CHAPTER ONE
UFOs and aliens
In 1897, something very strange happened in the town of Aurora, Texas.
Children playing in a field saw a strange 'ship' fly over and then crash into a farm
building.
Men ran to the crash and found just one alien in the ship - dead. They put the
alien under the ground - and, if the story is true, he is still there, somewhere under
Aurora.
Since 1897, thousands of people have said that they have seen strange flying
spaceships - Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs. Others say that they have seen
aliens from these UFOs, and a few people even say that they have travelled in UFOs.
Are their stories true?
Nobody knows. All we can do is look at the stories. Read them and decide for
yourself if they are true.
CHAPTER TWO
Tunguska: meteor or UFO?
Siberia is one of the coldest and emptiest places on Earth. For hundreds of
kilometres there are only trees, rivers, and wild animals.
On 30 June 1908, the people of Nizhne-Karelinsk, a small village in Tunguska,
saw a line of fire cut across the sky. It was blue-white in colour, and moved slowly
down the sky for about ten minutes. When it hit the ground, they saw black smoke, and
then heard a terrible noise. The ground moved, and they were very, very frightened.
Nizhne-Karelinsk is three hundred kilometres from the centre of the Tunguska
explosion.
Other people heard, or felt, the explosion, too. The famous Trans-Siberian
Railway is more than a thousand kilometres away from Tunguska. A train driver heard
the explosion and felt the ground move under his train. People in the town of Irkutsk,
over twelve hundred kilometres away, also felt the explosion.
Many people thought that the explosion was a meteor. Hundreds of meteors
come near the Earth every year. They usually burn up before they come down, but
sometimes they hit the ground. If the explosion in Tunguska was a meteor, it was a
very big one - and the Earth was very lucky. Nobody died at Tunguska - the nearest
people were a long way away. If a meteor like the Tunguska meteor hit Moscow,
London or New York millions of people could die.
Tunguska was very difficult to get to in 1908. Some newspapers wrote about
the explosion, but no scientists went there.
The first scientist to go there was Leonid Kulik, in 1927. He found thousands
of trees, lying flat on the ground for twenty or thirty kilometres around the explosion.
Kulik also found some big holes in the ground; perhaps pieces of meteor made
them. But after four visits to Tunguska Kulik found nothing in any of the holes. Was
there a meteor? If not, what made the holes?
In 1938, scientists flew over Tunguska in an aeroplane. They wanted to find
the big hole in the centre, where the biggest piece of meteor hit the ground. Like
Kulik, they saw the trees lying on the ground, but also something very strange. In the
middle of the dead trees, there was no hole; the trees at the centre of the explosion
were standing up - and they were alive.
There are some other strange things about the Tunguska explosion. More than
a thousand people watched the line of fire in the sky. Most of them said that it fell
towards Lake Baikal. Then it turned and moved away from the lake.
A meteor doesn't turn when it is falling.
Scientists visiting the centre of the explosion also found that some of the trees
were growing very, very fast. And they found some strange insects; there are insects
living near the centre of the explosion that live nowhere else on Earth.
Was the Tunguska explosion a meteor? Or was it a very big UFO?
CHAPTER THREE
Roswell: the aliens arrive
Roswell is just a small town in New Mexico.
But it is also the centre of perhaps the most famous UFO story. The story
begins in the evening of 2 July 1947. It was a fine, warm, evening, many people were
outside - and several of them saw something very strange. Dan Wilmot was one of
these people, and later he described what he and his wife saw from their front garden.
They saw something big and bright flying from the southeast. It was round
and bright, with light coming from the inside. Wilmot thought it was perhaps five or
six metres across, and was flying at about 750 kilometres an hour. It flew over them,
and then away to the north-west. Other people saw something very like this on the
same evening.
About a hundred kilometres north-west of Roswell is the small town of
Corona; William 'Mac' Brazel had a sheep ranch here. On the night of July 2, there
was a terrible storm, and during the storm, Brazel heard an explosion. Perhaps it was
thunder, perhaps not.
The next morning, after the storm, Brazel went out to look around his ranch.
He wanted to see his sheep; they can get very frightened in a storm. Brazel found
something very strange that morning, in a field about eight kilometres south of his
ranch house.
In this field, he found hundreds of strange pieces of metal. There was a long
hole, perhaps a hundred metres long, cut into the ground, and the metal was in and
around this hole. Some pieces were long and thin, others were larger, and flat, like
paper - but all the pieces were very strong, but light. Brazel could not break or burn
them. Some of the long pieces had strange 'picture writing' on them.
Brazel was very busy on the ranch that day and Roswell was a three-hour drive
away. He picked up some of the pieces, but he did not take them into Roswell until
Sunday, 6 July. Sheriff George Wilcox looked at the pieces of metal and decided that
this was something for the army.
There was a big army air base at Roswell, and Wilcox thought that if something
came out of the sky, it probably came from there. He telephoned the base, and Major
Jesse Marcel came to look at the debris. Marcel and another army man, Captain Cavitt,
decided to go back to Brazel's ranch with him.
The three men arrived at the ranch late in the evening, and went to see the field
early the next morning. The two-army men were surprised and excited when they saw
the debris. Marcel died in 1982, but in 1979, he talked on television about the day.
He remembered that all the debris was very light and very strong, and, like Brazel,
he remembered strange 'writing'. He was sure that the debris did not come from an
aeroplane. For a minute, he thought that perhaps it came from a weather balloon. The
army sent these balloons very high up into the air to look at wind and temperature, and
they sometimes crashed near Roswell. But after a few minutes, Marcel was sure that
this was not a balloon. 'This came to Earth, but it did not come from Earth,' he said.
The three men put some of the debris into Marcel's car and Cavitt's Jeep, and
the army men returned to Roswell. Marcel stopped at home on the way to the base.
It was the middle of the night, but he woke up his wife and son. He wanted to show
them the debris. His son, Jesse Junior, was eleven at the time. He still remembers the
strange pieces of metal and the 'picture writing'.
The American government had a 'Foreign Technology Division', in Dayton,
Ohio. The scientists here looked at planes from other countries and tried to learn about
them. During the Second World War, the planes were often German or Japanese. In
1947, they were usually Russian. For the people at Roswell, the debris was certainly
foreign. So the army decided to send it to Dayton - the scientists there could look at
it. They put the debris on a B-29 plane.
Newspapers and radio stations all over the world were now talking about the
strange 'saucer' in New Mexico and somebody in the American government decided
that it had to stop. Nobody knows why. Perhaps the debris was from a new and secret
American plane. Or perhaps the debris was from a UFO - and the government wanted
to learn its secrets.
Before flying to Ohio, The B-29, carrying Marcel and the debris, landed at
Fort Worth, Texas. Here, the army invited newspapers and radio stations to see the
debris. General Ramey, the head of the army in Fort Worth, explained that the saucer
story was a mistake.
The debris was from a weather balloon. The newspaper men took some
photographs of Major Marcel with the debris.
The debris in these photographs was from a weather balloon, and the
newspapers believed Ramey. There were no more stories about flying saucers.
Marcel was an expert in planes and balloons. If the debris at Brazel's ranch
was a weather balloon, why did he say it was not from this Earth? Why did he want
to take it to Dayton, Ohio?
After he left the army, Marcel said that the debris in the Fort Worth
photographs was not the debris he picked up near Roswell. But where is the real
debris? Nobody knows.
CHAPTER FOUR
Socorro: dead aliens?
Most of the Roswell story is probably true. But we do not know if the debris
was from a secret American plane or from an alien 'saucer'. The Socorro story is
different. Most people do not believe the story, but if it is true, it is certainly the
strangest UFO story of all. It is a story that ends at Area 51, which is at the centre of
the famous film, Independence Day.
Socorro is about two hundred kilometres west of Roswell. It is about a hundred
kilometres from Corona, where, Brazel found the debris on his ranch.
In early June 1947, a group of students, and their teacher, were out in the Plains
of San Agustin, near Socorro. They were archaeologists and they were looking for
things left by the first people to live in New Mexico, thousands of years ago; but, if
the story is true, they found something more modern.
Like Brazel, they found debris on the ground. But they also found a UFO -
or spaceship. The spaceship was on the ground near a cliff. Perhaps it crashed into
the cliff when it landed. Near the spaceship were a number of dead aliens. They were
small, like children, and had grey space suits.
After a few minutes, some soldiers arrived. They asked the archaeologists to
leave - and told them that they must say nothing about the spaceship or the aliens.
But some people have talked about what they saw that day. In some stories,
the aliens were not dead, but died soon after. (There is even a film of one of the aliens;
but most experts believe that the film is not real.)
The army took the aliens to Roswell army base, and a number of people say
that they saw the dead aliens there. If the story is true, the aliens then went to
Washington, where President Truman saw them, and they, and their strange
spaceship, then went to Dayton. Certainly, a number of people who worked at the
'Hangar 18' building at Dayton say that they saw the spaceship there. They also saw
dead aliens. Some people saw two, some as many as thirty.
They were small (about one metre thirty centimetres tall), thin, with large
heads and large round eyes, small mouths and ears, and no teeth. They had no hair,
short legs and four fingers on each hand.
If the story is true, both the aliens and their spaceship are now at the secret
'Area 51' in Nevada.
CHAPTER FIVE
Bentwaters: UFOs in the air
In 1956, Bentwaters air base, in Suffolk, England, was used both by the US
Air Force and by the British Royal Air Force. The two air forces used radar to watch
the sky for about fifty kilometres around the base. On 13 August, the Bentwaters
radar saw something flying very fast. It came onto the radar over the sea, about forty
kilometres from the base. In a few seconds, it was over the base, and after about thirty
seconds, it disappeared to the west.
Airman John Vaccare was watching the radar all the time. He noted a speed
of 7,000 kilometres an hour - much faster than any aeroplane.
A few minutes later, the watchers saw about fifteen strange objects on the
radar. This time the objects moved together slowly (at about 150 kilometres an hour),
from the southeast to the northwest. An aeroplane from Bentwaters went to see what
was happening, but didn't find anything. The strange objects moved north, sometimes
stopping and then moving on.
Then, a few minutes later, at ten o'clock, another object went across the radar
screen - again at more than 7,000 kilometres an hour. Then everything was quiet -
for the next fifty minutes.
At 10.55, another object went across the screen at between 4,000 and 6,000
kilometres an hour. This time, people at the air base saw a bright light go from west
to east at about 1,000 metres above the ground. The pilot of a C-47 plane flying near
the base saw the light go under his plane.
The Bentwaters radar operators sent a message to Fakenheath air base, nearly
a hundred kilometres to the north-west. They wanted to know if Fakenheath could
see the UFOs. Sergeant Perkins, and four other radar operators were surprised, and
did not really believe the Bentwaters operators. But it was a quiet night, they had
nothing important to do, so they started to watch carefully. And at 11.05 things started
to happen.
The first object was about forty kilometres south-west of Lakenheath and it
was not moving. After five minutes it moved, at about 800-1,000 kph, to about thirty
kilometres north-west of Lakenheath. Then it stopped again. For about half an hour it
moved, stopped, for three or four minutes and then moved on again. At 11.50, an RAF
de Havilland Venom took off from Waterbeach air base. Its job: to find the UFO.
The RAF Venom quickly found the object on its own radar, and by midnight,
the pilot could see 'a bright white light'. It was not moving, and the aeroplane flew
nearer. Suddenly, the UFO disappeared, only to appear behind the Venom. For ten
minutes, the UFO followed the Venom, and then stopped again. Then the Venom lost
the UFO and returned to Waterbeach. The Lakenheath radar operators followed the
object north for about a hundred kilometres before it disappeared.
CHAPTER SIX
Visiting the aliens
A lot of people say that they have seen UFOs. Other people say they have been
inside them. Not all of these stories are true; some of them are probably dreams. But
some stories of meetings with aliens sound true - although we can never be sure. One
of the best stories is Travis Walton's.
It was the early evening of 5 November 1975, and Walton and six other men
were driving home together to the small town of Heber, Arizona. Suddenly, one of
the men saw a strange light through the trees. At first, they thought it was a crashed
aeroplane, but when they stopped, they saw that it was a flying saucer. It was about
six or seven metres across, and gave off a strange light.
Walton jumped out of the truck, and started to walk towards the saucer, hiding
behind the trees as he walked. The other men stayed in the truck, too frightened to
move. Suddenly a green light came out of the UFO and hit Walton. He flew about
three metres back, and fell to the ground. This was enough for the other six men. They
drove off as fast as possible in the truck.
After a few minutes, the six men decided to return and help Walton. When
they got back, they saw the saucer fly off into the sky. They looked through the trees
for some time, but Walton was not there so they decided to go to the police.
The police, of course, did not believe them. At first, they thought that Walton
was dead, and that the six men were his killers. Finally, the six men had to have a
lie detector or polygraph test, to see if their story was true. The polygraph said that it
was. The police looked in the forest for days, but they found nothing.
About midnight on 10 November (five days later), the telephone rang in Grant
Neff's house. Grant was Walton's brother-in-law.
'It's me, Travis. Can you come and get me? I'm at the Exxon gas station in
Heber.'
Grant and Walton's brother Duane drove to the gas station and found Walton.
He was tired and hungry - and he didn't know that it was five days later.
Walton's story is a strange one, but he, too, had a polygraph test.
After the green light hit him, Walton went to sleep. He woke up on a bed. For
a minute, he thought that he was in hospital. Then he saw that the walls were metal,
and that the people around him were not human. They were small (about 1.60 metres),
with large heads and no hair. He was not in a hospital but on a spaceship!
Walton jumped off the bed; he wanted to escape. He pushed into one of the
aliens - it felt very soft - and picked up a long piece of metal. To his surprise, the
aliens ran out of the room.
Carefully, Walton pushed open the door and looked out of the room. There
was a long passage outside. He walked quietly along the passage, looking for a door.
The first door went into a circular room, about five metres across, with a high,
round, ceiling. In the centre of the room was a chair, and when Walton moved towards
it, the room got darker. Now, on the walls and ceiling Walton could see tiny lights -
like stars. Perhaps this was a map of the stars.
Suddenly there was a noise behind him. He turned, and saw a tall human
wearing blue clothes, with a glass or plastic helmet over his head. Walton ran up
to him, talking and asking questions. The man did not answer, but smiled and took
Walton's hand. Then he took Walton back into the passage. A door opened in front
of them and they walked outside.
They were inside a very big building. The man took Walton past two or three
more flying saucers, and into a small room. Here, there were two more human men
and a woman, with the same clothes and helmets. Again, Walton asked questions,
and again nobody answered. Instead, they put him in a chair. Walton was now very
frightened again, and he was more frightened when the woman picked up a black
mask and put it over his face.
When he woke up again he was lying on the road outside Heber. He could see
the lights of the flying saucer as it disappeared into the sky.
We can be sure, from the polygraph, that Walton and his friends believe their
stories are true. Can they really be?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Are they real?
UFOs sell newspapers, and many newspaper men want to use UFOs in their
stories. Because of this, some people have taken hoax photographs of UFOs to sell.
Many scientists think that all UFOs are hoaxes. Certainly, there have been some very
clever hoaxes in the last fifty years.
It's easy to make a photograph of a UFO. You need a small model of a
spaceship. You photograph this once, and then take another photograph of the place
where you want people to see the UFO. There are many photographs of UFOs taken
by a man called George Adamski. Many people now believe that these are hoaxes.
There are also photographs of aliens. Many of these are probably hoaxes as
well.
Sometimes people see strange things in the sky, and they think that they are
UFOs. When experts look carefully at them, they sometimes discover that they are
aeroplanes, balloons or even meteors.
In the 1980s, the American government was building a secret plane - the
Stealth Bomber. They wanted this plane to be invisible from the ground - so it was
black. They also wanted it to be invisible to radar; it was carefully made so that radar
could not see it. But some people did see these planes, and thought they were UFOs.
The government, of course, said nothing - it wanted to keep its secret.
Other photographs of UFOs look like flying saucers, but are probably just
birds.
Sometimes people have taken a photograph of a building or of something in
the sky. When they look at the photograph later, they see a UFO. Often, this is a
reflection of light in the lens of the camera. There are even photographs taken on the
moon, which show UFOs. These are probably just reflections, although some people
think that they are aliens watching the spacemen.
Most experts think that most UFO stories are not real; but there are still a few
stories - like Roswell and Bentwaters - which are very difficult to explain.
CHAPTER EIGHT
UFOs and Hollywood
Hollywood has always been interested in aliens, and some of its most famous
films have tried to show them.
When Steven Spielberg was making the film Close Encounters of the Third
Kind (1977), he listened to and read about many 'meetings' with aliens. A specialist
in alien meetings, Dr J. Allen Hynek, Director of the Center for UFO Studies, helped
with the story and even played the part of a scientist in the film.
The aliens in the film are like the aliens many people describe; and so is their
spaceship. Another of Spielberg's films, E.T. (1982) also showed an alien. Again, the
alien is small, like a child, and has big eyes. E.T. has to live on Earth for a time before
returning home.
Ridley Scott's film, Alien (1979), showed an alien that is nothing like those
that people have described on Earth. There are no descriptions of dangerous aliens
like Scott's ever-visiting Earth.
The aliens in Independence Day (1996) are also dangerous. Like Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, this film uses some of the most famous alien stories. In
the film, the American President visits Area 51 to see the spaceship and aliens who
landed at Roswell. The aliens in the film don't look like the aliens many people have
described - they are much more frightening. The film says that scientists at Area 51
have secretly studied the aliens and their spaceship for fifty years.
Mulder and Scully, the two main people in television's The X Files, also often
meet aliens in their stories. In the 1950s, there was a real Scully - a newspaperman
who wrote a book about the Roswell aliens.
Many people believe the stories in The X Files and other films. Do you?
- THE END -
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