An Investigation of anomalous Doppler Radar findings running concurrent to UFO activity in Northern Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Donald Pilz. donaldpilz@yahoo.com, www.softspotopening.com

The following case is an insight into the process of gathering information in order to construct a quality list of differential explanations during a post-sighting investigation. The main part of the investigation rests on whether the three Doppler radar images from N.C.D.C. of six large ring bursts are truly anomalous findings or something attributable to a mundane cause. The Doppler images were all from the same date, time and location covering a three state area (Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee). We then go on to ask the question, could findings such as these capture evidence of atmospheric change prior to the arrival departure of a UFO?

The time and location of my sighting was Friday August 2nd 1996 at 11:33 am. I was travelling south on I-69 going into the northeast corner of Indianapolis. I was looking directly west. The object was approximately 2 miles west of my location. My sighting location was the west side of fishers towards Carmel, Indiana. I was approaching the Fishers exit when I observed a dark greyish object about 1/4 mile to the west. I backed off the cruise to about 60 mph. I thought it was a blimp, like the ones that are sometimes tethered to businesses for promotions. I thought perhaps the wind might blow it side ways so I could read what it might say. That is when I noticed that it wasn't tethered at either end and it was lumpy and seemed to wobble. I then realized what it was doing. It was raising itself up vertically from a fixed horizontal position in the sky, (Like raising a dirty dime up from a table with a magnet) and leaving it balanced on top. Once it was on top it immediately began to glow white inside, (Like a dim light bulb becoming brighter for a fraction of a second and then dimmed again or pulsed). When it did this I could see inside and there was a dark greyish matter at the bottom (It was offset to the right of centre).

As soon as the whiteness was at its brightest, it moved to the left (South) in a perfectly straight line for about 1000 feet. I thought it was going into a cloud to hide, but it didn't. It went in front of the cloud. That's when I could better judge its size and distance. It was approximately 250 feet in diameter. It was about 50 feet above the cloud ceiling, approximately 1-1/2 to 2 miles west of my position. The cloud base was approximately 4,000 feet.

When it moved in front of a cloud I immediately noticed that the left side of this perfectly circular object was disappearing (There was a slit or opening in the sky in front of the cloud). As it entered the opening the left edge began to disappear, it was like viewing a full moon and blocking 1/4 of the left edge with a straight edge. It continued into the opening until it completely disappeared into the cloud. While I observe this event I felt time slow way down, almost to a point that it stopped. It felt like driving into molasses and being hit with Novocain. I know this happened because I began to worry, (I have not worried like that since the last firefight I fought on football island in Vietnam in 1969).

I began to worry because I could not turn my head, but I still had my peripheral vision. The Fishers overpass was still there and we were about to hit a column underneath it. That's when the object completely entered the opening and disappeared. Time then resumed to normal and I had control again. I said out loud "Hell lets do that again" and it didn't even wake my dad who slept through the whole 8 to 10 seconds of the event. I turned the radio on to hear the news, but nothing was reported, not even later on television evening news.
(Indianapolis Star Associated Press)

After the sighting I called the Indianapolis International Airport and spoke with a control tower supervisor. He stated
they didn’t detect anything unusual on their radar screen at that time or (Aug.2, 1996 11:33-34-35am). I asked him if they recorded their visual radar data for archives. He stated "no". I then called Baer Field, at the Ft. Wayne International Airport and pretty much got the same answer.

The next day Aug. 3, 1996, I read an article in the Indianapolis Star Newspaper that the National Weather Services Doppler Radar Station at Indianapolis had detected unusual rings on their screens the previous day (there are 157 Doppler’s nationwide used for weather radar). They reported the news media that they didn't know what would cause such a phenomenon, but they did received two reports of birds taking flight all at the same time together. On Aug. 5, 1996 I called the NWS station at Indy and reported to two meteorologists what I had witnessed that morning. I answered their questions and we decided to meet and view the rings on the radar screen. When they saw the rings I said, “That’s not birds", and the meteorologist stated, “No they are not, we know that now". The reaction of the meteorologists was interesting. One meteorologist became visibly upset at one point in our conversation when I stated, “something else happened while I watched it, time wasn’t right". He shoved his chair with his foot and moved to another radar screen. After a few moments he returned and we began our conversation again where we had left off. I was surprised that a radar image showed so much reflectivity without any rainfall. The proposed bird explanation for the Indianapolis-area case didn’t seem plausible to me, as several different flocks miles apart would have had to take off at nearly the same time as well as flying in an expanding-ring formation that I don't think has ever been observed for flocks of birds, which wheel around but don't fly in an outward expanding circular ring. Then to have four flocks all decide to partake in the same unheard of behaviour at the same time?

I went home and never discussed the event again, except with a meteorologist at the North Webster Station. This station was constructed about a year later about 23 miles from my home. It's called NEXRAD which stands for next generation Doppler radar because it is linked with all other Doppler's to one main office in one location. The reason I choose to speak about it now is because I came into contact with a pilot called Bruce Gernon who told me about an event when he actually flew into an opening some 30 yrs ago. He has recently co-authored a book with Rob MacGregor called “The Fog,” due for release in August 2005. We both believe that our events are directly related. We are only seeking scientific explanations. The one thing I do know is that whatever the object was that I witnessed it may have left us its calling card on the Doppler radar.

Perhaps, the next time a similar pattern of rings first begins to develop we have about 3-1/2 hrs before the next soft spot opens and our visitor arrives or departs through the opening. I believe N.O.A.A. already knows something about this and that's why hundreds of Doppler radars are viewed at the same time at one main location. I visited the station in Indianapolis on August. 27, 1996 at 8:00 pm and was shown the radar images from Aug. 2, 1996. I viewed them for over an hour. In the top right hand corner of the monitor it showed the date and time. When the fifth ring finally appeared next to the fourth ring it exploded, and I looked at the date and time immediately, it was 11:27 - 11:37. The time of my sighting was 11:33 to 11:35 so I never questioned the time because it was right in their ten minute cycle time (clear air mode) and verified that the rings exploding and my observation of the object were right on at almost the same moment. So that's what I believed for 9 years.

It was only after 9 years had passed that I discovered that the time I thought was Central Standard Time was in actuality Greenwich Mean Time. I was told this when I restarted my investigation and was trying to obtain the radar images from the National Climatic Data Centre. The first rings began appearing on the monitor screen shortly before 8:00 am. That's when Haines reported for duty that morning and noticed them right away. The four rings began swelling for approximately 90 minutes before the fifth ring appeared and all five exploded at the same time. The NCD said the images were 5 hours prior to my sighting of 11:33am. That made no sense as Haines had been watching the rings develop and swell for 90 minutes before he witnessed them exploding at approximately 9: 30 am. He had started to work at 8:00 am. So I would guess from all that, that the rings disappeared 2 hours before my sighting.

I perceived subtle differences between the original radar images I observed at the radar station and the animated images I purchased from the NCDC they are as follows:

1.) There was no a sunrise spike that morning on the radar screen.

2.) All the rings appeared to be in the wrong locations.

3.) The rings appeared to be the wrong size.

4.) The fifth ring is not shown on the animated sequence images.

5.) The colour of the rings had changed.

Their response was to stress that new software meant the imagery reproduced would not look exactly like what you viewed at the NWS office in Indianapolis. The display software was not the same and the old software is no longer in use, so they could not duplicate the "look and feel" exactly.

My Conclusions:
The mystery rings are not related to weather conditions, rain or unusual cloud formations. The Indiana radar station was operating on a 10 minute cycle time (clear air mode), the weather was fair and clear, with no threatening weather conditions in the area. No precipitation or unusual cloud formations were detected. Therefore, they cannot be the source of the mystery rings. The Doppler radar was in the "clear air mode" because there was no noticeable precipitation in the air.

The rings are not associated with a marine inversion. There were no low clouds, fog, drizzle or topography to refract the radar beam and cause the ring anomalies.

The ring images are not an internal glitch or a processing anomaly. The radar station was fully functional and operating without any processing problems. When the mystery rings first appeared and began swelling larger on their radar screens as the meteorologists were carefully studying them. They hadn’t seen rings like this on such a massive scale. The radar systems showed no malfunctions to cause such anomalies.

The ring images are not a dispersion of electromagnetic rays or a reflector in a doughnut shaped area. This was a meteorological target that was clearly detected on the Indianapolis, Indiana radar stations screen and was also detected and verified by an adjacent radar station at Louisville/Ft. Knox, Kentucky.

The rings are not due to the maintenance of the radar stations technical equipment, or a bad radial scan from the radar itself. There was no routine maintenance being conducted on the radar system by electronic technicians at that time, nor were there any processing problems. The meteorologists were studying the rings for over 90 minutes while they formed, and before they finally burst into dots that obliterated their radar screens. One cannot view all of this if the station is down for maintenance or receiving a bad radial scan.

The rings are not caused by data gaps in the loop cycle, misapplication of radar clutter suppression algorithms or radar outages over portions of southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. Both radar stations were fully operational and could verify each other’s images. The Indiana station was in the (clear air mode), while the Kentucky station was in precipitation mode and neither station suffered a power outage as the rings were forming. The ring images are not caused by a low level phenomenon at sunrise associated with low clouds and fog. There were no low clouds or fog detected or reported that morning.

The ring anomalies are not associated with the “NEXRAD (next generation Doppler radar) HOAX“. Which are theories that radar anomalies (rings, sunrise/sunset spikes, starburst. nuclear blast, chaff, birds etc.) are associated with an exotic military program or conspiracy called " HAARP " a device which is purported to influence the weather and earthquakes. The weather on August 2, 1996 was a clear and beautiful day, also, no earthquakes were detected or reported.

The Indiana radar rings are unlikely to be migrating birds but "some" of the Kentucky radar rings appear to be “roost rings “caused by (purple martins foraging for food at sunrise). The experts agree and disagree as to the cause of the mystery rings. Most agree that it was too early for birds to migrate and don't know what would cause such a phenomena. When I first viewed the rings on the radar screen at the Indianapolis station, I stated to the meteorologist Haines, quote ”that’s not birds “and then he stated, ‘no their not’ he paused ‘we know that now’.

Between July 3 and Aug.7 1996 a team of ornithologists were mapping purple martin pre-migratory roosts by using WSR-88D Doppler surveillance radar. They did not detect any roosts in southern Indiana; however they did detect roosts in Lexington and Dale Hollow Lake in Kentucky. The radar images I purchased from the archives do show rings at those locations and these do appear to be “roost rings ". The question is why didn’t they detect the rings in southern Indiana a short distance away; it was well within the Doppler radars full loop range?

The reflectivity images in Doppler are good for the full range of the radar (230km), but since the earth is curved and the lowest elevation angle that the radar uses is 0.5 degrees, the beam gets higher and higher the farther away from the radar that you go. In other words, the farther from the radar, the higher up you are sampling. Velocity products are best seen within about 75 miles of the radar. The meteorologists thought the rings are from birds (possibly Canadian geese). They called in two gentlemen, one a professor of biology and the second was a zoologist, both stated they did not believe they were bird explosions and didn’t know what would cause such a phenomenon.
Personal observations by the author.

One of my first thoughts while I was observing the object in my case was that it was more like it was projected as if it was hologram. Also the way it faultlessly translated and manoeuvred itself, up from a horizontal position to a vertical one and stopped, then it moved in a perfect straight line into the slit/opening and disappeared.

I believe these rings were very powerful atmospheric energy pulses that were produced elsewhere (another dimension, parallel universe, or by time travellers from our past or future, right here on earth). They must absolutely know the longitude and latitude of where they are travelling, or otherwise they could possibly come through the opening into a mountain or under the ocean. The ring pulses were concentrated and directed at a specific and finite area of our atmospheric mass for an extended time (hours) and (our Doppler radar stations detected them). They softened our mass (to a point that the mass became inert or motionless) and that allowed their craft to arrive and depart through the opening. The craft conducted a perfectly controlled manoeuvre while it departed into the opening. I believe that there's a time limit that it can stay here (perhaps 20-40 seconds) before the mass in the opening begins to heal itself and close. I believe the craft also emitted a powerful energy field (possibly electromagnetic or anti matter radiations) and that’s why it could move through our atmosphere so skilfully and effortlessly. How many sightings have occurred where the observer states the UFO just disappeared into thin air, hundreds of cases?

Are there many such craft currently breaching our atmosphere? Are we viewing the doorway (the slit, the opening) into another dimension, parallel universe, or the actions of time travellers? Perhaps, anything is possible, In which case I asked myself these questions after the event.

1. Where did it come from and how did it create the opening? It would take an enormous amount of energy to soften our atmospheric mass and cause a time distortion. At the location of my event our atmospheric mass space/time dimension was made inert all the way down to the earth’s surface for approx. 6-8 seconds. I could not move again until the object had departed completely through the soft spot and disappeared

2. Why was it here, what was its purpose?

3. Did it come back to check up on us from a previous visit and found that we had advanced much farther and faster than it thought possible?

4. Did it come here to witness an event on the ground?

5. Did it come here to change an event on the ground?

6. Why did these seasoned and experienced meteorologists at the radar station call in the news media, biologist, and zoologist to try to explain the unusual rings they detected if they already believed that the rings were caused by birds?

7. Why did the government give me animated images that are not the true radar images I recall seeing from the original diskette? I viewed the original radar images with them for over an hour at the radar station while explaining what I had witnessed that same morning.

8. The meteorologists at the Indianapolis station must have been very concerned that morning. First of all, they are experienced seasoned meteorologists; they've all seen bird explosions, bats, and dust storms but nothing on this scale (the magnitude and timing was all wrong). The animated images do not give it justice, (look at radar rings in the Associated Press picture and compare them to the animated rings supplied by N.C.D.C.). It appears to me they have been scaled down considerably.

Why call the Louisville Station to see if everyone was o.k.? Because he thought atomic bombs had exploded? Why call in a Professor of Biology from the University of Indiana for an expert analysis? Why bring in a vice-president of scientific studies from the Indianapolis Zoo? Why notify the news media if they knew it was just a common bird explosion? Why all the fuss? Why allow me to visit the station and explain what I had witnessed that morning, if they already knew it was just a common bird explosion?

The Fog: A Never Before Published Theory of the Bermuda Triangle Phenomenon by: Bruce Gernon & Rob MacGregor ISBN 0-7387-0757-0

Donald Pilz article is re-enforced by the account of pilot Bruce Gernon in 1970 where he encountered a gigantic ring shaped cloud, which expanded rapidly around his aircraft. While enveloped in the cloud, Gernon experienced ‘electrical fog,’ a peculiar phenomenon surrounding the aircraft disorientation of his instruments and even low gravity. When he eventually emerged from the cloud his aircraft had traversed an impossible distance, which would have only been achieved at a far higher airspeed than the aircraft could perform. There was also a tunnel effect travelling perpendicular with the aircraft, that is a strange narrow tube directly above and below.

Another encounter with ‘The Fog’ in 1996 by Gernon matches the Doppler radar findings featured in this article. The mother storm, or time storm, as Gernon calls it, materializes at an incredibly rapid rate, expanding out to a diameter of 30 miles and up from the ocean surface to an altitude of 40,000 feet within 20 minutes. Amazingly, it dissipates within half an hour of its birth. Certain accounts suggest that Gernon had previously encountered large UFOs in the vicinity of the Bahamas. Gernon’s case suggests it is possible for enormous ring like clouds like the ones observed on Doppler radar to form in areas associated with high UFO activity.

This investigation brought a return to the work of Trevor Constable, an original 1950s contributor to FSR. He stated the following during a recent communication on the subject of ring shaped clouds. His novel devices spin sculpted rotors cut in proportions based on the golden section measurements. Is this an important clue to all flying Saucer propulsion and construction?

Dear FSR,
I am still alive at 80 and still active with weather engineering. The general effect you describe was quite commonly
produced during shipboard experiments in the Pacific. A Spider device on the flying bridge produced a donut of rain around the vessel , at the surface, about 8-10 miles in diameter, while tearing a "pure blue" hole to the zenith above. This little "system" travelled with the ship at 22 knots, and the ring could be seen on radar. The ring was laid down synchronously with the ship's progress. We never "ran out" out of our self-generated ring. The commercially released video ETHERIC WEATHER ENGINEERING ON THE HIGH SEAS contains examples of this effect. You will be aware that ring forms bespeak vortical activity.

Trevor Constable.
Here are some UFO cases taken from Nuforc that suggest cloud generating UFOs have been witnessed.
Greensburg Kentucky, 08/22/95 1:00 Cloud with a Rectangular ship inside

My girlfriend and I were coming home about 1:00 am on a very clear star filled sky. Just as we pulled up the hill in front of our house, I pointed out a large cloud in the sky and told my girlfriend to notice that it looked like a storm cloud because it was lighting up like with lightning inside it. As we were watching a small light dropped out of the cloud on our right side then a second later another one dropped out of the left side. They both hovered there for maybe 5 seconds, with the one on the left being a little higher in the sky than the one on the right.

Then they took off to our left, which would be east and were then gone in a flash. The cloud that continued toward us looked like it was going to pass right over us. My girlfriend at this point grabbed our 3-year-old daughter, who was asleep and ran in the house being very scared that it was going to do something to us. I followed her in the house and got my binoculars. When I went back out it had got within 500 yards of our house and with my binoculars I could see in the cloud and saw a huge ship with windows and doors made of some dark kind of metal. It made a light sound like the wind blowing, very light but the lightning type flashes made no sound at all. I watched it as it moved slowly to the north at about 10-mph.

Ukiah, CA, 11/27/1978 20:00. Sphere in cloud
I was driving home after dark listening to the radio. It was either the night of Nov. 18, 1978 or Nov. 27, 1978. The 18th was the day of the Jim Jones People's Temple killings. I had been listing to news of Jim Jones on the radio all week, so I am a little mixed up as to which night it was, but am pretty sure it was the 27th. The sighting was reported in the Ukiah Daily Journal on the front page the next day, after being reported by others.

I was driving south on Highway 101 just south of town, 1/2 mile, after dark listening to the radio. Then I noticed that the top of my windshield was lit up a little. I looked up and there was a cloud, which seemed to glow. I pulled over to get a better look at it and noticed a hitchhiker up the road from me about 300'. He was looking up too. I got out of the car and this huge cloud looked as if the moon was behind it, but the moon was behind the mountains to the Southeast and hadn't risen over them yet. As I watched, a sphere began to show inside the cloud. There was no sound at all. Then beams of light came out from it like a Star of David over Bethlehem. At first it seemed more like a religious experience. I felt this overwhelming feeling of awe. Then I looked into my car at my camera on the seat thinking that I should take pictures. But, amazingly I didn't. I have no idea why I didn't and after I thought to get the camera, I have no recollection of thinking about the camera again.

The cloud seemed to clear and I could see this ball of light. Then the beams went back inside the sphere and the clouds went around it again and it moved west and back around the mountains. I was so amazed and jumped in the car to go home. I was thinking, "Wait till I tell ((name deleted)) (my sister) about this. I also thought I would pick up the hitchhiker and ask him about what he saw. I don't remember driving past him or seeing him, or don't remember anything about the 5 minute drive home until I pulled up to my mailbox. I went into the house with NO memory of the saucer!!! I never called my sister about it. I didn't think of it or remember anything about it. I just turned on TV and that was that! But, the next day when I got the paper, here was the story. Other people had seen the same thing.

Then, when I saw that story I though, "What? I saw something too, why didn't I remember that?" I was dumbfounded! It took about an hour for me to get the details to come back to me. At first I just knew I saw the cloud with some shape and it took the hour for it all to come back. Then I couldn't believe I had forgot it and didn't pick up the hitchhiker, didn't take a photo and didn't call my sister and didn't even remember this...one of the most amazing experiences of my life! So, they must have done something to block my memory. I have no idea if I lost any time either. I also saw a UFO when I was a little boy north of Buffalo in Niagara County, at night. Then my sister and neighbour saw it again over the woods the next day. But, the article may still be on file on microfilm at the Ukiah library or at the daily journal. I have seen photos of the same thing from Mexico City and Montreal.

Puerto Rico 4/9/1990 21:00
I am a retired air traffic controller and I have an airline transport pilot license. I've been trained specifically to see and interpret correctly what I see in the sky and on radar. Technically speaking, people like me are the most credible of witnesses. Not that that will convince the people with their heads in the sand but for what it's worth, I saw three UFOs and they were, at their closest approach, no more than 20 feet (not less than 15 and not more than 25 feet) from me. I was parked in a tourist attraction parking lot in Ponce, Puerto Rico at a place called "El Vigia". There were at least 30 other people there with their friends listening to music from their car radios or portable radios. Some were drinking. I was not.
It was April 9, 1990. I got to the parking lot right after dark. I watched the moon rise.

It was a lovely night and I was enjoying the full moon. At about 9:00 P.M. the moon became obscured by clouds. Then the clouds began to boil just like in the movie Cocoon. This thunder cell of clouds or whatever it was (it made no sound) began moving from east to west towards the city of Ponce. I was somewhat worried but just kept standing outside my car and watching it move. It was lighted from inside with a white glow. I could here the gasps and ooh and ahs from the people around the parking lot. After about 15 minutes of this two lights shot out of this cloud formation I estimated to be at about 6,000 feet maximum altitude at 2000 plus miles an hour and moved south, made a hairpin turn and went north and disappeared.

Then I heard this ‘poof’ sound and three 15-foot diameter light balls appeared in front of me at about 20 feet away. There was one poof sound for each ball, floated across the parking lot about 2 feet above the ground for about 3 minutes and disappeared with the same poof sound. These "light balls" as I call them looked like giant sea urchins with clear Lucite rods extending from the centre in a star burst design. Another similar item is a fibre optic lamp with straight fibre’s bristling! out of it. The rods all came from a compact centre. They were basically all glowing with a white light and rotating slight lightly and lazily as they floated along. I observed that the black asphalt beneath the light balls was lit as the balls passed over.

A couple of 4-year-old children practically walked into the leading light ball. The children turned away towards their parents with their arms above their heads and ducking their heads as if something was bothering them (similar to what a child would do if a bee were buzzing around him). They quickly got away from the light balls. I clearly saw each ball disappear with a poof sound. To someone who didn't know that stars are huge infernos in the sky such as the sun, would assume that these were stars. The boiling cloud slowed to a normal cumulus formation. It all happened in about 20 minutes. I left about 30 minutes later but spoke to nobody else there about what we had all seen because I didn't know anybody there. No one approached me either. It was all very pretty but I saw no purpose in it. Has anybody else seen anything like this?

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