NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Says, "No" To Sex in Space
Sex in Space: bizarre reactions
by Laura S. Woodmansee 10-30-06 The Space Review
I am amazed how many people in the United States are so intimidated by the word “sex” and are unwilling to discuss its consequences. My latest book, Sex in Space, tackles both the fun and serious sides of this currently neglected topic. It’s not just my opinion that the possibilities of sex in space need more attention. This is the recommendation of a 2005 report from the US National Academies of Science. Yet I have encountered all sorts of bizarre problems when bringing up the topic of sex in space. Apparently, some people just don’t understand that the book is intended to spark the public’s interest in space exploration, settlement, and tourism. To illustrate my case, here are some examples.
Sex in Space was sold at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) store for the first month after Apogee Books released the book. It was doing very well, so the store manager invited me to do a book signing. The trouble began as soon as a cheery book-signing announcement was emailed to all personnel at JPL. Unbeknownst to me, the store simply isn’t allowed to do book signings because JPL can’t be seen as endorsing a commercial product. The JPL store personnel simply made a mistake by booking my signing. However, what happened next is ridiculous. First, a liaison to the store e-mailed an announcement to all personnel—thousands of people at JPL—citing “ethical reasons” for the cancellation of the signing. This, of course, prompted many people to contact me to ask exactly what it was that I did wrong. The implication is that I did something unethical. I’ve done nothing wrong, which the JPLers involved have assured me of via several telephone conversations. A simple clarification sent to the same distribution list (all personnel) as the previous announcement would have fixed things. To date, no such email has been sent. Second, those involved ordered my Sex in Space books pulled from the store. Apparently the title “Sex in Space” is just too racy. Perhaps I should have titled my book, “The Possibilities of Human Reproduction Beyond Earth.” Oh, yes, the general public would have been so interested.
AURORA — A spectacular UFO crash witnessed by locals and the military, an alien’s small body recovered and then a fantastic cover-up.
Roswell, N.M., in 1947, right?
Nope. Aurora, Texas. In 1897.
The compelling story was first reported by the Dallas Morning News on April 17 of that year and is all the more intriguing because there was little aloft in the skies over Texas in these years before the Wright Brothers’ initial 1903 flight.
Reporter S.E. Hayden wrote:
“Aurora, Wise County, Texas, — About 6 o’clock this morning the early risers of Aurora were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing throughout the country.
“It sailed directly over the public square, and when it reached the north part of town, collided with the tower of Judge Proctor’s windmill and went to pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the windmill and water tank and destroying the judge’s flower garden.
“The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard, and while his remains are badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world.”
More than a century later, this dramatic story brought a TV crew from The History Channel to Texas, led by producer-writer John Greenewald Jr., who produced the show “UFO Files: Texas’ Roswell.”
Greenewald, a former on-the-air interviewer, went behind the camera to direct interviews of UFO experts and Aurora residents.
“It is a town legend, but I’m curious if there is any truth to it,” Greenewald said. “We talked to the experts — some very intelligent people who are convinced that it happened.”
He added that Aurorians were more forthcoming about their belief in the early UFO on the phone, but that they often softened their stories once the camera lights were on.
He noted that there were many reported sightings of mysterious airships across the Midwest in 1897.
“The town is (now) so adamant that the event wasn’t real,” Greenwald said. “But the (UFO) investigators are so adamant that it was real.”
He said that the program would air again on cable, but that the next date is uncertain.
The TV folks said they were denied access to the cemetery, where they had hoped to scan for alien remains. They were also unsuccessful in getting permission to examine Proctor’s water well, which was purportedly used as a disposal site for scraps of metal from the crashed vessel.
Village lore has it that the next owner of the property blamed his bad health on drinking water from the contaminated well.
Texan Derrel Sims, who bills himself as the Alien Hunter and claims to be a former CIA agent, had fewer reservations.
“I have put together one of the most compelling ideas on why Aurora might have happened,” Sims said. “It is most interesting is whether an alien is buried in Aurora — or whether someone may have picked up the little bugger and taken him away.”
The History Channel production and many other sources do report the commonly accepted theory that all the fuss was the result of a sympathetic reporter and local collaborators drumming up interest in the town.
Aurora, it seems, was thought to be facing doom. Not from the sky, but rather from railway plans to bypass it, effectively removing it from the map of 19th century economics.
This week’s Halloween costumes probably won’t include the option of going as the Aurora Alien, but the next time someone mentions Roswell, N.M., you might remind them that historic accounts put Texas a half century ahead of their little green men.
"There Was Something Strange in The Skies Over Belleville"
An out-of-this-world event in Belleville
By Brian Gray The Times Plus 10-27-06
BELLEVILLE -- There was something strange in the skies over Belleville.
It was Jan. 16, 1987.
Red, blue and white lights were suspended horizontally about 1,000 feet over a bluff southwest of town.
But what was it?
Whatever it was made no sound and it remained suspended in the air for an extended period of time before speeding away.
Less than three months later, March 6, several citizens reported cigar-shaped objects in the sky.
According to some reports the objects departed in cloud vapors.
The objects, whatever they were, never reappeared but Belleville businesses decided to incorporate the events into a festival commemorating Belleville's close encounter.
UFO days has been going strong ever since.
This year the event is Saturday and a host of activities are planned.
Activities include:
* 8:30 a.m. -- Kids Fun Run.
* 9 a.m. -- Craft Fair.
* 9 a.m. -- Chili Cook-off.
* 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- Kids Games.
* 10 a.m. -- Adult Fun Run.
* 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- Beer Tent and Food Fair.
* 1:30 p.m. -- Parade.
* 2 to 5 p.m. -- Glow and Bowl.
* 7 to 9 p.m. -- Haunted Trail.
* 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. -- Monster Costume Ball.
Other events include pumpkin decorating and a pet costume contest.
The annual parade will pass through town on Main Street.
The events are held at the Library Park, middle school gym and Schwoegler's Sugar River Lanes. The haunted trail ride begins on Church Street across from the high school.
No one knows for sure what residents saw over the skies of Belleville in 1987 but investigators from the Chicago-based Center for U.F.O. Studies ruled out the possibility the objects were natural or man-made.
Maybe, just maybe, with others walking around town dressed in alien costumes and Halloween costumes the visitors might stop back.
Look around. Examine the person standing next to you.
Pig-grabbing space aliens are the talk of Tappen, N.D., and beyond.
But Torrey Briese, whose family counts three close encounters with the inexplicable, doesn’t much worry what others think.
“Some people probably aren’t going to believe it. I’m not even trying to convince anybody. We know what happened,” said Briese, a member of the Tappen School Board whose family operates a ranch outside of town.
Briese and his wife, Myra, spoke Thursday of three strange occurrences experienced by family members in the past year, two of which were reported by their son Evan, 16.
According to Myra Briese, the latest incident went something like this:
Her son awoke early on the morning of Sept. 12 and got up to get a glass of water.
Looking out a window, the boy saw something moving in the corral that is home to several large hogs that are basically family pets.
Thinking it might be a coyote, he grabbed a gun and walked into the corral.
There, he encountered two creatures standing 8 to 9 feet tall that were doing something to one of the hogs. The boy fired his .22-caliber rifle at one creature and was pretty sure he hit it, judging by the unearthly scream it emitted.
Another creature then grabbed the boy and threw him to the ground, causing him to black out.
When Evan Briese awoke, he found that Ruthy, a 450-pound sow that had been ready to give birth, was gone.
The boy ran to the home of his older sister, Trista, a short distance from the house he shares with his parents.
Trista Briese made a frantic phone call to her parents and it wasn’t long before they, and later the Kidder County sheriff, were on the scene.
Evan Briese, whose shirt was in tatters, told his story.
The sheriff, Doug Howard, then left but came back the next day. He ultimately came to no conclusions about what happened to the hog, Myra Briese said.
Several days later, with the help of a hypnotist, Evan Briese remembered more details.
Five entities had been in the corral. Two were in the process of dragging what appeared to be a dead hog when the boy interrupted them.
“It’s unexplainable,” Myra Briese said.
“This still bothers Evan to this day,” she said, adding that her son feels guilty for not being able to save his younger sister’s hog.
As for the other incidents, one was in April when Evan and his cattle dog, Buster, were checking on cows during calving season, his parents said.
Investigating a flashing glow, the pair walked over a hill and saw an object resting on the ground that appeared to be scanning a waterhole with an intense beam of light.
At first, boy and dog could do nothing but stare.
The spell was broken when Buster ran barking at the craft, which took off into the night, causing what amounted to a sonic boom.
“It woke Myra up,” Torrey Briese said of the sound, adding that he, too, witnessed something unusual this past summer. It happened one night in July, when he was giving a neighbor a ride into town.
Briese said he and the neighbor noticed a bluish light in the sky, which stopped when they stopped and moved when they began driving.
“We spent about a half-hour watching it,” Briese said, adding that at one point the object flew so fast it went several miles in a matter of seconds.
Based on the description of the object his son saw in April, Briese links the two events, adding that he’s never been given to flights of fancy.
“Evan and I are very skeptical,” Torrey Briese said. “We used to watch ‘The UFO Files’ on TV and laugh out loud.”
Briese said he wouldn’t be surprised if people feel the same about his story, but he said the family doesn’t feel a need to prove anything and they’ve moved on.
“We’re not out looking for aliens every night,” he said.
Brice Barnick, the mayor of Tappen – located off Interstate 94 between Bismarck and Jamestown – said visits by UFOs are the talk of the town, though he himself is not quite on board.
“I’m not saying it can’t happen. But I’d have to see it to believe it,” Barnick said.
At the time of the April incident, the Brieses were put in touch with Richard Moss, a UFO investigator who happened to be in Tappen for a funeral.
Moss, of Long Prairie, Minn., is the Minnesota representative of the Mutual UFO Network, an organization based in Colorado dedicated to the study of UFO phenomena.
Moss, a former high school science teacher, said that in many years of investigating UFO reports, only a handful have impressed him as having the potential to be genuine.
The Tappen incidents, he said, fall into the latter category.
“There are a lot of people out there who are telling false stories. The credibility of the witness is a big thing,” Moss said.
In the case of Evan Briese, Moss said it was interesting to view the boy’s demeanor before and after the hypnotic regression.
Prior to hypnosis, “He (Briese) had a sort of unsure look on his face. He was still really wondering what had happened. After the hypnotic regression, he knew. He was made to remember,” Moss said.
Sheriff Howard was off duty Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
John Lemieux, a Kidder County deputy, said he did not believe the incident in September resulted in a written report.
Torrey Briese said strange things are still happening.
A relative who farms in the Tappen area recently had a sheep die, and a veterinarian who examined the animal found no obvious reason for its death, Briese said.
A cause of death wasn’t the only thing missing.
Someone, Briese said, removed a single testicle from the animal.
BERLIN (Reuters) - A fire that destroyed a cottage near Bonn and injured a 77-year-old man was probably caused by a meteor and witnesses saw an arc of blazing light in the sky, German police said on Friday.
Burkhard Rick, a spokesman for the police in Siegburg east of Bonn, said the fire gutted the cottage and badly burned the man's hands and face in the incident on October 10.
"We sought assistance from Bochum observatory and they noted that at that particular moment the earth was near a field of meteoroid splinter and it could be assumed that particles had entered the atmosphere," he said.
"The particles usually don't reach the surface because they disintegrate in the atmosphere," he added. "But some can make it to the ground. We believe this was a bolide (meteoric fireball) with a size of no more than 10 mm."
An Eyewitness Account of the Mysterious Object that “Attacked” the Los Angeles Basin in the Wee Hours of February 25, 1942, plus a Ufological Assessment, Sixty-Four Years after the Fact
Let me begin by stating unequivocally that I don’t by any means consider myself to be a full-fledged Ufologist. Until very recently, I’ve never systematically investigated a contemporary UFO sighting or debriefed an abductee. Much of my concern with the UFO phenomenon has come from a lifetime of studying world mythology and folklore, and the extent to which it appears to have been strongly colored, if not actually engendered, by the perception of and/or interaction with alien beings, from New Guinea to ancient Mesoamerica and Mesopotamia
I’m also very much interested in the extent to which what I call the “war of the gods” theme, which is well nigh universal, may reflect the “collateral damage” caused by a devastating colonial war between two high-tech alien civilizations for hegemony over this planet some 8,000 or 9,000 years ago
But the forgoing might be the subject of a subsequent presentation. To introduce the subject at hand, I should tell you that I’ve had three personal experiences that appear to have involved UFOs, in addition to the one that’s the focus of this talk. In 1937, four years before my family moved to Hermosa Beach, when we lived in the Highland Park district of Los Angeles, I saw what I later came to think of as a “flying French horn.”
Although I was supposed to be taking an afternoon nap, it was a bright day, the curtains of my nursery window were open, and I was definitely wide awake during the thirty seconds or so it took the strange craft to pass slowly—and soundlessly—across my field of vision. I never mentioned what I’d seen to my parents, and it apparently didn’t cause any stir in the neighborhood. (And, no, I don’t think I was abducted, but who knows for sure? Maybe someday I’ll be brave enough to undergo hypno-regression. . . .) Of course, this event occurred a decade before the expressions “UFO” and “Flying Saucer” came into existence, so I had no frame of reference.
More recently, in May of 1990, off the southern tip of Baja California, I watched a bright point of light perform exotic, right-angle maneuvers over the ocean at approximately 3:00 a.m. It was clearly not a plane or a helicopter.
And in 2003, while driving north on the I15 north of Lake Ellsinore in Southern California on a bright summer afternoon I watched a curious, doughnut shaped object emerge from behind a hill, move west across the highway at a slow speed, and then simply vanish. It was only evident for about ten seconds. My wife also glimpsed it fleetingly after I called her attention to it. I should add that few other motorists appeared to notice the peculiar object, although a couple of cars did slow down appreciably shortly after it disappeared.
But the sighting I’m concerned with here, what has come be known as the “Battle of Los Angeles,” was witnessed by over a million other people in Southern California in the wee hours of February 25, 1942, less than three months after Pearl Harbor.
At that time, especially in communities like Hermosa Beach, California, where we’d moved in the spring of 1941 to a house that directly faced the beach, the threat of invasion was still palpable, and a great many folks—including the military—still expected us to be bombed in the near future. For that reason, the whole of Santa Monica Bay from Malibu to Palos Verdes was soon ringed with anti-aircraft batteries and searchlight brigades. The guns banged away almost every night, shooting at targets that were towed across the sky over the ocean by specially designed planes. The targets would be pinpointed by the searchlight beams, which also illuminated the exploding shells. It was a grand show that usually lasted about half an hour and rarely if ever continued much after 10:00 p.m.
At first, we kids would watch the action with great fascination, but after a few nights in early January the noise of the guns and the exploding shells soon became routine, as predictable as the sound of the waves in the winter. Most people learned to sleep through the cacophony with few problems. Indeed, it gave us a sense of security; our brave anti-aircraft gunners would quickly save us from any attempts by the nasty Japanese to penetrate our airspace.
In any case, the early evening of February 24 was unremarkable. The guns fired a few practice rounds and then fell silent well before 10:00 p.m. I remember going to bed shortly thereafter, reading for a few minutes by the light of a small flashlight I kept hidden under my pillow, and then falling asleep.
Around 3:15 a.m., I awoke to the sound of what I initially assumed was distant thunder. But as I came fully awake, I realized that the guns were firing again. At first, I thought they were simply doing another drill, though it seemed awfully late. Moreover, there was something about the rate and intensity of the bombardment that just didn’t seem right, especially after I glanced at my clock. My small bedroom, which was directly over our front door, faced south, and thus my view of the ocean was oblique. However, the sky, or what I could see of, it was filled with blinding searchlights and the bright flashes of exploding rounds. I was, of course, thoroughly familiar with both, thanks to all the target practice I’d witnessed. But heretofore, the searchlights and the explosions had always been well out over the ocean and for the most part invisible from my bedroom windows, at least when I was in bed. This time everything seemed much closer.
I soon heard my parents talking in the hall, and poked my head out. My father, who was an air raid warden, looked worried and said it didn’t make any sense. He tried to get through by phone to Civil Defense headquarters, but there was no answer (we later learned that the alert had been called at 2:25 a.m., although nobody had bothered to get the word out to local air raid wardens). So, he put on his gear, and went outside to see what was happening.
He soon returned, looking even more worried, and told my mother to get me, my paternal grandparents, who lived with us at the time, and my recently widowed maternal grandfather, who’d been staying with us for a couple of weeks, down to the basement bomb shelter my father had begun building in the afternoon of December 7, ASAP.
Normally, my maternal grandfather was slower than the Second Coming of Christ in his personal habits, that is, in dressing, shaving, etc. But when my father said, “Mr. Hotchkiss, I think this may be the real thing,” he was down in the basement in thirty seconds flat!
As you can imagine, I was equal parts scared and excited and desperately wanted to know what was going on. By this time, my father was back on the street and, belatedly, over the continuing gunfire, we heard the air raid siren finally begin to wail. My mother escorted her in-laws and father down to shelter, which consisted of two small dressing rooms protected by cartons of beach sand stacked in the open basement on either side, and I followed along, despite the fact that I was eager to poke my head outside and watch “the real thing.”
My mother felt the same way. As she said later, after about ten minutes in such cramped quarters—the benches upon which we sat also contained survival items such as a first-aid kit, water bottles, and some canned food—and surrounded by the halitosis exuded by the older generation, she was ready to brave a Jap bomb or two. Indeed, our first thought was that an enemy squadron was overhead, as we began to hear the roar of aircraft engines over the din of the barrage. But they later turned out to our own pursuit planes.
When she exited the basement through the door that led to the beach, I followed close behind her. Although my mother was, of course, apprehensive about my safety, at the same time she understood why I was dying to see what was going on and let me stay.
The two of us stood side by side in front of the house, huddling together in the chill night air and staring up into the sky. The planes we’d heard were not in sight, but what captured our rapt attention was a silvery, lozenge-shaped “bug,” as my mother later described it, that was clearly visible in the searchlight beams that pinpointed it. Although it was a clear, moonlit night, no other details could be discerned, despite the fact that, when we first saw it, the object was hanging motionless almost directly overhead. Its altitude is hard to estimate, especially after all these years, but I’d guess that it was somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 feet. This may explain why we didn’t see the orange glow reported by several eyewitnesses in Santa Monica and Culver City, where the object was apparently much lower. (One witness suggests that this glow may simply have been the reflection of shell bursts against the object’s “silvery” body.)
In any case, anti-aircraft shells were bursting all around the mysterious craft. The noise was almost deafening. And each time a bright red flash occurred, the acrid odor of cordite became more pronounced. Shrapnel was also falling on the beach, and my mother and I backed up against the house to avoid being struck. (The next day we kids salvaged boxes of the stuff off the sand and turned them in for scrap.)
However, between shell bursts, the craft emitted no sound whatsoever. Nor was it acting aggressively.
As we watched, open mouthed, the object, apparently none the worse for the plethora of rounds directed at it, began to move slowly to the southeast, descending over Redondo Beach, where we lost sight of it. Indeed, either our gunners were absurdly inept, despite all the practice they’d had in recent weeks, or it was invulnerable to attack. Years later I read that over 1,400 rounds were fired at the object that evening. The official tally, from the Army’s after-action report, is 1430 rounds, but this figure is probably way too low. Could the Japs have come up with some secret weapon that deflected flack? The thought was scary to the max!
The object later appeared over San Pedro and Long Beach before finally disappearing over the ocean somewhere off southern Orange County or northern San Diego County.
Shortly after my mother and I lost sight of it we once again heard the unmistakable sound of aircraft engines. By then the bombardment had almost petered out, and several Army Air Corps interceptors, P-38s that were probably based at Mines field (today the site of Los Angeles International Airport), approached from the northeast and buzzed off to the southeast, apparently chasing the object.
At that point, it was almost 4:00 a.m. Precisely how long we’d stood there is anybody’s guess, though I suspect that the whole episode, that is, from our leaving the shelter to meeting my father as he returned to house after both the object and the chase planes had disappeared, lasted about twenty-five minutes.
As I recall, the firing ceased shortly thereafter (the “all clear” didn’t actually sound until 7:30 a.m.), but nobody went to bed that night. The next morning’s edition of the Los Angeles Examiner, the local Hearst newspaper, which I still have tucked away safely, came out with a screaming, banner headline: “Air Battle Rages over Los Angeles,” followed by “One Plane Reported Downed on Vermont Avenue by Gunfire” in smaller type. This, of course, seemed at the time to be pure fantasy, typical Hearst yellow journalism, as no bombs fell, nor, apparently, was any plane, Japanese or otherwise, shot down anywhere in Southern California that night. However, in retrospect, the Examiner seems to have been right about one thing. As we’ll shortly see, there’s compelling evidence to support the contention that at least one of our planes did in fact crash (or crash-land) on South Vermont Avenue that morning
Canadian Ufologist and Founder of "HBCC Research" Abdicates The Field
By Frank Warren 10-25-06
Not unlike the phenomenon Brian Vike vigorously investigated, he suddenly and without warning dropped off the UFO radar. His last post (from him) on his web-site, "HBCC Research" read, "Time For a Break!"
Today, no links are accessible; however, his homepage, although not “specific” indicates his departure was due to health reasons. Moreover it states that the site will be the future home of “The Repository of The UFO Research Of Mr. Brian Vike.”
It further reads:
We are pleased to let you know that Brian is doing quite well and wisely stepping aside to regain his health and vigor. As many of you are aware he has often been in extreme pain while doing this “labor of love” for us all.
We wish him a speedy recovery and abundant blessings for his future!
It is now our intent to establish the historical data accumulated by Brian as archival resources for future generations.
The data was never intended for any purpose but as a repository of information accumulated from direct human experiences in the UFO phenomena.
Although Brian’s direct research is discontinued, at this time, we know that UFO cases will not end anytime too soon.
Perhaps there will be another to pick up the gauntlet and to continue this stellar work.
To Brian,
God bless you in all your endeavors and thank you for giving so selflessly to humankind in your financial outlay and countless hours of research and the loving care shown to the many who were lost in the confusion and fear of their experience.
But most especially, thank you for the excitement and integrity you brought to this amazing subject.
You are surely one of a kind!
“Live Long And Prosper”
Brian's dedication and hard work in Ufology doesn't go un-noticed--we wish him a speedy recovery, and hope his absence from Ufology is but a brief one.
An unidentified flying object observed in the night sky over the Ranches of Sonterra recently prompted an inquiry to the Ruidoso News and other agencies as to possible training missions of experimental aircraft.
Witnesses of the UFO did not necessarily claim that the objects observed were extra-terrestrial, just that they were airborne and unidentifiable. On Aug. 6 one witness, who requested anonymity, said she saw a strange object floating slowly over the Ranches of Sonterra, passing over the Spencer Theater before leaving sight.
"I awoke about 2:15 a.m. and happened to look out the door of my upper back deck and noticed something in the sky," the witness wrote. "At first I thought it was a satellite cruising above me but when I watched it closer it seemed to move erratically."
The woman said that as she watched the object, originating from the northern sky, it moved toward a larger rectangle shaped object. She said a second flying object also flew toward the larger object from a southern approach.
The rectangular-shaped aircraft "seemed to be made up of web-shaped lights," she continued. "It had a dot at the corner then a hazy line that met yet another light dot. I watched this phenomenon for about 15 minutes."
Over the course of the next several days the woman said she spotted fighter planes zooming at low speed around Ruidoso.
When she consulted her brother-in-law, a retired pilot, he theorized that what she had seen might have been an exercise by a fighter group stationed at Holloman, practicing refueling from a C-130.
"These giant planes' trails leave contrails that I may have seen as webbing," the woman said.
The woman lives in North Alto and said she has unobstructed views of the sky from all directions.
Another resident of Alto, a retired professional, also contacted the Ruidoso News.
In his report, the unnamed man said he observed in early August a bright light just above the horizon near the Alto Post office. Residents near Gavilan Canyon and Hull Street also reported strange lights.
When contacted by the News, Tom Fuller, public information officer for Holloman, said. "Neither Holloman Air Force Base nor White Sands Missile Range had anything flying over Ruidoso at 0200 on 6 Aug."
However, Fuller said, "we did have a lot of different aircraft (F-117, F-15, F-16 and T-38s) operating out of Holloman flying above 12,500 feet MSL or several thousand feet above the highest terrain in the general area on Aug. 7 from around 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. But these were nothing out of the norm."
Balloon tests out of White Sands also were not conducted in early August, he said. In seeking a response to the News' inquiry, Fuller's search for an explanation took more than four weeks.
To rule out a terrestrial explanation about aerial events, Fuller said the airbase, located 60 miles southwest of Ruidoso, is glad to respond to inquiries from the public and in recent years has received calls from as far away as Phoenix.
With regard to alleged "other worldly" sightings, Ful-ler said the Air Force's position is "no position.
"We've spoken on this and have nothing further to say," he said, while adding, that with the occasional "strange" inquiry coming into his office, "[Holloman] must be in the UFO phone book."
Fuller said the reporting procedure of strange objects and lights is to contact his office at 505-572-5406 with the date, time and GPS (Global Pos-itioning Satellite) coordinates of the object sighted.
He said that while he can provide an answer to questions related to activity out of Holloman and White Sands, he cannot speak for military installations in nearby states that sometimes conduct trainings over Ruidoso airspace, such as recent testing "over" Holloman Air Force base by developers of the F-22. He stressed, "Holloman does not test new, secret aircraft under development.
"We do have a test group out here performing 'new tests' but I cannot speak to those tests," he said.
Fuller said he wonders if with the 49th Fighter Wing stationed at Holloman AFB and with F-17 stealth missions having been conducted at Holloman in recent decades, if some training maneuvers "in the past haven't been what people have taken for UFOs operated by aliens."
Balloon testing
He also pointed to balloon testing and launches conducted by the National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) in Fort Sumner and other similar testing out of Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque as other possible sources of "unidentified flying objects" in the area.
Persons who feel they have observed something that cannot be explained by the U.S. government, can contact area representatives of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).
In Roswell, Dennis Balthaser can be reached at www.truthseekeratroswell.com
Bush Revises U.S. Space Policy - We Own The Universe!
Bush Seeks to Block Enemies From Space
By TERENCE HUNT The Associated Press The Washingpost 10-18-06
WASHINGTON -- President Bush has signed an order asserting the United States' right to deny adversaries access to space for hostile purposes.
Bush also said the United States would oppose the development of treaties or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space.
Turns out the "Bush Doctrine" extends to outer space, too.
As reported in the Washington Post, the president last month signed an order asserting the right of the United States to deny adversaries access to space for hostile purposes. At the same time, the order says the United States will accept no treaties limiting its own extraterrestrial activities.
While the order didn’t rouse much comment in the United States, it has raised some eyebrows -- and ire -- across the pond. As this story in the Independent notes, the order is being widely criticized as more of the pre-emptive swagger and unilateralism that has worked out so well in Iraq.
While it seems obvious that we want to prevent enemies from developing space-based weapons, was it really necessary, now, to issue a formal statement that America owns the skies?
The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Silicon Valley has opened the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, the institute announced this week.
The Sagan Center will conduct research on topics such as the ability of organisms to thrive in extreme environments as well as explorations of Mars and the moons of Jupiter for signs of life, the institute reports.
Founded in 1984, SETI is most famous for its radio searches for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. According to SETI CEO Tom Pierson, "our mission has always been to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.''
Pierson said when federal funding for extraterrestrial intelligence research was cut in 1994, SETI continued research, using funding from private donors.
"The proposed 50-percent cut in the NASA Astrobiology budget for 2007 is a clear reminder of how volatile government support for science can be,'' said Scott Hubbard, conceiver of the Sagan center. Hubbard said "our immediate goal is to raise $4 to $6 million over the next three years so that we can sustain our top researchers. The longer term vision is to establish endowed chairs and create additional laboratory capabilities,'' Hubbard said.
"We believe that the search for life in the universe is a multi-generational activity that requires an institutional commitment for the long haul,'' said Greg Papadopoulos, SETI chairman and Sun Microsystems executive vice president.
The Sagan Center, named after the famous astronomer and SETI board member, is located at 515 N. Wishman Road in Mountain View and is staffed by 50 principal investigators, boasting state-of-the-art facilities, according to SETI.
"Carl would have been thrilled that this new center, devoted to pursuing the scientific questions that fascinated him most, will bear his name,'' said Sagan's widow and long time collaborator Ann Druyan.
"Earthly Environments Could Flourish On Cold Mars . . ."
Life Below the Limit
AstrobiologyMagazine 10-21-06
A class of especially hardy microbes that live in some of the harshest Earthly environments could flourish on cold Mars and other chilly planets, according to a research team of astronomers and microbiologists.
In a two-year laboratory study, the researchers discovered that some cold-adapted microorganisms not only survived but reproduced at 30 degrees Fahrenheit, just below the freezing point of water. The microbes also developed a defense mechanism that protected them from cold temperatures. The researchers are members of a unique collaboration of astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute and microbiologists from the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute's Center of Marine Biotechnology in Baltimore, Md. Their results appear on the International Journal of Astrobiology website.
"The low temperature limit for life is particularly important since, in both the solar system and the Milky Way Galaxy, cold environments are much more common than hot environments," said Neill Reid, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute and leader of the research team. "Our results show that the lowest temperatures at which these organisms can thrive fall within the temperature range experienced on present-day Mars, and could permit survival and growth, particularly beneath Mars's surface. This could expand the realm of the habitable zone, the area in which life could exist, to colder Mars-like planets."
Armored fish, tusked mammals and gigantic "terror birds." That's a short recap of the weird animals in the hands-on exhibit "Bizarre Beasts: Past and Present," now at the National Geographic Museum.
Some pretty strange creatures -- all of which crawled, ran, swam or flew on planet Earth at some time -- are to be found here. There are dinosaur skeletons and touchable fossils and models. Learn how animals adapted as their environment changed. Check out the model of the whorl-tooth shark (pictured). You can even make a rubbing of a fossil to take with you. (But don't try to take that shark home!)
" . . . It may be sobering to think that our first calling card to extraterrestrial civilizations may have been “I Love Lucy,” but that’s probably exactly what has happened . . .."
By KEVIN LEWIS The Plainview Daily Herald 10-19-06
“Unless it was a mile wide, this thing was pretty close to the ground, maybe 1,000-2,000 feet.”
Mark Harmon promises he’s not crazy, despite what some of his family and friends are telling him.
Harmon, a 48-year-old grain elevator operator at Providence Farm Supply, believes he had a close encounter with a UFO on Monday night outside his home in the 600 block of Wayland.
“Never in my life have I seen anything like this,” Harmon said. “I really don’t know what I saw.”
Harmon was in the middle of watching Monday Night Football when he stepped outside.
“I stepped out in the backyard to smoke a cigarette and happened to be looking up because it was such a pretty night,” Harmon recalled.
From out of nowhere, Harmon encountered lights like he had never seen before.
“From the edge of the house, something came over. It was in a perfect V-shape. There were seven distinctive yellowish-white lights,” he said. “I’ve seen UFO programs where people have drawn this exact same picture.”
Harmon said the lights weren’t flashing or changing colors, and “weren’t moving real fast.
“Unless it was a mile wide, this thing was pretty close to the ground, maybe 1,000-2,000 feet.”
Harmon said he saw the object, which was moving east, for about 4-5 seconds before it disappeared behind a tree. He hurried around the tree but never saw the lights again.
“I don’t know if you had to be right under it” to see the lights or what, he said.
Harmon found it especially interesting that whatever the object was did not make any noise.
“The thing that got me the most was it was dead silent,” he said.
“I was dumbfounded.”
Harmon immediately called TV stations in Lubbock to see if they had heard of any strange object in the skies over Plainview.
None had.
“I was truly curious if anybody else in the area saw anything.”
Harmon was supposed to call the person at KLBK back after the 10 o’clock newscast, but after telling his two teenage sons and brother-in-law about his encounter, “we got to talking about it and I never called them back.”
And what did his family think about his story?
“My 16-year-old (Dustin) said he had never seen me act this way about anything before,” Harmon said. “My 18-year-old (John) was kind of looking at me like these farmers have been.”
Those farmers were customers at Providence Grain Supply on Tuesday morning when Harmon was telling his story to anyone who would listen.
“I feel like the person on the (TV) program” trying to convince people they saw something. “These farmers are getting a kick out of it, but I know I saw something.”
Harmon did a good enough job convincing his boss, Glen Graves, that he saw something. Graves did some research on the Internet and found a picture taken Oct. 16 in Croatia that Harmon said “was the same-looking deal, just a little fuzzier than what I saw.”
Harmon, who moved here about a year ago from Dallas, was married to the late Lisa Daffron, a Plainview native who died July 26, 2005.
“My wife used to be an (astronomy) buff. We had a couple of telescopes.”
Harmon is hoping somebody else in town saw what he witnessed Monday night, if for no other reason to confirm to disbelieving friends that he, in fact, saw something up there.
“I’m starting to doubt myself a little, but I know I saw something.”
Nellis Air Force Base will be answering a lot of questions after putting on a light show in North Las Vegas. It happened around 8:30 Wednesday night near Las Vegas Boulevard and Civic Center.
At first, many people thought they were watching a plane crash, but Nellis says a flare fell from an A10 aircraft. One witness grabbed their camera phone and started recording the falling flare. Luckily, it didn't hit any people or homes, but neighbors say it gave them quite a scare.
"We were just standing out, just talking a group of us and all of a sudden a aircraft flew across and we saw a big flare coming down and we didn't know what it was and everybody started pointing and then as it continued to fall down the line just above our heads people started to run for cover," said witness Curtis Martin.
The military uses illumination flares to light up targets at night.
The MoD has investigated 28 reports of UFO sightings in Wales since 2002. The encounters included a black object hovering over Rhyl, a flying disc over Newport and a spinning craft with legs spotted over the Valleys
By Sam Coates The Times On Line 10-18-06
MINISTERS are personally vetting thousands of controversial freedom of information requests, causing a bottleneck that is costing the taxpayer millions.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, is proposing a draconian crackdown on the public’s right to access information held by the State. He has claimed that the introduction of rules opening up Whitehall are clogging up government and distracting ministers.
Already 56 Opposition MPs and senior Labour backbenchers have registered opposition, including the chairmen of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs committees.
An economic report commissioned by the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) has disclosed that one in five requests is being personally considered by ministers. Ministers were never intended to play a substantial role in taking decisions.
Requests involving ministers take 5½ hours’ more work than the average request and cost £495, almost twice as much. The Times has learnt that some ministers are getting their special advisers to examine requests, which campaigners and MPs say is inappropriate.
Under the proposals, opposition politicians, campaign groups and journalists will have to ration requests to public bodies or risk their inquiries being automatically rejected. Organisations such as The Times would be limited to two questions to a Whitehall department every 60 days.
In addition, requests for sensitive and controversial information will be more likely to be refused because they take up too much government time.
Government departments can refuse requests if the cost of searching is more than £600. Lord Falconer is changing the rules so that that would include “reading, consideration and consultation time”.
Lord Falconer believes that the changes would save £5.7 million and result in a 19 per cent drop in requests. Campaigners say that this money could be saved if ministers did not vet so many requests. Baroness Ashton of Upholland, a DCA minister, told the BBC: “We have to look at how the Act is being implemented and the cost to the taxpayer, and consider issues about good governance.”
The Freedom of Information Act has been enthusiastically embraced by the public, with 121,000 requests a year, costing £35.5 million. The Government is not proposing a blanket fee for each request.
DATA IN DEMAND
The MoD has investigated 28 reports of UFO sightings in Wales since 2002. The encounters included a black object hovering over Rhyl, a flying disc over Newport and a spinning craft with legs spotted over the Valleys
Child Support Agency has had to pay refunds to more than 3,000 men after DNA tests revealed that they had been wrongly named by mothers in paternity suits
Information about events leading to faulty TB vaccines being given to nearly one million children
Regional figures for knife and alcohol-related crime
Local authority spending on consultants’ fees
Lists of guests entertained at Chequers
How much will Tony Blair will be entitled to when he leaves office? (£2.6m)
Revelations Will Be Made Today On The Subject of UFOs
By Juan Pablo Carranza Al Dia Nacionales 10-17-06
Tonight in Escazú, UFO enthusiasts from all over the world will meet to listen to Óscar Sierra, an expert investigator regarding extraterrestrial visitations in Costa Rica.
The event will take place at the meeting hall at “Big Mike’s” in Los Anonos.
Photographs, video and other documentation will be presented in support of alien visitation in the country.
Gilda Aburto, a nationally renown Ufologist comments that Sierra has been investigating the UFO phenomenon in Costa Rica for over twenty years, and any events relating to it, including alleged alien abduction. “Wherever a UFO has been seen, Oscar has been there; he is very enthusiastic, and will be presenting some very revealing material at this conference,” commented the expert, who added that the subject will be dealt with utmost seriousness.
If you would like to attend, and or would like more information regarding the event, please call: 289-6333 or 289-6087.
By Piotr Cielebias "NOL - the Eastern European UFO Journal" 10-15-06
On 12th October 2006, at 17:51 the witness saw a cylindrical object slowly passing above the capital city of Latvia. The object was heading north of Riga.
The object dimensions reminded a fuselage of a plane but without wings, tail and illuminators. The object surface was smooth.
It is the second case of this kind in Latvia. Our organization [Baltic States UFO Researchers - http://www.necton.lv/] managed to obtain three reports and one photo.
As in previous instances, there was also difference between the object captured on the photo and that observed directly by witnesses.
On photos the object looks vaguely and imprecisely and it resembles a cloud. Visual examination allows to distinct contours of the cylinder and its ability to reflect light.
In the Huaytara Highlands on the border between Ica and Huancavelica, a group of engineers performing work for mining company Antapite managed to take a photo of an Unidentified Flying Object, commonly known as a UFO. As can be seen in the image, it was a silvery object that stands out against a clear blue sky and contrasts with the area's topography. Accoridng to Luis Alberto Villar Perez, identified with DNi 3057454, the photo was taken on September 22 from the Jatun Orcco mining project in the localities of Palmacancha, Huarpo and San Migel in the peasant district of Santiago de Chocorvos. The area is located at 4,300 meters above sea level in the province of Huaytara, Huancavelica. Said photos were taken by Wilber Manrique, a geologist from BISA Ingenieros.
"At the moment I took the photo, I didn't see anything strange at all. Rather, I was focusing on capturing the area of the demolition," recalls Manrique, adding that his digital camera's screen is small. "A load of material came out and I took several phots, a total of 12 images in a period of 4 to 5 minutes, with 20-30 second intervals."
From the place where the images were taken to where the place where the demolition blasts were taking place, there is a distance of 1300 meters, between the Leila Seam Trench 1 and the Luisa Seam Trench 2. "At that time I neither felt nor saw anything strange. Inspecting the images on 9/23 at 7 a.m., I was startled to find a UFO upon downloading the photos," he added. Wilber Manrique was in the company of Ing. Nestor Ccasa, Anthony Gomez and others.
A strange object was spotted in the Tel Aviv skies Thursday afternoon by three flat mates standing on their terrace. The three told ynet they suddenly saw a flash of light cross the sky as they were standing on their terrace located on Rothschild Boulevard.
"We suddenly saw a strip of bright light flying downwards," said Lior one of the three flat mates. "There was a sense of something supernatural happening, I have never seen such a thing," she added.
The three testified that the unidentified object didn’t make a sound and it remained in the sky for about 15 minutes, they said it was orange at first and then it turned white.
Meir, one of the three flat mates, didn’t want to miss the opportunity of documenting the unidentified object crossing the sky and quickly grabbed his camera capturing the picture you see here. "This thing fell downwards and before landing it made a right turn and disappeared from view," he told ynet.
So have aliens from outer space arrived in Tel Aviv? Experts are very skeptical. Chairman of the Israeli Astronomical Association and the director of the observatory in Givataim Yigal Pat-El said he was convinced it was an aircraft.
"If they saw it at five o'clock in the afternoon it is very likely that it was an aircraft emitting white smoke, in the picture it even looks like it has two engines, and you can see that it is flying towards the horizon and not downwards," said Pat-El.
Pat-El added that the reddish tint was created by the angle of the sun's rays, just as it paints clouds red at sunset. He explained that when the sun sets, its rays pass through and color the clouds red, and this is what he believes happened
Surprisingly, despite the scary feeling Lior tends to agree with the expert. "It was my assumption as well," she said. "I also thought the orange tint came from the sunset."
Police say they received no reports of irregular aerial activity in the area.
EUROPEAN UNION: UFOs Taped From An Airplane To England
By: Piotr Cielebias "NOL - the Eastern European UFO Journal" 10-15-06
Presented video was taken by KD [a skywatcher from Silesian region] during his flight to England. [To see video click "More" link below]
At about 6:00 – 7:00 a.m., Mr. KD – a Pole – managed to capture two chance lighting objects in vicinity of a passenger plane heading to England from Poland. The objects remained invisible for him.
Mr. KD is a skywatcher based in Polish Silesian region. He managed to capture other objects and sightings previously. In October 2006, as many Poles, he set up to United Kingdom where he is going to stay there for about a year.
The witness managed to capture two orange objects engaged in descending motion. The video was taken accidentally and is 12 seconds long.
Local UFO Expert Gets a Shot On The Sci Fi Channel
By Mark Hare Rochester Democrat & Chronicle 10-15-06
(October 15, 2006) — When his friends learned that Rich Dolan of Rochester would host a Sci Fi Channel show on mysteries, legends and the paranormal, they worried about his reputation as a scholar.
"I have no reputation," Dolan cracks. "I write about UFOs."
The show, Sci Fi Investigates, airs at 10 p.m. Wednesdays on the Sci Fi Channel (cable channel 59). The first of six episodes, on voodoo, appeared Oct. 11.
Others in the series will investigate Bigfoot, Mothman (who allegedly appeared 40 years ago in West Virginia), paranormal hotspots, the afterlife and the Roswell, N.M., site of an alleged crash of alien spacecraft.
Dolan, who has done dozens of interviews and narrations on UFOs on other cable channels, was approached last spring by the Sci Fi series' producers. He is one of four hosts. The others include an archaeologist, a crime scene investigator and "Boston Rob" Mariano, billed as "the skeptic," who began his celebrity career as a contestant on the CBS series, Survivor. He later married Amber Brkich, the winner of Survivor All-Stars and last year the two of them were contestants on CBS' The Amazing Race.
Why Rich Dolan? "I have an interest in weird things," he says. If the ratings are decent, the show could be renewed. Already he's been approached by producers considering similar types of shows. "But in TV, nothing is for sure until it happens."
Dolan, 44, is a trained historian, who attended Oxford University and later studied American Cold War diplomacy at the University of Rochester, where he earned a master's degree. His book, UFOs and the National Security State, is the first of two volumes that provides a chronology of what he calls the national security dimensions of the UFO phenomenon from 1941 to 1973. A second volume, due out in early 2007, will describe events from 1973 to the present.
Dolan clearly believes we are not alone in the universe and that aliens may well have visited our planet. But his interest as a historian is in getting the facts. If there are hundreds of sightings of bright, perfectly triangular-shaped objects that can accelerate rapidly, "wouldn't you want to know what they are?" he asks. "If it's military technology, isn't that worth knowing?"
Dolan is a meticulous researcher, who also runs a successful resume writing service from his 19th Ward home, plays vintage baseball at the Genesee Country Museum, lectures on UFOs and can teach groups to play the harmonica in two hours. And he's married with two young children.
It strikes me that he is the polar opposite of Boston Rob, a brash jockish guy who has parlayed Survivor into a nice career. "We have nothing in common," Dolan admits, "but we became friends. I was branded 'the believer'" so there are many exchanges with "the skeptic." "He's really pretty smart," Dolan says of Mariano. The relationships among the four hosts keep the show lively.
In the first episode on voodoo, Dolan "did a midnight dance with a funky, wild voodoo princess holding a boa constructor over my head."
He can't give details of the shows yet to air, but he predicts viewers will find the ordinary people interviewed compelling — whether you believe them or not.
As for a career in television, Dolan's not counting on it, but if it would buy a bigger audience for his books, he'd welcome it.
Residents of a Lancashire town who were concerned about objects seen in the sky are being reassured they are simply low flying planes.
People in Accrington reported seeing a plane apparently swooping to avoid a cluster of objects.
But the "objects" turned out to be planes waiting above the town as fog delayed landing at Manchester Airport.
Some of the sightings may have also been balloons released in a fundraising event for the North West Air Ambulance.
'Standard practice'
A spokeswoman for Manchester Airport said: "We have had fog all morning which is clearing now, which has caused incoming and outbound flights to be delayed.
"We have spaced the take-off and landing of planes more than we do normally," she added.
"We hold the planes - it is quite standard - and bring them in when there is an appropriate slot. It is standard practice."
The foggy conditions cleared later on Friday morning and the air traffic returned to normal.
The event occurred on Sunday around 21:00 hours and was seen by a group of people that included employees from the Hotel Potrero de los Funes. They claim having seen a large silver light the size of a car over Quebrada de los Condores. A couple who owns a crafts shop in the Hotel was the first to see the object. They later informed everyone else in the lodging and the sighting was shared by all.
"They all saw it - the reception desk crew and some people who were also staying at the hotel," said the man named Juan Torres.
According to the report, the UFO "was over the mountain for over 20 minutes and since the night was clear, it was easily seen."
They initially speculated that it was an airplane, but given the object's passivity and its light, they realized they were looking at something else.
"A light appeared suddenly and was surrounded by other lights. It seemed to head toward the hotel, but it remained stationary and then began turning on and off. Its intensity increased and decreased until it extinguished itself, leaving only a mark in the sky," said another hotel employee.
". . . How The MoD Decides If UFOs Are Potential Battlecruisers . . ."
UFO menace ‘not a threat’
Metro 10-13-06
The Defence Ministry has denied that Britain is in peril from alien warships descending from the skies, while acknowledging that has received 714 reports of unidentified flying objects in the last six years.
Junior defence minister Derek Twigg said yesterday that of the 714 reports since 2001, only 12 had been 'deemed to be worthy of further consideration' – although he did not go into details of how the MoD decides if UFOs are potential battlecruisers from the Orion Nebula, or just funny-looking pigeons.
After further analysis, none of the 12 potential Betelgeusian Death Fleets were determined to 'demonstrate any threat to the integrity of the UK Air Defence Region'.
Mr Twigg's comments were in reply to Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green. The Wood Green area of London has long been believed to be a prime target for demolition by alien destructo-rays.
He added that: 'Reports (of UFOs) are analysed solely to consider whether there is any reason to believe that UK airspace has been compromised by the reported activity.'
Earlier this year, another junior defence minister, Don Touhig, denied that the MoD had ever run a 'UFO project' – in other words, that any co-ordinated attempt was made to determine if UFOs were alien spacecraft. Rather, he also claimed that they were merely checked by desk officers to rule out the possibility that they – whatever they are – were violating British airspace.
So Britain remains safe from the threat of trans-dimensional super-villains raining fire and death from the heavens – for now. But can this lucky state of affairs last forever?
At 21:05 hours on October 10, 2006, residents of the Quintas Sur Sector, located between Santa Rosa and Toay, reported seeing a great light which vanished unexpectedly.
According to witnesses, upon leaving their home and remaining outside, chatting on the sidewalk, they saw how "a luminous spot appeared suddenly out of nowhere" appearing static for several minutes. It then "increased its size gradually until it reached a dimension or volume 10 times greater than the planet Venus at that hour."
The witnesses also noted that after having reached that size, "the luminosity began to contract, initiating a slow movement in a south-southeastern direction until it vanished."
The sighting had a duration of 10-15 seconds and the luminosity was "orange/yellow in color, with irregular borders like waves" and was located some 75 degrees over the horizon. Witnesses added that the light source "gave the impression of having rotated and aimed its light toward where they [the witnesses] were standing, prior to beginning its movement."
The witnesses (a man and a woman) are competent adults, living in the aforementioned sector of the capital city of La Pampa.
Mexico's Teotihuacan . . . Launch Pad For An Attempt To Communicate With Extraterrestrial Life
Time capsule to be beamed from Mexican pyramid
By Cyntia Barrera Diaz Reuters 10-10-06
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Teotihuacan, once the center of a sprawling pre-Hispanic empire, is set to become the launch pad for an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life.
Starting on Tuesday, enthusiasts from around the world will have a chance to submit text, images, video and sounds that reflect human nature to be included in the message.
Those contributions -- part of media company Yahoo's "Time Capsule" project -- will be digitalized and beamed with a laser into space on October 25 from the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, now an archeological site near Mexico City.
Archeologists say a culture centered in Teotihuacan, known as the City of the Gods, dominated Mesoamerica for hundreds of years during the first millennium. It is unclear what led to the society's collapse.
"We have this incredible ancient site and from that site we can project contemporary content," Srinija Srinivasan, Yahoo's editor in chief, told Reuters. "What is new is the ability to capture this information in such scale."
In the 1970s, astronomer Carl Sagan compiled a record with sounds and images, including a mariachi band and greetings in an ancient Sumerian language, to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
His record was sent out with the Voyager spacecraft in the hope that extraterrestrial life forms would eventually find it.
I did not know who or how to contact someone with this "sighting" and still a little apprehensive to call my local TVstation. My fiance and I were driving in Tampa this morning and at around 9:50 am, we saw what appeared to be a craft which was white and bulbous (which I assume to be the front) and a lip on the back-end; it looked like a side view of a horse shoe crab. We had a very good view of it and we could tell that it was traveling far into the distance at a very high rate of speed and then it was gone. it just seem to disappear. This went on for less than a minute and about 2 minutes later we saw a fighter jet (MacDill AFB is not far from where we were) which seem to be in pursuit, it was following the same trajectory as this craft. Just so you are aware, Tampa International Airport is not far from where we were and we can always see the planes come and go and there is NO WAY that a commercial airplane could be traveling at that rate of speed and so high up taking off from the airport. We were just wondering if you have heard about any sightings in or around this area recently, or maybe explain to us what we saw. Any information would be much appreciated, thanks!
In an attempt to end the turf wars that come with planning a city-wide event during the week of July 4, the City of Roswell will coordinate the 2007 UFO Festival.
The 2007 event marks the 60th anniversary of the Roswell Incident and the 10-year anniversary of the festival itself.
According to a press release from the city, it is the mission of the City of Roswell to unite the citizens of Roswell by attracting international visitors to an all-inclusive, entertaining and family-oriented event that celebrates the Roswell Incident of 1947.
Jack Swickard, president of the International UFO Museum and Research Center Board of Directors, said the board is happy about the city’s decision to step up to the plate.
“It has been our hope at the museum that the city would take command of the festival,” said Swickard. “We met with (Mayor Sam LaGrone) right after this year’s festival and he indicated that he wanted to get involved.”
Swickard said the museum took over coordinating the festival three years ago and it has not been profitable during that time.
“The museum has lost money on the festival over the years,” said Swickard. “It’s appropriate that the city organize it because the community has to back it 100 percent for it to be a success.”
Swickard said the museum staff can now focus on their role in the festival, rather than trying to organize the entire event alone.
“We will continue to provide the more serious side of the festival, such as guest speakers and discussion panels,” he said.
Swickard said the museum was preparing to launch an international fund-raising drive for the new museum, which will be built at the southeast corner of Main and Eighth.
“We have our fingers crossed and hope to break ground during the next festival,” he said.
A festival committee has been formed to lead planning efforts, with LaGrone serving as chairman.
The committee is currently accepting written proposals for festival activities, vendors, exhibitors, speakers and other entertainment. Proposals can be submitted by mail to P.O. Box 3234in Roswell or via email at festival@roswellufofest.com.
The deadline for activity, exhibitor, speaker and entertainment proposals is Oct. 25. The deadline for vendor proposals is May 23, 2007.
New Planets Make Discovery of Life in Space More Likely
By Marcus Leroux The Times 10-6-06
Sighting raises chance of an astronomer’s dream coming true
SCIENTISTS have discovered 16 possible new planets deep in the Milky Way, which they say increases the chances of there being life elsewhere in the galaxy.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope believe that the discovery could constitute a new class of planets, because they hug their parent stars so closely that they complete their orbits in as little as ten hours. Stars are differentiated from planets by the nuclear reactions that take place in their core.
These “ultra-short period planets” orbit their stars more quickly than any previously known planets. The previous shortest known orbit was between 1.2 and 2.5 days.
More than 200 planets have been discovered outside our own solar system, but the new bodies identified by Hubble are 26,000 light years away, at least ten times as far from Earth as those previously discovered. This has led the scientists to conclude that there are billions of planets in our galaxy, the Milky Way.
“We all are dreamers, and part of that dream is to find life somewhere,” said Mario Liveo, head of the space programme at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, which oversees Hubble operations. “We’re finding that the galaxy is full of planets, and the chances are, somewhere out there, we will find one with the conditions necessary to be habitable.”
All but two of the 16 planets are being considered “candidate planets”, because they are so far away it is difficult conclusively to identify them as planets. But astronomers from Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (Sweeps) think most, if not all, of the candidates stand a good chance of becoming fully fledged planets eventually. The 16 planets are unnamed, because scientists have not yet even named the stars they orbit.
The hunt for extrasolar planets — those from outside our solar system — is far from straightforward. They are so distant they cannot be seen even with the strongest telescopes. Astronomers spot them because, during their orbit, they briefly block light from distant stars — an event known as a transit.
A planet must be about the size of Jupiter to block enough light to be detected by Hubble. Sweeps estimate that there are as many as six billion Jupiter-sized stars in the galaxy.
The discovery of the new “ultra-short period planets” suggests that stars smaller than the Sun can pull planets closer without burning them up, according to the findings, which were published in the science journal Nature yesterday.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The International Astronomical Union’s Committee for Small Body Nomenclature designates and names minor planets
They are assigned provisional designations in the form “2001 KX76” (the first part is a year; the second defines a sequential order of discovery within that year)
If enough sightings are made of the same minor planet to calculate an orbit, it is assigned a number, its “designation”. It can then be cited as, eg, (28978) 2001 KX76
After the designation is assigned, the discoverer can propose a name. For example, (28978) 2001 KX76 was called Ixion and is now known as (28978) Ixion
The name becomes official after its publication in the Minor Planet Circular, with a brief citation explaining its significance. This may be a few years after the initial sighting
Names must be 16 characters or fewer, pronounceable and preferably one word (such as Annefrank (5535 Annefrank), although there are exceptions (such as James Bond (9007 James Bond)
It was seen at midnight over Avenida de la Constitucion by a dozen people. Astrophysicists believe that it is not a meteorite. Defense sources claim that no vehicle belonging to the Ejercito del Aire flew over the city's airspace at that time.
The object seen was shiny and rounded: "It was fixed in the sky and then began moving to the right." These are the words of one of the people who, at 12 midnight yesterday, were astounded as they looked skyward from Avenida de la Constitucion.
A round, shiny orange light remained overhead for five minutes. It later adopted a triangular shape and went away until it vanished. Dozens of Granadans viewed the event in astonishment. After a while, one witness saw and heard the transit of a jet airplane flying at low altitude. "It flew by twice."
However, neither Granada Airport nor the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, headquartered in Granada, are aware of this event. Pablo Santos, a scientist with the aforementioned institute, has examined the images sent to "20 Minutos" by one witness and believes the phenomenon could be an atmospheric reflection. The expert dismisses the possibility that it could be a meteor shower or a meteorite. Antonio Salinas of the Sociedad de Investigaciones Biofisicas in Granada, agrees with this perception: "A meteorite does not remain static for several minutes," adding: "In military circles, interceptors are immediately put on alert whenever an unidentified aircraft is sighted within the air space."
"It was nothing known; not even an airplane," declared Eva Martin cuttingly. She was one of the persons who witnessed on Tuesday midnight how an orange light stopped in front of home's terrace, changed shape and vanished. Other readers have advised "20 Minutos" of having had similar sightings elsewhere in the city.
"The fact that he orange light remained in the same spot for some minutes and then moved is a sign that we are facing a genuine UFO." These are the words of Rafael Casares, an expert in this type of phenomena, who describes the province as being a "sightings hot spot."
"Perhaps what concerns me more than the light is the fact that we heard a military aircraft and that no one explained to us what we saw," says Martin, who was in the company of four other individuals who witnessed "how the light vanished over Torres Bermejas."
* SOURCE: 20 Minutos.es (http://20minutos.es)
* (translation (c) 2006, Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Christian Quintero, Planeta UFO)
"The People Were Gone Ater The Cloud Went Up and Floated Away"
There is mystical side to almost every war
Pravda 10-9-06
The unknown pages of history eventually come to light as the secret archives become declassified, memoirs and witnesses’ accounts are published. However, both historians and researchers of anomalous events are still perplexed over some mystical cases that took place in days of old.
Nearly all books on abnormal events have a reference to the mysterious disappearance of the 4th Royal Norfolk Battalion during World War I. The inexplicable occurred on August 21, 1915, as the Allies were waging the bloody Battle of the Dardanelles to secure access to the seaway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. According to eyewitness accounts by three New Zealand soldiers, the 4th Royal Norfolk Regiment was instructed to assist a unit launching an offensive against the enemy lines on Position 60. A strange cloud fell over the soldiers as they were moving along the bed of a dried-up river. The people were gone after the cloud went up and floated away. The eyewitnesses claimed the cloud looked weird (“very dense as if it was some solid structure”). Besides, the cloud moved against the wind after engulfing the soldiers. At the end of the war the Turks confirmed that they had not captured any personnel of the 4th Royal Norfolk Battalion.
There were lots of theories with regard to that mysterious disappearance. Some ufologists believed the soldiers had been snatched by UFO disguised as a cloud. Others talked about a window to the other dimension, the one that went ajar for some reasons in the above location. Yet the historians were quite skeptical about the extraordinary explanations, and with reason.
First, why did it take so long for the three New Zealanders to speak out? They made the story public 50 years after the Battle of the Dardanelles. Second, it is the regiment that disappeared, not the battalion. The numbers got confused too. It is the 5th battalion, not the 4th one, that went missing on August 12th. Third, the bodies of 122 soldiers of the 5th Royal Norfolk Battalion were eventually discovered in September 1919. Taking into the account the scale of carnage (27 thousand Allied troops were killed and buried in an unmarked mass grave), the bodies of the remaining 145 soldiers of the battalion may have been lost in the process.
So the New Zealanders made the story up? It is hard to make a categorical judgment since the official wartime records indicate that a heavy fog actually fell over the battlefield on August 21. However, there is no mentioning whatsoever concerning any strange cloud.
Berlin - A German lawyer hopes to drum up more business by pursuing state compensation claims for people who believe they were abducted by aliens.
"There's quite obviously demand for legal advice here," Jens Lorek said on Thursday. "The trouble is, people are afraid of making fools of themselves in court."
Lorek, a lawyer based in the eastern city of Dresden who specializes in social and labor law, said he hoped to expand his client base by taking on the unusual work.
He has yet to win any abduction claims, but says there are plenty of potential clients, noting that extra-terrestrial watchdogs report scores of alien assaults every year.
"These people could appeal for therapies or cures," he said.
Lorek, 41, is pinning his hopes for success on a German law which grants kidnap victims the right to state compensation.
Asked if he was worried he might look ridiculous by seeking justice for clients haunted by aliens, Lorek was unfazed.
According to a report by Mexican researcher Alfonso Salazar, Captain Luis Guillermo Cruz, first officer of a Boeing 737-200, registration XA-MAR, reported a tubular unidentified flying object with a metallic appearance directly over Lake Tequesquitengo in the Mexican state of Morelos.
The sighting occurred on September 16, 2006 at 14:00 hrs. during a flight from Huatulco to Mexico City along air corridor L-47. Weather conditions were clear with some clouds.
According to the witness, he was alerted by an intense reflection visible four miles away from the airline, toward the right side of the cabin. At first he thought it could be a glider, but as they approached, he had a clear observation of an unknown object.
He added that the tubular flying object crossed at the same altitude the airliner was flying but in the opposite direction and with a north/south trajectory, remaining a mile and a half distant from the airliner.
The object vanished 4 minutes later.
* (translation (c) 2006, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Ana Luisa Cid)
"It worries me that nobody explained what we saw in the sky"
20minutos.es 10-6-06
“It was nothing known, not an airplane,” sharply affirms Eva Martin, one of the people who observed an orange light while she was standing on the terrace of her house; “it changed formed and later disappeared,” Martin explained. Like her, several readers have confirmed to 20 minutes that they saw the same in different points from the city.
“The orange light stayed in one spot for several minutes and later moved as to signal that we were before a genuine UFO”. The declarations are of Rafael Casares an expert in this type of phenomena, and that describes the province as the “hot zones in sightings”.
“Perhaps what worries me more is not the light, but that later we listened to a military airplane and, mainly, that nobody has explained to us what we saw”, Martin says. Next to her there were other four people whom observed how “the light disappeared on Torres Bermejas”.
While returning to his home in Santa Lucia a youth noticed strange lights in a field; as he approached he saw a “round craft with lights” hovering a meter off the ground
They live among us, even in our country; they take our form and live in our society; their feet are planted on the ground but they gaze at the heavens. One treats, by all means, of those who they affirm to have seen UfOs.
The last found unit of this species, is Nicholas Diaz. Two months ago, in Santa Lucia, he had a vision. While he crossed the city on bicycle, at daybreak, he saw strange lights in the field and thought that it was a patrol craft. “I thought that they were chasing to someone”.
But when he approached about 100 meters from the object, he found something that he never had seen in its life: a round structure, with lights, suspended about a meter off the ground, totally quiet, he reported. Nicholas was frightened, but he called to his relatives, and they saw the craft as well; they confirmed what he saw, and said he wasn’t crazy.
From the roof of his house they observed the UfO fortwenty minutes. “First it was motionless and later began to move slightly thus”, explained the boy, doing sliding gestures.
To this day he still feels a little scared when recounting the event to the press. When he looks at the stars, he wonders if they’re UFOs.
He does however feel a little relieved as two fishermen have also come forward and reported they saw the craft as well.
By TOM SHARPE AND Jason Auslander The New Mexican 10-3-06
Sky-watchers across the western U.S. reported seeing bright lights late Sunday, but theories abound on just what they saw.
It was probably a meteor, one agency said. A UFO expert said space junk is another possibility.
And depending on the observer, this thing that hurtled across the darkness was either red, orange, yellow, blue or white. Or some combination of the above.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said six people called his dispatcher to report the lights in the sky, including one who thought it might have been a falling airplane.
The National UFO Reporting Center in eastern Washington State reported that about 30 people across the West reported seeing something in the sky, with most of the calls coming from Colorado.
Menka Jain, who was driving near Los Alamos on Sunday night, said she saw what looked to be an orange fiery projectile that exploded into pieces.
Peggy Crumbacher, who lives south of Santa Fe off N.M. 14, said she looked to the north at about 11:15 p.m. ``It went from white to blue, and then I could see it turned toward the north, and then it absolutely disappeared,'' she said. ``This was not a meteor. Meteors would be bright lights.''
Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center said Sunday evening's reports began with a fireball over Seattle about 9:26 p.m. New Mexico time.
He said other reports Sunday evening came from:
_Winslow, Ariz., where a large light green fireball was observed at 10:18 p.m.
_Cheyenne, Wyo., where an airplane pilot flying at 30,000 feet observed to the south at 11:15 p.m. at approximately the same altitude a bright object that seemed to eject five golden objects out its back end at regular intervals. The objects remained visible for about 30 seconds.
_Cascade, Colo., where eight to 10 orange objects were seen flying from north to south for about 10 seconds about 11:15 p.m. An airplane was spotted nearby about 10 seconds later.
_Hartsel, Colo., where eight to 10 glowing orange, yellow and red objects were seen about 11:15 p.m. moving south to north. Several of the objects broke off in different directions, while the lead objects changed their color to blue and white before disappearing within one minute.
_Raton, N.M., where a motel employee observed a large gold star about 11:20 p.m. that split into three, then seven objects that moved in a straight line for several seconds.
Davenport said similar lights were reported Sunday evening in Roseville, Calif.; Boulder, Colo.; Silver City and Las Cruces.
``The first thing that comes to my mind was the possibility of space debris,'' he said. ``But usually when that happens, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) at Peterson Air Force Base (in Colorado) makes a statement. ... And I have not heard from NORAD.''
Davenport said some of Sunday's reports had the characteristics of a meteor -- fragments coming off a main object, objects moving in a straight line, flaring up like a match and lasting only a few seconds.
Federal Aviation Administration officials also said the lights were likely a meteor, according to KOB-TV. A person at LodeStar Astronomy Center in Albuquerque didn't know about the lights, and neither did a person who answered the phone at Santa Fe Community College's planetarium.
Follow up: Is The Roswell UFO Museum & Annual UFO Festival Becoming a Thing of The Past?
By Dennis Balthaser 10-1-06
As a follow up to my September 1, 2006 editorial entitled, “Is the Roswell UFO Museum & Annual UFO Festival becoming a thing of the past?” this editorial deals with the inadequate response I received from the President of the Museum’s Board of Directors and my reply to him.
In the editorial found here I mentioned 14 items of concern not only to me as a resident of Roswell and as a serious UFO researcher, (which were not addressed in the Board President’s response), but also the views of many in the community.
The city of Roswell has taken over the annual Festival for next July (the 60th anniversary of the Roswell Incident) and preliminary indications indicate it should be well organized and again bring credit to Roswell, unlike the past few years annual event that were disappointing for the community under the “control and sanctioning” of the UFO Museum. I suggested in my editorial that changes were needed for both the annual Festival and the UFO Museum method of operation. The city of Roswell has initiated one of those changes.
Response from the IUFOMRC [click on image]
My Response to the IUFOMRC
September 29, 2006 Jack Swickard and Board of Directors International UFO Museum and Research Center
Mr. Swickard and Board Members, Your September 14, 2006 response to my “editorial” which you referred to as “letter” was not only disappointing, but also predictable. Sadly, none of the “14 items of concern” were addressed “directly or adequately.”
I’m aware that several board members are totally unsatisfied with you as the President of the Board, and the actions of the Director, and by you responding to me on UFO Museum stationary and stating “the Board does not agree with me”, is erroneous and inaccurate to put it mildly. Was the board advised of your response to me, (since you stated “our opinion of your views will be reflected in the brevity of this reply”), and did the board approve the threatening letters to me and other researchers sent by U.S. Mail from the Director during the past few years?
There are many in this community that have also been voicing their dissatisfaction with the Director of the Museum and the way the Board has allowed her to operate, but you have chosen to ignore not only my comments in the editorial, but have also helped to promote that dissatisfaction by your lack of response, which has created an unhealthy atmosphere not only in Roswell, but through out the media and much of the UFO Community.
The editorial was distributed to those that needed to know what is going on in Roswell with the Museum and the Festival, unlike your comment that I should limit my communication. Are you trying to censor me speaking out as a concerned citizen and UFO researcher like the Director has threatened to censor my work? Except for your Director trying to discredit me with documentary film companies and other researchers that posted the editorial, the responses to the editorial have been positive. Change is needed.
As you of all people know Jack, my goal as a recognized and respected UFO researcher was to promote the museum and the annual Festival until a few years ago. I still maintain the Museum is a vitally needed facility for the public, but the current Director and support of some board members is headed in the wrong direction, and you in your response have refused to acknowledge that.
With the city taking over the Festival next year I will dedicate myself to promoting the Festival again for them, however the Museum under the current leadership will not be promoted by me and many others The fact that the city decided to take over the Festival speaks volumes about the way it’s been handled the past few years under the current Museum Director, but the community has yet to hear any comments from the Board about that. After almost 4 months, the Director has not made any figures public about the low attendance at this past July’s Festival available, even as requested by Jim Mosley of Saucer Smear magazine, in a recent telephone call to the Director.
The lame excuse in your response about gasoline prices being a reason for low attendance is again a total untruth. I like many other people I know made several out of town trips this summer and paid the extra 5-10% for gasoline. National polls do not substantiate your excuse, since people have not reduced their travel because of gas prices, or is that the Director’s and your way of pacifying the board and the public about the poor attendance numbers.
Jack, as President of the Museum Board were you even in town for this past July’s Festival, when your Director was sanctioning and not sanctioning everything that took place to add to the failure of the Festival, creating problems for many community organizations as reported in The Roswell Daily Record. Furthermore I’m curious about how many of the Museum Board members were actively involved during this past July’s Festival, and would be interested in knowing their reaction to the low attendance at what should be the biggest event of the year.
Your knowledge of what is really going on concerned me when you stated in your response that the National Geographic special was filmed at the Museum. It was also filmed with many researchers around the country, including myself for over 6 hours in front of the camera. Jack are you aware that your Director told the National Geographic crew that “had she known they were filming me they would not have been allowed to film at the Museum?” Are you also aware that on Sept. 25, I filmed with the Canadian History channel for 3 hours and again when the crew went to the Museum the Director told them, “If your filming certain local researchers you cannot film at the Museum?” Additionally the Canadian crew was told “they should not eat at the Cover-Up Café at 2nd and Main because the owner was trying to shut down the Museum.” Is this what you and the Board members expect from your Director, by denying film crews that want to help promote the Museum, but can’t because of a vindictive attitude the Director has towards me and many others. The Canadian film crew gave me permission to pass their information on to you, and was shocked by the attitude of your Director when they visited the Museum.
You stated, “my services at the Museum were terminated by a previous Board so you can understand my frustration”. That was in 1998, and like I have, it’s time for the Museum personnel to get over it, and move on. I was asked to sever my services as a volunteer by an Executive Board, not the Board of Directors. To this day I’ve not been told why I was supposed to sever my relationship and my $1000.00 Lifetime membership was returned to me. Looking back leaving the Museum was a positive step in my research career, by not having to deal with the politics currently very evident at the Museum. I have written documentation on file where I earnestly tried to work with the Director when she assumed her position. Now years later, I’m being threatened, slandered and harassed by her.
I’m also displeased with the Director referring to Carol Syska and myself as “ex-employees.” Show me any paperwork (including W-2 Forms), or a contract, that indicates I was an employee of the Museum between July 1996 and October 1998. I was a 70 hour-per-week volunteer, so advise your Director to immediately cease referring to me as an ex-employee of the Museum.
You might also ask the Director and Gift Shop manager why my lecture video and cassette tapes were abruptly removed from sale in the Museum Gift shop after selling them at 100% markup from 1997 until 2 years ago, purchasing 10 of each several times a year during that time period. I have copies of invoices for those sales.
You stated in your response to my editorial, and your Director is taking credit for obtaining property for a new building downtown, when in fact that property was initially negotiated for and eventually acquired by a former Museum Board Member. Can you produce the minutes of the Board meeting where that occurred and quit giving the Director credit for something she didn’t do?
Many in the community are also questioning the status of the Museum as a 501(C) 3 organization.
The Director has been spreading accusations against me and to others that my “Interception” video and other lecture videos I’ve done as a volunteer at the Museum, belong to the Museum. I have tried on numerous occasions to explain to her that all my lectures are copyrighted with the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and in fact the “Interception” lecture (videocassette; ½ in.), was registered on September 26, 1997 on the recommendation of Museum co-founder Max Littell, prior to doing the lecture publicly at the Museum on October 11, 1997. The copyright number is PAu-2-238-759. I have written documentation for all the other lectures I copyrighted also. There was no contract or agreement pertaining to the “Interception”.
These type accusations and threats are intolerable and shall also cease by the Director. Trying to claim my research 9 years after the fact while profiting from my research during that time will not be tolerated.
While I was a volunteer at the Museum (1996-1998), I initiated the monthly lecture series for the public, which the current Director decided to discontinue, thus taking another benefit away from the community.
I have written documentation to support the concerns I mentioned in the editorial I distributed on September 1, 2006. Many of the statements and concerns expressed above are different and more current than those made in the editorial, and there are more, many more. This harassment, threatening and making untrue statements by the Museum Director have reached a point where if the Museum is to function as intended, changes have to be made, and as President of the Board you are expected and in fact required to do so.
Finally you asked me to pass along your reply to those that received the editorial so they could know of your appreciation for Director Shuster and her magnificent leadership and efforts in the furtherance of the Museum.
I will pass on your inadequate response for all to read, but because I base my research on a quote I use in lectures and on my web site, I’ll maintain “Always Telling the Truth Means Never Having to Remember Anything.”
July 19, 2001 -- A set of golden lights hovering silently in the night sky in a "V" formation stopped traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, but were the drivers seeing visitors from outer space or just a set of military flares flaming out?
More than a dozen people, including two Carteret, N.J., police officers, saw the lights last weekend, and several of the witnesses described a sense of serenity that seemed to emanate from the celestial display. The gold lights hovered for awhile, according to the witnesses, and then disappeared.
To some, the description sounded very much like the so-called Phoenix Lights, another V formation that appeared in the sky near Phoenix in March 1997. Like the apparition in New Jersey, the Phoenix lights were caught on videotape.
The formation also matches reports of unexplained lights in the sky from all across the United States, as well as England and Europe.
A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said that there were no planned military operations in the area and that air traffic was light at the time of the reported sightings. He also said that no pilots flying in or out of Newark Airport reported seeing anything out of the ordinary.
To Michael Hathorne — who has written several books about UFOs and hosts a program on community television in the Tampa, Fla., area and a weekly Webcast about unexplained sightings — what was seen in New Jersey certainly was extraordinary.
"It's certainly unusual," Hathorne said. "From my experience it sounds like something very anomalous, a true UFO or even an extraterrestrial craft. But of course it could turn out to be something else. Most of them do."
A Work in Progress
He said that of the more than 1,000 sightings reported to him each year, more than 80 percent turn out to have earthly explanations.
Colm Kelleher of the National Institute of Discovery Science says that from what he's heard, this one fits into that category. He said based on a preliminary investigation, it sounds like the Jersey Lights were a set of military flares.
New Jersey Mystified by Strange Lights ABC News 7-17-01
CARTERET, N.J., July 17, 2001 -- Something dazzled the people of New Jersey this weekend. Something bright, high in the sky.
"It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen," said eyewitness Joe Malvasio. "They were just hovering, and then they just disappeared. One at a time, each one started to fade until they were gone."
Some witnesses thought the phenomenon may have been a sign of an alien presence. Others called it a miracle. But no one knows just what it was — all they can do is attempt to describe it.
"I saw 16 golden-orange colored lights, several in a V-type formation," said Lt. Daniel Tarrant of the Carteret Police Department. "Others were scattered around the V."
See Chris Wallace's Internet Exposé on the UFO phenomenon.
At Least 15 Report Lights to Police
At least 15 people contacted Tarrant's department to report the strange lights. But Tarrant and other police officials are at a loss to explain just what it was hovering in their skies.
Most callers described the same scenario: golden-orange lights moving quietly, some say beautifully, across the night sky over the Arthur Kill river. They described how the lights flickered and how they seemed to vanish into the night, one by one.
Some drivers even pulled off the New Jersey Turnpike for a better look.
But even more amazing is the explanation: there is none, not as of yet. According to The Associated Press, nearby Newark Airport reported no unusual flight patterns, and a National Weather Service meteorologist could find nothing in the weather to explain the lights.
Peaceful, Easy Feeling
"It's really amazing," said Veronica Bagley, whose family captured the lights on video.
Paulette Holmes said whatever it was, she was unafraid.
"I wasn't alarmed because it was peaceful," she said.
Patty Ercallino, another witness, took it a step further.
"Very peaceful, very serene, very beautiful," she said. "I think we witnessed some type of miracle."
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I am amazed how many people in the United States are so intimidated by the word “sex” and are unwilling to discuss its consequences. My latest book, Sex in Space, tackles both the fun and serious sides of this currently neglected topic. It’s not just my opinion that the possibilities of sex in space need more attention. This is the recommendation of a 2005 report from the US National Academies of Science. Yet I have encountered all sorts of bizarre problems when bringing up the topic of sex in space. Apparently, some people just don’t understand that the book is intended to spark the public’s interest in space exploration, settlement, and tourism. To illustrate my case, here are some examples.
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