NASA Scientist Claims Alien Life Landed Here on a Meteorite

Dr. Richard Hoover is an astrobiologist with NASA who claims he's found evidence of extra-terrestrial life by examining many different meteorites around the world.

Though it may be hard to swallow, Hoover is convinced that his findings reveal fossil evidence of bacterial life within such meteorites, the remains of living organisms from their parent bodies -- comets, moons and other astral bodies. By extension, the findings suggest we are not alone in the universe, he said.

“I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet earth,” Hoover told FoxNews.com. “This field of study has just barely been touched -- because quite frankly, a great many scientist would say that this is impossible.” ...He found the fossilized remains of micro-organisms not so different from ordinary ones found underfoot -- here on earth, that is.

The scientific community is organizing a large group to investigate these claims.

Of course, this is nothing new.  In 1984 a meteorite found in Antarctica (it's called ALH 84001 - seen at right) showed similar signs of previous life.   Apparently, the meteorite could not be tested in a way that would prove this conclusively, so the theory that it contains evidence of alien life is going to remain in the gray area.  Maybe Dr. Hoover's new findings will shed some light on things.

New Life Form Discovered by NASA

Mark Twain once visited Mono Lake in California and lamented that it was a "lifeless" place.  He was very wrong.  NASA has discovered a new life form in that lake, and it changes everything:

NASA has discovered a totally new kind of life form, but it’s not an alien—it’s here on Earth. Astrobiologists have found a bacteria living in a poisonous California lake that’s actually partially made of arsenic, it announced in a much-hyped press conference today. Whereas every other organism ever observed is made up of six essential ingredients—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur—this one seems to have replaced phosphorus with arsenic, the Washington Post explains.  That means the bacteria evolved from a different common ancestor than every other organism on the planet...[link]

The Times ran a story about this research back in March, but, until today, it didn't really get much notice.  It could have come from space.  It could be a form of life on earth we simply haven't seen before.  Since it appears to live in a poisonous lake, it's no surprise that we didn't see it sooner.  No matter what its origin, it has evolved differently than any other known creature.  This is a big discovery.

Lake Mono, California

It was found in a place called Lake Mono, which has a size of about 65 miles and dates back to the ice age (when it was a much larger lake).  And this new life form is not the first unusual animal found there - the Lake Mono Brine Shrimp are only found in this lake.  It's also filled with a high level of salt and is very calcium rich.  This leads to the formation of stalagmite-like outcroppings called tufa (below), and the salt/calcium mix in the lake makes an unusual coating that covers everything the water touches.  If there was ever a place to search for strange new life, it was certainly Lake Mono.

Tufa from Lake Mono

I doubt anything new will be revealed about this life form any time soon, but this is a big day for biology.  There is always so much that we don't know.

Astronomers Find Unusual Pockets of Energy in Our Solar System

Something big is going on at the center of the galaxy, and astronomers are happy to say they don’t know what it is.  A group of scientists working with data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope said Tuesday that they had discovered two bubbles of energy erupting from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The bubbles, they said at a news conference and in a paper to be published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal, extend 25,000 light years up and down from each side of the galaxy and contain the energy equivalent to 100,000 supernova explosions.

Odd.  I've never heard of anything like it.  And I'm not sure what they mean by "energy."  Normally, that term is not used to refer to a substance hanging around, but to refer to stored energy, so they must be referring to energized particles of some sort.  They say it isn't dark matter, and isn't anything else they have seen before.

The strange part is the sudden observation of these large pockets.  the observers claim that they did not notice them, before, but is it possible that these pockets of energy simply weren't there until now?  Perhaps something is causing this change in our galaxy.

The Demise of Disinformation

In recent years, the once fantastic publications from the Disinformation group have become boring and derivative.  In place of the varying points of view they once offered, they now simply parrot the opinions of political pundits.

I have one of their books (I forget which one), and I enjoy it.  I don't agree with all of the writers, but, then again, I'm not supposed to.  The idea of the book (according to its intro) was to bring new opinions and points of view to the reader, and it succeeded.  But that vision is lost now.

In George W. Bush's second term, the disinformation website was filled with a few articles about conspiracies and media cover-ups, as well as a few thousand articles criticizing the policies of President Bush.  I can get that over at CNN.  Or a YouTube commenter for that matter.

Today, things aren't improving.  There are articles proclaiming that the Tea Party is stupid and that anyone disliking President Obama is certainly a racist.  That kind of tripe isn't disinformation - it's just angry political ranting.

A once useful publication has rendered itself obsolete.

Devil Sighting in France; 10 Injured and One Dead After Fleeing Out a Window

I'm not making any of this up.  This morning in Paris, France, a very unusual thing happened that has tragically resulted in the death of an infant.

In the middle of the night, a man heard his baby making noise and got up to check on it without putting any clothes on.  His wife saw him and immediately cried out that he was the Devil and the rest of the household woke up and became afraid as well.  Very soon, the ten people who lived there all jumped out of a third story window in fear of this man that they believed was the Devil.  An infant was taken out the window and did not survive the fall - it was the only fatality.

Some sources say that the man was stabbed by one of the family members, but the reports are not clear.

However, no evidence of drug use has been found, and no unusual religious rituals seem to have taken place.

What's going on?  Is this a hoax?  Mass delusions like this aren't really possible (because multiple people can't share the same illusion) and surely the same man didn't force 11 people out of a window and then convince them all to claim it was the Devil that did it.

We'll know more as the story develops, but nothing has developed all day in this story and I worry that this is all we'll get.

I'll keep you updated.

The Real Monster of the Nile

The title may seem misleading to some, but what's going on in Burundi could be the plot of a real horror movie:  An enormous Nile Crocodile has apparently developed a taste for human flesh stalks the waters looking for victims - sometimes killing people without eating the bodies.  (He recently topped Listverse.com's list of The Top Ten Worst Maneaters in History - a list which contains 9 other such creatures that are not just spook stories.)

He's been named Gustave, and he's very real.  He literally weighs a ton, is 20 feet long, and can be identified by the bullet wounds visible on his head.  And getting shot a few times doesn't seem to have slowed him down.  Gustave is not your normal large animal, however, because he's actually known to kill humans without eating their bodies - something that my naturalist friends tell me is impossible, since "animals only kill to eat."

Gustave has been around for 60 years and some estimate that he has killed 300 people, but it's difficult to say. Others place his kill count well below 100 (which is still horrifying).  He's the largest croc of his type ever seen, and that makes him hard to miss.  It's been two years since any confirmed kills by Gustave, but plenty of attacks have been blamed on him by locals who are certain they have seen Gustave - there aren't a lot of seven meter long specimens with bullet scars.

Is it wrong for me to call him a monster?  Some would say that he's just an animal and that I'm being misleading, but it's not that simple.  The word monster comes from a Latin word which means "that which is revealed."  Monsters don't only scare us, but they reveal things to us.  (For example, a ghost in a story might reveal to us that there is life after death - and it might scare us.)  Gustave provides a revelation of his own: nature isn't always your friend.

(And in case you're wondering, these animals can live to be 100 years old, so he's not dying of old age any time soon!)

Something Suspicious About the Chilean Miners

I am very glad that the Chilean miners are being rescued, and it's a credit to the country that they were able and willing to spend the money and time it took to find those men (after they had officially been declared dead) and to rescue them.  This is good news.  But there's more - and some parts of the story we will never truly know.

Mine shafts have a long history of strange activity.  In 1945, a a section of the Belva Mine (located in Pennsylvania) caved in and left many miners trapped.  They were frightened, but they soon noticed a door open in the cave and a man holding a lantern assured them that rescue was coming - and disappeared back into the door.  (No one ever comments on the nature of that door.  Did the trapped miners try to open it themselves?  Did the door blend in with the wall?  And no word on why the man wouldn't let them escape through his door - or bring them any food.)  There are many stories of such underground men being encountered by modern diggers - but no evidence, unfortunately.

There are also some very widely accepted stories about hidden tunnels all over the Earth.  This site lists U.S. military bases and their tunnels that lead to other bases in other states; I don't know if any of it is true, of course. But I do know that you can do an internet search for "hidden underground passages" and find something for just about every part of the world.  These tunnels are normally attributed to something far more ancient and mysterious than the government, however.

And, who can forget the Shaver Stories?  Richard Shaver published some stories about going underground and meeting with strange people called the "Deros" who were not so kind as the fellow who helped the Belva Miners in 1945 - instead they ate people.  His stuff was published as fiction, but written as if it were true.  He would maintain that it was true until he died, and this lead to a very enduring following.

So, we're left with a rather spotty legacy of miners seeing strange things and stories of underground caverns.  What does this have to do with the Chilean miners?  Probably nothing, but there are few loose ends in their story.

For starters, these men were in the in the mine for two whole months - that's the longest anyone has ever been trapped in a mine and survived.  We are told that they survived by rationing food and eating small bites every other day, and they even had some food left over when they were rescued.  Is it possible that they had some help?  The doctor who made contact with them was impressed at their level of comfort, and we've seen that they are rather cool-headed about the ordeal.

But what's really suspicious is the gag order these men have agreed to.  Before being rescued, these men were asked to sign an agreement saying that they would never talk about the first seventeen days they spent in the mine.  We are told that this is because of the secretes that they told: since they thought they would die, some of them told stories about having affairs and other things that were secret.  But, if this is being kept a secret, how could the press know about it?  And is it really necessary to make them sign something like this before rescuing them?  It's very odd.  Did they see something, or did they find something they were not supposed to see?  And could it have anything to do with why the Chilean government was so quick to claim that the men were dead and hold a funeral for them?

The truth is, unless one of these mens breaks their agreement, we'll never know what went on in that cavern before they were rescued.

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.

500 Foot Long Crack Forms in Michigan - No Explanation

Eileen Heider was relaxing in her recliner when she began to feel the chair vibrate.  An explosion was heard and when she ran out to check on it she noticed a large crack had formed along her property.

Heider and neighbors heard an explosion-like sound Monday morning. Heider found the nearly 200-yard-long crevice, which measures five-feet deep in parts, Tuesday. (source)

So far, a gas eruption has been ruled out, but nothing else developed on this odd story all week.  There's no fault line nearby, and no history of geological activity like this.

Here's a video, wherein a local man says his large pile of wood was knocked over in the explosion:



Since there's no crater, we can probably rule out ordinary explosives.  No one has located an epicenter, yet, so we've got nothing to go on.  Could there be a geyser or a volcano forming?  That's pretty rare, but so is this incident.  Also, there's a situation called Bradyseism in which the ground shudders like this due to underground magma fluctuations.

There's also the liquification phenomenon (which has been mentioned on some comment boards) where the ground suddenly acts like a liquid and sucks things up.  Supposedly, this sort of thing happened a long time ago on an island inhabited with pirates, and many of the criminals on the island were trapped in the ground after it hardened and became meals for local animals.  It's very creepy, but I don't see anyone describing that sort of thing, and it's a phenomenon that is usually observed in loose sandy soils - not clumpy moist soil with vegetation.  Also, liquification isn't known to cause audible explosions.

But this sort of speculation is all we have, right now.  Maybe we'll get some more answers, or maybe this mysterious crack in the ground will always haunt us.

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.)

New Ape Discovered

As Cryptomundo tells us, a new type of ape has been discovered.  A new sort of crested Gibbon is recognized in the Asian rainforests.  There are new creatures being identified like this every year - is it completely ridiculous to think that Bigfoot might be next?  I don't think so.

The Horror of Sleep Paralysis

Most paranormal enthusiasts have read about sleep paralysis, or, at least, they've read about "Old Hag Syndrome" or one of the many names it goes by outside of the medical community.  Colloquially, these stories span cultures and centuries but are all basically the same.  The sleeper awakes to find out they cannot move.  This is accompanied by an odd sense of danger and the frightening image of something staring at them in the darkness.  Some describe an old woman staring down at them, others a shadowy ghost, and others a demon.  All of the descriptions seem similar, though.

Medical science brought us closer to understanding this after discovering REM atonia.  This is the "override" switch in your brain that keeps your body still while you sleep.  After reading about this, I thought an episode of sleep paralysis would be a fun experiment and hoped it would happen to me.  I came to regret that.

I had long forgotten about REM atonia by the time it happened.  In the middle of the night, my eyes opened and I didn't know why.  Surely, I had heard some sound or some noise in the apartment, but I couldn't remember.  Something had startled me, however, because I was frightened.  Very frightened.  Had I heard someone break in through the window?  Or did I hear someone yelling?  No, I couldn't remember anything at all.  I just knew this overwhelming feeling of dread like I had not ever known.  I've lived in bad neighborhoods and been through some rough scrapes, but this feeling of fear was much worse than anything I had been through.  For the first time in my life, I was certain that something horrible was going to happen to me and that I was powerless to stop it from happening.

Then, I saw it.  Someone standing right in front of me.  Had they been there the entire time?  I couldn't see them well in the darkness, but a person was standing just a few feet away and staring at me while I laid on my side.  I am normally very calm under pressure, but I wanted to scream.  I stared in horror at the thing that stared back at me.  I couldn't see its eyes, but I could feel it looking at me in the dark.  What was it doing?  How had it gotten there?  And why did it awaken the darkest fears within me?

And why the devil couldn't I move?  I just laid there in my fear thinking that I was paralyzed out of horror.  I don't know how long it lasted, but I must have finally fallen asleep.  When I awoke I had vivid memories of the thing and I looked around the room for signs of an intruder.  I knew I wouldn't find anything, and I didn't.  I sat up in bed thinking about the horror for a long time.  Finally, from the recesses of my mind, I remembered sleep paralysis and REM atonia.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

It might sound silly, but these happenings are very frightening, and I now understand why someone might need therapy after such an experience.  As for the medical explanations that I turned to for comfort, why does every victim of sleep paralysis see the same ghastly shape before them?  What causes the inexplicable feelings of dread?  Is it impossible that this is the way certain metaphysical creatures terrorize us?  Could it be that demons walk among us and this is how they interact with us?  Or is it just the way chemicals in our brain react when our REM cycle is off its axis?  I don't know, and no one seems to have answered this mystery completely, yet.  But if this happens to someone I know, I'm going to be very understanding - it is a horrifying thing.

Is Hollywood Responsible for the Patterson -Gimlin Bigfoot Video?

You've all see it, by now.  The famous Patterson-Gimlin video is a source of great debate for Bigfoot enthusiasts and debunkers, alike.  (You can watch it here.)  If it's not real, then it must be a guy in a suit, right?  And rumors abound that one person or another in Hollywood is responsible for the suit.  Case closed, for the skeptic.  But it's just not that simple when you do your homework.

Let's examine the video just a bit before looking at those claims, and bear in mind that this thing was filmed in 1967.  BigfootEncounters.com has a wonder .gif file that stabilizes the shaky image from the film.  People love to complain about the film quality, but Bigfoot enthusiasts actually spent a lot of time working on these videos to make them as clear as possible.  Here it is:

Now, we can see what we're working with.  Does it look like Hollywood's work?  Before you answer, let's consider Hollywood's work.  In 1968, on year after this video was made, Planet of the Apes would be nominated for an academy for costume design.  There's a good photo of one of these costumes here (I can't find a royalty free image, otherwise I would post one on my site.)  As you can see, it's a good mask with a leather jacket, long pants, boots, and hairy gloves.  It's good costume work, and certainly deserves the nomination it received.  But it's not as good as the Bigfoot costume, above.  A big-budget Hollywood film ought to have better effects than a homemade film done by amateurs.

Moving ahead a decade or so we meet the mighty Chewbacca.  Here we finally have a full body suit of an ape-like creature.  However, take a good look at Bigfoot, up there.  Chewbacca had a human-sized suit covered in hair.  If the Patterson-Gimlin film is a man in a suit, then he's in one sophisticated suit.  It's got a greater range of motion than a Hollywood suit, and you can see that Bigfoot has flex in his hands and feet, and the muscles in his face move when you look closely.  Chewbacca's feet look like hair boots rather than actual feet.  (I'm not knocking Star Wars, mind you.)  Also, it has often been pointed out that the subject of the Patterson-Gimlin film has ridiculously long arms.  It would take a circus freak to fit into that costume.

The point?  If this is a man in a suit, it's the most advanced suit ever filmed in its time.

There are claims that this person or that person in Hollywood made the suit.  The problem?  There's no proof.  Phillip Morris claims that HE made the suit back in the day, but his story is full of holes.  He says that he made the arms long so that an actor could hold a stick in his hand to control the entire arm.  That sounds nice, but it doesn't make since.  In the video, you can see the individual fingers moving, and that's not possible if the hand doesn't actually fit the glove.  It may be possible to set up some sort of rig that moves the fingers independently, but we are talking about some serious technological sophistication for a suit made on a small budget in the 60's.  We're talking about a real contortion act mixed in with a suit more advanced than anything Hollywood ever did until the 90's (if at all).  Not to mention, Phillip Morris runs a costume business, and this sort of thing would be really good for sales - and his business partner is the only person to corroborate his story.  (Lots of people have claimed responsibility for the suit; if I listed them all we would be here all day.  Bottom line?  None of them have even the most superficial proof.)

One last thing.  Let's take a look at Brian Dunning's words on the matter.  For those of you who don't know, Dunning is a skeptic who takes great pride in not believing in anything.  I'm not sure if he's a nihilist, but he abhors any belief in the supernatural or things like UFOs or monsters.  However, his words on the Patterson-Gimlin film are interesting:

I'm not a Bigfoot believer but I will give credit where credit is due. The Patterson-Gimlin film looked like a real animal to me. The Discovery Channel's "duplication" of it looked ridiculous. It looked nothing like a real animal, and certainly didn't remotely resemble the subject shown in the Patterson-Gimlin film. Chewbacca looked more real than the Discovery Channel's Bigfoot suit. Hollywood's state of the art in gorilla suits in 1967 were Planet of the Apes and The Galileo Seven episode of Star Trek. Two loggers with no previous gorilla suit experience made a suit that was better than today's state of the art, and certainly light years ahead of the 1967 state of the art. I'm not saying the film's real, I'm saying give credit where credit is due, and admit that if it is a fake, it's astounding. If you disagree then go through a stabilized version frame-by-frame as I have.

The half dozen or so Hollywood special effects artists who have since "come forward" to claim that they were responsible for the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot suit, and the dozens of guys who have "come forward" to claim that they were the guy wearing the suit, are no more evidence against the film than Ray Wallace's wooden feet are evidence that no real Bigfoot footprints exist.

Critics of the film also say that the creature's behavior is unrealistic. I have no knowledge of what a real Bigfoot's behavior might be, but I have encountered bears half a dozen times, and they acted exactly like the Patterson-Gimlin creature: just walked away, unconcerned, with maybe only a look or two back.
 

The Patterson-Gimlin film is not an open-close case.  It's an impressive film no matter what the truth behind it turns out to be.  Did two guys with a tiny budget make the world's most advanced special effects costume?  Or did they capture an image of an unknown creature?  Patterson spent a lot of money looking for further evidence of Bigfoot, and when he died he was still telling people it was real.  Gimlin, his partner, can be found attending Bigfoot conferences also claiming the video is the real thing.  This video is a real mystery - not something that can be written off easily.

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.

Successful Cryptid Investigations

Listverse.com has a fun list of The Top 10 Cryptids that Turned out to be Real.

http://listverse.com/2010/08/13/top-10-cryptids-that-turned-out-to-be-real/

(I'm actually just posting this to test my RSS feed settings.)

Bigfoot and Muchalat Harry's White Hair

A fun story about a trapper getting trapped by Bigfoot is making the rounds (I first caught it on the Anomalist).  I really don't try to spoil these things, but this story has all the earmarks of an urban legend.  Which is a shame, because I love these stories.


In 1928, as the story goes, a trapper named Muchalat Harry would take his canoe across the river and set up traps.  While camping, he was caught by Bigfeet who kept him in their camp and showed general curiosity toward him.  After a few days of this he noticed his chance to escape and ran all the way to his canoe, barefoot and almost naked, and started rowing across the river.

I have no idea what kind of wild animal kidnaps people for pets, but that's how the story goes.  But the part that gets me is the end:

At about 3 a.m. the next morning, the exhausted and terrified man finally arrived in the village of Nootka on Vancouver Island. The Rev. Anthony Terhaar, a Catholic missionary priest, was living in the village at the time. Terhaar, who was called Father Anthony, and his fellow villagers were awakened by the sound of wild crying from the waters in the inlet. They lit torches and went out to see what was going on. There, they found the nearly frozen and exhausted Muchalat Harry lying in his canoe. He was barefoot and wearing only his wet and torn underwear. He had paddled his canoe through the night 45 miles from the mouth of the Conuma River.

Father Anthony and the villagers carried Harry’s almost lifeless body out of the canoe and took care of him. It took three weeks for him to get back both his sanity and good health. During that time, Muchalat Harry’s hair turned pure white.

The notion of turning a person's hair white through fright is an old one that shows up in many urban legends (and that oddball sound from The Crash Test Dummies), but it's not a real phenomenon.  As we learned in grade school, hair is made up of dead cells that have been pushed out of our pores.  The body can't act upon these cells or make any changes to them; a person goes gray when the hair starts growing that way - the actual hairs don't change color.

This story has a lot of fun elements - the irony of a trapper getting trapped, the testimony of a beloved priest who saw a terrible sight, and an urban legend about hair turning white.  But it doesn't have the ring of truth to it.  This story is often used to remind people that Bigfoot is dangerous and aggressive, but I don't think we can assume that from such a fanciful tale.

Mexico's Unusual Witch Stories

Mexico brings us more regular stories of witches than any other place I can think of. I'm not talking about modern Paganistic movements, but actual stories of witches running around doing evil deeds.

There are lots of horror stories. I think in Mexico it might be normal to attribute strange things to witches just as easily as people in the U.S. will attribute everything to ghosts. But, unlike ghost sightings, people are actually seeing things - and what they're seeing is difficult to take seriously.

These witches aren't of the modern variety. Instead of Sandra Bullock's character from Practical Magic we are hearing about stereotypical witches from Halloween stores.  The Mexican witches are seen riding brooms and waring crooked hats while cackling with laughter.  There's even a video:



Whatever it is, it travels in a straight line and doesn't real move at all.  Probably just a few different cheap video editing effects, but I still find it interesting because there aren't many places where anyone would believe that a real broom-riding witch could be real.  For some reason, this is still normal in Mexico.  I don't know why.

Inexplicata (and English language blog about Mexican paranormal events) has a nice post about this, and the author reminds us of an old saying to put things into perspective:

It must be a hoax, one thinks automatically, since witches don’t exist, or at least not in that particular form. Or do they? As the old Spanish saying goes: las brujas no existen, pero las hay – witches don’t exist, but they’re there. 

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.

Plasma Eruption Headed Toward Earth

Earlier this week, NASA scientists got a view of tonnes of plasma spewing forth from the sun and headed directly for Earth.  Wednesday morning the plasma should reach Earth.

AstronomyNow.com tells us how we can make the most of this:

If the magnetic field conditions at Earth are right then solar particles will stream down the field lies to interact with nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere, producing spectacular curtains of green and red light known as auroral displays. Observers in northern latitudes should look north this evening and in the early hours of tomorrow morning to try and catch a glimpse of these beautiful natural displays.

Of course, not everyone will be able to see it.  What's more interesting is just how rare this is.  Not only are these eruptions uncommon, but a certain number of events had to happen to make this plasma burst move exactly in the direction of Earth as it moves in orbit - exactly in the direction of the United States, to be precise.  As NewScientist.com explains:

On 1 August, a small solar flare erupted above sunspot 1092. It would not have raised many eyebrows, except that a large filament of cool gas stretching across the sun's northern hemisphere also chose that moment to explode into space.  Despite being separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometres, the two events may be linked. Images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory hint at a shock wave travelling from the flare into the filament.

 

It's enough to form conspiracy theories about weapons designed to use the sun against different countries, but I'll save that one for the ScyFy channel.

More Extra Solar Planets Discovered

We are often told that our planet is unique and that the odds of intelligent life existing on another planet so remote as to be nearly impossible.  Well, the odds are getting better:

Scientists celebrated Sunday after finding more than 700 suspected new planets -- including up to 140 similar in size to Earth -- in just six weeks of using a powerful new space observatory.

But, it gets better:

“The figures suggest our galaxy, the Milky Way [which has more than 100 billion stars] will contain 100 million habitable planets, and soon we will be identifying the first of them,” said Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University and a scientist on the Kepler Mission. "There is a lot more work we need to do with this, but the statistical result is loud and clear, and it is that planets like our own Earth are out there."

Wikipedia keeps a list of extrasolar planets that's pretty staggering in itself, but it's only a list of the planets that have been confirmed - there are many more that just haven't been adequately studied, yet, because there are only so many telescopes.  We may find that we are not so unique after all - and not so alone.