If it’s the WWI era, try this trio by Kenneth Munson:

Bombers 1914-1919

Fighters 1914-1919

Aircraft of World War I

All are profusely illustrated — the first two in color profiles and the last in photographs. All go well beyond the usual suspects. Used copies of all three can be readily found in Amazon, EBay, and ABE Books. I believe one or both of the first two have been reissued in recent years.

There was a plethora of so-called sighting during the fifties and sixties…usually Wilbur or Virgil from the mountains of Kentucky

You may be thinking about these cases:

The Flatwoods Monster (1952, West Virginia) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatwoods_monster

The Hopkinsville Incident (1955, Kentucky) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopkinsville_aliens

During the fifties and sixties there were plenty of other purported sightings of aliens around the world: the Australian Outback, a forest in California, a lake in the Canadian Northland, a New Guinea missionary station, and a lonely stretch of road in Tasmania. Although some were prominently featured in books at the time, all but Socorro, Flatwoods, and Hopkinsville have disappeared into obscurity.

he obviously gave plenty of notice of his views

Indeed! And Senator Joseph Lieberman has announced that he intends to conduct an investigation into why the numerous red flags weren’t heeded. For years, there have been warnings that political correctness was hindering security. Fort Hood might be grim vindication.

Of course he could have just resigned his commission if he felt that strongly about it.

Why not? Money! His entire medical training was paid by American taxpayers and he might have received some retention bonuses as well. If he left the Army before completing his obligated service, he might have had to repay some or all of those monies, probably totaling well into six figures.

I know it sounds crazy, going on a rampage and risk getting killed himself rather than pay up, but remember his circuits obviously are wired a bit differently.

An update:

Suspected Gunman in Custody After 12 Killed in Rampage at Fort Hood

Fox News

Thursday , November 05, 2009

An Army psychiatrist who reportedly feared an impending war deployment is in custody as the sole suspect in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas that left 12 dead and at least 30 wounded, an Army official said Thursday night.

The news that the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was alive and in stable condition came as a sudden reversal of early reports that the gunman was among the dead.

“I would say his death is not imminent,” Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said. Col. Ben Danner said the suspect was shot at least four times.

Two other soldiers who were taken into custody for questioning were later released, Cone said. A female first responder who shot at Hasan also survived, contrary to earlier reports that she had died.

The rampage was believed to be the deadliest at a U.S. military base in history. The exact motive wasn’t clear, though Hasan, a Virginia native and a Muslim, reportedly was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had been the target of harassment for his ethnicity.

Federal law enforcement officials told the Associated Press that Hasan had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats. The officials said they are still trying to confirm that he was the author.

One of the Web postings that authorities reviewed is a blog that equates homicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades.

“To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause,” said the Internet posting. “Scholars have paralled (sic) this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers.”

They say an official investigation was not opened.

Hasan was working with soldiers at Darnall Army Medical Center on Fort Hood after being transferred in July from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he had worked for six years before recently receiving a poor review.

Cone said the shooter used two guns, including a semi-automatic weapon. He added there was no indication they were military weapons.

The shooting took place 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the post’s Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers undergo medical screening before being deployed or after returning from overseas.

“We have a terrible, tragic situation here,” said Cone. “Soldiers, family members and the civilians that work here are absolutely devastated.”

Cone said the injuries “vary significantly” among the victims wounded in the shooting.

The shooter’s cousin, Nader Hasan, told Fox News that their family is in shock.

“We are trying to make sense of all this,” Nader Hasan said. “He wasn’t even someone who enjoyed going to the firing range.”

He said his cousin, who was born and raised in Virginia and graduated from Virginia Tech University, turned against the wars after hearing the stories of those who came back from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Nader Hasan said his cousin, who was raised a Muslim, wanted to go into the military against his parent’s wishes — but was taunted by others after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

A former neighbor of Hasan’s in Silver Spring, Md., told Fox News he lived there for two years with his brother and had the word “Allah” on the door.

She said the FBI interviewed her Thursday afternoon, adding she used to see a woman and a 3-year-old girl coming and going.

Authorities provided little information Thursday about the victims of the rampage at Fort Hood.

George Stratton’s son, George Stratton III, was five feet away from the shooter at the Soldier Readiness Center and suffered a gunshot wound to his left shoulder.

“He said he was there doing medical stuff and all of a sudden someone came through the door, walked behind the desk and just started shooting,” Stratton told FoxNews.com.

He said about 15 rounds went off and people started dropping to the floor.

“He peaked up over the desk and that’s when he was shot in the shoulder, and he just went down again. He said he saw one of his NCOs get badly shot,” Stratton told FoxNews.com after talking to his son in the hospital. “After he got shot he told me, ‘Dad, I got up, held my arm and took off running.'”

Stratton said his son was expected to be deployed to Afghanistan in January after going to basic training exactly a year ago.

“It’s pretty hard to believe something like this happened,” Stratton told FoxNews.com. “I think he’s probably had his fill of war already.”

President Obama called the shooting a “horrific outburst of violence” on members of the nation’s armed forces. “It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on American soil,” he said

Obama said his thoughts and prayers are with the wounded and families of the fallen.

A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations said they don’t know anything about Hasan, and condemned the shooting at Fort Hood.

The group issued a statement calling the shooting as a “cowardly attack.” They say no political or religious ideology could ever justify or excuse such violence.

The base and area schools were on lockdown after the mass shooting, and all those on the Army post were asked to gather for a head count, thought the lockdown was lifted Thursday night.

Covering 339 square miles, Fort Hood is the largest active duty armored post in the United States. Home to about 52,000 troops as of earlier this year, the sprawling base is located halfway between Austin and Waco.

FoxNews.com’s Michelle Maskaly and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

When the hero is on the run behind the lines, the first enemy uniform he finds fits perfectly.

For those pondering the decline and fall of GM, consider the comment below to this article:

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/09/16/obama-risks-trade-war-to-help-union-allies/

September 16th, 2009

11:45 am GMT

Dear USA

A Flint area resident for over 50 years, born in a house just down the street from the Buick plant, I, like many of you, have seen the rise and fall of General Motors in Flint. As a 12-year old, I remember so well touring the plants and seeing the parade with Dinah Shore. What a thrilling time! GM and Flint: bonded forever, it seemed.

In my early college days I knew many guys that worked at GM. One was proud of putting his cigarette out on the hood of freshly painted Buick from time to time; another carried out a set of valve lifters every day in the false bottom of his lunch box, and still another routinely took sets of engine bearings by taping them to his legs. Some played an assembly line game where they tossed nuts and bolts into the tops of carburetors as cars moved down the assembly line. They routinely bragged about how little work they did. A frequently heard comment was, “I wouldn’t buy a GM car; I see how they are made.” I wonder what a Toyota worker says about their cars?

During the glory years each labor contract meant big pay increases, thanks to the Union. Over time, however, prices rose, diminishing the gains. My mother learned quickly that the price of milk went up overnight at contract time. Unions continued to get the power they wished for from Democratic law makers that passed rules making it almost impossible for GM not to give into Union demands. Today $300 a month is good money in China; it’s hardly enough to buy cigarettes and beer in Flint. Perhaps if in those negotiations with the auto makers the Unions were not given the upper hand, US workers could buy more with less money, and US labor costs would not be so high compared to the rest of the world now.

In the 1980’s a GM training director told me that about 45% of hourly workers did not have high school diplomas. At this same time the Japanese were importing very high quality cars that were manufactured using Statistical Process Control. This is a quality-assuring manufacturing method requiring some fairly sophisticated math skills, techniques most GM hourly workers weren’t educated well enough to use. The Japanese also employed teamwork methods with their workers. When GM tried to apply teamwork methods, the Union successfully blocked their use, claiming that teamwork would weaken the Union.

The Union over the years has lobbied against employment tests, educational requirements, teamwork, and other worker standards. The Union has lobbied for workers rights, civil rights, chemical Right-to-know laws, and labor laws. These ideas have added burdensome restrictions and huge costs to GM for recordkeeping, employee training, legal fees, and allocations of people and time that have nothing directly to do with the manufacturing of cars. Imagine trying to manage the building of a high quality automobile and at the same time having to spend time and money handling the thousands of grievances and production slow-downs created by the Union each year.

One of my friends, a GM line supervisor, complained regularly about struggling to find enough workers to start the assembly line, especially on hangover Mondays. Everyone knew not to buy a car built on a Monday. A good friend and a skilled trade worker at GM said the first thing they did each day was to get a cup coffee and do the crossword puzzle in the Detroit News. In contrast to this, a GM executive told me that at a plant in Poland, the workers, on their own time, arrived early to clean, service, and paint their machines, a practice that would not be allowed in the USA. Needless to say, those workers are ready to work when the starting alarm rings.

In Detroit, I once had a chance to observe an assembly line in operation. Two people sat across from each other listening to the radio, drinking coffee, and reading the newspaper. As the cars neared, each one got up and installed a windshield wiper and then returned to the paper, radio, and coffee. I wondered how a company can pay someone so much money for such little work. The answer, that plant has been leveled to the ground with many jobs lost.