A NUMBER of expats have come forward to claim that a series of low-flying military jets that awoke the Costa del Sol may have been chasing a UFO.
A NUMBER of expats have come forward to claim that a series of low-flying military jets that awoke the Costa del Sol may have been chasing a UFO.
The residents of Benahavis and Estepona – where a trio of fighter jets undertook their mysterious 5am sortie on Easter Sunday – believe that the planes may have been tailing an “alien craft”. While the authorities refused to comment on the incident, the Olive Press has been inundated with calls and emails from concerned residents. One British reader, who asked to remain anonymous, told the paper this weekend: “It was terrifying. They were clearly tailing this strange-looking craft. “I cannot describe what it was, but it was long and thin and had flashing lights. It was definitely not a plane or helicopter. “It made a very strange sound and moved slowly before suddenly shooting off at top speed.” Her neighbour Alison Woods, who is married to a former RAF engineer, added: “It was a eerily humming sound, nothing I have ever witnessed before. “We have lived on various RAF bases in UK and abroad. It was the most bizarre sound, not easy to explain.” Another revealed that when he had reported the strange goings on to police, they had acted “suspiciously”. The incident came just days before another mystery incident over Bath, in the UK, where locals claim to have seen a long thin-shaped craft chased by military jets. The Olive Press is now investigating if there could be any links between the two apparent UFO sightings. The midnight mystery left expats fearing that one of the planes was going to crash. One ex-military English pilot insisted the aircraft may have been offering military assistance to civilian authorities for illegal criminal activity such as drug dealing or terrorism. “The helicopter could have been backing them up,” he insisted. “No pilot in his right mind would fly low and at night in mountainous area for fun or to show off.” Meanwhile, Geoff Jones, a resident of the Costa de Sol who witnessed the unidentified aircraft flying ‘erratically’ around 5am on Easter Sunday, insisted someone needed to get to the bottom of it. “Night exercise by any military flying operations are not authorised over built up areas, day or night,” he added. When contacted by the Olive Press, a spokesman for Malaga Airport’s operations centre said: “We can’t give any information about those types of flights.” When pushed as to the reason why, the spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for Gibraltar Airport said they were not aware of the incident as Gibraltar air space – which is only open from 8am to 9pm – was closed at the time.
Naval recruitment campaign, Battleship, is now in cinemas.
Judging by its reviews, though, few film critics will be enlisting to sail the
high seas any time soon. The alien invasion movie – produced with the full co-operation of the USNavy–
currently scores just 46% at RottenTomatoes.com, with comments
such as:
“The
latest, loudest and stupidest example of the hyper-jingoistic,
military-fetishising, intellect-lowering alien invasion movie.” Moviedex
“Compared to this,
Independence Day was subtle and sensitive. Hell, even last year’s Battle: Los
Angeles was smarter... Battleship is trash.” Daily
Mail
“If you found
Transformers just a touch too subtle, this is the film for you.” The
Guardian
“It's
a preposterously lunkheaded salute to American naval machismo. It's a
Frankenstein's monster of a digital action spectacle, bolted together from
ill-fitting parts of other movies. And it's arguably the noisiest film ever
made.” Daily Telegraph
“Impressive visual
effects and Berg's epic set pieces fight against an armada of cinematic clichés
and some truly awful dialogue.” Hollywood Reporter
“So lunkheaded
- both in concept and execution - that it’s hard not to suspect director Peter
Berg of playing a prank.” Empire
Check back here next week for my Silver Screen Saucers UFOlogical
review of Battleship.
Every so often, those of us who are invested in the serious study of alleged UFO craft hear some incredible stories, which variously involve the testimony of trained pilots and other witnesses to unusual things seen in the skies. Countless numbers of stories that involve this sort of interaction between airmen and exotic-looking aircraft can be found by performing online searches, with the occasional appearance of flight audio that recounts such events. Recently, a story along these lines was shared with me by one of my listeners, who had recently heard this subject being discussed on the The Gralien Report Podcast. Thus, she felt compelled to share the following account with me, in hopes that somebody else may have heard about what may have been going on recently in the skies over Indiana. Was it a UFO, or something else? Here’s the message that appeared in my inbox only a few days ago:
I heard something today and thought that with your contacts in the ufo field you might be able to find something out. My sister called me today and told me that her husbands best friend (who is a pilot) was flying in Indiana airspace last night. He received a call over his radio redirecting him from his original flight plan. He said everyone was being redirected out of the area. At the time he said he was close enough to look into this no fly zone and he saw a very bright light. He also said that F18′s were in the air. He said that the chatter over the radio from the other pilots was all about this bright light, the F18′s, and the fact that they had orders to shoot! I did a google search to see if I could find any news reports of ufo sightings in Indiana last night but was unsuccessful.
In truth, this was indeed the very first I had heard of such an incident, and a subsequent online search seemed to turn up few further details.
In the past, various incidents that involved the appearance of UFOs in midst of Fighter Pilots have occasionally resulted in disaster. Perhaps the most infamous, taken directly from the files of Project Blue Book, dealt with the death of 25-year-old pilot named Captain Thomas F. Mantell, on January 7, 1948. Mantell, of the Kentucky Air National Guard, had been pursuing what was believed to be a “flying saucer” at a high altitude, and in attempting to reach it himself, likely passed out due to loss of oxygen or similar circumstances, thus resulting in the crash of his jet. Rather tragically, Edward Ruppelt would later surmise that the entire Mantell incident may have involved nothing more than a high-altitude weather balloon, which, from Mantell’s perspective, could certainly have resembled a huge, silvery flying disc.
So far as the more recent incident over Indiana goes, few details have been made available with regard to just what may have been going on… and fortunately, there have been no reports of ill-fated pursuits of strange UFO craft on part of the U.S. Airforce this time around, either.
There's been a buzz in the air this week -- literally -- about a video allegedly showing a UFO flying near a passenger plane over Seoul, South Korea. The video, which has been viewed several million times, has brought out a myriad of theories to explain the strange-looking oval white object viewed on Saturday. When a passenger on the airline tried to zoom in on the object with a video camera as it moved upward from the ground, pacing near the plane, it suddenly flew away.
An unidentified object was videotaped from
a passenger plane over Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday.
Was this an alien visitation, a computer-generated image, a water droplet on the plane window or a white plastic bag moving in the wind? As skeptics and true UFO believers battle it out over the origin of this latest unexplained object, they are engaging in an unresolved decades-old debate: Can unexplained UFOs become a safety issue for the commercial airline industry?
Watch the video of the alleged UFO over South Korea.
"It's beyond dispute that airline personnel see them and see them a lot," said professional pilot David McDonald, who runs a school for pilots and aircraft dispatchers and owns charter company Flamingo Air in Cincinnati. "However, to the best of all of our knowledge, there has never been an incident where an airplane ran into one or was attacked by one." "[Pilots] have done evasive maneuvers to get out of the way, but that's what we're trained to do," McDonald, the new international director of the Mutual UFO Network, told The Huffington Post. "Whether [the UFO] would have veered off, it's really hard to say if they are a hazard to flight or not." At least one scientist -- and former UFO skeptic -- strongly suggested that mid-air UFO encounters could be hazardous. "I was trying to be a conscientious scientist and let the chips fall where they may and I immediately found a great deal of bias and fear by people who shouldn't be afraid," said former NASA research scientist Richard Haines, referring to UFOs. "Science should not be afraid." After commercial pilots began sharing their UFO experiences with him, Haines created the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena. His organization offers a confidential reporting venue for pilots, crews and air traffic controllers hesitant to make UFO reports. Haines does not publish records that publicly reveal the names of pilots reporting incidents. "Our objectives are to make flying safer for the flying public and we're convinced there's a potential threat posed by nearby unexplained aerial phenomena to commercial and private airplanes," Haines recently told HuffPost. In a number of cases, the UFO or the unexplained aerial phenomena gets close enough to an aircraft and results in some sort of electromagnetic effect on certain cockpit instruments, Haines added. "Roughly 5 to 9 percent of the total sightings have some form of electromagnetic influence in the cockpit, so our interest is trying to alert the aviation industry ahead of time to do something positive, rational, before it's too late, before an airplane goes down," Haines said. When asked about Federal Aviation Administration policies to deal with UFOs, an FAA official told HuffPost, "Our standard response is that the FAA does not track UFO activity." "As far as any procedures for reporting, that's probably on an airline-by-airline basis if, in fact, they do have any procedures at all for that," the official added.
Watch a video of former FAA official John Callahan discussing how the FAA and government handled a UFO incident in 1986.
One former FAA official, John Callahan, has been very outspoken about how his agency has handled UFO information in the past. Callahan, a former head of the FAA's Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations Division in the 1980s, believes that Earth is being visited by extraterrestrials. "Oh, I think we really are," he told HuffPost. "And the government doesn't tell you the truth all the time. Part of the stuff I was doing in my last 10 years with the government was lying to the public. I gave out disinformation -- an approved tactic in the government -- because the people can't handle the truth." Callahan's bold statement stems from a highly publicized 1986 case involving a Japan Airlines 747 crew who reported two UFOs that were pacing by their aircraft over Alaska; this was followed by the appearance of a third, huge circular craft. "When the controller checked with military people, they said they did have a target [on radar] -- not just one target, but a double primary target," Callahan said. Following the 30-minute airline close encounter, Callahan said, he was ordered to attend a meeting with members of the CIA, FBI and President Ronald Reagan's scientific staff. He claimed he also had to hand over all information, including radar reports, about the Alaska case to them. "After I showed them the materials three times, one of the them stepped forward and said, 'This event never happened. We were never here. We're confiscating all this data, and you're all sworn to secrecy,'" Callahan recalled. Callahan said he asked a CIA agent if it would be okay to contact the media about the UFO incident and he was told, "You can't do that. It would frighten the American public -- they can't know about this."
Watch a recreation of a military encounter with a UFO.
Another airborne encounter took place in 1964 over the South China Sea when Navy pilot Frederick M. Fox was behind the controls of a tanker aircraft. "All of a sudden, this dark, unlit shape showed up 20 to 30 feet off my left wing," Fox told HuffPost. "I called to ask if there was anything else showing up on radar besides me, and when they said, 'No, why do you ask?' I immediately said, 'Disregard.'" "As I looked at this thing, it was a classic domed, saucer-shaped object about 30 feet in diameter, with no discernible lights, windows or markings. I was able to see it because of my collision lights shining off it," Fox recalled. For 20 minutes, while Fox performed several maneuvers and turns, the UFO stayed with him until it simply vanished, he said, adding that he decided to not report the incident because of an existing military regulation. "There was a page that said unlawful disclosure of any UFO information is a $10,000 fine and 10 years in jail," Fox said. "If I had mentioned anything to anybody, they would've grabbed me and sent me for a Section 8," he added, referring to a military discharge when someone is deemed mentally unfit. "So I just kept my mouth shut." Fox spent more than 30 years with American Airlines, where, he said, he experienced other UFO sightings. He logged more than 20,000 hours in his flying career. Mutual UFO Network's McDonald agreed there's a historical taboo among pilots not to discuss their UFO encounters. "Up until just a short time ago, if you reported one of these, it was a guaranteed medical disqualification," he said. "The airlines don't want pilots [who say] they saw a flying saucer." "It's been pretty well established that when they go and shoot their mouth off about this stuff, chances are they lose their jobs, and that's been documented," McDonald said.
Katy Perry is obsessed with aliens. The 'E.T' singer - whose divorce from Russell Brand will be finalized in July - has developed an interest in other-worldly beings and wants to look beyond the Christian teachings imposed upon her by her pastor parents Keith and Mary Hudson during her childhood. She said: ''I'm fascinated by that kind of stuff because of how I grew up, where everything was so black and white.
Image credit Google images
''Now I'm seeing a lot more color in the world and asking more questions. So I'm very into things that are above and beyond me and were before me and will be after me.'' Katy's interest was sparked by the U.S. show 'Ancient Aliens' - which examines the possibility that the Earth was visited by extraterrestrial beings thousands of years ago - and she loves the program so much, she tries to make everyone she knows watch it. She admitted to The Sun newspaper: ''I've ordered 50 of those DVDs. ''I sent out a Christmas gift basket to people filled with my favorite things and the first season of 'Ancient Aliens' was one of the things I included. ''It's so good. I made everyone on my tour watch it. I'm just obsessed.'' The 27-year-old beauty is confident aliens will one day visit Earth - but she hopes they won't want to conduct experiments on her because she previously wrote a song about them. She said: ''I do hope that when the aliens come, they'll recognize me. I'll be like, 'Please don't kill me, I wrote a song called E.T.'.'' While Katy credits watching a DVD for her interest in aliens, she has previously admitted she shared the fascination with Russell and the couple were looking forward to taking a trip on the first-ever commercial space flight, Virgin Galactic, when it eventually launches. She previously said: ''I'm so into extraterrestrial stuff. It's very difficult for me to look up into the sky in the middle of the night and not think that our planet is one of ... a bajillion. It's really, really small. ''And Russell and I are interested in anything extraterrestrial. I mean, we're going to space! We're really excited.''
For more than 36 years, the Travis Walton abduction story has been told countless times through film, print and presentations. His story has captivated an entire community of researchers and UFO enthusiasts. Now two eyewitnesses who were present the night of the abduction, are stepping forward to tell their side of the story. For the first time since the incident, more than 36 years ago, Travis Walton, John Goulette, and Steve Pierce were reunited at the 2012 International UFO Congress. Producer Lori Wagner of Digital Films in San Diego and Regression Therapist Yvonne Smith sat down and interviewed all three. They have shared their interviews with Open Minds, and during the conference, in these interviews Goulette and Pierce reveal much of what they personally went through directly after that night, and what their lives have entailed since. That night, they observed the blinding light, sensed the beating pulse, and felt the fear that comes from seeing your friend and co-worker disappear before your eyes. What followed was a stream of disbelief and accusations from law enforcement and the local community. Even after passing lie detector tests, these men’s lives have continually been harassed. John Goulette eventually moved out of town, put the memory aside, and went on with his life. Steve Pierce was pressured repeatedly by UFO skeptic Phil Klass to take a bribe and say the whole incident was a hoax. After showing the film made about the event to his daughter, she encouraged him to come forward with his story. The Travis Walton story has stayed consistent and exact for more than 36 years. Now, with additional eyewitness testimony to back up his claim, his amazing ordeal will hopefully be seen with less skepticism, and his journey for the truth appreciated.
A NUMBER of expats have come forward to claim that a series of low-flying military jets that awoke the Costa del Sol may have been chasing a UFO.
