UFO Encounter #285

ISSUE 285 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016 THIS ISSUE: PROJECT NEWSPRINT QLD FROM THE ARCHIVES: THE 1960s

CELEBRATING 60 YEARS OF UFO RESEARCH QUEENSLAND 1

UFO ENCOUNTER

UFO ENCOUNTER ISSUE 285 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016

58 YEARS IN PUBLICATION

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

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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.

2016 Meeting Dates: Friday March 25, 7.00pm Friday April 29, 7.00pm Friday May 27, 7.00pm Friday June 24, 7.00pm Friday July 29, 7.00pm Friday August 26, 7.00pm 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.

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

from the

of them will one day be proven wrong – once science gets over itself and stops trying to prove 300-year old theories by men from the dark ages of scientific theory. Einstein, who seemingly never brushed his hair in his life, clung until his death to his theory that the sun and planets were electrically neutral and that space must be free of magnetic fields - and we all know how that turned out.

The world might not know it yet, but YouTube is a battleground. The place where the forces of the armchair researcher and the mainstream scientist meet. Words are no longer enough in the war between the fantasy-land of ‘science’ and the much more concrete land of ‘reality.’ Now these opposing sides duel with videos.

But for now, men and women in dressing gowns are hunched over their computers scanning the thousands of images downloaded by Google Earth and NASA, and finding anomalies in those images and telling us about it via YouTube.

Thanks to this army of the unwashed, we have seen things on Mars that NASA would never have told us about. These untrained slobs have even discovered anomalous objects on our own planet that archaeology doesn’t want to talk about.

EDITOR

From our 21st century perspective, a ‘scientist’ is a person who went to university, did their honours and/or a PhD dissertation and thereby earned their stripes as a bona-fide scientist. The thinking today is that if you don’t have letters at the end of your name, then you can’t possibly know what you are talking about.

Interestingly, it is these self-same qualified scientists who are clinging to the tenets and theories of men who, well, let’s be honest, a lot of them never even went to school. Once upon a time there was no such thing as a qualified scientist. ALL scientists were armchair scientists, sitting around in their parlour chairs with nothing better to do than to wonder why the sky is blue or how cows give milk. In those days it was enough to possess the power of observation and a sharp mind to proclaim yourself a scientist – you didn’t need anything else. Indeed, there wasn’t really much else to be had. These armchair researchers of our early history – men with little or no formal qualification – came up with some of the strongest and immutable scientific theories of our time.

Einstein, Darwin, Lamarck, Newton – they shape our world still with ideas that came to them on the winds of inspiration only, and not on the back of years spent bent over a desk at a university. Indeed, many of the scientific fields we have today weren’t even invented then. Did Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison go to university to study their theories electricity? No - they created them out of observation!

So what is my point? It is this: we still, today, have an army of armchair researchers who are equipped with the same amount of brain cells as our early scientific pioneers (and our current scientific pioneers), who are doing good work and who are adding to our body of knowledge, which is what the goal of science is ultimately supposed to be. And yet they are derided daily. Ridiculed by scientists and layperson alike, dismissed, attacked and ignored. And because they choose the Internet as a mode of dissemination for all their good work, there are accusations that they must all somehow be losers – no-hoper nerds with no friends, hunched over their computers in their dressing gowns and slippers. As if that is a bad thing. As if that means that you are somehow less of a person. As if that means your ideas are not worthy of consideration.

Darwin no doubt wore his dressing gown when he was thinking about evolution – and he had children with his cousin, demonstrating his excellent grip on the theory of genetics. Clearly he wasn’t planning on evolving his own line of offspring. Isaac Newton wore tights and girlie shoes with shiny gold buckles. Probably neither of them washed their hair very often, or brushed their teeth. And maybe both

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And what is science doing? Pooh-poohing the lot of them.

Dismissing them for their lack of qualifications. Making assumptions about their hygiene and their education and deriding everything they say. Attacking them and lambasting them for these perceived deficits in education and bathing habits – men and women who could well be the Einsteins and the Darwins and the Newtons of our age. One thing is for certain – if and when life is ‘discovered’ on other planets, the world will only find out when one of these untrained slobs posts it on YouTube.

Maybe these people do wash, and maybe they don’t. But not washing and not having an education does not mean you have a dull and puerile mind. One day, I hope, humanity will look back at this time and realise how biased it was, and how many opportunities to expand its knowledge were missed by dismissing the armchair researcher. Right now, though, I need to go and brush my teeth.

lee

Dr Martin Gottschall. . . 4 Project Newsprint: Queensland . . . 5 The only man to shoot at a UFO . . .9 From the Archives . . . 10 NOT the Headlines . . . 15 UFO ENCOUNTER

Martin Gottschall 1938-2015

We at UFO Research Queensland knew Dr Martin Gottschall as an explorer, scientist, teacher, cosmologist and researcher whose life was filled with scientific and intellectual pursuits, as well as deep spiritual explorations. It was this unique combination of qualities that many people admired and drew them to him.

Martin entered UFO research in the 1960s during his first marriage, catapulted by his wife’s close daylight UFO sighting above their home. Martin didn’t see the UFO but wanted to, so he and his wife jumped in their car to follow, but never saw it again. This experience was a game changer for Martin, and the beginning of a 45-year quest dedicated to understanding the UFO phenomenon. Previous to this he had plans to work for NASA and have a career in the space sciences, but this one event changed his life direction and ultimately his life purpose.

Early in life Martin dreamed of being an engineer and accomplished his dream receiving various degrees in applied science and engineering, later being awarded a PhD in Engineering. It was this training that he applied to his UFO pursuits wanting to understand UFO propulsion.

He often joked how his passion for the UFO subject had hijacked his life plans, causing him to deprogram himself from academic indoctrination so his mind could be free enough to make room for the UFO reality.

The contact number for UFO Research Queensland has been the home number for many years of Martin and Sheryl Gottschall, which Sheryl still maintains today. It is on

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the end of this phone line where thousands of people have reported their UFO sightings and close encounters, and Martin did this work with much enthusiasm.

Martin held the position of President of UFORQ for three years from 1988, then Spokesperson for 20 years until his illness, undertaking many hundreds of media interviews on radio, newspapers and current affair television shows.

During his time with UFO Research Queensland Martin undertook many tasks and projects. As well as President he held the positions of Editor and Sightings Officer. In 1992 Martin, with his wife Sheryl, established the first close encounter support group in Brisbane. Martin was very interested in using technology to make ET contact, and about the year 2000 started the Contact Project using his inventor skills to convert a ham radio set. He became very interested in gravity and time travel from a scientific perspective, giving many presentations on both of these subjects and how they might be used for UFO propulsion systems. His last public presentation was on the topic of time travel at the 50th anniversary UFORQ conference in 2006.

From the time he entered the UFO field Martin’s interest never waned, and many looked up to him as a mentor, the go-to guy in UFORQ. It was once mentioned to Sheryl that Martin was considered the grandfather of Australian Ufology, and this was probably true.

Martin has four sons and a stepdaughter. His wife Sheryl continues as President of UFO Research Queensland.

UFO ENCOUNTER

PROJECT

NEWSPRINT

QUEENSLAND 1 January to 25 January, 2016

Sheryl Gottschall

Project Newsprint was begun in 2015 by Adelaide-based UFO researcher, Keith Basterfield.

The project was originally estimated to take one year, in which time it was hoped to collect UFO sighting reports from rural and remote Australia. To do this Keith has been contacting newspapers in various states with an appeal to readers for their reports. He’s also been searching TROVE, an online collection of digitised Australian newspapers. To date Keith has completed his search in Victoria and Western Australia and has reported his findings for each state on his blog at : http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/.

Very early in January 2016 I volunteered to help Keith with Project Newsprint by contacting newspapers in my own state of Queensland, appealing to readers to send their reports to UFO Research Queensland. At the writing of this report (25/01/16) I’ve contacted 110 newspapers and as a result have so far received 13 reports via email, phone calls and some during on-air radio interviews which I’ve included below.

To date I’ve also done two radio interviews with ABC Radio Capricornia and Sunshine Coast and received a request from WIN TV News Bundaberg for any footage from their area. I continue to receive reports and expect this will continue into the next few weeks and beyond.

Rockhampton Morning Bulletin circa 1984 I’m providing a copy of what was reported in the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin around 1984.

I’d come home a bit sozzled from a party, but quickly sobered up when I saw these weird orbs, semi-translucent, and making an escaping steam sound. They seemed to perform aerial manoeuvres, within and without from each other. At one point they seemed to mimic the Southern Cross.

I was surprised to find this report in the paper soon after.

There was another follow-up report, which I haven’t kept, which offered an explanation, that it was fireflies. Bunkum.

I don’t necessarily give over to the notion that they were extra-terrestrial, however, an explanation of an as-yet undiscovered natural “Intelligence” may hold sway.

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Barraba, NSW In 1970 I was working as a roughneck on a diamond drilling site about 30 km outside Barraba, New South Wales which was literally in the middle of nowhere. One night on graveyard shift I was high up on top of the rig pulling coring pipe when a vibrant cobalt blue light lit up the forest about 500 yards from the rig. The night up there is pitch black and the light silhouetting the trees was pulsating so I just assumed somebody was Arc Welding on another rig in the forest.

I called the driller up to check it out and his jaw dropped, Holy Shit what the f___ is what he said. I told him I thought it was welding on a different rig, but he said “no way man, there is no other rig around here.” In the morning after our shift I went back to the bunk house and grabbed my Nikon then we walked into the woods where we saw the light. We came into a meadow of long grass and quickly spotted a

UFO ENCOUNTER

large round area where the grass had been burnt in a concave shape. The grass was severely burnt to the bare ground in the centre of the circle, gradually becoming less burnt at the outer edge of the circular indentation which I think was about 30 to 40 feet in diameter.

The most amazing thing was the three triangular-shaped indentations at even points close to the outermost edges of the burnt circle. I shot half a dozen photos before we headed back to the camp to tell our crew boss what we had seen.

He called the Sheriff in Barraba and told him our story.

Naturally the Sheriff and a couple of his deputies arrived in camp about two hours later and wanted us to take him to the area, which we did along with our boss.

It was then that I made probably the biggest mistake of my life -- I mentioned that I had taken some pictures earlier in the morning. When we all headed back to camp the Sheriff asked if he could please see my camera. Shit, I shouldn’t have opened my big stupid mouth. He opened my camera and ripped the Kodachrome film out ruining my pictures. He warned us all that the area was as of this minute, off limits to all, under penalty of facing criminal charges.

(This report was sent in by email. I attempted to reply twice to ask more questions. However both times my reply bounced back.- Sheryl) Pilbara region WA, Maleny Range News I’m 79 years old now, but when I was 20 my friend and I with her two young children were driving from Darwin to the Pilbara region in Western Australia. I was driving a 1954 Dodge and the trip took us 12 days. The roads in those days were quite basic, a lot of dirt roads etc, and one night we found ourselves on one of those dirt roads near the De Grey River. My friend was looking at the bush when she asked, “Is that a satellite?” At that time satellites were new to us, we were just starting to hear about them. I wasn’t paying much attention, concentrating on driving. Then she said it was getting closer, coming down. Then I saw it about 500 metres above us. It looked like a beach ball or a hot air balloon in the sky, but round, with colours moving all over it like the northern lights, no particular pattern to their movement, just swirling over it. Then I checked the rear vision mirror and saw a red glow behind us. My friend screamed and I turned off the car lights so we couldn’t be seen. At that time I started to hear what I can only describe as a big but slow piston sound, like two tones repeating slowly. By this time I was speeding through the bush on a dirt road in the dark with no headlights.

Northern Territory, it was midnight when I saw light moving at an extraordinary speed from horizon to horizon, back and forth, up and down in a few seconds.

Grafton, Rockhampton News As a child I lived near the navy base in New South Wales and my father and I saw lights in the sky. The next day three circles were found on the ground and everything in the area was dead. Eventually the grass grew back but it was a blue colour.

On my 7th or 8th birthday I woke to find blood on my left shin. It upset me and I cried all day but I don’t understand why. Then last year I was scratching the area and a hard object popped out. It was dark brown like a dark copper colour, shiny and tubular about 5mm and flat on both ends.

I put it on a little white saucer on the kitchen hutch but the next day found it had disappeared.

When my son was four years old we were in the kitchen doing the dishes. My son said “the Sun just took a photo of my eyes”. I looked out the window and saw a cigar-shaped white object. It was daytime and I took my son outside to see it better. It was just hovering over the air force base, not as high as a commercial plane, but high.

Last year when looking over the National Park I saw a massive object that looked like a plane, but it had no wings or windows and made no sound. It was like the fuselage of a plane. It was less than a couple of hundred metres from me, just above treetop height.

Injune 2013 This is one of a series of photo’s I took as I panned across the southern-most end of the Expedition National Resource Park. This happened to be the third sighting of UFOs I had witnessed in a two year period. I was not alone on the first two occasions, with one in broad daylight seen by others.

This was a classic white orb seen against a cloudless blue sky, firstly travelling in a straight line before performing erratic manoeuvres and then speeding away directly upwards.

The second was about 4.30am, I had people with me heading out to the airport, and we came to an intersection. When my front seat passenger saw the light, we stopped briefly to watch as it performed similarly to the first object I had seen before speeding away. I did not realize the green UFO

All of a sudden I saw a set of gates in front of us and I slammed on the brakes. This caused the car to stall and all of a sudden everything was quiet. The object immediately disappeared. The next thing we heard were the sounds of aboriginal people singing in the distance, I guessed it was a corroboree.

My friend was deeply frightened by the experience so when we saw something again similar in 1961 while driving in the Northern Territory near Humpty Doo, she told me to turn around and go home which we did.

Then in 1957 while I was hitchhiking near Katherine in the

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UFO ENCOUNTER

was in my photo (below left) until I put the SD card into the computer. At first thinking it could be sun shining through water crystals, but when I zoomed in you could see it had a disc shape with definite thickness, you could also see that it was above the clouds. It appeared to be surrounded by wavy lines of some sort. Anyway here it is, leave it up to you to decide.

(This photo was passed on to Barry Taylor for photographic analysis. His comments follow: The green flare is very typical of a lens flare. The colour is typical as is the angle relative to the position of the Sun within the field of view of the photo. If you draw a line through the slightly elongated flare, the line will point directly at the Sun. This is further proof of this being a lens flare created by the brightness of the Sun reflecting off the lens of the camera causing light refraction in the green part of the spectrum. Close inspection shows the edge of the cloud through the flare. It is not above the cloud. Hence, this is known as an in-camera artefact.

We have seen many of this type of lens flare if identical colouring and position relative to the Sun’s position.)

Wivenhoe/Somerset Dam area, Noosa News Ten or 11 years ago my late husband and I moved to Noosa and went camping a lot. On one occasion we camped somewhere in the Wivenhoe or Somerset Dams area. My husband was a wildlife enthusiast and during the day we saw a lot of interesting wildlife, so he was excited about what we would see at night when we were planning to go spotlighting. About 7.00pm we headed off with a torch to have a look but gave up about 30 to 45 minutes later because there was no sign of any wildlife. I mean, it was completely gone. Then my husband said “look at this in the sky” and we saw three orange/yellow objects, soundless, with a rounded shape and smooth, coming right at us. They got close, really close, then took off only to approach us from a different direction. It’s hard to judge distances especially at night, but they were no higher than a helicopter at their furthest, then they disappeared. The next morning we returned to the location where we had seen the objects to get a GPS location but our equipment wouldn’t work, nor would our video camera.

Response from Noosa News: One evening in October 2014, a man observed six or so orange lights in the sky. They were brightening and dimming, then they would disappear and reappear then flare up and repeat their performance. He found it difficult to estimate distance or height, but was certain they were definitely not planes or helicopters. He observed them for nearly one hour.

Cooran near Noosa, Gympie Times One night twenty years ago, about 6.30pm to 7.00pm, a man observed a light shining on his backyard. He looked up and saw a huge round object about 200 to 300 metres above, approximately the size of his house. It was yellow all over with orange lights underneath. He watched it for 20 seconds then it took off in a south-easterly direction leaving a trace behind it. This witness was ex-navy and worked on aircraft carriers during his time of service, so he had seen a lot of

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planes, but this was nothing he had ever seen before. He reported the event to the police who didn’t want to know about it. The wife of the witness also observed the incident.

Connondale 1984/1985, 1am. Maleny Range News A man reported seeing two lights about one kilometre from where he was sitting with two other adults and two children.

At that distance the objects appeared to be the size of small trucks, and were flying around a tree on a hill in a playful manner. They were blue-white in colour and at times would hover then move side to side. After five minutes the objects took off.

Oxenford , 2/3 January 2016, Gold Coast Bulletin A woman arrived home after being interstate. She looked out her back window and saw a large metallic saucer-shaped object hovering above the ground on its side near her gum trees. The object was as tall as one of her fully grown gum trees, dull grey and metallic. It hovered momentarily before taking off at high speed.

20.1.16 ABC Radio Capricornia, Rockhampton These reports were called in while I was undergoing a brief interview on-air.

J. Capella 13/1/16: J was hunting in the evening when he saw two lights travel across the sky from north to south. He has seen shooting stars before but these lights were the same size as stars and travelling in formation. He observed them for 10 to 15 seconds.

R: 50 years ago late one night R saw a massive light moving very fast that lit up the clouds. It suddenly stopped for 3 to 4 seconds before taking off again. It disappeared as fast as it arrived.

Te Rapa New Zealand 1981, Gladstone Observer A woman was living in New Zealand at the age of 20. One night she was driving home after her 4.00pm to midnight shift at work. As she got to the little town of Te Rapa she saw a white light in the distance approximately five to ten kilometres from her location. It moved very fast in a zigzag pattern towards her and within seconds it was 50 metres from her vehicle. Her radio started crackling, then her car spluttered as she pulled over to the side of the road, and then her car just stopped. She was shaking and terrified and wet herself from fear. She described the object as looking like the top of an old hills hoist clothes line, or the top of a child’s spinning top toy, but segmented with red, green and white lights all over it. Suddenly the object took off and her car started. She drove home and told her mother who took her to the police station the next day to report the event. She was informed by police that they had received other reports.

Alexandra Headlands, Maroochy Weekly Sometime between 1975 to 1977, a man was looking out towards Point Cartwright at dusk. He saw three or four shimmering stars with different colours, red and white, just above the horizon. The lights were close together in a pyramid shape. The witness watched them for about one minute before they all took off in different directions.

UFO ENCOUNTER

Sydney, early 1950s, 7.30pm It was a dark night so it must have been mid-year. The corner of Elizabeth and Market Streets, Sydney. I was facing South.

We had just left the St. James Theatre as we used to attend afternoon sessions because of public transport for me to get home. With the crush of patrons going in both directions the crowded footpath forced me to step down onto the road proper. This placed me in an amazingly fantastic position to observe what was about to happen. “Hazel” was just behind my right shoulder because when I swung my arm through an arc following the craft she was standing just clear of my arm action.

What attracted my vision I am not sure, save that I felt I saw a flash of light or a reflection to my left towards Hyde Park. My eyes swung upwards just at the exact moment as the craft passed directly overhead. Stunned at what I saw, I yelled “Look at that”. By the time I managed to get this out the vessel had passed just over the top of David Jones Food Fair towards Glebe and the Western suburbs. If one said that they saw a flying saucer in those times one was a candidate for a mental examination as well as public harassment so I just shut up. The staggering thing is the wonder of one’s eyes and brain to absorb so much detail in split seconds with the brain to retain all the data after all this time.

It had a curved metallic polished surface as the Sydney lights reflected in shades of dull red and blue. This occurred as it passed over David Jones Food Hall, Market St. and Castlereagh St. about 30 metres across. Height: just clearing radio antennae on David Jones Store. 40 to 50 metres maximum.

The “exhaust” visible trail or propulsion movement appeared to be a solid block of royal blue light about one metre across with three spherical balls contained along its length. Two were similar in size and solid blue around 1.5 metres but the middle ball’s diameter would have been I estimate 2.5 metres, which revolved clearly visible as orange and blue segments almost like the old barbers poles and large marbles but not quite the same. These were positioned about five metres apart commencing with the first bubble one-third along the trail. It is extremely difficult to describe satisfactorily. If one could locate some old marbles with built in designs it could be demonstrated or even some of the new water features with spinning globes.

There was absolutely no sound that I could ascertain due to the heavy Saturday tram and vehicle movement. There no flight paths for air traffic ever that flew down Market Street.

The path of this craft would be at 90 degrees to the approach to Sydney, Mascot Airport. I have only recently seen a report of a UFO with a trail or tail so I decided to place this on full record with drawings and comments for support.

I am a non-drinker or smoker just for the record. I am still capable of reading newspapers without glasses if necessary. To say I was astounded, even today, would be an understatement, but I saw what I saw at such close range it beggars belief. Especially when there were hundreds and hundreds of people surrounding Hazel and myself but none of them was looking upward. I do not know if even one responded to my alarm. I do not recall if Hazel caught a glimpse of the craft.

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Another officially reported sighting : I was advised by a man who was serving in the Militia and their vehicle broke down around Gatton, from memory, and they observed an illuminated object suspended for an extended period, “over half an hour,” which then flew South at an incredible speed.

There is more to this story to be reported but it may be on record already.

Mt Isa early 1970s, Mt Isa News The sighting was in the early 1970s, during the period of the construction of Lake Julius dam. The company I worked for designed the dam, along with all the necessary infrastructure.

As such, our company also carried out supervision of all the construction work in relation to the dam. During this period, my mother visited me from Melbourne. During one of her visits, I took her out to have a look at the dam and pipeline construction. On our return from the dam site, we stopped at one of our supervision camps, which was on the Paroo River, for afternoon tea.

Not long after we left the camp site, we were on the pipeline access road, heading towards Mount Isa, when my mother noticed what appeared to be a silver sphere out to the west. I told my mother it was probably a weather balloon, or overflying aircraft. However, the object stayed in the one place for the whole time of travel back to Mount Isa, which was about 40 minutes. When we arrived back on the outskirts of Mount Isa we stopped the car and got out for a look. We would only have been stopped for about half a minute when the object just disappeared, in a flash. Mother and I just looked at each other and we both said in unison, “bloody flying saucer.”

We didn’t mention it to others, thinking we would be ridiculed.

But, we would often mention to each other, “wonder what that thing was in the sky that day,” Unfortunately my mother has passed away since that time so I have no one to back up this story.

COMMENTS Surprisingly many of these reports are up to 50 years old, and upon questioning it was revealed that almost all witnesses had never reported their experiences for fear of ridicule.

Although the ridicule factor is lower today, I continually find the fear of ridicule remains a driving force for the public to remain quiet about UFO incidents, particularly in people around 50 years of age and over. While I continue to receive reports which will be published in future issues, I can only wonder how many people have and will go to their graves never having told anyone about their experiences.

Contacting newspapers and receiving stories from the public, with many follow-up contacts, has proved quite time consuming. However I believe that Project Newsprint has been a worthwhile pursuit as we would never have known about these events otherwise. Organisations like UFO Research Queensland receive, document and investigate UFO incidents and to this end we have over 5000 reports stored in our archives since 1956, but it’s apparent we could easily double or triple the amount of reports in our archives if we actively pursued their collection.

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the only man to ever

SHOOT AT A UFO Thirty-five years ago, fighter pilot Oscar Santa Maria Huerta had a real-life Independence Day moment when he attempted to shoot down a mysterious light-bulb shaped craft, in what to this day remains the only documented case of a military aircraft firing on a UFO.

It was early on the morning of April 11, 1980, and the 23-yearold Peruvian air force lieutenant was preparing for daily exercises along with around 1800 military personnel and civilians at the La Joya Air Force Base, 1000km south of the Peruvian capital.

Lt Huerta, a pilot with eight years’ experience who had been flying combat missions since 19, was ordered to take off in his Russian-made Sukhoi-22 fighter to intercept the strange silvery object that had been spotted floating near the end of the runway.

The object was five kilometres away, hanging in the air about 600 metres off the ground, and was not replying to any communications.

“This ‘balloon’ was in restricted air space without authorisation, representing a grave challenge to national sovereignty,” the now-retired Colonel writes in UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.

“It had to come down. La Joya was one of the few bases in South America that possessed Soviet-made warfare equipment, and we were concerned about espionage,” he wrote.

After takeoff, Colonel Huerta flew to 2,500 metres and came in for an attack run. “I reached the necessary distance and shot a burst of sixty-four 30mm shells, which created a coneshaped ‘wall of fire’ that would normally obliterate anything in its path,” he writes.

Just one of those shells would wipe out a car, but they had no effect on the object. “I thought that the balloon would then be torn open and gases would start pouring out of it.

But nothing happened. It seemed as if the huge bullets were absorbed by the balloon, and it wasn’t damaged at all.”

The object then shot rapidly skywards away from the base, prompting Colonel Huerta to activate the plane’s afterburner to give chase 500m behind. As they reached the city of Camana, 84km from the base, the object came to a sudden stop, forcing him to veer to the side.

http://www.news.com.au/ finance/work/leaders/theonly-man-to-ever-shoot-ata-ufo/news-story/8fdf6eddb e5363fb5823f1625a7713f5

Running low on fuel, he realised he couldn’t continue the attack, so decided to fly close to the object to get a better look. It wasn’t until he was 100m away that he realised what it was.

“I was startled to see that the ‘balloon’ was not a balloon at all. It was an object that measured about 10 metres in diameter with a shiny dome on top that was cream-coloured, similar to a light bulb cut in half,” he writes.

“The bottom was a wider circular base, a silver colour, and looked like some kind of metal. It lacked all the typical components of aircraft. It had no wings, propulsion jets, exhausts, windows, antennae, and so forth. It had no visible propulsion system.

“At that moment, I realised this was not a spying device but a UFO, something totally unknown. I was almost out of fuel, so I couldn’t attack or manoeuvre my plane, or make a high-speed escape. Suddenly, I was afraid. I thought I might be finished.”

Colonel Huerta made his return, gliding part way due to lack of fuel and “zigzagging to make my plane harder to hit, always with my eyes on the rearview mirrors, hoping it wouldn’t chase me”.

After he landed, the object remained in the place he left it for another two hours, “visible to everyone on the base while it reflected in the sun”.

Colonel Huerta says the craft was witnessed by everyone on the base, many of whom were required to give reports.

A June, 1980 document from the US Department of Defence titled ‘UFO Sighted in Peru’, describes the incident, stating only that the object remains of unknown origin.

A similar incident occurred in 1976, when Iranian air force General Parviz Jafari attempted to fire on a UFO but found his equipment malfunctioning.

“My equipment was mechanical, and perhaps that’s the reason it could not be shut down, so instead, the object had to jump away at the last minute,” Colonel Huerta writes.

“I find myself in the unique position, at least for the moment, and as far as I know, of being the only military pilot in the world who has actually fired a weapon and struck a UFO. It still gives me chills to think about it.”

Turning up and to the right, Colonel Huerta attempted to position himself for another shot. “I began closing in on it until I had it in perfect sight,” he writes. “I locked on the target and was ready to shoot. But just at that moment, the object made another fast climb, evading the attack. I was left underneath it; it ‘broke the attack’.”

He attempted the same manoeuvre two more times, and each time the object escaped by shooting upwards seconds before he could fire.

By this time the object was 14,000 metres above ground.

Colonel Huerta decided to attempt an attack from above, so it could not leave his target range, but the object shadowed him all the way up to 19,200 metres — well above his aircraft’s specifications.

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Peruvian air force Colonel Oscar Santa Maria Huerta with his Russian Sukhoi-22 jet.

UFO ENCOUNTER

from the

archives

compiled by lee

paqui

1960-1969

A total of 167 UFO sightings were reported to UFO Research Queensland from 1960 to 1969. While the beginning of the decade got off to a shaky start, with a total of only four sightings each for 1960 and 1961, they increased in steady but small increments as the decade progressed. This doesn’t mean that UFOs weren’t being seen, but the media wasn’t then what it is now, and it’s more probable that UFORQ as a reporting body was not so well known in those early days of its incorporation, and people literally did not know to whom to turn when those little green men dropped unexpectedly out of the sky. I suspect the police and the air force were receiving the reports that UFORQ was not, and it’s likely now that the majority of those reports are lost forever.

1966, however, represented a watershed moment, both for UFOs in Queensland, and for UFORQ. A total of 67 reports were received that year, the majority from Tully, North

Queensland (more about that in a future issue), but the figure is representative of a generally increasing trend of sightings reported to UFORQ in the latter stages of that decade.

All that aside, the 1960s must have been a confusing time for skywatchers.

Humanity had just entered the space race. Rockets were flying all over the place. Satellites were being launched into orbit.

Commercial airliners were increasingly filling the skies. The Russians were out to get us. The Cubans were stockpiling missiles. The army, navy and air force were experimenting secretly with all sorts of aerial devices. How would or could any civilian observer hope to make any sense out of what was going on in the sky?

No surprise, then, that the 1960s produced a range of the most interesting UFO sightings seen in Queensland so far. No longer confined to lights in the skies or silver discs dropping down to buzz an unwary observer, now we were seeing the really whacky stuff. Green lights, blue lights, red lights yellow… spherical craft, triangular craft, top-shaped craft, bullet-shaped craft, bucket-shaped craft – you name it, people were seeing it. And sometimes these craft were coming in to take a closer look at planet earth, landing on the ground and giving unsuspecting humans the fright of their life.

Witness, then, the 1960s, in all their technicolour glory!

1960-1969...

What aliens looked like in the 1960s....

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Crows Nest, January 25 1960 A rectangular object about 12 feet long, with six very bright lights along its side and making a sound like ‘pine splinters burning’ was observed by two witnesses.

“My son and I were returning from Crows Nest about 5 o’clock at night. We were in sight of my house when we saw this Thing flying in the sky just a short distance away and about 100 feet in the air. We stopped the truck, got out, and watched the machine for quite 15 minutes and could still see it in the distance as we drove home. It had an orange glow around it and the lights were quite bright.”

Townsville, March 16 1960 I was sitting on my verandah looking out over Cleveland Bay when I noticed a cigar-shaped object pass from west to east over

UFO ENCOUNTER

the Bay and directly towards Magnetic Island. The nose of the object was of a very brilliant yellow while the rest of the body was bright orange. The nose appeared to be the size of a golfball when held at arm’s length. The speed was approximately the same as a Meteor or Sabre jet flying at 10,000 feet, but there was no noise. The object was sighted at 10.54pm and lasted for 8-9 seconds. The object passed beneath the moon and disappeared over Cape Cleveland behind a small group of clouds.

Capalaba, December 30 1960 A bullet-shaped object was observed travelling from west to east from Capalaba. A number of reports of this object were forwarded to the Courier Mail and appeared in the January 1 1961 edition, where it was described by one witness from Ipswich as ‘funnel-shaped with an aluminium head’ and emitting smoke as it dove towards earth. A report from the Brisbane Valley described it as a ‘big red ball with a flaming tail’ heading towards Brisbane; a report from Burpengary descried it as a rocket that looked in part like a ‘pale green ball with a red tail.’ A Laidley witness said it was a rocket with a long silver tail, and a Yamba witness described it as a rocket that changed from orange-red to white and left a long blue smoke trail.

Ipswich, May 25 1961 Mr Allan first sighted the object and called Mr Reeve, then myself. He said at first it appeared 14 inches long by 3-4 across and the ends were rounded and sides parallel. He likened it to an elongated plastic balloon. No sound was audible.

We had seen a Canberra jet prior to the sighting and on several occasions later in the afternoon. I watched a Canberra jet in the afternoon climb into the sky, in the same general direction of the UFO sighting.

Brisbane, January 28 1962 At an estimated 9:24pm I first noticed what appeared to be an echelon of birds about 35 degrees above the horizon. Boomerangshaped it appeared to be twinkling with the reflected lights of the city. The lights were the colour of stars. I commented on it, so that Bill and Brian had a good glimpse before it disappeared behind a large bank of clouds. We could still see the lights faintly after it passed the clouds. Birds could not have flown so fast.

Surfers Paradise, January 29 1962 Walking along the beach-front at Surfers Paradise main beach at about 12.30am we were suddenly attracted by a bright ball of light which seemed to originate several miles out to sea. On seeing it John thought it must have been a ship on fire but it was too high on the horizon. After about a minute, and further proof it could not be a vessel of any kind, it began to rise and come towards us. The colour can best be described as a bright golden flame colour and it was very bright, giving the impression of a tremendous energy release.

After hovering for a minute or so, the object then came towards us again at a very low altitude and its shape became clearly distinguishable outlined against the whiteness of the clouds, which it illuminated to a considerable degree. We were unable to make out any markings, such as port holes.

The object hovered for about a minute at this close range. It was about the size of the largest type of meat-plate and I would guess it was only a couple of miles away at most. The object then rose slightly and receded until it was hidden by cloud.

We remained watching and it again reappeared, but this time it was only the size of a small tea-cup saucer. After hovering for a short time it shot upwards and disappeared in a second.

Taringa, May 1 1962 A silvery-white elongated and ‘woolly’-looking object was observed in the west at 5:15pm. Five or six smaller objects were also observed. The smaller pieces merged with the larger object before it disappeared.

Forest Springs, January 5 1963 Mr H started ploughing about midnight on Saturday (to avoid the heat) and about 1:30am noticed a bright light some miles away below the line of a wooded ridge in the distance. The light was very bright and appeared ‘artificial’ and seemed to have an orange glow behind it. Later, Mr H noticed the light

Thursday Island, June 15 1962 At 9:10pm a ‘green-glowing’ rocket-shaped object was observed travelling east to west at about 80 miles per hour at a height of 1500 feet. Two ‘black holes’ were seen in the middle of the object. The object was travelling at an angle and abruptly disappeared – ie, the light did not fade away, but instead ‘went out.’

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UFO ENCOUNTER

Mackay, May 23 1965 An object shaped like a bucket with legs was observed at 12:05am from the Retreat Hotel on the mail route to Mackay. It was watched for forty minutes by a number of witnesses, including a registered commercial pilot. When it was first observed it was on the ground and had three, or four legs (witness reports vary on the number of legs). The object had a bank of very bright lights and a charcoal-coloured disc/plate on top of about 30 feet of diameter.

It was observed stationary for forty minutes whereupon it rose slowly to a height of 300 feet before accelerating rapidly in an easterly direction at a speed impossible to guess. Two of the witnesses claimed to have heard a buzz as it accelerated away.

had moved above the horizon formed by the ridge and had travelled towards the south. Later it moved back almost due east, but kept its higher altitude just above the ridge.

Mr H, now convinced that this light came from a flying saucer and impressed by its seeming nearness, tried signalling by switching his tractor light on and off, but received no answering signal.

Around 3:00pm Mr H woke his wife to look at the object.

Later they saw a smaller light of much the same brilliance appear near the larger light. The smaller light took a downward direction southward and following the same course of the larger light, finally disappearing below the horizon.

The large light then began to climb in the sky, heading west.

Mrs H, who hardly took her eye off the object for three hours, reported that after the brightest star had paled in the morning light, the object was still very bright and easily seen. Eventually, in full daylight, the object appeared like a silvery ball or disc reflecting the sun. at 10:00am it was directly overhead, changing to a white colour as it approached the west. The object disappeared from sight behind heavy clouds in the west about 4:00pm. Mr H and his wife thought the object was a mother ship discharging a small saucer.

Brisbane, February 21 1963 At 22:00 hours my attention was drawn to what appeared to be an extremely bright star, orange in colour, to the north.

This object pulsated violently from completely invisible to the brightness of a dynamo cycle headlight, but without beam.

The object remained stationary for 27 minutes then moved off southwest at a speed that of a normal aeroplane. The object appeared to have two centres of luminosity.

New Farm, July 1 1963 A sharp white object as bright as a fluorescent light was observed from 3:00 to 5:00am. The object was stationary, but had a tail. It appeared like a disc with a tail, and the tail was observed to lengthen, but the object remained motionless. The object was not quite as big as the moon, and was so bright it appeared to have a halo around it.

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Batchelor, NT, August 8 1963 We were proceeding in a westerly direction at 8:17pm when we both became aware of a flickering light to our left, about tree top level. On looking up we observed a blue sphere with a halo effect approximately 12 inches in diameter.

The centre appeared as a solid mass about six inches in diameter. Behind the sphere was a brilliant orange tail, similar to a typical comet tail. As the object went overhead it changed to varying shades of orange and gradually decreased in size.

The tail disappeared first, the haze then ‘dissolved.’ The object appeared to be about two hundred feet above the ground and moved at a constant speed and was brilliant enough to light the immediate area where we stood.

We were standing discussing this phenomenon when approximately one minute later we heard a muffled explosion like a jet plane crashing the sound barrier in the direction in which the object had come.

Brisbane, June 10 1964 At the risk of being called a crank, I’m writing of a queer sight I saw at 8:30pm on the night before the red moon was sighted around Australia.

I knew the object was not a star and kept watching its swift advance from the north-west. Suddenly it turned south and I saw it was like a top giving off a green (beautiful) light. The object itself appeared green.

I thought it would land on the Taylor Range it went down so fast, however it suddenly lifted and sped off at great speed towards the west.

Quilpie, March 5 1965 A silver object with a dark mass in its centre was observed for two minutes moving approximately 150 miles per hour at a height of under 500 feet in a due south direction. After two minutes the object changed to a yellow colour. It was as large as a street light in diameter.

UFO ENCOUNTER

Moonie Oilfield Terminal, March 5 1965 My companions pointed out the approaching light travelling no more than 200 feet above the ground and in an easterly direction. The initial sighting gave the impression of the vehicle drifting silently to a halt from approximately 50 miles per hour.

The oil terminal was floodlit, and being the only bright light within a radius of over 70 miles, I received the impression that this attracted the vehicle. After a period of 18 seconds of stationary observation, the unit, while maintaining low altitude made off in a southerly direction at tremendous speed.

With increase of distance the lights became smaller, became one, and disappeared over the horizon in four seconds. At no time did the lights waver, change colour or intensity. Nor was there any noise or other physical manifestation.

My companion, who ran towards the UFO, did not get sufficiently close to add to my information.

Cairns, June 2 1965 ‘Two-thirds’ of a circle of lights (ie, a semi-circular ‘string’ of lights) was observed around 8:00pm. When first observed the lights were of the brightness of 100-watt globes, but as they faded out they left a bluish glow. The lights were at tree-top level when first sighted, and were estimated to be about 35-40 feet in diameter.

Brighton, March 29 1966 An object with red and green flickering lights was observed for 30 minutes from the Weston Garden Hotel. Six observers watched as it dropped at a sharp angle, rose again, then moved slowly in a north-north-west direction.

Tully, March 28 1966 A brilliant neon coloured oval-shaped object was observed for approximately 10 minutes over Mt Tyson. It appeared to ‘slide sideways’ in a skipping motion on the northern side of the mountain, then moved out again. It was estimated to be about 200 feet above the mountain.

Redcliffe, August 12 1966 Two yellowish-white star-sized objects were observed from Woody Point travelling from the northwest to the southeast.

They were described as moving in ‘convulsive jerks.’

St George, March 16 1967 A man and his mother-in-law were driving along the St George-Mitchell road at 8:30pm when they saw a greenishblue light that became brighter and more silvery as it approached them. The pair turned a corner in the road, and when they came out of a group of trees they saw the object had landed about 100 yards off the road in a clearing. They were too afraid to stop the car, but described the object as being about 12 feet high by 15 feet wide, spherical in shape but with a flat bottom. It had an open ‘door’ in the front of it, and a ramp leading from the door to the ground.

Tarragindi, November 27 1967 At 9.30pm myself, my mother, father, sister, uncle and friend sat in a car in Andrew Avenue Tarragindi. Looking back at the house my eye was caught by a fiery mass beyond the roof of the house in the general direction of Moorooka. As this fiery mass seemed to be coming towards us quite quickly, I became alarmed. The sky around the mass was well lit, outlining cloud

Bogangar NSW, June 6 1965 I noticed a glow behind the clouds and suddenly an object dropped beneath the cloud cover. It lit up the outlines of the clouds as it came through. Then it seemed to level off to the south-west. When it came onto the coast range it rose to clear it and disappeared.

It covered a terrific distance in a few seconds, but I couldn’t say how high it was or at what speed it was travelling because it was all over so fast.

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UFO ENCOUNTER

Cleveland, November 11 1967 A top-shaped craft that made a swishing sound was observed from Cleveland. The upper portion of the ‘top’ was black, the bottom silver, and it had a row of six amber lights around it. It was about 50 feet above the observer, and estimated to be about 15 feet wide – wider than his ‘falcon car is long.’ for a large area. I called out to the others that a plane was crashing, and as it seemed to be heading in our direction we all moved quickly out of the car and onto the footpath. The object veered off and disappeared out of our view, which was obstructed by a nearby hill.

Corinda, January 17 1968 At 7:20pm a straw-coloured bullet-shaped object was seen from Bethesda Hospital Corinda. It was traveling at a similar speed as a jet liner as it travelled above the treetops before turning and moving south-east.

Zillmere, January 17 1968 A disc-shaped object with a ring of red pulsating lights was observed stationary beneath cloud cover, at an estimated height of 300 feet. The object remained stationary for about 40 seconds before moving off to the southwest at rapid speed.

The object was then observed to decrease its speed before descending groundward, where it was lost from sight.

Woodridge, January 1968 It was a very hot day with no clouds. I saw a flying object come towards me from far off in the east. It hovered about 100 feet away, was cream in colour, and was just the same shape as a cup and saucer, without the handle. It was quite large. I could see two windows and electric controls – no people. Then it shot out of sight to the south. There was a humming sound.

That night I was awakened by the same humming sound, and it seemed as if something was trying to take my mind away Silky Oak Creek, February 2 1968 A semi-circular object the size of a large dinner plate was observed for 15 minutes from a residence about five miles out of Tully. It had six white lights around the rim that flickered on and off about every 60-70 seconds. A dark cloud mass formed around the object as it disappeared.

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from me. I had to put up a fight to win, and the same thing happened the next night, but not so strong.

I know this must sound crazy, but it’s just as I say. Other people must have seen this thing, it was so plain to me.

Lutwyche, November 1968 A circular red object with ‘grill-like squares’ inside a ‘revolving capsule’ was observed from Lamington road Lutwyche. It descended like a plane towards the trees and in appearance was ‘exactly like the part ejected from Apollo 7 as shown on TV. Suddenly the flame went out, leaving a trail of smoke.’

Baralaba, June 1969 The witness was driving from Biloela to Baralaba when he saw ‘this big bright light in a paddock. I pulled up. It was like an upturned tortoise shell. I could make out what looked like portholes in the side and there was a mast on the top. It made a strange humming sound. I could see coloured flashing lights, and now and then a light would shine on the trees. It was moving along in a jerking motion, and would go close to the ground and then lift up again.

‘Another object seemed to come from behind the trees. I was a bit frightened and drove to a property a few miles down the road. A third one appeared and they followed me all the way.’

The witness woke up the people at the property, then went home and woke his family. They all saw the saucers. The owner of the property studied the objects through binoculars for more than two hours. He said: ‘One seemed the mothership. It had three portholes and gave a consistent yellow light. The other two were changing colours. They were certainly very real.’

Eudlo, March 1969 One morning my daughter heard our dog and a neighbour’s dog both doing a lot of barking. The next day I found footprints in the shed. These measured 8 and 9 inches in length. The 8 inch marks took a step 16 inches length. On looking for further evidence I found something had been in the dam about 80 yards from the house. The grass and reeds were flattened on one side in a clockwise direction. Others were pushed away from the centre on the other side of the dam. The dam was very dirty, as if the mud had been sucked up from the bottom.

The area mostly affect suggests a circular object about 17 feet in diameter.

Rockhampton, August 15 1969 We were driving to Rockhampton when my friend asked me if the sun was up, as it was only 6:15am. Looking up I saw a bright red flame with a small dark object at the head of the flame. The tail was like that of a rocket. Photographs were taken with an Instamatic 25 camera, but it is doubtful whether the object will be seen as it was a long way away.

UFO ENCOUNTER

what didn’t make it to...

the

HEADLINES

Airforce shoot down UFO after radar alert http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/638380/New-RoswellFOUND-Airforce-SHOOT-DOWN-UFO-after-radar-alert

An Indian Air Force Su-30 MKI fighter jet has intercepted an unidentified flying object in Barmer, Rajistan, yesterday after the balloon-shaped object was seen on radar, triggering an alert. An IAF spokesman said: “Between 10.30 and 11 am an unidentified balloon-shaped object was picked up by the Indian Air Force (IAF) radar. An IAF fighter was launched, which intercepted the object and brought it down. Materials have been retrieved and further investigation is ongoing.”

There have been local speculations on whether the object was a meteorological weather balloon from India or Pakistan. But the IAF has not confirmed what the object is.

Barmer is less than 300 miles from Jaipur, where villagers reported this month mysterious metal balls falling from the sky. According to police who scoured the area for debris, they found five triangle-shaped pieces of metal object, which were passed to the IAF.

Of course, there’s no tangible evidence that anyone has ever been taken aboard an extraterrestrial spacecraft. But there are those who claim they’ve been abducted, and their stories are chilling.

“It was a metallic, glowing disc, making some very strange sounds,” Walton told us. “The closer I got to it, the more scared we all got and they were swearing at me to get away from there, and when I got up close, it suddenly got louder and started to move.

“I jumped for cover and then jumped up to run back to the truck, and that’s when this blast of energy hit me, and I just felt this numbing shock go through my body. But the crew said it threw me through the air 10 or 20 feet and I landed in a way that they were immediately certain it had killed me, and they fled.”

The incident began on Nov. 5, 1975, after a long day of work in the Sitgreaves National Forest near Heber, Arizona.

Walton and six other loggers were heading home when they suddenly saw a 40-foot-diameter shiny disc hovering in the air. Walton first told his extraordinary story in a 1978 book, “The Walton Experience,” which became a 1993 film, “Fire In The Sky.” His account has just been turned into a candid documentary, “Travis: The True Story of Travis Walton.”

Walton reveals the terrifying details of his experience at the hands of several “non-human” beings, and his feelings of suffocation and the fear that he was dying as the event unfolded.

“When I was first able to focus my eyes good enough, I was still on the table. And as soon as I saw this face, and knew it wasn’t human, I tried to hit it away from me. They were much smaller than me, and I think that’s the reason they gave up. Once they found out they couldn’t control me, they split. I was absolutely terrified.”

There are reports that villagers heard a deafening blast over a three-mile radius during the incident. Eyewitness Manoj Singh said: “The blast sound was heard five times and something fell down after an aircraft flew by.”

Walton was declared missing for five days, during which time his logger buddies fell under suspicion of foul play.

Police said similar blasts were heard at nearby Sinleejageer village, last year, also in January, and the IAF was still investigating that incident.

UFO-Alien Abduction Still Haunts Travis Walton http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/04/23/travis-waltonstill-haunted-by-ufo_n_7119910.html?ir=Australia

Close encounters of the FOURTH kind. That’s when a person claims to have been kidnapped by a UFO and its reportedly otherworldly occupants.

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UFO ENCOUNTER

When Walton finally turned up again, not knowing how long he’d been gone, an intense investigation was underway, including multiple polygraph, physical and psychological tests.

He tells HuffPost about little known aftermath details, including subsequent research in the forest area which has shown an unusual growth rate in trees in the immediate vicinity of the encounter.

“About 15 years later, it was discovered that the trees nearest to where [the UFO] hovered had been producing wood fibre at 36 times the rate it had in the 85 years before that,” Walton says. “More recently, a complete core sampling revealed that this thickened growth was only on the side of the trees towards, or in the direction that the craft had been.”

Walton addresses the stigma that he and so many other people -- who claim encounters with possible alien beings -are generally considered unreliable wackos. “The scientific evidence of the likelihood of intelligent life in our vicinity has become so overwhelming that the people who believe that we’re alone in the universe -- those are the kooks.”

Area 51 Bans Drones http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/area-51-bans-drones-yourdrones-at-least-1754847849

The U.S. government continues to try to cope with the rise of the drones, both those in their own hands and in yours.

Now the world’s most well known top-secret facility, Area 51, is trying adapt as well. Ironically, what is surely the most cutting edge of drone-testing facilities in the entire world wants to make sure that you keep your drone in the trunk when approaching its borders.

You can see the new signs that have popped up around Area 51’s edges, clearly stating that it is a officially a nodrone zone in this video shot by YouTube user Armature_ Radio_Club: It makes total sense that one of the most heavily guarded pieces of property in the world, where secret flight testing is its reason for existing, doesn’t want civilian operated drones equipped with cameras buzzing around its perimeter. There

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is also the case of the notorious low-flying HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters that aggressively patrol Area 51’s edges.

A hobby drone could inadvertently cause one of these helicopters to crash, should there be a collision.

These new signs at Area 51 are not really unexpected.

The FAA is cracking down on hobby drones and now requires those weighing over half a pound to be registered.

Additionally, Foxtrot Alpha has reported for years that hobby drones could be used for very nefarious purposes— something the military is coming to grips with now.

Due to many near-collisions with commercial aircraft, the FAA is also working toward informing the public of where it is acceptable and not acceptable to fly drones. Now, according to this new signage, the edges of Area 51 appear to be on the no-drone list.

Fossils of prehistoric sea creature found on Mars http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/637895/Mind-blowingdiscovery-Fossils-of-prehistoric-sea-creature-found-on-Mars

They are one of the most distinctive fossil shapes found on Earth, and now alien hunters claim to have found evidence of trilobites once living on Mars.

The trilobites are the latest in a string of so-called discoveries found in NASA images of Mars over the past year. These have included, crabs, lobsters, mice, and even a bear.While

UFO ENCOUNTER

Giant Alien Snail on Pluto http://www.inquisitr.com/2704065/nasas-new-horizon-photoshows-giant-alien-snail-on-surface-of-dwarf-planet-pluto-photo/

NASA recently unveiled curious-looking high-resolution images of the Sputnik Planum region of the dwarf planet Pluto, sent back to Earth by the New Horizons space probe during its flyby of Pluto last July. The dark form or object shown in the image immediately caught the attention of UFO and alien enthusiasts, sparking a debate that led to the predictable conclusion that the photo could be evidence of alien life on Pluto. Some space anomaly analysts said it was, in fact, a species of giant snail native to the dwarf planet Pluto. alien hunters are convinced these strange shapes in the rock are evidence of life or former life on Mars, NASA and other scientists say they are just cases of pareidolia, whereby the brain tricks the eyes into seeing familiar objects or shapes in textures or patterns.

According to NASA scientists, what the photo shows is probably a dirty iceberg — contaminated by debris — floating on denser solid nitrogen on the Sputnik Planum.

The UFO buffs are having none of it though and continue to seek out new finds. Other “discoveries” of the past few days include a “totem pole-like structure”, and a “fossilised sea bed” - this time with coral and a mollusc-like shell.

Ninth Planet May Exist Beyond Pluto http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/space/ninthplanet-solar-system-beyond-pluto.html

There might be a ninth planet in the solar system after all, and it is not Pluto.

Two astronomers reported on Wednesday that they had compelling signs of something bigger and farther away — something that would satisfy the current definition of a planet, where Pluto falls short. “We are pretty sure there’s one out there,” said Michael E. Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology.

In a paper published in The Astronomical Journal, Dr. Brown and Dr. Batygin laid out a detailed circumstantial argument for the planet’s existence in what astronomers have observed: a half-dozen small bodies in distant elliptical orbits. What is striking, the scientists said, is that the orbits of all six loop outward in the same quadrant of the solar system and are tilted at about the same angle. The odds of that happening by chance are about 1 in 14,000, Dr. Batygin said. A ninth planet could be gravitationally herding them into these orbits.

Elon Musk Says SpaceX Will Send People to Mars by 2025 http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-saysspacex-will-send-people-mars-2025-n506891

The SpaceX and Tesla founder said this week that he personally wants to visit space within the next five years and thinks that his company will launch a mission to Mars by 2025. It’s an ambitious goal considering that NASA’s current plan is to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Speaking at the StartmeupHK Festival in Hong Kong this week, Musk said that he had already taken parabolic flights to prepare for space, but had not done much else. “I don’t think it’s that hard, honestly,” he said. “It’s not that hard to float around.”

For the calculations to work, the planet would be at least an equal to Earth, and most likely much bigger — perhaps a mini-Neptune, with a small but thick atmosphere surrounding a rocky core and mass about 10 times that of Earth. That would be 4,500 times the mass of Pluto.

The potential ninth planet, at its closest, would be about 20 billion miles away; at its farthest, it could be 100 billion miles away. One trip around the sun would take 10,000 to 20,000 years.

“We have pretty good constraints on its orbit,” Dr. Brown said. “What we don’t know is where it is in its orbit, which is too bad.”

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UFO ENCOUNTER

Regardless of who gets there first, Musk thinks it’s vital for mankind to create a self-sustaining city on Mars to protect against human extinction, and also to inspire people. “This would be an incredible adventure,” he said. “It would be exciting and inspiring, and there needs to be things that excite and inspire people.”

How the U.S. Spy Satellite Program Chose This Hilariously Scary EarthEating Octopus as Its Logo http://gawker.com/how-the-u-s-spy-satellite-program-chosethis-hilarious-1753853371

Perhaps you remember a time, two years ago, when the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office released its new mission logo, an enormous tentacled monster covering the earth with its sucker-lined legs. Perhaps it reminded you of a comic-book villain from your youth. Perhaps you were only vaguely familiar of the NRO before then, and have since come to think of them only as “the scary octopus guys.”

Now, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request by security researcher Runa Sandvik, highlighted at MuckRock today, we know a bit more about how the scary octopus logo came to be.

In response to Sandvik’s request for documents relating to the preparation of the logo, the NRO sent 15 heavily redacted pages of paperwork dating to 2012, months before NRO launched the satellite bearing the octopus.

According to the documents, on some level the logo is an inside joke about a piece of equipment called an “octopus harness.” But mostly, the men and women at the agency chose the image because it looked badass, and you can’t really disagree with them there.

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Some other interesting details: the text and symbol had to be approved “to ensure neither contains any hidden classified meanings,” and the tentacles were “randomly placed,” perhaps to avoid the appearance of bias.

In 2013, the American public was at the height of its postSnowden concerns about surveillance overreach, and the Octopus was rightfully criticized as a tone-deaf way to represent the U.S. intelligence community. As MuckRock notes, there is only one indication in the documents that anyone saw the backlash coming: a handwritten note, in blue pen, on the report’s front page. “A little sinister!!” it reads.

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