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- Outline
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- Thesis: We once believed that Earth is the only planet in the Universe
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- that supports life. Today there is overwhelming evidence that
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- not only suggests, but supports the very real possibility that we
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- may share the Universe with other intelligent beings.
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- I. Things in the Sky
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- A. The First Documented Sighting
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- B. The Fever Spreads
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- 1. Pilot Encounters
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- 2. The Lights in the Sky
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- II. Dents in the Earth
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- III. Unexplained Phenomenon
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- A. The Writing on the Wall
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- B. Geodes
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- IV. What About Religion?
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- A. The Christian Bible
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- B. The Ancient Greeks
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- C. The American Indian
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- V. Conclusion
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- We are not Alone.
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- On June 24th, 1947 while searching for the remains of a downed
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- Marine C-46 transport, lost somewhere in the Mount Ranier area, a young
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- Idahoan businessman named Kenneth Arnold spotted something that would
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- change his life forever. Just north of his position flying at an altitude of
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- 9,500 feet and an unprecedented airspeed of 1,700 mph he spotted nine
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- circular aircraft flying in formation. According to his estimate the aircraft
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- were approximately the size of a DC-4 airliner ( Jackson 4).
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- This account was the first sighting to ever receive a great deal of media
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- attention. This sighting gave birth to the phrase "flying Saucer" coined by a
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- reporter named Bill Begrette. Although not the first UFO sighting in history,
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- Kenneth Arnolds account is considered to be the first documented UFO
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- sighting.
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- The following day Mr. Arnold discovered that in addition to his
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- sighting there were several others in the Mount Ranier area that same day
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- (Jackson 6).
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- When most of think of UFO sightings we picture an unemployed, half-
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- crazed, alcoholic hick living in a trailer park in the middle small town USA.
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- Often times this description, although a little exaggerated, seems to fit
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- well. In the past when the average person spotted a UFO they were quickly
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- discounted as a kook or con-artist in search of either attention or monetary
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- reward. It wasn't until more reputable figures in our society began to come
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- forward that we that we started looking at this issue a little more seriously.
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- An article written 1957, entitled " Strange lights over Grenada" written by
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- Aime' Michel describes just such an account:
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- At 10:35 p.m. on September the 4th, 1957 Cpt Ferreira ordered his
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- wing to abandon a planned exercise and execute a 50 degree turn to
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- port. Ferreira was attempting to get a closer look at what he
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- described as brilliant, pulsating light hanging low over the horizon.
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- When the turn was completed he noticed that the object had turned
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- too. It was still directly over his left. There was absolutely no doubt
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- that the orange light was shadowing the F-84s. For another 10
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- minutes, it followed the jets without changing direction or
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- appearance. The pilots watched as four small yellow discs broke away
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- from the large red object and took up a formation on either side of it.
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- All at once the large luminous disc shot vertically upward while the
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- smaller discs shot straight towards the F-84s. In an instant the flat
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- disc sped overhead in a hazy blur and vanished. When Cpt Ferriera
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- was questioned by Portuguese Air Force Investigators he was quoted
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- as saying: "Please don't come out with the old explanation that we
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- were being chased by the planet Venus, weather balloons, or freak
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- atmospheric conditions. What we saw up there was real and
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- intelligently controlled. And it scared the hell out of us. (32)
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- This is only one of literally hundreds of pilot accounts that have been
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- documented and cross verified by other sources. To date the Portuguese
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- Government has taken no official position as to what the luminous discs
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- were.
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- The United States has had more than it's fair share of unexplained aerial
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- objects. In February of 1960 the N.A.A.D.S. (North American Air Defense
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- System) spotted a satellite of unknown origin orbiting the Earth. They knew
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- that it wasn't a Soviet satellite because it was orbiting perpendicular to
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- trajectory produced by a Soviet launch. It also had a mass estimated at 15
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- metric tons, no evidence of booster rockets and traveled at speed three times
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- faster than any known satellite. The satellite orbited for two weeks and
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- disappeared without a trace. Before its disappearance, the object which
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- appeared to give off a red glow, was photographed over New York several
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- times (Jackson 19).
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- Lights in the sky aren't the only evidence that suggests we may have
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- cosmic company. In the book "A History of UFO Crashes", the author Kevin
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- D. Randal gives detailed accounts of numerous UFO crashes in history.
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- Perhaps the most famous of these crashes occurred on July 4th, 1947 in
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- Roswell New Mexico. The crash at Roswell was witnessed from
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- afar by over a hundred people. Until just recently, no one who was involved
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- in the recovery operation was talking, but thanks to continued pressure from
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- UFO enthusiast our government has begun to declassify much of its UFO
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- related material. Perhaps more startling are than the government documents
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- are the accounts given by local police and members of the recovery team.
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- According to one unnamed witness, a member of the Roswell recovery team:
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- The crash site was littered with pieces of aircraft. Something about the
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- size of a fighter plane had crashed, the metal was unlike anything I'd
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- ever seen before. I picked up a piece the size of a car fender with one
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- hand, it couldn't have more than a quarter of a pound and no matter
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- how hard I tried I couldn't even get it to bend. (10)
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- In my opinion the most fascinating piece of evidence to come out of
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- the Roswell crash is the alien autopsy film. Apparently there was more than
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- bits and pieces of spaceship recovered at Roswell. There is an Air Force video
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- account of an autopsy being performed on a life form that doesn't share the
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- common characteristics of organ development found in life forms on this
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- planet. The film is silent and labeled "Autopsy, Roswell, July 1947" (Randal
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- 17).
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- As difficult as the Roswell evidence is to explain or discount it pales in
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- comparison to the physical evidence left by our ancestors. An Illustration
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- taken from a Nuremburg Broadsheet Tells how men and women "saw a very
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- frightful spectacle". At sunrise April 14th, 1561 "globes, crosses and tubes
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- began to fight one another", the event continued for about an hour.
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- Afterward they fell to ground in flames, minutes later a "black, spear like
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- object appeared". In a Basal Broadsheet dated August 7th, 1566 large black
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- and white globes are seen over Dasel, Switzerland. Both events occurred in a
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- time period when there should have nothing more than birds and bees filling
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- our skies. They each considered to be Divine warnings at the time (Gould
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- 95-96).
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- Ancient physical evidence isn't limited to newspaper illustration and
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- sketches on cave wall. Perhaps the most astounding and unexplainable pieces
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- of physical evidence are a pair of geodes. Both are believed to be
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- approximately 1,800 years old and when carefully examined were identified as
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- electrical cells. One of the cells which was discovered in Iraq was tested and
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- produced 2 volts of electricity. The other, which was discovered by a pair of
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- Arizona rock hounds, was damaged when the sedimentary encrustation was
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- being removed and therefore couldn't be tested (Montgomery 221).
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- Since the dawn of time man has told stories of heavenly and demonic
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- beings coming to rule, teach, torment, seduce and provide salvation. Every
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- culture has myths of ancient gods who strode through the heavens. The
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- American Indians had the cachinas who taught them to farm and saved them
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- from numerous cataclysms. Greece had Zeus who threw lightning bolts from
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- his finger tips and Apollo crossed the sky in his golden chariot. The
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- Christians have Ecclesiastes who encountered the "ant people" and rode
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- through the skies with them from Babylon to Israel. Across the entire globe
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- we find drawings on cave walls that resemble men in space suits and objects
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- that greatly resemble flying saucers. The sacred artwork of the Hopi Indian
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- when is without a doubt a representation of the waves produced by modern
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- day oscilloscopes (Montgomery 225-237). The Hopis are also native to the
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- area where one of the electrical cells were found. It could be that these
- things
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- are no more than mere coincidence, but I doubt it. Man in his arrogance is
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- reluctant to believe that we may share Gods vast, glorious universe with other
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- beings of intelligence. We sometimes fail to realize that if the Earth were a
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- day old, the race of man would only have been here for 13 minutes. If you
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- couple that with the fact that there are Black Holes and White Dwarfs
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- millions of years older than our sun, it increases the improbability that we
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- the only ones out here. In the preceding text I have produced a limited
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- sampling of the volumes of evidence available. I will close this paper on
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- a quote from Ecclesiastes I:9 "there is no new thing under the sun", and that
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- includes intelligent life.
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- Works Cited
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- Ecclesiastes. Holy Bible. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1976.
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- Gould, Robert. Oddities. New York: Bell PC, 1965.
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- Jackson, Robert. UFO's: Sightings of Strange Phenomena in the Skies.
- New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 1995
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- Michel, Aime'. "Strange lights over Grenada." Fate Magazine. Aug. 1957.
- 29-32
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- Montgomery, Ruth. Aliens Among Us. New York: G.P Putnum's Sons, 1985
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- Randle, Kevin. A History of UFO Crashes. Avon Books,1995