Masked Team Destroys UFO Archive
A team of men wearing Hazmat uniforms was called into the home of a recently deceased UFO researcher and during the cleanup destroyed one of the most comprehensive libraries of UFO evidence in the world. The team, which had been called in by the city of Calimesa, California entered the home in July wearing face masks and Hazmat outfits. But the reason for their visit was allegedly more a clean-up operation than a cover-up. In the 1990’s the collection belonged to a group calling it the “UFO Clearing House.”
Former owner of the collection of interviews, audio files, documents, David Aaron collected the archive over the course of several years leading all the way back to 1986. After his former girlfriend Sherry passed away, the city called in a private team of workers to clean out the several cats that had been left behind. As they moved in, the expansive archives were one of the things they cleared out and destroyed. At least that’s one version of the story. There is another side to the story, however, one uncovered by Ryan Dube in a phone interview with David. This isn’t just the loss of a single archive, but rather several years worth of research including a number of extremely rare audio recordings with military officials.
Audio interviews with military officials may not carry the same thrilling weight as footage of alleged UFOs do, but for serious researchers they are often one of the more convincing pieces of evidence available. Along with hard copy transcripts from government agencies, the existence of audio interviews with military officials gives the field of UFOlogy both credibility and insight into historical events. Officials entrusted with nuclear weapons, programs like the Manhattan Project, and even elected office require a great deal of trust from the public. So when they say they’ve seen something unusual, the public is more likely to listen. One of the interviews in particular, that of Donald Keyhole taken in 1958, showed a rare glimpse into a UFO cover-up taking place in real time when officers commanded producers to cut his microphone.
Where once there was a vast archive of rare materials on one of the most mysterious subjects known to man there is now only more mystery and a story of the trash unit’s -to put it mildly- strange behavior during the cleanup including allegations that Aaron was threatened with violence if he did not leave the scene.
It is difficult not to feel for Aaron and his loss after his lifelong dedication to researching the unexplained. The sheer weight of losing so much in such a short period of time must have been devastating. But while the archives were lost, copies were no doubt made here and there of the vast archives by other people involved in the field, and those pieces of evidence – the archived interviews and many of the documents are lost, but perhaps not forever.
