Which doesn’t mean people who describe stopping engine cars are lying — or that those describing detailed bizarre airplane engine stops and providing evidence for it are speaking “the truth”.

It only suggests that this characteristic may not be actually caused by real UFOs. There could be concidental events of car engine failures and UFO sightings. People could unconsciously feel or make things that could make their car engines stop during a sighting. People could create a false memory related to a car engine not making any noise or vibration. And so on.

One problem with a pure psychsocial interpretation is that car engine stops association with UFOs should not shrink too much as the years passed by. Unless car problems were a major concern back then and that influenced people. Or, more plausibly, the mere fact that this kind of “Oz Effect” is not as widely publicized as it once was. If a major movie, major case, or UFOlogists start to call attention to this and reports start to flow again, we would have better support for Pelicans.

But as things are, it would be interesting indeed to conduct a thorough research on this, considering not only dates but, as you cleverly noted, the correlation between UFOs and engine failures in different kinds of vehicles.

Whatever the answer, a nuts-and-bolts explanation, sort of a sci-fi gimmick or movie plot idea, does not seem very reasonable to me with the available data. You may imagine an unlimited amount of things, and it would only be speculation.

For instance, one could suggest UFOs near the ground could affect electric components more easily through an interaction between electromagnetic fields of the UFO and the earth.

Or maybe the sheer velocity with which airplanes move, specially jet planes, could dissipate some kind of chemical component that UFOs emit that could affect combustion. On cars the dissipation would not be enough and the engines would stop.

And so on and on, but it would be just speculation. There’s certainly not enough data to make a productive consideration of an actual cause even if you assume real UFOs actually cause engine stops. And it will probably remain this way until we have a UFO at our disposal to study.

So, Pelicans are all we have, I think.

Very best,

Kentaro Mori
http://forgetomori.com

Paul Norman and I did all the field research on pilot Frederick Valentich disappearance, that occurred on October 21, 1978. In the official ATC transcripts of the event, Fred reports his engine was “rough-idling” and the communications was finally disrupted with 17 seconds of open microphone “Clicks” an unexplained noise, described as being “metallic, scraping sounds,” recorded by DOT ATC tapes and then we lost him!

Richard Haines also did some research on the communications problem, try and get that first paper. His book on the encounter is hideous; however the report is also in that.

Go have a read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentich_Disappearance

An interesting topic that we at PRA have explored (unsuccessfully) on numerous occasions.

Best Regards

John W. Auchettl
Phenomena Research Australia

I’ve heard the story of a ufo passing over two old tractors running in the field, one gas and one diesel. The gas one stalled but the diesel didn’t, supposedly because of it’s lack of a spark based ignition system. I’ve heard this passed along as a ufo story but I don’t have reference handy. If anyone actually has a hard reference to the two tractors story I’d love to see it.

Agreed, but some jet cases have also involved effects on instruments (or were reported that way) even if the powerplants were unaffected.

Another interesting point, but some of the encounters were very close indeed, including the Coyne case and some of the foo fighter encounters.

I think you’re on to something there. Good show! I’m not sure how prop tip speed enters into the subject, however.

I’m not so sure about that after reading the other comments.

I’ve settled on the idea that Mantell lost control of his plane when he went too high up and was a victim of hypoxia (passed out from lack of oxygen.)