By George Jones The Sand Mountain Reporter 8-31-06
Saturday, as I drove toward Fyffe to check out the UFO Day happenings, I had the distinct feeling I was experiencing what “The Twilight Zone”’s opening narration said of those who watched – “You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”
The late Doc Berry said it best—“The Massive UFO Flyover of Arizona, March 13, 1997”; his title best describes what happened that Thursday evening. Moreover, nine years later, I (we) still look for a return visit from our alien friends. I don’t have a problem saying that feared word “alien” at all. “Nothing of this earth” describes what we saw pass in front of us around 8:30 PM that night. Nothing!
Recalling the event as if it were yesterday, while in the process of closing a window at our then home in Chandler, Arizona I noticed, "three huge, bright white lights angled down and very low to the ground"; after shouting to my wife to come outside we witnessed this “massive V shaped” craft entering our field of vision from the northwest giving us an almost perfect angle for viewing the UFO. This massive black boomerang shaped object was easily determined to be one solid mass as the gray background from all the lights in the surrounding Phoenix metro area allowed this UFO to be visible. It stuck out like a sore thumb!
The reports of our experience have been published on the Internet for over 9 years; I have done over 50 televised shows and been on dozens of radio shows; I have done four documentaries, even one for “UFO’s, Fuji TV from Tokyo, Japan, ABC’s Peter Jennings Reporting, Seeing is Believing” and the best by far was “Out of the Blue,” by James Fox.
To date, as I write this, I am still encountering new witnesses and hearing new stories of that wonderful day; so many reports will never make the Internet, television, radio, or ever be told to the general public. This is so distressing! One goal I had when we moved to the high country of northern Arizona was to find new witnesses and meet many of those who were just too concerned for their jobs, worried about ridicule from friends or family or just not knowing who to contact. There are many more who I feel have yet to tell their story.
This became apparent shortly after Thursday March 9, 2006, when The Daily Courier in Prescott, Arizona did a full-page article on my wife and I and our life changing experience. The article was titled, “Eyes on the Sky”, and was also posted on UFO Updates on March 11th, as well as Frank Warren’s blog, “Knowledge is Power” on March 13th, the nine-year anniversary date.
The purpose was to find more witnesses who never had a chance to tell their story or maybe never wanted to “then,” for reasons listed earlier. My e-mail address was posted in the article along with parts of our story and our determination to keep looking in hopes of a return visit so this time I could get it on film.
In the following couple weeks I had received some 200+ fascinating e-mails. One especially promising was from a flight instructor from Embry-Riddle. He and a student were flying over Chino Valley when it appeared that all the city and area lights went out; after realizing the lights had not gone out but were “being blocked” by what they described as a “gigantic black chevron shaped craft” that was massive in size and at least a mile long! They literally feared for their lives as they flew above this massive unknown object! However, it quietly passed on it’s way south towards Phoenix. The instructor is retired, the student pilot is now on active duty in the USAF; neither will go on camera to tell their story. Also, I spoke with a family of 5 who was at the Dairy Queen on HWY 69, in Prescott Valley; they described a huge V shaped craft, a single object for sure, pass over their heads low and slow. No one said the word flare or “ours” in reference to the craft. No one! One thing most, if not all “8 PM witnesses” say . . . what we saw was not ours!
This is what is so frustrating about this wonderful experience. Very few people ever get told the truth, and thanks to the intentional blunders of the media, they probably never will! Let me try to explain this. First of all, certain members of the media claim that they cannot report a story and have the viewing audience pay attention to it without video. So, enter the five “10:00 PM, MST, videos” of a “military flare drop.” These are the famous, “Phoenix Lights” seen at a faint distance at high altitude. These 5 videos of a flare drop were shot around the same time at different locations. All enjoy higher altitudes and none were shot on the desert floor! These videos were shown worldwide, and are more than likely an intentional flare drop by A-10’s from Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona.
A lot of money has been made off these videos as well as some books, but the truth is no one was close enough to the lights to really know for sure what they were. Both Tom King and Dr. Bruce Maccabee * have determined that these lights are more than likely flares, which had to be ignited around 17,000’ to be seen in the Phoenix area. This is what I call the intentional diversion! Nearly every time a report on television is shown they interview an 8:00 o’clock witness of the alien events, while showing the 10:00 video of flares in the background-thus presenting erroneous information and confusing everyone!
My worst fear of all this is that in 50 years or so when the so called “real” UFO investigators decide to examine the 8:00 o’clock events of March 13, 1997, everyone will be dead or lack exact memory of that wonderful night. Giving us another “Roswell type quagmire” of did it happen or not?
I blame almost all the confusion and pretense on two “MUFON investigators and the strange Dr X”; all they did was battle each other for local TV time and argue the lights on the 5 videos. No one made any efforts to record witness testimony early on. There are no MUFON AZ reports to be found. Everyone involved relied on the phone calls to Village Labs or to the office of “Frances Emma Barwood,” who was then the noted Phoenix Councilwoman who asked, “why don’t we investigate the strange events?” Even to this date there are no archives of witness testimony. What little they (the investigators & Dr. X) did record went to their books or DVD documentaries—not to get the word out, but to make a buck.
My name is Mike Fortson and The Massive UFO Flyover of Arizona, March 13, 1997 changed our lives! As you’ve read I have ardent feelings about the subject and will continue to speak out, as I believe it prudent; I am very disappointed in the erroneous reporting and the complete falsehood that what we were allowed to see that night was flares or some government special project. What I saw that night was an alien visitation craft of unbelievable size that paraded thru the Phoenix metro area undetected and without noise. It was there for anyone who was outside to see. It was not “ours,” and it was not a flare!
I now reside in Prescott Valley, Arizona where I sell real estate. I have multiple cameras at the constant ready, just in case; I want to get the next visit, if possible, on film.
If I am fortunate enough to film our visitors, if in fact they do return, I promise you this—it will not be for sale—I will share this with the world for free. It’s not about greed, but about the truth.
Note-Mike Fortson continues to investigate what has become known as the Phoenix Lights-he is actively seeking "other" witnesses to the event who have yet to come forward; witnesses are incouraged to "comment" in the section below or can write in here to the e-mail address found in the left side-bar. Mike can be contacted directly at Mike Fortson
* Dr. Bruce Maccabee has done an extensive "photo analysis" of the various videos taken of the flares dropped that night, March 13, 1997 and can be examined Here.
A UFO hunter claims to have captured alien spaceships on film following a close encounter near Bonsall.
By Jim Taylor Matlock Today 8-30-06
Oliver Rowlands, who lives near Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, claims he was surrounded by glowing "orbs" before a "mothership" the size of a football field repeatedly flew over his head.
Oliver returned to the well-known UFO hotspot to record a second encounter on a mobile phone, and now believes he is able to attract the mysterious craft using torch signals.
Oliver's first paranormal experience since a sighting in Dovedale in 1993 came on a Sunday evening around six weeks ago.
He was heading towards Bonsall from the Tissington area with a friend at around 1.30am when the pair spotted something in the sky.
"We saw two stars – or at least they looked like stars, but they were moving about a bit.
"I gave them a flash with my torch and they started coming down towards us."
Oliver said he and his colleague were soon surrounded by orange and yellow orbs that even seemed to be emitting laser beams.
The most amazing sight was yet to come as what he described as "a mothership" appeared.
"It was the size of a football pitch but it was made up of pure, white light. It was amazing, though the light almost blinded us."
Oliver returned to the area a few weeks later with a different friend and claims he was again able to attract the orbs using a torch.
"Before we knew it there were hundreds of them swarming around us.
"We just tried to film it the best we could.
"It's fascinating – there's definitely something going on up there."
Oliver is currently transferring the footage from his mobile phone onto a DVD so that he can get a better look at it.
Bonsall has been linked with unidentified flying objects since at least 2001 when a woman captured six minutes of video footage that was hailed by some experts as "the best UFO video ever".
The film was sold to an American television station.
Is it just pie in the sky or do UFOs really exist?
A strange series of lights seen in the sky last week have prompted one group to ask for witnesses to come forward to help fuel the debate on whether we are being watched by beings from outer space.
Kim Briscoe asks “Do you believe?”
Witnesses to a reported sighting of an unidentified flying object over Hellesdon are being asked to come forward.
So far two people saw a black triangular craft appear in the sky above Low Road, but the Norfolk UFO Society (NUFOS) feels more people must have seen the mystery in the sky.
The Evening News was contacted by one of the witnesses to the anomaly, which happened at 12.20am on August 23. A second man, a civil aviation worker at Norwich Airport, also reported seeing the lights in the sky.
The aviation specialist, who did not want to be identified and said it was definitely not a stealth aircraft, was walking home from the cinema when he saw the craft about 50ft in the air, and judged it to nine feet by five feet by comparing it with nearby trees.
He said: “A bright red ball just appeared. It glowed then turned blue and a triangular black glass type solid craft appeared. It pulsed various lights but there was no sound. It turned as if to look in my direction.
“It fired off a light beam that jumped rapidly from house to house along Low Road. It then increased the light at the flat edge, I presume the back, and it just shot off in total silence towards the north. No sound at any time except a static fizz in the air.”
Witness Austin Paxman, of Norwich, contacted the Evening News and said he was taking a short cut across the Royal Norwich Golf Club when he saw the same craft, but from a different angle.
He said: “There seems to be more and more UFO reports for Norwich and I am curious as to what is being done about it.”
John Sayer, of NUFOS, said he would be interested to speak to people who have reported UFO incidents.
He said: “This does appear to be a very detailed report and the fact they are in aviation lends it credibility - if they are telling the truth.
“In a book by Timothy Good called Beyond Top Secret he says the hotspot for UFO activity in the UK in terms of reports to official bodies is the Norwich area.
“We approach reports in as rigorously a scientific way as possible. We don't just accept anything and always investigate things thoroughly.
“Ufology is more about the study of UFO reports rather than UFOs themselves.
“One of the things we try to do is to familiarize ourselves with what conventional aircraft look like at night time.
“According to the folklore 90 per cent of sightings are explainable but I have never seen any hard statistics on that I think it's just what people say.
“I don't think people are that stupid that they can mistake planes for UFOs, especially in an area like this where people are used to seeing helicopters and planes going over all the time.”
According the UFO evidence website, multiple surveys over the last few decades and from different countries show about seven per cent of people have seen a UFO. At least several hundred thousand estimated UFO sightings have been documented in the last 50 years, and the total number of UFO sightings is estimated to be in the millions, although only a small percentage report the sightings.
More information is available from www.ufoevidence.org. Mr Sayer, of NUFOS, can be contacted on 01603 755331.
T Can you explain the UFO mystery? Email kim.briscoe@archant.co.uk with your theories.
PANEL
An official Ministry of Defence UFO report, seen by the Evening News, lists the following UFO sightings in the area between 2002 and 2005:
April 21, 2005 - Three objects were seen hovering in the sky at an undisclosed location in Norfolk at 6.31am.
May 5, 2004 - At 11.10pm a bright, pulsing spider looking object was seen above Kings Lynn.
September 13, 2003 - A shape as bright as Mars, a sort of white light with a dim brightness moved in a south east direction at 8.15pm above Great Yarmouth.
July 15, 2003 - A disc like object, moving in the sky slowly above Gorleston-on-Sea, poised once and then headed in a north east direction.
May 28, 2003 - At 7.50am a saucer object was seen in the sky above Great Yarmouth.
August, 22, 2002 - At 9.30pm at Shropham, near Attleborough, aerial lights were seen in the sky.
January 24, 2002 - At 4.12pm in Cromer, eight to nine lights were spotted which looked like they were close and then they separated. Not too bright. Were like large fireworks.
THIS UFO footage was purportedly shot over Richmond on July 11, 2006.
It's featured on a website along with a raft of other unidentified flying object footage supposedly shot by people all over Australia who, quite handily, were armed with cameras when the extra terrestrials came a'calling.
In reality, however, these stills – and the rest of the footage featured on the website – is part of a sophisticated hoax funded by taxpayers to the tune of $15,000.
Perth filmmaker Christopher Kenworthy, the man behind the short films and website – which will all be included in a documentary on the 'project' and its impact – prefers the term "immersive artwork" or artistic illusion, and convinced the Australian Film Commission that the website would not mislead people.
The taxpayer-funded project has angered Australia's genuine UFO researchers like Bill Chalker, who has expressed surprise that a Federally-funded body would dole out money for a project that deliberately misled people.
Mr Chalker, an industrial chemist who has authored many UFO books and articles, said the funding aspect was hard to stomach.
". . . Stunning Development . . . of What Happened To a Truax Air Force Base F-89 Scorpion . . ."
Doug Moe: Lake discovery is likely Truax jet
By Doug Moe The Capital Times 8-30-06
THERE HAS been a stunning development in the half-century-old mystery of what happened to a Truax Air Force Base F-89 Scorpion jet airplane that disappeared over Lake Superior on Nov. 23, 1953.
The plane and its Madison-based crew - pilot Felix Moncla and radar observer Robert Wilson - were never found. The F-89 had been dispatched to track a large unidentified flying object that radar had spotted near the U.S.-Canadian border, and the plane's disappearance has been fodder for extraterrestrial theorists ever since.
It now appears the missing plane has been located.
Earlier this month, divers and engineers from the Great Lakes Dive Co. posted on their Web site sonar photographs of what the group calls "the legendary missing F-89 Scorpion."
Gord Heath, a Canadian UFO investigator who has devoted considerable time to researching the F-89 disappearance - including several visits to Madison, most recently this past July - called the new find "a huge development" when we spoke Monday.
At the time of its disappearance in 1953, the F-89 was based not in Madison but rather at the Kinross Air Force Base in Michigan. A Capital Times story at the time explained that the plane and its crew "were part of a Truax Field contingent stationed temporarily at Kinross Air Base to substitute for Kinross personnel engaged in gunnery maneuvers at Yuma, Ariz."
In an incredible and tragic coincidence, the F-89 Scorpion temporarily stationed at Kinross was only one of two Truax F-89s to encounter serious difficulty on Nov. 23, 1953.
Shortly after noon that day, another F-89 Scorpion, this one at Truax with Lt. John Schmidt and Capt. Glenn Collins aboard, took off to test the afterburners of newly installed engines. While the test seemingly went fine, when the plane headed back toward Truax, witnesses below reported hearing an explosion, and then the jet crashed into a marsh in the Arboretum, killing both Schmidt and Collins.
It was less than six hours later that radar operators at Kinross, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, spotted the UFO in restricted air space over the Soo Locks.
Moncla and Wilson went up in an F-89 Scorpion to track the unidentified craft. Back at Kinross, radar tracked their plane closing in on the UFO over Lake Superior. Moncla's last words from the cockpit were, "I'm going in for another look."
The Capital Times reported what happened next: "The Truax jet was followed on the radar screen at Kinross until its image merged with that of the plane it was checking - then it was lost."
That odd radar image - of the mystery craft seeming to swallow the Truax jet, then both disappearing from the screen - has fueled the extraterrestrial theories. U.S. officials claimed the rogue blip on the screen was an off-course Canadian airliner, but Canadian authorities have denied that any of their planes were in the area.
In his 1955 book, "The Flying Saucer Conspiracy," Donald Keyhoe wrote: "The mystery craft and the F-89 came together far off-shore, about 100 miles from Sault Sainte Marie. ... As quickly as possible, search planes with flares were roaring over Lake Superior. After a fruitless night search, boats joined the hunt as American and Canadian flyers crisscrossed a hundred-mile area. But no trace was ever found of the missing men, the F-89 - or the unknown machine."
But then, in October 1968, the Sault Daily Star newspaper carried a story headlined, "Do aircraft parts belong to missing F-89?" Two prospectors had found the parts, including a tail section, on the eastern shore of Lake Superior. The paper quoted Air Force sources saying the parts belonged to "a high performance military jet aircraft."
Years later, when Gord Heath, the UFO investigator I spoke with Monday, tried to get records from the Canadian government of the jet parts found in 1968, he was told no records existed.
Heath has spent much of the past five years trying to learn the fate of the missing Truax F-89. He has a Web site - www.ufobc.ca/kinross - devoted to it. He has made research trips to Madison and has a section on the city on his site. A documentary film crew from Canadian television accompanied Heath on his last trip here in July.
Now, suddenly, the Great Lakes Dive Co. find has considerably upped the ante on this 53-year-old mystery. You can learn more about the company, and view the sonar photos of the F-89, on its Web site, www.greatlakesdive.com.
The Web site explains that the group formed in 2001 out of "a yearning to explain some of the enduring mysteries of the Great Lakes." Late in 2005, members were searching for two sunken French minesweepers when circumstances led them to the area over which the F-89 had disappeared. Five days into their sonar search, the site notes, "the computer returned some amazing images." It is, they seem certain, the Truax F-89.
They next plan to take underwater video of the plane, which seems in remarkably good condition in perhaps 500 feet of water. Heath, who has been in contact with the Great Lakes Dive Co., says its condition - part of the tail is missing - matches up with the parts that were purportedly found in 1968.
Heath does not believe that the discovery means there wasn't an extraterrestrial ship involved in the 1953 disappearance. What if they were after the crew and not the plane? The sonar photos indicate the cockpit canopy of the F-89 is still intact. In time we should learn if the bodies of Felix Moncla and Robert Wilson are inside. If they aren't, it won't mean aliens got them - they might have bailed out - but if they are, the extraterrestrial theory might be put to rest. Some dead men can tell tales.
Sometime Monday, Errol's Bruce's Knapps web-site "The Virtually Strange Network" which is the parent site for his ground breaking UFO radio program "Strange Days Indeed," along with the archives for the most heralded "UFO Updates List," (a hand operated e-mail subscription list) has gone down.
Visitors to the URL see the "Account Temporarily Disabled" notice; Ufologist "Don Ledger" who contacted Errol stated that he (Errol) was having "a problem with his domain host" and hopes to have it remedied ASAP.
Along with "Strange Days" (SDI), "UFO Updates" has for years been what I call the "Virtual Pub" of Ufology; one can stop in and not be surprised to bump into the leaders in the field from literally all over the world; Ufologists such as, Friedman, Hall, Maccabee, Pope, Randle etc., can be found debating the issues.
The information contained in the pages of the archives for "Updates" is a bounty of Ufological information, and is a powerful tool in the ongoing research of the "UFO Phenomenon"; it's a "must read" for abecedarians looking into the subject, and a "encyclopedia," if you will, for the veteran researcher.
For the many now going into "Updates withdrawal," the sooner the site is restored--the better!
". . . Her Father Saw a 'Huge, Big Fireball With a Long Tail' . . ."
Meteor rattles Hawke's Bay
The New Zealand Herald 8-29-06
up with a boom that rattled windows.
"It was like an earthquake, but without the shaking," said one Akina woman.
Maraekakaho woman Liz Wilson heard "the weirdest noise, like a V8 engine" at about 9.45pm.
"We got in the car, as you do, and had a look around the place ... we so wanted to find a big, burning thing," she said.
An Otane woman said her father saw a "huge, big fireball with a long tail" overhead and heading towards Elsthorpe.
Bruce Hoyt was driving south along the Hawke's Bay Expressway when the sky lit up as if by lightning.
"It came down, heading south, then broke up into six to eight pieces, before fading out. A second or so later, I heard a bang.
"I would say the bang was from the meteor hitting the atmosphere. The sound came later because it travels slower than light."
That summation was right, said Hawke's Bay Astronomical Society president Gary Sparks. "When these things come in, it is explosive decompression. With the heat of re-entry they reach a critical temperature and they explode," he said.
The clear sky last night would have helped the sound travel. His guess was the meteor would have been no larger than a basketball.
August is one of the times of year when meteor showers were more frequent, Mr Sparks said, with the Earth - orbiting the Sun at 100,000km/h - meeting the dust trail of a meteor.
"What people saw last night was probably a rogue meteor, something that was not in the same path as the dust trail," Mr Sparks said.
1871 At the Meudon Observatory in France, astronomer Étienne Léopold Trouvelot (1827 - 1895) saw several flying objects high in the atmosphere.
He described one object as descending like a disc falling through water. Ufologists suggest this might have been the first description of the ‘falling leaf motion’ that is known in modern UFO cases. Some sources say Trouvelot’s objects resembled those seen at Basel, Switzerland, on August 7, 1566.
Fyffe UFO Days, blast for entire family with free admission and free parking
Fyffe Unforgettable Family Outing Like Fine Lemonade
More than a dozen lighter-than-aircraft are expected to descend on Fyffe, Alabama, August 25 and 26 according to Mayor Larry Lingerfelt. "As everyone knows, we are the UFO capital of Alabama. We have come to realize that our somewhat different reputation and worldwide fame of having alleged UFO sightings should be fostered and cherished. Besides it is an out-of-this-world experience to hear all the UFO stories of our past!"
"Last year we decided to embrace our unique legacy and have a celebration for the entire family. Thus, Fyffe UFO Days was born. One area newspaper reported via an editorial that we indeed should be commended because the Town of Fyffe had taken a lemon and made lemonade. Our people are proud of that." Mayor Lingerfelt explained while holding back a big grin. "In fact, we are thinking about having a 'Fyffe Fine Lemonade' contest from among our citizens and area connoisseurs."
"This year we are even more excited about the events planned for the Fyffe UFO Days, and we invite everyone to come out and watch as we fill the skies with beauty and fill the days with an Unforgettable Family Outing. Our UFO Days Committee has done another great job to make this year's UFO Days event bigger and better than the last," he said.
"Our objective is to enhance the sense of Community found in Fyffe and on Sand Mountain. Local churches, community groups, merchants, and craft vendors are planning to contribute to the success of the event by selling food, drink, and crafts, and by providing games and entertainment. And the great thing for everyone is there is no admission or parking charge for the two-day event!" Mayor Lingerfelt explained.
The UFO festivities will begin on Friday morning as hot air balloons lift off. Balloonists from all over the southeast will provide hour-long rides across the Sand Mountain area. To make reservations for the once-in-a-life-time rides that cost $175 each, contact Angela Carroll at the Fyffe Town Hall at (256) 623-2222 ext. 3.
Friday is devoted to providing old-fashioned fun for the whole family. Local talent will perform. There will be great food, craft vendors, various competitions, sidewalk chalk drawing, inflatables, and rock climbing. The evening will end with Karaoke by Brian Anderson Disc Jockey Entertainment.
Saturday in the park will offer a fun-filled array of activities for the entire family - from great food to craft vendors and games for the children. Door prizes will be given away throughout the day. Live music will also be performed, emceed by C. J. Jolley of WQSB, 105.1 on your dial.
"We will have the best local entertainers in the area playing and singing for hometown friends and family for most of the day on Saturday. A great line-up of local acts, performing several different genres of music, coupled with efforts to attain a great surprise entertainer, will absolutely make this UFO Days an unforgettable event for everyone. We are trying our best to get Elvis to show up," Fyffe’s mayor stated.
As the sun sets, the spectacular glow for the cooling hot air balloons will be a terrific backdrop for the Antique Tractor Show and Civil War Re-Enactors that will begin earlier in the evening on the adjacent ball field located in the Fyffe Town Park.
Music will also fill the night air as a portion of the town's street will be closed to traffic and opened as a dance floor. Come out and dance the night away to the sounds of one of the most favorite bands in northeast Alabama - Southern Flite!
UFO Committee members are working to solicit food and craft vendors for the event, selling advertising banners for display on the hot air balloons, fences, and stage, advertisements for the Festival Program, as well as soliciting donations for the Door Prizes. Anyone interested in being a part of the festival should contact Angela Carroll at Fyffe Town Hall at (256) 623-2222 ext. 3.
"The idea of the Fyffe UFO Days has created a lot of excitement around Dekalb County and the entire area," Mayor Lingerfelt said. "There is an on-going effort to develop this festival, and we will be working continuously in the weeks to come to make it one of the best in the state. We want to make this truly an Unforgettable Family Outing for everyone."
Lodging information can be obtained from the DeKalb County Tourist Association at 888-805-4740 and http://www.tourdekalb.com
Fund for UFO Research wants answers to lingering questions.
By Michael Lee Pope The Connection 8-24-06
In the summer of 1952, the mayor of Alexandria was trying to clean up the city’s “skid row” on lower King Street, Virginia farmers were suffering through a punishing drought, the United States Senate was investigating a communist plot to infiltrate the Boy Scouts. But over the nighttime skies of the Washington area, something far more dramatic was happening.
“Until unidentified objects — we call them targets — began moving onto our radar scopes, I thought people who reported flying saucers were just seeing things,” said Air Force Radar Specialist James Ritchey at the time. “Now, I don’t know what to think.”
Ritchey’s bewilderment — splashed across the front page of the July 29, 1952 edition of the Alexandria Gazette — was understandable. Experiencing the unexplainable can be an existential threat for many people. But for an Air Force guy whose job it was to identify objects in the sky, being unable to recognize an airborne craft can be a tough pill to swallow.
“I don’t think the objects were balloons or anything moving with the wind because their speed was greater than that of the wind,” Ritchey told a Gazette reporter. “I don’t see how they could have been ducks, geese or any kind of night birds — these can be picked up on radar, but they wouldn’t explain the lights. As I said, I just don’t have an explanation, and neither does anyone else as far as I know.”
Over the next few weeks, several explanations emerged in the pages of the Gazette. Winthrop Coxe and Rollin Gillespie — two writers with the International News Service — theorized that the unexplainable phenomenon had been “swarms of electrical particles” whirling through the air at high speeds. In a column that appeared on the editorial page, they attempted to put a scientific face on debunking the widespread notion that Washington was being visited by extraterrestrials.
“In the laboratory, any studious schoolboy can wind a wire around an iron bar, send through the wire a current of electricity and produce a magnetic field,” Coxe and Gillespie wrote. “They are real, but there is nothing to fear from them.”
Their explanations didn’t wash for many skeptics, and Washington’s famous 1952 experience with UFOs became a local legend. To this day, events from that summer have yet to be fully explained. And for many who research UFOs, this is only one story among thousands — disparate pieces of a mystery that has yet to be solved.
FOR MANY YEARS after World War II, UFOs gripped the American imagination. The phenomenon began in the summer of 1947, when a west-coast pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine disk-like objects flying over Mount Rainier, Wash. He said they were traveling at tremendous speeds, which he estimated to be at least 1,200 miles per hour. The next month, mysterious debris was found at a crash site near Roswell, N.M. The subsequent newspaper coverage opened a floodgate, with reports of UFO sightings becoming commonplace.
“Right after the war, people started seeing things that nobody could identify,” said Don Berliner, chairman of the Alexandria-based Fund for UFO Research. “The press doesn’t cover these things anymore, so it appears that nothing is going on. But we have just as many UFO sightings now than we did back then. It’s just that people are afraid of being laughed at.”
Berliner doesn’t want people to laugh. He’d rather that they think — and maybe apply a little science. The fund that he helped create in 1979 has been doing this for more than 25 years: providing grants to clinical psychologists, publishing scientific articles, sponsoring conferences, hosting seminars and holding press conferences. From his apartment on the second floor of Hunting Point, Berliner oversees the operation of the fund.
“I want proof,” said Berlinier. “Scientists say that there could be millions of other civilizations. Are they interested in travel? We don’t know?”
Half the money comes from the sale of publications like “UFO Sightings in the New Millennium” by Richard Hall or “Final Report on the Psychological Testing of UFO Abductees” by Ted Bloecher. The other half of the fund’s money comes from donations from private individuals. The group’s executive committee meets when needed to make decisions about how and when to invest.
“Unfortunately, we don’t make that many decisions because we don’t have that much money,” said Rob Swiatek, a member of the executive committee. “Things pick up when there is more interest in the subject, like in 1997 when it was the 50th anniversary of the 1947 sightings.”
Swiatek, a physics patent examiner with the United States Patent Trade Office, said that he would like to see more mainstream scientists and academics working on the subject. He said that would lend some credence to the topics, which is often overlooked or scorned. The mystery of unexplained events is a lingering source of interest for Swiatek and many devotees, who see the UFO phenomenon as a series of unanswered questions.
“I am convinced that something is going on that is not prosaic or mundane,” Swiatek said. “We’re having encounters with non-human intelligence.”
CRITICS OF UFOs say that it’s all a hoax, or that weather patterns are responsible. Yet those who claim to have seen them swear by their presence. After the Washington flap in the summer of 1952, the Air Force was at great pains to explain itself. So it initiated Project Bluebook, a 17-year investigation of the UFO sightings culminating in a controversial report by nuclear physicist Edward Condon. Titled “Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,” the document was popularly known as the “Condon Report.”
“Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge,” the 1968 report said. “We feel that the reason that there has been very little scientific study of the subject is that those scientists who are most directly concerned, astronomers, atmospheric physicists, chemists, and psychologists, having had ample opportunity to look into the matter, have individually decided that UFO phenomena do not offer a fruitful field in which to look for major scientific discoveries.”
Essentially, Condon’s committee of scientists reported, there was nothing to it. But many critics of the Air Force investigation said that the unexplained events in the body of the text were not considered in the sweeping denial at the conclusion of the report. At the time the report was issued, Don Berliner was working for a group known as the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena — a private group that acted as a central clearinghouse for reports of UFO sightings, making television appearances and conducting radio interviews from its Dupont Circle office.
“We established ourselves as a reliable source of information in a field where there’s not a lot of reliable information,” Berliner said. “I had never worked so many hours in my life. I was supposed to be a staff writer and sighting analyst, but I did everything except sweep the floors.”
In the late 1960s, the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena was expanding its membership dramatically, and the involvement of prominence scientists gave the organization academic credibility. But after the 1968 Condon Report, mainstream scientists abandoned the cause in droves. The Air Force shut down its investigation, and reports of UFO sightings became the topic of ridicule and scorn.
“Even today, the vast majority of people who see UFOs keep quiet about it,” Berliner said. “They are afraid of being laughed at.”
But reports of sightings persist, and questions linger. That’s why Berliner and others continue to investigate the subject, asking questions they say remain unanswered. Berliner has written a number of books on UFOs, published countless articles and remains one of the country’s preeminent experts on the topic. For him, the Holy Grail of UFO research would be for his organization to get its hand on a piece from the 1947 crash landing at Roswell.
“Somebody out there had to have taken a piece when nobody was looking,” Berliner said. “We’ve got pages of protocol for what we want checked.”
A NATIVE OF COLUMBUS, Ohio, Berliner graduated from Bexley High School in 1947. He studied journalism and accounting at Ohio State University before joining the Air National Guard to help pay for college. One day, he read a newspaper account in the Ohio State Journal of a UFO story that was being investigated by a Ground Observer Corps headquartered across the street from his father’s accounting office.
“So I threw around some military language and BS’d my way in,” Berliner said. “I had no more business there than my Aunt Sophie. But they didn’t know that.”
Berliner said that he then passed along a series of reports to newspaper reporters covering the subject in the local press that documented regional UFO sightings of aluminum-colored discs zooming through the air at tremendous speeds. The chance encounter was an early experience with UFO sightings, and Berliner later left the Air National Guard and took a job as a reporter for the Painesville Telegraph.
“The city editor found out that I had an interest in UFOs,” Berliner said. “So I got calls from all the people who said they had seen UFOs. Most of the calls were nothing, but one sighting was a real mystery.”
He wrote a story about that sighting in 1961 and sent one copy to the Air Force and another copy to the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena. The Air Force initially claimed it was a rocket launch at Wallops Island, Va. That didn’t seem to make sense to Berliner, who wrote a letter disputing the ability to see such a launch from Ohio. An Air Force officer wrote again to change the explanation to a scientific research balloon launched in Iowa that was 600 miles away from the eyewitnesses who reported the sighting. He wasn’t satisfied with that explanation either.
“The government was playing fast and loose with the truth,” Berliner said. “If I hadn’t challenged their initial explanation, it would have gone into the record book that way.”
IN 1962, BERLINER packed up and headed for Washington, D.C. He wanted to be at the center of things, and he knew that the nation’s capital would offer him the kind of research opportunities he wanted to pursue a writing career. He took a series of jobs writing newsletters for various Washington associations like the National Aeronautics Association, which was then engaged in a massive effort to put a man on the moon. But his interest in UFOs persisted, and he eventually joined the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena as a staff writer and sighting analyst.
“We were at the center of the world,” Berliner said. “Every week, we would get calls from airline pilots who had seen things. This convinced me even more that were was something going on.”
But the Condon Report abruptly ended public fascination with UFOs in 1968, and Berliner left the organization to launch a freelance writing career that includes a wide range of subjects: aviation, space travel and, of course, UFOs. He moved to Hunting Point in 1969, and has lived in the same second-story apartment ever since. By the late 1970s, the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena had all but vanished — and many people skeptical of the official explanation were eager to continue its work.
“The press wasn’t covering it anymore,” Berliner said. “So it appeared that nothing was going on. But it was.”
By 1979, Berliner and others decided to take matters into their own hands. They created the Fund for UFO Research as a way to funnel resources toward investigating the unexplained UFO sightings as well as alleged alien abduction stories.
“Some of my best friends are abductees,” Berliner said. “Their stories are consistent in ways even they don’t recognize.”
One of the Fund of UFO Research’s major undertakings involved giving a grant to a clinical psychologist who looked for similarities in the psychological makeup of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. The study was unable to find any — evidence to Berliner and others that there is more to their stories than delusion.
“People all over the world are having highly consistent experiences,” Berliner said. “There’s got to be something to it.”
WITH PUBLIC INTEREST in the topic of UFOs at an all-time low, the subject receives little attention outside of late-night cable television. The Fund for UFO Research continues to conduct seminars on UFO-related topics and host conferences where abductees can get together and share their stories. But the group continues to have a hard time attracting scientists and academics.
“Scientists flee in terror when you bring up the subject,” Berliner said. “Probably 90 percent of the people who see things don’t’ want to report them. And those 10 percent who do have no idea who to call.”
But Berliner’s group carries on — with every phone call to the group’s voice mail and every hit its web site. For many people, the mystery of the unidentified flying objects continues to be obscured by unknown facts and missing pieces to the puzzle.
“I’ve been at this for 40 years, and I still don’t know what the blasted things are,” Berliner said, staring out the window into the middle distance of the sky over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. “A lot of people want to know. I want to know.”
. . . The 15-foot-high Toltec warriors are decked out in full battle dress. Pillbox-shaped helmets topped with Quetzal plumes perch on their heads. Stylized butterfly emblems adorn their chests and circular shields protect their backs. Each one clutches a quiver of spears in his left hand and an atlatl or "spear-thrower" in the other.
UFO-enthusiasts such as author Erich von Däniken, who wrote the controversial book "Chariots of the Gods," claim that the Toltecs were in touch with extraterrestrials, and that Tula´s warriors are really wearing space suits and carrying laser guns.
Whatever their origins, these aloof giants rank among ancient Mexico´s most intriguing legacies. In bright sunlight, they are fresh-faced soldiers marching triumphantly off to battle, but when clouds hide the sun, they become brooding symbols of a mysterious, bloodthirsty regime. . . .
Did MacArthur's Prediction of Alien War Nearly Come True?
The Open Press 8-25-06
Los Angeles, CA (OPENPRESS) August 25, 2006 -- In 1955, General Douglas MacArthur predicted that the next war would be an interplantary war. Did the mighty general's prediction nearly come true less than a year later? It did according to "The Top Secret UFO Project," filmmaker R. J. Thomas' parody of UFO documentaries.
"Many prominent people have believed in UFOs," Mr. Thomas said. "MacArthur was one of them. And his statements concerning war with creatures from outer space were the most bold and the most outrageous."
On October 8, 1955, MacArthur said, "The nations of the world will have to unite, for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets."
According to "The Top Secret UFO Project," President Eisenhower prepared for a showdown with aliens, setting up military operations in a little Colorado town in the summer of 1956.
Based on Thomas' 2004 novella of the same name, "The Top Secret UFO Project" chronicles the UFO-related events experienced by a tiny Colorado hamlet called Jasper. According to the film, the town dealt with one unusual event after another in the summer of 1956. After a farmer spots a flying saucer zipping over his property, scientists rushed into Jasper to investigate, reporters rushed in looking for stories, and government officials rushed in to keep it a secret from the world.
Billed as "the movie the government does not want you to see," "The Top Secret UFO Project," is a parody of the cheesy UFO documentaries of the 70's like "Overlords of the UFO" and TV programs like "In Search Of."
Mr. Thomas plays a documentary filmmaker who, in 2003, discovered some top secret government films pertaining to the Jasper Incident of 1956. This inspired him to make a documentary about Jasper's UFO story, and to discover the truth behind what really happened that mysterious summer in Colorado.
And as for MacArthur's prediction?
"MacArthur was a veteran of three wars and known for his strategic brilliance," Mr. Thomas said. "He was not just an oddball spouting off. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who believe in UFOs simply because he did!"
BILL COOPER, A Manipulated "Disinformant" of The 90's?
by Norio Hayakawa 8-23-06
My association with Milton William "Bill" Cooper goes back to the summer of 1989 when I first met him in West Los Angeles and my interaction with him went on intermittently throughout the mid 90's. The last time I was next to him was when he was in a closed casket at his funeral service in Arizona. It was quite an emotional day for me.
It was on a typical, mild but clear Arizona morning of November 15, 2001 when a former conspiracy talk radio host and video producer, Anthony J. Hilder and myself, both from Los Angeles and another conspiracy talk show host from Phoenix arrived at the Community Presbyterian Church of a small country town of Springerville, located on a high plateau in Eastern Arizona.
It was around 8:30 a.m. and there was just a sprinkling of people in the foyer of the church. We all drove in to this sleepy country town with my van to attend the funeral service for the late Bill Cooper who was shot to death on November 6, 2001 by Apache County Sheriff deputies in a confrontation that took place in front of Bill's home atop a hill in the nearby town of Eagar. One deputy was seriously injured in that confrontation when Bill fired a round to his head.
We had expected more attendees to the service which was to start at 9:00 a.m.
Soon the closed casket of Bill arrived and was set up in the front in the sanctuary. It was not a formal religious service. Before the service started, we had a briefing by the officiating person. By the time the service started, there were around 85 persons seated in the pews. Some of the attendees were from the Midwestern states, some were from the East Coast. A few, such as us, were from California. Others were from other Southwestern states and the rest were local folks.
It was a simple, informal service with a prayer in the beginning, followed by a short biography of Bill, followed by Eulogies and Remembrances by speakers and a final prayer, followed by the recessional of the casket from the sanctuary and a car processional to the Springerville Town Cemetery a few miles away.
There were a total of 8 speakers at the service, including Anthony J. Hilder and myself. When my turn came, here is what I said from the podium:
"The world will always remember Bill Cooper as an egotistic, paranoia monger. Indeed, to many he was perhaps an arrogant, obnoxious, choleric, self-aggrandizing, rude, vitriolic and vengeful person. Perhaps he was all of this and much more. But no matter how negative his personality is described to be, we must admit the fact that he did indeed make a tremendous impact among hundreds, if not, thousands of his listeners, whether in front of his astounded lecture audiences or through his "shocking" radio programs.
I first met Bill back in 1989 in West L.A. when he was just an unknown speaker and where he spoke for the first time at a gathering called UFORUM in which I was a frequent attendee. I was quite stunned then with his hypothesis on the "Secret Government". It really sounded so fresh at that time because unlike most UFO speakers of that time, he convincingly injected "UFOs" to a "one-world government" right-wing flavored conspiracy theory. I was so impacted by his hypothesis that I soon became a volunteer and helped him organize his first successful major public appearance that same year, which was held at Hollywood High School Auditorium, which was attended by well over 800 people. That became the historic launching pad for his national lecture circuit. And the rest is history.
Later, in December of that year, I even attended the controversial National MUFON Conference held in Las Vegas in which Bill Cooper was perhaps the most controversial speaker aside from John Lear and Bill Moore and others.
The Bill Cooper of then was very much into "ufology". Even in 1991, when Gary Schultz and I organized the first Ultimate Seminar in Rachel, Nevada ( 25 miles north of Area 51 ), we were surprised to see Bill Cooper as an attendee. I remember quite well when Gary and I had to lead the people to the White Sides hill for a climb to view the base (Area 51), Bill Cooper could not make the climb due to his leg and he was even cracking up jokes about it. He stayed at the foothill of White Sides, without being able to see the facility.
In 1993 Bill Cooper, Eustace Mullins, Jordan Maxwell, Vladmir Terziski, Dr. Robert Strecker, Anthony Hilder and myself, together with a couple of other conspiracy speakers were all invited to speak at the First International Conference on Global Deception to be held in the famous Wembley Arena in London. Because of concerns for security due to the controversial nature of the conference, some of us decided not to travel to England. Nevertheless, Bill Cooper had the guts to go and speak at the conference. I admired him for that.
By 1993 I had completely abandoned the so-called "extraterrestrial hypothesis" of the origins of the UFO phenomena and began to promote the hypothesis that the entire UFO phenomena was a brilliantly concocted, staged and manipulated man-made deception by elitists to bring about certain agendas. From then on, I completely disassociated myself with "ufology".
I was quite surprised to learn that, later on, Bill Cooper also began to depart from "ufology" and was also beginning to hypothesize that "UFOs" had nothing to do with "aliens" but was a manipulation of the government to bring about fear to create a one-world government. Cooper began to admit that he most likely had been shown disinformation by the government while he was in military service. On this point, I truly commended Cooper for his admission. Cooper began to state that he was no longer a "ufologist". It was Cooper who coined the term "ufoology" and I also commended him for it. We both totally departed from "ufoology". However, Cooper had a tendency to label anyone that didn't agree with him as "agents of CIA", etc.
After moving to Arizona, he shifted his focus to the Patriot Movement (the Militia Movement), although in reality he was just a one-man militia, simply promoting his view on the Constitutional Republic through his radio programs to thousands of listeners. This was immediately after the Oklahoma Bombing. I, too, became involved in the militia movement. I went to listen to Mark Koernke of the Michigan Militia in a large Conspiracy Conference in Palm Springs. I also became an acquaintance of Ted Gunderson, former FBI Special Agent-in-charge of Los Angeles who also became sympathetic to the militia movement. I also began to correspond with the Militia of Montana.
Besides his other numerous negative traits, Bill had an uncontrollable alcoholic problem. But despite his eccentric, obnoxious personality, deep in his heart I believe that he wanted to be a good person. Unfortunately he brought an end to his tumultuous life by his self-fulfilling prophecy through his violent act. My heart goes out to Annie and the children. (My heart also goes out to the young deputy who was seriously injured in that confrontation. Bill will have to answer to God for that.) May God forgive and bless the soul of one Milton William "Bill" Cooper."
This is how I ended my "Remembrances" of Bill Cooper at his funeral. After the service, we all proceeded in a car processional to the cemetery, under the watchful eyes of several patrol cars, County Sheriff's vehicles and other governmental agency vehicles. It was just before noon that the casket of Bill Cooper was laid to rest at the graveside. The casket was then lowered into the ground. It was definitely one of the most emotional moments of my 20 years of being involved with "conspiratology".
Do I think that Bill Cooper was an unwitting participant in "disiformation"? Yes, I think so.
I believe that Bill Cooper was slowly drawn into delusional paranoia and was manipulated by certain agencies. I cannot comment more on this.
By the time that his now "classic" book, BEHOLD A PALE HORSE, came out and began to receive attention, ironically, he had already began to disassociate himself with much of what he wrote. BEHOLD A PALE HORSE was basically a compilation of his past military service history, his original speech THE SECRET GOVERNMENT (now out-dated, filled with misinformation and disinformation and no longer relevant in many ways), some obscure and outdated, unreliable information and articles provided by others regarding Area 51 and mixed in with verbatim copying of THE PROTOCOLS OF THE LEARNED ELDERS OF ZION, which many researchers had always regarded to be a fraud, to begin with.
No, I do not believe that Bill Cooper was a "paid" disinformant.
I tend to believe that he was simply drawn into and manipulated into being an unwitting participant in this strange world of "conspiratology".
Calls streamed in to local police stations during the night after an unidentified flying object darted over the night skies in northern Norway. A top astronomer, though, thinks it was another meteorite.
Several police districts logged reports from members of the public who observed "something" flying at high speed.
"What they're talking about here is some sort of flying object, and we can't explain what it was," Oddgeir Slettli, operations leader for the Midtre Hålogaland Police District, told dagbladet.no.
Observations were reported from Finnsnes to Trondheim. The main search and rescue station in northern Norway (Hovedredningssentralen Nord-Norge) reported that calls also came from crews on board ships off the northern coast, according to Dagbladet.
"It was colored white, green and gold, and lights seemed to blow off it like it was a sparkler," said one observer, Andre Grønmo. "It looked like it was a comet, and it was around four- to five times larger than a plane, and it flew much faster."
Slettli said others described a "green, lighted ball with a tail" that flew low. He said neither the Defense Department's radar station or its rocket facility at Andøya, nor the tower at Evenes airport, which serves Harstad and Narvik, had picked up the object.Slettli said calls came from people in Narvik, Vesterålen and Lofoten among other places, just before midnight on Monday.
A flurry of reports also came over the Coast Guard radio, and from an SAS flight and a Hurtigruten (Coastal Voyage) passenger ship.
Knut Jørge Røed Ødegaard, one of Norway's most well-known astronomers, said he thinks the UFO was actually another meteorite, a large rock containing a lot of chemical elements. There have been confirmed reports of at least two meteorites hitting Norway since June.
"When they enter the earth's atmosphere and meet the air, they warm up and can light up in a second," he told dagbladet.no.
This one's contents, the astronomer said, could explain why it seemed to change color as it flew through the night sky, which only recently has started getting dark again after the summer's midnight sun.
Two mystery “UFOs” were seen racing silently across the sky by amazed onlookers in Shropshire. The unusual bright lights were seen at about 9pm last night by people in two areas of the county.
Policeman Richard Emery saw the lights from Bayston Hill at 8.55pm. They appeared to be flying over the A49 in the Dorrington or Leebotwood area.
Security guard Robert Picken saw what he believes were the same lights above a wood just north of Craven Arms at 9pm.
Diver's Find 53 Year-Old Plane and Maybe The UFO It Collided With!
Great Lakes Mystery Solved, Another Begins
"In searching the general vicinity of the wreck, we believe we have also found a part of the object that the F-89 collided with. We are still in the process of documenting the mystery object."
AP Date Unknown
Port Huron, MI (AP) -- A group of Michigan divers operating a next generation sophisticated side scan sonar have answered one of the Great Lakes enduring mysteries, and may have uncovered another.
In 1953, during the infancy of the Cold War, a U.S. Airforce F-89 Scorpion fighter jet disappeared over Lake Superior while trying to intercept and investigate an unusual radar blip. The wreckage of the plane and bodies of the two pilots had never been found.
"We feel bittersweet" said Great Lakes Dive Company spokesman Adam Jimenez. "I mean, on one hand we set out to answer this thing and did, but on the other hand you realize this was a tragedy that claimed the lives of two American pilots."
Well known among UFO enthusiasts, the incident involving the disappearance of the F-89 has been called Michigan's "Roswell". "Certainly this was a mysterious event, and needed to be solved. There was a tremendous amount of unanswered questions related to this matter." said Jimenez. The U.S. military originally claimed that the fighter jet had collided with a Canadian transport plane, a version of events dismissed by the Canadian government.
Jimenez went on to say that the plane is mostly intact and lying upright in deep water. "Frankly, we came away surprised. We expected at best, to locate an engine, wing or other small debris. Finding the plane together was really unexpected." And then the mystery deepened.
"In searching the general vicinity of the wreck, we believe we have also found a part of the object that the F-89 collided with. We are still in the process of documenting the mystery object." Jimenez declined to elaborate on what the object is. "There is still a lot of wreck site forensics to complete" he said.
A feature length documentary on the history, search and discovery of the F-89 and the mystery object is being planned.
The Great Lakes Dive Company (www.greatlakesdive.com) is a group of Michigan natives with the common interest of shipwreck hunting and historical preservation.
. . . Even conservatives have begun openly assessing the president's intellect, especially its impermeability to new information. Cable television pundit Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, devoted a segment of his MSNBC show to "George Bush's mental weakness," with a legend at the bottom of the screen that impertinently asked: "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"
In his news conference, the Decider did make a couple of nods to objective reality. He admitted in plain language that Iraq had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks and possessed no weapons of mass destruction -- in other words, that his rationale for this elective, preemptive war had no substance. And he acknowledged a certain occasional exasperation. . . .
Tom Petty has revealed the farcical chain of events that led him to crash into another car outside Adam Sandler's wedding.
The U.S. rocker says he'll think twice about driving again after being distracted by weather balloons erected by Sandler's management to stop paparazzi flyovers. After mistaking them for UFO's, Petty drove home to alert his family to the mysterious silver objects.
"The last two times I drove I had accidents. It just came down as a rule that I am not allowed behind the wheel. I like to drive, but after that last time, I knew I had scared my wife.
"As I was coming back (from the store) I saw three enormous silver balls floating in the sky... People were pulled over to the side of the road pointing. I ran in the house and yelled to Dana and her friend, 'Get in the car, you have got to come see this...' I had them convinced that they (balloons) were UFOs.
FBI Investigating 'UFO' Over Hilo International Airport
Missile-like metal tube is reported over Hilo Airport
By Rod Thompson The Star Bulleting 8-17-06
HILO » The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration are investigating sightings of an object resembling a missile flying over the Hilo Airport area Tuesday morning, Hawaii County Civil Defense said.
Reports gave opposite descriptions of its direction and widely varying estimates of its size.
The largest estimate was about 12 feet long, and the smallest was one foot. One report said it was headed over the airport's main runway, but another said it was headed north from Hilo, away from the airport.
Civil Defense official Lanny Nakano said the federal agencies classified the sighting as unconfirmed. The FBI and TSA did not return requests for comment.
Nakano, reading from notes from another Civil Defense official, said it was seen at 10:18 a.m. headed away from the airport.
But an eyewitness, who asked that his name not be used, told the Star-Bulletin he saw it heading from the Civic Auditorium area to the Keaukaha area, which would take it over the main runway.
That witness saw a silver tube with no markings or fins, trailing "vapor" that quickly dispersed.
"The noise was super-loud," he said.
Police also interviewed about a half-dozen witnesses who saw or heard it, said police spokeswoman Chris Loos.
Loos and the nameless witness said there were plane flights before and after the object was sighted, but the object did not appear connected to their presence.
At Pohakuloa Training Area, 30 miles to the west, spokesman Bob McElroy said there were no military exercises using missiles.
The Bush administration has begun designating as secret some information that the government long provided even to its enemy the former Soviet Union: the numbers of strategic weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.
The Pentagon and the Department of Energy are treating as national security secrets the historical totals of Minuteman, Titan II and other missiles, blacking out the information on previously public documents, according to a new report by the National Security Archive. The archive is a nonprofit research library housed at George Washington University.
DETROIT -- A federal judge decision's to strike down President Bush's warrantless surveillance program was the first ruling over its legality, but surely not the last.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled Thursday that the program violated the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.
The administration said it would appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
"We're going to do everything we can do in the courts to allow this program to continue," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at a news conference in Washington.
Taylor was the first judge to rule on the legality of the National Security Agency's program, which the White House says is a key tool for fighting terrorism that has already stopped attacks.
"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration "couldn't disagree more with this ruling." He said the program carefully targets communications of suspected terrorists and "has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives."
Taylor ordered an immediate halt to the program, but the government said it would ask for a stay of that order pending appeal. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit, said it would oppose a stay but agreed to delay enforcement of the injunction until Taylor hears arguments Sept. 7.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in January on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which monitors international phone calls and e-mails to or from the U.S. involving people the government suspects have terrorist links.
The ACLU says the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which set up a secret court to grant warrants for such surveillance, gave the government enough tools to monitor suspected terrorists.
The government argued the NSA program is well within the president's authority but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.
The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule. The administration has decried leaks that led to a New York Times report about the existence of the program last year.
Newly published findings suggest a solution to the mystery of the Martian trees – those dark, bristly spots on aerial photography of the Red Planet that some have compared to fans or forests. Even Arthur C. Clarke, the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and other science-fiction classics, has wondered whether Mars' seemingly branching "banyan trees" represent signs of biological activity.
But now researchers propose that the spots are of geological origin: They say the marks are left behind every spring when gas and dark sand blast through rumbling fissures in the ice. "If I was ever going to go to Mars, I'd want to observe this," said Arizona State University's Phil Christensen, one of the authors of the research, which appears in Thursday's issue of Nature.
Strangers in Our Skies – a Guide to UFO Sightings in Ireland
By Una Sinnott Athlone Adviser 8-16-06
Though little has been documented of UFO phenomena in Ireland before now, a new book by two leading Irish UFOlogists claims the country is a hotbed of sightings and unexplained aerial phenomena.
Conspiracy of Silence: UFOs in Ireland is a collaborative text by Dermot Butler and Carl Nally, founding members of UFO and Paranormal Research Ireland, based on eyewitness accounts collected by the group over two decades.
The pair are keen to point out in the introduction that UFOs are merely unidentified flying objects, and recommend that readers make up their own minds as to whether these phenomena can be attributed to otherworldly visitations.
Given their background in UFO research, the authors can hardly be in a position to offer an objective account of sightings and incidents in Ireland, nor do they pretend to, instead proffering dozens of accounts of sightings and invoking everyone from the Tuatha De Danann to the United Nations in their evidence.
Some accounts in the book provide an interesting argument for the existence of UFOs, not least the descriptions of aerial encounters provided by pilots, and the work of an American doctor who removed unidentifiable objects from the bodies of people who claimed to have been abducted.
Most UFO sightings occur in an area which arcs from north of Dublin Airport westwards towards Sligo and Roscommon — reports of a UFO crash in Roscommon in 1996 are pivotal in their argument that the Government and/or others are covering up the UFO visitations to Ireland — with Newgrange experiencing more sightings than any other part of the country.
Galway may be far removed from the country’s UFO epicentre but has not been completely ignored by intergalactic visitors; a glowing moon-shaped object was spotted at Abbeyknockmoy in 1991, and in one very strange incident a man reported watching aliens land on an island off the west coast and collected plant samples from the beach back in 1945.
There are many accounts also of phenomena which were witnessed simultaneously by people in different locations, or clusters of sightings over a short period of time.
Unfortunately while the authors link some incidents in their narrative, these incidents are scattered throughout the book, making it difficult for the reader to relate the events to each other without having to search the book every time the authors refer to previously mentioned encounters.
One of the most striking accounts comes from a young Dublin mother whose son told her of repeated visits from a “bold man” who took him, sometimes along with his parents and baby sister, to a “tent in the sky with lots of lights”.
She and other members of her family subsequently had experiences of being abducted.
However, such accounts are offset by claims which sound like very earthly phenomena, such as one by a motorist who witnessed two bright lights side by side in a field.
As the authors say, readers can make up their own minds.
UFO Recorded Over Lima, Peru International Airport (Part Two)
Research by Renato Longato 2-19-06
Photo Analysis
The sequence of UFO photos was placed in the hands of Mexican UFO researcher Ana Luisa Cid, acknowledged for her conduct and impartiality, in order to have it them duly analyzed. Captain Kui Sam Cheu and the researcher would like to express their thanks for her cooperation.
Comments by Ana Luisa Cid
My thanks to Capt. Sam Cheu and reseacher Renato Longato for placing their trust in my work. They have my admiration and respect.
I personally believe that the Lima video constitutes solid proof of the visit of strange artifacts that roam the skies the of any country of the world. We seldom have the chance to have qualified air personnel provide us with evidence of this kind.
To see the video, access Renato Longato’s web page.
*Photo Credit: Aviation Pilot Captain Kui Sam Cheu Moreno
* Source: Renato Longato www.renatolongato.com
* Reporting from México: Profra. Ana Luisa Cid www.analuisacid.com
* Translation:Scott Corrales Institute of Hispanic Ufology http://inexplicata.blogspot.com
Officials Ponder The Future of Behemoth Airship Hangar
Moffett Field's Hangar One Should be Preserved
Hollister Free Lance 8-11-06
Next time you travel along Highway 101 as it passes Sunnyvale's Moffett Field, glance over to the east and notice the colossal construction that looks like some cigar-shaped UFO just landed. This remarkable landmark is an artifact from an exciting but short-lived program when the U.S. Navy experimented with helium-filled dirigibles.
Called Hangar One, the building is one of the world's largest free-standing structures. It was built in 1932 to house the USS Macon, an airship the size of the Titanic.
Imagine this silver-colored "Monarch of the Skies" floating silently over our South Valley region as it headed to Monterey Bay on training missions and coastal patrols. During the early years of the Great Depression, it symbolized a future where humans could do almost anything - if they only dared.
The U.S. Navy built only two great airships. The Macon's sister, the Akron, in 1931 set a world record of carrying 207 people into the clouds. The Macon itself was 785 feet long - the height of a skyscraper 78 stories tall. Tucked inside its hull, it carried five bi-winged Curtiss Sparrowhawks. The scout planes could launch and return onboard using a trapeze-like capture system that caught a hook on the airplane's top wing.
Manned by a crew of between 75 and 100 sailors, the beautiful airship had a nautical range of more than 7,000 miles and could stay in the sky for more than 150 hours. Her top speed was 75.6 knots.
In 1933, the USS Akron crashed in New Jersey as it patrolled East Coast waters. Among those who perished in the tragedy was Admiral William A. Moffett, the man who headed the Navy's airship program. Moffett Field was named in his honor. A few weeks later, his widow christened the USS Macon. Based at Moffett Field, the airship patrolled the West Coast region for two more years.
On Feb. 12, 1935, the Macon crew spent the day on a fleet maneuvers exercise just off Big Sur's rugged coast. Late in the afternoon, the dirigible headed back to her back. Unfortunately, at dusk near the Point Sur light station, she hit turbulent weather from a winter storm.
A gust struck the ship and severely damaged the top tailfin. Lighthouse keeper Thomas Henderson witnessed the unfolding disaster through his spyglass. "When it was just about abreast of the Point, the fin seemed to go to pieces very suddenly," he later told the naval inquiry board. "The fabric drifted back. Some of it caught on the rudder."
As the tear grew, helium began to escape from the ship's gas cells. The rear of the Macon sank toward the ocean. The crew dumped ballast and fuel, but so much was dropped so suddenly that the airship shot back up 4,850 feet into the sky. Upon reaching the great heights, the automatic valves activated, releasing more helium.
The Macon soon lost its buoyancy, and made a slow fall toward the choppy waters below. It took 20 minutes to descend before gently hitting the storm-tossed waves.
Immediately, the crew started abandoning ship. Of the 83 men onboard, 81 escaped to safety. One man died when he jumped ship high over the ocean. Another man drowned when he swam back to try to retrieve his belongings.
The Macon's demise that day marked the end of one of the most exciting chapters of U.S. aviation history. Now, 71 years later, Moffett's Field's Hangar One remains as a monument to that colorful story.
Unfortunately, in recent years that massive edifice itself has become imperiled. Navy brass are considering tearing it down because toxic polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) in the rubber skin of the building is now washing into the nearby marshland. The building also contains asbestos and lead. The cost of demolishing the building is estimated at $12 million, Navy officials say. Renovating it would cost twice as much.
Is it worth spending $24 million to preserve this historic artifact from an innovative age of aviation? Many Silicon Valley locals believe it is.
Some suggest that the building could become a major tourist attraction as world-class museum of flight. Another proposed use is as an emergency base in case a disaster such as a cataclysmic earthquake strikes the Bay Area. Another proposal is to make the building available for business conventions and large-scale charity events. One quirky idea was to cover the building's outer skin with photovoltaic cells, making it a solar-powered energy machine.
Regardless of how it might be used, Hangar One should be saved for a number of reasons. Although some people consider it ugly, I've always thought that its futuristic architecture has a wonderful offbeat charm. Silicon Valley has few architectural icons as it is, so it would be a shame to lose one of its boldest building designs. Also, I believe the story Hangar One tells us is an important one to uphold. It reminds us of an era when American aviation was exciting and young and we dared to "aim high," as the Navy slogan goes.
Most of all, like Steve Williams, one of the founders of the Save Hangar One Committee, I believe it represents what Silicon Valley's cutting-edge culture is all about. We live in a place where we take pride in innovation and bold ideas - even if those ideas ultimately fail. We gain from our failures just as much as our successes. Hangar One symbolizes that philosophy.
"There's so much aviation history embodied in Hangar One that I would hate to see it torn down," Williams told me in a recent phone chat. "Can you imagine back in the 1930s, some farmer or worker in Gilroy looking up and seeing this massive thing flying overhead? It must have seemed like Buck Rogers to them."
It's unlikely Titanic-sized airships will once again float gracefully over the South Valley. Those days are gone as the Macon's wreckage lies at the bottom of the Big Sur coast. But in memory of that exciting time, we must preserve Moffett Field's Hangar One.
PAG-ASA said there is nothing to substantiate claims about the presence of Unidentified Flying Objects in Barangay Vista Alegre, Bacolod City, recently.
Several residents of the Abada-Escay relocation site in Barangay Vista Alegre, Bacolod City, claimed they saw unidentified flying objects in the early hours of Aug.6 but the barangay captain of the area said what they saw in the distance were bird hunters.
The residents claimed they saw lights flying above the ground circling the fields before they disappeared.
But Vista Alegre Barangay Captain Eduardo Galona said, apparently, what the residents saw were the lights strapped on to the heads of bird catchers. Many of the residents at the relocation site are from the urban areas of the city and perhaps do not know about the practices of bird catchers.
Bird catchers usually go in groups of four with bright petromax lights attached to their heads to draw the birds they catch with nets, he said.
"Unidentified" a New Movie About UFOs to Open Wider in Theaters
Christian Newswire 8-15-06
MEDIA ADVISORY, Aug. 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- One out of two people believe in UFOs, and over 15 million Americans claim to have seen one. There have been over 63,000 reported UFO sightings worldwide -- some by pilots, astronauts, and even former Presidents. UFOs sightings continue to make headlines and cause most people to wonder what UFOs really are.
Writer-Director Rich Christiano hopes to answer this question with "Unidentified," his new dramatic film about UFOs coming out in theaters in select cities. “We tried to present the various angles that people normally use to explain UFOs,” Christiano says, “and then added some things that you aren’t likely to see on the History or Discovery channels.” Are UFOs a hoax? Are they real? Are aliens a threat? "Unidentified" addresses all these questions.
"Unidentified" is about 2 magazine reporters who investigate a UFO sighting that takes place in a small Texas town and begin to write about it. “There are some surprises for movie goers in terms of explanations, especially how UFOs relate to spiritual matters” says Christiano. Thus far, the film has been well received having just completed a 12 week run in Dayton, OH and is set to open in Nashville, San Antonio, Houston, Chattanooga, Jacksonville, Greensboro, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Mobile, Louisville, Tallahassee as well as many other cities. "We will be adding more theaters in October," Christiano notes. Two newcomers, Jonathan Aube and Josh Adamson, star as the two lead reporters and "deliver top notch performances," according to Christiano.
“To me, the subject of UFOs is interesting,” Christiano says. “Most people don't take UFOs that seriously but it's also a subject that never seems to go away. This film was made to make people reflect about important spiritual issues. I think audiences will definitely leave the theater talking about UFOs and their spiritual connection.”
The film also features popular Grammy-award Christian singer Rebecca St. James in a supporting role, her first film role. "I took the word of a music agent that Rebecca could act and so we cast her. We were surprised as to how good she was. She really has tremendous potential.
Rich Christiano has been producing and distributing inspirational movies since 1985. His last feature film, TIME CHANGER, was a time travel adventure with Gavin MacLeod, Hal Linden and Jennifer O'Neill that played in over 300 theaters.
For theater listings and to view a trailer, please visit the official movie website at www.UnidentifiedTheMovie.com.
The government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said yesterday.
Armstrong's moon walk, seen by millions of television viewers on July 20, 1969, is among the transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said.
KTRK/MISSOURI CITY, TX) - There's a bizarre mystery in Fort Bend County. A strange piece of metal fell right out of the sky, just missing a Missouri City woman.
Lynn Moore was parked at a convenience store at the intersection of US 90 and Pitts Road last Thursday when the object came crashing down.
There are two small holes in the piece of metal. Moore thinks it was once bolted to something. She says the object hit her van and a truck parked next to her.
Fort Bend County sheriff's deputies filed a report, but there's no word yet what the object might be.
You may remember back in June, a strange metal object fell out of the sky in Porter and hit the hat a man was wearing while standing in his garden. Amazingly, he wasn't hurt. The homeowner lives just a few miles away from Bush Intercontinental Airport. There were no identifying marks on the object, but aviation experts agreed it looked like something from a small airplane.
Argentina: UFO Reported Between Santa Rosa and Toay
8-11-06
On Friday, August 11, between 6:40 and 6:50 am, occasional witnesses have reported the sighting of a UFO from the Quintas de Toay district, located to the north of the city in question, which is 12 km distant from Santa Rosa to the southwest.
The eyewitnesses were getting ready to report to their jobs in Santa Rosa and were leaving their homes when they noticed a large triangular object with numerous lights running down its side, noiseless, giving off a kind of fog or otherwise enveloped in it it, at a visual angle of between 40 and 25 degrees respectively. The witnesses remarked that it flew high and relatively close to them until it lost itself from their sight.
The object's path went from southwest to northeast and always in the periphery of the cities of Santa Rosa and Toay. We may dismiss any possibility that the Moon was involved; while full, it was hardly "moving".
The object was also observed by toll booth and bus station workers along the avenue linking Santa Rosa and Toay.
* (translation (c) 2006. Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Salvatore Valentin carta)
UFO Recorded Over Lima, Peru International Airport (Part One)
Research by Renato Longato 2-19-06
UFO captured on video by Aviation Pilot Captain Kui Sam Cheu Moreno over the Jose Chavez International Airport (Lima, Peru) on February 19, 2006 at 14:08 hours.
The eyewitness has 11,500 hours of flight time as a civil aviation pilot and on that occasion was returning from a Panama to Lima flight with COPA Airlines.
During the interview with Peruvian researcher Renato Longato, Captain Sam Cheu estimated that the strange object was 1500 feet away and that it flew at the prodigious speed of 83,500 km/s in an East-West direction.
The recording was done toward runway 1-5 of the Jose Chavez International Airport in Lima, Peru.
According to the pilot’s investigation, the Control Tower did not record the presence of this unusual object.
Eyewitness Account by Capt. Kui Sam Cheu Moreno:
“At one point of the recording, something like a small black spot quickly traveled from left to right on the screen. I tried to see it in slow-motion to see what it was, believing that it could be a bird or an airliner flying over the area.”
“After this event, which really caused me to experience a significant shift in my life and thoughts, I’m definitely convinced that we are not alone. They are trying to give us a message so that we may see things in our world with greater clarity.”
*Photo Credit: Aviation Pilot Captain Kui Sam Cheu Moreno
* Source: Renato Longato www.renatolongato.com
* Reporting from México: Profra. Ana Luisa Cid www.analuisacid.com
* Translation:Scott Corrales Institute of Hispanic Ufology http://inexplicata.blogspot.com
" . . . UFO's and Extra-Terrestrial Activity in The Skies are Not Alien' to Wandsworth . . ."
Did aliens visit Balham and Tooting?
By Adrian Kajumba Hertfordshire 8-10-06
here were some strange and spooky goings on in the skies last week, prompting one observer to eerily predict "I think there is something out there."
Stunned witnesses described how gobsmacked crowds were drawn out onto the streets to watch two sets of unidentified shining bright orange lights fly perfectly in formation through the skies above Balham and Tooting.
The UFO's, which lit up the skies for a short while before shooting up and disappearing into the distance just before midnight last Friday, also had people standing in their gardens trying to capture the action on film and mobile phones. continued...
And the unexplained phenomenon that left Balham and Tooting's Mulder's and Scully's stumped also had the Ministry Of Defence (MOD) scratching their heads.
Baffled Newham College Site manager Peter Dacey, 48, saw the lights when he was going to visit a friends house in Balham.
He said he saw four lights coming towards him at a steady speed before they went up into the sky and disappeared. Another four followed after that.
He said: "They were making no noise at all even though they were not far off. There was an aeroplane further off that we could hear. There was no way they were fireworks. If they were a helicopter or a plane we would have heard something. I just can't work it out. It was unbelievable."
Peter's equally baffled girlfriend Noriko Shimada, 46, a fashion designer from Balham, who was with him at the time said: "There was no sound and it was just the lights so I thought it was very weird. I have no idea what it could be."
Antonio Petrosino, manager of Double Espresso, Balham High Road, also saw the lights after leaving work and was joined by staff from another restaurant staring into the skies in amazement. He said: "Who knows what they were. It could be anything. You could name it as a UFO but you just can't say. I believe there is something out there. Definitely."
An MOD spokeswoman said: "We are not aware of what these lights could be."
Sightings of UFO's and extra-terrestrial activity in the skies are not alien' to Wandsworth and south west London.
In March earlier this year The Wandsworth Borough News reported how two work pals spotted an unidentified flying silver triangle in Putney while they sat at their office desks.
While in February another reader contacted the paper after seeing "strange lights" in the sky.
And according to information released by the MOD under the Freedom of Information act earlier this year, reported UFO sightings have been recorded three times in Wimbledon in 2002 and twice more in Southfields.
". . . MacArthur Predicted That The Next War Would Be An Interplantary War"
Did MacArthur's Prediction of Alien War Nearly Come True?
PR Leap 8-14-06
(PRLEAP.COM) In 1955, General Douglas MacArthur predicted that the next war would be an interplantary war. Did the mighty general’s prediction nearly come true less than a year later? It did according to "The Top Secret UFO Project," filmmaker R. J. Thomas’ parody of UFO documentaries.
"Many prominent people have believed in UFOs," Mr. Thomas said. "MacArthur was one of them. And his statements concerning war with creatures from outer space were the most bold and the most outrageous."
On October 8, 1955, MacArthur said, "The nations of the world will have to unite, for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets."
According to "The Top Secret UFO Project," President Eisenhower prepared for a showdown with aliens, setting up military operations in a little Colorado town in the summer of 1956.
Based on Thomas’ 2004 novella of the same name, "The Top Secret UFO Project" chronicles the UFO-related events experienced by a tiny Colorado hamlet called Jasper. According to the film, the town dealt with one unusual event after another in the summer of 1956. After a farmer spots a flying saucer zipping over his property, scientists rushed into Jasper to investigate, reporters rushed in looking for stories, and government officials rushed in to keep it a secret from the world.
Billed as "the movie the government does not want you to see," "The Top Secret UFO Project," is a parody of the cheesy UFO documentaries of the 70’s like "Overlords of the UFO" and TV programs like "In Search Of."
Mr. Thomas plays a documentary filmmaker who, in 2003, discovered some top secret government films pertaining to the Jasper Incident of 1956. This inspired him to make a documentary about Jasper’s UFO story, and to discover the truth behind what really happened that mysterious summer in Colorado.
And as for MacArthur’s prediction?
"MacArthur was a veteran of three wars and known for his strategic brilliance," Mr. Thomas said. "He was not just an oddball spouting off. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who believe in UFOs simply because he did!"
"The Top Secret UFO Project" is available on DVD at BooksAndSuchMart.com.
ARGENTINA: RETURN OF CHUPACABRAS ALARMS RURAL SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO
8-6-06
Residents of this province found a group of kid goats slain in a pen. The case shares several similarities with events that took place four years ago plus a new feature: the presence of strange lights. The ghost of the "red-muzzled mouse."
Three years ago, several rural districts in Argentina produced reports concerning the presence of mutilated cattle, causing INTI authorities to intervene and find an answer in the presence of the carrion rodent better known as "the red-muzzled mouse."
The narratives, which shared the same tone as those involving the Chupacabras - a sort of extraterrestrial monster engaged in attacking livestock in various parts of Latin America - appeared to vanish after the official explanation and there was practically no further discussion of the topic.
However, in a rural sector near the Santiago locality of Garza, Department of San Martin, the story appears to have flashed up from the embers.
According to the El Liberal newspaper, goat carcasses were found mutilated with surgical precision in a pen of the Quimilioj wilderness, 16 km from the aforementioned locality.
The goats showed no signs of having been attacked by carrion animals, at least not known ones, nor signs of putrefaction, much like the cows found in the same region in 2002.
The strange animal deaths, according to locals, was preceded by the sighting of strange lights flying over the area.
* Source: INFOBAE. COM
* Translation (c) 2006. Scott Corrales Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU) Special thanks to Virgilio Sanchez Ocejo, Miami UFO Center
A SECOND GDN reader has come forward claiming to have seen a UFO over Bahrain on Monday evening, but one of the country's top astronomers has dismissed suggestions that it was a flying saucer. Indian Joy Michael, aged 35, claimed he saw a "strange sight" over the Bahrain Financial Harbour (BFH) at around 6.10pm while he was driving home from work.
Mr Michael, who works as an administration and finance officer at Techind, said he told his friends about it, but they also dismissed the sighting. "I was driving home from work with a colleague of mine at 6.10pm when I saw this apparently revolving dish-like thing for a few seconds," said Mr Michael told the GDN yesterday. "But the report in the GDN proved something was there, for a while."
The GDN carried a picture on its front page yesterday taken by a Sri Lankan couple, which they claimed showed a UFO that flew over them as they were driving along the Sitra Causeway. Engineer Omerdeen Hamad Idrees, aged 35, said he his wife, Shiyara, took the picture when they were on their way to Sitra Mall with their four-year-old son Imran at around 9pm. Mr Idrees, who works for Products for Projects, said the object moved very slowly in the sky and made circular movements over Tubli Bay before passing over his car.
However, Bahrain University applied physics professor Dr Waheeb Alnaser claimed there was probably a rational explanation.
He admitted that Mr Idrees and his wife could have seen a strange phenomenon, but doubted that it was a flying saucer.
"What they saw, and I am only guessing, is some reflection on the horizon - possibly from satellite panels," the Bahrain Astronomical Society vice-chairman told the GDN.
"This is not a very rare happening, but at the same time is not seen very often."
He said sometimes one, two or even three "lighted dots" appear on the horizon as a result of these reflections - giving a "flying saucer like" impression to an ordinary person.
Dr Alnaser also dismissed as "preposterous" a suggestion by another GDN reader that the picture in the GDN was of the planet Mars.
"On the contrary, Mars is getting further and further away from the Earth these days and cannot be visible to the naked eye," he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Idrees was still adamant yesterday that what he saw was a UFO. "We definitely saw it," he insisted. "It was something we have never seen before. "I am sure it was 'something', never mind what anyone says. It was really touching - it was so near."
Civil Aviation Affairs refused to comment on the subject yesterday.
HOOPER - The annual celebration for space people in every shape, size and color - and the craft they fly - is scheduled Saturday and Sunday at the UFO Watchtower.
The UFO Watchtower in cooperation with Colorado MUFON will sponsor the 2006 UFOlympics, a conference about the extraterrestrial. Bill Winkler will be master of ceremonies for the two-day event.
Wanda Wornick, acting postmaster from the Hooper Post Office, will be available to cancel letters and post cards with a special UFO stamp from 9 to 11 a.m.
Among the scheduled speakers on Saturday are Sasquatch speakers Joe Fex and Jack “Kewaunee” Lapseritis, 9 and 10:30 a.m., respectively; UFO speakers Alejandro Rojas, 1 p.m.; Mac and Susan McManaway, 2:30 p.m.; and Chuck Zukowski and Debbie Zieglemeyer, 4 p.m.
A prayer circle and American Indian storyteller Priscilla Wolf will finish the day.
Sunday will feature abductee and healing speaker Suki at 9 a.m.; Poly Cady, at 10:30 a.m.; and disclosure project witness Franklin Carter at 1:30 p.m.
Cost is $20 prepaid, $30 at the door. Overnight camping costs $10.50 a vehicle.
The gift shop features a variety of UFO memorabilia and paperback books published by Earth Star Publications, including “That Crazy Lady Down The Road” by Watchtower owner Judy Messoline and “Stranded On Earth: The Story of a Roswell Crash Survivor” by one of last year’s popular speakers, Sanni Emyetti Ceto.
Messoline’s book, which sells for $21.95, explains why she relocated to the San Luis Valley from the Denver area in 1999. The book is full of stories about people from around the world who come to the tower, sightings of space ships in the area and other paranormal happenings.
A British couple on Wednesday owned up to being behind a stunt that convinced hundreds of people in northeast England that aliens were among them and ended with police and defence chiefs involved.
Paul McKinney, 28, and Emma Henfrey, 30, released floating The lanterns -- made from a plastic bag, copper wire and a paraffin cube which glows as the fuel burns -- look like small hot air balloons and sell on the Internet for about 10 pounds (15 euros, 19 dollars) each.
The packaging warns they can soar up to 1,000 feet and can be mistaken for UFOs.
An MoD spokesman said they were "delighted" to have cleared up the mystery.
The government department routinely investigates UFO sightings, but only to establish whether British airspace has been "compromised" by unauthorised or hostile aircraft. lanterns into the night sky to celebrate a move into their new home in the coastal town of Seaham, last month.
Images of the orange and white glowing orbs later appeared in local newspaper the Sunderland Echo and led unidentified flying object spotters to contact police and the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
After initially keeping quiet because of the fuss, McKinney told the newspaper Wednesday: "It was an awesome experience to watch these lanterns float up and away and we never thought for a second that people would think that they were aliens.
"I wasn't going to say anything because I thought it was quite funny, but then my cousin saw something in the Echo about the MoD investigating so I thought I better tell."
"The Integratron, a Mythic White Dome Out in The Desert Built By a 1950s UFO Contactee Named George Van Tassel"
Santa Monica to the Integraton
By by Jennifer Sharpe NPR 7-14-06
Day to Day, July 14, 2006 · Throughout the summer, NPR reporters and Day to Day contributors are seeing just how far they can go on $100 worth of gas. Jennifer Sharpe had something of an out-of-this world experience:
Of all the places my $100 could have taken me, there was one I'd been wanting to visit for years, a place that's had such a hold on my imagination, it precluded all other possibilities: the Integratron, a mythic white dome out in the desert built by a 1950s UFO contactee named George Van Tassel.
With its rotating outer ring, the Integratron was designed to generate 50 megavolts of electrostatic energy that might have extended human life an additional 50 years -- had Van Tassel himself lived long enough to complete it.
Still reliant on the power of fossil fuel, I climb into my Toyota Matrix, and pump $33 of gas into the tank. Like me, George Van Tassel set off for his trip to the desert from Santa Monica, where he worked as an aeronautical engineer throughout the 1940s.
Leaving town, I pass the Aero Theater, a remnant of his industry's presence here, and I picture Van Tassel inside staring up at the screen, totally unaware that he'd soon be out in the desert communing with an extraterrestrial from Venus named Solganda, whose warnings of mankind's path towards self destruction were like something out of a science-fiction movie.
Heading east on the I-10, I wonder whether Solganda would have foreseen this corridor of huge shopping centers that line the first one-quarter tank of my drive. As I push towards half a tank, the malls are replaced by the high desert's jutting rock formations -- so dramatic that they dwarf the buildings beneath them into a series of objects that look like they've been laid out for a garage sale.
I turn five miles off the main highway and spot what looks like a white super-sized construction hat sitting on the ground. The closer I get to it, the smaller it looks.
These days, the Integratron is run by Joanne and Nancy Karl, earth-bound sisters with a New York edge who offer "rejuvenating sounds baths" in the acoustically resonant dome. I follow them inside, past a gleaming web of copper wires and up into a wooden room that looks like a cross between a yoga studio and the prototype of an early synthesizer.
Joanne Karl settles in behind a cockpit of quartz crystal bowls and begins to play their edges with suede mallets. As instructed, I lie down on a Navajo blanket, and try to relax.
Whatever relaxation the sound bath has eked out of me becomes amplified by an afternoon spent listening to Joanne and Nancy's stories about Giant Rock, the nearby seven-story boulder where George Van Tassel first made contact with Solganda. I head off to go see the rock, and despite Nancy's clear directions, I take a wrong turn that sends me plowing my two-wheel drive through perilously deep sand.
In a moment of panic, I try to reverse back down the narrow road -- but as any Toyota Matrix owner can tell you, the car's limited visibility out the back window is its biggest flaw. Luckily, I make it to a lone house up ahead, whose slurring, toothless occupant yells clear enough directions to get me to the rock.
As I pull up to it, a suped-up desert buggy speeds past, leaving me in a cloud of dust and silence. In an act of seeming outrage, the massive boulder, which has been brutally defaced by graffiti and campfire soot, has recently split into two pieces. But as I stand there looking at it, I am suddenly overtaken by a powerful calm that seems to reach out from the earth's magnetic field and pull me in.
Whatever forces George Van Tassel experienced here suddenly feel palpable to me. The heavy stillness stays with me well into the evening, and as I sit at my hotel restaurant, listening to the band, I watch a white owl swoop out of a palm tree into the night sky. Solganda, do you read me?
Plane crash blast or UFO? Just thunder and fireball: Pag-asa
By Allan I. Varquez Sun.Star 8-10-06
There was no plane crash or any explosion of an aircraft Tuesday night, the Air Transportation Office said yesterday, after residents in some towns in northern Cebu reported such sightings.
ATO tower chief Manuel Tompar said all the 157 commercial flights between 11 p.m. Monday and 11 p.m. Tuesday were accounted for.
ATO’s thermal radar, which can pick up incoming and outgoing aircraft at an altitude of 20,000 feet and within a 64-mile radius, did not detect any crash.
“Our radar can pick up planes from the northernmost tip of Cebu to the southernmost end. Besides, if planes enter our air space, there is constant communication between the pilot and the tower until the plane lands,” Tompar said.
Tompar said, though, that their radar cannot detect supersonic jets or a falling meteor because these travel faster than sound. Very bright meteors are known as fireballs.
Some even thought they saw an unidentified flying object.
Weather specialists at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pag-asa) in Mactan said the explosion may have been thunder due to the formation of cumulonimbus clouds.
Thunder from cumulonimbus clouds (a massive cloud formation) could be heard two to three kilometers away from its location.
Cumulonimbus clouds are hazardous to air navigation and as soon as they are sighted, Pag-asa informs ATO so aircraft could avoid them.
Cebu Provincial Police Office Director Vicente Loot also said there is no trace of a plane crash or a meteor shower in the northern part of Cebu late afternoon of Tuesday.
A loud explosion past 5 p.m. baffled residents in northern towns.
Loot ordered the police stations in the towns of Tuburan, Tabuelan, Borbon, Bogo and Sogod to investigate, but none reported seeing an object that fell from the sky.
“If an airplane crashed, the impact would not be heard in all towns in the north,” Loot said in a mobile phone interview.
Some residents of Tuburan said they saw a burning object that fell from the sky before the loud explosion.
Police Chief Rolando Yballe said people in the town were talking about the object but when they were asked where it fell, nobody could guide them.
PO1 Mariano Cajes of the Tabuelan police station said he and two other policemen were on patrol in Barangay Tabunok when they heard a powerful explosion.
Two weather experts from Pag-asa explained that cumulonimbus clouds could produce a thunder that can be heard within a radius of two to three kilometers.
“It is an air hazard cloud and we immediately inform ATO when we detect it in order to guide an aircraft from flying near it,” Vangie Tolentino and Jun Amarillo said.
Tolentino said cumulonimbus clouds gather its strength by absorbing more water from the sea and as they become bigger, they create thunderstorms and heavy downpour.
Large cumulonimbus clouds are associated with powerful thunderstorms known as supercells, which produce frequent lightning, large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes.
These thunderstorms tend to develop during the afternoon and early evening when the effects of heating by the sun are strongest.
MANAMA: A Sri Lankan couple snapped this picture of what they claim to be a UFO that flew over their car as they were driving along the Sitra Causeway on Monday night.
Engineer Omerdeen Hamad Idrees, 35, said he was on his way to Sitra Mall with his wife, Shiyara, and four-year-old son, Imran, at around 9pm when he saw the object moving very slowly in the sky and making circular movements over Tubli Bay.
"Since I always carry my digital camera with me when we go out, I immediately asked my wife to take pictures," he told the GDN yesterday.
"She could actually take three or four shots before the object came right over the car and seemed to cross the bridge.
"Initially I thought this was just my imagination, but when I downloaded the pictures I thought it was something very strange.
"I have never ever seen anything like it."
Mr Idrees, who works for Products for Projects, was on his way to the mall from his home in Juffair when the pictures were taken.
Slupsk Military Airport, July 6th 1983, 11:26 am. The Radar localized an UFO object that had transgressed Polish airspace. Mr. Stanislaw Z. noticed the officials. Shortly then alert was announced. In the following minutes captain Praszczalek would go in the direct contact with the UFO.
It is often that military services maintain that they don't register similar events but it was always clear that also Polish army deals with pilots' UFO encounters. There are many similar reports and the following one occurred in 1983 in Slupsk. The information was obtained from Mr. Marcin Wawrzak, an UFO enthusiast from Slupsk. It is a relation of a navigator, Mr. Stanislaw Z.
"On July 6th 1983 I was on commanding duty as a navigator. We received information that some Unidentified Flying Object appeared over an airport in Darlowo." Slupsk Military Airport, July 6th 1983, 11:26 am. The Radar localized an UFO object that had transgressed Polish airspace. Mr. Stanislaw Z. noticed the officials. Shortly then alert was announced. In the following minutes Cpt. Praszczalek would go in the direct contact with the UFO.
After several minutes, the pilot replied:
"I can see the target. It is steel in color, rotating around its axe, 'throwing' as a boomerang, without any exploratory marks, without any engines nor markings" - Stanislaw Z. told.
Cpt. Praszczalek's report baffled the airport command. It was decided to notify the General Command of Air Forces in Warsaw.
"In 20 minutes the decision came ordering the pilot to use fire. When I passed the command: "Fire!" to the pilot and I deliver limitations, he told: "The object made a sharp turn and disappeared!"
In the following moments chaos reigned onto military radars screens. Navigators began registering thousands of unknown signals. For the next 10 hours military aircrafts were unsuccessfully searching the entire area.
On the next day the Military Special Service members appeared in the base and began their investigation but its final verdict isn't known. Stanislaw Z. refused to talk about the investigation.
". . . Canadians - Some Three Million of Us Have Seen a UFO"
Alberta: 1 Canadian in 10 saw a UFO
book
The Montreal Gazette 8-8-06
Chris Rutkowski, co-author with Geoff Dittman of the new book The Canadian UFO Report: The Best Cases Revealed, says opinion polls suggest one in 10 Canadians - some three million of us - have seen a UFO. From 1994 to 2004, official Canadian UFO accounts more than quadrupled, from 189 to 882, as sighters took advantage of the convenience and anonymity afforded by the growing number of UFO reporting sites on the Internet. Examples include a report from the prime minister's plane to Edmonton International Airport a few years ago.
"From The Jesuits To The PM's Pilot, Canada Has Proven Fertile Ground For Mysterious UFO Sightings"
'We saw fiery Serpents through mid-air, borne on wings of flame'
By Shawn Ohler The Ottawa Citizen 8-6-06
They were likely too busy cowering in terror to appreciate the milestone at the time, but Jesuit missionaries living in 17th-century New France recorded Canada's first -- and, perhaps, most lyrical -- UFO sighting.
". . . The Co-Author of The Canadian UFO Report Says He Knows UFOs Are Out There"
Something's out there: Rutkowski
By BRENDA BOONSTRA The Winnipeg Sun 8-8-06
The truth is out there.
Though Chris Rutkowski has never seen a UFO himself, the co-author of The Canadian UFO Report says he knows UFOs are out there.
"I have spoken to many astronomers, pilots, and air traffic controllers who have seen things that can not be explained," said Rutkowski, "so I know these objects exist. Whether or not they are from outer space is another question."
Rutkowski maintains a national database, started in 1989, which stores more than 5,000 Canadian UFO sighting reports dating back to 1663 when missionaries saw fiery serpents in the sky over what is now Montreal. Despite these testimonials, Rutkowski admits there is no hard evidence of aliens visiting Earth from other planets.
Rutkowski receives hundreds of reports each year. In 2005 alone there were 763 reported UFO sightings from across the country.
Rutkowski's interest in UFOs began while he was studying astronomy in university in the 1970s. In 1975, a red fiery ball dubbed Charlie Redstar was reportedly seen flying over Carman, Man., every single night throughout that summer. Since no one seemed interested in studying the phenomenon, Rutkowski became involved.
"Something about it intrigued me," said Rutkowski.
Rutkowski claims one of the most intriguing cases in Canadian UFO history happened right here in Manitoba.
INCIDENT NEVER EXPLAINED
On May 20, 1967, Stephan Michalak reportedly took a walk in the bush near Falcon Lake where he encountered two unidentified flying objects which changed both in form and colour.
One of the objects landed nearby and Michalak said he approached it hearing voices coming from inside.
Michalak said he moved close enough to the object to touch it when it abruptly rotated, leaving Michalak face to face with some kind of exhaust system which blew hot air out, setting Michalak's shirt and undershirt on fire.
Michalak immediately returned home to Winnipeg and checked into Misericordia Hospital suffering from burns and severe headaches and nausea. Reports say some radiation contamination was found at the site but the incident has never been explained.
Believing the truth may be out there, Rutkowski continues to gather UFO information on a volunteer basis.
He and his co-author, Geoff Dittman, have gleaned more than 50 of the best stories from the database for their book, which they released on Aug 1.
Anyone looking to report their own sightings can contact them at canadianuforeports@hotmail.com.
In the era of $300 million fighter jets, satellite-guided rockets and complicated battlefield computer networks, Multimax Inc. is trying to revive an old-fashioned technology to thrust the information technology firm onto the front line. The Largo company has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this new project, the design looks like an elliptical UFO, but the result will be familiar: It's a blimp.
By Piotr Cielebias "NOL - Eastern European UFO Journal" Š 8-6-06
The photo was taken on May 20th 2006 at 13:39 on a certain Torun housing estate. The anonymous witness didn't see the UFO taking the photo. As he wrote, he was going to took photos of some products to a catalog, setting the balance of white and snapping some random photos. No sounds accompanied the alleged UFO manifestation.
Searching through the photos he noticed a strange, triangular object that appeared in the sky over the estate at 13:39:25. On the next photo taken on 13:39:27, there is no trace of it. The witness didn't agree to publish the whole photo, being afraid that someone may recognize the estate he live and subsequently localize him.
The witness applied SONY DSC-H1 camera.
The more recent photo presenting a triangular UFO craft was taken over Szprotawa [woj.Lubuskie] on July 18th 2006 by Dariusz W.
Couple Film UFOs Over Sunderland - MoD To Investigate
Ministry to investigate UFO light sightings
Sunderland Today 8-5-06
THE Ministry of Defence (MoD) is to probe UFO sightings over Sunderland and Seaham after mysterious lights appeared in the night sky.
Since the Echo reported the mysterious activity earlier this week we have been contacted by more than 20 readers who witnessed the lights. They all reported seeing bright, orange-coloured orbs floating over East Durham residents and parts of Sunderland.
Now, after being contacted by someone who saw nine UFOs in the sky, the MoD is to investigate.
An MoD spokeswoman said: "We examine any UFO sighting reports to establish whether there is any evidence to suggest that UK airspace has been compromised by hostile or unauthorised air activity."
The probe is under way after Seaham couple Harry and Elizabeth McCall filmed the orbs flying over the town last Saturday night.
Mr McCall, 67, told the Echo: "They were silent, as if they were floating. There was no noise.
"It was unbelievaable and until someone convinces me otherwise, they were UFOs." Since then Echo readers from Westlea, Eastlea, Northlea, Deneside, Dalton-le-Dale, and Hollycarrside, in Sunderland, have reported seeing the lights.
UFO Hunters, a national organisation which researches and compiles information about sightings internationally, has also appealed for witnesses to get in touch.
Its leader, Russ Kellett, wants any UFO spotters to file reports on its website, www.ufo-paranormal.co.uk, or call him on 01723 514700 so he can start his own investigation.
North East-based UFO expert Alfred Dodds receives an average of three reports a year of sightings in the region.
Mr Dodds, 68, who runs the Northumberland UFO Research Centre, has been interested in the subject since the age of 10 and has never heard of any local sightings like those made last weekend.
He said: "There have been similar sightings, but mainly abroad. "The problem is you see is that we don't know what is being developed in technology and who is developing it.
"It's mainly America, which we have seen recently in the press. "There are a lot of triangle sightings, with three lights and then a larger central light. This doesn't sound like that at all.
"There is usually an explanation for most things, but there is about five per cent that are unexplained."
lReports to the MOD can be sent to the Directorate of Air Staff – Freedom of Information, 5th Floor, Zone H, Main Building, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2HB. A 24-hour answerphone, where people can leave a name and contact details, can also be reached at 020 7218 2140 or people can email das-ufo-office@mod.uk.
Mystery surrounds a number of strange sightings in the Manawatu skies last night.
Several people have contacted Newstalk ZB claiming to have spotted a UFO after seeing lights darting around at speed.
One informant lives in Feilding and says he saw lights doing strange manoeuvres which seemed to violate the law of physics.
Police are at a loss to explain what the lights may have been.
The Wellington Observatory says while a possible explanation could be a bright star low on the horizon, that does not account for the strange movements the lights were making.
Staff at Palmerston North's control tower offered the strongest explanation saying a couple of air force planes were flying around the area before 8 PM.
[The following message was received this morning from Argentinean journalist and UFO researcher Quique Mario, director of the Centro de Estudios UFO (CEUFO) group and one of his country's foremost experts in cattle mutilations and the enigmatic disappearance of large quantities of water from pools, water towers and other locations during "saucer flaps". We hope you'll find this of interest--Ed.]
Greetings - I'm bringing to your attention two episodes that took place in La Pampa this weekend.
The first one was recorded at 19:10 hrs. and was witnessed by a resident from the locality of Macachín who was traveling toward Carhué, Province of Buenos Aires. He was driving his vehicle in a west to east direction when he saw a "strange flash" through the rear view mirror. At first he thought it was another vehicle but when he lost it from sight, he pulled over and got out of the car. On doing so, he saw an astonishing sight: heading in a N-S direction at 30º was a white-colored object having the relative size of "a tennis ball." Seconds later, the strange light divided into three spheres--two of them reddish--which continued along the same trajectory until they vanished altogether.
The second episode: Yesterday, Sunday, July 30, 2006 at 20:05, after putting my car in the garage, I was walking in a S-N direction toward my house when I saw a strange sphere that suddenly "blazed" in the sky at 45 degrees to my left. The sky was clear in advance of the tremendous ice storm that fell in early hours of the morning (temperatures recorded at -10 Centigrade). The sighting lasted only a few seconds; I had barely recovered from the surprise when it repeated once more for another few seconds. I asked a neighbor walking along the path if he'd seen anything, but he replied no. Evidently, my penchant for looking skyward rewarded me in this case.
* (translation (c) 2006, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Quique Mario, CEUFO)
. . . From what I gather, George’s job was to oversee the camera equipment and recover the photography from various space missions. It was his duty to sort the photography into categorical stacks back at his office. Many of these stacks were classified with "UFO" labels. Routinely, George would be ordered to pack up these "UFO" photos and make the trip from Florida to Washington DC to meet with his DOD contact at the Pentagon. The UFO photos were handed over to the Pentagon official…never to be seen by the public. (One of George’s children interned as a secretary in George’s office, and can confirm all these facts as a witness. Besides the immediate family leaks, George kept everything tight-lipped and sealed. He never officially disclosed anything or went public as a whistleblower.) . . .
The location of the wreck of the Graf Zeppelin had been a mystery for more than half a century
POLISH divers have discovered the rusting wreckage of Nazi Germany’s only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, solving one of the most enduring maritime riddles of the Second World War.
For more than half a century the location of the huge vessel was kept secret by the Soviet authorities. Even the opening of the Moscow archives in the 1990s failed to produce a precise bearing. The once-proud ship was simply one of dozens of wrecks that littered the bed of the Baltic Sea near the Bay of Gdansk.
“We were carrying out soundings for possible oil exploration,” Krzysztof Grabowski, of the Petrobaltic exploration group, said. “Then we stumbled across a vessel that was over 260 metres (850ft) long at a depth of 250 metres.”
Divers confirmed this week that it was the German ship, though who owns her and what — if anything — will happen to her remains unclear.
When the Graf Zeppelin was launched in 1938, Adolf Hitler raised his right arm in salute to a warship that was supposed to help Germany to become master of the northern seas. But, when fleeing German troops scuttled her in April 1945, she had never seen service — a casualty of infighting within the Nazi elite and the changing tide of war.
The Graf Zeppelin was scuttled in shallow water near Szczecin and it proved easy for the Red Army to recover her after marching into the Polish port. According to an agreement with the Allies, German and Japanese warships should have been sunk in deep water or destroyed. The Russians repaired the ship, then used her to carry looted factory equipment back to the Soviet Union. In August 1947 Allied spies observed her being towed back to the Polish Baltic coast and then used for target practice at Leba by Soviet dive bombers. It appeared that the Russians were preparing for possible action against US aircraft carriers.
The Graf Zeppelin sank a second time, and remained undetected until now.
Lukasz Orlicki, a Polish maritime historian, said: “It is difficult to say why the Russians have always been so stubbornly reluctant to talk about the location of the wreck. Perhaps it was the usual obsession with secrecy, or perhaps there was some kind of suspect cargo.”
At 262 metres, the Graf Zeppelin was comparable to the biggest of the US carriers that played such a significant role in the Pacific. She had a range of 8,000 nautical miles, meaning that she could easily have reached the North Sea.
"Don't Dismiss All Those Flying Saucer Stories . . ."
USAF 'secrets' revealed
By Patricia Wolff The Northwestern 7-31-06
Don't dismiss all those flying saucer stories you've read in the tabloids until you hear what military aerospace historian Michael Schratt has to say.
He addressed a small audience Sunday at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture museum to discuss the United States' long-running classified military aircraft programs.
Schratt of Illinois passed out a postcard depicting a curious-looking U.S. Air Force circular-wing jet aircraft that had supposedly been spotted by a jet pilot and later photographed outside the MacDill AFB salvage yard in 1967. They measured 20, 40, 70 and 116 feet in diameter and all had tricycle landing gear with control surfaces running along the circumference of the disc.
Schratt said some aircraft projects are so top secret that not event the President knows about them. He suggested the Air Force was able to finance these programs by siphoning money from other documented programs throughout the years.
It's high time for the Air Force to declassify information on this aircraft and others, he said. It would not be a threat to public safety to do so, and could improve life on this planet by furthering a better understanding of space flight, he said.
Jim Upton of California had seen Schratt's website, www.usafflyingsaucers.com, and wanted to hear him speak. When he finished listening to Schratt's hour-long talk Upton wasn't so sure he bought it all.
"He gave a good survey of various (Air Force) programs over time, but some of that stuff is just way out there," Upton said.
Upton questioned the authenticity of the photo of the circular aircraft on the postcard Schratt handed out.
Schratt spoke about various secret aircraft programs and the costs for some of them. He said each B-2 stealth bomber costs $2.3 billion or "more than its own weight in gold."
Upton had no quibble with some of Schratt's observations.
"The second half of his talk was just a whole lot of speculation," Upton said.
Greeer Says SETI Has Received Numerour Signals From ET
SETI urged to fess up over alien signals
By Ashlee Vance The Register 7-31-06
Alien hunters today pounded the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute here with e-mails and phone calls, following claims made this weekend that the organization has covered up the detection of signals from space.
Allegations of a SETI cover up were made last night on the fringe-friendly Coast to Coast radio show hosted by Art Bell. During the broadcast, professional SETI watcher Steven Greer, the CEO of Space Energy Access Systems, claimed that insiders told him that SETI discovered a high concentration of signals from space, and that another organization stepped in to block those signals. SETI, however, maintains that it has not seen any signals of note.
According to Greer, the space communications have caused a major stir at SETI, which hunts for intelligent life in outer space.
"They have had numerous extraterrestrial signals," Greer said, during the radio broadcast. "They were apparently searching in a spectrum or in an area . . . where they hit the mother lode. The signals were so numerous that they began to have their systems externally jammed by some sort of human agency that did not want them to continue receiving those signals."
And where did Greer get this fantastic information? Apparently, from a well-known source within SETI.
"This person, if I were to say who he is, almost every one your listeners would probably known the name," Greer said.
Bell's Coast to Coast show is famed for dealing with matters that many would consider far from reality. The radio host has enjoyed a phenomenal career discussing ghosts, UFOs and things that go berserk in the night with an eclectic set of guests. But it's worth noting that Bell, who only hosts the show on the weekends now, and regular host George Noory often break stories such as the Dubai ports deal well before the national media.
That's not the case this time around, according to SETI.
"There's been nothing like that at all," said a spokesman, who described Greer, as "the bane of SETI's existence."
Greer runs a SETI rival, if you will, called CSETI and often claims that SETI is withholding evidence of alien life from the public. His comments triggered a torrent of e-mails and phone calls to hit SETI today, according to the SETI spokesman.
In this particular instance, the fine people at SETI seem a bit more tethered to the reality spectrum. Greer, after all, relied almost exclusively on hearsay in his discussion with Art Bell. In addition, Greer claimed that members of SETI were in on some type of conspiracy to keep alien life secret while at the same time being attacked by a third party trying to block alien signals from SETI. That's an awful lot of maneuvering - most of which makes little sense.
That said, technophiles should enjoy guessing who Greer's secret source might be.
Back in the day, SETI had serious backing from one of HP's early employees - Bernard Oliver. Over the years, the organization has received funds from such Silicon Valley institutions as NASA Ames, HP, Sun Microsystems, and the Gordon and Betty Moore foundation. Microsoft co-founder and space buff Paul Allen is also a major SETI backer.
Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos is the current Chairman of SETI. Could aliens be responsible for Sun's recent sales spike? Let us know.
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