UK UFO NETWORK Part 1

Mon, 16 Dec 1996 20:38:13 +0000
Source: UK UFO Network

{67} UNITED KINGDOM UFO NETWORK

United Kingdom News

[1] Soccer chief who saw UFO is under the moon
[2] UFO me a million
[3] UFO left soldier in a trance
[4] Spotters in the Warton area?
[5] Defence Minister is open-minded on Alien visits to Earth
[6] British Stealth - a report

World News

[1] Russians quest for Mars lasts 75 minutes as rocket misfires
[2] The world's oldest astronaut blasts off into space tomorrow
[3] Ian Robinson on the history of Unidentified Flying Objects
[4] Aliens
[5] Station's first module assembled, ready for testing
[6] The ordeal of John Ford
[7] Mozart breaks the light barrier
[8] Israeli Scientists: Star collision caused Dinosaur extinction
[9] Ice on Earth's Moon? Pentagon to report findings
[10] Ice 'most likely' the stuff in Moon crater
[11] NASA launches Mars probe
[12] Aliens being discriminated against, says comic-book publisher
[13] Science Minister opens the family X-Files
[14] Space radar unearths secrets of the ancient Nile
[15] New theory revises star's ages
[16] Crater of water brings cheer

Editorial
-----------

Happy Christmas

>From all the staff here at the United Kingdom UFO Network may we wish you all, no matter where you are in the world a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

Reminder

May I remind all subscribers to take note of the information paragraph at the end of the e-zine.

Post all reports etc to: ufo@holodeck.demon.co.uk
Post all comments on e-zine contents to: feedback@nolimits.demon.co.uk
Post all irc inquiries to: ufo-irc-advice@crowman.demon.co.uk

Please do not post to the St Johns List Server address as mail may get lost.

IRC

Things have now changed slightly as some of you will be aware with our weekly irc (internet relay chat) meetings. Thanks to Crow our irc advisor for the following information:

We now have our very own IRC DNS name for UFO so anyone who wants to join our meetings from anywhere in the world can now just type:

/server ufo.ultranet.org

This will now connect them to a random ultranet server, so it will be very easy for people to remember and as easy as A,B,C for newbies or people who cannot remember or do not know the latest server names.

For advice on connecting to our weekly meetings via the irc please send mail to: ufo-irc-advice@crowman.demon.co.uk

Radio Documentary

UK.UFO.NW have been contacted by Nik Rawlinson who is an Independent Broadcaster. Nik is in the process of putting together a radio documentary on the UFO subject and has requested the help of all subscribers to the uk.ufo.nw e-zine. Nik sent the staff here an exclusive demonstration tape of the way the program is likely to be put together, but he needs your help. The demo was very well done and has impressive content.

Nik has asked for you to send him your idea's of what you think should go into a radio UFO documentary. So get your thinking caps on. It doesn't matter where you are in the world send your idea's to Nik at the following address:

nik@nikraw.demon.co.uk

As soon as we have further details regarding the broadcasting of the documentary, we'll be sure to let you know.

[U1]******

Source: The Express newspaper
Date: October 1996

Soccer chief who saw UFO is under the moon

By Nigel Bunyan

A millionaire soccer club chairman threatened to resign yesterday after being "publicly humiliated" over his bizarre account of a UFO sighting.

For 20 years Michael Knighton, 45, who owns 90 per cent of Carlisle United, thought he had kept the lid on the most astonishing event of his life.

True, he and his wife, Rosemary, had watched an apparently alien craft perform a range of "impossible" aerogymnastics as they set off from their Yorkshire home one afternoon in 1976.

And, also true, as the glowing UFO disappeared into the stratosphere, he believed he had received a telepathic message urging him: "Don't be afraid, Michael." But, as a businessman, he realised how he might be treated if the press ever got hold of the story.

Unfortunately for Mr Knighton, he hinted at his close encounter while at a meeting of the Aetherius Society, an organisation dedicated to studying metaphysics.

A local reporter questioned him in more detail and a front-page report duly appeared in the West Cumbrian News and Star under the heading, "Knighton: Aliens Spoke To Me."

Mr Knighton was not so much glowing as incandescent. Despite the newspaper's assertion that he was sufficiently co-operative to draw a sketch of the craft in the reporters notebook, he maintains that the disclosure was made during an off-the-record conversation.

"I feel deeply betrayed," he said. "This was a very private story and I made it perfectly clear to the reporter that it was not for publication.

"The damage has been done now and so I've decided to resign at the end of the season. I have a nine-year-old son and it's not fair for him to be ridiculed."

He still cannot explain his "wonderful" UFO experience. "It was quite extraordinary," he said. "This object fell out of the sky, started off as a tiny dot like a shooting star but it was unbelievable.

"It changed from a inverted V to a huge metallic disc the size of half a football pitch. We watched it perform the most unbelievable aerobatics in silence."

Mr Knighton and his wife watched the display for 30 minutes, watching with "two men walking their dog". Although they later read reports of a similar sighting, they decided against informing the authorities.

"My wife was quite overawed by what we saw and she would not like to experience it again. I was totally enthralled."

The News and Star has now followed its "Alien speak" story with a campaign to persuade Mr Knighton to stay.

In a front-page article, Keith Sutton, the editor, tendered an "unreserved" apology. He said: "Just because Michael Knighton has seen a UFO doesn't disqualify him from being a football club chairman."

Last night Mr Knighton said he would reconsider his decision.

"Perhaps it has been an overreaction on my part, which is a bad sign. I don't get uptight about things but I did feel betrayed," he said.

Mr Knighton hinted that he might stay as chairman but appoint a new chief executive.

[U2]******

Source: News Of The World newspaper
Date: 1st December 1996

UFO me a million

Man tells insurers: I had close encounter of the third party kind

By Ian Edmonson

A top insurance company is to boldly go where no other has gone before - considering a 1 million pounds Stirling payout to a man who claims he was abducted by aliens.

UFO fanatic Joseph Carpenter is over the moon that the City moneymen are taking him seriously.

The 23-year-old electrician from Edmonton, North London, bought the 102 pounds and 50 pence Stirling policy in October to guard against kidnap by visitors from outer space.

Shining

Just one month later Joseph was filling in his claim form. And he swears he has video proof.

Now his insurance company GRIP have employed scientists to verify his X Files-style report.

"I have camcorder footage of a triangular craft shining a light down on me and taking me off the ground," claimed Joseph.

"And I've also got DNA evidence found on the ship. It's like a claw and definately not of this Earth. It all happened while I was UFO spotting in at Swindon, Wiltshire, near a military base.

"I got the policy as I'm a firm believer in unidentified flying objects and wanted to put my money where my mouth is."

The insurance company have admitted they initially offered alien cover as a stunt, along with protection against Bobbitting (amputation of a man's private parts by his enraged spouse) and virgin birth.

Feeble

But now director Simon Burgess admits: "Mr Carpenter's claim is being treated very seriously. We didn't think anyone would go this far.

"The information is now being assessed by a major British company and evidence offered by the policyholder is under investigation by a Cambridge college.

"The underwriters have set aside reserves sufficient to meet the full claim.

"We set out with a policy to part feeble-minded people from their cash-now it looks like it may backfire."

But Joseph could have trouble getting insured next year-after blowing his no claims bonus the premium will sky-rocket...

Saucer Secret 1 - Rocker Dave Davies of Sixties star band The Kinks claims he was snatched by aliens in 1982 while touring America. "My lower body went numb," he recalled. "Then I heard voices, intelligences from another planet, monitoring events on Earth. They showed me their craft."

Saucer Secret 2 - Late one summer night Rosalind Reynolds, 22, was driving from Clacton, Essex, when bright horseshoe-shaped lights came racing towards her. That's all she could remember until, under hypnosis, she told how aliens abducted her and experimented on her. She still has nightmares.

Saucer Secret 3 - Labourer Antonio Villas-Boas, 23, of Sao Francisco de Sale in Brazil, claims he was beamed up to a pear-shaped spaceship where aliens took up a blood sample then forced him to bed a female humanoid. Doctors later found scars on him, similar to radiation poisoning symptoms.

[U3]******

Source: Daily Express newspaper
Date: Tuesday 3rd December 1996

UFO left soldier in a trance

A soldier under hypnosis has recalled how he was left dazed and terrified by a UFO.

News of the alleged incident, which happened while he was on night exercise on Salisbury Plain with five comrades, has just been revealed.

Put into a trance at the request of close encounter sleuths from the magazine UFO Reality, he told how the party was zapped by beams of light from a mysterious black triangular aircraft.

The alleged sighting, in 1990, happened in a part of the area said to house a secret Ministry of Defence compound.

Investigators believe it could have been connected with top secret technology rather than an alien craft.

[U4]******

From: Paul Jones
Source: mil-spotters
Date: Friday 6th December 1996

Spotters in the Warton area?

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

From: Roland Hamblin 01932 824318
Subject: Re: Spotters in the Warton area?
To: mil-spotters

Further to my recent request for help concerning unusual happenings in the North West I thought that you may wish to read the following response from an observer in Lancashire.

Can anyone throw any light on the event......I have ruled out Insomniac Ninja Paragliders [INPs] and Kamikaze refuelling ops,together with mil exercises,..so what's left...any ideas?

At 1810 gmt on Friday 22nd November a man out walking his dog witnessed the following events...

He noticed aircraft lights moving slowly from north to south,and that the a/c had only 2 lights that were yellowish in colour rather than the usual brilliant white lights that one normally sees.

He continues..'' I noticed that these lights were not front and rear but were spaced in such a way that I concluded that it must have a light on each wing.The body of the aircraft was completely invisible because it was pitch dark.No strobe light of any description was visible.

I would have thought no more of it , but then I noticed three sets of aircraft lights approaching from the North West.I was surprised because of the seeming close proximity to each other.They were not in any formation I could discern but it was apparent that civilian aircraft would not be so close.I noticed that the arrangement of lights did give them a pronounced triangular shape , however the colour of the lights seemed to conform to those you normally see on aircraft when viewed at night...ie..white red and green with of course the flashing strobe.

I thought that perhaps they were Tornados with their wings in the swept back position due to the shape outlined by the lights but dismissed this because they appeared to be too slow,although travelling much faster than the first plane I had spotted..This was to the south of me now.I then observed the three aircraft change course quite radically as if they were looking for and had spotted the first a/c.They caught it up and began to circle it ,but at some distance.

Meanwhile for the first time I heard a/c noise.This attracted my attention to the East where I saw another a/c approaching and making a bee line,again for the first plane.I realised that while all this was going on I never heard a whisper of engine noise ,and yet the size of the second lot of a/c was such that they were pretty low , or or extremely huge!

The engines I could now hear were from the a/c just now entering the area,..it was prop driven but not a light a/c.The engines had that throaty hum of a multi engined cargo plane.

When I turned south again I saw the first a/c disappear into cloud followed by the second lot which had intercepted it.With that I gave up observing and returned home.

Reflecting on the incident later I concluded that I had witnessed some military exercise in which a target plane [which might explain the minimum lighting]was intercepted using a group of fighters and a radar specialist equiped plane.

The only thing that gives it a bit of mystery is the fact that I didnt hear the engines and yet I should have done because they were not above the cloud base,which from memory wasn't all that great that night...and if these were at a great altitude they were certainly bigger than Jumbos!Also I heard the last plane quite clearly and from a long way off and it appeared to be at the same altitude.

Then there was the pronounced triangular pattern to the lights,could this be what people are seeing?"

Location...Oswaldtwistle.Lancs [about 20 miles East of Warton.]

In a follow up to the above, I thought that some of you may be interested in the following which I received from a friend:-

1 A small 30ft black triangular craft has been seen by members of the public on the ground at WARTON (British Aerospace)

2 It is believed that it is a prototype UAV, designated HALO and can perform up to 9G turns.

3 It has been seen by numerous people in the Meols Cop, Banks and Hesketh Bank areas north of Southport.

4 Test flights are accompanied by a tornado, callsign "Tarnish 3"

5 A D-Notice has been served on the BBC warning it NOT to report on Britains Stealth program.

6 A larger triangular craft is in operation over Britain and has been seen at Boscombe Down.

I would be interested if anyone has any comments about the above.

Roland

[U5]******

Source: The People newspaper
Date: 10th November 1996

DEFENCE MINISTER IS OPEN-MINDED ON ALIEN VISITS TO EARTH

RAF In X-File Alert!;

BYLINE: Nigel Nelson

Aliens from outer space may be visiting Britain, the Government has sensationally admitted.

In an incredible letter obtained by The People, Defence Minister Earl Frederick Howe reveals that ALL RAF station commanders are under orders to report UFO sightings.

And he adds: "So far as the existence of extraterrestrial lifeforms is concerned we remain open-minded." The letter was sent to Don Valley Labour MP Martin Redmond, who is trying to break the MoD's veil of secrecy over flying saucers.

He is concerned about a UFO with a red and green rotating light that appeared over East Anglia last month.

It was tracked by radar at RAF Neatishead and RAF Northwood for several hours as it hovered in the sky before flying 50 miles down the coast.

It was also spotted by the crews of a tanker and civilian plane, while a video - now in the MoD's hands - was taken by police.

"It's incredible no aircraft were scrambled when a target was picked up so close to the coast," Mr Redmond told Defence Secretary Michael Portillo.

"This raises questions on the way we police the UK Air Defence Region."

Earl Howe replied that the RAF does not respond unless there is evidence UK air space has been "compromised". He added: "To date no sighting has provided such evidence.

"We do not investigate further or provide an explanation for what might have been observed."

Mr Redmond is accusing the Government of covering up information on UFOs and says if there is no defence threat, there is no excuse for secrecy either.

"The answers I've been given lead me to think there is something more to this," added the MP.

"The only thing I know for sure is this whole issue is shrouded in secrecy." Last week Defence Minister Nicholas Soames refused to reveal how many UFOs RAF pilots have spotted since 1966. He said the information would cost too much to obtain.

But he added: "Unidentified contacts penetrating UK airspace are identified by all available means, including interception."

[U5]******

uk.ufo.nw says: Here is a little more to wet your appetite.

From: "Terry Colvin"
Date: 4th December 1996

British Stealth - a report

____________________________ Forward Header __________________________________

Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 09:46:30 -0100
To: skunk-works@gaia.ucs.orst.edu
From: John Burtenshaw
Subject: British Stealth - a report.

[snip]

There appears to be something strange flying around North West England.. so strange that the folks who live on the Lancashire coast are winding themselves into a frenzy over sightings..."UFO" sightings.

Now we all know this can't be, but...there is substance in the various reports, and they all seem to indicate a dark triangular shape, with the ability to hover, and climb away at high speed.

[snip]

Now here is what I found on dejanews:

[begins]
Subject: Black Triangle Conspiracy
From: Timothy Waters
Date: 1996/11/30
Newsgroups: alt.alien.research

I have just finished reading a british UFO magazine Called UFO Reality and would like to bring a small article to your attention concerning The Black Triangle UFO's

the article is as follows

A top BBC executive let slip recently that there is a D-Notice on media reporting of the so called 'Black Triangle'.

The executive- who cannot be named is the former producer of a very popular BBC science program. He told one of our team that the black triangular 'craft' first witnessed by hundreds in the Hudson Valley region of the United States(1988/1989) then by thousands in belgium (1989/90) and more recently by thousands more in britain, has been "heavely D-Noticed" by the government. For this reason the BBC will not be reporting on the enigmatic craft, no matter how many reports they recieve. According to the former 'science program' producer the reason the government has seen fit to slap a restrictive notice on reporting of the triangle is because so far as the goverment has secretly informed the BBC the craft is part of a new secret military project, and as such must be protected under the secrecy laws. If this is the case, however, it surely begs the question:

If the so called Black Triangle is a secret military aircraft, then what is it doing hovering over residential areas and frightening people half to death. Like the BBC licensing agenda something somewhere simply does not add up...

[W1]******

Source: The Express newspaper
Date: Monday 18th November 1996

Mission Impossible

Russians quest for Mars last 75 minutes as rocket misfires

by John Ingham

Russia joined the space race for Mars yesterday - and promptly lost.

Within minutes of blast-off on the 48 million-mile quest to find new life on the planet, the Mars 96 spacecraft shot out of control into the Earth's orbit when the fourth stage of its launch rocket misfired.

And with it went 300 million pounds [sterling] of technology and 10 years hard work by scientists, some of them British.

Mars 96 is now expected to burn up on its return to Earth in 30 days, instead of coming back in 10 months with vital information about the Red Planet.

There were fears last night that bits of the spacecraft could crash to Earth and put people at risk.

The craft's thermoelectric probes are powered by radioactive plutonium which could survive reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.

Just one particle of the dust would be enough to cause cancer.

John Pike, Washington-based director of the Space Policy Project said: "The worst case scenario is that the probes burn up and scatter plutonium dust into the atmosphere.

"If anyone breathed just a speck of that dust they would get lung cancer.

"The good news is that these probes are very small, the Earth is very large, and there is no danger of a nuclear explosion."

Contact was lost with the craft 75 minutes into the mission.

The disaster could wreck plans for a US-Russian Mars mission to drill for fossilised life-forms in 2001.

Global interest has intensified since claims earlier this year that evidence of life on Mars had been found.

Professor David Southwood, Head of Physics at Imperial College London, who helped develop some of the craft's equipment, said: "I'm only just coming to terms with it. It is very hard to get to Mars. How do you feel when you've lost 10 years work just like that?"

It was Russia's first deep space mission since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But it was already lagging behind NASA which launched the 133 million pounds [sterling] Mars Global Surveyor 10 days ago to relay high resolution maps of the planets surface.

Next month, NASA will send the 100 million pounds [sterling] Mars Pathfinder complete with a six-wheel buggy to carry out atmospheric tests.

But last night scientists at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan were struggling to find out what had destroyed their hopes of glory.

Mission control specialist Anatoly Yeremenk said: "We don't know what happened yet."

[W2]******

Source: The Express newspaper
Date: Monday 18th November 1996

To Baldly go where no man has gone before

The worlds oldest astronaut blasts off into space tomorrow.

Story Musgrave, a 61-year-old Texan, will hurtle around the Earth at 17,500 mph on the Columbia space shuttle.

The bald ex-marine is in quarantine at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, preparing for his sixth and final mission.

Looking back over his 30-year career, he said yesterday: "I feel exceedingly rewarded."

Musgrave qualified as an astronaut in 1967 - a year before Neil Armstrong took man's first steps on the Moon. If he had been a pilot, he would have had to retire a year ago. But NASA dropped its age limit on astronauts in 1978 after concluding it didn't really matter.

Musgrave, who has six college degrees in disciplines as varied as medicine and literature, dreamed of flying to Mars when he started out. But he said he had no regrets.

The oldest spaceman on active service is 66-year-old moon walker John Young. But he has not flown since 1983. Musgrave will equal his record of six space flights.

[W3]******

Source: The Express newspaper
Date: Saturday 16th November 1996

Out of our world!

Ian Robinson on the history of Unidentified Flying Objects

In 1952, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked the question: "What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What is the truth?"

Thousands of observers have reported Unidentified Flying Objects. Many claim to have had encounters with aliens and despite the best efforts of enthusiasts such as Agents Mulder and Scully in TV's The X-Files, the subject remains shrouded in mystery and speculation.

Some are convinced that we are visited by extra-terrestrial beings and that this is being covered up by governments. Other seek alternative explanations for UFOs. Could they be unmanned satellites from far-off galaxies? Do they have a natural explanation? Or are they all in the mind?

UFOs have a long history. In Biblical times the Prophet Ezekiel described a dramatic "sighting", and Pliny (AD 23-79) spoke of "burning shields" and "flying torches". Mediaeval chroniclers described strange "comets" and unusual lights in the sky. More recent reports of UFOs have become increasingly specific, with suggestions of airships, planes and flying saucers.

The flying saucer is a relatively modern phenomenon. The term was first used in 1947 to describe mysterious objects observed by a pilot, Kenneth Arnold, over mountains in Washington State.

Struck by their incredible speed, he thought they must be military jets or missiles, but their crescent shape and erratic path led him to describe them as flying "like a saucer would if you flipped it across the water".

Flying saucers had arrived.

By the end of 1947, 850 UFO sightings had been listed. Today, more than 10,000 mysterious sightings are reported each year. But what can they be?

Most ufologists accept that 95 per cent of sightings can be explained as stars, planets, experimental planes, refuelling aircraft, spy-balloons and optical illusions.

Other explanations include cloud formations, ball lightning, earth lights which are caused by rocks under tectonic stress, and skylights which are emissions from thunderstorms. This leaves five per cent of UFO sightings unaccounted for.

Belief in extra-terrestrial visitors became so widespread that government agencies began to monitor UFO reports and investigate their cause.

Public concern at the threat of invading aliens was certainly real - and never more so than in the famous Orson Welles 1938 broadcast of HG Wells's The War Of The Worlds, which many Americans mistook for the real news instead of radio drama.

In the same year that Kenneth Arnold described his flying saucers, an American newspaper claimed that one had crash-landed near an air force base in Roswell, New Mexico.

The story was first confirmed, then denied by officials. In 1994, the US government admitted that there had been a crash at Roswell but claimed it was a spy-balloon, not a flying saucer.

Speculation was stoked by spectacular film, allegedly discovered in 1995, which claimed to show a 1947 autopsy on an alien spaceman. But as Marc Gascoigne notes in The UFO Investigator's Handbook (Puffin 3 pounds 99 pence Stirling), "The video is almost certainly a hoax".

A more recent claim of crash-landing came from Suffolk. On December 27th 1980, a radar station at RAF Watton tracked a flying object over Rendlesham Forest. American guards at nearby RAF Woodbridge spotted lights in the trees and went to investigate.

According to Gascoigne, "A clearing had been smashed in the trees. A metallic, triangular object hovered in the clearing, emitting a dazzling white light. It was two to three metres across and two metre tall. The men ventured closer. It moved away into the trees. Next morning, three depressions were found in the ground, and background radiation in the area had doubled."

In 1961, Betty and Barney Hill saw a bright light in the sky while driving one night and thought it may have been a UFO. Under hypnosis they claimed to have been abducted by aliens who took them aboard their spaceship.

Other accounts of abduction include lumberjack Travis Walton, who had inexplicably disappeared for five days in 1975, and author Whitley Strieber (Communion, 1987) who claims to have been abducted by aliens on several occasions.

A more benign account of contact with aliens was given in George Adamski's Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953) originally written as fiction, then published, more lucratively, as "fact".

Winston Churchill's question remains unanswered but, whatever the truth, the history of UFOs certainly supports HG Wells's conclusion to The War Of The Worlds: "We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding-place for Man: we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space."

The movies: One place you can be sure of seeing UFOs is at the cinema. Their extra-terrestrial crews have been portrayed as warlike aggressors, emissaries of peace or simply stranded travellers. Cinema images now influence "eye-witness" accounts of UFOs to the extent that it is impossible to detach fact from fiction...

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951): A spaceman has come to warn Earth of the dangers of atomic weapons and space exploration. Hostile troops open fire, destroying a unique opportunity for inter-galactic understanding.

The Thing From Another World (1951): An alien craft is found frozen in ice at the North Pole. The "thing" inside is allowed to thaw out - and poses a terrible threat to the whole of mankind.

The War OF The Worlds (1953): HG Wells's classic tale of Martian invaders, transferred to present-day America.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): Earth is a distant colony of an advanced civilisation responsible for our history, from cavemen to astronauts.

The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976): David Bowie is an alien visitor in search of a precious resource his planet desperately needs...water.

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977): Extraordinary visual images and a strong sense of wonderment when mankind finally confronts incontrovertible evidence of extra-terrestrial visitors.

ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982): Stranded peaceable alien is befriended by children, but faces unwelcome curiosity from UFO researchers.

V (1984-85) TV series): Pleasant human-seeming people are really nasty, mice-eating, alien reptiles.

Independence Day (1996): Back to ballistics as hostile aliens declare war on Earth.

Continuing in part 2...


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