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You missed my story in 2000! Please someone challenge me from ATS....lets do a lie detector test, lets get me the hypnosis, Im telling you, my story will be heard. Its been 9 long years, and Its time to tell all! You can have the story, or someone else can, simple as that!
Originally posted by jkrog08
I ask that ANYONE who has ANYTHING to add please do so. I am sure I missed some, I just wanted to jump start the process, as I feel it is really needed.
Photographic evidence is always controversial, and on many occasions dismissed by military authorities without any proper research.
However, in September 1957, the USAF were left red-faced after their own pilots caught a ‘daylight disc’ apparently following a B 57 aeroplane.
Martin Aircraft Company had invited the USAF to take promotional shots of the flight-test as the aircraft flew over Edwards AFB in California.
Ultimately, the photographs were released to the media, and soon both Martin and the USAF were caught in the middle of a major row.
‘Flying saucer’ investigator Robert Schmidt, noticed what appeared to be another object in the upper right-hand corner of the shot a few miles behind the aircraft.
The USAF and Martin were adamant that a rational explanation could account for the ‘UFO’. First they said the image was simply a film fault. When this was ruled out they said the ‘mark’ was a farmer‘s field. Eventually they sent another aircraft up and simulated the flights test and photographic session in the hope that they could duplicate the shot- it didn’t work.
Edwards AFB finally revealed that during the original B57 overflight, ground radar had tracked the second object behind the aircraft.
September, 1957 - Near Edwards AFB, CA, USA
Background Information / Description:
In September 1957, this photo was made by a test pilot near Edwards Air Force Base in California. It shows a UFO apparently following a B-47 twin jet military aircraft - but the UFO wasn't discovered until the photo was developed. An enlargement of the object appears in the upper left corner at "insert."
1957-Edwards Air Force Base, CA. Taken by a test pilot in September of '57. The UFO is following a B-57 twin jet. The UFO was not discovered until the photograph was developed. An excellent photo for that time period.
On September 8th, 1970, at around 10:00 p.m. a single Lightning Jet Fighter departed from RAF Binbrook located in North Lincolnshire near Grimsby. The ground staff were used to Lightning Fighters being scrambled in a hurry at any time day or night. RAF Binbrook was a front-line fighter station and its aircraft shared QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) duty with other east coast airfields to provide cover should an unknown aircraft appear on radar. The pilot of the Jet was Captain William Schaffner of the US Air Force who was on his second tour of duty as an exchange pilot with the Royal Air Force. Schaffner was a well experiences fighter pilot with combat experience in Vietnam he has been stationed at RAF Binbrook for some time and his wife was living on the base with him. The aircraft was an XS894 Lightning F6 of 5 squadron, whose call-sign on the night in question was Foxtrot 94. The jet tumbled into the North Sea and disappeared leaving a mystery.
Very early the next morning a recovery effort was made but no trace of Captain Schaffner's plane could be seen. Over one month later the wreckage of the aircraft was found on the seabed by Royal Navy divers however there was no sign of Captain Schaffner.
The events which ultimately led right to the crash of the fighter jet starts at a radar station called Saxa Vord whose task was to spot unknown aircraft approaching the north sea, or the Iceland Gap. The cold war was at its height in 1970 and Russian aircraft made regular trips into the North Atlantic and along the British Coast to test the reaction of fighters.
On the night of the crash a radar operator at Saxa Vord picked up the blip of an unknown aircraft over the North sea halfway between the Shetlands and the Alesund in Norway. The craft was monitored for several minutes at a speed of 630MPH at 37,000ft in altitude and on a south-westerly heading. Saxa Vord noted that the unknown was turning through 30 degrees to head south at this point it increased its speed to 900MPH and claimed to an altitude of 44,000ft.
Radar operators at Saxa Vord sent a scramble message to the ORA flight at the nearest NATO airfield which was RAF Leuchers located on the east coast of Scotland not to far from Dundee. At Leuchers two Lightning intercept aircraft who were prepared for such a message scrambled and within minutes were in the air and heading out over the North sea after checking the position of their tanker, a Victor K1A, the two fighters were guided north by Saxa Vord but it was then that radar operators on the Shetland Islands saw something on their radar screens which they thought to be impossible.
The unknown they had been tracking at speeds and altitudes consistent with modern Russian warplanes, turned through 180 degrees on a north heading and within a couple of seconds vanished off their screens. Later they predicted that for this to be possible the unknowns speed must have been at an astonishing speed of 17,400MPH. Within the hour, the mystery aircraft reappeared several times, approaching from the north and on each occasion the interceptors were sent north to check out the unknown aircraft showing up on radar and again the unknown turned around and vanished from radar screens.
At this point two F4 Phantoms from the US Air Force had been scrambled from an American base at Keflavik, Iceland. They had much more advanced radar than the British Lightning's however when they tried to get close enough to identify the mystery they found they were just as useless as the Lightning's. The alert has reached such an alarming level that the contact was being monitored at the Ballistic Missile Earling Warning System at Fylingdales. The information they were collection was then passed on to the North American Air Defence Command at Cheyenne Mountain and the US Detection and Tracking Centre in Colorado Springs. RAF staff at Fylingdales heard that the Strategic Air Command Headquarters at Omaha, Nebraska was ordering its B-52 bombers into the air.
This order could have only come from the very highest level of command and what had started as a ordinary sighting of what was thought to be a Russian aircraft had now been passed on to the White House and President Nixon himself. At around 9:45pm a request was made from a high level within the North American Air Defence thought strike Command's at UK headquarters at High Wycombe, for RAF Binbrook to send Captain Schaffner to join the Lightning's to look for the mysterious craft.
The NATO forces were at full alert because of the mysterious object picked up by radar over the North sea. The object had at first been a normal Russian aircraft out to test the reaction of Allied air forces but the strange craft had began to behave in a way that left Radar operators lost for answers. At approximately 10:06pm Captain Schaffner took off from Binbrook's main runway and shot off into the night sky. At this point the mystery now involved five lightning aircraft, two phantoms, three tankers, the president of the United States being informed and a Shakleton being scrambled over the North sea. The mysterious craft was now flying parallel to the East Coast 90 miles each of Whitby at 530MPH and at an altitude of 6,100ft which was a most ideal course for an interception by a Binbrook Lightning.
Shortly after the search and rescue Whirlwind from nearby Loconfield arrived on the scene and began a systematic search of the crash site the aircraft was then joined by the lifeboats from Bridlington, Flamborough and Filey as the weather began to deteriorate. The search continued well into the next day but there was no transmissions from the beacons carried by the pilot on board the aircraft the official reports of this incident say no distress flares were seen. On October 7th divers from HMS Keddleston had examined the wreckage and said that Captain Schaffners body was still in the cockpit but the biggest mystery is that when the aircraft was brought to the surface and returned to Binbrook there was no trace of the Captain just an empty cockpit. When the wreck was finally lifted from the sea five miles away from Flamborough Head it was taken secretly directly to RAF Binbrook.
Strangely enough many of the cockpits instruments were missing these included B2B compass, voltmeter, stand-by direction indicator, stand-by invertors indicator and the complete auxiliary warning panel from the starboard side of the cockpit below the voltmeter. This was a massive breach of regulations and thought the Ministry of Defence crash investigation team was promised the instruments would be returned they never were.
The ejector seat also seemed to be wrong and there was suspicion later among the investigators that it was not the one fitted to the aircraft when it took off from Binbrook on its final flight. They were even given assurance by the commanding officer of the 5 squadron that the seat had not been tempered with but some of the investigators were not at all convinced.
After the investigators job was over they were told not to discuss anything of the event with there families because of national security.
Something did indeed happen that night in September of 1970 and still remains a mystery to this very day.
Written and Researched by Sam Willey
Published Date: 26 March 2009
UFO expert Nick Pope spoke to the Leader this week
By Gemma Gadd.
Another section of the archives refers to an incident from 1970 in which US pilot captain William Schaffner from RAF Binbrook, died after supposedly being scrambled to intercept a UFO.
Newspapers revived the mystery in 1992 after an anonymous RAF 'source' claimed the pilot's aircraft crashed into the North Sea after a mid-air encounter with a bright conical object.
When the F6 plane was recovered from the water the cockpit was closed, but the pilot was not inside.
The mysterious circumstances of Schaffner's death fuelled speculation amongst ufologists the MOD was covering up an alien abduction.
A transcript purporting to be the pilot's last conversation with the RAF station was revealed by the anonymous 'source' appearing to confirm the UFO theory.
This has been revealed as a hoax as the newly released MOD files include the official transcript and the RAF accident report. This states Schaffner was involved in a training exercise that went wrong when he 'inadvertently flew his aircraft into the sea.'
Nick Pope said: "I was the person who investigated the allegations of a UFO connection when they first surfaced. I obtained the original report and satisfied myself that such allegations were false.
"I met Capt Schaffner's sons a few years ago and talked them through the circumstances of the accident. They had been extremely upset at the unfounded rumours surrounding the death of their father and were grateful to the MOD for their openness in helping answer their questions concerning his death."
The mystery over the pilot's disappearance remains to this day as his body has never been found.