- This encounter occurred in 1971, while aboard the aircraft
carrier, USS John F. Kennedy CVA-67 (now CV-67) in the Bermuda Triangle.
I was assigned to the communications department of the Kennedy and had
been in this section about a year. The ship was returning to Norfolk, VA
after completing a two week operational readiness exercise (ORE) in the
Caribbean. We were to stand do
 wn for 30 days,
after arriving in Norfolk, Virginia, to allow the crew to take leave and
visit family before deploying to the Mediterranean for six months.
-
- I was on duty in the communications center. My task was
to monitor eight teletypes printing the "Fleet Broadcasts". On
the top row were four teletypes each printing messages from four different
channels. On the bottom row were four more doing the exact same thing except
the signal was carried on different frequencies. If one of the primary
receivers started taking "hits" I would be able to retrieve the
message from the bottom one. I also notified Facilities Control of any
hits so they could tune the receivers. On the other side of the compartment(room)
was the NAVCOMMOPNET (Naval Communications Operations Network). This was
the Ship to Shore circuit with the top teletype being the receive and the
bottom as the send (known as a duplex circuit). Next to this was the Task
Group Circuit for ship to ship communications (task group operations or
TGO).
-
- It was in the evening, about 20:30 (8:30 PM) and the
ship had just completed an eighteen hour "Flight Ops". I had
just taken a message off one of the broadcasts and turned around to file
it on a clip board. When I turned back to the teletypes the primaries were
typing garbage. I looked down to the alternates which were doing the same.
I walked a few feet to the intercom between us and the Facilities Control.
I called them and informed them of the broadcasts being out. A voice replied
that all communications were out. I then turned and looked in the direction
of the NAVCOMMOPNET and saw that the operator was having a problem. I then
heard the Task Group operator tell the watch officer that his circuit was
out also. In the far corner of the compartment was the pneumatic tubes
going to the Signal bridge (where the flashing light and signal flag messages
are sent/receive). There is an intercom there to communicate with the Signal
Bridge and over this intercom we heard someone yelling "There is something
hovering over the ship!" A moment later we heard another voice yelling.
"IT IS GOD! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!".
-
- We all looked at each other, there were six of us in
the Comm Center, and someone said, "Lets go have a look!". The
Comm Center is amidships, just under the flight deck, almost in the center
of the ship. We went out the door, through Facilities Control and out that
door, down the passageway (corridor) about 55 feet to the hatch that goes
out to the catwalk on the edge of the flight deck (oppisite from the "Island"
or that part of the ship where the bridge is). If you have ever been to
sea, there is a time called the time of no horizon. This happens in the
morning and evening just as the sun comes up or goes down over the horizon.
-
- During this time you cannot tell where the sea and sky
meet. This is the time of evening it was. As we looked up, we saw a large,
glowing sphere. Well it seemed large, however, there was no point of reference.
That is to say, if the sphere were low; say 100 feet above the ship, then
it would have been about two to three hundred feet in diameter. If it were
say 500 feet about the ship then it would have been larger. It made no
sound that I could hear. The light coming from it wasn't too bright, about
half of what the sun would be. It sort of pulsated a little and was yellow
to orange.
-
- We didn't get to looked at it for more than about 20
seconds because General Quarters (Battle stations) was sounding and the
Communication Officer was in the passageway telling us to get back into
the Comm Center. We returned and stayed there (that was out battle station).
We didn't have much to do because all the communication was still out.
After about 20 minutes, the teletypes started printing correctly again.
We stayed at General Quarters for about another hour, then secured. I didn't
see or hear of any messages going out about the incident.
-
- Over the next few hours, I talked to a good friend that
was in CIC (combat information center) who was a radar operator. He told
me that all the radar screens were just glowing during the time of the
incident. I also talked to a guy I knew that worked on the Navigational
Bridge. He told me that none of the compasses were working and that the
medics had to sedate a boatswains mate that was a lookout on the signal
bridge. I figured this was the one yelling it was God. It was ironic that
of the 5,000 men on a carrier, that only a handful actually saw this phnomenon.
This was due to the fact that flight Ops had just be completed a short
time before this all started and all the flight deck personnel were below
resting. It should be noted that there are very few places where you can
go to be out in the open air aboard a carrier. From what I could learn,
virtually all electronic components stopped functioning during the 20 minutes
or so that what ever it was hovered over the ship. The two Ready CAPs (Combat
Air Patrol), which were two F-4 Phantoms that are always ready to be launched,
would not start.
-
- I heard from the scuttlebut (slang - rumor mill) that
three or four "men in trenchcoats" had landed, and were interviewing
the personnel that had seen this phenomena. I was never interviewed, maybe
because no one knew that I had seen it.
-
- A few days latter, as we were approaching Norfolk, the
Commanding and Executive Officers came on the closed circuit TV system
that we had. They did this regularly to address the crew and pass on information.
During this particular session the Captain told us how well we did on the
ORE and about our upcoming deployment to the Mediterranean. At the very
end of his spiel, he said "I would like to remind the crew, that certain
events that take place aboard a Naval Combatant Ship, are classified and
are not to be discussed with anyone without a need to know". This
was all the official word I ever received or heard of the incident.
-
- Being young and excited about my visit home and going
to the Med, I completely forgot about it until years later when my wife
and I went to see "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" at the
movies when it first came out. In fact the friend that had been the radar
operator was with his wife and went with us. As we walked across the parking
lot to my car, I ask him if he remembered what We had experienced years
earlier on the ship. He looked at me and said he never wanted to talk about
it again. As he said it he turned a little pale. I never talked about the
incident again. When I discovered "Aliens and Strange Phenomenon"
on MSN and started reading the posts I started thinking about it again.
Now I seem obsessed in finding out all I can about this phenomena.
-
-
Jim Kopf
Mt. Airy, Maryland
jimkopf@mail.clark.net
http://www.clark.net/pub/jimkopf
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