Russian billionaire Yuri Milner is looking for aliens, and putting up a lot of his own money to do it. Adding to the $100 million he pledged to spend on alien hunting projects last summer, he recently announced he will spend another $100 million to create miniature spacecraft to look for extraterrestrial life in our closest neighboring star system, 25 trillion miles away.

Last July, Milner pledged to spend $100 million over ten years to help expand the ability for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) to listen to a larger amount of the radio spectrum in their quest to intercept an alien radio signal. This was being done through what he calls Breakthrough Initiatives.

Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking announcing the $100 million Breakthrough Initiative in London. (Credit: Breakthrough Initiative)

In an announcement made earlier this week, Milner introduced a new program called Breakthrough Starshot. This program intends to build “nanocraft” that can sail the 25 trillion miles to Alpha Centauri, the closest solar system, in order to search for alien life and habitable planets.

It sounds like science fiction, but he says most of the technology needed already exists. According to Milner, advancements in microelectronics is what makes it possible. The proposed nanocraft will consist of a small microchip and a sail propelled by laser. The craft will have to be very lightweight, but it is now possible to produce a tiny chip that can include a computer, camera, navigation and communication equipment and anything else the little spaceship will need.

The nanocraft will also be fast, traveling at speeds up to 20% the speed of light. At that speed it will still take 20 years to reach Alpha Centauri, but at least it will not be alone. Milner says they will send a fleet.

“Instead of sending one big expensive machine, you can send hundreds of these,” Milner told Popular Science.  “Interstellar medium is dangerous. There are dust particles that can destroy your technology. The math today shows that between the sun and Alpha Centauri something like this, if it flies this way [the thin edge as the leading edge] it will have four collisions of dust particles on the one-micron size.”

Each craft will cost about the same as in iPhone, making a fleet affordable. And with the danger of dust particles obliterating the craft, redundancy will help increase the chances for success.

Once they reach their destination, the little spacecraft will have a few hours to record video and whatever other telemetry they will be able to obtain. The data will then be sent back to earth via lasers. However, because we are talking about such vast distances, the data will still take four years to reach earth, even at the speed of light.

Milner admits there are many challenges ahead. For instance, it will take great precision to aim the lasers sending the data back to earth. There is also the matter of the lasers providing the light to propel the craft.

Artist depiction of Breakthrough Starshot. (Credit: Breakthrough Initiatives)

The light sails will not be propelled by the sun, but by an array of lasers on earth that will take 100 gigawatts. It will only take a few minutes for the lasers to propel the craft to their top speed, but the lasers will need to be very precise.

“If you’re slightly out of the beam, then you’re off completely,” explains Milner. “Can we devise a form of sail that will be stable on the beam? If it moves sideways, then it automatically moves inwards? There are many small and relatively complicated challenges like this.”

Even with the challenges, Milner is confident it can be done.

“It is possible there will be roadblocks, but we can move forward in many of those directions. This first $100 million is really just the proof of concept.”

So what if his nanocraft make it and they do find aliens? Milner says, “I think that there is a possibility of some life, but not intelligent life. So hopefully we will see something, but not too scary.”

Stephen Hawking could be at fault for making Milner worried about scary aliens. Hawking was part of Milner’s SETI announcement last summer, and was also present at the announcement of Breakthrough Starshot this week.

Hawking has expressed a fear that if we meet an advance extraterrestrial civilization, it might not go so well for the human race. At the Breakthrough Starshot event, when asked what Earthling should do if they meet aliens, Hawking replied, “We should hope that they don’t find us.”

However, he says he does think they are out there.

“There are at least a hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe, so it seems likely that there are others out there,” Hawking told the crowd.

It will take a few years to develop the spacecraft, but Milner is motivated to make it happen.

He told Popular Science, “I feel we have responsibility to push this forward if we can. People have been developing this technology, not specifically for this project, but we have this capability now. And I’m convinced that if something is possible, somebody is going to do it. So I think we just really want to see if it’s practically possible.”

A Colorado police officer at Wheat Ridge reported watching multiple unknown lights near ground level during a routine property check where video surveillance backed up the report, according to testimony in Case 57173 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

The police officer pulled into Anderson Park at 1 a.m. on June 19, 2014, during a routine patrol, in Wheat Ridge.

The UFO is illustrated in this daytime photo of the area where the office saw the object. (Credit: MUFON)

“As I began driving towards the back I see five or six lights; two red, two blue, and two green, or it was two red, three blue, and one green,” the witness stated.“The lights were near a tree line on the other side of a softball field and about 150 yards away.”

The witness reported that the lights were clustered around each other at various heights in a kind of oval shape.

“I would estimate the lights were clustered around something the size of a car and were about three feet away from each other. The lights looked like LED quality light and were as bright as car headlights, not moving, and each light was about the size of a softball.”

Google Map view of the area showing key locations. (Credit: Google Maps)

The officer watched the lights as he pulled into the park.

“As I drove into the park the lights did not change in intensity or move like a directional light would as you move a flashlight around. As I drove I observed the lights from about the 5 o’clock to the 4 o’clock position covering about 50 yards and there was no change in intensity of the light or any idea as a direction they were pointing; thus giving me the impression they were some kind of dome light or spherical in nature.”

The officer stated that he did not see any beams of light that lit up the grass or trees around it like a car headlight would do.

“I looked at this for about five seconds and then all of a sudden the lights go out simultaneously. To clarify, there is no way the light was emitted from separate sources. The lights went out at exactly the same time and had to have been controlled from a single source.”

Google Map view showing the camera’s line of sight. (Credit: Google Maps)

The officer then called the sighting in on the police radio saying that hewas going to check the park as he had just seen some strange lights.

“The radio works just fine. I go check the area and observe that the trees and grass are frosted over with freezing dew and I could see my breath. The low that night was 52 so it was probably about 55 degrees, possibly lower due to the proximity of nearby Clear Creek. I did not observe this frost anywhere else in the city that night and I was near another water source in a different part of town about two miles away and one hour earlier and did not observe the frosting of the vegetation.”

The officer turned on his spotlight and could see what appeared to be snow falling in the beam of his light.

“I remember thinking, ‘Is it snowing? No it’s too warm. Is this ash from a forest fire? No there’s no fire and I don’t smell smoke.’ I then walked onto the freshly frosted grass and see no signs of disturbance on the grass. There is a bike path near there so I go to the bike path and turn off my flashlight and stand still for about 20 seconds to see if I can hear anything (like kids laughing). As I am standing in the half-moon light my hand goes to my gun and I think to myself slowly, ‘I’m gonna go back to my car.’”

Closeup of objects in video. (Credit: MUFON)

The officer felt odd.

“It wasn’t a physical feeling that made me uneasy, but not knowing what I was dealing with made me feel vulnerable. I went back to my patrol car and throughout the night parked nearby to see if the lights came back and they never did. I went back to the area just as the sun was coming up and did not observe any signs on the ground and the vegetation was no longer frosted.”

The officer attempted to understand what he had witnessed.

“The only rational explanation I can think of is that there were these lights on an ATV on the bike path, but they were arranged asymmetrically and did not appear to be directional. But I would imagine I would have seen the lights move as the ATV drove down the bike path or heard the vehicle driving away. Furthermore, the path goes into the trees and driving an ATV as fast as it would have to have gone for me to not hear it would be insane without lights. There was a traffic signal about 50 yards behind me, but the colors I saw were different hues than traffic signal colors and I have driven that area at that time a hundred times and never seen this. There was no water on my windshield and it was too clear to be a reflection.”

Colorado MUFON Field Investigator Henry Lindsey and MUFON Director of Training Ken St. John investigated and closed this case as an Unknown.

Wheat Ridge is located in Jefferson County, Colorado, population 30,166. Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.

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A New Mexico witness in Santa Fe County recalls a UFO event from 1995 when a disc-shaped UFO was caught on camera, according to testimony in Case 75628 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

The witness was taking photos of a double rainbow just after a thunderstorm on August 15, 1995.

Witness photo. (Credit: MUFON)

“I took several photos, about six,” the witness stated. “I was directly across the street from the National Cemetery. I did not notice the object when photographed.”

The witness then took the film to be developed at the Fox one-hour kiosk in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“When I went through the photos is when I saw this object in just one photograph. I took the photo to the Sun Spot Observatory in New Mexico. They told me that I was about 500 feet from the object. They told me that the object was going at least 500 mph. They told me that shadows were consistent with all other objects in the photograph. They told me that the camera I was using, a Kodak Instamatic, that this photograph could not have been faked.”

The witness stated that he also received a warning.

“They told me not to show it to people, because I could get into trouble.”

But that warning did not stop the witness from attempting to get more opinions.

Cropped and enlarged version of the witness photo. (Credit: MUFON)

“I went to Kirtland Air Force Base where a friend of mine was a helicopter mechanic. I showed the picture to some pilots. They became very angry with me and told me to get the hell off the base, and that if I ever came back there again, they would report me to base security. One pilot told me that I was a trouble maker, and that he was going to inform base security of my address and have me put in jail. I did not go to jail, and no one ever contacted me about the photograph.”

About two weeks later, the witness stated that he gave the photograph, the original, to a man named Dr. Greer.

Cropped, enhanced and enlarged version of the witness photo. (Credit: MUFON)

“He told me that he had friends in the area that would examine the photo and that he would contact me in about two weeks to tell me about what it was. I never heard back from Dr. Greer. In the past years I have attempted to contact Dr. Greer, but he has never returned my phone calls. I also sent a copy to a man, Stanton Freidman. He told me that the photo was interesting.”

New Mexico State Section Director David Hillendahl is investigating. Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.

A Nevada witness at Las Vegas reported watching and videotaping a round UFO with light beaming from the object to the ground level, according to testimony in Case 59760 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

Still shot taken from the witness video. (Credit: MUFON)

The witness woke up about 5:30 a.m. on September 12, 2014, and first saw the object.

“As I was walking back to my bedroom I noticed a round ball in the sky that looked similar to the moon, but it had rays of light beaming down from the object,” the witness stated.“One of the rays blinked and that is what caught my attention.”

The witness first thought that the object was a plane, but then noticed something unusual.

“I ran to get my phone to record and by the time I got back to the object, the light was slowly ascending into the object while both light and object simultaneously disappeared.”

Nevada State Director Donna Carbone investigated this case and closed it as an Unknown.

“The object hovered, glowed, cast light, appeared transparent, and was the shape of a circle,” Carbone stated in her report.“Surface was glowing and had a mist/shroud. Apparent size was unknown and actual size was 31-100 feet. Prominent colors were white, exterior lights flashed randomly and other. Emission was a beam and cloud, and sound is unknown. Elevation is unknown as is lowest altitude. Flight path was stationary and direction first observed was in the west as was direction last observed. No landing observed.”

Carbone interviewed the witness for more details.

“The object was above the mountains and it was not going upwards and disappearing, but going back towards mountains and fading. It did not look man-made, but seemed alive and aware and gentle, like a being, as it hovered. Witness was adamant that the object was not a rocket, space junk, or satellite.”

Cropped, enlarged and enhanced version of a still shot from the witness video. (Credit: MUFON)

Carbone came to her own conclusions.

“This is a very interesting case due to the fact it has been on TV, in the newspapers, and on the radio, and not two sources have agreed on what it is.  First report I received was a three stage rocket that launched from Guiana in South America. Then I received a report that it was a Navy Trident missile launch from a submarine. And, finally NBC News reported that our government said it was a Russian Satellite breaking up and re-entering our atmosphere, even though Russia denied it. There were also statements that it was “space junk.”  So where and who do we believe.  All reports came from credible individuals. Then I have my witnesses’ statements from all three reports (59760, 59777, 59758).  Two witnesses at Lake Tahoe, one a pilot, state this was not a satellite as it banked and turned. Another witness, a 61-year-old male, who gets up every morning to watch the ISS go overhead, stated that the object hovered, and that it went into a mist. Then I have a 21-year-old female witness, whose hobby is photography. She is adamant that what she filmed is not a satellite, rocket or space debris. She stated she watched this object as it went “backwards” into a mist, and that it almost seemed to be alive.”

While the case appears to be concluded, Carbone is leaving the door open to future interpretation.

“So moving forward who do we believe?  For me there are way too many conflicting reports, which finds me in a quandary on what to believe.  I have decided to close out all three cases and mark them as Unidentified Aerial Vehicle, until we can receive absolute proof on what this object was.  As my witnesses have described it to me, it could even be a mother ship leaving our universe – which has been reported numerous times by other individuals.”

Editor’s note: OpenMinds.tv originally reported on this story in September, 2014, and most experts agree it is a rocket launch of some sort. However, as the MUFON investigator indicated, it is still uncertain whose rocket it was.

Space journalist and historian James Oberg posted this comment on our original story: “Looks like a pretty standard rocket launch, so when you get basics such as azimuth/elevation, angular size and duration, etc., please share. The usual suspects seem to have alibis this time, let’s see what other players were active in this area at this time. As always, it’s important to thank the witnesses for documenting their perceptions.”

Read our 2014 story here: UFO over northern California leaves witnesses, experts perplexed

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