Chasing UFO's (National Geographic Channel)

channel.nationalgeographic.com ^ | 06-27-12 | nationalgeographic.com

[Las Vegas Dave]

The below is from: channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/chasing-ufos/ New Series premiere: Friday, June 29, 9 PM

A team of trained investigators sets out to uncover the truth about UFOs. But they’re not just looking for more stories on extraterrestrial activity—they want answers. Risking it all, this team of scientists and UFO researchers investigate and dissect some of the most mysterious sightings on the planet to unearth stunning new evidence. The data they collect on these adventures paints an entirely new picture of what we know about these strange lights in the sky.

Five Good Reasons To Believe in UFOs By: Patrick J. Kiger

As most credible UFOlogists readily admit, proving that extraterrestrial spacecraft have visited our planet is a maddeningly difficult chore.

“The hassle over the word "proof" boils down to one question: What constitutes proof?” Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed the U.S Air Force’s secret investigation of UFOs in the early 1950s, once wrote. “Does a UFO have to land at the River Entrance to the Pentagon, near the Joint Chiefs of Staff offices? Or is it proof when a ground radar station detects a UFO, sends a jet to intercept it, the jet pilot sees it, and locks on with his radar, only to have the UFO streak away at a phenomenal speed? Is it proof when a jet pilot fires at a UFO and sticks to his story even under the threat of court-martial? Does this constitute proof?”

More recently, Investigative journalist Leslie Keen, author of the 2011 book “UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record,” has noted that in roughly 90 to 95 percent of UFO sightings, observers turn out actually to have seen weather balloons, ball lightning, flares, aircraft, and other mundane phenomena. But another five to 10 percent of sightings are not so easily explainable, but that’s not the same as demonstrating that they are extraterrestrial in origin. Nevertheless, she argues, the hypothesis that UFOs are visitors from other worlds “is a rational one, and must be taken into account, given the data that we have.”

Here is some of the most compelling evidence for that hypothesis:

• The long, documented history of sightings. UFOs were around, in fact, long before humans themselves took to the air. The first account of a UFO sighting in America was back in 1639, when Massachusetts colony governor John Winthrop noted in his journal that one James Everell, “a sober, discreet man,” and two other witnesses watched a luminous object fly up and down the Muddy River near Charlestown for two to three hours. There are documented sightings of sightings of what were then called “airships” during the 1800s as well, such as the July 1884 sighting of a Saturn-shaped UFO (a ball surrounded by a ring) in Norwood, NY, and a fast-moving object that briefly hovered over the startled townspeople of Everest, KS in 1897.

• Numerous modern sightings by credible, well-trained professional observers. In Ruppelt’s 1955 book , “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,” he documented numerous instances of military service members, military and civilian pilots, scientists and other credible professionals who had observed UFOs. In one instance, Ruppelt describes the experience of a pilot of an Air Force F-86 fighter jet, who was scrambled to track a UFO and got to within 1,000 yards of a saucer-shaped object that abruptly flew away from him in a burst of speed after he fired upon it. He also mentions a 1948 UFO encounter in which two airline pilots got to within 700 feet of a UFO and saw two rows of windows with bright lights.

• Consistencies in the descriptions of purported alien ships. Over the decades, witnesses who’ve seen UFOs have shown remarkable consistency in the shapes and other characteristics of the objects they’ve described. In 1949, the authors of the report for Project Sign, one of the early military investigations of UFOs, identified four main groups of objects—flying disks or saucers, cigar or torpedo-shaped craft without wings or fins, spherical or balloon-shaped objects that were capable of hovering or flying at high speed, and balls of light with no apparent physical form that were similarly maneuverable. Nearly a quarter-century later, a French government investigation headed by Claude Poher of the National Center for Space Research found similar patterns in more than 1,000 reports from France and various countries. One caveat is that in recent years, reports of wedge-shaped UFOs—which bear a similarity to the latest terrestrial military aircraft—have begun to supplant some of the traditional shapes.

• Possible physical evidence of encounters with alien spacecraft. The 1968 University of Colorado report, compiled by a team headed by James Condon, documented numerous instances of areas where soil, grass, and other vegetation apparently had been flattened, burned, broken off, or blown away by a UFO. A report by Stanford University astrophysicist Peter Sturrock, who led a scientific study of physical evidence of UFOs in the late 1990s, describes samples of plants taken from a purported UFO landing site in France in 1981. French researchers found that the leaves had undergone unusual chemical changes of the sort that could have been caused by powerful microwave radiation—which was even more difficult to explain, considering that they found no trace of radioactivity at the site.

• Documented physiological effects on UFO witnesses. The Sturrock report describes in detail various symptoms experienced by individuals who had encountered UFOS, ranging from burns and temporary deafness to persistent nausea and memory loss. Among the most vivid examples: Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and Landrum’s young grandson Colby, who reportedly happened upon a “large, diamond-shaped object” hovering over a Texas road in December 1980. All three became ill afterward; Cash, for example, developed large water blisters on her face and swelling that closed her eyes, in addition to severe nausea and diarrhea. The effects persisted for years, and she was hospitalized more than two dozen times.

[Las Vegas Dave]

Pinging the unidentified aerial phenomena list (ufo) ..

May 8, 1950-This is one of the most famous UFO pictures ever taken.
Photographed by Paul Trent, and first witnessed by his wife.
They were published in a local newspaper in McMinnville, Oregon.
Shortly thereafter, the Trent photos were published in Life magazine edition of June 26, 1950.
The rest is history.
(These photos have been deemed authentic for over 50 years. The analysis of the McMinnville photos by Dr.Bruce Maccabee PhD, can be found here = http://brumac.8k.com/trent1.html )

Those interested in the uap/ufo ping list, please Freepmail
LasVegasDave (freepmail works best)
if you would like your name added to the list.
( Approximately 200+ freepers are currently on the ping list ).

[tired&retired]

The timing is about right for UFO’s to finally become overt in their appearances. Lots happening these days.

[Timber Rattler]

The "Pepp Aeroshell," shown here at the White Sands Missile Range park, was used to test the parachute that NASA planned to use to "soft land" the Viking spacecraft on Mars.

Video

[mkjessup]

Well, that explains everything.

[the invisib1e hand]

Mass-delusion alert.

[AlexW]

Despite listening to Kook to Kook AM, for amusement only, I do not buy into the ET craze, nor do I believe that we have or are being visited.
I find it starnge that all reports of sightings and contacts are ALL anicdotal.
I have yet to hear of a visit, or even sighting of any substance, as in one landing in a public, or verifible location.

While their may be other life in the universe, we pretty well know that it is not within our solar system, and the closest would be over 11 light years away...very long trip.

The ET crowd now has to rely on the unproven idea of worm holes and parallel universes to keep the dream alive.

I welcome any contridictions to what I have posted.

[reasonisfaith]

Atheists seem to be very gullible.

[faucetman]

Our government treats us like mushrooms about everything else, why not UFOs.

My wife, son and neighbor saw a UFO close up hovering above them. I was there, but in the woods, they were in a clearing.

I saw one (it's lights) directly above me and clear as can be for over ten minutes. My wife myself and two friends saw it along with HUNDREDS (maybe thousands) of other people in our area. An employee of mine saw it along with many others from the mall. I was on the lake on my boat. It made the news in a nearby city. It was silent, and was several lights in a triangle formation. We were trying to figure out what these stationary lights were, thinking it was several different objects. Then it rotated and slowly headed off to the south. I was shocked to realize it was all one object and how HUGH it was. No blimps were in the area, military had nothing in the area, we got the old “maybe it was a weather balloon” nonsense.

There is NO DOUBT, UFOs (unidentified flying objects) exist! What they are and who might be piloting them, I have no clue.

[Vaquero]

UFOs....depends on how deep the follicles go

[Yo-Yo]

The Avro Canada Avrocar from 1959:

[Mrs. P]

Read the book _Alien Intrusion_ by Gary Bates.

[cgbg]

My favorite book on the subject:

The Cryptoterrestrials by Mac Tonnies.

They are here and they are con artists. :-)

[Savage Beast]

I think the people who are deluded are the “debunkers”, whom some seem to consider essential on many of these programs “to provide balance” but who in fact cling to some sort of faith that only the mundane exists.

[GreyFriar]

Interrupted Journey Ping. I may watch the 1st show, if I remember about it tomorrow evening.

[Jabba the Nutt]

This is where they go wrong right at the start:

"As most credible UFOlogists readily admit, proving that extraterrestrial spacecraft have visited our planet is a maddeningly difficult chore."

They've already selected their conclusion. Not scientific and this leads them off the cliff every time. It's like saying birthers try to prove Obummer was born in Kenya. Ah, not the point. The point is to show that Obummer is not a "natural born citizen" as described in the US Constitution and Obummer therefore is not eligible to be elected or to serve as President.

The first person to read up on UFO's is Jacques Vallee, who does take a scientific approach. Ignore the ET stuff as logically inacceptable.

[exPBRrat]

I dunno, ‘chasing UFO’s’...sounds like another waste of time to me. What a BS adoring, idiot society we’ve turned in to, the scientific promise of the 60’s was totally and completely squandered.

[Tolkien]

Okay.

A friend of mine, when he was a child, was abducted by aliens and brought aboard their vessel.

Here is the kicker.

I became a Christian years later and realized what really happened to him. It was a demonic attack. Some of these "alien" sightings are mis-identification. Some are military. Most are demonic.

Even that French guy who is an authority on UFO's doesn't believe they are nuts and bolts crafts but inter-dimensional.

[Savage Beast]

There have been many reports through the years that are utterly unexplainable--not just UFOs--for example: the water marks on the sphinx, crop circles, ancient batteries, Pumapunku, Stonehenge, Atlantis, idiots savants, the Ur battery, Nasca, people struck by lightening who suddenly develop extraordinary powers e.g. speaking a foreign language or playing the piano, remote viewing, miracle cures, Fatima.

Many people try to force such things into a preconceived mold or a popular narrative, whether they fit or not. It's hard for many people to live with uncertainty.

The MSM tends to conceal such reports as resolutely as they conceal unwelcome information about their favorite political candidates.

One of the most interesting was a report from Peru several decades in which a member of the Peruvian Army, on maneuvers, went to investigate lights in the distant mountains and returned a few hours later, confused and with a several days' growth of beard on his face.

To jump to conclusions about such unexplained phenomena is silly--especially to deny outright the veracity of such reports.

[hkusp40]

I enjoy Coast to Coast AM. I work European hours - other than Bloomberg Radio or Sports talk, its the only thing on.
Of course it’s all hysteria, but I do appreciate the people that call in and talk about their (insert_technical_name_here) Device and how they just picked up Toxic readings from the Chem-trails!

The purpose of UFOlogy and Cryptozoology and whatever __ology you can deliver is to add an ouncce of credibility to the art of the campfire story.

BOO!