UFOs or UAVs?

The hottest thing in military tech for the past few years has been the development of Umanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs.) I suspect that a lot of UFO reports over the past few years (and perhaps even to the late 1970s) have been unauthorized sightings of these surveillance platforms, and the military and its civilian contractors are only too happy to oblige when people mistake the hovering lights for flying saucers.

The objects that Paul Bennewitz filmed at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque beginning in late 1978 have all the earmarks of early UAV development, and insiders I interviewed for my book, Project Beta hinted that this was the case. Some who were not in on all the secrets were almost certain of this. In another episode recounted in the book, former State Highway Patrolman Gabe Valdez described a nighttime incident in which he and three other law enforcement personnel “cornered” a hovering amber light in a farmer’s pasture near Dulce, New Mexico in the early 1980s. The foggy night obscured any details of the object, but as they approached it from four sides, the light abruptly switched off. As it moved off in the darkness, “We heard a sound like a small lawnmower motor” moving over their heads, Valdez said. Dulce was the nexus of a lot of strange goings-on at the time, most notably mysterious animal deaths. There is an Army base (Fort Collins) over the border in nearby Colorado which (like the isolated Fort Huachaca in southern Arizona) was apparently used as a base for UAV operations.

The “Guardian” UAV in operation at Fort Huachaca

Since spytech is usually 10-20 usually years ahead of where the public thinks it is, this fits in perfectly with the timetable on UAVs, which have only recently come to major public awareness. See this report on a company in England which has nearly perfected something that could easily be mistaken for a UFO. GFS (for Geoff’s Flying Saucer) Company president Geoff Hatton said: “Ever since I was in the hovercraft industry, I’ve wanted to develop a craft that could go up into the air as well as move across the ground. At last we’ve done it. Our UAV takes off vertically and can land virtually anywhere. We’ve filed four patent applications on the basic design and are now developing automated flight controls.”

Platform test image from GFS-associated website

As we have said here before, the government may not know what the UFOs are, or where they come from, but they have no problem using the subject for their own needs when the situation demands it.