R. James Woolsey (photo left, bio here), who ran the CIA from 1993 to 1995, says he’s “open” to the possibility of alien life, and claims, “There are a lot more sightings than have been made public,” the U.K.-based tabloid Daily Mail reported on Monday, April 5, 2021. Trump’s director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, has made a similar statement, Daily Mail said.
Woolsey recited a particular incident, involving a friend of his, who had his “aircraft stop at 40,000 feet or so and not continue operating as a normal aircraft.”
“When we talk about sightings,” he said, “we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain. Movements that are hard to replicate that we don’t have the technology for. Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom. These people have reported very curious behavior by aircraft.”
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I’m not a big believer in UFOs or alien life. Mathematically, the odds seem great that during the 13.8 billion-year existence of our universe, intelligent civilizations have come and gone. But unless there’s a way to leapfrog space’s vast distances, that physicists don’t know about, they’re simply too far away in distance and time to contact us. And humans have been sending radio, TV, and radar signals into space for only a century or so, which traveling at the speed of light have reached only a handful of the nearest stars. So there’s little likelihood that anyone out there knows we exist.
But nearly 50 years ago I saw something inexplicable. While camping near Mt. Adams, after dark, looking north toward Mt. Rainier — an area famous for UFO sightings — I spotted a moving light in the sky, a different color than starlight (yellow but not blinking), that appeared to be at high altitude and far away. It seemed to be coming toward me, then stopped, made a 90-degree turn, and flashed away over the eastern horizon (traveling across my field of view) at very high speed (I estimated over 15,000 mph). I was miles from any road or habitation, it was too small and distinct to be a reflection or optical illusion, and its maneuvering and speed seemed to rule out a satellite, balloon, helicopter, or airplane. I’ve seen plenty of meteors but never one that changed direction like this, which also seems to rule out a falling rocket booster or piece of space junk. I still don’t know what it was, only that it was like nothing in my experience, and no explanation I can think of fits what I saw.