Speaker at Drake Tells
"Hidden History" of UFOs

By Kristen Vandenberg
CyberNews Staff Reporter

March 6, 2002

"The only ticket of entrance this evening is an open mind," said Robert Hastings, a UFO specialist and presenter of the forum, "UFOs, The Hidden History," on Wednesday night, Feb. 27.

The event, sponsored by the Student Activities Board, was held in Bulldog Theatre in the Olmsted Center basement. Approximately 75 students and faculty members attended the event.

Hastings has spoken at more than 500 colleges and universities since he started giving lectures in 1981 about UFOs and the truth the government may be hiding about them. His presentation, a combination of both a slide show and a personal account of a possible UFO sighting, was not meant to make people believe or not to believe in the possibility of life on other planets.

"I am not here to convince you, I am only here to inform you. The public has the right and needs to know the facts as they progrss," Hastings said.

The slide show was based on documents released to the public by the government as a result of the Freedom of Information Act. The documents contained many reports of UFOs sighted hovering above rocket test sights, nuclear weapons facilities and experimental aircraft centers. There were also reports of a secret development, nicknamed "Project Bluebook," regarding the government's knowledge of UFOs and aliens.

"This was kept secret from the public due to the chaotic reaction of Orson Welles' 'The War of the Worlds'," Hastings said.

The second part of the presentaiton was the story of Hastings' personal brush with flying saucers. It was March of 1967 when five UFOs were spotted on radar hovering over an underground nuclear weapon facility at the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. "They hovered for a 30-minute period before ascending vertically at very high speeds," Hastings said.

"This may seem like science fiction or a practical joke, but I assure you, it's not," Hastings said as the forum concluded.

While the audience filed out of the theater, people discussed how they felt about this new perspective. "I don't know what to think, it all made so much sense," Mallory Matyk (J1) said.

Although very persuasive, some people left feeling unconvinced. "I still don't believe in all of it. I think that more people would have sightings if they are as common as he made them seem," Jessica Plafcan (PH1) said.