In Search of Real Ufos

By Milton Hourcade

The book presents a serious approach to the UFO phenomenon, from a scientific standpoint, looking for a new way to solve the mystery.

The book begins by presenting the main characteristics of UFO phenomena. It then discusses Orbs and Rods, provides scientific explanations to widely reported UFO cases, a deep analysis of abductions, and an extensive consideration to the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis. It includes a review of the famous Socorro, NM incident, followed by an interview with Dr. Jill Tarter (SETI). Dr. Massimo Teodorani, an Italian astrophysicist, contributes a report about the Hessdalen Lights as well as his his fully loaded scientific paper on "Physics from the UFO Data". The book concludes with a retrospective and prospectivelook at Ufology, and a proposal for a new approach to the study of UFOs.

A must read for anyone seriously interested in UFOs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463413521

Milton Hourcade

Milton W. Hourcade, (M.Div.) is an Uruguayan-American who started dealing with the Unusual Aerial Phenomena when he co-founded in his native country the Unidentified Flying Objects Investigation Center, on April, 1958. As such, he has personally investigated hundreds of UFO reports and has dedicated himself to study deeply the subject. The Mutual UFO Network named him as Research Specialist, and was the representative in Uruguay of the Center for UFO Studies, personally appointed by Dr. Joseph Allen Hynek, considered at the time the most important expert on UFOs in the world. Mr. Hourcade was a member of the UNICAT Project, directed by Dr. Willy Smith, and is a member of Project 1947, which is a work of historical research directed by Jan Aldrich. Lecturer and author of three books in Spanish, he won the International Zurich Award from the Fundacion Anomalia of Spain. Since April of 2008, he started the Unusual Aerial Phenomena Study Group, U.A.P.S.G. which is an international organization that get together a very selective group of scientists in Astronomy, Astrophysics, Biology, Geology, and experts in Communications, Computer Science, Photography, U.A.P.s, and Astronomy amateurs. Twelve countries from the Americas and Europe are represented currently in the Group, and its expansion continues.

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© 2011 by Milton Hourcade. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 08/08/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1353-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1352-1 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE U.A.P.s

THE LACK OF RATIONALITY OR THE WILL TO THINK IN THE EXTRAORDINARY

A FICTITIOUS CASE FROM ARGENTINA

ARGENTINA: A FERTILE FIELD FOR UFOLOGY AND MORE

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANOMALOUS LUMINOUS PHENOMENA

THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE HESSDALEN LIGHTS HAVE AN EXPLANATION—A REPORT BY ASTROPHYSICIST DR. MASSIMO TEODORANI

LET’S TALK ABOUT ORBS AND RODS

CHINA U.F.O. OF JULY 7, 2010—SPECIAL REPORT

TRANSFORMERS IN THE AIR

CATTLE MUTILATIONS

THE SOCORRO, NM INCIDENT REVIEWED

A REVEALING DOCUMENT

ABDUCTIONS BY EXTRATERRESTRIALS?

A NOTE OF GOOD HUMOR

22 THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL HYPOTHESIS SCIENTIFICALLY CONSIDERED

THE RARENESS OF EARTH

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE TASK

WHEN A SCIENTIST GOES WRONG

PHYSICS: IS A NEW PARADIGM NEEDED?

MORE THAN 400 EXOPLANETS

BEING NOT ALONE, BUT LONELY

HAWKING WARNS: ALIENS COULD BE DANGEROUS

IS THERE A MYSTERY? . . .

AND . . . IF UFOS EXIST?

PHYSICS FROM THE U.F.O. DATA

REFERENCES

APPENDIX: SOME EXAMPLES OF RECURRENT UFO PHENOMENA ON THE WEB

NOTE

A RETROSPECTIVE AND PROSPECTIVE LOOK AT UFOLOGY

COMING TOGETHER FOR SOME WISE CRITERIA

AN INVITATION TO JOIN THE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My special appreciation goes to astrophysicist Prof. Massimo Teodorani for his authorization to include as a chapter, his paper titled Physics from the UFO Data

And I want to thank my friend and colleague Ms. M.L.T. for her invaluable work that helped me to prepare adequately the material in this book.

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FOREWORD

What I am going to say is not circumstantial. It has been a very deeply rooted concept in me in more than 50 years dedicated to the investigation and study of the Unusual Aerial Phenomena.

This is a concept that I wrote in my book Elements of Ufology in 1989. I initiated the preface of the book with these words: A Ufologist is someone who does not live from UFOs but for UFOs.

I have scrupulously separated those who seriously, scientifically, with great devotion and dedication—and many times with scarce resources—dedicate their lives to the investigation and study of the anomalous aerial phenomena, from those who unscrupulously, with a clear interest in making money and without any respect for the truth or the people involved, have been miserable merchants of the U.A.P. subject.

I have always taken seriously the results of the investigation, the criteria and ideas of those who have been dedicated to understanding the topic from a scientific perspective. They sometimes could be wrong, but they will be always honest.

The merchants never deserved my attention except to denounce them as such. They do not deal with circumstances and cases that demand a serious consideration. The material they use is notoriously spurious or, in the best case, totally removed from reality, in such a way that it is impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt.

They have been historically the greatest enemies of a respectable consideration of the U.A.P. subject.

It is to them that the rest of us owe a very important role in the instillation of the idea that U.A.P. equals extra-terrestrial spaceship.

It is because of them that the issue has not been taken seriously among the most respectable scientific and technological circles.

In my experience,—and surely in the experience of other serious and responsible investigators—the only way to have the attention and to get the cooperation of scientists and technicians to analyze some cases, is to draw a clear cut line between the merchants and the scholars. Between those who treat the issue of the Unusual Aerial Phenomena as a business, and those who with intellectual honesty and respectability, try to find the truth whatever it may be, without any conflicts of interest.

I urge all my readers to adhere to this fundamental concept.

It is—after all—a moral principle.

Just as a contaminated sample is of no use to the analyst in the laboratory; we cannot use contaminated information or allow it to contaminate the environment within which we want to develop a serious approach to the U.A.P.

Otherwise, we would be undermining our own efforts and making null and void our possible conclusions.

Milton W. Hourcade

Virginia, January 2011.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE U.A.P.s

Along the years, two characteristics seem to allow us to individualize and to portray the Unusual Aerial Phenomena.

The first, is that they are prominently and overwhelmingly a nocturnal phenomenon.

I do not need to mention the many statistics that support this conclusion.

Of course, someone can say that this characteristic is obvious because something shining in the sky is easier to see during the night than during the day.

Nevertheless, if the amount of UAPs were the same during the day as during the night we would almost be able to see them as we see airplanes during daylight.

But precisely, this is not what happens.

I would like to propose that there could exist a correlation of such a kind that the hours of darkness could be intrinsic to the nature of the phenomenon itself.

It could mean that the atmospheric and physical conditions of the areas of the Earth that are in darkness are the ones that generate, facilitate or propitiate the phenomenon.

The second,—not as recognized as the forementioned one—is that the U.A.P.s are transient.

We can say without hesitation that they appear from nowhere and disappear to nowhere.

The suddenness of the phenomenon, therefore, is something attached only to its very nature.

It is also a characteristic that could guide our thinking about how they come to exist and how they vanish.

Speculation could lead us to presume that it is something related to another dimension or the so-called multiverse.

But, before going so far, we can prudently think that there could be within the frame of a certain area in the atmosphere, the adequate conditions for the production or formation of the phenomenon and also later for its disappearance.

Some of the characteristics seem to be quite similar to those of mirages. Also to those of holograms, although this possibility is much more complicated from a practical viewpoint, but not impossible.

I hope that these brief reflections could inspire other people with much more knowledge than mine to share their viewpoints to deepen the issue.

THE LACK OF RATIONALITY OR THE WILL TO THINK IN THE EXTRAORDINARY

I confess I never seem to be surprised or astonished to finally end with the sensation that I am not able to understand.

But each time I find a scientist, or a technician, that confronted with witnesses who claim to have seen something unexplainable in the space, they directly conclude that what has been seen is a ufo with the connotation of something not from this Earth, this is for me absolutely nonsensical.

Why they do not apply rationality? Why do they not follow the Occam´s razor rule? Why to jump to extra-ordinary conclusions when there IS the possibility that what was seen—although strange as it could appear—was in high probability the product of human technology?

Why not to try honestly to search and find out what possible human technology experiment have been developed? What kind of secret project is in progress? What type of new UAV or airship could it be?

Of course it could take more time, and there is always the risk of not being able to find the answer. But at least it is rational, and it is more intellectually honest than simply say, Oh, it was something fantastic. Nothing we know of our technology.

Air and space technology is a field in permanent development. It is not something frozen or static. What we knew for sure until yesterday could be history today.

People who consider themselves to be open minded just because they are easily ready to ascribe to a technology not of this Earth something they can not immediately explain, really are very close minded. Because they do not consider even slightly the possibility that someone, somewhere, is trying to develop a new technology and is testing it, flying it, and experimenting with it.

Regretfully, in the field of Ufology, irrationality continues to be the most outstanding note.

That is why I prefer to talk about Unusual Aerial Phenomena, and to use reasoning to explain them.

A FICTITIOUS CASE FROM ARGENTINA

I was not surprised when I realized that this came from Argentina.

And I sincerely regret to say this because there are serious and respectable Argentinian investigators, yet these are the things that—sadly—get notoriety.

Regretfully, it appears that the imagination, the will to believe—above all—and also the will to get public notoriety are irrepressible for some people there.

From those factors, has emerged on October 5, 2009, the tale of a cow that allegedly was abducted by a U.F.O., documented in just one digital photography that was enhanced afterwards to obtain some complementary images.

The notorious contradictions between the characteristics of the photos and the descriptions of the witnesses clearly point to a tale fabricated by them after seeing the pictures.

Did they contact some responsible investigators? No. The first thing they did was to call a TV station looking for an interview which, of course, happened.

Many days later, they got in contact with local investigators.

But, as usual, the videos were put on YouTube so that anyone who likes to believe in extraterrestrials could find another piece of evidence.

The argument for the tale of this young couple of Argentinians is not new.

Already in YouTube there is a joking video done using Computer Graphics, and another one of 1983—probably from Japan—, although it has been on YouTube since October 5, 2008.

See: YouTube—"UFO Cow Abduction video uncovered from Governmental Sources" and UFO Cow Abduction by Aliens on 1983

All in all, what appears in just one picture is a rod generated by an insect near the objective of the camera, and a bird—quite probably a gull.

From this reality to say that the insect is a U.F.O. and the gull a cow, goes hand to hand with the imagination, the will to get public notoriety and finally the human stupidity.

ARGENTINA: A FERTILE FIELD FOR UFOLOGY AND MORE

People in Argentina are really interested to know about UFOs.

What is really known?, what has been hidden and why?, who is telling the truth?, how to investigate?, where to investigate?.

In the meantime, there are people who dedicate themselves to snapshot the sky at anytime and anywhere, hoping that when they see their pictures in their PCs they could find something they did not see when they were taking the photos.

And … they find strange things!

Things that could be orbs, or insects near the camera, or distant birds or airplanes at night, or just anything that the wind could blow, like a small plastic bag.

But that activity and its results help those people to keep believing that UFOs are all the time around us, and in such number that our planet would be in an officially unrecognized state of siege!

A little bit of logical reasoning, of calm and cold mind helps to put the things in the right perspective.

Nevertheless, maybe one day, someone taking photos of the sky could be so lucky as to get a picture of a genuine UFO. Who knows?

But it must be said that there are serious investigators and people with enough experience