- This UFO incident took place in 1976 over and around
the Cannon Airforce Base which is located a few miles outside of Clovis
New Mexico and was witnessed by a student of Journalism.
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- Bruce, who works for a major media outlet, witnessed
the objects, and the jet aircraft that persued them, and who was fortunate
to capture one of these objects on film.
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- A little background on Bruce around the time the incident
took place: Bruce was working in the news department at Channel 3, the
PBS station in Portales, New Mexico. In addition to working at the PBS
station he held a couple of part time jobs with two of the local radio
stations as well. At that time money was an issue due to Bruce being a
college student. Working at the different media outlets it was giving
him the experience he needed for his upcoming career in Journalism. One
of the overnight jobs Bruce had was in Clovis, New Mexico at KMTY FM 99.1
which was at that time one of the 100 thousand watt radio stations in the
country.
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- First Night's Encounter With Unknown Objects
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- On January 21, 1976 Bruce received a call from the radio
station manager to see if he would mind working as the station was going
to do some performance checks on the transmitter. Bruce would stay out
at a remote location where some of the station's equipment was located.
This is how Bruce ended up at the right time, and the right place, to see
the events that were about to unfold in front of him in the skies above.
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- A side note to this story is that Bruce was also a storm
spotter for West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. Bruce was given a small
kit which held a pair of binoculars, a note pad and a bunch of telephone
numbers that he could call if a storm was spotted coming through the area.
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- Bruce had spent alot of time at Cannon Airforce Base
as he was in the civil air patrol. At that time his senior flight instructor
had given him his primary flight lessons. Being on the base, and not in
the military, Bruce had become friends with a lot of the base personnel.
Since he worked at one of the local radio stations he would play requests
that were called in from the base security and night maintenance. He got
to know them all very well.
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- Bruce mentioned that Cannon was located between the University
of Portales and Clovis and it was common to see the F-111's and Aardvarks
taking off from the base with full afterburners carrying out nighttime
flight operations.
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- Bruce arrived and was sitting in his truck at the location
of the transmitter. While waiting for the phone to ring in the transmitter
shack he noticed a number of pin-point lights popping up in the sky which
appeared to look like light-bulbs on a string. Two of them dropped downward
until they reached a lower altitude, stopped and hovered. The lights were
seen between his location and the Airforce Base at this time. While watching
these strange objects Bruce grabbed the pair of binoculars he had with
him. He describes the two lower lights as the classic saucer shaped craft
and they had a bluish glow to them with a red radiant glow on the bottom
side of the craft. A small dome shape could easily be seen at the top
of each of the two objects. In his estimation he believes the objects may
have been at least 30 to 50 in diameter. The two objects were hovering
parallel to one another and then started to move off at a slow rate of
speed in perfect formation heading towards the airforce base. Bruce said
he followed them with his binoculars for approximately 15 minutes. The
objects flew past a number of buildings which were at the edge of the base
and they proceeded to climb in altitude as to where they again looked like
a small light in the clear night sky. Bruce said it looked as if the lights
on, and in, the buildings were dimming due to the objects being in close
proximity. Later after talking to base personnel, this proved to be true,
the lights had dimmed, and the objects were noticed by the base personnel.
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- Bruce usually carried a small camera with him but on
this day he had not brought it with him.
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- Bruce called the station as he was excited to talk about
what he had just witnessed. Some of the other people at the station had
also been watching the events unfold that night. Through Channel 3's connections
they heard that the objects were widely seen by many that night and by
the state police. An article was written on the objects seen that January.
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- Second Night's Encounter With Unknown Objects.
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- The next evening Bruce had gathered together a few people
from the newsroom. Since Bruce was staying in a dorm on campus he knew
a good number of folks on campus. He was able to get the keys for the
door to the roof so Bruce and his friends could sit up on top of the building's
roof to watch the skies just in case something should return. Although
a cool night the group stood watching. This time Bruce did bring the camera.
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- At approximately 12:45 a.m. four objects dropped down
from the night sky and started darting around. (This is where Bruce was
finally able to capture an image of one of the crafts on black and white
film.) As the people observed the objects, the Airforce Base had scrambled
the F-111's jet fighters out of Cannon. The jet aircraft began trying to
intercept the objects. As the aircraft got close to the vicinity of the
unknown objects, the objects, at an incredible rate of speed, would shoot
across the sky making 90 degree turns leaving the fighter aircraft trailing
way behind as they just weren't able to keep up with the strange craft.
As the objects made unusual turns a plasma type glow could clearly be
witnessed by the group of people watching the event.
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- The cat and mouse chase between the objects and jets
went on for approximately 45 minutes. Because the witnesses were on one
of the tallest buildings in Portales, New Mexico, they could clearly see
the flight-line at the Base. One of the men had brought a 150 power telescope
which enabled the fellows to see the objects fly at a low altitude over
the flight-line. As the objects passed over the lights running down the
flight line, all the lights went out.
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- Eventually the objects shot up and were gone in a second,
or so, and the F-111's were recalled back to the Base and landed safely.
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- Bruce told me that a couple days after the second night
sighting of the objects a couple of the Base security personnel had called
and explained how the lights went out over the entire base. Of course,
Bruce was asking a lot of questions at this point. The security officer
from the Base told Bruce that everyone at the Cannon AFB were freaking
out as they did not know what these objects were. Also the security officer
said that the Cannon base was bringing in new light towers from a SAC base
in North Dakota to place on the flight line. The security officer told
Bruce to keep an eye on the base as it would be really lit up after the
new lighting was installed. A few days later the AFB was lit up brightly.
Bruce talked to another military man from the base who said that the base
had radar tape of the objects from both nights but certainly did not want
Bruce to mention where the information came from.
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- Because there were others who were there who witnessed
the events that took place over the Cannon Airforce Base I will be attempting
to contact these witnesses to gather their reports on the event. One other
important bit of information to this case is that there is a Freedom Of
Information Act document to say that jet aircraft were scrambled out of
the Cannon Airforce Base that evening in 1976. Although there has been
no explanation as to why, this still gives us a valuable clue that something
very unusual took place that night.
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- Update: After Bruce went public with his story on the
Jeff Rense national radio program, he and his family were threatened.
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- Bruce called me on July 20, 2004, after he appeared on
the Jeff Rense radio program with me on Friday - July 16, 2004, when he
told what he saw over the Cannon Airforce Base back in January 21, 1976.
Bruce told me on the air that he had taken a black and white photograph
of one of the objects that had been observed out-maneuvering the jet aircraft
which were scrambled from the Cannon AFB. On July 20, 2004 at approximately
1:30 a.m. Bruce had a disturbing telephone call from an unknown person
and the report on this is below.
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- Bruce wanted to point out to me that he does carry two
cell phones with him at all times. One is for business, etc.. and the other
is for personal business to keep in contact with family and close friends.
He stated that no one had his private cell number as it was not listed
and the only people that had this number were his wife, children, and some
close friends. His children are grown up and now living on their own.
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- Bruce kept his cell phones on the night table. His work
phone turned off, but the private phone turned on, just in case one of
his children might need to contact him in case of an emergency.
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- As I mentioned above, it was around 1:30 a.m., Bruce
and his wife had turned in for the night and were sound asleep when his
cell phone started ringing. Knowing that he had his work cell phone turned
off he knew it was a call from one of his children, and of course being
a parent, he worried as he grabbed for the phone. Bruce answered with a
hello and a voice spoke back saying, "Mr. Bruce (last name). Bruce
said there was a very professional sounding gentleman on the other end.
The man said he needed to talk to him about a matter of utmost urgency!
Bruce still half asleep asked the man who he was, what was this call was
all about, especially at this hour of the morning. The fellow said this
is about your recent radio appearance and discussion about some photographs
that you took back in New Mexico.
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- At this point in the conversation Bruce said to the man,"you
have to be kidding me," thinking this had to be some kind of hoax,
asked who was this. The man said there is no need for you to know who I
am. He went on to say, "it would be in your best interest to discontinue
this line of discussion and do away with those photographs. Destroy them!"
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- Bruce at this point is in shock about this man. He looks
on the cell phone to see what phone number is displayed and it shows "number
not available". The man told Bruce that "this is no joke and
'we' feel that this would be in your best interest, and for the sake of
your family, that all of this go away."
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- Bruce told the man that if he wasn't willing to reveal
himself then the conversation would be terminated. The man then went on
to tell Bruce what his children were involved in, meaning their daily activities,
where they lived, etc.., what Bruce's wife was doing, such as personal
activities within the family, etc.. and said that he could fax Bruce his
life's history within a few seconds. That was it, Bruce hung up and that
ended the call with the stranger.
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- After this incident took place and some weeks had gone
by, a neighbor of Bruce's caught up with him outside one day and told him
that they had been seeing alot of traffic in and out of Bruce's property.
Cars would pull up and stay for a while and then drive off. Other times
the cars would pull into the driveway, stop, and men would get out and
walk around the home. Then they got back into their cars and drove off.
These cars that were coming and going had government license plates on
them.
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- One other interesting fact to this story is that Bruce
put together a package for me, Jeff Rense, George Filer and Peter Davenport.
In this package there was a copy of the photo he had taken over the AFB.
Bruce mailed out the packages to us all and not one of us have received
the information. Bruce says he is going to try again and send it through
a different means. I hope once I receive the material I can update this
story.
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- So that is where this story stands right now.
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- I would like to extend my many thanks to Bruce for coming
forward with his story.
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- Brian Vike, Director HBCC UFO Research
- email: hbccufo@telus.net
- Website: http://www.hbccufo.com
- Redirect: http://www.canadianufo.com
- HBCC UFO RESEARCH Newsletter At:
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HBCC_UFO_Newsletter/
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