November 14, 1993: MUFON & UFO Investigations - George Knapp, Linda Moulton Howe, and Walter Andrus

The Art Bell Archive

Host Art Bell guides listeners through a comprehensive survey of contemporary UFO research and unexplained aerial phenomena. Guests George Knapp, Linda

Key takeaways

• George Knapp reports a surge in disc-shaped craft sightings over Salish, California, accompanied by unmarked helicopter surveillance.
• Linda Moulton Howe details decades of reports linking silent black helicopters to livestock mutilations and human abductions since the 1970s.

Main topics

• Unidentified aerial phenomena & sighting waves
• Silent black helicopters & animal mutilations

Notable quotes

"Eighty to nine percent of the reports can be explained as something mundane."

Conclusion

The episode underscores the tension between public fascination with extraterrestrial

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:02) UFOs and near-death and after-death experiences. To contact the Bigelow Foundation during the work week, call Angela Thompson between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. at area code 702-456-1606. That's Angela Thompson at area code 702-456-1606. And now, Area 2000. Speaker 4 (0:31) Good evening, everybody, and welcome into Area 2000. I'm Art Bell, and this is going to be an extremely interesting program this morning. George Knapp is back. We've got him. We've got glimpses into other realities. Speaker 3 (0:48) We're into another reality with Speaker 4 (0:50) Linda Howe all the way back in Philadelphia. And then I think you're really going to enjoy this this morning. Speaker 4 (0:59) Walter H. Andrus, Jr., who is the International Director of the Mutual UFO Network, Inc. We'll be with us. So it's going to be quite an evening, and I suppose we ought to go ahead and get started. Speaker 7 (1:17) Here, Speaker 4 (1:17) roving who knows where, our roving journalist, George Knapp, is back. And here he is. George, good evening. Good Speaker 3 (1:24) evening, Mark. Good evening, listeners. The UFO flap over Salish, California, has been continued. As we have mentioned before on this program, this crash is sighting again this spring. And since then, dozens of witnesses have reported seeing disc-shaped crafts, balls of light, and other unexplained aerial phenomena. We've been told this week that videotape of one such craft has been captured, although we have yet to see the tape ourselves. What's more, witnesses are now seeing telltale helicopter traffic, as if the government or someone else is monitoring the UFO situation there. We've heard this sort of thing again and again around the country in places of considerable UFO activity or even animal mutilations. People start seeing UFOs or they report mutilation cases and then these unmarked helicopters start showing up in great numbers. Whoever it is behind it, they seem to have a heck of a lot of helicopters. Another perennial UFO hotspot, Missouri, is experiencing yet another UFO wave. Witnesses near Springfield are reporting the appearance of luminous, silent flying objects. triangular in shape with red lights on the top. Witnesses near Sturtup, Missouri, have seen groups of luminous UFOs flying in a trapezoid formation. And residents of Dade County, Missouri, have been seeing these glowing yellow cylinders flying around, something that's been described as akin to a fat flying sausage. Sightings also continue over Gulf Breeze, Florida. Some fairly impressive photos of disc-shaped craft have been snapped during the past several weeks. These photos have been analyzed and appear to be genuine as far as we can tell. The crafts are quite similar to the ones that were seen and photographed by the infamous Ed Wolters. A lot of people have doubts about Ed Wolters and his photos. In fact, your guest tonight, Walt Andrus, could certainly address some of those questions. But these pictures would tend to corroborate, I think, what Wolters has been saying. A couple of media notes. A feature film about UFOs is in production and is expected to be released in theaters early next year. The documentary film will be titled... beyond this earth. At least two British TV networks are interested in producing UFO programs. Traditionally, Art, as you probably know, the government regulated the practice of state of waste in the South of all together. But in the past week, I've been contacted by two British networks about UFO projects being produced in conjunction with English researcher and author Timothy Good. Also in the works here in the U.S., at least two syndicated UFO talk shows. One is being produced in New Orleans by renowned abductee Calvin Parker. The other is being put together in Los Angeles, hosted by Don Ecker. He's the research director for UFO Magazine. We don't yet know what markets these programs will be airing in, but both production teams hope for nationwide distribution. UFO Conference News, a big one scheduled for this month in Las Vegas, beginning November 28th at the Showboat Hotel. It lasts for a full week and features many of the best-known names in UFO research. The conference will also delve into topics not always given much credence in UFO circles, such as channeling. Angela Thompson of the Bigelow Foundation has further details if anyone's interested. And also this month, UFO Conference East will be staged in New York City. The dates, November 20th and 21st. Nearly two dozen speakers are scheduled, as well as a UFO march on the United Nations in protest of the alleged international UFO cover-up. A lot of people have mixed feelings about such protest actions. They worry that it affords... the mainstream media yet another chance to poke fun at UFO nuts in funny hats carrying funny signs and that it might denigrate the quality research being conducted. That's something you might want to discuss with your guest tonight, Walt Andrus. I don't think there are many people in the world who know more about UFOs than he does, and I look forward to hearing the show. Speaker 4 (4:57) How do you feel about it, George? These protests that are going on, there was one at the White House, and now you're saying there's going to be one at the U.N. Is it a good idea? Is it productive or anti- Speaker 3 (5:07) Almost anti. I think that there is interest, as we've discussed before, there is interest among serious people in Washington, D.C., for example, in getting to the bottom of the UFO cover-up. There is belief among members of Congress that it's real, that it's going on, that someone is lying to the public. I think this creates some political problems for people like that, that they are supporting sort of an ongoing... behind-the-scenes investigation of the matter, and for it to come out now when they don't really have the smoking gun, when they don't really have the evidence they need to nail the people who are behind the cover-up, I think it makes it less likely that they would stick with it. Speaker 4 (5:48) So it's almost hard to even know what to demand when you don't have the evidence. Exactly. All right. George, wonderful. Thank you very much, and we'll look forward to your next report. All right. Take care. That's George Knapp with quite a bit of information for us. this evening, as a matter of fact. All right, you're listening to Area 2000 coming to you from Las Vegas. It is a weekly event. We're here beginning at 8 o'clock every Sunday evening. Now we're going to go all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And somebody that you should know and shouldn't really need any introduction at all, nevertheless, with a glimpse into yet another reality from Philadelphia, here is Linda Howe. Linda, good evening. Speaker 1 (6:30) Hi, Art. Speaker 4 (6:31) Welcome to the program. Speaker 1 (6:33) Again, George and I are sort of on a similar track in these news leads. He started off with a discussion about the unidentified helicopters in California, and the unidentified and often silent helicopter has been one of the very confusing aspects of strange phenomena in the past few decades. There have been reports of helicopters, silent or noisy, and unidentified over pastures where animals have been found mutilated. or over the homes of people affected by the UFO abduction syndrome. A strong link between these mysterious helicopters and the animal mutilations began in the 1970s throughout the Midwest and eventually spread to most of the rest of the United States, including Alabama, this winter and past spring that I've reported here on earlier Area 2000 broadcasts. The helicopters can be of several varieties and colors and almost always without identifying marks. A friend and colleague of mine, Tom Adams in Paris, Texas, has researched the helicopter connections to animal mutilations and human abductions since the 1970s. Tonight I asked him to update us on his research and we began our discussion with an example of an eyewitness report that linked a mysterious helicopter to beings that did not look. like typical humans. Speaker 7 (7:57) Well, there was one case that occurred in 1976 in Montana, in the area of Norris and Madison County, Montana, which again was, they had, well, between June and October, had about 22 confirmed mutilations of livestock, and again accompanied by numerous reports of helicopters, some unmarked, some jet black. Many reported as silent. And during this time, there was a hunter from Bozeman, Montana. who was about 3 p.m. one day hunting in an area near North Montana. And he watched a black helicopter without any discernible markings fly overhead and land behind the hill. So he climbed the hill and saw about seven individuals apparently disembarking from the helicopter. And he began to walk toward them and offer greetings, and he realized suddenly that these men appeared to be Oriental. He wasn't sure if they were Chinese, Japanese, or whatever. They certainly were not. a white male Caucasian. They appeared vaguely oriental and they were jabbering in some language that was indescribable to him. They had planted eyes and olive skin. They didn't have uniforms. It was the everyday street clothes. And suddenly, as they saw him approaching, they ran back to the helicopter and took off before he could reach them and find out who they were. And we've also been told that there were similar reports of oriental-appearing helicopter occupants in England. Speaker 7 (9:25) you don't have too many accounts of people actually seeing the oxygen Speaker 1 (9:29) through Speaker 7 (9:29) the helicopters. And, of course, as you know and many people already know, in the history of the UFO phenomena, there have been reports of Speaker 1 (9:37) oxygen. Speaker 7 (9:38) So again, a reported and regulated tornado. Speaker 1 (9:41) Great. Now, what about the strong associations between helicopters in or around the vicinity where people have reported also seeing what would be considered a UFO? Speaker 7 (9:53) Well, one of the primary cases is that of the Cash Landrum, Benny Cash, Dickie Landrum, and Colby Landrum, which occurred in December of 1980, north of Houston, Texas, where the three encountered a large diamond-shaped object spewing fire and smoke in a rural area. And, of course, as many know, they went on to suffer physically from the aftermath of the attack. of this encounter, which apparently included some kind of radiation effect. But while they were viewing these large diamond-shaped objects, there were, the report has said, 23 helicopters that appeared around the Speaker 5 (10:31) object, Speaker 7 (10:31) some of which were single-bladed, single-rotor helicopters, others were the big Chinook or flying banana-top helicopters. And, of course, again, as is usually the case, all attempts to determine with any finality where the choppers are coming from have met with futility. Speaker 1 (10:49) There Speaker 7 (10:49) are some suggestions for it. There aren't too many places that would house as many helicopters. And this kind of leads us to the possibility that they would be military, because you have to ask who would have the manpower and the facilities and the logistical capabilities of operating a fleet of helicopters outside of the military and be able to do it within unity. So Speaker 1 (11:09) in that case, it might actually have been some kind of a military operation, either guiding the strange diamond glowing objects in the sky. or Speaker 7 (11:18) monitoring Speaker 1 (11:19) its activities. Speaker 7 (11:21) In Speaker 1 (11:22) the context of whether or not all helicopters could be military or terrestrial, there is Sheriff Luzaroto's famous quote from the documentary I did when he said that he and other investigators had become convinced that some of the helicopter activity they were trying to chase was actually, and this was his quote, creatures not from this planet. Speaker 7 (11:44) here involved Speaker 1 (11:45) with the animal Speaker 7 (11:46) mutilations and Speaker 1 (11:47) using the helicopter appearance as a camouflage for their own work so that we would not pay attention to them. What is your comment about what Lou Giraudo has had to say? Speaker 7 (11:59) helicopters over the years have been reported as silent has led a lot of people to think that perhaps we're not looking at helicopters at all. Maybe they are some kind of non-terrestrial craft in disguise, which of course makes sense. They would be able to move about without being noticed as readily as they would be if they were in their regular non-terrestrial configuration. Speaker 7 (12:25) To play the devil's advocate, there is a technology which might explain the existence of silent helicopters, active noise control, where you produce the sound to cancel out an already existing sound. And what you have essentially is you wind up with silence. So the technology is there, but again, the question has to be asked, as Luterot asked many years ago, how many of these operations can be carried out with such impunity without anyone being caught or captured? Speaker 1 (12:51) That's not Speaker 7 (12:52) very practical. and lend some credibility to the idea that there's something a little bit more exotic going on here than just a military operation. Speaker 1 (13:00) And it's been going on for over 30 years in association with what people have described as looking like a helicopter. And I remember when I was working on A Strange Harvest, the insurance guy in Denver who called me and said that he and his mother-in-law saw what they thought was a low-flying helicopter. come over their house west of Denver and suddenly turn into what looked like a square through which they could see the sky and continue to rise vertically upward and change or metamorphosize into something that looked like a solid round disk. Speaker 7 (13:35) Yeah, that was an interesting story. We don't have a lot of others like that, but of course if that one story is true, that again lends credibility to the exotic element of this. Speaker 1 (13:46) That it could actually be a... camouflage operation in some of these cases of an alien life form using a helicopter's shape to confuse us and to keep us from understanding what's going on. Speaker 7 (13:59) Possibly. I also think it's there may be more than one thing going on here that there may indeed be an alien camouflage operation occurring but also there still may be some kind of military or at least governmental operation. Speaker 4 (14:15) There Speaker 7 (14:16) are some indications that this may be the case, some indications that there are helicopters lodging here based on certain military reservations. Speaker 1 (14:29) And Art? Speaker 4 (14:30) Yes. Speaker 1 (14:31) In that whole issue of if there were military helicopters involved with both flying over abductees' houses, being in pastures either before or after animal mutilations, who are they, how Speaker 7 (14:47) are they monitoring and tracking all Speaker 1 (14:49) of this, and is there any truth to what somebody in the military told me sometime back unofficially and off the record? that there was in fact a system of teams that were tracking various frequencies of things that were identified as non-terrestrial with the idea of getting to locations both to monitor and to break up some incident like an abduction or a mutilation. What Speaker 4 (15:18) an incredible mystery this is, Linda. Speaker 1 (15:20) Yes. If anybody out there listening... has any information about any of these aspects of abductions, mutilations, or government monitoring of frequencies that might be non-terrestrial in association with these unidentified and strange helicopters, I would certainly like to hear about it, and I know Tom Adams would, too. Speaker 4 (15:42) How do people contact you, Linda, if they have information? Speaker 1 (15:46) I can be reached at Post Office Box 538. Speaker 1 (15:52) Huntington Valley. Spelled H-U-N-T-I-N-G. D is in dog, O-N. Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania. And the zip code is 19006. And if anyone has anything to report, please get in touch with me, and I will also share it with Tom. Speaker 4 (16:15) Good. All right. Well, that's, boy, that's something. I'm very curious myself about these helicopters, Linda, and I think there's good reason to be curious and try and pin it down because it is at least something we can follow toward trying to figure out what's going on here. Speaker 1 (16:32) It is. Tom has said this himself many times. If we could literally get to the crux of the strange helicopter phenomenon and understood exactly what it was, which may be very clearly two things, our own military trying to monitor something that is another intelligence and the other intelligence camouflaging itself so they can move around on the planet more easily, we might begin to get closer to understanding. what is involved with our planet. And it has these helicopters, or something that looks like helicopters have been reported now since at least 1973. They were dozens of reports back then, and they were reported with great regularity this winter in the spring in Alabama, and most recently I understand that another whole bunch of reports are coming from around. So we can do a lot of reporting on this. We're going to report these stories to someplace that we know what's going on, so I hope I will hear from them. Those of you out there who may have information about this. Speaker 4 (17:38) Good. Linda, we'll look forward to your report next week. Speaker 1 (17:41) Thank you, Eric. Speaker 4 (17:42) Thank you, Linda. Linda Howe from Philadelphia, actually, near Philadelphia. And if you have any reports for her of this nature, please do get in touch with her. That's Linda Howe, Post Office Box 538. Speaker 4 (17:59) Huntington, with a D, H-U-N-T-I-N-G, D-O-N, Valley, Pennsylvania. Zip code 19006. And the information is power. So you could use some, and if you have reports, we'd very much appreciate it. Walter H. Andrus, Jr. As one of the founding members of MUFON, in 1969, Walter H. Andrus, Jr. has been the international director of the Mutual UFO Network, Inc., since 1970, succeeding Dr. Alan Yudke, I believe it is. He served on the staff of Skylook and the Mufon UFO Journal beginning in 1968. Walt is presently the associate editor. He's been editor or co-editor of the annual Mufon UFO Symposium proceedings since 1972. Born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1920, Mr. Andrews graduated from the Central Technical Institute in Kansas City, Missouri in 1940. He's a graduate of the U.S. Naval Electronics. technician program during World War II, taught in their schools. Walt was formally employed by the Speaker 3 (19:13) Air Loft as Speaker 4 (19:15) a station manager. 1949 to 1975, he was employed by Motorola Inc. in successive capacities as assistant plant manager, manager of quality control, and operations manager in their Quincy, Illinois facility. In 1975, he transferred to the Seguin, Texas plant as a production manager. After a tenure of nearly 34 years with Motorola, Walt retired at the end of 1982 to devote full time to the management of the Mutual UFO Network. Even though being retired, he continues to provide consulting services to the Motorola Seguin plant. Speaker 4 (19:59) Mr. Andrus has been interested in the UFO phenomenon since August 15, 1948, when he, his wife, and son had a daylight sighting of four UFOs flying in formation over downtown Phoenix, Arizona. And amateur radio operators since 1939, Walt's present call letters are W5VRN. Victor Radio Nancy. In addition to presenting slide illustration lectures in the USA, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, Italy, and Mexico, he's appeared on television in the USA, the United Kingdom, and more recently with Oprah Winfrey. Walt is vice chairman of the International Committee for UFO Research and is one of the founding members of the new Joint American-Soviet Aerial Anomaly Federation, or JASAAF, organized in 1991 to promote UFO research and cooperation between UFO organizations in the USA, similar organizations in the Russian Commonwealth of Independent States. So, all the way from Texas, here is Walter Andrus. Good evening, Walter. Good evening, Larry. Good to have you with us. Speaker 6 (21:13) Thank you. My pleasure. Speaker 4 (21:16) Walt, it's hard to know where to start with you. There's so much I can ask. I guess I'm going to begin with the subject of the first two reports, or at least they both touched on it. What have you heard? What reports does MUFON have on this whole black helicopter thing? Speaker 6 (21:35) The black helicopters have been prominent in many cases to identify each and every case out of the question. However, we have to study these for the very reason that one of the notifications, if it's daytime, your Coast Guard helicopters are painted a dark blue. Speaker 7 (21:59) The Air Speaker 6 (22:01) Force may have a blue helicopter. The Army is using camouflage or the olive-green helicopters. Coast Guard is blue. So this is one way of identifying that yes, these black helicopters have been seen. We've actually photographed them in daytime. They are not with license numbers and checks with registration. There's nothing registered with the FAA. Speaker 6 (22:34) one of the agencies of the U.S. government. Speaker 4 (22:40) Does this lead you to believe that this whole UFO phenomenon, or at least part of it, or maybe just part of it, is indeed connected with the government. That in some way or another, it is either all a government project or... What do you believe about that? Certainly the helicopters would seem to suggest terrestrial origin and cooperation or knowledge or something. Speaker 6 (23:07) Well, we don't blame or even consider that the United States government is responsible for the UFOs that have been sighted for hundreds and thousands of years. We have nothing on the planet Earth that will fly and perform like a UFO. So if our government had them, we would be ahead of everyone on the planet Earth in space travel. But we don't have them, sorry to say. And the helicopters have been saying we don't know their purposes. Speaker 6 (23:45) entirely, but they're apparently trying to learn what is going on in these different events. Speaker 4 (23:50) All right, well, I guess I'm asking, Walt, is since they are helicopters, since helicopters probably are from Earth, unless there's some kind of change artist and can change shapes or change our impression of what we're seeing or something, it certainly suggests some sort of at least cooperation, then, between what you have firmly said is not of terrestrial origin and our government that... Definitely has some black helicopters. Speaker 6 (24:17) Well, we don't know if there's cooperation. Again, we work with facts. If we are speculating on a subject, well, I'll preface the comment accordingly. But we Speaker 4 (24:28) have Speaker 6 (24:29) to resolve the phenomena, and I think our government would like to know more than they know at present. Speaker 4 (24:35) I agree. Walt, we've got to take a brief break for a station identification. I understand you are an amateur radio operator. I am as well, Walt. You should know my call is W60BB. Speaker 4 (24:47) So, um... Speaker 4 (24:51) Welcome to the program as a fellow ham. Well, Speaker 6 (24:54) thank you, Art. All Speaker 4 (24:55) right, Walt, stand by. We're going to do a quick station identification. We'll be right back with more. You're listening to Area 2000 from Las Vegas. Speaker 4 (25:05) you Speaker 4 (25:11) From Jackie Gons Plaza downtown, this is KDWN Las Vegas. Speaker 4 (25:20) Once again, good evening. reminding you that all of this happens not to... not without substantial support. All of this area, and I speak now of the Area 2000 program, happens because the good people at the Bigelow Foundation are there. If you'd like to contact the Bigelow Foundation, your contact is Angela Thompson. She's a research coordinator there, and you can reach her at area code 702-456-1606. You might just want to thank them for their support. report. of this program. The original concept was theirs, and it has worked like crazy. Very popular program. Again, area code 702-456-1606, the Bigelow Foundation. Mr. Andrus, welcome back. Speaker 6 (26:14) Well, thank you, Art. Speaker 4 (26:15) All right, we've got clear sailing now to the top of the hour, and I guess there are a whole bunch of things I would like to ask you, but first, there will be a lot of people in the audience, Walt, who have no idea. what MUFON is, where it came from, why it is still in business, and what you guys do. So tell us about MUFON. Speaker 6 (26:36) We'd be happy to, Art. MUFON is the acronym for the Mutual UFO Network. We were organized on May 31, 1969, and we'll be celebrating our 25th anniversary in 1994. Speaker 6 (26:54) Talk about anniversaries. Speaker 6 (26:57) My wife and I celebrate our 50th anniversary right there in your building in the beautiful glass dome dining room at the Plaza Hotel. Speaker 4 (27:05) Well, congratulations. Speaker 6 (27:07) That was a year ago, and we just passed our 51st. Speaker 4 (27:11) Wow. Speaker 6 (27:11) That's getting off the subject. We did want