Isaac Koi - New Uploads

Sunday, March 6, 2022

PDFs - UFO articles from rare "See" magazine and "Amazing Stories" (USA, 1940s-1950s) - by Kenneth Arnold, Gray Barker, Richard S Shaver, Vincent Gaddis

"Amazing Stories" usually printed, well, stories - as the name might suggest. Some of them related to aliens and monsters, including the well-known "Shaver mystery" stories. However, several issues of "Amazing Stories" also included non-fiction articles - including a special UFO issue (with material written by Kenneth Arnold, Gray Barker and Richard Shaver). Other issues included UFO articles by Vincent Gaddis in June 1947 and editorials by Ray Palmer.

"See" magazine published an article by Gerald Heard in 1951, including the possibility that "our visitors are mapping our magnetic field" (which was one of the various theories suggested in the 1950s linking UFOs with magnetic fields).

Thanks mainly to Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein, I have now added scans of these items have now been added to the online archive - in the section for UFO articles from mainstream periodicals from the USA.

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Glenn Campbell's UFOmind.com (best UFO website of the 1990s?) - 400,000+ links replaced. Browsable HTML and searchable PDFs added to archive

In the 1990s, my favourite UFO website was run by Glenn Campbell (known as "UFOmind.com" or the "Aliens on Earth" website).

UFOmind.com provided a massive directory of links to material about UFOs and Area 51 on numerous websites (both UFO and mainstream) and a helpful guide to the personalities involved.

Glenn Campbell sadly passed away in December 2021.

A few parts of his UFOmind website are currently still online. However:

(1) The colours have changed so that most of the text is the same colour as the background. This makes most of the text invisible.

(2) Most of the links to other websites that existed in the 1990s have not been updated since 1996 and are now dead.

(3) Back in about 2001, many of the pages were deleted by Glenn Campbell because the links on them no longer worked and he did not have the time (or apparently the interest) to maintain them any longer. While there may not have been any realistic alternative at that time, those deletions ripped the heart out of the UFO Mind website.

Many of the UFOmind webpages have been archived on various dates by the Wayback Machine's Internet Archive. However, that archive is not easily searched. Also, many of the links do not work on most of the archived copies of each page. You have to know which version of each page to access.

Today, it is possible - with a bit of effort (following steps I've detailed below, partly because I think the same steps could be adapted to resurrect some other UFO websites...) - to use the material in the Wayback Machine's Internet Archive as a starting point but then automate replacing the dead links with working links to archived copies of most of those webpages and then also convert the material into searchable PDFs.

I think this archive provides a useful resource for finding much of the UFO material posted online in the 1990s on websites that are now defunct (but often stored in the Wayback Machine and with the links in this copy of the UFOmind.com website are now generally accessible). This archive has certainly brought back a lot of memories for me - in addition to helping find some material on Bob Lazar and others...

Glenn Campbell kindly gave me permission to share his UFO material online a few years ago and I added copies of his Desert Rat newsletters to my online archive back then in the folder for UFO publications from the USA. I think the permission he kindly gave back then covers this upload as well (which, as I've mentioned above, is already in the Wayback Machine's Internet Archive but generally unsearchable and with broken links on most pages).

A significant part of the UFOmind website was the inclusion of various discussion lists relating to Area 51 and UFOs. The main such list evolved into the UFO Updates email discussion list, moderated by Errol Bruce-Knapp. Errol also kindly gave me permission to share an archive of that discussion list a few years ago, and searchable PDF copies of the numerous posts by leading UFO researchers over many years to the UFO Updates email discussion list are already in my online archive.

The archived copy of the UFOmind website with revised links can be:

(1) Accessed HERE and browsed online;

(2) Downloaded from HERE as html files, or downloaded from HERE as searchable PDF files.

The UFO section of UFOmind stars HERE.

The UFO section contains links to pages listing relevant people and issues. For example, for Lazar see THIS PAGE.

At least as importantly for research purposes, I have converted the webpages into a few thousand PDF documents. Once downloaded, these can all be searched in a single search using the methods I've previously outlined. For example, searching the PDF version of the website for "Lazar" generates thousands of hits (many of which link to archived copies of webpages from the 1990s which would otherwise be difficult to find) and articles from the 1990s.

For those interested in the process of creating this part of the archive (or in doing similar work on other websites), these are the steps I followed (after some experimentation and searching...).

Firstly, I used the Wayback Machine Downloader to download certain versions of archived pages of UFOmind.com as outlined below:

1) I downloaded the rubyinstaller recommended at the top of rubyinstaller.org/downloads then run the downloaded exe file

2) downloaded the zip file github.com/hartator/wayback-machine-downloader/archive/…

3) unzipped the downloaded zip file

4) Used the windows start menu to search for "Start command prompt with Ruby"

5) I follow the instructions for the github.com/hartator/wayback_machine_downloader (i.e.: copy paste this "gem install wayback_machine_downloader" into the prompt. Hit enter and it will install the program

6) Followed the "Usage" guidelines from that github page, entering commands within the same Ruby command prompt. Due to the issues I mentioned above, it was important to limit the download to the latest archived version of the UFOmind.com website up to, say, 1 January 2001 (since some webpages from this website are incomplete thereafter). This can be done by using the "to" qualifier in a relevant download command: wayback_machine_downloader http://www.ufomind.com --to 20010101

7) Found the relevant files at C:\Users\YOURusername\websites

I then followed the instructions in my previous post regarding creating the Reality Uncovered forum archive on finding and replacing relevant parts of URLs so that at least some of the internal links work.

Since many of the links in the downloaded pages were to dead websites, it was necessary to look into replacing those links with links to archived copies of those pages. I found a helpful list of powerful commands and options in a page on Wikipedia. In particular:

The next example links to the most current version of the archived page.
https://web.archive.org/web/http://www.wikipedia.org/

Likewise, a similar archive URL but with the number 1000 links to the oldest archive copy.
https://web.archive.org/web/1000/http://www.wikipedia.org/

Also, to find the archived page nearest 1 January 1996 it is possible to include 1996010151143 (i.e. 51143 after the relevant date) in the wayback machine URL, such as:
https://web.archive.org/web/1996010151143/http://www.ufobbs.com/txt3/2675.ufo

It is then possible to use the free Bulk Rename Utility to replace relevant links in all of the thousands of html files in the archive. In particular, it was desirable to replace:
(1) existing links to other parts of the website with working links to the new archived copy that I have uploaded
(2) existing links to other websites (most of which have died in the 25 years or more years since the UFO Minds pages were written, i.e. in about 1993-1996) with links to archived copies of those websites in the Internet Archive.

Those objectives were (largely) achieved using the following steps:

STEP 1 : Replace absolute links to material on other parts of the website with relative links

I wanted to replace HREF=http://www.ufomind.com/ with HREF=/

For example:
The Internet Archive copy includes this link:
HREF=http://www.ufomind.com/area51/people/lazar/

This step replaces such a link with the following (which, among other things, eliminates the www and thus results in all the remaining references to www being to other websites - ready for step 2):
HREF=/area51/people/lazar/

To do this, in Notepad++, under the Search menu, select Find then click on the Find in Files tab and tick the box for “Normal”, and then replace HREF=http://www.ufomind.com/ with HREF=/ and click on the Replace in Files button

(This replaced 15,187 links).

STEP 2 : Replace absolute links to other websites with links to archived webpages

Linking to the most recent copy of a webpage written in 1996 generally result in an archived error page or a page seeking to sell a defunct website. This is, um, not particularly useful.

Linking to the oldest archived copy of a webpage is generally useful.

It is possible to link to the oldest archived copy of a webpage in the Wayback Machine's archive by including "1000" in the date part of the Wayback Machine URL - such as the following:
https://web.archive.org/web/1000/http://www.ufobbs.com/txt3/2675.ufo

However, webpages may have been updated and it would be a shame to miss out on any significant updates. I think there is a more productive way forward.

Since Glenn Campbell stopped updated most pages on UFO Mind in or around 1996, many of the links were updated up to about 1995/1996. One trick that can be done on the Wayback Machine's Internet Archive which I haven't seen others mention is to add "51143" after a date in the URL to find the archived copy of that webpage nearest to the specified date. So, if you are looking for a copy near 1 January 1996 it is possible to include 1996010151143 in the wayback machine URL, such as:
https://web.archive.org/web/1996010151143/http://www.ufobbs.com/txt3/2675.ufo

Although there is no snapshot of that webpage archived on 1 January 1996, that link is automatically redirected to the nearest archived copy of that webpage - which was taken a few months later:
https://web.archive.org/web/19970227161539/http://www.ufobbs.com/txt3/2675.ufo

When using the Wayback Machine, links on archived pages seem to use that 51143 trick as the default position (e.g. links on a page from 1 January 1996 will link to a copy of the relevant link archived nearest to 1 January 1996). This seems like the best option here as well.

So, I have replaced links in the UFOmind webpages with links to the Wayback Machine's archived nearest to 1 January 1996 using that 51143 trick.

I wanted to replace HREF=http:// with HREF=https://web.archive.org/web/1996010151143/http://

So, for example:
The Internet Archive copy includes this link:
HREF=http://www.ufobbs.com/txt3/2675.ufo

This step replaces such a link with the following (which, among other things, eliminates the www and thus results in all the remaining references to www being to other websites - ready for step 2):
HREF=https://web.archive.org/web/1996010151143/http://www.ufobbs.com/txt3/2675.ufo

In Notepad++, under the Search menu select Find then “Normal”, and then replace HREF=http:// with HREF=https://web.archive.org/web/1996010151143/http://

(This replaced 144,175 links).

STEP 3 : Replace most relative links to other parts of the website with new absolute links

So that the links in the new online archive work, the next step is to replace HREF=/ with HREF=https://files.afu.se/Downloads/Websites/www.ufomind.com/html/

In Notepad++, under the Search menu select Find then “Normal”, and then replace HREF=/ with HREF=https://files.afu.se/Downloads/Websites/www.ufomind.com/html/

(This replaced 414,687 links).

Unfortunately, it seems some of the relative links have not been replaced - which creates a problem with some links in the the PDF version referred to below. I'll try to resolve this problem, but I'm just a lawyer so some of the more technical issues are a bit beyond me.

STEP 4 : Fine tuning specific sets of links

It looks like Glenn Campbell originally had various pages within the ufo/people folder that were moved to the more general /people folder, but the links were not updated and thus ceased to work.

This means that most of the links on the UFOmind website to pages about ufologists don't work in the original version.

I've done a replace of www.ufomind.com/html/ufo/people/ with www.ufomind.com/html/people/

(This replaced 868 links)

STEP 5 : Conversion to PDFs

I have used Adobe Acrobat's batch create file option to convert the html files into searchable PDFs.

Unfortunately, this seems to involve relative links in the html being translated into absolute links (which link to the directory on my hard drive containing the html files). I have eliminated most relative links (as outlined above) but a few seem to remain. I'll try to work out why and eliminate those ones as well, but I'm just a lawyer so have nearly reached the limits of my technical ability in achieving the current imperfect results (but at least most of the links now work and the material is searchable).

Thursday, February 24, 2022

2,000+ cool images of strange/novel aircraft (from Michael Huntington's "Clandestine airspace" archive) + small Python/Selenium coding challenge

I’d like (ideally with a bit of help from others, particularly those with a bit more coding experience – probably, but not necessarily, with Python / Selenium…) to develop a new archiving method for UFO material. This relates to images of UFOs/IFOs and related information. I think this possibility has considerable potential to help improve some aspects of UFO research. It’s worth a try anyway...

In short, I’d like to combine code that enables reverse image search results to be generated from locally stored images with code that enables the taking of snapshots of webpages.

Since both sets of codes already exist, I’m hoping that combining the two will be relatively simple (famous last words, I know…) and allow the batch creation of an archive of the results of reverse image searches on tens of thousands of UFO/IFO images.

To help with testing of code for this idea, I've created a folder on the AFU’s website containing the photos from one of Michael Huntington's Facebook albums ("Clandestine Airspace"), with his kind permission. That album includes over 2,000 images – most of which are, I think, pretty cool.

I think that a discussion forum, rather than social media or this blog, is the best venue to push this idea forward - so have posted more details on the AboveTopSecret.com discussion forum at this link : "UFO / IFO images : Coding challenge - batch reverse image searches (Python / Selenium?)".

I'll post more about this project here at a later date ... if it works.

Monday, February 21, 2022

PDFs : "Alien Digest" (1990s), published by Ron Rummel. (Ron and his friend Phil Schneider both appear in lists of "suspicious" deaths of UFO researchers)

Ron Rummel published the "Alien Digest" newsletter in the early 1990s.

Most of the references to this newsletter are in the context of Ron Rummel's death in 1993. That death features in many lists currently online of allegedly "suspicious" and "mysterious" deaths of UFO researchers. Those lists typically also include Phil Schneider, a friend of Ron Rummel (and also collaborated with Ron on this magazine).

Online searches for their two names together will find many such lists of "suspicious" deaths of UFO researchers, some of which were on Ryan Sprague's "Somewhere in the Skies" podcast in an episode entitled "If anything happens to me, Investigate".

Some websites further imply that this newsletter was the cause of Ron Rummel's death.

For example, Project Camelot's website states:

"Ron Rummel, ex-Air Force intelligence agent and publisher of the Alien Digest, died on August 6, 1993, having allegedly shot himself in the mouth with a pistol. Friends say, however, that no blood was found on the pistol barrel and the handle of the weapon was free of fingerprints. In addition, according to information now circulating, the suicide note left by the deceased was written by a left-handed person. Rummel was right-handed. Perspiration on the body smelled like sodium pentothal, or so it is alleged."

"The Alien Digest ran to seven limited issues, all now very hard to acquire. One thing is certain: Rummel's magazine was touching on sensitive and unpalatable issues such as the predator/prey aspect of the alien/human relationship, and the use of humans as food and recyclable body parts. It is worthy of note that one of Rummel's friends was Phil Schneider, and the two had been collaborating".

Similarly, the Burlington News website has published a letter by Phil Schneider's ex-wife, Cynthia Schneider Drayer, which includes the following about Ron Rummel:

"I believe the main reason why Philip began to lecture was due to the "murder" of his friend Ron Rummel. Ron was found in a park in Portland in Sept. 1993. The police believed that he had committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth. However, if you read the detectives report, there is blow-back blood on Ron's hand, but NO BLOW-BACK BLOOD ON THE GUN. The only way this could happen is if Ron had wiped the gun off AFTER he had shot himself in the mouth. Ron, Philip, and 5 other people had been collaborating on a little magazine called "The Alien Digest". It was starting to get a fairly wide circulation, when Ron was found in the park. Philip felt that his friend had been murdered, and decided that it was time to get everything out into the open, so he began "spilling the beans", and ripped up his security clearance card. Pufori, through Jeroen Wierda, is one of several agencies and individuals that have taken up the call for justice in Philip's death".

4 issues of this newsletter has been uploaded to various websites (including the Project Camelot website, Scribd and elsewhere), so I presume it's okay to add them to the online archive. A couple of websites refer to up to 7 issues, so there may be an additional few issues - but none of the usual suspects have those issues in their archives.

Thursday, February 17, 2022

UFO articles from mainstream USA magazines : Some collections expanded (e.g. "Male"), some other gaps filled (e.g. "Look", "Life") - mainly with John Keel articles

Further to my recent uploads of UFO articles from various mainstream magazines from the USA, I've now been able to obtain a number of articles to fill in gaps in those collections - including the previously uploaded collections explicitly aimed at men.

A significant number of these gaps have been filled due to the efforts of a new contributor to the UFO archive: Jerry Hamm. (Jerry's Scribd page includes many UFO articles, with a focus on material by John Keel, and he has kindly said that I can use his scans to fill in gaps in my online archive).

For example, the collection of UFO articles from "Male" magazine has now increased from a single article (which was included in a mass of material kindly provided by Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein) to a total of 11 articles. Conversely, Jerry's collection includes two UFO articles from "Men" magazine - so I've created a folder for the "Men" magazine and started looking for additional material from it (and uploaded a UFO article provided by Mikhail Gershtein to a folder for a sister publication, "Men Annual").

Jerry Hamm's contributions have also fixed a few smaller frustrating issues. For example, my previous upload of a collection of 11 articles from "Life" magazine included an incomplete copy of one article (1966 04 01_Life) - which I've now been able to replace with a complete copy. Similarly, the collection of UFO articles from "Look" magazine includes a better copy of one of those articles.

Although the informal network contributing to the online archive now comfortably exceeds 100 UFO groups/researchers, each additional contributor potentially results in an ability to fill in more gaps and/or obtain permission to upload more material - or identifying further potential sources of material...

Several French researchers, particularly Pierre Lagrange and Patrice Seray, have also been continuing to help to fill in gaps in the magazines from the USA e.g. of Look magazine articles.

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

PDFs: "SAGA" magazine UFO articles - mainly by John Keel (1960s-1970s)

Over 50 UFO articles were published in SAGA magazine in the 1960-1970s (as well as separate UFO publications also published by SAGA - particularly the SAFA Special UFO Report, the SAGA UFO Annual and the SAGA UFO Report).

Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein kindly provided me with scans of many SAGA articles about UFOs. While looking to fill in gaps, I found that Jerry Hamm had helpfully uploaded many articles from SAGA magazine to his Scribd page. Jerry has helpfully indicated to me that he has no objection to my using his scans to fill in gaps in my online archive.

I have now uploaded searchable copies (adding them to the section I created for UFO articles from mainstream magazines in the USA, which is separate from the much larger section for UFO periodicals).

Many of these SAGA articles about UFOs were written by John Keel (including a regular column entitled "Ancient Astronauts, Modern Mysteries"). Other contributors included Brad Steiger, Otto Binder and contactee Ted Owens.

I'll paste below a brief indication of the SAGA articles included in this upload.

1967 02 00_SAGA - John Keel - UFO Kidnappers

1967 06 00_SAGA - John Fuller - Moon craters or secret UFO bases

1967 10 00_SAGA - John Keel - UFO Agents of Terror

1968 01 00_SAGA - John Keel - Strange Messages From Flying Saucers

1968 04 00_SAGA - John Keel - Secret UFO Bases Across the US

1968 06 00_SAGA - Brad Steiger - Unidentified Underwater Saucers

1968 07 00_SAGA - John Keel - UFO mysterious gas attacks

1968 10 00_SAGA - John Keel - Mothman Monster

1969 09 00_SAGA - Ahearn - Mankind children of the planets

1969 11 00_SAGA - Otto Binder - Underground Saucer Bases

1969 12 00_SAGA - Otto Binder - Electromagnetic Test or Extraterrestrial Maneuvers

1970 01 00_SAGA - Otto Binder - Liquidation of the UFO Investigators

1970 04 00_SAGA - Roy Norton - Herbert Schirmer worlds most incredible UFO

1970 08 00_SAGA - Otto Binder - Ted Owens Spokesman for the UFOs

1970 09 00_SAGA - Otto Binder - Ted Owens UFOs Mission to Earth

1971 03 00_SAGA - Otto Binder - Ted Owens Flying Saucer Missionary

1971 04 00_SAGA - Otto Binder - Ted Owens flying saucer prophet of doom

1972 02 00_SAGA - Ted Owens - Communicate with UFO Space Intelligences

1973 04 00_SAGA - John Keel - Americas Unrecognized UFO Experts

1973 06 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1973 07 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1973 08 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1973 09 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1973 10 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1973 11 00_SAGA - John Keel - Mystery of the Alien Submarines

1973 12 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1974 01 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1974 03 00_SAGA - Goodavage - Discoveries on the Moon

1974 05 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1974 06 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1974 07 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1974 08 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1974 10 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1974 11 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1974 12 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 01 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 02 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 03 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 04 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 05 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 05 00_SAGA - John Keel - The UFO Silencers

1975 06 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 07 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 08 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 09 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 10 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 11 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1975 12 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 01 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 02 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 03 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 04 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 05 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 06 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 07 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 08 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 09 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 10 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1976 12 00_SAGA - John Keel - Ancient Astronauts Modern Mysteries

1979 07 00_SAGA - The UFO Papers

Monday, February 14, 2022

PDFs : Canadian UFO/paranormal magazine "The Canadian Communicator" (Brian Vike, 2002-2003) added to archive

This morning, a researcher (Bob Spearing) mentioned to me a reference to a Canadian UFO/paranormal newsletter that neither Bob nor I could recall seeing: The Canadian Communicator. It was published by Brian Vike in 2002-2003.

I've now obtained permission from Brian Vike to add searchable copies of that newsletter to the online archive I've been building. I've also obtained copies of all 4 issues of that publication from links given on Brian Vike's blog.

This newsletter included articles by Brian himself, Stanton Friedman, Dennis Balthaser, William F Hamilton III, David Sereda, Craig R Lang and others. Most of the articles relate to UFOs, with some on crop circles, Sasquatch sightings, lake monsters, the Mothman and other paranormal topics.

I've created a new sub-folder in the directory for UFO periodicals from Canada in the online archive and added all 4 issues to that folder.