Questions For Ray Stanford: White Sands 1978

Gene and I will be taping a show with Ray Stanford early next week and this is a chance to get some questions asked. Ray has been actively investigating UFOs since the early 1950s when he was a teenager and to properly cover his amazing career would take dozens of shows. So, we have decided to concentrate on a single series of events that managed to produce hard data. Ray suggested we cover events took place in the mid 1970s over White Sands, NM to him and several investigators from his Project Starlight. The series of events featured UFOs appearing to interact and respond to lighted panels arrayed around the top of Oscura Pk which sits on the western side of the White Sands military base. Ray and his team observed and documented the objects from just outside the base to the west. Along with film and SLR cameras, they were also equipped with a recording magnetometer and audio recording gear (if memory serves me correct).

Obviously, since you haven't heard the show yet, it would be hard to ask specific questions about the events themselves, but I would suggest asking about UFO diagnostic physics; propulsion, optical physics, properly analyzing UFO photographs and films, the possible extent of gov/mil knowledge of the phenomenon, black project/state of technology, abductions, disclosure/exopolitics (duck & cover the psychic component to the phenomenon, successful skywatching techniques, hard data monitoring, etc

If we can keep him on track, it will be a fascinating show!

Simple question: if he can so easily signal UFOs and take amazing films and photos of them, why are we still questioning whether there is anything to "UFOs." It sounds to me like he should have solved the question a long time ago.

Also, if he's a real psychic, why is he not $1 000 000 richer? There's this guy I know that's willing to give him a million bucks if he just goes through a little testing with a few experts who know when they're being fooled. A real psychic surely isn't afraid of a double blind test?
I may sound like I'm being patronizing, but really, I wonder why we should believe him over a charlatan like Sylvia Browne? And it better not be because he "gets out there and investigates."

I'll ask him.

BTW: I will stoop to your level this once based on my unpublished manuscript detailing his UFOlogical work. I am not an apologist or explainer of anything having to do with Ray Stanford but I will say the following:
--I've never heard of any UFO detectors for sale by Ray.
--To my knowledge, Ray does not nor has he ever channeled "entities."
--Ray did not do the signaling at Oscura Peak, your tax dollars were apparently responsible for the light panels. Ray did try to emulate Keyhoe in the mid 1950s by setting up arrays of cans with candles lit inside. He was, if I remember 15 or 16 years old, at the time. He quickly realized the flawed nature of this approach.
--His car was not transported 37 miles by UFOs, it was moved 90' from the last car in a rear-end chain collision to the front of the line of cars. UFOs were not involved. The position of his car was verified by law enforcement and court transcripts. The case was mentioned (if I remember correctly) in Jeff Mishlove's book The Roots of Consciousness
--No, I have never seen Ray's films EDIT [except one of his first that was featured in the opening sequence of every episode of the '70s TV show In Search of:] I have [also] seen dozens and dozens of frame numbered still frames, many in sequence. This is my most strident request of him continuously over the 8 years I've known him. I've told him many times: "No one will believe anything about your work until you allow your films to be digitized and available for review. You need to supply peers with your primary data. Nothing less will suffice."

Anyone want to help digitize Ray's films? Who knows of a top film to digital conversion company that will allow Ray to observe (and videotape) the entire conversion process? If you know of one, I'll help make this happen (if I can somehow help Ray come up with a large budget needed to cover the costs).

These pithy, snide remarks are uncalled for. Do any of you know Ray Stanford? I can tell by your cavalier and careless comments that you don't. Personally, I form my opinions about people from my own personal experience--not dis-info, rumor and character assassination. If Ray is correct in what he says he has discovered about the true scientific nature of many (if not most?) UFOs, he will get the last laugh and set all his detractors to the side. He's not a young man and he realizes his legacy is at stake here. IMO he is a man of integrity on a mission to scientifically prove his hypotheses--several which he feels he has already replicated and proven.

This is my only comment to this thread---I think the tone and the sarcasm laced with juvenile smarm is beneath you guys and inappropriate....

I don't know a whole lot about Ray Stanford. So I can't comment on many of these allegations. I do recall hearing something about the channeling/psychic stuff though. But if he is sitting on a ream of UFO video and won't let anyone see it that is strange in the extreme. What good does it do anyone locked up and out of sight, even for him? I've seen this sort of thing over and over again in ufological circles and it never seems any less odd. "Hey, I've got this wonderful data...but you can't see it! It's mine, alllllllllllllllll mine, muhahahahahah." I'm still left wondering what the person in possession of APRO's files gets out of keeping them away from the rest of the world. Is he rolling around in them naked cackling in glee that he is the only human able to? Strange.

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Christopher, I would love that to be true. It would end a heck of a lot of arguments about the nature of these things - whether they are paranormal or not.

PS - I was serious about my question(s) - I hope that it gets asked.

Hi Chris and Gene ... and Yup, got a question for you to ask Ray Stanford.

In Vallee's "Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults" on pages 192-193-194 of the paperback, Vallee writes;

"According to some of my own informants, contactee George Adamski had prewar connections with American fascist leader William Dudley Pelley, who was interned during the war. Another seminal contactee, George Hunt Williamson (whose real name is Michel d'Obrenovic) was associated with Pelley's organization, "Soulcraft," in the early fifties. In fact, Pelley may have put Williamson in touch with Adamski. Other associates of Williamson during the great era of flying saucers were such contactees as John McCoy and the two Standford brothers, Ray and Rex."

And later;

"John McCoy, who coauthored with Williamson the book "UFOs Confidential," operated the Essene Press. He introduced into the picture the idea that Jewish Banker conspiracy was involved in the UFO Problem. The Standord brothers were living in the same Texas town as McCoy (Corpus Christi), and in the mid-fifties produced a series of contact books, one of which had McCoy as a coauthor."

Now if this is true, just what in hell was going on here? Was Stanford aware that at least some of these guys were at the least "pro-Nazi" or at worst were "Nazi's?" This (at least STINKS to me) of some kind of (maybe? possibly?) an intelligence operation ... ala MK-Ultra or something, and what did Stanford know and when did he know it ... and what was his impressions of these guys and what in hell were they up to?

That seems a great place to start.

Thanks.

Decker

People:
Re-read my initial post. We asked you to submit questions about Ray's investigation out at White Sands. I suggest you contact him directly with all these other off-topic questions and introduce yourselves nicely. Post all relevant questions for the upcoming interview in this thread, as requested.

I can't speak for everyone but I have to admit that I don't know enough about his investigations at White Sands to ask an intelligent question about it. Perhaps that is the problem happening here.

Understandable, so maybe the following from the unpublished manuscript will help, (working title: ...and my dog sings Chopin) . This work is copywritten and not to be re-published without permission from Mr. Stanford and myself:

My questions are in italics.

You mentioned the government may have already had limited contact with UFOs. Obviously you are not in possession of verifiable data supporting this conclusion but what do you surmise? You’re a person that has been involved in this search for truth, this endeavor toward understanding, for going on fifty years now . . . Who better to ask than someone with your experience what form of limited contact do you think has taken place?

The only contact I have any direct knowledge of is what we witnessed on the night of July 19th, 1978. I certainly won’t say there hasn’t been more—there very well may have been more. All I know is stories about underground bases in New Mexico and so forth, are not true because otherwise the government would not have been out there on top of Oscura Peak [located in White Sands, NM] using sequencing panels to communicate with these things doing symbolic logic maneuvers.

There were two red UFOs shaped almost identical to the Zamora object I had drawn in the Soccoro book. [Soccoro Saucer in a Pentagon Pantry] Elongated ellipsoids that were glowing red on their surface but the red pulsated at a certain rate. Out beyond that surface some distance one could see a beautiful red corona that was not attached to the surface but appeared out some distance from the objects. The corona was absent for about forty degrees of arc in the direction of travel. It was as if there was a magnetic vent there or something. I don’t know why the corona wasn’t there, but that’s what we surmised at the time. The corona flashed at one rate while the surface of the object flashed at a different rate. When one of these objects suddenly made a right-angled turn---they made many with visual instantaneously—on two occasions, one that we remembered consciously. When the object made the turn it became an object of different appearance, like a sharp cut out glowing the color of seasoned elephant ivory instead of red with a corona and it became much larger with a flat light instead of the brilliant coronal light. It changed from a narrow ellipsoidal shape to, imagine a very fat ellipse like a fat chicken’s egg. It was a little more oblong than a true ellipse and quite wide when it was in this phase.

We only remembered seeing this happen once and talking about it. All of this was recorded on [audio] tape. Later when we played the tape we were shocked because we described this happening a second time yet our memories had no knowledge of it. You could hear us describing this [change of shape and color] while it was going on. We had an ambient recording to document every click of the camera, everything that happened and every reaction. It was a good thing we had the recording going on.

When the object went into this strange, huge, ivory phase, Bob shot a telephoto shot of it w/ a 350mm lens on his 35mm camera. He took a time exposure of this thing diving vertically and the crazy thing is . . . it’s so big with the telephoto, an ivory-white streak about a third of the film---all over [the print] are interlocking diamonds—dark lines that form diamond shapes within this white light [streak]. I don’t know how this could possibly be, it’s very bizarre! There was only time to take one exposure while it was diving and fortunately, Bob got it. There is some very strange phenomenon there [on the print]. All we could see was this big ivory-colored thing diving down . . .

But you shouldn’t have geometric shapes in a time-exposure.

You wouldn’t think so. Unless there is a phenomenon that is flashing and leaves an impulse for a moment, but you wouldn’t see it with the naked eye. It was recorded somehow on the film. It was a total shock, absolutely bizarre!

These objects were maneuvering in front of a ring of panels around the top of Oscura Peak that is one of the most secret places in White Sands. It is a very steep sharp mountain. It’s there just inside the northern border of White Sands. The objects would fly off to the northwest and they would instantly vanish and then instantly reappear near these panels. Sometimes one above the other some distance and they’d head right toward each other on a vertical line and just as they were about to appear to collide, both of them would be going in the same direction making a perfect right-angled turn instantly. Or they would appear to be heading toward each other like on a collision course and then suddenly one would be going backwards. They wouldn’t glide they’d just stop and then they’d be going in the same direction.

What are these panels that you’re describing on the mountain?

If you took a Fresnel lens, a lens kind of like the new ones on the traffic lights, they are highly directional and if you get off to one side the light dies out. There were huge panels emitting a strange yellow light. We got light spectra of them so they could be analyzed to see what kind of light it was, but they were gigantic panels. They must have been, I don’t know, at least 100 feet high and in a ring around the top of the [mountain].

When you looked straight at the panels, you could not tell they were being sequenced. But my wife noticed first and told us to look at them with our peripheral vision you could see they were sequencing. We shot at several different speeds and time exposures. What this proved there were gaps in the lighting sequence so fast you couldn’t see them.

How were they angled?

They were emitting the light horizontally. This all happened not long after the movie Close Encounters came out. It reminded me of something in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Repeatedly for thirty-five minutes these objects would do these maneuvers in front of the panels, head off to the northwest and completely vanish and suddenly re-appear near the panels again in near collision or doing other maneuvers.

We got magnetometer recordings of these objects and we got light spectra which was very exotic. The type of light spectra that clearly indicates that the light had to have been emitted in the presence of an extremely strong electromagnetic field. Technically this is what’s called a single-line spectrum with line splitting--called the Stark Effect.

How far away were you from Oscura Peak when you observed this apparent interaction?

I’d have to look at a map. It’s been awhile. I can’t remember how far away we were. [about six –7 miles] We could clearly see the objects and the corona around the top.

What time of night was this?

Off the top of my head, it probably began just before midnight and went on until 12:30 or so.

Then a very bizarre thing happens. The recording is going and you hear everything we’re doing and I say to the my wife and the president of our organization, as the objects were headed off to the northwest again, “We better enjoy this. When they reappear at the panels this time and do their maneuvers, instead of going to the northwest again they are going to go over to the southeast and disappear over the horizon. And my wife said, “Yes, this is the end of it. That’s it.” Bob spoke up and said “Yup this is going to be it.” Or something like that. Now here’s the crazy thing! They didn’t question me, “where did you get that information?”

Where DID you get that information?

I just said it! And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. We’d been watching them do the same thing for thirty-five minutes and this time they re-appeared, did their crazy maneuvers, but instead of moving off to the northwest, they headed off to the southeast and disappeared over the horizon exactly as I had said!

[The military] had been given orders to get intelligence by any means possible and I’m convinced we saw one of the first contacts. I figured that some star-crazed Air Force Col. who had seen Close Encounters decided to put out some panels and signal these guys. [chuckles] They did and apparently it worked. I don’t know how much intelligence they got out of those maneuvers or if there was some sort of signals flashed to the panels that we couldn’t see. Did we get a glimpse of this when this strange large ivory-colored thing appeared when the object made the maneuver? Were we not supposed to have seen that? Was the maneuver only supposed to be visible from the panel? Was there data being transmitted by the light coming out of [the craft and the panels]? It could have been modulated at a level we couldn’t see at all. It could have been video or anything else.

Do you think there may have been a connection between the [military’s] approach at eliciting contact at Oscura Peak and the fictional approach used in Close Encounters? The timing of your sighting and the film’s release is highly suggestive.

At the time I said it was like some star-crazed Air Force Colonel had saw Close Encounters and said “OK.” You see, what we had learned from the physical scientist at White Sands is what made us go out there. They had been plagued and had a directive to obtain information and intelligence on the objects by every means possible.

So you think he may have seen the movie and decided that was a good idea?

I think he saw the movie and said “hey we’re going to build some panels on top of this peak!

Life imitating art! [chuckles]

That’s right! That’s exactly correct. I believe that’s what really happened. They really were communicating with the panels with what looked to us as symbolic, logic maneuvers. There were two times when the two objects turned completely different in appearance and we thought maybe those objects were perhaps sequencing something that could be read by instruments on the peak. The frequency of transmission and light modulation, for example, may have been so fast you couldn’t see it with the eye. We do this with fiber optics all the time at incredible speeds. There could have been data exchanged on this bright white panel that we may have accidentally seen a couple of times. How this panel was generated, I don’t know. I have no comprehension how that worked, or if that is what it really was. That’s speculation.

That’s a very interesting story. Have you heard of any other attempts by the government to do this?

No. One constantly hears rumors, but no, that was the only one. We have photographs and we have film.

Do you think it’s fair to say the government may know a little bit more than we do and, as a result, they’re probably more confused than we are?

I think they are very confused. They are afraid because they don’t know. I think they’ve had some limited contact but I don’t believe they have underground bases with aliens. I don’t believe that for a minute, but I do believe they’ve had limited contact like what we stumbled on in the New Mexico desert on the night of July 19th, 1978.
I think the government realizes that they are not in control of the situation and I think they realize there are probably several groups of possible extraterrestrials, or whatever is bringing these craft into our atmosphere. And since we don’t have control, we can’t say we have any control over them. Big brother doesn’t want to admit there’s a bigger brother—even if he’s not a brother. It’s a frightening thing to the people in power and authority.

Thanks. I read it and it's a pretty extraordinary story. But I don't think you'll like the first question that comes to my mind because it mirrors what others have asked: Where's the video? I can't help it. When someone tells a story like that and says they have film obviously I'm going to want to see it.

---------- Post added at 07:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ----------

But after I think about it a bit more I guess one thing I could ask is doesn't he feel at all suspicious about the event? I find it a bit odd that A)He'd be invited out there and B)He would be able to film these events and not have his film confiscated.