UFO ROUNDUP Volume 3 Number 49
Volume 3
Number 49
December 7, 1998
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
UFOs SEEN BY MANY IN SOUTHERN DELAWARE
Tuesday morning, December 1, 1998, started out in a routine manner for Dan Gafney, the popular talk-show host on radio station WGMD, 92.7 FM, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware (population 1,250). But at 7 a.m., the telephone rang, and the first caller reported a UFO.
According to Gafney, before the show ended, he had received "over 50 calls" from listeners throughout Sussex County, Delaware reporting unidentified flying objects.
The UFOs were seen on Monday night, November 30, 1998 "all over southern Delaware," Gafney reported, with callers describing "a bright blue/white light...some said green, also." The UFOs were described as "large and round."
"People are still talking about it," he added.
UFOs were seen over a large area between Milford, Del. (population 6,040) to Bethany Beach, Del. (population 110). Milford is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Dover, the state capital. Rehoboth Beach is 26 miles (41 kilometers) southeast of Milford. And Bethany Beach is 13 miles (21 kilometers) due south of Rehoboth Beach.
One man reported "what appeared to be a large blue light that was moving all over erratically," adding that "the smaller lights appeared to be coming from the larger lights.
Another caller reported seeing "a strange blue-green rain that was coming down from them."
Local researcher Jane Segal received a phone call from friends saying that, during the WGMD broadcast, "fighters from Dover Air Force Base were flying all over the region. Gray planes were flying as low as a crane as far north as Middletown."
Middletown (population 3,834) is on Highway 71 near the Pennsylvania state line, located about 26 miles (41 kilometers) northwest of Dover. (Many thanks to Dan Gafney and Jane Segal for the email interviews.)
UFOs DOMINATE NIGHT SKY OVER ARKANSAS
Arkansas, home state of President William Jefferson Clinton, has been the scene of much UFO activity during the past month.
On Wednesday, November 11, 1998, at 11:55 a.m., Ms. R.M. Jones drove through Alexander, Arkansas (Ark.), a town on Interstate Highway 30 about 13 miles (21 kilometers) southwest of Little Rock, the state capital. As she was heading south on the highway, she looked up and spotted two daylight discs flying through the sky.
"They were beautiful," Ms. Jones reported, "Although they were both discs, they did not look the same. The first was larger, white, more stationary and lasted longer. The second was a white cigar sort of thing, sort of shimmery. They were larger than any star or planet. I watched each craft for several minutes." (See Filer's Files #46 for 1998. Many thanks to George A. Filer of MUFON for this report.)
On Tuesday, November 10, 1998, "Frank Caruso and his friends saw something besides the 300-plus buzzards they were looking for near Valley Airport," located near Mountain Home, Ark. (population 9,029).
According to the Baxter Bulletin of Mountain Home, Caruso said "he and friends Jim Bradley and Jim Fishwick saw what they call 'a gold-like object' in the southern sky along the White River around 5:10 p.m. Tuesday. The three men were watching a large number of buzzards roost when when the object appeared in the distance behind the birds."
"'It was too far away to tell what shape it was,' Caruso said, adding it slowed down and had a trail of gold-looking vapors that dissipated quickly. He said the object was in the sky for at least two minutes."
"'I've worked with gold and silver before,' he said, 'but it wasn't really either color--it's hard to explain exactly what color it was, but it was sort of gold-ish.'"
"The Bulletin contacted Beaver County Sheriff's officials and Mountain Home Police personnel, who said they had not received any reports of the object." (See the Baxter Bulletin for November 11, 1998, "UFO? Trio claims to have seen 'gold' object," by Bruce Roberts.)
"Another man who lives near Valley Airport, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Bulletin Wednesday that he saw two 'powerful lights' in the same general area at the top of a mountain Monday night (November 9, 1998)."
"'I know it wasn't a car or truck,' the man said. 'It was too bright, and, besides, there's no way a vehicle can get to the top of that mountain--the forest is too dense, and there are no roads.'"
"The man said he 'doesn't believe in aliens' and has never seen a UFO, but he was sure of the lights, which he said stayed in one place for about 25 minutes."
"Early the next morning, at around 3 a.m., the man's dogs awoke him, 'raising hell.'"
"'They never bark,' he said. 'Unless there's somebody at the door. I didn't see anybody, so I told them to shut up, and I went back to bed.'" (See the Baxter Bulletin for November 12, 1998, "'UFO' mystery continues," by Bruce Roberts.)
The sightings are being investigated by MUFON investigator Christine Lippert.
Mountain Home, Ark. is on Highway 5 about 175 miles (280 kilometers) north of Little Rock.
On Sunday, November 29, 1998, at 7:55 , a witness who asked to remain anonymous "was at my brother's yard" in West Memphis, Ark. "when I looked up and saw a triangle-shaped craft flying just above the tree tops. I got a good look at it because the streetlights were shining on the bottom of the shiny silver craft. It had dim yellow lights on each corner. It was flying horizontal to the ground, and then the nose of it rose to a 45-degree angle, and it kept flying straight ahead. The craft then turned sharply to the left and disappeared behind the tree line."
He added that within minutes "several low-flying planes began circling" the area "for 30 seconds, and then they left also."
West Memphis (population 28,259) is located along Highway 70 approximately 129 miles (206 kilometers) east of Little Rock. (Many thanks to Michael J. Long of Mississippi UFO Files for this report. Thanks also to Lou Farrish of UFO Newsclipping Service for the articles from the Baxter Bulletin.)
UFO SEEN IN OKLAHOMA CITY DURING A LEONID METEOR SHOWER
On Tuesday, November 17, 1998, at 4:10 a.m., Bill M. and Carroll Y. decided to take a break from work and go outdoors to watch the Leonid meteor storm. "We work the night shift together and had a little lull in activity allowing us to do so," Bill said.
For five minutes, they stood in the parking lot of their workplace in Oklahoma City, "then Carroll shouted, 'Look! What the hell is that!?"
"That's when we saw the bright light for about two to four seconds," Bill reported. "The light was brighter than any seen before, be it plane landing lights or otherwise. Then it extinguished."
"As we were discussing its origin, we witnessed approximately ten meteors. Then he (Carroll) again shouted and pointed in almost the same direction" at a UFO, which he described as "at the front were three orange-colored lights traveling northeast to southwest in a triangular position. The lights were traveling at the same speed, as if they were attached to the same object. We stared at this until it was out of vision (view). The whole encounter lasted about 10 to 12 seconds."
Bill added that he is "willing to submit to a polygraph test," if necessary. (Many thanks to Jim Hickman of Skywatch International for forwarding this report.)
LARGE UFO SIGHTED SOUTH OF MONTREAL
On Sunday, November 29, 1998, at 10:30 p.m., Jenifer Migneault and her husband were driving on Highway 10 in Quebec, Canada, between the cities of Montreal and Sherbrooke (population 76,429).
"My husband and I were coming back from a dinner with friends," Mrs. Migneault reported. "Our two children were sleeping in the car seat, in the back seat. They didn't see a thing."
But the Migneaults did! "We saw 15 white lights circling far above the clouds," she reported. "Ten lights formed a semi-oval shape, and five others formed a smaller one inside the larger one. We didn't see it approach. It was already there when we got on the highway. Since it was located above the clouds, all we could see were the lights spinning on themselves (revolving--J.T.) and the whole thing moving."
Mrs. Migneault said, "The moves it made were of a C shape" and "25 minutes we had it in view."
"When we stepped out of the car to look at it, we turned off the ignition to see if any noise was coming out of the thing. But we didn't hear anything. It was dreadfully silent. We left before it did. We kept an eye contact with it (kept it in view--J.T.) for at least 20 kilometers (12 miles)." (Email Interview)
UFO HOVERS OVER A HOUSE IN KIRKINTILLOCH, SCOTLAND
On Sunday, November 29, 1998, at 3:28 a.m., David Walker reported, "I was awoken by something... I was aware of a bright light which I thought was an aircraft coming in to land, as I never aware of a star as bright as this."
"I was about to go back to sleep when I saw the object move. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. If it was an aircraft, it could not possibly have moved in such a way. I watched as the object split in two, and the two lights started to dance around each other in figures of eight and circles. They seemed to be at play."
Instantly David roused everyone in the household at Kirkintilloch, Scotland. "I was totally transfixed by this and could not take my eyes off the objects...I was frightened by what I saw, and I knew this was not a dream...and it was my mother who also witnessed the phenomenon before it ceased." (Many thanks to Ben Field and BUFOD and Errol Bruce-Knapp for this report.)
UFOs CONVERGE ON BRISBANE
Brisbane, the largest city in Queensland state, Australia, reported three UFO encounters last week.
On Wednesday, December 2, 1998, at 7:30 p.m., Troy S. was in Brisbane's Clayfield section when he spotted a "bright white light four times the size of Venus" moving across the night sky. Then "it took off in a straight-line course to the horizon faster than any plane I had ever seen before."
Also on December 2, at 11:55 p.m., Peter Mac and five friends were in Hill End, Brisbane when they saw "a flaming orange ball of light travelling from east to west, travelling around the same speed of a plane." He estimated the UFO to be "30 meters in size," adding "it went to the top of Mount Cootoothla and disappeared."
The same evening, at 10:30 p.m., a college couple in East Brisbane had a strange "missing time" experience.
The woman reported, "My boyfriend went out to pack his bag (with textbooks). When he came back into the bedroom, he found the clock to read 12:25 a.m. I got up to check the clock in the kitchen. It also read 12:25 a.m."
Although they believed that he'd only been gone a few minutes to gather his textbooks, the apartment's clocks showed that two hours had passed, two hours for which the couple had no memory." (Many thanks to Diane Harrison of UFO Network Australasia and Robert Frola of UFO investigation Centre-Queensland for these reports.)
SLOVENIAN UFOLOGIST SAYS LJUBLJANA CASE A HOAX
Milos Krmelj, MUFON representative for Slovenia and a ufologist with 32 years of investigative experience, said the recent UFO sighting at Ljubljana Barje was "a radio hoax."
The sighting, reported in last week's UFO Roundup, was said to have taken place on October 29, 1998. According to Krmelj, "On that date was the 60th anniversary of the famous Orson Welles radio play," War of the Worlds, "about a Martian attack on Earth."
Krmelj said CNN reported the anniversary in Slovenia, and the station, Radio Slovenija VAL202 (98.9 FM), aired the false UFO report as a joke.
"And they later admitted they were joking," Krmelj added, "so that report is of no value. It was just one of those hoaxes put out by irresponsible reporters."
Krmelj began investigating UFOs in 1966. He is the author of one book on the subject and used to edit a small Slovenian magazine devoted to UFOs. (Many thanks to Milos Krmelj and Errol Bruce-Knapp for this report.)
ENDEAVOUR LINKS UP WITH ZARYA IN ORBIT
On Friday, December 4, 1998, the space shuttle Endeavour "lifted off at 3:35 a.m. with a brilliant white flash" to "begin assembling the international space station--a complex and risky project that could have its white-knuckle moments." (See the Boston, Mass. Herald for December 5, 1998, page 2)
The launch came 24 hours after a warning light aborted Thursday's planned launch.
"Endeavour has just a ten-minute window-- from 3:31 a.m. to 3:41 a.m. to be launched... Thursday the clock ran out on the attempt. A cockpit alarm that sounded four-and-a-half minutes before a planned 3:38 a.m. liftoff forced managers to stop the countdown while they studied the problem." (See USA Today for December 4, 1998, page A-3.)
During the 12-day flight, Endeavour's crew will attempt to link and activate two components of the space station. Russian-built Zarya is already in orbit. The shuttle carried the second station component, the module Unity, a docking tunnel with multiple ports that costs $300 million.
Endeavour's commander is Bob Cabana, 49, a U.S. Marine Corps colonel from Minneapolis, Minn.
Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, 40, is a veteran of one shuttle mission and two missions aboard the Russian space station Mir. He will be inspecting his future home on this flight. Once the international space station is completed, Krikalev will be a member of the first crew to board her in January 2000.
Shuttle pilot Rick Sturckow, 37, of Lakeside, Cal. is a Gulf War veteran. This is his first spaceflight.
"Once Zarya and Unity are docked, spacewalkers Jerry Ross and Jim Newman will go to work... Ross, 50, an Air Force colonel from Crown Point, Ind. will ride at the end of the arm on the first and third spacewalks while Newman steps into space on a tether. Ross is NASA's most experienced spacewalker with 23 hours on four excursions."
(Editor's Note: Jerry Ross is living his boyhood dream. Way back in 1959, when Ross was in the fourth grade, he resolved to join the astronaut corps.)
"Newman, 42, who is a computer expert from San Diego, will ride the arm on the second spacewalk. He has made one previous spacewalk lasting seven hours."
"Ross and Newman will have to hook up 40 electrical cables between Unity and Zarya. They'll also install communication antennae, handrails and other items on the outside of the station."
The crew member with the trickiest job is Nancy Currie, 39, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel from Troy, Ohio. "Currie will operate the shuttle's 50-foot-long robotic arm nearly every day of Endeavour's 12-day mission. Among other things she'll hoist Unity, a 12-ton piece of the station, out of the shuttle's cargo bay. Then she'll use the arm to grab Zarya... and bring it to within six inches of Unity, so the two can be joined in space." (See USA Today for December 2, 1998, "Construction crew set to blast off" by Paul Hovenstern, page A-3)
Endeavour achieve a rendezvous with Zarya on Sunday, December 6, 1998. The shuttle was flying at 50 miles per second when the Russian module appeared in its windshield.
"'We've got a tallyho (visual sighting) on Zarya,' Cabana told mission control in Houston, after the firing at 2:36 p.m. 'It's a real bright star out there.'"
"Mission commander Robert Cabana lit the two engines on either side of Endeavour's tail to slow the shuttle's advance..."
The firing slowed the shuttle from 50 miles per second to 5 miles per second, which matches Zarya's orbital speed.
"Cabana and pilot Rick Sturckow will employ a series of brakes and thrusts to bring Zarya within reach of Endeavour and its payload, the Unity module." (See the New York Daily News for December 7, 1998, "Shuttle's Russian to an orbit hookup," page 2.)
THE ROMANOVS AND THE ORENBURG CONNECTION
For years some people have claimed that Princess Anastasia escaped the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg, Russia, when her family was shot by the Bolsheviks. Now a new book claims that her brother, Czarevich Alexei, also escaped.
"On the night of July 17, 1918, when, according to the historical record, the Czar (Nicholas II), the Czarina (Alexandra), their five children and four servants were shot dead by the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg, the 14-year-old boy somehow managed to survive and escape with the help of two friendly Bolshevik executioners."
According to the new book, THE ESCAPE OF ALEXEI, "He was taken to Shadrinsk, 100 miles away, where he was adopted by a peasant family name Filatov. The czarevich was famously a hemophiliac...yet his gunshot wounds miraculously healed, thanks to herbal remedies and raw meat prescribed by the tribal peoples of the far north. For the next few years he roamed as an orphan across the country, settling in 1930 in the Tyumen region of Siberia, where he trained as a teacher. In 1967, Filatov and his wife moved to Orenburg." (See the New York Times for November 22, 1998, Review of Books, page 46)
In addition to being the site of numerous UFO encounters during the Nineteenth Century, the city of Orenburg was also a "way station" on the Russian mystics' "underground railroad" to the Himalayas.
Vasily Filatov, the reputed Romanov survivor, lived in Orenburg until his death in 1988. Five years earlier, in 1983, he entrusted the secret of his true identity to his son, Oleg Filatov.
THE ESCAPE OF ALEXEI offers strong evidence that a band of Himalayan masters may have tried to save the Romanovs in 1918.
Czarina Alexandra owned a swastika pendant that had been given to her by her controversial advisor, Grigori Efrimovich Rasputin.
Rsputin had a close friend in St. Petersburg named P.A. Badmaev. Born on the shores of Lake Baikal in 1851, Badmaev studied to be a doctor in St. Petersburg. No sooner had he established his practice, however, then he suddenly pulled up stakes in 1875 and traveled to Tibet. He spent over ten years in the Himalayas before returning to Russia, settling first in Orenburg and later in St. Petersburg.
Badmaev specialized in "Tibetan healing" and herbal medicine. He died in 1919.
(Editor's Note: In Japan, this Himalayan tradition is called mikkyo. A wandering sage named Momochi Sandhayu traveled in the Himalayas for several years before founding the temple Eihoji-dera at Hojiro in south central Japan, considered to be the seat of mikkyo study in the islands.)
Badmaev was also linked to the czarina through A.D. Protopopov, another one of her close advisors.
One of the Yekaterinburg assassins, Sergei Ivanovich Lyukhanov, was born in Chelyabinsk in 1875 and lived in Orenburg in the 1890s, before taking a job at the Chelyabinsk power station. He was in Orenburg when Badmaev returned from Tibet.
If Lyukhanov was a double agent, if he was a secret acolyte of the Badmaev group, then that might explain some of his curious actions at the time of the Romanov murders. Lyukhanov might have been one of the "friendly Bolshevik executioners" who reportedly helped Alexei escape.
from the UFO Files...
1909: UFO TRAILS A TROLLEY IN MASSACHUSETTS
Continuing our look back at New England's "airship invasion" of 1909, UFO Roundup presents yet another strange sighting that took place the evening of December 22, 1909, when supposed "airship inventor" Wallace J. Tillinghast was at his home in Worcester.
"Among those who got a good look at the ship as it swiftly speeded along was Motorman Gary Lane of the Boston & Worcester Street Railway. He saw it about 6:20 (p.m.) between Marlboro and Hudson as he was driving his (trolley) car, and the ship kept ahead of him all the way to Marlboro. The ship carried a bright light and attracted the attention of large crowds of people as it passed along."
After pacing Lane's streetcar to Marlboro, the UFO flew west toward Clinton. Halfway there, it suddenly veered southward and returned to Worcester. Since its first appearance over the city, word had spread, and now two thousand people stood on Main Street, hoping for a glimpse of the "airship."
The object "traveled from 800 to 1,000 feet above the earth, for a time passing up and down over the entire center of the city from east to west, and later describing circles nearly over City Hall. When the light appeared, there was a slight fall of snow, and the moon and the stars were not visible. These conditions remained the same up to about 9 o'clock when the light disappeared to the southwest." (See the Marlboro, Mass. Enterprise for December 23, 1909, page 1; and the Pawtucket, R.I. Times for December 23, 1909, page 4. See also Fortean Studies, Volume 1, "The New England Airship Invasion of 1909," by Joseph Trainor, pages 63 and 64.)
That's it for this week. Seven days from now, we'll know what happened (if anything) in Payson, Arizona. And if Jerry Ross and Jim Newman were able to hook up all forty of those electrical conduits linking Unity and Zarya. Join us then for more saucer news from around the planet, brought to you by "the paper that goes home-- UFO Roundup. See you then.
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1998 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post news items from UFO Roundup on their websites or in newsgroups provided that they credit the newsletter and its editor by name and list the date of issue in which the item first appeared.
