Battle in the Stars
Napa County, California, UFOlogist Ed Grimsley maintains an eponymous Web site devoted to UFO battles in our night skies. Grimsley reports that, since his teen years, he has used night-vision technology to observe dogfights among UFOs, as well as aerial battles between UFOs and Earth aircraft. He is stunned by the UFOs’ startling aeronautic maneuvers and great speed, and by “what appear to be laser weapons.” These aggressive, saucer-shaped UFOs appear in bunches that Grimsley calls “squadrons.” Grimsley worries that extraterrestrials plan to take control of Earth, or evict us altogether. Because the government hides the existence of these craft and battles, Grimsley’s Skywatch organization schedules outdoor night-vision viewings of this activity (forty dollars a head) at sites in and around Calistoga, California.
Indoor audiences who see his night-vision videos exclaim as if at a fireworks show.
Over the years, Grimsley has progressed to increasingly more sophisticated night-vision goggles. Handily enough, various types of goggles described on the Grimsley home page are available for purchase from Grimsley for between $1,800 and $3,200. The site also sells a DVD, Ed Grimsley’s Night Vision UFO Wars, for $24.95.
In 2011, Robert Sheaffer, a UFO investigator with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, viewed Grimsley’s videos. Sheaffer explained to NBC.com newswriter Benjamin Radford that night-vision optics “trade low resolution for high sensitivity. . . . [W]hat looks like a large object may well just be a point of light.” Sheaffer added that although night-vision technology reveals light, it is incapable of providing an accurate idea of an object’s size. Grimsley and his followers, then, are likely looking at satellites, helicopters, meteors—even bats, birds, and bugs. Sheaffer said that night-vision goggles are not needed to observe night-sky activity; he recommended 10 x 50 binoculars, which reveal airborne objects in better detail.
Besides doing trade in goggles and videos, Grimsley’s site solicits donations, some of which go to his “citizens alliance,” which pushes back against manipulative governments that lie and encourage their citizens to make war.
Another portion of donated money goes to Grimsley’s research on water-based automobile fuel that will give one hundred miles per gallon.