Item 3.17: UFO-NASA Collusion Amidst the 1960s-Era Cape Canaveral?
[LWB Note: the following installment of "Bryant's UFO View" column originally appeared in the June 2009 issue (No. 150) of UFO Magazine.]
UFO-NASA Collusion Amidst the 1960s-Era Cape Canaveral?
By Larry W. Bryant
These days, armed with a computer and with one's choice of a print-on-demand publisher, anyone swiftly can become a bookwright (or, I suppose, a playwright). Such an author seems able to dismiss the editorial salability of the work so long as (s)he can focus its pages more on getting something off his/her chest than on offering something new/entertaining/motivational. Thus, we have JE Oglesby's 140-page tome titled Proof of Extraterrestrial Intelligence: The Cape Canaveral Apollo Program Chronicles (lulu.com -2008). Does this example of "citizen journalism" signify a permanent foothold in the craggy heights of modern ufology? Perhaps so. As our contemporary news media continue to lag behind the growing public interest in matters ufological, we'll no doubt see steady growth in treatments like Oglesby's. This memoir centers on his own December 30, 1967, nighttime sighting of two "flying saucers" during a visit to his brother-in-law's home in the rural town of Bithlo, several miles west of the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. At the time of the event, the 27-year-old Oglesby was employed as a machine-shop clerk by the Bendix corporation, a NASA contractor. The impact of his first-ever UFO encounter transformed Oglesby into a hard-core skywatcher whenever he stayed overnight at his brother-in-law's home. There, over a period of three months in early 1968 (in which he kept a journal to document events), the young man found his reward in a series of alleged alien-spacecraft sightings, some of which also were witnessed by other relatives, friends, and neighbors. All these incidents occurred at night, as did a number of cases of vanishing/mutilated cattle from neighboring ranch land. On more than one occasion, he recounts, he had a chance to follow, on foot, a small, "flashing blue light" into a wooded area where it apparently had landed; but, alone in an unfamiliar, foreboding locale, he got cold feet and backtracked from his hike into the dense woods. From his repeat encounter of February 17, 1968, we have his own words: "I allowed [once again] fear to gain the upper hand that night as I paused, sensing that something or someone had been watching me from a distance. I reacted by a swift retreat back to the relative safety of my car." Certainly, no-one can fault Oglesby for letting fear of the unknown get the better of him. Even today, what adult among us would be so bold as to venture out, alone at night, into a hostile environment to track down a mysterious airborne craft? Many a sleep-deprived night became the price for his saga of expanded UFO awareness. As suitable for any such episodes of trauma (especially the one culminating (dramatically) in his "the big picture" of the UFO cover-up at Canaveral - which he titles "ETI Monitoring of Apollo Program Finishes at the Cape"), witness Oglesby uses the long passage of time to add just the right perspective to his chronicles. His down-to-earth, unpretentious prose (albeit plagued by faulty syntax, inexact punctuation, and typos) lets the reader decide for him-/herself as to its veracity and rationality. One of those readers happens to be British ufologist Timothy Good, whose endorsement on the book's back cover pronounces: "I have no hesitation in recommending this most important book. Jim Oglesby provides astonishing evidence linking the Apollo Program with extraterrestrial activity in Florida. Many of these encounters - some including landed spacecraft - were witnessed with others. I have long accepted that certain aliens have liaised with NASA personnel, specifically to assist with our space program. What emerges from this book is convincing new evidence for a clandestine alien liaison program."
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
POSTSCRIPT COMMENT FROM L.W.B. (14 AUG 11):
== The Nakedness of NASA's FOIA Empress (See Items 2.36 and 2.18) ==
Too many federal agencies view the U. S. Freedom of Information Act as a toy by which they can play games with the inquiring public.
One of these offenders - if not the top one - happens to be the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (see Items 2.117 and 2.116). Of course, the NASA managerial hierarchy would have you believe otherwise, especially via its recently issued "open government" mission statement with its (alleged) solicitous interface with the general public. Neither I nor you nor UFO-E.T.-disclosure lobbyist Stephen Bassett can (or should) stomach this latest NASA ruse being mounted against the public's common-sense appraisal of NASA's true FOIA responsiveness.
Now spearheading a project to observe July 8th of each sequential year as World [E.T.] Disclosure Day (see http://worlddisclosureday.org ), Steve Bassett has exposed NASA's (damage control?) e-publication of its allegedly user-friendly approach to "open government" access to its record systems. Here's an excerpt:
"'NASA is committed to experimenting with and embracing new participatory ways of collaborating,' said Linda Cureton, the agency's chief information officer. 'The launch of open.nasa is a new chapter in NASA's culture of openness and an exciting new way to engage citizens in our activities.'"
Contrast Cureton's theoretical FOIAtruth manifesto with the behind-the-scenes behavior typified by NASA's response to journalist Leslie Kean's quest for NASA records on the famous 1980 UFO-crash-landing/retrieval case in Kecksburg, Penn. There, she was met with stonewalling delays in the processing of her FOIA request and with the agency's proffering of reams of unresponsive records in a red-herring attempt to discourage her probing. Kean's prevailing in the resultant 2003 lawsuit proved the futility of that gamesmanship - at the unnecessary expense, alas, of the U. S. taxpayers. Do you suppose that any of the officials associated with that FOIA-thwarting are still in NASA's employ?
That same tactic - now an art form within such agencies as NASA and CIA - confronted me when I FOIA-requested all NASA records pertaining to the Oglesby case. (The FOIA office at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral never responded to my Feb. 13, 2009, FOIA request (No. FOIA-09-HQ-F-0081), which NASA headquarters allegedly had forwarded to them for processing; for this reason, I'm e-forwarding to NASA FOIA chief Jessica L. Bowen the contents of this comment with the request that she apply to it the principles of NASA's Open Access manifesto.)
What's a hapless FOIA requester to do about NASA's hypocritical handling of its "open government" obligation/practices?
Perhaps the answer lies in the late anthropologist Margaret Mead's famous declaration: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
I submit that such a small - but nevertheless highly effective - group would consist of selected whistleblowers armed with critical knowledge of NASA's deception and misfeasance - and courageous enough to (finally) share that knowledge with the public (perhaps on World Disclosure Day?).
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
