46 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
46 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
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OMNI September 1987 - UFO UPDATE by Sherry Baker
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Five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers left the Naval Air Station in Fort Laud-
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erdale, Florida, on December 5, 1945, for a routine training mission. But less
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than three hours later, all five planes and their crews of 14 were missing. A
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Martin flying boat (a plane that can land on water) was immediately sent to the
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rescue; but that craft, along with 13 crew members, also disappeared.
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Cryptic messages attributed to the flight instructor, including the cry
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"Don't come after me; they look like they're from outer space," have long fuel-
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ed speculation that aliens were involved in the planes' mysterious disappear-
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ance. And now a Poway, California, man named Wesley Bateman claims he has
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evidence that extraterrestrials hurled the planes into space. In fact, Bateman
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asserts, at least one of the Avengers is entombed in ice about 6,000 miles
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above the earth, just over the Bermuda Triange.
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Bateman, who says he conducts privately funded UFO research "for a group
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of people who want to remain anonymous," made his discovery while watching a
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videotape about UFOs. After watching the tape several times, Bateman says, he
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noticed an object allegedly photographed by Apollo 11 astronauts. What's more,
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he declares, he realized that the object resembled a TBM Avenger, "The heaviest
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part of the plane-the nose-is pointed toward the earth," he states. "And you
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can easily recognize the bubble turret and the tail."
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But how did a 1945 propeller-driven airplane get into orbit? Bateman
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theorizes that depth charges dropped by the Avengers may have damaged an alien
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craft under the sea. "When the UFO rose out of the water to avoid further dam-
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age," Bateman says, "its rapid departure created a propulsion vortex, sucking
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up a lot of seawater and the planes along with it."
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As far as aviation journalist and UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass is concerned
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however, Bateman's theory is full of holes. "I've personally spent days in the
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Navy archives going through the records of Flight 19, and there is simply no
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mystery to it," he insists. Klass says the craft originally headed east, toward
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the Bahamas. The flight instructor became disoriented and decided that the
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aircraft were over the Florida Keys. He thus ordered the planes north, toward
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what he thought was the mainland. But since the planes were over the Bahamas,
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heading north pointed them toward Greenland. Greenland was just too far away,
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and the aircraft simply ran out of gas.
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But how does Klass explain the photo of an Avengar some 6,000 miles above`
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the earth? "I could say that the object looks like the face of God," he says.
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"Besides, our radar monitors every object in Earth orbit. It's powerful enough
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to detect a six-inch-long metal strap that has fallen off a satellite. An
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object the size of an Avenger would long ago have attracted attention." NASA
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spokesman Ken Atchison adds, "I was around during the Apollo days, and I've
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never heard of the astronauts seeing or photographing anything like what Bate-
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man is talking about." Still, Bateman insists that seeing is believing. "I
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can't imagine anyone looking at this photo," he asserts, "and saying it's not
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an Avenger. This is conclusive proof that UFO's exist."
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