Subj: Space Junk? Date: 9/10/99 2:43:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time Kent, I believe that I mentioned to you that Gordon Cooper was due to be on with Art Bell soon, and he was billed to appear on the 9 Sept 1999 as the only guest. I listened to the start of the show to discover that Bell had arranged as a breaking new story to have Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Centre [NUFORC] on with him for the first hour, and had he got an interesting story to tell! Davenport had been inundated with written and telephone reports in the past 10 days of all manner of UFO reports, to the point that he said he had never known anything like it in the past. A major event had occurred over Memphis and another one over Tampa and Orlando Florida. The Memphis event had occurred at 05.05 were 5 lights could be seen in a straight line in the sky, which proved to be from one object a quarter of a mile in length. Literally dozens of eyewitnesses saw it. One guy said it looked like a GLASS tube in the sky, lit internally by 3 blue light sources. All he could see inside was an effect like swirling smoke inside the tube, but nothing else. Over to Florida. We then went to an audiotape made of a caller who said that on Tuesday last at 5 AM he saw in the sky what at first he thought was a Jumbo jet. It wasn't a Jumbo but a long object followed by a smaller object apparently in tow behind the bigger one. It was silent. Mc Dill Air Force Base [AFB] was put on alert and F16's went aloft presumably in response to the object over Florida. One came back later in damaged condition, and recovery crew on the ground met it. Next up Davenport had live on air an eyewitness to the Florida sightings. He was an impressive witness, mature and moderate in what he said. He is the pastor of the local Baptist Church where he has served for 24 years! He had no belief in UFO's prior to all this taking place! His name was Pastor Lynn Seine [the spelling may be incorrect, but phonetically that is correct]. He sleeps little these days to health troubles that keep him awake at night. He got up at 4.45 AM last Tuesday morning and shortly thereafter he went outside to collect his morning newspaper. He spoke to the guy who dropped it off. As he went back to his front door lights in the sky caught his gaze. He thought that it was a plane in trouble but the lights were blue and not what one would expect on a plane. It was going West to East and on several occasions changed direction suddenly and silently. It was very large in size. From later feedback from other people it is obvious that 100's of people saw it that morning. Seine said whatever it was it was not space junk entering the atmosphere and neither was it a shooting star etc. As he watched it pass through thin broken cloud in the sky it suddenly disappeared. He said it had blue streaks that followed it in the sky but what they where he had no idea. All light sources he saw moved totally in unison and gave the impression that this was one large object. Once he went back inside, he switched on his radio scanner. On all frequencies he could easily judge that this object had really caught the attention of all the relevant authorities! Local radio stations were flooded with callers reporting this object, and as usual the reporting tried to suggest that the caller was psychotic or somehow unhinged! The police and other service were inundated with calls, so presumably there were a lot of crazy people about that morning! By 6 AM news time, the news broadcasts reported that nothing was to be considered unusual, as the sighting was a Russian Rocket re-entering the atmosphere [the third in just over a week!]. People being interviewed about this hiatus were treated to inept and silly questions by the TV interviewer, who missed every chance to ask the obvious telling, question. The Pastor had spoken to 3 airline pilots who had seen this object and all of them dismissed claims that this was space junk burning op on re-entry. Space junk does not change direction several times. Later the Pastor was told by people he knows that 8- F 16's had been launched from Mc Dill AFB; one as stated came back with damage, and three had suffered total electrical failure whilst aloft. As the planes were proofed against electrical pulse, it is hard to understand this problem. At least all of them came back, so hostile intent has not shown by the object. It transpired that the F 16's left Mc Dill at 4.36 AM as they tried to intercept this object over the sea off Florida. Fishermen who had a camcorder with them filmed this object and the footage was shown on local TV. Attempts are in progress to get a copy of the film. Bell asked the Pastor what he thought about official accounts and he said bluntly that they were lies. Davenport said that the first report he had about this series of sightings was at 3.08 AM when a woman was awaked by very bright light illuminating her bedroom. She went to the window to see two huge spherical objects flying over her house in total silence. She lives in St Petersburg Florida. The balls of light flew out to sea passing Mc Dill AFB, and presumably causing the pilots to be swiftly awoken and made to get aloft. Davenport said that extraordinary developments were coming to light from other multiple sighting across the USA recently, including an eye witness who had been outside his home in Salem Oregon and had actually seen a Huge UFO drop vertically down from great altitude lit like a beacon, stop, turn and fly away horizontally at great speed and in silence. More space junk? The pastor said that something had died in the American people in more recent times; they had lost their curiosity and seemed more interested in money in pocket before all else. Based on what he saw that night the wake-up call would soon be here. The Pastor had suddenly lost his scepticism and he planed to preach on his sighting and its implications next Sunday! A new convert! I didn't get to Gordon Cooper's interview at all! I immediately started to type out this synopsis of the show. Maybe soon now? Tom.