SIGHTINGS

SIGHTINGS

UFO Secret History
By Tim Matthews May 1998

Over the last few months new information has emerged relating to the terrestrial origins of flying saucers. This goes to the heart of modern-day UFO research and because we neither claim that UFOs are of ET origin nor that flying saucer sightings are explainable as evidence of natural phenomena or simply misidentificationsî of mundane phenomena we are under attack from all sides. Nevertheless, the evidence we have put forward has encouraged many researchers to become engaged in a debate that some people might have hoped had gone away.

The fundamental point to make is that, according to a great deal of UFO literature, despite the best efforts of researchers to identify the objects described in UFO reports there remains a hard core, perhaps 1-2%, that are said to represent ëtrueí or ërealí UFO phenomena. Therefore the evidence suggests that many of this ëcoreí of 1-2% of sightings relates to structured craft of ëunknowní origin. In this case, I am writing about flying saucers - often quite small, seemingly constructed of some metallic substance - occasionally described as ëbrushedí aluminium:

Take for example the McMinnville, Oregon, photographs taken by Paul Trent on 11th May 1950. These are some of the best examples of a saucer photograph and extensive analysis has shown that:

This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and psychical, appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses.î

This is very important UFO research which shines new light on this most ëelusiveí mystery of the Twentieth Century. Perhaps it is time for a little demystificationÖ.

We suspect that ëflying saucersí were developed, to some extent in parallel, on either side of the Atlantic during the Second World War. This realization, or understanding, is becoming increasingly a focus for research even though a long period of time has passed since those developments took place. Our research might be said to represent a ësmall voice of calmí within the UFO community, whose increasingly shrill calls for Western governments to ëcome clean about UFOs and aliensí tend to obscure the truth about flying saucers.

To others, our research is an example of the ëFederal Hypothesisí, that which states that:

The answer seems to be that , in the USA at least, UFOs are controlled not so much by an intelligence as by an Intelligence Agencyî.

In the first place, it is certainly not the case the new generation of man-made flying saucer advocates are apologistsî for Nazism as is suggested by the skeptics who claim that because some naziî saucer researchers are of dubious political persuasion then all subsequent research is invalid.

This type of guilt by association is, of course, a rather ineffective way of arguing with the evidence.

Secondly, debunkers argue that because some supposed sightings of flying saucers have been explained or that they are explainable then all sightings should be called into question. The reader has seen that there are impressive UFO sightings that clearly relate to structured circular craft and that these have been reported from around the world with a concentration upon the USA - a fact which surprises few researchers.

Despite the argument that German scientists had no more advanced technology than the allies, one American was very clear as to the technical achievements of nazi scientists: Major General Hugh Knerr, Deputy Commanding General for Administration of US Strategic Forces in Europe, wrote to Lieutenant General Carl Spatz in March 1945:

Occupation of German scientific and industrial establishments has revealed the fact that we have been alarmingly backward in many fields of research, if we do not take this opportunity to seize the apparatus and the brains that developed it and put this combination back to work promptly, we will remain several years behind while we attempt to cover a field already exploited.î

It is possible to look into the area of German flying saucers without reference to so-called establishedî sources. These authors are often targetted for attack by skeptics and include Allen Harbinson, who has contributed to the subject through his exciting series of Project Saucer novels and the more recent non-fiction paperback Projekt UFOî and Renate Vesco, whose research appeared in the late 1960s as a paperback with the title Intercept But Donít Shootî and later as Intercept UFOî. Vesco appears to have cooperated with hidden knowledgeî writer David Hatcher Childress in the production of Man-Made UFOs - 50 Years of Suppressionî. In addition to these books, which are interesting though imperfect in their presentation (and omission) of the evidence, there are also two books written in the 1970s by Ernst Zundel under the pseudonym Mattern Friedrichî which were popular for a short time within the far-right political community and may still be available.

Zundel himself is a controversial figure for a number of obvious reasons which include support for anti-Semitic groups, his publication of books and magazines denying the holocaust, and his links with most of the influential neo-Nazi groups in Germany, Britain, the USA and Canada. His most important book on the subject of German flying saucers is entitled UFOs: Nazi Secret Weaponsî.

Despite the fact that Zundel is a character with whom we have little or nothing in common from a political point of view, his espousal of far-right politics neither means that every piece of information in his two books is wrong nor that they should be ignored. It is important to realize that Zundelís main purpose in writing and dissemination these books was not primarily an attempt to advocate the supposed superiorityî of Nazi technologies but to make a fast buck. In short, Zundel did it for the money, and he has made it quite clear that these publications are, in his view, not to be taken 100% seriously. The skeptics point to Zundel as a major source on German secret projects despite the fact that there are several other books and articles, including primary material, that have no link with such questionable politics. Where we have a situation where skeptics will use any tactic, we can expect them to claim that any use of contemporary German-language material is evidence of apologyî for nazi war crimes. This is not the case although we do not any longer intend to look over our shoulder every time we mention German pre-war or wartime technology. We research this subject in order to shed new and important light on the fundamental reality of man-made flying saucers.

The final point to bare in mind regarding this subject is that the victors of any conflict have a head start in writing the history books and, in the case of the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, burying or spiriting away evidence, documents, plans and blueprints, actual technology and a variety of other materials that the allies did not, and do not, want the public to know about - for a variety of reasons that may become apparent.

Despite the fact that the man-made origins of flying saucers are of the greatest implications in terms of our understanding of postwar history, man-made UFOî researchers have to some extent been deliberately ostracized and smeared.

Nevertheless, a great deal of new information has emerged in recent years and there is still more to come. The suggestion that fifty years after the end of the Second World War new information cannot emerge because this period has been the subject of the most intense scrutiny is an illogical one. For any number of reasons information can stay buried and, beyond mere speculation, we know that files relating to the Second World War remain locked in the deep dark vaults of the Public Records Office in Kew, London. Remember this - records are routinely held for 30 years and can be held for 50, 75 and 100 years after the event. By the time they emerge they may have been altered, edited or sanitized to protectî the identity of those responsible for the implementation of policy. One simple example that comes to mind is the emergence in recent years of new and credible information about the German nuclear research programme underway during the Second World War.

Much of this has been the result of research undertaken by Philip Henshall who has also contributed a great deal to our understanding of advanced German weapons projects through his books on the rocket research facilities at Pennemunde on the Baltic coast.

Even before the allies landed in Normandy in June 1944 special groups of language and technical research specialists had been organised in order to recover as much of the technological hardware and research data relating to advanced German weapons. This effort was dedicated to getting hold of much more than data on the V2 rocket - the most obvious and well-known example of German scientific expertise. Already, through an intelligence estimate passed to the allies via a Norwegian source and known as the Oslo Letterî, the allies were aware of other weapons under development and in operation by axis powers. These included radio-controlled bombs, huge guns, rocket launchers, new radar systems, long-range bombers and torpedoes. It would seem that they might also have been interested in a circular-wing aircraft with Vertical-Take-Off-and Landing (VTOL) capabilities. In short, an early and relatively primitive flying saucerÖ..

In order to make some progress in terms of this research it seems necessary to avoid using the standard sources - Vesco and Harbinson - even though some of their information is valid as we have seen. Other sources are equally intriguing. One source indicates that from the mid 1930s there was significant interest in both Vertical-Take Off and-Landing (VTOL) and circular wing aircraft. This led to a number of designs one of which was the Focke-Wulf VTOL.:

Professor Heinrich Focke was particularly interested in emerging helicopter and autogyro technologies and was involved in the design and production of the FW6, Fa223, Fa226, Fa283 and 284 models during the war. The creation of the jet engine encouraged him to design a propulsion system known as the turbo-shaftî still used in most helicopters today. In 1939 he patented a saucer-type aircraft with enclosed twin rotors. This was a revolutionary development described as follows:

The exhaust nozzle forked in two at the end of the engine and ended in two auxiliary combustion chambers located on the trailing edge of the wing. When fuel was added these combustion chambers they would act as afterburners to provide horizontal propulsion to Fockeís design. The control at low speed was achieved by alternately varying the power from each auxiliary combustion chamber.î

This was by no means the only circular aircraft.

Another similar aircraft was the troubled AS6 partly designed by the leading aviation expert in Germany Dr. Alexander Lippisch whose work at the Gottingen Aviation Institute was legendary and whose impact upon postwar ëUFOsí cannot be underestimated. His revolutionary DMî series of small triangular aircraft were built and flown in conjunction with students at Darmstadt and Munich Universities (hence the DM prefix) and used rocket propulsion. The plans for these were transported to the USA after the war. His most advanced design was undoubtedly the Lippisch Supersonic Flying Wing which, although never built, strongly hinted at the triangular ëUFOsí of the 1980s and 1990s.

The information about the AS6 (V1) emerged in an article written by Hans Ebert and Hans Meier based to a certain extent upon information and a photograph provided by German aviation expert Wolfgang Spate. (Spate was the former Commander of Operational Test Unit 16 during the War and more recently recognized as a leading aviation expert. He served in the refounded postwar Luftwaffe.) The article, entitled Prototypen - Einselschicksale deutchser Flugzeuge, Der Kreisflugler AS6 V1î, was included in a the respected Luftfahrt International in 1980. In certain respects the AS6, built by Messerschmidt, was based upon similar thinking as the Zimmerman V173 flying flapjackî - designed for use by the US Navy from 1942. The flying flapjackî was far more successful and developed at the Chance-Vought works in Connecticut and despite itsí supposed limitations was a propeller-driven aircraft designed to be flown from an aircraft carrier, hence the need for Short Take off and Landing (STOL) capability. The flapjack was able to fly at low speeds of approximately 40mph. The flight envelope was 40-425 mph and a more advanced version, the XF5U1, was also tested.

One other important feature of these circular wings was an early ëstealthí capability. The Horten brothers Reimar and Walter, known for their many successful flying wing prototypes, had developed a composite wing made of plywood held together by sawdust, charcoal and glue intended to absorb radar waves for use in their HlX model.

In 1946 Chance-Vought was using a similar technique. A skin called ëmetaliteí was used in one of itsí circular wings. Thomas C.Smith, former President of the Woodstream Corporation and a Penn State graduate engineer at the time, reported that he had seen a ëflying saucerí (XF5U1?) taking off vertically from the Chance-Vought facilities in Stratford, Connecticut at the time and that it had used this composite. This was reported last year.

This means that the circular wing or ëflying saucerí had a limited stealth capability years before the use of Radar Absorbent Materials was considered for other advanced aircraftÖ.

We can certainly dismiss all the nonsense so prevalent in various media on the subject of German flying saucers which relates to the development of circular-wing aircraft as the result of occultî or mysticalî beliefs. The truth is that the circular wing was designed for technical reasons: circular and flying wing designs are inherently stronger and are easier to build.

Whilst it is likely that any information relating to the limited AS6 would have been taken by the allies for examination at a later date it would seem that there is some evidence to suggest that a more advanced jet-powered flying saucer was at least designed, if not built, from around 1943 onwards. The first source is Flight Captain Rudolph Schriever who came forward in 1950 and claimed that he had worked with a small team at facilities near Prague with a view to developing a flying saucer-type vehicle. The Schriever story first emerged in Der Spiegelî magazine dated March 30th 1950 entitled Untertassen-Flieger Kombinationî:

A former Luftwaffe captain and aircraft designer. Rudolph Schriever, who says engineers throughout the world experimented in the early 1940s with flying saucersî is willing to build one for the United States in six to nine months. The 40 year old Prague University graduate said he made blueprints for such a machine, which he calls a flying topî, before Germanyís collapse and that the blueprints were stolen from his laboratory. He says the machine would be capable of 2,600 mph with a radius of 4,000 miles, Schriever is a US Army driver at Bremerhaven.î

This is a most credible story. Schriever claimed that the model built for testing was completed in 1944 with a view to flying it in 1945. Nevertheless, the Russian advance ended any hopes of a test-flight.

A 1975 Luftfahrt International report took these claims seriously and noted that after Schrieverís death in the late 1950s papers found amongst his belongings had included technical drawings of a flying saucer.

Schriever seemed to argue that although a saucer had existed it had not flown. This is contradicted by a possible eyewitness, George Klein.

He claimed after the war in an interview, given on November 18th 1954 to the Zurich-based Tages Anzeigerî, that he had actually seen a flying saucer test on 14th February 1945 and that the craft had performed remarkably well reaching an altitude of 30,000ft in 3 minutes as well as a high speed of hundreds of miles and hour. Despite the fact that subsequent information leads us to conclude that a jet-powered flying disc was developed at the end of the war Klein spoke of a ray-guided discî. Despite this fanciful claim some of the things he said made more sense. For instance, he claimed that some of the work on the flying saucers had taken place at Pennemunde. Pennemunde was of course the focal point for the development of the A4/V2 rocket. Interestingly, Klein also claimed that the necessary stability for the saucer had been attained through the use of a gyroscope. This is exactly the method used in the later German rockets developed by the Von Braun/Dornberger team. What is more, the entire rocket effort moved to the Mittlewerke underground facilities near Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains. It is claimed, by several other witnesses, that a flying saucer was tested in the vicinity of Kahla In Thuringia in early 1945.

The evidence presented above seems to have been taken seriously not only by mainstream magazines and national newspapers in the 1950s but also by the author of Brighter Than A Thousand Sunsî, Robert Jungk. This is an authoritative and historical account of the development of the Atomic Bomb written by a respected author. The book itself, still available and published by Harcourt and Brace, received critical acclaim from Bertrand Russell, amongst others. A section of text on page 87 of the paperback edition states:

The indifference of Hitler and those about him to research in natural sciences amounted to positive hostility.*î

The accompanying footnote reads as follows:

*The only exception to the lack of interest shown by authority was constituted by he Air Ministry [Reichs Luftfahrt Ministirium or RLM, TM]. The Air Force research workers were in a peculiar position. They produced interesting new types such as the Delta [Lippisch and Horten, TM] ..and flying discs. The first of these flying saucersî, as they were later called - circular in shape, with a diameter of some 45 yards - were built by the specialists Schriever, Habermohl and Miethe. They were first airborne on February 14th 1945, over Prague and reached in three minutes a height of nearly eight miles. They had a speed of 1250mph which was doubled in subsequent tests. It is believed that Habermohl fell into the hands of the Russians. Miethe developed at a later date similar flying saucersî at A.V Roe and Company for the United Statesî.

This use of the original Schriever story is interesting if only because the author felt that the information was good and warranted exposure. Given the nature of the book, we might well ask whether the author had any other information that supported the claims made as to the characteristics of the circular aircraft. It is up to the reader to decide whether these claims make any sense at all and more importantly, how this might affect our understanding of flying saucer historyÖÖ

Until recently, it would have been rather safer and perhaps more sensible to argue that although various prototype saucers existed in whatever form they were never tested. Safety is often the best policy given the shark infested waters of modern-day UFO research. However, thanks to three years of painstaking research by UK astronomy, aviation and photographic expert Bill Rose which included on-site research in Germany, Canada and America we now know a great deal more. Initially Rose felt, like many skeptics, that the evidence for German flying saucer (and UFO) reality was very shaky.

Nevertheless, and without reference to the UFO community in his personal quest for the truth, he was able to use his expert technical knowledge to follow up leads and to make significant progress.

First of all he was able to discover that Dr. Walter Miethe, whom all sources agree was involved with Schriever, Klaus Habermohl and Giuseppe Belluzzo (an Italian engineer) had been the Director of the saucer programme at two facilities located outside Prague. In May 1945, after testing of the prototype had taken place, both Miethe and Schriever were able to flee in the direction of Allied forces. Habermohl was captured by Soviet forces and spirited East where he ended up working on various aviation projects quite probably at facilities located outside Moscow.

It would seem that Klaus Habermohl was the man who developed the radial-flow jet engine, described in various articles as a system of adjustableî nozzles, of great significance just ten years later. (Radial-flow allowed for VTOL performance and used the little-known Coandaî effect.) Rose learned that not only had test flights taken place but that film footage of these had been taken. This had always been rumoured and makes perfect sense given the nazi fetish for keeping records on everything. The footage, of good quality, has subsequently been stored in a secure location and shown only to a handful of people. Rose was shown some stills taken from the original film and given his expert photo-technical background concluded, after careful consideration, that this was probably real and historical footage. He calculated that the craft was around half the size claimed in Kleinís report. The saucer, rather less contoured and sleek than postwar artistsí impressions might suggest (and unlike Bob Lazarís S4 Sports Modelî!), was perhaps 75ft in diameter. The saucer was shown in flight above the runway over the heads of a couple of observers.

Although this is in itself of the greatest significance other more contradictory evidence has emerged. One of the people that Rose met had good information about the February test flight and was able to confirm that several people had seen the test-flight - as we might expect. It was said that Schriever himself had piloted the test craft. This does seems sensible (and logical) given Schrieverís background in the Luftwaffe - although it is at variance with his own account. One can only speculate as to why this may be. It should be pointed out that the performance characteristics of this jet-powered aircraft have probably been exaggerated and although it might have been technically possible given further research and development to approach supersonic speeds, this was almost certainly not achieved in February 1945. Finally, it seems as if Klein himself was centrally involved in the saucer project and may indeed have had responsibilities for procurement.

We know a little more about Dr.Miethe. One of the important pieces of information came in the form of a rare group photograph showing various young German scientists in 1933. The photograph shows Werner von Braun and Walter Miethe. It would seem that these two knew each other well. During the War various lists of wantedî German scientists were drawn up. One of these was the Black Listî used by Counter Intelligence Corps and Combined Allied Field Teams (CAFT) as they moved through Germany from 1944 in order to help them get hold of the important scientific personnel.

Dr.von Braun was certainly at the top of the list and if Miethe and he were old friends and had cooperated on early rocket projects, there is little doubt that Miethe would have been a target too. Nevertheless, his work near Prague put him out of reach and only through Mietheís own efforts did the allied teams get their hands on him.

The immediate postwar is critical to an understanding of both the myth and reality of flying saucers or UFOs. One thing is for sure: hundreds of nazi scientists as well as intelligence personnel, many of whom had been involved in the abuse of thousands of slave labourers, were transported via Operation Paperclip (so named after the original designation Overcast was compromised). Many of these technical personnel were sent initially to Fort Bliss in Texas. From here they were farmed out, according to their ability and expertise, to the many advanced scientific facilities dotted throughout the USA and Canada.

Interestingly, Chance-Vought, builder of both the V173 and XF5U1 prototypes, moved itsí base of operations to Texas in early 1947. The company seems to have been less than candid at this early stage about the true nature and extent of itsí involvement in flying saucers. The official story of the demise of the XF5U1 - that there was no interest in developing a propeller driven aircraft from 1948 after the advent of jets - is now in question. It would seem that a jet-powered version using Allison J33 engines was actually test-flown at Muroc Field in 1947. The history books tell us that the propeller-driven version was to be tested here before the programme was cancelled. Nevertheless, our understanding of the situation is that technical drawings of the jet-powered version have now surfaced through a series of Freedom Of Information Act requests. Given the overall design of this craft and the many sightings of flying saucers in New Mexico and the Western seaboard in the late 1940s it is safe to concluded that the sightings related to a saucer of terrestrial origin with limited performance characteristics.

The best of these are arguably the sightings over Muroc Field reported by serving military personnel on 8th July 1947 and the subject of subsequent internal investigation which revealed that the object seen was disc-shaped moving at around 300 miles per hour.

The military witnesses Gerald Neuman and Joseph Ruvolo stated that in their opinion this was a man-made aircraft travelling at only 300 miles per hour and this view was supported by a civilian witness named Lenz.

Similar objects were seen - many of them in and around the White Sands Proving Ground where we know for sure that many of the Paperclip scientists were working. It is probable that at this stage people were seeing a US-built circular-wing aircraft and only gradually, in the late 1940s/early 1950s, were German advances incorporated into the overall saucer programme. After all, military historians agree that a huge amount of material was recovered from facilities in Germany and it took a great deal of time and effort to collate this. We know both from Gerald K Haines report and from the recently declassified (1995) Air Technical Intelligence Centre report on Project Silver Bugî that prototype saucers were actually test-flown (obviously before 1955) in order to determine their usefulness in terms of future dispersed base operations designed to reduce vulnerability to Russian air attack. Hence the possible use of VTOL aircraft from camouflaged facilities.

I also suggest that the sightings reported by military personnel during the 1952 ëOperation Mainbraceí may have related to a similar flying saucer prototype. It seems to me that such a major exercise would offer an excellent opportunity for testing and evaluation.

Given that we now believe that Klaus Habermohl designed the first radial-flow engine, a revolutionary development by any standards (even today) in 1943, it is likely that within a few years progress had been made although the advanced nature of the engine made only for slow progress. The incorporation of a radial-flow engine using the Coanda Effect in combination with a circular wing made this a weapon worth keeping secret.

The jet-powered circular wing and the Silver Bug craft were two out of three variations upon a theme. There were two Silver Bug prototypes, Projects Y and Y2, the first using a standard axial flow engine, the second the more advanced type. Project Yî was also designated P724 (P being the AV Roe Company project number) and was in fact a hybrid saucer/AVRO Arrow (the Arrow was an advanced supersonic aircraft cancelled in the early 1960s supposedly after the US pressurized on the Canadian government).

The existence of projects beyond the limited Avrocar adds further weight to the suggestion that Avrocar was little more than a cover for much more advanced aircraft. Let us be quite clear on this point: Both Projects Y and Y2 were separate and distinct from the Avrocar and in fact the evidence further suggests that the craft test-flown near Prague in February 1945 was actually more advanced! It is interesting to note that proponents of the extra-terrestrial hypothesis tend to use the failed Avrocar programme as evidence that flying saucers must beî of ET origin. We must now dismiss such misleading conclusions.

On a separate note and in view of the suggestion that underground facilities have been built in the postwar period it now seems that in certain cases these were used to house small numbers of flying saucer-type aircraft. This is not to say that they were located in the wilds of Canada but more likely within the White Sands Proving Ground and later on or near the Groom Lake facilities in the Nevada Desert. Whilst the man-made reality of flying discs has been hijacked by Bob Lazar, John Lear and a generation of US Ufologists, it seems as if the remote nature of Groom dry Lake bed was considered both with flying saucers and the U2 spyplane in mind.

There is no doubt that all kinds of weird and wonderful aircraft are tested from Groom Lake but in terms of flying saucers it seems as if they may have arrived in 1959/60. The facilities there, although home to secret CIA and possibly National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) aircraft have primarily been operated as US Air Force Flight Test Centre Detachment 3 (AFFTC Det 3). AFFTC is headquartered at Edwards Air Force Base, formerly Muroc Field. It is vital for the reader to understand that Silver Bug, Project Y and in fact all the saucer programmes we now know about had very strong links with the US Air Force.

In fact, Dr.Miethe worked primarily for the USAF even though he was sub-contracted to AVRO - possibly as a cover for the real efforts underway in the USA whereby the design work was undertaken in Canada and the majority of test flights within US borders. Having said that there was a mention of Canadian saucers made in several newspaper articles and books in the early 1950s. Even Donald Keyhoe notes a conversation with an informedî source on this subject in his populist Flying Saucers From Outer Spaceî (1953).

More interesting was an article featured in Look magazine dated June 14th 1955 (Volume 19) which featured a design study for a flying saucer produced by Thomas Turner, an British aeronautical engineer with Republic Aviation Corporation. It would seem that Turner might have had some knowledge of Silver Bug if only because his proposal for a flying saucer was almost exactly the same as the ATIC aircraft. In addition Turnerís proposal includes use of the Coanda effect and the placing of a pilot in a prone position in order to allow for high acceleration and quick turns.

Both these would seem to come from an understanding of German projects the skeptics deny existed. Other notable features of the article include the use of language, for instance the following which reminds us of the introduction to the Project Silver Bug report:

Future airports built for vertically rising flying saucers would have no need of the long, vulnerable runwayís todayís fighters require. The complete operation could go underground. Tunnels with take-off shafts set into the ground, complete with maintenance bays, fuel and crew quarters, would be bombproofed shelters for a saucer squadron. The shafts would be sealed after take-off for camouflage and protection.î

This sounds rather like the need for dispersed base operations discussed in the Silver Bug document. I further suggest that we now have a possible primary source for Renate Vescoís insistence that flying saucer bases were situated in the wilds of Canada in a ëremote area of British Columbiaí. A picture of such a saucer base is shown in the article and reproduced in this report. The quality is not that good: The article quoted Brigadier General Benjamin Kelsey (Deputy Director, Air Force Research and Development) who commented that a major problem was the existence of longer runways for the modern fighter and how these were vulnerable and might be destroyed through a single crippling enemy strike. Hence the need for VTOL operations. The article included above is of the utmost importance: in the mid-1950s at the same time that both the US Air Force and CIA were attempting to play down the significance of flying saucer and UFO reports there is substantial evidence to suggest that design teams were building and testing flying saucer prototypes.

Although it has proved difficult to find out about the reality or otherwise of a separate saucer-testing facility situated at Papoose Lake within Area 51 Bill Rose has been given information that this was the HQ for much saucer prototype testing and that several accidents and crashes resulted from use of early radial-flow engines.

More recently the unusual story of archeologist and historian Jerry Freeman emerged in a series if article published in the well-known Las Vegas Sun newspaper. Simply stated, Freeman wanted to find evidence of a 19th Century pioneer wagon train known as the lost ë49ersî. Unfortunately for him, and for history, their remains lay within the boundaries of Area 51! Undeterred, Freeman decided to go on an expedition into the twilight zone and after several days reached Papoose Dry Lake.

He saw a security vehicle in the exact same place that the claimed S4 facilities were hidden and also thought that he saw come sort of door opening in the rock face. It is possible, that electrogravitic systems have been tested both at the Papoose and Groom Lake facilities.

It might be sensible, at this stage, to note the existence of several texts on the question of future propulsion systems for flying discs written in the 1950s. One of these, entitled Electrogravitics Systemsî mentions a research project called Project Winterhavenî undertaken in 1952 in order to validate Thomas Townsend Brownsí Biefeld-Brownî effect. The report in question makes for fascinating reading and states that:

Using a number of assumptions as to the nature of gravity, the report postulated a saucer as the basis of a possible interceptor with Mach 3 capability. Creation of a local gravitational system would confer upon the fighter the sharp-edged changes of motion typical in space.î

And that:

Glenn Martin say gravity control could be achieved in six years, but they add that it would entail a Manhattan District type effort to bring it about.î

The reader will perhaps not be surprised to learn that once again this report was kept away from public view for some 35 years by Air Force Aeronautical Laboratories atÖÖ..Wright Patterson AFB! It was declassified and made available through the Technical Library in the early 1990s.

Whatever the final truth of the matter, we have done enough to establish that flying saucers grew from separate and distinct German-American projects begun in World War Two.

Relatively primitive German discs must have been developed partly because of the failure of the Luftwaffe to defend Axis airfields from allied bombing and the resulting need for VTOL operation. The V173 that became the XF5U1 and later a jet-powered flying pancakeî was born out of a US Navy requirement for an STOL aircraft.

So why the secrecy?

A number of simple answers emerge: firstly the radial-flow engine is still advanced today. It allows for supersonic flight and tremendous VTOL performance. A revolutionary propulsion technology, electrostatics, might threaten the economic status quo. A circular wing offers good stealth capability and effective handling at low speeds. According to the Silver Bug documentation, radial-flow allows for an aircraft to perform a range of staggering maneuvers including flying edge-on - a characteristic noted in numerous flying saucer/UFO sightings.

It would seem that even if the most straightforward flying saucer stories are to be believed then these aircraft have been used primarily as high-performance reconnaissance vehicles.

The psychological effects of seeing a flying saucer could only be heightened if it was unknownî to the observer - an aircraft that did not appear in anything more than pulp fiction tracts about terrifying close encounters with aliens and which was regarded pretty much as a product of science fiction not science fact. Never forget the CIA memorandum circulated in 1952 by Director Walter B.Smith which noted the possible use of flying saucers for the purposes of psychological warfare.

There is also the whole, and unresolved, political question of the mass transportation of nazi scientists and their families, some with dubious wartime records, to the USA under the secret Paperclip programme. Although the existence of Paperclip was known in the early postwar period the actual shocking details of the deals between victor and vanquished led to great concern particularly by those who survived the horrors of concentration camps and/or forced labour under German occupation. Although Paperclip may have resulted in technological achievements the moral position is certainly open to question.

It would seem that the Soviets may have had their saucers too and undoubtedly more is to emerge from the archives there. As a result the US would undoubtedly have been concerned to build the similar and competing aircraft that was Silver Bug. Once again, such Soviet work would have been based upon recovered German, not alien, technologies and there has been some suggestion that the Soviets did indeed develop flying saucers. Jan Aldrichís Project 1947î has sought to collate information about early flying saucers sightings and media reports.

One of these reports may have originated via Project Wringer, a postwar effort tasked with interviewing military, industrial and other personnel of former Axis countries, Prisoners of War held in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations or displaced persons with intelligence or military information. Jan Aldrich found the following report whilst undertaking research at the US National Archives:

10. SOURCE: EP 134892, Rpt. No. 5418-47758 dated 19th January 1954. Date of Observation: May 1953.

Preamble: During his internment in PW camp #1 in STALINGRAD (48/42N 44/30E) SOURCE ????? some ???? of general interest and ??? allegedly observed a couple of flying saucers. SOURCE was always interned in the camp. He understood a little Russian.î

Flying saucers: SOURCE emphasized that he had never seen or heard anything of flying saucers before he observed two of them on a dusty morning over Stalingrad in May 1953 when he was on guard within the camp. He observed them in a rather high altitude flying fast in one direction, one following the other. Thinking they had something to do with scientific research of Russia he forgot about his observation until he came back home in Oct.1953 and saw designs of flying saucers in West European magazines. He could not provide further details.î

It is difficult to know what to make of such reports except to point out that they were taken seriously by operatives within the intelligence community. In fact, all the evidence we have - some of which is included in my forthcoming book entitled UFO Revelation - is that in the early 1950s there was a reorientation of thinking relating to flying saucer sightings whereby the CIA, particularly, chose to concentrate upon attacking the veracity of flying saucer reports by doubting the credibility of the witness. At the same time, the Agency knew, as Haines admits, that saucer prototypes were under construction.

Study of the many CIA documents made available through FOIA requests indicates that the CIA was misleading the public. The Agency often directed requests for information on flying saucer sightings to the Air Technical Intelligence Centre (ATIC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Whilst both the Agency and ATIC were claiming that they were unable to determine the origin of flying saucers ATIC/WADC were working upon Silver Bug - and maybe more besides. In addition to this, Project Grudge had recently been downgraded (March 1952) and redesignated Blue Book and this was headquartered atÖ..Wright-Patterson Air Force Base!!. In any case Blue Book investigators were unable to explain away some 701 of 12,918 sightings they investigated. Project Blue Book was downgraded through the 1950s to the stage where there was only a handful of personnel working on UFO sightings.

In fact, according to David Jacobs, the downgrading took place after September 1953 and went hand in hand with Air Force regulation 200-2 which stated that local Air Force base commanders could only discuss sightings if they had been solved and that any others should be classified. Jacobs also notes that February 1955 (Silver Bug was released from ATIC-WADC on the 15th February) was of significance because ATIC sought to explain away as many sightings as possible and to leave no unsolved cases.

Project Blue Book Special Report Number 14 , dated May 5th, 1955 and release in October determined that;

On the basis of this study we believe that no objects such as those popularly described as flying saucers have overflown the United States.î

We now know that this was a lie:

CIA officials knew that the British and Canadians were already experimenting with flying saucersî. Project Y was a Canadian-British-US developmental operation to produce a non-conventional flying-saucer-type aircraft, and Agency official feared that the Soviets were testing similar devices.î

The downgrading and the debunking of UFO reports was deliberate and took place at exactly the same time that the US was working upon advanced flying saucers. Once this is understood and established the official attitudes towards flying saucer sightings make more sense. Secrecy, and perhaps even paranoia, appear to have gripped the intelligence community and the USAF. Even now, some forty five years after Silver Bug was test-flown former project workers remain tight-lipped. We can only conclude that silence in this case indicates particularly advanced technologies and the need to keep a lid on the details relating to them.

One could easily make a case that the development and debunking of flying saucers was undertaken at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and it is to be hoped that this document will encourage people with information about US saucer projects to come forward. It is up to UFO researchers to reorient their thinking, to come to terms with man-made flying saucer reality and the ongoing cover-up relating to itÖ.

The case for man-made UFOs is stronger than ever whereas the evidence for alien flying saucersî is wholly untenable. We have introduced here a new line of research and a new perspective on UFO reality. Beyond the fantastic claims and mystification of UFOs by too many UFO researchersî the painful truth is that flying saucers were, and are, a tremendous human technical achievement. The truth is that serious research exists only beyond the unfortunate skeptic-believer dialectic.

Surely it is to the military-industrial complex and not the heavens above that we should look for the origins of the flying saucerÖÖ

Tim Matthews, April 1998.

More photos of the HO-IX
SIGHTINGS HOMEPAGE