and potent records, signed by the highest ranking military officers in America and only ever meant for restricted readership.

However, there are some documents of, I believe, equal importance, which have not been seen by a wide audience, yet their contents are just as vital to piecing together the early history of how the US military handled the UFO conundrum. One such document is titled “Report by the Director of Intelligence, USAF, to the Joint Intelligence Committee on Unidentified Aerial Objects” and was issued on April 27, 1949, classified Top Secret. I believe this is the first time this document has been available for a wide audience to see in its original form.

In the bulky 1949 USAF’s Director of Intelligence “General Correspondence” file of nearly 2000 pages regarding the topic of “Flying Discs”, there exist various papers containing references to a special report the USAF had written for the US’s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which was headed by representatives of the main intelligence agencies of each military service. Like so many USAF Intelligence files, researchers for Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS) had assumed that this yet unseen report was classified “Secret” and attempted to obtain it under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from 1984 onwards.

After 13 years of searching, the JIC report was finally found in 1997 at the National Archives II in Maryland by researcher Jan Aldrich. Specifically, it languished in the USAF Director of Intelligence file entitled “General File, July 1945 - December 1954: Records Relating to the Requirements for and the Collection and Dissemination of Intelligence”. The report had not been found previously because it had been classified “Top Secret” and was not held in the “Secret” records previously checked by the National Archives during previous in response to FOIA requests. The Archives rarely searches when dealing with FOIA requests, especially when the topic is UFO’s.

In the words of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS):

“The Air Force sent an “Unidentified Aerial Objects” presentation, classified Top Secret, with an Appendix – a summary of Air Force actions – to the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) on April 27, 1949.;

And,

“The JIC document has eluded researchers for years. In it one can see the seeds of the later Project Grudge report. It contains a summarized history of the Air Force’s early attempt to investigate UFO reports.”

I do not attempt here to analyse the contents of this report. Others can, and have, done a better job than I could do. The purpose of presenting this document here is simply to get the actual material out for all to see. Having said that, I would like to highlight three of the more persuasive statements in the report:

“16. c. Creditable unexplained incidents which might involve the use of atomic powered craft of u[nu]sual design should be considered jointly by the Atomic Energy Commission and highly competent aerodynamicists to determine the necessity for further consideration of such incidents by National Defense Intelligence Agencies.”;

“17. The majority of reported incidents are reliable to the extent that they have involved the sighting of some object or light phenomenon.”;

“19. There are numerous reports from reliable and competent observers for which a conclusive explanation has not been made. Some of these involve descriptions which would place them in the category of new manifestations of probable natural phenomena but others involve configurations and described performance which might conceivably represent an advanced aerodynamical development…”

Finally, I wish to thank researchers Barry Greenwood and Jan Aldrich for making available this file, and my good friend Shayne Ford for his computer assistance. At 8 pages, presented below is the “Report by the Director of Intelligence, USAF, to the Joint Intelligence Committee on Unidentified Aerial Objects”.

Monthly Australian Report Listing

October, 2015

Welcome to the new format of the Australian national level UFO/UAP sightings listings, by Keith Basterfield and myself. As mentioned last month, Keith and I will no longer be bringing you a lengthy listing of un-investigated sightings. Instead we will bring you selected sightings which we have recently come across; give you the facts as we know them, and report on our own efforts to investigate them. We hope you will find the new format of interest. It will contain cases that are appear to be very powerful even without much study, or, cases investigated by either us or other people. Sometimes we will present cases that are clearly identifiable (new blimps, intense meteor showers, etc) that help us all understand how many things can appear to be, or, mimic the weird and the wonderful. So, if you read about a local sighting for which you already have additional information, especially of you have investigated it, then please send your data to keithbasterfield@yahoo.com.au and we will publish it here with full credit to you.

A sighting we'd like to know more about:

Kalbar, Queensland. 12 October 2015. 2000hrs.

"A farmer living on a 100 acre property became concerned when his dogs began barking, so he walked outside his home to investigate what was disturbing them.

He walked towards a visitor's car parked approximately 30 metres from where he stood but had difficulty seeing the car due to the emanation of the reflection of a light on the car. He described this as "blurring out" the car.

He initially thought he was having problems with his vision, but two seconds later he saw an object appear above the car which he described as looking just like the moon and luminous. It then moved straight up into the sky, changed course to a 45 degree angle, then 'shot off' disappearing from view. He called to his family to come outside to see the object but it had already disappeared. He described the object as not being mechanized, perfectly round and if it didn't move he could have sworn it was the moon...."

(Source: Facebook page for UFO Research Queensland. We hope that UFORQ will be able to further investigate this intriguing report and provide readers with a detailed investigation report in due course.)

Note 1: Alert blog readers will recall that Kalbar was the location where a weather camera is claimed to have photographed a UAP, in March 2015.

Note 2: For those readers who might like to know where the Moon was at 2000hrs 12 October, as seen from Kalbar. A quick check of an astronomical program indicates it was below the horizon.

Sightings

28 September 2015, Around sunset, Darwin, Northern Territory.

Quentin Theron, 40 and children Kylie, 14 and Georgia 8, were in a pool at their Coconut Grove home, Darwin, when they saw a bright ball of light travelling through the sky. The object had a thick and short tail. A video was taken, and is available to view at:

http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/only-in-the-territory/its-unidentified-flying-and-an-object-ufo-baffles-experts/story-fnk2tg5d-1227552608118

I unsuccessfully attempted to contact witness via both his Facebook page, and the NT News. No one responded. I also spoke to an Air Traffic Controller, about the possibility that the video shows a fuel dump from a military aircraft. The controller did not believe it did. We would be interested to hear from anyone who has looked further into this matter.

2 October 2015, Early hours of the morning, Scotts Creek (Victoria?)

"We could see a very bright light across the paddocks from the house. Seemed yellow warm light compared to the cool blue stars. It seemed extremely close and large compared to anything that should be visible in the sky. I took several photos and video. This was in the north eastern sky about 1-2km above the horizon and seemed only the same distance away. We could hear a humming vibrating sound over our music and it seemed a different frequency as the music was initially loud.

Over the next three hours we watched it hover in the same spot before slowly moving off north once the daylight broke, but it was still visible when it was light at 6am. A farmer a few km away also saw it and captured a photo. On zooming in on photos it appears in different forms but always as bright triangle or bent line shape or in a circle. I know that camera pixels can change these shaped but this is unbelievable." These details appeared at http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/ufo-sightings-melbourne#.VhsT8a-hfIU

Comments:

This sighting appeared worthy of follow up. So, Keith:

a. Used an electronic contact form to send a message to the operators of "Only Melbourne" asking if they would send "Caz" my email address and message. An operator from the "Only Melbourne" responded and advised that they were unable to assist him.

b. Keith checked an Australian directory for locations named "Scotts Creek." There were a number listed. On the assumption that a person in Scotts Creek, Victoria might choose to forward their sighting to a Victorian website like "Only Melbourne" Keith looked for the nearest local paper to the Victorian Scotts Creek.This turned out to be the Warnambool Standard newspaper. Keith despatched an email to the editor outlining my interest in this sighting; and also submitted a similar item to the paper's Facebook page's visitor's comments. To date Keith has had no response to these efforts.

c. Again, on the assumption that "Caz" was in Scotts Creek, Victoria Keith obtained the weather details form the closest Bureau of Meteorology station which was station number 090186 at Warnambool, 54.1 km away. That day, the minimum temperature was 9.9 deg C; the maximum temperature was 23.8 deg C. At 0900hrs the wind was blowing from the north at 17km/hr.

d. Again, on the assumption we are looking at Scotts Creek, near Warnambool, Victoria (latitude 38.46 south and longitude 143.09 east) Keith found that the sun rose at 0549hrs. Astronomically, the planet Venus rose at 0404hrs. At that time, it was elevation zero, ie on the horizon; and at azimuth 77 degrees. By 0600 hrs it had mover northwards to elevation 21 deg, and azimuth 57 deg. North-east is azimuth 45 deg.

e. At this point, as no one to my knowledge, has interviewed "Caz" or anyone else in the area who saw the object, the identification of the cause of the sighting remains "unknown." However, given the presence of the bright (magnitude -4.4) planet Venus in the same general area, and the fact that "Caz" does not report seeing both their "UFO" and the brilliant planet Venus, there is the possibility, however remote, that the sighting is a misidentification of that planet. Only a thorough investigation, preferably on site, would tell.

4 October 2015, (2130-2200)hrs, 4kms north of Yankalilla, South Australia, 4 minutes.

"We saw a bright orange light at about 25 degree elevation north of us. It came towards us for about four minutes, then when it was almost directly overhead it went straight up until it disappeared from view. My first thought was that it was a helicopter, although the colour of light was wrong, but it was absolutely silent!"

This sighting came to me as a comment on the Sydney Observatory "Lights in the sky" blog.

Comment:

a. Keith located the weather details for the nearest Bureau of Meteorology station which was station umber 023875 at Parawa, 13.4 kms away. At 1500hrs the wind was from the WNWW at 11 km/hr. Temperature was 22.7 deg C; relative humidly 36%; pressure 1022.9hPa.

At 2100hrs temp was 20.6 deg C; 28% rh; wind from NNW at 7km/hr.

At 2130hrs temp was 20.3 deg C; 28% rh; wind from NW at 6km/hr

At 2200hrs temp was 20.8 deg C; 29% rh; wind from NW at 6km/hr.

b. Given the colour of the light; the 4 minutes duration; and the movement roughly in the direction from which the wind was blowing at a low speed; Keith elected not to follow this report up any further as there is a high probability of a wind borne, hoax hot air balloon. See previous detailed investigation reports on similar lights at:

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/preliminary-investigation-report.html

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/report-from-cairns-queensland-17.html

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/preliminary-investigation-report.html

9 October 2015, Ca. 2100hrs, Northfield, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, 2 minutes.

"I was coming home about 9pm up Grand Junction Road when I caught sight of a large horizontal bank of lights approx. 200 feet off the ground, to my right and level with Rowe Avenue. It was 9.02 when I first spotted it and I watched it for about 2 minutes. At first I thought it was a construction site on the top floor of a block as it was too low for a plane and stationary. I'm used to seeing the planes coming in over the hills but they were nothing like that. It was massive, very low, and as I say, appeared to be stationary. It looked like a row of lights on a gantry. I pulled over to see it better and as I stopped the car it appeared to rotate on the spot and moved off very slowly southwards. I turned around at the next place I could and then went along Rowe Avenue but there was nothing in the sky, no tall buildings and no sign of a plane moving away toward the airport as you would normally see going into the distance. Shortly after, at about 9.08 and 9.10 two planes came over the hills with landing lights on as normal, quite low but nowhere near as low as the first one. They were considerably smaller blocks of normal landing, flashing wing lights and cabin lights. It was a bit weird. Can't say anything about noise as I had loud music on the radio."

This report came to Keith via a mutual friend. Due to its unusual nature, ie bank of lights, initially stationary and then moving, We thought it worthy of a follow up. So, Keith:

a. Contacted the witness via our mutual friend and asked the following:

Q1. What colour were the bank of lights?

A1 White.

Q2 How many lights (approximately) were in the bank of lights?

A2 "There were 10-15 brilliant white lights along the length."

Q3. How big was the whole thing compared to the full moon on the horizon?

A3 "...about the same distance between the end of my thumb and the end of my smallest finger (20cm approx.) at arm's length..."

They witness also advised:

"The white lights were of varying intensity, some were bright like spotlights other less intense/pointing away from me at different angles. There was a blue solid light towards one end and a red solid light towards the other. These lights were considerably smaller than the white ones and nowhere near as bright.'

b. Keith obtained the weather details for the Adelaide office of the Bureau of Meteorology (10kms away).

2030hrs 25.7 deg c; 42% rh; wind was calm; pressure 1022.7hPa.

2100hrs 24.3 deg c; 50%rh; wind calm; pressure 1023.0hPa.

2130hrs 23.8 deg c; 50%rh; wind calm; pressure 1023.4hPa.

c. Keith checked Air Services Australia's WebTrak website the following are screen shots at various times relevant to the sighting:

A B77W aircraft flew over at 2101hrs

2110hrs showing the two aircraft the witness saw

d. Keith travelled along this section of Grand Junction Road, past Rowe Avenue about an hour later, that night, but saw nothing unusual.

e. Keith visited the area concerned on 14 October and spent some time looking around the area

Looking across Grand Junction Road down Roe Avenue

We welcome any feedback on this sighting.

NORAD And The UFO Smokescreen

Part 4

In recent months I have established that the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) have been, despite claims to the contrary, involved in the core “UFO phenomenon”. I have highlighted over a dozen pages of legally declassified and officially released US and Canadian military documents that show – in undeniable black and white – that real UFO events have come to the attention of, if not plagued, the staff and systems that make up the formidable NORAD behemoth. This documented evidence is only a sample. There are hundreds more. The first three posts in my series can be found here, here and here.

The Behmouth That Is NORAD

Even a swift look over the available information regarding NORAD and UFO’s, shows that most of it comes from the 1960’s and 1970’s. Almost nothing new has come directly out of NORAD, or its controlling command NORTHCOM, or any other US or Canadian military command whom have relations with NORAD, since about 1979. I say “almost nothing new” because there have been some exceptions which I will soon detail, but by-and-large the black hole of UFO information has been getting blacker, and very few UFO researchers have attempted to brighten it. And no wonder: Understanding NORAD’s structuring and capabilities is very difficult; grasping their inter-agency relationships with other military components is nearly impossible; and dealing with them is proving to be even harder still.

Before understanding the current situation regarding NORAD and the UFO phenomenon, I would like to briefly summarise a few things. For starters, NORAD is a “bi-national organisation” of the USA and Canada. Administratively, NORAD is heavily controlled by the USA’s Northern Command (NORTHCOM). However, being a bi-national organisation NORAD is not structurally sub-ordinate to NORTHCOM, but is more rather beside NORTHCOM, as well as woven into the fabric of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), especially the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). As for NORAD’s actual capabilities and operational mission, rather than me trying to stitch it all together, I would much rather rely on a few of their own statements. For example, NORAD’s current on-line “fact sheet” states that they are charged with aerospace warning and aerospace control for North America, and, that:

“…Aerospace warning includes the detection, validation, and warning of attack against North America whether by aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles, through mutual support arrangements with other commands.”

Another official statement, this one as part of a press release regarding NORAD’s war-fighting and air defence role, states:

“One ongoing mission of the NORAD Battle Management Center is to coordinate ‘air sovereignty’ efforts, monitoring every aircraft that enter U.S. or Canadian airspace — some 2.5 million a year. NORAD is asked to investigate aircraft that do not file flight plans, contact ground controllers or identify themselves with transponders”

Chapter 6 of a declassified NORAD Instruction, titled “NI 10-19 Aerospace Reporting System”, states:

“Track reporting provides significant air activity information to the NMCC and CINCNORAD through the NORAD Air Defence Operations Center (ADOC).”

NORAD’s role also extends into space, with the United States Air Force (USAF) stating:

“As of February 2006, the NORAD database of two-line element sets (TLES) contains more than 56 million TLES for nearly 29,000 objects dating back to 1959… …the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) observes these objects for NORAD to maintain its catalogue. The SSN collects data using both passive and active instruments, then forwards the data to the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC) to be catalogued.”

To achieve the extraordinary feat of detecting, tracking and identification of aerial and space bodies over a huge fraction of the planet’s surface, NORAD’s physical assets are made up of an unbelievably complex mix of NORAD-dedicated sensors, as well as a huge flow of data from sensors operated by other military agencies. This blog post is not the forum to elaborate extensively on such systems, but to just give an example of each category, two reasonable examples to highlight would be the North Warning System (NWS) and the Joint Surveillance System (JSS). The NWS is a series of 15 powerful long-range early-warning primary radars which form a 3000 mile, or 4800 kilometre, wide “fence” running from the western edge of the US state of Alaska to Labrador, Canada. The system is tasked with the initial detection and accurate plotting of long range bombers or medium-range cruise missiles, most likely predicted to approach from Russia. Three far flung Regional Operations Control Centers (ROCC) receive raw data from the sensitive receivers for instantaneous activity and threat assessment, plus basic filtering, and the resulting information is transmitted to the NORAD Combat Operations Centre (COC). On the other hand, the JSS is a joint United States Air Force (USAF) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system dedicated to monitoring both civil aircraft movements and military aircraft movements across most of North America. The JSS consists of long-range surveillance radars, chiefly operated and maintained by the FAA, but providing critical communication and raw radar data to both special FAA control centers, as well as three USAF’s Air Combat Command (ACC) Sector Operations Control Centers (SOCC), which in turn pass information to NORAD as needed.

Thus, it is established that NORAD – through its own systems, as well as seemingly everyone else’s – can watch airborne and near-earth space movements with an enviable degree of precision. But does any of this mean that NORAD actually detects and monitors UFO activity? ..And I mean our sort of UFO activity. No one would say that they do not detect and track UFO’s per se, because the core of NORAD’s mission is unidentified flying objects, and the process of identifying them. However, we, as researchers, are ordinarily interested in the type that can’t be identified. Ever. Since the dawn of the “modern era” of UFO sightings, witnesses to have described the most peculiar, sometimes startling, feats of movement and flight: unexpected deceleration, jolting changes in direction, unbelievable gains in altitude. Surely NORAD must routinely detect these oddities and process associated data for further analysis, just as they would when, say, inbound Russian fighter-bombers come calling? If the systems in place are so advanced, and unusual UFO activity is still on-going today, then NORAD’s classified records must be bursting with perplexing UFO events, plus associated investigations of such events by technical specialists and aerospace intelligence teams, must they not?

After years of studying this conundrum, it appears that it may not be that simple. NORAD surveillance systems, and systems run by other commands which feed data to NORAD as needed, usually have very finite and focused missions or “tasks”. For example, the USAF’s Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) operates the Space Based Infrared Satellite system (SBIRS) who’s satellites detect suddenly formed and fast moving infrared (IR) heat signatures that could correspond to the launch and flight of land based ballistic missiles. However, if the special detection and imaging software allowed all kinds of sudden and quick-moving IR sources (jet afterburners, mid-sized meteorite entries into the atmosphere, etc) to be left unfiltered, and thus appear on NORAD (as well as Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and other commands) display screens, then Early Warning/Detection Analysts, and even the Battle Staff, at NORAD’s Command and Control would become very weary indeed. In other words, such IR-scanning satellites could have something the size of a house right in front of them and no one would be any the wiser. Below is an image of the sort of synthetic display screen that functions year-in, year-out, at the NORAD Missile Warning Center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. A keen eye will notice that the image I am showing here looks like it could be Russian missile launch and flight path region, it was some sort of graphics display test officially released for use in educational material. The bottom line: In this example at least, the all-seeing space-based system that would create the below missile tracking screen should potentially be capable of displaying “our” sort of UFO’s, but it is programmed not to want to.

What about long and medium-range air defence radar? Again, it has become apparent to me that even these systems may very competently filter out the kinds of unidentified objects or odd phenomenon that so perplex us. Targets that are initially picked up but subsequently “lost” due to being weak or “intermittent” are eliminated from what is placed on the Air Combat Operator’s display screen; though, some systems may be set to at least allow a “track file” to be created on such a feeble target, but whether anyone is alerted, much less studies such data, is a different matter. Likewise, any targets that appear ridiculously large or intense can also be disregarded if the system operators so wish, and this means especially localised storm cells will go unseen, which is fair enough because that’s what the USAF Air Weather Service (AWS). Furthermore, although the details are classified, apparently some older NORAD-missioned radar networks will not plot targets that rapidly gain or decrease altitudes at velocities considered far beyond what manmade hardware can achieve; again, this rules out the types of alarming UFO events that so many witnesses have described. Then, on top of all this, any UFO events that are left in the system must be actually dealt with by humans. How many frontline personnel have simply missed the odd, short-lived event that may constitute the truly mysterious?

A Few Simple Words Can Say Oh So Much

Having said all that, it is still abundantly clear that NORAD has dealt with the UFO matter with regularity and bewilderment. Some systems have be tripped by unusual objects at times. My previous blog posts in this series are testament to that, and nothing can change the fact that there exists hundreds of documents that catch NORAD, or NORAD-associated commands, out. Sometimes it’s the simple stuff that is so telling. For example, what other possible explanation is there for this? Released to Robert Todd under the FOI Act, a NORAD Director of Operations message, referenced as “NORAD/DO/131617Z Nov 75”, stated:

“There have been a number of recent reports citing observations of unknown objects. These observations make it advisable, at least for the time being, to record these observations and forward them to this headquarters. NORAD/DO Form 17 will be utilised even though such observations did not result in track establishment. Entries in NORAD/DO Form 17 will be used where appropriate in order to standardize the information for review and summary. Unknown object information will be forwarded in the same manner as for reporting unknown tracks (see NORAD Reg 55-99, Volume 7).”

So, again, we see NORAD – the Director of Operations (NORAD) no less – discussing UFO’s. In this example, they are not only taking note of “recent reports citing observations of unknown objects”, but details of such are being filled on top-shelf reporting forms and transmitted to the Operations are of NORAD Headquarters.

In my next blog post in this series I will begin detailing the latest developments in regards to actually tackling NORAD directly. This will be a very long process. Much has been discovered. And much remains as mysterious and frustrating as ever.

Massive New Digitisation Of Newspapers Will Add To Australian UFO History, If Anyone Can Be Bothered

Well… now there really is no excuse for Australian UFO “researchers” not to do some, well, research.

The National Library of Australia (NLA) maintains endeavour named “Trove” which is an online library “database aggregator” and “free faceted-search engine”.Trove brings together content from libraries, newspapers, museums and other research organisations and helps users explore them. In the NLA’s own words:

“Trove helps you find resources about Australia and by Australians. We do this by collecting information from many organisations around the world. This information about resources, also known as metadata, is processed for easy searching through the Trove website…”

For Australian UFO researchers, Trove’s digitised newspaper section is the thing most invaluable. The NLA says:

“The digitised newspaper zone is the most heavily-used part of Trove, and no wonder – more than 100 million newspaper articles, documenting more than 150 years of Australian history. And it’s growing all the time. All digitised, all free, all for you.”

Recently, nearly a dozen new newspapers – some dating from 1915 – have been added to the archive. And they are absolutely jam-packed with articles, editorials and opinion pieces about UFO’s, especially reports of UFO events that are completely new to us.

For starters, Daily Examiner of Grafton, NSW has now been digitised. I only searched it using the term “flying saucer”, and only over the ten year period of 1945 to 1955. So I can guarantee that there will be a vastly more in here using other keywords (hint hint, give it a go people..) and a few more hours of searching. One article that jumped out was from the 13^th of February, 1953, page 2. The capitalised headline is “FLYING SAUCIR” OVER GRAFTON?

The image could be a bit clearer, so I’ll just highlight the key passages:

“Westlawn residents were agog late yesterday afternoon as they gazed skyward at the progress of a mysterious silvery object. This reminded them of the flying saucer reports, occurring almost daily in their newspaper… …Mr. Baker said the object, which had a silvery sheen of great brightness, was travelling steadily westward at a high altitude well above a covering of broken cloud. He first saw the phenomenon about 6pm and watched it out of sight. He had never previously seen anything like it. Mr. Bollard said the object was high in the sky. It must have been of great size. It travelled westward steadily with no apparent up or down movement. The object remained in sight for about 20 minutes.” Digitisation generously supported by

The Balaklava Producer of South Australia is also now digitised. Again, a very quick search and I got immediate results. On the 2^nd of December 1948, making it to the front page, is an article titled “FLYING SAUCERS SEEN NEAR BALAKLAVA”.

Again, for clarity:

“Two Balaklava residents claim to have seen a flying saucer on similar phenomenon in the South-West sky on Tuesday about 5.15pm. They say the object appeared in the direction of Avon and lasted for a minute or so. It first appeared to be travelling away but later lost height and seemed to be approaching in the direction of Balaklava. A vapour trail or smoke trail was also visible it is claimed.” This statement follows other recent reports in this State of eerie lights and strange phenomena. Readers of The News reported a green ball of light seen at 1.50 a.m. last Thursday and a Sandy Creek reader and a companion claim to have seen a ball of green light with a yellowish tail travelling at high speed in a North-Westerly direction. On first appearance they thought it to be headlights of an approaching car. The time was 11.20 last Saturday night and both men claim to have been perfectly sober.”

Queensland’s Warwick Daily News carried a story on 14 May 1952, on page 1 too, headed “Bundaberg men claim they saw flying saucer”.

The highlights:

“Three Bundaberg men, employees of the Bundaberg Foundry, while fishing on Monday night sighted a bright object in the sky which they later described as a flying saucer… …They saw a silvery, near oval-shaped object travelling at great speed across the sky. They said this object appeared to be travelling in an easterly direction at a height of 300 to 400 ft. The object was about the same size as an aeroplane, and was like a football in shape. The three men said that they saw it for about 10 seconds before it completely disappeared. They vouch that it was. not a falling star or a meteor.”

Again, the Warwick Daily News bring us a sighting, this one on the 18th May 1954, page 3, headlined “Roma Sees Flying Saucer”

Again,

“A strange V-shaped object, described as a “flying saucer,” is reported by residents here to have swept across Roma at the week-end. At least half a dozen of Roma’s citizens spread over a distance of up to 40 miles claimed to have seen the object… …and say it was travelling at hundreds of miles an hour only 100 to 200 feet up, towards the south-west.”

Back in NSW, Grafton’s Daily Examiner, on the 20^thof November 1953, page 1, gives us my sort of article. The heading is “Flying Saucer Recognised”,and the story sourced from London during a tumultuous period of British government response to the UFO issue.

For clarity, the whole article reads:

“Britain’s War Office has officially recognised the flying saucer. A War Office report says that an anti-aircraft unit in South-east London, on November 3, picked up a signal on its radar screen and followed the track of an “object” which appeared to be “circular or spherical and white in colour.” The object also was seen through a telescope by men of the same unit the same day.”

These are only a tiny fraction of what I found in a half an hour search. I only used the keyword string “flying saucer”, so who knows what will come up when terms like “mystery airplane” or “unknown object” are tried. This is a classic example of how people can do really significant work with relative ease. It doesn’t even cost anything. Most UFO “researchers” don’t bother with these sort of things now, and prefer to grovel amidst the entertainment and theatre that has devastated UFO research in the last couple of decades.

400 School Students Witness Huge UFO, 1970, Napier, New Zealand... But Who Has The Case File?

I can see this turning into what the Westall UFO sighting has become, but I’ve accepted a request to do a cold case study of a mass witness UFO sighting which occurred in New Zealand in 1970. It started around 2:15pm on the 7^th of May, very near Napier. That should narrow things down a bit if any of you have some memory of it, or, some actual records. Someone must know something. Anyway, whatever actually occurred, the case lit up the Napier Daily Telegraph on the 8^th of May – a day after the impressive mass sighting – like this: “Mystery sky object seen by teachers and 400 children”. I’ll let you appraise the article yourself.

For those who struggle to read imaged article, I have transcribed it exactly. The catch-line under the heading reads:

“A huge unidentified flying object which appeared as a “hole in the sky” as it hovered near Napier was watched for up to 20 minutes by the headmaster, teachers and more than 400 children at Richmond School, Maraenui, yesterday afternoon.”

..And then we get into the guts of it:

“Witnesses to the sighting said there was an “unearthly quiet” as the usually noisy children stopped their play and watched awed and fascinated by the saucer shaped object. The headmaster, Mr. W. Billing, said he was watching the children playing in the school grounds when he noticed the object move in from the south. “I thought it was an aircraft at first”, he said. “Then I realised it had stopped moving and it appeared as an extremely brilliant object in the clear sky.”.”

Then one of those mini-sub-heading lines keep us interested with: “GLISTENING OBJECT”, then the article continues:

“As he drew his teachers’ attention to it, the children also spotted the object and stopped their play. “It was like a huge, wingless plane with the sun glistening on it. But what amazed us was that it was also glistening on the side away from the sun” he said. The object seemed to be hovering in an area between Westshore and Tongoio. “We were watching it when a plane came into view and landed. There was definitely no comparison between the object and the aircraft.” he said.”

The next little sub-heading reads, “LIKE ROUND BALL” and keeps the article going:

“After hovering for three or four minutes, the object began to move away. “It then moved at ring-angles, and the next thing we knew it was like a round ball with the middle a transparent-like sheen.” “It then flattened out again and continued to move away in a straight lune to become like a bright star.” “All of a sudden it seems to light up again, like an extremely brilliant planet, and then fade again before it moved away at speed,” Mr Billing said. The object was last sighted about 2:23pm.”

Yet another mini-sub-heading reads “APPEARED SOLID”. The article continues:

“It wasn’t a weather balloon, which you wouldn’t see change from a round to an oval shape,” Mr. Billing said. “It was also definitely a solid object, and you seemed to get the feeling it was metallic.” One of the teachers, Mr. A. Coveny, said he had read reports of people sighting unidentified objects but he had always been “rather sceptical”… until yesterday. “We thought half of Napier would have seen it” he said. “Here at the school, everyone was standing with their mouths open trying to work out a logical answer to it.” A pupil had come to him for an answer. “He asked me if it was a flying saucer and I said “yes” because I couldn’t give any other answer,” Mr. Coveny said.”

The final sub-heading in the article reads “HOLE IN THE SKY”, and continues:

“The sighting had stopped the usual sounds of noisy play.” “The whole area seemed to be so unnaturally quiet that it was uncanny”, he said. It was not only the movements of the “flying saucer” which were unearthly, but also the appearance of the craft when it changed shape. “There was an iridescence from it, and it looked as though it was an actual hole in the sky – just as if you were looking through it into another dimension” the teacher said.”

On the continuing page of the newspaper, there was even a picture. I would normally be ashamed to publish something so poorly imaged, and I will be obtaining a better copy, but for now it is all I have.

Luckily the caption is clear, and it reads:

“THE HEADMASTER of Richmond School, Mr W. Billing (at right), points today in the direction in which he saw an object in the sky yesterday. With him is one of the teachers who saw the object, Mr. A. Coveny. Above: Two sketches, showing the two different shapes the object conveyed to watchers, which were drawn by Mr. Billing.”

Other than two similar newspaper articles with similar, but less detailed, accounts of the sighting, this is all I have... All except these two drawings neatly placed on the one page by either the school teachers themselves, or by interested parties thereafter. Bryan Dickenson has kindly supplied me with this image from his files.

If anyone knows more about this case, such as the whereabouts of the teachers, or whether the Royal New Zealand Air Force was asked for comment, or if it was explained somehow, I would like to hear from you. If you could save me a few days, it will be rewarded.

NORAD And The UFO Smokescreen

Part 5

This is Part 5 of an ongoing series regarding the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) and their involvement UFO phenomenon. I have already detailed over a dozen pages of declassified military documents that show us that tangible UFO events have come to the attention of NORAD. The first four posts in my series can be found here, here, here and here.

Dealing With NORAD: An Introduction

Dealing with NORAD is not easy. Normally, one would request information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from an American government agency, or under the Access to Information Act (ATIA) from a Canadian government agency. However, NORAD is a “bi-national” organisation, and the governments involved decided to “exempt” it from either FOIA or ATIA in 1982. However, the US’s Northern Command (NORTHCOM), who partly controls NORAD, can process FOI requests for NORAD records – but everything is on NORAD’s terms. The actual response one gets from the NORTHCOM FOIA and Privacy Act Requester Service Center at Peterson Air Force Base for NORAD records is, except in exceedingly rare cases:

“NORAD as a bi-national organization is not subject to FOIA. No search of records will be conducted.”

With a statement like that, what hope does anyone have of obtaining NORAD records (be they radar data analysis reports, position statements, operational reports, etc) regarding UFO activity? In due course, I will explore this at much greater length. Despite this information vacuum, a number of NORAD records have been released during the last few decades. In this post I will focus on airspace management and so-called “air breathing” events. In the next post I will focus on space-based issues. Also, much of the following findings, unlike my previous NORAD-related posts, have only been possible due to the ceaseless efforts of British research, colleague and friend David Charmichael. Together we have managed to discover more about NORAD and the UFO matter than has been discovered for some time.

Currently, NORAD is divided in eight areas known as “J Directorates”. “J2” and “J3” are of most importance to us. J2 is the Directorate of Intelligence, and J3 is the Directorate of Operations. Furthermore, within J3 there are a number of divisions. We have ascertained that the “Aerospace Operations Division” is responsible for the unknown tracks, and, thus, the UFO matter. This division is known as number “3”. So, when written in official documentation, the whole abbreviation is “J33” or sometimes “J3(3)”. On top of that, there is further breakdown of the J33 area, but the details seem to be classified. We have, however, managed to find out that there is an sub-division of J33 called “Airspace Management” which could be of importance. It is known as the “C” sub-division of J33, written as J33C. We also know of other areas of NORAD that appear to be significant to the UFO matter, as we shall soon see.

NORAD Doctrine For “Unknowns”

As for official NORAD documentation, two tantalising Instructions I have on file are “NI 10-5 (OPERATIONS) IDENTIFICATION OF AIR TRAFFIC”, dated 31^st January, 1996, and “NI10-19 (OPERATIONS) AEROSPACE REPORTING SYSTEM”, dated 12 April 1996. Both Instructions are promulgated “BY ORDER OF CINCNORAD” – The Commander-in-Chief of NORAD. The introduction section of “NI 10-5 (OPERATIONS) IDENTIFICATION OF AIR TRAFFIC” states:

“This instruction describes how to identify airborne objects, to include aerial drug trafficking, with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) system.”

Section 2.1 states:

“NORAD regions attempt to identify all detected airborne objects (tracks) approaching the North American Continent…”

Below is the first page of NI 10-5 (OPERATIONS) IDENTIFICATION OF AIR TRAFFIC. It may be worth noting that David Charmicahel and I feel that this publication could still be classified, or, was re-classified after a careless release. I have chosen to publish anyway.

The following pages continue in sectioned point form, and reveal that NORAD – at least in the late 1990’s and into the 2000’s – categorised tracks as either “Friendly” or “Non-Friendly”. These categories are further subdivided into the classifications, “Unknown”, “Interceptor”, “AWACS”, “Special”, “Hostile” or “Faker”. Finally, a track that is awaiting classification is designated “Pending”. Tracks that remain “Unknown” – despite all attempts to identify them – are designated “NORAD Remaining Unknown”, or “NRU”. These events are – or were in the past – rapidly entered on a form known as “NORAD Form 61: Unknown Track Report”. One wonders how many of these “unknowns” have been bona-fide UFO’s. All “Unknown” and “NRU” events have always been classified SECRET. Also, some of the raw data used to be kept in a special NORAD database titled “NORAD Unknown Track Reporting System” and abbreviated to “NUTR”. Discovered by researchers Robert Todd and Barry Greenwood in 1989, NORAD released a general description page of this system after persistent enquiries and FOI requests. The database contained details of seven thousand unknown tracks compiled between 1971 and 1990. Below is an image of the database descriptor page begrudgingly released in 1990.

Upon discovering this database, Robert Todd immediately asked NORAD for a release of the contents of the database and was furnished with a series of almost entirely redacted database print outs. The columns were labelled as “HOW ID”, “Sum of Count of TRK #” and “Sum of Sum of # OBJ”. Also, a breakdown for, presumably, “Remaining Unknowns” is visible. But that’s it. The rest of the details – method of detection and verification, altitude and speed of object(s), place of last detection, etc – was blacked out. I am currently asking NORAD to release this old information, and I will discuss that in a later blog post. Below is an example of the database print out of unknown tracks and remaining unknowns. In this page, a total of 95 unknown tracks is listed, with 98 objects detected. This page seems to be results for a single NORAD Region, or, a USAF Air Division with direct data feed to NORAD. The time period is perhaps 6 months or 12 months of events, but we never found out, and NORAD weren’t offering to tell us.

Do NORAD actual study these events further? After years of speculation it turns out that NORAD do indeed investigate these occurrences further, despite having indicated otherwise – and now we have it in black-and-white.

Investigating “Unknowns”

The above mentioned Instruction states that NORAD’s Air Defense Operations Centre (ADOC) passes relevant unknown track data on to a specialist area. Specifically, section 11.1 states:

“The ADOC sends a copy of these reports to the Centre for Aerospace Analysis (N/SPANA).”

The Centre for Aerospace Analysis? N/SPANA? We know very little about this organisation, expect that it appears to have been a “joint” area between both NORAD and the old United States Space Command (SPACECOM). In fact, “N/S” (in the organisational code “N/SPANA”) almost certainly stands for “NORAD/SPACECOM”. SPACECOM was absorbed into the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) in 2002. Interestingly, in 1995, British researcher Armen Victorian received a reply to one of his enquiries to NORAD which stated:

“The Aerospace Analysis Directorate of US Space Command does perform analysis on NORAD Unknown Track Reports... ….they perform their analysis under the auspices of their NORAD role, utilising a dedicated NORAD data base.”

This information given to Armen Victorian matches what we know from the NI 10-5 Instruction. Maybe the titles “Centre for Aerospace Analysis” and “Aerospace Analysis Directorate” are the same thing, just with lazy or interchangeable title referencing.

What does any of this matter? It matters because it proves both NORAD and SPACECOM were jointly handling unknown track data above-and-beyond initial detection and plotting. We only have the 1996 version of NI 10-5 (OPERATIONS) IDENTIFICATION OF AIR TRAFFIC so much of this information is twenty years old, but it is a lot more than we knew before. Vague rumours have abounded for decades that NORAD investigated the UFO issue, but now we have something concrete. Obtaining a current copy of this publication has met with difficulty – and that’s putting it mildly. Either way, it would be very surprising if NORAD were not still passing significant unknown track information – UFO data in its purest form – to technical specialists in dedicated cells.

Aerospace Reporting and The Elusive “Form 61”

Another NORAD Instruction which directly relates to the UFO matter is “NI10-19 (OPERATIONS) AEROSPACE REPORTING SYSTEM”. It states:

“This instruction outlines the procedures to report surveillance, tactical action, and supporting information to Commander in Chief, North American Aerospace Defense Command (CINCNORAD) and subordinate NORAD commanders.”

Chapter 6 of this Instruction, titled “Track Reporting”, begins:

“6.1. Purpose. Track reporting provides significant air activity information to the NMCC and CINCNORAD through the NORAD Air Defense Operations Center (ADOC). The information is essential for the proper execution of NORAD's mission of warning and attack assessment, air sovereignty and air defense.”

Further on, in section 6.2.3. it is stated:

“….Information on all Unknown tracks must be immediately electronically forward told. The completed Form 61 will be forwarded NLT 1 hour after final action is completed unless otherwise directed by the ADOC. Information on any track, regardless of classification, perceived to be a threat (e.g. foreign military combat aircraft) or of national interest will immediately be electronically and voice forwarded to the ADOC.”

And, just to be sure:

“6.2.5. NORAD agencies use Form 61 to record air activity information on Unknown, Special 17 and 21 tracks.”

So, at least some years ago, this “Form 61” – or, full title, “NORAD Form 61: Unknown Track Report” – is an item of the utmost importance. Containing real-time, accurate data on “unknowns”, and studied further by whatever “N/SPANA” became, or possibly a sub-division of the current J33 area of NORAD, these sets of data could be brimming with real UFO cases that need, in my view, to see the light of day. Apparently, however, Form 61’s are kept for only five years. Below is an image of a 1977 Form 61. Obtaining a more recent version has met with difficulty.

Now that I have dealt with NORAD’s atmospheric detections and study of unknowns, I will move on to space-based events in the next blog post of this series. Beyond that, I will continue to highlight what how NORAD play the game now – in 2015 – with myself and David Charmichael. Much effort has gone into this work, and, like so much in the UFO topic, more questions are raised than there are enough answers for.

The Australian "Fireball" Wave of 1902

Normally I wouldn’t do a blog post on ball-lightening and the like. But when dozens of cases, according to old newspaper articles, occurred in an three or four week period across southern and eastern Australia – some resulting in severe injury and considerable property damage, and some occurring at high noon – I take a bit more notice. Recently, I, plus long-time Adelaide based researcher Keith Basterfield and American researcher Barry Greenwood, have been loitering on the huge digitised newspaper section of “Trove”. Maintained by The National Library of Australia (NLA), Trove is an online library “database aggregator” and “free faceted-search engine”. For UFO researchers, the digitised newspaper zone is invaluable. It already contains more than 100 million newspaper articles, documenting more than 150 years of Australian history. Recently, Keith and I published some new findings:

http://ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/massive-new-digitisation-of-newspapers.html

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/australian-sightings-1947-prior-to-24.html

However, aside from just seemingly “classic” UFO events, Australia’s digitised newspapers contain something stranger still. From mid-November to late December, 1902, Australia’s southern and eastern states were the scene of widespread and focused aerial phenomenon that hardly fits into any category. An explosive outburst – literally – of ball lighting, or “globular lighting”, plus maybe far more complex, electrically charged atmospheric activity, plus traditional “fireballs” of the meteoric type, is one of the oddest manifestations of pre-Arnold aerial peculiarity I have seen in a while. Interestingly, experts of the day were, in fact, already clearly likening the reports to what we now term ball lightning, which was then very controversial.

Barry Greenwood, author of the game-changing UFO blockbuster Clear Intent, very kindly supplied me with dozens of Trove-sourced newspaper clippings on these events, rather than me go and find them all from scratch. Time is precious, and many hands make light work. Some of those clippings are imaged further on in this post. I asked Barry for his thoughts:

“Given that it was scientists were making the statements, this made the events that bit more extraordinary. With reports of meteors tossed into the mix, not necessarily part of the meteorological oddities, fireballs were the talk of the time. It seems like it was one of the greatest ball lightning outbursts ever, seemingly unique to Australia if you will check fireball reports there in other times.”

Unique indeed… But what do the articles of the time say exactly? And what can we deduce from these reports? In the Melbourne Leader, November 22, 1902, readers were greeted with this the headline “FIREBALLS IN AUSTRALIA”, and “PROFESSOR GREGORY’S OPINION” underneath. The article reads:

Professor Gregory, of Melbourne University, was asked for his views on the cablegram indicating that Sir Norman Lockyer, of South Kensington, believed that the fire balls seen in Australia last week were of volcanic origin. “Sir Norman Lockyer,” replied the professor, “is one of the most eminent of living authorities on atmospheric electricity, and his opinion, therefore, is of the greatest weight. I do not for one moment think, however, that he intended, to convey the opinion that the fireballs seen in Australia were of volcanic origin. What he no doubt meant to say, was that the fireballs seen at Mont Pelee and at La Souffriere were of the same nature as those seen in Australia though produced by different causes. The fireballs produced by volcanic action were the result of dust being driven through the air with such force as to cause friction between the particles; the friction producing electricity, and the electricity expressing itself in globular form. The fireballs which were observed during the great dust storm of last week were produced by the same mechanical action, with the exception that it was not volcanic but cyclonic, energy that set the dust in motion. There was no doubt a good deal of organic matter in the dust which found its way into Melbourne, and that of course would readily take fire.”

Some newspapers made it a regular feature titled “THE METEOROLOGICAL DISTURBANCES”. Under this banner, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, 14^thNovember, carried the headline “FIRE-BALLS IN VICTORIA” and sub-headlines“SOME REMABKABLE PHENOMENA” and “SCIENCE AT FAULT”. The article contains the comments from a Mr. Russell, a “government astronomer”, and reads:

“Now seriously Mr. Russell, what about these fire-balls in Victoria?” The government astronomer however had no idea of treating the question flippantly.

“Have you ever been to sea?” he retorted.

“Yes.”

“Then you’ve probably heard of what sailors call St. Elmo Fire. It’s exactly the same kind of thing they seem to have had in Victoria.” Now, St. Elmo Fire, though it belongs to the traditions of the sea, is witnessed about once in 10 lifetimes.

But Mr. Russell feels impelled to believe in these fire balls from Victoria. A strong wind ‘passing over a parched country would naturally create curious electrical disturbances – “pockets” of electricity which would travel in irresponsible directions, and burst somewhere in the vicinity of a prominent chimney stack or church steeple. They would always seek the nearest point. There are some remarkable instances on record of these erratic electric balls, but science is at a dead loss to account for them. Francois Arago, the “daddy” of meteorologists in all the ages, says: – “Globular lightning of which I have cited so many examples, and which are so remarkable, first for the slowness and uncertainty of their movements, and next for the extent of damage they occasion in exploding, appear to me to be at present one of the most in explicable problems within the range of physics. These balls or globes of fire seem to be agglomerations of ponderable substances, strongly impregnated with matter of lightning. How are such agglomerations formed? In what region are they produced? What is their nature? Why do they sometimes pass over in their course, and are afterwards precipitated with great rapidity, etc? To all these questions science returns no answer.” But because science cannot explain the phenomena, scientists do not utterly disregard evidence of fact. Arago himself relates many remarkable instances which have been vouched for by reliable witnesses.

Some of the articles deal with phenomena of clearly celestial and meteoric nature, but even some of these are oddities. The Hobart Mercury, December 1^st, carried a small article which reads:

ALBURY, November 23. At an early hour yesterday morning members of the police force on duty observed a fire ball in the western sky. The phenomenon was of startling brilliancy, illuminating the sky with almost daylight clearness. It proceeded slowly and then appeared to part in two, one portion falling towards the earth and the other becoming lost in space. The light emitted was of a pale greenish color, and of blinding brilliancy.

I’d like to find someone – at atmospheric physicist I suppose – who may shed some light on all this. Can a “wave” of intense, near-nationwide ball-lightening and plasma occur? Over 4 or 5 weeks? Often in the middle of the day? Barry and I are still finding more of these articles. There may be hundreds. I would challenge others to give it a go. Below are what we have so far.