THE OPEN FIELD INVESTIGATORS GUIDE: PART ONE

           THE  OPEN FIELD INVESTIGATORS GUIDE: PART ONE

Article by: Dennis Stacy  [begins on page 47 OMNI Magazine March 95]

A guide for the serious UFO investigator seeking to understand and explain one of the great mysteries of the century.

Editor's Note: This is the first of twelve chapters in the Omni Open Book Field Investigator's Guide, the ultimate tool kit for hunting UFO's. In his first installment, Dennis Stacy tells UFO hunters how to locate "prey" ‑‑ in other words, a UFO worth investigating at all.

THE NEED FOR A GUIDE

     On November 2, 1957, at about 10:00 p.m. ‑‑ long before the world atlarge knew of it ‑‑ the Soviet's launched their second dog‑carrying Sputnik. An hour later, on the flat plains of the Texas panhandle, near the otherwise unremarkable town of Levelland, ranch hands Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz encountered something that forever changed their lives.

According to Saucedo's signed statement, "I was traveling north and

west on Route 116, driving my truck. At about four miles out of

Levelland, I saw a big flame to my right front. I thought it was

lightning." The white and yellow torpedo‑shaped object, Saucedo went

on to say, apparently made his truck's motor stop and the headlights

fail. Traveling at some 600 to 800 miles an hour, he estimated, the

object generated so much heat he "had to hit the ground."

Over the next two hours, Patrolman A.J. Fowler would receive at

least a dozen more calls, all of them from independant witnesses re‑

porting much the same thing. For instance, at 12:05 a.m., a 19‑year

old Texas Tech freshman said he was driving his car nine miles east

of Levelland when the motor suddenly "started cutting out like it

was out of gas." The headlights dimmed, then went out altogether after

the car rolled to a stop. The student raised the hood but could find

nothing obviously wrong with the engine or electrical wiring. Return‑

ing to the driver's seat, he now noticed an egg‑shaped object, flat on

the bottom, sitting astride the highway in front of him. It glowed

bluish‑green, he reported, and looked to be 125 feet long and made of

an aluminum like material with no visible details or markings. Fright‑

ened, he tried turning the motor over again, but the car would not

start. Shortly, the UFO rose "almost straight up," disappearing "in a

split instant." He tried the ignition again; the car started, and the

lights came on, and he drove home, although he did not report the in‑

cident to Fowler ‑‑ "for fear of ridicule" ‑‑ until the following

afternoon, after his parents told him he should.

Nationwide, the Levelland sightings garnered almost as much press

attention as the new Soviet satellite, eventually forcing the Air

Force's Project Blue Book to send an investigator to the site.

(Project Blue Book, first under the auspices of the Air Technical

Intelligence Center, or the ATIC, and later run out of the Foreign

Technology Division, was the official Air Force agency charged with

investigating UFO's. It's immediate predecessors, also associated with

the Air Force, were Project Sign and Project Grudge.) According to the

now‑deceased astronomer J.Allen Hynek of Northwestern University,

then Project Blue Book's scioentific consultant, the Levelland invest‑

igation, conducted by a member of the 1006th Air Intelligence Service

Squadron (AISS) was cursory at best. Writing in his now classic book,

The UFO Experience (Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, 1972), Hynek

states, "I was told that the Blue Book investigation consisted of

the appearance of one man in civilian clothes at the sheriff's office

at about 11:45 a.m. on November 5; he made two auto excursions during

the day and then told Sheriff Clem that he was finished."

According to Temple University historian David Jacobs, author of

another classic volume, The UFO Controversy in America (Indiana Univ‑

ersity Press, Bloomington, 1975), "the officer failed to interview

nine of the fifteen witnesses and also erroneously stated that

lightning had been in the area at the time of the sightings." Indeed,

the Air Force and Project Blue Book ultimately attributed the incidents

to "weather phenomenon of [an] electrical nature, generally classified as "ball lightning" or "St. Elmo's Fire,"

caused by stormy conditions in the area, including mist, rain, thunder‑

storms, and lightning." The engine stalls and headlight failures? "Wet

electrical circuits," said the Air Force. "Privately," Jacobs observes,

"Blue Book officers believed the Levelland sightings were obviously an

example of mass suggestion."

The upshot of the ball lightning pronouncement was an angry spate of

criticisms by editorial writers and the growing legion of civilian UFO

organizations, charging the Air Force with ignorance or incompetence at

best and a purposeful cover‑up of the UFO phenomenon at worst. The out‑

rage was exacerbated when 500 more UFO cases poured into Project Blue

Book over the next couple of months, making it the most explosive UFO

year since 1952.

In response to all the brouhaha, the Air Force launched an investigat‑

ion of it's own UFO operation. The recommedation? That some 20 men be

assigned to a UFO detail. What's more, suggested the Air Technical In‑

telligence Center at Wright‑Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. Ohio,

where the study was done, the Air Force would do well to create a

standard UFO kit containing an operating procedure manual and other

tools necessary for investigating the mysterious, alleged craft. That

way, when the 20 UFO experts went out on assignment, there would be

no more foolish errors. They'd know what to do.

The report also recommended that the Air Force investigate press reports

and not just those reaching Project Blue Book through direct channels,

including Air Force pilots or radar operators. It was assumed that such

actions might deflect civilian criticism and at the same time drastcally

reduce the number of reports classified "unknown" or "insufficient data."

Indeed, as of November 1958, these two categories were accounting for 20

percent of all UFO reports received to date.

Unfortunately, the staff recommendations were never implemented. The

notion of a UFO tool kit was quiockly quashed, along with any idea of a

rapid deployment team. Instead, Project Blue Book limped along much as

it had before, understaffed and underfunded. Press clippings were stuff‑

ed into boxes and later thrown away. Letters and reports from the general

public generally went unanswered and univestigated.

Even so, from the Summer of 1947 until December 19, 1969, Air Force rep‑

resentatives amassed 12,618 official case reports of UFO's defined by the

Air Force as "any aerial object or phenomenon which the observer is unable

to identify."

(Hynek would later amend the definition of a UFO to refer to any flying

objects which "remain unidentified after close scrutiny of all available

evidence by persons who are technically capable of making a common sense

identification, if one is possible.") Of the 12,000 plus cases studdied,

701, or almost 6 percent were classified "unknown."

Those cases that were investigated ‑‑ like Levelland ‑‑ were typically

looked into lackadaisically when they were looked into at all. The Air

Force also indulged in a little creative bookkeeping. Those cases

classified as "probable" or "insufficient data" were counted on the

solved side of the ledger instead of the unsolved side, skewing the

percentage of true unknowns. A growing number of critics contended that,

far from being an investigative agency, Project Blue Book amounted to

little more than a public relations ploy, one designed to downplay the

phenomenon's prevalence and possible importance.

Even Hynek himself was ultimately disillusioned by his experience as

scientific consultant. "I can safely say that the whole time I was with

the Air Force, we never had anything that resembled a really good

scientific dialogue on the subject," he said shortly before his death in

1986.

Project Blue Book's death knell was sounded in the

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spring of 1966, in the wake of another Air Force boondoogle. At a press

conference in March of that year, Hynek attributed some intriguing

Michigan sightings to "swamp gas" ‑‑ the spontaneous ignition of methane.

The resulting editorial uproar pictured the Air Force team more as

buffoons than villains. If the ball lightning and mass hysteria explain‑

ation of almost a decade earlier had been the first straw in the public's

negative perception of the Air Force's handling of the UFO investigations,

swamp gas was the straw that broke the camel's back.

     Before the decade was up, the Air Force would be out of the UFO business for good. One driving force: a controversial University of Colorado study directed by physicist Edward U. Condon. Condon's largely negative report summary concluded that chasing UFO's was a waste of time. Indeed, UFO's seemed shrouded in secrecy, Condon declared, only because the Air Force

resisted "premature publication of incomplete studies of reports."

Thrilled by Condon's publicized pronouncements ‑‑ few reporters were about

to wade through a 965 page report in search of any UFO gems ‑‑ the Air

Force seized the offered brass ring. On December 17, 1969, in the wake of

the Colorado/Condon study, Secretary of the Air Force Robert C. Seamans,

Jr., announced the closure of Project Blue Book, saying that it's con‑

tinuance "cannot be justified either on the ground of national security

or in the interest of science."

Hynek was one of several scientists who saw the situation differently.

"When the long awaited solution to the UFO problem comes," he said, I

believe that it will prove to be not merely the next small step in the

march of science, but a mighty and totally unexpected quantum jump."

                    A Civilian Blue Book?

                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the Air Force out of the picture since 1969, the burden of invest‑

igating the UFO phenomenon has largely fallen on the shoulders of indiv‑

iduals and a handful of civilian UFO organizations. While individuals

are hardly hampered by bureaucratic rules, public relations consider‑

ations, and other policy requirements, they can only do so much on their

own. Moreover, the weight of their public pronouncements is linked, dir‑

ectly or indirectly, to their personal and professional credentials. It's

one thing for an established astronomer, such as Hynek, to speak out

about the phenomenon in general; it's another thing altogether for, say,

an advertising executive or fast food clerk to claim that Earth is being

invaded by genetic engineers from another planet or galaxy.

The same is also true of UFO organizations, which are only as good and

efficient as their collective members. One overripe member may not spoil

the whole barrel, but he or she can certainly detract from the overall

respectability of the subject by his or her unbridled comments about what

the UFO phenomenon does or does not ultimately mean. As Hynek and others

have been quick to point out, the U in UFO stands for "Unidentified,"

not necessarily for extraterrestrial spaceships and alien abductors in

that order. All three may or may not be related. Some UFOs, however, are

almost certainly unrecognized or little understood natural phenomena,

swamp gas and ball lightning very possibly included.

The one undeniable truth about the UFO phenomenon ‑‑ Air Force pronounce‑

ments aside ‑‑ is that further investigation is still required. According

to one Gallup Poll, some 15 million adult Americans have at one time or

another in their lives witnessed what they believed to be a UFO. Compare

that figure with the 12,618 UFO reports the Air Force collected over 22

years, extrapolate it worldwide, and it's painfully clear that the UFO

phenomenon represents both the most prevalent and underreported anomalous

phenomena of this or any other century. Even if UFOs aren't a three

dimensional, solid, physical object, any student of human psychology or

sociologyworth his or her salt should be suitably intrigued as to why

humans continue to report UFOs in vast numbers in the absence of any

unusual stimuli. To say that the best interests of science will not be

served by further study of the UFO phenomenon ‑‑ in all its myriad,

mysterious manifestations ‑‑ is to say that science should concern itself

only with things humans don't do, as one of the things they do do is

report UFOs‑‑even in the face of peer and public ridicule for doing so.

If human behavior isn't of scientific interest, then we might as well

drop the soft science disciplines of anthropology, perceptual psychology,

and social interaction from the academic curriculum.

In installments to follow, Omni will provide you with the UFO tool kit the

Air Force never produced. The Project Open Book tool kit will allow you to

conduct your own investigation of the persistent UFO phenomenon. It will

contain tips and techniques about locating and classifying UFO reports.

It will tell you, precisely, how to investigate UFO reports. And it will

tell you how to report and then investigate a sighting of your own. You'll

learn how to interview witnesses, how to collect physical evidence (where

indicated), and how to sniff out potential hoaxes, You'll

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be instructed in the finer arts of audio and photographic analysis, both

still and video. And yo will be provided with the names and numbers of

information sources, both print and electronic. Hopefully, when your own

research is done, you'll share it with your colleagues. Collectively, we

may be able to do what the Air Force couldn't.

                     Overcoming the Ridicule Factor

                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In order to investigate a UFO case, you must, of course, first find one.

Despite the perceived plethora of sightings, this is not always as easy

as it seems. For one thing, the overwhelming majority of UFO sightings

are never reported. The reason for thios reluctance is fairly straight‑

forward: fear of ridicule. Hynek lamented this situation in a letter

written to the magazine, Physics Today, in which he solicited UFO re‑

ports from scientifically trained observers. "It has been my estimate

over the past 20 years," Hynek noted, "that for every UFO report made,

there were at least 10 that went unreported. Evidence for this comes

from the Gallup Poll, the many UFO reports I subsequently learned of that

were not reported to the Air Force, and from my own queries. There has

always been a great reluctance to report in the face of almost certain

ridicule. It would seem that the more trained and sophisticated the

observer, the less prone he is to report unless he could be assured of

anonymity as well as respect for his report."

Many respondants only reinforced Hynek's fears. One report, from a man

who is now a professional astronomer, had gone unreported for 11 years,

precisely because of a reluctance to face ridicule or embarassment by

peers ‑‑ and this despite the fact that his own sighting was corroborated

by several other credible witnesses, including at least two police

officers.

In the summer of 1960, near Walkerton, Ontario, the story went, the man

had observed a ball of light hovering near a tree. As he and several of

his relatives approached to take a picture, "it noticed us, and noise‑

lessly accelerating at a very high rate, headed almost directly south,

disappearing over the horizon in about two and a half seconds."

Yet another astronomer had failed to report a pertinent observation out

of embarassment as well. To sustain his self image as the ultimate

scientist, he "preferred to regard his sighting as being of an unusual

physical phenomenon," according to Hynek, "rather than admit the pos‑

sibility, perhaps even to himself, that it was a genuinely new empirical

observation."

Given the embarassment that seizes the best, most respectable UFO wit‑

nesses, any investigator worth his or her salt must learn to cope with

the "ridicule factor" before an investigation in earnest can begin. But

given the right circumstances, the right individual, and the right

approach, the curtain of ridicule can be overcome, as the large response

to Hynek's letter in Physic's Today clearly indicates. For this to hapen,

the witness/reporter must have confidence in his or her confidante, as

Physics Today respondants clearly did in Hynek after seing his credent‑

ials. Even with such confidence, moreover, the UFO witness often must

still be drawn out. Few of those embarrassed by a close encounter, after

all, will volunteer the information unless asked to do so.

Given the ridicule factor, the UFO hunter in search of a case to invest‑

igate must follow two basic rules: First, to learn about someone's UFO

experience, it's best to ask. Even a lifelong friend may be reluctant to

broach the subject of a UFO sighting unless drawn out. And second, when

you do ask, ask those who have the most confidence in you ‑‑ your family

members and closest friends. A complete stranger is likely to react with

serious reservation when another stranger arrives suddenly on his door

step, asking questions about UFOs. (The stranger the UFO experience this

subject has had, moreover, the higher his or her resistance will be.)

An example from my own experience may be instructive. In the early 1980s,

I was hired to write a weekly column for the San Antonio Express News

about unusual events that had taken place in the state of Texas over the

years. The first six months or so went well enough, but inevitably the

scramble for material, or at least significantly different material, set

in. By October (the series had begun the previous December), I was ask‑

ing friends and acquaintances ‑‑ except for "Rudy" ‑‑ if anything strange

or unusual had ever happened to them.

My reasons for not asking Rudy were obvious. He taught history at a local

community college, and the shelves of his personal library in a prominant

neighborhood on the north side of town were overburdened with straight

literature, including some 10,000 historical biographies. I had worked

with him on several occasions and was well aware of his disdain for any‑

thing unusual ‑‑ typified by his attitudes toward mysticism, astrology,

and anything else that remotely smacked of the occult. I assumed this

would naturally include flying saucers and UFOs, too. But I also knew that

he had been a B‑24 bombardier during World War II and the heyday of the so called "foo‑fighter" phenomenon, in which glowing balls of light had perplexed both Allied and Axis aircrews during the closing nights of the war.

On the extremely remote possibility that he might have encountered a foo

fighter, I asked Rudy if anything strange had ever happened to him during

his flying days in the war. "No, nothing ever did," he said matter of

factly, and that, I assumed, was naturally that. After a brief pause,

though, he said, "but last November, I was driving back from Austin ..,"

and promptly launched into his personal UFO story. Rudy had a sister who

lived in Austin, 75 miles north of San Antonio on Interstate Highway 35,

whom he frequently visited. He had been returning to San Antonio alone

late one night, probably after Thanksgiving, and was just south of New

Braunfels, about 20 miles from his own home. The sky was overcast, with

a ceiling of about a thousand feet, and traffic on the highway was rela‑

tively light, although there were other cars and trucks in both the north

and southbound lanes of the four lane highway.

Rudy first became aware of something visible in the upper portion of his

windshield, but continued driving while leaning forward to look up

through the curved glass. To his amazement, he told me, what looked like

a flying saucer flew into view, travelling slowly southward and directly

over the right hand lane he was in. He pulled off onto the shoulder‑‑the

only car to do so‑‑stopped, and stepped outside for a better view.

The object was underneath the overcast, probably 800 or 900 feet overhead.

"I can see it clear as daylight now," he said, a year after the fact. "It

was perfectly circular and just under 100 feet in diameter. The outer rim

consisted of a broad flange divided into what might be flaps or at least

individual segments. An antenna hung down from the middle of the object,

and the central portion, the area inside the flaps or flanges, slowly

rotated on its own axis as the whole continued southward down the highway."

A short distance away, Rudy told me, the vegicle initiated a sharp U turn

and started back up the north side of the highway, slowly rising as it did.

Eventually it entered the clouds and disappeared from view. Rudy waited a

few more minutes to see if it would reappear. When it didn't, he got in

his car and drove home. "All the way home," he said, `I kept thinking.

Well, that's it. I'll get up in the morning and the headline will read

"UFO Mystery Solved!'" But if anyone else had seen or reported Rudy's UFO

it certainly wasn't in the San Antonio papers, and it was almost certainly

nothing Rudy himself would ever bring up in casual cocktail or coffee con‑

versation unless directly confronted.

Almost as remarkable as the sighting itself, perhaps was Rudy's reaction

to it. True, it was unusual and unexpected, apparently a flying craft of

technology radically different from his old B‑24 Liberator ‑‑ but also

nothing to lose a night's sleep over. Class was tomorrow night, and life

went on. Besides, who does the average citizen call to report a UFO,

especially when that UFO has already disappeared into the clouds?

One might say, then, that the UFO investigation begins at home. Ask your

parents, your husband or wife, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, your

neighborsand acquaintances. Many of these cases may only be anecdotal;

others may involve data‑‑such as the names of other witnesses and a

possible paper trail‑‑that can be used to fill in and corroborate the

historical record, if nothing else.

If the witness you wish to approach is a total stranger, we suggest you

do so with kid gloves. It would help if you had some credentials‑‑say a

few UFO cases you have investigated in the past‑‑to boost your credibility.

Otherwise, you should utilize what, in the vernacular of the Nineties, we

call "networking." For instance, if a friend has witnessed something un‑

usual, and then refers you to a second witness, the second witness know‑

ing your connection to the case, may be more willing to talk. Above all,

do not

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approach potential witnesses, especially strangers, with theories in‑

volving aliens and extraterrestrial ships. You will be far more likely

to gain confidence if you say, simply, "I understand the other night

you witnessed something a bit out of the ordinary. Iv'e been collecting

some information on this and wonder if I could speak to you as well."

(This will be covered in greater detail in an upcoming chapter on in‑

terviewing witnesses.)

                          UFOs In Print

                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you find it hard to get your leads from people, you may be interested

to learn that a countless variety of fascinating cases‑‑most merely re‑

ported but not thoroughly investigated‑‑are described in print. Coverage

of UFO sightings by the nation's major daily newspapers tends to vary

widely, depending on whether or not UFOs are in vogue at a particular

time. A much more consistent source of UFO sighting reports is the small

community daily or weekly newspaper. So many sightings have been reported

in the Gulf Breeze, Florida area in recent years, for example, that the

local paper, The Islander (P.O. Box 292, Gulf Breeze, Florida 32562) has

been offering ail subscriptions to investigators.

Another excellent source of current UFO sightings in localities around

the United States is the U.F.O. Newsclipping Service, edited and published

by Lucius Farish, Route 1, Box 220, Plumerville, Arkansas 72127. Each 20

page issue consists of copies of newspaper clippings submitted by Farish's

far flung web of correspondents and clippers. It regularly includes

Canadian and English newspaper clippings, as well as articles translated

from foreign language papers.

Numerous annual national and regional UFO conferences also provide a rich

source of contemporary reports‑‑and often the original witnesses them‑

selves. To find out about local conferences and newsletters which may

alert you to cases open for investigation in your area, you may contact:

The Mutual UFO Network of Seguin, Texas. MUFON holds an annual symposium

every July; this year's will be in Seattle. For more information, write

international director Walter Andrus, Jr., at MUFON, 103 Oldtowne Road,

Seguin, Texas 78155‑4099. For other case material, you can subscribe to

the MUFON UFO Journal. The J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO studies, 2457

West Peterson Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60659. The center also publishes

the annual Journal of UFO Studies and the bi‑monthly International UFO

Reporter. The nonprofit Fund for UFO Research at Box 277, Mount Rainier,

Maryland 20712, which sells copies of its reports.

Finally, for those of you online, the Internet is a gresat place to

learn of UFO sightings in your area. As you traipse from one bulletin board

to the next, you will read the postings of local residents whose stories

have never been reported before. You can correspond with these witnesses

through E‑mail, gathering potentially interesting data, possibly discover‑

ing a case you feel is worth further investment of your time.

                          Blast From The Past

                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you can't find a suitable case in periodical literature, at conferences,

or online, moreover, you might try digging around in the past. "Consult

your local library or the major archives," advises Jan Aldrich, a UFO

researcher recently retired fronm the military. "You'll probably be sur‑

prised by the treasure trove of uninvestigated cases."

With a grant from the Maryland based Fund for UFO Research, Aldrich is

presentlyre‑examining UFO press clippings from the year 1947, popularly

perceived by the public as the year the modern UFO era began, following

the sighting by pilot Kenneth Arnold of nine silvery, crescent shaped ob‑

jects near Mount Rainier, Washington, on June 24, 1947.

Much of Aldrich's present work replicates an earlier 1967 study done by

investigator Ted Bloecher

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while with the now defunct National Investigations Committee on Aerial

Phenomena. Bloecher's "Report on the UFO Wave of 1947" was, essentially,

a collection and analysis of press clippings demonstrating that Arnold

was hardly alone in his experience. In fact, UFOs were being seen and

reported in large numbers up and down the country, from Washington to

Maine.

But Aldrich's ongoing investigation delves even further. "Good as

Bloecher's study was," says Aldrich, "it wasn't complete. For example,

he didn't include any newspapers from Montana or from many provinces in

Canada."

By examining the Helena, Montana, Independent Record, Aldrich discovered

that a local flurry of UFO sightings was just getting under way, even as

the national flap spurred by Arnold's sighting was fading in other areas

of the country. Aldrich also discovered that UFOs continued to be re‑

ported in Canada in great numbers. "In fact," he notes, "the Canadian wave

was even more pronounced in terms of population density than what was

happening in the United States."

From a microfilm copy of Project Blue Book files scheduled to be destroyed but advertently discovered at the last minute by a university researcher, Aldrich was able to locate another unpublished discovery:

2,000 to 3,000 letters written by U.S. citizens in the wake of an April 1952 article about UFOs by Bob Ginna published in Life magazine. "Blue Book was swamped at the time," says Aldrich, "and then director Edward Ruppelt apparently didn't care about the letters or trying to follow them up. They were just stuffed into a file, which, fortunately, someone put on microfilm." The majority of the letters, says Aldrich, consist of individual theories or explanations for the UFO phenomenon, "but

about 20 percent were personal case reports, the earliest dating back to 1913."

Inteestingly, letters addressed simply "Flying Saucers, Washington, DC,"eventually found their way into the file. In toto, the letters indicate

that, while Arnold may have gotten the headlines and generated the

furor, the UFO phenomenon itself was arguably around much earlier. It

also proves that one individual, armed with nothing more than a micro‑

film reader, can still ake a difference in our eventual understanding of

what may well be one of this century's most misunderstood mysteries.

                          Choosing Your Case

                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a UFO investigator, you will soon find that, with the right approach

and the right reading material, you will unearth endless instances of

reported UFOs. But the truth of the matter is, not all reports are

created equal. For instance, you may want to delve into the past, but if

all the witnesses to a given sighting have died, and if there is little

documentation, there may not be much you can do. A UFO reported by your

friend, a college student, while drunk and staring at the stars, is not

as compelling as a UFO reported by three separate individuals ‑‑ such as

a policeman, an astronomy professor, and a teacher ‑‑ while stone sober.

If the second UFO has left any physical evidence ‑‑ from a burnt area

of land to some blips on the airport's radar screen‑‑so much the better.

As you hunt down UFO cases you wish to investigate, you will also find

it is better to persue those closest to home. Indeed, a thorough UFO

investigation is time intensive. It often requires multiple witnesses.

You may need to visit the site of the report at various times of the day

and year, sometimes with specialists in tow. What's more, the input of

those well versed in local habits, history, geography, and atmospheric

phenomena may be invaluable to your research.

For instance, a few years back, hundreds of witnesses reported a weird,

boomerang‑shaped UFO over Westchester County and other parts of New

York. It later turned out that at least some of the reports were made

when pilot hoaxers using a local airport in the town of Stormville

decided to fly in boomerang formation. Someone making a few phone calls

from London could not have learned about the hoax as easily‑‑if at all

as the local investigators on the scene who ultimately did. The takehome

message is this: if you live in New Jersey, it makes more sense to in‑

vestigate cases in Newark or Asbury Park than in Santa Barbara.

                          Starting A File

                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This chapter has given you enough material to get started. We suggest

that you empty a file draw, get a few folders out, and start collecting.

We'd like you to spend the next few weeks just keeping your eyes and

ears open. Speak to friends and relatives. Read the local paper. Scour

to Internet. Anytime something of interest enters your field of vision,

clip it, load it onto a disk, or jot it down, and put it in your draw.

At the end of this period, you may have a case‑‑a completely original

case, never before investigated by anyone‑‑you feel is worthy of your

time and effort.

Next month, in the second installment of the Omni Open book Field

Investigator's Guide, we'll provide you with some tools of the trade,

so your own investigation may begin.