October 25th, 1973.
It’s almost noon at Naval Communication
Station Harold E. Holt.
The powerful antenna array in northwest Australia
has just sent out a full nuclear alert to
ships and submarines in the region.
It is prompted by officials in Washington
D.C. who have made the decision to raise military
readiness to DEFCON 3, the highest state of
peacetime alert. Henry Kissinger, then-Secretary
of State, is worried Soviet intervention in
the Middle East’s “October War” could
spiral out of control...
That night, something strange happened on
the narrow peninsula.
Two base personnel independently observed
a dark, black sphere hovering a few hundred
meters off the ground. Declassified files
later suggest it was “pulsating or revolving”
and after a few minutes, suddenly took off
at tremendous speed.
So, what happened that night? Is it at all
connected to other UFO sightings above Soviet
and American facilities throughout the 70s?
And... are spheres still seen today?
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The story starts at Harold E. Holt, four miles
north of the town of Exmouth. The site opened
in 1967 as a US Navy relay station to communicate
with submarines and ships in the Indian Ocean.
In 1973, Holt communicated the readiness order
to a third of all nuclear warheads deployed
at sea around the world….and seven hours
later, something happened...
It was first noticed by a US Navy Lieutenant
Commander, who filled out an “Unusual Aerial
Sighting” report with the Royal Australian
Air Force.
Known only as “Moyer,” he writes he was
travelling south on Murat Road from the base,
toward Exmouth. He had driven the
same road twice every day for 21 months.
It was twilight, and the sky was “absolutely
clear,” with no clouds.
The Lieutenant first saw the object directly
to his right — toward the west. 20 degrees
off the ground, he noticed a “large, black
object in the sky.”
He later wrote it was very black, and approximately
the same size as the Moon would appear if
it were out. For 20 to 25 seconds, it hovered
— silently.
Then, seemingly abruptly, it accelerated — in
his words — “beyond belief” and disappeared
to the North.
It’s worth pointing out he did not have
his glasses on, and noted the details were
“blurred.” Another, though, Fire Captain
Bill Lynn, an Australian civilian, reported
seeing something similar five minutes later.
Like his colleague, he reported the event
to the RAAF.
“I hereby wish to report a most unusual
sighting whilst on duty, on Thursday 25th
October 1973,” he wrote. “At 1920, I was
called to close the Officers club...I proceeded
toward the club in the Fire Department pickup
488, when my attention was drawn to a large...black
object.”
It was due west of Area B — the facility’s
headquarters. As he began to drive, he “couldn’t
help but be attracted” to look at it.
Lynn exited the pickup and stood for several
minutes...watching what he described as a
“black sphere hovering.” The sky was clear,
and like the other Lieutenant said, there
were no clouds.
Lynn noticed something else.
As the object sat motionless, it had a “halo”
around the center, which appeared to be “revolving
or pulsating.”
He watched it for about four minutes, before
reporting the same thing as his colleague:
it took off at “tremendous speed and disappeared
in a Northerly direction in a few seconds.”
Historical records show the time was nautical
twilight — the Sun was 12 degrees below
the horizon, but still illuminating it...
The obvious question is, though,...did both
men see the same object?
We found one inconsistency.
Moyer reported a 20 degree angle of elevation,
while Lynn estimated 12. Given Lynn’s position
further to the west, he should have reported
an angle higher than Moyer. If they saw the
same object.
But...the similarities — both saw it in
the same patch of sky, same color, size and
instantaneous acceleration to the north — are
compelling.
There may be more to this story though.
An NSA document once classified Top Secret
Umbra makes reference to a message transmitting
information about a UFO sighting in 1973.
The Holt location was certainly important
enough to warrant monitoring by the NSA, who
has long had a footprint in the Outback.
But a month before Lynn and Moyer saw the
sphere, something just as significant happened.
CIA files report an unidentified aerial phenomenon
was witnessed above a secret Soviet weapons
range.
In late summer ‘73, a source — still redacted
to this day — was watching sports when he
stepped outside for some air….he saw a “bright,
green circular object” above. It was west
of the Sary Shagan Range,
on the bank of Lake Balkhash in
what is now Kazakhstan.
Within 10 to 15 seconds of being observed,
the green circle “widened” and “within
a brief period of time several green concentric
circles” formed around it. A few minutes
later, it disappeared.
Sary Shagan was an important location.
A decade earlier, it was the site of Project
K, a USSR program that detonated five nuclear
warheads at altitudes up to 300 kilometers
to study electromagnetic effects.
These events fit in a larger trend of anomalous
encounters near nuclear assets...
Such as at Loring Air Force Base, Maine, which
housed nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
An intrusion of “unidentified helicopters”
were seen 150 feet over weapons storage for
two consecutive nights. An Army copter never
was able to intercept...
A day later, on October 30th, 1975, an “unidentified
low flying aircraft” was seen hovering over
a different weapons storage area 1,000 miles
to the west — at Wurtsmith in Michigan.
Officials pursued the object over Lake Huron
only to find two craft — both of which “turned
out their lights simultaneously, as if on
signal.”
Contact was lost.
Eight days later, in November 1975, a third
base — Malmstrom in Montana — reported
seven objects on radar between altitudes of
9,500 and 15,500 feet. At the same time, officers
on the ground saw “lights in the sky”
and heard sounds like “jet engines.”
The FAA later said it found no evidence of
jets within 100 miles of the base, and the
objects were moving extremely slow, at just
7 knots. And like in Michigan, they “turned
off their lights” as NORAD interceptors
arrived.
A fourth and fifth UFO encounter was again
chronicled by the Pentagon in early 1976.
On January 21st, security police at Cannon
AFB in New Mexico saw two objects 25 yards
wide, gold or silver in color with a blue
light on top, hole in the middle and a red
light on bottom. Ten days after that, a general
at the Armament and Development Test Center
in Elgin, Florida reported radar and visual
confirmation of their own UFO with “lights.”
This continued into that summer...
In July, a sergeant at Fort Ritchie, Maryland,
reported seeing an object hovering over their
ammo storage area, again at a low altitude
of just a few hundred feet. It was corroborated
by three other officials, two of whom saw
three “oblong objects with a reddish tint…”
We found record of CIA analyst even showing
interest.
Someone at the Agency made a copy of this
New York Times article, detailing the flap,
adding that objects were also seen near Minot
in North Dakota and Falconbridge in Ontario....
To this day, the phenomenon of unidentified
objects near military assets hasn’t gone
away. It’s something Luis Elizondo has even
discussed.
Former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program, or AATIP, a special
access program initiated by the Defense Intelligence
Agency to study UFOs, Elizondo alluded to
the issue in his resignation letter.
“In many instances, there seems to be a
direct correlation the phenomena exhibit with
respect to our nuclear and military capabilities….”
But...why are officials encountering seemingly
disparate types of objects?
There’s no clear answer.
A secret British Government study, Project
Condign, analyzed thousands of sightings and
grouped them into eight categories. Spheres,
like the one seen in Australia, have been
seen by Mexican Police from just 50 yards
away, F15s in the Gulf of Mexico, above the
UK and France.
And more recently, modern recording devices
have seen them too.
Such as here, when rotating spheres were observed
connecting with each other over Poland in
2018...
Or here, where a metallic looking sphere was
caught on a live feed of dormant volcano Iztaccihuatl
in southern Mexico. At one point, a type of
discharge or exhaust appears visible, potentially
similar to that observed by the Chilean Navy
in 2014....
Forty years after the Australia sighting,
the US Navy saw something similar closer to
home. Pilots flying above Virginia Beach reported
a near-miss with an object that looked like
a “sphere encasing a cube.” Later reported
by the New York Times, they witnessed UFOs
making sudden stops and instantaneous acceleration...
In 2015, this video was taken from the nuclear
aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, near
Florida.
When putting everything together, what becomes
apparent is military officials continue to
see things they cannot explain, while on duty.
Some of this is declassified, like we’ve
presented here — but one must wonder: how
many other encounters happen near these facilities?
Elizondo concludes his resignation letter
with three “hard questions.” They’re
still relevant now.
Who else knows?
What are their capabilities?
And why aren’t we spending more time and
effort on the issue?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
And share any encounters you’ve heard about
that you want us to cover.
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