| March 23, 2009
To Whom It May Concern:
On August 8, 2002, at around 11:30 AM, I was driving from Altoona,
PA to Huntingdon, PA when I noticed what was clearly an unusual track in
the sky. At first I thought the track was the condensation trail from
some sort of jet aircraft. But as I examined the track more carefully, I
could see that it was not an ordinary condensation trail from a jet.
Moreover, the object associated with the track was moving very slowly.
Too slow to be a jet. I later estimated that the object may have been
traveling as slowly as 10 or 15 mph. That estimate was based on what I
believed to be the object's approximate distance from me and its angular
rate of movement. I estimated the object's distance to be about 4,000
feet, for the second set of photographs discussed below.
This also allowed me to estimate the object's diameter, which I
believe to have been between 30 and 100 feet.
My vision is not terribly good, so I could not clearly make out
the aircraft with my eyes, and thus merely photographed the region ahead
of the track where I assumed the aircraft would be.
I took two sets of photographs with a bitmap camera. The first set
of photographs were taken at the location where I first observed the
track, and the second set of photographs were taken in a location
perhaps four or five miles closer to the object -- at a point where I
reached after I moved my car.
When I got home, I began analyzing the photographs with my
computer and subsequently developed the pictures shown above – along
with perhaps six or seven other photographs of the tail by itself.
My conclusion is that the object was disk-shaped and possessed a
dome, and, as indicated, had a diameter between 30 and 100 feet and was
moving at perhaps 10 or 15 miles per hour. I also believe the object was
trailing smoke, rather than emitting an exhaust plume. It could have
been in distress.
I know of no terrestrial aircraft which are disk-shaped and
possess a dome, and I know of no terrestrial technology that would allow
a craft such as this to slowly float along as this craft evidently did.
In addition to the above, I think it is clear that the resolution
of the pictures shown above is sufficient to allow one to reach the
conclusions I have reached, namely that the object was disk-shaped and
possessed a dome. Moreover, given that the object moved very
little during the 15 or 20 minutes I observed it, and based on my
distance estimates, I believe it is not unreasonable to assert that the
object might have been traveling as slowly as 10 or 15 miles per hour.
Finally, given the fact that the object was apparently trailing smoke,
that speed estimate would be consistent with an object in distress.
I have been hesitant to release these pictures until now, as I did
not want to become immersed in controversy. But now seems like a
good time.
Sincerely,
Robert W. Koontz
Other
Information: Steven
Greer's Group Disclosure Before the National Press Club |