Skip to main content.

planet earth
Filer's Files
#8-1998
By George Filer

MUFON Eastern Region Director
March 7, 1998

George Filer: Majorstar@verizon.net
See all the photos at: www.nationalufocenter.com
and http://www.ufoweek.com

"Of course the flying saucers are real and they are interplanetary!" Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, Commander of the Royal Air Force of Great Britain, August 1954.

NEW JERSEY

I received a call from Bob, a Fire Officer on February 19, 1998, who had just joined MUFON because he and his friend George observed a UFO near Tom's River, NJ. They drove off the Garden State Parkway heading west on Route 37, where they entered an area of tall pine trees around 10:00 P.M. They decided to make a U-turn to return to the Parkway. As they swung the car off the road, George suddenly slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a large object. Just off the road in a small clearing was a saucer shaped vehicle with three legs extended.
It was only 25 feet away as they skidded to a stop. They both were staring at the object for maybe a minute. Bob asked his friend, George, "Do you see what I see?" He replied, "If you see a flying saucer, that's what I see!" They both then exclaimed, "Let's get the hell out of here!" George hit the gas and the tires started spinning and finally they hit the asphalt and off down the road they sped. The Fire Officer wanted to return, but George refused. They drove directly home in about an hour, and couldn't believe the sun was rising. They thought it was no later than midnight, unexpectedly six or seven hours was gone. They had a clear detailed memory of driving up to the UFO, and the departure, but six hours of time was lost. Both had a clear memory of the UFO with it's three legs extended and a small stair case that led to the ground.
There were no markings on the saucer, and it appeared to be made of dull aluminum. Later, both men made drawings of the craft and the two drawings were virtually identical. The witnesses have no memory of what happened during the six hours of missing time.

NEW YORK AND AUSTRALIA:

MUFON's Queensland UFO Network Director, Glennys Mackay writes: Greetings to you all, I would like to just thank you for your information received here on e-mail in Brisbane, Australia. I just wanted to say that the information from Alex of New York and his photo of the sphere or orb has been sighted here in Queensland. The first time I had John Carpenter and Joe Lewels here in October of 1996 as two of our International guest Speakers, I had taken them on a trip up the sunshine coast. We stopped as they were interested in seeing the Milky Way. This was at approximately 6:50 PM. Our attention was drawn to this object that just sat at eye level. We were standing on top of a slight hill over-looking the beach and sea at Caloundra (about 120 kilometers from Brisbane). This orb just sat for some time before taking off into the clouds.
We were then aware of a very long cigar shaped object moving through the clouds with a strong light at the front and lights at the rear. After several minutes we watched several objects go over our heads, two were satellites, the other one was about the same height only slightly larger went into a small cloud and never came out !! There have been a number of sightingss even more recently. Two helicopter pilots from the sea rescue team were followed by a UFO while flying an injured person to hospital about eight weeks ago. UFOs have been seen coming out of the sea and there's been several sightings by country people in the North/Western parts of Queensland. Thanks to: Glennys Mackay, glenmack@thehub.com.au (glennys mackay)

MAINE

Joseph Trainor reports UFOs visited several towns in Maine on Tuesday, January 27, 1998, in an astounding one-night flap. A UFO visited Deer Island in Penobscot Bay, on Maine's Atlantic Ocean coast, illuminating several homes.
Janet Stanley of Stonington, (population 700), a port town on the southern tip of the island, had just turned on her TV set to watch President Clinton's State of the Union speech. As she entered the bathroom, she "was startled by an immensely bright blue light that came through the mini-blinds on her west- facing window." Opening the blinds, "she saw the western sky filled with a deep bright blue glow with yellow vertical streaks resembling lightning strikes." Nine miles to the north, in Little Deer Isle, Maine., "Seth Harkness was watching the speech at 9:10 p.m., when a blinding white light came through the east-facing windows of his living room." In St. Agatha at 7:30 p.m., Pam Pelletier was taking her dog for a walk when she "began hearing a series of huge sky explosions, maybe 7 or 8 of them." At 9:10 p.m., Grace Ouellette was at her home near Long Lake in Madawaska, a small town on the Canadian border, when she spotted "a large orange ball with white flashing lights." At first she thought it was a small plane about to crash at the airport in nearby Frenchville. Across the St. Johns River, in St. Francois de Madawaska, New Brunswick, Canada, Roger Bard "reported that he had seen a ball of fire go down on the American side of the river. 'It did not look like a falling star,' he said. In Millinocket, Maine a small city 69 miles north of Bangor, Ellen Cousins "said she saw a bright orange streak as she looked north at 7:30 p.m."

Evelyn Robinson was driving on Interstate Highway 95 from Houlton to Island Falls at 9:30 p.m., when she "spotted a huge blue-green light streaking from east to west and leaving sparks behind." Robinson said, 'It was very fast, falling to the ground at a 45 degree angle. It was very startling and unnerved me a bit.' In Oakland, located 60 miles north of Bangor, local police Officer Rick Stubbert "received a report of something falling from the sky into McGrath Pond. They plan to send divers out on Friday." Elsewhere in Oakland, Kelly Sirois and her father, Ron Sirois, "heard loud explosions at 8:30 and at 10:30 p.m., that caused both to think that something had impacted with their house." UFO phenomena were also reported in Deer Isle and Lincoln, Maine. (See the Bangor Daily News for 1/30/98, Thanks to G. J. Gianninoto & Joe Trainor editor of UFO Roundup #3-8, 2/8/98.

NEW MEXICO

Bill Sauter, a San Diego area truck driver, was on his way back to California on January 31, passing through Deming, New Mexico when he heard talk on his CB radio about an UFO in the sky. Bill told Channel 10 news in San Diego that he always carries a camcorder with him and so he was able to get footage of the object. "It just picked up speed and, whoooo...it was gone." In the same interview he described it as "...something out there that was not an airplane and wasn't a blimp." He also said: "It looked like a 747, but without wings and without a tail section." The original tape has attracted the attention of National TV and is currently being pondered by them. MUFON of San Diego will continue the investigation of the Cigar shaped vehicle on a local level.
If anyone knows of any other witnesses to this sighting please contact me at n6rpf@arrowweb.com or call 619-460-8098, the San Diego Hotline is at http://n6rpf.com-us.net/sauter.html. Thanks to Paul Cook.

CALIFORNIA

On February 18, 1998, five crewmen from the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station lost their lives in a helicopter crash near the Kern River Canyon..
Reporter Lou Griswald of the South Valley Bureau of the Fresno Bee in Visalia, California conveyed that there were 'many' people who reported a 'bright object' in the Kern Canyon vicinity at 11:00 p.m. that evening. Griswald said that Deputy Ernest Cowan acknowledged that the bright light, possibly a flare, caused some concern. The object exhibited a strange 'arcing' motion that, Griswald said, ruled out a shooting star. Griswald heard about the bright light from the Deputy and one other person." There were many phone calls which came in over a wide area of Tulare County regarding the bright light. A second "Bright Light" was spotted near Kern River Canyon area two nights later. A separate helicopter accident happened in the exact same location in 1995. This accident killed two when a helicopter also hit the same power. Thanks to: Task UFO Research / task@FUSE.NET (Kenny Young).

BRAZIL

Disc-shaped UFOs overflew Fortaleza, the largest city in Brazil's Ceara state, and its suburbs three times on Monday, February 16, 1998. Fortaleza is 1,760 kilometers (1,100 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro. At 7:30 a.m., Neil Oliveiras Chagas spotted "a white object in the form of two inverted trapezoids with rounded edges and two blue lights." Oliveiras Chagas, an electrician by trade, grabbed his video camcorder and shot footage of the UFO. At 5:20 p.m., Reginaldo Athayde, director-general of Centro de Pesquisas Ufologicas do Ceara (CPU-CE), a Brazilian UFO study group, while investigating the morning's sighting, witnessed another UFO overflight in Centro, Fortaleza's downtown district. According to Sr. Athayde, he "saw another object in the sky of Centro, crossing the Rua Barrio de Rio Branco and the Rua Pedro Pereira. The object was very big, with a spherical form," moving first to the south and then heading east. It was last seen flying east over the South Atlantic. A disc-shaped OVNI (Portuguese acronym for UFO) also appeared over the suburb of Cambeba, where it was videotaped by a TV crew from Verdes Mares. At 6:30 p.m., "a luminous white point" was seen overhead in Varjota, another suburb of Fortaleza. Saucers were also reported in Papicu, Messejana, Parangaba and Barru de Ceara, all districts of Fortaleza.
Later in the evening, "an object of discoidal form" was seen flying towards the South Atlantic from the beach at Praia do Futuro (See the Brazilian newspaper Jornal do Povo for February 17, 1998, "Objeto Nao Identificado Sao Vistos Sobrevando Fortaleza.) Thanks to: UFO Roundup 3-8, 2/8/98 Joe Trainor editor.

UFO ON CHILE TV

On February 14, 1998, Television Nacional de Chile (TVN) aired an amateur video of a UFO encounter that took place on November 24, 1997. Vicente Constant, 26, and his family were driving to the Andes on vacation. They planned to visit Villarica volcano, a tourist attraction 688 kilometers (430 miles) south of Santiago de Chile, the national capital. As they neared the volcano, Vicente took out his camcorder and began shooting footage of the Chilean countryside. Although, they were in the Andes at a relatively high altitude--1,600 meters (5,280 feet) he reported, "Suddenly we began feeling a heavy pressure in the air." While moving the camera around, just above the volcano appeared a cigar-shaped object that went from the upper right of the view screen to the left. Then the object suddenly made a turn and took off.
The scene seemed like a UFO entering Earth's atmosphere and then flying off.
This object left no trail." The videotape is being examined by Dr. Rafael Vera Mege of the University of Concepcion. A request to view and examine the tape has been made by Agrupacion de Investigaciones Ovniologicas (AION), Chile's famous UFO study group. (Thanks to Luis Sanchez and Joe Trainor UFO Roundup 3-8, 2/8/98

UNITED KINGDOM

ISUR's John Thompson writes that we have had numerous UFO reports from England in the last 30 days. On February 15, 1998 at 19:10 GMT the witnesses were driving along A37 from Dorchester to Yeovil 5 minutes into Somerset, we saw a large white light, come from behind us over the car in the sky, then curled off to left and downwards. It acquired a red/green glow and a tail, then disappeared suddenly.

Andy in Todmorden , West Yorkshire , England reports that in the summer of 1996 around 2:30 AM, he and his friend Joe were camping and noticed a slow moving craft. After looking at it for a bit longer the object appeared to start moving. I told my friends and they agreed. The object was at first moving slowly, then we realized it was heading in our direction. As the craft approached us it was travelling at quite a speed. As it approached us it then slowed right back down and was almost still and hovering like a helicopter.
The object appeared to be of a triangular or diamond shape and had many lights on the bottom arranged in a circle or a triangular shape. The object then stayed above us for a few seconds and my friend Paul attempted to take a photograph, but for some reason the camera would not operate correctly. Then the object shot off a great speed back over the other side of the valley.
Around 20 seconds after the object had gone the camera was operating fine.

George Hickinson from Leeds, England reports that on February 2, 1998, over 200 people called the BBC to confirm my sighting of two UFOs. He was able to video tape the object for ten minutes over Leeds from 1735 to 1750 hours. The objects were extremely bright white points that hovered at a strange attitude before moving simultaneously. As the objects moved, their appearance changed to 4 bright lights {2 on each object}. The BBC report contained an interview with an air traffic controller from the local airport who stated on record that these objects had not been picked up on their radar. The local Ufologist from BUFORA could not explain this sighting as terrestrial. The incident was also reported in the Yorkshire Evening Post, and prompted a flood of calls mail that agreed with my video evidence. Thanks to: George Hickinson and ISUR.

Tim Matthews writes from England concerning the unusually large number of Victor Kean's flying triangle (FT) reports over three nuclear power plants in southeastern England.
Hi there George, nothin' like a little debate. It would appear that Kean and Fowler have been watching too many episodes of "The Invaders". As I have said before, 90% of Kean's triangles are not actually triangles. It wouldn't be so bad if he left his computer and actually investigated some FT sightings - like the Southport case - after which I interviewed seven witnesses none of who believed that they had seen a "spacecraft". Given that Warton -- just one of the places that triangles up to 120 feet in length have been seen since 1994 (much less often last year)-- is only four miles from SP I think a link might be established! Why are these things always, as Kean seems to suggest, seen near military facilities? Many of my witnesses have seen FTs at military bases including RAF Boscombe Down! Aliens-- I think not.
Deliberate disinformation? Certainly. Witnesses are notoriously bad at judging size. For instance a case from the A435 last year where two women described an FT seen nearby as "massive" and "the same size as a double- decker bus" -- 25 feet. It's Hudson Valley, New York all over again -- they move slowly at low altitude and give the impression that these are huge FTs. Look at the Indian Point incident. One witness says 200 feet, another 900 feet. Did they see the same thing? I wonder... One also wonders why it has taken Kean's colleagues in East Anglia so long to visit these power stations given the opportunity to photograph an FT in operation. It doesn't make sense and neither does Keen's assertion that FTs have been seen over Battersea Power Station - which was a non-nuclear facility in any case and which has been shut down for 20 years!!!!!! Furthermore, I was in London recently and saw many FTs - aircraft flying into Heathrow Airport!!!

My old Geography teacher gave me one good piece of advice. Always state the obvious. The evidence suggests an obvious conclusion - FTs are very terrestrial, although remarkable in some respects. Finally, why have none of these wasters involved with Keen noted that during the Kent FT mini-flap of last year, the FTs were flying near a top secret Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) site at Fort Halstead in Kent? Maybe I'm gifted -- or maybe it's just plain old common sense. As to the bull about pilots not being able to withstand the tremendous "g" forces of sustained high "g" flight why no mention of UAVs? I suggest a perusal of Spacecast 2025 or perhaps the USAF Scientific Advisory Board study entitled "New World Vistas" In no case have I heard of a triangle doing much more than flying slowly-- where are the high 'g' turns? 12-18 g turns are talked about at the highest level... Come back David Vincent - all is forgiven! Tim Matthews.

SPAIN

On February 10, 1998, at approximately 1:45 AM, I was driving back from a town close to Granada called Armilla, in southern Spain. I was with a friend of mine named Mark. We were half way to Granada when we saw a huge flash that illuminated everything completely. The sky was covered with clouds, but it was not raining, and the conditions were not stormy. I looked through my side window and I saw a very bright orange sphere with an electrical blue tail in the shape of a lightning bolt. Both shapes, however, were their own entities. The tail was not produced by the sphere. The image I observed lasted about 5 seconds. The object was heading southeast at a very high speed. The altitude of the "object" was not over 600 meters. Thanks to: Miguel A. Pereira, Director of The Department of Science SIB BETELGEUSE

TIM GOOD'S "ALIEN BASE"

According to Tim Good's literary agent, Andrew Lownie, Tim's next book 'Alien Base' which is due to be published early this year, is the best he's ever done. So good in fact, that Tim has received a huge up-front payment to the sum of =A3200,000. 'Alien Base' is the result of a thorough investigation into alien bases right here on our own planet.. Tim believes that Earth itself is one big alien base. Possible underground alien bases are apparently located in the US, with one in Taos, New Mexico, others exist in South America and Russia, but none in the UK. Underwater bases are in Central America, Mexico, Peru and Brazil. Tim has found no evidence of any activity in the infamous Dulce site, but he has no doubt that some kind of evidence did exist, and has spoken to the local Indians about this. In a recent issue of Saucer Smear, editor Jim Mosley, writes that Tim Good has sent him a copy of a letter dated May 9th 1968, which pertains to be from the late Senator Robert Kennedy to the late Gray Barker. In the letter, Kennedy claims to have a positive interest in flying saucer research and to be a card carrying member of a pro-contactee UFO group based in California. If it's genuine it surely proves that Robert Kennedy was a believer. Thanks to: Georgina Bruni HOT GOSSIP UK www.hotgossip.co.uk People who wish to order copies of Timothy Good's new book 'Alien Base: Earth's Encounter With Extraterrestrials' can find details at the Website: UFOMAG.CO.UK, Graham Birdsall

SPACE DEBRIS COLLIDES

ABC News consultant James Oberg reports the January 15th launch of a Minuteman II missile left colorful streaks in the California sky. Half an hour later, its discarded third stage disintegrated.- A collision 240 miles above Earth last month has U.S. missile experts pondering the statistics of chance. The most likely explanation is "practically impossible," said one. The third stage of a military missile launched from California apparently collided with a piece of space debris and was destroyed within range of sensors on Kwajalein Island, a small atoll in the western Pacific. A modified Minuteman-II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 7:25 p.m. PST on January 15. It carried a collection of targets and dummy warheads to test an anti-missile sensor on a missile to be launched from Kwajalein. That part of the exercise turned out successfully. But half an hour after launch, and about a minute before it was to hit the atmosphere, the discarded third stage of the missile suddenly disintegrated into a cloud of shrapnel, which burned up in the atmosphere soon after. The fuel tank, about the size of a refrigerator, was falling at about 5 miles per second. A grapefruit-sized chunk of space debris was also zooming at about 5 miles per second on a collision course with the missile section. "Apparently it did collide with some piece of space junk,? said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in Washington, D.C., the test's sponsor. Engineers reviewed data from radar screens and from telescopes on the aircraft tracking the missile. "The scope clearly showed a small object moving rapidly from in-range to out-range." "When its range coincided with the tank, it disappeared and the tank slowly changed from a single object to a cloud of targets." The tracking data, however, is ambiguous to some space debris experts within NASA. One radar that tracks larger objects saw only the fuel tank, while a radar using frequencies better suited to small objects saw both the tank and the "intruder." The U.S. Space Command tracks about 7,000 objects in Earth orbit bigger than a few inches across, many of them fragments of rocket explosions. But all attempts to correlate this object with any catalogued space junk have been unsuccessful. Don Kessler, formerly NASA's guru on space debris, says a collision is certainly possible. "But it's one of the least probable kinds of collisions you could expect." "I would look very strongly for something else," he says. Thanks to: ABCNEWS.com, Feb. 12, 1997.

If you enjoy Filer's Files every week and want to support my efforts, please make a donation via PayPal
I am offering fourteen years of Filer's Files on a DVD with thousands of photographs and sightings for a donation of $50 that includes this year's subscription. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.

Please contact George Filer, if you have news or comments at Majorstar@verizon.net.

George A. Filer www.nationalufocenter.com and http://www.ufoweek.com

Please subscribe or see the Filer's Files website for images in this weeks issue.


Custom Search