Looking At Probably The Most Controversial Angle of Ufology: Deaths In The Subject

By Brent Swancer | Mysterious Universe

My new book, Diary of Secrets, is a look at the life and mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe. Was she really murdered for what she knew about UFOs and aliens? That’s the primary question I ask in the book. It should be noted, though, that there have been a number of suspicious deaths in the UFO field. Of course, we have to be very careful how we address such matters. Just because someone in the domain of Ufology dies, doesn’t mean there has to be a mystery behind it. In fact, my view is that while there have been some strange deaths tied to the UFO subject, they are in the minority. For example, there’s the matter of the death of the late Dr. John E. Mack, who died after being hit by a car in a busy London street in 2004. I’ve seen people in Ufology claim that Mack was murdered on that London road. Total nonsense. It was the night of September 27, 2004 that Mack was killed. It’s important to note that Mack was in England, at the time. Mack was walking along London’s Totteridge Lane when tragedy struck.

He stepped out onto a crosswalk and was hit and killed by a drunk driver. His name was Raymond Czechowski, at the time 52 years of age. The emergency services were quickly on the scene. But it was too late. In an article at UFO Updates, we have the following: “Mr. Czechowski was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment and was disqualified from driving for 3 years. The Judge also ordered that before Mr. Czechowski was allowed to return to driving he must take an extended driving test. Because of time already spent in custody, Mr Czechowski will serve 6 months of the 15 month sentence.” There is another issue that may have relevance, one which I can relate to. It was September. It was night-time. It was London. It was busy. And John Mack was an American in England. I’m an Englishman who lives in America. When I moved to the United States, fifteen years ago, two of the very first things I had to do were (a) learn to drive on the opposite side of the road; and (b) take a US driving test.

For those who may not know, whereas in the States we drive on the right, in the UK, it’s on the left. So, what we have with the death of John E. Mack is a series of things that culminated in disaster: there was the darkness, a busy London road, traffic traveling in a direction that was not typical for the victim, and – the main thing – a drunk driver. Put all of those issues together and we have a terrible tragedy. What we don’t have is a conspiracy to have Mack killed. Moving on: when Mac Tonnies – the author of several books, including After the Martian Apocalypse and The Cyptoterrestrials – died in 2009 at the young age of just thirty-four, I heard stupid statements that Mac had been murdered. He had a heart condition. Period. With that all said, let’s look at a couple of fatal cases that I do think are worthy of investigation – and that just might have had links to the UFO topic.

May 22, 1949 was the date on which the first U.S. Secretary of Defence, James Forrestal, died. Specifically at 1:50 a.m. As will quickly become apparent, the circumstances surrounding Forrestal’s final hours are swamped in controversy. All that we know with absolute certainty is that in the early hours of the 22^nd, Forrestal’s body was found on a third-floor canopy of the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Maryland. Did he take a fatal leap out of the window of the 13^th floor of the hospital, his mind in turmoil and suicide on his mind? Was it an accident? Or, was Forrestal assassinated? Let’s have a look at this undeniably strange and disturbing affair. We’ll begin with a bit of important background on the man himself. For years there have been rumours that Forrestal was taken out of circulation as a result of what he knew about UFOs. Certainly, the circumstances surrounding Forrestal’s death are suspicious – at the least.

Now, there’s Dorothy Kilgallen – a well-known journalist who had an interest in UFOs and who wrote about them on several occasions – who died under controversial circumstances in 1965 and while she was investigating the JFK assassination of November 22, 1963. Born in Chicago in July 1913, Kilgallen was someone who, without the benefit of a college degree, soared up the ranks in the field of journalism. She became one of the most popular – and, at times, hated and even feared – figures in the media. Kilgallen was also someone who moved effortlessly in the worlds of high-society, Hollywood, politics, government secrecy, and deep and dark conspiracies. She was buddies with Marilyn Monroe, and she hung out with Ernest Hemingway. Kilgallen was also someone who was the subject of extensive surveillance – by several agencies of the U.S. intelligence community. Indeed, the FBI surveillance file on Kilgallen runs to hundreds of pages. As Kilgallen’s research into the intricacies of the whole JFK affair increased, she became somewhat worried, then frightened; she was concerned that her life was in danger. All of which leads up to the matter of her puzzling, controversy-filled death and the discovery of her dead in bed on November 8, 1965. Now, onto another case:

In the late 1970s, UFO researcher Rich Reynolds was contacted by a man named Bosco Nedelcovic. The latter suggested that the “Space Brother”-type encounter of one Arthur Bryant in the wilds of Devon, England in April 1965,  had very little to do with aliens, and much more to do with secret experimentation of a very down to earth nature. Nedelcovic (who worked for the U.S. Department of State’s Agency for International Development, and who also had ties to the CIA) claimed that Bryant was the victim of a form of sophisticated mind-control, somewhat akin to the kind of work undertaken by the CIA’s MKUltra program. Nedelcovic told Reynolds of a number of bogus “UFO episodes” in both the U.S. and the U.K., in which individuals were led to believe they had UFO encounters when, in fact, they experienced something very different. Nedelcovic alluded to how these events involved “visual displays, radar displacement, and artefact droppings.” One of those events, said Nedelcovic, was the Bryant case. Nedelcovic also revealed how the operation proceeded, and which involved “experimental drugs used to induce specific hallucinatory material” as well as “microwave transmissions.” On this latter point, Reynolds was told by Nedelcovic that “the injudicious use of microwave technology” led to a disastrous outcome for Bryant. As history has shown, Bryant died from the effects of a fast-developing brain tumour. In this case, we’re not talking about murder. We are, however, taking about accidental death of just about the worst type possible.

So, yes, I do believe that there have been fatal events in relation to UFOs. But, we need to be very careful not to go over the top. Just because someone in Ufology dies, we shouldn’t automatically think “murder.” We should use our common sense and address everything very carefully.

About the Author

Brent Swancer is an author and crypto expert living in Japan. Biology, nature, and cryptozoology still remain Brent Swancer’s first intellectual loves. He’s written articles for MU and Daily Grail and has been a guest on Coast to Coast AM and Binnal of America.