- BOISE (AP) - Where others see unfathomable mysteries or supermarket-tabloid
fodder, Linda Moulton Howe sees a great story in need of an ending. Howe,
a former Miss Boise and Miss Idaho, has spent the past 19 years as an investigative
journalist trying to find hard evidence regarding unexplained phenomena.
They range from cattle mutilations and crop-circle formations to UFO sightings
and reports of human abduction by aliens. Hundreds of interviews, an Emmy
Award and three books later, Howe is convinced of some truths she believes
are out there.
"We are not alone in the universe, and the government of the United
States at least has known that since the 1940s, if not earlier," said
Howe, who now lives in Jamison, Pa. "Coming out of the World War II
environment, there was a decision by the Truman administration that Americans
and the world were not going to get any facts about this extraterrestrial
presence." Some of Howe's latest interviews and research can be found
in her new 440-page book, "Glimpses of Other Realities, Vol. 2: High
Strangeness" (Paper Chase Press, New Orleans). It's the second of
her two volumes on unexplained phenomena. Her latest book arrives at a
time when interest in such mysteries and belief in alien visitation pervade
popular culture. Fox TV's "The X-Files" series has brought the
murky subjects of aliens, government conspiracy and other mysteries into
American living rooms every week. "The X-Files" even has incorporated
some of Howe's research into its scripts. Howe also contributes weekly
reports on science and the environment, as well as alien mysteries, on
Art Bell's popular nightly radio program "Coast to Coast," and
his Sunday show "Dreamland."
One of Howe's "Dreamland" reports two years ago focused on anomalous
activity in Utah's Uintah Basin, particularly in the vicinity of a ranch
then owned by Terry and Gwen Sherman. The Shermans' accounts of UFOs, unusual
animal deaths and floating baseball-sized balls of light, first chronicled
in the Deseret News, intrigued Las Vegas philanthropist Robert Bigelow.
He has since purchased the ranch and moved in a team of scientists to study
activity there and in the surrounding area. Idaho's own X-Files can be
found in the field research of Ike Bishop, chief investigator and Idaho
state director of the Mutual UFO Network, a group of people who investigate
reports of unexplained sightings. Bishop has traded information with Howe
and said he respects her investigative ability. "She is probably the
most pre-eminent UFO investigator in the world," Bishop said. "She
checks things out before she talks about them. She gives Art Bell a lot
of credibility." Although Howe might appreciate the compliment, she
regards herself as a television producer and investigative reporter, not
a UFO investigator. "My beat has basically been in science and medicine
and the environment my entire career," said Howe, who was born in
Boise 56 years ago. "I had been producing television programs and
documentary films for 11 years before I ever made my first phone calls
to find out what was happening with unusual animal deaths around the world."
Howe nearly became an astronomer. As a girl, she was always interested
in the stars. Her father, Chet Moulton, was director of aeronautics in
Idaho until the late 1970s. After graduating from Boise High School in
1960, she entered and won the Miss Boise and Miss Idaho pageants, which
paid her way through college. After a professor sparked a love of English
in college, she knew she wanted to be a reporter. She has a master's degree
from Stanford University and has worked for television stations in Burbank,
Calif.; Boston; Denver; and Atlanta.
It was during her tenure in Denver in 1979 that she first investigated
reports of farm animals that were found with internal organs removed in
a strange, almost surgical manner. "I had no preconceived idea of
what I was getting into beyond the fact that there were hundreds, if not
thousands, of cases all reporting the same bloodless excisions of cattle,
pigs, cows and sheep. "The two most unusual features that law enforcement
always noted was the lack of blood in excisions that were cookie-cutter
precise, and that there were no tracks around these animals " even
on wet dirt. That's what forced law enforcement to look to the sky."
Law enforcement personnel and scientists have been unable to explain the
technology used in the mutilations, or who or what mutilated the animals.
"Hemoglobin is cooked. Collagen is cooked," Howe said.
"You can't do that at low temperatures. If it's a laser, where is
the carbon? There is no carbon residue in the cows." Throughout her
work on alien mysteries, she has struggled to get sources on the record
" to use their full names. Fear of ridicule keeps many silent. She
says fear of government retribution also keeps many military people quiet.
Howe wrote a book about the mutilation mystery, "An Alien Harvest."
She went on to write about more alien mysteries in her book, "Glimpses
of Other Realities, Vol. I." Howe said she is not out to prove the
existence of UFOs but to uncover facts. The appendix of Vol. 2 contains
copies of purported government documents leaked to her that admit the existence
of aliens and confirm a cover-up. "This is serious. This has nothing
to do with a believe system," she said. "We're talking about
men and women who have served in highly sensitive positions in the United
States military and intelligence agencies, with high clearances. "These
people are the same people who have talked to me and a few others about
the fact that our government has had knowledge about extraterrestrial biological
entities, and that Truman made the executive order in 1947 that put all
of this under a lid. "This is a story the entire human family on this
planet deserves to have knowledge about."
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