Part 3 Earth - Alien Enterprise ... Airborne Encounters ... A New World, if You can Take it ... Gray Liason

Earth - Alien Enterprise

by Timothy Good

Chapter Eight 

AIRBORNE ENCOUNTERS 

Over a lengthy period, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has released batches of its voluminous documents relating to unidentified flying objects, mostly comprising correspondence from members of the public and attendant inter-office memos. In August 2010, the sixth such batch (some five thousand pages) included an interesting if apocryphal story contained in a series of letters in 1999 from an astrophysicist in Leicester (name and address redacted). 

The physicist’s grandfather had served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) in World War II, and his duties sometimes involved being part of the personal bodyguard of Winston Churchill. On one occasion—according to his young daughter at the time—he was present when Churchill and General Eisenhower discussed an incident, alleged to have occurred during the latter part of the war, when an RAF photo reconnaissance aircraft returning from a mission in either France or Germany was intercepted by an object of unknown origin, which “matched course and speed with the aircraft for a time and then underwent an extremely rapid acceleration away from the aircraft.” The report continues: 

“The encounter with the unknown object occurred close to or over the English coastline [and] was undetected until it was close to the aircraft. It was suddenly observed by the aircrew appearing at the side of the aircraft at a very high speed; then it very rapidly matched its speed with that of the aircraft [and] appeared to ‘hover’ noiselessly relative to the aircraft for a time. One of the airmen began to take photographs of it. It appeared metallic but its shape was not described. The object very rapidly disappeared, leaving no trace…. 

“[My grandfather] was not present during the initial discussion when this event was communicated to the U.S., but he was present at the follow-up meeting when the response from the U.S. was received [and he] witnessed the discussion of the event by both Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eisenhower in the United States…. Mr. Churchill declared that the incident should be classified for at least 50 years and its status reviewed by a future Prime Minister. [He also] is reported to have made a declaration to the effect [that] it would create mass panic amongst the general public and destroy one’s belief in the Church….” [The church and it's priests have done that on their own d.c ]

Said to have been “greatly affected by his experience,” the bodyguard told few people about it. 1 

Another document reveals how some UFO reports from members of the public were taken seriously by the Ministry of Defence during the Cold War. Minutes from a meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee in May 1959 state that Air Vice-Marshal William MacDonald discussed the matter at the highest level. He reported that UFOs had been observed by official and unofficial sources at a rate of one a week and disclosed that a sample of sixteen reports in early 1957 showed that ten had been identified—but six were not. 

Also during the Cold War, and right up to 1991, RAF fighters were scrambled two hundred times a year to intercept unidentified targets penetrating U.K. airspace. Although some were anomalous, most turned out to be Soviet long-range reconnaissance or anti-submarine aircraft. 2 

AIR DISASTERS 

In the late 1940s and 1950s, unexplained crashes of military and civilian aircraft proliferated dramatically. It needs to be stressed that hundreds of reports of UFOs from all over the world were coming in each week from trained observers—pilots in particular. In Need to Know, I cited numerous cases involving mysterious disasters worldwide, including many kindly supplied to me by Jon “Andy” Kissner, former Republican State Representative for Las Cruces, New Mexico, 3 and other cases reported by Harold T. Wilkins and Major Donald E. Keyhoe. The late American researcher Kenny Young also collated records of such cases, including the following sobering examples I have selected from the period June 3–8, 1951: 

JUNE 3: A C-82 Packet cargo plane “fell apart in the sky” over New Boston, Texas, killing all aboard. 

JUNE 4: A C-119 Flying Boxcar cargo plane exploded in mid-air and crashed, killing four crew. A crew member who parachuted successfully reported that the plane “just seemed to come apart around him and he found himself in mid-air.” 

JUNE 5: An F-51 Mustang, an F-86 Sabre, and an F-82 Twin Mustang were involved in a mid-air collision, killing two pilots. 

JUNE 8: Eleven or more U.S. military planes crashed, some disintegrating in mid-air, including an AJ-1 Savage and an F-80 Shooting Star (the latter “falling apart”), and several F-84 Thunderjets, near Richmond, Indiana, killing three. 4 

Here follows another of Harold Wilkins’s summaries, covering mainly the period between January and June 1954: 

“RAF Meteor jet explodes and strews wreckage over Poulders Green, Kent. Pilot, gallantly remaining at the controls, is killed; Vampire jet cuts out at 15,800 feet and falls on ploughed field at Old Lackenby, Yorkshire. Pilot killed; Royal Danish Air Force grounds all its Thunderjets and Sabre jets after numerous disasters; British Undersecretary for Air says that 507 RAF jets crashed in 1952–1954 with great loss of life (112). Some crashes caused by engine-disintegration; Six-engined Stratojet, U.S. B-47, crashes at Townsend, Georgia, immediately after take-off. Four men lost; Skilled chief test pilot, Ed Griffiths, crashed in field and was killed at Rugby, England, only a few miles from his starting-point. He was testing a new Royal Navy propeller-jet, torpedo-carrying Wyvern, and had only time to radio his position before his sudden crash; Canberra jet bomber explodes in air over suburbs of Doncaster, Yorkshire. Crew of two killed. On the same day, a few miles away, at Six Mile Bottom, Newmarket, a second Canberra crashes, the crew of three missing; The bodies of two pilots were found in a Vampire jet wreckage at Lewes, Sussex.” 5 

Obviously, not all these disasters should be attributed to alien hostility: many new types of aircraft were in service at this period, thus susceptible to accidents. 6 However, it is revealing to consider official U.S. Defense Department statistics for the period from 1952 to the end of October 1956, which I published in the second (and U.S.) edition of Need to Know. Out of 18,662 major accidents of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy military aircraft—mostly involving fast new jets (such as those scrambled in UFO interceptions)—1,773 were caused by “unknown factors.” 7 

TEST PILOT ATTACKED 

Lieutenant Colonel Roy Jack Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) in 1941 and served in World War II. A 1947 graduate and classmate of President Jimmy Carter at the U.S. Naval Academy (a letter from Carter to Edwards is reproduced on p. 130), he also served in Korea and Vietnam. 

In 1955, while stationed with the USMC at Edwards Air Force Base, California, test-flying the latest version (F-100C) of the Super Sabre jet, Edwards encountered a large UFO during a test flight in clear sky at about six thousand feet. On alerting ground control, the pilot was ordered to break away immediately and return to base, together with his “chase” plane monitoring the flight. 

“His observation plane complied,” reported his son Frank in 2008, when the story first came out. “However, my father told me that his raw intrepid instincts kicked in, thus he ignored ground control because he knew he probably wouldn’t ever get another opportunity to confront a UFO—and pursued.” 

Edwards headed directly toward the stationary cigar-shaped and orange-glowing object, estimated to be about two football fields in length and slightly more than fifty yards in circumference, without any apparent source of propulsion on its surface area. “As he reached a range of about three or four miles from the UFO, it emitted a single burst of blue light, immediately rendering my father to instantly lose his ability to see and disabled his plane’s communication equipment.” 

Although stripped of his vision and communications with ground control, Edwards managed to bank his jet slightly to starboard and to prevent his altitude from dropping. He considered bailing out but, knowing he had enough fuel, opted to “ride out some time,” in the hope that the shock of whatever had happened to him and his plane would be temporary. Luckily, he regained full vision after about fifteen minutes and headed back to base—still minus communications. 

During the debriefing by his commanding officer for disobeying orders, Edwards was admonished severely. He learned that the reason he had been ordered to return to base immediately was the fact that the same UFO had previously caused the deaths of three test pilots. 

Edwards subsequently lost his status as a test pilot and was reassigned to a U.S. Naval Academy weapons department teaching position at Annapolis, Maryland. Furthermore, he was never again allowed to fly jet aircraft. After a few years at the Pentagon, however, he petitioned and was permitted to fly CH46 Sea Knight helicopters with the U.S. Marine Corps. 

Colonel Edwards did not discuss his experience until two years prior to his death in 2003. Interestingly, his military records list him as having been stationed with the USMC in Gifu, Japan during the period when he was actually at Edwards AFB. 8 Tactics such as these commonly apply to pilots who have close encounters with UFOs—as in the following case. 

PILOT WITNESSES FLYING SAUCER CRASH 

Before becoming a military pilot, Robert B. Willingham served with the U.S. Army during World War II and thereafter, until he was reassigned to Korea in 1950 as an F-51 Mustang pilot. Following a serious injury incurred during an attack on his ground position, he was flown back to the United States. In 1952, doctors having decided he was no longer fit to fly combat missions, he entered the Air Force Reserve, flying many types of aircraft, including F-51s, the F-47 Thunderbolt, the F-84 Thunderjet, and the F-86 Sabre. 

In the early spring of 1955, stationed as an F-86 pilot at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, one of Major (later Colonel) Willingham’s missions involved an exercise escorting B-47 bombers as they flew into Texas from New York, heading for El Paso, from where they would then continue to Washington State, and then via the West Coast, Canada, and Alaska on a pre-designated flight path to the Soviet Union (in the event of a nuclear exchange). Each bomber was assigned four fighters. 

The fighter escort squadron received an alert that the Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar system had tracked fast-moving unidentified traffic. Willingham then received a report from the radar operator aboard the B-47 he was escorting that the object appeared to be heading toward them from a northwesterly direction. “By his radar, he could tell it was coming our way,” Willingham told Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte, authors of an important book on the case. “I looked up and saw a big, bright object that looked like a star, but I knew it couldn’t be a star.” He estimated that it shot past at over two thousand miles per hour, within thirty-five or forty miles of their position. 9 

All four pilots escorting the bomber observed the UFO as it headed south toward the Texas/Mexico border. “At about that time,” said Willingham, “it made a 90-degree turn to the right doing about two thousand miles an hour, and I knew it wasn’t an airplane. We didn’t have anything that could do that.” The object then headed in the general direction of Del Rio, Texas. “There were a lot of sparks, and it tilted down by about a 45-degree angle.” The object continued listing as it descended, and then no longer could be seen. Willingham learned that the radar controllers claimed it had crashed “somewhere off between Texas and the Mexico border.” 

During a debriefing later, two of Willingham’s F-86 colleagues admitted to their base commander that they had observed the incident, though Willingham was the only one to speak up about it. 10 

CRASH/RETRIEVAL 

Based also on the radio exchanges he was listening to, Willingham estimated that the object had crashed near Langtry, Texas. Knowing the area well, he requested permission from the flight commander to fly down to the crash site—about 150 miles away—and attempt to locate the object. Permission was granted. Approaching the crash site at about eight hundred feet, he could see the still-smoldering wreckage of a roughly disc-shaped object on the ground, just south of the Rio Grande river. He then returned to his mission. 11 He has implied that he used the excuse of being low on fuel to obtain permission to return to Carswell ahead of his colleagues, as he already had it in mind to procure a small plane and return to the crash site. 

Determined to find out more, a few hours later Willingham asked Lieutenant Colonel James P. Morgan—who had flown with him on the mission—if the latter could fly him to Corsicana Air Field, some fifty miles away, where Willingham planned to pick up a light aircraft to survey the crash site. The two men flew out of Carswell Air Force Base in Morgan’s Piper Cub. After arriving in Corsicana, Willingham ran into his friend Jack Perkins, an electrical engineer who had served in Willingham’s Civil Air Patrol unit. After relaying the events of the day, Willingham asked if Perkins would accompany him to act as witness. 

The two took off from Corsicana at around 14:00 in a very basic two-seat Aeronca Champion. “It was a nice little plane for landing and taking off in tight spaces,” Willingham reflected. “You could land it in a hundred feet if you had to, but I had to make sure I had enough room for take-off, especially if you had a passenger.” Two hours later, they arrived in the vicinity of the Langtry crash site. There they noted that a team of Mexican soldiers had cordoned off the area and were guarding the craft and wreckage. Based on Willingham’s testimony, Torres and Uriarte describe the scene as follows: 

“The UFO had impacted very close to the edge of a flat rocky ledge overlooking the Rio Grande river. [It seemed as though] it had first bounced and then skidded about three hundred yards generally toward the south, plowing up a mound of dirt ahead of it as it went along. The main object split into three large sections, and smaller debris was scattered all along the skid line. The top of the object, which was dome shaped, broke off and landed about fifty feet beyond the main body of the UFO. The main section, which originally was a flattened disc between twenty-one and twenty-five feet in diameter, broke into two larger pieces and many smaller ones. 

“The bottom part of the UFO, ripped into two large sections, was partially embedded against a sand mound, while the dome lay about fifty feet beyond it. Willingham and his partner noted a long plume of shiny metal debris that extended along the long furrow, where the object hit and skidded on the sandy desert soil prior to coming to rest. Judging from the length of the furrow, Willingham guessed the object was traveling ‘pretty fast’ before hitting the ground.” 

After landing, Willingham eased the Aeronca onto the rocky ledge between the crashed disc and the edge of a small cliff leading down to the Rio Grande. 12 

The Mexican military were “just looking at everything,” Willingham recalled. “Of course, it was still red-hot, and they were staying back from it.” At this time, a Langtry resident paddled across the shallow river to talk to Willingham and Perkins, relating his sighting of the flaming object, which had nearly clipped the top of his house. At first, the armed soldiers had assumed that Willingham and Perkins were part of an American recovery team they had been expecting. However, as the pilots followed the skid marks to the craft itself, they were ordered at gunpoint to leave the area, though they kept studying Willingham’s Air Force uniform, as if still wondering if he was part of an official investigation. 

Buying time, Willingham, who spoke Spanish, chatted with one of the officers, a Lieutenant Martínez of Mexico City, who offered to take Willingham closer to the main impact site. Perkins was not included in the invitation. As the pilot approached to within thirty-five or forty feet of the burning-hot object, two soldiers carrying rifles tipped with bayonets prevented him from getting any closer. Glancing in the direction of the separated dome section, he noted that it was more heavily guarded than the rest of the debris and was warned to keep away. Willingham also observed a number of Mexican government officials at the crash site. 13 

“It was at this point,” Ruben and Noe told me, “that he [Willingham] saw the ET bodies, which is a fact he withheld from us during the writing of our book but later revealed on the Jeff Rense radio program on March 8, 2010. He disclosed for the first time his recollection of three strange, non-human entities that he saw inside the ruptured hull of the crashed UFO. Willingham said two of the bodies were badly mangled but one was fairly intact. The entities wore no clothing of any kind. He was fascinated by the arms of the creatures, which he described as being ‘like broomsticks.’” 14 

As the light was fading, Willingham joined Perkins and headed toward their plane. Determined not to take off without having retrieved some evidence (he had not thought to bring a camera with him), he picked up one of the many fragments of shiny metal, still warm, wrapped it in his handkerchief, and put it in his pocket. They took off at about 16:30. After a refuelling stop near Waco, they headed back to Corsicana. 

The following day, Willingham filed a detailed report at Carswell Air Force Base about the incident, which was forwarded to Colonel Miller, commander of the Air Force Reserve unit. At some point later, Miller summoned Willingham to his office. Also present were two of the other pilots he had been flying with during the initial sighting. After Willingham had related details of his experience in Langtry, there was little response. But he was later to receive several disturbing telephone calls from various personnel, including a general and a major in Air Force Intelligence, warning of “consequences” if he related to others what he had seen. 15 

THE METAL ARTIFACT 

The curved metal artifact was about the size of a man’s hand and half an inch thick, of a grayish-silver coloration and extremely light, with more than twenty precisely crafted holes in a honeycombed pattern on one side. (A sketch of the artifact made by Willingham in 1978 for a Japanese television program is reproduced in the Torres/Uriarte book.) Ridges on the other side or sides looked to Willingham “as if this piece had been broken off from a larger object…. The outside was kind of a dark gray and the inside of it was kind of orange-colored.” 

A keen metallurgist, Willingham ran a series of tests, including several with a cutting torch. At temperatures from 3,200 to 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit, the metal became hot but would not melt. “The cutting torch made the metal turn slightly blue for a while, but it did no lasting damage,” he reported. “We tried grinders and everything else, but nothing would even touch it.” 

Most unfortunately—as it transpired—Willingham did not take any photographs of the metal. He flew the fragment from Texas to a Marine Corps metallurgy laboratory in Hagerstown, Maryland, where a major applied the same tests, with identical results. Further tests were needed, he said, after which he would get back to Willingham. The following day, the major phoned and apologized, explaining that he had to move out of the building. When Willingham called back later and asked to speak to him, he was informed that no such person worked there, and no records existed of either the metal or the tests carried out. A further visit to Hagerstown revealed only that it would not be in his best interests to pursue the matter. 16 Further warnings ensued. Two Air Force Intelligence personnel—a General White 17 and a Major Sealton—warned Willingham to tell no one, even if commanded to do so by a superior. 

Within two weeks of the experience at Langtry, Willingham flew over the same area to see what had happened. Not a fragment of the device could be seen. As in other crash/retrieval cases, the entire site had been wiped clean by (I presume) a technical intelligence team, 18 also known as a “T-Force,” usually assigned the responsibility of collecting flying discs at that time. 19 

In 1967, Colonel Willingham made the mistake of mentioning his experience to a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Pennsylvania. On retiring from the Air Force with many decorations in 1971/72, he was informed that he would not be receiving a pension. “Of course, they didn’t tell me that it was because of what I said,” he told Torres and Uriarte, “but I figured it out. Twenty-six years of service went down the drain….” 20 

PROJECT BLUEBOOK 

From about 1959 to 1963, Colonel Willingham was assigned to Project Blue Book, the third of the U.S. Air Force’s official investigations into unidentified flying objects (1952–69). “Of the two thousand cases that my Blue Book team looked at, I would say that at least half of them were totally unexplained,” he acknowledged—at variance, not surprisingly, with Blue Book’s official figures. The cases Willingham investigated were mostly on the East Coast, but occasionally he was ordered further afield, such as to Chile and Venezuela: 

“We were contacted by people down in South America who had seen these objects flying around and were very scared. So I went down there in an F-100 [Super Sabre] and we flew surveillance, looking for the UFOs in the places where they had been seen. Some of these were night missions, flying up and down the coast, hoping to run into something…. If something was sighted at night, one of the planes would be sent out, and another would take off shortly afterward to provide cover for the first plane. We were armed, but we were instructed to fire only when we faced danger to our own plane. If they were doing something to screw up our airplane, we could fire.” 

He did not see any unidentified objects during these surveillance missions—officially logged as “test flights”—with the 192nd Interceptor Squadron. 21 Of incidental interest, a USAF cover reference for UFOs is/was “Unusual Helicopter Activity.” Furthermore, I have learned that foreign cases were handled by Project Fang—not Blue Book. 22 

Willingham later learned about two other crashes of alien craft: one in North Texas, somewhere near Dallas, in the mid-1960s, when three alien bodies had been recovered. “They shut that one up really tight,” he recalled. “It was hushed up very quickly.” He was keen to visit the location, but access was denied. A second crash—also said to have involved the recovery of bodies—occurred in Colorado earlier in the 1960s. Yet again, the military clamped down on the incident. 23 He did not dismiss the possibility that the craft he saw might have been damaged by U.S. military intervention—a strong likelihood, in my view, given that since the 1940s quite a number of alien vehicles have been brought down to earth by the military. 

Investigator Kevin D. Randle, who has served with the U.S. Air Force and the Army National Guard, involving numerous tours on active duty as an intelligence officer, believes the entire Willingham story to be a fabrication. He cites, for example, the lack of any military documents proving his service in the Air Force Reserve. All he could find in St. Louis, Missouri, where records of former military personnel are housed, was a record of Willingham’s service in the Army from December 1945 to January 1947. What few records Willingham has produced are dismissed as fabrications or irrelevant. One is a Reserve Order which, Randle reports, “seemed to indicate that Willingham had served twenty years of combined active duty and reserve time and would be eligible for a pension when he reached age sixty. That applies for those who have not done twenty years of active duty.” And so on. 24 

Noe and Ruben sent me copies of several of the few documents pertaining to Willingham’s service record which have been located. Though I am no expert, the Reserve Order does appear to have some questionable anomalies. But it has to be said that pilots and other military personnel who encounter UFOs frequently discover that many of their service records are either missing, or, as in the previous case of Colonel Roy J. Edwards, altered significantly. 

Both Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte find Colonel Willingham highly credible. So do I. “Originally,” Noe explained to me, “we got started on the Robert Burton Willingham (RBW) case based on the recommendation of Dr. Bruce Maccabee [a retired U.S. Navy physicist], who had studied the case for years and considered RBW a credible witness with nothing to gain by lying. RBW showed us countless photographs and [pieces of] paperwork from his military days…. Randle contends that RBW never served in the U.S. Air Force or Air Force Reserve. When RBW has come forward with documents that show he served in these units, Randle has called them fraudulent. 

“Ruben and I have cooperated one hundred percent with all Randle’s many requests for information about the case over the past two years, but it became increasingly frustrating due to his unsupported dismissal of key documents and his closed-mindedness about the case. Someone specifically assigned the task of discrediting RBW could not possibly have done a better job of it. Randle has stated to us several times that RBW should be charged with violation of a U.S. law that prohibits persons from falsely claiming that they received certain military honors or medals. But Randle can no more prove that these claims are false than we can conclusively prove that they are true, since the military has conveniently lost most of RBW’s service records. 

“Willingham was ordered by military intelligence not to disclose, and he lives in fear about that to this very day. He has told us that ‘they’ have already tampered with his life, his military retirement benefits, etc. He admits to being deliberately vague and even misleading when Todd Zechel [ex-National Security Agency] and NICAP [National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena] first contacted him in the late 1970s. If you read his 1978 affidavit, he does not give a date for the UFO crash. The 1948 date is something Randle injects to discredit RBW, but RBW never gave that date…. In his 1978 affidavit, he was being evasive in order to protect his own skin. 

“We have spent hours face-to-face with RBW. He is a straight shooter, down-to-earth, matter-of-fact personality with an extremely conservative background. Like Randle, Ruben and I also wish we had more hard-core, indisputable documentary evidence regarding RBW’s military service, but the fact is, we may never get it….” 25 

LARGE CRAFT INTERCEPTED OVER THE U.K. 

It was the height of the Cold War. On the night of May 20, 1957, Milton John Torres, a 25-year-old lieutenant serving as a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot with the 514th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in the 406th Fighter Expeditionary Wing, was on standby at the Royal Air Force base at Manston, Kent, when he received an urgent order to scramble and intercept an unknown object. He raced to one of the two F-86D Sabre jets on permanent five-minute alert at the end of the runway and took off. 

“The initial briefing indicated that the ground [control] was observing for a considerable time a blip that was orbiting East Anglia,” Torres later wrote in his unofficial report to the U.K. Ministry of Defence in 1988, released in a batch of documents in 2008: 

“All the controlling agencies revealed that this was an unidentified flying object with very unusual flight patterns [and] motionless for long intervals. The instructions came to go ‘gate’ to expedite the intercept. Gate was the term used to use maximum power (in the case of the F-86D, that meant full afterburner) and to proceed to an Initial Point at about 32,000 feet. By this time my radar was on and I was looking prematurely for the bogey [unknown object]. The instructions came to report any visual observation, to which I replied, ‘I’m in the soup and it is impossible to see anything!’ 

“The weather was probably high alto stratus, but between being over the North Sea and in the weather, no frame of reference was available—i.e., no stars, no lights, no silhouettes; in short, nothing. GCI [Ground-controlled Interception] continued the vectoring and the dialogue describing the strange antics of the UFO. The exact turns and maneuvers they gave me were all predicated to reach some theoretical point for a lead collision-course type rocket release. I can remember reaching the level-off and requesting to come out of afterburner only to be told to stay in afterburner. It wasn’t much later that I noticed my indicated Mach number was about .92 … about as fast as the F-86D could go straight and level. 

“Then the order came to fire a full salvo of rockets at the UFO. I was only a lieutenant and was very much aware of the gravity of the situation. To be quite candid, I almost s__t my pants! At any rate, I had my hands full trying to fly, search for bogeys, and now selecting a hot load on the switches. I asked for authentication of the order to fire, and I received it…. 

“The authentication was valid, and I selected 24 [2.75-inch Mighty Mouse] rockets to salvo. I wasn’t paying too much attention to [my wingman], but I clearly remember him giving a ‘Roger’ to all the transmissions … instructions were given to look 30 degrees to the port for my bogey. I did not have a hard time at all. There it was exactly where I was told it would be [on his radar]. The blip was burning a hole in the radar with its incredible intensity…. 

“I had a lock-on that had the proportions of an aircraft carrier. By that, I mean the return on the radar was so strong that it could not be overlooked by the fire control system on the F-86D [and] it was the best target I could ever remember locking on to. I had locked on in just a few seconds, and I locked on exactly fifteen miles, which was the maximum range for lock-on. I called to the GCI ‘Judy,’ which signified that I would take all further steering information from my radar computer…. 

“I had an overtake of 800 knots and my radar was stable,” Torres’s report continues. “The dot [on the screen] was centered and only the slightest corrections were necessary. This was a very fast intercept and the circle started to shrink. I called ‘twenty seconds’ and the GCI indicated he was standing by. The overtake was still indicating in the 7 or 8 o’clock position. At about ten seconds to go, I noticed that the overtake position was changing its position. It moved rapidly to the 6 o’clock, then 3 o’clock, then 12 o’clock, and finally rested about the 11 o’clock position. This indicated a negative overtake of 200 knots (the maximum negative overtake displayed). There was no way of knowing what the actual speed of the UFO was, as he could be traveling at very high Mach numbers and I would only see the 200-knot negative overtake. 

“The circle, which was down to about an inch and a half in diameter, started to open up rapidly. Within seconds it was back to three inches in diameter, and the blip was visible in the blackened ‘jizzle’ band moving up the scope. This meant that it was going away from me. I reported this to the GCI site and they replied by asking ‘Do you have a Tally Ho?’ I replied that I was still in the soup and could see nothing. By this time the UFO had broken lock and I saw him leaving my thirty-mile range. Again I reported that he was gone, only to be told that he was off their scope as well….” 26 

Torres had the impression the craft was moving at no less than Mach 10 (over 7,000 mph) when it disappeared. “It didn’t follow classic Newtonian mechanics,” he told reporter Billy Cox. “It made a right turn almost on a dime. The [RAF radar] scope had a range of 250 miles. And after two sweeps, which took two seconds, it was gone.” 27 The pilots were then vectored back to Manston. 

A CLOAK OF SECRECY 

“Back in the alert tent, I talked to Met sector,” the Torres report continues. “They advised me that the blip had gone off the scope in two sweeps at the GCI site and that they had instructions to tell me that the mission was considered classified. They also advised that I would be contacted by some investigator. It was the next day before anyone showed up. 

“I had not the foggiest idea what had actually occurred, nor would anyone explain anything to me. In the squadron operations area, one of the sergeants came to me and brought me in to the hallway around the side of the pilots’ briefing room. He approached a civilian, who appeared from nowhere. The civilian looked like a well-dressed IBM salesman, with a dark blue trench coat. (I cannot remember his facial features, only to say he was in his thirties or early forties.)” 28 

In an interview with The Times of London in 2008, the 77-year-old Torres—by then a retired professor of civil engineering—told defence editor Michael Evans that the man flashed a National Security Agency (NSA) identity card at him and warned that if he ever revealed what had happened, he would never fly again. 29 “He immediately jumped into asking me questions about the previous day’s mission. I got the impression that he operated out of the States, but I don’t know for sure. After my debriefing of the events, he advised me that this would be considered highly classified and that I could not discuss it with anybody, not even my commander [as in the case of Colonel Willingham]…. He threatened me with a national security breach if I breathed a word about it to anyone.” 30 (In the Air Force Times, Dr. Torres elaborated that the agent had threatened to revoke his flying privileges and end his Air Force career if he talked about the mission. 31 ) 

“He disappeared without so much as a good-bye, and that was that as far as I was concerned. I was significantly impressed by the action of the cloak-and-dagger people, and I have not spoken of this to anyone until recent years.” 32 

Lieutenant Torres later became a range control officer at Cape Canaveral for the Gemini and Apollo space programs before flying 276 combat missions in the Vietnam War and earned thirteen air medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross. He attained the rank of major prior to retiring from the military in 1971 and later became a professor of engineering at Florida International University, retiring in 2004. 33 

In other interviews, Dr. Torres expressed relief that he had not actually been ordered to fire upon the craft because he was certain he “would have been vaporized,” 34 and asserted his conviction that the craft was designed by an alien intelligence. 35 “My impression,” he concludes in his report to the Ministry of Defence, “was that whatever the aircraft (or spacecraft) was, it must have been traveling in two-digit Mach numbers to have done what I witnessed. 

“Perhaps the cloak of secrecy can be lifted in this day of enlightenment and all of us can have all the facts….” 36

Chapter Nine 

“A NEW WORLD—IF YOU CAN TAKE IT” 

Lieutenant Colonel Philip J. Corso served on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) and became an inter-agency coordinator for the NSC’s Operations Coordinating Board—also known as the “Special Group,” “54/12 Committee,” or “5412 Group.” As such, I learned, it was “the most clandestine, covert, and senior secret intelligence authorizing and controlling committee in the executive branch of the U.S. government during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.” 

From 1961 to 1963, Corso acted as chief of the U.S. Army’s Foreign Technology Division at the Pentagon. In 1997, his book—The Day After Roswell—caused a sensation with the revelation that he had been instructed by his boss, Lieutenant General Arthur Trudeau, chief of U.S. Army Research and Development, to steward alien artefacts from the Roswell incident in a reverse-engineering project that led to today’s integrated circuit chips, fiber optics, lasers, and super-tenacity fibers. 1 Corso also briefed Robert F. Kennedy, during his term as U.S. Attorney General, regarding the Army’s effort to seed extraterrestrial technologies into the private sector. 2 

Although Corso describes in detail his viewing of the recovered alien bodies at Fort Riley, Kansas, omitted from the book was his close observation of a grounded flying disc and, later, an encounter with an alien being, which occurred while he was in command of the Army’s missile firing range at Red Canyon, White Sands, fifteen miles west of Carrizozo, New Mexico, in 1957. Corso’s Record of Assignments (in my possession) shows that he served as Battalion Commander, based at Fort Bliss, Texas, from June 1957 through August 1958. 

Described in a manuscript provided for me, 3 which Corso had intended for inclusion in his book, the separate events began with the intrusion and subsequent downing of an unknown craft. 

“I took my small military plane with pilot and headed for the area where my radars had last located the object,” he reports. “We flew over the site and I saw a bright, shiny saucer-shaped object on the ground.” He assumed it was a missile booster. 4 

Later that day, Corso drove an Army car to the area where the unknown object had come down. “I asked Fort Bliss to send me an old World War II command car. It was built high off the ground, had large tires and four-wheel drive [which] was ideal for cross-country over the desert. So I set off for the area about ten to fifteen miles from the down-range launching sites and well within my area of jurisdiction. I decided to go alone. I took my belt with pistol and canteen, a map and a compass and a Geiger counter which we used to test stray voltage in the connection between the booster and missile…. When I arrived at the spot I had marked on my map, there was nothing there but desert. I sat in my command car and surveyed the area with binoculars. Finally, I saw something shimmering like a heat wave…. Suddenly it materialized. 

“It looked like a metal object [shaped like] a saucer…. Seconds ticked away and abruptly it disappeared. I approached closer. I stopped and waited. Then again after about ten minutes it materialized in the same shimmering manner, then quickly it disappeared. I timed its appearance (forty-eight seconds). Again after about twelve minutes it appeared again. I picked up a desert rock and threw it at the solid metal-appearing object. The rock bounced off but made no sound. It disappeared again. I placed a large rock in the spot and some sagebrush. When it reappeared, it crushed both stone and sagebrush. 

“By the time interval I figured, I had a total of about five minutes to observe the object in its solid state. On this appearance I gathered my nerve and went and placed my hand on it. In the hot desert sun it was cool; the surface was smooth, and felt like a highly varnished table top. It had no rough edges, no seams, and no rivets or screws. 

“When it disappeared, I went back to my command car and sat to observe the see, no-see sequence. Each time it appeared to shake, but more like a shiver or tremble. Suddenly on the next appearance my Army compass started to spin and my Geiger counter began to fluctuate. I thought, discretion is the better part of valor. I started the engine, put the command car in reverse, and gunned it. After about three or four hundred yards, the engine stopped. The object slowly rose, turned on edge, and with a streak disappeared…. The bright-colored streak as it disappeared remained embedded in my memory. I started the engine and made four or five widening circles around the site. I stopped and got down, and thought I saw footsteps on the ground. 

“They looked like they were made with a soft moccasin. I placed my foot alongside. I wear an 8C. They were half the size. I put the Geiger-counter leads on one. There was no reaction. I placed my compass. They were pointing east toward my missile firing sites, about ten miles away.” 5 

Two days later, Corso was told to report to two range riders, who demanded to know what he had seen at the site. “A booster from one of my missiles,” Corso responded. “There could be dire consequences for not telling us what you saw,” threatened one of the men. 

“I am the commander of this U.S. Army installation, and don’t like threats in my command post,” Corso fired back. “If I press this button, a dozen armed men will surround this office. Consider yourself in protective custody; you will leave when I say so…. Now, give me your identification and the name of your commanding officer.” Over the phone, he explained to the officer that he had White House “Eyes Only” clearance and all other necessary clearances and therefore knew how to keep a secret.

Later, Corso flew over the area again to take another look at the object. But the area had been swept clean. 6 

GREEN TIME 

“While I was in command of the U.S. Army’s missile firing range at the Red Canyon range, I had one very annoying problem,” relates Corso. “The range was part of the White Sands complex. I could not fire a missile unless they gave me what was called ‘green’ time. This coordination was necessary so there would be no radar interference. At times they held me up for hours, keeping hundreds of men on hold. 

“One hot day, during one of these lulls, I was downrange in my command car, with two of my sergeants (my command post was a white shack on a high hill overlooking the range)….” 

“First Sergeant Willis asked me if I wanted to visit the gold mine, only a few miles from the range area…. A mile or so from the ‘D’ Battery firing site, we turned off the dusty desert road into what seemed like a moon ‘rille.’ Dark rocks on both sides, then into a sloping area with a dark outcropping like a cliff. We stopped and walked about a hundred feet to a simmering pool of water. In the cliff area was an opening [where] we entered the mine shaft…. My men said antelopes, burros [small wild donkeys], coyotes, jackrabbits, birds, and even large rattlesnakes came here to partake of the cool water. It was like an oasis in the desert…. 

“A week or so later, I was in my command shack during one of these White Sands-generated lulls. I decided to take a jeep and go visit the gold mine alone. When I arrived, some animals were around the pond. I drove up to the opening, went in, and sat down and cooled off in the natural air conditioning. The soft dripping water sound was almost hypnotic. I dozed off [but then] my instinct took over. My right hand slowly went to my holster. I drew my .45 and snapped off the safety. (Every other cartridge had a tip of pellets, like a shot-gun shell.) 

“I drew the gun and rolled on my side. Suddenly, a word registered in my head—‘Don’t.’ In mental telepathy I responded, ‘Friend or Foe?’ The reply came back—‘Neither.’ I was impressed. In the shimmering half light, bouncing off the moving water, I saw a figure that appeared transparent. It had on a helmet, silver in color, large slanted eyes. and a bright red spot on a band across the forehead [see sketch on the next page]. The message continued as our eyes met in the semi-light. ‘Will you give me ten minutes, radar free, after green time?’ 

“I thought back. ‘Ten minutes could be an eternity. What do you offer?’ 

“‘A new world—if you can take it.'

“I started the jeep, looked back, and saw a figure in the shimmering light of the mine opening. I saluted and took off. 

“When I arrived at the range headquarters, Captain Williams reported, ‘Sir, D Battery locked on, for sixty seconds, on an object fifty miles out, traveling three thousand mph.’ 

“‘Tell D Battery to send me the tape.’ 

“The downed radars must have cleared an opening to let in a reported UFO. Did it pick up my newfound friend? Or enemy?” 7 

On the alien’s helmet, Corso thought he caught a glimpse of something that looked similar to the familiar caduceus symbol—that of the tree and the coiled serpent. 8 “As for the (caduceus) sign of healing,” he wrote, “we compiled quite a list of medical by-products and other advances of our R&D [research and development]. The mental conversation I dismissed at the time as figments of my imagination. In 1960 I discovered that without vocal cords they probably communicated by mental telepathy.” 

In pondering the request for “green time,” Corso theorized that radar had caused loss of the craft’s control systems, resulting in its subsequent crash. 

“‘A new world—if you can take it.’ There was no other reply possible,” reflected Corso. “The debris [from the Roswell wreckage], research and development, new concepts, etc., were nothing else except the beginning of the challenge. Many men have taken up the challenge. New developments are coming so fast, after a slow start (1947–1960) that we can hardly keep up with them. If the alternative is destruction, we are progressing well toward ‘taking it.’ 

“Like Hermann Oberth said, ‘We have been helped by those from outer space.’ Most of what I did during my [research and development] tour were just concepts, but many are working out….”9  

INTERSTELLAR CAPABILITY 

On March 23, 1993, Ben Rich, who had headed Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, which among others had built the SR-71 Blackbird high-speed reconnaissance plane and the F-117A Nighthawk “stealth” attack bomber, gave a presentation to the Engineering Alumni Association at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), of which Rich was an alumnus. Two researchers I know, Tom Keller and Jan Harzan, who also had graduated from UCLA, attended the illustrated lecture. Tom is an aerospace engineer who has worked, for example, as a computer systems analyst for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Jan is an engineer and senior project executive with IBM Global Services. 

“We sat at the front of the audience, say about 150 to 200 folks,” Tom’s report begins. “I took a look around. The 200-or-so capacity auditorium was filled with what appeared to be aerospace-industry professionals, the press, members of academia, and a few military types in uniform sitting at the back—Air Force ‘blue-suiters.’ Knowing the history of Lockheed’s activity in military intelligence, my guess was that there also were also a few ‘spooks’ there too.” 

“Please don’t ask me any questions about the Aurora project,” Rich announced in his introduction. (Aurora is reportedly the top-secret unmanned hypersonic reconnaissance craft that replaced the SR-71.) “I can’t answer any and if I did, I’d be thrown in jail. There are some representatives of the CIA here who I recognize.” 

Rich continued for an hour reviewing the history of the Skunk Works, highlighted by numerous slides. “He described the U-2 reconnaissance plane and its successor, the TR-1 variants [and] the SR-71 Blackbird [and] the little-known D-21 supersonic spy drone that was carried atop an SR-71 mother ship,” Tom continues. “The part of the lecture in which he truly beamed was the F-117 stealth attack plane (sometimes erroneously called a ‘stealth fighter’)…. All of these aircraft were built by the Skunk Works, not designed by them and then built by someone else.” 10 

Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was the legendary designer of aircraft such as the above. Of related interest, the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft (code-named Oxcart), of which thirteen were built at the Skunk Works for the CIA, preceded both the YF-12 interceptor and the SR-71 (ordered by the U.S. Air Force). Donald Phillips, who prior to joining the U.S. Air Force worked as a design engineer on the SR-71 project with Johnson, stated cautiously at a National Press Club conference in 2001 that he was aware of evidence that these aircraft had served in another capacity apart from their more routine missions. “Each pilot—and I knew a few of them—learned about the assignment immediately prior to takeoff, and there’s strong evidence to suggest that there was a dual role in that they were monitoring some type of traffic to and from Earth….” 11 

At one point in his memorable presentation, Ben Rich said, “If you can imagine it, Lockheed Skunk Works has done it,” a phrase he later repeated on two occasions. And in his concluding comments, he added, “We already have the means to travel among the stars. But these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity. Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.” 

He then showed his last slide—an artist’s conception of a flying disc zipping off into the unknown—and announced, “We now have the technology to take ET home.” The reaction of the audience was nervous laughter, Tom recalls. “My interpretation was that this was Rich’s way of saying, ‘We can do it now.’ A few others in the room, including my friend Jan, also took this statement very seriously. All you had to do was read between the lines. 

“The talk concluded with some questions and answers and the formal part of the program was over. As soon as it ended, about thirty of us crowded around Rich like rock fans around the Beatles at their last concert. I was beginning to wonder if anyone else (except Jan, as he and I think alike) in the audience was having the same thoughts: Could Skunk Works be working on some otherworldly craft as we spoke? 

“One man spoke up and said that he was a new manager at Northrop [which built the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber] and wanted Rich’s advice. Rich pointed his finger at the man and said, ‘Well, let me ask you a question: Is it possible to travel to the stars?’ The man was taken aback a bit and then said, ‘Oh, sure. It would just take a long time.’ Rich replied, ‘No, it won’t take someone’s lifetime to do it. There is an error in the equations and we know what it is, and we now have the capability to travel to the stars.’ 

“Rich went on to imply that various people at Skunk Works had been studying alternative propulsion technologies for interstellar travel [and] said they had, for example, determined that Einstein’s equations dealing with relativity theory were incorrect. I asked him to clarify that. Did he mean that Skunk Works employed theoretical physicists, ‘Einstein types,’ to look for alternative means of space travel? Rich said ‘Yes,’ [then] went on to say that they had proved that Einstein was wrong. He made a mistake. 

“I didn’t know how that set with other people in the room, but to me that possibly meant that they had determined how it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light. It’s important to keep in mind that Skunk Works is a fabrication outfit. They are not in business to be a theoretical think-tank. My take on this was that at Skunk Works they were looking for loopholes in Einstein’s work that would give them a way of traveling at ultra-high, faster-than-light speeds, to the stars and back. I interpreted Rich’s comments to mean that the scientists at Skunk Works had found such a loophole—and they were building or had built a craft to do it. 

“One woman in the small crowd apparently had similar thoughts. She asked, ‘Mr. Rich, when will the ETs go home?’ Rich smiled, looked down at the floor, and said nothing. Some of us were left wondering what his response might have been had he been able to answer without fear of being sentenced to twenty years in Fort Leavenworth. 

“As Rich was walking out of the door, Jan followed him and asked privately, ‘Ben, what equations are you talking about?’ He just looked at Jan, who then explained that he was interested in propulsion and wanted to know how UFO propulsion worked. Rich said, ‘Let me ask you: How does ESP work?’ Jan replied without thinking, ‘All points in time and space are connected?’ Rich shot back, ‘That’s how it works!’ 

“Jan did not know if Rich was referring to his question or his answer. Rich then turned around and abruptly left the room….” 12 

The great pioneer died of cancer in January 1995, aged sixty-nine.

Chapter Ten 

GRAY LIAISON 

The summer of 2009 brought me a promising letter. “I have a true story to tell [which] relates to my RAF Service, 1955–1957, and involves an alien situation at the camp where I was stationed,” the writer began. “I need some advice and wonder if you have time for a chat? I would add that my involvement, with five of my RAF/Fleet Air Arm pals, fills the gap relating to Britain.” 1 

My informant—“Thomas”—spoke guardedly about the gist of the “alien situation” when I first conversed with him on the phone, stressing that he was still bound by the Official Secrets Act. However, he wished to include the story in a book he was currently engaged in writing about his Royal Air Force career and requested my guidance on how to proceed. I agreed to visit him for a couple of days at his home in the West Country. Much of the information presented in this chapter is taken from Thomas’s remarkable manuscript, 2 and from my regular communications with him. 

Thomas began by giving me details of his National Service record. In March 1955, at the age of eighteen, he had been posted to RAF Cardington, Bedfordshire. He then was posted as Airman Second Class (AC2) to Padgate, Lancashire, for “square-bashing,” consisting largely of .303 rifle/bayonet drill. Following that came trade training, in which Thomas and his colleagues were given a choice of five RAF trades. Thomas ticked off five “admin” jobs, and was assigned to the Equipment Provisioning and Accounting Section (EPAS) at RAF Creddon Hill in Hereford for five weeks’ training. In due course, he was posted to RAF Weston Zoyland, Somerset, and nearby RAF Merryfield. 

Located some four miles from Bridgwater, Weston Zoyland was originally a World War II airfield, opened in 1944 and used jointly by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces, primarily for transport aircraft. It was also used, I learned, as a secret base in that period by Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE). After the end of war in the European theater, four fighter squadrons occupied the station briefly. The station was then used as a reserve RAF Fighter Command airfield, but little flying took place there until the summer of 1952, when Meteor and Vampire jets operated there in a training role. Canberra bomber/photo reconnaissance and training aircraft were present during the mid1950s. By 1958, no more aircraft used Weston Zoyland. During the relevant period, the commanding officer was Group Captain H. E. Hopkins. Today, several derelict buildings remain, excluding the hangars but including the control tower, which I explored in September 2010. Part of the airfield is used nowadays for microlights, and it is also a base for the Sky Watch Civil Air Patrol. 

At the time of Thomas’s posting there, Weston Zoyland had been taken over by the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). EPAS included a squadron leader in charge, plus a flight lieutenant, a couple of corporals, and the six airmen, including Thomas, who became firm friends with his colleagues. 

One morning, the flight sergeant (“Flight”) came over to the EPAS office and whispered to Thomas that he was to present himself in the squadron leader’s office at 10:00, to say nothing to anyone, and to join his colleagues. The flight sergeant ordered the men to be on parade outside No. 1 hangar at 08:30 the following morning, dressed in their “best blues.” At the appointed hour, the EPAS team assembled outside the hangar, followed by the squadron leader with three others, one in naval uniform. The team snapped to attention. 

“Airmen,” began the squadron leader, “you will all recall signing the Official Secrets Act. You will be here until the end of your service, by which time the matter you will be dealing with will have been resolved. Or should be…. Your duties will be extraordinary, to say the least.” 

No badges of any sort were to be worn. “To anyone in camp you will be rank-less and anonymous,” continued the squadron leader. “On the left epaulette of both your new working blues you will find an orange band already in place. You will not remove them at any time. 

“You will have no status whatsoever as far as any other personnel can see. Only yourselves and others involved on the project will know who you are, and from time to time that will include civilians as well as members of the armed forces. 

“You will all receive a small pay increase and will deserve it. However, you will say nothing about it to anyone, even at home, if you go on leave. The increase will be on a scale higher than your actual rank. Simply follow orders quietly and responsibly and all will go well and smoothly…. You cannot go off camp in uniform, nor take your orange flashes off camp, nor will you say one single word about today for the remainder of your service, not even to your nearest and dearest. Is that perfectly understood?” 

The team confirmed that it was. “Now, of course, you are all curious as to what the hell this all about. You will return to your billet, then change into your new shirt-sleeve order, with orange flashes worn as instructed. Be here at No. 1 hangar at 14:30 hours for a further briefing. Stay together and not a word to anyone, no matter who….” 

CODE ORANGE 

Thoroughly bemused, Thomas and his colleagues—now effectively attached to the Fleet Air Arm—presented themselves outside hangar No. 1 at the appointed time. The squadron leader summoned the men into the hangar and ordered them to sit down on a row of six chairs—individually assigned with the mens’ initials. Opposite stood a table with four chairs. A car drew up outside and the three men from earlier that day came and sat down, dressed this time in civilian suits. “One was tall and hawkish,” Thomas reported, “and the other strongly built with a head of white hair. The naval officer sat away from them, allowing our squadron leader to sit beside him, but between him and the two civilians.” 

“You are now attired as you will be for the remainder of your service,” began the squadron leader. “You each have certain things in common. For example, you passed your RAF entrance exams at the top of your classes, though of course you did not know that about each other. Equally, at your respective training camps you were recorded as best airmen in your Flight…. I shall not introduce you to the three gentlemen with me today. If any of you feel you know any or all of them by sight, forget it and say nothing. 

“The task you are going to undertake may be quite easy, but it could become extremely difficult. We have known about it for some years and have made certain preparations at this airfield during the past six months. You may have observed activity at and near this hangar which appeared to be a building project. It is a secret project and all works have been carried out by military experts, some flown in from the United States and Canada. The men and women involved are no longer in camp.” 

The project henceforth was to be referred to as “Code Orange.” “All personnel in camp have been told the airmen with orange flashes are on sensitive RAF work,” continued the squadron leader, “and you are not to be interrupted, questioned as to your work or whatever. If you are questioned, then treat it as a breach of security, reporting the incident on the phone in your new quarters.” 

Thomas and another colleague, Alan, were assigned overall charge of Code Orange, within the camp perimeter. Next, one of the “suits”—the man with white hair—addressed the new team, after thanking the squadron leader for his briefing. “I work for the government as a scientist and feel satisfied that all has gone as it should here today,” he began. “So, what is Code Orange about? It is about an incident that occurred in the American state of New Mexico during 1947, a most unfortunate incident that involved living beings from another world crashing to Earth, for reasons I will not go into here, and of deaths and casualties,” claimed the man. “Code Orange is about ordinary country people on the spot at the time and of military personnel becoming involved under orders from their superiors within the military and within the government. Code Orange is about putting right, as best we can, a mess…. 

“I am here to explain your part, and perhaps then we can learn more about how to take advantage of the alien technology as a priority over alien life. Whatever the outcome, Code Orange is about a strange craft and its occupants who did not complete their journey in New Mexico after all—well, two of them did not, and who knows if others got away? [There were] three craft on the 1947 situation, each with seating areas for three. Two dead bodies were recovered, two alive and still held by the military. 

“Other craft have been sighted over many years and many have landed. They are not all from the same place, and are therefore of different races. The two aliens still held by the military are having, shall we say, an English holiday. It is too hot for them where they were and the wrong people are getting close. 

“The aliens are vastly more intelligent than we are as a race. So despite considerable arguments, they themselves have forced a move, and months of talks and time-wasting have at last resulted in Code Orange…. The two aliens went silent, refusing to communicate unless they were moved. They do not speak and voice their words aloud as we do, but they converse with each other and us in silence. For want of a better expression, the term ‘thought transference’ will do, but they communicate mood too…. Your task is to look after them here—until they decide to communicate again, or not. You will be shown how.” 

“That was it, really,” reflected Thomas. “The other two did not have anything to say to us. I remember sitting quietly, trying to take it all in. Then we were told to sort out our new billet at the side of No. 1 hangar and settle in immediately….” 

SUNRISE AND SUNSET 

The office at Weston Zoyland was reached by the team directly from their billet, and another door led into the hangar. “A long desk with three chairs was along one wall, with two telephones, piles of notepads, pens, pencils, and a radio set and typewriter,” Thomas reported. “Filing cabinets were ready for use and a screen ‘looked into’ the hangar, but was not ‘on’ at first. Fire buckets and extinguishers, tea and coffee facilities and water were laid on to a sink basin. A fairly ordinary situation then, but extraordinary was a metal cupboard with revolvers and ammunition and a set of white overalls for all of us.” 

Thomas’s team had the use of other amenities nearby and were permitted access to the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) shop and the Mess at mealtimes, though only two at a time. The team received orders to man the office from 08:00 to 16:00 each day, until further notice. “At that time we organized two four-hour shifts, always with Alan or myself leading these in turn,” Thomas explained. “We received phone calls on a regular basis to verify that all was well, from an anonymous female voice, the origin of which we were never told. We were given a password—‘Sunrise’—and had to use it in reply to the woman’s password—‘Sunset’—which I will never forget.” 

SPECIAL DELIVERY 

The team looked after the office and kept themselves fit by running or walking outside the hangar and in the large field adjoining it. Nothing relevant occurred until well into the second week, when a phone call came from a man advising Thomas that a Code Orange delivery was due on the Saturday of the following week. Early on the next Monday morning, the team was advised that their password would change to that of the project name. The usual female contact advised them that on Wednesday at 08:00 a special consignment would be arriving (at Merryfield). 

Thomas told me that the special consignment, originating in the U.S., was delivered from somewhere in the U.K.—Scotland, he believes—by train, ending its rail journey at Ilton Halt, thence by a huge vehicle to Merryfield. 

Like Weston Zoyland, Merryfield had been used in World War II by the USAAF and RAF, and then by the latter as an advanced pilot and training establishment with Meteor and Vampire jets until the end of 1954. During the following two years—which involved Code Orange—a detachment from an operational conversion unit, with Canberra jets, was often present. Then came the Royal Navy with Sea Venoms, until 1958. By 1961, it was abandoned until 1971 when, as Royal Naval Air Station Merryfield (HMS Heron II) it was used for assault helicopter training and exercises. Today, it remains an operational airfield and a restricted area, with security on the gate. 3 

About twenty feet high and eight to ten feet deep, the wooden crate was hauled on to the back of a large wide-load vehicle, secured with steel cable hawsers on its narrow end. “It didn’t cause a lot of problems along those Somerset roads on its short journey to Merryfield, as one might imagine,” Thomas explained to me. “However, some traffic problems delayed delivery.” 

“It was 11:00 when the two motorcycle MPs (Military Police) roared up to the doors of No. 1 hangar followed by the huge wide-load vehicle, all noise and flashing lights, then two more motorcycles with a staff car following,” Thomas reports. “The hangar door slid smoothly shut on it.” An hour or so later, the presence of a group captain in the hangar was announced to the team via phone. On being admitted to the office, he introduced himself, explaining first that a viewing screen in the office was now operational, enabling the men to see into the hangar. “The hangar had a pitch roof with rows of skylights and a pair of very large hangar sliding doors to the front,” Thomas continues. “There were rows of strip lighting for night use. Our billet-cum-office was on one side abutting the west hall of the hangar with the one door between us. An orange six-inch-diameter circle was painted on it [and] the viewing screen had a small red light above it, no doubt showing it was ‘on.’ From within the hangar there was no way of knowing what was behind our door.” 

A large red-brick room had been built at the back of the hangar, within which was another room mainly made of glass or similar material. “Its rear wall, really a gigantic window, looked out across the Somerset countryside to a distant perimeter fence we were told was electrified,” Thomas revealed. “We later learned that the electrified fence was only fixed about No. 1 hangar at Merryfield and that the fencing around the remainder of the camp remained normal. Just beyond this fence was another, some eight feet high but not electrified, and beyond it were fields and a river. Due to the slope from the rear of the hangar down to the river, the view was not despoiled by the fencing, nor could anyone else see in.” 

About fifty feet by forty, the glass room was divided in two by a dark glass partition. Normal daylight was adequate, but strip lighting was used at night. Other rooms in the hangar were color-coded differently, each with windows looking into the hangar. “Security was very tight. We could see two men on a high platform facing the hangar doors…. During a practice security drill, we had seen a row of vertical bars shoot up from the ground [and] at that instant two armoured vehicles appeared….” 

When the crate had been positioned in the hangar and the lid taken away, the day after its arrival, the team was allowed to inspect it. “Almost touching the sides was a gray, glistening metallic saucer of perfectly circular shape,” Thomas describes. “It had what looked like a window all the way around but with no panes, just one strip of glass-like material, and we could see within to panels of instruments, screens, and three seats. At a nod from the group captain, four men in overalls ran across and within minutes the sides of the crate were on the floor.” 

It looked, said Thomas, like two saucers, one in the usual position with the other upside-down on top of it. “Strange though it may seem, I felt it was alive and thinking, silent but as if brooding. It was more ‘alive’ than any other inanimate object I had ever seen.” 

Three small seats with seemingly molded curved-topped backs—evidently not designed for adults of normal human stature—could be seen. No seat belts or any obvious “driving” apparatus were noted. As Thomas reveals: 

“The panel of instruments facing the seats swept around the front half of the craft and was black or [very] dark gray. There were scores of ‘keys’ of the shape and size of our modern computers plus several screens of about one foot by six inches (30 15 cm), some vertical, some horizontal. Along the lower length of the panel was a ‘desk’ with more keys in neat rows and at each end a pale gray-colored list in some printed form of hieroglyphics … above the main panel was a larger screen, again dark, and of about three feet by two feet and fitted as a horizontal, like a modern TV screen.” 

The area behind the seats was relatively bare, with the exception of half a dozen circular “switches,” almost flush to the wall. 

Asked if the team could enter the craft, the group captain began by expounding on the actual event that had led to its recovery. The one in the hangar had followed two others down, one badly damaged with “bits strewn over the desert, the other badly damaged but intact,” he explained. “This one came down of its own volition, that is, it was not shot at…. At that time it was on a set of tripod-type legs with a small disc at the end of each.” 

The group captain went on to explain that the craft had been opened by its occupants at the crash site in New Mexico. Two aliens were seen to emerge but a third remained inside—then simply stood up and “disappeared” and hadn’t been seen since, despite the area having been searched for a week. The other two aliens were “seemingly unwell,” said the group captain. They were easily apprehended and had no weapons. “If all three craft had three occupants, we have dead and alive evidence of six. It is known that one, apparently unhurt, left this craft and has since escaped detection somehow. The other two may have been thrown out from the two crashes and lost, or they also escaped…. On the third occupant’s disappearance, the exit-cum-entrance facility was seen to close itself. It has not opened or been opened since. We just can’t bloody well open the thing. The seal is absolute perfection. The metal and glass are absolutely unknown to us.” 

The other two damaged craft were kept in great secrecy at a certain U.S. base, the group captain revealed. “All I know,” he said, “is that parts of its amazing system of navigation, and some sort of tiny technological ‘brains,’ which have to do with communication and pretty well everything else, are hastily being examined by various world scientists to see how we humans can benefit by them.” 

Later that day, the group captain explained to the team that visits to the craft at Merryfield were permitted, provided they were dressed in their “whites”—white overalls unique to the team—and that authorization had been obtained by their Code Orange contact. At Weston Zoyland—where the aliens were to be housed—the team agreed to eight-hour shifts with three men on and three off, with one of each three always by the phone. “So it was 0800 to 1600, 1600 to midnight, and midnight to 0800,” explained Thomas. However, two officers and a scientist came on duty during the early shift’s lunch break, allowing the team a two-hour respite. 

NOT OF THIS EARTH 

Some days later, an RAF “V” bomber—either a Valiant, Victor, or Vulcan, capable of delivering nuclear weapons but in this operation delivering two aliens—landed at Weston Zoyland with a two-fighter-jet escort. Thomas told me he was fairly certain that the bomber was a Vulcan. The team was told to remain in their office and await further orders. A few hours later, they were summoned, two by two, to meet the alleged aliens, now ensconced in a specially constructed glass container in the hangar at Weston Zoyland. Thomas and his colleague Alan were first. “Emotions welled up in me that I feel to this day,” Thomas admitted. 

“Two thin little people lay side by side. They were gray-colored and their heads seemed rather large for their bodies and were oval, or egg-shaped, with the large end at the top, a large cranium leading down to a small chin, and their eyes were large, limpid, and dark with no iris visible. Just dark, lustrous pools, wide open, rather like those of seals, I thought. There were nostril holes but no nose projecting from the face, and I could see a small mouth beneath. There were no visible projecting ears as we have. 

“Sinewy arms stretched alongside their bodies and the legs looked skinny. They were very still. Unreal, I thought…. I looked at their hands. Four long fingers similar to us. But no thumbs. And four-toed feet. 

“Just beneath the small chin of the body nearest to me a pulse was beating, and looking at the other being I could see the same…. I was actually looking at two people from somewhere else. Not of this Earth! I glanced across at the officer and met his eyes. He smiled and nodded, as if to say ‘yes, this is real—they are alive.’” 

Shaking, Thomas made for a chair and sat down, followed by Alan. They didn’t feel it was appropriate to stare at the aliens too much. “They look so dignified,” said Alan. One appeared slightly shorter than the other. They seemed frail, though Thomas sensed a latent strength about them. 

Half an hour later, all of the team having seen the beings and returned to the office, the officer/instructor declared that he didn’t know which sex the aliens were. He thought they wore a membranous covering, but added that the Americans hadn’t been very forthcoming with their information. He suggested that the team gave names to the aliens if they wanted, but that officially they were referred to by their American captors as “G32” and “G33.” Thomas speculates that the numbers might relate to the 32nd and 33rd aliens recovered by the U.S. military. The team elected to call them simply “G” and “L.” (Much later, it was determined that G was male, L female.) 

Thomas remains amazed at the aliens’ ability to convey a sense of humor, or sadness, for example, without such feelings manifesting facially. As time went by, it became possible to “feel” their thoughts, and it was always clear what they meant. They did speak audibly on occasions—not that it helped. “The problem in our inability to converse by voice was that their language contained no vowels,” he explained; “thus, if they spoke to us we would hear a series of unintelligible sounds not unlike the chattering of small animals.” (However, the airmen later learned from their duty officer that although official communications from G and L did not involve actual spoken words, the Americans confirmed that they do have voices—presumably capable of communicating in English and other languages.) 

Thomas and the others liked the aliens from the outset and grew to care for them deeply over the approximately twenty-month period involved. 

One lovely summer’s day, Thomas and Alan were sitting beside “the Grays” (as they apparently were referred to occasionally by the military, even at that time), surveying the countryside through the large window of their enclosure. “What is worrying you both?” “said” the aliens. “Is this not the kind of day when you should feel all is well?” The men were indeed worried—about the aliens. “Thanks to you airmen, we are doing well and recovering,” the Grays responded. “You need not worry about us.” 

When communicating, G and L would put one hand on their chest, to convey who was “speaking.” Then began a discourse, warning of Earth’s future overpopulation, the poisoning of its environment, and so on. “We know your instructions are to inform your seniors of all we say. Do so. We will be telling them all we have told you when they pay their regular visits….” 

Like other alien groups, they confirmed Man’s extraterrestrial genetic links. 

“The majority of flora and fauna on this planet have evolved over millions of years. Humans were one of those that were genetically manipulated and thus you are related to another species as a planned experiment by beings from another world. Our presence here is of right, and we have visited before this time, many times. Our present role is to observe others who are here, to see that they are not destructive and to give you some of our technology in order that you will survive—if you have earned the right to survival as we judge it. That was the core of our message to Earth people and part of the reason for our arrival in your time of 1947, though we reneged upon that in that July month, and here two of us remain—at least for a little longer.” 

At this juncture, G reached out and clasped hands with L. “I felt there was significance in the comment ‘at least for a little longer,’ linked with the hand clasp,” writes Thomas. “The two aliens had been held captive for at least eight years. Not much of an existence for people who know how to travel light years’ distance, and had somehow done so to reach Earth.” 

The Code Orange team were never present when the aliens took their meals. Although some thin tubes were present in their glass enclosure, their purpose was indeterminable. Waste matter, perhaps? Eventually, G and L, having picked up the men’s bewilderment, communicated some details. “You have been wondering if we feed, and how we do so. We know your seniors have not told you. Knowledge is important to all life…. 

“We feed on blood, and water. Yes, I can feel your reaction, but our race does not digest solids…. Both liquids are available on this planet and we partake of small amounts of each in order to survive. We also breathe your air, though it is clearer in some regions of your planet than others. Your seniors obtain enough food for our needs and provide us with it in your absence.” 

Thomas told me he recalls that the blood—presumably from slaughtered animals—was obtained from a local farm. In an interesting letter to a magazine, written in 2001, he made some apposite references to the consumption of blood—without, of course, citing his own experience. “Over the years, certain peoples have been vilified by modern attitudes against the terrors of blood sacrifices,” he wrote. “However, if genetically modified humans, ruled by their makers up to a time when they, our makers, leave the planet [and] have had at times to ‘entertain’ and consort with said makers, then they would have to provide the necessary correct food…. 

“What if there was, or is, a race of beings which have evolved to feed on blood? As simple as that. It may appall some of us, even possibly most of us, yet we are talking alien creatures here. A race apart. Light years apart. Evolving on a planet or planets away from and not far from this Earth…. So along comes a race of beings which lives on blood from animals rather than the meat. And when they arrive as ‘gods’ or powerful beings, we in due deference feed them with what they require.” 4 

In this context, G and L related how their people had influenced the Inca, Aztec, and Maya cultures. For nutrition on their own planet, G and L indicated that they also consumed other liquids of varying thicknesses, from water through to heavy soups, plus a variety of what we would term “wines” made from fruits and vegetables growing on their own planet. 

ESPIONAGE 

When Thomas’s leave period came up, he went to his home in Barnstaple, Devon. Waiting at Taunton station for the connecting train, he was approached by a well-dressed, well-spoken man who invited Thomas for a cup of tea. “I can always tell an airman,” he said. Acknowledging the fact, Thomas explained that he was on 72-hour leave. Over tea, the man asked Thomas what he did in the RAF. He replied in vague generalities, mentioning Bomber Command and admin work. “Ah, so you are in the RAF but with the Fleet Air Arm crowd? Yes, I know all about that. An interesting posting, no doubt.” Thomas gave nothing away. 

As the steam train for Barnstaple drew in, the stranger invited Thomas to join him in a First Class compartment. Sitting opposite this man in an empty carriage, a strong feeling of unease crept over Thomas, particularly when the stranger placed a hand on his knee. “Don’t worry. Here’s my card. I am an MP [Member of Parliament]. My name is Tom Driberg.” 

The notorious homosexual MP for Barking, Driberg (later Lord Bradwell)—a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and a close friend of the traitor Guy Burgess—had links with the Soviet KGB and its Czechoslovakian counterpart. Coincidentally, Driberg happened to be staying for the weekend at the Imperial Hotel in Barnstaple, and Thomas was invited for tea in his room at the hotel to show his paintings (which were never returned). Distinctly uncomfortable at the prospect, he nonetheless turned up and managed to resist Driberg’s approaches, not least being his persistence in trying to gather information regarding the nature of Thomas’s work. 

Thomas was also invited, together with his girlfriend, to attend a play at the Queen’s Hall Theatre. During the evening, a local couple who were friends of Driberg’s introduced Trevor to Driberg’s friend Lord Robens. Alfred Robens (Baron Robens of Woldingham), a well-known industrialist, trade unionist, and Labour politician, was shadow foreign secretary at that time. After the show, a drinks party was held at the couple’s home, during which Driberg made further “passes” at Thomas and offered to give him a camera to “record his activities at the camp.” Thomas retorted that cameras were forbidden. 

Back at Weston Zoyland, G and L expressed complete knowledge of, and disquiet at, the weekend’s developments, though they were well aware that Thomas had betrayed nothing sensitive. 

FURTHER EDUCATION 

Sometimes days went by with nothing “said” by G and L. But over the months a great deal of fascinating information was imparted to the team, described by Thomas in great detail in his book. The aliens communicated that they had visited Earth over a long period. As a naturalist, the airman was delighted to learn a great deal about, for example, “mythical” sea creatures on Earth millennia ago. “The aliens, having visited Earth many times over many centuries, knew at firsthand about evolution and extinctions [and] spoke of other aliens who had visited Earth, carrying out their experiments…. It helped that G and L saw colors as we did and though their eyes were considerably larger they seemed to have eyesight and other senses akin to our own.” 

While careful not to reveal the location of their home planet (which had three moons and was in a solar system with five other planets of similar size), the aliens were forthcoming regarding a description of same, describing their planet in great detail, to which Thomas devotes considerable space in his book—describing numerous types of creatures, some very similar to our own. 

The aliens reiterated that the overpopulation of Earth, combined with pollution, would lead to catastrophic consequences during the 21st century. Everything they had observed on this planet in previous millennia was recorded on crystals and retained on the “mother craft,” which transported them and their smaller craft. “They could have shown us much on their screens in the craft still held in the camp,” said Thomas, “but they did not completely trust our seniors, hence the craft remaining closed.” 

REASONS FOR ROSWELL 

G and L discussed the so-called Roswell incident, which, as we learned earlier, was said to have involved three craft. “The remains of the damaged craft will continue to be examined, as will medical analysis of our people. Both have been examined so intensely since your year of 1947 that it is surely time our people were laid to rest and not be moved constantly from liquid solutions and frozen state to be further examined by your scientists and, we fear, at least one alien race your people consort with….” 

Following the ends of World Wars I and II, the aliens contacted our leaders—in 1919 and 1946 respectively—to openly offer their assistance, and to be seen to do so, but were rebuffed. So they informed the American and British military and governments of their intention to “offer scientific instruments to forward human progress rapidly and without cost. Thus did the Roswell event occur, with its subsequent spreading of falsehoods.” 

The Code Orange team were informed that the reason the aliens visited New Mexico owed largely to the siting of American military bases there, including one site that received and transmitted messages from beings other than themselves. They also said that New Mexico and a neighboring state had alien bases built into mountain sides beneath the ground (such as the Manzano Mountains, I learned from another source) and that a to-ing and fro-ing of American military and government personnel (the latter including numerous scientists, I have been told) had occurred up to the time G and L had been transported to Britain at their own insistence. 

“Our own activities required monitoring by other than human beings,” Thomas explained, “simply because Earth is a vital and necessary planet for others. We could not be permitted to despoil it, even though despoliation had begun and we were doubted as to our integrity and genuine concern for the planet and its myriad life forms. G said, much to our disappointment, that humans could be seen as a malign race, and we were partial aliens in any case.” 

CATTLE MUTILATIONS 

G indicated that a number of beings of a certain race had been collecting samples of our animals and plants. This was mainly in the USA, the then-current project involving cattle, which they did not possess —but intended to. “They said the powers that be know about it,” Thomas explains, “and compensation was paid to cattle owners who reported losses.” It needs to be pointed out here that in this time period (1955–57) the cattle mutilation phenomenon was unknown to the general public. It was not until several decades later that researchers became aware of it. As Colonel Philip J. Corso reveals in his book The Day After Roswell: 

“In 1997 this may sound like a nightmare out of a flying saucer horror movie, but in 1957 this was our thinking both in the White House [National Security Council Staff, of which Corso was a member] and in the military. We didn’t know, but we had irrefutable evidence that EBEs [Extraterrestrial Biological Entities] were landing on farms, harvesting vital organs from livestock, and then just leaving the carcasses on the ground because they knew we couldn’t do anything about it. 

“The mutilations that interested the National Security personnel seemed to have the same kind of modus operandi. Whoever went after the animals seemed most interested in the mammary, digestive, and reproductive organs, especially the uteruses from cows. In many cases the eyes or throats were removed in a type of surgery in which the demarcation line was almost microscopically thin and the surrounding tissue showed that the incision had superheated and then blackened as it cooled. But the crime scene and forensic specialists noted that in any type of cut by a predatory animal or a human—even a skilled surgeon—one would find evidence of some trauma in the surrounding tissue [but] forensic examination showed no evidence of collateral trauma or even inflammation, [implying] the cuts to extract the tissue were made so quickly and wounds were sealed so fast that the surrounding tissue was never destroyed….” 5 

“We asked would it not have been simpler to have had a farm on which all the necessary animals, and presumably plants too, could have been part of a humane project to avoid hurting cattle and such,” Thomas writes. “We were told ‘hurt’ did not come into it. The aliens used what we now know as a form of laser [which] immediately kills the target. At least, they said, it was so in this instance, but the extremely intense beam was mainly used for surgical operations to heal….” 

Corso provides confirmation that what turned out to be a laser device was found by the Army “in the Roswell spacecraft and would later develop as a weapon in co-operation with Hughes Aircraft.” As head of the Army’s Foreign Technology Division, Corso himself assembled the information to support laser product development with military funds before the whole operation was turned over to one of the Research and Development specialists. 6 

THE PATH TO DOOM 

Four hundred Earth years was the average life span for these aliens (as with certain other species). 

G and L were adamant that all answers to our future and all the lessons of history had been written down for us to learn from and live by. “Each major culture and each primitive culture had its standards,” explained Thomas, “but the move from a basic, primitive life to a life where selfish motives, however noble we tried to make them seem, prevailed, could and would lead to disaster and the final extinction of the human race.” Our Christian Bible, supposedly, was the full account of ourselves, “the written path of homo sapiens.” 

There may well be many truths passed down in the Bible—as in many other religious documents—as I have remarked on later. But I find it puzzling that the aliens failed at least to acknowledge some of the inconsistencies in various translations of the Bible over the centuries. Exactly how much of it is factual? Thomas’s team had no axe to grind in this regard. By their own admission, they were neither atheists nor “practicing Christians in the recognized manner,” as Thomas puts it. However, G and L did indicate that we were a world of too many religions, and would suffer for being so. “They said the core of our numerous religions and creeds was a good and right way forward, but eventually humans would sacrifice their beliefs in a selfish manner, and our leaders would lazily accept this…. 

“I remember how G placed his hand upon his chest and ‘said’ the incident at Roswell, New Mexico, and certain others, was a part of the ‘Path to Doom’ for the human race. He said items stolen from them at that time would show us how to live well and prosper greatly in a way that no human need ever go hungry or thirsty, and all human problems could be solved using their technology before the century we called the twentieth ended. But, he added, those in power will not wish it; rather would they have what they see as greater power.” 

The aliens acknowledged the existence of Jesus, furthermore indicating that the so-called “Second Coming” was already in force (as also implied by Henry Dohan in Chapter 7)

OFFICIALDOM FRUSTRATED 

On several occasions, the duty officer complained to the team regarding official frustration at their inability to gain access to the inside of the craft. One of the team, Ian, said they’d done all they could—as would have been evident on the taped recordings of all their communications to, if not from, G and L. Several days later, the aliens responded, pointing out that the craft contained a self-destructive device which would operate if entry by any beings other than themselves was accomplished. 

“They made it very clear,” said Thomas, “that they could open the craft in a matter of seconds in human time, and seal it closed just as rapidly. Only massive power could open it falsely. They told us the problem at Roswell was that having come in peace to exchange thoughts and certain technology, the mechanism of self-destruction concealed behind the small panel, with what we called a pentacle on it, was switched off. It seems G and L and their missing friend switched theirs to ‘on’ again before the craft closed…. G and L told us they had no intention at this time to open the craft.” 

When I first met Thomas, he told me that this craft had come down of its own volition while the military combed the site where the other craft had crashed. He said that G and L were “upset about the cruelty and treachery of their American captors in betraying their word.” Given their wide knowledge of human fallibility, one can only wonder at the apparent naïveté of G and Lin this respect. 

ANCIENT HISTORY 

The aliens expounded on their presence here on Earth thousands of years ago. Like the species with whom Carl Anderson liaised (Chapter 7), G and L described how their own people had been present during the times of the many kings (named Pharaohs after 950 B.C.) who ruled Ancient Egypt, and how “the aliens were described as Gods, but of course they were not.” Thomas’s team was advised not to mock what is written in the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, or similar writings that foretell the future. “For example, the great flood did occur and destroyed cities and countries, but mountains were left dry and habitable. 

“They told us that a simple, basic change in the Earth’s axis angle had caused the vast flooding, and that included the destruction of the lost land of what we now call Atlantis, which lay close to what is the island of Cuba. They produced maps of those places and times showing Antarctica before it was icebound, and land bridges before the final dividing of the land masses which were one. They told us these maps exist today copied onto the skins of antelopes in our sixteenth century, but only one has been shown to present humans, yet thirty of them exist even now in the land known as Turkey. 

“They explained how their presence in Central America at a place known as Aztlan was to obtain gold and to enrich cultures and races that preceded the Mayas, [and] the forefathers of Aztecs were the people of Aztlan and that the great floods drove them from their original, ancestral homeland.” 

The aliens needed gold—and later silver—exclusively as part of their craft’s propulsion system. 

THE MOTHERSHIP 

At around 23:00 one pleasant warm night in 1957 at Weston Zoyland, Thomas became aware of a strange presentiment. “There was little sound to begin with,” he wrote, “then a few shouts and the noise of vehicles, then the noise of a helicopter. But then our office phone rang. ‘Code Orange! Code Orange! Have you any problems? I need an immediate appraisal of your situation.’ 

“Alan came rushing in, saying, ‘Come outside quick! Lights, zooming about. Amazing!’” Thomas reported the matter, adding that he was going outside to see what was happening. “Watch the aliens,” he was told. “Do not leave them alone.” 

“Our two friends were fine,” noted Thomas, “seated up against their ‘home’ couches and staring ahead. I asked if they were all right and, receiving affirmation, went to look outside, leaving [colleagues] Keith and Cyril with them. ‘Do not be concerned,’ one said. ‘We are passing messages to our people. You can so inform your seniors later.’” 

The lights—a dozen or so glowing orange and green spheres a bit larger than a tennis ball, Thomas guessed—could be seen zooming and hovering in a controlled manner. Forces personnel rushed around, concentrating on the No. 1 hangar, its protective “portcullis” already up. One of the spheres came close enough to Thomas to touch. The only sound he detected was like that of a bumble-bee. They watched two of the green spheres bob and bounce along the top of the electrified inner perimeter fence; then they returned to the hangar and sat with the aliens, letting Keith and Cyril watch the display. 

FAREWELL 

“All is well,” communicated G. “They will be away soon. Their purpose here has been fulfilled. We ourselves feel much stronger now. We are grateful to the six of you, and you will not be forgotten. Our messengers will return to their craft; there is much they have to do.” 

“Is there a craft visible then?” asked Thomas. 

“There is. It is very high at present and therefore only visible above the rain clouds, but soon it will move lower, not of necessity but to show the humans watching that real power and science is ours, yet we remain peaceful. You should both be able to observe the craft in an hour from now, so you can remain at your post without missing the sighting. You may tell your seniors that the craft will be observable between the two settlements [Westonzoyland and Middlezoy] which lie each side of this military area.” 

An hour later, Thomas, Keith, and Alan went outside. “In front of us was an almost terrible shape, an intensely dark shape like a black thundercloud,” Thomas recalls. “This was totally mind-chilling…. 

“In front of us was a triangle. It was very, very big, dwarfing the V-bombers we [sometimes] had in camp. It was black, solid, and pulsing at about fifty feet from the ground, and it was creepily still, hovering and silent. No one spoke…. The lights appeared along it and what must have been windows lit up. The shape of the craft became more defined…. 

“The lights, or windows, glowed yellow to orange, becoming richly colored but never reaching red. Eventually I felt there was a horizontal division and that I was seeing lights above windows. At first they played from right to left, ‘disappearing’ around corners of the triangle and back again; then, suddenly, all remained alight. There were no shapes of beings in any of the windows, we all agreed…. There was no sound, no engines or machinery sounds as with all of our own aircraft and vehicles. And our camp had gone silent. No [searchlights] were shone onto the craft and no aircraft took off, not even a helicopter….” 

As Thomas reports, this probably owed to the fact that most of the personnel in camp were asleep and, apart from those on duty, had simply not been told. “The huge craft then descended to almost ground level…. Then the lights began to flash again and the craft rose slowly. Violet lights showed beneath, emphasising the craft’s triangular shape, and without any sound to suggest rapid acceleration it left Somerset at a speed I could not even have guessed at.” 

“That was frightening,” said Keith. “I need a drink.” So did the others. 

The following day, the aliens at first seemed unresponsive. Eventually they responded that this would be their last day in camp, that they were now recovered and grateful for the care they had received. G put his hand on his chest and delivered a lengthy and interesting “speech” to Thomas and Alan, which included ominous warnings of dire things to come. “We, or those who work with us, will decide Earth’s future, and all life upon it….” Later, L communicated some concluding remarks: 

“We owe the six of you so much. You will not be forgotten. We leave today, but be assured we will remain about and upon this planet…. Say nought about these days to others, even to denying our presence if asked—unless we bid it differently to one or another in the future—for at least a quarter of a century, even half a century. Remember what we have told you…. We cannot have all six of you here to say goodbye. Everything must appear as usual and as normal. So, tell the others and go about your lives.” 

Shortly afterwards, the duty officer and two “white coats” appeared. Alan and Thomas returned to their office. As they and his colleagues were finishing lunch, the fire drill bell rang twice. Together with the others they ran back to the office. “Gone!” shouted the duty officer. “Vanished! They damn well disappeared before our eyes! All three of us. Do you know anything about it? No, of course you don’t. They were sitting there as usual. Saw them clasp hands—32 and 33. Then my head hurt and I saw the other two holding their heads as I was. Then 32 and 33 faded … and their couch was empty. Gone!” 

And that was it. 

There is much more to be learned about this truly extraordinary case in Thomas’s book. Naturally, the questions arise: How much of the story is true? Although not a student of the subject, per se, he has read only a few related books. Apart from Roswell, for example, he was unaware of numerous other cases involving so-called “crash-retrievals” of alien craft and bodies. 

Since his career in the RAF features in the book, it was incumbent upon Thomas to submit his proposal for review by the Royal Air Force Historical Branch. And having stated in his introduction that readers can take the story as either fact or fiction, the RAF understandably relegated its status to the latter. They could hardly have done otherwise. 

Never will I forget the first time I heard the fundamental aspects of the story from Thomas in person. In spite of the many years that have gone by, he evidently retains a vivid memory of—and remains deeply moved by—these awesome events.

next-125

THE OVERLORDS

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