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...
05-10-2017
The REAL FIRE IN THE SKY ~ The WALTON EXPERIENCE by Travis Walton
The REAL FIRE IN THE SKY ~ The WALTON EXPERIENCE by Travis Walton
Travis Walton is an American logger who was allegedly abducted by a UFO on November 5, 1975, while working with a logging crew in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. Walton could not be found, but reappeared after a five-day search.
The Walton case received mainstream publicity and remains one of the best-known instances of alleged alien abduction. UFO historian Jerome Clark writes that "Few abduction reports have generated as much controversy" as the Walton case. It is furthermore one of the very few alleged alien abduction cases with some corroborative eyewitnesses.
In 1993, Walton's book was adapted into a film, Fire in the Sky, directed by Robert Lieberman and starring D. B. Sweeney as Travis Walton. The film found "Moderate success, mixed reviews, and ufologists 'complaints about its inaccuracies and exaggerations." Especially inaccurate was the portion of the film detailing his time on the UFO; it bears almost no resemblance to the original narrative.
This is the story of Travis Walton, from Travis Walton. If you ever had the chance to catch the movie "Fire in the Sky" then you know the story of Travis, and what he claims happened to him. But if you are like us, we were a little surprised to find out how much of the movie was not what Travis actually had said happened to him. I mean we understand making things work in a film. But changing what he actually said, about something like this.... The story alone was very good. From the time of his abduction until his return, you get a bit of a different story when you hear it strait from Travis.
And if you are not familiar with this story. We would strongly urge you to take a listen.µ
In 1969, the U.S. Air Force closed down their “Project Blue Book” investigation of “Unidentified Flying Objects” by claiming their evaluations of more than 12,000 sightings had not yielded a single instance where a UFO had ever posed a threat to national security, nor demonstrated technology “beyond the range of present day scientific knowledge”, nor been categorized as extraterrestrial. Headquartered at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio where legend long suggests recovered salvage from the 1947 Roswell incident was taken for further research and development, all of the project’s declassified records were allegedly transferred to the National Archives and Records Service.
Photograph of the The National Archives, taken by Nick Cooper 3 February, 2007.
(Credit: Nick Cooper/Wikimedia Commons)
But did the Air Force really shut down the project, or just move it into a private sphere where the public could be kept at arm’s length? A handful of government documents have slipped out over the years pointing to the latter scenario. A look back at Project Blue Book is insightful here, for knowledge of how the project evolved remains relevant to modern assessments as well as the effort to gauge what current high-level insiders might know. Historical information indicates that the Army Air Force took serious attention to UFOs when reports of “foo fighters” started coming in from pilots during World War II. Further sightings at military installations in 1947 led to classified orders that UFO reports be sent to division offices at Wright-Patterson Air Field where General Nathan Twining was selected to oversee any type of evaluation.
Twining authored the now legendary September 23, 1947 classified memo to Air Force General George Schulgen in which he responded to a request for information about “flying saucer sightings” by reporting his team’s opinion that, “The phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious.” This apparently catalyzed the Air Force’s decision to open an official investigation into the UFO phenomenon, as Project Sign was then established near the end of 1947. Major General L. C. Craigie sent a directive to Twining to collect and evaluate information “concerning sightings and phenomena in the atmosphere which can be construed to be of concern to the national security.”
General Nathan Twining, author of the September 23, 1947 memo. He later earned a fourth star and became USAF Chief of Staff — and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A precursor to Project Blue Book, Project Sign was where Ohio State University astronomy professor Dr. J. Allen Hynek first became involved with the government study of UFOs. Hynek was contracted by the project to analyze UFO reports and determine if objects observed were misidentified astronomical phenomena. Generally skeptical, Hynek still found that roughly 20 percent of the reports could not be explained in such a manner.
In History of the United States Air Force Programs by Thomas Tulien, we learn that Project Sign’s studies led to an intelligence “estimate of the situation” in the fall of 1948 which suggested that flying objects ranging from pilot Kenneth Arnold’s famous Washington sighting to those witnessed by personnel at Muroc AFB, Rapid City AFB (now Ellsworth AFB), and Los Alamos Laboratory were interplanetary spacecraft (a conclusion largely based around the spectacular maneuvers reported, beyond the scope of modern quantum physics). Upper brass such as Director of Intelligence Maj. General Charles Cabell and Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt S. Vandenberg didn’t care for that assessment however, leading to a political battle for control of the project between the Pentagon and the Air Force. This tussle was won by the Pentagon, with Project Sign ordered to send all case files to the Pentagon and USAF Scientific Advisory Board for further assessment.
General Hoyt Vandenberg
Project Sign staff were soon transferred or reassigned and Project Grudge was launched in the early part of 1949, with a new staff and a directive that UFO reports could be explained with conventional reasoning. Project Grudge wasn’t nearly as active in conducting studies as Project Sign, yet those pesky UFOs still refused to disappear. New project director Lt. Edward J. Ruppelt sought out Hynek again for help interpreting UFO reports, however over time Hynek’s position began to evolve as he realized that the unexplained 20 percent presented a genuine scientific challenge.
Yet, General Cabell ultimately became discontent with Project Grudge’s lack of substantive analysis and re-organized the project again in the spring of 1952, forming Project Blue Book. This was soon followed by one the most notable UFO incidents in American history, when a wave of sightings hit Washington D.C. in late July. Air Force Director of Intelligence Maj. General John Samford held the Pentagon’s largest press conference since World War II to dismiss the sightings as a result of “temperature inversion”, but President Truman meanwhile directed the CIA to start looking into the matter. This led to the formation of the Robertson Panel, which quickly came to conclusions in 1953 which were similar to that of Project Grudge in claiming there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security and that the the Air Force should work to demystify UFOs. The Panel also concluded that “the continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these parlous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic.” This issue of government sovereignty being threatened by the existence of extraterrestrial visitors has haunted Ufology ever since (and was the subject of an academic paper “Sovereignty and the UFO” by Alexander Wendt and Bud Duvall that was first presented at The Ohio State University’s Mershon Center for International Security Studies in 2006.)
Edward Ruppelt (standing center) at July 29, 1952 Pentagon UFO press conference. Also pictured, Major Generals Roger Ramey (seated left), USAF operations chief, and John A. Samford (seated right), USAF director of intelligence.
(image credit: Wikipedia)
While there were many extraordinary UFO incidents that occurred during the Blue Book era that were not included in the study, some of the most compelling UFO encounters in history are among the 12,000 cases. The actual number of “unknowns” (regarded as unexplained) has changed over the years, with the Air Force originally noting 701 as the “official number”, though only listing at first 564 in declassified documents, and later with FOIA releases revealing an actual number of over 1,500. The majority of these unknowns involve highly credible professional witnesses, many with the military. They include; 1952 San Marcos Air Force Base involving at least 6 Air Force personell; 1959 Bunker Hill Air Force Base encounter involving mutiple Airmen and an attempted intercept by a jet; 1964, Socorro, New Mexico case involving police officer Lonnie Zamora; and the 1968 airborne encounter with a pilot near Ocala, Florida with radar confirmation.
While publicly the Air Force was actively trying to get ot the bottom of UFO’s, privately they were utilizing Blue Book to now turn away from attempting to investigate the nature of the phenomenon and focus on the public relations issues of trying to downplay them. Hynek however was still embedded with Blue Book and did not concur with the Robertson Panel. He was determined to take on a role as an open-minded investigator, telling a gathering of physicists that “Ridicule is not part of the scientific method.” And while Hynek was now trying to investigate the true nature behind these phenomena, it soon became apparent to him that the investigative methods used by others at Project Blue Book were grossly inadequate to properly investigate and analyze these phenomena. Career opportunities in the astronomy field would keep Hynek busy, yet high profile UFO incidents would continue to bring him back to Project Blue Book. Potential cases would go through an unscientific screening process before reaching Blue Book’s attention and then individually selected for analysis. The majority of each investigation was then performed remotely, with Hynek as one of the only members of the project that would insist on conducting personal interviews and field investigations.
Dr. Howard P. Robertson, the California astrophysicist who chaired the 1953 CIA Panel and recommended Thornton Page.
A 1966 mass UFO sighting in Michigan became a turning point for Project Blue Book when Hynek was dispatched to investigate. Under intense pressure from the Air Force and the media, Hynek suggested a swamp gas explanation at a press conference that was quickly ridiculed and which he later cited as a career low point. The subsequent publicity however put him in the public eye as a UFO expert and he successfully lobbied Congress for an unbiased scientific study of the phenomenon. But the University of Colorado study led by skeptical physicist Edward Condon was far from unbiased, with Condon reported to have been biased all along. “The Condon Committee” came to a conclusion similar to that of the CIA’s Robertson Panel, declaring that UFOs were not worthy of serious study, sealing the fate of Project Blue Book and closing the government’s public investigation of UFO’s in 1969.
Hynek however kept moving forward, and while he was the face of the now controversial Project Blue Book, he became a strong public advocate for the continuing study of the UFO phenomenon. He published several books on the topic and introduced his “Close Encounters” classification system, which became solidified in the public consciousness when director Steven Spielberg utilized it for the title of his 1977 blockbuster film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (which featured a cameo by Hynek in the climactic ending.) Hynek also founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and kept studying the phenomenon up until his passing in 1986.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek
A variety of notable experts have strongly suggested that there were other agendas to Project Blue Book and that its termination did not mark the end of government investigations and research into UFO phenomena. Prominent author and Ufologist Kevin Randle, once a special investigator with CUFOS organization, was one of the first to review Project Blue Book’s declassified files in 1976 and found evidence to indicate that Blue Book was not being sent the reports on sightings that were deemed potential threats to national security. Modern Ufologist Grant Cameron, a widely recognized expert on presidential knowledge of UFOs, has suggested that the shutdown of Project Blue Book merely moved the project into the “black budget” era of deeper secrecy. Ufologist Christopher Chacon, best known as one of the world’s top Anomalists, knew Hynek personally and has been continuously investigating close encounter incidents worldwide for nearly thirty years. Chacon’s stint with a scientific think-tank allowed him an unprecedented access to all of Project Blue Book’s files, including those that are still classified, Chacon noting the presense of multiple agendas behind Blue Book’s existence and supposed termination. Historian Richard Dolan a pre-eminent expert on the topic of government secrecy surrounding UFOs, not only rebutted Edward Condon’s conclusions in the Condon Committee’s report, but also found sources that state many of the Project Blue Book cases were fictitious and part of a misinformation campaign. Researcher John Greenewald, best known as the creator of The Black Vault website, has become one of the top experts on Blue Book because of his intimate familiarity with the files, having acquired an incomparable collection of documents after filing more than 7,000 FOIA requests.
In the 1984 book Clear Intent by Lawrence Fawcett and Barry J. Greenwood (later re-published as The UFO Cover-Up), Hynek authored a foreword that helped shine a light on the truth of the government continuing to take UFOs quite seriously. This is proven in the book through documents obtained concerning UFO incidents up through the 1970s. Hynek took the opportunity to summarize the inherent contradiction of the government’s position following the closure of Blue Book. He noted that “the authors have made revealing use of documents released through the mechanism of the Freedom of Information Act and other data which have been made available to them… which show that the CIA and NSA protestations of innocence and lack of interest in UFOs are nothing short of prevarication.” Hynek goes on to reference NSA documents that were denied investigators by the courts on the grounds that they could jeopardize national security. “If this is so, then this very fact loudly proclaims that UFOs are not figments of the imagination but are, instead, quite real and of vital interest. For the government to continue to maintain that UFOs are nonexistent in the face of the documents already released… is puerile and in a sense an insult to the American people…”
It has been 48 years since Project Blue Book was officially terminated, but it’s place in history, whether as a superficial-scientific study or a public relations campaign, forever transformed the UFO landscape and our culture as a whole. For good or bad, Blue Book and the fascinating possibility of UFO’s captivated the country, divided the scientific and political communities and transformed the cultural landscape, producing an ongoing tsunami of questions and moreover fueling the need for answers. With such a provocative topic of scientific study that crosses-over into philosophical, psychological and sociological arenas, how could we ever not expect that we would be forever changed, no matter what results Project Blue Book produced.
J. Allen Hynek’s can be seen in a scene towards the end of the Close Encounters movie.
The legacy of Project Blue Book lives on thanks to Hynek’s post-Blue Book contributions, the FOIA, all subsequent UFO research and of course the pop culture world, which includes Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and such recent movies as Arrival. While Project Blue Book was steeped in controversy, it undoubtedly led to an increased cultural awareness about the UFO phenomenon. Perhaps the story and legacy of Project Blue Book and that of Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s rise to celebrity as a renowned astronomer who joined the project as a skeptic and left it with the belief that UFOs demand serious scientific inquiry mirrors our own place, in a world now immersed in modern technology, reminding us the need to occasionally step-back with humility and realize we don’t have all the answers and be open-minded to the possibilities.
Learn more about how UFOs have been tracked after Blue Book…
Director Of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, Paul Hertz, has made a terrifying statement on aliens and the ET reality.
The NASA director didn’t hold back as he explained that it wouldn’t be humans that would discover aliens, it would be them that discover us.
Paul Hertz was named the director of Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA back in March 2012.
His role consists of being responsible for research programs and missions focused on understanding how the universe works, and to search for Earth-like planets.
When asked about the possibility of humans finding extraterrestrial life outside of our own planet, Hertz said:
So, again no, we didn’t discover aliens on Europa. This shouldn’t come as a huge shock to anyone. We told you repeatedly that today’s announcement Wouldn’t be about aliens. But every time We do one of these things with the press, inevitably you guys think it’s going to be about aliens.
So I’ll let you in on a little secret: NASA will literally never hold a press conference announcing We’ve discovered aliens. Because We’re never going to discover aliens. Aliens are going to discover us, and when they do it won’t be pretty. You can take that to the bank.
There certainly Won’t be enough time for a press conference about it. You probably won’t even have time to blink. Just a hot white flash in the sky and then lights out.
As far as the universe is concerned, relatively speaking, We’re infants. Lord knows we act like it. I mean you guys see the same garbage We do, right? Would you tolerate any of this? If you were them? I know sure as shit Wouldn’t. Not even for a second.
We’re basically infants and when the adults show up — and they will show up sooner or later — it’s game over.
Best case scenario, we wipe ourselves off the face of the planet before they get a crack at us.
You Want an announcement about aliens? Here it is: Be careful what you wish for. If you guys knew even a fraction of the shit we do, you’d never sleep again. I promise you that.
– Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Lightning Strike Disables UFO’s Cloaking Shield
Lightning Strike Disables UFO’s Cloaking Shield
It seems that lightning strikes affect a UFO’s cloacking shield, as proven by the accompanying video.
A unidentified flying item’s cloacking shield is one of its best resources since it enables the craft’s inhabitants to stay undetected while playing out their activities on Earth.
Obvious light can be viewed as a wavering electric and magnetic field and on the grounds that the cloaking shield takes a shot at an unmistakable level, it must work on some sort of electromagnetic standard we have yet to find. You know what else is electromagnetic? The enormous power surge caused by a lightning strike. So it turns out that when a covered UFO is hit by the thousand or so Giga Watts released by a lightning bolt, some interference may happen.
The following is a rare sight of such a phenomenon.
Amid a current rainstorm in the U.S., an extensive, round UFO ended up noticeably obvious in the wake of interacting with the enormous voltage of an electrical discharge between clouds. It is not clear whether the craft was coincidentally hit or it was there precisely consequently. Maybe these advanced vehicles can collect energy from an assortment of sources, including, however not constrained to volcanoes, lightning and solar wind.
After lightning touches its surface, the UFO becomes noticeably obvious for roughly 30 seconds amid which it stays lit and enlightens the sky and clouds encompassing its huge body. Once the UFO vanishes, the encompassing range comes back to its typical radiance.
In spite of the fact that recordings like this are uncommon, they are not unbelievable. In a past article, we demonstrated to you an fleet of UFOs recharging their their batteries during an electrical storm. Another video that rapidly became a sensation included an UFO leaving a lightning storm at a high speed.
Clearly aliens dependably require two things: human specimens and a mess of energy.
UFOs aren't necessarily alien spacecraft. And some purported UFOs aren't UFOs at all. Take the example from Apollo 16.
Image above: High-resolution, digital scan of a full frame from the original Apollo 16 film showing the object in question (top center) and its position relative to the moon. Reflections in the window are also visible (left and right). Credit: NASA
Beginning their return from the moon to an April 27, 1972, splashdown, Astronauts John Young, Thomas Mattingly and Charles Duke captured about four seconds of video footage of an object that seemed to look a lot like Hollywood's version of a spacecraft from another world.
Image on right: Image enhancement of the object and linear feature. Credit: NASA
The thing was described as "a saucer-shaped object with a dome on top." The images were captured with a 16mm motion picture camera shooting at 12 frames per second from a command/service module window. The object appears momentarily near the moon. As the camera pans, it moves out of the field of view. It reappears as the camera pans back. It appeared in about 50 frames.
Some very bright people recently worked hard to analyze that footage. Their conclusion was that the object wasn't at all what some observers thought it seemed to be. There is no indication the Apollo 16 crew ever thought the film showed anything special.
A group headed by Gregory Byrne of Johnson Space Center's Image Science and Analysis Group completed a report on its investigation earlier this year. They used a video copy of the film initially, then did a high-resolution digital scan of the original film for detailed analysis.
Image on left: View of the Apollo Command/Service Module from the Lunar Module during Apollo 17 showing the location of the EVA floodlight/boom. Credit: NASA
They stabilized images to correct for camera movement, and then aligned multiple frames in a sequence. One thing that showed them was that the object appeared to move slightly with respect to the moon, because of parallax brought about by slight camera motions and the nearness of the object to the camera.
The investigators also combined several frames in a sequence, to give them higher resolution and greater contrast than individual frames. The combinations showed them more clearly a "linear feature" attached to one side of the object. They also looked at archived images from other Apollo missions.
Bottom line: "All of the evidence in this analysis is consistent with the conclusion that the object in the Apollo 16 film was the EVA [spacewalk] floodlight/boom. There is no evidence in the photographic record to suggest otherwise."
Image above: Enhanced Apollo 16 image (left) compared with features of the EVA floodlight/boom from the perspective of a Command/Service Module window (right).
Reports of “trace cases,” where UFOs leave their fingerprints behind, are steadily growing. They can be easily dismissed as lies from attention-seeking weirdos, but when they come from professionals such as pilots, policemen, soldiers, and scientists, it makes you wonder. These are not the career fields that encourage employees to swing on the extraterrestrial vine; they stand to lose a lot by reporting or investigating a UFO. (Of course, they can also stand to gain a fair amount due to the publicity.) This doesn’t mean that civilian sightings are less important. Trace cases, like any other good mystery, cannot be proven to everybody’s satisfaction, but they remain eternally fascinating to paranormal sleuths, whether armchair or professional.
10. Cruiser Bruiser
A moody UFO had no respect for the law when it was approached by a deputy sheriff in 1979. While on patrol outside the small community of Stephen, Minnesota, Val Johnson encountered something that would give him and his cruiser the UFO version of weaseling out of a ticket. Around 2:00 AM, the deputy noticed a bright object hovering above the road and decided to investigate a little closer. The UFO suddenly rocketed straight at his patrol car, killing the engine. The last thing Johnson remembered was light all around him and the sound of glass shattering. When he woke up, the strange object was gone and he was blind and bruised but able to radio for help.
Fellow policemen soon arrived and found Johnson’s 1977 Ford worse off than he was. The windshield was splintered and smashed, there were dents in the hood, and both a headlight and the roof beacon were wrecked. The car’s two radio antennae were bent, respectively at 45- and 90-degree angles. Johnson also stated that the car’s clock and his wristwatch both stopped for 14 minutes and that he had blacked out for 39 minutes. Time in the Val Johnson story is the only suspicious factor in an otherwise compelling UFO trace case. He never clarified how he knew that he had been unconscious for exactly 39 minutes, nor did he explain what had made him aware that the two clocks had lost time and how he measured the time lost as 14 minutes.
The medical evidence was a little more solid. The doctor who attended to Johnson described his sight injury as similar to welder burns caused by extreme exposure to UV light. Thankfully, he eventually recovered his vision, and the patrol car—original damage intact—now stands in a museum in the Minnesota town of Warren.
9. The Killer Ice Cream Cone
On January 7, 1948, Captain Thomas Mantell was leading a squadron of four F-51 Mustangs to an airfield in northern Kentucky, unaware that a giant cone-shaped object in the air was already freaking out civilians, military, and highway patrols. The coned craft gave witnesses the impression of being reflective and at least 90 meters (300 ft) in diameter. Since they were incidentally in the right airspace, a tower operator requested that Mantell investigate. The Mustangs climbed in altitude to reach their target, but at 6,800 meters (22,500 ft), low fuel or oxygen forced all the other pilots to return to base.
Alone, Mantell continued ascending and radioed his last message, saying that he saw the object directly ahead and that he was going to give the chase another 10 minutes. But shortly afterward, a horrified local watched Mantell’s plane circle three times before it dove out of the sky and exploded about halfway to the ground. The extreme fringe believed that Mantell had been shot down by an extraterrestrial force. The director of Project Grudge, Edward J. Ruppelt, blamed the incident on the Skyhook balloon. The US Navy was secretly developing the Skyhook, a massive ice cream cone–shaped balloon made of reflective aluminum. None of the witnesses had heard about or seen Skyhook before.
According to Ruppelt’s sources, several of them were launched about 240 kilometers (150 mi) away on the same day as the Mantell UFO. While Ruppelt couldn’t locate the flight records that would’ve proved his theory, he was satisfied that the wind patterns for January 7 would’ve taken a Skyhook into the locations of the reported sightings.
On December 27, 1980, John Burroughs met the most eye-popping sight of his life. He was one of the first airmen on the scene at the alleged landing site in Rendlesham Forest, a touchdown that would later become Britain’s flagship UFO mystery. During the encounter, some of the men were said to have touched the conical craft, but the group eventually fled the forest when some of them started falling into a trance-like state and had to be physically dragged away from the object.
Burroughs, an American, believed that his proximity to the craft that night had exposed him to something deadly, possibly radiation, which later caused severe heart problems and other health complaints. For years, he fought for disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs, bravely sticking to his story that a spaceship had made him sick. To build his case, Burroughs needed the right paperwork, but the VA could only trace his service records back to 1982, two years after the incident. He had to go through two Arizona senators’ offices before he could get the discharge papers which proved he’d been stationed near Rendlesham around the time of the incident.
He also produced Project Condign as evidence—a declassified British study that sidelined UFOs as a little-understood form of weather “plasma” called “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP). Even Condign concluded that it was conceivable that the Rendlesham witnesses had been exposed to radiation, albeit from UAP. What helped sway the VA’s final decision in Burrough’s favor were his service medical records, which could be viewed by the agency but not Burroughs. Based on these documents and others, Burroughs was finally awarded full disability and some acknowledgement that his bad health had really been caused by a close encounter.
7. The Kecksburg Acorn
A mass-witness sighting allegedly took place on December 9, 1965, and ended when something plowed into the Earth at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. A meteor-like object blazed through Ontario, Canada, and six US states, dropping debris and leaving sonic booms and field fires in its wake. Thousands saw it in the sky and later read in the newspapers that it was just that: a meteor. But there are those who believe it fell in the woods at Kecksburg and that it was a car-sized object shaped like an acorn. Unearthly symbols were written on it, something close to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
While witnesses insist it attracted a heavy military presence, the US Army said they found nothing. Yet years later, amid pressure to release the truth about the Kecksburg incident, NASA admitted that they’d examined debris from the site and found that it had been a Russian satellite. When ordered by a judge to produce the documentation of their findings, NASA seemed to have misplaced them. The only Soviet candidate that remotely fit was Kosmos 96, an acorn-shaped satellite which wasn’t nearly as big as the Kecksburg object. Even NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, Nicholas L. Johnson, stated that Kosmos had nothing to do with the fireball sightings or the crash, which may still turn out to be two separate events.
US Space Command also reported that Kosmos crashed in Canada 13 hours before the sightings started. In 2003, scientists discovered topless trees leading toward the spot where the object was reportedly found. The damage was dated to the year of the crash. While one scientist felt that ice was probably responsible, it’s plausible that an incoming object could’ve sheared the trees as it crashed through them.
6. The Water Thief
During the same year as the Rendlesham Forest incident, an Australian farm worker named George Blackwell had a run-in with a thirsty UFO. He was roused from his sleep at about 1:00 AM by frantic farm animals bellowing and galloping and an unearthly whistling sound. Checking to see what was going on, the 54-year-old was astonished to see cattle trying to escape a double-domed object hovering about 3 meters (10 ft) above the ground. The craft appeared to be checking a shed, a hedge, a silo, and finally a water tank, whistling loudly all the way.
The open water tank seemed to hold the object’s attention for a while before it finally settled on the ground. Blackwell approached the object on his motorbike but was forced to stop 15 meters (50 ft) away due to the earsplitting whistling. He estimated its height to be about 4.5 meters (15 ft) and the diameter to be 8 meters (26 ft). The surface was dotted with orange and blue lights that might’ve been round windows. But the weirdest feature was a moving black tube which inflated to a size bigger than the UFO itself. When the craft took off, apparently with the 38,000 liters (10,000 gal) of water later discovered missing from the tank, the creepy tube shrank back into the middle of the object’s base.
For a long time, the cattle avoided the black ring marking the landing site and, for more than a week, the headache-plagued Blackwell suffered from diarrhea and couldn’t hold much food down. For days after the sighting, his wristwatch would only tick when he wasn’t wearing it.
5. The Lavender Crater
In 1965, a French farmer heard a noise which he took to be a helicopter landing on his property and decided to investigate. Maurice Masse, 41, raised lavender just outside the town of Valensole in the south of France. Going out to his field, he encountered a dull oval shape about 3.5 meters (11 ft) wide and 2.5 meters (8 ft) high. Resting on its belly with six legs, it reminded him of a spider. There was also a pair of child-sized entities scrutinizing the lavender.
When Masse tried to get closer, one of the creatures paralyzed him by pointing a rod at him. They resembled the classic greys except that they were white, neckless, and had elfish ears. They boarded the craft and, for 15 minutes after their departure, Masse was unable to move. The weather had been dry for some time, but the landing site was a sopping wet crater. About a day later, the wetness was gone and the ground turned hard as concrete while the rest of the field’s earth remained crumbly. For months afterward, Masse suffered from a strange sleeping disorder where he slept 15 hours at a stretch, which wasn’t normal for him.
French government agencies and police gathered interesting data from the site. The landing area showed highly elevated levels of calcium when compared to the rest of the field. Dents and a 3-meter-wide (10 ft) spherical space showed that something had been there. The lavender plants around the crater were sick and dying, and for 10 years nothing would grow in that spot.
4. The Ubatuba Case
While the only danger one UFO in Brazil presented was to itself—it exploded like a firecracker—it’s possibly one of the most noteworthy trace cases. On September 14, 1957, columnist Ibrahim Sued received a letter from a fan who had a fantastic story and the proof to back it up. The envelope contained three white metal pieces allegedly from a disk that had disintegrated above a beach in Ubatuba, Sao Paulo. The fan, who claimed to have witnessed this event, was never identified.
The testing done on one of the pieces destroyed it but gave interesting findings. It was revealed to be magnesium with above average density, and when the study stated that the magnesium was purer than that which human technology could produce, the fragments became an overnight sensation in UFO circles. The University of Colorado tested one of the two remaining pieces and found that it wasn’t as pure, but since the Brazil sample no longer existed, its purity couldn’t be verified. However, the Colorado study did concede that their piece was packed with an abnormal amount of strontium, something not found in normal magnesium. The metal had also been strengthened during its manufacturing with a process called directional crystallization, a technique unknown in 1957 when the fragments were mailed to the columnist.
3. Fire On The Highway
On September 16, 1965, two South African police constables were on night patrol. They were driving on the Pretoria-Bronkhorstspruit highway, their evening shift so far uneventful, but then midnight changed everything. It’s unclear who first saw the contraption sitting on the highway, but it was a sight that neither would ever forget. It certainly wasn’t terribly frightening—the craft was a simple, copper-colored disk—but what struck Constables John Lockem and Koos De Klerk was what happened when the UFO sped off seconds after they sighted it.
Fleeing, the craft shot away in a rush of speed and heat, spewing an overload of fire that bounced 1 meter (3 ft) off the asphalt. The highway actually caught fire. An area of 1.8 meters (6 ft) in diameter burned so intensely that gravel separated from the tar. During the official investigation that followed, it was found that a section of the road had collapsed, most likely under the weight of the large UFO. Samples taken from the carnage were sent away for analysis, but the results were never made public.
2. The Scoutmaster Attack
A case occurred on August 19, 1952, that stumped the investigators of Project Blue Book. That night, Deputy Sheriff Mott N. Partin responded to a call that three terrified children had shown up at the caller’s farmhouse. They were scouts claiming that their scoutmaster, “Sonny” Desvergers, had collapsed while investigating strange lights on a rural road in Palm Beach. Going back to the scene, the cops didn’t have to search long. Desvergers emerged from the trees in a traumatized state which the 19-year police force veteran Partin felt was genuine.
The scoutmaster claimed that he’d been attacked by a UFO and had three tiny burn holes in his hat and singe marks on his arms. The case eventually landed on the desk of Blue Book investigator Edward J. Ruppelt. Investigations at the scene didn’t immediately find anything conclusive, and Ruppelt learned from the scouts that they never saw the original lights that had caught Desvergers’s attention. However, the boys did witness subsequent lights, including a red light that seemingly caused their scoutmaster to faint.
Desvergers’s story held despite Ruppelt’s attempts to trip him up, but Ruppelt smelled a publicity stunt for financial gain when Desvergers hired a press agent and made ridiculous claims to reporters. Then Desvergers’s history of lying, going AWOL, and car theft (which got him removed from the US Marines) caught up with him. Ruppelt was now weary of him, and his press agent abandoned him. Certain now that the sighting was a hoax, Ruppelt was at a loss to explain how the whole thing was staged. Nor could he or the FBI lab discover what had burned the scoutmaster’s cap or how some of the grass taken from the site had charred roots while their leaves were fine. Nothing prevents a compulsive liar from having a supernatural experience. Either Desvergers told the truth, somewhat embellished, or he managed to pull off a hoax that left one of the best investigators in the business without answers.
1. The Maury Mystery
On June 21, 1947, Harold Dahl and his crew claimed that they’d survived a frightening encounter that damaged their boat, injured one of them, and killed their dog. Navigating around Maury Island, Dahl’s men noticed six doughnut-shaped objects above them. One was faltering badly. Before it flew away with the others, the UFO spewed a stream of shiny flakes (these caused the harm to the witnesses). The next day, Dahl was cornered by a Man in Black (MIB) who told him to mind his own business. But the story had already reached Kenneth Arnold, who himself had his historic sighting three days after the Maury incident. He met with Dahl, who handed over some of the debris but not the photos he’d snapped of the crafts.
Perhaps due to the local MIB and FBI threatening legal steps if Dahl didn’t drop the matter and admit it was a hoax, Dahl eventually did exactly that. Two Air Force officers, Captain Davidson and Lieutenant Brown, were going to take the debris to Fort Hamilton for analysis, but their B-25 went down shortly after takeoff. The military cordoned off 150 acres around the crash site but abandoned most of the wreckage after a week. Some speculated that they were done tinkering because they had found the extraterrestrial flakes.
Two days after the Air Force fatalities, another plane crashed, this time with Arnold on board. He barely survived. The Tecoma Times claimed that the B-25 was deliberately downed to prevent the fragments from reaching Fort Hamilton. Two weeks after publication, the journalist who wrote the article, Paul Lance, died from a cause that couldn’t be identified, despite a 36-hour autopsy. The case remains torn in two camps—those who believe Dahl faked the whole thing and those who feel that key truth seekers were silenced and that Dahl was frightened into saying it was a hoax.
UFO captured? Clancy man believes he proves they exist
UFO captured? Clancy man believes he proves they exist
Phil Drake, pdrake@greatfallstribune.comPublished
CLANCY, Mont.— For nearly two years Dr. Richard O’Connor has kept two cameras pointed at the sky with the deep hope and belief that something might be out there.
And then, after nearly 280,000 photos captured by motion detection, it happened.
Or maybe not.
But O’Connor’s findings of what he believes are two unidentified flying objects has set off a barrage of email exchanges, some of them angry, in the community of UFO fans and experts.
About noon on Nov. 4, his cameras captured five photos of something flying through the skies of Montana that is hard for some to explain.
“It appears to be a light source,” O’Connor said. “In my opinion, even a hardened skeptic would say ‘Wow, that is what I expect a UFO would look like.’”
But his discovery has sparked some debate, leaving the doctor to find his own photo experts to determine what his cameras may have captured.
The answers to this mystery remain up in the air.
O’Connor comes by his fascination with UFOs honestly. He said that for more than 25 years he was friends with Jesse Marcel Jr., perhaps best known for being a longtime doctor in Helena. O’Connor, now retired, worked as an anesthesiologist at St. Peter’s Hospital in Helena.
But Marcel may be even better known for something that happened to him as a child in New Mexico in July 1947.
His father, Maj. Jesse Marcel, was sent by his base commander to investigate the crash of a UFO on a ranch outside of Roswell Army Air Field. He loaded some of the wreckage into his vehicle and drove it home to show Jesse Jr., who was then 10.
They couldn’t make sense of what they were seeing. According to Marcel Jr’s Sept. 1, 2013, obituary in the Helena Independent Record, The U.S. Army Air Corps issued a press release saying a “flying saucer” was found, but public uproar forced them to retract the statement and say a weather balloon had been found instead.
Those who were at the crash site were then sworn to secrecy. But in the ‘70s Marcel Sr. and his son began speaking about what they had seen, believing the coverup was a grave injustice to the public.
Marcel Jr. had a distinguished career not only as a doctor, but in the military as well. He was 76 when he died.
And after knowing him for nearly a quarter century, O’Connor deeply believes Marcel saw what he saw as a child.
O’Connor, 60, even set up the Jesse A. Marcel Jr. Library on his rural property and his friend was there for its dedication.
He says he told him, “Your story is important and to continue to educate the public we should open a library.”
And then he installed two Reconyx Hyperfire PC 900 Trail cameras on the southeast corner of his house with the goal of educating the public about the UFO phenomena. When triggered by motion, the cameras, which are about 30 feet off the ground, shoot 20 photos at approximately 1-second intervals.
He also posted a message on the Internet, giving the latitude and longitude of the cameras in the hopes that aliens would see it.
“Come, let us take your picture,” he said, reasoning that if they had the capability to get here they would also have the ability to find people who are reaching out to them.
The cameras were programmed to take photographs of moving objects. Among the 280,000 photos are a vast array of birds, squirrel tails and treetops dancing in the wind.
And then on Nov. 4, O’Connor says he noticed something.
“Basically what you see it a very symmetrical, smooth and reflective surface that appears to have his own light source,” he said.
Neither the FAA, nor the Air Force nor NASA handle UFO calls anymore, an FAA spokesman said, adding they are referred to National UFO Reporting Center, an organization that investigates UFO sightings and/or alien contacts. It was founded in 1974 by Robert J. Gribble.
The website features listings of UFO sightings by state. For instance, on Nov. 18, someone reported seeing three flashes of green light that lit up the entire sky after a power outage. On Nov. 11 in Great Falls, someone reported seeing a silent triangular object heading east to west before turning smoothly south and going out of sight. Massive in size. On Sept. 26, someone in Great Falls reported seeing a green glowing fireball.
My Montana in photos 2015
O’Connor, who says he hasno knowledge of how to manipulate photos on a computer, forwarded his photos to NUFORC, which were there for a few weeks and then came a query to them from the Tribune.
Peter Davenport, now the head of the NUFORC, forwarded the photos to “a skilled photo-analyst,” requesting that he try to ‘extract’ more information about the object than mere visual inspection would permit.”
NUFORC is a self-funded website that Davenport describes as a “labor of love.”
“I do it so people have a place to call if they see a UFO,” he said.
The first review was heartening.
“Bottom line, I think the images are real, but remain a mystery,” the photo analyst wrote. “I suspect the lights in the first and last photos are sun reflections off of something rather than any propulsion system.”
And higher up in his assessment he wrote: “Thus, I conclude it is a puzzle to solve rather than a fake.”
But another analyst didn’t agree and angered O’Connor by proclaiming the photos “100 percent fake.”
O’Connor expressed his anger in an email to Davenport, saying he would get an unbiased photograph analysis. Davenport also suggests that O’Connor submit his photos to someone whose reputation he trusts.
O’Connor has also offered to take a polygraph.
O’Connor now plans to meet with various experts in photo analysis to get their take on his pictures.
Rick and Morty creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland took advantage of their third season finale—which largely took place within the White House—to shout out a few famous conspiracies.
It's right there in the episode's title. For those who don't know, "The Rickchurian Mortydate" is a riff on the Manchurian Candidate, a book and two movies about a conspiracy to get a Russian sleeper cell operative elected president. Harmon revealed his relationship with conspiracies in an interview with VICE earlier this year. "I think that when JFK was assassinated, the part of your brain that is ready and able to connect all the dots necessary to prove that there was an order to this, and it was a sinister order, are the same exact chemicals in your brain that you need to write stories," he said.
Harmon describes conspiracy theories as a method of coping with reality, the same way people tripping on mushrooms convince themselves that everything makes sense when the walls are melting. Roiland quips, "So definitely do acid, and JFK was an inside job."
A ton of homages to these theories are revealed during an epic techno-showdown between Rick and the president of the United States (Keith David), when they crash through the White House's top secret subterranean tunnels. The action is blink-and-you'll-miss-it fast, so we combed the sequence in slow motion to identify all the conspiracies the showrunners thought would be funny to include.
1. The Moon Landing Was Faked
A replica of the Apollo 11 moon lander and a set depicting the surface of the moon buried beneath the White House would certainly be incriminating evidence for those who believe the moon landing was faked. The idea that the United States faked the moon landing for political victory in the space race against the Soviet Union is appealing, especially because skepticism is so necessary in today's fake news media environment. This conspiracy is also referenced in Rick and Morty's take on simulation theory, "M. Night Shamayliens."
A tiny diorama of the Twin Towers, one burned and broken, refers to the niche belief that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the towers, the World Trade Center, and the pentagon were orchestrated by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. We don't know whether or not Rick is a 9/11 truther, but in the season opener, "The Rickshank Rickdemption," we see his memory of watching 9/11 on TV and grumbling, "They're going to use this to take away our freedoms!"
Crates of "magic bullets" and a blood-spattered 60s-style limousine sporting tiny American flags immediately conjure the mother of all government conspiracy theories, John F. Kennedy's. assassination.
4. The CIA Killed Tupac Shakur
If you're not among the conspiracy theorists who think Tupac is alive and sitting on a beach somewhere in Cuba, you may believe that the CIA was behind the rap icon and political activist's death by drive-by shooting. To our knowledge, however, there is no theory that he's buried between the floorboards of the White House.
5. OG Fake News: The Crossing of the Delaware
Next to the fake moon landing set is a squad of mannequins posed like the famous Emanuel Leutze painting, George Washington Crossing the Delaware. While not related to any government cover-ups, the image, painted more than 60 years after the Revolutionary War, is famously full of false information. One NYC teacher uses it to explain to her students that they can't believe all the media they consume, even if it seems like a primary source. Its inclusion here is a reference to fake history, unless Harmon and Roiland know of a National Treasure–esque message drawn on the painting's back that we couldn't find on the internet.
6. Freemasons Still Rule the United States
Rick's face shatters a blood-red pentagram and lit candles, which could be a reference to prolific conspiracy theorist Mark S. Watson's belief in an "Occult Government." The five-pointed star also recalls Masonic imagery, which could point Illuminati and Freemason sects within this dimension's White House that are working toward the New World Order. Or, you know, this one speeds by the screen so quickly, it could just be decorative.
7. The Government Has Made Alien Contact
A flying saucer concealed behind the 9/11 diorama points toward government contact with aliens far predating Earth's victory in an interstellar music reality show, and eventual assimilation into the Galactic Federal Government. Some conspiracy theorists claim to have spotted UFOs entering the White House itself, but we all know the United State's secret alien findings are stored in Area 51, right?
In February, three were discovered circling a star, Trappist-1, 40 light years away. Last November, one even closer yet was found — four light years away — orbiting our next-door neighbor, Proxima Centauri. By one estimate, there are as many as 40 billion planets similar to Earth just in our Milky Way galaxy.
With so many potentially habitable exoplanets (as they are called), many believe that it is inevitable that life, even intelligent life, must have arisen on some of them.
But what would those life forms be like?
If we're to believe Hollywood, quite a lot like life here on Earth. From Star Trek to Star Wars to Valerian and beyond, most interplanetary science-fiction movies populate their worlds with lifeforms quite similar — in general appearance and biology — to what has evolved here on Planet Earth. Guardians of the Galaxytakes this approach to a new extreme, including Groot, a humanoid evolved from a botanical ancestor (perhaps explaining its limited vocabulary).
Yet, not all films agree. Last year's Arrival introduced hexapods, organisms with seemingly little affinity to any species here on the home planet.
So, what should we expect? An Avatar-like ecosystem full of species slightly different from those on Earth, or a world composed of unfamiliar organisms?
The great astronomer Carl Sagan was in Arrival's camp, proclaiming "extraterrestrials would be very different from us." Paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould expressed similar sentiments, but felt that there was no way to scientifically study the question other than finding life on another planet.
Yet not everyone agrees and, in recent years, the question of how predictable evolution is has become a topic of great scientific inquiry. Convergent evolution is the phenomenon of species independently evolving to be similar. Usually it results from the species adapting to similar situations, natural selection favoring the same solution to the same problem posed by the environment. Convergent evolution was known to Charles Darwin but, until relatively recently, we thought it was uncommon, a great example of the power of natural selection, but not commonplace. We now know, however, that convergence is far from rare; rather, it is pervasive, occurring all around us. Think, for example, of fast-swimming marine predators: dolphins, sharks, tuna and ichthyosaurs (extinct marine reptiles from the Age of the Dinosaurs) all evolved a very stream-lined body shape and powerful tails for rapid and efficient locomotion. Or consider Euphorbia plants from dry parts of Africa. Tough-skinned, often green, with spines instead of leaves, they look like cacti, but they're not — the Old- and New-World doppelgängers have independently evolved the same traits to cope with water loss and herbivores in arid regions.
The pervasiveness of convergence has led some evolutionary biologists to proclaim evolution deterministic, the outcome downright inevitable (see two books by Simon Conway Morris, Life's Solutions and The Runes of Evolution, and also Convergent Evolution by George McGhee). If the environment repeatedly poses the same challenges, and if natural selection repeatedly produces the optimal solutions, then evolution is repeatable. And, as a corollary, we can predict what life would be like on an Earth-like planet — pretty much the same as here. The argument can be taken one step further — the Homo sapiens species is supremely adapted to life on Earth, the adaptations we forged as we emerged on the savannahs of Africa proving a brilliant stepping-stone to global dominance. Consequently, if evolution is so deterministic, the expectation for life on planets like our own is clear: Humanoid life forms should evolve and dominate, just like here. Hollywood has it right.
Unfortunately, there's a problem with this argument. Although the list of examples of convergence is impressive, it wouldn't be hard to make an equally impressive list of non-convergence. Off the top of my head, here are some evolutionary singletons, types of animals that have evolved just once, without a close match: sauropod dinosaurs, like Brontosaurus (Dinosaur purists may note that the name Brontosauruswas long ago discarded, replaced for quirky scientific reasons with Apatosaurus. To those killjoy know-it-alls I respond, "Haha! Thanks to new scientific discoveries, the name Brontosaurus was resurrected in 2015."); elephants; the kiwi; sloths; and the world's greatest animal, the duck-billed platypus. Each of these types of animals has evolved a single time, with no close evolutionary match, now or ever (True: Sauropods and elephants are similar in being huge, lumbering herbivores — but I'm focused on much more similar evolutionary matches).
If evolution is so deterministic, its outcome so predictable, it's hard to understand why there are no matches for these evolutionary singletons. Streams like the ones platypuses inhabit are found on every continent except Antarctica, yet the duckbill hails only from Down Under. Suitable tropical tree branches occur around the world, but sloths only evolved in South America. Why sauropods in the Mesozoic and not today?
The reason is simple: There are actually multiple different ways to solve a problem posed by the environment. Consider the woodpecker and the aye-aye, two completely different animals that live a similar lifestyle, tapping on wood to detect the tunnels of wood-eating grubs, chiseling into the wood to get to the tunnels, then extracting the grubs. But the species have evolved completely different tools to do so, the bird a tough beak, an extremely long tongue covered in prickles, and a skull reinforced against concussions to withstand the repeated jackhammering. The aye-aye, on the other hand, has a long skeletal finger that can twist in any direction and protruding incisors to do the excavating.
We don't need to find life on other planets to test the convergence hypothesis. All we have to do is go to New Zealand, an island on which life has diversified in the absence of terrestrial mammals. If the outcome of natural selection is deterministic, then a world dominated by birds would look pretty much like life elsewhere on the planet. But of course, it doesn't. The kiwi may live a lifestyle similar to a badger, but it doesn't look at all like one. The dominant herbivore is, or was, a ten-foot tall bird (the moa), quite different from deer or bison. Throw in flightless parrots, carnivorous parrots, bats that forage by walking around in the leaf-litter and many more, and we can throw the convergence hypothesis out the window. New Zealand is a distinct evolutionary world, the evolutionary outcome unique.
The question is no longer whether convergence or lack of convergence is common: We know now that both are. Rather, scientists are interested in understanding why convergence occurs in some cases, and not others. It's still early days, but one conclusion is clear: Closely-related species (or populations of the same species) tend to adapt in the same way, not surprisingly because they start out so similar in so many ways — natural selection is likely to modify them in similar ways. By contrast, distantly-related species, initially different in so many attributes, are much more likely to find different ways to adapt to the same situation. Think about the difference between birds and mammals: The former have beaks, the latter teeth and fingers. It's not surprising that woodpeckers and aye-ayes found different ways to solve the same problem.
Of course, life couldn't be more distantly related than if it occurred on another planet. With all the differences that such life forms must exhibit, natural selection (if it occurred — who's to say that evolutionary processes would be the same?) might very well sculpt well-adapted species, but they wouldn't look at all like us and our earthly compatriots. The aye-aye and the kiwi tell us that. And that means that the minority opinion in Hollywood is almost surely correct.
If you want to think about what extraterrestrial life might be like, watch Arrival, not Avatar or Guardians of the Galaxy.
Molecules once thought to be biomarkers for life have been detected around a young star in the Rho Opiuchi star-forming region of space
(Credit: SA/Herschel/NASA/JPL-Caltech; acknowledgement: R. Hurt (JPL-Caltech), CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
The European Space Agency (ESA) has some good news and bad news for extraterrestrial enthusiasts. The good news is that a molecule thought to be a biomarker for life has been found for the first time in abundance in a comet and around a young star. The bad news is that the find indicates that the molecule isn't the clear indicator of life that it was once believed to be.
Since we can't exactly spot microscopic lifeforms from afar, astronomers have adopted other ways to measure a particular planet's likelihood of housing alien life. Traces of certain compounds left by organic processes, often called biomarkers, can be sifted out of soil or water samples by rovers, or detected in the atmosphere by telescopes and orbiters.
Methyl chloride is fairly common here on Earth, belonging to a class of molecules known as organohalogens. These organic compounds are made up of carbon bonded to at least one halogen – fluorine, chlorine, bromine or iodine – and are produced mostly through biological processes. In theory, that means that any celestial body where we detect an abundance of these is a good place to look for life.
Recently, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile found methyl chloride around a young binary star known as IRAS 16293-2422, about 400 light-years away in a star-forming region of space called Rho Ophiuchi. This marks the first time any organohalogen has been spotted in space, but rather than give hope that life exists in that system, the discovery instead throws doubt on methyl chloride's reliability as a biomarker.
The presence of these organic compounds around such a young star suggests they may arise during the planet-forming phase of a system. To get a better understanding of how the molecules may form, the researchers turned their attention to a comet, which acts as time capsules from the birth of a star, preserving the chemical composition of the cloud of material stars arise from.
In this case, the team zeroed in on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which was visited by the ESA's Rosetta mission between 2014 and 2016. By sifting through the data collected by the spacecraft, the team found an abundance of methyl chloride in the comet, lending further weight to the idea that the compound arises during the planet-forming phase. In particular, the signals were strongest in measurements made in May 2015, when the comet was approaching the Sun and was giving off a lot of hydrogen chloride.
"We found it but it is very elusive, one of the 'chameleons' of our molecule zoo, only present during short times when we observed a lot of chlorine," says Kathrin Altwegg, principal investigator of the project.
The find may be disappointing for those hoping to find life in the cosmos, but it doesn't mean the search is off: rather, it's just a little more complicated than previously thought.
Philip Mantle and I released the testimony of a new Roswell witness, the late Deputy Sheriff Charles Forgus, in the new book, UFOs TODAY, 70 Years of Lies, Misinformation and Government Cover-Up, in June 2017. Deputy Forgus thought that he had witnessed the UFO crash at Roswell in 1947. He had been the Deputy Sheriff in Big Springs, Texas, after serving in the military during WWII.
He was en-route to Roswell with the Sheriff to pick up a prisoner. When they approached the Roswell area, they heard about the crash on the police radio and were able to find the roads to this area. When they arrived, they observed the recovery of a 100-foot diameter round craft and four strange-looking dead bodies before being told to leave the area by the military. This testimony was given to a US private investigator by the name of Deanna Short in 1999. Unfortunately, she has also passed away. There is a video interview of Deputy Forgus where he details these events which runs for approximately 16 minutes.
Charles Forgus with his wife.
(Credit: Irena Scott/Philip Mantle)
Thus, the crash might have happened in 1947, which was the time that Deputy Forgus recalled that it was.
Glen said that Charles was very straight arrow and not impressed by false knowledge. He was a no-nonsense type of person, having been in law enforcement. He had been a police officer and in the military. Glen looked up to his father as a John Wayne kind of hero. During the war, Charles was in the army but on loan to the Navy and was a deep-sea diver. Charles and his crew would dive down and weld patches on the sunken ships so they could refloat them and get them out of the harbour. When MacArthur made his reappearance to the Philippians, there had been a lot of fighting and there were a lot of ships sunk in the harbour. One of the ships settled on a reef, and the wave action would rock it. The ship slipped off the reef, squashed him in the mud, and it took three days to get him out.
Forgus’ Army discharge papers.
One main thing Glen emphasized was that his father was very honest and ethical. He was definitely not the kind of person who would make up a lie. Glen gave the same impression–he was very knowledgeable about current news and events and very civic minded. He had an electric car and powered it using a wind turbine power generator.
Thus the possibility exists that Deputy Charles Forgus did see the crash in the time frame that he reported. Charles had said that neither he nor the person he was with talked about it much, and this was likely because no one had heard of UFOs or Roswell at that time, which might help to further date the event. In addition, he did not recognize the uniforms of the attendant soldiers as Air Force, which did not did not become a separate military service until September 1947.
Artist’s impression of the Roswell UFO crash.
(Credit: Flying Disk Press)
When we released the original information regarding the late Deputy Charles Forgus we were criticised far and wide despite the fact that we also pointed out the number of discrepancies in the testimony on tape. One well-known Roswell researcher simply labelled the testimony from Deputy Forgus as a lie. Now, we have information from a nephew and the son of this witness the latter of whom supports his late fathers story. Do doubt we will still be criticized but I think it is fair to say that we have now been vindicated in releasing this information and to continue to look for more.
About the authors:
Dr. Irena Scott received her PhD from the University of Missouri in physiology, did post-doctoral research at Cornell University, has been an Assistant Professor at St. Bonaventure University, and has done research and teaching at The Ohio State University, the University of Missouri, the University of Nevada, and at Battelle Memorial Institute. She worked for the Defence Intelligence Agency and the Aerospace Center in satellite photography, was a volunteer astronomer at the Ohio State University Radio Observatory, and has taken flying lessons. Her publications include books, and works in scientific journals, magazines, newspapers, and she was a correspondent for Popular Mechanics magazine. She served on the MUFON Board of Directors (1993 to 2000), is a MUFON consultant in physiology and astronomy and a field investigator. She co-edited eight symposium proceedings, has been a State Section Director for Ohio MUFON, was a founding member of the Mid-Ohio Research Associates (MORA) and its journal editor, and has published UFO material in books and journals (including scientific journals).
Philip Mantle is the former Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association and is the founder of FLYING DISK PRESS. He can be contacted at FLYING DISK PRESS: FlyingDiskPress.blogspot.co.uk.
UFOs TODAY – 70 Years of Lies, Misinformation and Government Cover-Ups by Irena Scott PhD is out now on Amazon.
Despite strong fog, you can clearly see a bright object on the horizon above the Pacific. It's not moving, so it won't be a plane. It is probably not a helicopter either, because it doesn't blink and remains stationary. Does anyone have any idea what it might be?
Mysterious globes moving forward and backward or from right to left. It all lasted for a couple of minutes, perhaps even less.
It's hard to believe that they could be flashlights, perhaps lit from some slope, and it's hard to believe that they could be electric torches.
It is hard to believe that they could be aircraft lights. The fact is that they disappeared suddenly, as they appeared. Initially three globes, then two and finally a single light.
Bright Orb over the Pacific disappears at the moment an incoming object hits the ocean
Bright Orb over the Pacific disappears at the moment an incoming object hits the ocean
An unknown large bright orb was recorded hovering over the Pacific Ocean near Newport, Oregon on October 3, 2017.The object not seeming to move for nearly 4 minutes before it just disappeared.
As MrMBB333 talks only about the bright orb he probably missed a second object with a smoke trail that looks like a missile or meteorite coming in from the right side of screen, right going towards the orb. Then the orb disappears at the exact moment the incoming object hits the ocean.
While some people suggest that the bright orb is the light on the mast of a vessel it does not explain the incoming object and the sudden disappearance of the orb at the exact moment the incoming object falling into the ocean. Just a coincidence or is it connected to each other?
Alien life on Mars? Scientists in shock admission about Red Planet
Alien life on Mars? Scientists in shock admission about Red Planet
This artist's concept depicts the early Martian environment (right) - believed to contain liquid water and a thicker atmosphere - versus the cold, dry environment seen at Mars today (left).
MARS once had a wet climate with lakes which may have held life, scientists have revealed.
This has puzzled experts because the planet ought to have been largely cold and dry.
Now computer simulations suggest ancient Mars was warmed by powerful bursts of methane trapped in its subsurface.
It sheds light on how an otherwise freezing planet could have had episodes of wetness.
And it could help in the search for life on planets outside the solar system.
Professor Edwin Kite, of Chicago University, used complex mathematical equations to work out the new theory.
He said the shifts in the tilt of the planet's axis caused its ice cover to shrink and methane to release.
Ice then melted to produce lakes which stayed for millions of years – time for life to flourish.
Prof Kite added: "Using numerical simulations we found outgassed methane can build up to atmospheric levels sufficient for lake-forming climates if it initially occupies more than 4% of the total volume in which it is thermodynamically stable.
"Such occupancy fractions are consistent with methane production by water-rock reactions due to hydrothermal circulation on early Mars."
"We further estimate photo-chemical destruction of atmospheric methane curtails the duration of individual lake-forming climates to less than a million years – consistent with observations," he continued.
"We conclude methane bursts represent a potential pathway for intermittent excursions to a warm, wet climate state on early Mars."
The study published in Nature Geoscience adds to evidence Mars is the one planetary environment – outside Earth – where scientists can say with confidence there were periods where life could have emerged.
Canada history: Oct 4 1967: the enduring Shag Harbour mystery
Shag Harbour gets visitors from all over who come to see where an alleged unidentified flying object went in the water back in 1967. Photo Credit: shagharbourincident.wordpress.com/museum
Canada history: Oct 4 1967: the enduring Shag Harbour mystery
It was 50 years ago today that very strange things were seen in the skies over Canada’s east coast province of Nova Scotia.
Canadians across the country report lots of strange things in the skies every year, many classed as UFO’s. The incident that occurred in the tiny fishing hamlet of Shag Harbour, however is among the best documented and with a variety of credible witnesses.
Red pointer indicates Shag Harbour, small red square indicates Mahone Bay
The events may have started around 7:15 pm on a scheduled passenger jet outward bound from Halifax as it flew at 3600 metres over eastern Quebec. The pilot and copilot saw a very strange object flying beside them a few miles away. A few minutes later there was what appeared to be two explosions around the brightly lit craft, the second fading to a blue cloud around the object.
Several other reports that evening from Halifax, Mahone Bay, and fishermen offshore reported a variety of strange objects in the sky.
Then just after 11 pm several people around Shag Harbour including police, reported a large low flying object with flashing lights whoosh over the town and hit the water about 300 metres off shore. It floated awhile as a group onshore watched the “orange ball” bobbing in the waves, and then slipped beneath the surface.
Some don’t believe that, and one UFO investigator claims to have found evidence the Navy traced the UFO to a secret US naval base on the Nova Scotia coast about 25 kilometres away.
Still, 50 years later the well-documented sighting remains a complete mystery. It has benefitted the hamlet of Shag Harbour though, as it has become a bit of a tourist attraction and a UFO festival is being held there on this 50th anniversary.
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Many Unidentified “Airship Incidents” Occurred in 1907, Tennessee
Many Unidentified “Airship Incidents” Occurred in 1907, Tennessee
Theo Paijmans, an infrequent visitor and critic to this blog – one of my favorite human beings – has contributed much to the UFO literature and I found several inserts inside Albert S. Rosales’ Humanoid Encounters: The Others Amongst Us 1900-1929, one in his series of Humanoid Encounters books, which I encourage you to buy and read (Amazon).
Starting on page 60 Theo recounts four airship (balloon) sightings from 1907 cited as The Tennessee Aeronaut Flap of 1907 derived from area newspapers
The accounts, all from different dates in April of 1907, tell of witnesses, in several communities, observing craft that looked like airship balloons with gondolas from which debarked parties of “queer-looking persons [women and men] in strange garb” that gathered around local springs (and in one instance, a well) to seemingly pray.
(In the well incident, one of the party members thrust a wand into the well from which oil was extracted. The wand was then stuck into the ground and became enflamed.)
The “praying” balloon passengers mostly spoke in German and left, saying such things as “Be healthy and pray.”
What are we to make of such reports?
These aren’t instances of mass hysteria – the communities involved are not interconnected except as members of the state (Tennessee).
The stories were presented by newspapers as actual journalistic news items apparently.
What does Theo attribute the accounts to? Are they fictive? Or actual, as related by the press?
The stories came about eleven years after the so-called Airship sightings, elsewhere, in 1896.
The reports intrigue, certainly if true as related and even if they are imaginary tales promulgated for other reasons: mercenary, prankish, space-fillers, et cetera.
I’ll be honest: A lot of the time, I listen to the things people say after allegedly being abducted by aliens, and I think, “Yeah, right.” To me, the stories are just so outlandish — and with so little hard evidence to back them up — that I have a hard time believing them. That said, though, the stories often are chilling to read or listen to… and who knows? Maybe I’m a skeptic purely because I’ve never seen anything myself that suggests that aliens might be among us. I might be wrong, of course. Anything is possible.
Solid data on exactly how many people believe in aliens is a little tough to come by; the most recent reputable survey I’ve found is a Gallup poll from 2005which found that 24 percent of Americans believe “that extra-terrestrial beings have visited Earth at some time in the past.” (For the curious, another 24 percent do not believe it, while 51 percent remain undecided.) A YouGov poll from 2015 found that among Americans, 54 percent dobelieve in extra-terrestrial intelligent life; however, although YouGov believe their polls are some of the most accurate out there, the market research company has also been criticized for not being representative of the population as a whole as well. So, y’know, do with that what you will.
In any event, though, it’s certainly possible to believe in the possibility of alien life without necessarily believing in alien abductions — but for what it’s worth, although I’m a skeptic, I also don’t think the proliferation of alleged alien abduction stories is as simple as people just making stuff up. I don’t doubt that in the wide majority of cases, people believe they experienced something; however, I think there are loads of other reasonable, rational, earthly explanations for these kinds of incidents we should try to rule out before entertaining the idea that it’s aliens.
Either way, though, it’s true that the universe is such a vast place that it seems unlikely that there’s no intelligent life in it other than ourselves. Surely there’s got to be something out there beyond our solar system, right? These folks definitely believe there is — and according to their accounts, it’s closer to us than some of us might like to think.
This story popped up in an AskReddit thread from earlier in 2017 asking folks who believe they’ve been abducted what their experiences were like. There are other explanations for losing time like this, of course (like, for example, a dissociative fugue state) — and, indeed, as u/Pun-Chi notes, they’ve mostly just joked about this experience having been an alleged alien abduction — but even so, this story is still unsettling.
2. “I Started Having These Visions Of Who I REALLY Am”
Near Death Experiment on YouTube
The video here features an 11-minute long interview with a woman named Elizabeth April, who is a frequent speaker at conferences for alien enthusiasts and UFO believers. In the interview (starting at about the 3:40 mark), she tells her alleged abduction story: When she was 18, she went on a 10-day meditation retreat and woke up one night to find a huge, white head hovering above her. Several of the beings that had these huge, white heads — what she calls “Tall Whites,” a species of aliens she claims are about eight and a half feet tall, very skinny, and paper white in color — took her out of her bed and out of her room, she says, at which point they “shot [her] up to their ship.”
While she was up there, she claims they implanted something in her ear with a metal machine — and after the experience, she says, “A whole world of everything new opened up for me.” She continues, “As invasive as that was, and the fact that they put this implant in my ear — regardless of all of that, it still opened me up to the possibilities. It was in my pre-destined contracts to be abducted at that time at that age by that species.”
This, she says, is when she learned that she has ET genetics in her—that she’s basically an alien-human hybrid. “After that,” she went on, “I started getting very vivid flashbacks into other lifetimes where I lived, not as a Tall White, but as other ET species. And I lived through these lifetimes, and after being abducted, I started having this recall, these flashes, these visions of who I really am, not just who I am here and now.”
In the third episode of The X-Files — “Squeeze,” which originally aired on Sept. 24, 1993 — Mulder corrects a fellow agent who asks whether he thinks their current case is “the work of little green men.” “Grey,” says Mulder. “You said green men. A Reticulan’s skin tone is actually grey.” Indeed, Greys, as they’re called, are closely associated with the Roswell incident, as well as with the Betty and Barney Hill abduction. (More on that one in a bit.)
This is all stuff I knew before reading this story, which came from that same 2017 AskReddit thread I referred to earlier. What I did not know is that Greys apparently have a sense of humor. Or at least, these Greys did.
In 2016, Vice France spoke to a bunch of people who claimed they had been abducted by aliens and asked them to draw pictures of what they experienced. One guy, Stephane, described something that had happened to him in 2010 when he was on his way home from working the night shift at the hospital that employed him.
“At about 4 a.m. I drove up to the security gate to go home, when a flash of light blinded me,” he said. “In a split second, I found myself in another place — I was on a mountain, and there was a lake at its foot. Suddenly a huge space ship appeared in the sky, while an even brighter light began to emanate from the ground. That's all I remember.”
And then it got even weirder: “The next thing I know, I am back behind the wheel of my car, passing the security gate,” Stephane told Vice France. “When I got out, I was approached by police who said they had been looking for me. It turned out I had been gone for three days. I have no idea what happened.”
He doesn’t think he saw any aliens, but he did end up with some weird marks on his right hand. There were three of them; they made up a triangle. He said they felt “like a burn that wouldn’t heal” — and that ever since this experience, he feels like he’s being watched at all times.
(There are a lot of super interesting stories in the full Vice piece, by the way— including one from a young woman who broke up with her boyfriend after he wouldn't wake up during her experience. And, I mean, to be fair, "Failed to help prevent my alleged alien abduction" sounds like a legit reason to break up with someone. Head on over there for more.)
The AskReddit thread this story appeared in had only a few comments; indeed, this submission makes up the bulk of the thread. It’s long — this is just an excerpt — so head on over to Ask Reddit to read the whole thing. Suffice it to say that the alleged aliens in this one did not appear to come in peace.
6. “I Knew Something Was Terribly Wrong With My Body"
FindingUFO on YouTube
This interview with Travis Walton — whose story is both one of the most infamous and frequently contested alleged alien abduction cases — is from 2014. Walton was working as a lumberjack in Arizona’s Sitegreaves National Forest in 1975 when he and six coworkers allegedly witnessed a flying saucer descend upon them. Walton said that when he approached it, he was knocked to the ground by a beam of light emanating from the saucer and woke up in a room that looked like some sort of a hospital environment. He was found by the highway five days later.
Still, though, he’s stuck to his guns — and according to him, his alleged experience was incredibly painful. Says Walton in the 2014 interview, “I didn’t know where I was; I didn’t realize the danger and the fearful situation I was in at that point; but I knew something was terribly wrong with my body, especially my inability to get enough oxygen. This feeling of suffocation generated a panic in me that, even through the haze of pain and semi-consciousness, still added to this desperate feeling. Added to that was the feeling that I couldn’t move.” Yikes.
The r/Abductions subredditallows Redditors to share and discuss alleged alien abduction experiences. In this account from the sub dated to about a year ago, Redditor u/MaddyMania recalled a number of odd experiences they had when they were very small — including a number of times when they asked their parents where their “other parents” were. What made u/MaddyMania start thinking that maybe what was going on could be extraterrestrial in nature was the appearance of a location they call “the blue room.” Check out the full story here.
Betty and Barney Hill are often credited with making the first publicized account of an alleged alien abduction experience. In 1961, the husband and wife duo were driving on a highway in New Hampshire when they had what they said was a pretty terrifying-sounding encounter with a UFO. Both Betty and Barney underwent hypnosis several times in an effort to unearth what they believed were lost memories; they got very emotional at various points during these hypnosis sessions, including the moment in which Barney began to panic, yelling, “Run! God, give me strength! I've got to get away! Oh! Oh!”
You can listen to Barney’s hypnosis sessions here, although consider yourselves warned — it can get pretty upsetting to hear.
In 1973, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker were fishing in the Pascagoula River in Mississippi when they claimed they encountered a UFO. They described hearing a whirring or whizzing sound, saw flashing blue lights, and witnessed a huge oval object arrive. They said they were taken aboard the oval by three “creatures” and examined before being released.
One of the many times Hickson and Parker recounted their story was in a 1987 article in the Gadsden Times. Said Hickson, “I couldn’t move. I don’t know if it’s because I was so frightened, or what.” Neither of the men could tell how long the “examination” lasted — but eventually they would up back at the river’s edge. Hickson died in 2011, although Parker said in 2013 that the whole incident “turned his life upside down.”
Are aliens real? That's still up for debate. But it's not stopping these stories from being plenty creepy all on their own.
Reports of mysterious assailants who terrorize small groups before melting into the night without a trace, often leave authorities scratching their heads, and the public bewildered. These rare events recently made headlines in Australia, and for several days, captivated the nation. The strange saga began on Monday August 29th, 2016, when the Tromp family of the Melbourne suburb of Silvan, fled their red currant farm and embarked on a frantic trip over hundreds of miles in a desperate effort to evade evil forces who they believed were trying to kill them. It would be five days before all five family members would be accounted for. At that point, Mrs. Tromp (Jacoba) and her daughter Riana, 29, had been hospitalized for severe stress, and 22 year-old Ella was charged with stealing a car. It was reported that the family had ditched their technology, left their credit cards behind and taken a bundle of cash with them, in a scene that resembled a Hollywood movie. Some media outlets have speculated that the Tromps may have been suffering from a collective mental disorder and New South Wales police were worried that they may have been experiencing some type of group delusional schizophrenia. However, there is a very real possibility that the Tromps had simply scared themselves.
From time to time, bizarre news stories appear about a chase or siege involving a family or close-knit group who claim to have been attacked by mysterious assailants whose existence cannot be verified. Upon closer investigation, authorities can find no evidence to confirm their story. Incidents often give rise to speculation that the event was a hoax, that those involved were on drugs, or mentally disturbed. I have collected about 30 such cases of what I term “small group panics.” Most episodes involve normal, healthy people who, as a result of a series of unusual events, grow paranoid and literally scare themselves after growing convinced that their lives are in imminent danger.
During episodes, members become distressed and emotionally unstable, often as a result of prolonged fear, fatigue and lack of sleep. These factors enhance suggestibility and inhibit their powers of critical thinking. Within this atmosphere of fear, members begin to redefine everyday objects and events in a new light. It is within this context that a car backfiring, may be perceived as a gunshot, or rustling in the bushes is mistaken for a monster or hostile gang member.
Most cases begin in an isolated environment, under the cover of darkness. The principal witness – the first to draw attention to the threat, or to panic – almost always holds an influential social position. In each case, a false consensus emerges that the group is under attack, after which a variety of ambiguous stimuli are redefined within popular cultural labels such as space aliens, Yowies or drug dealers. Let’s examine some examples of small group panics from the United States and Australia.
The Kentucky Space Goblins
On the evening of 21 August 1955, a farm family in the state of Kentucky, made international headlines after claiming to have been terrorized by beings from outer space. Members of the Sutton family, comprised of seven adults and three children, were living in the rural, isolated hamlet of Hopkinsville. The episode began at about 7 o’clock, during a visit by their landlord William Taylor, who claimed to have spotted a glowing saucer-shaped object land in a gully near the farmhouse. Family members were incredulous and thought that Taylor had overreacted to seeing a 'falling star.' Soon the two men spotted a three and a half foot-tall creature outside the house. They said it had a huge head, extended arms and large ears. The pair panicked, retreated into the house, grabbed their guns and began firing. Over the next three and a half hours, various family members claim to have glimpsed several creatures either on or near the house, sometimes peering through windows. The occupants responded with intermittent bursts of gunfire.
The Sutton’s didn't have a phone, so at about 11 o'clock, they dashed from the house, piled into two cars and raced to the nearest police station to summon help. Police swarmed on the farmhouse but found nothing unusual. Not long after the last officer left at 2:15 am, the family’s mother claimed to have seen a creature peering into a window and alerted the others. More sightings and sporadic gunfire continued for the next three hours until sunrise. At some point during the ordeal, everyone in the house said they had spotted at least one creature. Again police rushed to the house but found no evidence of space aliens – only a terrified family and a house riddled with bullet holes.
Former police detective Joe Nickell later visited the house, interviewed family members, and concluded that they had seen Great Horned Owls. These creatures stand about 3 and a half feet high, become active at dusk, and are known to be aggressive in defending their nests. They have big heads, large eyes and long ear tufts. After the owls were scared off by the gunfire, fatigue and imagination appears to have taken over and the terrified occupants were soon firing at shadows and rustling in the bushes.
Phantom Drug Siege in Michigan
Between 7 and 8 November 1978, a phantom drug siege took place at a house place near Lowell, Michigan. The first man, ‘Masters,’ was 24 and suspected of being a drug dealer. His companion, ‘Cordell,’ was 29. The pair gradually grew suspicious after a series of mundane events. Each new event fostered more anxiety and snowballing suspicions. On the afternoon of the 7th, great significance was given to the finding of a bubble gum wrapper on the roof, the other half near a wood pile. They also grew certain that people were lurking about the house, peering through the windows.
Near dusk, they thought they may have spotted a ‘kid’ in camouflage gear. Cordell chased after the figure but to no avail. Then he shouted a warning to “the people he felt were hiding but could not see that if the nonsense did not stop somebody was going to get shot.” A short time later they thought they could hear people near a back door. At this point events quickly spiraled out of control as Cordell fired a warning shot to scare away the people he thought were there. Fearful that they might be under siege, Masters telephoned a friend and asked him to bring over a variety of weapons. Soon, a 23-year-old friend, ‘Hamby,’ joined them. The trio kept a watchful eye on the house until about 1:30 am when Cordell and Masters thought they saw shadowy figures near the house and they fired off some 10 shots. Meanwhile, Hamby was adamant that he saw and heard no one.
Over the next three and a half hours, the trio said they heard more noises and distant figures. Then, near dusk, and in a state of physical and emotional exhaustion, the men began firing indiscriminately. Cordell was sure he saw someone hanging in a window and that he shot the figure but later no body or blood were found. Harvard-trained sociologist Ron Westrum interviewed the men and later wrote: “Hamby fired a .44 magnum through a refrigerator – I saw the hole myself – at a person in the kitchen, whom he heard slam against the sink, fall on the floor, and make gurgling noises, as if critically wounded. ...All three were extremely scared; Masters to the point where he was re-loading spent cartridges into the revolver.” Near sunrise, the men phoned the Sheriff’s Department, showing how desperate they had become as one of them was on parole.
One of the men was so anxious to get the attention of a passing police car that he fired a shotgun – inadvertently striking the windshield! He was charged with attempted murder, but it was later reduced to misuse of a firearm. Police conducted a thorough investigation of the scene and found no evidence of any intruders, only a bullet-ridden home littered with empty shell cartridges.
The Nullarbor Plain Incident
On 19 January 1988, Faye Knowles of Perth, Australis, decided to drive her Ford Telstar across the continent to stay with relatives in Melbourne. Accompanying her were three sons: Wayne, Sean and Patrick, ranging in age from 18 to 24. The group had been traveling virtually non-stop for 13-hours when Traveling virtually non-stop for 13-hours when something bizarre happened near the tiny outpost of Mundrabilla in the Nullarbor Desert.
Near dawn and with the rest of his family asleep, Sean noticed a mysterious light in the distance and became convinced it was a ‘spaceship.’ After alerting the others, Sean became terrified that the object was pursuing them. He floored the accelerator and the car began roaring down the remote stretch of highway at about 200 kph, generating fear and confusion among his groggy passengers.
The group later told police that a beam raised the vehicle into the air, then dropped it, causing the tire to burst and the car to become disabled on the roadway. They also said that a loud thud could be heard on the roof, and an eerie grey mist filled the car. Meantime, a foul smell foul odor permeated the vehicle. The nervous occupants changed the tire and drove on to Mundrabilla. Two truck drivers who encountered the family there said they were visibly upset. One of the truckers said that the Knowles car was laden with a strange black ash. They reached South Australia, where police interviewed the family who by now were making global headlines after claiming that their car had been picked up by a ‘UFO.’ South Australian police inspected the car and found only typical road grime. An investigation of the car was conducted by the Australian Mineral Development Laboratory which analyzed the ash and found particles of clay and salt, consistent with what one should expect to find in a vehicle that had recently crossed the sand-laden Nullarbor Plains near the Great Southern Ocean.
As for the strange aerial light that appeared to follow the car, weather records reveal that at the time of the incident, there had been a temperature inversion in the area. Former South Australian meteorologist Allan Brunt later observed that such events in the region are notorious for refracting light and distorting sizes, shapes and colors of objects. Brunt believes that the Knowles family saw the distorted image of the headlights of a truck in the distance, which appeared to them as a UFO.
Given the lack of corroborating physical evidence, and the frightened state of the occupants, it appears that family members, fatigued from a long trip, under the cover of darkness while traveling on an unfamiliar road, mistook an anomalous light for an extraterrestrial space craft that they believed was pursuing them. It is also notable that based on interviews with the family, they were all in an extremely emotional state, “shouting and crying.” Mrs Knowles even said she thought they were going to die.
Further Study Needed
When viewed from afar, small group panics may appear to be a sign of mental disturbance. Yet, they are perhaps best understood through the lens of the famous Thomas Theorem. In the 1920s, American sociologist William Isaac Thomas devised a maxim that is often quoted to this day. He wrote that “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” Put simply, if you believe that you were being chased by drug dealers or space aliens, in a sense, you really were, because you behave as if you were.
In the absence of any clear evidence of mental disorder among the Tromp family, I am inclined to believe that the most likely explanation for their behavior, is that after a series of unfortunate events, combined with stress and fatigue, they had simply scared themselves.
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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.
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