If this is the missing jet, then one question has been answered. We will know what happened to the aircraft. If Great Lake Dive succeeds in getting down to the aircraft and can verify that it is the missing jet, then they might be able to suggest something about the fate of the two men on board.
There are some, inside the UFO community, who caution that we should wait for more information. Finding the wreckage of an aircraft that could be an F-89 doesn’t automatically mean that it was the one flown by Moncla and Wilson, though the wreckage on the bottom seems to be missing the same pieces that were found in 1968. Even that doesn’t prove it was the jet flown by Moncla and Wilson. What we have here is the possible solution to a mystery.
Or rather it seemed that way but like so much else in the UFO field, there was another side to the story. Gord Heath wrote to UFO magazine in November 2006 reporting on his investigation. He posted the same to UFO UpDates in January 2007. Following is his letter.
Dear Editor,
I read your article on the alleged discovery of the missing F-89 in your November issue and was quite surprised to note that it contained no mention that this discovery is now widely believed to be a hoax. Also, contrary to the brief follow-up comments by Dirk Vander Ploeg in the December issue of UFO magazine, there seems to be nothing of the story which can be verified. Many individuals have checked into this story and it seems that no one has yet been able to verify even the most basic information. I am sure that your readers would be interested to know the findings of the investigation by James Carrion, international director of MUFON into the claims of Adam Jimenez.
I will briefly summarize the findings:
1) No one has yet been able to verify the existence of “Great Lakes Dive Company” (GLDC) which Jimenez claimed to be an incorporated company or LLC in the state of Michigan.
2) No one in the Great Lakes shipwreck searching community or dive community seems to have any knowledge of Great Lakes Dive Company as an organization actively involved in the searches they mentioned on their web site.
3) No one seems to have any basic information about Adam Jimenez to validate he is who he claims to be, such as an address or current phone number.
4) While the GLDC web site was operational, no photographs of team members, boats or sonar equipment were ever posted to the website to document their alleged discovery.
5) Some experts in the field of side scan sonar believe the alleged sonar images may be fakes.
6) The initial story quoted in an email that was forwarded to the UFO Updates list, appears to be faked as an Associated Press story from a Port Huron, Michigan publication.
It should be noted that Adam Jimenez claimed to have video recordings obtained from an ROV survey of the alleged F-89. He claimed that the tail code was visible in the video and that the canopy of the craft was intact, implying that the crew were still inside. Despite these claims, he never shared any of this evidence with any of the family of the missing pilot, Lt. Gene [most reports suggest his name was Felix] Moncla.
It is unfortunate that persisting questions surrounding the mysterious disappearance have largely been side-stepped in your coverage of what seems to be an elaborate hoax. I have spent many years researching this incident and my findings are published on the UFOBC website at www.ufobc.ca/kinross. I am sure your readers will be quite interested to know that parts from a military jet aircraft were found in the bush near the eastern shore of Lake Superior back in October 1968. A photograph of the tail stabilizer is shown with an Ontario Provincial Police officer and USAF officer on the front page of the Sault Daily Star newspaper, accompanying articles about the discovery. It appears that the identity of the mystery jet was never released to the public and the Canadian government claims they have no file records of this discovery. Were these parts from the missing F-89?
The article in UFO Magazinealso reprints a map which erroneously places the last position of the F-89 in the accident report as being at coordinates 45 degrees 00 minutes north at a location near Sturgeon Bay, Michigan. The actual coordinates are printed in several locations such as the Search and Rescue report prepared by the RCAF and in several telexes. All state the last coordinates were 48 degrees 00 minutes north and 86 degrees 49 minutes west, north of the US Canada border over Lake Superior.
In closing, I wish to bring to your attention the photograph which you published in your magazine of Lt. Moncla, contains no caption mentioning this photograph was provided to me by his sister, Leonie Shannon and his cousin, Carol Campbell. I don't know where you obtained the photograph but I know it has been published several times on the web since we first posted it in an article printed in the UFOBC quarterly and now posted on our web page devoted to the missing pilot http://www.ufobc.ca/kinross/persons/personsMonclaMain.htm I enjoyed reading many of the other articles in your November issue, but I couldn’t restrain myself from responding to your articles referring to the missing F-89.
Yours truly,
Gord Heath UFOBC
It should be clear from this that the missing F-89 has not be found. While the most probable explanation is that the aircraft is at the bottom of the Lake Superior, we don’t know that for certain. There is always the possibility that it was “taken” by the UFO and is now on display on some distant planet as an artifact from a primitive world.
Miscellaneous Mysteries
Alien Bases, Area 51 and UFOs
While I was at the Illinois MUFON Symposium at the end of May, I was asked, a couple of times about underground alien bases and what, exactly, is at Area 51. I gave the same answers there that I have given for more than a decade, or since I first heard about these things. I have seen no compelling evidence of alien bases and I believe that the next generation of military aircraft are being tested at Area 51. I don’t believe the stories told by Robert Lazar and the others.
First, I have heard about the underground alien bases since the early 1980s. I have attended the lectures of those who claim to know about them, I have seen the computer generated maps and seen the pictures of lights in the night sky. But I have seen nothing that proves there are any alien bases.
When I’m asked about Dulce, New Mexico, I always ask, “Which one.” There is a ghost town in the central part of the state labeled as Dulce on some maps. Clearly the people asking mean the one up north, nearly in Colorado close to the Archuleta Mesa.
Yes, I’ve been there and no, I saw no evidence of an underground base. Even a secret base would show some sign. History’s UFO Hunters went there in search of evidence and used infrared to detect a heat signature that would have revealed an underground installation, or, at the very least, an entrance to it.
The UFO Hunters used ground penetrating radar as well and found nothing. They looked at other underground installations that had been built including what would have been the seat of government had the atomic war happened. This was a massive installation under the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia but the point is, there were clues if anyone bothered to look. No one did.
So, what we know is that there is no evidence of a massive alien base hidden somewhere on the Archuleta Mesa in northern New Mexico and near the town of Dulce. True, locals, including members of the Jicarilla Apache have reported strange lights in the area but strange lights do not translate into a hidden alien base.