THE UFO CHRONICLES


nam et ipsa scientia potestas est
- Knowledge is Power -

From Dennis & Ann Bossack
www.ufolab.info
3-28-05

Ann and I spotted this at the same moment.

We both estimated it to be between Las Cruces and our house. This would be a distance of approximately 10-15 miles due east of us.

Again, this object was moving faster than an airplane. While it was climbing, I managed to get seven photos of it. In the eighth photo, it just disappeared.

We live in a restricted flight area. Airplanes flying overhead are either already at their flight altitude or if they are lower, they are military.

. . . More

ARGENTINA: STRANGE CREATURES REPORTED

By Raul Oscar Chaves
CIUFOS
3-28-05

On March 20, 2005, the time being 0400 hrs, two witneses driving along National Highway No. 35 some 30 km south of Santa Rosa, near the vicinity of Parque Luro, saw a beam or "tube of light" some 50 meters from the paved road surface. Unable to see the source of said light, the noticed that the "tube" was projected from a height of some 8 meters in the air down to the ground, without touching the surface. "It seemed suspended [in mid-air]."

Faced with this circumstance, they slowed their vehicle, detecting that [inside the tube] "it was possible to see two figures in apparent descent, one on top of the other, with their legs slightly raised."

The witnesses add that the "tube" measured approximately 1 1/2 meter wide, was entirely white in color, and allowed [the witnesses] to see that the "the beings wore silvery clothing, like astronaut-type jumpsuits."

They further noticed that the beings "held their arms outstretched, as though carrying some element in their hands while the rest of the arm was slung downward and slightly away from the body".

Faced with the unexpected encoutner and their subsequent feelings of fear, they chose to speed away from the sight,looking back to see that the "tube of light" remained in place as they pulled away from the area.

Translation (c) 2005, Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology.

By Scott Ramsey
8-1-04

[Scott D. Ramsey has been researching the UFO Incident at Aztec since he first became aware of it back in 1988 while on a business trip to the four corners area. He has been aggressively tracking down witnesses and chasing any and all leads since 1990. He has traveled to 28 states in fourteen years, spent hundreds of hours in various archives, interviewed over 60 credible witnesses tied to the event; he has incurred over $200,000 dollars in expenditures during this ongoing investigation. The fruits of his labor will soon appear in his upcoming book about "The Aztec Incident."]

The Witnesses

Witness No.1

One argument against the Aztec Incident waged by critics over the years has claimed a lack of eyewitnesses; in our early research into the “Aztec Incident,” we found it very difficult to speak with anyone from the town that might “go on the record”; I was finding myself returning to the Four Corners area about every six to seven weeks, just as I thought I would. Over many weekends I researched the story, looking for an eyewitness to this historical event. Finally, people slowly started to come forward.

Our first witness was K. Farley. When we interviewed Mr. Farley, he was dying of a respiratory disease. He was on bottled oxygen when we met him north of Phoenix, Arizona. As Mr. Farley later described to me during our three-hour interview, he had been in Durango, Colorado on March 25th, 1948, visiting his Aunt as he was traveling to San Diego, California; he was supposed to meet a friend just north of Aztec (New Mexico) and then continue his drive.

As he arrived early that morning at a planned pick-up spot near Cedar Hill (a small town just north of Aztec), his “friend” told him about a lot of trucks and a police car, seen going out a small dirt road just south of their position. The drivers of the vehicles seemed as though they were in a hurry according to Mr. Farley. Thinking an emergency was underway, the two of them decided to go out and see what the problem was. Mr. Farley and his friend (anonymous) arrived at the mesa, now apparently busy with oilfield workers and what appeared to have been local ranchers.

Mr. Farley and his friend moved toward the west side of the mesa to get a better look at the large disc that sat silently there. Mr. Farley said there wasn’t “any noticeable damage”; the craft was “perfectly smooth on the outside, without any seams or marking except for around the middle of the craft.”

“Mr. Farley also described two police officers at the scene that were talking to the locals. Finally, the one officer walked over to Mr. Farley and his friend and told them that the military had been notified and that they should leave the area at once. Mr. Farley and his friend refused to leave because nobody else seemed to be listening to the officer. Mr. Farley recalls that some of the oilfield workers were climbing all over the damn thing, which he thought was dim-witted given the circumstances; some older folks started yelling at them to get the hell away from it!

Finally, later that morning according to Mr. Farley, the Military did arrive and discuss the incident individually with the people on the mesa. Mr. Farley has claimed they were “threatened with their lives” and sworn to secrecy. Since Mr. Farley was not originally from the area, he could not help me identify who the others might have been.

Witness No. 2

Doug Nolan and Bill Ferguson were employed by the El Paso Gas Company; Doug just nineteen years of age, had just picked up his boss, Bill Ferguson, at 5:00 am and Bill told him they needed to get to Hart Canyon rd., as fast as possible due to a bad brush fire that was spotted near a drip tank. As the two arrived, they were greeted by other oil field workers, who explained that the brush fire was under control, but that they needed to see “something else” on the mesa.

As they arrived at the mesa, Doug said they could not believe what they were looking at; a very large, metallic disc sat silently on the mesa. Doug explained that as they cautiously moved closer, they realized the craft was smooth with no seems, no noticeable rivets, bolts or weld marks. He said that it “looked as if it had been molded.” Doug and Bill climbed up on the craft and looked through a broken porthole. He recalls seeing two bodies slumped over what he thought was a control panel. Other oil field workers were climbing around the craft looking for a way to enter, when others started to arrive and advised the men to move away from the craft. A Mr. and Mrs. Knight (local ranchers running cattle out near the mesa) arrived in their pickup truck and began to walk slowly toward the craft. Nearing daybreak (as Doug would recall) a helicopter started to circle the mesa. Doug said this was unbelievable as well, because he had never seen a helicopter before! (Keep in mind that helicopters had just recently been introduced to the military at that time).

During my interview with Doug he recalled that the first law-enforcement officer to show up acted as though he didn’t know anyone. Doug approached the young officer and asked what they should all do? The officer explained that he was from the town of Cuba, New Mexico and that he had followed the low flying disc in the early morning hours, and then, finally, to the area of Hart Canyon road. He also explained to Doug that the town of Cuba had several sightings over those past few weeks. Doug would later recall that a second law enforcement officer also showed up. This officer was well known by most of the local people at the site.

Now, this ties in with Ken Farley's story about two police officers at the crash site. Doug was able to name everyone at the crash site, with the exception of two young men that stood on the western side of the mesa. He had not seen them prior to nor after the incident.

Witness No. 3

While working for the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services), Fred Reed and his group were sent to Aztec, New Mexico to “clean up the crash site,” early in April of 1948. [Reed didn’t work for the O.S.S. (he worked for another clandestine organization of the military) this is an “uncorrected error” that was missed in final editing by Scott.] Shortly after they arrived, it was apparent to them that something very large had been removed from the site. Their specialty was to make an area appear as if nothing had transpired there.

Fred revisited the crash site in 1999; I was able to interview him one week later.

In 1948 they were ordered to collect any foreign items they found and then bury them eighteen inches deep; to ‘soft landscape’ any areas where heavy equipment tracks were visible and to do an extensive survey on the entire mesa. He noted a newly cut road and an out-of-place, large concrete pad in the freshly altered and siltey soil, during the cleanup. Reed recalled thinking that they must have poured it to support a heavy structure, like a crane, used to move a large object.

At the time of the cleanup, his group was informed that it was simply a crash site. The entire cleanup was done in the usual quiet manner that they were accustomed to in the O.S.S. [O.S.S. is incorrect.] Years later, one of Reed's former Senior Officers would explain to him that it was not an aircraft crash, but that of a large metallic “flying disc.”

In my interview with Reed, he commented on how the crash site today looked as they had left it when they had finished. He recalled that the tops of the trees were broken and was fascinated with how they had weathered with time.

Witness No. 3

During our research on the Aztec Incident, we came across a name in several old declassified reports. This person kept receiving all the UFO reports. We figured since this person was getting all the “good reports,” maybe he would know something about the Aztec Incident; trying to keep this article in reasonable length, I’ll skip to the details on our interview after two years of hard research in tracking him down.

When I first contacted him by phone, I explained that I was doing research on his old Air Force group and that I would love to sit and interview him. He agreed and we met at a Hotel lobby bar for a drink on a cold winter night. I brought with me most of the files that I had declassified that talked about his Intel group from back then. I wasted little time in getting to the Aztec questions. He slowly and reluctantly talked about the Aztec Crash as he called it. He admitted that he was not at the crash site, but did read daily Intel reports on the clean up and progress of the removal.

His job was to keep track of the people at the site and carefully monitor all reports. He was stationed at Walker Field (Formerly Roswell Army Air Field) in March of 1948. He explained to me that everything was very compartmentalized during the recovery operation. His job was mainly to keep Personnel files on everyone involved and make sure that the records would never show them in that part of the country. He did see black and white photos of the “extremely large craft.” He told me during our interview, that after the botched attempt at Roswell, they were getting better at their Intel.” He explained to me that the only person he ever discussed this with was his wife before she passed away. When I asked him on how the Military felt about Frank Scully’s book, he recalled that the Military was not so upset with Frank Scully, but very concerned as to “who leaked the story to Scully.”

He was very good about confirming certain details about some of my questions, but very reluctant on some items. He told me that the work force at the site consisted of about 200 persons during the two-week recovery; “that” he could easily remember, because of the huge paperwork process that he did daily. He provided some clues to the crash-site, not knowing what we had obtained so far; it was great to hear some confirmations from him.

He mentioned a small delay in the first few days of the recovery do to some problems with a fresh cut road. The soil near the crash site was very moist and sandy and created problems moving in some heavy equipment.

He told me to look for some “footers” or “ concrete foundations” that had to be poured in order for the equipment to be stable. He did not remember exactly what equipment, but when I mentioned a crane, he thought that was correct. When asked where this craft was taken, he explained that he would not have been privileged to that information. However, after the recovery he explained, he was responsible for reclaiming some of the equipment that was used. The equipment he recalled, was at Los Alamos.

Witness No. 4

Virgel Riggs was a young man in the Air Force back in the early sixties. He had just arrived at RAF Welford near Newbury, Berkshire area of England. He had been at the base one month when he met a fellow Airman named John Doe. [Name withheld by author.] Upon learning that Virgel was raised in the Four Corners area of New Mexico, John was very curious to learn if Virgel had ever heard of the “Aztec UFO story.” Virgel responded that he had heard the story growing up as a child; as time went on, and Virgel and John became close friends, John tells Virgel that the Aztec UFO story was not just an old wise tale as some thought it was. When Virgel asked John what he meant by that, John stated that “that he was part of the recovery team in the aftermath of the ‘Aztec Incident.’”

This obviously shocked Virgel but he had no reason to doubt what his good friend was telling him. A year or two, later, John was shipped off to Viet Nam, and Virgel has never seen him since. During the past year, we have been looking for John Doe. By a stroke of luck, as Virgel was going through some records that he kept, he found a copy of some orders that listed John Doe and his AF #. We are currently trying to find John Doe, as it turns out that “John” was his nick-name.

So the Aztec story goes on from here. Our research continues as we speak. I have traveled to over 28 states, interviewed 60 credible people, traveled to several archives, and spent over $ 200,000.00 of our own money!!

This article is simply an overview of some of the Aztec research that we have done in sixteen years. The research continues and will continue until we feel that we have looked at every aspect of this Historical Event. Undocumented History has and always will be our driving force in researching this event.

Peter Jennings Defrauding: Inside The ABC News UFO Documentary Hoax

A Participant In The ABC's "The UFO Phenomenon -- Seeing Is Believing" Critique's The Result

Scoop Independent News
By Steven M. Greer MD
Director, The Disclosure Project
3-28-05

Of course, the title of the show was `Peter Jennings Reporting…' – if only that were so. This is the story of how, once again, the corrupt Big Media has defrauded the American people, from one who had a front row seat to the spectacle.

In the summer of 2004, as founder and director of The Disclosure Project ( www.DisclosureProject.org) I was approached by Jennings Productions producer Jordan Kronick. He explained how ABC News was going to make history by doing a serious expose of the UFO matter – for the first time on network news.

Initially skeptical – we have seen and heard this song and dance before - I agreed to meet with Kronick at our offices in Washington DC. Over the course of several hours, we discussed the subject and how The Disclosure Project had identified several hundred top secret military and government witnesses to UFO events and projects.

Kronick expressed great interest and repeatedly stated that this is exactly what Jennings, chief producer Mark Obenhaus and he were looking for. I offered to provide, pro bono, ALL Disclosure Project digital videotape interviews and full access to ALL Disclosure Project witnesses willing to cooperate with ABC News – including those witnesses not yet taped by us.

The reader at this point needs to know that these are not fuzzy, blacked-out deep throats anonymously telling stories of the night. These are hundreds of military, government and corporate insiders who have been identified by us over the past 14 years. They range from Generals, to Astronauts, to senior FAA officials who were privy to events, projects and cover-ups involving UFOs. Additionally, we have thousands of pages of uncontested official government smoking gun documents and physical evidence, photos, videos, landing trace events and other unambiguous proof.

The ABC News production team claimed to want exactly this type evidence – and especially the high-level government and military insider whistle-blowers who could credibly blow the lid off of decades of secrecy.

As a two-hour news special, ABC claimed that they could, at long last, give the subject the focus and rigor needed to achieve this objective.

But as discussions continued, it became more and more clear that Obenhaus and Jennings really wanted to do a human interest story – including anecdotal civilian witnesses, man-in-the-street interviews and the general silly season and carnival atmosphere surrounding most things ufological.

We agreed to cooperate with the filming of a CSETI (Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research expedition to Mt. Shasta in August of 2004, at which time we were able to have discussions with Obenhaus, the senior producer in charge of the project.

We were incredulous as Obenhaus revealed to us that he was sure the matter was not really being kept secret but had just `fallen through the cracks' due to lack of follow through, laziness and so forth on the part of the government! It was clear he had not studied the data or evidence given to him, and had his mind made up to do a `light', human interest piece and not a real expose or research project.

This was later confirmed when, as summer turned to fall, the long promised serious research and interviews they claimed they wanted to do with these top-secret government witnesses were never followed up. I spoke a few more times to Kronick, who promised a sit down interview and follow- up with these high-ranking and conclusive witnesses. They never did.

Instead, the final ABC News show was weaker in evidence than most tabloid cable channel pieces on the UFO subject – with the bulk of the `documentary' being interviews with UFO personalities, debunkers and the carnival atmosphere of UFO hotspots like Roswell.

They fraudulently appeared to be ` balanced' by having both skeptics and `believers' – with the clear implication that the skeptics were `real scientists' and the `believers' were misguided flakes. Using the ruse of media `objectivity', ABC News would asymmetrically show, say, a Harvard scientist skeptic juxtaposed against an civilian who thought he had been sexually assaulted by aliens!

The few, very brief interviews with pilots and military people were overwhelmed by the spurious, carnival-like pseudo-ethnography of the UFO subculture mixed in with long segments of scientists pooh- poohing the entire matter.

While appearing objective and `balanced' to the general viewer, the project was, rather, a disinformation piece, carefully crafted to give the mere appearance of objectivity.

Otherwise, why spend so much air time interviewing UFO personalities, media figures and the like – while completely leaving out ALL high-ranking military, government and scientific witnesses and evidence given directly by us to them?

In light of the range and scope of material that we personally gave them, it is incomprehensible why ALL of it would be omitted – unless it was their intent from the beginning to do a disinformation and cover-up piece.

Why else would Peter Jennings state that the US Government has been out of the UFO matter since 1969, when Project Blue Book was closed, even though he and his team were directly given by us, official US government documents, senior government whistle-blower testimony and physical evidence – including radar tapes – to the contrary? Why would Jennings feature uninformed scientists rhetorically asking `where's the physical evidence' when abundant physical evidence is available and was offered to him?

Why indeed. We have received a CIA document from 1991 that clearly states that the CIA has contacts in the big media to change, kill or spin stories. From this document, dated 20 December 1991, and released 1 April 1992, to the Director of Central Intelligence from the Task Force on Greater CIA Openness, on page 6:

"PAO [the Public Affairs Office] now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation. This has helped us turn some intelligence failure stories into intelligence success stories…In many instances, we have persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold or even scrap stories…"

And from a CIA document regarding the psychological warfare implications of UFOs, we find a reference to Disney Studios, now the parent company of ABC, being used as a source for doing cartoon-like portrayals of the subject for psychological warfare purposes. Can we be surprised ABC News has, again, defrauded the American people – only pretending to do news and real investigative reporting when in reality they are purveying disinformation to an accepting public?

Obenhaus, without any research or foundation in fact, went so far as to personally assert to me that the hybrid government – corporate complex is not keeping new energy, propulsion and related technologies hidden from the public! His prejudice on the matter was profound and unwavering: forget the facts, my mind is made up.

It is hard to reconcile ABC News' claims to doing a serious expose and investigative report when the senior producer of the project, without any investigation or research, espouses such closed-minded conclusions at the outset.

Those who know me, know that I like to stay positive, present the affirmative facts and present the promise of an advanced, sustainable civilization on earth benefiting from the knowledge of these new technologies. But it is time for the American people to wake up to the fact that the big media and their corporate masters are the central problem blocking the truth from coming out. As a former board member of Time Warner told me, the big media has become scribes taking dictation from the right hand of the king – and the fourth estate is essentially dead.

A CALL TO ACTION

The American people must demand that ABC News correct its fraudulent assertions – and do a real investigative report on the serious evidence, government documents and courageous military whistle- blower testimony that The Disclosure Project and others have identified. The reader may obtain much of this evidence from www.DisclousreProject.org.

Write Peter Jennings at ABC News at: support@ABCNews.go.com and demand an honest investigative report.

Additionally, please contact the FCC and register your complaint regarding the transparent fraud perpetrated by ABC News on the American public. Remember: ABC News, as a broadcast network, is given by the FCC access to the public airwaves. In exchange, we have the right to hold ABC News, as well as the other networks, to fairness, accuracy and honesty -and certainly to avoid blatant fraud and corruption. This was not the ABC entertainment division that perpetrated this fraudulent report on the American people, but its news division. That they would sanitize such an important two hour report of nearly all credible evidence and government insider witnesses requires that we demand a hearing on the matter by the FCC immediately. Who induced Obenhaus and Peter Jennings to cover-up this important evidence? Why? ABC News cannot claim ignorance on the matter as they were directly given extensive testimony and evidence, none of which appeared in the program.

Contact the FCC at www.fcc.gov.cgb.complaints.html and demand an immediate investigation into this matter and demand that the FCC require ABC to retract its false statements and present the evidence which they possess but are hiding from the American public.

And lastly, support Disclosure in any way you can. Help us get the truth out. Tell people about http://www.DisclosureProject.org where they can find the truth about this important matter. And help us identify backers who will help us start a new – and honest- news outlet that will truthfully report on these and related projects that are illegally kept secret from the public. Is it not time for us to form a news network –The Disclosure Network- that will produce and air real investigative reports on a wide range of government and corporate corruption? Matters now left completely hidden by the complicity of big media need to be known by the people if we are to renew and protect democracy and disclose the technologies now hidden and suppressed that could replace oil and nuclear power and give us a sustainable, peaceful world.

We can no longer trust ABC news or the rest of the big media to do this. We, the people, must take on the task of getting the truth out – and salvaging what is left of our democracy and planet. Big media, who have become shills for their corporate masters, are incapable or unwilling to tell the truth. It is time we did it for them.

By Frank Warren
3-28-05

Friday, April 1st, 2005 will mark the “Eighth Annual UFO Symposium”; it will be held at the “Aztec Convention Center,” located at 101 S. Park - Aztec, New Mexico 87410.

This year’s event will bring back a familiar face in Dennis Balthaser; “The Truth Seeker and renowned Ufologist” from Roswell, New Mexico to be “Master of Ceremonies.”
Dennis is an independent researcher, journalist and lecturer who moved to Roswell in order to pursue his quest; Dennis' focus is the “Roswell Incident”; however, his research extends to investigations of Area 51, underground bases and ancient Egypt.

Dennis is a Certified Mutual UFO Network Field Investigator and belongs to the “Great Pyramid of Giza Research Association, as well as several other “UFO related” organizations.”

Featured speakers include:

Linda Moulten Howe
John Greenewald Jr.
Rob Swiatek
Dr. David Rudiak
Susan Swiatek
Jim Hickman
Moreen Scully
Travis Walton
Scott D Ramsey

Linda Moulton Howe has been a proponent of the “Aztec Incident” for quite some time; she’s an Emmy award winning television producer, reporter and author. She will address “UFO crash retrievals” and the government’s denial/cover-up” of the events.

John Greenwald Jr. (who I like to call “The Kid”) will also be speaking. He is the young man behind the “The Black Vault”; a web-site comprised of more then 181,000 government documents retrieved via FOIA requests. In addition his site has archived has over 10,000 news articles as well 14,000 photographs. He began his UFO trek at the age of “15!” He’s a published author, and at the ripe old age of “23,” he’s in the process of developing a series for TV. He will tackle the “government’s involvement with UFOs-past and present.”

One of the most “hair-raising, factual” accounts of “alien abduction” is that of “Travis Walton,” a former logger whose narrative begins in the mountains of northeastern Arizona back in 1975. His experience was detailed in the hit movie “Fire in The Sky,” and later a book “in his own words” of the same name. The event will be “relived” through his lecture on his experiences.

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NORAD at turning point in mission

By Pam Zubeck
The Gazette
3-28-05

Canada wants to opt out of NORAD’s Star Wars mission, which could foreshadow changes in the way the United States fights the war against terrorism.

The two nations are negotiating the first post-Sept. 11 agreement for operation of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base.

The United States wants NORAD to add monitoring of maritime and land threats to its 47-year-old mission of watching the skies and space. The U.S. also wants to add a system to shoot down enemy missiles.

Canada’s decision to opt out of the missile defense system could be a sign that other areas of cooperation are in jeopardy, some experts fear.

. . . More

La Estrella Digital (EFE, Madrid)
3-28-05

Parapsychologist Fernando Jimenez del Oso dies at age 63 at Madrid's La Princesa Hospital


Jimenez was the author of books and articles on magic, spiritism, the occult, divination, UFOs and other mysteries -- subjects that intrigued him from a young age.

Fernando Jimenez del Oso, doctor of psychiatry and parapsychologist, died yesterday at age 63, as confirmed by sources in Madrid's La Princesa Hospital. Born in Madrid in 1941, he studied medicine at Universidad Complutense, specializing in psychiatry, which he practiced for many years.

He wrote books and dozens of articles and was the editor of encyclopedias and collections such as "La Puerta del Misterio" on magic, spiritism, the occult, divination, UFOs and other mysteries which fascinated him since his youth. He established and edited a number of specialized publications, such as "Mas Allá" and also devoted himself to reporting in an infinity of radio and TV programs.

In early 1976 he took over the "Mas Allá" program and returned to television in 1982 with "La Puerta del Misterio". That very same year the series "La España Mágica" commenced, devoting 13 chapters to the subject of UFOs. He subsquently hosted the "Punto de Encuentro" shwo.

In 1989 he wrote, directed and presented two television documentaries on Mexican and Peruvian culture with the titles "El Imperio del Sol" and "El Otro Mexico".

http://einstein.stanford.edu/


Picking on Einstein

By Patrick L. Barry, Dr. Tony Phillips
Science @ NASA
3-28-05

By measuring the shape of space with exquisite precision, NASA's Gravity Probe B aims to confirm Einstein's theory of relativity ... or provide the first evidence against it.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of a revolution in our notions of space and time.

Before 1905, when Albert Einstein published his theory of special relativity, most people believed that space and time were as Sir Isaac Newton described them back in the 17th century: Space was the fixed, unchanging "stage" upon which the great cosmic drama unfolded, and time was the mysterious, universal "clock in the sky."

Even today, people commonly assume that this intuitive sense of space and time is correct. It's not.

Einstein's 1905 paper, along with another one he published in 1915, painted an entirely different and mind-bending picture. Space itself is constantly being warped and curved by the matter and energy moving within it, and time flows at different rates for different observers. Numerous real-world experiments over the last 100 years indicate that, amazingly, Einstein was right.

. . . More

Deep impact spacecraft to 'meet' comet on July 4: NASA

By Peter Goodyear
EarthTimes.org
3-27-05

NASA today confirmed that its Boulder-built Deep Impact spacecraft would keep its July 4 date with comet Tempel 1. However, officials are trying to determine why one of the cameras on the craft got blurred.

NASA said that the High Resolution Instrument had got some moisture on it during the time it was waiting for the Jan 12 launch. Engineers have tried to bake-out the moisture but the focus is still not picture perfect.

Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said, "This in no way will affect our ability to impact the comet on July 4. Everyone on the science and engineering teams is getting very excited and looking forward to the encounter."

He added the all other instruments on Deep Impact are in excellent condition. The sensors and other gadgets on the craft are expected to collect data on the material that is hurled out of the comet after the collision.

The July 4 mission has been undertaken to probe the origins of solar system. The spacecraft is expected to crash into the comet at a speed of 23,000 mph. The Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes will observe the effect of the collision.

This mission will be the first one to get a detailed view of the inside of a comet.

'The Phoenix Lights' shine again in film

Diana Balazs
The Arizona Republic
3-25-05

SCOTTSDALE - Dr. Lynne Kitei was perfectly happy being a family physician and health educator before she reluctantly came forward to tell the world about her experiences with unexplained phenomena.

She and her husband, Frank, also a family physician, had seen strange lights more than two years before the 1997 "Phoenix Lights" event.

"As a physician, I went through a lot of years trying to let this sink in. I was resistant to it, too, because I am a scientist," she said.

Kitei said she hopes her documentary, The Phoenix Lights, touches people and educates them.

"Something is out there. I don't know what these things are. I just know that they are," she said.

The documentary has sparked renewed debate over what Arizonans saw eight years ago. Was it flares? An airplane formation? Top-secret military craft? UFOs?

. . . More

Highways West
3-24-05

Just north of the almost-Ghost Town of Hooper in Colorado's beautiful and weird San Luis Valley, there's a truly oddball roadside attraction known as the UFO Watchtower. Local rancher Judy Messoline opened the elevated viewing platform (and the required gift shop full of Flying Saucer trinkets & gewgaws) to capitalize on the valley's long history of bizarre aerial phenomena and the wave of UFO-conspiracy teevee shows in the 1990s.

Visitors know they're getting close when they see the 3-foot tall plywood aliens along the roadside. But the humorless anti-American drones of the Colorado Department of Transportation, otherwise known as CDOT, have decided the colorful little critters must go:

Nancy Shanks, a CDOT spokeswoman, said the state recognizes the need for directional signs for tourism. Blue signs with white lettering are available for that purpose.

"The state law mirrors the national law on roadside beautification. These laws on roadside advertising are in place for very specific reasons, from highway safety, uniformity, maintenance and highway beautification," Shanks said.

She said the Department of Transportation is making a special effort to remove illegal signs in southwest Colorado, where a new employee is taking a fresh look at the violations.

In Messoline's case, the alien signs are on her property. She owns a section of land that is split by Colorado 17. The business is on the west; the signs are on the east. They are therefore illegal because they are not contiguous to the business.

An 8-foot alien on the west side of the road is allowed because it's next to the business.

"I feel it is harassment. I honestly feel it's harassment," Messoline said. "What they want us to do is buy the CDOT signs, the little blue signs with the arrow. Well, you can't even read them. They're $250 a year per sign."

That's right, the signs in question are on the lady's own property.

The UFO Watchtower isn't the only tourist attraction in the area that will suffer from CDOT's zealous attempts to rid the area of its local charm and local businesses:
Jay Young, owner of the Colorado Alligator Farm, also on Colorado 17, estimates that 50 percent of visitors drop by because they have seen one of the attractions' signs on private property.

"Our livelihood comes from those signs. Realistically, we can't survive without those signs," Young said.

"I feel that it's encroaching on our freedom, our freedom of speech as well as our right to promote our tourist-oriented business," he says. "It's going to be hard for us to deal with."

Even if the petty bureaucrats win this alien war, the tower will remain ... and you can rest assured that Messoline's UFO viewing platform will continue to be surrounded by myriad representations of the standard big-headed big-eyed alien in various shades of green and gray.

The UFO Watchtower is 2.5 miles north of Hooper on Colorado Highway 17. There are "primitive campsites" available, and summer usually sees some sort of crazy festival or another.

If the Watchtower's not enough to bring you to the San Luis Valley — the largest alpine valley in the world — how about the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve, the Nature Conservancy's majestic Medano-Zapata Ranch, the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railway (the longest narrow gauge railroad in North America) and the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan mountain ranges?

Those interested in the paranormal will find much to see, too. Start by reading this two-part article from 1996, "The Mysterious San Luis Valley."

If someone told you there was a single geographic region with indigenous legends telling of doorways used by star people piloting flying seed-pods, hundreds of UFO sightings, the first publicized unusual animal death case, waves of cattle mutilations, bigfoot encounters, alien abductions, rumors of secret underground bases and the world's most unusual sand-dune desert, would you believe them? And if they told you a large phantom fire was recently reported in this area to local sheriffs by NORAD during a (still continuing) "UFO sighting flap," or that it was a place where various localized spook lights lurk up the road from towns where a legendary devil makes occasional appearances, all within sight of privately owned 14,000-foot mountains, would you believe such a place existed?

Welcome to south-central Colorado and north-central New Mexico's San Luis Valley.

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Life may bloom in depths of Europa's ocean

By John Nance
Ozark Skies
3-24-05

Jupiter will rise at 7:14 this evening about six degrees south of due east. Although the eastern sky will be dominated by the full moon, Jupiter will be its second brightest object, much brighter than anything else nearby.

Look at Jupiter with a small telescope or good binoculars anytime before 10:48 p.m. and you will see all four of the moons discovered by Galileo in 1610. Europa will be about three Jupiter diameters above and to the right of the planet.

In one version of classical myth, Europa was the daughter of Aegenor, king of Phoenicia. Zeus, who had an eye for young women, was attracted by her beauty. Taking the form of a white bull, he abducted her and carried her away from Phoenicia to Crete. Minos, one of the three sons she bore him there, later became the island's king.

Europa is slightly smaller than our moon and nearly twice as far from Jupiter as our moon is from Earth. Europa orbits the giant planet once every 85 hours.

Like nearby Io, Europa's interior appears to be mostly silicate rock, but it probably lacks the iron core responsible for Io's significant magnetic field. Before the 1979 Voyager flyby, terrestrial telescopes had shown that Europa's surface was covered mostly with water ice.

Astronomers were nevertheless surprised by the Voyager photographs of Europa's face. This moon of Jupiter turns out to have the solar system's flattest surface, with features that appear strikingly similar to those of the pack ice covering Earth's Arctic Ocean. Moreover, instruments carried by the Galileo spacecraft detected weak and variable magnetic fields around Europa, fields of the type that might be generated by electric currents flowing through salty water.

It turns out that everything we have so far seen or measured on Europa is consistent with the existence of a relatively warm and salty subsurface ocean of liquid water, perhaps 50 to 100 miles deep, lying at most a few miles beneath its icy crust. It is this ocean's surprising presence that makes Europa rival the planet Mars as a possible haven for extraterrestrial life.

But getting down there to look for it is not going to be easy.

Jon Nance is a professor emeritus at Southwest Missouri State University.

Mystery minerals formed in fireball from colliding asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs

Physorg.com
3-23-05

Scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago have explained how a globe-encircling residue formed in the aftermath of the asteroid impact that triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs. The study, which will be published in the April issue of the journal Geology, draws the most detailed picture yet of the complicated chemistry of the fireball produced in the impact.

The residue consists of sand-sized droplets of hot liquid that condensed from the vapor cloud produced by an impacting asteroid 65 million years ago. Scientists have proposed three different origins for these droplets, which scientists call "spherules." Some researchers have theorized that atmospheric friction melted the droplets off the asteroid as it approached Earth's surface. Still others suggested that the droplets splashed out of the Chicxulub impact crater off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula following the asteroid's collision with Earth.

But analyses conducted by Denton Ebel, Assistant Curator of Meteorites at the American Museum of Natural History, and Lawrence Grossman, Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, provide new evidence for the third proposal. According to their research, the droplets must have condensed from the cooling vapor cloud that girdled the Earth following the impact.

Ebel and Grossman base their conclusions on a study of spinel, a mineral rich in magnesium, iron and nickel contained within the droplets.

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Sign rule means 2 roadside aliens may not be long for this world

By Erin Emery
Staff Writer
Denverpost
3-23-05

The Colorado Department of Transportation plans to seize Judy Messoline's aliens, a move she believes is an invasion of intergalactic proportions.

Messoline's aliens are red, made of plywood and stand 3 feet tall. The signs point tourists to the UFO Watchtower, her business along Colorado 17 north of Alamosa where tourists watch for UFOs in an area noted for such sightings.

CDOT says Messoline's signs are illegal.

This month, the department sent letters notifying property owners that signs advertising businesses are illegal if located within 660 feet of a highway right of way and not on the businesses' properties.

Now she has to take the signs down within 60 days.

"That's going to hit right at our tourist season," Messoline said. "If we don't have those signs up, the tourist traffic is going to go right on by. To take away our directional signs is going to kill us."

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Science @ NASA
By Dr. Tony Phillips
3-23-05

One hundred years ago, Albert Einstein revolutionized physics.

March 23, 2005: Albert Einstein was exhausted. For the third night in a row, his baby son Hans, crying, kept the household awake until dawn. When Albert finally dozed off … it was time to get up and go to work. He couldn't skip a day. He needed the job to support his young family.

Walking briskly to the Patent Office where he was a "Technical Expert, Third Class," Albert worried about his parents. They were getting older and frail, and his relations with them were strained: they didn't approve of his marriage to Mileva.... Albert glanced at a passing shop window. His hair was a mess; he had forgotten to comb it again.

Work. Family. Making ends meet. Albert felt all the pressure and responsibility of any young husband and father.

To relax, he revolutionized physics.

In 1905, at the age of 26 and four years before he was able to get a job as a professor of physics, Einstein published five of the most important papers in the history of science--all written in his "spare time." He proved that atoms and molecules existed. Before 1905, scientists weren't sure about that. He argued that light came in little bits (later called "photons") and thus laid the foundation for quantum mechanics. He described his theory of special relativity: space and time were threads in a common fabric, he proposed, which could be bent, stretched and twisted.

Oh, and by the way, E=mc2.

Before Einstein, the last scientist who had such a creative outburst was Sir Isaac Newton. It happened in 1666 when Newton secluded himself at his mother's farm to avoid an outbreak of plague at Cambridge. With nothing better to do, he developed his Theory of Universal Gravitation.

For centuries historians called 1666 Newton's annus mirabilis, or "miracle year." Now those words have a different meaning: Einstein and 1905. The United Nations has declared 2005 "The World Year of Physics" to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Einstein's annus mirabilis. (Nobel prize winners and other top scientists will meet with the public next month to discuss Einstein's work. Would you like to join them?)

Modern pop culture paints Einstein as a bushy-haired superthinker. His ideas, we're told, were improbably far ahead of other scientists. He must have come from some other planet--maybe the same one Newton grew up on.

"Einstein was no space alien," laughs Harvard University physicist and science historian Peter Galison. "He was a man of his time." All of his 1905 papers unraveled problems being worked on, with mixed success, by other scientists. "If Einstein hadn't been born, [those papers] would have been written in some form, eventually, by others," Galison believes.

What's remarkable about 1905 is that a single person authored all five papers, plus the original, irreverent way Einstein came to his conclusions.

For example: the photoelectric effect. This was a puzzle in the early 1900s. When light hits a metal, like zinc, electrons fly off. This can happen only if light comes in little packets concentrated enough to knock an electron loose. A spread-out wave wouldn't do the photoelectric trick.

The solution seems simple--light is particulate. Indeed, this is the solution Einstein proposed in 1905 and won the Nobel Prize for in 1921. Other physicists like Max Planck (working on a related problem: blackbody radiation), more senior and experienced than Einstein, were closing in on the answer, but Einstein got there first. Why?

It's a question of authority.

"In Einstein's day, if you tried to say that light was made of particles, you found yourself disagreeing with physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Nobody wanted to do that," says Galison. Maxwell's equations were enormously successful, unifying the physics of electricity, magnetism and optics. Maxwell had proved beyond any doubt that light was an electromagnetic wave. Maxwell was an Authority Figure.

Einstein didn't give a fig for authority. He didn't resist being told what to do, not so much, but he hated being told what was true. Even as a child he was constantly doubting and questioning. "Your mere presence here undermines the class's respect for me," spat his 7th grade teacher, Dr. Joseph Degenhart. (Degenhart also predicted that Einstein "would never get anywhere in life.") This character flaw was to be a key ingredient in Einstein's discoveries.

"In 1905," notes Galison, "Einstein had just received his Ph.D. He wasn't beholden to a thesis advisor or any other authority figure." His mind was free to roam accordingly.

In retrospect, Maxwell was right. Light is a wave. But Einstein was right, too. Light is a particle. This bizarre duality baffles Physics 101 students today just as it baffled Einstein in 1905. How can light be both? Einstein had no idea.

That didn't slow him down. Disdaining caution, Einstein adopted the intuitive leap as a basic tool. "I believe in intuition and inspiration," he wrote in 1931. "At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason."

Although Einstein's five papers were published in a single year, he had been thinking about physics, deeply, since childhood. "Science was dinner-table conversation in the Einstein household," explains Galison. Albert's father Hermann and uncle Jakob ran a German company making such things as dynamos, arc lamps, light bulbs and telephones. This was high-tech at the turn of the century, "like a Silicon Valley company would be today," notes Galison. "Albert's interest in science and technology came naturally."

Einstein's parents sometimes took Albert to parties. No babysitter was required: Albert sat on the couch, totally absorbed, quietly doing math problems while others danced around him. Pencil and paper were Albert's GameBoy!

He had impressive powers of concentration. Einstein's sister, Maja, recalled "...even when there was a lot of noise, he could lie down on the sofa, pick up a pen and paper, precariously balance an inkwell on the backrest and engross himself in a problem so much that the background noise stimulated rather than disturbed him."

Einstein was clearly intelligent, but not outlandishly more so than his peers. "I have no special talents," he claimed, "I am only passionately curious." And again: "The contrast between the popular assessment of my powers ... and the reality is simply grotesque." Einstein credited his discoveries to imagination and pesky questioning more so than orthodox intelligence.

Later in life, it should be remembered, he struggled mightily to produce a unified field theory, combining gravity with other forces of nature. He failed. Einstein's brainpower was not limitless.

Neither was Einstein's brain. It was removed without permission by Dr. Thomas Harvey in 1955 when Einstein died. He probably expected to find something extraordinary: Einstein's mother Pauline had famously worried that baby Einstein's head was lopsided. (Einstein's grandmother had a different concern: "Much too fat!") But Einstein's brain looked much like any other, gray, crinkly, and, if anything, a trifle smaller than average.

Detailed studies of Einstein's brain are few and recent. In 1985, for instance, Prof. Marian Diamond of UC Berkeley reported an above-average number of glial cells (which nourish neurons) in areas of the left hemisphere thought to control math skills. In 1999, neuroscientist Sandra Witelson reported that Einstein's inferior parietal lobe, an area related to mathematical reasoning, was 15% wider than normal. Furthermore, she found, the Slyvian fissure, a groove that normally extends from the front of the brain to the back, did not go all the way in Einstein's case. Might this have allowed greater connectivity among different parts of Einstein's brain?

No one knows.

Not knowing. It makes some researchers feel uncomfortable. It exhilarated Einstein: "The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious," he said. "It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."

It's the fundamental emotion that Einstein felt, walking to work, awake with the baby, sitting at the dinner table. Wonder beat exhaustion, every day.