U.F.O.

Chapter 1: UFOs and aliens

In 1897, something very strange happened in the town of Aurora, Texas. Children playing in a field saw a strange 'ship' fly over and then crash into a farm building.
Men ran to the crash and found just one alien in the ship - dead. They put the alien under the ground - and, if the story is true, he is still there, somewhere under Aurora.
Since 1897, thousands of people have said that they have seen strange flying spaceships - Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs. Others say that they have seen aliens from these UFOs, and a few people even say that they have travelled in UFOs. Are their stories true?
Nobody knows. All we can do is look at the stories. Read them and decide for yourself if they are true.

Chapter 2: Tunguska: meteor or UFO?

Siberia is one of the coldest and emptiest places on Earth. For hundreds of kilometres there are only trees, rivers, and wild animals.
On 30 June 1908, the people of Nizhne-Karelinsk, a small village in Tunguska, saw a line of fire cut across the sky. It was blue-white in colour, and moved slowly down the sky for about ten minutes. When it hit the ground, they saw black smoke, and then heard a terrible noise. The ground moved, and they were very, very frightened. Nizhne-Karelinsk is three hundred kilometres from the centre of the Tunguska explosion.
Other people heard, or felt, the explosion, too. The famous Trans-Siberian Railway is more than a thousand kilometres away from Tunguska. A train driver heard the explosion and felt the ground move under his train. People in the town of Irkutsk, over twelve hundred kilometres away, also felt the explosion.
Many people thought that the explosion was a meteor. Hundreds of meteors come near the Earth every year. They usually burn up before they come down, but sometimes they hit the ground. If the explosion in Tunguska was a meteor, it was a very big one - and the Earth was very lucky. Nobody died at Tunguska - the nearest people were a long way away. If a meteor like the Tunguska meteor hit
Moscow, London or New York millions of people could die.
Tunguska was very difficult to get to in 1908. Some newspapers wrote about the explosion, but no scientists went there.
The first scientist to go there was Leonid Kulik, in 1927. He found thousands of trees, lying flat on the ground for twenty or thirty kilometres around the explosion.
Kulik also found some big holes in the ground; perhaps pieces of meteor made them. But after four visits to Tunguska Kulik found nothing in any of the holes.
Was there a meteor? If not, what made the holes?
In 1938, scientists flew over Tunguska in an aeroplane. They wanted to find the big hole in the centre, where the biggest piece of meteor hit the ground. Like Kulik, they saw the trees lying on the ground, but also something very strange.
In the middle of the dead trees, there was no hole; the trees at the centre of the explosion were standing up - and they were alive.
There are some other strange things about the Tunguska explosion. More than a thousand people watched the line of fire in the sky. Most of them said that it fell towards Lake Baikal. Then it turned and moved away from the lake.
A meteor doesn't turn when it is falling.
Scientists visiting the centre of the explosion also found that some of the trees were growing very, very fast. And they found some strange insects; there are insects living near the centre of the explosion that live nowhere else on Earth.
Was the Tunguska explosion a meteor? Or was it a very big UFO?

Chapter 3: Roswell: the aliens arrive

Roswell is just a small town in New Mexico.
But it is also the centre of perhaps the most famous UFO story. The story begins in the evening of 2 July 1947. It was a fine, warm, evening, many people were outside - and several of them saw something very strange. Dan Wilmot was one of these people, and later he described what he and his wife saw from their front garden.
They saw something big and bright flying from the southeast. It was round and bright, with light coming from the inside. Wilmot thought it was perhaps five or six metres across, and was flying at about 750 kilometres an hour. It flew over them, and then away to the north-west. Other people saw something very like this on the same evening.
About a hundred kilometres north-west of Roswell is the small town of Corona; William 'Mac' Brazel had a sheep ranch here. On the night of July 2, there was a terrible storm, and during the storm, Brazel heard an explosion. Perhaps it was thunder, perhaps not.
The next morning, after the storm, Brazel went out to look around his ranch. He wanted to see his sheep; they can get very frightened in a storm. Brazel found something very strange that morning, in a field about eight kilometres south of his ranch house.
In this field, he found hundreds of strange pieces of metal. There was a long hole, perhaps a hundred metres long, cut into the ground, and the metal was in and around this hole. Some pieces were long and thin, others were larger, and flat, like paper - but all the pieces were very strong, but light. Brazel could not break or burn them. Some of the long pieces had strange 'picture writing' on them.
Brazel was very busy on the ranch that day and Roswell was a three-hour drive away. He picked up some of the pieces, but he did not take them into Roswell until Sunday, 6 July. Sheriff George Wilcox looked at the pieces of metal and decided that this was something for the army.
There was a big army air base at Roswell, and Wilcox thought that if something came out of the sky, it probably came from there. He telephoned the base, and Major Jesse Marcel came to look at the debris. Marcel and another army man, Captain Cavitt, decided to go back to Brazel's ranch with him.
The three men arrived at the ranch late in the evening, and went to see the field early the next morning. The two-army men were surprised and excited when they saw the debris. Marcel died in 1982, but in 1979, he talked on television about the day. He remembered that all the debris was very light and very strong, and, like Brazel, he remembered strange 'writing'. He was sure that the debris did not come from an aeroplane. For a minute, he thought that perhaps it came from a weather balloon. The army sent these balloons very high up into the air to look at wind and temperature, and they sometimes crashed near Roswell. But after a few minutes, Marcel was sure that this was not a balloon. 'This came to Earth, but it did not come from Earth,' he said.
The three men put some of the debris into Marcel's car and Cavitt's Jeep, and the army men returned to Roswell. Marcel stopped at home on the way to the base.
It was the middle of the night, but he woke up his wife and son. He wanted to show them the debris. His son, Jesse Junior, was eleven at the time. He still
remembers the strange pieces of metal and the 'picture writing'.
The American government had a 'Foreign Technology Division', in Dayton, Ohio.
The scientists here looked at planes from other countries and tried to learn about them. During the Second World War, the planes were often German or Japanese. In 1947, they were usually Russian. For the people at Roswell, the debris was certainly foreign. So the army decided to send it to Dayton - the scientists there could look at it. They put the debris on a B-29 plane.
Newspapers and radio stations all over the world were now talking about the strange 'saucer' in New Mexico and somebody in the American government decided that it had to stop. Nobody knows why. Perhaps the debris was from a new and secret American plane. Or perhaps the debris was from a UFO - and the government wanted to learn its secrets.
Before flying to Ohio, The B-29, carrying Marcel and the debris, landed at Fort Worth, Texas. Here, the army invited newspapers and radio stations to see the debris. General Ramey, the head of the army in Fort Worth, explained that the saucer story was a mistake.
The debris was from a weather balloon. The newspaper men took some photographs of Major Marcel with the debris.
The debris in these photographs was from a weather balloon, and the newspapers believed Ramey. There were no more stories about flying saucers.
Marcel was an expert in planes and balloons. If the debris at Brazel's ranch was a weather balloon, why did he say it was not from this Earth? Why did he want to take it to Dayton, Ohio?
After he left the army, Marcel said that the debris in the Fort Worth photographs was not the debris he picked up near Roswell. But where is the real debris? Nobody knows.

Chapter 4: Socorro: dead aliens?

Most of the Roswell story is probably true. But we do not know if the debris was from a secret American plane or from an alien 'saucer'. The Socorro story is different. Most people do not believe the story, but if it is true, it is certainly the strangest UFO story of all. It is a story that ends at Area 51, which is at the centre of the famous film, Independence Day.
Socorro is about two hundred kilometres west of Roswell. It is about a hundred kilometres from Corona, where, Brazel found the debris on his ranch.
In early June 1947, a group of students, and their teacher, were out in the Plains of San Agustin, near Socorro. They were archaeologists and they were looking for things left by the first people to live in New Mexico, thousands of years ago; but, if the story is true, they found something more modern.
Like Brazel, they found debris on the ground. But they also found a UFO - or spaceship. The spaceship was on the ground near a cliff. Perhaps it crashed into the cliff when it landed. Near the spaceship were a number of dead aliens. They were small, like children, and had grey space suits.
After a few minutes, some soldiers arrived. They asked the archaeologists to leave - and told them that they must say nothing about the spaceship or the aliens.
But some people have talked about what they saw that day. In some stories, the aliens were not dead, but died soon after. (There is even a film of one of the aliens; but most experts believe that the film is not real.)
The army took the aliens to Roswell army base, and a number of people say that they saw the dead aliens there. If the story is true, the aliens then went to Washington, where President Truman saw them, and they, and their strange spaceship, then went to Dayton. Certainly, a number of people who worked at the 'Hangar 18' building at Dayton say that they saw the spaceship there. They also saw dead aliens. Some people saw two, some as many as thirty.
They were small (about one metre thirty centimetres tall), thin, with large heads and large round eyes, small mouths and ears, and no teeth. They had no hair, short legs and four fingers on each hand.
If the story is true, both the aliens and their spaceship are now at the secret 'Area 51' in Nevada.

Chapter 5: Bentwaters: UFOs in the air

In 1956, Bentwaters air base, in Suffolk, England, was used both by the US Air Force and by the British Royal Air Force. The two air forces used radar to watch the sky for about fifty kilometres around the base. On 13 August, the Bentwaters radar saw something flying very fast. It came onto the radar over the sea, about forty kilometres from the base. In a few seconds, it was over the base, and after about thirty seconds, it disappeared to the west.
Airman John Vaccare was watching the radar all the time. He noted a speed of 7,000 kilometres an hour - much faster than any aeroplane.
A few minutes later, the watchers saw about fifteen strange objects on the radar. This time the objects moved together slowly (at about 150 kilometres an hour), from the southeast to the northwest. An aeroplane from Bentwaters went to see what was happening, but didn't find anything. The strange objects moved north, sometimes stopping and then moving on.
Then, a few minutes later, at ten o'clock, another object went across the radar screen - again at more than 7,000 kilometres an hour. Then everything was quiet - for the next fifty minutes.
At 10.55, another object went across the screen at between 4,000 and 6,000 kilometres an hour. This time, people at the air base saw a bright light go from west to east at about 1,000 metres above the ground. The pilot of a C-47 plane flying near the base saw the light go under his plane.
The Bentwaters radar operators sent a message to Fakenheath air base, nearly a hundred kilometres to the north-west. They wanted to know if Fakenheath could see the UFOs. Sergeant Perkins, and four other radar operators were surprised, and did not really believe the Bentwaters operators. But it was a quiet night, they had nothing important to do, so they started to watch carefully. And at 11.05 things started to happen.
The first object was about forty kilometres south-west of Lakenheath and it was not moving. After five minutes it moved, at about 800-1,000 kph, to about thirty kilometres north-west of Lakenheath. Then it stopped again. For about half an hour it moved, stopped, for three or four minutes and then moved on again. At 11.50, an RAF de Havilland Venom took off from Waterbeach air base. Its job: to find the UFO.
The RAF Venom quickly found the object on its own radar, and by midnight, the pilot could see 'a bright white light'. It was not moving, and the aeroplane flew nearer. Suddenly, the UFO disappeared, only to appear behind the Venom. For ten minutes, the UFO followed the Venom, and then stopped again. Then the Venom lost the UFO and returned to Waterbeach. The Lakenheath radar operators followed the object north for about a hundred kilometres before it disappeared.

Chapter 6: Visiting the aliens

A lot of people say that they have seen UFOs. Other people say they have been inside them. Not all of these stories are true; some of them are probably dreams. But some stories of meetings with aliens sound true - although we can never be sure. One of the best stories is Travis Walton's.
It was the early evening of 5 November 1975, and Walton and six other men were driving home together to the small town of Heber, Arizona. Suddenly, one of the men saw a strange light through the trees. At first, they thought it was a crashed aeroplane, but when they stopped, they saw that it was a flying saucer.
It was about six or seven metres across, and gave off a strange light.
Walton jumped out of the truck, and started to walk towards the saucer, hiding behind the trees as he walked. The other men stayed in the truck, too frightened to move. Suddenly a green light came out of the UFO and hit Walton. He flew about three metres back, and fell to the ground. This was enough for the other six men. They drove off as fast as possible in the truck.
After a few minutes, the six men decided to return and help Walton. When they got back, they saw the saucer fly off into the sky. They looked through the trees for some time, but Walton was not there so they decided to go to the police.
The police, of course, did not believe them. At first, they thought that Walton was dead, and that the six men were his killers. Finally, the six men had to have a lie detector or polygraph test, to see if their story was true. The polygraph said that it was. The police looked in the forest for days, but they found nothing.
About midnight on 10 November (five days later), the telephone rang in Grant Neff's house. Grant was Walton's brother-in-law. 'It's me, Travis. Can you come and get me? I'm at the Exxon gas station in Heber.'
Grant and Walton's brother Duane drove to the gas station and found Walton. He was tired and hungry - and he didn't know that it was five days later.
Walton's story is a strange one, but he, too, had a polygraph test.
After the green light hit him, Walton went to sleep. He woke up on a bed. For a minute, he thought that he was in hospital. Then he saw that the walls were metal, and that the people around him were not human. They were small (about 1.60 metres), with large heads and no hair. He was not in a hospital but on a spaceship!
Walton jumped off the bed; he wanted to escape. He pushed into one of the aliens - it felt very soft - and picked up a long piece of metal. To his surprise, the aliens ran out of the room.
Carefully, Walton pushed open the door and looked out of the room. There was a long passage outside. He walked quietly along the passage, looking for a door.
The first door went into a circular room, about five metres across, with a high, round, ceiling. In the centre of the room was a chair, and when Walton moved towards it, the room got darker. Now, on the walls and ceiling Walton could see tiny lights - like stars. Perhaps this was a map of the stars.
Suddenly there was a noise behind him. He turned, and saw a tall human wearing blue clothes, with a glass or plastic helmet over his head. Walton ran up to him, talking and asking questions. The man did not answer, but smiled and took Walton's hand. Then he took Walton back into the passage. A door opened in front of them and they walked outside.
They were inside a very big building. The man took Walton past two or three more flying saucers, and into a small room. Here, there were two more human men and a woman, with the same clothes and helmets. Again, Walton asked questions, and again nobody answered. Instead, they put him in a chair. Walton was now very frightened again, and he was more frightened when the woman picked up a black mask and put it over his face.
When he woke up again he was lying on the road outside Heber. He could see the lights of the flying saucer as it disappeared into the sky.
We can be sure, from the polygraph, that Walton and his friends believe their stories are true. Can they really be?

Chapter 7: Are they real?

UFOs sell newspapers, and many newspaper men want to use UFOs in their stories.
Because of this, some people have taken hoax photographs of UFOs to sell. Many scientists think that all UFOs are hoaxes. Certainly, there have been some very clever hoaxes in the last fifty years.
It's easy to make a photograph of a UFO. You need a small model of a spaceship.
You photograph this once, and then take another photograph of the place where you want people to see the UFO. There are many photographs of UFOs taken by a man called George Adamski. Many people now believe that these are hoaxes.
There are also photographs of aliens. Many of these are probably hoaxes as well.
Sometimes people see strange things in the sky, and they think that they are UFOs. When experts look carefully at them, they sometimes discover that they are aeroplanes, balloons or even meteors.
In the 1980s, the American government was building a secret plane - the Stealth Bomber. They wanted this plane to be invisible from the ground - so it was black. They also wanted it to be invisible to radar; it was carefully made so that radar could not see it. But some people did see these planes, and thought they were UFOs. The government, of course, said nothing - it wanted to keep its secret.
Other photographs of UFOs look like flying saucers, but are probably just birds.
Sometimes people have taken a photograph of a building or of something in the sky. When they look at the photograph later, they see a UFO. Often, this is a reflection of light in the lens of the camera. There are even photographs taken on the moon, which show UFOs. These are probably just reflections, although some people think that they are aliens watching the spacemen.
Most experts think that most UFO stories are not real; but there are still a few stories - like Roswell and Bentwaters - which are very difficult to explain.

Chapter 8: UFOs and Hollywood

Hollywood has always been interested in aliens, and some of its most famous films have tried to show them.
When Steven Spielberg was making the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), he listened to and read about many 'meetings' with aliens. A specialist
in alien meetings, Dr J. Allen Hynek, Director of the Center for UFO Studies, helped with the story and even played the part of a scientist in the film.
The aliens in the film are like the aliens many people describe; and so is their spaceship. Another of Spielberg's films, E.T. (1982) also showed an alien.
Again, the alien is small, like a child, and has big eyes. E.T. has to live on Earth for a time before returning home.
Ridley Scott's film, Alien (1979), showed an alien that is nothing like those that people have described on Earth. There are no descriptions of dangerous aliens like Scott's ever-visiting Earth.
The aliens in Independence Day (1996) are also dangerous. Like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this film uses some of the most famous alien stories. In the film, the American President visits Area 51 to see the spaceship and aliens who landed at Roswell. The aliens in the film don't look like the aliens many people have described - they are much more frightening. The film says that scientists at Area 51 have secretly studied the aliens and their spaceship for fifty years.
Mulder and Scully, the two main people in television's The X Files, also often meet aliens in their stories. In the 1950s, there was a real Scully - a newspaperman who wrote a book about the Roswell aliens.
Many people believe the stories in The X Files and other films. Do you?