October 2008 No. 486 $4.00 In this UFO Journal issue McDonnell Douglas’s UFO Project 3 The Woman with Blue Blood 9 Misidentification of common objects in the sky 10 Life elsewhere in the universe? 11 Tri-State meeting 12 Book review Alien Experiences 15 Regular Features Director’s Message 2 Calendar 13 Statistical Report 14 Stan Friedman: Sovereignty & the UFO 16 Filer’s Files 18 CMS Rankings 21 McDonnell Douglas studied Night Sky 24 UFOs in the 1960s October 2008 Number 486 Director’s Message By James Carrion MUFON 2009 is 40th Anniversary Year for MUFON UFO Journal The UFO Phenomenon has so story to tell in this issue of the Journal many layers that when you think one about how he proposed and participated (USPS 002970) has peeled away, three more layers in one such UFO (ISSN 02706822) seem to replace it. Part of this illusion research project relates to the multiple aspects of the while working at Mutual UFO Network phenomena that overlap, blend and a major aerospace 155 E. Boardwalk Drive masquerade as each other. Which UFOs company. Bob’s Suite 300 represent our own exotic aircraft and passion for the Fort Collins, CO 80525 which ones represent otherworldly subject of UFOs Tel: 970-232-3110 technology? Since the Air Force isn’t is as strong today Fax: 866-466-9173 going to fess up to what they are as it was 40 years [email protected] experimenting with, we can only ago and MUFON speculate. One thing is for certain, the is fortunate to International Director military industrial complex would love have him on our James Carrion James Carrion, M.A. to replicate the described flight charac- staff. 155 E. Boardwalk Drive, Suite 300 teristics of UFOs. What aerospace New Field Investigator Exam Fort Collins, CO 80525 company would not like to be the first Tel: 888-817-2220 to discover the secrets of antigravity Sharon and David MacDonald have Fax: 866-466-9173 and hold those patents? You can created a new version of the MUFON [email protected] imagine that if such a discovery was Field Investigator exam which will made, it would soon be classified. replace the old exam immediately. The Editor Dr. Bob Wood, one of MUFON’s new exam matches the content of the Sally Petersen, M.A. Board of Directors, has an amazing revised version 5.0 Field Investigator Tel: 888-817-2220 Continued on page 22 [email protected] Columnists MUFON’S MISSION IS THE .SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF George Filer, M.B.A. UFOS FOR THE BENEFIT OF HUMANITY THROUGH Stanton Friedman, M.S. Gavin A. J. McLeod INVESTIGATION, RESEARCH, & EDUCATION. MUFON staff photographer Copyright 2008 by the Mutual UFO Network. All Rights Reserved. Nick Roesler No part of this document may be reproduced in any is a Texas nonprofit corporation. form without the written permission of the Copyright The MUFON UFO Journal is published monthly by MUFON on the Internet Owners. 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Boardwalk McDonnell Douglas studied UFOs in 1960s Project called BITBR for “‘Boys in the Back Room” By Dr. Robert M. Wood1 MUFON Board of Directors It began in 1966 when my boss, Raymon W. Hallet, was money to get new asked to present a paper on behalf of McDonnell Douglas on business. One time, the occasion of the retirement of Air Force General Bernard they asked me about Schriever, the “inventor” of the ICBM, or Intercontinental the UFO topic during Ballistic Missile. The Air Force was sponsoring a conference a presentation during with aerospace contractors to predict the future of technol- our routine manage- ogy ten years hence, and each contractor had a different ment review. I decided scope. Ours was to predict how we would “get to orbit and to tell them what I back.” Thus, Ray asked me, his Assistant Director at the was really thinking, time, whether I had any ideas about what he should talk and it went something about. For some reason unknown to me, I said, “Ray, why like this: don’t you tell them how the alleged UFOs do it?” (UFOs had “Well, you’re been recently in the news.) He said, “That’s a great idea— probably not going to why don’t you work on that?” believe what I’m So, I began to “work on it” by reading my first book on about to tell you, but Bob Wood, circa 1968 flying saucers, Don Menzel’s recent book2, The World of the facts are that the Flying Saucers. Halfway through I concluded that the only UFOs are indeed alien craft, and they have figured out some way his explanations were making any sense was if he sort of gravity control device as evidenced by their right- basically ignored or distorted the testimony of the witnesses. angled and high-g turns. So, the ONLY question in my mind is whether we are going to figure out how they work before or after Lockheed!” (They were a big competitor then.) When they asked what I recommended, I said I thought we I said, “Ray, Why don’t should put a couple of guys thinking about this full time on you tell them how the an R&D project. This was a very small percentage of the money we were spending for new business, and they sensed alleged UFOs do it?” the possibility of big pay dirt too. To put this in context, the executives I was speaking to were men who had already taken huge risks to set up a new So I read more books, and pretty soon I had read 50 books Division of the Corporation, were involved in the pending on the topic, devouring everything current in my spare time. merger (buy-out) by the McDonnell Corporation, and were In the meantime, I answered my boss’ question by doing aware of the benefit of a proprietary gravity control device if a little analysis of how a charged toroid containing supercon- we could figure it out. ducting electrons would be able to stay afloat in the earth’s So, we opened up an account with an insipid title magnetic and electrostatic fields. I don’t have a copy of (Advanced Concepts) and internally called it the BITBR Hallet’s final presentation to the Air Force, but some results project, which actually stood for the “Boys In The Back are shown in reference 10 (Wood, 1993) of this article. He Room” since two of the employees were able to occupy a subsequently accepted a key management position at our room that already had a tumbler lock on the door; it was Douglas Nuclear facility in the state of Washington. My new located in the back of our area under a stairwell. boss, Joe Waisman, who replaced Hallet, was a no-nonsense I had already become involved in work outside the hardware guy with a materials background, whose manage- paradigms of normal science. My exposure to anomaly ment style was to give me significant responsibility in manag- research was augmented by reading one of our own ing the new research and advanced technology organization engineers’s syntheses. Ted Gordon, an excellent engineering we were in charge of, and I had been promoted to Deputy manager of the Saturn SIVB project (lunar mission 3rd stage) Director. had written a book called Ideas in Conflict,3 wherein he exposed me to a wide variety of anomalistic studies, includ- Management Approval ing psychic evidence. This perspective caused me to be more My job required me to have regular interactions with accepting of the ridiculous claims of others, including one senior management about the proper ways to invest our Continued on page 4 October 2008 MUFON UFO Journal 3 Stan Friedman, circa 1969 Chan Thomas, circa 1967 Joe Brown, circa 2003 McDonnell Douglas Project Continued from page 3 We usually met once a week to evaluate how we were doing and where we were going.