Monday, April 29, 2013

 

Citizen Hearing on UFOs: Why don't we hear more about worldwide UFO cases?


At today's first day of the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, one of the first questions posed by a former Congressional member was: "Why don't we hear more about worldwide UFO cases?" This was asked by

former Congresswoman Darlene Hooley (Dem, OR). One of the replies was by noted ufologist Stanton Friedman, who answered: “It’s not about how much is going on – it’s more about how much do we hear about the sightings…how many UFO reporters do you know?”


Above: Former Congresswoman Darlene Hooley

I agree with Stan, but I'd go a bit farther. My answer would turn the question on its head: "Why don't we hear more about worldwide research on an AIDS vaccine?"

You'd have to admit that an AIDS vaccine would be slightly more important than people in Britain seeing lights in the sky, for one thing. So why isn't every page of today's newspaper filled with stories about progress on this important medical front? 

The information is out there, to be sure. All you have to do is Google it. There are articles about it virtually every day, on news sites, blogs, websites and other social media, too. There's no reason why we shouldn't be completely aware of what is going on in the medical community regarding an AIDS vaccine.

Except that you'd have to be interested enough in the topic to want to know. And most people, frankly (and unfortunately), don't. They'd rather hear about another Kardashian scandal, or about an unfair school tax in their electoral district. And, Lord knows, the general public is hungry for a more complete understanding of the Boston Marathon bombing, and is demanding to know why the Bangladesh warehouse collapse could not have been foreseen and prevented.

The reality is, where UFOs are concerned, that information about UFO cases around the globe is easy to get. The MUFON site and Peter Davenport's NUFORC alone have links to firsthand accounts of cases from a multitude of countries, across all continents. And in a week or two, the 2012 Canadian UFO Survey will be released, nearing its 25th year of analyses of UFO reports in one country alone.

So there's no shortage of worldwide UFO cases. And anyone who wants to hear about them can, at any time, access the details. Stan's right; how much do we hear about the reports? It's dependent on the news services, which prioritize news content according to many factors including advertizing, political will and public demand. You local newspaper (if it's still in business at all) has many stories to fill its pages, and UFO reports in your region might make the "Police Blotter" now and then, if at all. Unless the editor deems UFOs too silly to bother with.

Public awareness about UFOs is a complex issue, and it's also a downward spiral. The less the public hears about UFOs, the less they want to know about UFOs. Conversely, the more that is heard about UFOs, the more there will be interest.


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Monday, April 22, 2013

 

But Siriusly, Folks...

Today, April 22, 2013, the long-awaited documentary Sirius is released, premiering in advance of the
Congressional Hearings on Disclosure. It's been billed as a revolutionary work that advances the "truth" about aliens coming to Earth, as evidenced by the analysis of an "alien body" discovered in South America. It's claimed that DNA evidence proves it's not from Earth.

But that's just a small part of the film. A large chunk is devoted to exposing the large-scale cover-up of alien intervention, including First World suppression of antigravity devices, "free energy" generators and the terrestrial military abduction of civilians.

So, there's nothing really new here that hasn't been promoted by conspiracy buffs and sensational ufology for the past several decades. It would have been nice to get a film that could concentrate on the "alien body" question, since that at least is some physical evidence that can be tested. Unfortunately, rolling it in with standard conspiracy material weakens the "disclosure" aspect somewhat.

I don't really want to get into the whole "disclosure" thing. I've posted elsewhere that I doubt any kind of "disclosure" as is envisioned by its proponents will ever occur. I also don't buy the "confirmation" version of disclosure that is currently making the rounds. Whether it's a "soft release" of information or actual whistleblowing, it doesn't make sense that whomever has the real story will allow it to go public in such a manner. If anything, the hype around disclosure and the aligning with conspiracy theorists will only make the possibility of rational discussion about the subject less likely.

And then there's the mummified alien body.

Contrary to what most people are being told, this odd artefact isn't new. In fact, it was first discussed ten years ago in South American publications. And a thorough review was presented by noted research Antonio Huneauus earlier this year:

http://www.openminds.tv/analysis-of-the-atacama-humanoid-alien-972/

The little, doll-like body was found near La Noria in the Atacama desert region of Chile, a decade ago. It had been discovered by Oscar Muñoz, a scavenger who made a living partly by going through landfill looking for valuable items that could be reused or sold. As the article describes (via Google Translate):
Muñoz was sifting through the refuse when he found “something wrapped in burlap with a purple bow.” Unwrapping it, he found “a small body in perfect condition.” The body “smelled bad―not from decay, but as a result of having been buried with human waste.” Significantly, Muñoz took it home and “changed its ‘diapers.’”
One of the first to publicize it was:
https://realidadovniargentina.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/el-ser-antropomorfico-de-atacama/

The mummy was bought by Ramón Navia-Osorio, the head of a Spanish UFO group. (That's how it ended up being examined by the Barcelona scientists.) It had been in his possession for many years. He managed to get it examined by forensic experts at the Royal Academy of Science in Barcelona, but they apparently refused to take it seriously. In fact, one opinion advanced was that it was put together from bird bones.

A more scientific study looked at x-rays of the body, plus some morphological examinations, and concluded:

Taken as a whole, the proportions of the anatomical structures (skeleton and softer parts), the level of development of each one of its bones and its macroscopic configuration, allow us to interpret it without any shadow of doubt as a completely normal mummified fetus… Both based on the total length of the body as well as the length of the bones, it can be estimated that it’s a fetus in an approximate gestation period close to 15 weeks.
If Muñoz's description of how he found the mummy is accurate, it could make sense that the artefact is a mummified aborted or newborn fetus, wrapped up by its mother (and tied with a ribbon!) and abandoned in the landfill. The reference to a "diaper" is a pretty good indication of the overt sadness of the story, too.

Despite this, the ufological community seems to be hedging its bets by suggesting that the results of analyses of the humanoid artefact are inconclusive, and that it may be extraterrestrial after all. Greer apparently heard about it a few years ago and flew to Spain to see it firsthand. The result is the crowdsourced film that opens today.

Now, if Greer has managed to get some accredited scientists and forensic experts to look at this artefact and are willing to go on record that its DNA is different from that of a human fetus, that would be worth some significant discussions.

The publicity for the film is accurate, in that if the little mummified body can be shown not to be human, it will cause a true paradigm shift.

If not, what's the fuss about?

Oh, and yes, I want to see the film myself.

Updated April 23, 2013:
Report on Atacama artefact identifies Dr. Garry Nolan as scientist who studied it, but reviewer notes those looking for answers will be: "disappointed by a lack of concrete information" in the report.
http://www.paranormalpeopleonline.com/atacama-humanoid-preliminary-report-smells-of-ketchum/?fb_source=pubv1

Second update, April 23, 2013:
Huffington Post says: "...the film, which premiered Monday in Hollywood, features a scientist who concluded the little humanoid was human."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/sirius-documentary-dna-re_n_3135628.html

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

 

An interesting Canadian case from 2012


I have finally finished entering all the data on Canadian UFO reports in 2012. There’s a reason why it’s taken me longer than usual, and I will explain that when Geoff Dittman and I publish the 2012 Canadian UFO Survey in a week or so.

Having gone through all the cases that were reported, I found some that were quite interesting. (Most were not interesting, BTW.) Among them was the following report from the MUFON case listings. The event occurred at 9:40 pm on January 9, 2012, in Cornwall, Prince Edward Island. Here’s the report, verbatim:

My wife and I were on our back deck while I had a smoke between 9:30 and 10pm Monday the 9th of January. The sky was cloudless and the moon bright, but from above to the west the sky was dark and star filled, as the moon was far east. I had my Celestron spotter binocs out acclimizing as it was very crisp and cold that night, but with no wind and no clouds. It was cold crisp and clear, and I could hear transcontinentals 30 miles away to the south. My wife pointed out a bright light almost due west. I trained on this light with binoculars. And could see a craft I just assumed was a helicopter. I saw a red light on one side and a green light on the other, a bright white light to give the definition of triangle, and a dimmer white LEDish strobe light from within the center. Other than the strobe light the others seemed absurdly bright, yet not blinding. What I assumed was a helicopter rotated 360* without an iota of deviation up and down, or side to side. I was zoomed in considerably, lateral movement would have been obvious. When it stopped rotating, pointed our direction was a bright light, but not spot light, just very bright. This was soon obviously the nose of the craft, as it headed directly to our location and directly above us on our back step. About 450 to 500 feet. (I later confirmed the altitude, by measuring the focus of my binoculars to a duck blind down my river, approximately 550 to 600 feet. The duck blind was in focus and I had not adjusted my scope since the incident.) As mentioned before we could hear liners far south barely visible. This object in the 4 minutes of transit was absolutely quiet. Almost eerily so, that we did not discern even the road traffic ourselves or in recording. As it approached I saw a triangular black craft kinda like a stealth bomber, wings from nose but straight across tail from wing tip to wingtip (triangular). Its lights were ridiculously bright but did not seem to emit light (hard to describe) as it was directly above us we could see its belly. My wife with plain sight and myself still with binocs. The craft was moving no more than 30 km's per hour. And suddenly we both could see (as I had to drop the binocs because of brightness) the entire craft except its very tips with the lights. Transformed into the whitest and most perfectly spherical ball of white light, it was perfectly round and whitish blue, and only the tips of the craft were protruding. Despite the blinding whiteness of this orb, strangely, the colored lights were also very noticeable. The bright sphere went out. And the craft flashed three pink lights nose to tail (down the center) and then instantly two lights inside the colored lights of the wings but out from center of the rear light that flashed in the 3 sequence. And then it carried on, to the east. And stopping about a half mile from me, as it went over the rise to see the town of Cornwall. It seemed to consciously skirt the town and just do the circumference and come back. We watched this cycle 3 times and then it went north and we never saw it again. Total time within 1000 feet was about 5 minutes. Beyond 1000 feet about an hour. We have video from a crappy iPhone. But wouldn’t you know, it only recorded when the thing was beyond a quarter mile, but did record sound and grey screen the entire time it was over us. You can hear us discuss its soundlessness, the fact we can hear further objects, but for video only grey screen.
 
So the object started out giving the appearance of a conventional aircraft, with standard red and green lights. But when it flew nearer, it was a dark triangle with lights, and then seemed to change to a perfect sphere of white light. When the sphere vanished, dimmer lights could be seen.

Now, despite the great detail in the report (which was very rare for most cases), I assigned this report a Strangeness of 5 (medium) and a Reliability of 6 (for detail). I did assign it a Conclusion of “u” or Unknown, because its description didn’t conform to a simple explanation. But because the case was not investigated or followed-up, I couldn’t give it a higher rating and hence it will not be among the “High Quality Unknowns” we list every year. Was it simply an aircraft? 

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