THE CONCLUSION OF THE NASA LAWSUIT: Concerning the Kecksburg, PA UFO case of 1965

Good Day Forumerions,

This just in from Leslie Kean:

On December 9, 1965, an object landed near the small town of Kecksburg, PA. Moments earlier, a fireball was observed in the sky across several U.S. states and Canada.

Four witnesses provided independent, corroborated descriptions of the object and its location in the Kecksburg woods. Dozens of others – including fire fighters, newspaper reporters, and a radio news director at WHJB (who was on the scene taping interviews) – describe the large military presence at the crash site and the cordoning off of the area. Some observed the retrieval of an object that was transported by an army truck. Many witnesses signed statements for investigator Stan Gordon of Greensburg, PA, who has been working on the case since it began.

The rest of the story . . .

Cheers,
Frank

[edit on 10-11-2009 by Frank Warren]

so... it didnt go anywhere

What a long drawn out ordeal. That article shows what a nightmare it can be to request FOIA documents we are entitled to but the agencies we request them from don't want to provide. At least now with a lawsuit favoring the plaintiff there is some precedent for future FOIA cases to encourage other requests to be more forthcoming.

By the way, even if they never found the Kecksburg information, some people will find this interesting:

www.theufochronicles.com...

Another document sent by NASA lays out the four “international commitments” of NASA in 1964; one of them is “investigation of extra-terrestrial life.” It’s a little curious that “investigation of” is used here instead of “search for,” as if we know there is something there to investigate. This is probably simply a semantic oddity that was later changed. NASA’s disinterest in studying physical evidence related to UFO sightings and landings – to explore whether these objects could possibly be probes from outer space – would suggest that this goal did not last very long.

I didn't know NASA had a commitment to "investigate extra-terrestrial life"!!! Especially since they seem to avoid the topic and have done so for a long time. And it is interesting they said "investigate" instead of "search for"!

Good article, thanks for updating us Frank, I was curious about whatever happened to that case...now I know thanks to you! S+F.

For a different take on the issue, here's my new post:

www.jamesoberg.com...

Probably the only thing left from the Kecksburg incident is the object itself.

Originally posted by desklamp3
Probably the only thing left from the Kecksburg incident is the object itself.

"Probably" didn't ever exist in the first place.

Originally posted by JimOberg
For a different take on the issue, here's my new post:

www.jamesoberg.com...

At it again Jim ?

Originally posted by WitnessFromAfar
I also have noticed a pattern (the statistics have been acquired from info at ATS, documented threads Jim...) wherein Jim Oberg routinely advertises his own webpage, as opposed to engaging in moderated debate here at ATS.

Jim, you've stepped into a forum of research and debate here.
Please, in the interest of ATS, and the quality research that goes on here, answer these points directly. I'm quite certain that site advertisement and self promotion are no-no's here, so if you've got some evidence (or even a line of reasoning) that you would like so share, please do so in context of the thread, within the thread itself. Linking to external sites should be limited to (IMHO) to citing sources, in the purposes of debate.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by desklamp3
Probably the only thing left from the Kecksburg incident is the object itself.

Hi, I had read a couple of times the acorn as it is sometimes referred to, was taken directly to Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio.
And that a man delivered two loads of specially-made bricks a month or so apart.
On his first drop inside a hanger he noticed a high & wide canvas screen and upon finishing the drop or at a point before when the area was empty of AF-Sec personal briefly, he looked behind the screen to see a 12'(height)x 8' (base) brownish-gold object, bullet shaped with a ring around the bottom.

When he was dispatched about 3-4 weeks later with another special-order of bricks which he dropped into the same hanger, he mentions a wall was ercted on the other side of the object and about 50% across the hanger door side.

He did not have the chance the second time to sneak a peak inside the partially completed wall. But new the hanger was smaller and recognized the materials as being the same as he delivered the first time.

NOTE: I've also read here and there about "rooms" at Wright Patterson, only accessible from below. When Goldwater went there to ask a special question of Lemay, he apparently travelled down one of the lower hallways to meet with the General.

Decoy

Originally posted by JimOberg
For a different take on the issue, here's my new post:

www.jamesoberg.com...

Jim, are you willing to answer these questions for me, because I read in your statement.

There’s no reason NASA would ever have any other files on the event, anyway. Here’s
why:

The Air Force explanation of “meteors” refers to the explanation of professional
astronomers who observed, photographed, and analyzed the path of the real meteor that
DID enter the atmosphere that day. There is nothing trumped-up or imaginary about the
meteor, that was seen over a wide area, including western Pennsylvania. See link”
www.debunker.com... From the Kecksburg area, the meteor was
low in the western sky and was reported to have hit the ground behind a tree-covered hill.
It was actually hundreds of miles away. Eyewitness reports of distant meteors crashing ‘nearby’ are very common.

Question 1.

If the object that crashed there was nothing more than a acorn shaped meteor, why then was the Army and Air Force, there so quick, even within a few hours after the reported landing, so why was that meteor so interesting for them?

Many people say that the military, including members of the Army and Air Force, began to arrive in the area around the village of Keeksburg within a few hours after the reported landing. During the evening, reporters from numerous media sources went to Kecksburg to investigate the event. The area around the alleged impact site was cordoned off, and a search for the object was conducted in the woods. Neither civilians nor reporters were able to get near the spot where the object had reportedly fallen.

www.ufoevidence.org...

Question 2.

The late John Murphy was and is believed to have been the first reporter on the scene, so again, if it was only an acorn shaped meteor that he could have seen then, why was his former wife being approached by people who had military or government affiliation and wished not to be identified at that time for information?

The late John Murphy, was the new director of WHJB radio in Greensburg at the time, and is believed to have been the first reporter on the scene. His former wife says that she was in radio contact with him from the site that day, and that he told her that he went down into the woods and saw the object. Various informants have approached me with information. Some of these were people who had military or government affiliation and wish not to be identified at this time.

www.ufoevidence.org...

Question 3.

Again, if it really was nothing more then a acorn shaped meteor, why then did John Murphy received unexpected visitation at the WHJB radio station from two men in black suits identifying themselves as government officials who confiscated all but one roll of the film with his photographs?

John Murphy's Object in the Woods a reporter and news director for the local radio station WHJB, John Murphy, arrived on the scene of the event before authorities had arrived, in response to several calls to the station from alarmed citizens. He took several photographs and conducted interviews with witnesses.

His former wife Bonnie Milslagle later reported that all but one roll of the film were confiscated by military personnel. WHJB office manager Mabel Mazza described one of the pictures: "It was very dark and it was with a lot of trees around and everything. And I don't know how far away from the site he was. But I did see a picture of a sort of a cone-like thing. It's the only time I ever saw it."

In the following weeks, Murphy became enveloped with the incident and wrote a radio documentary called Object in the Woods, featuring his experiences and interviews he had conducted that night. Shortly before the documentary would have aired, he received an unexpected visit at the station from two men in black suits identifying themselves as government officials. They requested to speak with him in a back room behind closed doors.

The meeting lasted about 30 minutes. A WHJB employee, Linda Foschia, recalled the men confiscated some of Murphy's audio tapes from that night, and that no one knows what happened to the remaining photographs. A week after the visit, an agitated Murphy aired a censored version of the documentary, which he claimed in its introduction had to be edited due to some interviewees requesting their statements be removed from the broadcast in fear of getting in trouble with the police and Army.

The new version contained nothing revealing, and did not mention an object at all. Mazza remembers the aired documentary was entirely different from what Murphy had originally written. (See pp. 4-5 of CFI's report in External links for details of the aired documentary.)
After the airing, Murphy became uncharacteristically despondent and completely stopped all investigation on the case and refused to talk to anyone about it again, and never gave clear reasons why.

In 1969, Murphy was struck and killed by an unidentified car in an apparent hit-and-run while crossing a road. The hit-and-run occurred in California, while Murphy was on vacation.

en.wikipedia.org...

Question 4.

Could it be that that acorn shaped meteor was so important because it looks metallic, had a bronze-gold color and it had unusual markings that Romansky says looked similar to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics?

What we now know is that there are individuals who say that they went down into the woods that December day in 1965, before the military arrived, and came across upon a large metallic acorn shaped object partially buried in the ground. The device was large enough for a man to stand inside of it. The object was a bronze-gold color, and appeared to be one solid piece of metal, displaying no rivets or seams. At the back of the acorn shape was what witness Jim Romansky calls the bumper area.

Upon this area were unusual markings that Romansky says looked similar to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Romansky who has been a machinist for many years, says the object itself, looked as though it had been made from liquid metal

www.ufoevidence.org...

Thanks in advance.

[edit on 12/11/09 by spacevisitor]

[edit on 12/11/09 by spacevisitor]

reply to post by Frank Warren


that's great! But uh... I think you have to say what the conclusion was.

Originally posted by JimOberg
For a different take on the issue, here's my new post:

www.jamesoberg.com...

I look to your input as a source of rational discourse on any number of aerospace subjects. In the information you have provided in the link you rely on ridicule [the reporter was lazy, emergency responders were zapped by a memory loss ray (paraphrasing), etc.] and offer not one, but two, alternative explanations for the object and chalk them up to coincidence (facetiously).

The linked article from the OP states that no corroborating documents were released vis-a-vis the official statement made in 2005 of the Russian satellite.

If, as the article states, NASA was responsible for recovering and investigating space debris, and reports were coming in from 4 states on the night in question, then the lack of one single reference to the incident in all of the paperwork that was generated in response to the FOIA inquiry, is bizarre. At least one document on record could have surfaced relaying, in effect, "Yeah, oh that. It landed in Canada."

Originally posted by spacevisitor

Originally posted by JimOberg
For a different take on the issue, here's my new post:

www.jamesoberg.com...

Jim, are you willing to answer these questions for me, because I read in your statement.

There’s no reason NASA would ever have any other files on the event, anyway. Here’s
why:

The Air Force explanation of “meteors” refers to the explanation of professional
astronomers who observed, photographed, and analyzed the path of the real meteor that
DID enter the atmosphere that day. There is nothing trumped-up or imaginary about the
meteor, that was seen over a wide area, including western Pennsylvania. See link”
www.debunker.com... From the Kecksburg area, the meteor was
low in the western sky and was reported to have hit the ground behind a tree-covered hill.
It was actually hundreds of miles away. Eyewitness reports of distant meteors crashing ‘nearby’ are very common.

Question 1.

If the object that crashed there was nothing more than a acorn shaped meteor, why then was the Army and Air Force, there so quick, even within a few hours after the reported landing, so why was that meteor so interesting for them?

Where can I send my cash donation to your scholarship fund for that helpful "Reading For Comprehension" class at that nearby junior college, the class you clearly so desperately need?

Originally posted by elfie
If, as the article states, NASA was responsible for recovering and investigating space debris, ...

But that's a big, BIG 'if'....

As in, "IF" you had taken the class described in the preceding post, you wouldn't be embarrassing yourself so badly.

OK, take a breath, and look at this as a 'teachable moment'. You'd be surprised how many kids who jump carelessly and thoughtlessly into these debates benefit from a little verbal slapping around. Some of them have become lifelong friends.

Others, I've had to file restraining orders, but that's neither here nor there....

reply to post by JimOberg


Jim,you didn't even bother to address anyone's points - all you realy did was make sarcastic,evasive remarks.

Why do you keep breaking the forum rules by trying to advertise your homepage?

These are the forum rules.

We are here to debate cases on topic.
Personal site advertisement is against ATS policy.

If you've got an argument to make, you can just as easily do it here as direct people to your personal homepage.

Please present that argument here, in context to the thread's topic.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by JimOberg
You'd be surprised how many kids who jump carelessly and thoughtlessly into these debates benefit from a little verbal slapping around. Some of them have become lifelong friends.

Yeah I was slightly taken back when you said in an older article that the ufologists like me could be "pawns", as nobody had ever called me a pawn before! But looking at the facts of the case, there's a possibility you could be right about that, and sometimes the truth hurts.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by WitnessFromAfar
we don't have any evidence of anything ever actually being recovered, with the exception of reports from the Kecksburg area, that seem impossible to verify...

I'm still digging, but I really want to wait until that perceived 'hole' in the data has been located. I'll admit, I'm having more trouble than usual trying to find supporting documentation for a Canada landing...

Jim Oberg explained that hole and accused us UFOers of possibly being pawns in the government conspiracy to hide the truth. It was in the article you posted the link to but you didn't quote this part, so I will to help explain the "hole":

www.post-gazette.com...

Oberg acknowledges that the ordinants, which have been reviewed by a leading amateur satellite watcher who didn't want his name revealed, seemed to confirm the official Air Force account that Kosmos 96 crashed in Canada more than 12 hours earlier than the Kecksburg crash. But Oberg checked the data further. The released tracking data, he said, couldn't be positively identified with specific pieces of the failed probe.

"It could have been jettisoned rocket stage of a large piece of space junk," he wrote. "The probe itself could have headed off toward Kecksburg."

Oberg proceeds to explain why the U.S. military would lie, or at least decide not to divulge everything it knew about the Kecksburg crash.

"In the 1960s, U.S. military intelligence agencies interested in enemy technology were eagerly collecting all the Soviet missile and space debris they could find. International law required that debris be returned to the country of origin. But hardware from Kosmos 96, with its special missile-warhead shielding, would have been too valuable to give back."

After all, he concluded, what better camouflage than to let people think the fallen object was not a Soviet probe, but a flying saucer?

"The Russians would never suspect, and the Air Force laboratories could examine the specimen at leisure. And if suspicion lingered, UFO buffs would be counted on to maintain the phony cover story, protecting the real truth."

For that reason, Oberg concluded, the Kecksburg scenario produced "delicious irony."

"A famous UFO case may actually involve a real U.S. government cover-up, but UFO buffs are on the wrong side. Instead of exposing the truth, they may be unwitting pawns in deception."

So we may be "pawns", eh? I can't rule that out either!

[edit on 12-11-2009 by Arbitrageur]

Originally posted by karl 12
reply to post by JimOberg

 

Jim,you didn't even bother to address anyone's points - all you realy did was make sarcastic,evasive remarks.

Some great poster hereabouts used to say, "Brutal honesty is better than
gentle deception."

But he evidently didn't really MEAN it.

Originally posted by JimOberg
Some great poster hereabouts used to say, "Brutal honesty is better than
gentle deception."

But he evidently didn't really MEAN it.

Aha, touche Mr Oberg - good one.


But seriously -whats the point of coming on a discussion board if you're not going to discuss anything?

After reviewing the documents, I noted the following:

1. There was nothing at all related to Kecksburg here or in the many hundreds of pages released by NASA at earlier stages.

2. The documents included news stories and reports about other fireball meteors around the same time, but none on Kecksburg.

3. There were no policy or procedure manuals included, which were requested, related to rules or laws governing the collection of space debris from private property.

4. There were 20 boxes missing which we had requested, including four pertaining to
NASA/DOD relationships and agreements.

5. Also missing were many attachments, appendices and photos, which were referred to in the files as being enclosed or attached, but weren’t.

6. Missing also were a lengthy series of letters written to NASA from citizens about UFO sightings and questions, some occurring in 1965. NASA sent form-letter replies to each person then forwarded copies of these letters to the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. NASA sent me copies of both its reply to the citizen and each cover letter sent by the agency to Blue Book saying that the enclosed letter was being forwarded. However, none of these letters from citizens, referenced as enclosed, were in the files. It is quite possible that interested citizens could have written NASA about the fireball seen widely that night, or the landing of something in
Kecksburg.

To illustrate the complexity and detail of my attempts to acquire missing documents, and to address other issues, here is one email which I wrote to my NASA contact for the search, Judi Hollingsworth, in July 7, 2008:
You wrote re Accession number 67A1866 that 7 boxes were checked out by Paul Willis, a NASA employee now retired, on 12/4/96, and that they are now missing, apparently never returned. I am particularly interested in two files from these missing boxes:Agreements: NASA/DOD from Box 1; and DOD-NASA Relationships from Box 3. This group of files covers the time period June '65 - May '66, which is very relevant to my search about the Dec. '65 incident in Kecksburg.

www.theufochronicles.com...

So the "conclusion", as expected....

To put this in perspective, however, over 300 boxes were searched, plus hundreds of pages released along with more from State Department. More had been released during the court process before the settlement. So the missing files constituted only a tiny fraction of the total. The fragology files stand out as potentially the most important missing boxes, which we had been told were missing before we began.

The documents I received concerned, by and large, the recovery and analysis of fragments and space debris here and abroad; orbital debris; policy formulations for above; discussions of hazards and liability due to falling space debris; clarification of NASA’s role in relation to other government agencies and its role overseas; some Project Moon Dust documents; Gemini and Apollo missions; correspondence and meeting files. Files from the State Department included UFO cases and reports of sightings. These documents shed light on the history of the time, but overall, that’s as far as they went.

In August, 2009, we filed the joint motion for dismissal in federal court, as there was nothing more we could do; the search was completed. The post-settlement phase had lasted almost two years.

www.theufochronicles.com...

So, as expected we are left with the original story and 40 pages of obfuscated (relevant) FOIA documents. Not surprised, but yet another showing of how stagnant ufology is. Whatever happened in Kecksburg we will never know, as in many cases. Saving personal opinions for another time

SO we must press on for that proof ourselves (or wait for disclosure... )

Relevant Threads:

FOIA: NASA KECKSBURG FILE

The Kecksburg UFO Crash: December 9th, 1965

Thanks for sharing Frank, S/F...

Unreal, what a pathetic tactic by this Oberg fellow! You respond via your little document on this discussion board in regards to a very interesting topic about NASA's shady activities regarding this case, then instead of engaging in logical debate, you draw into question a members grammar skills instead by using belittling sarcastic comments and childish wit.

Wow, just wow...

Originally posted by Jocko Flocko
Unreal, what a pathetic tactic by this Oberg fellow! You respond via your little document on this discussion board in regards to a very interesting topic about NASA's shady activities regarding this case, then instead of engaging in logical debate, you draw into question a members grammar skills instead by using belittling sarcastic comments and childish wit.

Wow, just wow...

Spacevisitor asked Oberg "If the object that crashed there was nothing more than a acorn shaped meteor......." but where in Oberg's article does he mention an acorn shaped meteor?

So it wasn't an issue with grammar skills, but with reading comprehension, which it appears is not an isolated incident.

If you want him to reply you might want to at least read his article and demonstrate you understand it, and if you're asking about an acorn shaped meteor which the article doesn't mention, maybe you should re-read the article to see what it really says?

Or did Oberg say there was an acorn shaped meteor and I missed it? If so then I'm the one who needs the remedial course in reading.