2 and five other specialists Haines et al., “Report of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon and Its Safety Implications at O’Hare International Airport on November 7, 2006,” March 9, 2007, NARCAP Technical Report 10, http://www.narcap.org/reports/010/TR10_Case_ 18a.pdf.
3 “UAP as non-existent” Ibid., p. 100.
4 “a future incident such as this” Ibid., p. 5.
5 “whether acknowledged or unacknowledged” Ibid., p. 54.
1 and many other avenues of investigation Jean-Francois Baure, David Clarke, Paul Fuller, and Martin Shough, “Report on Aerial Phenomena Observed Near the Channel Islands, UK, April 23 2007,” February 2008 http://www.guernsey.uk-ufo.org/.
1 General Jafari and Comandante Santa Maria Comandante is the rank equivalent to colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
1 It was flashing with intense red, green, orange, and blue lights Jafari’s description of the UFO, at very close range, is unusual. However, it bears an extraordinary resemblance to a report filed by another general, when he, like Jafari, was also an Air Force pilot. As referenced in chapter 4 by Julio Guerra, and in my note for that chapter, Portuguese General Jose Lemos Ferreira submitted his description of a UFO to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book in 1957. The document is available in those archives.
While on a nighttime practice flight with three other Air Force jets, Ferreira saw an object that looked like “a bright star unusually big and scintillating, with a colored nucleus which changed color constantly—deep green, blue, reddish and yellowish hues.” Note the similarity to Jafari’s description: “It looked similar to a star, but bigger and brighter,” and then, “it was flashing with intense red, green, orange and blue light so bright that I was not able to see its body… The sequence of flashes was extremely fast, like a strobe light.” The next phase is chillingly consistent in the two encounters. Ferreira says that the pilots saw “first one small circle of yellow light coming out of the larger object, then three others,” and that these were considerably smaller than the scintillating, main object. Jafari states later in this chapter that he saw “a round object” leave the larger object and head toward him, looking like “a brightly lit moon coming out over the horizon.” And he, too, witnessed not just one of these round lights ejected from the brilliant one, but a series of them. Both incidents involved multiple Air Force witnesses. Jafari’s case was reported in a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document in great detail, as described later in this book.
It is unusual enough for pilots to get such extended close views of UFOs while in the air; for detailed reports to be filed about them; and for the primary witness to later be promoted to the rank of general. But when the details are so strikingly similar—even though they were seen nineteen years apart over two different continents—it is reasonable to wonder whether the two groups of pilots were witnessing the same, or almost identical, phenomena.
2 for an examination and more blood tests Exposure to radiation can reduce the production and/or aggregation of blood platelets, which are essential for coagulation. Perhaps this explains Jafari’s problem, but we don’t know. He does not have copies of the medical records.
1 On April 11, 1980 The first draft of this piece was translated from Spanish by Andrea Soares Berrios and Oscar Zambrano, who also translated during follow-up communications and further development of the piece. I worked on the final edits with Comandante Santa Maria in English.
1 assigning a security classification and code name to it General Nathan F. Twining to Commander, Air Material Command, “AMC Opinion Concerning ‘Flying Discs,’” September 23, 1947 (contained in Edwin U. Condon, project director, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1969), pp. 894–95.
2 and given the code name “Sign” Directive—Major General L. C. Craigie to Commanding General Wright Field (Wright-Patterson AFB), Disposition and Security for Project Sign, December 30, 1947 (contained in Edwin U. Condon, project director, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying
