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If you are following the pages in order then by the time you have gotten here you have read Lightcraft, Lightcraft II Significance, and very importantly Lightcraft III: Janus Point.
Woven within the sequences of events presented on those pages, intimately connected with them, is the subject of this page— The UFO crash at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, on December 9, 1965. It is far more important than any of those events, and yet it was quickly buried. It is far more important than every other incident in the vital sequence of events over The Great UFO Flap of 1965-1967 because its exposure would have solved the dilemma facing the nation and the Second Great UFO Flap in history would have been stillborn. For that matter, the entire subject of UFOs would have changed. Whenever a UFO would be seen thereafter, people would naturally assume it was Lightcraft. In addition, the nation would have started collectively drumming its fingers on the table, wondering why our technology wasn’t advancing us further into the stars than these rural antics.
There are, of course, three major media events within The Great UFO Flap of 1965-1967.
1. The first naturally is the beginning on August 1, 1965, when 9 glowing objects began the flap over the Midwest. Mutual Radio Network’s Frank Edwards followed the events closely: “The upsurge in prominence for the UFOs in 1966 was the direct outgrowth of their dramatic mass appearances in 1965, culminating in the night of August 2-3, when an estimated quarter of a million persons stood out in the Great Plains states of the United States and watched the formations of unusual lights maneuvering overhead.”
2. Months later on March 20/21, 1966, a bronze colored bell or hemisphere zoomed in like a fireball in the night sky and hovered over a swamp at Dexter, Michigan. The next night it put on a display for quite sometime and was seen by the student body and faculty of a college at nearby Hillsdale. Gerald Ford called for a Congressional hearing on UFOs.
3. A month later, during this Congressional investigation, on April 17, 1966, a glowing UFO coasted in from the northwest over eastern Ohio and was chased for 80 miles by 3 Ohio lawmen into Pennsylvania where, in company of a Pennsylvania patrolman, they all saw the object zoom up in the region of Kecksburg and then wink out.
Between these dates there was this far more significant event. In the late afternoon of December 9, 1965, another bronze UFO, definitely bell shape, zoomed in over Ohio and followed the same basic trajectory that the UFO would in April 1966 when the 4 lawmen were witness to it. Instead of zooming up over the Kecksburg area, however, it slowed down. It glowed blue-green. It made what one witness, Bill Bulebush, described as a hesitating move. Then executing a maneuver indicating intelligent control, it came down smashing through trees in the woods near Kecksburg at 4:47 p.m. (time confirmed by radar at Pittsburgh airport tower).
The object had settled in a small gully through which a seasonal creek flows. A small fire began, but in the heavy winter night it didn’t take hold. Witnesses were soon there.
Fire Marshal Carl Metz was one of the first. Other townsfolk also began to drift out there as well as a reporter, John Murphy. He saw Metz go to the scene with a Geiger counter and return looking disturbed. Murphy was originally invited to join the team to go down later, but the Army arrived and revoked the offer.
The Army was now flooding the narrow road, with a number of trucks, including a large flatbed. They cordoned off the area and kept civilians back.
But before the Army sealed the area off, a couple of witnesses had got in close. Firefighter James Romansky was one of them. The object was shaped like an acorn, he said. It was bronze-brown and it had no doors, windows or seams (it was partially buried in the moist gully so he didn’t see it all). It was about 10 to 12 feet tall and 8 to 12 feet in diameter. It had a bumper around it and there were strange hieroglyphs on this bumper similar to ancient Egyptian writings.
Another key witness was Jerry Betters. Later in the evening, he had guns pointed at him because he was trying to get a view of what they had pulled up from the gully. He saw it sitting on the flatbed of an Army truck before it was covered by tarpaulin. It was a little bigger than a Volkswagen (beetle). He drew a picture for a SCI-FI channel-backed investigation in 2003. It largely conforms to what Romansky saw.
Jerry Betters drew the above with his affidavit for journalist Leslie Kean, which she reproduced in her article in The International UFO Reporter, October 2005.
It is, of course, Lightcraft.
Scientific theorem (enough evidence to prove in principle an hypothesis) allows no other conclusion. In Scientific Method, it is called making “a rational inference from observed data.” This means enough observation and classification has occurred (first 2 process skills of Scientific Inquiry) for a inference to solidly direct an ensuing investigation and the building of an hypothesis.
No need to laborious repeat here what is at the other Lightcraft pages. They and much more to be discussed establishes enough observations to make the appropriate classification that Lightcraft was in action and was responsible for this and thousands of other UFO  sightings, creating The Great Flap of 1965-1967 and inspiring some of the most intriguing UFO incidents through the 1970s.
And, of course, in addition to the bell-shaped Lightcraft capsule having been filmed in maneuvers over Kirtland AFB in 1978, the existence of Lightcraft was later quietly released and the bell capsule, sewn also of bronze fabric, is even the centerpiece of the project patch.
At full power, of course, the bell glows yellow-orange in a somewhat domed disc shape.
Had its existence and phenomenal capabilities been exposed in the news at Kecksburg, UFO sightings thereafter would have lost their “otherworldly” aura. In particular, when the bronze bell/hemisphere came bursting in over the swamp at Dexter and at Hillsdale, Michigan, 4 months later it would have been recognized for being another model or unit of the same design. That surely would have ended any budding UFO flap. Gerald Ford would not have called for a Congressional hearing. Dr. J. Allen Hynek would not have converted to believing in UFOs. There would have been no Condon Committee. Inquiry might have even extended back in history, and journalists might have started to probe into the events at Levelland, Texas, November 1957, and other similar UFO reports.
The news flurry over the crash at Kecksburg was instead more intriguing than enlightening. TV reported the Army taking over the woods in almost marshal law fashion. Radio broadcasts made updates. Newspaper headlines mentioned a UFO and that something crashed. The military speculated it had been a meteor. Then supposedly nothing had come down. Or maybe it was more than one meteor. Then nothing was found.
Why was such a hot story allowed to smolder away? Ironically, it was because too many locals had seen it clearly. As described, the object just didn’t conform to the UFO stereotype of the domed saucer. Because of its non saucer shape various investigators and theorists have speculated that it was a Russian satellite which reentered and crashed. Perhaps even a US film canister which reentered incorrectly and crashed and had valuable film of Russia in it (the plot of Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean, which was out in the movies that year). This isn’t as exciting as a saucer with little men from Mars, so the story just didn’t endure in UFO circles.
Alien enthusiasts only thinly circle the topic for one reason. Freedom of Information Act requests by some civilian researchers were naturally sent into various government and military bureaus, requesting the identity of the space object the Army had been so involved in picking up. Each agency responded, denying any knowledge, with NASA plainly declaring (and quite honestly) nothing had come in from space that day. This is quite true.
The upshot is that the satellite and secret device protagonists decry the government for coverup and for refusing to explain to honest citizens (and always taxpayers) about what happened; the other side, the alien ET believers, therefore believe the coverup means it was a UFO and Kecksburg is more significant than Roswell.
Today, Kecksburg celebrates the event with a UFO festival. A graven image on a modern totem venerates a golden acorn object like the ritual Wicker Man.
Even with Google Earth you can see the memorial object in Kecksburg when
going down to street view.
One witness has complained that the “bumper” (power rim) is too broad on the memorial idol. He is correct. The power rim, which is what they refer to by bumper, is not that broad. He reminded people that it was under 2 feet thick, closer to 18 inches thick.
A comparison— left to right: the Lightcraft as seen on the project patch (the semi circle on the bottom indicates the light force coming from it; it is not a solid part of the device); the Lightcraft as based on Betters’ drawing; from blow ups of Paul Bennewitz’s photos of the Lightcraft in action over Kirtland AFB in 1978.
For the purpose of our investigation at hand, the Kecksburg crash has great value. The witnesses described it up close, proving in retrospect it was Lightcraft. The immediate military response, of course, means it was something already quite known and highly valued. (No claim of a UFO crash has ever brought an entire military unit out with recovery vehicles ready.) Altogether it confirms (yet again) the source of the Second Great UFO Flap, so instrumental in bringing us to the present era, was jealously guarded. But its value extends beyond this. It gives us a disturbing insight into Project Blue Book and a glimpse at what lengths the instigators of this nationwide UFO operation would go to protect the identity of Lightcraft.
In her IUR article, Leslie Kean details the ordeals of reporter John Murphy. The reader can consult her works for those details. Relevant here is the fact he saw Air Force officers at the State Police barracks in nearby Greenburg. It is of interest here because it seems these are the three Air Force officers who were dispatched from the 662nd Squadron Radar Station at Oakdale near Pittsburgh, one of them being a Blue Book liaison officer. Their assignment was to “check the woods for an object that started a fire.” Kean checked the paperwork for Blue Book. It indicates that Lt. James Cashman called Blue Book from Oakdale at 2 a.m. declaring they had found nothing. Years later in a followup interview, he said they were out in the forest with flashlights and confirmed they found nothing. Cashman said they saw no military presence in the area, which would be impossible if they were anywhere near the site. Therefore one has to wonder if the Air Force officers were steered away from the actual crash site.
Finding a satisfactory answer is highly relevant here. In order to put into place The Great Flap of 1965-1967 one must assess how much Blue Book was allowed to know of Lightcraft and top secret operations. Technically speaking, it was far outside their realm of “UFOs” since Lightcraft was, at least to those who operated them, not unidentified. Yet anyone could call Blue Book and they obviously responded to such reports. If Cashman’s statements are accurate, then they had been steered away and kept in ignorance. But as a liaison officer at a small base he isn’t going to know much of anything that went on at HQ at Wright-Patterson AFB and therefore it is not a reflection of BB’s level of knowledge. In a few months time, however, one man’s life would be destroyed with the head of Blue Book’s help, making us wonder to what extent the famous Project BB was used to cover such an operation as that which went on over 1965-1967.
On April 17, 1966, Portage county (Ohio) deputies Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff, then officer Wayne Huston of East Palestine, chased a UFO on the same flight track and, along with patrolman Frank Panzanella at Freedom, Pennsylvania, watched it ascend and wink out over the Kecksburg area. A media blitz followed the case. When the chief of Blue Book, Major Hector Quintanilla, called Spaur his first words were “Tell me about this mirage you saw,” which makes it plain he was ready to belittle Spaur’s testimony. The only logical reason for such a predetermined attitude would be a foreknowledge of and orders to protect Lightcraft.
Expressing this attitude from the outset was rather bold on Quintanilla’s part. The Congressional hearings were ongoing, and they didn’t like his brusque dismissal of the incident as an example of where 4 cops were beguiled by Venus and ended up chasing it— an incredibly simplistic assertion. Astronomical advisor to Blue Book, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, didn’t like the conclusion either. He had never been consulted, and he was supposed to be consulted on astronomical pronouncements. He looked at their statements. From the officers’ combined testimony it was obvious they had noted Venus in its right place near the moon. The object was obviously something different.
With Congress unhappy, Quintanilla had to go interview them again, and the interview was combative and awkward between him and Spaur, to say the least. He ended up telling them they still chased Venus (See Lightcraft III: Janus Point).
Dr. J. Allen Hynek writes (The UFO Experience) how Spaur’s life was ruined:
The sequel to this case is not pleasant. Largely because the press and Blue Book concentrated on Dale Spaur almost to the exclusion of the other three witnesses, the public gained the impression that here was a case of one policeman’s having become unbalanced and having experienced a major hallucination. It is clear that this certainly is the implication in Quintanilla’s interview with Spaur. Subsequently, Spaur was singled out for unbearable ridicule and the pressure of unfavorable publicity. The combination of events wrecked his home life, estranged him from his wife, and ruined his career and his health. He is no longer with the police force, and, it is reported, he subsists on doing odd jobs.
Tragic on its own, but it becomes immoral if hidden behind Quintanilla’s simplistic approach he knew the truth; that because of the incompetence or the intentional desire of those in control of this operation to create the illusion UFOs existed and were from another planet, an honest cop was destroyed for doing his duty and reporting the facts. But did Quintanilla know? When hosting his part of UFOs: It Has Begun in 1974 Quintanilla was very honest about describing the similar UFO over Dexter. Honest though he was about its manmade appearance, he still would not say what Blue Book’s (his) conclusion was in this case. He  would only conclude: “I believe the Air Force presented its side quiet openly and completely. It seemed to satisfy the members of the [Congressional] committee.”
Quintanilla, seated, with his Blue Book staff.
It is preferable to believe that Quintanilla was merely as myopic as Hynek portrays him. “Quintanilla’s method was simple: disregard any evidence that was counter to his hypothesis.” And as we know his hypothesis was that UFOs were all hoaxes, misidentifications or errors.
Quintanilla was a stark contrast to the previous boss of Blue Book, Major Robert Friend. Hynek would consider Friend to have been the best head of Blue Book, and he asserted his respect for him in his book The UFO Experience. Major Friend (retired Lt. Colonel) had a cautious but open-minded attitude. When later interviewed in the 1970s for In Search of. . . he said: “I believe that speculation and scientific approach to it can’t live together. I would feel that there were, in lots of instances, cases that had potential scientific pay dirt; that possibly should have been pursued further. And in that regard, yes, I think that some of the cases had a lot of promise.”
Robert Friend was chief of Project Blue Book between 1959 and 1963, and was replaced with Quintanilla before the Socorro Landing (1964) and Great Flap of 1965-1967. Quintanilla would remain the chief until it was shuttered in January 1970, and his myopic approach would influence Blue Book’s pronouncements throughout the Second Great Flap and all that cascaded from it.
Further study of Kean’s article suggests that at least in this case Blue Book was just kept ignorant. One of the 3 Air Force officers dispatched from Oakdale recalled driving to a barracks and then the two other Air Force men went searching the woods with a state trooper. These must be the officers Murphy saw at the Greenburg police barracks. From these police barracks the formal statement was issued that the police searched the woods and found nothing whatsoever. It was soon after this that another state police officer came from the barracks and approached Murphy. “We got something out there. It’s blue and it’s pulsating and there’s a light on it.” He then told Murphy that the “military” wanted to go see the light.
Had the Oakdale officers already left? Murphy would state that he saw Air Force officers in the woods with the Army officers, but we do not know if these are the same ones. The Blue Book officers could have been ushered away by this time, and these officers had come from another base. This is a valuable clue. They most likely would have come Bolling AFB, near Washington DC (via Andrews AFB).
Who knew what and when did they know it?
The Army would hardly be operating these novel craft. But a knowledge of government agencies and how things work, coupled with the clues above, give us a good idea of who the operators were— operators of an operation which, from our vantage anyway, haphazardly flew these about the country and thereby exacerbated the belief in UFOs as ET spacecraft. And this gives us a good idea about who to ask.
Many others have sent in FOIA requests to all the military and government agencies in attempts to find answers about what came down at Kecksburg and why there was such heavy military presence over “nothing” or a “meteor.” The response from all was “no records.” I have had to do the same too, of course, only in my case adding what could be a better FOIA trigger: Lightcraft. Also, suspecting the intelligence agency involved, I awaited a slightly different response to the trigger word from them. I submitted my FOIA to them last.
First was the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, which investigates all Air Force accidents. They returned a “no records” response. I expected this. In a heavy duty over-taped envelope, the CIA sent me a commercial, essentially, informing me that for $10.00 I could have all their UFO released documents on CD-ROM. Curious, since I asked about a crash of a US operated vehicle. I replied believing I had been misunderstood. I had not been, I was told. This is the response they send to all inquirers. I wasn’t denied yet again. It was just kinda ignored that I was asking for a crash about a Lightcraft. The NSA acknowledged receipt, but then never responded. The National Air and Space Intelligence Center (the former Air Technical Intelligence at Wright-Patterson) closed my request summarily without responding. The Defense Intelligence Agency never responded.
This was very satisfying, and rather explanatory.
The facts accumulated about the Kecksburg crash reveal a pattern consistent with an intelligence operation that has command over all branches of the military service. In addition, combined evidence indicates that the Lightcraft’s trajectory was toward Letterkenny Army Depot. Four months later the “UFO” that deputies Dale Spaur and Wilber Neff, then Wayne Huston, followed for 80 miles was on the same trajectory. The difference is that it finally zoomed up over this same area of Pennsylvania, then winked out— a maneuver that would indicate it was hiding its base. Darkened, it would not be difficult to come down at Letterkenny’s back paddock.
The significant UFO incidents of 1965-1966 fall along the same trajectory. Starting at upper left on map, Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan, March 1966; UFO seen by Spaur and Neff at Atwater-Deerfield April 1966. They chase it to Freedom, Pennsylvania. It is seen to head to the southeast, rise up and wink out, which is the area over Kecksburg where on the previous December 9 (1965) the bell-shaped “UFO” had crashed. Red star marks Letterkenny Army Depot.
Using an Army depot makes sense from the point of view of an intelligence agency. Such depots are huge areas where the base commander is, quite frankly, a glorified warehouseman. If told to keep his blinds shut at night, he would along with the entire administration building. Air Force bases are too active and have too many witnesses with 20/20 vision. Army depots don’t.
Projecting this pattern helps us to decipher future UFO riddles. These events above are a paper doll cutout for UFO patterns in the 1970s. Examples here are the UFO reports in the Sierra foothills of northern California over October and November 1978. They occurred in the boondocks, 65 miles north of Beale AFB and 150 miles from the huge and remote Sierra Army Depot, both within easy range of Lightcraft. Several witnesses to more than one bright yellow-orange UFO give us valuable details.
One of the clearest descriptions comes from Mike Farmer of Vina, California. About 9 p.m. he was on a remote area of the Charles Cobb ranch (10,000 acres) when he was attracted to a greenish central light on an object low to the ground. Then it glided into the valley. The object became a glowing yellowish (orange-yellow) ball of fire. “All of a sudden . . .the whole canyon wall lit up. I could see the trees, the rocks, everything. . . .I was a couple of miles away from it and I could see everything, like the sun was shining on it.” Then “Out of the corner of my eye I spotted another one over above the creek and it was a lot closer and it was moving down the creek real slow.”
Farmer drove down to get a closer look. When 150 feet (estimated) he stopped and got out. He saw a “‘spaceship’ sitting motionless above the power lines.” The Chico Enterprise-Record reports next: “I could see it then. I could see its shape above those wires.”
He described the craft as being bell shaped,
30 feet wide at the base and 10 to 12 feet high.
Presumably, this 30 foot estimate is a typo since his drawing (above) does not reflect this proportion. His drawing reflects that of Lightcraft. Moreover, the Record elaborates:
As he watched it hover, the bright yellow white light
that emanated from the base grew in intensity. The
green light that had attracted Farmer’s attention to the
first craft continued to pulsate just above the lip of the
bell and at the bell’s crown were red and white lights.
The craft had no distinct color. In the darkness of night this does fit with it being a brown or bronze color, the color of Lightcraft. As Mike Farmer watched for a few minutes he began to feel “real spooky.” He then left.
Farmer told his boss, Charles Cobb— a Cape Cod born former Air Force pilot. He was very interested due to his own sighting of a UFO in 1956 while flying a mission. A few days later Cobb’s wife was with Farmer and they saw the yellow-orange light. On their way to join them was Charles Cobb and his companion Franco Alberico. From Cobb’s car, they saw it from a distance.
“All of a sudden there was this bright yellow-orange light.” At one point it divided and became three lights. Cobb suspected 3 craft had been flying in close formation, but only one of them had its light on. Then the other two put their lights on. Then they rejoined and the other two put their lights out.
Three Lightcraft in action over Kirtland AFB (1978) and photographed by Paul Bennewitz (Thunder Scientific). The trailing bell is quite dim at low power. Reader is strongly advised to consult Greg Valdez’s book Dulce Base.
Cobb’s description mirrors the report of several lawmen during The Great Flap of 1965-1967 (such as at Deadwood City). And when we get into Phase 3, we will see how the following description also echoes the statements from lawmen in Colorado and New Mexico concerning the strange UFOs they had to contend with during the cattle mutilation waves in the mid to late 1970s. For instance:
Cobb, an experienced pilot who received the
Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished
Flying Cross before leaving the Air Force with the
rank of Major, said the light seemed to stay near
the same power lines where the original craft had hovered.
When Cobb shined his own powerful light in the
direction of the object it winked out and moved to
another spot, where it again began to shine.
[emphasis mine]
Over the next few days, they checked the ranch. No ground seemed disturbed and no animals missing or mutilated.
Cobb had his own theories and, of course, joked about it, wanting to know what aliens would be interested in on his land. If there was something economical, he wanted a space letter from them detailing their proposal. But then he got serious. He believed the UFOs were taking energy from the power lines. “It’s no laughing matter. It’s really time for people to wake up. These things are out there. We are being observed.”
Many others had reported these otherworldly lights. One was Jack Trites, a United Airlines employee for 23 years. The other was his brother, Howard Trites, a Colonel in the Air Force. Colonel Trites estimated the light moved at about 60 miles per hour through the valley floor. He  never saw anything like it. Both agreed it was orange-yellow.
Two Lightcraft showing them bluish-yellow. Photo by Paul Bennewitz. Consult Dulce Base by Greg Valdez.
However, from Cobb’s friend John Harrington, a retired sea captain, we discover another Lightcraft color trait at low power. “The light sometimes had a bluish tinge and sometime a yellowish tinge” and “was always way brighter than any car lights.” He was approaching the hunting lodge and saw the light moving near the gate. At first he thought it was someone trying to get into the ranch . . . until, that is, the light just continued on and never stopped at the gate. It was just flying that low to the ground, as Farmer too had seen it do.
Harrington called Cobb on the CB radio. Cobb tried to reach it, but it played keep-away for 20 minutes until “it just disappeared like somebody pulled the switch.”
Only 65 miles south is Beale AFB, home to high altitude intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (which includes U-2 and RQ-4). The huge and highly remote Sierra Army Deport is about 100 miles away to the east.
The distance of the UFO sightings east of Vina (marked by red arrow) from both Beale AFB and Sierra Army Depot (red star). During the Great Flap of 1965-1967 many similar UFO reports were made, suggesting Lightcraft’s intended use was low level reconnaissance initially, and its cover was a UFO.
Since Beale is the center for high altitude spy reconnaissance one might well assume that they were practicing low altitude reconnaissance with Lightcraft. From Farmer’s description, this one had lots of gadgets on it, some of which might have been for surveillance. However, from the public perspective the end result was UFO visitation.
The Vina area appears to have been a location for early testing of Lightcraft’s ability at low level data gathering and also of its otherworldly psychological effects on ground observers. On August 13, 1960, a glowing light burned in from the north and descended at a 45 degree angle. State Officers Charles Carson and Stanley Scott were sure it was an aircraft on fire coming in to crash. Then it stopped, hovered about about 200 feet off the ground, reversed its course and gained about 500 feet quickly. It was a circle or oblong and it glowed brightly, its ends being red. Carson took these to be red lights and in between more white lights. “As we watched the object moved again and performed aerial feats that were actually unbelievable.” They called the Tehama Co. Sheriff’s office, who then relayed the request for a radar confirmation, which was acknowledged. “The radar base confirmed the UFO— completely unidentified.”
In like manner to the display of UFOs seen over Burbank in February 1957, this object shot a light beam to the ground (in this case red). It also came in close.
Officer Scott turned the red light on the patrol vehicle towards the object, and it immediately went away from us. We observed the object use the red beam approximately 6 or 7 times, sweeping the sky and ground areas. The object began moving slowly in an easterly direction and we followed. We proceeded to the Vina Plains Fire Station where it was approached by a similar object from the south. It moved near the first object and both stopped, remaining in that position for some time, occasionally emitting the red beam. Finally, both objects disappeared below the eastern horizon.
At the sheriff station, they discovered that deputies Fry and Montgomery also clearly saw the UFOs. All told, up to 14 lawmen had seen the strange objects. In addition, radar confirmed the first object on their scope and it was officially unidentified. All this taken into consideration, the official Air Force explanation was a bit insulting— “Northern lights.” In response to NICAP’s independent investigation, Officer Carson wrote back on November 14, 1960:
“I served 4 years with the Air Force, I believe I am familiar with the Northern lights, also weather balloons. Officer Scott served as a paratrooper during the Korean Conflict. Both of us are aware of the tricks light can play on the eyes during darkness. We were aware of this at the time. Our observations and estimations of speed, size, etc. came from aligning the object with fixed objects on the horizon. I agree we find it difficult to believe what we were watching, but no one will ever convince us that we were witnessing a refraction of light.”
This encounter is far superior to the Exeter Incident in September 1965 and the Spaur/Neff/Huston/Panzarella sighting of April 1966. So why didn’t a book follow or the same destructive ridicule in August 1960? For one, this wasn’t one of hundreds of sightings nationwide. Congress wasn’t holding hearings about it. The Press wasn’t rooting around to find and amplify more stories. And the cops didn’t make a point of it. Lightcraft’s operation between Beale (where U-2 was also being launched) and Sierra Army Depot remained obscure except in the buried reports of the UFO phenomenon.
Carson drew a crude image of what they saw, believing it to be huge, silver with glowing red lights on the ends.
Carson drew this for NICAP’s investigator, Walter Webb (Hayden Planetarium). I know some will say this suggests the Betty and Barney Hill saucer. But be patient. That is for here. Instead please compare to Lightcraft’s 25-foot hemisphere. Lightcraft goes through various color changes with altitude and power output, red being quite common. Here, below, the mushroom shaped Lightcraft vehicle glows yellow-white with blue fringes. It makes it look oblong, cigar or football shape with blue lights on the “ends” and silver in between.
The Air Force knew these UFOs were coming en masse. In 1959 the secret briefing UFOs: Serious Business was written up and therein General Richard O’Keefe forewarned that UFO sightings would increase. The Air Force had to be ready with proper investigators to answer the questions coming in from the public. The restricted briefing had been leaked out to NICAP and on February 27, 1960, they broke the news to the mainstream press.
For those who have read the Lightcraft pages here or indeed are adepts in UFO history beginning with Levelland, Texas, November 2, 1957, and through The Great Flap of 1965-1967, and into the cattle mutilation waves of the 1970s, you are quite familiar with the scenario above in the Vina sightings. Usually the UFOs were orange-yellow-white lights. They came in low over prairies and paddocks. They hovered. They zoomed up. They seemed to divide and remain the same size. They winked out. They always remained in rural areas. This UFO behavior came to inspire our theories on motives for alien visitation, abduction, cattle mutilation.
Yet it is Lightcraft. The operation of Lightcraft, however, fits with no logical operation. It has only served to instill in us a belief in UFOs visiting the hinterlands of the US and associate them rather macabrely with the strange mutilation of American cattle.
Is there really a connection? It is finally time to establish it or exonerate government agencies. Either course brings us into a period of darkness, darker now when foreshadowed by these events over 1965-1967. We must go to PHASE 3 now in our quest to explain the UFO phenomenon.
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