Albert Bruce Collins
Albert Bruce Collins (died December 30, 1990), also known by the pseudonym "Barnabas," was an American who claimed to be a retired metallurgical engineer and government employee. Collins asserted that he developed metal alloys used for electromagnetic propagation and magnetic field propulsion from 1942 through the late 1950s in an official capacity. His testimony was recorded by UFO researcher Tim Cooper on November 20, 1990, shortly before Collins's death.
| Role | Metallurgical engineer; alleged UAP witness and government researcher |
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Claimed Observations
Collins disclosed that in 1947, he observed a UAP on a long flatbed trailer covered with a green tarp being backed into a large warehouse at the University of California, Berkeley. Standing approximately 100 feet away, Collins described an oval-shaped craft "like an egg with the shell cracked and the yolk still inside." The craft was metallic with a silvery, polished-aluminum finish and featured a seam running along its edge. It had sustained significant damage — a large section ripped off with a huge gash on top running below the seam. Collins observed a multi-layered honeycomb skin in the bulkhead and a shiny sphere in the center of the craft surrounded by another bulkhead. The craft measured 30–40 feet in diameter and approximately 15 feet high.
Alleged Knowledge of UAP Programs
Collins claimed that around 1949, he studied metal of unknown composition and origin in an official capacity and learned of multiple agencies involved in Technologies of Unknown Origin (TUO) research. These included intelligence offices of the US Army, Air Force, and Navy, the CIA, the RAND Corporation, and reportedly the Vatican. Collins described several alleged joint projects:
- Project Archangel — between the CIA, RAND, and Vatican
- Project Black Book — under the Air Force
- Project Blue Book — under the Air Force
- Project White Book — between the CIA and Vatican
- Project Yellow Book — a scientific panel of an unknown government review board
Collins additionally stated that Los Alamos National Labs had been studying green fireballs and strange debris found in the desert — a claim that aligns with the historical existence of Project Twinkle, an Atomic Energy Commission investigation of green fireballs at Los Alamos, Sandia, White Sands, and Holloman Air Force Base in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Verification
Collins's obituary confirms he was a veteran and a member of the NRA and a nature conservancy. However, independent verification of his claimed career as a metallurgical engineer working on classified programs has not been established. The joint UAP programs with the Vatican that Collins described are noteworthy in light of the 1933 Magenta, Italy UFO Crash, in which Vatican intelligence allegedly alerted the United States to a UAP in Axis possession.