UFO Files: Flashback Of Carroll's Videos

Remember when I captured some strange lights in the sky? 

UFO Files: 2016 Sightings (Part Two)

I wanted to also share with you this video of some March and May 2016 sightings. 

UFO Files: 2016 Sightings (Part One)

Let's take a look at some interesting footage of some 2016 UFO sightings, shall we?

UFO Files: Zecharia Sitchin

One of my personal hero's in my 'Ancient Alien' theory is Mr. Zecharia Sitchin. His work (and books) greatly influenced me AFTER I had already read the bible, and discovered that I was an Ancient Alien believer.

Zecharia Sitchin was born in the Azerbaijan SSR, but was raised in Mandatory Palestine. He received a degree in economics from the University of London, and was an editor and journalist in Israel, before moving to New York in 1952. While working as an executive for a shipping company, he taught himself Sumerian cuneiform and visited several archaeological sites.

Zecharia Sitchin (Russian: Заха́рия Си́тчин; July 11, 1920 – October 9, 2010) was a Russian-born American author of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributed the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he stated was a race of extraterrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. He believed this hypothetical planet of Nibiru to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth's own Solar System, asserting that Sumerian mythology reflects this. Sitchin's books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 25 languages.

According to Sitchin's interpretation of Mesopotamian iconography and symbolism, outlined in his 1976 book The 12th Planet and its sequels, there is an undiscovered planet beyond Neptune that follows a long, elliptical orbit, reaching the inner solar system roughly every 3,600 years. This planet is called Nibiru (although Jupiter was the planet associated with the god Marduk in Babylonian cosmology). According to Sitchin, Nibiru (whose name was replaced with MARDUK in original legends by the Babylonian ruler of the same name in an attempt to co-opt the creation for himself, leading to some confusion among readers) collided catastrophically with Tiamat (a goddess in the Babylonian creation myth the Enûma Eliš), which he considers to be another planet once located between Mars and Jupiter. This collision supposedly formed the planet Earth, the asteroid belt, and the comets. Sitchin states that when struck by one of planet Nibiru's moons, Tiamat split in two, and then on a second pass Nibiru itself struck the broken fragments and one half of Tiamat became the asteroid belt. The second half, struck again by one of Nibiru's moons, was pushed into a new orbit and became today's planet Earth.

According to Sitchin, Nibiru (called "the twelfth planet" because, Sitchin claimed, the Sumerians' gods-given conception of the Solar System counted all eight planets, plus Pluto, the Sun and the Moon) was the home of a technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the Anunnaki in Sumerian myth, who Sitchin states are called the Nephilim in Genesis. He wrote that they evolved after Nibiru entered the solar system, and they first arrived on Earth probably 450,000 years ago, looking for minerals, especially gold, which they found and mined in Africa. Sitchin states that these "gods" were the rank-and-file workers of the colonial expedition to Earth from planet Nibiru.

Since the release of his first book The 12th Planet in 1976, now in its 45th printing, Sitchin wrote seven other books as part of his Earth Chronicles series, as well as six other companion books, all of which are still in print as of 2012. Sitchin's books sold millions of copies worldwide and have been published in more than 25 languages. New York Times reporter Corey Kilgannon noted that despite academic dismissal of his work, Sitchin had "a devoted following of readers".

Critic Michael S. Heiser called Sitchin "arguably the most important proponent of the ancient astronaut hypothesis over the last several decades". According to critic and author Jason Colavito, "Zecharia Sitchin is one of the most famous proponents of the ancient astronaut theory today, second only to the father of the theory, Erich von Däniken, in importance to true believers". Sitchin was a frequent guest on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, which in 2010 presented Sitchin with a lifetime achievement award. Gods of the New Millennium author Alan F. Alford admits he initially became "infatuated" with Sitchin's hypotheses but later became a critic of Sitchin's interpretations of myth.
According to some writers, Sitchin's ideas along with those of Erich von Däniken may have influenced the beliefs of the religious sect of Raëlism, and writer Mark Pilkington sees the mythology of Japan's Pana Wave religious group as rooted in Sitchin's The 12th Planet and its sequels.

The 1994 movie Stargate, directed by Roland Emmerich, and the 2009 video game The Conduit drew some conceptual inspiration from Sitchin's ideas, while screenwriter Roberto Orci says the villains of the film Cowboys & Aliens were inspired by Sitchin's conceptualization of the Anunnaki as gold-mining aliens.

Sitchin's "planetary collision" hypothesis does superficially resemble one suggested by modern astronomers - the giant impact hypothesis of the Moon's formation about 4.5 billion years ago by a body impacting with the newly formed Earth. However, Sitchin's proposed series of rogue planetary collisions differ in both details and timing. As with Immanuel Velikovsky's earlier Worlds in Collision thesis, Sitchin states that he has found evidence of ancient human knowledge of rogue celestial motions in a variety of mythological accounts. In Velikovsky's case, these interplanetary collisions were supposed to have taken place within the span of human existence, whereas for Sitchin these occurred during the early stages of planetary formation, but entered the mythological account passed down via the alien race which purportedly evolved on Nibiru after these encounters.

According to former Immanuel Velikovsky assistant turned prolific critic, C. Leroy Ellenberger, "[Sitchin states that] from an equal start, the Nephilim evolved on Nibiru 45 million years ahead of comparable development on Earth with its decidedly more favorable environment. Such an outcome is unlikely, to say the least, since Nibiru would spend over 99% of its time beyond Pluto. Sitchin's explanation that heat from radioactive decay and a thick atmosphere keep Nibiru warm is absurd and does not address the problem of darkness in deep space. Also unexplained is how the Nephilim, who evolved long after Nibiru arrived, knew what happened when Nibiru first entered the solar system."

The scenario outlined by Sitchin, with Nibiru returning to the inner solar system regularly every 3,600 years, implies an orbit with a semi-major axis of 235 astronomical units, extending from the asteroid belt to twelve times farther beyond the sun than Pluto. Elementary perturbation theory indicates that, under the most favorable circumstances of avoiding close encounters with other planets, no body with such an eccentric orbit would keep the same period for two consecutive passages. Within twelve orbits the object would be either ejected or converted to a short period object. Thus, the failed search for a trans-Plutonian planet by T.C. Van Flandern, of the U.S. Naval Observatory, which Sitchin uses to bolster his thesis, is no support at all.

Sitchin in "the case of Adam’s alien genes" states that 223 genes found by the Human Genome Sequencing Consortium are without the required predecessors on the genomic evolutionary tree. Later researchers have argued that the conclusion from the Human Genome Sequencing Consortium cannot be drawn due to a lack of a comprehensive gene database for comparison. An analysis by Salzberg identified 40 potential genes laterally transferred into the genome from prokaryotic organisms. Salzberg also argues that gene loss combined with sample size effects and evolutionary rate variation provide an alternative, more biologically plausible explanation.

Peter James, co-author of the controversial book Centuries of Darkness, has criticized Sitchin both for ignoring the world outside Mesopotamia and more specifically for misunderstanding Babylonian literature.

For more information regarding Zecharia Satchin, you can visit his website: http://www.sitchin.com/



Source: Wikipedia

This work released through CC 3.0 BY-SA: Creative Commons

UFO Files: Renaissance Paintings

I know that in today's modern age of technology, putting together a fake video of an UFO is really an easy task. And often times, it is done. People now-days just shrug their shoulders at it and probably don't even give it a second thought. And why should they?

For skeptics of the 'ancient alien' theory, it's hard to convince that this stuff could be true because they are all like, "show me the proof". And yet, when you show it to them, they choose to continue living with their eyes (and minds) closed.

To write about extraterrestrials or even to put something of the topic in your paintings today, it probably means nothing, and or gets little to no reaction of any kind. But when you look at the paintings from the renaissance era, I'm inclined to believe that it means just a little bit more. It means a lot.

Back in the renaissance times, people took things a little more serious. They took life a lot more serious and they explored each and everyday for new discoveries of any kind.

Looking up in the sky was probably their "television" time because there was probably nothing else to do very much what with iphones and ipads not having been invented yet. And I'm pretty sure they spent countless hours looking up at the sky at night to watch the stars. That and their imaginations were probably 90% of their entertainment.

Imagine how their imaginations flowed when they saw something that flew across the sky and maneuvered like it was being operated by some kind of intelligence. I bet they were so shocked and mystified that they wrote it down and documented the experience. Maybe even, they painted pictures of what they saw or what was told to them that others may have seen.

Many would write this off as exactly that, imaginations gone wild, but before you lock and load that explanation into your brain, consider this, back then, when people wrote something down, it was something of major importance. Back then, when maybe a hard stone or cave wall was your canvas, you didn't rely on imagination to create a fantasy. Nor when they first developed a form of paper, it was not something they would waste. Nor canvas. Oh, no, the writers and the artists of the time did not waste their skills much on doodling. They were more into capturing the world around them. And I believe this also includes the things they saw in the sky.

What impresses me the most about these drawings and paintings is, how these flying discs look like what we perceive them to look like also. But back then, the word 'discs' or 'UFO' just wasn't in their vocabulary yet. I mean, back then, the word 'car' or 'truck' or 'airplane' were not in their vocabulary. They used the words that were in their vocabulary which was things like, 'chariot', or 'cart' or maybe 'dragon', or something close to that.

Skeptics will continue to say that these UFO images were inserted into the painting(s) by the artist(s) for "effect" purposes only. I disagree with this assertion. Clearly, these artists were trying to express what it was that they saw and or experienced with their own eyes.

More and more researchers, scientists and ancient alien enthusiasts are coming to the conclusion that there are deep meanings behind these drawings and paintings, leading more and more of them to believe that we have been visited by traveler's from other planets and galaxies. It also leads many to concur that our early ancestors came in direct contact and perhaps were influenced by extraterrestrial beings. To this day, no one has ever given a reasonable explanation for why these flying discs were included into these paintings. Were our ancestors capturing events that were taking place accurately? Were they trying to leave something behind for future generations to see? Or are these paintings nothing more than artists using their artistic license to create, and stir up, controversy? Or were they just plain nuts? ..... You decide. I have already made my decision.

UFO Files: New Video Footage 2015

So let's take a look at some new footage posted on Youtube regarding UFO's.

 

 

 

 

 

UFO Files: The 82 Alien Races / Species Living On Earth

It is widely believed within the "Ancient Astronaut" theorists and others that there are some 82 different alien species living on planet Earth. This theory was first presented by a former Canadian defense minister, Paul Hellyer. According to Mr. Hellyer, these 82 species of aliens have been living on planet Earth before humans were born.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

UFO Files: Sky Caves of Nepal

Sky Caves of Nepal: Video Edition

National Geographic 

Part One: The Climber

Part Two: The Scientist

Part Three: The Photographer 

UFO Files: Extraterrestrial Fears

I could sit and ponder the existence of UFO's all day long. (And sometimes, I do.) Mostly what I think about are the words of theoretical physicist Stephen Hocking, where he warns us about the dangers of earth being discovered by extraterrestrials - comparing such an event to Christopher Columbus landing in the new world that led (eventually) to the demise of so many Native American tribes, only in Mr. Hocking's belief, we would be the Native Americans.

I hear this theory quite a bit from such higher minds than mine. Many carry this notion that if our planet was visited by a higher intelligent species that we would become their slaves or something. That this higher intelligent species would be (or could very well be) somewhat hostile with seedy motives. And I suppose this could be true however, I'm going to have to disagree with this theory on several grounds. The first being that our intelligence as a human race back in the days of Christopher Columbus was far inferior than where we are now. I would like to think that we have learned our own lessons about wiping out an entire race of people. Well, I would hope most of us have learned this lesson. I understand there are still some races of humans who probably believe in genocide. That's scary enough. But it would be my assumption, and hope, that even we, as Americans, have evolved enough to the point where we would respect life, and I'm pretty sure for the most part, we have, that we would never resort to that kind of thing again.

Thinking along those lines of evolution, intelligence, and learning lessons, I'm in the mindset that any being of species who carry the kind of intelligence it would take to conquer space travel from planet to planet, and galaxy to galaxy, would also have learned from their mistakes of the past as well. Part of that is learning that war is not beneficial to anyone and thus, would not be a violent species. This would eliminate the theory of Mr. Hocking that what had happened back in the days of Christopher Columbus would not happen to us in such a historic event. For how ever much we have evolved from the days of Christopher Columbus, surely an extraterrestrial species that can travel through space would be much further along in their evolution as well. And it is my personal belief that the higher the intelligence, the lesser the violence. But that is just my personal belief, others may disagree.

That's not to say that there couldn't be a species of beings out there who wouldn't have a scientific curiosity about us. I'm sure there would be a deep interest for them to study us and our DNA make-up just as we would towards them. From a mental, physical and emotional aspect, they would want to discover what makes us tick just as we would them. If there would be any extraterrestrial fear, that fear would be directed to the fact that we humans are still quite the inferior species. We only use about 10 percent of our brains.  As intelligent as we think we are now, we haven't even scratched the surface of our potential. This would be a fear for them because we are still in our "war" phase as a species. It is more likely that we would want to "destroy" them more than they would want to eliminate us. We are still the violent breed.

 At the same time, I also understand that any being of any kind is biological in its design, and thus, will always be unpredictable because of that. But at their core, I think extraterrestrials would be more peaceful than Mr. Hocking theorizes.

Then again, I also subscribe to the "ancient alien" theory, which means, I believe we have not only been "discovered" but, and more to the truth, we were created from "their" image and or DNA.

It is my belief that we have been visited for tens of thousands of years. The evidence is all around us. The evidence also lives inside our own DNA. Well, that's what I believe anyway. And this would indicate, if true, that these visitors do not have evil intentions towards us, otherwise, we still wouldn't be here. In fact, I believe that these beings are protecting us, and perhaps have been aiding in our development.

I know it falls out there in 'left field', but again, I look all around this planet and I see all kinds of potential evidence that supports my belief. That and personal experience.

 Besides, if it did turn out that any higher intelligent species discovered us and wanted to eliminate us, it wouldn't be that difficult at all, and it certainly wouldn't be in the traditional way of war that we engage in today. Oh, no, they wouldn't even need to declare their presence. All they would have to do is send down viruses and diseases along with an asteroid or two and pretty much, we would be toast. And we wouldn't even know it was "them" who wiped us out.

So, this notion that a more intelligent species would do to us as we did to the Native Americans is really hard for me to swallow. Even if they wanted our resources, they could take them, little by little, without our knowledge. But here's another thing to ponder; there are a lot more planets out there with just as much resources as ours that are not even inhabited. It would be those planets that would be targeted first before any species would target earth, and go to war.

This is why you can cheer up! Aliens are not out to get us, nor would I figure they would be hostile towards us. Evolution should have taught us already that war is not the action of intelligence, but ignorance and stupidity. Any being which believes that death and destruction is progress is clearly not a very intelligent being. Nor is enslaving another race and or species. History has also taught us that this doesn't last very long in the aspects of time. Everything changes and everything evolves. In this evolution comes discovery and lessons that we should never forget. The one thing we have to come to terms with is that war is never the way of progress. Once our planet (and species) as a whole learns this then we will, as a species, be ready to stake our claim to the universe, and live side by side with other species from other planets in other galaxies. Once we can overcome our vanity, and greed, we will overcome our handicaps.

John Lear On UFO's: UFO Files

John Lear is a retired airline captain and has flown over 19,000 hours in his career. He has flown in over 100 types of planes, and in sixty different countries. His father is Lear Jet inventor, Bill Lear. He has flown in secret missions for the C.I.A. between 1966 and 1983. So how is it, a man so decorated, and well respected becomes a leading authority on the existence of UFO's?

To learn more about John Lear, and his UFO theories, check out this interview he did with Art Bell. John Lear Interview.

After reading that, you may enjoy the videos I am leaving here for you to watch. 

Hangar 18: UFO Files

Hangar 18 is located at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Greene and Montgomery counties in Ohio, near Dayton and Cincinnati. It's claim to fame stems from allegations, mostly by UFO enthusiasts, that wreckage from an alleged UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico in July of the year 1947, was sent there to be examined.

It is also rumored that refrigerated corpses of alien beings are being kept there too.


As UFO research enters the twenty-first century, controversy continues to rage over the truth of whether or not Major Jesse Marcel and his men collected pieces of debris from a flying saucer along with the bodies of 2 to 5 extraterrestrial crew members. Many accounts from both civilians and military personnel who claim to have been eyewitnesses to the events at Roswell speak of 5 alien bodies found at the impact site just north of Roswell, New Mexico, and state that four corpses were transported to Hangar 18 at Wright Field, with the fifth going to the USAF mortuary service at Lowry Field. Two years before his death in the late 1990s, pilot Oliver "Pappy" Henderson swore at a reunion of his World War II bomber crew that he had flown the remains of four alien bodies out of Roswell Army Field in a C-54 cargo plane in July of 1947.

There are, however, numerous secondary accounts that maintain that one of the aliens survived the crash and was still alive when Major Marcel and his retrieval unit arrived on the scene. Some UFO researchers believe that as late as 1986 the alien entity was still alive and well treated as a guest of the air force at Wright-Patterson.

Originally called Wilbur Wright Field, the government installation was first opened in 1917 to train military personnel during the first World War. Soon, Fairfield Air Depot was created, adjacent to Wright Field. In 1924, McCook Field test facility was closed, and the Dayton community purchased 4,500 acres which housed the various facilities. This took in the previously leased land of Wright Field, and the Wright and Fairfield facilities were combined into one. The newly created facility was named after the innovators of flight, the Wright Brothers.

The base was well known for reverse engineering of foreign government aircraft during the Cold War. The base expertise in the disassembly and recreation of MIG fighters has only enriched the theories that alien craft have been studied there. The workforce is estimated at 22,000, giving us an idea of the massive amount of work being done at the base.

 Wright-Patterson is most well known for its connection to the Roswell crash, although links can be made to other crash retrievals. Several eyewitness accounts of military personnel and even civilian workers who handled debris from the Roswell crash, and saw bodies of creatures not of our world, give us a very plausible Wright-Patterson connection to the study of alien technology and physiology.

The same day that the famous Roswell headlines ran in newspapers around the world, there was an enormous amount of activity at the Roswell base. Some debris from the crash, and possibly alien bodies were sent to Ft. Worth, Texas. It is now commonly accepted by researchers that before the Ft. Worth flight, another flight to Wright-Patterson had already taken place, carrying debris and alien bodies. This shipment was secretly stored and studied in the infamous Hangar-18.

UFO researchers believe some of the stuff was loaned around, but the main repository was the foreign technology division at Wright-Patterson. Many have heard stories over the years of people who say that they're still trying to figure out what that stuff is, speaking of the debris that was collected from the July 1967 crash of Roswell.

Could this alien material and technology recovered be so advanced, that even after many years of study by our best scientists, they still fall short in understanding the secrets behind it? If scientists could have unlocked even some of the technological advancements of the ship's inner workings and navigational systems, could it not have been the creative impetus behind the Stealth series of aircraft, and the seemingly rapid advancement of our weaponry and technology in the last fifty plus years? I think yes. I'm not the only one either.

Even to this very day, UFO enthusiasts believe that evidence of what happened in Roswell, New Mexico can still be found in Hangar 18. Then there are those who now believe that all evidence from that crash, and many others, are no longer located at Wright-Patterson. That in fact, all the evidence may have been sent to the secret installation known as Area 51, in Nevada. However, that installation is no longer a secret.

Then there are those who say that a secret underground facility was built beneath Hangar 18 over the years and all the evidence, including the alleged bodies, were relocated into that storage area. No evidence has surfaced to support the claim. Still, many say that the underground facility is there.

Regardless of what the truth may be, one thing is certain, according to military logs, a cargo plane did indeed arrive in the early morning hours to Wright - Patterson from New Mexico transporting something just a couple days after the reported Roswell crash. What that cargo plane was transporting is still unknown, and will probably always be subject to debate.

Santee Sighting (San Diego): UFO Files

I got alerted to this news-clip and thought to share it with you all. A UFO sighting captured on video and in pictures. Very clear. It occurred this year in the San Diego area of California.

Santee Sighting

UFO Files: FBI Memo

I wanted to share with you today an article that I recently discovered pertaining to the official memo from the FBI in regards of the Roswell UFO incident in 1947. I am posting the images of the memo and leaving a link to a video that explains it. For believers, it is saying nothing new. For the skeptics, I suggest you watch the video. Everyday we are learning more and more about the truth - and I am positive that someday soon, one of this planets governments will come out and officially acknowledge the truth behind the UFO phenomenon. Don't count on it being the American government though, they think the American people (and the rest of the world) is too intellectually inferior to the point where .... "We can't handle the truth!"

Screw you FBI. We already know the truth. 

UFO FBI Memo

Now for the pictures

UFO Files: Piketon UFO Carroll Bryant

Hey everyone, I finally got to capture some strange lights. I saw this light dancing in the night sky. Then suddenly, to the left, another light appears and moves a couple of times in and out towards the dancing light. They appear to be communicating or something. Then suddenly, some blue lines started to appear on my camera. It has never done this before nor afterwards when I tried to take another video in the house. I don't know what caused the blue lines to appear nor do I know what the two lights in the sky were. They made no sound. The sound you hear in the background are coming from the nearby highway. Then my camera went dead. The batteries are new. I replaced them a week ago and had yet to use the camera until tonight. I did take a still shot prior to filming this. This occurred on Monday night, June 3rd, 2013 at approximately 10:30 PM in Piketon, Ohio. Filmed by me, Carroll Bryant.

This is the still I took prior to filming.

UFO Files: Erich von Däniken

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken, German pronunciation: [ˈeːʁɪç fɔn ˈdɛːnɪkən born 14 April 1935) is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968. Von Däniken is one of the main figures responsible for popularizing the "paleo-contact" and ancient astronauts hypotheses.

Von Däniken's first book, Chariots of the Gods?, was an immediate best seller in the United States and Europe, and subsequent books, "according to von Däniken, have been translated into 32 languages and together have sold more than 63 million copies." The ideas put forth in these books are largely rejected by scientists and academics, who categorize his work as pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology.

Von Däniken wrote his first book while working as manager of the Hotel Rosenhügel in Davos, Switzerland. He was convicted of several financial crimes, including fraud, shortly after publication of his first book.^[5] The revenue from the sales of his book allowed him to repay his debts and leave the hotel business. Von Däniken wrote his second book, Gods from Outer Space, while in prison.
Von Däniken later became a co-founder of the Archaeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association (AAS RA). He designed Mystery Park (now known as Jungfrau Park), a theme park located in Interlaken, Switzerland, that opened on 23 May 2003.

Von Däniken was born in Zofingen, Aargau. Brought up a strict Catholic, he attended the international Catholic school Saint-Michel in Fribourg, Switzerland. During his time at the school he rejected the church's interpretations of the Bible, and developed an interest in astronomy and the phenomenon of flying saucers.

At the age of 19, von Däniken was given a four-month suspended sentence for theft. Von Däniken withdrew from school, and became apprenticed to a Swiss hotelier. After moving to Egypt, he was convicted for fraud and embezzlement.

He then became manager of the Hotel Rosenhügel in Davos, Switzerland, during which time he wrote Chariots of the Gods?, working on the manuscript late at night after the hotel's guests had retired. In December 1964, von Däniken wrote Hatten unsere Vorfahren Besuch aus dem Weltraum? ("Did our Ancestors have a Visit from Space?") for the German-Canadian periodical Der Nordwesten. Chariots of the Gods? was accepted by a publisher in early 1967, and printed in March 1968.

In November 1968 von Däniken was arrested for fraud, after falsifying hotel records and credit references in order to take out loans for $130,000 over a period of twelve years. He used the money for foreign travel to research his book. Two years later, von Däniken was convicted for "repeated and sustained" embezzlement, fraud and forgery, with the court ruling that the writer had been living a "playboy" lifestyle. Von Däniken entered a plea for nullity on the grounds that his intentions were not malicious and the credit institutions were at fault for failing to adequately research his references. Von Däniken was sentenced on 13 February 1970 to three and a half years imprisonment and fined 3,000 francs. He served one year of this sentence before being released.

His first book, Chariots of the Gods?, had been published by the time of his trial, and its sales allowed him to repay his debts and leave the hotel business. Von Däniken wrote his second book, Gods from Outer Space, while in prison.

In 1966, when von Däniken was writing his first book, scientists Carl Sagan and I. S. Shklovskii wrote about the possibility of paleocontact and extraterrestrial visitation claims in one chapter of their book Intelligent Life in the Universe, giving some scientific legitimacy to the idea. Many ideas from this book appeared in different form in von Däniken's books. Sagan has been very critical of von Däniken.

Previous to von Däniken's work, other authors had presented ideas of extraterrestrial contacts. Von Däniken failed to credit properly or at all, these authors, even when making the same claims using similar or identical evidence.


 In Chariots of the Gods?, von Däniken wrote that a non-rusting iron pillar in Delhi, India, was evidence of extraterrestrial influence. In a later Playboy interview, when told that the column showed some signs of rust and its method of construction was well understood, von Däniken said that since writing the book he had learned of investigations reaching other conclusions, and no longer considered the pillar to be a mystery.

 In The Gold of the Gods von Däniken wrote of being guided through artificial tunnels in a cave under Ecuador, Cueva de los Tayos, containing gold, strange statues and a library with metal tablets, which he considered to be evidence of ancient space visitors. The man whom he said showed him these tunnels, Juan Moricz, told Der Spiegel that von Däniken's descriptions came from a long conversation and that the photos in the book had been "fiddled". Von Däniken told Playboy that although he had seen the library and other places he had described, he had fabricated some of the events to add interest to his book. Later in 1978 he said that he had never been in the cave pictured in his book but in a "side entrance", and that he had fabricated the whole descent into the cave. A geologist examined the area and found no cave systems. Von Däniken also wrote about a collection of gold objects held by local priest Father Crespi, who had special permission from the Vatican to do archeological research. But an archeologist reported to Der Spiegel that, while there were some gold pieces, many were just local imitations for tourists, and that Crespi has difficulty distinguishing brass from gold.

Dr. Samuel Rosenberg said that the Book of Dzyan, referred to by von Däniken, was "a fabrication superimposed on a gigantic hoax concocted by Madame Blavatsky." He also says that the "Tulli Papyrus", cited by von Däniken in one of his books, is likely cribbed from the Book of Ezekiel, and quoted Dr. Nolli (through Dr. Walter Ramberg, Scientific Attache at the U.S. embassy in Rome), then current Director of the Egyptian Section of the Vatican Museum, as "suspect[ing] that Tulli was taken in and that the papyrus is a fake." According to NYT's Richard R. Lingerman, it is likely that von Däniken obtained these references from UFO books that mentioned them as real documents.

Von Däniken brought the Nazca Lines to public prominence with his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?, attracting so many tourists that researcher Maria Reiche had to spend much of her own time and money preserving them. Von Däniken said that the lines were built following instructions from extraterrestrial beings, to be used as airfields for their spaceships. In his 1998 book Arrival of The Gods, he added that some of the pictures depicted extraterrestrials. Archeologists are sure that they were made by pre-columbian civilizations for cultural purposes, and they have not bothered refuting this sort of speculation. Silverman and Proulx say this silence from archaeologists has harmed the profession and the Peruvian nation. The idea was not original of von Däniken, it started as a joke made by people who first saw the lines from the air, and had already been published by other people. One of the cropped photos in Chariots of the Gods?, claimed by von Däniken to be similar to the markings of a modern airport, was only the knee joint of one of the bird figures and was quite small in size; von Däniken says that it was an error in the first edition, and that he wasn't the one who wrote that claim in the book, but the error has not been corrected in later editions.

Von Däniken wrote in Chariots of the Gods? that a version of the Piri Reis map that the map depicted some Antarctic mountains that were and still are buried into ice, and could only be mapped with modern equipment. His theory relies on the book of Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings by Charles Hapgood. A. D. Crown in Some Trust in Chariots explains how this is simply wrong. The map in von Däniken's book only extends 5 degrees south of the equator, ending in Cape São Roque, which means that it doesn't extend to the Antarctica. Von Däniken also said that the map showed some distortions that would only happen if its was an aerial view taken from a spaceship flying above El Cairo, but in fact it doesn't extend enough to the South to cause visible distortions in an aerial view. Von Däniken also asserts the existence of a legend saying that a god gave the map to a priest, the god being an extraterrestrial being. But Piri Reis said that he had drawn that map himself using old maps, and the map is consistent with the cartographic knowledge at that time. Also, the map is not "absolutely accurate" as claimed by von Däniken, since it contains many errors and omissions; a fact that von Däniken did not correct when he covered the map again his 1998 book Odyssey of the Gods. Other authors had already published this same idea, a fact that von Däniken did not recognize until 1974 in an interview to Playboy magazine.

The Nova documentary The Case of the Ancient Astronauts shows that all the claims made by von Däniken about the Pyramid of Cheops were wrong in all accounts. The technique of construction is well understood, scholars know perfectly what tools they used, the marks of those tools in the quarries are still visible, and there are many tools preserved in museums. Von Däniken claims that it would have taken them too long to cut all the blocks necessary and drag them to the construction site in time to build the Great Pyramid in only 20 years, but Nova shows how easy and fast it is to cut a block of stone, and shows the rollers used in transportation. He also claims that Egyptians suddenly started making pyramids out of nowhere, but there are several pyramids that show the progress made by Egyptian architects while they were perfecting the technique from simple mastabas to later pyramids. Von Däniken claims that the height of the pyramid multiplied by one million was the distance to the Sun, but the number falls too short. He also claims that Egyptians could not align the edges so perfectly to true North without advanced technology that only aliens could give them, but Egyptians knew of very simple methods to find North via star observation, and it is trivial to make straight edges.

 Von Däniken claimed that the Sarcophagus of Palenque depicted a spaceman sitting on a rocket-powered spaceship, wearing a spacesuit. However, archaeologists see nothing special with the figure, a dead Mayan monarch who is wearing traditional Mayan hairdo and jewelry, surrounded by Mayan symbols that can be observed in other Mayan drawings. The right hand is not handling any rocket controls, but simply making a traditional Mayan gesture, that other figures in the sides of the lid also make, and is not holding anything. The rocket shape is actually two serpents joining their heads at the bottom, with the rocket flames being the beards of the serpents. The rocket motor under the figure is the face of a monster, symbol of the underworld.

 Von Däniken put forward photographs of ancient stones in Peru, with carvings of men using telescopes, detailed world maps, and advanced medical operations, all beyond the knowledge of ancient Peruvians. But the PBS television series Nova determined that the stones were modern, and located the potter who made them. This potter makes stones daily and sells them to tourists. Von Däniken had visited the potter and examined the stones himself, but he didn't mention this in his book. He says that he didn't believe the potter when he said that he had made the stones. Von Däniken says that he asked Doctor Cabrera, a local surgeon who owns the museum, and Cabrera had told him that the potter's claims were a lie and that the stones were ancient. But the potter had proof that Cabrera had thanked him for providing the stones for the museum. Von Däniken claimed that the stones at the museum were very different from those made by the potter, but the Nova reporters oversaw the manufacturing of one stone and confirmed that it was very similar to those in the museum.

Kenneth Feder accused von Däniken of European ethnocentrism, while John Flenley and Paul Bahn suggested that views such as his interpretation of the Easter Island statues "ignore the real achievements of our ancestors and constitute the ultimate in racism: they belittle the abilities and ingenuity of the human species as a whole."
Ronald Story published The Space Gods Revealed: A Close Look At The Theories of Erich Von Däniken in 1976, written in response to the evidence presented in von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods?. It was reviewed as "a coherent and much-needed refutation of Von Däniken's theories"

A 2004 article in Skeptic Magazine states that von Däniken took many of the book's concepts from The Morning of the Magicians, that this book in turn was heavily influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos, and that the core of the ancient astronaut theory originates in H. P. Lovecraft's short stories "The Call of Cthulhu" written in 1926, and "At the Mountains of Madness" written in 1931.

Speaking in a 2001 documentary, von Däniken said that although he could not conclusively prove to the scientific community that any of the items in his archive were of alien origin, he felt that "today's science" would not accept such evidence, as "the time is simply not right". It is also mentioned that he jumped from Hotel Manager to "expert on the ancient world." He argued that it was first necessary to "prepare" mankind for a "wonderful new world"

Jungfrau Park located near Interlaken, Switzerland was opened as the Mystery Park in 2003. Designed by von Däniken, it explored several great "mysteries" of the world.

Ridley Scott said that his film Prometheus is related to some of von Däniken's ideas regarding early human civilization.

Reviewing the two-disc DVD release of Roland Emmerich's film Stargate, Dean Devlin referred to the "Is There a Stargate?" feature where "author Erich von Däniken discusses evidence he has found of alien visitations to Earth."



Source: Wikipedia

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UFO Files: The Battle of Los Angeles

The Battle of Los Angeles is also known as The Great Los Angeles Air Raid, and is the name given by contemporary sources to the rumored enemy attack and subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which took place from late February 24th into the early morning of February 25th 1942 over Los Angeles, California. The incident occurred less than three months after the United States entered World War II as a result of the Japanese Imperial Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one day after the Bombardment of Ellwood on 23 February.

Initially, the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but speaking at a press conference shortly afterward, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox called the incident a "false alarm." Newspapers of the time published a number of reports and speculations of a cover-up. Some modern-day UFOlogists have suggested the targets were extraterrestrial spacecraft. When documenting the incident in 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of "war nerves" likely triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries.

Air raid sirens sounded throughout Los Angeles County on the night of 24–25 February 1942. A total blackout was ordered and thousands of air raid wardens were summoned to their positions. At 3:16 am the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing 12.8-pound anti-aircraft shells into the air at reported aircraft; over 1,400 shells would eventually be fired. Pilots of the 4th Interceptor Command were alerted but their aircraft remained grounded. The artillery fire continued sporadically until 4:14 am The "all clear" was sounded and the blackout order lifted at 7:21 am.

In addition to several buildings damaged by friendly fire, four to five civilians were killed by the anti-aircraft fire, and another three died of heart attacks attributed to the stress of the hour-long bombardment. The incident was front-page news along the U.S. Pacific coast, and earned some mass media coverage throughout the nation.

Within hours of the end of the air raid, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox held a press conference, saying the entire incident was a false alarm due to anxiety and "war nerves". Knox's comments were followed by statements from the Army the next day that reflected General George C. Marshall's belief that the incident might have been caused by commercial airplanes used as a psychological warfare campaign to generate panic. Some contemporary press outlets suspected a cover up. An editorial in the Long Beach Independent wrote, "There is a mysterious reticence about the whole affair and it appears that some form of censorship is trying to halt discussion on the matter." Speculation was rampant as to invading airplanes and their bases. Theories included a secret base in northern Mexico as well as Japanese submarines stationed offshore with the capability of carrying planes. Others speculated that the incident was either staged or exaggerated to give coastal defense industries an excuse to move further inland. Representative Leland Ford of Santa Monica called for a Congressional investigation, saying, "...none of the explanations so far offered removed the episode from the category of 'complete mystification' ... this was either a practice raid, or a raid to throw a scare into 2,000,000 people, or a mistaken identity raid, or a raid to lay a political foundation to take away Southern California's war industries.

In 1983, the Office of Air Force History concluded that an analysis of the evidence points to meteorological balloons as the cause of the initial alarm.

Many witnesses claim to have seen not meteorological balloons, but something else. Some witnesses lived right on the beach and say that the object was so close at one point before the shooting began, that they could reach out and practically touch it.  Witnesses even claim that shortly after the incident, a squadron of planes appeared and searched the area over the ocean where it was believed the object that was shot down, landed. Naval ships were also reported in the same area.

Did the military find what it was they shot down? If so, why aren't they saying they did? What did they recover?

UFOligists say that this incident beats Roswell all to hell. Not just because this incident in Los Angeles occurred 4 years before Roswell, but for the fact that millions of people saw this lighted object and described it as moving intelligently on its own through the night skies.

But like Roswell, the military insists on covering this incident up. Meanwhile, those who were there know that they witnessed more than just a "Battle of Los Angeles" - they witnessed a real life "War of the Worlds".

In later investigations, it was shown that there were meteorological balloons in the area, however, experts have since come out and said that those balloons would have been to high up in the atmosphere for to be seen with the naked eye at night. Not to mention that after the shellacking that the military unleashed upon it, it would have been in complete shreds and floating on the ocean waters or washed ashore onto the sand in the early morning tide. No debris ever washed ashore.

So the speculation persists. Those who were there, including military officials, will tell you that something was flying in the skies that night. Officially, however, the military personnel will tell you it was a weather balloon. That same story (excuse) came in handy four years later at Roswell.



Source: Wikipedia

 

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UFO Files: The Jupiter Alphabet

It started in the year 2002. One night in September, while asleep, I had a dream. It was nothing more than a wall made of some kind of stone, perhaps graphite or something. It could have been quartz. Anyhow, a symbol appeared in gold. More like some kind of hieroglyph. I can’t really say.

I stood there in some kind of rock tomb that resembled more a small room, totally enclosed with stone all around me, and staring at this symbol of gold on one of the walls. It burned into my head. When I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t shake it off. I spent the next few days consumed with the image of it. I was also trying to figure out what the hell it meant.

After a few days, I was compelled enough to go ahead and draw it onto paper. I felt a strange relief inside. Then, that night, another dream similar to the first. This time, another symbol. This pattern would repeat itself for the next three months. Each dream haunting me like a ghost. Only when I would draw the image would I feel relieved and the next dream would occur.

After the fifth dream, I started keeping track of the order I had them. The first image I saw was number one and so on and so on. A friend of mine suggested I keep track of that, she felt there might be a purpose to them. All I knew at that time was that I wanted them to end. They were really eating at me. They were actually kind of creeping me out.

This went on through November and then finally, after 26 of them, they stopped. I went a couple of weeks without anymore. I was thrilled. Then suddenly, I had another. It was a repeat image of one I already had before. I couldn’t understand it. It was number 16. I wrote the number down. The next night, I had another dream of number 5. And so on and so on. The new year began in 2003 and no more dreams.

It took the next two weeks to figure out what was going on. Here I had these repeat dreams of some of the images and couldn’t understand what it meant. That same friend of before figured it out for me. She recommended that I replace the numbers with the letters of our alphabet. Number one would be the letter “A” and number two the letter “B” and so on and so on. This started to make sense to me.

By the time I did that, I took another look at the repeat dreams. I took the numbers I wrote for them and translated them into letters. Number 16 turned out to be the letter “P”. The number five image turned out to be the letter “E”. And so I went down the line until I spelled out “peaceloveswar”. Of course, I had to separate them and the repeat dreams spelled out the phrase, “Peace Loves War”.

Okay, first of all, I was completely blown away. All of this coming through my dreams. I was really freaking out!

Even to this day, I still do not know or understand where I got the dreams or why. Were they just some random freaky dreams that my subconscious came up with, or were they sent to me by something (or someone) else? And if so, from where? From who?

As the days passed, I have long since came to terms with those dreams and the “Jupiter” alphabet. Why did I call them the Jupiter Alphabet? I don’t know, but I think it has to do with the Roman/Greek God Jupiter. I also ended up writing some poems that I would later place into a poetry booklet that I self published titled “The Jupiter Project”.

To date, I have not had anymore of those dreams.

Here is the “Jupiter Alphabet” that I ended up drawing. (Duplicating them in smaller version to fit one page). They are not as precise lines as I saw in my dreams, I drew them the best I could. I think you get the picture though. A psychiatrist I ended up meeting found them very chilling, and requested a copy of it to show a professor friend of hers in Chicago, Illinois. Her friend studies Egyptian hieroglyphics. I haven’t heard back from her or her friend.

I have attempted to try and find anything that resembles the symbols, but have not yet been successful. So, I sit and wait. I wait for an explanation, a discovery, I wait for an answer. All the while, I continue to ask the all important question that anyone would ask themselves, why me?

UFO Files: Planet X (Nibiru)

The Nibiru cataclysm is a supposed disastrous encounter between the Earth and a large planetary object (either a collision or a near miss) which certain groups believe will take place in the early 21st century. Believers in this doomsday event usually refer to this object as Planet X (or Nibiru) The idea that a planet-sized object could collide with or pass by Earth in the near future is not supported by any scientific evidence and has been rejected as pseudoscience by astronomers and planetary scientists. The idea was first put forward in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk. Lieder describes herself as a “contactee” with the ability to receive messages from extra-terrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system through an implant in her brain. She states that she was chosen to warn mankind that the object would sweep through the inner solar system in May 2003 (though that date was later abandoned) causing Earth to undergo a pole shift that would destroy most of humanity. The prediction has subsequently spread beyond Lieder's website and has been embraced by numerous Internet doomsday groups, most of which link the event to the Mayan Calendar 2012 phenomenon. Although the name “Nibiru” is derived from the works of the late ancient astronaut writer Zecharia Sitchin and his interpretations of Babylonian and Sumerian mythology, Sitchin denied any connection between his work and various claims of a coming apocalypse.

The idea of the Nibiru encounter originated with Nancy Lieder, a Wisconsin woman who claims that as a girl she was contacted by gray extraterrestrials called Zetas, who implanted a communications device in her brain. In 1995, she founded the website ZetaTalk to disseminate her ideas. Lieder first came to public attention on Internet newsgroups during the build-up to Comet Hale-Bopp’s 1997 perihelion. She stated, speaking as the Zetas, that The Hale-Bopp comet does not exist. It is a fraud, perpetrated by those who would have the teeming masses quiescent until it is too late. Hale-Bopp is nothing more than a distant star, and will draw no closer. She claimed that the Hale-Bopp story was manufactured to distract people from the imminent arrival of a large planetary object, “Planet X“, which would soon pass by Earth and destroy civilization. After Hale-Bopp's perihelion revealed it as one of the brightest and longest-observed comets of the last century, Lieder removed the first two sentences of her initial statement from her site, though they can still be found in Google’s archives. Her claims eventually made the New York Times.

Lieder described Planet X as roughly four times the size of the Earth, and said that its closest approach would occur on May 27, 2003, resulting in the Earth's rotation ceasing for exactly 5.9 terrestrial days. This would be followed by the Earth's pole destabilizing in a pole shift (a physical pole shift, with the Earth's pole physically moving, rather than a geomagnetic reversal) caused by magnetic attraction between the Earth's core and the magnetism of the passing planet. This in turn would disrupt the Earth's magnetic core and lead to subsequent displacement of the Earth's crust. After Lieder, the first person to propagate her Planet X idea was Mark Hazlewood, a former member of the ZetaTalk community, who in 2001 published a book titled “Blindsided: Planet X Passes in 2003. Lieder would later accuse him of being a confidence trickster. A Japanese cult called the “Pana Wave Laboratory, which blocked off roads and rivers with white cloths to protect itself from electromagnetic attacks, also warned that the world would end in May 2003 after the approach of a tenth planet.


Roughly a week before the supposed arrival of Planet X, Lieder appeared on KROQ-FM radio in Los Angeles, and advised listeners to put their pets down in anticipation of the event. When asked if she had done so, she replied that she had, and that “The puppies are in a happy place.” She also advised that “A dog makes a good meal“. After the 2003 date passed without incident, Lieder said that it was merely a “White Lie ... to fool the establishment,” and said that to disclose the true date would give those in power enough time to declare martial law and trap people in cities during the shift, leading to their deaths.

Many Internet sites continue to proclaim that Lieder's object is en route to Earth, often citing its arrival date as December, 2012. This date has gathered many apocalyptic associations, as it is the end of the current cycle (baktun) in the long count in the Mayan calendar. Several writers have published books connecting the encounter with 2012.

Astronomers reject the idea of Nibiru, and have made efforts to inform the public that there is no threat to Earth in 2012. They point out that such an object so close to Earth would be easily visible to the naked eye, as Jupiter and Saturn are both visible to the naked eye, and are dimmer than Nibiru would be at their distances. A planet such as Nibiru would create noticeable effects in the orbits of the outer planets. Some counter this by claiming that the object has been concealed behind the Sun for several years, though this would be geometrically impossible. Amateur photographs supposedly showing Nibiru near the Sun are usually the result of lens flares, false images of the Sun created by reflections within the lens.

Astronomer Mike Brown notes that if this object's orbit were as described, it would only have lasted in the Solar System for a million years or so before Jupiter expelled it, and that there is no way another object's magnetic field could have such an effect on Earth. Lieder's assertions that the approach of Nibiru would cause the Earth's rotation to stop or its axis to shift violate the laws of physics. In his rebuttal of Immanuel Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision”, which made the same claim that the Earth's rotation could be stopped and then restarted, Carl Sagan noted that the energy required to brake the Earth is not enough to melt it, although it would result in a noticeable increase in temperature: The oceans would be raised to the boiling point of water. Also, how does the Earth get started up again, rotating at approximately the same rate of spin? The Earth cannot do it by itself, because of the law of the conservation of angular momentum.

In a 2009 interview with the Discovery Channel, Mike Brown noted that, while it is not impossible that the Sun has a distant planetary companion, such an object would have to be lying very far from the observed regions of the Solar System to have no gravitational effect on the other planets. A Mars-sized object could lie undetected at 300 AU (10 times the distance of Neptune); a Jupiter-sized object at 30,000 AU. To travel 1000 AU in two years, an object would need to be moving at 2400 km/s - faster than the galactic escape velocity. At that speed, any object would be shot out of the Solar System, and then out of the Milky Way galaxy into intergalactic space.

Still, there are many people who continue to believe that this mysterious “Planet X” is real, thus placing merit on the Mayan doomsday calendar predictions. (Which really isn’t a doomsday prediction, but more so, just simply the end to the calendar, thus creating a new beginning to another rotation of the Mayan calendar.) Pretty much like our calendar that goes from year to year.



Source: Wikipedia

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UFO Files: Rendlesham Forest Incident: Britain's Roswell

The Rendlesham Forest Incident is the name given to a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights and the alleged landing of a craft or multiple crafts of unknown origin in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England, in late December 1980, just outside RAF Woodbridge, used at the time by the U.S. Air Force. Dozens of USAF personnel were eyewitnesses to various events over a two or three day period. Some ufologists believe it is perhaps the most famous UFO event to have happened in Britain, ranking amongst the best-known UFO events worldwide. Along with the Berwyn Mountain UFO incident, it has been compared to the Roswell UFO incident in the United States, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's Roswell".

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) denied that the event posed any threat to national security, and stated that it was therefore never investigated as a security matter. Later evidence indicated that there was a substantial MoD file on the subject, which led to claims of a cover-up; some interpreted this as part of a larger pattern of information suppression concerning the true nature of unidentified flying objects, by both the United States and British governments. One such person to take this view was eyewitness and Deputy Base Commander Colonel Charles Halt. When the file was released in 2001 it turned out to consist mostly of internal correspondence and responses to inquiries from the public. The lack of any in-depth investigation in the publicly released documents is consistent with the MoD's earlier statement that they never took the case seriously. Included in the released files is an explanation given by defence minister Lord Trefgarne as to why the MoD did not investigate further. Skeptics regard the sightings as misinterpretation of a series of nocturnal lights - a fireball, the Orford Ness lighthouse and bright stars.

Rendlesham Forest is owned by the Forestry Commission and consists of about 5.8 square miles of coniferous plantations, interspersed with broadleaved belts, heathland and wetland areas. It is located in the county of Suffolk, about 8 miles east of the town of Ipswich. The incident occurred in the vicinity of two former military bases RAF Bentwaters, which is just to the north of the forest, and RAF Woodbridge which extends into the forest from the west and is bounded by the forest on its northern and eastern edges. At the time, both were being used by the United States Air Force and were under the command of wing commander Colonel Gordon E. Williams. The base commander was Colonel Ted Conrad, and his deputy was Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt. Halt's memo to the Ministry of Defence on the incident, and his personal involvement in the second night of the sightings, has given the case credibility.

The main events of the incident, including the supposed landing or landings, took place in the forest, which starts at the east end of the base runway or about 0.3 miles to the east of the East Gate of RAF Woodbridge, where guards first noticed mysterious lights appearing to descend into the forest. The forest extends east about 1.0 mile beyond East Gate, ending at a farmer's field, where additional events allegedly took place. Orford Ness lighthouse, which skeptics identify as the flashing light seen off to the coast by the airmen, is along the same line of sight but 5 miles further east of the forest edge.

Retired Sgt. John Burroughs (LE) states that the events took place over three successive nights (pm into am); 24^th, 25th, 26^th, and 27^th of December in 1980. One of the key pieces of primary evidence suggests that the first sightings were on the 26th, rather than 25^th in a memo. The memo was written almost two weeks after the event and its author later agreed that he had probably made a mistake in his recollection of the dates. This discrepancy in dates has not only confused subsequent researchers but also led to confusion at the time, for example in the MoD's investigation and analysis of contemporaneous radar records.

Around 3 a.m. on the 26^th of December, 1980 - strange lights were reported by a security patrol near the East Gate of RAF Woodbridge apparently descending into nearby Rendlesham Forest. Servicemen initially thought it was a downed aircraft but, upon entering the forest to investigate, they saw strange lights moving through the trees, as well as a bright light from an unidentified object. One of the servicemen, Sgt. Jim Penniston, later claimed to have encountered a craft of unknown origin and to have made detailed notes of its features, touched its warm surface, and copied the numerous symbols on its body. The object allegedly flew away after their brief encounter. Penniston also claimed to have seen triangular landing gear on the object, leaving three impressions in the ground that were visible the next day. While undergoing regression hypnosis in 1994, Penniston subsequently claimed that the craft he encountered had come from our future, and was occupied by time travelers, not extraterrestrials. Sgt. Penniston's report made shortly after the incident contains no mention of physically encountering an unknown craft, nor of interacting with it. This report and associated sketches are neither signed nor dated, nor are they representative of AF Form 1169, Statement of Witness.

Shortly after 4 a.m. local police were called to the scene but reported that the only lights they could see were those from the Orford Ness lighthouse, some miles away on the coast. Some reports claim that local farmyard animals had been behaving in a state of fear and panic. After daybreak on the morning of December 26th, servicemen returned to a small clearing near the eastern edge of the forest and found three small impressions in a triangular pattern, as well as burn marks and broken branches on nearby trees. Plaster casts of the imprints were taken and have been shown in television documentaries. At 10.30 a.m. the local police were called out again, this time to see the impressions on the ground, which they thought could have been made by an animal.

The servicemen returned to the site again in the early hours of December 28th with radiation detectors, although the significance of the readings they obtained is disputed. The deputy base commander Lt Col Charles I. Halt investigated this sighting personally and recorded the events on a micro-cassette recorder. The site investigated by Halt was near the eastern edge of the forest. It was during this investigation that a flashing light was seen across the field to the east, almost in line with a farmhouse. The Orford Ness lighthouse is visible further to the east in the same line of sight. Later, star-like lights were seen in the sky to the north and south, the brightest of which seemed to beam down a stream of light from time to time.
There are claims that the incident was videoed by the USAF; but, if so, the resulting tape has not been made public. The release of this video, if it exists, would certainly clear everything up, unless the video shows proof of extraterrestrial visitation. In which case, for a government wanting to keep the truth hidden, then ti would be imperative to keep the video under wraps and its existence in constant wonder.

The first public report of the incident was published in the tabloid newspaper “News Of The World”, on October 2^nd, 1983, beneath the sensational headline “UFO Lands In Suffolk - And That’s Official”. The story was based on an account by a former US airman, using the pseudonym, Art Wallace (supposedly to protect himself against retribution from the USAF), although his real name was Larry Warren.

The first piece of primary evidence to be made available to the public was a memorandum written by the deputy base commander, Lt. Col. Charles I. Halt, to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Known as the “Halt memo“, this was made available publicly in the United States under the US Freedom of Information Act in 1983. The memorandum was dated “13 Jan 81” and headed “Unexplained Lights“. The two-week delay between the incident and the report might account for errors in dates and times given. The memo was not classified in any way. Dr David Clarke has investigated the background to this memo and the reaction to it at the Ministry of Defence. His interviews with the personnel involved confirmed the cursory nature of the investigation made by the MoD, and failed to find any evidence for any other reports on the incident made by the USAF or UK apart from the Halt memo.

The Scottish researcher James Easton succeeded in obtaining the original witness statements made for Col. Halt by Fred A. Buran, 81st Security Police Squadron, Airman First Class John Burroughs, 81st LE, Airman Edward N. Cabansag, 81st Security Police Squadron, Master-Sergeant J. D. Chandler, 81st Security Police Squadron and Staff-Sergeant Jim Penniston, 81st Security Police Squadron. These documents are now in the public domain and scans of them are available on Ian Ridpath's website. These documents describe the sightings of strange lights. Penniston, for instance, states that directly to the east (of East Gate) about 1¹/₂ miles in a large wooded area, a large yellow glowing light was emitting above the trees. In the center of the lighted area directly in the center ground level, there was a red light blinking on and off 5 to 10 sec intervals. And a blue light that was being for the most part steady. Burroughs, Penniston and Cabansag drove into the forest in search of the source of the lights. They heard strange noises, too. Burroughs reported a noise like a woman was screaming and also that you could hear the farm animals making a lot of noises. Halt heard the same noises two nights later. In a CNN interview in January 2008 he said: “The livestock around the barn seemed to be going crazy“. Such noise could also have been made by Muntjac deer in the forest, which are known for their loud, shrill bark when alarmed. Cabansag said: “We figured the lights were coming from past the forest since nothing was visible when we passed through the woody forest. We would see a glowing near the beacon light, but as we got closer we found it to be a lit-up farmhouse. We got to a vantage point where we could determine that what we were chasing was only a beacon light off in the distance.” Burroughs' statement also states that “We could see a beacon going around so we went towards it. We followed it for about two miles before we could see it was coming from a light house.”

Penniston's statement is the only one that positively identifies a mechanical object as the source of the lights. He states that he was within 160 feet of the object and it was definitely mechanical in nature. Penniston has subsequently claimed that, contrary to his statement at the time, he actually encountered a landed craft in the forest which he circled, touched and made notes of for 45 minutes, although there is no corroborating evidence of this from other witnesses. Penniston has shown on television a notebook in which he claims to have made real-time notes and sketches of the object. The notebook is headed with the date 27 December and the time 12:20 (00:20 GMT), which does not accord with the date and time given by the other witnesses for the incident. Penniston claims that he saw the object at a different landing site from the one investigated by Halt, much closer to RAF Woodbridge. This is inconsistent with his initial assessment that the light lay a mile and a half from East Gate. The witnesses were unnerved by their experience and believed that they had witnessed something, as Buran expresses it, “out of the realm of explanation“.

Also, in 1984, a copy of what became known as the “Halt Tape” fell into the hands of researchers. Unfortunately, because of static electricity and the fact that the tape had been dubbed on an old machine, much of its background conversations could not be discerned. The US Sci-Fi Channel acquired the original recording, which documents Halt and his patrol investigating a UFO sighting in Rendlesham Forest in December 1980. This tape not only reveals much more of the background conversations, but features names that could not be heard on the poor-quality 1984 dub. The tape has also been transcribed by researcher Ian Ridpath, who includes a link to an audio download.

In June 2010, retired Colonel Charles Halt signed a notarized affidavit, in which he again summarized what had happened, then stated he believed the event to be extraterrestrial and it had been covered up by both the US and UK. In 2010 base commander Colonel Ted Conrad provided a statement about the incident to Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University, UFO adviser to the UK National Archives. Conrad stated that “We saw nothing that resembled Lieutenant Colonel Halt's descriptions either in the sky or on the ground.” and that “We had people in position to validate Halt's narrative, but none of them could.” In an interview, Conrad, criticized Halt for the claims in his affidavit, saying he should be ashamed and embarrassed by his allegation that his country and England both conspired to deceive their citizens over this issue. He knows better. Conrad also disputed the testimony of Sergeant Jim Penniston, who claimed to have touched an alien spacecraft; he said that he interviewed Penniston at the time and he had not mentioned any such occurrence. Conrad also suggested that the entire incident might have been a hoax.

Suffolk Constabulary have a record, dated 26 December 1980, of a report from the law Enforcement Desk of RAF Woodbridge, stating that “We have a sighting of some unusual lights in the sky, we have sent some unarmed troops to investigate, we are terming it as a U.F.O. at present“. The police investigated this report and the result is recorded as follows: “Air Traffic Control West Drayton checked. No knowledge of aircraft. Reports received of aerial phenomena over southern England during the night. Only lights visible this area was from Orford light house. Search made of area - negative.” Skeptic Ian Ridpath has speculated the reported “aerial phenomena” refers to the re-entry of the Soviet Cosmos 749 satellite's final stage rocket, which was widely seen over southern England shortly after 9 p.m. on the evening of December 25th. A letter in the police file notes that one of the PCs returned to the site in daylight in case he had missed something. “There was nothing to be seen and he remains unconvinced that the occurrence was genuine. The immediate area was swept by powerful light beams from a landing beacon at RAF Bentwaters and the Orfordness lighthouse. I know from personal experience that at night, in certain weather and cloud conditions, these beams were very pronounced and certainly caused strange visual effects.” A scan of the report is available at Suffolk Constabulary's website.

Some researchers have claimed that personnel from Porton Down visited Rendlesham in 1980 after the Rendlesham Forest Incident. No evidence has been presented and there seems to be confusion with other alleged UFO incidents. Admiral Lord Hill-Norton, the former Chief of the UK Defence Staff, argued that an incident like this at a nuclear weapons base was necessarily of national security interest. As a member of the House of Lords, Lord Hill-Norton asked Her Majesty's Government: “Whether they are aware of any involvement by Special Branch in the investigation of the 1980 Rendlesham Forest Incident". Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean gave the reply that “Special Branch officers may have been aware of the incident but would not have shown any interest unless there was evidence of a potential threat to national security. No such interest appears to have been shown.” Hill-Norton commented, “Either large numbers of people were hallucinating, and for an American Air Force nuclear base this is extremely dangerous, or what they say happened did happen, and in either of those circumstances there can only be one answer, and that is that it was of extreme defence interest.” In 2001 the British Government released its file on the incident to researchers following a request from Dr David Clarke under the Code of Practice for Access to Government Documents, a precursor to the Freedom of Information Act. The Ministry of Defence has since made these documents available online. The United States continues to remain silent despite the Sci-Fo Channel-sponsored investigation entitled “UFO Invasion at Rendlesham“, the History Channel’s “UFO Files - Britain's Roswell” and Coalition For Freedom of Information inquiries.

Some of the first people to examine the event in detail were the British Ufologist Jenny Randles in her book “Sky Crash“,co-authored with local researchers, Brenda Butler and Dot Street, who were the first investigators to interview any witnesses and to visit both the site and airbase and Nick Redfern in his books “Cosmic Crashes” and “A Covert Agenda“. Georgina Bruni has researched the subject and in her book, “You Can’t Tell The People” publishes a photograph of the supposed landing site taken on the morning after the first sighting. The late Lord Hill-Norton also believed that a UFO landed at Rendlesham and repeatedly questioned the UK Government on the issue.

Larry Warren, who was the source of the original “News of The World” article has written extensively on the subject and is a firm believer in an extraterrestrial explanation. Warren was certainly a USAF airman at the Woodbridge base, but his own claims that he was a witness to the incident are disputed by others, notably by Col. Halt. Bruni and Warren do not agree on the details and have clashed publicly over the supposed inaccuracies of their respective accounts. Prominent amongst the skeptics is Ian Ridpath. Much of his research is available on his website, which also includes much of the raw evidence, including the original eyewitness statements.

Jenny Randles, one of those who originally brought the case to prominence, wrote an extensive article in her book with David Clarke and Andy Roberts, (The UFOs That Never Were) entitled “Rendle Shame Forest” where she came to the conclusion that “While some puzzles remain, we can probably say that no unearthly craft were seen in Rendlesham Forest. We can also argue with confidence that the main focus of the events was a series of misperceptions of everyday things encountered in less than everyday circumstances.”
One of the most prominent believers in the extraterrestrial origin of the Rendlesham UFOs is Nick Pope who worked for the MoD, researching and investigating UFO phenomena between 1991 and 1994. He discussed the Rendlesham Forest Incident in his various books and in his articles: “Selected Documents“, which relates to the MoD documents on the Rendlesham Forest incident, “Rendlesham - The Unresolved Mystery“, “The Rendlesham Files Reviewed” (a detailed commentary and analysis of the MoD documents) and “Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident”. He has gone on record as saying that the Rendlesham Forest Incident is bigger than Roswell. Lieutenant Colonel (later Colonel) Charles I. Halt, the former Deputy Base Commander of USAF Bentwaters and Woodbridge, who was a major witness to these events, is also a firm believer and contributor to books and documentaries. Halt believes he witnessed an extraterrestrial event that was then covered up. Halt was also a speaker at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on September 27^th, 2010, one of half a dozen former Air Force officers testifying on the subject of “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Have Been Compromised by Unidentified Aerial Objects.”



Source: Wikipedia

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