Sure Flying Saucers Real
By ROBERT TAYLOR
Star Staff Correspondent

Ottawa, July 6 - If mankind put on a crash program such as led to the atomic bomb, they could have space travel in 10 years, in the opinion of Wilbur B. Smith of the department of transport.

But he doesn't think that in 10 years' time we will have our own flying saucers, for governments apparently aren't interested in pouring out the billions of dollars needed for studying how the flying saucers work.

How long will it take, Canada's most ardent student of flying saucers was asked. He figures if governments hadn't decided on a crash program for atomic energy, it might have taken from 100 to 150 years to get it. If research proceeds in the usual way, and no big league program is put on in regard to the technology of flying saucers, it might take from 100 to 150 years for man to get flying saucers for the big move into outer space.

Distorted View

One barrier to a governmental crash program in this field is that the flood of publicity, "much of it garbage," has made it look ridiculous "and the scientific facts have been ignored so that the public and those who control governmental purse strings have a distorted view of the whole thing."

Though his work in the department of transport is divorced from flying saucers, he has made a serious effort to discover all he can about these UFO's - unidentified flying objects.

He has, as a hobby, checked with many people who have claimed to have seen them. He has concluded there is a 91 per cent. probability that what they saw was genuine and a 60 per cent. probability that they were "alien vehicles."

To even a veteran science fiction reader like this reporter it comes as something of a shock to talk with a man who, after lengthy study, is so convinced that aliens from outer space have been among us that he chats about them almost casually.

Massive Probe

He was asked if he thought mankind might be shocked into a massive investigation of flying saucers by having one appear in public.

"UFO's have been with us for the last period of civilization," he said. "Since they have not manifested themselves to us in that way, I do not see any probability of them doing so in the future. They probably see us as a low form of life, interesting to keep an eye on, but they do not care much what we do."

He said he is personally convinced they are "extraterrestrial," out of this world. One idea is that they are "inter-dimensional," able to move from one dimension to another.

He believes a study of how they operate would reveal the technique of space travel. The U.S. plan for an earth-girdling satellite, he feels, "is going at it the hard way." About 180 tons of fuel is used in the U.S. plan to put a 20-pound weight into space.

He is convinced the secret of space travel can be uncovered by human beings "if they devote time and effort to it."

But it would be a big job. Just how big he didn't know. "Something of the scope of IGY - the International Geophysical Year?" he was asked. "IGY is peanuts," he said.

HUGE BLUE OBJECT REPORTED OVER RIO

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A large, unidentified flying object moving at ultra-fast speed and emitting blue, green, orange and yellow light has been seen over Rio, police reported yesterday.

Detective Genildo Pereira Gomez first reported seeing the object, shaped like a giant glass and "twice the size of a full moon" at 4:23 a.m. yesterday. Radio patrol headquarters sent out a car to observe it and its crew confirmed the detective's story.

Police said the object moved with incredible speed, emitting light that varied from blue to green to orange and yellow. After about an hour's manoeuvring over the mountains outside Rio, it assumed the shape of a star and then disappeared.

Pilot reports UFO, then vanishes

MELBOURNE (UPI) - "It isn't an aircraft. It's . . ."

Moments after pilot Frederick Valentich told an Australian control tower an unidentified flying object with four green lights was chasing him, radio transmission was cut off, and nothing more was heard from the 20-year-old pilot or his single-engine Cessna 182.

A full-scale search by the Australian air force resumed today for the plane - and its lone occupant - whose last known position was over the Bass Strait, 130 miles (208 kilometres) south of Melbourne.

Transport department spokesman Kenneth Williams said Valentich radioed Melbourne Flight Service Control Saturday at 7.06 p.m. and reported a UFO was following him at 4,500 feet.

He described his pursuer as "a green light and sort of metallic light on the outside."

Ground control said there was no air traffic in the area below 5,000 feet.

Valentich disagreed.

"It has four bright lights - appear to be landing lights. Aircraft has just passed over me about 1,000 feet above."

"Can you identify the aircraft," control asked.

"It isn't an aircraft. It's . . ." Then silence.

Two minutes later, Valentich's voice rasped over the radio again.

"Melbourne, it's approaching from due east toward me . . . It seems to be playing some sort of game . . . Flying at a speed I cannot estimate . . . It is flying past . . . It is a long shape . . . Cannot identify more than that . . . coming for me right now . . . It seems to be stationary . . . I'm orbiting (circling) and the thing is orbiting on top of me also . . . It has a green light and sort of metallic light on the outside."

Suddenly, Valentich reported his engine was choking.

Metallic scratching replaced the pilot's voice. Then there was no sound at all.

When the aircraft did not arrive at King Island on schedule, investigators began an air search, but found no sign of the aircraft.

TV station claims film of UFO

MELBOURNE (AP) - An Australian television station says it has filmed an unidentified flying object over New Zealand.

An official at the station said yesterday the film, purchased by the British Broadcasting Co. and the CBS television network, was made Saturday. CBS said it would show the film on its news show tonight.

The official, George Wilson, said: "An oval-shaped object with three bands around it can be seen clearly. At one stage the film crew saw 25 of these objects."

The film was made at the direction of a reporter who was investigating a UFO report by a New Zealand airline pilot.

Wilson said the reporter "saw objects everywhere about him," and described them as being "lights in the sky which tracked and followed the aircraft."

Wilson said flight control at Wellington airport confirmed objects other than airplanes had appeared on radar screens at the time the seven-minute sequence was filmed.

Our jets scramble after UFOs
By Joe Hall
Toronto Star

WASHINGTON - Canadian jet fighters "scrambled" at least twice in one week in an attempt to intercept unidentified flying objects, it was confirmed last night.

The incidents were revealed in previously top-secret documents released in Washington by the U.S. Air Force and the defence department. They were confirmed by a National Research Council official in Ottawa.

The U.S. and Canadian reports said the UFOs were seen near a top-secret Canadian military installation and hovering over a number of nuclear missile launch sites and bomber bases in the United States.

U.S. and Canadian military personnel reported mysterious craft visiting the North American Air Defence Command (Norad) base at North Bay, Ont., and defence bases along the Canadian border in Montana, Michigan and Maine, the records show.

On radar

The sightings, both visually and on radar, at North Bay were described by Dr. Bruce McIntosh of the National Research Council's Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Ottawa.

All the sightings were reported in the last few days of October and first few weeks of November, 1975.

The U.S. government records describe the intruders variously as helicopters, aircraft, unknown entities and brightly lighted, fast-moving vehicles that hovered over nuclear weapons storage areas and evaded all pursuit efforts.

The U.S. air force sent fighter planes and airborne command planes aloft on unsuccessful pursuit missions. The released records do not indicate whether the fighters fired on the intruders.

McIntosh said that on the night of Nov. 5, 1975, apparent targets were spotted on the radar at North Bay - part of a chain of command centres on permanent alert to warn of air attacks on North America.

Canadian interceptors were scrambled later that morning when the targets remained on the radar screen. Nothing was found, McIntosh said.

The U.S. records show that several sightings were made in the same period at Loring Air Force base in Maine of objects hovering over the weapons area.

Radar and visual sightings were made and a KC-135 tanker plane took off to oversee pursuit efforts by a helicopter from the Maine National Guard.

The object disappeared toward the Canadian border where Canadian jets were waiting on alert, the records show.

There was no indication in the records that the Canadian planes spotted any craft.

McIntosh's office gets about 200 UFO reports a year from across the country. His planetary sciences office is concerned primarily with sightings of meteors but a UFO file has been kept since 1962.

Lack of evidence

McIntosh says he is not a believer in space ships piloted by alien beings "because there is just not enough concrete evidence."

"If I were a gambling man, I would not place any money on it. But there are lots of things we cannot explain. I would be the happiest guy in the world if one landed in my backyard. Now that would be proof positive."

The U.S. records show that two days after the North Bay incident, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, Capt. Thomas O'Brien was coming off duty as a missile launch officer when, he said, an aircraft resembling a helicopter approached the silo area.

He and his deputy heard what they thought was a helicopter rotor over the building where they were resting.

The unidentified deputy looked out the window and saw "the sihouette of a large aircraft hovering about 10 to 15 feet above the ground" and about 25 feet from the launch-area fence.

He reported seeing red and white lights on the front, a white light on the bottom and another on the rear.

Darkness prevented him from seeing markings or personnel on the craft which left after a minute or so of hovering.

Lights reported

Military crews at two other nearby launch facilities reported moving lights in the air on the same evening.

McIntosh said one explanation for whatever was spotted on the North Bay radar was that on a clear night a high density of ice crystal layers in the sky could reflect radar beams onto aircraft over the horizon, not normally picked up on radar.

"I looked at the situation at the time - not very thoroughly I must admit - and I talked to the officer on duty at NORAD and satisfied myself that it was a coincidence (the radar sightings) and the UFO," McIntosh reported.

Venus at some times in the year is 10 times brighter than any star and often seems out of place, "sticking out like a sore thumb," McIntosh said.

Having seen targets on the radar, the officer probably went outside expecting to see something in the sky, he added.

Defence department officials in Washington said yesterday that formal investigation of unidentified flying objects ended in 1969 and there are no plans to re-start the probe, which went under the code name Operation Blue Book.

Soviets report UFO landing, alien encounter

MOSCOW (AP) - It was a close encounter of the Communist kind.

Towering, tiny-headed humanoids from outer space landed their UFO in the Soviet city of Voronezh and emerged for a stroll around the park, speading fear among residents.

At least, that's what the official Tass news agency said yesterday.

The report was the latest strange tale in the official Soviet press, which, under the policy of glasnost (openness), has been venturing into tales beyond belief - the sort found in North America's raunchy supermarket tabloids.

"Scientists have confirmed that an unidentified flying object recently landed in a park in Voronezh," Tass said in a dispatch from the city, 480 kilometres southeast of Moscow. "They have also identified the landing site and found traces of aliens who made a short promenade about the park."

Residents reported that the UFO landed and up to three creatures emerged, accompanied by a small robot, Tass said. "The aliens were three or even four metres tall, but with very small heads," the news agency quoted witnesses as saying.

Aliens give Soviet scribe the brush-off

MOSCOW (Reuter) - They came from Planet Red Star, the glowing aliens told a Soviet reporter, but when he asked the extra-terrestrials to take him home with them, the answer was no.

"There would be no return for you and it would be dangerous for us . . . You would bring thought bacteria," reporter Pavel Mukhortov says the two- to four-metres tall creatures told him, during their encounter.

It was the latest in a series of fantastic accounts in the official Soviet media. At the very least, the tales are providing relief from the shortages of goods, bad news about the economy, and ethnic unrest afflicting the Soviet Union.

Mukhortov said he met the creatures near the city of Perm on the night of July 30. He simply thought his questions to the aliens, he said, and the answers appeared in illuminated letters.

The exchange, published in Komsomoskaya Pravda, went like this:

Mukhortov: "Where are you from?"

Aliens: "The constellation Libra, Red Star - our homeland."

"Your goal?"

"It depends on the centre. We are directed by a central system."

"Can you take me to your planet?"

"There would be no return for you and it would be dangerous for us."

"Why would it be dangerous?"

"You would bring thought bacteria."

Soviet kids hushed up about aliens

VORONEZH, Soviet Union (Reuter) - If the huge, three-eyed aliens were out there, nobody's talking.

Children who reported seeing the creatures in Central Russia last week have been silenced by their parents, frustrating investigators who are trying to verify the spaceship landing.

The youngsters enthralled the country earlier with tales of spaceships, robots and gun-toting extra-terrestrials in this industrial city of 900,000 people.

"The parents want their kids to be left alone," said Slava Martinov, a member of the Commission for the Investigation of Abnormal Phenomena.

Commission head Genrykh Silanov, holding a copper rod to try to divine traces of the aliens yesterday, took his team to the bushy glade where several children claimed to have seen the spaceship land.

The children say a spaceship landed on Sept. 27 in a Voronezh park about 500 kilometres (310 miles) southeast of Moscow.

Lurid accounts in newspapers and the official news agency Tass have depicted 3-metre (10-foot) high creatures with three eyes and small knobby heads.

According to the reports, a silver-suited alien accompanied by a robot fired a large gun at a 16-year-old boy, who temporarily vanished. The boy reappeared when the spaceship left.

"I am sure the ship came from Venus," said one resident. "I did not see it myself, but my grandmother's cousin once saw a spaceship attack a train in Siberia.

UFOs seen north, east of Metro
By Boris Nikolovsky
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

A rash of unidentified flying object sightings in southern Ontario has left dozens of witnesses scratching their heads in puzzlement and a UFO investigator swamped with intriguing cases.

"This is what we call a flood," said Victor Lourenco, provincial director of the Mutual UFO Network, a civilian-based non-profit group.

During the past two weeks, dozens of witnesses in Newmarket, Keswick, Bradford, King City and Brighton were astonished to see strange lights in the sky.

An Aurora lawyer reported an orange light in the Newmarket area early Tuesday morning.

The object, also sighted near Orillia, was circular in shape with a cross of lights spinning on its own axis.

Korean UFO

South korean air force personnel monitored a doughnut-shaped object that hovered over a provincial park in Taegu. According to the news agency Yonhap, the strange object glowed with a light and passed silently over the hilly park. Radio and television stations were swamped with reports of the unidentified flying object, and a large crowd gathered to watch it move across the evening sky.

UFO sightings have Territories town in a trance
BY GWEN DAMBROFSKY
CANADIAN PRESS

A mystery of paranormal proportions has the Northwest Territories town of Fort Resolution in a kind of trance.

Every evening since Jan. 4, townsfolk have stepped outside and looked up, hoping to catch another glimpse of a trio of pulsating, multicolored lights dancing across the cold night sky.

They have rarely been disappointed.

"We're seeing exactly the same object every single night ... between about 5 o'clock and 8 o'clock. Then it completely disappears," Mayor Euan Hunter says.

"It's quite calming actually, especially when all the colors come out from underneath it."

The unidentified flying object so intrigued a colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces that he and two staff members hopped into a Twin Otter plane and flew out for a look-see.

"The witnesses were pretty credible, actually," says Capt. Susan Gray, public affairs officer for the military in Yellowknife.

"A few of our Canadian Rangers (Dene and Inuit who serve in a reserve force) had seen it. And the mayor." And the RCMP.

But wouldn't you know it, Gray says - by the time Col. Pierre Leblanc got to Fort Resolution the skies had clouded over and he had to leave without seeing anything.

"This is the biggest story since I got up here last summer. UFO sightings or paranormal phenomena are not something that Canada's military deals in very often," says Gray.

Leblanc will file a report with the Defence Operation Centre in Ottawa, which deals with about 30 or 40 UFO reports a year.

But though the military's official role may be concluded, the Fort Resolution UFO is still the talk of the base.

Hunter says the object has red, green and blue lights with a constant white light in the centre. It moves straight west, and then down, before vanishing.

It's not a star, not a plane, not the northern lights, he says: "I just cannot explain it."

"The first few days (of sightings) I was pretty skeptical, until I saw it...It blew my socks off."