Open Minds UFO Radio with Alejandro Rojas is back!

 

Open Minds UFO Radio with Alejandro Rojas is back! I've added a linked Blog Talk Radio Player to the Open Minds podcast on the side bar of Mac's UFO News. Enjoy!

Jason McClellan has informed me that the old format (video) will not be returning.

New episodes every Monday at 3:00 p.m. PST.
NEXT EPISODE: 4/1/13 – Guest TBA

The side bar player will archive the most recent shows so don't worry if you miss it live!

 

Info on this weeks show:

Joan Bird is the author of a new book titled Montana UFOs and Extraterrestrials. This book critically examines famous UFO events in Montana, including reported contact with extraterrestrials. It draws on recently declassified government documents, historic reports, and first-hand interviews.
Joan holds a Ph.D. in zoology, and worked as a freelance nature interpretation writer. She is now a columnist for Crone Magazine. She is a long time member of the Institute for Noetic Sciences, and will also share her unique perspectives on UFO disclosure and the connections between consciousness and Ufology.
For more information on Joan and her book, visit: Montana UFOs and Extraterrestrials by Joan Bird - Riverbend Publishing - Helena, Montana.

 

About Open Minds UFO Radio

Going beyond the basics… Interviews and discussions with UFO researchers, authors, witnesses, scientists, and others to talk in-depth about issues related to this very real phenomenon. We bring together some of the best minds from multiple disciplines, so that we may put our heads together to try to gain insight into this enigmatic issue.
Host, Alejandro Rojas, has been a UFO investigator/researcher for many years. He served for several years as the Director of Public Education for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). This international organization has hundreds of certified investigators looking into the thousands of reports they receive on a yearly basis. Alejandro has worked with ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, the History Channel, Discovery Channel, CNN, and many more. He has also been interviewed around the world, including several appearances on Coast to Coast AM.

Five Former Members Of Congress Participating In Alien Disclosure Hearing

Published on 26 Feb 2013

 

An event of historical implications will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC from April 29 to May 3, 2013. At that time forty plus researchers and military/agency witnesses will testify for thirty hours over five days before former members of the United States Congress.

The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race will attempt to accomplish what the Congress has failed to do for forty-five years - seek out the facts surrounding the most important issue of this or any other time.

For this reason the motto for the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure is "If the Congress will not do its job, the people will."

This event will be live streamed to the world via the Internet in at least four and possibly five languages. Furthermore, the entire hearing will be filmed as the basis for a forthcoming documentary - Truth Embargo.

The title of this film is fitting as the goal of the Citizen Hearing is nothing less than the end of the extraterrestrial truth embargo this year. The world's people have waited long enough.

Find Out More Here: http://www.citizenshearing.org/

Citizen Hearing Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/CitizenHe...

Paradigm Research Group: http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/

Kidnapped by Aliens: The Pilot Who Vanished During Close Encounter

By Jasper T. Woodsman

On the night of October 21, 1978 Frederick Valentich radioed into air traffic control in Melborne with some strange news. An unidentified metallic craft was toying with his Cessna as he flew over the Bass Strait en route to King’s Island. No one ever saw him or his aircraft again.

It all happened during the largest wave of UFO sightings Australia had ever seen. Over fifty reports were uncovered from the area of Valentich’s disappearance on that day alone. Some reported classic cigar-shaped craft while others saw a “starfish-shaped” object with lights that looked like “silver rain.” Electronic interferance was noted in a number of these reports.
Some witnesses even said they saw a “green light” shadowing Valentich’s aircraft on the night in question (take note of that for later).
Valentich left a looming legacy of his final moments with a this bizzare yet compelling radio transmission:

19:06:14 DSJ [Valentich]: Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet. Is there any known traffic below five thousand?
FS [Flight Services; Robey]: Delta Sierra Juliet, no known traffic.
DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, I am, seems to be a large aircraft below five thousand.
19:06:44 FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, What type of aircraft is it?
DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, I cannot affirm, it is four bright, and it seems to me like landing lights.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet.
19:07:31 DSJ: Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet, the aircraft has just passed over me at least a thousand feet above.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, and it is a large aircraft, confirmed?
DSJ: Er-unknown, due to the speed it’s travelling, is there any air force aircraft in the vicinity?
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, no known aircraft in the vicinity.
19:08:18 DSJ: Melbourne, it’s approaching now from due east towards me.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet.
19:08:41 DSJ: (open microphone for two seconds.)
19:08:48 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, it seems to me that he’s playing some sort of game, he’s flying over me two, three times at speeds I could not identify.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what is your actual level?
DSJ: My level is four and a half thousand, four five zero zero.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet and you confirm you cannot identify the aircraft?
DSJ: Affirmative.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, stand by.
19:09:27 DSJ: Melbourne, Delta Sierra Juliet, it’s not an aircraft it is (open microphone for two seconds).
19:09:42 FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, can you describe the – er – aircraft?
DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, as it’s flying past it’s a long shape (open microphone for three seconds) cannot identify more than it has such speed (open microphone for three seconds). It’s before me right now Melbourne.
19:10 FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger and how large would the – er – object be?
19:10:19 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, Melbourne, it seems like it’s chasing me. What I’m doing right now is orbiting and the thing is just orbiting on top of me also. It’s got a green light [emphasis mine] and sort of metallic like, it’s all shiny on the outside.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet
19:10:46 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet (open microphone for three seconds) It’s just vanished.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet.
19:11:00 DSJ: Melbourne, would you know what kind of aircraft I’ve got? Is it a military aircraft?
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, Confirm the – er - aircraft just vanished.
DSJ: Say again.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, is the aircraft still with you?
DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet; it’s (open microphone for two seconds) now approaching from the south-west.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet
19:11:50 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, the engine is rough-idling. I’ve got it set at twenty three twenty-four and the thing is (coughing).
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what are your intentions?
DSJ: My intentions are – ah – to go to King Island – ah – Melbourne. That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again (open microphone for two seconds). It is hovering and (open microphone for one second) it’s not an aircraft.
FS: Delta Sierra Juliet.
19:12:28 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet. Melbourne (open microphone for seventeen seconds).

These final seventeen seconds of open transmission revealed only a “metallic, scraping sound” on the Melbourne Service Unit’s tape recording. Despite analysis by a former NASA researcher and the Royal Melbourne Institue of Technology, these sounds remain a mystery.

 

Roy Manifold’s Photograph

Many theories have come forward regarding Frederick’s fate. Some suggest suicide (although he was by all accounts a content man), others a faked death to collect on life insurance (yeah, like I’ve never heard that one before), and of course others that he was disintegrated or abducted by the UFO.Frederick’s father, Guido Valentino, actually found some consolation in the abduction theory after his son’s out-of-this-world disappearance. According to the AP, “He hoped his son had been taken by a UFO and had not crashed. ‘The fact that they have found no trace of him presents a possibility that UFOs could have been there.’”
The final piece of this puzzle is the photograph taken by Roy Manifold. He had set up a timelapse camera to capture the sunset off the coast, but found something strange when developed. There appeared to be an unexplained object with an “exhaust cloud” in one of his pictures. According to Roy, these were taken just 20 minutes before Valentich’s last transmission. Experts at an Arizona-based UFO organization analyzed the photos and concluded that the object must be moving at 200 mph, or hovering stationary while the clouds zoomed past at that speed (an equally puzzling feat). Below is an enhanced version of the original photograph, provided for your scrutiny.
Could this be the UFO that kidnapped Frederick Valentich?

Anomaly in Manifold’s photo enhanced

UFO News Links For Tuesday 26th March 2013

 

The Big Study: The Communications Revolution: The End of UFOlogy and Anomalies Studies?

‘Fire ball’ UFO sighting reported outside Houston – KSAT San Antonio

Sky Watcher Films Glowing UFO Disappearing Over Area 51 [VIDEO] | Who Forted? Magazine

Revelation: The world’s first UFO entertainment simulation – Gamasutra

Todd Michael Visits The NM UFO/ Paranormal Forum – Is it all True Series #273 | Truth Seeker Forum

Buzz Aldrin sees humans on Mars by 2035 – The Sheboygan Press

The Scoutmaster's Tale

Disc-Shaped Object Found Moving Over Sydney Skies – IBTimes India

Glowing Orbs Hovering Over New Zealand's West Coast

Mars’ watery past – Times of Malta

Life Could Have Thrived on Mars, but Did It? – Science Now

FBI comes clean on 1950 UFO sighting memo from Washington D.C. chief

By: Jack Dennis

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has come clean on a 63 year old memo from the head of their Washington D.C. office pertaining to UFO sightings.
The memo was associated to a story relayed to four FBI from a third party reporting that an Air Force investigator had reported three “flying saucers” were recovered in New Mexico.
“They [the saucers] were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter,” the memo states. “Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only three feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of a very fine texture.”
“Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed fliers and test pilots.”
In an FBI release on March 24, 2013, the Bureau indicates the story is the single most popular file in their various records released under the Freedom of Information Act.
“Over the past two years, this file has been viewed nearly a million times,” the release stated.
The file is a single page memo from March 22, 1950 from Washington D.C. field office lead Guy Hottel.
Hottel, who died in 1990, addressed the memo to Director J. Edgar Hoover, which was protocol for all FBI memos. The memo was recorded and indexed soon after.
The informant claimed that the saucers had been found because the government’s “high-powered radar” in the area had interfered with “the controlling mechanism of the saucers.”
The memo ends with “[n]o further evaluation was attempted” concerning the matter by the FBI agent.
The FBI said that when their Vault released this information in April 2011, “some media outlets noticed the Hottel memo and erroneously reported that the FBI had posted proof of a UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico and the recovery of wreckage and alien corpses.”
The FBI says they have only occasionally been involved with any investigations of UFO and extraterrestrials sightings, and this particular memo is not new. It was first released publicly in the late 1970s.
There is no connection to the infamous events of July 1947 in Roswell, the FBI says “Hottel memo is dated nearly three years after” that.
“For a few years after the Roswell incident, Director Hoover did order his agents—at the request of the Air Force—to verify any UFO sightings. That practice ended in July 1950, four months after the Hottel memo, suggesting that our Washington Field Office didn’t think enough of that flying saucer story to look into it.”
“Finally, the Hottel memo does not prove the existence of UFOs; it is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated,” explained the FBI release. “Some people believe the memo repeats a hoax that was circulating at that time, but the Bureau’s files have no information to verify that theory.”

1989 - 9Ft Tall Beings Landed In Russia Witnessed By Dozens Of People (Video)

  



Disney and NASA to explore “Goldilocks” planet in new 3D IMAX film

By Robbie Graham

Silver Screen Saucers

 

IMAX Corporation and Walt Disney Studios today announced an agreement to produce and distribute a new epic 3D documentary from veteran IMAX director Toni Myers.

IMAX and Disney previously have worked together on the distribution of a number of high-profile films, including Fantasia 2000 and the recent Oz The Great and Powerful, although this marks the first collaboration between the two companies in a production capacity.

Produced in cooperation with NASA, the upcoming space-themed documentary, which is still untitled, will use IMAX's extremely high-resolution photography and videography to offer "breathtaking, illuminating views of our home planet from space, exploring the astonishing changes that have occurred on Earth in just the past several decades."

The film will also explore "mankind's future on and off the planet... while also travelling light-years to other star systems to ponder the possibilities of 'Goldilocks,' an Earth-like planet." The film is expected to be released in 2015.

Ward Kimball's artwork for
Mars and Beyond (1957)

This will not be the first time Disney has teamed with space scientists to produce a documentary about life beyond Earth. In the mid-1950s the House of Mouse worked closely with famed rocket scientist and aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun on a series of ambitious documentaries about space travel and life in the universe as part of the Disneyland TV series (1954–1958).

The documentaries -- Man in Space (1955), Man and the Moon (1955), and Mars and Beyond (1957) -- were directed by the legendary Disney animator Ward Kimball, who, in his later life, claimed to have been involved in the production of a Disney documentary in the mid-1950s that was backed by the US Air Force and which was intended to acclimate the public to the reality of the UFO phenomenon and alien visitation.

Disappointingly, the Air Force eventually decided to pull the plug on the documentary, which, according to Kimball, was set to feature real UFO footage provided by the military.

NASA also has a history of assisting filmmakers on alien-themed productions. In 1982, NASA helped Steven Spielberg with his classic alien contact movie E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, offering the filmmaker advice on how scientists would likely respond in the event of a real alien contact scenario. This collaboration shaped sections of the movie, including the scene when NASA personnel enter a sealed-off suburban home in search of E.T.

Producer Kathleen Kennedy also asked NASA what sort of planet E.T. might call home. The space agency came up with a “little green planet” populated by “little mushroom farmers.” E.T.’s biology reflected this scenario, said Kennedy – the friendly space creature being “closer to a plant than a biological human being.”

Curiously, NASA also lent its cooperation to the Disney movie Mission to Mars (2000), in which astronauts discover the remnants of an ancient civilisation on the red planet and make contact with one of its alien survivors – although NASA was keen to point out during the end credits that its cooperation and assistance “[did] not reflect an endorsement of the contents of the film.”
 

 

On Writing: Publishing, Strangeness, and the Scrutinizing Mind

By Micah Hanks

“You know, we should write a book together!” We’ve all said it so many times, and while there are about three colleagues (no wait, four of them) with whom I really do hope to co-author books on strange phenomena, it seems that the regular conference attenders, lecturers, bloggers, and bibliophiles alike toss the statement around far more often.
Until the advent of the digital age, the book was once the epitome of the serious researcher’s collected findings. It was not uncommon back in the day for really, really good books to sometimes take years to write, while collaborations with other researchers as I outlined above could take close to a decade of combined reports and observations. As evidenced by the correspondences of late Fortean scholars John Keel and Ivan Sanderson, the two had similarly planned to co-author something, though this would-be odd tome of esoterica never made it past the planning stages. We can only imagine what a Keel and Sanderson collaboration might have ended up being like.
But in the modern day, the accessibility and general availability of knowledge via not just the information found on the web, but also the communication pathways it has opened up have begun to change the way research of all kinds is done. Arguably, this is a good thing, as in my own personal experience, it has seemed to help researchers who come from different areas of interest or academic backgrounds to discover common ground more easily. Thus, there is a bridging of several gaps between not just unrelated fields within study of the strange and unusual, but also between skeptics and the more pragmatic Fortean researchers, as well as laymen writers and journalists and academics. But how will this newfound connectivity influence the publication of books and other materials that deal with the unexplained?
My colleague Scott Alan Roberts and I, while sharing mutual interests, come from very different backgrounds when it comes to the research we do; this, in part, is what helped us decide to launch the Paradigm Symposium event, which seeks purposely to draw experts from very different disciplines and bring them all together in one place to share ideas and present their findings. Scotty, for one, hails from a theological background, having attended seminary in twenties, in addition to working professionally as a family counselor. From an early age, he had been fascinated–if not overtly drawn–to the story of the biblical Moses, which led to his introduction to ancient mysteries and studies of humanity’s ancient history. Thus, with his book The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim, Scotty explored the ancient history of humankind as it relates to the suppositions of modern “ancient alien theories,” though in my opinion, in a very much more scholarly fashion than many popular writers who have broached the subject.

 

“What if the old spiritualities and religions weren’t just legends?” Roberts asks. “What if there was something living and breathing beneath the surface; a tangible interlinking of theology and spirituality, science and myth, inter-dimensionality and cold, hard fact?” For all we know, What Scotty outlines here very well may be the case. We simply don’t know.
My own approach, rather that seeking to understand mysteries such as UFOs through studying ancient history, has more to do with looking at today’s science, and perhaps more importantly, where those trends are headed with regard to science of the future, and filtering the study of people’s alleged sightings of strange unidentified aircraft through the window of technology. Ideally, emerging science of the coming decades, as we continue to advance our understanding of science and the universe around us at an almost greater than exponential rate, will lead to new technological applications within the next two decades, in my mind, that will be instrumental in determining, once and for all, whether there is anything to the ongoing mystery of UFOs.

 

While our approaches seem fundamentally different (perhaps even opposing, from the perspective of some), Scotty and I find that we have much in common. We’re both open minded, but inherently skeptical thinkers, and people who question everything with a healthy dose of scrutiny. Each of us, coming from religious upbringings, questions his own faith, and the actual physical laws that dictate who we are, and how humankind came to exist in this universe. We are sometimes troubled, like any researcher may be, at what the facts may dictate, and often, as with my book The UFO Singularity and Scotty’s follow up, The Secret History of the Reptilians, neither of us take at face value the notion of an ongoing interaction between humankind and our supposed interstellar alien kindred. With my own book, I look very critically at the alien abduction enigma, while Scotty goes after the obvious flaws in logic presented by the likes of conspiracy theorist David Icke, Zecharia Sitchin, and others.
Hence, when we began discussing the co-authorship of an eventual book, the first idea that came to mind wasn’t a lineage of human-alien interaction, nor any speculative endeavor as to how our Reptilian alien overlords may have harnessed intergalactic travel using post-singularity alien nanotech. Instead, we resolved that our best mutual contribution to the world of Fortean publications would be a book that looks at the great schism, as well as the common ground that exists between open minded believers, and their skeptical “opponents” on the opposite extreme.

 

In many instances, Scotty and I have often wondered why “the great debate” really still exists the way it does. After all, in our experience, there seems to be far more common ground between the two sides, at times, than either would care to admit. In other words, in a world where argument and hotly debated facts and opinions riddle our prime-time television networks, there are indeed ”moderates” out there, comprised of academic scientists and laymen, dreamers and doubters, open-minded wonderers and skeptical thinkers, and so forth, who are willing to be open to possibilities, but nonetheless questioning in their approach.
One fine instance of this that has come along in recent weeks is a Media Guide to Skepticism my colleague Sharon Hill of Doubtful News has taken the time to compile and author. Her purpose, as stated at her website, is to “provide a clear, easy-to-read guide about the “Skeptical” viewpoint as subscribed to by many who might call themselves Skeptics or critical thinkers; to distinguish practical Skepticism from the popular use of the phrase “I’m skeptical,” and from those who claim to be “skeptics” regarding some well-established conclusion (such as climate change).”
Immediately, I know there are many out there whose tongues want to race to the back of their mouths and choke themselves merely after seeing the words “skeptic” written at a popular paranormal blog… though I ask you to keep in mind that this is being written by a popular paranormal writer, and one who, upon reading Sharon’s thesis on reasonable, moderate and logic-oriented skepticism, found that he agreed with her on nearly every point she expresses.
Within the context of Sharon’s guide, in addition to talking about what her brand of skepticism actually is, she also takes time to outline, in precise terms, what it isn’t just as well. ”
True skeptics, she writes, aren’t cynics, nor are they simply “disbelievers.” Nor is every skeptic an atheist, an attitude worn more like a badge by many in popular circles that call themselves skeptics. And a skeptic, while questioning the facts, won’t dismiss science or other information that is less convenient to their own ideals or beliefs (which we would call a “denialist” here). Sharon writes:

“The ‘Skeptic’ is often seen as the ‘debunker,’ the ‘downer’, or the ‘balloon buster’. It may appear that way for those who are very attached to certain concepts to which Skepticism is being applied, such as existence of ghosts, Bigfoot or UFOs. Skeptics aren’t skeptical of everything, either. In classical Greek Skepticism, the individual did not commit to stating ‘knowledge’; everything was doubted, there was no certainty. That is not a popular stance today. When we speak of modern Skepticism, we are talking about those who seek the conclusion best supported by current evidence and reason.”

Returning again to my own work, when I spoke this year at the 2013 International UFO Congress, I was very surprised at how warmly I was welcomed by the crowd, despite being perhaps the only speaker all weekend who stood up before the crowd and said, “I have seen no proof, to date, that UFOs represent alien spacecraft from other worlds.” There was one gentleman who, later in the weekend, approached me to say my presentation (and my book, which he admitted to having only thumbed through) lacked content altogether, and that there was “simply no reason to speak about the subject outside the context of extraterrestrials before an audience like this.” I must admit to being a bit amazed at a statement like this; while we certainly have some compelling evidence that some UFO phenomenon could be extraterrestrial technology, I must again state that there is a big difference between “evidence” and “proof.” As Sharon states above, a good researcher has to look at the evidence, and attempt to draw conclusions that are best supported by this evidence, as well as a discerning ability to reason. To me UFOs could thus be a lot of different things, and maybe there’s room for ETs in there someplace just as well. But I can’t prove that… no matter how badly my heart wants it to be true

 

With regard to the discussion with the gentleman I discussed above, I finally agreed to send him copies of my books, free of charge, so that he could at least take my positions more thoroughly into consideration… while he (respectfully, no less) advised that I simply hadn’t drawn the same extraterrestrial component from the equation because I “haven’t been at it as long” as he. To each his own, but we left the discussion as new friends, rather than a pair of ideologues merely intent on clashing.
So what does all this mean, and what does it have to do with modern publishing regarding unexplained phenomenon and fringe topics? Quite simply, it is this: while blogs and online media have fought their way into the exchange of ideas, books will still remain (for some time, at least) perhaps the chief way of expressing the totality of one’s viewpoints, or the collected summation of a few. And while some view it as an ongoing argument, what I’m beginning to see out there is, at least in appearance, a greater number of “believers” and “skeptics” who are willing to work together, share ideas, and allow their work to influence one another.

 

Yes, at times there is (and I would maintain that there must be) a place for reasonable speculation–even in the absence of facts–because only in this way, at times, can theories and hypotheses be formulated, tests and experiments be designed, and final, scientific truths be discerned about various phenomenon. On the other extreme, paranormal researchers might do well to take a few steps back, and look at the bigger picture of what the call their worldview, and ask how much of it is truly substantiated by facts; perhaps one reason we’ve seen so little of this over the last few decades is because, sadly, much of what I discuss about publishing and books also influences people’s reasons for selling them: a controversial subject will sell much better than a bold (and even, at times, a boring) truth. And hence, albeit not maliciously, some researchers may quite easily delude themselves into believing certain things they’ve dedicated years and years of their lives to. It’s hard to step off the block once you’re so high up, and yes, it might hurt your book sales.

But in the coming years, I’ll be eager to see what kinds of books will begin to appear in the Fortean markets that deal less with conventional approaches to the unexplained, and have more to do instead with new, innovative approaches to studying strange phenomenon; perhaps in a less biased way that in years past, and while a bit more skeptical, this approach could at once lend itself to opening even more exciting possibilities than ever before.
In fact, this sounds so exciting, I may just have to write a book about it.