UFOs - Leslie Kean [11]
Eventually, the only possible option left, no matter how remote, was that the objects were F-117A stealth fighters or other secret American military aircraft, sent out on some kind of experimental, clandestine exercise. General De Brouwer thought it extremely unlikely that secret aircraft would be sent to fly repeatedly over Belgium without any official notification, in violation of air rules, since no U.S. Air Force overflight requests had been received. He was also aware that the technological abilities the objects displayed were beyond the capacity even of experimental aircraft—which, the general points out, remains the case today. Nonetheless, he made inquiries to the U.S. Embassy in Brussels, and to other NATO partners through informal contacts with their attachés.
The answer was exactly what he expected. And the results of his inquiry are spelled out in a U.S. government document, classified at the time, but since released through the Freedom of Information Act. The March 1990 memo “Belgium and the UFO Issue” notes that De Brouwer asked whether the objects were American B-2 or F-117 military aircraft, stating that he made the inquiry despite his clarity that “the alleged observations did not correspond in any way to the observable characteristics of either U.S. aircraft.” The document further states that “the USAF did confirm to the BAF [Belgian Air Force] and Belgian MOD [Ministry of Defense] that no USAF stealth aircraft were operating in the Ardennes area1 during the periods in question.” De Brouwer reported to me that he was also assured privately by an American official that the U.S. had no “black program” that could have caused these multiple sightings.
In 1992, Belgium’s defense minister, Leo Delcroix, confirmed this once again when replying to a letter from a French researcher. “Unfortunately, no explanation has been found to date,” he wrote. “The nature and origin of the phenomenon remain unknown. One theory can be definitely dismissed, however, since the Belgian Armed Forces have been positively assured by American authorities that there has never been any sort of American aerial test flight.”2
This is an important point to keep in mind when reading the witness accounts provided by De Brouwer. We’re stuck with a serious dilemma. Has the military from some country been testing new, extremely advanced craft since the mid-1970s, which is when reports of such triangular craft began? Was Belgium selected as the site for repeated test flights, monitored from a secret base somewhere? Common sense tells us that if a government had developed huge craft that can hover motionless only a few hundred feet up, and then speed off in the blink of an eye—all without making a sound—such technology would have revolutionized both air travel and modern warfare, and probably physics as well. In the two decades since the Belgian wave, the United States has been involved in three wars; had we possessed such advanced capabilities, they would surely have been put to use by now. If some government was secretly, and inexplicably, flying this marvel over Belgium, it would have had to lie to the Belgian authorities when inquiries were made and thus disrupt the partnership among NATO members, which is based on mutual respect and trust. And every person involved with the creation and flight of this highly advanced craft would have had to have kept the miraculous