Fake UFO spotted over Johannesburg

BY Devlin Brown

Fake UFO in Johannesburg.

PICTURE: Austin Rossouw

Dramatic footage of a fake UFO hovering over the Nelson Mandela bridge in Johannesburg is sure to set twitter alight.

A photo of a UFO hovering over the N1 highway in Midrand has set social media alight, with people sharing the picture and commenting on what they saw. UFOs always get people excited – and afraid – and perhaps it has something to do with the excitement of not being alone in the ginormous universe.

Connect picked up the photo on facebook just before it went viral, before it launched like a flying saucer into the stratosphere overnight. The original story, which can be read here, shows a giant saucer-shaped, ominous-looking, creepy-villain dwelling space ship just above the clouds.

Austin Rossouw, a graphic artist and animator from Johannesburg, took up The Citizen’s challenge of producing a photo of a UFO above the skyline of Johannesburg. His brief was simple: check out the original photo and give us something that looks like it was taken with a cell phone inside a moving car and put it in a cool location, such as Braamfontein – and make it confusing: maybe it’s a thunder cloud and maybe it is a Zorkmobile from planet Zork (it’s always Zork). 30 minutes later, we had our very own UFO in Johannesburg.

Fake UFO in Johannesburg.

PICTURE: Austin Rossouw

The point of the exercise is to show two things – just how cool Adobe suite is, but also, how easy it is to go viral. One would have thought that in 2015 people would have moved on from believing everything they see and read, just because they see and read it – but that is not the case. Although some people took the picture as a joke, many others shared the photo believing it just might be true.

If the UFO is in fact real, and here I am making a mockery of graphic design 101 and all the believers of the great alien conspiracy, then the joke will be on me. Think about it, these super advanced, freaky (no doubt slightly prawny) beings are here to impress upon us their superiority and here is a little you-know-what called Devlin Brown posting a picture of a fake cloudy UFO in a cooler location – definitely a hipster time-traveler. What if they get cross with me?

Come to think of it – I have been hearing a low rumble behind the window since I started this experiment. My screen flashes and the cursor moves by itself. I’m feeling a bit dizzy, and… the lights are flashing. What is going on? Who’s there? I am just trying to pu ASDA ASD ASD….

{ http://citizen.co.za/ }

28-10-2015 om 20:35 geschreven door peter  

The real-life UFO story behind this season of 'Fargo'

Val Johnson sat inside a new Marshall County squad car two months after the incident. Regene Radniecki | Star Tribune 1979

"This is a true story."

Those words kick off every episode of "Fargo" — they were also at the start of the 1996 movie.

Of course the Coen brothers, and now show creator Noah Hawley, are playing fast-and-loose with "truth." But one of the most unbelievable, out-of-this-world parts of season two is, in fact, "a true story."

(Stop reading now if you're not caught up, Fargo watchers.)

We're talking about the aliens.

So far, unexplained lights and UFO-talk have been in all three episodes of "Fargo," which takes place in and around Luverne, Minn., in 1979.

For these supernatural allusions, Hawley may be pulling straight from the local history books.

• Aw Jeez: A 'Fargo' recap podcast

Minnesota in the 1970s was something of a hotbed of UFO activity — for the people who believe in that kind of thing. "This was a big decade for UFOs in Minnesota," said Dave Kenney, co-author of "Minnesota in the 70s."

The end of the decade, 1979, brought one of the most notorious unexplained encounters in the whole UFO canon: Val Johnson's late-night crash.

Johnson was a Marshall County sheriff's deputy on night patrol outside Warren, Minn., near the North Dakota-Minnesota border. In the early hours of Aug. 26, 1979, he was driving a rural stretch of State Highway 20 when, he says, a ball of light appeared in the road.

"I noticed a very bright, brilliant light, 8 to 12 inches in diameter, 3 to 4 feet off the ground," Johnson said in a taped police interview. "The edges were very defined."

The next thing Johnson knew, the light was in the car with him.

It hit him, Johnson said, "like a 200-pound pillow."

He woke up in a ditch a half-hour later with burns around his eyes. The windshield and one headlight of his 1977 Ford LTD were smashed. Both radio antennas were bent sharply back. The watch on his wrist and the clock on the dash both ticked 14 minutes slow.

Police investigated and never drew any conclusions. But the UFO researchers have plenty of their own.

• Whatever happened to the Marshall County cop who hit a UFO?

Jerome Clark, the author of "The UFO Encyclopedia," says the "Val Johnson Incident" remains one of the top 10 most influential UFO encounters in history.

MPR News reporter John Enger recently caught up with Johnson, 36 years after the incident. He's retired, with grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He lives in Eau Claire, Wis.

While believers tout the story as one of the strongest pieces of evidence of extraterrestrial life, Johnson won't speculate on what happened to him that night. He says he doesn't even think about it much.

Johnson's story has plenty of parallels to what "Fargo" fans are watching play out on TV: the small-town cop, the rural highways, the strange lights in the sky.

What remains to be seen is how far Hawley and "Fargo" will take their fictionalized version of the "Val Johnson incident."

When asked about the UFOs by "Vanity Fair," Hawley kept things mysterious: "Look, the Coens' universe is very much a place where you have to accept the mystery and figure out ... does it mean something? Does it not mean something?"

We'll have to watch and see.

Hear Val Johnson describe the encounter himself in the most recent episode of "Aw Jeez," a "Fargo" recap podcast.

{ http://www.mprnews.org/ }

28-10-2015 om 20:20 geschreven door peter  

Are WE the aliens and will extraterrestrials discover US? These scientists think so

ALIEN hunters are failing to find new life because it hasn’t evolved yet, and instead we should wait for extra terrestrials to find US.

28-10-2015 om 00:59 geschreven door peter  

Russia To USA: Tell The World… Or We Will

A stunning Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) report on Prime Minister Medvedev’s agenda at the World Economic Forum (WEF) this week states that Russia will warn President Obama that the “time has come” for the world to know the truth about aliens, and if the United States won’t participate in the announcement, the Kremlin will do so on its own.

 

The WEF (The Forum) is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva and describes itself as an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

 

The Forum is best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 2,500 top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world, including health and the environment.

 

Medvedev is scheduled to open this years Forum where as many as 50 heads of government, including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s David Cameron, will attend the five-day meeting that begins on 23 January.

 

Critical to note about this years Forum is that the WEF, in their 2013 Executive Summary, scheduled for debate and discussion a number of items under their X Factors from Nature category, and which includes the “discovery of alien life” of which they state: “Proof of life elsewhere in the universe could have profound psychological implications for human belief systems.”

 

Equally critical to note is that Medvedev, after completing a 7 December 2012 on-camera interview with reporters in Moscow, continued to respond to reporters and made some off-air comments without realizing that his microphone was still on. He was then asked by one reporter if “the president is handed secret files on aliens when he receives the briefcase needed to activate Russia’s nuclear arsenal,” Medvedev responded:

 

“Along with the briefcase with nuclear codes, the president of the country is given a special ‘top secret’ folder. This folder in its entirety contains information about aliens who visited our planet… Along with this, you are given a report of the absolutely secret special service that exercises control over aliens on the territory of our country… More detailed information on this topic you can get from a well-known movie called Men In Black… I will not tell you how many of them are among us because it may cause panic.”

 

 

Western news sources reporting on Medvedev’s shocking reply about aliens stated that he was “joking” as he mentioned the movie Men In Black, which they wrongly assumed was a reference to the 1997 American sci-fi adventure comedy about two top secret agents battling aliens in the US.

 

Medvedev, however, wasn’t referring to the American movie but was, instead, talking about the famous Russian movie documentary Men In Black which details many UFO and alien anomalies.

 

Where Western news sources quoted Medvedev as saying “More detailed information on this topic you can get from a well-known movie called ‘Men In Black,’” his actual answer was, “You can receive more detailed information having watched the documentary film of the same name.”

 

The reason(s) for Western propaganda news outlets deliberately distorting Medvedev’s words become apparent after his shocking statement, and as evidenced in just one example of their so called reporting on this disclosure of alien life already being on our planet where the title of one such article was “Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev makes a crack about aliens, and conspiracists promptly lose their minds.”

 

If anyone is “losing their minds” about aliens, it must be pointed out, it is certainly not Russia, but the Vatican, which in November 2009 announced it was “preparing for extraterrestrial disclosure”.

 

Equally, and apparently, “losing their minds” are US government officials themselves, such as former Pentagon consultant Timothy Good, and author of Above Top Secret: The Worldwide U.F.O. Cover-Up, who in February 2012 stated that former President Dwight Eisenhower had three secret meetings with aliens who were ‘Nordic’ in appearance and wherein a ‘Pact’ was signed to keep their agenda on Earth secret.

 

With the recent discovery in the Russian city of Vladivostok of a 300-million-year-old UFO tooth-wheel, and scientists, astronauts and YouTube users reporting increasingly strange happenings on the moon, the European Space agency reporting their discovery of a 1,000 ancient river on Mars, and UK and Sri Lanka scientists saying they now have “rock solid proof of alien life” after finding fossilized algae inside meteorite, the only ones who seem to be truly “losing their minds” are the Western, especially American, propagandists who for decades have covered up one of the most important stories in all of human history that “we are not alone.”

 

http://locklip.com/

{ http://7tales.net/index.php }

26-10-2015 om 21:19 geschreven door peter  

Rendlesham ‘UFO incident’ part of Suffolk’s social history

Richard Cornwell

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Rendlesham Forest where the 1980 UFO sightings took place.

John Hanson is working with retired American air force officer, Colonel Charles Halt – who was deputy base commander of the twin USAF bases at Woodbridge and Bentwaters at the time of the incident in December, 1980 – on the project.

Mr Hanson, who lives in the West Midlands, believes there are still people yet to come forward who may have vital evidence – or who saw strange phenomena which may or may not be connected to the events in Rendlesham Forest.

He said a recent appeal had indeed elicited new memories from people in Suffolk.

He said: “One man from Bury St Edmunds, near the British Corporation Sugar works, told me he and his wife had seen a cone-shaped object, hovering above his front garden in December 1980, which is of interest, as we have other sightings from the Bury St Edmunds locality, not too far away from the same factory.”

Col. Charles Halt (Retired) with John Hanson (left) and David Bryant (centre) in Rendlesham Forest to explain the 1980 UFO sitings.

Mr Hanson, co-author of a series of UFO books entitled Haunted Skies, also wants to contact local former DJ Gary Collins, ex-Pc David King and Pc Brian Creswell, one of the original officers that attended the scene.

He said: “I hope people will get in touch if they saw anything around the time of the incident – or can put me in touch with any of these people – as this forms part of our social history, whatever you may think about such matters, and should be recorded.”

After the 1980 incident, Col Halt prepared a memo to the Ministry of Defence describing “unexplained lights”, and recorded what became known as the Halt Tape – a documented investigation in the forest, during which he saw mysterious lights like those witnessed by airmen Jim Penniston and John Burroughs two nights earlier.

In 2010, Col Halt signed an affidavit claiming the encounter was extraterrestrial and that it had been covered up by the Government.

Anyone who can help should call John Hanson on 0121 445 0340, email johndawn1@sky.com or skype john.hanson108.

{ http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/home }

26-10-2015 om 20:57 geschreven door peter  

Is There Another Advanced Civilization Living Beneath Our Feet?

As science and science fiction join, we begin to decipher the ancient mysteries of the human experience. If entities exist under the surface of our planet, they would not live in volcanic rock but in advanced spaceships meant to generate essential life habitat. Are tectonic plate shifts an act of their doing, or a truly natural part of earth? 

 

Theories about the Hollow Earth usually include a central sun, aliens, and legendary subterranean cities and civilizations that some open minded people believe could link science and pseudoscience, but only if discovered physically. In ancient times, this idea of subterranean realms seemed arguable, and it became associated with the image of “places“ such as the Christian Hell, the Greek Hades, the Jewish Sheol or the Nordic belief of Svartalfheim.

 

However in modern times, with both sides of the Arctic and Antarctic regions melting down at an accelerated rate, the truth behind this enigma and its allegorical connections to other genesis or creation myths in the tale of humanity’s journey on planet Earth could soon be revealed.

 

 

According to the Hollow Earth theory, our planet is either fully hollow or otherwise contains a massive interior space. There are allegedly races that live in underground cities beneath planet Earth. Often enough, these dwellers of the underground are more technologically advanced than we humans are on the surface. Some think that UFO’s are not from other planets, but are fabricated by strange beings from the inside of our planet.

 

 

 Throughout time, some people have claimed that they encountered these mysterious beings from the ground, some even wrote detailed reports of the meetings or even books regarding the way they were greeted and taught.

An interesting description of such an encounter comes from John Cleves Symmes Jr, an American officer, trader and lecturer who introduced the concept of openings to the inner world of the poles. He declared that:

 

 "The Earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentric spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledged my life in support of this truth, and I am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking.“

 

 

Symmes’ Hollow Earth theory described the world as consisting of five concentric spheres, with our outer earth and its atmosphere as the largest. He saw the Earth’s crust as being around 1000 miles thick, having an Arctic opening about 4000 miles wide, and an Antarctic opening measuring around 6000 miles wide. He suggested that he managed to enter this underground realm because the curvature of the rim of the polar openings were gradual enough that it would be possible to enter the Inner Earth without being aware of the passage. He stated that because of the centrifugal force of Earth’s rotation, the planet would be flattened at the poles, and thus have ample passage into the Inner Earth.

 

Symmes also claimed that this inner surface of the concentric spheres in his Hollow Earth would be lit by sunlight reflected off of the outer surface of the next sphere and would be livable, being a “warm and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals if not men.“ He ultimately concluded that the Earth, as well as every celestial orbicular body that existed in the universe, visible or invisible, which partook in any degree of a planetary type, from the smallest to the greatest, are all established, in a greater or lesser degree, in a compilation of spheres.

 

 

Symmes wasn’t the best lecturer. He felt uncomfortable as a public speaker. Still, he preserved. He started making disciples and soon his ideas began to take shape into the public’s minds. The book Symzonia appeared in 1820 and has often been associated with him. It describes the voyage of Captain Seaborn from 1817 who set out for the South Pole in order to prove the theory of an internal world, published by Captain John Cleve Symmes. Afraid of the attitude of his crew, he does not fully inform them of his desire, hiring them rather for a commercial journey in the South Seas. The crew discover the internal continent, which is named Symzonia in honor of Symmes.

 

The new world appears to be of a garden paradise, consisting of:

 

[…] gently rolling hills within an easy sloping shore, covered with verdure, checkered with groves of trees and shrubbery, studded with numerous white buildings and animated with groups of men and cattle, all standing in relief near the foot of a lofty mountain, which in the distance reared its majestic head above the clouds.”

 

 

The internals are described as a peaceful race, their power emanating from the people. They were led by a “Best Man“ and a council of one hundred, elected for their modest and exemplary merit. The most fundamental characteristic of the internals was their simple life style, as they despised material gain and sensual pleasures.

 

They lived equally, without the desire for wealth or carnal pleasures, while producing only what is needed for the society. The society is described as living for the unified good and prosperity of all of their people. This fairness applied even to their diet, for they were vegetarians. Because of the contrast between the principles and values of the two races, the “Best Man“ orders Seaborn to leave this paradise inside the Earth, along with his crew, as described:

 

It appeared that we were of a race who had either wholly fallen from virtue, or were at least very much under the influence of the worst passions of our nature.”

 

Even though Symmes and his disciples were not able to reveal completely palpable evidence for their claims, there must be more than a grain of truth in it as countless people experience visions of this inner place and gain some kind of spiritual guidance towards it.

 

In our current state of understanding, we realize that planet Earth holds a lot of mysteries waiting to be uncovered. The earth is said to be almost eight thousand miles in diameter, and the deepest excavations ever attempted only reached half a mile below its surface. We are, therefore, extremely ignorant of the nature and structure of the interior of this vast mass the earth holds and might remain so unless those intraterrestrial beings decide to make the first step towards us.

 

When will they break the ice and uncover the truth?

 

http://locklip.com/

{http://7tales.net/index.php }

26-10-2015 om 20:24 geschreven door peter  

UFO Did Crash In Roswell And Aliens Were Found: Confirms Man Who Walked On The Moon

NASA astronaut who once walked on the Moon says he STILL believes a UFO with aliens DID crash in a US desert before the government covered it up and wants the world to know the TRUTH!

 

Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell was one of six key people involved in the release of a new ‘smoking gun’ image said to show one of the aliens that died in the crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

 

The picture is now widely believed to have been false or a hoax….

 

But despite the mess that was the ‘Roswell Slides’ event last week not changing history at all in the quest for extra terrestrial life as it had suggested it would, Edgar STILL remains adamant that more than one alien landed at Roswell nearly 70 years ago – and some of them were captured alive and could still be alive somewhere to this day.

 

“The truth about it is that it was real. I was there when the Roswell incident took place. I was on my way to college and had just graduated high school. 

 

“One day, it was in the Roswell Daily Record, which was a newspaper in Roswell, about an alien spacecraft that had crashed, and the next day that it had been denied by the Air Force, saying that it was a weather balloon. 

 

“I believed that and went off to college. 

 

“Many years later, after I had been to the moon and came back, I went out to Roswell to give lectures, talk and meet people I knew since I was a kid. 

 

“Many of the people I knew, along with descendants of the people who had been involved in the Roswell incident, told me their stories.” He said.

 

 

Edgar confirmed that the descendants included the son of an undertaker who provided “coffins for the alien bodies” and the son of a sheriff who “kept traffic away from the crash site” and helped keep the area secure from prying eyes!

 

Mr Mitchell who actually was meant to attend the 6,000-audience conference in Mexico for the recent Roswell Slides” event but actually appeared via video link, saying at 84 he was far too old to travel that far (perhaps a change of heart!?).

 

Edgar recently spoke of why the authorities have kept “alien visitations above top secret” during an interview with HighCountry News ahead of another UFO conference this month.

 

Speaking about the now panned and completely debunked ‘alien’ image, Mr Mitchell added:

 

“They’re certainly not human – looks like what the little greys look like.”

 

Mr Mitchell stated a very wise comment and also said that we do not know what beings are in the Universe because our planet is like a grain of sand on a huge beach.

 

Mr Mitchell was the sixth man to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

 

 

 

Mr Mitchell also added:

 

“A family friend who was a major in the United States Air Force told me it was all real. 

 

“I got the stories from all of these various people into my head when I came back from the moon, and I then went to the Pentagon and told them my story about that and said, give me your opinion. 

 

“The admiral who I spoke to said, ‘I don’t know anything about it, but I’m going to find out.’ 

 

“He went out to New Mexico and checked all around, came back and told me, ‘Your stories are quite correct and all real.’”

 

Edgar was also keen to confirm that the US government found dead and live aliens on board the crashed craft at Roswell!

 

Apparently, the US Government covered up the Roswell incident because they did not know if the ‘visits’ were hostile and also did not want Soviet Russia discovering about it….and possibly stealing any potential knowledge or technology!

 

 

 

Edgar told how governmental agencies in the US did not know at all what to do with the alien crashed saucer and its “superior technology” for fear of it getting into Soviet hands and being used against them one day!

 

 “The best course of action was to just lie about it, and keep it to themselves. They labeled it ‘above top-secret,’ and that created the long running iron curtain separating a secret group within the government, and the American public.” He said.

 

Mr Mitchell also made a shocking statement that he had been made aware of “many UFO visits to Earth during his career with NASA” with each and every one covered up!

 

Please check out an intriguing video with Edgar below:

 

http://www.ufointernationalproject.com/

{ http://7tales.net/index.php }

26-10-2015 om 20:12 geschreven door peter  

'We worden warm gemaakt voor het buitenaardse' - AD.nl

'Er zijn de laatste 60 jaar duizenden ufo-meldingen gedaan: te veel om af te doen als onzin.' © Annemarie Kleywegt .

AD MAGAZINE De ontdekking van water op Mars en de berichten over een ster waar 'iets onverklaarbaars' omheen zweeft, zijn nieuw voer voor de discussie die een groeiend deel van de bevolking bezighoudt: zijn wij alleen?

© AD.

•  
  • Vooral van mensen die schrijven dat ze het fijn vinden dat hun waarnemingen en ideeën eindelijk serieus worden genomen
          Coen Vermeeren

Een klassieker van cabaretier Theo Maassen, die de aardse zoektocht naar buitenaards leven 'nogal zonde van het geld' vindt: ,,Er maar twee opties: of ze zijn dommer wij, ­­­of ze zijn slimmer dan wij. Als ze dommer zijn dan wij, dan hoef ik er niks mee te maken te hebben. En als ze slimmer zijn dan wij, dan vinden zij ons veel eerder dan wij hun." 

Lachen natuurlijk, maar volgens ufo-gelovigen ziet Maassen één dingetje over het ­­hoofd: 'ze' zijn er al. Voormalig lucht- en ruimtevaart-
docent Coen Vermeeren, die beweert zelf meerdere keren ufo's te hebben gezien, is er ook zeker van. De wetenschapper schreef in 2013 het boek Ufo's bestaan gewoon, gebaseerd op veel bestaande literatuur en gesprekken met ufo-getuigen. De publicatie leverde behalve een enkele diskwalificatie (TU Delft-collega/astronoom Dap Hartman omschreef Vermeeren als 'ufo-gekkie') naar eigen zeggen dagelijks 'ongelooflijk veel reacties' en steunbetuigingen op. 

,,Vooral van mensen die schrijven dat ze het fijn vinden dat hun waarnemingen en ideeën eindelijk serieus worden genomen." Overigens noemt Vermeeren, die geregeld lezingen geeft over 'hét onderwerp van deze eeuw' zich wat betreft de ufo-materie tegenwoordig liever 'filosoof en vrijdenker', naast zijn gewone baan als directeur van Studium Generale aan de TU Delft. ,,Want het vak ufoloog bestaat helaas nog niet." 

Verder kijken
Dat zou best eens kunnen veranderen. Want de groep mensen die verder wil kij­ken dan hemel en aarde, groeit gestaag. Dat merkt ook Robin de Boer (32) uit Lage Zwaluwe, die met zijn website Ninefornews.nl ('een kleine één miljoen unieke bezoekers per maand') veel aandacht besteedt aan buitenaards leven. ,,Uit peilingen in onder meer Groot-Brittannië blijkt dat inmiddels meer dan de helft van de mensen gelooft in intelligent 
buitenaards leven. Dat was 20 jaar geleden wel anders." 

De verklaring voor het toegenomen geloof van intelligent leven in het universum is volgens De Boer, van huis uit geograaf ('nee, nog nooit zelf een ufo gezien') eenvoudig. ,,De NASA komt met de ene na de andere spannende onthulling, variërend van de aanwezigheid van water op Mars tot ijs op Pluto. Dat is spectaculair. En vooraanstaande astronomen beweren dat we binnen nu en een generatie intelligent buitenaards leven zullen ontdekken. We worden dus langzamerhand warm gemaakt voor het buitenaardse." 

Daar komt nog bij dat een astronoom van Penn State University afgelopen week melding maakte van een wel heel mysterieuze ster in a galaxy far, far away. Het lijkt alsof er van alles rond die ster zweeft dat niet op een 'natuurlijke' manier kan worden verklaard, wat de mogelijkheid oproept dat het 'aangelegd' is. Niet bepaald een theorie waar serieuze wetenschappers snel op komen.

 

• Religie is gebaseerd op vertrouwen. Maar ik ben wetenschapper, dus ik wil gewoon bewijs zien
•           Coen Vermeeren

© Annemarie Kleywegt.

Stephan Hawking
En er is meer: zo doneerde afgelopen zomer de Russische miljardair Joeri Milner 100 miljoen dollar aan Seti, de organisatie die (tot nu toe vergeefs) speurt naar buitenaards leven. 

En door de befaamde Britse natuurkundige 
Stephen Hawking ('niet te hard roepen in de kosmos, want de kans bestaat dat hogere levensvormen net zulke agressieve, gewelddadige karaktereigenschappen hebben als wij') erbij te betrekken, betekent dat een enorme impuls voor de believers.  

Bewijs
De suggestie dat het geloof in ufo's en aliens kenmerken heeft van een nieuwe religie, verwerpt Coen Vermeeren. ,,Religie is gebaseerd op vertrouwen. Maar ik ben wetenschapper, dus ik wil gewoon bewijs zien." 

Dat keiharde wetenschappelijke bewijs voor ufo's ontbreekt, geeft ook Vermeeren toe. ,,Maar er zijn de laatste 60 jaar duizenden ufo-meldingen gedaan van leken én getrainde waarnemers als piloten, astronauten en militair personeel. Er is video- en fotomateriaal, er zijn radarbeelden, er zijn talloze getuigenverklaringen: het is gewoon veel te veel om af te doen als onzin." 

En, voor de goede orde: ufo betekent unidentified flying objects, ongeïdentificeerde vliegende objecten dus, wat niet automatisch zegt dat er groene mannetjes aan boord van het object moeten zitten. Vermeeren: ,,Ongeveer 95 procent van de ufo-meldingen is te verklaren. Dan blijken het weerballonnen, luchtspiegelingen of drone-achtige objecten te zijn. Maar dan blijft er nog altijd vijf procent over."

En, beweert Vermeeren, de gemelde onverklaarbare ruimteschepen zijn slechts het topje van de ijsberg. ,,Stel je voor: je bent piloot en ziet een ufo. Je bent verplicht dat aan de autoriteiten te melden, maar zeker als je een vrouw, kind en hypotheek hebt, bedenk je je wel twee keer of je dat wel doet: voor je het weet wordt er door mensen aan de grond getwijfeld aan je waarnemings-vermogen en ben je je baan kwijt." Die 'moderne variant op de brandstapel' - je wordt belachelijk gemaakt en sociaal uitgesloten als je beweert dat je ufo's hebt gezien - verdwijnt volgens Vermeeren pas als er serieus wetenschappelijk onderzoek wordt gedaan naar ufo's én als ufo-melders onder ede worden gehoord in de rechtszaal.

Paniek
Wat volgens Vermeeren ook zou helpen: overheden die minder krampachtig ufo-info onder de pet houden. Dát dat gebeurt, is volgens de wetenschapper geen vraag meer. Kort samengevat: autoriteiten ontkennen het bestaan van ufo's in eerste instantie om paniek te voorkomen - in januari 2014 werd het luchtruim boven Bremen tijdelijk gesloten na talloze ufo-meldingen - maar ook omdat het de wereldeconomie op z'n kop zou zetten. Vermeeren sluit zich daarbij aan bij de Canadese ex-minister Paul Hellyer, die beweert dat buitenaardse techniek onze aardbol ingrijpend zal veranderen. ,,Wie geluidloos onze dampkring in kan komen, moet over superieure techniek beschikken," doceert Vermeeren. ,,Technieken die 'vrije energie voor de mensheid' dichterbij brengen. Dat vinden de Shells, de banken en andere grote bedrijven van deze wereld niet leuk, zij hebben er alle belang bij om de huidige situatie in stand te houden." 

Niet zo lekker
Vermeeren gelooft dat de buitenaardsen vredelievend zijn ('er is meerdere keren op ufo's geschoten, maar er is nog nooit teruggeschoten') én de mensheid verder kunnen helpen. Dat laatste is hard nodig, vindt hij, zeker omdat het met onze wereld ('oorlogen, leeggeviste zeeën, klimaatproblemen, boekhoudschandalen') momenteel niet zo lekker gaat. Vermeeren: ,,Het is niet zo gek dat ook veel jonge mensen denken: wat moet ik in deze wereld? De zoektocht naar buitenaards leven is voor mij dan ook een menselijke les in nieuwsgierigheid. En wat dat betreft zie ik gelukkig bij steeds meer mensen een open blik."

Robin de Boer van Ninefornews.nl ziet in dat verband ook een nieuwe ontwikkeling. ,,Eerst waren het vooral mensen uit de spirituele hoek die in aliens geloofden, nu merk je dat er een grote groep 'gewone' mensen interesse krijgt." En aangezien er ook veel mensen zijn die alle ufo-meldingen en buitenaardse uitstapjes afdoen als complotdenkerij en klinkklare onzin, levert dat met name op internetfora nogal wat verbaal gebekvecht op. De Boer: ,,Ik denk zelf ook dat er wel degelijk buitenaards leven mogelijk is, maar ik heb bepaald niet de wijsheid in pacht." En met een grijns: ,,Maar als de mensheid nu al zoveel met elkaar bekvecht, ben ik heel benieuwd hoe dat gaat als er straks echt aliens landen."

Dit artikel is gepubliceerd in AD Magazine, de weekendbijlage van het AD.

•  
  • Ongeveer 95 procent van de ufo-meldingen is te verklaren. Dan blijken het weerballonnen, luchtspiegelingen of drone-achtige objecten te zijn. Maar dan blijft er nog altijd vijf procent over
  Coen Vermeeren

© AD.

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25-10-2015 om 18:35 geschreven door peter  

Former Air Force pilot witnessed UFO crash, saw the crew and they were not human

Pilot Robert Willingham was an air force colonel. He said he saw a UFO crash near the border with Mexico in 1955 while piloting a F86 of the air force.

He was there with three other jets following a B47 boeing. They were having a bombing drill flying over El Paso, Texas.

Then they received a call of distant alert and they said they registered a UFO on the radar. The UFO was flying over the North-West area of the U.S and was moving to the South.

Minutes later they saw the UFO and it was an object as bright as a star traveling at a speed of 3200 km per hour. Then the UFO turned 90 degrees to the South-West and never stopped.

While Colonel Willingham requested permission to follow the object while it was moving to the border with Mexico he saw that the UFO had already crashed in Mexican territory when he was flying over Launtry so he went back to the military base of Carswell.

After being returned to the base he requested an airplane to go back there with Jack Perkin and saw that the area was surrounded by Mexican military forces until the U.S. forces arrived.

Colonel Willingham said he not only saw the UFO but he also saw the crew of this saucer shaped UFO and they were not human.

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.be/ }

24-10-2015 om 17:53 geschreven door peter  

Dogs 'mysteriously fall ill after being walked in notorious UFO hotspot dubbed UK Roswell'

ALIEN visitors have been held up as one possible causes of sickness in dogs being walked at a notorious UFO hotspot that has been dubbed 'UK's Roswell'.
By Jon Austin

Dogs have fallen ill and even gone missing or died after Rendlesham walks

Dog walkers have reported their beloved pets becoming ill after being walked in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, the scene of a mysterious mass UFO hotspot in 1980 where flying saucers are still reportedly seen.

US military personal based at RAF Woodbridge, next to the forest, reported a series of unexplained lights and even a UFO landing in the forest over the Christmas period.

Bizarre UFOs were also seen by residents of the village and the unexplained case remains one of the UK's most perplexing with the forest regularly visited by alien hunters.

It is not the first time the UFO mystery at Rendlesham has been linked to unexplained sickness.

The servicemen who "saw the craft land" have since received a payout after being "affected by radiation".

Now there have reportedly been numerous cases of dogs getting sick after being walked along what is now known as the UFO trail.

Do aliens really visit Rendlesham?

Caroline Peters from Felsted in Essex, is the latest to report her two dogs becoming ill after a visit.

She says they got so sick they almost died.

She said: “We were there for about an hour-and-a-half.

“Ruby was off the lead but Sparkie was on the lead.

"We saw toadstools but they have been ruled out –there was nothing in their tests to suggest there had been any form of poisoning.”

Both dogs stayed in the vet's overnight in intensive care, but are now recovering.

Dog walking is nearly as popular as skywatching in the forest

Health problems and lots of other weird incidents have certainly been associated with Rendlesham.

UFO author Nigel Watson

She has been told it was probably Seasonal Canine Illness - itself a mystery sickness which affects dogs from August to November.

Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, thinks there may be more to it.

He said: “Even today ufologists squabble over what really happened at Rendlesham Forest in late December 1980.

"Did an alien spaceship land here? Were the US airmen who saw the UFO fooled by the light from a nearby lighthouse?

"Was it a smokescreen to hide a nuclear incident or some other type of covert operation? Or was it a hoax?

“Health problems and lots of other weird incidents have certainly been associated with Rendlesham.

People claim aliens have visited the isolated woods since the 1980 sightings

"US airman John Burroughs, who said he saw the UFO on the night of Boxing Day 1980, received a medical payout from the US Veteran’s Association that confirmed he had received some physical harm from this craft.

“Ever since the incident he has had heart problems and was fitted with a pacemaker.

"John and fellow witness Jim Penniston both claim to have suffered Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after seeing the three-metre craft, covered in hieroglyphics land in the woods.

“Whether it is or not it, it will add fuel to the raging controversy that surrounds this notorious UFO incident which is second only to Roswell in the annals of ufology.”

http://www.express.co.uk/pictures/galleries/2906/UFO-Festival-in-Roswell/UFO-Festival-in-Roswell-64046

Thousands of alien hunters flocked to the world's ET capital to celebrate the 20th UFO Festival in Roswell. Here's a look at some of the festivities.

{ http://www.express.co.uk/ }

24-10-2015 om 15:41 geschreven door peter  

The Presidents and UFOs: A Secret History from FDR to Obama

UFO over DC WaPo

Could President Truman have known the story behind the front page news from July 28, 1952?

For decades, pulp fiction writers, film-makers, and countless UFO researchers have maintained that a veil of secrecy surrounds the government’s knowledge of extraterrestrial beings. But does this veil – if it exists – mask more than 70 years worth of verifiable findings from even the office of the President of the United States? Author Larry Holcombe believes the answer is “yes”, and he has set forth the evidence for that belief in his book, The Presidents and UFOs: A Secret History from FDR to Obama (St. Martin’s Press). The Baltimore Post-Examiner recently spoke with Holcombe about his extensive research, which included weeks spent gleaning records in several presidential libraries. Holcombe will be one of the featured speakers at this Saturday’s Mysteries of Space & Sky Conference. The highly regarded annual UFO conference will be held in nearby Gambrills, Maryland.

BPE: Thank you for taking some time to speak with us today. To start, would you please tell us about your background? What led to your interest in UFO’s?

LH: When I was in junior high, I found a couple of Major Donald Keyhoe’s books – Flying Saucers From Outer Space and Flying Saucers Are Real – in my school library. Keyhoe was a retired Marine aviator who wrote for a number of publications in the late 1940’s. When he started to write about the flying saucer phenomenon for True Magazine, Keyhoe was a skeptic. But within a year, he became convinced that the Air Force was concealing UFO evidence.

When I graduated from high school, the Vietnam War was in progress. I joined the National Guard and served 8 years there. Then I went into selling commercial construction products, and eventually represented a manufacturer out of Chicago as a military sales manager. I closed out my business career developing the military sales for this company and traveled all over.

UFO's and PresidentsBPE: In your interaction with the military, did you ever talk about your interest in UFOs?

LH: I had some conversation, but very little. Unfortunately now, I look back on it and see that other people do the same thing; they keep it to themselves. They don’t talk about it, because it may affect their careers. A good friend who retired as a full colonel in the Air Force has a number of high-ranking officer friends who have said they are willing to talk with me. They say, “Yeah, I’d love to talk with him, but I don’t really know anything about the subject.” Whether you’ve got 3 or 4 stars on your shoulder, if you don’t have a need to know, then you don’t know.

BPE: Your book is about UFOs and the presidents. Do the presidents have a need to know?

LH: That’s a very good question. Let me answer it this way. President Truman undoubtedly had a need to know.

It is believed Truman set up an inside group, called MJ-12 or Majestic 12. This group was made up of six eminent scientists and six high-ranking military officers, including General Nathan Twining, and it charged them with handling all flying saucer issues. This was in 1947, right after Roswell and right after the National Security Act was passed and the CIA was created. Truman was deeply involved in it, although you won’t find any Truman biographer who will talk about it. There are even film clips of Truman talking about flying saucers. And there were world-wide headlines being made during the Truman Administration over flying saucers. The famous 1952 Washington merry-go-round, where Washington was overflown by numbers of these crafts. Truman got his military aide, General Robert Landry, and said (Truman had a salty tongue), “Hey get out there to find out just what the Hell is going on. I want this information to come back to me and me only.” It would strictly be handled by the office of the President.

When Truman left office, Eisenhower came in under the same general guidelines. It is my belief, based on my research, that the flying saucer issue had become so big that, after Eisenhower came into office, control of the information was slowly stripped away from the White House and placed into the hands of the intelligence community and the military industrial complex. The military industrial complex is as capable – or more – of keeping secrets than the intelligence community. They are very, very good at it.

BPE: Is that where this information still resides?

President Harry S. Truman charged Robert Landry to, “find out what the Hell is going on”.

LH: I think that’s where it resides now, so today, the presidents really know very little of it. I think it depends on who the president is, how favorable they are looked upon by the intelligence community. President George H.W. Bush was highly regarded by the intelligence community.

BPE: George H. W. Bush had been CIA Director at one point.

LH: Yes, but only for one year. People forget that. They think that, because he was Director of the CIA, that he had all the data. Bush was only director for one year, but CIA headquarters is named after him. So he was truly on the inside. I think people like Bill Clinton were frowned upon by the intelligence community, and knew very little of it. Jimmy Carter, who had a UFO sighting, said that he would open up all UFO files once he got into office, yet he learned nothing from it. Reagan probably was briefed on it in some detail. But I really think all contemporary presidents, with the exception of Richard Nixon, probably have only limited knowledge of it. I think there are some people in government that have a great deal of knowledge. Former Vice President Dick Cheney probably has a great deal of knowledge of the UFO subject, as may Donald Rumsfeld. I think they are two people on the political side that are, and have been, involved in it.

BPE: You’ve mentioned a number of the presidents from Truman to Clinton. Let me ask a specific question about President Clinton. There is a story that Clinton reached out to the intelligence community through his friend, Assistant Attorney General Webster Hubbell. Is there anything to this story?

LH: Well, the only story there is that when Clinton took office, he said to Webb Hubbell, “I want you to find two things for me as quickly as you can: who killed JFK and what really happened at Roswell.” There was probably more to the conversation, but the bottom line was Hubbell came up empty. He couldn’t get anything. So here you have a President of the United States asking for information on UFO’s, and he in essence is being denied the files or told they don’t exist.

BPE: Have you ever been to Roswell?

Major Jesse Marcel holds some of the debris recovered from the 1947 incident near Roswell, New Mexico. (Roswell Daily Record)

LH: I have been to Roswell every year for the Roswell festival. I’ve been invited by the International UFO Museum and Research Center every year since 2011 for their 3 or 4 day event, to lecture at the Museum. They gave me a lifetime membership this past July.

BPE: The museum in Roswell is quite interesting. I know they have scores of letters and affidavits posted throughout the main hall which validates, in one form or another, that something did happen there in 1947 which doesn’t follow the official party line.

LH: Well, Roswell has some 200 witnesses who have come forward. Some may not be totally believable. People, after so many years, can stretch the truth. But Roswell is of special interest to me. I am convinced that Roswell was an extraterrestrial event. I can’t prove it. I can’t give you a piece of the saucer. But there is so much evidence that that’s what it was; and the Air Force has lied so many times that instead of building their credibility, they’ve gone a long way to destroying their credibility.

You get all sorts of arguments over Roswell, but there are 6-7 basic facts that when taken together make it very, very hard to support what the Air Force said crashed there.

BPE: Between the economy and two continuing wars, both Presidents George W. Bush and Barak Obama have certainly had their hands full. Have either one of them expressed any interest in the UFO phenomena?

LH: I think that George W. Bush was so involved with terrorism after 9-11 that he gave very little consideration to the subject. When asked about it once, his reply was, “Go ask Cheney”.

When I wrote the book, I thought that Obama had very little background knowledge. That the intelligence community would not trust him or give him much information at all. But during his recent appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, when asked about the subject, his response was something like, “They don’t let us talk about that.” He said it in sort of a joking way, but that’s how he brushed it off. “They don’t let us talk about that”. Well, who is “they”? So I think there is probably a lot of truth in what he said. That he has been briefed to some limited degree, but how much a president is briefed now depends on who the president is and how much information they want to give him.

I know this may sound conspiratorial, but the people I call the keepers of the secret call the shots on how much a president knows. If there was a major UFO sighting by thousands of people, like there was in Phoenix, the president would probably be briefed on that; to what extent I do not know.

BPE: You’re talking about intrigue here, and in my mind – that brings us back to Richard Nixon.

LH: My book is actually built around the Nixon administration and what I believe was a desire to release at least some information on an extraterrestrial presence. That’s another story in and of itself, but my research shows that Nixon supported using a made for TV documentary to expose an alien presence. But then, along came Watergate and that all went away. The documentary, by the way, was eventually made, with Rod Serling as the host.

Comedian Jackie Gleason with Richard Nixon.

BPE: Aside from this documentary, I’ve heard that Nixon may have shared some of this information with one of his closest friends.

LH: We know that Jackie Gleason thought that the government was concealing UFO information. He was very concerned and irritated that the government was not divulging some of the information they had on an extraterrestrial presence.

Now it is clear to me that Nixon had a great interest in the UFO subject. He was also a very good friend of Jackie Gleason. They played golf together, and I think it’s reasonable to believe that Gleason bent Nixon’s ear about disclosure; that they talked extensively about the subject. Gleason called his house in New York the Mother Ship, and some of the smaller out buildings looked like flying saucers. When Gleason died, his wife gave 1600 volumes on UFOs to the University of Miami library.

BPE: Does your book deal with presidents prior to Truman and the events of 1948?

Yes; but it only goes back to 1941 in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt. I’ve heard the stories about George Washington going into the woods at Valley Forge and having some sort of an alien encounter; it could be. You’ve got to be skeptical but also have an open mind with these things. If you don’t, you won’t do a decent job as a researcher.

My book goes back to 1941, and the first incident that I report was told by a lady named Charlotte Mann. Mann said her grandfather, who was a Baptist minister, was called to an airplane crash in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. When he got there, it was not an aircraft as he knew it but a disc-shaped object which had crashed. Two or three very small men – 3 1/2-4 foot tall – occupants with big heads and big eyes, were dead, laying on the ground. So he went ahead and said a prayer for them. The fire department was there. Photographs had been taken, and then the military showed up. And when the military showed up, they confiscated everything, including the photographers’ film. Then the military commander got everyone together and said, “Folks, this is a very serious matter of national security. You are never to speak of it again to anyone at any time.”

If it wasn’t Japanese aircraft, what were coastal batteries shooting at during the Battle of Los Angeles?

Anyway, Charlotte Mann, who was a very small child at the time, remembers that she grew up with this being whispered about among the family from time to time. Her grandmother told her the whole story as she was dying of cancer. That’s the first incident and everything checks out as far as people have been able to check it out.

Then I go into the 1942 Battle of Los Angeles, where some 1600 rounds of anti-aircraft artillery were fired at a strange object that flew over the coast of Southern California. There was a lot of war news in 1942, but it was a pretty big deal and reported in the newspapers extensively. Some people were even reported to have had heart attacks over the event.

BPE: So your book deals with both verifiable facts and informed speculation?

LH: There are letters, which are not documented, that I do put in the book that I got from Dr. Robert Woods, a retired executive from McDonnell Douglas aircraft. Dr. Woods’ interest was started because McDonnell Douglas had a stake in UFOs. They wanted to know what the propulsion systems were, and they wanted to find out before Lockheed found out. It was a pure business decision, so McDonnell Douglas spent about $500,000, and Bob Woods headed that effort up.

When Bob retired, he became so enamored with the UFO question that he started his effort in authenticating leaked documents. Well, there are several leaked documents in his possession that were between President Roosevelt (FDR) and General George C. Marshall.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt. (New York Public Library)

In one letter General Marshall told FDR that two objects had been recovered after the Battle of Los Angeles, one by the Navy in the sea between Los Angeles and Catalina Island, and a similar object that they recovered in the San Bernadino mountains. I think his exact words were that the objects bore no resemblance to anything conventional. He went on to say that the only explanation is that they are other-worldly. I think those were his terms.

I also discuss that Roosevelt wrote George Marshall and said that, as soon as the United States was victorious in the war, which obviously he was consumed with, that they (the army and the government) would have the fruit of these wonders that we have come into possession of. And I think he even mentioned atomic weapons. But that was before anybody knew about the atomic bomb, and I’m assuming here that if Roosevelt talked about atomic power, he knew about it secretly. So he presumed that that’s what these craft must have been powered by. But that’s an assumption on my part.

The reason I put that in the book is because the terminology seemed correct for the time. For some reason, this subject seems to generate a lot of people coming forward and hoaxing things. I’m not a psychologist; I don’t understand why people do such ridiculous things. It does seem to occur quite often, so you have to be very careful. But because these documents had a ring of authenticity to them, I did include them in the book.

********************************************************************
Mysteries of Space & Sky: 2015 takes place this Saturday, October 24 from 8:30am – 6:00pm at the Bowie Elks Lodge No 2309, 1506 Defense Hwy. Gambrills, MD 21054. Information about cost and this year’s speakers, including more information about Larry Holcombe, may be found online at Eventbrite by visiting Mysteries of Space & Sky: 2015.

{  http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/ }

24-10-2015 om 14:58 geschreven door peter  

Researchers in Russia discover over a dozen of mysterious disc-shaped objects containing ‘Tungsten”

More news from Russia as researchers in Volgograd have discovered over a dozen of disk-shaped objects, including one which has over four meters in diameter. According to experts, these “Alien” disc-shaped rocks contain tungsten, a high-density metal used in military technology.

Tugnsten, aka “wolfram“ is remarkable for its robustness, especially the fact that it has the highest melting point of all the elements. Tungsten’s hardness and high density give it military applications in penetrating projectiles.

The group responsible for the discovery was Kosmopoisk, according to a Russian website, Kosmopoisk is a Russian UFO and cryptozoology research group that was performing excavations in the district of Zhirnovsky, Volgograd. While researchers have stumbled upon disc-shaped rocks in the past, this is the first time a disc-shaped rock with such proportions was unearthed.

“We had already found over a dozen of these discs, most of them had a diameter of around one meter, at Kuzbass we unearthed a disc-shaped object with a diameter of nearly two meters, but this new ‘giant’ disc shaped rock is unique and impressive,” said Vadim Chernobrov, who was in charge of the excavation.

The shape of the four-meter disc, which is extremely similar to modern-day interpretations of UFO’s has given UFO hunters and Ufologists a lot to talk about. Scott Waring, editor of ufosightingsdaily.com believes that the discovery of this mysterious disc-shaped rock is the ultimate evidence of extraterrestrial visitations in the past, and that its composition is what makes it unique, since it is made of tungsten, which is used in military technology today.

Beyond speculations about the nature of the mysterious objects that have been unearthed, the newly found disk-shaped “UFO” has been transported to the Zhirnovsky museum, where scientists are studying it trying to find out its age and the exact composition of the material’s it is made from. However many people remains skeptical about the objects suggesting that these could be the result of natural erosion and are not the result of ‘alien beings’ visiting Earth in the distant past.

Earlier this year, another mysterious disc shaped object was discovered in Russia by a mining company near the city of Belovo located in the Kuznetsk Basin. The mysterious 1.2 meter disc was located a t depth of 40 meters suggesting that it could be very old. Archaeologists performed several tests and concluded that this perfectly circular 1.2 meter disc was something made by man in the distant past.

Is it possible that these mysterious objects are “monuments” created by ancient man? Representations of what they had seen in the past? Or is it possible as skeptics suggest, that these disk-shaped objects are the product of natural erosion?

If they are the result of natural erosion… how would you explain the large amounts of tungsten?

These disc shaped objects will certainly continue to fuel the debate among UFO hunters, Ufologists and skeptics. We look forward to finding out more about the objects after experts analyze them in the Zhirnovsky museum in Russia. Stay tuned for more information about these incredible objects.

Source: ancient-code

{ http://greenlifes.net/ }

24-10-2015 om 14:12 geschreven door peter  

Researchers: A study shows that there was life on Earth 300 million years earlier than previously thought

     "We need to think differently about the early Earth.” Elizabeth Bell

A team of geochemists at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have just found evidence that there was life on Earth 4,100 million years ago, ie, 300 million years earlier than previously thought. The finding implies that life came into existence very soon after our world was formed, 4.554 million years ago. The work was recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“Twenty years ago, this would have been heretical; finding evidence of life 3.8 billion years ago was shocking,” said Mark Harrison, co-author of the research and a professor of geochemistry at UCLA.

“Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously,” added Harrison, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. “With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly.”

According to this new study, life existed on our planet even before the massive bombardment of the inner solar system some 3,900 million years ago when numerous celestial objects crashed into the Moon and Earth.

Carbon found in a piece of zircon indicates life on Earth began 300 million years earlier than previously thought.

“If all life on Earth died during this bombardment, which some scientists have argued, then life must have restarted quickly,” said Patrick Boehnke, a co-author of the research and a graduate student in Harrison’s laboratory.

Countless researchers believed that the Earth was a desolate and parched planet in the distant past, but just as we learned from what we have found out on Mars, it isn’t quite as science suggested.



“The early Earth certainly wasn’t a hellish, dry, boiling planet; we see absolutely no evidence for that,” Harrison said. “The planet was probably much more like it is today than previously thought.”

Under the supervision of Elizabeth Bell, investigator from UCLA studied over 10,000 zircons formed from molten rocks from Western Australia. Zircons capture and preserve their immediate environment which has led researchers to nickname them ‘time capsules’.

According to a report from UCLA’s website, scientists identified 656 zircons containing dark specks that could be revealing and closely analyzed 79 of them with Raman spectroscopy, a technique that shows the molecular and chemical structure of ancient microorganisms in three dimensions.

Researchers had one goal, look for carbon, a key component for life. Interestingly, one of the 79 zicrons contained graphite in two locations.

Researchers are very confident that these ziccros actually represent 4.1 billion year-old graphite. “There is no better case of a primary inclusion in a mineral ever documented, and nobody has offered a plausible alternative explanation for graphite of non-biological origin into a zircon.”

Harrison added that the research suggest that life as we know it in the universe could be abundant since on our planet, simple life appears to have formed very fast.

http://www.ewao.com/

{ http://7tales.net/index.php }

24-10-2015 om 13:59 geschreven door peter  

ETs for Hillary: Why UFO Activists Are Excited About Another Clinton Presidency

Stephen Bassett is ready for Hillary. Bassett, Capitol Hill’s only registered UFO lobbyist, anticipates that another Clinton presidency will offer another shot at what’s long been the Holy Grail for extraterrestrial enthusiasts: full disclosure of what the US government really knows about aliens. “This is the most important issue in the world,” he says.

His enthusiasm is shared by Michael Salla, an academic turned UFO researcher who maintains that aliens have been secretly involved in American politics since the Cold War. He thinks a Clinton presidency would be a good thing for the UFO community. “I think Hillary would play a positive role in getting this information out,” he says. “I think that Hillary definitely is much more the pro-disclosure candidate, where as someone like Jeb Bush is basically status quo.”

The UFO activists’ hopes for Hillary are pinned on the assumption she believes in their cause—despite having never spoken publicly about it. In particular, they are encouraged that John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, will likely chair Clinton’s campaign and would likely serve in another Clinton White House. As a self-described “curious skeptic,” Podesta has openly called for greater government transparency on UFO-related matters. In his forward to UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record, a 2011 book by journalist Leslie Kean, he wrote, “It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there. The American people—and people around the world—want to know, and they can handle the truth.”

Podesta’s interest in extraterrestrial phenomenon is nothing new. In 1998, theWashington Post described his “fanatical devotion to ‘The X-Files’—especially FBI agent Fox Mulder, with whom he shares a penchant for obsessiveness and paranoia.” Grant Cameron, a Canadian UFO researcher, unsuccessfully tried to get the Clinton Library to release records detailing Podesta’s X-Files-themed 50th birthday party, which was apparently thrown by the first couple—who may have dressed up as the show’s main characters.

In February, as he prepared to step down as a senior adviser to President Obama, Podesta tweeted about the UFO issue:

While the tweet may have been tongue in cheek, UFO activists went nuts over it. “It was a big frickin’ deal,” says Bassett. “Someone who has been an adviser to the president of the United States, and is leaving his job, and it’s already been announced publicly that he is going to be a key adviser to the heir apparent to the White House, the de facto candidate, does not, on the day he leaves the White House, put out a tweet about UFOs. He’s inviting hundreds of articles to be written about this tweet.” Podesta did not respond to a request for comment.

The other reason that UFO enthusiasts are excited about a potential Clinton victory goes back to the X-Files era. In early 1993, Laurance S. Rockefeller began to lobby the Clinton administration to release any government information related to UFOs and extraterrestrials, including the 1947 Roswell incident. The fourth child of John D. Rockefeller Jr., Rockefeller was a successful venture capitalist, philanthropist, and conservationist. One of his lesser-known interests was UFOs. (He died in 2004.)

Over the next three years, Rockefeller and his associates corresponded and met with officials in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, according to documents released as part of a records request filed by Cameron. The effort, known as the Rockefeller Initiative, helped push the Air Force to produce what it characterized as the definitive report on Roswell. (UFO activists were not satisfied, to say the least.) The initiative also may have helped spur a 1995 executive order that declassified millions of records, of which the vast majority were not UFO-related.

In August 1995, Rockefeller met with Hillary Clinton, and perhaps Bill, at his Wyoming ranch. In a memo, the then-director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Jack Gibbons, warned the Clintons about Rockefeller’s agenda before the visit. “[Rockefeller] will want to talk with you about his interest in extrasensory perception, paranormal phenomena, and UFO’s,” he wrote. Gibbons said he’d tried to persuade Rockefeller “not to bother you with this issue” and to focus instead on the administration’s science and technology policies. Rockefeller, he continued, “knows that we are trying to be helpful in responding to his concerns about UFO’s [sic] and human potential—and that we’re keeping an open mind about such matters—but I’ve made no secret about my conviction that we must not be too diverted from more earthly imperatives.” Gibbons could not be reached for comment.

Hillary Clinton with Laurance Rockefeller at his Wyoming ranch in 1995 Grant Cameron/Stephen Bassett

Documents from the Rockefeller Initiative posted on Bassett’s website suggest that the first lady was kept in the loop. A November 1995 letter to Gibbons from one of Rockefeller’s lawyers included a draft letter to President Clinton “which Laurance has been discussing with Mrs. Clinton and her staff.” Three months later, Rockefeller wrote Gibbons about the letter, which the White House was apparently in no hurry to receive: “It well may be that it will be timely to put this before the President late this year in order that it might receive attention in a second term. You indicated that you will keep the First Lady’s Office informed, and we shall as well.”

Bassett says the Rockefeller Initiative proves that the Clintons were interested in pursuing meaningful UFO and extraterrestrial disclosure. “You don’t go through all of this, and have this much work, just to amuse a billionaire,” he says. “If you did, you’d have to answer to that.” Bassett has been lobbying for congressional hearings on the question of UFO contact with the US government. He says that forcing the Clintons to discuss the Rockefeller Initiative is key to his strategy. “I call it the exopolitical blue dress,” he says, referring to Monica Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress and “exopolitics,” a term for the intersection of terrestrial politics and extraterrestrial beings.

Salla, who has claimed that humans are currently in touch with 17 extraterrestrial civilizations, says that Hillary Clinton’s return is another indicator that the truth is coming. He cites Jimmy Kimmel’s recent interview with President Obama, in which the president quipped that he hasn’t delved into the government’s UFO files because “the aliens won’t let it happen. You’d reveal all their secrets. They exercise strict control over us.”

Where most people heard a punch line, Salla discerned a direct link to Podesta and perhaps something deeper. “The fact that he said aliens exert strict control over us—no president has ever said that before, even as a joke,” Salla says. “Obama said things that shouldn’t just be assumed to be throwaway lines. A senior adviser a month before said he was frustrated by a lack of progress and now you have Obama on Jimmy Kimmel saying that. I think it’s worth raising the question.”

Asked for clarification of Hillary Clinton’s stance on UFO disclosure, a spokesman from her office responded via email. “Our non-campaign has a strict policy of not commenting on extraterrestrial activity,” Nick Merrill wrote. “BUT, the Truth Is Out There.”

https://youtu.be/EYzRY2XpLBk

Source www.motherjones.com

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

24-10-2015 om 01:12 geschreven door peter  

Alioshenka. A monument for The Small Alien of Urals

Monument for Alioshenka, the banks of Anbash lake. The sculpture is made of stone, concrete and metal.

RUSSIA. CHELYABINSK Oblast. KISHTYM City. Sientists from Kosmopoisk (translated Russian Organization of Research Public), also known as Spacesearch, a group with interests in ufology, cryptozoology, and other mystery investigations - they are reopened the investigation about the materials rescued two decades ago during the episode of a UFO that crashed in the woods near Kyshtym. The episode occurred in 1996.

Expedition members have hope to find traces of the spaceship, in which a little humanoid was wounded. The creature stood known worldwide under the name Alyoshenka.

This is the tenth time that "Kosmopoisk" visits Kishtym. The searchings are focused on the banks of Lake Anbash. The place was chosen because, according to eyewitnesses, was there that 19 years ago, an unidentified flying object landed or fell.

The head of Kosmopoisk organization, Vadim Chernobrov explains that - The researchers are interested in several unusual events, including the fall of the a meteorite in the same region, the same year, 1996.

Chernobrov tells: We received a message from the Academy of Sciences, which was written by a resident of Kishtym. The letter describe the meteorite like a silvery object that had the shape of an elongated cigar.

ABOVE. Also, there were holes in trees. For this witness, considering the angle of the trajetory and its speed, there is no doubt that it was not a meteorite, but something quite different. Trunks of huge trees appeared burnt by some kind of powerfull laser that left precise horizontal marks. Meteorites do not leave such traces.

THE HISTORY

There 19 years ago, in a small town of South Ural, weird events occurred and became known to the whole world under the name "Kyshtym phenomenon.

In the apartment of an elderly resident of the village - Tamara Prosvirina Kaolin, it was discovered the mummified body of an alien being.

The woman tried hide him and feed him and gave a name to the being, Alexis. This would be the begining of the history of the extraterrestrial that the world knows like Aliyoshenka.

The daughter in law of Mrs. Tamara, saw the creature many times. A pensioner that used to visit the family, told to newspapers and authorities that also saw the creature alive.

When police arrived to the local, Aloyoshenka already was dead and Tamara Prosvirina, was desolated.

The police officer Vladimir Bendlina leaded the investigation of the case. In this context, some ufologists from Kamensk-Ural, that claimed the the guard of the corpse, were persuaded to give the specimen to the police guard. After this, the body of the small alien vanished without a trace.

This history of the little Alioshenka is a mystery, matter of controversy among researchers. Despite the vanishing of the proves, the corpse, before this, The Discovery channel got produce a documentary about the occurrence. The documentary has precious images of Alioshenka.

MONUMENT

This summer (July, 2015), members the organization "Kosmopoisk" camped on the banks of Lake Anbash - where, according to eyewitnesses, in 1996 - unidentified flying object landed there.

In memory of this event, the activists of the organization erected a monument in Kyshtym, on the shores of the lake. Immediately the site became an atraction that has attracted the attention of tourists.

http://brazilweirdnews.blogspot.tw/

{ http://7tales.net/index.php }

24-10-2015 om 00:39 geschreven door peter  

Beyond Roswell: UFO Crashes You May Never Have Heard Of

by Ryan Sprague

When we think of UFO crashes, there’s really only one case that comes to mind. Yup… that one. What many are not aware of, however, is that there are literally thousands of other cases involving crashed saucers, fireballs hurdling towards earth, and everything in between. With many of these crashes, bodies were found. And even more interesting were the lengths in which military bodies went to clean everything up before news got out. Below are a few examples of UFO crashes you may never have heard of… for a reason.

Aurora, Texas – 1897

Perhaps one of the first recorded cases involving a crashed UFO occurred over a century ago in the town of Aurora, Texas.

On April 19th of 1897, a story appeared in the local newspaper about a strange airship that had been sighted over the town. The story went on to claim that this ship had crashed into a windmill tower, sending it to the ground in a blazing explosion. Apparently, some of the material recovered had strange hieroglyphic symbols on it. Also amongst the wreckage was that of an ‘alien’ life form which the townsfolk buried in the local cemetery.

Although most researchers regard this as a hoax, there are still some who pursue the case, going so far as to try to exhume the grave where the alien body was supposedly buried. Their requests were denied by the city officials, and the case remains unsolved until today.

Credit: www.roswellbooks.com

Tunguska, Siberia – 1908

It was on June 30th of 1908, near the lower Tunguska River of Siberia, when a large explosion occurred. The explosion was so large, that it could be felt from almost 400 miles away. For several nights all over northern Europe, the sky glowed enough to light the street of London. At first it was assumed that a massive meteorite had collided with the earth. Given the remoteness of the area, it was not until 1927 that an expedition was mounted to investigate the crash area. The expedition turned up absolutely nothing, which seemed close to impossible, considering the size of the explosion which rivaled that of the Atomic Bomb aftermath.

Scientists speculated many theories for this crash and its source, everything ranging from black holes, to anti-matter experiments, up to even saying it could have been a nuclear device from an alien race.

No matter the case, many of the witnesses to the original crash claimed to have seen an oval-shaped mass moving across the sky, as well as seeing the object change course, and having a very low speed.

Most people today believe that what hit Tunguska was simply a meteorite. But many still believe this could have possibly been the crash of an alien mothership. Either theory is equally as terrifying, considering the devastating impact it had on the surrounding area.

thetruthbehindthescenes.wordpress.com

Las Vegas – 1962

While thought to be nothing by rumor amongst many UFO researchers, witness reports began to surface about a crash that supposedly took place on April 18th of 1962 on the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

The object was first spotted over Oneida, NY (Miles from my hometown of Syracuse!) and was heading in a westerly direction. Other reports of a similar object were also reported in Kansas, Colorado, and Utah. Tracked on several radar systems, the object disappeared when it hit the Nellis base.

Thousands of witnesses reported the object, assuming it was a meteorite. But the Air Force wasn’t happy with this assumption. So much so that the Air Defense Command scrambled several fighter jets to investigate.

Claims out of Eureka were that the object came down in the town, at the same time, the town experienced several blackouts. It was then reported that the object took off again, and the power in the town immediately sprung back to life. Reports also trickled in from commercial pilots in the area, claiming it was below their own altitudes, thus negating speculation that this was a meteorite of some kind. Though the Air Force remained steadfast in explaining it away as such, even though this “crashed meteorite” seemed to land and then take off again.

prometheus.med.utah.edu

Varginha, Brazil – 1996

It was in the first weeks of 1996 when news quickly spread across various news outlets in Brazil that the military had captured a downed alien craft and an extraterrestrial being in the town of Varginha. The news spread so far as The Wall Street Journal.

According to media reports, the being was first sighted by a group of young women on January 20th. The women described seeing a creature of five or so feet tall, a large head and skinny body. It had brown skin and large red eyes. It was wobbling back and forth, clearly unsteady. The women assumed it was sick or injured. The women raced home to tell their mother of what they’d seen. She returned to the area to smell a strong odor of ammonia. The creature was nowhere to be found however. Rumors began to spread throughout the town that an alien had been sighted and that UFOs were invading the area. Apparently, the military was brought in to investigate.

The Brazilian government has officially denied any claims of being involved in the incident, but many claim that this is nothing but a cover-up. With very little credible testimony, and no irrefutable evidence, the Varginha case remains a complete mystery in the annals of UFO crashes.

www.sott.net

With UFOs crashing all over the world, one has to wonder just exactly how intelligent these so-called intelligent aliens truly are. Are these merely misidentified meteorites, weather balloons, or online hoaxes? Or are we dealing with the fact that extraterrestrials may be here on earth? That mystery lay deep in the ground of many UFO researchers work, including the minds of the public as a whole.

One thing, however, is certain: if these aliens are supposedly traveling across vast star systems and blinking in and out of wormholes, you’d think they’d take every precaution once they entered our atmosphere and started poking around our skies.

Just be careful, dear reader, next time you have a UFO sighting… you never know when it’s going to hurdle towards your head in a fiery blaze.

Categories
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23-10-2015 om 18:08 geschreven door peter  

Other-worldly shapes hovering over mountains look like UFOs - but they're something quite different

The spectacular images were taken by Vladimir Voychuk, who focused on Kamchatka's volcanoes in eastern Russia

Otherworldly: Lenticular clouds over Kamchatka's iconic volcanoes

At a glance you could mistake these shapes hovering over mountain tops for UFOs.

But in reality they're actually just clouds.

To be more specific, these incredible pictures show lenticular clouds over Kamchatka's iconic volcanoes in eastern Russia.

The stunning images, formed to align with the wind direction, were taken by 35-year-old photographer from Klin Vladimir Voychuk.

He said: "It's not the first time I've seen clouds like this but it's the first time I've been able to catch it on film.

"My personal favourite is the shot of the two grey clouds forming around the Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano - taking that picture took my breath away."

Stunning: The lenticular clouds formed to align with the wind direction

Incredible: This isn't an alien invasion, now it's just the weather

"It's a pretty rare thing to capture on film because the cloud was formed not only by vapour but also the smoke coming out of the active volcano," he continued.

Despite having to travel thousands of miles to get there, Vladimir thinks Kamchata is one of the most spectacular places in the world to photograph.

Bizarre: The clouds often resemble flying saucers hovering in the sky

Spacey: The images could be taken out of a sci-fi movie

He said: "It's probably one of my favourite places to take pictures.

"It takes me a long time to get there but it's always worth it. I don't think there's anywhere in the world that's better."

{ http://www.mirror.co.uk/ }

22-10-2015 om 22:54 geschreven door peter  

What will the aliens say to us?

Bright blue space stars background

Photo Credit: iStock

Kicking around near the top of my very long and weird list titled "Things I'm Definitely Gonna Write Someday, I Swear" is a science fiction short story.

Picture this: We have encountered our first alien life form and it's clearly intelligent. We set about feeding each others' languages into computers and finally, come up with a translator program. And once everything is set up, the first thing the aliens say to us is, "Have you heard the good news about Jesus Christ?"

I always imagine the lead scientist as someone who both the plot and appearance make clear is not Christian, like Jeff Goldblum, typing back, "I did hear about that . . . but I wish I'd paid more attention to it."

I can think of an almost infinite number of first statements from aliens that would blow our minds, and the best book on the subject would be one in which every chapter were a different story, with a different first statement. But in real life, to find the alien wisdom, we've first got to find the aliens.

The story idea popped back into my brain last week with the announcement that scientists have discovered a very strange star, with some seemingly unnatural attributes that could suggest a highly intelligent civilization has been hanging out there and building stuff. It's official designation is KIC 8462852 but it's much cuddlier nickname is "Tabby's Star," after Tabetha S. Boyajian, a Yale University postdoctoral student whose team observed it and published a paper about it.

What's special about Tabby's Star is that its pattern of light emission doesn't make sense in any normal way for a star its age and size. It's one of a group of about 150,000 stars that the Kepler Space Telescope stared at for four years. When the Kepler team members realized they couldn't interpret all the data, they created Planet Hunters, a group of humans who look at the sky through telescopes, which Boyajian oversees. It is, to me, amazing and charming that in many ways, humans are still better at looking for certain things in stars and space patterns than any computer program.

What's weird about Tabby's Star, and several Planet Hunters noticed this trait independently of each other, is that the light pattern it emits was interrupted at regular intervals by something that seemed to be orbiting it. And for a variety of reasons that are well-explained in Boyajian's 15-page, deeply brainy paper (age of the star, how gravity fields work, etc.), the light pattern suggests an orbiting clump of matter circling the star that doesn't quite match up with natural phenomena. It looks like it was made, scientists say, on purpose.

And that's one of the things the folks at the Center for SETI Research at the University of California have always thought we should be looking for in the big sky.

So Monday, SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) announced it had begun pointing its dish at Tabby's Star to see whether it emits radio waves, which would suggest intelligence-created communication. If SETI finds those, it'll bring more technology to bear. And this could happen very fast. We could know a lot more in a year about what's happening around Tabby's Star.

Or rather, what was happening on Tabby's Star. You see, it's about 1,500 light-years away, which means we're looking at light emitted right after the Roman Empire wound down.

Which leads us to another idea for a science-fiction story, a sad one I find all too easy to believe: If there were a technologically advanced civilization around Tammy's Star 1,500 years ago, and it was anything at all like us, I find it very hard to believe it's still around.

{ http://www.newsday.com/ }

22-10-2015 om 22:46 geschreven door peter  

Final proof aliens exist? Nasa photos show ancient Hieroglyphs carved into rock on Mars

ASA•YouTube

ALIEN hunters claim to have found the historic “final straw” of evidence that extra terrestrial beings exist claiming they have discovered ancient hieroglyphic-like carvings on Mars.

By JON AUSTIN

Is writing on the wall for non alien believers?NASA•YouTube

Is the writing on the wall for non alien believers?

Nasa photographs, taken by the Curiosity Rover, apparently show the writing on a rock.

Footage of Nasa images, taken by its Curiosity Rover, show the writing on a rock, according to and alien researchers and conspiracy theorists who are convinced it proves there was once an ancient civilisation on Mars, much like those on Earth.

They even believe they may have evolved alongside us.

But sceptics argue the so-called discoveries on the images sent back by the rover – a 4WD droid which is exploring the Martian surface – are just textures in rocks.

NASA•YouTube

There are claims this resembles Mayan statues on Earth

They said people are being tricked into seeing familiar objects, such as writing and faces, by pareidolia – a phenomena that causes the brain to interpret what they eye sees in patterns an d textures as familiar things.

On top of this, researchers often manipulate the images, such as in this case, where the ‘writing” has been darkened to bring it out, they said.

One viewer posted on UFOsightings daily after seeing the images, which have been uploaded to YouTube: “If you zoom in on the original you can see the small boxes that appear to be pixels that make up the photograph.

“It appears to be those boxes that are outlined in this picture to make it appear like writing.

“I read an article that talks about how these photographs, when taken from the original version and reformatted to jpegs, end up looking like this with these small boxes.

NASA•YouTube

Stretching it? This “crashed UFO” looks suspiciously like a rock

“It’s difficult to tell if it’s a conversion issue or if it’s simply something someone highlighted in order to create a specific perception.”

The “writing” is the latest in a series of anomalies such as statues, fossils and even “aliens” that UFO hunters claim to have found in the pictures.

Other newer ones include something that it is being suggested is like a Mayan statue, and even remains of buildings and a crashed UFO.

Some people are convinced by them.

Some suggest this could be the foundations of a ruined building

NASA•YouTube

Scott C Waring, editor of UFOsightings daily wrote on his website: “The carvings do look very similar to ancient Egyptian carvings.

“This is a monumental discovery, one that archeologists around the world should be taking a closer look at.

“A written language from another planet, its the final straw that will reveal disclosure. This is what we need to find more of.”

But Nasa says although the rover has found evidence of water flows on the surface of mars – one of the requirements for life to start – there has been no evidence yet of any life being present on the Red Planet.

Source: http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/613184/Final-proof-aliens-exist-Nasa-photos-show-ancient-Hieroglyphs-carved-into-rock-on-

22-10-2015 om 22:30 geschreven door peter  

John Podesta: Pulling Back the Curtain on UFOs

Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

by Leslie Kean

co-authored with Ralph Blumenthal

It was the tweet heard round the worlds. On John Podesta's last day at the White House on February 13th, the longtime Presidential counselor, who is likely to chair a 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, dashed off a confession that lit the blogosphere with thousands of retweets and comments: "Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files."

Along with the media, which couldn't resist a spoof by late-night comedian Jimmy Fallon, conspiracy theorists are having a field day. Taking Podesta's barb as confirmation of fantastic coverups by operatives with knowledge of extraterrestrials and twisted political agendas, they imagine Podesta himself holds devastating secrets. Some are claiming with bravado that their own activism is what prompted his recent lighthearted remark.

The facts hardly bear that out.

Actually, as surprising as the tweet was, Podesta's position on the controversial issue was not exactly news. A staunch proponent of open government, he has previously called for the release of any government files on unidentified flying objects, or more broadly, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), that merit such action under existing law. As Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, Podesta pressed for Executive Order 12958 which declassified broad categories of information formerly withheld on the grounds of national security.

In 2002, Podesta began publicly supporting what became a landmark Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the Coalition for Freedom of Information, an independent advocacy group. NASA had been stonewalling and refusing to release its records concerning a significant 1965 UFO incident in Kecksburg, PA. Many witnesses described seeing a fireball in the evening sky, followed by a controlled landing and the systematic military recovery of a spacecraft-like object, rushed away on the back of a flatbed truck. As reported by local radio and newspapers, U.S. military personnel cordoned off the area, investigated the site, and left without ever providing a full report of the incident other than to dismiss it as a meteor.

One of many witness drawings of the Kecksburg object. Cell phones were not in use then. (Credit: courtesy Stan Gordon)

During the lawsuit's final hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2007, the exasperated Presiding Judge, Emmet G. Sullivan, declared that "heads should roll" at NASA and that NASA's case was a "ball of yarn." He approved a settlement that required NASA to comb through hundreds of documents in specified locations, and provide them to journalist and plaintiff Leslie Kean, under the watchful eye of the court.

Success at forcing an agency to do this kind of extensive historical search under FOIA without Congressional intervention was unprecedented. Podesta called the victory "a triumph for open government and the spirit of inquiry."

John Podesta provided public support during the FOIA lawsuit against NASA, filed by the Coalition for Freedom of Information in 2003. (Credit: courtesy SCI FI Channel)

But - there was one problem. The resulting documents did not include one iota of information relating to the Kecksburg case, despite an earnest and thorough effort by NASA staff. Three hundred boxes were searched, on top of the hundreds of pages released during the court proceedings prior to the settlement. Yet they revealed nothing about the case at hand.

Could these be the "UFO files" that Podesta was alluding to in his tweet? Might there be others as well, stored in locations inaccessible to the FOIA in violation of the law?

Podesta has been a brave voice for sanity and objectivity on a subject that is generally considered unworthy of serious discussion. In a foreword for Kean's 2010 book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, Podesta wrote: "The time to pull the curtain back on this subject is long overdue." Describing himself as "a curious skeptic" who understands the difference between fact and fiction, he said the American people "want to know, and they can handle the truth."

Official investigations around the world have consistently found that a small but significant percentage of sightings defy conventional explanation, most of them involving police officers, military personnel, pilots and air traffic controllers. Physical evidence such as radar returns, measurable effects on the environment, or scientifically analyzed photographs accompany the best cases.

In 2011, Podesta hosted a private meeting of government officials, scientists, and military and intelligence experts, organized by Kean and her coalition, at his liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress. A panel presented expert briefings backing the establishment of a modest official project to evaluate UAP in cooperation with other countries.

"The official position of the U.S., which has denied the existence of any abnormal aerial phenomena since 1969, is a weighty handicap and has a negative influence on the attitude of many governments," wrote Yves Sillard, former Director General of the French National Space Center, in his briefing paper. "If this position could be modified, the U.S. would probably play a leading role in this necessary international effort."

Ricardo Bermúdez, a retired Air Force general who directs the Chilean investigative effort, agrees. "United States participation would be beneficial for all countries," he stated.

A U.S. agency is long overdue. The Air Force's official investigation, Project Blue Book, was terminated in 1970 after two decades, since no sightings were determined to pose a national security threat. Yet over 700 cases remained unexplained. Since then, no branch of the government has investigated UAP.

This lack of both transparency and responsive action to alarming UFO incidents undermines public trust. Some unidentified objects may be attributable to foreign military aircraft or drones, and should be of general defense interest. Other phenomena display such unusual characteristics that they are of broader scientific interest. Under certain circumstances, UAP can even raise air safety concerns. Still, the FAA discourages pilots from reporting any such incidents, in stark contrast to policy in Europe and South America.

Official agencies in France and Chile, along with other South American countries, conduct rigorous, open UAP investigations. In 2014, the heads of these offices met in Paris for the first time, to begin a cooperative venture. The U.K. spent decades collecting data, but closed down its office in 2008 due to the overwhelming stream of Freedom of Information requests besieging the staff. Interest was so great that the Ministry of Defense decided to simply release all its documents online.

Xavier Passot, director of the French UAP agency GEIPAN, and Ricardo Bermúdez of Chile's CEFAA met on Oct. 30, 2014 to initiate a cooperative effort (Credit: courtesy CEFAA)

Yet here at home, a 2012 poll showed that nearly 80% of Americans believe the government has concealed information about UFOs. As a result, frustrated citizens turn to fringe conspiracists seeking some way of understanding our irrational denial of this very real phenomenon.

When UFO events occur here, civilian groups do the best they can in battling the obstacles to investigating them. At Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Nov. 7, 2006, a metallic disc was observed hovering over the United Airlines terminal for at least five minutes, before shooting straight up in the sky, at great speed, cutting a hole in the cloud bank. This was not a flying machine known to any of the aviation experts who witnessed or later analyzed the event.

On March 13, 1997, hundreds if not thousands of citizens, including the governor at the time, saw massive delta-shaped objects gliding silently over Arizona. Like the Kecksburg case, this event has never been explained despite a class action lawsuit filed in 2000 by witnesses in Phoenix. A court-ordered search for information was issued to the Department of Defense, but once again, no pertinent records were obtained.

Nonetheless, much more data on UFOs has been accumulated than ever before, and files have been released around the world. The phenomenon's physical reality is now firmly established. But its nature and origin remain a problem. Meanwhile, astronomers have reported that there could be as many as 40 billion habitable Earth-size planets in our galaxy; one out of every five sunlike stars has a planet the size of Earth orbiting it in the Goldilocks zone.

We need to join the other countries taking responsible action in addressing this persistent mystery, preferably at the White House level where The Office of Science and Technology Policy is well positioned to take on this task. John Podesta supports the effort to appoint a government staffer for this purpose - and that is no surprise.

*******************************************************************

Ralph Blumenthal is a former New York Times reporter who has written on UFOs.

Leslie Kean is co-founder of the Coalition for Freedom of Information and the author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record (Crown Publishing Group, 2010).
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21-10-2015 om 21:40 geschreven door peter