Donald R. Todd - The Antilles Incident

This book has been added to my website

in commemoration of

Donald R. Todd, UFO Researcher.

The reason for placing it here is that, firstly, I feel it is necessary to preserve it for posterity, secondly, that it is an appropriate place for it, given the number of other water related cases posted here, and lastly, that it contains information that helps us to understand the operation of the craft that many of us are trying to comprehend.

This book was copyrighted by the author, Donald R. Todd, in 1977, who died several years ago. I have tried to contact the authors estate, and received a signature card of receipt, but no reply to my request for rights to this book and his records of other water related cases. I have also e-mailed the publisher, but again received no reply.

I have therefore elected to place the book on this site with the understanding that if a legitimate owner of the copyright to the book wishes, I will remove it as soon as possible. Note that the highlighting on page 106 was done by me.

Carl Feindt

The Antilles Incident

Donald R. Todd

The Antilles Incident

A Blue Star Production Publication

November 1997

A true story.

The names have been changed to protect all those involved.

ISBN 1-881542-37-8

Copyright 1997 by Donald R. Todd

An Original Paperback

Published by:

Blue Star Productions,

a Division of Book World, Inc.

9666 E Riggs Rd. #194 Sun Lakes AZ 85248

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved, including the right

of reproduction in any form.

Visit us at our web site: http://www.bkworld.com

Author's Note:

The UFO/Maritime narrative herein described actually happened. It is one of several similar case histories in my files of occurrences between UFOs and Naval vessels on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In this particular incident, I'm grateful to the executive officer of the specified destroyer escort for the number of sessions together and for his generous detailed information. Owing to sustained military tentativeness re: the UFO enigma, the exec of the vessel here involved with a protracted UFO confrontation, expressed that he, the skipper and the ship, should remain out of the public domain. Stressing anonymity for the ship and crew, the exec and captain's wishes for confidentiality have been honored. All else is as it happened.

The Antilles Incident

Chapter 1

FILE NO. 88-104

Summer. Tropical Atlantic northeast of the Antilles .

0410. Zone Time

Tuesday. 23 August. 1988

Steaming eastwardly, USS Destroyer Escort DE-000 gathered for a hard lunge into a rogue swell. Guffing through, the ship settled on calmer water. On the bridge, Lieutenant Harley Clough, binoculars swaying from his collar, stood knees braced on Morning Watch. Through the subdued bridge lighting, he flicked a glance at the bulkhead clock. 0410. Then at the barometer. The glass was falling.

Page 1

His eyes dropped to a clipboard lying on the Plotting Chart. A most recent dispatch was clenched in its jaws. He scanned it for the nth time.

Unspecified craft reported in your

vicinity . Proceed to grid square 41-

79, scan sea and air. Report on

contact .

While a closing ceiling obscured the stars, a pallid moon cast spooky glitters on a fussy sea. The DE's sleek gray silhouette was spectral in the shafts of moonlight. Her irregular bow wave parted in ghostly thresh beneath the prow.

By the binnacle, Clough sought the muzzy horizon. In the quiet, the steady thrust of engines was a subtle tremor beneath his boots. The air conditioning's soft whirr mixed with some low jabber of compartmental intercom traffic. Periodically, some coded di-di-di-dahs from down in CIC beeped through an open circuit. Except for this and the abrasive wash of water along the outer hull, the ship was silent.

Page 2

Presently the navigator's voice droned behind. "Latitude 19-94 North, 61-66 West."

Clough acknowledged the latitude and longitude. By now they were well into the grid square. Bending to the voice pipe, he ordered, "Slow to one hundred-twenty revolutions." Checking the Plot reminded him that it was time to change attitude again on their zigzag course.

Dutifully DE-000 swerved, plunging eastward. Outside, her radar masts rotated monotonously. Glasses sweeping their respective sectors, the lookouts poised in silhouette. Inside, two chronometers were fixed to the bulkhead next to the radar repeater. One, the regulation ship's clock. The other, a timekeeper with spidery sweep arm. A strip of masking tape across the upper face read: "Submergence Time."

Behind Clough a telephone rasped in the silence. He depressed the lever. " Forebridge ."

"Radar, we've got a spook. Small unidentified contact. Bearing zero-one-zero. Range, nine thousand yards."

Clough viewed the repeater alongside. A tiny ephemeral worm wriggled at the edge of the set.

Page 3

Clough ran a finger down the adjacent ship's register. According to the log, the only other naval vessel nearby, hours earlier had limped home with a fouled oil line along the main bearing. No other ships in the area, so the contact couldn't be a back echo. "Set on the top line?" queried Clough.

"Yes, sir. Finer'n a frog hair."

After a minute of studying the strengthening and weakening contact, Clough brought his glasses up. Hardly expecting to glimpse anything ahead on the black foam, he was anxious. As a stall, he held the glasses to his eyes while he contemplated disturbing the skipper.

Page 4

Chapter 2

ln the captain's sea cabin, Orrin Meadows slept lightly but securely. With paneled walls, the cabin's one porthole was secured and draped. Above the bunk, two shelves were jammed with books. The skipper's desk was an organized clutter of papers, periodicals, tapes, and calipers. A radio was secured to the bulkhead along with two intercom speakers and several telephones.

One of the telephones buzzed urgently. Awakened, Meadows snatched it down. "Captain."

"Radar report." Clough, was tentative. "Small surface contact. Range, nine thousand."

"Right," breathed Meadows. "Get Plotting onto it just in case. I'll be up." Then, as an

afterthought , "Negative zigzag."

"Aye, sir."

Plotting would be easier with a steady course.

Page 5

Rolling over, Meadows squinted at his watch and thumped the pillow. 0420. The contact was over five miles distant. Head down, the Captain had barely gotten the pillow warm when the phone grated again. Annoyed, he cracked his eyeballs. "Yes!"

"Sorry, sir." came Clough. "Dispatch just in. Tropical depression approaching. Latitude, nineteen point five. Longitude, sixty-one point two. Path west northwest, eighteen knots. Wind, Force Four."

Meadows glared at his pillow. "Right." he exhaled irritably. "I'm coming." For just a minute, the skipper collapsed onto his pillow and cradled his nape with his palms. Then reluctantly slinging knees over the bunk, he knuckled his eyeballs and reached for the shave kit. Shaving at the sink, he scraped his chin with the blade and peered at his image in the mirror. An attitude of humor, and years of searching skylines had etched age and laugh crinkles beneath intense blue eyes. Black, close-cropped hair. Stubborn jaw. Just under six feet, he was solid, tough, and reliable. With seven years at sea, two bobbing the Indian Ocean, three traversing the Pacific, and now a second pottering about the South Atlantic, much of the time had been uneventful.

Page 6

With the exception of two brushes with the Soviet Navy, one off Maui and the other near Guam, both obviously Soviet monitoring missions, there had been little to excite the ship's complement.