UFOs Are Real, Should Be Studied

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UFOs Are Real, Should Be Studied, Says Ex-Project Blue Book Director Col. Robert Friend

Posted By: Revel [Send E-Mail]
Date: Saturday, 29-Sep-2012 13:21:06

Retired Col. Robert Friend, a former director of the Air Force's nearly 20-year UFO study, Project Blue Book, says that science should continue looking into the mystery of flying saucers. Friend, assigned in 1958 to direct Blue Book, was charged with trying to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security and whether they could be of scientific interest. "When I first took over the program, I wrote two staff studies, and in both instances, I recommended that [UFOs] be put into another agency which would give them full scientific investigations and analyses," Friend told The Huffington Post over the weekend at a special lecture titled "Military UFOs: Secrets Revealed." The event, held at the Smithsonian-affiliated National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, featured Friend, seen below, three other retired military colonels and a former United Kingdom Ministry of Defense UFO investigator. These days, the retired 92-year-old colonel acknowledges that he's spoken to more Air Force pilots than most people will ever meet, and he's heard their stories about strange things they've encountered in the sky -- objects that have come very close to their aircraft. Despite the roughly 700 UFO cases labeled as "unidentified" during the Air Force's investigation of more than 12,000 reports, Blue Book was closed down in 1969. The project's conclusion: UFOs posed no security threat to the nation, nor did they display any technological abilities "beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge." But Friend, who was Blue Book director until 1963, didn't totally agree with the official findings. During his tenure, he unsuccessfully tried to get the UFO issue moved to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as well as to the then-newly created space agency, NASA. He's had conversations with pilots and military officials who tossed the idea around that some UFOs might be alien in origin. "Yes, there were some people who had those opinions. I, for one, also believe that the probability of there being life elsewhere in this big cosmos is just absolutely out of this world -- I think the probability is there." Friend, the oldest surviving member of the famous Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, was joined on Saturday at the UFO lecture by the man who served as Friend's chief spokesman for Blue Book between 1961 and 1963, Col. William Coleman. Watch this video of Colonels Robert Friend and William Coleman Coleman related an encounter he had with a "classic flying saucer" over Alabama in 1955 while piloting a B-25 bomber. The 75-foot-diameter, circular disc got so close to the ground that it left a trail of dust behind it before vanishing in the sky. When HuffPost asked Friend if the United States had any vehicle at the time that looked like or could perform the way Coleman described, he quietly said, "No." continued http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/27/ufos-are-real-project-blue-book-robert-friend_n_1918266.html ********************************************************************************************************************************** Charles Halt, Former Air Force Colonel, Accuses U.S. Of UFO Cover-Up LAS VEGAS -- Former Air Force Col. Charles Halt accused the federal government of a UFO cover-up that involves a secret agency to deal with what might be extraterrestrial visitations. "I'm firmly convinced there's an agency, and there is an effort to suppress," Halt told an audience of 200 people Saturday night at the Smithsonian-affiliated National Atomic Testing Museum. Two former Air Force officers who were part of the infamous Project Blue Book -- the military's official UFO investigation in the 1950s and '60s -- and a former investigator with Britain's Ministry of Defense were among the panel of speakers for a program entitled "Military UFOs: Secrets Revealed." Halt, pictured below, was the deputy base commander of the RAF Bentwaters military base in England and one of numerous eyewitnesses to several UFO-related events at Rendlesham Forest in December 1980. He believes the observed UFOs were either extraterrestrial or extradimensional in origin. chuckhalt "I've heard many people say that it's time for the government to appoint an agency to investigate," Halt said. "Folks, there is an agency, a very close-held, compartmentalized agency that's been investigating this for years, and there's a very active role played by many of our intelligence agencies that probably don't even know the details of what happens once they collect the data and forward it. It's kind of scary, isn't it? "In the last couple of years, the British have released a ton of information, but has anybody ever seen what their conclusions were or heard anything about Bentwaters officially? When the documents were released, the timeframe when I was involved in the incident is missing -- it's gone missing. Nothing else is missing," he said. Halt added that he's never been harassed over the reports he made about the Bentwaters UFO incidents. "Probably for a couple of good reasons. Number one, my rank and some of the jobs I've held, but also very early on, I sat down and made a very detailed tape and made several copies of everything I know about it and they're secluded away. Maybe I'm paranoid. I don't know, but I think it was time well spent when I made the tapes." While the lecture panel members didn't always see eye-to-eye on the details of specific UFO cases, one common thread ran through them. "We share a couple of very important things: We've all been dedicated to serving our country and been very serious about it," said museum CEO and executive director Allan Palmer, who had a distinguished career as a decorated jet fighter pilot for both the Air Force and Navy. "These are not flaky people, who've all held very responsible positions with high-level security clearances. They're not the kind of people who tend to imagine things or go off on a wild tangent on something. They're very professional, very business-like," Palmer told The Huffington Post. Making a rare public appearance was retired Air Force Col. Bill Coleman, the former chief spokesman for Project Blue Book between 1961 and 1963. The controversial study ended in 1969, concluding that there was nothing about UFOs which represented "technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge." billcoleman Coleman, at left, recounted his own riveting encounter with a UFO while he piloted a B-25 bomber in 1955. The unknown circular object descended from an estimated height of 20,000 feet, heading to the ground, when Coleman attempted to pursue it. "We were moving at maximum continuous power for the B-25, about 300 miles an hour, and we got right down to the treetops and I closed in on it very rapidly. I said I was going to overtake it -- 'Hang on and put your seat belts on' -- and I made a hard 90-degree bank to try and pull up alongside of [the UFO] and it wasn't there. "I zoomed up about 1,500 feet, and then I could see the object right on the deck over a freshly plowed field moving at a pretty good speed, and it [was trailing] two vortexes." When Coleman dove behind the trees to try and "head him off at the pass," the UFO was gone. He said it was a typically reported flying saucer. continued http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/ufo-secrets-turn-out-to-be-strong-opinions_n_1907492.html