48 Percent Of Americans Believe UFOs Could Be ET Visitations

Source - huffingtonpost.com

Nearly half the population believes UFOs could be a sign of extraterrestrial visitation.
A HuffPost/YouGov poll reveals that 48 percent of adults in the United States are open to the idea that alien spacecraft are observing our planet -- and just 35 percent outright reject the idea.
The poll was seen as vindication from the community of UFO researchers who often feel they are laughed off by government officials.
"It's always been intriguing to me how we act as though only kooks and quacks and little old ladies in tennis shoes believe in flying saucers. And it's never been true, at least for 30 or 40 years," said former nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman, who was the original civilian investigator of the events surrounding the legendary Roswell, NM, UFO crash of 1947.
Friedman is very outspoken on the idea that some UFOs are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial vehicles.
"The believers are far more quiet, but far more on the side of reality," Friedman told The Huffington Post. "When you look at the polls, it's clear. And I see the benefit of that, personally, because I've only had 11 hecklers in over 700 lectures. I've been out there, all over the place, in every state, 18 other countries, and I know that my audience is more than tolerant -- they're accepting. It's been one of the things that really has kept me going."
In the HuffPost/YouGov poll, conducted between Sept. 6-7, 1,000 adults were asked if they either believed or didn't believe that some people have witnessed UFOs that have an extraterrestrial origin.
When YouGov offered respondents the choice between "slightly disagree," "disagree" and "strongly disagree," those numbers added up to 35 percent who are skeptical of the notion that any UFOs may be alien-related.
However, nearly half of the adults surveyed (48 percent) resounded in the affirmative, leaving 16 percent who indicated that they weren't sure on either side of the ET issue.

Could Earth Defend Itself From An ET Invasion?

Source - huffingtonpost.com
While it's true that Russia has a very sophisticated air defense system capable of engaging and taking down targets at near-space altitudes -- as reported by RIA Novosti, Russia's leading news agency -- there's one potential enemy that country isn't ready to confront: aliens from space.
During a recent conference at the Titov Main Test and Space Systems Control Center near Moscow, a journalist asked if Russia's vast array of security systems could protect the country from a possible extraterrestrial invasion, according to Russia Today.
"So far, we are not capable of that," center deputy chief Sergey Berezhnoy responded. "We are unfortunately not ready to fight extraterrestrial civilizations. Our center was not tasked with it. There are too many problems on Earth and near it."
OpenMinds.tv reports that the Titov space center, controlled by the Aerospace Defense Troops, monitors space objects and identifies potential threats to Russia in space and from space -- but there doesn't seem to be a clearly defined plan from which to defend against ruthless ETs.

Taking this to the next level includes asking if any single or group of nations on this planet could successfully fend off an alien invasion.
To be sure, no government has ever confirmed the existence of a spacecraft under ET control. Many countries over the years, however, have scrambled pilots to chase unidentified flying objects. While these objects could have been many things, if they were from a distant planet, we might assume that the technology needed to travel so far vastly exceeds our own capabilities.
To explore that issue, it helps to consider if there has ever been a single instance where a UFO encounter by military or civilian eyewitnesses could have been construed as a sample of earthlings confronting a superior, out-of-this world technology.
In 1969, the United States Air Force terminated its 20-year UFO study known as Project Blue Book. Of the 12,618 sightings reportedly studied by the military, 701 remained "unidentified."
Project Blue Book -- and, therefore, the military and government -- publicly concluded that 1) no UFO investigated by the Air Force indicated any national security threat; 2) no UFOs investigated represented "technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge"; and 3) there was no evidence "indicating that sightings categorized as 'unidentified' are extraterrestrial vehicles."
Despite those official pronouncements, other things happened that, when truly examined, appeared to contradict the government's stance on UFOs. Was the public lied to about UFOs for many decades and if so, why?
The following items are just the tip of what may be a very big iceberg. These haven't been fabricated -- all are true events.


1947: Amid reports of disc- or saucer-shaped objects outperforming any known aircraft, a top secret evaluation was performed by the Air Material Command, headed by Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining, which stated that the reported circular objects were "real, not imaginary, flat on the bottom, domed on top and capable of intelligent, evasive maneuvers." 1966: U.S. Treasury Agent Donald Flickenger and several Border Patrolmen in North Dakota witnessed an astounding display of maneuverability by a UFO which defied the known and accepted scientific principles of physics and gravity. "What I saw was a metallic object that appeared to be about 30 feet in diameter and was probably about 15 feet tall at its highest point -- disc-shaped, no sound to the object at all. It hovered in our area for about three minutes, about 20 to 30 feet off the ground. Suddenly it rose up, turned over on edge, and the only thing I could see at that point were three knob-like structures that were sticking out from the underside of the object. It started spinning very rapidly, and as it spun, it started lifting up in the air and picked up speed, and all of a sudden, with a real sharp burst of speed, shot straight up in the air and was gone in a matter of seconds!" 1973: A terrifying encounter took place between a four-man crew aboard an Army helicopter and a UFO over Ohio. The mid-air drama was witnessed by several ground observers and is considered one of the most impressive sightings in history. The helicopter commander, Maj. Larry Coyne, and his crew thought at first that the light on the horizon was a radio tower beacon: "The crew chief informed me that the light was closing on the helicopter -- coming at us on a collision course," Coyne told this reporter in 1975. "I observed that the object became bigger and the light became brighter, and I began to descend the helicopter toward the ground to get out of the collision course path. It was like a missile locked onto the helicopter. We braced for impact and I looked up and observed this craft stopped directly in front of us -- stopped -- it was hovering right over the helicopter!" Coyne and his crew described the craft as "cigar-shaped, no wings, no vertical or horizontal stabilizer, approximately 60 feet long and 20 feet in height." Coyne went on to describe how a bright green light came out of the UFO and turned the whole cabin of the helicopter green. And then they realized that their helicopter was somehow being pulled up, "climbing 1,000 feet a minute, with no changes in the control. We went from 1,700 feet to 3,500 in a matter of seconds and never knew it!" The UFO eventually released the helicopter and the Army didn't attempt to prevent the crew from telling their story to the press. Several years later, Coyne was allowed -- through efforts from this reporter -- to recount the UFO incident in front of the Special Political Committee of the United Nations -- a presentation, incidentally, that the U.K. tried to prevent from happening. Watch a television segment focusing on the Coyne UFO-Helicopter encounter:



1980: Peruvian air force fighter pilot Col. Oscar Santa-Maria was ordered to takeoff and shoot down a sphere-shaped UFO that was in restricted airspace near an air base. Of the more than 20-minute encounter, Santa-Maria, an expert pilot, told a panel of former members of Congress earlier this year, "It was trying to avoid me while I was pursuing it and I was trying to fire. When I first fired, these were bursts of 30 millimeter shells -- a single one can destroy a truck. I shot 64 and nothing happened at all. The possibility of not hitting my target was practically impossible." The object Santa-Maria chased was 30 feet in diameter, with a dome on top, no visible engine, wings or windows. "Once I landed, I met with intelligence officers and we looked at all catalogues to see what possible spy object this might have been, but there was nothing similar to what I had observed, and we were unaware of any type of technology like this on Earth that existed."

1997: Former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington mocked thousands of people who claimed to see mysterious lights over Phoenix. He even brought out one of his staffers dressed in a cheesy ET costume during a press conference. Ten years passed before Symington apologized and admitted that he, too, witnessed an extraordinary, boomerang-shaped unknown flying craft over Phoenix. "I was expecting to see something in the distance, but was awestruck when this thing went overhead, moving steadily and quietly," Symington told HuffPost, also admitting a taboo about elected officials and UFOs. "If you hold a high public office, then the minute you start talking about UFOs or extraterrestrials, the media immediately tees off and ridicules it. If you're an elected official, you really need to be careful about what you say, because the media can just totally destroy your credibility." There are many more credible stories like the above UFO encounters. Yet, they seem to contradict the ongoing official Air Force contention that there's nothing of technological or scientific interest worth pursuing.
Someone is obviously not telling the truth.
It would probably be a good idea if the countries of the world were united as Earthlings in case some evil-doer extraterrestrials decide to stop by to check out our vulnerabilities as a species. Better to be friends instead of appetizers.

History Channel Puts The Strongest UFO Evidence Under The Microscope

Source - huffingtonpost.com

A disk-shaped object photographed over Costa Rica in 1971 by a government mapping aircraft.

• In 1986, a Japan Airlines pilot saw what he described as an unidentified flying object over Alaska closely tailing his 747. He made an evasive move. His career was thrown into turmoil, but he never recanted what he claimed he saw.
• In 1987, a Federal Aviation Administration executive says the CIA warned him not to talk about UFOs because the public would panic.
• In 1997, former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington mocked thousands of people who said they saw mysterious lights over Phoenix, calling out a staffer dressed in a cheesy ET costume at a press conference. Ten years later, he apologized for lying to the media and the public.
What these events have in common is that they are unveiled on a new two-hour History Channel special, "Secret Access: UFOs On The Record," that features in-depth accounts from people who have been willing to risk their jobs and reputations to speak out about their remarkable experiences with UFOs.
"The theme of the program is that UFOs exist, but there's a small percentage of sightings that are significant and haven't been explained," said Leslie Kean, author of The New York Times bestseller UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On The Record, which forms the basis of the History Channel special.

Of all UFO sightings reported, most can be explained as ordinary phenomena, and therefore discarded. However, there are some spectacular, well-documented UFO events have been officially investigated by government agencies, witnessed by pilots and confirmed by Air Force generals. No conventional explanations were found despite extensive efforts by experts to do so. These are the cases explored in "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record" and in the History Channel special, "Secret Access: UFOs On The Record." Photo: U.S. Coast Guard, Salem, MA; 1952

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Of all UFO sightings reported, most can be explained as ordinary phenomena, and therefore discarded. However, there are some spectacular, well-documented UFO events have been officially investigated by government agencies, witnessed by pilots and confirmed by Air Force generals. No conventional explanations were found despite extensive efforts by experts to do so. These are the cases explored in "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record" and in the History Channel special, "Secret Access: UFOs On The Record."

"There is a phenomenon here and there are many high level officials, including pilots and government people, who have been involved with it and who stand behind the existence of UFOs.

"We make the point that we don't know what they are and that there are a significant number of cases that need to be studied further," Kean told The Huffington Post.

One compelling case presented in "Secret Access," which has become known as the Rendlesham Forest incident, involved more than 50 military eyewitnesses stationed at the joint U.S. Air Force/NATO bases, Bentwaters and Woodbridge, in Suffolk in 1980.

As the incident unfolded, numerous UFOs of various shapes and sizes appeared near the bases, according to a voice recording of deputy base commander, Lt. Col. Charles Halt during the event.

"This was something of intelligent control beyond any technology we know," Halt told this reporter several months ago. "It's my firm belief that it was extraterrestrial or from a different dimension."

Then there's the remarkable case involving former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, which began on the night of March 13, 1997, when crowds of citizens reported gigantic, silent craft moving around in the skies around Phoenix and which took off silently at blazing speeds. Witnesses included police officers, pilots, military personnel and -- as was finally revealed 10 years later -- Symington himself.

The two-term governor was at home, watching television when news came on announcing UFO reports in the nearby area. Symington's security detail had gone for the day, and he decided to get into his car alone and check it out.

"I was expecting to see something in the distance, but was awestruck when this thing went overhead. It was moving steadily and quietly," he told The Huffington Post.

Symington's description of the huge boomerang-shaped craft matched many others who also reported it that night.

WATCH:

After three months of local media coverage, the Arizona sightings finally hit the national airwaves and were dubbed the "Phoenix Lights." With growing public demand for an explanation, Symington -- still tight-lipped about his own sighting -- held a national press conference that would haunt him for years.

Claiming to have the culprit responsible for the Phoenix Lights, the governor introduced his chief of staff dressed as an alien and wearing handcuffs. As his staffer was unmasked, Symington told the press,"This just goes to show that you guys are entirely too serious."

Ten years after his phony alien stunt, Symington finally fessed up about his own dramatic 1997 Phoenix sighting.

"Well, I was confronted by good citizens who were really upset with me, and I didn't realize the depth of their anger. It just really bothered my conscience, so I felt I really needed to square with the truth and that's what I did."

Symington admits there's a taboo about elected officials talking about UFOs.

"I think if you hold a high public office, that the minute you start talking about UFOs or extraterrestrials or anything of that nature, the media immediately tees off and ridicules it. I often refer to the media culture in our country as the culture of ridicule.

"So, everybody reaches for their ridicule gun first before they seriously address the issue when it comes to the matter of UFOs. If you're an elected official, you really need to be careful about what you say, because the media can just totally destroy your credibility."

"Secret Access" isn't the first UFO program presented by the History Channel, according to Julian Hobbs, vice president of development and production.

"History doesn't necessarily believe or disbelieve in UFOs. In this case, what really caught our eye about Leslie's book was this idea that 95 percent of all UFO sightings can be pretty easily dismissed -- it's the 5 percent in which you have literally governors, military officials, pilots -- people normally considered to be level-headed, sane and credible," Hobbs told The Huffington Post.

"There wouldn't be the film without the book. When I read Leslie's book, on which the film is based, it changed my opinion about the fact that I think it's worth further investigation into these phenomena," Hobbs added.

Kean, herself, is optimistic about potential contact with extraterrestrials.

"I would hope that they are benign visitors from other planets -- that they would be something that could in some way benefit our own struggle on this planet," Kean said. "Even if we knew that we were not alone in the universe, somehow that knowledge alone could affect how we perceive ourselves and maybe affect the future of our civilization."

And Symington is much more outspoken on the subject now than he was while governor of Arizona.

"I know what I saw. To me, there's no question that we've experienced extraterrestrial visits and civilizations that are far more advanced than we are," he suggested.

"I don't approach it from a fearful standpoint. I actually like to think that we're not alone in the universe, and I'm not bashful on the subject. I think we're dealing with some fascinating unknowns and someday, the truth will out."

The History Channel presentation of "Secret Access: UFOs On The Record", premieres Thursday, Aug. 25 at 8 p.m. EDT.

WATCH HISTORY CHANNEL UFO PROMO:

Richard French, Ex-Air Force Lt. Colonel, 'It Was A UFO And . . . There Were Aliens Aboard It'

Source - huffingtonpost.com

Given his job, French never dreamed he'd end up in Newfoundland one day watching what appeared to him to be two extraterrestrials performing repairs on a submerged, unknown circular craft.
In Washington, D.C., recently, the 83-year-old retired officer testified at the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure panel of six former members of Congress about his work as a UFO debunker in 1952.
French recounted how the Newfoundland incident unfolded decades ago, in the early 1950s, after two UFOs were seen by many people off the coast of St. John's. French's superiors ordered him to look into the situation.
"They said, 'We have a UFO report and we want you to investigate it,' and that was standard for what I was doing," French told The Huffington Post. "They told me there were two of them involved and that they were deep under the water, after entering the water doing roughly 100 miles an hour.
"There were a lot of people assembled on the wharf, at least 100 standing around just looking in amazement at the water, including several local policemen."
Watch Ret. Air Force Lt. Col. Richard French at the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure:

French recalls the water was very clear and he could see two circular craft, each one about 18 feet in diameter and approximately 3 feet thick. He said the two objects were floating below the surface of the water, a couple of feet apart, not more than 20 feet from the shore. And he saw two beings in the water near the ships.
"The first thing I saw was the UFOs, and it was apparent to me that they were doing something to the craft, and I couldn't really tell what because they were on the bottom side of it and not visible to me except when they would occasionally get over to the side where I could see them. The water was fairly clear and I could see without any trouble. They weren't down at the bottom of the [seabed] -- they were about half way down."
French told HuffPost that the two beings he saw "were about 2 or 3 feet tall, light grey in color, very thin, long arms with either two or three fingers. The top of their heads was much wider than their jaw line, their eyes were very slanted and you couldn't see pupils in them. They looked the way [aliens] have been depicted in motion pictures."
As the Air Force UFO debunker watched, he claims one of the ships began to rise out of the water.
"When it hit the [surface], it was going about 100 miles an hour. It then accelerated to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500 to 3,000 miles an hour and disappeared. It returned about 20 minutes later, slowed down to nearly a stop before it entered the water, then went down, and the two [beings] worked together.
"It took them about 20 minutes and then the two ships departed together, again slow when they exited the water, and immediately they sped up to a very high speed. I believe they were repairing [the ship] and tested that the repairs had been adequate, and then away they went."
Watch French talk about his job as an Air Force UFO debunker:

Ironically, French's job at the time -- as a Project Blue Book investigator -- was to debunk UFOs. So, what kind of report did he file with Blue Book about this case he had personally witnessed?
"Needless to say, it was a fictitious report, as all of them were. I didn't really say that they were UFOs -- I said that there was something we didn't know -- some type of foreign or unrecognizable vehicle there. In other words, I weasel-worded it.
"Oh, I think without a doubt it was a UFO and I think there were aliens aboard it. There's no question in my mind that was exactly what it was, and my duty was to debunk the story, so I did my best to do so."
The events of the Newfoundland UFO and alleged aliens took place some 60 years ago, in the days before everyone had a digital camera or image-capture cell phone in their pocket. Despite the fact that there are no photographs to substantiate the report, it's still an amazing story.
So what are we to make of this? Because it's not the first time French has stirred up the UFO-ET pot.
Last year, he told HuffPost exclusively that there wasn't just one UFO crash near Roswell, N.M., in 1947 -- he said there were two.

Possible Alien Creature Seen In Park And Church Roof Tops In Santiago, Chile, Videos And Photos

South American news states: On 29 September around 21:00 hours near Bustamante Park in the downtown area, a strange flying creature was seen flying from one tree to another. Its size was estimated at around 2 meters tall and shaped like a manta ray, according to a report by Scott C. Waring, author of  UFO Sightings Daily

Date of sighting: September 29, 2013
Location of sighting: Bustamante Park, Santiago, Chile
Source: http://www.inexplicata.blogspot.ca
Ignacio, a young man who was the privileged witness to this brief yet disconcerting flying being sighting, does not wish to disclose his identity but made his narrative available to journalist [Juan Andrés] Salfate on Canal La Red. His description is specific, remarking that the entity had wings from the upper part of its body down to its lower part.

Ignacio made a drawing of what he saw, which we present in this report.

Eyewitness testimony soon appeared in other places in Santiago. A witness named Sylvia confirmed the image of this human-looking “flying manta ray” in the Los Barrenchea Commune. Someone even stated the following by e-mail, from a location near Bustamante Park:

“My wife and I saw this creature in one of the towers of the San Francisco church in Santa Isabel, and it was eating something similar to a dog. I think that if you inspect this tower you will find its remains. Unfortunately, I have no evidence to give you beyond my wife’s report and my own.”

Controllers prepare to awaken comet hunter from deep-space sleep

Source - Space Daily
by Staff Writers Paris (UPI) Oct 11, 2013

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

European space mission controllers say they're preparing to wake a comet-hunting spacecraft from a two-year deep-space hibernation as it nears its cosmic goal.
The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft is headed toward a comet knows as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to both orbit it and place a lander on it to study the role of comets in the evolution of the Solar System, an ESA release said Friday.
Rosetta, launched in March 2004, has had a long voyage including a complex series of flybys -- three times past Earth and once past Mars -- on its voyage toward its destination and an expected arrival in August 2014.
In July 2011 Rosetta was put into deep-space hibernation for the coldest, most distant leg of the journey as it traveled some 500 million miles from the Sun, close to the orbit of Jupiter.
Controllers set Rosetta's internal "alarm clock" to awaken the sleeping spacecraft in 100 days, on January 20, 2014.
Once it wakes up, Rosetta will warm up its navigation instruments and then halt its spin to point its main antenna at Earth, to let ground controllers know it is still alive.
"We are very excited to have this important milestone in sight, but we will be anxious to assess the health of the spacecraft after Rosetta has spent nearly 10 years in space," ESA Rosetta mission manager Fred Jansen said.
When it wakes up Rosetta will still be 6 million miles from the comet; its first images of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko are expected in May, the ESA said.

Climate puzzle over origins of life on Earth

Source - Space Daily
by Staff Writers Manchester, UK (SPX) Oct 08, 2013

Another climate-warming theory - one the team wanted to test - is that the amount of nitrogen could have been higher in the ancient atmosphere, which would amplify the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide and allow the Earth to remain ice-free.

The mystery of why life on Earth evolved when it did has deepened with the publication of a new study in the latest edition of the journal Science.
Scientists at the CRPG-CNRS University of Lorraine, The University of Manchester and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris have ruled out a theory as to why the planet was warm enough to sustain the planet's earliest life forms when the Sun's energy was roughly three-quarters the strength it is today.
Life evolved on Earth during the Archean, between 3.8 and 2.4 billion years ago, but the weak Sun should have meant the planet was too cold for life to take hold at this time; scientists have therefore been trying to find an explanation for this conundrum, what is dubbed the 'faint, young Sun paradox'.
"During the Archean the solar energy received at the surface of the Earth was about 20 to 25 % lower than present," said study author, Dr Ray Burgess, from Manchester's School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences.
"If the greenhouse gas composition of the atmosphere was comparable to current levels then the Earth should have been permanently glaciated but geological evidence suggests there were no global glaciations before the end of the Archean and that liquid water was widespread."
One explanation for the puzzle was that greenhouse gas levels - one of the regulators of the Earth's climate - were significantly higher during the Archean than they are today.
"To counter the effect of the weaker Sun, carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere would need to have been 1,000 times higher than present," said lead author Professor Bernard Marty, from the CRPG-CNRS University of Lorraine.
"However, ancient fossil soils - the best indicators of ancient carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere - suggest only modest levels during the Archean. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases were also present, in particular ammonia and methane, but these gases are fragile and easily destroyed by ultraviolet solar radiation, so are unlikely to have had any effect."
But another climate-warming theory - one the team wanted to test - is that the amount of nitrogen could have been higher in the ancient atmosphere, which would amplify the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide and allow the Earth to remain ice-free.
The team analysed tiny samples of air trapped in water bubbles in quartz from a region of northern Australia that has extremely old and exceptionally well-preserved rocks.
"We measured the amount and isotopic abundances of nitrogen and argon in the ancient air," said Professor Marty. "Argon is a noble gas which, being chemically inert, is an ideal element to monitor atmospheric change. Using the nitrogen and argon measurements we were able to reconstruct the amount and isotope composition of the nitrogen dissolved in the water and, from that, the atmosphere that was once in equilibrium with the water."
The researchers found that the partial pressure of nitrogen in the Archean atmosphere was similar, possibly even slightly lower, than it is at present, ruling out nitrogen as one of the main contenders for solving the early climate puzzle.
Dr Burgess added: "The amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere was too low to enhance the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide sufficiently to warm the planet. However, our results did give a higher than expected pressure reading for carbon dioxide - at odds with the estimates based on fossil soils - which could be high enough to counteract the effects of the faint young Sun and will require further investigation."