Wednesday, January 31, 2007
UFO Photos From Military To Be Shown at Tenth International Days Of Ufology
Viña del Mar: They will exhibit videos of ufos in military exercises
La Segunda
1-31-07
During the “Tenth International Days of Ufology” held at “Viña del Mar,” UFOs filmed by the military during various exercises will exhibited.La Segunda
1-31-07
“One of the more impressive images that will be exhibited is that of a UFO flying over boats at Escuadra Nacional en Iquique; helicopters were sent up to intercept the objects,” explained Rodrigo Fuenzalida, National Director of “The Association of Ufological Investigations of Chili,” who will also be in attendance.
The investigator will present/display several exhibitions, centering on the implications of the “UFO phenomenon,” from the audio-visual evidence compiled in the last ten years and the theoretical possibilities in regards to the origin of the UfOs.
The main subject of the Days of Ufology is the association with the military world, for this reason important audio-visual material will appear that it has been obtained by members of the different branches from the army, et al.
Fuenzalida indicated that the most impressive material is the one of Escuadra Nacional, “but also there is a sighting in a military parade, where a UfO appears in close proximity to the helicopters that flew over the sector; the images are very clear,”
The investigator added that the impact on the population in reference to the existence of UFOs will also be discussed.
“He has discovered that the new generations have a greater opening to the technological changes and therefore to the information related to UfOs”, he explained.
He added that “numerous sightings are observed by totally skeptical people, who radically change their ideologies,” which he sees as a “good thing.”
More . . .
* Translation By Frank Warren
See Also:
China Hugging Little Green Men
Brazilian UFO Disclosure Programs Translated
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
* Translation By Frank Warren
See Also:
China Hugging Little Green Men
Brazilian UFO Disclosure Programs Translated
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
Ten Year Anniversary of Phoenix Lights UFO Incident: Major Events Announced
By Steve Hammons
National Ledger
1-30-07
PHOENIX, ARIZONA – Two major Phoenix events have been announced that will coincide with the 10-year anniversary of “The Phoenix Lights” UFO incident. The new film FASTWALKERS will premiere Wednesday, Feb. 21. A two-day conference, EYEWITNESS 2007 – YOU ARE NOT ALONE, will be held Monday, March 12, and Tuesday, March 13.National Ledger
1-30-07
FASTWALKERS is described as a “full-length documentary discloses for the first time, vital UFO disclosure information, gathered from an array of national and international experts and includes amazing photos and film footage,” according to a media release announcing the movie.
Global Warming: Bush Runs Defense for Big Oil
Scientists charge White House pressure on warming
By Deborah Zabarenko
Environment Correspondent
Reuters
1-31-07
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. scientists were pressured to tailor their writings on global warming to fit the Bush administration's skepticism, in some cases at the behest of a former oil-industry lobbyist, a congressional committee heard on Tuesday.By Deborah Zabarenko
Environment Correspondent
Reuters
1-31-07
"Our investigations found high-quality science struggling to get out," Francesca Grifo of the watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
A survey by the group found that 150 climate scientists personally experienced political interference in the past five years, for a total of at least 435 incidents.
"Nearly half of all respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change,' 'global warming' or other similar terms from a variety of communications," Grifo said.
Rick Piltz, a former U.S. government scientist who said he resigned in 2005 after pressure to soft-pedal findings on global warming, told the committee in prepared testimony that former White House official Phil Cooney took an active role in casting doubt on the consequences of global climate change.
Cooney, who was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before becoming chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, resigned in 2005 to work for oil giant ExxonMobil.
Documents on global climate change required Cooney's review and approval, Piltz said.
"His edits of program reports, which had been drafted and approved by career science program managers, had the cumulative effect of adding an enhanced sense of scientific uncertainty about global warming and minimizing its likely consequences," Piltz said.
Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the committee, complained that the White House has balked at supplying documents requested over six months to investigate these allegations.
"The committee isn't trying to obtain state secrets or documents that could affect our immediate national security," Waxman said. "We are simply seeking answers to whether the White House's political staff is inappropriately censoring impartial government scientists."
Kristen Hellmer of the Council on Environmental Quality said the council had been cooperating with Congress. When asked about allegations of political interference in scientific documents, she said, "We do have in place a very transparent system in science reporting."
The hearing was one of two on Tuesday spotlighting global climate change; a Senate forum featured testimony from members including presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois among Democrats and Republican John McCain of Arizona.
President George W. Bush's position on global warming has evolved over his presidency, from open skepticism about the reality of the phenomenon to acknowledgment at a global summit last year that climate change is occurring and human activities speed it up.
In his State of the Union address on January 23, Bush called climate change "a serious challenge" that should be addressed by technology and greater use of alternative sources of energy. But he stopped short of calling for mandatory limits on U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed in part for global warming.
These discussions are part of the run-up to release of a major United Nations report on climate change, scheduled for Friday in Paris. Drafts of the report strengthened the case that humans are the principal cause of global warming after 1950.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
The Dulce "U.S./Alien Underground Base" in New Mexico, Fact or Fiction?
By Norio Hayakawa
1-30-07
1-30-07
Sometime during the mid 80's, a rumor began to circulate widely among some "ufologists" about an "underground U.S./alien base" near Dulce, New Mexico.The rumor had its beginnings even from around the late 70's.
With this fascinating thought in mind, in 1990 (the first week of March of 1990, immediately after coming back from Nevada to help produce a TV documentary on Area 51), a team of Japanese magazine and TV crew and myself flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico and drove all the way to Dulce to see if there was anything substantial to the allegation that there was such a "base".
We checked into the Best Western motel in Dulce. We spent a few days there looking for the base (which was allegedly located under Archuleta Mesa, outside Dulce). However, we could not locate any such base, partly because some roads leading to the mesa were closed off, due to the snow on the ground.
However, in town, we interviewed many locals, i.e., the Jicarilla Apache Indians, some of whom claimed to have seen strange lights in the night skies and some military helicopters in that area, especially during the late 70's to the early 80's. (While living in Phoenix, Arizona in the late 70's, I remember seeing newspaper clippings on the Dulce "lights" in various New Mexico newspapers which someone had sent me. But at that time I didn't care that much to pursue it.)
My conclusion, after being in Dulce, however, was that there was nothing solid to substantiate any such allegations, at least on the surface.
The only curious thing that happened to us while in Dulce was when we were detained by the Police Chief while interviewing people on the street and taken to his office. (The Police Chief's last name, if I recall, was Velarde, if I am not mistaken.)
We were there at his office for about an hour and a half, during which time he took down all of our IDs. We asked him why we were being detained. Was it illegal to interview people on the street? Was it because we were extremely curious? Was it because it was a strange sight to see about nine Japanese men with TV cameras interviewing people on the street in such a small Indian town?
He didn't give us a straight answer. It was only at the very end, right before he released us that he definitely said to us that he didn't want to talk about such thing (the base?) and that he didn't want to have anything to do (or even be associated) with such.
Outside of town, we also talked with some ranchers in that area, some of whom claimed that some of their cattle had been mutilated mysteriously, especially during the early 80's.
So, what is my conclusion to this?
I tend to be a healthy skeptic on the alleged Dulce "underground U.S./alien base", despite the fact that we were temporarily detained at the Police Chief's office.
It's been 16 years already, since my first visit to the area.
I have decided to re-visit Dulce this March, towards the end of the month.
If anyone would like to join me, just e-mail me at:
MY UFO EXPERIENCE: Pilot Spots UFO Over Nevada
By Jorge A. Narvaez
Reader Submitted Report
1-29-07
I am a freight pilot and my route takes me from Reno to Elko, NV. On the 29th of December at approximately 1400 hrs. local, I was leaving the FBO and walking to my plane. The day was severe clear and crisp. There were a few contrails crossing and nothing else. I saw Pablo, one of the linemen, looking up at the sky. I asked what he was looking at and he directed my eyes to an object so high up it seemed to be against the blue of the sky. The object looked like the ball at the end of a pushpin held at arm's length. It was the color of quicksilver and looked perfectly spherical. It was moving from south to north and we saw it pass behind a number of contrails; some of which had to be in the FL400 range. One more lineman came out to see the object and we observed it move north for about 15 minutes all told. Reader Submitted Report
1-29-07
In the end, it simply vanished and we could not locate it anymore. I think whatever it was had to be huge to appear that size to me. The object didn't shimmer, shine or give off any sort of light. I've no idea what it could have been.
Monday, January 29, 2007
EXCLUSIVE
The Phoenix Lights Investigative Faux Pas!
By Mike Fortson
1-29-07
[Mike Fortson will speaking at the Aztec UFO Symposium March 23, 24, and 25th (Fri-Sat-Sun); the event functions as a fundraiser for the “Aztec Library” in this beautiful town located in the “Four Corners” area of New Mexico.]
1-29-07
[Mike Fortson will speaking at the Aztec UFO Symposium March 23, 24, and 25th (Fri-Sat-Sun); the event functions as a fundraiser for the “Aztec Library” in this beautiful town located in the “Four Corners” area of New Mexico.]
How can some of these people claim the “Phoenix Lights” case was “fairly well investigated and presented?” Do they understand that no one from MUFON AZ or Sky Watch International made written reports from witnesses? How could a case be examined without written or recorded reports? Both Richard Motzer and Bill Hamilton perceived the “5” 10 PM videos as the “holy grail” and failed to start at the beginning of the first report of unusual activity. By that I mean 8:16 in Paulden, AZ. No one started there. How about 5:30 PM at Sunset Point near Crown King, AZ? No one investigated that as well. And again thru Chino Valley, Prescott, Prescott Valley, Dewey Wickenburg, and well into the northern most part of the Phoenix metro area. No reports. They did not do a fairly good job at all. They did nothing! In fact it was done so poorly, how can these people claim to be researchers at all?Witnesses in the 8 o’clock hour such as myself, my wife, Tim Ley and his family, Ozma Linderman and her boy friend, Max Saracen and his wife, Stacy Rhoades, none of these people made a written report with any UfO organization—period! So how can this incident claim to be “fairly well investigated?” You have to be kidding! The media didn’t investigate. The police didn’t investigate. The only investigating that was done was the two 10 PM witnesses to the diversionary flare drop. And they both wrote books and failed to share any information. Dr Lynne was hiding in the closet for 6 or 7 years and doesn’t reveal any names of any of the many events that took place that night.
Now for some reason the media and Ufologists have settled on the premise the 2 events happened on the night of March 13, 1997, in the state of Arizona. One, the 8 o’clock events with unexplained sightings of at least 3 profoundly massive V shaped craft, a variety of orbs, a solid black triangle, and reports of a massive disk. Then we have the “diversionary” 10 PM flare drop southwest of the Phoenix area and probably not even in Maricopa County.
But what about the 5:30 PM event near Crown King; what about retired airline captain Trig Johnston’s sighting from northern Scottsdale area at app. 10:20 PM that evening? He claimed the object he and his son witnessed was over a square mile in area! And that he could land his 727 on it! Doesn’t that fit into the so-called investigation?
See, in my opinion, nearly everyone was satisfied with the late night flare drop so much, nothing else mattered. Why investigate? Why start at the beginning? We have video of a wondrous sighting…and 5 of them to boot! The diversion worked perfectly. And nearly everyone fell for it. Besides, if it isn’t on video, it probably didn’t happen, right?
What so many fail to understand is that there are thousands of witnesses in the 8:00 o’clock hour and just a handful to the 10 PM flare drop. The reason is this: the flares had to be ignited around 16,000’ altitude to be seen in the Phoenix metro area. And all 10 PM witnesses shared one thing: mountainside homes and elevated locations. Oh, and one more thing they shared. Five of them shot video of a diversionary high altitude flare drop.
Honolulu UFO: "It Looked Deadly To Me It Was Kind of Spooky”
UFO’s seen over South Shore sky
By Andrew Pereira
KHON 2
1-27-07
It's hard to draw a surfer's attention away from the next wave, but whatever was in the northwest sky Friday evening around 6:20 p.m. drew a crowd along Kewalo Basin and Ala Moana Beach Park.By Andrew Pereira
KHON 2
1-27-07
Honolulu resident Peter Hollingworth described as two lights circling in the sky, about 45 degrees above the horizon.
Video of one of the lights was recorded from the Channel 2 SkyCam.
“These two little fireballs with a stream behind it,” said Hollingworth. “Looked kind of like a shooting start but it just kept going. They changed directions a few times, at first it was coming in then it turned, then it went out then it came back in again"
Hollingworth was surfing with his 12 year old son when the unexpected show began.
“I was a little concerned. I told him come over and sit with me - this might be the last surf session we ever have together because this thing's coming straight for Honolulu. It looked deadly to me it was kind of spooky.”
So what was it?
The National Weather Service says nothing showed up on their radar at the time of the sighting and the Federal Aviation Administration didn't report anything unusual.
The U.S. military conducted a missile defense test off of Kauai Friday evening but the test didn't begin until 7:20 p.m.
“This in a sense is an unidentified flying object,” said University of Hawaii astronomy professor Gareth Wynn-Williams. “It's something in the sky that's moving that we haven't identified.”
Wynn-Williams believes there's a simple explanation behind the UFO’s.
“It's probably a contrail of some kind,” he said while watching video of one of the lights at his Kailua home.
The professor says contrails are caused by high flying airplanes burning hydrogen based fuels. One of the byproducts of the fuel exhaust is water.
“The air is very cold so the water condenses and forms like drops very quickly and then these drops stay behind the plane until eventually they warm up and they evaporate.”
Wynn-Williams doubts little green men from Mars are behind the UFO’s.
“Some people just think differently than scientists and they like to look for the fanciest most exciting explanation. Those people would like to think it's little green men, I think that's very unlikely."
According to published reports this is not the first time a UFO has grabbed the attention of Hawaii residents.
In December of 2004 an unexplained streak of light was captured by a camera on Haleakala moving southwest to northeast. No official explanation has been given for that UFO either.
Ice Falls From the Sky, Totals Car
FOX 13
1-28-07
TAMPA - You probably see ice just about everyday—but not in a big block that has fallen from the sky and totaled a parked car.
But it happened on Hilldrop Court in Town 'n Country around 9:30 Sunday morning.
Neighbors woke up to something they never thought they’d see.
“Came out to find a large piece of ice sitting on the car, and ice all over the place,” said neighbor John Young.
The damaged car, a Ford Mustang, belongs to Carlos Javage’s son.
“He left the car here overnight, and they called him to tell him a piece of ice had totaled his car, and I told him, he’s crazy,” Javage said.
Police say they checked with air traffic control to see if any planes were flying in the area when the ice hit the car.
But their investigation shows there were none.
So that leaves the question—what happened?
“We’re guessing an airplane, or some weird meteorological phenomenon,” said neighbor John Young.
Ramon Rodriguez was the only one on the block who was there when the ice hit.
“I was in the driveway when I heard a loud noise,” Rodriguez said, in Spanish, through a translator. “Then I looked over and saw the windshield was smashed,” he said.
Neighbors estimate the block weighed at least fifty pounds. Rodriguez says he has no idea where the ice came from, but he definitely heard it fall.
As difficult as this spectacle is to believe, it’s not the first time something like this has happened.
Just one week earlier, two homes were damaged by planes dropping ice. The first was in Philadelphia; the other in San Diego.
In all three incidents, no one was injured
Saturday, January 27, 2007
'Phoenix Lights' Remembered . . .
Unidentified
By John Dickerson
The Scottsdale Times
1-27-07
Nearly ten years after the most widespread, documented UFO sighting in history, Valley astronomers and eyewitnesses are still speculating on just what flew over Phoenix that night.
When Robert Brewer first saw brake lights and traffic stopped on the 51, the Scottsdale pastor and PhD assumed there had been an accident. “They’re all looking up. What’s going on?” Brewer’s friend asked as he pulled his car to the side of the road.By John Dickerson
The Scottsdale Times
1-27-07
Nearly ten years after the most widespread, documented UFO sighting in history, Valley astronomers and eyewitnesses are still speculating on just what flew over Phoenix that night.
To this day, Brewer doesn’t believe in aliens or space ships, but he does know the silent, hovering lights he watched for about 20 minutes on March 13, 1997, were unlike anything he’d seen before or since. “It was like the first time you walk to the edge of the Grand Canyon. I was literally breathless,” Brewer says.
Along the shoulder of the 51, bystanders watched silently. Some were on their knees. Others raised their arms. From Prescott to Tucson, hundreds of Arizona residents stood in awe of the massive lights. The witness reports read the same: a V of huge, unblinking, hovering lights parading in silent unison across the night sky.
Almost 10 years after the sighting, Valley astronomers, pilots and psychiatrists are still searching for an explanation to what was arguably the most documented UFO sighting ever, now dubbed the Phoenix Lights. Among those still affected are former UFO skeptics. Explanations vary from military tests to extraterrestrial visitors, but the eyewitnesses do agree on one thing: “You had to be there to really understand.… This was not like anything from Earth.”
“I’VE SEEN FLARES BEFORE. THESE WEREN’T FLARES.”
On a recent cool October evening, media personality and astronomer “Dr. Sky” Steve Kates is hosting a black-tie audience under a starlit Gilbert sky. Kates is a regular on TV and radio programs discussing the astronomically unexplained.
Kates doesn’t believe in aliens. In the nine years since the Phoenix Lights sightings, he has hosted hundreds of discussions about the phenomena. Tonight, between live phone interviews with world-renowned astronomers and former astronauts, Kates says experimental government aircraft are responsible for the Phoenix Lights. “I think it’s a very major event that took place and a matter of national security,” he says. “Two separate events took place the night of March 13, 1997.”
Kates believes a very large, silent surveillance blimp flew over Arizona while diversionary flares hoped to distract any Hale-Bopp comet watchers from noticing, adding that one need only interview so many sane, educated eyewitnesses to conclude the Phoenix Lights were more than just flares.
Among the sane, educated type described by Kates are Mark and Celia Chapman, neither of whom believe in little green men or messages from the stars. But when asked if they’re familiar with the Phoenix Lights, the Honeywell engineer and healthcare consultant exuberantly recounts their 1997 sighting of the lights.
“We were sitting in the spa. There was nothing by the McDowell Mountains back then. We look up and see this huge wedge V of lights, no noise,” Mark Chapman says. “We knew it wasn’t an airplane or anything. I’ve seen flares before. This didn’t fit flares. These lights were equidistant, moving together, hovering.”
The Chapmans represent hundreds, if not thousands, of Arizona eyewitnesses who offer similar stories. Many are well educated, and don’t buy the National Guard’s flare explanation.
“That was the only time I’ve ever seen anything like that. I’m an engineer. I was always skeptical about UFOs, but this was amazing,” Chapman says. “You can’t believe what you just saw. I do find it kind of humorous that the government doesn’t acknowledge any kind of sighting. A lot of people saw this.”
“A VIDEO OVERLAY STRONGLY SUPPORTED THE FINDING THAT THOSE LIGHTS AT LEAST WERE MILITARY FLARES.”
Weeks after the sighting, officials from Luke Air Force Base and Sky Harbor Airport claimed they had no explanation for the countless reported sightings. National networks aired reports on the unexplained phenomenon. Then a USA Today article reported the sighting was “the most confounding UFO report in 50 years. So far there is no explanation, but the government is not investigating.”
Former Paradise Valley physician Dr. Lynne Kitei, an expert on the Phoenix Lights, says that article caused a major turning point with local military officials. “I’d been calling around to military,” Kitei says. “They were just as interested and curious as I was, until that USA Today article.”
After the front-page expose, military officials were no longer openly curious, helpful or conversational, Kitei says. A month later, the U.S. National Guard issued an answer to the months-old mystery. Military test flares from the Marlyand National Guard had been dropped in Phoenix as a training exercise. With that announcement, most media attention being paid to the Phoenix Lights ended, but many eyewitnesses remained unsatisfied.
“I have no doubt that flares were set off to avert attention,” Kitei says. She and Dr. Sky agree; the flares functioned to divert attention to whatever the real lights were. Both add that flares near Luke Air Force Base wouldn’t have been visible to the eyewitnesses in Prescott and Tucson. The Prescott reports in particular came in before any media hype or Phoenix news.
“I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A SCIENTIFICALLY-MINDED SKEPTIC.”
Perhaps more inexplicable than the Phoenix Lights themselves is the effect the sighting had on numerous eyewitnesses, among them Dr. Kitei.
Most Phoenix Lights eyewitnesses say they’ve never seen anything like it before or since. Kitei is a notable exception. The glass bedroom wall in Kitei’s mountainside Paradise Valley home has given her a front-row seat in a light show that has quite literally defined the course of her life for nearly a decade.
Kitei says the 1997 mass sighting was but one in a string of revelations she has witnessed from her bedroom window. For four years, Kitei managed to keep her multiple sightings to herself, not wanting to jeopardize her position as a chief clinical consultant for the Arizona Heart Institute.
Today, at La Madeline café, Kitei acknowledges she has all but thrown away her medical career in order to spread the good news about the now famed Phoenix Lights. She will leave the interview and catch a plane for California, where her documentary has won acclaim at two more film festivals.
Four years after the 1997 sighting, Kitei published Phoenix Lights, a 250-page summary documenting the event. This March will mark the 10-year anniversary. Harkins’ Theatres plans to show a documentary produced by Kitei, while an exhibit is planned at ASU to commemorate the event.
“I have always been a scientifically-minded skeptic,” Kitei says. “Once you start looking, you start finding. There is so much out there confirming this is real and mysterious and anomalous and happening,” Kitei says.
Kitei maintains a scientific front all while inviting the spirit world to reveal itself. “Most things can be explained,” she says, “but there is a small percentage of things that cannot. Just because we don’t have the technology to definitively define it yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
Kitei suspects the spirit world is summoning us through events like Phoenix Lights, and that they have been for hundreds, even thousands of years. “Over the Gila River Indian reservation, they say they’ve been seeing them for centuries. They call them sky people.”
“I COULD LAND ON IT WITH MY 727.”
While Dr. Sky agrees with Kitei that the Phoenix Lights were indeed more than flares, Kates contends that talk of spiritual or extraterrestrial activity is simply out of bounds. “I think it’s a very major event, something that should be talked about,” Dr. Sky says. “I respect Dr. Kitei, but I don’t believe it was aliens. I don’t believe any of that.”
Dr. Sky isn’t the only adamant Phoenix Lights skeptic who disagrees with the outspoken Dr. Kitei. “Yes, there are a couple of fruit loops associated with March 13th,” Trig Johnston, a retired Northwest pilot says of explanations for the Phoenix Lights. “Anyone who can tell you what the little green men wish for us can probably also tell you where God wants you to send your checks. But, that’s just my opinion.”
Johnston has been flying for 44 years and has since logged thousands of hours in everything from Cessna’s to 747s.
“I know what flares don’t look like,” Johnston says. He describes a huge mass, at least a mile wide, approaching his North Scottsdale home from the northwest, the direction of the earlier Prescott sightings.
“I could land on it with my 727,” Johnston says. “What I saw bears little relation to the video of the Phoenix Lights,” he adds. But Johnston does agree with Kitei on one thing: the craft emitted an inviting telepathic message.
“When you make a UFO report, you must expect people to think you’re crazy. So here’s where you will think I’m crazy,” Johnston says. He says the craft sent out a transmission: “We are not a threat.”
Johnston says the massive lights, connected by a translucent material, then paraded in silence down Scottsdale Road at about 30 miles per hour “like in the Rose Bowl parade. The craft wanted to be seen.”
“LIKE STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE GRAND CANYON, I WAS BREATHLESS.”
Dr. Robert Brewer isn’t surprised eyewitnesses received telepathic communication from the lights. Where Kitei sees a benevolent, loving spirit in the sky, Dr. Brewer sees a phenomenon that may indeed be spiritual, but not an altruistic one.
“From a logical standpoint they’ve done nothing to help,” Brewer says of UFO sightings and abduction reports. “How many anal probes do you have to do? We have no new cures for cancer or energy technology, not even an autographed space map. If you were this advanced and were benevolent, why not help humanity?”
Brewer is no “UFO-ologist.” In fact, the urban philosopher and pastor looks more like an MTV rock star than a Roswell alien stalker. He hangs out with Hollywood actor Stephen Baldwin and reads ancient Greek literature and surf magazines in the same sitting.
Like Kitei, Brewer was in no need of a career boost or a new area of expertise when he set out to write his book, 7 Things You Should Know About UFOs. Like Kitei, he was inspired by the profound impact of the eyewitness sightings.
Brewer says it’s no surprise the Phoenix Lights took Kitei in a spiritual direction. “Studying UFOs will always lead into the spiritual,” Brewer says. “Even here in Barnes and Noble the UFO books are in the New Age section.”
“I think UFOs are the Darwinism of our time,” Brewer says. “When Darwin first came out with his theory, many looked at it as fringe. UFOs are no longer the fringe topic they once were. Popular Science is doing cover stories on this. Folks with PhDs from MIT are devoting their lives to this. By no means am I saying all UFO encounters are paranormal, but there is a percentage that seem to be not of this world.”
Brewer sees UFO curiosity and the Phoenix Lights as filler for the human need to believe in something greater.
All evidence, Brewer says, suggests the Phoenix Lights are spiritual in nature. “I do know this: people are seeing things,” Brewer says of the Phoenix Lights. “I know because I’m one. There I was on March 13, 1997, and I saw something that didn’t fit anything I knew. As an amateur astronomer I knew it wasn’t planes or comets or anything I’d seen before.”
Brewer says something happened on March 13. He respects Kitei, particularly her fearless efforts to get the word out. “We saw it, and we concur that it’s spiritual. Where we differ is what kind of spirits,” Brewer says. “I’m telling you. It’s something that will take your breath away. If I wasn’t a Christian, I don’t know what I’d think.”
In her Paradise Valley home, Dr. Kitei says the sightings continue. In October 2006 she has received multiple reports of sightings in Tucson, including one from a retired police officer and airman once stationed at Luke.
Whatever the Phoenix Lights were or weren’t. The only evident truth seems to be that had Kitei not seen the Phoenix Lights, she would just be another successful professional residing in Paradise Valley. As the 10-year anniversary of the lights approaches, there is no shortage of questions or answers. There is also no shortage of eyewitnesses still in awe of what they saw in the sky over Phoenix that night.
MY UFO EXPERIENCE: Silver Orb Seen Over Uinta Mountains
By Debra Tamosouskas
Reader Submitted Report
1-26-07
In 1968 my family and I were going on a picnic in the Uinta mountains south of Evanston, Wyoming. We drove a couple miles down the road leading to Christms Meadows when I saw a large, round, silver ball just hanging up inthe sky above us. It was not moving, it was just sitting there. I was only about 11 at the time and had no real sense of height and distance so I cannot say how high up it was, except it appeared to be lower than the few high clouds that were inthe sky that day. It was quite large also. I pointed it out to my parents. My Dad stopped the car and we all looked at it. I remember my parents talking to each other in hushed tones, then my Dad turned around and told us it was nothing, just a weather balloon. But I know it really wasn't a weather balloon because my parents were spooked enough that they turned the car around and we went back to Evanston without having our picnic. They never spoke about it again.Reader Submitted Report
1-26-07
In 2003, before my Dad passed away, I asked him about it. He told me then that he didn't know what it was, but it wasn't any weather balloon he had ever seen before. He said he thought it was a UFO.
Friday, January 26, 2007
UFOs Were Only Flares! (Again)
Lights 'not of this world' mystery finally solved
Air Force reveals weapons tests that sparked global UFO frenzy
By Joe Kovacs
Worldnet Dialy
1-24-07
Editor's note: WND's Joe Kovacs will appear on KTOK Newsradio in Oklahoma City Thursday morning at 8:05 a.m. Eastern to discuss this story. It can be heard at 1000 on the AM dial or online at KTOK.com.
Mysterious lights in the sky witnessed and photographed by an Air Force colonel who described them as "not of this world" apparently have an explanation of this Earth after all, WND can reveal.Air Force reveals weapons tests that sparked global UFO frenzy
By Joe Kovacs
Worldnet Dialy
1-24-07
Editor's note: WND's Joe Kovacs will appear on KTOK Newsradio in Oklahoma City Thursday morning at 8:05 a.m. Eastern to discuss this story. It can be heard at 1000 on the AM dial or online at KTOK.com.
Officials say the colorful illuminations seen Jan. 9 over western Arkansas came from special military flares that slowly parachuted to the ground as part of an Air Force training mission involving A-10 aircraft pilots at nearby Fort Chaffee, a base used for testing weaponry.
"We were flying A-10s in that area and they were using flares," Jessica D'Aurizio, chief of public affairs at the 917th Wing of the Air Force Reserve at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, told WND.
She says the flares, which stay lit for about five minutes, produce nearly 2 million candlepower.
"It brightens up the target area," D'Aurizio said. "They go down in parachutes, so they're very bright. That had to be what it was, I'm sure."
As WND exclusively reported last week, F-16 fighter pilot Col. Brian Fields, now retired at 61, was at his Van Buren, Ark., home Jan. 9 when just before 7 p.m., he observed two intensely bright lights as he looked to the southeast close to the horizon.
"At first I thought they were landing lights from an aircraft," he said. "As I continued to observe them they began to slowly disappear, then suddenly one reappeared, followed by two, then three. On at least one occasion four or five appeared. Each time they would slowly fade and eventually disappear. This occurred several times and when they would reappear they might do so in differing numbers and in different positions, sometimes in a triangular shape, sometimes stacked on top of each other, sometimes line abreast, etc. When the objects appeared they might stay illuminated 10 or more minutes."
He added, "I believe these lights were not of this world, and I feel a duty and responsibility to come forward."
Lt. Col. Pete Gauger, executive staff officer at the 188th Fighter Wing of the Arkansas Air National Guard, confirmed A-10s were on the Fort Chaffee bombing range dropping suspended flares at the time Fields documented the lights some five to ten degrees above the horizon.
"They would drop multiple flares," he said. "That probably solves your mystery. It's beyond coincidence."
Gauger said WND's initial report caused a lot of interest among media outlets, especially after being featured on the Drudge Report.
"It was widely read," he said. "I read it, and I didn't immediately tie it in [to the training]."
Fort Chaffee, which is run by the Arkansas Army National Guard, is situated on approximately 61,000 acres not far from Fields' residence in Van Buren.
"Just a small portion of it is for the Air National Guard to fire and test weapons," said Kim Kimmey, chief warrant officer at Fort Chaffee.
According to the Federation of American Scientists Military Analysis Network, A-10 aircraft "have excellent maneuverability at low air speeds and altitude, and are highly accurate weapons-delivery platforms. They can loiter near battle areas for extended periods of time and operate under 1,000-foot ceilings with 1.5-mile visibility. Their wide combat radius and short takeoff and landing capability permit operations in and out of locations near front lines. Using night vision goggles, A-10/ OA-10 pilots can conduct their missions during darkness."
D'Aurizio at Barksdale AFB told WND there were four A-10 planes as part of the training mission the night of Jan. 9, and they used LUU-2 flares.
According to GlobalSecurity.org, "The mechanism has a timer on it that deploys the parachute and ignites the flare candle. The flare candle burns magnesium which burns at high temperature emitting an intense bright white light. The consumption of the aluminum cylinder that contains the flare 'candle' may add some orange to the light."
"I did not know that such 'parachute flares' existed and never considered the possibility," Col. Fields told WND upon learning the reason behind the mysterious lights. "I am grateful, however, that the truth has been determined and those that may have been disturbed by this event will be able to rest."
Fields, a Christian who originally speculated his sighting might have had something to do with End Time prophecies from the Bible, still wants people to remain vigilant.
"Because this event was explained does not change the fact that we live in perilous times – and we must still be awake, alert, and know that a great deception is still coming."
WND's original story sparked a flurry of interest in unexplained phenomena and UFO activity, with many readers saying they had seen or experienced lights similar to those witnessed by Fields.
D'Aurizio said when the flares are deployed, "It's not unusual to have people think there's something strange going on."
Not everyone is quick to accept the Air Force's explanation.
"Are you trying to tell us that a retired Air Force colonel doesn't know the difference between flares and lights from a UFO? But the Air Force trusted him enough to fly F-16s, multi-million dollar jets?" asks Jim Chadbourne of Waterford, Conn. "When are the media going to stop listening to the government's crap and report the truth?"
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
O'HARE UFO PHOTO FINALLY SURFACES?
By Frank Warren
1-24-07
click on any image to enlarge
As far as I can tell this image was recently (a few hours ago) posted on the ATS (Above Top Secret) UFO Forum. The subscriber writes, “the person who sent this to me claims he shot this at the airport” [O’Hare].1-24-07
click on any image to enlarge
Here is the object enhanced & cropped:
Here is the entire pic with the object isloated and enhanced:
EXCLUSIVE
Lights Over Los Angeles
The threat had materialized over the ocean an hour before. Since January, all of San Diego’s best hilltop makeout spots had been reclaimed by Boy Scouts and volunteers with night glasses. Little escaped them. A volunteer in one of these eyries had probably buzzed a filter center between San Diego and Los Angeles with the coordinates of the unidentified aircraft. Shortly thereafter the thimble-shaped lights on the air raid sirens up and down the coast blinked blue. Something moved in the sky towards the city. It was only minutes away.
The wail of the sirens gave Warden Raymond Angier the damnedest surprise ever. He couldn’t sleep through it if he’d wanted to. He dashed outside and scanned the area for lamplight. The block was a black corridor when the fireworks started up.
Up on the roof, Raymond had a panoramic view of the city. Orange smoke belched from gun batteries positioned along the coast as bright white and red shells shattered the black morning sky. The moon had vanished, and in its place were the thick white beams of eight huge Sperry searchlights, clawing at the haze over the city, trying to grab the target of their search. Raymond’s eyes flicked between the strobes’ bright fingers, and saw about seven luminous dots organized in a recognizable V-shape. The constellation of objects moved as though locked together, levitating at an altitude he estimated at 20,000 feet. With his training as an aircraft engineer at nearby Douglas Aircraft, Raymond could calculate with some accuracy the trajectory of the strange targets. When he first spotted them they were 60 degrees above the horizon, give or take five degrees, rising from the northwest shore area.
Municipal police had no suave official response prepared when the phones began ringing. They hardly had men enough to take down the reports. Officers dimmed their headlights and navigated the shadowy streets in response to alleged “Fifth Column” sightings –espionage in action. Prostitutes and gangsters could have the key to the city tonight; most of the regular patrol cops already knew where to find their suspects: Venice Beach, Terminal Island, Little Tokyo.
Three Ohis were at home on Ocean Front Drive in Venice Beach when the police arrived. A helpful neighbor had noticed that their apartment was much brighter than the shuttered café below. Mrs. Ohi and her two grown sons would have exchanged the look worn by many Issei and Nisei these days when the police goaded them towards the patrol car. An expression that said, shikata ga nai –“can’t help it”– we’ve got an Oriental face. And when the Venice police were through with them, the F.B.I. would take up their case. Smiling, the white men might ask, So, you had your lights on during a blackout. That usually means one thing...you probably got some buddies in the planes overhead. Am I right?
Of course, neither the police nor the F.B.I. yet knew what it was the Army outposts along the coast were trying to bring down from the sky. Reports from Angelenos conflicted. Some people heard the drone of plane engines but could see nothing but exploding shells and searchlights. One police clerk at a West Los Angeles station ran outside and saw something resembling a butterfly flitting high above the range of the ack-ack guns. And then at about 3:15 A.M. the 77th Street police station received a call from a civilian who’d seen an aircraft crash near the intersection of 180th and Vermont.
Shells burst all around the glowing triangle without ever seeming to hit it. The spectacle filled Warden Tom and his awakening Hollywood neighbors with patriotism all the same. Hollywood hadn’t been so lit up since Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opened in ‘27. Tom joined the sleepwalkers as they sang snippets of “The Star-Spangled Banner” –it helped to keep him alert. As he made his rounds, Tom noticed that the faces in the gathering crowd were calm and cheerful. The only sour faces he met were the motorists he’d ordered to pull over and cut the headlights. Drivers had pushed various ID cards under Tom’s flashlight. Look, Mister Warden, I’m an -----, I’ve really got to be going. I’m due in five minutes...Don’t you know who I am? But only Tom’s ID card gave him authority under these circumstances, cheery as they felt.
Some folks remained ornery; the postman switched off his lights and kept going.
Back on the roof, Raymond continued to follow the movements of the strange lights. The formation hovered over the opposite horizon now at about 15 degrees. Momentarily deafened by the whistle and crack of the incendiary shells, he concentrated on the dots that had at first looked to him as separate and circular lights, as clear as the planets closest to earth. Now, they appeared to him as one diminishing light. Raymond lost sight of it as it moved towards the coast southwest of the city.
Some people would have to do without dairy this morning. Just before the guns opened fire on the gleaming objects spotted by the two air wardens, the radio stations signed off and the Civil Defense Alert System changed from blue to yellow to crimson. If Goldie had sought advice from the local AM news channel, she may have felt abandoned. Air wardens paced their blocks in Arcadia, and yet no one was briefed on how long the blackout would last, or what had invaded the city sky.
Perhaps it was one of the many shells falling with the warble of a firecracker that spooked her. Errant shells –having missed or been repelled by their intended target– rained down on the sleeping neighborhoods. Police began receiving reports of the three-inch incendiaries landing on beds whose pyjama-clad occupants had just risen to take in the light show outside. At least two motorists suffered heart attacks after a shell struck the road in front of them.
At about the halfway point of her delivery route, Goldie’s truck collided with something. It was a car. Milk bottles crashed and spilt. Blood and glass glittered in the street. The car’s driver stirred but the passenger had died on impact. With the ambulances in short supply in the dark city, Goldie’s truck probably served as a makeshift hearse, carrying the body to one of the hospitals still operating under dim safety bulbs. Pregnant women had been pouring into the hospitals since the war began, many with “Kilroy was here” scrawled in lipstick on their bulging bellies. But tonight there was an added urgency –the excitement of an apparent blitz on Los Angeles would induce a dozen births before the sirens ceased.
Dr. Fujikawa and his wife stood rigidly on their porch. They looked towards the greater metropolitan area, past Fort MacArthur’s cannon-like guns that were still blazing –still so very near now– at fifteen after 3 A.M. As the explosive shells streamed red and orange around a target they couldn’t make out, worry hardened in the doctor’s stomach.
Just hours after the news report last December screamed of Japanese treachery, the Army commanders at the fort had barricaded the only exit from Terminal Island. No one was allowed to leave; it was now part of the arbitrary military zone that sprawled east and west, and north as far as the Presidio in San Francisco. Dr. Fujikawa’s wife had been entertaining two ladies from Sacramento the Monday Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and they wanted to get home. They asked him politely if he might find out how.
Walking quicker than he’d intended, Dr. Fujikawa headed toward the ferryboat on Fourth Avenue. There were about five hundred families on the island, but only five or six family names. He probably knew someone related to the ferryman; he might secure a passage for his friends if he could barter a discount on a birth or a free treatment for arthritis. The ferryman was not in his boat though, so Dr. Fujikawa walked on.
That evening, he took the ladies and their things to the immigration station. Maybe they’d find some answers there –how to get off the island, or how long they’d be trapped there. The agents at the station recognized Fujikawa from the frequent visits he made to sick people aboard Japanese ships that docked temporarily at Fish Harbor to trade and sell goods. One of the agents pulled him away from his company, as though they were going to discuss a special passage for the ladies. But the agent –a Nisei too– pushed Fujikawa against the wall with a long pole. A number dangled from the end of the pole, and he was photographed with it. Two flashes: a profile and a frontal.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Fujikawa protested. “All I’m trying to do is a favor for my friends, trying to get ‘em off the island, get permission.”
“Oh, we know that, Doc,” said the agent. “You’ve got to come with me anyway.”
In the holding room down the hall, a bell chimed and the elevator doors opened. A group of Japanese fishermen stumbled out. They looked at Fujikawa and said, “Oh, the doctor is here too.” He can’t remember where they went from there or how the ladies got home. He never saw the fishermen again.
Dr. Fujikawa and his wife, like other Terminal Islanders, probably went back to bed around 3:30 A.M. and slept uneasily, the silence after cease-fire as heavy as the pulse at their temples.
Outside in the smoky darkness, the Navy jeeps started rolling in. With the unconditional support of President Roosevelt, “the Japanese Question” was about to be solved. At Japanese churches across Southern California, people had started preparing for the evacuation they knew was coming. Nobody would have believed it would arrive so quickly though, at the end of a bayonet. Sometime that night, sailors and police officers pasted bulletins on shop windows around the island.
Each notice bore the same announcement: “Pursuant to such authority upon direction of the Secretary of Navy; You, all members of your family and all other occupants of the premises hereinafter identified, being located within such areas, are officially notified that you must vacate them not later than midnight February 27. You are further notified that if you are not gone from such areas within the time state you will be forcibly removed and will likewise face such penalties as the civil laws provide...”
Scotty Littleton awoke to his parents’ whispers in the hall. He peeked out and saw his father’s pale face. As an air raid warden for his beachfront neighborhood, Scotty’s dad had to leave his family and enforce the blackout outside. The shells weren’t exploding over the ocean this time, so it couldn’t be a drill. But neither could he confirm his fears of a real enemy attack –nobody answered the phone at the Civil Defense Headquarters. Only after he walked into the street for a better view did the air raid siren start up.
Mrs. Littleton’s father was staying with the family, and he was slow to get out of bed. Slow to do everything actually. But when Scotty’s dad shouted from the doorway, “Mr. Hotchkiss, I think this may be the real thing,” the old widower bolted down the basement steps.
Scotty and his mom were too curious to remain underground. Besides, the old man’s morning breath is deadlier than falling shells, they thought, and ran back up the stairs to the beach at their back door. The two of them stood side by side, clinging together for warmth, their eyes on the sky. Searchlights focused on what appeared to Scotty’s mother as a silvery, lozenge-shaped bug, seemingly paralyzed by the lights, hanging directly over Hermosa Beach.
Glowing shrapnel fell on the beach in front of them, sending the pair back under the eaves for protection. Scotty was so close he could smell the acrid smoke as the shells exploded. His eyes refused to blink and his lower lip dangled. Were the neighbor kids seeing this?
Not far from Strand Street, another air raid warden left his family in the backyard staring skyward. The thing they watched so raptly reminded him of the Graf Zeppelin he’d seen land at Los Angeles’ Mines Field in ‘29, only wider and flatter. He and some neighbors jumped into their cars, tossing a couple of shotguns into the backseat. The object picked up speed and vaulted into the night sky as they followed it, racing down Sepulveda. As it moved away, the warden got one last look at the rectangular silhouette. Three narrow slits, like the gills of a shark, stood out, glow an angry orange-red. And then it was out of range.
Warden Tom Herbert heard the all-clear signal –one minute blast followed by two minutes silence– at 7:30 A.M. and hobbled back to Hollywood, sore but giddy. He lingered over breakfast with his wife, chattering about the night’s excitement. Tom savored his bit part in what he pictured was a small triumph of American morale; his wife undoubtedly liked the look of him in the Civil Defense gear. Then he napped long into the afternoon.
Waking up, Tom walked directly to the newsstand on the corner and plucked the day’s Los Angeles Times from the stack. His knees nearly buckled under him. “RAID FALSE ALARM SAYS SEC KNOX,” read the headline. He cursed aloud and slammed fifty cents on the counter. The article quoted Secretary of Navy Frank Knox dismissing the Army’s antiaircraft response as a case of wartime jitters. Back at home Tom’s wife tried to comfort him, but he wouldn’t be quieted. He wondered who would take him seriously next time when he told them to pull over and douse their lights. Later on, Tom tuned in to the War Department’s radio address. The Secretary of War claimed it wasn’t a false alarm, but explained little more.
As the sun set, Tom sat down at his typewriter. He thought back to the darkness of the early morning, the shells raining down and the national anthem. Confusion descended on him.
A few hours later and half a world away, a Dutch sailor aboard the HDMS Tromp spotted something moving along the horizon. Glowing like a comet, it hurtled towards the battleship, skimming the thick air above the Java Sea. And then it slowed. Crew members must have gathered on deck to watch the strange bright disk as it circled and circled overhead.
Wat is dat in vrednesnaam?
Having nearly been sunk by a Japanese Navy fleet a week before, the sailors knew the enemy. But this aircraft had no wings and dropped no bombs. And then suddenly, after orbiting the ship for three hours, it sped away –a streak of heat and light and sky.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
National Geographic Solves Roswell UFO Enigma!
UFOLOGISTS ARE PIETISTIC - EYE WITNESSES ARE DEMENTED - AND THE POWERS THAT BE ARE VALIDATED
By Frank Warren
1-24-07
Who would have thought that after all these years; all the investigative work, countless investigators, declassified documents, eye witness testimony, newspaper reports and (4) different stories from the military that National Geographic would be the one to set the record straight in regards to the “Roswell Incident!” By Frank Warren
1-24-07
Yes folks, that’s right . . . turns out it was only “scotch tape and balsa wood" (where have I heard that before). In case you missed it, NG aired, “Under Cover History: The Real Roswell” ad nauseum; it airs again tomorrow night—grab a bucket or a plastic bag—don’t miss it!
I have to admit that I was looking forward to seeing what I understood to be a documentary . . . I mean it is/was National Geographic and all! However, a documentary is a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event, and allows the viewer to interpret what he or she is assimilating—not so in tonight’s episode—there was a message . . . nay a definitive conclusion i.e., Ufologists are pietistic, cultists if you will, incapable of seeing the truth! Witnesses are demented, and have succumbed to age and the senility that accompanies it, and finally the military, and or the powers-that-be are true blue and were only keeping “Project Mogul” secret . . . you know national security and all! There’s a little irony that this episode aired a couple of hours after another bona fide speaker was at the podium!
Initially, I was pleased to see Dennis (Balthaser) and Stan (Friedman) figuring so prominently throughout the show; however, that delight turned to disdain once it became clear that the producers of the show had a goal to accomplish! To the layperson, one might come away thinking that these two longtime researchers were either in agreement with the end conclusion i.e., a "scotch taped balsa wood Mogul Balloon," or they’re incompetent as intimated by the narrator! I assure you neither is the case!
Quite frankly, this show, this type of production is a reminder for those serious researcher/investigators to stipulate "signing off" on a project only after one sees the end product!
The innuendo, the off-putting adjectives and the point blank misinformation and falsehoods is not anything new, for those of us who pay attention to these things; however, I’m sure I’m in good company when I say that we hold National Geographic and the work they do to a “higher standard.”
For any Ufologists reading this . . . if you’re getting a feeling that someone is watching you—don’t fret, it’s only Phil and Karl looking down and getting one last laugh!
Interview With Anders Liljegren Chairman and Co-Founder of AFU
By Milton Frank
Brazilia's Ufology Center President
1-20-07
One of the founding members of UFO-Sweden in 1970, and co-founder (with Hakan Blomqvist and Kjell Jonsson) of the predecessor to Archives for UFO Research, in 1973. Involved in the study of several Swedish close encounters, particularly the Domsten case (Swedish booklet written with Clas Svahn) and the Mariannelund (Gideon Johansson) humanoid case. Brazilia's Ufology Center President
1-20-07
One of the first researchers in Sweden to gain access to the government archives on the waves of "ghost fliers" (1930's) and "ghost rockets" (1946). Hundreds of articles published in Swedish and English; editor of the AFU Newsletter since 1976 (issue #50 published in December 2005). Today the principal manager and chairman of AFU.
1 - Why did you start to study and search Ufology? Have you ever seen an UFO? If so, how was your experience?
I was born in 1950. I had a brother who was very interested in everything flying. He died of leukemia when I was only three. I inherited his box full of books & models of airplanes. This was the foundation. When I was maybe 10-11 I started to collect clippings about technological things, including flying saucers (which I then thought of as a technological construction in a simplistic way). By 15-16 I started to read UFO books and in 1969 -1970 I was one of several people who co-started UFO-Sweden, which is now the main Swedish organization with about 1.300 members (to be compared to 9 million citizens in Sweden). I have never seen anything that still remains a UFO, meaning I have seen a few things that later on got their perfectly natural explanation. So my interest is not self-experience-oriented but more of a collection mania, but of course with overtones where I have (in vain) tried to fully understand the phenomenon under study. 2 - Could you explain to us what AFU is? What kind of files and material do you have in AFU archives? How did you gather all those archives?
What a gigantic question! AFU was born in 1973, when a few of us felt the need for a lending library for UFO literature that would be open to anyone who pays an annual small fee. This line of work is still a part of AFU, although we have now diversifiedin many other directions. We started with about 350 books donated by a Stockholm ufologist. Now we have about 8.000 books in the library, representing about 6.500 different titles. About 700 titles are added each year now.
We have had a fantastic growth especially during the last 10-15 years. From the corner of a room in one of our founding member's apartment, we now have four archive facilities along the same city road with a total area of 250 square meters. The collection represents about 600-650 meters on our shelves.
We now collect almost anything related to UFOs and belief (or non-belief!) in UFOs and theories related to them or to the related folklore of extraterrestrial visits – now, in historic and pre-historic times. We, of course, have the national collection of Swedish UFO reports (at least 20.000 of them) and now also the Danish collection (deposition by the Danish national group). We have accepted donations – and sometimes we have even bought – from hundreds of Swedish, Scandinavian, European and international collectors and donors.
Our main collections are: books & booklets, magazines (about 25.000 unique issues), clippings (about 30.000 Swedish plus growing collections from many other countries), UFO reports & related documents, audio tape cassettes (about 2.000 including witness interviews, public talks, media programs), some 600 videos (a part of our collection in large growth right now!), a small SF collection, an almost complete collection of the maps of Sweden (to help field investigations), personal and organizational files from hundreds of groups (mainly in Scandinavia), paraphernalia (like models, posters, T-shirts, you name it…). Most of these things have been donated to us.
The material arrives here in postal boxes from countries like France, Russia, the United States, and other corners of the orld. Clas Svahn (chairman of UFO-Sweden since more than 15 years) is our "whipper" of materials and his cars have taken tons of materials to our doors from all across Sweden, Scandinavia and the UK. In November he made the fourth tour between UK ufologists and collected another car-load, which has already been catalogued and filed – for the most part, see www.afu.info/recdons06.htm.
3 - I know that you have been writing some UFO articles. Can you tell us what article you wrote you most like? Do you intend to translate some of your articles to Portuguese? Do you have any article published in Brazil? Did you ever write a book?
Writing is the part of my life that I have been forced to set aside due to lack of time. I still have a professional job, six hours a day, to care for – and the administration of the archives, which takes more than the remainder of my spare time.
I still mourn not being able to bring the rich Scandinavian material on our ghost fliers (1930s) and our ghost rockets (1946) to the international audience's attention. This is a probably a loss to international UFO studies, to some extent, although Clas Svahn and I have still managed to write a few lengthy articles on the subject. I have planned a few books but failed to find the time and concentration to finish them. If anyone should like to translate some of our articles in English to Portuguese they are more than welcome! Maybe it has been done? The best thing I have written is probably about the investigation of the Gideon Johansson humanoid encounter, which unfortunately is yet mostly in Swedish. I spent a week on the phone, interviewing most people connected to the witness and also hours at the ibrary, and finally I think I found a psychological solution to the case. Any solution to a case thrills me.
4 - Could you tell us how your involvement in the study of Domsten Case was?
I was mainly doing the table work here, like library studies, while Clas Svahn was the one active in the field with interviews of everyone involved. Together I think we put together a very definite picture that the case was a hoax. We also managed to find the inspirations for creating the story: a local ghost story and a science fiction cartoon in the Tom Trick series. We were thrilled by finding the solution (and finally learning about the death-bed confession of one of the claimants) to this case which had been one of the primers in Swedish ufology for decades, and also published internationally. I can still remember the disappointment it created in some of the audience in the late 1980s, as Clas Svahn presented the result at a national UFO conference. Dead silence in the audience. It was really like killing a darling. I love that. I just wish we could kill another darling the other way – finding positive proof.
5 - You were one of the first researchers in Sweden to gain access to the government archives on the waves of "ghost fliers" (1930's) and "ghost rockets" (1946). How was it? What conclusions did you get?
As for the ghost fliers I am 99 % confident of a perfectly natural explanation to the phenomenon. This was between the two World Wars, the winters of 1933/1934 and 1936/1937. Hitler had just entered as the modern emperor of Germany. This bears every sign of an intelligence and training operation by Russian and/or German air forces directed against the mining ores of northern Sweden. But we have still failed to find the definitive document to prove this thesis, in any archive. I must admit that we have not tried very hard; this is one of the little devils poking at me from over my shoulder. If anyone should like to fund this study we would be more than happy to do it, taking leave from our works for the needed daily money.
As for the ghost rockets of 1946 it's more complicated. There we still have 150-200 mostly Swedish cases (of more than 1.000) that remain unsolved, in my mind. It is a start of the modern UFO era, but not with flying saucers (meaning daylight discs). I think we have only one case in the whole wave that could be a DD. The objects were mainly cigar-, rocket- or airplane-like, sometimes behaving in a very advanced way. The Defense Staff committee couldn't explain many of the cases in 1946, and I think we have also failed in a good number of cases. The ghost rocket phenomenon continues with a few cases pouring in now and then. At least we have big question marks over our heads. But the good cases of 1946 are wrapped (as usual) in a plethora of meteoric phenomena and high-altitude over flights of newly imported Vampire jets.
6 - What are the top 10 cases of World Ufology in your opinion?
This is a tough one. I would like a few days to concentrate on that question. I think I would still single out Roswell as one of the ten. Making a list of the ten would probably involve a few days of thinking and thumbing through the literature. But Roswell is a mysterious thing. I am glad that people like Nick Redfern are trying to find new inklings on the problem but I am not confident that the mystery is permanently solved and buried. This summer I have been watching and cataloguing (for the AFU archives) a good number of Roswell video documentaries and I am still impressed with SOME of the materials, excluding, of course, things like the Santilli film and some of the less believable witnesses. Roswell is the mother of cover-up cases, although I regularly don't believe in a great cover-up by any of the governments of the world. If there is a cover-up it's generally more about ignorance than about knowledge.
7- What is the most important UFO CASE in Sweden in your opinion? Why do you believe so?
Since several of the good ones have failed to stand the test I must single out the Gotland case, reported by AFU donor K.Gösta Rehn in the UFO Encyclopedia by Ronald Story. But we still need many pieces of that puzzle and it could be a "looser", too. It rests entirely on witness testimony but is the mother of a very good daylight disc case with the extremely detailed descriptions of the two discs. It impressed me very much when first published by Rehn, and it still does.
8 - In Brazil right now we have the tendency to separate Spiritual Ufology to Scientific Ufology. What do you think about that? What do you think about Spiritual Ufology and Scientific Ufology? Can they live together or separate?
I don't think they can live together, not in one and the same organization, if that organization is to survive in the long run... AFU is possibly the one and only exception, because we are an archives institution that has as an AIM to collect material from ALL aspects of ufology, including even the extreme spiritual cults. This is our mission: to care for preservation of it all, whether "serious", "semi-serious" or anything else.
UFO-Sweden was from the start of the spiritual type, with me and a few other types trying to balance with some "science" thinking. It didn't work at that time, so we split up. This was not the only split from UFO-Sweden – until it was, finally, "completely" on the "scientific" side and with the spiritual ufologists offside. Now it works, at least in my mind! Spiritual ufology is now very low profiled in Sweden, but still existing to a degree where it doesn't interfere with serious investigations and attempts to find explanations for the phenomena reported.
9 - What would you say to a young man that intends to be a Ufology searcher?
A very good question this one. I have myself asked it of people I have interviewed. A few points: Never expect to make a living from serious ufology, unless you maybe combine it with a broad academic or journalistic career. Question every belief, even the most "self-evident" (like extraterrestrial spaceships!). A good point would be to work more from a semi-folkloric viewpoint of collecting a large number of stories and materials into a catalogue before taking a stand on the origin(s) of it all. The
complete picture is formed by the individual cases so be careful with the minute details of EVERY case.
10- Dou you read about Brazilian Ufology Cases? What Brazilian cases do you know? What do you think about them?
I remember a few, mainly from the repertoire of Olavo T. Fontes, like the Itaipú case and, of course, the sexual abduction of Antonio Villas Boas. Rehn translated many APRO cases for his books in Swedish. I also read a lot of Brazilian humanoid stories in the 1960s – 1980s, the golden age of the Flying Saucer Review under Charles Bowen's editorship.
Brazilian ufology seems to me a lot like Finnish ufology, the stories coming from the country neighboring us to the immediate east. At least the multitude of contactee stories!! There is a lot of spiritual undertones, both positive and negative. The very negative stories of blood-sucking chupacabras, ray-burned people & mutilations (a large wave of this in Argentina, don't know about Brazil in this sense…) makes you think about "devils in the skies".
11 - What is your opinion about Ufology future?
With so many wild-brains in the field (particularly the American conspiracy scene that has such a big influence on us all) I can see no future for ufology as a science, except for being, perhaps a part of ethnology with outside actors studying our odd behavior (in place of us studying the very UFO phenomenon!). This is bad, and sad, because there is obviously a strong core of truly mysterious cases & materials that should not be ignored.
There is also a tendency for repetition every decade or every-other decade. Every new generation of ufologists repeats the mistakes of the "elderly" and view us as overly skeptical, even as debunkers. The people that survive this process, still taking a part in active ufology, and learning by doing, are very few, but they can make a difference by joining forces, nationally and trans-nationally. Some small such nucleus of people can be found in many nations and it's very much up to us. The internet and its mailing-lists is now strong glue between us all. So let's be
hopeful!
12 - I really would like you to live a message to The Brazilian Ufology Center. Right now we have more than 26.400 members and they really would like to hear what you have to say to them.
26.400 means 125 ufologists in every million (counting 188 million people living in Brazil). By comparison, we are about 1.300 paying members out of 9 million people in Sweden. So we are on roughly equal terms! Effective work can be accomplished on a few levels: case collection (maybe you should view and pride yourself more as modern folklorists?), data analysis (is there a database of Brazilian cases, we have one of 12.000 Swedish cases) and recruiting intelligent and hard-working people with good general contacts in the society for the boards of your organizations.
Of course, if there was a Brazilian Archives for UFO Research (maybe there is, without us knowing it?) we would support it because having a chain of national-international archives to preserve the material and traditions of every generation of ufologists will strengthen us and give ufology a permanent
history, tradition and good reputation even in academic circles.
AFU in Sweden cannot possibly cover the complete globe with our work, even though we have that ambition in some ways! The ambition is effectively stopped by such "minor" things as our lack of understanding what has been written in a foreign language, such as Portuguese!! We are currently working our ways into the ufology's from countries like Finland, Russia and France, where we can't fully appreciate and understand what we collect and preserve without the help of native ufologists from those countries.
This is a weakness that can only be countered, in the long run, by creating a chain of national or regional archives, which would unite through the internet. From our point of view the creation of a sister AFU-Brazil (specializing in collection of Portuguese materials) would be a good thing and we could send you hundreds of kilos of European materials in exchange for the extra copies created within your own donation "system" and which we would be happy to receive here.
We've just had our first big grant of 82.000 SEK from the Swedish National Archives for buying new shelves for a new archive we are just inaugurating, see www.afu.info/projects.htm. We have worked more than three decades for this success so you have to be very, very patient. January/07
Government Fails to Look into O’Hare UFO
The Exponent
1-23-07
Earth was visited by aliens in November. Or at least it's possible. Many employees of O'Hare Airport in Chicago have come forward and described a round gray object hovering just below cloud level around 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 7. But since then, there has not been a single probe by the FAA or the government.1-23-07
It is understandable that every alien spacecraft sighting is not investigated. Simply poking around the Internet for 10 seconds looking for information on UFOs will reveal an astonishing amount of sightings. But there is something different about the O'Hare case. In this instance, many employees and a few pilots have come forward and presented United Airlines (where most of the employees worked) and the FAA with accounts of an object hovering over Terminal C. Six of these individuals have spoken with the media under the condition of anonymity. These individuals, although viewing the aircraft from different vantage points, all describe roughly the same account of the visit, including the object suddenly bursting through the cloud cover and leaving a hole behind.
Both the amount of witnesses and their credibility is extremely high. That is what sets the O'Hare sighting apart from most other sightings. These employees are well-trained mechanics, managers and pilots whose main motivation for reporting the sighting was the safety of airline passengers. But even after such a large amount of people risked their livelihoods and reputations to report a UFO, nobody has taken them seriously.
United refuses to acknowledge that any incident ever occurred, saying there is no record of the event. The FAA has chosen not to investigate, chalking everything up to a weather phenomenon. Why?
By ignoring the statements of a multitude of incredible witnesses, the organizations hope the issue will just go away. It probably will. But this is not a viable course of action. There should be an investigation about the sighting, if for no other reason than the fact that objects flying over restricted airspace could cause accidents killing hundreds of people. Maybe it wasn't a UFO, but the public deserves to know their plane isn't going to be blindsided upon runway approach by a weather balloon. And maybe, during the investigation, we find out what visited O'Hare. The truth is out there.
LIVE SIGHTING REPORTS BY MUFON
