The Doomsday Conspiracy (38 page)

I telephoned Colonel cooper again to ask him if the letter was authentic. This time, he was more forthcoming. He informed me that it was and that on his journeys into space, he had personally witnessed several flights of UFOs. He also mentioned that other astronauts had had similar experiences that they were warned not to discuss. I have read a dozen books that prove conclusively that flying saucers exist. I have read a dozen books that prove conclusively that flying saucers do not exist. I have run videotapes purporting to be photographs of flying saucers and have met with therapists in the United States and abroad who specialize in hypnotizing people who claim to have been taken up into UFOs. The therapists say that they have handled hundreds of cases in which the details of the victims' experiences are startlingly similar, including identical, unexplainable marks on their bodies. An Air Force general in charge of the Blue Book Project-a United States government group formed to investigate flying saucers-assured me that there has never been any hard evidence of flying saucers or aliens. Yet, in the foreword to Timothy Good's remarkable book Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-up, Lord Hill-Norton, Admiral of the Fleet and British Chief of Defense Staff from 1971 to 1973, writes: The evidence that there are objects which have been seen in our atmosphere, and even on terra firma, that cannot be accounted for either as manmade objects or as any physical force or effect known to our scientists seems to me to be overwhelming. ... A very large number of sightings have been vouched for by persons whose credentials seem to me unimpeachable. It is striking that so many have been trained observers, such as police officers and airline or military pilots... In 1933 the 4th Swedish Flying Corps began an investigation of mysterious unmarked aircraft appearing over Scandinavia, and on April 30, 1934, Major-General Erik Reuterswaerd issued the following statement to the press: Comparisons of these reports show that there can be no doubt about illegal air traffic over our secret military areas. There are many reports from reliable people which describe close observation of the enigmatic flier. And in every case, the same remark can be noted; no insignias or identifying marks are visible on the machines.

... The question is: Who or what are they, and why have they been invading our air territory?

In 1947 Professor Paul Santorini, a leading Greek scientist, was asked to investigate missiles flying over Greece. His research, however, was curtailed: "We soon established that they were not missiles. But, before we could do any more, the Army, after conferring with foreign officials, ordered the investigation stopped. Foreign scientists flew to Greece for secret talks with me." (Emphasis added.) The professor confirmed that a "world blanket of secrecy" surrounded the UFO question because, among other reasons, the authorities were unwilling to admit the existence of a force against which there was "no possibility of defense."

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From 1947 to 1952, the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) received approximately fifteen hundred official reports of sightings. Of these the Air Force carries twenty percent as unexplained: Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, commander in chief of the RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain in 1940 wrote: More than 10,000 sightings have been reported, the majority of which cannot be accounted for by any

"scientific explanation." They have been tracked on radar screens ... and the observed speeds have been as great as 9,000 miles an hour. ... I am convinced that these objects do exist and that they are not manufactured by any nation on earth. [Emphasis added.] I can therefore see no alternative to accepting the theory that they come from an extraterrestrial source.

Recently, in Elmwood, Wisconsin, the entire town watched as flying saucers moved across their skies for several days.

* * * General Lionel Max Chassin, who rose to the rank of Commanding General of the French Air Forces and served as General Air Defense Co-ordinator, Allied Air Forces, Central Europe (NATO), wrote: That strange things have been seen is now beyond question. ... The number of thoughtful, intelligent, educated people in full possession of their faculties who have "seen something," and described it grows every day.

Then there was the famous Roswell Incident in 1947. According to eyewitness reports, on the evening of July 2, a bright disk-shaped object was seen over Roswell, New Mexico. The following day, widely scattered wreckage was discovered by a local ranch manager and his two children. The authorities were alerted, and an official statement was released confirming that the wreckage of a flying disk had been recovered. A second press statement was immediately issued stating that the wreckage was nothing more than the remains of a weather balloon, which was dutifully displayed at a press conference. Meanwhile, the real wreckage was reported to have been sent to Wright Field. The bodies were described by one witness as like human but they were not humans. The heads were round, the eyes were small, and they had no hair. Their eyes were widely spaced.

They were quite small by our standards and their heads were larger in proportion to their bodies. Their clothing seemed to be one-piece and grey in color. They seemed to be all males and there were a number of them. ... Military personnel took over and we were told to leave the area and not to talk to anyone about what we had seen. According to a document acquired from an intelligence source in 1984, a highly secret panel, code-named Majestic 12, or MJ-12, was formed by President Truman in 1947 to investigate UFOs and report its findings to the President. The document, dated November 18, 1952, and classified Top Secret/Majic/Eyes Only, was allegedly prepared by Admiral Hillenkoetter for president-elect Dwight Eisenhower and includes the astonishing statement that the remains of four alien bodies were recovered two miles from the Roswell wreckage site. Five years after the panel was formed, the committee wrote a memo to then president-elect Eisenhower about the UFO project and the need for secrecy: Implications for the National Security are of continuing importance, in that motives and ultimate intentions of these visitors remain completely unknown. ... It is for these reasons, as well as the obvious international technological considerations and the ultimate need to avoid a public panic at all costs, that the Majestic 12 Group remains Page 240

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of the unanimous opinion that imposition of the strictest security precautions should continue without interruption into the new administration.

The official explanation of denial is that the document's authenticity is questionable.

The National Security Agency is reported to be withholding more than one hundred documents relating to UFOs; the CIA, approximately fifty; and the DIA, six.

Major Donald Keyhoe, a former aide to Charles Lindbergh, publicly accused the United States government of denying the existence of UFOs in order to prevent public panic.

In August 1948, when a top secret Estimate of the Situation by the Air Technical Intelligence Center offered its opinion that UFOs were interplanetary visitors, General Vandenberg, Air Force Chief of Staff at the time, ordered the document burned. Is there a worldwide government conspiracy to conceal the truth from the public? In the short space of six years, twenty-three English scientists who worked on Star Wars-type projects have died under questionable circumstances. All of them had worked on different facets of electronic warfare, which includes UFO

research. A list of the deceased and the dates and circumstances of their deaths follows.

1. 1982. Professor Keith Bowden: killed in auto crash. 2. July 1982. Jack Wolfenden: died in glider accident. 3. November 1982. Ernest Brockway: suicide. 4. 1983. Stephen Drinkwater: suicide by strangulation.

5. April 1983. Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Godley: missing, declared dead.

6. April 1984. George Franks: suicide by hanging. 7. 1985. Stephen Oke: suicide by hanging. 8. November 1985. Jonathan Wash: suicide by jumping from a building. 9. 1986. Dr. John Brittan: suicide by carbonmonoxide poisoning. 10. October 1986. Arshad Sharif: suicide by placing a rope around his neck, tying it to a tree, and then driving away at high speed. Took place in Bristol, one hundred miles away from his home in London. 11. October 1986. Vimal Dajibhai: suicide by jumping from a bridge in Bristol, one hundred miles away from his home in London. 12. January 1987. Avtar Singh-Gida: missing, declared dead. 13. February 1987. Peter Peapell: suicide by crawling under car in garage.

14. March 1987. David Sands: suicide by driving car into cafe at high speed.

15. April 1987. Mark Wisner: death by selfstrangulation. 16. April 10, 1987. Stuart Gooding: killed in Cyprus. Page 241

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17. April 10,1987. David Greenhalgh: fell off a bridge. 18. April 1987. Shani Warren: suicide by drowning. 19. May 1987. Michael Baker: killed in auto crash. 20. May 1988. Trevor Knight: suicide. 21. August 1988. Alistair Beckham: suicide by self-electrocution. 22. August 1988. Brigadier Peter Ferry, suicide by self-electrocution. 23. Date unknown. Victor Moore: suicide.

Coincidences?

In the past three decades, there have been at least seventy thousand reports of mysterious objects in the sky and countless more sightings, perhaps ten times as many, that have gone unreported. Reports of UFOs have come from hundreds of countries all over the globe. In Spain, UFOs are known as objetos foladores no identificados; in Germany, fliegende Untertassen; in France, soucoupes volantes; in Czechoslovakia, letajici talire.

The eminent astronomer Carl Sagan has estimated that our Milky Way galaxy alone may contain some 250 billion stars. About a million of these, he believes, may have planets capable of supporting some form of civilization.

Our government denies the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, yet on Columbus Day, in 1992, in Cali fornia and Puerto Rico, NASA will activate radio telescopes equipped with special receivers and computers capable of analyzing tens of millions of radio channels at once to search for signs of intelligent life in the universe. NASA has nicknamed the mission MOP for Microwave Observing Project, but astronomers refer to it as SETI, for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

I have asked two former presidents of the United States whether they have any knowledge of UFOs or aliens, and their responses were negative. Would they have told me if they had had any information?

Given the blanket of secrecy that seems to surround the subject, I think not.

Do flying saucers really exist? Are we being visited by aliens from another planet? With new technology probing deeper and deeper into the universe, looking for signs of intelligent life in space, perhaps we will have the answer much sooner than we expect. There are many working in space exploration, astronomy, and cosmology who, not content to wait for that answer, put themselves out on a limb and make a prediction of their own. Jill Tartar, an astrophysicist and SETI project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, in Ames, Iowa, is among them: There are 400 billion stars in the galaxy. We're made of stardust, really common stuff. In a universe filled with stardust, it's hard to believe that we are the only creatures who could be. November 9, 1978 Ambassador Griffith Mission of Grenada to the United Page 242

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Nations 866 Second Avenue Suite 502 New York, New York 10017 Dear Ambassador Griffith: I wanted to convey my views on our extra-terrestrial visitors popularly referred to as "UFO's", and suggest what might be done to properly deal with them. I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which obviously are a little more technically advanced than we are here on earth. I feel that we need to have a top level, coordinated program to scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the earth concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion. We may first have to show them that we have learned to resolve our problems by peaceful means, rather than warfare, before we are accepted as fully qualified universal team members. This acceptance would have tremendous possibilities of advancing our world in all areas. Certainly then it would seem that the UN has a vested interest in handling this subject properly and expeditiously.

I should point out that I am not an experienced UFO professional researcher. I have not yet had the privilege of flying a UFO, nor of meeting the crew of one. I do feel that I am somewhat qualified to discuss them since I have been into the fringes of the vast areas in which they travel. Also, I did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation of many flights of them, of different sizes, flying in fighter formation, generally from east to west over Europe. They were at a higher altitude than we could reach with our jet fighters of that time. I would also like to point out that most astronauts are very reluctant to even discuss UFO's due to the great numbers of people who have indiscriminately sold fake stories and forged documents abusing their names and reputations without hesitation. Those few astronauts who have continued to have a participation in the UFO field have had to do so very cautiously. There are several of us who do believe in UFO's and who have had occasions to see a UFO on the ground, or from an airplane. If the UN agrees to pursue this project, and to lend their credibility to it, perhaps many more well-qualified people wiil agree to step forth and provide help and information.

I am looking forward to seeing you soon.

Sincerely, L. Gordon Cooper Col. USAF (Ret) Astronaut LCC:jm Page 243