Published on 28 Jun 2013 By openmindstv
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Spacing Out! Ep. 53 - The last batch of official UK UFO files
Update on Area 51 whistleblower Bob Lazar
Alien spacecraft described by Bob Lazar. (Credit: Open Minds Production)
Bob Lazar is best known as the whistleblower that outed Area 51 and its extraterrestrial secrets. He claims to have been an employee there tasked with back engineering alien technology. In a recent email from his company, apparently he is now a science and technology consultant to Raytheon, and his company has contracts with the military.
In 1989, KLAS investigative reporter George Knapp conducted an interview that forever changed UFO mythology. This is when he first interviewed Bob Lazar live for his Las Vegas viewers. Lazar claimed to have worked in a secret underground lab called S4, 8 miles south of the main Area 51 base. Here he says there were several disc-shaped craft that looked as though they had been damaged. He says he was told they were extraterrestrial, and he noted that they appeared to be built for pilots that were small and humanoid.
He started telling friends about his work at the base, and even told them where and when they could view test flights. He and his friends were then busted and he was fired. So the story goes. The Air Force denies his claims. However, upon investigation, Knapp found that another top secret facility, Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) in New Mexico, had Lazar listed in their phone book. Lazar said he had worked there, but LANL denied that claim.
However, other claims by Lazar did not pan out. He said he received degrees from the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, neither of which can be confirmed.
Bob Lazar
For a large part of the 90s Lazar’s claims made big news, and became the bedrock for claims of ET technology being horded by the United States government. This has lead to Area 51 getting the legendary status it currently enjoys, although at the same time it remains a top secret facility.
Lazar left the UFO limelight, and has not spoken on the topic for many years. He started a scientific equipment and supply store called United Nuclear. I contacted them to find out if Lazar would be interested in speaking about his experiences, as next year will be the 25th anniversary of his interviewed with Knapp. I was told:
Sorry, Mr. Lazar no longer involves himself in matters related to the topic of UFOs.I found the response rather interesting, as I am sure you will as well. The only reference to Area 51 I found on the United Nuclear website is this Area 51 style “Restricted Area” aluminum sign. I might pick one up. It is a fun conversation piece considering the source.
He hasn’t followed the topic in about 10 years and does not lecture on anything other than basic science & energy technologies.
His companies are involved in several Military contracts and he is a science & technology consultant to Raytheon weapon systems.
For these reasons he avoids ‘rocking the boat’ and generally keeps his distance from the topic.
United Nuclear restricted area sign. (Credit: United Nuclear)
Topic UFO: Robert Thorson - UFOs Over Fresno
Published on 26 Jun 2013 By Topic UFO
British UFO Document Release Designed to Deflect Public and Media Interest Says Former Ministry of Defence UFO Specialist
By Reuters
WASHINGTON, June 26, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A claim by the
British Ministry of Defence that UFOs have no defense significance is "designed
solely to keep Parliament, the media and the public off our backs," according to
former MoD UFO Desk administrator Nick Pope.
Pope's startling statement was in response
to the MoD's release last week of what it says is its final batch of UFO
documents. Official MoD spokesmen and one self-styled UFO expert, David Clarke, claim
that the MoD found no evidence of a UFO threat to the UK and, therefore, closed
its UFO Desk. The subsequent, widely-publicized declassification of its UFO
documents—the implication being that nothing remained hidden—was intended to
demonstrate the MoD's public transparency on the UFO issue.
In reality, Pope says, "the UK's Freedom
of Information Act contains wide-ranging exemptions covering areas such as
defense, security and intelligence" and the newly-available documents had
already been "judged to be unclassified" before their release.
Regarding David Clarke, Pope says, "Some people
would probably use the term 'useful idiot' to describe his parroting the MoD 'no
defense significance' sound bite."
These and other provocative comments by
Pope have just been published in an article by
UFOs and Nukes researcher Robert Hastings, who discovered a credible UFO
involvement in the famous Rendlesham Forest/RAF Bentwaters case, which occurred
in Suffolk, England.
Hastings interviewed the two U.S. Air
Force air traffic controllers on duty at Bentwaters during a week of UFO
activity there, and the nearby forest, in December 1980, who say they tracked a bona fide UFO on
radar and saw the object hover—it appeared as an orange-colored sphere—before it
raced away.
Hastings says that the UFO later hovered
near the USAF's Weapons Storage Area (WSA), containing tactical nuclear bombs,
and directed laser-like beams down into the facility. Bentwaters' former deputy
base commander, now-retired Col. Charles Halt, first acknowledged the dramatic incident
in 1991, saying that he had heard frantic radio chatter from Security Policemen
at the WSA, describing the UFO and the beams, while he was investigating reports
of strange lights in nearby Rendlesham Forest.
Hastings says, "If the incident at the WSA
actually occurred, and it appears that it did, then UFOs do indeed pose a
defense threat to the UK."
SOURCE Robert Hastings
Kent Senter, Fighting Terminal Cancer, Hosts UFO Conference
This image is from the onboard radar screen of an F-16 jet that was scrambled to investigate UFOs over Belgium in 1990. Gen. Wilfried De Brouwer, who will speak at this weekend's UFO symposium in North Carolina, said at a 1990 press conference that the unknown object over Belgium demonstrated incredible accelerations that could not have been tolerated by humans.
By Lee Speigel
Kent Senter is a man racing against time.
The 59-year-old resident of Burlington, N.C., has terminal multiple myeloma, a cancer that attacks bone marrow. Despite that, this weekend, he'll be focused on the number one item at the top of his bucket list: to organize, sponsor and host an international UFO conference.
It's no easy task. Adding to the daily challenges of his illness, Senter has quickly pulled together an intriguing symposium over the past few months in a competitive climate where, between now and the end of the year, another dozen UFO-related conferences are scheduled around the U.S.
On June 29 and 30, 12 speakers -- with backgrounds in science, military, academia, sociology, investigative journalism, including government officials of Chile and France -- will come together for Senter's 2013 Symposium On Official And Scientific Investigations Of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, at the Greensboro War Memorial Auditorium in Greensboro, NC.
Senter, a former zone manager for the Lowe's home improvement retailer, started having problems with his shoulder in 2007, and after numerous check-ups, was informed he had cancer. Along the way, his cancer was misdiagnosed and Senter ended up with a tumor on his spine that developed into multiple myeloma.
Senter, a former zone manager for the Lowe's home improvement retailer, started having problems with his shoulder in 2007, and after numerous check-ups, was informed he had cancer. Along the way, his cancer was misdiagnosed and Senter ended up with a tumor on his spine that developed into multiple myeloma.
"The doctors gave me six months to three years, but I responded well to the chemo," Senter, seen above with his wife, Patty, told The Huffington Post. "I've been out of remission for about six months now, but I need to start treatments again, so we've got to get to the doctor once this conference is over and decide whether to go with the chemo again or go straight for a stem cell transplant."
Two previous sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in his life -- first at age 10 and later at 33, while living in Durham, N.C. -- shaped Senter's interest and passion about UFOs. The latter encounter involved three yellow, silent hovering circles in a row spotted by Senter. When he shined a flashlight at the objects, clicking it on and off several times, the balls disappeared. They were replaced in the sky by a rectangle of light, which also momentarily hovered before flying away.
A few years later, in 1989, Senter and a well-known UFO investigator, George Fawcett, co-founded the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) North Carolina chapter.
For many years, Senter was frustrated by what he believes is an overwhelming taboo in media and government about UFOs and the ridicule of people who report them. He's always wished he could do something to change that, and he feels blessed that his whole family, including two daughters and two sons, support his efforts.
"It's unbelievable! I've got 110 percent support. I couldn't do any of this without them. Patty is probably the strongest woman I've ever met. She's the most supportive, kind person. I've tried to teach them all to pay attention, look at the details and don't believe everything you hear -- just do the research on it.
"There are so many things I wish I could've gone back to do," said Senter, who is currently on disability. "I would love to have gone to college and taken physics. It's the scientists who will have to get rid of the taboo [surrounding UFOs] and not be scared about [losing] their jobs."
In January of this year, a sizeable settlement from his cancer misdiagnosis finally allowed him to consider putting together his own UFO conference.
"We're a non-profit, and this conference is something that's on my bucket list, to show the serious side of UFOs or UAP," said Senter, who recently founded the Center for UFO Research, or CUFOR. "I just want to get the word out that there's another side to this -- it's not just all kooky and alien head dolls. I've had a lot of vendors call, wanting to set up booths and tables to sell things, and I'm not allowing any of that."
Watch this 1990 TV report, featuring Belgian Gen. Wilfried De Brouwer, one of the key speakers at the North Carolina symposium:
Another key element of this weekend's conference is that there won't be many statements or theories that presume extraterrestrials are already on Earth, communicating with humans.
"I think before you can get on any fringe side or talk about extraterrestrials, you've got to first prove the existence of craft flying there in the first place," said Senter. "You need to take baby steps at this point. Nothing else seems to have worked. If you can at least acknowledge that something's flying up there that our jets can't keep up with, let's go by what we can prove."
When the money became available to Senter five months ago, he was spurred on by Patty to pursue his dream of creating a serious UFO conference.
"I would support Kent no matter what he did," Patty, 54, told HuffPost. "I see him getting worn down because he devotes 150 percent of his energy into what he's doing, so it wears him out and when the pain really kicks in, I can't take it away from him, and that's what breaks my heart. There are certain things that I just can't do. I'm just so proud of him and couldn't be happier to be his wife -- it's just the best thing that ever happened to me."
To help him organize this conference, which he's paying for out of his own pocket, Senter turned to investigative reporter Leslie Kean, author of the New York Times bestseller "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On The Record."
"Kent is really unbelievably inspiring with the amount of work he's done, given the odds and the suffering he's going through. He's doing this conference for all the right reasons with a lot of integrity, because he believes in it. It's sort of like his last wish," Kean told The Huffington Post.
Last September, in Santiago, Chile, at the headquarters of the DGAC (Chile's equivalent of America's FAA), Kean was invited to speak before many active military personnel, university scientists, aviation specialists and foreign attaches -- it was the first time an American had ever been invited to address such high-level people in Chile. (See image below showing Kean in the front row, preparing to speak).
France and Chile are among a growing number of countries that have internal, official agencies which investigate UFOs. The CUFOR conference will present Xavier Passot, a computer scientist who is also the head of France's UFO investigative agency, GEIPAN. Joining Passot to share information about what their countries know about UFOs will be his Chilean counterpart, Jose Lay, the international affairs director of Chile's UAP/UFO investigation agency.
"I'm in charge of trying to establish links and communications with other countries that have the same interest we have on the subject of UAP or UFOs," Lay told HuffPost. "I also participate in the federal investigations with a staff of four people, including our director, retired air force Gen. Ricardo Bermudez [and] a retired former air traffic controller."
In the image above, Lay is seen sitting to Kean's left.
When Lay steps to the podium at this week's UFO symposium, it will be his first time ever speaking in the United States. He adds that, according to the latest survey, 85 percent of the Chilean population believes the UFO/UAP phenomenon is real.
"We have enough reasons, enough evidence, to satisfy us of the fact that the phenomenon exists! It is there and worthwhile investigating. And that's why we have a scientific committee, and they are all skeptical. However, as true scientists, they recognize there is something there that deserves to be investigated."
Senter's roster of speakers guarantees serious UFO discussions at his upcoming conference. In fact, he was surprised when such a high caliber group of people agreed to come to his bucket list event.
"I was shocked! It's unbelievable, and I'm thankful. I just wanted to get this group together. It's important that my children know the truth and what's going on. I would love to have an answer by the government that yes, there's something flying around out there, and to at least get pilots to acknowledge what they see.
"I'd like to see this happen before I pass away. I don't want to have been interested in this and researched all these years and just go to my grave with no answers."
UFO Movie News Round Up
By Robbie Graham
Aliens vs. robots short 'R'Ha' headed for Hollywood
The Hollywood Reporter has it that afeature-length expansion of the recent sci-fi short R’Ha is being developed by producers Rick McCallum (the Star Wars prequels) and Steve Tzirlin (Star Wars: The Clone Wars). The screenplay will be provided by Life on Mars creator Matthew Graham.
The feature film will follow an alien species, the R'Ha, and their quest to defend their race from an invading force. In its original six-minute form (below), R'Hacalls to mind Ancient Astronaut theory – its alien protagonist bearing more than a passing resemblance to depictions of the Egyptian sun god, Ra. The short film took its 22-year-old director Kaleb Lechowski seven months to create. Lechowski will also direct the feature adaptation.
UFO TV: ET Contact and UFO Disclosure / UFOs Reconsidered - Above Top Secret / Beyond Top Secret - Timothy Good
By UFOTVstudios
UFOs Reconsidered - Above Top Secret
UFOs, "Flying Saucers," one of the most enduring pop-culture myths since 1947. Are machines of alien invention really traveling our skies? Or could they be super-secret flying craft of human design from right here on planet Earth? Has the UFO mythos provided convenient distraction for classified aircraft, spawned from World War II technologies, to be tested in plain sight for decades?
The Phoenix Lights: Testing the Waters for Disclosure?
By Taylor Schlacter
Featured in multiple documentaries, the Phoenix lights of 1997 are widely known and renowned as one of the most witnessed UFO events. To this day, there is no sound explanation for what occurred, and it seems like it will stay that way considering how much time has passed and attention lost. The official explanation from military and government authorities was that the lights were test flares being dropped during a military drill.
Nonetheless, the details are not as important to this article as is the following. If one were to accept for a moment the hypothetical scenario in which the massive aircraft was of extraterrestrial origin and did in fact fly as low and as far as it did with so many witnesses watching; what would be the motive?
It is a frequently asked question: why would any civilization with such technological capability want to bother visiting Earth? Would it be to showcase exceedingly advanced technology? Or maybe it would serve the purpose of a message to let our population know that we are being watched rather closely? Or could it be simply a tourist attraction for off-world visitors? There are many possibilities, but my point here is that given the rareness of life in the universe, wouldn’t it be more of a prerogative for advanced civilizations to seek out developing species, rather than avoiding them altogether? Consider humanity and the current state of affairs on our planet, one of the perpetually growing and society-improving aspects of our existence is science.
A huge part of the latter is the exploration of Earth, the discovery of new lands, the documentation of other species (as an aside, new species continue to be discovered on Earth more often than not), etc. Thus it seems it would follow that if humanity became a space-faring civilization, capable of traversing the Milky Way Galaxy, then we would most likely conduct the same methods of science in space as we do now on Earth. That is exploring the environment around us and searching for other forms of flora and fauna. Having this rationale in mind, it doesn’t seem very far fetched to accept that extraterrestrial sentient species, more advanced than us, would be visiting us to conduct similar scientific research, documenting the various developing life forms and civilizations in the galaxy.
Back to the question at hand; were the Phoenix Lights (again assuming that they were of extraterrestrial origin) a plight for some advanced civilization to see if ours is ready to accept the disclosure and revelation of their existence? Some would immediately discount this possibility by pointing to the principle of non-interference/intervention; that any advanced civilization capable of visiting the planets of developing civilizations are not allowed to interfere or intervene in their development.
Even if that is the case, what better way to gauge a population’s state of mind toward a phenomenon than presenting them with a daunting, blatant example of it in plain sight and monitoring the reaction? I will leave that for the reader to contemplate because there are so many different discussions and opinions surrounding this topic. Until next time, watch the skies!