LETTER OF ENDORSEMENT for the BRIEFING DOCUMENT on UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

As long as men and women have talked about strange sights in the skies, two primary questions have been asked about what has come to be called Unidentified Flying Objects:

1. Are they real, or are they just honest mistakes?

2. If they are real, could they be ships from some other world?

In this century, it started with the "foo fighters" of World War II: glowing balls that flew in formation or "played tag" with military airplanes over Europe and the Pacific. Suspected of being prototype enemy weapons, they never displayed hostility and when the war was over, they were all-but-forgotten.

In 1946, the Scandinavian countries reported many hundreds of "ghost rockets" which flew low and silently, and often slowly. Efforts to blame them on nearby Soviet tests of captured German missiles failed when it was learned that no such tests had taken place.

The first major American wave of sightings of "flying discs" began in the early summer of 1947. Within two weeks, at least 1,000 sightings were recorded of fast silvery discs seen in the daytime. The first military studies concluded they were real and of unknown nature and origin. (2)

>From then on, UFOs seemed to fly at will over all parts of the world: fast and exotic, untouchable and and unproven. By the 1990s, there had been over 100,000 reported sightings, many by airline pilots and military pilots and other qualified witnesses.

Despite the steady accumulation of a vast quantity of information about the appearance and behavior of UFOs, little light has been shed on the two questions posed at the beginning. The armed services and universities, as well as private groups and individuals, have devoted a great amount of time to investigating UFOs, yet there is no consensus about their nature, origins or purpose.

Still, if a close look is taken at the best available evidence, it is possible to deal with what is known about UFOs, and what may reasonably be assumed. The point we will make is that the evidence to support the conclusion that UFOs are unknown aircraft/spacecraft seems to be overwhelming.

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(2) Memo from Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining, Commanding General of the Air Materiel Command, Wright Field, to Gen. Spaatz, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, September 23, 1947.

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Most of what is "known" about UFOs comes from individuals' descriptions of what they say they saw. If the individuals are reliable and knowledgeable about the sky, the information stands a good chance of being useful.

This is the source of the case's "credibility," one of the two primary criteria recognized by the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, long a consultant on UFOs to the U.S. Air Force, and later the founder of the private Center for UFO Studies.

Dr. Hynek's other criterion is "strangeness," meaning the extent to which a reported observation differs from normal airplanes, satellites, meteors, etc. A large aluminum-looking sphere which maneuvers violently and changes speed abruptly, rates higher for "strangeness" than a somewhat peculiar light seen in the night sky.

It is the reports which rate highest in both "credibility" and "strangeness" that form the heart of the UFO mystery. Are they indeed convincing observations of unknown aircraft/spacecraft, or are they merely strangely shaped clouds or balloons seen under unusual lighting conditions, or some other natural or manmade phenomena?

Radar has played a major role in UFO sightings, repeatedly confirming the presence of something unidentified which responds to radar much as an airplane does. Clouds and other weather phenomena show up on radar, but any experienced operator can tell the difference between weather and something solid.

On popular explanation for radar/visual reports is temperature inversion. This was first brought to public attention following two nights of UFO sightings over Washington D.C., in 1952.

Inversions, the cause of mirages, probably never caused these or any other UFO reports. According to a 1969 study by the Air Force Environmental Technical Applications Center, the conditions needed to produce the UFO-like effects attributed to inversions cannot exist in the Earth's atmosphere. (3)

The most thoroughly investigated recent radar/visual UFO sightings occurred in Belgium and Russia. Military jet interceptors were launched following observations from the ground.

Ground-based and airborne radars then confirmed what was being seen visually, including high speeds and violent maneuvers far beyond the capability of the best modern warplanes. In both countries, high government officials admitted they were baffled.

While the human eye can be fooled, and radar can be fooled, it is considered extremely unlikely that both can be fooled, in exactly the same way, at exactly the same time. Thus radar/visual reports rate among the most convincing of all types of UFO sightings.

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(3) Menkello, F.V., "Quantitative Aspects of Mirages," USAF Environmental Technical Applications Center, 1969.

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UFOs have been seen high in the sky, near to the ground, on the ground, and even rising from water. If some UFOs have landed, it is reasonable to suspect that some of them may have left traces behind, and indeed that is the case.

Imprints, residues, charred and broken tree branches and rocks are among the bits of evidence claimed for UFO landings. Furthermore, under microscopic examination, some residues exhibit strange and unusual characteristics.

Perhaps the most well known example of a physical trace case in the United States occurred in 1964 near Socorro, New Mexico, where a policeman reported seeing an egg-shaped craft sitting on slender legs in an open field. When it had flown away, he and a second policeman inspected the area where it had been parked and found depressions in the dirt, as well as still smoldering, blackened shrubs.

The sighting was investigated within two hours by men from U.S. Army Intelligence and the FBI, followed a day later by the chief civilian scientific consultant to Project Blue Book (the official Air Force investigation of UFO sightings).

All agreed that the primary witness was highly reliable. Later, the final director of Blue Book called this case the most puzzling of the approximately 12,500 in his files.

The best documented example of a physical trace case in Europe occurred in Trans-en-Provence, France, where a farmer reported seeing a saucer-shaped craft land on his property and then fly away after a short while.

Physical traces left on the ground were collected by the police within 2 hours and later analyzed in several French government laboratories. Microscopic analyses revealed anomalous biochemical and electromagnetic effects on the soil and vegetation.

The diector of the Service d'Expertise des Phenomenes de Rentrees Atmospheriques (SEPRA, formerly called GEPAN) at the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) describes this case as the most puzzling UFO case in the French government files.

The involvement of the American government in the UFO mystery has long offered its own set of questions. Known investigations have produced ambiguous results, and explanations offered for specific cases have frequently been at odds with scientific reasoning. Sometimes, little-publicized official statements have supported the position that UFOs are real and unexplained.

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(4) Steiger Brad, ed. _Project Blue Book, Ballantine Books, 196.

(5) GEPAN, Note Technique No. 16 Enquete 81/01, _Analyse d'une Trace, Toulouse, March 1, 1983. (English translation published in the MUFON UFO Journal, March 1984.)

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Sometimes statements not intended for the public have been brought to the surface by UFO researchers:

July 30, 1947: "This Flying saucer" situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomena. Something is really flying around. (6)

Sept. 23, 1947: "The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious. " (7)

Oct. 28, 1947. "It is the considered opinion of some elements that the object [sic may in fact represent an interplanetary craft of some kind." (8)

Dec. 10, 1948: "It must be accepted that some type of flying objects have been observed, although their identification and origin are not discernible." (9)

In 1948, the U.S. Air Force opened a publicly-known UFO investigation called Project Sign. Later, it became Project Grudge and finally Project Blue Book. In 1955, the U.S. Air Force released a study of 3,200 UFO reports it had received between 1947 and 1952.

The private Battelle Memorial Institute used the Air Force data to arrive at its own conclusions: of the cases for which there was some conclusion, almost 50% were either unexplained, or doubtfully explained.

Moreover, it was determined that the higher the qualifications of the witnesses, the harder it was to explain the reports in terms of common phenomena. (10)

In 1967, as Project Blue Book was coming under increasing attack from the press and the public, the Air Force contracted with the University of Colorado to make a final study of UFOs.

In contrast to the totally negative statements of the study director, Dr. Edward U. Condon, the body of the f1nal report showed that about 30% of the cases studied were left without explanation.

Comments on individual cases by University of Colorado scientists included:

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(6) Air Force Base Intelligence Report, "Flying Discs," AFBIR-CO, July 30, 1947.

(7) Twining, ibid

(8) Draft Intelligence Collections Memorandum issued by Brig. Gen. George Shulgen, Chief of the Air Intelligence Requirements Division of the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, October 28, 1947.

(9) U.S. Air Intelligence Report 100-203-79, "Analysis of Flying Objects in the U.S.," December 10, 1948.

(10) Air Force Project Blue Book, "Special Report No. 14 (Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects)," May 5, 1955.

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"This is the most puzzling case in the radar/visual files. The apparently rational, intelligent behavior of the UFO suggests a mechanical device of unknown origin as the most probable explanation.

"All factors investigated - geometric, psychological and physical - appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disc-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses. " (11)

Following the recommendation of the University of Colorado, Project Blue Book was ended in late 1969, after almost 22 years of Air Force official investigations. It left behind approximately 12,500 case files, of which 585 were officially declared "Unknown."

This means that the project staff felt it had sufficient information about a case, but were unable to supply a full explanation of it.

Cases lacking sufficient information for meaningful analysis were kept separate. Furthermore, an official memo was released years later, under the Freedom of Information Act, that made it clear that "reports of unidentified flying objects _which could affect national security... are not part of the Blue Book system." [emphasis added].

Such reports "would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose." (12)

In summary, it is apparent that the evidence - visual, radar and physical - strongly suggests that more than mistaken observations of conventional phenomena are involved in many UFO sightings.

Witness testimony, backed up by official U.S. government documents, point toward the presence in the Earths atmosphere of apparently manufactured craft that cannot be explained as mistaken observations of acknowledged aircraft, spacecraft, atmospheric or astronomical phenomena.

UFOs are not anything known, then they must be unknown. What says "unknown" more powerfully than extraterrestrial?" In the absence of any specific knowledge of even a single extraterrestrial civilization, there are no constraints on theorizing about the nature, technology and behavior of one or more hypothesized alien cultures.

But are UFOs extraterrestrial? Lacking proof, we must deal very carefully with any answers. It remains a possibility that some or all of the otherwise unexplained UFO reports will some day be explained in terms of as-yet-unknown natural phenomena, or secret highly advanced man-made aircraft and/or spacecraft.

Nevertheless, there are impressive reasons for speculating about the extraterrestrial origin for some UFOs, namely their shapes and their performance.

Most UFOs observed in daylight, when shapes and details can be seen, have been described as having simple geometric shapes: discs, spheres, cylinders and more recently, triangles.

Disc-shaped airplanes have been flown, but none is known to have exceeded 150 mph, nor to have other capabilities displayed by UFOs. Difficulties in stability and control have so far prevented any disc-shaped aircraft from getting beyond the stage of low-performance prototypes.

Spherical aircraft have so far been limited to gas-filled balloons, whose performance is at the bottom of the speed and maneuverability scales. Balloons can fly only as the wind blows and can be overtaken quickly by airplanes.

Cylindrical aircraft are unknown, as the lack of wings poses huge problems when it comes to such functions as taking off and flying level. Rockets and missiles are cylindrical and certainly are able to fly, but only as the result of great power in relation to their size. They cn only fly upwards up at launch, and on a ballistic curve on their way to a target.

Triangle is the shape of delta-winged airplanes, though the flight characteristics of triangular UFOs removes them from this category.

It is entirely possible that some radical military aircraft having one or more of these shapes are flying from super-secret test facilities. But this would have to be a recent development unable to explain sightings of such craft during most of the past 50 years.

Even more striking than the shapes of UFOs is their performance: speed, acceleration, maneuverability, silence.

Speed. UFOs have been tracked on military radar travelling silently at several thousand miles per hour well within the Earth's atmosphere. An airplane attempting this would create an inescapable sonic boom before melting from friction with the air.

Extreme Acceleration. Airplanes do not visibly accelerate in the air, though they show generally impressive acceleration during take-off. Drag-racing cars and motorcycles accelerate in a manner obvious to even the least experienced observer. In the case of

UFOs, airline and military pilots have reported that they fly at the same speed as an airplane, and then display acceleration common only to anti-missile missiles. Veteran pilots describe their observations with words like "astounding" and "unbelievable."

Extreme Maneuverability. While airplanes can perform abrupt maneuvers, these are generally seen only in air shows. Even then, such flying is more often described by the outside observer as "graceful" rather than "violent," though the pilot may use the latter term. Impossibilities for airplanes (but not, apparently, for UFOs) include right-angle turns at high speed, and zig-zag flight.

Silent Hovering. While helicopters and VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) airplanes can hover, they produce noises whose quality and volume positively identify them. UFOs, on the other hand, appear able to hover with little or no motion for long periods without any sound. This remains well beyond the state of known science, let alone technology.

The U.S. Government, and many other governments, claim that although not all UFO reports can be explained, there is no evidence that Earth has been visited by aliens. Most scientists and leading journalists agree with this position.

However, these same scientists believe that there must be many advanced civilizations on planets orbiting the billions of stars they estimate to exist in the universe.

The gap between these two positions is generally explained by the assumed inability of even the most advanced society to travel the enormous distances separating the Earth from even the nearest stars.

Yet there are thousands of sightings of novel, high-performance craft in our skies, reported by highly skilled and experienced observers. There are also hundreds of other reports of craft seen on the ground, and sometimes of humanoid beings in their vicinity.

The great conflict between official positions and trustworthy observations constitutes the mystery of Unidentified Flying Objects. A possible solution to this mystery is the suggestion that the official position is based on an elaborate cover-up. If it is a cover-up, what then is being protected, and by whom?

The answers to these questions generally focus on the issue of national security as well as fear of the public reaction to an official disclosure of UFO reality and its extraterrestrial origin.

The question of extraterrestrial intention and the frightening aspects of the alleged abduction phenomena could be extremely disturbing. However, many researchers believe that it is the science and technology behind the national security veil which lies at the heart of the secrecy, and that:

- fallen discs are being reverse engineered, repaired and/or copied, and being tested;

- the technology is so advanced that we can barely imagine the science behind it (which could be based on a fundamentally different understanding of gravity and electromagnetic fields);

- whichever nation masters this extraordinary technology will certainly be the most powerful nation on earth;

- in the opinion of those in control, the guarding of this technology for defense purposes, far outweighs its potential value for other purposes - i.e. a non-polluting, cost efficient solution to our present energy and environmental crisis.

There are two major elements to the UFO mystery: the UFOs themselves and the intensive efforts by the governments of the world to withhold information about them. Neither the nature nor the purpose of the governments' actions are clearly understood. But this policy dates back to the latter part of World War II when UFO-like "foo fighters" were being reported by combat pilots.

A report about "foo-fighters" is said to have been prepared in 1945 by the United States Eighth Air Force, but no copy has been seen by the public, despite the passing of a half century. A year later, when "ghost rockets" were seen over Scandinavia, the Swedish Government invoked secrecy and only began to release information 40 years later.

When "flying saucers" appeared over the USA in the summer of 1947, only the most general information was made public, while reports and analyses were kept under wraps, as was the fact that the government was taking the saucers seriously. (13, 14)

The U.S. Air Force ongoing UFO investigation (Project Sign, Project Grudge, and Project Blue Book), collected more than 12,000 reports, most of which were "explained." It was official policy to refuse to comment on "unexplained" cases.

By keeping case details secret, the public was kept from learning that many of the allegedly-explained cases had not been analyzed by generally accepted scientific standards. (15)

In 1976, with the amendment of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act by the U.S. Congress, a mechanism was created for unearthing government UFO information whose very existence had long been denied. Formal requests, followed by appeals and sometimes legal action, produced thousands of pages of previously-classified documents from the Air Force, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and other intelligence-oriented agencies.

It appears, however, that the released information was the least sensitive material in the official files. Almost all the released documents had been classified merely "Confidential" or "Secret," with just a few having been "Top Secret". Many pages of these documents showed the black marks of censorship. In fact, many pages of the voluminous case files of the official U.S. Air Force investigation contained black marks hiding information. (16)

The rapid flow of UFO documents in the 1970s dropped to a slow trickle in the 1980s, but will probably pick up again with the Administration's recent declassification measures. However, since every government agency has at its disposal a long list of reasons for

(11) Gillmor, Daniel S., ed., _Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, New York Times Books, 1969.

(12) Bolender, Brig. Gen. C.H., USAF, Memo re Project Blue Book, October 20, 1969.

The mysterious wave of airship sightings that took place over America in 1896 and 1897 were mirrored by a series of sightings that took place in Britain, starting in 1909.

One of the first of these so-called 'scareship' sightings occurred in the early hours of 23 March 1909, when PC Kettle from Peterborough heard a strange buzzing sound from above. When he looked up, he saw a bright light attached to an immense, oblong-shaped craft, which moved at a fairly high speed across the sky. Numerous further sightings were reported.

On 13 May 1909 an airship of about 100 feet in length was seen over Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire, while on the same night two men claimed to have seen a landed airship on Ham Common in London and spoken to the two crewmen, who they said were German and American. The German asked for some tobacco for his pipe and the two witnesses reported having been blinded by a searchlight during some of the sighting.

Another report of a landed airship concerned an event that took place on 18 May 1909, on Caerphilly Mountain in South Wales. The witness reported having seen two strangely-dressed occupants who he heard talking to each other in a strange language that he was unable to identify. A subsequent examination of the alleged landing site revealed some damage to the ground.

The public perception was that these were sightings of German airships carrying out reconnaissance missions. But there is no indication that Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's airship programme was sufficiently advanced in 1909 to conduct such operations over the UK. In any case, German airships of the period could manage nothing remotely close to the sorts of speeds and manoeuvres that were being reported.

The British airship programme was significantly less advanced than the German one, so we do not believe that the 'scareship' mystery can be explained in terms of prototype British military hardware with which members of the public would be unfamiliar.

To this day these sightings remain unexplained. Further information can be found in The Scareship Mystery - A Survey of Phantom Airship Scares, 1909 - 1918, edited by Nigel Watson.

Our reason for mentioning these sightings is that they mark the beginning of official interest in unexplained aerial phenomena. The 1909 wave was followed by further reports in 1912 and this is where our story begins in earnest. There had been sightings of an airship over Sheerness in Kent and with tension between Britain and Germany being so high, it was suggested that a Zeppelin was involved.

On 27 November 1912 William Joynson-Hicks MP raised the matter in Parliament and quizzed the First Lord of the Admiralty about the events. The latter confirmed that reports had been received, but said that subsequent investigation had not produced any explanation for what had been seen. The First Lord of the Admiralty at the time was Winston Churchill.

Sightings continued throughout 1913 and one consequence of this was the strengthening of the Aerial Navigation Act of 1911. A Bill was duly passed which set up prohibited areas. If these were violated or if an airship failed to respond to signals from the ground, it could then be shot down and to enable this to be carried out, the War Office stepped up efforts to produce a gun capable of bringing down an airship. The War Office continued to investigate the 1913 sightings, but drew a blank.

While the media championed the theory that these sightings involved German dirigibles, some newspapers suspected that hoaxes or hysteria might be more logical explanations, especially in the cases of those reports involving sightings of landed craft and occupants.

Crucially, however, the Government was not prepared to make such a judgement and continued to take the view that all sightings should be investigated. If there is evidence that your airspace is being penetrated by aerial craft one does not ignore the data.

Whatever one's personal beliefs, anyone within government and the military cannot ignore evidence of this nature and must assume that they are hostile. If governments investigate such things and they turn out to be bogus, all they lose is a little time and money.

But if they ignore something that turns out to be real and hostile, they leave the country vulnerable, as well losing the opportunity to exploit it (e.g. copying the technology).

This philosophy underpins official interest not just in UFOs but in other areas such as remote viewing, so in a sense the War Office response to the scareship mystery set the template for future official investigations into UFOs.

written by Nick Pope

(These selections from the Ted Phillips Trace Catalogue originally appeared in several editions of the Crop Watcher magazine. and were compiled by British researcher, Paul Fuller.

Special thanks to Paul Fuller for allowing us to compile his extracts into one article, and to Earth-Search.net

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Earth-Search is a great place for information

the following cases from Ted Phillips' celebrated Physical Trace Catalogue. The catalogue was published in 1975 by CUFOS and its proper title is Physical Traces Associated with UFO Sightings, A Preliminary Catalogue.

Ted Phillips was born in 1942 and has lived all his life in Missouri. He is still alive today and his career in UFO research stretched from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s. Phillips had a varied career and at various times was an inspector for the Missouri State Highway Department, a professional photographer and also an amateur jazz musician. According to Ronald Story's UFO Encyclopedia Phillips investigated more than five hundred UFO cases in his first twelve years of UFO research. His position statement (written in the mid 1970s) concluded "I believe, after thirteen years of investigation, [that] the data indicates a non-terrestrial origin."

This summary is based on only a partial listing of the catalogue as many of Phillips' cases appear extremely dubious in nature. Cases from the early 1950s are particularly unreliable because many of the early UFO books were written by people who automatically assumed that they were describing encounters with alien spaceships. Jenny Randles tells me that cases reported in the "hysterical" Spanish and South American media should be treated even more skeptically because these cases were often complete fabrications! Furthermore many of the early cases have no proper source, e.g. Phillips quotes Vallee describing cases which appear to have been anecdotally reported to Vallee. This means that we often have no idea whether or not a specific case was investigated by anyone, let alone whether it was a contemporary investigation or whether the investigator was in any sense someone capable of undertaking an objective scientific evaluation.

In addition to these problems we have a major definitional problem concerning cases which feature circular ground traces because of the current confusion which exists over the authenticity of the archetypal crop circle. Doug and Dave claimed to have actually created the phenomenon of a sharply-defined swirled circle, but they apparently based their hoax on the Tully reeds circles, which themselves were sharply-defined swirled circles. Given this regrettable fact, what do we include in our definition of a crop circle? Do we include roughly circular shapes of depressed but not swirled circles or do we stick to sharp-edged circles? How about burned circles or circles where the crop has been denuded or completely removed? Given these problems its probably wise to merely highlight all cases involving circular traces but not assume that they are necessarily caused by the same causal mechanism. It is quite possible that there may be several natural circle-forming mechanisms which all create different types of circular ground trace. One of these mechanisms could still be Meaden's postulated plasma-vortex but it is wise not to assume that any particular category of circular ground trace must be caused by the postulated plasma vortex. In any event we will be trying to track down case material referred to by Phillips and will report back in a future issue.

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Cases are listed in date order and each case has a unique case number, the location, a brief summary and (usually) a primary source. Some have local times noted. EARTH-SEARCH only have one copy of this catalogue left so please do not write to them requesting copies of this case material. EARTH-SEARCH can be contacted at EARTH-SEARCH.NET

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Several farmers caught sight of a large globe which was surrounded by flames. A whistling sound was heard. The object slowed, made some oscillations and moved toward the top of the hill, unearthing plants along the slope. The heat was so intense that grass and small trees started burning. In the evening the sphere was still warm. Witnesses: 2 mayors, a doctor, 3 other authorities, in addition to the dozens of peasants who were present. A kind of door opened and a person came out of it. The person was dressed in a strange way, wearing a tight-fitting suit and, seeing all the people, said some words that were not understood and ran into the woods. The sphere exploded silently, throwing pieces everywhere, and these pieces burned until they were powder. This report [is based on an earlier report made] on June 17, 1790, by Police Inspector Liabeuf. Source: Vallee III, p60.

[PF Notes: This case has always attracted more than the usual amount of skepticism, although we are not aware that it has been exposed as a hoax. Quite a few of Vallee's original folklore cases were later exposed as dubious or hoaxed, but this case sounds like something straight out of Jules Verne - perhaps we have a retrospective hoax? Also, were there really Police Inspectors in 18th century France? I thought Peel didn't found the first police force in Britain until the 1830s so how can we have a French Police Inspector in 1790?]

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"Small metal objects, perfectly hexagonal, fell out of the sky after a 'strange cloud' was seen hanging over the town for a considerable time" (UFOs from Behind the Iron Curtain, page 278).

[PF: Another weird case! Sounds a little bit like the infamous First Fourth Norfolk Regiment that allegedly disappeared inside a strange cloud during the siege of Gallipoli in 1916. This too was a retrospective hoax that has only recently been admitted to. On the other hand Charles Fort's books were full of 'strange clouds' that did peculiar things. Its a pity there isn't more information. Difficult to evaluate.]

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The mystery circle, as it is called locally, has not for many years produced plant growth. Transplanted grass has died. It is said that insects, birds and animals avoid the area, which is a 40-ft circle. (Skylook)

[PF: This doesn't sound like a crop circle at all.]

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A Mrs Fulton saw an occupant with a large head as he sat down on the rim of a round object. The object suddenly glowed and gave out rays of yellow light. The bottom revolved anti-clockwise and the object rose vertically at a high speed. It left the smell of hot pepper in the air. Three weeks later every tree in the orchard was dead. (Personal files)

[PF: Another entity case which sounds very much like a hoax. If there were physical traces - as alleged - why has this case not been published elsewhere in the literature as a classic CEII/CEIII ?]

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UFO landed, bark on tree trunks damaged, trees spread outward. No other details. (UFO-INFO).

[PF: Not enough detail to comment on really]

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At King's Sutton an object resembling a haystack flew on an irregular course. Sometimes high, sometimes low, it was accompanied by fire and dense smoke, and produced the same effect as a tornado, felling trees and walls. It vanished suddenly. (VALLEE III)

PF: Phillips was perceptive to state that the King's Sutton event produced the same effects as a tornado, as this event almost certainly was a tornado.

Alan Watson of Banbury decided to track down the original newspaper accounts of this event. In doing so he contacted Banbury Library, Oxfordshire County Council Leisure and Arts, and the Banbury Guardian/Central Counties Newspapers Limited. The latter have given copyright permission for Alan to reproduce these accounts in The Crop Watcher.

From the Banbury Guardian, 5 December, 1872, page 2 :-

One of the most extraordinary things that perhaps ever fell to our lot to chronicle took place near King's Sutton on Saturday, when Walton Grounds, Astrop and Newbottle were visited by a phenomenon of a most remarkable description, and which carried great destruction before it, tearing up seventeen trees by their roots, damaging no less than thirty-six others, throwing down 116 yards of stone wall, removing parts of the thatch of a hovel and rick, and nearly resulting in a fatal accident to a man.

It appears that shortly before one o'clock on Saturday the weather became very overcast and cloudy, with a heavy rainfall. There was a vivid flash of lightning instantly followed by a loud thunderclap, and immediately afterwards the phenomenon came upon the scene. An eye-witness says it was "something in the shape of a haycock, accompanied with fire and dense smoke, revolving through the air, making a noise similar to a railway train in motion, but a great deal louder, and travelling much faster. Sometimes it was high in the air, and sometimes near the ground." The first appearance of the phenomenon seems to be upon Mr. Rogers' farm at Walton Grounds, where it felled two or three trees. It proceeded from S.W., to N.E. and almost took a straight line for some distance, but turned N.W., towards the end of its career. In the field adjoining Mr. Rogers' farm, and which belongs to Sir William Brown, a number of trees were struck, the limbs of some carried away, the tops of others, and two completely torn up. After knocking down some rails, three large elm trees skirting Mr. Cartwright's spinney were torn up and a quantity of earth with them. There does not appear to have been any damage done to the spinney, which is planted with ash poles, but it is something extraordinary that on each side of it there has been much destruction.

A man named William Adams, who was breaking stones on the road leading from King's Sutton to Newbottle, and just on the outside of the spinney, says that he heard a whizzing noise coming through the spinney - a noise like a train coming up - accompanied with dense smoke. Immediately he heard a greater noise, and a tree that he had been standing under for shelter for a short time before was torn up by the roots. Just before this took place, he says there was a heavy shower of rain, and a vivid flash of lightning, which frightened a boy who was working with him a few yards off, and at his request he went with him, and he had no sooner reached him than the tree he had been standing under was thrown down with great violence. Another tree on the same side of the road, and but a short distance off, shared the same fate, and here branches are scattered about in every direction.

On the opposite side of the road, a beech tree, said to be one of the largest on Sir William Brown's estate, was torn up by the roots, taking many tons of earth with it. The length of the earth facing the road removed is about ten or eleven yards. An adjoining beech was split in two, one portion being left standing. The thatching of a hovel near was disturbed, and some cattle in the hovel were frightened, and rushed out into the field. A little further on a large hedge has been thrown down, and the fire ball has made great havoc at Newbottle Park, 116 yards or more of the wall of which was thrown down. The wall is thrown down at intervals, and at one place seventy or eighty yards of it had been razed to the ground. Some trees in the park were struck, but it is strange that of a number of trees standing in a line, the first was struck, the second and the third were not, whilst the fourth was. The ball seems to have spent itself a short distance beyond Mr. Cartwright's boundary wall, where the ground has been torn up, trees knocked down, and branches scattered about for a considerable distance.

The people who saw the fire ball and watched its progress, say they saw the last of it here, that it disappeared all at once, and there was even no trace of smoke, nor did they hear an explosion of any kind. The noise it made was, it is said, terrific, it being accompanied by a whirlwind that carried everything before it, the smoke rose high in the air, and the people thought the earth was about to open. Stones from Mr. Cartwright's wall, several pounds in weight, were carried many yards, and some men at work a mile away saw the contents of a pool carried away by the whirlwind. The distance traversed by the ball was about two miles, and it will be seen that at the outset of its career, it was no so destructive as towards the close.

Some of those who saw the phenomenon, to use their own words, say, "there was as much smoke as would come from five or six engines, but not much fire, and the noise it made was awful." It created much consternation amongst them and one man rushed away from the place in a state of great trepidation. The scene has been visited by numbers of people, the phenomenon having, of course, caused much comment in the neighbourhood.

Sir, - May I ask you to insert the following account of a curious atmospheric phenomenon which occurred here to-day!

About 12 o'clock we had a heavy storm of rain and hall, in the middle of which was a very vivid flash of lightning, with almost instantaneous thunder of a very peculiar rattling sound. About five minutes after this, as I was leaving the house, my gardener called me to come quickly and see the fireball. I was unfortunately half a minute too late, but I have seen four persons who saw it from different points, and all agree they heard a hissing roaring sound, like a passing train, which attracted their attention, and then saw a huge revolving ball of fire travelling from six to ten feet off the ground. The smoke was whizzing round and rising high into the air, and a whirlwind accompanied it, carrying a cloud of branches along and destroying everything in its way. The damage is very considerable - large trees bodily uprooted - others broken off about ten feet from the ground, others with all their branches snapped off; in one place a wall laid flat, and the remainder knocked over at intervals, as if the wall had rebounded, and some of the stones carried ten yards off. I rode this afternoon along the whole line of its journey - about 2 miles in length. The direction was first from S.W. to N.E., and then it turned N.W. Where it first begun the breadth of ground travelled over was very narrow, but increased as it proceeded, till in the last field the debris covered a space quite 150 yards wide, and here it seems to have exhausted itself, as all the witnesses agree that the ball of fire seemed to vanish at this spot without any explosion. Here the ground had been out in places as if by a cannon ball, but I could find no cause for this and I saw no signs of fire on its route. One man, however, says there was a strong sulphurous smell after it had passed.

[PF: The sulphurous smell is almost certainly the mis-identification of ozone and nitrogen oxides - which are created by the effect of electricity on air. Tornadoes which are highly electrically-active are often reported as being accompanied by such smells.]

About the time of this occurrence my farm men at work about a quarter of a mile in quite another direction saw the water of a pond carried into the air by a whirlwind.

The wind was light all day from SS.E. My pocket aneroid (made by Bryson, of Edinburgh) stood this morning at 28.48 [inches]. At this moment it stands at 28.27, showing that the atmospheric disturbance has not yet begun to subside.

I am yours obediently,
T. L. M. Cartwright,
Newbottle Manor, Banbury, Nov 30th, 1872

The Banbury Guardian ran a second article describing the event in its 12 December edition (page 3) :-

As was to be expected, the phenomenon which lately occurred at King's Sutton, and which we referred to at length last week, has attracted the attention of a number of scientific gentlemen, and amongst them Mr. G. . Symons, the eminent meteorologist, and Mr. Thomas Beesley, of Banbury, who visited the neighbourhood last week, and after an enquiry extending over several days, we understand they are of opinion that the place had been visited by a cyclone. The appearance of fire is explained for by the friction of the branches of trees caused by the rapid evolutions [sic (?) revolutions?] with which they were carried through the air. Photographs have been taken of the various damages, and in all probability the subject will be dealt with by Mr. Symons in the Meteorological Magazine, of which he is the editor. On Sunday four or five hundred persons visited the place, and every day adds to the number of those who have been attracted to the spot, some of them coming seventy or eighty miles.

Here as elsewhere on Sunday evening a terrific gale was experienced, accompanied with heavy rainfall. Throughout the night the wind never ceased, and fearful gusts blew occasionally - gusts of tremendous power and force which seemed as if they would carry everything before them. In this neighbourhood a good deal of damage was done. A large elm tree in front of the Horton Infirmary was blown down, a popular in Prospect Terrace, another elm in the Causeway, and walls in various places. The roofs of hovels and cottages suffered considerably, the thatching of a cottage at Grimsbury being partially removed, to the consternation of the occupants. Two trees were knocked down at North Aston, knocking down telegraph posts and wires and creating other havoc. The telegraphic communication was stopped, and the road was blocked up, so that the mail from Woodstock was greatly behind time. The engine-shed at Bletchley was blown down, doing much damage, but no person was injured."

On page 3 of the Banbury Guardian is a further item :-

Oxford was visited on Sunday night by one of the most violent gales which has been experienced for many years past, and considerable damage has been to property. An extensive goods shed at the Great Western Railway Station, which was approaching completion, was blown down, doing damage to the extent of between two and three hundred pounds. It was 250 feet long, and the walls were 20 feet high. They were built of brick, and were 14 inches in thickness, with piers 18 inches thick, at intervals of 9 feet. There were 26 cast-iron girders in the building, all of which were smashed to pieces by the fall of the walls. The contractor was Mr. Bishop of Reading. Several signal and telegraph posts have been blown down on the Great Western line near Oxford, but fortunately the telegraph wire had not been broken. At Christ Church about 60 feet of the ornamental parapet wall over the Vice-Chancellor's residence was blown on the lead roof, which was seriously damaged thereby. Some of the University barges on the Thames were driven from their moorings, and rafts were sunk. Two or three of the large elms in the avenue known as the Broad Walk, were blown down, and large branches of other broken off. The end wall of a house at Cowley St. John fell, but fortunately the occupants escapen [sic] unhurt. Garden walls in several places fell, and some ornamental stonework was blown off from All Saints College. A large number of chimney pots and slates from roofs were also blown off, but fortunately, so far as we can learn, no accident [to persons] has occurred."

The Banbury Guardian goes on to refer to damage at St. Aldgate's Church, where the tower has already been demolished, and to the Spire of All Saints Church, which has been left in a "very dangerous condition". There is also an account of the earlier tornado from the Pall Mall Gazette, which is quoted in full :-

There has been an extraordinary, and, it may be added, singularly unpleasant atmospheric phenomenon near Banbury. About one o'clock in the afternoon "something in the shape of a haycock and of great size" was seen revolving through the air. At first people naturally thought it was the "Claimant," but speedily to their cost discovered that it was something even more alarming and mysterious. It was accompanied by fire and smoke, and sometimes was high up in the air and at other times close to the ground. Its noise was terrible, and resembled that of an express train running with extreme rapidity. It tore up no fewer than seventeen trees, injured thirty-six more, and threw down 116 yards of stone wall, besides frightening everybody out of their wits. For a mile and a half this disagreeable thing, whatever it was, pursued its destructive career, and was accompanied in its progress by a whirlwind almost as mischievous as itself, for this latter nuisance, it is stated, swept everything before it - dried up a pond over which it passed, carried stones for a distance of forty yards, and knocked down hosts of railings. Altogether a more troublesome couple than the thing like a haycock and its attendant whirlwind have rarely visited a quiet neighbourhood, nor are we surprised to hear that the inhabitants thought "the earth was about to open and swallow them up." It is a touching trait in the character of this simple folk that in the hour of peril they were fully prepared to share the fate of the Banbury cakes which have made their district so famous. -- Pall Mall Gazette

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David Reynolds of the U.K.-based TORRO (Tornado and Storm Research Organization) tells me that this event is recorded as two separate and definite tornado events in the TORRO tornado database. The case is noticeable for the extraordinary damage reported - particularly to the newly constructed railway shed at Oxford and to the 116 yards of stone wall. The event involved typical tornado acoustics - "a railway train in motion", "a whizzing noise", "a noise like a train" and the tornado sometimes hovered and sometimes touched the ground surface. The "fireball" gave off a "hissing, roaring" sound and was revolving rapidly. The "smoke" effect may simply have been a misperception of swirling water condensation inside the vortex funnel. The original account in the Banbury Guardian cites the tornado sucking away the contents of a small pond. Of course this is a clue to cases where small fish are seen to fall from the sky. Finally we see how some members of the local population interpreted what they saw in a religious sense, thinking that "the Claimant" (the devil?), was responsible for the phenomenon. This is not unusual but is more typical of accounts of medieval tornadoes, rather than those of the 19th century.

Many thanks to Alan Watson for his research and thoughtfulness in sending us this superb account. - Paul Fuller

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David Muckle and W.R. McKay heard a sudden loud report. They turned to see a cloud of stones flying upward from a spot in a field. They examined the spot, which was circular and about 16 ft. across. There was no sign of an eruption nor anything to indicate the fall of a heavy body there. The ground was simply swept clean. (Scientific American, July 10, 1880).

[PF: This is the classic case discussed in all our work as an early account of a sudden explosive vortex creating a circular ground trace. It is listed along with other accounts of explosive vortex events in Corliss' Tornados, Dark Days and Anomalous Precipitation]

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Police officers John Collins and Joseph Kennan saw an object 6 ft. in diameter float to earth in an open field. They approached the object with flashlights. Collins tried to pick the object up, the part touched by his hand dissolved leaving a stick, odourless residue. Within a half hour the entire object had evaporated. A spot remained at the site. (News slips).

[PF: This sounds to me more like some kind of industrial pollutant rather than a spaceship! Jenny Randles has informed me of some fascinating work by Louis Frank (summarised in a paper by Frank, Sigworth and Craven, International Geophysical Research Letters, 1986). Frank was intrigued by abnormally high water vapour levels in the upper atmosphere as well as by UFO reports and reports of strange things falling out of the sky. He postulated that every day the earth's atmosphere is struck by thousands of mini comets - comets composed of inter-stellar ice but only a few metres in size. Such comets would presumably evaporate in the upper atmosphere, where they might be mistaken for UFOs. A few might conceivably reach the lower atmosphere where they might behave in the manner described in this case. Frank's controversial theory has been widely debated in the scientific press and has attracted a good deal of skepticism. I've not heard of Frank's theory before so perhaps it is wise to reserve judgement.]

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Former director of the Sedalia ASCS office was contacted by Joe Thompson and asked to look at an unusual area on his farm which had appeared overnight. He found a perfect circle 16 ft. across with the plants wilted and dead. The soil was examined and no cause could be found. (Personal files).

[PF: Another inconclusive case]

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Marks of legs and center spike in chirt (sic), along with small heelless footprints. Around 11 p.m. man hears strange sounds and weird music, sees a shiny thing on the ground, with bright lights coming through an open door. 4 or 5 men, 4.5 to 5 ft. tall dancing and singing in high-pitched voices. Object aluminium coloured, glowing orange and blue in spots, some of which were too bright to look at directly. Rotating lights on translucent ball at top. Object on 4 legs, each with a ball at the end, and a center spike. Stood 3-4 ft. off the ground, 7-8 feet thick at center, like 2 saucers stuck together. Men reloaded object, advanced toward witness with things in their hands that looked like guns, but stopped, apparently unwilling to cross a creek. men walked up ramp or steps into object, which rose vertically in a twisting, cork-screw motion, glowing brighter as it rose. (Stanley L. Ingram "Recent Sightings" page 65 in Unidentified Flying Objects Over the Tennessee Valley by W.A. Darbro and Ingram, South Publish­ing Co., Huntsville, Ala. 1974. Via Fred Merritt).

[PF: Well! This is a classic early close encounter case that exceeds the boggle threshold by some way. I don't like single witness entity cases, particularly ones where the entities, despite having travelled from goodness-knows-where, were incapable of crossing a creek? It could so easily turn out to be a hoax .]

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Former Mayor Oskar Linke and his 12-year-old stepdaughter saw a landed circular object and occupants. Witnesses moved to within 30 ft. Object was 50 ft. across with two rows of holes along the side, each about 1 ft. in diameter. A black cylindrical tower was seen at the top center; it was about 10 ft. high, went through the disk and the object was resting on it. Object slowly ascended, whistling sound was heard. Several people in a nearby village saw it flying overhead. A circular depression where the tower had rested was found. (The New York Enquirer. 07-21-52).

[PF:. Another awkward case. Its difficult to come to a rational solution unless we conclude that "it can't be therefore it isn't"!]

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James J. Allen, 51, saw a round object 8 ft. long, 6 ft. high land within 10 ft. of him. Small occupant seen. Footprints found. (The Robesonian, Lumberton, 08-07-52).

[PF:. Not really enough information here. ]

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A miner, John Q. Black, saw a silvery disk, 7 ft. in diameter and 6 ft. thick land on a sandbar within 50 ft. of the witness. He saw a creature about the size of a midget get out of the craft, scoop up water in a shiny pail and hand it inside. The witness and his partner John van Allen saw marks in the sand about 1 ft. wide that looked like "elephant feet". (The Humanoids, p. 146)

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White filaments seen coming to ground at time of UFO sighting. (Stringfield).

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Incident identical to that of May 20th, 1953. (Humanoids)

[PF: The standard explanation for these "Angel Hair" cases is that spiders' cobwebs have coalesced and then disintegrated. The only real question is how the spiders' webs coalesce at cloud level].

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Woman saw a round object 100 ft. in diameter. Lighted red band around the middle, oscillating motion. Noise similar to swarm of bees. Four portholes seen in top section along with red lights. Seen for 3 minutes. Two days later a yellowish moss was observed at the site. Object hovered over water. (VALLEE III).

[PF: I think it was John Keel who first drew attention to the "swarm of bees" sound frequently heard during close encounter cases. The trace is not very typical of a CEII and may not even be related to the object seen.]

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Maximo Munes Olivares, 14, saw a "big balloon" on the ground when a faint whistling sound attracted his attention. It was metallic. Three dwarfs emerged, they were dressed in blue. they re-entered the object, which glowed very brightly, made a soft whistling sound and went off "like a rocket". Footprints and four holes 2 in. deep forming a perfect square of 14 in. were found by police. (VALLEE III)

[PF:. Another single witness entity case. Don't forget Jenny's comments about a "hysterical" Spanish UFO press. The traces - even the case itself - may have been fabricated by the witness or the newspaper.]

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Salvidor Villanueva, 40, noted failure in his auto engine. As he tried to make repairs he was approached by two men, 4 ft. tall wearing gray coveralls and carrying helmets. An object 40 ft. across, disc-shaped with a dome and humming sound was seen. It ascended vertically at high speed. Bushes and sticks were found broken at the site. This formed a circle 40 to 45 ft. across. (FSR 1-70)

[PF: Sounds more like a hoax to me !]

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Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Dixon found a perfect 18 ft. circle in their front yard. The circle had a substance that appeared to be some kind of powder and had a burned odour, although it did not kill or scorch the grass. (George Fawcett)

[PF: Again not very convincing evidence of a crop circle]

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A woman saw two objects on the ground and 3-5 ft. tall men running towards the object. They had large heads and wore helmets and boots. One entered the elongated object which was 18 ft. wide. It took a vertical position resting on a tripod and took off with a spherical object into which the other two creatures had gone. Traces were found. (Vallee III).

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Mr. Tygve, Mrs. Buflot and a neighbour saw an object rose from behind a hill and follow their car, stopping ahead of them just above the ground. They stopped, and felt "pricklings" until the craft took off vertically. A watch stopped working, and numerous people vouch for the fact that the paint on the car changed from beige to dark green. (Vallee III).

[PF: This sounds a promising case. The "pricklings" may well be due to the presence of static electricity. There are numerous cases on record where the UFO followed a vehicle - this could be because the car was electrically charged by the proximity of a natural electro- magnetic field. There are also plenty of cases where car bodies apparently changed colour, although it is not really clear if this was just a temporary illusion (eg at night) or a real effect witnessed in daylight. We'll try and find out more details.

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Witness saw two "indescribable" shadows, a while later a large round object took off some 350 ft. away with a blue-green light. Police found broken bushes as evidence of an enormous weight. Animals reacted. (Vallee III)

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A flying object was witnessed by many citizens. It was watched by all at a distance of less than 50 ft. until it finally left, leaving behind a circle of flattened corn. To date nothing grows in the circle. (Data-Net)

[PF: At last, something which sounds like a crop circle! We will be trying to find more information on this case for a future issue. The lack of a precise date and location is not very encouraging. It could be the "1953" case we published in our historical list in CW14]

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Circular area devoid of plant growth to date (1971). (H.H. McKay)

[PF: Again this doesn't sound like crop circles as we have come to know and love them .]

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Marignane Airport. Time: 21.00 Witness saw a round object landing, trace found. (MUFOB)

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Engineer A.P. Wheeler driving when he saw a metallic object resting on the road ahead. He stopped 10m from it. The object was a disk on which a hatch was seen. Object ascended disturbing gravel below. Object disappeared in 30 seconds. (MUFOB)

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Nigel Frapple, cycling home from a dance, saw first a terrific light in a field and then a huge circular metallic object, 50 ft. across, with a brilliant flame-coloured light coming from a central cockpit, hovering 20 ft. above the ground about 80-100 ft. away. After a minute it moved off towards the northwest, climbing and increasing speed. There was a slight swishing sound heard. The same sort of object was seen near Ringwood in Hampshire the same night. The next day Mr. Frapple and a reporter examined the field and found "grass pushed flat in an area 100 ft. in diameter, and scorched in places". (The Humanoids)

[PF: This is one of the early classic crop circle cases, often referred to as the Redlynch case. Like many of the earlier case the trace was in grass, thus disqualifying it as a crop circle according to some researchers]

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Mr. & Mrs. Guy Baker reported a round object some 50 ft. in diameter. They reported a dome and multi-coloured lights. The Baker car would not start during the observation. There was a large, brown circular area where the object was seen. (VALLEE III)

[PF: Again, probably not a crop circle, but interesting nevertheless.]

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A lady observed three UFOs, dull gray, emitting a strong light as they dived low over her house. A liquid substance dropped from one, like a silver rain. She ran to the spot where it had fallen and found a brilliant glowing stain, spread over the cement near the washing tank. The stain was quite hot. The material was analysed by Chief Chemist, Dr. Visvaldo Maffei, Young Laboratories, 584 Francisco Deodoro Street, Campinas. "The sample analysed is a combination of chemically pure tin-88.91 % and oxygen-11.09 %." (FSR)

[PF:This is another peculiar case which sounds potentially explicable. We'll get back to you on this one!]

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Jose Parra, an 18-year-old jockey was training when he saw six small men loading rocks into a disc hovering near the ground. He tried to run but a violet-coloured beam from a device held by one of the men stopped him. Footprints were found. (FSR)

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A Mr. Gamba saw an oval red object 175 ft. away. When he tried to approach it, he found he was unable to move. As soon as this "paralysis" subsided, he ran to get his brothers and came back to the object, which turned white, then red. It rose and flew away toward the east. It had been on the ground at least 15 minutes. Traces were found, as if the ground had been dug up. Small trees near the river were found damaged, as if they had been cut with a knife. (VALLEE III)

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Frank Huson reported the following incident which took place on his farm. After a heavy rain, 'I walked up to an almost perfect circle, which was formed by the peculiar disposition of the dead weeds that had been uprooted. Inside this circle, no weeds stood at all. The uprooted weeds, where they were thick, were lying along the outer rim of the circle, against the weeds that were still standing, as if they had been pulled up, and moved by some force. The ground was soft, and there were no marks showing that anything had sat down there. This circle was about 25 ft. across. (Lucius Farish)

[PF: What an intriguing case. What a pity it only involves weeds rather than mature vegetation. It would be very easy to read too much into this case so again we will try to find out more before coming to a conclusion.]

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Andy Florio, a musician, was driving from Tuscon to El Paso on Highway 80 when he saw a "disc-machine "... at least 100 ft. in diameter, 25 ft. thick, dirty gold or bronze with circular openings around its rim from which amber-coloured lights protruded. Bluish-green lights were "shining and flickering upward" from its roof. "It made the sound of electrical humming with stronger and softer volume. It yawed, swayed back and forth and turned over on its axis once as I stood out of my car on the driver's side ... It tipped over on its side and shot a brilliant, blinding white-coloured beam of light at me, bubbling the dome of the paint on the car as well as burning my elbow." Mr. Florio felt a needle-like tingling sensation and heat all over his body and nausea a few weeks later. The radio stopped, lights dimmed and the motor chugged at a speed of 12-15 miles an hour "as though it might stall any second." When he arrived at a garage in El Paso the next afternoon, "half the acid was gone from the battery, I was running on three plugs, and my radio was burned out completely." (Modern People, Oct. 27, 1974 and personal communication to CUFOS)

[PF: This is a good CEII report with valuable clues about the nature of the natural energy forces involved. Again note the reference to a "tingling" sensation and the affect on the car bodywork. We will be searching for more information about this case and will report back on what we find.]

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Mr E.M. had been mowing his lawn and kneeled down near a peach tree, when suddenly "a peculiar liquid substance dark red in colour began pelting me and the tree". He looked up and saw a pear-shaped object about 1000 ft. high moving slowly from west to east. As he watched, his hands and arms began to burn painfully, but washing them immediately eased the pain. When Mr. M. went out and examined the peach tree the next day, he found that most of the leaves had turned brown and fallen, the twigs and limbs were brittle, the peaches seemed "petrified" and the trunk had turned so hard that a nail could be driven in only with great difficulty. The grass below the tree had also died. (C.R.I.F.O. Orbit, Sep 2, 1955)

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Semicircular imprints. (NICAP)

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All listed as White filaments seen falling to ground at time of UFO sighting. (Stringfield)

[ PF: More "Angel Hair" spiders' cobwebs]

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Circular trace found.

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A bright light was seen ascending from a wooded area. When neighbours investigated, they found the ground blackened in a circular area 56 ft. across. Several small trees were broken and pushed outward from the blackened area. In 1968 a bright light was seen again in the same place. (Personal files)

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Gear marks in triangular pattern, individual impressions similar to Case 247. 100 ft. diameter domed disk with three circular landing gear. Car stopped. (Lorenzen, Coral 

and Jim, Flying Saucer Occupants Signet, New American Library, N.Y., 1967, page 29. Via Fred Merritt)

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Danti Vaghi and a friend found a circle of grass 18 ft. in diameter in a field just off Federal Road C. In the center, a 3 ft. circle of grass stood intact. Around the outside of the burned area, the grass still contained traces of nickel and chromium. (Bethel Home News, 11-25-69)

[PF: Some confusion exists in the UFO literature over the alleged "burning" inside circles. This is sometimes wrongly assumed when plants rot and turn black. It would be interesting to find out who analysed the grass and found such interesting metals. Were these metals already present before the circle was formed? We'll be trying to track down more information]

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Two men found their car stopping and lights going out when they were three miles from Vaddo, their destination. In the next moment they caught sight of a shining object, about 17 yards long and 8-9 yards high, which swooped down from their right and landed about 60 yards away. It was circular and blue, with a shining yellow rim which lit up a circular area of 90-100 yards. After about three minutes on the ground, the object begun to move, then vanished into the air. After checking their car, which now started easily, the men drove to the spot where the "light" had been. They noticed a heaviness and "closeness" of the air, and saw that the grass was either pressed down or blown down . When they lighted the area with a flashlight, they discovered a bright, flat, thin "stone", which felt warm to their hands. (CUFOS)

[PF: This case was featured on page 159 of Crop Circles, A Mystery Solved as a potential plasma-vortex case. Note the reference to the unusual atmospheric sensations. This too is a clue to the natural origin of the effect being described. We suggest that the failure of the car engine is due to intense ionisation of the air.

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A disc 70 foot in diameter was observed and caused damage to the ground. (VALLEE III)

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Joseph Bennett, a farmer, heard a strange noise and he looked up and saw a dark, round object 7 feet in diameter about 20 foot above the ground. It travelled NW and went above a row of trees. A 40 foot high oak tree, 2 foot in diameter was knocked to the ground, 8 foot above the surface. (VALLEE III)

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A woman was in her driveway when she heard a humming sound. She glanced across the road and saw strange lights flying low over a field about 1,000 foot away. The object [sic] hovered and descended to the ground; the lights went out. Another object [sic] crossed the field and hovered above the landed UFO. The objects were disk-shaped with blue lights around a central rim. The landed object ascended and the two flew away at high speed. A small area of singed grass was found the next morning. (John Fuller, Incident at Exeter)

[PF: It is interesting to compare the behaviour and appearance of these UFOs with those mentioned in the Upland case - both were disc-shaped with brilliantly lit rims, and both landed on the ground for a minute or two. The Turner case was part of a more complex sequence of UFO events spanning several weeks but in this particular case the witnesses were obviously too far away to experience any of the effects described in the Upland case.]

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"Sucking marks" found in the snow. Farmer Nielsen reported a strange light in his field. (FSR)

[PF:OK then readers, what kind of light leaves "sucking marks" ? How about one generated by some obscure vortex mechanism surrounded by an electro-static field of some kind?]

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Two hunters saw a disc-shaped object on the ground 500 feet away. It appeared to be aluminium and about 9 foot high with a dome. Grass was flattened. (VALLEE III)

[PF:An intriguing case. How much of the description is objectively reported and how much is conditioned by witnesses cultural stereotype of what they are supposed to be seeing ?]

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Ring shaped trace. (UFOIC).

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In the vicinity of an unnamed village in Georgia, a UFO was said to have exploded, the event being witnessed by a 43-year-old labourer Vasily Dubischev. There were no remains apart from one strangely charred piece. A certain Dr. Fyodor Petrov was said to have claimed it was not made of carbon but silicon. (UFOs from behind the Iron Curtain page 282, quoting Robert Charroux, Le Livre Des Mondes Oubliques, Paris 1971).

[PF: If memory serves me correctly this case was later admitted to be a hoax.]

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A 60-year-old farmer saw an egg-shaped object come down at high speed and land in a field near a river. It took off vertically, with an engine noise, not similar to a helicopter. Traces [found]. (VALLEE III)

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Disc shaped object hovered near the ground, took off vertically, moved away horizontally. A 13 foot stained ring was found. A spectro-analysis of the soil of the ring shows the sample contained chromium, iron and manganese not normally found in the clay soil of the area. (The UFO Investigator, March 1960).

[PF: If this case can be counted as a crop circle then it was one I didn't know about. We'll certainly try to track down more information about it and report back.]

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The electrical power in the three witnesses' houses failed; when they ran outside they saw a blinding white light, it stopped and hovered. The object started to move, slowly descended and turned to the right, hitting and smashing a portion of a maple tree (top section), it then descended towards the ground. The witness was 10 foot from it. Through a large window he could see two occupants, with large eyes; the heads were high-crowned. The occupants were small in size. The object was oval, about 12 feet long and 8 feet high. It was found that a gray-white substance covered power lines. The witness was Gideon Johansson, his wife and his son. (FSR, 11:70) .

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Imprints in a triangle, 3.2m x 2.4m x 2.4m, burnt grass. (Skylook)

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A witness reported a disc, red in colour, flying swiftly from the south. It touched the ground about 1,000 feet away with a loud explosion heard by many people. A flame was seen. It bounced in an easterly direction, ascended, turned west and disappeared. The ground was scarred in nine places and a substance like metallic paint was found. 

(Science & Mechanics)

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A witness saw two landed discs on a beach, and several small, pale-looking humanlike entities standing near them. They beckoned to the witness, who turned and fled in fright. Returning later with other men he found marks in the sand where the discs had rested. (APRO).

[PF: I find this case dubious in the extreme. Don't you?]

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Diamond-shaped scorched marks found. (NICAP)

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Two circles [ie rings, PF], one inside the other, were discovered by Bill Edwards. The outer circle [ring, PF] is 23 foot across. Smaller ring 16 foot across, width 1.5 inches. (FSR 10:60)

[PF: This is the classic Evenlode case discussed in all our published work.]

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Shirley Sisk, aged 13, saw a hovering disc with a small rudder- like attachment on one side. Large oily circles with a black substance were found. (Saucers, Space & Science, Canada)

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Four Italian engineers saw a luminous disc land or hover close to the ground. It was 1,000 feet away. It then ascended and a circular area of grass 90 foot in diameter was found. (FSR)

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25 foot circle was found, formed by an 18 inch ring. No other details. (H.H. McKay)

[PF: Here's another historical case which could be a fairy ring or a crop circle. I'll try and find out as much as possible for a future article.]

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A witness was driving from Grand Forks to Minot when an object flew across in front of her car and followed it. The next day a bowl-shaped imprint in which all the grass was crushed was found. Three indentations were clearly marked within the depressed area. Plants and grass had radiation of the subterranean roots. (Data- Net).

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Three truck drivers saw a luminous object ahead of them. It remained on the ground for one minute. Where the object had been they found a wet, greyish substance. (FSR 10:62)

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V. and G. Tomasini and H. Zenobi saw an object on the ground 350 feet away. It looked like a railroad car and was illuminated. As they approached it, the object ascended, crossed low over the road, rose with a flame and separated into two sections that flew away in separate directions. A humming noise was heard. It was seen on the ground for one minute. A circle was burned, insects were carbonized and the ground was petrified. (VALLEE III)

[PF: Could the humming noise been due to an electro-static field ? The "circle" could have been caused by considerable air pressure inside the vortex. Or do you have any better ideas?]

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Woman saw an object on the ground with two robot-like creatures. Grass singed in a circle 18 ft. wide. (FSR 10-62)

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Diamond-shaped marks, scorched. (NICAP)

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Roberto Mievres, 17, was riding his motorcycle when a tall being appeared as the engine stalled. The being snatched the boy's scarf, the boy ran away and came back with a group of people. They found the scarf on the ground and discovered traces and observed an unknown object flying away. (VALEE III).

[PF: The evidence here rests a great deal on whether the group of people were known to the witness prior to the encounter and how long the witness had to fabricate the traces.]

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Keith Croucher, 17, saw a solid oval light in the center of a golden mist crossing a football pitch. Two nights later, John McGoldrick and a friend went to Sandling Woods to investigate. "They found a vast expanse of bracken that had been flattened;" they also found three giant foot-prints, clearly defined, 1 inch deep, 2 foot long and 9 inches across. (The Humanoids).

[PF:. A very famous case. Does anyone know if it was ever exposed as a hoax ?]

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Pauline Abbott, a trainee riding instructor, saw on the ground a white object 8 foot long, 3 foot thick at the center, tapering to a point at both ends, glowing slightly. A window on one side glowed brighter than on the other. A "squelching noise" was heard as the object rose in a shallow climb and flew horizontally for 100 feet before it was hidden from view.

Marks "like three large fingerprints pushed together into mud" were found, forming a square with 8 foot sides within an 11 foot circular depression which contained a 3 foot central circle. Grass was found flattened. These marks were only 150 foot away from the site of Case No 123, in 1958. (Vallee III and Eileen Buckle in The Scoriton Mystery via Fred Merritt).

[PF: Well following John Barrett's lecture at BUFORA's 25th birthday party I know that anything connected with the Scoriton mystery is probably a hoax.]

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Claus Slade and a friend found an area 50 foot in diameter cleared. At the outer edge of the circle [a ring, PF] the ground was seared to a crisp, leaving bits of charcoal. The outer circle [a ring? PF] was about 3 foot wide. Five years later, no vegetation grows. Above the circle, tall 100 foot high oak trees still grow, but the branches which hung over the circle are dead. It is estimated [that] the time of the landing was June, 1964, as numerous UFOs were reported in that area. (UFORC)

[PF: So just because "numerous" UFOs were reported in June the trace just HAD to be related, didn't it!]

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Rings of sterile soil, located near a tree line and in the corners of a field. (Brent Raynes)

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Mrs Ivah Frederick observed a landed object for 15 minutes 600 foot away. It was a disc with dome, revolving clockwise and humming. A central la ding shaft was seen and a human-like figure 3 to 4 foot tall. Ascended vertically, 3 foot circular imprint found (shaft) and footprints 6 to 8 inches long with four toes. (NICAP).

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Readers will know that in issues 16-18 of The Crop Watcher I re-published selected cases from Ted Phillips' well-known catalogue of alleged physical ground traces associated with unidentified flying objects. The purpose of doing so was to draw attention to alleged historical accounts of crop circles as well as to examine whether Meaden's atmospheric vortex theory can be applied to explain some of the more challenging UFO reports.

I think readers will agree with me when I state that many of the early cases described in Phillips' catalogue are far from satisfactory. Of course, this was not Phillips' fault, rather the fault of his contributors, who frequently accepted what they were told by witnesses without the slightest degree of critical thinking or logic. Some cases - eg the Alencon landing from 18th century France - have been dismissed by skeptical researchers as outright frauds, whilst others - such as the car stop case at Tuscon (case 790) - suggest that there may be valuable data lying around waiting to be discovered and re-inter preted as unusual natural phenomena by liberal-minded scientists. The real problem is this - how do we sort out the wheat from the chaff ???

We now move on to examine just a few cases from the mid 1960s. Readers may note an increase in the number of circular ground trace cases listed as well as a corresponding improvement in detail. Whether this makes the cases any more valuable is, of course, open to speculation.

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Mrs W.D. Hawkes, awakened by a ringing noise, heard two horses in a pasture making a commotion and the family dog barking. Next morning concentric ring markings were found in the field. (FSR 11-70)

[PF:This case sounds promising. How many times have we heard witnesses report a "ringing noise" or other unusual acoustics when circular ground traces were forming? See CW #4 page 30-32 for one excellent case. The Rosedale case described on pages 216-218 of Crop Circles, A Mystery Solved is another. How do the skeptics explain these parallels?]

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A glowing red ball was seen to descend in a wooded area. The object was seen by two boys, who went to the landing area and found a clearing in the woods. In the clearing they found the ground to be scorched, all grass and vegetation was burnt in a circular pattern. In the centre of the clearing was a hole 30 inches in diameter and 18 inches deep surrounded by a mound of displaced earth and sand, all scorched black. Branches of surrounding trees 30 to 40 foot tall were broken and hung downward. There were three 6 inch holes in the ground at equal distance from the centre hole. The circular area was about 30 feet in diameter. (Fate Magazine).

[PF: Another excellent case highly suggestive of some natural earthlight or plasma-vortex interpretation. For the super skeptics amongst you, please explain how the two boys managed to create such a large circular trace. How did they create all the burning effects and damage tree branches 30 to 40 feet above the ground? Presumably Fate Magazine has a photograph of this trace. Does anyone have a copy ?]

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Mr. Lebel saw a lighted object at tree-top level, about 2,500 feet away [!!!]. At the site, a wide circle of crushed vegetation was found, tree branches were broken, and a pole was calcined.

[PF: An interesting case. It is a pity that the witness was so far away from the light as this increases the possibility that the light had a mundane explanation. If so, the interesting traces might have some un related explanation. On the other hand, if the witness saw what she claims to have seen what kind of natural force can crush vegetation and calcify a pole? Was there a steep hill slope nearby? Or is this more related to ball lightning than a plasma vortex?]

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Three perfect circles [ie rings, PF] 23 inches in diameter were found. The grass [was] growing about 18 inches high on either side of the rings, each [ring was] about 16 inches wide. UFOs were reported on the area at the time. (Saucers, Space and Science).

[PF: Sounds like a classic crop circle case doesn't it. We'll chase this one up for a future issue.]

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A 15 foot burned circle was found in a field. (Hynek)

[PF:We have to be careful with burned circles as they may be created by different forces to swirled circles. Strange isn't it how the modern crop circle literature has only one case of a burned crop circle hoax, from 1987, see CW#3, page 25 (case 5). Why is this?]

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A ring was discovered and was assumed to have been left by a flying saucer. The ring, apparently, had been made at or close to the time when several Jaffrey residents reported [that] they had seen a saucer close to the ground at the ring's location. (Monadnock Lodge, Canada).

[PF: Again we must be cautious. This could be a fairy ring not a swirled ring. It could also be a hoax by the witnesses to support their "sighting". What did the "saucer" look like ? Was it really shaped like a "saucer" ? Or was it simply a very bright light that the witness misperceived as a structured object due to the prevailing cultural myth that any unidentified light must be a spaceship? This is another case the skeptics must explain.]

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Three witnesses, man, wife and son, observed green light mass landing and ascending. 6 foot circle found dried at the site. Site remained barren for eight months, water would run off of ground during that time. Site seven miles south of city. (Brent Raynes).

[PF:Its a pity that there is no mention of a control sample so that we can compare soil porosity in the circle with its surroundings. This might just be a fungal growth of some kind.]

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Ross Liverton reported a circle [ie a ring, PF] of bare earth, 8 foot wide with a ring width of 12 inches. It was visible for four years. (FSR)

[PF:Another unexplained ground marking, rather than a crop circle. ]

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Four witnesses, Mrs Jubert and her three teenage daughters, observed an extremely bright light coming towards their house. Thinking it was about to hit the house, they ran outside. The light de scended below a tree line and could not be seen. The object was tracked by Blaine Air Force Base radar. The driver of a border patrol vehicle saw a slightly domed object, 30 foot in diameter, pass over his car. The object finally ascended vertically at high speed and disappeared to the northeast. Where the object had landed in the 14 to 18 inches of snow, there was a large circular imprint, 12 foot in diameter. In addition to the snow being melted, the ground showed evidence of scorching. Tracks were found leading from the site, oval and about 8 inches long and 8 inches apart in single file. The tracks led into a wooded area and ended. (Vallee and UFO-INFO).

[PF: I have mixed feelings about this case. The presence of "tracks" could indicate the involvement of hoaxers, yet the account of the light sounds very intriguing. Did the UFO really appear on radar ? I find that difficult to believe. This is a difficult case to evaluate without a proper case summary to examine.]

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Farmer noted three rings which were much greener and about 30 to 40 feet in diameter. The outer circles [rings, PF] were not more than 2 foot in width. They were not fairy rings or fungus growth. The grass was dark green and 4 inches taller than the rest. (Saucers, Space and Science).

[PF: Actually this does sound like a fungal growth or even a crop mark, rather than a crop circle.]

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Unusual hoof-like marks were found in the Tully area. The marks were about 2 inches by 2 inches. (Claire Noble, Australia).

[PF:Is this date correct ? Could these traces be vortex suction marks? Readers will recall that Claire Nobel is the local researcher mentioned in Andy Collins' article in CW#14 pages 20-25]

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Man saw a light on the beach near Penguin Street, got out of his car to observe it. He heard a whistling sound and saw an object, 25 foot wide, rise from the beach to an altitude of about 600 feet. He returned to the site with other persons and a dog that became restless at a spot where grass was flattened. Another witness, driving near Humphrey Avenue, saw the object as it rose over South Brighton. (Vallee III).

[PF: Sounds like a superb case doesn't it ! Does any one know anything else about it?]

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Footprints and circles found. Five residents see un usually large object land, three occupants 8 foot tall, thin, wearing tight-fitting dark one-piece suits. (Beckley, Timothy Green. "Have Invaders From Space Divided the Earth ?" in Saga UFO Special No 3, page 23).

[PF: Oh dear! So someone was fabricating UFO stories involving circles as long ago as 1965! I will have to chase this story up. If photographs exist of these "circles" we will have to assume that Doug and Dave were not the first people to make circles to support the UFO mythology. Of course these circles may not be crop circles, but that is a secondary issue.]

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Jim Flynn, 45, saw a lighted object while hunting. 88 feet in diameter, windows 21 inch wide. A humming sound was heard. Flynn got to within 8 feet of the object, a beam of light was projected towards him, he was unconscious for 24 hours. He had lost vision in the right eye, saw poorly with the left. In the hospital five days. Sawgrass was burned in a circle 72 feet in diameter. The ground was turned up. Trees were burned. (NICAP and VALLEE III).

[PF: This case bears distinct similarities to the Falcon Lake incident, which took place two years later in Canada, as well as the Travis Walton case. The Crop Watcher has recently received some interesting material concerning the latter case - a "Fact File" from Philip Klass and a newspaper story by a reporter who was a member of the team sent by the Houston Post to investigate Walton's claim. If readers want copies of this material please send me a large A4 sae with a 35p stamp]

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A witness observed a light on the back portion of his lot in the woods. The light finally moved to the tree-tops and disappeared in a westerly direction. A few days later, while walking through the area he found a circle [ie a ring, PF] 35 feet in diameter with an outer ring 3 foot wide. (Saucers, Space and Science).

[PF: Now did the light create the ring or did the witness create the ring to support his UFO sighting?]

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J.W. Tilse, a senior commercial pilot, and two other men saw in front of Mr Tilse's hotel, a large (30 foot by 1 foot) dark-grey metallic disc-shaped machine [!!!] hovering about 15 feet from the ground. There were two lights near the ends of the object and "banks of floodlights" in rows seemed suspended from it. Three legs could be seen below the flood-lights with another light on each. The undersides of trees were illuminated by the lights, as the object hovered about 300 feet away for about 45 minutes [!!!]. "On departure, rose slowly to approx. 300 feet, then accelerated more than extremely rapidly in a NE to E direction. Would have been flying horizontally. (?)"

"A circular impression was found on the ground two days later by the local policeman. The centre of the circle was untouched, the outside impression was 20 feet from inside to inside, and extended 3 foot 2 inches outwards. It was a perfect circle. Diameter did not vary. It was practically under a telephone line. No evidence of damage can be seen. (To the phone line or poles)". (CUFOS)

[PF: I find this case difficult to believe don't you? Surely a case as impressive as this should be supported by hundreds of witnesses and photographic evidence ?]

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Large holes in triangular pattern found underwater in 30 foot swamp "nest" of floating reeds in counter-clockwise direction. No object seen. (Harvey, Michael UFOs Over the Southern Hemisphere Horwitz Pub. Inc. Pty. Ltd., North Sydney, Australia, 1969, page 111 via Fred Merritt).

[PF: It seems strange that Phillips chose Harvey's book as his primary source of information rather than the account that appeared in Australian FSR (see CW #10). ]

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All these cases highlight the issues that face UFOlogists as we grapple with accounts of the unexplained. How much weight can we place on such accounts? Are all these cases hoaxes - as the "dry" super skeptics claim - or do some of these cases represent encounters with objectively real but poorly understood natural phenomena? -- Paul Fuller, 1997