Mike: do you think then there is a sense of fatalistic acceptance of these events from the military, ie the ostrich gambit.
RH: I think the brass at the Pentagon know that they can't prevent the UFO incursions at missile sites, so they begrudgingly accept that fact. I often wonder about what has taken place within the recent past, maybe even last night, at one base or another. It will probably be years or even decades before I/we know.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean:
The Soviet Bentwaters
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In July 1989, an intriguing UFO incident occurred at the Soviet missile test complex known as Kapustin Yar, located south of the city of Volgograd, in southwestern <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
</st1:country-region><ST1Russia</ST1. By that time, the complex already had a long history of ICBM and IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) development. In 1946, the first captured German V-2 rockets were tested there, effectively initiating the Soviets’ military and space rocket programs. In 1960-61, tests of the RT-14 IRBM—which played a prominent role in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis—were conducted at the complex. After their removal from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region>, the RT-14s were subsequently targeted against Western Europe and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1lace w:st="on">China</ST1lace></st1:country-region>. At the time of the 1989 UFO incident, a group of 12 RT-14s were operational at Kapustin Yar and spare nuclear warheads were stored in a nearby weapons depot.<O></O>
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The information about the UFO sighting comes directly from declassified KGB documents, secured by western researchers and journalists following the collapse of the <ST1Soviet Union</ST1 in 1991. Don Berliner, of the Fund for UFO Research, notes that the KGB file contained the depositions of seven Soviet military personnel, drawings of the UFO made by some of the observers, and a case summary written by an unnamed KBG officer, from which Berliner excerpted the following passage:<O></O>
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“Military personnel of the signal center observed UFOs in the period from 22:12 hrs. to 23:55 hrs. on 28 July 1989. According to the witnesses’ reports, they observed three objects simultaneously, at a distance of 3-5 km.After questioning the witnesses, it was determined that the reported characteristics of the observed UFOs are: disc 4-5 m. diameter, with a half-sphere on top, which is lit brightly. It moved sometimes abruptly, but noiselessly, at times coming down and hovering over ground at an altitude of 20-60 m. The command of [censored] called for a fighter... but it was not able to see it in detail, because the UFO did not let the aircraft come near it, evading it. Atmospheric conditions were suitable for visual observations.”<O></O>
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Berliner writes, “The most detailed communication was submitted by the Officer-on-Duty, Ensign Valery N. Voloshin. A Captain from the telegraph center informed him at 23:20 hrs. that ‘an unidentified flying object, which he called a flying saucer, was hovering over the military unit for over an hour.’ After confirming the sighting with the operation signal officer on duty, Ensign Voloshin and Private Tishchayev climbed the first part of an antenna tower.” According to [Voloshin’s] deposition: <O></O>
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“One could clearly see a powerful blinking signal which resembled a camera flash in the night sky. The object flew over the unit's logistics yard and moved in the direction of the rocket weapons [nuclear warhead] depot, 300 meters away. It hovered over the depot at a height of 20 meters. The UFO's hull shone with a dim green light which looked like phosphorous. It was a disc, 4 or 5 m. in diameter, with a semispherical top.<O></O>
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While the object was hovering over the depot, a bright beam appeared from the bottom of the disc, where the flash had been before, and made two or three circles, lighting the corner of one of the buildings...The movement of the beam lasted for several seconds, then the beam disappeared and the object, still flashing, moved in the direction of the railway station. After that, I observed the object hovering over the logistics yard, railway station and cement factory. Then it returned to the rocket weapons depot, and hovered over it at an altitude of 60-70 m. The object was observed from that time on, by the first guard-shift and its commander. At 1:30 hrs., the object flew in the direction of the city of <ST1<st1:City w:st="on">Akhtubinsk</st1:City></ST1lace and disappeared from sight. The flashes on the object were not periodical, I observed all this for exactly two hours: from 23:30 to 1:30.”<O></O>
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Berliner continues, “Private Tishcahayev essentially confirmed Ensign Voloshin's testimony. The guard-shift of Corporal Levin and Privates Bashev, Kulik and Litvinov basically tell the same story. They were all alerted by 1st Lt. Klimenko and they all saw up to three UFOs performing fantastic acrobatics in the sky, such as:<O></O>
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‘Suddenly, it flew in our direction. It approached fast and increased in size. It then like divided itself in three shining points and took the shape of a triangle. Then it changed course and went on flying in the same sector.<O></O>
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After veering, it began to approach us and its speed could be felt physically. (It swelled in front of our eyes). Its flight was strange: no aircraft could fly in this manner. It could instantly stop in the air (and there was an impression that it wobbled slightly up and down); it could float (exactly that: float, because the word 'fly' would not be adequate, it was as if the air was holding it, preventing it from falling). At all times that I observed it, it was blinking, blinking without any order and constantly changing colors (red, blue, green, yellow). The point itself was not blinking but something above it.<O></O>
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Here is what I observed: there was a flying object, resembling an egg, but flatter. It shone brightly alternating green and red lights. This object gathered a great speed. It accelerated abruptly and also stopped abruptly, all the while doing large jumps up or down. Then appeared a second and then a third object. One object rose to low altitude and stopped. It stayed there in one place and was gone. Later a second object disappeared, and only one stayed. It moved constantly along the horizon. At times, it seemed it landed on the ground, then it rose again and moved’’’<O></O>
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The remarkable UFO incident at Kapustin Yar’s nuclear warhead depot, as summarized by the KGB, has obvious parallels with the sighting at the RAF/USAF Bentwaters Weapons Storage Area, in December 1980. In each case, a disc-shaped object hovered at low altitude over a nuclear weapons storage site and released beams of light down into it, for unknown reasons. When I sent a copy of Berliner’s report to Bentwaters’ former Deputy Base Commander, now-retired Colonel Charles Halt, he responded simply, “This all sounds very familiar.” <O></O>
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--Robert Hastings
ufohastings.com
