Page 18 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - May/June 2022 Edition
P. 18
18 UFOs and Nuclear Facilities
Why Have There Been So
Many UFO Sightings Near
Nuclear Facilities?
Continued from Page 17
Barker, a master sergeant who was second in
charge at the facility, says he was an 18-year
veteran at that point and knew “about every
aircraft in the U.S., NATO and the Soviet bloc.”
This object, he says, shocked him and his two
colleagues that night with its remarkable speed
and maneuverability. On radar, it covered 120
miles in a matter of seconds, he said: “It had to
be moving Mach 5, 6, 7 or 8—faster than
anything other than possibly a missile.”
As he looked up from the radar to view it
directly, the craft moved into close range,
slowed and then stopped over the base’s water
tower: “Like a helicopter hovering, except with
F-18 fighter pilots from the nuclear-powered several “low-probability” prosaic explanations
a helicopter you get movement up and down.
USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group for the Roosevelt sightings. They include “bugs
This was stationary. It was between about 1,500
saw UAPs almost daily for several months in the [radar’s] code for the imaging and display
and 2,000 feet high. The thing was…at least a
between the summer of 2014 and the spring of systems, atmospheric effects and reflections
city block…in diameter.”
2015 while executing training maneuvers along [and] neurological overload from multiple
the Eastern seaboard between Virginia and inputs during high-speed flight.”
Barker says it was shaped like a giant basketball,
Florida, witnesses told Elizondo.
with portholes around the center, from which
Still, the Roosevelt reports echo those made by
lights were emanating outward. “I was
“Wherever we were, they were there,” says Navy pilots undergoing training exercises on the
shocked… There was nothing aerodynamic
Ryan Graves, an active-duty F-18 fighter pilot other side of the country. In November 2004
about it. Basketballs don’t fly.”
from the USS Roosevelt, who holds a degree in pilots and radar operators from the USS Nimitz
aerospace engineering. carrier fleet saw a 40-foot long tic-tac shaped
It stopped over the water tower for only a few
object flying just above the ocean while flying
seconds, he said, before reversing course and
The objects appeared in three shapes, Graves 100 miles off the coast of California near San
speeding back the way it came in: “It was like—
says—some were discs, others looked like a Diego. When F-18 fighter jets were scrambled to
swish!—it’s gone.”
cube inside a sphere, while smaller round approach the object, it accelerated, easily
objects flew together in formation. All lacked outrunning the supersonic Navy craft.
Barker didn’t report the sighting to his superiors.
visible engines or exhaust systems. Some tilted,
“You don’t understand what the Air Force did to
mid-flight, like spinning tops, as seen on an Increasing attention to the topic
people who reported UFOs,” he says.
infrared video released by the U.S. Department
of Defense in 2017. Graves and another F-18 Whereas earlier reports were career-killers for
Barker’s story dovetails with that of Col.
pilot, Danny Accoin, confirm that video, along military personnel, there is an increasing
Charles Halt, Bentwaters’ deputy commander at
with one other released by the government, had openness in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill to
the time. Halt led a patrol that night to
been shot by their fellow Roosevelt pilots while taking these sightings seriously as potential
investigate strange colorful lights seen
in the air. threats. In April 2019, the U.S. Navy announced
descending into nearby Rendlesham Forest. Halt
that it was updating its guidelines for how pilots
described to Elizondo what he saw from inside
One UAP, Grave says, almost caused a terrifying and personnel should report unexplained aerial
the forest: a red light moving horizontally
collision by zipping dangerously between two phenomena—making it easier for military
though the trees, "obviously under some kind of
planes. An aviation flight-safety report was members to report sightings to superiors without
intelligent control.” A laser-like beam, he said,
filed, he says, but never investigated. facing professional stigma and backlash. And
“landed 10-15 feet away from us. I was literally
Congress, beginning with former Senate
in shock.”
Graves says the unidentified objects reappeared majority leader Harry Reid, has taken more
once the Roosevelt had deployed to its mission interest in being briefed.
Then the beam’s source quickly left, flying north
in the Persian Gulf.
toward the base, says Halt, who audiotaped the
George Knapp says that’s more activity than he
incident at the time. “We could hear chatter on
“It’s hard to find a prosaic explanation for a has seen in three decades. He, and many others,
the radios that the beams went down into the
carrier battle group being shadowed by think it’s overdue.
weapons storage area.”
unidentified aircraft all the way across the
Atlantic, to an area of operations overseas in the “At the facilities where we were first designing
Later, his commander played the audio for a
Middle East,” says Chris Mellon, former U.S. and building nuclear weapons…at the places
general, who dismissed the need for further
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for where we were processing the fuel…at the
investigation. They were loath to get involved,
Intelligence during the Clinton and George W. facilities where we were testing the weapons…
says Halt.
Bush administrations, who now serves as an at the bases where we deployed those weapons,
integral part of the To The Stars team. “It makes on the ships…the nuclear submarines… All
Navy sightings in the Atlantic and the
an extremely compelling case for the existence those places, all the people working there have
Pacific of technologies we didn’t think were possible.” seen these things,” Knapp says.
In recent years, sightings of unidentified aerial Leon Golub, a senior astrophysicist at the “Are they all crazy?” he continued. “Because if
phenomena have emerged from America’s Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, they are, they shouldn't have their hands on
nuclear navy. told The New York Times there may indeed be nuclear weapons.” []