The truth is out there ... or is it, asks UFO expert

Highland Mills - "They appeared suddenly, the disappearance was like a bird- boom, gone. There were no clouds coming by; I believe the (UFO's) are from another dimension." Erna C. Frenzel says that she has seen unidentified flying objects in the area. The Central Valley woman says she has had three experiences with UFOs dating back to the 1970's. One sighting was at night and two in the day. "People would tell me that I'm crazy when I would tell them. But when the public started to look into it more, I thought, ‘maybe that's what I saw-maybe I wasn't nuts.' "In two cases they (UFO's) were still in the sky, then - boom, gone.," she recalled. "It then hit me - they're from outer space." If you think that Frenzel is alone in her local sightings of UFO'S, you're wrong. Between 50 and 60 people traveled by less exotic means to the Highland Mills branch of the Woodbury Public Library last Sunday to hear Robert J. VanDerClock talk about "UFOs and Government Secrecy." During the course of the program, which lasted nearly four hours, about 10 people raised their hands when VanDerClock asked if anyone had either seen a UFO or had been abducted by aliens. VanDerClock is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and a postmaster in New Jersey who recently moved to Monroe. He's also considered a so-called expert on the Roswell incident, occurred in 1947 when "something" - for the object has never been concretely identified - crashed in the Corona Desert in New Mexico. Since then, Roswell and "Area 51" have become "hotspots" that UFO buffs often point to as evidence that we are now alone. VanDerClock believes there is that the U.S. government is hiding information from people. "It's all a scheme, all part of a plan, all part of a concocted plan" he told the audience. "There are a reported 15 million abductions and sightings. I don't know if you know this, but in order for there to be an actual risk, there only has to be one million reports." When someone from the audience asked whether he thought aliens are among us, he said, "They could be invisible, walking the halls and listening to us now. They change their shapes so they don't scare us." VanDerClock holds several of these seminars a year and after moving to Monroe from Bergen County, N.J., two years ago, he has worked with the library to hold this lecture because of "how badly we've been lied to." During the Roswell incident, two military officers at the scene later told the story that there was "hieroglyphic-type writing" on the aircraft and there was an object which could not be burned smashed, or shot. VanDerClock said the government has changed its story on the incident three times. The government says that it was a weather balloon or a Soviet spy machine. "Why would the U.S. Army Air Force cover this up?" asked the former military intelligence agent who worked for several years in Vietnam for the military. The majority of the people in the audience were UFO believers themselves, so VanDerClock was generally spared any critical questions. To the common ear, his facts sounded well-rounded. He recalled name-after-name-after U.S. military base-after fact-after figure in a clear, concise fashion that indicated the man has invested a great deal of time and research into the subject. VanDerClock was not looking for converts: "Learn everything you can, then decide," he said. At one point during the lecture, he told the audience that he is "under the radar" by the U.S. government and that "I guarantee you that they follow me - they take notes. And at the end when you go up to them and ask to share notes, they hide them," he said. VanDerClock dislikes the word "conspiracies," but he says there are connections between past events. He says, for instance, that the purpose of the Vietnam War "was to help maintain control of the Asian drug cartel" because of "the drug problem with the hippies." He also said that the President, regardless of whom it may be, in all administrations, has a secret "black budget" for "alien projects." These secret funds, which he said began three weeks after World War II started, helps to fund UFO programs and research about extra-terrestrial life in the United States. "They're making it as hard as possible for us to know. And the de-bunkers are all paid by the CIA to try and put the facts down," VanDerClock said. Few military people talk about what they see because of the ramifications, he added. "People who talk, if they don't disappear, get fined $10,000, ten years in prison and lose their military benefits." One of the military men who has talked and who VanDerClock admires, is the late Col. Philip Corso, a former national security adviser and a fixture in the "Roswell believer's world." Corso allegedly witnessed "one of alien bodies being carried in a casket" by the U.S. Air force after Roswell occurred, VanDerClock says. VanDerClock said that the technology of extraterrestrials beings has helped the development of lasers and fiber-optic wires. He says that one of his close sources and informants in NASA tells him that the agency "knows of 20 different races of life out there." VanDerClock is a member of the United Friends Observers Society, which meets in Pine Bush, known well beyond Orange County to UFO buffs as a "UFO hots pot." A local woman stood up during the lecture and told of how, in 1984, a triangular-shaped flying object, making no noise, followed her son home to their driveway. "When I told my neighbor about it, she said ‘I know' because it happened to her in the car, and it was just staying over it," she said. There were many similar stories shared by the audience shared before and after the seminar and during intermission. One man told another how he saw a UFO over the Woodbury Common Outlets many years ago and that "there was no way that could have been an airplane or a cloud." A number of people declined comment when asked about their experiences. Others would not give their names for fear of being ridiculed. But a good number of people say they found the program informative. "I've never seen one (UFO) but I think so-they're out there," one man offered. His wife added, "It's possible, anything is possible" waving her copies of VanDerClock's four research papers that she had cost her $20. Throughout the program, VanDerClock continued mentioning how an understanding and UFO-friendly group like the audience at the library was a "safe-haven" for those who would be mocked if they mentioned their sightings to everyday people. "When you tell people you were at a UFO seminar today," he said, "they're gonna' call you crazy, right?" To use VanDerClock's own words: "You decide."