Quest Publications - Collection of booklets of UFO documents

[IsaacKoi]

Quest Publications (founded by Graham W Birdsall and his brother Mark Birdsall) produced a considerable number of collections of UFO documents, collating "intelligence documents", documents from the CIA, documents about Rendlesham and other material.

Graham Birdsall died in 2003 and Quest Publications subsequently folded.

After recently checking with Russel Callaghan (a member of the Birdsall family and the last editor appointed by Quest Publications), I arranged for a number of the relevant collections of documents to be scanned by our helpful friends in the AFU in Sweden.

So far, nearly 30 booklets collating material have been scanned.

You can download the collection of searchable PDFs from this temporary link for the next week:

Quest_Publications_084-ufos_and_the_agency-CIA.pdf and 29 more files



After the next week, or if you only want a specific booklet, you can find the collection of searchable PDFs on the AFU's website at:

Index of /Downloads/Books_and_documents/Digitized_by_AFU/Quest_Publications



The quality and significance of the documents in the various collections varies significantly. Provenance is also an issue in relation to any collections of documents published by non-governmental entities (and I note that the Quest Publications booklets contain some of the infamous MJ-12 documents and material relating to the Kalahari Desert hoax).

However, I nonetheless thought it worth getting these booklets shared since:

(1) I thought some of you may, like me, find it a tad frustrating when a UFO book cites a document in a document collection (whether published by Quest Publications or otherwise) without being able to quickly locate the relevant document.

(2) A surprising amount of the relevant correspondence and other documents with various agencies (particularly in relation to NASA) does not appear to be currently available online, whether on government websites or elsewhere.

(3) Some of the booklets helpfully pull together several of the official documents on relevant incidents together with press articles.

(4) Sometimes the documents released by government agencies in response to Freedom Of Information Act requests a decade or two ago were actually of a better quality than the current images on various government websites. For example, the best quality copy of a key CIA document that I’ve seen is actually in the files scanned by MUFON as part of MUFON’s Pandora Project – which is one of the reasons why I regard it as, well, disappointing that MUFON hasn’t made more of those scans freely available online.

(5) Sometimes the documents released by government agencies in response to Freedom Of Information Act requests a decade or two ago contained less extensive redactions than the current images on various government websites.

(6) Sharing such previous collections may reduce the number of stories by some UFO “researchers” people in which they breathlessly claim to have obtained new leaked documents, when in fact the relevant documents have been made available by others years before.

 

[Sentry]

Excellent work in getting the permission to share these. The treasure for me was Booklet 101, which features legal documents from the Cash-Landrum UFO case that are not available anywhere else. I'm sure the others must feature material just as rare.

 

[Sand]

IsaacKoi, thanks for your work to make these documents available.

The treasure for me was Booklet 101, which features legal documents from the Cash-Landrum UFO case that are not available anywhere else.

Curt (Sentry), in some accounts of the Cash-Landrum encounter I have heard reference to a loud roar coming from the object, as might be associated to a rocket or jet engine. In the Statement of Facts and Exhibit A of the legal documents it describes only a “beep-beep” sound and states “There were no other sounds…concerning the UFO.”

Based on your research, what are your thoughts on the sounds the witnesses perceived coming from the object?

 

[Sentry]

Sand, first I have to address the premise of your question, which involves the role of the attorney in the case, Peter Gersten. Gersten was a UFO celebrity, billing himself as the "UFO Lawyer," and he played a big role in getting documents released. When the Cash-Landrum case started getting national publicity, Gersten volunteered to help, and the lawyer already handling the case, William Shead. Gersten was seldom if ever present in Texas for contact with the witnesses or any court filings, which fell to Shead.

For whatever reason, the legal action was not taken until late Dec. 1982, the deadline for the legal claim forms that Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum had picked up at Bergstrom AFB. The paperwork Gersten submitted looks good until you compare it to the APRO Bulletin Vo. 29 No. 8 Sept. 1981 article, "Burns Follow UFO Incident." The artwork and word-for-word language from the article are used in the legal filings. The UFO legal case of the century, and Gersten cribbed the data from a UFO magazine.

To answer your question, the sounds are confusing. The UFO reportedly roared like a tornado, produced a mechanical whooshing sound like air brakes, and also beeped. At least, that's what Betty and Vickie said. Colby Landrum is believed to have gotten the best look at the UFO, and it from his description we get the "diamond-shaped " description of it. In Schuessler's book on the case, he gives a transcript of Colby Landrum's initial interview:
(Interviewer) "What did it sound like?"
(Colby) "There wasn't sound to it. I just heard the helicopters.”

 

[Sand]

Thanks Curt. Interesting background on the legal case. Yes, the discrepancy between Colby recalling no sound and the sounds that Betty and Vickie recalled is quite something. Going back to John Schuessler’s book, here are a few of Betty and Vickie’s comments on the sounds. (Betty and Vickie of course each spent some portion of the encounter standing outside of the car, unlike Colby)

Vickie:
(Interviewer) “Did the object make any noise?”
(Vickie) “As the object hung above the road it roared like a hurricane. When the flames came down they would make a loud ‘whooshing’ sound.”
…
(Interviewer) “When the flames came down you could hear the whooshing sound. How would you describe it?”
(Vickie) “Well, you know how….have you ever heard a tornado? You’ve heard the roar of big winds? It was like the roar of an engine is…. But you’ve never heard such a roar in your life.”

Betty:
(Interviewer) “How would you describe the flames?”
(Betty) “Well, you could hear it. I mean it was like it was going SHEW! SHEW! SHEW! It sounded like a flame thrower”

And Betty and Vickie each described the “beep-beep” sound.