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    Last modified: Thursday, 12 April 09:50 am 2012

    Military Encounters

    Belgium

    Belgium

    1989: November 29


    Involvement of the Belgian Air Force

    Page 1

      I thought it would be worthwhile to describe briefly the social context before going on to discuss the involvement of the Air Force in the debate on UFOs. When I was asked to attend the SOBEPS press conference on 18 December 1989, as Chief of Operations of the Air Staff, I was sceptical about the existence of UFOs. Having said that, I was determined to approach the problem without prejudice, as far as possible, and to examine it in an objective manner. Two factors became apparent to me during this press conference. Firstly, the evidence was remarkable. It was not frivolous and was presented in a natural and rather modest manner: no trace of sensationalism or exaggerated media It hype " .. Secondly, the approach of SOBEPS was sober, objective and based on scientific facts. Evidence which could be linked to natural.. phenomena was rejected immediately. Another important factor: certain journalists had the armed forces as their target, in particular the Air Force. The phenomena observed. were alleged to have.. been experimental aircraft, the existence of which was to be concealed from the public. Some saw a link with the F–117 and used the opportunity to criticise American "imperialism". The alleged servility of the Belgian authorities, who had, consciously or not, allowed such experiments, was also denounced. Moreover, there were rumours to the effect that observations of certain UFOs l1ad been :made by military radars, about which no information could be disclosed. Initially, the Air Force was obliged to deny the hypothesis of experimental test flights. This was fairly simple, and the context is amply described in the previous chapters. The Air Force could put its cards on the table for the simple reason that there was nothing to hide, and that it was impossible from a technical point of view that an F–117 could have been involved. In addition, the seriousness of the evidence and the professionalism of SOBEPS were factors which prompted the Air Force to decide on th~ nee9 for a more in–depth study. This is why it had decided before the holding of the press conference to try to identify the nature and origin of certain observed. phenomena. The.big question was, however, with what means? THE MEANS
    Every flight in Belgian airspace carried out between the setting and rising of the sun by any aircraft whatsoever... must be the subject of an official ~equest and must receive clearance from the civil and/or military authorities. These two bodies are responsible for coordinating all air movements during the night so that the identity of all aircraft in flight is known, together with their intentions, the aim being, of course, to ensure the safety of air navigation. In the case of t,he UFO observations, it was therefore a case of checking whether any non–regulation flight had been carried out. If this were indeed f9und to be the case, it goes without saying that we would have to try to identify these aircraft.

    Page 2

    Belgium Air Force

    Page 3

      After the first wave of observations on 29 November 1989, the Air Force instructed the radar controllers and the combat pilots to be vigilant and if necess ry to initiate an identification procedure. For this purpose, only the existing resources, i.e. two ground radars and the F–16s,were to be used. The aim was to check whether the UFOs were real or not. After confirmation, we would move to the second stage, identification and determining whether the safety of air traffic was threatened. ACTIONS
    Coordination between the ground observations and the radar control centre of Glons posed, in this context, the greatest problem. The Gendarmerie is the organization one immediately thought of to carry out this task. To this end, the telephone number of the radar station of Glons was passed to the gendarmerie brigades concerned so that they could inform the controllers of the position of the geographical positions of certain objects observed. The number of links in the chain of communication between the observers on the ground and the pilots whose task it is to identify any flying objects represented a major handicap (telephone call to the gendarmes, patrol in position, radio link with the brigade, call to the Glons centre, telephone call to the controller and radio link with the pilots in flight). Like the Air Force, the Gendarmerie was unable to deploy any additional resources to carry out its mission. Quite logically, priority was given to the traditional tasks assigned to the few gendarmes on duty in the evening and at night, resulting in a not inconsiderable loss of time, since it was impossible t react promptly to specific calls at a specific time. The Air Force carried out a number of concrete actions. In a first action on the evening of 2 December, two F–16s were sent to the Li ge area where.a possible sighting had taken place. A telephone call from the Gendarmerie informed the duty controller of a ground observation; the latter noted at the position indicated a radar echo (on raw video) which possibly confirmed the visual observation. The F–16s were di~patched to the position, saw nothing and returned to their base. According to the radar controller, the echo disappeared when the F–16s approached the area and reappeared after their return to base. The mystery remains unresolved. Two aircraft were sent on a second mission following innumerable telephone calls from the Hasselt area. The ground radars had seen nothing and the F–16s were able to identify the origin of the phenomenon as laser projections onto a cloud layer. Analysis of the facts has shown that these observations were completely different from those made earlier in the province of Li ge. After this incident, orders were given not to dispatch aircraft without previous radar observation and without formal

    Page 4

    Belgium Air Force


    Page 5

      This filtering was incorporated into the system to avoid the airborne radar detecting all the cars or other objects on the ground and therefore to prevent the screen from being cluttered by too large a number of echoes. The pilot isinterested only in.aircraft and helicopters moving at higher speeds. These latter targets will be the only ones to be projected onto the screen, enabling the pilot to see the flight profile and, if necessary, to carry out an interception. From a technical point of view, it was therefore impossible to detect luminous objects with the airborne radar if they remained immobile or moved at low speeds. At all events, the Air Force has arrived at the conclusion that a number of abnormal phenomena have occurred in Belgian airspace. The extensive evidence of grpund observations collected in this book, reinforced by the recordings of the night of 30/31 March, have led US to consider the hypothesis that a number of unauthorized air activities have indeed taken place. So far, no trace of aggression has been reported; military and civil air traffic has peen neither disrupted nor threatened. It can therefore be advanced that the alleged air activities constituted no concrete threat. since the armed forces react only in the event of a potential threat, it was decided not to use additional resources or personnel beyond the existing and available air defence systems. I believe that as regards the ground observations, the Gendarmerie has arrived at an identical conclusion.
    LS2/1905/KDM



    _________________________

    Belguim

    1990: March


    Col DeBrouwer's press interview on the Belgium UFO wave of 1990


    Col DeBrouwers press interview

    Belgium doc's belgexpla


    1994: May

    23 May 94' A letter from Lord Hill–Norton sent to APS/Minister (AF)...to come...


    1994: June



    Received 6 June 94'

    Belgium doc's mpleters


    Received 14 June 94'

    Belgium doc's belgexpla marc30


    Lord Hill–Norton

    8 June 94'

    Belgium doc's hilfrom Belgium doc's hillfrom


    Received '

    Belgium UFO wave 30 March 90' Uk Responce


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