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W-Files: The Book

Are you associated with the book?

First of all, this website is not designed as an advertisement.

It's more of a coincidence.

When The W-Files web site opened in 1997, it didn't take long before people started to send me e-mail asking if I was associated with the book called The W-Files written by Jay Rath. At the time, the book was a brand new release, so this is the first time we had heard of it. It certainly was interesting to hear that there was also a book out under the "W-Files" name. Of course, our curiosity required us to immediately go out and buy this book.


The "W-Files book" is a great investment if you are looking to learn even more about Wisconsin and all its oddities.  Most of the staff here at The W-Files own autographed copies from attending lectures by the author. 

So, how was it?

If you enjoy visiting this web site, you'd love the book. It covers a lot of information about paranormal activity in Wisconsin, and does it in a very entertaining and "fun to read" way.

Where Can I Get The Book?

You can find the book at any major bookstore. I'd definitely recommend it.

You can also order it from Amazon.com using the following link:

The W-Files: True Reports of Unexplained Phenomena in Wisconsin

Other Paranormal Books by Jay Rath:

The I-Files - Illinois Paranormal
The M-Files - Minnesota Paranormal


What does Jay Rath have to say about the web site?

After I read the book, I contacted Jay Rath to let him know about The W-Files web site and ask him if he'd mind me featuring the book on the web site since we were using the same name. He responded:

"Nice web site!
I wish I could have stolen material from it for the book!
I'd be pleased and proud to be associated with it."

Jay even suggested that I select a chapter from the book to post here. It was easy for me to pick my favorite chapter, since it includes a very interesting story about Jay's personal experience with a possible "Man in Black" (scroll down to see it).

Did You Name The Web Site After The Book?

I included this question because a lot of people have asked it. I actually posted the web site before I had personally heard of the book, so no, I didn't steal the name of the web site from the book. I originally came up with the name as a kind of local twist on the name of the TV show "The X-Files." Obviously, Jay had the same idea. But as far as the "W-Files" name goes, neither of us have any problem at all sharing it.


Now, here's that chapter from The W-Files book that I promised earlier:

THE MEN IN BLACK OF MAJESTIC 12, AND OTHER CONSPIRACIES

"If the Air Force said there was such a thing as flying saucers,
don't you believe them.
If they said there is no such thing as flying saucers,
don't you believe them.
If they said I don't know what I was talking about,
don't you believe them.
In brief, don't believe them.
Believe me."
- Frank Scully, Behind the Flying Saucers

Frank Scully was one of the first UFO researchers to suggest that the government had secretly recovered crashed flying saucers. In fact, one of his investigations was into a disc that had been seen flying over Black River Falls, Wis. An electrician found the small craft lying in some deep grass in the Jackson County fairgrounds and exhibited it in a sideshow.

Local police confiscated the UFO and stored it in a bank vault, then sent it to Milwaukee's Mitchell Field, where it was studied by aircraft experts.

Examination showed that the disc was made of plywood.

"This contrivance is patently a hoax," said officials. "It will be held for a reasonable time and then disposed of in the nearest ash receptacle."

But Scully had other, better stories of recovered UFOs, and from them he popularized the theory that the government knows far more than it is saying about UFOs. So pervasive has this belief become that a 1995 national survey conducted by the Scripps Howard News Service revealed that 50 percent of U.S. citizens believe that UFOs exist and that the federal government is covering up what it knows.

The conspiracy theory was given vitality early on by Wisconsinite Ray Palmer. Palmer, if you'll remember, was the pulp magazine publisher who believed that an evil race of robots, named Deros, lived far beneath the surface of the Earth. Whatever you think of his theories, there's no denying the impact he made on the public in terms of its acceptance of flying saucers. In the early years, before anyone else took the phenomena seriously, Palmer doggedly hammered away, sketching the agenda for almost all the debate that would follow.

Whatever UFOs are or are not, the way we perceive them is largely due to Palmer. In Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures magazines, he launched the modern myth of the flying saucer. He was the original UFO buff. In the 1950s he moved his offices from Chicago to Amherst, Wis., where he continued to publish UFO publications for an ever smaller audience.

Palmer's career waned as flying saucers gave way to the more proper "UFO." His enthusiasm and willingness to believe even the craziest stories became embarrassing to more scholarly researchers. Despite his impact on the field, he was obscure at the time of his death, in 1977, and he is more obscure now. Sometimes he was at a loss to explain what had happened.

In one of his magazines, Forum, he theorized that there was "an organized something that goes into action when people like myself seem to be on the verge of being successful in their goals, and (it) effectively smashes everything to bits."

That may have been sour grapes on Palmer's part, but it is a fact that every once in awhile someone surfaces to put a chill into someone's interest in UFOs. Collectively, these people are known in the field as the Men in Black, or MIBs, for short, since they usually dress in black. Sometimes, though, they wear uniforms and even display proper military IDs. Even the Air Force, which could not believe in UFOs, believed in the MIBs.

From a March 1, 1967, memo from the Air Force assistant vice chief of staff, Lt. General Hewitt T. Wheless, distributed throughout the service:

"Information, not verifiable, has reached Headquarters USAF that persons claiming to represent the Air Force or other Defense establishments have contacted citizens who have sighted unidentified flying objects. In one reported case an individual in civilian clothes, who represented himself as a member of NORAD (North American Air Defense Command), demanded and received photos belonging to a private citizen. In another, a person in an Air Force uniform approached local police and other citizens who had sighted a UFO, assembled them in a school room and told them they did not see what they thought they saw and that they should not talk to anyone about the sighting."

Wheless advised, "All military and civilian personnel and particularly Information Officers and UFO Investigating officers who hear of such reports should immediately notify their local OSI (USAF Office of Special Investigations) offices."

There are very few classic MIB stories, complete with black suits, but there are many more MIB-like tales. The stereotypical Man in Black shows up at your door, having driven over in a large black car, usually an American model, usually older, and always in perfect condition. The Man in Black is dressed just that way, like a Cold War spy. He will appear vaguely Asian, somewhat pale, and he seems to have a foreigner's grasp of the language. Typically he will argue that you have not seen what you thought. If you persist in your belief, he will threaten your life.

For conspiracy buffs, the MIBs are a treat. Are they aliens? Government agents? CIA, FBI? It's a silly sideshow on the fringe of a fringe science.

Until it happens to you. Then it's not quite so funny.

In 1991 I wrote a newspaper story about a man who was using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the release of UFO documents from the National Security Agency. At the time I was a freelance columnist and critic for the Madison Capital Times. To avoid late night crank calls, my phone number for some years had been unlisted. Naturally, the paper was happy to take messages, but it was a strict rule they did not give out the private numbers or addresses of any of its reporters -- to the displeasure of old schoolmates who sometimes tried to look me up.

But after my Freedom of Information Act story ran, I got a call at home from a man named George. George said he had enjoyed the article very much. He thought that it was time people were told the truth, he said. Unfortunately, though, he had relatives who worked for the CIA. George wanted to warn me that if I persisted in this line of investigation, I would find that it took longer to receive my mail. It would be diverted, opened, read, resealed and sent on its way. Also, my phone may be tapped. But George wished me success.

I didn't quite know what to say. I thanked him and that was it. His "gratitude" had an opposite effect, as he probably desired, and I immediately wondered . . . how had George gotten my unlisted phone number? I checked with my editors -- they had not given it out. They had not even been asked for it. No one had called the newspaper for me.

In the summer of 1996, as I prepared this book, I came home one night and was told by my housemates that I'd just missed a visitor. It was a man, a sort of odd man. He had asked for me by describing me in pretty vague terms to my housemates. "He interviews people," was what the man said. He left his name.

His name was George.

George is my Man in Black.

George may not work for the government, but he has colleagues who have. From Jan. 14 through 18, 1953, there convened a CIA panel subsequently referred to as the Robertson committee. Its existence was long denied, as was the purpose for its formation: the UFO problem.

In its final report, declassified in 1967, the panel said it "took cognizance of the existence of such groups as the 'Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators' (Los Angeles) and the 'Aerial Phenomena Research Organization' (Wisconsin). It was believed that such organizations should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur. The apparent irresponsibility and possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind."

The Wisconsin group referred to in the report is the now defunct APRO, founded by the late Jim and Coral Lorenzen. They established it in Green Bay and subsequently moved operations to Tucson, Ariz. It was an early, pioneering group, and why anyone should believe it would pose a threat at that time is somewhat odd. When the Robertson panel met, APRO was just a year old.

In 1952, during APRO's first summer -- even before the CIA panel recommended surveillance -- the Lorenzens lived on Memorial Drive, in Green Bay. One day two men drove up their block, slowly, as if looking for a specific house. Of all the houses on the street, they chose to call on the Lorenzens; one of the men came up and explained that they were house painters. They would like to offer a bid.

The Lorenzens were only renting the house. They could not authorize a painting contract. The man was content to engage Coral in conversation. He never did remember to ask for the landlord's name. When the two left, they continued on, turned the corner, went around the block -- and waited in their car. Coral watched them from the back of her house. Presumably, they watched her, too. No other homes were canvassed. Coincidentally, other local APRO members that same day were also visited by painting contractors. In no case did the painters work very hard to actually gain any clients. They were just happy to . . . talk.

Recalled Coral, years later, "Perhaps they were painting contractors, but if so, they certainly were not very enterprising ones."

The Lorenzens did have one particular associate who showed a great deal of enterprise, however. "One of our first, most energetic supporters was a gentleman from Green Bay," Coral recalled in one of her several books, UFOs Over the Americas. "He helped with minor donations and many suggestions for the organization. He claimed to have a background in intelligence work."

Among his other talents, this man was a careful typist who used platens. Readers who learned to type before word processing will remember that a platen is a second sheet of paper you put in the typewriter so that the keys won't score the roller. The platen is a buffer, to dampen the impact of the keys.

The Lorenzen's benefactor wrote to them on Feb. 22, 1953. He had the misfortune to write his letter on a sheet of paper he had previously used as a platen. Coral Lorenzen noticed the barely visible impressions on the back of the letter after she had tossed it into a wastebasket. She shaded the paper with a soft pencil and was surprised to find herself reading a history of her residences, a list of her personal habits, and conclusions regarding her character.

The Lorenzens asked their "friend" about this, and he stated, according to Coral, "that this was merely a routine he used to formulate his feelings about people he met and to define his own impressions and that it was strictly a report for his own files."

The Lorenzens didn't know what to believe, and felt that his explanation could be genuine. (For my part, I believe that the Lorenzens' optimistic assessment is the first solid evidence we have for the influence of the thought ray belonging to the evil robot Deros civilization.)

A couple of less pleasant MIBs broke into a Madison hotel room. Sometime in the 1970s freelance journalist Warren Smith came to Madison in regard to a UFO sighting -- a farmer had seen a UFO in his orchard. I believe this is probably the Stoughton 1968 sighting, as that would put the event near Madison, and because that was the sighting where the UFO gave out a shower of sparks. It was also reported to a law enforcement agency, which, as it turns out, is a prerequisite for the sighting's tracing.

Anyway, Smith came to Madison and checked into a Holiday Inn. He made arrangements to visit the farmer and found that the man had recovered a piece of metal, apparently from the UFO. The farmer gave the metal to Smith. Smith came back to Madison. Then the farmer spoke with Smith again, and said that a fertilizer salesman had been out, asking a lot about the UFO and the metal but not working too hard to sell fertilizer. The farmer needed to see Smith again.

No stranger to the paranoia of UFOlogy, Smith took the back off the TV in his hotel room and tied the metal sample to the inside. "I asked the maids and hotel maintenance man to watch my room during my absence," Smith told British UFO researcher Timothy Good, as recounted in Good's book, Above Top Secret.

As soon as Smith left, two men with a room key went in; a maid saw it all and went in a minute later, pretending to check the room. She saw the two going through Smith's suitcase.

Meanwhile, Smith was talking to the farmer, who had since met with some representatives from the government who wanted the metal. The farmer had agreed, he said, based on "national security, a danger to the world, and the government's desire."

Well, Smith went back to Madison, back to the hotel, back to his room, and there encountered his two visitors. One was at the desk, the other was stretched out on the bed. Some small talk was made, and then one of the men said, "You have something we want. A farmer gave you a piece of metal the other day. Our job is to pick it up."

Smith asked to see some identification.

"Name the agency and we'll produce it," the man said. "Would you like Air Force, FBI, or maybe NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command)?"

Smith was growing increasingly uncomfortable, and he had only been loaned the metal in the first place. The farmer wanted it to go to the government. Smith agreed to turn over the fragment if the men would answer a few questions. They agreed, and all adjourned to the hotel coffee shop. There, of course, the men didn't really offer any information, other than that "UFOs involve more than you or any civilian can realize. They're the most important thing and perhaps the greatest hazard that mankind has ever faced."

Smith turned over the metal and saw the men off. Their car had Illinois plates. He immediately called Brad Steiger, the well-known paranormal investigator who resides in Iowa. Some years afterward Steiger recalled that Smith sounded "genuinely frightened" about the event.

Smith said later that he traced the plates to a Chicago man with "CIA links," after which Smith apparently went underground, as he cannot be located today.

If Chicago is the base of operations for midwestern MIBs, I believe the activity is centered at the Great Lakes Naval Base there. There is anecdotal evidence that UFO debris is brought there. In 1973 a gunners mate, recruited by Naval Intelligence, was stationed at the base. He was given a high security clearance and was promised an even higher clearance and an overseas assignment if he performed well for the next year and a half.

"Now, I was sequestered one night for guard duty on a quonset hut at the northwestern end of the base," the gunners mate told Lawrence Fawcett and Barry J. Greenwood, researchers who have made extensive use of the Freedom of Information Act to gain government documents relating to UFOs. "We were told there was highly top secret material in that quonset hut. We were not supposed to go inside and not to look in any windows. We were to guard the place and let no one in or out without the proper identification."

However, this one night the gunners mate was officer of the guard, and a messenger brought him a letter to be given to the officer on duty. It was for the officer on duty's eyes only, and the gunners mate had to get a signature on the receipt, on the front of the sealed envelope. He had to go inside.

He called and explained, and as the officer on duty was busy just at that moment, it was decided to let the gunners mate enter. "Now this was highly unusual," the gunners mate recalled. He took it to be a test if his discretion.

He went through the large, metal, sliding door, signed in, and then walked down the hallway, escorted by three officers. He took a turn to the right, walked five feet, went down another hallway about 8 feet, turned left for five more feet, and walked into a warehousing area, "where I saw a strange craft off to my left."

"The craft was possibly 30 to 35 feet long, about 12 to 15 feet at its thickest part, then it tapered off in the front to a teardrop shape." It sat a foot or so off the floor, supported by a wooden cradle. The craft had a slight bluish tint, and it was tremendously shiny.

He walked into the office and delivered the message. "There were several people in there. Nobody was talking, nobody was doing anything; everybody was watching me. They seemed nervous."

He got the receipt and was escorted out, after being told to tell no one about what he had seen.

It may have been a very odd way of testing the young officer's integrity; if so, he failed. He spilled the story to a number of UFO researchers. He believed it was a UFO shot down by a destroyer in the Pacific, or at least he heard rumors to that effect when he was stationed in San Diego two months later. I think it's rather odd for the Navy to transport a UFO all the way to Chicago from the Pacific, though, when there are UFOs just as good that have crashed nearby.

In Milwaukee, for example. From a formerly classified FBI memo, released through the Freedom of Information Act:

"At 12:07 a.m., 8/27/74, Security Patrol Clerk (name deleted), Intelligence Division, received a call via Command Center telephone from a Major (name deleted), National Military Command Center. Major ---- asked for any information the FBI might have concerning a report that an unidentified object which fell from the sky at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, had been recovered by local police and turned over to the Milwaukee Office of the FBI.

"No information at Intelligence Division, Night Duty Supervisor (name deleted), called Security Patrol Clerk (name deleted), Milwaukee Office, who advised an unidentified object had been recovered by (name deleted). He said a (name deleted) had called the Milwaukee FBI office to report the recovery. Very little was known about the object, which was described as about 13x8x5 inches, metallic in substance and color, jagged on one side and had an 'internal heat source.' (Name deleted) notified military locally."

I have no idea what the above refers to, or of any sighting made in Milwaukee around that time. But it is a real FBI document. Still, we do not have to make do with just a 13x8x5 part of a UFO when we can get hold of the whole thing.

The night of January 27, 1969, at 12:30 a.m., six miles east of Hudson, a UFO was seen to strike the ground. Two flashes, like lightning, were seen immediately afterward. Police in Prescott, New Richmond and Elmwood all received reports of the landing or crash. It wasn't until the next afternoon that 20 snowmobilers, members of the Snow Trails Unlimited club, assisted by at least one plane, combed a 10 square mile area, looking for the wreckage. But nothing -- no downed aircraft, meteor or UFO -- was found.

I prefer to believe that this UFO was plenty good enough for the Navy in Chicago, without their chasing after fashionable West Coast flying saucers. Still, the ways of the Navy are mysterious, indeed. Take for example the next case:

Milwaukee, 11:37 p.m. June 23, 1950: 3,500 feet above sea level, over Battle Creek, Mich. Northwest flight 2501 was 37 minutes from Milwaukee. At that moment Capt. Robert C. Lind broadcast a typical position report. Everything was fine. On board were 55 passengers, including a General Mills vice president, an AT&T vice president and his family, and a priest.

Roughly an hour and a half later, two Whitefish Bay police officers looked out over Lake Michigan and saw a red light. They watched it for about 10 minutes. They were used to night patrol, but they had never seen anything like it. It was so odd that they called the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard Milwaukee Station sent a ship out into the lake. They did not see any strange lights, but they did find a U.S. Navy vessel. The Coast Guard captain asked the Navy captain if he'd seen anything. "No." What were they doing out so late? "Maneuvers."

According to the June 25, 1950, Chicago Tribune, the naval vessel had not seen Northwest flight 2501. As a matter of fact, no one has ever seen Northwest flight 2501. It disappeared, 37 minutes from Milwaukee. The Coast Guard didn't know that until the next morning. They launched a search at dawn. Eventually even the Navy was called in, and they used secret radar and sonar devices to find the underwater wreckage.

It was never found. No bodies were ever found. No clothing, floatation devices, luggage, not so much as an oil slick.

The flight would have passed directly over the Navy ship and its tight-lipped captain out on "maneuvers."

It took a year, but the Civilian Aeronautics Board finally delivered its findings: "The Board determines that there is not sufficient evidence upon which to make a determination of probable cause ( . . . ) None of the radio communications received from the flight, including the last, contained any mention of trouble." The possibility "that this accident resulted from some mechanical failure seems to be remote."

Was the UFO directly responsible, as in the Kinross Case? As in the burned-out points in George Wheeler's squad car, in Elmwood?

And what about Elmwood?

In February 1987, U.S. Army Col. Harold E. Phillips, of the Defense Intelligence Agency, convened an inter agency working group to study UFOs on an ongoing basis. The UFO Working Group, at least initially, included one Army and three Air Force generals, Defense Intelligence Agency scientists, an Army colonel, three officials from the National Security Agency, a supervisor from the CIA`s domestic intelligence division and a technical team from the CIA`s Science and Technology Directorate.

The work of the group, and even its existence, was secret; while researching a book on the Walker spy family, former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize nominee Howard Blum was led to the UFO Working Group by a National Security Agency official. Blum developed at least two sources who were members of the group, and traced its nationwide investigations. He published his findings in the book, Out There.

During his investigation Blum confirmed each detail of the unfolding story with his two sources and, when possible, with others. (For his part, during a phone conversation from the offices of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Pentagon, Col. Phillips told Blum that he had never heard of the UFO Working Group. To make matters more suspect, subsequent phone calls to the DIA elicited the response, "We have no record of a Col. Harold Phillips.")

The Working Group`s charge was simple: to search for proof of extraterrestrial existence.

After lengthy consideration of many geographic areas with an unusually high number of sightings, in the summer of 1988 it was decided that Elmwood was the "perfect candidate" for study. An investigative team was drawn from the CIA Domestic Collection Division and sent to Elmwood. The intelligence agency, previously forbidden from domestic activities, had in 1981 been cleared by President Reagan for special activities at home, so long as there were no efforts to influence U.S. politics, media or public opinion.

The two-man team traveled to Elmwood, pretending to be NASA engineers. The operatives interviewed those who had had sightings. Alleged landing sites were visited and soil and geological analyses were conducted. Stories of incidents were cross-checked with military records of UFOs. There was also a study of eyewitnesses' medical records.

After such a thorough investigation, the summary of the team`s findings was anticlimactic. After considering all the many possible explanations for the alleged sightings, the conclusion was, according to Phillips, "We just don't know what's in the skies over Elmwood."

The truth of the Elmwood investigation, that it actually occurred, seems to be beyond question. Area newspapers from the time even refer with local pride to the visiting "scientists" and their interest.

What may be garbled confirmation comes, again, from Timothy Good. His sources confirm the existence of a Project Aquarius, whose purpose was -- or is -- to give UFO information to a higher authority. According to Good, a Col. R. "Donny" Phillips "perhaps" led a group within the Defense Intelligence Agency known as a "working committee," which was reorganized in 1986.

It gets more complicated. There is a shadowy Las Vegas businessman with alleged Mafia and CIA connections named Robert Bigelow. He has a long-standing interest in UFO research, and in 1995 alone he is said to have donated $1 million to the three largest UFO investigative groups, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the Fund for UFO Research, and the Center for UFO Study (CUFOS).

The chain of evidence is now taken up by Philip Klass. Klass is without a doubt the top UFO debunker in the country, if not the world. He is not a man to be easily taken in. According to Klass, Bigelow withdrew funding in 1995 after discussing the matter with Col. John Alexander. Alexander, for his part, denies that he urged Bigelow to stop the cash flow. Who is Alexander? Apparently he is Col. Phillips, the head of the Pentagon working group that instigated the Elmwood investigation.

According to UFO researcher Michael Corbin, Alexander is Phillips. Alexander is the former head of the Los Alamos Nonlethal Weapons research program. Alexander himself has confirmed his Los Alamos work.

Alexander, who has since retired to Las Vegas, acknowledges his Los Alamos work, and adds that he continues to perform nonlethal weapons research for NATO. He is also rumored to be head of the National Institute of Discovery Science in Las Vegas, although Alexander denies it. The Institute is said to be involved in ESP research and theoretical UFO engineering.

For its part, the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) describes itself as "a newly formed, privately funded research organization. It focuses on scientific exploration that emphasizes emerging, novel, and sometimes unconventional observations and theories. In its programs, NIDS rigorously employs accepted scientific methods and maintains the highest ethical and quality standards. Because NIDS is a new institution, it is too soon to determine exactly what specific projects will be undertaken. However, the Institute is concentrating on exploring fundamental research on issues concerning the nature and evolution of life and consciousness in the universe, and their modes of interaction."

As it happens, the Institute is funded by Robert Bigelow, the previously generous supporter of civilian UFO groups.

Col. Alexander/Phillips was also a member of a group known as the "Aviary," an independent public-private UFO project whose purpose seems to have been the careful release of disinformation in the 1980s to UFO researchers: psychological warfare. The main target was William Moore. William Moore, with Jaime Shandera, is the man who in 1984 gave us Majestic-12.

You may or may not have heard of Majestic-12 or MJ-12 or MAGIC or MAJICK or Magi. All are names or code names for a secret UFO study group supposedly launched in 1947 after the recovery of a crashed flying saucer at Roswell, N.M. It operated out of the brand-new CIA and was answerable only to President Harry Truman -- some argue that after Eisenhower no president since has even been made aware of the group's existence.

The only evidence supporting the existence of MJ-12 is in the form of a few top secret government documents that were given by mysterious government figures to William Moore. The reality of Majestic-12 is doubted by most serious UFO researchers, though some UFOlogists -- myself included -- believe that there is at least some truth in them. What we may have is a mix of the fantastic and real, bundled in a common document to dissuade serious study.

Coincidentally, one of the key Majestic-12 documents that has subsequently surfaced was mailed anonymously to UFO researchers, postmarked from . . . Wisconsin.

I don't know if the documents are real. Maybe George does.

Meanwhile, I hope he continues to appreciate my work. I've dedicated this book to him.