UFO RESEARCH QUEENSLAND INC

Coast UFO Account Baffles Experts

2011-12-02T10:08:00.001+10:00

IT'S light Jim, but not as we know it. The Gold Coast Hinterland this month was the setting for what the state's premier alien hunters are calling one of the strangest UFO sightings on record.

Queensland's UFO Research Centre is investigating an anonymous report from a local resident about a three-hour close encounter of the "first'' kind in the skies above the city on November 18.

The Friday night started out like any other when the Varsity Lakes woman went outside for a cigarette and observed the Leonid meteor shower.

After counting more than 18 of the celestial objects she noted a "large light'' in the northern sky which she says was "strobing and flashing''. Just moments later the object was joined by two other lights to create a triangular formation which, she says, was both red and silver in colour. The report shows the objects performed "impossible'' manoeuvres in the sky and would "sparkle'' as they moved through the clouds, creating an "atmospheric phenomenon''. The woman finally went into her house after being bitten by mosquitoes. It is understood she was not probed by or had any contact with the object.

The Research Centre's Dr Martin Gottschall said typical UFO encounters lasted mere seconds. "Colour changes are normal, especially when UFOs use clouds as cover while they conduct surveillance,'' he said.

Dr Gottschall said people should keep a camera with them at all times. "If they film something unusual it could be a rewarding experience,'' he said. Report sightings to 07 33761780 or info@uforq.asn.au

http://tinyurl.com/87owjg6

UFO Sightings To 'Soar' As Weather Warms

2011-09-28T18:00:00.002+10:00

EAGLE-eyed UFO hunters are expecting a surge in sightings as the weather starts to warm.

The state's premier alien hunter, UFOs Queensland's Martin Gottschall said there had been an increase in Gold Coast sightings since the Sun first reported a sharp drop two months ago.

He said this trend would continue as people now started to spend more time outside at night.

"UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, are often unusual lights in the night sky and really informed observers will recognise the shimmering heat-like effect they give off, similar to jet exhaust," he said.

"However, this effect is because the craft is manipulating space-time rather than burning fuel."

"We would love people to get involved if we can get a good signal of activity."

The sighting of a UFO is known as a close encounter of the first kind, while physical evidence is the second.

Actual contact with a UFO is a close encounter of the third kind.

Mr Gottschall said it was important for sightings of UFOs to be reported.

"The passion we have for this is different for everyone but is mostly about searching for the truth about visitations from other species," he said.

"We would certainly like to understand the good reason authorities have for holding information back. They do not want us to make too much progress too fast because it would leave a lot of people frustrated."

The latest reported sighting in the region occurred at Murwillumbah at the beginning of this month when nine residents saw between three and six objects perform manoeuvres while emitting pulsating lights.

UFO Watchers Are Not Alone

2011-02-15T19:10:00.002+10:00

Karen Carruthers is convinced of the existence of UFOs and extra-terrestrial life. And she is not alone.
In May last year, she helped establish the Byron UFO Research Group, which attracts up to 50 people to its monthly meetings.

The gatherings feature guest speakers – many of whom claim to have had an alien contact – and allow people a “safe space” to discuss UFO and alien encounters.

“If you’ve never told anyone about your experience, it’s a lot to carry around. There is a fear of ridicule,” said Ms Carruthers, who is a former family therapist.
People at the meeting come from all walks of life, she said. Many have had a lifelong interest in UFOs or had “seen something” and had no outlet for it.

“We had a woman at our last meeting who had experienced a sighting 36 years ago.”

Mrs Carruthers started seeing UFOs in the 1990s and recollects being taken on a spacecraft in 2003.

She says her daughter, who lives in Sunrise, saw a UFO just last Sunday morning.

“There was no sound, it was a round object and it hovered over the house and didn’t move. She watched it for half an hour.”

Mrs Carruthers said there was a lot of fear surrounding alien life and UFOs, but the more you knew, the less scary it became.

She said aliens were a force for good: “To want to help us to help the planet and each other.”

As part of her work with the group, Ms Carruthers is compiling a database of UFO sightings from Byron and surrounding areas. She plans to conduct interviews, collating the information to create an historical record and to help demystify the subject.

“The more it gets out into the open, the more accepted it becomes,” she said.

“We want to give it some credibility and respectability.”

She said interest in UFOs was growing worldwide and becoming more accepted and mainstream.

'Flying Object' Followed Family

2010-12-27T10:11:00.000+10:00

Nearly 30 years after a late-night encounter with a UFO, Temuka man Ken Thew remains convinced he saw something extraordinary on Waitohi Rd.

Yesterday, after authorisation from the Defence Force, more than 2000 pages of secret files held by Archives New Zealand were released. The files are said to include every witness account of unidentified flying objects reported to authorities since the 1950s and Mr Thew said he would be interested in reading the files.

The now-retired mechanic said he did not think about the encounter unless other people brought it up in conversation, but he had spoken to others who had seen UFOs.

"What they have seen is different compared to what we have seen but that's apparently the way it is."

The memory of the large, bright object which accompanied Mr Thew,his wife, and their three young daughters home from Pleasant Point to Temuka on July 12, 1981 was still vivid, Mr Thew said.

"My thoughts are the same: what you see is what you see. "It was a bit frightening for a start. We were just travelling home from a night at me cobber's place. The oldest girl said, `what's that over there?' and I said I had no idea."

The couple described to the Temuka Herald in 1981 how a multi-coloured flying object paced them along the road, approaching to within 110 metres of their car and changing colours as it went. They knew by the hour of the night, the manoeuvres and closeness of the object that it was not an aeroplane.

Yesterday, Mr Thew said the size and the brilliance of the object, which was shaped like a football, told him it was unusual. However, while the encounter was reported in media, they kept a second part of the story to themselves and close friends – several visits by a man to their home and workplace shortly after seeing the object.

Introducing himself as Mr Wright, an "investigator" from Christchurch and dressed in a musty suit, he warned them not to contact or approach the object, Mr Thew said.

The man's behaviour was peculiar: he drank a cup of boiling tea in one gulp, read a page by scanning from bottom to top and knew the name of their pet dog before it could be told to him. Before the encounter with the object, Mr Thew said he had a
divided opinion on UFOs.

"If somebody had told me what I had seen myself I would sort of look at them and think, `well, okay'."

The object was something he was not familiar with and had never seen the likes of before, he said. He did not rule out a natural explanation but said the speed at which it travelled and the intensity of its light were unusual.

The Thews' account garnered media attention in 1981 and they were visited unexpectedly by a television crew.

"They got the kids to draw pictures of what they saw," Mr Thew said.

Most of the responses they got were positive; people called them to ask them about the incident, and later a Polish professor visited them to learn more about their experience. Their story attracted a small negative response, with about five calls from people suggesting they were mad, he said. However, Mr Thew stands by what he saw. "I had my faculties; I know what I saw."

CENTRAL SOUTH ISLAND UFO REPORTS
Local sightings reported on ufoinfo.com:
September 26, 2009: Two Timaru witnesses report seeing about 10 bright orange, moving objects at 8.15pm, which suddenly veered sideways.

November 27, 2006: A witness reports seeing a silvery white and cylindrical object taking off from the Richard Pearse Airport about 7.30am.

June 30, 2006: A witness took two photos. One showed a mysterious object over Oamaru between 1pm and 3pm.

February, 2006: Two adults and a boy, 11, report seeing a slow-moving object in the sky between Pleasant Point and State Highway 1 about 4pm.

August 5, 2005: Two witnesses travelling between Kurow and Omarama between 8pm and 9pm report seeing a slow-moving, orange, pulsating object "far bigger than any stars".

July 20, 1996: Five people at Rosewell near Timaru report seeing a triangular shape, with three lights, in the night sky.

August 15, 1990: One witness reports seeing an orange glow appear in a rear-view mirror about 1am.

New Zealand Releases UFO Government Files

2010-12-23T06:57:00.002+10:00

New Zealand's military has released hundreds of documents detailing claims of sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

The files, dating from 1954 to 2009, include drawings of flying saucers and alleged samples of alien writing.

The files include details of New Zealand's most famous UFO sighting when strange lights were filmed off the South Island town of Kaikoura in 1978.

An official report from the time said natural phenomenon could explain it.

Although the incident made international headlines at the time, the military report suggested it could be lights from boats reflected in clouds or an unusual view of the planet Venus.

Following the release of the files, New Zealand Air Force spokesman Kavae Tamariki said the military did not have the resources to investigate UFO sightings and would not be commenting on the documents' contents.

"We have just been a collection point for the information. We don't investigate or make reports, we haven't substantiated anything in them," he told the Dominion Post newspaper.

The reports have been released under freedom of information laws after officials removed names and other identifying material.

The files - which run to about 2,000 pages - include accounts by members of the public, military personnel and commercial airline pilots describing close encounters, mostly involving moving lights in the sky.

All the original documents on which the reports were based are to remain sealed in the national archive.

Bright Red UFO Spotted

2010-12-23T06:53:00.001+10:00

GLADSTONE is being visited by UFOs, according to a Gladstone local.
The local listed sighting a strange, bright red object Monday morning on a UFO sighting website.

The website, The UFO Clearinghouse, accepts reports from people who have seen something they can’t explain, hence, an unidentified flying object (UFO).

“While at work in the state forest north of Gladstone, I noticed to my left a bright red light,” the local who remained anonymous said.

“Thinking I might have a car coming through the bush towards me, I moved out of the donga I was in and waited for the car to arrive.

“I went outside and noticed that the light was above the tree line above the north end of Mount Larcom.

However, the witness couldn’t work out if it was round or any other shape.

“There were times the light hurt my eyes but not enough for me to look away. I noted that it was slowly moving downwards on the other side of the Mount Larcom range

“There were no other light sources located outside the donga, and no other reason what this red light might have been caused from.”

UFO Research Queensland chair Sheryl Gottschall told The Observer this year alone they have had 123 reported sightings from the public.

“What we find is that the reports come from a broad cross section of society,” Ms Gottschall said.

“We have people from small business owners to professional people like lawyers, teachers and pilots. We get reports from basically everybody,” she said.

Close UFO Encounters On The Coast

2010-11-20T15:43:00.002+10:00

They're perhaps not the kind of visitor tourism bodies are looking to attract to the region – they don’t come through customs, they arrive in non-regulation aircraft and never spend any money in the local economy. But if the many reported sightings of their visits are to be believed, UFOs are making regular visits to the Sunshine Coast.

UFO Research Queensland has been compiling data related to sightings throughout Queensland since 1956, and Lee Paqui from the organisation confirmed to Finda that the Sunshine Coast and Glasshouse Mountains area receives a lot of reports.

“Balls of orange or white light are the most frequently reported UFO in the area. These balls of light usually appear singly, but also in triangular, boomerang or straight-line formations, and occasionally they’re seen travelling in clusters of up to 20 or more objects. But while glowing balls of light dominate, there have been a number of far more unusual objects and phenomena sighted as well,” Lee said.

Reported Sightings
According to UFO Research Queensland in 1999, campers on Bribie Island witnessed a glowing green object at midnight that “turned the night into day.” The object was circular, hovered just above the ocean and lit up the sea and the nearby town of Caloundra with a green light for about eight seconds.

In 2004, a group was out four-wheel-driving in the Glasshouse Mountains. They drove along a fire road when one of them screamed. Hovering just above the trees, was a capsule shaped object roughly the size of a petrol tanker truck's trailer. It was emitting a low humming noise and glowing like a dull fluorescent light just above the trees. It was “close enough to throw a rock and hit it”. After a few minutes it tilted forward and drifted west like a balloon down into a ridge. They followed in their car and got out to look for it but it was gone and so was the humming sound.

In 2001 a woman travelling at night towards Bli Bli pulled off the road to allow what she thought was a brightly lit car behind her to overtake. However, instead of overtaking, the lights behind her moved backwards and changed into a crescent shape before disappearing into the sky.

In early 2000 a Caloundra resident reported an object in the sky that looked like “castles joined together,” and estimated it to be about the size of four football fields.

In 2007 a couple witnessed an oval object the size of a football field hovering over Burpengary. It was brightly lit, red on the bottom and white on top, and tilted itself on an angle before disappearing.

(Reported sighting information provided by UFO Research Queensland).

Advice
We asked Lee at UFO Research Queensland what advice he would give to people if they spot something.

“The first thing is to not panic. Our experience has shown that people are not harmed by their encounters with UFOs, in fact, they can come away with a feeling of elation. So, don't panic, don't run, simply stand and watch and observe.

“Try and work out how large the object might be, and how far away it is from you. Hold your arm out and see how big it is compared to your thumb. Notice any discernible markings, what the shape is, if it is glowing or not, what colour it is, does it change colour or shape while you're watching.

“Try to time how long the object is visible for, and how does it disappear. Does it simply vanish like a light going off or does it take off in a particular direction? Try and see what is happening to the world around you - is the sky cloudy or clear, are dogs barking, or have the birds stopped singing? Is there anybody nearby that you could point the object out to? And, most importantly, does anybody have a camera?”

"Of course, expecting people to do all this when they have only a few seconds to think about it could be asking a bit much, but if they can let us know as much as they can about their experience that’s the main thing,” Lee said.

My Mum Talks To Aliens

2010-11-20T15:10:00.001+10:00

Later this month SBS screens a documentary that follows the work and personal life of one of the world’s leading authorities on extraterrestrial life, Mary Rodwell (not to be confused with Roswell!).

This Australian woman works in this field all over the world, counselling people who have experience an alien encounter. She has worked in the US, Canada, Asian, European, Russia and other countries but her son is a sceptic. A mother and son Scully and Mulder?

My Mum Talks to Aliens is an intriguing documentary that follows a mother and son on a journey of discovery, as they travel the country in pursuit of solid evidence of an alien presence here on Earth.

There is one issue that is driving a wedge between mother and son – Mary and Chris Rodwell – the existence of extraterrestrial life. Chris is a self-confessed alien sceptic, whilst his mum Mary is a leading global authority on the subject. But her beliefs have come at a cost, her husband left and it is now impacting on her relationship with Chris.

Mary attempts to convince and educate her son, and thus the world about aliens. She introduces her son to her clients who have had first-hand alien abduction experiences, as well as revealing clear, never before- seen footage of UFO’s.

She also visits acclaimed Astrophysicist, Ragbir Bhatal from the University of Western Sydney. Bhatal is one of only three people in the world whose job it is to scan the skies for alien communications.

Mary may be one of the world’s leading alien abduction councillors, and she may be in demand all over the world for her expert extraterrestrial advice, but can she convince her own son about her out-of-this-world beliefs, and save her most precious relationship of all?

My Mum Talks to Aliens airs 8:30pm Tuesday November 30th on SBS ONE.

40 Convincing Blogs About UFOs

2010-11-03T16:41:00.007+10:00

We received this blog link via our web site. Hope you find something of interest there.

http://tinyurl.com/2cjysdq

UFO cut off my car

2010-10-20T13:22:00.002+10:00

A woman claims she was cut off by two alien beings in a spaceship shaped like a Ford station wagon - before it took off surrounded by green, blue and red flames.

It was just one of the stories to come out after ABC morning show presenter Leon Compton opened up the airwaves to UFO believers.

Betty from Alice Springs said her close encounter occurred in 1969. She was driving 20km south of Aileron towards Alice Springs at 4am with her six year old daughter when they saw the vehicle "flying alongside us". "We saw these two figures inside this thing. It looked like a Ford station wagon, with the windows. It came in front of us really quickly."

Her daughter then said, "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I said, 'Why did you say that?' She said, 'I don't know, it just came out of my mouth'.

"And as I was talking, the whole think took off like a shot out of a gun ... And then there was all this green and blue and red flames or lights all around it.

"I'll never forget it."

Other callers gave reasons why they believed in visitors from other planets - with one even quoting the Bible.

Dennis from Batchelor said his sighting was shared by a crowd of people on the Dripstone Cliffs at sunset.

"A mate and I were looking down the beach and saw this orangey-pink light progressing towards us. No sound at all," he said.

"We just watched it in silence as it cruised on past the casino."

And Cameron from Alice Springs said he was visiting a water hole in 1983 when he saw a flying saucer land 700m away.

"It was half the size of a football field," he said.

Source :www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/09/11/178671_ntnews.html

2010-10-19T14:08:00.003+10:00

Something surprising happened while we weren’t looking. The last few months have seen a rash of very public speculation about the nature of extraterrestrial life from the most unexpected places – places and people from whom the UFO community has so far received only ridicule.

Ever since Stephen Hawking planted his robust seed of fear into the world’s minds, all anybody can talk about is not whether ET exists, but what ET will do with us when he gets here. Thanks to Hawking (who has either lost his mind or is working covertly for the New World Order), the discussion in high places now centres around what ET could possibly want with, shudder, us! So far there’s been no mention of the old schlock standby ‘they want to suck our blood’, but amazingly denial of the ET reality has joined the discussion.

But while Hawking argues that visitors to Earth will see us only as a mineral resource, and in order to rape and pillage the planet, will need to strip-mine us out of existence, Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for SETI (whose very name conjures intimations of evil), poo-poos that notion, arguing that Earth is simply too far away to come for gold and tin. Maybe.

However, just in case ET does decide to pop in for a visit, media reports pronounce that the UN has actually ‘appointed a space ambassador for extraterrestrial contact affairs.’ Even stranger, a group of scientists is preparing a demo-tape to keep them entertained while they’re here (they think ET will like Bach, although we roundly disagree). And, not to be outdone, the Pope is preparing to baptize any ETs that might drop into the Vatican. (Sure. That’s the first place they’ll go.)

Now, we don’t know about you, but given that just a few short months ago the existence of Et was still being hotly denied, this turnaround is, to put it mildly, somewhat startling. And in a somewhat more sinister vein – do these people know something that we don’t know?

Like…. Could open contact be imminent? Or…has the Hubble telescope spotted a big alien wrecking ball headed our way?

The Australian Westall UFO Incident of 1966

2010-05-18T16:59:00.005+10:00

The mystery surrounding the famous Westall UFO incident of 1966 has been put up in lights with a documentary exploring the event set to air on Foxtel's Sci Fi channel next month.

The event, broken by The Journal in 1966, involved 200 Westall High School and Westall State School students, staff and local residents watching as a strange object hovered overhead for several minutes, landing briefly at Grange Reserve, before lifting off and vanishing.

Witnesses described it as a low-flying, silver-grey and shiny craft, shaped like a cup turned upside down on a saucer, accompanied by five light aircraft.

The new film focuses on former Mulgrave resident Shane Ryan tracking down former students and staff and searching for authorities who presided over the day.

"We hope the airing of the documentary will help us flush out the people who were in uniform from some sort of government authority and who so many remember investigating the scene and coming to the school to talk to kids," Mr Ryan said.

"Many witnesses remember police officers and soldiers being involved in the examining of the site and that's been an important focus for me to try and make contact with those people.

"It would seem that whatever they were doing, they would have a great knowledge of what happened."

Mr Ryan said he had contacted about 265 people who were connected with the story in one way or another.

"The stories were remarkably similar and every witness was extremely happy to talk to me. They were gobsmacked someone was showing an interest after all these years.

"They were still passionate about what they had experienced and that no one really believed them at the time - for some of them there was a deliberate and obvious push from certain people not to talk about what they had seen."

Westall ' 66: A Suburban UFO Mystery will screen on Australia's Foxtel Sci Fi Channel at 8.30pm on Friday, June 4.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/2cxu9lu

2010-04-30T10:52:00.002+10:00

NASA scientists last night unveiled compelling evidence of life on Mars.

A special mission to the Red Planet has revealed the likely presence of a form of pond scum - the building blocks of life
as we know it.

NASA unveiled the results of the recent Opportunity and Spirit probes sent millions of miles through the solar system to discover signs of extraterrestrial life. The results are so promising boffins have already planned a host of other missions to discover whether there is extraterrestrial life in the universe.

The recent missions have gathered evidence of sulphates on Mars, a strong indication there is water on the planet and therefore life. Previous missions to Mars have concluded there is probably water on the planet. But the NASA boffins said the recent missions have gone further than any others in proving there is life on Mars. They were particularly excited about the discovery of a sulphate called gypsum which, it has emerged recently, is found in large quantities among fossils in the Mediterranean.

Jack Farmer, researcher at the Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona, said he was "optimistic" there was - or had been - life on Mars. Another of the scientists Bill Schopf, researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles, added: "One, thanks to Opportunity and the rovers and orbital imaging it is clear that there are literally vast areas of Mars that are carpeted with various sorts of sulphates, including gypsum.

"Two, it turns out on earth there just hasn't been hardly any work done at all to show whether gypsum ever includes within it preserved evidence of former life. "The age doesn't matter. We just didn't know that fossils and organic matter and things like that were well preserved within gypsum.

"So, three, it turns out that now we have made that first step we are going to find out how widespread it is in other sulphate deposits on earth. "And those lines of evidence will then give us a way to justify going to Mars and looking at gypsum because it looks as though based on these findings that is going to turn out to be a really excellent place to find evidence of ancient life, regardless of age, if in fact it is there."

Five experts took part in last night's press conference to celebrate 50 years of astrobiology research. Dr Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, said the only way of being sure there is life on Mars was to bring back a sample of Mars rock. He also said that the detection of methane in the martian atmosphere - as revealed exclusively by The Sun - raised the possibility that there was still life on Mars today.

"Methane is a molecule that should go away very quickly. We need to send a mission to find out if the source is biological. "We also need to send a mission to return samples from Mars. That would enable scientists to find out whether Mars might ever have harboured life. "If we are ever going to show if there was ever life on Mars, I think we're going to have to study samples back on Earth."

Almost 30 other NASA missions to discover life in space - including one to bring back rocks from Mars - have already been planned. There are also plans to visit Jupiter's moon Europa to explore its deep underground ocean and a moon of Saturn, Enceladus, which spouted ice volcanoes. Long-term missions will also return to Saturn's biggest moon Titan, sending a balloon flying through its atmosphere and landing a probe in its surface lakes. Future missions would also visit comets.

NASA scientists have been searching for extraterrestrial life on other planets for some time. Last November the space organisation launched the Kepler space telescope to look for Earth-size planets in this galaxy. The telescope is on a three-and-a-half-year mission to find planets. NASA has so far been able to download data - but many believe there are aliens out there.

British physicist Stephen Hawking said this week aliens might be traveling through the cosmos right now - but he warned they might have evil intentions.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/37n2jax

Are Aliens About To Invade Australia?

2010-04-29T09:17:00.003+10:00

A MASS of UFO sightings has Territorians wondering if we are on the brink of an alien invasion. There have been seven separate Top End UFO sightings reported in the past week. Hardly a night has passed without a sighting of some "unexplained phenomena" since the first sighting last week. Almost all of the sightings have been in Darwin's rural area.

The first sighting was reported by a woman who wanted to be identified only as Shirel on April 21.She said she saw the strange lights from her Humpty Doo home hovering over Howard Springs. "The lights were really low in the sky, really bright, with flashing dots," she said. "Three of them formed a semi-circle and they hovered over the area for at least half an hour."

There were three separate sightings on Friday night including British backpacker Kylie Myers who said she had "never believed in anything like UFOs" before her strange encounter. The 27-year-old tourist said she turned into a "believer". Ms Myers said she stopped her car on the side of the road to grab her camera from the glovebox, but the light disappeared. "It was pretty spooky."

There were more sightings at Coolalinga on Saturday, Acacia Hills on Sunday and again in Howard Springs on Tuesday.But astronomer Geoff Carr yesterday told the Northern Territory News he was "far from believing any of this UFO stuff". "Unless aliens have found a way to travel faster than light speed, it's a doubtful thing to believe they came to visit us," he said.

Mr Carr said he believed 99.9 per cent of all the UFO sightings could be explained as simple weather phenomena.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/2asezae

UFO: The Truth Is Out There

2010-04-13T16:40:00.003+10:00

A UFO photographed in the night skies at Evans Head two weeks ago may actually be a ghost according to Wardell purveyor of all things paranormal David Delaney. The photograph taken by Lismore Heights woman Korrinne Stewart appeared in Friday’s Northern Star.

“It’s a pretty difficult one to pick from a photo, but I believe it is an orb,” Mr Delaney said. An orb, according to Mr Delaney, is a ghost or a human soul in the form of light. Appearing as an orb is the preferred form of apparition by ghosts because it requires less energy, Mr Delaney said.

Ms Stewart took the photo,in which both the moon and a mysterious shape can be seen, while fishing in the Evans River. She sent the photo to The Northern Star after reading about another UFO sighting at Evans Head when two men on their way home from the pub saw strange shapes in the sky, resembling a crescent moon.

There have been several reported UFO sightings in the region recently, including one last week in the skies at Nimbin where party-goers saw a bright red light which quickly faded to green before disappearing.

Mr Delaney said the most likely explanation for the photo taken by Ms Stewart was a ghost not a UFO. Ghost sightings increase over the winter months. “In the colder months you get more,” Mr Delaney said. “It is easier (for ghosts) to take on apparitions and manifestations in winter.”

Mr Delaney, who owns and operates ghost tour company Paranormal Pursuit, said orbs were very common. “They are the most common thing to be photographed on the tours,” Mr Delaney said. “We see them 100 per cent of the time. “They can be very photogenic when they want to.”

Mr Delaney said sometimes people’s camera batteries went flat when photographing an orb because it could draw on a variety of energy sources. “They can draw on powerlines and people as well,” Mr Delaney said. Mr Delaney has a Facebook group on which people can post their photographs of orbs for him to authenticate.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/yan2faz

Possible UFO spotted at Evans Head

2010-04-09T11:01:00.003+10:00

'There has got to be something out there’, Lismore Heights woman Korrinne Stewart said after capturing with her camera a mysterious object in the night sky at Evans Head.

There have been several reports from around the region of mysterious bright lights in the Northern Rivers’ skies in recent weeks.

Ms Stewart contacted The Northern Star after reading a report in Tuesday’s newspaper about a UFO sighting by two Evans Head men. The men were on their way home from the pub when they saw moon-like objects in the sky. They were the same size and brightness as a crescent moon, but vertical.

Ms Stewart was fishing at Evans Head the week before when she began taking photographs of the Moon. Sometime after 10.30pm a strange object, which she could only see through the lens of her camera, appeared beside the Moon.

Ms Stewart said while she did believe in UFOs, she did not know if that was what she had captured. “I thought it might have been some kind of shadow,” she said.

Ms Stewart said she had taken photos of the Moon earlier that night in Ballina, but the object did not appear in any of those images.

Party-goers at Nimbin also reported seeing a strange object in the sky last Saturday night towards the west.

Silvia Tribolet, of Lillian Rock, said she saw a bright orange light, like fire, which quickly faded to green and then disappeared. “It was beautiful,” she said. “I saw it for just one second. It was about one-third of the size of the Moon.” Ms Tribolet said she had never seen anything like it before, but thought it was probably space junk.

Astronomer Philip Hood said people often saw things in the sky which were unexplainable. “The sky is usually very predictable from an astronomy point of view,” Mr Hood said. “And most things can be explained.”

Mr Hood runs the Starry Night Planetarium, which holds astronomy nights at Brunswick Heads on the foreshore on the first-quarter moon.

UFO Research Queensland will be holding a workshop on UFOs in Byron Bay on April 17.

Source http://tinyurl.com/ybpxhs5

UFOs Spotted Over Evans Head

2010-04-08T12:13:00.004+10:00

Strange lights spotted over Evans Head at the weekend have been listed as a possible UFO sighting. The sighting is one of ‘a constant stream’ of such events recorded as ‘worthwhile’ by UFO Research Queensland, which monitors the skies from New Guinea to northern New South Wales. The high incidence of sightings in the area had prompted the group to man a stall at this year’s Starlight Wellbeing Expo in Bangalow over Easter, and also to hold a workshop in Byron Bay on April 17.

Tino Pezzimenti, who ran a seminar at the Expo, said the Evans Head sighting occurred when two men were walking back from the pub on Saturday night. One of the men, who swore he was completely sober, had reported seeing ‘moon-like objects’ in the sky besides the real one. “They were of the same size and brightness as the crescent Moon, but vertical,” Mr Pezzimenti said. “A third appeared and they all started moving erratically, zigzagging in the air. “One moved to the left, another to the right and the third straight up. They then rejoined themselves in the blink of an eye, back in their original position.”

Mr Pezzimenti said it was possible to discount other phenomena, such as hot-air balloons or aircraft. “It was also at 10.30pm, so it could not have been Venus,” he said. “It’s something we cannot explain. “But many UFOs have been reported as behaving in this way – erratically, and making sudden right-angled turns without slowing down.”

Australia has been something of a hotspot for UFO sightings in the past. Almost 900 a year were recorded throughout the 1990s, and there have been 200 this year. UFORQ has about 220 financial members and records reported sightings from all over the world. It had been in existence since 1956 and was the oldest still-running such group, Mr Pezzimenti said. One of the services it offered was a confidential support group for people who believed they had seen something but felt unable to tell anyone for fear of ridicule, or even worse, feared they might be going crazy.

UFO Research NSW spokesman Doug Moffett said the majority of the sightings in the state had been in rural areas.
The reason for this was because the aliens’ actions were largely ‘covert’. “They do not land and say ‘take me to your leader’,” he said. They could get lower and not be seen by so many people in country areas, he said.

Grafton-based UFO researcher and sky-watcher Barry Taylor said the phenomena went in 20-year cycles, known as ‘flap activity’. He said the 1950s, the ’70s and the ’90s had been active years for sightings, and he expected activity to increase again this year.

SIGHTINGS
The Gold Coast, with 25 reports, ranks second to Brisbane in the number of unexplained sightings in Queensland between October 2008 and September last year. Out of a total of 123 statewide, Brisbane had 28, while Caboolture, Cairns and Logan were next on the list, with five.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/yb7zrwn

Gold Coast UFO Sightings Rocketing

2010-04-06T20:37:00.006+10:00

The Gold Coast has reported the second highest number of UFO sightings in Queensland in a year.

According to UFO Research Queensland, an organisation established in 1956 which records and researches UFO sightings, the Gold Coast ranked second to Brisbane in the number of unexplained sightings between October 2008 and September 2009, with 25 reports out of a total 123 coming from the Coast. Brisbane had 28, while Caboolture, Cairns and Logan were next on the list, all with five reports recorded.

For many years, the Australian Air Force was responsible for handling Unusual Aerial Sightings at the official level but in the 1990s, the department stopped archiving reports. Nowadays sightings are reported to local police authorities or civilian UFO research groups in the State, if at all.

UFO Research Queensland president Sheryl Gottschall said sightings ranged from strange lights in the sky to detailed descriptions of craft. She believed the Gold Coast recorded more sightings because of its location and holiday appeal.

"If you look at the population difference (between Brisbane and the Gold Coast), it's interesting," she said. "We think it's because of the geography of the Gold Coast, because it is fairly flat and you can see more of the sky, particularly out over the ocean and/or because of the population. "Many (people) are on holidays so they might be more casually looking at the sky (and notice these things)."

The latest sighting was two Saturdays ago, when Robina resident Pat Gatward saw four strange orange lights in the sky about 6.20pm. Mrs Gatward said she was having dinner with her husband when they noticed the phenomena in the sky.

"It wasn't fireworks or anything like that, I don't know what it was. I've never seen anything like it ... it was very strange," she said. Mrs Gatward was undecided about whether or not she believed in extra-terrestrial life.

Police said they had not received a report about the lights.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/ybf8eg6

That Wild Australia Night

2010-04-06T20:25:00.002+10:00

By 1988, at least publicly, the U.S. Air Force had long since washed itshands of UFO sightings reported by mere citizens, no matter the anxietyfactor, putting the burden firmly on the shoulders of local law enforcementagencies. The cops. Police and sheriffs' deputies weaponised with automobilesunable to fly. The last place on Earth where anybody would have the timeor inclination to give a damn about some light in the sky. Yes, there was Dr. J. Allen Hynek's public lifeline, the Center for UFO Studies, poorly funded then, as now, and a few other national private organizations, but UFO manifestations didn't care a whit about investigative protocol.

So, the UFO enigma continued to assume center stage, sometimes dramatically. Unfortunately, other countries emulated the U.S. and deferred the troublesome UFO issue, as it affected the man or woman on the street,

to police agencies.

Twenty-two years ago, some very strange and frightening things happened in Australia, according to Associated Press reports emanating from Sydney, and -- to my knowledge -- the integrity of these events was never discredited.

Based solely upon AP reports, the story developed as follows. . .At about 2:45 a.m. on a Wednesday in January, 1988 Faye Knowles, driving, and her three sons (brothers Sean and Wayne are pictured here, both having

confirmed their mother's story) were proceeding on a lonely outback highway through the Nullabor Plain from Perth in western Australia, when she spotted a glowing object through her rear window. In an attempt to escape pursuit by

what seemed an egg-shaped object, Knowles accelerated to speedsapproaching 120 m.p.h. However, the UFO easily paced the automobile and ultimately, according to Sgt. Jim Furnell of the Ceduna Police, "apparentlypicked the car up off the road, shook it quite violently and forced the car back with such pressure that one of the tires was blown." Knowles' vehicle was left facing the direction from which it had come.

Apparently associated with the incident was a layer of a black powdery ashen substance found inside and outside of the car, and forensic scientists were scheduled to take samples. But, as in the best detective thrillers, there was

more to the story.

First, a tuna boat crew 50 miles away in a water area known as the Great Australia Bight -- a crew whose members had absolutely no contact with the Knowles family -- reported being buzzed by a bright object just minutes after the Knowles incident. "We were a little bit skeptical at first," continued Furnell, "but after investigating, we are treating the reports very seriously."

Second, and this was a particular point of interest to me because sound was involved, both the Knowles family and tuna fishermen noted similarly bizarre effects in the presence of a strange object. Explained Furnell, "While this was happening, the (Knowles) family said their voices were distorted and it was as if they were talking in slow motion." In the tuna boat, crew members' voices became "unintelligible" during the object's presence.

While these sound/voice/slow motion UFO incidents, almost suggestive of interference in some space & time mode, may seem uncommon, they do exist, probably in far greater numbers than are reported, and should be taken quite seriously in any scientific court of UFO conjecture. Wendy Connors' (now completed) Faded Discs project retrieved an old recorded interview with a young woman, once living as a child with her family at a British Air Force base in the 1960s. Recounting the appearance of a large UFO cruising at treetop level over base housing, the woman remembered that sounds were interrupted and voices could not be heard or comprehended until the thing departed.

Her active duty military father, and presumably others suddenly involved in this crisis alert situation, refused to speak of the incident and, whatever visited the base, it obviously wasn't regarded as "ours."

Getting back to the Australian events: A Royal Australian Air Force base representative in Edinburgh claimed he wasn't aware of any military aircraft in the area during the encounters. Still, instant explanations weren't to be

avoided because the media, as usual, went running to the nearest skeptical astronomer for a feel-good moment and, as usual, this expert was more than happy to oblige, with his version of events anxiously lapped up by the media

a week later.

Charles Morgan of the Sydney Observatory postulated a "carbonous meteorite shower" as the culprit (!) which would explain the ash and the Knowles' report of a "smell of dead bodies" inside the car. He also indicated the possibility of a sonic boom associated with such an event, which might explain the hearing difficulties. Acknowledging that some "unexplained phenomenon" might instead be responsible, Morgan nevertheless went on to suggest that the tire blew because the driver became frightened, drove off the road, hit a bump and became airborne.

It must be noted, however, that the Knowles family drove 400 miles to the Ceduna police station following the encounter, and officer Furnell noted that the car's roof was dented, covered with a blackish-gray ash -- and family

members were visibly shaken.

Keith Basterfield of UFO Research Inc., awaiting confirmation of the event, stated at the time that the Knowles case could "certainly be the most physical of encounters ever recorded in Australia. "All of this brings me to ask an unlikely but relevant question -- What's the energy source of a presumably unknown object able to pursue and lift a heavy automobile filled with passengers? If the world truly craves the highest levels of energy independence, the UFO phenomenon might provide answers. . .answers that governments may not learn if they turn away or deny interest

in just one special observer among the masses who happens to experience a UFO encounter of more than passing significance. Despite all the good things law enforcement agencies do, their crime forensics labs aren't exactly stocked with scientists yearning to examine UFO incidents.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/yabt5d2

UFO spottings on Central Coast of NSW

2010-04-06T20:19:00.002+10:00

There's something strange happening in the skies over a little patch of our pristine holiday coast.

The suburbs around Gosford, on the Central Coast, are the state's biggest hot spot when it comes to UFO sightings, with dozens of seemingly authentic cases reported every year.

Each month, as many as 30 people turn up to meetings to share their UFO experiences.

UFO Research NSW secretary Joann Kanda, who helps organise the meetings, saw what she believed was a UFO near her home at The Entrance in the mid-1990s.

"It was just a sort of a glowing light in the middle of the night," she said.

"The dogs made a strange noise and I got up. There was something up in the sky with a greenish glow."

The region was the scene for one of Australia's most baffling UFO cases - a series of sightings in 1995 and 1996 - that were reported by police and many other credible witnesses.

Residents have told of seeing shiny, spherical, illuminated UFOs that often hovered above water.

UFO Research NSW's Doug Moffett said UFOs were commonly spotted over water or near power plants and the Central Coast had plenty of both.

The geography of the Central Coast may also play a part. It is heavily populated in parts, which means there are people around to spot UFOs, but still isolated enough for them to be visible in the night sky.

"What UFOs do is, largely speaking, covert in nature. They're obviously not landing at the steps of the Opera House and saying, 'Take me to your leader'," Mr Moffett said.

The UFO and Paranormal Research Society of NSW said the Blue Mountains also figured heavily in UFO sighting reports.

A group of enthusiasts spent the weekend in the mountains searching for UFOs they say visit the area each year in the last week of March.

One of the group, who declined to be named, said that in past years the craft had appeared above the Burragorang Valley, beyond Jenolan Caves, and were seen to hover for some time.

Several readers have reported seeing UFOs near Wollongong a week ago.

Could It Be A UFO?

2010-04-06T20:15:00.002+10:00

Eagle Vale resident Shawaan Peck took this photo on an early Winter morning last year.

He took the photo on his mobile phone and rushed inside to grab his handycam but claimed when he returned the ''glowing objects'' in the sky had disappeared.

This week, there have been reports of UFO sightings in Chipping Norton and Mr Peck believed that was what he captured in this shot.

``I've seen freaky things before, but they've been satellites or shooting stars,'' he told the Advertiser.

``But this thing, I was like hello? what's that?

``I thought it was just weird...I don't think we're alone.''

He said he included the street light in the shot to compare the objects with.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/yjwfrq3

UFOs Over Sydney - The Intergalactic Neighbours Drop By

2010-04-06T20:09:00.005+10:00

THEY emerged from a blazing light in the clouds, descending on a busy Sydney street before zipping off silently into the sunset.

Just what - or who - propelled the strange flying discs across the sky may never be known. But while the close encounter was over in seconds, it was enough to convince mother-of-two Fiona Hartigan that she'd just seen a UFO. And she has the photos to prove it. Ms Hartigan yesterday said she had just got out of her car on Sunday evening to snap a few sunset photos when the amazing events began. "As I was about to take the picture this black object appeared and then it started to move," she said.

"It started off about 800m away but it came closer - to about 400m - and then two other little round things appeared from this bright orange light above. "There was no noise. It was calm and peaceful but it was very weird." Ms Hartigan said the main UFO then "shot off" above Governor Macquarie Drive at Chipping Norton, with the smaller UFOs zipping away in the opposite direction. "I don't know how to explain it - I'm still totally bewildered," she said.

To the sceptic, Ms Hartigan's photo might show a speck of dust on the lens or something small floating in the air close to the camera. But close encounters like Ms Hartigan's came as no surprise to UFO Research NSW spokesman Doug Moffett: "It could be some electrical anomaly that no one has ever seen, it could be an extra-terrestrial craft, it could be something else.

"There does appear to be a blur around the image, which could just be the way it's shaped, or - and this is pure speculation - it could be due to its propulsion system. "Whatever the case, it's an opportunity to learn something new." Mr Moffett said there were between 1000 and 1500 UFO sightings in Australia every year, "but that is just the tip of the iceberg". "Why would anyone make these stories up? They are setting themselves up for ridicule," he said.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/yj3awqw

Facing The Important Issues In Ufology

2010-02-18T10:40:00.003+10:00

If you've been around in the UFO field for some time now, you will have realised what a whirlwind ride this subject can take you on. However, over the years you may have come to learn, like many others before you, that finding answers to your questions about ETs is not the real goal of your quest. The goal for many, and we believe for our civilization, is not to find the answers but to ask the right questions, for it is only in the work of unearthing the right questions that we will create the impetus within our civilization to take us forward into galactic citizenship.

The years that researchers have spent taking reports from the public, interviewing witnesses, conducting investigations, reading, researching etc, are important steps and have built the foundations for the future of UFO research. However, the UFO subject has a way of acting like a boomerang for many of us. When we stray too far from it's centre it returns us to our personal entry point, which for many has been reports of extraterrestrial worlds and ET societies that function with no war, far less disease (in some cases no disease), how various ETs govern their society by the people and for the people, how those societies handle the issue of longevity and their great reverence for all life.

Curiously, questions about extraterrestrial life have a funny way of turning us inward to question life on Earth. Moreover, we're challenged to reassess our understanding of life, where it comes from, how we respond to it and how tolerant we can be of other lifeforms which may be very different from us. In it's own way the UFO subject prepares us for open contact.

The process of how our present civilization can get from where we are now to the ET model before us contains the most important social questions of our time. No wonder the UFO cmmunity keeps avoiding them, but these are questions we need to face if we are to take the next step towards understanding both our inner and outer worlds.

Are You Willing To Be An Avatar?

2010-01-07T07:59:00.002+10:00

Avatar the movie is a unique combination of cinematography, characters and storyline combining all three in a magical way to plants seeds that will hopefully germinate many questions about our own future as a species. Set light years away from Earth on Pandora where Earth corporations are mining a rare mineral that will solve Earth’s energy problems, a former marine comes face to face with the unexpected. Because the atmosphere on Pandora is toxic to humans, the Avatar program has been created where genetically created bodies suited to the atmosphere have been grown and human consciousness can be downloaded into the drivers seat of these bodies thereby enabling humans in Avatar bodies the freedom to move about freely in Pandora’s atmosphere.

Whether it meant to or not, right up the movie asks questions about the possibility of transferring consciousness from one body to another, thereby exploring immortality. What would it be like if we could change bodies when the one we were using was no longer useful? What if you could retain memories from one lifetime to another? How would that affect your “getting of wisdom” in a very long life? Can humans remain at our current level of development and become immortal? What would happen if we discover the technology to transfer consciousness before we gain the wisdom of extending the existence of people who use this to human detriment?

This is an issue raised by contactees who claimed to communicate with ETs far older than us and much further along in their social development. Could they have been using bodies suited to earth’s environment all along? As we progress down this avenue, and if we are successful at pulling off this technology in the future, how will it change our perspective of life, of All life, in the universe. Will we eventually see with the penetratingly spiritual eyes like the Na’vi people of Pandora?

Until that time, would it be best to develop a peaceful mentality so that when we do gain longevity, through whatever means, we won’t be unleashing harmful human behaviour in our corner of the universe. If so, how do we as a civilization change from a military power driven perspective to the spiritual perspective shared by the Na’vi? Would that be in our best interest anyway? And what are the steps towards gaining a deep reverence for all living things, to being in touch with what drives our humanity? How do we humans return to life as part of nature while healing our mental and emotional abstinence from it? All issues raised by the Na’vi lifestyle.

While some in the UFO community are blathering about not going to see the movie because they consider it portrays humans as a blight wherever they go, they’ve failed to identify Avatar as a unique film that is very relevant to the ET issue and that it should be mined for it’s riches. Wouldn’t it be a surprise if we could actually learn something from it?

Northern Territory Attracted UFO Watchers In 2009

2009-12-31T16:04:00.007+10:00

It seems that people are still very much interested in the UFO phenomenon and following leads wherever they may take them. In a story posted on the Northern Territory News website today it's claimed that almost 25,000 people flocked to the story posted by this news service in August 2009 when Territorian, Alan Ferguson, made a splash and caught the medias attention with his UFO footage.

Northern Territory News also stated that another story posted in April 2009 entitled Mum Spots Latest UFO attracted around 58,000 hits, and the Muscle Car UFO Hoon story received just over 40,000 views with many of these from the US. The story goes on to say : One of the best things about the internet is that you can track where your audience is coming from, what stories they are interested in. There's no guesswork, it's all there in the stats. For example, the Netherlands are particularly interested in UFOs over the NT - over 7,000 Dutchies visited ntnews.com.au to read what was going on with our little green friends.

Regardless of the genuiness of the stories it appears we just can't get enough of them.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/ydgnw8d

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us at UFO Research Queensland Inc

2009-12-31T11:25:00.002+10:00

Olivia Newton-John says she has seen a UFO

2009-11-29T08:33:00.003+10:00

Singer actress Olivia Newton-John is intrigued by UFOs and even claims to have seen one. The Grease star says she saw a UFO when she was 15. The Sun quoted her as saying "I have seen one when I was very young. It was unidentified and it was flying." The 60 year old recollected the scene and said the dazzling object moved across the sky at "amazing speeds". She also admitted her fascination for them and said "It's true. I'm intrigued by them."

Olivia feels most Britons believe in UFOs. She said, "I've seen so many shifts in belief systems over the years. In England most people now think UFOs are possible. Twenty years ago how many people would have thought that?"

http://tinyurl.com/yak8xg5

Scientists, Skeptics and Ufologists Will Always Disagree - And It May Be Genetic

2009-10-31T15:39:00.002+10:00

We know that the majority of scientists think evidence for the existence of UFOs is full of holes despite the high level of military and government whistleblower testimony. Adding to the weight of this disclosure is the testimony from astronauts, police, space engineers and astronomers, yet many scientists continue to remain in denial. The UFO community scratches it’s head wondering how it will ever get through such rigid blindness. But it may well be impossible according to New Scientist magazine (print edition 10/10/09) which dedicated ten pages to consciousness. It just may not be possible getting through such denial and the reason is it’s those pesky genes that prevent new information being integrated into certain individuals grey matter.

In a piece about altered states, and in particular hypnosis, some studies hint at our ability to be hypnotized as being deeply ingrained. “When 50 people were re-tested [for their hypnotisability] on the Stanford scale after a 25-year gap, their scores stayed remarkably consistent.” James Horton at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville has even found physical brain differences: highly hypnotizable participants had a 30% bigger rostrum, a part of the brain thought to help focus attention. A few studies have also shown that hypnotisability may be hereditary, and some researchers – including Amir Raz of McGill university in Montreal, Canada – are trying to track the genes involved.

Curiously, most of the scientists interviewed for the article stated they were only mediocre on the hypnotisability scale. No surprise there since scientists tend to dissect, criticize and evaluate which is completely opposite to a hypnotic state of mind. Personally I’ve found that people who make the best hypnosis subjects tend to be more right brained than others and female. A right brained individual will be more creative since right brained activity is associative, synthesizing many things into one expression, whereas left brained activity pulls apart information, breaking it down into smaller clumps of data for observation and analysis. So we have synthesis versus analysis – or more simply said, putting together versus pulling apart.

Our brain dominance plays an important role in forming our behaviour, perspective and beliefs. So those who are left-brain dominant (for want of a better expression) will be drawn to the scientific, and if a higher degree of dominance is experienced it’s only natural they will go further and become a “skeptic” which is a deeper expression of left-brain behaviour. So no matter how much you try to “get through” to a skeptic it’s just not going to happen.

Now we could wait and be patient until the next generation is born, but unfortunately if this is genetic then it will just keep repeating itself, so don’t bother holding your breath. Darn those pesky genes!

Earth Calling

2009-08-29T15:16:00.004+10:00

During the month of August, 2009 a total of 25,880 messages were collected from the public by the Australian Cosmos magazine website in an initiative to celebrate Australia's National Science Week and the International Year of Astronomy. Supported by NASA, the CSIRO, and the Australia's Science Minister, it was a way of making people aware of the role science plays in our society. The messages were collected by the project then converted into binary code and beamed into space at noon on Friday August 28, by the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla.

It was reported that the signal was equivalent to using the combined transmission power of 300 billion mobile phones. It took two hours to send the transmission but it will take two decades before it reaches it’s destination around December 2029. While it’s no news flash for the UFO community that life exists elsewhere besides planet Earth it is extremely important to observe that no less than 1000 newspapers in different languages reported the initiative and more than 9,917 blogs around the world discussed it and linked to the site. Cosmos magazine reported that Visitors to the site reached 254,620 in the 13 days the site collected messages, and visitors read 1.25 million pages, from messages left by participants to articles on exoplanets and astrobiology.

Putting aside for the moment that this was a HUGE publicity stunt by the editor to prop up flagging magazine subscriptions (did we say that out loud?), the exercise demonstrates the clear and overwhelming interest by members of our population in communicating with life outside this planet. This is probably not what the cover-up merchants want to read but hey, too bad. If ET is listening, now would be the time to step up any initiatives to strike up a conversation with the common earthman in the street. Will we get a response from ET? Scientists believe they will have to wait decades to find out but we already know the answer, don’t we.

This is our favourite message from the hopeful future: We come in peace. If you are out there, please respond. We want to be friends. We are all different and we can't wait to meet you! From the children of Earth. Class 4M, Castle Cove Public School, Australia

Cosmos Under Fire

2009-08-16T17:08:00.002+10:00

The August/September 2009 issue of Cosmos Magazine (issue 28) devoted 21 pages to a special feature entitled "Mass Delusions" which among other things claimed to "explore delusional behaviour, from the global financial crisis to alien abductions" and claimed to explain that it is the way our brains are wired that causes “some people to believe in UFOs, apparitions and homeopathy”.

The opening sentence of the feature began with the question “why do people believe in phenomena such as UFOs, alien abductions, psychic surgery and ghosts, when the evidence is so scant and unconvincing?” What?! The evidence may be unconvincing to some - but SCANT? I think not. Obviously Wilson de Silva, editor provocateur, is living under a mushroom. Scant evidence of the UFO phenomenon? He’s got to be kidding.

The article goes on to infer that we’re all suffering from collective delusions complete with “false or exaggerated beliefs that arise spontaneously , spread rapidly in a population, , and temporarily affect a region, culture or whole nation.” This mass hysteria, which apparently we suffer from, contains many factors that “contribute to the rise and spread of such collective delusions, such as rumors, extraordinary public anxiety or excitement, shared cultural beliefs or stereotypes, and amplification of these by the mass media, as well as reinforcing actions by authorities such as politicians, the police or the military.” Huh?

But wait – there’s more. Carl Sagan, now deceased born again UFO supporter turned skeptic, (no he hasn’t reincarnated) is quoted as saying that “the scientific method and the clarity it brings can help us overcome our fuzzy thinking. Thinking critically and clearly,” he says , “is the means…by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.” The article goes on to quote Sagan as arguing, “it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is, than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

Well right back at you Carl.

Next in de Silva’s list of quotees is retired stage magician, skeptic and founding member of CSICOP, James Randi who states “that real science searches for the truth through rigorous methods; it strives to leave no questions unanswered; it provides solid evidence any other researcher can reproduce. Criticism and questioning is encouraged and constantly leads to an evolution of science in the face of new evidence.” (cough, splutter) Who can disagree with that, if it actually ever occurred. All I ask is that people like Randi and his skeptical following stand in front of a mirror when they spout such insights.

But is the real argument here whether science, and inevitably scientists, are doing what they proclaim, or is the real issue about the psychology of those with different perspectives not being able to escape the instinctual need to harass, debunk, bully and inevitably ostracize people in the UFO community who think differently and challenge their rusty herd mentality? To explore this let’s ask ourselves how a skeptic might handle a claim about UFOs from a magician. What if the UFO community held up an opinion from such a person to support an argument for the reality of UFOs? Don’t you think they might ask how the opinion of a stage magician claiming to be a “scientific investigator who exposes the falsities of pseudoscience” (see www.randi.org) can be offered to shed light on anything of a paranormal nature? I think they would. No strike that. I KNOW they would and they’d scoff loudly in the face of those who entertained such “silliness and delusion”.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, it seems de Silva remains unaware of credible witness testimony when it comes to the UFO phenomenon, although he does present a mascot photo of Edgar Mitchell with the caption “Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell has claimed there is a US government cover-up about alien visitations” but that’s as far as he appears willing to go in debunking a witness who holds 3 science degrees, one of which is a PhD, plus 4 honorary degrees in engineering (see www.edmitchellapollo14.com/edmbio.htm). Perhaps if Dr Mitchell had a background in magic de Silva might go further.

The feature goes on to include the debunking of Crop Circles, stating, “it’s hard enough to conceive why intergalactic aliens would opt to write in grain fields rather than public parks or on a piece of paper.” This is where Randi chimes in with his thoughts that , “the irrefutable evidence, of course, is that crop circles are hoaxes, perpetrated by pranksters, artists and children.” Predictably, Randi points to “the adventures of Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, who came forward in the early 1990s to admit they were behind the original crop circles that kicked off the craze in Britain.” He seems to have conveniently forgotten that the crop circle phenomenon came to public attention in the last 1970s and botanical documents containing descriptions of such formations date back to the 1800s. This only covers the English speaking world so we have no idea how long such things may have existed in locations like China, South America or Africa.

It goes without saying that obviously hoaxes exist. We also know that human teams of people will go out into the fields and create this land-art for reasons not associated to hoaxing per-se. Whatever the driving force there seems to be a phenomenon within the phenomenon that makes us want to talk to each other in this manner. Now THAT’S weird!

But I digress. Apparently getting a skeptic to look at the evidence for genuine formations is a hard act to fulfill as David Guest, plant pathologist and agricultural scientist at the University of Sydney, proclaims there is no documented evidence to be found anywhere. Has Glass actually asked for this documentation or merely made a flying visit to the web site of BLT Research in Massachussetts, the worlds largest crop circle site that uses scientific methods to test plant samples. My guess is it was a quick visit followed by a declaration of debunking.

Honestly, after reading this feature which also explores the so-called “delusional” results of homeopathy and chiropractic manipulation, one wonders how long this magazine will remain in circulation when it’s contents fly in the face of the public who are living better lives because of these modalities. But I digress.

Cosmos is obviously written by skeptics with a cause - or is it a vendetta? Either way skeptics need to realize that it is THEY who are the minority group here. As they have clearly demonstrated through their own behaviour, that their fragile psyche would be the first to crumble into a jibbering heap if ET did make open contact.

I don’t know if they realize it but from my perspective skeptics appear to be stuck and unwilling to move forward in this great learning curve we call life. Their behaviour is dishonest, uncivil, discourteous, unhelpful and invalidating to others. The skeptical approach aims to destroy the social bonds that naturally form when we behave in the opposite manner. It’s as if they subconsciously realize this and lash out at others as a form of compensation. If they were honest enough to look deeply within themselves they might realize it is they who have isolated themselves from the greater tribe of humanity. In their effort to ostracize others through their condescending behavior they have actually ostracized themselves and inevitably suffer the consequences of their invalidation. Ultimately they have become their own victims.

OZ SETI on the ball?

2009-05-09T08:10:00.016+10:00

Left: Dr Ragbir Bhathal

It warmed our little hearts to read an article in todays Australian newspaper about OZ OSETI (o for optical) and the opinions of various Australian astrophysicists on the search for ETs. Ragbir Bhathal, an astrophysicist at the University of Western Sydney, who teaches the only university-based course on SETI in Australia, went on record stating that "for an advanced civilisation, radio wave technology would be old hat". He also waved a red flag in the face of Shostakian views adding, “our failure to pick up any interstellar signals so far could mean that advanced civilisations are using a communications technique still not discovered on Earth.”

He further suggested that, “we are nowhere near being able to put a sensible figure on how common life may be". Ah, the sweet sound of humility and an open mind. Be still our beating hearts.

On the other hand, Ain de Horta, a project scientist with the Australian SETI Institute, proposed that “we're counting on the physics being the same elsewhere in the universe”, and spouted the usual Shostakian view that there are “UFO nuts out there”. Well, we may be a little nutty but we’re certainly not out there. However we feel we can forgive de Horta today (having a warm and fuzzy moment) because while he’s rubbing intellectual shoulders with the likes of Ragbir Bhathal, we feel certain that the chip on his shoulder will be worn away sometime in the future.

Let there be light.

Full story at http://tinyurl.com/owfu7k

Northern Territory UFOs

2009-04-26T16:07:00.003+10:00

A Territory mother has backed up claims unidentified flying objects have returned to the Top End after she photographed two "discs of light" in the sky.The mother-of-three, who wished only to be known by her first name Kym, took the photo as she watched the dark rain clouds roll towards her Palmerston home last month.Kym said the image was taken on her mobile phone and that she didn't notice the strange lights in the clouds until she downloaded her pictures on to her computer.

She took many photos and even some video footage on her phone but said the UFOs only appeared in the one shot."It's hard to tell what it is - it's very strange," she said."There was some lightning at the time but the shape of these lights is different.""If it was streaks you'd think it was lightning but these are circles."I thought it could be a street light reflection in the screen of the mobile I took the photo with but the street lights aren't on."

Her story follows that of Territorian Alan Ferguson, who told in the Northern Territory News this month how unidentified flying objects had returned to the skies above his Acacia Hill home.More Territory UFO picturesMr Ferguson put the rural suburb, 50km south of Darwin, on the international map last year when he first photographed UFOs flying around his home.He said he quickly grabbed his camera on seeing a bright silver flickering object in front of a cloud last month.The skywatcher said the UFOs seemed to appear when it was hot."Those aliens - they must have some pretty good airconditioning in those things, hey," he said.Kym said she had never had any previous encounters with UFOs."I've never really thought about them or had a view on them," she said."But my motto is never say never - anything's possible."

Source: Northern Territory News April 21, 2009
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2009/04/21/46371_ntnews.html

Goodbye Albert

2009-02-09T11:17:00.013+10:00

On the morning of the 29th January 2009, UFORQ received a phone call from Albert Pennisi's goddaughter, who informed us that Albert died last Sunday morning 25th January, 2009. Albert, of Tully Saucer Nest fame, died of a heart attack after he had attended a church service.

The funeral took place on Friday 30th January at St Clares Church, Tully, Queensland. The family asked that no flowers be sent, but instead please make a donation to the church.
Email for details znclare@qldnet.com.au

Albert was to turn 90 that week and a party had been organised for him by his family at the local bowls club.

Alberts wife Amy died some years ago. Albert has 4 children, two of them, Shane and Adrian, accompanied Albert who attend the UFO conference in Brisbane in 2006 to update the public about other UFO occurrences on his property in Queensland.

More details of the Tully Saucer Nest case at http://www.uforq.asn.au/casefiles/tully.html

Another UFO Sighting - In Australia!

2009-01-19T09:02:00.005+10:00

Source: Harlow Herald 24 - Stevenage, England, UK
http://tinyurl.com/8bmtao

The Herald's article about UFO sightings on New Year's Day has reached a global audience.

Australian Yvonne Vincent contacted the Herald newsroom this week to tell us about her own UFO experience on January 1. She wrote: "I read your article as I typed in UFO 1st Jan 2009 after I saw a UFO on this night. I have not even contacted my local news. It was great to read your article it is fantastic!

I am a 30-year-old young woman. I live in Donvale, Victoria, Australia. My male friend, 37, and I went to McDonald's to get drive thru McCafe latte around 9.40pm our time. On my short drive home I saw a fireball sphere in the sky. In Donvale, which is about 14km from Melbourne. I thought it was a meteor rock on fire.

I drove left into Shirvington Place a street off Doncaster Road and watched it for a good two and a half minutes. I kept asking my friend what was it and he was stunned jumping out of my car, we watched it. The streets were quiet it was a dark street anyway. Watching the fireball it seemed not very far away, quite close actually. It was orange and yellow flames inside a perfect, perfect sphere. There was no glow around it and no sound. There was no trail behind it, it just moved as a perfect sphere that looked like a fireball.

I did not panic any longer when it changed direction so accurately and sharp. It then began to lift through the low thin cloud and we watched it still so bright fly into the distance until my naked eye could see no longer."I called my father who lives half hour from me. It was a few minutes before 10pm our time when I saw it. I had rung dad at 10pm.

This was no plane, helicopter, light reflection after a small drizzle of rain on a cool January night. It was an unidentified flying object!"This was what the people saw in that town your article explains. I called dad the other day for him to look up your news article. I am convinced it is the same - on the same day - understandably there is time difference but that is fast to travel across the world like that if it is the same one.

No-one here in my local paper seems to have said anything or in our Herald Sun. No-one came out of their house to look at what we saw, a lot of people were on holiday and it was quiet as most people went out the night before.

Recently I read about some orange lights in another town in UK hitting wind turbine! "I was a person whose response would be more of a 'yeah right' attitude to such a thing. It was such a privilege and honour to see such a beautiful sighting in the sky. It was scary to begin with but then just amazing! It changes perspective on life to be more open minded and I am a deep thinker most of the time really anyway so this is very interesting."

'Muscle Car' UFO Hoons Over Australia

2009-01-17T18:46:00.021+10:00

Source: Daily Telegraph - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/9j5qev

A MYSTERIOUS blue car-shaped UFO has been spotted as it flew across a cloudy wet season sky over northern Australia. But in the words of amateur photographer Mark Schmutter, 79, "It does look like a car but what would a car be doing up in the sky?"

Mr Schmutter said he snapped these shots as he was standing on the ninth-floor balcony of a friend's CBD apartment in Darwin just before 6pm earlier this week. "I decided to go out on the balcony and take some shots of Darwin," he said. "I just held the camera up and I saw this thing flash through the sky and I thought 'Oh my goodness what was that?', and then it came back again so I hit it with the camera."

He said he saw the object move across the sky about the speed of a plane - then it flew straight upwards before it disappeared into the sky. "But it wasn't an airplane, no noise ... it was a fair way away, you know, but I didn't hear any noise." Mr Schmutter, of Lyons, said he had no idea what it was - be it a strange, newfangled aircraft or a UFO shaped like a muscle car. "I've got no idea about aliens, but anything's a possibility, isn't it?"

Defence spokesman Stephen Mullins confirmed no Defence aircraft were flying in the area at that time Tuesday night. The Top End Flying Club last year suggested many of the local sightings of UFOs could actually be Sigma-4 ultralight aircraft - informally dubbed the flying sperm - which fly slowly and with little noise. The club's Mark Christie said the blue object didn't resemble any of their aircraft though. He said at least one of the photos looked to be altered with the object cut and pasted on to the background. But Mr Schmutter insisted none of the pictures had been 'Photoshopped' in any way. He said he was hoping someone could tell him what it was he caught on camera.

2009-01-10T07:35:00.004+10:00

Source: http://tinyurl.com/9c6x3z
WE had a bumper year for aliens in which UFOs were seen over the state's South Coast and flying saucers popped up on Google Maps - now fresh sightings have emerged suggesting there is plenty of activity in the skies over NSW.

Last June an unnamed Nowra alien addict reported seeing a military helicopter following a UFO over the local golf course.

And in December our story on how a Daily Telegraph reader spotted what appeared to be a flying saucer hovering near the Sydney Harbour Bridge while checking out Google Maps caused a web sensation. See the picture.

But that's not all. Turns out the Campbelltown-based UFO and Paranormal Research Society of Australia - one of 30 UFO research groups around the country - has been busy cataloguing even more sightings.

Gallery: UFOs ... are they out there?

The society's NSW close encounters database - full of sightings emailed in by avid alien watchers - reveals that last November a Blacktown man saw a range of cigar and diamond-shaped craft speeding through the night sky over two hours.

"They would be from the south horizon to the north horizon in under a minute," the witness wrote. "Sometimes they would stop mid-flight, float for a bit and move in a different direction. Others would move vertically and they looked unlike anything I had ever seen. "I must have seen at least 50 instances of the objects, having about eight or nine visible at the same time." The witness continued: "At first I thought it might have been military training from the RAAF base at Richmond, but there were no squadrons and no set pattern to any of the crafts' flights."

It wasn't the only strange craft spotted over Sydney's west, either. Less than two weeks ago another alien spotter saw something in the skies over Leumeah - while hanging out the washing. The unnamed observer reported a "sudden fly-by of a spherical object from southeast to northwest". It was reportedly white and semi-transparent, with murky centre. The writer added: "Airborne debris or any other airborne artefacts can be possibly be ruled out as the direction of travel was inconsistent with wind direction."

UFO special: Videos of Aussie sightings

Worldwide, it appears 2009 is picking up right where 2008 left off on the phenomena front. Just this week a wind turbine was mysteriously wrecked on an English farm - and locals say it was hit by a UFO they claim to have seen and heard. Watch the video on the right.

Locals in Conisholme, Lincolnshire, were reportedly woken by a 4am smash that ripped one of the turbine's 20m blades clean off after strange lights were spotted streaking towards the towering 88m generator. There was no trace of the missing blade.

UFO Research NSW spokesman Doug Moffett is sure a growing number of people believe alien life is possible. "I guarantee that you would know someone who believes in extraterrestrial life," he said. "But they're not going to come out and wave a flag in the middle of Pitt St because you know what would happen - if you jumped up in the middle of your lunch room and said 'Hey guys I saw a UFO last night' they would just bag you out."

If You Eat Your Vegies Will You Make Contact With ET?

2008-12-04T17:13:00.013+10:00

Here it is, approaching Christmas, a time of year when we kick back, take a breath and ponder over the years UFO events. Sometimes you get so busy with the “doing” that its easy to forget the “being”. And while we’re on the subject, can someone tell us how you have to “be” to make contact with ET? There’s a few theories floating around that, when you weigh them up, don’t really make any sort of sense.

For example, There’s the “spiritually developed people will make contact with ET” theory. Well some people believe that ET is a bit picky and choosey over who they contact. Not for them the drunken bum in the gutter, they prefer the human who is well on their way to spiritual enlightenment – presumably this will make it easier on the ETs, somehow. But don’t worry, ET can still use those bums in the gutter in their breeding program, apparently.

Then there’s the theory that humans must be ‘pure of body’ to make contact. This means no eating meat or sullying ourselves with drugs and alcohol (some believers even deny themselves sex…egads). Apparently having a pure body makes contact more desirable. Hmm. Making contact with ET is starting to sound more and more like joining a Buddhist monastery, huh.

But why DOES ET put so many caveats on making contact? Why are they concerned with our spiritual development and our physical state of being? What would it matter? We’re here, we’re mean, and we’re not very green. They either want to meet us or they don’t, and how long do they plan to wait until we make ourselves presentable? Why hang around, taunting us with their presence, if we’re too distasteful to make contact with?

Well in our not so humble opinion, as we perch in our ivory tower, it’s all human projection. As far as we’re concerned ET gives bugger-all about our “development”. We’re sure they have concerns about their emerging galactic neighbours but they’ve had a long time to learn to cope with those who may not be up to scratch.

So in the spirit of the season, we suggest that ET show us some tenderness and mercy and stop beating around the bush. Make yourselves overtly known to humanity, love thy fellow, um, being and get on with it. It’s what Christmas is all about! Isn’t it?

The Truth Is Out There

2008-11-08T11:35:00.007+10:00

Source: Weekender, Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia. 6 November, 2008
http://www.theweekender.com.au/features_det.php?id=288

It’s a question most people have pondered at one time or another: Are we alone in the universe? As UFO sightings again hit the headlines, it’s clear there is no easy answer or explanation. But one Sunshine Coast research group, based in the centre of an “alien hot spot”, has spent the past decade looking to the skies for answers.

Words GREGORY STANTON

Our minds often dismiss aliens, UFOs and paranormal activities as absurd. But there are many who believe. They carefully document, research and share their experiences and encounters with phenomena that are not easily explained. They believe there really is something out there. Paul Boulton is just one such person who, after “cross-referencing forever”, has developed a lifelong fascination with UFOs and the paranormal. “There is so much that’s not known,” he says.

A psychic therapist who works out of Montville, Paul’s main area of work is emotional trauma, including clients with instances of alien encounters (previously called alien abductions), although the number of such treatments is miniscule. He is also a member of private research group UFOria, based in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. The “diverse” group (he won’t elaborate any more to protect its privacy), now in its 11th year, meets every two weeks to consider sightings on the Sunshine Coast, generally regarded by UFO researchers as a hot spot of activity.

The airspace above the hinterland is reportedly used by an abundance of extra-terrestrial craft, but also by military and commercial aircraft. “Our goal is to create a safe forum to allow people to discuss what they’ve seen and felt,” Paul says. “If someone tells me they have seen an unidentified flying object, then I have to work out whether they have seen a galactic ship, a military black-ops project, otherwise known as an alien replication vehicle, or a terrestrial-based alien culture’s vehicle. There is also the possibility of misidentification of something else. ‘Unidentified’ adds to the mystery.“The number of encounters is difficult to calculate, but the individual feels emotionally helpless and insecure,” Paul continues. “Because of the memory blocker factor, people are frequently hovering between ‘Did it happen?’ and ‘Will people believe me?’ It’s only after a long time of contact that people may feel I’m safe to talk to. “Usually, when people try to integrate back into society after an encounter, it’s not unlikely they’ll live a solitary life because of our limited world view and the naivety of our mindsets. It was real for them but not in the wider view.”

According to Paul, UFO sightings are statistically on the rise worldwide. UFO stories began circulating more readily after the infamous Roswell incident in 1947, where several eyewitnesses spoke of an unexplained aircraft crash in the US state of New Mexico. An initial press release from the Roswell Army Air Field on July 8, 1947, said personnel had recovered a crashed flying disc. It was later denied by the Commanding General of the Eighth Air Force. Despite evidence to the contrary, the public was told it was nothing more than a weather balloon.Further clouding the issue was the fake video that surfaced, supposedly depicting an alien autopsy. In 2006, the promoter of the film, Ray Santilli, revealed the footage was not entirely genuine.

Brisbane-based association UFO Research Queensland lists 72 reported sightings last year on its website. Functioning since 1956, the number of reports so far this year looks set to eclipse that figure. A reason for higher sightings could be the prevalence of hand-held recording devices to capture a sighting, with the ability to instantly upload to internet sharing sites.“The importance of this is that (the image) hasn’t been filtered,” Paul says, alluding to the ever-present threat of a cover-up. “The goal of the disinformation community is to keep the public in a state of uncertainty and confused anxiety. They attempt to suggest the topic is only of interest to the lonely and unhinged.” This goes hand in hand with media coverage.

“It’s a funny topic,” he says. “If a person is not responsive to it, I end up looking like a loony. Authenticity is the key.”There are plenty of believers. Former US president Jimmy Carter filed a UFO sighting in 1973. Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell is one who strongly believes in alien activity while pop star Robbie Williams has made headlines of late with talk of contact and plans to become a ufologist. In May, British Government files released under Freedom of Information laws recount UFO sightings compiled by the Ministry of Defence between 1978 and 2002. Of particular interest are the corroborated witness accounts by air traffic controllers, pilots and policemen.

Movies and popular culture play a major role in complicating matters, from the tinfoil helmets of Signs to the kind of hostile invasion seen in everything from The War of the Worlds to blockbuster Independence Day. “There’s a big problem with disinformation coming from the movies,” Paul says. “We seem to have the cultural capacity of chickens: we shoot it first then do an autopsy, rather than thinking how we interact with aliens. That anxiety filters down through public thought. Anxiety is an amazing thing. They can rule with massive insecurity in the public.”Conspiracy theories are synonymous with UFOs and aliens. It is said upper echelons of governments have been using alien-inspired technology for decades. Folkloric events such as the Philadelphia Experiment and Montauk Project in World War II supposedly investigated time travel and invisibility. Since then, technology has advanced to proportions similar to the film Men In Black.

It is with a wry smile Paul suggests viewing the 1997 film, minus the hostile alien nature, as a documentary. But governments deny any cover-up.“That’s what anyone is up against in trying to present their findings,” he says. “This keeps everyone under a limited Newtonian view.” It has been estimated one in every 50 people in the US has had contact with extraterrestrials and UFOs. “When you’re looking at more than 301 million people, that’s a lot of people,” Paul says, although he suggests memory blockers are in use. Paul proffers that aliens live among us and have done so for centuries, alluding to the amazing feats of ancient Egyptian and Mayan civilisations as examples.

Sharing a view with many, he implies some aliens can invisibly cloak themselves, and look human. But there is no malicious or hostile intention.Former emergency doctor from North Carolina, Dr Steven Greer — who Paul calls a credible expert in the field — filmed more than 450 personal accounts and testimonies from willing military, corporate, intelligence, government, scientific and aviation personnel in a 2001 venture, The Disclosure Project. “After researching the UFO topic for more than 20 years, I have never read such well-researched first-hand accounts on the topic of UFOs, extra-terrestrials and their vehicles, life forms and their intentions and interactions with humanity,” Paul says.

“The overall theme is no threat or harm is meant to us.”As a researcher of the paranormal, Paul is not averse to investigating the unusual. He recently escorted Bill Homann, the custodian of the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull, on its Sunshine Coast visit. The skull, discovered by F.A. Mitchell-Hedges in Belize in the 1920s, was brought to Australia by Duncan Roads from the Montville-based Nexus Magazine and was the main event at a conference at Twin Waters last month. While in the company of the skull, Paul noticed it resonated with people who were intuitive and open, often to startling effect. One example was an elderly woman who was able to dispense with her cane. But for Paul, UFOs and alien encounters are more than just intriguing. “There’s a bigger picture truth,” he explains. “If you look at where we are as a planet, we are quarantined in the solar system. We are at the end of a cul-de-sac. This means we are visited, but it also means we are subjected to a lot of disinformation.” One way or the other, the truth is out there.

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THE X-FILES From the files of UFOria

A woman driving home at midnight from Maleny notices a disc-shaped craft about 7-10m wide fly nearly 15m above her car for the entire journey. When she turns into her street, it flies ahead and hovers across from her house. She watches as the craft moves slowly away.

UFOs are often reported coming out of the ocean off Coolum.

One couple is visited by a large craft with a strong downward draft above their home. The power from the craft causes the house to shake violently and several household items break. They don’t recall anything afterwards.

A UFO is seen travelling slowly through the hinterland at Witta. It comes from the Lake Baroon direction and lights up the ground as it flies. It hovers quietly in front of the witnesses’ house.

Some people came out of their house late one night to watch the moon land in a nearby field. They remember nothing else for several hours.

Various blinking lights and unexplained glowing in the sky have been reported over Tewantin, Flaxton, Tinbeerwah, Cooroy and elsewhere on the Coast.

UFO Witnesses Require An Apology and Reconciliation

2008-07-29T09:29:00.008+10:00

Aboriginal reconciliation has been a hot topic in Australia for years now. The Australian government has finally agreed upon the unique status of indigenous Australians and their need for recognition, respect and understanding in the wider community.

However there is another group of people whose needs remain unaddressed and this is the collection of witnesses who have experienced UFO sightings or close encounters with extraterrestrials and/or their vehicles.

Over the years these people have been forced to live with their experiences in secret without the support they require from society. Their experiences remain invalidated by the wider community due to it’s lack of education about the existence of extraterrestrial life. This is a result of the various authorities and institutions that our civilization requires to act as its guide, and who indeed have this knowledge, and are withholding it from the general public. The true reason for this remains complex and elusive, and without full disclosure can only be speculated upon at best.

Nevertheless, the results are the same. A group of people within our society remain unrecognized, disrespected, humiliated and invalidated. They’re forced to live with a secret so profound that it drives wedges within their families often leading to family breakdown, estrangement and/or divorce, as well as loss of status among their friends, workmates or peers. The escalating stress caused by this lack of understanding of their experiences by others often leads to the manifestation of illness, behavioural problems or drug abuse in order to cope with experiences that far exceed the range of usual human experience.

They turn to voluntary UFO organisations - which lack manpower, funding and skills - to find answers to the meaning of their experiences. In Australia this situation has been compounded by the fact that in January 1994 the Australian Department of Defence advised they would no longer receive reports of UAS (Unusual Aerial Sightings), and members of the public seeking to report UAS to the RAAF would be referred to civilian UFO organisations.

This policy change, which the DOD claimed was the result of declining reports to the RAAF, came the same year UFO Research Queensland Inc received 512 reports from the public. The following year it received 813 reports, the most reports received in one year since the establishment of the organisation in 1956. Due to the overwhelming amount of these reports UFORQ and other similar organisations around the country continue to struggle to meet the needs of witnesses.

This situation is unsatisfactory. The authorities and institutions responsible for withholding the relevant information that can educate the public about the extraterrestrial situation need to face their responsibility to the people and come forward with the truth. It’s time to validate witness experiences by releasing what it knows to the public. If people like Dr Edgar Mitchell, the 6th man to walk on the Moon, who stated in a public interview last week that ETs exist, then so can others. (listen to interview here

http://www.kerrangradio.co.uk:80/Article.asp?id=804160&spid=)

It’s time these witnesses were allowed to come in from the cold and be part of society once again. The greater public will only accept these people and their experiences in a new context which includes the reality of extraterrestrial existence within the public mind. The eradication of ridicule and rejection can only be achieved through reeducation via a campaign of raising public awareness of the subject. Civilian UFO groups can only do so much given their voluntary status and lack of resources, so the reeducation of the public needs to come from those who can provide these resources.

Many actions are required from governments, the media, the UFO community and the greater public, but many people have to work together.

To date, the global UFO community has been willing to work towards reeducating the public but this has had minimal success. It’s now time for larger groups to become involved and help the hundreds of thousands of witnesses world wide to be accepted within society. Only with the help of this larger group will this be achievable. All aspects of community must be cared for without exception.

Tracking The Unknown

2008-07-19T12:24:00.003+10:00

The Satellite News, Brisbane. June 25, 2008

Do you believe in aliens? Jindalee residents study extraterrestrial life.

Do aliens really exist? Jindalee residents Martin and Sheryl Gottschall have no doubts the cosmos is filled with extraterrestrial life attracted to the sunshine state. The local skywatchers are members of UFO Research Queensland, a voluntary, non-profit association established in 1956 to receive, record and research UFO sightings.

They claim the existence of a large body of well-attested sightings so unambiguous, the only reasonable inference is that extraterrestrial vehicles are flying through our atmosphere, landing on the ground and entering our oceans.

The Brisbane-based group also provides support to individuals whose alleged encounters with UFOs have left them distraught, confused and searching for answers.

The married couple believe governments across the world will no longer be able to keep UFOs as an ‘X-file’ from society as the number of alien witnesses continue to increase.

Mr Gottschall, who is the organization’s sighting officer, said he had studied UFOs for the past 40 years after his ex-wife sighted one the size of a bus in front of their Adelaide home in the 1960s. “My wife was about to hop into her car when she saw the UFO in front of her. She yelled out to me but for some reason I ignored her”, he said. “When I finally went out it had disappeared but I believed her because of the look on her face.”

Also a consultant mechanical engineer, Mr Gottschall said he wanted to understand the science behind what made UFOs hover above the ground without making a sound. “About 20 years ago I realized that the craft is able to manipulate both space and time,” he said.

Unlike her husband who has had just one sighting, Mrs Gottschall has had four. “I’ve had sightings at Mt Gravatt, Wivenhoe Dam, Ipswich and above the Gateway Bridge,” she said. “I can’t explain why I have seen so many while others haven’t seen any. I guess some people just have an encounter prone personality type.”

Mrs Gottschall said she had also encountered an unknown life form in 1990. “I saw three small grey beings standing at the end of my bed,” she said. “As soon as I saw them I pulled the sheet over my head and started to pray. The next thing it was morning.”

Mrs Gottschall said she became fascinated with paranormal activity while hosting home bible-study groups about 20 years ago. “I started reading the bible because I questioned what our reason for being was,” she said. “I soon noticed a strong parallel between experiences of those who believed to see aliens and those who believed to see angels.”

UFO Research Queensland holds one meeting open to the public each month. The next meeting is on this Friday from 7.30pm at the Australian College of Natural Medicine, corner of Brunswick and Water Streets, Spring Hill.

ET Eyes Natural Wonders of Queensland

2008-06-17T09:50:00.017+10:00

Source: The Courier Mail. June 17, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/6z2bsb

ALIENS are visiting Queensland, attracted by its natural wonders like the Great Barrier Reef, according to a local UFO watchers' association.

Scientists have long speculated about the possibility of life on Mars, and US space agency NASA has spent years and many billions of dollars in the search. But a group of dedicated Queenslanders believe extraterrestrial life can be found much closer to home. Queensland is a hotbed of UFO activity, according to local experts who have dedicated their lives to studying the phenomenon.

UFO Research Queensland is a voluntary, non-profit association established in 1956 to receive, record and research UFO sightings. They claim the existence of a large body of well-attested sightings that proves extraterrestrial vehicles are flying through our atmosphere, landing on the ground and entering our oceans. The Brisbane-based group also provides support to individuals whose alleged encounters with UFOs have left them distraught, confused, and searching for answers.

Sightings officer Dr Martin Gottschall has been studying UFOs for more than 30 years after an encounter in Adelaide in the late 1960s.The consultant mechanical engineer, whose wife Sheryl is chairwoman of the UFO group, said they received hundreds of reports each year. "We have collected thousands of sighting reports in Queensland," he said. "I remember years when I had over 40 calls a day. Plus, there are several groups collecting information. Ours is not the only one."

Dr Gottschall says Queensland's natural wonders could be the drawcard. "The occupants of these craft appear to be interested in the vegetation and one of the objects of study is the Great Barrier Reef," he said. "There are other areas in Queensland that seem to be so-called hotspots. One that has lasted for a long time is up around Tully. I think there's reason to suspect there might be one or more alien bases in that locality, probably underground or underwater. "

Kay McCullock, who says she has had encounters with extraterrestrials, is an independent UFO researcher and co-ordinator for UFORQ's Warwick, Southern Downs and Granite Belt regions. The ex-private investigator has begun a program aimed at making contact with alien life forms." A group of us go out into the field and do real-time research," she said. "We're out there measuring frequencies, looking at the landscape and detailing everything. We're specifically using frequency, colour and sound and also very advanced meditation and thought processes."

But, for every believer, there is a sceptic. Associate Professor Michael Drinkwater, Head of Physics at UQ, firmly believes there is no credible evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial craft. "There are a lot of crazy things in the sky which we don't understand, but I personally think anything we've seen so far we'll eventually find natural explanations for," he said. "The eye and brain do incredibly complex analysis when you see something, particularly at night. "When you see something that is unusual, the brain interprets it as something more physical and more real than it actually is. I've seen something called a fireball which is a very large meteorite, so large it lights up the whole landscape at night time. "My eyes told me it was something so low, it crashed over the next hill, but I know from science that it's more than 20km up in the atmosphere and my eyes are giving me the wrong message."

Vatican or Vatican't?

2008-06-06T12:48:00.004+10:00

The Vatican’s latest public proclamation on extraterrestrial life that says ‘Oh yes, there just might be ET’s out there, and they just might be closer to God than we are’ causes one to wonder what might be gained from making such a comment. Not merely agreeing to the existence of ET life, but elevating them to a higher standard in God’s eye than mankind, these comments made by the Pope’s chief astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, would surely have raised the eyebrows of the Catholic faith.

A notion that would once have resulted in a burning at the stake is now imparted to all asunder to read in the Vatican newspaper. Though this statement invites more of our ‘what do you know that we don’t know’ rigmarole, it does seem as though the Vatican may be on to something that the rest of us aren’t. Furthermore, they seem open to the idea that life on other worlds could be more spiritually advanced, and hence closer to the Lord, than we will ever be. However, as one of our previous posters commented, would that then make ET angelic?

There are many people who would insist that ET visitations are indeed similar to, or in fact are, angelic. There are many overlaps in both milieus, not least of which being that ET is here to guide us, to help us, and to make sure we don’t screw up the planet. There are also just as manycases for the opposite to be true, those that believe that ET is a demonic force in the universe. In fact both positions may be true - if the Pope’s astronomers think there are ETs out there closer to God than we are, it also holds that there are ETs out there who are closer to Satan. A race so evil and so far fallen from grace that they must make humanity look good – if such a thing were possible!

So what does it mean when the Vatican comes out with statements advocating the existence of ET life and slotting said life into religious hierarchies? Like all large organisations the Vatican doesn’t issue press releases for no good reason. It also vets said releases carefully, and its representatives do not loosen their tongues lightly. So the question left begging is why did they say anything at all?

Is the existence of ET life to now become a respectable teaching of the Catholic church? How will that affect it’s followers? Will it create yet another breakaway group, one which believes Christ died for the Klingons too? Stay tuned….

Close Encounters of the Hamburger Kind

2008-05-19T09:01:00.003+10:00

Cattle mutilations have long been one of those weird mysteries of Ufology. They are kind of like a dirty secret – they’re in your face, but like great uncle Harry’s peculiar toilet habits, we don’t like to talk about them.

There’s long been debate over whether they’re related to the UFO phenomenon at all, or are a phenomenon in their own right. And if they are indeed related to, are a byproduct of, or in fact are the raison d'être of our ET visitations, they’re damn peculiar.

We’ve long known that cattle are closely related to humans. It’s probably why whole corporations are built upon them, and why we spend so much time, money and effort grinding them up into uniform little patties that we sell wholesale. Just like humans (according to the cannibals we’ve interviewed), cows taste mighty fine. It has been posited that perhaps the reason for ET’s interest in cattle could be this close genetic relationship – rather than experiment on people (because people might notice a sudden decrease in population), that some of the more invasive or deleterious experimental work could be done on our bovine relatives.

Well, scoff at that idea at your peril. According to a report at the ABC Science site, http://tinyurl.com/5s4crs, UK researchers have created embryos using human cells and the eggs of a cow. For what purpose is hard to define, since the researchers assure us that they are neither going to use the resultant hybrid embryos for any useful purpose, nor are they allowing any of the mutants to live past 14 days, ensuring that no horror-movie abominations survive to rampage through downtown London.

However it does throw another slant on the entire cattle mutilation scenario. What if it was genetic material (in bulk) that ET was needing all this time? What if cattle tissue, cells, eggs, sperm and blood is useful in the Human-ET cloning process? Are cattle the ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Butter’ component in the (supposed) ET-Human clone initiative? Or are cattle the ‘Hamburger Helper’ that ET requires to beef up (no pun intended) their human burgers? Oh dear. We’ll never be able to look at a cheeseburger in quite the same way again….

The UFO Why Questions – Oz Style

2008-05-10T09:24:00.002+10:00

Why? Why? Why? Over the years we’ve been asked so many why questions about UFOs that it’s left our heads spinning. The types of questions people ask are intelligent and logical, yet when it comes to giving good answers not many can come up with them. One person who does address the why questions is Stanton Friedman but it’s a short list and there’s oh so much more to ask. Maybe it’s because we live on the underbelly of the globe who knows, but here in Australia we are a fairly simple people who just need to know a few basics. Things like:

1. Why don't people know more about the UFO phenomenon?
2. Why are only a few people doing the job of uncovering the truth about UFOs?
3. Why don’t people care that they've been lied to by the authorities about the existence of UFOs and are living under a delusion because of those lies?
4. Why don't researchers get together on a GLOBAL scale to create a true groundswell that will bring about real awareness?

1.Why don't people know more about the UFO phenomenon?
More people know about the existence of UFOs these days than they ever did and there are two main reasons for this. Television and the changing scientific acceptance of the subject. Science fiction shows like Star Trek and The X Files have been able to explore the more fantastical aspects of the phenomenon and have done a lot to awaken the public to the UFO subject. Mostly it's been a shallow, abstract version of the extraterrestrial reality, but for some it’s created a springboard into the subject that may not ordinarily have occurred.

As for a changing scientific acceptance of the subject, some may not see this so clearly. However, in the last 20 years scientists have not been so fixed in their common mantra “we are alone in the universe”. Instead we’ve seen a more pronounced study of panspermia and exobiology, the discovery of new planets, the exploration by quantum physics into other dimensions, cosmological discoveries via the Hubble telescope, the Mars missions, MIR and the International Space Station, all colliding to change the direction of modern scientific enquiry into humanity’s place in the universe and other life we might share it with.

Meanwhile, western society has become so scientifically "aligned" that when scientists began to change their thinking, the public soon followed. Why? There's a prestige in western society that accompanies scientific understanding. Scientists are portrayed as being highly intelligent individuals and if you understand them and agree with what they say you must be intelligent too. And we ask you….who doesn't want to appear intelligent?

However, the hidden problem this has created in UFO research is that this scientific seduction has blinded UFO researchers from a true exploration of ufological anomalies.

2. Why aren't more people curious or investigating UFOs ?
This is the easiest of all questions to answer. Hidden competing emotional commitments. What’s that you ask? Emotional commitments could be described as supporting our personal internal reward system. In other words, we perform certain behaviours because we’re rewarded for doing so. For example, people work hard and maintain standards of excellence in business practice because the reward is income, customer loyalty and return custom. But where’s the reward in studying UFOs? People who do so often face social ostracism, loss of status, sacrifice of personal time, loss of esteem from family and friends….shall we go on? As you can see there’s very little reward in tripping down the UFO path, so most people don’t.

However, the good news is that buried in the deeply twisted recesses of the psyche of some people (like us) there’s a greater emotional payoff to explore the UFO issue than to leave it alone. For some it’s sparked by our own experiences and the consequent search for answers. For others a more general answer may be that the UFO subject is a deeply profound tool for personal growth. In the long run, expanding personal awareness is of great benefit to our lives and extremely satisfying in ways that can be difficult to articulate.

3. Why don’t people care that they've been lied to by the authorities and have been living under a delusion because of those lies?
Wow! How long are you willing to sit and read this blog? Okay we’ll try to keep it short. In all honesty if you don’t know by now that governments are willing to lie to the people who put them in power then you’ve probably been living under a rock. So what if the government has been lying about something that has the potential to create so much social upheaval that life on this planet will probably never be the same? Well what if the outing of that lie then caused the citizens of this planet to concern themselves with the question of alien motives and Earth’s planetary defense capabilities? (and that’s just one question off the top of our heads!)

We know SETI loves to promote the idea that advanced ET societies will probably have evolved past any malicious intent, but it’s equally possible this is not the case. Then what? Okay, we’re still here and seemingly unharmed, that’s true, but will this always be our situation ? Do we really want to worry ourselves with such things when it’s the role of the defense force to deal with it, even if in reality they can’t defend this planet against technologically advanced malevolent ETs? Better not to think about such things….really. In this case living with a lie is good….right? Wrong actually, but that’s how most people reason, at least subconsciously.

4. Why don't researchers get together on a GLOBAL scale to create a true groundswell that will bring about a real awareness of UFOs and disclosure?

The reasons why people are drawn to become ufo researchers in the first place are quite varied and not every person who does has the temperament to become an activist.

This is a voluntary field of endeavour so the areas people become interested in are decided by their individual interests and not a shared goal. This culminates in researchers working in pockets rather than under the auspices of a large organization that is established with one clear goal in mind. Over the years individual researchers have been working towards disclosure and still do. In recent times the Exopolitics Institute has emerged, establishing itself in various countries around the globe, with the aim to gather credible whistleblower testimony from political, military and private citizens. Although there are those who do not agree with various aspects of their work, the fact is this group has a clear goal and a shared vision which works in their favour.

Currently there is no clear, shared single vision among the general UFO community. In the past various national bodies have arisen in countries but generally they don’t receive long-term support. That’s not to say it cannot be achieved, but the right people have to spearhead such a formation and they must have clearly focused goals. If the ufo community were to ever gather itself together globally, it would truly be a force to be reckoned with. The authorities know this so their best defense against any such groundswell arising has been to create dissent among such formations.

Since disclosure witnesses have spoken out, some have confirmed what researchers always expected: that there are indeed debunkers peppered within the UFO community whose job is not only to throw shadows of doubt over the UFO subject but to discourage the UFO community from pursuing certain paths of inquiry or collaboration and create division where possible. Researchers need to be aware of this and observe those within the UFO community that may be creating the most division. This may just be their goal.

UFOs: 50 Years of Denial….and then some

2008-04-28T16:55:00.004+10:00

Recently we watched the documentary UFOs: 50 Years of Denial which explored the consistent, official UFO debunking process. We’re sure we watched it when it was first released in 1997 but sometimes it takes some years of hindsight before one can actually “get the point”. Part 1 starts here http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=pbaEGiftX6A

(There are 5 parts in total)

Some comments stood out in our mind, one being that the authorities did not want the public to "get excited" by UFO reports. An interesting choice of words, don't you think? To achieve this goal and to overcome leaks from official sources about the reality of the subject, a vast network of ridicule and debunking had to be set in place - and it was, well and truly as this documentary so clearly pointed out. The last thing officials wanted was for public opinion to be mobilised into asking all the right questions of the authorities who weren't yet willing to answer, if ever. They didn't want to be herded down a path they were unwilling to travel which might allow vast opportunities provided by alien contact (one can only begin to imagine what they might be), slip through their fingers. Instead, they had to quickly curb that interest so they could retain control of their chosen direction, and one of the ways this was done was by sidelining all contactee accounts through the consistent installation of the debunking process.

Remember this a time when the UFO phenomenon was brimming with contactee reports that ignited public imagination, causing a deep questioning of the social issues of the time. From reports we've received over the years we know that alien abductions were taking place back then, but it was the contactees who fired public interest. They were the instigators of social unrest among the UFO interested public, not the nightmarish and deeply disturbing alien abductee reports which came with an in-built aversion process called fear. Frightening accounts of this type of ET contact weren’t going to get the public probing too deeply into the subject, naturally enough. That aspect of the UFO phenomenon, at least at that time, would not be the undoing of the cover-up.

To this day even the mere mention of the word contactee in UFO circles triggers this process whose tentacles have become so insidiously entrenched in the psyche of many in the field that it causes an immediate knee-jerk reaction switching off any further discussion. It has become too much of a time consuming effort for researchers to even bother raising contactee cases any more. The final result is the debunking process remains in tact, unchallenged, and the ultimate goal achieved - end of discussion.

Yet it could possibly be the accounts by people such as Ludwig Pallman, Dan Fry, Orfeo Angelucci and Elizabeth Klarer, among hundreds of others, that give us the greatest insights into those with whom we share the universe. To do so we must remain alert to the debunking process that exists within the UFO community and continue our investigation into the truth.

Alien Worlds Magazine

2008-04-01T09:09:00.002+10:00

Stuart Miller, editor and publisher of Alien Worlds Magazine, kindly sent us a copy of the first issue of his latest project, a reincarnation of his previous eNewsletter UFO Review, now in hard copy under it’s new title Alien Worlds. Thanks Stuart. It contains an unorthodox content mix emerging from the convergence of three disciplines involved in the search for alien life; UFOs, astrobiology and SETI, the latter posing as the high priest of space exploration so we can understand why Stuart included SETI (well almost).

Initially you might wonder what these three have in common. Astrobiology searches for intelligent life holding that if it exists it is far, far away or only microbial in form; SETI which holds that if ET life does exist it is also far, far away, so far in fact that it’s not much use worrying about it; while Ufology claims alien life exists as sentient life forms that visit Earth for a variety of reasons right under our nose even though very few take any notice of it.

The quest then for the editor of Alien Worlds will be to weave this combination into something that will be of value for UFO research given that any ufologist worth their weight already remains abreast of SETI and astrobiology “discoveries”. He’ll also be charged with unearthing if this mix will appeal to anyone in the UFO field besides those that take the “scientific approach only” to Ufology, or miracles of miracles, if it will help birth what anxiously paces outside the UFO delivery room - a wholistic approach to the UFO subject. A challenging quest indeed.

If it is to be the latter then there seems that some other essential components might need to be added to this brew, that is, information from the behavioural sciences, neuroscience and consciousness research. One could also add a splash of the esoteric, since many ancient esoteric ideas now seem to harmonise with modern day quantum physics, string theory and super position hypothesis, just to name a few. In our opinion this would cover all the bases giving a true eclectic approach to the subject, if that were to be the ultimate goal.

Stuart has taken on a great challenge which causes us to wonder whether 2 years down the track he will remain true to the direction Alien Worlds set out to steer. After all, when one rubs shoulders with scientific conditioning for a while it is bound to rub off eventually leaving one akin to the subject in the boiled frog experiment. So the questions remain…. will Stuart remain wide-eyed, bushy-tailed and full of objective wonder? Will scientifically oriented UFO veterans find the magazine “dry” enough? More importantly will it be enough to keep the interest of UFO buffs, researchers, experiencers and the interested UFO public piqued, given they appear to be the magazines target market and that scientists probably won’t read this magazine? All good questions that only time will tell.

Good luck with the magazine Stuart, it’s going to be a fine balance indeed, but if anyone can do it we know you can.

Dr Carl Jung…a mere mortal after all?

2008-03-08T15:05:00.006+10:00

If you haven’t read Carl Jung’s book by now then you should because, ‘Flying Saucers – A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies’ is a classic. Jung’s primary question throughout this book was whether UFOs are real or if they are mere products of fantasy psychically projected? Although he claimed to explore the question with an open mind, it becomes obvious to the reader that the dear doctor pushes his view that UFOs are a projection of the subconscious human mind only, and do not exist in our reality. One can only wonder if he would have the same view today given the Disclosure Project complete with it’s whistleblower testimony.

However, Dr Jung was only a mere mortal after all, and like many scientists and researchers today found the UFO phenomenon challenged him at his deepest level to go beyond his training and conditioning. One question stood out for Jung, baffling him to understand, how UFOs as psychic projections could throw back radar echo, confounding him immensely no doubt.

Based on the works of Ruppelt, Keyhoe and Menzel at the time, Jung eventually decided that even if UFOs are physically real they are so bizarre that they tax our understanding and credulity to the limit. This is very reminiscent of T.S. Eliots’ words, “human kind cannot bear very much reality” and reveals that even great minds, like Carl Jung, can only tolerate so much.

It also reminds readers of the rift that exists between science and the mystical and that as Jung himself stated, “the interest of many scientists is too easily restricted to the common, the probable, the average, for that is after all the basis of every empirical science.” Fortunately, and eventually, the good doctor became willing to go where few had been before, especially in his lifetime, and was willing to admit that any scientific basis “has little meaning unless something can be erected upon it that also leaves room for the exceptional and the extraordinary.”

We can only wonder what Dr Jung might think of the modern research of Dr Rick Strassman with his subjects using DMT (N-dimethyltryptamine) or the investigations of Graham Hancock into shamanic experiences using ahyuasca, to further our current understanding of alternate realities as well as the possibility of them being stomping grounds for some extraterrestrials. Would Jung approve of psychedelic use and ancient ritual to make contact with ETs? Maybe…maybe not.

However looking back on Jung’s thoughts 44 years later, his work acts as a beacon as well as a warning for researchers, revealing the lack of psychological research into the UFO subject which remains undone but by now should have far surpassed his initial work. Jung himself admits that he found no clear answers to an ET reality and had to be content with having sketched out a few lines for future research. He also stated that the “psychic aspects of the UFO subject play so great a role that it cannot be omitted from any future studies”. He considered that “if military authorities felt compelled to set up bureaus for collecting and evaluating UFO reports, then psychology too, had not only the right but also the duty to do what it could to shed light on this dark problem.” Yes good doctor, we couldn’t agree more.

Don’t drive over .05

2008-03-07T11:06:00.002+10:00

A recent image of a UFO careening drunkenly across the London skies has got us thinking. Do UFOnauts have a licensing bureau? And do they have blood alcohol limit restrictions?

The photo in question at http://tinyurl.com/2sl79k touted as ‘genuine’, seems to us to be not quite so. There are reasons why we think it may be a fake, but there are also a number of reasons why we need to doubt our own reasoning whenever we look at an image of a UFO. In fact why all of us on this planet need to rethink and reconsider our thought patterns whenever we are confronted by things ‘alien’ to our dull Earthly milieu.

Why we think it’s a fake:

Well, just look at it. The pilot is flying too low to the ground, he’s too close to large ground-based structures for safety. Like, doesn’t the pilot care that he might knock over that great big Ferris wheel thingy and kill hundreds of terranian holiday makers? No, no respectable pilot (no matter which planet he trained on) would fly that low or that close to a building, would he? Unless he’s drunk. And from the angle of that spaceship, he just might be.

Also, the UFO in question looks too nice, too clean, too ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’… too good to be true in fact. It looks too human to be extraterrestrial, so it just couldn’t be. Could it?

Further, and more realistically, there is too much rain – it causes pixel interference so nobody can judge accurately if the UFO has been pasted into the image at a later date. You just gotta be suspicious of that, right? Nice big shiny UFO flying too close to an internationally-known landmark on a busy evening. In the rain. It screams hoax. It really does.

However!

Reasons not to judge too quickly and too harshly:

What do we, puny little Earthlings with our puny little Earthling educations and our puny little Earthling imaginations, know of extraterrestrial vehicles? Are we adequately equipped to know one when we see one? Are we adequately equipped to look a photograph of a UFO and judge?

As a society we are unbelievably judgmental, and Ufologists in particular are even more so. Pop a photo of a UFO in front of us and first thing we’ll say will be ‘fake.’ Why, when we are clamouring for evidence, are we the first to discard it when it comes our way? Does the reality confront even we, who are so desperately longing for it?

And who are we to say that an alien vehicle shouldn’t look too clean, or too dirty? Are we allowed to dictate if one is too round or too square, too amorphous or too bright, or not bright enough? What do we know, really know, about how alien civilisations construct their spaceships, their cities, their babies’ bassinets? They’re ALIEN – and that’s the whole point. We wouldn’t know the first thing about an extraterrestrial culture, and we could not ever place our psyches into theirs, so how could we ever predict what their artefacts might look like? They have different psyches, the result of millennia of social and cultural evolution on a different planet. Just as we are the result of millennia of social and cultural evolution on ours.

Too much evidence has been buried beneath good intentions by people who think they know what a UFO should, would or could look like. It behoves us to re-examine all the evidence we have, this time with a non-judgemental eye.

The moral of the story:

Perhaps we need to be less hasty in our urge to dismiss UFO evidence and discourage researchers. Because perhaps the truth has been out there all along, and we’ve just been too self-assuredly smug to see it.

Spielberg to launch UFO and paranormal social network?

2008-03-06T08:46:00.001+10:00

http://tinyurl.com/2hyv7t

Hollywood mega-director Steven Spielberg is reportedly setting up a social network for people interested in paranormal and extra-terrestrial activity, inspired by his own personal experiences with the unknown.

The focus of the network will be on people who have an interest in, or have experienced paranormal phenomena, and the network may feature multimedia content of UFO sightings, paranormal activity and user-based content. Stories of Speilberg's own personal experiences with ghosts are widely known; his stay in the Excelsior House led him to become so frightened by alleged ghosts that he fled the room and moved 20 miles away, forming the inspiration for the movie 'Poltergiest'.

The network may have been originally in development with Yahoo, but the project was abandoned before it was launched. But reports suggest that the idea lives on, and a team of developers are aiming for a mid-year launch.

Punyverse not so puny?

2008-02-19T14:42:00.002+10:00

http://tinyurl.com/29l3ow

Hot on the heels of our earlier post, ‘Across the Punyverse’, comes the surprising news that SETI has also disagreed with NASA’s choice of song. Hi-ho, on one thing at least SETI and we agree: the Beatles suck.

Actually, it turns out that SETI (who – never let it be forgotten – keep insisting they have yet to discover any signs of intelligent life in the universe), are worried that the nasal honking of the Beatles could result in an alien attack. It seems SETI is a tad concerned that if we advertise we’re here, then, well, we’re asking for trouble.

So, SETI, what do you know that we don’t know? More importantly, what do you know that NASA doesn’t know? And if you know something that NASA needs to know, then, dear SETI, you really should be communicating with them. If there really are angry aliens out there and you are worried that the Beatles might disrupt their quiet evenings, you really should’ve said something before NASA tromped all over their beauty sleep.

If readers happen to peruse the article at the link above, they will discover that SETI is quite a-feared of alerting a potentially unfriendly ET species to our existence, and, more specifically, our location. Pretty strange thinking for a group of people that publicly and ostensibly really don’t think there’s anything out there at all. But now, thanks to NASA’s intergalactic faux pas, it turns out that SETI is plain pants-wetting terrified that there IS something out there, and that we might make it mad.

Mixed messages SETI! What do you know that we don’t know? What have you discovered? What don’t you tell us? Why won’t you tell ANYbody, including all those persons or institutions capable of transmitting crappy songs out into the void? (Yes, it turns out some dude with a great honking satellite dish in his backyard transmitted Bob Marley out there about 10 years ago. Jeez SETI, you coulda said something before that happened.)

If our music, our culture, and our pathetic selves are such a dangerous torment to the easily irritated ET, then hell, SETI, you’d best start popping all our satellites out of orbit right now. Because, as we noted in our earlier post, we beam ourselves and our soap operas out into space every second of every day. This big round blue ball of ours must be the noisiest and most irritating disturbance this side of the Crab Nebula.

But don’t worry SETI, we promise it’s safe for you to sleep at night. If the intergalactic noise police were really going to visit and politely ask us to shut up, they’d surely have done it before now. Probably during the 80s – that wretched and embarrassing hiccup in our cultural development…

The Paranormal At Penrith Draws Response From Believers

2008-02-15T06:57:00.008+10:00

http://tinyurl.com/yttyuy

Here's something not many would know - that Sydney's south-west, northern beaches and the Penrith-Blue Mountains region are regarded as 'hot-spots' for UFO sightings.

Those who believe are already convinced, and their numbers might be boosted as a result of an exhibition featuring UFO inspired art at the Penrith Regional Art Gallery The Visitors - The Australian response to UFO's and Aliens. The collection was co-curated by Anne Loxley and Regina Walter who have tapped into not only a rich vein of belief in sightings of UFO's, but also in artistic expression and influence from sources other than just a few re-runs of the X Files.

The exhibition incorporates sculpture, painting (some in 3-D), video , print and installation works as well as an 'evidence room', which is a collation of newspaper, TV and radio reports on the top 30 UFO encounters in Australia with the expert assistance of leading Ufologist Bill Chalker. Some of the collected evidence dates back to the 19th century to present day, and includes a rather compelling front page reports in the Sydney Morning Herald July 20, 1957 with the headline "RAAF jets ready to investigate Katoomba's mystery lights."

Anne Loxely says the evidence room has been a major hook, with people staying for hours examining the detail, and returning for more. She says when planning the exhibition, a clear direction was given. "It was important for us not to appear as zealots, as there is a strong element of faith in this topic. The evidence is being scrutinised by 'straight', seemingly upstanding citizens, who will stay for hours and sometimes return for more."

Beyond the evidence there is the interpretation of the UFO experience of belief, including the works of Pope Alice, who Loxely informs 'believes she is an alien'. Indeed, the exhibition catalogue states she was born in Outer Space in 5252ABCD (but currently based in Brisbane). The artist's work includes alien figures interspersed more earth-bound idols, light, audio and images and with a strong influence from people from indigenous cultures. Other contributing artists are from across Australia.
Adam Norton is inspired by perhaps the best known UFO spot, Roswell, following reports that a flying saucer, and its occupants, was captured in 1947. Norton's Roswell Timeline links events from pre-history to the current day in a large, detailed, linear exhibit that is difficult to ignore.

Other exhibits are more 'down to earth' - or at least they may seem that way. As an eight-year old, artist James de Blass saw a UFO as an eight year old living in Tasmania, and has been influenced ever since as he produces paintings with a strong parallel universe theme. His father's actual interviews on the radio at the time are part of the evidence collection, and his mother attended the exhibition opening. It's the story from a family interested in science, but otherwise, curator Loxley describes as being not unusual, like many of the Visitors visitors. "We've had a phenomenal attendance at this exhibition. Scoffers have stayed away and more open minded have taken the opportunity to look at the evidence and interpretations of what is quite a full on subject. There is at times a real element of faith toward UFO's".

The exhibition runs from December 8, 2007 to February 17, 2008 at the Penrith Regional Art Gallery, 86 River Road Emu Plains. Ufologist Bill Chalker will give a tour, and close the exhibition on Sunday February 17 at 3 pm ($5 charge)

Apologetically Yours, signed....The Anecdote

2008-02-11T16:39:00.000+10:00

Recently we read on the FQXi blog under the post entitled Are UFOs Foundational? (http://tinyurl.com/3auxze) that “if we [scientists] actually had scientific evidence of advanced alien life, or any alien life, we would all be jumping out of our skins”.

While digesting these eye-wateringly ignorant words we also stumbled across another statement stating that “anecdotal evidence is the least interesting kind of evidence in science, very close to being without value.”

And there you have it in all its magnificent glory, another argument by scientists as to why the UFO subject is a waste of their time - because it’s based mostly on anecdotal evidence. Poor little innocent anecdote - enemy of the objective, dispassionate observation of scientists. It carries no weapons, it doesn’t punch, abuse or maltreat anyone in any way, so why does science run shrieking in the opposite direction at the mere mention of the word? Why do scientists fear it so much? Is the dynamic construct of the simple anecdote too much for them to bear?

Maybe we have to be scientists to understand such things. Perhaps to offer anecdotal evidence for a scientist might be to admit the insufficiency of their knowledge. Could that be a tad too overwhelming for the scientific ego? But didn’t anyone ever tell scientists that science is anecdotal? After all, scientists observe an event then tell others about what they saw. Does that not qualify as an anecdote? Scientists didn’t wake up one day with the foundations of a scientific modality in their mind. They struggled with their mental limitations, entering deep discussions with other scientists, discussing the what-ifs and maybes of atoms, particles and electromagnetic spin and the like, all before they had their breakthroughs. Isn't the scientific world therefore brimming over with anecdotal reporting?

How can one deny the right of the anecdote to exist? Aren’t civilizations built on anecdotes? To deny anecdotal evidence is to stand in a pool of water looking for somewhere else to drink. It is to deny our life, our self. Anecdotes, or more simply, stories, are powerful tools that help us understand what our rigid linear minds cannot. They help us see what has existed right under our nose all along, whether it be how gravity works, how to send a man to the Moon, or whether extraterrestrial life exists.

If the demand for scientific evidence of the UFO subject was less critical of anecdotal evidence it might help us to understand what we obviously do not. Or is there more to it than that? Could it be that it is the power of the truth contained within the witness story that many fear after all…

Cosmic Top Secret Location

2008-02-09T14:22:00.000+10:00

Lathrop, California

Across The Punyverse

2008-02-05T16:17:00.000+10:00

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/across_universe.html

At 4.00pm (US-EST) on February 4 2008, NASA, for reasons known only to its erudite self, beamed the Beatles song ‘Across the Universe’ to the North Star, Polaris. NASA told us (ie, the ignorant world) that it did this to celebrate its 50th anniversary of space exploration.

NASA, NASA, NASA…very heavy sigh. What indeed are you trying to tell us?

For the last 50 years you’ve studiously ‘explored’ space with all the resources available to you and never found any sign of life – that you have told us about anyway. And whenever a sign of any pesky extraterrestrial life does emerge you hurriedly funnel those impressive resources into debunking your own findings, just to make sure we don’t get too excited, or too used to the idea that we may have some ET relatives out there, somewhere.

So why, dear old NASA, would you now spend your money on emailing a crappy old Beatles song to Polaris, of all places? Do you know something we don’t know? Have you discovered life, and transistor radios, out there? It must be a curious kind of life you’ve found on Polaris (who, we would like to keep reminding you, you haven’t told us about yet), one that bypassed the beat of the 1960s and apparently requires the overly nasal tones of John Lennon to snap it up a bit.

Who chose you, NASA, as the arbiter of the message humanity might like to send into the void? We don’t recall being asked to participate in a poll, so we assume that you used some other egalitarian method that we must have missed out on. Or did you hold a meeting of your board of directors, catered of course, where you discussed at your leisure which golden oldie best represented our planet and the people on it.

Unfortunately we cannot commend you on your selection. Would not a better choice have been Justin Timberlake’s ‘Bringing Sexy Back’? Or Britney Spears’ ‘Hit me baby one more time’? After all these are the sorts of things humanity thinks about ad infinitum -- sex and violence -- and as Justin and Britney are our current reigning deities we should share them with the rest of the universe, huh. It just seems that if you are going to waste electricity on the biggest pulse of information you’ve ever sent out there, wouldn’t we as a planet have been better served by sending out some useful information about ourselves, so our Polaris pals can decide whether they want to email us back? Or not.

Of course we have skirted the obvious – the fact that our transmissions are being beamed endlessly out into space every minute of every day, boinging from satellite to satellite and thence on to lord knows where. Our ET friends, even if they are as far away as Polaris, already know that John Lennon was a pale and myopic bipedal creature who never cut his hair, and that the population of planet Earth spends all its leisure time obsessing over who can dance and who cannot. One wonders what we could have to tell them that they don’t know already.

So, dear NASA, while your personal message to Polaris was clear and to the point (‘Yoo hoo, here we are! This is the kind of music our board of directors listens to!’), your message to us was somewhat confusing.

Stop playing with our minds – is there life out there or isn’t there? Indeed there seems to be, since you are sending them the hits of the 60s one painful tune at a time.

Jesus Doesn't Live In The Toaster & We're Not Nuts

2008-02-04T17:01:00.000+10:00

Some may see little green aliens in their dreams and imagine every memory lapse is down to spending time aboard a UFO, but this is not as common in the UFO community as many think. While there are those who certainly fit the image of a wannabe, fantasy-prone personality or are just plain delusional, the reality is that there are no more escapees from reality in the UFO community than there are in the general population.

In fact, dare we say it, there may be more intelligent thinking people circulating in the UFO community than in our society at large. People with degrees in biology, psychology, engineering, microbiology, oceanography, medicine, astrophysics, archaeology, anthropology, education, just to name a few, are heavily peppered amongst the UFO community. In addition, those who lack formal education are successfully self-educated in many areas of life.

In his book, After Contact : The Human Response to Extraterrestrial Contact, Albert A Harrison PhD states that a study was undertaken on 102 Ufologists who were listed in the Encyclopedia of UFOs and it was found that roughly one third of the group held less than a bachelor’s degree, one third held a bachelor’s or master’s degree, and one third held a doctoral degree. Ufologists were highly educated relative to the general population. “Ufologists who believed in the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs were as likely to hold an advanced degree as those who were skeptical. Thus a weak intellect or lack of schooling does not seem to explain an advocacy for the extraterrestrial hypothesis.”

Furthermore, most who circulate within the UFO community have a strong orientation towards the social concerns of our time such as natural health, the environment, governmental management, social inequality, consumerism, and are quite critical of most large institutions in modern society. Typically they reject narrow analyses and despise media as business. In short they are critical thinkers. They may go a bit overboard sometimes but that enthusiasm is driven by their desire for truth and a better world. So if you imagine that people in the UFO community think Jesus lives in their toaster, think again. And if you plan to attend a UFO meeting anytime soon, plan on expecting the unexpected – you may be very surprised.

The New Church of Ufology

2008-02-01T11:17:00.000+10:00

We are tired of being asked the question: 'Do you believe in UFOs?'

Do we believe in UFOs? No, we don't. Because UFOs aren't a faith, they're a reality. We don't require fervent belief and hope that UFOs exist -- they do. There are photographs, there is film footage, there are physical traces. Unlike the saints of old, UFOs don't need to manifest their likenesses in a piece of toast because they reveal their physical selves to people all the time, every single day.

UFOs are a reality, far more than God who, after all, has yet to appear at or hovering above a shopping mall and pose for a photograph. And if God did pose for a photograph, would the photographer have to run the gamut of disbelief, ridicule, shame and public humiliation that a person who snaps a photograph of a UFO must endure? Hardly, when the face of Jesus in an eggplant receives credible and global media coverage and draws pilgrims from far and wide.

So why must Ufology endure this constant criticism? What status quo does it threaten? Is Science in fact the religion that the New Church of Ufology threatens to topple?

Scientists react to UFOs with the same kind of witch-burning zeal as the Popes of old - and it isn't hard to imagine that the Whitecoats would love to round us up and burn us at the stake for our blaspheming and false idols. All hail the doctrine of evolution. All hail MAN, the greatest pinnacle of biology that any creature on any planet could hope to aspire to!

Or should it be all hail the NEW gods, the DNA-manipulating Greys, the stately perfection of Orthon.

How difficult then is our struggle, fighting against all the old gods of science. Darwin, the Zeus of Evolution, and Sagan, the Ares of our time, zealously guarding the sterile vacuum of space from our irrational imaginations. They rule from on-high, casting their thunderbolts of fear and doubt and confusion upon an unsuspecting world.

How can the tribe fight the gods? More importantly, how can Ufology fight these time-honoured tactics, and win?

Feeling Sneaky

2008-01-31T10:52:00.000+10:00

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

2008-01-29T15:43:00.000+10:00

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

2008-01-24T13:55:00.001+10:00

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

2008-01-14T16:56:00.000+10:00

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

2008-01-11T08:01:00.000+10:00

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

2008-01-07T17:07:00.000+10:00

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

2008-01-05T13:01:00.000+10:00

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

2008-01-04T13:55:00.000+10:00

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

2008-01-03T13:01:00.000+10:00

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