Tuesday 17 July 2012

Ufo News Links For Tuesday 17th July 2012



University makes space for online course on alien life – Edinburgh Evening News

UFOs: Is The Wave Of Secrecy Cresting? | Ghost Theory

Aliens? We’ll probably have a close encounter this century says leading physicist – Daily Mail

Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology: Luis Burgos: 4 Out of 10 Argentines Have Seen a UFO"

UFOs often misidentified – astronomer – News24

Professional UFO hunters say they won't watch 'Chasing UFOs'

UFO sighted over village – Weston & Somerset Mercury

UFO Files: Declassified U.K. Documents Released, Reveal Tony Blair Was Briefed On UFO Sightings – Huffington Post

UFO sightings reported in Heilongjiang province|Society|chinadaily.com.cn

UFO sightings and government cover-ups discussed in Farmington – Foster’s Daily Democrat

Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology: Chile: Alleged UFO Over La Cisterna

They’re back: UFOs at China’s Phoenix Mountain – AsiaOne

CIA and UFOs and Roswell: An Update | STARGATE007 | Spies, Lies, and Polygraph Tape: The UFO Spy Games

UFO mysteries – The Voice of Russia

theozfiles: UFO in my eyes - my personal journey through the complexities of the Chinese UFO experience

It’s not a bird,it’s not a plane,it may be a UFO – Times of Malta

UFO Disclosure Countdown Clock: Instant Missing Time - A Close Encounter Event In 1999

Stephen Hawking, the big bang, invasion of aliens from outer space – Tucson Citizen

Baltic Sea UFO & The Nazi Link | Ghost Theory

Ufo Newspaper Clipping - The Sun 26.10.1967



Chase Brandon & Roswell: the story continues

By Robbie Graham
Exclusive artwork courtesy of David Sankey

On July 6 of this year, Silver Screen Saucers published the world’s first in-depth article examining statements made June 23 on Coast to Coast AM by former CIA operative Chase Brandon concerning the Roswell incident of 1947. The story was picked up by the mainstream media two days later and has since become a major talking point within and beyond the UFO community. You can read our original article here. Brandon’s statements and the media’s response to them are also summarised in the opening 15 minutes of this recent Mysterious Universe podcast and in the latest episode of Open MindsSpacing Out...
 
 
On July 8, I was interviewed as a guest on The Conspiracy Show with Richard Syrett, along with Grant Cameron and Victor Viggiani. We discussed Brandon’s Roswell statements for around an hour and we each had chance to clarify our individual positions on why this former CIA man said what he said in the way that he said it. The interview begins at 55:07 here (NOTE: my grainy audio is cleaned up after the first commercial break).
 
On July 11, Silver Screen Saucers published an official statement by the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs denying Brandon’s Roswell claims. The CIA was responding to a written enquiry submitted by this author and co-signed by Dr Matthew Alford, Grant Cameron, and Victor Viggiani. Read the CIA’s response here.
 
The following night, on July 12, Chase Brandon again appeared on Coast to Coast AM, this time being interviewed by George Noory (his original host was John B. Wells). This new interview is every bit as fascinating (and frustrating) as the first. Grant Cameron of PresidentialUFO.com has begun the task of transcribing the most salient points made by Brandon in this new interview and has already published a brief summary on his website.
 
You can listen to the new Chase Brandon interview in full right here (begins at 38:20)...
 
 
Of particular note in this interview, host George Noory asks Brandon if the CIA has ever used Hollywood – and specifically filmmaker Steven Spielberg – as a conduit for delivering to the public factual UFO information disguised as fiction. In this short audio clip (simply click ‘download the file’ to stream the audio) courtesy of Giuliano Marinkovic, Brandon’s uncharacteristically long pause before he essentially dodges the question speaks volumes.
 
On his website, Grant Cameron notes: “If Brandon is the new CIA Falcon every word he says should be studied very carefully.” I agree. And if you’re unfamiliar with the story of the Falcon, you can put that to rights over at PresidentialUFO.com.
 
For ongoing developments on the Chase Brandon-Roswell story and further analysis of his statements, watch this space.

'After Earth' viral taps UFO mythology (Video)



In After Earth, one thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape from Earth, Nova Prime has become mankind’s new home. Legendary General Cypher Raige (played by Will Smith) returns from an extended tour of duty to his estranged family, ready to be a father to his 13-year-old son, Kitai (played by Jaden Smith). When an asteroid storm damages Cypher and Kitai’s craft, they crash-land on a now unfamiliar and dangerous Earth. As his father lies dying in the cockpit, Kitai must trek across the hostile terrain to recover their rescue beacon. His whole life, Kitai has wanted nothing more than to be a soldier like his father. Today, he gets his chance...


Professor Zigel’s reports on Russia’s Korbozero Lake UFO case


Idyllic view of Korbozero Lake. (Credit: Panoramio)

A recent story on our website, “Russia using UFOs to boost tourism” by Jason McClellan, based on an article posted online by the Voice of Russia, discussed “a new tourist route of the Leningrad region” based on an intriguing incident on Lake Korbozero that took place back on the night of April 27-28, 1961.

UFO tourism of course is not a new concept in Russia, the US, or many other parts of the world. Various tours have been developed around high profile cases or facilities like Roswell and Area 51. But what is unusual about this new tour is that the Korbozero case is rather obscure and there is very little data about it online. When Jason first mentioned it to me, the name of Korb Lake didn’t ring a bell initially but once I read some of the details about the physical evidence that had been retrieved by divers on the lake, I did remember reading some reports of it in the papers of the late Professor Felix Zigel, who is universally acknowledged as the founding father of Russian ufology.

The huge contribution of Dr. Zigel
Professor Felix Zigel of the Moscow Aviation Institute, father of Russian ufology. (Credit: Huneeus Collection/S. Bulantsev)

I wrote a biographical article about Dr. Felix Yuerevich Zigel (1920-1988) for the “Researcher Profile” section of Open Minds magazine (Issue NÂș 4, Oct./Nov. 2010). Zigel was an astronomer, author of dozens of popular scientific books, and associate professor at the prestigious Moscow Aviation Institute, although he is now best known for his pioneering work of building Russian (then Soviet) ufology. His dealings with the Soviet communist state and scientific bureaucracy shifted back and forth over the years. There were times when his work was approved officially, like the publication of his milestone article “Unidentified Flying Objects” in Soviet Life in February 1968 (Soviet Life was an official, glossy magazine published in dozens of foreign languages with a positive spin on Communist society).

However, most of Zigel’s UFO work couldn’t pass the barriers of Soviet censorship, but that didn’t stop the professor and his close group of associates. Zigel’s UFO investigations instead were circulated in photocopies through the underground system known as samizdat that existed unofficially in the Soviet era. Some of these Zigel documents went not only around Russia and the other Soviet republics, but also abroad, where they were translated into various languages. One of the most precious Zigel manuscripts is the volume titled, UFO Landings in the USSR and Other Countries, which was translated to English by Dimitri Ossipov and published in a limited edition by Dr. Richard Haines of the Joint USA-CIS Aerial Anomaly Federation.
It is in this book that we find a short summary of the 1961 Korbozero case, which we reproduce below. The term “LO” stands for cases where “there are no witnesses to the [UFO] landing, but on the ground surface there are traces typical in landing sites.” Here is the complete summary by Dr. Zigel:
Landings – class LO *
Mysterious destructions on Korb-Ozero
 
This case was described in detail by an investigator V. Demidov in a book “We go last,” Nol. Guardia 1967, and in article “What was it?” Znanie-Sila, No. 6, 1968. It was also reported in my manuscript “UFO observations in the USSR,” issue 2, 1975.

Cover of one of Zigel’s scientific books, Wonders of the Night Sky, translated to English by Mir Publishers in Moscow. (Credit: Huneeus Collection)

In the morning of 27 April 1961, two dam inspectors from a lumber farm went to inspect dams before the spring floods. In the evening of the same day, they came to the small Korb-Ozero lake (Karelia). They inspected the dam, and spent the night at 6 km. from the lake. The next morning, one of the inspectors, V. M. Brodsky, came back to the lake, and found there an amazing scenery: Their yesterday’s traces were erased by a hole, 10 m. wide, 25 m. long and 5 m. deep, with its “mouth” toward the shore’s precipice. This “mouth” had walls with a negative slope. On the lake, which was still covered with ice, there was a large unfrozen area of water.

In answer to a call from the inspector, V. Demidov, together with a diver thoroughly inspected the area. It was found that chunks of ice, swimming in the unfrozen water, were colored in emerald color. In a water swam greyish foams, and amid them some little balls resembling millet grains.
Neither on the shore, nor at the bottom of the lake (30 m. deep) were found any objects which could be connected to the cause of the event. Neither at the bottom, or below it, were found any metal traces. True, divers have noticed at the bottom of the lake two spits, connected by a cylinder of 1.5 m. wide. Between spits, there was a cylindrical depression, giving an impression that some “pipe” was laying at the bottom of the lake. Residents of the nearest settlement (30 KM. from the lake), heard and saw nothing that night.

Satellite photo showing the outline of Lake Korbozero in the Vologda Oblast in Northwestern Russia. (Credit: mapcarta.com)

This event remains a mystery up to this day. Consultations with specialists fully exclude hypotheses of landslide, Karst occurrence, ball lightning or meteorite. During melting of the ice, the emerald substance formed a sediment. In it were found small quantities of silicon, magnesium, iron, aluminum, sodium, calcium, barium and boron. The two first mentioned elements were predominant.

In the water and sediments were discovered some organic substances of unknown origin. In the depression were found small plates, 1 m. thick. (Scale type). Basic elements – iron and silicon. Some of these plates contain significant admixture of sodium and lithium.
The above mentioned black grains were noticeable by their metallic brilliance and turned out to be acid-resistant. In the opinion of specialists, they are of an artificial origin. All substances during tests had a high acid resistance and thermal stability. Elements found in a melted ice do not explain green color of ice. There was no noticeable radio-activity.
What has happened there? What caused the destruction on Korb Ozero? It is not possible for the present to answer these questions. Even though nobody has observed a UFO, the landing and the take-off of the “flying saucer” could be in principle the cause if the mysterious event.
The second Zigel report
Although I remember having a copy of the English version of Victor Demidov’s original Znanie-Sila article published in Sputnik magazine (the Russian equivalent to Reader’s Digest), I was unable to find it in my archives so far. But I did find a second, more complete report by Dr. Zigel, “UFO Ground Effect Cases in Russia,” were the scientific analysis of the Korbozero samples are discussed in detail. It was obtained years ago by MUFON member Joseph Brill and translated to English by Professor Julian Steen. We reproduce this article in full in PDF format as it was published in UFOlogy magazine in the fall of 1976.


The Korbozero case is an unusual incident. Although there was no known UFO sighting, the physical evidence retrieved on the site was both intriguing and significant. Furthermore, Korbozero is important in the history of Russian ufology as the details were published and circulated even in the days when the subject was heavily censored in the USSR.

UFOs: The Porton Down Affair




On the night of January 23, 1974, an enigmatic and unresolved event occurred on the Berwyn Mountains range in North Wales, United Kingdom that, for some within the UFO research community, has come to be known as the definitive British Roswell. Researcher Andy Roberts stated of this mysterious affair (in his book, UFO Down!): “The claim was that a UFO piloted by extraterrestrials crashed, or was shot down, on the mountain known as Cader Berwyn and that the alien crew, some still alive, were whisked off to a secret military installation in the south of England for study.”
That secret military installation was said to be none other than Porton Down. Beyond any shadow of doubt, one of the most secretive of all government-connected installations situated within the confines of the United Kingdom, Porton Down can be found in the green and pleasant county of Wiltshire, and its overwhelmingly-classified work focuses to a very significant degree on exotic viruses, chemical- and biological-warfare.
Although work at Porton Down originally, and secretly, began at the height of the tumultuous First World War, it was not until the dawning of the 1940s that the installation became the central hub for British interest in, and concerns relative to, the expanding realms of chemical- and biological-warfare. From 1946 onwards, one year after the successful defeat of Nazi Germany, Porton Down’s work began to focus more on the defensive – rather than chiefly offensive – aspects of such issues, and in 1957 the installation was duly christened the Microbiological Research Establishment.


By the late-1970s, a decision was made to place the MRE under the control of a civil body. As a result, significant reorganization duly occurred: on April 1, 1979, the MRE became the Center for Applied Microbiology and Research. Then, in 1995, it was absorbed into the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency. Six years later, there was yet another change: DERA split into two organizations, a private body called QinetiQ, and the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, a body steeped in official secrecy, as a result of the fact that it is an arm of the Ministry of Defense. Today, the facility is known as DSTL, Porton Down.
Of course, the idea of dead aliens taken to Porton Down sounds like a conspiracy theorists’ wildest dream come to life. But, despite vociferous attacks from the more skeptically-minded researchers in the UFO research community, it has steadfastly remained an integral part of the story ever since it first surfaced – publicly, at least – in 1996. The original source of the Porton Down story as it specifically related to the Berwyn controversy, was a UFO investigator named Tony Dodd, a now-dead North Yorkshire, England police-sergeant with a quarter-of-a-century of service in the Force to his credit. At the time the account was first revealed, Dodd flatly refused to reveal – to anyone – the real name of the source for his sensational story, and instead preferred to provide him with the pseudonym of James Prescott.
According to Prescott, at the time of the Berwyn incident, he was stationed at an Army barracks in the south of England. Stressing to Dodd that he could not name either his unit or his barracks as they were still very much operational, Prescott said that by January 18, 1974 it was acutely clear that something most unusual was afoot: he and his colleagues were placed on emergency stand-by status. The reason why soon became incredibly apparent. Twenty-four hours later, Prescott’s unit was directed to make its careful, secret way towards the English city of Birmingham.


The team then received orders to proceed with speed towards North Wales, but were halted on the outskirts of the English city of Chester, in readiness for a military exercise they were told was about to take place in the area. Not long after, the orders changed yet again: make your way to the town of Llangollen, North-East Wales. On arrival at Llangollen, recalled Prescott, the unit noticed a great deal of ground-based activity in the area. In addition, military aircraft were soaring across the darkened, mountainous Welsh skies.
Extraordinary events were clearly unfolding at an extremely fast rate. But it was shortly after 11.30 p.m. when things really began to take shape, and Prescott and his colleagues were on the move once more: to the village of Llandderfel. The team soon reached the little hamlet, whereupon they were directed to load two large, oblong boxes into their vehicle: “We were at this time warned not to open the boxes, but to proceed to Porton Down and deliver the boxes.”
A number of hours later, they reached the secret Wiltshire-based facility, and were duly directed to a specific part of the installation. Once inside, explained Prescott, the boxes were opened by staff at the facility in their presence: they contained nothing less than two strange, unearthly creatures that had been placed inside decontamination suits. The staff at Porton then began the careful, daunting task of opening the suits. Prescott said that when this action was complete it was clear to all those present that the entities were not of this Earth. He elaborated:
“What I saw in the boxes that day made me change my whole concept of life. The bodies were about five to six feet tall, humanoid in shape, but so thin they looked almost skeletal with a covering skin. Although I did not see a craft at the scene of the recovery, I was informed that a large craft had crashed and was recovered by other military units.”
Perhaps even more remarkable was what Prescott had to say next. Namely, that shortly after his life-changing experience at Porton Down, he had the opportunity to speak with several colleagues from his own unit, who guardedly informed him they had also transported aliens to Porton Down, but with one amazing difference: “Their cargo was still alive.” And that’s where the Berwyn Mountains story dries up, unfortunately. But the Porton Down/UFO link continues.
In 1999, Nick Pope, who – from 1991 to 1994 – officially investigated UFO reports for the British Ministry of Defense, wrote a novel titled Operation Thunder Child that focused upon a hostile attack on the British Isles by alien entities. When Pope’s book surfaced, rumors proliferated that perhaps he was secretly using the genre of science-fiction to impart startling science-facts. Regardless of whether or not this was the case, in Operation Thunder Child, alien bodies recovered from a UFO crash are secretly taken to Porton Down – precisely the same location where it, was alleged, alien bodies found on the Berwyn Mountains, North Wales were transferred in January 1974.


At the same time that Nick Pope was writing his Operation Thunder Child book, the British Ministry of Defense, in a truly unprecedented and extremely unusual move, gave a huge amount of technical assistance and support to a BBC science-fiction production titled Invasion Earth that dealt with an attack on the planet by hostile alien entities. Inevitably, this led to rumors that it was all part of a less-than-subtle attempt on the part of certain elements of the British Government to get the general public thinking about the possibility of humankind waging outright war against an alien species. Does the MoD know something that the rest of us don’t?
A Ministry of Defense source – who was specifically referred to me directly by Nick Pope – had a number of perceptive comments to make on this particularly odd set of circumstances: “It’s extremely strange,” said the man, “that on the one hand the MoD is publicly so dismissive about UFOs; and yet on the other they bent over backwards to provide assistance to a TV company producing a science-fiction drama which starts with the Royal Air Force shooting down a UFO. Normally, the Ministry of Defense only helps film and TV companies where it believes that significant benefits will fall to the MoD in terms of recruiting, training or public relations. This was the case, for example, with our participation in the James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies. What, one wonders, did the MoD think it had to gain from helping to perpetuate a view that the Royal Air Force were virtually at war with extra-terrestrials? Questions about our participation in this project were raised at the highest level within the Ministry of Defense.”
Most notable of all, in Invasion Earth, a number of aliens retrieved from a crashed and captured UFO are taken to – yes – Porton Down. Are we merely seeing here examples where, for a variety of innocent reasons, the world of book- and TV-based science-fiction had a Ministry of Defense/Porton Down theme running through them? And what of the James Prescott affair? Was Tony Dodd fed real data? Was he merely misled by a Walter Mitty-type character? Or is there a bigger picture concerning Porton Down and UFOs that we aren’t seeing?