LESLIE KEAN, SAN FRANCISCO
Note: Leslie Kean?s story has been picked up by 7 other
newspapers across the country. She will talk with us on
Dreamland May 19 about how hard it has been to get this
story, and her story last May about the French COMETA
report on UFO's that was published in the Boston Globe,
placed in mainstream media. Terry Hansen, author of ?The
Missing Times,? talked about this problem with us on
Dreamland May 12.
IN JANUARY, Agence France Presse reported that a Siberian
airport was shut for 11/2 hours while a luminescent
unidentified flying object hovered above its runway. Although
it's hard to imagine such an event taking place in the
industrialized United States, a compelling October 2000 study
by a retired aerospace scientist from NASA-Ames Research
Center shows that similar incidents have occurred in American
skies over the last 50 years. "Aviation Safety in America -- A
Previously Neglected Factor" presents more than 100 pilot
and crew reports of encounters with unidentified aerial
phenomena (UAP) that appear to have compromised aviation
safety.
Author Richard F. Haines, formerly NASA's chief of the Space
Human Factors Office and a Raytheon contract scientist, is
chief scientist for the National Aviation Reporting Center on
Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), a research organization
founded last year. In stunning detail, pilots and crew describe
a range of geometric forms and lights inconsistent with known
aircraft or natural phenomena. Bizarre objects paced aircraft
at relatively near distances, sometimes disabling cockpit
instruments, interrupting ground communications, or
distracting the crew.
The data include 56 near-misses. Impulsive responses by
pilots to an approaching high-speed object can be hazardous;
in a few cases, such violent evasive reactions injured
passengers and flight attendants. However, Haines states
that there is no threat of a collision caused directly by
UAPs "because of the reported high degree of maneuverability
shown by the UAP." While flying over Lake Michigan in 1981,
TWA Capt. Phil Schultz saw a "large, round, silver metal
object" with dark portholes equally spaced around the
circumference that "descended into the atmosphere from
above," according to his hand-written report. Schultz and his
first officer braced themselves for a mid-air collision; the
object suddenly made a high-speed turn and departed.
Veteran Japan Airlines 747 Capt. Kenju Terauchi reported a
spectacular prolonged encounter over Alaska in 1986. "Most
unexpectedly, two space ships stopped in front of our face,
shooting off lights," he said. "The inside cockpit shined
brightly and I felt warm in the face." Despite the Federal
Aviation Administration's determination that he and his crew
were stable, competent and professional, he was grounded
for speaking out.
In 1997, a Swissair Boeing 747 over Long Island just missed a
glowing, white, cylindrical object speeding toward the plane.
According to an FAA Civil Aviation Security Office
memorandum, pilot Philip Bobet said that "if the object was
any lower, it may have hit the right wing."
Ground-systems operators have also been affected by
UAP. "The element of surprise means a decrease in safety
because it diverts the attention of air-traffic controllers that
should be focused on landing planes. That is a danger," says
Jim McClenahen, a recently retired FAA air-traffic-control
specialist and NARCAP technical adviser.
"Aviation Safety in America" does not attempt to explain the
origin of these mysterious objects. But Haines writes that
hundreds of reports, some dating back to the 1940s, "suggest
that they [UAPs] are associated with a very high degree of
intelligence, deliberate flight control, and advanced energy
management."
In the 1950s, pilots and crews reported seeing flying discs,
cigar-shaped craft with portholes, and gyrating lights, all with
extraordinary technical capabilities. Documents show the
unexplained objects were considered a national security
concern. By order of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, commercial
pilots were required to report sightings and the unauthorized
release of a UFO report could cost them 10 years in prison or
a $10,000 fine.
To keep this information from the public, officials ridiculed and
debunked legitimate sightings, angering some pilots.
According to the Newark Star Ledger in 1958, more than 50
commercial pilots who had reported sightings, each with at
least 15 years of major airline experience, blasted the policy
of censorship and denial as "bordering on the absolutely
ridiculous."
These pilots said they were interrogated by the Air Force,
sometimes all night long, and then "treated like incompetents
and told to keep quiet," according to one pilot. "The Air Force
tells you that the thing that paced your plane for 15 minutes
was a mirage or a bolt of lightening," he told the Star-
Ledger. "Nuts to that. Who needs it?" As a result, many
pilots "forget" to report their sightings at all, one pilot said.
According to a 1952 Air Force Status Report on UFOs for the
Air Technical Intelligence Center, pilots were so humiliated
that one told investigators, "If a space ship flew wing-tip to
wing-tip formation with me, I would not report it." The vast
majority of sightings by American pilots are still not reported.
The media perpetuate the censorship and ridicule,
handicapping the collection of valuable data.
In contrast, other countries are openly investigating the
impact of UAP on aviation safety. A 1999 French study by
retired generals from the French Institute of Higher Studies
for National Defense and a government agency with the
National Center for Space Studies examined hundreds of well-
documented pilot reports from around the world. The study
could not explain a 1994 Air France viewing of a UAP that
instantaneously disappeared as confirmed by radar and a
1995 Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing 727 encounter with a
luminous object that extinguished airport lights as the plane
attempted to land.
"Aeronautic personnel must be sensitized and prepared to
deal with the situation," the report states. They must
first "accept the possibility of the presence of extraterrestrial
craft in our sky." Then, "it is necessary to overcome the fear
of ridicule."
In 1997, the Chilean government formed the Committee for
the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA) following
publicly acknowledged observations of unidentified flying
objects at a remote Chilean airport. Both the French group
and Gen. Ricardo Bermudez Sanhuesa, president of the
CEFAA, have made overtures to the U.S. government for
cooperation on this issue, with no response. General
Bermudez, and Air Force Gen. Denis Letty, chairman of the
French group, said in recent interviews that the Haines study
has international significance and should be taken seriously.
Brian E. Smith, current head of the Aviation Safety Program
at NASA-Ames, agrees. "There is objective evidence in pilot
reports of unexplained events that may affect the safety of
the aircraft, " he says. "Yet getting people to take an
objective look at this subject is sometimes like pulling teeth."
Indeed, the Airline Pilots Association, our largest pilots union,
and the Flight Safety Foundation, describing itself as "offering
an objective view of aviation safety developments," ignored
NARCAP requests for a response to the study. In recent
phone interviews with this reporter, representatives dismissed
the report out of hand after glancing at the executive
summary.
However, such dismissals may soon lose ground. Next
Wednesday, John Callahan, former division chief of the
Accidents and Investigations Branch of the FAA, will disclose
FAA documentation and subsequent CIA suppression of the
Terauchi encounter over Alaska. Callahan will be joined by
more than 20 other government and military witnesses, and
dozens more on videotape, at a National Press Club briefing
to challenge official secrecy about this subject.
Retired United Airlines Capt. Neil Daniels, whose DC-10 was
forced into a left turn because of magnetic interference of
cockpit compasses by a brilliant UAP, is among the many who
want change. "The energies out there are absolutely
profound," he says. "I think we need to know what they are."
Leslie Kean is a journalist and author in the San Francisco Bay
area. ( lkean@ix.netcom.com.)
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