Sun 9 May 93 19:49
By: Charles Mielke
To: Don Allen
Re: Bonafides
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    As a new user to this conference, I thought I might introduce
    myself and present my bonafides. I'm not so vain as to feel
    that my history is particularly interesting - but still, I
    would find similar intros by others very interesting, which
    is why I am being so bold. (g)

    An additional caveat: while I will be presenting a few
    stories in the future, they will be of only marginal
    interest, since they don't involve any eyebrow raising,
    attention getting stories. Some of these stories involve
    my sightings, others will involve other people.

    First, let me just say that I am, basically, just your
    average person who is mystified by all the stories of
    other people's sightings. I won't knock their accounts,
    nor will I support them, either - as I am, basically, an
    open-minded skeptic. I will, however, question statements
    or reports which appear to be in conflict with my
    knowledge. (such as it is - {g})

    I would like to see improvements in the reporting of
    sightings, and to that end I will seek some discussion
    of this in a future post.

    I flew Air Force Fighters for 30 years, starting in 1954
    and ending with my retirement in 1984. At Nellis AFB, in
    1955, I received air-to-air and air-to-ground training.
    Later, in the late 70s, I flew several Red Flag missions
    in the various training areas North of Nellis.

     With regard to Groom Lake, also known as Dreamland, we
     were simply told not to overfly the restricted area, and
     that if we did so, we would be sent home to our home units
     along with a "nastygram". We were also told that if we
     experienced an emergency, that we could land at Groom Lake
     if need be, but that we would be kept there a few days to
     undergo a briefing. Presumably the briefing would be to
     impress upon us the necessity of keeping our mouths shut
     as to what we saw.

     We didn't waste a lot of time speculating or trying to guess
     what was there. Obviously, it was something secret, and our
     chances of finding out what it was was nil. We all figured
     that what it was ranged from a squadron of Migs, to a
     squadron of USAF exotic aircraft, to actual alien craft.
     Or possibly all three.

     In my flights near Dreamland, the restricted area was so
     wide that one could barely make out that something was
     there. I don't recall being able to make out specific
     buildings, or even to spot the runway. Certainly no
     aircraft of any sort were visible. Possibly one of the
     reasons for this is that during my Red Flag sorties, too
     much time had to be spent in actually maintaining my
     position in our tactical formations, navigation, trying
     to keep from running into the ground at 500 knots and
     100 feet, and trying to keep from running into various
     mountains while maintaining formation integrity and all
     while still keeping a cross check going into the cockpit
     for instrument indications, RHAW indications, and back out
     of the cockpit to look out for "enemy" aircraft. So, there
     wasn't a heck of a lot of time left for sightseeing. (g)

     NEXT: a UFO sighting.