While in the Army and stationed in Thailand from Aug, 1968 to Sep. ‘69, I had a friend in the Air Force who was an amateur photographer as I was, and his MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) was in radar.

I was a Petroleum Storage Specialist. The Army supplied the jet fuel JP4 and all fuel to the Air Force and other bases in the area.

On a few occasions he took me to radar tracking rooms and showed me around in the non-sensitive areas. And on other occasions to the photo lab on off-duty hours and showed me some very interesting photos of UFO’s taken by reconnaissance aircraft and F-4 Phantom fighters on patrol. Although they were not very good photographically speaking, one could tell they weren't conventional aircraft.

One day when we both had the same day off, he visited me at my base because we had a good beach to R & R, with an outdoor bar and open air theater. The two bases were only a couple of miles apart on the southern coast of Thailand. My base was Camp Samae San and his was Utapao Air Base.

We were talking about the photos of the UFO’s and tracking them when he said: "I’m going to tell you something that’s up and coming and I just might be able to get clearance for you to be in the room."

He and I took a walk down the beach and he pulled out a mimeographed copy of a carbon copy of a memo. It was a planned launch in a couple of months at a Marshall Islands launch site. Nothing really interesting at first I thought, until he told me what it was for.

The memo was addressed to a Colonel ( I don't recall his name) with a description of a planned experiment on a launch vehicle and cargo transport for a Moon mission. No other info in it about when or what Moon mission.

At the top in the heading, it was addressed as:

Memo to the Colonel with no TS or EO degree designation for secret, just a bunch of abbreviated location codes in the To and From lines.

Subject: Experimental Launch

The last line in the heading read,

Code Name: Aquila

(Note: Another researcher I'm in contact with has compiled the complete history of this code name. I'll add a link to it when it's finished).

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/Aquila_002.html

I remember this name because I pronounced it wrong. I know some "Street Spanish" (my polite term for Mexican swear words and phrases) and kept saying: "ag wee' yah."

It looked Mexican to me.

He said: “Just remember Tequila." And then it came out "ah key' la."

The launch interested me because of the upcoming Apollo 11 mission and I was going to miss it!

(I would still be in Thailand) No TV in Thailand at that time, only Newsreels when they showed a movie. And they were 3 months older than current events. So I knew I wouldn't see the transmissions until I rotated back to the US.

I asked him if they were going to track the A11 too and he said: "We track everything!"

I couldn't get clearance to join in the tracking of the experimental launch and it really disappointed me. He did tell me the launch went as planned and was successful.

The A11 launch wasn't for two more months and he thought we could figure something out by then for that one.

When the time neared, he told me he tried to help with the paper work at his end but was told I have no affiliation with any of their projects, so no dice.
We were both upset about it and he told me:

"When the time is right, I’ll show you something that will probably change your life."

That day was the last time I heard or saw of him.

No info on his whereabouts when I looked for him, nobody new nothin'.

I didn't have his home address or anything. Just that he was from Texas. (not his real home State) And he has or had, a common last name. So I'll use a fictitious name for his protection, lets call him....Johnson, Barry. Airman E-4, Sergeant. This was the old designation for E-4 in the AF back then (and I think it still is) and not his real rank anyway.

I was E-4 Specialist at that time. (this was my real rank) If I had stripes, I would be a Corporal.

I always thought that was unfair: E-4 in the AF is a Sergeant and E-4 in the Army is a Corporal.

I thought he either got caught doing something or was part of something and transferred. I didn't want to think the 3rd alternative.

When I rotated back to the US, I was assigned to Ft. Carson CO., outside Colorado Springs.

Assigned to a heavy equipment engineering company. My job was conversions of all kinds of heavy equipment. We retro-fitted equipment for use in terrain where they were going, either jungle, desert areas or mountains. I was an E-5 by this time.

I contacted the AF to find Barry and was told in words something along: "Fat chance of finding him now if you couldn't after only a few days." (6 months had passed)

I liked to visit NORAD whenever possible (just a few miles from Ft Carson) because of it’s mission and operation and would do this in full dress uniform for appearances. It's always good to be at your best when trying to extract information. And military personnel did get a better tour to a few more levels.

When I got to know some of the NORAD personnel, one TSGT attempted to locate him. Nothing on file. And I was standing right there watching him. He was using the A/N FSQ-7 super computer of the time (Notice there are no keyboards or mouse at the control stations. All data was input by push-buttons and light-guns), powering the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) system (Air Defense), housed in several rows but impressive. Magnetic tape reels, circuits going on and off constantly, lots of lights and teletype machines drowning-out anything below yelling!

No record of him. That was the first time (Dec-1969) I realized our own government could be hiding things. People don't just disappear!...Oh Yeah?

When I pressed to find out if the Aquila (test and experiment) was a success and launched,...again....nobody knew nothin'. It started to sink in about secret projects and "the need to know" and was warned to "tread softly" in these areas if you don't have clearance.

But I kept searching for any reference to it and asking questions. Someone must have noticed because I was called into my C.O. and he told me too; "keep my mouth shut and stop asking questions where I have no business!"

Well...this didn't sit well with me and I continued being inquisitive, only a little more aggressively.

And then I found myself transferred to the desert. White Sands Missile Range Ft Bliss, Texas, TDY (Temporary Duty) and I didn't know what for until I was in the desert at the site....

it was for training and exercises in.... space craft recovery!

As we all know, has never happened on land. But at that time, it could have been a possibility if any had unplanned or miscalculated re-entry and would miss the ocean.

Maybe the Army thought sending me to the desert was a punishment for being nosy.

But they gave me a duty I was going to like and being close to areas most personnel never get too see.

I did think I was being transferred because TDY usually ends up being permanent. But I had only five more months active duty by this time and I took Basic Training at Bliss and liked the area. (El Paso/Juarez)

But after a few runs in the training it didn't make sense. There were no medical teams, which you think would be a big part of a crash or hard landing.

No Bio training for contamination. No special suits, just white coveralls which at the time we didn't think unusual for being in the blistering desert. No simulated capsule to practice on.

No ambulances. No fire teams. And no scientists to teach us the capsules physics and lifting procedure.

Just heavy equipment, two 10 ton tractors with tandem low-boy trailers each 45 feet long.

(Just how many capsules were we going to be trained in retrieving?)

Two 50 ton cranes on tracks, not wheels. (that part of White Sands was concrete hard)

And an Apollo capsule could be picked up with a 5 ton cherry picker. Maybe even a large forklift.

Three Deuce-and-a-half's pulling 500,000 candle power searchlights and full of spare parts for them.

Three, 1-1/2 ton utility trucks pulling 10 KW generators and parts.

And a bus that took us to and from the base. All equipment stayed on site.

It didn't take us long to figure out it was for another type of recovery. Just not divulged to the team. And there were officers involved whom you could tell, didn't have a clue what the difference between a nut and a bolt was. They stood around not knowing what to do and not giving orders!

A Master Sergeant was the team leader and was bossing them around and we loved it.

I was the crew chief having the rank and knowledge of heavy equipment.

We practiced on huge boulders in the area, on strapping, different lifting techniques for different terrain, securing in a certain way on the trailers using bracing so they wouldn't move around and getting good at it as well as fast.

We would load the trailers with two or three then relocate them where the second crane would be. We off-loaded them in a gentle manner as if they were actual capsules.

We did this in all types of terrain and sometimes just a single huge boulder that was close to crushing the bed of the trailer. After becoming proficient in this, it got old in a hurry.

Not to mention the rattlesnakes and scorpions that sometimes where among the rocky terrain.

We also did about a third of these maneuvers at night. Hence, the searchlights and generators.

After four weeks we got orders to bring equipment needed and weapons and too bivouac 5 miles away from the training area on June 15, 1970.

(that's another unusual piece of equipment for recovery...automatic weapons)

After setting up camp we radioed to a frequency we were given to notify whoever was on the other end that we were ready. It was about 10am.

No exercises that day but were told to be ready in case they decided to do another night run.

All there was to do was check and re-check all our equipment.

The MSGT kept walking around our near area mumbling things like;...."this isn't right...something's going on...we should be told"...and acting pretty strange.

He even radioed to the frequency we were given throwing his rank around demanding some answers. He told us he was told; "...just too be ready."

I asked him what he thought was happening and he said;

"I don't know but whatever it is, we should be told! We don't need to set-up here all day and night just to do another night run! It's too damn hot for this crap!"

Now that made sense. So now I was wondering.

We also had to maintain guard duty after sunset in case we were radioed or if someone showed up with orders.

The team was more than ready but the officers weren't with us. They didn't show that day and nobody knew where they were.

This involves me and 12 others, including the MSGT, in seeing what we are sure was a UFO landing and close encounter.

About 2am the two personnel on guard woke us all up to the brightest light I've ever seen. The entire area in the valley (about 15 square miles) was as daylight. It was just cruising about a quarter mile away at no more than 100 knots and about 300 feet, no sound but a slight low frequency, pulsing vibration was in the air and I could feel it through the ground. But we couldn't tell if it was coming directly from the craft but it had to be. The vibration was omni-directional, like a modern high-powered sub-woofer... it was all around us.

We couldn't tell it’s size because you couldn't look directly at it but we estimated at least 200 feet in diameter. We couldn't see a definitive outline because of its brightness but was a relatively flat oval shaped light with what looked like a dull, metal skinned hull underneath, the same shape as the light. And it was heading to the area where we had been training.

This illustration I made depicts what I remember about it's physics, only it was much brighter.

So bright, it lit-up the side of the mountains five miles across the valley.

That's why I think we were there, in case it didn't go well. And they would have had to tell us, had it crashed and we got involved in the recovery.

But this craft wouldn't have fit on all four low-boys even if they were side by side! Let alone be lifted with the cranes.

They must have been expecting something much smaller.

But we weren't told anything because it had to have been a successful landing.

Radio was silent and we couldn't reach anyone. The frequency we had wasn't answering.

And the radio's range couldn't pick up anything else. The Army knew just where to place us to keep us out of range of any other receivers.

After it cruised out of sight we started to get a little nervous and we all retrieved our weapons.

The MSGT told us to stay put and he would go check it out. I volunteered to go with him as I pulled the bolt back on my M-16 and locked and loaded.

He realized the implication this could mean and agreed. We unhooked a generator truck and headed towards the area. We didn't speak much, we were both shaken at this and wanted to be ready for anything.

About a mile from our training area was a road block by the AF. They were nowhere around before that night. And we couldn't see the training area because it was around a hillside another mile away.

The MSGT got out to talk to the two AP's stationed there. I got out to get in better hearing range. the AP's said; "We have orders to allow no one past this point!"

They had auto weapons too.

Me being the way I am said; "Look, we saw this craft and it may have crashed and someone could be hurt."

He saw my weapon and said: "What are you going to do...operate with an M-16?"

Smart ass!

Then he said; "You guys are part of the recovery team aren't you?"

We said yes and might be needed.

He said; "We have orders to go get you if needed, only then, and we haven't been notified."

I looked at the MSGT and he knew as well as I did something was going on.

So I said to the AP; "You had to have seen this, it lit-up the whole valley and would have passed right by you."

This guy was a real AF lifer and said; "I don't see anything until I'm told too!"

I tried one more time, this time to appeal to his sense of, comrades in arms and said;

"Just tell us were not wrong and we'll leave it at that."

He said; "OK, you’re not wrong but you don't know about what and that's what you want to know. So you best head back to your camp and wait until someone comes with new orders.

We were informed you may investigate and were telling you what we were told to tell you."

What was I going to do, shoot him? I felt like it.

The MSGT told me to drive and he didn't talk at all on the way back and didn't want too.

I was going over the whole incident and he finally said; "I just want to forget about the whole thing."

I said; "What? Probably the most historic event this century or possibly of all time and we're part of it and you want to forget it?"

He said; "I have one more year for 30 and I don't want to blow it. Just drive!"

Nobody wanted too or could, sleep after that and we sat around a fire discussing it, except for the MSGT.

He went to his tent and didn't come out until day break. All of us who stayed up kept weapons locked and loaded and next to us. I even walked down the road and up a hillside to see if I could see anything. Just blackness because of hills obscuring anything in the distance. It was really eerie...

In the morning, about 9am it was already 95 degrees. An Army Captain pulled up in a jeep from the direction of the training area, whom we had never seen up to that point either, and informed us the exercise was over, "go back to your units."

Well....You probably have a pretty good idea about me by now, and I said;

"C'mon Captain, we all saw that thing last night, and it wasn't any kind of aircraft we've ever seen. What was it...and who's?"

We all were looking directly at him, then curiously, like something’s not right with this guy, like he didn't seem to be alive. Kind of a waxy face, almost plastic or mannequin like and strange light green color eyes and wearing black gloves in 95 degree heat in a full dress uniform with no name tag. And not sweating!

He said; "I don't know what you're talking about, now get back to your units!"

After what we saw the night before and the crap from the AP's, I was getting pissed.

And when I saw he wasn't armed, when everybody we saw was, I wanted answers.

I still had my M-16 in my hands.

I made a kind of threatening move by wrapping my hand around the grip and put my finger on the trigger

and said point blank to him;

"How can you wear a full uniform and black leather gloves in this heat and not sweat?"

He didn't answer.

I clicked off the safety to semi-auto.

It seemed like if you were a mile away,

you would have heard that click.

He twitched at this and looked at the weapon then me.

He looked like he suspected I wasn't impressed with his rank.

Nobody moved. Like time stopped.

It was uncannily quiet.

He was about five feet in front of me. And I thought:

"If he makes a move towards me, I'm going to full-auto and cut him in half."

He took two slow steps backwards and turned to head back to his jeep.

First, he would have jumped down my throat for not saying "Sir" if he was a Captain.

Then I would have been standing before a court martial for handling a weapon in a threatening manner.

Third, he started back to his jeep (with no driver) and no response.

I was going to stop him but the MSGT was really freaked out by this time and ran up to me and said; "Are you crazy? What are you doing?"

I protested and said; "Sarge, this guy's an impostor, can't you see that?

Everybody else might be dead!"

He said; "You may be right but I'll find out what's going on when we get back.

Don't take the chance of a court martial for threatening an officer!"

I remember saying something like;

"I already did that and if he's an officer, then I'm an alien!"

The "Captain" heard that and turned back and looked at me with black eyes!

It sent a shivering chill up my spine upon seeing this and said;

"Did you see that? Look at him! His eyes are black now!"

I started to raise my weapon at him and tell him to stop and the MSGT got in front of me and said;

"Stand down soldier, that's an order!"

As he drove off back towards the training area I told the MSGT;

"We'll never know now, that's the last time we'll see him and you aren't going to find out anything when we get back and know it."

He said; "I know, but we saw something special and can't repeat it, can we?

Who would believe us? And someone would stop us one way or another.

And if I let you shoot him, and he is what he looks like, where would we be then?

And what makes you think he didn't have a weapon? Because you couldn't see one?

He may have had something that could vaporize all of us, the size of a lighter!"

I said; "You've been watching too much Star Trek and when did you get philosophical?

Last night you wanted to forget the whole incident?"

He said; "I thought hard about it last night and came to only one conclusion:

We're being visited and we'll be told when they want to tell us. They are obviously much more advanced than us and don't seem to be a threat. Otherwise we would have been in the middle of it last night. So let's get back safely without shooting anyone."

I told him I thought we should follow him and if the AP's are still there, we'll know everyone's still OK.

The MSGT had enough and wanted to get the hell out of there. And he wouldn't let anyone else go back there either.

I should have gone with my instincts and stopped him anyway.

I would have gave warnings and shot low if I had too....maybe.

And we would have had proof if we had survived the incident.

I really wished I had, to find out what was under those gloves.

I'm convinced I was talking to someone from somewhere else.

Needless to say, we hit roadblocks wherever we tried to get information.

Nothing happened that night or morning unusual and we were all hallucinating from the heat.

Where's my gun?

The MSGT and I were the only ones interested in finding out more but didn't have any success.

And he told me the C.O. made him rewrite his report to exclude the craft and Captain.

I submitted a report also because I was the crew chief but didn't get it returned.

When I inquired to the C.O. on it's status he just said; "I don't know where it went after being sent to Battalion."

I tried to find out but it was the same story..."I don't know."

It most likely ended in the shredder.

It didn't dawn on me to make copies until too late.

The MSGT thought the "Captain" was probably a test, to see if any of us thought he was strange or different. Or could "pull-off" being a Captain to trained soldiers. He couldn't.

And when the Captain drove back, I hope he said; "One of your men almost shot me!"

The other members of the team seemed to disappear and go back to their original units at different locations.

Then I finally got new orders to return to Ft Carson to what's called a holding unit until discharge. These units were no more than "detail units" assigning personnel to various details around the base like picking up trash or cleaning up the rifle ranges after training.

Not a good duty in any sense of the word. Fortunately, I had just a couple of months too go.

More punishment? Probably.

And just around this time everyone gets a "Re-Enlistment" interview to find out if you want to do just that. I told the Staff Sergeant conducting the interview;

"Only if I can continue training in UFO recovery before I sign!"

He looked at me like I was crazy and smirked and started writing in his notes, out-loud;

"Not-interested-in-re-enlisting."

I said: "Check on it! You'll be surprised. I just came from one of these exercises."

He said he would but I doubt if he did. I received my interview report a week later stating:

"Not recommended for re-enlistment."

It's too bad, I would have been a loyal soldier that could have contributed some sound mechanical aspects of these crafts. And could have learned tons more.

And here is something else I found out one year after discharge when I requested my personnel files from the MPRC back then, now the NPRC...There is no record of my TDY for that exercise included on the page for Duty Assignments. There is only the Ft Carson assignments. Somehow I'm not surprised.

I tried a few more times over the years to locate Barry with no results.

I even joined Vet Friends when it came online just for that reason.

And I can't stop thinking he had something to do with me being on that team.

He did say, he would, "...show me something when the time was right."

And this incident did change my life and conventional way of thinking.

Thanks Barry, you were a good friend and I hope you're well and I'll miss you.

Update:

As an added note, I recently came across this document:

CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 PDF (778Kbs) 26 pages.

Here is one of two photographs in the paper at it's full resolution.

It's the closest to what we saw 20 years before this was released.