The Abduction of Jonathan Lovette
When mentioning reported UFO encounters, many people will often highlight a lack of physical evidence as a means of undermining the witness testimony. But how do you overlook a tale when it resulted in the death and mutilation of one of the people who are involved? In this post, we examine the strange death of Jonathan Lovette.
The White Sands Missile Range
The White Sands Missile Range is the largest military testing site in the United States. Situated in Southern New Mexico, it was established in the early 1940s and has steadily expanded over time to cover an area of over 3200 square miles, sprawling across the borders of five separate counties. During the Second World War, it played an integral role in the development of America's early nuclear weapons program and in July 1945, it was the site of the world's first light nuclear bomb test.
In addition to its association with atomic weapons testing, the site was also the main location for America's post-war rocket technology experiments. As the fighting in mainland Europe came to its bloody and inevitable conclusion, captured German scientists and V2 missile components were shipped directly back to White Sands, as part of the secretive Project Paperclip. It has long been speculated on by conspiracy theorists what kinds of German wonder weapons and technologies were quickly relocated to the US and how they were picked apart and improved upon in order to develop the everyday technology we now take for granted. These suppositions about the work which has taken place at the White Sands facility are further strengthened by the unusually high number of UFO sightings in the region.
New Mexico boasts one of the highest concentrations of reported UFO cases in the United States, including the notorious Roswell incident in 1947, as well as the Socorro encounter in 1964. United States Air Force bases in the area have also been no stranger to these sightings, with a number of UFO incidents having been reported in and around the Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and White Sands itself.
During the 1950s, observers of the missile tests conducted at the facility would regularly report strange objects in the skies nearby, apparently tracking the progress of the weapons as they had been launched. This in turn led to further speculation that the technology being applied to the testing was not solely the result of including German scientists in the missile program, but that they had also incorporated science and technology that had been recovered from the Roswell crash site.
The high levels of security and the apparent clandestine, involvement of the CIA has only served to further fuel these conspiracy theories. And one case in particular, which was leaked to the public in the early 1960s, has done nothing to assuage the somewhat supernatural undertones associated with the region.
The Death of Sergeant Jonathan Lovette
One chilly morning in March of 1956, a search party consisting of two airmen was dispatched to the fields situated south of the main White Sands testing area, in order to locate any debris that might have fallen from a missile test carried out the previous evening. The men in question were major William Cunningham and Sergeant Jonathan Lovette. Both of whom were attached to the Air Force Missile Command stationed at Holloman Air Force Base in nearby Alamogordo.
The two men arrived at the location at approximately 0300 HRS. Dismounting from their jeep and with flashlights in hand, they trudged wearily into their designated search zone. It was a task they had both performed many times before resulting in varying degrees of success and tedium. After a couple of minutes of pacing alongside each other, the two men then separated, with Cunningham continuing to walk in a straight line, whilst Lovette disappeared over the crest of a nearby sand dune.
The sergeant had not indicated to Cunningham where he was going and his Superior assumed it was most likely a call of nature. But when Lovette had still not returned several minutes later, Cunningham stopped what he was doing and started to retrace his steps back to where the two men had separated. It was at this point that he heard something that would chill him to the bone, as the high pitched scream of his subordinate suddenly pierced the night air. It was a cry of pure anguish, which reverberated out into the dark and empty fields which surrounded him. Fully aware that Lovette must have been in trouble and assuming it was the result of a snake bite or some other form of animal attack, Cunningham sprinted over the top of the sand dune only to be met with an unbelievable sight.
About 30 feet from where he stood, reflected in the dim beam of the flashlight gripped tightly in his right hand, Cunningham could see a mysterious metallic disc hovering approximately 15 to 20 feet above the ground. It was completely silent and resembled no vehicle or piece of military hardware that the major had ever seen before. Something was moving around at the base of the object riving and flexing back and forth, like a snake and when Cunningham shone his torch beam onto it, he could see it was a thick metallic cable of some kind. Another horrific scream snapped the dazed and confused officer back into reality and when he then directed his torch towards the end of the cable, he was horrified to see that it was wrapped around one of Lovette's legs.
The Air Force Sergeant was fighting with all of his strength, kicking out and clawing with his hands in a desperate attempt to free himself from the thick metal flex that had been wound around his leg. But his efforts seemed futile and as Cunningham looked on in growing horror, the cable retracted at some speed, dragging the helpless Airmen along the rocky ground and then up towards the base of the disc. Frozen to the spot in terror, Cunningham watched helplessly as Lovette was inexorably pulled up into the base of the huffing craft. The Sergeant's eyes met his for a second, wild and desperately pleading for help, before he disappeared from sight.
There was a dull click and then the disc, silent, shot up into the darkened skies above. Struggling to make sense of what he had just witnessed, Cunningham tripped and stumbled his way back to the waiting jeep and yelled into the radio that Lovette had been taken and that an aircraft was leaving the scene. Within minutes, every available air force unit and resource was swarming towards the area. But all they found was the major, crumpled to the floor rocking back and forth in shock. Of Jonathan Lovette, there was no sign.
The following days saw Airmen combing every inch of ground in the vicinity of the apparent abduction site, but it was all to no avail. It was confirmed by staff on duty at the site Control tower on the evening of the incident that an unidentified radar contact had shown up on their instruments, but to be moving too quickly for any possible action to be taken against it. Cunningham was interrogated at length for 3 days, until news came in that a search party operating approximately 10 miles down range from where Lovette had disappeared, had discovered the Sergeant's body. Or at least, what was left of it.
Lovette's remains have been horrific mutilated in a manner that nobody involved in the subsequent investigation had ever encountered before. A neat and tidy incision had been made from a tip of Lovette's jaw, right around to the back of his larynx, with the airman's tongue and eyes, as well as a significant portion of Jawbone now missing. The penis had been removed and the anus have been completely caught out, seemingly with exemplary surgical skill. The coroner's report also noted that there was no trace of vascular collapse or organ failure anywhere in the body, which was problematic, as there was not a single trace of blood left anywhere inside the cadaver.
Other oddities were to be found in the report submitted by the officers charged with investigating the matter. At the location where the remains have been found, a number of predatory birds were also found dead, having apparently expired when they have attempted to feast on the corpse. The body was also in surprisingly good condition, despite having been found out in the open in one of the hottest and harshest environments in the United States. With Lovette's body now recovered, Cunningham was arrested and charged with his murder. The case was presented to a tribunal, with military prosecutors alleging that the major had murdered his subordinate, faked the abduction story and mutilated the body in an effort to make the lies more convincing. Unsurprisingly, it took little time for the court to reject this argument. Cunningham was released without charge and allowed to leave the Air Force a short time later. To this day, Jonathan Lovette's death remains completely unexplained.
As we have learned from previous stories, the United States government has maintained a firm and long-standing policy of not publicly commenting on alleged encounters between members of their armed forces and UFOs. From the mysterious Foo Fighters experienced by panicked bomber crews over mainland Europe during World War Two, to the terrifying sightings at Rendlesham Forest in the 1980s, time and again, the Pentagon refuses to be drawn into speculation about the existence of extraterrestrial life.
In the case of the New Mexico sightings, the government may have had even more reason to remain stubbornly silent on the story, wanting to preserve a secrecy and security around what was taking place at some of their most valuable military facilities. But given the lack of any other feasible or realistic explanation for what's happened to Sergeant Lovette and the similarity of this case to other alleged close encounters, their refusal to officially comment does little more than fuel further speculation about the case.
Mutilation of livestock
Incidents involving animals and livestock mutilations have been reported from around the world for decades, with the phenomenon seemingly having reached its peak during the mid-1970s. As transport and communication links have steadily improved over time, the cases have dropped sharply, but still take place with an intriguing and frustrating regularity. In the 1990s, several farms in Vancouver reported that their livestock had been attacked and disfigured by unknown assailants. Witnesses reported having an odd humming noise in the sky around the time of the incidents and one even alleged to have seen a small humanoid figure fleeing the scene holding a strange device in its hand.
During the late 1970s, the US state of Idaho experienced a rash of unexplained cattle mutilations. Similar cases have been reported in Wales and the English county of Shropshire as recently as 2012. Thankfully, alleged attacks on human victims are few and far between, but are, of course much more disturbing in their nature. In 1979, two deer hunters in the Bliss and Jerome area of the state of Idaho stumbled across the naked body of a mutilated male victim. His lips and sexual organs were missing and his personal effects were eventually discovered several miles away, discarded in the middle of a field. The official police investigation into the matter concluded that the victim was a vagrant, who had died from drunken misadventure and whose remains been interfered with by animals after his death.
But this explanation proved unsatisfactory for many people, including the two hunters who discovered his remains.
UFOs in Brazil
For unknown reasons, Brazil has always been a focal point for reported UFO incidents. In 1981, the Panorama region of the country was plagued by sightings of strange objects in the skies, named locally as 'Chupas'. One of these unidentified craft was encountered by two young boys named Abel Boro and Rivamar Ferraria. It proceeded to direct a beam of superheated light at the two boys, which Ferraria managed to break free from and escape, but which Boro became trapped in. His body was recovered after his friend returned to the scene with the authorities and it was found to be completely drained of blood, again with no signs of organ failure.
Seven years later in 1988, the remains of an unknown victim were found by a young boy at the Billings Reservoir, which often incorrectly cited as Guarapiranga in São Paulo. As with the case of Lovette, the body had been horrifically mutilated and yet local Carrion and Vermin had refused to feed off of the corpse. A number of incisions had been made using advanced techniques and tools which baffled investigators. The anus, jawbone, eyes and tongue had all been removed. But yet more procedures had also been carried out. The left ear and lips were also missing and symmetrical holes of a 2-inch diameter had been made either side of the victims torso. Internal organs, muscles and other tissues had all be removed via these holes, to the extent that the victim's chest cavity had actually collapsed, as so much of the interior was now missing.
Unlike the American government, the Brazilian authorities were desperate for any assistance with their case, publishing all of their findings and photographs of the cadaver. In the coroner's report, they highlighted that there were no marks or injuries anywhere on the body to suggest there had been a struggle or any kind of restraint. The edges of the wounds were found to be cauterized, as if made by a hot metal of some kind and the Symmetry and care taken to remove the organs indicated a high level of surgical skill.
Conclusion
There were no apparent motives for these mutilations or even benefits for anyone who might have carried them out. In the White Sands case, Major Cunningham was a highly trained and respected officer attached to one of the country's most sensitive military projects. What reason would there have been for him to throw his career away by making up a story about alien contact. And if he was involved in Lovette's death, what could possibly have motivated him to carry out such an attack on his colleague and where did he acquire the skills to perform such surgical feats? Why is he not reoffended since?
It is quite clear that Cunningham had no part in the death of his colleague and if not him, then who else? The White Sands Missile Range is a highly secured area, controlled by the most powerful military in the world. Which individual or rather group of individuals would have the means to sneak into a highly restricted area and attack and kill a US Airman and then manage to evade capture without leaving a single shred of evidence of them having been there?
Whether Jonathan Lovette's attackers extraterrestrial or indeed more human in their origins, the manner of his abduction and subsequent murder is truly shocking. And yet all the evidence would suggest that he is only one victim in a much larger and sinister scheme, one that has been visited upon mankind for at least the last half-century. Someone or something has an unhealthy interest in the organic life of this planet. They also have the technology and equipment to target and incapacitate test subjects whenever and wherever they choose, seeming to lack the basic Compassion or Humanity to preserve the lives of their victims.