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The UFO Files by David Clarke

One thing I like about this book is the way he places the public concept of UFOs in the context of the time period involved, and then he shows how that concept changes and evolves as the time context changes. Other than that, it is yet another historical account of the modern UFO era, and I have read many. This one has a British slant to it and a number of new cases have been published, but it seems to me, to be just more of the same. For instance, there are the usual numerous accounts of jets being scrambled to chase some visual or radar will-o’-the wisp, but not much elucidation as to what they might be. Toward the end of the book he does touch on this to a small degree, but I believe it is possible to make some pretty good speculations on what many of them might be. Here is one that I think was missed entirely:

Radar and particle accelerators are siblings in time. Both were dependent on the prior invention of the klystron tube by the Varian brothers in the late 1930s. Radar, of course, found an almost immediate military application and it use became wide spread during WWII.Today there must be many thousands of people who are intimately familiar with this technology. The technology of particle accelerators, on the other hand, has remained rather esoteric. Other than its use in research facilities, its most common application is the inner workings of machines used for zapping cancer tumors. This is not to say that a military use hasn’t been investigated, and there was some brief public mention of it as a “Star Wars” weapon during the Reagan administration. If a military application of this technology has been developed, it has been kept under pretty tight wraps. The best speculation that I have found is by one Tom Mahood. Here is a link. Maybe you are familiar with it. It’s probably because I have some exposure to particle accelerators myself that I find his analysis so believable.

Mahood himself is an interesting study. The way I understand it, he was originally trained as a civil engineer and worked in the area of traffic control. Somewhere along the line he developed an interest in UFOs and, in particular, the goings on at Area 51. His investigations so intrigued him that he went back to school and obtained a masters degree in physics in order better understand what he was observing. He apparently worked as a physicist for a period of time specializing in research on gravity. Somewhere along the line he apparently lost interest in UFOs, and the last I read he was back working in his old field of traffic control. I tried to contact him once at the email address shown at the bottom of his essay but I received no reply.

Here is another speculation that I believe deserves more attention: Most people have a rudimentary concept of what a mirage is, but I think the phenomenon is larger than is generally realized. Mirages are usually divided into inferior and superior depending on whether the false horizon is below the natural horizon or above it. In addition, they are also active at night which I believe is not generally understood. For a mirage at night one may not see anything at all unless the scene observed has a source of light in it. Suppose, for example, there is a brightly lit interstate crossing which is surrounded by dark desert, and this is observed courtesy of a superior mirage at some distant location. Observers at the distant location would see a formation of lights in the sky at some elevation above the horizon. The lights may even appear to move if there is some undulation in the temperature inversion layer that caused the mirage in the first place. Maybe the famous Phoenix lights could be explained in this manner.

It seems to me that the two speculations above have the potential to explain many sightings — one way or the other.

Tags: Britiish UFO files, David Clarke, Particle Accelerators, Tom Mahood, UFOs as mirages, klystron tube

UFO: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean

In the Introduction to her book, author Leslie Kean states she uses the term UFO (Unidentified Flying Objects) and UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) interchangeably even though she realizes that UAP is the broader term. She might have been better served if she had maintained a strict separation. In those residual cases that truly are unidentified, not only do the objects appear not to “fly” in the normal sense of the word (aerodynamically), but there is the distinct possibility that they are not “objects” in the normal sense of that word either. In addition, as she points out, the term UFO has come (incorrectly) to connote “extraterrestrial” to such an extent that its strictly correct meaning is now probably lost for good. “UFO” is dated and should be consigned to the scrap heap along with “flying saucer.” UAP reflects current thinking best, but probably wouldn’t be as catchy for the title for her book.

The book is well written and carefully researched over a considerable period of time, but despite advocating “militant agnosticism,” a preference for the extraterrestrial hypothesis by the author, and many of the contributors, is implicit. Some of the contributors don’t even attempt a neutral position.

Also in the Introduction, the author states that what is being observed is “a solid physical phenomenon” and she reiterates this position at various other places in following chapters. This may be one adjective too many. It could be a physical phenomenon without being solid. Many of the observed characteristics which are so puzzling for an object which is, in fact, solid are easily explained by an apparent object which is virtual. Without violating any of the currently understood laws of physics, what I am suggesting is some kind of interactive holographic projection (IHP). How do you do that? Good question!

For a particularly astute piece of analysis on this, search on “Particle Beams and Saucer Dreams,” an on-line essay by Tom Mahood. This essay speculates about events observed over Area 51 in the late 1980s and early 1990s and points the way to what may have become a highly developed black budget project.

In Chapter 23 Author Kean does an excellent job of introducing us to the world of classified information and touches on the category of Unacknowledged Special Access Programs (UASAPs). So, let’s pursue that for a moment. Suppose, following the line of thought developed by Tom Mahood, that a technology has been stumbled upon that has highly significant strategic implications. Maybe it’s some combination of a particle beam’s ability to produce a ball of plasma in the atmosphere that can maneuvered with ease, and also has the ability of the standard cathode ray tube as found in traditional TV sets to produce a detailed image. That’s just a wild guess based upon existing technologies, but whatever it is, it has profound implications. They will, of course, need to test this thing, trying it under different circumstances, possibility even putting it in a satellite. We know that there are many classified satellites that the military has put into orbit. The problem is that these tests are highly visible and people are bound to see them from time to time. As Mahood says at the end of his essay “You can hide the program but you can’t hide the physics.” In order to avoid having to explain what is going on, some kind of disinformation cover is required. Serendipity comes to the rescue, that kind of cover already exists — it’s UFOs! Now all the military/government complex has to do is cast aspersions on the whole idea of UFOs and they’re home free.

Most of the above constitutes a domestic technology explanation for UAPs, but does that mean the extraterrestrial hypothesis is invalid? It does not. There is no reason why extraterrestrials wouldn’t make use of the same technology and we would have to expect that it would be in a highly developed state coming from that quarter. For more speculation along this line go to:

http://schoonermoon.com/category/papers/alien-spacecraft/

Congratulations are in order to author Leslie Kean for providing a clearly written framework for thought on this subject.

Robert L. Mason

Mendocino, CA

August, 2010

Tags: Area 51, Black Budget, Holographic Projection, Particle Beams, Tom Mahood, UAPs, UFOs