Alien Invasion Vividly Invasive (Video)

By Karl Klooster
Of the News-Register

Like clockwork — not to be confused with A Clockwork Orange — creatures from distant worlds were inexplicably drawn to McMinnville once again last Saturday. For the lucky 13th consecutive year, these unearthly beings set foot, claw, pad and tentacle on our downtown streets.

Parade-goers roam Third Street before the parade

Joel Ray / News-Register

McMinnville Downtown Association operative Ginger Williams, on assignment to observe, monitor and even interact organizationally with all manner of sentient life forms, was debriefed in the aftermath.
“They came from everywhere,” Williams gasped, barely able to maintain her composure after such a taxing ordeal. “Word has apparently gotten out over the intergalactic communications network, and they’re determined to make a show of force.”
According to her calculations, the 2012 parade established a new record for entries at 55 and individual participants at 619. By comparison, the 2009 parade logged 37 entries and 349 individuals.

Star Wars characters patrol the 13th annual UFO Festival, which drew large crowds to downtown McMinnville on Saturday. Joel Ray / News-Register

Williams expressed both elation and consternation at the prospect of continued increases. “Being able to have positive encounters with even more humanoids and other intelligent beings is exciting, but the logistics may become challenging.”
Pointing out that the growth of such an event is necessarily restricted by the size limitations of McMinnville’s central district, she mentioned that this year, the parade route was expanded to Fourth Street to accommodate more attendees.
“Not only were there more exotic aliens this year,” Williams said, “but more curious humans came to welcome them.”
The homo sapiens gawking in awe and wonder at the extraterrestrials and their bizarre vehicles passing by lined Third Street five deep. Observers who elected to view the scene from Fourth Street sidewalks enjoyed less crowded conditions.
Still, people stood curbside as far up Fourth as Evans.

If this continues, both streets could very well be packed with onlookers in years to come. There may be no stopping the momentum of McMinnville’s UFO Festival phenomenon.
Having the opportunity to converse with some of these ETs provided a unique perspective for this writer.
Take the female trio calling themselves The Celestial Sun Sisters. In a futile effort to cloak their true identities, they claimed to be from Centralia, Washington.
Further, the “sisters” had assumed the alien aliases of Sunny Hawkins, Mary Creeley and Connie Pyles. Her cohorts kept referring to the latter as “Connie the Creator.”
My suspicions about their cover story, which seemed blatantly bogus, were confirmed when the obviously duped judges selected her as this year’s Queen. And instead of insisting her sisters accompany her on the Queen’s float, she left them to fend for themselves.
Then there was the group with the audacity to claim it hailed from our own Dayton. It would have been a better ruse to claim Dayton, Ohio. Given only minimal investigation, I determined this crew was actually from Planet Retina.
Anyone with average vision could clearly see that these aliens had eyeballs all over them. In fact, one had a giant eyeball for a head.
Another part of their cover story was a claim to membership in the Red Hat Society. But I didn’t see any red hats, just a bunch of bug-eyed eyeballs and a banner with the scary slogan, “Our Eyeballs Are On You.”
Shades of the book and movie “1984.”
Speaking of actually identifying true planetary origins, the Intergalactic Scottish Gladiators from the Planet Zarg appeared bellicose enough to wage war if given the slightest excuse.
Fortunately, another well-armed, Intergalactic group dedicated to maintaining peace and order was also out in force.
The Cloud City Garrison, a chapter of the famed Star Wars 501st Legion, was making its sixth straight voyage to McMinnville. Luke, Ben and Anikan Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, Chewbacca the Wookie, a cadre of storm troopers and a star-studded selection of other Star Wars characters arrived here at warp speed.
Encounters went on and on, including those of local humans participating in the parade. The latter included Grand Marshals Bruce and Esther Huffman, riding in a red 1966 Cadillac Eldorado convertible driven by owner Dean Klaus, who was accompanied by his wife, Debbie.
Noted Gallery Theater players Jeff and Julia Sargent were covering the event for our own Channel 11. And Portland’s KXL Radio brought a news SUV to town so its paranormal Ground Zero show host Clyde Lewis could cover the guest speakers.
Proof and/or belief that there is life out there abounded at the UFO Festival. So there was a lot to report on.
A key player in all this is the McMenamins organization, founder and chief sponsor of the event through its Hotel Oregon.
The hotel’s tent at Third and Evans was abuzz with activity, from brews and BBQ to alien accouterments and a bevy of books chosen just for the occasion. Following are a few titles intended to entice those intrigued by the subject of life on other worlds:
“The Klutz Guide to The Galaxy,” “Life As We Do Not Know It,” “Hair of the Alien: DNA and other forensic evidence of alien abduction;” “UFO Encyclopedia;” and “Alien Invasion: The Ultimate Guide for the Ultimate Attack.”
However you look at it, McMinnville’s UFO Festival, punctuated by the parade, has become a Close Encounter of the Third Kind. It’s something to look forward to with an abnormal level of anticipation each year. You could say simply being there will put you in an alien daze.


A Strange Tale of the MIB

By  Nick Redfern

Well, with Men in Black 3 finally among us, I figured that now would be the time to share with you a very weird story of definitive MIB proportions, which was brought to my attention in September of last year by a woman named Marjorie Braxton. Her curious and sensational story told of an event that her grandfather was reportedly involved in – back in the 1950s – while visiting the State Department. Truly, it is one of definitive Men in Black proportions. In other words, it’s manifestly bizarre…
“Hello, Mr. Redfern. My name is Marjorie Braxton. Last night I finished reading your newest – The Real Men in Black. Thank you for giving me nightmares LOL! But to be serious, congratulations on the book and I thought you might be interested in the following story of my late grandfather, who had his own MIB sighting in 1955. Grandfather was into science-fiction and shared it with David Grinnell at the time, and was published somewhere in UFO fandom. But I have grandfather’s original notes – - that would be the full notes – - and have copied some of them here for you. If you ever find anything more on this could you let me know? It’s yours to publish if you wish. With kindest regards, Marjorie, a fan.”

And here is the text of the curious communication of Marjorie Braxton’s grandfather, in his very own words, as provided to me by Marjorie herself:
“I cannot say whether I am the victim of a very ingenious jest on the part of some of my wackier friends or whether I am just someone accidentally ‘in’ in some top-secret business. But it happened, and it happened to me personally, while visiting Washington recently, just rubber-necking, you know, looking at the Capitol and the rest of the big white buildings.
“It was summer, fairly hot. Congress was not in session, nothing much was doing, most people vacationing. I was that day aiming to pay a visit to the State Department, not knowing that I couldn’t, for there was nothing public to see there unless it’s the imposing and rather martial lobby (it used to be the War Department building, I’m told). This I did not find out until I had blithely walked up the marble steps to the entrance, passed the big bronze doors, and wandered about in the huge lobby, wherein a small number of people, doubtless on important business, were passing in and out.
“A guard, sitting near the elevators, made as if to start in my direction to find out whom and what the deuce I wanted, when one of the elevators came down and a group of men hustled out. There were two men, evidently State Department escorts, neatly clad in gray double-breasted suits, with three other men walking with them. The three men struck me as a little odd; they wore long black cloaks, big slouch hats with wide brims pulled down over their faces, and carried portfolios. They looked for all the world like cartoon representations of cloak-and-dagger spies. I supposed that they were some sort of foreign diplomats and, as they were coming directly toward me, stood my ground, determined to see who they were.
“The floor was marble and highly polished. One of the men nearing me suddenly seemed to lose his balance. He slipped: his feet shot out from under him, and he fell. His portfolio slid directly at my feet.
“Being closest to him, I scooped up the folio and was the first to help raise him to his feet. Grasping his arm, I hoisted him from the floor – he seemed to be astonishingly weak in the legs; I felt almost that he was about to topple again. His companions stood about rather flustered, helplessly, their faces curiously impassive. And though the man I helped must have received a severe jolt, his face never altered expression.
“Just then the two State Department men recovered their own poise, rushed about, and, getting between me and the man I had rescued, rudely brushed me aside, and rushed their party to the door.
“Now what bothers me is not the impression I got that the arm beneath that man’s sleeve was curiously woolly, as if he had a fur coat underneath the cloak (and this in a Washington summer!), and it’s not the impression that he was wearing a mask (the elastic band of which I distinctly remember seeing amidst the kinky, red, close-cropped hair of his head). No, it’s not that at all, which might be momentarily misconstructions on my part. It’s the coin that I picked up off the floor where he’d dropped his portfolio.
“I’ve searched through every stamp and coin catalogue I can find or borrow, and I’ve made inquiries of a dozen language teachers and professors, and nobody can identify that coin or the lettering around its circumference.
“It’s about the size of a quarter, silvery, very light in weight, but also very hard. Besides the lettering on it, which even the Bible Society, which knows a thousand languages and dialects, cannot decipher, there is a picture on one side and a symbol on the other.
“The picture is the face of a man, but a man with very curiously wolfish features: sharp canine teeth parted in what could be called a smile; a flattened, broad, and somewhat protruding nose, more like a pug dog’s muzzle; sharp, widely spaced vulpine eyes; and definitely hairy and pointed ears.
“The symbol on the other side is a circle with latitude and longitude lines on it. Flanking the circle, one on each side, are two crescent-shaped moons.
“I wish I knew just how far those New Mexico rocket experiments have actually gone.”
And there the curious report ends. Bizarre, indeed! But, when it comes to a phenomenon so strange as the Men in Black, we should, perhaps, not expect anything less!

Whirling Night Vision UFO Filmed over Australia (Video)

By Tom Rose

A whirling, glowing UFO was caught on night vision video by a skywatcher near Melbourne, Australia, as it twirled and flashed brightly across the skies of the darkened city. What is it?

The unidentified flying object, posted to YouTube by self-professed night vision video maker Lou20764, silently travels in a straight line from one side of the screen to the other above the treetops and does look like a satellite.

But it's traveling much too low and doesn't look like any kind of known aircraft.

As the witness says, it's definitely flying beneath the sparse cloud cover, ruling out any object in orbit.

The UFO looks like it's spinning and the light it emits does not flash like navigational lights. The object doesn't change color, staying pearly white the entire time.

These kinds of objects have been faked before, or misidentified.

But this one peeks in and out of the trees covering the horizon, which is a very hard effect to achieve by hoaxers. It doesn't rule out the possibility, though.

This object doesn't look like a bird, a plane, a jet or a helicopter. And it doesn't fly like a Chinese lantern or a flare. So, what is it? Here's the video:

'Men In Black' Inspired By Scary Stories Of People Who've Seen UFOs

By Lee Speigel

When "Men in Black 3" opens everywhere over Memorial Day weekend, most moviegoers will just be hoping this sequel matches the original for popcorn-munching fun.
But there are many people who say they've been victimized by and live in fear of real MIBs. And those stories, told for decades, are just as terrifying as they are detailed.
Ever since the early 1950s, long before the first "Men in Black" movie hit the silver screen in 1997, men dressed in identical black suits, hats and sunglasses, claiming to be government agents, have reportedly shown up in black cars at the homes or offices of people who reported UFO sightings.
According to those who were paid these unwelcome visits, the MIBs threatened or harassed the eyewitnesses into staying quiet about their UFO encounters.
Watch some reported Men in Black encounters:

1947: Harold Dahl reported seeing a group of UFOs while he was on a boat in Washington's Puget Sound. Soon after, he said, he was approached by a black-suited individual who threatened him and his family if he ever talked again about the UFO sighting.
1967: Robert Richardson was driving his car at night in Toledo, Ohio, when he hit something, which, he claimed, then vanished. He found a piece of metal that he believed originated from the mysterious thing he hit. A few days later, two men, wearing black hats and sunglasses and driving a black 1953 Cadillac, visited Richardson at his home at 11 p.m. to ask questions. A week later, two other men arrived, dressed in black suits, and asked Richardson to turn over the metal to them. When he informed them he had sent it for analysis, he said, they threatened to harm his wife if he didn't get it back. He never heard from them again.
But why? Who were -- and, in some cases, still are -- these strange individuals who give out seemingly meaningless warnings about UFO sightings and try to intimidate people?
"They are the archetypal sinister person who turns up on the doorstep specifically in relation to a UFO encounter," said Nick Redfern, author of "The Real Men in Black" (New Page Books, 2011).
"People who have been visited by MIB tend to fall into two categories: One is the UFO witnesses. The other category is researchers who've been visited," Redfern told The Huffington Post.
After digging closely into the history of many reported MIB encounters, Redfern (pictured below) thinks he has a good handle on what may be going on.

"What we have, I'm pretty sure, is a sort of covert department or office or personnel within the official infrastructure. There are people who dress in black deliberately and go around and threaten people in certain circumstances relative to UFOs," he suggested.
"And they look like what you see in the 'Men in Black' movies. They look like agents of the government, like [actors] Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. And they issue veiled warnings not to talk about their UFO encounter."
But then there are the creepier MIB stories that emerge.
Like the one told by Dr. Herbert Hopkins. The respected family physician from Old Orchard Beach, Maine, was home alone on the night of Sept. 11, 1976. At the time, Hopkins was studying a UFO incident.
The phone rang, and a man's voice identified himself as a representative of a New Jersey UFO organization (which turned out to be phony).
"He wanted to know if he could come here and talk to me about the UFO case. He also asked if I was alone, and I said yes," Hopkins told this reporter in 1978 for a story broadcast on NBC Radio.
When Hopkins walked from the phone to the door and turned on the light, the man was already coming up the steps.
"If he was even as close as across the street or next door telephoning, he could not possibly have gotten here as soon as I did to turn on the light for him," recalled Hopkins.
When the stranger came in, Hopkins was struck by his appearance.
"He wore a neatly tailored black suit, black shoes, black socks, a white shirt with black tie, and he wore a black derby. You don't see derbies very often, and I thought to myself, 'This guy looks just like an undertaker.' When he sat down, he removed his derby.
"This character was as bald as an egg. He didn't even have eyebrows or eyelashes. It looked like he had smooth, plastic skin -- like a doll except that it was a dead-white color," Hopkins said.
"His lips were a brilliant ruby red, and he spoke in an expressionless, monotone, scanning speech. He constructed no phrases and sentences -- just a sequence of words evenly spaced. His voice was completely passive with no inflection or intonation, as if you were hearing it from a machine that could talk."
During the short time they were together, Hopkins and the strange man talked about the UFO case that the doctor had been investigating. Hopkins also noticed other very odd things about this Man in Black.
"He sat perfectly motionless and wore grey suede gloves. He idly brushed his lips with the back of a glove, and when he put his hand down, the back of his glove was bright red and the red on his mouth was smeared, so I knew he was wearing lipstick.
"Then I could see that his mouth was a perfectly straight slit. Apparently, he did not have what we call lips, so the lipstick was put on as a decoy -- his mouth was more like a ventriloquist's dummy."
This classic MIB story gets even stranger.
The odd visitor told Hopkins to take a coin out of his pocket and hold it in the palm of his hand.
"He said, 'Watch the coin,' and it started to develop a silver color instead of copper, and then the silver became bluish and the penny was getting quite fuzzy, out of focus, blurred, and then it simply was gone -- it slowly dematerialized."
Following the coin magic, the stranger ordered the doctor to destroy all information he had gathered about the UFO case.
"As he spoke his last words, I noticed his speech was slowing down. His words became slower and farther spaced. He slowly got to his feet, unsteadily, and he said very slowly, 'My -- energy -- is -- running -- low -- must -- go -- now -- goodbye.' Just like that."
Hopkins said that the MIB -- whoever or whatever he was -- clung tightly to the railing as he went down the steps outside, placing both feet on each step, and then disappeared around the corner into a bright light.
When the chilling encounter was over, a terrified, intimidated Hopkins destroyed all traces of any UFO materials he had.
Dan Aykroyd's personal account of a possible MIB encounter:

So who are the real Men in Black who have scared people for decades? Are they government agents trying to spread disinformation about UFOs? But for what purpose?
"The MIB movies are very entertaining, but they portray one angle of a mystery that is actually two-pronged," said Redfern.
"You've got this government conspiracy angle, but you've also got this Gothic archaic mystery that ties in as much with the occult and paranormal as it does with flying saucers."

Cosmic Exploration: Science, UFOs and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

By L.O.W.F.I.

This first of its kind conference will examine both current knowledge and future possibilities within the fast-growing, scientific exploration of outer space. Through the interface of cosmology, astrobiology, sociology and cutting edge physics, we will explore the search for earth-like exoplanets and extraterrestrial life; the potential implications of contact; and technologies which might exist within civilizations thousands or millions of years ahead of us. We will also present a rigorous and rational overview of the UFO question, as it should be understood within a scientific, historical context. Our goal is to bring these many interrelated areas together for the first time, as presented only by leading, credentialed professionals, and to begin a dialogue within an expanded scientific framework about the search for signs of life in the cosmos and its implications.
Speakers… George Knapp Jeffrey Bennett John Alexander Lee Speigel Leslie Kean Ron Westrum Ted Peters Wilfried De Brouwer with more on the way, as well…

Cosmic Exploration: Science, UFOs and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Las Vegas , Nevada · October 5 – 7, 2012

Nat Geo announces new UFO show (Video)

By Jason McClellan

A new UFO show is coming to television. On Wednesday, May 23, the National Geographic channel (NatGeo) announced Chasing UFOs.

This new eight-part series follows a team of investigators as they search for the truth behind unexplained UFO sightings. NatGeo’s website says:

Can this team use science and technology to explain mysterious sightings or will the evidence truly be out of this world? These burning questions motivate the Chasing UFOs investigative team to travel far and probe deep into a number of strange encounters previously left unanswered.



The investigation team: (L to R) Ben, Ryder, and James. (Credit: NGT)

The show’s investigation team includes James Fox, Ben McGee, and Erin Ryder
How does this show differ from other UFO-related programs on TV? NatGeo explains, “With its combination of adventure, travel and hard-hitting science, this series offers a radical new spin on this unexplained phenomenon.”
Chasing UFOs premieres Friday, June 29 at 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM ET/PT.