Podcast UFO

by Charles LearOf all the private organizations devoted to UFO investigation, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena was arguably the most ambitious and tenacious. This was driven in large part by its director, Donald Keyhoe. Keyhoe held the beliefs that UFOs are extraterrestrial and that the U.S. Government, particularly the Air Force, was keeping information from the public that could possibly prove the ET hypothesis. As effective as NICAP was at hounding the Air Force and convincing many in the U.S. Congress that UFOs were deserving of scientific study, there are indications that the CIA was involved in both the beginning and the end of the organization.Todd Zechel wrote about the CIA – NICAP connection in the January 1979 issue of Just Cause, the newsletter put out by Citizens Against UFO Secrecy. NICAP was incorporated in 1956, and two men Zechel argues were covert CIA operatives were put into chair positions within the organization. One of these men was Bernard J. O. Carvalho, who was made the chairman of NICAP’s membership subcommittee According to Zechel, Carvalho worked as a “front man” for companies secretly run by the CIA. The other was “Count” Nicolas de Rochefort, who was made Vice-Chairman of NICAP. According to Zechel, de Rochefort worked with the CIA’s Psychological Warfare Staff. Zechel tells the reader “there is more than ample evidence to conclusively establish both de Rochefort and Cavalho were at least during certain periods of their lives covert employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.”Read more →

Guest Chris Pittman on historical North American UFO sightings, early mankind, the Bridgewater Triangle. Why took a break from the topic and where he thinks "THEY" may be from.Show Notes

Guest Dr. Irena Scott on her new book ‘BEYOND PASCAGOULA-THE REST OF THE AMAZING STORY’ where she interviews newfound witnesses and she also speaks about her own encounters, one happened during the time she was traveling and at the time she had a top secret clearance for the DIA.Show Notes

In the hunt for proof that strange vehicles are flying through our atmosphere, possibly under the guidance of alien pilots, researchers have long looked to photographs. There are some, such as the McMinnville photos, that have become classics that continue to spark debate. Many have been passed through time by newspaper articles, books, magazines, documentaries, and websites. Of course, along with the photo, there is the story of the photographer, though getting that story straight might prove difficult.In October of 1952, a story went across the newswires that a man in Italy had claimed to have taken pictures of a flying saucer and its occupant while climbing in the Bernina section of the Italian Alps. He told reporters that he saw a flying saucer land on a glacier. According to him, “a human shape wearing some sort of diving suit” got out, walked around the ship, and then got back in. The saucer rose up and “it took off without a sound at breathtaking speed.” He said he sold the photos to a French magazine.The man was 29-year-old Italian engineer Gianpietro Monguzzi. His story is told in detail and his pictures are presented in the Sept.-Oct. 1958 issue of Flying Saucer Review. According to the article “Monguzzi Takes Saucer Photos of the Century,” written by Lou Zinstag, Monguzzi (first name given as Giampiero by Zinstag) worked as an engineer in Monza, near Milan, and was a member of the Edison Society of Italy. On July 31, 1952, he was hiking in the Bernina Mountains with his wife when they came across an object, shaped like a flying saucer, sitting on a glacier. Moguzzi wanted to get closer, but his wife was frightened and insisted he stay with her. He did so and took a series of pictures showing the saucer on the ground, a humanoid walking around it, and two “excellent photos of the ship’s departure.” Monguzzi ended up with a total of seven photos. At the top of the article, in a photo with a number two written on it, the saucer and the humanoid are both seen to have antennas.Read more →

Vietnam War veteran, Alfred J. Quiroz his UFO/USO incidents while he served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. Alfred dropped out (neighborhood internet outage) and callers for the end of the show, including Linda Zimmermann.Show Notes

by Charles LearIn the 1980s, New York’s Hudson River Valley was home to a wave of extraordinary UFO encounters by thousands of people. It was explained away as a hoax perpetrated by a group of nighttime pilots in ultralights and this was enough to make it fade from the public consciousness, even among those in the UFO community. However, one town in the area has kept the memory of the events alive with a yearly fair and a recently opened UFO museum.A book about the wave, “Night Siege” by J. Allen Hynek, Philip Imbrogno, and Bob Pratt, was published in 1998. Hynek died in 1986 before the book was published but actively investigated and contributed to the book. His wife, Mimi, helped edit the book after his death.According to “Night Siege,” the wave began in Kent, New York, on New Year’s Eve 1982 with a sighting by a retired New York City police officer identified by the pseudonym,“Tony Vallor. He’d just christened his new house by smashing a champagne bottle against it, and his wife had sent him back outside to clean up the broken glass after he’d told her about it. As he was cleaning up the glass, he saw a group of red, green, and white lights to the south. At first he thought he was seeing a jet having trouble but it was moving too slowly to be a jet. Read more →

Guest Dr Robert Gross talks about Native American culture and space exploration as well as changes in the last few years on how the world views the topic of UAPs/UFOs and the potential for learning.Show Notes

From February 17 to February 24, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in Palm Springs, California, on what was described to the public as a “vacation.” On February 20, he disappeared from public view and rumors spread to the point that the headline, “Pres. Eisenhower died tonight of a heart attack in Palm Springs.,” appeared on the Associated Press newswire. The story was removed two minutes later and the AP reported that he was still alive. UFOlogists have speculated on where he was that day, and some have come to the conclusion that Eisenhower went to Muroc Air Force Base for a secret meeting with alien visitors.The earliest mention of Eisenhower and aliens being at Muroc appears in a letter from Gerald Light to Meade Layne, founder of the Borderland Sciences Research Association. Now a foundation, BSRF has preserved the letter, and the date on the link is April 16, 1954. The letter opens with this:Read more →

Guest, Neil Nixon with a skeptical view of the UFO topic, his thoughts on some well known and not so well known incidents, and his latest book: UFOs, Aliens and the Battle for the Truth, A SHORT HISTORY OF UFOLOGY.Show Notes

UFO documentaries, besides being informative and entertaining, also serve to preserve UFO history for future researchers. However, one documentary, “UFOs: It Has Begun.” has itself become a part of UFO history. One of its producers has claimed that the U.S. Department of Defense offered him and his partner the use of some film footage taken by the Air Force at Holloman Air Force Base. According to him, it showed a UFO landing and a meeting between its occupants and Air Force officials, and it was going to be the finale of the documentary until the DoD withdrew the offer at the last minute.The movie was originally released in 1974 as “UFOs: Past Present and Future.” It was written primarily by Robert Emenegger, who also produced it along with Allan Sandler. It has Rod Serling as its main narrator, and there are appearances by Burgess Meredith, Jose Ferrer, Jaques Vallée. and J. Allen Hynek. In 1976 and 1979 it was re-released under its new title.The story of the film’s beginning is as follows: Emenegger and Sandler had originally set out to produce a series of films about advanced military technology but were diverted by an intriguing piece of information offered by their military contact, Paul Shartle, with whom they were working at Norton Air Force Base. Shartle, Security Manager and Chief of Requirements for the Audio-Visual Program at the base, said he had seen a film of an alien craft landing at Holloman AFB three years previous. As discussions about possible projects continued, the idea that one of them be about UFOs came up and was encouraged by military officials who offered the producers the use of the footage. Emenegger and Sandler decided to go ahead with a UFO documentary, and the film was made.Read more →