LANDERS - The aliens came back to Landers on Saturday.
There was the bullet creature. He looked like a man, except his bald head was entirely silver and his otherworldly eyes were hidden behind goggled sunglasses. In fact, all of the "extraterrestrials" looked nearly human except for their blue and silver outfits of varying designs.
Nothing like E.T. or the bug-eyed creatures from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" showed up. But if they had, they certainly would have been welcomed at the Retro UFO Spaceship Convention.
This was the first convention to be held at George Van Tassel's Integratron since 1978, the year after his death. Van Tassel popularized Landers, about 40 miles north of Palm Springs, as a UFO landing site. He claimed travelers from Venus first contacted him in 1953 and regularly after that. He began holding annual space conventions soon after, putting Landers on the map as a hot spot for extraterrestrial activity.
He might have been happy to see the site of the Integratron -- a two-story domed structure designed as a rejuvenation machine -- overrun with people in foil hats and clothing more than 50 years after his first contact. After all, said the Rev. Bob Short, who knew Van Tassel, the Integratron was essentially an alien gift. Van Tassel's visitors, he said, provided him with the design.
"They really did want to make contact with the people of our world," Short said.
The Integratron was intended to show "that they had good intentions," he said.
Short, dressed partly in American Indian regalia, opened the day's event with some traditional Indian singing and drumming. A woman assisting him shook a gourd rattle and waved burning sage over each of the nearly 60 people forming a circle in front of the Integratron.
Short assured that crowd that his grandfathers, who he said were Standing Elk and Sitting Bull, gave the crowd their blessing.
"If there are any ETs among us," he added, "I want to welcome you."
The daylong event, which was a fundraiser for both the Integratron and the Morongo Valley Historical Society, featured lectures from contactees such as Short, UFO historians and theorists promoting such ideas as the Earth being hollow.
"I have been to Antarctica," said speaker Hans Peterman, of Palm Springs. "I know where the entrance is to the inner Earth."
During a two-hour talk, Peterman, author of "Gravity, Matter and Space Travel," said Lake Vostok provides an opening into the Earth's center, where alien beings live.
Peterman also talked about government-built underground tunnels crisscrossing the United States, a subterranean reptilian race and civilizations on Mars.
"Where did the Martians go?" he asked his audience. "The scenario was that the name Cairo actually means Mars. There you have absolute proof. No ifs, ands or buts about it."
Not all the attendees or speakers were as wild as Peterman. In fact, most seemed to be there to have fun while sharing some of their strange and unexplained experiences.
Greg Bishop, author of "Weird America," took a humorously skeptical approach in his talk on alien contactees.
Historically, Bishop said, "Every time someone has a spiritual experience it's something coming from the sky. What was coming from the sky in the 1950s and '60s was these things people couldn't identify.
"I think there's something going on," Bishop said. "What that something is, I'm not sure, but it's out of the ordinary."
Daniel Toscano, 46, is a teacher from Riverside. He wasn't willing to speak about his personal UFO experience as he sat beneath Giant Rock, but he said he is encouraged by the messages most contactees share.
"They say there is hope for humanity," he said.
Standing nearby, Ken Keller, 69, of Yucca Valley, had a different opinion about extraterrestrial visitation.
"I think it's a crock," he said. The closest thing he's observed to aliens, he said jokingly, "is my next-door neighbors."
But others are convinced we are not alone.
Michael Barr, 58, of Las Vegas, showed up at the convention dressed in a blue jumpsuit with a high foil collar and a white Beatles wig. He has had his own experience with an alien encounter and believes extraterrestrials are watching humans and waiting for us to learn how to cooperate and get along.
"At some point, and they will decide when that is, they will come back and invite us into their neighborhood," he said.
Until then, he added, conventions are the best thing going, especially when, as in Landers, the atmosphere is right.
"I've been to so many of these conferences (where) everybody's like a stuffed shirt," he said. "Have some fun with it."
Seeing is Believing - Tripping The Lights Fantastic
By Bellinda Kontominas SMH.com 4-29-06
STANDING in the darkness on Long Reef peninsula, seeing anything - let alone alien aircraft - is proving difficult. That is the challenge for members of the UFO Society of Western Sydney, who are on one of their regular UFO expeditions.
The northern beaches is a "hot spot" for unidentified flying objects, according to the Campbelltown-based group, which says it has received hundreds of "genuine UFO sightings" since its inception in 2000.
However, the only sightings this evening are aircraft, which - with a long stretch of the imagination - look vaguely like spaceships as their lights emerge from the clouds. Another "sighting" occurs when a glowing orange light whizzes past the group. "Did you see that?" asks Attila Kaldy, president of the group. But this is no flying saucer, just a flying cigarette ember.
"Most people would think we're crazy coming out here," Mr Kaldy says, as the wind howls and the second downpour of the evening hits.
UFO-spotting is not just a hobby for this group with six researchers and about 20 fee-paying members, who also conduct night watches in the Blue Mountains and the Macarthur region.
Many say they have seen things they cannot explain, including aircraft that submerge into water and aliens in silhouette. One claims to have been abducted.
It was on June 5, 1999, that Laszlo Novak says he first encountered a UFO, three orange "doughnut-shaped objects" in the sky above his home in Minto. After another sighting that night they appeared again, this time directly above the Hungarian-born retiree. "It was beautiful, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
Realising he could not account for more than an hour that night, Mr Novak underwent hypnotherapy and recounted what he believes was an abduction. "I saw a light. I was lying down on a table and could see a shadowy figure on another table next to me in jeans and a white blouse and I saw a shadowy face in front of me.
"It has made me very emotional. It's very hard to talk about, but that's why we come to this group - to talk about it."
The UFO Society of Western Sydney meets monthly at Campbelltown City Library to report on sightings and discuss the paranormal. The group will host this year's national UFO conference at Campbelltown Catholic Club on May 6.
Most people are willing to consider there may be life on other planets, Mr Kaldy says, although he admits there are sceptics. "People have a problem accepting the unknown because it's out of the ordinary realms of our lives and out of our comfort zones."
I Was Just Hunting UFOs, Says Pentagon's UK Hacker
By Thanhnien News 4-28-06
But Briton Gary McKinnon says he is just an ordinary computer nerd who wanted to find out whether aliens and UFOs exist.
During his two-year quest, McKinnon broke into computers at the Pentagon, NASA and the Johnson Space Center as well as systems used by the US army, navy and air force.
US officials say he caused $700,000 worth of damage and even crippled vital defense systems shortly after the September 11 attacks.
The unemployed computer programmer is now battling extradition to the United States, where, if found guilty, he faces up to 70 years in jail and fines of up to $1.75 million. His lawyer fears he could even be sent to Guantanamo Bay.
It's all a far cry from how he first got into hacking: watching a film about a teenage boy who breaks into a military central computer and almost starts World War Three.
"I had seen the film 'War Games' and I do remember clearly thinking at the time, that's amazing -- a great big military computer system and a young, spotty teenager," the softly spoken 39-year-old told Reuters in an interview.
"Hacker's Handbook"
A decade later, McKinnon, armed with information gleaned from the book, "The Hacker's Handbook," began his snooping.
During 2000-1 from his home in Hornsey, north London, and using a computer with just a limited 56K dial-up modem, he turned his sights on the American government and military.
"My main thing was wanting to find out about UFOs and suppressed technology," he said insisting his intention was not to cause damage. "I wanted to ... find out stuff the government wouldn't tell you about."
He said it was easy, despite being only a rank amateur. Using the hacking name "Solo," he discovered that many US top-security systems were using an insecure Microsoft Windows program and had no password protection at all.
"So I got commercially available off-the-shelf software and used them to scan large military networks ... anything I thought might have possible links to UFO information," he said.
Aliens?
He said he came across a group called the "Disclosure Project," which had expert testimonies from senior figures who said technology obtained from extra-terrestrials did exist.
One NASA scientist had reported that the Johnson Space Center had a facility where UFOs were airbrushed out of high-resolution satellite images. So, he hacked in.
"I saw what I'm convinced was some kind of satellite or spacecraft but it was manufactured by no means I have ever seen before -- there were no rivets, no seams, it was like one flawless piece of material. And that was above the Earth."
However, his probing came to an end in March 2002, when British police arrested him.
"I was completely obsessed. I was completely addicted. It was like a huge game but I was getting very paranoid," he said.
McKinnon's own story might sound like the plot of a movie, but the charges he faces are deadly serious. He argues he is being made a scapegoat by US authorities to deter other would-be hackers rather than address their own security flaws.
"I'm already being treated as a terrorist," he said. "I appear in an official American army pamphlet ... in a guide to combating terrorism in the 21st century."
The next stage of his legal battle takes place on May 10. But he hints that whatever happens, he has a lot more to tell.
"I can't talk about a lot of stuff that I found. It's just not the right time," he said with a smile.
By Stephen Bassett Paradigm Research Group 4-24-06
Washington, DC - The Paradigm Clock, created and published by PRG in 1998 to track the proximity to a formal announcement by the United States Government confirming an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race, has been reset to 11:59:45 - 15 seconds to midnight. Such an announcement is formally referred to as Disclosure and would mark the end of a 59 year truth embargo imposed by federal authorities. Midnight on the Paradigm Clock is Disclosure.
According to PRG Executive Director, Stephen Bassett, "Due to extraordinary circumstances primarily pertaining but not limited to the United States, a window of opportunity has opened for a Disclosure event to take place. This window should last through the November election and may remain open or possibly close depending upon the outcome of the election." He further added, "I believe this to be the best opportunity to get past this very difficult transition in human history since the truth embargo was initially imposed in 1947."
The previous setting for the Paradigm Clock was 11:58:45 on March 8, 2004. A partial listing of factors contributing to the new time change (in both directions) is provided below. A more detailed explanation of these factors can be found at: www.paradigmclock.com/chronicleexplanations.html
2006 Crisis in America.
2006 After several false starts Air America Radio begins to make headway as a counter balance to conservative radio, approaching 100 markets. This is facilitated by access to some stations owned by syndicate giant Clear Channel Communications, chastened in the aftermath of the Michael Powell fiasco at the Federal Communications Commission - the failed attempt to expand conglomeration of media via new regulations. The effort brought an intense scrutiny of Clear Channel Communications and its business practices. The dominant theme on Air America programs becomes the consequences of government lying. Abuse of power and excess secrecy are also featured.
10/20/05 The Institute for Cooperation in Space requests Canadian Senator Colin Kenny, Senator, Chair of The Senate Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, “schedule public hearings on the Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, so that witnesses such as the Honorable Paul Hellyer, and Canadian-connected high level military-intelligence, NORAD-connected, scientific, and governmental witnesses facilitated by the Disclosure Project and by the Toronto Exopolitics Symposium can present compelling evidence, testimony, and Public Policy recommendations.”
9/25/05 In a speech at University of Toronto's Convocation Hall, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau, publicly states, "UFOs are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head." Hellyer further states, "The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unprecedented. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop."
5/20/05 Brazil Releases Classified Data - Recognizes UFO Research - The Brazilian Air Force (FAB), almost certainly with the approval of Minister of Defense and Vice President, José Alencar, enters into an agreement with civilian researchers to release information and jointly investigate UFO incidents
4/22/05 & 4/17/04 X-Conference. The first two conferences devoted specifically to the political implications of extraterrestrial-related phenomena and disclosure are held just outside of Washington, DC. X-Conferences 2004 and 2005 attract considerable media attention, new government witnesses and launch numerous projects and documentaries. At the 2005 conference former Vatican official, Monsignor Corrado Balducci, speaks in the United States for the first time regarding the truth of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.
11/2/04 President George W. Bush is reelected.
9/27/04 Dr. John E. Mack is killed in London in an automobile accident.
July 2004 Producer, director, writer and actor Dan Aykroyd becomes the first A-list celebrity to allow his or her name and image to be used to support extraterrestrial-related phenomena research. He publicly endorses the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).
5/11/04 Mexico's DoD Releases Video to UFO Research Team - The Department of Defense of Mexico, with the approval of Mexican Secretary of Defense, General Clemente Vega Garcia (and almost certainly Mexican President Vicente Fox), holds an international press conference at the Hotel Sevilla Palace in Mexico City. The Department of Defense releases air surveillance evidence of an unusual sighting to a civilian research team headed by researcher and journalist, Jaime Maussan and confirms a joint investigative effort.
Relevant Web Pages
Paradigm Research Group: www.paradigmclock.com Dr. John Mack: http://johnemackinstitute.org/center/center_news.asp?id=227 X-Conference: www.paradigmclock.com/X-Conference/X-Conference.htm Paul Hellyer: www.exopoliticstoronto.com Institute for Cooperation in Space: www.peaceinspace.com Mexico: www.rense.com/general52/mexv.htm Brazil: www.rense.com/general65/braz.htm Air America: www.airamericaradio.com
PRG Update - April 23, 2006
Paul Davids Documentary - The Sci-Fi Boys
Researcher, filmographer, artist and longtime PRG supporter, Paul Daivds, had the DVD of his latest documentary, The Sci-Fi Boys, go on sale in Best Buy stores nationwide on March 28. Look for them next to the record selling King Kong DVD.
Paul, who was the executive producer of the movie, Roswell, has created a nostalgic look back at the legendary pioneers of science fiction films - perhaps the most influential artistic genre in history.
Paul recently conducted an interview with some of these legends at a screening at the Egyptian Theater. www.fangoria.com has several articles about The Sci-Fi Boys and posted the streaming video of the March 21 interview. Another edited version of the interview along with photos is located at www.kongisking.net
David Sereda/Dan Aykroyd Documentary - Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs
On May 31 David Sereda's much improved and enhanced documentary, Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs, will also hit all the Best Buy stores nationwide. PRG predicts this will quickly become the largest selling UFO documentary in history with total sales in the millions. Dan Aykroyd is a principal and will be promoting the video personally. Expect David and Dan to turn up on Larry King Live on CNN and elsewhere.
If sales are as predicted, this documentary will elevate Dan Aykroyd to the status of the leading spokesperson in the world on the matters of extraterrestrial-related phenomena and a government truth embargo (cover-up).
So please spread the word about Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs. It's success will help everyone in the field.
More details at: http://davidsereda.blogspot.com/2006/04/if-you-want-to-see-dan-aykroyd.html
Activism, the Rich and the Super Rich
Referring to: www.paradigmclock.com/Billionaires.htm It contains a version of the recent Forbes Magazine's list of the world's wealthiest people. About a dozen listees with some connection to matters ET have been bolded. It is worth mentioning that while many on this list have made substantial sums of money from ET related movies, books and products, no one on this list has "publicly" (not aware of any private instances, but such are certainly possible) ever provided any money for either the research into extraterrestrial-related phenomena or the activism to end the truth embargo. Should they? That is up to each of them to decide.
Until they do, let's not miss any opportunity to provide them the information needed to make an informed decision. If you have a personal or business relationship with anyone on this list or have a good contact with someone who does, please try and get information to that person regarding the incipient disclosure movement. Give them a chance to make a difference. In most cases they are simply too busy with multiple projects to be aware of what is happening regarding this issue and its implications. Help them out.
To further put this matter in perspective, PRG has calculated that if just $2 million were applied to a selected list of activist projects targeting specific weaknesses in the truth embargo, that embargo could be ended in mere months. Let's use Ms. Alice Walton, net worth $15.7 billion, as an example. Assuming a modest 5% annual growth rate on assets (be assured that is low for billionaires), $2 million is the equivalent of one days worth in appreciation on her assets.
Also consider this: as of 2004 there were 7.5 million Americans with assets in excess of $1 million for a total in excess of $10 trillion. The entire human race is being denied the full facts regarding the most profound circumstance in history at a time when the human race and the planet are facing unprecedented challenges, and 7.5 million people with over $10 trillion in assets can't come up with $2 million to acquire those facts?
Time is running out for constructive solutions to global problems. Anyone who cares about their children, grandchildren - all children - needs to step forward.
'Cigar Shaped UFO' Reported Over Czestochowa, Poland
By Piotr Cielebias NOL - Polish UFO Journal 4-25-06
The witness' [Tomasz's] relation:
"On April 14th at about 5:30 pm I was sitting with friends on a yard. The weather was bright. There were no clouds. I was staring at the sky and suddenly over houses and trees I saw an descending object resembling a cigar. At first I thought that it was a hang-glider but it was still descending and sunlight was reflecting in it. It was rather metallic in color but the dazzling impression prevented me from regarding it better. Then I summoned a friend who also saw it. I wasn't flying very quickly but unfortunately there were houses and trees in the area so I wasn't able to conduct further observation. There is another witness."
Previous observation took place in Czestochowa on April 2nd [metallic balls] and April 8th [splitting, white cigar-shaped object].
POLAND: UFO Seen Over Katowice
Mr. Tomasz Skupiewski's relation:
"About 4 years ago in April or May, on a free day [i.e. on Saturday or Sunday] I was in my kitchen eating breakfast. I live in Katowice on a 12th store. Suddenly I noticed some strange object. The weather was bright and sunny. The object was about 3 km away. It was circa 15 - 20 m. wide and was silver in color [it looked as if made of metal]. It was reflecting sunlight rising vertically up."
The man claimed that the sighting lasted about 10 min. and then the object disappeared in clouds. Along with Mr. Skupniewski also his entire family witnessed the observation. Anyway they didn't manage to take any photo because: "I wanted to took a photo but I hadn't got a digital camera yet and there was no film in my normal camera."
"I was looking for other witnesses but in vain. It seemed that the object had took off from a airport in Muchowiec [Katowice]." After the observation I called the airport asking about the schedule of flight and "It turned out that any crafts hadn't took off from the airfield. I also asked whether someone had seen some strange aircrafts. The woman was very surprised with it saying that she hadn't seen anything. I'm very angry with myself that I didn't manage to take a photo. Since the occurrence I look at the sky more frequently and I always have a camera at my side."
Recently I have been reading where some believe that UFO sightings are on the decrease, due to the lack of interest and a lack of reported sightings in their areas, in Canada, the United States or worldwide. Personally I found this to be untrue in my case, mainly due to the large amount of reported sightings that I receive here at HBCC UFO Research. As a matter of fact, there is so much material coming in, that HBCC UFO Research has now gone International. The idea behind this is to have UFO investigators scattered all over the world willing to take on and investigate the cases that are sent in.
After reading an article on the decrease in UFO reports, I placed a short and to the point survey/poll on my site, just to get a feel of what others thought. Were sightings of unknown objects on the upswing, or were they indeed decreasing ?
Poll Question: Are UFO sightings on the increase ?
People were asked to check one of three boxes, yes, no or not sure. As of today out of 309 people polled, below are the results.
Yes - 208 votes, 67.31%
No - 31 votes, 10.03%
Not sure - 70 votes, 22.65%
The results give an indication how people feel about this topic.
A Devastating UFO Encounter In Kelowna, British Columbia
By Brian Vike 4-25-06
The story is real but one of the names in this report is fictitious for obvious reasons. Corina, the driver of the vehicle is her real name.
Monday - August 18, 2003 I received a telephone call from Corina who lives in Kelowna, British Columbia. The lady was very upset and had a time speaking of the event that took place with her and a close female friend of hers. She told me today that a friend had brought over a newspaper article which was run in the Kelowna Capital Newspaper. The headline read "Seeking Witnesses to UFO." which showed up on August 15, 2003
Here is her story.
She tells that her and her friend are having a very hard time dealing with what took place. Also another couple who lives in the area watched an aerial craft hovering close to the location where the two ladies had parked there car at the side of the highway and gave confirmation to the incident, or at least witnessed an object.
At approx: 12:05 a.m., July 31, 2003 the two ladies were playing around on the computer when Linda said, we haven't done any star gazing in a long time, so Corina, the lady who contacted me said, you're right, lets go out and do some star gazing. They left home at 12:05 a.m. heading out to an area where they would get a look at the clear night sky without having lights to obscure their view. Corina drove to Glenmore, which is north from where she lives and is on the back road heading to Winfield from Kelowna, B.C.
They were driving along and Corina reported that there was quite a bit of traffic for that time of the night, but soon after they decided to stop just off to the side of the road to see what they might notice, the traffic stopped coming. There was not a light from any vehicles, not anything other than a very dark stretch of road. Corina grabbed her flashlight and shone it into the sky as she has done this in the past. Her friend Linda had the binoculars on the other side of the car scanning the starry night sky. They were there only a minute out of the car when her Linda said, this is really strange. There are three stars up in the sky and formed into a triangle shape. All three lights at this time were solid white. Both ladies watched as the three white lights started moving, but moving together. The witness with the binoculars said stars don't do that, and Corina replies, of course not, as she thought it may have been a plane or something. Linda replies, no this is not a plane as the lights were changing color to a neon green and the object had stopped and hovered just ahead of their car on the highway.
Life can serve up a good mystery every once in a while. Weird things happen that defy explanation, that make us wonder how much we really know about the world.
Something of the sort happened in San Diego County shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 4, and so far no one has come forward with an explanation.
Whatever it was, it caused a woman's bed to shake in Lakeside. It created waves in a backyard pool in Carmel Valley. It set off car alarms in Kearny Mesa and rattled windows from Mission Beach to Poway to Vista. At various spots throughout the county, people reported a rumbling sound or a booming noise.
Scientists insist it wasn't an earthquake. The Federal Aviation Administration has no record of any planes producing a sonic boom by breaking the sound barrier.
Camp Pendleton officials say no activities on the Marine base could have created such a disturbance. There were no large explosions in San Diego County that day, and no meteor fireballs were reported in the sky that morning.
What was it, then?
Maybe it was the same thing that caused a strange disturbance in Mississippi on April 7, when the locals heard a loud boom that rattled windows all over Jackson County, throwing emergency workers “into a tizzy,” said Butch Loper, Jackson County's civil defense director. Authorities in that state still don't have a clue as to the cause.
Nor, to this day, can anyone explain what was behind similar episodes in Maine two months ago, or Alabama three months ago, or North Carolina four months ago. In each of those cases – as well as in other incidents around the nation over the years – residents reported hearing windows rattle and feeling floors shake even though no earthquake was detected.
There's almost certainly a simple, unromantic, “Aha!”-type explanation for each of these odd occurrences, something that everyone has overlooked for whatever combination of reasons.
But who knows?
Maybe we're not being told everything. Maybe the Earth still does things that present-day humanity doesn't understand.
The morning of April 4 was cloudy in San Diego County, with rain in some areas and temperatures in the low to mid-60s. In Lakeside, Judi Mitchell, an emergency medical technician who works the night shift at a hospital, had returned to her home on Lakeshore Drive and was just about to fall asleep. It was 9 a.m., give or take a few minutes.
Suddenly, the earth started to vibrate.
“The windows shook; my bed moved,” she said. “It moved my bookcase.”
The rattling lasted a few seconds. Mitchell, 44, has lived in East County all her life and considers herself an expert at judging the size of an earthquake. She quickly guessed this one was a 4.5 on the Richter scale.
But to the astonishment of everyone, a quake wasn't the culprit. Within hours, both the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla issued statements saying no earthquake had been detected.
Last week, USGS spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna said the agency stands by its initial conclusion.
“No, it wasn't an earthquake,” she said. “We haven't changed our minds about that.”
By noon on the day of the incident, The San Diego Union-Tribune was being inundated with e-mails from people wondering what could have caused the strange tremors.
“My garage door is double steel and it weighs about 500 lbs.,” a man in University City wrote. “It was rattling back and forth like a leaf in the wind for about 3 or 4 seconds.”
A Mission Beach resident compared the sensation to “somewhere in between an explosion and an earthquake.” A woman in Carmel Valley noted that the rattling was very distressing to her cats.
In recent days, the Union-Tribune has tried to get to the bottom of this mystery. Our efforts haven't met with much success.
Was it a sonic boom? If so, it didn't come from any aircraft at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, Maj. Jason Johnston said. And it didn't come from any Navy planes in San Diego, said Cmdr. Jack Hanzlik, a Coronado-based spokesman for the Naval Air Forces.
“There were no Navy aircraft operating in this area during that time capable of flying at transonic speed,” he said.
Officials with the California National Guard and several Air Force bases also insisted their planes weren't the culprit, as did a Colorado-based spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
If a plane had been traveling over San Diego County at supersonic speeds, the Federal Aviation Administration would have picked it up on radar, said Cheryl Jones, the FAA's San Diego-based liaison to the Marine Corps.
Jones checked with FAA control centers in Palmdale and San Diego, which monitor 180,000 square miles covering Southern California, southern Nevada and western Arizona. The agency has no records of any plane, military or civilian, breaking the sound barrier on the morning of April 4, she said.
Under federal law, Jones added, the military can fly at supersonic speeds only in certain restricted areas, three of which exist in Southern California. One is 150 miles to the north of San Diego, the second is 220 miles to the east and the third is 27 miles off the coast. The odds of a plane in any of those areas creating a sonic boom that could be felt all over San Diego County are virtually nonexistent, she said.
Could some sort of rocket be the cause? A spokeswoman at Vandenberg Air Force Base, 60 miles north of Santa Barbara, said the base didn't launch any rockets that day. Neither did NASA, a spokesman for that agency said.
Was it a meteor? Unlikely, said Ed Beshore, a researcher at the University of Arizona's NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, which monitors asteroids and other heavenly objects.
Every few months, a meteor enters Earth's atmosphere and produces an “airburst” that can cause a disturbance on the ground, Beshore said. In one recent case, an airburst over the Mediterranean Sea broke the windows on a ship, he said. In the most extreme incident ever recorded, a 1908 airburst over Siberia flattened trees for thousands of miles.
But an airburst powerful enough to cause tremors all over San Diego County would have been noticed by scientists, Beshore said. And the American Meteor Society reported no fireball sightings over California on April 4.
A spokeswoman for Camp Pendleton scoffed at speculation that some sort of Marine mortar training exercise at the base might have caused the countywide rumbling. “It was not us,” 2nd Lt. Lori Miller stated flatly.
Miller was home in Vista on the morning of April 4 when her windows began to rattle. There is no possible way, she said, that a Pendleton training exercise could have caused a sensation like that.
Two months before the San Diego incident, Robert Higgins, the emergency management director of Somerset County, Maine, was confronted with a nearly identical set of puzzling circumstances. In February, panicked residents in a 15-mile radius reported feeling earthquakelike tremors. Authorities quickly ruled out an earthquake, explosion or industrial accident.
“I've called it the mystery of Somerset County,” Higgins said in a telephone interview last week. He still hasn't figured out the cause.
“I'm not done with it,” Higgins said. “I don't forget.”
Then there was the incident in Mobile, Ala., on Jan. 19, when residents in two counties reported hearing what sounded like an explosion and feeling “quakelike tremors,” according to news reports. To this day, no one is certain of the cause. By process of elimination, authorities have settled on the sonic-boom theory, even though no branch of the military has owned up to it.
There have been other similar unexplained events over the past few years. Something of the sort happened in Wilmington, N.C., on Dec. 20, 2005; Winston-Salem, N.C., on March 5, 2005; Charleston, S.C., on Aug. 1, 2003; and Pensacola, Fla., on Jan. 13, 2003.
“The large boom that shook walls and windows from Century to Milton on Monday remains a mystery, and probably will stay that way,” a reporter for the Pensacola News Journal wrote after the Jan. 13 episode.
On those occasions when a logical explanation is wanting, it's sometimes necessary to consult that archive of wisdom otherwise known as the Internet.
Among bloggers and Web-based conspiracy theorists, one of the leading explanations for the San Diego disturbance is that the military is testing a top-secret spy plane called the Aurora, which supposedly can travel several times the speed of sound.
“Sir, I've never even heard of that plane before,” an Air Force spokeswoman in Virginia responded when asked about the possibility.
Even UFO experts are baffled by what happened in San Diego. Asked whether a flying saucer might have caused such an event, Peter Davenport of the Seattle-based National UFO Reporting Center said, “Probably not.”
“UFOs almost never generate sonic booms or shock waves,” he added. “They accelerate so rapidly that they leave a vacuum in the sky, much the way lightning does.”
What happened in San Diego on April 4 seems destined to remain one of life's little mysteries, as inexplicable as those Bigfoot sightings in the Pacific Northwest.
Mitchell, the Lakeside hospital worker, remains convinced that an earthquake was the culprit, regardless of what the experts say. The tremors were too strong, she said, too violent to be anything else.
“The earth actually moved,” she said. “You could feel it. If it moved my bed, it moved the earth.”
If anyone out there has any answers, would you please be kind enough to share them with the rest of us? A lot of folks are really curious.
Did you spot something strange flying over Bridlington on Easter Sunday?
Bridlington Today 4-24-06
Bridlington UFO fan Paul Sinclair spotted the object over Blackburn Avenue at around midnight and managed to get these photographs. He said: "I cannot explain why or how but I sensed something and looked up into the sky. It was very dark with low cloud cover.
"I could see an orange light and a dark oval shape of some kind within the cloud."
"I have to say it was strange knowing there was an object of some sort in the sky." Paul runs his own UFO website which details other accounts of sightings in the area.
Anyone interested can visit ther website at www.ILF-UFO.co.uk
According to ‘‘The X-Files,'' the truth is out there.
And on Saturday, it'll be in Landers.
The High Desert will become the landing site for the Retro UFO Spacecraft Convention, an old-school homage to the starry gatherings that used to draw people to the desert decades ago.
‘‘We're going back to the history,'' said Barbara Harris of Yucca Valley, one of the event's co-creators. ‘‘We don't want to make it scary - we want it to be fun.''
Many trekked to UFO conventions in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, Harris said. People used to gather from all over the country for a chance to hear people called ‘‘contactees'' talk about their personal experiences with beings from another world - and expound about what it all meant.
One of the first contactees was George Van Tassel, an aerospace engineer who said he was visited by people from space, boarded a ship and was given the plans to build a machine called the Integratron, which is the focal point of the convention.
Van Tassel, who died in 1978, held yearly ‘‘spacecraft conventions'' near Giant Rock in Landers, which attracted thousands of people. The conventions helped raise the funds for Van Tassel to build the Integratron, which he described as a ‘‘time machine, a rejuvenation machine, and an anti-gravity device.''
Today, people boldly go to the Integratron to do everything from record music in the sound chamber to meditate. One of its signature features is the ‘‘sound bath,'' which is said to have therapeutic effects.
Harris said the rest of the fair will be quite a break from a run-of-the-mill UFO convention, which is heavy on academics and theories.
‘‘Typical conventions are held in hotels, and they just feature a lot of speakers - like a lecture,'' she said. ‘‘We're outside, we're going to have lectures in tents, hayrides, shows, bands at night, contests ... it's very lighthearted.''
There are also going to be tours of Giant Rock and the Integratron, art exhibits and a UFO opera performed by the band UFOetry, which has won two L.A. Music Awards for their work.
Visitors also have the option of staying at the Integratron overnight, supported by campfires and astronomers. Some of the original contactees from years past will be part of the lineup of speakers. Rob Harris, Barbara's husband and co-organizer of the event, said while much discussion about meeting alien beings might sound ‘‘out there'' at first, it's obviously still on a lot of minds - just look at pop culture as proof.
‘‘There's that sense of wonder out there,'' he said. ‘‘It's still a big topic. You see more stuff about aliens on television shows and movies, so people are definitely still interested.''
However, much of what's seen in the media perceives aliens as malicious creatures that want to wipe humans off the face of the Earth, and people aren't getting the clearest picture of the movement, said Josh Poet, co-founder and member of UFOetry.
‘‘One of the things Barbara (Harris) talked to us about was that she wanted to reinstill the idea of the innocence and the purity of when we first heard about life on other planets,'' he said. ‘‘We wanted to get a back to the stuff that's been shrouded in conspiracy. There's more than just one group of aliens ... many of them want to help us evolve.''
And Barbara Harris hopes the convention itself evolves into something that leaves a lasting impression.
‘‘This made memories for people years ago,'' she said. ‘‘We want to create new memories for the next generation.''
By Piotr Cielebias NOL - Polish UFO Journal 4-23-06
Presented photo was taken from a plane probably somewhere near Köln by Mr. Roman Kapturkiewicz from Gdynia [Poland]. The plane was heading to Köln from Gdansk [Poland].
The witness' relation:
I send a photo taken with a digital camera [Sony Cybershot Dsc-F707] on April 18th 2006 at 12:51:56 during a flight from Gdansk to Köln. The plane took off from Gdansk at about 11:55 and the flight lasted about 1 hour and 20 minutes. I took some photos during the flight over clouds and these objects can be seen only on one photo. I haven't seen them with naked eye. I noticed them because I'm interested in UFOs. I also must look for a certain photo presenting the Moon because I also had captured some unknown object.
by: Piotr Cielebias NOL - Polish UFO Journal 4-22-06
Jan B. told about his observations of unidentified flying objects. He even managed to take a photo of one disc in 1988.
The first sighting witnessed by Mr. Jan B. took place in summer 1988. In early afternoon, Jan B. was with his cousin in a room and then his son appeared screaming about falling star. When they went out all of them saw a hovering disc located about 300 m. away. The UFO was reflecting sunbeams and was as if flashing. Jan B. went for his camera and two other witnesses were observing it with binoculars.
As Jan B. said, he wasn't able to take a good photo for the first time. After setting his camera [Zenit TTL] he captured the disc. The witness then went in search for telephoto lens and when he was about to set it to the camera, the craft shot up with amazing speed and after a moment it vanished over the horizon.
Jan B. stated that he couldn't hear any sounds during the sighting. Observing the object with binoculars they noticed that it was rotating with height speed what gave a sparkling impression. Moreover the object was slightly swaying as if was suspended on an invisible thread.
The late aunt of Mr. Jan's wife told that she had seen some huge and twinkling object in that place but other details aren't available.
Another observation witnessed by Jan B. took place in autumn 1989 or 1990. As he stated he was painting ceiling in his kitchen and suddenly he heard a dull sound resembling that of jet aircrafts. He looked by his kitchen window toward East and saw dozens lighting points that were chaotically lighting up and dimming creating various forms, for example diamonds and crosses. The witness went outside to observe it. The weather was good - the sky was full of stars.
Strange lights of various colors [from intense yellow to orange and red] filled the space between Tau and Pleiades in Taurus constellation. Also Mr. Jan's 9-year-old son witnessed the phenomenon. At first he thought that he is observing a group of jets or helicopters but they were behaving in a very unusual way. They were too close one to another. Moreover the lights weren't light regularly. But Jan B. noticed another one thing, i.e. a group of lights in a round shape was still in a distance between ?Tau and the Plejades, directing toward a certain point between these stars. Slowly the space filled with these object was getting smaller and the lights themselves begat getting weak. Almost since the beginning of the observation the witness was observing it with binoculars. He stopped observing it when lights weren't visible anymore. He noticed that the group is going away from him moving on a straight trajectory toward a certain point in the sky so a person observing it 500 m. away should see object moving on a starry sky background. The witness admitted that he felt that the manifestation was performed especially for him. He claimed that the felling is still very strong.
Another one UFO-related event in this family occurred probably in the Summer 2000. Mr. Jan's daughter observed on a certain night a triangular object shining with yellow light. UFO was flying over the entire village. When she returned home he related the observation to his father who then began observing the sky in the search of it. Finally he managed to catch a glimpse of the object seen by his daughter in the western part of the sky but unfortunately it disappeared after a while. [The object was seen in the distance.]
And another one story that is worth mentioning. It occurred to a mate of Jan B. It took place in 1977. Jan B. lived in a small village in vicinity of Terespol [near the eastern border of Poland]. He was in his house when his colleague living about 0.5 km away ran into. He was scared, pale as a sheet of paper and trembling. He wasn't able neither to speak nor to light a cigarette. After about 30 minutes he was able to utter a word and tell what he had witnessed. He said that when he was about 300 m. away from a house of Jan B., he looked at left side and suddenly he stopped being as if hypnotized. He realized that he was paralyzed. He was observing with fear a disc-shaped craft hovering on a small attitude over a heap of straw. As he said it was in amber color [he said that it had color resembling beer] and its rims were in constant waving motion. He wasn't able to give an exact time of that experience but he could remember that in a certain point the object shot up directly toward the sky. Its speed was unbelievable - after a second there were any signs of its presence. Then the man recovered. Along with Jan B. the witness measured the pile length. It was 50 m. long and he assumed that the observing object might be of similar diameter. Nothing is known about missing time but it is highly possible that the man experienced it.
I was fascinated by your account of the 1952 UFO flap around DC. I'm 68 now, but at age 13, I was there, living with my family -- temporarily -- in the sedate, colonial Alexandria home of my mother's sister and her husband. (My father was an Army officer. En route to Bogota, Colombia, Dad was going through Pentagon briefing.) What I recall as most striking about this flap was the ubiquitous excitement on local television, newspapers, and so forth. You didn't mention this in your piece, but individual sightings seemed to be all but continuous. Cars were piled up along the shoulders of the Mt. Vernon Parkway. Crowds gazing out across the Potomac toward DC and National Airport came and went. I remember my grown cousin -- Jim (a broker in the family real estate business) -- arriving at the house one day all but breathless with excitement over a sighting.
As a sociologist I've long been fascinated by how civil authorities are able to virtually erase the direct experience (in this case) of literally hundreds of witnesses. Years would pass before my own inquiries would lead me to understand that "UFOs" represent a vital dimension of the human picture -- hidden though it is behind smoke, mirrors, disinformation -- and sheer ignorance.
THE desert is a place where it is said that time bends, aging slows and the laws of gravity don't necessarily apply. And not just poolside in Palm Springs.
Past scrubby fields of Joshua trees down a dusty road in Landers, a gleaming white dome rises abruptly from the jagged, putty-colored horizon, a curious testament to one man's intergalactic vision: the Integratron.
The life's work of a onetime aircraft engineer, the bizarre 38-foot wooden structure was meant to add decades to a person's life (not to mention warp time and suspend gravity) through frequencies generated by electrostatic energy. Now the dome, surrounded by fruit trees, grapevines, vintage trailers and miles of nothing in every direction, will be put to a more modest use — host to the first Retro UFO convention April 29.
The all-day affair offers a kitschy modern homage to the 1950s- and '60s-era reports of flying saucers that became the stuff of legend in this San Bernardino County outpost, organizer Barbara Harris said.
"It's a new chapter in ufology," said Harris, a graphic artist by trade. "When you go on that property … there is something that touches your heart, that touches your soul."
Harris hopes to preserve and propagate this most mysterious slice of the desert's history, sharing the stories of those who once flocked to Landers, necks craned skyward.
To that end, next weekend's extravaganza will include talks by old-timers of strange encounters; tours of Giant Rock, now grimy with graffiti and missing a giant chunk that fell off in 2000; a contest for the best aluminum foil deflector beanie; old movies; classic cars; fire spinners; and a live poetic opera by a group called UFOetry titled "Did We Really Go to the Moon?"
Harris hopes the event will draw about 500 people to the 10-acre site; some proceeds will benefit the Morongo Basin Historical Society and help renovate the dome.
It's a fitting place to gather, considering the closest thing to a Retro UFO celebrity may be the Integratron's patron saint, engineer George Van Tassel. He built the dome for $150,000 over 18 years starting in 1957, claiming that he was inspired by a predawn meeting with a visitor from Venus named Solgonda.
Van Tassel and his family lived in a hollowed-out chamber under Giant Rock, a seven-story free-standing boulder plopped on the edge of Landers three miles north of the dome.
He didn't complete the electrostatic device at the heart of the dome before he died in 1978, and his plans and equipment to finish the 50-megavolt Integratron disappeared soon after his death.
The outlandish dome and its unlikely location are "a monument to one man's field of dreams," said Joanne Karl, 51, one of three sisters who own the dome and have worked to restore it.
As for Van Tassel's alleged encounters with visitors from Venus and his offbeat writings claiming that the sun is square, "I smile and wink," said co-owner Nancy Karl, 48.
The Karl sisters, who live there part time, are used to hosting curious tourists, retreats and rock stars like Billy Corgan eager to experience the acoustically perfect space.
The upper chamber of the Integratron, made entirely of Douglas fir and fastened with a 1.5-ton concrete ring, includes an altar littered with visitors' mementos — including guitar picks, Tibetan Buddhist paintings, a Yoda Pez dispenser and a set of dentures.
Under one of the 16 windows sits a set of seven large quartz bowls, which Nancy plays with a suede-covered wooden stick rubbed along the rim, producing astoundingly clear tones that reverberate through the airy space.
Joanne, a former cardiac nurse, describes the experience as "like being inside a giant cello." For $10 per person, they'll give groups an ethereal, 30-minute jam session "sound bath," complete with blankets, pillows and rosemary-scented oils.
But for now, the attention is on next weekend's gathering.
"There's going to be some loony bins there," Harris says of Retro UFO's debut crowd; she's deciding between wearing a get-up of bobby socks and poodle skirt, plus the obligatory cowboy hat and alien antenna, or Judy Jetson gear.
Still, Harris and the Karl sisters enthusiastically embrace the era's nostalgia and mystery, and believe the cosmic force found in sun-baked Landers "restores [the] soul," Harris said.
The Finnish Air Force made an important disclosure presenting a video of an incident involving a military jet fighter and a UFO. According to Tapani Koivula, chairman of the Finninsh research group FUFORA, the encounter took place on April 27, 2005 and it was recorded by the infrared camera aboard the fighter.
There was another UFO incident also recorded on November 2003 and both cases were disclosed by the Finnish Air Force. Researcher Tapani Koivula received the files and footage for further analysis.
In his report Mr. Koivula mentioned that, "No normal explanations have been found, neither by officials nor UFO researchers". The Mexican Air Force UFO case was discussed by them as the UFO event was also recorded on infrared camera while flying over the Campeche aerial space.
This is an important advance in the efforts for a global UFO Disclosure by the military institutions all over the world.
The Finnish Air Force UFO videoclip may be seen at the FUFORA website along with the complete report.
* Special Thanks to Mr. Tapani Koivula, FUFORA and brazilian researcher Jaime Rangel for sharing this information.
". . . . Reports of The UFO Appearances Caught The Interests of Many People . . ."
The truth is up there
By NICK RITCHICK The Herald-Mail 4-18-06
One April night, the Socorro, N.M., police department received a radio call from Sgt. Lonnie Zamora. Zamora said that while investigating a loud roar at a dynamite storage shack, he encountered a strange scene.
What he first thought to be an overturned car with an exploded gas tank turned out to be an oval-shaped object about the size of a car, with legs that extended to the ground.
According to UFO Casebook magazine's Web site (ufocasebook.com), Zamora reported the object had no windows or doors and had a red insignia on the side. Two child-sized people in white coveralls stood nearby.
Zamora told his dispatcher he was going to go closer to investigate. But he heard a loud roar and saw a blue-orange flame at the bottom of the object. Then the object rose into the air and flew away.
Air Force and FBI investigators arrived on the scene within a few days, gathered evidence and spoke to witnesses. After two years, Air Force investigator Hector Quintanilla, Jr., released his surprising conclusion
"There is ... no question about Zamora's reliability," Quintanilla reported. "... we have been unable, in spite of thorough investigation, to find the vehicle or other stimulus that scared Zamora to the point of panic."
Weird Science
According to the National UFO Reporting Center (www.nuforc.org), there were 3,999 unidentified flying object (UFO) reports in the year 2005. Some of these reports, according to Bruce Maccabee, former president of Mutual UFO Network, Maryland chapter, remain unexplained.
"Most cases - 70-80-90 percent - you can reasonably explain," said Maccabee, of Thurmont, Md., in a phone interview last week. "But maybe 5 percent do not fit."
Maccabee, a civilian physicist working with the U.S. Navy, said he has been investigating UFO reports since the 1970s. He said the U.S. government has investigated UFOs since the first sightings were reported in newspapers a few years after World War II.
"The government thought maybe the Russians had leapfrogged our technology. These craft were probably nuclear powered. The government was naturally worried, at the beginning of what is called the Cold War," Maccabee said. "Air Force pilots were also involved. FBI was involved to find out if there was any communist activity."
Government investigators discounted most UFO reports, but a few were truly strange. But they told the public differently, according to Maccabee.
Maccabee has been interested in these unidentified aircraft since he was a teenager in the 1950s. During this era, newspaper reports of the UFO appearances caught the interests of many people. He volunteered with the Washington, D.C., office of the National Investigating Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), and began investigating reported sightings.
"That's where the rubber hits the road - witnesses who are telling the truth as they know it, or just plain hoaxing," he said. "Where I investigated, they were telling the truth as they know it.
"But it's possible to misperceive. You know there are stars and planets up there - aircraft with lights on. If the light was traveling along and made a right-angle turn, it wasn't a star, wasn't a meteor. Sometimes it takes days or weeks or years. After you spend time and you have no other explanation that fits, you can say it might be unidentifiable. This is the scientific method."
Maccabee has published several books and reports on UFO investigations, including "UFO FBI Connection," which details early FBI investigations. To visit Maccabee's Web site, go to www.brumac.8k.com.
Read about thought-provoking UFO reports such as Lonnie Zamora's in "Mysteries of Mind, Space and Time: The Unexplained." And, for fun, find good UFO fiction in "Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens 1" and "Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens 2."
You can believe me or not, but there are reports of flying objects that cannot be explained. Next time you're outside at night and see stars, just think to yourself that maybe not all of those lights are stars.
"Campbelltown Catholic Club Will Host The 2006 National UFO Conference"
The truth is out there
Macarthur Chronicle 4-17-06
ALIEN abductions and time-space discontinuity are set to knock off the Wests Tigers as Campbelltown's number-one conversation topic for a weekend in May.
Campbelltown Catholic Club will host the 2006 National UFO Conference, where Australian and international experts will exchange ideas and present evidence on all things extraterrestrial.
Organiser Attila Kaldy, co-founder of the UFO Society of Western Sydney, said he wanted to host the conference in Campbelltown because the Macarthur region was a UFO hotspot.
"There's been a lot of really bizarre stuff happening, especially around Razorback,'' he said.
"In one case, a gentleman was travelling at The Oaks on his way to work, when lights descended from the night and came towards him.
"At first he thought it was a semi trailer ... but then the lights parted and scattered in all directions around his car. He can't account for about half an hour. It was a horrifying experience for him.''
The conference's star guest is journalist, broadcaster and self-proclaimed UFO expert Jaime Maussan, who has previously anchored Mexico's version of 60 Minutes.
He will be flown to Campbelltown especially for the conference.
Mr Kaldy said Maussan had unearthed startling videos of bright lights criss-crossing in the sky, which the Mexican military had shot using infrared cameras.
"These lights weren't visible to the naked eye - it's like a form of camouflage that they use. Really, those things could be anywhere at any given time,'' Mr Kaldy said.
Other speakers include NSW UFO Investigation Centre co-ordinator Bill Chalker, Dominic McNamara from the Disclosure Project and Australian UFOlogist magazine editor Diane Frola.
The National UFO Conference will be held at Campbelltown Catholic Club on Saturday, May 6, starting at 9am.
by: Piotr Cielebias NOL - Polish UFO Journal 4-17-06
Masurian Lakes Region, June [year unknown], afternoon.
Mrs. Hanna Wisniewska was an UFO - skeptic being assured that the whole affair is just a hoax. Anyway she and her husband witnessed a rare UFO - related event. Unfortunately the exact year of this incident is unknown [but we may assume that it took place in the previous century]. It took place in Masuria Lakes Region in Northern Poland. At the moment nothing is known about possible "missing time" experience.
Mrs. Hanna Wisniewska's relation:
It was the first day of my vacation. Along with my husband we went on a trip to my parents' house who live in a small village in Suwalszczyzna [region of Suwalki city, northern part of Poland - NOL]. After two hours of the journey, I dozed off. Some noise woke me up and then I could hear a sound of rain falling on a hood of our Polonez [a Polish car; also Polish traditional dance - NOL]. Then a storm began. Marek slowed. It was hard to see the road in front of us due to a wall of a torrent rain. I swore calmly.
Masurian roads aren't in very good condition and moreover that storm… Minutes were passing and we were slowly moving forward. And suddenly something strange occurred. In a fraction of a second we found ourselves on a dry part of the road. Somewhere in the distance thunders were heard and was raining but in a distance of 20 meters there were no raindrops. I peered by the car window. The sky above us was bright and clear, without clouds.
"What's the hell - Marek told. It is impossible." Before I said something the engine stopped. Marek tried to start it but he wasn't even able to turn the key. At one moment I felt that I'm rising up and wheels of the car stop to bounce on a rough road surface."
We were hovering over the road. I got mad and my heart began thumping with fear. I opened the window and after a while some unbelievable brightness blinded me. I believed that someone is shining with a very strong reflector directly into my eyes. It lasted several seconds, the light vanished and I noticed then some round, huge and flat object. It looked like a giant coin. It was hovering silently across a meadow next to the road. It [the UFO] rose up for a while hovering inertly over the car and then it flew away.
When it disappeared, the engine of our car suddenly started and after a while we were again in a center of a rainstorm. Marek stopped at the roadside without word. We were sitting and gazing at each other for about a quarter waiting for comments but we weren't able to utter a word. Finally we set out. When we were approaching my parents' house we began talking about it. We promised each other that we would never tell anyone about that incident and we'd try to forget about it.
Anyway, our promise wasn't fulfilled. On the next day we drove to that place. We expected to find some marks. But nil. Trees were standing on the both sides of the road and grass on the meadow wasn't pressed.
Mr. Marek summarized the whole event in his words: "It must be an UFO."
Orizaba, Veracruz Mexico: UFO Photogrpahed Above Home
By Rossana Tejeda López 4-14-06
One night last month, the moon was wonderful and by intuition from my garage, I used the last 3 pictures I had; the first photo shows a very luminous orange UFO; there was nothing in the second, and the third shows an orb. At the time I didn't witness these objects.
La Plata Argentina: Ufologist To Ask Minister of Defense To Open "UFO Files"
Impulso Baires 4-17-06
La Plata—Ufologist, “Oscar Mario” will make a request to the Ministry of National Defense for the opening of archives in order to cull “UFO cases.” He maintained that in “Pampas” there are numerous historic cases; however, people fearing ridicule choose not to comment on them.
“What we are working on will make a historic mark in Ufology; we are managing an interview with Nilda Garre' the “Minister of Defense” to request that they open the UFO archives for us,” said the newspaper, “The Arena.”
The investigator emphasized that “when several cases occurred, civil employees of the Army as well as Aeronautics contacted me for information’ later they asked me to work with them.”
For that reason we know that they have good information on the infrastructure, precise elements of measurements; hiding this information only fuels the controversy in regards to the UFO phenomenon.
He added, "in Pampas, there are numerous cases of sightings and contacts, but people refuse to give public testimony from fear of being the object of ridicule".
1966: Police Chase 'Flying Saucer' Through Two States
So what happened?
By Scott Tady Beaver County Times 4-16-06
As far as the federal government is concerned, the incident is over and done.
"The case was closed and never reopened," said Brian Seese, a paranormal researcher from Hopewell Township, who includes the incident in his new book, "Unexplained Events in Beaver County."
In late 1966, Weitzel, the NICAP investigator assigned to the case, delivered his final report to his Washington, D.C., supervisor, Richard Hall.
"I personally hand-carried a copy of Weitzel's very thick and extremely well-documented report to Dr. Edward Condon," Hall recalled last month.
Condon, a scientist, was in charge of a UFO study conducted by the University of Colorado under the sponsorship of the Air Force.
"Years later, I learned to my astonishment that he never turned over the case to his staff, and it gathered dust in his personal files," Hall said.
And so when the Air Force turned the Colorado report over to Congress, the Ohio-to-Conway incident wasn't mentioned.
"Maj. Hector Quintanilla tried to pass it off as a sighting of the planet Venus and an earth satellite, which was quite preposterous," said Hall, who wrote "The UFO Evidence, Vol. II; A Thirty-Year Report," published in 2001. "I think he may have changed it to an unexplained case later on."
According to the files of a leading UFO researcher, Brad Sparks, the Air Force ultimately did categorize the case as "unexplained" and probably left it at that, Hall said.
Project Blue Book files would show the final status of the incident, Hall said.
But trying to get someone to share Project Blue Book details isn't easy.
The feds closed Project Blue Book in 1972, ending at least publicly the Air Force's role as a UFO investigation agency.
Representatives of the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency contacted last month said documents from Project Blue Book are kept at the National Archives and Records Agency, though two representatives at that agency said they couldn't confirm the status of the case, ultimately transferring a reporter's phone call to a third person who never returned the call.
"Getting someone from the government to talk is almost impossible," said Leslie Kean, an investigative reporter who, backed by cable's Sci-Fi Channel, sued NASA under the Freedom of Information Act to see files on a UFO sighting Dec. 9, 1965, in Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County.
NASA maintains the "fireball" that dozens of witnesses spotted that night was a remnant of a Russian satellite that disintegrated after re-entering the atmosphere. But official documents from that investigation were lost in the 1990s, NASA claims.
As for the Conway sighting, Kean speculated the Air Force proclaimed that matter dead after Quintanilla's ruling, or once the University of Colorado-Air Force report didn't list it.
UFO investigators claim that Air Force report "was a totally bogus thing" anyway, designed from the onset to debunk UFO theories, Kean said.
In the first few years after Project Blue Book ceased, UFO sightings continued to crop up nationally, including a six-month span from 1973 to 1974 that included separate sightings in Center Township, Ohioville and West Mifflin. Gradually, the phenomenon faded away, and recent years have been devoid of similar reports.
"The UFO sightings may have appeared to slow down," Seese said, "but these may only be reported sightings. As a general rule, most people do not report what they observe.
"According to veteran UFO researcher Paul Johnson, the Internet changed the way people report their sightings," Seese said. "Instead of contacting the state police or local researchers, they can now send their report directly to the Internet and remain anonymous and not have to deal face to face with an investigator initially."
The Internet certainly has kept the Conway-to-Portage incident alive.
Dozens of sites, many suspecting a government cover-up, recount the morning of April 17, 1966.
Meanwhile, the men who saw the flying object are left with their own unique perspectives.
"I don't know what I would have done it if had landed," Panzanella said. "I don't know if I would have run or not."
" . . . A Chunk of Ice The Size of a Microwave Oven Plunged Out of a Cloudless Sky into . . . Loma Linda"
Falling ice perplexes scientists Theories abound after 2 chunks land in state in a week
By Keay Davidson The San Francisco Chronicle 4-15-06
The skies are raining big chunks of ice, and experts ranging from scientists to federal investigators are scrambling to learn what's going on.
For the second time in a week, California was the victim of an aerial, icy assault, the latest being early Thursday when a chunk of ice the size of a microwave oven plunged out of a cloudless sky into the San Bernardino County town of Loma Linda. The ice punched through the metal roof of a recreation center, leaving a hole up to 2 1/2 feet wide, then fragmented into opaque, brilliant white chunks, one as big as a bowling ball. No one was hurt.
Two tennis players were batting a ball around outside the Drayson Center at Loma Linda University on Thursday morning when they heard a strange sound, said Rolland Crawford, Loma Linda Fire Department division chief.
"They described it as the sound an artillery shell would make -- shoosh, shoosh,'' he said. "They looked up. They didn't see the ice, nor did they see a plane.''
A similar incident occurred last Saturday in Oakland, where a plunging ice ball plowed into a field at Bushrod Park on Shattuck Avenue and blasted out a crater up to 2 feet wide. Again, no one was hurt.
The simplest, least controversial hypothesis is that the ice was dropped from airplanes, but there's little direct support for that view. A few experts who study such phenomena have suggested that similar occurrences around the world owe more to exotic causes, perhaps even global warming.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the two latest cases under the theory that the ice fell from an aircraft, FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said Friday.
Such cases can be very tough to solve, he said.
In both cases, the ice was clear or whitish -- not bluish, as one would expect of ice that had leaked from an airplane's restroom, for instance.
The agency has traced blue-ice cases back to aircraft, but Fergus said that is extremely difficult to do. One of the many reasons is that wind speed and direction can vary at different altitudes and often change suddenly. As a result, the otherwise smooth trajectory of falling ice can be radically altered.
For this and other technical reasons, investigators can't always be sure whether a particular piece of ice fell from a particular airplane even after they've reconstructed the probable plane's flight path, Fergus said.
Legends about plunging ice go back for centuries. They didn't begin to receive serious scientific attention until a few years ago, however, when Spain and other countries were pelted by the mystery intruders.
Possible explanations range from the mundane to the bizarre.
One theory is that ice is somehow forming on the outside of aircraft, perhaps in areas that aren't protected by deicing equipment, said David Travis, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Last year, he and 11 others co-wrote an article on the ice-fall mystery in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry.
Lead author Jesus Martinez-Frias of the Planetary Geology Laboratory in Madrid and his colleagues have collected reports of 40 cases around the world since 1999 of puzzling falling ice, or "megacryometeors," as they call the strange objects.
Martinez-Frias hypothesizes that the ice forms in the upper atmosphere by a process similar to the formation of hail inside thunderstorms but without a thunderstorm.
Inside a thunderstorm, hail forms like this: Extremely violent vertical winds can repeatedly blow water vapor up and down, like clothes inside a washer. In this process, moisture rises to a high, cold altitude, where it freezes. Then its weight causes it to plunge back toward Earth -- until new winds blow it back to a high altitude, causing it to gain an additional layer of ice.
The process occurs over and over again until the object falls to Earth as a hailstone, sometimes as big as a baseball and occasionally bigger.
But how can ice fall from a cloudless sky? Martinez-Frias speculates that global warming is causing the lower part of the atmosphere -- the troposphere, where we live -- to expand and rise. This means that the tropopause, which is the so-called roof of the troposphere, is forced to a greater height, where it cools more than normal.
Thus, he suggests, the new, steeper temperature difference between warm and cold air in the upper atmosphere generates turbulent up-and-down winds that repeat the hail-formation process, without a thunderstorm.
Although he co-wrote the paper on megacryometeors with Martinez-Frias, Travis is leaning toward the aircraft theory for what happened in Oakland and Loma Linda. "I've talked to a lot of pilots who tell me there are places on airplanes where the deicing equipment doesn't cover," Travis said Friday.
Then there may be the conspiracy theorist who might suspect the ice is falling off the kinds of supersecret spy planes that the military tests in the Southern California and Nevada deserts. But spokesman John Haire of Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert said any such theorists are all wet: "We don't do test flights over Loma Linda or Oakland."
By By Mark Hinson The Tallahassee Democrat 4-14-06
Wakulla High School student Jacob McCown was in his car at a stop light along Gaines Street when he noticed something strange zipping by in his rear-view mirror.
Luckily, McCown was quick enough to grab his digital camera and snap a quick shot of an unidentified flying object whizzing by the Turlington Building.
Finally, proof of intelligent life from . . . well, McCown's imagination.
McCown's subtle fakery of an alien invasion of the Department of Education took first place and won $250 in the Tallahassee Skeptic UFO Contest held by the Center for Inquiry - Tallahassee Chapter.
"I copied a picture from the Internet of the mirror and then transferred a UFO cut from another picture found on the Internet," McCown explained in his contest-entry letter. "I then flattened the two images and printed."
Bruce Thyer, who dreamed up the bogus-UFO competition for the Center of Inquiry, said the contest sought out fixed photos that were "believable-looking but not valid." The only rule was that the forgers had to include a recognizable landmark in Tallahassee or North Florida.
"I'm very pleased with the response we got and the work that was put into the photos," Thyer said.
The contest drew nearly 40 entries from 24 applicants. Second place and $75 went to Philip Tambasco, and Lisa Hug won $50 and the third-place slot.
The pictures included images of a spaceship whizzing over Lake Ella, a saucer visiting a packed Doak Campbell Stadium during a halftime show and an "Independence Day”-styled war ship blasting downtown Tallahassee with a death ray during the Winter Festival and Celebration of Lights.
"Some of them really got into it," Thyer said. "I was scared at first that we were just going to get pictures of hub caps on fishing poles, but that didn't happen."
by: Piotr Cielebias NOL - Polish UFO Journal 2-8-05
On 8th day of February 2005, Mr. Dariusz M. saw by a window of his house a strange object suspended in the sky. After a while another one appeared so the amazed witness grasped a video camera and began recording.
When he realized that the observed phenomenon is a something rather unusual, he decided to notify the Army so he stopped filming for a while and called a local base. He stated: "I said that I was observing two completely incredible flying objects. A military man that responded the call at first asked me from which city I called and where it was going on. When I told him about everything he began ignoring the whole case telling me that he had hear about similar things in TV etc."
The call lasted several minutes and then the witness began filming the phenomenon again. After some time he took another one call. In the meantime he was observing it with binoculars. Finally he managed to take a 1-minute long video.
The observation lasted about 20 minutes and during all the time UFOs were suspended in the air, one above another. Then one of them flew away with high speed and after several second the witness lost it from his view. The observer didn't notice the disappearance of the second craft because he lost it from his eyes for a while and when he looked up again, it was no longer there and skies were clear.
UFOs were disc-shaped and metallic in color what can be seen on the video. Dariusz claims that he noticed a white glow emitting beams around objects when he was observing it with binoculars. It seemed that discs are joined together and exchange energy. He also claims that after the sightings some strange things began going on in his house, i.e. lightbulbs were broken, his cell phone wasn't working and several days after taking the film he noticed that a unknown to him black car was parked near his house all the night.
After some time when the phenomena ceased astonishing news emerged. It turned out that an anonymous military man confirmed the observation. He claimed that there was a report and even attempts were made in order to localize the objects with radars. Allegedly nothing unusual was noticed over Lublin but anonymous informer told that an UFO object was detected over Konopnica [located several km away].
The fall out from the Alien Autopsy debacle has been a social study to behold. I don't know if it's just Ufology or if what I'm about to say applies in life generally but there is so much arrogance around that it's staggering.
The recently held 9th Annual Aztec UFO Symposium brought a wide variety of interested movie and media groups to San Juan County.
By Suzanne Ramsey 4-12-06
Paul Davids - Hollywood writer and producer of several productions including Roswell, showed his recently released movie Sci Fi Boys with and about Steven Spielburg, George Lucas and the development of sci fi cinematography.
Duane Tudahl- producer with the HISTORY Channel's UFO Files and crew worked on two up and coming episodes while visiting the area. One episode is specifically on Aztec and the other will include Aztec.
Ole Retsbo and crew with Danish TV filmed a documentary for their equivilant of PBS. The entire focus was Aztec.
Roy Forbes with Majestic Production of Kingman, Arizona recently finished a documentary about UFO Crashes of the Southwest. It will be available late 2006.
Jim Rodgers with The Cutting Edge television show devoted an entire show to the Aztec Crash and Aztec Symposium. This program is shown in 13 major cities across the nation.
And Jim Berwanger with Fox TV and Val Berwanger with ABC Family Channel were on hand.
Robert Nicole from Vancover, Canada shared his video pertaining to Crop Circles. This is the first of a series of 5 videos that prepare people for contact with ET's.
Conflicting theories abound to explain chunks such as the one that landed in an Oakland park
By Paul T. Rosynsky Inside Bay Area
OAKLAND — Ice falling from the sky might seem unusual, but some Spanish and American scientists say it is becoming a frequent occurrence throughout the world.
Like the estimated 200-plus-pound chunk that fell Saturday on Bushrod Park, clear ice from the sky has been reported around the world. Big and small ice-falls have happened in China, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Scotland, Hungary, England, India and more than half of the United States — often in summer and some recorded before aircraft were invented, scientists say.
And in each case, no one knows why.
"None of us have been able to come up with a process to determine how it is happening," said David Travis, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. "We're really baffled as to what is going on here."
Travis and Madrid-based scientist Jesus Martinez-Frias have studied the phenomenon since at least 2000, when they began scouring the Internet for news stories about the incidents. They found 37 instances in which a large chunk of ice fell from clear skies. Each year, they find more reports of it happening.
The Oakland ice cube was clear and free of debris, ruling out any chance it came from an airplane bathroom, the experts said. But its large size makes it hard to believe the ice is a product of nature.
So conflicting theories abound.
Martinez-Frias speculates it is a natural phenomenon caused by global warming. According to his studies, every time such an incident occurs, it is precipitated by an unusual atmosphere in which higher altitudes are turbulent and cold. The cold helps create the ice. The turbulence helps keep it together in the sky.
As global warming continues to heat the earth, his theory goes, upper atmospheric temperatures become cooler, opening more opportunities for the ice to form. Charles Knight, a leading hail expert at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, told an interviewer in 2002 the "meteorological explanations just don't make sense to me" for creating giant ice balls way up in the dry stratosphere.
"I don't like to claim that anything is absolutely impossible, but this comes awfully close," Knight told Science magazine.
While Travis said he understands the global warming theory, he thinks gravity is too strong to keep that big a piece of ice in the sky.
Instead, Travis believes the ice forms on the underbelly of an airplane, maybe near the landing gear.
Gary McKinnon's fight to avoid extradition to the US to face hacking charges continues, after an unsigned note from the US Embassy was produced in court on Wednesday
By Tom Espiner ZDnetUK 4-12-06
The UK computer expert who faces extradition to America for hacking US military computers will hear his fate next month.
Gary McKinnon appeared in court in London on Wednesday, in the latest stage in a protracted legal process. His defence has argued that he should not be extradited as he could be tried under America's tough anti-terrorism laws. This could see him sent to Guantanamo Bay and imprisoned for up to 60 years.
On Wednesday, the prosecution produced an unsigned note from the US Embassy, which they claimed was a guarantee that McKinnon would not be tried under Military Order Number One, which allows suspected terrorists to be tried under military law.
However, the defence argued that the note was not binding as it was unsigned. The defence called Clive Stafford-Smith, a US lawyer who has defended Guantanamo Bay inmates, as a witness. Stafford-Smith argued that the note would not prevent McKinnon from being treated as a terrorist.
"The President has a very strong view that he has legislative authority that is not trammelled by the legislature," said Stafford-Smith.
McKinnon also indicated that he wasn't convinced that the unsigned note would protect him. "It's not worth the paper it's written on," he told the court.
The case was adjourned until 10 May, when a final decision will be made on whether McKinnon will be extradited.
McKinnon is charged with illegally accessing 97 US Government computers and causing $700,000 worth of damage over a 12-month period starting in February 2001.
McKinnon, from North London, has admitted that he accessed some US military computers, but has denied causing serious damage. The UFO enthusiast has claimed that he was searching through government systems for evidence of extraterrestrial life.
In Search of Water, NASA Spacecraft to Hit the Moon
Science@NASA 4-10-06
April 10, 2006: NASA today announced that a small spacecraft, to be developed by a team at NASA Ames, has been selected to travel to the moon to look for precious water ice at the lunar south pole.
The name of the mission is LCROSS, short for Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite. LCROSS is a secondary payload: It will hitch a ride to the moon onboard the same rocket as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) satellite due to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in October 2008.
"The LCROSS mission gives the agency an excellent opportunity to answer the question about water ice on the moon," says Daniel Andrews of NASA Ames, whose team proposed LCROSS. "We think we have assembled a very creative, highly innovative mission."
LCROSS will hunt for water by hitting the moon--twice--throwing up plumes that may contain signs of H2O. It works like this:
After launch, the LCROSS spacecraft will arrive in the moon's vicinity independent of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. On the way to the moon, the LCROSS spacecraft's two main parts, the Shepherding Spacecraft (S-S/C) and the Earth Departure Upper Stage (EDUS), will remain coupled. As the pair approach the moon's south pole, the upper stage will separate, and then hit a crater in the south pole area. A plume from the upper stage crash will develop as the Shepherding Spacecraft heads in toward the moon. The Shepherding Spacecraft will fly through the plume using its instruments to analyze the cloud for signs of water and other compounds. Additional space and Earth-based instruments also will study the 2.2-million-pound (1000-metric-ton) plume.
"This type of payload is not new to NASA," says Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Scott Horowitz, who made the selection. "We are taking advantage of the payload capability of the launch vehicle to conduct additional high risk/high payoff science to meet Vision for Space Exploration goals."
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS are the first of many robotic missions NASA will conduct between 2008 and 2016 to study, map, and learn about the lunar surface to prepare for the return of astronauts to the moon. These early missions will help determine lunar landing sites and whether resources, such as oxygen, hydrogen, and metals, are available for use in NASA's long-term lunar exploration objectives.
In 1952, Navy officer Delbert Newhouse was driving cross-country with his family, a trip that took them through northern Utah the morning of July 2.
Around 11 a.m., Newhouse's wife reportedly noticed odd figures in the sky a few miles outside Tremonton. Grabbing his movie camera, Newhouse ended up with some striking images of the unidentified flying objects - images that persuaded the U.S. Air Force, Navy and the Central Intelligence Agency to investigate.
The government eventually concluded the "Tremonton tapes" simply showed some seagulls in flight.
Of course, what would you expect the government to say?
The Tremonton episode is one story in a long line of alleged extraterrestrial activity in Utah. It's one reason independent UFO researcher and lecturer Robert Hastings will make his fourth trip to the state Wednesday for a lecture at the University of Utah.
Of the Tremonton tapes, Hastings said: "If one looks, using modern, computer-based visual-enhancement technologies, those seagulls essentially were saucer-shaped. They were round, oval-shaped or disc-shaped, so clearly they weren't seagulls.
"That's one example of countless ones where the PR guys at the Pentagon have tried to explain away UFOs."
UFOs, extraterrestrials and all manner of unexplained phenomena are always the subject of uneasy debate between believers and nonbelievers, government agents and private citizens. And UFOs are fodder for pop-culture fantasies, whether through sci-fi flicks of the 1950s or "The X-Files," a TV show in the '90s that rekindled talk that "The Truth Is Out There."
The 56-year-old Hastings has dedicated much of his life to formulating counterarguments to official dismissals of all things UFO-related, digging through once-classified documents, filing Freedom of Information Act requests, and interviewing people with firsthand knowledge of UFO sightings and the government's efforts to ignore them.
He's delivered his findings in lectures at more than 500 colleges and universities.
Most of his study involves the preponderance of UFO activity near America's nuclear weapons, and he has studied intently cases in Wyoming, New Mexico and Montana.
"There are FBI, CIA and Air Force documents going back to as early as December 1948 confirming that what the documents themselves refer to as 'flying discs' or 'flying saucers' have demonstrated an ongoing interest in our nuclear weapons sites," Hastings said, noting that since 2001, the release of sensitive, UFO-related documents by the government has slowed to a trickle. Much of his lecture Wednesday, "UFOs: The Hidden History," will involve the history and potential risks of alien life forms' interest in U.S. nuclear weapons.
Stephen Nielson, the 23-year-old speakers board chairman for the Associated Students of the University of Utah, booked Hastings' lecture at the U. Nielson said he believes in extraterrestrial life, but "I don't necessarily know if they've been to Earth."
"UFOs, everybody has some fascination with them," Nielson said. " 'The X-Files' made them extremely popular during the '90s, so the generation that's now in college kind of has that mentality."
By Piotr Cielebias NOL - Polish UFO Journal 3-31-06
Marcin Chmielewski's [a witness] relation:
"The observation took place on 23rd March at about 22:15/22:20. At that time I went with my girlfriend out of a block. She accompanied me in my way to my car. […] The sky was bright what is an unusual thing over Zaglebie [i.e. Upper Silesia] and suddenly I saw two [or several] objects moving from North to South, from Ursa Mayor and that thing amazed me because I should hear sounds of working engines. The objects were traveling at a high attitude. UFOs were red in color and barely visible. After a while also my girlfriend noticed them. The observation lasted only 30 seconds. I add also that there were 2 objects or 6 balls traveling in a proper manner. I would like to stress a fact that the balls weren't lighting with identical, red light and weren't twinkling as it can be seen when one observes a plane at night. Moreover the plane could be heard but those objects were moving soundlessly."
The Kecksburg UFO monument, better known among the locals as "the acorn," will soon get a new home.
The event commemorated by the monument took place more than 40 years ago, on Dec. 9, 1965, when witnesses say they saw an object fall from the sky into a small patch of woods.
Several witnesses agree the military was involved, blocking the path of anyone getting to the object before it was hauled away.
While some think the flying object was an extraterrestrial spaceship, others explain the phenomenon as some type of Soviet satellite or Venus probe that went off course.
In the early 1990s, the television show "Unsolved Mysteries" came to do a story on the event. After the production crews left, the monument made for the show was left behind in Kecksburg, Mt. Pleasant Township.
It was placed on a podium at the Kecksburg Fire Hall.
The fire department never got involved with bringing attention to the event or the monument until recently.
In need of more than $300,000 for a pumper truck, firefighters pulled together to think of unusual ways to raise money.
With a monument sitting on their property -- representing an event that brought international attention to the small village -- fire department officials decided to take advantage.
To date, firefighters have raised more than $9,000 selling T-shirts, sweatshirts and videotapes of the "Unsolved Mysteries" television clip and the more recent Sci-Fi Channel television clip.
But, in order to attract additional interest -- and customers who would buy merchandise -- the fire department formed a UFO committee.
Ron Struble, chairman of the committee, said that's when members came up with the idea of refurbishing the monument and moving it to an adjacent piece of fire department property.
The fire department's UFO gift shop is located in the emergency services headquarters directly beside the new site that is still being prepared.
"Where it sat originally was not a very good location," Struble said. "If someone stopped to look at it and we got a fire call, we would have to ask them to leave. Now they won't be affected if we get a fire call."
In addition to parking for tour buses and other visitors, the little park will include sidewalks leading up to the monument that will be placed on a platform attached to a tall steel tubing cylinder.
"We want to really dress it up with shrubs and all," Struble said.
While the monument has been waiting for its new home, it has received a face-lift. It's been covered with a special coating that should last for 20 to 30 years.
The hieroglyphic-looking symbols around the bottom of the monument also were redone with special caulking that should also last for 20 to 30 years.
"After all these years, there's still enough interest being shown that we thought we could benefit," Struble said. "We've had people from Japan and Germany come to visit, and we've gotten e-mails from all over the place."
Stan Gordon, UFO researcher who has worked tirelessly on finding out what really happened that day, said the fire department's efforts will be nothing but beneficial for them as well as the community.
"I have received a number of calls over the years from people out of town who had heard of the event," Gordon said. "They wanted to know what all there was to see. Unfortunately, there was really nothing here for them except for the monument itself."
Gordon said that a refurbished monument in a permanent home that is tourist-friendly, along with a souvenir shop, will bring in more visitors.
"This is a local mystery with an international interest that puts Kecksburg on the map," Gordon said. "Overall, this will be beneficial to the community."
Struble said the fire department hopes to have the site completed by month's end, but will be happy to have the money raised for their new pumper in five to 10 years.
Gordon added that anyone who may have information on the event, and has not yet come forward, to call him at 724-838-7768 or visit his Web site at www.stangordon.com.
"We're still pursuing the constant rumors that there are some pictures out there of the object," Gordon said. "If anyone has these pictures, they could really help solve the case."
"The UFO That Crashed in Bushrod Park Along Shattuck Avenue Turned Out To Be a Giant Chunk of Ice"
OAKLAND Flying ice chunk leaves hole -- and mystery -- in park
By Jason B. Johnson SfGate.com 4-9-06
Some folks in North Oakland thought it was a meteorite streaking across the Saturday morning sky. Others felt the ground shake from the impact and feared it was an earthquake.
But it wasn't a quake, meteorite or creatures from outer space. The UFO that crashed in Bushrod Park along Shattuck Avenue turned out to be a giant chunk of ice that left police and airport officials scratching their heads over its origin.
The fast-moving projectile slammed into a field near the sidewalk between 59th and 60th streets shortly before 10 a.m., sending a spray of dirt, grass and chunks of ice several feet into the air, witnesses said.
Some residents said they were lucky the object crashed into an empty field and not onto the nearby Don Budge tennis courts or the row of houses and small businesses across the street.
"It was totally amazing," said Jacek Purat of Berkeley, who was waiting on Shattuck to show apartments in a building he owns to prospective renters.
"I saw this flash, like a streak. Then I saw this explosion, like a big boom! I came over and it (the field) was all covered with ice. Some were this big," Purat said, making a head-size circle with his two hands.
Jackie Gordon, owner of Gordon Realty at 5977 Shattuck Ave., called police moments after the crash.
"Me and my husband were coming up the street," Gordon said. "And there was this big old hole and all this grass in the street. I thought it was dry ice."
Oakland police Sgt. Ron Yelder said no injuries were reported.
The impact left a crater 2 feet wide and 11/2 feet deep -- meaning the ice chunk was moving fast, Yelder said.
It's not clear where the projectile came from.
"We were speculating that it might have come from an airplane," Yelder said. "(But) it was clear ice, so it wasn't like waste from an airplane.
"I've never seen it before in my life," Yelder said.
San Francisco International Airport duty manager Bob Schneider said it would be easy to crack the ice-bomb mystery if it were blue ice, a telltale sign of ice from the film cap of an airplane lavatory. Such blue ice has been known to dislodge and fall to Earth.
Aircraft often land with a sheen of frozen water on the lower surfaces of their wings, caused by flying at high altitude.
"(But) we're talking ice a millimeter thick just adhering to the outer surface of the wing," Schneider said. "A big chunk of clear ice. I've never heard of anything like that."
By midafternoon, all the ice had melted -- leaving behind a large hole filled with more than a foot of muddy water. But people continued to come and look, some taking pictures with their cell phones.
Jacek Purat brought a friend by to show that he was telling the truth about the crash.
"It was going so fast," Purat said, standing next to the hole. "I have a piece of it in my freezer."
When Ozarkers want to take a little trip into the past, they might choose a museum, a Civil War battlefield, a cemetery or a theme park like Silver Dollar City.
Paul Von Ward thinks that for some "advanced beings," Earth might be that kind of destination.
"Some are trying to help humans -- to give us good information," says Von Ward of the visitors he calls "ABs." "Some continue to try to manipulate humans for their own ends. And for some, I think it's just plain observation, like our anthropologists and biologists study other species -- just to see what's happening with us."
If Von Ward's theories are correct, ABs helped make humans what we are today. They are not only the "gods" of myth and religion, but our ancestors: The speaker, researcher and author of "Gods, Genes, and Consciousness: The Case for Nonhuman Intervention Throughout the Ages," believes ABs mated with early humans to advance the development of the species. And he thinks they remained intimately involved with mankind until their own squabbling forced them to leave Earth -- or to be less open in their presence here.
"I think the significant story is not that there are a few UFOs or a few aliens around, but that they have always been here," says Von Ward, who will speak April 14-16 at the Ozark UFO Conference in Eureka Springs. "It's all part of the natural universe we ought to be studying."
Von Ward might seem the least likely proponent of a theory that elevates alien visitors to the status of gods. He started graduate school as a Southern Baptist minister who wanted to combine a career in religion and psychology "to be helpful to young people."
But, he counters, he was always interested in the big metaphysical questions: Who are we? How did we get here? What are we doing here?
"In graduate school, I became more and more interested in parapsychology, precognition, telepathy -- things outside both the religious perspective and the academic perspective," he says. "I dropped out of grad school in the middle of my doctoral program to go into the Navy and get a different perspective for myself.
"The more I traveled and worked in different parts of the world, the most I discovered that humans around the world see reality in many different ways," Von Ward goes on. "So my comfortable Southern upbringing was pretty much shattered. And once you break Humpty Dumpty, you can't put him back together again."
Von Ward admits he did have his own experiences -- "I don't call them paranormal, I call them natural," he clarifies -- and he was reminded by his parents of visits from ABs -- beings he called "Woke" and "Wokem" -- when he was a child. But it was study of world cultures that convinced him that "humans have been impacted by ABs from the beginning."
"If you look at every culture -- whether it's the Genesis story in the Hebrew tradition, Sumarian creation myths in Mesopotamia, the Hindu stories of the gods shaping human life -- around the world, it's the same story," he says. "Beings more advanced than humans came down from the sky and created life."
Other stories refer to the time when the "gods" lived on Earth with man. "Then," says Von Ward, "the stories stop talking about direct contact. My hypothesis, which is not unique to me, is that the gods, for their own reasons, pulled back from direct rule of humans about 4,000 years ago.
"If you look back into Middle Eastern history, about 2,000 years B.C., you see the decline of all the city states," he goes on. "Conventional historians call this period from about 1500 B.C. to about 500 A.D. 'the dark ages of Mesopotamia. All of those civilizations deteriorated because the gods who had been keeping everything in order left -- the same thing that happens in developing countries when the more advanced society pulls out."
However, says Von Ward, "the kings who had been given authority and the priesthoods that had grown up around the ABs wanted to keep their power and influence. So they just kept saying the gods would come back."
He thinks they do, regularly.
"Reality is not what they teach in school or the way we talk about it in church," he says. "When we tell the story, we need to take into account all of these pieces."
Dan Bogey, writing for ForeWord magazine, agrees.
"Whether or not one believes that 'advanced beings' even exist, let alone play a vital part in human evolution, 'Gods, Genes, and Consciousness' will prove to be a thought-provoking ... interpretation of human events."
Chris Rutkowski, an independent UFO researcher in Manitoba, released his 2005 report yesterday, noting that sightings in Manitoba dropped dramatically from the year before.
He said 43 sightings were reported in 2005 compared to 112 the year before.
“We’re way down,” Rutkowski said. “But despite that, [Canada] recorded its second-highest number of sightings in a single year.”
He said Canadians reported 769 sightings overall—a slight drop from 882 the year before.
Ontario topped the 2005 list with 214 while no one in Nunavut spotted any flying saucers.
Calgary and Vancouver were the urban centres with the most sightings—29 each.
“Most people aren’t convinced these are spaceships,” said Rutkowski. “Many have reasonable explanations.”
But he said some reports just can’t be explained.
One such case was reported in Vita, Man. on Aug. 7 when three people reported seeing a silver missile-shaped object.
Witnesses told Rutkowski it wasn’t a plane.
“They said they’ve never seen anything like it before and anything since,” he said, adding two people saw a similar object in Winnipeg the same day.
“It was hovering in the sky making no sound and it suddenly vanished after a short length of time,” he noted.
Maybe it was our lousy summer or the Blue Bombers' wretched regular season that kept them away.
Whatever the reason, fewer unidentified flying objects were spotted in Manitoba's skies last year than in 2004.
Ufology Research of Manitoba spokesman Chris Rutkowski said there were 43 sightings reported to his independent agency in 2005. Twenty-three of them were in Winnipeg.
He received 112 reports from around the province in 2004, a record-setting year.
"We're way down, but despite that (Canada) recorded its second-highest number of sightings in a single year," Rutkowski said. "Most people aren't convinced these are spaceships. Many have reasonable explanations." Most sightings are lights in the sky. There has been no evidence of extraterrestrial involvement.
But some can't be explained.
One such case was reported in Vita, Man., on Aug. 7 when three people reported seeing a silver missile-shaped object.
No, it wasn't a plane, witness Peter Osadchuk said.
"It was a tubular shape with protrusions on the sides," he said. "We could not figure out what it was before it got out of eyesight."
Rutkowski said two people saw a similar object in Winnipeg the same day. It's unknown what it was or if it was the same UFO.
"It was hovering in the sky making no sound and it suddenly vanished after a short length of time," he said.
Rutkowski's independent agency researches sightings and releases an annual tally on them.
He said Canadians reported 769 sightings last year, which translates into about two a day. Canada recorded 882 in 2004.
Ontario tops the 2005 list with 214, while Nunavut was the only jurisdiction without a report.
Calgary and Vancouver's 29 sightings were the most of all urban centres.
Tonight showed the SKY ONE TV show 'Eamon Investigates - Alien Autopsy. The show starts of with Santilli still claiming that he saw real film of aliens and that he purchased it from a former US military cameraman. However, there is now a change in the story. Santilli & his colleague Gary Shoefield claim that it took 2 years to buy the film & that when it finally arrived in London 95% of it had 'oxidised' and the remaining 5% was in very poor condition. They therefore decided to 'reconstruct' it based on Santilli's recollection and a few frames that were left.
To do this they hired UK sculptor John Humphreys. Humphreys tells of how he used sheeps brain for the brain and a lambs leg for the leg joint.
The cameraman's interview film is also a fake. The man in the film is someone they literally brought in off the street and gave him a prepared script to read from.
Santilli and Shoefield continually try to insist that the AA film as we know it is a restoration, but in fact it was made by John Humphreys. To try and justify they claim that some of the surviving original frames are seen mixed in with the reconstruction/restoration. Interestingly neither Santilli, Shoefield or Humphreys could point out where and which are these frames when viewing the AA film.
Santilli admitted that the six-fingered panels in the debris film were the result of 'artistic license' an he even produced one of the I-beams from the boot of his car. The debris film was also mde by John Humphreys.
In fact, Humphreys is the surgeon in the film, and a former employee of Shoefield's in behind the window. He's Gareth Watson, a man I met several times in Ray's office.
Nick Pope and mysels appear briefly in this show and I dare say Nick will have hi own comments to make. For anyone interested in the AA film I do recommend watching this if you can. I've taken part in another show for Channel Five in the UK the content of which I am not permitted to disclose.
After watching this tonight I can honestly say that I do not believe one word of either Santilli or Shoefield and I have no doubt that the film is nothing more than a complete fake. There is and never was any original film and there is and never was any US military cameraman. Santilli & Shoefield had little credibility as it was but now they have none.
The alien autopsy film is dead and I hope to put it to rest, once and for all, soon. Watch this space.
The truth is out there ... in Clayton South ONE of Australia's biggest UFO mysteries has taken off again, 40 years on.
And researchers hope the truth will out at a reunion of more than 30 witnesses tomorrow.
About 200 people are said to have seen either a flying saucer or crop circles near Westall High School on April 6, 1966.
The craft was described as silver, saucer-shaped and silent.
Some witnesses say they saw it drop behind trees at Westall's Grange Reserve, then rise vertically and leave.
Flattened and charred grass "crop circles" were said to have been left.
Canberra academic Shane Ryan says he has contacted about 50 witnesses in the past year.
The bulk were Westall High School students who were gathered on the oval at the time for physical education.
The incident was reported in daily papers, on Channel Nine and twice as front-page news in the local Dandenong Journal.
About a quarter of the witnesses said they saw the flying saucer and the rest saw as many as five so-called crop circles.
Many children reportedly ran down to the Grange after the sighting.
John Spencer, a seven-year-old at Westall Primary School at the time, said the incident still got to him. "I need answers, 'cos this has been a real bugbear over the years," he said.
"I have remembered the day as vividly as a seven-year-old could -- Mum dragging me away from the Grange after school from the landing site . . . seeing this object in the sky, other planes flying, following it."
Mr Spencer said the Grange was a second home to kids, a spot to catch frogs and tadpoles.
He said that after the incident, "guys in uniforms" made the reserve a no-go zone.
Mr Ryan said many witnesses reported police or military activity after the incident.
Science teacher Andrew Greenwood told the Dandenong Journal at the time he saw a silvery-green disc.
Mr Greenwood also claimed he was visited at home by two uniformed officers and threatened with prosecution if he continued to speak of it.
The defence department says there is no record of any military action after the sightings.
Gerry Shepherd taught woodwork at the time and says he never saw any military at the school.
"All I can say is that the school bell went to start the afternoon classes and there was hardly anyone there," Mr Shepherd said.
"I would say 99.999 per cent it's a load of bull."
Mr Ryan hopes retired police or military will go to the reunion, from 11am-2pm at Westall Tennis Club on the edge of the Grange in Clayton South.
"I'm convinced people saw something quite out of the ordinary," he said.
"It is a story that has almost been completely forgotten.
"These people, even after 40 years, have this burning desire to make sense of what they saw."
The Apollo 11 mission took off Launch Pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in the small hours of July 16, 1969. The crew of the spaceship comprised the astronauts N. Armstrong, Collins, and E. Oldrin. Having flown to the Moon for several hours, the crew reported that some “shining balls” were on the heels of the spaceship. The balls were reportedly trailing Apollo 11 flying the same maneuver patterns.
The report worried personnel at the mission control center in Houston a great deal. Some people believed the Soviets could be playing some dirty tricks. A lot of theories were put forward. According to one of them, the Russkies launched torpedoes and time was ticking. Three days dragged on, no detonation yet many feared the worst was yet to come. Nobody could get a relief out of a “simple explanation” blaming it all on UFOs. An assistant to Armstrong would recall years later: “Three unknown objects approached the spaceship at a distance of three foot. Three UFOs measuring from 15 m to 30 m in diameter landed on the edge of a crater as the module began to descend for landing.”
The whole world but USSR and China was listening to live broadcasts from Apollo on the Moon. One of the broadcasts from the crew seemed weird: “I can see many small craters … Those craters measure from 6 m to 15 m in diameter. There are some tracks approximately half a mile away from our ship, they look as though they have been left by a tank.” Suddenly millions of TV viewers around the globe heard some strange sounds resembling the breath of a locomotive combined with the buzz of an electric saw.
NASA’s operator sounded pretty worried on the air: “Are you sure that you did not communicate with THEM?” The crew checked a transmitter. It was obvious that the strange sounds were coming out of somewhere else. Armstrong changed a frequency and asked the operator: “I want to know what it is going on here,” The operator could not understand a thing either: “What’s happening? Is anything out of order?” The crew replied: “Sir, there’re big objects over here! Goodness! They’re really huge! Are they sitting on the other side of the crater? They are here on the Moon watching us!” Ironically, the astronauts were located at the Sea of Tranquility at the time.
This programme was shown on Sky one between 20:00-21:00 in the UK on Tuesday 4th April 2006.
The programme jumped about a lot, so this isn't in chronological order as it was broadcast.
It very briefly covered the background. In essence, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield claim that they were in Cleveland, Ohio in 1992 trying to obtain rare home movie footage of Elvis Presley. Santilli was contacted by an ex-US army cameraman, offering the Alien Autopsy film for an undisclosed price.
Santilli travelled to Clearwater, Florida to meet the cameraman. He didn't discuss this with Shoefield until he returned to Cleveland. Santilli examined the film and was convinced it was genuine, but he couldn't afford the price being asked.
Tourist Photographs UFOs Over Pyramids - Similar To That of 'Pyramid Cam'
By Piotr Cielebias NOL - Polish UFO Journal 3-30-06
Andrzej Kierski [a Pole] during his trip to Egypt took a photo presenting unknown objects that were invisible for him. Anyway he mentioned about an unknown flash in his camera when he took photos of an Egyptian soldier on a camel. It isn't known whether the light has something in common with those round objects.
Andrzej Kierski's relation:
"I send you two photos taken in Egypt on 11th February 2005 at 08:01 a.m. The pose of a soldier on a camel seemed to be interesting for me. I took photos at 08:01, one after another, with a short [maybe 5 - 10 sec.] break. The photo without round marks I took as the first one.
Something flashed in my camera. I look up at the sky annoyed. I didn't see anything. I then took another one [photo]. At first I noticed the mark between the soldier and a bird. I thought that it was surely some dirt on a lens of my camera. I was more absorbed with taking the photo than with analyzing the source of the camera malfunction. This is all about these 2 pictures. I examined them when I returned.
The first one - that with a "flash" - seemed strange to me. There were no clues indicating the origin of that flash. I must add that the "flash" was very intense. I can state that it was almost "blinding". I thought that nothing would be visible [on the photos]. Watching the photo in the hotel I noticed that one of them is clear. There was a little problem with another one. What that mark was? Then I discover another one, etc.
Origin of first circle (and most visible one) can be explained in a some way but what about the other ones. Moreover, they created a "regular" geometric form. Just a coincidence?"
This image [follow "more link" below to see image] captured on Mar 23, 2006 at 14:34:04 shows an object near the tip of Khafre that is highly reflective and exhibits structure. It is difficult to determine, however, if it exists on the image in the foreground, or is positioned at or behind the pyramid. Although the center portion looks round in this image, the image captured at 14:33:17 (47 seconds earlier) is squarish in shape.
Many Saints Believed in Extraterrestrial Life: Vatican Monsignor
By Adriano Forgione 4-4-06 (Editor-In-Chief of the Italian UFO Magazines'Dossier Alieni' and 'UFO Network') translation from Italian by Dawn A. Bissel
The reality of the UFO phenomenon and its theological implications: using reason, extraterrestrials are here. A glimpse of their nature and a mention of the Third Secret of Fatima.
I met Monsignor Corrado Balducci at the Second Ufological Conference of Ancona, entitled "Alien civilizations: between doubt and reason" on 17 April 1999. Balducci, a demonologist of the Vatican is a very open person with a pleasant manner who is quite well known in the ufological circuit for having openly declared that he believes in the possibility that extraterrestrial intelligences are interacting with Earth. Are his statements made on behalf of the Vatican? I tried to examine the religious repercussions of contact with Monsignor Balducci.
The Comedic Version of 'Alien Autopsy' Draws Many British Celebs To Premiere
Hello Magazine 4-4-06
TV's kings of light entertainment, Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, celebrated their big screen debut by inviting an array of famous faces to the premiere of their comedy Alien Autopsy.
Celebs such as comic David Baddiel, footballer Ashley Cole and his fiancée Cheryl Tweedy of Girls Aloud fame turned out on Monday to support the Geordie duo. They were also joined at the bash by Strictly Coming Dancing presenter Tess Daly and husband Vernon Kay.
Based on a true story, Ant and Dec's first foray into film follows two UFO enthusiasts as they try to convince the public they've filmed a real life UFO autopsy.
After spending an hour greeting fans on the 'green' carpet, the popular presenters revealed they believe in extraterrestrial life. "It's naïve to think we're the only intelligent life source out there," said 30-year-old Dec.
Despite an admission from the cheeky pair that the highlight of the experience was being airbrushed for the film's promotional material, there are no plans in the offing for "an assault on Tinseltown".
They'll be kept far too busy with their TV work until the end of 2007. Next up on the agenda this year is a joint interview with Princes William and Harry alongside their father. The three royals agreed to the grilling to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Prince's Trust.
How linking PCs spreads load and saves money By Simon Hendery The New Zealand Herald 4-4-06
It is the computing equivalent of the old adage "many hands make light work".
Researchers with gigabytes of data to process worked out years ago that there was an alternative to prohibitively expensive number crunching on supercomputers: they could share the computational load around the world.
This approach has seen home computers across the globe helping out in the search for extraterrestrial life.
The SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) harnesses idle PC time to analyse radio telescope data in a search for intelligent broadcast patterns that would indicate someone is out there.
Hundreds of thousands of internet-connected computer owners have been happy to donate some unused processing time to what is seen as a worthy project through an unobtrusive screensaver-based program.
SETI is one example of grid computing in action: making use of spare processing cycles on a connected cluster of computers to create a powerful "virtual supercomputer".
While definitions of grid and cluster computing vary, the general concept of harnessing the power of a connected group of processing units is one that has increasing appeal to researchers and businesses as well.
Paul Bacon, an Auckland-based account manager for Oracle, says the majority of clients now view a cluster of low-cost servers as the best platform for running Oracle's databases and business applications.
"Customers are very interested in the ability to reduce the cost of their IT infrastructure," Bacon says.
"The whole grid story is about lowering a customer's total cost of ownership by deploying on industry standard servers. Most enterprise software has traditionally been rather expensive to deploy and a large part of that is the need to purchase large and expensive hardware platforms to accommodate it."
Bacon says a key benefit of running a grid of cheaper servers rather than a larger single server is the ability to boost resources as they are needed.
"In the traditional model if you bought a server and the capacity required by that application was underestimated, then you performed a fairly expensive 'forklift upgrade': bring the forklift in, roll that server out, roll a bigger one in.
"That is an expensive and embarrassing exercise for the IT department. One of the nice parts about the grid model is that you can incrementally add resources as you need to."
Oracle has been strongly pushing enterprise grid computing using standard servers, going as far as labelling it a fundamental shift in IT architecture and "the fifth major paradigm in the history of computing" (after mainframe, midrange, client-server and internet-based architectures).
Roland Slee, an Oracle Asia-Pacific vice-president, says: "It's about taking the smallest, most affordable computing elements available and using collections of these to deliver a higher quality of service, better performance and better reliability at a dramatically lower cost."
Mainframe and supercomputer manufacturers would probably have a different opinion.
One local organisation embracing the grid concept is Public Trust, which is moving to a "cluster" architecture through a major project, currently under way, to upgrade its server infrastructure.
Changing from a single large server to three clusters will reduce maintenance and licensing costs, says Public Trust's enterprise architecture manager, Ross Payne.
The upgrade will also consolidate a number of Oracle databases on to one cluster, allowing them to be managed much more effectively.
"One of the significant differences between the old way we've been doing things - using the single large server - is that previously we'd have to buy or lease equipment of a certain size and we'd have to work out three or four years in advance what our needs were going to be," says Rod Orr, a principal database specialist at Public Trust.
"If we underestimated what the requirements were going to be, we'd end up with a box that wouldn't perform. And if we over-estimated, we'd end up spending too much money on something we didn't really need. With the cluster model we only buy blades as we need them. If we need more capacity we can go and buy a new cheap blade and slide it in."
One of the world's most well-known examples of cluster computing is Google. Its search engine is powered by several thousand connected PCs at various locations.
Futurist Jeff Wacker, of global computing giant EDS, says the rise of cluster computing will not spell the end of supercomputers.
Wacker predicts a future where business meets its information processing requirements through a mix of technology including:
* Grid computing (which he defines as a system that captures and uses spare processing capability).
* Cluster computing (which could involve standard servers, mainframes or supercomputers).
* Utility computing (on-demand processing power supplied by an external provider).
The man dubbed "the father of grid computing" happens to be a native New Zealander, although he left home in the 1970s.
Ian Foster is a professor of computer science at the University of Chicago and associate director of the mathematics and computer science division of Argonne National Laboratory. He developed Globus, the most widely deployed grid software.
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) is relying on a grid project to analyse data generated by its Large Hadron Collider, a particle collider which is probing the Big Bang theory.
CERN researchers have hooked into a grid network of 100,000 PCs which will store and process this torrent of data, in the process, they hope, discovering some of the secrets to how the universe began.
"Dr. J. Bond Johnson Passed Away Quietly in His Sleep Saturday, March 25"
Dr. J. Bond Johnson passed away quietly in his sleep Saturday, March 25, 2006, in Long Beach, Calif., from complications due to cancer.
Memorial services aill be held at the base chapel at Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in California. His cremated remains will be placed in a niche at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Please go to here for more information.
Born June 18, 1926, in Fort Worth, Dr. Johnson was the only son of the Rev. Floyd E. and Gladys Johnson, who ministered to Texas Methodists their entire lives. Upon graduation at age 15 from Taylor High School in 1942, he returned to Fort Worth to enroll at Texas Wesleyan as a journalism major. With a great many of the men away in World War II and having written and edited for his high school paper and the Taylor Daily Press, he soon gained employment as a reporter-photographer at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
He remained in its employ for more than five years, including the time before and after his service in the Army Air Corps, while he earned degrees from Texas Wesleyan and Texas Christian universities. Later he was to also earn higher academic degrees in education, theology and psychology from Southern Methodist, Southern California and Claremont universities.
J. Bond Johnson received the most attention in recent years for having photographed in 1947 for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the wreckage of the controversial "UFO Crash" in Roswell, N.M. He was sent by his editor to photograph the debris from the crash that had been transported to Gen. Ramey's office at Fort Worth Army Air Station. He shot a series of six photographs (both sides of three glass plates from a Speed-Graphic camera), of which five survive in the collection at the University of Texas at Arlington. These photos are the only known pictures of this famous and controversial debris. Although a minor incident in his life, this event would come back later to include him in UFO investigations.
In 1952, he was called back into the military and sent through the Marine Corps Officer Training School in Quantico, Va. and later assigned as public information officer at El Toro Marine Base in Orange County, Calif. It was here that he earned his wings as a Marine aviator. He became a life member of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association.
At the end of the Korean War, he was released from active duty with the rank of captain and continued in the Marine Reserve. He was honorably discharged from the Marines in 1962 and immediately entered the U.S. Army Reserve. He retired as a full colonel after 33 years of service.
Col. Johnson was a consultant to the National Security Council at the White House and served on the Eisenhower Commission, which revised the Code of Conduct for prisoners of war, and was a Pentagon consultant to "Operation Homecoming," the Department of Defense rehabilitation program for returning prisoners of war after the Vietnam War. He was on the consulting faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
He was a post-doctorate fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health for three years of clinical psychiatry training in the post-graduate Department of Psychiatry, University of Southern California School of Medicine. He also received clinical training at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in Fort Worth, TCU-VA Veterans Guidance Center in Fort Worth, Metropolitan Hospital in Norfolk, Calif., Tri-City Mental Health Authority in Pomona, Calif., and Memorial Hospital Medical Center of Long Beach.
Since 1960, Dr. Johnson had been a California board-certified and licensed clinical psychologist. He was in private practice as a clinical and consulting psychologist in Long Beach for 39 years with specialties in family therapy, sports and industrial psychology. In 1970, he founded the Long Beach Youth Home, a residential treatment facility and school for emotionally troubled youths, and in 1974, he established Cedar House in Long Beach, which has become a national model in the treatment of child and spousal abuse.
He pioneered in studying the etiology of post-traumatic stress disorder, having interviewed returned prisoners of war, escapees and evacuees during three wars. He served as an Army Air Corps pilot cadet in World War II, a Marine Corps captain during the Korean War and an Army psychological operations specialist during the Vietnam War.
Dr. Johnson was ordained a Methodist minister by the Central Texas Methodist Conference. He served churches in Everman, Cross Plains and Italy, Texas. Fifty years later, in 1996, he retired from active ministry as senior pastor of First United Methodist Church of San Pedro, Calif.
Survivors: Wife, Elizabeth; son, Jerry Johnson; daughters, Jan Johnson and Joyce Jackson, all of California; grandchildren, Jennifer Shull of New York and Aaron Jackson of Hawaii; and sister, Elaine J. Carroll of Fort Worth.
ET's flown home – chased off by the internet By Ben Macintyre Times On Line 3-31-06
The disappearance of flying saucers and little green men – and a shift in human credulity
WHERE (ON EARTH) have all the unidentified flying objects gone? Just a few years ago, the sky seemed to be littered with flying saucers and every other sort of astral crockery: strange lights, cigar-shaped spaceships, paranormal things that went bump in the night. Scully and Mulder were rushed off their feet.
Now the UFOs have almost vanished. Sure, you still get a few alien abductions, especially on New Year’s Eve, and diehard ufologists are still recording close encounters of the umpteenth kind. Since 1955 the National UFO Reporting Centre in Seattle has clocked 125,000 reports of sightings. But in recent years the numbers have dropped dramatically. The British Flying Saucer Bureau closed down three years ago after half a century of saucer-spotting. The simple truth is that the little green men don’t come calling like they used to, and they have stopped leaving circles in our crops.
One explanation for this is that the aliens have realised that this poor little planet is dying, and not worth visiting any more. But leaving aside the possibility that we are simply an interplanetary holiday destination that has fallen out of fashion, the withering of the UFO craze represents a fascinating shift in human credulity, the end of a cultural phenomenon that reached its apogee in the late 20th century.
But it is also a result of human invention, and humanity’s evolving relationship with new technology. UFO sightings have declined as the internet has expanded. The web is the natural home of every crackpot and conspiracy theorist, but it also, eventually, produces a rarefied atmosphere of rationalism in which aliens and other elusive creatures cannot long survive. In the short term, the internet was a blessing to UFOs; but over time, it has all but killed them off.
Humans have been spotting odd things in the sky from the dawn of time. Egyptian scrolls from the 15th century BC tell of “burning circles” in the heavens, the Book of Ezekiel describes celestial wheels of fire and in AD98 a shield-shaped thing hurtled across the Roman firmament. Before the First World War there were regular sightings of phantom Zeppelins.
UFOs tend to appear at moment of turmoil and technical innovation, and the full-scale alien invasion started after the Second World War. On June 24, 1947, an American pilot named Kenneth Arnold spotted nine silvery objects hurtling through the air near Mount Rainier in Washington state. The term “flying saucer” was born, a good example of bad journalism since Arnold had specifically stated that the objects were shaped like boomerangs.
Within a month, flying saucers had been reported in 28 states. On a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, the US Air Force recovered bits of debris from a crash site, and rumours of bodies of bug-eyed aliens quickly spread. Britain became a favoured UFO landing strip, with hundreds and then thousands of reported sightings. “What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to?”, wondered Winston Churchill in a memo written in 1951. “What can it mean?”
In part, the alien spaceship invasion was a reaction to the stresses of the Cold War and the nuclear age; in a time of technological frenzy, space exploration and paranoia, the notion of alien visitors was increasingly acceptable, even comforting. In the same way that our medieval forebears saw angels and comets at times of plague and catastrophe, we saw lights and visitations in the night sky as the world seemed ever more dangerous, and other planets drew ever closer.
The high point for UFO spotters came in the mid-1990s. The fields were festooned with crop circles; The X-Files was required watching, the men in black were everywhere. In 1994 some black-and-white film footage turned up, purporting to show military scientists performing a post-mortem examination on two of the Roswell aliens: small, humanoid creatures with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, without belly buttons or hair. The film, since exposed as a crude forgery, was taken seriously enough for journalists (including this one) to be dispatched to Roswell to report on the discovery.
The early internet helped to power the UFO phenomenon: instant myths, sightings, secrets and lies scorched around the world wide web. But the web also helped to undermine faith in the paranormal. In the age of instant text messaging and universal webcams, spotting UFOs, photographing them, posting the evidence worldwide and calling in witnesses should have been far easier than ever before.
Instead, the UFOs have scarpered. The internet works by taking in vast swaths of hokum and ignorance but it gradually sifts out the chaff. Errors inevitably creep, for example, into Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, but because this is a self-creating and self-regulating mechanism, the mistakes and the nonsense are weeded out, or wither away. For every soothsayer and rumour-peddler on the web, there is a rationalist, an expert, a sceptic, calling for common sense. The truth will out, eventually.
The UFOs are still whizzing about up there, for sure; they just tend to crash faster these days. This month, residents of Orange County, California, spotted mysterious discs hovering over the town of Aliso Viejo. The sightings were swiftly recorded by a UFO research website, ghostly blue lights that “danced around one another in the night sky”. The news hurtled around the web, UFO chat rooms buzzed with excitement.
Ten years ago the Aliso Viejo sightings would have swiftly entered UFO folklore, passed from one believer to another. But no sooner had the Orange County saucers been launched, than a cardiovascular surgeon named Gaylon Murphy admitted the UFOs were radio-controlled foam disks fitted with flashing lights, which he had built in his garage. “We fly them in formation,” he said. “It’s pretty funny.”
The Aliso Viejo UFOs are still on the internet, but now entirely overshadowed by more mundane normality: “It came from the Planet Garage.”
The unidentified flying object has been identified, and cannot fly any more. ET has gone home.
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