By Whitney Vickers
FAIRBORN — Raymond Szymanski stood outside his son’s condominium in late May and observed what appeared to be a para glider floating over Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He described it as completely stationary, then totally disappearing.
He said half of it was charcoal grey and the other half, a lighter grey. The condominium is located near WPAFB. Szymanski said the floating object appeared to hang over Area B, near the Woodman Drive, Colonel Glen Highway and Springfield Street region.
And while Szymanski has been knee-deep in research relating to unidentified flying objects and extra terrestrials for a number of years, he did not jump to conclude that aliens had visited WPAFB. Instead, he considered other possibilities and didn’t dismiss the clouds that surrounded the object.
“I saw something, but what it is — I don’t know, because I haven’t investigated it yet,” he said.
That’s how Szymanski approached his latest project — he just wrote and published a book, “Fifty Shades of Greys: Evidence of Extraterrestrial Visitation to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Beyond.”
The book presents evidence that suggests alien life, but ultimately “I [present] new theories, I show you evidence and I let you make up your own mind,” he said.
“It includes [information] about aliens at Wright-Patterson, but is also a little bit broader than that,” Szymanski said. “It’s based-upon my personal, first-person investigations. I don’t believe in ‘armchair’ research … I’m very strong about ensuring it’s first-person research, not armchair research, digging the facts from the ground and taking it all the way through.”
Szymanski retired from WPAFB in September 2011 after nearly 39 years of service. He was considered a senior engineer/scientist at that point, serving on the executive level. He formerly served as the director of the installation civilian wellness program, which promotes health-related matters.
His curiosity started upon the very beginning of his WPAFB career. As he first toured the facilities with his mentor, he was told that there were aliens in the tunnels. Szymanski started to wonder about vaults too and dove into books in hopes of quenching his interest. He said his director position later allowed him to become acquainted with the WPAFB population, giving him opportunities to reach out, ask questions and hear stories.
“I’ve been basically investigating locations on the base that I think could contain clues to its history relative to extraterrestrials and UFOs,” Szymanski said. “By looking at evidence, which I document in the book in text and photographs, it would appear to me as if the stories are true.”
By 2008, Szymanski began dropping by sights said to have been visited by UFOs and ETs, talking to people who had seen them in the sky first-hand and listening to the stories of individuals who said they experienced abduction. “Fifty Shades of Greys” contains four chapters; the third highlights the day he spent with Travis Walton, who said he was abducted in 1975. Walton wrote a book about his experience in 1978, “The Walton Experience”, and inspired the 1993 film “Fire in the Sky.”
”[‘Fifty Shades of Greys’] is a travel adventure with interesting people and things that interesting people had to say. I just happened to be the central character,” Szymanski said. “But it’s not about me. My journey, yes, but I bring other people into it and give them a voice. They tell their stories through me.”
He visited Walton in February 2015. That same month, he went to work on “Fifty Shades of Greys”, completing it in October 2015. It is now available for purchase through Amazon or for rental through the Greene County Public Library system.
He will present a talk on his book beginning with an author meet-and-greet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 19 at the Fairborn Community Library, 1 E. Main Street. Beginning at 6 p.m., Szymanski will present a talk highlighting the book’s synopsis and answering questions presented by attendees. “Fifty Shades of Greys” will be available for purchasing for $15, and Szymanski will be available for book signing until the library closes at 8 p.m.
If individuals read the book but miss the presentation, Szymanski is still open to answering readers questions: his email address is printed in the back of the book.