Newsletter

Title : The Summer Of '47
Author : Unknown
Date :

The UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico. Development of U-2, SR-71
spy planes and VCASS for RPVs. During the summer of 1947, a few
weeks after a private pilot reported seeing a flight of unusual
aircraft skimming along the mountain tops in the Pacific
Northwest, Mac Brazel, a sheep rancher living near Corona, New
Mexico stomped into the sheriff's office to complain that
something large had fallen from the sky and was cluttering up
one of his meadows. After hearing a description of the object,
the sheriff suggested Mac report the incident to the authorities
at Roswell Army Air Field. Roswell AAF was, in 1947, home to
the 509th Bomb Group. The 509th flew B-29s that carried Atomic
Bombs. In the same general area and comprising a triangle were
Los Alamos, New Mexico where the first atomic bomb was tested,
and White Sands Missile Test Center. Authorities at Roswell were
curious enough to send a detail out to Mac's place to have a
look at the object, fearing, perhaps, that one of the B-29s had
lost a part in flight. (Nothing was ever reported missing in
subsequent press releases). After they arrived at the meadow,
they went ballistic, cordoned off the area, gathered up every
scrap of the object and carried it back to Roswell AAF. A few
hours later, someone issued a press release stating emphatically
that Roswell had in its possession an alien spacecraft - a
flying saucer! The next press release downgraded the metallic-
like flying saucer to a rubber and wood weather balloon.
This encounter has been dubbed the "Roswell Incident" and, even
after 45 years, has refused to go away, despite the government's
attempts to deny that anything unusual happened. Later reports,
real or imagined, indicate that the "weather balloon" was placed
aboard a railway flat car and transported to Wright Patterson
Air Force Base in Ohio for examination. Two questions arise:
(1) If it was a weather balloon, why did someone feel it required
examination by the Air Force at one of the most secret bases in
the world? and (2) who had a weather balloon so large it had to
be transported by rail car with an armed guard rather than in a
small cardboard box in a modest sized airplane? If it was a
weather balloon it would have been launched from one of the bases
mentioned and the Air Force had no business examining it. A call
to Los Alamos or White Sands would have produced the owner and
they should have claimed it, extracted the data and tossed the
ruined balloon into the trash. It is interesting to note that
the person who issued the second press release claiming the object
was a weather balloon had never seen the object and issued the
claim only on direct orders from higher authority. He insists,
to this day, that because of the furor created over the recovery
of the object, he is convinced it was not a weather balloon or
any kind of aircraft known on this planet.

In 1947 the press, the Air Force, and scientists spent a lot of
time trying to convince the American public that no aircraft could
enter our airspace without being detected by radar, especially
around Roswell, Los Alamos and White Sands. But what most people
didn't know then and still don't know today, is that in 1947
America had an aircraft that was, for all practical purposes,
invisible to radar! It had not been designed as a stealth
aircraft because no one even understood the concept in 1947, but
this airplane, the brainchild of Northrup Aviation, the YB-49
Flying Wing, reflected such a small radar image that ground
operators literally could not detect it. Indeed, its profile
was so slight while airborne that it could not be seen visually
until it was over the airfield!

So the claim that an aircraft could not penetrate American
airspace undetected in 1947 was a lie and the government knew
it was a lie. I believe if the Army had produced several large
pieces of a crashed B-29 (they were not known for not crashing,
after all), and had let a few hundred journalists take pictures
and print them in every newspaper in America, the incident would
have died right there. But they didn't. They told us they had
found a flying saucer which mysteriously turned into a weather
balloon and word leaked out that it had been sent to the Foreign
Technologies Center at Wright Pat for examination.

The Foreign Technologies Center at WPAFB claims they take
foreign aircraft apart to see how they were manufactured, how
they work and what danger, if any, they pose to America. I
believe that. Still, since Russian pilots now fly their latest
fighter planes and bombers at airshows on American soil and in
every country sponsoring an international airshow, and since
anyone with enough money, governments and private citizens
alike, can purchase one of these "foreign" aircraft, and since
we trade and sell aircraft like cattle to countries who have
even claimed to be our enemies, what could be so secret about
any foreign aircraft that the Foreign Technologies Center is
still so secure one literally cannot get past the entry foyer
without getting shot?

Just how foreign is their foreign technology? Is it across the
border in another country, across the ocean on another continent,
or is it across the cosmos on another planet? How does the Air
Force define it? 45 years ago the technology for stealth
aircraft did not exist and neither did the machines for
analyzing material which could not be identified - materials which
might have fallen from or might have been a part of an alien
spacecraft. 45 years ago no one could identify exotic materials
such as carbon fiber composites that are lighter than but stronger
than steel, do not reflect radar images and can enter Earth's
atmosphere from space without falling apart. But someone devised
such a machine and that raises another question: Why would anyone
have need of a machine to analyze exotic, unheard of materials
unless they were required to examine something they could not
otherwise identify with machines already in production?

As early as 20 years ago no one could have identified carbon
fiber composites. Now the Air Force scientists at Wright Pat
claim they could, given time, identify anything and eventually
discover what function it performed! The question is: Why would
they need to do that unless they had found something somewhere
that prompted the development of the technology? Did it take
25 years or more to unlock the secrets of the Roswell "weather
balloon"? Were carbon fiber composites just on chance discovered
to have the exact properties required to construct a lightweight,
strong, invisible aircraft capable of flying into and out of
Earth's atmosphere a few years after the Roswell saucer was
delivered to WPAFB?

Let's jump to the near present. Kelly Johnson and a team of
amazing co-workers developed the Lockheed U-2 spy plane to carry
out recon missions over unfriendly countries during the cold
war era. It was basically a high altitude powered glider,
thought to fly so high that it was out of range of enemy missiles
until CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was brought down over Russia,
not by a direct hit, but by the sonic explosion of the fired
missile.

The U-2 was a large, slow, conventionally powered (jet engine),
conventionally built (aluminum, titanium, rubber, plastic)
aircraft that could be easily spotted and tracked on radar. It
flew at high altitudes for great distances taking pictures inside
foreign countries, but it did not represent a great leap forward
as far as aircraft technology was concerned. The great leap
forward would be left to the next airplane, the SR-71 "Blackbird."
Statistics of the SR-71 are still classified even though the
plane has been decommissioned. It was built of exotic composites,
parts of the skin fitted so loosely that the plane actually leaked
fuel before takeoff. Once in the air and after the skin of the
aircraft heated up from friction, the plane sealed itself. The
pilot would find a waiting plane, refuel, and make a dash for its
mission somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 miles per hour ahead
of its two great ram engines.

Although a lot of unfriendly people tried to shoot them down, they
flew so fast that no known missiles could catch them. They served
America well and were recently retired from service. Visit Boeing's
Air Museum in Seattle and you will see one prominently displayed
but you will be unable to find out just what it was really capable
of doing. Anyone who has been around airplanes for more than a
few months knows that the government, and particularly CIA, does
not retire their best aircraft unless and until a suitable
replacement has been developed, tested, flown and certified
airworthy.

Now let's jump to the immediate present and Lockheed's super
secret "Skunk Works" where the U-2 and the SR-71 were developed
for CIA. A considerable workforce is still at that facility, still
working and still being funded to create new and awesome aircraft
unheard of just a few years ago. At least one of those aircraft,
Aurora, is now flying from Beale Air Force Base near Sacramento,
California and landing at a secret base near Groom Lake, Nevada
after dashing across oceans and continents at altitudes of 200,000
feet (40 miles) and speeds of Mach 6 (4000 miles an hour). An
unidentified aircraft was tracked by RAF radar operators in 1991
leaving a remote NATO/RAF base at Mackrihanish in western Scotland
at a speed of Mach 3 when no aircraft capable of that performance
was known to exist.

They have been heard, their contrails spotted and photographed,
their sonic profiles recorded by CIT seismologists in Pasadena,
California. Eyewitnesses in the western US and in Great Britain
have filed reports of sightings. Others have reported hearing the
low growling sounds of its engine(s). The seismic profile of the
sonic boom has been recorded by CIT personnel in response to people
asking if there had been an earthquake. It is unlike anything ever
recorded before. Photographs of the contrail clearly define the
power source of Aurora to be a pulse detonation wave engine or
pulse jet similar to that used on the German V-1 "Buzz Bomb" during
the second world war, but on a much grander scale.

But where the V-1 was relatively slow (Hurricane and Spitfire
pilots shot them down if they were lucky, and Meteor pilots had
no trouble catching them at all), Aurora's engine produces such
thrust that the plane could circle the planet at the equator, a
distance of about 25,000 miles, in a bit over six hours. The
sonic booms are produced as the plane decelerates from hypersonic
flight (Mach 5+) over north central California to land at Groom
Lake, Nevada. This is an aircraft so radical in design and
construction, so powerful, that it can literally take off from
the ground, enter space and return to earth without rocket
boosters. Just like a flying saucer might do, or exactly as we
imagine a flying saucer should do. I questioned someone who
should know if the Aurora was of a classic saucer design and the
answer was a quick, "No." A bit too quick, perhaps. But the
"classic" saucer shape is not really suitable for hypersonic
flight in the heavy air of Earth's atmosphere where friction
would cause it to heat to the melting point. If it was constructed
of conventional materials.

But the SR-71 would be so hot that no one could touch it for hours
after it landed and it stayed together just fine. It was actually
a better plane when it was red hot because it wasn't leaking fuel
all over the runway! The argument against the ovate ellipsoid
(saucer shape aircraft), and a fairly good one at that, is that
the shape creates too much drag for the amount of thrust required
to allow it to get off the ground and remain airborne efficiently.
The argument has some merit and is one of the problems that arose
with the YB-49 Flying Wing. The wing was so thick that the plane
could not accelerate to Mach 1, the speed of sound, with the
engines that were being produced at that time. Even with eight
jet engines laboring behind it, the Span Loader was a subsonic
aircraft.

But aircraft technology has changed rather spectacularly since
1947. Aircraft, especially combat aircraft designed for sustained
high speed flight, have gotten flatter, longer and wider, and
their wings have gotten shorter and thinner, often to the point
of being hazardous to ground support personnel. Bulky, protruding
tail assemblies have disappeared completely or have been
contoured into the fuselage/wing junctions. In other words, modern
aircraft are beginning to look more and more like modified ovate
ellipsoids! A great paradox of aircraft design is that the more
stable the aircraft is, the harder it is to fly. A perfectly stable
aircraft probably wouldn't get off the ground once it got up a full
head of steam since the inertial forces would tend to keep it
heading right down the runway until it screamed off into the trees.
That's why fast, high performance fighter planes are built to be
extremely unstable, flyable only by banks of computers that
constantly monitor and vector it in the proper direction when the
pilot makes slight pressures on the control yoke. The pilot doesn't
fly the airplane; he sends electronic signals to the computer and
the computer flies the airplane. But the computer gives something
back. It presents displays on video screens of a quasi-virtual world
in two dimensions that allow the pilot to understand where he is,
what his plane is doing, what other planes are doing, how many other
airplanes are nearby, what ground features are in the way, where his
target is, how many weapons are on board and what type they are, and
gives precise times and angles to deploy them for optimum kill.

Jump back to Building 248, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton,
Ohio and the immediate present. Here technicians are creating the
ultimate flying computer. It is not an aircraft; it is a helmet. The
world outside the aircraft is presented in two dimensions and in
color on the visor inside the helmet via an umbilical cord attached
to a computer tucked away somewhere in the airframe. It is called
VCASS or Visually Coupled Airborne Systems Simulator. The pilot
doesn't even have to see what is outside his airplane from the moment
he sits down and turns the key until he opens the lid and climbs out!
Future developments, if not already produced, will incorporate sound
to alert the pilot of approaching aircraft so precisely that the
pilot need only shift his eyes to that side to "see" the aircraft.
Speed, altitude, flight attitude, fuel, heading, ground features,
man-made features, weapons stores and more are displayed inside the
helmet by tiny video cameras receiving information from sensors
located all over the aircraft. The helmet will tell the pilot what
kind of aircraft is approaching, its speed, heading, if it is
friendly or not, and select the appropriate weapons on standby in
case the pilot elects to engage in aerial combat.

The computer, like a real-life R2D2 co-pilot will fly the aircraft
through tight maneuvers if the pilot blacks out and will perform the
necessary evasive tactics until the pilot regains consciousness and
resumes control. So what does all this modern aircraft technology
have to do with what happened, or might have happened, near Roswell,
New Mexico in 1947? Just this: Doesn't it seems strange that all
this amazing technology popped up at the same time? We have an
airplane flying around the world in six hours that can take off
from the ground, enter space and come back to land at the same
airfield. We have exotic new materials to use in the construction
of sub space and hyper space aircraft. We have a virtual world
display in two dimensions, with sound, going on inside a pilot's
helmet. We have aircraft computers so intelligent that they can
fly airplanes without assistance from the pilot from lift-off on
earth to touchdown on the moon or Mars or beyond. We have laser
guided weapons so precise that they can hit single buildings. We
have communications devises floating around in space that can guide
ships and aircraft to destinations anywhere on this planet,
precisely, in total darkness.

Think about this: Why is a super secret aircraft flying around
taking pictures of the entire planet? Because someday, in the very
near future, the computer in an even newer aircraft is going to
have to know where to take the airplane when it returns from an
interplanetary journey, and the computer will have to know long
before it reaches the Earth's atmosphere.

Computers look at pictures and make two dimensional maps to store
in memory. Here is O'Hare, here is JFK, here is Atlanta, here is
Dallas, here is Roswell, New Mexico. We'll land there. Or here is
Moscow, here is Baghdad. They may be future targets. Friendly or
enemy, the two dimensional images will one day be projected inside
a pilot's helmet or on the surface of the canopy, or as three-
dimensional displays, in color, in mid-air as holograms (and where
did that technology come from just when we needed it?) The pilot
will open and close "windows", just as graphic artists now do with
their Macs and PCs, to select desired features or landing sites,
enlarging them for detail or reducing them for an overview by
simply raising a finger and pushing a button he believes he sees
in the helmet. To anyone outside, it will appear as if he is
poking the air.

Impossible? Not at all. You can do it with your home computer if
you have the right program. Touch the screen with a stylus and the
image changes. Draw pictures with your finger. Stretch it, move it,
color it. If the computer is programmed to perform a function when
you move your finger, the computer will perform the same or
different function if it is programmed to "believe" you have
touched a button in mid air that really isn't there, that only
exists in the computer's memory! It is being done right now in
Building 248 at WPAFB, in Dayton, Ohio, in the USA, and probably in
other labs in other countries as well. We are an ace from jumping
off this rock and going where no man has gone before. Before you
discount this, consider one last item: Some years ago scientists
launched a tiny hunk of iron called Voyager from this planet.
Inscribed on its golden skin was the precise address of planet
Earth. Inside were the sounds and scenes of earthlings, from songs
to poems to whispers and sighs, the very breath and voice of humans
and animals right down to the love songs of migrating whales.
Carefully patterned directions and arithmetic equations were
provided to lead someone back to the launching site. It is now in
deep space emitting signals to announce its passing to anyone or
anything intelligent enough to hear and understand. Earth
scientists expect it to be found and returned! It does not really
matter if flying saucers exist or not. It does not matter much if
the Air Force is hiding an alien spacecraft and its pilots or if
they are not (frankly, I would opt for the Naval Research Lab in
Washington, DC as the final resting place of the Roswell saucer).
What matters is that we have obtained the technology, whether as
a gift in return for allowing someone to live here or as pure
scientific discovery, to create a craft capable of doing most of
the things a flying saucer should do.