- SURF CITY, NJ
- Around 4 p.m., George Filer 3d took his plastic deck chair, put it just
under the shade of the gazebo, and began to scan the ocean sky.
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- "I'm looking for anything interesting in the sky,
like a glint, a reflection off a shiny surface," said the retired
Air Force major, sitting in his aviator glasses, sipping a Coke. He and
his wife rent a house here for the summer, and every weekend afternoon
he perches here.
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- He looked at the sky above Long Beach Island on this
Sunday afternoon - deep blue, dotted with white clouds. A glint appeared
far to the South, above the beach - an airplane pulling a Miller Lite banner.
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- Filer's granddaughter Nicole, 8, in bathing suit and
Backstreet Boys T-shirt, walked past on her way to the ocean. He stopped
her. "About a year ago you told me you saw a UFO," he said. "Were
you just pulling my leg?"
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- "I saw a shooting star," she said, and skipped
away.
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- George Filer, 65, saw his first UFO in 1962. He was flying
a tanker plane for the Air Force, refueling fighters over England. The
control tower sent his plane to investigate a UFO on the radar, near Stonehenge.
His plane dove from 33,000 feet to 1,000 feet to find it.
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- "I picked it up on radar - like a ship, a huge aircraft
carrier in the air," he recalled, still excited nearly 40 years later.
"This was the biggest return [image] I'd ever seen on a radar screen."
As his plane approached, the object vanished. "If you've ever seen
the night launch at Cape Canaveral, it just kind of lit up and took off
like that."
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- His second encounter came a few years ago, from the bedroom
of his Medford Lakes home, which faces Briarwood Lake. "I woke at
4 a.m.," he said. "The bedroom was filled with light pouring
in from out the window. I saw a UFO surfacing. It looked like a submarine
coming out of the water, a blue ionization." His wife slept through
it.
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- Filer spent 20 years in the Air Force, logging over 5,000
hours in the air. Most of his career he was an intelligence officer. He
even briefed generals in Vietnam, where "a lot of times we'd get UFO
reports over the DMZ [demilitarized zone]."
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- After the Air Force, he worked many jobs, including teaching
high school students aerospace science at Cherry Hill West. He taught about
UFOs, among other things: "The kids seemed to like it. The school
didn't." When he retired in 1997, he devoted himself to finding UFOs.
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- "For me," he said, it's "like Copernicus,
and proving that the Earth wasn't the center of the solar system. I believe
UFOs exist. I believe we are visited by aliens. I want to change people's
viewpoints. This may be [mankind's] most important endeavor."
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- His son, George 4th, 38, an estimator for a construction
company, brought a tray of crackers with crab dip to the gazebo.
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- "When I was 16, I did see something unusual at summer
camp," the son said, "so I kind of believe they're out there."
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- Like his mother and two sisters, the son can't quite
relate to his father's zeal. "First couple of years, it was all he
wanted to talk about," the son said. "I guess he's still obsessed
about it, but now he brings other subjects to the table."
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- Like sports-talk radio. "A lot of them make less
sense than UFO people," Filer said.
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- Since he retired, Filer has become East Coast director
of the Mutual UFO Network, the nation's largest UFO organization. From
his home office he edits a weekly Internet newsletter known as Filer's
Files.
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- Two hundred to 400 e-mails pour in monthly of sightings.
He compiles the best ones into Filer's Files (www.filers files.com) and
e-mails the report to 3,000 UFO enthusiasts, as well as to Congress and
the President. He isn't certain the President is reading his files, but
he believes congressional staffers are.
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- In May, he spoke at the National Press Club in Washington
along with 20 other UFO experts - a session that was barely mentioned in
the media.
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- Which he can't understand. Popular culture has embraced
the notion of UFOs. Just consider the movie Independence Day. Or E.T. "People
say they're more likely to see a UFO than a Social Security check,"
he said.
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- Beside him on the gazebo railing was his Sony Handycam,
with the 700X zoom - just in case he spotted an alien ship. He believes
the right photograph or video of a UFO could bring up to $1 million.
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- Before he got into UFOs, he used to look for Spanish
doubloons on the beach. "I feel I'm much more likely to find a UFO,"
he said.
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- This afternoon he saw beer planes. Seagulls. A styrofoam
rocket shot into the air with a rubber strap by a little kid next door.
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- No UFOs.
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- He watched until his family called him for dinner - burgers
and dogs on the grill.
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