Bakersfield – California Governor and US president Reagan reported seeing a ufo here in 1972, and later developed the ‘Star Wars’, Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, 1985).  Richard Rankin, airpassenger, reported ten disks in triangular formation over Bakersfield on June 14 1947.

 

Balducci – Corrado, Vatican spokesman for ufos and paranormal says “We should exclude that angels use spaceships…we can say the same thing about dead people...The Holy Virgin…This has nothing to do with the Devil…we know a phenomenon exists, and although we don’t know who these aliens (possibly angels) are, it is possible that they are more evolved than Man is today.” See Connecting the Dots (2003) by Paola Leopizzi Harris, p.46.

 

Ball Lightning -  a globe of light with the attribute of being transient, and dynamic and attributed to a natural force.  It is interesting to note that in Starry Messenger’s “Year in Space 2004” (p. 8) the gravitational effects on fire are described: “On Earth, flames shoot upward and smoke rises, but these effects mask many of the physical processes that occur in combustion, preventing researchers from truly understanding the process.  In microgravity, flames look more like burning balls, and they burn much more efficiently”.  A candle flame for example is long and yellow on earth, but in space it is a blue dome.

 

Barwood – Frances,  city councilwoman and vice Mayor of Pheonix, Arizona, nicknamed “Beam Me Up Barwood” for her comments on the Pheonix Lights in 1997 which were that hundreds of calls had been received by the authorities by members of the public who had seen a 'v' shaped formation of five  lights moving over Pheonix  on the 13th of  March '97.  The authorities denied this and stated that only a handful of calls had been received.  Technical assessment of the lights by Jim Dilettoso who compared them to  known lights was that they could not be identified, but some theories that they could have been military flares falling behind a mountain have been presented as an explanation.  Though one wonders why this would have caused such a sensation.  

 

Beamships – Billy Meier popularized this expression for flanged ufos , the classic flying saucer shape, circular disks with more width in the middle than at the edges. After lengthy meditations in India, he had contacts from the Pleiades in Hinwil Switzerland from 1975 onwards.  The term refers not to the shape of the craft but to the power systems, a form of electro magnetic frequency which gives off energy signals (as in Star Trek’s “Beam Me Up, Scottie” teleportation device, Star Trek TV Series 1966, Star Trek Next Gen 1987, Star Wars (George Lucas) 1977, worth remembering that Sci Fi often does it first, but this does not mean it isn’t true, necessarily, because ideas and ‘inspiration’ can probably be beamed back in time through radio waves).  Attempts have been made to debunk Meier, but photo analysis seems fairly conclusively to prove what he says about the size and distance of the craft (see the video ‘Contact’ by Genesis III, or the book Light Years by Gary Kinder).  His contact Semjase seems benevolent and wise and he has  begun the Silver Star Foundation in her honour.

 

Bender – Not an alcoholic overindulgence, neither the shiny metal alcoholic robot from Futurama - Albert K Bender founded the International Flying Saucer Bureau from his home in April 1952 and was about to print in his Space Review journal ‘the secret behind the ufos’.  Suddenly in his bedroom materialized from nowhere three menacing Men in Black (MIBs) and warned him not to and to be very cautious. He did publish what he could, but then retired, understandably shaken. It was 1953 when as he was lying in his bedroom three shadowy figures appeared: “`All of them were dressed in black clothes, they looked like clergymen, but wore hats similar to Homburg style.  The faces were not discernible, for the hats partly hid and shaded them… The eyes of all three figures lit up like flash bulbs, and all these were focused upon me.  They seemed to burn into my very soul as the pains above my eyes became almost unbearable.  It was then I sensed that they were conveying a message to me by telepathy’…”If I hear another word from your office, you are in trouble” one told him…Researcher Dominick Lucchesi [said].. “It was as if [Bender] had been lobotomized.  He was scared and he later suffered from tremenous headaches which he said were controlled by ‘them’!” (Flying Saucers And The Three Men (1962) by Bender, quoted in  John and Anne Spencer’s  Alien Contact (1997) p. 129). Gray Barker published a book on the subject called They Knew Too Much About Flying  Saucers. Barker ran a magazine called The Saucerian and received letters from readers in response to Bender’s book, which he published in 1963 as The Bender Mystery Confirmed and also UFO Warning written by John Stuart.