UNITED KINGDOM UFO NETWORK (issue 4 Nov) 2/3
Mon, 4 Nov 1996 20:24:55 -0500 (EST)
Source: United Kingdom UFO Network
(Continuing from 1/3)
[U11]******
Source: The Leicester Mail
Date: 17th October 1996
From: RUSHEYMEAD@aol.com
UFO Photo Mystery
We set out to unravel riddle of the film
BY DAY he researches statistics and marketing strategies at Leicester'
Charles Keen College, but at night he is busy investigating things far
less mathematical.
Eighteen-year-old business studies student Minesh Gupta can regularly be
found leaning out of his bedroom window at his home in Moorgate Street,
Belgrave, scanning the skies for evidence of alien activity.
He is convinced that there is extraterrestrial life 'out there somewhere',
and has spent the last four years researching UFOs and keeping a nightly
vigil in search of The Truth about aliens. "I truly believe that UFOs and
extraterrestrials are real. If mankind exists, there has to be something
else out there in the universe," he said.
Minesh feels that only true UFO believers such as himself can actually see
UFOs, and is waiting for the day when he'll come face to face with an alien
craft or being.
"That would be the best day of my life," he said. Minesh believes he has
come one step closer to the Truth, by capturing what he claims is a UFO on
film.
He told the M-Files this week that he spotted the strange phenomenon on one
of his late evening look-outs in July.
Armed with binoculars and a camera, he photographed 'two white lights which
were moving together up and down in the sky.'
"I'm certain I've photographed a UFO, and I'm going to carry on searching
for more evidence of extraterrestrials," he said -regardless of the fact
that, like Fox Mulder in cult TV series The X Files, most of his friends
think he's weird! Maybe I am crazy, but I know there's something out here,"
he added. And he's currently craving the ultimate close encounter -being
abducted by aliens.
"It would be great to find out what these extraterrestrials are like," he
said
* The M-Files is developing Minesh's UFO photograph, and will reveal all
next week.
v
[U12]******
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal Daily
From: "Tony Morse I.C.E."
Date sent: Fri, 18 Oct 1996
Big Snowball In Sky
Just visited your site for first time. Excellent info, well done. Good to
see factual data.
Report in the Aberdeen Press & Journal Daily recently describes how a lady
from Falkirk ( Margaret Ross, 63 ) shot a 40 min video of a pulsating
bright object in a cloudless sky, 6am Sept 27th. She describes: " looked
like big snowball in sky. Its outside edges then becam pointed. Object
didn't move, just stayed & pulsated. After 15 mins it blossomed into a half
circle shape with four diagonal stripes. Began rotating and returned to its
original shape. Then speeded away in direction of Linlithgow" "it didn't
frighten me, Iwas just fascinated by it changing shape. The UFO was also
witness by a family 2 miles away. This is the second time she has taped
strange lights in the sky, none of them explained conventionally. A
photograph from the video footage looks like an irregular rock with 5
bright strips of light running parallel from top left to bottom right. Not
a "conventional" ufo shape.
This report comes from Scotland's UFO hotspot - the area around Bonnybridge.
[U13]******
Source: The Daily Telegraph (London, UK)
Date: November 01, 1996
Life Was Found On Mars By Britons - And It's Still There
By Roger Highfield - Science Editor
BRITISH scientists can claim to be the first to have found evidence of life
on Mars in the wake of sensational new evidence that suggests primitive
organisms may still thrive there.
A packed meeting of scientists in London was told yesterday that methane
belching bugs may have lived on Mars 600,000 years ago - much more recently
than the 3.6 billion years ago suggested by American work that made
headlines in August.
The discovery by a team from the Open University, raises hopes that life
may still exist in protected regions of our planetary neighbour.
Scientists were told of the "smoking-gun evidence of life on Mars" by Dr
Ian Wright, a member of the Open University led by Prof Colin Pillinger,
joint organiser of the Royal Society meeting. "It's a staggering result,"
Dr Wright said afterwards.
The all-important question of who was the first to find evidence of life on
the red planet is also challenged by yesterday's evidence, which puts the
British years ahead of the American team.
Dr Wright told the meeting that the new analysis supported earlier work by
the team that revealed a high proportion of organic material within EETA
79001, a Mars meteorite.
Doubts were cast on this evidence after it was published in the journal
"Nature" in 1989.
Yesterday, however, Dr Wright presented new evidence to show that EETA
79001 did indeed contain organic material indigenous to the meteorite and
not the result of contamination.
[U14]******
Source: The Herald (Glasgow)
Date: October 14, 1996
Half-Moon 'UFO' Is Tracked On Video For 40 Minutes
Copyright 1996 Caledonian Newspapers Ltd.
Page 7
SPECIALIST investigators believe Stirlingshire woman Margaret Ross has
evidence of a UFO sighting.
Mrs Ross, 63, of Falkirk, captured pictures on her video camera from her
bedroom window at daybreak on Friday, September 27.
The footage shows a pulsating bright object in a cloudless sky to the south
of her home. The snowball-like object is obviously far brighter and bigger
than any star in the sky.
Its appearance gradually transforms into a half-moon shape with four
diagonal bars of high intensity brightness.
The object is seen on tape for about 40 minutes before it disappears from
the sky.
Mrs Ross said: "After about 15 minutes, it blossomed into a half circle
shape with four diagonal stripes. It then began rotating and returned to
its orginal shape. It then seemed to speed away eastwards in the direction
of Linlithgow.
"I don't know what this was but it definitely was not a star, plane,
helicopter, or balloon.
"It didn't frighten me. I was just fascinated by the changing shape. I was
speechless. I just watched in awe."
Two miles from Mrs Ross's home, the phenomenon was being witnessed by her
daughter, Alexis, 42, and her family. She said: "I phoned my mother at 7am
and asked her if she had seen anything in the sky. She told me she had it
on tape. It's absolutely amazing."
Mr Ron Halliday, of Stirling University, chairman of Scottish Earth
Mysteries Research, said last night: "It is one of the best footages I have
ever seen from anywhere in the world. Such a length of footage is very
unusual.
"Film of alleged phenomena is very rare and usually lasts for a few
fleeting seconds.
"It is extremely rare to have film evidence backed up by multiple
witnesses.
"At the moment, there is no obvious explanation as to what Mrs Ross
captured on video."
Mr Kenny Higgins, chairman of Scottish Research into Unidentified Flying
Objects, said: "I have never seen anything resembling the shape in the sky
that Mrs Ross has captured. It is as good a piece of evidence of a UFO in
Scotland as I've ever seen."
For years, there have been hundreds of reported sightings of strange
phenomena in the skies around Bonnybridge, Denny, and Falkirk.
[U15]******
Source: Press Association Newsfile
Date: October 24, 1996
UFO Film Footage 'Best Ever'
BYLINE: Aine Harrington, PA News
A UFO researcher is studying video footage of an unexplained object in the
sky, described as the "best and clearest" ever film of a mystery sighting
ever recorded in Scotland.
The footage was taken last week by a couple who saw an object low in the
sky above Camelon, in Falkirk - just a few miles from Bonnybridge, which is
reputed to be Scotland's capital for mystery UFO sightings.
Ron Halliday, a UFO researcher at the University of Stirling, said: "It is
the best and clearest video footage I have every seen and I have examined a
lot. "It was taken in daylight against clear blue sky and you get a very
good view of the object. "One of the witnesses is sending me a copy of the
video for anyalsis today. I will then examine it frame by frame and get a
better idea of what the object is."
The video footage was taken by Barry McDonald, 27, and his girlfriend Jane
Adamson, 23, at around 6.30pm last Wednesday. The couple were travelling
from their home in the Falkirk area when they spotted something in the sky.
Mr McDonald, who was driving the car, braked to get a better view of it.
And Ms Adamson, who is due to have a baby next week, said: "We just
couldn't believe it. I got such a fright, I couldn't speak."
The couple said that when they first saw the object it looked like an
orange-coloured football and then changed to a flat saucer shape before
disappearing. The couple watched the object for about 15 minutes until Mr
McDonald remembered he had a camcorder in the boot of his car. But by the
time they set up the equipment they only managed to capture a minute or so
of footage. In total the couple watched the object for 20 minutes.
Ms Adamson said: "After it disappeared I didn't know what to think or say.
At first we were afraid to tell anyone in case they thought we were
lunatics." But the couple contacted Mr Halliday and let him look at the
video evidence. "I can't think of an explanation for the footage other than
it is a UFO, because whatever else it is, it is definitely unidentified,"
he said. And Ms Adamson said: "I believe there is something there but I'm
not sure what it is."
[U16]******
Source: The People
Date: October 27, 1996
Terrified Tourists In UFO Blitz!; UFO Sighting Reported In Killarney
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 11
BYLINE: Ian Brandes
A group of terrified British holidaymakers have filed a weird
close-encounter report to UFO investigators.
The party were travelling towards Killarney in the early hours when
mysterious white lights appeared.
Their tranquil ride in County Kerry turned to terror as the lights swooped
and buzzed their Toyota Previa car.
The driver of the group - two adult couples and a 15-year-old boy from
Middle Wallop, Hants - said: "It was an oval group of white lights,
rotating in a clockwise direction.
"The lights appeared on both sides of the vehicle, moving rapidly on at
least three occasions at high speed."
His wife, who also wants to remain anonymous, added: "I saw strange beams,
pulsating in half circles and then a circle of rotating white lights came up
from the horizon before disappearing at speed."
In their statement to investigators from the UK-based UFO Quest
International, the distressed tourists told how:
THEIR strange ordeal lasted between 10 and 15 minutes before the lights
shot away - doing another weird dance in the air, some miles away.
THERE were no buildings, vehicles or artificial lights in the area.
THEY all spotted a "strange white shape" behind forest undergrowth as the
episode continued.
The Quest report observed: "The night was fine and dry and visibility,
helped by a new moon, was perfect.
"Both couples are well used to military aircraft as they live just four
miles from an English RAF base."
Investigators are now seeking more information on the sighting, reported at
the end of July.
[U17]******
Source: The Sunday Times: Review.
Date: October 27, 1996
UFOs Disappear In A Flash Of Light
A new theory banishes spacemen but offers earthlings a new energy source,
finds Penny Wark.
It takes a brave man to debunk the enthusiasm for spotting little green men
because, as yet, there is not much money in it. Conversely, follow the
tried and tested extra-terrestrial route and UFO spotters everywhere will
dig into their anorak pockets to buy your evidence.
Paul Devereux is one of the brave heretics. He is a researcher with the
International Consciousness Research Laboratories in New York and believes
that many so-called UFO sightings have a rational explanation relating to
fault lines within the earth. The blazing lights which fascinate ufologists
are actually earth lights, or flashes of energy which erupt from the earth
as a result of geophysical processes, he explains. If he is right, the
truth is not out there, as X Files aficionados would have it, but has been
here all along.
Devereux's theory, to be aired next Sunday in Channel 4's Equinox
programme, Identified Flying Objects, is based on a study of earth lights
reported over North Wales in 1904-05 which, when plotted on a map, matched
fault lines and preceded an earthquake. Another study has made the same
link, more recently, in Washington state in America. If earth lights
precede earthquakes, surely they could be used to predict earthquakes, so
Devereux reasons. Furthermore, he suggests, earth lights have enormous
potential as sources of energy.
"It is rather like asking in 1495 what uses might be found for lightning,"
he said. "We have none, but we do now rely on electricity. What might come
out of earth lights could be whole new technologies and new ways of looking
at the world." Is his supposedly rational explanation for UFO sightings as
wild as the rumours of flying saucers themselves? Although the Equinox
programme takes his theory seriously, those he most seeks to convince are
inclined to dismiss him as a peddler of more UFO bunkum. So far only
Japanese scientists have reacted positively by investing in researching the
potential energy force.
For other scientists, seeing is not necessarily believing. "When I first
wrote about earth lights I was condemned by scientists who said I should
not be looking at it because it was associated with UFOs, and ufologists
tore into me because I was reductionist and knocked down their alien
theories," Devereux said. "It's disappointing that today we have a
situation where the only people who pay any attention to these things are
people who believe in alien spaceships and because of that a lot of
scientists won't touch the subject. One hopes bolder scientists will be
prepared to take a risk and become involved in the research this subject
needs."
His difficulty is that however logical and plausible his argument, it holds
no water unless you accept the existence of earth lights. Wary of falling
into the anorak bracket them selves, American top brass reject it. To them,
lights in the sky are the preserve of nerds and dogmatic fantasists. All of
which Devereux acknowledges.
"Ufology is a belief system, rather like a religious cult," he said. "In
America the suggestion that UFOs are anything but alien craft is almost
impossible to get across because the UFO notion is so ingrained in
mythology."
The biggest stumbling block to accepting the alien theory is, of course,
the idea that the 5m UFOs observed throughout the world since 1945 were all
aircraft engaged on an intergalactic journey. Psychologists would rather
latch on to the cultural references thrown up by sightings.
Given that reports of visitations mirror contemporary culture - 500 years
ago lights in the sky were regarded as dragons, and only when mechanised
travel was developed did people start to see airships - might not the
phenomenon be no more than a cultural joke?
Nice theory, said Jenny Randles, a professional UFO researcher, but she
clings to the notion that nobody has proved that one, either. "I would be
delighted if we could establish that what is happening is a combination of
natural phenomena like earth lights, hallucinations and a mass global
psychosis based on a desire to believe in aliens, but there is no evidence
to support the last point.
To prove it we would need to know that people who claim to have been
kidnapped by aliens have difficulty separating dreams from reality. They do
not."
The sceptical view is summed up by a sighting recorded by three experienced
American pilots on the ground in Concord, California. They saw a silent and
silvery craft the size of a 707, travelling at jet altitude and manoeuvring
like no earthly craft. Only when it moved between them and some trees did
they recognise it as a weed seed. What they saw was just a piece of fluff.
[U18]******
Source: Eastern Daily Press
Date: Monday, October 28, 1996
Maybe It Was The Boston Stump
Searchers said last night that the cause of an explosion in the sky,
leading to an air and sea search off north Scotland, may never be known.
A major operation was launched off the Butt of Lewis on Saturday night
after 12 people reported seeing a mystery object falling out of the sky.
An RAF Nimrod nd helicopter were out again at first light yesterday while a
sea search continued.
The search was called off at lunchtime.
A spokesman at RAF Kinloss said: "This is a mystery and it may have to
remain so. We have no idea what it was."
"No aircraft are missing, no meteor debris is believed responsible, and a
firework has been ruled out."
World News
---------------
[W1]******
From: UK.UFO.NW backbone correspondent Lloyd Bayliss (Wales)
Lloyd Bayliss
Meteorite Life and the Cydonia Web Page
The following article is taken from an excellent Web site based on the
Cydonia area on Mars where the now famous 'Mars Face' and other
unusual rock formations etc have been found. This particular article
has been taken from the Update page for October. If you are interested
in the Cydonia story, I would well recommend a visit to this Web site.
The address is as follows :-
http://www.navisoft.com/cydonia/cydonia.htm (for the main Cydonia page)
http://www.navisoft.com/cydonia/update.htm (for the monthly update page)
Lloyd Bayliss
---
Reprinted with the full permission of Joe Schembrie.
e-mail : 71732.1225@compuserve.com
October 1996 / No. 10 . A monthly review of science, religion, and
politics. Written by Joe Schembrie / Copyright 1996 Cydonia Books, Inc.
Another Time, Another Meteorite
NASA's announcement that it had discovered traces of organic material
inside a meteorite believed to have come from Mars attracted world-wide
attention in the first week of August, 1996. If the evidence was genuine,
if the meteorite was not contaminated by terrestrial life, if there was not
another explanation for the organic material found inside, then surely,
many said, it was the first time that the existence of extraterrestrial
life had been verified by qualified scientists in a real laboratory.
Or was it?
In southern France, in the year 1864, a meteorite shower known as 'Orgueil'
was observed to fall and within hours several stones were retrieved by
scientific observers. One sample rested secure in a museum collection until
the mid-twentieth century, when it sparked a lively if brief controversy
over the possibility that it bore life from another world. The NASA
meteorite, christened ALH84001, which formed the basis of more recent
claims of extraterrestrial life, carried mere traces of organic material;
Orgueil had several types of 'organized elements,' including pollen spores
and even fragments of plants! Ironically, it was this inarguable wealth of
biomaterial that compelled NASA-funded scientists to ultimately brand the
Orgueil discovery as a bizarre nineteenth-century hoax -- and even more
ironically, these same evolutionary scientists concluded that the doctored
evidence had been part of a conspiracy directed against creationism!
But what really happened? And is there evidence to support the
NASA-scientist version of events?
In 1961, an article appeared in the scientific journal, Nature, which
described the investigation into the biological diversity of an Orgueil
meteorite. Written by Dr. George Claus of New York University, and
Professor Bartholomew Nagy of Fordham University, the article was entitled,
"A Microbiological Examination of Some Carbonaceous Chondrites" (Nature,
November 18, 1961). Carbonaceous chondrites are a type of meteorite which
contains water and a few percent of organic matter. They have thin 'fusion
crusts,' about a millimeter thick, and their interiors have not been heated
above 200 degrees centrigrade. If you were going to search for
extraterrestrial life transported to Earth via meteorites, your search
would logically begin with carbonaceous chondrites.
In the pages of their article, Nagy and Claus showed photographs and
sketches of several types of what they called 'organized elements,'
frequently spherical in shape and covered with spikes, spines, and
appendages -- familiar forms in the microscopic world of single-celled
organisms. They concluded: "We are of the opinion that these observations
suggest that the organized elements may be microfossils indigenous to the
meteorite." Their announcement touched off a controversy that soon
attracted the interest of scientists around the world.
Drs. Edward Anders and Frank W. Fitch, both of the University of Chicago,
and both working under a NASA grant, took up the task of critiquing the
Orgueil discovery. In Science magazine (December 28, 1962), they reported
on their findings. First, they said, independent samples of the Orgueil
meteorite failed to produce the quantity or complexity of the 'organized
elements' that Nagy and Claus claimed for their sample. Then they obtained
a sample from Nagy and Claus, and did indeed verify that the complex
structures were present. However, they stressed that the high population
counts cited by Nagy and Claus applied only to the more primitive
structures; the more complex ones were quite sparse. They concluded the
simple particles were probably mineral rather than microfossil, while the
complex particles were contaminants. "The particles of the first class
[simple] are in a morphological no-man'sland," they wrote, "and to
establish their possible biological origin, new techniques and new criteria
will have to be developed. As for particles of the second class [complex],
proof must be given that they are not terrestrial contaminants. This, like
all negative proof, may be very difficult to obtain, unless present
techniques are improved very greatly."
In fact, how can you obtain such proof at all? Isn't there always going to
be doubt that terrestrial contamination occured?
Fitch and Anders were not done with their criticism. In the June 7, 1963
edition of Science, they wrote: "Ragweed pollen stained by the Gridley
method becomes distorted so that it resembles Claus and Nagy's Type 5
organized element, a particle found in a Gridley-stained preparation of the
Orgueil carbonaceous chondrite." That is, Claus and Nagy's original work
had identified several types of 'organized elements' in their meteorite
that might possibly be microfossils. At the time of their first article,
Fitch and Anders had found terrestrial analogues for all the shapes but
one, Type 5. Now they had found that terrestrial pollen resembled the Type
5 structure when prepared for microscopic examination by the same staining
process. (Cellular samples are stained by laboratory scientists to make
otherwise transparent structures become visible for observation.)
However, this was not sufficient to dampen interest. In Scientific American
(March 1963), Dr. Brian Mason of the American Museum of Natural History, in
his article 'Organic Matter from Space,' opined: "While the reality of
extraterrestrial life or the remains thereof in the carbonaceous meteorites
is still in doubt, this should not obscure the great significance of the
organic compounds they contain." Carbonaceous chondrites bear complex
organic molecules that typically on Earth are produced almost exclusively
by biological processes -- and the notion that all carbonaceous meteorites
were entirely composed of contaminants was clearly ridiculous. Moreover,
one scientist cultured some Orgueil samples and detected microorganism
growth after several months! The meteorite was holding its own against both
the advocates of contamination and those who held the organized elements
were merely 'carbonaceous snowflakes.'
Then, in January 1965, Scientific American announced the matter was closed.
"Faked Life from Other Worlds," read the caption, and the words beneath
delineated the latest findings of Fitch and Anders: "A fragment of a
meteorite that fell in southwest France more than a century ago has proved
on recent inspection to be ingeniously doctored with terrestrial organic
material."
Confident words, but the actual statements of Fitch and Anders and their
associates, presented in Science (November 27, 1964), were far more
tenative. Upon examination, they said, a new Orgueil meteorite sample
revealed fragments of actual plants and coal. Coal was not extensively used
in southern France at the time of the Orgueil fall. Normally one would take
this to mean that environmental contamination was unlikely. Instead, Fitch
and Anders maintained that this was proof that someone had gone out of
their way to deliberately contaminate the meteorite!
They strongly discounted the possibility that the contamination was
accidental. And the following passage sounds more than somewhat sarcastic:
. . . we have not been able to establish with certainty whether
the contamination was inadvertant or deliberate. Inadvertent
contamination requires that someone picked up a partly
disintegrated stone along with some plant and coal fragments and
some glue, but very little soil. He must then have moistened the
specimen, enough to render it plastic, but not enough to cause
loss of epsomite, and molded it back into shape. He must have
taken some pains with the job to produce such a remarkably good
imitation of fusion crust.
Hidden behind these words is the admission that if this isn't a hoax,
undertaken shortly after the meteorite fell, then indeed the new evidence
indicates the meteorite must have carried plant life from another world!
But what was the motive of the hoaxer? The January 1965 Scientific American
article states:
While the investigators [Fitch and Anders] were speculating on
possible motivation for so elaborate a hoax, Walter Sullivan of
The New York Times pointed out to them that the Orgueil fall had
occured only five weeks after [Louis] Pasteur had delivered his
stormy and widely reported defense of divine creation as the only
possible initiator of life. With this coincidence in mind, Anders
and his associates envision the hoaxer as an opponent of
Pasteur's stand who knew that the chemical composition of
legitimate carbonaceous chondrites had already suggested the
possibility of extraterrestrial life . . . .
So, very well, the hoaxer was an evolutionist, seeking to discredit a
creationist. The writers are throwing a bone to scientific creationism --
or is it a red herring? Scientific American admits: "The attempted hoax
fell flat, Edward Anders of the University of Chicago and his associates
report in Science; instead of attracting attention, the doctored meteorite
remained unexamined for 98 years."
v
Which kind of argues that there was no hoaxer and no hoax, does it not?
Fitch and Anders and their associates present convoluted evidence for a
hoax, and offer a convoluted motive as well. They argue that the fusion
crust of their particular stone is different from any other carbonaceous
chondrite, but those differences -- indicating low heating -- could just as
well explain why plant particles survived the ride in this one meteorite.
Their assertion that glue was used to bind up the meteorite after willful
contamination is based on a chart of chemical constituents that shows
marginal agreement with the constituents found in animal glue. Moreover,
they themselves acknowledge, "We have no reason to believe that the Orgueil
meteorite samples in which Nagy et al. claimed to have found evidence of
extraterrestrial life (biogenic hydrocarbons and 'organized elements') were
similarly altered and contaminated." And to rule out a more recent hoax,
they add: " . . . all recent claims for extraterrestrial life in meteorites
were based on hydrocarbons and microstructures. A hoax excluding these two,
but including coal, plant fragments, and proteins makes little sense in the
present controversy, though it might have made a good deal of sense in a
similar controversy a century ago."
Orgueil was not the only meteorite fall in which organized elements were
found, but these are not mentioned. The samples examined by Nagy and Claus
were from a different stone than the one where the coal and plant fragments
were found.
And there is still the nagging question: "What if those plant fragments did
come from space?"
If so, then thirty-five years ago we came upon the discovery of
extraterrestrial life. But it was too much to contemplate; cognitive
dissonance set in. And so we accepted the most tenuous dismissal that it
was all a hoax. And so the matter has been forgotten.
Is it time now to recall?
(Continuing in part 3/3)
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