Alexander's A-12 explanation for Holloman
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | 11 May 2002 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Secrecy & cover-up (topic) |
| People | John B. Alexander, Jacques Vallée, Robert Emenegger |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 148 |
| Year | 2002 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2002 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 10 |
According to Jacques Vallée's journals, in May 2002 retired Army Col. John Alexander told him he believed the rumoured 1964 UFO landing at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, had been a cover story for a test of a malfunctioning A-12 spy plane.[1][2]
The Holloman story
The story of a UFO landing at Holloman, at which Air Force officers were said to have met its occupants, was promoted in the 1970s by producer Robert Emenegger, who said officials had promised him film of the event for his 1974 documentary UFOs: Past, Present, and Future; the footage was never provided. The Air Force has never acknowledged such a landing, and no official records of it have been released. In 2025 physicist Eric Davis said in the documentary The Age of Disclosure that former President George H. W. Bush had privately told him about a 1964 encounter at Holloman.[3][4]
The A-12
The Lockheed A-12, the CIA's single-seat predecessor to the SR-71 Blackbird, was developed and tested in great secrecy at Area 51 from 1962. It could fly at more than three times the speed of sound at around 90,000 feet, and several were lost in accidents.[5]
Assessment
Alexander's explanation fits the CIA's own 1997 history, which said that its U-2 and A-12 reconnaissance flights accounted for many UFO reports in the 1950s and 1960s. But there is no documented A-12 incident at Holloman, and the landing story may never have had any real event behind it.[1][6]
People and topics
- John B. Alexander — Retired Army colonel who organized the 1985 Advanced Theoretical Physics group and wrote UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities.
- Holloman Air Force Base — An Air Force base next to White Sands.
- Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Robert Emenegger — Producer of the 1974 documentary UFOs: Past, Present, and Future.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- Area 51 — The secret Nevada test site where spy planes and stealth aircraft were developed.
On the Timeline
- Vallée on privatized UFO research (2002) (6 May 2002) — Vallée writes that UFO research has likely been privatized in the U.S.
- Jean Kisling's airline stranger (29 June 2002) — A French officer tells Vallée a stranger on a 1950s flight claimed to work on recovered craft.
See every 2002 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Jacques Vallée, *Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights* (journals 2000–2009), Amazon · amazon.com · archived copy
- John B. Alexander — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- UFOs: Past, Present, and Future — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Did former US President George Bush have knowledge of 1964 alien encounter?", WION (Nov 2025) · wionews.com · archived copy
- Lockheed A-12 — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's role in the study of UFOs, 1947–90", Studies in Intelligence (1997) · cia.gov · archived copy
- Forbidden Science — the journals of Jacques Vallée (Anomaly Archives) · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science series — Anomalist Books · anomalistbooks.com · archived copy
- Review of Forbidden Science 6 — SFCrowsnest · sfcrowsnest.info · archived copy
- Forbidden Science Dispatches — Tanner Boyle (journal summaries) · tannerfboyle.substack.com · archived copy
Further reading
- Jacques Vallée — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Holloman Air Force Base — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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