Christmas is a wonderful time of the year...a time of peace and joy and goodwill towards all. A festive time of gathering around the tree, family get-togethers, yule tide carolers and colorful decorations. It is really a beautiful season, when sights, sounds and feelings all merge together in perfect harmony.
One of the most beautiful parts of Christmas is the lights. Every year I love to drive through the neighborhoods and look at the lighting displays that people put up on their houses. The yards and trees, inside and out are covered with a dazzling array of red, green, yellow and blue twinkling little electric orbs. It is a tradition that goes back as far as the light bulb.
You might be surprised to learn that it was none other than Thomas Edison, the inventor of the incandescent bulb, who first strung a row of electric lights outside his house to celebrate the holiday season. A few years later, in 1882, Edison's good friend Edward Johnson, who was also the president of the Edison Company, used 120 colored bulbs to decorate the world's first electric lighted Christmas tree. It revolved on a rotating pedestal, and was considered a marvel of the time.
We have come a long way since then. Now there are drive-through Christmas theme parks with millions of tiny little multicolored lights creating dazzling pictorial displays like dancing Christmas trees, flying reindeer, hard working elves, and jolly old Saint Nick sliding down a chimney. One lighted theme park in Texas, called Santa Land, covers 24 acres and contains over two and a half million lights! The father of the light bulb would be proud.
There are other types of lights that sometimes appear around Christmas time, the kind that UFO enthusiasts take an interest in. These are the unidentified lights that mysteriously appear in the sky. While UFOs do not limit their appearances to only December 25, there have been some pretty interesting sightings that have occurred on that specific date.
The first would be the original Christmas UFO, or what is commonly known as the Christmas Star, or Star of Bethlehem. This is the heavenly light that supposedly guided the "three wise men" to the place where Jesus was born. While some scholars debate whether or not the incident actually even occurred, others try to find rational scientific theories to explain it. Comets, planetary conjunctions and supernovas have all been put forward as theories to explain what has so far remained an unexplainable event. There is just not a lot of evidence to go on, other than what is written about it in the Bible.
The Gospel of Mathew states that several magi, or wise men, saw the star in the east and traveled to Jerusalem to ask King Herod where the "King of the Jews" had been born. These learned men very likely were astronomers, or astrologers, who had read the ancient manuscripts which prophesied that the birth of a messiah would be heralded by an astronomical event. The prophesy also stated that the birth would take place in Bethlehem.
After they had met with the King they set out again, "and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy." Obviously, the reason they were rejoicing is because they knew they were witnessing an extraordinary ufological event. If the Star of Bethlehem could be considered the first Christmas UFO, then the three wise men were the first Christmas ufologists! They investigated, using the best scientific methods of their time, and proclaimed it to be a holy miracle.
In the many centuries since then many debunkers have tried hard to debunk the miraculous nature of the Star of Bethlehem. In the year 1614, a German astronomer named Johannes Kepler speculated that the Star of Bethlehem might actually have been a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. If these two planets were to line up the result would be an unusually bright star-like object, however, the closest year that such a conjuncture occurred was in 7 BC, and at that time there was a gap in between the two so the result would not really have been visually extraordinary.
Another possible explanation that the skeptics propose is a supernova. Chinese astronomers observed a very bright star-like object in the year 5 BC. It lasted for a duration of 70 days and could very easily have been what the "wise men" in the Bible were following. It is unknown what exactly the object really was, though, so it is still unidentified.
Of course, many skeptics claim that it is a waste of time even trying to determine which astronomical phenomenon was present at the time of the birth of Jesus, since nobody knows exactly when he was born. While it is true that both the day and year of his birth is unknown, that does not mean that the Christmas star had nothing to do with Christmas. Just because it is not known for certain that he was born on December 25, it also can not be proven that he was not. Therefor, the light and the birth very easily could have gone together. Since the 25th is the traditionally accepted date, that is the one I have chosen to use for this article.
In December of 1758 another light appeared in the sky on Christmas. It was first seen by a German astronomer named Johann Georg Palitzsch, and was later named for the English astronomer who predicted that it would appear...Edmund Halley. It eventually came to be known as Halley's comet.
Halley's is the most famous comet of them all. It is a short term comet that makes a complete orbit around the sun once every 75 years. Other comets may take over a thousand years to make a complete circuit. Since Halley's has such a short orbit it is the only comet that can appear twice in a person's lifetime. The fact that it was discovered on Christmas day only added to its reputation. Incidentally, it is also one of the potential possible explanations for the Star of Bethlehem, so its reappearance on Christmas day may have been more than just a nice little coincidence.
Religious visions and holy miracles seem to have a habit of making an appearance during the Christmas holidays. In fact, the word holiday is actually a derivative of the words Holy Day, so it is only natural that the number of miraculous visions would increase during one of the most important religious days of the year. Over the centuries people have claimed to have seen lighted crosses in the sky, visions of angels, and images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Skeptics naturally scoff at these claims, but the people who see these miracles are touched in ways that often have a profound impact on their lives.
The Roman emperor Constantine is one such example. In the year 312 just before he was to undertake a major battle, he supposedly saw a lighted cross imposed over the sun with words saying "In this sign be victorious." He was so inspired by this vision that not only did he win the battle, but he became a Christian, ended their persecution and converted much of the Roman empire to the new religion as well. It was also he who proclaimed December 25 to be a celebration of the birth of Christ...all because he had seen the light.
In 1914, another miraculous Christmas light occurred, but this time it was not up in the sky, it was in the muddy trenches of a European battlefield. World War 1 was in full bloom and German and British soldiers had been killing each other with a passion. Anger and hatred filled the air and the opposing armies wasted no opportunity to attack one another. The foes were both hunkered down for the night on the eve of the holiday when suddenly the darkness was pierced by a strange light...then another, and another. Not miraculous crosses, comets, or UFOs, but candles.
The German soldiers were lighting candles and singing hymns. The joyful sounds of Stille Nacht filled the air, and the guns indeed fell silent. Throughout the night, and the following day men who had been enemies exchanged gifts, shared food, and ventured into no-man's land to meet and greet their former foes. They met not in battle, but in friendship.
The men buried their fallen comrades, held short prayer vigils, and then engaged in lively games of soccer and baseball. The high commands of both armies were not pleased about the convivial goings on, and ordered the fighting to resume, but the spirit of Christmas prevailed and nobody dared violate the unofficial truce.
As December 25, came to an end the soldiers once again returned to their trenches and the battle was on again, but for one brief, shining moment the light of Christmas had shone through the darkness of war, and left a brief, shimmering glimpse of peace.
In 1947 the modern UFO era began...that is when a pilot by the name of Kenneth Arnold first spotted a group of unidentified objects zipping through the air. He reported his sighting to the news media and the flying saucer craze was born. In the decades after thousands of people reported seeing strange flying objects or lights in the sky. Among those reports were many very interesting sightings that took place on Christmas day.
In 1976, in Winslow, Maine, a young family looked out their living room window and saw two lighted saucer-shaped objects sailing through the sky towards them. The objects were described as being like two pie plates placed open side together, with a pale yellow light on the bottom. They appeared to be about 30 feet in diameter and made of a shiny, polished metal. They passed directly over the house and continued off into the distance...probably on their way to an intergalactic Christmas dinner.
In 1985, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, a teenage couple saw another saucer shaped object outside their window. It was a massive craft hovering about 200 feet above their front yard. They ran outside to examine it closer and noticed an eerie glow pulsating around the edge, and a humming noise that they could feel in their bodies. After yelling for their parents to come take a look the object produced a vaporous cloud and disappeared from view.
Late one Christmas night in 1978, a group of campers in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, watched a huge glowing object descend behind some mountains and into the sea. It was witnessed from a distance of about two miles away and was described as "large orange glow that must have been between 100-300 feet in length. Within the elliptical glow were two smaller ellipses, perhaps one third of the way in from each side, which were brighter glows within the large orange glow and close to the color of a white florescent light." This incident was witnessed by a large group of people, including one lady who claims she saw a large flying saucer hovering over some brush close to the campground. Upon closer examination the next day, the bushes underneath where the object had been hovering were reportedly burned to a brown color. What would the three wise men have thought if they had witnessed that?
In 1982, in Kansas City, Missouri, a mother and son were driving home from midnight mass when they noticed a large amber moon-like object following their car. They quickly drove to the police station to report it and as they got out they saw a helicopter circling around the mysterious round object. After a few minutes the object quietly faded away and was gone.
Another close encounter involving people in an automobile happened right at midnight on Christmas eve of 1977 near Jackson, Mississippi. The car was stopped at a stop sign when suddenly an orange, glowing four foot wide saucer-shaped craft descended in front of them. The occupants of both vehicles observed each other for a few moments then the flying saucer flew straight up and out of sight, leaving several befuddled witnesses behind.
There was a very interesting event which took place in Bellmar, New Jersey in 1965. A family of four was driving home through a light snow after attending a family Christmas Eve get-together when they spotted a very, very large, dark triangular-shaped craft over the treetops. According to one eye-witness, "The delta shaped object was very low, perhaps just two hundred feet, and moving slowly enough that it was almost hovering – heading or facing northwest. It was large enough that it obscured most of the sky. It was silent. The leading edges of the delta shaped object were brightly lit in what at the time seemed the strangest possible way. A single light on each of the two leading edges ran the entire length of the leading edge. It emitted collimated ‘sheets’ of light, which slowly swept across the ground, homes, and trees from each leading edge."
What the witness remembered next was even more strange. "I became aware of four beings, three males and one female. The female was speaking, or more like singing to me. It seemed the three males were ‘singing’ to everyone else...I mean everyone else in the area around the ship and car. I became aware of the presence of our car from another perspective, perhaps looking down at it from some altitude, at the tops of the homes and trees. The female voice kept singing to me. It was the sound of a lullaby but had intense imagery and concepts attached to it. I understood that I was to take it all in."
Singing aliens? Or were they angels? Or was it just some more of that mysterious Christmas magic? Whatever it was, when the incident was over the family was left sitting in their car with a three inch blanket of snow covering it!
In 1990, two young boys from Gonzales, Louisiana, were lying in bed late at night anxiously waiting for Santa Claus to appear. Instead, they spotted a flying saucer outside of their window! It was surrounded by a cloud of some strange glittering substance that gently fell like snow to the ground. After hovering for a few minutes the craft suddenly levitated up and disappeared from sight.
In 1966, in Rockford, Illinois, a six year old boy was asleep in his bed when he was awakened by a strange whistling sound. Thinking that it might be Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, he opened his eyes to see thousands of deep red oval lights swirling around the room. They were moving rapidly in all directions, along the floor, the walls and the ceiling. He and his younger brother watched in shock and amazement before jumping out of bed and running for their parents. That was definitely a Christmas they will never forget.
The most unbelievable Christmas sighting of all may have been made by a young girl in Austin, Texas, who saw a bright red light zoom over the top of her house. She swears she heard the sound of sleigh-bells and a jolly old man saying "Ho-Ho-Ho! Merry Christmas!"
Who knows? It could have happened. Santa and his flying sleigh are no more unrealistic than some of the other weird encounters that have been described over the centuries. Mysterious stars, miracles and visions of Jesus have given way to flying triangles, saucers and reindeer. Heavenly angels have been replaced by otherworldly aliens. A handful of lighted candles has somehow evolved into millions of twinkling electric lights, blazing their colorful Christmas message for all of the world to see.
We have come a long way since the very first Christmas. Long ago when people saw strange lights in the sky they considered them holy miracles...now we think they are visitors from other planets or gift-giving elves. But are things really all that different?
Two thousand years ago the Christmas star heralded the birth of the messiah, the savior of the world, a man who would bring about joy, love and hope...hope for a better tomorrow, for a world filled with peace and goodwill towards all men.
In modern times people are also filled with hope. Children hope that Santa Claus will fill their stockings with goodies and toys, and leave lots of gifts under the Christmas tree. UFO enthusiasts hope that their long lost space brothers will reach across the galaxy to help man-kind cure our ills, save the planet, and end pollution and war and strife. We are all searching for a better tomorrow, one filled with peace and joy and love.
That is the true meaning of Christmas. It is what the three wise men sought as they trudged across the barren desert searching for a babe lying in a manger. It is what those muddy, war-torn soldiers were yearning for when they lighted those candles of peace. That is the light that has been burning brightly for more than two thousand years...and it just may be the most beautiful Christmas light of them all.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Death of Ufomania
It was almost exactly one year ago today that our old forum, Ufomania, began the slow process of self destruction. What had once been one of the hottest new UFO forums on the internet had reached a turning point and I and many of the other former members had finally decided that we were no longer happy with the direction it was headed in. That is when we decided to leave and start a new forum that became The Edge of Reality. At the time I predicted that Ufomania would not survive for much longer if it continued heading in what I believed was the wrong direction, and it seems that I was right.
I just read an announcement that was made this morning by the Ufomania admin. It says:
To all members and guests of UFOmania forum,
After a thorough discussion and assessing the current situation of this forum and in ufology at large, I and JJFlash concluded that we are not willing to spend more time and energy on maintaining another place on the internet for UFO related discussions. Although we both share mutual desire for intelligent and open but level minded discussions on the paranormal, we realize that the best way for now to resist the irrational pressure of absurd claims, lies and blatant ignorance, pouring through all cracks of the UFO forums on the net today, is to close this place and to move forward with our personal research and interests.
We especially appreciate the support of our most regular members and their contributions to the forum. We hope that you found here some interesting discussions and information. I and JJ have the intention to continue our research and presence on the internet and we hope to meet you again.
The forum will not be deleted but only closed for reading and posting. The reason to close it for reading is that the majority of its past and some of the present content is still of a quality that only perpetuates the spreading of untruthful information and ill beliefs. I am the initiator and fully responsible for this decision. I consider it an act of responsibility mainly to the young generations to discontinue the access to this place as a source of disinformation.
I want to express my immense appreciation to JJFlash for his full support of this decision and for his time and efforts as a moderator and active contributor to the forum. JJ, you are the best!
You still will be able to read JJFlash articles and exchange thoughts with him on his personal blog, The UFO Trail, at: http://ufotrail.blogspot.com
The forum will be closed on 16 January, 2012. After this date, everyone who would like to receive copies of particular posts and information from the forum can contact me by e-mail at stiverinmypocket at gmail dot com. The authors of the posts will be able to receive full copy of their original writings. Requests for posts, containing writing of other members or quotations from third parties will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
The forum can exist closed for quite a long time. However, there is no guarantee that Proboards will not delete it due to inactivity after a few months or a year. For this, if you want to save any particular posts for your archives, I suggest you to do this yet in the next two weeks, while the forum is still open.
Best wishes to all!
stiver
It seems the inevitable has finally happened.
Over the past year I have kept a watchful eye on what was happening over there. I didn't have any particular reason for doing so since I was banned from the forum and could no longer take part in it...but I was still interested nonetheless.
What I saw was one member take control over the forum and its content and lead it down the road of skepticism, and toward its eventual final destination and ruin. He tried to turn the forum into some kind of a scientific discussion group where only serious people could have serious discussions about serious topics. I tried to warn him before that by catering only to the skeptical elites he was going to be shutting out the vast majority of the people in the UFO community, but my warnings fell on deaf ears. He was determined to have his way, and the administrator, because of her friendship and admiration for him, seemed equally determined to give it to him.
While I could to a certain extent understand their desire to bring respectability to the forum by limiting frivolous conversations and wild speculations I also realized that by imposing their own version of censorship on the people they were eliminating the one thing that makes a forum so special...freedom of speech. Without the freedom to share ideas and opinions without restrictions there can not be a forum. If everybody has to conform to one person's ideals then it may as well be a personal blog or an isolated podium. For the administrators of a forum to be deciding what can and cannot be posted it is no different than if the government of a country were to tell the news media what can and cannot be reported. The free exchange of ideas just can't exist under those limitations.
I have said countless times in the past that a forum is not just about the content, it is about the people. An internet forum is a community of people who all share a common interest. UFOs may be the subject that brings us all together but it is the people and the friendships that they form that keeps us all here...and it is the conversations that we have and the variety of ideas and opinions that makes it all interesting. Each person brings something unique to the forum and those differing ideas are what allows us to learn and grow.
Way back when we first started Ufomania I was hoping it would be a place where everybody in the UFO community would be welcome, where skeptics and believers alike could take part in the discussions without name-calling or derision. I wanted us all to be able to peacefully coexist with one another...agreeing to politely disagree at times...but treating each other with respect and dignity in the process. I suppose it was a little bit naive for me to think that we could make it happen.
The UFO community at times seems to be its own worst enemy, where constant bickering breaks out between the believers and non-believers, and people who were once friends are ready to turn on one another at the slightest provocation. I have seen it happen over and over again, and I admit that I may have been guilty of it myself on occasion. It is a shame that it has to be that way but it is. I suppose it is not surprising that people who are constantly surrounded by conspiracies might sometimes give in to paranoia. Everybody makes mistakes...it's what we learn from them that makes the difference.
What I have learned is that the past cannot be recreated. Once it is gone it is gone. By initially trying to replicate the MUFON forum we were effectively dooming ourselves to disaster because Ufomania was not the old MUFON forum. And by that same measure, The Edge of Reality is not Ufomania...nor do I have any desire for it to be. In order for us to survive we have got to continuously move forward. We must look to the future while consciously making an effort to not forget the lessons of the past.
There was a time when Ufomania was a very special place, when we all worked together as a team to achieve success and to try to recover the internet community which had been so abruptly stolen from us. For a brief period of time we almost succeeded...we almost managed to obtain the unobtainable...but then it all came tumbling down. Now, it is gone forever.
I can't say that am surprised to see it go. Nor am I particularly sorry that it is ending. I am no longer a part of that forum so it no longer has any relevance for me. I admit I may be just a little bit sad. I have always kind of regretted what happened over there, and especially the way it happened. It was all totally avoidable but because of a few minor misunderstandings that got blown way out of proportion I ended up alienating several people who at one time were my good friends. I am sorry that had to happen...and I am especially sorry if I hurt anybody...but like I said before, we can't relive the past. All we can do is look to the future, and my future is here at TEOR.
A little piece of the UFO community has died today...but the rest of us are still going strong and we will continue to do so for as long as we can. The Edge of Reality will continue to exist for as long as there is anybody interested in exploring the unknown. Our forum will continue to grow and evolve as new members continue to come and go and leave their mark upon it. We have the opportunity to make our future whatever we want it to be.
As for the old MUFON forum...and Ufomania...their struggles are finally over. May they both rest in peace.
It was almost exactly one year ago today that our old forum, Ufomania, began the slow process of self destruction. What had once been one of the hottest new UFO forums on the internet had reached a turning point and I and many of the other former members had finally decided that we were no longer happy with the direction it was headed in. That is when we decided to leave and start a new forum that became The Edge of Reality. At the time I predicted that Ufomania would not survive for much longer if it continued heading in what I believed was the wrong direction, and it seems that I was right.
I just read an announcement that was made this morning by the Ufomania admin. It says:
To all members and guests of UFOmania forum,
After a thorough discussion and assessing the current situation of this forum and in ufology at large, I and JJFlash concluded that we are not willing to spend more time and energy on maintaining another place on the internet for UFO related discussions. Although we both share mutual desire for intelligent and open but level minded discussions on the paranormal, we realize that the best way for now to resist the irrational pressure of absurd claims, lies and blatant ignorance, pouring through all cracks of the UFO forums on the net today, is to close this place and to move forward with our personal research and interests.
We especially appreciate the support of our most regular members and their contributions to the forum. We hope that you found here some interesting discussions and information. I and JJ have the intention to continue our research and presence on the internet and we hope to meet you again.
The forum will not be deleted but only closed for reading and posting. The reason to close it for reading is that the majority of its past and some of the present content is still of a quality that only perpetuates the spreading of untruthful information and ill beliefs. I am the initiator and fully responsible for this decision. I consider it an act of responsibility mainly to the young generations to discontinue the access to this place as a source of disinformation.
I want to express my immense appreciation to JJFlash for his full support of this decision and for his time and efforts as a moderator and active contributor to the forum. JJ, you are the best!
You still will be able to read JJFlash articles and exchange thoughts with him on his personal blog, The UFO Trail, at: http://ufotrail.blogspot.com
The forum will be closed on 16 January, 2012. After this date, everyone who would like to receive copies of particular posts and information from the forum can contact me by e-mail at stiverinmypocket at gmail dot com. The authors of the posts will be able to receive full copy of their original writings. Requests for posts, containing writing of other members or quotations from third parties will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
The forum can exist closed for quite a long time. However, there is no guarantee that Proboards will not delete it due to inactivity after a few months or a year. For this, if you want to save any particular posts for your archives, I suggest you to do this yet in the next two weeks, while the forum is still open.
Best wishes to all!
stiver
It seems the inevitable has finally happened.
Over the past year I have kept a watchful eye on what was happening over there. I didn't have any particular reason for doing so since I was banned from the forum and could no longer take part in it...but I was still interested nonetheless.
What I saw was one member take control over the forum and its content and lead it down the road of skepticism, and toward its eventual final destination and ruin. He tried to turn the forum into some kind of a scientific discussion group where only serious people could have serious discussions about serious topics. I tried to warn him before that by catering only to the skeptical elites he was going to be shutting out the vast majority of the people in the UFO community, but my warnings fell on deaf ears. He was determined to have his way, and the administrator, because of her friendship and admiration for him, seemed equally determined to give it to him.
While I could to a certain extent understand their desire to bring respectability to the forum by limiting frivolous conversations and wild speculations I also realized that by imposing their own version of censorship on the people they were eliminating the one thing that makes a forum so special...freedom of speech. Without the freedom to share ideas and opinions without restrictions there can not be a forum. If everybody has to conform to one person's ideals then it may as well be a personal blog or an isolated podium. For the administrators of a forum to be deciding what can and cannot be posted it is no different than if the government of a country were to tell the news media what can and cannot be reported. The free exchange of ideas just can't exist under those limitations.
I have said countless times in the past that a forum is not just about the content, it is about the people. An internet forum is a community of people who all share a common interest. UFOs may be the subject that brings us all together but it is the people and the friendships that they form that keeps us all here...and it is the conversations that we have and the variety of ideas and opinions that makes it all interesting. Each person brings something unique to the forum and those differing ideas are what allows us to learn and grow.
Way back when we first started Ufomania I was hoping it would be a place where everybody in the UFO community would be welcome, where skeptics and believers alike could take part in the discussions without name-calling or derision. I wanted us all to be able to peacefully coexist with one another...agreeing to politely disagree at times...but treating each other with respect and dignity in the process. I suppose it was a little bit naive for me to think that we could make it happen.
The UFO community at times seems to be its own worst enemy, where constant bickering breaks out between the believers and non-believers, and people who were once friends are ready to turn on one another at the slightest provocation. I have seen it happen over and over again, and I admit that I may have been guilty of it myself on occasion. It is a shame that it has to be that way but it is. I suppose it is not surprising that people who are constantly surrounded by conspiracies might sometimes give in to paranoia. Everybody makes mistakes...it's what we learn from them that makes the difference.
What I have learned is that the past cannot be recreated. Once it is gone it is gone. By initially trying to replicate the MUFON forum we were effectively dooming ourselves to disaster because Ufomania was not the old MUFON forum. And by that same measure, The Edge of Reality is not Ufomania...nor do I have any desire for it to be. In order for us to survive we have got to continuously move forward. We must look to the future while consciously making an effort to not forget the lessons of the past.
There was a time when Ufomania was a very special place, when we all worked together as a team to achieve success and to try to recover the internet community which had been so abruptly stolen from us. For a brief period of time we almost succeeded...we almost managed to obtain the unobtainable...but then it all came tumbling down. Now, it is gone forever.
I can't say that am surprised to see it go. Nor am I particularly sorry that it is ending. I am no longer a part of that forum so it no longer has any relevance for me. I admit I may be just a little bit sad. I have always kind of regretted what happened over there, and especially the way it happened. It was all totally avoidable but because of a few minor misunderstandings that got blown way out of proportion I ended up alienating several people who at one time were my good friends. I am sorry that had to happen...and I am especially sorry if I hurt anybody...but like I said before, we can't relive the past. All we can do is look to the future, and my future is here at TEOR.
A little piece of the UFO community has died today...but the rest of us are still going strong and we will continue to do so for as long as we can. The Edge of Reality will continue to exist for as long as there is anybody interested in exploring the unknown. Our forum will continue to grow and evolve as new members continue to come and go and leave their mark upon it. We have the opportunity to make our future whatever we want it to be.
As for the old MUFON forum...and Ufomania...their struggles are finally over. May they both rest in peace.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Driving The ET Highway
September 15, 2011
I have always wanted to drive the ET Highway. Ever since I found out there was such a thing as an Extraterrestrial Highway I have wanted to drive down it, just to see what is there. I figured that they must have given it such a name for a reason and whatever that reason was it is bound to make a good story.
The fact is that the lonely stretch of two-lane road running between the tiny towns of Warm Springs and Ash Springs in Nevada has had more UFO sightings than any other stretch of highway in the country. So many in fact, that in 1996 the state legislature decided to name the highway after the many alien visitors that it seemed to be attracting...thus the Extraterrestrial moniker. It seems to be a fitting name.
I have been to Nevada many times in the past but always managed to bypass the ET highway in favor of other, more well-traveled and populated paths...those typically traversed by most tourists either on their way to the mountains further west or the bright lights of Vegas to the east. Since I recently became a UFO investigator however, and since I am now taking a greater interest in the study of ufology, my priorities have changed. I was not about to let the ET highway pass me by again. This is how I recently found myself driving through the tiny town of Ash Springs and turning west onto highway 375...the Extraterrestrial Highway.
As soon as I made the turn I glanced at my watch. It said 3:33 Pm. Repeating numbers...that was an ominous sign. Or maybe not. I still haven't figured out what the number thing is supposed to mean. Which ones are good and which ones are bad...I still don't have a clue. Not even after it had been explained to me by several different people. It didn't really matter. Even if it meant that death, destruction and an entire armada of aliens waited for me I still would have driven down that highway. I was determined to do it, regardless of what the numbers meant.
Before I was able to think about it further I quickly found myself slamming on the brakes and making a U-turn. In my haste to start my journey I had accidentally driven right past the ET Highway sign. I had to go back to take a picture of it. I was not about to undertake such an interesting endeavor without documenting my adventure. Of course, there wasn't really much to document. The sign was plastered over with dozens of bumper stickers and spray-painted graffiti. It seemed as if everybody from Terlingua to Tahiti had left their mark there. I looked closely to see if any of them said Andromeda or Pleiades but could not find anything unearthly. I guess since their civilization is so advanced the ETs must have gotten past the primitive and juvenile stage of marking their territory...either that or they just haven't invented the bumper sticker yet. I don't even know if UFOs have bumpers.
I started driving again and just as quickly came to another screeching halt as a giant gray alien zoomed past me on the right. Actually I was the one doing the zooming, the gray alien was standing still. It was probably because he was made out of metal. So was the building he was standing next to. I quickly made another U-turn and pulled into the parking lot.
The building was a big rounded metal thing kind of like an old World War ll airplane hanger. A sign on it said "Alien Research Center." The alien must have been standing guard over it, possibly doing research into what kind of people would stop at a place called "The Alien Research Center." He peered down at me with his lifeless alien eyes, watching my every move. I moved towards the front door and pulled the handle. It was locked.
A sign on the door said it was open on Saturday and Sundays. It was Sunday afternoon but there was nobody there except me and the thirty-foot metallic ET. Through the glass I could see alien themed T-shirts, coffee mugs and more of those infernal bumper stickers. At one time it must have been some kind of a tourist attraction but there was not a tourist in sight. Hmm...Maybe they all got abducted.
A few minutes later I was driving westward again and a few minutes after that I was once again pulling to a stop. This time it was just to admire the scenery. The little two-lane road threaded itself through vast expanses of open desert that stretched out for miles and miles on each side of the highway. Mountains arose off on the horizon. A few Joshua Trees and Saguaro cactuses put their arms in the air and waved at me as we went by. Other than that not a living thing could be seen in any direction.
If anybody wanted to hide something, like an invading alien base or a Top-Secret military installation, the middle of Nevada would definitely be the place to do it. The land is inhospitable and arid, with temperatures routinely topping 100 degrees in the summer. Any traveler who found themselves wandering down the winding stretch of road in the middle of nowhere would certainly not be there by accident. It kind of reminded me of what the old-timers used to say about West Texas, "it's a thousand miles from civilization and two feet from Hell." That describes central Nevada pretty well.
It is also unbelievably beautiful. The day I was there puffy, white cumulus clouds were casting shadows all over the land, turning the desert into their playground. The colors and patterns were amazing. A blue azure sky hung over purple mountains that flowed red and orange into the valley. Dark green cacti and golden scrub grass changed colors as the shadows passed over head. I couldn't help pulling to the side of the road every few miles to take pictures. At the rate I was moving it probably would have taken an entire day to get from one end of the 98 mile-long highway to the other, but I didn't care. I was enjoying my trip immensely.
So engrossed was I in marveling at the desert's beauty that I almost didn't even see the "black" mailbox that was supposed to be on the left side of the highway. This is the infamous landmark that marks the intersection of Mailbox Road, the mysterious dirt path that leads to Groom Lake Road and the entrance of the legendary Area 51. Of course it did not help that somebody had stolen the street sign at the intersection. More confusion was caused by the fact that the "black" mailbox isn't actually black, although it used to be.
The mailbox is owned by a guy named Steve Medlin, who owns a ranch in the area. Since there is no home mail delivery he has to make a six mile drive to and from the mailbox every day to get his mail. There were a few times he was surprised to find strange people going through his personal letters looking for Top Secret correspondence that may have been headed to the nearby military base. On more than one occasion he even found bullet holes in the box and his monthly bills. Finally he decided to replace the original black mailbox with a bulletproof white one made out of steel plates. The original was reportedly sold on Ebay.
The mailbox has become sort of a legend in conspiracy theorist circles. Every night UFO watchers gather at the box to look for unidentified flying lights. A few times each week they claim to see them...weird glowing, pulsating things that rise up from the mountains to the west then dance around the skies like oversized fireflies. I didn't see any strange lights while I was there but I did see the box. It was locked with a padlock and plastered with the obligatory bumper stickers. I took a few photos then headed down the road to another famous ET highway landmark.
The Little A'le'inn (pronounced "alien") is the local watering hole for ranchers and alien hunters alike. Located about midway down the highway in the small town of Rachel, The A'le'inn is the only restaurant in the area and despite its remote location has become world famous. Of course its fame doesn't come from being in the middle of nowhere but rather from its close proximity to Area 51, the mysterious military base where government-built UFOs are rumored to be hidden. It was actually the military base that put Rachel on the map...and gave the ET highway its name.
Back in the 1980s Rachel was just an old mining town that had seen better days. The mines had long since closed and most of the residents had moved away. The few hardy souls that remained struggled to eak out an existence. That all changed in 1989. That was the year that a fellow by the name of Bob Lazar started telling stories of a Top Secret military base where the government hid reverse engineered alien space craft. No sooner had the stories made news headlines than eager UFO hunters started flooding the area.
At first, the local people tried to ignore the new arrivals and their crazy tall tales but they soon discovered that no matter how far-fetched their stories seemed to be, the ufotourists were good for business. The little restaurant that had been on the verge of closing was suddenly beginning to make a profit, and the isolated little town was quickly becoming famous. People from all over the world were choosing Rachel as a vacation destination. Even the stars in Hollywood began to take notice.
In the early 1990s a movie called Independence Day was created using the officially nonexistent Area 51 as part of its plot. Naturally, the military tried to discourage the use of the name Area 51 anyplace in the movie but the film makers refused to give in. In fact, some of the filming for the movie actually took place just on the outskirts of the base near the town of Rachel. A few of the locals took part in the filming and can often be heard swapping stories about their brief moments in front of the cameras.
The film was released in 1996 and quickly became very successful, especially among UFO and alien buffs. Its popularity attracted the attention of state lawmakers who decided to capitalize on the fame of the film by renaming the highway in honor of the movie. That same year the little bar also changed its name to the Little A'le'Inn.
Although at first dismissing the UFO craze and conspiracy theories as a bunch of nonsense some of the people living in the area soon learned to embrace it themselves. The restaurant owners and many of the people who hang out at the little bar have become experts on the Top Secret base, and they even sell maps showing visitors how to get there. There is even a guide service that will take people on a tour of the area's UFO related attractions for a fee. A stop at the Little A'le'Inn is always included on the tour.
The Inn itself is not all that spectacular...just a small white building that serves as a bar with a few mobile trailers parked out back for guests to stay in. It must be the atmosphere that attracts people to the place. What else would you expect from a town that lists its official population as "Humans...yes, Aliens...??" I pulled into the gravel parking lot, past the the sign that says "Earthlings welcome," past the tow truck hauling the fabricated flying saucer, and parked next to a sinister black pickup with government plates.
Inside, about a dozen sun-roasted ranchers, tanned tourists, and wild-eyed UFO enthusiasts were scattered randomly amongst the tables. A couple of kids were laughing and pointing at a green-skinned, inflatable alien that stared down at them from the shelf. A group of tourists poked and prodded at the alien-themed T-shirts and souvenirs. At the bar a Man in Black was engaging a local rancher in conversation. Naturally, the MiB was pretending to be ignorant of the whole UFO phenomenon but I know a Man in Black when I see one, so Ha!
I wandered around for a few minutes checking out the dozens of UFO photos that adorned the wall. Many of them I recognized as already proven hoaxes or obvious IFOs but that didn't stop the owners of the bar from putting them on display. They were good attractions for the tourists who often forked over their hard-earned cash in exchange for a copied photo. I wasn't interested in any cheap souvenirs so I moseyed on over to the bar and took a seat next to the MiB.
He seemed to be grilling the rancher on everything he knew about Area 51...where it was, how to get there, whether or not there was any secret ways in...as if he didn't already know. The rancher then told a story about a friend of his who went rabbit hunting one day and accidentally wandered across the military boundary. He quickly found himself handcuffed and in jail where he was interrogated for five hours and then forced to pay a $600.00 fine before they would let him go free. The MiB's eyes lit up when he heard that story. I later heard that the rancher got off easy.
I ordered up an "alien burger" (that turned out to be the size of a chicken mcnugget) then washed it down with a couple of cold brews. Afterwards, the bartender sold me a map with directions on how to get to the front and rear gates of Area 51. I then headed back outside, watching the Man in Black give me the evil eye as I walked to the door. I imagine that all of the other MiBs in the area already had me under surveillance. They must have been reading my mind.
The Little A'le'inn may not have been much to look at but my short stay there had thoroughly aroused my sense of adventure. The most secretive military base in the country was just a few miles away and there was no way on God's brown Nevada Earth I was going to miss an opportunity to see it...even if it did mean risking jail time and a huge fine. It was a forbidden land calling my name. How could any red-blooded conspiracy theorist ignore a siren song like that? I had to go see it.
I put my truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot leaving the A'le'inn, the ranchers and the mysterious MiB behind. The ET highway...and Area 51...lie ahead.
I have always wanted to drive the ET Highway. Ever since I found out there was such a thing as an Extraterrestrial Highway I have wanted to drive down it, just to see what is there. I figured that they must have given it such a name for a reason and whatever that reason was it is bound to make a good story.
The fact is that the lonely stretch of two-lane road running between the tiny towns of Warm Springs and Ash Springs in Nevada has had more UFO sightings than any other stretch of highway in the country. So many in fact, that in 1996 the state legislature decided to name the highway after the many alien visitors that it seemed to be attracting...thus the Extraterrestrial moniker. It seems to be a fitting name.
I have been to Nevada many times in the past but always managed to bypass the ET highway in favor of other, more well-traveled and populated paths...those typically traversed by most tourists either on their way to the mountains further west or the bright lights of Vegas to the east. Since I recently became a UFO investigator however, and since I am now taking a greater interest in the study of ufology, my priorities have changed. I was not about to let the ET highway pass me by again. This is how I recently found myself driving through the tiny town of Ash Springs and turning west onto highway 375...the Extraterrestrial Highway.
As soon as I made the turn I glanced at my watch. It said 3:33 Pm. Repeating numbers...that was an ominous sign. Or maybe not. I still haven't figured out what the number thing is supposed to mean. Which ones are good and which ones are bad...I still don't have a clue. Not even after it had been explained to me by several different people. It didn't really matter. Even if it meant that death, destruction and an entire armada of aliens waited for me I still would have driven down that highway. I was determined to do it, regardless of what the numbers meant.
Before I was able to think about it further I quickly found myself slamming on the brakes and making a U-turn. In my haste to start my journey I had accidentally driven right past the ET Highway sign. I had to go back to take a picture of it. I was not about to undertake such an interesting endeavor without documenting my adventure. Of course, there wasn't really much to document. The sign was plastered over with dozens of bumper stickers and spray-painted graffiti. It seemed as if everybody from Terlingua to Tahiti had left their mark there. I looked closely to see if any of them said Andromeda or Pleiades but could not find anything unearthly. I guess since their civilization is so advanced the ETs must have gotten past the primitive and juvenile stage of marking their territory...either that or they just haven't invented the bumper sticker yet. I don't even know if UFOs have bumpers.
I started driving again and just as quickly came to another screeching halt as a giant gray alien zoomed past me on the right. Actually I was the one doing the zooming, the gray alien was standing still. It was probably because he was made out of metal. So was the building he was standing next to. I quickly made another U-turn and pulled into the parking lot.
The building was a big rounded metal thing kind of like an old World War ll airplane hanger. A sign on it said "Alien Research Center." The alien must have been standing guard over it, possibly doing research into what kind of people would stop at a place called "The Alien Research Center." He peered down at me with his lifeless alien eyes, watching my every move. I moved towards the front door and pulled the handle. It was locked.
A sign on the door said it was open on Saturday and Sundays. It was Sunday afternoon but there was nobody there except me and the thirty-foot metallic ET. Through the glass I could see alien themed T-shirts, coffee mugs and more of those infernal bumper stickers. At one time it must have been some kind of a tourist attraction but there was not a tourist in sight. Hmm...Maybe they all got abducted.
A few minutes later I was driving westward again and a few minutes after that I was once again pulling to a stop. This time it was just to admire the scenery. The little two-lane road threaded itself through vast expanses of open desert that stretched out for miles and miles on each side of the highway. Mountains arose off on the horizon. A few Joshua Trees and Saguaro cactuses put their arms in the air and waved at me as we went by. Other than that not a living thing could be seen in any direction.
If anybody wanted to hide something, like an invading alien base or a Top-Secret military installation, the middle of Nevada would definitely be the place to do it. The land is inhospitable and arid, with temperatures routinely topping 100 degrees in the summer. Any traveler who found themselves wandering down the winding stretch of road in the middle of nowhere would certainly not be there by accident. It kind of reminded me of what the old-timers used to say about West Texas, "it's a thousand miles from civilization and two feet from Hell." That describes central Nevada pretty well.
It is also unbelievably beautiful. The day I was there puffy, white cumulus clouds were casting shadows all over the land, turning the desert into their playground. The colors and patterns were amazing. A blue azure sky hung over purple mountains that flowed red and orange into the valley. Dark green cacti and golden scrub grass changed colors as the shadows passed over head. I couldn't help pulling to the side of the road every few miles to take pictures. At the rate I was moving it probably would have taken an entire day to get from one end of the 98 mile-long highway to the other, but I didn't care. I was enjoying my trip immensely.
So engrossed was I in marveling at the desert's beauty that I almost didn't even see the "black" mailbox that was supposed to be on the left side of the highway. This is the infamous landmark that marks the intersection of Mailbox Road, the mysterious dirt path that leads to Groom Lake Road and the entrance of the legendary Area 51. Of course it did not help that somebody had stolen the street sign at the intersection. More confusion was caused by the fact that the "black" mailbox isn't actually black, although it used to be.
The mailbox is owned by a guy named Steve Medlin, who owns a ranch in the area. Since there is no home mail delivery he has to make a six mile drive to and from the mailbox every day to get his mail. There were a few times he was surprised to find strange people going through his personal letters looking for Top Secret correspondence that may have been headed to the nearby military base. On more than one occasion he even found bullet holes in the box and his monthly bills. Finally he decided to replace the original black mailbox with a bulletproof white one made out of steel plates. The original was reportedly sold on Ebay.
The mailbox has become sort of a legend in conspiracy theorist circles. Every night UFO watchers gather at the box to look for unidentified flying lights. A few times each week they claim to see them...weird glowing, pulsating things that rise up from the mountains to the west then dance around the skies like oversized fireflies. I didn't see any strange lights while I was there but I did see the box. It was locked with a padlock and plastered with the obligatory bumper stickers. I took a few photos then headed down the road to another famous ET highway landmark.
The Little A'le'inn (pronounced "alien") is the local watering hole for ranchers and alien hunters alike. Located about midway down the highway in the small town of Rachel, The A'le'inn is the only restaurant in the area and despite its remote location has become world famous. Of course its fame doesn't come from being in the middle of nowhere but rather from its close proximity to Area 51, the mysterious military base where government-built UFOs are rumored to be hidden. It was actually the military base that put Rachel on the map...and gave the ET highway its name.
Back in the 1980s Rachel was just an old mining town that had seen better days. The mines had long since closed and most of the residents had moved away. The few hardy souls that remained struggled to eak out an existence. That all changed in 1989. That was the year that a fellow by the name of Bob Lazar started telling stories of a Top Secret military base where the government hid reverse engineered alien space craft. No sooner had the stories made news headlines than eager UFO hunters started flooding the area.
At first, the local people tried to ignore the new arrivals and their crazy tall tales but they soon discovered that no matter how far-fetched their stories seemed to be, the ufotourists were good for business. The little restaurant that had been on the verge of closing was suddenly beginning to make a profit, and the isolated little town was quickly becoming famous. People from all over the world were choosing Rachel as a vacation destination. Even the stars in Hollywood began to take notice.
In the early 1990s a movie called Independence Day was created using the officially nonexistent Area 51 as part of its plot. Naturally, the military tried to discourage the use of the name Area 51 anyplace in the movie but the film makers refused to give in. In fact, some of the filming for the movie actually took place just on the outskirts of the base near the town of Rachel. A few of the locals took part in the filming and can often be heard swapping stories about their brief moments in front of the cameras.
The film was released in 1996 and quickly became very successful, especially among UFO and alien buffs. Its popularity attracted the attention of state lawmakers who decided to capitalize on the fame of the film by renaming the highway in honor of the movie. That same year the little bar also changed its name to the Little A'le'Inn.
Although at first dismissing the UFO craze and conspiracy theories as a bunch of nonsense some of the people living in the area soon learned to embrace it themselves. The restaurant owners and many of the people who hang out at the little bar have become experts on the Top Secret base, and they even sell maps showing visitors how to get there. There is even a guide service that will take people on a tour of the area's UFO related attractions for a fee. A stop at the Little A'le'Inn is always included on the tour.
The Inn itself is not all that spectacular...just a small white building that serves as a bar with a few mobile trailers parked out back for guests to stay in. It must be the atmosphere that attracts people to the place. What else would you expect from a town that lists its official population as "Humans...yes, Aliens...??" I pulled into the gravel parking lot, past the the sign that says "Earthlings welcome," past the tow truck hauling the fabricated flying saucer, and parked next to a sinister black pickup with government plates.
Inside, about a dozen sun-roasted ranchers, tanned tourists, and wild-eyed UFO enthusiasts were scattered randomly amongst the tables. A couple of kids were laughing and pointing at a green-skinned, inflatable alien that stared down at them from the shelf. A group of tourists poked and prodded at the alien-themed T-shirts and souvenirs. At the bar a Man in Black was engaging a local rancher in conversation. Naturally, the MiB was pretending to be ignorant of the whole UFO phenomenon but I know a Man in Black when I see one, so Ha!
I wandered around for a few minutes checking out the dozens of UFO photos that adorned the wall. Many of them I recognized as already proven hoaxes or obvious IFOs but that didn't stop the owners of the bar from putting them on display. They were good attractions for the tourists who often forked over their hard-earned cash in exchange for a copied photo. I wasn't interested in any cheap souvenirs so I moseyed on over to the bar and took a seat next to the MiB.
He seemed to be grilling the rancher on everything he knew about Area 51...where it was, how to get there, whether or not there was any secret ways in...as if he didn't already know. The rancher then told a story about a friend of his who went rabbit hunting one day and accidentally wandered across the military boundary. He quickly found himself handcuffed and in jail where he was interrogated for five hours and then forced to pay a $600.00 fine before they would let him go free. The MiB's eyes lit up when he heard that story. I later heard that the rancher got off easy.
I ordered up an "alien burger" (that turned out to be the size of a chicken mcnugget) then washed it down with a couple of cold brews. Afterwards, the bartender sold me a map with directions on how to get to the front and rear gates of Area 51. I then headed back outside, watching the Man in Black give me the evil eye as I walked to the door. I imagine that all of the other MiBs in the area already had me under surveillance. They must have been reading my mind.
The Little A'le'inn may not have been much to look at but my short stay there had thoroughly aroused my sense of adventure. The most secretive military base in the country was just a few miles away and there was no way on God's brown Nevada Earth I was going to miss an opportunity to see it...even if it did mean risking jail time and a huge fine. It was a forbidden land calling my name. How could any red-blooded conspiracy theorist ignore a siren song like that? I had to go see it.
I put my truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot leaving the A'le'inn, the ranchers and the mysterious MiB behind. The ET highway...and Area 51...lie ahead.
Monday, August 1, 2011
To Report or Not to Report?
August 1, 2011
I have seen two UFOs in the past two weeks. They were not really anything to get excited about since one was only a bright white light in the sky that blinked on for one second then disappeared, and the other just looked like a big, giant, silent exploding firework. They are both still unidentified so I call them UFOs. Since the two sightings occurred I have been struggling with a question; should I report them or not?
The first answer that might come to mind is that of course they should be reported. We are never going to solve the mystery of the UFO phenomenon if it is not thoroughly investigated and each sighting helps increase our knowledge a little bit more. Looking at it from that perspective, no matter how insignificant it may seem, a report definitely should be made.
There is another side to the argument however. Actually, there are several arguments in opposition, the first being, who would I report the sightings to?
MUFON, the largest and most established of all the civilian UFO investigative organizations, is in the middle of an implosion and the resulting civil war between the members has left them far from competent. In recent times they have gotten so unorganized that they have not even kept up with the sighting reports on their website which is languishing several days behind. MUFON still has a lot of good people, and there are still some excellent investigators there but they are being shackled by poor decisions and bad leadership from the upper management. This has caused a lot of people, including myself, to lose faith in them.
EPIC, the Extraordinary Phenomena Investigations Council, is still a fairly new organization and is still struggling to establish itself. Made up largely of disenfranchised MUFON investigators it has much of the training and enthusiasm that MUFON used to have but without the established infrastructure or a fully functional data collecting system. In a few years EPIC may be one of the best paranormal investigative organizations in the world but right now they are still learning the ropes.
The same can also be said of ARIRA, the Aerospace Research Investigation Reporting Agency. They are even smaller and less established than EPIC is with even fewer investigators and less infrastructure. ARIRA is a very young agency that once again has a lot of potential but it will take a while to develop it. Besides, it would probably be a waste of time to have them investigating a simple light in the sky report. I am sure they have much bigger and better cases to invest their time in.
That doesn't leave many options for having my two little UFO sightings investigated, and there is not really much investigating that could be done anyway. Like I said, they were just a couple of anomalous lights that mysteriously appeared in the sky. There is not much that anybody could learn from them.
Being an investigator myself, albeit an amateur one, there are a few things that I could deduce from my sightings on my own, and since I am the one who saw them I am probably the best person to conduct the investigation. At least I won't have to worry about whether or not I am a credible witness or if I am telling the truth.
I know the first sighting was not a meteor because it did not move and it had no tail. I know it was not an airplane because the sky was clear and I could have seen a plane if there had been one. Also the fact that the light was much brighter than a plane and only blinked once pretty much eliminates a terrestrial aircraft as an explanation.
The light was not a satellite because like I said before it did not move. We can also rule out weather balloons, swamp gas and Chinese lanterns because none of those fit the description of what I saw. I think we can also eliminate Venus, the Moon, or other planets or stars as potential explanations because those do not blink on and off.
So what does that leave us with? Not much really. The truth is, I don't know what the thing was, but I doubt anybody else would know either. There just is not a lot of evidence to go on in this particular case.
The second sighting is pretty much the same as the first as far as potential explanations. The thing it most closely resembled was a giant sparkling firework display, except that there was no noise nor any other fireworks being shot off at that time. The sparkles did not actually sparkle either, but kind of slithered like lighted snakes or a school of minnows flashing in the sunlight. I'm still not sure what it was.
So the question still remains, should I file a report or not? Well, after much deliberation and weighing the pros and cons over the past few days I finally decided that they should be reported. If for no other reason than to have them on file, they should be reported. That way if other people happened to witness them and file reports also than they could be cross-checked against each other. Maybe there really is a simple explanation for them that I am just overlooking. Or maybe not. We will never know if I keep the info to myself.
So which investigative agency did I decide to file the reports with? Believe it or not, none of them. Instead I am going to report them to NUFORC, the National UFO Reporting Center. That way they will be on file but they won't cause any serious investigators to waste their time pursuing them. That sounds like a win-win situation all around. Now I can go back to staring at the sky with a clear conscious, knowing that I did my duty as a UFO witness. Maybe I'll see something more than lights in the sky next time...and if I do I won't have to ask whether or not It should be reported.
I have seen two UFOs in the past two weeks. They were not really anything to get excited about since one was only a bright white light in the sky that blinked on for one second then disappeared, and the other just looked like a big, giant, silent exploding firework. They are both still unidentified so I call them UFOs. Since the two sightings occurred I have been struggling with a question; should I report them or not?
The first answer that might come to mind is that of course they should be reported. We are never going to solve the mystery of the UFO phenomenon if it is not thoroughly investigated and each sighting helps increase our knowledge a little bit more. Looking at it from that perspective, no matter how insignificant it may seem, a report definitely should be made.
There is another side to the argument however. Actually, there are several arguments in opposition, the first being, who would I report the sightings to?
MUFON, the largest and most established of all the civilian UFO investigative organizations, is in the middle of an implosion and the resulting civil war between the members has left them far from competent. In recent times they have gotten so unorganized that they have not even kept up with the sighting reports on their website which is languishing several days behind. MUFON still has a lot of good people, and there are still some excellent investigators there but they are being shackled by poor decisions and bad leadership from the upper management. This has caused a lot of people, including myself, to lose faith in them.
EPIC, the Extraordinary Phenomena Investigations Council, is still a fairly new organization and is still struggling to establish itself. Made up largely of disenfranchised MUFON investigators it has much of the training and enthusiasm that MUFON used to have but without the established infrastructure or a fully functional data collecting system. In a few years EPIC may be one of the best paranormal investigative organizations in the world but right now they are still learning the ropes.
The same can also be said of ARIRA, the Aerospace Research Investigation Reporting Agency. They are even smaller and less established than EPIC is with even fewer investigators and less infrastructure. ARIRA is a very young agency that once again has a lot of potential but it will take a while to develop it. Besides, it would probably be a waste of time to have them investigating a simple light in the sky report. I am sure they have much bigger and better cases to invest their time in.
That doesn't leave many options for having my two little UFO sightings investigated, and there is not really much investigating that could be done anyway. Like I said, they were just a couple of anomalous lights that mysteriously appeared in the sky. There is not much that anybody could learn from them.
Being an investigator myself, albeit an amateur one, there are a few things that I could deduce from my sightings on my own, and since I am the one who saw them I am probably the best person to conduct the investigation. At least I won't have to worry about whether or not I am a credible witness or if I am telling the truth.
I know the first sighting was not a meteor because it did not move and it had no tail. I know it was not an airplane because the sky was clear and I could have seen a plane if there had been one. Also the fact that the light was much brighter than a plane and only blinked once pretty much eliminates a terrestrial aircraft as an explanation.
The light was not a satellite because like I said before it did not move. We can also rule out weather balloons, swamp gas and Chinese lanterns because none of those fit the description of what I saw. I think we can also eliminate Venus, the Moon, or other planets or stars as potential explanations because those do not blink on and off.
So what does that leave us with? Not much really. The truth is, I don't know what the thing was, but I doubt anybody else would know either. There just is not a lot of evidence to go on in this particular case.
The second sighting is pretty much the same as the first as far as potential explanations. The thing it most closely resembled was a giant sparkling firework display, except that there was no noise nor any other fireworks being shot off at that time. The sparkles did not actually sparkle either, but kind of slithered like lighted snakes or a school of minnows flashing in the sunlight. I'm still not sure what it was.
So the question still remains, should I file a report or not? Well, after much deliberation and weighing the pros and cons over the past few days I finally decided that they should be reported. If for no other reason than to have them on file, they should be reported. That way if other people happened to witness them and file reports also than they could be cross-checked against each other. Maybe there really is a simple explanation for them that I am just overlooking. Or maybe not. We will never know if I keep the info to myself.
So which investigative agency did I decide to file the reports with? Believe it or not, none of them. Instead I am going to report them to NUFORC, the National UFO Reporting Center. That way they will be on file but they won't cause any serious investigators to waste their time pursuing them. That sounds like a win-win situation all around. Now I can go back to staring at the sky with a clear conscious, knowing that I did my duty as a UFO witness. Maybe I'll see something more than lights in the sky next time...and if I do I won't have to ask whether or not It should be reported.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
MUFON's Dirty Tricks?
July 18, 2011
It would seem that the Mutual UFO Network will stop at nothing when it comes to protecting their image, even if it means destroying that very same image in the process. A recent incident involving the Jerry Pippin Show is a perfect example.
Jerry was scheduled to interview Elaine Douglass, the founder of The Committee to Reform MUFON, on Wednesday, July 13, but something happened right as the interview was supposed to be broadcast. Suddenly and without warning the broadcast was taken off the air due to a "denial of service." What that means is that somebody launched a cyber attack against the Pippin Show's Internet Service Provider and tried to shut it down or make its content unavailable, which they succeeded in doing for the duration of the show.
Elaine was supposedly going to reveal some potentially "bombshell" information that would expose all of the corrupt practices that MUFON had been engaged in and blow the lid off of the UFO organization's mild-mannered cover once and for all. It would therefor be understandable why Clifford Clift, MUFON's International Director, and the rest of the Board of Directors would want to stop it. However, by doing so they may have exposed themselves for who and what they really are.
Not just any John Doe off the street can hack into a computer system and deny service to a radio broadcast. It would take somebody with some serious computer hacking skills to pull it off. Perhaps even somebody with high-level government connections. We all know there are several members of the Board of Directors who would fit that description.
John Schuessler has a national security clearance that he obtained via help from Bigelow Aerospace, Tom Deuley used to work for the NSA, Clift and several other board members have backgrounds in Military Intel, and let's not forget Deputy Director of Investigations Chuck Modlin, who according to former MUFON STAR Team manager Chase Kloetzke once boasted that he had shaken hands with every US president except Bill Clinton. When it comes to connections, there aren't many higher levels of government than that.
Of course just because several of MUFON's board members have federal ties that does not necessarily mean that they used their influence to interrupt a radio broadcast. It could have just been a random occurrence...couldn't it?
If it had happened only once that would be a distinct possibility, but a few days later the underhanded trickery continued. On Sunday, July 17, Jerry Pippin planned to pod-cast a prerecorded interview that he had done with Elaine Douglass the day before. The pod cast was set to be unveiled at 10:00 PM Eastern time. Almost immediately after it was announced somebody once again tried to hack into the system and put a stop to it.
This time Jerry was ready for the cyber assault but even so the pod-cast was once again delayed, first for 30 minutes, then another 15. Finally the interview was divided in two and worked on i two different places. Part one eventually was released at 10:45 the night of the 17th, while part two was released the next day.
I just got finished listening to both parts and I must say that I was not at all shocked by what I heard. The accusations that Ms. Douglass made about MUFON were basically the same things that many people have been suspecting all along; that they have been taken over by the government, that they are working behind the scenes with billionaire businessman Robert Bigelow to further his own personal agenda, that they have been tampering with their own Case Management System in order to hide the best cases from the public while releasing nothing but worthless disinformation...even that they themselves have become part of the shadow government that is covering up the truth about UFOs. The accusation has even been made that MUFON is nothing more than a disinformation agency for Big Brother.
None of this has been conclusively proven of course, but MUFON's latest actions have gone a long way towards convincing people that it is true. Why else would they tamper with a radio broadcast and try to censor information? Of course, this isn't exactly the first time they have tried to control the flow of information either.
In July of 2010 MUFON actually canceled their own Internet forum because they did not like some of the discussions that were taking place. A handful of people were critical of MUFON and the BoD so hundreds of people had their forum taken away, without even as much as an explanation for why it happened. It just suddenly vanished without a trace. This forum was easy for MUFON to cancel because they actually owned the rights to it. All they had to do was push the "delete" button. There were other forums that were not so easy to deal with.
After the MUFON forum was shut down some of the former members decided to create their own forums. Three of them eventually came into being, all made up of very disgruntled MUFON forum refugees. One forum in particular was very critical of MUFON's International Director Clifford Clift and the rest of the board members and it wasn't long before that forum paid the price for their outspoken attitude.
Just a short time after the forum was created somebody hacked into the forum provider's main server and deleted the entire UFO section of the forum. Once again, this is not something that any computer-user on the web could have perpetrated. It took somebody with some serious cyber-hacking skills, possibly even government connections, to pull it off...and it was almost certainly MUFON that did it. They were not even trying to be subtle about it. Just like the latest incident with the Jerry Pippin Show...it is obvious to everybody who the culprit is.
The only question left is, if MUFON is responsible for perpetrating these dirty tricks why are they being so obvious about doing it? Are they so desperate to protect their image that they are willing to tarnish it in the process? By doing so they are only convincing people that the suspicions they have about the once highly-regarded UFO organization are correct, and that MUFON really has been corrupted by outside influences.
Of course it is possible that they just don't care about their image anymore. Maybe their unholy alliance with Bigelow and the Intelligence community has made them so big and so powerful that they no longer have to care what anybody thinks about them. Maybe they are finally revealing the truth about who they really are...and that might just be the dirtiest trick of them all.
It would seem that the Mutual UFO Network will stop at nothing when it comes to protecting their image, even if it means destroying that very same image in the process. A recent incident involving the Jerry Pippin Show is a perfect example.
Jerry was scheduled to interview Elaine Douglass, the founder of The Committee to Reform MUFON, on Wednesday, July 13, but something happened right as the interview was supposed to be broadcast. Suddenly and without warning the broadcast was taken off the air due to a "denial of service." What that means is that somebody launched a cyber attack against the Pippin Show's Internet Service Provider and tried to shut it down or make its content unavailable, which they succeeded in doing for the duration of the show.
Elaine was supposedly going to reveal some potentially "bombshell" information that would expose all of the corrupt practices that MUFON had been engaged in and blow the lid off of the UFO organization's mild-mannered cover once and for all. It would therefor be understandable why Clifford Clift, MUFON's International Director, and the rest of the Board of Directors would want to stop it. However, by doing so they may have exposed themselves for who and what they really are.
Not just any John Doe off the street can hack into a computer system and deny service to a radio broadcast. It would take somebody with some serious computer hacking skills to pull it off. Perhaps even somebody with high-level government connections. We all know there are several members of the Board of Directors who would fit that description.
John Schuessler has a national security clearance that he obtained via help from Bigelow Aerospace, Tom Deuley used to work for the NSA, Clift and several other board members have backgrounds in Military Intel, and let's not forget Deputy Director of Investigations Chuck Modlin, who according to former MUFON STAR Team manager Chase Kloetzke once boasted that he had shaken hands with every US president except Bill Clinton. When it comes to connections, there aren't many higher levels of government than that.
Of course just because several of MUFON's board members have federal ties that does not necessarily mean that they used their influence to interrupt a radio broadcast. It could have just been a random occurrence...couldn't it?
If it had happened only once that would be a distinct possibility, but a few days later the underhanded trickery continued. On Sunday, July 17, Jerry Pippin planned to pod-cast a prerecorded interview that he had done with Elaine Douglass the day before. The pod cast was set to be unveiled at 10:00 PM Eastern time. Almost immediately after it was announced somebody once again tried to hack into the system and put a stop to it.
This time Jerry was ready for the cyber assault but even so the pod-cast was once again delayed, first for 30 minutes, then another 15. Finally the interview was divided in two and worked on i two different places. Part one eventually was released at 10:45 the night of the 17th, while part two was released the next day.
I just got finished listening to both parts and I must say that I was not at all shocked by what I heard. The accusations that Ms. Douglass made about MUFON were basically the same things that many people have been suspecting all along; that they have been taken over by the government, that they are working behind the scenes with billionaire businessman Robert Bigelow to further his own personal agenda, that they have been tampering with their own Case Management System in order to hide the best cases from the public while releasing nothing but worthless disinformation...even that they themselves have become part of the shadow government that is covering up the truth about UFOs. The accusation has even been made that MUFON is nothing more than a disinformation agency for Big Brother.
None of this has been conclusively proven of course, but MUFON's latest actions have gone a long way towards convincing people that it is true. Why else would they tamper with a radio broadcast and try to censor information? Of course, this isn't exactly the first time they have tried to control the flow of information either.
In July of 2010 MUFON actually canceled their own Internet forum because they did not like some of the discussions that were taking place. A handful of people were critical of MUFON and the BoD so hundreds of people had their forum taken away, without even as much as an explanation for why it happened. It just suddenly vanished without a trace. This forum was easy for MUFON to cancel because they actually owned the rights to it. All they had to do was push the "delete" button. There were other forums that were not so easy to deal with.
After the MUFON forum was shut down some of the former members decided to create their own forums. Three of them eventually came into being, all made up of very disgruntled MUFON forum refugees. One forum in particular was very critical of MUFON's International Director Clifford Clift and the rest of the board members and it wasn't long before that forum paid the price for their outspoken attitude.
Just a short time after the forum was created somebody hacked into the forum provider's main server and deleted the entire UFO section of the forum. Once again, this is not something that any computer-user on the web could have perpetrated. It took somebody with some serious cyber-hacking skills, possibly even government connections, to pull it off...and it was almost certainly MUFON that did it. They were not even trying to be subtle about it. Just like the latest incident with the Jerry Pippin Show...it is obvious to everybody who the culprit is.
The only question left is, if MUFON is responsible for perpetrating these dirty tricks why are they being so obvious about doing it? Are they so desperate to protect their image that they are willing to tarnish it in the process? By doing so they are only convincing people that the suspicions they have about the once highly-regarded UFO organization are correct, and that MUFON really has been corrupted by outside influences.
Of course it is possible that they just don't care about their image anymore. Maybe their unholy alliance with Bigelow and the Intelligence community has made them so big and so powerful that they no longer have to care what anybody thinks about them. Maybe they are finally revealing the truth about who they really are...and that might just be the dirtiest trick of them all.
Swamp Gas, Weather Ballons and...Tire Tracks?
It seems the debunkers have a new weapon in their arsenal. In addition to the usual sure-fire tactics they normally employ to beat UFO believers into submission...like swamp gas, weather balloons, sleep paralysis, etc...they now have another skeptical bomb at their disposal...tire tracks. That's right, tire tracks. This was the "brilliant" explanation used to discredit a recent crop circle sighting in Goldthwaite, Texas.
Of course, the term crop circle is a little misleading in this case since in order to have a crop circle you first have to have a crop...you know, stuff that grows up out of the ground and gets harvested by farmers? These circles happened to appear in the middle of a cow pasture and the only vegetables growing out there are the kind that have horns and say "Moo." Nevertheless, people still referred to them as crop circles simply because there were circles...two of them...embedded in the dirt.
The circles were first discovered on March 4, 2011. It is unknown when they were actually created since the land they appeared on is not frequently used, but when the property-owner finally went to check on her ranch, there they were...two strange circles imprinted on the ground.
Each circle consisted of a strip of churned up earth approximately 15 inches wide and perfectly round. The inner circle was approximately twenty feet in diameter, the outer close to twenty-seven feet. There were no tracks leading too or away from them, nor were their any identifying markings of any kind. No tread marks, foot prints, shovel indentations...nothing. It was like they just appeared there out of thin air.
Several photos were taken by the initial witness and a report was filed with NUFORC. MUFON's elite STAR team investigators were called in to investigate while the photos were quickly disseminated throughout various internet sites and forums. Nobody who saw the photos was able to come up with a convincing explanation for how the circles were formed.
I, personally, do not have a clue how they were formed. I have seen circles similar to these in the past and I never could figure out how the darned things were created. I have several theories about them but nothing convincing. There simply is not any readily available explanation for them. The new ones are just as mysterious, with no obvious identifying marks of any kind. Faced with an absence of conclusive evidence I was ready to chalk this recent case up as another unexplained mystery, so you can imagine my surprise when I happened to read a NUFORC update which claimed that the case had been solved!
It said: "The marks on the ground at a farm site in Goldthwaite, Texas, have been investigated by Teresa Turner, MUFON “Star Team” Investigator, and Deputy Director for Documentation. Following her investigation of the incident, she has concluded that the marks in the ground, first reported by the property owner, were caused by men driving trucks on the farm. Ms. Turner’s follow-up report to NUFORC can be read here."
Driving trucks on the farm? How on God's brown Texas Earth could perfect circles have been formed by "men driving trucks on the farm?" Incredulous with disbelief I then proceeded to read the follow-up report which gave a few more scant details.
"Concerning NUFORC case number S80116- After further investigation by an area investigator, it was determined (through photos and further witness statements) that the crop circles were in all probability the tracks left from the prior weekend when several young men went "muddin" in their big mud trucks. While there was considerable concern that the circles were perfect in shape, witness did not wish to have the case investigated further."
Did I read that right? Did that say that the tracks were in all probability left over from the previous weekend when several young men went "muddin" in their big trucks? Just in case anybody does not know what "muddin" is, allow me to explain.
Muddin, or mudding, is where a bunch of drunken rednecks drink a lot of beer and then get in their vehicles, (usually big pickup trucks) and drive out to some muddy cow pasture or field somewhere. They then stomp on the gas pedal and spin around in circles and slide all over the place through the mud. The faster they go the better they like it. In some cases of extreme drunkenness they might even attach an old car hood to the back of the truck with a rope and then one of the drunken rednecks can ride on the hood as the truck goes churning around at ever-increasing speeds. The revelry usually lasts until the truck flips over or the guy on the car hood goes sailing off into a ditch and ends up with multiple broken bones and lacerations. This is what good ol' boys call fun.
Someone once theorized that if you were to put a bunch of monkeys in a room and had them typing nonstop on type-writers for a certain period of time sooner or later through sheer chance they would accidentally create the entire works of Shakespeare. Whether or not that is true I don't know, but I do know that if you put a hundred drunken rednecks behind the wheel of a bunch of pickups and have them go sliding around in the mud there is no way they are going to create a perfect circle...I don't care how long they try. It ain't gonna happen.
What all of that means is that there is no way in Hades that those circles were created by "tire tracks." A closer look at the evidence also argues against the "official" explanation.
First of all there are no tread marks of any kind...none, nada, zero. Secondly, there are no ruts of any kind which there surely would be if a tire were spinning through the mud with the weight of a vehicle pressing down on it. These tracks were not depressed into the ground at all. It looked like the Earth was just broken up somehow by something scraping along the top of it. Third, there are no tracks leading to or away from the circles. So what happened? Did some modern-day cowboy drop down out of the sky, make a perfect circle with his "iron horse" then sail off into the sunset? Not unless a Ford Thunderbird really can sprout wings and fly.
Another problem with the "tire-track" theory is the dimensions of the circles. The measurements of the two circles are approximately 20 feet and 27 feet in diameter. That would mean that if they were made by a vehicle then it would have to have a track width from wheel to wheel of close to seven feet wide. A quick check of the dimensions of most modern full-sized pickups shows a track width of about 65 to 68 inches, which means that a "big" truck would be almost a foot and a half too narrow to create the tracks.
There also is the problem of the turning radius. This is the diameter of the smallest circle that a vehicle would be able to turn in if the steering wheel were cranked all the way. The Goldthwaite circles are only twenty feet in diameter for the inside circle yet a full-size pickup would take almost twice that distance to make a complete turn...there is no way a pickup could turn a complete circle in twenty feet. If the rear wheels were sliding and the truck were spinning around with the front bumper chained to a stake it might be possible to turn that sharply but then the rear tire tracks would be almost overlapping one another...they definitely would not maintain a seven foot wide track.
What all of this means is that there is no way those circles were made by tire tracks from a vehicle. So what did make them?
I don't know. Obviously the circles must have been made by something, terrestrial or otherwise, but at this time I do not know what it was and I will be the first to admit it. I just wish the MUFON investigator would have done the same, instead of saying that "in all probability" they were tire tracks. Mrs. Turner herself practically admitted that she had doubts about that explanation when she stated that "there was considerable concern that the circles were perfect in shape..."
So why did she bring the case to a premature conclusion with a faulty explanation that she had suspicions about? The answer lies in the next words that she wrote saying that "the witness did not wish to have the case investigated further." Apparently, since Mrs. turner realized she would not be able to do a more detailed analysis of the evidence she decided to close the investigation by assigning to it the most probable explanation she could come up with--tire tracks--even if she and everybody else who looked at the photos instinctively knows it is not correct.
I wonder how many times this has happened in the past? Do Ufologists routinely assign false explanations to difficult cases simply so they can bring the case to a close? Is the reason why so many UFO sightings end up being classified as swamp gas, Venus or weather balloons, simply because those are the most convenient explanations an investigator can come up with? If so, it is no wonder we still don't know the truth about UFOs after more than six decades of studying them. If investigators are going to assign convenient BS excuses to every difficult case than we never will find out the truth.
I have to say that I am extremely disappointed in the outcome of this case. I would expect this type of haphazard explanation from a rabid skeptic or debunker, but not from MUFON which is supposed to be the largest and most credible UFO investigative organization in the world. And their STAR team is supposed to be the most elite of the investigators. This type of lackadaisical attitude is inexcusable.
I am also disappointed in the fact that NUFORC would blindly accept such a lame explanation without question simply because a MUFON investigator gave it to them. They should have known better than that. A case should not be declared to be "solved" unless there really is an accurate solution. If they are unsure about the explanation or if they just don't know, then they should classify it as "unexplained" or "unsolved" or "Who the heck knows?" They shouldn't just blindly accept the first thing that comes along.
There is no harm in admitting that something is unexplainable. Unidentified Flying Objects by their very nature are hard to identify. Ignorance of what they are may not be the truth that we seek but at least it is the truth. I would rather have that than a pile of BS any day...even if it is a convenient pile of BS.
Of course, the term crop circle is a little misleading in this case since in order to have a crop circle you first have to have a crop...you know, stuff that grows up out of the ground and gets harvested by farmers? These circles happened to appear in the middle of a cow pasture and the only vegetables growing out there are the kind that have horns and say "Moo." Nevertheless, people still referred to them as crop circles simply because there were circles...two of them...embedded in the dirt.
The circles were first discovered on March 4, 2011. It is unknown when they were actually created since the land they appeared on is not frequently used, but when the property-owner finally went to check on her ranch, there they were...two strange circles imprinted on the ground.
Each circle consisted of a strip of churned up earth approximately 15 inches wide and perfectly round. The inner circle was approximately twenty feet in diameter, the outer close to twenty-seven feet. There were no tracks leading too or away from them, nor were their any identifying markings of any kind. No tread marks, foot prints, shovel indentations...nothing. It was like they just appeared there out of thin air.
Several photos were taken by the initial witness and a report was filed with NUFORC. MUFON's elite STAR team investigators were called in to investigate while the photos were quickly disseminated throughout various internet sites and forums. Nobody who saw the photos was able to come up with a convincing explanation for how the circles were formed.
I, personally, do not have a clue how they were formed. I have seen circles similar to these in the past and I never could figure out how the darned things were created. I have several theories about them but nothing convincing. There simply is not any readily available explanation for them. The new ones are just as mysterious, with no obvious identifying marks of any kind. Faced with an absence of conclusive evidence I was ready to chalk this recent case up as another unexplained mystery, so you can imagine my surprise when I happened to read a NUFORC update which claimed that the case had been solved!
It said: "The marks on the ground at a farm site in Goldthwaite, Texas, have been investigated by Teresa Turner, MUFON “Star Team” Investigator, and Deputy Director for Documentation. Following her investigation of the incident, she has concluded that the marks in the ground, first reported by the property owner, were caused by men driving trucks on the farm. Ms. Turner’s follow-up report to NUFORC can be read here."
Driving trucks on the farm? How on God's brown Texas Earth could perfect circles have been formed by "men driving trucks on the farm?" Incredulous with disbelief I then proceeded to read the follow-up report which gave a few more scant details.
"Concerning NUFORC case number S80116- After further investigation by an area investigator, it was determined (through photos and further witness statements) that the crop circles were in all probability the tracks left from the prior weekend when several young men went "muddin" in their big mud trucks. While there was considerable concern that the circles were perfect in shape, witness did not wish to have the case investigated further."
Did I read that right? Did that say that the tracks were in all probability left over from the previous weekend when several young men went "muddin" in their big trucks? Just in case anybody does not know what "muddin" is, allow me to explain.
Muddin, or mudding, is where a bunch of drunken rednecks drink a lot of beer and then get in their vehicles, (usually big pickup trucks) and drive out to some muddy cow pasture or field somewhere. They then stomp on the gas pedal and spin around in circles and slide all over the place through the mud. The faster they go the better they like it. In some cases of extreme drunkenness they might even attach an old car hood to the back of the truck with a rope and then one of the drunken rednecks can ride on the hood as the truck goes churning around at ever-increasing speeds. The revelry usually lasts until the truck flips over or the guy on the car hood goes sailing off into a ditch and ends up with multiple broken bones and lacerations. This is what good ol' boys call fun.
Someone once theorized that if you were to put a bunch of monkeys in a room and had them typing nonstop on type-writers for a certain period of time sooner or later through sheer chance they would accidentally create the entire works of Shakespeare. Whether or not that is true I don't know, but I do know that if you put a hundred drunken rednecks behind the wheel of a bunch of pickups and have them go sliding around in the mud there is no way they are going to create a perfect circle...I don't care how long they try. It ain't gonna happen.
What all of that means is that there is no way in Hades that those circles were created by "tire tracks." A closer look at the evidence also argues against the "official" explanation.
First of all there are no tread marks of any kind...none, nada, zero. Secondly, there are no ruts of any kind which there surely would be if a tire were spinning through the mud with the weight of a vehicle pressing down on it. These tracks were not depressed into the ground at all. It looked like the Earth was just broken up somehow by something scraping along the top of it. Third, there are no tracks leading to or away from the circles. So what happened? Did some modern-day cowboy drop down out of the sky, make a perfect circle with his "iron horse" then sail off into the sunset? Not unless a Ford Thunderbird really can sprout wings and fly.
Another problem with the "tire-track" theory is the dimensions of the circles. The measurements of the two circles are approximately 20 feet and 27 feet in diameter. That would mean that if they were made by a vehicle then it would have to have a track width from wheel to wheel of close to seven feet wide. A quick check of the dimensions of most modern full-sized pickups shows a track width of about 65 to 68 inches, which means that a "big" truck would be almost a foot and a half too narrow to create the tracks.
There also is the problem of the turning radius. This is the diameter of the smallest circle that a vehicle would be able to turn in if the steering wheel were cranked all the way. The Goldthwaite circles are only twenty feet in diameter for the inside circle yet a full-size pickup would take almost twice that distance to make a complete turn...there is no way a pickup could turn a complete circle in twenty feet. If the rear wheels were sliding and the truck were spinning around with the front bumper chained to a stake it might be possible to turn that sharply but then the rear tire tracks would be almost overlapping one another...they definitely would not maintain a seven foot wide track.
What all of this means is that there is no way those circles were made by tire tracks from a vehicle. So what did make them?
I don't know. Obviously the circles must have been made by something, terrestrial or otherwise, but at this time I do not know what it was and I will be the first to admit it. I just wish the MUFON investigator would have done the same, instead of saying that "in all probability" they were tire tracks. Mrs. Turner herself practically admitted that she had doubts about that explanation when she stated that "there was considerable concern that the circles were perfect in shape..."
So why did she bring the case to a premature conclusion with a faulty explanation that she had suspicions about? The answer lies in the next words that she wrote saying that "the witness did not wish to have the case investigated further." Apparently, since Mrs. turner realized she would not be able to do a more detailed analysis of the evidence she decided to close the investigation by assigning to it the most probable explanation she could come up with--tire tracks--even if she and everybody else who looked at the photos instinctively knows it is not correct.
I wonder how many times this has happened in the past? Do Ufologists routinely assign false explanations to difficult cases simply so they can bring the case to a close? Is the reason why so many UFO sightings end up being classified as swamp gas, Venus or weather balloons, simply because those are the most convenient explanations an investigator can come up with? If so, it is no wonder we still don't know the truth about UFOs after more than six decades of studying them. If investigators are going to assign convenient BS excuses to every difficult case than we never will find out the truth.
I have to say that I am extremely disappointed in the outcome of this case. I would expect this type of haphazard explanation from a rabid skeptic or debunker, but not from MUFON which is supposed to be the largest and most credible UFO investigative organization in the world. And their STAR team is supposed to be the most elite of the investigators. This type of lackadaisical attitude is inexcusable.
I am also disappointed in the fact that NUFORC would blindly accept such a lame explanation without question simply because a MUFON investigator gave it to them. They should have known better than that. A case should not be declared to be "solved" unless there really is an accurate solution. If they are unsure about the explanation or if they just don't know, then they should classify it as "unexplained" or "unsolved" or "Who the heck knows?" They shouldn't just blindly accept the first thing that comes along.
There is no harm in admitting that something is unexplainable. Unidentified Flying Objects by their very nature are hard to identify. Ignorance of what they are may not be the truth that we seek but at least it is the truth. I would rather have that than a pile of BS any day...even if it is a convenient pile of BS.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
An Out of This World Celebration
July 5, 2011
Yesterday was the Fourth of July and I celebrated it by sitting in a parking lot in northern Indiana. I would rather have been someplace else but I was stuck there so I decided to make the most of it by checking out the local firework displays.
Apparently folks in the Hoosier state take their Independence Day celebrations seriously. No sooner had the sun scarcely cast its rays above the early morning horizon than the fireworks began detonating. I suppose that's about how long it took for the alcohol to start taking effect since the locals had probably started drinking early in anticipation of the holiday. Having worked late the night before I was rudely awakened to the sounds of crackles and booms.
The fireworks continued being launched at intermittent intervals throughout the day. Usually there would be a flash of light and a puff of smoke, followed several seconds later by a loud boom! That was if they were some distance away from me. The ones that were closer I usually heard before I saw. Some were really close since there was a fireworks stand just a couple hundred feet away from me. Those were the ones that made me sit up and take notice. The sound was practically deafening.
When darkness finally came the sky really lit up with a spectacular display of colored flashes and sparkling lights. They seemed to be shooting off from several different places at the same time. Rainbow colored lights were filling the horizon. As I was sitting there peacefully watching the festivities something interesting happened...I saw an IFO! I know, it would have been much more exciting if it had been a UFO, but thanks to Steve's IFO series I was able to identify it pretty easily so it was just an IFO. Actually there were several of them.
The first was a bright flash of white light that zipped past a streetlight. It was only there for a second and then it was gone. A few seconds later it flashed by again in the opposite direction and I quickly recognized what it was--a big moth flying past the street light. That one wasn't too hard to figure out.
The second one was also a flash of light, this time neon yellow and very close to me. It continued to flash off and on as it zig-zagged back and forth around me. This one was also very obvious--a firefly. I used to see them all the time back when I was a little dude in Texas so they are pretty familiar to me. Nothing worth getting overly excited over.
Then something happened that was worth getting excited about...or at least so thought a crowd of people that started enthusiastically gesturing towards something off in the distance. A bright orange orb of light was rising up at an angle from the ground...followed by another...and another. Soon there was a long string of bright orange lights making their way up into the heavens, one after the other. There must have been twenty of them in all, floating through the sky and forming tiny little little geometric shapes. Triangles were very common.
The people in the little crowd obviously had no idea what they were looking at and a flurry of guesses soon filled the air. Airplanes, military aircraft...UFOs...
Soon people started pulling out cameras and snapping pictures and that was when I decided to intervene. The things they were looking at were obviously Sky Lanterns, or Chinese lanterns. I deduced that from the color they were and the way they looked with their flickering orange glow. The fact that they were drifting with the wind also helped me form a conclusion. Plus I had seen photos of them in Steve's IFO thread. I had never seen any in real life until that moment but they are pretty easy to recognize...at least for a UFO investigator. The people in the crowd probably would not have had a clue if I had not told them.
After I had dazzled the crowd with my brilliant explanation I wandered off chuckling to myself and wondering how many reports MUFON and NUFORC were going to get about orange-colored UFOs over norther Indiana. Checking the lists this morning I was not disappointed. There were several of them, not just from the Midwest but all over the country, and all describing basically the same thing.
Yesterday was the Fourth of July and I celebrated it by sitting in a parking lot in northern Indiana. I would rather have been someplace else but I was stuck there so I decided to make the most of it by checking out the local firework displays.
Apparently folks in the Hoosier state take their Independence Day celebrations seriously. No sooner had the sun scarcely cast its rays above the early morning horizon than the fireworks began detonating. I suppose that's about how long it took for the alcohol to start taking effect since the locals had probably started drinking early in anticipation of the holiday. Having worked late the night before I was rudely awakened to the sounds of crackles and booms.
The fireworks continued being launched at intermittent intervals throughout the day. Usually there would be a flash of light and a puff of smoke, followed several seconds later by a loud boom! That was if they were some distance away from me. The ones that were closer I usually heard before I saw. Some were really close since there was a fireworks stand just a couple hundred feet away from me. Those were the ones that made me sit up and take notice. The sound was practically deafening.
When darkness finally came the sky really lit up with a spectacular display of colored flashes and sparkling lights. They seemed to be shooting off from several different places at the same time. Rainbow colored lights were filling the horizon. As I was sitting there peacefully watching the festivities something interesting happened...I saw an IFO! I know, it would have been much more exciting if it had been a UFO, but thanks to Steve's IFO series I was able to identify it pretty easily so it was just an IFO. Actually there were several of them.
The first was a bright flash of white light that zipped past a streetlight. It was only there for a second and then it was gone. A few seconds later it flashed by again in the opposite direction and I quickly recognized what it was--a big moth flying past the street light. That one wasn't too hard to figure out.
The second one was also a flash of light, this time neon yellow and very close to me. It continued to flash off and on as it zig-zagged back and forth around me. This one was also very obvious--a firefly. I used to see them all the time back when I was a little dude in Texas so they are pretty familiar to me. Nothing worth getting overly excited over.
Then something happened that was worth getting excited about...or at least so thought a crowd of people that started enthusiastically gesturing towards something off in the distance. A bright orange orb of light was rising up at an angle from the ground...followed by another...and another. Soon there was a long string of bright orange lights making their way up into the heavens, one after the other. There must have been twenty of them in all, floating through the sky and forming tiny little little geometric shapes. Triangles were very common.
The people in the little crowd obviously had no idea what they were looking at and a flurry of guesses soon filled the air. Airplanes, military aircraft...UFOs...
Soon people started pulling out cameras and snapping pictures and that was when I decided to intervene. The things they were looking at were obviously Sky Lanterns, or Chinese lanterns. I deduced that from the color they were and the way they looked with their flickering orange glow. The fact that they were drifting with the wind also helped me form a conclusion. Plus I had seen photos of them in Steve's IFO thread. I had never seen any in real life until that moment but they are pretty easy to recognize...at least for a UFO investigator. The people in the crowd probably would not have had a clue if I had not told them.
After I had dazzled the crowd with my brilliant explanation I wandered off chuckling to myself and wondering how many reports MUFON and NUFORC were going to get about orange-colored UFOs over norther Indiana. Checking the lists this morning I was not disappointed. There were several of them, not just from the Midwest but all over the country, and all describing basically the same thing.
For the past two years the Fourth of July holidays have been marked by an increase in UFO reports of colored fireballs. It seems that this year was no exception. I think we can at least be fairly certain that a number of those reported holiday UFOs are actually IFOs. Maybe not all of them, but a large percentage. I'm sure they will be back next year too. So will the people who point excitedly into the sky and snap blurry photos with trembling hands as they think they are witnessing something extraordinary. I won't be arguing with them either...the firework displays were out of this world!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
The Edge of Reality
The Edge of Reality
"I walk along a thin line, darling
Dark shadows follow me
Here's where life's dreams lie disillusioned
The edge of reality"
I came up with the idea for the name of this blog while listening to an old Elvis song called "The Edge of Reality." It seemed like a pretty fitting description for much of what we discuss here on the forum, as well as where I feel like I am most of the time.
Those who are interested in unsolved mysteries are walking a thin line, a line between what is real and what is imaginary, the proven and the unproven. When most of society refuses to acknowledge that what we investigate even exists it pushes us even closer to the edge, and sometimes beyond, yet often that is where we must go in order to find the answers that we seek. The truth does not always lie in plain sight or within easy reach. There is not always an open book that we can conveniently use to look up the answers, nor a paved walkway leading us in the right direction. In these cases we must forge our own path.
Great explorers put no limitations on their journeys. They search the unsearched, explore the unexplored...they "boldly go where no man has gone before." This is what makes them great explorers. People who follow the path of least resistance will end up with the rest of the herd, wallowing in laziness and ignorance, while the leaders are out searching for fresh pastures and new horizons. Great discoveries are often made in places nobody else had ever even considered looking, or dared to go...out beyond the edge of knowledge, the edge of imagination...even the edge of sanity.
"I can hear strange voices echo
Laughing with mockery
The borderline of doom I'm facing
The edge of reality"
I first became interested in UFOs and unsolved mysteries because of experiences that I have had in my lifetime. One night about two decades ago I awoke to find a bright light shining down from the darkness and lifting me up out of my bed. It was a shock, to say the least, especially for someone as grounded in scientific reality as I was. Suddenly my world was shattered and I found myself being dragged kicking and screaming into an alternative universe of aliens and UFOs, nightmares and premonitions, Men in Black and paranoid-based conspiracies. Many of these things have defied explanation and made a mockery of conventional wisdom. They have left me overwhelmed with unanswerable questions. In my search to find the truth about what happened I have often been mocked and impugned by those who do not share my quest, yet I refuse to give up. I know the truth is out there somewhere...I just have to keep searching until it is found. It may not be quick, it may not be easy...sometimes it might not even make any sense...but that is no reason to call it off. Improbability is not the same as impossibility.
During my walk along the edge I have discovered that there is a very thin line between normal and abnormal, reality and fantasy. The delineation of that line often depends on the people who are defining it. It sometimes blurs and shifts from one place to another...it can be crossed very easily. Fortunately there is information to be found on either side. Many people come back from the brink, bringing with them a small part of the unknown, a tiny piece of a huge puzzle. By itself it may be meaningless, but added together with all of the other pieces an image starts to form...to take shape and solidify. Like a candle burning in the darkness it lights the way to new discoveries, and with each bit of information the picture becomes clearer, the light burns brighter until it is shining like a beacon leading the way to enlightenment. I think of each bit of knowledge as a piece of that puzzle. The more we learn the clearer the picture will be.
"She drove me to the point of madness
The brink of misery
If she's not real then I'm condemned to
The edge of reality"
Those who have had paranormal experiences are changed in many ways as a result. They have looked over the edge into the abyss and seen something staring back. They have been touched by the unknown and it leaves a hole inside of them that only knowledge can fill...knowledge of that which we can not possibly know. It can be maddeningly frustrating, I know. I have walked the line, fallen over the edge, been swallowed by the darkness...and crawled back out again. Still, I continue my search. Why do I do it? Why do any of us? To learn, to grow, to become whole again. Our contact with the unknown has taken something from us...or serenity...our soul. In order to get it back we must find...something. But what? How can we find what we don't even know we are looking for? Still, we continue to search, groping blindly in the darkness, hoping to stumble over the candle of truth. If we fall we will pick ourselves up and continue onward. At times it is almost like an obsession.
I know I may never find the answers that I seek. I know I may be wasting my time searching, but it is my life and I am the one who has to live it...and I want to know. I need to know what happened to me so long ago. If I never gain enlightenment I will not despair because even after all of these years I still have what it takes to keep going. If there is only one thing that I have gained from all of this, it is hope...the hope that tomorrow will bring a better future. The hope that someday I may find the key to unlock the past...that one final piece of the puzzle that will fall into place and reveal the secrets of this strange universe I find myself in. Until then, I will keep pushing the boundaries of knowledge. I will continue my quest, forever reaching for the stars while planting my feet firmly on the ground...Here at the edge of reality.
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