Beyond Disclosure – the Exopolitical Paradox,” with Guest, Executive Director of Paradigm Research Group (PRG), and Host of DisclosureWire Podcast, Stephen Bassett; and Musical Guest, Internationally Acclaimed Singer / Songwriter, Chris Pierce on The LIFE CHANGES Show – Ep #623
Guest: STEPHEN BASSETT; and Musical Guest: CHRIS PIERCE
STEPHEN BASSETT
Stephen Bassett is the executive director of Paradigm Research Group (PRG) founded in 1996 to end a government imposed embargo on the truth behind extraterrestrial related phenomena. He has spoken to audiences around the world about the implications of “Disclosure” – the formal confirmation by heads of state of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. He has given over 1200 radio and television interviews and PRG’s advocacy work has been extensively covered by national and international media including being featured on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
In 2013 PRG organized a “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure” at the National Press Club in Washington. In November of 2014 PRG launched a two year political initiatives out of Washington, DC that injected the ET issue into the 2016 presidential campaign. PRG recently launched a new exopolitical podcast out of Washington, DC – the DisclosureWire – based in the National Press Building two blocks from the White House.
Bassett has appeared in many documentary films and his lectures and interviews are well represented on YouTube.
On episode 196 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we are joined by first-time guests, Luis Elizondo and Sean Cahill. In 2017, the New York Times published a story that exposed a highly secretive Pentagon unit that studied UFOs. It was known as AATIP, The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. It was directed by a man named Luis Elizondo, a former Special Agent and senior counterintelligence officer for the Department of Defense. After leaving the program, Elizondo helped facilitate the release of three videos taken by Navy pilots of unidentified aerial objects, which were officially released by the Department of Defense and acknowledged as genuine unknown aerial phenomena. One of the cases Elizondo investigated while in the Pentagon and one of the videos he would subsequently help release, was from an event known as the Nimitz UFO incident.
For several days in November 2004, a Navy missile cruiser sailing around 100 miles off the coast of southern California detected strange radar signals emanating from an object. The Navy then deployed fighter jets to catch a closer glimpse and one succeeded in recording a video of what is now known as the Tic Tac UFO. Dozens witnessed the UFO activity that day. And one of those witnesses was Chief Master-at-Arms, Sean Cahill. Today, we speak to both Luis Elizondo and Sean Cahill about where they've been, what they've learned, and where they're going next.
The USS Kidd was among the warships reportedly swarmed by "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" in July 2019.
By Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
Mysterious flying objects repeatedly harassed three US warships off the coast of California in 2019 — at one point matching the speed and bearing of one destroyer for 90 minutes, according to newly released details from the ships’ logs.
The unidentified crafts, described in the logs as “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” buzzed three destroyers for several days, according to records obtained by the news site The Drive through the US Freedom of Information Act.
As many as six of the drones swarmed around the USS Kidd, USS Rafael Peralta and USS John Finn over several days in July 2019, at times performing “brazen” maneuvers, the report said.
“Kidd reported UAV overhead,” one of the ship log entries from July 14, 2019, reads.
“White light identified hovering over ships flight deck,” said another entry.
“Two UAV’s spotted off the starboard wing,” the Rafael Peralta log read, followed by another entry six minutes later: “Four UAV’s spotted off the starboard bridge.”
The Navy vessels, which are equipped with sensors, radar, thermal imaging and electro-optical systems, were nonetheless unable to track the drones when they disappeared.
On July 15, 2019, the ships contacted the cruise ship Carnival Imagination, which was sailing nearby, to determine if the crafts were from there.
The crew of the cruise ship said not only were the drones not theirs — but could see five or six of them flying around the Navy destroyers, Forbes said in a report.
The sightings took place while the warships were engaged in military exercises about 100 miles off the coast of Los Angeles — well beyond the range of commercial drones.
The incident prompted an investigation by the Navy, Coast Guard, FBI and other agencies, Forbes said, but failed to come up with an answer.
Details of the mysterious incident were first reported by Dave Beaty, who posted about it on Twitter in June of last year, Forbes said.
The revelation is just the latest report of unexplained crafts buzzing around the sky.
In a report earlier this month, a former national intelligence official said a forthcoming government report will reveal “difficult to explain” evidence surrounding UFO sightings — including that they have been known to break the sound barrier without a sonic boom.
Last month, the FBI confirmed that it had received a report from an American Airlines pilot who reported a “long cylindrical object” over New Mexico at 37,000 feet.
In November 2019, reports surfaced of a similar incident in 2004 involving the USS Princeton off the coast of California — with the Navy allegedly trying to delete the details.
To mark UFO Week on BLAZE, we spoke to two experts in the field: Philip Mantle, the director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association; and Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator with years of service in the government.
The channel undertook a survey of 2,000 UK adults on matters regarding extraterrestrial and unidentified aerial phenomena, with some staggering results. For example, 11% of respondents believe they’ve seen a UFO.
Responding to the figures, Pope told UNILAD, ‘It’s a proper regular opinion poll just as you would ask on any subject. If you extrapolate those figures, that’s millions of sightings. So that’s incredible.’
While there’s any number of famous cases one could cite, whether it’s Roswell, Tehran or Rendelsham Forest, Pope says the ones he found ‘extremely troubling were ‘all of the near-misses between UFOs and commercial aircraft… when it’s pilots, military personnel, police officers, when you’ve got things simultaneously tracked on radar, that gets my attention.’
Earlier in 2020, the Pentagon officially released three declassified videos of UFOs, immediately becoming a worldwide talking point and going on to spark an impending report from US intelligence agencies as part of the COVID-19 relief bill – this is because ‘the Intelligence Authorization Act wasn’t going to get through, so they piggy-backed it onto a bill they knew was going to pass’, Pope said.
UFO sightings have been common for years, but interest has only increased thanks in part to pop culture, but also due to developments like the Mars rover searching for life, or The New York Times covering the Pentagon clips. ‘It’s traditionally a very sceptical publication when it comes to UFOs… I think it was a turning point really,’ Mantle explained.
According to 52% of the respondents, panic and fear would be the dominant reactions if aliens were proven to be visiting Earth. Mantle, who has spoken to people who’ve experienced close encounters of both the third (contact) and fourth (abduction) kind, says experiences ‘depend on the individual’.
Discussing the research for his book Without Consent, Mantle said, ‘A number of people said they wholeheartedly believe it was beings from another world, others said they thought it was some kind of spiritual experience, others just didn’t know.’
He spoke about a man from Wales called David Thomas ‘who was frightened to death at the time, and continued to be scared for some years afterwards. David was so scared he went for hypnotherapy, because he had nightmares about it’.
Mantle said, ‘It’s fear of the unknown. It can be scary, yes, because these experiences, whatever they are, happen to anyone, at any place, at any time, so it’s not something you can predict, it’s not something you can protect yourself against. You can’t wear a crucifix so the vampires won’t get you, or a clove of garlic. But to the best of my knowledge, nobody’s been physically harmed by these encounters.’
He added, ‘I think the terrifying part of it is the lack of control. You have no control over these encounters. And even the sceptics think these encounters happen, they think there’s a psychological explanation. Well, if there is, it’s still a subject worthy of study.’
As for whether Pope has seen any UFOs himself, despite investigating so many sightings, ‘Sadly I’ve not seen anything, but I live in hope. I think it’s about time. I’ve spent years investigating this for the government, and I see my role now as a communicator on this issue.’
Some government agencies are standing in the way of efforts to catalog reports of “unidentified aerial phenomenon,” Politico reports, citing several current and former government officials.
Back in 2017, reports emerged of a secretive Pentagon program that was tasked to look into unexplained UFO sightings in military airspace. Several of these incidents were caught on video, and in January, the CIA declassified every file it claims to have on these sightings.
But government employees tasked with looking into the incidents are now claiming that agencies are not releasing relevant information, in some cases resisting the release of any classified information.
And it’s not just active resistance.
“Just getting access to the information, because of all the different security bureaucracies, that’s an ordeal in itself,” Christopher Mellon, a former Pentagon intelligence official, told Politico.
In August, the Pentagon established a special Navy-led “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force” to look into these reports — but it hasn’t made much progress.
“I know that the task force has been denied access to pertinent information by the Air Force and they have been stiff-armed by them,” Mellon added.
A Pentagon spokesperson declined to “publicly discuss the details of the UAP observations” with Politico.
The task force will likely have to delay delivering its report to Congress, which could make it look like the government is trying to hide what it knows — even if the evidence ultimately turns out to be underwhelming.
“We have to try to know what it is,” senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Fox News this week, noting that the task force will likely blow past its June 1 deadline. “I can tell you it is being taken more seriously now that it ever has been.”
Former US President Donald Trump asked for a report into "unidentified aerial phenomena", with the results set to be published in June. It may trigger a huge debate on UFOs.
2021 is set to be the year of the UFO thanks to Donald Trump's out of this world legacy to lift the lid on alien activity.
He may have left office in a storm of controversy but he could be remembered light years into the future as the first US President to take ETs seriously.
One of his final acts was an order in the Covid-19 relief bill for the director of national intelligence to submit a report into "unidentified aerial phenomena" or "anomalous aerial vehicles" – aka, flying saucers.
When the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies release the data in June it is set to trigger a global debate on unidentified flying objects. Highly-regarded business magazine Forbes predicts the planet is about to experience the "year of the UFO".
The ex-President's former director of national security John Ratcliffe said the report will include previously unknown sightings from "all over the world".
Part of the mission is to determine if any unexplained objects sighted have links to adversarial foreign governments and the threat they pose to US military assets and installations.
The US set up a £16million advanced aerospace threat identification programme inside the Pentagon in 2007 to probe mysterious craft.
Though officially disbanded in 2012 it was said to have continued its work.
Former military intelligence official Luis Elizondo, who ran the Pentagon programme until 2017, said: “For the first time the government is finally taking this topic seriously. The evidence is overwhelming at this point.
"We're dealing with some very advanced technology that, from a national security standpoint, is very significant. I don't think this is a US phenomenon. It is a global phenomenon. Is it a threat? My response is, it could be, so we'd better find out what it is.''
US astronomer Avi Loeb said all sightings should be properly investigated. "It shouldn't be a matter of national security but a matter of science", he said.
“Let's get to the bottom of this.”
Videos captured by three US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighters and released last year (2020) showed UFOs moving at incredible speeds and performing seemingly impossible manoeuvres.
One was shot in 2004 and the others in January 2015.
In the two later clips, US Navy pilots can be heard expressing disbelief at what they were witnessing.
Drafted Pentagon reports are said to include a photo of a silver cube-shaped' UFO emerging from the ocean and soaring through the sky captured from his cockpit by a military pilot on his mobile phone in 2018 off the US east coast.
Another extremely clear' snap reportedly shows an unidentifiable triangular aircraft emerging from the ocean in front of a Hornet fighter pilot.
The reports are also said to contain an admission that extraterrestrial origins for the objects cannot be ruled out.
Marco Rubio, vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said: “My thing is very simple – we don't know what that stuff is that's flying over the top of our installations. Let's find out.”
‘ET Embassy Day’—each year slated to take place on the first Saturday of April—Raelians worldwide will, once again, intensify their awareness campaign and invite the public to join and contribute to this unique endeavor sponsored by the International Raelian Movement.
“Our goal is to have the United Nations adopt an addendum to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations entitled ‘Optional Protocol concerning Embassies for Extraterrestrials,” explained Daniel Turcotte—Raelian Guide and Head of the International Raelian Movement Embassy Project.
“The UN Secretary-General’s office explained that the Secretary-General will open a debate on the issue only if asked by a sufficient number of UN member states ambassadors,” added Turcotte.
Turcotte also explained that Raelians are launching an international awareness campaign to motivate citizens of all countries to send an e-letter to their respective UN ambassador requesting that they present the case for the ‘Optional Protocol concerning Embassies for Extraterrestrials’ to the UN General Assembly. The hope is to be compelling enough for them to hold an international diplomatic conference to discuss that optional protocol drafted and submitted by Raelians.
It is noteworthy that ‘ET Embassy Day’ also comes in the midst of a renewed interest in the UFO phenomenon with the ‘UFO Disclosure Report’ slated to be released this coming June by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force (UAPTF). The official confirmation made by the US Department of Defense last year, to the effect that some UFOs are likely to be of extraterrestrial origin, gives an even greater significance to the ET Embassy Day project.
According to recent polls conducted in many countries and in 15 different languages, more than 60% of the global population believes that life exists on other planets and they would welcome an official contact.
“As a response to the demands of their citizens regarding the ‘Optional Protocol Concerning Embassies for Extraterrestrials’, we believe the UN General Assembly will, sooner or later, be left with no other alternative than to discuss the necessary diplomatic arrangements for humanity to welcome this extraterrestrial civilization to Earth,” Turcotte added. “And if the UN doesn’t take the lead, then the countries we are already in discussions with certainly will. We will happily work with these enlightened nations to identify the best possible location for the Embassy Project,” he concluded.
While we wait and wait for the United States government to release their unclassified report on UFOs that was requested by the Senate Inteligence Committee, a treasure trove of pilot encounters with UFOs were recently uncovered in a database of aviation incident reports maintained by NASA.
That report, by the way, was supposed to cover items such as how the data is collected and processed, how it is shared, and what threats or risks have been identified, and was supposed to be submitted to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees within 180 days of the bill being approved. That was in June of 2020. What’s the delay?
In the meantime, Micah Hanks over at The Debrief conducted his own research which revealed several NASA incident reports involving UFOs.
In an investigation by The Debrief, several incident reports we obtained that were filed with the NASA-maintained Aviation Safety Reporting System reveal pilot close encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena, more commonly known as UFOs, spanning several decades. A number of the incidents involve observations by pilots and crew members of what appeared to be unrecognized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or other unidentified flying objects operating within unsafe distances from their aircraft, raising concerns about the risks they may pose to aviation safety.
The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) functions as the Federal Aviation Administration’s voluntary confidential aviation safety incident and situation reporting network. According to a Program Briefing featured at its website, the ASRS is “an important facet of the continuing effort by government, industry, and individuals to maintain and improve aviation safety.” Designed to collect and analyze safety incident reports related to all aspects of aviation, the ASRS maintains an online database described as “a public repository which serves the FAA and NASA’s needs and those of other organizations world-wide which are engaged in research and the promotion of safe flight.”
The program has its origins in a fatal incident that occurred on December 1, 1974, involving the crash of TWA Flight 514. The flight had been inbound to Dulles Airport under turbulent, cloudy conditions when the plane accidentally descended below the minimum safe altitude, and crashed into a Virginia mountaintop. The crash resulted from a misreading of an approach chart, which the crew aboard TWA Flight 514 had interpreted differently from flight controllers at nearby Dulles.
The very lengthy and detailed summary of The Debrief’s investigation of NASA’s aviation incident reports database uncovered several stories from pilots who had mysterious encounters with UFOs, including one who saw what he says appeared to be a small aircraft, moving at a high rate of speed.
“[W]e watched it skimming over the tree tops below and to the right of our flight path. It was moving at a fast speed southwest toward Windham High Peak,” the pilot stated in his incident report. “It had a very sparkling appearance like sun shining on a mirror with rainbow colors.”
He continued, “As we watched the UAV I banked to the left [and] the UAV turned around and came toward us at a high rate of speed.”
The pilot was now on what appeared to be a collision course with the craft.
“As I got 3/4 of the way through the turn [the object] was within 50 yards of my right wing, [and] quickly got in front of me and followed me around the turn getting closer until it was off my left wing, probably no more than 25-30 yards away,” he stated.
After getting a good look at the UFO, the pilot said the craft was around six feet tall, and between two and three feet wide, was “extremely radiant” on top with a black half sphere under the radiant top and what appeared to be an antenna under the half sphere.”
“As it got off my left wing, my passenger looked up and saw two more UAVs come out of the cloud directly over us,” the pilot continued. “At that point I told my passenger we were returning immediately to the airport, [and] I pushed the nose down and picked up speed. The UAVs then headed to the west at a fast speed.
“We could not see any kind of wings, rotors, or form of propulsion.”
That encounter is just one of many uncovered by The Debrief during their investigation.
Another incident report filed by a different pilot who witnessed an object approximately five miles away that closed on his aircraft at astronimical rate of speed, and “estimated the closure took less than a minute and as he accelerated his aircraft away from the craft it followed, maneuvering at a speed much [higher] than his.”
There also reports of more near midair collisions with UFOs, as well as reports of pilots’ encounters with several “mystery missiles.”
On episode 203 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan is joined by author, researcher, and archivist, David Marler. Marler is best known for his prolific work in compiling reports on the highly mysterious black triangles, having amassed and reviewed over 17,000 case files. We hear about some of the most intriguing reports he's come across, and we also get the inside story on Marler's work with the History Channel series, Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation. Marler also shares his newest endeavor in obtaining a massive collection of the original Project Blue Book files, the CUFOS files, and his work in digitizing them for future generations. Marler wraps up by answering listener questions, and also joins us for an exclusive bonus episode over on Patreon where he shares the terrifying story of a child who was severely burned by a UFO.
Russian firm Aerosmena's plans to build enormous cargo airships may be more than just hot air.
By Chris Young
Russian airship manufacturer Airship Initiative Design Bureau Aerosmena (AIDBA), also known as Aerosmena, is aiming to launch a saucer-shaped, 600-ton payload airship in 2024.
Originally led by experienced Russian aircraft designer Orfey Kozlov (who sadly passed away due to COVID-19 last year), the firm's cargo airship will be capable of carrying out loading and unloading operations on the field regardless of ground infrastructure. This means no need for ports, roadways, airports, or runways. It will even be able to hover over terrain and retrieve cargo using a pulley system.
Aerosmena's airship can pick up cargo from a hovering position
"The transportation of goods using such [a design] is carried out according to a simple door-to-door scheme, which will help to [reduce] costs for logistics and warehouses," Aerosmena CEO Sergei V. Bendin said in an emailed statement with Interesting Engineering.
Bendin also notes that the cost of a flight hour using the Aerosmena cargo ship would be "about an order magnitude lower than that of a transport aircraft."
Saucer-shaped design for easier crosswind landings
As for that UFO flying-saucer shape, Aerosmena says it will make the giant airship easier to maneuver and land in crosswinds than other airship projects that use a more traditional elongated hull shape.
This efficient design would be key during cargo missions in areas and terrains that are difficult to reach for traditional aircraft. The airship could help to put out forest fires and deliver payloads to mountainous terrain.
The airship's design also includes two gas chambers to provide lift. For the 600 ton model, 620,000 cubic meters of helium will be utilized for practically "zero" buoyancy. A large cavity filled with air heated to 200 degrees Celsius (392 Fahrenheit) by the exhaust of eight helicopter engines is responsible for lifting the payload.
Aerosmena plans to make different models with different capacities ranging from 20 to 600 tons and a range of up to 8,000 km (4,970 miles) reaching speeds of up to 250 km/h (155 mph).
Bendin says the firm aims to first build the 60-ton version of their airship, after which "an engineering assessment of [its] flight performance will be carried out in order to [then] create air platforms with a carrying capacity of 200 and 600 tons."
Bendin added that a future passenger version would even be capable of "round-the-world travel in luxury flying hotel conditions."
If all goes well, giant saucer-shaped cargo ships could soon be seen riding the winds over large cities. Especially considering Aerosmena isn't the only company working on giant airships. For example, Google co-founder Sergey Brin's airship company is developing an enormous model.
The Aerosmena project might sound like it's overstretching on the promises a little, but maybe someday we'll all be vacationing across the globe in UFO-like airships that can also save the day like Superman.
Jo Wood believes aliens are real and they are here
By SEBASTIAN KETTLEY
UFO enthusiasts and model Jo Wood is obsessed with "all things alien" and even claims to have witnessed unexplained UFO phenomena on at least three different occasions.
Jo Wood, 66, counts herself among a sizeable group of showbiz alumni who believe alien life is somewhere out there among the stars. The obsession has spawned the Alien Nation podcast, where she interviews fellow UFO enthusiasts, including actor Dan Akroyd and singer Robbie Williams. Jo's UFO mania kicked off in earnest more than 20 years ago while on holiday in Brazil.
She was travelling across South America in 1998 with her two children and then-husband Ronnie Wood of Rolling Stones fame.
Unbeknownst to them, a short stay in the town of Recife on Brazil's northeast coast would coincide with a "sausage-shaped craft" passing over the sea.
Jo recalled how on the night before they were due to leave, Ronnie shouted "Jo! Jo! Come here - there are some weird lights over the sea!"
She then saw a bizarre object pass over the water, with lights beaming from underneath it.
The pair watched the UFO glide upwards before it stopped and set off again "faster than you can imagine".
The following day, the model claimed the local press was abuzz with the UFO sighting.
And as it would turn out, this was going to be the first of three supposed UFO encounters over the years.
Jo recalled the bizarre story to Vicki Power in The Telegraph.
She said: "That UFO sighting in Recife with Ronnie was the most amazing thing I’ve seen and I’ve since become obsessed with all things alien.
"It motivated me to start my podcast, Alien Nation, where I interview people – including Robbie Williams and Dan Aykroyd – about their UFO encounters; we’re just getting people together for a second series."
Her second UFO encounter took place in France sometime later.
Jo was on tour with the Rolling Stones at the time and the group saw something unusual zip by in the sky.
Frontman Mick Jagger at first dismissed the object as a satellite but Jo said "we weren't all convinced".
And the third encounter took place again in South America in the late 1990s while Jo was flying over a deserted coastline in a tour plane.
She recalled seeing a "fluorescent green orb" with her son, Tyrone, which approached the plane.
This encounter supposedly happened at an altitude of 36,000ft.
Jo said: "Since childhood, I'd been hearing about spaceships and UFOs but seeing one was an eye opener.
"It made me think how vast the universe must be and that we are not the only beings here.
"There must be civilisations out there that have lived longer than us and have technology our wildest dreams."
Jo is not the only high-profile celebrity to actively pursue an interest in UFOs.
Former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge famously helped set up the To The Stars Academy, which collects data on UFO sightings and reports.
Earlier last year, the musician said: "I've been brought into a group of people and I'm a big part of a mechanism that is absolutely profound and already started changing the world. And it's going to do a lot more."
An eagle-eyed viewer who was watching the live feed from the International Space Station came across two 'white orbs' zooming past the astronaut, before they eerily slowed down and changed direction.
An International Space Station astronaut appeared to be completely unaware as two strange unidentified objects appeared behind him.
The UFOs were hurtling in space and he remained oblivious, even when one of the mystery items appeared eerily close.
However, that didn't spot eagle-eyed viewers from seeing the UFOs when the astronaut was completing tasks out in the deep vast space.
A man from Florida was watching the live feed from the ISS earlier this month, on March 16, when he spotted the two objects.
The spaceman was out completing a routine walk while carrying out repairs to the station and was attached with a tether to ensure his safety.
The astronaut had no idea that the objects were travelling at high speed behind him
Then, at one moment, near the left of the camera feed, the first white object moves across the screen, with Earth stationed below.
It moves across the screen in a matter of mere seconds before it seems to slow down, change direction and disappear.
The second object is moving at a greater speed and is easy to miss at first glance, but is zooming along below the initial UFO.
What makes these UFOs eerily different from regular space debris, is that the objects stop.
The first object, which is travelling faster, begins to slow down and gently changes direction in a swooping motion.
It's believed that they resemble a white orb, with both having common features like their shape and colour.
Some have said the mystery objects look similar to the ones that were seen by witnesses down on Earth.
Viewers were astounded by the footage and took to the comment section to reveal their own hypothesis.
One wrote: "It appears to be intelligence gathering."
A second added: "These videos finally stumped my sceptical wife. It's a beautiful thing."
But others admitted they had seen white orbs themselves, in various locations across the globe.
A woman penned: "I've seen those 'white orbs' over the ocean on the California central coast, it was several months ago."
Another said: "I have seen the same thing in mainland England last September, the orbs were investigating the chemtrail from a recent aircraft."
The public got a first chance to hear from those collaborating on the 2021 UFO Festival at a stakeholders meeting Friday at the Roswell Recreation and Aquatic Center.
About a dozen people — several representing MainStreet Roswell and the hospitality industry — attended the event Friday afternoon in the gym, which allowed for social distancing.
Stephanie Mervine, the city’s tourism director, and Juanita Jennings, director of public affairs, were on hand to help with questions and discussion, while the co-founders of the company contracted by the city to manage the festival attended virtually.
Matt Spencer and Robert Chapman founded In Depth Events in 2017 after working events in the Dallas area for about 12 years.
The company has managed a variety of large events from political events for both parties to municipal events like the UFO Festival and last year produced 22 hybrid graduations.
The duo said planning an event like the UFO Festival during a pandemic, not knowing what the public health order will be in July, does present challenges. The festival is planned for July 2-4. Spencer and Chapman were in Roswell in January to visit with city officials and business owners.
While specific plans weren’t discussed at the meeting, the city and In Depth are proceeding with plans for in-person events, Jennings said.
One thing is certain, and that will be a virtual component to the festival, Chapman said.
“In a post-COVID world, there are certain trends that are already coming out. Virtual events are here to stay. There will always be a virtual component to every large event,” he said.
The company is also working on the logistics of the festival such as security and safety with the police department, fire department and ambulance service.
“With anything, prior planning prevents poor performance, and we’re really good at those types of events, making sure everything happens. Everything from making sure the right bottles of water are there in addition to trucking, logistics, hotels, audio, vendors, all the little parts and pieces that make up an event of this size,” Chapman said.
It was the size the event was becoming that prompted MainStreet Roswell to step away from managing the festival, which it had done since 2014, Kathy Lay, executive director of MainStreet Roswell, said.
“MainStreet is a nonprofit whose whole mission is to support the downtown vitality. The festival had grown to the point that it wouldn’t fit within our district any longer and be successful,” she said.
MainStreet Roswell will still have some partnership with the city as it conducts its own events, dubbed AlienFest, Lay said.
“By letting the city take over the overarching city-wide events, we have more time for our volunteers, our eight-member board, to just focus on doing activities downtown during the day that help drive foot traffic into businesses,” Lay said.
Both Lay and Jennings said that doesn’t mean the city won’t support MainStreet and the downtown businesses.
“We’re hoping the partnership that we have with MainStreet will let them focus on their district and then we’re going to support and collaborate in the district too,” Jennings said.
The city’s visitor center downtown will have activities and the city’s animal shelter will have an adoption event downtown, Jennings said.
MainStreet Roswell has a website for its AlienFest at ufofestivalroswell.com, while the city plans to launch its website, ufofestival.com, on April 1.
Spencer and Chapman of In Depth Events will be in Roswell again at the end of March and will give a presentation to the City Council’s Finance Committee on April 1.
An attendee wears an alien mask at the gate of Area 51 as an influx of tourists are expected, responding to a call to 'storm' the secretive U.S. military base, believed by UFO enthusiasts to hold government secrets about extra-terrestrials, in Rachel, Nevada, September 20, 2019
(photo credit: JIM URQUHART/REUTERS)
By HADASSAH BRENNER
Former DNI John Ratcliffe explained that such "sightings" are "talking about objects... that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain."
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe gave a preview of the classified information that will be released to the public regarding unexplained aerial sightings, in an interview with Fox News on Friday.
Ratcliffe explained that such "sightings" are "talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, and traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom."
Sensors and satellites across the globe have picked up signals that cannot be explained and many of these phenomena have been kept from the public. Ratcliffe claimed intelligence agencies have quieted the information, hoping to publicize the sightings when there are proper explanations that are accessible and understandable to the public.
A more detailed report will be released in accordance with the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, which was passed by the Senate in 2020. The bill shockingly demanded that the director of national intelligence "Submit a report within 180 days of the date of enactment of the Act, to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena (also known as 'anomalous aerial vehicles'), including observed airborne objects that have not been identified."
The report will include all data found through "geospatial intelligence, signals intelligence, human intelligence and measurement and signals intelligence." Classified information held by the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force and the FBI will be included as well.
"It is truly a historical moment when you have the United States government and multiple agencies in the organization coming forward and saying that the videos are not only real, but they are truly unidentified aerial phenomena," said former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program Luis Elizondo regarding the report's significance, when the bill was written last year.
The act to reveal previously classified UFO and extraterrestrial sightings comes after former president Donald Trump's creation of the Space Force as the fifth branch of the US armed forces.
Responding to Trump's interest in space intelligence, former Israeli space security chief Haim Eshed explained in an interview with Yediot Aharonot late last year that the US and Israel have both been dealing with aliens for years.
Eshed insisted that Trump is aware of extraterrestrial life and that he was "on the verge" of disclosing its existence. However, the alien "Galactic Federation" reportedly stopped him from doing so, saying they wished to prevent mass hysteria since they felt humanity needed to "evolve and reach a stage where we will... understand what space and spaceships are," Yediot reported.
With the coming release of the DNI's report and Ratcliffe's exciting disclosure, the question now arises: Will we finally uncover the existence of UFOs and aliens?
A more detailed report will be released in accordance with the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, which was passed by the Senate in 2020. The bill shockingly demanded that the director of national intelligence "Submit a report within 180 days of the date of enactment of the Act, to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena (also known as 'anomalous aerial vehicles'), including observed airborne objects that have not been identified."
The report will include all data found through "geospatial intelligence, signals intelligence, human intelligence and measurement and signals intelligence." Classified information held by the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force and the FBI will be included as well.
"It is truly a historical moment when you have the United States government and multiple agencies in the organization coming forward and saying that the videos are not only real, but they are truly unidentified aerial phenomena," said former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program Luis Elizondo regarding the report's significance, when the bill was written last year.
The truth is out there: files Luxembourg’s government holds may describe sightings of unexplained aircraft that some believe contain evidence life on other worlds exists.
It is a pressing question, at least for the people who submitted a public petition calling on government agencies to disclose any information they have on unidentified flying objects.
“Although the subject is still often ridiculed or treated with contempt and derision by those who defend it, there have been an increasing number of serious attempts in recent years to persuade governments of various countries to publish the information collected on this subject”, petition supporters said.
The proposal was one of 15 petitions that were approved for circulation on Friday. If any of these often colourful petitions collect more than 4,500 signatures, parliament will need to debate the proposal with the minister in charge - although it is not required to take further action.
Another petition calls for a bronze statue of Napoleon Bonaparte to be installed in the geographic centre of Luxembourg in recognition of his persisting influence on the legal system, schools, commerce and church-state relations during his occupation of the country after the French revolution.
On a more practical note, one petition would prevent landlords from charging tenants for the cost of real estate agents marketing their property. The charges, which usually amount to the value of one month’s rent, should be borne by the landlord who hired the agency, the petition said.
The request for Luxembourg to become fully transparent about possible alien visitations comes as the US government has begun releasing some of its presumed trove of reports about UFOs.
In January, the US spy agency CIA released what it says are all its files on UFOs. The 2,700 pages included reports about mysterious explosions in a Russian town and a first-hand description of a flying object in Azerbaijan.
In December, the US Congress ordered the country’s national intelligence and defence chiefs to release a report on UFOs by the middle of this year.
A former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator spoke to us about cases he found ‘extremely troubling’ during his career.
To mark the start of UFO Week on BLAZE, we sat down for a chat with Nick Pope, a leading authority on UFOs. While he worked in the UK government for 21 years, three of those ‘changed his life’.
Between 1991-94, Pope was tasked with investigating UFO – or as he would say, UAP, as in unidentified aerial phenomena – sightings to see if they had any defence significance. While some reports amounted to smoke and mirrors, others left him feeling disturbed.
Explaining a bit about his position when he started, Pope told UNILAD, ‘It was more to do with Russians than Martians. It was born out of the understandable desire from the government and the military to make sure that if there was anything in British airspace, we knew what it was.’
Over the course of the years, Pope said ‘it evolved somewhat and I guess the whole UFO phenomenon became something separate; pop culture kicked in, sci-fi movies, people’s perceptions changed. Even the MoD ended up saying… well, we don’t take a position on the likelihood or not of alien life. We keep an open mind on that, we’ll just investigate the sightings to see if there’s any evidence of threat or not’.
When asked about incidents he found more alarming than others, he said, ‘All of the near-misses between UFOs and commercial aircraft are extremely troubling.’
Pope continued, ‘There was a case from April 1991, where there was a near-miss over Kent. The pilot thought the object was so in danger of hitting the aircraft, he and the rest of the people in the cockpit instinctively flinched.’
The pilot even shouted ‘Look out, look out!’ as the ‘thing came past, and it was definitely on the radar… the [Ministry of Defence] investigated, the Civil Aviation Authority investigated – no definitive explanation was ever found’.
Pope then cited another case from 1995, saying, ‘There was an aircraft coming in on its intermediate approach to Manchester airport, I think, over the Pennines. The pilot or first officer was so of the mind that this was going to be a hit, that he flinched. Then the thing passed rapidly down one side of the aircraft.’
He continued, ‘Again, the Civil Aviation Authority and MoD looked at this – no explanation. So those sorts of cases – and I’ve just mentioned two, there’s dozens in the UK, US and I suspect all over the world, although there’s still chronic underreporting of this– so those cases disturbed me.’
Pope also spoke briefly about the Cosford UFO mystery in 1993, when there was a wave of sightings regarding a triangular-shaped object flying across the sky. Reports were heard from Devon, Cornwall and the West Midlands, with military personnel also giving credence to the claims.
Pope said, ‘When it’s pilots, military personnel, police officers, when you’ve got things simultaneously tracked on radar, that gets my attention.’
He added, ‘That makes me think, wait a minute, it’s not just Chinese lanterns here people, there’s something going on and I don’t care whether people are sceptics or believers. To me, this is a defence and national security issue, and sometimes an air safety issue too.’
UFO Week returns to Blaze tonight, March 22, with dedicated content starting from 8pm until 2pm every single evening. Blaze is available on Freeview channel 63, Freesat 162, Sky 164, Virgin Media 216, My5 and on demand.
A nationwide survey has revealed that 11 per cent of the British public think they have actually seen a UFO, 26 per cent believe that aliens exist and more than half agree that intelligent life exists somewhere else in the universe.
The poll, commissioned by the Blaze TV channel, also revealed the widely held belief that intelligent life exists beyond our world, according to 56 per cent of respondents, and that the UK government is withholding important information regarding UFOs.
More than a quarter (27 per cent) of those surveyed think that the UK government should have a war or battle plan in place for a potential alien invasion, while nearly a third (31 per cent) feel there should be a dedicated task force for dealing with extra-terrestrial threats.
Confidence in world governments to deal with a potential alien invasion is low, with well over half of those surveyed (58 per cent) believing that our current leaders are unsuited to such a task. 15 per cent of those polled apparently believe that aliens will likely dominate Earth in the next 20 years.
Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator who has been advising Blaze ahead of the TV channel’s ‘UFO Week’, said, “2021 is going to be a big year for UFO stories, particularly with the US Department of Defense due to reveal UFO information following the enactment of the Covid-19 Relief Bill, which included a demand that the Director of National Intelligence send Congress a report about UFOs.
“This survey demonstrates that beliefs in UFOs and the extra-terrestrial are widespread and that there is a real appetite among the general population for evidence to be made public.”
Pope’s former governmental duties included investigating UFO sightings to determine whether they had any defence significance from 1991 to 1994.
“As far as I am aware, no such UK government plan to deal with any alien invasion or extra-terrestrial contact exists,” he said. “As such, the public’s lack of confidence in the government to respond effectively to a UFO incident is both fair and concerning.”
The Roswell incident in 1947 is the most famous example of suspected UFO activity in recorded history and is scheduled tofeature heavily in Blaze’s UFO Week programming.
A quarter (25 per cent) of the UK public think that the US authorities participated in a cover-up at Roswell due to the belief that the public “wasn’t ready for the truth to be revealed”.
29 per cent of those surveyed think the UK government is keeping important information relating to UFOs and aliens secret, while a third (33 per cent) believe that aliens could already be living amongst us.
Panic and fear would be the most dominant reactions (52 per cent) if aliens were proven to be visiting Earth, while fewer than one in ten (9 per cent) would feel excited and happy.
The survey of 2,000 UK adults was carried out by OnePoll during February 2021 on behalf of Blaze, ahead of UFO Week - seven days of programmes dedicated to UFOs, aliens and the extra-terrestrial. Starting today, Monday March 22, the Blaze channel will feature new TV shows exploring whether we are alone in the universe or if aliens have been visiting Earth.
Blaze TV content is available via Freeview 63, Freesat 162, Sky 164 and Virgin Media 216, as well as on smartphones and tablets via the Blaze app.
A former top national intelligence official hinted that an upcoming government report on UFOs will include information that cannot easily be explained.
"There are instances where we don’t have good explanations for some of the things that we’ve seen, and when that information becomes declassified, I’ll be able to talk a little bit more about that," former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox New's Maria Bartiromo on Friday.
Ratfcliffe said some UFO sightings have been declassified in the past, but a report to be released by the Pentagon and other federal agencies will present more information to the American people.
"There have been sightings all over the world," Ratcliffe said. "And when we talk about sightings, the other thing I will tell you, it’s not just a pilot or just a satellite or some intelligence collection. Usually, we have multiple sensors that are picking up these things."
Ratcliffe said elements that are hard to explain in these unreleased sightings include movements that are hard to replicate or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without creating a sonic boom.
The report is expected to be released on June 1, Bartiromo said later in the program.
UFO TRUTH MAGAZINE SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: With the increase in online meetings during the last 12 months UFO Truth Magazine is now offering an online six week UFO/UAP Evidential History Course, via Zoom, for those people who want to learn of the real history of this fascinating phenomenon.
Over six consecutive weeks of the course Gary Heseltine, the founder and editor of the magazine will be your tutor as he traces the history of the modern era of the UFO enigma by covering the important events - from major cases, political and scientific studies, beginning with the 1940s through to the present day.
The courses are limited to 12 people at a time and take place in a Zoom room environment and utilize the shared screen facility to impart information, graphics and video. The course is in English only. As this is the first course the Special Introductory price is just £75 (6 x 75 minutes classes which is just £12.50 an hour) and at the end you will receive a Certificate of Completion signed by the founder and editor of UFO Truth Magazine.
The course will comprise of six weekly modules, each 75 minutes
in duration, with the first three courses commencing Monday 5th April 2021 for six consecutive weeks (Monday recurring). Times available:
Course A: 1030-1145 hours
Course B: 1300-1415 hours
Course C: 2000-2115 hours
Module One: 1942-1949: Foo Fighters, green fireballs, the Kenneth Arnold sighting, Roswell, Project Sign, the Estimate of the Situation and the birth of the modern era of UFOs. Q & A.
Module Two: 1950-59: Project Grudge, Project Magnet, the Robertson Panel, Project Blue Book and the Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. Q & A.
Module Three: 1960-1969: Significant cases and studies, The Condon Report. Q & A.
Module Four: 1970-1999: Significant cases including the Tehran Incident, Oscar Santa Maria, the Japan Airlines encounter, Operation Prato and the Rendlesham Forest incident. Q & A.
Module Five: 2000-2019: USS Nimitz incident, TTSA FLIR videos, the Washington Citizens Hearings, major cases and developments from around the world. Q & A.
Module Six: 2020-Present Day: The creation of the US Navy Task Force, the Task Force report to the US Senate and its potential implications for society. Q & A.
What’s behind unidentified aerial phenomena observed by military officials? Are we alone in the universe? Nextgov asks some experts.
It can be difficult to discuss unidentified flying objects, especially for a government. While some may dismiss reports as fantasy, others argue that whatever is going on could be a threat to national security.
“In the past, pilots were afraid to report these strange things happening—for fear it would affect their advancement in the officer corps,” former Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Nextgov in this episode of Critical Update. While he was in Congress, Reid helped secure funding for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a quiet, UFO-studying effort that became public in late 2017. That group is now considered a precursor to the Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.
“The one thing that we established is that not a dozen people have seen these occurrences. Not 100 of them. Thousands of people have seen them,” Reid explained. People have long been intrigued by the thought of “little green men,” and, according to the former Senate Majority Leader, it’s what people he randomly encounters often ask him about.
Today, little is known about the modern UAP Task Force, a secretive unit investigating reports of what appear to be unexplainable aircraft, zipping across American skies. But soon, some federal personnel will have to provide certain members of Congress with information about what the government does know about UFOs—and who might be behind them.
Regardless of whether these sightings originate from another planet or an earthbound adversary, sophisticated technologies do exist to study hard-to-decipher, seemingly alien-related observations.
Dr. Joseph Pesce, an astrophysicist and program director in the National Science Foundation’s division of astronomical sciences provided a brief glimpse into some of the different tools humans could tap to “understand the universe around us and our part in it.” Pesce pondered the likelihood of multiple out-of-this-world possibilities, including the existence of life in outer space and UFOs’ potential to make it to Earth.
“Space travel is difficult—for many reasons,” he said. Still, Pesce later added, “I’m not arrogant enough to think that we know everything about nature and the universe, and the laws of nature.”
Listen below in your browser or download this episode from the Apple Store, Google Play or your favorite podcast platform.
A bewildered pensioner who enjoys looking at the night sky was left dumbfounded after claiming he spotted a UFO hovering above his house.
Ian Gibbons, from Colne, said he was looking through his patio window a couple of weeks ago, at around 6.30pm, when he saw the UFO appear from what he described as 'a portal'.
Mr Gibbons, 72, said it was 'just like something out of a sci-fi movie', but before he could do anything it vanished.
He said: "On a good night Mars and Venus can usually be seen from where I live, we've got great views out over the countryside, and on this particular night the sky was clear and Venus had just appeared.
"I'm not into stargazing in a big way, I just like to look out of the window and admire the sky, so I went to the patio and had a look out and all of a sudden this UFO came out of a portal - it was red and orange and circular.
"I grabbed my binoculars and got a good view of it while it hovered for a few seconds, but in the wink of an eye it shot up into the sky and then sped off towards Skipton."
Mr Gibbons said he'd never seen anything like it before in his life, and he hasn't seen anything similar since.
He added: "I do believe someone over in Barnoldswick saw it as well. It was on February 22.
"It definitely wasn't a plane or someone shining a light - I had a fantastic view of it, it was like something out of a sci-fi movie."
The last meteor shower experienced in the UK was on February 28, six days after Mr Gibbons claimed he saw a UFO.
It is possible that what Mr Gibbons saw was a drone, but that cannot be confirmed.
Ancient astronaut theories have been popular for some time, but does that mean they're true?
Petroglyphs from Val Camonica, Italy
By Matthew S. Williams
In 1966, famed science communicator Carl Sagan and his Soviet colleague Iosif Shklovsky released a book titled Intelligent Life in the Universe. This was an English-language version of an earlier work by Shklovksy (Universe, Life, Intelligence) that was published in 1962 in the USSR. The book remains one of the most highly-influential books on the subject of extraterrestrial intelligence and the search for its existence.
In Chapter Thirty-Three, "Possible Consequences of Direct Contact," they claim that scientists should take the possibility that extraterrestrials have visited Earth in the past seriously. They further suggested that evidence of past contact could be preserved in the folklore and mythological traditions of various cultures.
As an example, Sagan and Shklovsky point to an account of the contact made between the Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest and the La Perouse French expedition in 1786. This event was recorded a century later by anthropologist G.T. Emmons during one of his many visits to the area.
While it was told in the context of Tlingit mythology and contained supernatural elements (for example, the sailing ships were described as immense black birds with white wings), the descriptions left no doubt that it was a faithful retelling of an actual event. Sagan and Shlovksy wrote that the same could be true of extraterrestrials visiting Earth in the past:
"The encounter between La Perouse and the Tlingit suggests that under certain circumstances, a brief contact with an alien civilization will be recorded in a reconstructible manner. The reconstruction will be aided if (1) the account is committed to written record soon after the event; (2) a major change is effected in the contacted society by the encounter; and (3) no attempt is made by the contacting civilization to disguise its exogenous nature."
In addition, Shklovskii and Sagan cited the Sumerian legend of Oannes (Uanna to the Akkadians), ancient fish-like beings that we said to have taught agriculture, mathematics, and the arts to early humanity. Shklovskii and Sagan pointed to this as a possible instance of paleo-contact because of the level of consistency and detail involved.
Of course, Sagan and Shklovsky emphasized the need for skepticism and stated that these ideas were speculative and unproven. This was in large part because of some rather wild and unscientific theories that had become popular by the late 1970s. These would come to be known as "Ancient Astronaut" theories, which are no less popular today!
Nazca Lines in Peru, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Pyramids, Paleo-Contact, and Alien DNA
To break it down, the Ancient Astronauts (AA) theory is that extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) has visited Earth in the past and made contact with ancient humans (aka. "paleo-contact"). In some cases, proponents maintain that contact played a role in our technological, cultural, or spiritual evolution (what might be known as the "Culturalist" school of thought).
Some "Culturists" argue that aliens were responsible for (or assisted in) the construction of ancient monuments and structures. In some cases, it is argued that these monuments paid homage to alien species, whom ancient people viewed as gods. This version of the AA hypothesis has become rather popular, as illustrated by the History Channel series Ancient Aliens.
Meanwhile, other proponents of the AA theory insist that humans are actually descendants (or creations) of aliens and that they altered the DNA of ancient primates in order to foster intelligence in hominids (what could be called "Geneticists").
People who subscribed to this school of thought argue that modern humans are the result of genetic alteration by a more advanced species. Variations of this argument include claims that aliens contributed their own genetic material to fast-track human evolution or that humans are the descendants of alien colonists.
Origin and Influence
While examples of the AA theory and paleo-contact can be found in science fiction works as early as the late 19th century, it was not until the mid-20th century that it began to be argued as an actual theory. In 1954, British pseudohistorian Harold T. Wilkins proposed that UFO abductions have occurred since ancient times.
In 1960, Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier (two French journalists and conspiracy theorists) released The Morning of the Magicians, which merged elements of pseudohistory and occultism with theories about UFO, conspiracies, and ancient astronauts.
French science-fiction author Robert Charroux also wrote about ancient astronauts in his 1963 book, One Hundred Thousand Years of Man's Unknown History, along with theories of lost continents (Atlantis, Mu, Hyperborea), UFOs, and apocalyptic prophecies.
But it was Erich von Däniken, the well-known Swiss author and fraudster, who popularized the AA theory (as it is commonly known today) with his 1968 book Chariot of the Gods?. In this and subsequent books, von Däniken established arguments cited by AA theorists to this day.
Among the many arguments made by von Däniken was that extraterrestrials were responsible for some of the greatest technological innovations in the ancient world and that the evidence for this can be found in ancient structures and artifacts.
In particular, von Däniken claimed that these structures were built using methods and technology which could not have been available to the indigenous culture at the time. Examples include the pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge, Pumapunku, the Moai of Rapa Nui, the Nazca lines of Peru, and the "Baghdad batteries."
Däniken further argued that ancient artwork and iconography depict spacecraft, extraterrestrials, and advanced technology. These include the Japanese Dogū figurines that he claimed resembled astronauts, the "helicopter hieroglyphs" in the Egyptian temple of Seti at Abydos. The fact that disparate cultures had common elements in their artwork was also cited as evidence.
Last, but not least, he claimed that many ancient religions (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hinduism, etc.) were inspired by paleo-contact. Däniken referred specifically to instances where ancient people refer to "chariots in the sky," and other divine revelations were actually instances where humans communicated with aliens.
Despite being panned by academics everywhere, von Däniken's book would prove to be influential and would inspire a number of similar books that were published throughout the 1970s. These included Zecharia Sitchin's The 12th Planet (1976), in which he argued that the ancient Sumerians were descended from aliens from a planet called Niburu.
Sitchin claimed that this planet orbits the Sun at a great distance and takes 3,600 years to complete a single orbital cycle. He based this on his personal interpretations of Sumerian and Middle Eastern texts, which he claims mention a “12th planet” associated with the Babylonian god Marduk (who was later astrologically associated with Jupiter).
Also released in 1976 was Robert K. G. Temple’s The Sirius Mystery, which argued that the oral traditions of the Dogon people of West Africa include a description of paleo-contact. According to Temple, contact took place between the locals and an advanced species from Sirius roughly 5000 years ago.
Dogon also credited this alien species with inspiring the mythological traditions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and other cultures. These theories remained popular with counter-cultural groups during the 1970s and were often embraced as part of new-age spiritualism and fascination with ancient cultures.
By the early 1980s, interest in the AA theory began to wane, but in recent decades, it has experienced something of a renaissance. Thanks to the proliferation of conspiracy-theory websites, non-academic publications, and television series' featuring these theories, it has become popular again since the late 1990s.
Evidence? What Evidence?
Proponents of AA theory rely on a combination of oral traditions, literary references, bits of archaeology, cultural similarities, and gaps in historical/archaeological records to support their arguments. For example, von Däniken's biggest claim is that ancient cultures did not have the sophisticated technology needed to create structures and artifacts.
Another line of "evidence" are ancient texts that make reference to the gods, which von Däniken claims were actually advanced extraterrestrials. In Chariot of the Gods?, he cites passages from the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, where the gods travel to and fro on flying chariots called "Vimana" (which he claimed was a reference to spacecraft).
Sitchin's theories, meanwhile, are based entirely on his reading of the Babylonian creation myth, Enûma Eliš. Specifically, he claims that the Annunaki (the most powerful and important gods in the Babylonian pantheon) were a technologically advanced race of humanoids from the planet Niburu.
According to Sitchin, Niburu is an undiscovered planet beyond Neptune that has a highly elliptical orbit, causing it to enter the Solar System once every 3,600 years. Niburu is the "12th planet" in Sumerian mythology, Sitchin argued, because they counted the Sun and Moon as planets (this list also included Pluto).
Sitchin further claimed that Niburu (the name was later changed to Marduk, he claims) collided with another planet located between Mars and Jupiter (aka. the Asteroid Belt). This planet was known as Tiamat (a goddess in the creation myth that was overthrown by Marduk), the debris of which formed planet Earth.
He claims that they first arrived on Earth probably 450,000 years ago, looking for minerals (especially gold) which they grew tired of mining. Hence, they created a slave race (humans) by combining their DNA with that of Homo Erectus. Sitchin further claimed that these accounts coincide with biblical texts.
According to Temple, there are similarities between the mythological traditions of the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, and those of the Dogon people in West Africa. These include shared myths, symbols, and ideas, as well as the advanced astronomical knowledge, which he claims is evidence of paleo-contact.
Proponents like Giorgio Tsoukalos, a former sports commentator and current consulting producer on Ancient Aliens, even venture that extraterrestrials were responsible for causing the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (which killed the dinosaurs) as part of an attempt at directing evolution.
Science Fact vs. Fiction
If this is starting to sound familiar, it's probably because the idea is quite popular in science fiction circles. The classic example (and gold standard) was the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that depicts a highly-advanced ETI coming to Earth in the past and our attempts to meet up with them in the near future.
This film was the work of esteemed writer/director Stanley Kubrik and famed science communicator Arthur C. Clarke. It was also inspired by two short stories written by Clarke: "Encounter in the Dawn" (1953) and "The Sentinel" (1951).
These stories were the basis for Parts I and II of the film. The former part takes place millions of years ago, where extraterrestrials visit Earth at a key point in humanity's evolution. The latter part occurs around the turn of the century, when humanity uncovers an alien artifact on the surface of the Moon.
Other examples include an episode of Star Trek: TNG (S6E20, titled "The Chase"). In this episode, the crew discovers that an ancient predecessor race was responsible for the creation of life in their quadrant (hence why just about every species in the galaxy are humanoids!)
Fans of Stargate (the 1994 movie and the series' that followed) ought to instantly recognize how this franchise was built on a foundation of AA theory. The story centers on how paleo-contact between early humans and an ancient species (the Goa'uld) led to the birth of Egyptian civilization, and how their gods were actually the Goa'uld themselves.
A more recent example is Prometheus, the 2012 film by Ridley Scott that was clearly inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey. This film shows how an ancient race of "Engineers" (aka. the "Engineers" or "Space Jockeys" from Alien) was responsible for creating humanity, as well as the xenomorph that is the franchise's main antagonist.
The idea remains popular for obvious reasons. It's a fascinating concept that touches on multiple scientific theories and pursuits, not the least of which is panspermia, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), the Fermi Paradox, and abiogenesis (the origins of life).
But in the hands of people like Däniken and other AA theorists, it quickly became recognized as something somewhere between new-age spiritualism and pseudoscience. As expected, the reception Däniken's book got from the academic community was resoundingly negative.
Pseudoscience or Veiled Racism?
Whether it was archaeologists, paleontologists, anthropologists, astronomers, SETI-researchers, geneticists, biologists (the list goes on), there was no shortage of lining up to offer harsh critiques about his theories, his research methodology, and his conclusions.
Sagan and Shklovksii were two such individuals. In fact, Sagan wrote in his 1979 book Broca's Brain that he and Shklovskii regretted whatever role they played in the 1970s ancient astronaut craze. Sagan specifically referred to von Däniken "and other uncritical writers" who offered their theories up as unsubstantiated proof rather than food for thought.
On its face, AA theories are easy enough to debunk because of their lack of evidence, sloppy research, confirmation bias, falsifiable premises, and disprovable claims. Chief among these is the claim that ancient peoples were not capable of creating ancient monuments and megalithic structures.
Archaeologists have challenged this by demonstrating with evidence the methods used by the Egyptians, Incas, Mesoamericans, Mesopotamians, and other cultures. In all cases, it was a simple matter of having the right materials, basic tools, an understanding of engineering and geometry, and thousands of laborers - all of which these empires possessed in abundance!
In addition, academics have debunked AA claims that megalithic structures appeared suddenly by pointing to the archaeological record (or even historical records). For example, in Peru, archaeologists discovered evidence of rope-and-lever systems that were used by the Inca to transport stones to build the fortress of Sacsayhuamán north of their ancient capital of Cusco.
Similarly, the Incan Nazca Lines were made in a way that was similar to how other geoglyphs around the world were, by simply removing the darker top layer of the ground to expose brighter patches beneath. They were also easy enough to plot out using simple measurements and a hillside viewing - i.e., they did NOT require aircraft to appreciate!
In the case of the Egyptian pyramids, archaeologists have been able to construct a detailed account of how (and even why) they were built. This includes locating the quarries where the stone came from, what tools were used, what engineering techniques were involved, and even written records that describe their purpose and how the labor was organized.
In short, the "gaps" in the record that AA theorists refer to are actually gaps in their own knowledge. This is a classic example of the appeal to ignorance fallacy, where a supposed lack of evidence to the contrary is considered proof.
Another common logical fallacy that comes up in AA theory is the analogy known as “Russell’s teapot.” Essentially, many AA theorists have argued that their ideas cannot be disproven whenever they are criticized for not meeting the burden of proof.
Yet another poignant criticism of AA theories is the way they resemble racist and ethnocentric theories regarding cultural sites around the world. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, European explorers observed a number of megalithic structures in Africa, Asia, and the Americas for the first time and misattributed their origins.
In short, they often concluded that the local population was not capable of creating such feats of construction and engineering. A classic example of this is Angkor Wat, a series of ancient structures in modern-day Cambodia that covers an area that measures about 155 mi2 (400 km2).
These ruins were once the capital of the Khmer Empire (ca. 9th to the 15th century) that stretched across much of South-East Asia. However, when French naturalist Henri Mouhot first observed the temples in 1860, he theorized that it must have been built by the ancient Romans or Alexander the Great, because he assumed the indigenous Khmer were incapable.
Similarly, you have the large earthen mounds at Cahokia, Illinois (the largest of which is known as Monks Mound), which were built in 1050 CE by the Mississippian culture. Before the city declined by 1400 CE, it supported a population of 25,000 to 50,000 people who cultivated maize, hunted with fine arrow points, and created pottery, shell jewelry, and flint clay figurines.
But after white missionaries and settlers began moving to the area by the 17th century and after, they denied that local people were responsible. Some went so far as to claim that it was travelers from Egypt or elsewhere that were responsible. Similar claims have been made about the stepped pyramids of Mesoamerica, such as the Chichen Itza, Teotihuacan, and others.
The stepped pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan
Once again, the notion that traveling Egyptians design or built these structures (rather than the Mayans, the Toltecs, Aztecs, and other local peoples) remains a popular one even to this day. This in spite of the fact that archeologists have thoroughly debunked them using archaeological evidence, carbon dating, and other methods.
While carbon dating has shown that the Egyptian and American pyramids were built thousands of years apart, archaeological evidence shows that different methods were used to build them. It's also been demonstrated that they served different purposes, where the great Pyramids were tombs for the pharaohs while Mesoamerican stepped pyramids were associated with religious rites.
On top of all that, with the exception of the Viking expeditions, no evidence exists of trans-Atlantic contact prior to the "Columbian Era" (late 15th/early 16th centuries). At their core, AA theories are all come down to the Eurocentric belief that only cultures from the Mediterranean or West Asia (where modern western history traces its roots) were capable of megalithic engineering.
In this respect, AA theories are much the same, except that aliens have become a substitute for European or Mediterranean civilizations! At the end of the day, it is just assumed (without evidence) that indigenous human beings weren't up to the task.
Perhaps another reason why AA theories remain popular is that they appeal to a sense of wish-fulfillment. After all, the idea that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist out there and have visited Earth before is intriguing! So maybe it's not all racism and conspiracy-theories. That does not change the fact that these beliefs are built on the rejection of the scientific method.
Worse than that, it denigrates our own ancestors by denying their accomplishments. On its own, believing that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe sounds like a positive thing. But not when it causes us to lose sight of our fellow humans and the undeniable spark of creativity we all possess.
Sometimes, we need to let that spark grow into a full-fledged fire, then express it through massive works of art, architecture, and engineering. As for the engineering, construction, and technical details, we'll figure that out with the tools and knowledge we currently have.
