les enquetes inedites

« Parfois, cette lumière au centre est comme une étoile, lorsqu’on l’aperçoit, avec des rayons autour : Mais souvent, c’est un peu comme un Y non net ou exact ».

La vision se situe peu ou prou au même endroit du ciel que précédemment, plein Ouest, mais un peu plus à droite de l’immeuble. Une lumière verte qui se met au rouge puis verte, etc… défile sous la base horizontale d’une espèce de haltère, de gauche à droite puis de droite à gauche. Toujours vers 23h 45. Cela se passe le dimanche 24 mai 2010.

« L’objet » se déplace face au témoin, en s’éloignant progressivement, tout en continuant ses va et viens lumineux….

Cette fois, nous sommes le dimanche 6 juin 2010. 23h45. « Je n’entends pas au départ le bruit de l’hélicoptère puisque c’est au travers des rideaux de notre chambre que je vois l’hélicoptère, sur la droite, au moment où je tire les double rideaux .Puis je retourne dans la cuisine et là, je vois la même chose que lors du « 2^ème ovni », mais les lumières sont rouges et blanches au lieu de rouge et verte. Je devrais dire « LA » lumière, puisque c’est comme un néon sous l’appareil, (sur toute sa longueur). « La chose » prend de l’altitude, semble pour moi « se perdre » dans un nuage. Je ne sais pas s’il y a un lien avec la vision qui va suivre….. »

….Ce qui suit, c’est l’apparition d’un objet aussi gros qu’un avion de ligne, mais tous feux éteints, un objet en forme de « croix » équilibrée, chaque élément de cette croix volante rappelant la forme d’un fuseau. Cet « objet » se déplace perpendiculairement à l’ immeuble, c'est-à-dire vers l’Est, et va le survoler. MP. va perdre ainsi de vue cet étrange phénomène qui évolue en silence, tel un avion fantôme…..Cet objet rappelle un objet semblable photographié par la NASA sur des prises de vue martiennes, la photo « bizarre », parmi bien d’autres, ayant été retirée du site de la NASA ( Conférence donnée au dernier repas UFO à Paris, le 6 juillet 2010, par Jean Claude Sidoun ).G.D.

Ci-dessous, une représentation imaginaire de la « croix noire », vue de dessus, par rapport aux proportions de l’immeuble survolé, d’après les indications du témoin. (Toutes ces représentations sont complètement validées par le témoin). G.D.

Cette représentation en vue « dessus » imaginaire permet de traduire par un schéma les explications du témoin. La longueur totale des deux immeubles mitoyens est de 50m environ. L’envergure totale des bras de la croix semble au témoin du même ordre, peut-être un peu plus grand encore... Le diamètre maximum des fuseaux est de l’ordre de 11M, soit la largeur du balcon de P, qui se trouve placée au centre de cet objet qui va survoler l’immeuble, à une altitude très basse, selon le témoin.

Dates	Heure	Observations	Delta jours
mercredi 26 août 2009		rayon laser bleu/vert émeraude
mardi 8 septembre 2009		décès du chat	13
mardi 15 septembre 2009		la lampe de chevet saute	7
lundi 5 avril 2010		déchirure dans le ciel	202
lundi 24 mai 2010		altères	49
dimanche 6 juin 2010	23:45	la croix	13
mardi 14 septembre 2010	23:15	l'œuf	100

Témoignage d’un phénomène aérien non identifié, situé au cœur de la ville de Créteil, le 14 septembre 2010, à 23h15, entre deux étages situés en altitude d’un immeuble, à moins de 10m de distance des balcons. Message laissé sur mon portable, à 9h 44 ce jeudi 16 septembre, (cette transcription a été validée par la gendarmerie de Gisors qui a vérifié la conformité de ce que j’ai écrit avec le message audio enregistré sur mon portable. L’ensemble de ce rapport ayant été remis à cette gendarmerie vendredi 17 septembre 2010.) Voici ce message :

« Je vous appelle parce vous avez l’Internet »….. « Quelqu’un a-t-il vu une boule orange de la taille d’un petit sous-marin de poche, avec plein de facettes lumineuses, mardi soir( le 14 septembre 2010-ndr) vers 23h15, parce qu’avant de vous expliquer ce que j’ai vu et ce qui s’est passé, je me demande de toute façon, je ne pense pas que ce soit extraterrestre, ou alors là alors là ma vie est complètement transformée si c’est le cas…je crois que plus rien ne me fera peur de ma vie, d’ailleurs j’ai pas eu peur du tout. Je pense que c’est une sorte de drone de la DST qui doit espionner les banlieues, voilà mon sentiment de ce que j’ai vu, parce c’est quelque chose qui est passé devant les balcons, que tout le monde a pu voir, et Dieu merci, je n’ai pas perdu mes moyens, je suis juste allée chercher un appareil photo que j’avais dans mon sac dans le couloir, j’ai réussi, avant qu’il n’ait disparu derrière mon immeuble, j’ai eu la chance de pouvoir faire deux photos sans flash, et si d’ailleurs vous savez l’endroit où je peux les faire développer dans l’heure qui suit pour vous les montrer mardi selon ce qui apparaîtra, voilà. Donc j’avais la chance d’avoir cet appareil photo dans mon sac dans le couloir…c’est quelque chose qui se déplace très très lentement donc j’ai eu le temps de pouvoir certainement immortaliser ce que j’ai vu. » …(le témoin répète qu’elle pense à un drone de la DST)… « parce que ça passe devant les balcons et ça ne fait aucun bruit, c’est comme sur coussin d’air. Ça avance très lentement, c’est hyper lumineux, comme s’il y avait des facettes comme dans les phares, pour vous expliquer, ça a la taille d’une petite Smart, mais avec juste l’habitacle. Je pense que quelqu’un d’autre a pu forcément le voir, ça circulait comme un hélicoptère qui aurait longé l’immeuble, quelqu’un d’autre a dû forcément voir quelque chose…. » (Message enregistré sur mon portable NOKIA, durée : un peu moins de 3 minutes. G.D.)

Lors de la conversation téléphonique que nous eûmes en soirée, MP. s’étendit longuement sur la magnificence des couleurs de l’objet, qui lui parurent absolument merveilleuses. Elle compara la forme générale de « l’objet » à une espèce « d’œuf de Fabergé ». Elle me signala que si l’objet avait bien une trajectoire horizontale rectiligne, le long de la façade de l’immeuble, légèrement située sous le plan défini par son balcon, cet objet marqua une véritable petite pose lorsqu’il fut situé face à son balcon.

Complément écrit de la main du témoin, sur une feuille épaisse de couleur rose, au format 21X21,297 et remise lors du repas ufologique de Paris, le 21 septembre 2010.

« Ce mardi 14 septembre 2010, le soir, il m’arrive quelque chose d’extraordinaire : j’attends l’émission sur « Madame Claude », et, d’un seul coup, je vois passer devant le balcon quelque chose d’incroyable ! La réalité dépassant la fiction !

Un véhicule ressemblant à une sorte d’œuf orangé à l’extérieur et jaune à l’intérieur, (de forme ovoïde, superbe, un peu comme un œuf de Fabergé), et lumineux comme du feu, mais solide et avançant tout doucement, s’arrêtant lorsque je suis sortie à toute vitesse sur le balcon, et continuant ensuite son « petit bonhomme de chemin », entre le balcon et la petite école. Il ne faisait aucun bruit, avançant dans l’espace. C’était superbe, digne d’un film de SF. Je pense qu’il doit s’agir d’un drone, pour espionner les banlieues. Mais quelle merveille de technologie ! Je n’imaginais pas qu’une telle merveille existe sur terre. Il y avait des sortes de plaques comme des panneaux solaires sur le véhicule, de la taille, (à peu près), d’un habitacle de Smart, (sans la carrosserie).

Ces panneaux faisaient à peu près 10cmX18cm, du moins à ce que je voyais de la distance qui nous séparait), me semblant rectangulaires plus que carrés. J’ai couru dans l’entrée pour prendre mon appareil photo jetable, et j’ai pu prendre deux photos avant qu’il ne tourne, à peu près à la hauteur de la bretelle d’autoroute, (pour sortir lorsque l’on vient chez moi) et donc a disparu lorsqu’il a tourné, caché par l’immeuble.

J’ai hâte de voir ce que les photos donneront(1) ! Moi qui ai toujours dit, depuis l’enfance, que quelque chose de merveilleux allait m’arriver (2), je crois que c’est fait !!!!!! ».

(1)- les photos, depuis l’origine, avec le négatif, ont suivi un parcours sécurisé, à l’aller et au retour, afin d’être confiées à des spécialistes incontestés, et pour exprimer des résultats incontestables.

(2)- cette remarque est très étrange pour moi : c’est exactement ce que m’avait déclaré M.D. lors de mon enquête sur « l’affaire d’Haravilliers ».

Autre remarque : cette vision de « l’œuf » intervient, à un jour près, un an après l’étrange épisode du double pinceau de lumière qui avait éclairé la lampe de chevet.

Ci-dessous : Après de nombreux essais, (plus d’une douzaine), deux contacts amis et talentueux se sont attelés à tenter de réaliser un montage photo qui correspond, selon le témoin, à ce qu’elle a vu, à un moment de sa perception. Les deux artistes sont Philippe Bécat, professeur honoraire de technologie, et Vincent Leroux, Graphiste.

Et maintenant, passons au compte rendu de l’analyse des photos de l’objet prises par M.P.

« Un expert en photographie et effets spéciaux intéressé par ce cas est venu à San Francisco aujourd'hui et nous avons passé 3 heures à l'étude des photographies concernant l’affaire de Créteil. Nous avons filmé les ouvertures de l'enveloppe et documenté qu'elle n'a pas été manipulée, et le film était intact, ainsi que les épreuves qui avaient été imprimées en France.

L'analyse a été effectuée en utilisant un scanner Nikon LS 4000 relié à un MacBook Pro.images permettant une résolution de 5782 pixels x 3940 (pour la couleur: profondeur de 8 bits), ce qui induit des fichiers d’un poids de 65,3 mégaoctets par image. Après numérisation, les images ont été analysées avec PhotoShop "courbes" et d'autres logiciels.

Comme premier test, le cliché numéro zéro a été examiné. Pas d'image trouvée. Il y avait des impuretés sur le négatif et aussi ce qui semblait être une petite tache d’origine chimique.

Les épreuves qui peuvent correspondre à la description du témoin sont les deux dernières images sur le film, à savoir celles numérotées 25 et 26 (sur un rouleau de 24 images du film). Bien que ces épreuves paraissent « blanches », il s'est avéré que ces deux dernières plages photographiques avaient effectivement été exposées.

Photo N°25 : vue de lampadaires ou phares de véhicules visibles dans le lointain, semblables à celles de la N°14 qui montre un paysage de nuit. Nous avons remarqué une rayure horizontale, peut être une route. Il n'y a pas d'autre objet sur la photo. .

Photo N°26: Il ya une lumière très faible (peut-être des phares de voiture) sur le bord de cette vue, qui contient aussi quelques égratignures et des imperfections (taches), mais il n’y a pas d'autre objet sur cette vue.

Nous avons également étudié deux photos qui n'avaient pas été imprimées par la machine.

Photo N° 5 : elle apparaît « vide », mais est en fait une vue d’intérieur. Il ya une petite traînée orange qui pourrait être une réflexion de la lumière hors du cadre, d'un dispositif (ordinateur ?) au repos, sur un bureau.

Photo N° 8 : elle semble vide aussi, mais, après examen, elle montre quelques lumières extérieures, de sorte que ce pourrait être une autre photo prise de nuit. Aucun objet n’est présent.

Nous arrivons à la conclusion que les deux dernières photos ont été prises dans la nuit sur un paysage « ouvert », tel que rapporté par le témoin. Malheureusement, elles ne montrent que des lumières faibles dans le lointain, correspondant à des bâtiments ou des véhicules.

Je vous remercie pour le témoignage et de nous avoir donné l'occasion de procéder à cette analyse. Nous avons scellé à nouveau le négatif et les photos développées dans une enveloppe avec notre signature sur le volet. J'ai l'intention de la ramener en France dans mes bagages avec l’appareil, afin que vous puissiez poursuivre l'étude de l'affaire ».
Jacques Vallée

Remarques de l’enquêteur : J’ai demandé à MP si, à l’instar des visions qu’elle a pu avoir de scènes « du passé », cette vision de « l’œuf » ne pourrait pas, à ses yeux, être une incursion du « futur », donc l’incursion d’une autre dimension, dans son champ de perception. Réponse du témoin : « les perceptions que j’ai eues de scènes passées peuvent s’assimiler à ce genre de chose. Pour moi, c’était clairement des perceptions d’ordre « éthérique », qui n’avaient rien à voir avec la réalité du moment, il n’y avait rien de matériel dans ces perceptions. Par contre, au sujet de « l’œuf », pour moi, aucun doute possible : à 100%, il s’agissait bien d’un objet matériel, l’incursion d’un objet bien réel. »

ÉTUDE MATHÉMATIQUE (GRAPHIQUE) DE L’OBJET VU PAR MP. DEPUIS SA CUISINE, A PARTIR DES MESURES DEMANDÉES AU TÉMOIN, DEPUIS SON SITE D’OBSERVATION, ( UN EMPLACEMENT PRÉCIS DANS SA CUISINE) , PAR JEAN-CLAUDE VENTURINI. (A la suite, voir les réactions du témoin) :

Jean-Claude Venturini a rigoureusement suivi les indications chiffrées recueillies auprès du témoin pour ces réalisations graphiques. Le fait est que le témoin pense que l’objet était un peu plus « ventru », dans sa vision, et qu’il n’apparaît pas sur les clichés photographiques, malgré que MP affirme absolument l’avoir « cadré » dans son viseur. J.C.V.propose l’explication suivante à ces anomalies : la nature du rayonnement de l’objet était celle de la perception au niveau des yeux du témoin, mais la réalité objective de cette luminance n’avait peut-être rien à voir avec nos concepts habituels en la matière.

Ainsi qu’il l’avait promis, Jacques Vallée est venu remettre une lettre scellée par lui-même et son ami expert en photographie et effets spéciaux, à la suite de l’étude qu’ils ont menée sur les photographies de M.P. Cette remise de documents a eu lieu à La Défense, dans le centre commercial des 4 Temps, le 12 décembre 2010.

S’il apparaît exact pour ces experts que des vues ont été prises en paysage ouvert, de nuit, aucune des photographies ne laisse apparaître le moindre indice d’un objet insolite circulant au voisinage de l’immeuble où demeure le témoin. Ces analyses ont évidemment rendu le témoin et nous-mêmes, ( J.CV. et G.D.) très perplexes. Il n’apparaît à personne d’entre nous de mettre en doute la bonne foi du témoin. Cette situation est donc à mettre au compte des mystères et incompréhensions qui s’ajoutent à n’en plus finir, concernant tous les aspects qui entourent ces témoignages.

A été présenté à M.P., aussi bien les réalisations de J.C.V. avec son logiciel de mathématique, à partir des nombreuses mesures demandées à M.P. après notre visite dans son appartement.

Ces représentations qui rejoignent tout à fait la vue d’artiste de la page 17, seulement tracée à partir des explications orales de M.P., sont un gage de crédibilité supplémentaire qui nous conforte dans l’intégrité de la déposition du témoin.

Nous n’avons pas de conclusion particulière à livrer sur ce(s) témoignage(s), ainsi que sur tous ceux qui se présentent à nos yeux et à nos oreilles, d’une manière toujours aussi étonnante et incompréhensible, avec les moyens d’investigation dont nous disposons à ce jour… Un jour peut-être, tout ceci recevra les éclairages d’une nouvelle science, tant attendue !

L’on peut donc photographier un paysage et découvrir un OVNI ou un PAN sur la photo développée, alors que cet « objet » était invisible à l’œil du photographe. Cela m’est arrivé, comme à bien d’autres. Et les documents ci-dessus montrent donc que l’inverse est possible : un témoin voit un objet qu’il identifie clairement comme faisant partie de la réalité ambiante, il prend des photos, et ces clichés restent muets. Ainsi le phénomène, par « tous les bouts » parvient à se jouer de nos investigations.

G.D.

Jacques Vallée et une invitée, entourés de Gérard Deforge et Jean-Claude Venturini, lors de la remise à Jacques Vallée des négatifs,

appareil de photo et épreuves tirées par le laboratoire, par notre témoin, MP.

The MUFON Field Investigators Manual (FIM) Step 3, The Collection and Analysis of Physical Evidence, advises all Investigators whom collect potential trace evidence to: . . . “Contact your State Director, who will direct you to a person or facility to perform the indicated analysis”. While taking no issue with the SD contacting MUFON International for direction, it is the very collection and analysis process that bears the scrutiny.

Unfortunately, the FIM does not provide insight into what the “indicated analysis” is, nor does it provide any process to make that determination. Once sampled, who decides what laboratory the material is to go to? Who decides what analysis is to be performed on the samples? Who decides anything about the samples, what are their qualifications to make that decision? With whom or what does the decision process reside?

In the materials science world, we must begin to recognize that it is unreasonable to say “analyze anything analyzable!” in accordance with the statement in paragraph 2, Step 3, FI Manual page 72. I offer that there are three phases to the process: Phase I is the gathering, documentation, storage and transmission of potential trace evidence to a facility for analysis. Phase II is the identification of testing procedures and protocols based on the nature of the evidence gathered, along with what information is to be gleaned from the tests. Phase III is the choice of laboratories to perform the procedures and draft the report. Phase IV is the culmination of Phases I through III by the delivery of the samples to the laboratory, performance of the chosen procedures and issuance of the report.

In the discussion that follows, I will attempt to identify current issues of concern and offer potential suggestions on how to simplify or eliminate those concerns.

The MUFON Field Investigator Manual provides numerous methodologies, equipment, procedures and protocols for the sampling of the most likely encountered potential trace evidence.

While these methodologies will certainly enable an FI to obtain aseptic samples, they do not carry the weight of established national and internationally accepted sampling procedures such as those described by the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM); the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and other governmental and professional organizations.

The question may be legitimately raised, “Who cares?” In matter of fact, we all must. Sampling procedures are the foundation of the analysis to be performed. Without properly obtained and prepared samples, the entire process may be invalid. There may be no “second chance” to obtain samples and the analytical results may be skewed.

This is not to discount or invalidate the procedures in the Manual. It is to suggest that, under scrutiny by individuals or entities wishing to defame the procedures, one might challenge that the MUFON FI’s are not following established standards. It would be their allegation that by not following the established standards, the process is flawed. The MUFON procedures were [are] unproven and therefore faulty; and therefore, any analytical result obtained is invalid.

This challenge will be raised irrespective of the realistic validity of the MUFON procedures. It would then require MUFON to not only defend the procedures, but produce a body of work demonstrating by practice that the procedures will produce the required analytical repeatability of results. This is an expensive and time-consuming task; one which may be counterproductive in light of the availability of previously established and accepted standard protocols. By utilizing the established sampling standards, it relieves MUFON from the arduous task of validating their own procedures and provides the freedom to choose which standards to follow.

A “shopping list” of these sampling standards must be developed by expert individuals for utilization by MUFON FI’s in performance of the potential trace evidence gathering process. The standards chosen will depend on the ultimate tests to be performed as well as the nature of the evidence presented. Once developed, focused training must be conducted by personnel accredited and/or certified in the procedures to insure that the procedures will be rigorously followed.

The UFOLOGY field is rife with controversy, inaccuracies, invalid hypothesis, as well as “just bad science” to provide enough ammunition to detractors.

By now it should be abundantly clear that the entire issue of trace evidence sampling is not an insignificant one. To the uninitiated it may appear quite easy, if not cavalier, in its performance. I challenge anyone to discount that this issue is the very foundation of validating the field work of potential craft landings.

We all recognize that the vast majority of cases investigated by MUFON do not all fall into the “Trace Evidence Sampling, TES, arena, and those that do have been fairly well investigated and documented. It is only on the rare occasion that we are privileged to come upon a case where there is a potential for TES to be performed. Fortunately, or unfortunately, how we carry out that procedure is an extremely visible, and albeit dangerous task. The danger exists on multiple levels, not the least of which is the sampling itself.

To a great degree, the determination of what test protocols are to be followed will depend on (1) what type of potential trace evidence has presented itself for sampling; (2) how large a quantity is available; (3) what procedures are available to answer the questions that we want answered; (4) if the samples are capable of providing the answers sought; and (5) do the samples lend themselves to the performance of the chosen protocols.

In attempting to make a reasonable attempt at such a determination, it is extremely helpful to ascertain what historical analysis has been conducted on similar samples, what results have been produced and how available that information is to researchers. It should be hypothesized that great deals of historical reports do exist; however, there does not appear to be a single body or synthesis of that work. It appears to be fragmented amongst numerous organizations and individuals, some of which guard their information against dissemination.

Unfortunately, in that search we must contend with governmental or quasi-governmental agencies that undoubtedly posses a great deal of knowledge. But, as we already are acutely aware, not only do those agencies not exist under inquiry, but the material also doesn’t exist, and any analytical information gleaned from materials that don’t exist is unavailable.

It is this question of “what do we want to know” about the sampled material that may vex even the most ardent researcher and investigator. Obviously the resounding word “everything” rings clear. Unfortunately, that is not possible, or even likely. In order to make that determination, it is suggested that a “back to basics” approach is taken.

For example, on the one hand, existing analysis appears to indicate that the ultimate constituent composition of the matter sampled is not radically different than that which we are already familiar, elements and compounds that are the basic “stuff” of ourselves. The difference may be in how they are combined.

At this stage of the inquiry, it may prove beneficial to perform a survey of available analytical reports to establish precisely what procedures and protocols have been conducted, on what materials, the results of the analysis and what laboratories have been involved. This would present at least a reasonable starting point for further analysis.

Should appropriate procedures not exist, then they will need to be developed, tested and validated, thence their provenance established for further use as an analytical procedure.

If, on the other hand, the materials composition is different than that with which we are familiar, a whole new door is then opened to examination and investigation. That is where we must then go “back to basics” in our procedures and attempt to determine the materials’ underlying composition. Again, if existing procedures are found to be lacking in their ability to determine the underlying composition, as previously stated, then they will need to be developed, tested and validated, thence establishing the provenance for the procedure.

It will be recognized that these are not tremendously insightful revelations or observations, the writer is confident that a number of more highly qualified investigators have already made these realizations and are already moving far ahead on these hypothesis. The caution I stress is that in the choosing of the analytical or testing procedures as well as the laboratory to perform the procedures or protocols, the provenance of all is impeccable. Its certifications, accreditations and technicians, together with the procedures and protocols, must stand the test of examination without flaw.

The last critical issue worthy of strong consideration is the qualifications of the laboratory or laboratories to be utilized in analysis. Again the issue of professional creditability comes into reality. It is not enough that a “university” laboratory be utilized. Most often they have no professional or commercial qualifications for their work results, have no liability in providing results, and therefore open to criticism for their lack of accreditations.

The laboratory chosen must carry a full spectrum of current accreditations and certifications for the analytical work to be performed. Several national and international bodies provide laboratory accreditations and certifications (American Association of Laboratory Accreditors – A2LA; National Voluntary Association of Laboratory Accreditors – NAVLAP; US Army Corps of Engineers – USACE; American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials - AASHTO, etc.). These bodies assure and insure by laboratory audit that the accredited work performed by their members all conform to stringent criteria, that the work is repeatable and defensible, and that the laboratory technicians are all trained and certified to perform the procedures. They also validate that the report of the results follows strict guidelines in accordance with the testing procedures and standards utilized in the analysis.

It has been offered that from the Field Investigators vantage point, it is not necessary to be knowledgeable on those issues. Strongly countering that hypothesis, the more the FI is aware of the following analytical processes, the more likely they are to properly conduct the entire sampling procedures. That will provide the potential for the best possible results. Therefore, it is incumbent upon MUFON to provide as complete a picture of the entire process as is available.

Perhaps consideration should be given to the retention of several regionally located laboratories. As previously noted, all must have current validations, certifications and accreditations in the analytical procedures we are going to request. The potential benefits are to limit the time in transit (potential degradation of sample); to limit handling of the samples (destruction or alteration); to reduce transport cost; to provide quicker delivery to the laboratory (time sensitivity) and the concomitant report preparation and delivery.

Now that we have sampled the potential trace evidence properly in accordance with accepted procedures, chosen the protocols to be followed in an attempt to analyze the evidence, identified the laboratory to perform the analysis, and delivered the materials to it for the analysis, there is one final consideration.

It is this writers’ firm belief that a knowledgeable representative of MUFON should be present to observe the procedures being performed. Their role is to safeguard the samples, ensure that the procedures identified are followed and act as a third party witness to the process.

It must be remembered that this entire process from sample gathering, to analysis, to report issuance, should be strikingly similar to a criminal investigation involving trace evidence. This is the only way to maintain the defensibility of what has occurred.

MUFON is a volunteer organization with limited resources, minimal nonpaid or underpaid staff, and a gargantuan duty before it. In an attempt to ease that duty, an arrangement was made in April 2009. MUFON and Bigelow Aerospace (BAASS), together with the funding of immediate dispatch field investigatory teams, have joined forces in the potential investigation of CE2 and CE3 cases - A monumental step in the UFOlogical field.

While embracing the MUFON/BAASS association, it should be remembered that the “grass roots” of the MUFON Organization and its strength is in its cadre of Field Investigators. According to Richard Lang, MUFON Star Team Manager, “Per the terms of the contract agreement between MUFON and BAASS “ . . . “They are strictly buying information from MUFON and that is as far as it goes.”

This type of association brings a question to mind. If BAASS is simply buying information from MUFON, one would presume that they have no responsibility to inform MUFON of the results they develop from the investigation. If it involves trace evidence, MUFON is still obligated to have the analytical procedures performed on the evidence and issue its own report. Presumably MUFON could solicit the analysis from BAASS; however, the question of laboratory provenance again arises.

It would appear as though we are back at the origin of this paper, the development of procedures and protocols for dealing with Trace Evidence Analytical Procedures and Processes.

The solution lies in MUFON having internationally accredited and certified sampling and analysis methodologies and procedures, together with designated and approved commercial laboratories, including a library of analytical reports of trace evidence analysis for reference.

In the world of investigation, whether it is criminal, civil, scientific, medical, Ufological or any other curious investigative venue, the words “creditability” and “defensibility” ultimately come under question.

What is it? What do we do with it if we have it? Or, if we don’t have it, how do we get it?

This paper is an attempt to bring some reasonable definition to the words as they apply to UFOlogy in general, and in particular, the testing for and of Trace Evidence, It can also serve as an operational methodology or protocol to gain that creditability and defensibility of the analysis.

In the legal profession, definitions are subjective terms and open to the interpretation of the Trier of Fact and the Jury. Essentially, whoever convinces the other is the more believable. In other professions these terms have a more solid and definitive meaning.

In the world of materials testing and analysis in regards to analyzing potential trace evidence, the definition is: “The ability to resist criticism or allegations of fault by the performance of accepted, standardized, or newly devised and validated test procedures, processes or test methods to analyze a material”. The utilization of national and internationally accredited laboratories provides a first line defensibility and creditability of results produced by the chosen laboratory.

Simply said, it is precisely following sampling and testing processes and then proving it was done correctly by accreditation, therefore, limiting the ability to find fault.

In the majority of analytical situations, established or standard test procedures, methods or protocols already exist to determine the identity, constituents and substance of materials. It is rare that no standard procedure or practice exists. Even then, new methodologies may be developed and validated that will aid in the analysis of the materials.

For example: (1) American Society for Testing and Materials [ASTM] lists over 12,000 materials test procedures. (2) The International Organization for Standardization [ISO] lists over 97 chapters of different standardized procedures. Those are only two of more than fifty separate organizations that develop materials testing procedures and standards. The reality is that there is undoubtedly no lack of procedures to be utilized in the analysis of potential trace evidence.

Answering the question of precisely what to test for is not easy, primarily because we may not know what the material is in the first place. In fact, we may never know precisely what it is that we have, vexing at best.

Suffice to say that issue and those of like inquiry are to be the subject of a larger and more singularly focused work. For the present time, let’s address the “defensibility and creditability” aspect of Trace Evidence Testing and Analysis.

We make sure that our sampling techniques are in accord with accepted sampling standards; all our analyses are performed by nationally or internationally accredited laboratories in the procedures, methodologies or protocols we choose to perform; the laboratory technicians are likewise credentialed or accredited in the performance of the procedures; and the analytical reports issued follow the same standards for information reporting. We provide a listing of the procedures performed and include the individuals performing them as a reference note in the report.

I am dismayed that the vast majority of reports are quick to announce that the: “trace evidence material was collected and sent to either “a”/“the” laboratory for analysis.” No further information is provided. That statement tells us nothing, leaving all subsequent interpretation on what was done to, or with, the material to whatever the reader wishes to conjure up.

In fact, unless you are a materials engineer, forensic scientist or extremely well versed in the scientific investigative disciplines, very few organizations or individuals have the least bit of knowledge of proper, defensible and creditable trace evidence gathering and documentation, laboratory credentialing and accreditation of analytical procedures, methodologies or protocols that should or could be performed on the material sampled. And that statement is in the traditional world of materials science, let alone trace evidence sampling and analysis of a potential UFO landing.

The real problem here is that without those elements of accreditation, certification, credibility and defensibility to what we are doing, the door is wide open and we are hanging out an invitation to “COME ON IN AND TELL US WE ARE DOING IT WRONG.”

From where I sit, there appears to be a host of detractors of our work that are too willing to rush in and tear down any attempt at analysis. I’m not sure that it is our desire to provide that opportunity to those individuals.

(1) Review which laboratories have performed the analysis and their credentials to determine if they are commensurate with your requirements.

(2) Review of analytical processes that have been previously performed on similar materials.

(3) Determine if they are appropriate for your material. [A decision now lies before you. You must make absolutely sure that your material is significantly similar to the previous material. If it is, then you may request that the same processes be performed on your material. By doing so, it is highly likely the results will be similar, thus, validating both materials similarity in structure. If not, you obviously have another decision point.]

(7) Attempt interpretation of the report results presented in accordance with the skill and insight level of the person performing the interpretation.

Unless an extraterrestrial vehicle crash site provides us with gatherable pieces of the vehicle, it is highly unlikely that we will have structural materials for analysis. More likely, as we are painfully aware, is that we will be presented with subtle trace evidence that must be gathered rapidly, protected, and transported to “a” laboratory as soon as possible. The procedures and protocols must be in place and the analysis begun before the samples degrade to the point of un-usability.

The only way we are able to accomplish this task is to have all the procedures, protocols and methodologies together with the appointed credentialed laboratories in place and functioning before we hit the field with our “boots on the ground”.

We aren’t there yet, and we won’t be unless we make a concerted effort to revise our methodologies, inform our members, and establish the field skills and laboratory relationships necessary.

PRESSE - Après une période de calme relatif, la série ufológica Bahia a été ébranlée au cours des derniers mois par une série d'observations. Au cours de plusieurs semaines entre Mars et avril de cette année, les observations ont eu lieu principalement dans le sud-ouest de la municipalité Maiquinique en l'état, à quelques kilomètres de monnaie au Minas Gerais, en agitant que ville tranquille.

La nouvelle nous est parvenue, l'équipe UFOBAHIA (G-PEACE et SEVLF) dans les premiers jours de Mai par le journal l'après-midi, dans "l'après-midi - Municipalités," Itapetinga, la colonne des municipalités, une question de Vicente Coelho, conseiller de la communication la Préfecture de Maiquinique, qui a été la première personne à écrire et d'entendre certains témoins, qui a commencé cette nouvelle série de cas dans l'état de Bahia.

Vincent nous a dit que a été demandé par le père d'un témoin de dire ce que son fils et a noté une fois de plus, d'autres recherchées pour lui raconter les faits acontecidos et presenciados pour eux. Vicente Coelho a été contacté par téléphone, dans la préfecture d'essayer de clarifier les informations reçues, y compris de certains témoins par téléphone.

En raison de la conversation tenue avec lui, on voyage là-haut les jours 03 et 04 Juin, un voyage de 14 heures pour enquêter sur les faits qui ont été très intéressants.

LOSANGO GERMON - Le premier voyage que nous avons faite a été la maison de Rodolfo de Jesus da Silva, 19 ans, musicien, à la suite d'une série de réunions, des conversations et des approches avec les gens de la ville, a mis en évidence par Vincent. Rodolfo a apportée à notre équipe un rapport très objectif de leur expérience, dans la nuit du 18/04 "était à côté de ma maison, accompagné de mon amie, dans l'atelier de mécanique de mon père, de parler, quand j'ai entendu un bruit qui semble commencer une voiture de vitesse sur la route, mais à regarder le ciel, de comprendre l'origine du son, est un objet lumineux dans la forme de «l'or dans le pont» (diamant), grand, survolant le ciel de la ville, suivie par les deux avions jet (?) dans la voie ouest / est. J'ai noté que, pour environ 5 minutes avec ma petite amie qui était très impressionné. Les deux avions avaient deux feux de côté, blanc et rouge, étaient en direction de Itarantim et des disparus. Après 8 à 10 minutes, le même objet sur la voie de nouveau en face de l'original, suivie seulement par un avion sur le dos. L'objet a été apparence métallique, éclairée avec tous la lumière blanche au centre, forte comme un phare et tous les points, quatre voyants (vert, violet, jaune et bleu) circundavam brillant que l'unité "anneaux de néon." Que s'était-il quatre fois la taille de l'aéronef et ne laisse aucune trace de fumée. " Le fait a été donné une série de 3 ou 4 heures du matin.

"Tout ce qui dispose d'une vague de commentaires encore possible de réflexion et de nombreuses recherches qui ont peut-être seulement le temps et le progrès de faits en réponse "

Ball - Avant cette observation avril, entre les jours 10 et Mars 12, l'ancien camps militaires Noilson Nunes, 28 ans qui travaille dans un bar avec son père dans le centre-ville, a observé un OVNI lumière "avec la lumière de mercure" environ 60m au-dessus de la place où l'établissement est nommé. Il est muet et son diamètre est d'environ 10 à 12m, au bout de quelques secondes sur le site, ce qui manobrou et disparu.

Ils étaient 01h30 du matin. À la fin du mois d'avril ou au début de Mai, sept garçons de six à dix ans, a joué au football à Campinho de boue à côté du camp de la principale ville dans le district Workers Union, lorsque quelque chose de cassé la routine; Lazare C. de 9 ans dans le dit que "soudainement remarqué une fumée et secondes dans une lumière et une sorte d'explosion qui alarmé tous du groupe."

Le ufólogos Ramos et Paranhos avec Edmilson et Vicente Coelho

Le groupe était composé de Jaquinho, Daniel, Junior, Maíra, Paulinha, a déclaré Luiz et Lazare. Selon revenue, l'objet liberava une brume sombre et tous, se sont enfuis peur et attend vers l'objet qui se trouvait dans le principal domaine de la fumée autour. Il semblait un domaine de 1m de diamètre.

BANDEJA INOX - Une autre observation a été faite dans la même période par les propriétaires Mércia Moreira Santos, marié. Elle s'apprête à regarder l'actualité et a été jusqu'à 19h de la fenêtre pour appeler son fils qui jouait dans la rue, en regardant un peu plus d'une chaîne de montagnes qui entoure la ville, une très elliptique lumière dans le ciel et a disparu il ya les montagnes. "Il semble un plateau en acier inoxydable qui reflète la lumière du soleil», at-il dit. Commentant sur le fait sur le lieu de travail (hôpital de la ville) a déclaré un collègue ont également remarqué le même phénomène dans le même temps, un autre point de la ville.

LOSANGO ECLAIRE - Récupération d'un objet par la narration

Les événements ufológicos dans Maiquinique pas arrêté là: trois pêcheurs et un cow-boy a une incroyable observation d'un objet fusiforme. Ils décrivent la forme du cigare et le fait s'est produit lors de leur campement de pêche et les berges des cours d'eau Joy dans les premières heures du dernier jour Avril 11, une semaine avant l'observation de Rodolfo de Jésus, à 4:30 pm "Qu'est-ce qu'un lumière bleue émise ofuscante" et a traversé le ciel vers le district de Pau de sang, où est le cowboy Danilo Vila Nova, qui décrit un phénomène similaire lorsqu'ils s'apprêtent à prendre soin du bétail ranch. Les autres pêcheurs occasionnels Edimilson Sampaio, Everaldo Oliveira et Jenivaldo "cigano" celui qui est utilisé camping dans la région a dit pendant plusieurs jours, la pêche et la chasse comme une option pour les loisirs et les divertissements que la ville ne leur offre pas des alternatives. L'objet a été calculé comme "grand" selon des témoins. D'autres observations ont abandonné dans la zone urbaine où les trois garçons ont vu une torche lumière ", et fechava ouvert en même temps." Cette fonctionnalité une vague de commentaires peuvent encore beaucoup d'idées et de recherche qui peut-être seulement le temps et le progrès de faits en réponse.

"Le MIB tupiniquins parle en portugais et en espagnol (?) et a lancé le discrédit sur les cas qui ont déclaré qu'ils n'avaient pas vu rien "

MIB'S DU BRÉSIL - Alors que les observations et les observations transcorriam, la ville a été visité par des groupes d'hommes en civil et des véhicules militaires. Peu de temps après l'observation du musicien Rodolphe et la première publication de Vicente dans les premières heures du 19/04, deux jeeps militaires (une Willys et autres javali) avec les occupants en uniforme, est venu à l'unique poste de l'essence dans la ville, autour du 02h, convenu le gestionnaire, qui vit à côté, M. José Alves, a fourni les véhicules et à gauche avec son destin ignoré, le paiement en espèces et n'a pas besoin de note.

Les véhicules n'appartiennent à aucune unité militaire à proximité selon une personne qui travaille dans une guerre chaude de l'endroit. Et peu de temps après la publication dans la presse, paru dans la ville cinq personnes trajando paletots (la similitude de la sécurité) dans une camionnette "Toyota Hillux» de noir, avec et sans lunettes fumê plaques, la recherche de toutes les villes, les principaux témoins. Interrogaram sur ce qu'ils avaient vu la Edimilson, Rodolfo et Vicente, tandis que le second a été menacé de procédures et de sanctions si elles continuaient à diffuser des informations "mentirosas" et lui causer d'aller là-haut "personnes importantes".

Le MIB tupiniquins parle en portugais et en espagnol (?) Et a lancé le discrédit sur les cas dire que "n'avait pas vu quoi que ce soit." Il y avait des rumeurs que 2 hélicoptères sobrevoaram le conseil à cette époque, l'un des CEMIG (centrale électrique de Minas Gerais) et un de la police civile également de Minas Gerais. Le fait est, inhabituel dans les environs de Bahia.

Face à tant de faits directement et indirectement liés aux cas, nous devons penser avec plus de soin et d'approfondir les petits détails pour atteindre grands ou petits postes. Actuellement, estranhamos le silence des autorités municipales locales, ce qui nous donne raison de penser ... Monsieur le Maire, Nemesius Meira Jr., a essayé à plusieurs reprises par téléphone pour clarifier certains points nébuleux au présent nous n'avons pas de réponse. Ce qui est vraiment derrière cela?

Le fait esquivarem aux autorités, qui reflète peut-être une attitude de méfiance en nous, ufólogos, ou les faits en eux-mêmes, ou même - peut-être - par «externes ou internes pressions" si l'on prend tout au pied de la lettre, qui a entendu sur la MIB? Ce sont là des questions qui se produisent devant de tout et, surtout, parce que nous savons que Ufologia il est parfois un terrain très glissant et controversée. En particulier, nous avons les faits, les témoins, la preuve ... Et ils parlent d'eux-mêmes.

MAIQUINIQUE - La municipalité de Maiquinique est situé dans le sud-ouest de l'État de Bahia, et a été émancipé de Itapetinga en 1937. Son économie est la base l'élevage (lait et viande), en plus de la production minérale de graphite par Marmoré l'exploitation minière qui exploite la mine 8 km de la ville. Marmoré La mine emploie une moyenne de 100 employés et possède le village Pouso Alegre dans leurs domaines. Maiquinique est l'influence de Vitoria da Conquista, qui est le 3 e plus grande ville de l'État et est situé dans le sud-ouest de Bahia plateau, entre les montagnes et l'altitude au-dessus du niveau de la mer 300 m, qui dispose d'un froid et humide. Le canton est situé 630 km de Salvador et 40 km de la monnaie avec l'État de Minas Gerais, près des villes de la Jordanie et Almenara. L'accès se fait par la route BR-116 et BA-470 et 130. Maiquinique a été fondée en 1962, son altitude est 309 mètres, la population est 6.481 habitants et leur superficie totale est de 415,3 km ²

In the heady days of the 1980’s there were a number of ‘classic’ UFO photographic cases reported to the group I represented then, Connect UFO Investigations in West Yorkshire, England. One of these, although extensively investigated at the time by myself and others from the IUN (Independent UFO Investigations Network), has lain away from public scrutiny for the past two decades. The photograph itself is an amazing example of the kind of phenomena that frequents the north of the country to this day, but behind it, there lies a bizarre and even stranger story.

I am writing this on May Day 2008, shortly before the anniversary of the day ( May 30^th) when the photograph was taken at the North Yorkshire village of Appletreewick in 1983.

The location is steeped in myths and folklore. The tradition of Morris Dancing goes back to pagan routes and celebrates the phallic pro-creational worship of the nature gods from ancient times. Although mainly for entertainment these days, groups of men dancing around a pole on this specific day of the year, reflects a recognition of early man’s communion with nature and energies that we are yet to fully understand.

The Craven Arms public House was owned and run by Jane in 1983, and the only significantly unusual thing about the pub at that time, was it already had a smoking ban inside the building, some twenty three years before our current government restrictions – some foresight by Jane!

There had already been a spate of UFO sightings around the Appletreewick region in the weeks before the photograph was taken. I had been, myself, personally involved in one of these, which involved my family too. OBOL (Orange Balls of Light) phenomena had been reported at a camping site to the south of the pub only four days earlier –the description of these UFOs reported as some similar to that which appeared in the photograph later in the week.

In March of 1983, a very strange occurance took place in the Mortimer household!

It was now mid-morning, the following day from an uneasy night out investigating

at the newly re-discovered Backstone Circle on Ilkley Moor; to the south of Appletreewick.

I had been sleeping in bed for several hours, and upon wakening, I heard the voice of Susan (my wife at the time) as she left the house to go out shopping. Closing the garden gate, I heard her speaking. I heard another voice; this one excited and at the same time, somewhat adjatated. In urgent conversation, I heard Mr. Sparcer of Green Lane say,

" My mother was woken up in the early hours of this morning at about 3.30am, after hearing a loud droning noise....did you hear it too?” He continued,

“I got up myself to see what all the commotion was, and I couldn't believe what I was looking at! It was a large oval object with loads of smaller lights that gave-off a strange orangey- red glow which flooded down onto your rooftop. It was no aircraft I've ever seen before, I'm sure of that..."

He went on, " whatever it was, it moved away as soon as I looked at it, towards Beamsley Beacon, (north-west of Addingham) and suddenly there was no sound coming from it. All was very quiet indeed."

moors earlier that morning, but what was it now doing over my very rooftop? My wife listened with half-interest, quickly making her excuse to catch the bus, and obviously putting any talk of UFOs and such things to the back of her mind for the rest of the day, probably the safest place for such things in an uncertain mind? No, she would wait until later, when she could talk to me about it and try to rationalise an answer to this madness. By then, our children would be safe in bed and out of earshot; Susan not wanting them to be worried that ET had paid a visit to the Mortimer household!

But, the two children were holding secrets of their own, and both Susan and I had no idea just how involved they were already in what had occurred whilst I had been out at Backstone Circle.

Sara, then our five year old daughter awoke from her sleep a little earlier at 3.15am, she opened her eyes and jumped with a start! Looking through the half-opened bedroom door, she found it difficult to keep her eyes open, as if she was being forced to slip back into slumber? Raising her hand to cover her face and peeping through protective fingers, Sara stared at the ghostly humanoid figure that was ascending the

stairs, reaching the top, and then vanishing into thin air! The heavy sleepiness finally overcame her, and she gave in.

Susan returned home and we all had tea together. The children kept quiet, and Sara was as normal as ever. For the children's sake, we had decided to put the whole experience behind us, for it seemed that this thing was becoming too close for comfort, and the last thing I wanted, was to impose my 'obsession with UFOs' onto the innocence of her youth.

This was made difficult, in that the local press had run a front-page piece describing reports of the UFO being seen by a number of other people up and down the Wharfe Valley around the time of our own experiences.

One of these had been seen within fifteen minutes of my own sighting of an OBOL as I came down off the moor. It seemed to have been the same object I had seen, and no matter how we tried to turn away from it, the family found itself the focus of something which became increasingly intrusive!

As if to play out some kind of repeat sequence, events began to unfold once more, and silently, the darkened figure appeared at the top of the stairs a second time, less than nine feet from her bedroom. Expecting it to vanish as before, she fought with her senses as the form floated just above the floor towards her, getting closer, close enough to see that this entity was a female! Now, she got the impression that the first

had been a male, due to the stern looking features compared to this more elegant apparition. Both had been wearing what she took to be a tight-fitting, black, one-piece diving suit, a cowled hood over the head and the whole of the face exposed.

Others have described something similar, some witnesses are very frightened, yet others feel secure -inwardly knowing that whatever they are gazing upon, it seems to mean them no harm. These feelings are very apparent during the experience and throughout the observation, as if the witness is meant to acknowledge them and take note of how they are feeling.

Many reports indicate that in particular with OBOL sightings, there is this strange, almost personal interaction, something that would suggest that rather than the UFO being an object, it acts and causes a reaction we would associate with an encounter with another person!

David Barclay (author of UFOs –The final Answer) had his encounter with an OBOL, another witness to this phenomenon, Steve Hart, was travelling home on public transport. Close to Addingham, he noticed hanging in the sky over the local moorlands , a large orange ball of light. Suddenly, as he watched it, an intense feeling

of sorrow and dread overcame him which lasted as long as he had the object in sight. When Steve later arrived home in Leeds, he was devastated to learn that his grandmother had passed away. She had died at the same time that he had been watching the OBOL so the encounter that Steve Hart had, and its associate 'coincidence' of his grandmothers death at the time of the experience, is puzzling.

What is even more amazing is that this very same thing happened again, at almost the same location, and this time the OBOL was caught on film!

family. We knew that we shared something, an awareness of things that should not take place, so we tried to ignore this, but it just would not go away. Sara and her brother Ben, were seeing figures in the house that would mimic the looks, and movements of Susan and myself; on one occasion Sara watched as one impersonator of her mother, dressed exactly the same, walked right through a wall unit in the living room, while Susan was busy working upstairs! We all felt that we were being

watched, even when there was nobody physically there! The pressure became too much. My involvement was effecting my working life, and everyday chores became pointless to me –there was something bigger behind all this. Connect investigations was born through a desperation to find out just what was going on! Within months, I received through the post, the Appletreewick photograph……

A crowd had gathered outside the pub to watch, as the Leeds based Morris Dancers began to entertain at 2.30pm. Jane brought her camera with her to film the dancers, and ‘sensed’ that something had moved across the viewfinder with a rapid motion, but to her eye, nothing was seen apart from the dancing Morris men. She felt a sudden ‘vaccum’ like displaced air around her, only for a second, then everything was as normal. It seemed that nobody else had noticed this, and the dancers continued without any break. When Jane had the photograph developed, she was amazed to see something unusual to the left of the dancing group, which looked to be a large orange coloured ball of light.

The West Yorkshire UFO Research Group (as part of Connect) conducted an investigation later that year into this photographic case, involving Kodak. After an extensive study, they proclaimed that 'whatever the object was, it was there when the photograph had been taken. You can see branches from the tree in the foreground, yet the OBOL covers part of the hillside behind it. Interestingly, directly below its position, investigators found the site of an ancient well. Above this position, the branches of the tree had been damaged by heat, and vegetation growth around the well looked to be ‘feeble’ compared to the same some meters away from where the phenomena had been photographed.

I have found that this OBOL phenomena seems to be linked with the many ancient sites (mainly megalithic) that abound the moorlands in the Appletreewick region and none more-so than at Ilkley Moor, and I propose that these places, stone circles, ancient wells, etc, hold a key to how such phenomena manifest in our reality.

Later that day, Simon Grey (pseudonym), the Morris dancer seen below the OBOL, headed home to Leeds. In a re-run of Steve Hart's experience, he too found bad news awaiting him there. He learnt that at the very same time the photograph had been taken, his brother had suddenly died of a heart attack!

It would seem that these OBOLs are aware of our human affairs. Maybe they know what is about to happen and have the ability to tune-in to our human feelings? Was this pure coincidence or is something else happening here?

Whatever these OBOLs are, they seem to have an impact on our lives. I know this from personal experience. Many people who encounter such, become different in ways not expected. They change, and through that process, often become more aware of other possibilities. They begin to question life and their purpose. I feel that this change is intended, and whatever the truth behind the OBOLs, the facts behind the Appletreewick photograph seem to be far more stranger than what is actually depicted in the picture itself?

Please note: Appletreewick Photograph is copyright Connect NM 1994. Permission granted to reproduce for UFO DATA only. Reproduction autorisée par UFO DATA

Une drôle de dame, sans nul doute. Avec son époux, ces personnes modestes habitent un appartement dans un quartier calme de Suresnes, non loin du Théâtre Jean Vilar, aux abords d’un groupe scolaire.

Apparemment, depuis très longtemps, cette dame a des perceptions très étranges, qu’elle note immédiatement. Dessins et commentaires précis sont consignés sur des feuilles volantes au format 21X29,7. La plupart de ces dessins forment la matière de ce « rapport ». On voudra bien pardonner quelques fautes d’orthographe non corrigées.

( Les dessins illustrant le début des témoignages ci-dessous ont été exécutés le plus fidèlement possible, d’après les croquis du témoin, lorsque ceux-ci n’ont pas pu être scannés ).

L’ensemble de ce document a été relu, corrigé, et la présente version approuvée, par le témoin, ainsi que son époux, pour ce qui le concerne.

« Dès l’âge de 8 ans, je fis un rêve , dont je me souviens encore…. : des êtres atterrissaient sur les toits des immeubles, ou des maisons.

Ils étaient comme des nains. Je leur disais : « saute par la fenêtre, tu ne vas pas te faire du mal ».

« Dès l’âge de 8 ans, je fis un rêve , dont je me souviens encore…. : des êtres atterrissaient sur les toits des immeubles, ou des maisons. Ils étaient comme des nains. Je leur disais : « saute par la fenêtre, tu ne vas pas te faire du mal ».

« Alors que je me trouvais en colonie de vacances, à Châlons sur Saône, mon regard fut attiré par une forte lumière qui se manifesta dans le ciel.

Mon regard fut attiré par cette chose, alors que le rideau de la fenêtre du dortoir où je me trouvais était à moitié tiré. J’avais 7 ou 8 ans. Je n’ai pas de souvenir très précis là-dessus, mais je sais que, depuis toujours, depuis que je m’interroge sur les choses de l’existence, j’ai toujours su qu’on n’était pas seul dans l’univers.

Mes premières lectures sur ce sujet datent de 1976. Ce premier livre m’a marquée : « Les OVNIS et les extraterrestres », de Yves Naud, ( Ed. Famot). »

« Ma deuxième expérience se situe alors que je demeure au 17, avenue J.Jaurès, à Suresnes. Nous sommes alors en 1981.C’est tout près du croisement avec l’avenue D. Vaillant, face au bassin, en face il y a la statue. Assez haut dans le ciel, je vois un objet ayant cette forme précise » :

« Cet objet se tient immobile pendant une dizaine de secondes. Nous sommes en début d’après-midi. Tout à coup, l’objet exécute un écart à droite, puis à gauche.,

puis bascule, pointe en l’air, prenant la forme d’un fuselage d’avion, sans ses ailes, puis monte tout droit dans un nuage. Il disparaît complètement à ma vue. »

« Donc nous sommes à Suresnes. « Dans la journée. Ciel légèrement nuageux. Phénomène vu à l’œil nu, puis observé à la jumelle depuis le balcon de notre ancien logement.

L’objet, ( voir représentation ci-dessous), me semble très éloigné et à très haute altitude.

Il m’apparaît comme étant au-dessus de Paris. Cet objet est d’aspect rectangulaire. A bout de bras, il a la taille de la moitié d’un ticket de métro. Il est immobile pendant un quart d’heure à trente minutes. Il est de couleur vert pâle. Puis cet objet va se déplacer horizontalement sur sa gauche, revenant ensuite à sa position initiale, mais en changeant de forme. Il a maintenant l’aspect d’une ogive, d’une fusée, dont les cônes opposés ont une forme légèrement concave. Il est devenu une espèce de fusée blanche, légèrement lumineuse, et a démarré une montée vers le ciel à une vitesse fantastique, atteignant un nuage dans lequel elle disparaît. Il y a à ce moment un effet d’une brillance argentée. »

« Aux alentours de cette observation, ( avant ou après, je ne m’en souviens plus), pendant quelques petites minutes, j’ai ressenti comme si mon cerveau « se vidait ». Plus aucune pensée d’aucune sorte. Je n’avais jamais éprouvé cela. »

Vue du Mont Valérien, vers Suresnes.- ( Ce témoignage est confirmé par le mari de la dame. Il me certifie qu’il a partagé cette observation, en tous points.)

« Une boule rouge, stationnaire pendant deux ou trois minutes. Puis se déplaçant vers la droite et diminuant très vite de taille pour ne plus devenir qu’un point à l’horizon.

Nous avons un instant supposé que cette lumière émanait d’une grue de chantier, devant nous. Mais l’altitude de cette lumière, son intensité, étaient telles que nous avons bien vu que cela n’avait rien à voir avec les grues. Cela a été encore plus évident lorsque nous avons vu cette lumière s’élever, s’éloigner en diminuant d’intensité. »

Intérieur des ailes rempli d’un scintillement innombrable de petites lumières jaune-pâle, cela dans chaque aile. Cette aile double est animée d’un balancement alternatif, gauche-droite. Sa vitesse est celle d’un avion de ligne. Elle se dirige d’est en ouest.

1990, le 11 septembre. 1 H du matin. Ciel complètement étoilé. Représentation par le témoin , depuis une fenêtre de son appartement, à Suresnes.

Nous sommes maintenant en 1992. Une nouvelle observation., alors que le témoin attendait la venue de ses parents. Cette vision se concrétise un peu à l’est du site du théâtre J.Vilard.

Chaque fois qu’il en est ainsi, elle se précipite sur ses crayons pour représenter ce qu’elle a vu. Cela contribue aussi à évacuer le stress que ces apparitions provoquent en elle.

Voici cette nouvelle observation . Le témoin tient à me préciser quelque chose d’important pour elle, qui l’a beaucoup frappée : cette « boule » très lumineuse est animée d’une espèce de pulsation, et dans les phases de diminution, elle devient d’un « blanc neutre », comme si elle se « pompait » de l’énergie lumineuse.

C’était donc, ici, le 26 juin 1994, la nuit. Le témoin observe, depuis la fenêtre de sa bibliothèque, le mouvement parfaitement synchrone de toutes ces boules qui se dirigent vers le nord, à une vitesse qu’elle juge supérieure à celle d’un avion.

Et les témoignages se succèdent, les représentations sont toujours aussi saisissantes.

Le témoin me précise que dans la vision ci-dessous, elle est vraiment impressionnée par la couleur cuivrée des objets, comme s’ils « étaient surchauffés »

« Ma surprise a été de deux ordres : 1/-Cet objet filant dans le ciel, devant moi, très haut, avec aucun empennage de queue visible, 2/- Absolument aucun bruit.

Ci-dessous : « Je voyais une boule lumineuse, qui éjectait des petites billes lumineuses elles aussi, qui gerbaient en étincelles. La deuxième gerbait en étincelles plus petites que pour le premier objet ».

« Là, je me souviens très bien que j’étais en train de cuire des pâtes, lorsque mon regard s’est porté vers cet endroit du ciel ».

La présente relation est accompagnée de deux enregistrements audio. Ils seront bientôt ajoutés à cette relation.

Ces enregistrements ont été effectués au cours de la deuxième semaine du mois d’avril 2008, à l’aide d’un petit enregistreur numérique de bonne sensibilité. Cet enregistrement a été réalisé lors du travail final de mise au point du présent document, sa relecture, en présence des deux époux, et leur acceptation de cette présentation. Je pense que les documents audio intéresseront aussi bien que la présente relation. Pour ce qui concerne les documents audio, je compte approfondir l’enquête, qui fera si nécessaire l’objet d’un complément écrit.

Bien comprendre : les lumières ainsi alignées avancent vers l’immeuble alors que se dirige vers elles une masse nuageuse épaisse, qui absorbera les lumières….

Et puis il y a eu aussi ce spectacle incroyable, juste au retour de mes vacances.

C’était le mercredi 5 septembre 2007. De chez moi, j’ai vu un hélicoptère, ( il en passe souvent à cet endroit assez rapproché de chez nous, il s’agit à mon avis d’un couloir aérien régulier pour ces aéronefs ). Mais là, c’était donc vers 23 H, ce qui m’a intriguée, c’est que, au bruit, je me suis bien rendue compte qu’il faisait une grande trajectoire autour des immeubles. J’ai l’ai vu alors qu’il allait quitter mon champ de vision : j’ai bien vu l’hélicoptère bien éclairé, il avait son puissant projecteur devant, qui éclairait une masse sombre qui était devant lui, et qui se dirigeait dans le même sens, à la même vitesse…Cette masse sombre était très rapprochée de l’hélicoptère….

A la mémoire de Sir Arthur Charles Clarke qui est décédé au Sri Lanka, à 1 h 30 du matin (heure locale), ce 19 mars 2008.

Sri Lanka. An island south of India, some 17 million residents, site of a 15-year guerrilla war with separatist Tamil Tigers in the north, exotic film location i.e. “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” formerly known as Ceylon, formerly a Dutch colony and an English colony, and home of the writer/inventor Arthur C. Clarke, the focus of my trip halfway round the world.

My stay was short; 48 hours in total, only twice as long as it took me to get there. I had a day to recover from the trip and wander about, a day to interview Clarke, and then that evening it eased off again, back towards home.

Of all the people I’ve interviewed over the years, none have achieved quite the lasting impact in the way Clarke has. His conception of geosynchronous satellites to allow for instant world wide communication has had an enormous effect on modern history.

After a good night’s sleep, I woke up to a sunny morning, white fluffy clouds floating across the sky. Out my window I can see the ocean, the beach, a large government building, and the city of Colombo, the capital, stretching away to the south.

Nowhere does a nice international hotel feel more like a safe haven than in the third world, at least to someone not accustomed to third world travel. After refusing several offers of a guide, a young boy tags along, gently tossing in a fact or an idea of the next wonder to view. The city is moist; the air is moist, we’re near the equator. Everything seems to have that crumbliness as a result of all the dampness. There are trees and grass, but more than that there are half-completed, or half-destroyed, buildings next to new ones, next to tin shacks where Pepsis and Cokes are sold. People walking, on bikes, stuffed busses, three-wheeled motorized things; the normal urban jumble, all somehow decayed or decaying.

We walk by one shop and there’s a man on an overhang painting his building an ocean blue; next to his building there’s a large pile of picked over trash, right on the ground. We walk past an elephant; he’s being tended by three or four men in sarongs and bare feet. Half the feet I’ve seen here are bare. My guide, who calls himself Sri Lanka Man, tells me this elephant has killed two people and is crazy, that he belongs to a monk who has nine other elephants. The elephant’s caretakers say something to SLM, who asks me if I have any sweets, or candy. I say no; we go to a stand not far away and buy six hard candies. Unwrapping them all, SLM puts his hand out to the elephant, who is standing halfway below us, next to a pond, so that we’re looking him in the eye, and he cant’ get to us quickly with his two, long, pointy tusks. The elephant’s trunk finds the candies and sucks them up, curling back to his mouth and depositing the transitory treasure on his outstretched tongue.

We continue on to the Buddhist Temple on the lake. It’s small and wooden, and has tusks inside, on either side of a statue of Buddha in a large wooden box. I wonder what the relationship between Buddhism and elephants and their tusks is all about.

Next is the Buddhist temple where the elephant monk lives. He’s in front with another elephant, this one all covered with red cloth, with mirrors and embroidery all over it. We walk inside the temple and look at large brightly coloured statues of Buddha and other figures of the religion. I take my shoes off, unlacing the, and step gingerly around in my socks. Going in and out of temples is easier if you’re not wearing basketball shoes. There is a room filled with monks, all dressed in traditional orange sarongs with balked heads, busy eating their midday meal. Outside are the younger monks, sitting quietly in a line, eating as well. SLM shows me carvings of stone that lead into the temple. All very old, he says, carved by hand. Hundred fifty years ago people very strong. Which I guess he’s saying is in contrast to the many thin people who seem to predominate the areas we’ve visited so far.

Off to another few statues; one a sitting gold Buddha in a park where donkeys wander around; the other a large standing stone Buddha. While we’re looking at the tall standing Buddha the tour guide I first turned down pulls up in his three wheeler, and an Asian couple gets out of the back. He sees me and smiles. I gesture to SLM and say he walked along after me, and we ended up going around. Are you friends I ask. Yes he say. It’s fine. He had found his tourists for the day, so he was happy. Across the street was some large modern building; SLM couldn’t explain to me what it was; a cow-drawn cart went by, amidst the rest of the automobile traffic. A handmade, wooden car, pulled by a cow. More contrast.

We drove to Kelaniya, a 2,500 year old Buddhist temple with female monks. SLM was concerned that I understand the monks were women. The temple was large, and old. there was a Bo tree next to it, and people were walking clockwise seven times around the tree, and then approaching the statue of Buddha underneath the tree with an offering. There was a row of candles, and people would add oi, it looked like, and say a prayer.

Inside the temple the walls were covered with pictures describing Buddha’s history. A woman sat on the floor, her seven or eight-month old child lying on it’s back on a blanket. She was smiling and talking to the child. The child was calm as it looked around the dark room. In another room there was a large golden Buddha, with a sky and mountain diorama behind him.

People put their hands together, palms touching, fingers pointed upwards, and prayed, some standing, some kneeling. In another room there was another Buddha, reclining on his side, perhaps 30 or 40 feet long, behind a wall of sheer drapery.

On the way back to the city, we stopped at a cricket match I had seen on the way down. I love the remnants of colonialism that former colonies choose to retain. Sri Lanka was playing Pakistan in a test today; this was not that match, but several hotel employees had told me about the match proudly. We moved on, and I watched Sri Lanka pass by. The little three-wheeler had no doors, only a canvas roof. We passed a woman beating her clothes on the ground next to the local water tap; there were suds making the ground white. she looked pretty strong to me. We went past a metal shop, and a shirtless man was inside hammering away. Several small bicycle shops were busy with activity. All along the road people were walking, squatting in doorways, sitting on walls watching the world go by. In other parts of town, walls were high, and rimmed with barbed wire. The nice parts of town all had compounds; the poor parts had dogs running everywhere and trash piles in between open homes. A bus stopped to let people out. A man holding his daughter followed by his wife returned my smile. Further up the road a young boy in a sarong and no shirt was dumping a big bowl of water over his head. He smiled and laughed when he saw me watching, and threw some water in my direction, knowing it would never reach me.

Another stop was the National Museum. Admittance was $1.00 US. Inside were old stone carvings, drums, weapons, and jewellery. My favourite was the throne of the last King of Kandy, the ancient capital when Sri Lanka was Ceylon, that the British took with them to England when they conquered Ceylon in 1815. It was returned in 1936. More than 100 years later. The throne is covered in gold, with gems, and details of Ceylonese history. Quite regal. While we were inside the museum, the rains came. They lasted about 15 minutes, and then were gone. Earlier in the day, there was a huge circular rainbow of sorts surrounding the sun. Sri Lanka Man said Vishnu did it every so often. Whoever did it, I thought it looked pretty damn cool.

I arrived for my interview around 8AM. The house was built for the Bishop of Sri Lanka, Dr. Clarke tells me, but he died before he could occupy it. The elevator is a key feature, as Clarke has post-polio syndrome and doesn’t walk much. It’s old colonial style, large rooms with high ceilings, fans, ceramic tile floors in some rooms, wood floors in others. There’s a perfectly-kept traveler’s palm outside, that fans out one leaf at a time. It’s very hard to get it to grow that way according to my local contact.

I’m lead upstairs and find Clarke in his office, a large room with 3 walls of book cases, the fourth filled with a tv and other electronics. He sits behind his desk, and greets me with a big smile.

During the nearly 24 hours it had taken me to fly to Sri Lanka I read the official biography of Clarke; now a day later I was sitting in his house talking to him; the man who thought of satellites, who wrote “Childhood’s End,” who wrote “2001 A Space Odyssey.” Most people I don’t find as interesting.

“Listen to this,” he said, all giddy like a mischievous child. He turned his computer off, and it said “I can feel my mind going Dave,” in the voice of HAL, the murderous computer of 2001. He turned it back on; it said “I am now fully operational,” again in HAL’s voice. I’m sure he’s been doing that for years, for the countless visitors he’s welcomed, and he still thinks it’s a riot. Nice to know enthusiasm persists in some cases.

Back at the hotel, I put on my bathing suit and head down to the huge swimming pool, populated mostly by Europeans, in Sri Lanka on business. the sun sets behind palm trees over the ocean, as I lean back against the edge of the pool, talking to a Brit who’s in Sri Lanka to buy coconuts. They use parts of the coconut as padding in the mattresses of beds. He really enjoys his time in the warm sun of Sri Lanka. I feel like a world citizen, flitting here and there across our small, lovely planet, in search of stories, scenery, and sightings.

How did you come to conceive of the idea of placing satellites in geosynchronous orbit for communications?

ARTHUR C. CLARKE - Well, at the time I was walking-- at the time I was working in microwave radar, the first D.C.A. ground controlled equipment. So, you know, I was dealing with that technology. At the same time, now that the war was obviously coming to an end, we were trying to revive the British interplanetary society, which had been formed in 1933 with this crazy idea of going to the moon. So, I said, well, oh-- in what way can rockets be used to make some money to pay for spaceships, you see. [LAUGHS] So, I put the two ideas together, these rockets to launch satellites and use the satellites to act as relay stations for television and wrote it up in summer of '45 and it was published exactly 50 years ago, which I can't really believe.

A.C.C. - I think it was influential in the long run. At the time it didn't have much of an impact. Ah, it-- the war was still on. Well, actually it was when the time it was published the atom bomb had been dropped and the meteor rocket had arrived. So, people took these ideas more seriously. It was not regarded with derision as it would have been if it had been published ten years earlier. And then of course, famous people saw it and I have reason to believe it sort of triggered the American interest in the idea of satellites.

Were you walking along the street one day and the idea hit you on the head or was it sort of a natural extension of your work?

A.C.C. - Well, I'd been thinking about space travel and all its applications, you know, for decades and, um, we space cadets of the British Interplanetary Society, we used to meet occasionally, even during the war, and lots of brainstorming sessions in what should we do to make space travel possible and I can't be absolutely sure that this wasn't really one of my colleagues' ideas, but I at least was the one who wrote it up and presented it to the public. [LAUGHS]

The impact of geosyncronous satellites has been enormous. Is that something that's gratifying to you?

A.C.C. - Yes, it's been very gratifying to me and particularly of course when people call it the Clarke Orbit, even though the idea of a satellite which is stationing over the earth is an old one, it's perfectly obvious of course, it had been obvious from the time of Newton when he formulated the laws of gravitation, such a satellite was possible. And early in the 1920's, ah, there was a book on the subject written by a gentleman by the name of Nordon, ah, which gave all the principles of space station construction, including the spinning space station rather like the one in 2001.

A.C.C. - My contribution was to point out that the solution to the problem of long distance TV was not to build hundreds of towers each [LAUGHS], you know, a few hundred miles apart, ah, or a floating towers across the Atlantic, which had been suggested, ah, but to go to a satellite orbit. And the particular one that was the best was the obviously, obviously the stationary one. Although the other satellites in lower orbits now are coming into the picture for telephony and other purposes, but for direct broadcast into the home for television, then the stationary satellite is the obvious answer.

A.C.C. - It has changed the world, I'm certain of that, but I can't claim too much credit, because if I hadn't published that paper in October '45, about ten of my friends would have done so within the year. [LAUGHS]

Why was science-fiction so appealing in the 30's? You were a rabid fan of science-fiction writing in the 30's. What was it about it that made it so much fun?

A.C.C. - Well, it appeals to people with, you know, imagination and science-fiction in various forms have been popular for a long time and of course Jules Vern is a classic and then Wells in England and there've been various other writers who-- there's a lot of science-fiction in the-- in the 19th century, most of which, except for Wells, has been forgotten. I was turned on by the early wonder stories and amazing stories in the 1930's and, ah, then by a book called the Conquest of Space, which was written by the assistant editor of Wonder Stories. That was published in, in 1931 and I'm happy to say the writer, David Lasser, is still around and still active.

A.C.C. - Well, we musn't overdo this, because science-fiction stories have covered almost every possibility in-- well, most impossibilities, obviously we're bound to have some pretty good direct hits as well as a lot of misses. But, that doesn't matter. Science-fiction does not attempt to predict. It extrapolates. It just says what if, not what will be, because you can never predict what will happen, particularly in, in politics and economics. You can to some extent predict in the technological sphere, um, flying, space travel, all these things, but even there we missed really badly on some things, like computers. No one imagined the incredible impact of computers, even though robot brains of various kinds had been-- my late friend, Issac Asmiov, for example, but the idea that one day every house would have a computer in every room and that one day we'd probably have computers built into our clothing, nobody ever thought of that.

The idea of an intelligent computer, an artificial intelligence like hal, do you think we'll achieve that?

A.C.C. - Oh, I don't think any question of that. I think that the people that say we will never develop, um, computer intelligence, ah, they merely prove that some biological systems don't have much intelligence.

A.C.C. - Well, I think it's Danny Curry and he deserves most of the credit for this and by the way, I'm gonna switch off my computer there and you will hear Hal say, "My mind is going." It happens every time I switch off my computer. [LAUGHS]

A.C.C. - Well, it was, ah, you know, a fascinating experience, because for many reasons. Um, I was moonlighting at Time Life where I was doing a book called Man in Space. Ah, this was in 1964 when the Apollo Program, you know, had been announced. But, ah, no one really believed we would go to the moon and, ah, still sort of had a scepticism. And also, ah, Stanley and I had to out guess what would happen, um, I believe-- this may not be true, maybe Stanley's publicity department-- he's supposed to have gone to Lloyd's, taken an insurance against Martians being discovered before the film was released. [LAUGHS] Well, ah, I don't think-- I don't know how Lloyd’s would

have carried the odds on that one. [LAUGHS] So, anyway, we were writing the film, ah, before we had any close-ups of the moon's surface. So, we had to guess what it might be like and there are all sorts of problems. I-- we-- I think we did pretty well. One or two mistakes. For instance, we show the moon as more rugged then in fact it turned out to be. It turned out to be sort of smooth and sort of sandblasted.

A.C.C. - Eventually, eventually, but when it came out first there was a lot of negative criticism. I can remember one M.G.M. executive saying well, that's the end of Stanley Kubrick. And so [LAUGHS]--

A.C.C. - Well, it turned on a whole generation, I believe in some cases with certain chemical assistance. [LAUGHS] But, um, and it still has its impact. In fact, um, I'm always coming across references to it, sometimes indirect. A lot of t.v. commercials now. I'm sure you're-- there's one on the local t.v. It shows somebody throwing a paintbrush up into the air, some paint commercial, and the paintbrush goes up to the sounds of 2001-- And, oh, I caught an episode of the Simpsons the other day and there's a marvelous parody of a-- apes all around the, the slab [LAUGHS] Very funny.

A.C.C. - That was Stanley's. I think, ah, we had a-- the private working title was, um, Journey Beyond the Stars and, um, my-- [LAUGHS] one of my private titles, which gave the idea of what we were working on one time was How the Solar System was Won. [LAUGHS] That might be a good title one day.

In 2001 there's the pan am shuttle that goes off and there's all the corporate things--

A.C.C. - That shows how hard it is to for-- forecast the future. The Pan Am is gone, so is the Bell System you see.

A.C.C. - My favorite scene from 2000 and, and 1? I'm not sure I have a favorite. Certainly one I think with the greatest impact is when he picks up that bone and [LAUGHS] because that begins human history and you reminded me that I-- we screened this once in the U.N. Building for the Secretary General and the top branch of the U.N. and I suddenly realized, ah, when that scene came on that this is what the United Nations is trying to stop, the warfare, and also that the U.N. building is safe as a slab. [LAUGHS]

A.C.C. - Could well be. In fact, much of it-- as you see, I did a lot of brainstorming only a few blocks from the U.N.

A.C.C. - Very much and I'm happy that Stapleton is now been rediscovered after a period of obscurity. Um, his novel, if you can call it a novel, Last and First Men, which is a history of the next 2000, million years or so, all the races of man on the different planets of the solar system. Although obviously dated in many ways, it was originally in 1930, had a colossal impact on me more than any other work I can imagine and his later book Star Maker, Sirius um, these are the great classics of modern science-fiction and, um, I'm happy to say that Stapleton has now been rediscovered.

A.C.C. - Well, just the reading of that book, which-- these enormous timespans, the idea that history was just beginning and not-- history would not be a matter of near few thousands of years, not even mere-- millions, but thousands of millions and on many planets.

A.C.C. - Yes, in a way and at the same time I had discovered Wonder Stories, ah, so, you know, my mind was going, expanding like the universe. [LAUGHS]

A.C.C. - Well, alas I can barely read fiction now, partly because I have so much other reading to do. Also, I think my memory banks are clogged. I can pick up a book and then a year later and I-- have I read it even? But, um, there's some brilliant science-fiction being written now, very much concerned with the, um, problems of our age. Um, I-- they used to say the 30's was a golden age of science-fiction, the old pop magazines, but I suspect that this is a platinum age.

A.C.C. - Ah, no, I don't mention who-- it wouldn't be fair anyway, because many of the best writers today I'm quite sure are people by whose works I haven't had time to read.

A.C.C. - Well, I'm, I'm not doing much writing now, I'm-- got a lot of, um, ideas which I'm written up and that I send off to my agent and he's getting other people to do the hard work.

A.C.C. - Well, I hope to be here in 2001, but of course who knows? Um, it will be rather a busy year I'm quite sure, in many ways.

A.C.C. - No, I hope to be here in Sri Lanka, so I hope I never have to leave the island again, 'cause I love it here. My adopted family's here and [LAUGHS] and, um, I have everything I need here.

A.C.C. - I didn't choose it. It chose me. I came here, touched base here in December, '54, on my way to the Great Barrier Reef to do my first underwater book, having gotten interested in diving, entirely because I felt there I could reproduce weightlessness, which is of course the phenomenon you experience in space. So, I took up underwater exploring, went to the Great Barrier Reef to do a book on that, touched in Columbo in one afternoon, met one of the local divers, said why don't you come back if you survive the well known sharks of the Barrier Reef and I did with my late partner, Mike Wilson, in 1956. We did a book about, um, Sri Lanka's oceans or Ceylon as it was then, and, you know, just fell in love with the country and he married a local beauty and just settled down here.

A.C.C. - Yeah and it's too bad that's it, you know, these terrible political problems, but every country seems to have.

Is there a correlation between people who write science-fiction and a particular interest in the future?

A.C.C. - Yes, there must be, but, um, to be a science-fiction writer you must be interested in the future and you must feel that the future will be different and hopefully better than the present. Although I know that most-- that many science-fiction writings have been anti-utopias, ah, 1984, as an example. And the reason for that is it's much easier and more exciting to write about a really nasty future than a-- placid, peaceful one.

What's a precondition for being a science-fiction writer other than an interest in the future?

A.C.C. - Well, an interest-- at least an understanding of science, not necessarily a science degree but you must have a feeling for the science and its possibilities and its impossibilities, otherwise you're writing fantasy. Now, fantasy is also fine, the Lord of the Rings is still one of my favorite books, but there is a distinction, although no-- no one's ever been able to say just where the dividing lines comes. [LAUGHS]

A.C.C. - Yes, but accidental prophets, because very few attempt to pr-- predict the future as they expect it will be. They may in some cases, and I've done this myself, trite about-- try to write about futures as they hope they will be, but I don't know of anyone that's ever said this is the way the future will be.

A.C.C. - Well, I don't think there is such a thing as, as a real prophet. You can never predict the future. We know why now, of course, chaos theory, which I got very interested in um, that, ah, shows you can never predict the future.

The success of science-fiction writers is because they predict everything that might happen and eventually--

A.C.C. - Well, the success of a science-fiction writer is if he can write a good read.

A.C.C. - I don't think there are any secrets to writing in the-- everybody has their own techniques. Um, you must be widely read, that's one thing, ah, because you have to resolve a tremendous amount of background information. Also, you should know what the competition in writing just so-- wasting your time doing the same thing. [LAUGHS] Unless you do it better, of course.

Are there any things that haven't happened yet in your writings that you feel strongly will happen?

A.C.C. - I don't think so, because I've covered a very wide spectrum of things. I'm disappointed of course that we've not gone back to the moon or even onto Mars. Ah, what I consider my best short story, “Transit of Earth,” was actually set in 1984, believe it or not. It was written quite a few years earlier. It was in 1984, there was a transit of earth. If you were on Mars then you would have seen the earth go across the face of the sun and that short story is about the only survivor of the first expedition to Mars in 1984 seeing this. It's hard to believe now, but when the Apollo mission took place, the first landing in 1969, I heard the Vice-President of the United States say now we must go on to Mars and a lot of people thought we would be doing that. There were plans to go to Mars in the 1980's.

A.C.C. - Yes, well, um, I'm sure that, you know, barring accidents in which now seem less likely thanks to the determination of the unlamented gold-- ah, Cold War. Um, I think we should be back on Mars by about the 2020's. And as for terraforming, well, I'm interested in this. I've done a book on the subject called Snows of Olympus, mostly generated in my computer when taking the maps of Mars as it radiates, then messaging them and putting in seas and grass and trees and clouds and atmosphere and showing what Mars might be like when we have, ah, terraformed it or transformed it. Incidentally, the word terraforming was invented by Jack Williamson and Jack Williamson, his, ah, novel, The Green Girl, ah, The Green Girl [LAUGHS] was the first science-fiction pop magazine story I ever read in 1931 or 32 and Jack is still writing.

A.C.C. - I think as long as longevity and interest in the future and science-fiction-- obviously, I mean, if you're interested you want to go and live to see it.

A.C.C. - No, no, it was, ah, fraught and tense and there were very few unpleasantnesses. The only problem I had was trying to persuade Stanley to reissue the book in time, because I was rather hard up. I had an expensive wife and, ah, and various other problems and, um, and Stanley just wouldn't release the manuscript. I mean, I, I can't blame him. He was desperately busy on doing the film and fighting off all the problems he must have had, you know, with the, ah, M.G.M. thing. I mean, this was a lot of nonsense, you know, and [LAUGHS] and it all came out okay in the long run and Stanley and I were always on good terms.

A.C.C. - You know, it's a bit of a blur, because I had to go to three successive premieres. Stanley is a very shy person and won't go anywhere, any public-- so, I had to attend the first premiere in Washington, the next night in New York, the next night in Los Angeles wearing-- so, it's really much of a blur and because I've seen it so many times in so many versions. So, I just can't focus on that very first experience.

A.C.C. - But, see back in both directions sometimes I wrote scenes after I'd seen them on the-- on the screen, based on the earlier version.

A.C.C. - I've written another book called The Lost Worlds of 2001, about the alternative story lines we might have developed.

I was always a space child. When I saw that movie, it forever transformed the vision of the possible future for me and I think for lots of people.

A.C.C. - [LAUGHS] Incidentally, I came across a review the other day, it's 25-- 25th anniversary of the movie, somebody said, um, 2001 was so far ahead of its time and it's still the same pretentious nonsense it was 25 years ago. [LAUGHS]

A.C.C. - Well, I guess it legitimized it, particularly on people who looked down on science-fiction, you know, the, ah, archetypes, the intelligentsia. You know, my definition of the intelligentsia, someone who's educated beyond their intelligence.

A.C.C. - Well, it made it respectable and, ah, and respected and it opened up lots of gates in many ways, because-- now incidentally, um, there had been quite a few space movies before, Destination Moon, the Day the Earth Stood Still, and some of them were quite good in the context of the time, but 2001 killed the space movie dead for about a decade, until the technology had caught up and then of course we had Star Wars, and Close Encounters--

A.C.C. - Well, there arose from the ashes of the Origin NASA project, which millions of dollars had been spent getting all this equipment ready to start a ten year search for intelligent messages from space. All the equipment was there, all the work had been done, the scientists were ready, and then suddenly Congress decided it was a waste of money. I think one man was responsible. His, ah, name should be written in letters of lead, but the people also voted for-- I mean, all that re-- all that money was wasted on what is the most important project of the human race, you know, could possibly get involved in. Are we alone in the universe? Well, luckily the money will not be wasted now, because private enterprise and a lot of people like, um, Bill Hewit and Eckart and many others, ah, put a great deal of money in it and now it's continuing on private funding in Australia.

A.C.C. - Well, the idea is this, that if there are other intelligent species in the universe, and practically everyone assumes that this must be the case, some of them are probably broadcasting on the-- on radio waves as we are and perhaps the deliberate intention of saying hi, we're here folks, anybody else out there? Well, unless we listen we probably can-- we'll never have a chance of finding this is true. So, that is we should have a continuing search on possible frequencies and maybe towards the stars like our sun and just listen. Now, it may be a very time, because you know if you're searching the short waves for a station you don't know where it is, it may take a while to find it. In this case we're not only searching the radio spectrum, but we're searching the whole sphere of the sky. So, even if you've got thousands of receivers listening it might take centuries before we hear anything. On the other hand, we might get a result tomorrow.

A.C.C. - Yes. Obviously we have to avoid areas in the radio spectrum which are noisy occupied by terrestrial or natural interference and it does happen that there is one frequency, the so-called Hydrogen Line, ah, they had done in the centimeter wave lengths, which, ah, is sort of marker. Everyone in the universe knows about this particular line and one theory is they might use multiples of that line. Unfortunately, a lot of things have happened since then. First of all, satellites, [LAUGHS] communication satellites, have broadcast all over the sky now and I feel a certain guilt in [LAUGHS] in this matter, 'cause I've been very interested in the whole idea of listening out for radio signals in space.

Um, and it's getting more and more difficult because of satellite interference, particularly the new low level ones around the earth, hundreds of them maybe, all over the place so there's no way you can keep track of them and every so often any radio dish, listening out zap, zap, zap. Still, ah, that's the situation we can't do much about. We have to live with it. However, back in 1961 I pointed out the solution to this problem before it even arose. I said the quietest radio place in the solar system is on the far side of the moon. There we're shielded from all the radio racket of the earth by the whole width of the moon to, ah, 1,000 miles of solid rock. Well, ah, that now has been seriously concluded that's where the radio astronomers of the future will have to go.

Unfortunately, of course, soon after we get there the lunar colonets will have their own lunar communication satellites whizzing around. [LAUGHS]

A.C.C. - Yes, um, one could build in space very large antennas, many miles across, because there's a problem building a very large dish on the earth is gravity and winds. Well, on the moon you have much lower gravity, [WORD?] and no wind. So, the moon is an ideal place for large radio telescopes, but space itself would be even better, because there's no gravity there and you can make 'em as big as you like. Also, you can move way out to the edges of the solar system. Ah, another problem is that the sun of course is radio sending out radio waves and things and, ah, there's a kind of ionosphere 'round the inner solar system which may block long-- very long waves coming in. So, we might have to go out beyond Saturn to search the really long waves. But, it's an exciting project and I can't think of anything more important.

A.C.C. - Well, it seems to me any person, any intelligence, any interest in life or anything, would ask are we alone in the universe? If we're not, where are we? Are we near the apes or the angels? I think we're rather near the apes. Now, of course, a lot of people I think are opposed to the whole idea, because they're scared, particularly religious fundamentalists, because they say God made man and woman [LAUGHS] in his own image. Well, one day we find we may have to reinterpret that rather drastically. Yes, of course, um, there's been a lot of discussion of this. In fact, um, the Pope at an audience I believe of the radio astronomers not long ago and he thinks it's a good idea, this search and, ah, doesn't believe it'll be any, ah, hazard to religion. I'm not so sure.

A.C.C. - Well, hydrogen atoms in space, and all atoms, have their natural frequency and space is full of hydrogen gas and this natural frequency-- what is it, I can't remember the figure now, it's, ah, thousand something megaherts and, um, ah, a few centimeters wave lengths and thousand spaces permeated with this radiation. It's very feeble, very faint, ah, radiation. And, um, ah, but it is sort of mark for a milestone, if you like, in the

A.C.C. - Also-- not only hydrogen, H, but OH, and make it water and they've called this a water hole, because this band between the H and the OH is a sort of place where the civilizations of the universe might meet [LAUGHS] at the water hole.

2001 was part of the idea of what would be the impact when man does discover some type of signal.

A.C.C. - There've been, of course, endless discussions of this theme, countless science-fiction novels and movies, and there've been some serious studies. In fact, one is recently been completed on the protocol, what should we do, you know, it's quite a serious, you know, fairly long detailed study, which study you should get a hold of. Ah, first of all, we've got to make sure there's no, there's no hoaxes, no premature announcement, you know, and then the other question is do we answer? Some people are scared. Well, it's too late to do anything about that. We have answered-- anything within 50 light years of earth, or whatever it is, knows we're here.

A.C.C. - Exactly, and I'm very scared as to what they may have decided about us and in fact, ah, recently I said, you know, all these crime series and horror movies needs to be radiating out. I'm surprised the cops aren't here.

A.C.C. - Well, you know, we-- it's rather lonely if this tiny little planet among hundreds of thousands of millions of other stars and planets is the only place where there's intelligence. You know, Douglas Adams, one of his books he mentions where God went wrong. Well, I feel if this is the only [LAUGHS] place which has any life in the universe from all these infinite, almost infinite, number of thousand suns, God really has gone badly wrong. Unless, and this is interesting I thought, unless we intended eventually to take over the universe.

A.C.C. - Well, ah, I think the idea is you'd go to the United Nations first of all. Ah, I can't remember the details of this protocol, because it as still very provisional, but the-- all these possibilities have been suggested. And of course there'd be some kid of press release and the interesting thing is how long would the sensation last. You know, would be a-- it depends on what it-- what the information is, you know, and what the message is. If it's from a civiliza-- if it's been 10,000 years on this way it's like taking a message from the ancient Greeks, but the ancient Egyptians, you know, so it obviously hasn't any direct impact. If it's from a civilization where only ten lights year away, then that's a very different story, because they might be here within 50 years. You know, we might be there within 50 years.

A.C.C. - No, um, I'm not quite sure of the protocol, but you see a great deal of regular radio astronomy involved searching the sky, ah, looking at stars, picking up the natural radiations from the universe from which we can learn a great deal. But a search for intelligent signals can ride piggyback on this without interfering much with the astronomy program. And there've been tremendous advances in electronics too and now we have computers that can search millions of different frequencies a second and automatically log them. If they find a signal they can also search another part of the sky and check if it's coming from more than one place and-- or if it's, ah, likely to be a natural or artificial, you know, whatever-- or man-made and eliminate an awful lot of nonsense. So, in the course of a day they may only find a few hits that are worth looking into. Otherwise they'd be overwhelmed with junk.

A.C.C. - Well, ah, that's the only thing I would-- I've seen so much happen in my lifetime in space, that it's greedy to expect more, but that is the one thing-- well, there's two things I'd like to see. One is the discovery of any form of life elsewhere, intelligent or not, even the mi-- even a genuine martian microbe would be something. And the other thing is of course proving intelligent life. Now, some scientists, not many, but have argued that life itself is gonna be a very rare phenomenon, because it depends on so many chance happenings. But, I think that's been refuted now.

There's some interesting counter arguments to this. Some scientists say that the chances of life arising are so rare, it depends on so many coincidences and chemical chances that we may indeed be the only life form in the universe. I don't think many people really believe that, but it could be true. Others go even further.

They say that even if life is common, intelligence itself, at least the technological intelligence, sort of civilization we have, would also depend on so many chances that that may be very rare and perhaps nonexistent. So, even if life is common we may be the only intelligence in the universe, which I find a very depressing thought. Well, these are really the most fundamental questions of philosophy and religion, science and I would like to see at least some of them answered.

A.C.C. - Well, you know, when the Apollo 8 astronauts came back from the first flight around the moon they told me that they'd been tempted to report they'd seen a black obelisk on the far side and I've never forgiven them for chickening out. [LAUGHS]

I mean, it's the most provoking-- I mean, you can argue either way and the only thing that'll settle it is experimental evidence. I mean, I've seen many of the great mysteries of astronomy solved in my lifetime, the canals of Mars is perhaps a classic one. When I was a boy everybody thought there might be life on Mars and-- because they thought there were canals in Mars civilization. That was not discovered, although, few people really took it seriously by the 1930's, but it wasn't disproven 'til the landing of the, you know, the Vikings got to Mars.

Tell me about the SETI League. They're talking about a global search of backyard dishes, right?

A.C.C. - Yes, although you need a pretty big dish to have a chance of picking up any signals, ah, even a small dish the size of some, you know, some satellite receivers does have a sporting chance and if they could have maybe hundreds of thousands of people listening at different parts of the sky it would improve the odds and it would be an interesting experiment anyway. You know this is rather like amateur astronomy which has been going for a couple hundred years I suppose, on quite a large basis. There are thousands of amateur astronomers, some of them with telescopes which are almost as large as some of the smaller professional ones. And they've done very valuable work, particularly in finding the comets. See, the professional astronomers with their giant multimillion dollar instruments, can only afford the time to look at things that are really important and difficult, but an amateur who can do what he likes, ah, can fill in gaps and there's plenty of sky for everybody.

One of the anti-SETI groups maintains that if there were intelligent species out there they would have contacted us already.

A.C.C. - This is another mystery. Well, first of all I think it's quite possible that there has been contact, maybe many times, in the three billion years or so, ah, of earth's history, or prehistory. I think it's also possible there may be beacons, sentinels, as a theme of 2001, you know, just watching, waiting until we were interesting enough for them to say, ah, yes, we're here, you've graduated, you know, welcome to the club. These are all possibilities, but unless we're gonna do some more exploring, research, we won't know.

A.C.C. - I think it's very possible and that's why I'm so angry with these idiots who keep saying we've been contacted now or I've been taken for a ride to Venus in a spaceship or all this utter nonsense.

A.C.C. - Yes, ah, and then the other argument is that noninterference, the prime directive from Star Trek, um, they will want to study us and see how we've developed. Um, the only thing they can learn from us is perhaps, you know, the way a history line does develop and if they interfere they spoil the experiment. This is a plausible argument. On the other hand, I, um, paint a dim view of it, because I don't believe any compassionate race that I'd want as having to do with would look at our earth and see the mess we're in now and not do anything to help us. And if they are they're just watching all our agonies I say the hell with them.

Because phoenix is so targeted isn't there a chance that we'll miss someone or some other being?

A.C.C. - Which is one reason why we should have, you know, thousands of observers trying everything possible part of the sky and every possible frequency. It's a very long shot and it may well be that the answer lies in other directions altogether. Ah, we ourselves are going away from broadcasting radio waves to squirting them through fiberoptics. So, maybe in 100 years our civilization won't be radiating much into space, although I imagine that big radar systems will be operating for a long time. They may be the best chance of anybody succeeding, it's not our radio or t.v. positions, but the military and, ah, civil aviation microwave radar systems scanning the universe. But, um, it may well be that the use of radio waves is only during a rather short window in the lifetime of a civilization, but then they may go onto something else.

A.C.C. - Well, first of all, the amounts involved are minuscule compared with, ah, what is wasted in other projects. I know that argument doesn't cut too much ice, ah, but, um, I think one good argument though would be the success of Apollo 13, showing the public is much more interested in space. I mean, the success of the film Apollo 13 [LAUGHS] showing the public is really very interested in space and, ah, wouldn't mind spending, you know, five cents per person per month, whatever it is to do such a investigation.

There's always people who say there's so many other problems we shouldn't be spending a dime in space, what difference is it going to make?

A.C.C. - Well, it may make all the difference. In fact, you know, in one of the arguments of searching for intelligent life in space, elsewhere, is that we have no evidence, contrary evidence, that intelligence has any survival value. Ah, I suppose the most successful creatures on this planet are part of the cockroaches. They've been around, what is it, 100 million years or so and I suspect they'll still be there 100 million years in the future. Maybe intelligence is a evolutionary aberration which dooms its possessors in the way armor may have doomed some of the dinosaurs. [LAUGHS]

If we found intelligence life elsewhere it might give us hope that we can continue to exist as a species.

A.C.C. - Finding intelligent life would encourage us and also of course the opportunity of learning, you know, a tremendous amount, but this again is a danger. We might be so overwhelmed with knowledge and information, ah, that we might, you know, be depressed and even become suicidal because, you know, say what's the point if they've-- thousands of years ahead of us why should we bother and become the ultimate couch potatoes. [LAUGHS]

A.C.C. - Well, this again is something which has been discussed in this protocol and it would also depend on how far away they were. If we could deduce how far the signal had been traveling, how many years it'd been on its way, if it's from the immediate neighborhood then the problem is important.

Um, do we send pictures, ah, of what we like? Carl Seagan, has pioneered this, the disc showing, you know, human beings and the various symbols of nuc-- ah, atoms and so forth. I think the temptation to send something like that and, ah, maybe some of our music would be important.

The huge paradigm shift in childhood's end placed earth in the solar system, in the galaxy, in the universe and showed me the potential of enormity of time scale. Why is that such a powerful idea?

A.C.C. - Well, because I think any intelligent person must wonder where we are in the scheme of things. That's what the question is. And yet, you know, some apparently quite intelligent people just aren't interested. The classic example is Sherlock Holmes. He had a discussion of astronomy with Watson and Sherlock said what does it matter? There's no practical concern at all. Well, he was wrong of course. Astronomy's now of great practical concern with satellites and so forth.

A.C.C. - Help is the obvious one, but of course you take some time for the help to arrive. No, I think we should them, you know, um, our pictures showing what the earth is like and in fact, um, there's a C.D. Rom showing a lot of pictures, which, ah, had been sent, you know, on the various space probes.

A.C.C. - Yes, uh, contact with extra terrestrials would be the turning point in history, to discover that we're no, no long alone. I can't imagine

Nos remerciments a Philips Mantel pour nous avoir communiqué ce document pour publication.

When dozens of people in Erath County, Texas spotted a half mile-long UFO in the skies above them in January 2008, a couple of area residents turned to local history books for clues about what happened. Located 80 miles southwest of Fort Worth, the neighboring towns of Stephenville and Dublin lie in the very midst of what has been, historically, a hotbed for UFO activity. In fact, it has recently come to light that 56 years before the famous Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash of 1947, the tiny town of Dublin was the site of a Roswell-like event, involving an aerial explosion of a UFO, followed by the discovery of strange debris containing mysterious, undecipherable writing.

Saturday, June 13, 1891, was a quiet summer day in Dublin, which had a population of just over 2,000 people. One of town’s major industries, the Wasson & Miller flour mill and cotton gin, had already wound down operations for the week. As evening came, a number of local residents were outdoors near the gin, walking and otherwise enjoying the leisurely summer weekend. Among the persons in the vicinity, the Dublin newspaper later reported, was an unnamed “gentleman” who witnessed an event like few others in the history of human affairs.

The unidentified man, described by the newspaper as a generally trustworthy witness, observed a bright, oblong-shaped object hovering about 300 feet in the sky above the gin. Although referred to as a “meteor,” the UFO’s strange behavior suggested that it was something entirely different. Struggling to describe the strange object in the terminology of an era before air travel, the witness stated that it looked like “a bale of cotton suspended in the air after having been saturated in kerosene oil and ignited, except that it created a much brighter light, almost dazzling those who perceived it.” While the general appearance was like a cotton bale, the observer gave no indication of the dimensions or overall size of the object. Apparently, he was so frightened by the UFO that he hastily withdrew from the scene before making any sort of guess at the object’s dimensions.

Especially striking about this account is the extreme intensity of light that emanated from the UFO. A kerosene-sparked flame would certainly not be bright enough to be said to “dazzle” viewers who stood several hundred feet away. This object, hovering in the sky above Dublin, exhibited a “much brighter light” than a conventional fire. The intense light may have been a sign that the air vehicle was in some kind of distress. Perhaps a fire had broken out on board the craft or something had caused it to overheat and build toward an explosion.

The observer noted that the dazzling object remained in the sky for an unspecified length of time and then, with a tremendously loud sound like that of a bombshell, the UFO suddenly exploded, violently hurtling metallic fragments of a most unusual character to the ground below and burning to a crisp all the surrounding grass and vegetation. The sound of the explosion was so loud that “nearly everyone in that portion of the city” heard it, according to the newspaper.

A more precise description of the object prior to the explosion is not available, we are told, because the observer was so badly frightened by what he saw that he “hastily” ran away and hid. Embarrassed by his fear and lack of scientific curiosity, he did return to the area the next day, but because of the initial instinct to flee, according to the newspaper account, “it was utterly impossible to obtain an accurate account of the dimensions and general appearance” of the UFO prior to the explosion.

The eyewitness must have had a restless night’s sleep thinking about the amazing sight his eyes had beheld that evening. He was certainly still intensely curious, and early on Sunday Morning, June 14, 1891, he returned to the scene of the fiery explosion he had witnessed. What he found was perhaps even more frightening to him than the events of the night before.

Strewn across a field for many yards were “fragments of the most remarkable substance ever known to explode.” Amidst the completely burned grass, weeds, and other vegetation around the area were numerous fragments of what appeared to be metal of a leaden color. In addition, there were “peculiar stones” resembling the lava fragments thrown out by volcanic eruptions. Clearly, the physical evidence lying in this debris field indicated that what exploded here was something other than a meteor. Still, the most amazing find was yet to be made.

As the witness combed through the metallic and lava-like debris, he came across several small fragments of a paper-like substance with printed writing on them. They almost seemed like scraps from a newspaper, except for one important difference – the language was of a character unknown to anyone. Gazing in wonder at the strange writing, the observer became aware that “the language in both was entirely foreign to him, and, in fact, no one has yet been found who has ever seen such a language before.”

Clearly, this part of the story had a deeply emotional impact on the eyewitness, as the newspaper reporter said he “worked himself up to such a pitch of excitement.” In fact, he seemed in a “bewildered fancy” as he recalled the strange debris that he saw littering the area around the Wasson & Miller flour mill and cotton gin.

In a bizarre twist, the newspaper reporter asked to see the scraps with the mysterious writing on them, but the witness became so emotionally overwrought that he was unable to comply with the reporter’s request. He did not even seem to “grasp” the reporter’s desire to be allowed to see the UFO debris.

Slowly over time, the excitement surrounding this amazing incident in Dublin, subsided, and the local residents went back to the harsh reality of daily life on the Texas plains. Six years went by and then another unearthly UFO crash occurred less than 100 miles away in the town of Aurora, Texas, that certainly caused Erath County residents to remember 1891. In the Aurora case, the Dallas Morning News reported, “About 6 o'clock this morning [April 19, 1897] the early risers of Aurora were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing around the country. It was traveling due north and much nearer the earth than before. Evidently some of the machinery was out of order, for it was making a speed of only ten or twelve miles an hour, and gradually settling toward the earth. It sailed over the public square and when it reached the north part of town it collided with the tower of Judge Proctor's windmill and went into pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the windmill and water tank and destroying the judge's flower garden. The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard and, while his remains were badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world.”

The Aurora UFO crash has been called the Roswell incident of Texas, and yet, one could legitimately argue that the 1891 event in Dublin is likely the oldest UFO crash event ever recorded in modern times. The Aurora event, along with the Great Texas Airship sightings of the middle 1890s, has been well documented and reported often, but the Dublin event remains very much a mystery to most UFO researchers and to the general public.

Some historical facts make the believability and extraterrestrial nature of the Dublin exploding UFO very compelling, even for skeptics. At the time, people did not have concepts of unearthly beings, space craft, or even air craft. One must imagine that any type of contact or witnessing of a possible would be depicted in terms of what people of that time knew or had previously experienced. Simple folk of that time would have explained such an event in terms that they knew, floating cotton bales glowing brighter than burning kerosene or similarly. Such a report would be akin to the way Ezekiel described the biblical “wheel in the middle of a wheel” and “like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps”. This Dublin event was a full seven years before H.G. Wells had written War of the Worlds, and the first widespread depictions of alien beings visiting Earth had emerged to the general public. This event was one year prior to the earliest known version of extraterrestrials first described in The Germ Growers (1892), by Robert Potter.

1891 city map section of Dublin, TX showing crash site at W. T. Miller Flour Mill & Cotton Gin in lower left hand corner.

1896 city map section of Dublin, TX showing crash site at W. R. Wasson Flour Mill & Cotton Gin in lower left hand corner.

The recent sightings near Stephenville and Dublin, Erath County, Texas, have sparked a new or renewed sense of wonder in many hearts and minds not only in the immediate area, but across the country and world. Some of the "old timers" of ufology are a bit amazed that the Erath phenomena are being taken so seriously by the routine media, whereas twenty years ago television reporters would have at least given a humorous wink with their story, if not total ridicule. The times are a changing. The Erath event in January 2008 was witnessed by many conservative Christian farmers and folks in a rural community, but also by university professors, respected business people and law enforcement officers. There are yet many more that will not go on record as witnesses because of past connotations associated with being a "UFO nut" for those with the courage to come forward. However, this latest occurrence could truly be a turning point in how the general public and mainstream science begins to perceive the possibility of extraterrestrial or extra-dimensional visitations, whatever they may turn out to be. In the minds of many nonbelievers, MUFON has proven to be a scientifically viable organization, handling the investigation in a professional manner with no bias and drawing no conclusions as to what it was.

So what about the military flip flop on the recent event? It is also a bit unique for a sighting. Air Force Major Karl Lewis of the 301st Fighter Wing at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Ft. Worth essentially admitted a short-term cover up of the phenomenon. He initially said that it most likely was an illusion caused by setting sunlight reflecting off of two commercial airliners. He stated later that he should not have said anything like that. Lewis also admitted disinformation when professing that the Air Force did not have any military operations in the area at that time. He supposedly wasn't in the loop and later said that a communications error led him to not know that there were ten F-16 fighter jets over Stephenville that night. How often does the U.S. military have ten F-16s in an exercise over a populated area? Being a resident of Stephenville myself for about 25 years, I recall military jets flying over town about three or four times a year, and then only a single plane or two at the most. Nothing has been stated why the military, both large Army helicopters refueling at the municipal airport, confirmed F-14 Navy Tomcats, confirmed F-16s, a possible B-52 bomber and other military craft continued operations in the area were heavy for the week or two following the January 8th event. Major Lewis stated that it was just a military exercise in the Brownwood Military Operating Area (MOA) on that night, after his official initial denials. It can be easily noted on an FAA map that Stephenville and the area to the East toward Selden are well outside the MOA described. This is the area where, as pilot Steve Allen and others have described, F-16s were chasing an approximately 2000 foot long craft that traveled around an incredible speed of 3000 miles an hour, which stopped, turned, disappeared, then reappeared. It is quite understandable indeed how military officials could be confused and suffer communication problems in the wake of something this monstrous and dramatic. Almost half a mile long, a quarter mile wide, and traveling over Mach 4! That was one huge, fast vehicle, and “nothing of this world”, as Allen stated.

A long video of the craft and part of the event has surfaced on the internet, reportedly taken by David Caron. This video is posted on Angelia Joiner's website http://stephenvillelights.com. Angelia is the reporter who broke the story in the local Stephenville Empire Tribune. She was interviewed and featured in international media including Larry King Live and major network news programs, along with Allen, the businessman and pilot who first came forward with the story publicly and several others. Mainly because of my political office on the Stephenville City Council, I also was interviewed on ABC’s Good Morning America and for a future episode of History Channel’s UFO Hunters. At least fifty other credible witnesses have been interviewed by MUFON at the time of this writing. Allen and several others state that the Caron video is a true and accurate depiction of what they witnessed, but that the craft traveled very fast at one point. The video seems to show the object prior to the time it was being chased by F-16s and its disappearance. The multicolored lights appear to be laser or plasma in nature, but that is left to interpretation, and they look like neon worms dancing in the night sky. Was this an extraterrestrial craft, plasma craft from our future, inter-dimensional portal ship, or just a bunch of laser lights on some type of cloaking device of a military stealth-type secret weapon? It certainly happened, what ever it was, and may never be fully disclosed or vetted publicly.

There are now other reports of Erath county sightings coming in, or being released to the public. A small, dark oval with multicolored lights traveling up the Bosque river, then hovering over a group of about twenty college students by an evening campfire occurred in March of 1982. There was absolutely no noise or wind as would be expected from even a "silent" helicopter. As the object hovered, it was not an airplane. The object accelerated at great speed up at an angle after hovering for over a minute. Another craft, exactly as described by Allen and the current witnesses, was reported to the sheriff of Erath County in 1969 by several local residents. Nothing was investigated. Other events and crafts have been spotted over the years, some relating to the many diaries in the area (Erath is the largest dairy county in Texas and seventh in the nation). Some events have been tied to Native American activities near the border with Comanche County on Erath's West side, others to the Comanche Peak nuclear plant near Glen Rose, and even more around abandoned military bases in the area. Is North Texas a hotbed of activity? If so, why? How long has this been going on? A follow-up study is being done on events passed down through the ages witnessed by members of the Comanche and Cherokee tribes in the area. Sightings are still reported from these Native Americans today. More to come on this.

The event recently uncovered about the 1891 crash may be the oldest on record in modern times (read attached transcription). This craft was spotted and exploded in Dublin in 1891, a full six years before the Aurora, Texas crash and subsequent burial of an assumed ET entity. The Aurora event, along with the Texas Ships of the 1890s, has been well documented and reported often. It may be surmised by some that the Aurora incident and other sightings around 1897 are attributed to the testing of dirigibles. The Dallas Morning News reported in 1897 that Stephenville farmer C. L. McIlhany (for whom a street in town is now named) actually spoke with the pilot and engineer of one of grounded airships. Their names were S.E. Tilman and A.E. Dolbear, and they were experimenting with the dirigible for an investment group out of New York. "They are confident that they have achieved a great success and that within a short time navigation of the air will be an assured fact," said McIlhany. Between April 13 and 17, 1897, there were 38 reported sightings of "airships" in 23 counties, mostly in North Central Texas, the location of Erath County. The late 1890s were also a busy time for dirigible invention testing across Europe. The “Golden Age” of airships did not actually begin until 1900. The bicycle making Wright brothers first flew in 1903. However, the descriptions of the 1891 incident do not match any possible connection to dirigible testing, and the Dublin crash appears to never have been reported, at least on a widespread scale.

The year 1891 was a busy time for Erath County. The first Dr. Pepper bottling plant was built in Dublin, Texas. Dublin had tried to become the Erath county seat, but the voter began building the courthouse in Stephenville that year also^x. The Miller grist mill and cotton gin was nine years old.

Some other details of interest from the Dublin Progress story need to be elucidated. The description of “peculiar stones and pieces of metal, all of a leaden color, presenting much the appearance of the lava thrown out by volcanic eruptions” is intriguing. The slag description is similar to other crash site artifacts, such as the one in the crash near Chihuahua in 1974. Metal slag appearing to be molten and cooled aluminum was discovered. Should samples of the leaden color metal ever be obtained from the mill site (and they probably still would be around somewhere under the soil surface), they could be tested to determine elemental content, pyrolytic history, and alloy composition.

The Progress witness described the craft first as a meteor and then as a cotton bale suspended in the air. It should also be noted that cotton bales in 1891 were much larger than they are today. Various sizes were used anywhere from as large as 10 x 10 x 10 feet to much smaller or larger, but usually big and bulky. A cotton compactor was patented in 1891 to make the standard bale about 55 inches by 22 inches by 33 inches and about 500 pounds known to farmers later, but this type compacter could not have been working in Dublin at that time the same year it was patented. The craft in question was probably several feet wide and long like the larger bales at the time.

The mill in Dublin still stands intact at the crash site. The railroad and depot is no longer on the west side of the mill, but is now replaced by small livestock field and a small creek. Sackville Street on the maps attached is now called West Park Street. The Dublin museum curators say that the mill is schedule for restoration and preservation as soon as funds are obtained. Should there be any excavation of the soil around the mill, it would be a good time to get out the metal detector and look for slag or unusual artifacts. I guess I’ll dig mine out of the garage and be ready. Perhaps some wealthy benefactor might consider giving a restoration grant with first archeological rights to whatever is dug up from the area. Manuscript fragments in the strange language described would long be dissolved, but may be in someone’s attic chest around Dublin. In any case, we can all glean from these events that the area around Erath County has been a source of UFO activity for at least 117 years or more. We’ll keep our eyes on the skies around here.

A Meteor Explodes in the City—An Eye Witness Describes the Scene to a Progress Reporter—Scared.

Quite a little excitement was created last Saturday night by the bursting of what is supposed by those who were present to have been a meteor, near Wasson & Miller’s gin. Quite a number witnessed the explosion and nearly everyone in that portion of the city heard the report eminating [sic] therefrom, which is said to have sounded somewhat like the report of a bomb-shell. Our informant (who, though a little nervous at times, is a gentleman who usually tells the truth, but did not give us this statement with a view to its publication) says he observed the meteor when it was more than three hundred feet in the air, before bursting, and that it bore a striking resemblance to a bale of cotton suspended in the air after having been saturated in kerosene oil and ignited, except that it created a much brighter light, almost dazzling those who percieved [sic] it. The gentleman in question seems to have been so badly frightened that it was utterly impossible to obtain an accurate account of the dimensions and general appearance of this rare phenomenon, but we are convinced from his statements that his position at the time must have been very embarrassing and that very little time was spent in scientific investigations. However, on the following morning he returned to the scene so hastily left the previous night, to find the weeds, grass, bushes and vegetation of every description for many yards around the scene of the explosion burned to a crisp, also discovering a number of peculiar stones and pieces of metal, all of a leaden color, presenting much the appearance of the lava thrown out by volcanic eruptions. He also picked up some small fragments of manuscript and a scrap, supposed to be part of a newspaper, but the language in both was entirely foreign to him, and, in fact, no one has yet been found who has ever seen such a language before, hence no information could be gained from their examination. At this juncture your reporter requested that he be shown these wonderful fragments of such a miraculous whole, but the narrator had worked himself up to such a pitch of excitement that it was impossible to get him to grasp the significance of our request, and were compelled to leave him a victim to his own bewildered fancy and to ruminate the seemingly miraculous story he had just related. Thus was a repotorial [sic] zealot denied the boon of seeing fragments of the most remarkable substance ever known to explode near Wasson & Miller’s gin.

P.S. Since the above was put in type we learn that our reporter was given the above information by a contributor to the Dublin Telephone, but the information came too late to prevent its insertion in this paper.

Special thanks to Sarah at Literary Lion in Stephenville for first alerting me to Dan Young’s historical calendar for Erath County, which contained the reference to the Dublin Progress story. Thanks also to Courtney at the Dublin Public Library for assisting me in the research and finding the location of the 1891 crash site, maps and microfilm.

LA DÉSINFORMATION - LES PRESSIONS AUX USA - POLITIQUE AMÉRICAINE VISANT A NE PAS PARLER DES OVNI.

Je vous écris à propos de la démission/mise à la porte d'Angelia Joiner du Stephenville Empire-Tribune en raison de sa couverture de l'observation d'ovni de Stephenville. Il s'avère que l'arrêt du contrat de Mme Joiner a été déclenché suite à une demande que vous lui avez faite de cesser de couvrir l'évènement. Ceci en dépit du harcèlement dont fait l'objet l'un des témoins, Ricky Sorrells, et les contradictions dans les rapports publics de l'US Air Force concernant les vols de jets de combat dans le secteur. Mme Joiner a couvert ces évènements avec une grande intégrité dans ses articles. Votre demande à Mme Joiner de ne plus écrire davantage et de cesser ses recherches a été très peu raisonnable. Après tout, c'était une histoire qui a déclenché un intérêt international dans les médias grâce aux principaux réseaux d'informations et les débats populaires tels que le "Larry King Show" en direct. Au cœur de développements dramatiques comme l'intimidation d'un témoin et les contradictions de l'Armée de l'Air, vous avez demandé que Mme Joiner laisse simplement tomber toute autre enquête et se concentre plutôt sur les nouvelles locales ! Le Stephenville Empire-Tribune est un petit papier de ville, cependant les médias internationaux ont été motivés par l'histoire d'ovni de Stephenville apportant un impact international, et des visiteurs pour faire des enquêtes sur les observations. En outre, les ventes d'Empire-Tribune ont augmenté considérablement grâce au reportage de Mme Joiner. Dans des circonstances normales, un éditeur/rédacteur aurait été ravi et aurait encouragé ses employés à continuer à faire du bon travail. Je pense que vous avez soit complètement mal jugé l'impact de l'évènement que couvrait Mme Joiner, soit vous avez été pressurisées par de plus hautes autorités pour réduire au silence Mme Joiner.

J'ai travaillé sur la question "ovni/extraterrestres" depuis 2001 lorsque j'étais membre à temps plein du corps enseignant de l'American University's School de l'International Service à Washington DC. J'ai appris comment les médias peuvent être facilement pressurisés pour qu'ils laissent tomber les histoires sensibles concernant le sujet ovnis/vie extraterrestre, et pour qu'ils mettent à la porte les employés qui continuent à s'y intéresser. Tout ce qui se passe est un appel téléphonique de quelqu'un ayant des habilitations nationales élevées à la tête de la société de média qui relaye ensuite les instructions plus bas dans la hiérarchie. Ceci est en général fait secrètement, dans les coulisses, laissant ainsi chacun tenter de deviner ce qui s'est vraiment produit. Si ceci est arrivé à l'Empire-Tribune, alors le public mérite de savoir la vérité. Mme Joiner a effectué un service public exceptionnel grâce à son engagement objectif pendant la couverture de l'observation d'ovni de Stephenville. Elle a aidé à découvrir le harcèlement dont était l'objet un témoin principal et les arguments contradictoires employés par l'US Air Force pour éloigner toute explication. Son courageux et responsable reportage ne devrait pas mettre fin à sa carrière journalistique, et l'Empire-Tribune ne devrait pas tenter d'échapper à ses responsabilités.

Actuellement, une campagne internationale est en cours pour faire prendre conscience des événements concernant la mise à la porte de Mme Joiner.

Je vous demande instamment de considérer sérieusement les éléments qui ont été évoqués dans cette lettre afin de résoudre promptement les protestations qui voient le jour. Je demande humblement que vous publiiez des excuses publiques à Mme Joiner dans l'Empire-Tribune, que vous publiiez une compensation pour le dommage dont vos actions ont été la cause, et que vous cherchiez sincèrement à réintégrer Mme Joiner à son ancien poste. Je demande également à ce que vous continuiez à couvrir l'observation d'ovni avec des journalistes qualifiés et capables de faire des enquêtes sérieuses sur des évènements qui se dévoilent. Merci pour votre considération des points présentés dans cette lettre. J'attends avec intérêt d'avoir de vos nouvelles.

Dr. Michael Salla est un spécialiste internationalement reconnu en politique internationale, en résolution de conflit, en politique étrangère des USA et dans le nouveau domaine de "l'exopolitique". Il est auteur/rédacteur de cinq livres; avec une affectation universitaire à l'Ecole de Service International et le Centre pour la Paix Mondiale à l'Université Américaine, de Washington DC (1996-2004) ; au département de Science Politique à l'Université Nationale Australienne de Canberra en Australie (1994-96) ; à l'école Elliott des Affaires Internationales de l'Université George Washington à Washington DC, (2002). Il a obtenu un Doctorat en Gouvernement à l'université du Queensland en Australie, et une maîtrise en philosophie à l'université de Melbourne en Australie. Il a conduit des enquêtes et fait des travaux sur le terrain dans les conflits ethniques du Timor oriental, du Kosovo, de la Macédoine, et du Sri Lanka, et a organisé des initiatives de rétablissement de la paix impliquant des participants de niveau moyen à élevé dans ces conflits.

Chers collègues,

La semaine dernière j'étais dans la ville de Riolandia étudiant un cas récent et très intéressant. Riolandia (8 500 habitants) est situé dans la région lointaine Nord-ouest de l'état de Sao Paulo, à 50 km de la ville de Sao Paulo.

Le cas a impliqué l'observation d'un ovni énorme durant la nuit du samedi 19 janvier, au dimanche 20 janvier et qui a eu comme conséquence une détérioration peu commune de la végétation dans plusieurs secteurs d'une vaste plantation de canne à sucre.

L'ovni aperçu était de forme cylindrique avec les extrémités ovales et a été vu par un travailleur indépendant, M. Mauricio Pereira da Silva, 39 ans, propriétaire d'une auberge à Piapara, un endroit modeste et semblant agréable situé sur la rive du Rio Grande, juste entre les états de Sao Paulo et Minas Gerais. L'endroit est vraiment près de Sao Francisco de Sales, de l'autre côté du fleuve, là où Antonio Villas Boas a été enlevé dans les années 50. C'est également un point très chaud pour les observations d'ovnis.

Mauricio s'est réveillé au milieu de la nuit entendant un bruit fort comme l'écrasement de la canne à sucre sur la plantation voisine. Par la fenêtre de sa cuisine il a vu l'objet illuminer légèrement les environs en étant toujours en l'air. Simultanément, le bruit étrange de concasseur s'est arrêté. Il était entre 3h00 et 3h30 heure du matin dimanche (le 20 janvier).

Au même moment, un invité à l'auberge, M. Durval Ambrizzi Jr, un représentant de commerce de 58 ans, qui dormait avec son épouse dans un camping car garé sur les lieux, a aussi été réveillé par le même bruit fort et a aussi vu les lumières dehors, sans voir cependant d'objet particulier. Lui et Mauricio ont eu des observations simultanées mais indépendantes.

Le jour suivant l'événement, alors qu'ils étaient levés et discutaient, vers 6 heures du matin, l'invité de l'auberge, le propriétaire et leurs épouses, se mettent à parler du sujet. Ils sont ensuite allés sur place et ont trouvé, sur la plantation de sucre qui est à côté de l'auberge (et n'appartient pas à Mauricio), les plantes étrangement aplaties, dans une aire irrégulière d'approximativement 3 600 à 5 200 m2 (d'abord estimée de 1 500 à 2 000 m2), près d'une petite rue qui délimite le périmètre des lieux. Les femmes n'avaient pas été réveillées dans la nuit précédente, n'ont pas ont entendu de bruits et n'ont pas vu les lumières. C'est seulement au cours de leur conversation que Mauricio et Durval ont découvert qu'ils avaient été témoin du même phénomène.

Les pieds de cannes à sucre ont 5 à 8,5 m de haut, et prêts pour être moissonnés, ont été pliés d'une manière la plus inhabituelle, au niveau du sol, sans tiges cassées, ce qui est rare avec ce genre de plante. Les cannes à sucre ont survécu et ont continué à se développer pliées, dans cette position horizontale. Recevant la lumière du soleil et une bonne quantité de pluie pendant la semaine, ils ont commencé à montrer un rétablissement significatif samedi (le 26 janvier), lorsque j'ai visité le champ.

Les tiges à ce jour ont été pliées dans l'autre sens pour se redresser, ce qui est un dispositif biologique normal. On a noté, cependant, que les plantes ont souffert de vieillissement prématuré, et leurs parties pulpeuses sont devenues violettes. Néanmoins, les plantes semblaient bonnes pour la consommation humaine.

Tout au long de cette semaine, des douzaines de personnes ont rendu visite au domaine de Mauricio, des géographes, géologues, météorologistes, biologistes et experts en matière de culture de canne à sucre, tous attirés par leur intérêt scientifique pour le phénomène. Tous, après plusieurs sortes d'analyses, ont témoigné qu'il n'y avait aucune explication normale pour ce phénomène qui s'est produit dans cette partie de la plantation à côté de l'auberge de Piapara.

En particulier les experts en matière de canne à sucre de Uniao dos Produtores de Bionergia (UDOP) (Association des Producteurs de Bionergy) à Aracatuba (SP), ont publié une note certifiant que l'incident n'avait pas pu avoir été provoqué par une cause naturelle connue.

Chargé d'augmenter et améliorer la culture de canne à sucre dans ce pays, l'UDOP a été considérablement intéressé par l'incident et a entrepris des rapports et des recherches sur l'emplacement, y compris des prises de vue aériennes du phénomène. Ce qui leur a permis de découvrir qu'à côté de la plus grande marque faite par les plantes écrasées sur la rue juste au-delà, d'autres marques inégalement circulaires, 3 ou 4, étaient apparues sur la plantation et pour lesquelles aucune explication résultat d'un phénomène naturel n'a encore été trouvée.

Vues aériennes en vidéo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flt6tPL7ALY

Pendant mon séjour à l'auberge, j'ai été accompagné de deux ufologues, Gener Silva, avocat et conseiller pour UFO magazine, et Jorge Nery, expert en matière de télécommunications et électronique, tous les deux membres d'Instituto de Astronomia e Pesquisas Espaciais (INAPE) (institut pour la recherche d'astronomie et d'espace) dont l'aide significative a été cruciale pour l'étude des données et les interviews de plusieurs témoins, non seulement pour l'incident de Riolandia, mais pour aussi d'autres cas dans les environs.

Nery fut le premier ufologue à visiter l'auberge, le jour suivant l'événement, le lundi 21 janvier, obtenant ainsi une information de première main et récente sur les faits et intervenant rapidement auprès des témoins.

Le seul écrasement des champs de canne à sucre ne serait pas en soi significatif en Ufologie - peut-être comme dans d'autres domaines d'étude - si nous n'avions aucun témoin de ce phénomène peu commun qui s'est produit juste quelques heures avant que l'effet physique sur les plantes ait été découvert. Mauricio et Durval ont entendu le bruit de la végétation en train de se faire écraser ou casser, et Mauricio a dit que c'était un bruit très fort et effrayant. « Qui ressemblait au bruit d'un roulement de Bulldozer sur les plantes, mais sans bruit de moteur, seulement le bruit des plantes étant chiffonnées ou cassées », a-t-il indiqué a UFO magazine.

Les bruits ont été la première chose qui a attiré l'attention des témoins, et à cause du bruit, ils se sont réveillés, ont regardé et vu quelque chose dans le ciel. Tandis que Durval, qui était environ à 50 m de la zone concassée, où l'ovni a du aller, a vu seulement les « faibles lumières réparties sur l'endroit, comme si elles avaient été liées à un objet très grand », Mauricio, environ 30 m du phénomène, a eu l'occasion de voir le vaisseau, qu'il a décrit comme étant « très grand, de forme cylindrique et ovoïde aux extrémités. » Il a également vu une faible lumière briller à la partie inférieure de l'objet, laquelle n'a émis aucun bruit ni n'a causé aucun autre effet.

Le rédacteur de cet article, les chercheurs Gener et Nery, et beaucoup d'autres qui ont visité l'emplacement – y compris membres du personnel des News de Globo TV et Record TV - qui ont été consultés - sont convaincus de l'honnêteté du caractère et de la sincérité des témoins. Interviewés séparément, leurs témoignages correspondent presque parfaitement sauf sur un détail : Durval, d'où il était, sur camping car, un peu plus loin de l'ovni, a seulement vu des lumières blanchâtres, tandis que Mauricio, plus près de l'objet, a vu les lumières venir d'un ovni, mais d'une couleur plus jaunâtre.

Un autre facteur de corroboration de la légitimité de l'incident est qu'il y a d'autres témoignages précédents de citoyens locaux qui déclarent avoir vu des objets volants non identifiés à différentes occasions, à la fois avant et après l'incident de Riolandia, y compris l'après-midi même avant l'évènement et le jour le suivant. L'un de ces témoins est un policier. Plusieurs témoins ont été interviewés par UFO magazine, qui a collecté une grande quantité d'éléments pour publication dans son prochain numéro.
Mes meilleurs souvenirs !

A.J. Gevaerd,
Rédacteur de Brazilian UFO Magazine
www.ufo.com.br
aj@gevaerd.com

Rendez vous sur le document PDF d'époque, pour les détails de l'observation, détails communiqués à Gérard Lebat par une association Indonésienne.

En cas de citation de passages de cet article, merci de veiller à ce qu’ils soient retranscrits fidèlement mot pour mot sans en omettre les notes de fin et la bibliographie, d’en préciser le titre, l’auteur, et le site où il est publié, et de procéder de même pour ses copies intégrales ou celles de ses illustrations et les réponses de Vincent Michel .

Depuis 1997, année où j'ai adhéré au G.E.R.U[2], j’assiste régulièrement à ses réunions ouvertes au public[3]. Lors de celles-ci, nos membres ont l’opportunité de communiquer leurs recherches sur un sujet de leur choix, exclusion faite des aspects confessionnels ou politiques qu’ils pourraient suggérer. En effet, notre association s'est fixée comme objectif d'étudier en priorité le phénomène ovni à partir de rapports d’observation et d’enquêtes, mais aussi des documents bibliographiques et audio-visuels. Mon adhésion au G.E.R.U avait été motivée par mon expérience de channeling que j’ai relatée dans un de mes articles publiés dans Info Sixième SENS[4], bulletin interne de notre association amie: Sixième SENS[5]; puis dans le magazine Parasciences & Transcommunications[6] publié par JMG-éditions et, plus récemment, sur le site Internet Signes des temps[7] .

J’ai pu constater que les témoignages relatifs aux contactés par de supposés extraterrestres, désignés par le terme " abductés " en cas d’enlèvements[8] par ces mêmes entités, restaient un aspect de notre champ d’étude mal perçu par certains de nos adhérents. Afin de leur permettre, de même à nos enquêteurs, d’accueillir et d’étudier avec le plus d’objectivité possible ce type très particulier de cas, je décidai donc de les aborder pendant notre séance publique du 9 décembre 2001.

Lors d’un exposé précédant, Jean-Pierre D’Hondt, notre responsable des enquêtes, avait évoqué l’hypothèse initiatique du phénomène ovni. Cela m'inspirant d’aborder ce sujet, si vaste et controversé, en tant qu’impact initiatique du phénomène ovni, l’initiation signifiant : "L’action de donner à quelqu’un la connaissance de certaines choses qu’il ignorait." [9] Cette approche s'imposa d'autant plus à moi pendant mes recherches de documents. Ils me révélèrent en effet que le phénomène ovni activerait chez les " contactés "[10] non seulement une ouverture de conscience leur permettant d’accéder à d’autres connaissances ne correspondant pas à leurs centres d’intérêt habituels, mais aussi leurs facultés paranormales ou " psi ".[11] Certains d’entre eux, athées jusqu’à leur rencontre rapprochée, auraient même intégré par la suite une dimension religieuse ou spirituelle à leur existence.

Puis, un de mes articles fut publié sous le même titre dans les numéros 61 à 67 de notre bulletin interne UFOVNI , ceci dans le but d’en partager le compte-rendu exhaustif à nos adhérents trop éloignés géographiquement pour nous rejoindre lors de nos rencontres mensuelles. En outre, il m'a permis d'en documenter d'autres relatifs à mon expérience de channeling. Celui-ci en est la dernière version revue et augmentée, certains lecteurs y trouveront donc des passages ne leur étant pas inconnus.

L'année suivante, je proposai également ce thème de réflexion à la rédaction de France Bleu Nord qui m’invita à le développer sur leurs ondes avec Jean-Pierre D’Hondt. Ceci fut concrétisé le 11 juin 2002 lors d’une de leurs émissions animées par Agnès Delbarre dont nous pûmes apprécier la réelle ouverture d’esprit.

Cette approche des cas de contacts rapprochés et d'abductions ne pouvant faire l'impasse sur des domaines tels que la parapsychologie, voire même l’ésotérisme, la métaphysique et la philosophie, je réalisais alors qu’elle s’avérait délicate et risquerait de choquer certains ufologues ayant opté pour une étude basée davantage sur des faits concrets, ou si vous préférez de type "tôles et boulons". Mon propos n’est pas de contrer cette option privilégiée notamment par notre groupement ufologique, mais simplement de proposer une recherche abordant davantage ces témoignages sous leur angle humain et socioculturel.

Loin de moi l’intention de nourrir une polémique, la finalité de cet article étant plutôt de vous suggérer quelques pistes susceptibles de vous aider dans vos recherches.

Je n’y prétends pas donner, encore moins imposer mes réponses à ce sujet abstrus, mais uniquement des éléments de réflexion basés sur des sources prioritairement bibliographiques, sans exclure des références émanant de sites Internet, et dont les listes figurent à la fin. Je tiens à m’excuser auprès des lecteurs pouvant trouver fastidieuses mes nombreuses annotations relatives à ces documents. Elles m’ont semblé incontournables, ne serait-ce que par honnêteté intellectuelle et pour aider ceux d’entre vous qui décideraient d’approfondir cette recherche.

Je remercie tout particulièrement Vincent Michel, pour le temps qu'il a bien voulu consacrer aux réponses à mes questions; sans oublier Jean-Pierre D’Hondt, mon mari, pour son aide précieuse concernant la documentation de cet article.

J’aborderai donc ce sujet au-delà de tous préjugés en m’inspirant du conseil de Feu Aimé Michel : "En ufologie il faut savoir tout envisager mais surtout ne rien croire. " et vous propose d’accueillir le fruit de mes réflexions avec la même démarche intellectuelle.

Mais, auparavant, permettez-moi de me présenter et de vous soumettre mon point de vue sur l’ufologie.

Au moment où j’écris ces lignes je suis membre bénévole actif en tant, entre autres, que responsable de communication et adjointe aux enquêtes, notamment lorsqu’elles concernent des témoignages associés à des phénomènes paranormaux. Dans ce cas il nous arrive de travailler en partenariat avec une association amie : Sixième SENS[12] dont je suis membre également. J’étais présente rencontres ufologiques européennes s’étant déroulées à Châlons-en-Champagne en octobre 2005, rencontres organisées par Gérard Lebat et Alain Blanchard. Je faisais partie de l’équipe chargée d’aider notre président Joël Duquesnoy pour la tenue de notre stand[13].

Je rejoins l’opinion d’Aimé Michel qui estimait que l’étude du phénomène ovni génère plus de questions que de réponses, qu’elle n’est pas encore une science, et suggérait que seul un travail en interdisciplinarité s’avèrerait efficace.

Personnellement, je pense que l’ufologie est une science en cours de structuration. Il s’écoulera encore un certain temps avant qu’elle ne puisse se forger l’intégralité des outils lui étant nécessaires, d’autant, nous le verrons, qu’elle interfère avec des domaines aussi divers que la météorologie, l’astronomie, la chimie, la physique et notamment la physique quantique, la psychologie et la sociologie, la psychiatrie et les neurosciences, la parapsychologie, l’histoire, l’archéologie, la philosophie, voire même certains aspects de la spiritualité.

La science actuelle, hormis sa méthodologie, ne semble pas, pour l’instant, en mesure de nous aider à cerner avec rigueur un des aspects les plus ardus de l’ufologie que je vais tenter de développer dans cet article. En attendant que les spécialistes des différents domaines scientifiques, consentent à élucider les énigmes générées par les manifestations d’ovnis, ceci dans le cadre d’un travail d’équipe effectué en complémentarité selon leurs aptitudes, celle-ci restera assimilée à ce que je nommerai de la "loufoquelogie", car trop souvent présentée au grand public par une approche se voulant sensationnelle. Des expressions telles que : "Les Petits Hommes Verts" ou "les Martiens existent-ils ?", usitées presque systématiquement lorsqu’on traite de ce sujet, ne font qu’ajouter à son discrédit. Certaines polémiques, ont contribué à parachever la désinformation dont elle est victime.

Ce constat négatif ne doit pas nous inciter à négliger pour autant le travail des chercheurs honnêtes et sérieux, sans exclure ceux spécialisés ou non dans des domaines très divers. Cependant, nous verrons comment certains ont eu l’audace d'aborder l’ufologie au niveau de son impact sur le plan humain, ceci en instruisant le sujet sulfureux des abductés et des contactés; sulfureux, car pouvant remettre en cause nos acquis religieux et spirituels.

Excitant notre curiosité, on peut considérer que l’ufologie nous entraîne dans un processus initiatique d’abord sur le plan intellectuel, puis spirituel, ceci en nous menant à effectuer une recherche autodidacte d’éléments de réponse parfois dans des domaines éloignés jusqu’alors de nos centres d’intérêt.

J’estime personnellement que pour être ufologue, il n’est pas nécessaire d’être titulaire d’un diplôme scientifique. Seuls devraient suffire un esprit ouvert, structuré, rigoureux autodidacte, et un goût prononcé pour la recherche éclectique autant de terrain que livresque. Dans un livre publié en 2001 aux Éditions Calmann-Lévy sous le titre : " La science à l’usage des non scientifiques "[14], Albert Jacquard, polytechnicien et généticien français, étaye sa conviction que la science n’est pas réservée à une élite, mais peut être accessible à tout esprit avide de connaissance. Son livre a pour but également d’initier les néophytes aux bases élémentaires de celle-ci.

Je vous invite maintenant à explorer ensemble l’univers si étrange et déconcertant des "contactés" et "abductés".

Le témoin est seul ou accompagné, chez lui, dans un endroit isolé ou en ville. Il perçoit une lumière vive, le plus souvent des êtres de forme humanoïde. Soudain, l’abducté réalise avec stupéfaction qu’il se trouve très éloigné de l’endroit où il se trouvait auparavant.

Il constate alors que des minutes, voire des heures, sinon des jours, se sont écoulés sans qu’il en ait eu conscience. Il se souvient que très rarement de ce qu’il a vécu pendant tout ce temps manquant ou missing-time, de même les personnes présentes à ses côtés.

Il découvre parfois sur son corps des cicatrices et des brûlures inexistantes auparavant. On a pu extraire chez certains des implants d’origine inconnue situés dans les pieds ou les poignets[15]. Les abductés, à l’instar des contactés, éprouvent fréquemment, suite à leur rencontre rapprochée, de profonds bouleversements d’ordre psycho spirituel, surtout lorsqu’elle s’ensuit, dans certains cas, d’une guérison spontanée.

L’approche des témoins ayant vécu ce type d’expérience plutôt traumatisante s’avère donc délicate à plus d’un titre, d’autant que ces personnes souffrent de ne pouvoir communiquer leur témoignage de peur d’être qualifiées d’ "illuminées" par les gens ignorant tout des transformations et souffrances qu’elles ont subies suite à leurs expériences, les cantonnant ainsi en marge de la norme.

Cette marginalisation que subissent les contactés déjà suffisamment désemparés, surtout lorsqu’ils ont été abductés, peut les plonger dans une dépression grave, et même les assujettir à une thérapie psychiatrique les lobotomisant chimiquement; alors qu’un accompagnement psychologique éclairé, basé avant tout sur une écoute active, aurait été, de loin, bien plus efficace ! Leur contact avec une dimension qui leur était totalement inconnue induit parfois chez certains d’entre eux des états modifiés de conscience, ou E.M.C., assimilés hélas encore trop systématiquement à des psychoses par la plupart des psychologues et des psychiatres. Ignoreraient-ils que ce type d’état de conscience, générant dans certaines conditions des phénomènes paranormaux, n’est plus considéré par le corps médical comme cas psychiatrique ?

Érik Pigani, scientifique par sa formation de psychologue et sa qualité de psychothérapeute[16], communique cette information cruciale pour les personnes osant s’intéresser aux phénomènes qualifiés de "paranormaux", voire même en témoigner; ceci dans son livre intitulé "Channels – Les voix de l’au-delà"[17]. Il nous apprend qu’en 1994, il y a de cela déjà plus de dix ans, grâce à l’intervention des professionnels de la psychologie transpersonnelle; l’American Psychiatric Association (APA) aurait accepté d’inclure un nouveau paragraphe dans le DSM-IV[18]. Je cite :

" Les états "psychospirituels" (crises mystiques, communications avec l’au-delà, N.D.E, etc.) ne sont plus considérés comme les effets d’un désordre mental. Ils font désormais partie de l’expérience humaine "normale" et peuvent être soutenus, si nécessaire, par une assistance psychologique, et non réglés avec un traitement psychiatrique, comme auparavant. "

Il nous informe que le Président de l’American Psychological Association, Stanley Krippner, définit les facultés parapsychologiques comme n’étant en rien pathologiques mais inhérentes à la psyché humaine. L’auteur redéfinit l’expression " états modifiés de conscience ".

D’aucuns persistent à utiliser l’expression " états altérés de conscience " pour les désigner, tournure obsolète car devenue caduque.

En réalité, ceci contrairement aux idées reçues et indépendamment du fait qu’elles en aient inspirées bon nombre, les abductions ne peuvent être réduites à de pures fictions.

John E. Mack [19], professeur de psychiatrie à Harvard, hélas décédé, s'est penché sur les expériences très perturbantes vécues par les abductés. Je ferai souvent référence à ses recherches insuffisamment médiatisées en France.

Elles ont bien eu lieu partout dans le monde, également sur le territoire français où les témoins, de peur de passer pour fous, hésitent encore à relater leur expérience, d’où le peu de témoignages y ayant été recensés. Voici, à partir de documents de LDLN [20], une liste de cas d’abductions répertoriés en France réalisée par Jean-Pierre D’Hondt, responsable des enquêtes pour le G.E.R.U. et co-fondateur du G.N.E.O.V.N.I. Il correspond avec Joël Mesnard, directeur de ce périodique. Monsieur Mesnard a tenu son propre stand et des conférences aux rencontres ufologiques à Châlons-En-Champagne. Il est également l’auteur d’un livre paru récemment sur les " Men in black[21] ". Il est intervenu à plusieurs reprises sur les ondes de la RADIO ICI & MAINTENANT

J'espère que cet article incitera les abductés français restés dans l'ombre à briser la loi du silence.

Budd Hopkins et Marie-Thérèse de Brosses ont contribué largement à leur médiatisation, et continuent de nos jours. Ils donnèrent des conférences[25] à ce sujet aux premières rencontres Ufologiques européennes en 2005.

Budd Hopkins, auteur américain, est célèbre pour son ouvrage qui leva bien des tabous pesant sur ce type de cas: Enlèvements extraterrestres. Les témoins parlent[26]. Il suivit celui de l’abducté américain très célèbre: Whitley Strieber, auteur entre autres d’un livre intitulé " Communion "[27] dans lequel il décrit sa propre expérience et les circonstances de sa rencontre avec Budd Hopkins. L’homologue français de Monsieur Hopkins, Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, nous relate les circonstances de sa rencontre avec lui dans son ouvrage intitulé: Enquête sur les enlèvements extraterrestres[28].

Plus récemment en 2006, Stéphane Allix, ancien reporter de guerre, a commis un livre sur ce sujet également. Il s'intitule: "Extraterrestre: L'enquête[29]"

Qu’on croit ou non au phénomène ovni, il semblerait qu'il exerce néanmoins un impact réel sur les témoins, mais aussi notre culture et par conséquent, notre société. Voyons comment.

Dans son article publié dans le numéro de la revue ufologique Inforespace[30] de décembre 1991, Jacques Antoine souligne que le phénomène ovni influencerait l’évolution des mentalités en suscitant le rêve, la réflexion dans certains domaines de la recherche même en exobiologie, " la littérature, le cinéma et la pub ". Les enfants, eux-mêmes, s’en inspirent pour leurs activités ludiques.

Christel Seval, informaticien au ministère de la défense, a développé les répercussions que pourrait avoir cet impact dans les différents domaines de l’activité humaine dans son ouvrage intitulé : " Extraterrestres. Contact et Impact "[31]

Voyons maintenant les répercussions de cet impact sur les contactés et abductés, et leurs similitudes avec celles éprouvées par des personnes ayant vécu une N.D.E[32].