Merle Shane McDow, US Navy Atlantic Command posted:

October 2000

Mr. McDow entered the Navy in 1978 and gained a top-secret, Special Compartmented Intelligence (SCI) clearance with a Zebra Stripes. He was assigned to the Atlantic Operational Support Facility, Atlantic Command, then under Admiral Trane. Mr. McDow was present when a UFO was tracked by radar and seen by pilots visually moving at high speed up and down the Atlantic coast. The Command Center was put on Zebra alert and Admiral Trane gave the order to force down the UFO. Mr. McDow discusses the threats, intimidation and confiscation of logbooks that occurred after the event.

I enlisted in the United States Navy in August of 1978, and was assigned to the USS America, where unfortunately I sustained some injuries on the flight deck while performing my duties. I then went to CINC-ANT Fleet, Atlantic Command Support Facility in Norfolk, Virginia on Hampton Boulevard. I was directly assigned to AOSF, Division 22; we were a group of about eleven people then. We were directly responsible for briefing Admiral Trane who was the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Command. We briefed him on current military operations around the world, what the Soviets were doing that day, what they had done the night before, etc.

AOSF is just an acronym for Atlantic Operational Support Facility and CINC-ANT Fleet is another acronym for Commander in Chief-Atlantic Fleet, which Admiral Trane was at the time. Everyone on the eastern seaboard answered to this man.

After a six month wait I got a top-secret, Special Compartmented Intelligence (SCI) clearance, with a zebra stripe identification badge, which permitted access to all facilities on the base at all times.
I had unrestricted access to any facility at any time as well as the Command Center to which it was specifically assigned. My station was up on the mezzanine, or the third deck as we called it, over the Command Center. My job was to make sure that any incoming and outgoing audio/video information that came into the Command Center was recorded and duly logged for reference in case they needed it later.

I recorded all of the video and audio- everything that is going on- even when they called a Condition Zebra alert. This was generally a training exercise that they would announce beforehand by saying, “This is a drill. This is a drill. Set Condition Zebra.” and unauthorized personnel would then be escorted out of the Command Center if they didn’t already know that they had to leave.

Condition Zebra is the highest level of alert that the Navy has – or had at that time – for generally dealing with global nuclear threats, in particular the Soviets. Soviet Bearcats were routinely patrolling up and down the eastern seaboard watching what we were doing. And we would set a Condition Zebra if we had the need to put planes in the air to escort the bearcats out of the area if they were a little too close to our airspace or if they had ships in the area that were suspicious acting, for instance. Or we would have a drill, for instance, when they would get out the MAD books to wage nuclear war. The Watch Officer and the Junior Watch Officer, the JOD, had keys to a safe and they would get these books out called the MAD books – Mutual Assured Destruction – and they would have the codes that were necessary to transmit to the submarines if necessary, to launch a nuclear strike. And not many people were allowed in the Command Center when that was going on because they actually did use the codes and so forth. I am sure the Soviets and any others person who were enemies of the United States would like to get their hands on that information.

The Zebra Classification - well, without that you were not allowed authorized access to these facilities during this drill and the Zebra Drill was specifically for the highest level of top-secret information that was being exchanged between the Command Center and ships and/or submarines at sea.

Well, about this incident: The day started out pretty routine. I would say this was around the first week or two in May [1981] to the best of my knowledge. So everything was going along pretty routinely when they dimmed the lights (they did this first in the Command Center when they set a Condition Zebra alert). Most of the time when they set these drills they would say, “This is a drill. This is a drill. Set Condition Zebra.” But they turned the lights down this time and they didn’t say, “This is a drill.” And the Watch Officer and the Junior Watch Officer looked at each other and told some of their assistants to verify whether or not this was a drill as the event was taking place. And the early warning system- I believe it came in from an Air Force base in Greenland or Nova Scotia at that time- said that we had contact with an unidentified flying object that had entered our air space. And they said that this was not a drill and so it was treated with the utmost promptness and everyone started running around like mad once they realized that it wasn’t a drill. It took on a whole different air.

Within moments of that, the Watch Officer summoned Admiral Trane over to the Command Center because this was a little out of his area of authorization for lack of a better way to put it. It required Admiral Trane’s oversight. And within minutes Admiral Trane was rushed into the Command Center into his viewing booth that he had right under the Mezzanine there and the first thing that Admiral Trane wanted to know was how many contacts we had, where they were, which direction were they going, and were the Soviets responding. Because we knew that it wasn’t the Soviets that had entered our airspace. That was verified from the get go, from the start.

At that point, when Admiral Trane found out that it wasn’t the Soviets and that he wanted to know were the Soviets responding to this threat also, that was the moment that he gave authorization to put two planes up to go see what this thing was. And that was when the chasing up and down the eastern seaboard began. We launched planes from as far north as Greenland to NAS (Naval Air Station) Oceania. This object, we had it on radar- this event lasted almost an hour. You could hear the pilots live voice transmissions being piped into the Command Center. And they had visual confirmation of the object and made descriptions of the object. Pilots were able to close a couple of times and were able to see that the object was not an aircraft that we were familiar with- it was nothing that we had and nothing that the Soviets had. That was determined very quickly. This vehicle or whatever it was that they were chasing showed very erratic flight up and down the coast, quick flight.

It would actually be off the coast of Maine, for instance, and would leave the airspace in that area so quickly that we were having to have planes coming out of Dover Air Force base just to pick it up just in what seemed like moments. Well, I know for a fact that it would take an F-14 probably thirty minutes to traverse that much distance but this object, whatever it was, was just popping up. One minute it was here and the next minute bam, it was down several hundred miles down the coast, just playing tag.

It did go all the way down to a point off the coast of Florida around Mayport, the Naval Air station that we have down there at Cecil Field. And that was before it turned and took what would have been an easterly direction from our vantage point back up towards the Azores before we actually lost track of it.

During all this, we were using satellites called the KH-11 satellites that we use for information gathering. And this satellite did have a very high capability of taking really good photographs of things literally within a few feet of the ground from a vantage point out in outer space. And they were trying to get the KH-11 satellite to track this thing to get some photographs of it. The photographs that we did get back in the Command Center later on came from the first encounters that the planes had with it off of the northern North American coast. They did get close enough to get some photographs taken that were later brought over to the Command Center.

Well, from the photograph I remember the shape was more like a cylinder; it was quite flat and long. It had abrupt ends. The ends didn’t taper down like most aircraft. It just came to an abrupt end and it did appear to be reflecting sunlight and you could clearly tell that it was metallic. And the pilots were giving information such as it was not leaving behind a vapor trail, no discernable lights or markings on it, no cockpit windows or doors, nothing like that. It just seemed to be one solid thing whatever it was.

What was really bugging Admiral Trane, what was really driving him nuts, was this thing absolutely had complete control of the situation and could be anywhere that it wanted to be in a matter of seconds. One minute we were closing on it off the coast of Maine and the next minute it is in Norfolk heading south towards Florida. And it is all that we can do to get the early warning radar up and down the coast to watch for this thing as it just had it’s day with us.

Admiral Trane and his staff were quite concerned about it to say the least. They were quite concerned especially once they found out that it wasn’t the Russians and it wasn’t us and he wasn’t aware of anyone else who had the technology to build such a craft that could move about so easily and so quickly. I remember distinctly looking over the rail of the mezzanine and just watching complete chaos break out because of their inability to keep an eye on this thing, whatever it was.

The UFO was moving around so erratically and so quickly up and down the coast… They were trying to notify as many commands as they could up and down the coast to track this thing or get a plane up. Admiral Trane was scrambling and authorizing planes just left and right up and down the whole eastern seaboard to try and cut this thing off and to get some planes from the north and south to literally track it and to force it down. It was clear that they wanted to recover it, to force it down by whatever means possible.

The order was given by Admiral Trane to try and get this object forced down out of the sky if at all possible, by whatever means possible. After they found out and knew for certainty that it wasn’t the Russians, they didn’t care who it was as long as it wasn’t the Russians. They didn’t care who it was or where it was from. They wanted it and they wanted it bad.

The information coming in from the Command Center was being relayed to us from different radar sites that we have up and down the eastern coast that watch our airspace.

I would describe the officers as being scared. Yeah, they were scared to put it in a nutshell. Admiral Trane was usually a very calm man of very mild demeanor a really nice fellow. And you never really saw him lose control or raise his voice or get excited about anything. But this really got him upset to say the least. I would say that was the impression that I had from most of the officers there- they were just as much in the dark and scared as everybody else.

They would actually not track it down the coast. It would just appear hundreds of miles from the last sighting. And the pilots said that one moment it was there and the next moment it wasn’t. And I think that that was one of the things that really had Admiral Trane’s hackles up because he didn’t have any control of it or the situation.

This thing just had a mind of its own and was causing such an uproar up and down the eastern coast. Admiral Trane was ultimately responsible at that time and I am sure it was stressing him out quite a great deal. You could tell by his tone of voice. You could just tell by listening to him that he was very, very, very worried.

But on radar we were keeping track of it one minute and then we would absolutely lose it, and then we would pick it up. It would just appear as an unauthorized vehicle in military airspace.

And trust me, the military knows where every commercial flight is at all times. We knew where every plane we had was at all times. We knew where every commercial flight coming through our airspace was at all times. There just wasn’t anything going on that we didn’t know about it. All the planes that were scrambled were put up off of the shore facilities- the Navy has shore facilities, the Naval Air station for example, Oceania.

When you set a Condition Zebra, whether it is a drill or not people are not authorized to be there who do not have a Zebra Access Badge. It is a zebra striped area on your clearance badge. They have to leave the Command facility and we have Marines stationed inside and outside the building there that were under orders to shoot any unauthorized personnel that remained in the Command Center during one of these episodes. That was for the interest of national security.

For example, one time a Condition Zebra was called and the Marine comes in and wants to know what is going on. Is this a drill or so forth? They have got orders to start shooting people. And I know because I actually got the Junior OOD’s attention and said, “Hey, you guys need to tell this guy something. He is ready to start shooting people.” They haven’t told him to stand down yet, which he did. And I remember wanting to just get the hell out of there because he came in there and he said, “You have got a minute or two. If I don’t find out something”– he was ready to come in there and start shooting people, destroying evidence.

When this event, as I refer to it, ended, the object that we had been chasing up and down the seaboard headed out over the Atlantic, over the Azores. I do remember them saying that it had pulled up at a 66 degree angle as it approached the Azores like this, and it just pulled up at a 66 degree angle without slowing down or anything and left the atmosphere and was gone into space. It just took off into space and was gone like that (snaps fingers). I mean it just absolutely left. You are talking about something that covered thousands of miles in a blink of an eye and it was just gone and it just left everyone sitting around scratching their heads. “Gee whiz, I wonder what that was.”
It was comical in a way to see how the vast military might of the United States was put on its knees by something they had no idea what it was, where it came from, where it was going or anything. The only thing that they knew for sure was that it wasn’t the Soviets and they were very adamant about finding that out.

So we secured from Condition Zebra. They turned the lights up. Everyone was sitting around talking about it down on the command floor. I am up here by myself on the third deck. Admiral Trane is down here in his briefing area. They stayed for a few minutes before they left. I made a note of it in my logbook like you had to do. Then I really didn’t give it much more thought.

Later, these two guys came in, in suits. They weren’t in military uniform. They just came in, in suits and they had their little badges on but they didn’t have Zebra Striped badges. It was like a visitor badge. You could tell that they weren’t regular personnel. And I didn’t know them from Tom, Dick, or Harry. I had never seen these guys before. So we go downstairs to the first floor and there were several little conference rooms and they took me into one that they already set up and sat me down- and they had my logbook. They got that and took it down with me.

These two gentlemen began to question me about this event. They were being pretty rough about it to be honest with you. I remember literally putting my hands up and saying, “Wait a minute fellows. I’m on your side. Just a minute,” because they were not really nice. They were very intimidating and made it quite clear to the point that nothing that was seen, heard, or witnessed, that transpired was to leave this building. “You are not to say a word about it to your co-workers. And off base, you just forget everything that you may have seen or heard concerning this. It didn’t happen.” They were nasty, I guess is a good way to put it. I distinctly remember sitting back in my chair and I put my hands up and had to tell these guys, “Wait a minute, we are on the same side fellows. We don’t have a problem here.”

You got the impression that they would do bodily harm to you otherwise, without really coming out and threatening you. You could just tell by their tone of voice when someone is saying, “Hey buddy, do what I say or else.”

If this object had been hostile and wanted to drop weapons or shoot missiles at us, or whatever, it would have been very easy for them to do that. There was no question about that. We didn’t have anything at that time that could hold a candle to whatever this was. And it just had its own free run of our airspace and could do anything it wanted as far as traveling. We did not pose any threat to it whatsoever. That was painfully obvious, very much so. I do believe that Admiral Trane knew that too and was quite afraid. Just in a word I would say that that old boy was just plain scared.

Bullfrog posted:

Ross DaouThot posted:

yeah but these aliens’ lore is that they could randomly shut nukes off and on and can travel frictionless at 13,000mph. their introduction by the DS/Illuminati could just end up being another crisis that people unite and globalize around in an effort to surrender and present ourselves as peaceful primates.

Tighclops posted:

If they want more money I'm pretty sure they can just sell more drugs or something

Nichael posted:

This is the reason why I'm really conflicted. My gut feeling is that this is largely disinformation to gin up whatever the gently caress they want to do, but clearly they don't have to go through this rigmarole. This is a nightmare nation that will gladly fund anything the current strong daddy desires. Why bother to do this?

I also am willing to guess if this is literally aliens, very little will change because they've seemingly been doing this for a while, they don't seem to affect us, and people will move on.

Good Soldier Svejk posted:

So possible scenarios:
1) It's all gaslighting by the US government for $$$ (weird since they've dropped millions into research this anyhow and could just ask for more money. Congress can't say no to the MIC)
2) It's all gaslighting by a global coalition for... ???
3) It's an adversary waving their magic drone dicks at us for reasons.
4) It's aliens and their purpose is unknown
5) It's aliens and they're benevolent. Yay utopia.
6) It's aliens and they're malicious. XCOM incoming.
7) It's aliens and they made contact but they're just kinda neutral? Is that sufficiently different from 3?

Good Soldier Svejk posted:

So possible scenarios:
1) It's all gaslighting by the US government for $$$ (weird since they've dropped millions into research this anyhow and could just ask for more money. Congress can't say no to the MIC)
2) It's all gaslighting by a global coalition for... ???
3) It's an adversary waving their magic drone dicks at us for reasons.
4) It's aliens and their purpose is unknown
5) It's aliens and they're benevolent. Yay utopia.
6) It's aliens and they're malicious. XCOM incoming.
7) It's aliens and they made contact but they're just kinda neutral? Is that sufficiently different from 3?

quote:

Throaway account, because I'm afraid.
I was first "abducted" in 1987. I was 12 years old. I say "abducted", but it's not like that. Actually, you go willingly. It's scary but it's exciting, too, and they are somehow able to make you feel ok about things. It's not until later that you feel bad or like you've been violated. And they don't do a lot of probing, like raping, or anything like that. That's HOllywood nonsense. They look inside of people sometimes, but they have machines that do it. Not really "machines", but it's like a room where things get done and the walls are...It's hard to explain, so just imagine that all the walls are kind of like x-ray machines? That's the easiest way to describe it.
Sometimes there would be others there and they would be looking into them or they'd put them under and cut them open, but not usually. They took tissue samples from all of us, I think, and they never put your under or give you any anasthetic or anything. They just poke you. With like those things they take samples of the ocean floor? LIke that, but really small. They pull out chunks of you. It's usually done on the butt or on the lower back.
Mostly they talked with me. Just questions and they'd show me things, like television shows and things, and they'd ask me questions about them. I think the walls measure our reaction to things, too, same as they take x-rays. I don't know that, but it's the feeling that I got. They NEVER let you ask questions about what they are doing. Even once I got friendly with a few of them, they just do not like it when you ask them questions. They hate it.
You can't understand their language. It just sounds like "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm". I'm positive that we'll never be able to communicate with them in their language. I should mention that these are the "grays" that you hear about, except they aren't gray. They are sort of beige, and it's clothes anyway. They aren't naked. I don't know if there are others. People say there are, but I've only ever met these. Anyway, you cannot understand them but they can understand you. And they can put thoughts into your head but they can't hear your thoughts. You have to speak to them. They cannot hear very well, or else they are not good understanding English so you have to speak loudly and slowly. I don't know if they understand other langauges, but I'm pretty sure they would. They are interested in all of us, in everything that goes on. They like a lot of things about our culture, too. They like some of our music. Bluegrass is their favorite so far as I've seen. They like it a lot. They LOVE that african instrument that looks like a gourd with 13 strings. LOVE IT. But they cannot stand horns or horn music, so they hate classical music and jazz. I think trumpets sort of sound like their language? It's a feeling that I get, but I've never been able to ask them.
They've taken me up just about every two years, I'd say, since 1987. Just about. Sometimes it's more often, and I didn't go up at all between 1995 and 2000. They usually keep me for what feels like a day, but it turns out to be about four hours. Usually. The longest I stayed with them was three weeks. During that time, they made me make phone calls and "keep up appearances". They aren't really bad...well, i was going to say "people". But they're not really bad people. Or whatever.
The two that I got sort of close with told me to call them Jack and Gina. I don't know if they are male or female or even if they have different sexes. But I know that those aren't their real names. Those are just names that they told me.
They will make contact with Earth on a wide scale in 2021. That's the year when they'll land here, or colonize, or whatever. I'm not exactly sure what their plan is. They don't seem to be evil or dangerous. Their planet is, so they told me anyway, a very long way away. They couldn't explain to me how far, they said, becuase it was too far for me to understand and it was also "close to the side". I have no idea what that meant, but it's always stuck with me. Home is "Too far away for you to understand, but also close to the side." We don't have anything that they want, so they told me. So I don't really know why they come here or why they've taken so many of us up or why they've gotten to be friends with me. They do not have any religion and they don't need oxygen or water or trees or anything, I don't think. They don't eat people. I don't think they want to breed with us or genetically engineer us. I don't know what they want. But they've been coming here for I'd guess at least 10 or 20,000 years. I'm not very good about history and "upper paleolithic" and all that. But they've got video of all sorts of stuff and they showed me video of neanderthals and cro-magnon (which really were JUST like us humans except they all had black skin, way less diversity) and all sorts of other human-like things, Us's, or whatever. And they showed me video of the pyramids being built and this HUGE stone building that I guess is lost somewhere or was destroyed but it was in Europe, I could tell from the video. They have video of them talking with all sorts of people all throughout the history of Earth. They showed me some of them and asked me questions about them but I couldn't understand any of it because I only speak English and even English from 200 or 300 years ago is so different that I could hardly understand it. So I told them that they probably knew more about it all than I did.
I was up three weeks ago. That was the last time. I'm pretty sure that I'll go up again in a couple of years, but I'm not sure after that. The whole "program" or whatever they call it is going to change in July, 2021. I think they said 8th, but it could also have been 18th, I wasn't hearing very well. They weren't trying to intimidate me or even to warn me, so I don't think we have anything to worry about. I hope they don't show the videos they took of me when they first started taking me up, becuase I was so scared and young and they are embarrassing.
Edit...I changed an accidentally racist bit in there that someone pointed out. Changed "They were all black" to "all had black skin, way less diversity".
Edit....No more questions. They are not happy with me. Sorry.

A MIRACLE posted:

this is from seven years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/...web2x&context=3

A MIRACLE posted:

this is from seven years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/...web2x&context=3

Think Less posted:

And seriously, what weapon could we possibly have that would be a match for aliens? Like, if you've mastered interstellar travel you can blow up a loving planet no problem, and we wouldn't even see it coming

Good Soldier Svejk posted:

that person seems to be unwell

mistermojo posted:

its just so crazy that these physics defying being were able to ascertain that America is #1 and our military is the best and must be spied on for decades

mistermojo posted:

its just so crazy that these physics defying being were able to ascertain that America is #1 and our military is the best and must be spied on for decades

A MIRACLE posted:

this is from seven years ago

Tighclops posted:

If they want more money I'm pretty sure they can just sell more drugs or something

A MIRACLE posted:

this is from seven years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/...web2x&context=3

Bullfrog posted:

someone posted this vid somewhere and i think she's on the right track. the "flatland" example which i first remember from carl sagan actually makes a lot of sense. they might not be meat aliens coming here on a ship but just moving through a dimension we can't understand in a way that allows us to see the small part of them which exists in 3 dimensions. If that's the case than that might also explain why they don't make contact. They either can't at all, or 3d meatspace is so mundane that they don't even give a poo poo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6tDHZj5q5Q

Good Soldier Svejk posted:

So possible scenarios:
1) It's all gaslighting by the US government for $$$ (weird since they've dropped millions into research this anyhow and could just ask for more money. Congress can't say no to the MIC)
2) It's all gaslighting by a global coalition for... ???
3) It's an adversary waving their magic drone dicks at us for reasons.
4) It's aliens and their purpose is unknown
5) It's aliens and they're benevolent. Yay utopia.
6) It's aliens and they're malicious. XCOM incoming.
7) It's aliens and they made contact but they're just kinda neutral? Is that sufficiently different from 3?

Hirsute posted:

Yeah I actually really like this explanation. Like if you were a drawing of a person on a piece of paper that somehow came to life, your world would consist of 2 dimensions (spatially speaking). You might be able to figure out that there was a 3rd dimension, but the nature of your consciousness would make it impossible to actually perceive that dimension. If something from that 3rd dimension was placed on the piece of paper, suddenly something that you had no way of perceiving before is perceptible. If someone decided to draw a friend for you, the existence of the pencil would just be theoretical to you until its tip is placed on the paper, and even then you would only perceive the tip. I think that analogy works pretty well to describe the common reports of UFOs just disappearing and reappearing miles away in an instant, it's like if someone was picking up the tip of their pencil and moving it somewhere else.

Inspector Hound posted:

There is this; don't "they" basically have unlimited money already

Bullfrog posted:

someone posted this vid somewhere and i think she's on the right track. the "flatland" example which i first remember from carl sagan actually makes a lot of sense. they might not be meat aliens coming here on a ship but just moving through a dimension we can't understand in a way that allows us to see the small part of them which exists in 3 dimensions. If that's the case than that might also explain why they don't make contact. They either can't at all, or 3d meatspace is so mundane that they don't even give a poo poo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6tDHZj5q5Q

i am harry posted:

there are accounts of UAPs physically reacting to aircraft, shutting off systems, etc..maybe that would just be a side-effect of something else.
personally a "why" is more interesting than a "what"...like why even be here at all? there can't possibly be anything special here...there are near infinite planets in the universe.

i am harry posted:

there are accounts of UAPs physically reacting to aircraft, shutting off systems, etc..maybe that would just be a side-effect of something else.
personally a "why" is more interesting than a "what"...like why even be here at all? there can't possibly be anything special here...there are near infinite planets in the universe.