Dr. Mchael Swords, a US ufologist with an intereste in UFO abductions, wrote an article in 2004 about the shortcomings of the "Condon" project, mandated by the US Air Force to provide a solution to the UFO ridle.
In the article, he explained that in March 1968, the Condon project received a letter from a woman in Texas who wanted to tell them of her experience and ask for some help in understanding it. She had read John Fuller "Interrupted Journey" book about the Hills' encounter, and this had lead her to write her letter. She remembered her own encounter clearly and in detail, even though it had occurred over 35 years earlier, and she had been plagued with nervousness and nightmares since. Her doctor had recently told her family that her deteriorating health seemed exacerbated by having something on her mind that was a source of serious stress. She refused to tell them about her experience, however, for fear that her family would have "thought that I'd lost all my marbles."
She told that when she was a young woman, driving in the family car in an isolated hilly area around 10 o'clock in the morning one day in 1930, she turned a curve on the road and run up to and under the side of a huge "thing" sitting by the road.
She was within a few steps of it, almost under one side of it when she stopped. She wrote: "It was sort of shiny gunmetal color, round and shaped like two dinner plates face-to-face with a dome in the upper top side. It was about 100 feet across, about 15 feet thick. There was a small slender door, and the door chute let down to the ground with steps on the inside of it. The backside of the ship sat on the ground, but the downhill side was braced up with two slender legs with round plates on the ground as feet."
"There was one man of normal size; I'd say about 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall and about 165 to 180 lbs. This person came walking in the road to meet me and forced me to stop while he talked to me. Or, at least I think he talked, although I did not see his lips move, and he turned his face away and looked down."
"While I seemed to hear him speaking, several other persons came walking up behind him, I'd say 8 to 10. I took these persons to be a troop of Boy Scouts, about 8 to 10 years old, average size. However, when near me, I saw that there was a big difference: they looked a bit like Japs or Chinese. They had very large slanted eyes, very large cheekbones, and very thin lips. And they did not look like children but adults. They smiled at me but did not speak. I had to smile back because they were sort of pushing each other around (horseplay), like each one trying to get in front to see better and acting like kids will."
"The clothing they wore I at first took to be scout uniforms—tan in color. But when they came up close to me, I saw that there were no pockets, buttons, edges, wrinkles, or pocket flaps. Very clean, neat, and nice. They wore little tight caps cut like baseball caps with little narrow bills. The larger man was dressed the same way. Offhand, the whole bunch seemed like a scoutmaster and his troop of scouts."
"We had some little argument. He said: 'Lady, you'll have to leave the highway and go around as we have the road blocked here.' I said: 'What is that?' pointing to this thing [the saucer]. He ignored this question and said, 'Never mind, you'll just have to go around. We want the road left clear and open and can't let you through here. You are a wonderful driver and you can make it all right.'"
The "man" directed her to drive off the road down into a rocky gully and then up another hillside to rejoin the road some distance away.
The woman told: "I still griped and argued and said: 'I can't put this big car down through that creek and rocks, it'd tear my car all to pieces, and I could never get out the upper side, and besides you don't own this highway.'"
"But somehow I couldn't help myself, and dazedly drove very slowly and fearfully down into this creek and rough canyon."
"I realized that the man was walking right along the side of the car, at my elbow. I felt very safe [then] and was able to make the crossing and was no longer afraid. I wonder why?
This was about 9:30 or 10 a.m., and it was the last thing the woman remembered until she came to herself walking in on her home porch at about 12 o'clock that night, Her home was about 15 miles distant from the sighting location. She told:
"Where I was, where I went, what happened to me those many hours, I have no idea. Neighbors had driven along that area during the day, and told my family that they saw my car parked on the hill beyond the canyon. My dad was forming a search party when I came in." Swords notes that she thus had several hours of missing time.
"That I was taken aboard this saucer and carried away God Knows Where, I haven't a simple doubt. But, if this did not happen as I remember it, then what did? I want to know so badly that I'm sick. Something did happen - what? I want to know the truth the whole truth regardless of what it was."
Michael Swords explains that the lady offered herself for hypnosis and research, but the Condon project ignored her. Condon filed the letter under the category "psychological." Words notes hat "Conceivably it was. One thing we do know: The project and Ed Condon couldn't be bothered. And another thing is at least half-true: this is an old and sickly lady asking for some help, but nothing was done. This inaction was a type of sin of omission that reflects badly on Colorado [the Colorado Project, official name of the Condon study]".
He published in his article this sketch the lady had made:
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[Ref. ms1:] MICHAEL SWORDS:
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[Other cases] ROADSIDE ABDUCTION?In March 1968, the [Condon] project received a letter from a woman in Texas who wanted to tell them of her experience and ask for some help in understanding it. She had read Interrupted Journey, John Fuller's book about the Hills' encounter, and this had goaded her into writing. She remembered her own encounter clearly and in detail, even though it had occurred over 35 years earlier, and she had been plagued with nervousness and nightmares since. Her doctor had recently told her family that her deteriorating health seemed exacerbated by having something on her mind that was a source of serious stress. She refused to tell them about her experience, however, for fear that her family would have "thought that I'd lost all my marbles." The experience as she told it in her letter is suspiciously abduction-like. She had several hours of missing time. (In the following narrative, I have corrected the spelling and punctuation, and dropped the repetition in order to let the story flow.) The experience begins as this young woman was driving in the family car in an isolated hilly area around 10 o'clock in the morning one day in 1930: I remember turning a curve on the road and running up to and under the side of a huge "thing" sitting by the road. I was within a few steps of it, almost under one side of it when I stopped. It was sort of shiny gunmetal color, round and shaped like two dinner plates face-to-face with a dome in the upper top side. It was about 100 feet across, about 15 feet thick. There was a small slender door, and the door chute let down to the ground with steps on the inside of it. The backside of the ship sat on the ground, but the downhill side was braced up with two slender legs with round plates on the ground as feet. There was one man of normal size; I'd say about 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall and about 165 to 180 lbs. This person came walking in the road to meet me and forced me to stop while he talked to me. Or, at least I think he talked, although I did not see his lips move, and he turned his face away and looked down. While I seemed to hear him speaking, several other persons came walking up behind him—I'd say 8 to 10. I took these persons to be a troop of Boy Scouts, about 8 to 10 years old, average size. However, when near me, I saw that there was a big difference: they looked a bit like Japs or Chinese. They had very large slanted eyes, very large cheekbones, and very thin lips. And they did not look like children but adults. They smiled at me but did not speak. I had to smile back because they were sort of pushing each other around (horseplay), like each one trying to get in front to see better and acting like kids will. The clothing they wore I at first took to be scout uniforms—tan in color. But when they came up close to me, I saw that there were no pockets, buttons, edges, wrinkles, or pocket flaps. Very clean, neat, and nice. They wore little tight caps cut like baseball caps with little narrow bills. The larger man was dressed the same way. Offhand, the whole bunch seemed like a scoutmaster and his troop of scouts. We had some little argument. He said: "Lady, you'll have to leave the highway and go around as we have the road blocked here." I said: "What is that?" pointing to this thing (saucer). He ignored this question and said, "Never mind, you'll just have to go around. We want the road left clear and open and can't let you through here. You are a wonderful driver and you can make it all right." (The "man" was directing her to drive off the road down into a rocky gully and then up another hillside to rejoin the road some distance away—see witness sketch.) I still griped and argued and said: "I can't put this big car down through that creek and rocks, it'd tear my car all to pieces, and I could never get out the upper side, and besides you don't own this highway." But somehow I couldn't help myself, and dazedly drove very slowly and fearfully down into this creek and rough canyon. I realized that the man was walking right along the side of the car, at my elbow. I felt very safe [then] and was able to make the crossing and was no longer afraid. I wonder why? This was about 9:30–10 a.m., and it is the last thing I remember until I came to myself walking in on my home porch at about 12 o'clock that night—about 15 miles distant. Where I was, where I went, what happened to me those many hours, I have no idea. Neighbors had driven along that area during the day, and [later] told my family that they saw my car parked on the hill beyond the canyon. My dad was forming a search party when I came in. That I was taken aboard this saucer and carried away God Knows Where, I haven't a simple doubt. But, if this did not happen as I remember it, then what did? I want to know—so badly that I'm sick. Something did happen - what? I want to know the truth—the whole truth regardless of what it was. The lady then offered herself for hypnosis and research, but the project ignored her. Condon filed the letter under the category "psychological." Conceivably it was. One thing we do know: The project and Ed Condon couldn't be bothered. And another thing is at least half-true: This is an old and sickly lady asking for some help, but nothing was done. This inaction was a type of sin of omission that reflects badly on Colorado.
[Caption:] Sketch by Texas woman of her 1930 close encounter. [Other cases] |
(The bracketed parts are by Michael Swords.)
[Ref. js1:] JEAN SIDER:
The author indicates that in 1930 at midnight there was an CE4 in Texas:
A young girl was driving the family car on a major road that crossed an isolated area made up of a succession of steep hills.
Taking a turn, her vehicle was forced to slow down and suddenly found itself under the overhanging side of a huge structure some of which was above the road. It was a massive round construction, like two plates glued edge to edge, shiny and a color like the metal of firearms.
The female driver estimated its length at 100 feet and its thickness or height at 15 feet, which corresponds to 30 m x 4.5 m. There was a narrow opening in the craft.
The door was folded down and had steps on its extended surface. The structure had a side directly on the slope of a hill and the other side was supported on two supports with large round plates at their end. An occupant came out, a man of normal size between 1.75 m and 1.80 m and about eighty-five pounds. He walked down the road and headed for the witness, forcing her to stop her car.
He spoke to the girl although she did not see his lips move. Meanwhile, eight to ten other occupants came out behind this man, looking like a scout troop of about ten-year-old boys because of their small size. However, they had traits similar to those of adult Asians. They had large, slanted eyes, prominent cheekbones, and thin lips. They wore outfits like scouts but without pockets or buttons, creases, no edgings, and on their heads they had some sort of cap like baseball players. The taller occupant was dressed in the same way. The ensemble formed a vague imitation of boy scouts commanded by an adult scout, who told the witness:
"Madam, you will have to make a detour because we blocked this road."
The girl, pointing to the structure, asked: - "What is it?"
The occupant ignored the question and replied:
"Do not forget, you will have to make a detour, we want this road to be free and we cannot let you use it. You are a very good driver and you can do that very well."
Then he told her where she could leave the road she was following to take a stone canyon and then climb to another hill to join the same lane she left at another place much further.
The girl protested again and said:
- "I cannot engage this big car in a canyon filled with stones, it could tear it to pieces, and I could never climb the other side of the hill. Anyway, you do not own the road where we are!"
But the other remained intractable and she had to capitulate, and she followed the man's directions exactly while driving with caution at low speed, eventually reaching the road she had to abandon.
The girl remembered that the encounter took place between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m., but when she reached home, fifteen or twenty miles away, it was almost midnight. She has not kept any memory of these many forgotten hours, fourteen roughly.
Neighbors who had taken the same road shortly after her, told her later that they had spotted her car parked on the hill, beyond the stone canyon. Finally, her father not seeing her come home had gathered a team of volunteers to rake the area. According to Jean Sider's source, much later, in the late 1960s, the witness asked for help to the "Condon Commission", but her request received no response.
Jean Sider indicates that his source is "Michael D. Swords, in International UFO Report, Fall 2003".
Jean Sider comments that the rejection by the "Condon Commission" is not surprising because it was commissioned by the US Air Force in 1967 to trivialize UFO sightings. He adds that the huge device that blocked the road and the dialogue with the entity are "two elements of a scenario based on a screen memory, a lure typical of CE4 multiple variants."
We can note that the lady was sick, stressed. Wass this a cause or an effect of the alleged encounter? We do not know. But as far as I am concerned, the story is far too implausible to be believed, it is reported late, and there has not been the slightest investigation or checking.
| Id: | Topic: | Severity: | Date noted: | Raised by: | Noted by: | Description: | Proposal: | Status: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | ||||||||
Probable psychological.
* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.
| Main Author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Created/Changed By: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | August 29, 2018 | Creation, [ms1], [js1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | August 29, 2018 | First published. |
