Group To Investigate Idaho’s Own X-Files Local Chapter Of International Network Forms To Probe Ufos, The Unexplainable

In 1958, 10-year-old Douglas Brown sat spellbound as he watched a silver and orange cigar-shaped object hover in the sky south of his Jerome, Idaho, residence.

“I watched it for five to 10 minutes,” Brown said. “It stuck with me. There was something unexplainable about it.”

Brown’s interest in the unexplainable, fueled by that incident almost 40 years ago, led him to form a local section of the Mutual UFO Network in January.

The group already has about 10 to 15 dues-paying members, and more show up at the group’s monthly meetings.

Brown, owner of Java Blue, says the network is an “international organization made up of professionals, scientists and people that are curious about UFOs.”

“It’s a very serious, very credible organization that’s trying to do research and trying to find out what’s going on,” he said.

The network deals more with “after the fact” investigation than in sky watching, said Brown.

“There’s 95 to 99 percent that are explainable. There’s that 1 or 2 percent that’s not explainable,” said Brown. He doesn’t know what those unexplainable sightings actually are, but said, “If we had answers, we wouldn’t need this organization.”

There is plenty of UFO activity in southern Idaho, possibly because of the small population and the mineral content of the area. “There was one recently, which we feel was a true, unexplained sighting,” he said. “It was an object that hovered over Hailey for quite a while.”

Brown said motorists between Gooding and Fairfield have experienced extremely bright lights shining behind them on the road. But when they pull over to let the vehicle pass, they find nothing there. “This has happened numerous times,” he said.

One local story sticks out above all others in Brown’s mind. Several years ago, a sheepherder northeast of the Devil’s Corral area in Jerome County was carefully monitoring his sheep after recent livestock mutilations, when he said he encountered a “ferocious looking entity” about 5 feet tall with glowing eyes, Brown said. The sheepherder shot the entity, but it was not fazed.

Two other people supposedly spotted the creature a few days later, telling Brown that when it moved, it moved 50 feet almost instantaneously. Reports of distinctly similar creatures mutilating livestock in Puerto Rico, Mexico and some southern U.S. states are what makes the event so compelling, Brown said. This creature has been dubbed the “chuba cabra” in Puerto Rico, which means “goat sucker.”

“It’s a big, big deal in Mexico,” Brown said of the mysterious mutilations which began in December of 1994. The “chuba cabra” incidents, although big news in Mexico, are not nearly as famous as an incident that happened near the Roswell Army Field in New Mexico in 1947. A strange object, which the U.S. government called a weather balloon, crashed in New Mexico after a strong storm.

Rumors that the bodies of several aliens were recovered from the strange craft remain strong today.

“Something happened there for real. It’s been so tightly covered up it has to be important,” Brown said. “I believe that was a true, alien spacecraft that landed there and that the government did really hide the bodies.”

There are several theories on what aliens actually are, Brown said, including beliefs that they are beings from other planets, that they are interdimensional travelers, time travelers or demons. “I don’t disbelieve any of those explanations to it,” he said.

Descriptions of UFOs vary from sighting to sighting, but there are several characteristics that seem universal, Brown said.

They include the lack of sound, movement unlike any normal aircraft - such as the ability to move instantaneously from point to point - and bright, white lights.

Most UFO sightings that Brown researches have logical explanations. Some of the most common objects are experimental aircraft, weather balloons, bright planets, satellites, oddly shaped clouds and mirages. “One couple had been filming and watching this object for over a month. It turned out to be the planet Venus,” Brown said.

Brown knows there are many people who doubt the existence of UFOs. “The debunkers say it’s very explainable things seen by very gullible people,” he said.

Brown thinks otherwise. “I think that we’re foolish to believe that in the whole universe, we’re it,” he said. “You have to be a lot more open-minded about what reality is.”