Double dread: UFOs and nuclear war
By Dawn Stover | June 4, 2019
This is reportedly a US government video taken by the forward-looking infrared system of a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet that encountered an unidentified aircraft off the East Coast in 2015. The fighter jet’s pilots were excited by what they saw. Credit: To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science/YouTube
As Politico first reported in late April, the US Navy “is drafting new guidelines for pilots and other personnel to report encounters with ‘unidentified aircraft,’ a significant new step in creating a formal process to collect and analyze the unexplained sightings—and destigmatize them.” In a statement to Politico, the Navy cited “a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years.”
A former senior intelligence officer recently told the Washington Post that the newly drafted guidelines for pilots mean the Navy has credible evidence of things “that can fly over our country with impunity, defying the laws of physics, and within moments could deploy a nuclear device at will.”
In addition to “unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft,” the Pentagon refers to such sightings as “unexplained aerial phenomena” or “suspected incursions.” But please don’t call them UFOs. By definition, UFOs are nothing more than unidentified flying objects, but in the popular imagination they have become closely associated with creatures from outer space. As the New York Times noted in a report last week, “No one in the Defense Department is saying that the objects were extraterrestrial, and experts emphasize that earthly explanations can generally be found for such incidents.”
Many UFOs turn out to be identifiable flying objects, atmospheric phenomena, or hoaxes. Sometimes they are secret military projects. The mother of all UFO narratives, the so-called Roswell Incident, is deeply rooted in the nation’s nuclear history.
In 1995, the US Air Force published a 994-page collection of records and information about the July 1947 incident, the alleged crash and recovery of a flying saucer and its alien occupants in a remote part of New Mexico. An Air Force Declassification and Review Team concluded that the Army Air Forces (as the Air Force was known at that time) did indeed recover material near Roswell in 1947. However, this material was debris from a secret experiment launched in the early days of the Cold War.
Called Project Mogul, the experiment was an attempt to detect Soviet nuclear weapon explosions and ballistic missile launches. Maurice Ewing, a researcher at Columbia University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, had previously discovered an ocean layer that could easily conduct the sound of underwater explosions for thousands of miles, and he hoped to find a similar channel in the upper atmosphere. Launched from New Mexico’s Alamogordo Air Field in June 1947, Mogul was a string of weather balloons more than 600 feet long that carried acoustical sensors and oddly constructed radar-reflecting targets. Ultimately, detecting explosions with seismic sensors and air sampling proved to be more accurate and less expensive than acoustic detection. As the Air Force explained in a 1997 follow-up report, claims that alien “bodies” were recovered near Roswell, which did not begin appearing until the 1970s, were probably references to anthropomorphic test dummies carried aloft by high-altitude balloons used in unrelated scientific research.
At the time of the Roswell Incident, the nation’s only nuclear strike force was based at the Roswell Army Airfield—a closely held secret. That may have contributed to the secrecy surrounding the recovery of Project Mogul debris.
Long after the Cold War ended, some observers continue to report a pattern of suspicious UFO activity near missile silos and other nuclear weapons sites. Perhaps it is not surprising that two subjects that have long raised intense fears—nuclear war and alien invasion—should be linked.
While military sightings of unidentified aircraft are getting more attention of late, UFO sightings by the general public have actually been declining for the past few years, according to the National UFO Reporting Center and the Mutual UFO Network, two online sites that collect and analyze reports. One possible explanation: the military’s increased transparency about reporting and investigating alleged encounters.
Publication Name: New York Times
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Keywords: Navy, Project Mogul, Roswell Incident, UFO, extraterrestrial
Topics: Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons, What We’re Reading
Dawn Stover
Dawn Stover is a contributing editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. She began her career at Harper's magazine and worked... Read More
Hi Dawn,
Operation High-Dive, which involved the dropping of dummies from high altitude, didnt take place until well into the 1950’s, several years after the 1947 roswell incident occurred. The two could not be believably “confused” by those who were there. What military person would not recognize an aviation dummy?
The reports of “bodies” associated with the Roswell Incident didn’t start appearing until the 1970s (after UFO researchers posted ads soliciting information), so it seems reasonable that some people might have confused events that occurred in the 1940s and ’50s. Especially if they only saw the dummies from a distance, surrounded by military personnel recovering them.
The Subject of UFO’s were the most classified subject above even Nuclear Weapons. Bodies were reported by Lieutenant Phillip J Corso the man in charge of back engineering the Roswell Craft in his book, “The Day After Roswell” and his life video taped testimony on Youtube. He served under General Trudeau. On record he states this where we acquired fiber optics, the microchip, lazer, and night vision, among other things.
A lot of people have stated a lot of things on the record. Much of it is rubbish.
The government astro-turfed UFO stories through those that had seen anything – to discredit them and throw people off investigating the real things.
It’s been highly effective. It’s hardly surprising that some people are keeping it up.
It’s also hardly surprising that some authors who were fed these ‘facts’ were able to make money publishing books about it.
By rehashing Roswell the author seems to be deflecting the current topic of what in the world these advanced aerospace craft are that US military pilots have been encountering with ample technical data and multiple credible witnesses to support their reports. Atomic scientists should focus their brain trust on solving this mystery rather than trying to disprove all the witnesses…
Indeed. The phenomena is well established beyond any reasonable doubt!
Yes it’s 100% true that there are things that are not identified publicly at the time of sightings.
It’s not 100% true that these things are therefore unidentified by the CIA – or by others.
and it’s certainly not true that the UFO cover up conspiracy theory is not actually a disinformation campaign.
(Work out the double negatives amongst yourselves)
The author shows the typical writer’s inclination to turn away from the vast, well-written, well-researched literature on the subject and rely instead on the USAF info. Since the Air Force has been lying to us about this for 70 years, is this really wise? It may be momentarily comforting to think that this is all just a silly case of misidentification (over and over and OVER again, for decades) but the information from witnesses and experiencers strongly suggests that something very weird is going on on this planet. Because the objective of some aliens seems to be to breed a… Read more »
Very interesting and convincing. Although I have seen this video some time ago. The Navy took much longer videos from these objects, it is about time the world will be able to also see the truth.
What is so difficult to determine? We all see the UFO in the Infrared Radar and have testimony from the pilots about instantaneous acceleration and no visible exhaust system. The UFOs are clearly interested in our Military so take from that what you want. If it is not human then by simple process of elimination it is another lifeform that we are currently unaware of or simply put Aliens.
Except these unidentified flying objects seem to nearly break laws of physics. I seriously doubt they are Russian or even skunkworks.
This phenomena should cause a major panic attack for any rational person. ALIENS. Universal laws of physics broken. Invisibility. Yet I still sleep at night. Why? This whole thing is being ignored by the White House and the Secretary of Defense. There must be a reason for this nonreaction by the folks in the know. So, to me, they’ve been briefed on this and whatever they’ve been told let’s them sleep at night so I’m not stocking up on cases of Chef Boyardee yet. Unless a saucer lands on the Capitol Mall.
One thing that’s a little terrifying is that Russia and China have new nuclear weapons and the USA (And all of NATO by default) is still relying on weapons made in the 1960’s.
If these vehicles are in fact a technology our adversary’s might posses we could be in very serious trouble someday soon.
We need to build new credible nuclear weapons ASAP, especially considering that we are actively dropping out of Arms treaty’s with Russia.
I don’t think you’ll find many (if any) nuclear experts who would agree that the United States does not already have a “credible” nuclear deterrent. While it’s true that Russia and China have deployed more new systems than the United States in recent years, the US military has refurbished nearly all of its warheads and delivery systems since their introduction, and is already in the process of replacing many of them.
Which military industrial complex do you work for?
I don’t think we can rely on upgraded nukes to solve this matter. If any of this is to be believed then we are facing a technology that could be thousands of years ahead of anything the USA,Russians, or Chinese have in their inventory. We are at their mercy. Hopefully they are not like us. Hopefully we can someday figure out why they are here. It’s both fascinating and terrifying. Those videos were compelling. Never seen anything like it.
There have been a ton of varying and modifying tall-tales offered in regards to Roswell. Mogul is one of many offered to us. The jury is out.
I’m not sure what the author of this article is trying to say–or wanted to say before the editors took over. As someone who has studied America’s nuclear test program, and authored a book on it, I honestly do not see how the public’s perception of our America’s nuclear program is linked with ufo sightings. UFO sightings are a worldwide phenomenon, and while America’s first “saucer” sighting was reported in 1947, there are photos of sky objects going back to the early 20th century. Undoubtedly many of these sightings can be explained (i.e. rocket exhaust, military aircraft, drones and Venus),… Read more »
Thank you Mr Miller for helping focus this discussion. I would be curious of Ms Stover’s response. This topic is of course fraught with excitation of opinion and baseless conjecture. Open and scientifically informed consideration is too often set aside, as in much of this article. Ms Stover has bravely begun a line of inquiry — I wonder if she might help us with her journalistic curiosity to present informed perspectives. Worthy discussion indeed! This is potentially The Story of the modern era.
I certainly did not mean to suggest that most or all sightings of unidentified aircraft/phenomena are related to nuclear test programs—only that the military secrecy surrounding such programs can heighten public suspicions when these two elements coincide, as with the Roswell incident. New Mexico in 1947 was a hotbed of nuclear test activity.
This is just more debunking and disinformation propaganda. It’s like giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Whatever they’re hiding must be getting very uncomfortable for them.
Hello, thanks for re-circulating the F/A18 video. Has the DoD come up with an explanation of any sort relating to what the footage captured? Is any group of experts willing/able to explain what the footage showed?
As far as I know, there is no definitive explanation for that footage yet. A Navy spokesman said some sightings during that period might have been commercial drones. The proposed new guidelines are intended to help the military collect more data on suspected intrusions into US airspace.
Thanks for that, Dawn. I wonder how the mission ended – do we know if the object just disappeared from the track/visual, or the F/A-18 was summoned back to base leaving the former to its own devices? I ask because the aerodynamics behind the object’s flight-pattern are so unusual and surprising. Could it be just another’black project’ product being tested – one that even the USN may not be aware of? Just too many questions left unanswered. One final thought, though. If such objects/phenomena were totally foreign/alien, i.e., potentially capable of threatening US national security interests, wouldn’t DoD/DIA/Congress get excited… Read more »
Not commercial drones. This thing moved from 0 to >20,000 miles per hour in less than a second. Last time I checked that type of acceleration is impossible, that speed is impossible (other than by a rocket), and that acceleration would crush any rocket or aircraft.
I urge the author to research the Roswell incident more deeply than the Air Force’s discredited propaganda. I found the testimonies of witnesses to the incident to be compelling. Many of the people with first hand knowledge were interviewed by Dr. Stephen Greer in his “Disclosure Project”.
Here is one of the Roswell mortician who was asked to provide coffins for three small bodies at the time of the incident; not crash dummies,.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBOY5jrOGwA
The author (that’s me) spent considerable time researching the Roswell incident deeply, including several days in Roswell visiting sites and interviewing witnesses to the incident (including the mortician), for a 1997 article in Popular Science magazine: https://books.google.com/books?id=eeWcitAiSBUC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=dawn+stover+roswell+%22popular+science%22&source=bl&ots=sKQjukFRgn&sig=ACfU3U29V616yHA6LvL6Gz32HciDd0p1GQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwij85HtnfHiAhUJEHwKHYAEB00Q6AEwBHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=dawn%20stover%20roswell%20%22popular%20science%22&f=false
Mr. Stover,
as Carl Jung once said, quote, I wouldnt be stupid enough to say that something doesnt exist based on the only reason that i couldnt explain it.
I hope its not the case, but as you call Roswell the ‘Mother of UFOs’ Id recomend you to read NASAs report R 277 about the so called Transient Lunar Phenomenon, and, furthermore, take a look at this, for instance….https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg
Best Regards,
Ms. Stover responding here: I referred to Roswell as the mother of all UFO “narratives,” not the “mother of UFOs.” I don’t know whether you quoted Carl Jung (who wrote a book titled Flying Saucers) accurately, but he DID write: “A fact which cannot be scientifically verified…finds no place in an official view of the world.” As your Wikipedia link notes, skeptics have debunked the notion that the 1561 “celestial sighting” was some sort of UFO battle. Quoting the Amazon page on Jung’s book: “Jung’s primary concern in Flying Saucers is not with the reality or unreality of UFOs but… Read more »
Back in the Fifties and Sixties, there were a lot of UFO reports that could have been experimental aircraft. One hardly ever hears about them anymore.
This is just more debunking and disinformation propaganda. It’s like giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Whatever they’re hiding must be getting very uncomfortable for them
well at least the scientists have now come to terms with the undeniable truth – that UFOs are real – sure change the name to UAP …that keeps it in their comfort zone ….next step “what are they “? we will get there eventually
If by “real,” you mean that unidentified objects, aircraft, or atmospheric phenomena are sighted by the general public and occasionally by military pilots, I think you will get no argument from anyone. Neither UFOs nor UAPs are, by definition, extraterrestrial in origin.
Next step: How can we increase the Pentagon budget and let military contractors steal more money from the the taxpayers?
I think what the article is obliquely referring to is the possible miscalculation of confusing an incoming nuclear tipped missile with the mere spectacle of a UFO and its dismissal thereof. Likewise, it is remarkable that in these past 70 years it hasn’t already happened.
THESE NEW UFO SIGHTINGS ARE JUST HYPERSONIC VEHICLES BEING TESTED
THERE HAS AND NEVER WILL BE OUTER SPACE VEHICLES FROM OTHER SPHERES
IMAGINATIONS PRODUCE UNREASONABLE FEAR, ESPECIALLY THOSE
CONCERNING WHAT IS BEYOND THE GRAVE
In 1956 one of my professors in the electrical engineering department of an upstate New York college that I was attending received an Air Force contract to study high altitude sound transmission. There were several students working for him and I was one of the group. We built high power audio amplifiers which were installed in an airplane and we would launch a balloon carrying a microphone and recording equipment. During test the professor would make passes at the balloon while making a (calibrated) sound then analyze the data back at the lab. The purpose was to explore the possibility… Read more »
You would need to provide a lot more information before anyone could speculate intelligently about what you are seeing. A “hovering” light could be an airplane flying directly toward you, on a regular schedule, for example. If you haven’t watched it from multiple viewpoints, it would be very difficult for you to accurately discern its size, path, or speed. There are countless possible explanations based on the very limited description you posted.
This forum is not the place to post UFO sightings. Post instead to one of the UFO reporting networks mentioned in the article, which have better resources to investigate sightings and try to determine whether they are aircraft, atmospheric phenomena, hoaxes, etc.