44 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
44 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
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SEATTLE (AP) -- Robert Gribble has never seen a UFO himself, but he
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believes others who say they have and has investigated thousands of UFO
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sightings for about 30 years.
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Gribble runs the National UFO Reporting Center from a cramped but
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tidy office in his home.
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"Even though I've never seen one, there's not the slightest doubt
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they're there," said Gribble, a retired firefighter recognized as one
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of the country's foremost authorities on unidentified flying objects.
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"Either that or we've got a lot of notorious liars from all around
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the globe," he said.
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He pays $1,200 a year from his own pocket to keep the center open
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and fields an average six calls a day from people who think they have
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seen unidentified flying objects.
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All seek an explanation. Gribble records their comments, asks
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questions and takes their telephone numbers in case he gets additional
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information.
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"If people realize we are not alone -- as we have been taught for
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hundreds of years -- man's outlook as to how we treat each other would
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change," he said. "Now we think of ourselves as citizens of the U.S.
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If we thought of ourselves as citizens of the planet Earth, things
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would change for the better."
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Gribble's office contains a large map of the United States studded
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with 3,500 shiny red pinheads, each representing a so-called close
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encounter sighting of a UFO. Some of the sightings date from 1946.
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A witness must be within 500 yards of an object to classify as a
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close encounter.
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Gribble said he wasn't surprised by the recent UFO report of a
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veteran Japan Air Lines pilot who said his plane was followed for
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nearly 400 miles over Alaska by one gigantic and two smaller aircraft
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in mid-November.
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The Federal Aviation Administration later confirmed that an air
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traffic controller spotted the unknown aircraft. But agency spokesmen
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say their investigation has been hampered by a radar recording's
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failure to show the aircraft's signal.
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From the thousands of calls he has investigated over the years,
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Gribble says most of the craft are described as disc-shaped, spherical,
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oval, triangular or cigar-shaped. People reporting close encounters
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say a humming sound emanates from the object.
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The government is covering up the existence of UFOs to prevent
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panic, said Gribble, who cites as evidence his own research and reports
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from declassified government documents
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