Believing in extraterrestrial UFO's and trying to discover the truth about the phenomena does not always automatically disqualify a person from being a government employee. Wilbert Brockhouse Smith (1910-1962) was an electrical and radio engineer who served most of his life with the Canadian Department of Transport (CDOT) in a number of high level supervisory positions.

Having attained his credentials from the University of British Columbia, he acquired a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1933 and followed that up with a Master of Arts Science degree in 1934. He proceeded to work for several commercial Canadian radio stations and co-founded the Canadian Association of Broadcast Consultants before being hired by the CDOT in 1939. By the year 1947 as a Chief Engineer for the CDOT, Smith had established stations across Canada to measure the ionosphere and its effects on communication technologies.

By the late 1940's Smith had also developed an interest in the phenomena of unidentified aerial objects. Further fueled by such literature as Maj. Donald Keyhoe's "Flying Saucers Are Real" and Frank Scully's "Behind the Flying Saucers" he arranged a meeting in 1950 with the United States Defense Department physicist Robert Sarbacher who confirmed his suspicions as to the reality of these unknown craft but also that the US government had branded with subject with higher security classification than even what was applied to the Hydrogen Bomb.

Smith immediately lobbied the Canadian Defense Research Board (DRB) and the CDOT for permission to investigate these phenomena for Canada. His conclusions were that "Such vehicles of necessity must use a technology considerably in advance of what we have. It is therefore submitted that the next step in this investigation should be a substantial effort towards the acquisition of as much as possible of this technology, which would no doubt be of great value to us." The result of his effort was the founding of Project Magnet in December of 1950.

Run under the auspices of the CDOT with assistance from the DRB Project Magnet set out with a duel mission, 1. Collection and analysis of high quality data to draw conclusions about UFOs; and 2. Application of any data recovered to practical engineering and technology. Project Magnet ultimately set up what is considered the world's first flying saucer sighting station.

Among the technology used was a gamma ray detector, a gravimeter, several radio receivers, and a magnetometer. These were set up to display their findings on a graph paper device for ease in identifying the readings of known aircraft and aerial equipment as well as an alert system for anomalous readings. While the CDOT provided the equipment, the small watch crew worked on their own time. This crew included such notables as physicist James Wait and telecommunications expert John H. Thompson of the DRB along with University of Toronto professor J.T. Wilson and Dominion Observatory scientist, G.D. Garland.

As well as measuring the readings of normal aircraft, various experiments were conducted to determine if known devices could give unexplainable readings. A weather balloon was released, complete with magnesium flare for visual brightness. It failed the test, as it were; it registered as a weather balloon. Within three years Project Magnet had accumulated a vast body of data to compare anomalous readings with.

Probably the greatest mysterious reading the station recorded occurred at 3:01 p.m. of August the 8th in 1954. "Substantial" gravimetric readings flew off the chart. The day was regrettably heavily overcast so the watch crew could not see what was causing the severe fluctuations above the clouds. They immediately publicized their finding only to realize that the CDOT had become embarrassed by the publicity for having conducted UFO research for three and a half years. Two days after the event Project Magnet was officially closed. Mr. Smith was still allowed to carry on in an "unofficial" capacity on his own time when the equipment was not being used for "other" purposes.

Despite the Department of Transport's embarrassment, Mr. Smith was not fired from his job or debunked as a "crazy.". He was still the Superintendent of Radio Regulations Engineering for the CDOT until his death in December of 1962.

In late December of 1980, what is sometimes considered the most well-known and disturbing UFO encounter in England happened in Rendlesham Forest around the duel RAF-USAF airbases of Bentwaters and Woodbridge near Ipswich in Suffolk. Christmas night, a UFO had touched down in the forest and one of the investigating military men had gotten so close as to touch the craft. Two nights later, another set of mysterious lights was seen dropping into the forest and now the Deputy Base Commander, Lt. Colonel Charles Halt, has taken personal charge to get to the bottom of these untoward events.

Gathering more security personnel and lighting equipment, he also called in Sgt. Monroe Nevilles of the Disaster Preparedness Unit who included a camera and Geiger counter in his gear while Halt picked up a tape recorder, torch, and a night vision scope. Upon arriving at the East Gate, he found confusion and chaos. The lighting equipment refused to work properly and replacements encountered the same difficulty. Lt. Commander Halt still went to investigate.

Heading out to the Eastern edge of the forest, he began working his way in. He and his team soon found an area where the trees had their branches snapped off along the sides facing inward to a small central clearing. There were once more, three triangular indentations in the ground. It was when Sgt. Nevilles' checked his Geiger counter that the site's mystery was exposed. The radiation levels in the center were very high, registering four clicks on the counter while even the back sides of the trees and the area only a few feet out from the "landing zone" only registered the normal background radiation count.

As they were examining this area, suddenly all the animals on the nearby farm began to raise a cacophony of sound as thought they had become frightened. Looking up, the soldiers saw a dark red glowing object, pulsing in the sky above them no more than a few hundred yards away. While skeptics try to say all they saw was the light from a distant lighthouse, Lt. Colonel Halt distinctly mentioned that they could also see the lighthouse beacon. After a minute or so the object then disappeared only to quickly reappear, heading out into the field beside the forest edge.

As they once more took up pursuit of the object, they noticed the farmhouse emitting a strange glow itself and the air around them again developed an uncomfortable static electrically charged feeling. This new object was described as looking somewhat like an eye, with a darker "pupil" inside the ring of dark red winking light. It also looked to the men that there was golden light "dripping" off the object as though it were molten gold, although they could find nothing on the ground to explain the effect. By now the object was surrounded by over twenty of the search crew. As they were discussing the possibility of drawing closer, the object suddenly exploded into several disparate white lights.

It was then that the most disturbing aspect of the entire encounter began. One of the bright white objects began to emit a beam of light, completely straight and undiminished by distance; like a laser light as Lt. Colonel Halt described. This light began to play across the forest and eventually into RAF Woodbridge itself, directing itself into the ordinance warehouse where the USAF had nuclear weapons stored for the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing. Later reports from the men stationed in the building indicated that the "light" actually appeared inside the building and played across some of the atomic weapons.

Radio traffic around the base was full of reports of the light beams coming down from the glowing objects in the sky. There were reports that the beams were following a search-grid pattern as thought looking for something. An unconfirmable rumor is that the beams of light that passed through the thick walls of the Weapons Storage Area had actually disabled the ordinance. Throughout the event Lt. Colonel Halt had been recording the occurrence. That the men were in a heightened state of excitement is clearly heard as the objects then began to pass quickly past them traveling North before all but one took up station some thousands of feet up. The one still off to the South was still hovering over RAF Woodbridge and emitting the white light beams into the base.

Lt. Colonel Halt decided it was time for his men to return to base as there was no more activity on the ground. By the time they got there, the objects were gone. This second night of activity was witnessed by hundreds of military personnel, not just a handful of guards. The Deputy Base Commander himself had taken part in the hunt and had audio recordings of the search through the Forest and the actions taken by the UFO's as they watched.

While it was released decades later that the Ministry of Defense had in fact investigated the men and the evidence surrounding these events, at the time they only issued the standard statement that there was no concern regarding national security and said little more. This statement was issued despite the fact that the unidentified craft seemed to be very interested in the atomic weapons stored at RAF Woodbridge.

As the sun rose on the morning of December 28, 1980, it found confusion and an enduring mystery for the military men who experienced the events. This had not been some random sighting by a single individual but a series of events both investigated and experienced by the full range of military personnel from lowly airmen to high ranking officers. To this day it is still unknown who or what controlled the craft or what they were truly looking for on the twin airbases in Suffolk, England.

Late Christmas night of 1980 had been eventful for the personnel of the twin Airbases of RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwoods, currently on loan to the United States Air Force, in Rendlesham Forest not too distant from the city of Ipswich in Suffolk. An unearthly flying craft had been spotted and tracked by the guards at RAF Woodbridge as the strange lights had dropped into the Forest. Security, including the on-duty Shift Commander had ventured into the woods and found it only to have it suddenly fly off into the sky when Staff Sargeant James Penniston actually touched the side of the craft.

The following day the Deputy Base Commander of the Woodbridge-Bentwood airbase complex, Lt. Colonel Charles Halt, was skeptical of the reports he got of the previous night's activities. It was, however, his job to know about everything that went on in the bases under his command. Despite knowing the people involved were dependable and honest soldiers, he found the entire incident hard to credit but he took the reports and interviewed the men personally. The next evening, December 27, 1980 found him in attendance at a Combat Support Group awards dinner as events conspired to shake his disbelief.

This night A1C Gregory Battram and three others were on patrol at the back gate of RAF Woodbridge when they saw lights in the sky that did not conform to any type of aircraft they were familiar with. The lights dipped into the forest and their red coloration looked like a fire among the trees. A1C Battram knew that in light of the previous incident they had to investigate. He contacted Central Security Control for permission to go into the forest and the fire department in case what they saw was a blaze.

Parking their vehicle at the edge of the forest they began to walk towards the lights. They noticed a "thrumming" sound being carried through the air and began to experience the tingling of what felt like a high electromagnetic field, the hair on their arms and heads trying to stand on end. Coming to the far edge of the Forest they witnessed the lights, orange, red, white, and blue, coning from the center of what appeared to be a circular patch of ground fog. Becoming uncharacteristically scared, the men decided to return to the airbase and report their findings.

Meanwhile another group, led by Sgt. Adrian Bustinza, had been alerted to this second UFO sighting and had headed into the forest as well. Encountering A1C Battram's group, they decided to go get the higher-ups involved in any further attempts. Lt. Bruce Englund was with Sgt. Bustinza's group and he immediately headed to the location of the awards dinner to inform his superior officers. Reporting to Base Commander Ted Conrad. Lt. Englund told him, "It's back. The UFO is back!" Commander Conrad ordered Lt. Colonel Halt to go "...put an end to this nonsense."

Heading back to the base, Lt. Colonel Halt began assembling a team to get to the bottom of all the excitement and confusion running rampant over the two airbases. Little did he know that soon the encounter would escalate dramatically.

Begun during World War II the British built an airbase in Rendlesham Forest about twelve miles outside of the city of Ipswich in Suffolk. By the time they leased RAF Bentwaters to the United States Air Force in 1951 they had another RAF Airbase beside it called Woodbridge. This twin base complex became home to the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing and the 67th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadrons. Rendlesham Forest had been allowed to grow as an extra protective barrier for the airbases.

Near midnight of Christmas Day, December 25, 1980, the bases were still celebrating with only a skeleton crew on duty and no aircraft flying. On guard duty at the back gate, referred to as the East Gate, Airman First Class John Burroughs and Staff Sargeant Bud Steffens were on patrol duty. Airman Burroughs was the first to see strange lights appear and hover over the Forest at tree-top level near the edge of the Forest beside the Airbase. neither man having ever seen such light display from aircraft they took a jeep out of Woodbridge to investigate.

It quickly became obvious that the flickering red, yellow, and green lights were much closer to the base that they at first thought. Then a large white beam of light was emitted and began sweeping the base perimeter. The two airmen quickly decided they needed backup and sped back to the East Gate. Their call, seeming unbelievable to the recipients, was passed up the line until it reached Staff Sargeant James Penniston at Central Security Control. Believing the report indicated a crashed aircraft SSgt. Penniston was driven to the East Gate where SSgt. Steffens told him the craft, if that is what it was, had not crashed but had seemed to land in the forest.

Getting permission from the Shift Commander, the men, including two other Security officers, headed back out along a logging road toward the area where the lights were last seen. Leaving Airman First Class Edward Cabansag with the vehicle to act as radio relay, the other men entered the forest to find the lights. By this time the men knew that CSC Radar had been following an unknown radar contact which had also been confirmed with the radar at Heathrow Airport. The signal had been lost about five miles from the base, most likely due to the contact dropping below radar range.

Back in the forest the men realized something was definitely wrong. Despite the lateness at night there was a lot of animal movement. They then lost radio contact with A1C Cabansag and the base and began to experience an electrical static charge building around them. It was then they came upon the object sitting in a clearing. It was cone-shaped, about 10 foot in height and the same width at the base. It appeared to be sitting on some type of fixed legs. As SSgt. Penniston moved closer, the feel of electricity in the air grew stronger.

Standing next to the object SSgt. Penniston reported the top part was giving off a bright, white light with two other lights, red and blue seemingly molded into the side of the object on either side with the blue light fading in and out from black to grey back to blue. The exterior of the object looked like smooth, opaque, black glass. He noted that there were symbols somewhat like writing on the side, about three inches tall in a string about two foot long or more. Touching them, he noted that rather than painted on, they had the feel of etching or engraving done into the smooth exterior. At his touch, however, the white light grew instantly much brighter and the craft rose up off the ground, moving slowly up and through the branches of the surrounding trees. It took a couple of minutes to clear the trees and at about two hundred feet it paused for a moment then, in an instant, it was gone. At no time did the object make a sound.

With its departure, radio communications were again possible. The two airmen had become somewhat disoriented within the electrical static field. They seemed to see another set of similar lights about a half mile further into the forest, but after traveling about three hundred yards, turned around and rejoined A1C Cabansag and returned to the base to make their report. The shift commander told them they should stay quiet about what they had seen but then told the airmen, "you saw something, Heathrow tower confirms you saw something. Now you should go out and look for some physical proof of what happened."

SSgt. Penniston acquired the materials for making a plaster cast and he and A1C Burroughs returned that morning to the landing spot. Finding three identical equidistant shallow cone-like depressions in the soil, the casts were made as Penniston, shaken by the encounter, wanted some physical proof that he had actually experienced the event. He requested a transfer from the Airbase shortly afterward, while A1C Burroughs spend a number of nights after the encounter, waiting in the forest for the craft to reappear.

Of the many never explained observations of unidentified flying objects reported in the twentieth century, the tales of strange, glowing balls of light maneuvering around warplanes over Europe and the Pacific during the Second World War still remain a mystery. When first encountered by Allied fliers, they assumed it was some new type of weapon thrown at them by the Axis war machine despite there being no incidence of one of these objects acting in a hostile manner. Conversely, when the Axis pilots encountered what was to become popularly known as "foo fighters" they too believed them to be machinations of the enemy. To date, no one knows what they were or where they originated.

The first reported sightings began in November of 1944 by Allied airmen during nighttime bombing runs against German factories. Radar operator Donald Meiers of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron gave them the name based on the phrase, "where there's foo, there's fire" in the Bill Holman cartoon strip "Smokey Stover" because the objects first appeared to them as glowing red balls. The objects chased the Allied aircraft and easily followed through a series of high-speed maneuvers.

As the sightings increased, more pilots and airmen described the strange objects as fiery, glowing red, white, or orange. They were disturbed by the lights which they said were "toying" with them. The foo fighters could perform "wild turns before simply vanishing." Often the objects would fly in formation with the Allied bombers and acted and reacted as though intelligently controlled. While never offering hostile behavior, all attempts to force the craft were met with failure as they easily outmaneuvered pursuing fighter planes.

Reports of foo fighters quickly began coming in from the Pacific Theater of Operations as well. There were, however, some differences in the look and behavior of some of the unidentified flying objects spotted there. The "ball of fire" appeared more like a glowing, burning sphere and was often seen hovering although they occasionally followed the aircraft. This led to one reported incident where the gunner of a B-29 bomber fired upon a foo fighter that got too close to his aircraft. He reported that he managed to hit the craft that then broke into several pieces that fell to the ground. Being over enemy territory, there was no way to go back and investigate the wreckage.

Scientists and debunkers have tried to explain away the airmens' sightings in a variety of ways. Some claim that the swift moving objects were just electrostatic discharge, "St. Elmo's Fire," without taking into consideration that these experienced fliers were familiar with the electrical phenomena and would have recognized it for what it was were that the case. Some went so far as to say it was just light reflecting off ice crystals. Another ground-based theory was that the airmen were merely seeing the afterimage of flak bursts despite there having been anti-aircraft fire hurled at them long before the winter of 1944.

Even after the War was over, the glowing fireballs known as foo fighters would make occasional appearances chasing after aircraft like dogs after cars. Even when the more recognizably constructed "flying saucer" caught the public imagination and the flying cigars left observers knowing they were seeing a flying machine, the glowing spheres would still turn up and remind us that the mystery of the foo fighter has never been solved.

It is not often that the government or the scientific community take great efforts to search for the potential of intelligent alien life. Most often, these organizations tend to ridicule and debunk theories about extraterrestrial civilizations, so, when a multitude of projects are undertaken by them, it is best to look a little closer and seek ulterior motives.

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) projects consist of various methods of examining the electromagnetic frequencies seeking a patterned signal that would indicate the intelligent use of EMF for communication. This would include both what we know of as radio (both short and longwave) and television bandwidths.

The first SETI project was undertaken in 1960 by Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake. Project Ozma used a 26-meter radio telescope to scan Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani using a single channel receiver. Nothing of any great interest was picked up. With a $71,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the "Big Ear," a flat plane radio telescope with a parabolic reflector was constructed at the Ohio State University. This listening post became the first continuous SETI project.

Throughout the 1970's other SETI projects were either planned or implemented including an attempt at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, to send a message toward the M13 star cluster twenty-five thousand light years distant. The University of California, Berkley has performed five SETI efforts beginning in 1979 and last using the Arecibo radio telescope for an all-sky survey in 2009.

Government SETI projects include the US funded program in 1992 that utilized the NASA Microwave Observing Program while Harvard University is included as another of the scholarly programs that have scanned the heavens for an extraterrestrial radio message. Even after government financing ended, SETI has grown with private funding and the development of interlinked organization.

All these searches stand on the principle that electromagnetic energy travels at the speed of light and is not impeded by distance. A popular theory is that our own radio and television transmissions are traveling out to other worlds and that alien listeners may be learning about us through such programs as Groucho Marx's "What's My Line" or being horrified by news of the Second World War.

Now comes the reality of physics as applied to such electromagnetic signals. All EM waves in free space conform to the inverse-square law. The power density of the wave is proportional to the inverse square of the distance from source. Basically doubling the distance from the transmitter will decrease the power density of the radiated wave by one fourth its previous value. As the wave travels from source, it spreads much like ripples in water until the point the density of the transmitted wave has broken down into indecipherability and ultimately to the level of background static, especially as it is acted upon by other waves such as are propagated by neutron stars and the background microwave radiation of the universe.

It has been calculated that even our strongest clear-channel transmissions are not likely to travel more than four or five light years before becoming indistinguishable from the overall background radiation. It cannot be expected that alien radio transmissions used for planetary or intrasystem communications would be any more effective over interstellar distances.

So, are the great SETI projects an expensive diversion that give "official" deniability to the potential existence of extraterrestrial life and civilizations or are they in reality listening instead for something much closer to our home planet?

Upshur County, West Virginia is a classic example of Appalachian coal country. Besides the mineral wealth of the earth, its forested hills provide an equally valuable timber industry. There is only one incorporated city, the County Seat of Buckhannon, with numerous diminutive unincorporated communities interspersed through the forest ridges and valleys. It seems an unusual place for an artifact that insinuates a prehuman civilization to have been discovered.

The Second World War was reaching its climax in 1944 when then ten year old Newton Anderson went to his home's basement for another load of locally produced coal for the family fire. One large lump falls to the floor and splits along the seam and exposes an object hidden away in the mineral that formed roughly three hundred million years ago in the Carboniferous Era. It is a brass, hand-held bell!

The most distinguishing feature of the bell is the carved figure on its top. It is of a humanoid figure which appears to be in a kneeling position with wings and a beak. There was an iron clapper still attached to the inside of the bell. The object has changed hands since Mr. Anderson found it years ago. In 2007 it came into the hands of the newly constructed Institute for Creation Research and on display at the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky. According to the Institute, the bell was delivered to the University of Oklahoma for analysis by the nuclear activation method. While it is brass, it is not the brass alloy that has been used by our civilization since at least the rise of the Sumerian culture some six thousand years ago. It has an unusual mixture of copper, zinc, tin, arsenic, iodine, and selenium.

Also to help verify the story behind the bell's discovery, the Institute solicited the services of a licensed polygraph expert to test Mr. Anderson about the finding of this unusual object. The examiner, Mr. L. Stan Fulmer of Davidson, North Carolina is a trained professional with over twenty-seven years experience performing polygraph tests for both the courts and private sector businesses. His findings were that Mr. Anderson was expressing no deception when he related his story.

The figure adorning the bell is an interesting study in the possibility of either an ancient pre-Adamic race as the founders of the Creation Institute believe or evidence of an ancient alien presence on our planet long before humanity emerged. Both theories are possible and could well be one and the same. The Sumerian legends of the Annunaki say that their planet Nibiru had already been captured in orbit around our sun before the Earth had restablized from its collision with Tiamat. It is therefore possible they were traveling to and exploring this planet long before the four hundred thousand year mark that Sumerian legend says was the time of their colonization.

It is known that the astronauts that piloted the Annunaki rockets were always depicted with wings and bird-headed helmets. Couldn't it be just as likely that the image is a depiction of one of these voyagers as it might be a "demon" from a mythology millions of years younger than the geological strata the bell was buried in? That this artifact ended up in what is now West Virginia in the North American continent is not so unbelievable. A people capable of interplanetary travel would have no trouble traveling anywhere on the planet. That this out of place and time artifact was even found after its long wait in the dark is a testament to the incredible potential for the amazing, whether terrestrial or of otherworldly origin.

Of all the reports that stream in to police and UFO investigators, most end up being merely a misidentification by the witness of the various running and operational lights on conventional airplanes. While the average person can easily identify a commercial aircraft's running lights under normal circumstances, sometimes weather or an odd angle of approach will give the illusion of strangeness that is all that's needed to let the imagination of the believer run wild. It is crucial that those interested in watching the sky for intruding, possibly alien, craft educate themselves on the standard patterns of aircraft lighting to minimize the wasted time and energy of investigating cases of mistaken identity.

Many of these standard features can be easily noted when the plane is flying low, especially when nearing a runway. If you want to look for UFO's at night, a good pair of binoculars will help prevent many mistakes. The red and green wingtip flashing lights are standard on most aircraft. There are also white and red strobe lights on both the top and bottom of the craft that are supposed to stay on from engine start to chocking after it lands. These are, however, sometimes turned off in cloudy conditions as the reflection and glare off clouds can be a distraction for the pilots.

Landing lights are turned on at 10,000 feet whether it is nearing an airport or just reducing altitude for whatever reason. This can make an otherwise dim looking lighted object suddenly flare up in intensity as it is equivalent to suddenly turning on the headlights at the bright setting in an automobile. These bright lights are on during takeoff as well and are turned off when the airplane reaches the 10,000 foot mark. In foggy or dusty air this can illuminate the lights to appear the craft is shooting "beams" out in front of it. Additional taxi lights come on when the landing gear are deployed. Some commercial jetliners also have a pilot operated control that adjusts the brightness on one side or the other. Most commercial jetliners also leave the "logo" lights on the tail to clearly expose their company name for identification although some companies turn them off after takeoff.

Helicopters always carry at least one bright white light on the belly and generally the red strobe on the tail section. While many helicopters do not muffle their engine sound and can be heard for miles, this is not universal. Not only do some provide quiet running engines and wider, sound depressing rotors, many military helicopters have extra stealth approach technology to keep them unheard until they are almost on top of you. Military craft also use fewer lights during on-duty operation which makes them harder to spot. Since helicopters are, by nature, very maneuverable, they can change direction swiftly as well as hover.

Because normal aircraft are subject to the same kinds of style variations as automobiles, even the standard light placement has its variations. For a serious amateur ufologist, time spent near a busy airport at night, both commercial and as close as you can to military ones, can slowly grant you familiarity with the light patterns you can dismiss as terrestrial. This way you will be much more likely to be able to pick up on and better report those instances when the lights you see in the sky are definitely not conforming to any pattern or standard behavior.