UFOs & the Cold War: Project Palladium

a reply to: mirageman

Gone for a day and you've smoked the servers with this thread

A few years ago, I wondered if a group effort could implicate a few historical UFO reports as possible spoofs by Project Palladium. By going through a few early sixties chronologies, it was possible to identify a couple of incidents that included radar paints and no visuals - one was in the Caribbean (Cuba!) and one was at White Sands. Regrettably, I didn't pursue the idea and didn't record which incidents held promise.

Another idea was that ECM was responsible for the Belgian Wave of 1989. It's an idea that's increasingly attractive to me as there're political benefits to faking threats from enemies.

On that note, counter measures like Palladium can be used for political ends that go further than straightforward defence. For example, we used the fear of WMD to invade Iraq when history now shows that they weren't there. The claim of WMDs was to persuade the public that the actions were righteous. Who's to say we haven't spoofed threats from enemy nations to justify pre-emptive attacks? Or more politically and strategically, it's conceivable that we might have misled nations to believe they were under threat from neighbours to get them to come round to us.

I know that's all speculative (some could fairly say conspiratorial) and yet the Cold War involved a lot of political chess-moves to ensure as many nations didn't fall in with Communism as possible.

originally posted by: CardDown
I was just rereading the DC invasion as covered in "UFOs and Government". The comment was made that the UFOs behaved as if it was display, as if the US was the target of a flying psyop.

I'm not familiar with the Soviet capabilities of the era. Could the USSR have been spoofing radar ghosts?

That is a very relevant question but one I cannot answer.

The Russian Space Programme was certainly ahead of the United States in the 1950s but as for radar and ECM (electronic counter measures) I simply don't know. Perhaps someone on here can offer more information?

a reply to: mirageman


S&F!

Great thread... easy to read and to the point... but one question.

radar also caused ‘plasma’ in the atmosphere.

I dont get this.... how can radar cause a physical anomaly?
Are you referring to 'sentient plasma' that has been discussed on another thread?
If so, can you elaborate?

a reply to: combatmaster

I wouldn't call momentary plasmas sentient.

I wouldn't call the extremely minor plasma generated by high radioactivity paint
smeared over spy planes sentient either.

I wouldn't call any plasmas generated by a microwave envelop around a black
ops plane sentient either.

Hell, I don't really think humans are fully sentient either.

;-)

Some plasmas --- yes, I think they may be sentient.

But I want to hear the OP answer too of course.

This is a good thread.

Kev

a reply to: aynock

Some excellent points there.

The full article by Leon Davidson was linked in the original post.

www.abovetopsecret.com...


But here it is again to save going back to it : “ECM + CIA = UFO or How to Cause a Radar Sighting”

However I think you are specifically asking about the article from "Aviation Research and Development". Whilst there are a number of historical publications now searchable on Google Books this publication is not one of them. Flight magazine is one Google has archived . But a quick search hasn't really turned up anything relevant. Further investigation is still required on the equipment and what, how and when it was used.

a reply to: Kandinsky

I thought there were very close up witness identifications by ex pilots
and police officers? I mean walk over and touch the orbs and get
jolted? Then the orb turns into a triangle and flies away...

Or course urban legend and myth make investigating something like
this from the Internet 1/2 way across the world semi-ridiculous.

Wasn't there even a collision between a fighter jet and one of the 'craft'?

But this whole topic of ECM ghosts -- very fascinating!

I'm way on board with the possibility of the '52 event being a test like this.

Kev

originally posted by: Paperjacket
Very nice thread indeed. My opinion is :

Suppose that extraterrestrials are visiting the earth is true.

It is highly possible that among 1,000 sighting incidents, none has any relationship with extraterrestrials; among 10,000 sighting incidents, none has relationship with extraterrestrials; among 100,000 sighting incidents, one or two may have relationship with extraterrestrials.

a more reality-kind of analogy is if we suppose that extraterrestrials have made crop circles is true, it is possible that they had just made one or two and the rest of circles were man made.

I have a similar view about the possibility of ET visting earth. Whether that be today or in our planet's very distant past. If the universe was literally teeming with spacefaring species then surely we'd have had some proof by now?

So although it's only my opinion I believe a real search for alien life (or at least an alien artifact) is like looking for a needle in a cosmic haystack.

a reply to: Bedlam

Thank you for that recommendation.

I noted the CIA actually have a host of documents on their website as well relating to their findings for anyone else who enjoys digging into the Cold War era.

www.foia.cia.gov...

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: mirageman

I was hoping you would run with this! Kind of confirms my suspicions that there really is no way to pin down "Palladium" to any specific case with any degree of certainty. Good work.

Hello Zeta. A big thank you for tipping me off in the DC thread about Project Palladium and your comments are always valued whether we agree or not on a topic.

I only have so many hours in the day and information on the Project is very sparse on the net. I simply can't pin it down to one specific UFO case. The Lakenheath/Bentwaters UFO and the Milton Torres encounter in the 1950s over England make some sense to a degree if we suppose they were part of a test program prior to the actual project itself. The South East of England is the area where radar was developed and tested in Britain and also where a number of USAF bases where located during the Cold War.

However I cannot find any reference to this being a fact. The project still remains a very much a bit of an enigma.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

I'm just thinking out loud

Re: Belgium. How hard would it be to have a few witnesses come forward? In psychology, 'stooges' have been used to test levels of conformity in subjects and groups. If a psych department can muster a few 'stooges,' how hard would it be for Armed Forces and/or Intel to place a few good witnesses? The best reports from the Belgium Wave were military imo.

I've read most of the available statements etc and they seem to leave two strong explanations. Either it was orchestrated by *us* or it was orchestrated by someone/thing else.

People love nailing their colours to the mast in these events and I've rarely gotten further than scratching my head. They don't make a lot of sense when we've got so little information to go off.

They have never found the missing F94 nitefighter that went down into the great lakes after a collision (seen on radar) with a UFO......The pilot (Felix Moncla....?)also missing.............

Fredric Valentich missing out of Australia on a routine flight to King Island, lost to ATC as a large object hovered over his aircraft.....

En Provence France....trace landing case.....

Rendelsham Forest may have sone opportunity to include radar spoofing as well as Belgium....But the photos and witnesses aren't so spoofable.....( at one point two Belgian gendarmes were parked under one of these triangles as it hovered stationary and shot red fireballs etc.....)

The Green fireballs (as well as other colours) were all visually sighted...and numerous other sightings have visual backup including The Washington fiasco....1952...

Or How about the South pacific sighting by the Reverend (whats his name?) and his whole flock of islanders....?
This included very close visual as well as a hand wave contact....

Then theres the Japanese airfreight sighting up in Alaska....
radar, Visual, as well as confirmation of other flights... visually....all at the same time....Both Pilot and co pilot as well as separate radars reports coincide...this continued for some time....

All im saying is there are some pretty well documented sightings that the Airfarce cant claim.....nor the CIA....
And don't forget the W56.......Pescara Italy.....
Even if you could debunk all these.......You would have to stretch a bit to debunk my own personal experience......
End of the day....the waters are so deliberately muddied theres nobody who can untangle the deceptiopns and mistakes, from the real thing.....
This is the way the PTB want it......World power depends upon keeping UFOs "up in the air" so to speak.....
IMHO....

originally posted by: combatmaster
I dont get this.... how can radar cause a physical anomaly?

You can make plasma with radio waves. Generally in conjunction with low pressure and a lot of voltage in a plasma cleaner or etcher, which you use a lot in semiconductor work.

It's tough to do directly, because radio waves aren't energetic enough to directly rip electrons off of atoms (it's non-ionizing) so you either have to get the power density up so friggin' high the electric field of the radio wave can manage it directly the way a laser does the trick, or you have to have some free electrons you can swing around with your radio wave and use as little hammers to bash electrons off of air the way HAARP used to do it.

That's hard hard to do at sea level.

a reply to: Kandinsky

You should join the 'dark side' and consider the possibility
that myself and my much more famous cronies think is
probably true:

That all this UFO hysteria has 3 purposes:

1) To act as a cover for various military ops and government crimes.

2) That on some level the racial unconscious is being tapped and
manipulated to 'believe in UFOs'; like it's a religion.

3) That there may be an involvement with the 'Other' to benefit
from this just as much as the more mundane manipulators ;-)

I get to have the best of both worlds;

My totally rational side gets to talk about psychological operations
and fake UFOs and the real extent of human technology

and I get to let my "woo side" out!

Come on in, the water's beautiful!

(mostly teasing and having fun with you.. but hey if you want to
answer all the better).

Kev

a reply to: Kandinsky

I guess a fair few of us lived through, at least the tail end, of the Cold War. I never thought it would end so rapidly. But then bang !- The Berlin Wall was down and the future seemed bright. What little did I know back then?

So who knows what technology was being used to spook foreign nations in the pursuit to destroy Communism?

It is interesting to note that since the Cold War ended those 'classic' UFO stories have also become a lot fewer. But the intel boys still seem hard at work to convince us that something was/is going on and not going on at the same time.

a reply to: stirling

There are plenty of mystifying UFO reports that can't be explained by ECM or 'secret technology.' Still though, they don't mean that other reports have to be outcomes of military and Intel missions.

There's that saying about hearing hoof beats and thinking horses....not zebras. It's a good saying as it's axiomatic and the vast majority of UFO sighting reports are 'horses' - not zebras. However, there will be times and places when it is zebras.

a reply to: Bedlam

I don't suppose you know anything about the thick coats of near
lethal radiation isotope paint that was used (supposedly) on
some stealth aircraft?

It seems to be a pretty dubious practice to act as active ECM
and to reduce air density a bit to reduce drag.

But hey, the military loves it's depleted uranium rounds and armor
and that has devastated an entire region in the middle east.

Wouldn't put it past them.

Kev

a reply to: Kandinsky

Not directly on topic, but rather the inverse point of view.

Have you ever picked up "Encounters with Sky People" ?

As a Lakota Sioux Indian, in part, that books and it's sequel
was a very enjoyable read for me.

In that book, and the sequel, pretty much everyone in the
book discusses seeing orbs of light turning into spacecraft
and back into orbs of light.

No proof whatsoever, but very enjoyable, to see another
cultures take on UFOs - in my opinion anyway.

Kev

originally posted by: KellyPrettyBear
a reply to: Bedlam

I don't suppose you know anything about the thick coats of near
lethal radiation isotope paint that was used (supposedly) on
some stealth aircraft?

It's absolutely true.

We don't do that anymore. At least not that way.

eta: oh, yeah...DU isn't very radioactive. Chemically, it's awfully nasty. But not in terms of radiation.

a reply to: mirageman

You don't think that so many are now just ASSUMING the government
is hiding this vast UFO conspiracy, that there is not even any
POINT to reporting sightings anymore?

I don't think there are less 'classic sightings' at all.

I mean, I saw a gi-normous "impossible" black triangle
UFO that was 100% impossible to deny (for me) and I
certainly didn't call the channel 2 news.

I reported it to MUFON and they investigated for about
a month and that was that,

Kev

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: stirling

There are plenty of mystifying UFO reports that can't be explained by ECM or 'secret technology.'

How do you know? What if, say, we've had at least the sketchy, difficult to manage outlines of atypical propulsion since the early 40's?

What if it's the biggest conspiracy there is? One tale to rule them all...

eta: if you're just asking "Hey, how would you make 'orbs'?" it takes a lot of power but you can do it with a set of lasers. Make 'em zip around, glow, change shape, return radar signals and the like. It would take a lot of power but it could be done. It would be worse far away from the laser.