Lt. Colonel (USAF Ret.) Wendelle C. Stevens
passes at 87
Research pioneer, Wendelle Stevens
passed today – September 7, 2010 at 4:44 pm in Tucson, Arizona of respiratory
failure.
Lt. Colonel (USAF Ret.) Wendelle C.
Stevens was one of the world’s best known UFO researchers. Born in 1923 in
Round Prairie, Minn., he enlisted in 1941 in the US Army and was transferred to
the Air Corps in1942. He served in the Pacific Theater during World War II and
subsequently in a classified project in Alaska to photograph and map the Arctic
land and sea area, where the data collecting equipment onboard B-29s detected
UFOs. Stevens also served as US Air Attaché in South America. He retired from
the USAF in 1963 and worked for Hamilton Aircraft until 1972.
Wendelle Stevens was actively
involved in ufology for 54 years, first as Director of Investigations for the
Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Tucson, Ariz., where he
retired. He amassed one of the largest collections of UFO photos and
investigated a number of contact cases, published in more than 22 books. His
most famous one was the Billy Meier case in Switzerland.
In Dec. 1997 he received an award
for lifetime achievement at the First World UFO Forum in Brazilia, capital of
Brazil. He was a founder and Director of the International UFO Congress and
recently transferred his extensive photo collection, library and archives to
Open Minds Production.
Maurizio
Baiata: Colonel Stevens, let’s focus on the period when professor Hynek first
entered the UFO scene.
Wendelle
Stevens: It happened with Project Grudge, a project that did not last too long.
Immediately after its creation Hynek was appointed as astronomy consultant for
the project and was given a Confidential clearance. Therefore he could not have
access to any Secret reports. Hynek was chosen by his astronomy professor at
Harvard, Donald Menzel, who was a member of the MJ-12 group. Menzel recommended
Hynek because he was a brilliant man who would follow the rules and was the
right one to administer the information from upstairs to downstairs providing
feasible explanations to the public. This was Hynek’s task. Although Hynek
always tried to get his hands on the secret reports, he was unable since he
lacked the clearance.
Capt.
Wendelle Stevens at ATIC Flight Test, 1947 (W. Stevens Archive).
Then
Project Grudge was closed and Project Blue Book replaced it. Although Blue Book
still had a Confidential clearance, Hynek was granted permission to go beyond
Secret reports, despite the fact these reports were of lower significance
compared to Top Secret, Majic and Eyes Only classified reports.
MB:
There were no reports related to the UFO crashes, then?
WS:
No. All the UFO crash cases were classified above Secret. At a certain point
Hynek objected that they could not give any feasible explanation to the public
without being aware of the full Secret reports. That was when he left the
office and became a consultant for the Air Force. Still, Hynek could not have
access to the most important reports, it was a frustrating situation. Hynek
wanted to get out of this control system, wanted freedom to investigate and to
disclose. It was then that he suffered a brain tumor and died.
MB:
Colonel, are you implying that you suspect something about it?
WS:
For sure, and for many other suspicious deaths. Death by the same cause. Brain
tumor. Which can be induced.
MB:
New Mexico congressman Steven Schiff is suffering from a brain tumor. (Schiff
died on March 25, 1998)
Col.
Stevens drivin’ his car out of Tucson, in 2009. (photo: Maurizio Baiata)
WS:
Yes, it’s a dangerous game. I asked Colonel Corso if he feels his life is in
danger. In his book The Day After Roswell, Corso mentions his friendship with
Robert I. Sarbacher [physicist and consultant with the U.S. Department of
Defense Research and Development Board (RDB).] Corso is a unique witness, we
have nobody else like him. Others are too scared to talk publicly, they can
only speak in paraphrases. For instance, Sarbacher said “Oh, these things are
going back 25 years ago, today they have no importance at all.” Whitley
Strieber called me asking for Sarbacher’s phone number in Melbourne, Florida.
You know what happened? He called on a Monday and they scheduled an interview
for the next Friday, on the subject of UFO crashes and retrievals. On Thursday
night Strieber was ready to leave. He phoned again to confirm the appointment
and the wife’s scientist told him that her husband had died the previous night
of a heart attack. Here’s how things go. You know how they do this? They use a
powdery substance that can be placed on the steering wheel of your car, or on
the door knob or the button flush, and by contact it enters the bloodstream.
The substance can be triggered remotely using a very simple device, and
virtually freezes the blood, causing the stroke. See, Sarbacher, had no heart
problem and died just the day before the interview with Strieber.
MB:
Can you refer to other suspicious cases known to you?
WS.
Now, there’s another classic case of this type. Donald Keyhoe was head of
NICAP. Frank Edwards was a broadcasting journalist in Washington that had
already written in his book, that he was determined to pull off a sensational
story about UFOs, along with Major Donald Keyhoe, bring it to the attention of
Congress and propose the establishment of a committee to analyze the situation.
So they turned to Indiana Congressman J. Edward Roush, who was interested in
the phenomenon and who chaired some sessions of the committee [The
congressional hearing initiated under the auspices of the House Science and
Astronautics Committee on July 29, 1968]. The three agreed to hold a press
meeting. The plan was that Keyhoe would produce the evidence and the next
morning Edwards would have sent a press release, while the congressman would
call the press in its meeting room and suddenly he raised the volume of the
radio so all the journalists could not miss the news. Then he would have said
that it was a problem that the parliament should deal with. It was all planned,
Keyhoe gave all the information to Edwards. But while Frank was preparing the
press release he was struck down by a heart attack. Since Edwards could no
longer make the announcement, Roush and Keyhoe knowing the contents of the
release tried to repeat it three days later.
The
entire Col. Stevens archives are property of Open Minds Production. (ph:
Maurizio Baiata)
They
decided to entrust it to another journalist. Because of those unmistakable
signs, Keyhoe resolved to retire. Too dangerous, and anyway, now he was alone,
he had lost his friends. Other researchers began to fear the worst and to come
forward publicly. They gave up. I had two of my colleagues with whom I worked
on UFO crashes. We had a piece of metal retrieved from a UFO incident in the
Baja peninsula and another fragment from New Mexico. A retired Army lieutenant
colonel had managed to get hold of a fragment. He called me from San Diego
saying he was ready to drive over with his car and meet me that same night in
Tucson. Three hours later his wife called me and she told me that I would never
see her husband. He was found dead in his car, just outside San Diego,
with a gunshot to the head exploded by a left-handed person. He was
right-handed and he never had a gun in his life. His briefcase was missing, and
the car was clean.
MB:
And who represents the most important case, ever?
WS:
Of course, I have to talk about James McDonald, who I knew very well. He was
among the recipients of five detailed reports that we prepared, with solid
evidence, which were not included in Project Blue Book. He believed that all
the reports and evidence will go over at the Blue Book, we proved him
otherwise. He then realized that the cases which he had thoroughly
re-investigated were real. Therefore he asked the Blue Book why they did not
analyze them. They answered that they knew nothing. So he turned to various
Generals, one of which confirmed to be aware of those reports and that they
came from the Foreign Technology Division [the same of Corso].
McDonald
replied that he had just addressed the question to the FTD and they knew
nothing. The general asked him “Who said that?” and McDonald replied “the
Blue Book,” and the General, “But they know nothing, they are only a public
relations office, you must speak with a [certain] Colonel.” McDonald tried that
way but it was useless, so he went to the Pentagon, holding a couple of names
mentioned by the general.
At
that time the President, I believe was Johnson, used to invite for breakfast in
his office, next to the Oval Room, a couple of congressmen and senators, along
with his closest staff collaborators. According to the schedule, first the
counselors made an introductory statement, followed by the others and they all
summarized the day’s briefing. At that point the guests of the representatives
and the senators could intervene, saying what they thought was more
appropriate. McDonald was the guest of an Arizona Congressman who introduced
him. McDonald stood up and said to have in hand those five very substantial UFO
reports that we provided to him, and that did not appear in the Blue Book, or
elsewhere. Nobody replied. With a strange expression on their faces, all
remained silent and, one after the other, left the office. The Presidential
Breakfast was over. McDonald did not get anything.
MB:
How did McDonald react to that situation?
WS:
Within two weeks he realized that they knew nothing, but also that they did not
want to do anything. It was politically unhealthy. He went home happy to have
touched a nerve. He was an activist, a guy who took his students to visit the
missile sites in Tulsa. But what about his suicide? The first McDonald suicide
was in his car in the parking lot of the university. With a gun shoved in his
mouth and the bullet penetrated up to the brain, without damaging the lobes,
but severing the right optic nerve and blocking its peripheral visual function.
He could only see blurred points ahead with his left eye. He was blind to 90
percent, and in critical condition. He was rushed to the hospital and they
tried to remove the bullet from the skull and stabilize him. He was in
the intensive care ward in a hospital bed being watched 24 hours a day. He had
no clothes or shoes. In the middle of the night at two in the morning, McDonald
disappears from his bed. He evaporated. He was found in the desert, alone, this
time with his skull pierced by a gunshot to his temple. Now, how can we explain
that a nearly blind man, with no clothes, gets out of his bed, reaches the only
entrance, constantly guarded, and leaves the hospital without arousing any
suspicion. How can you do that? According to the version given by the press,
McDonald would have left the hospital, reached his home, took a second gun he
had hidden in a box in a closet in the bedroom while his wife was asleep,
without waking her up. Then, we don’t know if he was escorted by somebody, and
how he would go to the desert, where he killed himself. Nobody saw
anything. They found him lying there. No car, no other vehicle near the body.
None. Why are we still talking about a suicide? There was no investigation, no
suspect, the insurance refund was immediately provided. Here, we have another
problem.
Col.
Stevens and William Herrmann’s book “Contact From Reticulum” privately
published in 1981 by Wendelle Stevens.
The
insurance was to investigate the circumstances of death and instead very
quickly they arranged everything. No autopsy. He was buried the next day and
the most horrible thing is that so far nobody has investigated anything, no
action by the authorities, no police, no public official. The case was closed
as a suicide. The day following his death, while the morticians where preparing
the body for burial, some government agents went to his residence and explained
to his wife that James was working on classified projects, and wanted to take
his documents. They confiscated almost everything they found inside a cabinet
and then returned about a third of the papers, after taking what they wanted.
Now,
I have an advice for the UFO researchers. It is important that you are well
known to the public, if you want to get results. It is clear that when a famous
researcher discloses something very sensitive, the power tends to confirm his
statements. They cannot do otherwise and they try to avoid it. Their strategy
is to discredit, as they did with me, with allegations concerning sexual crimes,
hideous crimes, to whom people react with repulsion. They can create anything
to make you look bad. They are great experts in this. They fabricate the
evidence.
Maurizio
Baiata, November 1997 (Updated, June 2015)
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