UFO Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key UFO Media Articles in Major Media
Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
Thursday night’s “Secret Access” report by The History Channel — “UFOs On The Record” — is the sort of crisp advocacy journalism one might easily envision in PBS’ “Frontline” rotation. Devoid of the tripe that too often characterizes network programming on this issue, “UFOs On The Record” is a foundational model for jump-starting a national conversation so desperately overdue. The 96-minute documentary, built upon Leslie Kean’s UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, was produced by filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sudberg. Like Kean, they made no unsubstantiated claims and dispensed with the uninformed ruminations of so-called UFO skeptics that pass for “balance” in mainstream formulas. Instead, they mined official documents and eyewitnesses to build a compelling case for the serious disconnect between reality and American public policy. For Kean’s readers, the “Secret Access” treatment covered familiar turf: the Phoenix Lights, the Rendlesham Forest incident, the 1989-90 Belgian wave, etc. But watching many of the players in the book — like former Federal Aviation Administration accidents division chief John Callahan, and retired Belgian Gen. Wilfried De Brouwer — as they physically reconstructed complex interactions between UFOs and jet planes brought the enormity of the transactions to life.
Note: We don't usually use newspapers of smaller cities as a reliable source, but as no other major media reported on this most powerful documentary on UFOs, we're including this one here. To watch this astounding documentary free online, click here. For another detailed article on the program, click here.
Budd Hopkins, a distinguished Abstract Expressionist artist who — after what he described as a chance sighting of something flat, silver, airborne and unfathomable — became the father of the alien-abduction movement, died on Aug. 21 at his home in Manhattan. He was 80. After what he described as his own U.F.O. sighting, on Cape Cod in 1964, he began gathering the stories of people who said they had not only seen spaceships but had also been spirited away in them on involuntary and unpleasant journeys. As the first person to collect and publish such stories in quantity, Mr. Hopkins is widely credited with having begun the alien-abduction movement, a subgenre of U.F.O. studies. Later high-profile writers on the subject, including Whitley Strieber and the Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, credited him with having ignited their interest in the field. In eliciting the narratives — many obtained under hypnosis — of people who said they had been abducted, Mr. Hopkins was struck by the recurrence of certain motifs: the lonely road, the dark of night, the burst of light, the sudden passage through the air and into a waiting craft, and above all the sense of time that could not be accounted for. He went in search of that lost time.
Note: Prof. John Mack, mentioned in this article as inspired by the work of Budd Hopkins, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and professor at Harvard Medical School who initially rejected the possibility of alien abductions. Only after thorough investigation did he reluctantly come to the conclusion that this was a real phenomenon. For a powerful documentary featuring Mack's work on alien abductions, click here. For a fascinating summary of evidence presented by top government and military professionals on the possible presence of extraterrestrials here on Earth, click here.
Fareed Zakaria talks to Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. Why does Paul Krugman say space aliens could fix the U.S. economy? Paul Krugman: Think about World War II, right? That was actually negative social product spending, and yet it brought us out. If we discovered that space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and ... inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months. And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren't any aliens, we'd be better – there was a Twilight Zone episode like this in which scientists fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace. Well, this time ... we need it in order to get some fiscal stimulus.
Note: A Fairchilds Industries Corporate Manager turned whistleblower has been talking about a staged UFO alien invastion predicted by rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun for many years. See her comments here.
Newly released government files on UFOs show a lack of will and resources to study thousands of reported sightings. The Ministry of Defence files released by the National Archives cover reported sightings of UFOs from 1985 to 2007. The 34 files include sightings of lights over Glastonbury and a "flying saucer" in Nottinghamshire. National Archives consultant Dr David Clarke said it was about time the data was released. "One of the most interesting documents in the files is a piece from an intelligence officer, who basically says that despite thousands of reports that they've received since the Second World War, they've never done any study or spent any money or time on the subject, and they say that people just won't believe that when they find out." Nick Pope worked at the MoD between 1991 and 1994. He said the files were quite revealing: "The fascinating thing about these files is that they show that just as in society there's this huge debate about UFOs - is it really interesting, are we being visited by aliens - or is it all just nonsense? We were having the same debates in the Ministry of Defence. Some people thought it was a waste of time and money, others thought it was of extreme defence significance."
Note: The UFO files can be downloaded free of charge for a month from the National Archives website. For more, visit our UFO Information Center.
What is definitely known about Area 51 is that it’s used by the US government to develop and test experimental aircraft and weapons systems and that it’s been doing this since flight-testing of the U-2 spy plane began there in 1955. Designed by Lockheed, on behalf of the CIA, the U-2 was a high-altitude, long-range aircraft capable of flying over enemy territory and taking pictures, unobserved. The site is bordered to the west by the Nevada test site – a vast tract of desert sequestered by the Department of Energy, ... very much off-limits to the public. Area 51 was the perfect place to develop and test the “black projects” – military aircraft so vital to America’s national security that even most members of the government had no “need to know” that they even existed. West of the base’s main living quarters, on a piece of ground slightly above the lake bed, a waste dump had been constructed. Vehicles with California license plates would head up to the dump to unload cargoes of waste too secret to dispose of normally. While a lot of waste material put into the pits was generated on-site, there were also the contents of those trucks that hauled up every week from California.
Note: Although this is an unusually informative article about Area 51, it dismisses any UFO involvement there, despite much evidence. See our informative UFO Information Center for additional perspectives.
Officially, the U.S. government has never acknowledged the existence of Area 51. Unofficially, it has become a place associated with conspiracy theories, alien landings and tiny spaceships. In Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, [Los Angeles Times journalist Annie] Jacobsen details how several agencies — including the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Defense and the CIA — once used the site to conduct controversial and secretive research on aircraft and pilot-related projects, including planes that traveled three times faster than the speed of sound and nuclear-propelled, space-based missile launch systems. Nuclear tests at Area 51 gave the Department of Defense ideas about how the technology could be used to help the United States' newly minted space program. Jacobsen: There was an unusual moment where [my] source became very upset and told me ... that a flying disc really did crash in New Mexico and it was transported to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and then in 1951 it was transferred to Area 51. My source, who I absolutely believe and worked with for 18 months on this, was one of the engineers who received the equipment and he also received the people who were in the craft. The people ... were child-sized pilots. I absolutely believe the veracity of my source, and I believe it was important that I put this information out there because it is the tip of a very big iceberg.
Note: The author and her source believe the child-sized pilots were the result of a Soviet human experimentation program. For the testimony of top military and government officials on the reality of a major UFO cover-up and their personal experince with it, click here. For lots more reliable information on UFOs, click here. An excerpt from the book at the end of the NPR article has some fascinating information on Area 51.
A story that combines UFO cover-ups with the assassination of John F. Kennedy is ... just what author William Lester says he uncovered while conducting research for a new book on Kennedy: a memo written by JFK and addressed to the CIA in which the president requests confidential information about UFOs. In the never-before-seen, top secret memo supposedly written on Nov. 12, 1963, the president ordered the CIA director to organize the agency's intelligence files relating to UFOs, and to debrief him on all "unknowns" by the following February. Ten days later, Kennedy was assassinated. Lester, a paranormal researcher and author of the new book A Celebration of Freedom: JFK and the New Frontier ... said he obtained the memo along with two others from the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act. "The government regularly declassifies documents after a certain amount of time goes by, and then you have to file a request for those documents," Lester [said]. "When I was in the process of filing, those letters had just become declassified and released to the public." This happened in 2006 or 2007, Lester said. "At the time, I think other people were getting them too." Some archivists question its authenticity. A research technician at the JFK Library in Boston, who asked not to be named, was unable to find a carbon copy of it in its presidential archive, which holds copies of all of JFK's letters.
Note: Fred made an FOIA request for this document and received response, "the CIA Information Act ... exempts CIA operational files from the search, review, publication, and disclosure requirements of the FOIA." Very interesting. To see the memo and more, click here. For an excellent selection of news article excerpts suggesting a major cover-up of UFOs, click here. For an abundance or resources from reliable sources on UFOs, see our UFO information center available here.
Flying saucer sightings? Reports of three-foot-tall aliens? Secret memos about suspicious objects recovered near Roswell, N.M.? They're all included in the thousands of declassified government documents posted to the FBI's new online "Vault." Among the so-called "X-files" are once-classified reports dating back to the 1940s and 1950s detailing Air Force investigations into "flying discs" and the "bodies of human shape" discovered inside them. In one report from March 1950, Guy Hottel, a special agent with the FBI, said he received information from an Air Force investigator about flying saucers found in New Mexico. "They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50-feet in diameter," he wrote. "Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall, dressed in a metallic cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner very similar to the blackout suits used by speed flyers and test pilots." The informant, whose name is redacted in the file, said he thought the saucer was spotted in New Mexico because a high-powered government radar in the area interfered with the saucer's controlling mechanism. Other reports once marked "restricted" and "confidential" detail sightings of mysterious flashing lights and other "unidentified aerial objects."
Note: You can view the declassified memorandum described above on the FBI website at this link. Or download this amazing document and view it on our website at this link. For lots more reliable information suggesting a major cover-up of the reality of ET visitation, click here.
Intelligence papers on a reported UFO sighting known as the "Rendlesham incident" have gone missing, files from the National Archives reveal. The missing files relate to a report of mysterious lights from US servicemen at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk in 1980. The disappearance came to light with the release of 8,000 previously classified documents on UFOs. Officials found a "huge" gap where defence intelligence files relating to the case should be, the papers show. The incident took place near the fence of RAF Woodbridge - at that time being used by the US Air Force. A group of servicemen reported seeing strange lights in the trees near the base and after investigating found marks on the ground and damage to vegetation. The files reveal the MoD received a request for its own records of the incident in 2000, but when officials looked they discovered a "huge" gap where defence intelligence files relating to it should be. But it is not the only gap in the official record. In 2002 the MoD received a request for information from Lord Hill-Norton. He wanted to know about reports of a UFO sighting made by HMS Manchester while on exercise in the 1990s. It emerged in the file that HMS Manchester's log for one of the periods was lost overboard after "a gust of wind".
Note: Something major is missing from this article, too. The servicemen at Rendlesham not only found marks, they saw a craft up close. One man even touched the vehicle. These military men have all gone on record with their experience and all claim a cover-up. For an intriguing documentary on this landmark case, click here. For other key information and documents on the Rendlesham incident, click here. For a two-page summary of testimony from top military and government officials on their personal involvement with UFOs, click here.
If a previous minister of national defense of a big country started talking publicly about his belief that some UFOs are interplanetary vehicles carrying visitors to Earth, would you believe him or not? Well, stepping up to the plate is the Honorable Paul Hellyer, a former deputy prime minister of Canada and the longest serving current member -- ahead of Prince Philip -- of the Queen's Privy Council, which is made up of "prominent Canadians appointed to advise the queen on issues of importance to the country." As Canadian minister of national defense in 1963, Hellyer was responsible for integrating and unifying the Royal Canadian army, navy and air force into a single organization, the Canadian Armed Forces. "Oh, I'm absolutely convinced of it. These things were not invented here," Hellyer told AOL News. This week, he's presenting his views on UFOs at the International UFO Congress in Scottsdale, Ariz. Trusted political and scientific sources whom Hellyer has talked to have suggested that the United States has developed new forms of energy at top-secret "black operation" installations, using reportedly extraterrestrial technology. In his book "Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Survival Plan for the Human Species," Hellyer claims that an American "shadow government" is behind this activity. "Paul Hellyer's story is an important contribution to the literature of modern Western civilization. His experience in government, his interest in exopolitics and the issues of sustainability of civilization are significant areas of current discourse," wrote Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
Note: Hellyer is one of literally hundreds of military and government officials who have gone public revealing their own personal involvement with a major UFO cover-up. A former chief of defense from England also went public before his death. For riveting testimony of some key high-ranking officials, click here and here. For other major media articles reporting on this and much more, click here. For a talk by WantToKnow.info's Fred Burks at last year's UFO Congress, click here.
The videos show a bright object slowly descending over the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In one video shot from Tzofim Mountain overlooking the ancient city, the circular UFO appears to hover over the shrine. A second video taken from a different spot shows a white light descending slowly above Jerusalem, hang in the air directly above the 2,500 year old holy site, and then shoot up into the sky with a gigantic flash. The event reportedly occurred in Jerusalem at 1am on Friday morning and has provoked an online debate as to whether the footage is real. The site on which the Muslim Dome of the Rock stands also marks where the ancient Temple of Solomon stood from 516BC until it was destroyed by the Romans during an uprising in 70BC. Muslims believe it to also be the spot from which the prophet Mohammed ascended to Heaven accompanied by the archangel Gabriel where he prayed with Jesus, Abraham and Moses before returning back to Jerusalem.
Note: This highly unusual phenomenon was videotaped by several witnesses from different angles. For the best we've seen, click here. For a compilation of several videos from differing angles and attempts to debunk this event, click here. For a Fox News report on this, click here. For the ABC News clip, click here.
As dark UFO videos go, this clip showing flashing lights over Jerusalem is certainly a puzzler. A bright speck seems to descend toward the skyline, around the location of the Dome of the Rock (also known as the Temple Mount). A minute into the clip, there's a bright flash, then the speck shoots up from the skyline. This version of the Jan. 28 clip shows two side-by-side videos, captured by observers who were virtually side-by-side as well. "Have fun debunking this one," the YouTube user who posted the video writes. Here's another version, which sounds as if it was shot by a group of tourists. "We've seen 'em in Mississippi like this," one observer can be heard saying.
Note: This highly unusual phenomenon was videotaped by several witnesses from different angles. For the best we've seen, click here. For a compilation of several videos from differing angles and attempts to debunk this event, click here. For a Fox News report on this, click here. For the ABC News clip, click here.
UFOs have been around on a regular basis from antiquity through modern day. And as 2010 unfolded, the UFO mythology was alive and well. Famed British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, the pope's astronomer, a high-ranking Italian politician and even the late Winston Churchill helped keep UFOs in the news. The longstanding debate over whether or not we should try to make contact with space aliens reared its head during 2010. Astrophysicist Hawking cautioned that any communication with extraterrestrials might pose a huge risk for earthlings. Not all political leaders feel the need to keep alien information secret. Case in point: Italian Northern League party leader Mario Borghezio's crusade this year to convince European Union member nations to release all of their hidden UFO documents. In Great Britain, newly published secret documents alleged that former Prime Minister Churchill believed some UFOs were unearthly and he was concerned that such news would create a public panic. No-nonsense, credible military officers stepped forward and broke their silence at a Washington, D.C., press conference to describe their firsthand encounters with UFOs that they claim had tampered with American nuclear weapons sites.
Note: For impressive testimony on UFOs from many highly-credible government officials and military officers, click here. For lots more reliable, verifiable information on the UFO phenomenon, click here.
The U.S. government's official line may be that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) don't pose a national security threat, but a group of former Air Force officers gathered Monday in the nation's capital to tell a different story. During a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., seven former Air Force officers once stationed at nuclear bases around the country said that not only have UFOs visited Air Force bases, some have succeeded in disabling nuclear missiles stationed there. "I want the government to acknowledge that this phenomenon exists," said Robert Salas, a former U.S. Air Force Nuclear Launch Officer. Salas said he doesn't think the UFOs he claims to have encountered had any offensive intent, but he believes they wanted to leave an impression. "They wanted to shine a light on our nuclear weapons and just send us a message," he said. "My interpretation is the message is get rid of them because it's going to mean our destruction." Other former officers recounted similar stories of unexplained moving lights and odd-shaped flying objects during their time in the service. Leslie Kean, an investigative journalist and author of the new book "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record," said thousands of pages of documentation support the officers' accounts. She spent the last 10 years researching UFOs and combing through thousands of pages of declassified government material. Kean said that one declassified document that she researched for her book, relating to the Salas incident, said, "the fact that no apparent reason for the loss of the 10 missiles can easily be identified is a cause for grave concern to this headquarters."
Note: Watch CNN coverage of this most fascinating testimony. A 3-minute summary is available here. This is not the first time government and military witnesses have testified at the National Press Club about a major cover-up of UFOs. Watch 22 witnesses testifying to remarkable personal stories in May 2001. A two-page written summary presents amazing UFO testimony from top officials. And don't miss these fascinating news articles on UFOs. What may be the best UFO documentary ever made, Out of the Blue, is also available for free viewing.
One of the best-known scientific sleuths of UFO sightings is focusing his search not on today's flying saucers, but on the sky wonders of antiquity. Jacques Vallee [is] the French-born computer whiz and venture capitalist who ... served as the model for Francois Truffaut's UFO-hunting character in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." He's a co-author of a newly published book, "Wonders in the Sky," that lists 500 unexplained aerial observations dating back as far as 1460 B.C. and going up to the dawn of the industrial age in 1879. About 90 percent of UFO reports turn out to have perfectly natural explanations, but Vallee says the reports that remain unexplained are provocative enough that they deserve more thoroughgoing study. Jacques Vallee: Many of the reports in our book came from professional scientists in the 18th and 19th centuries [including] two directors of the Paris Observatory. Thanks to the Internet, now we have the means to look at vast collections of records. Many of the cases, both ancient and modern, involve a number of trained people - sometimes the entire crew of an aircraft ... and official reports by pilots which in many cases involved near-collisions. There are pilots and military people willing to talk openly about what they've seen. There is a database of over 500 reports by pilots in the first person. There are radar records, visual observations, electromagnetic observations. All of us who have investigated this have spoken to pilots and radar operators who said that after a sighting, a couple of people in blue jeans showed up with some identification from somewhere and confiscated the tapes or the film, and they took it somewhere and no one ever saw it again.
Note: The list of sightings at the end of this article from highly reliable observers reporting before humans could fly is quite intriguing. For lots more reliable, verifiable information on the UFO cover-up, click here.
Armed with declassified documents and vivid details, a group of former Air Force officers gathered Monday to go public with an assertion they have kept mostly under wraps for decades: that UFOs visited the bases they were stationed at and caused nuclear weapon system to temporarily malfunction. The group, convened by UFO researcher Robert Hastings, came to the National Press Club in Washington to discuss their individual experiences and to urge a government that tried to ignore and silence them when they came forward years ago to finally come clean. Hastings said he believes that visitors from outer space are fixating on nuclear weapons because they want to send a message: Disarm before the world destroys itself. Hastings said he has heard of a UFO incident occurring at Malmstrom as recently as 2007. The declassified documents Hastings presented at Monday's news conference include decades-old government memos detailing reports of sightings of objects in the skies above Alabama, Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota. He has talked to 120 former or retired U.S. military about the presence of UFOs at nuclear weapons sites across the United States and around the globe as early as 1945, when the world entered the nuclear age with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For some of the officers who came forward Monday, going public wasn't easy. Bruce Fenstermacher, a missile combat crew commander at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., was "laughed at" by superiors when he reported a UFO sighting at a launch site that one of his sergeants had passed on to him, he said. He decided to keep his head low after that. "I was very careful about who I told what," he said. "I was concerned. I don't want to be considered a kook. But I think it's more important to come out and tell our story."
Note: To watch 18-minutes of this most fascinating testimony on the CNN website, click here. For a treasure trove of reliable, verifiable information on the UFO cover-up, see our resource-filled UFO Information Center at http://www.WantToKnow.info/ufoinformation.
Whatever the mysterious lights in the sky were, they seemed to have an interest in our nukes. One of the more out-of-the-ordinary press conferences held in Washington this week consisted of former Air Force personnel testifying to the existence of UFOs and their ability to neutralize American and Russian nuclear missiles. UFO researcher Robert Hastings of Albuquerque, N.M., who organized the National Press Club briefing, said more than 120 former service members had told him they'd seen unidentified flying objects near nuclear weapon storage and testing grounds. Robert Jamison, a retired USAF nuclear missile targeting officer, told of several occasions having to go out and "re-start" missiles that had been deactivated, after UFOs were sighted nearby. [In a] December 1980 incident near two Royal Air Force Bases in Suffolk, England ... several U.S. Air Force personnel reported seeing a strange metallic object hovering. Retired USAF Col. Charles Halt said that in December 1980, when he was deputy base commander at RAF Bentwaters, strange lights in the forest were investigated by three patrolmen. They reported approaching a triangular craft, "approximately three meters on a side, dark metallic in appearance with strange markings." Halt found indentations in the ground, broken branches, and low-level background radiation. He and his team also witnessed various lights moving silently in the sky, of one which was "shedding something like molten metal." Several of the ex-servicemembers speaking Monday said when they'd brought their concern of such appearances to superiors, they'd been told it was "top secret" or that it "didn't happen." Hastings suggested the presence of such phenomena meant that aliens were monitoring our weapons, and perhaps warning us - "a sign to Washington and Moscow that we are playing with fire."
Note: To watch 18-minutes of this most fascinating testimony on the CNN website, click here. For lots more reliable information on the famous RAF Bentwaters incident, click here. For what may be the best UFO documentary ever made, watch Out of the Blue, available for free viewing at this link.
Witness testimony from more than 120 former or retired military personnel points to an ongoing and alarming intervention by unidentified aerial objects at nuclear weapons sites, as recently as 2003. In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby. Six former U.S. Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about these events at the National Press Club and urge the government to publicly confirm their reality. One of them, ICBM launch officer Captain Robert Salas, was on duty during one missile disruption incident at Malmstrom Air Force Base and was ordered to never discuss it. Captain Salas notes, "The U.S. Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it." Col. Halt adds, "I believe that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted—both then and now—to subvert the significance of what occurred at RAF Bentwaters by the use of well-practiced methods of disinformation." Declassified U.S. government documents, to be distributed at the event, now substantiate the reality of UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites extending back to 1948. The press conference will also address present-day concerns about the abuse of government secrecy as well as the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons.
Note: Captain Salas has submitted to WantToKnow.info his own further investigation into his experience. Read his fascinating story at this link. For the testimony of several dozen key military and government officials on the existence of a major cover-up of UFOs, click here.
When I wrote my book about officially documented UFO reports, I fully expected the skeptics to react. That’s why I was careful to focus only on the very best evidence from the most credible sources in UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record. Since 95 percent of all sightings are eventually identified, the book is concerned only with the remaining 5 percent — those UFO events that have been thoroughly investigated, involve multiple witnesses and ample data, but still cannot be explained. As an example, Brig. Gen. Jose Periera of Brazil, commander of air force operations until 2005, reports on an "array of UFOs" observed over his country in 1986. Two pilots chased one of the objects for 30 minutes. Numerous other pilots saw the objects. Radar recorded them. Six jets were scrambled from two Brazilian air force bases to pursue them. Some of the pilots made visual contact corresponding to radar registrations. Both military and commercial pilots were involved. Onboard as well as ground radar systems confirmed the presence of the objects. “We have the correlation of independent readings from different sources,” Periera writes. “These data have nothing to do with human eyes. When, along with the radar, a pilot‘s pair of eyes sees that same thing, and then another pilot‘s, and so on, the incident has real credibility and stands on a solid foundation.”
Note: Investigative journalist Leslie Kean is the author of the New York Times bestseller UFOs: General, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record . Her work has appeared in many publications including The Nation, International Herald Tribune and Boston Globe. She is also co-founder of the Coalition for Freedom of Information.
Brazil's government has ordered its air force to officially record any sighting of unidentified flying objects. A government decree said all military and civilian pilots as well as air traffic controllers should register any UFO sightings with the national aerospace defence command. Anything unusual that is seen, photographed or video filmed in Brazil's air space will now have to be reported and catalogued. But the air force said it would limit itself to collecting information, and would not be chasing UFOs. "Air force command does not have a specialized structure to carry out scientific experiments on these phenomena and will limit itself to recording any events" the air force said in a statement. There have been several reports of UFOs in Brazil in recent decades. In 1986, air force jets were scrambled to investigate unidentified objects in the skies above Sao Paulo, but the phenomenon was never fully explained. And in 1977 the Amazon town of Vigia asked for military help after some residents said they had been attacked by extra-terrestrials. One anonymous air traffic controller told the Brazilian newspaper O Dia that sightings had been reported at the highest level. "I have heard of ministers and even a president who said they had seen a UFO", he said.
Note: For lots more on UFOs, check out our UFO Information Center.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.