Electromagnetic Effects Associated with Unidentified Flying Objects.

EM effects are a pretty intriguing aspect of the UFO subject and there have been plenty of very strange UFO cases where electromagnetic interference with avionic systems, motors, headlights, radios (and even weapons systems) have been reported at the same time the UFO has been witnessed.

Richard Thieme brings up the subject in the presentation posted here and the NICAP document below, 'Electromagnetic Effects Associated with Unidentified Flying Objects' does a good job of cataloging cases through the 1950s and exploring the subject in general - it's said the report was circulated to several hundred interested parties including scientists and members of Congress and concluded that 'the evidence was sufficient to warrant a more thorough investigation of UFOs, and an attempt to learn more about the E -M phenomenon through deliberate instrumentation for that purpose'.


Report:

Electromagnetic Effects Associated with Unidentified Flying Objects.

The purpose of this booklet is to explore this one aspect of the UFO mystery: Electromagnetic effects which occurred at the same time a UFO was seen.

PDF File

NARCAP's Richard Haines has also conducted some scientific research on aircraft EM effects in the paper below and for more in depth reading then Chapter five of John McCampbell's book 'Ufology' goes into more detail about stalling of vehicle motors, dimming and extinguishing of car headlights/house lights, fading or loss of radio/television reception and malfunction of compasses and watches.

FIFTY-SIX AIRCRAFT PILOT SIGHTlNGS INVOLVING ELECTROMAGNETIC EFFECTS

Richard F. Haines, Ph.D.

"Reports of anomalous aerial objects (AAO) appearing in the atmosphere continue to be made by pilots of almost every airline and air force of the world in addition to private and experimental test pilots. This paper presents a review of 56 reports of AAO in which electromagnetic effects (E-M) take place on-board the aircraft when the phenomenon is located nearby but not before it appeared or after it had departed.
Reported E-M effects included radio interference or total failure, radar contact with and without simultaneous visual contact, magnetic and/or gyro-compass deviations, automatic direction finder failure or interference, engine stopping or interruption, dimming cabin lights, transponder failure, and military aircraft weapon system failure. We're not dealing with mental projections or hallucinations on the part of the witness but with a real physical phenomenon."

Dr. Richard Haines, Psychologist specializing in pilot and astronaut "human factors" research for the Ames NASA Research Center in California-Chief of the Space Human Factors Office.

File

Links:

1945-1963

1964-1992

EM Effects Database (pdf)

Right on! Jacques Vallee also takes special note of the electromagnetism aspect. The Iran UFO event was, apparently, an electromagnetic extravaganza of phenomenon.

Another author I find interesting is Albert Budden. Although he misses the mark and attempts to explain away the reality of our UFO phenomenon, he inadvertently, imo, strengthens the validity of their reality and at the same times explains a very possible reason for why we encounter high strangeness aspects in UFO reports--it affects not just engines but the mind!

Gonna read your links now. But wanted to bump first because I love this subject and I think it holds some keys to unlock the mystery.

Budden's Electric Ufos: Fireballs, Electromagnetics and Abnormal States

I read the one from NICAP. Some data was gathered in one famous and well-documented case, as I recall. Now you've given me more to read on this. Thanks. S&F.

I just got a picture of that sequence in Close Encounters where the UFO passes right over the truck and stuff starts floating around

Anyway, one point to make, as I can't recall it being made before. If these crafts are made here on earth, then every time they're scheduled for flights, wouldn't the control tower, air base vehicles and the like not work properly due to interference? On the bigger picture, I'd have to assume that some of these craft are made far away from anything else electronic.

P.s. Still not saying aliens.

Col. John B. Alexander said of the Iran incident and electromagnetism and why he found that incident so remarkable, was something to the effect of, "I know how to shut things down with it (EM) but I don't know how to start them back up!"

Some Project Magnet documents regarding research that was conducted by the Canadian Government back in the early 1950's also has some great information about UFO's and the theories behind their propulsion system. I was unaware these documents even existed or had been released up until about a week ago. Wilbert Smith has become kind of a Canadian "Icon" because of these documents and the interviews he gave regarding research that was conducted by the U.S. and Canada.

Project Magnet - The Canadian Research

Great thread as always Karl!

Originally posted by The GUT
Col. John B. Alexander said of the Iran incident and electromagnetism and why he found that incident so remarkable, was something to the effect of, "I know how to shut things down with it (EM) but I don't know how to start them back up!"

That Iran incident is one of the most interesting cases to me, including the electromagnetic effects, but I don't understand that comment. You can turn a jammer on to shut down communications and to restore communications you simply turn the jammer off. A nuclear EMP is different but nobody has suggested this was a nuclear event.

reply to post by Arbitrageur
I actually wondered about that too. But since he knows way more than me on that subject, I figured maybe something about jet engines?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by The GUT
Col. John B. Alexander said of the Iran incident and electromagnetism and why he found that incident so remarkable, was something to the effect of, "I know how to shut things down with it (EM) but I don't know how to start them back up!"

That Iran incident is one of the most interesting cases to me, including the electromagnetic effects, but I don't understand that comment. You can turn a jammer on to shut down communications and to restore communications you simply turn the jammer off. A nuclear EMP is different but nobody has suggested this was a nuclear event.

No not a nuclear event, just an EMP event on a scale that would "normally" be nuclear in nature. From what I can remember about the case is that ALL electronic instruments ceased to function (due to the pilot trying to launch a missile at the craft) and were later turned back on so to speak.

Normally EMP fries everything. In this case everything seemed fried but was later "un-fried".

With the capabilities these craft have I think it shows we are missing something fundamental about our understanding of electromagnetism. I will give you a hint. How would one create an artificial quantum field so as to surround a macro object in it?

Remember, quantum mechanics works on macro objects just like it works on micro objects. Some people think the math only suggests that micro objects can exhibit quantum properties, but reality states otherwise

Originally posted by Elzon1
Normally EMP fries everything.

Yes it can fry lots of things, unless they are inside Faraday cages, so not everything.

In this case everything seemed fried but was later "un-fried".

No. It doesn't seem that way to me, as fried electronics don't "un-fry", in my experience, and I've seen my share. Maybe this was also the Colonel's misunderstanding? But jammers can be turned on and off, and similar devices could affect more than just communications.

reply to post by The GUT


What Alexander was saying is actually quite simple. An EMP pulse doesn't just shut electronics down is destroys their ability to work full stop. If the Sun decides to play rough and we are hit by a severe ion storm, call it what you will, current FEMA estimates, reckon it will be six months before any power is restored to any city because every single power station will be dead, not just shut down, totally trashed. Alexander is saying, we do not have the ability to selectively shut down and then , the moment you leave the objects sphere of influence start your electrical systems up again. As in, how can a car's engine shut off and then start up again,, as many have claimed happened to them, without them turning the ignition on again?

Originally posted by The GUT

Right on! Jacques Vallee also takes special note of the electromagnetism aspect..

He sure does mate, can't find the video link at the moment but there's a brief quote below from 1978:

"First, there is a physical object. That may be a flying saucer or it may be a projection or it may be something entirely different. All we know about it is that it represents a tremendous quantity of electromagnetic energy in a small volume. I say that based upon the evidence gathered from traces, from electromagnetic and radar detection and from perturbations of the electromagnetic fields such as Dr. Claude Poher, the French space scientist, has recorded".

link

There are two cases from South America that have always made me scratch my head (and may involve EM effects resulting in power blackouts), this first one from 1986 was said to cause a power blackout of Montevideo as it occurred at the same time an unknown object was hovering over an overheated power line - the second is a pretty freaky one and involves the crew and passengers of an inbound plane witnessing a brightly lit UFO near their aircraft which was described as 'not moving in accordance with known laws of physics' - the object was also reported by a military pilot in a separate jet and 'the lights of the landing strip suddenly went off' at the same time of the sightings (luckily they came back on again).

"At the time when I started the descent, I suddenly saw opposite a white light which came directly at us at full speed, before stopping suddenly at a hundred meters (...) After a moment, the saucer changed color, two green lights appearing at the ends with an orange gleam in the center, which ignited intermittently", the pilot adds.

At the time when I started my last approach, the lights of the landing strip suddenly went off. I had to go up, still accompanied by the UFO which went up at a supernatural speed," the pilot adds. " When the light came back on the ground and that I started again my descent, the UFO then disappeared at full speed," the pilot concluded

link

Cheers.

There's a case from 2009 here that just maybe offers us a glimpse into the mechanism by which this effect is caused?

Realizing that it was not an airplane or anything else he could think of, he got a little startled. However, as the object passed directly over him, his car died. Smith tried to open the electric windows to look at the object, but they would not work either. Getting very worried now, Smith attempted to use his cell phone, which was also not working. Not knowing whether to run or stay put, Smith opened his car door, still buckled in. He looked up at the object, saw the lights on the object turn off, and his car was suddenly running again.

2009 case involving car's electrical system closing down


Notice again the "impossible", where a car's ignition is turned off and then on as if by remote without the driver using the ignition key. Maybe, when people ask "Why do UFOs have lights"; here we see a reason?

Nice thread, karl, per usual. I'm not sure if this particular incident is in the NICAP chronology you posted above (number 49 was also in Ohio and within a couple days), but here's a clipping from the November 7, 1957 issue of The Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune. You'll notice the distinct similarities to the Levelland sightings, including shape, color and car stallage:



The year 1957 produced an absolute bumper crop of reports, including many featuring EM effects. A good read on this is The Southwestern UFO Wave of 1957 by Antonio Rullan.

The 1957 wave was similar to the 1947 wave in its explosive nature but had a greater number of reported sightings. The UFO wave of 1952 had more reported cases but was not an explosive wave; UFO reports came in gradually throughout the year. The 1957 wave stands out because it was the first U.S. wave involving vehicle interference (VI) cases. It was these UFO stories of close encounters between automobiles and UFOs that drew the most media attention. This wave, however, was not the first documented VI wave because a similar one had occurred in France in October 1954.

Another common theme among news reports of UFOs that year was the obligatory mention of Sputnik. Interesting that.

If things stop working then start working again by apparent intention of parties unknown in Star Trek they typically say it was probably done with some kind of "dampening field" (although I prefer the term "damping field").

reply to post by karl 12


Apart from disturbing electrical or mechanical equipment EM fields have been reported to also disrupt animals and people. I had a close sighting of a disc with my best friend up in the mountains - it was approx. 11pm at night and we were standing in the driveway of a remote cabin and we saw the craft come down a mountainside and as it approached within a few hundred feet all of the animals in the forest "woke up" and started to fly and run in the opposite direction. There were various birds, rabbits, squirrels fleeing en masse, a few of them actually bumped into my boots when the craft was overhead. There is a sub level hum that you could feel inside your bones kind of.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur Yes it can fry lots of things, unless they are inside Faraday cages, so not everything.

Indeed.

It has been said various beings have the capability to move through solid matter with their bodies using a certain technique. This can be prevented with the use of grounded Faraday cages.

No. It doesn't seem that way to me, as fried electronics don't "un-fry", in my experience, and I've seen my share. Maybe this was also the Colonel's misunderstanding? But jammers can be turned on and off, and similar devices could affect more than just communications.

I guess I should have used quotation marks around the word fried due to my use of the word in a non-literal sense. What I was pointing out was that most of the instrument panel was rendered to a state of being non-functional so as to seem fried. What happened to the F-4 phantom was not attributable to electronic jamming or anything normally under the realm of classical physics.

I will state once again that we humans are missing something in our understanding of electromagnetism. We know such things are "possible" according to quantum mechanics but we have been unable to reproduce such effects on any large macro scale environment. Once we are able to create artificial quantum fields we should be able to reproduce the effects these craft project if not most of their capabilities outright.

Originally posted by Elzon1
What happened to the F-4 phantom was not attributable to electronic jamming or anything normally under the realm of classical physics.

According to who?

According to the technicians at the base, that plane had a history of electrical problems, and they didn't confirm that the other plane was even sent in for a maintenance check after the supposed electrical failure:

The Tehran 1976 UFO

The Westinghouse tech at Shahrokhi confirmed that only the second F-4 was reported to have experienced any electrical problems during the flight; the first F-4 was never sent in for maintenance. The McDonnell Douglas tech at Shahrokhi noted that the second F-4 had a long history of intermittent electrical outages that the IIAF had never been able to fix. He was personally called in to adjust that F-4's radar about a month after the event. Both techs stated that the Shahrokhi base was notorious for low quality work and poor record keeping.

So we have reason to expect that Jafari's F-4 would have had electrical problems regardless of whether he was under attack by a UFO or not, and we have conflicting stories about whether Nazeri's F-4 had any problems at all or not.

I'm not convinced any of this exceeds the "realm of classical physics" as you put it.

reply to post by kronos11


Ha! Exactly the same thing I've experienced when I was at South American isolated city. The pulsating sub hum was really scary so no wonder why animals would flee.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


If a particular system on a Phantom was having problems it either worked or it didn't work, they didn't turn themselves "off and then back on" randomly, or it wouldn't have been passed fit to fly. Most military airframes, spend far more time being worked on and serviced than actually flying. Given what happened that night, it's almost a racing certainty a full diagnostic would have been carried out as routine as , in effect, it ceased to function in its' primary role as an "interceptor".