Despite the fact that it appears NORAD was well aware that something strange was going on in the air-space above Phoenix, Arizona in March 1997, skeptics of the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs have pointed out that space craft coming to Earth from outer space would have been spotted by the dozens of military satellites, radar installations, and ground based optical telescopes that constantly check the skies for enemy missile attacks. Debunker's claim that since nothing along these lines has ever been reported, then it is obvious that UFOs are simply figments of the imagination.

The truth, however, is quite different. Some researchers have uncovered evidence that Department of Defense spy satellites, like the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites, have detected unknown, intelligently controlled objects flying in from deep space.

From 22,300 miles above the earth's surface, supersecret military spy satellites watch over the planet for missile launches and nuclear explosions. On any given day, these satellites can see erupting volcanos, incoming meteors, and a host of other heat sources, including those that still remain unexplained. Since 1985, all this data has been sent to the U.S. Space Command's Missile Warning Center, operating from within Cheyenne Mountain, near Colorado Springs. This information is used to coordinate satellite-based early warning systems for the armed forces.

In 1993, the Defense Department agreed to declassify some satellite information not related to ICBM launches and nuclear events. Some of this information revealed that satellites were routinely picking up moving targets clearly not missiles and called: "Valid IR Source." Some of these targets were given the mysterious code name of "Fast Walker."

Unfortunately for UFO researchers, the operational parameters of DSP satellites are considered "super-top secret." Even their exact number is classified. "That shouldn't surprise anyone," said Captain John Kennedy, Public Affairs Officer with the USAF Space Command Center at Peterson Air Force Base. "It's an early ICBM launch detection system, and we have to protect our own technology for obvious reasons. If everyone knew what the system's capabilities were, they would try to take steps to get around it."

EARLY ORBITAL DETECTION

In 1979, the Soviet scientist professor Sergei Boshich, claimed that ten large pieces of unidentifiable metallic space debris were circling the Earth at an altitude of 2,000 km. He said that some pieces measured as much as 70 meters by 35 meters and calculations have shown that these ten bodies came from a large object which broke up in orbit in December 1955. This was nearly two years before the first man-made satellites were launched into orbit.

Boshich's claims were endorsed by his colleagues, Dr. Vladimir Azhazha and Professor Aleksei Zolotov. Western scientists Henry Monteith and Stanton Friedman have suggested a manned space mission be conducted to investigate these mysterious objects. Astronomer John Bagby however, insists that the objects were nothing more than a group of minor natural bodies. Bagby does agree with Boshich that the objects came from a single body that had broken up on the 18th of December 1955. He was unable to provide an explanation that would explain why this had happened.

In 1953 rumors began circulating that large, unidentified objects had been detected in high earth orbit. Allegedly these objects, referred to as "moonlets," were in orbits that could not have occurred naturally. The implication was that these unidentified satellites were not natural bodies, but man-made. The only problem was at that time there were no countries with an advanced enough rocket able to put a satellite into orbit. Nevertheless, ground based radar in the United States showed that there were at least ten objects, all around two to five thousand feet in diameter, in high earth

In 1953 rumors began circulating that large, unidentified objects had been detected in high earth orbit. Allegedly these objects, referred to as "moonlets," were in orbits that could not have occurred naturally. The implication was that these unidentified satellites were not natural bodies, but man-made. The only problem was at that time there were no countries with an advanced enough rocket able to put a satellite into orbit. Nevertheless, ground based radar in the United States showed that there were at least ten objects, all around two to five thousand feet in diameter, in high earth orbit.

On August 23, 1954, the AP news quoted Aviation Week magazine in revealing that Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, government authority on meteoric phenomena, had announced the sighting of two mystery satellites orbiting at 400 miles and 600 miles, respectively. Dr. LaPaz later denied the entire story but Aviation Week was not asked to make a retraction.

In 1957, Italian astronomers claimed they tracked a huge mystery satellite orbiting Earth three months before Sputnik-1. Other sources corroborated this and even reported naked-eye sightings of the object, which moved across the sky steadily as satellites do.

Tracked by the Navy's SPASUR (Space Surveillance) radars, an unknown object sighted in earth orbit was kept secret until reporters unearthed the story. The strange satellite was first seen sometime in late 1959, but kept secret until 1960. Dubbed "Black Knight," the object was determined to be a dark object that emitted no radio signals of any kind. The most sensational aspect was the objects polar orbit which neither the Soviet Union or the United States had used thus far for their satellites.

On August 23, 1960, a tracking camera of the Grumman Aircraft Company at Bethpage, Long Island, had obtained definitive photos of the mystery satellite. The object weight was estimated to be at least 15 tons. In 1960 there were only 11 small U.S. satellites in orbit, plus one Soviet satellite. None of the American satellites weighted more than 1,700 pounds, and the Soviet vehicle was 2,925 pounds. Later, a second "Black Knight" was discovered. Both objects were approximately the same size, and both were in polar orbit.

Conventional satellites in 1963 were having their own problems. Science magazine for November 22, 1963, printed an article by Robert Werlwas of Virginia Polytechnic Institute in which he cited some strange events regarding satellite Anna. It seems that the satellite was equipped with five blinking lights, and according to Richard B. Kershner of the Applied Physics Laboratory, John Hopkins University, these lights worked perfectly for two months, then cut to four, then three, and finally none of them was functioning. The theory was expounded that the electrical system had shorted out and the lights could no longer wink. Then, Kershner said, around August 1, 1963, the lights started flashing again, all of them. Werlwas said the short "must have burned itself out" and further stated that this sort of thing was hard to believe.

Richard Kershner while speaking at a conference on artificial satellites, stated that Anna was just another example of a satellite which "repaired itself" while humans were helpless to do anything. He cited an occasion when Mariner II, on its way to Venus, was struck by something which apparently severed some of the wires form the power supply. The readouts showed a jolt to the satellite as if an object had struck it and also showed a corresponding power cutoff at the same time. Yet, the power eventually returned, which indicated that the wires must have soldered themselves back to their proper connections.

In the same article it was also noted that both Telstar Communications satellites had mysterious troubles. Telstar Number 1 refused to obey commands from the ground on two occasions. The first time this happened, Bell Telephone scientists fixed it by remote control. However, the second time in Fe

In the same article it was also noted that both Telstar Communications satellites had mysterious troubles. Telstar Number 1 refused to obey commands from the ground on two occasions. The first time this happened, Bell Telephone scientists fixed it by remote control. However, the second time in February 1963, after all attempts to repair it had failed, the satellite began functioning again all by itself. Kershner's comment was that perhaps "space gremlins" were at it again.

SATELLITES SPOT UFOs

A September, 1976 UFO encounter near Teheran, Iran may have been recorded by a secret DSP satellite. The incident involved two brilliantly glowing UFOs first reported by ground observers. One object, estimated to be 30 feet in diameter, reportedly went from ground level to an altitude of 40,000 feet, and was visible at a distance of 70 miles. An Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 jet fighter was sent aloft and managed to aim a Sidewinder AIM-19 air-to-air missile at the target before its electronic systems failed. Apart from the visible light factor, this indicates that the UFO gave off enough infrared energy for the Sidewinder's IR sensor to lock on to it.

An impressive breakthrough in the confirmation of the Iranian UFO encounter was uncovered by researchers Lee Graham and Ron Regehr, of Aero-Jet in California. They confirmed that the UFO sighting over Tehran was, in fact, tracked by the United States military's DSP satellite. During their investigations, Graham and Regehr have located computer print-outs from the time frame of the Iranian UFO overflight, which show that the DSP definitely detected an "anomalous object" in Iranian air space.

Computer printout of the anomalous event with the classified term "238 SCANS - POSSIBLE SR." The term "238 SCANS" indicates that the event lasted more than an hour. This is the only case so far where there was confirmation of a UFO sighting by observers both on the ground, in the air and by the DSP-1. It would be an interesting project to compare DSP records to other reported anomalous sightings around the world.

In October, 1981, USAF Airman Simone Mendez, (stationed at Nellis AFB as a Wing/Base Telecommunications Specialist with the 2069th Communication Squadron with a Top Secret clearance), received from a friend "a Top Secret message torn off the machine at the message center that said, in effect, that NORAD had detected a group of unknown objects entering the vicinity of Earth from deep space. Several of the objects were tracked entering the atmosphere and heading toward the Soviet Union. They then hovered in an area near Moscow for more than an hour."

Mendez kept the third carbon copy of a multi-carbon form for several months. When she learned that it might be a fake she showed it to another co-worker who felt it probably was a fake. Simone then returned the document to base and a supervisor "asked that the document be placed in the classified waste for disposal."

Several days later AFOSI and the FBI interrogated her at length. Afterwards, she was then hospitalized for "serious depression." The FBI searched her apartment and confiscated many personal items. Several weeks later she was interrogated again and polygraphed. Mendez failed the polygraph for physiological response reasons, (extreme nervousness), and was polygraphed at least several more times over several months. She made a attempt at suicide on April 22, 1982 and was again hospitalized. Interrogations and polygraphing continued into June 1982 when it was determined that she was not a spy. The question remains: Was the document real or not?

Joe Stefula, formerly a special agent with the army's Criminal Investigation Command, has made public what purports to be a diagram of an infrared event detected by a DSP satellite on May 5, 1984. "I haven't been able to determine that the document's absolutely authentic," says Stefula, "but I have been able to confirm that the DSP printout for that date shows an

Joe Stefula, formerly a special agent with the army's Criminal Investigation Command, has made public what purports to be a diagram of an infrared event detected by a DSP satellite on May 5, 1984. "I haven't been able to determine that the document's absolutely authentic," says Stefula, "but I have been able to confirm that the DSP printout for that date shows an event at the same time with the same characteristics."

According to Stefula's alleged source, now said to be retired from the military, the official code name for unidentified objects exhibiting ballistic missile characteristics is "Fast Walker." "But what makes this particular Fast Walker so peculiar," says Stefula, "is that it came in from outer space on a curved trajectory, passing within three kilometers of the satellite platform, and then disappeared back into space. Whatever it was, it was tracked for nine minutes."

The May, 1984 event allegedly generated a 300-page internal report, in which only portions are classified, though none of it has been released. "I don't think they would do a 300-page report on everything they detect," says Stefula, whose efforts to obtain the report have so far been unsuccessful, "so there must have been something significant about this that led them to look into it. My source told me that they basically looked at every possibility and couldn't explain it by natural or man-made means." According to the unnamed source, "Fast Walkers" are detected, on the average, "two to three times a month."

AN ALIEN PROBE?

The April 1995 volume of The Observatory, a serious astronomical journal published in Great Britain, contains an article about a potential extraterrestrial probe by an established astronomer. The author, Duncan Steel, from the University of Adelaide in Australia, is an expert on the detection of small objects in near-Earth space. He has written about the danger posed to Earth by impacting objects, Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995). Steel has served on both the Detection Committee and the Intercept Committee that were created by NASA to consider the danger to mankind. One outcome of this concern is an outgoing program to detect objects passing near Earth, using the Spacewatch telescope at Kitt Peak Observatory.

The article by Steel, entitled "SETA and 1991 VG," states that an object discovered in late 1991 passing near the Earth is a candidate for an "alien probe." His article is based upon the discovery of an object in orbit around the sun that passed by the Earth in December 1991 and was discovered by the Spacewatch telescope at Kitt Peak Observatory in November. The object was given the name 1991 VG and was also observed in April 1992 by a larger telescope, also at Kitt Peak.

These observations allowed a reasonably accurate determination of its orbit. Its size can only be estimated because it was too small to observe as anything but a point source. The size estimate of 10 meters is based on its spectral reflectivity and the assumption that it was an S-type asteroid: if it was a C-type asteroid it would be about 19 meters in greatest dimension. (C-type asteroids have a lower reflectivity, thus it takes a larger object to produce the same level of brightness.) Whatever its exact size, it is clearly a relatively small object.

Steel bases his conclusion on two unusual characteristics of 1991 VG, as well as two other factors. First, it exhibited rapid variations in brightness, which indicates that it has areas with very distinct and different reflectivity. This is highly unusual for small asteroids. Second, 1991 VG has an orbit that is very Earth-like, with low eccentricity and inclination, and an orbital size just slightly larger than Earth's. Additionally, Steel notes that 1991 VG passed close to Earth, slightly under 300,000 miles distant. This may seem quite far - it is greater than the Earth-Moon distance - but it is not far at all on an astronomical scale. Finally, he calculates the probability of discovery of the object as one chance in 100,000 per year, which will become more meaningful below

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Steel considers these facts by determining how compatible they are with what he suggests are the only three visible possibilities for the nature of 1991 VG. These possibilities include an asteroidal body, a man-made spacecraft, and an alien artifact of some type. The orbit of 1991 VG, calculated backwards, indicates that it closely approached Earth in 1975 and also sixteen years earlier in the late 1950s. By looking at spacecraft launched during these earlier periods, Steel concludes that no known man-made object could currently be following the orbit of 1991 VG. (He looked both at spacecraft and at the expended rocket bodies that launched the craft, since some of these escape Earth's gravity).

As for the probability that 1991 VG is an asteroid. Steel argues against it for two reasons. The brightness of the object fluctuated rapidly, which is characteristic of artificial satellites rather than asteroids (satellites often have angled, highly reflective surfaces, and they rotate for stability, both of which together cause brightness fluctuations). Second, the orbit of 1991 VG would be unstable over a period of a few thousand years because of its similarity to Earth's orbit and close approaches to our planet. Consequently, 1991 VG can be in its current orbit only if it recently (in astronomical terms) entered that orbit. This makes its identification as an asteroid unlikely, and Steel estimates a low probability that 1991 VG is an asteroid.

This leaves the third hypothesis: that the object is alien in origin. Steel admits he has little evidence that 1991 VG is an alien artifact, but he believes the prior probability of detection of such objects, including 1991 VG on its other conjectured near passes in the mid-1970s and late 1950s, was so small as to be nonexistent. This is chiefly because efforts like that of Spacewatch were just begun recently, and astronomers otherwise made few systematic searches for small objects passing near the Earth.

Since man's capability to detect unidentified objects near Earth space has increased quite a bit in recent years, it's not too surprising that an extraterrestrial craft passing by could be detected. This suggests that UFO researchers could benefit from the scientists' conducting the Spacewatch program. However, Captain John Kennedy doesn't think that information of unidentified objects will be easily gained. "I don't see the air force declassifying a whole lot more of the DSP data to other scientists, not without an incredible amount of cleanup," "And it's certainly not accessible to requests through the Freedom of Information Act."

If unidentified objects are coming to Earth from deep space, then it is almost certain that they have been detected by one surveillance system or another. Somewhere, someone knows the truth about the "Fast Walkers" and mysterious orphan satellites. Perhaps, rather than using secret satellites to spy on each other, mankind should instead turn the space cameras towards the heavens to watch out for others who would sneak past during the darkness of our ignorance.

SOURCES

"Six Decades of Government UFO Cover-Up's," by Dennis Stacy and Patrick Huyghe OMNI Magazine August 1994

"Secret' Impacts Revealed," by Kelly J. Beatty, Sky and Telescope, February 1994.

"Meteoroids Hit Atmosphere in Atomic-Size Blasts," by William J. Broad, New York Times, January 25, 1994

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Lawrence Fawcett in the June 1991 (Number 28) issue of Just Cause.

Flying Saucers on the Attack, by Harold T. Wilkins, The Citadel Press 1954

UFOs, The Whole Story, by Coral and Jim Lorenzen, The New American Library 1969