Lima Area UFO Research Associates

Sept/Oct. 2010

Issue #3

LAURA BOARD REPORT

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2010 RIGALI'S PIZZA VILLAGE LIMA, OHIO......1:00 PM

1. The following were present: Amber Horner. Mike and Peggy Krick, Bob Prater, Tom Bowman. Absent were Mike Altenberger, Helena Valenti and Diana Baughman . 2. Amber requested a motion to renew the PO Box # 5103 for another year. Tom made the motion and Mike seconded. All present approved. 3. Amber received a thank you card from Judy Gilbert thanking us for the donation to the American Red Cross in her husband Lyle's name. Amber remarked she has had the card and it was misplaced. 4. Amber reported the results of the auction showed a total income of $118.51. Thanks to Amber for all the accounting and Tom for playing auctioneer. 5. Amber made the following treasurers report: Total in savings acct. $928.24 Total in checking acct. $659.74 She also said another membership due had been received. 6. The newsletter was discussed and it was not determined the date for the next release. After further investigation it was uncovered the last newsletter was the "July/August" Issue and the next news is due mid Sept as the Sept/Oct Issue. Bob said he could have it ready in about one week. -Thanks to Bob for all his effort.

7. It was noted that Wendell Stevens had passed away. Mr. Stevens was a "Whistle Blower" on the UFO subject involving the military. 8. Tom reported he had talked with Jan Pheneger recently and she is working with Billy Ray Cyrus who is interested in the UFO subject. 9. "Search for the Real Mt' Sinai" is the subject for this months' meeting for the 14th . Mike reported Bob Bennet will, bring the video and in the event it is unavailable Mike will have a back-up. 10. Mike stated that Diana has left for Florida for the winter and Amber stated that we will need another phone number for the Church [Mkt. St. Presbyterian] to call in the event of a emergency or meeting room cancellation. Tom said he will call and advise them. Reminder: The next club meeting is Wednesday Oct. 20th at 7pm at the Mkt. St. Presbyterian Church. Bruce Maccabee will be making a presentation on magnetism and UFOs. Meeting adjourned at 2:00 PM. Tom Bowman Secretary 419-999-4785 mbowman27@woh.rr.com

UFOs Visited Nuclear Weapons Sites, Former Air Force Officers Say
September 27th, 2010 Seven former U.S. Air Force personnel gathered in Washington Monday to recount UFO sightings over nuclear weapons facilities in decades past accounts that a UFO researcher says show extraterrestrial beings are interested in the worlds nuclear arms race and may be sending humans a message.

At a news conference at the National Press Club, the six former officers and one ex-enlisted man recalled either personal sightings or reports from subordinates and others of UFOs hovering over nuclear missile silos or nuclear weapons storage areas in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Three of the former Air Force officers though they hadnt seen the UFOs themselves - told reporters that UFOs hovering over silos around Montanas Malmstrom Air Force Base in 1967 appeared to have temporarily deactivated some of the nuclear missiles.

Much of the testimony already has appeared in books, websites and elsewhere. But UFO researcher and author Robert Hastings, who organized the news conference, said the time has come for the U.S. government to acknowledge the UFO visits. I believe - these gentlemen believe - that this planet is being visited by beings from another world, who for whatever reason have taken an interest in the nuclear arms race which began at the end of World War II, said Hastings, who added that more than 120 former military personnel have told him about UFOs visiting nuclear sites. Regarding the missile shutdown incidents, my opinion is that whoever are aboard these craft are sending a signal to both Washington and Moscow, among others, that we are playing with fire that the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons potentially threatens the human race and the integrity of the planetary environment, he said. Former Air Force Capt. Robert Salas who has written a book about the Montana incidents said he was underground when a UFO hovered over his missile silo in March 1967, and therefore couldnt see it. He said one of his guards above ground told him a red, glowing object about 30 feet in diameter was hovering just above the front gate of the facility, in an isolated area far from Malmstrom. And just as I [called my commander], our missiles began going into whats called a no-go condition, or unlaunchable. Essentially, they were disabled while this object was still hovering over out site, Salas said. Salas and others said the military urged them at the time not to talk about the incidents. Retired Col. Charles Halt recalled seeing UFOs over the woods near Royal Air Force Stations Bentwaters and Woodbridge in eastern England in December 1980. He and security personnel were investigating reports of strange lights just outside one of the bases. All through the forest was a bright glowing object, he said Monday. The best way I can describe it, it looked like an eye with bright red, with a dark center. It appeared to be winking. It was shedding something like molten metal, was dripping off it. It silently moved through the trees, avoiding any contact, it bobbed up and down, and at one point it actually approached us. We tried to get closer. It receded out into the field, beyond the forest, and silently exploded into five white objects gone. So we went out into the field looking for any evidence, because something had been apparently falling off it and we find nothing, he said. He recalled subsequently seeing other objects in the sky, including one that stopped about 3,000 feet overhead and sent down a concentrated beam at our feet. No one was harmed. The best way I can equate it is sort of a laser beam. We stood there in awe. Was this a warning? Was this an attempt to communicate? Was this a weapon? Or just a probe? he said.

At about the same time, he was hearing radio reports from base personnel that beams from some of the objects were falling into or near the weapons storage area. In a staff meeting later, a general decided it happened off base, so its a British affair, Halt recalled. In other words, they were loathe to get involved. The Air Force investigated UFOs from 1948 to 1969 under a program eventually called Project Blue Book. The service, on its website, says the project concluded that no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security. It also says there has been "no evidence that sightings categorized as 'unidentified' are extraterrestrial vehicles. Salas said the UFO phenomenon is real, not imaginary. There is current excessive secrecy in our government surrounding this phenomenon, he said. A reporter asked how many of the former military personnel subscribed to Hastings theory that the message of extraterrestrials is that humans should get rid of nuclear weapons, and how many of them believed that we should get rid of nukes. Of the seven, it appeared that only Salas raised his hand.

Captain Ray Bowyer Speaking before the National Press Club 11/12/07 (submitted by Bob Prater)

Could 'Goldilocks' planet be just right for life?

WASHINGTON Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Not too far from its star, not too close so it could contain liquid water. The planet itself is neither too big nor too small for the proper surface, gravity and atmosphere.It's just right. Just like Earth.

"This really is the first Goldilocks planet," said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnigie Institution of Washington. The new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. It is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earthlike planets circle other stars. Finding a planet that could potentially support life is a major step toward answering the timeless question: Are we alone? Scientists have jumped the gun before on proclaiming that planets outside our solar system were habitable only to have them turn out to be not quite so conducive to life. But this one is so clearly in the right zone that five outside astronomers told The Associated Press it seems to be the real thing. "This is the first one I'm truly excited about," said Penn State University's Jim Kasting. He said this planet is a "pretty prime candidate" for harboring life. Life on other planets doesn't mean E.T. Even a simple single-cell bacteria or the equivalent of shower mold would shake perceptions about the uniqueness of life on Earth. But there are still many unanswered questions about this strange planet. It is about three times the mass of Earth, slightly larger in width and much closer to its star 14 million miles away versus 93 million. It's so close to its version of the sun that it orbits every 37 days. And it doesn't rotate much, so one side is almost always bright, the other dark. Temperatures can be as hot as 160 degrees or as frigid as 25 degrees below zero, but in between in the land of constant sunrise it would be "shirt-sleeve weather," said co-discoverer Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz. It's unknown whether water actually exists on the planet, and what kind of atmosphere it has. But because conditions are ideal for liquid water, and because there always seems to be life on Earth where there is water, Vogt believes "that chances for life on this planet are 100 percent." The astronomers' findings are being published in Astrophysical Journal and were announced by the National Science Foundation on Wednesday. The planet circles a star called Gliese 581. It's about 120 trillion miles away, so it would take several generations for a spaceship to get there. It may seem like a long distance, but in the scheme of the vast universe, this planet is "like right in our face, right next door to us," Vogt said in an interview. That close proximity and the way it was found so early in astronomers' search for habitable planets hints to scientists that planets like Earth are probably not that rare.

Vogt and Butler ran some calculations, with giant fudge factors built in, and figured that as much as one out of five to 10 stars in the universe have planets that are Earth-sized and in the habitable zone. With an estimated 200 billion stars in the universe, that means maybe 40 billion planets that have the potential for life, Vogt said. However, Ohio State University's Scott Gaudi cautioned that is too speculative about how common these planets are. Vogt and Butler used ground-based telescopes to track the star's precise movements over 11 years and watch for wobbles that indicate planets are circling it. The newly discovered planet is actually the sixth found circling Gliese 581. Two looked promising for habitability for a while, another turned out to be too hot and the fifth is likely too cold. This sixth one bracketed right in the sweet spot in between, Vogt said. With the star designated "a," its sixth planet is called Gliese 581g. "It's not a very interesting name and it's a beautiful planet," Vogt said. Unofficially, he's named it after his wife: "I call it Zarmina's World." The star Gliese 581 is a dwarf, about one-third the strength of our sun. Because of that, it can't be seen without a telescope from Earth, although it is in the Libra constellation, Vogt said. If you were standing on this new planet, you could easily see our sun, Butler said. The low-energy dwarf star will live on for billions of years, much longer than our sun, he said. And that just increases the likelihood of life developing on the planet, the discoverers said. "It's pretty hard to stop life once you give it the right conditions," Vogt said.

PENNSYLVANIA UFO CONFERENCE

"UFO's. . . Seeing is Believing". The Pennsylvania Mutual UFO Network will present it's 3rd Annual UFO Conference's on Saturday October 9th, 2010 from 8am-5pm at the Sheraton Hotel 400 Oxford Valley Rd Langehorne Pa 19047 and on Saturday October 16th 2010 from 10am to 6pm at the Westmoreland Community College 145 Pavillion Ln Youngwood, Pa 15697. Pennsylvania has been the epicenter of the world's largest UFO wave since the summer of 2008. There have been over 650 UFO reports filed with MUFON from Pittsburgh to Philly over the past two years. John Ventre, the Pennsylvania State Director for MUFON stated, "We're getting clusters of sightings from every town from Pittsburgh to Philly along the southern half of the state. We have 151 reports in the Pittsburgh-Westmoreland County area and 355 in the Philly area. I get reports of UFO's coming in from Lake Erie in Ohio and across Wheeling, West Virginia into the Pittsburgh area and they are seen minutes later on the Eastern part of the state. The Conference will present a combination of expert Paranormal, Abduction and UFO speakers. Speakers include Richard Dolan who has written numerous books on the government coverup, Bill Birnes of UFO Hunters, Budd Hopkins on Abductions, Kathleen Marden on Betty

and Barney Hill, Peter Robbins who investigated the Rendlesham Forrest UK incident, John Ventre of the Mutual UFO Network, Stan Gordon will present Kecksburg then and Leslie Kean who sued NASA will present Kecksburg now on the 45th anniversary. "The quality of speakers at this Conference rivals the larger pricier conferences that take place around the country", said Ventre. Professional presentations and vendor tables will highlight this conference in an academic setting. "We also have a few surprises for the audience and they are not Halloween tricks", said Ventre. Admission price's are $20 in Pitt and $30 in Philly. Advance orders and the Conference agenda can be obtained at John Ventre's website at www.johnventre.com or www.mufonpa.com The Mutual UFO Network was founded in 1969 after the US Air Force concluded their 17 year Project Blue Book study of UFO's and concluded that UFO's are not a threat to National Security. "They never said UFO's don't exist. There is overwhelming evidence that they do. I believe this is an aviation safety issue. The only reason there are not more collisions is because of their ability to manuever, not ours", said Ventre. Mufon has 2700 members worldwide and over 900 certified investigators. The Pennsylvania MUFON branch has 129 members and 21 certified investigators. Anyone interested in joining MUFON can speak to John Ventre or one of the many investigators that will be at the conference from Pa, WV, NY, NJ and Ohio. "One thing I know from conducting my investigations: if you've seen one, you believe", said Ventre. www.mufonpa.com
(submitted by Tom Bowman)

LAURA now has a 27 Color TV hooked up to a combo DVD/VHS player in the UFO office at Toms church for anyone who wants to stop in and view a tape or DVD. The TV is the property of the civil war club and the player is the property of LAURA.

LAURA MEMBERS VIEW UFO's:

SIGHTING #1:

Member Mike Altenberger reported at the August club meeting he had seen a UFO at Surfside Beach N.C. at 10:20 pm on Thursday June 17, 2010 while spending time there with family on vacation. The object observed had double blinking white lights and traveled from North to South across the Eastern sky. Mike stated the object's travel time was approximately four [4] seconds and traveled 30 to 40 miles as best could be determined in that time period. Mike said after gaining altitude the object descended in a south direction and disappeared behind Palm Trees. In addition to Mike there were six [6] other family members who observed the event. The object flew above the 2000 to 3000 foot elevation for the normal flight patterns of the commercial aircraft in the area, and was possibly 3 to 4 miles off shore.

SIGHTING #2:

Member and club president , Mike Krick, reported he and his wife Peggy observed a UFO sighting North of Cridersville, Oh over Interstate 75 when returning early August from Dayton. Mike said the object first appeared as a large ball of light and was moving slowly East to West across the Interstate and when it turned it changed to a cigar shape and disappeared shortly following the turn .
SIGHTING #3:

Joe McMicheal had a sighting Oct.2nd near Huntsville, Oh. It appeared to be similar to the sighting by Mike Krick - oval and turned to reveal a cigar shaped craft.

NOTE: If you, or anyone you know, had a sighting, please report it to LAURA for publication in the upcoming Newsletters. Our PO Box address is PO BOX # 5193, or e-mail our co-editors as listed in the newsletter.

MUFON of Ohio (Columbus)

Our next regular meeting is Saturday, Oct.23rd from 3:30pm - 6:30pm and youre invited! We will have special guest Phyllis Budinger of Frontier Research (physical evidence analysis) Admission is free Hilliard Branch of the Columbus Public Library 4772 Cemetary Rd. Hilliard, Ohio 43026

(submitted by Bob Prater)

Leslie Kean's New Book "A Kean Eye for UFOs"

UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record
A UFO Digest Book Review UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record Harmony Books: NY. 2010. 335 pages. The new book by Leslie Kean about UFOs is a problem. Its quite unlike most other books about UFOs that have been published in recent memory, and its very good. Its a problem because either every contributor to her edited collection of official testimonies and UFO case

histories is a liar or completely misguided, or else shes on to something important. Something about which scientists and the general public should pay attention. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record is a collection of essays, some penned by Kean herself, about officially-documented and investigated UFO cases that were considered unexplained by government and military investigators. And just as the longish title infers, testimony by well-placed individuals who are and were in positions to know the facts and details about significant UFO incidents show that there is something truly perplexing going on in the skies overhead. This isnt a book about UFO crashes or Roswell (although its mentioned in passing on a few pages) nor is it about abductions by aliens and implants surgically removed from toes and noses. Nor is it about messages imparted by aliens to selected individuals or psychic vectoring of lights by self-declared Terran emissaries. Keans book is about facts. She details what really happened in specific and noteworthy UFO cases that in some instances made worldwide headlines and others were never made public. She cites official documents (not disputed documents) and interviews the military or government officials involved.

Arizona - April 1997 Keans capability as an investigative journalist is clearly evident throughout the book, and she has no interest in arm-waving exercises to dismiss witnesses observations simply on the basis that flying saucers cannot be real. At the same time, she effectively and deliberately distances herself from undiscriminating UFO groups and extremists who market themselves as scholars or activists and who compound the public relations nightmare that UFOs already face within public discourse. In short, Keans work is one of the most important works in ufology published in decades. Her background in journalism and her passionate search for the truth has allowed her to seek out respected and staid individuals to tell the story behind what seems to be a most remarkable suppression of events and information.

The Belgian Triangle UFO

She starts by introducing Major General Wilfrid de Brouwer, who was in charge of the military investigation of the Belgian UFO wave of 1989 and 1990. He effectively shoots down debunkers suggestions that the wave was caused by mass hysteria, helicopters or secret military maneuvers. Then, Captain Julio Miguel Guerra of the Portuguese Air Force describes a UFO which flew circles around his plane in 1982. A team of scientists and military investigators could not explain his experience. Later, Captain Ray Bowyer gives testament to the cigar-shaped UFOs past which he flew his commercial aircraft over the English Channel in 2007, and the associated puzzling radar returns. And so on. Retired military personnel and advisors come forward with statements and new testimony that UFO reports have been filed and investigated by various world governments, long after Project Blue Book declared UFO research as without any merit. Brazil, Britain, Chile, France and other countries have all been relatively transparent when it comes to release of UFO files, and yet, as Kean notes, the United States seems not to have any interest in the matter. Why? Kean and her contributors all argue that the prevailing attitude of debunking UFO reports, accelerated during the Condon fiasco, should come to an end. They dare scientists who believe the party line that there are no credible and well-investigated unexplained UFO cases to wake up and take a real look at the collection of factual reports described in detail in Keans book.

Flying Saucers - "Serious Business" in Washington If UFOs have no bearing on national security, Kean reasons, then why are military jets scrambled to chase seemingly solid radar returns? If there is no danger to aviation, why are pilots confounded by UFOs on routine flights across the country? Why does the FAA refer pilots to Peter Davenports UFO Center? Why wouldnt the FAA prefer to thoroughly investigate their own pilots sightings? In one chapter, new evidence provided by the head of accident investigation within the FAA even suggests that the oft-noted 1986 JAL incident over Alaska was not as easily dismissed as some writers insist. And that punch-hole cloud formation over OHare? Kean wonders why the FAA didnt investigate the incident in the name of transportation safety, and why wont a single witness go on record about it? Beyond documentation of official military and government UFO case investigation, Kean seeks the root cause of cynicism and debunking of UFOs among journalists and academia. Detailed statements by the French COMETA investigators, for example, all scientists in their own right, are diametrically opposite to those made by debunkers. Official conclusions by military and government investigators in several countries collectively call for more serious and objective studies of UFO reports, especially in the light of a lack of explanations for some peculiar cases. The simple way to debunk Keans work is to challenge each and every contributors official statements, insisting they are all in error or liars. But this in itself raises an important problem, too. Why would so many well-placed and qualified individuals, most with outstanding service records, make such statements? Not fame, surely. Not for monetary gain. Then why? Kean carefully crafts her work in a logical and compelling manner, without wide-eyed believers fanaticism but with a rational approach that challenges the reader and leads toward her thesis that its time for a paradigm shift: a new Kuhnian scientific revolution. She restates and improves upon the skeptics rallying cry that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence by making a sensible, subtle adjustment: An extraordinary phenomenon demands an extraordinary investigation.

Kean argues that, like many other countries around the globe, the United States should create a small official department to investigate UFO sightings in a timely manner and inform the public of details regarding their actions. This would not be simply a public relations exercise as Blue Book and been, but a way to reassure a frustrated public that its elected officials and taxpayerfunded military are actually doing their job at protecting American interests. Kean presents the facts of many remarkable UFO cases, summarized in most instances by the witnesses themselves. Whereas some simply express their bewilderment at what they saw and the way in which official investigation transpired, because they are in positions to know the capabilities and limitations of terrestrial aircraft, they cannot contain themselves from concluding that they could have encountered an alien craft. Its duly noted throughout the book that only a small fraction of UFO reports are unexplained, and a smaller fraction are thoroughly investigated and studied. The fact that a real phenomenon is manifesting in terrestrial skies is the main premise of each section of the book. Based on Keans presentation, it is a logical and reasonable conclusion. And thats a problem, because UFOs arent real, right?

Leslie Kean Log On to Leslie's website http://www.UFOsOnTheRecord.Com

"UFOs: GENERALS and GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS GO ON THE RECORD" http://www.amazon.com/UFOs-Generals-Pilots-Government-Officials/dp/0307716848/ctoc

Lt. Colonel (USAF Ret.) Wendelle C. Stevens passes at 87

UFO research pioneer, Wendelle Stevens passed today at 4:44 pm in Tucson, Arizona of respiratory failure. Lt. Colonel (USAF Ret.) Wendelle C. Stevens was one of the worlds best known UFO researchers. Born in 1923 in Round Prairie, Minn., he enlisted in 1941 in the US Army and was transferred to the Air Corps in1942. He served in the Pacific Theater during World War II and subsequently in a classified project in Alaska to photograph and map the Arctic land and sea area, where the data collecting equipment onboard B-29s detected UFOs. Stevens also served as US Air Attach in South America. He retired from the USAF in 1963 and worked for Hamilton Aircraft until 1972. Wendelle Stevens was actively involved in ufology for 54 years, first as Director of Investigations for the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Tucson, Ariz., where he retired. He amassed one of the largest collections of UFO photos and investigated a number of contact cases, published in more than 22 books. His most famous one was the Billy Meier case in Switzerland. In Dec. 1997 he received an award for lifetime achievement at the First World UFO Forum in Brazilia, capital of Brazil. He was a founder and Director of the International UFO Congress and recently transferred his extensive photo collection, library and archives to Open Minds Production.

Funtime: UFO and Govt Acronyms

E.T. ___________ _______________ M.I.B. ______ ___ __________ U.S.O. _____________ ______________ _______________ E.B.E. __________________ _________________ ______________

D.D. ______________ _________ C.E. 2 ___________ _______________ 2 E.T.H. ________ ______________ _______________ F.O.I.A. ______________ __ ______________ ___ C.I.A. _________ _______________ ___________ K.G.B. ____________ _______________ ______________
The LAURA Club News is a publication of the Lima Area UFO Research Associates, in Lima, Ohio. The study group meets on the 3rd Wednesday of the month at the Market Street Presbyterian Church in the fellowship hall at 7pm-please join us!

Contacts: President Mike Krick mkrick@woh.rr.com; Secretary: Tom Bowmanmbowman27@woh.rr.com; Co-editors: Robert and Marcia Prater ada_potato@hotmail.com