Nick Redfern - Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind: Suspicious Deaths, Mysterious Murders, and Bizarre Disappearances in UFO History

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FATAL KIND

Suspicious Deaths,
Mysterious Murders,
and
Bizarre Disappearances in UFO History

By

NICK REDFERN

Copyright 2014 by Nick Redfern

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FATAL KIND

EDITED BY JODI BRANDON

TYPESET BY EILEEN MUNSON

Cover illustration by John Moore

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Redfern, Nicholas, 1964

Close encounters of the fatal kind : suspicious deaths, mysterious murders, and bizarre

disappearances in UFO history / by Nick Redfern.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60163-311-8 -- ISBN 978-1-60163-473-3 (ebook) 1. Human-alien encounters--History. I. Title.

BF2050.R435 2014

001.942--dc23

2014003197

I would like to offer my very sincere thanks and deep appreciation to everyone at New Page Books and Career Press, particularly Michael Pye, Laurie Kelly-Pye, Kirsten Dalley, Kara Kumpel, Gina Schenck, Jeff Piasky, Adam Schwartz, and Jodi Brandon; and to all the staff at Warwick Associates for their fine promotion and publicity campaigns. I would also like to say a very big thank you to my literary agent, Lisa Hagan, for all her hard work and help. And major thanks to Rich Reynolds of The UFO Iconoclasts blog.

C lose Encounters of the Fatal Kind is a very different book than any other that I have written on the UFO subject. It is not an examination of the UFO phenomenon itself, per se. Rather, it is a study of the many and varied people who have immersed themselves in the cosmic mystery, only to turn up stone-cold deadsooner or later, and under deeply suspicious circumstances.

In the pages that follow you will learn of case after case of missing aircraft, vanished and dead pilots, suspiciously timed heart attacks, murders made to look like suicides, the use of mind-control techniques to provoke quick deaths, the many links between the UFO phenomenon and the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the termination of numerous scientists with secret UFO links, journalists hung out to dry, the terrifying human equivalents of so-called cattle mutilations, and fatal illnesses provoked by close proximity to UFOs.

Immersing oneself in the world of the unidentified flying object can be exciting, illuminating, stimulating, and enlightening. That same world, however, is filled with cold-hearted killers that will not think twice about taking you out of circulation, if such action is deemed necessary. And not all of those cold-hearted killers are human.

I hadnt flown more than two or three minutes on my course when a bright flash reflected on my airplane. It startled me as I thought I was too close to some other aircraft. I looked every place in the sky and couldnt find where the reflection had come from until I looked to the left and the north of Mt. Rainier, where I observed a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft flying from north to south at approximately 9,500 feet elevation and going, seemingly, in a definite direction of about 170 degrees (Palmer, 1952).

These words were made by one Kenneth Arnold, an American pilot who had an encounter with a definitive squadron of UFOs, at about 3:00 p.m. on June 24, 1947, while flying near Mount Rainier, in the Cascade Mountains (Washington). It was clear to Arnold that the craft he crossed paths with were hardly of the conventional kind:

I thought it was very peculiar that I couldnt find their tails but assumed they were some type of jet plane. The more I observed these objects, the more upset I became, as I am accustomed and familiar with most all objects flying whether I am close to the ground or at higher altitudes. The chain of these saucer-like objects [was] at least five miles long. I felt confident after I would land there would be some explanation of what I saw [sic] (Palmer, 1952).

The flying saucer was duly born.

As fascinating as the Arnold story was, and certainly still is, there is yet another early case that deserves our attention. It actually pre-dates the events of June 24, 1947, by almost a year, demonstrating that, just perhaps, the so-called modern era of Ufology did not begin with Arnold, after all. While just as fascinating as Arnolds report, it is something else, too: downright horrific. It occurred in the Brazilian village of Araariguama and resulted in a death of beyond grisly proportions. The unfortunate victim was Joo Prestes Filho, a 44-year-old farmer. On the night of March 4, 1946, his life came to a shocking and nightmarish end. At the time, Filho was walking to his home in the village of Araariguama. As he approached the village, Filho, who had spent the day fishing in the Tiete River, developed a feeling that we can all, at one time or another, relate to: that of being watched. Filhos suspicion proved to be right on target. On finally getting home, and still unable to shake off that weird sensation, Filho looked out a window and was suddenly bathed in a bright glowor beam, his family later suggestedthat emanated from some form of unknown object hovering in the dark skies above. So hot and bright was the powerful illumination, it forced Filho to mask his face and drop to the ground.

As the light suddenly went out, Filho felt his skin grow warm, then hot, and very quickly scalding. Desperate for help, he staggered around the village, pleading for someone to take away the pain. Those family members who are still alive today remember Filho exhibiting severe burns to his face and upper body. Gruesomely, by the time that Filho was taken to the nearest hospital, his body was decomposing, piece by pieceeven though he was still alive, as medic Aracy Gomide confirmed in 1974. After hours of agonizing pain, Filho died, his body having literally melted away in gooey chunks in front of horrified and helpless doctors. Was it possibly the result of a terrible alien weapon? We may never know, although the reference to the unknown object in the sky is highly suggestive of a UFO component to the story. Of one thing we can be sure, however: The death of Joo Prestes Filho was very much an ominous sign of what was to come and what would continue up until the present day.

On June 21, 1947, a deeply mysterious event occurred at Maury Island (Tacoma, Washington). It is a case that, close to 70 years after it occurred, still provokes major controversy in those circles where flying saucer enthusiasts gather. And thats hardly surprising, given that it revolved around nothing less than a malfunctioning UFO that practically exploded in midair, the controversial deaths of a pair of military personnel, and the near-death of one of the most famous figures in the history of the UFO subject.