Podcast UFO

by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”Beginning on New Year’s Eve, 1982, there was a series of sightings throughout the Hudson River Valley north of New York City by hundreds of people willing to go on the record. They reported seeing boomerang-shaped craft the size of 1, 2, and 3 football fields, that moved slowly, hovered, and turned on an axis. This is according to the first comprehensive book on the sightings, Night Siege, which was co-authored by J. Allen Hynek, Philip J. Imbrogno, and Bob Pratt, and published in 1987. One of the standout incidents in the book, covered in Chapter Eleven titled, “Close Encounter at Indian Point,” is a sighting by what are said by the authors to be security guards (they are all un-named) over the nuclear power plant on Indian Point, on the shore of the Hudson River in Buchanan, NY, just south of Peekskill, NY. Read more →

Guest Chrissy Newton talks about her father's very unusual UFO encounter, and discusses the Government & media looking at the UAP topic from a Public Relations Perspective. She will discuss the past to present media coverage, misinformation campaigns and Public Relations tactics government uses surrounding the UAP narrative. Chrissy will be speaking at the upcoming Contact in the Desert in a few weeks.Show Notes

by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”In last week’s blog, we looked at some correspondence we came across in the January-February 1969 Merseyside UFO Bulletin between Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Research Association Director Gary Lesley and Maury Island principals, Fred Crisman and Harold Dahl. We started by looking at an exchange between Lesley and Dahl. In a letter dated July 23, 1967, Lesley asked Dahl for copies of photos that were allegedly taken of a flying saucer, a written statement from Dahl, and for Dahl to contact Crisman and get a written statement from him as well. Dahl replied in a letter dated August 22, 1967, that he would “allow” Lesley to have copies of the photos, would provide a statement that would have to be approved by Crisman, and would contact Crisman but added that it would be unlikely that Crisman would reply to Lesley. Dahl went on to paint a picture of Crisman that didn’t seem to fit the facts that researchers looking into Crisman’s life uncovered. In contrast to what Dahl told Lesley to expect, Lesley got a letter from Crisman, and this is what we’re looking at this week. Read more →

by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators Throughout the history of flying saucers/UFOs, there have been characters that those being kind would describe as “colorful,” and those being blunt would describe as liars, hoaxers and con men. One of these characters was Fred Crisman, who became famous/infamous due to his involvement in the Maury Island case. Crisman was accused of hoaxing the case along with his business partner, Harold Dahl, and the two confessed as much to an FBI agent who investigated (page 20 of pdf) due to the deaths of two military intelligence officers associated with the case. Crisman faded from the public eye after this but showed up again on November 21, 1968 when he was called to testify at the trial of Clay Shaw looking into the JFK assassination. We have recently come across some correspondence between a UFO investigator, Crisman, and Dahl in the pages of a 1967 edition of a British UFO magazine that may be of interest to our readers. Read more →

Guest Gari Jones on his recently released book, "The Denbigh Lights - A Truthful Argument For The Existence of UFOs'", Gari discusses his in-depth investigation into a UFO captured on video in Denbigh, Wales. His investigation not only details the multi-witness statements but also up-to-date analysis of the video in question. He also talks about other UFO cases, one with occupants.Show Notes

by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”Gordon Cooper, youngest of the original Mercury astronauts, often spoke publicly about his UFO sightings and beliefs. He appeared in documentaries such as James Fox’s 2003 film Out of the Blue, and famously wrote a letter dated November 9, 1978, to Ambassador of Grenada to the United States George Ashley Griffith calling for the scientific collection and analysis of data taken from UFO encounters in order to “determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion.” In Out of the Blue, he is heard telling a story about a flying saucer with three retractable legs that was filmed landing in 1957 at Edwards Air Force Base. He didn’t claim to have witnessed the landing himself, but did say he saw the footage. There was an incident involving the filming of a UFO at Edwards that year, and there is a Project Blue Book file on the case. James McDonald found the witnesses and interviewed them in the late 1960’s and wrote a report. Cooper’s name is not mentioned by McDonald and the incident as described by McDonald and in the Blue Book file didn’t involve a landing. Brad Sparks and Jan Aldrich, both heavily involved in UFO research for many years, had an email exchange discussing this, and a record of it can be found at nicap.org.Read more →

Ben Moss & Tony Angiola return to speak on their 5-year in depth research of the 1964 Socorro UFO Incident which changed Dr. J. Allen Hynek's skeptic mind on the UFOs. Their released book: "Not of This WorldThe Socorro UFO Landing with Humanoids, Witness Lonnie Zamora". They discuss working with Ray Stanford, going to Socorro multiple times for additional evidence, and more.Show Notes

The story of the September 1961 case involving the possible abduction of Betty and Barney Hill by UFO occupants has been related and examined in numerous publications and formats. It’s an intriguing case and was the first of the late 20th century UFO abduction reports to receive serious consideration (and publication) by investigators. This makes it a case worthy of attention because the story told by the Hills couldn’t have been influenced by previous abduction narratives. The main source for the abduction story that is focused on by most researchers, such as John Fuller who wrote the 1966 book about the case titled The Interrupted Journey, is the tapes from the hypnosis sessions the Hills went through in 1964 with Dr. Benjamin Simon. Before that, the case was considered to be merely a sighting report. That’s how it was presented by Walter Webb, the primary investigator who submitted a report dated October 26, 1961, to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. After news of the Hills possibly having been abducted got out, Webb was moved to submit an updated report, dated August 30, 1965, that contains the abduction account. Included in that report is a copy of the letter Betty Hill wrote to NICAP Director Donald Keyhoe dated September 26, 1961. This is the first document with a complete version the Hill’s sighting as it was consciously remembered. As for the abduction account, Webb included a copy of a five-page document, written by Betty a little over a month after the sighting, that shows that it actually originated in a series of dreams Betty had on consecutive nights shortly after the encounter. The letter and document are included in The Interrupted Journey, but their significance as the first recorded accounts of the Hills’ experience very close to the time of the event is not emphasized by Fuller.    Read more →

Rerun (original April 9, 2015) guest Dr. Leo Sprinkle talks about his two sightings, his vast career and the thousands of cases he has looked into. He also talked about free energy, abductees, J Allen Hynek and more. Dr R. Leo Sprinkle (1930-2021)

by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”Tom MoirPeople react to UFO encounters in different ways. Some are profoundly moved, some are terrified, some take them in stride, and some become fascinated. Tom Moir, a young man in the Aberdeenshire village of Muchalls, Scotland, was moved to become an investigator after his sighting in 1971, and he spent three decades videotaping UFOs in his area that he said were showing up on a regular basis. He came to believe they were monitoring him and his neighbors and this disturbed him to the point where he ended up moving thousands of miles away to Aukland, New Zealand.Moir’s story appears in the 1998 book by Ron Halliday, UFO Scotland. Moir is identified in the book as Tom McClintock. According to Halliday, Tom was walking home from a bus stop near his home after his weekly violin lesson. On his right, “he noticed a red, pulsating light.” Another identical one appeared on his left and then, a third. He was not scared, but rather, curious as to what they were doing.Read more →