Comment: This was actually posted on SOTT a few days ago. A reader brought it to our attention that the person who filmed the incident and uploaded it to YouTube subsequently confessed to the video being a hoax. So we took the article down.

But then we remembered this:

Flashback: 1953: Pilot Felix Moncla Lost Chasing UFO

Moncla finally brought his jet to the exact spot of the UFO, but as he did, radar operators at Truax saw both blips as one. For a moment, it was expected that Moncla had gone over or under the UFO, causing the united blip, and that two blips would soon be seen again. But suddenly, the one blip faded, as no radar return was registered. Attempts to contact Moncla from ground control were unsuccessful.

Off the record, those close to the case believed that the loss of the Scorpion was a direct result of an encounter with the unknown object, clearly seen on radar. In recent months, the Michigan Diving Company has made assertions that they may have found the jet and the UFO, but this finding is still being investigated.

Richard Dolan recounts the 'merging' of craft, terrestrial and otherwise, in his seminal tract, UFO's and the National Security State:

Probably the most bizarre and controversial case of [1953] was the November 23rd incident over Soo Locks, Michigan. Keyhoe and Frank Edwards were the main people involved in ferreting this one out. What appears to have happened is that an Air Defense Command Ground Control Intercept controller was alerted to the presence of an unidentified and unscheduled target on his radar scope at Soo Locks. An F-89, piloted by 26 year old Felix Montcla and co-piloted by Lt. R. R. Wilson was scrambled to intercept the object. The radar station had the F-89 and the UFO on the scope as the blips merged into one. For a moment the single blip remained on the scope, then disappeared. No trace of wreckage or the missing men was ever found. The story was carried briefly on Associated Press, but Keyhoe and Edwards faced continual stonewalling by the military brass.

The Pentagon's official explanation was that the unknown radar blip turned out to be a Canadian C-47. The F-89, far from colliding with it, never got closer than several miles from the aircraft. Montcla's plane then crashed for unknown reasons, but he may have suffered from vertigo and lost control of his plane. The explanation was weak - no records indicated that he was flying on instruments, and no transcript of his conversations with traffic controllers was ever released. Furthermore, the Canadian government repeatedly denied any connection of its aircraft to the incident.

A few years later, a script for a production of the Soo Locks case was developed - and cleared - at Lackland AFB in Texas, promoting a strongly pro-UFO perspective. The script died a quick death, before which it was sent to Keyhoe and Richard Hall. Both believed the script was the creation of UFO enthusiasts acting on their own, not at the direction of Air Force Headquarters. Years later, Hall continued to think of the entire incident as "extremely odd."

Another incident in Australia in 1978 DOES include radio transcripts. Note the pilot's description of the UFO as it 'plays' with his airplane, darting back and forth at speeds the pilot "could not identify," vanishing then reappearing:

The mysterious disappearance of Frederick Valentich

Apparent victim of a UFO abduction who never returned. On 21st October 1978, Valentich took off from Moorabin airport in Victoria, Australia, in his single-engine Cessna 182 aircraft. His destination was King Island, a trip that would take about one hour, and which would take him over Bass Strait. At about 7:00pm, Valentich watched the approach of another aircraft, which hovered over his own, causing some engine trouble. He radioed Steve Robey at Melbourne Air Flight Service, informing him of the situation. Here is the (abridged) conversation that took place:

VALENTICH: Is there any known traffic below 5,000 [feet]?

MELBOURNE FLIGHT SERVICE: No known traffic.

V: Seems to be a large aircraft below 5,000.

MFS: What type of aircraft is it?

V: I cannot confirm it is four bright ... it seems to me like landing lights ... the aircraft has just passed over me at least a thousand feet above.

MFS: Roger and it is a large aircraft confirm.

V: Er, unknown due to the speed it's travelling. Is there any Air Force aircraft in the vicinity?

MFS: No known aircraft in the vicinity.

V: It's approaching now from due east towards me ... It seems to me that he's playing some sort of game, he's flying over me two to three times at a time at speeds I could not identify.

MFS: What is your actual level?

V: My level is 4,500, four five zero zero.

MFS: Confirm that you cannot identify the aircraft.

V: Affirmative.

MFS: Roger standby.

V: It's not an aircraft, it is ...

MFS: Can you describe the, er, aircraft?

V: As it's flying past, it's a long shape ... cannot identify more than before me right now, Melbourne.

MFS: Roger, and how large would the, er, object be?

V: It seems like its stationary. What I'm doing right now is orbiting and the thing is orbiting right now on top of me also. It's got a green light and sort of metallic like it's all shiny on the outside ... It's just vanished ... Would you know what kind of aircraft I've got, is it a military aircraft?

MFS: Confirm the, er, aircraft just vanished.

V: Say again.

MFS: Is the aircraft still with you?

V: ... Approaching from the southwest ... the engine is rough idling.

MFS: Roger. What are your intentions?

V: My intentions are, ah, to go to King Island, ah, Melbourne, that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again ... it's hovering and it's not an aircraft ...

That was the last anyone ever heard of Frederick Valentich. No trace of him or his aircraft was found. According to NASA scientist Dr. Richard Haines, who analysed the tape of the above conversation, there was a 17-second burst of metallic noise following Valentich's last transmission. The conclusion of the Aircraft Accident Emergency Investigation Summary Report listed the following information:

Location of occurence: Not known
Time: Not known
Degree of injury: Presumed fatal
Opinion as to cause: The reason for the disappearance of the aircraft has not been determined

In 1982 an independent film maker named Ron Cameron was approached by two divers who claimed to have located the wreckage of Valentich's Cessna on the seabed off Cape Otway. They showed him some photographs of a plane with the Cessna's registration mark, and offered to sell them to him, with the plane's exact location for the sum of $10,000. They also claimed that Valentich's body was not in the plane. Cameron replied that he would need further verification before he handed over that much money. The divers were not heard from again, and their claims were regarded by most researchers to have been a hoax.

The Valentich disappearance remains unsolved, and there is no evidence that he faked his own death. It has been suggested that his plane got into trouble, ditched into the sea and sank immediately. However, the Cessna 182 is designed to float on impact with water. In addition, as ufologist Timothy Good states, "VHF radio would not be able to transmit below 1,000 feet from the aircraft's position of 90 miles from Melbourne, and Valentich's communications with the Flight Service Unit were loud and clear to the last word, as was the 17-second burst if 'metallic' noise which followed."

- From The Encyclopedia of Alien Encounters, by Alan Baker

So we see that such incidents have happened in the past, with credible evidence to support them. Could the owner of 'Airplane Abduction' video, Justin Martinez, have been 'made an offer he couldn't refuse' to call his own video a hoax? It has been viewed 70,000 times in little over a week since it was posted on YouTube, so it's certainly got people talking. Martinez has produced short films using CGI special effects before, so he appears capable of producing such a hoax.

Case closed? For this 'incident', perhaps. And yet, although there is a high probability of the incident being a fake, we DO need to bear in mind that very often staged incidents are commissioned and designed by the very factors that wish to make the real incidents appear doubtful or even ridiculous. One thing the government is VERY touchy about is any kind of implication of helplessness in the face of UFOs. A scenario like this - a UFO abducting an entire aircraft in broad daylight - panics the national security apparatus into doing whatever it takes to block mass awareness of our predicament and the attendant threat to social control.

At SOTT we strive to remain open to possibilities and to as many options as possible. Reliable data often DEMANDS that we leave all options open and consider all possibilities on their merit.

For many, the idea of being open to unlimited possibilities is an intimidating proposition. People want definite answers. They want hard and fast, black and white answers, which are duly supplied in droves through official culture. They invariably seek to control the outcome and thus constrict unlimited potential.

It is important to remember that you can always change your mind.

Truth, as always, is stranger than fiction.

Comment: Do people see what they expect to see, or does the form of the phenomenon cater to people's changing expectations?

Who was Robert McNamara?

In Operation Trojan Horse,[author John Keel] argues that there is a far more sinister explanation for the phenomena than ETs flying in from other planets. The ET explanation, complete with advanced spaceships and technological wizardry may be a screen designed to cater to our current world view. Keel reminds us that whatever intelligences are behind the phenomena, they have been around for all of recorded history, and they may, in fact, have been here all along, but are, in some extradimensional way, able to conceal their presence most of the time. During times when they can't or don't conceal their presence, they instead mask it. Here is Keel from a 1973 interview:

There are several areas to this whole weird business. On one hand we have real UFO phenomena - strange lights passing over the earth, probably since time began. The UFO intelligences are aware that we are going to see these lights occasionally when conditions are just right so they have to give us an explanation. Different generations have been given different explanations.

These intelligences have staged whole events over a long period of time to support those explanations. We have the fairy faith in Middle Europe; we have the vampire and various other kinds of legends. We have the mysterious airships in 1897. Now we have spaceships. But all of these things are nothing but a cover for the real phenomenon - whatever it is.

On the ground, as well as in the air, there are real things happening that they don't want us to know about, so they give us lots of cover stories. The men-in-black support the cover stories in many of these instances.

What they are trying to hide may be frightening, even incomprehensible to us, but it does seem that they are using us in some fashion.