Signals Detected from Newly Found Planet - Two Years Ago

In December of 2008, Dr. Ragbir Bhathal of SETI detected suspicious signals coming from space.  He kept scanning for months but never caught the signal, again.  However, a week ago the scientific community announced the discovery of an Earth-like planet - Gliese 581g - that just happens to be exactly where Dr. Bhathal picked up that signal two years ago.

Coincidence?  Time will tell.

UFO Shuts Down Chinese Airport - AGAIN!

Once again, Chinese air traffic controllers have reported UFO activity in China:

It was first spotted by air traffic controllers in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, who noticed the mysterious figure on their radar screens.

After attempting to make contact with it - and failing - they sent out warnings to the airport in Baotou.

There's a video being circulated, but it's not very helpful.  The witnesses in Hohhot said that they saw a tube-like object, and the video just shows some random lights.  Often times, when UFO stories circulate an unrelated picture or video circulates with it; you can judge for yourself (the video is below).  I think it's great that these sightings started with air traffic controllers and are actually documented.  This is a very interesting trend.  I'll update you if anything comes of this, I but I think the story will be forgotten soon.  (Even though it's fascinating, and potentially important, things like this are quickly pushed aside for stories about celebrities.)

Witches and UFO Links

Just on the heels of my post about Mexican witches is this list of ten famous witches burned by the church.  I suspect there's more than simply a suspicion of witchcraft behind these killings (it was rarely so simple), but it's still an interesting list.

And you can also check out Cracked.com's article 5 UFO Sighting That Even Non-Crazy People Find Creepy.  For a humorous website, it's not a bad list.

Winston Churchill and the UFO He Covered Up (Or Did He)

The UK government just released many UFO related files that had been classified until today.  Chief among the many documents is a story that has been making the rounds about Winston Churchill and a UFO sighting he decided to cover up.  I wanted to look at the records for myself, and here's what I found.

There are two sets of letters - both can be read in this lengthy pdf file.  (All of these RAF files can be found here.)  The first few letters (pages 205-209) involve an inquiry into this matter made in the 1990s.  Apparently, someone's grandfather remembered this and the grandson was asking questions.  The Royal Air Force quoted the original documents, including claims that an aircraft had matched the speed of an airplane in a way that no craft of that era could.  But the RAF officer ended the letter by stating that he didn't believe in UFOs, even though the physics of it was interesting.  (Note to government officials: saying things like that is how cover-up conspiracy theories get started.)

The second set of letters (pages 273-277) gives us more detail.  According to the man's grandfather, an RAF airplane taking pictures was returning to England when an unidentified craft came near to it and began matching its speed.  The pilots took pictures of it before it cruised away without making a sound.  This was supposedly a point of intense discussion between Churchill and Eisenhower before Churchill decided to put the thing under lock and key for fifty years.

But what we can subtly glean from all of this is that the grandson did not hear this from his grandfather - it appears that after the grandfather passed away the man's grandmother told him about that she had been carrying this secret since the war and that her husband had told no one but her about the UFO.  So, what we really have is some third hand reports that only emerged when the person who supposedly reported them had died.  This story is far less credible than the press will have you believe.  (I'm not trying to be a party pooper, here, but we have to analyze these things thoroughly if we're going to learn the truth.)

There are, however, two loose ends that we can chase.  First of all, the documents do confirm that Winston Churchill did indeed order an investigation of sorts into the UFO phenomenon, but that's all we know of it.  Second, the RAF correspondent told the grandson to personally check out some other government files that were available to the public that were likely to be the only place where records of this sort could exist - if this search yielded any evidence we have never heard of it.

Update on the Chinese Airport UFO

A lot has happened in the Chinese UFO case.  At least, a lot has happened in the media and the blogoshpere - in China the story's pretty much the same.  The story has gone in a few different directions, so I'll go over them briefly.

Naturally, the Venus Argument has been introduced.  Every skeptic likes to blame the planet Venus for UFO sightings.  I've seen Venus and lots of other things in our solar system while looking up at the sky, and even when I was a child I never thought those bright lights could be anything more mysterious than a planet or a star.  Still, someone who wants to debunk UFO stories will handwave every single one of them by saying the word "Venus."

It's hard for me to believe that air traffic controllers could mistake Venus (at right) with an unusual aircraft.   Still, Forgetomori.com thinks this is the answer and, amazingly, points to an story from Russia where the sight of Venus on the horizon does appear to have confused an air traffic control group and caused them to close their airport.  What Forgetomori.com doesn't mention is that the Chinese air traffic controllers did not see the UFO in question - they recorded it on their instruments.  Venus would not be picked up by air traffic control instruments as an object close to the airport.


A number of pictures emerged along with this story but, unfortunately, they appear to be fraudulent.  The air traffic control group said they couldn't see the object without their instruments, but some people took pictures, anyway.  Some of these photos show a UFO doing things (like shining lights on buildings) that were certainly never part of the original descriptions.  The pictures being shown by the news should be ignored.

Ghost Theory has a video of a spokesperson from the Chinese Airport.  He basically says that they don't understand what they saw and he fears they never will.  Nothing new, but it's good to hear that from an official source at the airport rather than a newspaper.

A video of a rocket taking off has been linked to this UFO sighting and someone from MIT has looked it and declared it to be real footage of a Russian rocket (link).  However, nothing in the original description of this sighting has anything to do with a rocket, so I fail to see how this relates to the story.

When a UFO is in the news, pictures and videos from previous stories somehow end up being broadcasted along with the actual story - this leads to mass confusion on the part of the investigator.  It's tough to pick through the articles to find out which ones refer to real reports from the Chinese airport, and which ones are jumping on the bandwagon without checking the details.

In conclusion, the airport is sticking with their story: something unknown to them was in their airspace that evening and they shut down all flights for an hour.  There's no explanation and no one seems to be coming forward to help out.  There don't appear to be any trustworhty photographs or videos of the UFO which is in keeping with the statements of the air traffic controllers who claimed it was too far away to be seen without their instruments .  (Or, perhaps it runs without lights?)

I hate to say it, but this may be all we ever learn about this interesting incident.

Ancient Astronauts in Pompeii?

While visiting the ruins in Pompeii I came across something I certainly wasn't looking for:

It's strange that I had never heard of this.  Many of us are familiar with different paintings and images of UFOs in old works of art.  Here are some of the more well known examples:

From Wikipedia - This is the painting titled The Madonna with Saint Giovannino a painting from around the 15th century most likely painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The painting depicts Mary mother of Jesus looking down while in the background you can see a clear picture of what appears to be a UFO flying above while a man on a ledge blocks the sun with his hand and stares at the strange flying object in the sky.

This is The Baptism of Christ by Aert de Gelder (1710).  The disk-shaped representation of God(?) is certainly odd.

Having read much of the ancient astronaut lore I was surprised to find this ancient UFO-like painting in Pompeii.  I Am I the first UFO enthusiast to visit the ruins?  Or am I just the only person who thinks it looks like a UFO at all?

It's drawn on a wall above buildings as if it's in the air.  Did the Greeks who lived in Pompeii see things like this in the sky?

Oh, and Boston saw it, too.

UFO Shuts Down Airport in China

On Wednesday a UFO was seen near an airport in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.  Unlike most UFO sightings, this one has plenty of documentation because the airport was actually shut down temporarily.

It was described as an elongated object that flew across the sky.  The military promised to shed some light on the situation on the following Friday afternoon, but by midnight all that was disclose was the possibility of a military connection.

Which could mean anything.

This may be the most credible UFO sighting I've heard of in a long time.  It has been investigated through proper official channels and documented - even photographed!  (See here, I'm not sure how keen they would feel about me stealing that picture, so you'll have to go over there to look at it.)  Numerous people who were in the airport can attest that their plane was delayed and both military spokesmen and airport traffic controllers have confirmed a sighting of something in the air.  The air traffic controllers actually saw it through their instruments and were concerned enough about whatever they saw to shut everything down - a pretty extreme measure.

Is it a hoax?  You'd have to be pretty brave to try a hoax like this at an airport.  There are many witnesses, so something was in the sky which keeps this from being written off as a faked picture.  That picture, by the way, has been circulating the web and if anyone recognized the object in it they would have said so by now.  A secret military plane is the favorite theory at this point, but who knows?  Maybe the Chinese government will tell us more.  Check back here for updates.

The Center for UFO Truth and it's Interesting Agenda

James Carrion has been an interesting voice in Ufology since he began to decry poor investigative techniques and useless anecdotal hearsay in research.  It's a breath of fresh air when someone tries to study this phenomenon without given credence to every blurry photograph while saying that all of it is true without any scrutiny.  In many circles, even the most ridiculous theories are placed alongside the most credible making the entire field look foolish.

Carrion has been working to change this, and his new endeavor, The Center for UFO Truth, reflects this.  However, it also has a rather specific goal.  His angle on Ufology is to look into government documents for evidence of a cold war-era conspiracy and cover up.  This is where he expects to find evidence of UFO activity, and perhaps he will be successful given his specific goal and driven agenda.

This section from his blog, however, is what I like the most:

CUT will work outside of the three ring circus that is Ufology and will not accept the contributions of anonymous individuals or alleged whistleblowers nor will it examine alleged leaked documents...Unfortunately,the field of Ufology has nothing to show for more than 60 years of investigation and research. By not adhering to professional evidentiary standards, Ufology will neither join the halls of academia nor will it discover what truly lies behind the subject of UFOs.

Quite right. It's embarrassing how poorly we have handled UFO investigations, and maybe his leadership will move us in the right direction.  Either way, I wish him luck.

What Happened to the Coso Artifact?

In 1961, geode prospectors in California found what appeared to resemble a spark plug embedded in a geode.  Since it takes many thousands of years to form one of these rocks, the prospectors concluded that it had, somehow, been left on earth by someone ages ago.

It started out as a story about ancient astronauts whose interplanetary spaceship accidentally left the device on Earth.  At last, some proof of alien life was in our hands.

But, it turned out that the thing resembling a spark plug really was a spark plug - a common one from the 1920s.  This changed everything; now, the so-called "Coso Artifact" seemed to prove that geodes could form in less than fifty years.  Such a claim could overturn all modern ideas of evolution and geology.

Alas, the Coso artifact seems pretty boring these days.  It appears to have been encased in clay - not a geode - and, as such, is a fairly nominal object.  There is no evidence that it is an ancient device or that it displays any unusual geological process.  The owner of the Coso Artifact has passed away, but in his final years he did not allow anyone to see the artifact, but he tried to sell it for $25,000.

It's hard to tell if this was a fraud or a misunderstanding.  Did the original discoverers really think they had found something mysterious?  The spark plug was old and worn-down, so they had to have someone examine it to tell them that it was actually a spark plug at all.  That tells me that they didn't know what they had and that they were at least a little interested in getting real answers.

The Coso Artifact is a good example of what happens when we get our hopes up without checking out the details.  I would be more excited than anyone if evidence of a real piece of future technology showed up in an old rock, but if we don't do the homework right away then we can be misled.

5 Interesting Mysteries that have been Ruined by Wackos.

5 - Bigfoot

There are stories in every wooded area of the U.S. of some big hairy monster that roams around and scares people. There are photographs and a very convincing video to accompany this mystery and make it a healthy slice of Americana. I never get tired of hearing new stories about Bigfoot.

The Problem:

Did you know that Bigfoot is invisible? That he wanders in and out of our dimension? Oh, brother, now you know why real scientists (for the most part) will not touch Bigfoot with a ten foot pole. You can't get into this conversation without being seen as one of these guys who takes the legend too far.


4 - Ancient Astronauts

Ancient civilizations sometimes drew odd things on their cave/temple walls that, to us, resemble aliens or flying saucers. Some of these sites are very interesting and make me wonder if UFOs did indeed visit our planet. It's far out, but it is possible...right? It is, at least, an interesting idea.

The Problem:

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken. Aside from having the most impossible name ever, he has both promoted and, simultaneously, ruined this concept. Rather than discuss the possibility that aliens visited our planet, he insists that everything from the ancient world was the product of aliens.

I saw this guy on a TV special that was very interesting...at first. He pointed out a few artifacts that looked like alien ships and I thought it was fascinating, but he went on to say that the Egyptians had mastered DNA cloning and that the sphinx was designed after one of their animal/human hybrids. Yeah, now if you talk about acient astronauts at all people will think you are one of his followers and no one will listen to you. Thanks, Erich.

3 - The Bloop

The Bloop is one of the neatest mysteries I have evers studied. In 1997, underwater microphones 3000 miles apart picked up the same sounds. These sounds were louder than any other sound in the ocean and have not been heard before or since. The sound has been identified as something biological, so some creature was lurking around making this noise, but no known creature is capable of make a noise nearly this loud. So, what was it?

The Problem:

Fans of H.P. Lovecraft's weird fiction noticed a similarity between this and a creature from his books called Cthulhu. This could be seen as a charming coincidence, but Lovecraft fans have taken over the discussion so that most of the websites concerning this very interesting incident are flooded with pictures of Cthulhu. This is a real mystery, a real event took place that we can't understand, and the fiction fans have taken the discussion away from us to play games.

2 - UFO's

People see UFO's every day. The Anomalist updates each day with new paranormal stories and UFO sightings are always abundant. Many UFO stories turn out to be nothing but not all of them, some of them are darned interesting and should be investigated.

The problem:

The New Age movement and the Reptoid movement.

The New Ager's moved into this subject by saying that UFOs were here to enlighten us. They insisted that UFO abductees experienced a moment of epiphany and that we should meditate on the meaning of these things and hope that UFO's could bring us to a higher understanding or existence. The New Agers neglected to notice that their metaphysical view of UFO's really didn't fit in with the the UFO stories that came from supposed abductees whose stories were filled with fear and stories of physical experimentation.

And, we cannot forget the reptoids. Harold Ickes sells a lot of books telling people about the reptoids, lizard men who live in the Earth and take on human form. They take on human form in order to affect our politics and Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton are both supposed reptoids. The reptoids are our last line of defense agains the Greys (UFO aliens) and some parts of our government are aligned with the Greys instead of the reptoid, causing an internal civil war against the alien groups. Or something like that.

If you follow UFO stories, your friends will think you are either a New Age mystic who wants to worship the alien exhaust vents or a conspiracy nut who thinks Greys designed DVD players in Area 51.

1 - Dinosaurs

We don't know everything about Dinosaurs, in my opinion we know less than we think. Each generation makes up new ideas about them and gives us new drawings and preconcpetions about their attitudes or habits, but these theories do more to tell us about the mindset of the researcher than the actual dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, in effect, are like a rorschach test for modern writers. Today's scientists, bombarded with political correctness and civil activism, have insisted that dinosaurs were not barbaric creatures, but loving family types that exhibited higher emotions.

But, did dinosaurs ever live with man? African tribes tell stories of the river stopping behomoths that slay elephants. Native American stories tell similar stories (without elephants). Is it possible? Surely, we can see it as a possibility without getting into any ridiculous arguments...right?

The Problem:

Yeah, right. For some reason, the insistence that Dinosaurs did not live with man makes some Christians emerge from their hiding places and shout out war cries against the world of science. Meanwhile, the idea that they did live with man, even in a limited capacity as a lost species, makes certain members of the non-Christian community feel threatened and send out their own hatred toward Christians. No one remembers who fired the first shot in this ridiculous debate, but we are unlikely to learn anything new and concrete about dinosaurs in the next 5 billion years because every discovery or theory just creates more fighting.

To those of you fighting over this, on both sides, you should all be ashamed of yourselves. It's just dinosaurs for cryin' out loud.

UFO over Arizona?

While reading the news, this morning, I have seen ore prominent headlines for a recent duet of UFO sightings than today's primary election in Pennsylvania. What are they talking about?

There were sightings in Florida and in Arizona and there were many videos made of the phenomenon. Here's one from Arizona.



The explanation that we have been given is that these lights were created by sky Lanterns and local residents admit to launching sky lanterns that evening in celebration of a wedding.

Here is a video of what sky lanterns look like. What do you think? Are these UFO's just sky lanterns? Do they appear to be staying in one place sometimes and them moving sideways? Do they look like they are flying in formation or moving through the sky randomly like a sky lantern or a kite? I really can't tell, but I think it's interesting.

Strange sights on Google Maps

Google Maps is the most fun thing in the world. Try these:

Here's a cool shape on the ground. Extraterrestrial? I know, but I won't tell.

This is apparently Area 51 and there appears to be a flying saucer in the middle of the screen. (Or is it just a water tower?)

Some regular crop circles.

A face on the ground in Canada? Pretty cool.

Yep. Maps. Who needs video games?