Robert Hastings has a message for UFO non-believers.

Originally posted by drew hempel
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

If it was "censored" then why was "UFO rumor" even mentioned in the investigation?

The same question could be asked as to why Doty and his AFOSI buddies bothered perpetrating such an extensive hoax on the UFO community and Bennewitz.

Also why did the UFO sighting occur by someone who was underground? The maintenance person was clearly JOKING -- and James' dad confirmed that it was a

JOKE

You're taking that on faith from James's second hand accounting of his father's statement. I don't know either way. All I do know is an event did happen and the report does mention the fact that a discussion of UFO's had taken place.

and the investigation confirmed it was a JOKE.

End of story.

So in this post you state,

Well there's one aspect that I haven't notice James Carlson mention -- the government does LIE to coverup lack of UFO evidence

But here you accept the statement wholesale? I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. Believe as you will. All I know is the whole thing smells rotten and the simple way to resolve this issue is to subpoena everyone from the flight staff in front of congress to get all of their statements on the record.

Those who come out lying end up in jail and the story gets sorted out one way or the other.

[edit on 13-2-2010 by Xtraeme]

Originally posted by Robert Hastings
And now for a clarification: In the early days, Blue Book was indeed an investigative group, not the PR front it later morphed into. The nuclear weapons-related cases mentioned by Ruppelt, in the June 1952 LOOK article mentioned above, verify that he was at that time privy to UFO incidents affecting national security. However, as I also note in my book, by November of the same year, Blue Book had essentially been frozen out of the loop. Therefore, after the project's closure in 1969, General Bollender could accurately state that UFO cases affecting national security were not "a part of the Blue Book system."

Blue Book was not frozen out of the loop on anything related to UFOs reported by or to the military. You have absolutely no evidence to support that reckless claim. Air Force Regulation 80-17, which went into effect in September 1966 very clearly spells out the standing orders expected of all Air Force personnel in regard to UFOs. Nobody at Malmstrom AFB or SAC had the authority to circumvent or ignore those orders, and if they had done so they would have been brought up on charges for disobeying a direct order. Where UFOs are concerned, Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase was the final authority at Malmstrom AFB and it was his responsibility to investigate all UFOs. It's also well-substantiated that Lewis D. Chase was well aware of the incident at Echo Flight on March 16, and its investigation, and he was equally aware that UFOs were not involved. Salas' irresponsible slanders about this man after he died and could no longer defend himself is worse than any of the garbage you've said about my father, and people shouldn't applaud him for it -- he should be ashamed for making such comments without any evidence whatsoever to back up those claims. His whole Chase commentary is nothing short of sickening and adds nothing at all to his argument or yours, since standing orders in the Department of Defense is standing orders, period. You obey them, you don't treat them as recommendations. Those orders came from and with the full authority of the Secretary of the Air Force, and there's not a commanding officer or UFO officer in the entire USAF who would have ignored them. The Deputy Chief of Staff, Research and Development who was responsible for all of the Minuteman II and III development, testing, and eventual deployment was also in charge of everything having to do with UFOs, including Blue Book. His direct tools to effect this authority were the UFO officers, and if UFOs were involved in anything at Malmstrom AFB in March 1967, Lt. Col. Chase would have been REQUIRED to investigate it. You shouldn't talk about some meaningless "clarification" when it's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about. Out of the loop? Are you serious??!!

reply to post by Xtraeme


O.K. first of all the shutdown clearly occurred because of an electromagnetic pulse to the logic couplers -- James Carlson's book, if you read it, goes into great detail about this. The investigation documents clearly show this.

The shutdown was replicated -- the reason, again, was clearly demonstrated.

Even Figel's testimony, which Hastings relies on, states that the maintenance man is the first person to "see" the UFO as a JOKE from underground.

Then we have an investigation which clearly stated no one reported seeing anything unusual.

So to say that this is some cover up makes no sense -- the only cover up is the OPPOSITE way.

1) pretending that there is no reason for the shutdown when this is clearly not true.

2) pretending that there is a written record of a UFO sighting when this is not true.

3) pretending that the UFO was not first brought up as a joke when this is not true.

4) pretending that the UFO "sighting" was not brought up years later in a clearly dishonest fashion, with the story changed numerous times, when this is not true.

5) Finally pretending that despite a reason for the shutdown, despite the UFO first brought up as a joke, and despite the UFO sighting then made up dishonestly years later -- in fact there is really a huge government coverup of the actual nonexistent UFO sighting.

The problem with this final last claim is that the government lies in this case would be the OPPOSITE of normal. It's on the record that the government has promoted UFOs as disinformation but now it's claimed that the government is trying to hide the fact of a UFO sighting, when in fact there's absolutely no evidence to indicate any cover up whatsoever.

Originally posted by Xtraeme

Originally posted by drew hempel
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

All I know is the whole thing smells rotten and the simple way to resolve this issue is to subpoena everyone from the flight staff in front of congress to get all of their statements on the record.
[edit on 13-2-2010 by Xtraeme]

So you want to subpoena everybody and have them testify to an event that was well documented and considered closed and proven for 30 years until Salas made his provably ridiculous claims -- claims that he changed repeatedly every time someone pointed out an inconsistency or impossibility, until any intelligent reading of this garbage demands that you treat him as brain-damaged or a liar -- and do all of this for no apparent reason excepting the satisfaction of your own curiosity, that maybe, just maybe, there's some truth to this story of his that nobody else has ever come forward to confirm in any way whatsoever, and in the total absence of any believable evidence, anything that can be confirmed. I don't think our Constitution works that way. Why should my father have to travel to Washington, DC to call a man a liar, when everything that man says and writes does that very well without it? You can't just claim an outrageous story is a fact. You once asked me why I defer to official documents. One reason is because official documents are confirmed. They're drafted by an E-2 clerk, sent to his superior who makes corrections if necessary and sends them back down to be corrected. Once they're done to his satisfaction, he sends them up the chain of command -- and to do that he has to sign them; he's putting his authority on the line that what's been written has been approved. Then he sends them up to his boss, and so forth until they reach the commanding officer, who places his signature on it, showing that he accepts final responsibility for the contents. When that's all done, the document is sent to wherever it's supposed to go for final deployment. If it's classified information, that document retains the same classification throughout the entire process, and everybody from the drafter on up has the clearance and need-to-know to access that document. If there are changes made, anybody who worked on it would know what those changes are. One person never drafts a classified document -- they are always confirmed all the way up the chain of command. Sometimes mistakes are made, but these can usually be checked and verified in other documents. But, the higher the classification, the less people are involved, but the more care is taken with the contents. And in 1967, when documents were regularly assigned automatic declassification instructions, it was well understand that information that there was a particular need to keep safeguarded would not be assigned to that category, where it would drop a level every three years or so. None of the documents related to Echo Flight were in such a protected category. They all had automatic downgrading associated. This kind of classification demands very careful handling, because nobody wants military secrets disclosed automatically because someone put them in the wrong downgrading category. So in these, everything is double-checked and confirmed by everybody who has a hand in their development. It's just irresponsible to suspect that these documents can't be trusted -- I know it sounds odd, but the truth is that they just aren't safeguarded enough to be doubted. And because of this, the contents are a lot more trustworthy than anything Robert Hastings tells us that Jamison or whomever told him. When all of your questions hang on the determination of whether or not Robert Salas' can be trusted, you need to ask what reasons you've got to do that. I haven't found any.

reply to post by Robert Hastings


In response to Hastings' ambiguity regarding his conversation with Figel -- the way I read it, and the way I'm certain Figel meant it is that the first call to security is to wake the maintenance team up, because they need to check the missile status immediately. Only security has the 2-way radio. Maintenance can only check the status of the missile by entering the equipment room 6ft underground. That's also where the landline is, which is the only way Maintenance can talk to Figel without the 2-way. The security personnel have the radio, remember? 6 ft underground, maintenance calls Figel and says "Yep, we've got a channel 9 No-Go -- I guess that UFO above us did it."

Now Robert, please answer the question. Why didn't the security personnel report the UFO on the radio, since they were outside and had already pre-established comms with Figel? After all -- that's the only reason they were there. Did nobody see the UFO above the silo before entering the equipment room to check on the missile status? That's a little odd if the UFO is what shut down the missile to start off with, don't you think? Isn't it a little strange that nobody mentioned seeing a UFO while they were outside, even if just to say "there's a UFO right up there -- do you still want me to check the missile status?"

Your story is not believable if a real UFO was present above the silo.

And yet, your interpretation of your own phone call is still poor, lacking any sense at all if this were a UFO report and not playful banter by a guy who was still sleeping at 0845 in the morning -- not exactly military hours. I didn't get anything wrong, Bobby. I simply quoted YOU!!

Originally posted by drew hempel
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

O.K. first of all the shutdown clearly occurred because of an electromagnetic pulse to the logic couplers -- James Carlson's book, if you read it, goes into great detail about this. The investigation documents clearly show this.

Yes, I pointed out that documentation myself, here. Note there's a difference between finding a potential reason for a defect versus the pathway. As the documentation, which I've pointed out several times now, says quite explicitly that,

"... neither the source or paths have been determined to date."

Discovering how something can happen versus how it did happen are two separate things. James, whom you seem to currently take as an authority, himself spends a great deal of time expounding on this in his book about the nature of transient's being just that ... transient. (see p. 241)

So to say that this is some cover up makes no sense ...

I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with the circumstances of the time-period. The Condon report was underway and the AF wanted to get out from under the burden of having to investigate UFOs.

If you doubt this read Blue Book Project Dir. Hector Quintanilla's own auto-biography (UFO's: An Air Force Dilemma) to get a better understanding of the mindset of the people running the organization.

Also if you look at the NAS review of the Condon study by the O'Brien committee, as it was published in Icarus, Volume 11, Issue 3, November 1969 (doi:10.1016/0019-1035(69)90082-7), it becomes immediately clear that the entire basis of their assessment was put together during a rather quick two week review of the Condon report (a rather short amount of time for a peer-review process). Interestingly enough Dr. J. E. McDonald published his own commentation in the same issue and if you compare the two it becomes immediately obvious who had the better leg to stand on.

The problem with this final last claim is that the government lies in this case would be the OPPOSITE of normal. It's on the record that the government has promoted UFOs as disinformation but now it's claimed that the government is trying to hide the fact of a UFO sighting, when in fact there's absolutely no evidence to indicate any cover up whatsoever.

While there are instances where intelligence officers have surreptitiously done this there isn't any official or overt- documentation to speak-of. I'm of the opinion this was all a sort of slight-of-hand, to convince other governments of our military superiority in the sense that we might have unfathomable-alien-technology (i.e. psychological warfare, noted by CIA Director Wilbur Smith & Duke Gildenberg in "UFOs: The Secret Evidence" @ 22:50), but officially document it such that any real researcher wouldn't want to touch it with a six-foot pole because it looks ludicrous as one digs in to the details.

So, in one sense it provides a useful function for the US government as a decoy tool, secondly acts as a form of psychological warfare, and simultaneously deflects all responsibility away from the military to have to do further public investigations into the PR disaster that was the UFO phenomenon.

Rather clever if you ask me! However it does prevent any real investigation in to the subject of actual UFO claims.

[edit on 13-2-2010 by Xtraeme]

Originally posted by Robert Hastings
Speaking of the UFO-Nukes Connection, and other national security-related UFO activity, here is an excerpt from my book, UFOs and Nukes, addressing files that have been kept back from declassification:

From the chapter, "Look Over Here, Not Over There!"

Yeah, blah, blah, blah, we know -- you did this at the BAUD forum as well, and they kicked you off because you were incapable of sticking to the point. Please answer the questions I've asked.

For example, consider the dramatic information provided to Office of Special Investigations (OSI) agents by Bob Salas and the other missile launch officers at Malmstrom AFB, in March 1967, in the wake of the large-scale missile shutdown incidents. Did Blue Book staffers even know that OSI had interviewed at least four launch officers, all of whom reported apparent UFO-involvement in the missile malfunctions? If the declassified Blue Book files are any indication, they did not.

And your source for this information is what? The ever-trustworthy Robert Salas? Yeah -- that's believable.

As far as I am aware, none of the written reports relating to those interrogations have been declassified. Consequently, according to the official record—at least the version of it publicly available following the release of Blue Book’s files—the great majority of the incidents reported in this book never even happened.

And yet, you fail to note that all of those interrogations (which still have nothing at all to do with Malmstrom AFB in March 1967) would not have occurred at all, exactly as the official record indicates, if none of the events had actually happened -- none of which, and I admit, I'm guessing here, you can prove actually took place anywhere except in the imaginations of the men who told you about them after you "invited" people to tell you their UFO experiences. You talk about classified written reports of interrogations, but do you actually have anything that's been documented to indicate that the interrogations themselves took place? Or the events they supposedly describe? Do you even know how a classified report is prepared? I've looked at your evidence, and you have nothing except a bunch of stories that these people have told you. No offense, but this doesn't exactly qualify as historically relevant. That's the reason your book is flawed. And I'm not the only guy in the world who's noted this.

Has it ever occurred to you that the reason Oscar Flight missile failures have never been mentioned by anybody or discussed in any official documentation anywhere in the world is because it did not happen? I've read your nonsense about Jamison and I discuss it in my book, and it doesn't exactly qualify as believable -- in fact, there's a lot of it that's just absurd. For instance, orders he recieved to stay put at Malmstrom until all UFO reports had ceased -- that's nonsense, and I can give you the names of 50-60 in the missileers community who would agree with me. If Jamison's "story" about Oscar Flight is true, how come in his first interview, he didn't know the date of the event, or the flight? And why doesn't he know the time? And if his experience is about the Belt event, why don't any of the facts fit? Why does he say he saw a lot of Air Force vehicles at the location, when we know there was only one, with only four personnel in it? Why would the USAF stop him from working at Oscar Flight when all of the UFO reports were around Malmstrom, about 120 miles away? Why does the military in ALL of your stories refuse to act in the way expected if a nuclear facility were attacked -- nobody ever fires weapons they've already got, jets are never scrambled, instead you give us Jamison saying "we were told we couldn't do our job -- the only reason we were there -- because UFOs that were never investigated were still being reported." Nonsense!

reply to post by Xtraeme


I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with the circumstances of the time-period.

As I already pointed out the CIA realized that promoting UFOs was an excellent coverup for secret technology.

That was already the case by that time period.

Again the shut down of the site was REPLICATED -- and the SAME EQUIPMENT CAUSED THE SAME SHUTDOWN on another site.

As James has pointed out shutdowns were not that unusual.

Anyone who wants to rationally and honestly investigate whether there was a UFO sighting at Malstrom can easily find out there was no sighting.

There was a rumor of a sighting that was disproven.

The tragedy is that, again, James Carlson will not be on Larry King because he's not promoting the extraterrestrials.

I defer to the EVIDENCE -- and Robert Hastings has stopped replying because he does not want to deal with the evidence which James has provided.

Originally posted by James Carlson
So you want to subpoena everybody and have them testify to an event that was well documented and considered closed and proven for 30 years until Salas made his provably ridiculous claims -- claims that he changed repeatedly every time someone pointed out an inconsistency or impossibility, until any intelligent reading of this garbage demands that you treat him as brain-damaged or a liar -- and do all of this for no apparent reason excepting the satisfaction of your own curiosity, that maybe, just maybe, there's some truth to this story of his that nobody else has ever come forward to confirm in any way whatsoever, and in the total absence of any believable evidence, anything that can be confirmed.

Holy run-on-sentence batman. Well if we harken back to the days of Roswell, it's clear the entire thing was a non-event, blissfully ignored for a decade or so until S. Friedman, W. Moore, and C. Berlitz dug up the details.

It's since become the biggest hubba-loo in the UFO circuit. Now that the USAF was forced to confront the whole affair they admit that they outright lied (muller.lbl.gov...).

Granted I think the whole thing is a non-event, but regardless there were details being concealed. So I don't see why this event is likely going to be any different especially with the rottenness written all over it.

Why should my father have to travel to Washington, DC to call a man a liar, when everything that man says and writes does that very well without it?

Shouldn't this make you happy? Every other line in your book is a caps-locked outburst declaring, "LIAR!" Why not get it officially on the record?

This way if you're right the man faces a severe penalty, we resolve this issue, and there's no question about the security of our great nation.

I see this as a win-win.

[edit on 13-2-2010 by Xtraeme]

reply to post by Xtraeme


So I don't see why this event is likely going to be any different

There's absolutely no way you can compare this to Roswell -- to do so is really an insult.

The only "rottenness" is that it's clear Salas was changing his story all the time and he's the one to try to claim a UFO was seen.

If you ignore that is the "rottenness" and try to pretend the "rottenness" is somehow a cover up of some secret crash or something -- that's really in poor taste.

I'm no longer going to respond on this thread.

Hastings is not responding and your responses are just BAITING the issue -- they're not sincere -- you have nothing of substance to say.

No evidence.

Case closed.

Originally posted by drew hempel
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

So I don't see why this event is likely going to be any different

There's absolutely no way you can compare this to Roswell -- to do so is really an insult.

The entire Roswell event is based on 2nd hand testimony, whereas the Echo flight scenario is based on 1st hand witnesses. That's a big difference for credibility.

The only "rottenness" is that it's clear Salas was changing his story all the time and he's the one to try to claim a UFO was seen.

Salas did change his story and I don't like it, but I'll admit there are details of my work history that I just outright forget. For instance when I was with Microsoft back in Washington it's easy to get confused as to which specific building I was working at: Millenium D, E, F? ... beats me. It was a fun time of my life, and I have a lot significant memories that have stuck with me, but the letter of the building is a rather unimportant detail.

So I'm willing to be somewhat forgiving on this count.

I'm no longer going to respond on this thread.

Hastings is not responding and your responses are just BAITING the issue -- they're not sincere -- you have nothing of substance to say.

I've provided actual documentation from the Echo flight incident (1, 2, 3), peer-reviewed sources for other aspects of the conversation, and I'm baiting the issue?

I think you may have somehow misinterpreted what I've written as a personal attack and if that's the case I apologize, but all I've attempted to do is show you the sources that I'm drawing from.

No hard feelings, cheers!

[edit on 13-2-2010 by Xtraeme]

Originally posted by Xtraeme
Well if we harken back to the days of Roswell, it's clear the entire thing was a non-event, blissfully ignored for a decade or so until S. Friedman, W. Moore, and C. Berlitz dug up the details.

It's since become the biggest hubba-loo in the UFO circuit. Now that the USAF was forced to confront the whole affair they admit that they outright lied (muller.lbl.gov...).

Although I was born in Roswell, I don't know much about it and I really wasn't trying to be offensive. I'm sure you're right, that something odd may have happened -- I know there are about 20 books out claiming that there were problems and detailing them, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. I remember when the DoD came out with this book detailing the entire investigation, and someone gave it to me as a gift after getting it autographed by the Captain who actually drafted it, but I admit I haven't read all of it -- just the first third or so -- it did seem a bit convoluted, I agree. But I have looked very, very much in depth at Echo Flight, and I honestly cannot see why anybody on earth would believe UFOs were involved. Looking at all of the evidence, well -- there just isn't any, so I'm a bit shocked that so many people think UFOs were involved -- there's absolutely nothing there. In my military career I worked with classified information on a daily basis, and I understand how it's put together and what can and can't be plainly accepted as simple fact -- and it's very apparent that a lot of people just don't understand this aspect of information control. I tried my best to explain how things worked in 1967, and the importance that's put on the preparation of classified materials and why most information that's been previously classified can generally be trusted. It's very possible I failed at this to some extent -- I tried not to talk down to people, but there was information I needed to put out in order to explain why the documents we have seen that discuss Echo Flight should be trusted, and I may have failed at that. I also wanted to make sure that most of the sources I've used to discuss everything were as close in date to 1967 as possible to be historically applicable -- that meant looking for sources that discuss old computers and noise pulse affects and missiles and Autonetics, and a whole host of stuff which isn't easy. I also wanted to find as many sources as possible on the internet, so anyone with a laptop could verify what I wrote, and that's not easy either. But that has nothing to do with the argument I make. I KNOW there were no UFOs involved and I wanted to convince others of that. In general, I think I've written a book that does that -- with all the personal faults it probably has.

Granted I think the whole thing is a non-event, but regardless there were details being concealed. So I don't see why this event is likely going to be any different especially with the rottenness written all over it.

And that's something I don't see -- the only "rottenness" I notice is coming from a man that I already know is a liar. If you start with that assumption, the entire incident becomes immediately clear, and the only thing USAF did was keep a classified incident classified for 12 years until it was automatically declassified.

Shouldn't this make you happy? Every other line in your book is a caps-locked outburst declaring, "LIAR!" Why not get it officially on the record?

See, that's the thing -- it's already officially on the record, and it has been for forty years. And my Dad is old and has heart problems -- and I don't want him going anywhere anytime soon. That's half the reason I'm doing this and he's not. He doesn't have the time to talk about an incident that to him has been closed for decades. I don't even bring it up anymore.

Originally posted by Xtraeme
The entire Roswell event is based on 2nd hand testimony, whereas the Echo flight scenario is based on 1st hand witnesses. That's a big difference for credibility.

This will also be my last posting, but only because it's getting late, and I've got a lot of unrelated stuff to do before turning in for the night.

I just wanted to point out that Salas' story is emphatically not first hand. He never saw a UFO, and he's never named anybody who did. His discussions of what supposedly occurred at Echo-November-Oscar Flights have never been confirmed, and nobody has ever reported that they saw a UFO at Malmstrom AFB in March 1967. Nobody -- and please believe me when I say I looked for them.

Salas changed his story a lot, and not just to the extent of simple memory loss -- he's made a lot of changes that make little sense to me unless he was blatantly lying. For instance, he claimed for 13 or so years that he knows the date was March 16, because his commander, while speaking to SAC (although one account claims my father called, another claims a different LCF called, and he finally settled on SAC) was told that the same thing happened at Echo Flight. This was supposedly at 4-5 in the morning, although Echo Flight went down at 0845, 2 hours after sunrise. He remembers particularly reading about the UFO reports at Belt a week or so after this incident he was involved with, and some other sightings a couple of weeks earlier. Thats why he was so certain March 16 was the correct date. He now claims that the event he remembers happened on March 24-25, and he's certain of this because he remembers being told after his watch ended that the same thing happened at Echo Flight a week earlier, and that he distinctly remembers reading all of the UFO reports about Belt the next day in the newspaper. That's a little hard to reconcile with just poor memory -- not when he has continuously said things like "I know this is true because I remember such and such happening."

And on that note I have only this to add -- please notice that once again Robert Hastings refused to answer the questions I've put to him. And tell people they should read the book if they're interested in what occurred -- I've tried very hard to make it readable and easily available.
Ciao.

reply to post by James Carlson


I appreciate the level of integrity of your post. I'll read the remainder of your book (I've already cut through approx. a hundred pages) and give a critique, if you like.

Granted I think the whole thing is a non-event, but regardless there were details being concealed. So I don't see why this event is likely going to be any different especially with the rottenness written all over it.

And that's something I don't see -- the only "rottenness" I notice is coming from a man that I already know is a liar. If you start with that assumption, the entire incident becomes immediately clear, and the only thing USAF did was keep a classified incident classified for 12 years until it was automatically declassified.

I understand your motivations here, but I'm also keenly aware of the fact that there are shades of gray. It's fairly common tactic in the intelligence community to shroud a lie in truth and, really, there's no difference with your average Joe. People embellish to advocate their particular agenda all the time.

I'm pretty simple. My goal is to cut through the crap and figure out what's-what. As I've said before when I first investigated this case I didn't like the inconsistencies with Salas' statements. It made me leary.

However we do have some backup from Figel, Jamison, and the official documentation does show anomalous circumstances surrounding the failure. Granted correlation is not causation, but despite that it's worth listening to all sides in this matter especially since the DOD/USAF has been caught with their pants down on numerous occassions.

Shouldn't this make you happy? Every other line in your book is a caps-locked outburst declaring, "LIAR!" Why not get it officially on the record?

See, that's the thing -- it's already officially on the record, and it has been for forty years. And my Dad is old and has heart problems -- and I don't want him going anywhere anytime soon. That's half the reason I'm doing this and he's not. He doesn't have the time to talk about an incident that to him has been closed for decades. I don't even bring it up anymore.

That's a noble reason for speaking on your father's behalf. I'm sure if the matter was elevated to a higher-level a recording could be used to give his personal statement before a committee.

Actually, if you would, I'd absolutely love if you could give us a sound-byte of him declaring, definitively once and for all exactly what you've claimed he's been saying from the beginning. Not a text-excerpt, but his voice, or even better a video of him speaking denouncing the entire thing. A signed affidavit before a notary would also be useful. This would lay to rest any doubts I might have that you're simply embellishing due perhaps to some other agenda.

Fair?

[edit on 14-2-2010 by Xtraeme]

reply to post by Xtraeme



No it's not fair -- leave his dad alone!

Seriously have some consideration.

Just finish the book already. I just finished it. Jamison is not a credible witness.

As James already stated there are no first hand witnesses.

So why not demand an apology from Salas or Hastings?

Stop harassing the victims.

As for the cause of the shut down -- again it was replicated and fixed. James explains why Hastings, et. al. misunderstood the Boeing report, etc.

James' book also goes into great detail about the cause of the shut down, how it was fixed, etc.

The book by James Carlson is very thorough.

I find it quite amazing that a whole "Nukes and UFOs" book could be based largely on Salas when Carlson shows that Salas is so blatantly disreputable.

And that this Echo Flight incident was included in Paul Kimball's top 10 list of Best Evidence is really tragic.

I've posted this book link over on ufomystic.com... so Paul should see it and then can read the truth.

James has provided a free book which covers a great amount of analysis in extensive detail with thorough documentation.

But I guess finding out the truth is not enough?

Maybe you're in denial about being had?

Why are you continuing to demand more information?

It's really shameful.





[edit on 14-2-2010 by drew hempel]

[edit on 14-2-2010 by drew hempel]

reply to post by drew hempel


Somehow I think this is extremely relevant to our conversation.

James Carlson: ...please notice that once again Robert Hastings refused to answer the questions I've put to him.

RH: Actually, James, I answered all of your criticisms a year ago, in the rebuttals I posted on UFO Chronicles. You just didn't like my answers and, given your recent posts, apparently learned nothing from them.

reply to post by Robert Hastings


Robert when you write to James on your website UFOchronicles:

As you know, you’ve attempted to spin those facts, by incorrectly portraying the Strike Team leader’s report of a “large, round object hovering directly over the site” as a joke. Figel doesn’t claim that it was a joke, only you do.

What report are you referring to?

My understanding is that there is no report -- there is Figel's conversation with the security guard -- as reported to you in an interview with Figel. Then there's the investigation report which states:

"Rumors of UFO have been disproven."

So please correct this if you have any more information. Thanks.

Here's what James Carlson says about this so-called "report"

There were, however, no UFOs seen by anybody concerned, and had Figel received such a report from one of the mobile security crews and not informed the strike teams – or my father, who was in charge during the watch – as all the above article asserts, he would have been arrested. That didn't happen, however, and my father, being the watch Captain, is absolutely certain that no such report was ever made. Searches were made, but no record or log entry was ever uncovered This wasn’t due to a conspiracy. Nothing was found because nothing was there.

[edit on 14-2-2010 by drew hempel]

The Other Roswell Incidents (From the book UFOs and Nukes)

So far as is known, based on eyewitness testimony, it appears that the first confirmed UFO sightings at nuclear missile sites occurred near Walker Air Force Base, New Mexico, over a several-month period in 1963 and 1964.

Years earlier, in 1947, when it was named Roswell Army Air Field, the base had briefly received international attention after its commander publicly announced that a crashed “flying disc” had been recovered nearby. Later, from 1962 to 1965, Walker AFB was home to the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron, which ultimately controlled 12 first-generation Atlas ICBMs. To maximize their survival in the event of a Soviet attack, the Air Force isolated the missile sites from one another, installing them miles apart in the barren desert terrain surrounding Roswell.

In June 2001, Florida Today newspaper columnist Billy Cox wrote an article titled, “UFOs Haunt Missile Crew”, in which he reported on mysterious sightings that had occurred at some of Walker AFB’s Atlas ICBM sites.2 Cox had interviewed three former Air Force missile personnel stationed at the base, who revealed startling details about the eerie incidents.

Jerry C. Nelson, had been a Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander at an Atlas silo designated Site 9, located west of Roswell. He told Cox that on several occasions unidentified aerial craft had silently maneuvered above the site. “The guards were scared,” said Nelson, “These objects would hover over the silo and shine lights down on them without making any noise. So I’d call the base and the base would say, ‘We’ll take it under advisement,’ but I never got a chance to see [the UFOs], because I couldn’t leave my post.” 3

After reading Cox’s article, I called each of the individuals interviewed by him, in an effort to learn more about the incidents. Jerry Nelson confirmed the accuracy of Cox’s story and said that, at recent reunions of the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron, he had heard strikingly similar accounts of sightings near silos from other former missile launch personnel. When I asked him if he recalled how many incidents he had personally been involved in at Site 9, he replied, “probably more than three but fewer than ten” over a period of a month or so. He also remembered that the sightings had occurred “at least six months, maybe more like a year” after the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, when the squadron had been placed on high-alert. He recalled that the weather had been cold and, therefore, estimated that the sightings occurred either late in the winter of 1962/63 or, more probably, during the winter of 1963/64.

Nelson emphasized that because he was a deputy missile commander, he could not leave his post in the underground launch capsule to go up and look at the UFOs. Regardless, during each incident, he had been impressed by the security guards’ obvious fear as they reported a strange, silent object hovering above the silo. “I could tell they weren’t pulling anybody’s leg,” he said, “Their voices were actually trembling.” He added, “I do remember that several different guards were involved [on different occasions] and all reacted in a similar manner.” 4

More disturbing to Nelson was the base’s reaction to the UFO sightings. He was puzzled and frustrated by the missile operations center’s casual indifference toward the urgent reports he had repeatedly phoned-in. Only years later did he learn that another individual at Site 9 had in fact been interviewed about the incidents by investigators from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). Apparently, the missile command center’s deliberate nonchalance toward Nelson masked an active, if low-key, inquiry into the sightings at the silo.

Bob Caplan, another former member of the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron, was the person who had been interviewed by AFOSI. As mentioned in Billy Cox’ Florida Today article, Caplan had been a missile facilities technician, and had witnessed yet another mysterious incident at Atlas Site 9.

As Cox reported, Caplan had been on duty one night when the guard called the site commander to request that the security lights be dimmed so that he could more clearly see a peculiar light which had suddenly appeared just beyond the site’s security fence. The commander complied, and then ordered Caplan to leave the underground launch capsule to help investigate. Once outside, he quickly located the guard, who appeared to be badly frightened. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Caplan quickly located the strange light.

I interviewed Caplan in 2003, and he provided me with additional details relating to his experience. “It was on the western perimeter fence line, just outside the complex,” he told me. Caplan said that, upon further reflection, he realized that the light “was neither white nor intense as I have reported before. It was more of a yellowish color and somewhat dim. Not extremely dim, but hardly bright. It wasn’t pulsing. It was circular and flat to the ground, like the beam of a flashlight would look on the ground without the beam. It was, maybe, 6-inches in diameter, not a lot more. It was very flat to the ground, it was not three-dimensional at all. Think of a piece of paper laying on a table.”

Because former launch officer Jerry Nelson had reported UFOs directing spot-lights down on Atlas Site 9 on several occasions, I asked Caplan if the circular light might have been projected on the ground by something from above. He responded, “The skies were very dark with the [security] lights off. There was no moon to be seen. I didn’t see anything in the sky that would lead me to believe that the light came from that direction. I must say that I didn’t spend a lot of time looking up, the show was on the ground. However, if something was up there and had any light at all, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb.”

As the two men nervously approached the light, they directed their flashlights onto it, whereupon it immediately disappeared. Moments later, it reappeared some 20-30 feet away. Caplan and the guard once again trained their flashlights on the elusive intruder, at which point it vanished without a trace. Unsettled and mystified, Caplan returned to the launch capsule and reported the details of his curious encounter.

Apparently, this incident did not go unnoticed by the missile squadron’s command personnel, because shortly afterward, Caplan had been ordered to report to Walker AFB’s Office of Special Investigations, where he was interviewed about it by an agent on duty.

Caplan also confirmed that the incident at Site 9 had been only one of a series of similar sightings at the missile sites over a several month period in, he estimated, 1963. However, he declined to discuss the other cases because he was not personally present when they had taken place. Nevertheless, he did acknowledge that he had been aware of instances in which officers had acknowledged being involved in one UFO incident or another, but later denied that anything unusual had occurred. Said Caplan, “Those kinds of things were kept very quiet.”

He also confirmed that, on another occasion during that period, he had witnessed a fast-moving, erratically-maneuvering light in the sky. “It was star-like,” he recalled, “very high up, and moving at high speed. At one point, it moved across a quarter of the sky in a couple of seconds, stopped dead, reversed its course, stopped again, then moved off at a 45-degree angle [to its last course]. There is no aircraft that can do what that object was doing.” This sighting occurred, not at one of the Atlas sites, but on Walker AFB itself, and involved many witnesses. Caplan was later told by a member of the base’s 6th Combat Defense Squadron—an elite security police unit—that the UFO had been tracked on radar and chased by jet fighters. Because there were no fighters stationed at Walker at that time, Caplan guessed that they had been scrambled from Holloman Air Force Base, located some 100 miles southwest of Roswell.

Another former member of the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron, Airman 1st Class Tom Kaminski, also reports watching an intriguing UFO display—similar to the one mentioned above—while living on base. Like Caplan, Kaminski had also been an Atlas missile facilities technician.

“At least half of my barracks saw this,” he said, “It was at night and there were two or three lights—possibly four or five—that were moving around in the sky. They looked like stars but, from time to time, they did 90-degree turns. Not all at once though—they moved independently. They obviously knew that they wouldn’t run into each other. I don’t understand why we didn’t hear any sonic booms. That bothers me. They stayed in the same general area [of the sky]. After about 15 minutes, zoom, they were gone.”

Then he added, “Actually, [sightings of UFOs] were fairly common on base. I think that a lot of guys saw them. It wasn’t something that you discussed.”

But the incident at the barracks was not Kaminski’s only UFO sighting. He recalled, “Once I was at one of the Atlas sites northeast of the base, sometime in 1964, possibly 1965. We were down in the launch capsule when we got a call from the security guard, who said that he saw some unusual lights moving in the sky. The missile commander, Captain D------, took the call and told me to go topside to see what I could see. I asked the guard to point out the lights. They were west-southwest of us, and looked like stars. At first, they didn’t seem unusual but, a little while later, two of the ‘stars’ begin to move in unison. They shifted directions several times, but they stayed in that general area in the sky.”

When Kaminski called Captain D------ to report his observations, the missile commander had news. “He said he had notified the base [about the lights], and was told that they had them on radar, and were sending up two fighters to investigate. So, I stayed topside and, about five minutes later, I could see two other lights coming from the direction of the base and moving toward the first two lights. I assumed they were the fighters. As they approached the unidentified lights, [the UFOs] began to move north, again in unison. The two fighters closed on, but could not catch, the lights.” Kaminski said that shortly thereafter, the UFOs flew into some Cumulus clouds, followed the jets. A few seconds later, the jets emerged from the cloud bank but the UFOs were no longer visible. “That was that,” he said, “and the jets went back to base.”

The next morning, upon returning to Walker AFB, Kaminski and the other members of his missile team were routinely debriefed. “During that briefing,” he recalled, “my captain asked, ‘Whatever happened to the two UFOs?’ The response was, ‘What UFOs?’ My captain said, ‘The ones you sent the fighters up after!’ They said, ‘We didn’t sent up any fighters.’” Said Kaminski, “We knew that was the end of that conversation!”

The third person quoted in Billy Cox’s Florida Today article was Gene Lamb, who had been a deputy crew commander at several of the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron’s Atlas sites. I conducted a telephone interview with Lamb in December 2002, in which he acknowledged the UFO sightings at ICBM silos outside Walker AFB, and estimated that they had occurred sometime during the period 1962 through 1964.

Lamb said that while he had not personally witnessed any of the incidents, he had spoken with one missile crew commander who had. This individual stated, decades later, that he had briefly left his launch capsule to go topside to observe strange aerial lights that were being frantically reported by the site’s guards. According to Lamb, the officer said that the lights “gave him the creeps. They were fast and they were moving in different directions.” He told Lamb that he was familiar with all types of aircraft but had never seen anything like the extraordinary display in the sky above the Atlas silo. “These were not just lights,” the commander emphasized, “This was something else.”

“People talked about [the sightings] at Happy Hour, after work, or after we got off-site,” said Lamb, “but it was kept pretty quiet as far as official statements went. To my knowledge, we were never briefed about it as a unit.”

Lamb said that after he was contacted about the UFO incidents by reporter Billy Cox in 2001, he had mentioned the subject to a few of his former unit’s missile crew members. The response that he got surprised him. Said Lamb, “Some people were still reluctant to talk about it.”

Perhaps some, but not all. In March 2005, retired USAF Lt. Col. Philip E. Moore agreed to tell me about his own UFO experience at Walker AFB. At the time of the incident, Moore had been a Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander (DMCCC), and was on duty in one of the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron’s underground launch capsules.

Moore told me, “It was late at night. My crew was on alert at 579 Site 7 in late 1964, when my crew commander, Major Dan Gilbert, and I got a call from one of our ‘sister’ sites. The other missile crew said that a UFO was alternately hovering over their site, rapidly moving away, then returning.”

He continued, “It was Major Gilbert who took the call, most likely from the other MCCC. I believe it was Site 6 that called, but it might have been Site 8. Sites 6, 7, and 8 were in a cluster south-southeast of Roswell. My rough estimate is that the sites were 10 to 15 miles apart. The sighting could have been made by a guard or enlisted crew member at the other site. There were items on the Silo Cap requiring periodic checks and an enlisted crew member might have been ‘topside’ at the time. But I don’t know whether it was a guard or enlisted crew member at the other site who initially saw the UFO. My statistical guess is that it was a guard, because one was on duty there 24 hours-a-day”

“I was a first lieutenant at the time, one of three crew members certified to monitor the launch console. Any two of the three were required to stay at the console at all times, so Major Gilbert sent our enlisted crew members—Technical Sergeant Jack Nevins, Airman 1st Class Bob Garner, and Airman 1st Class Mike Rundag—up to the Silo Cap, at ground level, to see what they could.”

“They reported the UFO zooming from the direction of Site 6 to the direction of Site 8 and hovering for awhile at the end of the movement. I recall my crew members saying that the hovering was instantaneous. At times, it hovered over Site 6, then flew extremely rapidly to the other site, and instantly stopped and hovered in-place over that one. I can’t remember how many round-trips were involved. I’m not sure if anyone was even able to count because of the various crew members coming and going during the show. They all described it as a silent light that moved extremely rapidly—instant go and instant stop, no getting up to speed or slowing down. Unfortunately, no binoculars were available.”

Moore continued, “The common comment I remember was that everyone thought it was a UFO, and that it was hovering directly over Sites 6 and 8 and nowhere else. Thus, it was specifically interested in those sites.”

When I asked Moore whether the crew members had been certain that the UFO was stopping directly over the other missile sites—given their estimated 10 to 15-mile distance from Site 7—he responded, “They assumed that the hovering was directly over the sites, because the crew commander who called us said that it was definitely over his site. After awhile, Major Gilbert ordered Nevins to sit at the console with me and he went topside. He saw the same activity. During the event, the UFO did not come to our site. By the time my turn came to go topside, the show was over, so I didn’t see anything.”

I then asked Moore how he had determined the approximate date of the incident. He replied, “Major Gilbert became our Missile Combat Crew Commander in mid-to-late ’64, and the UFO event occurred after he had been the commander for a few months, so I think that it was during October, November, or December 1964.”

I asked Moore if he and his crew were debriefed about the incident. He responded, “Our report to the Walker Command Post got the similar ho-hum response that (former Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander) Jerry Nelson described to you. We were never debriefed, never warned not to discuss it, nor was it discussed beyond crew member-to-crew member. In other words, there was no official discussion or acknowledgment. It seemed to be ignored above crew-level. But some of us crew members discussed it freely. I suspect that the majority of those who didn’t were folks who either didn’t believe in UFOs, or didn’t want to get involved, or were the kind who don’t open up about controversial things. But the four eyewitnesses weren’t sensationalists. All of them saw the UFO, and I completely trusted their word about it. Over the years, I’ve lost track of Rundag and Garner, but Jack Nevins is alive and well in California. He was at the Roswell Reunion.”

Moore provided me with Nevins’ email address, so I wrote to him and asked about the incident in question. He replied, “I recall going up to the silo cap one evening to check out a strange light observed by the security guard and our crew’s power production technician, Mike Rundag. Our crew commander, Major Gilbert, asked me to go topside and confirm what the others had seen. I observed a bright light to the east of our location quite a distance away, sometimes hovering then moving quickly to the right, then to the left, as if searching the area below. I recall the light moved in a darting motion, seemed to hover, then moved rapidly to a new location. This went on for several minutes before I returned to the below ground control center. Some might say that this [sighting] could be explained as distant headlight lights from an oncoming vehicle reflecting off low clouds. This was not possible as the night was crystal clear with no clouds. But I cannot say I saw a UFO, only a light in the sky.”

When I reported these comments to Moore, he said, “Site 6 was further east than our site. If you stood on the Site 7 cap and looked south, Site 6 would be to the left and Site 8 would be slightly to the right.”

I then asked Moore if he remembered hearing any rumors about unusual missile malfunctions at Sites 6 and 8, over which the UFO presumably hovered at the time of the incident. He said, “I don’t recall the mention of equipment at the other sites being affected by the UFO. Certainly none of our Site 7 equipment was affected.” The purpose of this particular question will become clearer to the reader in a later chapter.

Referring to some of the other former members of the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron who have gone on-the-record about the UFO sightings at Walker AFB, Moore added, “Jerry Nelson, Gene Lamb, and Bob Caplan are friends. All of those guys are solid citizens, stable, and have intact faculties and memories. They are definitely not kooks. I consider myself in the same category, and I’m not a kook either. I think you know why I said that. There are folks who haven’t experienced UFOs who too quickly judge folks like Jerry, Gene, Bob, you, and me.”

Moore concluded, “I personally believe that there is something to the UFO-ICBM connection. I know the Air Force covers-up when it feels the official need. UFOs over ICBM sites could be one of those official needs.”



Significantly, a letter written in 1964 has come to light which almost entirely substantiates the 40-year-old memories of the former Atlas missile personnel whom I interviewed. Written by an Air Force missile facilities technician who was stationed at Walker AFB at that time, it describes in detail multiple ICBM-related UFO incidents—just after they had occurred. A copy of the letter was sent to me by researcher Jan Aldrich.

On December 20, 1964, Airman 2nd Class Barry L. Krause wrote to the civilian UFO research organization, NICAP, to inform the group of several spooky—and apparently highly classified—incursions by mysterious aerial objects near the base’s missile sites.

(NICAP—the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena—was at that time the foremost UFO research group in the country. Its director, U.S. Naval Academy graduate and retired Marine Major Don Keyhoe, had openly and repeatedly called for congressional investigations into government secrecy surrounding the subject of UFOs. At various times, the organization had on its Board of Governors such persons as retired Vice-Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who was later the first director of the CIA, and retired Rear Admiral D. H. Fahrney, who served as the chief of the Navy’s first guided missile program.)

In his letter to NICAP, Krause wrote, “I am attached to the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron. We support the Atlas ‘F’ which is located in this area. There has [sic] been, and still are, frequent sightings of U.F.O.’s at the missile [sites]. At one of our sites in particular, there are recurring sightings...the site in question is site eight, located south of Roswell N. Mex. on route 285.”

Krause continued, “Some of the people in our squadron thought the guards were seeing things until, one night an E.P.P.T. (Electrical Power Production Tech.) on one of the Combat Crews on duty that night went on the silo cap for some fresh air. He sighted a strange light in the Western sky. The light was doing weird movements...He went in the silo and told the Missile Combat Crew Commander what he had seen. The Commander called the S.A.C. command post. While he was reporting the incident S.A.C. headquarters came in on the line and was listening. They told the command post that they had a KC-135 in the area (a KC-135 is the jet tanker employed by the Air Force) and that they would deploy it to the area in which the object was located. Just shortly after the KC-135 flew over the site to get his heading, the U.F.O. shot out of sight.”

Krause then mentions another incident and the apparent secrecy surrounding it, “Some people might not believe a guard of the lowly airman ranks, but one night a Lt. Col. sighted [a] U.F.O. and was telling how he saw it with his own eyes. After someone put the word to him he wouldn’t tell anyone about it.”

Krause concluded his letter to NICAP: “There have been sightings at most of our missile sites. It got so bad the guards were afraid to go on guard duty...My roommate and I talk to the guards and try to learn everything we can. We gave up on trying to look at the incident report[s] at the sites. Every time we tried, they told us that [they were] top secret and [we] couldn’t read them. So, we have to go by word of mouth. That is about all I know at this moment.” 5

Upon learning of the existence of this letter, I attempted to locate Krause and sought the assistance of others in this effort. Two individuals—former 579th SMS member Bob Caplan, and a private investigator—independently discovered that he had died in September 1973.

In summary, Krause’s contemporary letter confirms that several different UFO-related incidents had indeed occurred at Walker AFB’s Atlas missile silos in the early 1960s. It also mentions alleged efforts to silence witnesses, notes that the security guards involved were badly frightened by the UFOs, and reveals that the Air Force had apparently classified the incidents “Top Secret”. In other words, the letter substantiates much of the information provided to researchers much more recently by other former members of the 579th Strategic Missile Squadron.

--Robert Hastings

www.ufohastings.com

Well I guess Echo Flight doesn't count -- too bad Robert Salas is supposedly such a main source for the UFO and Nukes book. Good luck otherwise Robert Hastings. Thanks for the feedback otherwise.