U.S. And U.K. Militaries Say They Don't Investigate UFOs Anymore -- Or Do They?

By Lee Speigel

 



Illustration from a British National Archives video of a 1997 account of a man who claimed

to have been hit by a beam of light from a UFO while he was driving in South Wales.

 

Iran Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced on June 10 that UFOs don't pose a threat to Iran's security. His remark came after an unexplained light was reported over several countries, including Iran, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel, according to Tehran Times.com. Just last week, several people in the Washington, D.C., area -- apparently being vigilant on U.S. security -- reported sightings of a UFO after spotting a drone being transported on the Beltway near the capital.
When the U.S. Air Force officially closed its own 22-year investigation of UFOs in 1970 -- a probe dubbed Project Blue Book -- one of the reasons given for the termination of the study was that no UFOs evaluated by the Air Force were ever considered a threat to America's national security.
The Air Force had also determined and told the public that no UFOs represented any kind of advanced technology beyond current scientific knowledge and that no evidence pointed to the possibility that any UFOs had an extraterrestrial origin.
And yet, military personnel have been telling a different tale in recent years.
"The reason why the military is claiming they don't investigate UFOs is because they don't want to respond to people like you," former Air Force Captain Robert Salas told The Huffington Post last October.
"They don't want to respond to reporters or to the public as to what the heck is going on, and it's been going on for so long. They just don't want to have to answer that question," Salas said.

Across the Atlantic, Great Britain reacted to Cold War flying saucer sightings in a similar way. In 1950, the Ministry of Defense created a group of scientists and intelligence experts to secretly examine UFO sightings, according to a British National Archives consultant. Even former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, at right, wanted to get to the bottom of the flying saucer mystery.
The information gathered by this "Flying Saucer Working Party" stayed secret for 50 years, according to David Clarke, of Sheffield Hallam University, who serves as the official British National Archives consultant for the ongoing release of that country's UFO files.
David Clarke describes British UFO files from 1986-1992:

Clarke notes how approximately 5 percent of UFO sightings -- on either side of the pond -- remain unidentified.
"Unidentified, to me, does not mean extraterrestrial spacecraft -- it simply means unidentified," Clarke told HuffPost.
"If you are a military person, certainly since 9/11, an unidentified object in the sky -- if it's reported by a military observer or it's something on radar -- they're not immediately going to think, 'Ah, it's the Martians,'" he said. "Their initial reaction is that an unidentified object could be a hijacked aircraft or an enemy missile. So, from the military and government point of view, they're only interested in making sure that whatever it is, it's not one of those things."
After a hijacked plane or missile is eliminated by investigators, "they couldn't care whether it's a balloon or even an alien spacecraft, as long as it's not causing any harm to the nation's defenses," Clarke said. The second edition of his book, "The UFO Files," based on documents released by Britain's National Archives, will be published by Bloomsbury in September.
David Clarke describes UFO files from 1987-1993:

Clarke was involved with the discovery at The National Archives of files that he claims reveal how, in 1950, the British government worked closely with a UFO study by the American CIA.
"The very existence of any 'official' study of UFOs had been long denied by the MoD," Clarke wrote on his website. "The report constitutes the 'Holy Grail' to those who have always believed that the Ministry of Defense were involved in a cover-up of UFO evidence."
In 2001, the Ministry of Defense released the final 1951 report of the Flying Saucer Working Party to Clarke and co-UFO researcher Andy Roberts, Clarke says, after they invoked the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. That document can be read at Clarke and Roberts' Real UFO Project website.
The six-page Flying Saucer Working Party file recommended a systematic debunking of UFO sightings to prevent the more unexplained cases from going public, according to Clarke. And this, he says, is what led to the belief of a government conspiracy about UFOs.
"Thousands and thousands of people across the world seem to believe that the governments of the world know that we're being visited by aliens and they're deliberately concealing it from the public for bizarre reasons," Clarke told HuffPost.
"You will never convince those people otherwise," he added. "While 5 percent of UFOs can't be explained, so what? Is that really surprising, given the fact that a lot of sightings are reported days, months, years after they've actually happened, when the scent has gone cold?"
David Clarke describes UFO files from 1994-2000:

Clarke is well aware he comes across as a disbeliever, but he's trying to remain fair.
"I am skeptical, but I'd also like to think that I'm open-minded enough that if evidence came that was absolutely overwhelming about something being extraterrestrial or some other explanation, that I wouldn't say, 'Oh, it can't possibly exist, therefore it doesn't,'" he said. "I think a lot of the people who are absolutely convinced about extraterrestrials are equally not being open-minded of other possibilities."

UFO Appears Over Silicon Valley Hiking Trails (Video)

By Jim Kane

A strange glowing "UFO" was filmed Sunday over a popular park in Northern California, in close proximity to the homes of top Silicon Valley executives.





The three-and-a-half minute footage clearly shows a glowing orb, which changes hues from yellow to red to green. The mysterious object looks like it could turn out to be a weather balloon, but this is still fairly compelling video. Do you believe this craft has otherworldly origins?

Whenever an anomalous encounter like this one occurs in a major metropolitan region, like San Francisco/San Jose, the authorities should investigate. In addition, there are many high-level computer executives, including Apple founder Steve Wozniak, who own homes nearby. Are aliens visiting the area to monitor the high-tech industry?

An eyewitness first spotted the anomalous flying craft on Saturday, and was waiting with a camcorder the next night.

The eyewitness lives in South San Jose, but the flying object was in the area of the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve, a rugged 18,000 acre public park. In the video, the pulsating UFO light ascends over a mountain range, moves slowly through the sky, then comes back down.

Strange UFO Emerges from Clouds over Portsmouth England (Video)

By Tom Rose

An unusual UFO sighting, caught from a train near Portsmouth, England, is notable because of its uniqueness. The unidentified flying object, caught on an iPhone for just a few seconds, at first, looks like the Sun peeking out. But that's impossible, as the surrounding shadow falls reveal.

Whatever the bright light is blazing through a cloud bank, it caught the eye of the rail passenger pulling in to the Portsmouth station who filmed the short clip below.

While not the classic sighting in any sense, it's a striking example of the unusual objects in the sky at any given time which can now be caught by unsuspecting witnesses armed with a simple, high quality cell phone camera.

In this particular UFO sighting, a bright, multi-faceted light source is bursting through a cloud floating through an otherwise clear evening sky. It's clearly not the Sun because of its strange shape and edges. It looks more like a flare, but for what purpose?

Whatever this object is, it's one of the most striking, even beautiful, examples ever caught on film. Here's the video:

"Published on 19 Jun 2012 by squeakyoneify

This is a video clip I took from the train , The video really does not do it justice,, It lasted for around 30 seconds then went,,"

'Catamaran' UFO Filmed over Russia (Video)

By Tom Rose

A weird, new kind of UFO, shaped like what can only be described as a catamaran boat hull, was filmed in the cloudy twilight skies over an unidentified city in Russia. What is it?

The video shows a cloudy sky over the city as a flashing light slowly makes its way over the rooftops. As the camera zooms in and the clouds fall away, the shape of the unidentified flying object is more clearly defined.

As the video rolls, the flashing lights appear to encircle the craft's hull, which, at one point, reveals oblong rails on either side. Hence the comparison to a catamaran, which is similarly shaped.

But, clearly, there are no jets, airplanes or helicopters which have that kind of shape and there is no evidence that the wingless, motorless UFO is spewing exhaust or showing the properties of those kinds of aircraft.

Because there is no audio at all on the video, it's impossible to tell if the aircraft is making any engine sounds. So, what is it? Here's the video:

Doomsday 6000 BCE: Ancient Oddities of Ireland and the Mideast

By Micah Hanks

There are many mysteries that riddle aspects of the known world, serving today as veritable holdovers from a past that we, despite our best efforts, have yet to fully understand. Some of these mysteries are so strange, in fact, that they have caused a variety of different speculative theories to emerge about human origins, incorporating such things as extraterrestrial visitors, preexisting advanced societies, and possible “doomsday events” that may have wiped out life over large portions of the ancient world.
In recent news, the discovery of a 6,000 year old pre-farming settlement in north Clare, along the Irish coast, has let to much excitement among archaeologists, who have described the find as “one of the oldest habitations ever unearthed in Ireland.” Due to its age, the location predates nearby settlements by at least several hundred years. Though renowned for its age, there could nonetheless be other mysteries underlying this ancient site which point to a variety of other unique potentials; these relate not only to mysteries of the Emerald Isle, but also of other areas throughout the ancient world.
During the site’s recent excavation, the team who had been overseeing the operation described finding “a mysterious black layer of organic material” that covered much of the settlement and surrounding area. Upon reading this, I was a bit surprised, since it immediately bore a strong resemblance to stories of strange discoveries at ancient locations in the Middle East. More specifically, I’m reminded of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, located in modern day Pakistan, where among the oddities found during the excavations of these sites were similar strange scatterings of dust or some other substance, along with small lumps of blackened, melted clay scattering the streets.
Strangest of all, there are even reports that these two Mideast locations have displayed higher-than-average background radiation at the respective excavations sites, lending to theories that range from a supernovae or other variety of ancient cosmic bombardment, to the possibility of meteorite blast sites. According to some researchers, the potential for some kind of nuclear technology that may have existed on Earth in ancient times has also been put forth to explain the curious destruction of these ancient cities.

While the latter of these theories is quite difficult to quantify, it should also be noted that another theory regarding many ancient disasters in the Mideast involves the frequent flooding of the Indus River Valley; under such circumstances, it has been posited that a tremendous flood might have contributed to the downfall of ancient Middle Eastern metropolises like Mohenjo-Daro. And incidentally, the official suspected reasons for the destruction of the recently discovered Irish settlement at Fanore Beach, north Clare, is believed to have involved a prehistoric tsunami.
Noteworthy also is the fact that cultures such as that of Mehrgarh, which preceded Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro by a few thousand years, had appeared by approximately 6000 BCE (predating the Irish settlement mentioned earlier by about 2000 years). Mohenjo-daro and Harappa appeared nearly 3500 years later, along the modern regions known as Punjab and the Sindh provinces. While no direct parallels exist for dates of the destruction between the separate Irish and Mideast settlements described here, it is interesting to consider the peculiar similarities between the theories of their demise; while conventional investigations have proposed that flooding may likely have been the cause in both instances, conclusive data does not exist to support this. What does exist is a remarkable similarity between reports of odd substances and other anomalies found in both regions.
In fact, Russian munitions expert Alexander Gorbovsky, along with other proponents of some variety of nuclear event that may have occurred long ago, have written about what was believed to constitute a “layer of radioactive ash” that covered the city sites of Harrappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Could there be any link between such stories, and the layer of silt found within the excavation along the settlement at north Clare?
As reported in the Irish Examiner Online, the strange black substance found at the site has not, in fact, been identified yet as silt:

The substance, which is two or three inches deep, disintegrates when it comes in contact with air. A large slab of the material has remained intact on an ancient settlement, indicating that a large amount of it was laid down at once, possibly as the result of a tsunami.
“We have found a mysterious layer of black organic material on the site and it is just under that level that we have found all the oldest archeology,” said Mr Lynch.
“We have not been able to identify exactly what this black layer is yet but, as it happens, it is this layer which helped to protect the ancient settlement that we are currently excavating.

Supposing for a moment (though the speculation here is admittedly bold) that we are not dealing with some variety of silt deposited by a tsunami, could we instead be dealing with something more akin to a layer of ash, deposited in the wake of some catastrophic, explosive event that occurred in the ancient world? There is little evidence that such devastation could have resulted from any scenario involving “ancient nuclear weapons”… and yet, could we suppose instead that such things might point to a similar sort of event… perhaps one that occurred naturally?

For more information on possible theories involving ancient (and naturally occurring) nuclear events, consider reviewing this article by Richard B. Firestone and William Topping, which posits the theory that a massive nuclear catastrophe occurred in Paleoindian times, roughly 12,000 years ago and over parts of North America.