by M. Collins and William Moore
REPORTER: "And what planet (do the EBENS
INTELLIGENCE SOURCE CODENAMED "FALCON": "(From) the Zeta Reticuli star group
... (there are) two suns together."
Q: "And is this the primary source of the alien visitors here?"
A: "Ahh, to the best of my knowledge, yes."
Q: "How long does the trip from Zeta Reticuli take....?"
A: "They can... do it in about 91 days."
Q: "How big is their home planet?"
A: "(The) EBEN'S planet is similar to Earth, but the air is a bit thinner
and contains a higher proportion of Argon and Helium. Also, the average
temperature is a bit cooler than here. They like our high mountain regions
where the air is thinner and the temperature is cooler. They can't stand a
lot of heat.
Q: "Now, can we get into describing the physical conditions and
characteristics of the aliens?"
A: "(They are) creature(s) about 3'4" to 3'8" tall. Their eyes are extremely
large, almost insect style (with) a couple of different inner lids....Their
skin structure is extremely ahhh... it's a very elastic skin, and hard.
Probably hardened from their sun."
Excerpted from interviews conducted with U.S. intelligence agent codenamed
"Falcon" in March, 1984 and February, 1987.
Evidence gleaned from both the Betty and Barney Hill abduction case and from
intelligence sources (including "Falcon", above) has suggested that the home
of at least one group of supposed alien 'visitors" to Earth may well be the
Zeta Reticuli system, a close pair of companion stars (two stars traveling
together in the same direction at the same speed, as opposed to a double or
binary star system wherein one star orbits the other) some 37 light years
distant. Although this information is NOT scientifically provable, it can be
used to test the hypothesis that Zeta Reticuli has all the ingredients
(except for positive proof of planets) to support intelligent life at an
advanced stage of development.
Star Map of the Southern Sky
showing the location of Zeta-Reticuli (28k)
The prime source of information about these stars is L. DaSilva and R. Foy's
paper "Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli: A Puzzling Solar-Type Twin System", which
can be found in Astronomy and Astrophysics (177, 204-216 <1987>).
The two stars, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2, are located in the southern constellation
of Reticulum (the net) and are thus never visible to most of the northern
hemisphere. Both are classed as old disk population II stars whose age is
between six to eight billion years. There is every indication that both had
a common origin and are part of a relatively near-by old moving group (or
loose cluster) of stars which was first defined in 1958 and is known as the
Zeta Hercules group.
Our own Sun has an estimated age of only five billion years and is classed
spectroscopically as a G-0 star (yellow-orange dwarf). Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 are
classed as G-2 and G-1 respectively, with luminosities ("L") of 0.7 and 0.9
(the Sun being L=l.O). This means that both Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 are very
Sun-like and could well possess solar systems much like our own.
In their highly technical paper, DaSilva and Foy offer two very important
conclusions about these stars which radically contradict earlier findings.
These are that neither star is metal-deficient and that neither is a close
binary (or double). Earlier evidence (published by Bonneau et al., 1980)
identifying Zeta 2 as a very close binary turns out to have been mistaken
(Bonneau and Foy, 1986).
The puzzling aspects of these "close" stars (.1 light year apart) center
around discoveries of higher than expected gravity and ultraviolet output
when compared to their apparently normal metal content (i.e. not
metal-poor). The ultraviolet excess and kinematic (proper motion and orbit)
data suggest that these two stars belong to the old population II stars as
mentioned earlier; yet the apparent high gravity figure seems more typical
of an unevolved, metal-poor condition. Since DaSilva and Foy's work resulted
in strong confirmation of a Sun-like (or "normal") metal content for these
stars, they began to look elsewhere for an explanation of the gravity
paradox. The answer came with the discovery of an apparent overabundance of
helium (twice as much as our own Sun) in the stellar photospheres. This,
when worked into the calculations, not only explained the high gravity, but
also accounted for the observed problem of the stars' high ultraviolet
output but relatively low overall luminosity. Another effect of the helium
abundance would be to slow the process of stellar evolution across the main
sequence.
Additionally, it should be noted that Zeta 1 was one of the first stars ever
to be used as a solar analog by astronomers. What might these findings
signify as far as Zeta 1 and/or Zeta 2 possessing planets with advanced
intelligent life? Let's make a list of the strong points which support this
idea:
(1)Both Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 are solar, or Sun-like stars. (If one imagines a
spherical section of our galaxy with a radius of 50 light years and centered
upon our Sun, only one star out of every eleven contained therein will have
Sun-like characteristics.)
(2) The previous objection that one and perhaps both stars appeared to be
close binaries has now been swept away. Stable planetary orbits in the
so-called eco-zone (i.e. close enough to the central fire to produce
conditions conducive to life) are more probable around single stars than in
binary systems. (It is for precisely this reason that our Sun's nearest
neighbor, Alpha Centuri
(3) Both Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 have an average age of between six and eight
billion years. This makes them from one to three billion years older than
our Sun and suggests that any life on planets associated with them could be
much further along in its evolutionary process than we are.
(4) In many reported UFO abduction cases, the "visitors" have been described
as having a thick epidermis and multiple eyelids. This is precisely the sort
of adaptation one would expect for creatures who evolved on a planet whose
sun had a high ultraviolet output. Curiously enough, these characteristics
were also reported by the intelligence source codenamed "Falcon" as early as
1981.
On the negative side, it must be admitted that there is no direct
observational evidence of planets around either Zeta 1 or Zeta 2. However,
a Canadian group reported that a Jupiter-sized planet appears to exist in
orbit around Tau Ceti, a Sun-like star only about 11 light years away. Those
readers familiar with the Star Map (3k)
developed by Marjorie Fish based upon
information from the Barney and Betty Hill UFO abduction case, will recall
that Tau Ceti was identified as one of the stars on that map.
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