Nachash

Reports of flying Toblerones, close encounters of the second kind, and ­attempted alien abductions in the latest batch of UFO files released today by the Ministry of Defence demonstrate that the British public’s appetite for matters extraterrestrial shows no sign of abating.

More than 650 reports of UFO sightings reached the MoD last year – the highest for 31 years – before it took the decision to close its UFO desk, known as Air Secretariat 2A1, in December.

The latest files released at the National Archives cover the period from 1994 to 2000 when sightings were running at 200 to 300 a year. The MoD intends to make public the files for the last 10 years by the end of 2011.

Source/Full Story: The Guardian

E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises “many philosophical and theological implications” but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.

“Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe,” he told a news conference Tuesday. “There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe.”

Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues “whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds.”

Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican’s daily newspaper.

The Church of Rome’s views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.

Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system — including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away.

“If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound,” he said.

This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions.

In the interview last year, Funes told Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God.

“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Funes said in that interview.

“Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God’s creative freedom.”

Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered “part of creation.”

Source/Full Story: The Associated Press

Gary McKinnon, the hacker who broke into Pentagon and NASA computers, was at risk of suicide Friday after losing an effort to fight extradition to the United States, his attorney said.

“This is the wholesale destruction and bullying of a small individual by the United States and now our own government,” attorney Karen Todner said in a statement.

McKinnon’s mother Janis Sharp described her son as “suicidal.”

The British government did not respond.

McKinnon, a British citizen, has admitted breaking the law and intentionally gaining unauthorized access to U.S. government computers.

The U.S. government says McKinnon carried out the biggest military computer hacking of all time, accessing 97 computers from his home in London for a year starting in March 2001, and costing the government about $1 million. U.S. authorities want him extradited to face trial in the United States.

McKinnon, currently free on bail in England, has said he was simply doing research to find out whether the U.S. government was covering up the existence of UFOs.

Source/Full Story: CNN.com
Technorati Tags: Gary McKinnon

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon lost his battle to stand trial in the UK today when he was refused permission to appeal to the supreme court against extradition to the US on charges of breaking into the Pentagon’s military networks.
…
McKinnon is wanted for trial in the US on charges of hacking into the country’s military networks. But campaigners believes the hacker – who has Asperger’s syndrome – is merely a “UFO eccentric” who was seraching for evidence of extraterrestrials.

Source/Full Story: guardian.co.uk
Technorati Tags: Gary McKinnon

Earth Day may fall later this week, but as far as former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell and other UFO enthusiasts are concerned, the real story is happening elsewhere.

Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, asserted Monday that extraterrestrial life exists, and that the truth is being concealed by the U.S. and other governments.

He delivered his remarks during an appearance at the National Press Club following the conclusion of the fifth annual X-Conference, a meeting of UFO activists and researchers studying the possibility of alien life forms.

Mankind has long wondered if we’re “alone in the universe. [But] only in our period do we really have evidence. No, we’re not alone,” Mitchell said.

“Our destiny, in my opinion, and we might as well get started with it, is [to] become a part of the planetary community. … We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there.”

Mitchell grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, which some UFO believers maintain was the site of a UFO crash in 1947. He said residents of his hometown “had been hushed and told not to talk about their experience by military authorities.” They had been warned of “dire consequences” if they did so.

But, he claimed, they “didn’t want to go to the grave with their story. They wanted to tell somebody reliable. And being a local boy and having been to the moon, they considered me reliable enough to whisper in my ear their particular story.”

Source/Full Story:: CNN.com

BRITAIN’S defence ministry was so alarmed by reports of a UFO sighting nearly 20 years ago, it took the unusual step of briefing ministers, according to secret files released on Sunday.

Other incidents in the files, released by the National Archives, include a woman who claimed she was approached by an alien with a “Scandanavian-type accent.”

The group of seven files, released by Britain’s National Archives, were recorded between November 1987 and April 1993 by the Defence Intelligence Staff in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and include details of around 1,200 different UFO (unidentified flying object) sightings.

The MoD was handed negatives of photographs – showing a large diamond-shaped object hanging in mid-air for around 10 minutes before ascending upwards at high speed – taken on August 4, 1990, by two members of the public.

“Such stories are not normally drawn to the attention of ministers,” an official noted in a memo included in the file.

“On this occasion, however, the MoD has been provided with six photographic negatives of an alleged UFO by the Scottish Daily Record and has been asked for comments almost certainly for inclusion in a forthcoming story.”

The official added that ministers should tell the media that “no definite conclusions (were) reached regarding (the) large diamond-shaped object.”

Source: The Australian

The Ministry of Defence abandoned plans for a secret computer database of UFO sightings for fear they would be mocked if its existence was ever revealed to the public, once-classified documents reveal.

The idea was scrapped because officials did not want people to believe they were taking the idea of visitors from outer space seriously. Instead, the MoD continued to keep only paper records of almost 1,200 sightings reported between 1987 and 1993. These include “pie shaped” flying saucers and diamond-shaped shards of light in the night sky. The files, to be posted on the National Archives website, include the story of an alien banana-man spotted in west London in May 1989.

Another mystery was the story of a woman who said that while walking her dog near Norwich in November 1989 she was approached by a man with a “flying suit” and “a Scandinavian-type accent”. The report notes: “He asked her if she was aware of stories about large circular flattened areas appearing in fields of wheat, and then went on to explain that he was from another planet similar to Earth, and that the circles had been caused by others like him.” The report said he disappeared and, as she ran away in fear, the woman saw a large glowing orange-white ball rising vertically from behind trees.

Other recorded incidents include a spate of UFO sightings in London in 1993 which were all put down to the presence of a brightly illuminated airship advertising the new Ford Mondeo, strange circular lights lighting up the sky in Rochdale in 1987, and various reports of strange objects in Derby in the same year, one of which “left a trail of bright blobs behind it”.

An “elongated spinning top” apparently three times the size of an airship was spotted by a taxi driver in Huddersfield in 1990. The night before, he had reported a silver space craft emitting green, red and white beams. The MoD also looked into a photo of a diamond-shaped light hovering above an air base in Pitlochry. The bright light was spotted jerking vertically in a strange movement in August 1990.

Several documents cover the death of an US pilot attached to the RAF who crashed into the North Sea in 1970. Captain William Schaffner’s death was investigated 20 years later after claims he had gone missing after approaching a bright light off the east coast. In 1992, The Grimsby Evening Telegraph printed an alleged transcript of his call back to base in which he reportedly said he had seen something “like a large soccer ball made of glass. It’s like bobbing up and down and going from side to side slowly.”

The MoD insisted in its reports that there had been nothing sinister and Captain Shaffner had misjudged how low he was flying and had then failed to operate his ejector seat properly.

The MoD said it recorded each sighting to help ministers answer questions from MPs in Parliament – but they were always kept on paper. Notes from March 1988 show that the plan for a full computerised database was spiked. A memo sent to staff said it “contravened” statements from ministers saying UFOs did not pose a threat to the UK and resources would not be diverted to investigate incidents.

“I also understand that there was some concern about public reaction if knowledge of the work being undertaken emerged in the media,” an official wrote. He said it now seemed “all work must stop”, but that UFO incidents would continue to be logged “as and when” they took place.

Source: The Independent

Source: SPACE.com

Mysterious UFO sightings may go hand in hand with a puzzling natural phenomenon known as sprites — flashes high in the atmosphere triggered by thunderstorms.

The dancing lights have appeared above most thunderstorms throughout history, but researchers did not start studying them until one accidentally recorded a sighting on camera in 1989.

“Lightning from the thunderstorm excites the electric field above, producing a flash of light called a sprite,” said Colin Price, a geophysicist at Tel Aviv University in Israel. “We now understand that only a specific type of lightning is the trigger that initiates sprites aloft.”

Researchers have detected the flashes between 35 and 80 miles (56-129 km) from the ground, far above the 7 to 10 miles (11-16 km) where usual lightning occurs. Sprites can take the form of fast-paced balls of electricity, although previous footage has suggested streaks or tendrils.

The cause or function of the flashes remains murky, but Price suggested that they could explain some of the UFO reports which have cropped up over the years. That might provide some solace for UFO enthusiasts disappointed by human-caused hoaxes in the past.

Both jetliner pilots and astronauts have previously reported sightings of sprites, along with a different but equally mysterious phenomenon known as blue jets.

Price and his colleagues have focused on “winter sprites” which appear only in the northern hemisphere’s winter months. Their remote-controlled roof-mounted cameras can spot thunderstorms producing sprites far out over the Mediterranean Sea.

Triangulation techniques have also allowed the researchers to calculate the dimensions of the sprites.

“The candles in the sprites are up to 15 miles high, with the cluster of candles 45 miles wide — it looks like a huge birthday celebration!” Price said.

Sprites may have some effect on the Earth’s ozone layer, but researchers suspect that the global impact is small.

Technorati Tags: UFO, sprite

The U.S. government says there’s no relation between the fireballs that streaked the Texas skies Sunday and the collision of two satellites over Siberia last week.

“There is no correlation between the debris from that collision and those reports of re-entry,“ said Maj. Regina Winchester, official spokesman for the U.S. Strategic Command, which includes the Air Force Space Command that monitors satellites.

Jim Orberg, space program expert and NBC contributor, explains officials at Strategic Command came to that conclusion by noting the orientation in space of the belt of debris formed from the remains of both satellites, and that Texas was not passing through the belts of debris at the time of the sightings.

Numerous people across Texas reported seeing fireballs in the air Sunday morning.

People in Richardson, Plano, Burleson and near Corsicana reported seeing the streaks in the skies.

Kenneth and Jacqueline Terry said they saw fireballs in the sky as they were leaving church services at the Potter’s House in Dallas.

“It was definitely five streaks of burning debris that lasted for about five seconds, and then it disappeared and then the white smoke stayed and it just started to go with the wind,“ Kenneth Terry said.

“It was really amazing,“ Jacqueline Terry said.

Air traffic controllers at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport also received several reports from pilots of a streak of light in the sky.

Some pilots said it looked like something re-entering the atmosphere, an air traffic source said.

The FAA notified pilots on Saturday to be aware of possible space debris from the collision.

Controllers also saw what looked like a vapor trail in the sky far to the south of the airport.

The FAA said it suspected the lights are pieces of two big communications satellites that collided in space on Tuesday, but the FAA could not confirm it.

The FAA said some Texas law enforcement agencies have found debris, but it was not immediately clear which agencies reported finding pieces.

The FAA said people who find pieces of debris should not touch them and should contact law enforcement.

Local military officials will collect and analyze the debris to confirm what it is, the FAA said. The debris field could stretch from New Mexico to Houston.

Full Story

Technorati Tags: Fireballs, UFO

Source: Reuters

Two U.S. fighter planes were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object (UFO) over the English countryside during the Cold War, according to secret files made public on Monday.

One pilot said he was seconds away from firing 24 rockets at the object, which moved erratically and gave a radar reading like “a flying aircraft carrier.”

The pilot, Milton Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, said it spent periods motionless in the sky before reaching estimated speeds of more than 7,600 mph.

After the alert, a shadowy figure told Torres he must never talk about the incident and he duly kept silent for more than 30 years.

His story was among dozens of UFO sightings in defense ministry files released at the National Archives in London.

In a written account, Torres described how he scrambled his F-86 D Sabre jet in calm weather from the Royal Air Force base at Manston, Kent in May 1957.

“I was only a lieutenant and very much aware of the gravity of the situation. I felt very much like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest,” he said.

“The order came to fire a salvo of rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets. Continued…

Full Story

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Source: WFAA.com

Over a three-month period this summer there were 1,000 UFO sightings filed with the National UFO Reporting Center.

Some 75 of those UFOs were reported over the state of Texas.

Stephenville is one hot spot we’ve shown you before.

Now the small town is getting buzzed by UFOs again and we have the video.

“You could see the oval shape. Got my friend, I said ‘dude, you got to come look at this,’” said Andy Monrreal.

Monrreal was hanging out with his Dublin High School friends when they all saw something they say looked like a UFO.

“You could see a shape. It was like a complete circle,” said Monrreal.

He rolled off a half minute of video on his mom’s digital camera.

His dad saw it too.

“I never seen nothing like that in my life. Big lights and everything,” his father said.

So did mom.

“It was a round thing. You could see lights around it, flickering and changing. It was awesome. Just turning and flickering,” she said.

Back in January, Erath County went UFO crazy after a handful of people reported similar lights over Stephenville.

International press and UFO hunters descended on the town.

This time, many more eye witnesses are phoning the Stephenville Empire Tribune or the ET.

Reporter Whitney Ashley said many people don’t want to talk publicly, like several workers at the paper, who also saw the lights.

“I’ve got at least 10 right now willing to go on record,” Ashley said.

“The sheriff’s department got lots of calls in the southern part of Erath County.”

Down around Dublin, home of DR Pepper.

The Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth confirms seven F-16s training in the area at the time.

Several witnesses told us they saw the fighters, after they saw the mysterious lights.

Full Story

Technorati Tags: National UFO Reporting Center

A VIDEO that claims to show alien spacecraft has been described as the “most important images of a UFO ever filmed”.

The vision was taken by 42-year-old night guard Yalcin Yalman in a compound in Turkey earlier this year, The Sun reports.

Source: UFO files

The files contain a wide range of UFO-related documents covering the years 1986–1992. If you want to find out more about close encounters over Gatwick Airport, alien abductions, stray satellites – and what the UK Government thought of it all – then this is the place to be. The files are in PDF format.

Full Story

UFO

If anyone has pointers to this video, please comment…

Source: Independent.ie

THE truth is out there — and if a senior garda, a Fianna Fail politician and a pilot are to be believed, aliens are keeping a close eye on us from above.

Dramatic eye-witness testimony was heard at a conference over the weekend which, delegates were told, provided “definitive” proof of recent UFO activity in the skies around north Dublin and Meath.

Footage, filmed on a camera phone at 10.35pm on August 3 near Dunboyne was also played and replayed to over 70 delegates who attended the fifth Irish International UFO conference in Carrick-on-Shannon.

The triangular shaped image, with lights at each point, which appeared to send a red laser-type light towards earth, drew gasps of amazement from the 70 or so delegates who attended the world premiere of the footage.

Unusual

A senior garda officer who was driving when he noticed the unusual light formation in the sky stopped to film it.

“There is no footage like this in the world. It is the most amazing and spectacular I have ever seen,” said Carl Nally, co-founder of UFO and Paranormal Research Ireland and joint author of ‘Conspiracy of Silence’.

Full Story…

16 parts, seems to be mislabeled.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The material concerning the Animal Mutilation Project contains accounts of animal mutilations which were reported during the late 1970’s. The FBI became involved when fifteen mutilations occurred in New Mexico. Various theories concerning the origins of the mutilations were explored by the FBI, including satanic cults, UFOs, pranksters, and natural predators. The investigation failed to identify any individuals responsible for the mutilations.