Are Phantom Helicopters Real?

In the 1970s, a series of bizarre livestock mutilations hit the United States.

Farmers and government investigators struggled to find a culprit for this unusual crime, which left farm animals severely disfigured.

Extraterretrials, cults, and mythical predators were blamed. But so was the US Government. At the time of the attacks, numerous military helicopter sightings were also reported at the locations of these cattle mutilations.

This was the beginning of the ‘Black Helicopter’ phenomenon: unmarked ‘phantom’ aircrafts, whose true purpose – and proof of their very existence – remains a mystery.

For decades, witness accounts of these Phantom Helicopters have confounded aviation investigators, and even politicians. And these suspicious flights through Western airspace have convinced the US militia movement that a widespread military takeover is imminent. They suspect that the aircrafts are part of a covert government operation.

In 2015, American President Barack Obama admitted that the army does, indeed, own black helicopters, like the stealth hawks used during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Obama stressed that the US doesn’t deploy these aircrafts on US soil. But critics believe that he is referring to the States’ black army helicopters, from the Joint Special Operations Command.

While the U.S army and National Guard do use dark helicopters during training operations, drug busts, and other missions, witnesses contend that there are suspicious features about the Phantom aircrafts, which distinguish them from the military’s typical choppers:

These aircrafts are usually described as very dark – or black – helicopters, that bear no registration marks.

They’re usually spotted at dusk, in groups of anywhere between 3 and 20.

Reports describe them flying at high speed and a low altitude, either in a straight trajectory, or circling over a specific area.

It’s claimed that they have sound-suppression technology, and they have also been linked to UFO sightings.

There have been innumerable eyewitness accounts of these black choppers since the early seventies, with reports documented from ranchers, police officers, and horse riders, to rural property owners, marines, and farmers.

In 1970, Christian writer Hal Lindsay claimed in his book, ‘The Late, Great Planet Earth’ that the locust-like creatures mentioned in the Book of Revelation could be helicopters. This theory corresponds with his prophecy that the apocalypse will happen in the present day.

But it wasn’t until the early 1990s that interest in the Black Helicopter phenomenon gained real momentum, when militia activists Mark Koernke and Linda Thompson first seriously proposed the idea in their documentary, ‘America Under Siege’.

Koernke and Thompson claim that the American Government is implementing illicit helicopter operations for its own gain.

This idea was further popularised by Jim Keith’s book, ‘Black Helicopters Over America’, which allegedly exposes the true and shocking purpose of the Phantom aircrafts: the campaign to build a New World Order.

In 1995 the conspiracy even perplexed politicians, and gained media attention, when Republican congresswoman Helen Chenoweth announced that armed federal agents were illicitly landing helicopters in ranches across Idaho, without any explanation.

This unnerving theory has resonated with the militia movement, which is sceptical of the US Government’s seemingly escalating control over the state. Portions of the far right believe that this Government tyranny stems from the Obama administration’s agenda to limit the freedoms of American citizens, such as the right to bear arms.

It’s feared that the presence of these phantom helicopters is a sign that that the U.S is gearing towards martial law – that is, the imposition of the highest military ranks into the Government, in order to enforce strict rule over the public.

But is that all there is to these mysterious aircrafts?

Through a process of ‘disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration’, conspiracy theorist David Vose claims that the UN will seize the US in its mission to attain world domination.

These right-wingers contend that Phantom Helicopters are in fact secret United Nations vehicles, orchestrating a military takeover in conjunction with U.S officials with the overall goal to establish an international, totalitarian government.

But these aren’t the only theories circulating around the Black Helicopter Phenomenon.

There are believers that have linked this aerial military presence to the ‘Men in Black’. Could it be that these mysterious aircrafts exist to intimidate UFO witnesses into silence?

Some people aren’t so sure about this. Skeptics like political writer Ian Williams are more likely to believe that these so-called ‘phantom helicopters’ are common military aircrafts, possibly brown or olive in colour, which are mistaken for black helicopters in certain lights.

And many defence contractors and helicopter manufacturers also carry out public flight-testing of their vehicles, on a regular basis. These aircrafts could have also been mistaken for secret government choppers.

With so many conflicting theories, and no hard evidence, the true purpose of the ‘spy in the skies’ remains a mystery.