UFO Documentary: "It has Begun" w/ Rod Sterling

Angelia Joiner’s Interview with Robert Emenegger -

The UFO Landing at Holloman Air Force Base

At the 2008 X-Conference
By ANGELIA JOINER

Angelia: I’m here with Robert Emenegger and actually we’re still in the ballroom. We just finished a marathon speakers panel, didn’t we Bob?

Bob: It was horrendous.

Angelia: It was at least two hours and we did get some interesting question but we’re glad that’s over, right?

Bob: Yes, its all behind us for now.

Angelia: I first met Bob at the Ozark Conference last week and we’ve already become great friends and we’re having so much fun that we really haven’t talked that much about the whole UFO phenomena, right?

Bob: That’s true.

Angelia: Okay, so tell me how you got involved in this.

Bob: Well, I don’t know how much you want to know about it, but I was the creative director of Gray Advertising in Southern California, the Los Angeles office, and during the Nixon re-election period I was asked to be consultant to Nixon’s campaign, and I met with him. We had a couple of meetings and decided that Nixon should stay low in television except emphasize his trip to China.

Angelia: Right.

Bob: So I had a friend who had a film studio at the same time, and we did a couple of films that were to help the Department of Defense. One was on a program to help young men determin whether they had an alcohol or drug problem, believe it or not, and I had Rod Sterling as the host of that.

Angelia: Wow!

Bob: Then we worked on the show for the shuttle, reporting on the shuttle and making people realize how little it cost to keep the shuttles going. The next thing – we both decided – let’s try and give the Department of Defense sort of an image lift. So we went out to Norton Air Force Base because my partner had had some dealings – I had been stationed in North Korea in much earlier years, much earlier anyway. So we met with them and then we started discussing how the public would feel. You know to get an idea of the positive side. I suggested, why don’t we pull up the Merrimac of the Navy… (something indistinguishable)… They were doing raster research. ARPA was an Advanced Research Project Agency so they took us to Maryland where we met with for instance a scientist who… (indistinguishable)… thinking into a computer and the computer was picking up, I think they said, about seven or eight of his words just by an attachment to his brain. He was trying to figure out how that was possible.

Angelia: Well, this is amazing.

Bob: Yeah, that was a long time ago. And then, three-dimensional moving holograms…if you could create an illusion … I heard it was demonstrated …(indistinguishable)… one of the military… not military, but the military provided …(indistinguishable)… But, they had a man standing on the stage and they put a hologram of a parrot sitting on his shoulder. But, anyway, it’s much more complex now. And, there were other programs so we then discussed them and we were taken in to what’s called the clean room. CIA did their training films at Norton. As we sat there he said to us, Of course there was security all over the place. “What would you think if we told you there was an alien craft that landed at Holloman Air Force Base early in June or May of ’71 and our temporary duty photographers shot pictures of it?”

Angelia: What did you think?

Bob: Well, number one, my wife used to look at the tabloids, you know. I had an alien baby and all that. I’d say, Margaret, that’s my wife’s name, I’d say, please, don’t read that crap.

Angelia laughs.

Bob: Well, so here I am confronted with somebody telling me maybe therre is a reality to it and I really scratched my head. I was trying to think he must be serious. He said, “Well look, if you’re interested in that we’ll make a contact with you with the DOD Pentagon, but bury this underneath this other project.” So, off we went.

Angelia: Wow.

Bob: But we did go and visit all of these other projects.

Angelia: So you were invited to do something on this craft?

Bob: Yes, exactly, that was the carrot if you want to call it that. And obviously, there was a window of opportunity where they wanted this information out. I’m assuming this. So of we go to the Pentagon.

Angelia: And what year was this?

Bob: ’73 something like that. So off we go to the Pentagon and it was a long time ago, but it was the only time so far that that has happened.

Angelia: Okay, yes.

Bob: So we went there – we didn’t sign in. we were saylaid by security. They said, “We don’t like the idea that you’re getting into UFO stuff because it ties up the telephone lines to the Pentagon,” blah, blah, blah.

Angelia again laughts.

Bob: My partner had the sense to say, “Yeah, but we were invited.” (The reply was) “Oh, all right,” so off we went to our first meeting, which was a Col. Coleman who was a Pentagon spokesman. Standing in the hall at the Pentagon he said, “Listhen, you come across information that national security is infringed on (or whatever) you can be put in jail and fined.” I though, gosh, what a way to start.

Angelia: Well weren’t you thinking, why am I here?

Bob: Yes, so we went inside his office. He said, “Well, I’ve got to tell you when I was flying a B-25 over Alabama with a seven-man crew I pursued one. We saw it kicking up a vortex of dust over a plowed field.” A B-25 is not very fast so he put it in full throttle. The thing went up behind a tree and he lost it. Now, here’s the man that is supposed to interface with the press saying that… giving the reports on Project Blue Book. So anyway, nex he said, “Oh, I’ll tell you somebody who could be helpful. I’m going to call George.” I thought, okay. The phone call is made; the meeting is set up to meet Col. George R. Weinbrenner, Commander of Foreign Technology, which is the spy center of the Air Force. So, dutifully, I went over there, down a hallway with all of these cameras. It’s a nerve center.

Angelia: It’s a big deal.

Bob: Yeah, it really was a big deal. Most people way Foreign Technology!? Because that’s where all the real important stuff is passed through. I went up to George Weinbrenner’s desk. I said, “Colonel, uh, what about the landing at Holloman Air Force Base of an alien craft? And, you know, what I expected him to say was wht the hell are you talking about. But, you know – he didn’t! He said, “Well, you know, the Soviets know everything about us. They have copies of what we print. They know about all our society, our planes, our (whatnot… Bob’s thought) We have a hard time. We had the, (Bob interjects here, I guess it was the Israelis) captured one of the Russian MiGs.”

Angelia: And, he just spoke freely?

Bob: Yeah, quite freely. And then I thought, well especially after I asked the question, and he answers with MiGs and things. He drew a picture of a MiG on a balckboard. I was like, oh, okay.

Angelia: And you’re still thinking about Margret… I’ve got to tell Margret this.

Bob laughs: Or, did he hear my question? The next thing he said was, “Well you know, what we’re working on now is the Soviets have developed, uh, it’s called weather alteration, which is when their troops are moving through an area they can create a rain storm,” he said, “but we’ve got the best scientists working on counter strategies.” I thought, gosh, okay. So he said, “First a scientist like this,” and he put a book in my lap, which said to Col. Weinbrenner signed by Dr. Allan Hynek (scientific adviser to USAF on UFOs) and the book was all about UFOs.

Angelia: Oh, my.

Bob: So, I suppose if somebody was listening they wouldn’t know what just happened. So he said, “You know, I had some Mexican,” that what he said. He could have said Hispanic but (he said) “some Mexican officer working for me and he told all kinds of stories about the fact that we had three little frozen bodies down in the basement.” I though, okay. Next thing I get a phone call and Hector Quintanilla who is head of Project Blue Book… I thought what the ??? He said Geprge Weinbrenner asked if I could work with you and help you. The next thing another Col. Came in, Bob Friend who… he was before Quintanilla. Little by little this team came together… (indistinguishable)… Jacques Vallee. And, carte blanche to do whatever we wanted back them.  

Angelia: Now, you found them very helpful. They were sending you help and…

Bob: Oh absolutely, and as a matter of fact I asked Col. Coleman one time… recently… years and years passed and I asked him, “Why did you just tell me? Why were you so open?” He said, “The secretary of the Air Force ordered it to be that way.”

Angelia: Wow! And it’s so different now or it appears to be different.

Bob: So, not only that it must have been the Secretary of Defense because the Navy cooperated with us, the Army, and the Navy were working with dophins. We had complete help from everybody. So we proceeded with the project and I said, “Look, I don’t know that much about UFOs,” and I really didn’t. I said, “Now, you’ve had about 12,000 cases, let’s concentrate on about five of them that you couln’t resolve.” So, that’s the ones we chose.

Angelia: Five they were not able to identify.

Bob: Yes, there were more of them, but I thought well… we’ll concenterate on the ones that were most dramatic.

Angelia: And so, you did a documentary on just these five.

Bob: Yeah, five or maybe six of them, with the things that we looked into. First of all, I had Bill Coleman walk through the E-ring at the Pentagon telling about their involvement with the military, how they took it seriously and they made it top secret, and then he said, “You know maybe it shouldn’t be,” and then …(indistinguishable)… General Hoyt Vandenberg said, “Well there’s not enough evidence,” and I was following them around in the E-ring. You could see five stars – five star generals’ offices – and a military leader walked through the scene.

Angelia: This is just an amazing story.

Bob: Well, the reason I’m telling you this is I come to an event like this and everybody is saying, they’re hiding things, they’re not telling, they’ve got secrets, and I don’t know what to say to them. I did not find that so. So, let me think. Then we took some of the cases that were more traditional and then a couple of them such as a helicopter pilot and his team – Army – uh, was flying somewhere in the south and they described… he’s being interviewed by Col. Friend, one of the heads of Project Blue Book. They said they were flying along on an easterly direction, I forget what they call the direction in the military, but anyway they said they saw an object approaching from off on their right side. And, it kept coming faster and faster and they said the whole crew, in fact each one of the crew members said, “Yeah we thought it was going to hit us. It was coming straight at us so everybody was preparing for an impact.” He said, “I’ve never been in an impact in the air,” so he described it as a cigar-shape. He said you could see stars reflecting off the metal surface, and it hid whatever was behind… meaning, you know, you couldn’t see through it. As it came closer, finally it came over them and he said a pyramid shaped green beam came and turned all of the night flying lights, read, which is night flying to freen which is this pyramid green thing. So Sol. Coyne he was a  Major at the time, said he put the helicopter into a descent and it should be going down at a thousnad and so many feet per second.  

Angelia: They were ready to get out of there.

Bob: Totally. Now, he looks at the altimeter and they’re being pulled up over thirteen hundred feet per minute. He said they started around twelve hundred feet and said they topped out at almost four thousand feet, and the thing went off and then when he came down, Bob Friend. Col. Friend, interviewed him. So, Friend knew the kind of questions to ask and Coyne and his crew said, “Look, we’ve got all of these years and all I can do is… I’m reporting as it happened without trying to speculate as to what happened. And we don’t know what it was, just reporting what happened.”

Angelia: If this is the military telling you this then you’re fairly certain it wasn’t something experimental?

Bob: No, exactly. There were other cases where something landed in Socorro, which is an old story. A sheriff saw the thing. He was driving around and he saw the thing off in the distance and thought it was an overturned car so he called in, and said, “I’m going to be out of the car checking, I think, an overturned car.” He looked down on this little craft and said, “My God, it was an ‘A’-shaped object with…” he noticed a symbol on the side and he said as soon as he saw it, he saw a pair of legs and what he referred to as overalls. I mean he was really… and he said they were hanging from a clothesline.

Angelia laughing.

Bob: I’m like… gosh, what a description… Anyway, he said as soon as they saw him the craft let out a roar and lifted up about 20 feet and became silent and went off. The Air Force went down and looked. They took propellant residue tests to test for propellant residue, the weight of the beings, and the size of the craft. They took it very seriously, and they really did a lot of analysis. They said it was an unknown. They thought maybe it was a test module for NASA all the way up the Whitehouse command post and they…

Angelia: And, they couldn’t find out anything?

Bob: No, nothing. They even went to a congressional hearing on other landings and one that was interesting was where there was a psychological uhhh, a naval commander, I think it was a naval admiral, sent two of his naval commanders u[ to meet with a woman named Mrs. Francis Swan and they had heard she was doing contacts with some alien.

Angelia: This is incredible.

Bob: So, they asked her question… technical questions, and the way they put it was… she answered these technical questions with seeming telepathic help from this alien, or whatever it was.

Angelia: So, it was something she really didn’t have a knowledge base in but she was coming up with the right answers.

Bob: No (she didn’t), exactly. So then she said that they are willing to speak through you… one of those naval commanders. He asked, “What do I do? I mean… I don’t understand.” She said, “Just relax and ask to be in contact with them.” All of a sudden he began making a contact. That information went back to the CIA, which were the only ones involved…the Air Force guys and they had a, well, they brought him down to a …the building is still in Washington, D.C., it was the CIA building but the bottom floors were parking so nobody knew they were up there at the top.  

Angelia: So he began…

Bob: So here these CIA guys and the Air Force guys are asking him questions. The Navy guy… he was the one they were asking the questions and they asked him, “Are they or do they favor any nation?” “No.” “Do they favor any particular religion?” “No.” I mean I thought they were asking kind of dumb questions. “Is there going to be a third world war?” “No.” “Can we see a craft?” He said, “Yes, Go to the window and you will have you proof.” Now, what they all did is they went to a particular window that was over in the corner of the building. You could see the Whitehouse way back in the background and they saw it. They saw this craft and they said they called for a radar confirmation and it came back that that quadrant of the sky was blanked out on radar at that time.

Angelia: I would have liked to have been there for that.

Bob: Me, too. Now listen, I  was told by Col. Friend, who was… well, it was his job to run this system. There was a man named Lundahl, a CIA guy, which I asked would he be in the thing, he said, “Look, I’m still on duty, the guys are still on duty. It’s embarrassing, I won’t.”

Angelia: He was uncomfortable.

Bob: Very uncomfortable, exactly. So, Bob Friend took him into another room and said, “Would you answer a few questions for me?” He said, “Yes,” and his Adam’s apple begins bouncing up and down.

Angelia: So he’s nervous.

Bob: That was the guy doing the communicating (channeling).

Angelia: Oh, I see.

Bob: I can’t imagine what it looked like but so he said, “Can you give us the names of any of these beings?” And he said, “One is Crill.” He wrote C-R-L-L. Alamar, I believe (another name) and then he said, “AFFA,” which is reportedly from the planet Uranus so I means they’re just reporting this stuff like you know asking, where did you go last week?

Angelia: Could he have been making it up as he went along?

Bob: Anything is possible, but the fact that you back up and said that he told them to go look out the window because…

Angelia: Oh yeah, the window thing, yeah, that’s pretty important. There it is. You’re given the instruction go to the window, and there it is.

Bob: Now, the reason I put that in the special is I wanted people to see… Look, these guys are screwing around with things that if they all thought it was BS, they would not be reporting this. The same with the helicopter people. They were all going, oh, there’s nothing to it. Then we reached the point where I thought we were going to show the landing at Holloman Air Force Base and I thought it would be on film. And, Coleman said, “Look, we’ve decided that it’s too sensitive, that Watergate has just happened,” blah, blah, blah. So we had to end up doing it in animation. But, I had all the instructions of where this craft — back to the craft — where it landed, who came out, where did they meet, where was the craft stored for a few days. (Military fim footage of the actual landing was not forthcoming as Emenegger and his partner had been told it would be.)

Angelia: Who did come out?

Bob: Well, by the drawing… remember I…we were limited by what the head of security described the film to us.

Angelia: Okay.

Bob: It looked like a UFO shape, you know three pods, the door slid open and two or three men, short by our standards and, I guess they were men, with a head dress of some sort, stepped forward and they seemed to communicate, which gave the idea that maybe this was prearranged. …(indistinguishable)… They asked them questions. Now, I’m only going by what they told me.

Angelia: Right.

Bob: They asked the visitors, “Do you recognize these radio signals? Are they yours?” and they answered back, “They’re not ours. We don’t know whose they are.” then they went into some inner office. The craft, tey told me which building they put it in, which is no longer there. Somebody from Wright Patterson was like an attendant to them—a CIA guy named Alfonso Lorenzo, wherever you are Alfonso.

Angelia: Call us.

Bob: Yeah, call us.

Angelia: That’s just an amazing story you were told. What were you thinking? I mean, were you just kind of taken aback by the whole thing?

Bob: I think so.

Angelia: Were you like… I’m sorry that I made fun of my wife?

Bob laughing: I do that, no… I wanted to tell you that… Are we late for our thing? (Bob referring to a wrap up meeting in Steven Bassett’s suite. And Angelia nods to indicate a yes answer.)

Bob: Okay, we’ll finish it up. The only change they had in our scr1pt with Rod Sterling was, when he said, “Now, we go to the future. This is an event that may happen in the future or perhaps it has already happened.” And then we go to Holloman with all the sirens running and the truck running out to the field.

Angelia: And, it was animated, that part?

Bob: That was live action except when the craft came down. But they did send up two jets of some sort, I don’t know what they were, to escort this thing down so everybody cooperated. There were guys down at the end of the field going, “Okay, can we go now?” “Yeah, go.” They roar past us. That was real to escort this thing down. Well, this was in a different time, so they weren’t going anywhere. They were just doing it for us.

Angelia: Right.

Bob: The craft was taken to a hangar at the end of Mars Avenue, as I was told, but I went to the air base. I went to the air base to ask questions of the radar people and one radar guy. I said, “It must’ve really been something when that thing came down.” He said, “Yeah, it sure was, you mean the flying bathtub?”

Angelia: Flying bathtub?

Bob: I said, yeah, it was. I said, “What did you think?” He said, “We don’t talk about it.” He said, “You ought too talk to the photographic team; maybe they can tell you more.”

Angelia: Did they have pictures?

Bob: Those guys and I have to admit it. But, then I went down to Mars Avenue where the craft was taken and there was a guy in one of those blue… you know, an officer drove us down there and said, “Well, let’s look and see. There’s the building that you were asking for.” So it was sort of hard to get in so he had a crow bar so we crow barred open this little hangar, you know, he’s as curious as I am, I guess, and there wasn’t anything in it but a couple of jet engines. You know, what do I expect? Like a few years later, it’s not there anymore. So we went back and I had Lion Festinger send out the scenario of the landing at Holloman AFB to five leading social psychologists. How would the public react? Most of them said, “Well, I think they’re all ready to believe that UFOs are real or if there was a danger of families being pulled apart then that would be a problem,” and then one of them said that famous line, what we really need is an attack or an invasion from outer space so that we can join together as one species and drive the enemy away and, therfore, to live in peace therafter. Which is, you know, good luck.

Angelia: Saying that we would unite the world that way.

Bob: Yes, but he did add… what was that he added? Anyway, that was said, and then several years later that’s exactly what Reagan was saying, “Yeah, we need to have an invasion,” etc. And, everybody thinks that maybe Reagan made that up. Well, I was called back again after several years for the Reagan administration and went through the same thing. You know (Reagan’s staff said) we’d like to get some more information, but it didn’t come to pass. You know the film interestingly enough was nominated for a Golden Globe award.

Angelia: What was the name of it?

Bob: It was called, “UFOs: Past, Present and Future.” And it was made an update later with Jacques Vallee, which was longer, and called “UFOs: It has Begun,” but it wasn’t the same. There were animal mutilations and people being abducted and I just didn’t… that wasn’t pure. This original one was very pure.

Angelia: Can people still see that film?

Bob: Well if they… Of I could cut out the crap that was in the update then the original was all in there.

Angelia: Okay, I see. Well, do you have a copy of the original?

Bob: I have something I made, a forty-five minute DVD with the guts of it, and I think I gave it to these people. I could get a copy of that, and you can watch it. I think I have a copy of it upstairs.

Angelia: Well, it would be interesting just to see, if someho, you could mass produce it again and get it out to people.

Bob: Well somebody has produced it and stuck it with another thin and I just hate the idea that it was sorto of a cheese ball… it’s a DVD, but it just doesn’t feel the same.

Angelia: Right. Just keep it original.

Bob: Yes, what did I want to tell you? Oh yes, I know what it was. Here I come to a conference like this, and I hear people sitting around and saying the government is hiding something… you know, they’rre never going to come out with disclosure.

Angelia: Conspiracy, conspiracy, consiracy.

Bob: And so, even when I tell them about this, and those who have seen it, it’s like, “Oh no, well it’s a conspiracy.”

Angelia: It’s still…(others believe) there is still some sort of cover up.

Bob: How open can the guys be?

Angelia: But, then it seemed like you got so much cooperation and they were even sending people to help you and people were ordered to talk to you.

Bob: Yes, correct.

Angelia: And now, it just seems like the coin has flipped completely.

Bob: They’re not… I doubt if they’re going to talk to anybody for a long time. They orignally talked to Disney several years before us, but it didn’t culminate. So I guess this was the moment they decided to cooperate and I don’t understand how these UFO people don’t look at that thing and say, my God, they’re so open — they admit there are these crafts — they admit there are beings. So what’s the deal?

Angelia: So Bob, are you convinced that we have an ET presence?

Bob: Strange enough… with everything I know… I still. It’s very possible, but I don’t think we’re in cooperation…kind of like we have deals with the aliens to work with them. That doesn’t seem like…those people or whoever they were seem more terrestrial.

Angelia: Than extraterrestrial? Okay.

Bob: Yes, but I know that we see things flying around. People describe them.

Angelia: But, there’s so many sightings all over the world.

Bob: Yes, and it’s getting greater and greater, so I would say this may be a trial fun with someone that’s a little closer, and then the ones that are in a higher dimension are kind of following suit. I don’t know… I can’t answer it. I was, you know, I didn’t know a thing about UFOs, and then within six months… from zero… you know, I’m still overwhelmed. Probably, if I knew what I know now, I’d ask a lot more questions.

Angelia: Do you follow the stories that are out there and keep up at all?

Bob: Not especially, no, only I sort of read little accounts, and I realize well, that’s been going on for a long time.

Angelia: Right, I understand.

Bob: I’m thinking…that doesn’t seem new to me. Until somebody comes up with something that is quite new and they can prove it… that’s why I was saying to all these people, you know we need a truth tester for the stuff that people are talking about so we can determine what’s true and what’s just bull.

Angelia laughs.

Bob: I think there’s a lot of just wading through a lot of bull. I don’t want to point any fingers at anybody because already I’m sure they’d get pissed.

Angelia: Well you know, you do have a lot of people at these conferences I suppose, you know, because they know you are a speaker…

Bob: I don’t think so.

Angelia: And they come up to you and want to tell their story. They’re just…

Bob: Well, see when Bassett put me in, he didn’t even know who I was or what I’d done. I just got slipped in on Friday afternoon and I wanted to show the whole film, then allow people to ask questions, but they just…

Angelia: Right…

Bob: I put in eleven minutes of it.

Angelia: Bob, you know the title of my presentation was “The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly of UFO Reporting” and you are definitely the good. I’ve made so many new friends, and I just have a feeling that you and I will stay in contact for a long time.

Bob: Of course, especially because you remind me of Terry, my old buddy.

Angelia laughs.

Bob: I just think oh, it’s Terry, in another incarnation.

Angelia laughing: So, I don’t know about you, but I’m probably going to go home and sleep for about three days, now.

Bob: I did some interview that people asked me to do, and it was like all of a sudden in the middle of one I was sort of tired, and then I’d go well then… am I telling them the story right? I think once you’ve done it you just get burned out by all of it.

Angelia: Right, I know what you mean. Okay, that was Robert Emenegger, and we are just finishing up the 2008 X Conference, and we will be going to the press conference in the morning. Are you going, Bob?

Bob: Well, I don’t necessarily want to because there is not enough…well I don’t think so, but I’m going to go to the airport. I may go over there and watch and then go on to the airport.

Angelia: Oh okay. Well, I will be there, and I really enjoyed talking with you, and give me a call.

Bob: AngeLIA, it was a pleasure and y our story was so straight and honest and there was one other person, Marcel, who didn’t elaborate on anything, just told it as it is, and that’s the way these things should be. But, you know a lot of people start telling a story and people listening go…ooh… if they’ll buy that, what if I told them this.

Angelia laughs: Okay, thank you very much. 

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