According to the recent MUFON (2001) Conference papers by Dr. Robert Wood and his son Ryan (as posted on their Web-site), the first U.S. recovery of a crashed extraterrestrial craft and ET bodies occurred IN THE SPRING OF 1941 near CAPE GIRARDEAU, MISSOURI, and NOT near Roswell, N.M., in mid-1947, and TWO MORE crashed ET craft were recovered in California in early 1942. Robert Wood's MUFON paper was titled "Mounting Evidence For Authenticity of MJ-12 Documents," while Ryan's paper was titled "THE FIRST ROSWELL: Evidence For A Crash Retrieval In Cape Girardeau Missouri in 1941." The two-California-ET-craft recovery claim is based on what purports to be a "Top Secret" memo from Gen. George C. Marshall (then Army Chief of Staff) to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), dated Mar. 5, 1942—seven days after a reported (but spurious) air attack around 3 a.m. on the Los Angeles area. The badly smudged and unsigned memo was provided to the Woods by Timothy Cooper—their source for most of their Majestic documents. The Mar. 5, 1942, memo refers to Marshall's Feb. 26 memo to the President and says, "regarding the air raid over Los Angeles, it was learned by Army G2 that Rear Admiral Anderson [not legible] has informed the War Department of a naval [not legible] unidentified airplane off the coast of California [not legible] no bearing on conventional explanation. Further investigation has revealed the Army Air Corps also recovered a similar [not legible] San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles which cannot be identified as a conventional aircraft. This Headquarters has come to the determination that the mystery airplanes are in fact not earthly and according to secret intelligence sources they are in all probability of interplanetary origin. "As a consequence, I have issued orders to Army G2 that a special intelligence unit be created to further investigate the phenomenon and report any significant connection between recent incidents and those collected by the director of the Office of Coordinator of Information. I have further ordered a thorough investigation of all War Department files regarding unconventional aerial phenomenon reported since 1897 and existing information on the subject...." (Emphasis added.) [SUN Comment: There were reports of "mysterious airships" in the 1890s.] Neither of the Woods mentioned the authentic letter of Sept. 23, 1947, formerly classified "Secret," written by Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining (then head of the USAF's Air Materiel Command) to Brig. Gen. George Schulgen (a top USAF intelligence official in the Pentagon) who had requested AMC's assessment of what UFOs might be. In Twining's letter he noted that "Due consideration must be given to the lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash-recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these objects." (Twining's letter was declassified in the late 1960s.) HOW VERY SURPRISING THAT TWINING AND SCHULGEN HAD NEVER HEARD ABOUT THE RECOVERY OF EVEN ONE OF THE THREE ET CRAFT WHICH THE WOODS NOW CLAIM WERE RETRIEVED IN 1941-42. The first public report of the (alleged) Cape Girardeau (CG) incident was based on a letter from Charlette (sic) Mann, dated May 6, 1991, which was published July 1991 by (the late) UFOlogist Leonard Stringfield in his "UFO Crash/Retrievals" Report #6 [SUN #61/Jan. 2000]. AT THAT TIME, TIM COOPER WAS ONE OF STRINGFIELD'S CLOSE SOURCES. THUS, IT IS NOT SURPRISING THAT THE (ALLEGED) CAPE GIRARDEAU INCIDENT IS REFERRED TO (BRIEFLY) IN ONE OF THE MAJESTIC DOCUMENTS WHICH COOPER LATER SUPPLIED TO THE WOODS. THIS COOPER-SUPPLIED DOCUMENT IS CITED BY RYAN WOOD AS CONFIRMING THE VERACITY OF CHARLETTE MANN'S TALE. (Stringfield's mid-1991 report cited many alleged crashed-saucer recoveries, but there is NO mention of any that allegedly had occurred in the Los Angeles area in 1942.) According to Ms. Mann's letter, her grandfather, William Huffman, who was a minister, received a phone call from the local police around 9 p.m. informing him that an aircraft had crashed on the outskirts of Cape Girardeau and asking him to go to the crash site "in case someone needed him." When her grandfather later returned, according to Mann, he described his experience to his wife and two sons (one of whom was her father)—but swore them all to secrecy. "Grandfather said it wasn't... like any craft he'd ever seen.... One large piece... appeared to have a rounded shape.... There were three bodies, not human.... Grandfather said prayers over them so he got a close look.... It was hard for him to tell if they had suits on or it was their skin but they were covered from head to foot in what looked like wrinkled aluminum foil.... They were small framed like a child—about four feet tall, but had larger heads and longer arms.... "Two of the plain-clothes [police] men picked up one of the little men, held it under its arms. A picture was taken. That was the picture I later saw. Then one of the military officers talked to granddad and told him he was not to talk about anything that had taken place—for security reasons.... About two weeks after it happened, he [grandfather] came home with a picture of the two men holding the little man.... After my grandfather died, my Dad kept the picture and was very interested in UFO info.... A CLOSE FRIEND OF MY DAD'S ASKED IF HE COULD BORROW IT TO SHOW HIS FOLKS SO DAD LET HIM HAVE IT AND NEVER GOT IT BACK." (Emphasis added.) According to Ms. Mann, the person her father had given the ET photo to was a professional photographer named Walter W. Fisk who had questioned her father's crashed-saucer tale. UFOlogist Stanton Friedman, who also investigated the incident, managed to locate Fisk (who now lives in New Mexico) and spoke to him on the phone. According to Ryan, "a strange tale emerged. Fisk stated that he had a doctorate in psychology, yet Friedman was unable to verify his claim along with Fisk's statement that he was an advisor to Presidents. Fisk has repeatedly refused to answer or respond to phone calls or letters written by Charlette Mann.... Fisk will eventually be broken of his silence and we will get an answer as to what happened to the photo or we will get a no comment statement or similar brush off. Either way this will move the case forward." (Emphasis added.) Ryan Wood's investigatory efforts have relied upon Charlette's recollection that her grandfather said he was driven 10-15 miles out of town and then had to walk about a quarter of a mile to the crash site and that the incident occurred shortly before the birth of her sister—which would place the crash in mid-to-late April. Ryan said an associate had located the city Fire Department's 1941 logbook, which contained details of its operations, including date, location, time and duration of the fires, their causes and damage. The Fire Dept. records showed only two incidents in an appropriate geographical area—one on Mar. 30 at around 6:22 p.m. and another on April 22, around midnight, which lasted several hours. But neither was attributed to a crashed craft and both occurred at widely different times than Charlette's grandfather reported. Ryan offered a possible explanation: "If they were sworn to secrecy by the military, would they write the event down in their logbook or would they record it accurately?" Ryan Wood summarized his current views as follows: "After working on this case for about two years and talking with Charlette Mann on numerous occasions either briefly on the phone, over dinner, or in front of a television camera her story, demeanor, and integrity provided no hints of deception or confabulation.... Adding more weight to the validity of the story is the highly believable and likely authentic leaked military and Presidential documents [provided by Tim Cooper] that support a crash retrieval in 1941.... The final resolution to this case is still in the future. It may come in the form of physical evidence, bits of wreckage, new witnesses, historical aerial photography, soil samples, or archival research." Ryan has searched several potential crash-site areas for small pieces of wreckage, without success. But he reports that famous "remote viewing" expert Joe McMoneagle says there are recoverable pieces of wreckage at the site. Further, according to Ryan, well-known "psychic detective" Annette Martin has "confirmed much of the Huffman-Mann story and provided new checkable data." The Eisenhower Briefing Document (EBD), one of the three MJ-12 documents first made public in 1987—by William Moore, Stanton Friedman and Jaime Shandera—purportedly intended to brief President-elect Eisenhower in late 1952, contained a brief history of UFOs and recovered ET craft. The EBD history began with the multiple-UFO sighting report by Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947, and claimed that a crashed ET craft and four ET bodies were recovered near Roswell, NM, in July of 1947. EBD later reported, "On 06 December, 1950, a second object, probably of similar origin, impacted the earth at high speed in the El Indio-Guerrero area of the Texas-Mexican border.... By the time a search team arrived, what remained of the object had been almost totally incinerated. Such material as could be recovered was transported to the Atomic Energy Commission facility at Sandia, New Mexico, for study." There is NO mention in EBD of a craft and three dead ETs having been retrieved near Cape Girardeau in 1941 or two craft recovered in the Los Angeles area in 1942. This notable discrepancy was not mentioned by either of the Woods in their MUFON papers. In the introduction to Dr. Robert Wood's MUFON paper he said the common man "often asserts that if there had been [ET] landings and we had recovered craft, that the [U.S.] government would not want to keep this secret and besides 'everyone knows that the government can not keep secrets effectively.' The former is naive and the latter is false, as evidenced by examples: the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, the invasion of Normandy, the decoding of the Japanese and German codes, and the development of stealth aircraft...." IF ET craft were ONLY visiting the United States (and crashed in the U.S.) it MIGHT be possible for the U.S. government to keep that secret for a brief period. How long? Only two people knew about President Clinton's indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky and nobody had a "need-to-know" to carry out their job responsibilities and no one involved had signed a "secrecy agreement" which imposed severe penalties for violating same. IF the U.S. government had decided in 1947 (or earlier) to keep ET visits secret, it would have had to obtain the cooperation of governments in ALL countries around the world (where an ET craft might crash) including many hostile Communist Bloc countries—hardly an easy task to carry out in secret. Wood admits that the Cooper-supplied documents include seven "emulations," i.e., slightly modified versions of authentic documents (written by President Truman, Gen. Marshall and Gen. Wedemeyer)—modified to mention UFOs or "Majestic." Wood offers congratulations to Stan Friedman "for locating these problem documents" [SUN #65/Sept. 2000]. But Wood offers an ingenious explanation: "The preliminary, least unlikely hypothesis is that Truman, Marshall and Wedemeyer were all involved IN THE INTENTIONAL CREATION OF THE EMULATIONS AT THE TIME, THEREBY CONTINUING THE PROCESS OF DECEPTION ALREADY UNDER WAY TO PROTECT THE SECRECY...." (Emphasis added.) In other words, the "least unlikely" explanation for the emulated documents, according to Wood, is that the bogus documents were intentionally created by Truman, Marshall and Wedemeyer in the expectation that they would be "leaked" many decades later and the emulations would be used to discredit their authenticity. The Woods' authentication efforts have used the expertise of James Black (a Fellow of the Questioned Documents section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences) and the Speckin Forensic Sciences Laboratory, which Black recommended. More than a year ago, the Woods submitted some Majestic documents to Speckin Laboratory for its analysis of the age of the paper and ink. Dr. Wood's paper contains a brief summary of Speckin's findings. Those cited support the authenticity of Cooper's documents, but there is no document on a Speckin letterhead in the Wood paper or on the Woods' Web-site summarizing their findings. The original (purported) letter of Sept. 24, 1947, by President Truman to Defense Secretary Forrestal creating MJ-12 bears an IDENTICAL SIGNATURE (including pen scratch marks) to one on an authentic letter that Truman wrote to Dr. Vannevar Bush on Oct. 1, 1947. The identical signature indicates the document is counterfeit and uses a "Xerox" copy of Truman's signature [SUN #56/Mar. 1999]. Further, when the document was analyzed by Peter Tytell—a highly respected Questioned-Document specialist—he concluded that the 1947 Truman letter had been typed using a Corona typewriter which was first produced in 1963. The Woods' Questioned-Document specialist (James Black) disagrees. Black says it was typed on an Underwood, introduced around 1940. When two experts disagree, SUN believes a third expert should be consulted. One of Speckin's specialties is dating typed material, using a database of approximately 3,000 different typewriter fonts. YET THE IDEA OF GIVING SPECKIN THIS ADDITIONAL, CRITICAL ASSIGNMENT, SEEMINGLY, NEVER OCCURRED TO THE WOODS. Although Timothy Cooper badly flunked a "lie detector" (polygraph) test in 1999, the results did not cause the Woods to suspect that Cooper himself might have created most (if not all) of the Majestic Documents he has provided, judging from the Woods belated press release and their subsequent papers [SUN #59/Sept. 1999]. If any of Cooper's Majestic documents are bogus, the Woods would blame the sources who allegedly leaked the documents to Cooper—unless there is evidence that Cooper himself typed one, or more, of the Majestic Documents he has provided to the Woods. SUCH EVIDENCE WAS FIRST SPOTTED BY BRITISH UFOLOGIST TIMOTHY GOOD IN TWO LETTERS WRITTEN TO HIM BY COOPER, DATED OCT. 4 AND OCT. 7, 1991, and first reported in SUN #60/Nov. 1999. The typewriter used to type the "Majestic 12 Project 1st Annual Report" had a mechanical flaw which frequently resulted in the figure "8" being slightly elevated with respect to adjacent numerals. A strikingly similar mechanical flaw was visible in the typewriter Cooper used to write his letters of Oct. 4 and Oct. 7 to Good. (Specific examples were shown in SUN #60) Another similarity was a slight elevation of the capital letters "G" and "N." SUN acknowledged that "the slight elevation of the upper-case letters conceivably could occur if a typist fails to depress the 'shift' key to its lowest possible position. However, to type a numeral does NOT require the use of the 'shift' key. Thus, a slight elevation of a NUMERAL reveals a slight mechanical flaw in a specific typewriter and thus corresponds to its 'fingerprint.'" During Robert Wood's talk at last year's MUFON conference he responded: "My own Questioned Documents Examiner, James Black, concluded... that fast typists typically do not hit the capitalization bar [shift key] uniformly." DESPITE THE PASSAGE OF A YEAR, NEITHER OF THE WOODS DISCUSSED THIS KEY ISSUE IN THEIR PREPARED REMARKS FOR THIS YEAR'S MUFON CONFERENCE, AS POSTED ON THEIR WEB-SITE. However Dr. Wood did say, "Some skeptics have attempted to convince themselves that Tim Cooper somehow created this mass of material. If the author (Wood) had not gone to see him, the documents might well have stayed in his attic." [SUN Comment: Long before Wood's first visit, Cooper had sent copies of some of his Majestic Documents to Stanton Friedman, Timothy Good, and possibly others.] Dr. Steven Greer's campaign to get Congress to hold open hearings on UFOs seems to have taken a "back seat" to his effort to get legislation to ban space weapons—which he fears would be used against visiting UFOs [SUN #68/Summer 2001]. The sample letter which Greer urges his supporters to write to their Congressional representatives requests them "to enact legislation which will ban all space-based weapons, and to enact and implement international treaty and legal standards prohibiting the weaponization of space." NONE of the many techniques under investigation for potential use in a missile defense system is space-based with the exception of a satellite-based high energy laser for possible use against ballistic missiles during their brief ascent phase. The first feasibility tests are not expected before the end of this decade. ONLY the Soviet Union has tested space-based weapons in the form of "killer satellites," beginning in the late 1960s, which were designed to rendezvous with a target satellite and then explode. The first of 37 killer-satellites tested by the Soviets, Cosmos #249, was launched Oct. 20, 1968. The last Soviet killer-satellite tested, Cosmos #1379, was orbited nearly 13 years later. One of Greer's key advisors on space weapons and founder of the Institute for Cooperation In Space (ICIS) is CAROL ROSIN, who claims that she has been "tracking the space-based weapons issue for about 26 years.... I was one of the first people to go independently to Russia when I heard they had 'killer satellites'... in the early 70s. I found out that they didn't have killer satellites, that it was a lie." (Emphasis added.) If Rosin had checked the report titled "Conventional Anti-Satellite Systems," prepared and published by MIT scientists in March of 1984, she would have found a list of 37 killer-satellites tested by the Soviets between late 1968 and early 1981, as well as a list of their intended targets—nine of which were destroyed. And Rosin would have found confirmation in Britain's Royal Aeronautical Establishment's (RAE) satellite log, which lists all earth satellite launches. It also shows the date and time when each Soviet killer-satellite exploded near its target. [SUN suggests that Greer find a more knowledgeable advisor on space weapons.] Greer's initial Project Disclosure press conference in Washington failed to generate any notable interest among leading members of Congress or press coverage by major newspapers, so he has taken the show on the road to major cities in the U.S. and Canada. The first in Boulder, CO. on June 23, attracted about 600 persons—including some protesters who claim ETs are hostile. The next performance was in San Francisco on July 22 which reportedly attracted an audience of 375. But a Disclosure conference in Miami on Aug. 19, reportedly was attended by only about 100 persons. Another conference in Washington is scheduled for Oct. 7. Greer seeks contributions to bring his campaign to many cities, explaining that the cost is "a modest $5,000 (per city).... If we unite in action, we can begin a new, open chapter in human history—one with new technologies for energy and propulsion, one where we go into space in peace, not with weapons." (Emphasis added.) Although wealthy Silicon Valley software businessman Joe Firmage agrees with Greer that some UFOs are ET visitors and shares Greer's opposition to space weapons, he has not (publicly) endorsed Project Disclosure nor indicated that he is contributing financially to Greer's campaign. Firmage recently announced the creation of a new organization—Motion Sciences Organization—whose stated mission is "the discovery of new technologies enabling clean and abundant energy generation, combustion-free transportation.... The people and partners of Motion Sciences believe there are physical principles that can yield technologies capable, if peacefully used, of eliminating essentially all of the resource bottlenecks of our planet, while simultaneously reducing byproduct wastes by orders of magnitude. While such technology alone will not guarantee world peace, it can at least ensure that neighbors have no need to make war on one another..." [SUN Question: Can any new technology really end the bloodshed in the Middle East, in the Balkans and in Northern Ireland??] The lengthy announcement, posted on a new MSO Web-site (www.motionsciences.org), does NOT mention UFOs, although Firmage believes extraterrestrials have mastered advanced techniques such as Zero Point Energy (ZPE) which are used in their craft and which will be a key objective of MSO's research. The name chosen for Firmage's new operation—Motion Sciences Organization—encompasses the allegedly miraculous propulsion used by UFOs but is more innocuous. MSO will combine two of the operations Firmage created in 1999: International Space Sciences Organization (ISSO) and California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics (CIPA). Creon Levit, who headed ISSO, becomes MSO's director of experimental studies. Dr. Bernard Haisch, who headed CIPA, is MSO's director of theoretical studies. Affiliated with MSO will be the privately funded Institute for Advanced Studies, Austin, TX, headed by Dr. Hal Puthoff, and Scientific Applications and Research Associates, headed by Dr. Parvis Parhami. Also affiliated will be Boston University's Prof. Daniel Cole. ISSO became briefly involved with UFOs in mid-1999 when its Web-site carried a paper authored by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, which attacked those who offer prosaic explanations of UFO reports. In early 2000, ISSO offered its assessment of the Majestic Documents, saying that "ongoing research indicates that many, possibly all, the so-called MJ-12 documents were officially fabricated as instruments of U.S. covert psychological warfare, perhaps beginning in 1950... [SUN #61/Jan. 2000]. Robert/Ryan Wood sharply challenged this ISSO conclusion—their first public break with Firmage [SUN #63/May 2000]. Firmage's earlier plans to publish a hard-cover book containing many of the Cooper/Wood Majestic Documents has been "delayed indefinitely" [SUN #67/Mar. 2001]. Despite some similarities of the Greer and Firmage philosophies, there are significant differences. Greer opposes "space-based" weapons because of his naive fear that they would be used against UFOs. In reality, space-based weapons would be the least cost-effective for countering hostile ET craft. Firmage is more "pacifistic" in his beliefs that technology should not be used to create more effective weapons—regardless of where they are based or used. Firmage's philosophy, and that of his new Motion Sciences Organization, is: "We do not sanction the use of science and technology under a pretense of 'defense' or 'security' that sustains or increases the actual threat of offensive use of any kind of weapon of mass destruction, or mutually assured destruction." With the possible exception of satellite-based high-energy lasers, there is no potential advantage of deploying weapons in space and many challenging problems face this application. To destroy a satellite it is more cost-effective to use a missile launched from the ground or an aircraft, as the U.S. demonstrated in tests more than 30 years ago. The "UFO abduction of Linda Cortile [a pseudonym] and the complex series of events which followed that night [Nov. 30, 1989] have so drastically altered our knowledge of Alien incursions into our world that it is easily history's most important abduction event," in the opinion of Budd Hopkins—leading UFO-abduction researcher. But when Hopkins reported a full account of the (alleged) incident in a book titled "WITNESSED: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge Abductions" (published in mid-1996), its far-out claims generated skepticism even among many "UFO-believers." For example, the book claimed that not only was Linda abducted from her 9th floor apartment in lower Manhattan, but also Perez de Cuellar (then Secretary General of the United Nations) and two of his bodyguards were abducted from their cars. One of the bodyguards, "Richard," allegedly had been abducted many times since childhood to rendezvous with Linda aboard a UFO. Hopkins even speculated that "Richard" might be the father of Linda's youngest son as a result of their "bonding" during one of their abductions [SUN #42/Nov. 1996]. (Perez de Cuellar has flatly denied any UFO abduction.) An Internet press release in late August, announcing that Hopkins's Intruders Foundation would hold its first UFO-abduction seminar of the fall season on Sept. 8, stated that "Budd Hopkins will present dramatic new information from previously silent witnesses in this extraordinary case. In addition to these important new witness accounts, Budd will also offer evidence that Linda Cortile and 'Richard,' one of the [alleged] government agents involved in this encounter, separately gave full accounts of the abduction to the most powerful Catholic prelate in the United States—New York's Cardinal O'Connor. (O'Connor is now deceased.) Further, the Cardinal's close connection with the Vatican makes it virtually certain that details of that night were made known to the Pope, and that the Vatican's recent public interest in theological issues raised by the 'theoretical' discovery of Alien intelligence is a direct result of this Nov. 30, 1989, event. Sound outrageous? You be the judge. This first seminar is one which no one interested in the abduction phenomenon will want to miss.... Seating is limited to the first 50 people who make reservations." (Emphasis added.) Regrettably, SUN's editor was not able to attend. But from a usually reliable source (URS), we have learned that there is no hard evidence—such as a letter signed by the late Cardinal O'Connor—that either Linda or "Richard" told him their Nov. 30, 1989, abduction tales which he found sufficiently credible to report to the Vatican. There may be letters showing that Linda (a religious Catholic) did meet with O'Connor, whom she greatly admired. Possibly a letter purportedly written by "Richard" claiming that he had met with the Cardinal. During Linda's several discussions with the Cardinal after Mass in the mid-1990s, she reportedly described her UFO experiences. But these conversations allegedly were considered "Confessional" and thus confidential. For this reason, according to a Hopkins friend, Linda has flatly refused to provide any specific details of these discussions with the Cardinal—even to Hopkins. SUN Predicts that Hopkins' "new evidence" will generate some debate within pro-UFO circles but will only briefly lift the incident from the obscurity into which it (and other UFO-abduction tales) have fallen. SUN Suggests that Hopkins turn his attention to a more current issue: COULD IT BE CHANDRA LEVY WAS ABDUCTED BY EXTRATERRESTRIALS AND TAKEN BACK TO THEIR DISTANT PLANET?? New insights into Britain's most famous UFO case, which occurred in Rendlesham Forest near the Bentwaters and Woodbridge air bases in late 1980, have been gained as a result of the recent release of the British Ministry Of Defense's (MOD) file on the incident. The release was in response to a request by two British UFOlogists, Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts, who have jointly authored two somewhat pro-UFO books, with a third slated for publication next year. They took advantage of British government plans to introduce a Freedom Of Information Act in 2002—similar to the FOIA of the U.S. This prompted the government to suggest that agencies respond favorably to such requests prior to it becoming the law. So late last year Clarke requested the Rendlesham Forest file from MOD. The 155-page file was released to him last May. Only five documents in the file were exempted and not released—two of them for reasons of national security and three because they contained opinions, advice and/or recommendations. The MOD documents are quite revealing and debunk claims of a British or U.S. government cover-up made in many TV shows and in two recent books. One, co-authored by Larry Warren—who was stationed at the USAF Bentwaters base at the time of the incidents—was titled "Left At Eastgate: A First-Hand Account of the Bentwaters-Woodbridge UFO, Its Cover-up and Investigation." A more recent book by Georgina Bruni is titled "You Can't Tell The People." (SUN's editor has not read either book, but we conducted a tape-recorded two-hour interview with Larry Warren during the 1987 MUFON conference in Washington which demonstrated his powerful inclination to spin tall tales. But Warren admitted that his military career ended prematurely because of suspected illegal-drug use and that both the USAF and Army later refused to allow him to re-enter military service—despite the efforts of his Congressman.) Warren is one of Dr. Greer's key "witnesses." A key player in one of the two UFO incidents was Lt. Col. Charles Halt, who was then the deputy base commander of the USAF's Bentwaters airbase. But Halt did not get around to writing a memo describing his involvement until Jan. 13, 1981—more than two weeks after he and others went into Rendlesham Forest (just outside Bentwaters) to investigate "mysterious lights," i.e., UFOs, following a then-recent report of same by several base security personnel. The MOD files confirm that Halt's memo erred in saying that his visit to Rendlesham Forest was on Dec. 29 and an earlier report of UFOs was on Dec. 27. The first incident really occurred on Dec. 26 (around 3 a.m.) and Halt's involvement occurred in the post-midnight hours on Dec. 28. By the spring of 1983, when the Halt memo with its erroneous dates was released (in response to an FOIA request by UFO researcher Robert Todd) the tape recordings of nearby radars had been re-used so they could not be used by MOD to determine if some of the "mysterious lights" might have been from military or civil aircraft. Clarke/Roberts provide a (slightly critical) summary of the MOD Rendlesham files, posted on their Web-site (www.flyingsaucery.com). One of their conclusions is "The MOD's assessment that the UFO events reported to them by Lt. Col. Halt were of 'no defence significance' was flawed because their analysis of radar data was concentrated upon incorrect dates!" (Emphasis added.) This will be the theme of their new book, titled "NO DEFENCE SIGNIFICANCE?" [SUN Comment: There were NO UFO attacks in late 1980 nor any since then although there have been numerous UFO reports in the U.K.] However, the final conclusion of Clarke/Roberts on their Web-site is: "The release of the MOD file is a major breakthrough in our understanding of what happened in Rendlesham Forest in December 1980. There is nothing in the file to support claims that a cover-up had taken place to hide evidence of ET landings, or that MOD showed other than disinterest in the whole saga from the very beginning. Rather than being a 'smoking gun' the file contents chart the growth of a UFO myth from birth to full maturity. As to what it was that Halt and other witnesses reported in Rendlesham Forest on the nights of 26 and 27/28 December 1980, we can only agree with DI55 (a defense intelligence branch of MOD responsible for advising the Air Staff on UFO reports) that the best explanation is that they saw 'unexplained light,'" according to Clarke/Roberts. However, the principal "mysterious light" that Halt and his associates saw almost certainly was identified by British researcher Ian Ridpath—thanks to a tape recording made by Halt during portions of his trip into Rendlesham Forest. A copy of Halt's tape was given to a British UFOlogist who in turn sold copies to interested researchers and SUN's editor obtained a copy. At several places in Halt's tape a voice describes the light from the UFO suddenly appearing, then getting brighter and brighter, then becoming dimmer and dimmer and finally disappearing only to reappear shortly. The duration of these "cycles" (as best I now recall) was 4.8 seconds. Ridpath discovered that this was the same rotation cycle time as the Orfordness lighthouse—a few miles distant from Halt at the time and at roughly the same bearing as the UFO. (Halt has since denied that this "mysterious light" might have come from the lighthouse.) * Oooops, A Correction: The last SUN (#68/Summer 2001) quoted the military service record of Sergeant First Class Clifford E. Stone—to debunk his claim that he had served on an Army team which recovered crashed ET craft and their crews (as he claimed during his appearance in Dr. Greer's May 9 Project Disclosure press conference). In fact his military record shows that he was trained and served principally as a "clerk/typist." SUN noted that his record listed his principal duty for his Aug. 1983 assignment as "Det Sgt" which we erroneously interpreted as a "military policeman." UFOlogist Kevin Randle (who served as an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam) has informed us that "Det Sgt" really means "Detachment Sergeant." * Greer's Campaign Has Generated No Congressional Action: Project Disclosure's May 9 press conference and its "write your Washington representatives" campaign has NOT motivated any Senators or Congressmen to respond that they will press for hearings on UFOs. Project Disclosure and its letter-writing supporters have received a total of 53 responses from the White House, the Defense Dept. and from Congress, as of Aug 26. According to Project Disclosure's Web-site, slightly more than half of the responses were categorized as "we will keep your views in mind." Eight responses were categorized as expressing an "interest" but only two of these were from Senators. (One of these responses, which SUN would categorize as "skeptical" read: "I would like to see some factual examples of electro-gravitics (sic). If you have any concrete and specific examples, I would surely like to know about them.") Six of the respondents challenged the Project's views on UFOs. * New Letters Plus Video Planned: Clearly Greer was disappointed in the Congressional response: "Our first letters were apparently not getting across that our primary focus is not only establishing the reality of UFOs and extraterrestrial civilizations visiting us. This has been irrefutably established through hundreds of highly credible witnesses willing to testify under oath before Congress with their direct knowledge and many with documented proof.... In our new letters we are offering to bring them current with the subject by sending them a special one-hour video along with documentation. Beyond the UFO/ET issue surrounds very serious issues in which these testimonies are revealing illegal operations within our government structure which includes misappropriations of billions of dollars, the targeting and destruction of extraterrestrial craft and their occupants, the expose of 50 years of suppression of derived advanced technologies that if released could have a profound positive impact on the current energy crisis, health care, pollution and other environmental challenges." (Emphasis added.) * NIDS Scientist Suggests That UFOs May Travel Through "Wormholes": National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) astrophysicist Dr. Eric W. Davis "subjected" his MUFON Conference audience to a boring (for most attendees) paper titled "Wormhole-Stargates: Tunneling Through The Cosmic Neighborhood." Davis concluded his talk by saying, "The UFO phenomenon is rich with complexity, possessing a variety of spectacular characteristics and performances. It is recognized, however, that most of these features go beyond what is accepted by mainstream science and UFO communities as fitting within a rational framework. Synthesis will only occur when both communities apply the scientific method to the UFO problem utilizing forensic investigative methods while engaging in cutting-edge engineering-physics developments. This best describes the practice of NIDS..." * Woods Finally "Discover" Twining's 1947 Memo: On Sept. 10 (shortly before this issue of SUN went to the printer) the Woods issued an announcement on the Internet of several "new" Majestic Documents—one of which is Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining's memo of Sept 23, 1947, to Brig. Gen. George Schulgen, a top USAF intelligence official in the Pentagon, originally classified "Secret." [The Woods state that the Twining Sept. 23 memo was found at the National Archives "by several researchers at least a decade ago." In fact it was published in the University of Colorado/Condon UFO Report in 1969. Following is a brief summary of the Woods' commentary: "Gen. Twining... plainly states: 'The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary'.... The opinion does clearly refer to 'the lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of the objects.' Is this in conflict with the other [Cooper supplied] memos that support crash retrievals [near Cape Girardeau, in California and near Roswell]? No, it is not." (Emphasis added.) * The Woods' Explanation: "This is a 'Secret' memo and could be an effective cover story if leaked to Soviet intelligence. For those who have security clearances this is garden-variety compartmentalization.... Why would Twining publish such a memo? [The memo was not "published" for more than 30 years.] Since Twining would have known the reality of these objects, he and other authorities 'in the know' would have wanted to say something to air commanders around the world and give them serious guidance." [SUN Comment: If Twining's statement was an intentional falsehood, how could it possibly provide "serious guidance" for top USAF officers??] NOTE: Opinions expressed in SUN are those of its editor (unless otherwise noted) and do NOT necessarily represent the views of any organization with which he is affiliated. WE DEEPLY THANK DR. GARY POSNER FOR HIS HELP IN PROOFREADING. SKEPTICS UFO NEWSLETTER (SUN) IS NOW PUBLISHED QUARTERLY (four issues/year). Annual subscription rate is $10/year for U.S./Canada. Overseas rate (airmail) is $15/year. Please make checks or money-order payable to PHILIP J. KLASS.