Post by meldrew on Jul 6, 2011 19:02:21 GMT 1
It was the spring of 1966 when on march 14, brightly lit objects were spotted in the skies across 3 counties in western Michigan USA, witnesses included police officers observing these lights in the sky before dawn, March 20 bought more reports including a pyramid shaped object festooned with lights reported by a farmer near Ann Arbour, the pyramid said to have landed in a field then took off which was observed by 50 witnesses including once again police officers, the next night 87 college students and the Dean from Hillsdale College observed a luminous object shaped like a football (US) or rugby ball to the rest of us zigzagging for about 4 hours before it vanished into a nearby marsh.
these sightings received nation wide coverage and project blue book sent a man to investigate, the Astronomer J.Allen Hynek the chief scientific advisor to the project no less.
4 days after the sightings Dr Hynek appeared at a press conference and explained to the waiting media that methane produced by rotting plant matter had spontaneously ignited which had produced the weird light effects over the marsh, the phrase he used, to his ever lasting regret was swamp gas and that is how the phrase was born.
Blue book classed the case as solved, but a great many people were not amused, including the congressman Gerald R. Ford who responded by going onto the floor of the House of Representatives and calling for a congressional investigation into the UFO phenomenon, the House Armed Services Committee held a one day open session on April 5 1966 and called on the Air Force to launch an independent scientific study under the direction of an American University, in the October of 1966 the University of Colorado accepted the project headed by Dr Edward Condon, and the Condon Report was initiated, which was set up with a bunch of non believers whose sole purpose was to debunk the UFO phenomenon.
source Meldrew
these sightings received nation wide coverage and project blue book sent a man to investigate, the Astronomer J.Allen Hynek the chief scientific advisor to the project no less.
4 days after the sightings Dr Hynek appeared at a press conference and explained to the waiting media that methane produced by rotting plant matter had spontaneously ignited which had produced the weird light effects over the marsh, the phrase he used, to his ever lasting regret was swamp gas and that is how the phrase was born.
Blue book classed the case as solved, but a great many people were not amused, including the congressman Gerald R. Ford who responded by going onto the floor of the House of Representatives and calling for a congressional investigation into the UFO phenomenon, the House Armed Services Committee held a one day open session on April 5 1966 and called on the Air Force to launch an independent scientific study under the direction of an American University, in the October of 1966 the University of Colorado accepted the project headed by Dr Edward Condon, and the Condon Report was initiated, which was set up with a bunch of non believers whose sole purpose was to debunk the UFO phenomenon.
source Meldrew