"Flying machines as these were of old, made even in our days” Friar, 13th century.
Monsignor Corrado Balducci
"We can no longer think... is it true? Is it not true? Are they truths or are
they lies--if we believe or if we don't believe--no! There are already numerous
considerations which make the existence of these beings into a certainty we
cannot doubt." Monsignor Corrado Balducci, is a Vatican theologian "close to the pope", who has
been charged with studying reports of UFOs sent in from Vatican embassies around
the world. This quote comes from one of Father Balducci's many appearances on
Italian television.
Commander Juan Barrera
"That it could be an aircraft constructed on this earth, I do not believe
possible."
Statement while in command of Aquirre Cerda Airbase, commenting on a
UFO he allegedly witnessed.
General Carlos Castro Cavero
"Everything is in a process of investigation both in the United States and in
Spain, as well as in the rest of the world... Look, as a General, as a military
man, I have the same position as the one officially held by the Ministry [of
Defense]. Now, from a personal position, as Carlos Castro Cavero, I believe that
UFOs are spaceships or extraterrestrial craft... The nations of the world are
currently working together in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. There is
an international exchange of data. Maybe when this group of nations acquire more
precise and definite information, it will be possible to release the news to the
world."
"I myself have observed one [UFO] for more than an hour... It was an extremely
bright object, which remained stationary there for that length of time and then
shot off towards Egea de los Caballeros, covering the distance of twenty
kilometers in less than two seconds. No human device is capable of such a
speed." He added that the Spanish Air Ministry investigated UFO cases, including
instances in which pilots had flown alongside UFOs, but when they tried to get
closer, the UFOs moved away at fantastic speeds. The investigations were kept
confidential at the time, but in
From a 1976 interview with journalist J.J. Benítez, he acknowledged that UFOs
were taken quite seriously by the Spanish military. Cavero, General in the
Spanish Air Force. In 1992 the Spanish Air Force finally began to declassify its
UFO files systematically.
General Lionel M. Chassin
"The number of thoughtful, intelligent, educated people in full possession of
their faculties who have 'seen something' and described it, grows every day...
We can... say categorically that mysterious objects have indeed appeared and
continue to appear in the sky that surrounds us."
He observed that some UFO sightings by different persons over a 24-hour period,
when plotted on a map, revealed that the UFO appeared to travel in either a
straight line or a large circle. Concerning these patterns, he concluded: "Webs and networks... unmistakably suggest a systematic aerial exploration and
cannot be the result of chance. It indicates purposive and intelligent action."
General Chassin was Commanding General of the French Air Forces, and General Air
Defense Coordinator, Allied Air Forces, Central Europe (NATO). From 1964 until
his death in 1970, he was president of the French private UFO research group
GEPAN.
Sir Francis Chichester
"An object 'like an oblong pearl' drew steadily closer until perhaps a mile
away when, right under my gaze as it were, it suddenly vanished. . . .But it
reappeared close to where it had vanished. . . .It drew closer. I could see the
dull gleam of light on nose and back. It came on, but instead of increasing in
size, it diminished as it approached! When quite near, it suddenly became its
own ghost. For one second I could see clear through it and the next. . .it had
vanished."
June 10, 1931 , Tasman Sea Sir Francis Chichester, a famous aviator, sailor, and author, reporting on a
strange sighting he had while flying his Gypsy Moth.
Sir Winston Churchill
"What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What
is the truth?"
L. Clerebaut
"Scientifically we eliminate the simple hypotheses: It's not a plane. It's not a
helicopter. It's not a natural phenomenon because the descriptions don't match.
Therefore this global phenomenon resists any other explanation. The only
remaining hypothesis is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial origin." Clerebaut was Secretary General, Belgian Government, in charge of investigating
UFO sightings.
Air Marshal Azim Daudpota
"This was no ordinary UFO. Scores of people saw it. It was no illusion, no
deception, no imagination." (The Times, London, August 3, On July 22, 1985, in western Zimbabwe, a UFO was witnessed by dozens of persons
on the ground and in the control tower at Bulawayo Airport, as well as by the
pilots of two Hawk jets that were scrambled to pursue it. The UFO was also
tracked on radar. The UFO was very bright and rounded, with a short cone above
it, and evaded the Hawk jets.
Lord Davies of Leek
"If one human being out of tens of thousands who allege to have seen these
phenomena is telling the truth, then there is a dire need for us to look into
the matter." Lord Davies was a Member of the House of Lords.
Major General Wilfred De Brouwer
"In any case, the Air Force has arrived to the
conclusion that a certain number of anomalous phenomena has been produced within
Belgian airspace. The numerous testimonies of ground observations were reinforced by
the reports of the night of March 30-31 [1990], have led us to face the
hypothesis that a certain number of unauthorized aerial activities have taken
place. Until now, not a single trace of aggressiveness has been signaled;
military or civilian air traffic has not been perturbed or threatened. We can
therefore advance that the presumed activities do not constitute a concrete
menace." "The day will come undoubtedly when the phenomenon will be observed with
technological means of detection and collection that won't leave a single doubt
about its origin. This should lift a part of the veil that has covered the [UFO]
mystery for a long time. A mystery that continues to the present. But it exists,
it is real, and that in itself is an important conclusion."
De Brouwer was Deputy Chief, Royal Belgian Air Force.'
Air Chief Marshall Lord Hugh Dowding
"Of course UFOs are real--and they are interplanetary.....The cumulative
evidence for the existence of UFOs is quite overwhelming and I accept the fact
of their existence."
Dowding, commanding officer of the Royal Air Force during
WWII, and during the Battle of Britain made this statement in August of 1954.
"More than 10,000 sightings have been reported, the majority of which cannot be
accounted for by any "scientific" explanation... I am convinced that these
objects do exist and that they are not manufactured by any nation on Earth." "I
can therefore see no alternative to accepting the theory that they come from
some extraterrestrial source." Printed in Sunday Dispatch, London, July 11, 1954.
M. Robert Galley
"I must say that if listeners could see for themselves the mass of reports
coming in from the airborne gendarmerie, from the mobile gendarmerie, and from
the gendarmerie charged with the job of conducting investigations, all of which
reports are forwarded by us to the National Center for Space Studies, then they
would see that it is all pretty disturbing."
"I believe that the attitude of spirit that we must adopt vis-à-vis this
phenomena is an open one, that is to say that it doesn't consist in denying
apriori, as our ancestors of previous centuries did deny many things that seem
nowadays perfectly elementary." From an interview by Jean-Claude Bourret, on February 21, 1974. Galley was
French Minister of Defense
Mikhail Gorbachev
"In spite of all the differences between us, we must all learn to preserve our
one big family of humanity. At our meeting in Geneva, the U.S. President said
that if the earth faced an invasion by extraterrestrials, the United States and
the Soviet Union would join forces to repel such an invasion. I shall not
dispute the hypothesis, though I think it's early yet to worry about such an
intrusion. " From a speech to the International Forum, "For a Nuclear-Free World and the
Survival of Humanity," at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow on February 16,
1987.
"I know that there are scientific organizations which study this problem."
In reply to the question, "Does the USSR government study UFOs?," Asked while
visiting the Uralmash plant in Sverdlovsk on April 26th, 1990
"The phenomenon of UFOs does exist, and it must be treated seriously."
From Soviet Youth, May 4, 1990.
Colonel João Glaser
"From 1969 to 1972, the ufological activities of this organization, were
most varied, including the elaboration of information bulletins, a draft of SIOANI regulations, contacts with interested parties, panels, catalogs of
contacts and others, always attempting to contribute in this field of research
that was already well known in Brazil." Colonel Glasera was with a specialized UFO bureau called System of Investigation
of Unidentified Aerial Objects
Colonel Fuijo Hayashi
"UFOs are impossible to deny....It is very strange that we have never been able
to find out the source for over two decades." Colonel Hayashi, Commander of the Air Transport Wing of Japan's Air
Self-Defense Force, Made this statement was sometime in the 1960s.
Lord Hill-Norton
"The evidence that there are objects which have been seen in our atmosphere, and
even on terra firma, that cannot be accounted for either as man-made objects or
as any physical force or effect known to our scientists seems to me to be
overwhelming... A very large number of sightings have been vouched for by
persons whose credentials seem to me unimpeachable. It is striking that so many
have been trained observers, such as police officers and airline or military
pilots. Their observations have in many instances... been supported either by
technical means such as radar or, even more convincingly, by... interference
with electrical apparatus of one sort or another..." From the foreword to a book written by British UFO researcher Timothy Good,
Above Top Secret, in 1987. Lord Hill-Norton (GCB), Chief of Defense Staff,
Ministry of Defense, Britain; Chairman, Military Committee of NATO; Admiral of
the Fleet; Member of House of Lords.
Lieutenant General Akira Hirano
"We frequently see unidentified objects in the sky. We are quietly investigating
them." Lieutenant-General Hirano was Chief of Staff of Japan's Air Self-Defense
Force, September, 1977.
Prime Minister
Toshiki Kaifu
"Japan does not have such organizations at a government level... If young people
display a serious interest in similar phenomena, we should perhaps think of
forming a UFO-data collecting group under the auspices of the Ministry of
Education." From an interview with students of Waseda University in Tokyo in November 1989.
on he question of whether Japan had an official UFO organization
"First of all, I told a magazine this past January that, as an underdeveloped
country with regards to the UFO problem, Japan had to take into account what
should be done about the UFO question, and that we had to spend more time on
these matters. In addition, I said that someone had to solve the UFO problem
with far reaching vision at the same time. Secondly, I believe it is a
reasonable time to take the UFO problem seriously as a reality... I hope that
this Symposium will contribute to peace on earth from the point of view of outer
space, and take the first step toward the international cooperation in the field
of UFOs. From the point of view of 'people' in outer space, all human beings on
earth are the same people, regardless of whether they are American, Russian,
Japanese, or whoever." Kaifu, who was Prime Minister, concerning an upcoming Symposium on Space and
UFOs.
General Kanshi Ishikawa
"Much evidence tells us UFOs have been tracked by radar; so, UFOs are real and
they may come from outer space....photographs and various materials show
scientifically that there are more advanced people piloting the saucers and motherships."
Ishikawa, Chief of Air Staff of Japan's ASDF, made this statement
in 1967.
Earl of Kimberly
"UFOs defy worldly logic... The human mind cannot begin to comprehend UFO
characteristics: their propulsion, their sudden appearance, their disappearance,
their great speeds, their silence, their maneuver, their apparent anti-gravity,
their changing shapes." Kimberly was former Liberal Party spokesman on aerospace, and member of the
House of Lords.
Major Shiro Kubuta
"It was made and flown by intelligent beings." Major Shiro Kubuta, of Japan's Air Self-Defense Force (I think). Kubuta and his
pilot, Lt. Colonel Toshio Nakamura, were scrambled in an F-4EJ to intercept what
they were told was a Soviet Bomber. Once Airborne they were informed that their
target was actually a UFO which had been sighted by ground and was being tracked
on radar. When they closed upon the red, disk-like UFO, it began to maneuver
around the plane, causing Nakamura to take evasive action. A dogfight of twists,
turns and dives insued, which after several minutes resulted in a collision,
which caused the jet to crash. Both men ejected. Tragically, Nakamura's
parachute caught fire and he fell to his death.
Captain Sánchez Moreno
"Between 1950 and 1965, personnel of Argentina's Navy
alone made 22 sightings of unidentified flying objects that were not airplanes,
satellites, weather balloons or any type of known (aerial) vehicles. These 22
cases served as precedents for intensifying that investigation of the subject by
the Navy. In the past two years, nine incidents have been recorded that are
being studied by Captain Pagani and a team of military and civilian scientists
and collaborators. Likewise, a meticulous questionnaire was drafted, printed and
distributed to different bases. In a short time, the Service of Naval
Intelligence was in possession of a stack of highly significant reports of
testimonies. On the basis of this important documentation, it was possible to
obtain a coherent overview of the problem." From a document tiled "Official UFO Report" prepared by Captain Sánchez
Moreno Naval Air Station Comandante and witnessed by Comandante Espora in Bahía
Blanca.
Air Marshall Roesmin Nurjadin
"UFOs sighted in Indonesia are identical with those
sighted in other countries. Sometimes they pose a problem for our air defense
and once we were obliged to open fire on them." Nurjadina as Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian Air Force.
Brigadier General João Adil Oliveira
"I wish to give you a summary of what is known in the
world about 'flying discs,' of what is known about the opinion of qualified
experts who have dealt with this matter. The problem of 'flying discs' has
polarized the attention of the whole world, but it's serious and it deserves to
be treated seriously. Almost all the governments of the great powers are
interested in it, dealing with it in a serious and confidential manner, due to
its military interest." In a briefing to the Army War College in Rio de Janeiro on November 2, 1954
Col. Oliveira's briefing included short summaries of several UFO incidents in
the USA and Brazil. Later promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, he was interviewed by the
Brazilian press on February 28, 1958.
"It is impossible to deny any more the existence of
flying saucers at the present time... The flying saucer is not a ghost from
another dimension or a mysterious dragon. It is a fact confirmed by material
evidence. There are thousands of documents, photos, and sighting reports
demonstrating its existence. For instance, when I went to the Air Force High
command to discuss the flying saucers I called for ten witnesses - military (AF
officers) and civilians - to report their evidence about the presence of flying
saucers in the skies of Rio Grande do Sul, and over Gravataí AFB [Air Force
Base]; some of them had seen UFOs with the naked eye, others with high powered
optical instruments. For more than two hours the phenomenon was present in the
sky, impressing the selected audience: officers, engineers, technicians, etc." Brazilian press interview on February 28, 1958 Brigadier General João Adil
Oliveira, Chief of the Air Force General Staff Information Service (with the
rank of Colonel), led the first official military UFO inquiry in Brazil in the
mid-50s.
Captain Engineer Omar R. Pagani
"The unidentified flying objects do exist. Their
presence and intelligent displacement in the Argentine airspace has been proven.
Their nature and origin is unknown and no judgment is made about them." Pagani was Director of the Argentine Navy UFO investigation team in the 1960s
He disclosed this at a press conference, as a result of a series of observations
at Argentine and Chilean meteorological stations on Deception Island,
Antarctica, in June and July 1965.
Captain D.A.Perissé
"From the Navy post at the South Orkney Islands comes a
message of extreme importance: during the passage of the strange object over the
base [earlier the same day], two magnetometers in perfect working condition
registered sudden and strong disturbances of the magnetic field (at 17:03 hrs.),
which were recorded on their tapes." From the Argentine Navy Bulletin #172 of July 7, 1965.
Prince Phillip, His Royal Highness, Duke of Edinburgh
"There are many reasons to believe that they (UFOs) do exist: there is so much
evidence from reliable witnesses."
Nick Pope
"I concentrate on the science. I'm interested in
the UFOs seen by the police and military witnesses. I'm interested in the near
misses that pilots report, where their aircraft nearly collide with these
things. I'm interested in the visual sightings backed up by radar. I'm
interested in the military bases that are overflown by these things. I'm
interested in the cases where you have radiation readings on the ground. These
are no lights in the sky. These are not misidentifications of fantasy prone
individuals. This is a cutting-edge technology being reported by reliable,
trained observers, and it is something that goes beyond what we can do. That to
me suggests that if it is not ours, it belongs to someone else. If that
technology is better than ours, then the extraterrestrial hypothesis seems to me
the best explanation."
"Certainly when I socialized with my RAF colleagues, I
would find that they were a little bit more receptive to the idea of UFOs--and
by that I mean perhaps even an extraterrestrial explanation for this -- than you
might have supposed. One of the reasons for that was that so many RAF pilots had
actually seen things themselves. Many of them have never made an official
report. I had one chap tell me that he had seen something over the North Sea. I
asked him why he hadn't reported it, and he said, 'I don't want to be known as
Flying Saucer Fred for the rest of my career.'"
"We were asking the Americans, 'Are you operating a
prototype aircraft in our airspace?' That, of course, was nonsense. You simply
would not do that from a diplomatic and political point of view. It would
undermine the entire structure of NATO if you were putting things through
someone else's airspace, particularly a close ally, without seeking the proper
diplomatic clearance. But we had to ask. And the Americans, having had similar
reports, I guess, since the Hudson Valley wave [New York state, mid-1980s], had
been quietly asking us if we had some large, triangular shaped object that could
go from 0 to Mach 5 in a second. Our response was that we wished we did. This
was the bizarre situation: that we were chasing the Americans, and the Americans
were chasing us."
"The official line from the Ministry of Defense is,
'Yes, this happened. No, we don't know what it is, but we say that it is of no
defense significance.' How can it possibly be of no defense significance when
your best jet is left for standing by a UFO? And, again, how can it be of no
defense significance when your air defense region is routinely penetrated by
structured craft?" Excerpts are from a taped interview. Pope headed up the "UFO desk" at Air
Secretariat 2-A, British Ministry of Defense from 1991-1994, and has served in
other departments of the Ministry of Defense since 1985.
Lord Rankeillour
"Many men have seen them [UFOs] and have not been
mistaken. Who are we to doubt their word?... Only a few weeks ago a Palermo
policeman photographed one, and four Italian Navy officers saw a 300-foot long
fiery craft rising from the sea and disappearing into the sky... Why should
these men of law enforcement and defense lie?" Lord Rankeillour was a Member of the House of Lords.
Air Marshall Nurjadin Roesmin
"UFOs sighted in Indonesia are identical with those
sighted in other countries. Sometimes they pose a problem for our Air Defence
and once we were obliged to open fire on them." Air Marshall Roesmin was Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian Air Force,
1967.
Air Commander J. Salutun
"I am convinced that we must study the UFO problem
seriously for reasons of sociology, technology and security... " Letter published in UFO News, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1974, CBA International,
Yokohama, Japan.
Air Commodore J. Salutun
"The most spectacular UFO incident in Indonesia
occurred when during the height of President Sukarno's confrontation against
Malaysia, UFOs penetrated a well-defended area in Java for two weeks at a
stretch, and each time were welcomed with perhaps the heaviest anti-aircraft
barrage in history."
"The study of UFOs is a necessity for the sake of world
security in the event we have to prepare for the worst in the space age,
irrespective of whether we become Columbus or the Indians." Salutun was on the
National Aerospace Council of Indonesia, and Indonesian Parliament Member. Salutun as Member of Parliament and Secretary of the National Aerospace
Council of the Republic of Indonesia.
Colonel Sergio Candiota da Silva
"His Excellency recognizes the importance of the [UFO]
matter, to the extent that within the Ministry of Aeronautics there exists a
Bureau in charge of studying the matter, receiving, analyzing and archiving
chronologically the phenomena observed in Brazilian airspace that comes to the
attention of this Ministry." From a letter to the Minister of Aeronautics, to Brazilian UFO researcher
Irene Granchi, dated December 19, 1988
Wilbert Smith
"The matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States
Government, rating higher even than the H-bomb. Flying saucers exist. Their
modus operandi is unknown but a concentrated effort is being made by a small
group headed by Doctor Vannevar Bush. The entire matter is considered by the
United States authorities to be of tremendous significance." Smith was a Senior radio engineer with the Department of Transport, headed
Project Magnet, the first Canadian government UFO investigation in the 1950s.
Air Commodore David Thorne
"Although not speaking officially], as far as my Air
Staff is concerned, we believe implicitly that the unexplained UFOs are from
some civilization beyond our planet." Thorne who was Director General of Operations in an October 1985 letter to
Timothy Good.
Earl Alexander of Tunis
"There are of course many phenomena in this world which
are not explained and it is possible to say that the orthodox scientist is the
last person to accept that something new (or old) may exist which cannot be
explained in accordance with his understanding of natural laws." Earl Alexander was British Minister of Defense.
Jean-Jacques Velasco
"There are cases which remain unexplained... Let's say
simply that the events which were registered and measured, particularly at
Trans-en-Provence, but also in the case of l'Amarante [a CE-II on Oct. 21, 1982]
and two others, allow us to suppose that there are phenomena which escape our
understanding completely. I must say that this permits us to suppose that there
is an intelligence behind the phenomena. But I believe it would be largely
speculation to go beyond this point." Velasco, the last head of GEPAN and director of SEPRA at CNES Headquarters in
Toulouse, in an interview with the French magazine Phénomèna. Velasco also
stated that SEPRA's primary task was tracking "satellite re-entries, which are
more and more numerous, and secondly, to continue the activities of GEPAN,
stopped in 1988.