Feeling Sneaky

Just like Australian band Sneaky Sound System who rocketed to fame with their gold single entitled UFO, a lot of people have seen a UFO but nobody believes them either. How frustrating, but more to the point, how very isolating. Just like the first line of the song that says “ I just don’t wanna be lonely”, thousands around the planet are also being forced into exiled loneliness by hostile skeptics and denialists. As people report their experiences of UFO events to their doctors, neighbours, churches etc, again as the words of the song say, they end up having to bite their tongue for the “plastic man on the telephone”.

Witnesses are continually forced to endure the continuous stream of debunking by the narrow-minded commentary of SETI scientists blabbing on about the simple physics of high school science making intergalactic space travel close to impossible, the casual bald-faced avoidance by skeptics of any serious questioning of UFOs and ET visitation, and the intelligence community hell bent on keeping a lid on the possible negative aspects of the phenomenon that has the potential to ignite public panic.

For those who endure this consistent wash into the falsely turbulent mythology of our current reality, it becomes at times almost too much to bear. Many may feel they are sent far from home and their respective tribes by these experiences, and just like in the song, left wondering “Whats it gonna take to get me back home tonight?”. After all, their goal is that they too, just don’t wanna be lonely - and isn’t that the simple point....?

Mirror Mirror On The Martian Wall

The much-discussed news story about humanoid life on Mars was laid to rest this week by among others, The Planetary Society, who pulled the anthropomorphic wool off our eyes to reveal the humanoid-shaped rocky outcropping on an image captured by Nasa's Mars Explorer Spirit, was not a Martian Bigfoot after all. Turns out the "Bigfoot" is actually less than five metres from the rover and no more than about 6 centimeters tall, or thereabouts. While this comes as no surprise the public response to the story and it’s whirlwind circulation in cyberspace around the globe, has revealed, among other things, the naked truth about human self projection.

Spirit has sent back images of another world – Mars, but what did the public see? A reflection of it’s own self, just a hairier version. While we are privy to gaze upon other worlds, or other life-forms, we cannot do so with our narrow human perception and expect to get it right. Our ignorance about ourselves and the human condition is brimming over into our understanding of everything and seems to be the source of our ultimate affliction, hijacking us from a greater reality.

As Australian author Jeremy Griffith points out, “the greatest of all human explorations in the universe is in fact the ‘dark continent’ of ourselves”. The trail explorers blaze through the wilderness of our inner selves will ultimately become humanity’s highway to truth, and a key component to any large scale contact we may ever have with an extraterrestrial society.

The War On Error

On 15th January a report was posted by KTVU – TV from California that began with this comment - “Across the globe, researchers searching for signs of life in space were abuzz this week with word that a mystery signal has been picked up by a giant radio-telescope in Puerto Rico.”

That comment caused the hearts of UFO researchers across the globe to go all a-flutter. Yes, all very exciting except the journalist reporting the story got it all wrong. Turns out radio astronomer, Dan Wertheimer, who is affiliated with SETI was interviewed about sending signals into space (so-called "active SETI") as opposed to just listening for aliens. The scuttlebutt is that after the interview Werthmeier talked to the reporter about some of the astronomy he does, including looking at radio transients: bursts of radio waves that are caused by one-off events like colliding neutron stars, exploding stars, and so on.

Somehow in the article the reporter mixed up the observation of the transient signals with detecting a signal from E.T. Worse, the observations of the transients weren't from Arecibo, and they weren't from Wertheimer as initially claimed. It was another astronomer altogether, observing with the giant Parkes radio dish in Australia!

In a retraction, KTVU-TV says the signal has not been confirmed as any sign of extra-terrestrial intelligence, although the Allen array in California is now actively searching for more of these signals.

Well, we want to know who’s raking the media over the coals about getting this story wrong? Who’s making the media take responsibility for circulating false stories? If this were an erroneous story about, say, a presidential candidate, it would have been withdrawn quicksmart and with a lot of loud shouting. But in this case it was a story on the possible existence of little green men that the media got wrong, and really, it doesn't matter if it’s wrong, because nobody takes this stuff seriously anyway. Not even SETI.

Mantle Burning

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, but can Philip Mantle run for his life? Well let's hope so, because Philip will be taking his life into his own hands when he appears at the UFO Congress in Nevada this year, proving once and for all that the Alien Autopsy footage was indeed a hoax.

The perpetrator, Spyros Melaris, claims cudos for the hoax, but we're yet to know the complete whys of it, although some reasons have begun to filter through, most notably in Philip Mantle’s recent expose ‘Alien Autopsy – Game Over’.

Despite the years and years of doubt surrounding the Alien Autopsy film, it seems that some have clung rather steadfastly to the hope that it was real, that this time they held the smoking gun in their quivering fingers. And while the Alien Autopsy footage was the Ufological equivalent to the face of Jesus in a piece of burnt toast, a wine-stained image of the Virgin Mary on great aunt Hilda’s tablecloth, an Elvis Presley bust in a 15 year old tooth filling…well you get the idea….it served as a sign telling us to never give up faith and that yes Fox Mulder, the truth is out there.

Yes indeed, Philip Mantle will surely shatter a few hopes and dreams on Feb 23 in Nevada, and like fervent believers of the true faith, the UFO community may just rise up to burn him at the stake for it. We vigorously suggest that conference organisers ban all those entering the door wearing long white dresses, peaked hoods and smelling of smoke. Good luck Philip, our hearts and prayers are with you.

I am, You Are, We Are Australiens

An experienced UFO spotter has lent his support to the theory aliens landed at Uluru and created human beings. Lew Farkas runs the store and holiday park at Wycliffe Well, an internationally-renowned UFO hotspot 380km north of Alice Springs on the Stuart Highway. The Northern Territory News yesterday reported on a US UFO enthusiasts' website carrying a story about aliens landing at the Rock and creating human life.

The event, the UFO Area website claims, is depicted in Aboriginal rock paintings at Uluru. Mr Farkas, 60, said he has spotted about 30 UFOs in his time. "I think it's feasible," he said. "There's more to things in the past and to our lives than we can comprehend. "I think that some other beings from another planet in some format started us off down here. "That's why they keep coming back and checking us out."

Mr Farkas said depictions of aliens were common to the art of many ancient cultures. "They all seem to have a being with helmets on and space-looking characters," he said. "They only paint what they see. "Indians, Aztecs, they've all got space creatures."

Mr Farkas said there had not been a sighting at Wycliffe Well since November 7, when a group of British backpackers said they saw a light hovering around for about 15 minutes before flying off. Outside the tourist season there are not as many eyes trained to the mysteries of the sky.

"Nobody here spends all night sitting around looking at the sky," he said. "If it came early in the evening someone might see it." The Wycliffe Well Holiday Park is popular with tourists keen to catch a glimpse of an alien visitor.

"If you stand outside in the middle of the night you can look in any direction and see the whole sky to the horizon," he said. "If something does move, you can see it."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23035923-2,00.html

We are the Aliens

Did humans evolve from alien life forms? That’s the question Horizons documentary asked SBS viewers on January 6. But if you’re waiting for an answer don’t hold your breath, because the question of human origins is still as contentious as ever in the scientific community.

With the opening statement that if we went back far enough we’d find the ancestors of humans to be extraterrestrials, the show knew how to capture its viewers’ curiosity early. But once released back into the wilds of suburbia would this question get people really thinking, or would they yawn and flick channels to Extreme Makeover? Well we know some who did!

The idea of life on Earth being seeded from among the stars via natural processes is known as Panspermia. If we really did come from elsewhere then Panspermia requires a closer examination, and that’s exactly what the program did. However such crusades into our origins can be quite boring for most, hence the program being accompanied by 1950s music and B-grade alien movie images, and we loved it.

To solve the question of human origins the documentary began by re-examining the Red Rain that fell in Kerala (India) in 2001, although in their attempts to explain this peculiar phenomenon away as earthly, the ‘rain’ was said to be anything from bat blood to lichen spores. Samples of the ‘rain’ revealed cells containing no DNA - a curiosity in itself - and begged the question where did the micro-organisms come from? Taking viewers on a romp through the world of extremeophiles, life forms that live in extreme conditions, viewers were shown terrestrial places with extreme temperatures and chemistries while abundant with life.

As a species, we were told, we need to re-examine current notions about where and how life might exist, and Considering that micro-organisms have been found to exist even on spent rods of nuclear fuel, it leaves the mind boggling over how durable and adaptive life might actually be. Of course scientists can swallow only so much and have ultimately relegated any possibility of ET life to that of only tiny life (micro-organisms) joy-riding the universe on comet tails, surfboards or whatever. Despite initially stating that the diversity of life on Earth (and that pinnacle of biology and intelligence – us!) may have evolved from a handful of such space-born micro-organisms, apparently taking that extra step and imagining that a similar kind of life (or, heaven forbid, a better kind of life) might have evolved on other planets and might one day visit Earth seems just too much for scientists to tolerate, at least for now.

However, one important point the program did make was the growing number of scientists now willing to at least accept the concept of Panspermia and that our ancestors might indeed have come from elsewhere, whether they began as microbial life or not. As it turns out bacteria are born space-dwellers, and if they are indeed our ancestors that might explain why some of us feel that call to space…

In Remembrance of “Ricky” Royal

Thomas Richard Royal, popularly known as Ricky Royal, embarked upon his passionate interest in UFO’s towards the end of WW2. In 1944 while flying over Bass Strait in a Beaufort Bomber, Ricky saw a dark shadow belching flame from it’s rear which then flew parallel to his plane while remaining at a distance of 100 - 150ft. This object paced him for approximately 18 minutes then accelerated to 3 times the speed of Ricky’s plane, emitting 100 ft to 150 ft of flames while doing so.

Ricky estimated it’s speed to be 235 mph flying at an elevation of 4500ft. Soon after he submitted a report to THE AUSTRALIAN FLYING RESEARCH SOCIETY describing what must have been a terrifying experience for a 29 year old during wartime.

This incident inspired Ricky to spend the next 25 years of his life devoted to UFO research during which time he, along with other interested members of the public, established the Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau (now UFO Research Queensland Inc) in Redcliffe, Queensland in 1956.

By this time, there had been many reports around the world of UFO sightings which fuelled the interest of the Bureau here in Australia. Ricky’s daughter and family historian Trish, recalls this time in her life very clearly, especially when the Bureau was visited by a noted identity from America whose name was George Adamski.

This almost alien–like icon himself was organized to stay at the Royal’s residence but they didn’t know exactly what to expect of this chosen contactee of alien crafts. However, the visit turned out to be very memorable with Adamski telling the family of his experiences which left them feeling sure that they too would be visited by these unknown entities from outer space in the near future.

This prediction by Adamski may have proved quite accurate as the family had a group sighting around 1956 while living at Scarborough near the Redcliffe Peninsula. The family house looked out towards Deception Bay and on one very clear evening, just on sunset, Ricky called the family out to witness what Trish believes to this day to be a UFO. The object was heading North to the other side of Deception Bay in the direction of the Glasshouse Mountains. Of course Ricky always kept his eyes open towards the skies as often as possible and by the time he had called the family to witness the UFO it was too far away for Trish to distinguish the shape, but she described the behavior as not being that of a helicopter or aeroplane. It was travelling fairly slowly at first but then suddenly accelerated and disappeared - not out of sight over the mountains, but completely GONE.

The neighbours saw the family gathering on the seashore and knowing that Ricky was a “Flying Saucer Nut”, joined them in the hope of seeing the UFO too.

Pursuing his passion, Ricky built himself a powerful telescope and Trish remembers him spending hours on end grinding the lenses until he had a means of viewing the heavens, the moon, the stars and of course any UFO that may come his way. This telescope was the centre of attention in the neighborhood with Ricky allowing anyone who wanted to look at the moon see the wonderful sights near and far.

Ricky also built a light beam transmitter with a microphone attached using his knowledge of electronic engineering gained from his Australian Airforce service. The transmitter was used to send friendly messages into space with the hope they’d be picked up by spaceships from other planets. The transmitter was designed using magnetic fields, similar to the design of a Cathode Ray Oscilloscope, an early version of the TV receiver we know today.

Various experiments in making contact were undertaken by members of the Bureau in and around Brisbane with one chosen location being Clear Mountain, north of Brisbane. A previous test had been carried out at Redland Bay but disappointingly with no response from ETs.

Sadly Ricky’s involvement with UFO research ended with his untimely death of a heart attack in 1969, but his enthusiasm never waned from the beginning of his UFO interest in1944.

Experiencers - ABC TV Documentary

Aired on Thursday January 3, this was a no-frills look at stories of close encounters. Some were terrifying, some uplifting, but all branded a lasting imprint on the psyche of the individuals concerned. Opening with scenes from the late Dr John Mack’s funeral service and comments from astrophysicist Rudy Schild, viewers were treated to personal stories about the reported clashes of different realities that left some people traumatized, some with apocalyptic visions of the future, and some environmentally concerned and/or spiritually uplifted.

With an apparent focus on proving alien abductions to be a real physical event, or at least something to be taken seriously by science, the producer still seemed to be at odds with descriptions by individuals of being transported to other dimensions where our laws of physics no longer apply. As a result the documentary lurched from topic to topic, probably in much the same way that the producer’s mind must have lurched when faced with these incredible accounts.

The first half of the documentary seemed the most structured, focusing on Dr Mack’s researches and eventual conclusions as to the reality of the abduction phenomenon. Included were Dr Mack’s interviews with South African school children who witnessed a silver UFO hovering near their school, and at least one of its occupants. These interviews were the most compelling part of the documentary, coming from the mouths of innocent babes as it were, and telling the same frightening stories that have been told for years across the globe.

The second half of the documentary fizzled somewhat, lacking structure and going nowhere. An inordinate amount of time was spent, or wasted, on the experiences of a US family that were neither new nor unique in the annals of abduction scenarios. If the aim of this documentary was to initiate the novice to Ufology or simply bring the phenomenon to the public, then that might explain where it was going. But viewers still would have been left wondering what the point of the documentary really was, if indeed it had a point.

This documentary could have achieved so much more but it just sat there like a piece of clay waiting to take shape. Many documentaries rely on the content alone to tell their story, but the subject of close encounters doesn’t do too well with this approach since there is no established context for close encounters in western society. This film would have been greatly improved if that foundation, even briefly, had been mapped out first for viewers. As we could tell from the responses of the producer, he had nowhere to go with this, no paradigm in which to place it, and no point to make. Perhaps the best revelation that this documentary made was the need for us to redefine human responses to what may be a truly non-human problem.

One thing is for sure. We are living in a world where absolute certainties are being swept away with new discoveries and as Rudy Schild said - current scientific certainties are proving increasingly fragile. These days, thinking people everywhere are wondering what the heck is real anymore?

Tell us what you thought.

Seeing Is Believing

Source : Centenary News, January 2008 (page 12)

While many may question the UFO phenomenon, Jindalee husband and wife team, Sheryl and Martin Gottschall have seen enough to believe.

Chairperson for UFO Research Queensland, Mrs Gottschall said it's not a matter of believing or not believing in UFO's to be capable of having an experience, it's one's ability to accept or reject information.

"Whether people choose to acknowledge this phenomenon or not is personal. My personal experiences, of both craft and aliens, have interested me in these occurrences. Since the inception of UFO Research Queensland in 1956, more than 5000 sightings have been recorded through our association from all across Queensland.

"Today, the association is one of the oldest UFO research organisations in the world. People who genuinely believe they have witnessed a craft, contact us at which point we record all information, many even send photos."

The most vivid account of a UFO sighting for Mrs Gottschall took place as the car she was in was travelling north along the Gateway arterial road. "It was about 7pm and extremely overcast. I looked out my passenger window and there 150m to my left, sitting at eye level, was a large white luminous circular object - it was the size of a full moon - it was incredible."

UFO Research Queensland holds monthly seminars on the last Friday of every month commencing at 7.30pm ACNM building, 362 Water Street Spring Hill and is open to anyone who is interested in the UFO phenomenon or who wish to discuss their experiences. Information obtaining to encounters both locally and globally are addressed. "It's an opportunity to socialise with others who share the same interest. We have a broad range of people from all walks of life who are looking for answers, even spiritual church participants who believe in the paranormal attend," said Mrs Gottschall. For further information visit www.uforq.asn.au