TECHNOIR (2 page)
Another story you won’t see or read in the mainstream media is rigging of the 2004 US Presidential Election, which I had a personal stake in. For 18 months I went door-to-door in central Ohio for the Democrats (for the record, I lean politically a little to the left, not far left). For that election, Columbus and all its surrounding suburbs had turned into “Ground Zero.” If you win the middle of Ohio, you win Ohio, and if you win Ohio, you win the election. One day, a hardcore Republican (I like to consider liberals and conservatives friendly rivals in the American way) stalked me with a dog the size of a horse. It was also one of the hottest summers on record, as I trudged from house-to-house, voter-to-voter, trying to convince them to vote for Sen. John Kerry. Nonetheless the election appeared neck-and-neck with just hours to go, but as we woke up on Nov. 3, unbelievably, Bush had won a second term. This was one of the first major US elections, by the way, to use computers and networks to count the vote. And leading up to the vote, liberal activists were screaming murder considering many of the voting machines that would be used in the election were manufactured by companies loyal to President Bush. A couple of years later, several independent journalists who publish their work strictly on the web would break this part of the story wide open. They uncovered that on the night of the Presidential Election the web servers counting the Ohio vote were suddenly moved to the servers of a company run by major Bush backers. The alleged mastermind behind this was Karl Rove, Bush’s chief advisor. The actual person who made the switch is believed to be Mike Connell, a true computer hacker and a staunch Republican. Connell, had been hired by the state of Ohio to help count the Ohio vote, which gives you a good idea how politics works in the Buckeye state.
Fast forward to Christmas time 2008, when these independent journalists and several lawyers were now putting the squeeze on Connell, forcing him testify for a civil case related to the rigging of the 2004 Presidential Election. Days later, as Connell is flying in his single-engine plane from Washington to his Ohio home, the Piper Saratoga simply falls out of the sky and crash lands in an upscale neighborhood. Connell dies and the crash site is cleaned-up within hours. His Blackberry, loaded with sensitive information, is missing, yet they find the Blackberry’s ear bud. Connell’s sister has publicly said if the National Transportation Safety Board uncovers any foul-play, she will file a wrongful death suit against Karl Rove.
Did Mike Connell take the fall for Karl Rove? Certainly you’ll never see or read anything about this from the mainstream media. You would think this is the biggest story of the century. So why are they not covering this story? There are many unknown reasons independent journalists working on the Internet are trying to uncover, but one certainly has to be this: They just don’t have the “cajones” to cover it. I write about Mike Connell in Chapter 13.
Thanks for your support!
Some contactees turn into Roy Neary, others become “Isabelle”
Throughout history, and probably long before humans began recording their experiences on the walls of caves, tens-of-thousands have witnessed UFOs. Incredibly, as the 21st century begins to move ahead, these enigmas in our skies remain one of mankind's greatest mysteries. It is no wonder then, that for a select few UFO witnesses, even if their sighting was for just a few moments, it becomes the greatest experience of their lifetime. And it doesn't matter if they live in a Mexico City slum, in the suburbs of the Arizona desert, or at the air base near Rendelsham Forest. Some witnesses, says Dr. Lynne Kitei of
Phoenix Lights
fame, “are affected at a very deep, deep level.” So much so, they leave their life behind and go in search of what they saw.
Dr. Kitei should know, she’s one of
them –
an incredibly small number of people who swear their UFO experience lit a fire under their very soul. She says it gave some witnesses a power to see far beyond their own world. A new compassion – and passion – for life. Some, on the other hand, couldn’t deal with it and dropped it like a hot dish, she says. Others simply failed to grasp what their two eyes had seen, and left it behind as they continued to rush through life.
“One thing is for sure; while the sighting was going on most witnesses felt calmness. A joy. An awe that they were seeing this. That it was a special moment in their lives,” she said in regards to witnesses of the Phoenix Lights. “Some felt that they were sent a telepathic message to make this a better place. To make this a better world.”
Long before thousands of Arizonians witnessed a massive V-shaped craft with amber lights float over their state, Dr. Kitei and her physician husband had several Close Encounters of the First Kind of their own. The year was 1995, it was a typical warm night, and Dr. Kitei was in the backyard of her semi-rural home on the outer edge of the Phoenix metropolis. The sun had set, leaving behind the remnants of a pink and orange Arizona dusk. As it grew darker, that’s when Dr. Kitei realized a pyramid formation of amber orbs was hovering not far from her backyard. Surprised, she and her husband began taking photos of the extremely luminous objects. She also captured them on video. These lights, she kept thinking, were stunning. But also peaceful and soothing. One night she watched the orbs form into a mile- wide V-shaped object.
Dr. Kitei continued to see the amber orbs and hasn’t stopped looking for them since. “I had no interest in this topic,” said the physician to this freelance journalist from her medical office in Phoenix. But soon enough, she says, “It took over my life.” She was so enamored, so possessed to understand, “I pushed my physician life aside.” A stellar one indeed: She was chief clinical consultant for the renowned Arizona Heart Institute’s Imaging-Prevention-Wellness Center in Phoenix.
Two years would pass since that first night in the backyard, and then the truly amazing occurred on March 13th, 1997 – the greatest mass UFO sighting in the history of the US. On that night of UFO nights, a massive, mile-long, semi- transparent, V-shaped craft was first reported in Nevada at around 7 pm. For the next three hours, and for 300 miles, the “V” slowly headed to the southeast. It reached Phoenix, where some witnesses said it paused. Then it moved towards Tucson. The last report came from just over the Mexican border.
Perhaps the strangest twist in Dr. Kitei’s life happened the very night of the mass sighting in the Valley of the Sun. On that night, she was preparing to give her first speech about the amber lights. Her first showing to a local UFO enthusiast group of what she had captured on film, and she was scheduled for March 14th, 1997. Yet on the day of days – March 13th, 1997 – Dr. Kitei did not see the V. She would, however, capture a giant V of three orbs hovering over the city on video, one of a handful of signature videos during the mass sighting of March 13, 1997.
But that didn’t stop her from playing a prominent role in the aftermath of the Arizona visitor. Dr. Kitei soon became “Dr. X”, the mysterious source who was forwarding the local media videos and photos of the strange lights. The reason she became Dr. X was because she feared going public might jeopardize her career.
Yet after seven years of research, which included interviewing scores of witnesses, plus continuing to capture more stunning Phoenix Lights on film, she finally came out of the shadows. She published a book in 2004,
The Phoenix Lights...A Skeptic’s Discovery That We Are Not Alone
. A book that was also turned into a feature-length film that won three “Best of’s” for documentary and seven “Official Selections” at film festivals. In 2008, the documentary was picked-up by major rental franchises Hollywood Video and Blockbuster.
She says many of her friends and peers now call her “Richard Dreyfus,” but they really mean “Roy Neary” of Spielberg’s
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
from 1977. It was this classic UFO film that brought the phenomenon of post- UFO-obsession to the world’s attention. Close Encounters is science fiction, but it’s probably based on true events. In the film, Roy Neary, an electrical lineman from Indiana, who, after witnessing a UFO float over his car, is obsessed trying to understand what he saw. But it’s more than that – his mind has been planted with images of a mountain that looks like an oversized smoke stack. Unable to resist these calls from visiting extraterrestrials, Neary makes a run for the mountain, and rendezvous with the visitors at Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming so to be picked. Neary’s uncontrollable desire to know what the craft was – and who was inside – makes you wonder if Steven Spielberg, who wrote and directed Close Encounters, may have met such a person for research on the script. “I wanted to make
Close Encounters
a very accessible story about the everyday individual who has a sighting that overturns his life, and throws it in to complete upheaval as he starts to become more and more obsessed with this experience,” Spielberg wrote in the movie’s DVD notes.
But there is a big difference between Roy Neary and Dr. Kitei, besides fiction and reality. She refuses to say what exactly the lights are. “I’m not saying what they are, only that they are, and that it is time we get this topic out in the open – address it, accept it and study it – so we can move forward in our own evolution.”
What they certainly are not is military, she says. She calls the explanation given by the US military – flares connected to miniature parachutes – laughable. “That’s the only explanation they can come up with?” she asks. “Flares drop, they can’t keep formation. Plus they leave huge smoke trails.” She said they could be otherworldly or time travelers. Maybe they are from another dimension and unseen by the naked eye, but inexplicably caught by the power of a camera, she says.
The sighting of the V or arrowhead (allegedly) was not confirmed on radar by air-traffic controllers. The V, however, was also seen by dozens of legitimate witnesses, including doctors, military pilots, police officers and scientists. Bill Greiner, a truck driver, was hauling cement near Phoenix that night. “I’ll never be the same. Before this, if anybody had told me they saw a UFO, I would’ve said, ‘Yeah, and I believe in the tooth fairy’. Now I’ve got a whole new view. I may be just a dumb truck driver, but I've seen something that don't belong here.” Another witness described the V as having a wingspan so enormous it was capable of carrying several US Navy Aircraft Carriers on each of its wings.
Many witnesses were interviewed by Dr. Kitei. And they’re still coming forward. As if they couldn’t take it no more, and had finally broken through some wall of fear and just admitted it. They had to tell someone, anyone, that they had seen something they cannot explain. And they want answers.
One example is Fife Symington III, who was the governor of Arizona on that fateful night. At first, Symington mocked the sightings and UFO enthusiasts are still sore about how Fife made fun of the Phoenix Lights. During Arizona’s 1997 summer of UFO fever, he called a press conference saying he had found the source behind the lights. In front of dozens of reporters, out walked his chief of staff – in an over-sized alien costume. On its surface the stunt was harmless fun. But to true believers, Phoenix Lights’ witnesses, and UFO investigators, the joke stung. Here was a Republican governor poking fun at the hundreds of “stoned liberals” who said they saw a space ship. Little did everyone know, Fife had a V-shaped, amber-orbed secret.
Over a decade later he went public saying he had seen the V. He regrets the press conference stunt; and has told many he was simply trying to ease the public’s fear about the strange lights. These days, he’s moderating UFO conferences. At the National Press Club in Washington no less, which he did in 2008. That same week he told Larry King: “I think the US is not taking this seriously and they need to.” When he speaks of what he saw that night, he sounds more possessed than Roy Neary. “I saw a wedge-shaped craft of enormous proportions. It was something to behold...I saw something that defies logic and challenges my reality.”
He would add, “I witnessed a massive, delta-shaped craft silently navigate over Squaw Peak...[it was] dramatically large, [and had a] very distinctive leading edge with some enormous lights. As a pilot and a former Air Force Officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man-made object I'd ever seen. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares because flares don't fly in formation.” And since then, after years of continuous sightings in Arizona, a lot of people want to see the lights. Realtor polls conducted over the last few years found a high-number of transplantees were hoping to someday see the Phoenix Lights with their own eyes.
In an interesting sidebar, Symington was pardoned in 2000 by President Clinton, in the last days of his presidency, when most pardons are given by US presidents. Fife had been convicted of bank fraud in 1997 (coincidentally), but was spared prison by appeal. How is this related to the Phoenix Lights? On the night of March 13th, 1997, President Clinton allegedly “sprained his ankle” while hanging out with golf great Greg Norman, and had to leave his guest unexpectedly. Skeptics wondered if the Secret Service and the Pentagon, alerted to the huge alien space fortress floating over Arizona, had hijacked the President away to safety just in case this race of beings from another galaxy wanted to take the leader of Earth hostage.