HAVERING'S "X-Files" have been released by the Ministry of Defence this month.
Information containing four years' worth of reported sightings of UFOs in the borough's night skies were made public on February 16 - they reveal two reports in Hornchurch and Romford last year, and a third sighting, in Hornchurch, back in 2002.
According to the log, released after a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the sighting on September 20, 2005, at 8.39pm, reads: "Four orange lights above the witnesses' house."
The log for September 05, 2005, at 9pm, simply says "A UFO."
But the earliest recorded local sighting in the four years dates back to March 7, 2002, in Hornchurch, and is painstakingly detailed: "Two semi-circular elliptical shapes dully illuminated yellow and white. There was a faint murmur."
The log also shows that nearby Loughton has had the most recorded UFO sightings, with six reported over the four years.
Last year's Havering sightings are most likely to be linked to those the Recorder reported in September - eight separate reports of lights in the sky over August and September were made to our newspaper from Elm Park, Hornchurch, Romford and Harold Hill residents.
But these were later found to most likely be floating lanterns released by a company in Stapleford Abbotts called Sky Lanterns.
Owner Barry Grant explained he imported the lanterns from Indonesia, where they were often released during festivals, and he had been experimenting with them over the summer.
However, the 2002 sighting remains unexplained. An Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "The MOD, through the Royal Air Force, has to be satisfied that unidentified flying objects are not a threat to the UK within UK airspace.
"Beyond that, the MOD does not comment on the nuances of UFOs or purported sightings as, clearly, this would be quite an extensive commentary and a bad use of tax payers' money.
(CBS 11 News) AURORA, TX Area 51 and Roswell, New Mexico have become a part of American folklore, but some believe an alien visitor was found in Texas first, in the city of Aurora, just up the road from Fort Worth.
UFO investigator Jim Marrs said, “A silver cigar-shaped object came down low to the ground in Aurora, north of Fort Worth, and struck a tower, wooden tower, derrick, windmill.”
Aurora’s Mayor Barbara Brammer continued, “The ship hit the tower for the well, exploded, burned.”
Marrs explained, “The remains of the pilot were recovered and he was not an inhabitant of this world.”
They believed the pilot was an alien.
Brammer said, “They took the remains of this down to the Aurora cemetery and buried it, gave it a Christian burial.”
Newspapers in both Dallas and Fort Worth reported the amazing event. In fact, an entire page of the April 19, 1897 edition of the Dallas Morning News is filled with reports of the great aerial wanderer. Either people all are joining in a prank, or something was in the skies over Texas and southern Oklahoma.
“Some people think that the guy in Dallas that wrote this article made this up to get some publicity about Aurora again, to get people coming back in,” said Brammer.
But Marrs retorts, “Every single one of the stories concerns the silver cigar-shaped object flying around the skies of Texas and Oklahoma in the spring of 1897, six years before the Wright brothers flew.”
The burial site became the focus of UFO researchers in the ‘70s. There was a tombstone, with a marking that appeared to be half of a saucer, or the cigar-shaped object.
Researchers ran metal detectors over the site where the ship was said to crash. Some say the grass hasn’t grown there since. In a nearby shed, there’s a well where wreckage, small bits of metal, was reportedly thrown.
But in 1973, the tombstone and the metal in the ground disappeared.
“We don’t know,” said Brammer. “It just came up missing. Somebody had removed it. We don’t know who.”
The owners of the well have cemented it shut. They, like other people in Aurora, are tired of the story, but it lives on nonetheless.
A state historical marker at the cemetery recounts the legend of the alien pilot who crashed, died and was buried.
“As far as me believing it, I really don’t know,” says Brammer. “I believe it was a legend and that’s as far as I can go.”
Marrs believes. “I think this should show any reasonable person that there are things, and they’re not us, and they’re flying around in the atmosphere.”
‘Project SERPO’ Story Gets More Credible? Alleged Insider Accounts Revealed
By Steve Hammons American Chronicle 2-17-06
New information has been presented that gives people interested in the story of “Project SERPO” more to consider and evaluate.
In recent days, people involved in the Web site serpo.org have posted previously undisclosed alleged accounts from former military and other officials who were reportedly directly involved in some capacity with Project SERPO-related activities.
Project SERPO is the alleged exchange program between astronaut-trained American military personnel and friendly visitors from a planet in the Zeta Reticuli star system in the 1960s and 70s.
Lovekin's Military Credentials in Question - No Longer! - Part Four -
By Frank Warren 2-27-06
The attraction to Stephen Lovekin as a possible "insider witness" to a UFO/ET event involving a President and or the White House etc., is most certainly "enhanced" by being "packaged" as a "high ranking military official." What is on the table (at present) is a declaration from an individual, an anecdote if you will. In a court of law, it would be considered "eye witness testimony."
Obviously, the "character" of the witness can add or take away from the "credibility" of a respective account. Certainly, it is far more "impressive" and more apt to be believed coming from a "Brigadier General" then a layperson etc. Sagan said, (and what I have come to call "Sagan's Law") "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Kevin Randle wrote in part:
"This is important stuff, if it could be confirmed. A general officer, one who had once held the ear of the president and who could report on the president’s interest in UFOs, would make an impressive witness, especially if he could talk of a UFO crash and recovered debris. It should be relatively simple to verify Lovekin’s credentials as a general."
In that vein IMHO Kevin proceeded with some investigative research to vet the witness using his skills as a researcher along with his own personal experience in the military; he posted his progress on his respective Blog; personally, I didn't take his expose as slander or being libelous, and most importantly definitive. I believe it's important to note that people have come forward in the past, that at the present time seemed very "credible" that later proved to be otherwise, and Kevin Randle has has had direct involvement/experience in these matters, henceforth his "righteous skepticism" is warranted.
Now all that said, what are we left with? In my view, having done some of my own research into Lovekin, with the exception of what was recently submitted to Greer for publication (in regards to Lovekin's military background) it is "unclear" what originated "from him." Most importantly is there anything to date, that "negatively" affects the "character" of the man making the claim? I think not! His credentials, and the question of his "Brigadier General" status are to be commended whether they're "regular military" or some sort of state militia. The "key point" from my perspective is "his tenure at WHASA," which he has provided documents in support thereof.
I have located "other members" of WHASA, and the common theme amongst them, is that they were "culled" from various "military schools" (at a very young age); they were vetted by the FBI; they were trained by the NSA; they held "top secret clearances; "rank was a non-issue," and they wore civvies; they worked with the Secret Service, and in close proximity to the President; they provided "crypto secure communications" and went everywhere it was needed, e.g., the White House basement, Camp David, Mt Weather etc.
Unfortunately, and is often the case, we "UFO folks" get into these "pissing matches" and that becomes the focus, rather then the important research that needs to be taken to task.
Might I suggest we take Kevin at his word, that he meant no malice towards Lovekin and get on with the "research of the evidence," i.e., a "credible witness" with a "incredible disclosure."
Author who believes aliens built pyramids always draws a crowd
By Lysann Heller The Budapest Times 2-27-06
Erich von Däniken has been causing controversy with his theses, books and television programmes about “prehistoric astronauts” for almost 40 years. Although mocked by serious scholars, his lectures are well attended and his books are sold around the world. Last Wednesday von Däniken familiarised an audience at the Budapest Congress Center with the “mysteries of the past.”
No, he still has not seen a UFO and not met any extraterrestrials, the 70-year old said, and he is still struggling to have his theories accepted. “I still have the feeling that when I turn up, people always scram,” he said.
However, von Däniken is undeterred and still spreads his theory that extraterrestrials were present on the earth thousands of years ago and were behind the construction of prominent buildings such as the pyramids of Giza, the stone statues on Easter Island and Stonehenge.
Von Däniken first began to develop his theories at a Jesuit school, when he realised “the God of the Bible” didn’t tie up with “god of my imagination.” He began to doubt Catholic belief and started to get interested in other religions.
“Many stories were repeated and so I gradually came to the explanation that the gods mentioned were in reality extraterrestrials.”
In order to prove his theses about prehistoric astronaut landings and lost civilisation, he undertook expensive world travel, which got him into financial troubles. He has yet to find objective proof but claims to have come across “chains of evidence for it,” and compared the situation to a murder case without a body.
He achieved world fame with his first book Chariots of the Gods, which was published in 1968 after being rejected twenty times. It became a film the following year. Von Däniken has written 29 books, which have been translated into 32 languages.
His theory is always questioned in scientific circles but that does not bother him. “My theory is not on a scientific level, but all sciences started that way. After all, before Darwin there was no anthropology,” he said.
Despite the criticism, he is convinced his theories will be taught in schools in “ten years at the latest.”
To find out more about his theories, visit www.evdaniken.com.
"On Aug. 7, 1996, . . . Researchers Announced That a Craggy Lump of Rock Teemed With Evidence of Ancient Martian Life"
It Came From Outer Space
Reviewed by Charles Seife The Washington Post 2-26-06
On Aug. 7, 1996, the war of the worlds began in earnest. At a press conference in NASA's Washington, D.C., headquarters, researchers announced that a craggy lump of rock teemed with evidence of ancient Martian life. If true, E.T. had been found.
Even if E.T. were friendly, the scientific atmosphere surrounding the discovery of the rock certainly wasn't. However, it seems that E.T. wasn't friendly. The Mars meteorite press conference sparked a vicious clash between two increasingly entrenched scientific camps. Critics immediately started discrediting the research, and the opposing groups battled for years about the true meaning of the extraterrestrial rock. Nearly a decade later, the wounds haven't healed. The fights were brutal because the stakes were so high.
Kathy Sawyer, who covered outer space for the Washington Post for 17 years, adeptly tells the saga in The Rock From Mars . However, the subtitle of her book is somewhat misleading; the story is more "Rashomon" than The Hound of the Baskervilles . There's no "Aha!" moment, no final answer to a burning mystery, no way to know definitively who's right and who's wrong. Good scientists and good journalists have looked at the same data and the same evidence and come to very different conclusions about whether or not the rock once harbored alien life.
This much is not in dispute: The rock is from Mars. It crashed down on the Antarctic ice about 13,000 years ago. The inside of the meteorite is dotted with fascinating, carbon-rich orange and black blobs. Upon closer inspection, the rock also contains little grains of iron-based material very similar to those found in some kinds of microbes. And it is full of wiener-like shapes that look like earthly bacteria, only smaller. NASA had found microscopic space sausages.
NASA geologist David McKay and his team of researchers took this data as substantial evidence that the rock was once teeming with Martian bacteria. Sawyer's book shines when she describes the team's intellectual struggles; she lovingly takes us into the scientists' laboratories and shows us how they finally reached their jaw-dropping conclusion. Sawyer then shepherds us from the intellectual leap to the political kerfuffle. Once McKay's group decided that they had evidence for ancient life on Mars, events quickly spun out of control. The scientific hypothesis began to take on greater and greater significance as it passed from the researchers to their superiors to NASA administrator Daniel Goldin -- who used the meteorite as a lever to give the struggling NASA a new mission -- and eventually to the White House.
However, the tale isn't all rosy. NASA's handling of the press conference alienated a number of scientists who felt that the researchers were being irresponsible with their claim of extraterrestrial life. In the following months and years, critics tore into the McKay team's conclusion and accused NASA of hyping the research. As the case for life in the Mars rock got fuzzier and fuzzier, the debate slowly sank away from the public gaze and away from the mainstream of scientific discourse.
Sawyer tells the story well, though her sympathetic portraits of NASA scientists and managers rely heavily on their points of view. This causes some problems with balance. From NASA's perspective, criticism of its work might well seem to be "belligerencies" or attacks laced with "sheer personal vitriol," as Sawyer describes them, but to scientists on the other side of the issue, their comments were justified scientific criticism of a high-profile study. Sawyer's prose tends to bolster one side and undermine the other, occasionally even bordering on ad hominem. For example, anti-Mars-life scientists are painted as needlessly pugnacious: one "antagonist" is "fonder of confrontation than most" while another "did not suffer criticism lightly."
It's excusable for a journalist to pick sides in a fight she's studied for so long. Less acceptable, though, is that Sawyer occasionally uses rhetoric to obscure opposing arguments rather than to elucidate them. In the 1990s, she writes, NASA began to present its best science results with "a series of news updates that included video and graphics, dissenting points of view, context, and a tilt toward English over jargon. The perceived success of this approach in attracting media coverage fed a current of indignation among those who considered such efforts unseemly."
This is unfair. Clarity and evenhandedness didn't infuriate NASA critics. The nay-sayers were angry because they thought that NASA's PR machine tended to hype scientific findings beyond reason when political stakes were high -- or, worse yet, that NASA tarted up subpar research and presented it to the public as first-rate science in order to justify otherwise unjustifiable spending. John Glenn's shuttle flight and the "world-class" laboratory work of the International Space Station are arguably prime examples. To some, so is the Mars meteorite.
NASA is in the midst, once more, of cost overruns and budget crises, and is desperately trying to redefine itself. As the agency presents fascinating news from Mars, Saturn and elsewhere in the universe, seeing how it gets its hands dirty politicizing science would provide an interesting counterweight. Even though this might disappoint some die-hard NASA fans, it would be worth seeing how space sausages are made.
Feb. 24, 2006—Specks of comet dust carried to Earth inside a NASA science probe show tantalizing hints of organic compounds, bolstering suspicions that comets delivered key ingredients for the development of life on Earth.
Analysis of the samples brought back last month aboard the Stardust capsule is in the very early stages, but lead scientist Donald Brownlee said this week that he is encouraged by what researchers have found so far.
"We're seeing a variety of things that we know absolutely come from a comet," Brownlee, an astronomer with the University of Washington, said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Though analysis has just begun, the samples so far have revealed iron, sulfides, glassy materials and traces of olivine.
The samples are from Comet Wild-2, which flew just 149 miles (240 kilometers) past the Stardust spacecraft on Jan. 2, 2004.
During the encounter, the spacecraft extended a collection tray filled with 132 tiles of lightweight, heat-resistant gel that captured individual particles streaming off the comet's body.
As they bored into the gel, the particles created carrot-shaped trails, many of which were visible to the naked eye when scientists opened the canister upon its return to Earth a year later.
"When you have the samples in hand, it's a whole different universe," Brownlee said.
Early indications show Stardust collected at least 2,300 comet particles measuring 15 micrometers — one-third the diameter of a human hair — or larger, according to University of Chicago researchers who built one of the spacecraft science instruments.
Scientists are particularly keen to learn if any of the comet samples contain traces of matter from the original dust cloud that provided the raw materials for the creation of the solar system some 4.8 billion years ago.
Comets are believed to be relatively unchanged since their formation because they primarily dwell far from the sun's heat in a perpetual deep-freeze beyond Neptune's orbit.
After dropping off its return capsule for a parachute landing on Earth, the Stardust spacecraft was placed into a solar orbit while NASA weighs options for a second comet encounter. No more samples can be returned, but the probe has cameras and other instruments for close-up studies.
The first scientific results from the Stardust mission are expected to be released next month.
Lovekin's Military Credentials in Question - No Longer! - Part Three -
By Frank Warren 2-23-06
With the recent publication of the Lovekin documents the vested parties have offered their respective proclamations; the most recent is that of Dr. Michael Salla an outspoken proponent of Exopolitics. He writes:
In his recent article, "The Enablers of Secrecy," Dr Steven Greer has supplied a number of documents in response to Major Kevin Randle's speculations and conclusions regarding the military service and rank of Brigadier General Stephen Lovekin. Major Randle's article is at:
With regard to Lovekin's rank as a Brigadier General, Major Randle offered the following speculation as to the official status of this rank:
"These state guards have been pulled together in an unofficial national organization of state militia. Lovekin might hold his brigadier general commission in just such an organization. It might suggest his claim to be a brigadier general, while unofficial and not recognized by either the Army or the North Carolina National Guard would allow him to claim the rank. This is all speculation on my part."
In the documents offered by Stephen Greer, one is a duty roster for the North Carolina State Guard which lists Stephen Lovekin as a Brigadier General.
As to the official status of the NCSG, this is what their website declares:
The SGAUS is the national association for the organized state militia, often known as State Defense Force, State Guard, or State Military Reserve. These state military forces are the official "well regulated" Militia of their respective states. The SGAUS does not support private groups who may call themselves "militia," but who are not officially recognized, unless the group is bona fide and seeking such official state recognition. These state military forces are in addition to and separate from the National Guard of the respective states, although both organizations are under the command of the Governor and are assigned to the state's Adjutant General or Military Department. www.ncstateguard.org
Consequently, the rank of Brigadier General assigned to Stephen Lovekin is officially recognized by the Governor of North Carolina andofficially is part of that state's Military Department. So Major Randle was incorrect in his speculation regarding the 'unofficial status' of the State Guard that Stephen Lovekin attained his rank.
This documentary evidence proves that Stephen Lovekin has an official status as a Brigadier General in an official military organization recognized by the State of North Carolina.
Another error in Kevin Randle's article concerns Stephen Lovekin's service in the White House where he speculates:
"Then there was the claim by Lovekin that he worked in the Eisenhower White House. Well, if Stephen L. Lovekin and the attorney in North Carolina are the same man, this makes little sense. According to the information Stephen L. Lovekin, the attorney, was born in August 1940.
His biography at the law firm web site does not mention any military service, nor does it suggest that he was ever a brigadier general. That in and of itself seems strange. To further complicate the matter, if these are the same men, then Lovekin was 18 when he worked in the Eisenhower White House. While it is not unheard of for a teenager to be an Army officer (I was a warrant officer at 19), it is extremely unlikely that someone of that age to be assigned to the White House. Those postings are normally reserved for more experienced soldiers."
Again, documentary evidence supplied Dr Greer proves that General Lovekin did serve in the White Housel Signals Agency as he claimed:
www.disclosureproject.org Again, Major Randle is incorrect in his speculations regarding General Lovekin. Finally, we have the final conclusion from Maj Randle regarding the claims of Brig General Lovekin:
"This all suggests to me that the "whistle blower" testimony offered by Stephen L. Lovekin is of little use in developing any policies related to UFOs or extraterrestrial visitation. There is no corroboration of his many claims of military service as a high-ranking officer, no verification of his positions in the White House and little reason to believe he was witness to the things he claims. Like so many of the other whistle blowers, he should be removed from our lists."
Documentary evidence has now emerged that Maj Randle was wrong both in a number of speculations he offered concerning Brig General Lovekin, and dramatically wrong in the conclusion he offered. His advise to remove the testimony of Gen Lovekin from the lists of serious UFO researchers amounts to a character assassination against a man who has served with distinction both in the US Army and the State of North Carolina. It would be appropriate for Maj Randle to publicly apologize for his unjust dismissal and criticisms of the claims offered by Brig General Stephen Lovekin regarding both his military service and UFOs/extraterrestrial visitation.
Aloha,
Michael Salla, PhD www.exopolitics.org
[It is understood that Stephen Lovekin has been experiencing serious health problems--we wish him a full and speedy recovery]
Lovekin's Military Credentials in Question - No Longer! - Part Two -
By Frank Warren 2-23-06
Yesterday Steven Greer wrote a "stinging missive" in partial rebuttal to Kevin Randle's piece on Stephen Lovekin, a labeled "whistleblower" by Greer and his "Disclosure Project." He wrote:
THE ENABLERS OF SECRECY
For over a decade, The Disclosure Project and CSETI have worked to identify reliable government and military witnesses to secret UFO/ET-related events and projects.
Without an office, staff or significant budget, we have identified hundreds of such whistle-blowers, who have come forward heroically and without compensation so that you, the public, may know the truth. It has been a costly and all-consuming effort to unravel the biggest secret in modern history, so that our civilization may reclaim its future and attain sustainability.
Alas, a steady drum-beat of slander, libel, defamation of character, and ad hominem attacks have continued to occur from certain quarters. For the most part, we have chosen to ignore such attacks, since generally they arise from either sour-grapes and jealous elements of the so-called UFO subculture or from paid disinformation hacks. We prefer to focus on constructive change and doing the real work of Disclosure.
But it must be acknowledged that, left unaddressed, at times such attacks create a dynamic where secrecy is enabled and perpetuated. For if we, as a community, cannot defend these brave and heroic whistle-blowers, who will? And left undefended, a dynamic will evolve where a wet-blanket will be thrown on the willingness for these already-reluctant (and often threatened) witnesses to come forward.
Many of you have read the recent attacks and defamation of a courageous Disclosure Project Witness, Brigadier (Brig.) General Stephen Lovekin, Esq., by one Kevin Randle.
Randle claims Brig. General Lovekin is not a Brigadier General and suggests he has falsified or concocted his credentials. Nothing could be further from the truth. See www.DisclosureProject.org for a file of documents that establish Brig. General Lovekin's time in the White House as well as his status as a BG (Brig. General).
That Randle could not, with whatever investigative competence he may or may not possess, show that this fine and heroic witness was a Brig. General is not reason for his public defamation of this man.
While Brig. General Lovekin was hospitalized, literally fighting for his life, Randle has engaged in casting aspersions on his credibility, and by extension, on The Disclosure Project. Prior to publishing these baseless accusations, Randle never contacted me or Brig. General Lovekin to ascertain the facts of the matter.
This is typical of the so-called investigators within the hobbyist UFO subculture, who arrogate to themselves the role of police, judge and jury about such matters - all the while failing to engage in a modicum of due diligence or care.
Would it really have been so difficult to ask Brig. General Lovekin for documentation of his status? He is a well-regarded attorney in NC with a public listing. Instead, Randle chose to publish his libelous claims and besmirch a fine man's reputation.
Such events have happened throughout the history of UFO secrecy. Good and sincere people come forward, to disclose the truth or change the status quo, only to have countless rabid wolves set upon them, slandering them and defaming their reputations.
This behavior, altogether unchecked by the interested public that deserves to know the truth, serves to enable secrecy by discouraging further selfless and sincere best-faith efforts by professionals like Brig. Gen. Lovekin and indeed myself. I am a medical doctor, Lovekin is an attorney and his cousin, Dr. Ted Loder, is a PhD scientist and scientific advisor to the Disclosure Project. How can the UFO community expect such professional people to step forward if we will not defend them from these vicious and baseless attacks?
For who would want to step forward, to disclose the truth and blow the whistle on the rogue and illegal secrecy surrounding UFOs, UFO-connected technologies and the like only to have the UFO community itself set upon them with one ugly attack after another?
Whether out of jealousy or shadowy ties to those who desire to perpetuate secrecy, the effect is the same: Such ad hominem attacks serve to dissuade others from coming forward.
Moreover, insofar as The Disclosure Project is providing important whistle-blower testimony and documents to government leaders in the US, Canada and other countries, these libelous assertions serve to discourage such government officials from looking further into the matter.
Enough is enough.
A Call to Action
- It is time for you, the concerned public, to hold such behavior accountable. We encourage you to contact Randle, and others who engage in similar baseless attacks, and demand that they behave responsibly and cease and desist from such attacks on courageous whistle-blowers.
- The Disclosure Project asks that you help us identify a top quality Attorney with experience in defamation, libel and slander cases to work with us in defending the rights and reputation of Disclosure Project witnesses.
- We ask that you write publications or organizations affiliated with those who engage in such attacks and demand that they take actions to stop such behavior.
- We ask that you help us identify further UFO military and government witnesses and support the Disclosure Project at www.DisclosureProject.org so that we may continue to provide the public with the truth.
<> We must not enable those who would enable secrecy. It is time that we hold such behavior accountable and defend the honor, reputation and testimony of such fine and heroic witnesses as Brig. General Stephen Lovekin.
Today in response Kevin Randle writes:
I would think, before you take off on a rant, you’d want to see what I have to say about “Brigadier General” Stephen Lovekin.
Might I suggest you read the information that I have posted at www.KevinRandle.blogspot.com. Then decide if the questions I raised were reasonable or if I have launched some kind of ad hominem attack on Lovekin.
Second, it would seem to me that those after the information they claim is hidden by the government would want to be sure that their whistle blowers were exactly who they said they were. Ask yourself this question: If a reporter found the information I did, would he or she be more inclined to accept or reject the testimony of Lovekin.
The solution is simple. Rather than imply Lovekin is a general in the National Guard Reserve (which doesn’t exist) and rather than suggest he has a long career in the Army, explain that he holds his commission in the State Guard of North Carolina Association. Also explain that he was not a general while serving in the White House Army Signal Agency, but was, in reality, a rather low ranking enlisted man.
And finally, for those who wonder about my credentials, let me point out that I served in the Army in Vietnam, I was a member of the Iowa National Guard that was called to active duty and served for 14 months including a tour in Iraq, and I am being recalled for another tour in the Middle East. So, I have the right to ask questions about someone who says he is a general, but who is strangely left out of and off all the official sites and locations that could verify this. I am not a part of a volunteer, civilian organization like the State Guard of North Carolina Association.
Thanks for reading the above.
Kevin D. Randle
[It is understood that Stephen Lovekin has been experiencing serious health problems--we wish him a full and speedy recovery]
PUERTO RICO: LIGHT IN SKY PROMPTS CALLS TO RADIO STATION
2-23-06
Type: I Date: Tuesday, February 21 2006
Place: Northern Caguas.
Time: 4:00 A.M.
Witness: Antonio Torres (Pseudonym) and three others
Evidence: Video
Brief Description: A round yellow light that looked like a star at a distance
Summary: “In the evening of February 21, 2006 around 4:00 a.m., my mother woke me up to see an alleged light in the sky which was being discussed on the radio, don't know the station, but I'm sure it was on the AM band, as that is the only one she listens to. I headed for the terrace, looked at the sky and saw it, but to be sure I found my camera and recorded it. There are some good closeups on the film and everything ended at dawn, since the sun's light kept me from recording further. They allegedly said on the radio that it was toward El Yunque [rainforest]. It was a round shining light that seemed white, moving left and right. At a distance it resembled a star."
Conclusion: It was the planet Venus, which was rising at that time over the horizon.
Reported by: Antonio to Lucy Guzmán de Ovni.Net
* Translation (c) 2006. Scott Corrales Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU)
Lovekin's Military Credentials in Question - No Longer! - Part One -
Greer Lays Lovekin's Cards on The Table
By Frank Warren 2-22-06
There has been much controversy as of late in regards to the "military credentials" of one "Stephen L. Lovekin." Lovekin a practicing attorney in North Carolina first came to light in Steven Greer's book, Extraterrestrial Contact, Granite Publishing LLC 1999 pg. 357 as "Witness K." Greer describes "Witness K" as:
"Major SL, a respected lawyer who was an Army cryptographer in the Pentagon from 1959-61. He he was shown samples of debris from the crash of an ET craft in New Mexico in the late 1940's, and it was demonstrated to him the extraordinary properties of the material. He saw the ET writing on the debris and was told it was being studied by Army cryptographers, but they had not (in 1959) broken the code. He also had confirmed to him then President Eisenhower's interest in the subject, that he knew of the subject, but that he was being left out of substantial information dealing with ET technology programs. Major SL [Lovekin] had a top-secret clearance and continues to possess a top secret clearance as an Army reserve today."
The most recent imputation came from Ufologist and well known author, "Kevin Randle"; in part he wrote:
" . . . Thanks to a book entitled Stolen Valor I’m now suspicious of most claims of military association, especially those who claim to have achieved high rank. It surprised me then and continues to surprise me that so many people will claim military service who have never worn a uniform and that so many of those who were actually in the military have embellished their careers. . .. "
Randle made attempts to validate Lovekin's military background to no avail; that with his (Randle) own military experience he concluded:
". . . This all suggests to me that the "whistle blower" testimony offered by Stephen L. Lovekin is of little use in developing any policies related to UFOs or extraterrestrial visitation. There is no corroboration of his many claims of military service as a high-ranking officer, no verification of his positions in the White House and little reason to believe he was witness to the things he claims. Like so many of the other whistle blowers, he should be removed from our lists."
Today Steven Greer wrote a scolding rebuttal to Randle's missive and he in part said:
"Many of you have read the recent attacks and defamation of a courageous Disclosure Project Witness, Brigadier (Brig.) General Stephen Lovekin, Esq., by one Kevin Randle.
Randle claims Brig. General Lovekin is not a Brigadier General and suggests he has falsified or concocted his credentials."
Greer goes on to further chastise Randle (to put it mildly) about what he describes as "ad hominem attacks" on Lovekin.
For those of you paying attention, in regards to Ufology, lines have been established for researchers in support of what has become known as "Exopolitics" and what I call "moderate Ufology." (This is a larger piece of this pie which we'll delve into at later date). Emotions often run high between the two groups, and sometimes a "civil debate" is hard to come by. Personally, I took Randle's missive as "his voice of skepticism" in regards to Lovekin's declaration as well as a "laundry list" of "investigative chores" he performed in order to validate "Stephen Lovekin's" military background.
Moreover, his piece wasn't "definitive," and his research was still ongoing; let's not forget that he also wrote:
". . . This is important stuff, if it could be confirmed. A general officer, one who had once held the ear of the president and who could report on the president’s interest in UFOs, would make an impressive witness, especially if he could talk of a UFO crash and recovered debris. . . .
Methinks most of us would agree with this ideology, and to that end, the evidence (various supportive documents) provided "by Greer" (recently posted on the "Disclosure" web-site - see below) from Lovekin is invaluable.
[It is understood that Stephen Lovekin has been experiencing serious health problems--we wish him a full and speedy recovery]
UFO group says 100 Tennesseans saw unexplained sights WMCTV.com 2-20-06
Seeing strange lights and weird objects flying in the sky, nearly a hundred Tennesseans have made such claims over the last few years and the number of UFO sightings in the state is growing.
According to the Appalachian UFO research center, about a hundred people in Tennessee reported seeing UFO's between 2004 and the winter of 2005.
Some of those sighting were right here in the Mid-South.
Tony Pratt describes his first encounter back in 1986.
"It was about 11:30, we stepped outside and saw a big triangle outside a Baptist church," said Tony Pratt.
Pratt uses his video camera to document UFO's. He claims if you point the camera toward the sun, then block out the sun itself, you can see something flying in the sky.
. . . UFO and ET Encounters to be Presented at a UN 'Affiliated' Conference
Evidence of Children’s UFO and Extraterrestrial Encounters to be Presented at a United Nations Affiliated Conference in Montreal Prweb.com 2-22-06
After being involved with over 1000 experiencers (alien abductees), a former registered nurse, who is now a professional counselor and clinical hypnotherapist, has concluded that alien “abductions” are not only real encounters, but that they are about spiritual awakening and galactic contact. Mary Rodwell is not alone, as a growing number of academics, scientists and politicians, such as the former Canadian Minister of Defense Hon. Paul Hellyer, are starting to support the core of her paradigm shifting views about life in the Universe and that some UFOs are extraterrestrial spaceships.
Perth, Australia (PRWEB) February 22, 2006 -- A former registered nurse who has worked with hundreds of clients, including many children, will be revealing evidence of their encounters with extraterrestrial beings at an upcoming conference in Montreal, Canada.
After a decade of research as a professional counselor and clinical hypnotherapist, Australia’s Mary Rodwell says that there is now enough evidence to conclude that these “beings” appear to come from other planets and other dimensions parallel to our own.
She will be making her presentation at the 31st annual conference of the International Institute of Integral Human Sciences (IIIHS) taking place in Montreal May 5th to 14th, 2006.
The IIIHS is a non-profit organization affiliated with the United Nations Department of Public Information. It serves over 10,000 general members and students from many nations towards the convergence of new sciences with spirituality and universal human values, creating inter-religious and inter-cultural understanding for world peace.
Rodwell will be one of more than 60 speakers to address the IIIHS, with other distinguished professionals such as medical doctors, psychiatrists, physicists, scientists, psychologists, spiritual leaders, and even a former NASA astronaut (www.iiihs.org).
She is a co-founder of the Australian Close Encounter Resource Network (ACERN), vice-President of Star Kids Project Ltd., founded by Dr. Richard Boylan, and the author of “Awakening: How Extraterrestrial Contact can Transform Your Life”.
Rodwell says that after being involved with over 1,000 “experiencers” (alien abductees) nothing had prepared her for what she discovered.
“My clients include both adults and children who exhibit transformative changes such as telepathy, clairvoyance and healing as they become more spiritually aware and begin to operate on a multi-dimensional band of reality”, says Rodwell. “In the last 10 years, clients have come to me from the U.K, North America, Europe, Russia, Japan and South America”.
Rodwell also explains that part of her client’s contact experiences seems to inspire them to draw complex artwork, scripts, symbols and sometimes speaking strange languages.
“An eight year old has called her downloading of information ‘knowledge bombs’, as complex data conveyed through mental images and concepts seem to create a heightened consciousness level”, says Rodwell. “These ‘Star Children’ exhibit a maturity and wisdom beyond their years and often describe their connection to spirit and angelic realms”.
This former registered nurse is not the only one to have noticed a change with today’s children. A May 2005 USA Today article quotes James Twyman, producer of films on “Indigo Children”, as saying that a new generation of special children are among us who have increased telepathic abilities and are spiritually awakened.
The name “Indigo Children” comes from a blue indigo colored aura that some people say they can see around these children, as per a January 2006 New York Times article.
ABC News’ Diane Sawyers has also explored the issue of these extraordinary children in a November 2005 interview with an entire family of “Indigo Children”. Sawyers said that this phenomenon was “fascinating” and was “across the country”.
Rodwell explains that while many “Star Children” and “Indigo Children” have telepathic abilities, are spiritually awakened and often describe seeing “Beings of Light” (angels), the main difference is that “Star Children” have recollections of having had encounters with extraterrestrial beings and of sometimes having been on alien spaceships.
Though many medical professionals are still skeptical, in November 2003, Rodwell’s work was featured in the Australian Doctor Focus Magazine, a prestigious Australian medical journal.
Rodwell is not alone with her views as a growing number of professionals in the medical community share her conclusions and have spoken publicly.
Such people include the late world-renowned Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry, Dr. John E. Mack, author of “Passport to the Cosmos”. and Dr. Janet Colli, author of “Sacred Encounters – Spiritual Awakenings During Close Encounters”. Dr. Colli will also speak at Montreal’s IIIHS conference.
Rodwell’s work continues to raise serious questions that were raised in February 2005 on ABC News by the late Peter Jennings in his two hour Primetime Special: “UFOs – Seeing is Believing”.
Jennings’ millions of viewers were presented with a small portion of the 150 interviews conducted by ABC in regards to the controversial and enigmatic issue of UFOs and extraterrestrial encounters. Jennings concluded that many UFOs were indeed unidentified and that questions about their origin remained unanswered.
To Rodwell, the answer is that we are being visited by extraterrestrial civilizations. Her conclusion is echoed by the former Canadian Minister of National Defense Hon. Paul Hellyer, who, in September of 2005, went public saying that UFOs were as real as the airplanes that fly over our heads, and were indeed extraterrestrial vehicles.
During a December 2005 NBC News interview with Tucker Carlson, Hellyer quoted former high level Pentagon officials as the source of his information. One of his sources includes an unnamed retired US Air Force General who spoke with him directly and confirmed that some UFOs were indeed "identified" and were piloted by extraterrestrial intelligences.
Hellyer is not the only politician who has raised the issue of UFOs. A CNN November 2002 article quoted President Clinton’s former White House Chief of Staff, John Podesta, asking for the Pentagon to come clean and to declassify their UFO files.
Podesta currently supports a Coalition for Freedom of Information lawsuit against NASA asking for the declassification of their top secret files in relations to the 1965 UFO crash in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.
Though her evidence does not include an actual UFO, Rodwell says that she has evidence from a scientific, medical, psychological, and historical perspective to support her paradigm shifting conclusion that children are being evolved and transformed on many levels through extraterrestrial encounters.
This evidence will be presented in her first Canadian presentation in Montreal May 5th-14th, 2006 at the IIIHS conference. Rodwell is available for media interviews.
CONTACTS FOR MEDIA INTERVIEWS:
Australian Close Encounter Resource Network (ACERN) Perth, Australia Contact: Mary Rodwell Tel: 001-618-9454 3702 http://www.maryrodwell.com http://www.acern.com.au Email: starline (at) iinet.net.au
The International Institute of Integral Human Sciences (IIIHS) Montreal, Canada Contact: Dr. Marilyn Rossner, Father John Rossner Tel: (514) 937-8359 http://www.iiihs.org Email: info (at) iiihs.org
"SETI Is The Only Research Program Looking For Life Beyond The Solar System"
Scientists look for extraterrestrial life BY BRYN NELSON Newsday.com 2-21-06
Scientists are ramping up the search for extraterrestrial life with a powerful array of new telescopes and a refined sense of where to look within the vast expanses of our universe.
At the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last weekend, a panel of experts discussed the key components of life and what it might mean to find them within our own solar system -- or beyond.
Even in the absence of a breakthrough discovery, Nathalie Cabrol of the Mountain View, Calif.-based SETI Institute said such efforts could pay big dividends for thinking about life on an ever-changing Earth.
"It is the way we are going to understand where we are coming from and how we are going to survive as a species," she said. With a growing list of microbes capable of living in Earth's harshest conditions and hints of Earth-like features on Mars and Saturn's moon Titan, "our notion of habitability in our own solar system and the rest of the universe is going to change over time," Cabrol said.
Although NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers continue trundling across Mars and gathering evidence that the Red Planet once harbored water, SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is the only research program looking for life beyond the solar system.
Water, energy and nutrients are considered key elements for a habitable planet. But SETI researchers acknowledged that whether habitable means inhabited is a different question entirely, especially since Earth is the only known example.
Jill Tartar, who heads the Center for SETI Research at the nonprofit institute, put the enormity of the challenge into perspective: 100 billion galaxies are believed to exist, each with 100 billion stars. So far, scientists have detected the presence of about 180 planets in orbit around 147 stars beyond our solar system, though most of them are inhospitable giant balls of gas, akin to Jupiter.
So where to begin?
Margaret Turnbull of the Carnegie Institution of Washington has helped to whittle down a preliminary list of nearly 120,000 stars so her colleagues can focus on the ones best suited for a terrestrial planet.
Among her considerations, Turnbull said a star's solar system should include a "habitable zone" that allows liquid water. Also, a star more than 1.5 times the size of our Sun likely wouldn't live long enough to allow advanced life, and stars younger than 3 billion years likely wouldn't allow enough time for advanced life forms to establish themselves.
After scrutinizing all the candidates, Turnbull ended up with a list of 17,129 stars.
"So we've got our work cut out for us," she said.
One star on her shortlist, named 18 Sco, is a virtual solar twin to the Sun. Another, called 51 Peg, already is known to have a giant gaseous planet akin to Jupiter in its orbit.
To aid in the exhaustive search, SETI is setting up the Allen Telescope Array, a joint project with the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.
The northern California-based cluster of 350 radio antennas, slated for completion in June, 2008, will allow astronomers to look for new planets or listen for radio transmissions sent from intelligent civilizations in other solar systems.
Tartar said previous technologies allowed researchers to scan about 1,000 stars over a decade. With the Allen Telescope Array, funded largely by Seattle billionaire Paul Allen, SETI scientists believe they will be able to search at least one million stars in the coming decade.
Other space missions under consideration by NASA could aid the search, but Tartar complained that the space agency's budget proposal for astrobiology in fiscal year 2007 has been cut by 50 percent compared with its 2005 budget, leading to worries that such missions could be delayed indefinitely.
Searches for far smaller signs of life are ongoing as well. Pascale Ehrenfreund of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry in the Netherlands said scientists have identified about 140 kinds of molecules in space -- two-thirds of which include carbon, the common denominator of life on Earth. Carbon chemistry throughout the universe seems to follow the same pathways, she said, leading many scientists to suggest a carbon-focused search for identifying other life forms.
Carol Cleland, a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, believes that approach may be too narrow, however.
"We should be looking for life as we don't know it," she said, by trying to identify systems that appear similar to those on Earth, but which contain provocative anomalies that might be indicative of wildly different forms of life.
And if scientists are eventually successful? SETI's Margaret Pace said finding even primitive signs of life close to home -- on Mars, for example -- may raise difficult policy questions, an issue she said should be thoroughly discussed beforehand.
"It's sort of like getting a message on your answering machine," she said. We may be able to decide whether to respond to a call from a distant planet, but identifying something alive closer to home will not afford us the same luxury.
Tartar predicted that the search could yield headlines within a few decades, "but we won't know if we've found microbes or mathematicians."
Unlike the movie "Contact," in which Jodie Foster portrays a character loosely based on her, Tartar said her institute will be prepared. "We have champagne on ice," she said, "and they forgot that."
Multiple UFO Sighting in Nuevo Leon, Mexico 2-21-06
Several UFOs were recorded in northern Mexico. The evidence was filmed by Efren Sauceda Tello using a Sony Digital TRV380 camcorder on February 12, 2006.
The witness says that a total of 4 sightings took place and that all of the cases involved very shiny objects tha descended along the slopes of the Topo Chico hill until they lost themselves in the thickets.
He says that he was unable to record the last UFO, as the glare of the sun kept him from doing so.
Efren Sauceda was at his unlce’s house in Colonia Fomerrey 36, Escobedo, Nuevo Leon.
Times that the recordings were made:
2:41 p.m.
3:38 p.m.
3:41 p.m.
3:51 p-m.
Witnesses’ statement:
”I can tell you that they weren’t spheres, since as they descended they showed a mass movement, as though changing shape, but with a very bright light. I wasn’t the only one who saw them. Several of my cousins were among the witnesses.”
“I believe that the most interesting feature of these recordings is that we not only possess a video of three unknown objects, but we also managed to record the time at which they reached their destination.”
It should be recalled that in 2005, Efren Sauceda presented interesting evidence of tubular UFOs, making him one of Mexico's most experienced skywatchers.
* Translation (c) 2006. Scott Corrales Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU)
It's part of the human curiosity. Many of us wonder ... are we alone?
A Gallup poll shows that 72 percent of Americans believe there is life on other planets. And one in five of us believe aliens have been in contact with human beings. Our own curiosity made us want to find out what evidence, if any, there is of alien spacecraft flying over North Carolina's skies. And why do people believe in, and explore, life from beyond. That quest took us to the central part of the state.
At a farm, in an undisclosed location, west of High Point in Davidson County, independent UFO researchers like Alan Caviness look to the sky, looking for signs of life. Life unlike anything we know. We sat down with Caviness to talk about his experiences.
"Earth has always been visited. We've never been alone. I think this is a gradual awakening that we're all in the middle of. And I believe I'm a part of that. And so are many other people."
Using digital cameras, Caviness takes pictures, hundreds of them, and video. He says the cameras pick up objects unseen to the naked eye. Caviness said, "We do know that our cameras can pick up in the near infrared part the light spectrum, which is beyond human visibility."
Caviness says some UFO's can be seen without high technology-if the aliens on board want you to see them. He and other believers in High Point say the space crafts only come here from the middle of March through early August. "These UFO's are conducting some kind of annual operations. We know that because we just don't see anything in the winter months when it's coldest. March 11, out of 400 photographs, we got six UFO's. So, we know that they're back."
In one account, Caviness and a companion saw two UFO's approaching. They took these pictures. Then, whatever it was, was gone. "We looked up, and they had to be right over our heads because they were approaching us, and there were just not visible. But they clearly showed up in the photos."
Caviness does not just believe these unidentified flying objects are alien crafts, but that aliens are part of human life. He said, "There are a lot more people being abducted by these UFO's then you would ever dream."
People like Alan Caviness himself. "I know I've been abducted before."
Once, he says, he heard a strange clicking noise in open air. On the way from his mailbox to his home, something happened. Caviness recounted, "I walked to my front door-about 30 feet over short grass-and I no longer had my house key, my car key, in my hand. I think I was taken and returned, minus my keys. These things are happening."
Like many who claim to be abducted by aliens, Caviness says he doesn't remember anything. After entering his home, he found a scar on his chest, a hole through his shirt. He claims, within hours, the scar was gone. He also claims what many other so-called 'experiencers' do; sleep paralysis before and after an abduction. He said, "They can't move their arms and legs, and sometimes they feel a presence in the room, but they can't look over to see it."
And there are countless others who swear they have seen something not from this world. There are web sites dedicated to UFO sightings, filled with accounts from southeastern North Carolina. In Carolina Beach; "I was a little startled to see several fairly bright lights in the sky..."
Holden Beach; "..one of several red lights emitted a beam."
Chadbourn; "We thought it was a military aircraft, but my husband built aircraft, and said that is not one of ours, including those at area 51."
Dr. Bob Brown teaches courses in pseudo science at UNCW. We showed him the Caviness collection of pictures and video. As he mulled over the still pictures, he remarked, "This could be a piece of fabric that someone had taken or cardboard. That looks like to me that could be an automobile tire that's been played with."
Brown says it's not that these aren't unidentified flying objects, but that in itself does not make them extraterrestrial. He said, "If it's a UFO, it's not an alien spaceship."
Dr. Brown says those who claim to see ships from out of this world aren't out of their minds. Often though, he says, they see what they want to believe. Brown said, "Not only are they not a little crazy, but they are essentially within the normal range on most personality dimensions."
Brown admits the unknown is exactly that; unknown. Anything is possible. Nothing, for him, is confirmed. He said, "These things could exist? In the case of the alien spaceships, of course. But, we need verifiable evidence."
Alan Caviness says he knows what he's seeing. "If I'm hallucinating, then so is my camera."
He says it's time for the science community to acknowledge there's something out there so that we, the human race, can learn, not about aliens as much as about ourselves. He said, "These beings understand what human thought is. We don't. They also understand what life actually is. We don't. They understand what our existence here on earth is all about. We don't. There's a lot we don't understand. That's why we need to explore this phenomenon."
"Have You Ever Experienced Anything Strange On The Chase?"
What's happening on Cannock Chase?
By Steve Wollaston IC Solihull.co.uk 2-21-06
Cannock Chase has been a hotbed or rumours of Black Cats, Bigfoots, strange lights and UFO's for decades.
Is there anything in the endless reports of people seeing huge cats, lights in the sky travelling at speed and 7ft tall hairy creatures walking accross the road with demonic red eyes?
It sounds absurd... but are all these reports merely hoaxes or is there really something in it?
Have you ever experienced anything strange on the Chase?
Have you or someone you know ever experienced something you can't explain?
If you have then why not let us know.
We will publish your e-mails online and in the paper. We look forward to hearing from you.
"Intelligence Agencies Have Been Removing From Public Access Thousands of Historical Documents"
U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review
By Scott Shane The New York Times 2-21-06
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 — In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.
The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the Central Intelligence Agency and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton. It accelerated after the Bush administration took office and especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to archives records.
But because the reclassification program is itself shrouded in secrecy — governed by a still-classified memorandum that prohibits the National Archives even from saying which agencies are involved — it continued virtually without outside notice until December. That was when an intelligence historian, Matthew M. Aid, noticed that dozens of documents he had copied years ago had been withdrawn from the archives' open shelves.
Mr. Aid was struck by what seemed to him the innocuous contents of the documents — mostly decades-old State Department reports from the Korean War and the early cold war. He found that eight reclassified documents had been previously published in the State Department's history series, "Foreign Relations of the United States."
"The stuff they pulled should never have been removed," he said. "Some of it is mundane, and some of it is outright ridiculous."
After Mr. Aid and other historians complained, the archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees government classification, began an audit of the reclassification program, said J. William Leonard, director of the office.
Mr. Leonard said he ordered the audit after reviewing 16 withdrawn documents and concluding that none should be secret.
"If those sample records were removed because somebody thought they were classified, I'm shocked and disappointed," Mr. Leonard said in an interview. "It just boggles the mind."
If Mr. Leonard finds that documents are being wrongly reclassified, his office could not unilaterally release them. But as the chief adviser to the White House on classification, he could urge a reversal or a revision of the reclassification program.
A group of historians, including representatives of the National Coalition for History and the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, wrote to Mr. Leonard on Friday to express concern about the reclassification program, which they believe has blocked access to some material at the presidential libraries as well as at the archives.
Among the 50 withdrawn documents that Mr. Aid found in his own files is a 1948 memorandum on a C.I.A. scheme to float balloons over countries behind the Iron Curtain and drop propaganda leaflets. It was reclassified in 2001 even though it had been published by the State Department in 1996.
Another historian, William Burr, found a dozen documents he had copied years ago whose reclassification he considers "silly," including a 1962 telegram from George F. Kennan, then ambassador to Yugoslavia, containing an English translation of a Belgrade newspaper article on China's nuclear weapons program.
Under existing guidelines, government documents are supposed to be declassified after 25 years unless there is particular reason to keep them secret. While some of the choices made by the security reviewers at the archives are baffling, others seem guided by an old bureaucratic reflex: to cover up embarrassments, even if they occurred a half-century ago.
One reclassified document in Mr. Aid's files, for instance, gives the C.I.A.'s assessment on Oct. 12, 1950, that Chinese intervention in the Korean War was "not probable in 1950." Just two weeks later, on Oct. 27, some 300,000 Chinese troops crossed into Korea.
Mr. Aid said he believed that because of the reclassification program, some of the contents of his 22 file cabinets might technically place him in violation of the Espionage Act, a circumstance that could be shared by scores of other historians. But no effort has been made to retrieve copies of reclassified documents, and it is not clear how they all could even be located.
PRESS RELEASE: The Government Has Been Spying On Its Citizens
Wake up, America. There is nothing new about President Bush’s secret domestic spying program of American citizens. The Government has been secretly spying on its citizens for more than half a century in the cause of national security – and particularly on those citizens who have seen, been abducted by, or study UFOs.
The complete story is detailed in a controversial new book called On the Trail of the Saucer Spies: UFOs and Government Surveillance by Nick Redfern, just published by Anomalist Books. Redfern, who was himself the subject of government surveillance for his interest in UFOs, uses on-the-record interviews, previously-classified official records, and testimony provided by insider-sources to tell this amazing story about how and why Military, Intelligence, and Government agencies of both the U.S. and U.K. have been secretly spying on UFO witnesses and researchers.
Highlights of On the Trail of the Saucer Spies include: the FBI's officially-declassified reports on people who claim to have met extraterrestrials; Top Secret surveillance of Alien Abductees; the real-life Men in Black who spy on UFO witnesses; phone-tapping and mail-interference of UFO researchers; Scotland Yard's secret monitoring of UFO computer hackers; Secret government files on researchers of the famous Roswell crash of 1947; infiltration of UFO research groups by secret agents; and UFO authors suspected by the Government of working for hostile nations to uncover defense secrets.
Nick Redfern is one of the world’s foremost authorities on UFOs. His previous books include A Covert Agenda; The FBI Files; Cosmic Crashes; Strange Secrets (with Andy Roberts); Three Men Seeking Monsters; and Body Snatchers in the Desert. He has written for Military Illustrated; Eye-Spy; Fate; Fortean Times; Phenomena Magazine; and the London Daily Express.
On The Trail Of The Saucer Spies: UFOs And Government Surveillance by Nick Redfern
Crash Retrieval Day At UFO Congress, Laughlin, Nevada
Ryan S. Wood, Author of Majic Eyes Only To Chair Panel Discussion
By Ryan S. Wood 4th UFO Crash Conference Chairman
BROOMFIELD CO February 19th, 2006 - At the 15th annual UFO Congress Convention and Film Festival in Laughlin Nevada on Wednesday March 1st Ryan Wood, Paul Davids, Scott Ramsey and Don Ledger will present the latest findings, research and perspective on their UFO Crash investigations. If you are not signed up already visit www.ufocongress.com for details of the weeklong event. Below are the speakers along with brief abstracts about their talks:
PAUL DAVIDS-Executive Producer and co-writer of the film, ROSWELL, offers a visual presentation to help us reflect on what the decade following the release of his film has taught us about the famous 1947 incident, UFO's, national security, disinformation, "weather balloons" & the possibility of future "Official Disclosure".
SCOTT RAMSEY - "Aztec 1948, Recovery at Hart Canyon?" The crash was alleged to have taken place on March 25, 1948 - twelve and a half miles out of the town of Aztec, New Mexico. Police Officer Manuel Sandoval had been seeing UFO's for two weeks in Cuba, New Mexico prior to the one he spotted going down. The craft was said to be about 100 feet in diameter, and there were nineteen people at the site, including two police officers.
DON LEDGER (Canada) - The Shag Harbor Incident includes two parts. The first involves the witnessing of an object crashing into the waters of Shag Harbor, Nova Scotia in 1967. There followed rescue attempts of a lighted object seen floating on the water, and subsequent attempts by the authorities to find the object. This was in full public view and covered in the news. The second part unfolds over 7 days, when it is later discovered the object made its way northeast underwater, settling offshore near a top-secret base - it's true purpose unknown for 21 years.
RYAN S. WOOD Discusses his new book Majic Eyes Only: Earths Encounters with Extraterrestrial Technology, which is the most authoritative and comprehensive chronicle ever published on the subject of worldwide UFO crashes and subsequent military retrievals from 1897 to the present. The presentation will include crash history, information sources, methodology and authenticity ratings for each UFO crash event. At the heart of this talk are 74 cases of UFO crash retrievals and subsequent military cover-up several with tangible physical and cultural evidence along with never before seen photographs of crash wreckage.
4th Annual UFO Crash Retrieval Conference, November 10 12 at the Tuscany Suites and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada
The speaker and event schedule will be announced soon. However, this event will be the best yet, with several new never before discussed crash retrieval events along with more physical evidence and implications of disclosure. Fifteen speakers will present their findings over the course of three days at the best venue yet, the Tuscany Suites and Casino. As before we are having a Saturday evening banquet with a special speaker.
Phone Home: UFO Congress, Film Festival Coming To Laughlin
Mojave Daily News 2-20-06
LAUGHLIN - Art Bell fans, take note: Beginning Sunday and running through March 4, the International UFO Congress and Film Festival will touch down at the Flamingo Resort in Laughlin for its 15th annual foray into the realm of the unknown and unexplained.
Billed as more than a mere ‘UFO convention,' the event features a plethora of guests and speakers active in the UFO research community, including Las Vegas television personality/ investigative journalist George Knapp, and international speakers A.J. Gevaerd (Brazil), Geoff Stray (U.K.), Maurizio Baiata (Italy), Haktan Akdogan (Turkey), Jamie Maussan (Mexico) and others.
The UFO Congress also features lectures and presentations ranging from alternative explanations for humanity's origins and our place in the universe, crop circles, UFO sightings, the alien abduction phenomenon, ancient archeology, evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence and government ‘black projects', to a film festival featuring some of the latest documentary footage of unexplained phenomena occurring both here in the United States and around the world.
When you think of UFOs, the first things that usually come to mind are little green men, conspiracy theories, sci-fi buffs and uncomfortable probes. But to members of the Hong Kong UFO Club, the study of UFOs (UFOlogy) is a serious science. Pat Morais discovers that if the UFO Club has their way, someday soon you may be able to study for a degree in UFOlogy at your local university.
Hong Kong’s UFO Club meets once a month at UFO Station, a Tsim Sha Tsui cyber cafe filled with books, newsletters, and old news clippings of close encounters in order to explore otherworldly topics like “E.T. Civilization” and “Alien Kung Fu.” The club is made up of members such as scientists and university professors who study subjects including physics, history and even some paranormal activities and a number of broad studies in order to understand as much as they can about UFO phenomena.
The members of the Hong Kong UFO Club are not dreamy stargazers, but researchers who see their passion as a science. So much so that they’re lobbying for a university degree programme in UFOlogy. In an interview with CNN, Hong UFO Club members Albert So, a professor at Hong Kong University and Joseph Wong, a lab manager at Hong Kong’s City University said:
“The graduates of this programme will grasp at least all major knowledge available in order to understand UFO phenomena, including various disciplines such as mathematics, physics, history, philosophy and also other technologies and any other skills related to UFOs.
After students finish this degree, hopefully they will be able to apply their knowledge to the real world; they may have their own understanding about this universe. Maybe they will be able to come up with a new universe model, a new way of life, or whatever.
For them, it is very important whether or not there really is a UFO that can fly. Through the process of investigating questions like this, helps the group understand more about themselves and our planet.
It is a common error to assume that the only question of interest provided by UFOlogy is whether UFOs represent alien intelligence. Putting aside the question of physical reality of UFOs, there have been studies of UFOs and UFO enthusiast subcultures from a folklore or anthropological perspective, and some feel the subject, at the very least, may provide new insights in the fields of psychology (both individual and social), sociology, and communications.
The UFO Club is not alone when studying UFOs as a science. Mainland China, which has had waves of mass UFO sightings since 2000, treats the topic of UFOs with an unexpected seriousness. The conservative state-run newspapers and television media often report UFO sightings. China has a bimonthly UFO magazine devoted to UFO research, The Journal of UFO Research, which was launched in February 1981, circulation 400,000 -. UFO buffs claim support from eminent scientists and liaisons with the secretive military, giving their work a scientific sheen of respectability.
China had its first massive UFO sighting on the night of July 24, 1981. It caused such pandemonium that the Astronomical Observatory of Zijingshan released a communique stating, “the population of 14 provinces in our country sighted this celestial phenomenon.”
UFOlogy, formerly a forbidden subject in this country of more than one billion people, has only recently emerged from the shadow of Chairman Mao when authorities in China lifted a ban on reporting UFO sightings in 1979. Modern research shows, however, that UFOs are not a new phenomenon in China. For thousands of years, Chinese have looked to the skies for portents of change on Earth, historical records cite strange celestial objects during the Tang, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. There is even an old Chinese fairy tale where the emperor meets a ‘flying boat’ which looks surprisingly similar to the conventional image of a modern day UFO.
When the modern UFO era began 50 years ago in 1947, flying saucers were reported in China. However, they were quickly forgotten when the country was engulfed in a civil war. All mention of UFOs was strictly forbidden during Mao’s long reign, when China was mostly closed to foreign influences.
Chinese UFOlogy re-emerged in the late 1970s during Deng Xioping’s program of economic reforms. In November 1978, The People’s Daily finally gave the official green light for UFO reporting. Other reporters began to cover UFO news, and by 1980, a group of students from Wuhan University in Hebei province formed the China UFO Research Organization (CURO) and obtained moderate support from the National Academy of Social Sciences.
During the turn of the century (2000) China had its first eruption of UFO sightings; with over 500 reported sightings in 1999 alone and every year since then, the numbers have grown. Shen Shituan, honorary director of the China UFO Research Association (CURO - membership 50,000) believes that all UFO phenomena are worth researching. The Truth is that 95 to 99% of the sightings can be explained naturally, like airplanes or satellites, but a minority may be real UFOs and we should take them seriously
CURO’s president Shen Shituan, a (real) rocket scientist and president of Beijing Aerospace University believes that serious research into UFOs will help spur new forms of high-speed travel, unlimited sources of energy and faster-growing crops.
Others aren’t so sure, Geremie Barme, a Chinese culture watcher at Australia National University believes that China’s fascination with UFOs can be blamed on cultural beliefs, stating, While China was passing through its first millennium using the West’s Gregorian calendar, the traditional lunar calendar was ushering in the Year of the Dragon, regarded as time of tumultuous change.
People in China and Asia in general, are more open to believe in the supernatural. That sort of millennial fear and trepidation fits in so nicely with Chinese cosmology - and also the Hollywood millennium propaganda that everybody has been lapping up.
Another theory going around is that aliens may find China attractive for the same reason foreign investors and tourists do. Generally, well-developed areas like the United States have reported more sighting UFO activity than any other country. It is very possible that relatively rapid development attracts investigations by flying saucers, and China has been going through a phase of rapid development over the last few years.
In Beijing, a dedicated group of enthusiasts forming the core membership of the Beijing UFO Research Association are on constant alert, ready to move out and investigate observations of mysterious phenomena in the night sky. They take photos, record videos and interview witnesses, all in the interest of addressing the issue from a scientific point of view. As it has in most other areas of human endeavor, China is also an emerging force to be reckoned with in UFOlogy.
Though it has been disregarded in the past as the work of quacks, UFOlogy has started to gain respectability in the scientific communities of countries in the western world. A formal survey of the American Astronomical Society revealed that a majority of those who responded to the survey thought that UFOs deserved scientific study, and were willing to contribute their time and expertise to such studies.
The legitimacy of UFOlogical research will a hot topic on September 8- 10 when top experts from around the world gather in Dalian, China when the International Chinese UFO Association holds one of the first international meetings on UFOlogy and UFO research.
So whether you believe in UFOs or not, the world scientific community is starting to realize that there are answers behind the UFO mythology and the applications of those answers could soon change the way we live our life down here on Earth.
Remember, the realistic chances of anyone seeing a UFO is quite remote, however, you can attend a sky-watch and learn more about what naturally flies around in the sky and discover the source of many a reported UFO sighting. Contact the Hong Kong UFO Club to learn more on sky-watching and UFOs in general, visit the HK UFO Club’s website at http://hkufo.org.hk/ or send an Email to the HK UFO Club at ufology@yahoo.com.hk
I still get letters about this series. And e-mails. And questions. About when the DVD set will be coming out... about what happened to our characters after the last episode... about whether I really believe in UFOs or not...
Dark Skies was an NBC series with just possibly the most unusual twist on the UFO phenomenon that you've seen. We constructed an entire premise -- and shot 20 hours of episodes -- laying out the case that John F. Kennedy was assassinated because he was going to tell the nation the truth about UFOs if he was re-elected to a second term. It got weirder from there.
Updated: White Sands Navy Radar Operator Saw Discs Circle V-2 Rocket Launches
By Linda Moulton Howe "On several occasions, Dad could see flying saucers circling the V-2 rockets. ...He said they were a large, silvery disc that looked like a pie pan turned upside down."
- Eyewitness, U. S. Navy DC1 Lloyd Eugene Camp -
February 17, 2006 Algood, Tennessee - For the past year, I have been reporting about the revelations of former New Mexico State Representative, Andrew Kissner, from Las Cruces in Dona Ana County. Las Cruces is not far from White Sands Missile Range. Andy's work in local construction projects brought him in contact with White Sands employees who told him about flying discs that interfered with rocket launches from 1947 onward.
Back in the Truman Administration, it was called White Sands Proving Ground. That's where German physicists were brought after World War II in Project PAPERCLIP to work on American research and development of captured German V-2 and Wasserfall rockets.
In May 1947, at least two German rockets launched from White Sands went off course and crashed. In both instances, round, aerial discs were seen visually and on radar near the rockets just before the rapidly moving missiles veered from their trajectories. One on May 29, 1947, turned 180 degrees in mid-air and crashed near the new airport in Juarez, Mexico. The result was a huge crater in the ground, but nothing was left of the large rocket. Andrew Kissner's sources told him the truth was that the launched rocket had evaporated. The implication was that the disc technology was responsible. The Base Commander explained to the media that "peculiar phenomena" had interfered with the rocket tests. The "peculiar phenomena" were the unidentified aerial discs.
UFO (U.nidentified F.alling O.bject) Not From Airplane Says FAA
FAA: Debris That Fell From Sky, Landed Inside Home Not From Airplane
Local10.com 2-17-06
DAVIE, Fla. -- Federal Aviation Administration officials said the metal object that fell from the sky and crashed through the roof of a Davie home Wednesday did not come from an airplane.
FAA officials closed their investigation Thursday night after inspecting the heap of metal and determining that it did not come from an airplane.
Around 4 p.m., two workers were laying tile at Robert Amchir's home, 4960 S.W. 61st Ave., when they heard a loud noise.
"My wife said there was, like, an explosion in the house (and) that everybody ran for their life," Amchir said.
When the workers returned, they found a large metal object -- about 4 inches by 4 inches by 2 inches -- lodged inside the home.
"It thumped and hit the ground here and blew up the tile," Amchir said.
Amchir believed the object fell from an airplane, because his home is in the flight path of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
But FAA officials have ruled that out and said no planes reported any missing equipment or parts.
LONDON: London’s X-Files have been opened to the public. Reports of "lights in a worm shape wriggling around in the sky", a shiny "doughnut-shaped object" and a "massive light in the shape of an iron" are among sightings of UFOs which were meant to have been secret for 25 years.
The files show that Loughton in Essex is the UFO capital of the Home Counties.
The ministry of defence has six sightings listed there - five on the night of September 10 last year, when there was a series of reports of three mysterious orange lights in the sky.
The sightings in Greater London, dating from 2002 and kept on Ministry of Defence files, have been released after a request under the Freedom of Information Act by the Evening Standard.
The ministry receives hundreds of reports of sightings every year, most of which are dismissed as aircraft lights or natural phenomena.
But some have no rational explanation, and as a result, the government remains "totally open-minded" about the concept of flying saucers and spaceships.
Following the Standard’s request, the ministry of defence’s UFO department - SF4 - revealed details of 34 sightings with their date, time and location.
Among them are descriptions of "a black cigar-shaped object which accelerated to a speed which would outstrip a fighter jet" over south-east London and a "rectangle-shape white light" hovering above Primrose Hill.
Nick Pope, who ran the government UFO project between 1991 and 1994, said the data was unsurprising. He said: "London has the most sightings because there are more people living there to witness any unusual activity.
"Almost 95% of sightings can be explained away but that still leaves five percent. I am not out to spook anyone but I do believe it is totally feasible that we are not alone in this universe."
One of the witnesses, Robert Sloan, said: "There was a triangle of three piercing globes. It reminded me of a scene out of Close Encounters. Everyone was gobsmacked. There was no way a plane would look or move that fast."
Other UFOs spotted include three over St John’s Wood, two over Hornchurch, Essex, and three over Wimbledon.
Timothy Good of Beckenham, an author of several novels on UFOs, said: "UFOs remain the most sensitive subject in British intelligence. It is wonderful that some of this information is now being made public even though I believe they are withholding even more.
"The sheer number of sightings over London and the fact that none has a rational explanation is both fascinating and exciting to me."
A ministry spokesman said there was nothing to suggest alien activity. "We examine reports of UFOs solely to establish whether there is any evidence that the UK’s airspace has been compromised by hostile or unauthorised air activity," he said.
"We do not know of any evidence which substantiates the existence of these alleged phenomena." – London Evening Standard
Summary: "I would like to report the strange movement of an object flying over Ponce last weekend on 01.08.26 at 6:27 pm. The object was dark and made erratic movements on its axis. Its forward movement was very slow. At first it resembled a balloon, but its flight path was orderly. Given its altitude, it is unlikely that it could have been a conventional remote-control plane. I can more or less place the elevation at 1000 feet. I love aviation and am planning to take courses to obtain my license, as I have studied aircraft since middle school fifteen years ago. As far as I'm concerned, it was neither a Cessna or Tiger small aircraft - the observation lasted some three minutes as it moved from west to east at between 15 to 30 MPH. It flew behind OfficeMax and Wal-Mart; once it was over this last store, it made a left turn of some 100 degrees and headed toward Playa de Ponce. That's where I lost visual contact with the object. I don't know if you've received a report from anyone else, so I'm informing you just in case. I began looking at other drivers, but as you can imagine, they were all staring straight forward as though they were sleepers awake. My wife managed to see a silver detail to the object, but since I was driving, I was limited to seeing it as dark. I couldn't see a tail rudder or wings."
Source: Andrew Álvarez de http://www.andrewalvarez.net and Ovni.Net
http://www.ovni.net
Yauco, Puerto Rico: Low-Flying Aircraft Flies Over Urban Area Dropping a "Spray" from its Wings and Causing Allergies, Respiratory Problems in Local Residents.
Type: I
Day: Either Wednesday January 25 or Thursday, January 26 2006
Location: Yauco
Time: 10:00 to 11:00 A.M.
Witnesses: Rafael - father of Rafi-; schoolteacher; Rafi himself.
Evidence: None
Summary: "My father told me a story that has caused many to phone in regarding a C-130 Hercules that flew over the entire area last week as it dropped a "spray" from its wings (not from its engines). Papi told me that he saw it and its color was nearly black, flying well under what is normal for an urban area. I asked if he managed to notice any distinguishing features in its tail, but he said nothing could be seen. In Yauco there has been much talk about respiratory problems: my cousin and his wife took ill on Wednesday or Thursday; I myself came down with allergies and chest complaints and a hoarseness that nearly clouded my voice. My daughter developed strong nasal allergies. But since Wednesday to the present, there haven't been any allergies. From my work place I was able to perceive the rumble of engines between Wednesday or Thursday. I was surprised that the object was flying so low, but I was dealing with students at the time and I was unable to leave the school library. It was between 10:00 and 10:30 am. One of the teachers told me she saw one in Yauco proper last week and that it was flying very low and engaging in maneuvers over Yauco. She said that it looked strange because it made many turns (coming and going many times) over the are. She was on her way to school, and told me that this took place before 11:00 am."
Case referred by: Rafy to Andrew Álvarez de http://www.andrewalvarez.net and
Lucy Guzmán de Ovni.Net
Fuente: Andrew Álvarez, http://www.andrewalvarez.net and Ovni.Net
http://www.ovni.net
Guaynabo, Puerto Rico: Alleged "Alien" Says Anthropologist and Paranormal Researcher Andrew Alvarez is an "Extraterrestrial".
On Thursday, January 27 2006, Puerto Rico’s “El Despelote” radio show (on Mega Station 106.9 FM). [a call was received] from a woman identifying herself as “María” who claimed to be an alien, owned a spaceship, professed to have the ability to hypnotize people, and spoke in an alien language, saying that Andrew Alvarez was a space alien; Andrew’s mother had told her that her two children were the offspring of an alien father; Andrew had not learned his knowledge, but rather had it since the age of 3, and that she was a witness to this. She added that she was also writing a book in which she would discuss aliens and their languages. On Sunday the 29th, on the Marcano [TV] show, after Andrew spoke on terrorism, Marcano asked him if it was really true that he was a space alien. Andrew smiled, as this was the question he least expected. He listened to the recording of the woman’s allegations (as Marcano played it for him) and said that he knew that her name was Minerva and that when he was 14 years old, she had been one of her mother’s students. Boys, he added, would chase her in an attempt to rip her wig off, since she said she was an alien and had little antennae on her head. He, on the other hand, was thoroughly human!
Note: The woman has continued to phone Mega and other stations with the same story.
Source: La Mega Estación, Marcano TV Program and Ovni.net
Decision in Extradition Case of UFO Hacker Expected Soon
Profile: Gary McKinnon
By Clark Boyd BBC News 2-15-06
A decision is expected soon in the case to extradite Gary Mckinnon to the US to face hacking charges. Here the BBC News website profiles the hacker, his history and his motives.
To hear the US government tell it, Gary McKinnon is a dangerous man, and should be extradited back to America to stand trial in a Virginia courtroom.
One US prosecutor has accused him of committing "the biggest military computer hack of all time".
If extradited, Mr McKinnon could face decades in US jail, and fines of close to $2m.
'Bumbling nerd'
The charges against Mr McKinnon are extensive.
The US government alleges that between February 2001 and March 2002, the 40-year-old computer enthusiast from North London hacked into dozens of US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Defense computers, as well as 16 Nasa computers.
It says his hacking caused some $700,000 dollars worth of damage to government systems.
What's more, they allege that Mr McKinnon altered and deleted files at a US Naval Air Station not long after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and that the attack rendered critical systems inoperable.
The US government also says Mr McKinnon once took down an entire network of 2,000 US Army computers. His goal, they claim, was to access classified information.
In July 2005, Mark Summers, another official representing the US government, told a London court that Mr McKinnon's hacking was "intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion".
But Gary McKinnon, or Solo as he was known online, paints a very different picture of himself, and his motivation. In a BBC interview last summer, Mr McKinnon said that he was not a malicious hacker bent on bringing down US military systems, but rather more of a "bumbling computer nerd".
He said he's no web vandal, or virus writer, and that he never acted with malicious intent.
But he did admit that he hacked into dozens of US government computer systems. In fact, he calmly detailed just how easy it was to access extremely sensitive information in those systems.
"I found out that the US military use Windows," said Mr McKinnon in that BBC interview. "And having realised this, I assumed it would probably be an easy hack if they hadn't secured it properly."
Using commercially available software, Mr McKinnon probed dozens of US military and government networks. He found many machines without adequate password or firewall protection. So, he simply hacked into them.
UFO search
But for some, his method of hacking is not nearly so interesting as his reason for doing it.
Mr McKinnon got his first computer when he was 14 years old, and has been a hobbyist ever since. He left school at 17, and became a hairdresser. But, in the early 1990s, some friends convinced him to get a qualification in computers. After completing a course, he started doing contract work in the computing field.
By the late 1990s, Mr McKinnon decided to use his hacking skills to do what he calls "research" on an issue he firmly believes in. Mr McKinnon told the BBC that he is convinced that the United States government is withholding critical information about Unidentified Flying Objects.
"It wasn't just an interest in little green men and flying saucers," said Mr McKinnon. "I believe that there are spacecraft, or there have been craft, flying around that the public doesn't know about."
Mr McKinnon further explained that he believes the US military has reverse engineered an anti-gravity propulsion system from recovered alien spacecraft, and that this propulsion system is being kept a secret.
In that sense, Mr McKinnon said he sees his own hacking as "humanitarian." He said he only wanted to find evidence of a UFO cover-up and expose it. He called the alleged anti-gravity propulsion system "extra-terrestrial technology we should have access to".
"I wanted to find out why this is being kept a secret when it could be put to good use," he said in the BBC interview last year.
Gary McKinnon's search turned into an obsession, an addiction. As he probed high-level computer systems in the United States, his life in Britain fell apart. He lost his job, and his girlfriend dumped him. Friends told him to stop hacking, but to no avail.
"I'd stopped washing at one point. I wasn't looking after myself. I wasn't eating properly. I was sitting around the house in my dressing gown, doing this all night."
Net lockdown
Eventually, Mr McKinnon got sloppy. He started leaving behind clues. At one point, Mr McKinnon began posting anti-war diatribes on the screens of the US government computers that were his targets. He has insisted, however, that he never attempted to sabotage any operations.
When Britain's hi-tech crime unit finally came for him 2002, Mr McKinnon was not surprised. He told the BBC: "I think I almost wanted to be caught, because it was ruining me. I had this classic thing of wanting to be caught so there would be an end to it."
He thought he would be tried in Britain, and that he might get, at the most, three to four years in prison.
Then, later that year, the United States decided to indict him with charges that could mean up to 70 years in a US prison. It has never been entirely clear why it took US officials until 2005 to begin extradition proceedings.
Gary McKinnon's been fighting extradition ever since, on the grounds that he never intended anything malicious by his hacking. He's been free on bail, but it has been a strange kind of freedom.
Until recently, he had to sign in at his local police station every evening, and could not leave his house at night. The court also forbade him from using any computer connected to the internet.
Some of those restrictions were eased this past Christmas. He can now use the internet, but the authorities are making him register the IP address with the local service provider.
Mr McKinnon remains contrite about what he did, although he has admitted that he thinks US officials are making him a scapegoat. He has said that in the course of his hacking, he found evidence that hundreds of others from around the world were also trying to hack the same networks.
His supporters say that instead of prosecuting him, the US government should thank him for pointing out massive computer security lapses in critical systems.
As for his quest to find evidence of a UFO cover-up, Mr McKinnon has said that he found some circumstantial evidence online to back his claims, including what he said are photos with what he speculated were alien spacecraft airbrushed out of the picture.
He said the photos in question were too large to download to his own computer.
When the BBC asked him last summer if he ever felt like hacking again, Mr McKinnon replied, "No, not at all." He said he wished he had listened to his friends when they told him, nearly three and a half years ago, to stop.
According to the witness, he was traveling by bus across the Mexican state in question on his way to a wedding. The bus crossed the village of Creel toward the region known as Divisadero in Barrancas del Cobre. As a panoramic view of the landscape can be obtained from a lookout on this tourist attraction of the Sierra Tarahumara, he decided to take some photos with his Sony DSC-P150 digital camera.
-Photo taken by Mr. Demetrio J. Ramirez on October 18, 2005 in Chihuahua, Mexico-
Lacking an additional digital card, he said that on that very same evening of October 18, he rented a computer in Creel to deposit the photos into files on his Yahoo account. It was not until November 3 that he had access to the Internet and realized that an object suspended in mid-air was visible in one of the images – an object not visually perceived by Ramirez and his party.
Eyewitness Account of Mr. Demetrio Ramirez
”I really don’t know what it could be, as the object appears to be at a certain distance...I don’t believe that it’s a tree leaf, since it appears to be very high up, nor insects, given the apparent distance. I’m also dismissing the possibility of a spot or dust on the camera lens, since it does not appear on the other images we took on that date.
“Unfortunately, we erased the photos from the camera’s memory, since we needed space for the following day. I say unfortunately as some have said that its a trick photo or that the object was superimposed.
“I didn’t submit the photo earlier, since I don’t believe it to be of great significance when compared to other materials...in any event, regardless of its nature, I am sharing this image with Prof. Ana Luisa Cid, leaving the matter to her respected discretion.”
Ana Luisa Cid’s Opinion
For the time being I believe the photo to be real and that it probably suggests the transit of an unidentified flying object over the Sierra Tarahumara, cautioning that this material was received by me on January 31, 2006.
Applying my basic knowledge of photography, I have been unable to find any digital alterations to the image and the automatic data put forth agree with Mr. Demetrio’s account, adding that the image was taken at 1:17 p.m., according to the date, employing a normal exposure setting and an ISO 100 speed.
The eyewitness’s objective stance, as well as his openness toward research, lead me to think that this could be a genuine case.
Residents of the Polvorin community, parish of La Pastora, Puerta de Caracas sector, reported the sighting of a strange luminous object in the skies over this Venezuelan locality to the north of the capital city. The unusual event took place on Wednesday, February 8 at night by a group of local residents while the object sped in a south to north direction.
Leonardo Duque, who was with his family at the time of the event, said that the object was orange in color and had a circular shape. He also added that the clear night skies and "total absence of clouds" enabled visual contact by the witnesses.
Carmen Perez, moreover, stated that at first everyone beleived that it was "an airliner" flying over the area. However, Mrs. Perez indicated that this hypothesis began losing credibility when after a few seconds the object appeared to divide itself in equal halves, giving the appearance of two large "sources of light"
Other residents, who did not wish to provide greater details on what had occured, manifested their doubts regarding the manifestation of this sort of phenomenon and claimed that it could have been any other object -- but not an airliner, "unless it is a new model"
According to the eyewitnesses, the UFO managed to conceal itself almost immediately behind Cerro El Avila after having crossed the capital area's airspace for a period of approximately 2 minutes. It was likewise reported that its movment was not linear.
Venezuelan agencies responsible for weather forecasting and determining atmospheric conditioins did not report any anomalies in their daily reports. Nor was any photographic evidence obtained by the witnesses.
Ophir California: School Teacher Spots UFO in Night Sky
'UFO' sighting in night sky could have been bright star
The Auburn Journal 2-13-06
A sighting of what she describes as a large meteoric object falling from the night sky last week has an Ophir resident Christie Sonmez perplexed.
Sonmez said she's wondering whether other people saw what looked like a fireball about the size of a full moon appear in the sky at 11:45 p.m. Thursday.
Restless because her cat had not come inside, Sonmez looked out a window and saw what she said Monday was a golden ball take a short flight before vanishing into the eastern horizon.
"As it reached the horizon, I had the impression the light was swelling but there was no sound," Sonmez said. "I lifted the window to see if there were sirens or some kind of response but there was nothing."
The object had no observable tail and the time it appeared in view was very fast, she said.
The Grass Valley private-school teacher said the object traveled about 60 degrees from south to north. This was the first time she had observed anything similar in the sky, she said.
The National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle has been fielding a plethora of questions and reports on objects in the sky in recent weeks because of the presence of both Sirius, a bright star visible in the evening and nighttime sky, and the planet Venus, currently visible in the eastern sky before sunrise.
"We've been flooded, absolutely flooded by reports of Sirius sightings," said Center Director Peter Davenport. "What they see is a bright star."
Sirius can be identified by its location, approximately 10 degrees to the left of the constellation Orion. It appears to rise in the eastern sky, beginning in the early evening. It proceeds across the southern sky throughout the night.
Davenport said the Auburn-area sighting is intriguing because of the details Sonmez has provided, including its size.
With reports of objects, Davenport said one of the center's main roles is ruling out known possibilities.
Another possibility for many California sightings would be a rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Santa Maria. A Titan IV missile on Oct. 19 was the last launch at the site. The base's Website lists no launch last Thursday. A Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile test is slated for midnight Thursday.
The Vandenberg launches could be ruled out because they take place in the south and western sky from Auburn, with test missiles aimed toward the Pacific Ocean, Davenport said.
The center's hotline lights up whenever a missile launch takes place, he added.
If people want to report their sighting to the National UFO Reporting Center, they should write out a detailed description using the center's online sighting report form as a guide and fill out the short questionnaire. Witness contact information will be kept confidential, Davenport said.
. . . The Woodmans' home is about four miles west of Giant Rock. As a youth he remembers meeting George Van Tassel, who built the Integratron that he claimed would have rejuvenating powers. Woodman does not refute the structure's purported purpose. “Wouldn't it be great to get it going? What if worked?”
Van Tassel was known for sponsoring UFO conventions in the 1950s. Woodman has a specific childhood recollection of a hot dog vendor's stand on the north side of the mammoth boulder.
Standing on the foundation of the restaurant that the Van Tassels operated at Giant Rock, Woodman pointed out where a shuffleboard table once stood just inside the entrance. He said breakfast cost 35 cents at the “Come On Inn.”
“George would talk to you like we're talking right now,” Woodman said of Van Tassel. “He didn't care if you believed him or not.”
Like his position on the Integratron, Woodman believes there may be validity to Van Tassel's claims to contacts with extraterrestrial life. “I do believe there's something else out there,” Woodman said.
The observation about a person so detached from society that he is said to be living under a rock was embodied by Frank Critzer, who dug his dwelling under Giant Rock and lived there until an unfortunate misunderstanding with local law enforcement resulted in his being blown to bits in 1942.
Accusations that the German immigrant was a Nazi spy have been discounted, but he did put an antenna on top of the rock for his short wave radio, and after all, there was a war going on.
The subterranean home is now filled in with sand and trash. A cement slab marks the entrance and Woodman pointed out holes in the rock where an awning was once attached.
Giant Rock is generally believed to be the world's largest freestanding boulder. Roughly a quarter of the rock split off in 2000, possibly because of a bonfire.
Van Tassel wasn't the only historical figure Woodman recalls meeting.. . .
ET Experts Believe General George C. Marshall Was Part of Alien Cover-up
Marshall blamed for UFO coverup
Tribune Review 2-12-06
Kecksburg, which was the location of something mysterious -- some would say something extraterrestrial -- 40 years ago, isn't Southwestern Pennsylvania' s only connection to unidentified flying objects.
Uniontown native Gen. George C. Marshall was chief of staff of the Army during World War II, secretary of defense and secretary of state in President Harry Truman's administration and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of a Europe devastated by the war.
Some extraterrestrial experts believe that he was also part of a government coverup of alien visitors, although he couldn't be blamed for the handling of the purported Kecksburg landing since it happened six years after his death
Larry Bland, the editor of the Marshall papers at the George C. Marshall Foundation Library in Lexington, Va., said there has been a stream of UFOlogists visiting the library to authenticate Marshall's signature on various documents.
But Bland doesn't believe there's anything to a UFO coverup, and he said that Marshall's signature could have been added to the bottom of some documents with the aid of scissors and a copying machine.
Marshall does have a connection to outer space in NASA'a Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Ala. But Bland said the center was named after him because it was originally an Army facility and it was opened at about the time of his death, not because he had any particular interest in outer space.
There are a number of reminders of Marshall in Uniontown, including the George C. Marshall Highway bypass around the city, a park and a memorial plaza at Uniontown's Five Corners intersection at Main and Fayette streets and Mt. Vernon Avenue.
The latest likeness is a mural of the general draping the side of a city building and calling attention to Joe Hardy's Marshall Plan II for the revitalization of Uniontown.
Local statuary of Uniotown's favorite son includes a bust, a "monumental-scale" bronze of Marshall on horseback and another of him seated on a park bench across from the memorial plaza.
There are no plans as of now for a statue of Marshall looking into the sky for a flying saucer.
Australia: Witness Reports Multiple UFOs at Illawong Beach
Donna’s UFO claims are out of this world
The Daily Mercury 2-10-06
DONNA Weller’s ‘‘2006 - A Space Odyssey’’ is just getting weirder.
Donna, from Gympie, told The Daily Mercury this week that she had seen an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) hovering above Illawong Beach on Monday morning.
It seems that those pesky UFOs have popped up again, this time following her south along the Bruce Highway to Rockhampton.
‘‘There were three of them,’’ she said yesterday.
‘‘One behind the car and two to the side.
‘‘It was unbelievable — I’m a bit scared to tell you the truth.’’
True to previous form Donna captured video footage of the unidentified tailgaters.
We’re not an outfit to ignore such a potentially huge story, so we’ve requested a copy of the footage to send to The Daily Mercury labs based in Roswell for analysis.
We’ll get back to you with the results as soon as humanly possible, but for now you can join us and ponder why these outer-space visitors would want to go to Rockhampton ... Trust no-one.
by Brent Raynes Alternative Perceptions Magazine February 2006
Jacques Vallee authored such UFO classics as Anatomy Of A Phenomenon, Challenge To Science (which he wrote with his wife Janine), Passport To Magonia, Messengers of Deception, Confrontations, Dimensions, and Revelations. This distinguished French born scientist received his B.S. in mathematics at the Sorbonne, an M.S. in astrophysics at Lille University, and after moving to the U.S. received his Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University. Vallee worked closely with the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, former astronomical consultant to the Air Force's Project Blue Book. Their dialogues together in The Edge of Reality (1975) are a thought-provoking delight to read. Vallee also co-developed the first computer-based map of Mars for NASA, he later directed a project to build Arpanet, the prototype for the Internet, and since 1987 he has been a venture capitalist with Euro-America, serving as an early-stage investor and director of many companies including SangStat Medical, a biotechnology firm in Menlo Park, California and Nantes, France; Accuray, a medical device company specializing in robotic surgery; Ixys, a power semiconductor firm, and others.
For more information on Jacques Vallee and his extensive background, visit his website at: www.jacquesvallee.net
Editor: In the October-November 2001, UFO: The Science & Phenomena Magazine (Vol. 16, No. 5) your attendance at the 20th annual Society for Scientific Exploration was detailed. In this article, which was a summation of a conference that also included perspectives of scientists in a variety of avenues toward unexplained phenomena, including crop circles and parapsychology, it was noted how your public appearance was a rare event. Furthermore, the article quoted you saying: "I'm not interested in talking to ufologists any more, because I don't learn anything from them." Recently, you made another rare appearance to talk about UFOs. The UFO conference sponsored by the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on December 2nd and 3rd, 2005.
Could you generally sum up for us the reasons why you have come to have little tolerance towards mainstream ufologists and avoid participating in their conferences, but would take part in these other two conferences just mentioned?
Jacques Vallee: There was another part to what I said at the time, namely that I learned more from witnesses than I did from ufologists. That remains true today. When I began this research in the 1960s I learned a lot from groups like NICAP and APRO, that were trying to document and publish cases, and promoted an open minded approach. This changed in the late 1980s when ufology turned into a set of dogmas (Roswell, abductions) with little room for open-minded research, and almost no field investigation any more. Much independent UFO research today has gone underground and is done by isolated individuals, outside of the organized groups, as was the case with the “Invisible College” in the days of Allen Hynek. The ERA conference was a rare opportunity to compare notes with colleagues I respect, in a sober setting.
AZTEC -- At 5 a.m. March 25, 1948, an unidentified flying object was spotted on a military radar. It was reportedly flying over Northern New Mexico, before crashing in a field in Hart Canyon north of Aztec.
It was a saucer-shaped ship, 100 feet in diameter, and there were small charred bodies inside, according to eyewitnesses -- military personnel, locals and police officers.
This is the stuff legends are made of. But for some Aztec residents and big-time ufologists, this had the makings of a story that would put Aztec on the map.
Leanne Hathcock, Aztec librarian, and Scott Ramsey, a friend from North Carolina, began the Aztec UFO Symposium nine years ago with the purpose of propagating the story and the small town it hailed from.
This year the symposium will feature big names in the fields of ufology and the paranormal, and it will be held on the 58th anniversary of the purported crash -- March 24-26 at the Aztec Public Library, 319 S. Ash.
Ramsey of Charlotte, N.C., has dedicated all of his spare time to researching this alleged crash. He has 3,400 pages of declassified documents from the U.S. military and the FBI.
"It's all there in black and white," Ramsey said. "That's a lot of (pages) for an event that didn't happen."
Ramsey, who will speak at this year's symposium, said he recently discovered proof of photographs being taken at the crash site.
"According to the FBI file, someone was trying to sell them to the Baltimore Sun," Ramsey said, adding he will share 19 years of his research at the symposium.
"I will take my research and go back 50 years and take every skeptic and critic of the Aztec incident and prove them unequivocally wrong," Ramsey said.
In addition to Ramsey's speech, the symposium will also feature lectures from former State Rep. Andrew Kissner, who will discuss documents that former Congressman Steve Schiff had declassified.
"The public will see documents for the first time ever on the Schiff investigation and other phenomenon," Ramsey said. "He's got some stuff that will blow your mind."
The late Schiff, when in office, urged the federal government to declassify documents pertaining to the famous 1947 UFO crash in Roswell.
Also speaking is Linda Moulton-Howe, an award-winning journalist; Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist and renowned ufologist; Dennis Balthaser, a ufologist specializing in the Roswell crash; Frank Feschino, author of the book "Braxton County Monster;" and Scott Littleton, a professor, who has studied UFO sightings in Los Angeles in the 1950s.
Suzanne Ninos-Ramsey, formerly of Farmington, will be the emcee. She became involved with the symposium as an event planner, and then ended up marrying Scott Ramsey after winning a date with him through the symposium.
She said the dedication to research from the speakers is what has impressed her most about this symposium.
"What I have seen with the speakers is if it is not documented, it doesn't exist," Ninos-Ramsey said. "Everything is thoroughly documented."
She has traveled across the country with Ramsey as he attempted to gather evidence from eye witnesses and their families. She said it has been and interesting and eye-opening experience.
"People are interested in getting to the truth," she said.
Those wanting to learn more about the alleged crash and other UFO sightings are invited to attend, Ramsey said, adding that law enforcement and military personnel, firefighters and emergency medical technicians and their families are admitted for free.
Aztec UFO symposium continues to draw people from around the world
AZTEC -- It began as a forum of discussion with a small price tag for admittance. The money raised by the Aztec UFO Symposium was earmarked for a new library in Aztec. Now, the new library is built, but the symposium goes on.
"Saturday night over Milan there was a Sighting of 5 Objects that lingered in the air from 11:00 PM till 5:00 AM and our TV news channels covered it. Like the Phoenix lights, no one knows what to do."
The story was covered on Italian Television and in the news media, and the conclusion was drawn that the objects were unexplained. Unlike the Phoenix lights, however, there were no US military bases in the area that could issue false claims of dropping flares, so the objects at this time remain a pure unknown.
Initially, witnesses assumed that the objects were stars, but they changed both color and shape, causing observers to call police and news media.
Witnesses Report Five 'Humanoid Creatures' - Military Surrounded The Area
UFO sleuth on the trail of mystery at sea
North Wales Pioneer 2-6-06
AS THE well known X Files catchphrase goes; ' the truth is out there.'
That is what UFO investigator Russell Kellett hopes to uncover on his saucer searching mission in Conwy.
But without the help of Mulder and Scully, the full-time researcher from FIley, North Yorkshire, has spent eight years unfolding the details of a paranormal event, believed to have occurred in North Wales nearly 32 years ago.
And Russell is hoping that a return trip to the Welsh hills and vales will unearth new supernatural soils, and conclude the mystery that he has named Dragon Lights.
The story began when a group of four men were travelling home on the evening of January 23 1973. They were near a field in Llandrillo when they saw an unidentified object land on the ground.
Arriving promptly on the scene, the army ordered the men to leave but not before they caught a glimpse of five humanoid creatures, two of which were in distress.
The military surrounded the area and told the men not to speak of what they had just witnessed, but the men later set up meetings to discuss their sightings.
The plot began to thicken as more and more witnesses spoke out, and after years of research, Russell discovered that there had also been an earthquake that night.
He said: “My investigation is very detailed and has a lot of background to it and I have documents and witness statements that really are mindblowing.
“I believe that a military movement out at sea caused the raising of a UFO from underwater which later crashed in land.
“My investigations so far have helped things to fall into place, this blows what happens on sci-fi TV right out of the water.
“I am currently searching for people in the area who have been on battleships and would be grateful if any readers who may have any information about a battle fleet that was in the Colwyn Bay/ Puffin Island or Liverpool Bay area at that time could get in touch with me.”
Scientists Describe UFO As Having a "Cylindrical Head With Two Balloon-Type Attachments, a Body, Hands and Two Legs"
UFO Was It There?
TMC.net 2-6-06
(India Today Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Tucked away high in 15,000-ft glaciated mountains, Chandratal, the only sacred lake in the Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, has for long been steeped in mythology. Legend has it that the crescent-shaped pristine water body is an abode of fairies who descend on Earth on moonlit nights.
But the glacier-bound uninhabited terrain has come to be associated with an equally incredible tale doing the rounds in India's top space and defence establishments-the sighting of an unidentified flying object or UFO at the Samudra Tapu region, a de-glaciated valley at an eight-hour trek from Chandratal.
More than a year after a five-member team of glaciologists and geologists had a 40-minute encounter with a balloon-shaped object straight out of The X-Files, the incident continues to baffle a section of the Indian scientific community. Both Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the army are aware of the matter which figured even in Parliament last year when the minister of state with the Prime Minister's Office had, in a written reply, confirmed the ISRO report on the UFO sighting.
It was the penultimate day of a week-long expedition undertaken by Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre (SAC) of ISRO on September 27, 2004. The team comprising three sac scientists and two geologists had pitched camp in the valley some 17,000 ft above sea level. They were studying the Chandra basin glacier using satellite data. Around 6.45 a.m., as the scientists were preparing to leave their tents, one of the porters spotted a white object on top of an adjacent mountain ridge, and screamed: "Sir, the snow man is coming.''
Anil Kulkarni, a senior ISRO scientist who has been mapping glaciers for a quarter century, and his team members saw what appeared to be a robot floating a few inches above the ground, approaching the camp along the mountain slope. Kulkarni and his co-researcher, geologist Sunil Dhar, pulled out their digital cameras and began shooting the object even as the team raced towards the mountain to investigate.
The oblong object, between 3 and 4 ft high, kept moving down the slope towards the team. It had a cylindrical head with two balloon-type attachments, a body, hands and two legs. "It seemed to be walking, planting and pacing its steps like a human being," recalls Dhar.
It seems when the object reached the lower edge of the hill, 50 m away from the stunned scientists, the team members' excitement alarmed it. It stood still for a few seconds, turned and started a steep 70-degree ascent towards the ridge top. By this time, apparently due to the rays of the rising sun, its colour had changed to black. Soon it changed to white again, hovered above the camp for five minutes before noiselessly receding into a white dot in the sky.
Ever since 1947 when businessman Kenneth Arnold sparked off a worldwide UFO mania reportedly spotting flying discs, thousands of fake sightings have been reported from across the globe. It would have also been easy to write off the Samudra Tapu sighting as a mistaken aerial phenomenon except that it was observed and reported by a group of scientists willing to stick out their necks and reputations to swear by what they saw.
From the photographs, the UFO looks like a bunch of balloons caught in a mountain draft, but an sac report claims the object displayed complex manoeuvrability. "It is a riddle beyond human perception," says Dhar who, along with Kulkarni, has contacted robotic labs across the world to determine what is technologically possible in unmanned flying vehicles.
"It didn't look like a man-made object,'' adds geologist Rajesh Kalia. Even more incredible is the photographic evidence-among the first in India for a UFO sighted on the ground-of the experience classified as a close encounter of the first kind in common UFO parlance. Was it an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on a cross-border spy mission or an extraterrestrial being? Or was it simply a helium-filled weather balloon which had lost its way? The jury is still out.
The scientists circulated the account of their close encounter in ISRO, army headquarters, Snow and Avalanche Study Establishments (SASE), an affiliate of Defence Research and Development Organisation which runs weather monitoring stations in high altitude regions, and among district authorities in Kullu. The army and SASE are the only agencies stationed in high altitude areas.
"I thought it was a helium balloon, but Kulkarni's description indicates an object with ahead-of-age technology," says R.N. Sarwade, director, SASE.
Perplexed, the scientists are now wondering if it could be something man-made. "But there is no known matching technology yet in the civilian realm to explain the mysterious object we saw so up close," says Kulkarni. Over the past year, Kulkarni and Dhar have been critically examining their sighting to deconstruct the object technologically, contacting top robotic laboratories in the US, Germany and Sweden. Kulkarni has shared his report with the director general of military operations.
Efforts to demystify the Samudra Tapu UFO sighting have made little headway, given the sheer high altitude, heavy snow cover and peculiar weather conditions which render the snowbound region virtually inaccessible for both air and ground expeditions.
But the quest for demystifying the sighting has not stopped. "One way to understand the mysterious object is to undertake more expeditions in the area," says Dhar. But the question is whether the object will ever be sighted again? "Unless the sighting is repeated, it will remain a puzzle," says Kulkarni. Till that happens, this is an enigma scientists may have to live with.
BOX 1
WHO SAW IT?
A five-member team of glaciologists and geologists from the Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre (SAC) of ISRO in September 2004, including (right to left) its leader Anil Kulkarni, geologists Rajiv Kalia, Sunil Dhar and SAC scientist Sushil Singh. The team had camped at Samudra Tapu, a huge de-glaciated valley.
UFO? The object photographed rising above the valley
WHAT IS A UFO?
A UFO or Unidentified Flying Object is defined as an object or optical phenomenon observed in the sky which cannot be identified even after a thorough probe. The accepted opinion of the mainstream scientific community is that probably all UFO sightings result from misidentification of natural and man-made phenomenon, deliberate hoaxes or psychological delusion.
WHY IS THIS A UFO?
SIGHTING: Seen by all 11 members of the expedition. Scientific community has been unable to conclusively identify the object.
PHOTOGRAPHS: The pictures taken by the scientists confirm that there was indeed something and they were not suffering from high-altitude hallucinations.
FLIGHT: The object manoeuvred on ground and in air, defying gravity and wind direction, negotiated terrain, changed colour and took off vertically, the most challenging aspect of aviation technology.
WHERE WAS IT SEEN?
SAMUDRA TAPU, a de-glaciated valley in Himachal Pradesh. A 12-km, eight-hour trek from Chandratal, it is approachable only via a 180-km deep trek from Batal, the nearest roadhead on the Manali-Leh highway. Kaksar, 70 km away, is the nearest inhabited town.
BOX 2
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
UAVs
FOR: Unmanned (or pilotless) aerial vehicles are packed with electronic devices and are used for recce and spy missions.
AGAINST: UAVs are like aircraft which take off and ascend slowly. They can't climb or drop vertically, a feature the object showed.
BALLOONS
FOR: Carry gadgets to measure atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity. Accounted for most UFO sightings.
AGAINST: Even the most sophisticated weather balloons can't manoeuvre on land. The object negotiated land critically.
AIRSHIPS
FOR: Lighter than aircraft. Equipped with radar and used for military missions like early warning systems. Also used for leisure.
AGAINST: The object could manoeuvre like a human. It showed vertical take-off capability, which airships do not have.
EL SALVADOR: POLICE CHIEF AND 17 OFFICERS CLAIM HAVING FACED STRANGE LIGHT
1-27-06
A strange event is under investigation by the police. The deputy chief of the San Salvador police force and 17 of his men were witnesses to what still has not been given a rational explanation - they allegedly came across a powerful silent radiation that enveloped them for several minutes.
AFP DIGITAL - In the early hours of Tuesday morning, police cruisers came across a powerful silent light that lit them up and vanished after several minutes without a trace.
The deputy chief of the San Salvador police, Amir Methey Doret, told Uno that "we experienced the curious event when we were returning from a police operation in the rural area north of our Department."
"That's where all 18 of us witnessed a light in the sky that glowed with great intensity. It amazed us that the light seemed to be aimed toward one side," he added. "That powerful light wasn't a floodlight, with which I am well acquainted, nor was it any other device or aerial optics. I do not think it was a helicopter or airplane either."
After a few minutes of exposure, explained the senior officer, "the silent light began to rise to a considerable height and velocity, until it suddenly vanished, leaving a significant glow or white cloud that began to dissipate like smoke."
"The light, which we could see from a considerable distance, was moving sideways (sic) and was suddenly gone, leaving a cloud behind."
When asked if it could have originated from an aircraft, Methey Doret said pointblank: "I don't think so, because at first we thought it might be an aerostate, but we later realized this wasn't the case, as the light was so strong."
"As the hours go by, those of us who were there wonder what crossed our path," reflected the deputy police chief.
Later on, he reported that "the police cruisers continued running and at no point were communications between the units ever interrupted."
Finally, the deputy chief remarked that other residents of San Salvador saw the strange light headed toward the Villaguay region.
* SOURCE: Planeta UFO and APF Digital
* (Translation (c) 2006. S. Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology, special thanks to Christian Quintero)
HILLS and sea flank the picturesque and sleepy village of West Kilbride in Ayrshire. A typical Scottish sky, a changing pattern of light and cloud hangs over the town. The days when a thriving weaving industry supported local employment are long gone. Today the area is more concerned with crafts; that's home crafts and small businesses, and spacecrafts and little green men.
Yes, according to recent statistics, that big old sky is continually being punctuated by strange lights, odd-shaped crafts and generally all manner of unidentified flying objects.
Last year reports released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) revealed that West Kilbride had the highest number of recorded sightings of flying saucers in Britain during 2004. A total of 12 sightings were made in the village, which makes it Britain's closest rival to the UFO capital of Roswell, New Mexico. Reported sightings were consistent: yellow spheres, sometimes alone, sometimes flying in groups of up to 25, all hovering over the hills of West Kilbride.
In the Kilbride Tavern, locals are well aware of the village's growing fame in paranormal circles. While no-one on my visit admitted to reporting any sightings themselves, there were nods of agreement that there is something strange going on. When I ask who I should talk to I am pointed in the direction of Dougie McKinnie with cries of: "Dougie's an alien, speak to him!"
"I saw one," admits McKinnie. "I was camping out on the beach when I was 17. It was the middle of the night. I woke up locked out of the tent and I saw a round light hovering above the water between here and Arran."
A local shopworker, who preferred to remain anonymous, agreed that she too once saw an unexplained light over the water in the westerly direction of Arran, while in the vet's surgery a former colleague was believed to have reported yet another sighting.
Others remain unconvinced. "I didn't see any although maybe I might see some later on in here," chuckles Mattie Anderson, as she gestures round the pub's jovial customers and tops up own her glass. "I think you've got to see something before you can believe it."
Gerry McGrath is more certain: "I know there are people who said they've seen stuff but it's absolute tripe! Very often you see something in the sky round here and you think: 'What's that?' Sometimes they don't move for ages and ages, but they're helicopters. I've seen them with my children and it does look quite funny but they're just helicopters."
The MoD does follow up reports of UFOs to check whether Britain's airspace is compromised, but unless there appears to be a threat they don't attempt to analyse the sightings. Staff agree that many reports do remain a mystery.
"We take everything seriously and look into all reported sightings and remain totally open-minded on this issue," says a spokesman. "But to date there is no evidence that UFOs exist, there are not shed-loads of broken UFOs around!"
The MoD says that although there are no Air Force bases near West Kilbride - which might explain the high rate of sightings there – a number of landowners are thought to use their own private aircraft, while helicopters are also used by police and oil rig workers. In most cases, it seems likely that an earthly explanation for the unexplained yellow saucers in West Kilbride's dramatic skies can be found.
Despite this there remains a thriving interest in UFOs in Scotland. Ron Halliday, chair of Scottish Earth Mysteries and author of UFO Scotland and UFOs: The Scottish Dimension insists that there is something strange in them there West Kilbride hills:
"Scotland has more sightings of UFOs proportionate to its population than anywhere else in the world. It's true that many times people mistake natural phenomena for strange things and usually there is an explanation. But some reports are harder to explain, especially the close up ones and increasingly people are capturing things on video or camera. There is no doubt in my mind that some things can’t be explained away."
The attached photographic sequence was taken by Miguel Luna in the mountainous region of the Mexican state of Oaxaca at Cerro de la Caja on August 5, 2005 at approximately 13:00 hours.
The witness states that he initially believed that the "shadow" could be a burned area on the mountainside, but he later realized that it moved and it was also possible to see the flying object among the clouds.
The images were taken with a Sony DSC-P73 camera at normal exposure and at ISO 100.
Photo credit: Miguel Luna
* (Translation (c) 2006, S. Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU). Special thanks to Ana Luisa Cid and Miguel Luna)
UFO Sightings Reported Over Over Dhauladhar Mt. Range
Illustration
Solar lights spawn rumours of UFO sightings
NewKerala.com 2-1-06
Dharamsala, Jan 31: Reports of UFO sightings and mysterious flashes from flying saucers over the Dhauladhar ranges, which have evoked widespread local interest, were dismissed by the authorities today as nothing more than "solar lights" from a nearby Army camp.
"The reports carried by newspapers regarding "mysterious" flashes of light are not based on facts. These flashes were emitted from solar lights installed by the 9 Corps at Yol camp at a religious site," Kangra Deputy Commissioner Bharat Khera said.
He said the trial of these solar lights was on and they emitted very bright flashes in the horizon particularly.
The flashes had been noticed in the skyline over the Dhauladhar ranges last night, causing people to believe that they were emitted from flying saucers.
Khera said there was no cause for panic and asked the people to refrain from spreading rumours.
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