THE UFO CHRONICLES: September 2007

Thursday, September 27, 2007

NEED TO KNOW
UFOs, Military and Intelligence

A compelling exposé of the world’s greatest secret

Based on many years of research by one of the world’s most respected authorities on alien phenomena, Need to Know draws on top-secret documents, reports of encounters with huge craft of unknown origin reported by pilots and naval officers, and interviews with high-ranking military and intelligence insiders.

This book is full of revelations, including the alarming escalation of aircraft accidents following military attacks on UFOs, the disappearance of hundreds of military aircraft during UFO encounters and recent near-misses with UFOs.

‘...THE CLASSIFICATION WAS, FROM THE OUTSET, ABOVE TOP SECRET, SO THE VAST MAJORITY OF U.S. OFFICIALS AND POLITICIANS, LET ALONE A MERE ALLIED MINISTER OF DEFENSE, WERE NEVER IN THE LOOP’
-Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Minister of Defense (2005)

The proof, such as recovered alien vehicles and communication with their crews, is there but it is being denied to the general public, as well as to an overwhelming majority of scientists. But Need to Know provides a wealth of new documents and oral evidence, from all over the world, supporting the existence of alien intelligence and UFOs – and by focusing on military and intelligence evidence it is hard to refute.

Timothy Good’s previous books include the British Sunday Times top 10 bestselling titles Beyond Top Secret and Alien Liaison. As a leading authority on UFOs he frequently appears on television and radio documentaries. He lives in London.

More information is on his website: www.timothygood.co.uk

See Also:

Legacy Of A UFO Story

There Have Been Skirmishes Between UFOs and American Fighter Jets

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Monday, September 24, 2007

MUFON MASS UFO SHOW

More . . .

See Also:

SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

Celebrations Planned for 40th Anniversary of UFO Sighting

By Carla Allen
The Vanguard
9-24-07

Forty years ago on Oct. 4, 1967, RCMP officers responded to a report of a crash landing of an unidentified object near Shag Harbour. They observed a pale yellow light bobbing on the surface for a while before it sank.

Government documents detailing the event said not a trace of the crash object was found.

The event continues to fascinate many today. To celebrate the anniversary, a newly formed society has organized the Lighthouse & UFO's 40th Anniversary of the Shag Harbour Incident.

Cindy Nickerson is the chair of the Shag Harbour Incident Society, a group formed last fall to work towards the construction of a permanent site for the display the history of Shag Harbour, including the UFO incident.

The society’s temporary museum is located opposite R & D Nickerson Fisheries Ltd. in Shag Harbour and has received close to 1250 visitors since opening in mid-June.

Nickerson says people are already inquiring about the UFO weekend.

“We had some people from Dartmouth, Halifax and the Valley asking about it,” she said.

The schedule is as follows:

Friday, Oct. 5:

10 a.m. UFO museum opens as usual. Local coral and fossil expert Derek Jones will have a display at the Shag Harbour Community Hall. His corals have been featured on a postage stamp.

4 p.m. Buffet supper at the Shag Harbour/Bear Point Fire Hall. Local dishes - $6 adult and $3 for 12 and under.

7 p.m. UFO talks at Shag Harbour/Bear Point Fire Hall. $5 adult, $2.50 12 and under. Local witnesses Norman Smith, Laurie Wickens, David Cvet a Toronto UFO researcher and diver, Don Ledger author and UFO researcher.

Ledger co-authored the book, Dark Object, and also wrote Flying Triangles, Swissair Down, and Maritime UFO Files. He has written other articles that have been translated into other languages and been a guest on several TV and radio programs. Society members recognize him as an expert on the Shag Harbour incident.

Saturday, Oct. 6

7 a.m. Lighthouse breakfast $5 adult, $2.50 child at the Shag Harbour/Bear Point Fire Hall

9 a.m. Collectables sale at the Shag Harbour Community Hall. Includes Avon bottles, dishes etc.

10:30 a.m. Norman Smith will lead a guided tour from ERMES to gazebo. Ledger will meet the group at gazebo. Smith will tell what he saw in ’67.

12:30 p.m. Local expert on Seal Island Ronnie Kenney will talk about life on this remote island.

2 p.m. Ledger will give a talk on UFOs at the Shag Harbour/Bear Point Fire Hall.

The above three events cost $5 adult or $2.50 child.

11:30 a.m. The Bon Portage General Store will be selling lunch. Lobster chowder, sandwiches etc.

An author from British Columbia, C. Anne Degrace will be attending the festival. She is working on a fiction book featuring Shag Harbour. Other Shag Harbour Incident Society members will be presenting talks on UFOs.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

UFO Seen Over Town

By Christine van Reeuwyk
Peninsula News Review
9-21-07

Unexplained object under investigation

Are we alone in the universe?

One Sidney resident always thought he’d wait until the aliens landed before he’d believe in little green men. The man, who routinely pops out to his suburban back yard for an evening cigarette and studies the night sky, was surprised when he saw an unidentified flying object recently. The UFO was a bright orange orb, which he later described as a jellyfish shape. He briefly wrote the unusual sight off as lights on a plane.

He quickly changed his mind.

It was too bright, too orange, and it cruised silently southward over the Sidney sky.

“I would expect a lot of people would have seen it if they looked skyward. It was very conspicuous,” he told the Peninsula News Review. “If it was a prank, it was a really good prank.”

The whole sighting took about three or four minutes he explained, pointing out the path the light cut across the Sidney sky, toward the airport. He quickly snapped off four photographs, but was disappointed with the outcome; the orange blobs against the black night sky shed little light on the origin or makeup of the UFO.

The story gets stranger as the Sidney man wasn’t alone.

He reported the sighting to an online website and shortly thereafter another report came in, also from Sidney.

“We were standing outside in the front of our house and suddenly there was a bright light that came over the trees,” the second witness reported. “I thought it was a plane at first, because it was so low, but there was no sound. It then curved around to the south moving very slowly and seemed to be getting higher and much further away … then it just disappeared.

“We knew it wasn’t a plane, it was moving way too slow. People everywhere were looking up at this thing. I don’t know what I saw, but it was pretty exciting.”

There were clear skies when the bright orange orb was spotted Sunday, Sept. 9, shortly after 9 p.m. with more than 43-kilometre visibility and gentle winds.

The sightings are being investigated by Ufologist Brian Vike, Director of HBCC UFO Research in Houston, BC.

A Ufologist studies ufology, the study of unidentified flying object reports, sightings, alleged physical evidence, and other related phenomena.

“It’s a little bit weird,” Vike said, noting the speed and shape make the sighting unusual.

“We’ve been getting a lot of this stuff out of the UK and that has turned out to be those Thai lanterns,” Vike said. “But this one, I don’t know.”

The BBC reported two years ago that the release of Thai lanterns during a wedding sparked a deluge of UFO sighting reports. Witnesses saw the group of about 30 lights Thursday, October 20, 2005 and described the red blobs as “not aeroplanes, nor helicopters”.

Traditional Thai hot air lanterns are made from thin tissue paper and bamboo. A burning paper wick provides the hot air the lifts the lantern into the night sky.

When investigating an unidentified flying object, Vikes said he begins with astronomy programs online and to confirm that it’s something unusual. Then he contacts local media, police, airports and other contacts.

“It’s basically just sort of run down the list, make calls and hopefully come up with something,” Vike said.

Little has been discovered about the recent sighting over Sidney. Despite the report of “people everywhere” looking up at it, there have been no more reports from eye witnesses. The strange, glowing orange globe also remains to be explained.

About 90 per cent of UFO’s are identified, Vike said, whether it’s weather experiments, military experiments or a host of other explanations.

“But 10 per cent remain unknown because it’s very hard to find information,” Vike said.

So far this year Vike has received about 100 reports of UFO from across BC.

“That doesn’t include all the other ufologists and there’s lots of them,” Vike said. “They’re coming in from pretty much everywhere.”

Ufologists across Canada have received more than 300 reports.”Then you try to distinguish what is real and what is not,” Vike said.

He uses his experience and little clues like lack of reply to a report, or bogus email address, to weed out false reports.

Unfortunately, he thinks the number of sightings is much higher, but people are reluctant to come forward.

“People are reluctant to report because, I think, they think their name is going to be splashed all over the place,” Vike said. He’s careful not to name witnesses on his web site, www.hbccufo.org, where he posts reports.

“It was very bright, brilliant even. It pulsated/flickered/jiggled slightly, the colour was not homogenous or static, it was very much like a glowing orange jellyfish,” the first witness said. “It continued due south over Sidney at a increasing rate of speed and appeared to move south towards Victoria and then south-west and out of sight dimming from view.”

Whether there’s an explanation or not, the Sidney man is glad there was another witness backing up his sighting, and hopes other witnesses will come forward.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

MY UFO EXPERIENCE: UFOs Put On Show in The Desert

Reader Submitted Report
[Unedited]
9-11-07

yes this was no weather baloon. friends this bright light came down from way up from the sky .first I thought it was an approching jetliner but then it stoped, hovering over the desert realy low. couldnt figure what it was because of its brightness. so my friend went to get several scopes by then it backed up but still visable to the eye as bright star.as I fouced in on this object it seemed to have a glowing moving object in the middle that was swerling around like a ball of mercury going down a drain . but It would twist and turn as it wolbed around,it would move up into the sky and back again. then at one time it shot accross to the west I mean it disppeared for a second. then I looked around the sky , and I found it again.

doing the same thing for almost an hour.nd it also seemed to have these smaller little lights leaving the object. and returning to it.but the lights would not stop they would ftravel through it and go the other way. seems like there was several of them but it was hard to tell they were moving to fast.

and then I asked myfriend are we seeing what we think we are seeing. He looked at me and said it sure is strange. any way it dropped down real fast going behind the mountains and was not able to see it no more. then about ten min. later it reappeard, but no longer could abserve because of the sun starting to come out. and that my frinds is my storry this was about five in the morning till sun up sept 7 2007

Do The Caves On Mars Harbor Alien Life?

The picture above shows seven items dubbed, “cave skylights.” They have been named the “Seven Sisters,” and respectively are clockwise from upper left are Dena, Chloe, Wendy, Annie, Abbey and Nikki, and Jeanne. (Arrows indicate direction of solar illumination [I] and north [N]).

A research paper presented in early March at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, an annual get-together of experts in fields ranging from moon exploration to asteroid detection and astrobiology ignited debate about the prospect of “life” either “having existed,” or maybe even being “present now” in what are thought to be caves on a volcano named Arsia Mons near Mars' tallest mountain.

These “cave skylights,” as they have been dubbed, were discovered in images from NASA's “Mars Odyssey” spacecraft. The authors of the paper— Glen Cushing, Timothy Titus and J. Judson Wynne of the U.S. Geological Survey, in addition to Phil Christensen of Arizona State University argue, “These holes, the size of football fields may be the entrances to subterranean caverns. If the claims prove to be true, such caves would be prime targets in the search for extraterrestrial life and prime real estate for future human settlements.”

Obviously, shelter from the harsh environment of Mars, as well as “heat” from volcanic activity, in regards to “liquid water” would dramatically increase the prospects for life to exist and prosper.

Skeptics will no doubt question whether the “black spots” on the images are in fact cave, “entrances,” “skylights” or just minor “pockmarks in shadow” on the Martian surface; however, the group writes:

The Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) collected the majority of data for this study [15]. From a nadir perspective, THEMIS observes both visible and thermalinfrared wavelengths during the afternoon (~ 1500-1700 hrs), and IR wavelengths only for early-morning observations (~ 0300-0500 hrs.) [15]. The inspection of dark, circular pit-like features at visible wavelengths (VIS band 3, ~.654 µm) gave our first indication of potential skylight.. . . To aid in visualization, we have informally named these 'seven sisters' on Arsia Mons as: Dena, Chloë, Wendy, Annie, Abbey, Nikki and Jeanne (Figure 1). Most of the candidates are adjacent to collapse pits or are directly in-line with collapse-pit chains, and appear to have formed by similar processes. They are visibly and from an off-nadir perspective.

. . . If liquid water does exist at or near the surface, then caves at lower elevations could hold natural reservoirs, greatly improving the possibilities for past or present microbial life. The discovery of potential skylight openings into Martian caves is an exciting step towards future exploration and discovery. New spacecraft orbiting Mars, with greater observational capabilities, can observe these candidates at higher resolutions, at different times of day, from different perspectives and in distinct from collapse pits, however, by a lack of visible (sunlit) walls or floors. These proposed skylights also lack the visible characteristics (such as raised rims or ejecta patterns) that would associate them with impact craters. Thermal behaviors furthermore confirm they are not misidentified surface features such as dark sand or rock.

Even if these are just “vertical shafts” in the red planet, they would still fall under the definition of a “cave” and given their size, the points raised by the researchers are still valid.

The researchers further write:

Analyses of the candidates suggest they are not of impact origin, not patches of dark surface material, and are likely skylight openings into subsurface cavernous spaces. Visible observations show dark holes with sufficient depth that no illuminated floors (incidence angles = 61.5°) can be seen from a nadir perspective (Thermal-infrared data suggest temperatures inside these features remain nearly constant throughout each diurnal cycle. . . . afternoon temperatures for Annie that are warmer than the shadows of adjacent collapse pits, and cooler than sunlit portions. Meanwhile, nighttime temperatures for this candidate are warmer than all nearby surfaces. Such is the behavior we would expect of a cavern floor that receives little or no daily solar insolation . . ..

The researchers will no doubt take comfort in some “supportive evidence” found here on this planet; the features of the “Seven Sisters” are consistent with “lava tubes”; as noted by biologist Penny Boston, “the walls of collapsed lava tubes can hold deposits of permanent ice or even microbial communities.”

The one thing all agree on, is that the “Seven Sisters” deserve further analysis by superior equipment e.g., “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.” This orbiter offers a “higher resolution camera” and should be able to substantiate whether of not these are just “vertical shafts” or are indeed the “skylights” that open up into larger chambers.

The spacecraft is also equipped with “ground-penetrating radar” which may be able to provide a “rough map” of the caverns. Undeniably, “entering” the “caves” would be the most informative; however, a “manned mission” is still decades off in the future.

As “necessity is the mother of invention,” it will be most interesting to see what technology will be inspired by these latest findings . . . what will come of the need to explore the caves of Mars?

Friday, September 21, 2007

MY UFO EXPERIENCE: Airplane Passenger Recounts Recent UFO Sighting In Route To LAX

Reader Submitted Report
[Unedited]
9-18-07

While flying home from the east coast Sept 13, 2007 approx. 6:30pm pt I saw out of the right side of the airplane an extremely bright white light in the distance.

We were 1 1/2 hrs from landing at LAX so I am not sure where we were at dusk but the light was so unusual. I pointed it out to my Dad who was with me, I am not a child, 51.

The man behind me noticed it also and when I showed Dad he said he had been watching also. We eventually passed it out to the side of us and what seemed the same altitude. As we passed it over a 15 min. timeframe, it began to turn orange and was in a shape of a hot air balloon. It seemed to look like a balloon on fire hovering over this small patch of lights on the ground, a very small town if that.

After passing it, the object began to turn white again and got smaller and smaller until I couldn't see it. As we approached it over a 15 min timeframe the light was bright and slowly turned orange but the shape and brightness was the same but as we passed it and pulled away the light disentagrated in the same amount of time or less.

I mentioned it to the flight attendant, she looked at it and was just as amazed as I was. She said to ask the pilot about it when we land. There is NO WAY he could not have seen it. It was so close and bright. When I asked him about it, he said he didn't see anything. That tells me he knew something. Otherwise he would have said he saw it and didn't know what it could be.

I will never know but I do think I saw something unusual that was not from here. It was too high for a balloon, a rocket would have moved, and it was too low for a
Satellite.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Officials in Peru State That The Fallen UFO is a ‘Chondrite Meteor’

Last Saturday night at approximately 10:00 pm, villagers of Carancas , in the region of Puno, Peru stated that they witnessed a “fiery orange object” streaking across the night sky and ultimately crashing to the ground, emitting a “loud explosion” near their village.

Initial reports indicate that the villagers believed a plane had crashed (there were reports of “chunks of lead and silver around the site”); however, the item that has garnered so much media attention is the fact that those “first on the scene” became ill, and then later, villagers that “lived near-by” were also affected.

Images associated with various reports about the incident show a “water-filled crater” purportedly, 10m wide and 5m deep; soon after, reports seem to indicate it was larger.

Although the photographs show a “water-filled” crater, villagers who were first to reach the location were reported to have ”touched the glowing rock believing it had some type of monetary value,” as well as “handling luminous substances at the site.” Moreover, Peru’s health ministry stated, that in addition to dizziness, vomiting and throat irritation, “skin lesions” were also present; this initially gave rise to “radiation fears.”

Do Meteorites Make You Ill?

Consequently, the notion of radiation being present prompted Puno's Regional Health Directorate to send a group of specialists to the Carancas community and take samples of the object and or debris in the area. Jorge López Tejada, a representative for the institution said samples would be tested in Lima. Results are forthcoming. In addition, Tejada stated, an environmental cleaning crew was going to the site to take earth and water samples, and these too will be evaluated.

To date, the total of people affected by the object is over 600, and speculation of some of the causality ranges from an “alien infection” to a “U.S. spy satellite,” and seemingly more plausible, the emission of “volcanic gases,” although one might speculate that there would be some history of this in the past. According to Peru's La Republica newspaper, due to the high number of illnesses, authorities are considering placing the town of Carancas, Puno, Peru in “a state of emergency.”

In part an article from the “The New York Times” quotes another source in saying,

“Mid-sized meteorites are not hot. I’ll say it again: Mid-sized meteorites are not hot. First, meteoroids are naturally cold. They’ve been out in the frigid blackness of space for many billions of years — these rocks are cold down to their very center. Second, because of its size there’s a good chance that this meteorite was originally part of a larger meteor that broke up anywhere between 60 and 30km above the surface. If that is the case, the larger meteor’s cold interior would become the smaller meteor’s cold exterior. Since hardly any surface heating takes place lower than about 30km, this cold surface doesn’t warm up by any appreciable amount. Some meteorites, located soon after landing, have actually been reported to have frost on the surface due to their still cold interior.”

Descriptions of the object “glowing” (pertaining to heat), and “boiling water” certainly doesn’t conform to the a fore mentioned ideology.

The Latest

Peru's official government news agency reported on the 18th that the UFO was indeed a meteorite . . . a “Chondrite” meteorite to be more specific. Wikipedia defines “Chondrite as follows:

“Chondrites are stony meteorites that have not been modified due to melting or differentiation of the parent body. They formed when various types of dust and small grains that were present in the early solar system accreted to form primitive asteroids. Prominent among the components present in chondrites are the enigmatic chondrules, millimeter-sized objects that originated as freely floating, molten or partially molten droplets in space; most chondrules are rich in the silicate minerals olivine and pyroxene. Chondrites also contain refractory inclusions (including Ca-Al Inclusions), which are among the oldest objects to form in the solar system, particles rich in metallic Fe-Ni and sulfides, and isolated grains of silicate minerals. The remainder of chondrites consists of fine-grained (micrometer-sized or smaller) dust, which may either be present as the matrix of the rock or may form rims or mantles around individual chondrules and refractory inclusions. Embedded in this dust are presolar grains, which predate the formation of our solar system and originated elsewhere in the galaxy.

Most meteorites that are recovered on Earth are chondrites: ~86% of witnessed falls are chondrites, as is the overwhelming majority of meteorites that are found. There are currently over 27,000 chondrites in the world's collections.”

Although, Luisa Macedo, a Volcanologist for Peru's Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute (INGEMMET), confirmed that the meteorite was a Chondrite, she also said, that it was not radioactive and did not have any toxic gases or substances which could be harmful to peoples health; so the question remains what caused the toxic fumes, and “radioactive like symptoms?”

Interestingly, “Peru's Nuclear Energy Institute” has also been added to the investigation team as well as National University of Altiplano, National University of Altiplano and a Bolivian university.

Although “western sources” are “stumped” in regards to the “source” of the “mystery illness,” apparently the Russians have known all along, in part, Pravda reports:

Russian Military Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that one of the United States most secretive spy satellites, the KH-13, targeting Iran was 'destroyed in its orbit' with its main power generator powered by the radioactive isotope Pu-238 surviving re-entry and crashing in a remote region of the South American Nation of Peru, and where hundreds are reported to be ill from radiation poisoning.

Western media reports are stating that the US spy satellite debris hitting Peru was caused by a meteor, but which, according to these reports, would be 'impossible' as the size of 30-meter crater, if caused by a meteorite, would have hit the ground with about as much energy as 1 kiloton tactical nuclear weapon, and which would have been recorded by the seismic stations around the World.

More . . .

As one can see there are many aspects of this event that still are “unexplained,” and at present remain a mystery; however, it would appear that the “object” itself is indeed a “Chondrite meteor,” this being confirmed after scientific analysis. It’s important to point out that this incident was labeled a “meteor fall” before anyone really knew what in fact it was, all the ancillary evidence e.g., the associated illnesses, the heat, boiling water, noxious fumes etc., did and don’t support data associated with such incidents.

That said, it was certainly “premature,” and “erroneous reporting” to brand it as such, prior to some form of investigation.

UPDATE

According to a report by José Orozco in Caracas, Venezuela for National Geographic News, published on September 21, in part he writes:

The “mystery illness” associated with the “meteor fall” the result of “inhaling arsenic fumes,” according to Luisa Macedo, a researcher for Peru's Mining, Metallurgy, and Geology Institute (INGEMMET), who visited the crash site.

The meteorite created the gases when the object's hot surface met an underground water supply tainted with arsenic, the scientists said.

Numerous arsenic deposits have been found in the subsoils of southern Peru, explained Modesto Montoya, a nuclear physicist who collaborated with the team. The naturally formed deposits contaminate local drinking water.

"If the meteorite arrives incandescent and at a high temperature because of friction in the atmosphere, hitting water can create a column of steam," added José Ishitsuka, a geologist at the Peruvian Geophysics Institute, who analyzed the object.

The report also indicates that the "number of people" afflicted was approximately "30" opposed to the "hundreds" that were mentioned in the initial reports from the area.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

UFO (Thought To Be A Meteor) Crashes To Earth in Peru, Locals Overcome By Fumes, Talk of Metallic Debris

Peru meteorite crash 'causes mystery illness'

By Rory Carroll
The Guardian Unlimited
9-18-07

A meteorite has struck a remote part of Peru and carved a large crater that is emitting noxious odours and making villagers ill, according to local press reports.

A fireball streaked across the Andean sky late on Saturday night and crashed into a field near Carancas, a sparsely populated highland wilderness near Lake Titicaca on the border with Bolivia, witnesses said.

The orange streak and loud bang were initially thought to be a plane crashing. When farmers went to investigate, however, they found a crater at least 10m wide and 5m deep, but no sign of wreckage.

The soil around the hole appeared to be scorched and there was a "strange odour", a local health department official, Jorge López, told Peru's RPP radio.

Later the farmers complained of headaches and vomiting. Police who went to investigate the crater were also stricken with nausea, prompting authorities to dispatch a medical team that reached the site today.

"The odour is strong and it's affecting nearby communities. There are 500 families close by and they have had symptoms of nausea, vomiting, digestive problems and general sickness," said Mr López.

At least 12 people were treated in addition to seven police officers who required oxygen masks and rehydration.

The farmers expressed fears that what appeared to be chunks of lead and silver around the site could contaminate the soil.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Modesto Montoya, told the state press agency that a fallen meteorite did not present any danger unless it hit some structure on impact.

"None of the meteorites that fall in Peru and make perforations of varied sizes are harmful for people, unless they fall on a house," he said. Another meteorite fell to Earth in Arequipa province in June.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Fervor Abounds Between Ufologists and Pyrrhonists During Conference

UFO believers, skeptics clash at conference

By ROB DRINKWATER
HFXNews.ca

There were no laser blasts in the battle between believers and non-believers at a UFO conference in Alberta this weekend, but plenty of sharp words were fired between the two camps.

Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist who maintains that some UFOs are alien spacecraft, told nearly 200 delegates during the conference's opening lecture Friday night at the Telus World of Science in Edmonton that journalists and scientists are ignorant of the evidence supporting the fact that interstellar travellers have visited.

Friedman, who believes government covered up an alleged discovery of alien wreckage and bodies in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, said that many eyewitnesses of UFOs are silenced by a "laughter curtain" and fear ridicule if they report their sightings.

But Jaymie Matthews, an associate professor of astronomy at the University if British Columbia, argued that while he and other scientists have spent years searching the universe for Earth-like planets that would support intelligent life, none have been discovered yet.

"As an astrophysicist, I want there to be aliens here," Matthews told the crowd in his own lecture that followed Friedman's. "I'm not convinced."

Delegates such as David Beatty, a commercial pilot, expressed disgust that believers get marginalized.

"I'm sick and tired of the press covering (UFOs) as just something drunks saw on a beach," Beatty said after hearing Friedman speak.

Beatty said he's seen several things through a cockpit window that he couldn't explain, including a bright orange ball that drifted across the sky once during a flight over Atlantic Canada.

But his friend and fellow pilot Ray Morley, who is also a delegate at the two-day conference, said he's never seen anything unusual in two decades he's been flying.

"That doesn't mean I think he's crazy," Morley said, gesturing to Beatty.

Other delegates at the event, which is bills itself as a science-based UFO conference, include people who analyze UFO sightings from across Canada and the United States.

Friedman, who said he took classes at the University of Chicago with the late astronomer Carl Sagan, a noted non-believer in alien visitors, argues scientists often make too many assumptions based on limited information.

He said it was foolish to claim there are too few planets in the universe capable of supporting intelligent life, or that it would take too long to get from their planet to ours, because he said we just don't know.

Friedman also poured cold water on the argument that an alien landing like Roswell would be too big to cover up. He said thousands of people worked on the Manhattan project to build the first atomic bomb, but it stayed a secret until one was dropped on Japan.

"There are still things that are classified from the First World War," Friedman said. "Governments can find reasons if they want to cover something up."

Saturday, September 15, 2007

First Photonic Laser Thruster Takes Us One Step Closer To Interstellar Travel

Remarkable new spacecraft propulsion system in development
By Kevin Spiess
9-14-07
Neoseeker.com

The following is not science fiction: new 'Photonic Laser Thruster' demonstrated

Photons. Lasers. Both are very handy. Photons help me shave in the morning; they are also an inherent part of almost everything else in the universe. Lasers are great for CD players and pointing out stuff on charts -- and they have many other uses beyond this as well. But finally: the power of lasers, and the useful nature of photons, have been combined into a extremely promising new propulsion system, the Photonic Laser Thruster.

“[The] PLT has immense potential for the aerospace industry. For example, PLT powered spacecraft could transit the 100 million km to Mars in less than a week,” said the inventor of the space-drive, Dr. Young K. Bae, in a press release.

The efficiency of the Photonic Laser Thruster seems to credit ingenious design more so than any technological breakthroughs -- it was built using off the shelf parts, and utilizes some common principles of science. In a rough nutshell, the PLT uses “a photonic laser and a sophisticated photon beam amplification system”, in conjunction with precisely positioned mirrors, to make sort of 'light chamber', where photonic energy can be properly harnessed and focused for propulsion.

Not only is the thruster capable of (relatively) quick acceleration, but similar to ion-drives, the PLT requires no propellants, nor requires any extreme amount of power, thus, it is well-suited for extended journeys into space.

A successful prototype of the PLT thruster was demonstrated last year for many scientists. The prototype is much smaller than an engine that could be used on a spacecraft -- but the fundamentals would be the same, so it's just a matter of scalability. The prototype had a “egg-sized” laser and generated an “amplification factor of 3,000.” The PLT Thruster was made by the BAE Institute, and was funded by NASA.

Dr. Bae is the founder of the BAE Institute, and is, by many accounts, an all around very intelligent guy. He has a Ph.D in experimental atomic and nuclear physics, from the University of California, Berkeley. With the help of lab-buddies, Dr. Bae discovered He2- (the negative Helium molecular ion), and has been studying stuff like “particle beams, antimatter propulsion physics, high energy density materials, and nano-particles” for somewhere around twenty years or so.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Large, Bright UFO Filmed Over New Mexico
"It Was Frightening" Says Witness

NEW MEXICO FIREBALL:

By Spaceweather.com
9-14-07

On Sept 13th at approximately 3 o'clock in the morning MDT, an extremely bright fireball streaked over New Mexico, "It was terrifying," says eyewitness Susan K. Burgess. "I was stargazing outside my house near Santa Fe when the landscape started becoming very bright, as if a brilliant full moon was quickly rising from the southwest. The fireball itself [slowly moved] over the house and disintegrated with a great deal of scatter in the northwest sky."

At the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, a Sentinel all-sky video camera captured the fireball in flight:

Based on data from the video, the visual magnitude of the fireball was -14.6, about four times brighter than a full Moon!

"The fireball was a pure emerald green, uncomfortably bright to look at," adds Harald Edens located in the Magdalena Mountains west of Socorro, NM. "The object was disintegrating when I saw it, with pieces parallel-tracking and trailing the fireball. Those smaller pieces had all different colors--most notably red. I think it has been a piece of space junk."

Amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft not only photographed the fireball, but also recorded echos of a distant radio station bouncing off the meteor's ionized trail: movie. "This fireball turned night into day!" he says.

Stay tuned for updates.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Did You See Unidentified Flying Objects?

By Sally Jones
Worcester News
9-11-07

A WORCESTER couple spotted nine unidentifed objects in the sky above Worcester this morning.

Roger Shotton, of St John's, said the objects were red and cigar-shaped with no flashing lights.

He said: "Between 1am and 2.30am this morning I observed nine objects in the sky which were travelling along Bromwich Road, St John's, Worcester.

"They were bright red and cigar shaped and there were no flashing lights like you would see on aircraft there was also no noise coming from them. My wife and I wondered what they were."

Monday, September 10, 2007

Video: Direct Eyewitnesses Recount Enormous V-shaped Craft

Listen to the statements of “direct eyewitnesses” to the enormous “v-shaped craft” erroneously labeled as the “Phoenix Lights” which was seen over the southwestern United States in March of 1997.

In contrast to the normal reporting of the incident highlighting the “military flare drop” later in the evening of March 13th, this particular report focuses on the declarations of some the people who witnessed a craft so large in size, that what kept it aloft still evokes wonderment and awe of the witnesses to this day.

Phoenix Lights V-Shaped Craft As Seen By Tim Ley (Sml)

This refreshing report done by a local news station in Arizona shows the artwork of Tim Ley, (opposed to the repeatedly shown “flare drop video”) whose family observed the craft coming straight at them, and then go directly over their house as they stood in astonishment.

The local report was precipitated by the visit of a “Japanese film” crew who were on location doing a documentary on the incident, and attempting to locate the eyewitnesses of said craft.

Labeling how these “direct eyewitnesses” feel about how the mainstream media has misconstrued the events of March 13th, 1997 as “frustrated” would certainly be a mild depiction of the facts.

Most today are reluctant to recount their experiences in front of the camera for fear of the media who has made a practice of errantly associating their collective experiences with a “A-10 flare drop” which occurred a couple hours later on in the evening; of course the “other factor” is the lackadaisical manner in which the mainstream media reports UFO activity in general.

All that said, this particular report is most uplifting in regards to the norm, specifically in regards to what is now become known as the “Phoenix Lights.”

The short clips of Mike Fortson, Tim Ley and son Hal, as well as Terri Mansfield and veteran pilot Trig Johnston is just a quick preamble of the magnitude of what occurred that night over 10 years ago. Although it’s hard to imagine that there are those who haven’t heard of some element of “The Phoenix Lights Incident,” this short segment will certainly encourage interest among them; for persons who are confused over the event(s) and or “buy the flare-drop yarn” then these narratives from the “horses mouths” is mandatory viewing!

* Special Thanks To Mike Fortson

Watch The Video

See Also:

EXCLUSIVE:
March 13, 1997 UFO Report

THE ARIZONA UFO FLYOVER EVENT CALLED "PHOENIX LIGHTS"

SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

UFO Hunters Gather at City Monster Memorial

By Bill Lynch
The Charleston Gazette
9-9-07

The sleek, rounded automobiles parked outside the Capitol Theater on Summers Street on Friday night were artifacts of another generation, almost another America.

The Flatwoods Monster 55th Anniversary and Flying Saucer Extravaganza at the Capitol Theater was part celebration and part remembrance of an era when the nation seemed more innocent, if no less suspicious.

Many of the people milling around the vehicles before the doors opened at the theater and during the brief intermission of the four-hour show were children of the 1950s.

From conversations over the breakfast table or around the schoolyard, they’d heard the story of the strange visitor from the sky who came to Flatwoods. They grew up with the rumors that became legend long before it was a book called “The Braxton County Monster.”

Clayton Loudermilk from Clarksburg remembered hearing about the Braxton County Monster or the Flatwoods Monster when he was a kid. Stories about aliens have always fascinated him.

“I’ve always been interested in everything from pyramids, to space travel, to aliens,” Loudermilk said. “I’ve seen Stanton Friedman on television many times and just wanted to hear what he had to say in person.”

Others came because aliens and UFOs are part of their everyday lives.

Joe Gardner and his girlfriend, April Bailey, came from Huntington to commune with others who might share their experiences. Gardner, who works with the disabled, brought pictures of what he believes are alien spacecraft.

“I see them all the time, since I was 4,” he said. “Back in March, I was coming back into town and something got my attention. I had a disposable camera in my tackle box.”

He said he started carrying cheap disposable cameras with him when he went fishing after he got tired of people doubting the size of the fish he caught.

“Nobody ever believes you when you say you’ve caught something this big.”

He held his hands out broadly and laughed.

The pictures he had with him show odd, cylindrical shapes in the grainy background. It’s a flying saucer, he insists, and they fly over Huntington all the time.

“It’s not just me,” he said. “She’s seen them, too.”

His girlfriend shrugged, but nodded.

It was a quiet crowd, a polite crowd and, largely, a devoted crowd. Some of the finer points of what was presented might have been new, but it was unlikely any of the attendees had come to be convinced of anything they weren’t at least sympathetic to.

There was music and an occasionally surreal stage show complete with lasers, disco lights, smoke machines, erupting cannons and a 10-foot-tall cutout of the Flatwoods monster. This was the festival trying to not take itself too seriously.

Author, illustrator and filmmaker Frank Feschino screened his documentary, “Shoot Them Down: The Night They Were Here.” The film was a companion piece to both of his books. Feschino’s first book, “The Braxton County Monster,” dealt with the story of the crash and encounter. The second, called “Shoot Them Down: The Flying Saucer Air Wars of 1952,” expands that story past that September 1952 night in Flatwoods.

The film was a mixture of interviews with some of the principle figures involved with the Flatwoods monster story, among them Freddie and Kathleen May, who say they saw the creature, and A. Lee Stewart, the owner of and reporter from the paper that first reported the incident.

Freddie May was scheduled to appear at the extravaganza but was unable to attend because of health problems.

“Shoot Them Down” explored the events around the Flatwoods monster incident. The film described a combative culture existing between the U.S. government and flying saucers.

“It was policy for the Air Force to shoot them down if they couldn’t be made to land,” he said.

Two hundred twenty-nine fighter planes had been shot down, he said. At least 199 pilots had been killed. But the flying saucers had taken losses, too.

Feschino explained the craft that was supposed to have crashed in Flatwoods might have been one of several that “buzzed” Washington and was chased.

Author, UFO researcher and nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman casually pulled apart the arguments against Earth being visited by beings from other worlds. It’s something he’s been doing for 30 years.

“The evidence is overwhelming,” he said. “The subject of flying saucers is a cosmic Watergate. None of the objections the debunkers use stand up under scrutiny.”

Friedman showed pictures of people who had seen spacecraft. He explained people who had seen and experienced contact with aliens came from all walks of life. Flying saucers, he said, weren’t the hallucinations of crazies living out in the middle of nowhere. They had been seen above major cities and by scores and scores of competent observers.

“The debunkers don’t want to be bothered by the facts,” he said. “It really is the biggest story of the millennia.”

Saturday, September 08, 2007

U.S. Astronauts Reveal Encounters with Apparent Extraterrestrials and UFOs

Edited by Peter Tremblay
The Canadian National Newspaper
9-8-07

Rumors have persisted for years that the astronauts -- nearly all of whom are military officers susceptible to being silenced under orders -- may have seen something more on the Moon than rocks and dust.

According to transcripts of the technical debriefing following the Apollo 11 mission, astronauts Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins told of an encounter with a large cylindrical UFO even before reaching the Moon," U.S. investigative journalist and researcher Jim Marrs documents Mr. Aldrin further officially presented his encounters with apparent Extraterrestrials on CNN's Larry King Show.

Jim Marrs further presents that Mr. Aldrin said, "The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was one day out or pretty close to the Moon. It had a sizable dimension to it". Aldrin said the Apollo crew at first thought the object was the Saturn 4 booster rocket (S-IVB); but, he added, "We called the ground and were told the S-IVB was 6,000 miles away."

Mr. Aldrin described the UFO as a cylinder, while Armstrong said it was "really two rings" Two connected rings". Collins also said it appeared to be a hollow, tumbling cylinder. He added, "It was a hollow cylinder. But then you could change the focus on the sextant and it would be replaced by this open-book shape. It was really weird."

Even more strange was the experience of Mr. Aldrin and Mr. Armstrong, after they reached the Moon.

According to an Associated Press story of July 20, 1969 published in the San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, the astronauts sighted eerie lights inside a crater near the point on the Moon where their lunar lander was due to touch down the next day.

On their first sweep around the Moon, Armstrong described a mysterious bright light on the inner wall of the crater Aristarchus, located north of their flight path. "It seems to have a slight amount of florescence to it. The area in the crater is quite bright," he reported.

"That area is definitely brighter than anything else I can see. There doesn't appear to be any color involved in it. It looks like an eerie sight," confirmed Aldrin.

Two astronauts who appear to have broken ranks are Dr. Edgar Mitchell and Gordon Cooper. On The Oprah Winfrey Show on 19 July 1991, Mitchell hinted that all information regarding UFOs has not been released, saying, "I do believe that there is a lot more known about extraterrestrial investigation than is available to the public right now [and] has been for a long time... It's a long, long story. It goes back to World War II when all of that happened, and is highly classified stuff."

On Dateline NBC in 1996, Mitchell was even more candid. "I have no firsthand experience, but I have had the opportunity to meet with people from three countries who in the course of their official duties claim to have had personal firsthand encounter experiences... with Extraterrestrials," he said. Jim Marrs says that "Mitchell flatly stated that some advanced military craft use technology derived from alien spacecraft that have been collected by the U.S. Government."

Cooper, in a letter read during a 1978 meeting at the United Nations to discuss UFOs, stated, "...I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet form other planets, which are obviously a little more advanced than we are here on Earth."

Also that year, Mr. Cooper wrote a letter to the ambassador of the Mission of Grenada to the United Nations supporting a UN initiative to study UFOs. In his letter, Cooper stated that astronauts "are very reluctant even to discuss UFOs due to the great numbers of people who have indiscriminately sold fake stories and forged documents, abusing their names and reputations without hesitation. Those few astronauts who have continued to participate in the UFO field have had to do so very cautiously. There are several of us who do believe in UFOs and who have had occasion to see a UFO on the ground, or from an airplane."

Cooper's mention of a "UFO on the ground. apparently was a reference to his own experience at Edwards Air Force Base on May 2, 1957. In 1993, Cooper gave this account of the incident: "I had a crew that was filming an installation of a precision landing system we were installing out on the dry lake bed, and they were there with stills and movies, and filmed the whole installation and they came running in to tell me that this UFO, a little saucer, had come down right over them, put down three gear, and landed about 50 yards from them, and as they proceeded to go on over to get a closer shot of it, it lifted up, put the gear in, and disappeared in a rapid rate of speed.

"And so I had to follow my directions as a military... I had to look up the regulations on who I was to call to report this, which I did, and they ordered me to immediately have the film developed, put it in a pouch, and send them by the commanding general's plane to Washington, which I did. And that was the last I've ever heard of the film."

It is interesting to note indicates Mr. Marrs that, "despite the continued protests that there is no government secrecy regarding UFOs, there is no public report on this incident. Although the event was listed in the Project Blue Book index, a full report and clear photos are suspiciously absent."

Yet Mr. Cooper, who reported the UFO landing, was selected as a Mercury astronaut only two years later. In a 1996 interview, Mr. Cooper said he discounts any conventional explanation for his experience. Asked his thoughts on UFOs, the astronaut said, "Well, I figured it was somebody coming from some distant place to visit us."

Steve Omar, another investigative journalist and researcher, indicates that J. Allen Hynek (who investigated U.F.O.s for the U.S. Air Force), Major Donald Keyhoe, Timothy Good (in his book Above Top Secret) suggest secrecy about UFOs and Extraterrestrials. One unquestionably absolute expert we may want to consult is Christopher Kraft, who was Director of the NASA tracking base in Houston during the Apollo Moon missions, when he revealed the following conversation “after” he left his work at NASA:

- ASTRONAUTS NElL ARMSTRONG and BUZZ ALDRIN speaking from the Moon: “Those are giant things. No, no, no .... this is not an optical illusion. No one is going to believe this!”

- MISSION CONTROL (HOUSTON CENTER): “What...what...what? What the hell is happening? What’s wrong with you?”

- ASTRONAUTS: “They’re here under the surface.”

- MISSION CONTROL: “What’s there? Emission interrupted... interference control calling Apollo II.”

- ASTRONAUTS: “We saw some visitors. They were there for awhile, observing the instruments.”

- MISSION CONTROL: ”Repeat your last information.”

- ASTRONAUTS: “I say that there were other spaceships. They’re lined up on the other side of the crater.”

- MISSION CONTROL: “Repeat...repeat!”

- ASTRONAUTS: “Let us sound this orbita ..... In 625 to 5... automatic relay connected... My hands are shaking so badly I can’t do anything. Film it? God, if these damned cameras have picked up anything... what then?”

- MISSION CONTROL: “Have you picked up anything?”

- ASTRONAUTS: “I didn’t have any film at hand. Three shots of the saucers or whatever they were that were ruining the film.”

- MISSION CONTROL: “Control, control here. Are you on your way? Is the uproar with the U.F.O.s. over?

- ASTRONAUTS: “They’ve landed there. There they are and they are watching us.”

- MISSION CONTROL: “The mirrors, the mirrors...have you set them up?”

> - ASTRONAUTS: “Yes, they’re in the right place. But whoever made those space ships surely can come tomorrow and remove them. Over and out.”

There is an unconfirmed report, also documented by Steve Omar, that when Buzz Aldrin opened the door after landing on the Moon, he immediately saw a transparent etherical being staring at him outside. Welcome to the Moon?? Allegedly, NASA Director Kraft added that there was a public and a secret private A.S.A. radio frequency between Moon and Mission Control and that the conversation above took place during a mysterious two minute interruption in public transmissions. To prove it is the truth, hundreds of independent CIVILIAN radio operators with powerful VHF equipment separately reported hearing the AME spaceship report from the Apollo moon-walkers!

"Soviet radio operators also picked it up and published it in Moscow. Another mysterious radio message from the Moon was broadcast on French public television only one time before it was censored AFTER it leaked out. That transmission appeared to be a mysterious clearly spoken ALIEN LANGUAGE," further reports Steve Omar.

The famous French historian and author Robbert Charroux published the transmission which has been suppressed in the U.S. It came from U.S. astronaut Worden who transmitted it to NASA, and expert linguists have been unable to translate the message.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Friend or UFO?

By Lisa Williams
Your Local Guardian
9-4-07

Stargazers were left scratching their heads after mysterious orange lights appeared in the sky over Surbiton on Friday night.

Radio reports said at least 12 people from Surbiton and Ewell phoned in after spotting the display, described as a series of lights in the shape of a ferris wheel.

Since then, even more people have come forward with their description of the phenomenon.

Among them was Ron Johnson, from Worcester Park, a member of Ewell Astronomical Society, who said he had never seen anything like Friday's light display in his 40 years of skywatching.

He said: "At 10.02pm there were 10 spherical lights which were a yellow, golden colour. To me they appeared to be drifting with the wind.

"I stopped to watch because it was not something I'd seen before."

Linda Hope, from West Ewell, said: "I was in the garden and these lights began appearing over the roofs of the cottages, quite close behind each other, but spread across the sky and quite high up.

"I realised my husband would think I was barmy if I were to tell him, so ran indoors where he was sound asleep on the sofa. I shook him and got him outside and we both watched in the garden as the lights still appeared from the west and disappeared into the clouds in the far distance.

"This went on for at least five minutes in all and I would think about 50 to 60 lights. Two of them seemed to play' with each other - darting across and overtaking. It was quite spooky, being silent, and so many of them."

Susan Stoud-Bury, from Stoneleigh, was also baffled by the sight and contacted our site to see if others had seen them.

She said: "My son and I realised they were too close together to be aeroplanes and at first I thought they may have been the army or police.

"They all followed the same path and appeared as orange lights and crosses that pulsated.

"It was quite scary, because it was an unusual sight to see. I didn't count how many there were and they definitely were not hot air balloons."

No definite explanation has yet been given of the extraordinary light formation.

Past theories have included everything from laser shows in central London to "UFO balloons" - decorative oriental lanterns which drift with the prevailing wind and usually glow whitish-yellow, but can take on the orangy glow reported given the right atmospheric conditions.

Mr Johnson said he doubted the lights were anything supernatural. He said: "People tend to jump to conclusions about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and try to sensationalise. What people think might be a UFO is usually something atmospheric."

Robert Rosamond, chairman of the British UFO Research Organisation, said: "At face value your orange lights would appear to fit a familiar bill - Chinese lanterns as opposed to an invasion from space.

"These pesky objects (the lamps, not UFOs) seem to be back in vogue once more, consequently they've been seen over the length and breadth of the UK recently.

"However, face value isn't an informed opinion and as such we would need to see the original reports and talk to the witnesses in an effort to ascertain the exact circumstances of their sighting(s) before making any kind of comment."

Calls Fly in over UFO Sighting

By Mercury 24
9-4-07

THE Mercury has been inundated with calls from people across the borough that spotted the UFO hovering in the skies over Gorleston.

The mysterious black, fiery object was originally spotted by GYB Services worker Stewart Davis near Brasenose Avenue on August 24. Mr Davis managed to get a picture of the telephone box shaped object on his phone, featured in the Mercury last week.

Since then dozens of people have contacted the Mercury claiming to have also seen it in Hemsby.

Many explanations have been put forward to what the object could be from a home made hot air balloon to a Chinese lantern or a toy.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Proof of UFOs?

By WHSV.com
9-4-07

Former nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman says he has overwhelming proof that aliens have been visiting planet Earth for a long time. And he plans to talk about that evidence this weekend at a two-day UFO summit in Charleston.

Friedman investigated the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico, incident in which some believe two alien spaceships crashed in the desert and alien bodies were recovered.

He insists the government is involved in a massive cover-up to deny the existence of alien craft. Friedman has authored books about unidentified flying objects. The latest, titled "Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience," is about an alien abduction.

Friedman is one of two keynote speakers scheduled for this weekend's event at the old Capitol Theater. The other is author Frank Feschino, whose first book was about the "Flatwoods Monster," a creature thought to have fallen from the sky in Braxton County.

The Friday and Saturday summit celebrates the 55th anniversary of the first reported sighting of the monster.

Monday, September 03, 2007

THE SAUCERS OF WARTIME

By Scott Corrales
Inexplicata
© 2006

The fact that the UFO phenomenon has always shown a curious attraction to the armed conflicts of the human race is undeniable. Even those who are only marginally interested in the phenomenon can relate to the stories of the “foo fighters” that pursued allied and Axis aircraft during the Second World War, or the unidentified objects that prompted the so-called Battle of Los Angeles in 1942. In past decades there was the widespread belief in many countries that “flying saucers” had come to Earth precisely because of humankind’s discovery of nuclear energy and its wartime applications.

But there are other incidents that aren’t quite as well known, and conjectures about the interest displayed by these strange presences in our wars that are quite disturbing...

Aliens of the Spanish Civil War

When Mariano Melgar was scarcely seven years old, he became an accidental witness to an event that would stay for him the rest of his life.

One hot summer morning in 1938, the young boy was taking care of some cows on his family’s property in the town of Muñico (Avila). It was a broad pasture that the animals could roam freely, and Mariano wandered away from them to sit in the shade of a small stand of trees by a stream. Suddenly, he became aware of a buzzing, droning sound coming out of the intense blue sky above; his eyes caught a bright flash of silver in the air from an object that was descending to a spot not far from his current location. Unsure of its nature and intentions, the boy hid behind the trees and observed intently.

“It was a round object surmounted by a small dome, measuring some sixteen to nineteen meters in diameter,” he would later tell researcher J.J. Benitez, who included the case in his book La Punta del Iceberg (Spain: Planeta, 1987). “I must have been some thirty paces away from [it] when I noticed that three or four legs had appeared underneath the object. That “thing” had colored lights all around it...they went on and off constantly. A thing to see!”

Young Mariano’s wonder went up a notch when a door on the bizarre object suddenly opened “like the doors one sees on modern airplanes.” The buzzing and humming ceased and three figures descended from the object, whose interior appeared to be full of some devices whose purpose was completely foreign to the youngster. Two of the figures walked away from the craft to collect what appeared to be soil or vegetable matter samples, while the third one remained at the entrance to the strange vehicle.

Overwhelmed by the sight and his child’s sense of curiosity, Mariano emerged from his place of concealment and tried to get close to the “pilots”, as he described them. Before he had succeeded in walking a distance of five meters, the figure standing at the doorway to the craft fired a bolt of light at the boy, very nearly knocking him down. Chastened, Mariano retreated for the safety of the trees again, but was not chased away by the display of power. In fact, he subsequently tried a second approach, only to be repelled by another volley of shots from the character standing at the entrance to the craft. Fifteen minutes later, the soil gatherers had completed their task and returned to the vehicle. The sentry turned to look at the boy and “waved goodbye”. The domed object lifted off, spinning on its axis, heading off toward the village of Barco de Avila at an altitude of between fifty and one hundred meters.

At the time of the event, Mariano believed that the object and its crew complement had been “Generalissimo Franco’s aircraft” although he now knows better. While it is true that Nazi Germany was involved in many displays of air power over Spain during the Civil War (the bombing of Guernica, immortalized on canvas by Pablo Picasso, being the best known of them), the chance that Mariano Melgar’s close encounter had anything to do with advanced Luftwaffe prototypes is negligible. To stress this point, researcher Benitez goes on to provide his readers with a brief history of Spanish aviation during the Spanish Civil War: the first Soviet-made aircraft (Tupolev SB-2 bombers and Polikarpov I-15 and I-16 fighters) were deployed in the Spanish theater of operations in November 1936; twenty Luftwaffe Junkers Ju-20’s entered the fray in August of that year, plus a host of aircraft purchased by the warring factions from a number of governments ranging from France to the United States and Czechoslovakia. None of them remotely resembling the domed, light-ringed craft that landed near Mariano Melgar in 1938.

In the Melgar case, we are dealing with a pre-1947 incident that combines sighting, landing and occupant encounters in one. There is also the possibility that an over-imaginative peasant child (albeit one whose childhood was not filled with the comic books and space-minded radio adventures of the time) imagined the whole situation. But if we decide to believe in Mariano Melgar and in J.J. Benítez’s painstaking journalistic research, we are left with the conclusion that the UFO phenomenon was active during one of the most destructive periods of internecine warfare in the 20th century. But why?

The fact remains that while a peasant boy peered at the otherworldly unknown through the trees of Muñico, other sightings had taken place on the Iberian Peninsula that amazed trained observers. Two years earlier, in August 1936, the fortress of Pollensa on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca had successfully fended off a landing by Republican forces, who had arrived in the harbor by means of submersibles. Many locals watched the scene expectantly, hoping to see the skies lit by another exchange of fire and rocketry as the Republicans tried to take the fortification yet again. Suddenly the onlookers were treated to the sight of three glowing objects at an altitude of ten thousand feet. Some Mallorcans believed that these were the new air weapons that Hitler had promised Generalissimo Franco’s forces, but the three unknown devices simply cruised over the island and nothing about them suggested a provenance of any of this world’s air forces. They were described as “plates moving through the air” and giving off considerable luminosity.

On February 5, 1938, the forces defending Peñón de la Mata to the north of the city of Granada under cold, clear winter skies were buzzed by an object resembling “a Mexican hat”. Described as having the color of unburnished aluminum, the object’s slow, deliberate path across the morning sky allowed onlookers to get a good look at it. As it approached, an infantryman with the 76th Brigade, reported that “seen from below, it had the exact shape of a cartwheel. At its center, where the spokes emanated from, there was something [looking like] a photo camera lens...”

But the witness’s startling account doesn’t stop there: as the unknown object flew almost directly over him, he was allegedly able to see curved black portholes on the sides of the strange wheel. The report published in Spain’s ABC newspaper added that the unknown device appeared to rotate counterclockwise as it flew southward, fading away until the bemused infantrymen were no longer able to see it.

More humanoids were also reported during the Civil War. On the night of July 25, 1938, five months after the siege of Granada, a blinding light caught the attention of two officers. As the light dimmed, the military men were surprised to see a disc-shaped object measuring approximately eleven meters in diameter at an estimated distance of sixty meters away. The object appeared to possess a sort of “column” containing two humanoid figures that gradually descended from its underbelly. The unknown craft then started to project a circle of blue light on the ground, which expanded its circumference until it reached the onlookers, who felt a sensation of intense cold. The light dimmed and the column was fully retracted into the object, its two separate “halves” rotating in opposite directions as the powerful white light appeared again and the craft vanished into the skies at considerable speed. Researcher Manuel Carballal interviewed the main witness, who held the rank of lieutenant at the time.

UFOs in the Falklands War

Not counting the veterans of both warring sides, or the relatives of those who lost loved ones, most people have forgotten about the relatively brief conflict in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom following the former’s occupation of the Falkland Islands during the spring of that year. In January 2006, Argentinean researcher Silvia Perez Simondini managed to obtain an interview with a war veteran she has named “Román” in an effort to conceal his identity. While “Roman’s story does not take place on either East or West Falkland, but in Rio Gallegos – an important Argentinean air base at the time of the conflict – it is nevertheless riveting.

According to Simondini’s report for Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology (http://inexplicata.blogspot.com), the soldier’s brush with the unknown occurred sometime between the fourth and the tenth of April 1982, as he and fellow members of his platoon provided security for the sprawling El Condor ranch. Between 2 and 3 a.m., Román and his buddies were awakened by the sound of one of the sentries pounding on the door to their billet.
"When I opened my eyes, there was an intense white light outdoors,” recalls the soldier, “[it was] similar to the floodlights of a soccer stadium that light up the playing field. But there was a startling detail, the fact that it was snowing, there was a lot of wind, but the circle in which the light was contained was peaceful; even the air and weather was warm. I also noticed that the other 2 soldiers outside were looking at the sky, where there was a gigantic spacecraft with lights -- not a circular one, I perceived it as an oval body whose center gave me the impression of looking at the stars, but its lateral lights made a slight movement. Those of us inside the house went out and stared at it for 15 minutes, more or less. We felt no fear, rather a sense of tranquility. At one point, it slowly began to move and vanished over the hills at high speed in a matter of seconds. What was also astounding was that after it disappeared, the snow and the strong wind also returned, which was a shock to us.”

A greater shock was in store for the Argentinean conscripts. An army helicopter with foreign-looking personnel arrived at the ranch (“I thought they were Americans”, he confessed to Simondini). “Román” and his friends were transferred to a building occupied by another regiment and all of their equipment and clothes taken from them prior to debriefing. His superiors were concerned about the possibility of a British secret weapon, but the conscript and his buddies believed they had seen “something unnatural, not of this Earth.”

After the debriefing session, the hapless UFO witnesses were taken to a larger room occupied by members of another unit with an even more harrowing story to tell: they had been riding along the highway in a troop transport shortly after “Román” and his platoon had seen the unknown craft over the El Condor ranch, and in an instant, found themselves no longer aboard their truck, but scattered on the ground in an open field three kilometers away from their original position. The truck was nowhere to be found. This experience had been so unnerving that that a sergeant known to “Román” as a driven, energetic noncom appeared “completely broken and lost” after the ordeal.

A curious addition to the bizarre “teleportation” incident is that another truck belonging to Argentina’s YPF petroleum company also vanished in the proverbial blink of an eye, but still inside his truck and near a police station.

The Argentinean conscript ends his story by saying: “ Then the Army Command divided us up independently, we were each sent to war in different locations and never saw each other again.”

THE UFO CHRONICLES

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