UFOs Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record Read Online Free PDF Page B

stick to the facts and avoid extrapolations to possible extraterrestrial activities,” General De Brouwer responded by e-mail. “Nevertheless, I encourage scientific research which should be based on the objective analysis of a number of observations reported during the Belgian wave. Such research should not exclude the extraterrestrial option.”
    Lastly, I want to point out the significance of the close-up color photograph of an unidentified object that De Brouwer will present—one of the most revealing UFO images of all time. Readers might reasonably ask why there aren’t more unequivocal pictures and videos of the Belgian objects, since there were so many sightings. Partly, this was because of the strict requirements of the authorities regarding the acceptance of photographs; their screening methods eliminated all questionable and unverifiable images. In addition, it’s easy to forget that twenty years ago, cell phones and relatively inexpensive, consumer-level digital and video cameras were not yet in use. Most often, people did not have loaded cameras handy at the unpredictable times when UFOs passed overhead, such as at night while driving. In my conversations with many UFO witnesses over the years, I’ve learned that when observing something as awesome, and sometimes frightening, as a gigantic low-flying UFO, people become almost transfixed. They are seeing something that isn’t supposed to exist, something ominous, huge and silent, that was previously unimaginable. Most do not take their eyes off the otherworldly thing except maybe to quickly summon family members or friends within earshot. They keep staring, and the distraction of taking a picture is not on their minds. The craft is usually moving away, soon to be out of sight. They do not want to run inside the house to look for a camera, or unpack a bag in the trunk of the car to find one, or worry if it’s loaded. The moment is too unusual, too breathtaking.
    Even when a picture is taken, it doesn’t always come out. If the lights are some distance away and the exposure too short, nothing shows up in the frame. Also, other characteristics of the UFO can inhibit the registering of its bright lights on film. In one case, a Belgian movie producer and two colleagues, 3 using high-sensitivity film, photographed one of the objects passing directly overhead. The photographer estimated its altitude to be only about 1,000 feet, with the object’s diameter six times that of a full moon. As a control, he photographed an ordinary airplane several minutes later in the same spot, using all the same settings on the camera.
    On the pictures, however, the bright “spotlights” on the UFO, which to the viewers’ eyes had looked much, much brighter than the lights on the airplane, were hardly discernible. The triangular shape of the UFO, clearly visible to the naked eye, was also lost on the film. At the same time, the airplane lights came out brighter than those of the UFO, appearing just the way they had looked from the ground, even though the UFO was much closer to the observers than the airplane. Laboratory experiments show that this was likely due to the effect of infrared light around the UFO, which can cause even such an object to disappear altogether in a photograph. This could be one reason why so few usable pictures were received by investigators during the Belgian wave, and why bona fide UFO pictures are not as common as one might expect.
    Witness drawings have an important role to play, encapsulating details imprinted in the memories of observers immediately after their sightings. Investigators can then make comparisons between renditions made in different locations at different times, or by multiple witnesses to the same event from different vantage points—all by people who don’t know each other. “The day will come, undoubtedly, when the phenomenon will be observed with the technological means necessary that won’t leave a single doubt about its