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David Marler’s ‘Triangular UFOs’ Is A Landmark Work For Ufology And Should Be Held As A Model For How To Handle The Subject In The Proper Way


Review by: KEN KORCZAK

With the exception of “lights,” the most common form of UFO reported by eyewitnesses are triangle or triangular-like flying objects.

The classic “flying saucer” or “disk” shaped UFOs don’t come close to the number of triangular UFO reported. That’s according to a survey conducted of 87,000 sighting reports since 1994 collected by the National UFO Reporting Center.

The count was conducted by Peter Davenport, the UFO Reporting Center’s director. He found 11,000 reports of triangular UFOs and 6,460 that were shaped liked disks.

In fact, even the very first modern report of flying saucers were not flying saucers.

On June 24, 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mount Rainier when he spotted nine objects which he described as, “something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear.” He described their movement as “a saucer skipping across the water.” A local reporter fixated on “saucer” and the term “flying saucer” was born.

David Marler

But get this: The first modern report of a triangle UFO predates the Kenneth Arnold sighting by more than 10 years. In the book I’m reviewing today, TRIANGULAR UFOS: AN ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION, author DAVID MARLER tells us about two young men who encountered a giant flying triangular object while walking along a lonely, snow-covered road one night in Alaska. The year was 1936. As the gigantic object approached them, they became frightened and dived into the snowbanks on the side of the road to hide as the fantastic object passed by.

Obviously, this obscure event on a remote rural road in Alaska did not create the sensation as did Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of nine triangle-disks skimming over the skies of Washington, and so usher in the modern UFO era. But it does demonstrate something important — that triangular flying objects have been appearing in our skies for many decades.

That’s part of the reason why this book is an incredibly important contribution to the study of UFOs. Marler chooses to focus on triangular objects, but in doing so, he has made one of the best cases I’ve ever encountered for the idea that UFOs cannot be explained away as something natural or the product of human invention.

The evidence is powerful and persuasive that airborne triangular objects are of nonhuman origin – be that entities from the stars, alternate dimensions, future timelines — or even something else.

Marler doggedly hammers away at the issue with painstaking and relentless presentation of case after case of sightings mostly gleaned from local newspaper reports, but also from the files of those organizations with study the phenomenon, such as MUFON or the National UFO Reporting Center.

Time and again, people from all walks of life tell of their experiences with sightings of gigantic triangular objects that float with utter silence in seeming complete disregard for the laws of gravity and physics. Many sightings report that the triangles travel with the widest side forward rather than “point forward” in weird contradiction of common-sense aerodynamics.

There’s also high strangeness. For example, some reports tell of triangles that shape shift, split in two and reform or take on other forms. Some have rows of windows in which, occasionally, glimpses of occupants are seen. Then there’s the uncanny, gigantic size of the objects. In the case of the famous series of sighting in 1997 “Phoenix Lights” incident, one triangle is estimated to have been 7 to 9 miles long – and was seen by thousands of people.

Darryl Barker created a 28-minute documentary on the Illinois events.

Other cases involve thousands of witnesses as well. Another prominent sighting is the Tinley Park Triangle. Tinley Park is a fast-growing suburb of Chicago. In August of 2004 thousands of people looked up into the night sky to see three bright lights that formed a triangle. UFO investigators located at least 30 videos of the object captured by residents. Although no physical structure could be seen between the lights, video analysis by computer-video expert Terrence Masson and Dr. Ted Acworth indicate that the lights were attached to a solid structure that was about 1,500 feet long.

Early in the book Marler takes us with painstaking detail through the January 5, 2000, sightings of a triangular UFO that was seen and tracked by numerous witnesses, including five police officers, one of who managed to get a Polaroid picture, although of poor quality.

Here Marler demonstrates his almost obsessive detail-oriented approach, relating every niggling instance in laying out the facts of the case. For example, he tells us where a police officer turned his squad car right and where he turned left as he followed the strange object as it traversed across southern Illinois skies. The effect for the reader is often tedious, and yet, instills us with the surety that here is a writer who is a serious, painstaking investigator that doesn’t mess around.

THE MEDIA AND UFOS

I think anyone reading this book will be struck by the fact that the majority of it could never have been written if it had not been for the steady work of local newspaper reporters toiling away at small and medium-sized papers across the nation and world.

Indeed, I was delighted to see that one of the historical accounts cited was gleaned from a Midwest daily newspaper I once worked for as a general assignment reporter back in the 1980s – The Daily Journal of Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

I bring this up because I notice Marler’s book is published by RICHARD DOLAN Press. Mr. Dolan, of course, has been a premier voice in the UFO field for decades. His contribution to the understanding of legitimate, evidence and fact-based study of the issue has been beyond calculation. He has my endless admiration.

However, where I part ways with Mr. Dolan has been his frequent excoriation of the media as “part of the problem” in terms of the frustrations within the UFO community about being accepted as a legitimate field of study. That’s why I was prompted recently to flay Mr. Dolan and his co-author Bryce Zabel in a scathing review of their book, A.D. AFTER DISCLOSURE. (See that review HERE).

To be fair, I have sometimes heard Richard Dolan make it clear that he thinks local, or perhaps second-tier media outlets are doing a good job of reporting the UFO phenomenon, but he contends that the “nexus of control” occurs at the top-tier of the mainstream media level. He has frequently made the dubious (and demonstrably incorrect) claim that major news outlets are “controlled by the CIA” and other dark government influences. (Again, see his argument in A.D. After Disclosure). This is where the otherwise level-headed Richard Dolan tragically falls prey to full conspiracy theory mode psychology.

This view is widespread among the UFO community. Most have accepted as gospel that the media has long played a nefarious, dishonest and corrupt role in not only keeping the truth about UFOs suppressed but but also acting as a proactive agent of outright disinformation.

I offer David Marler’s book as Exhibit A that this is not true. Again, anyone reading Marler’s fine study of triangular UFOs must conclude unambiguously that the media has been the best friend of the ufologist – from the time reporters broke the very first UFO sightings of Kenneth Arnold. After all, it was newspaper reporters who announced to the world in a bold headline that, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch In Roswell Region.

It was on-the-ground, hard working journalists who first revealed the UFO story to the public — and did not hide it from the public —  and they continue to do it every day up to present day. David Marler’s book demonstrates that.

Finally…

So, I find Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation to be among the most important books about UFOs written in decades. In addition to reports of sightings, the author offers critical examination, discussion and proposes a plan of action for future study. Included is an important interview with the distinguished aviation engineer, Professor John E. Allen, Chief of Future Projects for British Aerospace. This offers invaluable perspective from a man who has been on the cutting edge of aviation design for decades. He’s mostly a skeptic, but an open-minded one. His views on what is possible in terms of current man-made technology helps make the case most triangular UFOs cannot be “ours.” 

The book is bolstered by forward written by the legendary JOHN B. ALEXANDER Ph.D. An afterward section provides short essays that offer more perspective. These include offerings by Richard Dolan, Mark Rodeghier, George Wingfield, Omar Fowler and Peter Davenport.

Additional Note:

A recent book involving a massive triangular UFO and abduction case has been making some waves recently. It’s by retired attorney Terry Lovelace. I review his book here: INCIDENT AT DEVIL’S DEN


PLEASE CHECK OUT MY REVIEWS OF OTHER UFO BOOKS, LINKED BELOW:

BLACK SWAN GHOSTS by Simeon Hein PhD

SYMBIOSIS by Nancy Tremaine

PASCAGOULA: THE CLOSEST ENCOUNTER by Calvin Parker



Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

All NEW: KEN’S BOOK REVIEW SITE ON FACEBOOK: REMOTE BOOK REVIEWING

Physicist Bruce Maccabee Provides Clarity And Important Perspective On How Government/Military Policy Evolved On UFO Issue

Review by: KEN KORCZAK

Physicist BRUCE MACCABEE has been a significant figure in ufology for some 50 years. He holds a Ph.D. earned from American University, Washington D.C. He is often referred to as an “optics physicist” because of his work with optical data processing for the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, later known as the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

He also worked on underwater lasers to generate subsurface sound and made significant contributions on aspects of SDI, Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” space-based defense platform.

For those of us who have been addicted to UFO stuff for decades, Dr. Maccabee is an instantly recognizable face. Starting in the 1970s he began popping up in UFO documentaries on TV and film, usually as an analyst of anomalous photographs and video.

If Bruce Maccabee pronounced an image or video footage “authentic” or “unexplainable by natural means” – well, that really meant something. With his serious scientific credentials, he could not be written off as just another flake.

Dr. Maccabee is also a dogged researcher who has made enormous efforts to obtain all manner of military and government documents relating to UFOs. A major milestone was getting his hands on the secret “flying disc files” of the FBI – yes, there really was an actual FBI “X-Files.”

Dr. Bruce Maccabee

So, in this short book, THE LEGACY OF 1952: YEAR OF THE UFO, Maccabee offers an important perspective on where things stand in UFO research today, and “how we got here,” for better or worse.

He argues that early on, but especially in the year 1952, certain protocols became set in stone in terms of how our military and government would treat the UFO issue and how they would relate what they knew (or did not know) to the taxpaying public they serve.

Those protocols hardened into “tradition,” Maccabee writes, in 1952 and have remained largely unchanged since. The result is wide ranging and enormous. An entire American generation grew up with a government that either denied the “reality” of the UFO phenomenon … or for any case it could not explain, no matter how sensational, the policy was to suggest it could be explained in common terms if more facts were obtained.

What was so special about 1952? Well, that year witnessed a remarkable explosion of UFO sightings. Thousands of reports poured into media outlets, local police and various government agencies. It seems no location in America was spared.

The most significant is known as the “WASHINGTON FLAP” occurring from July 12 through July 29 in the summer of 1952. It was an amazing time! Suddenly, “swarms of UFOs” began appearing over the American capital city. And it wasn’t just sightings. The objects were routinely captured on radar. Jets were scrambled to pursue the objects. Our best-trained fighter pilots observed UFOs with their own eyes. The “saucers” routinely outdistanced the F-94s and other assets that chased them – and when the jets ran low on fuel forcing them to cut off chase and return – the UFOs would sometimes turn around and come right back!

It was impossible for anyone to be in denial of what was happening!

The sightings were making headlines in major papers across the nation. Also unable to ignore the events was President Harry Truman himself. Truman was alarmed enough to call top people in the Air Force to get some answers.

Stop for a minute and think about that. The President of the United States picks up the phone, calls his Top Brass, and orders them to get some answers about UFOs.

President Harry Truman

What would it take today for the President of the United States to pick up the phone and call his top military commanders to focus urgent attention on getting answers about the UFO issue?

And … and … well, I guess that leads me to my take away from this book. It informs me or, I guess, clarifies for me how we came to be in the place we are today in ufology. Ii helps explain the sort of “crazy labyrinth” that is the “UFO question” in which we find ourselves endlessly lost here in 2019.

Reading Maccabee’s book gave me the notion that a certain normalcy or rationality held sway for a few short years after that June day in 1947 when the Kenneth Arnold sighted nine shiny objects flitting over Mount Rainier, kicking off the modern UFO era.

For example, the press was reporting the UFO story largely in a straightforward way. It was “just that facts, ma’me.” If entire fleets of UFOs were observed over Washington D.C., ordinary, mainstream newspapers, such as the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa, would sport the headline:

“SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL”

Sure, that’s a sensational headline, but it also happened to be simply factual and true. There was no need to hide it, censor it, spin it, mock it or sugar coat it for the reading public – the media just reported to the people what happened – so that citizens could have this information.

The same goes for the military and government. Early on, a fantastic UFO sighting was not immediately inserted into a meat grinder of denial, disinformation, propaganda or captured into a classified super-double-top-cosmic-secret-for-your-eyes-only-report. Rather, it was confronted directly as a problem for government experts to look at directly as they strove to come up with straightforward answers.

But after 1952 – and because of critical policy decisions made by top government officials in that amazing time – we were all kicked down the proverbial rabbit hole we remain lost in today. That’s mostly what Dr. Maccabee is suggesting in this book.

On the other hand, this is all a much more complex issue. There’s a lot more at play here. For example, the UFO phenomenon has evolved in texture and scope to an astonishing degree since 1952.

Just nine years after 1952, guess what happened? In 1961 a certain couple from Vermont reported they were abducted aboard a UFO by alien beings. They were subjected to medical tests – Barney Hill reported what is arguably the first ever report of an anal probe. His wife, Betty, had a long needled pushed into her belly. Barney was also forced to give a sperm sample.

And then things really got weird.

I have three words for you: “Praying Mantis Alien.” Or how about three more: “20 And Back.” See where I’m going here?

Oh for the days when swarms of flying saucers were blackening the skies over Washington! What simple times!

So, on the one hand, Dr. Maccabee’s book provided for me an excellent sense of sociological clarity and perspective on how the UFO issue developed from the 1950s to present time in terms of government, military, media and public dynamics.

On the other hand, this perspective “stays in its lane,” so to speak, as it represents a narrow slice of the overall phenomenon as it roils and boils today. That’s by no means a knock on Dr. Maccabee’s well-presented book. It provides a compelling narrative which adds to the realization that the UFO phenomenon is not only real, but that the conventional explanations supplied by the skeptics are demonstrably flawed.


PLEASE CHECK OUT MY REVIEWS OF OTHER UFO BOOKS, LINKED BELOW:

BLACK SWAN GHOSTS by Simeon Hein PhD

SYMBIOSIS by Nancy Tremaine

PASCAGOULA: THE CLOSEST ENCOUNTER by Calvin Parker

INCIDENT AT DEVIL’S DEN by Terry Lovelace

MANAGING MAGIC by Grant Cameron

Follow @KenKorczak



Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

All NEW: KEN’S BOOK REVIEW SITE ON FACEBOOK: REMOTE BOOK REVIEWING