Alexandre: Did it look like the UFO pictured at Trindade Island?
AW: No.
Alexandre: How long did that observation took?
AW: It took very long. We sat on a bench at the beach and observed its whole travel. It took more than half an hour. When I first saw it was very low, then went higher but still relatively low. Then he stood still showing those colorful lights, after that it went higher and the colors disappeared leaving only a bright light like a full moon. Then it went left, then right and stood between the Pao de Acucar and Galeao in a swinging up and down movement. At that moment we could see a light that disappear afterwards. Then, when it was a little closer to Rio de Janeiro than Niteroi, it descended and dived in the sea making no bubbles or reflection. Alexandre: Getting back to the sighting from 1958 in Trindade Island, what did you think when Amilar arrived home telling the story?
AW: He arrived telling he saw a very strange object with no defined shape and odd movements. When he saw this other object he realized that the movement was the same and was also silent.
Alexandre: Did you meet Almiro Barauna?
AW: Yes, I thought he was a very serious man. A very closed person and not any exhibitionist.
—
A. J. Gevaerd,
Editor, Brazilian UFO Magazine www.ufo.com.br
gevaerd@ufo.com.br
aj@gevaerd.com
Flushing Queens UFO Photographs
The witness, a president of an advertizing agency, told Air Force investigators that he, and others were traveling from New York to Washington, D.C. Because the sky was beautiful, with the sun setting, he decided to take several pictures. Holding the camera outside the car window, as they traveled at sixty-five miles an hour. The witness told the Air Force that his vision was limited because they were in a sports car, and that he didn’t see anything strange in the sky. The objects were seen when the slide film was developed.
After they returned to New York, and with the film being projected, for the first time, they saw the objects near the bridge. The witness had the pictures blown up so that the objects were about a foot in diameter. He said that they were domed discs, with indentations on the dome. He believed they were metallic, and that they were reflecting the light of the sun. According to him, based on their position at the bridge, the objects were moving to the south, following the river. The witness knew that the Air Force had been investigating UFOs and thought they would be best qualified to analyze the photographs. An Air Force officer, Lieutenant Conaway, from the Information Office at Suffolk County Air Force Base, reported to Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla, of Project Blue Book, investigated. He assured the witness that his original photographs would be returned, but that the Air Force couldn’t properly analyze anything other than the original negatives. Since these were color slides, the Air Force officer wanted the original transparencies.
Conaway was concerned because the man told him that the photographs were valuable. According to the report, in a sentense that was underlined, Conaway noted that the man had said he “had numerous money offers from magazines.”
Conaway was told by Quintanilla that Air Force regulations demanded that he sent the original negatives and that the forms be completed properly. Quintanilla then told Conaway that the witness was probably trying to get the “Air Force to say that his photographs are authentic. Well, all photographs were authentic, but UFOs aren’t.”
Although the photographs were provided to the Air Force, apparently the paperwork, that is the report by the witness, was not completed quickly enough. The Air Force returned the photographs before they received the report. Therefore, according to the Air Force, the case was labeled as “insufficient data for a scientific analysis.” In this case, it meant that the witness had not complied with Air Force requests to complete their rather lengthy forms.
One of the Air Force forms, in which the officer asked specific questions, ended with a summary. It directed that the investigator “State your own personal evaluation of the report. What do youthink the object was? Do you think something other than the sighting motivated the caller? Include anything which may add to the objectivity of the report. Include your evaluation of the caller’s reliability.”
Sergeant Robert Becker filled out the form and wrote, “According to the caller’s description, he did photograph some type of object, rather than an optical illusion. I would not however, exclude the possibility of uncommonly shaped high or middle clouds. I did not form any opinion of some motivation for calling. I did not[e] one apparent contradiction; he said he was just photographing a beutiful (sic) sunset, yet his discription (sic) of the photos sounds to me like he might have, in fact, been shooting at the objects.”
The problem here is that the witness had, quite clearly, studied the photographs for a long period before alerting the Air Force. He told Air Force investigators that they had studied the photographs. That study certainly could have contributed to the witnesses telling of the story, suggesting that the witness had actually tried to photograph the objects rather than just a beautiful sky.
The Air Force attitude here is also of interest. Their bias, that photographs are real, but UFOs are not is interesting. He suggests that by this point, June 1968, they were just attempting to explain rather than investigate.
The Amana Photographs — November 22, 1975
High school student Mark Leonard was attempting to take time exposures of the moon on the evening of November 22, 1975 when his attention was drawn to a bright light overhead. He thought it would be a good reference point for a shot across the pond and centered the light in the view finder and snapped the shutter. When he looked through the view finder again, he saw that the object had moved. He centered it again and took the second picture. After that exposure, he saw that the object had moved so far, he had to move the camera so that he could take the third, and last, of the photographs. The object finally moved behind some trees and was no longer in view.
Leonard said that the light seemed to flicker as it moved, not unlike the way a railroad engines front light sweeps from side to side. He believed that it was accelerating to the north as it disappeared.
Leonard was quick to show investigators all the negatives he had taken that night. There was no evidence that he had been experimenting with trick photography. The film seemed to bear out the tale he told.
Plotting the flight path on a map, revealed that it seemed to be flying too slowly to be meteors or aircraft. At ten miles distance, the object would have been moving at only sixty miles an hour and it is unlikely that the object was that far away. Operations at the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Airport had been suspended for the night by the time the object was photographed. That certainly ruled out commercial aircraft.
Although the explanation has been found, it is one that is somewhat speculative. The speeds were plotted assuming that the object was flying perpendicular to the camera. If, however, it was flying at an angle away from the camera, the speed computations would be flawed. Leonard said that he heard no sound of an engine, but with the wind blowing away from him, he might not have heard it.