From: Robert Barrow <rbarr.nul>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 09:52:23 -0400
Fwd Date: Tue, 09 May 2006 08:09:44 -0400
Subject: Review Of Night Journeys In Ufology: 1974-1977



Wendy Connors'

Night Journeys in Ufology: 1974-1977 Case Recordings, National
UFO Reporting Center (Seattle WA), Vol 01


Copyright 2006 (May) by Wendy A. Connors

Total running time just over 44 hours, with 252 tracks, digital
print guide, mp3 format

Available from www.fadeddiscs.com

Reviewed
by
Robert Barrow


At first, the Piper Cherokee pilot sounds hesitant about
describing his experience high over Colorado skies. But he
trusts the interviewer enough to begin opening up and, as the
recorded phone conversation from 1977 continues, he describes in
detail the huge, seemingly metallic, elongated spherical object
he encountered during an otherwise routine flight. Approximately
the size of a DC-3, the UFO paced his aircraft and approached
the pilot's right wing, forcing him to instantly bank hard to
avoid a collision. How close did the thing get, asks interviewer
Robert Gribble? Without skipping a beat, the pilot firmly
responds, "TOO damned close!" Indeed, the mysterious object with
a stainless steel-like texture closed in to a very uncomfortable
distance of only 50 feet from that vulnerable right wing. An FAA
representative, also interviewed about the case on the
recording, expresses bewilderment and curiosity about what the
pilot saw, but doesn't doubt his story. . .

With this, her most ambitious and gigantic compilation (44
incredible hours) to date, Wendy Connors has produced the
ultimate UFO-related audio documentary, and if the listener
doesn't come away from a thorough audition of this disc
convinced that UFOs are absolutely real, and perhaps deadly
serious business, then the listener may require either a
generous brain transplant or relocation to a TV sitcom, where
evidence of something strange never interferes with the all-is-
normal fantasies upon which some of us construct our daily
lives.

Sing the praises of UFO-related films and videos all you want,
but never dismiss the importance of audio. There's something
about the recorded voice, disembodied from a visualized talking
head. Often the raw, unadulterated self-narrative of one's UFO
experience reinforces the incident's integrity, and frequently
voice inflections and choice of words can betray a hoax or
delusion. But make no mistake, sounds hold our attention as we
use our minds in an attempt to comprehend the unseen, if not the
unknown.

In this remarkable collection you won't find gaggles of stuffy
scientists postulating what UFOs are or are not. Instead,
refreshingly, here are folks from every walk of life reporting
their UFO experiences in disturbing detail, sometimes right
after they occur, and sometimes as they happen in real-time -
 witnesses in denial or scared out of their wits, or people who
simply seek an explanation following the most bizarre event
their lives will ever know. The depth of military and government
agency involvement or cooperation evidenced in these telephone
recordings, it must be noted, simply astounds.

Connors' most recent work for her Faded Discs project involves
putting into digital format hundreds of hours of phoned-in UFO
reports obtained from Robert Gribble's National UFO Reporting
Center in Seattle, a service Gribble operated for twenty years,
gaining credible UFO reports from all over the world until 1994,
when Peter Davenport took over the data collection
responsibility. Gribble, a UFO researcher since 1955, and his
associates had conducted on-site investigations and interviews
where necessary and amassed literally a wealth of tape-recorded
(reel-to-reel and audiocassette) UFO documentation just from
phone conversations. However, the world was nearly denied access
to this monumental historical exercise:

"Robert Gribble was going to toss out his materials," Wendy
Connors relates, "but then decided I might find them useful. I
did, and what we are listening to is his gift to the UFO
community. We all owe him a great deal of gratitude."

Connors describes Gribble as a treasure: "I listen to every
single call he received and select what I feel is the best to
put on the compilations. I also include a few reports that offer
a balance to show that some sightings, although mundane, can
affect people - and to show that people are more honest than not
about describing what they saw. I can only remember three
recordings I thought were suspect, so far.

"I really worked hard to be selective enough to zero in on the
better reports and cover such areas as pilot cases, UFOs near
water, triangles, radar/visual incidents, abductions and close
encounters of the third kind. Also, and most important," Connors
advises, "I wanted to provide human interest cases profiling
that people of all types not only see UFOs, but are intelligent
and reliable, even if they are only goat farmers. I hope I
succeeded."

And succeed Wendy Connors does with this new entry. She knows
how to pick the audio essentials, just as she did with her
contributions to the late Peter Jennings' UFO documentary on
ABC-TV. The program had its detractors, but in this reviewer's
opinion the montage of UFO witness audios that opened the report
- some of them provided by Connors, earning her a place in the
end credits - gave the show a powerful start.

So - just how does one review this 44-hour colossus? Maybe it's
best to start at the end, because the beginning, like most of
the entries here which cover the years 1974 to 1977, takes care
of itself.

Skipping far ahead to track 242, an intriguing, if not amazing,
report from 1977, nearly 20 minutes long, demands our jaw-
dropping attention as Gribble interviews a Naval Intelligence
pilot. Having just flown a reconnaissance mission at 60,000 feet
for the Central Intelligence Agency somewhere between Tokyo and
Hawaii at night, he encountered a large triangular craft. Pacing
his F4-11 Phantom for almost a half hour, the thing appeared
dark with no lights or outward signs of propulsion equipment.

One detail raising an eyebrow with Wendy Connors was the
revelation in the pilot's narrative that the object exhibited a
surface appearance like foam rubber. "Track 242 is a 'barn-
burner' event," she emphasizes. "A few tracks earlier on this
disc is another description of a triangle with a foam rubber-
like surface texture. This certainly offers some additional data
on the black triangles. I've never read of this before."

Speeding ahead in excess of Mach 2.2, the F4-11 Phantom's
bizarre visitor easily remained within 50 feet of the left wing.
Sporting the most advanced technology available at the time, the
Navy pilot utilized all the aircraft equipment he could in an
attempt to identify the bogey, including turning on a powerful
light and aiming it toward the object - which continued to
evidence itself as a solid craft.

"This (object) had no effort at all in keeping up with me," the
pilot informs Gribble. . .it defied all the laws of
aerodynamics. There was no reason for it to fly."

When the UFO eventually sped away, "It took it less than ten
seconds to get out of radar range - less than ten seconds to go
150 miles." The pilot acknowledges that the UFO became a
momentary "speck" on his radar before it disappeared, and by the
time he consumed another three seconds to flip the radar
detection to a 500 mile range, the thing had already absconded
at a tremendous speed, leaving no trace. The pilot's response to
Gribble's question about how solid the radar return appeared was
simply: "Perfect." Missile sensors and detection equipment
aboard the F4-11 indicated no evidence of heat or thrust from
the mysterious flight companion.

Throughout the interview, the pilot reflects integrity and
intricate knowledge of his field, and doesn't hesitate to offer
Gribble names and addresses to contact, to the extent that he
can after his honest and puzzled description of the experience.
(A footnote here: Many reports of triangular craft are sprinkled
throughout this project.)

Connors' latest disc isn't for those who prefer to swallow,
toothpicks and all, the latest popular UFO explanation -
 "plasmas" - or for those impressed with the amusing concoction
of "sleep paralysis" by hopelessly uninformed Ph.D. voodoo
chefs. Truly, as we explore this collection, each time we read
in the track-by-track print guide that a particular case
involves a "possible abduction" our skin crawls as a witness
describes the ideal circumstances for an abduction,
frighteningly unaware of the personal implications. And no,
these folks aren't snugly tucked into bed, waiting for a (sigh.
. .) sleep incident to be conjured up.

In this regard, the compilation includes such witnesses as a no-
nonsense trucker in Montana whose tanker truck engine was
apparently disabled by a disc-shaped UFO, temporarily stopping
his watch in the process. Was there an abduction during this,
his second recent UFO encounter?

Indeed, eight entries alone concern early reports of the 1975
Travis Walton abduction in Arizona, some called in by people who
know Walton and the other young men involved.

Another weird incident involves a pregnant woman in New Mexico,
driving a car with her young son aboard, who is unpleasantly
surprised when a large blue object touches down in front of her
truck and then returns to the sky. This incident involves
vehicle electrical interference, perhaps a huge chunk of missing
time and a possible abduction. "I don't remember, you know,
seeing it leave or anything," she advises Robert Gribble, who
has a knack for listening sympathetically. "I just remember
looking at the (highway) car lights that were coming towards me,
and it was more like I was in a daze or something." Following
the encounter, her son frequently speaks of the lights they saw.

The first 18 tracks on the disc are what Connors labels Anatomy
of a UFO investigation, effectively laying out both the chaos
and solid research involved in 1975 when strange activities
occurred over the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Was a UFO involved? A
missile? A meteor or electrical phenomena? How did one object
seen falling from the sky become five? Was there a crash and
then a crater? Follow the phone calls and judge for yourself.

Faced with 252 tracks, it's impossible to attempt covering the
abundance of wonderful mysteries available here. Yes, UFOs
abound, and there's also a little Bigfoot, a trace of horrible
animal mutilations and a genuine passport to the world of the
unknown. One hardly knows what to make of a sergeant from
Malstrom AFB when he and four friends report a confrontation
with a "hideous" 15 feet-tall hairy creature that charges them
after they fire a warning shot in the woods. But UFOs always
take center stage at the National UFO Reporting Center, and
Wendy Connors' personal selection process assures that each
entry here is worthwhile, credible and often adorned with
exciting and/or highly bizarre qualities. A reading of the print
guide itself would make one eager to spend 44 hours with this
audio document.

One caller, formerly a cadet pilot at Lackland Air Force Base,
Texas in 1954, relates a story of a UFO landing 30 feet from his
group, only to zip away vertically when confronted. A retired
Air Force pilot almost sounds annoyed when he calls to report
his car being followed by a large gray object accompanied by
several smaller objects, and as is the case with many witnesses
on this disc, he first made an official report to a government
agency which referred him to Gribble's organization - a tribute
to NUFORC's relationship with the military and police at several
levels all over the country.

A Utah man relates how an object chasing his car causes a
tingling in his neck and extreme electrical interference as the
alternator, gauges and "everything went crazy." Numerous UFO-
auto encounters are featured on the disc, as are UFO-aircraft
incidents, and many cases involve multiple witnesses of good to
excellent caliber. A brief but highly curious event reported by
a private pilot in California involves three arrow-shaped
objects flying in formation and disappearing at high speed. In
Washington, an egg-shaped UFO maneuvers around a police
helicopter, affecting the instruments.

Among other disc tracks is the case of children at a California
school who watch a Saturn-like UFO hover over their school,
accompanied by a massive vibration in the area. During one of
many triangle reports included here, two police officers observe
such an object with red and blue lights within 60 feet, hovering
near a power generation plant, and it departs at high speed.

You say you're looking for the really, really unusual stuff? How
about an incident where two green objects pace a car and gently
lift it off and then back onto the road? And for those who pray
every night that every troublesome debunker and hardline skeptic
in the world will one day have that special UFO experience,
track 212 features nothing less than a formerly doubting
physicist who observes four objects on a horizontal flight path.
"I sat there in a state of shock for about five minutes, because
I had never believed in these things before," he confesses to
Gribble, "but this is something that I've never seen before and
that I can't explain.

Connors readily points out that the witness "is flummoxed by the
sighting, as he didn't believe in UFOs - a perfect illustration
of the phenomenon's effect on the scientific mind set when
confronted with the reality of it."

Nomination for a very creepy award would be track 224, in which
three young people in the state of Washington experience a close
encounter of the third kind. This UFO makes noise, chases their
car, lands and leaves, but not without causing electrical
problems and physical effects on the passengers. Of considerable
interest is what may have been a UFO occupant crossing the road
in front of their car. "It looked like a tree was crossing the
road," admits the caller, confessing his fear amidst nervous
laughter. "In other words," Gribble asks about the entire event,
"you were pretty scared?" The young witness replies,
"Petrified."

Finally, though the disc surface has barely been scratched in
this review, there's a 25-minute section that absolutely must
not be ignored, a UFO incident capturing the attention of at
least four separate Midwestern U.S. radar facilities. From
December 17, 1977 we hear an enigma in progress as Gribble
attempts to sort out the status of two objects flying at
supersonic speed, tracked on radar. During this ufological
roller-coaster ride, the UFOs actually chase an Air Force plane,
reverse course and, incredibly, may have caused equipment
failure at both the Ellsworth AFB RAPCON unit and the South
Dakota Weather Station. At one point, an Air Force tech sergeant
tells Gribble, "Just a few minutes ago, right after we started
tracking these things, we completely lost all of our radar
equipment." After some checking with equipment maintenance
people, Gribble is further advised: "Our radar has completely
quit on us and we cannot find out the reason why." And as if
things aren't already peculiar enough - maintenance men at one
facility discover the external radar antenna inexplicably bent
over and disabled, even though the area winds aren't blowing
much in excess of 30 m.p.h.

Dramatic UFO encounters are more the rule than the exception
with this disc, but even after Connors stuffs our ears and minds
with hours of truly disturbing UFO evidence via the Gribble
collection, she includes at the end a "Supplemental Recordings"
section, a half dozen miscellaneous selections from the NUFORC
recordings archive.

Is there anything wrong with this compilation? Yes. We have no
way of following up on most of these cases to learn their
eventual status, and we can thank the passage of time for that.
We suspect, however, that most of the incidents described remain
mysteries, and the faceless voices telling us of their
encounters seem no less credible and puzzled now than they
originally did almost 30 years ago. Without the intervention and
digital audio magic performed by Ms. Connors, these remarkable
recordings may have become merely something for the morning
garbage truck to pick up, haul to a landfill and destroy
forever. That, dear reader, may be the scariest thought of all.