Read Online UFOs Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean - Free Book Online
Authors: Leslie Kean
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lies more with the human response to it than from the actions of the UAP itself, because the objects do not appear to be aggressive or hostile, and seem to be able to avoid collisions by executing last-minute high-speed turns in a flash.
Dr. Haines, who has authored more than seventy papers in leading scientific journals and published over twenty-five U.S. government reports for NASA, specialized in human performance, technology design, and human-computer interaction while at NASA. Having contributed to the U.S. Gemini and Apollo projects, as well as Skylab and Space Station, in 1988 he retired from his twenty-one years as a senior aerospace scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. Subsequently he worked as a senior research scientist for the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science, RECOM Technologies, Inc., and Raytheon Corp. at NASA Ames Research Center until 2001.
Haines unexpectedly became interested in the UFO subject back in the 1960s, when he was conducting research involving flight simulators for NASA. As he explains it, commercial pilots would volunteer to come into his facility and fly the simulators for studies on aviation safety, avionics, and many other areas. “From time to time a pilot would offer to tell me about an experience he had that just blew me away,” Haines said in a 2009 interview. 3 Although he had heard of UFOs at the time, he had absolutely no interest in them. “I heard more and more stories from these very credible witnesses, so it began to catch my attention. I said to myself, ‘I can explain these things; they’re all natural phenomena or misidentified phenomena within the human eye,’ which I knew a lot about from studying human vision and optics. So I set out as a skeptic to disprove the whole thing. But the more I looked into the subject seriously, the more convinced I became that there was something there. Something that deserved to be looked at. Yet none of my colleagues were doing so.” He then started systematically collecting data and eyewitness reports, and giving a great deal of thought to the analysis, and has been doing so ever since. Today, he has developed an international database of over 3,400 firsthand UFO sightings by commercial, military, and private pilots, with special attention to cases where aviation safety is compromised, as distinct from sightings during which the objects have no effect on an aircraft or its crew.
In fact, for years, he and his associates have been attempting to alert the aviation community to the effects of unknown aerial phenomena on aircraft safety. In 2001, along with executive director Ted Roe, he established the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena 4 (NARCAP), a respected international nonprofit research organization serving also as a confidential reporting center for use by pilots, crew, and air traffic controllers who are otherwise afraid to make reports of sightings. NARCAP scientists collect and analyze high-quality data to further understand the fundamental nature of all kinds of unidentified aerial phenomena that may pose a threat to aviation safety. The group’s technical and science advisors with extensive aviation and aeronautic experience from about a dozen countries, along with other specialists ranging from geophysicists and research psychologists to meteorologists and astrophysicists, contribute research and publish “Technical Reports” on the group’s website.
I have been privileged to come to know Dr. Haines, and he invited me to sit in on a number of private NARCAP annual meetings over the years, the last one being in July 2008. I was honored to meet many of these dedicated professionals, who are doing an outstanding job despite the obstacles they face. Papers and ongoing research are presented at these round-table gatherings, and strategies are discussed for acquiring greater accessibility to the aviation community, making sure that NARCAP remains distinct from activist UFO groups where
Dr. Haines, who has authored more than seventy papers in leading scientific journals and published over twenty-five U.S. government reports for NASA, specialized in human performance, technology design, and human-computer interaction while at NASA. Having contributed to the U.S. Gemini and Apollo projects, as well as Skylab and Space Station, in 1988 he retired from his twenty-one years as a senior aerospace scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. Subsequently he worked as a senior research scientist for the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science, RECOM Technologies, Inc., and Raytheon Corp. at NASA Ames Research Center until 2001.
Haines unexpectedly became interested in the UFO subject back in the 1960s, when he was conducting research involving flight simulators for NASA. As he explains it, commercial pilots would volunteer to come into his facility and fly the simulators for studies on aviation safety, avionics, and many other areas. “From time to time a pilot would offer to tell me about an experience he had that just blew me away,” Haines said in a 2009 interview. 3 Although he had heard of UFOs at the time, he had absolutely no interest in them. “I heard more and more stories from these very credible witnesses, so it began to catch my attention. I said to myself, ‘I can explain these things; they’re all natural phenomena or misidentified phenomena within the human eye,’ which I knew a lot about from studying human vision and optics. So I set out as a skeptic to disprove the whole thing. But the more I looked into the subject seriously, the more convinced I became that there was something there. Something that deserved to be looked at. Yet none of my colleagues were doing so.” He then started systematically collecting data and eyewitness reports, and giving a great deal of thought to the analysis, and has been doing so ever since. Today, he has developed an international database of over 3,400 firsthand UFO sightings by commercial, military, and private pilots, with special attention to cases where aviation safety is compromised, as distinct from sightings during which the objects have no effect on an aircraft or its crew.
In fact, for years, he and his associates have been attempting to alert the aviation community to the effects of unknown aerial phenomena on aircraft safety. In 2001, along with executive director Ted Roe, he established the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena 4 (NARCAP), a respected international nonprofit research organization serving also as a confidential reporting center for use by pilots, crew, and air traffic controllers who are otherwise afraid to make reports of sightings. NARCAP scientists collect and analyze high-quality data to further understand the fundamental nature of all kinds of unidentified aerial phenomena that may pose a threat to aviation safety. The group’s technical and science advisors with extensive aviation and aeronautic experience from about a dozen countries, along with other specialists ranging from geophysicists and research psychologists to meteorologists and astrophysicists, contribute research and publish “Technical Reports” on the group’s website.
I have been privileged to come to know Dr. Haines, and he invited me to sit in on a number of private NARCAP annual meetings over the years, the last one being in July 2008. I was honored to meet many of these dedicated professionals, who are doing an outstanding job despite the obstacles they face. Papers and ongoing research are presented at these round-table gatherings, and strategies are discussed for acquiring greater accessibility to the aviation community, making sure that NARCAP remains distinct from activist UFO groups where
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