Alternate Perceptions Magazine, July 2025
The Icarus Syndrome
By Dennis Stamey
Back in 1953, a man identified only as J. P. was deep in the Amazonian jungle, the sole remaining member of a gold expedition team. What happened to the others is unclear, maybe they gave up and went home. One day, J.P. climbed up a hill and beheld a volcano miles away. On its flank was a glittering object. He decided to find out what the shiny matter was and after a three-day trek came upon a disk-shape craft, 25 or 30 feet in diameter, topped by a cupola. The craft kept emitting a beeping noise. Overwhelmed by curiosity, he decided to camp out close by.
Gradually the beeping sound faded away. J.P. decided to approach the object. He touched the rim of the craft with his gun, which stuck to the metal as if magnetized. He noticed an opening beneath the disk. Lying underneath was a small creature about four feet in length. It had a large head and long arms, and its hands were claw-like. The being wore a one-piece garment that was torn, revealing abnormally long testicles. The face was triangular with a pointed chin, thin lips and two nostrils for a nose. The complexion was yellowish. The eyes were covered with a mask. He took off the mask and saw that the humanoid had “almond shaped” eyes drawn out towards the temples. J. P. buried the humanoid near the object and kept the mask. When he peeked inside the windows of the disk, he saw three other beings inside, all dead and facing a control panel with dials and switches. They too had masks on.
J.P. began wearing the mask, which during the day obscured his vision. However, at night it revealed to him the infinity of the stars, the immeasurability of the galaxies. J.P. eventually left the area and headed home. One night while staying in a Caracas motel someone broke into the room and conveniently stole the strange visor.
The story, which was related by Joel Mesnard in Britain’s staid Flying Saucer Review Vol. 44 Number 3, Autumn 1999, is probably bogus just like the Roswell incident. While we haven’t read the story, we’re willing to bet that it’s a third- or fourth-hand account. UFO lore is full of these tales, tantalizing though they be, about alien spaceships crashing into earth, debris and bodies recovered and stored in a military installation, never to heard from again.
Recently, there was talk about a UFO crash in Afghanistan in 1942. There is also speculation that the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union have crashed UFOs in their possession. In addition, rumors abound of the “distinct possibility” that the Brazilian Air Force has another.
But that’s nothing. This story has made the rounds in UFO circles. In July of 1989. the mountainous region several dozens of miles east of Irkuk in Taamin Province, Iraq, there was a reported UFO crash. The area was immediately cordoned off by Saddam Hussein’s military. The craft was retrieved, studied, and kept hidden at a top-secret location. The alien was reportedly Asian in appearance, about four feet in height, with a large head, large eyes, and four fingered hands.
The second member of the UFO escaped from the object via an escape capsule. A few days later, Iraqi soldiers in the nearby mountains caught the alien who and transported it at night to nearby Erbil Province. The Iraqis had a special underground tunnel with hangar there which had been constructed to study and hide the craft. The body of the pilot was also moved there and placed in a special cryogenic container.
The surviving alien was in Iraqi custody at an underground base or bunker near Baghdad but after two weeks, it died. The body was then moved to the same location as the craft. These entities were said to be biological robots. In 1989 Saddam Hussein, along with some of his most trusted allies, visited the secret underground facility and inspected the crashed object and the alien body. In 2003 American Special Forces teams fruitlessly searched for the crashed spaceship. Saddam had apparently given orders to blow up the entrance to the cave and to bury the spacecraft, the alien body and all the evidence, to prevent their seizure by the Americans. And what’s the source of this astounding story? Well, remote viewing of course. You know, where people use telepathy to spy on far-off locations. Remote viewing didn’t start until the early 1990s when the Military Intelligence Board, chaired by Defense Intelligence Agency chief Harry E. Soyster, appointed Army Colonel William Johnson to manage the remote viewing unit and evaluate its objective usefulness. The UFO crash in Iraq occurred a year before but what does that matter? The CIA took over the program in 1995, found it impractical, and quickly terminated it.
But please have no fear, we have our whistleblowers. Foremost among them is David Charles Grusch, an Afghanistan combat veteran and a former USAF intelligence officer who worked in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Much to the delight of the UFO crowd, Grusch claimed at a Congressional hearing and to the news media in 2023 that the American government had a UFO crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program “to which I was denied access.” He also said that there was a UFO crash in Italy in the 1930s and the wreckage now resides in the Vatican.
In an interview published by the London Daily Mail, Italian ufologist Roberto Pinotti backs up Grusch’s claim saying that fascist dictator Benito Mussolini got his hands on a flying saucer after it crashed on June 13, 1933. But the alien craft, Pinotti said, was rather than being in the lair of the Vatican was captured by American forces at the end of World War II and sent to the U.S. But he offers no proof.
We could keep reciting these claims until we’ve amassed a ponderous book. But the problem is, has anyone come forward and said that they were part of a group that retrieved these downed spacecrafts, examined the debris, and autopsied the occupants? No, they haven’t. And the whistleblowers who do come forward have never seen anything themselves nor have they offered any tangible evidence to back their assertions, no photos, no specimens, nothing. All they provide is hearsay. Consider Grusch, who suffers from PSTD, which makes a person delusional. His claims are generic and add nothing new, the same tired accusation that the U.S. has intact alien spacecraft. He too hasn’t personally seen any of them, nor does he have any evidence to show the public.
But this doesn’t deter the UFO buffs who will never accept the idea that the government doesn’t have non-human biologics. These same UFO believers, who suffer from a bad case of cognitive dissonance, always fire back against dissension and say, "What about disclosure?" as if the word disclosure is a talisman that will ward off any skepticism. They also see it as something akin to the promised Second Coming of Christ. Argue with a Christian and they will respond, "Wait until the Second Coming." Argue with an ET proponent and they will respond, "Wait until disclosure." Once disclosure is made, everyone will of course know the reality of space visitors and we will join with our cosmic brethren to usher in the New Age. Oh, really?
In our opinion, these yarns about spaceships crashing around the world are nothing but urban myth. And we reiterate, would an advanced civilization capable of spaceflight allow its craft to have persistent accidents? But what’s important is not the validity of these stories, it’s the stories themselves
Now there are verified reports of oddities plummeting from the heavens, their descents witnessed by hundreds of people. On the night of December 9, 1965, over six American states and parts of Canada. Astronomers theorized it was likely a meteor bolide or exploding meteor burning up in the atmosphere and dropping at a steep angle.
Whatever it was, the fireball was seen falling into some woods outside Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. During the evening, reporters from different media outlets went to the woods to investigate. The area around the impact site was cordoned off by the military who searched. Later that night, witnesses say they saw a military flatbed tractor-trailer truck, carrying a large tarpaulin-covered object, leaving the area at a high rate of speed. Paranormal investigator Stan Gordon interviewed one man named Jim Romansky who said that he and some others reached the crash site before the military arrived and came across a large metallic acorn-shaped object partially buried in the ground. The device was large enough for a man to stand inside of it. The object was a bronze-gold color and appeared to be one solid piece of metal without rivets or seams.
Maybe the paranormal can produce solid objects at times. We’ve always wondered where poltergeists get their rocks that they throw at houses.
On the night of July 3. 2024 and the early morning hours of the 4th, three different fireballs flashed through the skies of Victoria, Australia. The first came in just before 6:30 p.m. followed by another about 9 p.m. and two more just after 4 a.m. Professor Andy Tomkins of Monash University said the fireballs were not part of a meteor shower but could have originated from asteroids.
"Since they were on distinctly different orbits, we know that they were not related to a common origin, such as breaking off a larger structure," he said. But he did admit that the appearance of several in the same location was a "bit of a fluke".
"It's just purely coincidence this time," he said.
Residents of the small fishing village of Shag Harbor, Nova Scotia, noticed strange orange lights in the sky on the night of October 4, 1967. Most agreed that there were four orange lights altogether. Five teenagers watched these lights flash in sequence, and then suddenly dive at a 45-degree angle toward the ocean. They also noticed that the lights didn’t submerge but appeared to float on the water, approximately one-half mile from shore.
Pilots of Air Canada Flight 305 also sighted the object left side of the aircraft at 7:15 pm. In his report, the captain saw an object flying along on a parallel course a few miles away. He describes it as brilliantly lit, rectangular with a string of smaller lights trailing it. At 7:19 pm, the pilots noticed a big silent explosion near the large object. Two minutes later, a second explosion occurred which faded to a blue cloud around the main body.
People initially thought they were watching an airplane crash and quickly reported the incident to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, located at Barrington Passage. Coincidently, RCMP Constable Ron Pound had already witnessed the strange lights himself as he drove down Highway 3 in route to Shag Harbor. Pound thought that he had seen four lights, all attached to a solid body. He estimated that the craft was about 60 feet long. Constable Pound made his way to the shore to get a closer look and was accompanied by Police Corporal Victor Werbieki, Constable Ron O'Brien, and a few residents. Pound clearly saw a yellow light slowly moving on the water, leaving a yellowish foam in its wake. The light glided out of sight.
A Coast Guard cutter and local boats rushed to the spot of the sighting, but by the time they arrived, the light itself was gone. However, the crewmen could still see the yellow foam, indicating that something had possibly submerged. Nothing else could be found that night, and the search was called off at 3:00 AM.
The RCMP ran a traffic check with the Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, and the NORAD radar at Baccaro, Nova Scotia. They were told that there were no missing aircraft reported that evening, neither commercial nor military.
The HMCS Granby was ordered to the location, where divers searched the bottom of the ocean for several days, but without finding anything.
On Feb. 1, 2012, a colossal meteor, as bright as the full moon, lit up the skies over central Texas. "It was brighter and long-lasting than anything I've seen before," said an eyewitness named Daryn Morran. "The fireball took about eight seconds to cross the sky. I could see the fireball start to slow down; then it exploded like a firecracker artillery shell into several pieces, flickered a few more times, and then slowly burned out." But more were to arrive. Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama told the press: "There have been five or six notable fireballs that might have dropped meteorites around the United States." He added, "There's no common source for these fireballs, which is puzzling."
On the evening of February 9, 1953, according to the Charlotte Observer of the 12th, a Marine pilot, First Lt. Ed Balocco, chased a glowing red object over the North Carolina coast. Balocco was assigned to the Marine auxiliary air station at Edenton, North Carolina. The air station had been alerted earlier by a Navy signal tower at Norfolk, Virginia, that a helicopter had spotted a silver object flying over the North Carolina-Virginia border.
Balocco was soon scouting the area, but after half an hour couldn’t find anything. As he was heading back to base, the pilot noticed what resembled "an airplane with red lights" over Washington, North Carolina. The object was below him cruising at about 20,000 feet. Balocco gave chase, flying at 500 miles per hour, but the UFO kept its distance. The pilot pursued the bogey for almost four minutes.
"The object was the color of white heat, and it threw out a red glow behind it," Balocco related. "It had two red lights on the left-hand side bouncing and flashing off the end, encircling an arc."
The pilot almost gained on the UFO, but it finally shot away over the coast. Balocco radioed for other pilots to join him in the chase. One flier, Captain Thomas W. Riggs, also saw the red phantom before it disappeared. On the ground, a farmer named Gerald Midget from Oriental, North Carolina called the air station and reported seeing a "flash" in a nearby swamp. After the flash, there was a fire. A Marine helicopter scoured the swamp and discovered a small blaze but there were no signs of any crash.
We’ve mentioned in our writings about meteors spotted before humanoid and even UFO sightings. On April 30 approximately 11:50 p.m., a glowing green light flashed across the sky and was seen by numerous people in California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. The event was even captured on a Las Vegas police officer's body cam. The video went viral on social media platforms.
Around this same time two brothers from Las Vegas were working on their car in the backyard when they also observed the fireball. Abruptly they heard footsteps and then noticed a "tall, skinny alien creature with greenish color" that was about eight to 10 feet tall and hiding behind a forklift. "He had a weird-looking face, big feet and big shiny eyes, and a big mouth," one of them said. "I can hear its loud, deep breathing and its stomach keeps moving. He would just stare at me, and seconds later, I could move again." They were interviewed by a local reporter and this interview also went viral.
Around 7 p.m. on September 11, 1952, several boys and an adult noticed a strange object on top of a nearby hill outside the town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia. The party trekked up the slope to learn what it was and soon noticed that the air was misty. They also smelled an acrid "metallic odor" that burned their nostrils and made them nauseated. Some 100 yards ahead was a glowing, pulsating sphere. Inching closer, they beheld a man-like creature floating near the pulsing light. It was almost ten feet tall with a bright red face, glowing eyes, bright green clothing, and "a head which resembled the ace of spades." The head itself was a "fiery orange color." It wore garments from the waist down that "hung in great folds." The witnesses fled in terror.
Again, at about that same time, a huge meteor flying in a relatively horizontal trajectory, had been spotted in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. A staff member of the Maryland Academy of Sciences announced that a meteor had passed over Baltimore at 7 p.m. on September 12, "traveling at a height of 60 to 70 miles."
About 7 p.m. on August 21, 1955, in the rural Kentucky town of Hopkinsville, Billy Ray Taylor was going out to the well to fetch some water when he glimpsed a blazing light cut through the sky and land behind some trees. Not long after, the family started hearing odd noises and their dog kept yapping. Lucky Sutton and Billy Ray crept outside with their guns and noticed some creatures emerging from the tree line. They opened fire and other beasties appeared, a dozen or more. The cousins retreated into the house and kept firing from the windows, but the visitors weren't phased by the bullets. The men expended several boxes of ammunition. The men claimed that the creatures had large eyes, and large pointed ears, were about three feet tall, and had spindly legs and claw-like hands. When a bullet struck one it sounded like a tin can was being shot. The drama ended around midnight, and the family climbed into their car and raced to the police station.
It's interesting to note that personnel at Fort Campbell also saw a big meteor at about the same time as Billy Ray.
On the night of Christmas Day 1980, personnel at the RAF Woodbridge base in Suffolk, England, then operated by the USAF, noticed bright lights streaking through the sky. Later in the early hours of December 26, security personnel from RAF Woodbridge ventured into Rendlesham Forest to investigate some pulsating, colored lights moving through the trees. At first, they thought the lights might be from a downed aircraft. Local constables were alerted and also joined in the search. Soon the base personnel encountered an object in a clearing that they described as metallic and conical-shaped, with a bright red light on top and a circle of blue lights underneath, suspended inside a yellow mist. After daybreak, they returned to the clearing and came across three depressions in the ground arranged in a triangular pattern.
There were a lot of meteors all over England on Christmas Night of 1980. Th first sighting was at 5:20 p.m. and the second at 7:20 p.m. Then around 9 p.m., the upper stage of a Russian rocket that had launched the Cosmos 749 satellite supposedly re-entered and broke up. At 2:45 a.m. on the 26th, another fireball described as "bright as the moon" flashed across the heavens for about four seconds. Why do so many meteors at one time? We’ve speculated that many of these oddball meteors or meteors seen shortly before a paranormal event could be globs of EM energy that have been detached from what Keel dubbed the “super spectrum” as the collective psyche prepares to bring archetypal images out of its “dream factory” (our term). But could these mysterious fireballs and fables about spacecraft falling to the earth be related? Is there a backstory behind it all, one that is quite ancient?
Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, and both had been imprisoned on the island of Crete by King Minos. Daedalus built a pair of mechanical wings for him and his son. Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun or too close to the sea. The impetuous Icarus kept soaring higher until his wings melted and he crashed into the earth.
Phaethon, the son of Helios, the God of the Sun, wanted to drive his father’s Sun chariot through the heavens for a day to prove his worth, a vehicle responsible for the movement of the sun. Unfortunately, the horses resented this new charioteer and became unruly and went out of control. Phaethon accidentally drove too close to the earth, scorching the landscape and Zeus had no recourse but to zap him with a lightning bolt. And we can’t forget Lucifer who, along with his rebellious followers, were cast from heaven. But Isiah 14: 12-15 talks about another fall from grace that might refer to a king of Babylon: “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.”
Lucifer, the unknown King of Babylon, Icarus, and Helios fell to earth or from political power because of hubris or their vanity. However, we also have Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and metallurgy who was flung out of Olympus because he was lame. Maybe this parable was trying to show that even gods have their imperfections.
The only other myth about a deity plunging to earth that we can find is the Iroquois and Huron tradition about the Woman Who Fell from the Sky. This legend has nothing to do with hubris, however. It is about creation and destruction. This deity lived in a world above the sky. One day she became pregnant and fell out of the heavens either while chasing a bear or because the tree of life was uprooted and she tumbled through the gaping hole it caused. Soon after landing on earth, the woman gave birth to twin sons, one good and one evil, who created the natural features of the earth and sky. The good twin shaped the sky and created the sun. He also made the moon, stars, mountains, plants, and animals. The evil twin set attempted to destroy his brother's creations, making darkness to drive the sun from the sky, and fashioning monsters, storms, and different kinds of dangerous beasts.
These two aspects of nature are, according to our theories, personified by paranormal manifestations, one positive such as angelic beings or beatific aliens and the other negative such as the MIB, witches, trolls, and other dark entities.
Gods and even kings (the Babylonian kings were seen as divine) tumbling from the firmament is probably another archetype in the collective psyche and in recent times has been expressed through tales of UFO crashes and reports of inexplicable meteoric activity. What do the gods represent anyway? Well, transcendence, a state that tries to surpass any limitations. But often those limitations won’t budge, and when that happens, catastrophe ensues. Icarus was no god, but his wings made him one and his humanness brought him death.
UFOs and their seemingly imperfect technology will keep falling.
