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What is the provenance of this ufo/prototype film?

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dorkbot

Skilled Investigator
A few years ago stills of this craft popped up on the net with people claiming that this was the real film of the Holloman landing story. Another suggestion was that this was an excerpted clip from the legendary Air Force training film supposedly called "What If They Land?" that dealt with ufos. I wish now that I could go back and see who first suggested these two ideas on the net.

I'm going to guess that this is either an experimental craft or a prop from a film but I have looked around quite extensively and have never actually been able to find an accurate description of what this actually is or where the footage came from. I eventually ran across some actual footage which I put up on youtube.

This clip was taken from the documentary tv series Unexplained Mysteries, episode 14, "Undercover UFOs" that aired in January 2004.
<object width="480" height="385">

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LyC6mwQHzKs&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></object>

The show has 4 seconds of footage of the craft, all that you see here. No information is given about it. The clip is shown in between AVRO-esque prototypes and little single seater one-off VTOL jobs.

We've all seen footage of the AVROCAR skimming along a foot off the ground and a great deal has been documented about that program but this piece of footage seems to be completely anonymous. I would think that aviation buffs would immediately be able to ID this as some specific prototype but I have yet to find anything like that.

It's interesting to note that this craft seems to be operating a good deal higher off the ground than AVRO footage I've seen. It appears to me to be out in front of a hanger somewhere. There is also this weird shadow thing that I find confusing. The black triangular thing on the left of the craft disappears but the shadow cast on the wall behind persists. Someone noted that the silver ball on the upper right of the craft is likely the side of the pilot's helmet. If that is the case then it gives you some sense of scale here and also leads one to wonder if those are in fact some fake portholes they painted onto the side or if they are some functional apparatus that is part of the design.

I may just be overlooking the right info but at the moment it appears to me as if this clip just suddenly popped into the public domain 5 years ago with no attribution in a sketchy ufo documentary, presented in a film editing context of experimental prototype.

So, can anyone positively ID this craft and where the footage of it originates?
 
Just for the sake of completeness I guess I am going to respond to myself here. Thanks to a courteous YouTube user(gasp!) this clip has been positively ID'd. It was taken from the 1966 CBS documentary 'UFO: Friend, Foe Or Fantasy', available in it's entirety here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2935380n The footage starts at 01:25.

The craft is the Moller XM-2, the first operational prototype of Dr. Paul Moller's ever evolving SkyCar and the footage would seem to be from his demonstration given for the press at the UC Davis Airport. Additional photos and information are available here: http://www.laesieworks.com/ifo/lib/moller.html

Identified Flying Objects seems to an excellent site for this kind of info.

I'm still kind of interested in trying to find out who it was that first trotted this out as the fabled Holloman footage a few years ago and it is quite informative to see how well this story persisted in some circles. Over the past year I received maybe 30 comment submissions to that clip, almost all of them assuring me that this was footage of the Holloman Air Force Base landing. Looking at my YouTube traffic referrer links I see a number of dumb UFO sites have linked the video over the past year and regurgitated the Holloman story.
 
Oooooo this is a verrrrry interesting thread. It immediately made me think of some old newsclippings I have. These are articles about Ufos from my local newspapers (nearby states too) from ***1965-and-1966***. Well anyway, ONE of these newsclips reports of a policeman patroling in the city area and spots a 'Ufo' that is weaving it's way around buildings. He pursues it, and says that, he saw "USAF" or "United States Of America" on it. I was thinking it was a balloon, but it was described as moving more deliberately than one of those. Very ---ODD--- account.
 
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