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Title: Americans believe in God -- and hell, UFOs, witches, astrology: poll (and miracles - we could use one)
Source:
Raw Story
URL Source: http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Americ ... n_God_and_hell_U_12042007.html
Published: Dec 4, 2007
Author: AFP
Post Date: 2007-12-04 17:15:46 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 1478
Comments: 110
An overwhelming majority of Americans believe in God and signicant numbers also think that UFOs, the devil and ghosts exist, a poll showed Tuesday. The survey by Harris Online showed that 82 percent of adult Americans believe in God and a slightly smaller percentage -- 79 percent -- believe in miracles. More than 70 percent of the 2,455 adults surveyed between November 7 and 13 said they believe in heaven and angels, while more than six in 10 said they believed in hell and the devil. Almost equal numbers said they believe in Darwin's theory of evolution (42 percent) -- the belief that populations evolve over time through natural selection -- and creationism (39 percent) -- the theory that God created mankind. Seventy percent of Americans said they were very (21 percent) or somewhat (49 percent) religious, while around one-third of those polled also said they believe in UFOs, witches and astrology.
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#26. To: Alan Chapman (#25)
Post 23 too far down the thread for you to see? It might pop your little bubble Alan, so proceed with caution if you dare.
In fact Alan, take a peek at post 22 while you're at it...
You seem like a fairly bright guy Alan, so why can't you understand there's something more than pot covers flying around? We are but one planet of a solar system of eight others. Our solar system is but one of billions of others in this galaxy, and our galaxy is but one of billions of others in THIS universe alone. It is ridiculous to think we are the only ones. Do you think pie plates flew over Washington DC (repeatedly) in 1952? Or that thousands (over 500) of them flew over Farmington, NM, in 1950? Is this a pie plate or pot lid too Alan? Here's another interesting "pie plate" for you to watch.. Is this little guy a pie maker Alan? On June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold claimed that he'd seen nine "crescent shaped" aircraft near Mount Rainier. He said they reminded him of saucers skimming over water. An editor of the Eastern Oregonian reported that Arnold saw "round" objects. Other reports noted "disc-shaped" objects. Within a few weeks, there were hundreds of reports nationwide of sightings of flying "saucers." It's interesting how sightings become contagious. The U.S. military built and tested many flying wings during the 1940s. Here's the Northrop N-1M. It's maiden flight was in 1941. The Germans also built flying wings. Where do people know about flying saucers? Why were there a bunch of flying saucer and alien invasion movies made in the 1950s? Science-fiction magazines from the 1920s: Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds
This one is computer generated. I've seen it before. There are several on YouTube. The b/w is far too fuzzy to make out anything.
Please don't resort to ridiculous swamp gas explanations to explain the 1952 Washington DC sightings (visual AND radar), or the 1950 Farmington mass sighting. The aerial characteristics and flight performance of the objects in those cases are way beyond anything yet produced, so get off the "we had cresent shaped aircraft" kick. In regards to the two videos I posted (post 29 & post 30), are those Northrop N- 1M aircraft being imagined as flying saucers from Mars due to a radio broadcast in 1938?
Not if you watch the entire video.
Concerning the craft flying over the lake, it does APPEAR to be fake, but with the camera moving, going out of focus in parts, and zooming in, it'd have to be one HELL of a computer in order to generate a moving object that stays in perspective throughout the video..
You still have no explanation for the 1952 Washington DC sightings or the 1950 Farmington, NM sighting.
Let me guess, you're going to try to tell me these are migrating birds, right? Right! Or swamp gas. Or the witnesses were all drunk.
Shut your whore mouth, Mr. President.
Looks like the US Army needed some target practice back 1942, since they couldn't knock out of the sky whatever it was that hovered over LA for hours early one February morning.. Or it was the planet Venus, it was a secret US aircraft, it was a weather balloon, etc., etc., etc. ....
I don't know what Farmington residents saw and they apparently don't either. The article says, "Estimates of the number ranged from several to more that 500." It says that 3 people called the newspaper but hundreds were seen in the streets looking skyward. I think only a small handful of people saw "something" and the rest came out to see what the excitement was all about. Soon, everybody was seeing something. It's really no difference than a mass of people all claiming to see a ghost. The video of lights over the capitol isn't evidence of anything except lights over the capitol. Bolling AFB (built 1918) and Reagan National Airport (formerly Washington National Airport, built 1941) are both in the direction in which the lights are moving. They're moving at speed consistent with aircraft and in formation. They also appear to be turning as you can see the top row of lights moving forward in relation to the lights on the bottom.
So US Air Force interceptors didn't know what they were chasing, and three different radar sites didn't know the difference between aircraft in a normal flight pattern and unknowns, eh?
BTW, here's a bit more on 1952 sightings..
Battle of Los Angeles It appears that they may have been firing at nothing at all but they managed to kill several civilians.
You're now trying to twist the story to make it into something more comfortable for you. Here's what the article stated; Clayton J. Boddy, 32, business manager of Farmington Times and a former Army Engineers captain in Italy, was one of those who saw the startling objects. Boddy was on roadway when all of a sudden I noticed a few moving objects high in the sky. "Moments later there appeared what seemed to be about 500 of them," Boddy continued. He could not estimate their size or speed, but said they appeared to be about 15,000 feet high. Boddy's account was confirmed by Joseph C. and Francis C. Kelloff, retail grocers from Antonito, Colo., who were in Farmington to inspect the site of a proposed new store, and by Bob Foutz and John Burrell of Farmington. The Kelloffs said the objects appeared to be flying in formation. One of the most impressive accounts came from Harold F. Thatcher, head of the Farmington unit of the Soil Conservation service. Thatcher made a triangulation on one of a number of flying craft, He said if it had been a B-29 it would have been 2,000 feet high and traveling more than 1000 miles per hour. John Bloomfield, another employee of Smoak's garage, said the objects he saw traveled at a speed that appeared to him to be about 10 times faster than that of jet planes. In addition, he said the objects frequently made right-angle turns. "They appeared to be coming at each other head-on," he related. "At the last second, one would veer at right angles upward, the other at right angles downward. One saucer would pass another and immediately the one to the rear would zoom into the lead." Marlow Webb, another garage employee, said the objects to the naked eye appeared to be about eight inches in diameter as seen from the ground. He described them as about the size of a dinner plate." "They flew sideways, on edge and at every conceivable angle," he said. "This is what made it easy to determine that they were saucer-shaped." None of the scores of reports told of any vapor trail or engine noise. Nor did anyone report any windows or other markings on the craft. Film crew lights bouncing off reflecting pool and onto clouds?
"Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has." - William S Burroughs
If they couldn't bring down even one of the "slow moving aircraft" with the barrage of anti-aircraft rounds fired that night, it's a good thing Japan never tried to attack the West Coast... Hmmm. Did you read the articles in my post? Three different Washington radars picked up the objects, and jet interceptors were scrambled. This occured on MULTIPLE occasions in July of 1952 over restricted airspace in Washington DC. Even Truman's staff saw the objects.
I did read it, but I don't trust anything I see or read on the internet. Or see on TV or read in books, for that matter. I've decided to write a book on dialectic geometry.
"Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has." - William S Burroughs
Uh huh.
Birds are precisely what those are, and birds are probably what the folks in Farmington saw. The behavior they witnessed perfectly describes bird behavior.
Birds are precisely what those are Hmmm, round birds without wings that glow and dart around at approximately 10,000 feet. Yep. , and birds are probably what the folks in Farmington saw. The behavior they witnessed perfectly describes bird behavior. According to witnesses, the saucer shaped objects moved at 1000 mph and in right angles, with several apparently engaged in what seemed like a "dog fight". Yeah, birds. Uh huh.
BTW, it's good to know a bit about what you're all about Alan. I'll take what you say with a few grains of salt from now on...
You can tell the altitude of those birds just from watching the video? They look round for several reasons. They're far away and each one takes up only a few pixels in the image. They blur and smear when he zooms in. If you understand the way digital compression works, adjacent pixels are averaged to give a smoother picture and reduce pixelation. It's called anti-aliasing. They're not perfectly spherical. If you look closely you can see that they have greater width than height. They didn't look to me like they were glowing. They looked white like seagulls. According to witnesses, the saucer shaped objects moved at 1000 mph and in right angles, with several apparently engaged in what seemed like a "dog fight". When viewed from the ground, birds may appear to be moving at high speed when passing in front of clouds. Move your hand quickly in front of your face while looking at something in the distance. Wow, your hand must've moved at thousands of miles per hour! Birds can make high speed turns which might look like right angles. They can also ascend very quickly when entering columns of warm air. I think the Farmington residents had too much to drink and took a little creative license when telling their story. You know, the one that got away is always ten times bigger in the imagination than it is in reality.
I think your head is up in the clouds. And I see you're resorting to the "they were drunk" comments. How original. Yeah, the whole town was cocked and thought they saw saucer shaped craft performing instantaneous 90 degree manuevers while flying at extremely high speeds, where it was really just a bunch of birds. I'm GW Bush, but don't tell anyone, as they might be drunk and think I'm Dick Cheney.
BTW, are you one of those that still insists Iraq had WMD in 2003 and that they were working on a nuclear weapon?
I suppose USAF Captain Ruppelt must be a drunk as well as the F-86 pilot that shot at a UFO, eh? From F-86 intercepts and shoots at saucer-shaped UFO One of the things I've noticed about the hangers on of such as the "Septics" Society, PSICOP, and such is that they are totally unmoved by evidence. That's why I generally don't argue with them (although they are fun to needle by dissecting their illogic and pointing out how closed minded they are). Their mind is made up and they do not want to be confused by no steenking evidence. Regardless of the witness, or any other evidence produced, it is all dismissed preemptorily with a wave of the rhetorical hand, and done so without examination. After all they already know it does not and cannot exist and so there is no reason to make an objective examination of the MOUNTAINS of evidence. It might upset their digestion to be confronted with facts and observations that cannot be summarily dismissed. Of course to use the logic of the septics one could categorically deny the existence of atoms. After all you cannot see them and no one has ever photographed one. We have impact targets in particle accelerators but that is obviously faked since we all know that you cannot see them they therefore do not exist. As, I believe it was you, was commented earlier we live in an Island Galaxy that literally has billions of star systems and likely billions of habitable planets. To think we are alone and at the pinnacle of creation, living in splendid isolation the only inhabited planet in all of the macrocosmic all that has life and the conditions to support it requires a leap of faith greater than someone who finds evidences of the hand of creation in the great evolutionary jumps, which the septics cannot explain, which are evidenced in the known fossil record. As well one might point out that a military pilot that makes a public report of a UFO is subject to a 10,000 dollar fine and ten years in jail. Why would the government put forth such a regulation for something that does not exist? If they do not exist then the pilot must obviously be delusionally insane and should not be allowed anywhere near a high performance aircraft. Yet that is not the tack taken. Instead pilots are told to shut up and not talk about it under threats of draconian punishment. For something that does not exist?
"When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather - not screaming in terror like his passengers." - Unk.
A few people HAVE spoken out on matters a bit more serious than simple mass swarms of objects over a town... UFO sightings at ICBM sites and nuclear Weapons Storage Areas
It's sort of like those that insisted the earth was flat because if it were round we'd fall off. It's what they believe, and NO amount of evidence will change their minds.
There is quite a body of evidence that has seeped out from the military. Radar clockings of craft moving as fast as 9,000 mph, and reports of classified crash recovery teams who exist to scoop up the remains of crashed "craft". Also Civilian Air Traffic Controllers are forbidden to talk about UFOs as well. The septics can only maintain their stance by using strawman arguments. They will take an obvious hoax and then falsely imply that because one incident was proven a hoax that it proves that ALL sightings and reports are hoaxes. Their arguments are frequently dishonest and if all else fails they resort to argumentum ad hominem and accuse anyone who speaks of the evidence as a "kook" or a "drunk" etc., ....
"When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather - not screaming in terror like his passengers." - Unk.
The town obviously didn't know what they saw. ...are you one of those that still insists Iraq had WMD in 2003 and that they were working on a nuclear weapon? Nope. I strongly opposed the war from the beginning and my many hundreds of posts on various forums attest to it. I never thought Iraq had WMD. A UFO is an unidentified flying object. It means it couldn't be identified.
Exactly - the septics are the modern "Flat Earth Society". I would have less trouble with their antics if they were honest but they are not. They have an agenda that they support with absolute faith and like any fanatic will brook no theories which run contrary to their point of view. They are like the people who closed the Patent Office in the 1880's because everything that could be invented had already been invented. They were the people at Kittyhawk making "catcalls" at those crazy Wright Brothers. "If man were meant to fly God would have given him wings."
"When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather - not screaming in terror like his passengers." - Unk.
True, but limited. More accurately we can often rule out what it is NOT e.g., Venus, Swampgas, Drunken Seagulls, the Crazy Professor in his Flivver, etc., ... Science means you look at the evidence and hypothesize based upon the observed phenomena. It is not science to decide something is impossible or cannot exist "a priori". Science is not conducted by fiat or decree.
"When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather - not screaming in terror like his passengers." - Unk.
Have you ever looked over the MAJESTIC 12 documents?
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestThere isn't a shred of evidence of visitation by aliens in flying saucers. Even with the proliferation of billions of cameras, camera phones, and video cameras there still isn't any compelling evidence. All of those old b/w photos of flying saucers are nothing but people tossing pie pans and hub caps into the air.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#27. To: Alan Chapman, Original_Intent (#25)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#28. To: FormerLurker (#27)
#29. To: Alan Chapman (#28)
(Edited)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#30. To: Alan Chapman (#28)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#31. To: Alan Chapman (#28)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#32. To: FormerLurker (#27)
#33. To: FormerLurker (#30)
#34. To: Alan Chapman (#32)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#35. To: Alan Chapman (#33)
The b/w is far too fuzzy to make out anything.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#36. To: Alan Chapman (#33)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#37. To: Alan Chapman (#33)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#38. To: Alan Chapman (#32)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#39. To: FormerLurker (#38)
Let me guess, you're going to try to tell me these are migrating birds, right?
#40. To: Alan Chapman (#32)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#41. To: Indrid Cold (#39)
Right! Or swamp gas. Or the witnesses were all drunk.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#42. To: FormerLurker (#34)
#43. To: Alan Chapman (#42)
The video of lights over the capitol isn't evidence of anything except lights over the capitol. Bolling AFB (built 1918) and Reagan National Airport (formerly Washington National Airport, built 1941) are both in the direction in which the lights are moving. They're moving at speed consistent with aircraft and in formation. They also appear to be turning as you can see the top row of lights moving forward in relation to the lights on the bottom.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#44. To: Alan Chapman (#42)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#45. To: FormerLurker (#40)
#46. To: Alan Chapman (#42)
(Edited)
I think only a small handful of people saw "something" and the rest came out to see what the excitement was all about. Soon, everybody was seeing something. It's really no difference than a mass of people all claiming to see a ghost.
Fully half of this town's population still is certain today that it saw space ships or some strange aircraft -- hundreds of them zooming through the skies yesterday. Estimates of the number ranged from several to more that 500. Whatever they were, they caused a major sensation in this community, which lies only 110 air miles northwest of the huge Los Alamos Atomic installation.
Scores described the objects as silvery discs. A number agreed they saw one that was red in color -- bigger and faster, and apparently the leader.
Brooks, a B-29 tail gunner during the war, said he was positive the objects sighted were not airplanes. "The very maneuvering of the things couldn't be that of modern aircraft," he said.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#47. To: FormerLurker (#23)
What do you suppose these things are Dak?
#48. To: Alan Chapman (#45)
Battle of Los Angeles It appears that they may have been firing at nothing at all but they managed to kill several civilians.
Editor Peter Jenkins of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner reported, "I could clearly see the V formation of about 25 silvery planes overhead moving slowly across the sky toward Long Beach." Long Beach Police Chief J.H. McClelland said [4] "I watched what was described as the second wave of planes from atop the seven-story Long Beach City Hall. I did not see any planes but the younger men with me said they could. An experienced Navy observer with powerful Carl Zeiss binoculars said he counted nine planes in the cone of the searchlight. He said they were silver in color. The group passed along from one battery of searchlights to another, and under fire from the anti-aircraft guns, flew from the direction of Redondo Beach and Inglewood on the land side of Fort MacArthur, and continued toward Santa Ana and Huntington Beach. Anti-aircraft fire was so heavy we could not hear the motors of the planes."[5]
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#49. To: Dakmar (#47)
Film crew lights bouncing off reflecting pool and onto clouds?
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#50. To: FormerLurker (#49)
#51. To: Dakmar (#50)
I did read it, but I don't trust anything I see or read on the internet. Or see on TV or read in books, for that matter. I've decided to write a book on dialectic geometry.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#52. To: FormerLurker (#38)
#53. To: Alan Chapman (#52)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#54. To: Alan Chapman (#52)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#55. To: FormerLurker (#53)
#56. To: Alan Chapman (#55)
(Edited)
When viewed from the ground, birds may appear to be moving at high speed when passing in front of clouds.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#57. To: Alan Chapman (#55)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#58. To: Alan Chapman (#55)
In the summer of 1952 a United States Air Force F-86 jet interceptor shot at a flying saucer. This fact, like so many others that make up the full flying saucer story has never before been told. I know the full story about flying saucers and I know that it has never before been told because I organized and was chief of the Air Force Project Blue Book, the special project set up to investigate and analyze unidentified flying object, or UFO reports. (UFO is the official term that I created to replace the words 'flying saucers.")
There is a fighter base in the United States which I used to visit frequently because, during 1951, 1952, and 1953, it got more than its share of good UFO reports. The commanding officer of the fighter group, a full colonel and command pilot, believed that UFO's were real. The colonel believed in UFO's because he had a lot of faith in his pilots - and they had chased UFO's in their F-86's. He had seen UFO's on the scopes of his radar sets, and he knew radar. The colonel's intelligence officer, a captain, didn't exactly believe that UFO's were real, but he did think that they warranted careful investigation. The logic the intelligence officer used in investigating UFO reports - and in getting answers to many of them - made me wish many times that he worked for me on Project Blue Book.
One day the intelligence officer called me at my base in Dayton, Ohio. He wanted to know if I was planning to make a trip his way soon. When I told him I expected to be in his area in about a week, he asked me to be sure to look him up. There was no special hurry, he added, but he had something very interesting to show me. When we got wind of a good story, Project Blue Book liked to start working on it at once, so I asked the intelligence officer to tell me what he had. But nothing doing. He didn't want to discuss it over the phone. He even vetoed the idea of putting it into a secret wire. Such extreme caution really stopped me, because anything can be coded and put in a wire.
When I left Dayton about a week later I decided to go straight to the fighter base, planning to arrive there in midmorning. But while I was changing airlines my reservations got fouled up, and I was faced with waiting until evening to get to the base. I called the intelligence officer and told him about the mix-up. He told me to hang on right there and he would fly over and pick me up in a T-33 jet. As soon as we were in the air, on the return trip, I called the intelligence officer on the interphone and asked him what was going on. What did he have? Why all the mystery? He tried to tell me, but the interphone wasn't working too well and I couldn't understand what he was saying. Finally he told me to wait until we returned to his office and I could read the report myself. Report! If he had a UFO report why hadn't he sent it in to Project Blue Book as he usually did?
We landed at the fighter base, checked in our parachutes, Mae Wests, and helmets, and drove over to his office. There were several other people in the office, and they greeted me with the usual question, "What's new on the flying saucer front?" I talked with them for a while, but was getting impatient to find out what was on the intelligence officer's mind. I was just about to ask him about the mysterious report when he took me to one side and quietly asked me not to mention it until everybody had gone. Once we were alone, the intelligence officer shut the door, went over to his safe, and dug out a big, thick report. It was the standard Air Force reporting form that is used for all intelligence reports, including UFO reports. The intelligence officer told me that this was the only existing copy. He said that he had been told to destroy all copies, but had saved one for me to read. With great curiosity, I took the report and started to read. What had happened at this fighter base?
About ten o'clock in the morning, one day a few weeks before, a radar near the base had picked up an unidentified target. It was an odd target in that it came in very fast - about 700 miles per hour - and then slowed down to about 100 miles per hour. The radar showed that it was located northeast of the airfield, over a sparsely settled area. Unfortunately the radar station didn't have any height finding equipment. The operators knew the direction of the target and its distance from the station but they didn't know its altitude. They reported the target, and two F-86's were scrambled. The radar picked up the F-86's soon after they were airborne, and had begun to direct them into the target when the target started to fade on the radarscope. At the time several of the operators thought that this fade was caused by the target's losing altitude rapidly and getting below the radar's beam. Some of the other operators thought that it was a high flying target and that it was fading just because it was so high. In the debate which followed, the proponents of the high flying theory won out, and the F-86's were told to go up to 40,000 feet. But before the aircraft could get to that altitude, the target had been completely lost on the radarscope. The F-86's continued to search the area at 40,000 feet, but could see nothing. After a few minutes the aircraft ground controller called the F-86's and told one to come down to 20,000 feet, the other to 5,000 feet, and continue the search, The two jets made a quick letdown, with one pilot stopping at 20,000 feet and the other heading for the deck.
The second pilot, who was going down to 5,000 feet, was just beginning to pull out when he noticed a flash below and ahead of him. He flattened out his dive a little and headed toward the spot where he had seen the light. As he closed on the spot he suddenly noticed what he first thought was a weather balloon. A few seconds later be realized that it couldn't be a balloon because it was staying ahead of him. Quite an achievement for a balloon, since he had built up a lot of speed in his dive and now was flying almost straight and level at 3,000 feet and was traveling "at the Mach." Again the pilot pushed the nose of the F-86 down and started after the object. He closed fairly fast, until he came to within an estimated 1,000 yards. Now he could get a good look at the object. Although it had looked like a balloon from above, a closer view showed that it was definitely round and flat saucer shaped. The pilot described it as being "like a doughnut without a hole." As his rate of closure began to drop off, the pilot knew that the object was picking up speed. But he pulled in behind it and started to follow. Now he was right on the deck. About this time the pilot began to get a little worried. What should he do? He tried to call his buddy, who was flying above him somewhere in the area at 20,000 feet. He called two or three times but could get no answer. Next he tried to call the ground controller but he was too low for his radio to carry that far. Once more he tried his buddy at 20,000 feet, but again no luck. By now he had been following the object for about two minutes and during this time had closed the gap between them to approximately 500 yards. But this was only momentary. Suddenly the object began to pull away, slowly at first, then faster. The pilot, realizing that he couldn't catch it, wondered what to do next. When the object traveled out about 1,000 yards, the pilot suddenly made up his mind - he did the only thing that he could do to stop the UFO. It was like a David about to do battle with a Goliath, but he had to take a chance. Quickly charging his guns, he started shooting. . . . A moment later the object pulled up into a climb and in a few seconds it was gone. The pilot climbed to 10,000 feet, called the other F-86, and now was able to contact his buddy. They joined up and went back to their base.
As soon as he had landed and parked, the F-86 pilot went into operations to tell his story to his squadron commander. The mere fact that he had fired his guns was enough to require a detailed report, as a matter of routine. But the circumstances under which the guns actually were fired created a major disturbance at the fighter base that day.
After the squadron commander had heard his pilot's story, he called the group commander, the colonel, and the intelligence officer. They heard the pilot's story. For some obscure reason there was a "personality clash," the intelligence officer's term, between the pilot and the squadron commander. This was obvious, according to the report I was reading, because the squadron commander immediately began to tear the story apart and accuse the pilot of "cracking up," or of just "shooting his guns for the hell of it and using the wild story as a cover-up." Other pilots in the squadron, friends of the accused pilot - including the intelligence officer and a flight surgeon - were called in to "testify." All of these men were aware of the fact that in certain instances a pilot can "flip" for no good reason, but none of them said that he had noticed any symptoms of mental crack-up in the unhappy pilot. None, except the squadron commander. He kept pounding home has idea - that the pilot was "psycho" - and used a few examples of what the report called "minor incidents" to justify his stand.
Finally the pilot who had been flying with the "accused" man was called in. He said that he had been monitoring the tactical radio channel but that he hadn't heard any calls from his buddy's low flying F-86. The squadron commander triumphantly jumped on this point, but the accused pilot tended to refute it by admitting he was so jumpy that he might not have been on the right channel. But when he was asked if he had checked or changed channels after he had lost the object and before he had finally contacted the other F-86, he couldn't remember. So ended the pilot's story and his interrogation.
The intelligence officer wrote up his report of a UFO sighting, but at the last minute, just before sending it, he was told to hold it back. He was a little unhappy about this turn of events, so he went in to see why the group commander had decided to delay sending the report to Project Blue Book. They talked over the possible reactions to the report. If it went out it would cause a lot of excitement, maybe unnecessarily. Yet, if the pilot actually had seen what he claimed, it was vitally important to get the report in to ATIC immediately. The group commander said that he would make his decision after a talk with his executive officer. They decided not to send the report and ordered it destroyed.
When I finished reading, the intelligence officer's first comment was, "What do you think?" Since the evaluation of the report seemed to hinge upon conflicts between personalities I didn't know, I could venture no opinion, except that the incident made up the most fascinating UFO report I'd ever seen. So I batted the intelligence officer's question back to him. "I know the people involved," he replied, "and I don't think the pilot was nuts. I can't give you the report, because Colonel told me to destroy it. But I did think you should know about it." Later he burned the report.
The problems involved in this report are typical. There are certain definite facts that can be gleaned from it; the pilot did see something and he did shoot at something, but no matter how thoroughly you investigate the incident that something can never be positively identified. It might have been a hallucination or it might have been some vehicle from outer space; no one will ever know. It was a UFO.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#59. To: FormerLurker, Alan Chapman, TwentyTwelve, Wudidiz, all (#56)
#60. To: Original_Intent (#59)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#61. To: Original_Intent (#59)
As, I believe it was you, was commented earlier we live in an Island Galaxy that literally has billions of star systems and likely billions of habitable planets. To think we are alone and at the pinnacle of creation, living in splendid isolation the only inhabited planet in all of the macrocosmic all that has life and the conditions to support it requires a leap of faith greater than someone who finds evidences of the hand of creation in the great evolutionary jumps, which the septics cannot explain, which are evidenced in the known fossil record.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#62. To: FormerLurker (#60)
A few people HAVE spoken out on matters a bit more serious than simple mass swarms of objects over a town...
#63. To: FormerLurker (#56)
#64. To: FormerLurker (#61)
It's sort of like those that insisted the earth was flat because if it were round we'd fall off. It's what they believe, and NO amount of evidence will change their minds.
#65. To: Alan Chapman, FormerLurker (#63)
A UFO is an unidentified flying object. It means it couldn't be identified.
#66. To: Original_Intent (#64)
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
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