How will the discovery of extraterrestrial life impact religion?

By Jason McClellan

What will the impact be on religion when extraterrestrial life is discovered? It is a common assumption that such a discovery will be detrimental to core beliefs of religions around the world. You might be surprised to hear, however, that some experts believe the religious impact will be minor.

(Credit: SETI Institute)

A panel discussion on this topic took place on Sunday, June 24 at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute’s SETIcon II conference in Santa Clara, California. This panel, titled “Would Discovering ET Destroy Earth’s Religions?,” concluded that the resulting impact on religion from an alien discovery is “probably not going to be as severe as we might initially think.” That is according to panelist Doug Vakoch, the director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute.

Mike Wall of Space.com points out that “the Bible, Koran and other sacred texts of the world’s major religions stress God’s special concern for humanity and for Earth,” so discovering ET “might seem threatening, by implying that we and our planet aren’t all that special.” But as SETI Institute senior astronomer Seth Shostak mentioned during the panel, “We haven’t been the center of the universe for a while now — four centuries.”
Ancient astronomers Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei countered the established belief that the sun and everything else in the universe revolved around Earth. Such crazy talk was viewed as blasphemy by the world’s largest Christian church–the Catholic Church. The present-day Vatican, however, is much more open to science and the possibilities of life elsewhere in the universe. In a 2009 interview with Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Father José Gabriel Funes, the director of the Vatican observatory, stated, “As a multiplicity of creature exist on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God. This does not contrast with our faith because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God.”

Ted Peters

In addition to this latest panel discussion on the topic of the extraterrestrial impact on religion, an “ETI Crisis Survey” was conducted in 2008 by Dr. Ted Peters, professor of systematic theology at both Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley California, to test the belief that, “upon confirmation of contact between Earth and an extraterrestrial civilization of intelligent beings, the long established religious traditions of Earth would confront a crisis of belief and perhaps even collapse.” More than one-thousand people from varying religions participated in the study, and results showed that only a small percentage of the participants felt their personal beliefs would be affected by the confirmation of extraterrestrial life.

What are your thoughts? Would the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrials have any affect on your religious beliefs? Share your opinion with us on the Open Minds Facebook page.

Morphing UFO over Moscow Goes Viral (Video)

By Tom Rose

An amazing video going viral on YouTube shows what looks like a saucer UFO morphing shapes as it flies over the night skies of Moscow.

The video, posted by YouTuber olegen77, starts tracking a light in the distant sky over the rooftops of the city and then zooms in for a closer look.

The lights on the unidentified flying object look as though they wrap around a circular, disc-shaped craft.

As the three minute video plays out, the object seems to morph into a different shape as now multi-colored lights shift to align with a transformed contour. How is that possible?

The video is drawing a lot of comments, mostly agreeing that the UFO is not like any known aircraft they've ever seen. Its resemblance to an airplane at various points only deepens the mystery. How can it change shape?

This object seems similar to others seen on videos posted from around the Moscow area in the past two years, as well as other regions of the world.

Ufo Newspaper Clipping - The Sun 9.11.1967.



Glowing Orb UFO Buzzes Detroit Accident Scene (Video)

By Tom Rose

A weird, spherical, glowing blue orb UFO buzzed over the scene of a traffic accident being covered by a news team in Warren, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. What is it?

The unidentified flying object is like no other caught on video, being perfectly round and flying in a straight line until it disappears in the distant night. The scene it flies over is reportedly an accident with the emergency lights and vehicles clustered around the undescribed mishap.

It's easy to chalk this up to a meteor or falling star but it doesn't resemble those phenomenon.

In the case of this UFO the light emanating from the object is a soft blue and not fiery at all and there is no streaking tail. The video shows the raw image first and then plays the sequence again at half speed.

It doesn't help to identify the strange object, which bears no resemblance to aircraft, balloons or birds.

The Goblin’s Grimoire: Hopkinsville Reprised, or the Hollow Earth?

By Micah Hanks

The month of August 1955 was a strange one for residents around the small town of Kelly, in Christian County, Kentucky. A number of locals, as well as area law enforcement, had claimed to have been experiencing various odd things of an “alien” variety; in fact, things would end up getting so strange for one group of locals, the Sutton family of nearby Hopkinsville, that their lives would be forever changed in the aftermath.
The events that led to a terrorizing evening for the family, along with a visiting friend from out of town, were both terrifying and wholly inexplicable. Things started as Pennsylvania native Billy Ray Taylor, along with Elmer Sutton, went outside to investigate noises coming from the forest nearby on the evening of August 21st, shortly after a series of odd lights had been seen in the distance. Both men, carrying guns, claimed to have witnessed a strange nonhuman entity emerge from the trees, prompting their return to the farmhouse. Soon afterward, the Suttons and Mr. Taylor would begin an evening secured within the home, as these strange “goblins” attacked them from the outside; thus began their nightlong bout with what have forever remained known as the “Hopkinsville Goblins,” an event in American Forteana that remains one of the strangest ever recorded.

On that fateful evening in August of 1955, the badly frightened Sutton family would eventually enlist the aid of area law enforcement, who sent no less than twenty officers out to the house, expecting a confrontation with some kind of otherworldly presence. Upon arrival, while evidence of a window-rattling conflict was found a plenty, there was no sign of any of these odd, diminutive beings, variously described as humanoid, though of smaller stature, light-skinned, and sporting large ears that stood upright off the sides of their heads.
The curious story does remain among some of the more odd urban legends and unexplained encounters ever collected, prompting a number of researchers over the years to suppose that the mystery of the “Hopkinsville Goblins” might have some basis in extraterrestrial intelligence visiting from afar… though the odd manner in which these creatures behaved could hardly be described as “intelligent,” at least in the human sense. Or perhaps these strange beings were something else… inter-dimensional visitors, cryptozoological monstrosities, or just plain hallucinations the occupants of the Sutton home may have somehow suffered en masse. But could there be other explanations than these listed here, which seem almost “conventional” at least within the realms of the strange and unusual? If so, what might they entail?

A recent report that appeared at the Who Forted? website discussed a strange story that, while almost entirely too good to be true, seems somewhat reminiscent of the fabled Hopkinsville Goblin encounter. According to blogger Greg Newkirk, he received an email from a Kentucky man claiming to have made contact with strange, diminutive creatures with pale skin, large eyes, and an odd method of “chirping” for communication. The man reports that these odd entities have appeared around his home at various times throughout the last several months, and that their presence has caused great distress among he and his family members, even to the point that they’ve been forced to leave the property for fear of these strange “cave dwelling” creatures. The complete article (which includes photos of the creatures alleged footprints) can be viewed here.
Could there actually be a race of semi-subterranean humanoid creatures that exist beneath parts of Kentucky, the likes of which might have appeared long ago around the time of the infamous 1955 Hopkinsville encounter? Or if not, what else might these strange creatures be… other than an elaborate hoax, inspired by the classic story of “Hopkinsville Goblins” from so long ago?

Weird Flying Saucer UFO Snapped over Australia (Video)

By Tom Rose

An unusually lighted flying saucer UFO was snapped in several photographs darting among the wispy clouds of an undisclosed area over Australia. What is it?

The unidentified flying object is seen in a series of still photographs from different angles and enlarged to reveal a transparent disc-shaped object with an unusual light array, arranged like a cross X pattern, blazing through its center.

The YouTuber gives virtually no information about the sighting other than that it was snapped somewhere in Australia. The shape of the object is very unusual and doesn't look aerodynamic at all. How does it fly?

The object even seems to change shape depending on the angle showing itself to the camera. Of course, video of this UFO would have been much better since there's nothing like seeing how it moves through the air. But this sighting is unusual enough to ask the usual question: What is it? Here's the video:

CIA veteran writes Roswell conspiracy book

By Robbie Graham

Silver Screen Saucers

CIA VETERAN: "100% GUARANTEED... ROSWELL HAPPENED! THERE WAS A CRAFT... ABSOLUTELY CADAVERS."

Scroll down for Chase Brandon Coast to Coast AM interview...

Chase Brandon, a thirty-five year veteran of the CIA, will tonight appear as a guest on Coast to Coast AM with John B. Wells. Many listeners will no doubt be unfamiliar with Brandon and his career with the CIA, but his name has passed my lips literally thousands of times over the past several years.

Brandon spent twenty-five years in the Agency’s elite Clandestine Service as an undercover, covert operations officer. His foreign assignments involved international terrorism, counterinsurgency, global narcotics trafficking and weapons smuggling. He was also an Agency foreign political affairs analyst, Presidential briefer to Bill Clinton and an instructor in paramilitary and espionage tactics at multiple secret CIA training camps.

Brandon is perhaps best known as the CIA's former Entertainment Liaison Officer - a position that required him to establish working relationships with many of the biggest names in Hollywood and to provide advice to filmmakers on matters of "accuracy and authenticity" with regard to the CIA's image onscreen. He was - though he prefers to phrase it more sympathetically - the CIA's chief frontline propagandist in Hollywood. He advised on countless films and TV series - often uncredited - quietly shaping scripts, characters and concepts.

 

As a great deal of my academic research has been focused on cinematic propaganda efforts, Brandon's activities in Hollywood naturally have been of considerable interest to me and I have spent countless hours discussing with colleagues and writing about the CIA's role in Hollywood and the influence wielded by Chase Brandon and other CIA advisors in the entertainment industry.

The CIA/Hollywood relationship is a sordid one, and it predates the start of the Agency's "official" involvement in Tinseltown by four decades. You can read about this relationship in Professor Tricia Jenkins' excellent new book, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes film and Television, and I'll be exploring the CIA/Hollywood symbiosis in great detail in the context of the UFO phenomenon in my forthcoming book, Silver Screen Saucers: Sorting Fact from Fantasy in Hollywood's UFO Movies.

With Chase Brandon's credentials in mind, the UFO community is set to engage in furious debate about this CIA man's first novel, which is now on sale and is titled The Cryptos Conundrum. It is a "fictional" book dealing with the UFO/ET issue, specifically with the Roswell crash and cover-up. This marks the first time ever that any retired CIA operative has written a book (presented either as fact or fiction) on the UFO topic that has received the Agency's official stamp of approval. On that basis alone, it's a must-read.

On the first page of the book, a bold, underlined notice reads:

This material has been reviewed by the CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified information.

But, of course, classified information can't technically be disclosed if it is presented as fiction. Brandon is gleefully aware of this, and selects as his first quote of the book a musing by Francis Bacon:

"Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible."

I've read Brandon's novel. Obviously, it's intriguing, to say the least, and Brandon clearly wants it to be seen to contain many truths, despite its "fiction" label. Does Brandon have 'inside' information on UFOs? It is my assessment that, yes, probably he does. Some. The circles he's walked in during his career would almost certainly have made him privy to UFO-related chatter; to whispers and suggestions, if not hard evidence. This is not to say the information Brandon might have is true. What he 'knows' is very likely based on what he's been told, not on what he's seen. More than anything, what readers should remember when reading Brandon's tantalising book is that the author is a trained expert in propaganda and psychological warfare. Buy his book, then, but don't buy into it.

James Fox hints at new evidence related to the Roswell UFO crash

By Jason McClellan

A team of investigators recently made some “interesting discoveries” at the alleged crash site of a UFO in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico. During an interview on the web series Spacing Out!, filmmaker James Fox, who stars in the NatGeo television series Chasing UFOs, hinted that the Chasing UFOs team discovered a piece of metal while searching with metal detectors in the alleged debris field, where in 1947 rancher Mac Brazel told the Air Force he found pieces of a crashed object.

A metal fragment found while searching with Frank Kimbler. (Credit: National Geographic Channels/ Snake Oil Productions)



New Mexico Military Institute teacher Frank Kimbler also discovered metal fragments in this area in 2011. Initial tests on those fragments concluded that “either the lab made an analytical error or the material is not from Earth.”
Fox was not able to confirm whether or not the Chasing UFOs team did any lab tests on the metal sample they discovered. But the team did work with Kimbler during their investigation.
Chasing UFOs premieres on NatGeo on Friday, June 29. The Roswell episode airs Friday, July 13.

What Really Happened to the Lubbock Lights?

By Micah Hanks

Among the many formations of unusual natural phenomenon that may form the stuff of eventual UFO reports, perhaps none of the “conventional” explanations are quite so often invoked–and often dismayed–as that of earthlight phenomenon.
In the remoter regions of Hesdalen, Norway, we hear of the semi-famous Hessdalen Lights, comprised of ghostly illuminations that take to the skies over the locale for which they are named. Halfway across the world over in the heart of the Smoky Mountains, a similar phenomenon, known as the Brown Mountain Lights, has done well at becoming a defined presence among legends and ghost stories of the region.

And as you might have surmised, these aren’t the only two. Marfa, Texas has its own variety of odd earthlight phenomenon, as well as Michigan’s Paulding lights, and the similar phenomenon believed to occur further south near Oviedo, Florida. And of course, there are countless instances worth of noting that involve the ghostly “Will o’ the Wisp” in European folklore.

There are some light formations, however, that have been far less easily explained as some naturally-occurring electrical phenomenon. One of the first nationally-recognized UFO cases became known for strange formations of lights that were repeatedly seen over Lubbock, Texas, during the summer of 1951, which managed to attract the attention of Project Blue Book leader Edward J. Ruppelt, who gave his own “unabridged” version of the Lubbock Lights story in his book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects a few years later in 1956. Arguably, Ruppelt was the very first, and perhaps the very finest of his day, in terms of being “professional” UFO investigators… but what, precisely was the cause behind the so-called “Lubbock Lights”?
The controversy began around August 25th, 1951, when three Tech College professors observed together a strange formation of lights coasting overhead. The witnesses, Dr. A.G. Oberg, a chemical engineer, Dr. W.L. Ducker, a department head at the college and a petroleum engineer, and Dr. W.I. Robinson, who served as a geologist, were believed to be more credible than the average UFO witness, based on their backgrounds. Soon afterward, a student named Carl Hart Jr. managed to photograph what he believed were the lights, and while the veracity of the photos has been hotly disputed; while Ruppelt never stated he believed they were fake, he admitted difficulty in experiments where he and Hart had tried to recreate similar photos within the short time period Hart claimed to capture the originals.
Many others in the area would claim to see these light formation, often dull glowing lights that appeared to be oriented along the edges or bottom of some variety of chevron or horseshoe-shaped “flying wing.” And yet, perhaps the strangest mystery involved here was that which Ruppelt put forth himself: that there was indeed a natural, prosaic explanation to the entire affair, and that despite his certainty of this, he could not reveal his logic, for fear of the obvious exposure of a secret source to whom he promised anonymity:

They weren’t birds, they weren’t refracted light, but they weren’t spaceships. The lights that the professors saw–the backbone of the Lubbock Lights series–have been positively identified as a very commonplace and easily explainable natural phenomenon. It is very unfortunate that I can’t divulge exactly the way the answer was found because it is an interesting story of how a scientist set up complete instrumentation to track down the lights and how he spent several moths testing theory after theory until he finally hit upon the answer. Telling the story would lead to his identity and, in exchange for his story, I promised the man complete anonymity. But he fully convinced me that he had the answer, and after having heard hundreds of explanations of UFOs, I don’t convince easily.

Given the vague parameters of the story Ruppelt outlines here, what are we to make of this curious set of claims? Of the varieties of “commonplace and easily explainable natural phenomenon” that may qualify here, what could we consider here that could account for vivid misinterpretation of ghostly orbs flying in formation in such a way?

The first two sets of phenomenon that come to mind here might be ball lightning or Northern Lights, though the latter would be almost impossible to perceive at a location like Lubbock, Texas in August. Then again, it’s difficult to guess how the earth light alternative, let alone auroras in the southern skies, could truly qualify for being “commonplace.” In fact, it seems rather difficult to surmise any truly “commonplace and easily explainable natural phenomenon,” if it weren’t light reflecting off bird’s bellies, that could fit the bill in this instance. So what are we dealing with, then… and more importantly, what explanation could have helped Ruppelt feel assured that what the professors had seen was easily explainable? Perhaps this, rather than the potential for mysterious lights being seen at any time, will remain the biggest mystery behind the Lubbock Lights.

Spacing Out! Ep. 8 - James Fox talks about the new show Chasing UFOs

Published on 22 Jun 2012 by openmindstv

James Fox is a filmmaker with a passion for the subject of UFOs. He also stars in the new NatGeo series Chasing UFOs. We talk with him about the show, plus we discuss crop circles, sending messages to extraterrestrials, and other UFO and space news on this episode of Spacing Out!