Ufo encounter 279

ISSUE 279

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015 THIS ISSUE: MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT ETS UFO SIGHTINGS OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS

COUNTING DOWN TO 60 YEARS UFO ENCOUNTER

1

UFO ENCOUNTER ISSUE 279 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015

57 YEARS IN PUBLICATION

the COMMITTEE President : Sheryl Gottschall Vice President : Tino Pezzimenti Treasurer : Michael West Membership : Tino Pezzimenti Public Relations : Sheryl Gottschall : Tino Pezzimenti : Gem Regan Sightings & Encounters : Sheryl Gottschall Librarian : Alan Reading Editor : Lee Paqui Webmaster : Nate Odger Film Production/Editor : Barry Taylor Officers : Gale King : Roy Kalecinski : Jan Slottje : Colin Philips

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ UFO-Research-Queensland-Inc/ 234668694323 NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS We welcome contributions to UFO Encounter but reserve the right to make amendments to submissions without consulting the author. Please direct contributions to :The Editor, UFORQ, PO Box 15222, City East QLD 4002 Australia or email info@uforq.asn.au COPYRIGHT Original articles in this publication may be reproduced if the author and source are acknowledged .Where the word ‘copyright’, or the copyright symbol © appears with an article, or where materials have been reproduced from an acknowledged source, permission to reprint should be sought from the author or source given.

ADVERTISING While we welcome advertisements ,the editor reserves the right to refuse those that do not suit the concept or quality of UFO ENCOUNTER. UFO Research Queensland recommends readers make their own assessment of any material ladvertised.

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS Please include with your submission your name, address and payment, and ensure that these details are legible. All cheques are to be sent to the Secretary at the above address, and to be endorsed to UFO RESEARCH QUEENSLAND. Advertising rates are quoted in Australian dollars. For overseas advertisers payment should be made by international money order or bank draft in Australian dollars.

ADVERTISING RATES Full page :$80.Half page: $50. Quarter page: $30.

Eighth page: $20. Classified advertisements $1 per line.

2

PUBLIC MEETINGS Public Meetings are held on the last Friday of every month [except December] at 7.00pm sharp at the Kenmore Library, Meeting Room 3, Kenmore Village Shopping Centre, 9 Brookfield Road, Kenmore.

2015 Meeting Dates: Friday August 28, 7.00pm Friday September 25, 7.00pm Friday October 30, 7.00pm Friday November 27, 7.00pm December - no Meeting Topics will be advertised at http://uforq.asn.au/ meetings/, on Facebook, or how about joining our email list for all the latest updates? Email us at info@uforq.asn.au for more information.

If you can’t make it to our public meetings tune in to the Witching Hour on 4ZZZ (102.1FM) Saturdays 1012pm. Stream or listen on demand: www.4zzzfm.org.au/program/thewitching-hour

become a MEMBER

Membership with UFO Research Queensland Incorporate costs $35.00 annually for membership [$45.00 AUD for International members].

Membership entitles you to benefits such as discounts on meeting entry, Library membership, and sees six issues of UFO Encounter delivered to your door.

Information on how to join is on page 20, or you can join online at http://uforq.asn.au/membership/ or email us at info@uforq.asn.au for more information.

phone: [07] 3376 1780 email: info@uforq.asn.au web: www.uforq.asn.au UFO ENCOUNTER

from the

EDITOR

In this issue’s ‘Headlines’ section is a BBC article entitled ‘How to Overthrow a Martian Dictatorship.’

Now, don’t get excited, there’s nobody living on Mars (that anybody will admit to), and no dictators have yet risen to power there (that we know of), but the gist of the article is that, should we ever colonise Mars, or indeed any off-Earth planetary body, they might.

It seems the British Interplanetary Society is taking the possibility – nay, the very real prospect – of a tyrannical world government on a planet other than our own very seriously indeed. They have recently met to discuss ‘extraterrestrial liberty’… which is not, as the title implies, the liberty of any extraterrestrials currently in holding cells dug out miles beneath the surface of the Earth, but our own ‘extraterrestrial liberties’ once we ourselves are extraterrestrials and living on planets where, apparently, mankind’s real and most nefarious nature will assert itself with dire and disastrous consequences.

That was a big sentence, sorry, but the point of it is… humans can’t be trusted. Once we are away from home and somewhere where the long arm of the law can’t reach us, it’s going to be every man for himself. And whether that’s the governor of the colony, or the directors of the mining corporation that set up the colony in the first place (because let’s face it, man has never colonised for scientific or research purposes, or to make friends with the natives), somebody is going to take control… which brings us back to every man for himself.

technological development? Keep us under some kind of glowing green thumb and ensure we can’t hurt or destroy anything but ourselves? And, y’know, if it looks like we’re on the brink of destroying ourselves, why not just let us do it?

Yes, yes, I know, I’ve read all the stuff about us being ‘special,’ and about us being held back in our development by dark forces, and about us having our vibrations raised so we can become galactic citizens with a special place in the universe. I’ve read it. I’ve thought about it. And then I’ve looked around at the violence and anger and negativity that literally seethes across this planet and I am saddened and disappointed. I don’t see ‘special.’ I don’t see enough people taking that step towards enlightenment that we are all waiting for. I don’t even see enough to tip our collective balance towards ‘good.’ All I see is the bad. The war, the murder, the violence. The addiction, the greed and the aggression that still, still constitutes the majority of our society. One could argue these negative emotions are our mainstay. The very thing that keeps us alive. Well, that, and McDonalds.

For the sake of the universe I don’t want us to ever go offplanet. And I don’t want any galactic beings coming here either. Maybe we need to soak in our cesspool for a bit longer, and reach enlightenment on our own terms and in our own sweet time. Maybe, once we have sorted out our own issues and have learned to govern ourselves truthfully and honestly (which, I am sure you will agree, is patently not how we govern ourselves now), maybe then we’ll be ready to go to Mars. Or anywhere else in the galaxy, for that matter. Maybe by then the human race might have something useful to contribute to the galactic federation and the citizens of the universe… and hopefully it won’t only be McDonalds!

lee

When you think about it, this is not such a happy future.

Humanity has made leaps and bounds technologically, but sociologically our thought processes still mirror those of the conquistadores, or Fletcher Christian overthrowing his captain and striking out on his own.

This could be one reason, then, why ET doesn’t declare his presence openly, or invite us to join them in their spacefaring odysseys. Letting humans into their world on a permanent basis would be like letting the wolf into the sheep’s pen.

And like the cannibals of old we’d be slaughtering our new friends and roasting them in the hyperdrive engine before you could say ‘What? No McDonalds?’

Is there a good ending to this tale of woe… apart from serving the first Quarter Pounder™ in space?

I don’t think so. The members of the British Interplanetary Society have every right to be worried, because we can’t be trusted to play nice with each other, no matter where we are. And ET has every right to be worried because we can’t be trusted to play nice with our friends, no matter who they are, either.

Why would ET want to come here? Why would they want us to go out into space and join them in their territory?

Wouldn’t it be better to keep us here? Make the Earth a prison planet for one kind of prisoner only – homo sapiens?

Stop us from exploring the universe? Set us back in our

UFO ENCOUNTER

Sightings . . . . . 4 Remote Viewing . . . . . 5 Misconceptions about Extraterrestrials . . . . . 6 UFO Sightings of the Rich and Famous . . . . . 8 The Headlines . . . . . 13 3

sightings Churchlands, Perth, WA, 23 November 2014 4.18am

On early Sunday morning a man arrived back home from a friend’s house at around 4.10am. He went out the back to his shed to have a cigarette before going to bed. The time was approximately 4.18am at that point. A few minutes passed and he had a “weird feeling” he could not explain.

Shortly after at 4.23am he hopped up off the chair he was sitting on to look into the sky and he noticed a bright cluster of 4 stars. Seconds later one of the stars started moving at a very fast pace in an easterly direction from Scarborough Beach towards Perth Hills at cloud height.

He managed to only view the object for no longer than 20 seconds. It was moving a lot faster than a passenger aircraft, before disappearing behind cloud cover never to be seen again.

Windsor, Brisbane, QLD, 30 December 2014, 8.30pm A man came across a police roadblock so detoured through an industrial estate and came upon a formation of 20 to 30 small white lights blinking randomly and moving slowly in the sky, about low helicopter height.

These lights were in a cone-shaped formation about the size of a house. He stopped his vehicle and got out to have a look and noticed the formation was followed by a second smaller blinking light that he thought could possibly be a light aircraft. He heard an electrical buzzing noise coming from the direction of the group of lights, which he observed for 30 seconds before the formation disappeared. As it moved from view It seemed to pass over the area of the road block.

she thought ‘you have now moved to the left’. It then promptly moved back to the right, then in two seconds shot up with incredible speed vertically and disappeared.

Warner, Qld, 7 April, 2012, 8.00pm. Reported 14 February 2015

A young man was at a friend’s house when they decided to walk to the local shop. They reached a high point on a hill and saw a deep orange dot in the sky. They didn’t think anything of it but as they walked a few hundred metres and turned a corner they saw a bus-sized sphere about 50 metres above the road. It had a diameter of 4 metres and was moving silently at about 5km/hr. It appeared to be made of fire or plasma and was of an orange/red colour. They heard a man yell “what the ... is that?”, a girl scream and another girl crying. They watched it move about 40 to 50 metres then it accelerated to 4/5 times its speed, then disappeared at a 45 degree angle. The object was extremely bright but didn’t scatter any ambient light, nor did the witness recall seeing it cast any shadows. Even though the light was bright it seemed to cause no harm to their eyes.

Townsville, QLD, 1995 A witness observed a small round light above a nearby hill while looking through a glass window. It was approximately 100 metres from his location and the size of a person and changing colours from blue to yellow, red and green. He watched the object for 30 minutes and during this time stepped outside to see it more clearly.

He checked the next day to see if the object was still there but it was gone.

Wakerley, Brisbane QLD, Wednesday 17 December 2014, 11.30pm A woman was awakened from her sleep by the sound of her cat meowing. She was puzzled that her cat wanted her to take her to her food, but she decided to go as she didn’t want her loud meowing to wake the baby upstairs.

To do so she had to walk past the glass back door and to her surprise she saw a glowing orange/reddish orb, bigger than the planet Venus, possibly at plane height and distance from her. She immediately thought to get her glasses to have a proper look. As she dashed back she noticed the light was in a different position and

4

UFO ENCOUNTER

remote

VIEWING Lee Heather with

Remote viewing is a mental faculty that allows a perceiver (a “viewer”) to describe or give details about a target that is inaccessible to normal senses due to distance, time, or shielding. As part of the scientific study of parapsychology, remote viewing is included in this field along with psychokinesis, the ability to move objects and telepathy to name a few.

UFORQ’s guest speaker (February 2015), Lee Heather, insists he is not psychic, and that anyone can remote view with proper training. The discipline requires the unconscious mind to gain knowledge about targets, which includes locations, people and situations. To facilitate or train in the discipline of remote viewing requires the participant to shed conscious layers and open themselves up to intuition. With no prior knowledge of the target, the viewer is given a set of coordinates from which they are allowed a free response and are instructed to draw the first thing that comes to mind. Only the first object “sensed” is recorded and accepted for test results, as this apparently is pure consciousness, while most that follows is imagination that can misguide the viewer.

English-born Lee travelled to America to train in remote viewing at the Farsight Institute under the guidance of Glen Wheaton, who also happens to be the main inspiration for the book, and later the movie, “Men who stare at Goats.” Although the movie is somewhat satirical, it does highlight the fact that the remote viewing phenomena has and is being seriously researched by CIA, FBI and intelligence gathering organisations through academic institutions such as Stanford, Harvard and the Rhine Research Centre. Lee admits that he does not practice the craft any longer, but interestingly his research techniques did mirror the standard methodology of testing and adheres to the rigorous protocols demanded by the military.

Some “places” Lee claimed he has viewed included the Moon, which he states was “towed” to its current location, is hollow and is used as an observation post.

Interestingly he asserts the presence of brass and

UFO ENCOUNTER

reviewed by Jan

Slottje

Neptunium 127 within its structure, evidenced via the characteristic crater holes produced from what he claims are direct lightning hits as opposed to the theory of meteorites, comets and asteroids hitting the moon which, in principal, should have left angled trajectory points or trails upon impact.

He also claimed to have viewed the Hale Bopp Comet, which was actually bigger than officially reported, and was surprised to also view an ET companion following closely behind the comet, which he believed was due to its instability.

At this point the audience were shown photographic evidence of Hale Bopp and companion as captured by the National Japanese Observatory. Ensuing discussion implied that an ET presence following the unstable Hale Bopp was in all probability a positive element, and may be acting as a guardian.

Mars has also been remotely viewed as confirmed by the military reporting the presence of people living under its surface, evidenced by plumes of smoke rising from the surface with human communications and satellite systems being constantly knocked out. A passing comet from the past had ripped Mars’ gravity from its surface, leaving what we see today.

Also discussed were the more technical processes of remote viewing, which included the understanding of the oscillation of theta waves, neuro and bio feedback, validation of test results and the crossing of time zones, as some cases suggest the past and the future can also viewed. It was noted however that the random nature of targets selected for viewing could prove to be frustrating as the nature of remote viewing is that the viewer simply does not know what the targets are and so cannot have preconceived ideas.

Further reading on remote viewing: Parapsychology, The Controversial Science, Richard S Broughton; Entangled Minds, Dean Radin.

5

MISCONCEPTIONS about

EXTRATERRESTRIALS by

The fact that extraterrestrials exist has been increasingly accepted by scientists and the general public over the last 70 or more years. This has happened in spite of efforts by world authorities to deny the existence of ETs. Paralleling this acceptance has been the shift in our world view, of our place in the universe and who we might share it with. But a lot of misperceptions have slipped through the cracks of this shift in accord with our human projections and hopes, as well as our fears about visitors from space.

Many still struggle with this acceptance and believe that if extraterrestrials were real then we’d see reports about them on the evening news. Wrong! The truth is it’s the last thing world authorities want to happen, and one of the many reasons why is that it’s extremely difficult to control a population suffering ontological shock.

In other words, there are still far more people in the world who aren’t ready to accept the existence of ETs, and if they were forced to question their world view before they had come to that choice themselves, then the end result could be to shatter the psyche of a world population. When that happens, human fears emerge and suddenly you have a population believing their neighbours are aliens to be dealt with. Can you imagine? Anarchy breaks out and washes over the

6

Sheryl Gottschall

population who then become a deadly force, and no authority wants to deal with that.

In response to these fears a subculture has arisen that now believes that all ETs are benevolent. After all there are no signs of an extraterrestrial invasion of planet Earth, right? Well, yes and no, because invasions don’t have to be overt. Given that reports seem to point to ET interactions with humans spanning thousands of years, with many of those interactions involving space visitors interbreeding with human females, the question then becomes - for what purpose and where are those children? The answer is we don’t know. It’s been suggested that alien-human hybrid children are continuing to be reinserted into the human population with the goal that extraterrestrials will rule the Earth eventually, or, that these children, or star children as they have become known, are here to help humanity through its darkest evolutionary hour. Again, we just don’t know what’s going on, only that reports of alien “abductions” involving the collection of human tissue samples including sperm and ova, seems to confirm that indeed something is occurring right under our nose to this very day.

Nevertheless, there are still scientists and scholars who vehemently deny that extraterrestrials are visiting planet Earth because it’s too far from other galaxies for

UFO ENCOUNTER

interstellar travel. When I hear narrow statements like this I usually gasp in wonder as to how these people gained their qualifications in the first place. Why can’t extraterrestrials originate from our own Milky Way galaxy or even our own solar system? Well of course they can, but until recently it was thought that life couldn’t exist on any other planets of our solar system because conditions wouldn’t support it. However, today astrobiologists are studying the new field of extremophiles, which are microorganisms that exist in physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to other forms of life on Earth. There are even reports of small life forms not only existing happily on the outer casings of spent radioactive ammunition shells in the oceans, but thriving in that environment. So our whole perspective of life and how it exists is changing rapidly, which in turn shifts our perspective once again towards extraterrestrials.

Other misconceptions about extraterrestrials include the popular notion that all ETs look like the typical little aliens referred to as “greys.” These beings have large inverted pear-shaped heads and large dark wraparound eyes, as well as small noses or holes instead of noses, and mere slits for mouths, if any. Again this is completely incorrect. There’s been a wide variety of beings reported over the decades and contrary to Hollywood portrayals most of them are humanoid. All ETs reported to me personally have been humanoid, regardless of size, shape or colour, which makes one think that the humanoid shape with two arms, two legs and a head is probably the most adaptable form for civilization builders.

Another common misconception is that if extraterrestrials visited planet earth they wouldn’t communicate with the common man in the street, instead they’d talk to people in positions of authority.

Well actually both are correct. The reports I receive are from people just like you and me, but there have been reports from people in high places that they’ve had communications with extraterrestrials too. One of these experiences was published in a book in 2008 written by the wife of the then Japanese Premierin-waiting, Miyuki Hatoyama. Miyuki described the extraterrestrial experience as taking place 20 years previously, in a book entitled "Very Strange Things I've Encountered." One day after she awoke, Japan's next first lady wrote that she told her now ex-husband that she had just been to Venus.

A similar case occurred in 2010 when a Russian Governor, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, reported that extraterrestrials came for him in 1997 at his home in Moscow. He reported they came in and abducted him, taking him UFO ENCOUNTER

to their space ship where they communicated with him telepathically. He was shown around the spaceship then returned. The Russian Governor said he wouldn’t have believed he had the experience if it wasn’t for three witnesses – his driver, his minister and his assistant. The event was so believed by his colleagues that a Russian parliamentarian wanted Ilyumzhinov questioned, fearing he may have given the aliens secret information! So you see extraterrestrials are interested in everyone and probably don’t understand or even care about our social structure.

For some reason extraterrestrials visit Earth in spite of many people thinking that aliens wouldn’t bother coming to Earth because there’s no intelligent life here!

Referring to human civilization and espoused with tongue in cheek no doubt, nonetheless this does leave questions begging, given that many NASA scientists consider extraterrestrials to be so sophisticated and advanced in self-sufficiency, why on earth would they need to set down on planet Earth anyway? But is this an accurate statement? Given that life across the universe would span such a wide degree of development, some extraterrestrials are possibly not as far advanced as we might think. It’s quite possible that some may have only reached the age of space travel within the last 100 to 200 years, so their needs will not be too ahead of our own, still needing to restock food and water. Others may just feel confined in space and want to experience the natural elements on their bodies.

However it’s really difficult from our tiny perspective to know what the needs of ET races might be, and this is our dilemma.

As a civilization we’re still to step off our tiny planet in the backwash of the Milky Way galaxy so it’s hard to get a handle on our cosmic neighbours. Even if they tell us something about themselves or life in the universe, how could we verify it? Until such time as we become a space-faring civilization ourselves we can only continue to ponder about galactic races and dream of being star travellers too, sometime in the future.

About Sheryl Gottschall Sheryl is a UFO and paranormal researcher who has had her own ET contact experience and UFO sightings, as well as a near death experience and many other experiences with the paranormal. She is also the president of UFO Research Queensland Inc and you can contact her on 07 3376 1780 or info@uforq.asn.au. You can also message her via Facebook.

7

UFO SIGHTINGS of the rich and

(moderately) famous Lee Paqui

For anyone reporting a UFO sighting or encounter with an ET, the process can be nerve-wracking and is fraught with a multitude of personal and social dangers. Apart from the possibility of ridicule, there is the very real danger of being socially ostracised, losing one’s job and/or position of social standing, not being taken seriously in daily life, being branded a witch and tied to a burning stake… well, okay, not that last one, but that’s what used to happen, back in the day. And although we live in modern and ‘enlightened’ times, it is still somewhat dangerous to tell the world you’ve seen a UFO. So dangerous that a vast majority of UFO sightings are left unreported – either because the witnesses don’t know to whom to turn, or because they are too afraid of the public repercussions to do so.

So, if it’s this difficult for the average Joe to report a UFO, spare a thought for those in the public eye, or who have high salaries and responsible jobs to protect. They literally take their reputations – and sometimes their lives – in their hands…

John Lennon In August 1974, John Lennon and his girlfriend of the time (or was it his secretary? Nobody is quite sure…), May Pang, observed a UFO hovering outside the window of his New York apartment. Ms Pang took a photo but unfortunately nothing showed up on the images.

May Pang later wrote a book about Lennon, and recorded the sighting in its pages: “We had just ordered some pizzas and since it was such

a warm evening, we decided to step out on the terrace.

There were no windows directly facing us from across the street, so John just stepped outside with nothing on, in order to catch a cool breeze that was coming in right off the East River. I remember I was just inside the bedroom getting dressed when John started shouting for me to come out on the terrace.

“I yelled back that I would be right there but he kept screaming for me to join him in that instant. As I walked out onto the terrace, my eye caught this large, circular object coming towards us. It was shaped like a flattened cone and on top was a large, brilliant red light, not pulsating as on any of the aircraft we’d see heading for a landing at Newark Airport. When it came a little closer, we could make out a row or circle of white lights that ran around the entire rim of the craft - these were also flashing on and off. There were so many of these lights that it was dazzling to the mind. It was, I estimate, about the size of a Lear jet and it was so close that if we had something to throw at it, we probably would have hit it quite easily.

“We often had helicopters flying above us but this was as silent as the night and about seventeen storeys above street level… The light was so brilliant coming from the craft that no additional details could be seen. We did take a couple of pictures but they turned out overexposed.

“We even called the police, that’s how excited we were, and they told us to keep calm, that others had seen it too.” During what was left of the evening, John kept saying, “I can’t believe it... I can’t believe it... I’ve seen a flying saucer!”

John Lennon’s UFO, as sketched by the singer...

8

Lennon made mention of the experience on the cover of the album ‘Walls and Bridges,’ and wrote two songs that

UFO ENCOUNTER

included UFOs in the lyrics – ‘Nobody Told Me,’ and ‘Out of the Blue.’

Since Lennon was naked during his observation, the question of who was more disturbed at the time – Lennon or his ET visitors – is a matter for history to decide.

“They came over so regularly we could time them.

Sometimes they stood still, other times they moved so fast it was hard to keep a steady eye on them.”

The spectre of extraterrestrial life appears regularly in Bowie’s work, and he unashamedly speaks about his UFO sightings in interviews.

Ronald Reagan The story goes that at dinner one night, Lucille Ball overheard yet-to-be president Reagan telling other guests that he and his wife Nancy had just seen a UFO on the way to the function. Ronald and Nancy had the car stopped and got out to watch the object.

Muhammad Ali

Ali attempts to bring his UFOs back...

Muhammad Ali (who makes no apologies for his messiahcomplex) claimed he saw numerous UFOs during his life, one object appearing when he was running in Central Park, New York, and which he followed on foot for as long as he was able. Ali’s trainer was with him at the time and also witnessed the object – along with an airline pilot who observed it whilst landing at a nearby airport.

Dan Aykroyd Dan Aykroyd is well-known in UFO circles and is a member of MUFON (he serves as the official Hollywood consultant). Aykroyd made a documentary on UFOs and hosted the TV series ‘Psi Factor.’ In the late 1980s Aykroyd woke up one night and told his wife ‘they’re calling me.’

His wife inquired who ‘they’ were, but Aykroyd did not answer and followed his instinct to go outside. The next day a number of reports of similar events were received from all over the northeastern corner of the US – people having an urge to go outside at 3.00am in the morning.

A pink ‘spiral’ was observed at the same time in the skies over the Great Lakes.

Mick Jagger Unfortunately for Mick Jagger his raging lifestyle means his UFO reports aren’t taken very seriously, but he has seen two of them and isn’t embarrassed to say so. The first was at Glastonbury music festival in 1968, when a cigarshaped craft was seen. After the sighting he installed a UFO detector in his home (interest or paranoia? You decide). A year later he was lucky enough to see another UFO. Sammy Hagar

Reagan witnessed another UFO in the 1970s, during his term as Governor of California. He was in a small plane at the time when he and the other passengers noticed a bright light flying close to the aircraft. The pilot attempted to follow the UFO, but the object abruptly flew upwards and out of view. Reagan made the following statement about the sighting: “I looked out the window and saw this white light. It was zigzagging around. I went up to the pilot and said, ‘Have you ever seen anything like that?’

He was shocked and he said, ‘nope.’ And I said to him: ‘Let’s follow it!’ We followed it for several minutes. It was a bright white light. We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden to our utter amazement it went straight up into the heavens. When I got off the plane I told Nancy all about it.”

Jimmy Carter Jimmy Carter, President of the United States from 1976 to 1980 stated, “I don’t laugh at people any more when they say they’ve seen UFOs. I’ve seen one myself.” His sighting was 1969 when he saw a light in the sky that changed from white to blue to red, before finally changing back to white and fading away. He later ascribed the sighting to military activity, but despite this change of heart, one of his campaign promises was that he would make all UFOrelated documents public. And we all know how that turned out.

Richard Nixon Nixon once stated at a press conference, “I’m not at liberty to discuss the government’s knowledge of extraterrestrial UFOs at this time. I am still personally being briefed on the subject.”

Well, if he’s being briefed about it, then there’s clearly something to brief him about, right?

Jackie Gleason Jackie Gleason, good friend of Richard Nixon, confided to his wife that he had been taken to Homestead Air Force Base where Nixon showed him the bodies of extraterrestrials (this must have been after Nixon’s

Sammy Hager, of Van Halen fame, claims to have been abducted by ETs and, um, probed by them. He described a wireless device doing the probing, way back when wireless devices hadn’t yet been invented. He didn’t mention how he knew the probe was wireless, nor did he say what information it might have been transmitting from the depths of his, you know...

David Bowie Rock star Bowie claimed to have seen a number of UFOs when he was a child in England.

UFO ENCOUNTER

The moment Jackie Gleason realised that Nixon might be serious....

9

briefing). Gleason’s wife, Beverly McKittrick, later told the press about the event, saying that Gleason described the aliens as small, “ about two feet tall with bald heads and disproportionately large ears.”

Gleason was so angry that his wife discussed his secret with the press that he never spoke to her again. Love hurts.

Walter Cronkite In the 1950s Walter Cronkite (famous US news reporter and commentator) was invited to an island in the South Pacific to observe the launching of a new Air Force missile. As the missile was launched, a disc-shaped object appeared in the sky. Cronkite estimated the object was about 50 feet in diameter, grey in colour and had no obvious means of propulsion.

The disc hovered motionless above the ground as a number of security guards ran towards it. At the same time the object fired a beam towards the missile, but the beam unfortunately hit a security guard and his dog along with the missile. Reports stated that the security guard was frozen mid-step, the dog in mid-air, and the missile, which had already been launched when the beam struck, froze in place some feet above the launcher.

Cronkite recalled that this all took place in the space of five minutes, after which the missile exploded, the disc disappeared and the reporters were ushered into a nearby bunker. After thirty minutes of waiting an Air Force Colonel appeared and instructed Cronkite and his fellow media representatives not to report what they had seen, and were told the Air Force were working on new technology and were ‘testing how people reacted when they saw the device in action.’

object’s movements to Mission Control, detailing the UFO’s size, shape and position. When he later returned to solid ground he was advised to not speak about the sighting his cameras and film were confiscated and were never seen again.

Gordon Cooper In 1951, as Cooper was flying over Germany, he saw a UFO. Almost three decades later, in 1978 Cooper, now an astronaut (he went to space in both 1963 and 1969), wrote to the United Nations requesting the organisation establish a research programme to study UFOs. Cooper also stated publicly that he is fairly confident that a UFO crashed at Roswell, New Mexico. He said: “I had a good friend at Roswell, a fellow officer. He had to be careful about what he said. But it sure wasn’t a weather balloon, like the Air Force cover story. He made it clear to me what crashed was a craft of alien origin, and members of the crew were recovered.”

Good one.

For the record, Cronkite never believed this explanation, and for those worried about the security guard and dog, Cronkite said they ‘appeared alright,’ though they were quickly ushered out of sight.

Richard Russell In 1955, whilst on a fact-finding mission in Russia, Richard Russell, US senator and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, observed two separate UFO sightings.

The incident occurred whilst the senator was on a train, where he observed a disc-shaped craft taking off from land near the tracks. His military aide and his interpreter also witnessed the object. Shortly afterwards a second craft appeared. The three men reported the sightings to the US Air Force once they had left Russia, but the information was kept concealed for a number of years.

Victor Afanasyev In 1979, Soviet cosmonaut Victor Afanasyev observed a UFO move towards his capsule whilst en route to the Solyut space station. He said: “It followed us during half of our orbit. We observed it on the light side, and when we entered the shadow side it disappeared completely. It was an engineering structure, made from some type of metal, approximately 40 meters long with inner hulls. The object was narrow here and wider here, and inside there were openings. Some places had projections like small wings. The object stayed very close to us. We photographed it, and our photos showed it to be 23 to 28 meters away.”

For the duration of the sighting Afanasyev reported the

10

Astronaut Gordon Cooper, having his head inspected....

Buzz Aldrin Buzz Aldrin, second man on the Moon, described how the crew of Apollo 11 witnessed a UFO during their journey to the Earth’s satellite. In a documentary (titled ‘First on the Moon: The untold story’), just over three minutes is devoted to Aldrin’s recollection of the event: “…there was something out there that was close enough to be observed and what could it be? Traveling beside Apollo 11 is (an) object that, when observed at a close distance using a telescope, reveals an L-shaped object.”

Understandably Aldrin and his crew were reluctant to report the incident to Mission Control. Aldrin adds, “we decided that after a while of watching it, it was time to go to sleep and not talk about it anymore.”

James McDivitt In June 1965, McDivitt, Gemini IV astronaut, photographed an unexplained object approaching the Gemini module whilst it was passing over Hawaii. McDivitt reported the following: “I was flying with Ed White. He was sleeping at the time so I don’t have anybody to verify my story. We were drifting in space with the control engines shut down and all the instrumentation off (when) suddenly (an object) appeared in the window. It had a very definite shape - a

UFO ENCOUNTER

cylindrical object - it was white - it had a long arm that stuck out on the side. I don’t know whether it was a very small object up close or a very large object a long ways away. There was nothing to judge by. I really don’t know how big it was. We had two cameras that were just floating in the spacecraft at the time, so I grabbed one and took a picture of (the object) and grabbed the other and took a picture. Then I turned on the rocket control systems because I was afraid we might hit it. At the time we were drifting - without checking I have no idea which way we were going - but as we drifted up a little farther the sun shone on the window of the spacecraft. The windshield was dirty - just like in an automobile, you can’t see through it. So I had the rocket control engines going again and moved the spacecraft so that the window was in darkness again - the object was gone. I called down later and told them what had happened and they went back and checked their records of other space debris that was flying around but we were never able to identify what it could have been. The film was sent back to NASA and reviewed by some NASA film technicians. One of them selected what he thought was what we talked about, at least before I had a chance to review it. It was not the picture - it was a picture of a sun reflection on the window.”

Clyde Tombaugh Astronomer Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto (discovered in 1930, and we’re glad he passed away before Pluto’s licence was revoked), reported six to eight rectangular UFOs that he observed near Las Cruces, New Mexico in August 1949. He said “I doubt that the phenomenon was any terrestrial reflection, because... nothing of the kind has ever appeared before or since...

I was so unprepared for such a strange sight that I was really petrified with astonishment.”

the sky the day he was born. He also claimed that he was visited by aliens when he was 8-years-old, and that they showed him what his future would be like (unfortunately they must have left out the part about fried sandwiches leading to his untimely death…). It is also said by fans at his funeral that a UFO was seen during the ceremony.

Tom Cruise Tom Cruise always puts his money where his mouth is, shelling out 11 million dollars on a bunker designed to protect himself and his family from an alien invasion.

When questioned Cruise replied, “Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe?

Millions of stars, and we’re supposed to be the only living creatures? No, there are many things out there, we just don’t know.”

Fran Drescher Actress Fran Drescher very loudly claimed to have been abducted by aliens as a child. In an interview she stated that the aliens implanted a chip in her hand, and that both she and her husband had seen UFOs when they were children – events that led her to the theory that she and her husband were somehow ‘programmed’ to meet in later life. Her husband disagrees however, and counterclaimed that his wife’s supposed implant scar was caused by an accident with a drill-bit. Or a cup of hot coffee. He can’t decide which.

Tombaugh also reported green fireballs over New Mexico over a period stretching from 1948 into the early 1950s. He stated: “I have seen three objects in the last seven years which defied any explanation of known phenomenon, such as Venus, atmospheric optic, meteors or planes. I am a professional, highly skilled, astronomer.

In addition I have seen three green fireballs which were unusual in behaviour from normal green fireballs...I think that several reputable scientists are being unscientific in refusing to entertain the possibility of extraterrestrial origin and nature.”

John Travolta wasn’t the first extraterrestrial Fran Drescher ever met...

Elvis Presley

Billy Ray Cyrus

Elvis Presley asserted that UFOs were seen hovering in

Pop stars and Twitter… a bad match, really. Billy Ray Cyrus photographed a number of UFOs during sunset one evening and tweeted the image for the world to see.

The tweet included the photo of the UFOs and the words “OK….my first UFO sighting. Looks like 5 or 6 disk shapes hovering. Special moment 4 Dad.” Russell Crowe Also taking advantage of modern technology, Russell Crowe posted a Youtube video that showed what he claimed was a UFO filmed at the Botanical Gardens in Sydney.

Elvis... blowing kisses to all his interstellar fans...

UFO ENCOUNTER

Robbie Williams The singer claims to have seen UFOs three times in his life. One appeared as a golden ball of light that ‘danced’ to the song he was singing. At the time he said “I want to go out and investigate these things. I am stopping being a pop star and becoming a full time UFOlogist.”

11

Aliens tried to save America from

NUCLEAR WAR

UFOs shot at missiles in White Sands to protect Earth, claims former astronaut http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3195416/Aliens-tried-save-America-nuclear-war-UFOs-shot-missiles-White-Sands-protect-Earth-claims-former-astronaut.html

Aliens came to Earth to stop a nuclear war between America and Russia, according the bizarre claim of a former astronaut.

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, says high-ranking military officials witnessed alien ships during weapons tests throughout the 1940s.

The UFOs, he says, were spotted hovering over the world’s first nuclear weapons test which took place on July 16, 1945 in the desolate White Sands deserts of New Mexico.

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, says high-ranking military sources witness alien ships hovering during weapons tests. The UFOs, he says, were seen during the world’s first nuclear weapons test which took place on July 16, 1945 in the desolate White Sands deserts of New Mexico Edgar Mitchell , the sixth man to walk on the moon, says high-ranking military sources witness alien ships hovering during weapons tests. The UFOs, he says, were seen during the world’s first nuclear weapons test which took place on July 16, 1945 in the desolate White Sands deserts of New Mexico The Nasa veteran has regularly spoken about his belief in aliens ever since he landed on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

‘White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons - and that’s what the extra-terrestrials were interested in,’ the 84-year-old Texan told Mirror Online. ‘They wanted to know about our military capabilities. My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.’

Dr Mitchell says stories from people who manned missile bases during the 20th Century back up his claims.

‘Other officers from bases on the Pacific coast told me their [test] missiles were frequently shot down by alien spacecraft,’ he said.

He previously said supposedly real-life ET’s were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head. He claimed our technology is ‘not nearly as sophisticated’ as theirs and ‘had they been hostile’, he warned ‘we would be been gone by now’.

‘White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons and that’s what the extra-terrestrials were interested in,’ the 84-year-old told Mirror Online. ‘My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.’

‘White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons and that’s what the extra-terrestrials were interested in,’

12

the 84-year-old told Mirror Online. ‘My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.’

UFO believers say it’s no coincidence that aliens showed up very shortly after we’d developed atomic weapons and rocket technology, as this is when they were alerted to the threat we pose to the wider cosmos.

Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO researcher, told DailyMail.com that Dr Mitchell’s comments are all based on second-hand reports. ‘Even where Mitchell’s sources are genuine, how do we know they have access to classified information about UFOs?’ asks Pope.

‘Ironically, governments have sometimes secretly promoted belief in UFOs, because if someone sees a secret prototype aircraft or drone, it’s much better to have it reported as a flying saucer than recognised for what it is,’ said Pope. ‘None of this is to say that there haven’t been some genuinely fascinating and unexplained UFO sightings around nuclear facilities and military bases, but just because a UFO sighting is unexplained, it doesn’t follow that it’s extraterrestrial.’

‘In a final irony, the very conspiracy theorists who believe Edgar Mitchell when he talks about aliens don’t believe him when he talks about his moon mission, because they think it was all done on a film set.’

Dr Mitchell, who has a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics also says the Roswell cover up was real.

‘This is really starting to open up,’ he told a radio show several years ago. ‘I think we’re headed for real disclosure and some serious organisations are moving in that direction.’

Officials from Nasa were quick to play the comments down. In a statement at the time, a spokesman said: ‘Nasa does not track UFOs. Nasa is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.

‘Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.’

UFO ENCOUNTER

what didn’t make it to...

the

HEADLINES

Map of life’ predicts ET (so where is he?)

http://phys.org/news/2015-07-life.html Extra-terrestrials that resemble humans should have evolved on other, Earth-like planets, making it increasingly paradoxical that we still appear to be alone in the universe, the author of a new study on convergent evolution has claimed.

The argument is one of several that emerge from The Runes Of Evolution, a new book in which the leading evolutionary biologist, Professor Simon Conway Morris, makes the case for a ubiquitous “map of life” that governs the way in which all living things develop. It builds on the established principle of convergent evolution, a widelysupported theory - although one still disputed by some biologists - that different species will independently evolve similar features.

Conway Morris argues that convergence is not just common, but everywhere, and that it has governed every aspect of life’s development on Earth. Proteins, eyes, limbs, intelligence, tool-making - even our capacity to experience orgasms - are, he argues, inevitable once life emerges.

UFO ENCOUNTER

The book claims that evolution is therefore far from random, but a predictable process that operates according to a fairly rigid set of rules. If that is the case, then it follows that life similar to that on Earth would also develop in the right conditions on other, equivalent planets. Given the growing number of Earth-like planets of which astronomers are now aware, it is increasingly extraordinary that aliens that look and behave something like us have not been found, he suggests.

“Convergence is one of the best arguments for Darwinian adaptation, but its sheer ubiquity has not been appreciated,” Professor Conway Morris, who is a Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, said. “Often, research into convergence is accompanied by exclamations of surprise, describing it as uncanny, remarkable and astonishing. In fact it is everywhere, and that is a remarkable indication that evolution is far from a random process. And if the outcomes of evolution are at least broadly predictable, then what applies on Earth will apply across the Milky Way, and beyond.”

Professor Conway Morris has previously raised the prospect that alien life, if out there, would resemble earthlings - with limbs, heads, and bodies - notably at

13

a Royal Society Conference in London in 2010. His new book goes even further, however, adding that any Earthlike planet should also evolve thunniform predators (like sharks), pitcher plants, mangroves, and mushrooms, among many other things.

Limbs, brains and intelligence would, similarly, be “almost guaranteed”. The traits of human-like intelligence have evolved in other species - the octopus and some birds, for example, both exhibit social playfulness - and this, the book suggests, indicates that intelligence is an inevitable consequence of evolution that would characterise extraterrestrials as well.

Conway Morris contends that all life navigates across this evolutionary map, the basis of what he describes as a “predictive biology”. “Biology travels through history,” he writes, “but ends up at much the same destination”.

This, however, raises fascinating and problematic questions about the possibility of life occurring on other planets. “The number of Earth-like planets seems to be far greater than was thought possible even a few years ago,” Conway Morris said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that they have life, because we don’t necessarily understand how life originates. The consensus offered by convergence, however, is that life is going to evolve wherever it can.”

“I would argue that in any habitable zone that doesn’t boil or freeze, intelligent life is going to emerge, because intelligence is convergent. One can say with reasonable confidence that the likelihood of something analogous to a human evolving is really pretty high. And given the number of potential planets that we now have good reason to think exist, even if the dice only come up the right way every one in 100 throws, that still leads to a very large number of intelligences scattered around, that are likely to be similar to us.”

Happy Mondays Frontman Shaun Ryder: ‘A huge UFO appeared in my back garden’ Jon Austin http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/588415/WorldUFO-Day-Happy-Mondays-frontman-claims-alien-craftappeared-over-garden MADCHESTER legend Shaun Ryder has told how he came face to face with a huge UFO hovering over his back garden. The Happy Mondays and Black Grape lead singer claims he was not tripping on magic mushrooms or other hallucinogenics when a 20ft by 10ft flying saucer appeared over him.

The self-confessed drug addled rocker made the claim to This Morning presenters Amanda Holden and Phillip Schofield when he appeared on the show coincidentally on World UFO Day today. He said: “We were filming in South America at the time. I remember I got back to my house at about 5am and I saw a craft outside my house.

“It was huge. Around 20ft by 10ft. It looked plastic - like a

14

toy. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought our production team were playing a trick on me. But nobody else saw it.”

He said it was gathering clouds around it as it silently flew.

“It was huge. Around 20ft by 10ft. It looked plastic - like a toy. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought our production team were playing a trick on me. But nobody else saw it” He added: “As it moved really slowly across the field, it gathered even more cloud around it but it didn’t make a sound.”

Schofield asked him why he hadn’t snapped a picture of the mystery craft. He replied: “I don’t know why I didn’t film it or grab the wife. But it’s annoying when you have people like pilots and military officials who usually make great witnesses, but if they tell you they’ve seen a UFO, nobody believes them. We are not alone in this universe.

Maybe I was hallucinating but I am not making it up. I didn’t take any magic mushrooms or anything.”

Why are more people seeing UFOs? Report finds alien craft sightings doubled in June h t t p : / / w w w. d a i l y m a i l . c o . u k /s c i e n c e te c h / article-3152942/Why-people-seeing-UFOs-Report-findsalien-craft-sightings-DOUBLED-June.html There seems to have been something in the air in June.

According to an international group of alien hunters, the number of UFO sightings doubled last month.

The Mutual UFO Network (Mufon) recorded sightings of 1,179 mysterious unexplained crafts in June – an increase from around 600 in the same period last year.

The majority of Mufon’s cases are in the US, and the organisation usually receives anywhere from 400 to 700 reports each month. Around 10 to 20 per cent of these cases turn out to be unidentified when matched up weather phenomenon and man-made objects. But Roger Marsh, Mufon director of communications, doesn’t think this means an impending alien invasion.

‘We feel [it] was directly related to the final two episodes of Season 2 of ‘Hangar 1: The UFO Files,’ he told the alternative news site Open Minds. This History Channel documentary took a look at Hangar 1, a facility that houses an archive of more than 70,000 files that have been gathered over a period of nearly 50 years. The files, maintained by Mufon, have recently been opened for investigation.

High-profile sightings last month included one of a ‘flying saucer’ UFO which visited Stonehenge, according to UFO Sightings Blog. The site said the UFO was ‘black in colour and disc shaped,’ and described it as ‘medium’ size at around 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 metres) across.

Marsh said a very high percentage of the June UFO report surge were historical cases. ‘People were watching our show and decided they finally discovered a place where they could report their encounter,’ he said.

UFO ENCOUNTER

He added that another explanation for the sightings may be that more people were outside celebrating during the evening hours, and looking up for events such as Memorial Day. ‘Some of these are very, very interesting and compelling cases currently under investigation,’ he added.

Alien-obsessed: Adams and Franklin had a thing — really! — for extraterrestials http://www.salon.com/2015/07/04/our_founders_ alien_obsessed_adams_and_franklin_had_a_thing_ really_for_extraterrestials/ On this 4th of July, when the smoke from the last of the fireworks drifts away and you can once again see the starry sky above, it may be worth reflecting on the fact that America’s founders were pretty sure that those stars were home to an immense population of space aliens.

Benjamin Franklin maintained that every star is a sun, and every sun nourishes a “chorus of worlds” just like ours. Ethan Allen, the self-taught leader of the Green Mountain Boys, insisted that the inhabitants of these other earths included intelligent beings just like us.

David Rittenhouse, the famous Philadelphia inventor and astronomer, made it official in a 1775 lecture that was reprinted for the benefit of the Second Continental Congress. “The doctrine of the plurality of worlds,” he said, “is inseparable from the principles of astronomy.”

The space aliens of the American Revolution, to be clear, weren’t little, green, or three-eyed, and they definitely weren’t a saucer-flying menace to the American way of life. They were our brothers and sisters in the contemplation of nature’s endless bounty. They were just as good as us, maybe even a little better. As Rittenhouse explained, if extraterrestrials were unfortunate enough to visit Earth, they might find themselves enslaved in America “merely because their bodies may be disposed to reflect or absorb the rays of light in a way different from ours.”

If these peace-loving aliens were a threat to anything, it was to theology. John Adams put his finger on the problem as a young man in a diary entry from 1756. Given the near-certainty of alien life, he reasoned, Evangelical Christians must either condemn our extraterrestrial

brothers to everlasting perdition or suppose that Jesus shows up on an endless number of planets in everchanging alien incarnations. Thomas Paine later made the same point in print, rather more caustically: “The person who is irreverently called the Son of God, and sometimes God himself, would have nothing else to do than to travel from world to world, in an endless succession of death, with scarcely a momentary interval of life.”

Like many of the ideas that mattered in the American Revolution, extraterrestrials got their start in antiquity. The Greek philosopher Epicurus speculated that the universe must be infinite, eternal and abounding in “worlds” just like our own. His real agenda was to undermine the “preposterous” belief that the universe exists to serve the petty purposes of one noisy species in one particular earth. The Roman poet Lucretius committed Epicurus’ cosmic vision to verse in his ancient bestseller, “On the Nature of Things,” which then slipped through the Middle Ages in hiding. Aliens came roaring back to life in the 16th century, when the inimitable Giordano Bruno opened up Lucretius’ book and, combining it with the Copernican theory, dreamed of an unending universe alive with fertile solar systems.

For Bruno and his successors, space aliens were a source of wonder and joy. For defenders of the established religion, on the other hand, the extraterrestrial agenda was a source of fear and loathing. Epicurus was condemned to the inner circles of hell (the sixth of nine, according to Dante). Lucretius’ poem was suppressed and all but forgotten. Bruno was burned at the stake.

Sir Isaac Newton gave the extraterrestrials their biggest shot in the arm when he embraced the infinite universe as the basis for his hugely influential system of physics.

Even so, the aliens of the early modern period remained creatures of philosophy rather than science. Their existence was never an empirically established fact (unless you count astronomer William Herschel’s claim to have observed farmsteads on the moon). Although Newton and his acolytes did their best to make the alien lifestyle conform to mainstream religion, the topic retained its theological cutting edge down to the American Revolution.

How to overthrow a Martian Dictatorship

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150619-how-tooverthrow-a-martian-dictatorship Two short blocks from the London headquarters of Britain’s security service, MI6, a group of 30 men and women is plotting to overthrow the government.

Not – and I should make this abundantly clear for any spooks reading this – the British government, nor any government on Earth, but a tyrannical administration on an alien world in the future.

This is not a game. The scientists, engineers, social scientists, philosophers and writers gathered at the

UFO ENCOUNTER

15

British Interplanetary Society in London are taking their task seriously – studying, with academic rigour, the problem of toppling despotic extraterrestrial regimes.

This is the third annual conference on extraterrestrial liberty. Last year the event tackled the challenge of writing a constitution for an alien settlement, concluding that successful space colonies should base laws and liberties on the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. “This year we’re discussing what happens if you don’t like the government you’ve created and want to overthrow it,” says conference organiser Charles Cockell, a professor of astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh.

Conclusions from these meetings will be published as essays, designed to serve as manuals for future spacefarers.

“We hope the discussions we have will constitute the first ideas on extraterrestrial liberty,” Cockell says. “We’ve got a chance to think about what the problems might be in outer space before we go there.”

The scenarios the group is contemplating are easiest to imagine if you think about what a space colony might be like. Perhaps a domed settlement with a few hundred residents, beneath a thin dusty Martian sky. A fragile and isolated outpost of humanity 225 million kilometres from the home world. With a brutal dictator and his cronies in charge of the oxygen generators, for instance.

“Say, for example, you don’t like your government and you resort to revolution,” says Cockell. “Someone goes and smashes up the habitat, destroys the windows and instantly the place is depressurised, the oxygen is lost and everyone dies. The consequences of violence in space could be much more catastrophic than on Earth,” he warns, “So how do you dissent in an environment in which violent disobedience might kill everyone?”

The answer lies, Cockell believes, in preventing dictatorships emerging in the first place. This would be achieved by building non-violent means of opposition to government into the rulebook, perhaps through organised labour systems – similar to unions on Earth – or by holding the leadership to account through journalism and media.

“Once you stop a free press in an extraterrestrial environment, you’re actually in deep trouble,” he says.

The physical structure of the settlements could also be designed to minimise the effects of conflict, with air, water and power systems in multiple locations. Not only would this reduce vulnerabilities to a break down or failure but it would avoid the dangers of a central point of control.

show you to the airlock and you can leave’ and off you go into the vacuum of space.”

And while freedoms, liberties and labour laws have evolved on Earth – at least in democratic nations – they may need to be adapted before anyone settles elsewhere. Space is a unique environment and there is a balance to be struck between slavery and total freedom.

Opting out is not an option. A Martian colony that is so libertarian that everyone sits around doing nothing all day is unlikely to survive for long. “We need to arrive at a balance between a society that maximises civil liberties but also maximises the potential for people to survive the lethal conditions of space,” says Cockell.

Supreme court forces German parliament to release expertise on UFOs http://www.grenzwissenschaft-aktuell.de/supremecourt-forces-german-parliament-to-release-expertiseon-ufos-20150628/ Leipzig (Germany) – After years of law suits, the Federal Administrative Supreme court of Germany forces the administration of the German Parliament – the Bundestag – to release and give public access to an expertise on “UFOs, the search for extraterrestrial intelligences and Germany’s implementation UN-Resolution A/33/426″ (that asked its member states to conduct official research into UFOs) compiled by the parliamentary “Scientifical Service”. So far the Bundestag not only denied public access to this document but also fought an intensive and so far successful legal dispute against its publication. The new court sentence is a big step not only for German UFO-research and disclosure but also for the freedom of information in general.

The function of “Scientifical Services” is “to supply the members of parliaments with factual information, analysis and expert comment on their political work in the parliament and their constituencies”. Therefore one should assume that that expertise would be open for public access as well. But that was not so until the recent verdict. It was up to the administration of the Bundestag to release them – or to restrict access to it.

In 2010 the German Exopolitic initiative “Exopolitic. org” lead by Robert Fleischer learnt of an expertise by the service on “UFOs, the search for extraterrestrial

However, even with a free press or organised unions there are issues in space that do not arise on Earth – particularly when companies are involved. “As we know private corporations can be just as ruthless and despotic as the worst governments,” says Cockell. “If you strike, then maybe the corporation says ‘that’s fine – let me

16

UFO ENCOUNTER

intelligences and Germanys implementation UNResolution A/33/426″, that suggested its member states conduct official research into UFOs. While several journalists got hold of copies the paper, it was not legal to publish its full content. Frank Reitemeyer asked to view the paper but his access was denied by the administration of the Bundestag – so he went to court. When he was granted that permission in the first jurisdicial instance, the Bundestag administration successfully appealed on points of law. Since then the lawsuit went through all instances and the Bundestag administration even asked a renowned law firm to compile a legal opinion (which under normal conditions costs about 50.000 Euro, as some legal experts estimate).

While the latest and final decisions by the supreme administrative court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) is a big step for the freedom of information, the now released “UFO expertise” by its Scientifical Service should not be confused with secret UFO-files of research and investigation into UFOs by official German offices, ministries or even the military. It is an informational summary of known facts on UFOs, the search for extraterrestrial intelligences (SETI) and the UN-Resolution A/33/426.

However there are some small ufological gems hidden within this expertise: Most important is the author’s conclusion that “as so many other countries, neighbouring and allied state did and in parts still do conduct official research programs into UFOs (like France, the USA, UK or Canada…) it should be assumed that the German government and its bodies and institutions should also have official interest into the phenomenon.” While just a short sentence, this conclusion is of great importance as it contradicts the decade long language regime that repeatedly claimed that the German government and its institutions have no interest in the topic and do not conduct any research or collection of UFO sightings and research. The last time this view was stated by the then German Minister of the Interior and today’s Minister of Finances Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble in 2008.

even contradicted the positions of the politicians and parties who commissioned them in the beginning. It can be assumed that they also include much information on all sorts of topics never accessed by the public before. © grenzwissenschaft-aktuell.de

Philae comet could be home to alien life, say scientists http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/06/ philae-comet-could-be-home-to-alien-life-say-topscientists.

The comet landed on by the spacecraft Philae could well be home to an abundance of alien microbial life, according to leading astronomers. Features of the comet, named 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, such as its organic-rich black crust, are most likely explained by the presence of living organisms beneath an icy surface, the scientists have said.

Rosetta, the European spacecraft orbiting the comet, is also said to have picked up strange clusters of organic material that resemble viral particles.

The European Space Agency pulled off a sensational feat of engineering and captured the imagination of spacetravel enthusiasts across the world when Philae landed on the comet in November. Since then, the lander has undergone a period of hibernation from which it awoke in June, having recharged its solar panels.

Neither Rosetta nor Philae are equipped to search for direct evidence of life after a proposal to include this in the mission was allegedly laughed out of court.

Maverick astronomer and astrobiologist Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe, who was involved in the mission planning 15 years ago, believes people should be more open to the possibility of alien life. Wickramasinghe said: “Five hundred years ago it was a struggle to have people accept that the Earth was not the centre of the

That the opposite is in fact the case has been shown by the work of many German UFO-researchers and journalists before who uncovered secret documents that demonstrate that – of course –German official bodies not only have an interest in but also conducted – and most likely still conduct – investigation into unidentified flying objects. The last time this happened was when the frontier-science newsblog “grenzwissenschaft-aktuell” (www.GreWi.de) uncovered a complete file by the German foreign secret intelligence agency “BND”.

Finally the administrative supreme court’s decision not only applies to the “Bundestag UFO-expertise” but to all expertise of the Scientifical Service which will have an immense impact on information and journalism in the future as much research disappeared in the archives because their objective conclusion did not support or

UFO ENCOUNTER

17

universe. After that revolution our thinking has remained Earth-centred in relation to life and biology. It’s deeply ingrained in our scientific culture and it will take a lot of evidence to kick it over.”

Prof Wickramasinghe’s views are regarded as several steps outside the scientific mainstream. He has previously suggested that the SARS virus arrived to Earth from space and that airborne spores that caused rainfall in Kerala to turn a reddish hue had an extraterrestrial origin.

He and colleague Dr Max Wallis, from the University of Cardiff, believe 67P and other comets like it could provide homes for living microbes similar to the “extremophiles” that inhabit the most inhospitable regions of the Earth.

The scientists have carried out computer simulations that suggest microbes could inhabit watery regions of the comet. Organisms containing anti-freeze salts could be active at temperatures as low as -40C, their research shows.

The comet has a black hydrocarbon crust overlaying ice, smooth icy “seas” and flat-bottomed craters containing lakes of re-frozen water overlain with organic debris.

Wickramasinghe said data coming from the comet seems to point to “micro-organisms being involved in the formation of the icy structures, the preponderance of aromatic hydrocarbons, and the very dark surface”.

“These are not easily explained in terms of prebiotic chemistry. The dark material is being constantly replenished as it is boiled off by heat from the sun.

Something must be doing that at a fairly prolific rate.”

Chinese farmer jailed for making rubber alien http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/ china/10115832/Chinese-farmer-jailed-for-making-arubber-alien.html As proof of extraterrestrial life, one Chinese farmer’s crudely built rubber alien, stashed in a chest freezer in his garage, was rather unconvincing But the farmer, named in the Chinese media only as Mr Li, perhaps underestimated the nannying tendencies of the Chinese state.

Shortly after he proudly posted photographs of his alien on the internet, he was arrested by the police for five days for “fabrications” that “disturbed the public order”.

Mr Li was forced to admit that he had indeed sought to use his model, held together with chicken wire and glue, to mislead his fellow Chinese about the existence of celestial creatures.

Initially, the farmer had posted his close encounter on a Chinese website, together with a shaggy dog story about how he had captured the alien while setting traps for rabbits. “I was setting an electric trap for rabbits by the Yellow river when I saw a bright light,” he said. “Above my bike, a UFO was floating. One by one, five aliens came down, but one of them stumbled into one of my rabbit traps and was electrocuted. The others went back into their ship and flew away.”

However after his post went viral, the Chinese authorities moved quickly to limit the effect it might have on the extremely gullible.

Not only was Mr Li’s initial post deleted, but the police soon arrived to arrest him.

“After the police interrogated me, I confessed I was a fan of UFOs and the alien was a fake. I just wanted other people to believe that aliens existed,” he told the Shandong Evening News.

Welsh government responds in Klingon to UFO airport query http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-33479808 Klingon was the chosen language for the Welsh government in its response to queries about UFO sightings at Cardiff Airport.

While English and Welsh are the usual forms of communications in the Senedd, it opted for the native tongue of the enemies of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk.

Shadow Health Minister Darren Millar had asked for details of UFOs sightings and asked if research would be funded. A Welsh government spokesman responded with: “jang vIDa je due luq.”

The Welsh government statement continued: “’ach ghotvam’e’ QI’yaH devolve qaS.” In full it translated as: “The minister will reply in due course. However this is a non-devolved matter.”

It is believed to be the first time the Welsh government has chosen to communicate in Klingon.

Mr Millar, shadow health minister and AM for Clwyd West, submitted three questions to economy, science and transport minister Edwina Hart about UFO reports around the airport and across the rest of Wales.

Responding to the government’s unusual diversion into trilingualism, Mr Millar said: “I’ve always suspected that Labour ministers came from another planet. This response confirms it.”

18

UFO ENCOUNTER

make contact to order:

info@uforq.asn.au www.uforq.asn.au

UFO ENCOUNTER

all items post Australia-wide for $9.95 19

public MEETINGS

Public Meetings are held on the last Friday of every month [except December] at 7.00pm sharp at the Kenmore Library, Meeting Room 3, Kenmore Village Shopping Centre, 9 Brookfield Road, Kenmore.

Access is via the lift from the undercover carpark.

Admission is $7.00 for members and $10.00 for nonmembers.

PLEASE NOTE: Membership cards must be produced for member-discounted entry.

For further enquiries call [07] 3376 1780 or email info@uforq.asn.au

become a MEMBER

Membership with UFO Research Queensland Incorporated costs $35.00 annually for membership [$45.00 AUD for International members].

Membership entitles you to benefits such as discounts on meeting entry, Library membership, and sees six issues of UFO Encounter delivered to your door.

You can join online at http://uforq.asn.au/ membership/ or send a cheque or money order made payable to ‘UFO Research Queensland Inc’and mailed to UFO Research Queensland Inc, PO Box 15222, City East, Queensland, 4002.

Overseas applications should be made by International Money Order or bank drafts in Australian dollars.

UFORQ LIBRARY The Library now has over 500 books, videos and DVDs on its shelves, with new additions being made all the time - which makes it the largest UFO library in the Southern Hemisphere! Members are able to borrow books, periodicals, DVDs, videos, CDs and other items on a monthly basis. Items are available to borrow and return only at Public Meetings.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ UFO-Research-Queensland-Inc/ 234668694323 phone: [07] 3376 1780 email: info@uforq.asn.au web: www.uforq.asn.au post: PO Box 15222, City East, Qld, AUST, 4002 20

UFO ENCOUNTER