Chapter 5

UFO Sightings Over Nuclear Facilities

Todd Lemire

This paper was presented at the May 5^th 2002 Michigan MUFON Meeting

I’ve always had an intense interest in UFO’s since a very early age.

I’ve never seen a UFO; I don’t claim to be an expert, but rather just anordinary person who has an intense interest in ufology. I’m a blue-collar worker employed in the auto industry and I have 2 years of college studies in the field of Computer Science. Along with doing UFO field investigations, I maintain this website devoted to the historical and investigative aspects of UFO sightings in Michigan. My research interests also span into UFO sightings during the Cold War and in anomalies detected by both past and present military technologies, with a focus on classified military satellite systems. These areas are often related to our nuclear capabilities, energy sources, defense capabilities, and now, since 9/11, homeland security.

A map depicting the general locations of Nuclear Reactors along the

Canadian/US border. Notice the concentration of these reactors on the

coasts of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. [ click map for full size ]

A map of the locations of Nuclear Reactors along the opposite U.S.

coast. Again we see a concentration of nuclear reactors on the coast of Lake Erie. This area is a hotbed of nuclear activity. [ click map for full ize ]

What do you think the implications would be for U.S. citizens if a UFO breached security, or posed a threat, at ANY one of these nuclear facilities? Would our government forces respond to such a threat in a timely manner or would they laughingly brush off reports of Unidentified Flying Objects reported near them? If they did respond with conventional military air forces, would this be sufficient to prevent a widespread nuclear contamination as a result of the often-reported adverse effects experienced in the near vicinity of UFOs? I’ll let you decide for yourself after reading the reports that I’m about to share with you.

Here is an excerpt of an actual UFO aerial encounter and I ask that you picture this occurring in the airspace over a nearby nuclear facility.

Although this particular incident doesn’t involve such a facility, I’ve included it here to emphasize the vulnerability of a military agency against UFOs.

The following is from a 3-page message, released on August 31, 1977, via the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, and concerns the sighting of a UFO in Iran on September 19 1976.

At about 12:30 A.M., (Mr. X), a high ranking official in Iran, received four telephone calls from citizens living in the Shemiran area of Tehran saying that they had seen strange objects in the sky. Some reported a kind of bird-like object while others reported a helicopter with a light on, however there were no helicopters airborne at that time. After Mr. X told the citizens it was only stars and he had talked to Mehrabad Tower, he decided to look for himself. He noticed an object in the sky similar to a star yet bigger and brighter. He being in a position of authority, decided to scramble an F-4 from Shahrokhi AFB to investigate.

At 0130 hrs an F-4 took off and preceded to a point about 40 NM north of Tehran. Due to its brilliance, the object was easily visible from 70 miles away. As the F-4 approached a range of 25 NM, the pilot lost all instrumentation and communications (both UHF and intercom). At this point he broke off the intercept and headed back to Shahrokhi. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. At 0140 hrs a second F-4 was launched. The backseat pilot acquired a radar lock at 27 NM at the 12 o'clock high position and was closing in on the object at a rate of 150 NMPH. As the range decreased to 25 NM the object moved away at a speed that was visible on the radarscope and stayed at a distance from the F-4 of 25 NM. The size of the radar return was comparable to that of a 707 tanker. The visual size of the object was difficult to discern because of its intense brilliance. The light that it gave off was that of flashing strobe lights arranged in a rectangular pattern and alternating blue, green, red, and orange in color. The sequence of the lights was so fast that all the colors could be seen at once. The object and the pursuing F-4 continued on a course to the south of Tehran when another brightly lit object, estimated to be one-half to one-third the apparent size of the moon, came out of the original object. This second object headed straight toward the F-4 at a very fast rate of speed. The pilot attempted to fire an AIM-9 missile at the object but at that instant his weapons control panel went off and he lost all communications again (UHF and intercom). At this point the pilot initiated a turn and negative G dive to get away. As he turned the object fell in trail at what appeared to be about 3-4 NM. As he continued in his turn away from the primary object the second object went to the inside of his turn then returned to the primary object for a perfect rejoin. This is just a summarized version of this incident. If you’d like to learn more about this encounter please see the book Clear Intent by Barry Greenwood and Lawrence Fawcett.

These could easily have been American citizens reporting this encounter to “Mr. X”- American military aircraft losing their ability to communicate and activate their weaponry – and all of this could have occurred in airspace over one of the nuclear facilities located on the coast of Lake Erie or Lake Ontario. Is this scenario possible? Yes, I believe it could very well happen. Are the chances relatively small for such a UFO encounter to occur over one of these nuclear facilities? Yes, relatively speaking but do you feel comfortable with the fact that UFOs have already been reported in the airspace above American nuclear facilities, coming and going under what appears to be intelligent control? Our military and governmental establishments have not placed the scientific study of UFO’s as a top priority, and have continued to ignore numerous reports that have occurred near such Nuclear Facilities.

You will soon learn that UFO’s have been in the past, and currently still are, interested in our nuclear capabilities.

The date is roughly September 1945; radar has detected a fast moving object that is now in a holding pattern directly above the Hanford Nuclear Plant (below).

This plant is located in Washington, and was the first large-scale plutonium production facility in the world. The UFO is extremely high and pilot Rolan D. Powell has been scrambled to intercept the UFO, but he can’t see it at first.

Powell has been assigned to protect the Hanford Plant, which is part of the top secret Manhattan Project, which was instrumental in helping to produce the Trinity (June

14, 1945) and Nagasaki bombs (August 9, 1945). Powell is flying a Grumman F6F Hellcat, with an operating ceiling of 37,000 feet, which he exceeds in an attempt to get closer to the UFO.

He calls the Naval Air Base at Pasco and is told to continue pursuit, although he fears his engine quitting. The object doesn’t make any overt moves, gives no signals, and just hovers there as if observing, staying well enough out of reach. Powell returns to base after his engine begin to fail at an altitude of 42,000 feet. The strange craft, after hovering over the Hanford Nuclear reactor for an additional twenty minutes, disappears, ‘going straight up’, as quickly as it came. This UFO, as described by Powell, was the size of three aircraft carriers side by side, oval shaped, very streamlined like a stretched-out egg, and pinkish in color.

He also reported some kind of vapor was being emitted around the outside edges from portholes or vents. This object was observed at noon in a clear sky at an estimated altitude of 65,000 feet. (MUFON UFO Journal –December 1996 Number 344)

Does this sound like a description of conventional aircraft that any of you are aware of? This is clearly an early example of our vulnerability against unidentified flying objects, which could be seen as a threat to a facility with the potential for exposing nearby people and places to deadly amounts of radiation and which also was part of a top secret classified project important to our nation’s defense.

We now move to May 1952, in the airspace over the Savannah River Nuclear Plant, which, like the Hanford Plant, was constructed with plutonium and tritium production in mind, which is used in making nuclear weapons.

We see, within an excerpt from the U.S. Army Intelligence Files, a letter from J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, with the subject line: FLYING DISCS REPORTEDLY SEEN IN VICINITY OF SAVANNAH RIVER PLANT….

At approximately 10:45 p.m. four employees of the Dupont Company employed in the Savannah Plant saw four disk shaped objects approaching the area from the south, which disappeared in a northerly direction. At approximately 11:10 p.m. a similar object was seen approaching from the northeast and disappearing in a southwesterly direction. The same

employees also sighted another object about 11:15 p.m. traveling from south to north. The disks were described as being approximately fifteen inches in diameter and yellow to gold in color. All were allegedly traveling at a high rate of speed and at a high altitude without any noise. (http://www.ufomind.com/misc/1997/sep/d23-003.shtml)

Again in 1952 two important memos defined the UFO problem and expressed serious concern over how the subject might affect the national security of the U.S. The second memo, dated September 24, 1952 from the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, H. Marshall Chadwell, to the then CIA Director, Walter Smith, included this statement, which I quote –“Recently an inquiry was conducted by the Office of Scientific Intelligence to determine whether there are national security implications in the problem of “unidentified flying objects,” and whether adequate study and research is currently being directed to this problem in its relation to such national security implications, and what further investigation and research should be instituted, by whom, and under what aegis.” The memo then further states, “These aspects are to determine definitely the nature of the various phenomena which are causing these sightings, and to discover means by which these causes, and their visual or electronic effects, may be identified immediately.”

The CIA consultants stated that these solutions would probably be found on the margins or just beyond the frontiers of our present knowledge in the fields of atmospheric, ionospheric, and extraterrestrial phenomena, with the added possibility that the present dispersal of nuclear waste products might also be a factor. (Clear Intent, Fawcett and Greenwood, pg. 123-124)

Not only do we now see an early government interest in this phenomenon, we see they believe in the possibility that ‘nuclear waste products’ may be a factor in these UFO sightings. At 25 tons of spent fuel per standard reactor year, the world's nuclear reactors produce some 8000 tons of spent fuel per year. (http://www.fas.org/rlg/010409-nci.htm)

There are plans currently to store 70,000 tons of this spent fuel in Yucca Mountain. (http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n5/nuclear.htm) If nuclear waste is of interest to these visitors then we should see an influx of sightings near Yucca Mountain in Nevada in the very near future.

We jump forward to November 8, 1957 where we read an article from The Beaver County Times in Pennsylvania. Something strange approached at an altitude of 2,000 feet. Two men spotted it and were astonished. The thing was a big luminous torpedo they estimated at 200 feet long. The top half was green colored and the bottom half was reddish orange. A strip of yellow separated these two colors. The thing was moving slowly, perhaps as slow as 15 miles per hour. These neighbors managed to observe the object as it passed by on a steady course to the south, in the direction of the Shipping Port Atomic Plant, America’s first commercial atomic reactor. The article goes on to state that the Air Force and FBI investigated this report, but to date no records of this investigation have been found. (From page 1, "The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, UFOs: A History, 1957: October 1st - November 2nd" by Loren Gross)

Here is another prime example of government and military interest in UFO’s near nuclear facilities.

10 years later, September 1967 we move a little closer to home. We read a log entry from the Douglas Point nuclear generating station of Ontario Hydro. “On Monday September 11 at 15:30 hrs. a UFO was observed passing over the station in an easterly direction. Between 6 and 13 people sighted a saucer shaped object. “Witnesses said they thought the object was part of an orbiting spacecraft until it seemed to hover over the lake about one mile and a half out and then dropped something into the water. One plant employee said he and others saw a similar craft return two nights later and for the next five nights search for the dropped object. One witness said he saw the craft hover near the station and others said they saw sparks coming from it over the lake.

A short time later, in February 1968 fourteen witnesses including eight Ontario Provincial Police constables saw a circular multicolored craft three miles south of Deep River, across from the Des Joachims Hydro Generating Station. This area, as I’m sure you know, at one time was one of Canada’s major energy producing and experimental centers. It included the Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD) station and the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory.

Here is a sketch of the unidentified object drawn by two sisters, Cathy and Margaret Elliott, age 12 and 13.

This craft was described as approximately 16 feet in diameter, and circular, with a large core of dazzling pulsating yellow lights in its center. From this core, red lights appeared to be pulsating outward toward the rim of the craft, resembling the pulsations of an intricate multicolored neon sign. One of the witnesses stated, “the bright yellow lights would dim at short intervals but the object also appeared to have red lights glowing from its outer rim which seemed to leave and return again. According to one of the witnesses, when the object was spotted her television set went on the blink, and when the object disappeared some forty minutes later the television reception was restored.

Here’s Yurko Bondarchuk’s artistic recreation of the craft sighted. He is the author of UFO Sightings, Landing and Abductions – The Documented Evidence

Captain Ken Parks an information officer at a nearby Canadian Forces Base stated that these objects were “flares” shot from planes, which were in the area at the same time as residents spotted the object. Could this object have been a single flare spotted by residents shot from military aircraft? Possibly. Could this flare have been approximately 16 feet in diameter? That’s highly unlikely. Could this have been an easy excuse for dismissing the significance of an unidentified object in the airspace near a nuclear facility? Most likely! (UFO Sightings, Landing and Abductions – The Documented Evidence by Yurko Bondarchuk)

We now go to April 1968 and we read a report in the Niagara Falls Gazette titled, “UFO Not Helicopter, Bell Says”. We read that a report on a Canadian radio station stated that strange lights seen over the Adam Beck power plant Tuesday morning were not lights from a U.S. helicopter. Three Niagara Falls Police officers observed 4 pulsating red, white and blue colored lights for almost an hour before the lights suddenly vanished. One Patrolman stated they were in formation and another said that now and then he saw a red streak of light pass through the formation. He estimated they were about 1000 feet in the air and were motionless until they suddenly shot away to the northwest and disappeared over the horizon. A spokesman at the Bell Aerosystems Co. said that an Army helicopter took off Tuesday night from the Bell Plant, however he denied that the helicopter was flying when the officers saw the strange lights.

If you haven’t noticed by now, there are some strong similarities between the objects that are being reported near these Nuclear Facilities. Are these possibly the same unknown craft? Are these possibly the same unknown pilots? There are many questions that deserve closer scrutiny.

These types of sightings don’t stop here. We move now to the end of 1974 and the beginning of 1975 to the airspace over the Pickering Nuclear Plant in Canada. More than any other incidents, the Pickering sightings have clearly demonstrated UFO preoccupation with scanning and surveyingthe operations of nuclear generating sites.

According to Yurko Bondarchuk, this pulsating red “ball of light” appeared over the temporarily disabled Nuclear Generating Station at Pickering, Ontario on New Year’s Eve, 1974.

I quote from an article printed in the Ontario Hydro publication called the “Hydroscope” from January 10, 1975 -. Latest in a rash of sightings of unidentified flying objects comes from Marjorie Osborne, who has worked for Ontario Hydro in a temporary secretarial capacity. Marjorie was walking along Howard Street when she noticed an extremely bright light to the northeast. It looked like a planet except that it appeared three or four times as large, she says. It hung there for three or four minutes then started climbing at high speed toward the south. The object was absolutely silent, she says and she’s certain it wasn’t an aircraft.

(Ontario Hydro, Hydroscope Publication, Jan. 10, 1975 – Article titled,“Little Green men over Rosedale”)

Shortly afterwards in the February 14, 1975 Hydroscope publication we read from an article titled “UFOs over Plant”, that strange sights have been appearing at Pickering GS, but no one can explain them except to say they are unidentified flying objects. The paper states that the sightings have occurred on several different nights recently, including the nights of January 31, February 3 and February 4. On Friday night, January 31, three employees at the Pickering plant reported seeing six or seven moving ‘balls of light’ out over the lake directly south of Pickering A. According to security man Mike McKenna, stationed at the plants east gate on Brock Road, the objects appeared to be a number of miles away and looked to be about softball size. The objects appeared as balls of light varying in color from bright red to almost white and stayed in the area over two hours. After being sighted over the lake, two of the objects appeared to move up toward the service center to the northeast of the plant, where they hovered for about a half hour before making a vertical ascent and disappearing.

Dave Percy, another security guard at Ontario Hydro, describes another sighting that occurred exactly a month earlier (Dec. 31, 1974). He says, the objects behaved in much the same way as they did on January 31, but appeared much larger. One of the things moved in from the lake and hovered over number three and four reactor buildings. It was bright red and seemed to pulsate. Comparing it with the size of the reactor building he said it was about 30 feet across. One of the firefighters, whom also witnessed the phenomena, said the object hovered over the station for 6-7 minutes, then an explosion-like flash occurred and the object took off.

February 4 three Ajax-Pickering ambulance drivers and a radio station disc jockey along with a Durham regional police constable reported seeing a dozen UFO’s over the lake near Pickering GS.

Here is a cartoon taken from the Hydro Scope Publication in which we see the seriousness with which these sightings were taken. The Process Forman is coming out of his office with an ‘alien’ behind him and the caption reads, “And another thing…let’s have no more nonsense about UFOs hovering over the reactor dome.”

Do you as citizens who live near nuclear facilities, feel comfortable with the fact that such unknown objects can fly into, over and around the airspace over a nuclear facility untouched and without suffering any consequences whatsoever? Facilities, which if breeched or damaged have a widespread capability of dispersing deadly radioactive contamination to nearby residents? Have you come to the realization yet that these objects can do this repeatedly and with total disregard by our government and military leaders? Let me continue to disperse any doubt you may have.

We now go to the year 1984. The date is June 24 and the time is somewhere between 10:30 p.m. to 10:45 p.m. at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant near Peekskill New York.

Security guards there reported seeing a UFO over the plant for approximately 15 minutes. It was roughly 30 stories above the exhaust funnel of one of the plant’s three nuclear reactors. Investigators for CUFOS interviewed 6 of the twelve security guards who saw the UFO.

The UFO was huge in size, diamond shaped, and approximately 450 feet in length. It was first white, then changed to blue to red to green and then to amber in color. One of the local police in Peekskill, Sgt. Karl Hoffman said the UFO he observed included a “dozen white lights, in V formation that slowly moved towards the power plant at Indian Point.

The CUFOS investigators reported that the security guards at the Indian Point plant say the UFO approached to within 30 feet of its Reactor Number Three and when it did the plant’s security systems shut down, as did all of its alarm and communication systems. Security guards were issued shotguns and were waiting for the final word to shoot at the UFO.

A request was also made for an armed helicopter to come and shoot down the UFO, but before the command was given, the UFO moved away and left the area. (Night Siege (The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings), Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Phillip J. Imbrogno with Bob Pratt)

In my opinion, shotguns and armed helicopters are not going to have much of an effect on a UFO which could possibly have been responsible for shutting down all alarm and communication systems at the Indian Point Nuclear plant - from the air! Do you? Do you consider this event serious enough to warrant further research into UFOs?

Let’s now jump ahead to February 1990, approximately 2.5 kilometers west of Detroit Edison’s Fermi II Nuclear Power Plant. I acquired this report from one of Michigan MUFON's Field Investigators, Wayne Erikson.

What we see here is the witness sketch of the object seen near the Fermii II nuclear plant.

From Mr. Erickson’s report we read that, Sara (a pseudonym) was driving southbound at 11:30 p.m. on Dixie Highway when she noticed what she thought was a helicopter circling one of the Fermi II nuclear reactor towers. As she continued on - the “supposed helicopter” began to move in her direction showing what appeared to be two headlights. As it came closer she got the impression that it was a 747 aircraft coming side-ways and was about to crash. It then made a graceful sweeping motion and hovered over her car. Its’ outline became illuminated with rows of colored lights that were very bright. She slowed to about 20 mph so she could observe it. The road was two-lanes wide and there was no place to stop, as there was concern about other traffic. As she looked up through her windshield she could see that the, “wing” portion was transparent. It was kind of like looking through a spinning bicycle wheel. The central portion was solid, round and outlined with lights.

She described it as being about 30 feet above her car. She turned off the radio and heater to see if she could detect any noise, but heard no sound. She estimated that it was over her car for about a minute, long enough to get a good look. It then glided gracefully away. She was impressed by the smoothness and precision of its flight. In the meantime she wanted to observe it further so she pulled into a driveway to turn her car around and saw what she thought was another object towards the north, headed west towards Monroe, Michigan. It was dropping sparks, like shooting stars, as was the first one as it approached her car. At that time they, (she and her nine year old son who was with her) noticed a large red light, slowly pulsating, off to the north.

Mr. Erickson writes, “These are serious people with nothing to gain by publicity or attention. It is my opinion that her case was factually presented.” Also of importance is the fact that a newspaper article generated by this report prompted a meeting with all of the potentially involved security personnel. Unfortunately in this case the security guards reportedly saw nothing.

We now move a few months ahead to November 1990.

What you’re seeing here is a picture provided to me by a witness who used this picture for illustrative purposes only. I cannot claim it as an authentic photo of a UFO. The witness states that this looks very similar to what they saw in 1990; only, and I quote “ours did not have the appearance of windows.”

I quote the witness statement: “I was at home watching a moving with my brother. The movie we were watching ended. I looked up at the clock, saw it was 1:00 a.m. and decided to go to bed. I went to lock the sliding glass door to the balcony of my apartment as I had small children. I immediately saw it. A large red orb, almost stop sign shaped that appeared to be hovering in the general vicinity of the Pickering Nuclear Plant. I went outside on the balcony because I was puzzled. I had never seen anything like it before. After about a minute of staring I yelled to my brother to come outside. He did, and I pointed and said what is it? He stared a couple of seconds, grabbed my arm and said it’s a UFO!

Immediately after, it began to pulsate. It appeared to implode turning into a speck and shot straight up. We heard no sound associated with it.

It was huge, bright red and almost hard to look at.” Using witness estimations I calculated the approximate size of the object to be between 96 and 192 meters in length.

Now I’d like you to notice the similarities between the objects described by the above witness and the objects described by the Pickering security guards Dave Percy and Mike McKenna. The objects seen by these witnesses, approximately 15 years apart are both bright red pulsating objects, with no sounds being heard emanating from the objects, and a quick vertical ascent witnessed before the objects disappearance. Is this just sheer coincidence or did the same object decide to visit the Pickering Plant again, 15 years later?

Mr. Bondarchuk had many ideas as to why these craft may be visiting these nuclear facilities, ranging from assessing our energy producing activities, assessing the environmental impact of energy-production and

possibly tapping into these energy sources. He goes on to state that possibly “they” have recognized the duel application of nuclear energy perhaps sensing the delicate balance between peaceful and military uses.

Maybe “they” are performing periodical surveys of these strategic nuclear sites to detect any new developments that might upset the existing equilibrium. Is there a purpose to these particular ‘visits’ such as Bondarchuk has put forth? Again, I’ll let you decide.

These Nuclear Plant UFO sightings are not limited to the U.S. and Canada. Do we all remember the catastrophe at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant on April 26, 1986? Five years later an extraordinary article appeared in a Russian publication called, “Izvestia” titled, “What are Extraterrestrials doing at the Chernobyl Atomic Electricity Plant?” This article describes a second and much less widely reported potential catastrophic incident at Chernobyl on the night of October 11, 1991.

This incident began with the fourth generator at Chernobyl, which was disconnected in order to eradicate a defect in the lubricating system.

The generator’s disconnection was accomplished by putting a high voltage switch in the off position. At this stage the high-voltage switch can only be put in the ‘On’ position manually. Without going into the intricate details of the accident there was a resulting fire and explosion approximately 15 minutes later which resulted in the destruction of the fourth generator and the flooding of generators #1 and #3 which were subsequently put out of operation. Shortly after the accident officials stated that the accident was caused by the high voltage switch being set to the ‘On’ position, a situation that COULD NOT have happened by itself. The article in the Izvestia referred to some witnesses who, a few minutes before the explosion, noticed a glowing bright light just over the building. The following day, journalist Vladimir Savran of the Chernobyl Echo visited the power station and took several pictures of the building that housed the damaged generator. To his astonishment, when he developed the film, some kind of object could be seen hovering over the station. Vladimir states, “When I developed the film I saw on the frame some kind of object hovering over the power station, the appearance of which I couldn’t understand.

An analysis was carried out by experienced criminologists of the IAD (Internal Affairs Department) of Kiev and showed that there were no defects in the film or in it’s processing. So what was it? Vladimir says, “If it was extraterrestrials, why then did they appear in the vicinity of the station? Perhaps they wanted to alert us to potential mishaps, or were simply observing us from afar. Perhaps they themselves provoked the accident?” He goes on to state, “We know one thing for sure: the accident had occurred because of spontaneous disconnecting of the high voltage switch. Could this have been put into the ‘On’ position by itself? Experts familiar with the construction consider such a possibility to be improbable…. What do you think it was?” (Alien Update– Timothy Good pg. 169-173)

Photo of a Fermii II Nuclear Plant cooling tower with a strange object in the sky above it. This was taken on September 17, 2000.

Here’s the witnesses' original account,

“I was out with the family on a Sunday drive to Lake Erie. We wanted to find a cottage I used to go to as a child. It turned out to be right across a bay from the Fermi II nuclear power plant. We took 3 pictures of the plant with our digital camera. When we got home and downloaded the pictures, we found a weird anomaly in the 3rd picture. We didn't see anything unusual when we took the picture. We've taken over 1000 pictures with this camera and nothing unusual except this picture. Seems kind of weird that it just happens to be above a nuclear power plant. He asks me in a subsequent e-mail, “Have you ever heard of anything like this? My brother said he was watching some UFO program on the Discovery channel. Somebody said he saw an almost invisible orb above a nuclear stack. When he looked directly at it he couldn't see it. When he looked away from it he could see it in the corner of his eye. Very strange.”

Here are the 2 pictures of the cooling towers taken before the one above and as you’ll see nothing appears in the sky above the cooling tower.

Some well-known analysts and investigators have looked at these photos.

I’ve chosen not to reveal their identities for reasons that you’ll soon see.

Below is one comment given to the photographer.

Mr. (X)-- I'm attaching two photo enhancements I've done on the image

file you sent to the Museum, as this was forwarded to me to work on.

Photo enhancements of object above Fermii cooling tower

I'm glad it was-- it's a very interesting and, to me, still an unidentifiable object. It does appear disk-shaped, with (in the edge-find enhancement) what appears to be a set of magnetic-field flux lines on each end. (I've rotated the object to horizontal instead of vertical.)

This is all this researcher states in this particular e-mail but goes on to write in a publication,

“The object appears decidedly oval in shape, brightly reflective, and seems (this is the most curious part) to have the suggestion, at each end of the oval, of curved lines resembling magnetic-field "flux" lines of the sort that you may have seen in pictures of bar magnets. Why, or from precisely what effects, such lines seem to have appeared in the visible spectrum, is a bit puzzling, but there they are. Also there seems to be a sort of gaseous "puff" near the object and another a short distance away, though all in all the object does not appear in any way to be the effect of any effluence from the nuclear stack itself. The apparent "magnetic flux" lines do bring to mind the now long-standing notion that some UFOs may well have some sort of magnetic-field

propulsion principle that drives them.”

Here’s a quote from another well-known analyst:

“What I can tell you with the data at hand: This is not a lens flare, by far the most common mis-ID in this situation. It is not a chemical defect being a digital camera. They (lens flares) CAN look like this.

Focus is a little shaky, but is within the realm of reality. A closer check shows that motion would NOT account for the focus as I said earlier. Not an electronic defect; the image is WAY too complex and coherent. (I am assuming other similar pictures don't have the same image in the same spot.) So the object is plausibly a real, cyan-glowing object emitting a cloud or contrail. The focus would be more sensible if the object were distant and coincidentally 'over' the cooling tower, giving more air turbulence to cause apparent poor focus.”

And one final opinion from yet another well known analyst:

The picture as sent is highly digitized and the image is not clear. One is reminded of a balloon supporting an instrument package. However, such a thing would be visible to the photographer and it is difficult to imagine it not being noticed. But... stranger things have happened (for example, UFOs). Anyway, I don't know what it is. I am always suspicious of objects that appear in photos but are unseen or unrecalled by the witness. If there is a better version of the picture it might be worth pursuing. Otherwise IMHO it is a dead end.... you don't know how far it was and hence how big it was. And certainly one can't immediately say "Aha, spaceship!"

Here we see 2 more pictures in which the mysterious object appears.

These were taken by the same photographer, the same camera, but in a different location.

I quote the photographer,

“Well I guess it was caused by the sun reflecting off the water back into the camera. Here are some pictures we took yesterday (Sunday). I also attached the original Fermi II picture. The angle of the sun and water is the same. Too bad. I liked the UFO possibility.

He goes on to state,

“It's only occurred on 3 of 1,700 pictures. All 3 have many similarities. They were all taken in portrait mode with a lot of sky.

They all were over water. The sun was in the same place in all pics.

Blue sky.”

We can now obviously see that this object is in fact a reproducible lens flare along with what appeared to be a puff of smoke trailing the object is also seen again in these photos. I once again quote from the analyst who at first stated that this couldn’t be a lens flare. He NOW states,

Gee, the joy of digital cameras. The image is a classic lens flare. The camera clearly does this. A lens flare always ADDS light (that doesn't belong there), so creates an image that's brighter than the background.

This camera must process the image data for contrast or color enhancement with a result of a flare with some colors darker than originally.

Here we see not all that is touted, as UFO evidence truly are unknown objects. Can you see how these photos and one doctor’s opinion can change a simple lens flare into a fabulous story of an unidentified flying object? Concerning UFOs I urge that you do keep an open mind, but don’t allow yourself to become susceptible to every report or photo published.

I’ve shared over 10 reports of UFO sightings near nuclear facilities covering a time period of almost 57 years. These are by far not all UFO sightings that have been reported, and I’ve only been able to scratch the surface here. I’ve shown you that at least one UFO was identifiable as a lens flare and poses no threat. I’ve also shown you that UFOs can be a threat to the operational procedures, communications and other functioning aspects of nuclear facilities, many of which are located along the Great Lakes near Michigan. I believe these unidentified objects and their reports should be scientifically researched and studied as closely as possible in order to determine their origin.

If there were only one singular instance of a UFO flying near a nuclear facility I could easily dismiss this as a pure coincidence, but I feel I’ve adequately shown you that THIS PHENOMENA IS BY NO MEANS A COINCIDENCE! And that it demands our immediate undivided attention and research.

I quote from an article dated January 23rd, 2002, which appeared on the Internet site ‘SpaceDaily’, and which dealt with security at US Nuclear Labs. A senior member of the House and Energy and Commerce committee, Representative Ed Markey, warned of lax security by stating, and I quote, the “DOE has been ignoring expert critical reports on security of its facilities for decades, and as a result we are all at risk.” Also in this article, Marshall Steve Cole, a former marine who served in Operation Desert Storm and in Somalia in Operation Restore Hope, states that, “Our national nuclear labs are in a state of much needed assistance” and, “From security of special nuclear material to the safety of its workers, the time to act is now. We must be prepared to act swiftly in dealing with problems which directly effect our nations security.”

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-civil-02c.html

Jan 23, 2002)

I believe the proximity of these objects near our nuclear facilities is cause for equal concern towards our safety and our nations security. If these objects are caused by some unknown natural phenomena or by-product of nuclear production facilities then we should try to scientifically determine what these objects are. If they are extraterrestrial then we need to do the same: scientifically determine what they are and make available to the public the results of our findings. It could be the biggest discovery of our time.

Chapter 6 click here