PART EIGHT:
A Discussion With Dr. Bruce Maccabee
contd......
HORN: You were the first to obtain the secret "flying disc file" of the FBI, what I believe you have called "the REAL X-Files". For those not familiar, tell us how you did that and why it is significant.
MACCABEE: I was told by Mrs. Trent in 1975 that "FBI men" came to her house and investigated her sighting soon after the photos were published. In 1976 I wrote to the FBI to ask if they had a file on Paul Trent. As an aside I asked them to also send any UFO documents they might have. I didn't expect to get anything because Capt. Edward Ruppelt wrote in The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects that (so far as he knew!) the FBI never took an interest in flying saucer sightings. I was, therefore, surprised to receive a phone call from an FBI agent about 6 months later who told me that there were 1,600 pages (approximately) of material in a file on flying saucers. He subsequently sent me a selection of the best of the documents and I wrote articles about them that appeared in the journals of all three major UFO groups (NICAP, CUFOS - Center for UFO Studies, and APRO - Aerial Phenomena Research Organization). The documents showed that, starting in early July, 1947, the FBI acted as a "black hole" with information from the Air Force going in and nothing coming out (until my FOIPA request was answered). J. Edgar Hoover's director of the FBI, stated in letters to people requesting information in the 1960's that the FBI had never investigated UFOs. He lied. The FBI interviewed witnesses in 1947 at the request of the Air Force. In later years the FBI (and the CIA) collected documents from the AF but did no further investigations. By order of Congress, the Headquarters of the FBI could destroy no records, so all these documents were available when I made by FOIPA request. The FBI had the only documents that provide us with the high level secret opinion of Air Force intelligence officials in late 1952. The opinion was that several percent of the sightings could not be explained and that at least some sightings might be of "interplanetary vehicles." This opinion was never stated publicly. The whole story is in my book THE UFO FBI CONNECTION. Used copies are available at Amazon and other places. Some of the most important documents are from 1952. They are discussed in my history of 1952 at http://brumac.8k.com/1952YEARO FUFO/1952YEAROFUFO.html. As for my original request for information on the Trents it was officially denied, but unofficially the agent who handled my request said that he had made a search and found no FBI record on the Trents. He then pointed out that any Trent investigation would have been carried out by a local office. The local office may have found nothing of official interest to the FBI since the FBI had stopped investigating sightings several years before 1950. If that was the case the local office would not have sent a report to headquarters. Then the agent pointed out that the local offices generally destroyed unneeded records every five years. So I never did find out whether or not the FBI visited the Trents.
HORN: You've collected other documents from government agencies including the CIA, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army an so on. What are the most important of these documents in your opinion.
MACCABEE: To some extent I guess they are all important because they show a tendency of the government to assign at least some importance to sightings of strange things in the sky. The UFO FBI CONNECTION combines files from the FBI, Air Force Intelligence and the CIA to show that the government has had, for 50 years or more, essentially conclusive evidence (even without Roswell or other supposed crashes) that "UFOs are real" and some may well be "interplanetary craft."
HORN: On the heels of the 1947 Roswell UFO Incident, green balls of light and saucer shaped objects began appearing in the sky near areas where Top Secret nuclear weapon research was being carried out. This was happening repeatedly and the US Military was increasingly concerned. Eventually something called "Project Twinkle" was set up in hopes of figuring out what was going on. Did you look into this case?
MACCABEE: I did indeed study the "green fireball" sightings and the Project Twinkle report. Again, there is a discussion of this at my web site. The first green fireball sightings were in December, 1948, in the southwestern areas near government laboratories where nuclear research was being carried out (Los Alamos, Sandia, Albuquerque area, etc.) A famous meteoricist (person who studies meteors), Dr. Lincoln La Paz analyzed many sightings and even had his own sighting. These fireballs were characterized by their green color and by the fact that they appeared to travel in flat trajectories, mostly in a southerly direction. So many of these events occurred in 1949 and 1950 that eventually, in the spring of 1950, the Air Force set up Project Twinkle to get photographic evidence of these objects. For more information and to see how Project Twinkle proved UFOs were real and covered up the proof, see http://www.brumac.8k.com /WhiteSandsProof/WhiteSandsProof.html.
HORN: The 60th anniversary of the Roswell incident is in a few weeks. I've talked with Jesse Marcel Jr. and Stanton Friedman. They both believe something extraordinary actually happened outside town in 1947. What do you believe?
MACCABEE: I have never thought that Maj. Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer at the base who retrieved the material found on the Foster Ranch by rancher Brazel, could not identify plastic or rubber or balsa wood sticks which were used in the construction of balloons, Mogul or otherwise. When Sheridan Cavitt, the counter-intelligence officer who accompanied Marcel, finally "talked" he claimed that he immediately recognized the debris as balloon material. If so, why didn't he tell Marcel and Brazel? For this and other reasons Cavitt's testimony is valid evidence against the balloon/Mogul explanations. I have an analysis of his testimony at my web site: http://www.brumac.8k.com /Roswell/CavittEmptor.html
HORN: You've been on the who's who of television shows on this subject -- Unsolved Mysteries, A Current Affair, Encounters, Sightings, CNN, Fox News, Nightline and the rest. Have you found serious investigative journalism into the subject of UFOs?
MACCABEE: These and other shows I have been on generally treat the subject as entertainment. Very often the shows try to present a "balanced" viewpoint which means that for every UFO-positive statement there has to be a UFO-negative statement. This is consistent with Maccabee's First Rule for Debunkers: any explanation is better than none. The result is that explanations which are illogical, make no sense, or are simply stupid get "equal play." The recent O'Hare Airport sighting is an example of this. It was suggested that the people saw airport lights reflected from clouds. The object was described as a greyish circular thing, darker than the clouds above it, completely inconsistent with being lights on clouds which would appear brighter than clouds (and there still was skylight at 4:30 PM in November, 2006, so how could one see ground lights reflected from the clouds anyway?).
HORN: But what do you personally make of the O'Hare Airport sightings?
MACCABEE: Certainly seems like a good solid report. Fortunately the press did not pick up on it immediately. This gave the UFO investigators time to obtain testimony without the pressure from publicity. Then reporter Hilkevitch did a very credible job of reporting. The story in the Chicago paper garnered more world-wide response, we are told, than any other newspaper story at the time. The sighting occurred in November, 2006, almost exactly 20 years after the famous Japan Airlines sighting over Alaska. This sighting is reported in detail at my web site: http://brumac.8k.com/JAL1628 /JL1628.html
HORN: What about the Chinese video from last August?
MACCABEE: This video has what I call "fingerprints of a hoax." See http://www.brumac.8k.com /ChineseUFO/ChinaAug2006.html. This is comparable to a video made almost exactly ten years before, from Mexico City in Aug. 1997. See http://www.brumac.8k.com /MexCityAug697/MexCtySmearAnalysis.html.
HORN: If you had to list the top 5 best UFO cases in terms of analytical evidence, which ones would they be?
MACCABEE: It is always difficult to pick the best of something like UFO sightings because there are so many. Therefore I concentrate on cases I have studied. Certainly at or near the top would be the New Zealand (December 31, 1978) sightings from a freighter aircraft is certainly way up there. It is the only civilian UFO sighting, as far as I know, that includes multiple witnesses, radar, both ground and air, tape recordings made on the airplane and at the ground radar, and a professional 16 mm color movie that shows most of the strange lights/objects they saw. The White Sands movie case would be another if we had the film. Of course there is McMinnville. One can also consider the August 1980 police car damage case in Warren, Minnesota, reported by Officer Val Johnson (a case that Philip J. Klass couldn't explain) Then there is the Iranian Jet case (see http://brumac.8k.com/IranJetCase and download the Microsoft WORD document).
HORN: Are you working on anything new? Papers, books, film?
MACCABEE: I am thinking about a new book but haven't actually started writing anything yet.
HORN: Will you be at the Roswell festival this year? If so, where can people hear you?
MACCABEE: I will be at the Museum's "Roswalein Experience" speaking Thursday and Saturday. I will present the 60 year history of UFOs.... well, what little of it one can present in 45 minutes and also a discussion of photo analysis.
HORN: I understand you are also an accomplished pianist. What style of music do you play?
MACCABEE: I play classical and popular but not "far out" jazz. While a teenager I also learned to play the church organ. I am presently playing for two churches each Sunday. I have also played electronic organs, but it has been many years since I have had a B-3 to play. I have a CD that includes 12 original compositions spanning the time from 1986 to 2006 and a version of the Bumble Boogie which includes the Flight of the Bumblebee as an introduction. The Flight of the Bumble Boogie is accompanied by my son on drums and my daughter on bass. I have done solo restaurant and party gigs for the past ten years or so and have played with the "Band for All Seasons," a big band in the Washington, DC area.
HORN: Where can people learn more about you and read your materials?
MACCABEE: At my web site. There are many cases and analyses that haven't been mentioned here, such as my thumb in the eye of the skeptics entitled "Prosaic Explanations: the Failure of UFO Skepticism." There is also the Legacy of 1952, an in-depth history of that year. One time I "tangled" with Ashtar (You Don't Mess with Ashtar); not a pretty sight! And for out of the box thinkers there are two "papers" -- one on the future (The Future, ugh!) and another on reverse engineering the universe (Search for the Intellecton). Both are thought provokers.
HORN: I'll have to check those out. Thanks, Dr. Maccabee for being part of the Road to Roswell series.
Some of the speakers at this year's Roswell festivities include Col. Jesse Marcel Jr, Dennis Balthaser, Greg Bishop, Donald Burleson, PhD, Stephen Bassett, Richard Dolan, Adam GoRightly, Stanton Friedman, John Greenewald, Paola Harris, Michael S. Heiser PhD, Tom Horn, Dr. Roger Leir, Guy Malone, Nicholas Redfern, John Rhodes, Peter Robbins, Rob Simone, and many more.
Learn more about the 60th Anniversary Roswell Festivals see both websites: http://www.roswellufofestival.com
http://www.roswellufomuseum.com/festival.htm
< Part One | < Part Two | < Part Three | < Part Four | < Part Five | < Part Six | < Part Seven| Part Nine >
Copyright © 2007 - A FarShores thanks to author Tom Horn
of Raiders News Network for providing this article.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  |
