SIGHTINGS


 
Nick Redfern's New
Book Probes FBI UFO
File Revelations
From Georgina Bruni <georgina@easynet.co.uk>
From Hot Gossip UK Magazine JULY
www.hotgossip.co.uk
7-12-98
 
 
The Nick Redfern Interview Interviewer Irene Bott
 
IB: Nick, I am sure many people interested in the UFO subject will be aware that in TVís THE X FILES, Mulder and Scully investigate FOs and paranormal phenomena for the FBI. Are you saying in your book that THE X FILES is not entirely fiction?
 
NR: Yes, absolutely. The situation is this: the FBI have declassified approximately 3,000 pages of previously - withheld files on UFOs and associated mysteries which cover the period 1947 to the early 1990s. More importantly, many of the real FBIís UFO files reflect to quite an astonishing degree the sorts of things discussed in THE X FILES.
 
IB: What do you mean by that?
 
NR: Well, perhaps I should start at the beginning. In 1947, when sightings of UFOs - or flying discs and flying saucers, as they were known at the time -began to be reported in large numbers throughout the USA, the military approached the FBI with a view to obtaining their assistance in both interviewing UFO witnesses to try and determine if the people were genuine, mentally disturbed, or trying to put over propaganda, and investigating UFO sightings in general. The FBI werenít adverse to this; however, the boss of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, would only agree to get involved if it was on a level which would put the FBI on an equal footing with the military when it came to investigating and collating UFO data.
 
IB: What do the FBIís early UFO files tell us?
 
NR: OK. Itís clear from the FBIís files of mid 1947, that within the FBI itself there were as many differing opinions regarding the origins of the UFO mystery as there are amongst the civilian UFO research community today! To give you an example, there was a great deal of concern within the FBI that UFOs were possibly the product of the Soviet Union, being based on classified technology captured from the Nazis at the end of the Second World War. Similarly, there were those FBI agents who suspected that the U.S. military itself was responsible for the Saucers, and this was some type of super - secret American Government project. And, of course, there were those in the FBI who favoured the alien theory - that we were being visited by creatures form other worlds.
 
IB: Can you give a few examples of the early reports which the FBI received?
 
NR: Sure. One such report concerned an employee of the military who, in July 1947, had seen overflying a particular air base three UFOs travelling at an impressive speed; more impressive, however, was the fact that the UFOs were circular in shape and one of them seemed to be ërollingí or ërotatingí in the sky as it went along. Similarly, in the following month, the FBI picked up on an incident involving a former Army Air Corps pilot who reported seeing - and Iíll quote from the official report here - ëa bluish white, flaming object over Philadelphia. And this is something reflected in many of the early reports which the FBI received. Most of the witnesses were highly qualified people. To give you a further example, also in August 1947, no less than twelve UFOs were seen flying in formation over Twin Falls, Idaho, and once again there were credible observers, including serving police officers with the Twin Fall Police Department. More importantly, the witnesses were practically unanimous in their belief that what they saw were - again, to quote the official FBI files - ëilluminated flying saucersí. So these are the types of reports which the FBI received in the late 1940ís and which led them to believe that something real and very strange was taking place.
 
IB: Can you give us a few examples of the sorts of reports and investigations which the FBI found itself involved in during the 1950ís?
 
NR: Yeah. There were several UFO events which concerned and took up some considerable time on the part of the FBI in the 1950ís.
 
From the late 40's through to the early 50's, the FBI was heavily implicated in something called Project Twinkle - a project designed to monitor and identify strange, green fireball - type objects which were being repeatedly seen in the vicinity of U.S. atomic energy installations in New Mexico, and at a later date in other parts of the country. Interestingly enough, official FBI papers detail a number of soundly argued reasons why the fireballs weren't natural phenomena; and in my book I speculate that this was possibly an attempt on the part of the UFO intelligence to monitor our early atomic energy research.
 
What else was the FBI involved in apart from Project Twinkle in the 1950's?
 
NR:All sorts of things. As you know, in June and July 1952, there were major UFO encounters in and around the Washington DC area, and UFOs were seen by pilots - both civil and military - and UFOs were tracked on both airborne and ground radar. Well, following these encounters, the FBI demanded an up-dated briefing from the Air Force - not just on the Washington sightings but on the UFO subject in general. And the results of that briefing make for very, very interesting reading.
 
IB: In what way?
 
NR: The FBI were informed officially in 1952 by the Air Force that there was a percentage of all UFO reports which simply defied explanation and which originated with credible people such as military pilots. More importantly, the FBI was informed that in a number of those cases there was additional back-up from ground observers and radar traces. So it's clear that this was an admittance to the FBI from the military that unknown objects were violating U.S. airspace and were being seen in the air at exactly the same time that they were being tracked on radar. I'll quote you here a very pertinent statement made to the FBI by the Air Force in that briefing: 'Some military officials are seriously considering the possibility of interplanetary ships.' To me, that speaks volumes.
 
IB: What else can you tell us about that time period?
 
NR: One case which springs to mind is that of someone described in the FBI's files as a Miss Richards who saw a UFO - described by the FBI as being 25 feet from the ground, appeared to be spinning, was bright as though containing a series of lights in a zigzagging pattern and was at least as wide as the highway - at very close quarters in 1956 whilst driving along a public highway with her fianc=E9e. What was important about this case was that the witness was actually in the employ of the FBI at the Washington DC headquarters and was described as being one of the FBI best employees! Needless to say, there is a substantial amount of paperwork on this case.
 
IB: Weren't some of the so-called Contactees like George Adamksi and George Van Tassel investigated by the FBI in the 1950's and 1960's?
 
NR: That's right. Adamski is the subject of an FBI file which is close on 100 pages in length; whilst Van Tassel's file amounts to about 200 pages. Again, FBI agents went to extraordinary lengths to inform themselves of the claims of Adamski, Van Tassel and a number of the other contactees including George Williamson and Truman Bethurum. Now, today, it's quite unfashionable to talk about human-like aliens from Venus who desired an end to the arms race etc - and this was a staple part of contactee lore - but the FBI were heavily concerned by the claims of the contactees. The FBI, for example, were well acquainted with Adamski's claims about meeting aliens in the desert; and regarding Van Tassel, would dispatch agents to attend his lectures and conferences. In fact, it's quite astonishing just how well informed the FBI were and there are reams of files which I've reproduced in the book detailing the FBI's knowledge of where people such as Adamski claimed the aliens originated, why they were here and even the type of government they allegedly had!
 
IB:This takes us through to the 1960's, doesn't it?
 
NR:Yes, it does.
 
IB:We know that the U.S. Air Force officially, at least got out of the UFO subject with the close of Project Blue Book in 1969. Did the FBI do the same?
 
NR:Largely, yes. But there was another mystery waiting in the wings for them - namely the cattle mutilations. For decades, numerous reports have surfaced throughout North America where cattle have been found mutilated and killed under very strange circumstances - blood and organs have been removed by someone or something with presumed surgical skills. There have even been reports where the animals organs have been removed with laser-type technology. Most important of all, there are many accounts on record where UFOs, black helicopters, and even alien creatures have been seen in the vicinity of mutilation sites and I cite in the book the testimony of those who suspect that the cattle mutilations are the result of some type of alien harvesting operation.
 
IB: Are there many FBI files on cattle mutilations?
 
NR:Oh, yes. About 400 pages at least; and this is just the declassified material. There are literally dozens of such reports on file with the FBI which originated with a number of U.S. state police departments which, as far as I'm concerned, fully confirm that the cattle mutilations are not the work of predators, as some have suggested.
 
IB:Can you give an example?
 
NR:One such New Mexico State Police report which springs to mind dates from 1976 and includes all the staple parts of a classic animal mutilation including: the discovery of a dead and mutilated cow; strange pod marks found on the ground as if something had followed the cow; raised radiation readings; the removal from the cow's body of vital organs; the discovery at the site of some strange liquid which defied official examination; and most interesting of all, a scorched area of ground which gave every impression that some type of structured object had landed at the site. Now, I would fully agree with people who say that this sounds bizarre; but the key point is that this all comes from official files released by the FBI.
 
IB: We've seen that the FBI received a large number of good quality UFO reports over the years - not to mention the cattle mutilation files of the 70's - but what of the claims about crashed UFOs? Are there any reports in the FBI files of crashed UFOs, dead aliens and so on
 
NR: Probably more than you would imagine! There is a very interesting hand -written entry in one of the 1947 files from J. Edgar Hoover complaining that the military wouldn't allow the FBI access to a recovered flying disc and this is almost certainly a reference to the UFO recovered at Roswell. Similarly, in the early 1950's the FBI went to extraordinary lengths to try and determine the truth surrounding the alleged crash and recovery by the military of a UFO at Aztec, New Mexico. Now, the Aztec crash has today been largely discredited; however, the story does include many of the key ingredients of Roswell, such as: the crashed UFO, small, dead alien bodies recovered at the crash site and on. The FBI also picked up on numerous rumours doing the rounds amongst the military in Washington to the effect that, in the 1950's, the U.S. Government had acquired the remains of three crashed UFOs and their crews. As far as crashed UFOs and the FBI are concerned, things went pretty much quiet then until the late 1980's when the Majestic 12 documents surfaced from an anonymous - and presumed insider source.
 
IB:Can you expand on this?
 
NR:Yeah, no problem. The MJ12 papers are essentially a group of documents which purport to be a 1952 briefing for President Eisenhower informing him of the crash and recovery of an extraterrestrial spacecraft and crew near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Now, if the MJ12 papers are genuine, then they were leaked unofficially and in violation of U.S. national secrecy laws and it was here where the FBI had jurisdiction to get involved. The FBI approached a number of agencies, such as the Air Force and the Defence Intelligence Agency, in an attempt to unravel the truth behind MJ12, but as powerful as the FBI was and is, even they had to admit defeat; the main reason being that there were so many secret levels within government it was impossible to get a straight and complete answer. In other words, if there is or was an MJ12 group and I for one believe there was and is then access to their data must be limited to an incredibly small and select body of individuals. But if it relates to actual crashed UFOs and dead alien bodies, then this isn't surprising, and it's not surprising that the FBI wouldn't be entrusted with the facts either.
 
IB: How do you sum up your findings on the FBI's UFO involvement?
 
NR: Well, it's clear from the 3,000 or so pages which have been declassified and which cover the late 1940's to almost the present day, that the FBI has had deep and on-going involvement in all manner of UFO - related activity. The cattle mutilations, MJ12, crashed UFOs, dead aliens, military and civil pilot reports of UFOs, and the many contactee accounts taken as a whole point to deep and long lasting involvement in the UFO subject on the FBI's part. And as remarkable as it may seem, there really are equivalents at the FBI of Mulder and Scully whose job it is to look into the various issues I've discussed above; and in the words of The X-Files, the truth really is out there - and it's in my book, too!
 
Photo of Nick Redfern available at http://www.camelot-group.com/hotgossip/unexgoss.html


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