Pilots never want their passengers to worry unnecessarily and hate being made fun of by other pilots, so it’s rare that they report seeing UFOs to air traffic control during a flight, especially when it triggers an incident report with their name on it. That being the case, it seems to be happening more often. Earlier in November, British Airways pilots flying over the west coast of Ireland reported seeing “bright lights” moving “at a very high speed” and called them in to the Shannon Air Traffic Control, as did pilots of two other planes. The Irish Aviation Authority is still investigating the incident and it remains unsolved. Last week, pilots for Nolinor Aviation reported a UFO in Canada over north Baffin Island in the northernmost territory of Nunavut … an area that has had its share of unexplained events. Could the UFO be related to them?

The red pin marks the coordinates where Nolinor pilots say they saw an unidentified flying object on Nov. 24.

(Google Maps screenshot via Nunatsiaq News)

The Baffin Island sighting occurred on November 24 at about 8:30 pm local time. According to their report to the Transport Canada’s Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS) (see a screen shot here), they described it as a CIRVIS/UFO, which is pilot-speak for “Communications Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings” like UFOs. (Audio of the report can be heard here.) The report was forwarded to North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) which is based at CFB Winnipeg, Manitoba – due south of Nunavut. The Boeing 737-200 was heading from Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, to the Mary River Mine, an open pit iron mine that is the world’s sixth most northerly mine.

Baffin Island fjord

Why would a UFO be interested in an iron mine? UFOs are often seen over mining operations. From 2010 to 2015, UFOs were reported over a number of copper mines in Chile. Speculation ranged from drones or helicopters spying on the mines to aliens coming in for parts or fuel. While UFOs are often seen over active volcanoes and could be anything from drones to birds to aliens refueling or using the volcano as a portal, the Taupo Volcanic Zone in New Zealand is over large reservoirs of molten gold, silver and other precious metals, prompting those on the “aliens” side to speculate they could be mining them before we can figure out how for ourselves. Gold, silver, rare minerals? Kind of makes sense. But iron ore?

This report to Transport Canada’s Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System describes what the pilots saw on Nov. 24 as they approached the Mary River iron mine in northern Baffin Island.

In 2016, a mysterious pinging in the waters between Baffin Island and the Melville Peninsula baffled the military. One theory was that it was the Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation, owner of the Mary Iron Mine, pinging the waters with sonar to conduct surveys. Are they now using drones as well? There was also a defunct military radar station set up during the Cold War to track Soviet planes. Is it sending signals again? The pinging was painfully loud to locals but you know how that goes – military and money trumps indigenous people.

Marco Prud’homme, Nolinor’s vice president, says the pilot told him he saw a shining light, which changed from red to green to white, and it could have been a star, a meteorite, or “probably something natural.” Of course that’s what he’s going to tell the management – he wants to keep his job.

There have been reports of UFOs made from the ground in Nunavut. They’re generally colored lights moving at high speeds and some have been reported by dozens of witnesses. Meteors? Northern lights?

It’s easy to disbelieve rock stars or people who can’t seem to tell the difference between a star and a UFO. That’s why we need to keep an open mind when these reports come from pilots and astronauts. Especially around the mysterious Baffin Island.

The first type of red paint used by humans was ochre and it dates back hundreds of thousands of years. Ancient art work using ochre includes prehistoric drawings on cave walls and paintings on canvasses.

Ochre is a reddish mineral that consists of oxidized iron (iron that has been mixed with oxygen). Since it is a mineral, ochre doesn’t decay or wash away over time. April Nowell, who is a paleolithic archaeologist, a professor and chair at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria in Canada, explains ochre in more detail, “Its vibrant color and ability to adhere to surfaces – including the human body – make it an ideal crayon or paint base.”

Ochre really isn’t that difficult to find. It can be found in soil and rocks were the iron minerals have formed, such as the edges of valleys, cliffs, and even in caves. When ochre is found, it can be turned into powder by grating it against the ground or on a stone. After it is in powder form, it can be mixed with liquid (water, egg whites, or saliva) and turned into paint. In addition to being turned into paint, it can also be broken into small pieces and used as a crayon.

• To see some ancient art created from ochre, click here.

Scientists have found evidence of early humans using ochre as far back as around 285,000 years ago in the Paleolithic period. Archaeologists found about 70 pieces of ochre that weighed around eleven pounds at a Homo erectus site in Kenya called GnJh-03.

Other evidence was found at a Neanderthal site in the Netherlands called Maastricht-Belvédère where archaeologists excavated small amounts of ochre that dates back to around 250,000 years ago. Paul Pettitt, who is a professor of paleolithic archaeology at Durham University in the United Kingdom, said that it is believed the Neanderthals perhaps turned the ochre into powder and mixed it with water in order to paint their clothing or their skin. In fact, archaeologists have found several cave paintings made by Neanderthals.

Ancient humans even used ochre in burials. Pettitt explained that it is believed that the clothing worn by the deceased were colored with ochre, but as time passed the clothes decayed, resulting with the human bones as well as the grave turning a reddish color from the mineral. In fact, this is exactly what happened in the grave of the famous Red Lady of Paviland in South Wales, United Kingdom. Although it was initially thought that the grave was that of an improper scarlet woman (since it was stained red), the burial site was actually of a young man who lived during the Paleolithic times around 33,000 years ago.

While ochre is a perfect color to draw or paint with, and is especially easy to see in the dark settings of a cave, it has several other uses. The ancients used the mineral to tan hides, as well as a type of glue to secure handles to stone tools. It was also used as mosquito repellent, protection against the cold or the sun, and even for medicinal purposes.

It seems to be apparent that early humans preferred using the color red. Whether it was to mark their bodies or to create ancient art work, the fact that ochre has been used for nearly 300,000 years is quite astonishing.

Out over the harsh terrain of the Outback of Western Australia, through all of the desert scrub, water-less dead creeks, gullies, and the unforgiving landscape of the flat, sun-scorched place called channel country and about 40 miles east of the tiny town of Boulia, once existed a town called Min Min, now merely desiccated ruins like the remains of some prehistoric beast. It is here among these ruins where a curious phenomenon has long been witnessed by those passing through, strange, inexplicable ghostly lights that bob and hover across this remote land to frighten and startle, and which are steeped in lore and legend.

What have come be called the Min Min lights are typically described as shimmering orbs that can range in color, including blue, white, green, red, and yellow, sometimes changing between all three, as well as take different sizes. They are sometimes said to have somewhat blurry edges that seem to pulsate or scintillate, and they can be slow moving or conversely very fast, flying through the night like a land bound shooting star, sometimes moving in a straight line and sometimes performing aerial acrobatics, and on very rare occasions they have been witnessed to break off into two separate lights that go careening their separate ways off into the night. Interestingly many of the reports that have come in describe the lights as following the witness, or conversely moving away from them if they try to approach, and some accounts claim that they evoke thick feelings or dread or confusion, leaving the witness quite unsettled. The lights might wander off into the distance out of sight or vanish into thin air, and they are always a startling thing to see out here in these badlands.

The Australian Outback

Considering their mysterious, unearthly nature it is perhaps not surprising at all that they have attracted their fair share of spooky lore. The Aborigines believed them to be the spirits of their ancestors roaming the land, and when white settlers began sighting the lights in 1918 there were immediate legends that they were connected to the old ghost town, or more specifically the notorious hotel that once stood there, which was said to be a nefarious place, indeed. According to this legend, the owners of the hotel were in the grim business of murdering guests for their valuables, after which the bodies would be unceremoniously buried in shallow graves in a dry patch of land behind the establishment. In this tale the lights are the vengeful ghosts of these victims, and that they seek to confuse travelers and get them lost in the forbidding Outback out of some vendetta. The lights became a sort of scary bedtime story, with whispers that the lights were omens of death, and that to see them meant certain doom, made even more ominous tales of those who claimed to have seen the lights before fatal mining accidents or disasters.

Some of the earliest published reports of Min Min light sightings originate in the 1930s, such as one account from 1937 from a rancher named Henry Lamond. He claimed that he had been out on horseback at around 2 AM in the morning when he saw what he at first took to be a car out there in the Outback, which was a little unusual but not in and of itself so completely bizarre either. However, things would get very strange very fast, and he would say:

Cars, though they were not common, were not rare. I took note of the thing, singing and trotting as I rode, and I even estimated the strength of the approaching light by the way it picked out individual hairs in the mare’s mane. Suddenly I realized it was not a car light — it remained in one bulbous ball instead of dividing into the 2 headlights, which it should have done as it came closer; it was too green-glare-y for an acetylene light; it floated too high for any car; there was something eerie about it.

The light came on, floating as airily as a bubble, moving with comparative slowness … I should estimate now that it was moving at about 10 mph and anything from 5 to 10 feet above the ground … Its size, I would say, at an approximate guess, would be about that of a new-risen moon. That light and I passed each other, going in opposite directions. I kept an eye on it while it was passing, and I’d say it was about 200 yards off when suddenly it just faded and died away. It did not go out with a snap -its vanishing was more like the gradual fading of the wires in an electric bulb.

One very eerie and well known report with a definite air of the paranormal comes that very same year, and was written of by newspaper columnist Bill Bowyang. He claimed that one evening from their camp he and his companions had seen an odd light bobbing and weaving about in the cool desert night, which he at first took to be someone out there waving about a lantern, but soon saw that this could not be the case as it would rise high in the air and then back down again. Bowyang suggested following it, after which his frightened companions warned him that it was a ghost light and that it was trying to lead them to their doom over the precipice of a rocky chasm they knew of hidden in the inky dark in that direction. Curiosity got the better of him, and he decided to go out and see what the light was anyway, saying of what happened next:

I strode on into the darkness. I had got to within perhaps twenty yards of the peculiar light, which was still hovering like some huge ball of glowing embers in mid-air about seven or eight feet from the ground, when suddenly it swerved abruptly to one side. A man’s warning voice came through the darkness. ‘The abyss ain’t a dozen yards from where ye are; come back, come back.’ I stopped, but not before I had seen – true to the old fellow’s words – that the strange light had indeed drifted out over the great chasm. As I watched, the light hesitated, floated back a little towards me, then as though tempting me to follow, but at the same time annoyed at the possibility of losing a victim, it glided back again over the chasm where, with a few final erratic movements, it dropped from sight.

This ominous reputation as entities trying to baffle and confuse has been echoed in other similar reports, such as one from a local named James Birch, from the isolated Outback town of Kimberley. He says that he grew up hearing the tales of the Min Min lights, and says of them and his own experience:

As a kid growing up the old people used to tell me, they [Min Min lights] were old people’s spirits looking after country. If you’ve lived in the Kimberley you would have experienced spotting a Min Min light once in your life. We were heading back into town after hunting. I was driving towards town when all of sudden a Min Min light appeared. We all stared at the light and all of a sudden we were going in the opposite way, going back into the bush and following the light without even realizing.

Over the years there have been hundreds of such sightings of the Min Min lights, and the strange phenomenon continues to this day, sparking much speculation and debate as to what they might be. Of course there are the ideas that these are ghosts, spirits, or UFOs, but there have been more scientific efforts to try and explain them as well, ranging from the simple to the complex. Some of the more mundane explanations are that these lights are caused by birds, owls, or bio-luminescent insects, but this does not seem to really fit in with what witnesses report seeing. There are also the theories that the lights are caused by some sort of fluorescent gases or that they are a mirage caused by the clash of layers of cold and warm air, which can have the effect of bending light and causing distant light sources over the horizon such as headlights or fires to appear as if they are much closer, a phenomenon known as Fata Morgana, although these do not explain reports in which the witness sees them fly over their heads, pass right by them, or circle them out in the dark. The lights could also be caused by other factors such as ball lightning, ionization in geophysically-generated electrical fields, or some other little understood natural phenomenon, but no one knows for sure, all we know is that they are weird indeed.

Many of these explanations do not fully explain all of the idiosyncrasies of Min Min light reports, such as the seemingly intelligent nature they demonstrate, ghostly voices, or the profound fear they are said to generate, and in the end the phenomenon has not conclusively been solved. Whether the Min Min lights are the spirits of Aboriginal elders, the ghosts of dead settlers, UFOs, mirages, misidentifications, or something else altogether, they have gone on to become one of the most enduring unexplained mysteries of Australia’s Outback, and continue to capture the imagination.

A mysterious green fireball was recently seen in the skies above Russia’s high-tech weapons research city. Are the Russians showing off one of Vladimir Putin “secret weapons” the area is known for, or was this merely a meteorite exploding over a highly conspicuous location?

For now, little is known about the mystery light in the sky. In the early morning hours of Tuesday, November 27, motorists driving near the research town of Akademgorodok in southern Siberia spotted a bright green flash followed by a tail streaking across the sky. It’s Russia, so of course several dash cams caught the incident on film. Russians love dash cams.

Akademgorodok was like a Soviet version of Silicon Valley during the Cold War.

Russia’s state-run media has explained the incident as a meteor explosion – although they also noted that local astronomers are “somewhat bewildered” by the event because no meteor events were expected in the area. Ilya Orlov, deputy director of the Big Novosibirsk Planetarium, says that while the phenomenon was beautiful, he and fellow researchers are at a loss to explain what may have caused it:

Most likely, this is a flash of bolide, that is, the fall of a bright meteor with a flash. It is all the more surprising because there are no active meteor showers now. It can be either the tail of a [Leonid] meteor shower or a lone meteor. We need to find out.

Russian social media has been full of speculation ranging from secret rocket launches to tests of “extremely advanced weapons,” and aliens, naturally. With other unexplained explosions being caught on camera around the world, it really makes you wonder if we aren’t experiencing an uptick in meteorite impacts – or are we just catching them on camera more frequently in the dash cam/smartphone age?

The Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics at Akademgorodok.

Akademgorodok was established at the height of the Cold War to be a scientific research center and today remains a research and education hub for Siberia. Some of the research facilities there are involved in nuclear research, laser physics, and chemical kinetics and combustion, while the nearby Russian State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology is believed to conduct some of the most deadly chemical and biological weapons research on the planet and houses one of the last samples of smallpox in the world.

Let’s hope it was just a meteor explosion.