UFOs - Leslie Kean [115]
Two witnesses to the O’Hare incident did just as the manual suggested: They called NUFORC and submitted written reports on their sightings. Ironically, both told me they had never read the FAA manual and were unaware that the official tome dictated that this is what they should do! Both had heard of NUFORC independently and didn’t know where else to go with their information, which they felt, as a matter of duty, needed to be on the record. It was these reports that were eventually provided to the Chicago Tribune, prompting transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch to investigate further and eventually to break the O’Hare story on the front page.
It is my understanding that most FAA employees probably do not read the manual—certainly not cover-to-cover—but when sightings occur they seem aware of their employers’ attitudes regardless. The message is conveyed to them, often subtly and indirectly as a kind of veiled professional threat, that they are not to talk to the press about these incidents. The FAA’s negligence may border on the dangerous, or the problem may be that other government agencies need to take more responsibility for UFO incidents that the FAA claims are outside its jurisdiction. No matter which branch of government does so, the threat, if there is one, posed by unidentifiable objects in proximity to commercial aircraft needs to be properly assessed by a new unit established to investigate UFOs.
Nick Pope, former MoD official and UFO expert in the UK, says that governments define “threat” in a very specific way, especially within military intelligence circles. The formula goes like this: Threat = capability + intent. For example: the United States is aware that the UK has nuclear weapons (threat) and therefore could launch a nuclear attack on America (capability), but since the UK has no intent to launch such an attack, the United States faces no threat in this regard. Pope points out that we certainly know that UFOs have the capability of being a threat, given their fantastic speed and maneuverability, far superior to our own technology. But, in this case, the intent of UFOs is completely unknown, and therefore immeasurable. Because of that fact, UFOs must be taken seriously as possible threats, and the UK’s Ministry of Defence monitors them for that reason.19
Pope suspects that United States military intelligence circles also define “threat” in this way. The fact that the FAA instructs its employees not to report this particular potential threat lies in contradiction to this basic formula. Maybe it’s time to change the FAA manual and provide employees with the proper reporting forms.
U.S. government reticence about addressing the problem of UFOs seems to have infected all departments that could potentially house a new agency for investigations. Yet we can overcome these obstacles through a rational, commonsense approach. Some authorities have suggested specific ways forward, based on their direct experience.
In the late 1980s, John J. Callahan was head of the FAA’s Accidents, Evaluations, and Investigations Division, an extremely high-level position just one rank below federal positions appointed by Congress. When working with military agencies, Callahan’s rank (GM15) was equal to that of general.
One day in early 1987, he was unexpectedly faced with the problem of managing a UFO case—a dramatic, thirty-minute sighting by three Japan Air Lines pilots of a giant UFO over Alaska. Previously, Callahan had never given the slightest thought to the subject of UFOs. When he first heard about the JAL case, he requested the extensive data be sent to him immediately and he brought it to the attention of FAA administrator Admiral Donald D. Engen. Admiral Engen set up a briefing, which, according to Callahan, included members of President Reagan’s scientific staff, as they were described to him at the time. It also included three CIA agents.
Callahan did