Spacing Out! - International UFO Congress recap Day 2 with Micah Hanks
Published on 1 Mar 2013 By openmindstv
Friday, 1 March 2013
Spacing Out! - International UFO Congress recap Day 2 (Video)
UFO News Links For Friday 1st March 2013
Amazing UFO Stories AND Strange UFO Videos: Could Orbs Represent A Time Distortion?
Did UFO ‘hit’ Russian meteorite blasting it to smithereens? – Daily Mail
The Temuka UFO Chase
Phantoms and Monsters: Paranormal Activity, Bigfoot, Mothman, UFOs and Other Unexplained Phenomena
UFO opens its doors to visitors on Saturday – This is Cornwall
Myths in the Sky: The Mysterious Mythos of our Moon | Mysterious Universe
‘UFO sighting’ sparks Internet storm – Eastwood Advertiser
UFOs - scientific research: The Neanderthal shot by the spaceman!
Explanations arise for Yorkville UFO sighting – Aurora Beacon News
The Haunted Skies Project: Haunted Skies end of February 2013
DNA ‘ingredients’ discovered in interstellar space – Science Recorder
Mysterious loud boom heard & felt all over Tucson - Tucson News Now
New book chronicles UFO, yeti sightings around Mt. Shasta – Mount Shasta Herald
Are there UFOs in hidden hangars at Papoose Dry Lake?
UFO sighted near Keighley – Keighley News
The Big Study: WANAQUE 1966, part one: microcosm of UFOlogy
Sight of crash-landed UFO greets Buckhurst Hill schoolchildren – East London and West Essex Guardian Series
Graham Hancock Working on 'Fingerprints of the Gods Part 2' | TDG - Science, Magick, Myth and History
Dead stars may play host to living worlds – NBC News
Could abnormal skull be from an alien? – Houma Courier
Topic: UFO - Today's Guest Kevin Goodman - The Warminster UFO (Video)
Published on 25 Feb 2013 By Topic UFO
UFO Over Longview Texas (Video)
Published on 27 Feb 2013 By EastTexasUFOs
Low-flying Object Videotaped over Vancouver, British Columbia
By UFO Casebook
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Published on Feb 25, 2013 by Charles Lamour
The submitter states:
This is an extraordinary night for UFOs over Vancouver on Monday February 25, 2013. I noticed this object initially with my naked eye just hovering; then started slowly to move downtown Vancouver about 1000 feet up.
It was orange/ amber in color and strobing its own light but very dim. There was noise as it traveled from southwest to northeast unlike what I said. The video is 6 minutes long as it travels very slowly. It is not a not a chinese lantern either.
This was an amazing sighting because I saw it with the naked eye, but was too dim to capture with video.
The crazy thing is that minutes later I captured 2 more videos of 2 more higher up traveling the same direction.
Space Alien Invasion: Science Channel's 'Are We Alone?' Considers ET Confrontation With Earthlings
An alien invasion is headed our way. While it's the stuff of sci-fi books, movies, TV series and hi-tech video games, what if Earth suddenly faced a real threat from out-of-this-world invaders?
How would the human race survive an encounter with an unknown civilization from another world? Even President Ronald Reagan, speaking at the United Nations in 1988, suggested that the countries of Earth would unite over an impending confrontation with an invading species from outer space.
Watch President Reagan's 'alien threat' moment at the United Nations.
The Science Channel is about to unleash a month-long series of special programs all aimed at trying to answer the provocative question that Mankind has always wondered about: "Are We Alone?"
Beginning March 5, four world premiere episodes will feature scientists hunting for alien life, including how humans may respond to a scenario of ETs coming to Earth.
"One idea is that these aliens have left their home world and they're out looking around," according to Hakeem Oluseyi, professor of physics and space sciences at Florida Institute of Technology.
Oluseyi is featured in the Science Channel's first two episodes of "Are We Alone?" in which an alien invasion and its aftermath are depicted. He told The Huffington Post that an alien civilization that has embarked on a very long journey from their world to ours may do it for one of two reasons.
"One reason is they had to leave their home world. The recent Russian meteorite taught us that in order for a species to continue indefinitely into the future, it must develop the ability to leave its home planet. Planets and stars are temporary physical entities and there's a small window of time for any individual planetary surface to harbor life."
Oluseyi suggests the other reason why ETs may come here is because "they're just like us. What I mean by that is that they are intelligent -- they want to find other life and civilizations -- and that would be worth the cost. I think something like that would be a very well planned event."
Watch this trailer for the Science Channel's 'Are We Alone?'
If contact with an alien species is not that far off -- be they invaders or not -- how does Oluseyi think Earthlings will be affected?
"The only thing I can compare it with is an event like 9-11, where suddenly everything stopped and nothing was ever going to be the same again. At that point, you go through a lot of feelings.
"On the other hand, you have a sense of fear of the unknown where you know tomorrow's different, but it all depends on how those moments unfold."
The outer space visitors will land on the Science Channel March 5 in "Alien Encounters: The Invasion." The following week will offer "Alien Encounters: The Offspring."
Then, on March 19 and 26, "Aliens: The Definitive Guide" will explore what science has rapidly begun to learn about potential life beyond our planet on possible Earth-like exoplanets.
Check your local television listings and the Science Channel for more information.
Myths of the Space Age: A Belated Skeptical Book Review
By Micah Hanks
There was a time, many decades ago, at which the UFO enigma was generally taken more seriously, and treated less like a mere subject of interest to a popular audience. This was due mostly to the fact that the presence of such technology, despite the fact that agencies like the U.S. Air Force often worked to conceal whether certain aspects of the ongoing mystery were ever revealed to the public, nonetheless represented something that could present national security risks in the Americas.
In turn, these same existential threats would have had to be applied on a worldwide scale, if the UFO phenomenon had ever proven, conclusively, to be anything but a secret terrestrial technology being employed by various superpowers here on Earth. However, as the history of ufology has shown over time, no definite proof of an extraterrestrial component to the UFO enigma has ever surfaced, despite there being some evidence to support this as a theory.
Thus, the extraterrestrial idea has been largely ridiculed, especially in recent years, by science writers who, after decades of evidence that remains in the category of being “non-proof”, fail to be amazed at the offerings of the UFO community. But this, in truth, is nothing new; in fact, there were popular authors decades ago who, as journalists, seemed to straddle the fence in terms of their interests in subjects like UFOs, often diving into the depths of abject, presumptuous debunking if the circumstances deemed necessary… and among such writers, one had actually become best known for his popular titles that took a more casual approach to the unexplained.
Spanning the years between childhood and my teenage years, I was often very interested in the UFO subject, in addition to other extraordinary claims pertaining to strange, unexplained phenomenon. One individual whose work consistently dealt with such subjects of interest as Bigfoot, ghosts and ancient astronauts was Daniel Cohen, a Chicago native who obtained a journalism degree in Illinois, and went on to become an editor at “one of the large circulation science magazines in New York” (likely Science Digest), according to the author biography featured in a book that will be the present focus of this post: Myths of the Space Age: A Skeptic’s Inquiry Into the Pseudo-Scientific World of Today.
But why, one might ask, do I choose to provide commentary on a decades old book like this (the Tower mass market paperback edition gives no publication date, although it was likely penned around 1968)? My reasoning here is that, while UFOs have become easily relegated to being a watercooler subject in the modern era, existing (supposedly) within an age of digital CGI manipulations and a host of other technologies that enable hoaxing more readily, it is interesting to go back to a time when the UFO mystery was still considered a matter or some importance, and look at the ways that “scientific” thought sought to either explain, or substantiate various phenomenon.
The overall consensus: not much has changed in the past fifty years or so.
“In a book about belief, I think it is best for an author to lay his own prejudices on the table at once,” Cohen begins in the book’s first chapter, “so that the reader can take them into account in evaluating what follows. I am a skeptic.”
And indeed, much like the modern skeptic, Cohen proceeded to bash an belittle the information often cited as credible proof of the existence of such things as astrology, ESP, past lives, and yes, my particular favorite, flying saucers.
Granted, Cohen’s skeptical approach is often very reasonable, and shows that his is a mind well acquainted with the subject matter (he did, after all, author a number of other books that seemed far less scathing with the presentation, and to be fair, I personally recall hearing Cohen say, during a radio appearance I participated in where he was being interviewed years ago, that he considered himself largely to be “a folklorist,” and that his occasional “serious” treatment of occult subjects should be viewed as such.
Within the pages of Myths of the Space Age, there is far less friendly (nor folky) banter about ancient astronauts or spacemen; here, Cohen goes after the subject and, at times, raises some interesting questions regarding the research of previous investigators.
In one notable instance, Cohen goes after a famous 1959 sighting from New Guinea, detailed in Jacques Vallee’s book Anatomy of a Phenomenon, which Cohen had previously reviewed, claiming that there was a lack of evidence documenting the encounter. Interestingly, this would finally lead to the author being sent a copy of a statement from one of the witnesses, which he also dismissed:
“The present writer complained of this lack of documentation in a review he wrote of Vallee’s book, and was assured by saucer enthusiiasts that there was “lots of documentation.” But no one could seem to remember where it was. Finally he was sent what was supposed to be a copy of a letter written by the Reverend Gill himself, which stated that he did see what he said he saw, and he couldn’t understand it any better than the next fellow, and he certainly wished someone would explain it someday. This is hardly adequate proof. But to the true believer it is enough–and he usually settles for much less.”Arguably, Cohen is right in this instance: it’s a shame that no better documentation could be afforded him in such an otherwise compelling story. And in other words, nobody’s word can be taken unto itself, and at face value. The merit of any individual–whether a reverend, or home-wrecker–should be taken as gospel truth.
Toward the end of the chapter where Cohen focuses on UFOs is where we begin to see, yet again, a number of the popular skeptical preconceptions existent today, which debunkers often use in attempts at derailing the claims of UFO witnesses. “It is difficult to grasp that large numbers of honest and intelligent people can be mistaken about what they see,” Cohen writes of the usual defense for witnesses. He then goes on to say that, “Perhaps in the end it will turn out that at least a small number of unexplained sightings have been caused by some as yet unknown natural phenomena, but unless the quality of reported sightings improves radically, the case for extraterrestrial spaceships looks weak.”
Again, while it was widely accepted at the time among ufologists that some varieties of unexplained phenomenon could be extraterrestrial, it often seems, even today, that when a “debunker” comes along, they think that merely arming themselves with an argument stating that, “it ain’t aliens” does enough to disprove flying saucer reports. The gaping hole left in the argument, of course, is that UFOs could be a lot of things without having to be extraterrestrial; and that merely arguing against an ET hypothesis does not “solve,” or for that matter, present any plausible, skeptical “solution” to the UFO mystery.
Interestingly, one of the main writers Cohen criticized, as mentioned earlier, was Jacques Vallee, who would later go on to write in book like Confrontations that he felt an ET hypothesis was lacking in terms of covering all the details existent within UFO research. At times, others such as J. Allen Hynek had also questioned the ET angle to studying UFOs, along with a host of other conventional approaches to UFO research. In other words, if UFOs, for instance, were in large part eyewitness reports of as-yet unidentified government craft, then the casual skeptic who argues against evidence of ETs piloting such craft does little to disprove the existence of UFOs in the broader sense.
Indeed, looking at the “skeptical” treatment of the UFO subject many decades ago (and this coming from a writer, yours truly, who also takes a largely skeptical, but reasonable approach to UFO research) shows that while the debunker of yesteryear was eager to remove the possibility of alien intervention of any kind, this was most often done in complete lack of acknowledgement for the remaining UFO problem. Whatever the phenomenon was that went on to be reported by government employees, pilots, generals, scientists, and an entire plethora of other individuals who, according to Cohen, must have been incapable of producing the sorts of “quality reported sightings” needed for a conclusive determination, is anyone’s guess. And having allowed a few decades to span since then, while I would agree that quality reporting is still a necessity, by now maybe we could also argue that the Roswells and Rendleshams of our day would suffer less criticism from both sides if a more reasonable, all-inclusive brand of skepticism were employed in their study, rather than merely debating whether UFOs are alien or not.