Do aliens exist? The question has occupied the curiosity of mankind for decades, if not centuries. In the meantime, man’s curiosity about extraterrestrial life has spurred numerous theories about alien visits to earth.
On one hand, Hollywood has offered an array of adaptations of extraterrestrial life that range from the friendly, “E.T.”, to the enormous and terrifying, like those seen on the big screen in movies like “War of the Worlds” and “Cloverfield.”
On the other hand, so-called UFO experts and eye witnesses have offered treatises and visual documentation with shaky video, alleging the existence of aliens that often teeter between being fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Nonetheless the question remains. Does life exist outside our planet?
On September 27, in a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, one veteran UFO researcher and a handful of ex-Air Force officers offered an explanation that links aliens and UFOs to nuclear weapons and the Cold War. All seven ex-members of the Air Force signed affidavits recounting their close encounters with the third kind. But one similarity persists in all accounts: they took place at nuclear sites.
“This planet is being visited by beings from another world who for whatever reason, have taken an interest in the nuclear arms race that began at the end of WWII,” said UFO expert Richard Hastings during the press conference.
For example, on the night of December 7, 1980, Charles Halt – then the deputy base commander at the Anglo-American base, RAF-Bentwaters in Suffolk, England – led a team to investigate mysterious lights that were sighted around the base. According to his affidavit, they discovered an object that looked like a “large eye, red in color, moving through the trees, “that appeared to be dripping something that looked like molten metal.”
In the winter of 1963, Jerome Nelson was a deputy missile combat crew commander at Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico. One night while on alert duty in the launch capsule of Atlas Site 9, he received a call from an apparently very frightened security guard above ground, who reported a bright round-shaped object hovering above the site. That same scenario occurred several times that winter.
Robert Salas, in March of 1967, was a 1st lieutenant in the Air Force, stationed at Malmstrom AFB, Montana and assigned to the 490th Missile Squadron. His job was to monitor the readiness of ten nuclear missiles and launch them, if given the order.
On the night of March 24 (the date is his best guess), a member of the flight security team reported seeing a “large, glowing, pulsating, red, oval shaped object.” Salas then reportedly told the security guard not to allow anything within the perimeter fence. That is when, according to Salas’ account, all ten of the missiles under his watch were suddenly rendered disabled.
“Declassified government documents and witness testimony from former or retired U.S. Military personnel confirm beyond any doubt, the reality of ongoing UFO incursions at nuclear-weapons sites,” said Hastings.
He went on to say that over the last 30 years, he has interviewed 120 ex-military men who have all described UFO sightings at nuclear sites across the country.
When contacted by The Daily Caller, Hastings declined to be interviewed for this article, citing a busy schedule.
“UFOs have been visiting nuclear weapons installments all over the states for the last 40 years,” Dirk Vander Ploeg, publisher of UFO Digest, told The Daily Caller. “It has driven the personnel of these places absolutely crazy.”
Vander Ploeg, who calls the lack of attention to these sightings “definitely” a cover-up or conspiracy, said the reason for lack of government disclosure of the incidents is because of the long-held belief that such knowledge would result in widespread public hysteria and panic.
Despite that, Vander Ploeg said he believes there will be some kind of disclosure soon, pointing out that other countries like France, Great Britain, and Brazil have already acknowledged the existence of UFOs. Moreover, according the Vander Ploeg, the public has been conditioned for accepting the existence of UFOs so that “when something does land on the White House lawn, we don’t panic”.
“I don’t think they [aliens] are here other than to warn us as to how insignificant we are,” said Vander Ploeg. “They are here and have been for a long time.” Not only that, he said, but they also have an agenda that is still a mystery to the human race.
“We’re lab rats and they’re professors,” he added. “We have no real defense against them.”
“Whoever are aboard these craft are sending a signal to Washington and Moscow, among others, that we are playing with fire,” said Hastings toward the end of the press conference. “That the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons threaten the human race and the integrity of the planetary environment.”
