Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
Part 1: Project Blue Book Head Thought Roswell ‘Saucer crash’ a Nuclear Accident
Whilst researching a potential TV documentary series, The Secret History of Flying Saucers, I was fortunate to speak and correspond with a number of the key surviving figures of that troubled and controversial history.
They offered some fascinating insights.
Major Robert Friend (Ret.) was head of USAF’s Project Blue Book – the public face of UFO investigations, between 1958 and 1962 – a particularly challenging time following the panic and paranoia sparked by Sputnik. With limited resources Friend strove to maintain objectivity in investigations, earning the respect of Blue Book scientific consultant J. Allen Hynek and his colleague Jacques Vallee. Major Friend had also been prepared to at least consider the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) even though he thought the evidence did not support it.
When he wrote to me in 1997[i] he thanked Vallee and Hynek “for their views of my effort on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Program.”
Most interestingly he continued:
“I do have personal views of some of the cases that differ from the official explanations.
Notably I believe that an unarmed nuclear device was inadvertently released at Roswell and that initially someone felt that a story regarding a UFO landing would cover the recovery operations. There is evidence that points in this direction.
If you are interested I will provide you more detail regarding what leads me to this conclusion.”
There is a precedent for this. In 1945, whilst practising bombing runs from Utah for the atomic attack on Japan, a massive dummy warhead containing an explosive trigger was accidentally dropped from an aircraft, embedding itself several feet in the ground close to the Californian desert town of Caliapatra.[ii] A massive security operation hastily retrieved the device and bulldozed the crater in what must be the first ever ‘Broken Arrow’ incident – one that resonates as a precursor to the many ‘something strange crashed in the desert’ tales that would later form a colourful ‘crashed disc’ folklore.
Of course Friend may have evidence to refute the leading conventional hypothesis: that a Top Secret Project Mogul balloon train and acoustic package to detect evidence of Soviet atomic bomb testing from the atmosphere had come to ground. But there is certainly no evidence for an extraterrestrial origin.
‘Lacombe’ says ‘non’
The afore-mentioned Jacques Vallee, a long-time proponent of scientific research into UFO phenomena (and role model for the French scientist Lacombe in Close Encounters of the Third Kind) graciously declined my request to participate in the proposed documentary:
“Given the current level of the debate about UFOs, I am very sceptical that anything I would say would be heard in the context of the Alien Autposy fraud or the Roswell controversy. Accordingly I believe I can make a better contribution by pursuing my research behind the scenes.”
And:
“Even in the context of your careful approach, the timing is such (with the Roswell anniversary coming up, etc.) that anything I might say would likely be lost in the noise.”
Surely a damning indictment of an event that has come to symbolise the worst excesses of UFO commercialism; hucksterism packaged in a gaudy carnival for the benefit of a town more than 70 miles away from where a sheep ranch foreman found some tin foil, sticks and deflated balloons in scrubland at Corona, NM, and waited for three weeks or more before he bothered to tell anyone about it.
Richard Hall NICAP
Richard Hall, former colleague of Major Donald Keyhoe at NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) – the civilian investigation group that most aggressively pursued the ETH, and volubly criticised the USAF investigations – thought my proposed documentary ‘an extremely interesting one’ but wanted to know:
“Will your ‘history’ be confined to what might be described as the rational record (facts, science, views of reputable and responsible people) or will it, as is all too often true here, feel obliged to report the utterances of kooks, con-men, and New Age airheads as well?
Having spent a good part of my life trying to show that UFOs are a serious, scientific question, there are a few people whose views and attitudes I find so onerous that I generally refuse to appear in the same venue with them. I am referring to people whom I consider either intellectually dishonest, con-men, or raving lunatics. (There are others with whom I strongly disagree about particulars, but honest and scientific disagreement is okay.)
I would like to know who else, among UFO researchers (‘ufologists’) will be interviewed for the series. Although it is not an exhaustive list, some of the most offensive and unacceptable are Philip Klass, William Milton Cooper, Robert Dean, Bob Lazar, Steven Greer, and Bob Oeschler. Not to mention Ray Santilli.”
Hall concluded with asking if I could send him an outline of the series, adding he would be “glad to recommend good people to interview” and that if I really wanted the ‘secret history’ he could ‘steer’ me ‘to important witnesses and unreported information.’
Students of UFO history will recognise all the hallmarks of NICAP’s approach in this letter, especially the need to control the myth, its presentation, and to be the arbiter of what represents ‘good’ research or not.
I was struck by the reference to Ray Santilli, a UK media producer who allegedly obtained the ‘Alien Autopsy’ footage from a former U.S. military cameraman (despite the fact that it was faked by film-maker Spyros Melaris) – clearly even hardened champions of the ETH thought the Alien Autposy film scam beneath them.
PolyGram Television International sales brochure for The Secret History of Flying Saucers
Richard Hall’s reference to Philip Klass did not surprise me. Klass was an aviation writer whose scepticism about UFO phenomena and outright rejection of the unsupported ETH marked him as the bogeyman for all ‘true believers’. His pithy response to my request to made me smile:
Classic Klass
“I am indeeded [sic] flattered by your invitation and delighted to accept – subject to the following condition:
That the producer of the TV documentary agree to pay me the sum of $10,000,000 for my interview, or agree to provide me with a video tape of the documentary in U.S. (NTSC) format after it is shown on TV or otherwise made public – I leave the choice up to your associate.
I expect to be at home in Washington for at least the first several months of 1997 – unless abducted by a UFO.”
NASA, who resolutely avoided having to conduct any UFO investigations – despite the fact that investigators such as Maj Robert Friend at Blue Book (among others) thought their involvement would be completely legitimate – responded with a standard 3-page letter that effectively dodged the issue of making any representative available for interview. However, contacted privately, former Administrator Robert A. Frosch wrote he ‘would be willing to be interviewed about the NASA 1977 decision re UFO questions.’
Dewey Fournet
Not all those involved in the USAF UFO investigations had completely discounted the ETH.
I received a charming letter from former Major Dewey Fournet, a pilot and engineer who had been intimately involved in the earliest Saucer investigations as intelligence liaison between the Air Force investigations and the Pentagon:
“Your proposal confronted me with a dilemma. Except for agreeing to be portrayed in the Greene-Rouse movie, “UFO” (because I was convinced that it was a serious attempt to document the UFO subject up to the mid-1950s)… I have consistently avoided public appearances and pronouncements relating to UFOs. I rejected out-of-hand numerous attempts in past years to involve me publicly in the subject. However, I found that I couldn’t summarily dismiss your proposal because of your obvious sincerity, apparent knowledge of the subject and factual approach – over the phone and in your letter.’
Fournet kindly agreed in principle to participate should production go ahead, subject to issues such as the health of his wife and where filming would occur.
An interesting caveat was:
“After 40+ years my memory has dimmed on many things, for example, I can recall nothing about the BMI Project Stork”
Project Stork was ostensibly a statistical analysis of UFO sightings by ‘think tank’ the Battelle Memorial Institute. Controversially the project would suggest withholding some data from the CIA’s Robertson panel in 1953, and suggested faking UFO incidents in areas where large numbers of sightings had occurred.
But most importantly, for an intelligence officer who early Blue Book head Edward Ruppelt had characterised as ‘probably the most thoroughly convinced believer that UFOs were interplanetary spaceships that I knew’[iii] and who had prepared a technical study arguing that reported flight characteristics of UFO were consistent with the possibility of extraterrestrial vehicles, Fournet was emphatic on one issue:
”It must be clearly understood that I will offer no personal opinion about the nature of UFOs.”
And he concluded:
“Incidentally, I am no longer entitled to be addressed as “Major”. I resigned my reserve commission when I was released from active duty with the Air Force in early 1953; I wasn’t eligible to retire. And this action by me had nothing whatsoever to do with my involvement with the UFO program.”
There is more to share about the research for The Secret History of Flying Saucers in a later post.
I would like to thank Philip Mantle, who was a research consultant for me on the project, David Rozalla, who championed the project at PolyGram, and sincere appreciation to the many fascinating individuals who so graciously gave their time and effort to assist, especially the memories of Dewey Fournet, Philip Klass and Richard Hall, who have all since passed away.
[i] By a quirk of fate, Friend’s letter was dated 24th June, 1997, exactly 50 years to the day since Kenneth Arnold’s sighting gave birth to the Flying Saucer myth.
[ii]Ruin From The Air – Gordon Thomas, Max Morgan Witts
This link to a January 1, 1968 John Keel letter http://www.johnkeel.com/?p=1449 as well as this one referring to John Keel's article "The Flying Saucer Subculture" https://www.scribd.com/.../The-Flyi... recently posted on social media with the following statement: "John Keel considered himself a Fortean, not a ufologist. Mark Pilkington dedicated Mirage Men to Keel and said that he "was first and foremost a story-teller," and his work "knowingly blurs the lines between fiction and non-fiction... Keel charged his ideas with the power of myth and so ensured their continued survival long beyond his own lifetime.” In this video from a 1992 Fortean lecture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOY...), Keel discussed UFOs as being living energy (that sometimes burn witnesses), their hallucinatory nature, and their causing dogs to bark.”
The individual who posted the John Keel open letter finds it a good one and according to another individual this letter still rings true to this day. John Keel’s "The Flying Saucer Subculture" was even described as "an unflinching history of the first two decades of ufology and Essential reading”. As you will see below, I have also included a 2002 article from noted UFO researcher and historian Jerome Clark re the late John Keel as a counterbalance. Stanton Friedman informed me in his May 29, 1998 letter (I didn't have a computer back then) that "John Keel has made so many false claims I can't count them.” And as the late James McDonald observed about Keel, as can be read in Jerry Clark's piece John Keel vs UFOlogy: “you’re not in a particularly strong position to criticize someone like myself for speculating on the UFO problem. I might tick off, but won’t take time to, a pretty long list of your own speculations that are not well supported in your writings. As a matter of fact, it is not your own speculations that I find disquieting, but your practiced style of writing as if you had some deep insights into baffling mysteries that no one else has plumbed. "I simply do not understand you. You just spin one mystery inside another and never get anything across in any concrete terms.”
In the second paragraph of John Keel's article "The Flying Saucer Subculture”, it reads: “An unidentified flying object,” according to Dr. Edward U. Condon’s definition, is “the stimulus for a report made byone or more individuals of something seen in the sky (or anobject thought to be capable of flight but seen when landed on the earth) which the observer could not identify as having anordinary natural origin ..." This observation is flat-out wrong because Hynek said that a sighting report should not become a "UFO" until it has been screened for IFO type conventional explanations by scientifically competent personnel. He severely criticized Condon's definition of a UFO as merely whatever a witness says he/she can't identify, and said that an expert must make that evaluation.
In the thread where these links were posted, Stanton Friedman was described as a “professional UFO lecturer”, a "UFO Superstar” or a “promotor” of false claims like the Marjorie Fish star map, the MJ-12 documents and the Aztec UFO crash hoax "repeating the same false claims in his lectures for decades” and "whose material is stale and tiresome”. My reaction to such accusations has always been that these individuals should debate Stanton Friedman — I even give them his contact address — and present these false claims to him, instead of writing all kinds of silly comments on social media unbeknownst to Friedman. Perhaps they already know they wouldn’t stand a chance when debating Friedman, which reminds me of amateur astronomer and debunker James McGaha who engaged in a two-hour debate with Stanton Friedman at Middle Tennessee State University on January 24, 2004. Friedman won hands down, because he had the relevant facts in hand whereas James McGaha put his mouth in gear without presenting any evidence.
It has been my personal observation that there seems to be so much undeserved hostility towards researchers like Friedman who has been viciously attacked and accused of doggedly standing behind his ETH conclusions for some UFO cases, while there seems to be overly blind acceptance and friendliness towards researchers à la John Keel and James W. Moseley disseminating obscurantism and unreliable, vague and perpetual story-telling and trickery. It's really astonishing to observe that some individuals on social media, notably at UFO Updates’ Facebook page, seemingly prefer to choose the Glenn Becks and the Clowns of UFOlogy or the Fast Writers among UFOlogists with the weirdest mystical ideas about the nature and origin of UFOs — as long as it isn’t a "nuts and bolt" ET - over reliable and clear-headed researchers who have made straightforward observations based on years of personal investigations or based on their knowledge of specific (scientific) areas like e.g. Stanton Friedman and other intelligent, meticulous individuals I know but whom I won’t mention here. Of course, the latter researchers can be wrong or make mistakes, but are they wrong or do they make mistakes all the time? That is a big difference! Any expert in whatever specialised area is subject to mistakes and such. If something is true based on the factual data or evidence gathered through personal investigations, does it become invalid simply by repeating it time after time in lectures? According to some it clearly does. To me, that is rather strange reasoning or logic. Perhaps one of the best tentative but straightforward conclusions made about UFOs, at least to me, is that of the late atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald: "On the basis of the evidence I have examined, and on the basis of my own weighing of alternative hypotheses, I now regard Hypothesis 7 [Extraterrestrial devices of some surveillance nature] as the one most likely to prove correct. My scientific instincts lead me to hedge that prediction just to the extent of suggesting that if the UFOs are not of extramundane origin, then I suspect that they will prove to be something very much more bizarre, something of perhaps even greater scientific interest than extraterrestrial devices” (Statement on Unidentified Flying Objects (p. 5), 1968).
As to the late James W. Moseley, noted UFO researcher and historian Jerry Clark wrote a critical review in 2002 of Moseley's "Shockingly Close to the Truth! Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist" which he co-wrote with the late Karl T. Pflock. Jerry Clark sent me this review "The Trivialist" many years ago. I still have it.
And as to Mark Pilkington and his Mirage Men, Stanton Friedman had sent me his review in 2015 about Pilkington’s poor “research”, which you will find enclosed. He had already sent me his column the year before. Friedman also informed me that those who had attended Pilkington’s lecture at the 2015 IUFOC know how many people left early who were totally unimpressed, adding that many thanked him afterwards for pointing out Pilkington's deficiencies at the end of his presentation.
So it wasn’t just me who thought the late and great John Keel made stuff up…..
JOHN KEEL vs UFOLOGY
by Jerome Clark
[published in Fortean Times 156 (2002), pp. 39-42]
On March 17, 1969, John A. Keel, occult journalist, composed a three-page letter to James E. McDonald, atmospheric physicist. Except for their mutual fascination with the UFO phenomenon and their outsized personalities, it would be difficult to imagine two men less alike. Between them they personified the extremes of 1960s ufology.
One addressing himself almost exclusively to radical ufologists and Forteans itching for an exciting alternative to the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) harked back to the 1940s, to Richard S. Shaver and N. Meade Layne, and, even earlier, to classical demonology and supernatural folk belief. The other allying himself with the most conservative ufologists and speaking to his fellow scientists and to elite institutions possessing the wherewithal to fund UFO research and to overcome entrenched resistance to the phenomenon sought to drag ufology out of its marginality and to transform it into a branch of normal science. Barely more than two years later, McDonald would be dead by his own hand, and Keel would live on to write The Mothman Prophecies and other books and to remain an active presence into the 1980s and an enduring influence even now.
It can be fairly said that if McDonald wanted to domesticate UFOs and place them in the mainstream, Keel preferred them so wild and woolly that the ETH would pale into banality by comparison. The whole structure of post-Enlightenment civilization itself would collapse before Keel’s shape-changing ultraterrestrials demons with a fancy new moniker became a generally recognized species. In Keel’s view, McDonald, an accomplished and (at least until he took up UFO advocacy) well-regarded member of the University of Arizona’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics, needed educating and not just about the supernatural reality underlying UFOs and allegedly related manifestations: poltergeists, fairies, Sasquatch, Republicans, in short just about anything else not immediately explainable. Keel, using a rhetorical technique that over the years would become wearily familiar, remarked that
“McDonald suffered from a regretable [sic] emotionalism & apparent in many of your public statements.”
Moreover, Keel observed, “You often tend to substitute speculation for facts.”
McDonald was associating with the wrong people, for example the ufologists associated with NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, a relatively cautious, pro-ETH private group headed by UFO author and retired U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe). These sorts were buffs who adopted a conclusion before they had any evidence. Keel, on the other hand, drew on extensive field studies and personal experiences, not to mention the valid, independent studies he had conducted outside the buffery sphere of reference. Among other things, he had established conclusively that known poltergeist cases and known UFO waves correlate precisely with each other, thus substantiating Keel’s theory that the poltergeist phenomenon is a UFO effect.
Keel declared that his comprehensive study of all religious traditions proved divine miracles and UFO contacts also to be identical at their root. No specifics accompanied these assertions, though he did urge McDonald to look up recent Keel articles in such august journals as the pulp cheesecake-and-adventure magazine Male and Ray Palmer’s pulp hollow-earth-championing Flying Saucers. On the last of his three pages, he did mention West Virginia contactee Woodrow Derenberger. Highly qualified psychiatrists had given Derenberger a completely clean bill of health. Even more revealingly, one of the doctors involved experienced direct contact himself!
McDonald’s restrained response, written on March 24, observes mildly that
“you’re not in a particularly strong position to criticize someone like myself for speculating on the UFO problem. I might tick off, but won’t take time to, a pretty long list of your own speculations that are not well supported in your writings. As a matter of fact, it is not your own speculations that I find disquieting, but your practiced style of writing as if you had some deep insights into baffling mysteries that no one else has plumbed.”
Writing back with a long letter dated April 2, Keel portrayed himself as the one man who had broken through all the buffery myths and nonsense, conducted not just the field work but the statistical and scientific studies others (such as McDonald, who had only emotional involvement, or NICAP’s obsessive-compulsive paranoid schizophrenics ) had not even thought to try, and found a definite conclusion based upon hard facts.
“The UFOs are transmogrifications. The UFO entities are variations on the age-old elemental types.”
In a much shorter reply McDonald, refusing to rise to the bait, remarked that Keel simply was not making himself clear. When he talked about transmogrifications and age-old elemental phenomena, he wrote,
"I simply do not understand you. You just spin one mystery inside another and never get anything across in any concrete terms."
In a note to himself —McDonald was a compulsive note-taker— he said that he was disinclined to engage in further correspondence.
It was a wise decision. Keel had already declared that the celebrated scientific method has proven to be totally unworkable where UFO investigation and interpretation are concerned.[i] Those who have had access to McDonald’s massive UFO files (housed at the University of Arizona in Tucson) have seen abundant evidence of his commitment to the scientific method.[ii] McDonald, alas, merely a passive observer; could only interview witnesses, weigh testimony, study radar records, consider alternative explanations for sightings, and all the rest. Keel, on the other hand, could actually control UFO events. Once, he claimed, he had conjured up the notion of gillmen, and not long afterwards according to Keel anyway someone actually encountered a gillman. Who, where, or when Keel never let on.
If you believe John Keel, you also believe this: Supernatural gods (ultraterrestrials, hereafter UTs) once ruled directly over the earth but then returned to their abode, the superspectrum (the upper reaches of the electro-magnetic spectrum ), after human beings began to populate the planet. Displeased with the intrusion, the UTs engaged in protracted conflict with Homo sapiens in an effort to resolve this territorial dispute. (Keel does not explain why such presumably superior entities would have to wage the dispute over thousands of years.) The UTs also battled each other, and one group assumed human form so that it could more easily communicate with the Neanderthals, whom it sought to enlist in its physical army.
“The unintended result was sexual intercourse and the creation of the human race as we know it.[iii] This produced strange responses in the offsprings materialized nervous system,” Keel wrote. “Emotions were born. Frequencies were changed. The direct control of the superintelligence was driven from their bodies. They were trapped on Earth, unable to ascend the electromagnetic scale and reenter their etheric world. With the loss of control, they became animals, albeit highly intelligent animals.” [iv]
According to Keel, humanity’s long interaction with the supernatural, as well as the timely intervention of enigmatic, unearthly strangers in the lives of historical personages such as Thomas Jefferson and Malcolm X, testifies to the continuing presence of the gods of old, including God, who dwell in the superspectrum. Its manifestations include UFOs and their occupants, monsters, demons, angels, poltergeists, ghosts, and voices in the head.
The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel
“The Devil’s emissaries of yesterday have been replaced by the mysterious men in black,” he stated. “The quasi-angels of Biblical times have become magnificent spacemen. The demons, devils, and false angels were recognized as liars and plunderers by early man. The same impostors now appear as long-haired Venusians.” [v]
“Thus you swallow all but the benign slant of testimony from such notorious characters as George Adamski, Howard Menger, Aladino Felix (aka Dino Kraspedon), and Ernest Arthur Bryant (of the notorious Scoriton episode, in which a reincarnated Adamski returned via spacecraft to rural Devonshire), all contactees of the 1950s and 1960s, all of them with at least to other observers – very serious, some might say fatal, credibility problems.[vi]And then there’s the already-mentioned Woodrow Derenberger and, on the other side of him, Thomas F. Monteleone.”
From November 1966 until he dropped out of sight a few years later, Derenberger, a late-middle-aged sewing-machine salesman, challenged the credulity of even the most slack-jawed with ever more expansive fables of interactions with space people and of jaunts to their home planet, Lanulos ( near the Ganymede star cluster [vii]). Given conservative ufology’s antipathy to contactees, NICAP’s Pittsburgh Subcommittee led a remarkably vigorous, open-minded field investigation into Derenbergers early claims as they were occurring — or, more accurately, evolving — until it arrived at the only conclusion possible: that Derenberger’s yarns owed everything to human invention, nothing to extraterrestrial intervention. A local psychologist drawn into the probe — the one who, Keel told McDonald, experienced direct contact himself! — suffered something of a breakdown, seeing saucers invisible to other family members, meanwhile channeling failed prophecies.
Derenberger’s tall tales figure largely in Mothman Prophecies (1975). Keel, who spent time with Derenberger, rejects any notion that the man was just making it up as he went along. He also cites as supporting evidence the adventures of a University of Maryland student, Tom Monteleone, who claimed also to have met denizens of Lanulos and to have traveled to the home planet, whose inhabitants cavort about it in the nude. Monteleone surfaced after he called a Washington, D.C., radio station on which Derenberger was appearing. As Keel writes in Mothman, Even Woody was surprised by such direct confirmation of his own experiences. After meeting Monteleone personally, Keel determined that Monteleone was privy to subtle details about such things that only true UT encounterers would know about; “thus, I finally had to conclude Tom was on the level.”
Except he wasn’t. Monteleone was, one, a psychology major — that alone ought to have raised a red flag or at least a Keelian eyebrow — and, two, an aspiring (and later successful) science-fiction writer. He had conjured up the story on a lark, as a hoax on a hoaxer. Writing in the May 1979 issue of Omni, he crowed, “I contradicted Mr. Derenberger’s story on purpose, claiming to have seen totally different things on my visit to Lanulos. But on each occasion, he would give ground, make up a hasty explanation, and in the end corroborate my own falsifications. He even claimed to know personally the UFOnaut who contacted me!” [viii]
When these revelations saw print,[ix] Keel did not, no surprise, graciously concede that all those conservative ufologists buffs and cultists in Keelian had been right all along. Keel insisted not only that he had known Monteleone was lying from the start, but that anybody who read what he had written on the subject could see that.[x] Well, not so. To the contrary, Keel had been so wowed by Monteleone’s Lanulosian friend Vadig’s customary farewell “I’ll see you in time” that he cited it as evidence that UFOs come from outside our time frame and [Keel’s italics] “from outside the environment of the known universe.” [xi]
It should be stressed, too, that Keel does not always use the word hoax as the rest of us do, to denote humans fooling, or attempting to fool, other humans. In Keelian, hoaxing more often represents what UTs do to us. Since UTs are virtually all powerful, they can represent themselves as just about anything. Consequently, even the most manifestly preposterous encounter claims are real paranormal events, even if not what they seem to witnesses. Thus, Adamski and Derenberger are telling the truth as they saw it; thus, too, the airship inventors of 1896/97 were disguised UTs (even though practically every sober investigator of the airship period has deduced that such figures did not exist outside the fictions of journalist-pranksters). Thus, anything, and I mean anything, goes.
I have a personal history with Keel, whom I have known since if memory serves early 1967, when Charles Bowen, then editor of Flying Saucer Review, brought us together. We entered into correspondence. I was young, impressionable, modestly read, uncritically minded, and in the fashion of the period susceptible to paranoia. In Forbidden Science: Journals 1957-1969 (1992) Jacques Vallee records the following from his entry of April 3, 1969: “Don [Hanlon] believes that Jerome Clark, a young ufologist from Chicago [sic],[xii] has become so convinced that an extraterrestrial [sic] invasion was imminent that he has been driven close to a breakdown.”
Well, not quite — in April 1969 I was more upset about a break-up with a girl friend than about invading UTs — but it is certainly true that I suffered both an unhealthy degree of fright and an overblown imagination. I was hardly alone. Earlier, in December 1967, I had visited Keel at his Manhattan apartment, where he and a young couple caught up in the excitement were trying on gas masks, anticipating an imminent UT strike on New York City. Reading the correspondence I had with Keel and others back then, I can only cringe at the youthful folly painfully in evidence. At least, I suppose I could say in my defense, I had the excuse of being rather younger than Keel.
In any event, I grew up, and away from Keel, though once he had confided his hope that one day I would be the next generation’s John A. Keel. Though I had thought the parting was amicable, I was wrong. As late as the 1990s, long after our personal interaction consisted in its entirety of no more than the rare pleasant note and the even rarer crossing of paths, he was madly spreading slanders whose subject was lapsed Keelist Jerome Clark. When at last I confronted Keel on the matter, he replied that he was only pointing out the obvious, which is that I… "live in a world of paranoid conspiracies and illiterate misconceptions. To curb this you may need extensive psychotherapy, coupled with drug treatment. You are ill and have been haunted by this illness all your life." And so on. In short, the usual charming way of dispatching critics: they say those things because they’re crazy, in the most clinical sense of the adjective. For good measure, he added the to-me-amusing observation that I have fallen for hoax after hoax. [xiii]
None of this matters much, and my annoyance over this strange little episode passed quickly. Still, besides demonstrating Keel’s often-shown preference for vituperation over reasoned discourse, it underscores his crankiness, in both senses of the word. It’s not that Keel will not lightly abide fools; it’s colleagues he objects to. And come to think of it, why given his medieval-demonologist outlook, his relentless credulity, his charm-challenged anti-intellectualism, and, well, his bad manners — would anybody want to be a colleague of Keel’s?
Contrary to general impression, which is wont to credit him with a more creative imagination than he in fact has, he is not a particularly original thinker. His mentor Meade Layne, founder of the occultish (the uncharitable would say crackpotish) Borderland Sciences Research Associates, got many of his ideas from medium Mark Probert, who channeled teachings from, among others, a 500,000-year-old Tibetan.[xiv] If this is your idea of a reliable source of information, God bless you, but I suspect most of you would elect to look elsewhere. Layne, I might mention, thought the etherians UTs were a generally benign lot. It was Trevor James Constable, a student of Layne’s, who first discerned the dark reality beneath the sunny exterior: The spacemen finally begin to emerge as coteries of unethical invisibles, exerting a psychic despotism over innocent and well-meaning people. [xv]
But Keel has been more widely read, and it is largely through him that ufologists and Forteans, or at least some of them, have plunged into the thickets of occultism and obscurantism, into a realm where words like elemental and superspectrum and ultraterrestrial and transmogrification are actually supposed to mean something.[xvi] Into, in other words, a domain of incoherent theory and dubious data and, finally, numbing irrelevance. If Keel were a humorist like Charles Fort rather than a windmill-tilter like Tiffany Thayer,[xvii] one could smile and shrug it off as an ongoing, offbeat joke. No Fortean, to my knowledge, has ever championed Fort’s sky islands or Ambrose-collectors, knowing that Fort wasn’t championing them, either. But Keel is deadly, gloomily, blusteringly, spittle-spewingly in earnest. Though usually politer and calmer about it, so are the legions of acolytes who since then have dropped a ton of Keelist doctrine on all our heads.
Let me close, however, on a mostly positive note. To the best of my recollection, I have been in Keel’s company three times, possibly four. Even with that limited exposure, I think I can safely testify that there are few more entertaining dinner companions. Though it’s hardly something one would infer from his writing public or private, in restaurants he has a dazzling and wicked sense of humor. I also think Mothman Prophecies is a hugely fun book, even if there are whole chunks of it no sensible human would take seriously for a nanosecond. I hope that the movie based on it is a huge success and that Keel makes a ton of money from it. He deserves to retire in peace. And, if the truth be told, the rest of us deserve to be left in the peace of Keel’s retirement.
i. A New Approach to UFO Witnesses, Flying Saucer Review, May/June 1968.
ii. As well as McDonald’s correspondence with a dizzying range of UFO personalities, from the sane to the certifiable.
iii It is surely pointless to mention here that no living physical anthropologist believes that Neanderthals were the ancestors of Homo sapiens.
iv. Our Haunted Planet (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1971).
v. UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970).
vi. Keel’s explanation for conservative ufologists rejection of claims like these is characteristically ad hominem. In The Flying Saucer Subculture, Journal of Popular Culture 8 (1975), he writes, Interestingly, the hard-core believer [sic] & tends to be over-skeptical & and has an extremely suspicious nature, perhaps because he/she has created an imaginary self-image and constructed the necessary lies to maintain it. Thus they tend to believe that everyone else shares these personality flaws. They often project or transfer their own problems to the UFO witnesses they interview, and many sincere percipients and contactees have been branded liars by UFO enthusiasts who thought they detected their own behavioral problems in them.
vii. Ganymede, of course, is usually thought to be a moon of Jupiter.
viii. Monteleone has his own credibility problems. The Omni confession, devoted chiefly to the ridicule of those foolish enough to believe him, gives the impression that his role as hoaxer was brief and limited. In fact, as late as January 1970, he was making public appearances. In an August 11, 1970, letter to Keel, he stated that the experiences I had with Vadig [his contact from Lanulos] were completely true. This was, of course, long after he had made whatever point he originally intended to make.
ix. Not only in Omni but in a better (and more restrained) piece by Karl T. Pflock; see Anatomy of a UFO Hoax, Fate, November 1980.
x. For example, see Mark Opsasnick’s amusing account in Strange Magazine (Spring 1995). Confronting Keel on his curious assertion that hed always known Monteleone was a fraud, Opsasnick asked, reasonably enough, why, knowing as much, he had still chosen to present it in Mothman Prophecies. Keel snapped, The chapter is about hoaxes! Read the whole chapter! Don’t read one sentence! The whole book says it’s all a crock of shit! Opsasnick notes, I decided to leave it at that. I reread the chapter. It is not about hoaxes. I could only hope that Keel s �statement the published word doesn’t mean anything applies only to this chapter.
xi. The Time Cycle Factor, Flying Saucer Review, May/June 1969.
xii If it matters, I was living in Moorhead, Minnesota, at the time.
xiii. Letter dated March 27, 1996.
xiv. See, for example, Layne’s Mark Probert, Baffling San Diego Medium, Fate, May 1949.
xv. Scientists, Contactees and Equilibrium, Flying Saucer Review, January/February 1960.
xvi. As veteran ufologist Richard Hall once wittily observed (MUFON UFO Journal, August 1977), for all the meaning terms such as these and extra-dimensional, psychical, Magonia, and the like bear, one might as well say that UFOs emanate from the chronosynclastic infindibulum.
xvii. The late James Blish once wrote of Thayer, founder of the Fortean Society, that he advocated almost every imaginable crazy belief. At bottom, he added, every one of these beliefs & turned out to rest on some form of personal devil theory. Cited in Damon Knight’s Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1970).
MAJESTIC-12: A FORBIDDEN STORY ABOUT THE SECRET U.S. UFO COMMITTEE
MAJESTIC-12: A FORBIDDEN STORY ABOUT THE SECRET U.S. UFO COMMITTEE
Majestic 12 (MJ-12) is the nickname given to a secret group (scientists/military/government) of paranormal researchers- widely theorized by popular UFO conspiracy claims.
Who was this secret group? Where did this secret group come from? Is this secret group true? What evidence did they find? How much does our government know?
The government must have had an inkling to round a search party. MJ 12 was organized by then President Truman in 1947. Rumors of MJ12 began when the FBI investigated leaked documentation regarding secret alien life capture- and deemed it false. The public did not trust the FBI and displayed their belief that the leaked proof was indeed authentic.
The infamous leaked eight pages are directly linked to the notorious Roswell Incident. At that time there were already whispers of a government cover-up. The eight pages were actually photos of eight pages of documents that were received anonymously by a high ranking UFO Explorer. The first page mentions the three words, Operation Majestic Twelve, hence the formation of the nickname, Majestic 12. The second image was of the names of the twelve members. On page three comes the bombshell, news of the actual possession of a crashed alien Warcraft- and a genuine alien life form.
The papers go on to detail the involvement and ongoing cover-up by government officials. Truman supposedly knew about the alien crash and sent Defense Secretary Forrestal to keep house. The genuine nature of these documents is believed by many because of Truman's orders to keep civil obedience a top priority. Letting fears of civil unrest take precedence over the right of the public to know the truth.
WHO ARE THE MAJESTIC-12?
There are several reasons why many people doubt the authenticity of this documentation. Military time is commonly used by the military; these papers were typed with the time in regular/civilian time. Another theory claims misuse of the title admiral when the correct term is "rear admiral." There are also a few words that do not date back to the 40’s- when this document was allegedly written.
On the other hand, the twelve signatures on this classified sworn secret project. Were all verified as authentic. It was an extremely powerful group of people, Majestic 12. CIA, top politicians, and respected scientists. Whoever masterminded the creation of this group knew what they were doing. How much the government knows and does not know will always be up for discussion.
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Ancient Aliens looks at the truth behind The Majestic 12
Ancient Aliens looks at the truth behind The Majestic 12
Ancient Aliens looks at the truth behind The Majestic 12
This week Ancient Aliens examines the mysteries of The Majestic Twelve.
Sometimes known as MJ-12, many conspiracy theorist believe this group was formed back in 1947 by U.S. President Harry S. Truman in order to recover and examine various extraterrestrial objects, including perhaps downed or found UFOs.
The theories stem from a series of documents that were said to have been leaked from inside the government. These contained details of the group, explaining that it was made up of various military expert and scientists.
However, the FBI examined the documents and declared that they were fake. Never the less the theories have remained popular and have made it in to various forms of popular culture.
Even as late as the 1990s new documents emerged claiming to have more information about the 12, but again these were seen to be a hoax.
A few theorists also think the whole thing, including the leaks, were part of a government misinformation campaign.
Ancient Aliens airs at 9:00 PM on History Channel.
The first report of a flying saucer crash landing came in 1947 and was said to have happened near a military base in Roswell. It wasn't long before rumors spread about alien bodies found in the spacecraft.
UFO expert Nick Pope spoke to Inside Edition about the crash in Roswell in the canon of American history and pop culture.
“Roswell is really the ground zero of the UFO phenomenon," he said. "It's the place not just where there was a sighting, here the suggestion was that something crashed, if that's true, the U.S. government has in its hands definitive evidence that we are not alone."
Decades after the unusual sighting, Roswell continues to be invoked in movies like Independence Day, as well as TV shows like The X-Filesand the aptly named Roswell.
Many of the sci-fi films and shows feature Area 51, the Nevada Air Force Base rumored to secretly house the evidence of extra-terrestrial life.
Dave Grohl, who formed the Foo Fighters in 1994, named the group after the military's nickname for UFO. He also named his record label Roswell Records, as an homage to the area.
Through the years there have been all sorts of strange lights in the sky.
Many remain mysterious while others are explained, like a 10-ton meteor that exploded over Russia and caused panic when it hit Earth in 2013.
In 1995, the Roswell incident was back in the headlines when Ailien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction? aired on network television. It showed what was believed to be three military doctors performing an autopsy on an alien corpse recovered from the Roswell crash site in 1947. The footage was later exposed as a hoax.
The fascination with beings from outer space continues with a new series UFOs: Uncovering the Truth, which airs Saturday night on Destination America.
“What's fascinating is it's not just a UFO story, it's now firmly a part of American pop culture,” Pope said.
UFO witnesses capture “shinning disk” on video near Toronto Harbourfront
UFO witnesses capture “shinning disk” on video near Toronto Harbourfront
A couple celebrating Canada Day at Toronto’s Harbourfront recorded a video of a mysterious “white shining disk,” according to a UFO report they submitted today to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). Along with the report, the couple uploaded their video.
Toronto Harboufront.
(Credit: Wladyslaw/Wikimedia Commons)
Map of Toronto Harboufront.
(Credit: Google Maps)
The video shows a round object with what appears to be a clear or dark center. The object cannot be seen throughout the video, but appears and then disappear several times. The object looks disk-shaped, perhaps even a disk with the center cut out like a vinyl record.
A still image submitted by the witness. Click on the image to see a larger version. (Credit: MUFON)
Me and my girlfriend were celebrating Canada Day weekend at Harbourfront on Sunday July 2nd, 2017. I looked up in the sky for no particular reason….and noticed this circular white shining disk. As you can see on the video, I asked my girlfriend, what do you think that is? She then witnessed it too….and was thinking it was either a kite or a drone, thinking drones are everywhere. But once she started looking at it again…and then saw the video, she realized that it was not a drone. When looking at the object…I noticed the glaring shininess of the disk…and how it was moving across in a circular motion. It then just disappeared in the clouds, we were watching for awhile, but did not see it again. At that point we then witnessed a black helicopter and thought maybe it was following it? I was shocked witnessing this….I was puzzled. My girlfriend was skeptical at first…but realized it might have not been a drone after all.
Drones, often of the quad-copter variety, have appendages that hold the rotors and zip through the sky. This object does not demonstrate that sort of behavior, nor does it appear to have rotors, so the witness is likely right that a drone is not what they filmed. Balloons are often set afloat during celebrations and move with the wind. However, balloons do not appear and disappear as this one does. If the balloon is somehow going into and out of shadows, it might appear as though it is disappearing and reappearing. However, this balloon is high in the sky and it does not appear anything could cause shadows at that height. Still, a balloon might not be able to be ruled out.
The vast majority of UFO sightings turn out to be mundane objects, but once in awhile there are sightings that are much more difficult to explain. MUFON conducts investigations on sightings submitted to their website, and if they share their conclusions, we will let you all know. Meanwhile, others will likely chime in and we will try to keep you up to date with any discoveries. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the object in the comments below.
As I have threatened to before, this series on UFOs will rip the scab off the secret history of UFOs in Valley Center, Pauma Valley and Palomar Mountain.
The area does have a fun history concerning Little Green Men and other anomalies. The first king of aliens, George Adamski (1891-1965), made a pretty impressive footprint in the Backcountry in the years just after World War II, which is when reports of UFOs skyrocketed all over the country and the world.
Adamski was special, however. He was sort of a black belt in the Martian arts. He was also so obviously a fraud and a charlatan that he inspires a sort of backhanded admiration from those of us who find scoundrels fascinating. He is so dodgy that he could have easily been a founding father of San Francisco. Instead, if anyone could be said to be a father of the UFO craze, he deserves the honor. He became one of the most famous of the so-called “UFOlogists” when he claimed to have taken photos of spaceships from other planets, and to have hosted and been hosted by friendly aliens.
I’m not going to make any claims about the authenticity of Adamski’s claims. The spaceships he took pictures of may very well have been authentic. But some of them did look an awful lot like pie plates!
I recall a man who used to run the Palomar Mountain Lodge years ago reminiscing about Adamski, who used to hold late night seminars on the big porch that overlooks Pauma Valley from the lodge. He would host groups of acolytes, who usually paid well for the privilege, and they would watch through the spectacular skies above the mountain.
“There’s one!” Adamski would say. When others professed not to have seen the phenomenon, he would nod sagely, point to himself and say with the air of a sage: “You’ve got to have a trained eye!”
Adamski liked to maintain a post office box on Palomar Mountain. The boxes are reserved for residents of the mountain, but Adamski loved the association with what was then the most powerful telescope in the world, Palomar Observatory’s 200 inch Hale telescope. Known to the astronomical world as “The Big Eye.” For used there used to be a mockup of a flying saucer on the property of the Oak Knoll campground—at the foot of Palomar—where Adamski held some of his gatherings.
Valley Center’s historian, Bob Lerner also tells me, that Adamski had a home on Cool Valley Road and that there was an Adamski-related group that was on Miller Road. We’ll find out more about that in subsequent installments of this series.
Meanwhile, I want to hear about you and your experiences. Especially if you have some experiences that aren’t of the “amazing but untrue,” variety. I’m a skeptic, but I’m an open-minded skeptic. I am sure, as they said in “The X-files” that the truth is out there, and sometimes the truth is a little weird.
As Hamlet said, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Let’s find out about the UFOs in our back yard. Contact me at editor@valleycenter.com or call me at 760-749-1112.
In this UFO Sightings video clip: Roswell: A brief look at the Roswell UFO encounter, and the controversy around it. For over 60 years, the debate has raged on. What happened in Roswell? An alien encounter or a government cover-up? Get a closer look at Roswell.
UFOs aren’t a new phenomenon. In fact, humans have been describing unidentified flying objects for millennia, with depictions of disk-like objects and unusual atmospheric objects found in the art and literature of ancient civilizations from the Sumerians and the Egyptians to the Greeks and Romans.
But the modern era of UFOs took off in the middle of the 20th century, right around the time rockets and high-tech aircraft were being devised, often in secret. Coincidence? Paranoia? Perhaps. In any event, these seven UFO sightings certainly occurred, but it’s up to you to decide what explanation you’ll believe in.
1. Kenneth Arnold, 1947
Pilots E.J. Smith, Kenneth Arnold, and Ralph E. Stevens look at a photo of an unidentified flying object which they sighted while en route to Seattle, Washington. (Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)
The origin of today’s fascination can be traced back to civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold. While flying his small aircraft near Washington’s Mount Rainier on June 24, 1947, Arnold claimed to have seen nine blue, glowing objects flying fast—at an estimated 1700 mph—in a “V” formation. He first believed the objects to be some sort of new military aircraft (this was, after all, just two years after WWII and the first year of the Cold War), but the military confirmed that there were no tests being conducted near Mount Rainier that day. When he described their motion as similar to “a saucer if you skip it across water,” the media coined the now-ubiquitous phrase “flying saucer.” Soon, other reports of a group of nine UFOs cropped up across the region, including sightings by a prospector on Mount Adams and the crew of a commercial flight in Idaho. The government never had a true explanation for the sightings—it simply claimed that Arnold had seen a mirage or was hallucinating. But UFO mania had set in, and just a few weeks later, the infamous Roswell sighting would perpetuate the obsession.
2. Roswell, 1947
Roswell UFO Museum Sign. (Credit: David Zaitz/Getty Images)
It’s the mother of all UFO sightings, but no object was actually observed flying in the Roswell incident. In the summer of 1947, rancher William “Mac” Brazel discovered mysterious debris in one of his New Mexico pastures, including metallic rods, chunks of plastic and unusual, papery scraps. When Brazel reported the wreckage, soldiers from nearby Roswell Army Air Force Base were called in to retrieve the materials.News headlines claimed that a “flying saucer” crashed in Roswell, but military officials purported that it was only a downed weather balloon. Ever since, conspiracy theorists have been hard at work trying to prove the wreckage was extraterrestrial, with one gentleman, Ray Santilli, going as far as releasing a video in 1995 of an alien dissection purported to have taken place after the incident. (Santilli would admit in 2006 that it was a staged film, but he maintained that it was based off of actual footage.)
As it turns out, the government was indeed covering something up—but it wasn’t aliens. The crashed weather balloon was, in fact, part of a top-secret military endeavor called Project Mogul, which launched high-altitude balloons carrying equipment used to detect Soviet nuclear tests. The Air Force provided plenty of proof in a 231-page report released in 1997 called “Case Closed: Final Report on the Roswell Crash.” Though the mystery has been thoroughly debunked, interest in the case has only grown, and Roswell’s tourism is heavily based around its famous “UFO sighting.” It’s home to the International UFO Museum and Research Center, a spaceship-shaped McDonald’s and an annual UFO festival, held each summer.
3. Lubbock Lights, 1951
The “Lubbock Lights”, photographed at Lubbock, Texas, by 19-year old Carl Hart, Jr. in 1951. (Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)
On the evening of August 25, 1951, three science professors from Texas Tech were enjoying an evening outdoors in Lubbock, when they looked up and saw a semicircle of lights flying above them at a high speed. Over the next few days, dozens of reports flooded in from across town—Texas Tech freshman Carl Hart Jr., even snapped photos of the phenomenon, which were published in newspapers across the country and Life magazine. Project Blue Book investigated the events, and their official conclusion was that the lights were birds that reflected the luminescence from Lubbock’s new streetlamps. Many people who saw the lights, however, refuse to accept this explanation, arguing that the lights were flying too fast.
4. Levelland, 1957
One of several people who witnessed the UFO in Levelland, Texas in 1957, holding up a drawing of what he saw. (Credit: Carl Iwasaki/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)
Have you ever seen the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind? There’s a famous scene where a UFO makes the electronics in a car go haywire. As it so happens, that’s not just a Hollywood invention for the silver screen—there’s real-life precedence. In 1957, dozens of citizens of Levelland, Texas, individually reported seeing a rocket or strange lights that interfered with their vehicles: Engines died, lights cut out. Though the police initially thought the reports were a hoax, they, too, saw the mysterious lights, as they investigated the situation.Project Blue Book, a UFO research group created by the Air Force, was assigned to investigate the case. Their findings? It was an electrical storm and ball lightning that caused the lights and the mechanical malfunctions, despite the fact that there were no reported thunderstorms in the area that night.
The September 19, 1976, incident in Tehran, Iran, started much like many others, with phone calls from concerned citizens reporting a bright light in the sky. An F-4 fighter jet was set out to investigate, but as it neared the object, its instruments blacked out, forcing the pilot to return to base. A second F-4 took its place, and as it neared the unusual light, it achieved radar lock. But then, according to the pilot, the UFO released a glowing object—the pilot assumed it to be some sort of missile headed straight for him. As he prepared to fight back, the pilot experienced malfunctions with his instruments, and he witnessed another bright object released from the UFO that headed straight toward the ground. He safely returned to base, despite the faulty equipment.After the incident, Iran contacted the United States to aid them in an investigation. An unclassified memo by U.S. Air Force section chief Lieutenant Colonel Olin Mooy detailed the events of the night: There are explanations for nearly all of them.
First, the bright light seen by civilians (and possibly the pilots) might have been Jupiter, which was visible in the sky that night. Second, as author Brian Dunning notes in a podcast, the second F-4 jet had a long history of electrical problems, meaning that the instrumentation might have failed regardless of a UFO situation. It also could explain the radar lock—it might simply have been a malfunction. The first F-4, reports Dunning, was never turned in for maintenance following the incident, so there’s no official indication that its instrumentation failed. And finally, as for the “alien missiles,” there was a meteor shower that night, which could easily account for the sightings.
6. Rendlesham Forest, 1980
A general view of disused missile silos at the former RAF Bentwaters base near Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk where an alleged alien interference with US nuclear weapons site took place. (Credit: PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo)
In December 1980, U.S. Air Force members stationed at two British Royal Air Force bases, Woodbridge and Bentwaters, reported seeing strange, colorful lights above Rendlesham Forest, about 100 miles northeast of London. One man who entered the forest to investigate claimed to have discovered some sort of spacecraft there, and the next day, others confirmed damage to nearby trees and a higher-than-normal level of radiation at the site.Several days later, more sightings were reported. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt recorded his observations on an audio tape as he watched the lights, and while not definitive proof, theorists consider this the strongest evidence of the events. But the UK’s Ministry of Defence, which oversaw reports of UFO incidents until the early 2000s, did not find any credible threat to the nation, and thus did not pursue investigations further. As at Roswell, UFO tourism is prevalent in Rendlesham Forest, and there’s even an official Rendlesham UFO trail that visitors can hike, off of which is a model of the reported spacecraft.
7. The Belgium Wave, 1989-90
Flying triangle claimed to have been photographed on June 15, during the 1990 Belgian UFO sighting over Belgium. (Credit: J.S. Henrardi)
At the end of November 1989, citizens of Belgium reported seeing a large, triangular UFO hovering in the sky. But other than these visual sightings, no evidence of the UFO’s existence was to be found—for now. A few months later, in March 1990, new sightings of multiple objects were reported, which were confirmed by two military ground radar stations. Two F-16 fighter jets were sent out to investigate the anomalies, and though the pilots could not see anything visually, they were able to lock onto their targets with radar. But the UFOs moved so fast that the pilots ended up losing them. Some 13,500 people are estimated to have witnessed the incident, making it one of the most widely experienced UFO sightings of the modern era.The Belgian Air Force had no logical explanation for the activity, but it acknowledged that an unknown activity had taken place in the air. The Belgians reached out to the UK’s Ministry of Defence to investigate further, but once they determined that the incident was not a hostile or aggressive one, they stopped the investigation.
Proving UFOs exist is impossible–even fringe, paranoid, silly–or so goes the prevailing attitude in this country. But investigative reporter Leslie Kean’s research on the topic is pretty thorough–and astonishing. A veteran independent reporter for various national and international publications, including The Boston Globe, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Nation, Kean has been featured on NPR, CNN, and The Colbert Report, among others. She has dedicated more than a decade to dissecting the controversial topic, interviewing high-level officials and aviation experts. Her book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record, is a fascinating compendium of their first-hand accounts of sightings.
According to Kean, 5-10 percent of sightings are, in fact, unidentified; a vast majority of aerial phenomena, 90-95 percent in Kean’s estimation, can be explained to be one of the following: “weather balloons, flares, sky lanterns, secret military aircraft, birds reflecting the sun, planes reflecting the sun, blimps, helicopters, planes in formation, the planets Venus or Mars, meteors or meteorites, space junk, satellites, swamp gas, spinning eddies, sundogs, ball lightning, ice crystals, reflected light off clouds, lights on the ground or lights reflected on a cockpit window.” Her book focuses on the former, the events in history that cannot be attributed to any of the latter.
Whether or not you’re a believer, there’s no denying that Kean’s findings are remarkable, and she delivers the facts that support the existence of UFOs without feeding conspiracies as to why, how–or even what might be piloting them. We asked Kean about the evidence she’s collected, along with why the concept of UFOs isn’t more widely accepted, why there’s still isn’t more physical proof, and ultimately if there are steps we can take to understand the issues (including self-protection) more fully.
A Q&A with Leslie Kean
Q: Your book presents incredible evidence—first-hand accounts of sightings and experiences from generals, pilots, NASA-employees from across the globe. Why is the concept of UFOs not generally accepted?
A:The proof is only for some kind of unexplained, physical phenomena that appear to demonstrate technology we don’t have here on earth. But there isn’t proof that these are alien spacecraft–although this is a valid hypothesis. In fact, we don’t know what UFOs are, where they’re from, or why they are here. The issue of non-acceptance by the status quo is a complicated one. We need more data to satisfy the scientific community—and such data is very hard to come by without the participation of these scientists.
“Some may feel that if these crafts have an extraterrestrial origin, they are way more advanced than us, that they could have complete power over us if they wanted to, and that we have no control over them or what they do.”
The topic is taboo: Ridicule has been generated towards this topic since the 1950’s in order to make it go away, and the “giggle factor” has become ingrained in our culture. Some may feel that if these crafts have an extraterrestrial origin, they are way more advanced than us, that they could have complete power over us if they wanted to, and that we have no control over them or what they do. This is frightening, so the reaction is to avoid dealing with UFOs altogether. And, our government’s attitude does not help either.
Q: Of all the accounts you’ve covered, which is your favorite?
A: This is very hard to say. I find all the cases featured to be exceptional. One of the most spectacular was the Belgium Wave of 1989-91, in which sightings of remarkable triangular objects kept repeating themselves over time. These bizarre machines hovered, usually silently, glided, and lit up fields with their brilliant spotlights. Sometimes they accelerated to an incredible speed in a split second. Air Force Major General Wilfried De Brouwer (a colonel at the time) was put in charge of dealing with the “invasion” in restricted Belgian airspace of an unknown flying craft, which was not following aviation rules or communicating, as he describes it. In contrast to how the US government handles such events, the Belgian government became openly involved and worked with a group of outside scientists who collected data on the sightings. They accumulated twenty-five large notebooks of reports, drawings, and other data, and many audiocassette tapes of police officers and others who reported sightings, all of which I studied when I was in Belgium. The Belgian Air Force sent up F-16s to try to get close to the objects, after setting up special radar gear. De Brouwer went to the highest levels of other NATO countries to find out if these were some sort of secret technology test flights by Russia or the United States, and he was told that they absolutely were not. In fact, documents show that United States officials wanted to find out more about these incidents from him. As De Brouwer points out, we still don’t have the technology today that would allow a vehicle to do what these did.
Belgium Colonel Wilfried De Brouwer explaining radar data taken near one of the UFO sightings. Photo courtesy of the author.
Q: Where do you think this resistance to even consider the potential of UFOs comes from?
A:Two pivotal events occurred after WWII that were instrumental in establishing and lending momentum to this resistance. In the early 1950’s, the Air Force established Project Sign, later known as Project Blue Book, to gather information on UFOs and to assess whether they were a threat to national security. Project Sign staff wrote a report concluding that UFOs, already documented as real by the Air Force, were most likely interplanetary. Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg rejected the report for lack of proof—and thereafter, the required political position became that UFOs must always have conventional explanations.
Secondly, in 1953, Cold War fears and the persistence of UFO reports led the CIA to convene a hand-picked scientific advisory group (known as the Robertson Panel) to again assess the UFO question. But participants were shown selected, narrow, and incomplete evidence; the panel’s resulting recommendations, classified at the time, stated that everything from documentary films to advertising to Disney cartoons, should be used to debunk the phenomenon in the eyes of the public. It also recommended infiltrating civilian UFO groups in order to dampen enthusiasm. These recommendations set the stage for the public ridicule of the UFO issue from that point forward.
Q: The accounts you detail are amazing, particularly the waves of sightings over prolonged periods of time with hundreds of witnesses—why isn’t there more video and photographic proof?
A:That’s a good question, which is asked frequently. Imagining beforehand what we would do if we saw something unexplainable turns out to be quite different from what we do in reality. The thought “Oh, I should run indoors and fetch my camera” isn’t how most people respond in the moment. Instead, they report being overcome with intense curiosity, awe, wonder, sometimes fear. The witnesses typically stand immobilized and stare at the object, knowing that it will not be there for long; sometimes they call out for someone nearby to look also. They don’t want to take their eyes off the UFO for one second, so most have not tried to find a camera under those circumstances. For many of the most famous incidents, cell phone cameras did not yet exist, and people didn’t carry cameras around with them. Now that everyone has a cell phone, photos crop up all the time, but so far, most cell phone images of distant objects or lights have been poor quality, not conveying enough information for a proper analysis to be conducted. That said, we do have a number of outstanding, official photos that have been properly vetted–some of these are in my book.
Q: Your work is focused on aircraft and UFOs, but you don’t get into the idea of aliens—do you believe the crafts are piloted?
A:I don’t know if they are piloted. That is a possibility, but we don’t have enough evidence to make a determination. Sometimes the objects do behave as if under intelligent control–that much we know. But first and foremost, we must focus on the objects themselves, for which we have much data. Convincing the scientific community and policy makers of that fact is hard enough—it’s been met with many obstacles.
“First and foremost, we must focus on the objects themselves, for which we have much data. Convincing the scientific community and policy makers of that fact is hard enough—it’s been met with many obstacles.”
Establishing that the objects exist must be the first step; questions about possible pilots have to come later. Members of the “UFO community” aren’t helping when they claim that extraterrestrials are here on earth, communicating with humans; their unfounded claims only make the people we are trying to reach even more resistant. You can’t jump ahead—if we can convince the powers-that-be of the reality of the objects themselves (which has worked in reaching some officials, and has led to UFO government agencies in other countries) by providing concrete data, then we have a chance.
Q:Many skeptics believe UFOs are simply prototypes of aircraft, drones, or top-secret military operations—is there a counter to that?
A:In the very best cases, for which we have adequate data to rule out conventional explanations, this option has already been exhaustively explored by experts. Particularly in the earlier cases, the objects demonstrate fantastic capabilities beyond even today’s technology.
Of course, many sightings can be explained by such prototypes and/or secret operations, but the cases I’m referencing cannot be explained in this way. Examples would be the brilliant diamond-shaped object seen by General Parviz Jafari and others over Tehran in 1976, the objects over Belgium, and the two-mile-long stationary objects seen by Captain Ray Bowyer, his passengers, and another pilot in a different location, and picked up on radar, in 2007 over the English Channel. There are many others, with the earlier cases being the most compelling. However, we can never state with 100 percent certainty that something secret is not at play—we have no way of knowing. But for many of our strongest cases, this does not seem feasible.
A
UFO photographed in 1971 by mapping aircraft of the Costa Rican government. Photo courtesy of CEFAA.
Q:You say that 5 percent of UFO sightings are legitimate, in that they are truly unidentified. What does this mean?
A:This means that these cases (and they could be closer to 10 percent) involve adequate data to make the determination that there are true unknowns. Without enough data about the sighting, you have to allow for the possibility that it could be explained by conventional, “normal” phenomena, because you don’t have enough data to rule out all other possibilities. But when all conventional explanations can be ruled out by qualified investigators with access to all the necessary information for a proper and complete analysis, then the sighting becomes one of the truly baffling, well-documented cases. The outstanding cases of this type involve military personnel, government officials, pilots and crews, and police officers. The cases in my book fit these criteria.
Q:From a safety perspective, why is it so important that we take the consideration that there could be UFOs seriously?
A:UFOs have already affected aircraft in various, sometimes alarming ways: They have pulled them off course, disabled communications, and rendered equipment temporarily inoperable. Pilots have had to make sudden maneuvers to avoid collisions with UFOs, and a few times, passengers were injured as a result. These cases are rare, but there is always the possibility of accidents caused by the activity of a UFO near an aircraft. Perhaps pilots and aircrews need to be better informed in case they do encounter a UFO, so it’s not a shock or disorients them in some way. Former FAA head of accidents and investigations John Callahan suggests in my book that we need to adjust our air radar systems, which aren’t configured to pick up UFO activity if the objects are moving too fast, are too large, or if they hover in one place. Pilots need to have reporting forms so that the aviation authorities know when unusual objects appear in the skies.
In addition, UFOs appear to have disabled nuclear weapons, which represents a national security problem. In 1967, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, all ten nuclear missiles were rendered inoperable within ten seconds of each other when a glowing red, oval-shaped object hovered over a control center at the base. A week earlier, another facility thirty-five miles away had been visited by UFOs, losing all its missiles as well. In total, twenty nuclear missiles went down. The missiles were sixty feet underground, and Boeing engineers checked every possible cause for the failures but were unable to explain them. In 1970, when closing Project Blue Book, the US Air Force released a statement stating that “no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security.” These events occurred during the Cold War; the US Air Force was clearly not telling us the truth. For more information on aviation safety issues, check out the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena.
Q:Your book came out in 2010—has anything of note happened in the intervening years in terms of UFO sightings or research?
A:I have since joined the board of a new, all-volunteer scientific organization called UFODATA which is on the cutting edge of new research. Our goal is to build a large network of automated surveillance stations with sophisticated sensors to monitor the skies 24/7, looking for aerial anomalies. We have spent several years developing our ideas, making plans, and testing relevant technologies with a team of outstanding scientists and engineers from around the world. Our initial prototype station will have a core optical unit with cameras capable of detecting and recording both an image and spectra (visible and invisible waves of electromagnetic radiation), a magnetic sensing unit, instrumentation to detect microwave and other radiation, and other sensors to record atmospheric and local environmental data. Alarm triggers will initiate recording, permitting capture of a broad range of physical data that can then be analyzed. We need high quality, publishable data to take this issue into the scientific world and break that barrier.
Q:Where do you believe UFOs come from? Do you have any theories?
A:Like the government agencies in Chile and France that have documented the UFO phenomena, I am hesitant to speculate about what the origin of UFOs might be. We can’t possibly know where they’re from, specifically. But if we could get some of the best scientific minds on the planet together on this issue, devise a sophisticated methodology for studying the UFO problem—just as with the massive telescopes and particle accelerators to study black holes or minuscule particles—we’d have a chance at finding out. Our best minds are not informed about the issue; it is considered taboo. If the US government changes its attitude on the topic—even slightly—that would invite the scientific community to take it more seriously. I hope that basic curiosity and a desire to solve one of our biggest mysteries will eventually motivate our scientists to take this on.
Richard Branson has confirmed plans to launch people into space in 2018, with the first test flights beginning this year.
In a new interview, Branson said that Virgin Galactic will start performing powered tests of its SpaceShipTwo craft every three weeks, with plans to extend them into space by November or December.
And after his own flight, full commercial passenger operations will start by the end of 2018, he said.
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Richard Branson has confirmed plans to launch people into space in 2018, with the first test flights beginning this year
VIRGIN GALACTIC: THE CRASH
In October 2014, SpaceShipTwo - a plane designed to run the first ever passenger flights into space - split into pieces as it fell to Earth over California's Mojave Desert.
The vehicle broke up after the co-pilot unlocked the craft's tail wing breaking system early, which led to a sudden increase in aerodynamic forces as it passed through the sound barrier.
Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said no safeguards were built into system to overcome the error of the co-pilot.
While Branson is optimistic about Virgin Galactic's commercial space flights, he said that the huge appetite for space travel leaves room for competitors.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Branson said: 'We will never be able to build enough spaceships. The demand is enormous.'
Branson mentioned that Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin – two of Virgin Galactic's biggest competitors – could fill this gap.
He said: 'There is definitely the demand for all three.
'We can take off at 24-hour's notice, put a couple of satellites up and come back again.
'With ground-based rockets, there's quite a long waiting time. Elon has bigger rockets, so he has advantages there.'
When asked to comment on Donald Trump's views on space travel, Branson said: 'I think myself and Jeff Bezos and Elon are just getting on with it.
'I don't think I've heard of anything majorly exciting that's come out of the administration as far as space is concerned, but maybe they'll surprise us.'
Already 500 potential customers have reserved a spot on one of his trips at a cost of $250,000 (£200,000) each.
Sir Richard Branson's firm has designed SpaceShipTwo, pictured, to take 'space tourists' on short flights into space without going into orbit
Last August the SpaceShipTwo aircraft - which is designed for two pilots and six passengers - received its operating licence from the US Federal Aviation Authority.
'I think I'd be very disappointed if we're not into space with a test flight by the end of the year and I'm not into space myself next year and the progamme isn't well underway by the end of next year', Branson told the Telegraph in April.
'The test programme is going really well, and as long as we've got our brave test pilots pushing it to the limit we think that after whatever it is, 12 years of hard work, we're nearly there', he said.
Earlier this year, Branson also invited Professor Stephen Hawking to come to space on board a Virgin Galactic flight.
The physicist and cosmologist, 75, said he had not expected to have the opportunity to experience space but that the Virgin boss had offered him a seat.
Prof Stephen Hawking has revealed he has been offered a dream trip to space on Virgin Atlantic. Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Hawking said he did not hesitate in saying 'yes' to Richard Branson's offer
Discussing the meaning of happiness on Good Morning Britain, he said: 'My three children have brought me great joy.
'And I can tell you what will make me happy, to travel in space. I thought no one would take me but Richard Branson has offered me a seat on Virgin Galactic, and I said yes immediately.'
Branson had previously suggested that he might be able to complete a flight in 2009, but the plan was thrown off by a range of problems and disasters.
In October 2014, SpaceShipTwo - a plane designed to run the first ever passenger flights into space - split into pieces as it fell to Earth over California's Mojave Desert.
The vehicle broke up after the co-pilot unlocked the craft's tail wing breaking system early, which led to a sudden increase in aerodynamic forces as it passed through the sound barrier.
New experiments on Earth may affect how we search for life on the Red Planet.
Mars Pathfinder and its mini-rover Sojourner (pictured) landed on the Martian surface 20 years ago this week. The planet has been continuously “inhabited” by landers and orbiters ever since. (NASA)
In a new paper in the journal Scientific Reports, Jennifer Wadsworth and Charles Cockell from the U.K. Centre for Astrobiology in Edinburgh, Scotland, report on a series of experiments to test how environmental stresses on Mars would affect bacterial populations. It was already known that the Martian surface is a tough place for microbes to survive, but the new experiments show just how toxic the mix of ultraviolet irradiation, perchlorates in the soil, and iron oxides really is.
Wadsworth and Cockell used for their tests Bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacterium on Earth that normally is quite resilient to environmental stresses. But the Mars-like combination of perchlorates and UV radiation simply was too much. In some cases, stressing the bacteria resulted in complete sterilization of a sample in only 60 seconds!
Of course, we might expect that indigenous life on Mars would be better suited to deal with these environmental stresses than terrestrial life is, because any existing Martian organisms would have had a long time to adapt from a warmer and wetter Mars to current conditions, and may have evolved adaptation strategies. Nevertheless, seeing the devastating effects of the toxic cocktail on a familiar type of bacteria shows how difficult these stresses would be to overcome. It would be a tough hill to climb for any organism.
Does that mean there is no life on Mars? No. We already knew that the Martian surface is a hostile environment, and this new study just provides experimental confirmation of how hostile it really is.
That means we may have to refine our search strategy. If the surface of Mars is toxic, we might expect any indigenous life to thrive in the subsurface, where UV radiation does not reach. The new experiments may motivate us to look a bit deeper below the surface than we had planned to, or focus more on possible niche habitats such as within salt rocks.
This 200-yard-wide pit on Mars, likely a cave entrance, was photographed by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
We also have to keep in mind that Mars is a big planet with different types of soils, rock layers, and environmental conditions. Past rover and lander missions have given us a glimpse of this variety. The so-called Special Regions on Mars are subject to stricter planetary protection guidelines precisely because they could contain life. Particularly promising locations are found below ice crusts or within lava tube caves, where life would find natural protection from UV radiation and a higher availability of water. Regions associated with hydrothermal activity also would be promising, and some of these are likely to be active today.
So despite the new results, the search for life on Mars is by no means over. It will simply become more focused as we learn more about the Martian environment and its variations.
ESA SET TO EXPLORE ‘THE MOST MYSTERIOUS PLANET’ IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
ESA SET TO EXPLORE ‘THE MOST MYSTERIOUS PLANET’ IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
This illustration shows HD 189733b, a huge gas giant that orbits very close to its host star HD 189733. The planet's atmosphere is scorching with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometre-per-hour winds. At a distance of 63 light-years from us, this turbulent alien world is one of the nearest exoplanets to Earth that can be seen crossing the face of its star. By observing this planet before, during, and after it disappeared behind its host star during orbit, astronomers were able to deduce that HD 189733b is a deep, azure blue — reminiscent of Earth's colour as seen from space.
A double decker spacecraft—which can carry TWO orbiters, one belonging to the Japanese Space Agency and another one from the European counterpart is set to explore one of the most mysterious planets in the solar system, on a mission that will launch in 2018. Scientists want to get as close as possible to the surface of the planet, which is blasted by EXTREME radiation levels around ten times higher than on the sun, and by temperatures that literally melt metal.
The Mission is set to launch on October 5, 2018, from Kourou in French Guinea and will arrive at Mercury, the closest planet in our solar system on December 5, 2025.
Mercury is considered as one of the most intriguing planets in our solar system, and very little is known about it. BepiColombo would be the European Space Agency’s FIRST mission to the closest planet in our solar system.
The ESA has said that BepiColombo aims to “follow up on many of the intriguing results of NASA‘s Messenger mission, probing deeper into Mercury’s mysteries than ever before.”
The mission’s main goal is to research the strange characteristics of Mercury’s internal structure and magnetic field generation, and specifically how it interacts with the Sun and the Solar Wind.
The entire mission cost around 1.3 billion Euros and involves around 33 companies from a total of twelve countries in Europe, as well as companies from the United States and Japan.
The spacecraft has an extremely unusual design carrying two orbiters, one from the ESA and one from JAXA, which will separate upon arrival in order to enter two different but complementary orbits around the closest planet to the sun.
According to the European Space Agency, “BepiColombo is Europe’s first mission to Mercury. It will set off in 2018 on a journey to the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet in our Solar System. When it arrives at Mercury in late 2025, it will endure temperatures in excess of 350 °C and gather data during its 1-year nominal mission, with a possible 1-year extension. The mission comprises two spacecraft: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). BepiColombo is a joint mission between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), executed under ESA leadership.”
The mission has already been delayed several times in the past but mission specialists are confident that the launch will definitely take place in Octobre of 2018.
Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s director of science told reporters at the agency’s center in the Dutch coastal town of Noordwij: Mercury is the ‘most peculiar of all rocky planets.’ And Mercury rightfully is the most mysterious of them all, having a surface governed by extreme temperatures that range from a drastically 450 to -180 degrees Celsius.
However, Mercury is also the ONLY planet in the solar system that has a magnetic field beside Earth. And while Earth’s magnetic field protects us from harmful solar radiation, Mercury’s magnetic field is so weak that it doesn’t provide much protection against solar radiation. The planet orbits the sun just 58 million kilometers away, meaning that it’s bombarded by radiation levels that would destroy life as we know it in an instant.
Mercury is also a planet that is difficult to study from Earth due to its proximity to the sun, as the brightness tends to impede the view.
Furthermore, due to the extreme gravity, the sun has on the planet, it’s very hard to place a spacecraft into stable orbit around the planet.
“We are flying into a pizza oven which is why we had to test materials at a very high and different temperature rates. Sometimes with very unwanted results,” said Ulrich Reininghaus, the ESA BepiColombo project manager.
Mercury has truly been a challenge for space agencies around the globe. So far, only two NASA missions have managed to visit the planet before—the Mariner 10 and the Messenger missions who studied the planet in the 1970’s and 2011 respectively.
The Mercury mission is Europe’s “most complicated ever,” said Gimenez.
“It’s difficult to get there, it’s difficult to work there.”
Mission scientists want to get as close as possible to the surface of the planet, which is blasted by EXTREME radiation levels around ten times higher than on the sun, and by temperatures that literally melt metal.
Both spacecraft are expected to study the planet between one to two years, but experts say the orbiters could last a bit longer before crashing into the surface of the planet.
The name Travis Walton is well known within UFO circles. The (in?)famous abduction story that took place in Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest made international headlines. While the case does have its detractors, a recent soil study of the site has come up with some very strange findings. Perhaps something otherworldly did occur on that November night in 1975.
On the evening of November 5th, Walton and some friends were driving down a quiet road in the forest after a long day of logging. Noticing a strange light, Walton and his buddies went to investigate. As they approached the strange object emitting a bright light, Travis was hit by some sort of beam and thrown several feet into the air. Panic ensued. His friends left him lying on the forest floor, and ran for it. Minutes later, realising they had just left their friend injured or dead, the men returned to the site. The object was gone, and so was Walton. They went to the local Sheriff’s department, reported the incident, and were suspected of murdering Walton. Five days later, Walton found himself on a lonely stretch of highway, tired, hungry and dehydrated. As Walton’s memory slowly began to return, he remembered being aboard a strange craft, odd alien beings, and a life altering event that has totally reshaped his entire grasp of reality.
Travis Walton
A study of soil samples completed by Frontier Analysis Limited last week of the site where the alleged abduction took place has provided some interesting insight into the story, and perhaps has begun to shed some light onto that mysterious event in 1975. Led by Phyllis A. Budinger, an accomplished chemist and scientist, the report details the soil composition of the location directly beneath the strange object Walton saw that night.
According to the report,
The objective of this project is to determine whether the analysis of the soils will detect any anomalies which can be related to an unknown craft (UFO).
Several soil samples were taken from the supposed abduction site itself, along with several more control samples from the surrounding area. While there was not much difference between the site samples and the controls, two anomalies did present themselves.
The report states,
It is revealed that iron containing particulates amounts are higher in the site soils compared to the control soils. Furthermore, there is indication that the levels tend to be higher in the surface soils compared to the sub-surface soils of the site samples….The exchangeable cations (calcium, magnesium, potassium) are significantly higher in the site samples than the control samples. This would indicate some chemical changes in the site samples. The detection of the differences in cationic activity in the soils is intriguing.
While the report suggests that there may be a natural reason for the cationic activity, such as clay deposits influencing chemical changes, the increased amount of iron in the sample is definitely out of the norm.
Images of the cationic samples, courtesy of The Black Vault.
The report engages in some speculation,
…the hovering craft propulsion system has a powerful electromagnetic effect thereby drawing (and concentrating) these iron particulates toward the surface…And, there is indication that while hovering an electronic force field surrounds the craft, causing an ionizing effect to materials in close proximity.
The team behind the report has apparently done similar soil studies in the past of UFO landing sites. However, their conclusions reflect a strong push for more studies.
Clearly the quantitative results for the iron containing particulates need to be further verified. So definitely, more soil sampling is needed from the site and outside the site…
The report argues that additional studies are required, however, this initial report does lay the groundwork for additional scientific study of the UFO question. Whatever a person’s opinion may be in regards to UFOs and the Travis Walton abduction, when real science engages in these events, a few puzzle pieces begin to fit together. While we may never fully understand what occurred on that November night, this study definitely leads us down a path that, like Walton, may begin to shift our perception of the UFO phenomenon.
If the scientific community does choose to engage in more soil sampling of the site, as well as other evidence from the many UFO events in recent years, will humanity generate a better idea of what UFOs are? Is the truth literally buried in the ground beneath our feet?
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Vreemde objecten gespot op Mars. Hebben alien-jagers een piramide gevonden op de rode planeet?
Vreemde objecten gespot op Mars. Hebben alien-jagers een piramide gevonden op de rode planeet?
Op Mars zijn door alien-jagers mysterieuze ‘koepelvormige’ en ‘piramideachtige’ structuren gespot. Dat meldt Fox News.
De onregelmatigheden op het Marsoppervlak werden vertoond op het YouTube-kanaal ArtAlienTV, nadat een onderzoeker de rode planeet met Google Earth had afgespeurd.
“We hebben hier een 15 meter grote koepel of bol in een Marskrater waar grote pijpen uit komen,” legt ArtAlienTV uit.
Kunstmatig
De "koepel" en "pyramide" zichten op Mars
(GOOGLE EARTH/ESA/DLR/FR Berlin, G. Neukum )
“Op 150 meter afstand is een driehoekige, piramideachtige structuur te zien met een doorsnee van ruim 35 meter,” aldus het kanaal.
“Deze objecten lijken kunstmatig te zijn en zijn duidelijk zichtbaar op Google Mars,” klonk het verder.
Het gebied waar de ‘koepel’ en de ‘piramide’ zijn gevonden, bevindt zich tussen de Oyama-krater en Mawrth Vallis, een vallei op de planeet waar de ExoMars-rover mogelijk gaat landen in 2020.
Steencirkel
ArtAlienTV merkt in de video op dat veel van de potentiële koepels die op Mars zijn gevonden, uiteindelijk zandduinen bleken te zijn.
Onlangs nog claimden alien-jagers een mysterieuze ‘steencirkel’ te hebben gevonden op het Marsoppervlak.
Boomstronk
Eerder dit jaar werd daarnaast beweerd dat Marsrover Curiosity van de NASA een oude boomstronk had gefotografeerd op de rode planeet.
In 2015 zeiden UFO-jagers dat ze een mysterieuze vrouw met paraplu hadden ontdekt op een foto die door Curiosity was gemaakt.
Al jaren doen er de meest wilde verhalen de ronde over UFO waarnemingen op de voormalige vliegbasis Soesterberg.
In 1979 werden al de eerste observaties gedaan en nu anno 2017 lijkt het alsof ze zich nog steeds in die omgeving bevinden.
Op de website Weerplaza stond enkele dagen geleden een artikel over de zogenaamde lichtende nachtwolken.
Op zich een heel interessant artikel met daarin een kort 14 seconden durend filmpje met de volgende omschrijving.
Het is een zogenaamde timelapse opname, gemaakt op de voormalig vliegbasis Soesterberg, waarbij de camera met kleine tussenpozen opnames maakte tussen middernacht en 1 uur 's nachts.
Aangezien ze heel bang zijn dat iemand anders hun filmpjes bekijkt op andere plekken dan bij hen hebben ze de instellingen van dat filmpje zodanig gemaakt dat je het alleen daar kunt bekijken.
Wanneer je die 14 seconden bekijkt, zie je eigenlijk ook niet bijzonders. Echter, een lezer (dank!) ontdekte dat er wel degelijk dingen op staan die niemand anders had opgemerkt.
Want helemaal aan het einde zie je een aantal opnames van wat niet anders te omschrijven is dan als UFO’s.
Hierna volgen de drie screenshots zoals wij die ontvingen en omcirkeld zijn de plekken waar de UFO’s zichtbaar zijn.
Op de screenshots zelf zijn ze moeilijk te zien, daarom volgen daarna enkele vergrotingen, waar ze wel heel duidelijk zijn.
En dan hierna enkele uitvergrotingen van de vreemde objecten:
Dit is uiteraard niet de eerste keer dat Soesterberg in het nieuws komt vanwege een UFO waarneming.
De eersten, voor zover ons bekend, gaan terug naar 1979 en vonden plaats op de voormalige vliegbasis Soesterberg. Het relaas van die waarnemingen staat uitgebreid gedocumenteerd op de website Ufowijzer.
Vaak houden mensen die iets bijzonders hebben meegemaakt op het gebied van UFO’s en in militaire dienst waren hun kaken stijf op elkaar omdat ze te maken hebben met geheimhoudingsplicht.
Wanneer ze ouder worden en niet meer in actieve dienst zijn, willen ze toch vaak vertellen wat ze hebben meegemaakt. Zo te zien, valt het volgende verhaal in die categorie.
De waarneming speelde in 1991 en wanneer je het verhaal van de getuige leest, wordt duidelijk waarom dat nu pas naar buiten komt.
De getuige is anoniem en vertelt het volgende verhaal:
In de nacht van 17 februari 1991 liep ik de nachtdienstwacht op de militaire basis Soesterberg in Nederland.
Samen met een andere cadet kwam ik om 3.00 uur in de ochtend aan bij de centrale parkeerplaats en zie een grote cirkel in de lucht, recht boven ons. Het had geen bepaalde vorm, maar alleen felle lichten die langzaam tegen de wijzers van de klok indraaiden. De lichtpunten zelf roteerden niet, maar de kleuren (veranderden) op een soort vloeibare manier.
Ik schat dat het object ongeveer 30 tot 50 meter in doorsnee was. Het eerste dat wij beiden dachten, was dat het hier ging om een luchtschip, een Zeppelin, zo eentje als GoodYear heeft met lichtschermen aan de zijkanten.
Dat dit ding heel erg laag hing en heel stil, maakte dit alles echter vreemd, heel erg vreemd.
Na een paar minuten begonnen de lichten sneller rond te draaien en plotseling steeg het object op met een onvoorstelbare snelheid richting westen.
Een paar seconden later voelden we een harde wind die om ons hoofd blies, zoals dat gebeurt met bijvoorbeeld een helikopter.
Als er een manier zou zijn om de snelheid van dit ding te beschrijven dan zou ik dat doen, maar die is er niet. We hadden een onbelemmerd uitzicht van ongeveer 30 kilometer. Dit ding legde die afstand vanuit stilstand af in ongeveer een tiende van een seconde.
Ik ken de luchtvaart en ik heb zelf vliegervaring en daarnaast ben ik erg technisch. Door dit soort acceleraties zou een mens veranderen in een vloeibare stof.
Jarenlang is dit een onbesproken hoofdstuk geweest in mijn leven. Ik wilde niet over dit voorval spreken omdat direct na het incident de andere cadet en ik om onverklaarbare redenen heel erg ziek werden. Dagenlang hadden we hoge koorts en moesten we overgeven. De ziekte was zo erg dat het hele voorval mij getraumatiseerd heeft en ik er jarenlang niet over heb kunnen praten.
Tot zover het verhaal van de getuige.
Het verslag sluit natuurlijk naadloos aan op de eerdere UFO-waarnemingen boven de voormalige vliegbasis Soesterberg. Voor een uitgebreid artikel hierover verwijzen wij naar Ufo wijzer.
Sommigen kunnen zich misschien nog wel de reportage van RTV Utrecht herinneren over de waarnemingen uit 1979.
Een ding lijkt duidelijk en dat is dat er zich heel wat meer afspeelde rondom deze voormalige NAVO basis dan ons ooit verteld zal worden. En wie weet, misschien komen door bovenstaande wel meer getuigen naar voren.
En anno 2017 lijkt de omgeving van Soesterberg nog steeds in de belangstelling te staan van onbekende vliegende objecten in het luchtruim.
Dankzij een satelliet van de gigantische VLT-telescoop in Chili werd een unieke exoplaneet ontdekt. Dat deelt de Europese Zuidelijke Sterrenwacht ESO mee.
De SPHERE van de VLT stootte op een planeet die ongeveer 385 lichtjaar van ons is verwijderd. Ze heeft zes tot twaalf keer de massa van Jupiter. Met een temperatuur van 1.000 tot 1.400 graden Celsius is het hemellichaam behoorlijk warm.
De planeet lijkt te zijn gehuld in een zeer stoffige atmosfeer met dikke bewolking, en draait om een hete, jonge ster die verrassend snel om haar as wentelt. De ster lijkt niet omringd te zijn door een schijf van puin, wat volgens de ESO merkwaardig is voor haar leeftijd. Het ontbreken van deze schijf roept de vraag op hoe de planeet überhaupt is ontstaan.
Dubbelster Eén mogelijkheid is dat de planeet zich heeft gevormd in een schijf van gas en stof, waarna interacties met andere planeten ervoor hebben gezorgd dat ze in haar huidige wijde omloopbaan terechtkwam. Maar het is ook denkbaar dat de ster en de planeet samen zijn gevormd als een soort dubbelster, waarin de zwaarste van de twee zijn lichtere soortgenoot ervan heeft weerhouden om voldoende materie te verzamelen om een echte ster te worden.
De ontdekking van de planeet biedt astronomen de mogelijkheid om de samenstelling en verdeling van wolken in zijn atmosfeer te onderzoeken, en theorieën over het ontstaan, de evolutie en de fysica van exoplaneten te toetsen, zegt de ESO.
De bittere koude, de verschroeiende straling en de dunne atmosfeer maken van Mars een weinig benijdenswaardige plek om te leven. Toch zijn wetenschappers naarstig op zoek naar bewijs van leven op de rode planeet en worden er bemande missies naar Mars voorbereid. Maar de kans om er leven aan te treffen, is dankzij nieuw onderzoek echter een stuk kleiner geworden.
Ooit was Mars een planeet met oceanen, zeeën en rivieren. Het microbieel leven dat toen ontstond, zou volgens wetenschappers op verschillende plaatsen nog aanwezig kunnen zijn. Maar volgens een nieuwe studie zit de bodem van de planeet vol bacteriedodende stoffen. Alle micro-organismen die ooit bestaan zouden hebben, zouden daardoor verstikt zijn.
Perchloraten kunnen een voedingsbron vormen voor bacteriën, maar ze kunnen ook giftig zijn - afhankelijk van de aanwezigheid van UV-straling.
Reeds in 1976 troffen de ruimtetuigen Viking 1 en Viking 2 perchloraten aan in de bodem van Mars. Ook de Curiosity rover, die nog steeds aan het werk is op de rode planeet, bevestigde die ontdekking. Perchloraten kunnen een voedingsbron vormen voor bacteriën, maar ze kunnen ook giftig zijn - afhankelijk van de aanwezigheid van ultraviolette straling en daar baadt Mars helaas in overvloed in.
Om uit te kunnen maken of de perchloraten een goede of een slechte zaak zouden zijn, beslisten postgraduaatsstudent Jennifer Wadsworth en professor Charles Cockell van de Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy om een stukje Mars na te bouwen in een laboratorium.
Ze wilden onderzoeken of de 'bacillus subtilis' - een veelvoorkomende aardse bacterie - er zou kunnen overleven. Wadsworth en Cockell dompelden de bacterie onder in een waterachtige oplossing van magnesiumperchloraat, de soort die het meest voorkomt op Mars, aan een gelijkaardige concentratie. Vervolgens stelden ze de oplossing bloot aan ultraviolette straling op dezelfde golflengte als die Mars over zich heen krijgt.
Vernietigd
De bestraalde cellen in de perchloraatoplossing waren binnen 30 seconden steriel. Cellen die aan het UV-licht werden blootgesteld zonder het perchloraat, deden het ietsje beter: die kolonie werd na 60 seconden van de kaart geveegd.
Uit volgende testen bleek dat de UV-stralen het perchloraat afbreken in andere chemicaliën, namelijk hypochloriet en chloriet, en het zijn deze stoffen die de bacteriën vernietigen.
Giftige cocktail
"Het oppervlak van Mars is dodelijk voor vegetatieve cellen en maakt een groot deel van het oppervlak en regio¿s dicht aan het oppervlak onbewoonbaar."
Jennifer Wadsworth & prof. Charles Cockell, Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy
De wetenschappers onderzochten ook de effecten van ijzeroxides en waterstofperoxide, eveneens terug te vinden in de bodem van Mars. Maar die experimenten brachten nog meer slecht nieuws: wanneer de bacteriën bestraald werden met UV-licht in de aanwezigheid van perchloraten, ijzeroxide en peroxide, stierven ze elf keer sneller dan met enkel perchloraat.
Volgens Wadsworth en Cockell worden de ongastvrije leefomstandigheden veroorzaakt door een "giftige cocktail van oxidanten, ijzeroxides, perchloraten en UV-straling". "Het oppervlak van Mars is dodelijk voor vegetatieve cellen en maakt een groot deel van het oppervlak en regio's dicht aan het oppervlak onbewoonbaar."
Sprankeltje hoop
"Het betekent waarschijnlijk wel dat we leven ondergronds moeten zoeken, waar het afgeschermd is van de harde stralingsomgeving aan het oppervlak."
Jennifer Wadsworth
Dat betekent echter nog niet dat alle hoop verloren is. Enkele zaken spelen immers wel in het voordeel van de bacteriën.
De onderzoekers voerden hun experiment uit aan een temperatuur van 25 graden Celsius, maar wanneer ze dat opnieuw deden aan 4 graden Celsius, stierven de bacteriën tien keer minder snel.
Mars is echter nog een stuk kouder: de gemiddelde temperatuur op de planeet is -55°C, met pieken tot 22°C. Ergens tussen de dodelijke koude en de té warme temperaturen, zou er een comfortzone moeten zijn waarin de bacteriën wel kunnen blijven bestaan. Bovendien zijn perchloraten niet overal in een even grote concentratie aanwezig en sommige bacteriën die zich onder het oppervlak bevinden, zouden ook afgeschermd kunnen zijn van UV-straling.
"Ik kan niet spreken voor het leven uit het verleden," aldus Wadsworth, "maar wat het huidige leven betreft: dit [onderzoek] sluit het niet uit, maar betekent waarschijnlijk wel dat we leven ondergronds moeten zoeken, waar het afgeschermd is van de harde stralingsomgeving aan het oppervlak."
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)
Cold War Spy Plane Encountered Mysterious Craft Covered In 20 Flashing Lights
Cold War Spy Plane Encountered Mysterious Craft Covered In 20 Flashing Lights
British Ministry of Defence released the once top secret file last week, together with several other formerly declassified documents.
The information includes the unexplained incident involving a USAF RC-135 plane and a big object. It took place on October 19, 1982, when the plane was snooping on Soviet military activity. The big object reportedly buzzed the aircraft over the Med.
The American crew called for help to the British troops stationed at RAF Troodos, a base on Cyprus, as a UFO reportedly cloaked in a multitude of flashing lights, 20 at a time, zoned in.
The incident reportedly lasted for around 90 minutes. The UFO was spotted on the south of the island and an RAF Phantom, and two US Navy F-14 fighters were scrambled to chase the so-called intruder.
As the three jets approached, the American crew saw the UFO turned away and headed toward the African coast, but the fighter pilots had seen nothing.
Documents show that an investigation was conducted and sent to the US defence bods. Intelligence officers analysed the transcripts of the distress call, tapes, and radar film, but all of these were removed from files.
A suggestion from an RAF worker says that they have a strong suspicion that the UFO was a mirage effect from lights on Israel or Lebanon coast.
However, the results of the joint UK and US investigation are missing in the file.
Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University was instrumental in the release of those files. He described the encounter as fascinating and puzzling as the US and UK military authorities took it very seriously.
Watch UFO Sighting Video – Plane Flight From New Mexico to California
Watch UFO Sighting Video – Plane Flight From New Mexico to California
UFOs were filmed from a plane over Unsure, New Mexico. Three bright orb-like objects apparently accompanied the Sunday morning flight from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Burbank, California. The three UFOs were videotaped over the very difficult to reach part of the desert, seemingly resting in the middle of nowhere.
The reporting witness recorded them on video. He also claimed that his partner observed the mysterious orbs as well.
It is not the first time UFOs are either filmed or snapped from inside of planes. Sceptics would often suggest that reflections from light sources inside the plane could actually look like UFOs hovering or flying outside.
However, this case involves two individuals that allegedly saw the strange objects.
Check the video out and see whether they are UFOs or not.
Government agencies are finally taking seriously the threat posed by potential asteroid impacts. Surprise near-miss asteroids, official asteroid preparedness plans, and predictions of future encounters have been in the news with regular occurrence lately, and for good reason. Space agencies track tens of thousands of space rocks hurtling through the solar system all around us, while most of us here on Earth are oblivious to the dangers looming above our heads. Aside from collaborating with other federal agencies on what to do in the event of a strike, NASA has finally decided to test an asteroid redirect technology straight from the pages of science fiction.
We’re pretty much surrounded.
The test is being called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, and is slated to take place in 2024. The test gets its name from the fact that the particular asteroid to be redirected is part of a binary system of asteroids, a one-two punch of deadly space projectiles. The system is known as Didymos, composed of Didymos A and Didymos B. Didymos A, the larger of the two, measures in at around 2,560 feet (780 metres) in diameter, while the smaller Didymos B is only about 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter – still plenty to wipe out significant portions of the human population.
The spacecraft will be sent on a collision course with Didymos A.
During the DART test, NASA will fire a refrigerator-sized “kinetic impactor” projectile at Didymos A intended to knock it slightly off its trajectory. Since the asteroid has a ‘twin,’ NASA scientists will have a control against which they can measure the efficacy of the DART spacecraft.
Basically a man-made asteroid.
One of the DART team leaders, Andy Cheng, says the test will be the first experiment to determine how viable such a planet-saving maneuver might be in the event that we are faced with a do-or-die scenario:
Since we don’t know that much about their internal structure or composition, we need to perform this experiment on a real asteroid. With DART, we can show how to protect Earth from an asteroid strike with a kinetic impactor by knocking the hazardous object into a different flight path that would not threaten the planet.
Let’s just hope we don’t need to save the planet before 2024.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.