156 lines
7.1 KiB
Plaintext
156 lines
7.1 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: FORMER TEACHER BACKS "BELIVERS" IN UFOs FILE: UFO1163
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ARIZONA REPUBLIC, Phoenix, AZ-Sept. 4, 1990
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OBJECT LESSONS
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FORMER TEACHER BACKS 'BELIEVERS' IN UFOS
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By Arizona Republic
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The skies were moody and heavy with clouds about
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midnight on June 20, 1960, as Americo Candusso drove his red
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1957 Plymouth toward Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
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Candusso, then a science teacher who was enchanted with
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the stars and the mystery of UFOs, looked up into the thick
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blanket of clouds and saw that night what he considers the
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"most impressive" of his dozen or so "major sightings" of
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unidentified flying objects.
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"To me, it was exciting because there were five of
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them," says Candusso, 68, retired and living in Fountain
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Hills.
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Candusso, who taught a course in "ufology" at the
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University of Akron in Ohio from 1974 to 1977, says he was
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attracted that night first by a silent "bulb of light"
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ambling at about 35 mph along the bottoms of the clouds.
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As the light dipped beneath the clouds, Candusso said he
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saw a "configuration of lights, bronze on the right and blue
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on the left."
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"Beneath that were two bands of red, white and green
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lights," he continued. "Those (bands of lights) were
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sparklers. They looked like diamonds. Scintillating."
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Using his knowledge of angles and landmarks, Candusso
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calculated that the lights overhead outlined a 200-foot-long
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oblong about 4,100 yards away.
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Over the next 35 minutes, Candusso said, he saw five of
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the unexplained objects meander out of the clouds, hover
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overhead and disappear.
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Excited, Candusso left his post for five minutes to race
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to a phone to call friends and find out whether they had seen
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the lights.
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They hadn't.
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When he returned, he said, he followed the last object
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for a few hundred yards before it faded away.
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"Between the trees, I saw a round object," he recalls.
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"It might not have anything to do with what I had seen
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before."
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Candusso, who said "I can still remember it like it was
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yesterday," is convinced that the brilliantly lighted shapes
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he saw that night were unlike any aircraft he had ever seen.
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An astronomy enthusiast, weather observer and
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cryptologist for the Army Air Forces in North Africa during
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World War II, Candusso said it is unlikely that he mistook
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the shapes of airplanes or heavenly bodies for UFOs.
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"I am used to what is out there," he said. "I know how
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to look at the sky."
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A field investigator for an international UFO group, he
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moved in May to a sunny home in Fountain Hills from Medina,
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Ohio, where he taught at an elementary school. He was
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attracted to Fountain Hills, northeast of Phoenix, by the
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desert and the promise of good golfing.
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But he said the skies over Fountain Hills, illuminated
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by surrounding city lights and commercial aircraft, are "the
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worst place in the world to see UFOs. It's all lit up like
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Christmas trees."
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Although he hasn't had a sighting for several years,
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Candusso is clearly convinced that UFOs exist.
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He is in respectable company.
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In the 1960s, Gen. Douglas MacArthur warned of the
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dangers of "interplanetary war."
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The late Dr. James E. McDonald, senior physicist at the
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University of Arizona, and astronomer Carl Sagan told a House
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panel on July 29, 1968, that they believed the existence of
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UFOs should not be discounted.
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Although McDonald said his two years of study did not
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provide "Irrefutable proof," he added that he believed "UFOs
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are probably extraterrestrial devices engaged in something
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that might be very tentatively termed surveillance."
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SOME ARE SKEPTICAL
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There also have been respectable skeptics over the
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years.
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A two-year study commissioned by the Air Force at the
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University of Colorado and published in 1969 concluded that
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there "is no evidence to justify a belief that
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extraterrestrial visitors have penetrated our skies and not
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enough evidence to warrant any further scientific
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investigation."
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More recently, UFO enthusiasts have been intrigued by
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reports of hundreds of sightings during the past few months
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in Belgium.
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In a sighting reported in July, Belgian F-16 jet
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fighting used their radar screens to track an object that,
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according to a military official, "exceeded the limits of
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conventional aviation."
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Belgian Air Force Col. Wilfried de Brouwer said at the
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time that the UFO dived from about 10,000 to 4,000 feet in
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two seconds. At the same time, it increased its speed from
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600 to 1,100 mph, according to news accounts.
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Although Candusso is sure of the existence of UFOs, he
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does not talk about them with the fervor of an evangelist
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seeking converts.
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Instead, he speaks in the careful tones of a scientist,
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pointing to tables and bookshelves in his airy study laden
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with hundreds of reports and newspaper clippings detailing
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sightings. And he has tape recordings of law-enforcement
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officials, motorists and others who believe they saw UFOs.
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INVESTIGATING 'FRAUDS'
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Candusso acknowledges that reports of sightings have
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diminished since the 1960s and that some of the accounts "are
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frauds."
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As a field investigator for the Texas-based national
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Mutual UFO Network, Candusso has probed hundreds of reported
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UFO sightings. He is convinced that at least 10 percent of
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them were actually vehicles from outer space.
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He was one of the investigators who taped an interview
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with Deputies Dale Spaur and W.L. Neff of Portage County,
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Ohio. On the tape, the pair recount with a certain sense of
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wonder a 100-mph chase of a brilliantly lighted, dome-shaped
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object at dawn on April 17, 1966.
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They raced 86 miles from Randolph to Conway, Ohio, in
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pursuit of the object, which eventually "rose straight up
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until it was lost in the sunny morning sky," according to a
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1977 story in the Sunday magazine of the Akron Beacon
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Journal.
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Attempts by The Arizona Republic to reach Spaur and Neff
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were unsuccessful.
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SIGHTINGS FROM AGE 10
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Candusso said he saw what he now believes was his first
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UFO during recess at Liberty School in Alliance, Ohio, when
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he was 10.
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"It was a white ball of light, very brilliant, like a
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star," he said. "It was moving."
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Skeptical, his teacher ordered him inside.
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One of his early encounters as an adult occurred April
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6, 1959, at 10:45 p.m., when he saw what looked like a
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fluorescent tube headed northwest near Twinsburg, Ohio.
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"It looked like a ball point pen with the bigger part
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going south," he said. "It looked like the fuselage of a B-
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19, all light, no openings."
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The object disappeared 10 or 15 minutes later, he said.
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Despite diminished reports of sightings today, Candusso
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continues his studies, talking with others in meetings held
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the third Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Valley
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National Bank in Fountain Hills.
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He is buoyed by the enthusiasm of others and his own
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belief.
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"There is no doubt UFOs exist," he said.
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |