Scientists: "Aliens might not have radio"

QMI AGENCY

Toronto SUN

A new theory has stargazers thinking maybe we haven't found signs of extra-terrestrial life yet because we're going about it the wrong way. Right now, a scientific project known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is leading the way in the search for life beyond Earth.

Their method is to scan outer space for radio transmissions, new or old. They've been doing it for 50 years, and so far, it hasn't really worked out.Physicists interviewed in the Economist say that's not necessarily because there are no aliens. But maybe aliens just don't use radio technology, they propose,

Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University, pointed out thatradio-communications are likely to be a short-lived technology, even on Earth, where people are increasingly using fibre optics to communicate.Instead, Dick Carrigan, a retired particle physicist, suggested looking for other signs, like evidence of tampering with the energy output or pollution.The basic idea is to think outside the box and not focus on modern Earth technologies, which could easily become obsolete.Instead of looking for the earliest signs of industrialization, then, perhaps the thing to do is to let the imagination run riot and ask what technology might do to a solar system if it had tens or hundreds of thousands of years to work its magic,” reads the Economist article, Signs of Life.

X Conference 2010 - Watch it live, wherever you are!

All 23 hours of X-Conference 2010 will be live streamed & available in archive May 12-26....The cost $24.95!....If you believe the truth embargo regarding an ET presence must end, you can handle the truth & have a right to know, PLEASE spread the word about the Live Stream to your email lists, Facebook & MySpace groups, and PLEASE join us online May 7-10. Registration at: www.x-conference.com

How to say HELLO to an extraterrestrial

NOTE: The Deadline TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE is:
5pm Monday 24 August 2009 Sydney time .

Register here to send your message.




August 14, 9:59 AM Denver Phenomenon Research Examiner Larry Rimbert

After writing article after article, day after day, night and night, week after week, something comes along that is fun and exciting! Here is that something! Maybe you can be part of history and have fun at the same time!. Three organizations, Australia's Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, the CSIRO and NASA, have combined efforts to collect and send text messages from the "Hello from Earth" website to transmit to the closest Earth-like planet , that may well contain life, outside of our solar system,

The planet: : Gliese 581d.

Now honestly, how many of you have heard of Gliese 581d? Here are some interesting facts about Gliese 581d and why it is the "chosen" planet!

1. It is a super-Earth - about eight times heavier than Earth.
2. It has three known sister planets which orbit the low-mass red dwarf star Gliese 581 (no "d" here).
3. It is about 20.3 light-years (194 trillion km) away from us, in the constellation Libra.

The habitable zone is indicated as the blue area,
showing that Gliese 581d is located inside the habitable
zone around its low-mass red dwarf star. ESO/Franck Selsis
, University of Bordeaux Courtesy of Hello from Earth

4. It was discovered by Stephane Udry and his team in April 2007 in Switzerland and is considered the "first serious waterworld candidate",
5. According to the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal, in April 2009, Gliese 581d orbits its sun every 66.8 days . This is about one fifth of the distance from the Earth to the Sun which is within the star's habitable zone. (see photo to right)
6. Gliese 581d obits its sun which is one third the size of our Sun and 50 times fainter. It is suggested that from the surface of the planet, its sun would be a dull, red glow in the sky.

Now you have to think to yourself : "Self, how would anything so far away be discovered?" The answer: using something called, High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph, (try saying that three times rapidly) which is part of the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla, Chile. This instrument is so sensitive it picks up minuscule wobbles of starlight caused by the gravitational pull of planets.

So now we know there may be some kind of life out there. What kind of message can you send? Post your message to the "Hello from Earth" website, but remember all comments are moderated, i.e., screened. Any inappropriate messages will de rejected. For proper evaluation, messages must be in English.

Article continues here.

A SETI Paradigm shift?

Image Credit: ESO (Artist's Impression)

By: Adam Korbitz
Estimate of the Situation 2009

A recent -- and overall sensible -- New York Times editorial by the SETI Institute's Seth Shostak makes me wonder if a long-overdue paradigm shift is finally underway among American SETI scientists.

For a long time, as I've written about here many times before, American SETI scientists -- with Shostak predominant among them -- have dismissed out of hand the possibility that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization has ever ventured to travel to our solar system. Unexplained phenomena such as UFO reports cannot be evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, the reasoning goes, because interstellar travel is simply prohibitively expensive regardless of a civilization's age or technological level of development. Rather than looking for signs of visitation, they insist, we should limit our search for E.T. to looking for radio and perhaps laser transmissions.

In his recent column, Shostak doesn't back off that stance explicitly. His column discusses what he views as the apparent futility of human interstellar travel, given our current and projected states of knowledge and technological development. (I'm going to set aside his main thesis, which many have questioned, including myself.)

What intrigues me is Shostak's suggestion that what may be within our technological grasp are small, smart interstellar probes that remotely explore extrasolar planetary systems and then radio the results back to Earth. While such missions may require many decades before we get the results from distant probes sent on long journeys light-years from Earth, such probes are conceivable given our current technological development.

What is intriguing about Shostak's suggestion, of course, are its as-yet unstated implications.

The SETI radio searches are based on the hypothesis that since we -- an intelligent, technological civilization -- use radio to communicate, so would an advanced technological civilization located in an extrasolar planetary system. We search for extraterrestrial radio and laser signals because we know we, as a technological civilization, are capable of sending them.

On the other hand, if we are capable of sending unmanned probes to other planetary systems light-years from our own and to wait patiently for the results, then perhaps an intelligent species elsewhere has done the same, and the evidence is hiding somewhere in our own solar system, waiting for us to discover it.

Should SETI radio searches be complemented by a systematic search for evidence of extraterrestrial artifacts in our neighborhood?

Of course they should.

8 most common UFO shapes

Posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009
By Erik Van Datiken

A mother ship resembling a giant football, a whirling coin-shaped disk that flashes across the sky, a diamond-shaped craft with a brilliant, mirror-like surface…

These are among the most common UFO shapes, according to veteran UFO researcher Brad Steiger, author of Mysteries of Time and Space.

Here are detailed descriptions based on Steiger’s analysis of several thousand sightings over the past 40 years:

8. BLINDING LIGHT. Typically spotted at night, this UFO doesn’t have a definite shape - it’s simply a dazzling orange light. “But it moves methodically, as if guided by some form of alien intelligence.”

7. DIAMOND-SHAPED. This craft resembles the top half of a diamond mounted on a flat surface. Its exterior is polished and as dazzling as a mirror in bright sunlight. The UFO usually is about 18 feet across and 8 to 10 feet high. It has no portholes or windows.

6. EGG-SHAPED. This massive vehicle, thought to be a “mother ship” - has been reported to be up to 200 feet in length. It has an oval shape like an egg, with no visible portholes or windows, and glows slightly in the dark.

5. TOP-SHAPED. Reminiscent of a child’s toy top, this craft is fat in the middle and tapered above and below. It’s covered in multicolored lights. Powerful jets around its midsection move the UFO in any direction. “Round portholes often ring the vehicle. The body is often said to be grayish, like a shark’s skin.”

4. COIN-LIKE DISK. Shaped like a giant 50-cent piece, this UFO is the type most often reported by military and airline pilots flying at 20,000 to 40,000 feet. Eyewitnesses say the flat edger of the disk often is ringed with red or green lights. The spaceship is incredibly fast, zipping along at speeds of more than 2,500 MPH. “The craft has been estimated at 15 to 20 feet in diameter and 2 to 3 feet high.”

3. FOOTBALL-SHAPED. This craft has a thick black body that tapers off at either end. Smaller UFOs have reportedly been seen entering and leaving a bay on its lower surface - so it’s also often called a “mother ship.” Reports have placed the craft’s size at up to 80 feet long and 20 feet high.

2. CONICAL DISK. This UFO resembles a Chinese peasant’s large straw hat. It has a flat bottom. The craft is generally reported as being about 20 feet in diameter and 10 to 12 feet high at the peak, with no exterior lights.

1. THE CLASSIC FLYING SAUCER. This is the most common UFO of all; it’s been reported around the world for more than four decades, according to Steiger. “The craft has a metallic saucer-like body ranging in diameter from 10 to 15 feet. An exhaust port on the bottom emits a yellow light that dances like a flame upon takeoff. Bright lights rim the saucer and a clear circular dome is often seen on the saucer portion.”

Guatemala: UFO experts amazed by Mayan panels just unearthed

Michael Cohen
m.cohen@allnewsweb.com

Reuters reported this week that archaeologists working in deep in Guatemala’s northern jungle have unearthed incredible carved panels that are believed to depict scenes from Mayan creation myths involving monsters, serpents and deities. The panels were discovered on the site of El-Mirador, the largest known Mayan city in the world which is constantly being excavated revealing more surprises. The city itself is remarkable in that it contained the complex roads, canals and impressive structures one would expect of a modern metropolis. The sites head researcher Richard Hansen has dated the panels to around 300 BC. As expected there was no mention of aliens or UFOs in relation to the find. Ufologists have been concentrating in particular on Mayan civilization and mythology for decades, probably more so than any other ancient civilisation. Its astronomy and myths of immortal beings arriving from the stars to give humans knowledge are well known. Ufologists are now marvelling at the latest image of Mayan mythology carved in stone. Many have already noted that the image shown on Reuters clearly depicts a UFO surrounded by two non-human beings covered in some form of technological equipment. Interestingly the date range given for the carvings puts their creation not long after Ezekiel’s graphic descriptions of wheels within wheels. Reuters has published a photo of one of the Mayan panels and to say that the similarity to Ezekiel’s wheels and ‘living creatures’ is striking might be putting it mildly. I don’t think the proof of the theory that civilizations were once guided by alien visitors could get any stronger. The only question is when will our friends from space openly return and give us some guidance, possibly more needed now than then.

To see photo’s click here
Learn more about El Mirador here and also at Idaho State University's website here.

Donate Nowthrough a secure credit card transaction on the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies website (http://www.miradorbasin.com/Donate/index.htm)
What are the donations used for?Your support enables the highest quality, multi-disciplinary research teams from the U.S., Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, Holland, and other countries to continue exploration, excavation, analysis, educational and vocational programs, and strong conservation measures to protect tropical forest, archaeological sites of profound importance, and community development programs. The amount of support needed is great. How much progress is made and at what pace is directly proportional to the funding received.

Ways to donate:
-Print and mail a donation form for FARES
- Donate online


Video:

Learn more about Richard Hansen's work about the Maya:

Canadian 2008 UFO Survey Released February 20, 2009

The press release for the 2008 Survey can be found here

Since 1989, UFOlogy Research of Manitoba has solicited sightings data from active Canadian researchers. This data is annually compiled into the "Canadian UFO Survey." The survey is made publicly available in an attempt to promote the dissemination of information across the field of ufology. This page contains many of the surveys, as well as the data.

More Canadians than ever saw something unexplained up there last year.

The Ufology Research Group says in 2008, Canucks saw a record number of unidentified flying objects across the Great White North.

The Winnipeg-based volunteer group recorded 1,004 sightings last year – the highest number since the group started tallying sightings in 1989.

"My position is there is something that is being seen by people," research coordinator Chris Rutkowski told the Sun today. "There's no proof that aliens are coming to Canada in any great numbers but what we're saying is that there are enough reports and many of them are unexplained so we think science should take a better look at it."

There could be a variety of reasons why reports are up, Rutkowski said, including more space junk, more people embracing astronomy and even the economic downturn.

"It could be the economy, maybe people are looking upward for some help in the economy since it doesn't seem like anybody else is helping," he said.

Rutkowski says the vast majority of sightings turn out to be explainable objects like airplanes but around 10% didn't have a ready explanation.

"That got whittled down to a little over 1% that are what we call higher quality unknowns where there was some decent investigation, the witnesses were cooperative, some diagrams, maybe some photos," he said.

The strangest sighting of the year was in Wadena, Sask., in March.

Two cars travelling on a highway there had to brake suddenly when both drivers saw a gray and metallic object fly directly across the road in front of them.

"Maybe the aliens have to be ticketed for flying too low? I don't know," Rutkowski said with a laugh.

The 2008 Canadian UFO Survey: Summary of Results

• There were 1004 UFO sightings reported in Canada in 2008, nearly three each day. This is an all-time record high number of reports in one year.
• Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario each had provincial alltime record high numbers of UFOs reported in 2008.
• In 2008, about 10 per cent of all UFO reports were judged unexplained. This percentage of “unknowns” falls to less than one per cent when only higher-quality cases are considered.
• The average number of witnesses per sighting is about two.
• The typical UFO sighting lasted approximately 18 minutes in 2008.

The "Survey Essay" page contains just that; the essays produced each year summarizing the findings of the survey for that year, along with explanations of trends, as well as describing some of the more interesting cases for each year.

The "Search The Database" link is currently inactive. In the future, the complete database will be put on the web, allowing any users to search the database for sightings based on the criteria of their choosing.

The "Data Tables" page contains the raw data, in html table format, for most of the Survey years. Basic data, such as date, time, number of witnesses, etc. is listed, as well as a very limited general description of each sighting. Right now we have only the data for the years 1993 through 2004. We hope to get 1989 through 1992 online in the near future.

The "Charts" page contains assorted charts summarizing the data over the years. One can find such things as the distribution of sightings by province, time of day, etc. The charts are in .gif format.With respect to the charts, there is a trade-off that must be made. If one is to be able to view the results of the different variables being measured, the chart is frequently too large to fit on the monitor, and one has to scroll left or right to view the entire results. Shrinking the charts to fit the screen, while making the entire chart as a whole visable, makes it difficult to actually interpret the chart, as the labels become too small. I have chosen to forsake convenience and make the charts large enough that one can actually read the results. Given this, the various charts are best viewed with the latest version of Internet Explorer, as it gives you the ability to easily resize the images. Printing the charts using I.E. seems to work well too. With Netscape however, some of the charts don't print on a single page, and either come out on two pages, or it simply cuts off a portion of the chart.

The "Testimonies" page is currently inactive, but will contain eyewitness accounts, in the own words of the witnesses.

Sources:

http://survey.canadianuforeport.com/

and

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2009/02/20/8468106.html

United Airlines denies its workers filed reports about saucerlike object hovering at O'Hare

It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously.

A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon.Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the world's second-busiest airport? A top-secret military craft? Or simply a reflection from lights that played a trick on the eyes?

Officials at United professed no knowledge of the Nov. 7 event--which was reported to the airline by as many as a dozen of its own workers--when the Tribune started asking questions recently. But the Federal Aviation Administration said its air traffic control tower at O'Hare did receive a call from a United supervisor asking if controllers had spotted a mysterious elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal.

No controllers saw the object, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said. The FAA is not conducting a further investigation, Cory said. The theory is the sighting was caused by a "weather phenomenon," she said.

The UFO report has sparked some chuckles among controllers in O'Hare tower.

"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych.

Some of the witnesses, interviewed by the Tribune, said they are upset that neither the government nor the airline is probing the incident.

Whatever the object was, it could have interfered with O'Hare's radar and other equipment, and even created a collision risk, they said.

The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center.

The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset.

All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.

Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds.

Witnesses shaken by sighting

"I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17.

"But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft," the mechanic said.

One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said.

A United manager said he ran outside his office in Concourse B after hearing the report about the sighting on an internal airline radio frequency.

"I stood outside in the gate area not knowing what to think, just trying to figure out what it was," he said. "I knew no one would make a false call like that. But if somebody was bouncing a weather balloon or something else over O'Hare, we had to stop it because it was in very close proximity to our flight operations."

Some joke, others research

The databases of various UFO-watching groups are full of accounts filed by pilots about sightings of unknown aircraft and anomalies that affected navigational equipment onboard planes.

Whether any of the UFO incidents are real or merely the result of individual perceptions, some experts say the events pose a potential safety risk to pilots and their passengers.

"There have been documented cases where safety appears to have been implicated, and more and more we are coming to the point of view that we are dealing with an intelligent phenomenon," said Richard Haines, science director at the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, a private agency.

"We must be proactive before an aircraft goes down," said Haines, a former chief of the Space Human Factors Office at NASA's Ames Research Center.
Haines is investigating the O'Hare incident. He said he has determined that no weather balloons were launched in the vicinity of O'Hare on Nov. 7.

"It's absurd that the military would be conducting aerial test flights" near the airport, Haines said.

All the witnesses to the O'Hare event, who included at least several pilots, said they are certain based on the disc's appearance and flight characteristics that it was not an airplane, helicopter, weather balloon or any other craft known to man.

United denies UFO report

They're not sure what was hanging out for several minutes in the restricted airspace, but they are upset that no one in power has taken the matter seriously.

A United spokeswoman said there is no record of the UFO report. She said United officials do not recall discussion of any such incident.

"There's nothing in the duty manager log, which is used to report unusual incidents," said United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy. "I checked around. There's no record of anything."

The pilots of the United plane being directed back from Gate C17 also were notified by United personnel of the sighting, and one of the pilots reportedly opened a windscreen in the cockpit to get a better view of the object estimated to be hovering 1,500 feet above the ground.

The object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up through the solid overcast skies, which the FAA reported had 1,900-foot cloud ceilings at the time.

"It was like somebody punched a hole in the sky," said one United employee.

Witnesses said they had a hard time visually tracking the object as it streaked through the dense clouds.

It left behind an open hole of clear air in the cloud layer, the witnesses said, adding that the hole disappeared within a few minutes.

The United employees interviewed by the Tribune spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some said they were interviewed by United officials and instructed to write reports and draw pictures of what they observed, and that they were advised by United officials to refrain from speaking about what they saw.

Federal agency backtracks

Like United, the FAA originally told the Tribune that it had no information on the alleged UFO sighting. But the federal agency quickly reversed its position after the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

An internal FAA review of air-traffic communications tapes, a step toward complying with the Tribune request, turned up the call by the United supervisor to an FAA manager in the airport tower, Cory said.

Cory said the weather might have factored into what the witnesses thought they saw.

"Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon," she said. "That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low [cloud] ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things. That's our take on it."

Source: Chicago Tribune

Canadian Minister of Defense on UFOS

"Decades ago visitors from other planets warned us about where we were headed and offered to help, but instead we, or at least some of us, interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after. The inevitable result was that some of our planes were lost but how many were due to retaliation and how many were due to our own stupidity is a mute point.

"THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD HAS THE RIGHT TO KNOW"

Dr. Michio Kaku: 3 types of Extraterrestrial Civilizations

South Korea goes SETI

The Gwacheon National Science Museum said its brand new 7.2-meter telescope, to be activated this month, will be used to search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Local astronomers are analyzing radio signals detected by the telescope, which is now under a test run, according to Lee Kang-hwan, who will head the museum’s SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) program.

The telescope’s targets will include the Milky Way and about 250 planetary systems, Lee said.

"Our radio telescope is one of the first instruments of its kind specializing in finding indications of alien life,’’ Lee said.

"There’ve been consistent efforts in several countries to search for radio signals produced by extra-terrestrial life, but no substantial results have been reported. Science needs more research in this area, and we are glad to be part of the process,’’ he said.

read more

How to Achieve Contact with ET Intelligence - Five Promising Strategies

UPDATE: Alien Skull found, DNA "Not From Earth"

"The "Starchild" is a real, true bone skull independently dated by Carbon-14 to be 900 years old (+/- 40 years). Research indicates is unlike any human skull ever before recorded. The name "Starchild" is the result of early X-rays taken of the skull and maxilla fragment found with it, which showed unerupted teeth that, combined with the smaller-than-normal-adult size of the skull, indicated a child of age 5 or 6 . A second skull was found with the Starchild, a normal, adult female of small stature , also C-14 dated to 900 years ago (± 40) , and biochemically shown to have lived in the same general area as the Starchild. This second skull is often used for comparison to the Starchild.
From its extremely shallow eye sockets to the total lack of frontal sinuses, the Starchild skull's morphology cannot be accounted for by any known combination of deformities. The bone is half as thick , weighs half as much [13], and is substantially more durable than normal human bone--unlike anything currently in the scientific record. Furthermore, inside that unusual bone are microscopic fibers and a reddish residue that so far defy any explanation ."
Source: http://www.starchildproject.com/

They have been here before

Watch this. Observe the similarities. Think. Learn.

Aliens.....going shopping???

No, it's NOT a typo. This is from a Pennsylvania newspaper on November 18, 2008.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-11182008-1623400.html :

By JAMES MCGINNIS
Bucks County Courier Times

What started with a single UFO sighting over a Middletown Mexican restaurant Jan. 26 has turned into a science fiction sensation.

Spaceships were spotted over Sesame Place.

Black boomerangs were reported over Citizens Bank Park during the Phillies National League Championship series.

An extraterrestrial even was seen recently in the men's department of the local JCPenney, smiling at our women.

With more than 50 reports from Bucks since January, the Pennsylvania Mutual UFO Network says it now will gather here for its next alien hunter conference Jan. 24 at Bucks County Community College.

State MUFON coordinator John Ventre is scheduled to discuss what he calls the “Pennsylvania UFO Wave.” The list of speakers also includes self-professed local abductees, including history professor David Jacobs of Temple University.

Bucks County also will be profiled in a documentary — “UFOs over Earth” — scheduled to air at 9 p.m. Monday on the Discovery Channel.

No doubt, MUFON will have a lot to talk about that day. The encounters reported to the organization are lengthy and, at times, almost too incredible to believe.

On June 23, a woman reported seeing an “alien entity” in the JCPenney's men's section.

“He was standing by a clothes rack,” the report said. “She described him as being male, no hair, gray skin, almond black eyes with a lumpy heavily wrinkled face.” The alien appeared to be shopping and had a “pleasant smile” for ladies in the store.

Yet the woman told MUFON she decided to leave the scene “because she and her husband were planning to attend a movie.”

(It's not known which outlet the aliens chose for their shopping spree, though several other sightings were reported near the Oxford Valley Mall.)

The spacecraft over Sesame Place was seen Oct.18. As reported to MUFON, the craft had no wings, no windows and was able to instantly change direction.

Another report from Oct. 5 recounts “bright quick flickering lights” hovering and disappearing in the sky as well as “several quiet helicopters circling the area.”

On Sept. 11, a man from Warrington reported a rumbling noise and a series of falling white lights.

On June 6, a Bucks County resident reported a strange object floating down Almshouse Road toward Newtown.

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer for the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, urges residents not to jump to conclusions about strange celestial sightings.

Often times, these objects are identifiable, Pitts said. And even if they can't be explained, that doesn't necessarily make them aliens.

The Arecibo Reply- UPDATE

UPDATE: I am posting also a video to illustrate the IMPRESSIVE message that was sent back to us.

Just thought it would be interesting to build a correlation between these messages and what has been going on lately....

The Arecibo reply was the name given to a crop circle that appeared in farmland next to the Chilbolton radio telescope; home to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in Hampshire, UK, on Tuesday 21 August 2001. The design is so named because it appears to be a response to the Arecibo message, which SETI transmitted into space in 1974.
The crop circle design features two images.

The first, estimated to be about 100 by 150 feet based on comparison with the 25-meter Chilbolton dish, is a pixelated halftone representation of a humanoid face.

The second image, estimated to be about 80 by 220 feet, resembles the original Arecibo message though changed in a number of key elements, said by Ufologists to be a reply sent to Earth by an alien species.[1]
As with all crop circles, the origin of the Arecibo reply is highly debated. It should be noted that the 27 years between the time the original Arecibo message was sent and the reply in 2001, there would not nearly have been sufficient time for the message to arrive at its intended destination; furthermore, by the time it does, the M13 cluster will no longer be there.

The original Arecibo message was transmitted as a three trillion watt (omnidirectional equivalent, 1MW actual) broadcast from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The message was sent in a very narrow beam towards a globular cluster known as M13, 25,100 light years away. It was a pictogram arranged in a matrix of 23 pixels by 73 pixels. It was intended to describe our numbering system, the building blocks and formulas for DNA, the double helix of DNA, the shape and size of a human being, the layout of our solar system, and the radio telescope that sent the message.
The crop formation looked very similar to the Arecibo message but with several variations. Below the dot pattern for our numbering system, the crop formation had an additional pattern that indicated the atomic number of silicon in addition to the hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus numbers. Instead of a double helix symbol of DNA, the crop formation depicted three sets of diagonal lines.
Instead of a depiction of a human being, as presented in the Arecibo message, the crop pattern had a different depiction of a humanoid form. This new image showed a body with two arms and legs like humans, but the head was much larger. The height of the crop formation’s body was indicated as being slightly taller than half the height of a human. The dot pattern in the crop formation indicated a population that was almost six and a half billion larger than our own.
The Arecibo message depicted the 9 planets around the Sun with the symbol for Earth raised above the rest to indicate where humanity lives. Earth’s dot was also located directly below the depiction of man. In the crop formation, there were three symbols that were raised above the rest, possibly indicating three populated planets in that solar system.
At the very bottom of both formations, there are distinctly different dot patterns. The Arecibo message had a depiction of the telescope that sent the message with an indicated size of 2,430 times the wavelength of the message (at 126 mm, so 306 feet) . The crop formation had a depiction of something else with a size of 6,748 times its wavelength (which is obviously unknown). This shape was depicted even more clearly in a 2000 Chilbolton crop circle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_reply

Vatican: " It is OK to Believe in Aliens"

(AP) -- Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones."How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.The interview, headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," covered a variety of topics including the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological implications of the existence of alien life.Funes said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion, touching on a theme of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made exploring the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.The Bible "is not a science book," Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.But he said he continues to believe that "God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the result of chance."Funes urged the church and the scientific community to leave behind divisions caused by Galileo's persecution 400 years ago, saying the incident has "caused wounds."In 1633 the astronomer was tried as a heretic and forced to recant his theory that the Earth revolved around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe."The church has somehow recognized its mistakes," he said. "Maybe it could have done it better, but now it's time to heal those wounds and this can be done through calm dialogue and collaboration."Pope John Paul declared in 1992 that the ruling against Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."The Vatican Observatory has been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the gap between religion and science. Its scientist-clerics have generated top-notch research and its meteorite collection is considered one of the world's best.The observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is based in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the hills outside Rome where the pope has a summer residence. It also conducts research at an observatory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson. © 2008 The Associated Press - may 2008 (thanks Pendragon for the link!)

http://www.wkrg.com/national/article/vatican_its_ok_to_believe_in_aliens/13868/

UFOs years of denial - photographs 1870 to 2008

You wanna know what amazes me about this whole UFO thing after researching hundreds of images to post on this blog? The fact that all these crafts have different shapes, sizes, formats, speeds, colors...but still they can be " grouped" in categories - discs, orbs, pen-like, triangular....they all seem to appear, dissapear, and float in the air with absolutely no effort and thats one thing they have in common.

They look like they are all from different places.....don't they?