Did a Fateful Phone Call Trigger the Appearance of Blackhawk Helicopters during contact work?

NOTES FROM THE CONTACT UNDERGROUND

Contact Network History Project

Saturday October 17, 1992: Did a fateful phone call trigger the appearance of Blackhawk helicopters at a UFO research site in the high desert?

Joseph Burkes MD 2021

Willie Sutton the famous bank robber of the 1920s and 30s was asked by a reporter,

“Why do you rob banks Willie?” 

His response was, “Because that’s where the money is.” 

The same applies for doing contact work. If you want to interact with flying saucers out in the field, then go to UFO hot spots, because that’s “where the money is.” 

In the fall of 1992, my newly formed team had several sightings near Rocky Peak in the Santa Susana Mountains located in the northwest corner of Los Angeles County. Red orbs had been observed there moving up and down behind the southern ridge of the high desert wilderness California park surrounding Rocky Peak.

A DECISION TO MAKE 

I was under pressure to move our research site to the Rocky Peak State Park. I was somewhat concerned however that the first scouting team had encountered what seemed like probable surveillance.

I called “CSETI Central” for advice. Not much was forthcoming. My impression of my colleague Dr. Greer’s attitude to my request for guidance could be summarized as, “You’re a smart guy. You go figure it out. “ 

He was busy enough with four young children at home and a busy ER practice involving long shifts with a great deal of stress. He was also flying out of North Carolina several times per month to give public lectures and workshops promoting the very campaign that I was an active participant in. It involved what the CSETI Director called “human initiated contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.”

His assistant Shari Adamiak was a lot more helpful. She had been leading a contact team in Denver for close to a year. Much of what we called “the contact protocols” came out of her pioneering CE-5 Working Group’s experience. She advised me that it was wise to move the team to higher ground where the UFOs seemed to be operating. Bank robber Sutton’s law was evoked, and I needed to go to “where the money is.”

ANOTHER SCOUTING MISSION

I was playing it safe; before sending my entire Working Group up the mountain, I wanted to check out the site at night with another scouting party. Including me, we had three volunteers. One was an experienced hiker that I will call “Linda.” She was planning to move out of town, and this was going to be her last field investigation with our LA team. 

My medical partner, David Gordon was also with us. He is a Board-Certified Family Medicine specialist and has an undergraduate degree in physics. Dave was a great asset to the team because he was also private pilot with great sky watching skills.  On the night we were to hike up to Rocky Peak, he was “on-call” for hospital admissions. On the trail up the mountain, he carried with him what was then a new gadget called “a cell phone.” By modern standards his device was large and bulky, about nine inches long with a heavy battery pack inside. No matter how clunky it looked, it was better than carrying a beeper. With a cell phone you could call the hospital back immediately without having to look for a phone booth; there were no phone booths in Rocky Peak Wilderness Park. 

RATTLESNAKE COUNTRY

The trail up the mountain was a series of switchbacks. Boulders and steep hills on both sides of the path blocked our view of the surroundings during the first part of the hike. 

It was still warm as the sun was going down. We kept a look out for rattlesnakes. It was autumn, the season when snakes hunt in preparation for hibernation. During winter when the temperatures at night can drop into the low thirties, it is a safer time to go off trail. During cold weather the rattlesnakes are under ground and not underfoot.

As we reached higher elevations, the trail opened up; we had a better view of the sky and the surrounding hills. To the south loomed the massive sandstone mesa that had been hollowed out to build the Department of Energy’s massive laboratory. The lab was a dark and dangerous place that had been plagued with series of industrial accidents. This included a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor in the 1950s with the release of plutonium into the environment. During the 1980s, I volunteered for the anti-nuclear group Physicians for Social Responsibility. A staff member for our group attempted to get information out to the public about leaks of radiation from the base.  His efforts were stifled however by national security regulations. 

ALLEGATIONS OF SABOTAGE

As we climbed up the trail towards Rocky Peak, I didn’t know that just a few years before a flying saucer had allegedly carried out sabotage at the DOE facility. This reportedly occurred just a few thousand yards away from our UFO field laboratory in the Santa Susana Pass. In 2006 I interviewed a Kaiser Health Plan patient who worked there as a maintenance engineer.  According to the then retired worker, a large mountainside water main had been cut one afternoon and there was a loss of water pressure at the Santa Susana installation. When he and another repairman climbed down the mountain to correct the leak, they found a large pipe had been cleanly cut as if by a power tool. Less than a hundred yards away a saucer shaped craft hovered, as if waiting to show off its handiwork. It was his impression that this event was a deliberate act of sabotage.

A FATEFUL PHONE CALL

As we continued to climb on our scouting mission, the trail eventually opened up. We took a rest to enjoy the view. To the south past the DOE site, the west San Fernando Valley stretched out all the way to the Santa Monica Mountains. We were high enough to get a good signal and Daniel took out the cell phone to call his wife. 

David must have been happy with his new toy. Very few people had cell phones back in 1992, and he left his wife a message about our “objectives.” In a melodramatic tone as if he were a news reporter, he said something like. 

“Here we are on a scouting mission for the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence. At this very moment we are in position on a rugged desert fire trail in Rocky Peak State Park, looking down on the United States Department of Energy site. Our mission is to “vector in” ET spacecraft as part of Dr Greer’s CSETI CE-5 Initiative.”

It was funny the way he hammed it up, but I seem to recall thinking he might be offering “too much information.” 

Back in the 1990s, activists in our network knew of rumors that the NSA had extraordinary abilities for screening calls employing voice recognition of “key words.” This involved using supercomputers. Just a few years before, it had been a crime for any official to merely state in public the name “National Security Agency.” Subsequent dramatic events that night may have been an indication as to just how good their surveillance of phone traffic may have been. 

MEDITATION IN THE HIGH DESERT

In less than an hour, hiking uphill all the way, we reached a plateau on which stood Rocky Peak. It was twilight and the temperature was dropping. We chose to meditate on a large flat rock near the edge of a cliff that afforded us a great view of the Simi Valley to the west. I led the guided meditation that started with,

“Sit quietly for a moment and then take a deep breath,

Very deep with the diaphragm and then all of the breath out. 

Let go of all things, 

Let go of all thoughts, 

Let go of all feelings.

Be still. 

Quietly let your mind follow your breathing…

Who is watching your breath?”

Seated in a tight semicircle with our backs against the rock we carried out the prescribed mental exercises quietly for about a half hour. Then we watched the sky and waited. 

Rocky Peak rose like a giant pyramid up from a flat area several football fields in size. Dr. Dave had to work the next day. We decided it was time to head for the summit. It was a relief not to be climbing anymore. The trail pointed toward the base of Rocky Peak. The area was covered with boulders of varying sizes.  The light was fading fast, and there was a chill in the air.  We had to get going before it got too late.

BLACKHAWKS

As we moved quickly over level ground, we heard a distant rumbling sound coming from the south. It slowly became louder. Daniel recognized it as aircraft engines. 

“Those are turboprops,” he told me.

“You’re right,” I replied, “it sounds like a chopper.”

A few moments later as the sound increased to a roar, we saw them. Two massive Blackhawk helicopters were flying up the hillside that we had just climbed. They were moving at low elevation, about one hundred feet above the ground. To my amazement, they were following the trail that we had just climbed. I thought they might be looking for somebody or something. The Blackhawks moved in a tight formation with the lead chopper bit off to the side and just ahead of its partner. 

Daniel immediately pointed out that they were flying “dark.” Regulations required lighting array of rotating beacons and strobe lights were absent. Instead, only tiny pale “anti-collision” lights were on the sides of each of the dark forms rapidly approaching us. They were clearly US military, but what were they doing flying at night in this desolate place?

In no way was I prepared for what I was witnessing. The three of us quickly ran over to some small boulders and we crouched down behind them. It wasn’t much cover, but it was the best we could do. My team watched intently as the Blackhawks seemed to have found something of interest. They were hovering directly over the rock where we had just completed our meditation/sky-watching just a few minutes before. “This is totally weird.” I thought. 

JAMES BOND FANTASY

My mind flashed back to my teen years. I remembered the first James Bond movie that I saw. It was titled  “From Russia with Love.” Towards the end of the movie Bond played by Sean Connery finds himself fleeing over a rocky terrain pursued by a helicopter. Its crew drops hand grenades on the hero. As the roaring choppers circled a few hundred yards away, there I was peeking out in fear from behind a rock while fantasizing about James Bond. These thoughts made me feel kind of ridiculous.

The Blackhawks’ apparent interest in the rocks where we had meditated made me wonder whether they were using infrared night vision devices. Perhaps the crew had have picked up heat signatures left by our bodies as we sat on the rocks.

THE CHOPPERS DIVIDE

One of the helicopters broke ranks and headed directly towards us. Our attempts to hide were not working very well. Less than sixty feet off the deck the chopper passed right over our heads. My body vibrated in resonance with the low-pitched thunder created by its engines. That helicopter headed directly towards a radio-television tower array located on a hilltop a few miles away. There it circled a bit while its companion stayed above us at the base of Rocky Peak. No sense in our trying to hide. We went back to the trail and kept our eyes on the aircraft that was nearer to us.

During one of its passes, it came so close to me that even in the semi-darkness I could make out a helmeted crew member standing in the side door of the copter. During the Vietnam War the side door was the position from which a gunner fired a machine gun. The thought made me feel even more nervous. I imagined that soldier with night vision goggles was standing right at the opening and was staring directly at me. My body trembled in the excitement.  The roaring diesel engines and the swirling blades were deafening.

At that moment, a strange set of thoughts raced through my mind. I envisioned a military man positioned at the communications array that one of the chopper’s was flying to. In my mind’s eye I could see him in an observation post overlooking the San Fernando and Simi Valleys. The man was out of uniform but still carried an automatic pistol in a holster on his right hip. He looked to be in his late twenties, with a muscular build and short crew cut, and he was wearing dungarees. For some reason, I thought that he was a US Marine Sargent, an intelligence “non-com”. This particular detail has significance pertaining to the likely base where the choppers flying over us were stationed.  

After a several minutes of flying around in circles, one above us and the other to the east near the hilltop communication array,  the choppers teamed up  and flew south heading over the San Fernando Valley. We continued to move towards our original objective of climbing Rocky Peak, however, we were really disturbed up by our “close encounter of a Blackhawk helicopter kind.” Instead of climbing to the summit of Rocky Peak, we decided to call it quits for the night. Using flashlights in the darkness, we descended the trail to the reassuring comfort of our vehicles parked down below in the Santa Susana Pass. 

CONCLUSION OF FIELDWORK

We chatted about what we had just experienced. The notion that the helicopters had been looking for us and that Daniel’s phone call had something to do with their sudden appearance seemed like something out of an action novel, not part of real life.  

We couldn’t ignore the fact that the military craft had followed the trail up the mountain as if they were looking for somebody. They had hovered over the spot where we had sat on the rocks for about an hour and then one flew directly over us as we pathetically tried to hide behind some boulders. We were going to need more information before concluding what might have precipitated the appearance of the Blackhawks. 

THE BLACKHAWKS WERE NOT ON A “ROUTINE TRAINING MISSION.”

Information concerning this disturbing incident came from several sources. The first was from Dr. Dave Gordon’ medical practice. During the following week he asked several of his patients from the neighboring communities of the Simi Valley and Chatsworth if they had heard or seen large military helicopters the previous Saturday night. At least one told him in no uncertain terms that the choppers caused quite a racket. He then inquired if this had ever happened before or was a regular occurrence. The answer he received from his informant was that it was not. The powerful helicopters flying at low altitude over the suburban community had been a unique event.

Two important witnesses allowed us to track the path of the choppers on their way to Rocky Peak. The first was Dave’s partner in the Department of Family Medicine. If memory serves me correctly it was Dr. Maizel who ran the headache clinic. He lived in Woodland Hills and reported that the military helicopters had passed by his home Saturday night and were headed north. The second informant was the investigations director for MUFON LA. He lived near the Hollywood Bowel. The roar of the choppers rattled the widows. When he looked out, he saw the two Blackhawks flying just above the treetops heading northwest. I’ll never forget his words. He said that the choppers were flying so low that he wondered if they were on some kind of “counter-terrorist mission.”  Federal Aviation Administration regulations prohibit helicopters from flying lower than five hundred feet. The Blackhawks were clearly in violation of those regulations.   

These last reports allowed us to chart the likely path of the choppers. They flew over the Hollywood located southeast of Rocky Peak. They were likely following the 101 Freeway north, headed toward the San Fernando Valley. Once in the Valley they followed the 101 due west, thus allowing them to pass over Dr. Maizel’s home in Woodland Hills. His location was just about ten miles due south of Rocky Peak Wilderness State Park. Given this information, the only logical source of the origin for the choppers was the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Tustin located in Orange County some 90 miles southeast of Rocky Peak. That base was closed in 1999 but during its operation it had up to five thousand uniformed and civilians employed there.  According to Wikipedia, “It was the country’s first air facility developed solely for helicopter operations… By the early 1990s, MCAS Tustin was a major center for Marine Corps helicopter aviation and radar on the Pacific Coast. Its primary purpose was to provide support services and material for the 3^rd Marine Aircraft Wing.” 

Blackhawks have a cruising speed of 175 miles per hour and a range of 500 miles. Dave’s call to his wife Eve was made approximately 90 minutes prior to their appearance at Rocky Peak. With a flight time of about 30 minutes, this would have given the crews sufficient time to arrive following David’s phone call. Another significant factor was that during a previous scouting mission at the site, I had observed several indicators of probable surveillance. These included a large Black Mercedes Sedan parked illegally at the overpass of Highway 118 at the Rocky Peak exit, as well as two men with a military bearing that were hiking at the site when we were. This occurred in the middle of the week when the wilderness park was essentially deserted. 

Surveillance was a regular feature of the contact work that I did under the CE-5 banner during the 1990s. To understand how this came about it is necessary to describe how US government agencies have been involved with contactees going back to the 1950s as well as the highly bizarre circumstances surrounding Dr. Steven Greer’s alleged involvement with the US Secret Service, the Office of Naval Intelligence and the CIA.  

END OF DOCUMENT. 
The proposition that our team had precipitated a major surveillance operation by Marine helicopters will to some undoubtedly seem like a fantasy akin to “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” Paranoid delusions of grandeur are not uncommon in the flying saucer subculture. For those critics, I ask you consider the following:

The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) has a long history of involvement with the UFO subject. The documentary UFOs: Past, Present and Future was produced with Pentagon assistance in 1974. In the film, the former head of Operation Blue Book Colonel Friends described an incident in which a Navy intelligence officer was trained by a psychic to communicate via telepathy with UFO intelligence. The Office of Naval Intelligence is now playing a central role in the US Executive Branch’s current efforts confirming the reality of what is now called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. 

I am now in my eighth decade of life and have not had a UFO sighting during fieldwork in nearly a decade. Thus, I no longer consider myself to be a “volunteer contact worker.” This document is shared in the hope that it may help the next generation of contact activists to understand the experiences and lessons learned by past volunteers.