31 January, 2016

CIA Posts 'X-Files' UFO Documents for Both Believers and Skeptics


The truth is out there, as Fox Mulder said on "The X-Files" — and the CIA invites you to read a little piece of it. But just enough to leave Mulder intrigued and his perennially skeptical partner Dana Sculley exasperated.

Likely to celebrate the long-awaited new season of the show, the CIA highlighted a few items from its recently declassified collection of UFO-related documents that it thought "both skeptics and believers will find interesting." The docs for believers range from translations of foreign UFO-related articles to memos admitting there were a few the CIA couldn't explain.

On the skeptical side, however, panels of experts shake their heads at the amateurish quality of investigations and suggest a nationwide debunking campaign to clear the air. "Psychologists familiar with mass psychology should advise on the nature and extent of the program," read one memo — something Mulder would find suspicious.

Overall, the documents, which date from the 1940s to the 1990s, show a fairly earnest effort to explain UFOs, which if they existed would be of as much interest to the CIA as to anyone else.

"It was interesting to note that none of the members of the Panel were loath to accept that this earth might be visited by any extraterrestrial intelligent beings of some sort, some day," read the summary of one UFO advisory panel. "What they did not find was any evidence that related the objects sighted to space travelers."

CIA: 10 Tips when investigating a flying saucer | Network World

1. Establish a Group To Investigate and Evaluate Sightings
2. Determine the Objectives of Your Investigation
3. Consult With Experts
4. Create a Reporting System To Organize Incoming Cases
5. Eliminate False Positives
6. Develop Methodology To Identify Common Aircraft and Other Aerial Phenomena Often Mistaken for UFOs   
7. Examine Witness Documentation
8. Conduct Controlled Experiments
9. Gather and Test Physical and Forensic Evidence
10. Discourage False Reporting
     
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/cia-posts-x-files-ufo-documents-both-believers-skeptics-n505361

21 January, 2016

Planet IX, Discovered! 10 Times Bigger Than Earth


The solar system may host a ninth planet that is about 10 times bigger than Earth and orbiting far beyond Neptune, according to new research.

Computer simulations show that the mystery planet, if it exists, would orbit about 20 times farther away from the sun than Earth, said astronomers with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

The planet is thought to be gaseous, similar to Uranus and Neptune. However, so far, it has not been observed directly.

"It's a pretty substantial chunk of our solar system that's still out there to be found, which is pretty exciting," said astronomer Mike Brown, whose discovery was published in this week's Astronomical Journal.
An Artist Rendering of The Planet

Brown and astronomer Konstantin Batygin, also at Caltech, were initially sceptical that such a large planet would have eluded detection.

But they modelled the hypothetical planet's gravitational effects on several known bodies in the region and found a near-perfect match.

The computer model also predicted the location of other objects beyond Neptune, in a region known as the Kuiper Belt, and those were found in archived surveys as well.

At that point, "my jaw sort of hit the floor," Brown said in a statement.

Brown's earlier research helped to demote Pluto in 2006 as the solar system's ninth planet after other small, icy bodies were found beyond Neptune.

"All those people who are mad that Pluto is no longer a planet can be thrilled to know that there is a real planet out there still to be found," Brown said.

Source:  http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-project/top-stories-january-2016/planet-9
More Information:
The Original Article from California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
http://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-researchers-find-evidence-real-ninth-planet-49523
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/science/2016/01/21/New-evidence-suggests-a-ninth-planet-lurking-at-the-edge-of-the-solar-system/stories/201601210114

20 January, 2016

Queenslander UFO Researcher Needs Your Help!

GYMPIE region residents are being asked to report their stories about UFO
sightings onto a website so Australian researchers can "make sense of them". 

Brisbane-based researcher and UFO Research Queensland president Sheryl
Gottschall said her organisation had been documenting UFO sightings in
Queensland since 1956 and had now begun transferring its records to its website. 

So far, sightings going back to 1998 have been uploaded. Earlier ones are still
to be transferred.

"We're hoping to bring sightings completely up to date," Ms Gottschall said. 

"And we're joining an Adelaide researcher who is compiling a comprehensive
list of Australian-wide sightings, including as yet unrecorded ones. 

"So we're asking people who have seen UFOs - past or current - to report their
experience through our website, www.uforg.asn. au; or via email at
info@uforg.asn.au; or they can phone me on (07) 3376 1780." 

To view Australian-wide sightings, which may also include local sightings,
log onto project1947.com/kbcat/kbmoreintoz.htm. 

In a letter printed in The Gympie Times last Wednesday, Ms Gottschall asked locals to report UFO sightings, but has not yet had any new reports, she said. (HERE)

Australia’s Incredible UFO Cover Up Story

2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the “Westall Incident” and still there are no satisfactory explanations of what happened that day.

It was 11 AM on April 6, 1966, when Australia’s most famous mass UFO sighting took place and when it did, students, teachers and other faculty members from Westall High School, along with members of the general public claim to have all witnessed the event, which was three metallic objects fly stealthily and silently through the sky, then land smoothly and leave quickly.

And this all during the day light.

After this incredible sighting, several eye witnesses claim men in dark suits (a prominent theme in major UFO sightings) warned them about speaking about what they had witnessed to anyone.

The warnings, however, did not deter some people from speaking out though, about the profound and mind blowing experience they had just witnessed.

Continue Reading Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15 January, 2016

Why the mainstream media refuse to acknowledge UFOs

There’s no subject more ignored, shunned and discounted by the mainstream media than that of UFOs. 
 
It’s absolutely true (this refusal to report, that is) and for the life of me, I can’t understand why. The implications of the ostensibly deliberate disinterest are unfathomable not to mention those of a government cover-up. In fact, the prominent ufologist Stanton Friedman calls it in effect the Watergate of the millennium.

The subject of flying saucers represents a kind of Cosmic Watergate, meaning that some few people in major governments have known since July, 1947, when two crashed saucers and several alien bodies were recovered in New Mexico, that indeed SOME UFOs are ET. As noted in 1950, it’s the most classified U.S. topic.

And note, he unabashedly calls them flying saucers and not UFOs. How can this subject, the subject, the existence of extraterrestrial beings, especially now as the latest iteration of Star Wars breaks all box office records, be of no interest to the media? And moreover, as newsrooms are shuttered, as news resources are pared and slashed, as the current crop of journalistas are desperately shaking the bushes for something, anything, to report on or cover, how can the most fascinating subject that has captivated humans since time immemorial not be leapt upon with the usual ferocity?

A cursory review of the Internet reveals numerous countries along with the Vatican openly acknowledging the existence of UFO files and investigations. Do you mean to suggest there exist no enterprising media types who are unwilling to vouchsafe the fact of the investigations themselves without verifying or acknowledging the existence of alien life and interstellar adventure?

I’ve asked this question for years and renew my query, especially in view of one-time chief of staff to Bill Clinton and an outgoing advisor to Barack Obama, John Podesta and his confession this year as to his biggest regret, viz. not securing the disclosure of UFO files. RT’s Manila Chan and I discussed this very topic in The Year in Space: 2015.

Yahoo News reported that at a 2002 presser organized by the Coalition for Freedom of Information, Podesta spoke as to the necessity and importance of disclosing government UFO investigations to the public.

“It’s time to find out what the truth really is what’s out there,” he said. “We ought to do it, really, because it’s right. We ought to do it, quite frankly, because the American people can handle the truth. And we ought to do it because it’s the law.”

Why not jump on his words for that AHA! moment? Especially from the likes of the consummate White House insider. As this is a subject of great interest to me I provide the following opinion and educated hunch.

First, in full disclosure, I’ve never witnessed or viewed anything that I could or would remotely categorize as extraterrestrial, UFO-esque and/or the like. In fact, I never gave the subject much thought for most of my life, choosing instead to believe the oft-cited trope that folks who claim to have observed flying space critters were usually drunk, draft, hallucinating or combinations thereof. I’d laugh at the usual account of some hayseed roused from sleep in his double-wide only to be anally probed by some macrocephalic, almond-eyed central casting ET.

After all, the notion was preposterous. Right?
Wrong.

Enter the Internet and my road to Damascus moment. I happened upon the work of Mr. Friedman, a nuclear physicist and University of Chicago classmate of Carl Sagan, and immediately delved into the subject. I simply had no idea the amount of first-hand accounts, eyewitness testimony, reports and radar records, you name it, that comprised the repository of data. Not to mention the oft-yet misquoted Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14. Yes, No. 14! What about 1-13? Good question, but that’s for another time. But suffice it to say that as for the plenitude of data that you will find when you dip into this subject, the level of misunderstanding and disinformation is simply amazing.

Amazing when you consider the certitude employed by those who emphatically reduce the subject to mythology and folklore.

But what about the media and their reluctance and refusal to give any attention to the matter? Here are my suppositions, hypotheses and theories.

Institutional bias. The media reflect the world around us. They take no chances, buck no convention and challenge no public opinion. As far as they know, any suggestion as to the viability of the theory that aliens or extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEs) exist or have been spotted is a no-no. Similar to the notion of the conspiracy theory, these subjects represent a journalistic no man’s land and the unwritten rule is that if coverage of any form is had it will be in a jocular presentation, minimizing any suggestion of the story’s veracity or verity. In other words: It’s understood that it’s to be disregarded.

Scientific illiteracy. This represents the crux of scores of issues that are given short shrift or ignored altogether by an increasingly juvenescent newsroom. Newsers have been told that interstellar travel is pert near impossible for a host of reasons they’ve yet to verify or attempt to comprehend. Unimaginable distances, limitations on light speed are but a few. They’ve simply accepted what is to be excepted.

Blind acquiescence and patellar, Pavlovian governmental obeisance. The last thing your government would want is for there to be an acceptance of the notion that not only have we been visited (and are) but that evidence of such has been kept from the masses. And not because of the usual theory posited that we would run into the streets crazed and panicked à la the 1938 Mercury Theatre’s War of the Worlds, but because interstellar travel most probably involves a means of a locomotion source that didn’t involve chemical combustion such as antigravitic propulsion. And when petrochemical combustion in particular is not necessary, can you imagine the impact this would have on a world economy dependent on the petrodollar and petrocracies?

The dissolution of nationalism and the emergence of the “Earthling.” Just imagine what the world would look like reconfigured to think not as mini-jurisdictional borders such as countries or tribes, sects, religions and the like, but as a complete and contiguous assemblage of Earthlings. So long jurisdictional tiffs. Adios, religious disquietude. Toodle-oo, nationalism and sectarian identification. Hello, fellow inhabitants. “Kumbaya” meets “We are the world.”

Now, let me remind you what the media believe are critical and worthy of mention without surcease – Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe misfire, the latest viral video of a duck playing the piano and anything Donald Trump related. No, that’s front page. That’s the lead. But the umpteenth sighting of potential interstellar, extraterrestrial intelligent craft?! Nope. Not interested. They’re just too busy.

Source:  https://www.rt.com/op-edge/327358-mainstream-media-ufo-refuse/

14 January, 2016

The Clintons are longing to find UFOs

If elected president, Hillary Clinton promises to tell the truth about the government’s secret work with space aliens — as if she’s capable of speaking the truth about anything.

Would Clinton investigate UFOs and Area 51 (the top-secret Air Force base in Nevada that fervid rumors call the home of the feds’ supposed alien investigations)? The question came in an interview with The Conway (NH) Daily Sun.

Her answer: “Yes, I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I think we may already have been [visited by aliens]. We don’t know for sure.”

Let’s wind that back. First instinct: Pander to the questioner. Second: Cover yourself with all the folks who know better. Third: Fudge to avoid getting pinned down by either side.

Not much different from her response on real issues — like her we’ll-get-to-the-bottom-of-Benghazi promise. (At least she didn’t try to blame an Internet video for flying saucers)

On top of that, Clinton hinted she might create a presidential task force to investigate Area 51.

This turns out to be a running thing for the Clintons. According to old-time Clintonite Webb Hubbell, Bill gave him a mission back in the ’90s, as Hubbell was becoming a top Justice Department official: “I want you to find the answers to two questions for me. One, who killed JFK? And two, are there UFOs?”

As The New York Post’s late, great Washington Bureau chief, Deborah Orin, later noted, “Hubbell describes his failure to find out about JFK and UFOs as a big regret when he had to resign” to plead guilty to bilking law clients back in Arkansas.

And Bill is still UFO-obsessed. Talking to Jimmy Kimmel last year, he said that meeting aliens “may be the only way to unite us in this incredibly divided world of ours. If they’re out there, we better think of how all the differences among people on Earth would seem small if we felt threatened by a space invader.”

Of course, he also probably figures they’d be willing to give big to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for having a few doors opened in DC.

Even the advent of extraterrestrials wouldn’t prompt the Clintons to change their ways.

Source:  http://nypost.com/2016/01/09/the-clintons-are-longing-to-find-ufos/

Giant-Snail On Pluto? WHAT THE F@#*!

A NASA camera has captured a startling image of a giant snail sliming its way across the surface – to where, we don’t know.

Or at least that’s what UFO fans think.

NASA’s more of the opinion the enormous alien gastropod is a ‘dirty block of water ice’.

YouTuber Esoteric Detective says, ‘Has an alien snail been caught slithering across the surface of Pluto? The mysterious object appears to ‘slide’ through the surface.

NASA reckons it’s a block of water ice, floating in denser solid nitrogen.

NASA says, ‘Mission scientists believe the pattern of the cells stems from the slow thermal convection of the nitrogen-dominated ices. The darker patch at the center of the image is likely a dirty block of water ice “floating” in denser solid nitrogen, and which has been dragged to the edge of a convection cell. Also visible are thousands of pits in the surface, which scientists believe may form by sublimation.’

Source:  http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/11/astro-gastropod-alert-nasa-probe-sees-giant-snail-on-the-surface-of-pluto-5615707/

Clarification: Mysterious Light Appears In Lightning Storm And Vanishes, In The Australian Capital of Canberra Was Just Video Editing Not An Anomaly

An Australian YouTuber playing around with video-editing software accidentally created a UFO hoax that was viewed hundreds of thousands of times and sucked in several news outlets. Journalists consulted astronomers and meteorologists, and reported that the unexplained light in the sky was probably ball lightning. Really, it was just a composite someone whipped up in Blender and After Effects.  / YouTuber Tries Video Editing for the First Time, Accidentally Creates UFO Hoax 

Last week i uploaded a video here that depicted a large ball of light in the sky exploding into a doughnut. I didn't intend for it to be taken seriously, but i made an error in judgement and titled the video as if it was real. Because of this the video went viral. It was reported on by the abc & canberratimes among many others. It was even in the paper.
What happened is 2 days prior to uploading the video, i bought after effects. I wanted to learn how to do video editing and whatnot. I use photoshop on a daily basis, so i'm not new to the process of image editing. The worst thing to come out of this is that i caused Canberra astronomer, Dr Brad Tucker and Senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology Sean Carson to take time out of their day to talk about the video. I'm extremely sorry for that. I messed up bad.
During the week the video has been live i have refused to say anything about it or respond to the many journalists trying to get in contact with me. I honestly didn't know how to respond. I also did not license or monitise the video. I have posted a second video explaining how the first video was made.
Once again, i did not mean for this to happen. I just hoped it would get a few laughs. I'm sorry if this has caused any grievances.
From Reddit.com / An apology from an idiot / https://www.reddit.com/r/canberra/comments/405f8a/an_apology_from_an_idiot/

More On this Story: 'Strange lights above Canberra' video creator admits it's fake, apologises for viral hoax | The Canberra Times
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/strange-lights-above-canberra-video-creator-admits-its-fake-apologises-for-viral-hoax-20160110-gm2ps0.html

Mysterious Light Appears In Lightning Storm And Vanishes, In The Australian Capital of Canberra | The Xenologist

05 January, 2016

Mysterious Light Appears In Lightning Storm And Vanishes, In The Australian Capital of Canberra



The video uploaded to YouTube last night, claims to show a circle or donut-shaped light appearing in the Canberra sky during a storm.

Australian National University astronomer Brad Tucker said the red and green light which glowed faintly in the background was "characteristic of an aurora" however believed this time it was ball lightning.

"An aurora is when energy from the sun hits the earth's atmosphere, the energy rubs the earth's atmosphere with friction and charges the gas," he said.

"But the problem is there was no activity from the sun, it was cloudy, we can't see the aurora, so it doesn't really fit."

Dr Tucker said in this case, the energy to create an aurora probably came from the thunderstorm itself.

"The same activity that causes an aurora, can actually happen inside our atmosphere if you have a storm with a lot of electrical charge that is rubbing against the gases in our atmosphere, causing it to grow that green or red colour," he said.

"Sometimes, if you get a really interesting occurrence, you create something called 'ball lightning'.
"Normally lightning strikes up and down hitting the ground, but ball lightning is a weird thing where it appears as a ball explosion, sometimes it can even move around in the sky."

Ball lightning had been reported to occur "more often in Australia than elsewhere".

"[But] there are lots of weird natural phenomenon that happens everywhere," Dr Tucker said.
"In Norway there's this weird appearance that happens every Autumn for a few weeks that causes weird UFO lights, but the lights happen regularly like clockwork."

Dr Tucker said he felt fairly certain extraterrestrial creatures could be ruled out as the cause of the light.

"I don't think it's aliens," he said.

"It's always hard to discredit aliens, but I think they would probably visit somewhere more active than Canberra coming back from holidays.

"It's probably not Photoshop either. Everything kind of fits and it seems right.

"Someone probably just got lucky, back from the holidays a little bit bored and saw an interesting storm, it's the only interesting thing going on in Canberra right now."

Forecaster Sean Carson said while he was speculating, he agreed that the light could be ball lightning.
"It's pretty amazing, no doubt about it," he said.

"There were obviously thunderstorms at the time, so lightning is all I can think of."

Source:  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-04/strange-light-above-canberra-probably-ball-lightning/7066414