Reports of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are a common occurrence these days, but rarely are reports of military personnel having encounters reported. Now, a lot of these “lost” stories are beginning to find their way outside of their bureaucratic confinements.
The Mutual UFO Network ( MUFON ) is the world’s largest UFO investigation group, and one of their goals involve shining some light on these stories. In doing so, they partnered with the History Channel to recreate various wartime stories in the series Hangar 1: The UFO Files .
In 1968 Vietnam, an American patrol boat allegedly reported that two circular, glowing aircraft were following them . Their reports were corroborated by a second patrol boat that said it did indeed witness the UFOs over the first boat along with a flash of light that was followed by an explosion, which completely destroyed the boat.
Capt. George Filer, a former Air Force intelligence officer who had top clearance during his time in Vietnam, stated that the U.S. were interested in the UFOs due to their more advanced technology.
Reports indicated that these aircraft would fly alongside U.S. planes, do barrel rolls, then take off at speeds of up to three times that of the Air Force.
Filer also mentioned that many stories that he heard came to him “unofficially.”
“People tell you a lot of things that they don’t put in writing or sign their name to,” he said. “There was always this part of UFOs that, if you got too interested, it could mess up your career.”
Stories of UFOs holding battles in the skies have been heard throughout history — and one artist, Hans Glaser, created a woodcut of a battle reported by Nuremberg, Germany citizens in 1561.
The Nuremberg Gazette printed an April issue describing the aerial battle between large “cylindrical shapes from which emerged black, red, orange and blue-white spheres that darted about… All these elements started to fight one against the other.”
The name of the History Channel series comes from an actual hangar that MUFON used to use to store its archives. The images of the hangar in the series are of the real housing area where, at one point, all the organization’s files were kept.
Episodes of Hangar 1 will air over a 12-week period, and highlights military personnel who are willing to share their stories.
Among these stories is a retired Army sergeant who claims to have been assigned to UFO crash and retrieval cases, whereby his job entailed recovering alien ships and the bodies of extra-terrestrials that were either dead or alive.
Another story in the series is about an ex-marine who claims to have been stationed on Mars in an off-world mission that was kept secret, until now.
[Image via Huffington Post]